sees_all1

I find that it's usually used as a last resort, but with some people's logics, is hard to argue against. "I think *such and such*" "Yeah? Well *person* disagrees! And he knows it better than you, therefore you're wrong" I don't entirely see what's wrong with this. Academic writing is filled with direct quotes, and that exactly their purpose: to share the ideas of someone else who is very learned in the subject, and therefore has ideas that should be taken into consideration in said debate/piece. If the quote spans several paragraphs it's very difficult for me to know exactly which part you want to put across. If quoting a one liner from a great thinker clearly gets your point across, by all means. If 90% of your post is a quote from some two-bit blogger or a completely unknown publication and you're putting up more than half their post without context... I can't read your mind; I don't know why you're posting that. Give me context, filter what you liked about it, summarize it or derive your own point from it.

People that just post the opinions of others in a debate. I don't care what such-and-such thinks, I don't know them and they're not here to back up their own opinions. Why don't you just find the parts you like, paraphrase it and present it instead? Surely you can think for yourself!

High five to you three. Make us proud.

I'm not going to touch GOP until I can verify the new robes are F2P... which they probably aren't. F2P rc is just painful.

So losing half of one account is worse than having ALL of your accounts banned?

Yeah, pretty much.

I am not pursuing a minor in Political Science. Cats are the spawn of Satan, so #1 must be a lie. 1. I've currently got 6 patent applications pending 2. One pending patent application is related to preventing media piracy 3. Three of the pending patent applications are related to social networking

Source this. tl;dr: republicans hate any government spending that isnt for god (you know the republicans goal of making a Christian version of Shariah law for America) and guns (military so we can "liberate" moar countries and doesnt afraid of anything). Of course I agreed with the general thing you started this thread with however you are among the many hypocrites who preach this so I dislike the person saying this not the central point. Libertarianism is better. They agree with the "tea partiers" on economic points but also are for individual freedom like abortion rights, ending drug prohibition, etc. You're taking that out of context. I wanted magekillr to explain why welfare benefits the rich more than it benefits the welfare recipients.

What I don't understand is why no one can be bothered to create a different thread to discuss the U.S.'s military budget. Imagine you create a thread about chocolate, and how you'd like to debate whether tootsie rolls can be considered chocolate or not. Then, your opponent starts to argue that tootsie rolls are chocolate, and that your position on the inclusion of marshmallows in the list of gummy candies is absolutely wrong, and it makes your argument on chocolate less valid. I'm not discussing the U.S. military budget here because it has very little to do with the Census Bureau's definition of poverty, or the way the U.S. gives aid to people. If you want to discuss the U.S.'s military budget, I suggest you create a different thread instead of mucking this one up.

I misunderstood your original point. Rather than make excuses for it, I'll just apologize. My bad.

It takes a certain special type of [wagon] to politicize a tragedy like this.

~The Nightmare in Norway [sarcasm]Yeah, I'd say a safe bet is a "Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything." I think though, we can all agree that Sarah Palin is at fault, especially since she once mentioned something about Obama's Nobel Peace Prize or something.[/sarcasm]

#1... how can anyone like work?! 1. I'm pursuing a minor in Political Science 2. I'm pursuing a minor in Economics 3. I'm pursuing a minor in Mathematics

That makes it look funny. :mrgreen: Changed the title, just for you grammar Nazis.

I am TIF's official grammar Nazi and I approve of this post. The title of this thread has been used many times in various publications - Huffington Post: Poverty Rate In U.S. Saw Record Increase In 2009: 1 In 7 Americans Are Poor NPR: Report: Nearly 1 In 7 Americans Were Poor In '09 Heritage Foundation: In recent years, the Census has reported that one in seven Americans are poor. Just consider it to be a quote :wink: Not really, just highly selective about the discussions I start. There's lots of head scratchers and idiotic situations, but not everything makes for an interesting discussion (or things I want to discuss).

This seems like a valid point, sees_all ^didn't see anything about this in your post. :| If magekillr wants to discuss the amount of funding the US military receives, or continue to bash the right wing for their positions on the US military, it would be more appropriate for him to create a new thread or find a related one to post in instead of here.

From wiki's page on the differences between medicare and medicaid: That chart was formed with data from 2005, and the payments to states include when the federal government contracted with private businesses in the state. It also doesn't take into military spending, from the related discussion in the original thread your picture was in: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2690371/posts Quit posting irrelevant data, it would be the same as if I said California's per capita income is actually #6, based on this chart: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-STIMULUS0109.html Ok, paying for it, gaining from it, whatever way you want to word it, it's the same thing. Do you have any accounting sense at all? [8 year-old's retort]Well I'm rubber and you're glue so whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.[/8 year-old's retort] That's not really what I said; pointing out an ironic aspect of the discussion isn't taking what you say and "bouncing" it. It's also interesting how you didn't address my point. I'm not going to address your point when all its made up of are straw-men arguments and ad hominem attacks.

Uh, no, I'm not full of it. You were discussing welfare programs. Medicare and Medicaid aren't welfare programs (and even though Medicaid provides help to poor people, almost 50% its funding goes to nursing homes; Medicaid is also the cheapest health care out there). Health care fraud is a result of doctors misreporting and criminal groups, not poor people cheating the government. Medicaid is means tested, how is that not welfare? Seriously, what is your fascination with the military in a thread about the definition of poverty? Are you the king of Ignoratio elenchi? Unless you're specifically talking about the purpose of government - in the literal sense that was argued in the Federalist Papers, I don't see how the small business owner in Iowa benefits when the U.S. government robs him of 40% of what his company earns in a year, and redirects it to the unemployed people in California so they have extra money to buy "medical" marijuana for their "disability". Even if you were arguing that it allows individuals to earn wealth instead of spending all their time protecting what they already have, I'd still disagree with you because they're not gaining from the government, they're paying for it. [8 year-old's retort]Well I'm rubber and you're glue so whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.[/8 year-old's retort]

You'd best be trolling, especially after posting that youtube video. Aren't you full of it. Every $1 the U.S. government invests in combating Medicare and Medicaid fraud saves $1.55. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2009) You're pretty good at misrepresenting my views. I don't think it's the government's job to provide everything for everyone. If rich people need to give "their fair share," from their earned income, then people receiving public money should be giving "their fair share" as well, in the form of a less than comfortable life. I've lived without a cell phone, internet and cable at home for most of my life (actually, I still don't have a cable/satellite subscription right now), and I've survived.

If you actually look into the statistics you're providing, most (overpaying/underpaying) were determined by sampling random people's files administrative side, comparing what they are getting to what they should be receiving (i.e. "family of four making X per year"), and then reporting on that. I don't know how the fraud report is generated, but I assume it's "if convicted of fraud", which is a much more stringent definition than most of us would apply (And suffers tremendously from type II errors - Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson were found "not guilty," but I seriously doubt they were innocent of murder.) Its just like when the duration of unemployment benefits are cut (in countries where people that receive unemployment are unlikely to move into a different social program), people find jobs much sooner. You can't prove fraud in every case, but the change in average unemployment duration is very suspect.

I'm not claiming that "there is a small percentage of people who take advantage of the welfare system and spend their money recklessly because they can, but the vast majority of people in it use welfare to live at least slightly more comfortably while still struggling to 'get out of poverty.'" If I claimed, "The vast majority of Americans are White" and someone asked me to source it, I can do exactly what magekillr did and say 77.1 percent of the total population are White. There are many things wrong with this. First off, I cited the year 2000 census. The information is no good anymore. Second, the 77.1 percent is a misrepresentation of their findings - - if you go by "only white", it's actually 75.1 By the way, that's drastically different than 2010, where non-Hispanic white is 64.7%, which I wouldn't consider to be a "vast majority".

I can: 1.9% of payments were fraudulent or were abused. 1.9% of payments 10 years ago are known to have been abused. That doesn't mean that the other 98.1% of all payments were not abused, or that the figure is the same 10 years later. Try again.

Source this. Life is unfair. People in their abilities are inherently unequal. Taking everything away from everyone is the only way to make everyone equal, but even that solution injures some people more than others. We can't all win the lottery. EDIT: And you know what? Unless you live by yourself in BFE, You don't need a subscription to watch t.v.

No. Setting an arbitrary threshold (such as some dollar amount per year, some percentage of the distribution of income, or a percentage of the maximum income) and then designating that everyone that miss the threshold will receive assistance until they make the threshold doesn't work for me. "You're a single person and make $12,000 per year? Here, have these vouchers so you can eat your fill, pay your rent, and have money left over to buy a television subscription so you can be content with where you're at in life" doesn't work for me. There needs to be an incentive for people to get out of poverty and off public assistance, and clearly the definition we have right now isn't cutting it.

To be very blunt, your story and the point you make irritates me (an implicit fallacy of composition), and is exactly the reason the definition of poverty needs to be changed in the U.S. 1 in 7 Americans are poor by our definition. Here is a heart-wrenching example of someone who is poor (happens to be the poorest person in America). Therefore, we need to do more for all people classified as "poor" by our definition, including the ones that happen to be well off.