A more independent government

[_ajax18]

I mentioned this idea when responding to Themis on how we could bring to pass an amicable divorce between conservative and liberal in this country and perhaps avoid a bloody and expensive attempt at revolution. We're not geographically separated as we were during the first Civil War. But we are separated geographically between rural and urban. We have different cultures, different values, and would probably both be happier under different laws and different governments.

So how do you offer those different rules to a diverse group of people who need different laws to be happiest? My thought is to limit the rules imposed by the federal government and leave most decisions up to the state and preferably county governments. If you want money for social welfare programs, you'll have to obtain that from money you collect within your own county. Do you want to ban guns? Again, you can ban them in your own county. Do you want to hold "mostly peaceful protests", defund the police, destroy property? You can do that in your own county where your party holds a majority and supports your right to protest. Will need money to build these destroyed properties back? Just tax the rich, but in your own county. Would you like to replace the police with social workers? You can do that as well but not in my county.

Do you think 40% unemployment is the better path than 0.04% casualties due to COVID? Maybe the places like California run better on the black market anyway. Just don't ask Florida to bail you out.

Do you want open borders and to be a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants? That's fine to. Take just as many as you'd like to pay for or exploit on your own. But if they know what's good for them, they'll stay out of my county and off my property.

We don't really have to impose our politics on each other. Most people in rural and urban areas have an idea of what they want. Just leave it up to the counties and at most up to the states. Keep the federal government very narrow and limited and we could all be happier.

ETA: I'm always stunned during presidential election years how little attention we pay to local issues and local politics. The amendments on some of these ballots were written in such obtuse and inscrutable legalese that even some very accomplished people admitted to me they had no idea what they were voting for. We don't talk about local issues nearly enough on talk radio. Why is that?

[_Themis]

I don't want to be mean, but your OP shows how little you think about issues. There is way too much wrong and would never work in the real world, and should be obvious with just a little thought.

we are separated geographically between rural and urban

No we are not. Urban areas tend to vote more for conservatives then liberals, but there there are plenty of liberals in rural areas.

Do you want open borders and to be a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants? That's fine to. Take just as many as you'd like to pay for or exploit on your own. But if they know what's good for them, they'll stay out of my county and off my property.

How are you going to keep people, guns, etc out of a county. Have county border patrol for each county? Should it not be obvious as to the massive cost. Hey maybe build an expensive wall. There is so many things wrong with your ideas. Rural counties depend on urban areas for money. Urban areas is where most of the economic activity and tax revenue come from. Cities have the advantage of big business and more dense populations saving more money per person and providing services like roads.

I'm always stunned during presidential election years how little attention we pay to local issues and local politics.

That's because they are about issues facing us all. States and counties already have their own roles and powers. Those elections focus on more local issues.

[_ajax18]

A gated community isn't too expensive. It would just be on a larger scale. You'll just need an entrance card.

[_Themis]

A gated community isn't too expensive. It would just be on a larger scale. You'll just need an entrance card.

Actually they are expensive. That is why only rich people live in them, and they cover small areas, which have minimal security. Not the massive areas a county takes up. Counties would never have the means to patrol a county like a border and still pay for everything else. Especially rural ones. Do you even think before you type Ajax?

[_Jersey Girl]

A gated community isn't too expensive. It would just be on a larger scale. You'll just need an entrance card.

What you are promoting here isn't a more independent government at all. It's division.

"And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." ~ Jesus the Christ. It's in the book.

Read it some time. Or pick up a soc book and learn sociological perspectives and why they matter.

If that's too heavy a task, get yourself a copy of a children's book titled, "The Land of Many Colors" and give that the once over. And no, it's not about race.

And if that's too heavy a task, here's a video where someone will read it to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDMfFC3D7o8

Do something with yourself, Ajax.

[_Chap]

A gated community isn't too expensive. It would just be on a larger scale. You'll just need an entrance card.

Actually they are expensive. That is why only rich people live in them, and they cover small areas, which have minimal security. Not the massive areas a county takes up. Counties would never have the means to patrol a county like a border and still pay for everything else. Especially rural ones. Do you even think before you type Ajax?

Well, history shows us that there have been successful applications of the 'gated community' model on quite a large scale:



But for some reason, people (no doubt liberal antifas and wall haters, backed up by activist lawyers) began to think that the kind of medieval feudal society that was based on structures of this kind was not conducive to the growth and progress of humanity. Now we see where that has led us, perhaps we need to think again?

[_ajax18]

What you are promoting here isn't a more independent government at all. It's division.

Perhaps you'll feel differently when Trump wins this election.

What I'm promoting is a path to freedom where individuals can choose how to live their lives without other people having to bear the consequences for them. This is more what the founders had in mind. They were very skeptical of a large all powerful federal government and put many checks and balances in place to avoid that. If you're right than perhaps war is the only way. But it's not going to be me paying higher and higher taxes so that other people can retire at 52 or make a career out of having children out of wedlock.

[_Chap]

But it's not going to be me paying higher and higher taxes so that other people can [...] make a career out of having children out of wedlock.

Ronald Reagan presented the US voter with that wonderful target for resentment - the welfare queen. She's mostly black, and she makes shedloads of money by popping out babies like there is no tomorrow. But maybe we might look at the facts?

The myth of the 'welfare queen' endures, and children pay the price

Reagan, the Republicans’ king of welfare reform, introduced us to the “welfare queen” during a campaign rally in 1976.
“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” he said. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.”

That never happened. But her legend lives on.

The truth is that the average food stamp recipient isn’t an urban black woman at all. She is a white woman.

And the people who benefit most from food stamps paid for with our hard-earned tax dollars aren’t primarily black kids living in fatherless homes. They are little white kids who would starve to death if the government didn’t step in to help them.
Of the 44 million SNAP recipients, 36 percent are white, 25 percent are African-American, 17 percent are Hispanic, 3 percent are Asian and 1 percent are Native American, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Contrary to what some might think, people living in this country illegally are not eligible.

The bottom line is that the real beneficiaries of SNAP, independent of race, are children. Forty-four percent of participants are younger than 18, an additional 12 percent are age 60 or older and 9 percent are disabled adults, according to federal government statistics.

And the assumption that people who receive food assistance don’t work? It’s a lie.

Nearly one-third of all SNAP households — and nearly half of those with children — report an income. Many families rely on SNAP only when they are between jobs or because they are among millions of American’s working poor. The problem is that most of the jobs they can get are low-paying and often are temporary.

So the next time you hear someone complaining about a customer holding out the checkout line because they are using their SNAP card, tell them that it could be a friend or a relative who is simply trying to make ends meet. And that elusive "welfare queen"? She's just a figment of those Republicans’ uninformed imaginations.

[_Themis]

What I'm promoting is a path to freedom where individuals can choose how to live their lives without other people having to bear the consequences for them.

You have been ignorantly promoting the opposite. My suggestion, if you want a better world, is do the opposite of what ever you think is right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY

[_Some Schmo]

I would suggest a remote island in the Pacific for ajax and his family. That's the only place everyone is going to agree with ajax's idiotic ideas.