Because automating your job means that the job no longer exists? I have had many bosses. The best of them would do as you say (I hope), the rest would have just "let me go." I can't eat praise.

Youâ(TM)re right. I don't have much knowledge about charities. What information I have comes from the news, which is always when something has gone catastrophically wrong. Most of those stories are from the other side though, refusing to adopt to gay people, refusing to allow gay people from participating in events, etc..

That the government is uncontrollable is kind of our fault. Somebody's sig from ages ago: Ballot, soap, ammo - use the boxes in order.

I know and it lights my fire more than anything else. Why does righteousness lead so easily into self-righteousness? (Of course, the mirror shows my face.)

In the healthcare field, how is more regulation bad? I assume that, since regulation is burdensome to the market, most of them stem from "Well, hundreds of people died because we weren't doing that, so now we have to do that." Fresh gloves would be a good example.

Salacious B. Crumb did pretty well too. (Yes, I had to look the name up.)

I like, in a sarcastic way, how you skirted the idea that charities would only help those they deemed worthy. I suspect that 'lazy' has a wealth of meanings for you. I am familiar with Charity Navigator. I would point you towards Rotten Tomatoes, which was, more or less, subverted the moment the big movie studios took a hit in profits they could trace back to the site. Do you think that the mega-churches would fail to do the same to Charity Navigator?

Republicans whine about unfunded liabilities, then spend big. If they were concerned about government debt, they wouldn't add to it every time they get into power. Also, stuff like Social Security was designed to be "unfunded." We pay taxes to fund those currently on SS, as future generations are to pay for us. The only way the system breaks down is if people stop paying taxes (which could come about from a number of apocalyptic scenarios).

Again, this comes back to you and those like you. This belief that anything that doesn't directly benefit you is a waste of money, no matter the net benefit to our society as a whole, that people who need assistance are just "lazy." It is short-sighted, narrow-minded, and it is dragging the US down more effectively than any outside agent ever could.

Charities don't give the money out equitably. For the most part they have an agenda and you either have to meet a criteria or do something for the charity. What happens to the people who don't meet the criteria or are incapable of what is asked? Gay youth make up something like 40% of the homeless children. I can guarantee you that most of the Christian charities would ask them to "renounce their wicked ways" before helping them. Since being gay isn't a choice, that would be a little difficult for the kids to do.

Charity isn't a guarantee. You say charity would be a more robust net and that may be true for some, but the net would definitely have larger holes in it than the one the government provides. A thin blanket is better than none at all.

I would also point out that terrible people always find a way. If we were to switch to social safety nets based on charity, there would immediately be people taking advantage of both sides of the system. The rich would use their promises of donations to distort the missions of charities to favor the rich and the scammers would set up shop finding ways of getting more than they should. That is inevitable.

In fact, while writing this, it occurred to me that shifting everything over to charity would allow for much less oversight. There would be more grift. What is the purpose of that? The charities that you know may be stellar, but you can't deny there are terrible people out there willing to use the word "charity" to make money. Heck, our president uses his "charity" to pay off his legal fees. It's like we are in a cave of scarcity and you anti-government people want the rest of us to throw away the flashlight. And it really sounds like you just don't want to pay taxes for the programs that you disagree with and to hell with other people.

Also, Medicare alone is 702 billion dollars per year. 402 billion isn't going to cover it.

Also, also, I realized that the system you are suggesting would resemble the scholarship system for colleges. Have you ever applied for scholarships? It is a PITA. It is always not enough, there are always conditions on the money, and you always find the great ones after it is too late to apply. Scholarships are what happen when you leave college tuition funding to charity.

There is a better word. Socialism.

You were trying to incite doubt, but you really just revealed that you've never been in a job with a prolonged physical component.

You act like this is a point, but the only thing that has been holding up a compromise bill in Congress is the reduction in legal immigration that the hard right wants.

You're right, I don't know where I got 10 years from. The price of eyeballing graphs...

Come on, do your research.

Obamacare did limit healthcare cost growth, until the individual mandate was repealed. Socialized medicine would control those costs even more effectively. Every other developed country in the world does universal healthcare. They also have an average of 10 years higher life expectancies.

Compassion does not equal "open borders." We have always been a nation of immigrants (where the ones who have been here long enough to forget they were immigrants are racist against the new generation). Chain migration is just a cruel way of saying family migration. Put yourself in your own shoes. In a zombie apocalypse, if you could decide what family to save (limited to parents, spouses, siblings, and children), is there any you would be willing to leave behind?

The social security thing is too twisted an issue to address. As far as I can tell, it was designed to be "raided." The money is converted to government bonds and the government spends the money on stuff it wants, including current Social Security payments. If we continue to make money as a country (or raise our debt ceiling), the bonds are paid back. I am not a fan of this, but seeing how fiscally irresponsible the Republicans are, I would not want them making decisions about my Social Security anyway.

So you wish it, so it must be so. Sorry.

I didn't read this article, but the one I did read noted that they are using twisted pair wires. The twist method is not perfect and, at the Lilliputian scale the thrust is measured on, those imperfections are enough to produce the resulting torque.