The Glade 4.0

But they made no mention of subsidies or handouts in the article...they are talking about the stupid rules of the endangered spiecies list which seem to put their families, livelihoods and property in danger which is something the government does enforce and control. RD is the one that brought up stuff about government money and what not.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Yeah, if you've got a ranch/farm, the Gov't is, in some way, giving you a "discount" at the very least.

A corollary to RD/The Author's comment is that the Fed is so intertwined in our lives, at all levels, that we've become used to it. Sad.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Do you have a similar attitude towards inner city derelicts living off of government money who are making absolutely zero effort to contribute to society and are just basically leeching?

I'd say that the difference there is that one group would be better off without the Gov't involvement...oh wait, they both would.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Don't know if he does, but I do.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I do. However, I suspect that the average urban welfare leech gets a fraction of the federal dollars that the rural ones do to prop up their farms.

Prepared to back that up ?

While likely true, there's also a lot fewer of them. I am curious who leeches more total money...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You going to count food stamps and disability supplements?

Sure, why not?

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

If they're complaining about the government being a burden on them, then yes, absolutely - they need to stfu. That said, there is a difference between programs designed to alleviate poverty and programs designed to support industries that are no longer economically viable. If a farmer can't turn a profit, I think there's a difference between giving him food stamps to feed his family while he changes careers and giving him cash to keep the farm going indefinitely.

I should note, I don't necessarily oppose all subsidies to farmers. At the federal level, I think there's a case to be made that we need to maintain national self-sufficiency in food production for security reasons. And at the state level, if VT (for example) decides it wants to preserve small family farms for cultural reasons, and VT voters are willing to tax themselves to do it, then more power to them.

I think the crux of this issue is being missed here. I don't care who is beholden to who, the fact of the matter that there is a law that would see to protect ANY animal despite the conditions it utterly absurd.

No animal is worth more than a human life.

_________________
This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

I disagree! However, this has nothing to do with the animal in question, and more to do with the particular human life in question. A select few human lives are worth less than ****...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

What I think is absurd is the claim that if you are receiving any kind of benefit from the government, that you aren't allowed to speak out against them.

Not beyond using simple logic. The cost of keeping an urban family of 4 in section 8 housing and food stamps has to be a fraction of the cost for proping up a production farm with a family of 4.

That said, Talya raises a better point, that it would be interesting to see what the total dollars are. The problem is that there are so many subsidies that artificially prop up the food industry as a whole, I'm not sure you'd be able to isolate the dollars on the farm end.

It would seem that even those select few human lives that have no intrinsic value, do still have a value based on the elements their body contains.

In 2007, that value was approximately 6.25 euros.
http://odyb.net/medical-science/91-inte ... an-bodies/

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No one is making that claim, though.

All RD has suggested is how asinine it is to take the attitude that the Federal government is a burden to your livelihood when the federal government is the source of your livelihood.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The federal government also spends billions upon billions on subsidizing the economically unsustainable livelihoods of the urban poor via welfare, housing assistance, nutritional assistance, education grants, etc. So does that mean that the poor have ceded any moral ground to complain about the federal government's laws/policies where it might affect them negatively (in the economic sphere)?

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

We have already gone over this. Keep up, Stath.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Someone made a statement, that doesn't mean the discussion is over...

Rough numbers, from WIKI, so... find better date if you like.

In short, US pays roughly $20B in subsidies, for 2% of the population. Assuming 300 million, that's $3,333 each.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States

Total welfare spending, from the Federal government only (not sure if the ag subsidies were fed only) is $176.6B (from link below, added family and children + housing).

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html

From here:

http://www.numberof.net/number-of-americans-on-welfare/

It looks like around 50.1 million are on welfare. That's $3,525 per individual.

That's closer than I thought it would be. I had assumed that due to sheer numbers, welfare costs would far outstrip farming subsidies.

Nevermind. You're narrowing it down to the people that use them.

I don't care bout that. What's the total cost per citizen?

Welfare subsidies, at 176B, are over $500 per US citizen. Farm Subsidies, at 20B, run only about $66 per US citizen.

Welfare is by far the bigger drain.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Talya:

My ultimate point really is that absolutely NO ONE should have to consider whether or not it is OK to harm/kill any animal at all if it is threatening their life or the lives of their family.

Would you sit back and let an endangered bear attack one of your children if you had the means to kill it only because it is endangered?

OK, I understand that there are laws on using deadly force when being attacked by another human, and rightly so.
"He threw his drink on me so I shot him." Not acceptable.

Don't try and tell me that someone has to stop and assess whether the bear is only going to be threatening or if it is actually going to eat them before they decide how to act.

_________________
This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

I agree, 100%.
My sidepoint was simply that there are several people whom I think should be eaten by bears.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █