|
Paul
|
 |
« Reply #30 on: November 22, 2009, 09:09:51 PM » |
|
Allright you go Mom! You guys have lost me (again) on most of your dialog, but I have to disagree w/ this statement. Motherhood has to be one of the least selfish things I have EVER done in my life. I'd say it's a sacrifice for a mother to care for her child and keep her child alive, and it's only selfish to not do so.
I believe Moosemaster's point is that where you are sacrificing for your child, part of the motivation is that the child is yours. Your blood, flesh and lineage that will keep your family's heritage alive after you die. Would you feel the need to be as sacrificing to someone else's child? Therein is where the selfishness lies. It is not about the relationship. It is about survival of the lineage. Nothing more, no detriment to the mom, just his statement about how a family survives. If the mother is not interested in having her blood lines go past her death, then she would abandon the child as he noted. Hang in there, you're doing just fine.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Bruce Blagg
The Silverback
Administrator
Full Member
 Offline
Posts: 334
Prrrrr
|
|
« Reply #31 on: December 01, 2009, 02:17:42 PM » |
|
This is a great discussion. I'm just sorry that I am late getting to read it.
I believe that Jesus would support an economic system that would allow the people to have control over their own money as much as possible (thus the "render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's), but would ultimately state that the key to a "moral" economic system is the heart, not the economic policy.
I found a study by The Center on Philanthropy at the Indiana University for the year 2005. It shows that in our capitalistic society we gave over $250 billion to charity of which one-third was focused on the needs of the poor directly. This does not count the monies spent by federal, state and local governments that support the work of charities.
It is true that Greed is an issue in capitalism. But I believe we should not let the focus of our news media on the negative aspects of our society to overshadow the good being done by our society.
John Adams once wrote, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Paul
|
|
« Reply #32 on: December 02, 2009, 06:26:37 AM » |
|
I agree with you thoughts Bruce, but I'll have to check out the The Center on Philanthropy at the Indiana University for the year 2005 study. Just curious to see what the percentage of population entailed that gave to charities.
You are correct that we need to "not to focus of our news media on the negative aspects of our society to overshadow the good being done by our society." However, that is a part of our capitalism. You know, bad things in the world sells much more than good things.
As a society, we tend to make our decisions about "charities" or "helping our neighbors" not by what John Adams requests, "a moral and religious society" but rather why should I be burdened with helping the unfortunate out. I am fortunate to be able to obtain that which I need, why should I have to share my blessings for those who are not.
It is true that through capitalism we are able to afford luxuries, but does our economic status dictate what becomes "a moral and religious society"? We are all guilty of greed on our own parts when it comes to sharing that which is not "excess funds" with our fellow citizens.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Anxiety
|
|
« Reply #33 on: December 02, 2009, 03:22:51 PM » |
|
 Charity. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Paul
|
|
« Reply #34 on: December 02, 2009, 07:56:51 PM » |
|
Cute.  Capitalism at its best. Wonder how much the bomb manufacturer, boeing and the other manufacturers gave to charity. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Paul
|
|
« Reply #35 on: December 02, 2009, 08:31:31 PM » |
|
Checked out the website and looking at the research for those who gave for the 9/11 charities. The percentage of money given per income as a median was exactly the same whether you were under $40k or over $80k. So it seems that excess monies in a household may not hold water.
Looking at the extreme donations of over $1 million the research shows -
1. Entrepreneurs are less likely than all other donors to give to environment
or religion. They are more likely to give to a foundation, for international
aid or for human services. Those who founded their own businesses gave 42 percent of the dollars and 33
percent of the gifts tracked.
2. Investors were more likely to give to education, environment,
foundations, and religion.
3. Donors with wealth from real estate were more likely than other donors
to give to campus-wide initiatives and to ?service-related? fields. They
were less likely to give for science or technology, and no gifts were
reported to libraries.
4. The most frequent gift types are for capital purposes (29 percent) and a
specific program or project (25 percent).
5. Women gave 14 to 21 percent of the number of gifts each year.
6. Inherited/family wealth accounted for 10 percent of the donations and 10 percent of
the dollars. People whose wealth is from family members or inheritance were more
likely than other types of donors to give to health, arts, public-society benefit,
environment, and religion.
Interesting is that the "self-made" millionaires were more generous across the board to helping out their fellow humans. But it seems that their offspring do not share the same generosity. They seem to exhibit the "greed/ financial security" that is inherent in all economic realities. Those that inherited wealth have "excess wealth" as noted by Moosemaster, but since it was not "earned" by them, they kept more for themselves. Maybe throwing more money into the system is not the answer.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Bruce Blagg
The Silverback
Administrator
Full Member
Offline
Posts: 334
Prrrrr
|
|
« Reply #36 on: December 03, 2009, 10:29:21 AM » |
|
Wow, you had time to read the whole report??? But I liked the data you extracted from it. Maybe throwing more money into the system is not the answer. I agree. That's why I believe it is more an issue of the heart than of the pocketbook. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Bruce Blagg
The Silverback
Administrator
Full Member
Offline
Posts: 334
Prrrrr
|
|
« Reply #37 on: December 03, 2009, 11:11:12 AM » |
|
Just saw Anxiety's posting. Cute, but very simplistic.
While countries with capitalistic, democractic foundations have made mistakes, I still find that the world, as a whole, has benefited more than not from them.
Perhaps to balance the picture above we should include this quote from MSNBC. "In fact, in 2008, the United States accounted for more than half (51.3 percent) of all the the global AIDs relief disbursed by governments around the world, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS."
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Anxiety
|
|
« Reply #38 on: December 03, 2009, 03:15:11 PM » |
|
It's simplicity is succinct, not vacuous.
"The total program cost, which includes development, engineering and testing, averaged US$2.1 billion per aircraft (in 1997 dollars)."
Each bomb costs $268.80. That picture was taken during a live fire exercise. That's $12,633.60 for one drop, in one test and that's not counting the operating costs of the plane, the crew, or the base which it was deployed from.
Around the world over 25,000 people die from hunger. Globalization (see: capitalism) isn't helping. Recently, my uncle was deployed in Chad, Africa for General Electric as an engineer. His main goal was to make sure generators were online so that they could pump the oil out of the ground. The starving sick impoverished people of Chad saw none of the oil money, and my uncle was disgusted by it. That's just one small case, there are countless others involving exploitation of the natural resources of one country by an outside multinational corporation without benefiting the people there.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Paul
|
|
« Reply #39 on: December 03, 2009, 10:48:40 PM » |
|
Of course I read the report. There is plenty of time between midnight and 6 a.m. What else am I going to do at that time, sleep? Christine says it is a waste of good work time, and she can sleep for me. What a trooper! Always looking out for my best interest. Anxiety, you are correct about the greed that seems to be rampant in the world today. While there is a lot of good charity going on, it seems that there is an equal amount of misappropriation and misuse of resources also. I would agree with Bruce that the change has to come from the heart. To which I would add, and from the acceptance and love of all living things. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Anxiety
|
|
« Reply #40 on: December 04, 2009, 03:02:11 PM » |
|
Now, the best argument here for capitalism and against socialism is that the military is subsidized. However, all of the money the government hands out goes to private companies and these private companies have lobbyists who get paid very well by these companies to razzle dazzle legislators to hand out more money.
I imagine a future where private military contractors, or ever corporations themselves start forming large battalions to fight other corporations. I suspect it will come to the point where they won't have to go to war under the guise of false pretenses (overblown threats, terrorism), but rather because it is the most profitable thing to do.
In a truly socialist system we would see the direct impacts of too much military spending more clearly. We've been getting to see some of them, the failure of social security, the failures of medicare/medicaid, amtrak (big pile of fail, has anyone tried to ride one of these?), public education, lack of mass transit systems, postal service etc. Now imagine all these things if we cut military spending or eliminated it entirely.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Paul
|
|
« Reply #41 on: December 04, 2009, 04:27:47 PM » |
|
If we were in a socialist system, then there would be no privatization for the military spending. But then again we still have greed and love of power to contend with. I would wager that our costs and efficiency would not get any better either. Nice thought though.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
moosemaster1341
|
|
« Reply #42 on: December 31, 2009, 09:17:04 PM » |
|
"In a truly socialist system we would see the direct impacts of too much military spending more clearly. We've been getting to see some of them, the failure of social security, the failures of medicare/medicaid, amtrak (big pile of fail, has anyone tried to ride one of these?), public education, lack of mass transit systems, postal service etc. Now imagine all these things if we cut military spending or eliminated it entirely."
Odd, I think some of these areas are failing because of socialism. The postal service works nicely, but so do UPS and Fedex (private companies). Public education has been declining since it was first nationalized, but that's the trade-off we make, quantity over quality. Why is the nationalization of education detrimental to it's effectiveness? Think of it this way: capitalism works on a rewards based system, if you pay teachers more, more people will become teachers which makes the job market more competitive. Greater competition leads to more efficient markets most of the time.
My point here is that the military is integral to national security and cutting funding will not necessarily lead to better education, transit systems or healthcare (which is a separate post in and of itself). In fact, under a a more socialistic system I would think that politicians would be less inclined to spend military money on reducing the deficit or giving to foreign aid and more apt to spend the money they get back on improving systems which are inherently flawed like medicare.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? - Mark Twain
|
|
|
|
