Sandra Johnson58 said:Strawman.☕ Just because there's regulation doesn't mean it's automatically communism. I mean, look at those mega capitalists in the West you're always swearing by—the second a crisis hits, they're the first ones running to bail out the banks and the auto industry using money they squeezed out of regular citizens. Like, seriously, if something goes wrong with Volkswagen or even Airbus, France and Germany jump in immediately to protect them, whether it's through under-the-table deals, guarantees, or just heavy political lobbying to make sure those companies land global contracts. When they do that, everyone calls it capitalism and thinks it's cool, right? But the moment we try to save our own shipyards, suddenly it's "terrible" and we get lectured by all these hypocrites from the West. Since we have such spineless people in charge here, they just take those lectures lying down and apologize, instead of showing some backbone and throwing their own interference and corporate favoritism right back in their faces. Now, my opinion that we shouldn't bother saving anything because we should just keep doing things the old way... well, that's a different story and probably our own fault.
And who actually said that government intervention is a good thing in certain cases over in the West? Not a single soul, apparently.
It’s a good thing you brought up the shipyards. Those places are nothing but bottomless money pits whose peak achievement is churning out a basic tanker. And wouldn't you know it, it's never profitable because China and Korea can pump them out for pennies. So what’s the solution? Just throw more cash into that black hole without changing a single thing? 🙏 All these shipyards, petrochemical plants, steel mills, and the like are chronic losers; most went bankrupt back in the early 80s and remain a gaping wound in the American economy. Take certain chemical plants, for example. Have they ever actually turned a profit? It would probably be cheaper to just hit them with a tank of gasoline and light them up—it would cause less damage overall.☕
Just look at Ireland as an example. It used to be a chronically impoverished nation due to its messy history. And yet, look at them now! They’ve managed to surpass the UK in GDP per capita. Isn't that incredible?
Sandra Johnson58 said:Look, Americans aren't exactly my role model for much, but I gotta admit they've got a solid setup when it comes to associations. You've got your for-profit groups and then your non-profits, and honestly, you shouldn't even have to explain the difference. Even in the States, those non-profits get funding, but usually only if they're local and actually working directly with people. Those big national non-profits that basically just exist to philosophize? They mostly just live off donations.
Look, the USA isn't perfect by any stretch, but their system is certainly miles ahead of our chronically failing state.
ruggedjackal46 said:The same logic applies to every nation operating under the system you're defending—especially the US. So, what's the grand plan here? Just double down on this path and hope for the best?
Corruption is impossible to eradicate because it's baked into human nature. That’s why we need to keep the government's hands out of everything as much as possible.
Wait, let me get this straight: people are inherently corrupt, so the solution is to give them less regulation? I'm struggling to follow that logic.
Heaven forbid we actually follow the American model! 🤣 I suppose we should look to Venezuela or Greece as our guiding lights instead, right? ☕
No, the real issue is that since people are prone to corruption, we need to strip away the opportunities for it to happen. Let them deal with their greed in a truly free market.
Sid, our budget is basically a fantasy—it looks more like a Ponzi scheme waiting to collapse at any second. We're living entirely on borrowed time and credit.
Corruption is impossible to fully root out because it's just baked into human nature. Isn't it obvious? That's why we need to get the government's hands out of everything.
ruggedjackal46 said:So, what's the plan? Cut off all the funding for non-profits, privatize every single government-owned company... What exactly is the state supposed to spend tax dollars on then? Or should we just dismantle the government entirely?
What budget money are we even talking about? The government survives on massive debt precisely because the budget is so bloated.
The government's role should be focused on its core functions, like the judiciary (ensuring legal certainty), maintaining order, and national defense—which, in a broader sense, includes responding to emergencies like fires and floods.
It isn't the government's job to manufacture instant soup packets or fund various non-profit organizations!🙂
Matthew Young35 said:What kind of membership are we talking about? Are you referring to the general population count? Because that’s hardly what constitutes actual membership.
I’m talking about church membership—honestly, I'm not sure how much clearer I can make that for you! 🤷
Matthew Young35 said:The non-profit sector consisting of 300 members—specifically those organizations you seem to take issue with—doesn't even receive a fraction of what the Church receives. You tend to dump all the funding onto the very associations you dislike (which, by the way, includes a massive number of religious groups). The Church would be the first to revolt if all non-profits were stripped of government funding, because they would lose an incredible amount of money in the process.
Even if the Church did revolt, frankly, I couldn't care less. ☕ I'd pull the funding for everyone.
And when you look at the numbers, the disparity in funding is actually much smaller than the disparity in membership.
brightpilot6 said:But what, precisely, constitutes a "leftist platitude"?
Oh, you know, it's just the idea that a tiny little non-profit organization with maybe 300 members somehow holds some historical right to receive massive amounts of funding—just so they can play on equal footing with organizations that have millions of members. Why? Because that's just... hmm... "fair," right?
What’s actually fair is for all of them to collectively drain the budget so we don't end up looking like a tiny, bankrupt Greece.
brightpilot6 said:Of course, the true cancer of our society is those donations to non-profit organizations 🙏
Which are, naturally, nothing more than a collection of useless parasites and high-society leftists.
They act as if we should just go ahead and shut them all down. Why not?
But before we do that, let’s suggest we stop giving anything to the church for a thousand years while handing these groups 10% of the GDP every single year, and then we can draw a line in the sand and see who actually survives.
What classic leftist rhetoric, right? 🤣
Yet, somehow, these idle workers from non-profit organizations manage to boast about having millions of members.🤷
It’s always the same story: five scruffy slackers gather at a bar, decide to form some parasitic association based on "philosophy," and suddenly they think they deserve 10% of the federal budget.🙏
I’ll tell you what the difference is: I say "shut everyone down," whereas the lefties only want to "shut down" specific people. That’s the real distinction, isn't it?
Honestly, they should just cut off all the funding and call it a day. But of course, these folks are already jumping for joy over the church's involvement 🤦
The whole point of an association should be to actually function as one. In the US, most of these aren't even real organizations; they're just parasites, no matter what kind of virtuous image they try to project.
And this whole thing about "grant projects" is honestly laughable. Look, we’re a relatively small country, and I think we can all see through the charade. These so-called projects are nothing more than fairy tales designed to suck money straight out of the pockets of American taxpayers.
You can't really expect anyone from the Left to spend their own hard-earned cash, can you? They operate entirely on a "our ideas, your gasoline" mindset!
Honestly, one of the biggest scams out there has to be how they funnel "aid" through those specific channels meant for people in need. Huge sums of money flow through those systems, yet the actual people who need help end up receiving nothing but crumbs. But hey, as long as it looks like the government is stepping up to help, right?