You haven't carefully explained anything.
Well, perhaps you were incapable of understanding what I wrote, because I did carefully explain my data and logic.
That MIGHT explain why you have completely ignored and/or dismissed out-of-hand that data and logic.
You've carefully picked some stuff off of other conservative talking pages
At least I had pages to quote and cite. You have offered NOTHING during this exchange to support your claims. NOTHING.
You've controlled for no conflicting factors
LOL! I controlled for the ONE conflicting factor you seem have alluded to (you didn't actually specify it). And showed you were WRONG.
and ignore what the actual goals of 'social spending' is.
FALSE. I quoted the goal set out by the architect of the largest social spending program in US history, the failed twenty trillion dollar War On Poverty.
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Now, should you offer actual data to support your claims, IF your data and logic are sound, then obviously I'll have no option but to accept your view.
BaC, I'm not new here.
LOL! That's true. We've had all sorts of confrontations. And do you think that's an acceptable excuse for the above misrepresentations I've noted?
Why would you expect anyone familiar with your posting history believe the highlighted?
Because when my opponent's data and logic has been sound, I have acknowledged that. But that happens so rarely around here, and you are a good example of why.
Other people have done this time and again
Provide some links. Prove that they actually had sound data and logic. Bet you can't.
This is why I'm not taking your claims seriously.
Yeah. Right.
Your data was invalidly narrow, and some of it was irrelevant. Some supported my points. So, yes, they should be dismissed.
Again, I can't help but notice you haven't offered ANY specific data to challenge my data. You've simply done what I said you were doing … ignored my specific data and logic and/or dismissed it "out-of-hand" with vague, unsupported statements. You are proving exactly what I said about you.
There were strong confounding factors in the seventies and eighties.
What factors? Be specific. Quite hiding behind vagueness, tyr. Because that's what you are doing.
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But I'll take a chance and assume that you were really trying to claim that the murder rate went down during the Great Depression as a result of increased government social net spending during that time. Afterall, you were trying to link social spending and violent crime before you mentioned the Great Depression.
And they did.
No, the only thing you can prove is that the murder rate went down and government social spending went up during the depression. You have not proven there was linkage between the two. Whereas I've offered specific data showing such linkage must be tenuous at best and perhaps even the opposite of the relation you claim.
Give the starving people food and some spending cash (through the work projects), and they stop killing each other for food and spending cash. Simple and obvious.
Then why was the murder rate even higher BEFORE the Great Depression and BEFORE the Great Recession
when the people had even more food and cash than they had during those two downturns? Can you explain that if your logic is so "simple and obvious"?
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Now it's true that when the Great Depression hit, the murder rate plummeted. So, yes, on the surface one might claim increased social spending during the Great Depression led to the observed reduction in the murder rate … IF nothing else had changed in the economy during that time. But something did happen. The US entered a significant downturn, so that even with increased government social spending, most people were still considerably poorer than they were before the Great Depression began. Thus, again, if being poor is what increases the murder rate (as I think you are really claiming), then even with the extra government social spending, the murder rate shouldn't have gone down like it did, but been higher during the depression. Which suggests other factors in play.
You really don't see the problem with your reasoning there?
Don't hide behind vagueness. That's convincing no one. What is the problem with my reasoning I don't see?
No, because they have the support system in place needed to prevent catastrophic social unrest because of economic hardships.
But the support system during the Great Recession is providing even less money than people were making before the recession began. So they are poorer. All along, I thought you were implying that poverty is linked to violence. Was I wrong? If people are poorer during a recession (and they'd have to be even with government assistance), shouldn't there be more violent crime if what I thought you were saying is true? Or are you giving up on a linkage between poverty and violent crime? Are you admitting that such a correlation does not exist?
Social spending can effect violent crimes
Affect it? Perhaps. But prove it goes down if you increase social welfare spending. Here's some data that suggests you are wrong.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=welf...6&tbnw=184&start=0&ndsp=35&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0
It's a chart that shows the percent increase in the "violent crime rate" going all the way back to 1960. It shows that the violent crime rate went up almost 400% between 1964, when the WOP began, and 1991. During that time, a previous chart I supplied shows that welfare spending more than quadrupled. So that suggests there might be a direct correlation between welfare spending and "violent crime rate". A positive correlation. Increase one, increase the other.
It shows the violent crime rate went up from 1985 to 1990, a period of time when there was no economic downturn (making people poorer) and when welfare spending increased. You simply cannot support your claim that social spending helps reduce violent crime. Which is why only *I* have posted actual data to look at during this discussion.
Who said that spending was going to 'solve' poverty?
LBJ, the President who started the War On Poverty, said it. I quoted him in my post. Here, let me repeat the important part of what he said again:
We are trying to attack these evils through our poverty program, through our education program, through our medical care and our other health programs, and a dozen more of the Great Society programs that are aimed at the root causes of this poverty. We will increase, and we will accelerate, and we will broaden this attack in years to come until this most enduring of foes finally yields to our unyielding will.
And he wasn't the only one promising that massive government social spending was going to solve poverty once and for all.
In fact, Obama is still promising that pipedream. What do you think his "yes we can" slogan was all about? Not just getting elected. It was his answer to everything, including eliminating poverty. Why he thinks taxing Americans and giving what they earned to the poor and destitute can not only end poverty in the US but around the world. In fact, Obama's transition team stated that Obama was embracing the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015. Do you believe they have a ghost of a chance of doing that? Hmmmm?
The irony, however, is that Obama has made poverty permanent by redefining what poverty means. Here an article that explains that:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229274/obamas-new-poverty-measurement/robert-rector ...
In other words, Obama will employ a statistical trick to ensure that “the poor will always be with you,” no matter how much better off they get in absolute terms.
You think food stamps are supposed to solve poverty?
It was started as part of Johnson's "War On Poverty." In fact,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program
[f]ood stamps, along with Medicaid, Head Start, and the Job Corps were foremost among the growing anti-poverty programs.
The theory was that by providing food to poor people (and especially children and pregnant women) they'd be able to break the cycle of poverty. But it hasn't worked out that way. What poor people have become is dependent on food stamps. Dependent on government. Feeling entitled to food stamps and other people's money. Victicrats, as Larry Elder would say. Who mostly vote the democratic party. Go figure. The party of food stamps. And now in addition to food stamps, they are being told they are entitled to cell phones, health care, day care, cars, even houses. All to buy votes.
Crime is reduced when people can get the support they need to live (remember, food, housing, and medical care are necessary for life), not when they get out of poverty.
One can't help but notice that you keep making claims but offering no proof. None whatsoever.
You sure do love the plight of the poor don't you?
You sure like red herrings, strawmen and slander, don't you?
Or the conservative cities just drive their problems out.
LOL! Do you have ANY proof of this? Or are you now just going to slander conservatives in general?
Or they are worse at reporting it.
Have any proof of this?
Or bigger cities with larger populations tend to be more liberal.
Which is irrelevant if the bigger cities supply more welfare per capita to their inhabitants.
Did you know what churches directly correlate with crime?
And what relevance does this have? Don't be vague. Show you can think logically and support what you claim with actual data.
Do conservative cities also incarcerate more people?
LOL! That might be true. It might also point to another failure of liberalism … one that leads to more violent crime.
And besides, just because social spending can reduce violent crime, doesn't mean it always will.
Can? You haven't proven that. But the chart I linked earlier … this one
http://tcftakingnote.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ffb96988833015433b63db0970c-500wi
… indicates that over nearly a 30 year period it never reduced violent crime since violent crime went up about as much as social welfare spending INCREASED.
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And here I thought you were claiming that government social spending has led to better conditions in America so fewer people lack enough food. I though you were claiming that social *engineering* works.
And that's why you're so constantly wrong. You fight the argument you wish people were making.
So you aren't trying to defend social engineering? You aren't trying to defend the notion that government social spending has led to better conditions in America? Well that's good to hear. What exactly are you trying to defend then?
Well our defense spending payed off.
Yes, it did. Had we not had defense spending, the wars and attacks would have been MUCH worse than they were.
Had we not spent huge sums on defense for decades, the USSR would still be around. In fact, we were pretty much all that stood between the Soviets and world domination for a time. Remember, Khrushchev promised "We will bury you!".
And Osama Bin Laden declared war on us in 1996 and 1998, and promised to get "rid of" Americans. His #2, al-Zawahri has stated Muslims will "fight to destroy America" as recently as June of this year. It's utterly naive to think we live in a world that doesn't require defense spending. Just as naive as claiming government social programs have accomplished the stated goals used to justify their establishment.
But to say that life for people is worse today than under LBJ, well, that's just stupid. Breathtakingly so.
I didn't say life is worse now than under LBJ. I said that the government social programs didn't make it any better, which is what LBJ promised they'd do. Let me quote another statement by LBJ at the time he was selling the promise of the WOP to America:
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time.”
LBJ's gone (along with a ton of money) but the poverty and injustice are still here. Why is that? It certainly isn't lack of spending. It's because social engineering of the type promoted by liberals
does not work.
If life is now better for some people, even *poor* people, it's because of technological developments, not because of government social spending programs. Technology that didn't result from government social spending programs. Technology that in many cases resulted from defense related research … and from capitalism, which is the anti-thesis of the ideology being spouted by those promoting government social spending programs.
And is life really better for the groups that LBJ targeted to help in 1964 with massive social spending programs? Are you aware that prior to the start of LBJ's War On Poverty, more than half of blacks had already entered the middle class (the $15,000 - $50,000 income range)? But after the democrat WOP began, what's happened? Well, contrary to the public perception that mainstream media has fostered, that percentage declined. According to
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/economics/analysis.html , in 1970, that percentage was 56%. But by 1994, it had declined to less than 47% … despite the government spending literally trillions and trillions of dollars on welfare programs that largely targeted the black community.
This 2007 article (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/11/13/ST2007111300084.html ) indicates that
forty-five percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle class in 1968 -- a stratum with a median income of $55,600 in inflation-adjusted dollars -- grew up to be among the lowest fifth of the nation's earners, with a median family income of $23,100
despite over 10 trillion dollars being funneled into welfare related programs over that period of time. Something really went fundamentally wrong with that multi-trillion dollar social experiment that democrats began in 1964.
I direct you to the middle portion of this article starting here:
http://www.andrewbernstein.net/articles/7_welfarestate.htm
The government’s post-1960s policies must be examined in their cumulative effect. The state made welfare a more lucrative short-term option than full-time minimum-wage employment. It made chronic illegitimacy a superior financial alternative to marriage and self-supporting family. It increasingly refused to discourage unruly behavior in school. By promoting even those who failed to learn, it undercut the motivation to study and get an education. By permitting disruptions and undermining motivation, it made learning as difficult as possible in the urban public schools. By decreasingly punishing youthful offenders, it encouraged crime. Governmental policies have encouraged indolence, illegitimacy, lack of family structure and supervision, disruptive school behavior, diminished education and crime.
and ending here:
The government’s effort to help the black urban poor has resulted in reduced employment, diminished economic progress and soaring rates of illegitimacy and crime. Conservatives have long pointed out one level of causation. If the government financially encourages indolence, illegitimacy and the decline of two-parent households, and if it adopts a more permissive attitude toward disruptive behavior in the schools and criminal behavior in the streets, then it makes a direct assault on the ethics of personal responsibility necessary for individuals to lead a productive life.
I really hope you will read that entire article and not just dismiss it out of hand. Because it has a wealth of common-sense, data, causation and correlation on what the black community needs at this juncture … rather than simply stepping deeper and deeper into the socialist, victicratic quicksand that democrats now push.
Seriously, tyr_13, how many sources do I have to offer to open your eyes?
According to
http://www.heritage.org/research/welfare/sr0067.cfm , between 1964 and 2009, the US government (at various levels) spent about $16 trillion dollars on "means tested welfare". And what did we buy for that?
At the time Johnson declared his war, the overall poverty rate was around 16 to 17 percent (
http://survivalandprosperity.com/wp...er-In-Poverty-and-Poverty-Rate-1959-20091.jpg ). The census bureau in January of 2011 announced that almost 16% NOW live in poverty (
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011...ys-157-percent-in-poverty/UPI-69001294319947/ ). So the poverty rate is basically unchanged. We never came even close to accomplishing the goal set out by LBJ.
But the promises of the democrats haven't changed. They are still promising "to end poverty and inequality". And the promises are just as empty as they were back in 1964 because the underlying theory of leftists is WRONG.
Government social spending programs don't even buy happiness. Here's a link to article that notes an interesting study done by a professor in Rotterdam that proves that:
http://www.thewelfarestatewerein.com/archives/2006/01/the_welfare_sta.php
Here is the abstract:
The terms well-being and welfare are often bracketed together, especially well-being and state welfare. The level of well-being is believed to be higher in welfare states, and its distribution more equitable. This theory is tested here in a comparative study of 41 nations from 1980 to 1990. The size of state welfare is measured by social security expenditures. The well-being of citizens is measured in terms of the degree to which they lead healthy and happy lives.
Contrary to expectation, there appears to be no link between the size of the welfare state and the level of well-being within it. In countries with generous social security schemes, people are not healthier or happier than in equally affluent countries where the state is less open-handed. Increases or reductions in social security expenditure are not related to a rise or fall in the level of health and happiness either.
There also appears to be no connection between the size of state welfare and equality in well-being among citizens of the state. In countries where social security expenditure is high, the dispersion of health and happiness is not smaller than in equally prosperous countries with less social insurance spending. Again, increases and reductions in social security expenditure are not linked with equality in health and happiness among citizens.
So when will liberals learn? When will you learn?
The fact is that blacks (and others) were making significant advances in economic status PRIOR to the WOP. Here:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3864
The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty..
The hard truth is that the WOP, if anything, brought a halt to that progress. Here,
http://www.friesian.com/stats.htm
The "capitalism alone" phase of poverty reduction can be seen operating from 1950 to 1966. In that period the poverty rate (column H) fell from 30% to 15%. Even poverty in the non-white population (column I) fell from almost 60% in 1960 to 40% by 1966. ... snip ... What attends the striking increase in anti-poverty activity is the actual slowing and halting of the fall in the poverty rate. The percentage of the population below the poverty line bottoms out in 1973 at 11.1% and then stagnates or increases from then on. By 1981, only the first year of the Reagan Presidency, the poverty rate is already back up to 14%, where it hadn't been since 1967. At the same time, the percentage of families on AFDC had skyrocketed, from the disturbing 2% of 1963 to what must be the even more disturbing, or shocking, 6.5% of 1980. Programs intended to reduce "dependency" had instead more than tripled it.
Like I said, the social engineering programs introduced by democrats, while no-doubt well-intentioned originally, have actually made society worse. They stopped the improvements that had been going on in poverty and racism, and built a seemingly permanent level of dependency and poverty into our society instead. And now Obama has codified that minimum poverty level by even changing the very definition of poverty (as noted above). And he and top democrats are busy trying to make people even more dependent. Blacks even poorer. And Hispanics along with them.
When will liberals learn?
When will you accept what the actual data shows?
When will you stop spouting your nonsensical and dishonest rhetoric. I fear that will only happen when we go bankrupt and the populace does what they did to Chauchesku.
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And now you are moving the goal posts and trying to suggest the WOP wasn't about solving the problem, but just keeping people fed. And that's a LIE. And trying to paint me as callous won't alter that fact. It's just a dishonest tactic. Because you have no "data" to offer, you substitute red herrings, strawmen and slander.
You're getting really bad at this.
You think so? LOL! I have no illusions that I'll change your mind. It's cast in concrete because you refuse to look at actual data. Your only tactic now is to try and slander me. If you think that's working, then by all means, continue doing it.
Started with defense spending, and then developed with social spending.
LIAR. Cite a government social spending program that developed or modified an IC chip. Or improved the internet. Or resulted in a new computer.
You can't credit one without the other. Unless you think that colleges aren't social spending.
Ah … so now you want to change the definition of "social spending programs" to include regular education and college research programs funded by capitalist companies, as opposed to programs based on "means testing". Moving the goal posts AGAIN I see.
Ok. Well now we can add ANOTHER huge failure to the pile. The failure of the government funded public school system to do it's job. The largest 50 public school districts in the US don't even graduate an average of 50% of their students from high school on time. Despite spending trillions of dollars. It's a shocking statistic. A shocking failure. And watch what that statistic leads to over time. You want to know why the violent crime rate may go up in the future? Take a guess.
And how well has the university system functioned? Even the retail (much less the real) cost of a college degree has doubled in the past two decades, far exceeding the rate of inflation. In fact (
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html ), since 1982 the cost of college has increased over 439% compared with a consumer price index increase of only about a 100%. It's increased more than the cost of medical care. And do you think college students for the most part are better educated now than then? LOL! The fact is the education system is as broke as the Medicare system. That link quotes Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, saying "If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education.” And you call that a success of "social engineering"? Why? Because in the meantime the predominantly liberal staff at colleges can continue turning out brainwashed leftists who will vote for the empty promises of democrats like Obama?
Your problem with spending on social welfare is that it doesn't fund technical development?
I already answered that question in the previous post. I object to massive social welfare spending
because it does not work. And all of the above links and facts clearly prove that.
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The concept of an internet and the initial installations that demonstrated that concept were defense related. ARPANET was the first. And while the first ARPANET link connected two colleges (UCLA and Stanford) and later others, it was a defense contract and only for government use on defense related projects. And it led to MILNET, NIPRNET, SIPRNET, and JWICS in the 1980s … ALL defense-related networks. It was only in the mid to late 80s when the modern, public access internet began to take shape. And even that didn't come about because of social program spending. You can't claim that social program spending led to us "freaking" communicating as we are now.
Colleges are defense spending?
Where have you been? You'd amazed how much of the research done by the TECHNICAL departments (as opposed to the social *engineering* … and I use that word VERY loosely … departments) at America's universities is sponsored by the defense establishment. And you're trying to move the goal posts again. You claimed the internet was the result of your social welfare programs. I just proved that false. You'd be best to cut your losses and slink away now before embarrassing yourself even further.
You have a twisted sense of 'goals' for the various social spending.
No, I quoted the goals that top liberals themselves promoted for social spending. You're the one trying to "twist" things.
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I only mention SS and Medicare because you liberals have turned the two programs into forms of welfare, rather than programs that only people who contribute to, benefit from, and in an amount to some some extent commensurate with their contributions. You are the ones moving the goals, here. And bankrupting the country in the process.
Well those don't sound like talking points.
So now you're going to slander me further by claiming I'm reading these things off some talking points memo? LOL! I think your desperation has about reached bottom.
Hand waving like when someone says goodbye. … snip … So, goodbye!
And I was right again. Your desperation has reached bottom. And you prove once again that democrats/liberals run when confronted with facts.
