The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I agree that government - at ANY level - has no business in deciding who adults should be allowed to marry - or how many. How is serial monogamy or serial unfaithfulness (adultery) better than plural marriage between consenting adults?

Good government is attainable but it becomes less likely when some economic groups are allowed special privileged influence in getting national &/or state legislatures to do their bidding and then their "play" is backed by the U.S. Supreme Court. All "voices" should be heard, but no one should have special access to the legislator's ear. Wr have laws against "insider trading" of stocks but no barriers to "insider lobbying".

Size of government is not a determinant of good or bad government. Good government does not allow any privileged groups to take advantage of less privileged groups because they control what that government will do. Alabama's state government is a good example of bad small government because it has always bent itself to the will of the economically powerful interests and continues to do so today. I hope one day this state will turn away from totalitarian one party rule to a more openly equal two party system. This is something it has never experienced in its almost 200 years as a state.

(07-23-2013 10:29 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  I am serious when I ask "What are the specific differences between "Tea Party" and "Libertarian" beliefs? On what major points do they differ? and how do they differ on them?

This is why I have a hard time discussing things with you. You first label me as tea party and then when I respond that I am not as I have stated numerous times you come back with this. You obviously only pay attention to certain things just as you stereotype the tea partiers as doing. I try to listen to both sides of everything and then read on it before forming my opinion.

And yes, big government is a problem. The founding fathers didn't want it for reasons we are seeing today. And you don't like the priveledged getting advantages because you aren't one of them, but if the rich were taxed more and your salary was increased 5% every year you probably wouldn't have had a problem with that. Then one could argue you were priveledged, no?

(07-23-2013 07:13 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  

(07-23-2013 10:29 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  I am serious when I ask "What are the specific differences between "Tea Party" and "Libertarian" beliefs? On what major points do they differ? and how do they differ on them?

This is why I have a hard time discussing things with you. You first label me as tea party and then when I respond that I am not as I have stated numerous times you come back with this. You obviously only pay attention to certain things just as you stereotype the tea partiers as doing. I try to listen to both sides of everything and then read on it before forming my opinion.

And yes, big government is a problem. The founding fathers didn't want it for reasons we are seeing today. And you don't like the priveledged getting advantages because you aren't one of them, but if the rich were taxed more and your salary was increased 5% every year you probably wouldn't have had a problem with that. Then one could argue you were priveledged, no?

BAD GOVERNMENT of ANY size is "a problem maker". GOOD GOVERNMENT of ANY size is "a problem solver". I am a firm believer that good government is a "necessary GOOD" for its people, and I don't judge it by how it affects me personally. My choices in life - to teach for my living - led to me being where I am and I accept that as my responsibility. If your business was sold tomorrow and the new owners let you go with two weeks severance, would you accept that as what you brought on yourself? That's what happened to my son-in-law in Indiana last winter when WEB.MD was sold and its services moved by the new owners to their own offices in PA.

I don't like privilege based solely upon how much money one can use to manipulate those who make our laws - even if the U.S. Supreme Court says it is their right. Yes, I believe in progressive taxation as in the theory of the 16th Amendment. It is Congress, through a web of increasingly complex tax laws, who has rendered the IRS a hopeless mess where relatively low wage government clerks must match wits with $100,000+ per year tax attorneys and accountants.

Congress has created some of the worst government we have ever had. Congress MAKES ALL LAWS and provides all the means by which money is collected and appropriated to be spent by all government branches. Any expenditure Congress opposes, they can end within 2 years by their "power of the purse" (unless the President sells U.S. owned weapon systems and then hides the profits in secret accounts to be spent on things Congress voted down).

Congress could have had us out of Iraq by the end of 2005 if they had acted under their Constitutional powers. Their refusal to end its funding and then to permit the President to continue to fund the 2 wars without putting their costs into the official annual budgets was bad government by both branches.

Yes, good government and bad government are just that regardless of size, but the size has a lot to do with it. When the government gets too big it controls too many aspects of everybody's lives. It becomes involved in things that are really none of its business.(steroids in baseball; is that a good use of our tax dollars?) The size and scope of our government is out of control, and people fail to recognize that this is a major issue.

What happened to your son in law happens all the time throughout the country. While most people don't bring that upon themselves, it happens. I would never fault him, or anybody else, for being put in that situation, but hopefully he did good work, made connections, learned a bunch, and was able to move onto something in the future.

I don't know what part of the 16th Amendment in theory suggests progressive taxation, but by all means believe what you want. We will never agree on how we believe taxes should work. And the IRS folks aren't paid that poorly, but they can only do so much. You can't catch every tax cheat, and when you do, you likely have to fight them in court. Everybody cheats the tax system though. Ever bought tomatoes from the guy on the corner? Ever mowed your neighbor's grass, washed their car, watched their pet, watched their child, etc? Ever made a bet with a friend and collected? There are so many ways that the tax system is cheated, we only hear about the major frauds.

I know who makes the laws. I know what the job of Congress is supposed to be. I don't think Congress has been worthwhile in a long time. Congress initially was set up to be a part time job, but as their salaries have increased as they've seen fit, maybe they should at least make it full time so they accomplish something every once in a while.

By that logic, Congress could have had us out of Iraq anytime since 2008 too. Why are we still there?

What's this "good government" of which you speak?

Hell, I'm game. Let's give it a shot.

(07-24-2013 08:45 AM)Smaug Wrote:  What's this "good government" of which you speak?

Hell, I'm game. Let's give it a shot.

Yeah, I'm waiting too. We haven't had it around here in a long time.

(07-24-2013 08:45 AM)Smaug Wrote:  What's this "good government" of which you speak?

Hell, I'm game. Let's give it a shot.

I can also give some guesses:

The one that doesn't listen to the rich
The one that taxes the crap out of corporations
The one that taxes the crap out of the wealthy(at least wealthier than me)
The one that raises minimum wage to unsustainable levels
The one that gives everybody food, health care, and housing without question

I'm sure there's plenty I'm missing.

Good government
A- listens to ALL of the people - not just the rich and powerful who can contribute to their reelection campaigns.
B- taxes corporations as businesses, not as individual persons as if they were persons
C- Taxes all by their ability to pay, based on their TOTAL income, regardless of its source
D- One that does not set (freeze) wages only for the poorest and least politically powerful.
E- One that makes sure its whole population has adequate food, educational opportunities, health care and housing and all the other things that "promotes the general welfare of all Americans" as instructed in the U.S. Constitution.

As you, Smaug and myself can't remember what "good government" looks like, it is because we have never seen it at either the state or national level in our lifetime. The Constitution does not guarantee good government, only the best its antiquated provisions can assure. We are no longer the bucolic rural individual family run 40 acre farm of Jefferson's and Washington's era.

Today's "farmers" are the likes of Archer, Daniel, Midland Co. and other such agribusiness corporate giants who farm almost 90% of the best arable soil in America. We can't live on working farms (the latest figures from Auburn say that a startup farm today requires capital of at least $500,000) and we don't wish to live in our cities, no matter how much we depend upon them.

Our American business leaders are often moving a majority of the jobs most Americans CAN DO to their outsourced factories in Asian and Latin American nations to maximize their profits. The Age of Jumbo cargo jets (like the Boeing 747-8) and 300,000+ ton high speed container ships have changed the production of many goods that Americans used to make but are now made overseas. Our political leaders can't stop these imports because they are what make the median range American worker able to clothe and furnish his family's home at our nation's declining wages. Those highly skilled manual labor jobs and very technically savvy jobs that are presently begging for workers are beyond what the majority of Americans have been educated to do.

Our nation's schools, like our nation's work force have been neglected because businessmen thought they only wanted minimally educated and docile workers. Like our nation's laws, the nation's schools will need time - perhaps decades - to make the cultural change needed to recover from turning out "ignorant and docile" to producing "skilled and capable" at some point later in this century. I hope we can afford to wait until it happens.

A) Our government does listen to all people. I'm pretty sure a lot of this country's rich and powerful did not want Obama as President, and he's been elected twice.
B) How would you tax Corporations? I don't understand your point here at all.
C) Again, define one's ability to pay. You keep using this phrase, but you never answer my questions about it. I would say even the person making $20,000 a year could afford $100 in income tax.
D) How are wages frozen for anybody in this country. I know plenty of people who have started a job working for minimum wage and worked their way up to decent salaries. There is a floor for what you can pay people, would you like that removed?
E) There is adequate food in this country. There is also a ton of wasted food. Restaurants/fast food places cannot donate food, because if somebody gets sick they can come back and sue. Everybody in this country has access to some form of health care. Everybody also has access to an education. Everything cannot be equal in all aspects of life. That is called socialism, or communism, and it has never, ever worked anywhere.

Yeah, big companies own big areas of farming land. Your point is?
And I think you are wrong about cities. Younger people tend to want to live in them, and as they get families started they tend to want to leave. It's not that people don't want to live in cities, it's that cities aren't necessarily a great place to raise families.

Yes, our business leaders are doing what they feel is necessary to maximize profits. What a crazy concept. I hate it that jobs like the old GM and Ford jobs aren't readily available anymore, but we've seen what the Unions have done to those companies long term now. Why would other companies take that risk?

Plenty of schools properly educate students. Plenty of students who fail in school do so because they don't care, and nobody in their lives care.

Maybe this country would turn back into the place it once was if instead of looking for somebody to blame for everything that goes wrong in our lives, we looked in the mirror and asked what we could do for ourselves.

Someone earlier in the thread said Ron Paul was a social liberal. Got a good laugh out of that one.

(07-25-2013 09:22 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  A) Our government does listen to all people. I'm pretty sure a lot of this country's rich and powerful did not want Obama as President, and he's been elected twice.

A lot of voters didn't vote for Obama but most of them did, so he won. Some who voted for Obama were wealthy people who felt he was the best choice and some poor voted against him for their own reasons.

B) How would you tax Corporations? I don't understand your point here at all.

How are businesses generally taxed? Corporations are really businesses so I suggest taxing them as such instead of finding artificial ways to give them tax breaks and legal immunities.

C) Again, define one's ability to pay. You keep using this phrase, but you never answer my questions about it. I would say even the person making $20,000 a year could afford $100 in income tax.

Our government has through acts of Congress decided who should pay and at what rate they should be taxed. Ability to pay should be your total income from all sources each year.

D) How are wages frozen for anybody in this country. I know plenty of people who have started a job working for minimum wage and worked their way up to decent salaries. There is a floor for what you can pay people, would you like that removed?

When Congress says the Minimum Wage is to remain $7.25 per hour, that is wage "fixing", and the only level Congress acts to "fix". That's a $7 increase since 1938 while family poverty income (which Congress can't fix) has exploded from under $1000 per year to over $23,000 per year.

E) There is adequate food in this country. There is also a ton of wasted food. Restaurants/fast food places cannot donate food, because if somebody gets sick they can come back and sue. Everybody in this country has access to some form of health care. Everybody also has access to an education. Everything cannot be equal in all aspects of life. That is called socialism, or communism, and it has never, ever worked anywhere.

There are thousands of hungry children in America, hundreds of thousands of American who lack access to QUALITY healthcare and wind up in ERs because they can't go to a doctor until they are extremely iil, and they have access to SOME level of education but there is no comparison between many inner city and rural districts and the well funded suburban districts - and not just in Alabama. Is the only way to have these services for all Americans only through nondemocratic means? That is indeed a chilling thought.

Yeah, big companies own big areas of farming land. Your point is?
And I think you are wrong about cities. Younger people tend to want to live in them, and as they get families started they tend to want to leave. It's not that people don't want to live in cities, it's that cities aren't necessarily a great place to raise families.

And why do young people want to move to suburbia when they have families? Is it perhaps because they know that if they want to count, they must move to where their state's politicians go for votes and because they know the cities are the "orphan step children" of their states and the nation?

Yes, our business leaders are doing what they feel is necessary to maximize profits. What a crazy concept. I hate it that jobs like the old GM and Ford jobs aren't readily available anymore, but we've seen what the Unions have done to those companies long term now. Why would other companies take that risk?

The principle seems to be to "make lots of money no matter what it costs America". Any other than the profit motive and all else be damned is apparently "liberal thinking". It was not the unions who designed cars noted for built in obsolescence, poorly designed to compete with foreign cars of equal prices but superior quality. Blame unions for their proper faults, but the whole industry suffered from ignoring the desire of Americans for good road worthy autos.

Plenty of schools properly educate students. Plenty of students who fail in school do so because they don't care, and nobody in their lives care.
"
"Blaming the victims" of American educational faults because they don't / can't live in the right places for access to the good "successful" schools is neither correct nor constructive. Our nation lavishes financial rewards on those who entertain us while coveting and pinching every penny we pay to teachers and political leaders.

Maybe this country would turn back into the place it once was if instead of looking for somebody to blame for everything that goes wrong in our lives, we looked in the mirror and asked what we could do for ourselves.

Back to what? Our 6th ranked Navy, our 15th ranked Army, our white male only voting population? What about Alabama schools operating only 3 months for Negroes and 6 months for most whites? If you "turn the clock back", you may find a lot of Americans on a much more disagreeable life style route.

I still don't get what you are saying about corporations and taxes. Did you just hear something on tv and decide to go with it? How do you understand they are taxed, and what would you change? I'm not getting what you are going with here...

Again, define ability to pay. When are you able to pay? How much should you have to pay? Should you get any tax breaks for anything?(think carefully about how many charities would go down the shitter if tax breaks weren't there) You keep using this phrase "ability to pay", but you have no defined meaning of it.

Again, would you like Congress to remove the minimum wage? It is there for a reason. And there are jobs open in restaurants across the country that don't require a degree that you make way more than $7.25 an hour at. Some people may choose to work a minimum wage job for certain reasons, but there are plenty of jobs that people with no degree/education can get in this country that pay more than minimum wage.

No, people with family tend to move to suburban areas for a different style of life. Cities are noisier, more crowded, have less space, have more crime, are more polluted, etc. I loved my apartment a right by the BJCC when I lived in Birmingham. I wouldn't want to raise a family in that area though.

We are a capitalist country. Why should a business owner be forced to hire American workers to create a product for 2X,3X,4X what the cost is in another country? You want to tax the **** out of everybody/thing, but then you want them to stay in America? Right. Maybe offer tax incentives for keeping jobs in the country? I'm all for American jobs, but at a certain point, the companies have to get fed up.

You can live in the right area. Even if you "don't", you can make it work. If the schools are so damn bad in certain areas, why don't the communities rally around the schools and make improvements? Why not all chip in and scrub the floors, paint the walls, fix things that are falling apart, and on and on? Why not help the teachers in any way possible? Parents are allowed to come into schools and help students at any school I've ever been at. You want to label people as victims of the system, but I want to label them as people who aren't trying to help themselves.

And again, what entertainers make has no relevance in this discussion. It sickens me at times too, but that's a completely different subject. Our tax dollars aren't funding entertainers.

Back to a F'ing hard working country. This country has lost a severe amount of work ethic, and everybody wants to place blame everywhere but on their own shoulders.

Everything doesn't have to go back to oppressing minorities. That happened before I was born, and again, I'm sorry you had to live through that. I don't want that to happen ever again, and I don't think many people in this country do either.

On your point about "why don't communities rally around their schools and make them better". These schools need classroom hardware that suburban school children can presently take for granted and that costs real money, not just "sweat equity". In Alabama , the local districts can only raise sales taxes without involving an act of the state legislature and a statewide referendum to pass yet another Amendment.

Since they are already a poor area, sales taxes are not a viable option to actually raise money, and without substantial political support - which none of the poorest areas have - they can't get any state legislative help to raise any other taxes. "Pep rallies" alone won't help much for these "failing schools".

Hoover, certainly not a poor area, is today having to cut back its school expenses unless it is prepared for the flack a request to raise local sales taxes would bring, or - GOD FORBID!! - ask the state legislature to let it raise district property taxes (like they did in Mtn. Brook) in some future year.

See, this is the issue with you. I make multiple suggestions, and you come back with we don't have what the rich suburban schools have. Clearly, those schools can not be good without the proper hardware. I don't know how schools in other countries without this stuff can educate their students.

And I'm well aware of the current structure of increasing taxes in Alabama. The sales tax is ridiculous in this state, but anytime any other effort is made, the people of the state vote it down.

If you live in a poor area where sales tax doesn't help, what other solutions do you have? How would you fund these areas fairly?

And I didn't say pep rallies. I offered legitimate solutions, and you chose to turn it around to they don't have the proper hardware.

There are over 200 countries in the world and many don't have what the top industrialized nations call "good schools", but many media outlets like to talk about the 30 or so at the top of the "economic ladder" and how their schools compare to American schools, usually to the detriment of US schools. I have asked the media outlets to compare American schools to those nations that have tens of thousands of autonomous, independent school districts as we do in the USA (133 in Alabama alone). So far, no answer has been forthcoming.

The only way to bring many rural and urban schools up to the present level of the better suburban schools is for their state to come up with the financial backing to enable these districts to hire the good teachers they want, not just have to hire those they can get and to provide their schools with the equipment and courses they now lack. The state says for all districts to "compete", but that is as realistic as demanding that UAB "compete" with Bama and Auburn in football and then say it's UAB's fault if it can't.

I point to Hoover because if they, with their financial advantages, are having to struggle financially, imagine how it has to be for the 90% of state school districts that can't even get close to that level of local support. Hoover wants to mimic Mountain Brook, but it has so far not raised the "Highest in the state" local property taxes that MB did years ago for their schools. The "rich suburban schools" have what they have because they invest in their local schools at levels that the "Bottom 100" districts can't.

So far, the state has simply ignored the problem or, since the new AA Law, has decided to punish them even more by depriving them of some state funding they presently receive and giving it to other schools.

Yes, the level of state and local sales taxes is ridiculous, but it remains (under the Constitution of 1901) the only tax a local government can enact and collect on its own, and it is collected on things even the poorest must buy. This is illustrated when there is a "sales tax holiday" every August for "back to school" purchases, and you have to look up what localities do or don't join in on it since the state part of the tax is only 4% of the 9%, 10% or even 11% total.

Would I like paying greater property taxes? No, since my income from the TRS and SS is based on my years of very low pay resulting in very low contributions to both. The one good thing is that I am paid all 12 months now instead of just 9/30 through 5/31 each year (which is still the state pay schedule for academic classroom teachers in Alabama). Any significant tax increase would be a real strain on our limited budget, but I'm used to it.

What exactly are your "legitimate solutions" that require no additional money and/ or hiring the best teacher candidates who don't often even apply to those more challenging schools. Most of the top teacher candidates prefer to go where there is more than barely adequate funding, better student attitudes and superior working conditions.

The highly localized spread of the 20 top state high schools that appear on the national list of the top 2,000 high schools indicates that most of our districts fall way down the list. The fact that the highest ranked comprehensive high school (MBHS) ranked #152 and was far above the rest in the state, indicates that our best are not seen as all that great.

As a community, take an interest in your schools. Help teachers out with time and money. Have local drives to raise money. There are ways to improve your schools without needing the state or federal government to bail your ass out. I can't help you with teachers, because who the hell wants to go to college and then live out in the sticks?

And for the last damn time, the top 20 schools in Alabama are not in the same type of areas. Cullman and Mountain Brook are not similar areas.

(08-06-2013 08:46 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  As a community, take an interest in your schools. Help teachers out with time and money. Have local drives to raise money. There are ways to improve your schools without needing the state or federal government to bail your ass out. I can't help you with teachers, because who the hell wants to go to college and then live out in the sticks?

And for the last damn time, the top 20 schools in Alabama are not in the same type of areas. Cullman and Mountain Brook are not similar areas.

"Help teachers out with time and money" - What time when you may be working two jobs, and what money when the local average income is less than $15,000 per year? "Local drives to raise money" - from whom? and how much can be raised in our poorest communities? How much was raised by the last "Bake sale" for Hoover schools?

NO ONE is asking to be "bailed out" but to expect the poorest schools to compete with the richest ones is to expect a level recruiting field between UAB and Bama. The state is under law, SUPPOSED to provide equal educational opportunities to ALL Alabama children and to not choose "favorites" while about it. That is not the way it has ever been. The state permits the LOCAL districts to take advantage of LOCAL wealth to provide more opportunities to only LOCAL students.

And Cullman, Hartselle, Huntsville and Florence schools have a lot more in common with Mountain Brook schools than with the schools of the poorest 100 districts.

(08-08-2013 01:09 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(08-06-2013 08:46 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  As a community, take an interest in your schools. Help teachers out with time and money. Have local drives to raise money. There are ways to improve your schools without needing the state or federal government to bail your ass out. I can't help you with teachers, because who the hell wants to go to college and then live out in the sticks?

And for the last damn time, the top 20 schools in Alabama are not in the same type of areas. Cullman and Mountain Brook are not similar areas.

"Help teachers out with time and money" - What time when you may be working two jobs, and what money when the local average income is less than $15,000 per year? "Local drives to raise money" - from whom? and how much can be raised in our poorest communities? How much was raised by the last "Bake sale" for Hoover schools?

NO ONE is asking to be "bailed out" but to expect the poorest schools to compete with the richest ones is to expect a level recruiting field between UAB and Bama. The state is under law, SUPPOSED to provide equal educational opportunities to ALL Alabama children and to not choose "favorites" while about it. That is not the way it has ever been. The state permits the LOCAL districts to take advantage of LOCAL wealth to provide more opportunities to only LOCAL students.

And Cullman, Hartselle, Huntsville and Florence schools have a lot more in common with Mountain Brook schools than with the schools of the poorest 100 districts.

You can't have it both ways. If you work two jobs at $7.25 and work 60 hours a week, you make $22,620 a year. I highly, seriously doubt that any one person is working two jobs at those wages. You either have some form of time, or some form of money. You aren't making jackshit working 2 jobs, and you have time if you are poor working one job. You can find a way to help out if you care. Who should care most about the people in their community? The community, or everybody else in the state/country. And I don't know how much money Hoover makes in a bake sale, nor do a give a damn. I live in Madison, and I care about the schools in Madison.

Yes, what you are asking for is a bailout. You are saying it isn't fair that these schools have so many more resources because those in the local community are rallying to support the schools. If a local district decides to provide more money to its schools, that isn't on the state, or anybody else to make up the difference between that schools and the poor ones. That is the problem with this country today. Johnny has something nice, so I should get it too. Work hard and make yourself something.

You been to Cullman, Hartselle, and Florence often? I lived in Florence, my dad works in Hartselle, and I can tell you a million horror stories about Cullman. They are not anywhere near Mountain Brook. Some of the Huntsville schools(I stress some) and the Madison schools are similar to Mountain Brook. My point stands.

"Johnny has a better educational opportunity than the kid in a rural county" so the state effectively says, "you get what your family and their neighbors can afford and if that is a poorer opportunity, so be it. it's not the state's fault that you lack MONEY and therefore the good schools it brings." Many in our state are quite comfortable with a statewide 40% high school dropout rate and an 18% (or less) Post secondary (JUCO and / or 4 year schools) graduation rate.

Since most of our suburban (and a few highly performing north Alabama comprehensive high schools) are saying they have single digit dropout rates, that has to mean the less fortunate schools are above that 40% state "average" level, but who is to care if it is Alabama children I don't know and who live far from me?

Besides, one can't "rally to the support of schools" if the discretionary money is not present to apply to the problem.

I can see the possibility that the Huntsville and Mobile metro areas may soon be #1 and #2 (in either order) in population and wealth by the middle of this century with metro Jeffco a close third (unless UAB is forced to reduce its economic profile over those same years). Many states can't afford one medical school and Alabama is presently trying to maintain two. What if the state legislature decides that in order to cut costs, they want to combine them to Mobile, a city much more in their favor than B'ham (Who got the second state public pharmacy school?).

If an Alabama worker makes $22,620 annually, he pays almost $600 in state income taxes (about $200 higher than GA or MS) plus his family support costs out of his NET, not GROSS, income. BTW, This amount puts him at about the state's median individual income so it is a very realistic statewide number.