If you could reform welfare type benefits

[catherine]

Well, there are many out there interested in regulating our choices in ways both profound and trivial. They feel they have a superior understanding of our "best interests", and would like to do us the favor of imposing it on us.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

I'm just curious, do you feel that "moral busybodies" cut across party lines, or do think that's the purview of only one party? I'm only asking because I certainly see it on both sides. If the two major parties in this country were Libertarians and Anarchists, I think we'd be safe from political moral undertones, but otherwise, I'll take the moral busybodiness of being my brother's keeper over the moral busybodiness of telling women what to do with their bodies, and telling people whom they should be permitted to marry.

ETA: I do really love C.S.Lewis and his writings; I actually agree with the quote in principle.

[Tammy]

I've lived in a trailer park and a house on a lake, and everything in between in my adult life. I've been poor and I've been rich. I've had great health insurance and I've lived for four years with 3 kids with none.

Having lived on both sides, I've got to say that I have as many gripes about the rich neighbors as I do the poor neighbors. People are people.

I have some great memories from the trailer park days. It's not all bad there.

When my husband delivered pizza for four years it was the working poor who tipped the best and the wealthy who treated him like he was invisible and gave no tip.

Just food for thought ...

[iris lilies]

I've lived in a trailer park and a house on a lake, and everything in between in my adult life. I've been poor and I've been rich. I've had great health insurance and I've lived for four years with 3 kids with none.

Having lived on both sides, I've got to say that I have as many gripes about the rich neighbors as I do the poor neighbors. People are people.

I have some great memories from the trailer park days. It's not all bad there.

When my husband delivered pizza for four years it was the working poor who tipped the best and the wealthy who treated him like he was invisible and gave no tip.

Just food for thought ...

Speaking of pizza, food, and thought--

I do look in a fair number of dumpsters, I will admit it, it is a leftover mindset from the days when I dumpster dived. Anyways, I am continually amazed at rhe number of pizza boxes in the dumpsters in the poor neighborhood where I have a garden.

We have probably had pizza delivered two times in the 26 years we lived here. It is an expensive, fattening habit. While I wont want or expect the gubmnt to makes regulations against it, I can judge the hell out of that activity.

It is nice that these poor people not only throw away their money on take out
pizza but they also give big tips to the delivery guy. God Bless America! We have choices here.

[LDAHL]

I'm just curious, do you feel that "moral busybodies" cut across party lines, or do think that's the purview of only one party? I'm only asking because I certainly see it on both sides. If the two major parties in this country were Libertarians and Anarchists, I think we'd be safe from political moral undertones, but otherwise, I'll take the moral busybodiness of being my brother's keeper over the moral busybodiness of telling women what to do with their bodies, and telling people whom they should be permitted to marry.

ETA: I do really love C.S.Lewis and his writings; I actually agree with the quote in principle.

I think that it always has and always will be a bipartisan temptation. Republicans thought Prohibition was a good idea. I think everybody likes to adopt brother's-keeper righteousness when they want to impose rules. In the case of abortion, I suppose your moral perspective on which brother you're keeping depends on whether you assign the fetus human status or not.

I think at the present time I would give the Left honors in the moral busybodiness category, what with the sometimes violent censorship on college campuses, various virtue-signalling parades, sin taxes, "call out culture", efforts to ban everything from Big Gulps to handguns, etc. Look at Bernie Sanders' recent diatribe against Russell Vought for an example of righteous indignation in nasty practice.

That is not necessarily reflecting well on the GOP, however. They seemed to have drifted into a sort of amoral whatever-works period that may cost them in the long run. "The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity".

[LDAHL]

Just food for thought ...

Good one!

[catherine]

I think that it always has and always will be a bipartisan temptation. Republicans thought Prohibition was a good idea. I think everybody likes to adopt brother's-keeper righteousness when they want to impose rules. In the case of abortion, I suppose your moral perspective on which brother you're keeping depends on whether you assign the fetus human status or not.

I think at the present time I would give the Left honors in the moral busybodiness category, what with the sometimes violent censorship on college campuses, various virtue-signalling parades, sin taxes, "call out culture", efforts to ban everything from Big Gulps to handguns, etc. Look at Bernie Sanders' recent diatribe against Russell Vought for an example of righteous indignation in nasty practice.

That is not necessarily reflecting well on the GOP, however. They seemed to have drifted into a sort of amoral whatever-works period that may cost them in the long run. "The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity".

To be honest, I hadn't caught up with the Sanders' diatribe, so I looked it up: Pretty good summary in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...vought/529614/

Well, that is disappointing about Bernie, because I'm with you on that. I'm also with you on the censorship on college campuses, and a couple of other examples you pointed out. Just this morning, I was telling DH that I really didn't feel it was right for the people on the stage at the Tonys to act as if they were at the Democratic Convention. The theater community is known for it's "passionate intensity"--I think it's misplaced when you do something like stand on the stage at a curtain call and ambush a Republic VP. So you have me there.

But aside from the Bernie attack on Vought, why do we call a huge segment of the Republican Party the Moral Majority if not for their interest in using their morals as a political platform?

[LDAHL]

To be honest, I hadn't caught up with the Sanders' diatribe, so I looked it up: Pretty good summary in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...vought/529614/

Well, that is disappointing about Bernie, because I'm with you on that. I'm also with you on the censorship on college campuses, and a couple of other examples you pointed out. Just this morning, I was telling DH that I really didn't feel it was right for the people on the stage at the Tonys to act as if they were at the Democratic Convention. The theater community is known for it's "passionate intensity"--I think it's misplaced when you do something like stand on the stage at a curtain call and ambush a Republic VP. So you have me there.

But aside from the Bernie attack on Vought, why do we call a huge segment of the Republican Party the Moral Majority if not for their interest in using their morals as a political platform?

I think that last part was truer thirty years ago than it is today. At this point, it seems to me that the GOP doesn't know what they stand for and the Democrats only know what they stand against.

[jp1]

Does it matter that 2/3 of people receiving government assistance work or live in a household with a working adult, and that in half of those cases it's a fulltime job that pays so little that they are still eligible for benefits?

http://www.ibtimes.com/two-thirds-pe...orking-2292060

[jp1]

I think that last part was truer thirty years ago than it is today. At this point, it seems to me that the GOP doesn't know what they stand for and the Democrats only know what they stand against.

Perhaps because I'm specifically a target of the religious conservative voters of the republican party I'm more sensitive to them, but I disagree with your assessment. There's a sizable portion of the GOP base that are very focused on telling other people how to live their lives. If they were going the way of the dodo bird Pence wouldn't be VP today. Pence was the best choice Donald Trump could make to solidify their support.

[catherine]

I think that last part was truer thirty years ago than it is today. At this point, it seems to me that the GOP doesn't know what they stand for and the Democrats only know what they stand against.

You're probably right.

Although...

I watched a really good movie this weekend--The Free State of Jones, with Matthew McConaughey about a a group of rebels during the Civil War who became disenchanted and formed their own micro-government against the Confederacy, upholding equality and property rights. I admire the people who stand up with passionate intensity to move things forward in the best interest of the oppressed. Being against oppression is the same as being for freedom, and I think we all want freedom.