I'm sure most of us are familiar with the semi-racist/classist rhetoric about welfare recipients and their calculated abuses of the entitlement programs in America, but there's an interesting caveat to some entitlement recipients.

I'm sure if you live in rural America or in the Southeast you've seen them or, regretably, know them. I'm speaking of the social safety-net supporters that have a severe distrust of the federal government. These baffling naysayers are the ones that condemn paying taxes or deride the instance of the elitist class of billionaires paying a heftier percentage of taxes. They enthusiastically spend federal bucks on food and shelter while voting for people that want to cut social programs out of the budget. These people are everyday getting by on a system that they deny helps them. They think the budget for their foodstamps materializes from the heavenly ether.

I bring this up because I have a family member that does not work and enjoys the luxury of having the government pay for Medicare and SSI. This family member also thought that Medicare and SSI were not entitlements--they were paid for separately. Sure, they are deducted separately from a person's income, but the federal government does put regular income tax into Medicare to balance for losses. This family member also thought Romney was a better candidate for the simple reason that a reduction in corporate taxes, a continuation of Bush's tax code, and balancing the budget (a la cutting expenditures), might magically create a better country. I have no problem with someone voting for Romney because they think his policies are necessary, but when that same person accepts government entitlements then I think they are being disingenuous and, above all, fucking ignorant.

But this is America. We want these people to succeed, right? Kick out the crutches, lace up the boots, and send them back to work, right? Well, I would agree if I didn't think that certain adherents in this country are fueling this anti-government buffoonery. The same harpies that soil the food before the public can eat it are the same ones that are trying to cripple the social programs by making sure that people abuse them. There's a conspiracy folks! Deregulation zealots that want to replace the US government with corporations. This is the same hyperbole that gave the American financial institutions a golden parachute while working people got pink slips. It's the same backwards logic that thinks unions are causing the current economic stagnation (no growth because unions are blocking legislation).

So I voted Obama. Yeah, I know he's probably going to ban some L-G member's assault weapons (boo-hoo) or collapse someone's health insurance, but I don't think he was ready to start making major cuts to entitlements . . . hopefully.

I acknowledge that some people are in need of assistance and for that small percentage of people that abuse it (and usually get caught) I think its worth it to have around. I don't know where I would be today if I didn't have social assistance when I lost my job, nor the people that were receiving unemployment or other federal aid. Besides, if most people that condemn social programs looked into what a person must go through in order to receive it: the bulky paperwork, background scrutiny, and general humiliation by prying government employees; those people might change their attitude.

So, are you for it or against it?

I like your chicanery buffoonery rhetoric, ...it's quaint.

Social programs and entitlements, for. A hyper-inflated military budget, against. Ear-marks, against. Corporate bailouts, against.

I don't mind people arguing against entitlements, but when they accept entitlements, pay little in taxes, and complain about Big Government, then I have to scrutinize.

My posts are all vacant, palavering points, Tru.

No one has said that.

I know rich people who are getting disability and SS. Sucks.

I pay little in taxes because I'm poor, but haven't received a dime in assistance.
Except for unemployment a few times.

I object to the basic use of language in the debate (among all of the other things I object to in the debate).

The debate around the issue confuses entitlement in a narcissistic personality disorder sense with entitlement as used to refer to social programs that were considered things people should be entitled to as citizens of the country.  Politicians deliberately conflate the two to confuse people.  I think that's a big way that you end up with people who are on medicare but someone don't seem to realize it's an entitlement - "I paid for that."

The conspiracy is pretty open.  The market zealots have basically put the entire field of economics on their payroll.  Good luck with your career in economics if you don't want to play nice with the Fed.  The single biggest reason I quit pursuing a doctorate in mechanical engineering was that the research field is owned outright by the pentagon. 

I will admit that my use of the entitlement/social program terms were vaguely delineated. However, I do consider the two terms interchangeable in my own semantic reasoning. As stilted and arrogant as that seems, it does prelude my point.

Social programs are designed to provide living assistance to people that cannot afford basic necessities such as, federal grants for education, welfare, section 8 housing, etc. Even though states provide most services, they are paid for through tax dollars. It is what I consider my "I-paid-for-that" social service. Granted, the entitlements we have come to know through bad mouthing, are not the same as social services provided to the public. But I, myself, consider those social services something I have paid for and want them preserved for the future. Sorry for the confusion on my part.

The debate, Mike, was essentially about those annoying people that shift from government-bashing to pandering when they need help. By government-bashing, I mean that these people want to dismantle the infrastructure and replace it with something Rush Limbaugh could smile about.

I can't remember the exact stats, but the states that take the most federal help vote overwhelmingly republican.

I didn't mean your language in particular.

I meant the broader debate.  The way language is used shapes the debate into a no-win situation - conflating the two different definitions of entitlement in the public discourse is basically poisoning the well.  You can see the difference in use of language where they haven't been successful in poisoning public opinion - they are going to "protect" social security or medicare, but they are going to "reform" entitlements.  They are proposing cuts no matter which terminology they use, but they are much more careful when addressing specific programs that remain popular.

It's really a long term-effort in the US:

Poisoning certain terminology.  Socialist is basically a pejorative at this point, for instance, and bears no relation to a particular school of thought.

Changing terminology.  The one I harp on to the annoyance of people around me is when politicians and the media started using the word "grow" in relation to the economy and business in the early 90s.  Grow was formerly used primarily in relation to organic life - a natural process.  Using it in reference to the economy and business is attempt to conflate them with organic life, rather than recognizing them as constructs we should regulate and control.

Deletion of terminology.  Notions like public goods have been largely pushed from the public discourse.  The commons, too, would all but have disappeared from public discourse were it not for nerds on the internet. 

Dogmatic acceptance of terminology.  Privatization, free market, etc. are dogmatically accepted as positive with a dearth of analysis or empirical evidence to demonstrate actual benefits. 

When you really don't have any grounds for the argument you're making, change the entire language of the debate.  Go ahead and rename the department of war the department of defense so people will support your spending.  You can couch your arguments for aggressive military action in the premise of "defense" from the get-go. 


The entire field of economics is bullshit.  It tells stories about how trade might have began, in spite of not having a drop of anthropological evidence to suggest its narrative was plausible.  It accepts as premises things that one cannot actually draw from other social sciences. 

Really, economics is an ill-formed sub-genre of political science that has somehow overrun social science entirely.  Claims of predictability and indecipherable mathematical models are popular, I suppose, among the academy.  No one really cares how circular the arguments are or if they are empirically sound (in essence, my model works because it fits the data - all data that doesn't fit my model are outliers and unpredictable).  As long as there's enough faux empiricism to fit the religion of the day.

The context of language in the American tradition is an issue that should be debated heavily.

American English is riddled with ambiguous hyperbole, tonic pejoration and amelioration, and overdone euphemisms; all of which are used to shroud facts and blatantly refuse logical analysis. A perfect example of the dogmatic use of the expression "free market" was on the O'Reilly Factor. In Bill's debate with a particular guest, he concluded: "Well, that's the free market." As if to say the term weighs the same on the verbal value scale with "habeas corpus." The term is fluff for the ears. Rather than give us reasonable discourse, Fox News, and its adherents, give us value language to inflate spontaneous judgement rather than thoughtful criticism. I generally undermine the authority of facts and information stemming from Fox News for the simple reason that they are only there for ratings rather than journalism. However my chagrin, the network has set the standard for an entire nation of their parroting dunces. We've seen "labor union" looked upon with revulsion, attributing the term with "closed factories," "factory shutdowns," and "weekly dues" instead of "worker's rights," "wage bargaining," and "collective organization." Throughout history, labor unions and collectives are the first organizations which are dismantled before totalitarian regimes take over. Still another example is how we equate "democracy" to "kindness," "goodness," "freedom," etc. Would we look at Iran--more of an example of democracy than the U.S.--as a country that observes freedom? One should consider that more people in Iran support the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad than voters in America turn out to vote. Therefore, the term democracy attributes its context to value rather than reasonable utility.

The honor society we live under has hijacked the language in a way that leaves the average citizen clucking value words in an effort to maintain general information as the standard truth. As a method to lull its viewers into a passive state, Fox has continuously paraded the notion that the viewers have been given the facts in order for them to decide. It's that perfect addition that leaves all of its viewers comfortable so that they don't have to reason or go anywhere else to get information.

The news on the major networks is the worst in the US, Not only do they parrot the establishment in their actual reporting but their supposedly unscripted comments are are far from unscripted and are the noose to control public opinion.