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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Any particular reason you don't agree with her conclusions? They seemed rather spot-on to me.
It's also an argument I've used with the abortion debate - that while I can genuinely give Sarah Palin respect for going through with her pregnancy with Trig, the fact remains that she was independently wealthy with a large support network, which gives a tremendous advantage when raising a Special Needs child. For a single mother in the inner-city or living in a trailer park, the options are far more limited, especially if they're on bad terms with their family members.
Edited by ironballs16 on Apr 6th 2019 at 11:49:45 AM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"![]()
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That's the typical Libertarian rejoinder, and it asymptotically approaches meaninglessness every year nothing is done because it would mean the government gets involved. If not them, who?
Yeah, we definitely need better childcare in this country. Too many women are forced to give up their careers in order to take care of their kids. It’s almost never the fathers, either. The best way to avoid that situation is to focus on making it easier to have a family while also keeping your career. And the government needs to make that possible.
My own mother wasn’t as lucky as Warren was. She did end up having to quit her job in order to take care of us, until my older siblings were old enough to babysit for her.
>If not them, who?
Us.
I'm a big believer in people voluntarily cooperating to do things. If the government can do it, then we can probably do it better or cheaper, sometimes both. What makes me skeptical about government is that the solutions tend towards not being voluntary cooperation. It tends towards forcing people to do or not do certain things. Sometimes, that's what's got to happen, we don't have other alternatives. I guess I'm just optimistic enough to think that a good society should be obtained with a minimum of forcing people to do things they don't want to do.
Which would be great if it worked. But Humans being the selfish brutes that they are, some element of coercion is the only way to get things done in the long term with any measure of success.
Not saying that voluntary cooperation doesn't yield results - it does. I'm saying it doesn't happen enough to be reliable - which necessitates Government intervention. There is no way around this - at least, I personally don't see any way through, and I may be completely wrong about it.
I hold the secrets of the machine.
x4 And how do you propose that we handle it, then? Because it would seem to me that your proposed solution is both vague and unreliable.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Apr 6th 2019 at 12:46:16 PM
Oh God! Natural light!Who is "us" in that scenario? Neighbors, friends? What if they don't have the time to help? Employers, perhaps? But is a fast food joint going to (or even be capable of) providing a means to watch your kids in the same fashion as a larger corporation?
Your reluctance to involve government is the exact reason these problems don't get solved, because no other entity can operate with the scale or authority required to solve them.
It's worth noting also that a government like the US government is, contrary to popular belief, actually quite capable of being competent in certain areas. This is an organization that put humans on the moon enough times to get bored of doing so.
@Soban: My counter-argument to that is that the government is "us". If We The People voted for child care services, then We The People have agreed to pay for them.
Leviticus 19:34And from a more economic pov, this is a good idea too. If working parents have access to decent childcare, that means they can go make money rather than make the Sadistic Choice of giving up their job or leaving their kids unsupervised. Which means they will be spending that money and paying more taxes.
Disgusted, but not surprised"Us.
I'm a big believer in people voluntarily cooperating to do things. If the government can do it, then we can probably do it better or cheaper, sometimes both. What makes me skeptical about government is that the solutions tend towards not being voluntary cooperation. It tends towards forcing people to do or not do certain things. Sometimes, that's what's got to happen, we don't have other alternatives. I guess I'm just optimistic enough to think that a good society should be obtained with a minimum of forcing people to do things they don't want to do."
Utter nonsense — voluntary aid maintains an underclass of the deprived by avoiding systemic changes in funding and infrastructure. Progress doesn't happen when you rely exclusively on personal virtue.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Plus that tends to reinforce economic and racial inequality. See: white/rich public schools with booster clubs who raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for new athletic fields, while Black/poor public schools have faulty water mains dating back to the 1970s.
Edited by wisewillow on Apr 6th 2019 at 1:14:08 PM
We are the government, of the people by the people, us acting to help one another is why we invented government, it’s not some mystical entity that acts on this own, it is the system though which we as a collective act.
No act of charity will match the good that we do by paying our taxes, the fact that so few people take true civic pride in paying their taxes shows that much of the charity we see is a for show.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
I perfectly agree about the "we are the government so paying taxes is important" bit (even though I am very much at odds with the current government of my own country). But about the pride in paying taxes, I think for that we would need a chance to feel that those taxes are put to good use and not wasted lining pockets.
As for "whatever the government can do, we can do cheaper" that is definitely true.

Here’s a link to a transcript
of Warren’s full speech. The excerpt the tweet included in my previous post is below.
I loved teaching so I did whatever it took to make it work. Taking care of little ones, cooking and cleaning, doing laundry at 11:00 at night.
It was hard, but I could do hard. It was exhausting, but I could do exhausting.
The thing that eventually pulled me down? Yup. Childcare.
One memory is still burned into my brain. Going in late in the afternoon to pick up Alex from daycare. There he was, dirty face and miserable in a soggy diaper. I tried to lay him down to change him, but he started kicking and screaming. Finally, I picked him up, along with his bag of stuff, and headed to the car. He kicked and screamed louder and louder, as I dropped things and got more and more upset. I stood there in the parking lot with baby snot and pee on my clothes, unable to get the car door open, completely overwhelmed.
In the previous few months we had tried it all. A baby sitter. A neighbor with kids. A daycare center. Another day care center. Everything had fallen apart.
One night, after I’d put both kids to bed, my 78-year-old Aunt Bee called long-distance from Oklahoma to see how I was doing. I said, “Fine.” Then, with no warning, I started to cry. I just couldn’t hold it together any longer. I blurted it out: I told Aunt Bee I was going to quit my job. I hadn’t thought about it, but everything came crashing down, and the words just fell out of my mouth.
I cried. I sobbed. I heaved. Finally, I blew my nose and got a drink of water. Then Aunt Bee said eleven words that changed my life forever. “I can’t get there tomorrow, but I can come on Thursday.” Two days later, she arrived at the airport with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy – and she stayed for 16 years.
That story tells a basic truth: nobody makes it on their own.
And it tells another basic truth: without childcare, millions and millions of American families simply won’t make it at all.
Edited by wisewillow on Apr 6th 2019 at 11:25:52 AM