Re: Another Government give away

["Robert L Bass" <Sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"JoeRaisin" wrote:
>
> AFAIK the phones that only dial 911 that don't
> cost anything once activated....

There's a parallel to that with land lines in some my area.  I disconnected
several land lines a few years ago because we were using VoIP.  A few months
later I was testing jacks on the wall behind my desk.  The "personal" phone
worked fine, as did one backup land line for the business.  Each of the other
jacks had dial tone so I tried dialing out.  I got a message offering to connect
me to the telco business office if I wanted to enable service.  The first part
of the message stated "If this is an emergency, please dial 911."

When I changed cellular providers years ago, I needed to buy new cell phones.
The old ones apparently were not compatible with the new provier's system.  I
gave the used phones to the shelter and asked if they needed me to activate
them.  They said no, the service was free to their users.  Nice.

> To me, that is a solid program - the brunt of the
> cost is born by donations and private companies,
> the person is provided with a necessity (given
> her situation) and if she wants to expand the use
> of the phone beyond what is necessary she can
> do so at her expense.

Not bad at all.

> But we aren't talking about cell phones for scared,
> abused women.  We are talking about providing
> cell phones to folks who can't afford cell phones
> - and doing it *only* because they can't afford a cell
> phone.  They may have been given a land line but
> for the wanton wallet wenches in DC that isn't enough.

Wanton wallet wenches?  Joes, that is a classic worthy of Spiro Agnew.  :^)
Needless to say, we disagree though.  The basis for the program is that in
today's world telephone service is as much a necessity as transportation.  You
and I are fortunate to have jobs that pay us well enough we can afford what we
need and, to some extent, what we want.  Those less fortunate still have basic
needs.  If by providing discounted cellular phone service we make it easier for
some to communicate with family, call for help or even call prospective
employers, I think that is a good thing.  Apparently, so did the Republican
party since the program ran continuously during the Bush administration.  Funny
how the nut-cases blame it on Obama like everything else since the Hindenburg
disaster... Oh, the humanity..."  :^)

> Look, the only problem I have with any of this is the
> government paying for cell phone minutes....

It's cheaper than land line service and it doesn't require sending telco
employees in to install anything.  Once you get past the concept of cell service
as a luxury it becomes the more rational approach.

> I understand the necessity of a land line - but like
> everything the government does, they've got to
> find a way of making it stupid and wasteful....

Land lines cost more to connect, more for monthly service and take longer to
enable.  By offering free or discounted, yet very limited service, the program
is able to function at minimal cost.  This is one of those rare times when
government is actually choosing the lower cost option.

> Even then, TracFone was providing the minutes along
> with the phones but for some reason that has offended
> the wastrels in Washington.
>
> The sole purpose of big government, is to make itself
> needed so folks won't insist on a smaller government...

That's one way of looking at it.  Alternatively, one might say that *some*
elected officials actually care about the needs of citizens, even those at the
bottom of the financial and social ladder.

> People seem to forget that every single bit of power
> usurped by the feds during one administration, will still be there when the
> next one comes along.

The real power in Washington does not rise from the poor who benefit from
programs like this.  It descends from wealthy corporations like the insurance
giants who have bought and paid for so many of our senators and congressmen that
it's almost impossible to do something *really* necessary for all Americans.
"Big Government" doesn't become powerful by helping the poor.  Traitorous
leaders who would happily march the United States into a dictatorship don't give
a rat's stevens about the poor.

> The folks who screamed the loudest when the patriot
> act was passed have become oddly silent even though
> the most heinous provisions are still in effect...

Give the new administration a little time to breath.  They're working to
overhaul get us out of the Bush War in Iraq, kill Bin Laden (who Bush allowed to
escape when we had him cornered in Afghanistan), save our healthcare system,
rebuild relations with our allies, figure out how to stop Iran from building a
nuclear (not "nuk-u-lar") weapon and trying to stabilize the economy which Bush
/ Cheney destroyed, all at the same time.  We're finally going to put the
terrorists on trial after eight years of Bush doing nothing.  We're also closing
Guantanamo prison, one of the worst black eyes the Bush administration gave to
our nation.  Once the Obama administration finishes working on all the front
burner issues, we'll dismantle the unPatriot Act, cancel "Don't Ask Don't Tell"
so Leuck can sign up for service and take care of more of the mess the previous
administration left behind.

> On the other hand, many of those who applauded it
> when it was passed have begun to get worried about
> the power it gives DC.

This is not meant as an insult so please don't take it that way.  Have you ever
read H.R. 3162 (The Patriot Act)?  I've read lots of commentaries about the act
but until recently never actually read it.  Though the warp and aoof of the act
was a power grab by the Bush administration, there is actually a sprinkling of
reasonable thought woven into the thing.  I suspect that was done to make it
pallatable to moderate legislators who might otherwise have voted against it.
Here's a line that you'd never hear from the vile mouth of "Dick" Cheney:

Sec. 102 (a) (1): "Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Americans from South
Asia play a vital role in our Nation and are entitled to nothing less than the
full rights of every American."

Imagine a Muslim being interrogated in a secret CIA prison trying to point that
out to his torturers.
> Politics of personality puts the focus on the wrong thing.
> We need to be concerned with the laws that are being
> (have been) passed and focus on the ins and outs of
> those rather than the clowns who enact/enforce them...

I think it's a combination.  We do need to fix much of the awful things done
during the prior administration, as well as some of the mistakes of the Clinton
administration.  But we also need to get rid of a lot of political appointees
who have all but destroyed many federal agencies.  Here are just a few examples
from online news sources:

Steve Johnson, a Bush appointee to the federal EPA, overruled his own EPA staff
and denied California the right to implement landmark state regulations to limit
greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

Bush appointed Dr. Erik Keroack, an anti-choice, abstinence-only yes -man to run
the government's $238 million family planning programs (Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Population Affairs) - that he entrusted a card-carrying Christian
Right charter-member whose mantra is "birth control is demeaning to women" to
dole out said birth control.  Keroak is the idiot who said that too much sex
will ruin your marriage... really... not kidding.  He made the claim that with
too much pre-marital loving, our supply of Oxytocin, the precious "bonding
hormone" diminishes- - that it loses it's "stickiness" he said.  They put this
moron in charge?!?

With 59 appelate court appointments, 261 district new court judges, and 2 USSC
appointments, Bush made the federal court system a haven of right-wing
extremism.  Many of these jackasses are appointed for life.  What a horrid
legacy!

Ex-Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, Bush's appointment to head the Department
of Health and Human Services, took several trips funded by tobacco companies.
Imagine appointing a guy who takes bribes from the tobacco industry to run HHS!

Here's an example of what Bush appointees to the Justice Department did:

Washington Post, March 22, 2007: "The leader of the Justice Department team that
prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush
administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that
weakened the government's racketeering case."

"Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's
office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005
trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had
conspired to lie to U.S. smokers."
"She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations
that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible
penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their
testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had
rewritten for her, she said."
"'The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we
said,' Eubanks said. 'And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the
interests of the American public.'"

I agree with you that we need to fix tons of bad legislation and bad policy left
behind by Bush.  But in order to do any of that we also need to weed out the
incompetent, politically motivated scum he put in charge of government agencies.
The problem isn't just the directors, either.  Bush infected every agency from
the Pentagon to the EPA with hundreds of these crooks.  It's going to take years
to replace them all.

> A well written law can help compensate for chuckleheads
> being in power (since that's pretty much the only ones
> who survive - another reason for term limits).

True.

> Point being, if the shop owner on the corner sees
> a family in trouble and gives them a loaf of bread,
> that's charity.  When his door is kicked in by a
> band of (federal) thugs who force him to give the
> family a loaf of bread, it's not.

If that was an accurate portrayal of government entitlement programs I would
agree.  Fortunately for those of us with doors left to kick in, it's not.
Unfortunately, the economic ruin of eight years of Repugnant reign has left many
hard-working, tax paying Americans with neither a door to kick in nor a loaf of
bread to steal.  Someone has to do something tp help millions of our own
citizens whose only crime is having lost a job due to the Bush-era economic
disaster.  The fact that there are American families whose children go hungry is
proof enough that churches and private do-gooders, helpful as they may be,
cannot carry the weight of millions of unemployed Americans.

I'm not talking about those who choose to idly wait for a monthly welfare check.
There are literlly millions of honest, decent people who have lost their jobs
and have no way to take care of their families. Call it "Big Government" if you
like, but in a society that values human life government does what it can to
help those who can't help themselves.  I can't say that providing cell phones
will break the hold of poverty but when government teams with business to offer
low-cost services like this to the poor, I think that qualifies as a good thing.

> I'm all for 'safety nets' but view them as just that.
>
> The high wire performers at the circus have a safety
> net, but it's only used when needed and then for only
> as long as it's needed - they get off of them on pretty
> quick order and start climbing back up the ladder. They don't build their
> houses on them.

True, but circus performers take risks of their own choice.  They aren't up on
the high wire because their employer had to let them go.  Funny you chose this
analogy.  By coincidence, a friend of mine's daughter is a circus acrobat.  She
always works with a net.  She's a cute Brazilian girl, too.  Having seen some of
the stuff she does, I think she could kick the leuck out of anyone who ever
tries to hurt her.  :^)

> The safety net is not meant to be a permanent
>(and perhaps only) support structure.

That's not necessarily correct.  In the case of many small circuses, it's always
used.

> Eons ago, when I was just a lad (during the Carter
> "malaise"), I was watching TV at my grandmother's
> house and it was some Sunday morning news show.
> There was a woman complaining about the level of compensation she was getting
> on welfare.
>
> She told how her Grandmother raised her kids (I
> forget how many) on welfare, her mother raised her
> and her three siblings (again - I forget how many)
> on welfare but that she only had two kids and
> couldn't make ends meet on welfare.

Sadly, one of the worst affects of welfare is that it makes some families
permanen recipients.  There has been some reform of welfare programs since
Carter.  In 1996 Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act which made significant
changes to the welfare system.  The law required that recipients find work
within 2 years of initial coverage.  It also moved the responsibility for and
the authority over granting welfare from the federal government to the states.
The idea was that individual states could bett4er assess the needs of their
residents than could the federal government.  For example, the cost of living is
very different in Arkansas from that in New York State.

Some states, Wisconsin for example, set up even stricter guidelines but offered
more comprehensive support.  The net effect was a reduction in welfare roles and
an increase in employment.  Not bad.

Virginia set up a deal where families who had a sudden need could apply for
one-time, lump sum assistance.  Those who received the payment were barred from
applying for welfare for some period (2 years, I think but I could be wrong on
that).

> The only thing I got out of that as a kid was that
> this woman's family hadn't worked or contributed
> anything to society for three generations.

You got it right.  There were then and there still are people who scam the
system.  It's a sad fact of life that by doing good for many who deserve help
you also wind up helping some who don't.  The problem is finding a way to
separate the "wheat from the chaff."  Even Jesus said that was hard to do.  Some
on the left may think that Obama *is* Jesus but most of us realize he's only a
Saint.  :^)

On the left,
Robert