Another reason to ask about the Closed Books...

[_Abinadi's Fire]

Ironically, the spiritual blessings received in the Temple are dependent upon temporal means.

[_harmony]

"There really isn't poverty in the US" is a favorite mantra among the right-wing that would like to dismantle the entire social support system in the US and still be able to sleep at night.

Of course there is poverty in the United States, a lot of it caused by wrong headed social policies over the last 50 years. Dismantleing it would probably cause a lot of people to starve. Keeping it going is spirialing us down into more and more poverty. What is your suggestion?

Spiraling who down into more and more poverty?

According to the Dept of Health and Human Services: "In 2003, 3.6 percent of the total population was dependent in that they received more than half of their total family income from TANF, food stamps and/or SSI (see Indicator 1). While higher than the 3.2 percent dependency rate measured in 2002, the 2003 rate is lower than the 5.2 percent rate measured in 1996. Overall, 3.4 million fewer Americans were dependent on welfare in 2003 compared with 1996. "

link: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators06/execsum.htm

I'm not sure what you're saying, charity, but it appears your impression is not the same as the federal government's. We've moved several million people off the welfare roles in the last 10 years. Which wrong-headed policy were you referring to?

[_harmony]

Ironically, the spiritual blessings received in the Temple are dependent upon temporal means.

That particular tidbit makes me wonder if tithing was a requirement back when temples were first being built? Somehow I doubt it.

[_Abinadi's Fire]

Ironically, the spiritual blessings received in the Temple are dependent upon temporal means.

That particular tidbit makes me wonder if tithing was a requirement back when temples were first being built? Somehow I doubt it.

I think the Book of Mormon has a far different take than current doctrines on who the poor are and how they are to be helped, both spiritually and temporally.

[_beastie]

Of course there is poverty in the United States, a lot of it caused by wrong headed social policies over the last 50 years. Dismantleing it would probably cause a lot of people to starve. Keeping it going is spirialing us down into more and more poverty. What is your suggestion?

Well, this has the potential to go completely off tangent, so I'll try to keep my comments brief. Capitalism is not a system that naturally has a social conscience. Human beings are not created equal in terms of potential and ability. Unfettered capitalism is brutally "darwinian", using the word in the negative sense that the powerful will be rewarded and the weak eliminated. However, we also possess a social conscience and a sense of obligation to the greater good, so we're uncomfortable with unfettered capitalism. We tinker around the edges in order to provide some net for those who will simply fall off altogether - often for no fault of their own other than accident of birth. Some of the children I teach, for example, just do not have the intellectual where-with-all to make it without some aid and support, particularly when so many producing factories have fled the US for a preferred climate (like no minimum wage and people will work for literal slave wages). The social policies you call "wrong headed" are the nets to catch people like this. True, it can be abused, but anything will be abused. The problem is that these nets aren't free, and we lack the will to pay for them as we go and instead accumulate massive debt which then cripples the entire system. Social security, in and of itself, isn't the problem, but the problem is that our leaders have consistently raided social security funds for other projects. Would you really prefer to return to the society we had before these "wrong headed social policies" were implemented, and poor houses were needed in every community, largely to house the aged? But I'm sure, based on the statements you've made thus far, that we are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum in this regard, and I'm not interested in continuing a detailed discussion of it. I simply wanted you to admit that there is real poverty in the US.

To return to the topic, at least you now admit there is real poverty in the US, and not simply spoiled adults who want Ipods and new cars. Unless you have good evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that there are not truly impoverished people in the rank of the LDS church as well as elsewhere. And, again, you must recognize the severe poverty in third world countries that also have LDS.

[_charity]

"There really isn't poverty in the US" is a favorite mantra among the right-wing that would like to dismantle the entire social support system in the US and still be able to sleep at night.

Of course there is poverty in the United States, a lot of it caused by wrong headed social policies over the last 50 years. Dismantleing it would probably cause a lot of people to starve. Keeping it going is spirialing us down into more and more poverty. What is your suggestion?

Spiraling who down into more and more poverty?

According to the Dept of Health and Human Services: "In 2003, 3.6 percent of the total population was dependent in that they received more than half of their total family income from TANF, food stamps and/or SSI (see Indicator 1). While higher than the 3.2 percent dependency rate measured in 2002, the 2003 rate is lower than the 5.2 percent rate measured in 1996. Overall, 3.4 million fewer Americans were dependent on welfare in 2003 compared with 1996. "

link: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators06/execsum.htm

I'm not sure what you're saying, charity, but it appears your impression is not the same as the federal government's. We've moved several million people off the welfare roles in the last 10 years. Which wrong-headed policy were you referring to?

The link didn't work.

It is all in the defintions used. It makes the government look good to base figures on limited stats. SSI and food stamps are not the only welfare there is. There are housing subsidies, Medicaid, ADC, agrigulcure department food subsidies, the already mentioned school lunch program. The list goes on. Do you know that right now every child in day care is provided with two snacks and one meal per day courtesty of the federal government? (You can have your child in a pricey day care, and the government still feeds the kid. ) The day care provider only has to submit the number of children and the hours, and they get a check.

That like the cereal companies, when they had to list the ingredients in order. Rather than say sugar was #1, they divided sugar into high fructose corn sypup, sugar, glucose, etc. Tricky.

[_beastie]

Don't forget corporate welfare.

[Guest]

Of course there is poverty in the United States, a lot of it caused by wrong headed social policies over the last 50 years. Dismantleing it would probably cause a lot of people to starve. Keeping it going is spirialing us down into more and more poverty. What is your suggestion?

Well, this has the potential to go completely off tangent, so I'll try to keep my comments brief. Capitalism is not a system that naturally has a social conscience. Human beings are not created equal in terms of potential and ability. Unfettered capitalism is brutally "darwinian", using the word in the negative sense that the powerful will be rewarded and the weak eliminated. However, we also possess a social conscience and a sense of obligation to the greater good, so we're uncomfortable with unfettered capitalism. We tinker around the edges in order to provide some net for those who will simply fall off altogether - often for no fault of their own other than accident of birth. Some of the children I teach, for example, just do not have the intellectual where-with-all to make it without some aid and support, particularly when so many producing factories have fled the US for a preferred climate (like no minimum wage and people will work for literal slave wages). The social policies you call "wrong headed" are the nets to catch people like this. True, it can be abused, but anything will be abused. The problem is that these nets aren't free, and we lack the will to pay for them as we go and instead accumulate massive debt which then cripples the entire system. Social security, in and of itself, isn't the problem, but the problem is that our leaders have consistently raided social security funds for other projects. Would you really prefer to return to the society we had before these "wrong headed social policies" were implemented, and poor houses were needed in every community, largely to house the aged? But I'm sure, based on the statements you've made thus far, that we are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum in this regard, and I'm not interested in continuing a detailed discussion of it. I simply wanted you to admit that there is real poverty in the US.

To return to the topic, at least you now admit there is real poverty in the US, and not simply spoiled adults who want Ipods and new cars. Unless you have good evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that there are not truly impoverished people in the rank of the LDS church as well as elsewhere. And, again, you must recognize the severe poverty in third world countries that also have LDS.

Since I already had said there was, your whole lecture was not needed.

No, I would like to return to the system where both parents were responsible for their children, and deadbeat dads didn't leave their children in poverty. I would like to return to the system where didn't warehouse the elderly sick in understaffed nursing homes. I would like to return to the system where children were raised in their own homes and not in where they were taken care of by minimum wage transitory workers.

But that isn't going to happen. And when we put the responisiblity onto the shoulders of government, it fails miserably. Do you know right now that the accumulated cost of the welfare system is over $60,000 per family. How many families on welfare do you see getting that kind of money?

Of course there are impoverrished people in the Church. And as much as they will accept the help, they are given the proper kind of help which will support them and get them back kon their own feet where they take care of themselves and help others, too.

[_harmony]

It is all in the defintions used. It makes the government look good to base figures on limited stats. SSI and food stamps are not the only welfare there is. There are housing subsidies, Medicaid, ADC, agrigulcure department food subsidies, the already mentioned school lunch program. The list goes on. Do you know that right now every child in day care is provided with two snacks and one meal per day courtesty of the federal government? (You can have your child in a pricey day care, and the government still feeds the kid. ) The day care provider only has to submit the number of children and the hours, and they get a check.

That like the cereal companies, when they had to list the ingredients in order. Rather than say sugar was #1, they divided sugar into high fructose corn sypup, sugar, glucose, etc. Tricky.

All I see here is a further demonstration of the fact that you can't admit that you're wrong, charity.

Do you even know the critieria to qualify for any of those programs? Do you know that most of the people on food stamps also have children are on the subsidized lunch? Do you know anything about poverty? Real poverty? Not just poor... but poverty????

Hell, no, you don't. You raised your family on a teacher's salary. Try it on a laborer in a meat plant's wages. Or a migrant worker's wages. Or a fast food worker's wages. Or a day laborer's wages. Hell, no... you don't know how wrong you are. I know though. I'm one of that 3.4 million who got off food stamps.

'Nuff said.

[_beastie]

No, I would like to return to the system where both parents were responsible for their children, and deadbeat dads didn't leave their children in poverty. I would like to return to the system where didn't warehouse the elderly sick in understaffed nursing homes. I would like to return to the system where children were raised in their own homes and not in where they were taken care of by minimum wage transitory workers.

But that isn't going to happen. And when we put the responisiblity onto the shoulders of government, it fails miserably. Do you know right now that the accumulated cost of the welfare system is over $60,000 per family. How many families on welfare do you see getting that kind of money?

"Return"??? When did this idyllic state exist? What existed prior to the social nets being put in place were poor houses, orphanages, and children growing up in abject poverty without any external aid. Like my father did, who often only ate bread for lunch.

Certainly our current system isn't perfect, but it's better than what we once had, which was a society that, for all practical purposes, was a two-class society.