Honestly, he’s being ridiculous. He’s opted for this grand performance instead of actually fighting against a corrupt system using the very institutions built to handle it.
If he were acting like a rational adult, he would have simply sent an email to Andrej Plenković; that is how sensible people operate.
Rather than advising parents to find a way to fund those millions themselves, he demands the government pick up the tab for expensive medical treatments for the critically ill. It is nothing more than blatant statism.
I’ve found myself wondering more than once what might happen if an average person just finally snapped, driven to some sort of extreme act by the sheer desperation of living in this dysfunctional country. Imagine a guy traveling all the way from a city like Seattle up to D.C., carrying a cross on his back, only to be met by some bloated, corrupt 🙏🙏
The real issue isn't just why there's money for fighter jets but none for sick children. I suppose you have to have the planes, one way or another. But the real question is how there is enough capital to fund constant theft, laziness, and pure wastefulness, yet somehow there’s nothing left for the kids? Or even for those new jets we keep hearing about.
Honestly, if someone here actually set themselves on fire like that monk in Vietnam, it wouldn't move the needle for anyone. It’s just not like things in Istanbul or during the era of the partisans and fascists.
Jessica Gonzalez said:Facebook is honestly wild; it’s incredible how Zuckerberg managed to build such an empire. I remember back in 2007 when things were really taking off here in the States, and that "poke" feature was easily the coolest thing around. 🙏 I guess if you showed some top-tier economist or business mogul from a century ago how easy it is to lose $58 billion in a single day nowadays, they might not even believe what planet we're living on.
You're spending way too much time watching Beverly Hills.
Well, I was just sitting here waiting for the inevitable "ivory tower" argument to surface.
God, these battle-hardened capitalists and seasoned practitioners think they know it all, 🙏🙏 as if they’re all running massive conglomerates in some idealized version of the American Dream.
If you tell them eight times in a row that nobody wants more government interference, they’ll still act shocked the ninth time someone suggests it. One has to wonder if people with that kind of cognitive flexibility are actually in demand in the job market.🙏🙏
By the way, we didn't even officially abolish slavery here in the States until the 19th century.
wiredfalcon2 said:The real reason America is lagging behind other major players is this constant legal instability. It’s a mess—corrupt laws, overlapping regulations where you’re basically breaking the law just by existing, and rules that change every five minutes. If you could actually settle a lawsuit in a reasonable timeframe or plan a business strategy for the next five or ten years without the floor dropping out from under you, the economy would actually take off. Honestly, tax rates aren't even the main issue here, nor is how the government spends the money. On a global scale, we’ll finally see some real growth once we become more like the Americans in places like Seattle, where only about 21% of people are religious.
As long as a single, interconnected web of corrupt elites maintains its stranglehold on every lever of power, the actual size of the government becomes a secondary concern—it really doesn't matter whether the state officially manages a dozen agencies or fifty. If they aren't bleeding you dry through the direct embezzlement of taxpayer funds, they’ll simply pivot to squeezing you through the privatized essentials that society can't function without, like healthcare, waste management, or the power grid. And let’s be realistic: legitimate entrepreneurs won't stand a chance against them. Instead, the theft just shifts toward those shady, backroom dealings, all while the judicial system remains utterly unreliable. As a business owner, you’d face the exact same instability, only now a small circle of insiders would get even richer while the number of people scavenging for scraps in the streets would likely triple.
I don't think anyone is actually calling for an expansion of the state; rather, we are simply pointing out why an extreme or rushed "liberalization" is a terrible idea given our current social climate and the state of our institutions.
The kind of liberalization you’re describing would be nothing short of a death sentence in our current climate. We still need those lingering little guardrails—the ones meant for the few who actually possess a shred of conscience, or perhaps those safety nets designed to catch the losers of the transition era (which, let's face it, accounts for most of the population here)—and those barriers need to stay standing.
Our first priority has to be fixing the foundation of the state, specifically by establishing some semblance of basic legal certainty and holding our political elites accountable, which is easily the most grueling task we face. Only once we’ve tackled that can we even begin to have a serious conversation about whether our economy should be more or less liberalized.
Unless, of course, the actual goal is to accelerate our collapse so we can finally burn it all down and start from scratch, though I suppose there's a certain grim logic to that idea.
Justin James10 said:We're talking about a liberal economy here—small, streamlined, efficient government, and a solid rule of law.
Even today, despite all the social programs and tax hikes, don't they still rank among the freest economies out there?
With half a millennium of feudal oppression and ideological brainwashing finally stripped away—that constant, nagging lie that being downtrodden was somehow for the greater good—they actually had a genuine opportunity to walk the straight and narrow. I’m not quite sure what you're getting at here; are you suggesting we should have started this whole process back in the mid-eighteenth century? Or perhaps you think we should have waited until the fifteenth?
Justin James10 said:Oh, please... everyone loves to talk about those massive Scandinavian social safety nets, but nobody ever wants to discuss the actual grind it took to build that kind of prosperity. It’s such a classic case of wanting the prize without acknowledging the work 🤦
And I have to wonder, what exactly is this "path" they supposedly bypassed?
I wasn't actually addressing you; we’re essentially talking about apples and oranges here.
Fixing a dysfunctional government isn't as simple as just tweaking a handful of administrative functions to make them run smoother. If you try to patch up a few holes while the foundation is rotting, what you're left with is still broken enough to ruin everything else. After all, if the justice system remains sluggish and ineffective, even the most streamlined bureaucracy in America will eventually feel like a living hell.
When it comes to public funding, I honestly struggle to wrap my head around how anyone thinks amateur sports—you know, those youth leagues we all grew up in—could actually function without support from the government or local community organizations, whether that’s through logistics or direct funding. It’s the same story with literature.
But I suppose those things don't carry much weight for you all; after all, you can't exactly eat them, wear them, or use them to get ahead in life, can you?
Yet, the moment a nation like Sweden starts paying for translations of their authors into obscure languages like ours, suddenly they're viewed as a cultural superpower exerting dominance over us.🙏
Justin James10 said:Wouldn't it be much more honest to just pull the plug on all this funding entirely? You seem bothered by veterans' groups, while others are annoyed by those street philosophers hanging around downtown. Why don't we just cut everyone off and clear them all out of the budget? Why should we fund these phantom organizations just to maintain some rotting compromise? 🤷
And now, suddenly, they’ve decided to slap a sustainability levy on small and mid-sized businesses regarding forest management 🙏 It's practically a tax on breathing 🙏
I wasn't actually trying to steer the conversation toward that extreme; I was simply responding to the outcry regarding the supposed millions being wasted by specifically targeting those notorious anti-government elements.
ironpanther5 said:Yeah, tell me about it, I spent way too much time looking for this myself. 😁 Just keep hoping. Plus, a huge chunk of the cash flows through local municipal budgets and a mountain of different grants, so trying to track everything down with total transparency is basically a fool's errand.
EDIT: My first instinct was to check how much money the Church actually pulls in, since ruggedjack46 or someone else mentioned a figure in the billions. I stumbled upon an article from a liberal news site—something like CNN or maybe MSNBC, feels like that vibe. It wasn't that I felt any burning need to defend the clergy or anything, but I figured I’d better see what the actual numbers looked like before making a scene, only to see a headline screaming, "The Church received a billion from the federal government." I thought, "Are you kidding me? They really are pulling that kind of dough," but then I click the link and realize it turns out they received that amount over the last three years combined based on an audit (we're talking roughly $280 million, $390 million, $330 million, give or take). It’s still a massive, ridiculous amount, but it isn't a billion, so I told myself I had to double-check the math so I wouldn't look like an idiot. Then I see they also grab another $230 million for religious instructors, and suddenly everyone's making excuses that it's not just their people, but even those Marxism professors who teach religion would be out of a job otherwise. On top of that, there are tens of millions more for church renovations, building new parishes, and maintenance for historical sites—which, okay, fine, makes some sense if you consider it heritage preservation. By the end of it, you're easily looking at $700 million, not even counting the extra billion Matthew Young35 mentioned regarding various associations. At the end of the day, it's coming straight out of our pockets. Supposedly the Vatican gets 600, but nominally they receive less, though those other transfers bump the total up significantly. I have no clue what exactly is tucked away in those Vatican accounts.
Exactly, and quite a significant portion at that. Not to mention all the donations coming in from federal agencies and major corporations like JPMorgan Chase.
At the end of the day, none of them give a damn about any of it.
I would honestly expect to find these figures within three clicks on some government website, but apparently, that’s too much to ask. It’s 2018, yet the only thing remotely resembling an official report is a dusty file from 2014.
And frankly, I can't say I'm surprised, given how much shady business seems to go on behind the scenes in this corrupt administration.🤦
ironpanther5 said:Oh, thank you so much for ensuring America didn't burn to the ground or for making sure the blind aren't just left sobbing on the floor. Truly, we owe it all to you.
Is there actually a single veterans' organization included on this list? Or did you, in your infinite objectivity, decide to only feature these old-school Marxist-fascist types?
Does anyone actually know how much taxpayer money these anti-American elements pull in annually? Is there any concrete figure out there?
Paul Sanders5 said:How did women even fall for that stuff? Nobody forced them into marriage at gunpoint. It drives me crazy seeing people constantly looking for accountability in everyone else while dodging it themselves.
It's basically the perfect snapshot of modern Western society.
Look, if you find yourself getting mugged on a Saturday night, or if you wrap your car around a pole in the middle of a sunny afternoon because you weren't paying attention, you can't really act surprised. You knew the risks were there; all the warning signs were staring you right in the face.
And yet, you still head out to the local dive bar for a few rounds, or you decide to drive to work after a heavy night. Then, predictably, you're the one calling 911 or demanding that your insurance provider cuts a check to cover the fallout.
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?
But what, precisely, constitutes a "leftist platitude"?
