US, poverty, tent cities and kids.

[Hype]

Am I just too idealistic? I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if there aren't any people eating rats because they have nothing else to eat, or if more people get the education they want, or if more people can promptly heal their illnesses. And I'd happily take money off my pocket to help such cause.

I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if everyone had flat screens, cell phones, fast cars and chocalate water fountains.

Someone has to pay for that. If you want to, then by all means do so. Every single person I know donates to charity in some fashion, and would donate more if the government wasnt stealing our money to fund their own mismanaged charity programs.

Hoka, that form of reasoning is invalid. It simply doesn't follow from the fact that everyone you know does something that the same phenomenon would be true of other groups. (This is called an inductive fallacy... basic logical fallacy... they used to think that "All swans are white." was a universally true statement because no one had ever seen a non-white swan. Then they found some black swans in Australia.)

[Larry B.]

And also, if you're connecting 'free health care', 'free food' or 'free education' with 'charity', I think you're pretty much validating my point that, in general, people in the US don't really care a lot for other people.

[Hype]

And also, if you're connecting 'free health care', 'free food' or 'free education' with 'charity', I think you're pretty much validating my point that, in general, people in the US don't really care a lot for other people.

That's false too Larry... It doesn't follow from the fact that Hoka, a self-professed libertarian (or libertarian sympathizer), thinks that justice doesn't extend to social welfare/distributive justice that "people in the US don't really care a lot for other people". Most Americans aren't libertarians. In fact, the largest social welfare projects in the history of this planet are funded by the American federal government regardless of who the president is (Medicare and Medicaid). No other country's spending even comes close to these. The fact that the United States is an extremely populous and geographically large country has some effect on the ability to implement social welfare efficiently from a centralized federal government.

[Hokahey]

Am I just too idealistic? I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if there aren't any people eating rats because they have nothing else to eat, or if more people get the education they want, or if more people can promptly heal their illnesses. And I'd happily take money off my pocket to help such cause.

I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if everyone had flat screens, cell phones, fast cars and chocalate water fountains.

Someone has to pay for that. If you want to, then by all means do so. Every single person I know donates to charity in some fashion, and would donate more if the government wasnt stealing our money to fund their own mismanaged charity programs.

Hoka, that form of reasoning is invalid. It simply doesn't follow from the fact that everyone you know does something that the same phenomenon would be true of other groups. (This is called an inductive fallacy... basic logical fallacy... they used to think that "All swans are white." was a universally true statement because no one had ever seen a non-white swan. Then they found some black swans in Australia.)

I understand it's anecdotal evidence, and you'll notice I made no broader claims to it's regard beyond the people referenced.

[Hokahey]

And also, if you're connecting 'free health care', 'free food' or 'free education' with 'charity', I think you're pretty much validating my point that, in general, people in the US don't really care a lot for other people.

That's false too Larry... It doesn't follow from the fact that Hoka, a self-professed libertarian (or libertarian sympathizer), thinks that justice doesn't extend to social welfare/distributive justice that "people in the US don't really care a lot for other people". Most Americans aren't libertarians. In fact, the largest social welfare projects in the history of this planet are funded by the American federal government regardless of who the president is (Medicare and Medicaid). No other country's spending even comes close to these. The fact that the United States is an extremely populous and geographically large country has some effect on the ability to implement social welfare efficiently from a centralized federal government.

God, thank you.

[Hype]

Am I just too idealistic? I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if there aren't any people eating rats because they have nothing else to eat, or if more people get the education they want, or if more people can promptly heal their illnesses. And I'd happily take money off my pocket to help such cause.

I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if everyone had flat screens, cell phones, fast cars and chocalate water fountains.

Someone has to pay for that. If you want to, then by all means do so. Every single person I know donates to charity in some fashion, and would donate more if the government wasnt stealing our money to fund their own mismanaged charity programs.

Hoka, that form of reasoning is invalid. It simply doesn't follow from the fact that everyone you know does something that the same phenomenon would be true of other groups. (This is called an inductive fallacy... basic logical fallacy... they used to think that "All swans are white." was a universally true statement because no one had ever seen a non-white swan. Then they found some black swans in Australia.)

I understand it's anecdotal evidence, and you'll notice I made no broader claims to it's regard beyond the people referenced.

Yeah. I just think it's an empirical question whether social welfare programs administrated by a federal government (and paid for by taxes) are more effective/efficient/whatever than private charities. You can't really extrapolate at all from your own experience... you have to look at large amounts of data.

[Hokahey]

Am I just too idealistic? I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if there aren't any people eating rats because they have nothing else to eat, or if more people get the education they want, or if more people can promptly heal their illnesses. And I'd happily take money off my pocket to help such cause.

I just think my neighborhood/town/city/country/etc. would be better if everyone had flat screens, cell phones, fast cars and chocalate water fountains.

Someone has to pay for that. If you want to, then by all means do so. Every single person I know donates to charity in some fashion, and would donate more if the government wasnt stealing our money to fund their own mismanaged charity programs.

Hoka, that form of reasoning is invalid. It simply doesn't follow from the fact that everyone you know does something that the same phenomenon would be true of other groups. (This is called an inductive fallacy... basic logical fallacy... they used to think that "All swans are white." was a universally true statement because no one had ever seen a non-white swan. Then they found some black swans in Australia.)

I understand it's anecdotal evidence, and you'll notice I made no broader claims to it's regard beyond the people referenced.

Yeah. I just think it's an empirical question whether social welfare programs administrated by a federal government (and paid for by taxes) are more effective/efficient/whatever than private charities. You can't really extrapolate at all from your own experience... you have to look at large amounts of data.

You're obviously 100% correct. I wasn't trying to make any larger claims based on my personal experiences, but I appreciate you trying to keep between the lines so to speak. I am much more mindful of how I debate and attempt to get my points across because of you, and not just on here

When no one calls you on your invalid reasoning you never improve.

[Hype]

I think in these types of debates, even among trained philosophers, people on both sides see certain things that really are true, and it's never quite clear where or why people are disagreeing. It's easy to be wrong when you try to fit things into a theory... and political issues are notoriously difficult to make clear. Sometimes it's better to step away from the theory and just ask common sense questions like: what do the data really show is happening, what things do we want to be the case, and why should we divide up responsibilities the way we intuitively think they should be divided? But doing that without referring to your pet theory (be it socialism or liberalism or whatever) is very difficult. I think that that's the only way to make progress in politics though -- instead of trying to get people to accept your theory, try to make sense of the facts, and then worry about the theory later.

I am with you on consistency as a virtue -- hell, I'm obsessed with it. (as Emerson put it, a FOOLISH consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...) But I think that theories can obscure or even intentionally leave out real inconsistencies that you can only see if you step back a bit, and yet claim that they are just being "consistent" (but narrow!).

Larry's not wrong to wonder about how a "great" country can have certain facts be the case (child poverty rates of such and such a percentage, or whatever), and that's when the common sense questions I listed above can come in. We can ask why there are still children living in poverty (at all, or at the level it is at in the United States). It's another question to ask whether anything can be done about it, and how... and so on.