There may be some validity to the argument that the cell phone is a necessity...

One answer to your query is: this cell phone "program" won't piss a single statist off. How could it when they're trying to regulate 20% of the American economy (health care) under the guise of covering "50 million" uninsured, which can be called nothing less than an outright lie (the number is more like 16 million).

What statists support is NOT charity, it's legalized theft from one group that earned their money honestly and giving it with no strings attached (except perhaps a vote or two--dead people welcome!) to parasitic fuckups.

Now before we hear from any indignant Obamadrones, it's important to note that there are, of course, many truly needy folks trying to do better. The statists know this too, and do an expert job of blending their voting base of parasitic fuckups in with the truly needy. It's a little power game for them.

^ what the hell is a statist?

Anyway QM, everyone in Canada is covered by healthcare provided via our taxes and the government, and my friends who moved from here to down south are now ruing the fact that if you add up health care insurance deductions + taxes in the US, they were actually getting a better deal up north, so I'm not sure how this spiel about 'regulating' the "20% of the economy" eaten up by healthcare makes sense.

Consider the idea that healthcare wouldn't eat up 20% of the GDP if it was more efficiently managed through a single administration instead of 100's of health care insurance companies.


Going back to the cell phone thing, that's hilarious/odd. But $8088 a year isn't much to live on - I'm surprised he even has a car.

no, what should REALLY piss you off is that fact that government provided free motorola 175 has voice dialing, and my goddamn iPhone doesn't.

How are you supposed to get a job anymore without a phone?

Have you considered the possibility that a cellphone with limited service probably costs less than a landline, especially if it's negotiated by the government as a large-scale deal?

You'd have been more likely to raise my ire with a story about subsidies for digital broadcast converter boxes. I understand why they did it, but I found that obnoxious.

BTW, QM, those digital broadcast converter boxes we're putting in people's homes? THEY'RE DEMOCRATIC MIND-CONTROL DEVICES! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

so if you work hard, stay healthy and hold a decent job....you get to pay for the guy who drank until his liver exploded, smoked until his lungs turned black, who sat on his ass without getting a job - to not only live and eat (you can easily pay rent and food for $674 a month) but to have a cellphone and pay his monthly bill?

10 years ago cell phones barely existed so don't even try to claim they are "necessary."

do you like big corporations? CEOs who make millions a year? that is who this benefits - they are tapping into a new market (poor people) by stealing from everyone else.

the only solution to this statist bullshit is tax evasion...

Cats and dogs living together! MASS HYSTERIA!

>> ^imstellar28:10 years ago cell phones barely existed so don't even try to claim they are "necessary."

50 years ago the computer...
100 years ago automobiles...
150 years age the telephone...
...
2000 years ago sanitation...
...
400000 years ago fire...


Even if we ignore the structural fallacy of your argument, I suggest you consider that this is actually something of which you should approve, because it is more economically responsible than the alternative.

I have both the cheapest land line and the cheapest cell phone service available in my area:

my cell costs $5 a month
my land line costs $10 a month

that is a 50% reduction is cost to the tax payer, that is unless you are going to follow your flawed argument at least to the telephone, at which point you might as well go all the way to sanitation, so that we know you are full of shit

^Are you suggesting food, water, shelter, and clothing (in certain climates) did not exist 400,000 years ago? Humans need these things regardless of geological time, which is why they are considered basic necessities. There is no fallacy in my argument.

How is theft and intervention "economically responsible" ? And what does you paying $15 a month for phone services have to do with anything? If its so cheap ($5) why doesn't this guy pay for it himself?

>> ^imstellar28:Humans need these things regardless of geological time, which is why they are considered basic necessities.

The basic problem with you position is that you use the word necessities, without specifying what these things are preconditions for. nothing is necessary without a goal.

If the goal is "sustain human life", then you still have to ask for how long, and in what condition?
Is it the objective of our society for people to live for 5min,4weeks,80years,1000years?
Under what conditions are they expected to live?

If we expect people to live as members of modern society in the US, then they need a phone, a car or access to mass transit, running sanitary water, a sewage system, a means of cooking and refrigerating food, money, access to police and medical care, etc. etc. etc.

While the "basic necessities" argument is cute/trite, it's also functionally meaningless. Societies require things of their members, and as societies become technologically advanced they require their members to have/use a certain basic level of technology, these things become necessities.

Having a phone in the US is a necessity, largely because it is a piece of social infrastructure which saves everybody immense amounts of time and effort.

^are you arguing that cell phones are necessary? If so, you epitomize everything thats wrong with this country.

Cellphones are a convenience. Like having a personal cook, or a personal chauffeur, or a personal gardener, or a personal slave. Having a slave (someone to till your fields, or someone to pay our cell phone bills) is real convenient if you are the slavemaster but its not so convenient if you are the SLAVE.

"If we expect people to live as members of modern society in the US, then they need a phone, a car or access to mass transit, running sanitary water, a sewage system, a means of cooking and refrigerating food, money, access to police and medical care, etc. etc. etc."

I guess they also need a microwave, a cable television, a garage, car, etc. Where do you draw the line in this arbitrary position? You just draw the line where your opinion ends, which as a mass-philosophy, is completely useless.

Christ, I was using a car as a ridiculous example but you included it in yours! I don't have a car or access to mass transit, wheres my free car? There are 300 million people in America, who is going to pay for all this free stuff???

>> ^imstellar28:
(you can easily pay rent and food for $674 a month)

Where? I live in a pretty low-cost (aka poor) area and the cheapest I've seen an apartment in the last few years is $600/month. I've also got a really crap stomach, so I eat a lot of cheap, bland food (pasta, soup, salad). Maybe I could live on say, $700/month if I gave up my car, my phone, heat, and shut off my electric and water.

>> ^imstellar28:
I don't have a car or access to mass transit, wheres my free car?

It's ok; I didn't have transportation when I lived with my mommy and daddy either. One day, when you're a big boy, you'll have a job and your own place and you can get a car then if you want.

^I've had rent varying from $245 a month to $1400 a month, but right now my house/food/fuel/insurance/internet/water/electricity/cellphone costs are less than $1000 a month.

Tell me what city you live in, and I'll send you a link to a hundred places with rent less than $600 a month. If you don't have much money, a roommate cuts rent in half...two cuts it by 2/3...etc. Living on $674 a month is really easy, and it wouldn't even be "toughing it out."

>> ^imstellar28:
so if you work hard, stay healthy and hold a decent job....you get to pay for the guy who drank until his liver exploded, smoked until his lungs turned black, who sat on his ass without getting a job - to not only live and eat (you can easily pay rent and food for $674 a month) but to have a cellphone and pay his monthly bill?

I think you are reading an awful lot into this guy's situation based on a fairly brief article. Especially the "sat on his ass without getting a job" part -- the article said he worked as a fisherman until his health prevented him from working.

What's your preferred outcome for someone in this situation? If he's unable to work, doesn't have family to support him, and has already exhausted his savings, what's supposed to happen to him then?

>> ^imstellar28:
^are you arguing that cell phones are necessary? If so, you epitomize everything thats wrong with this country.


You've missing the point.

1)
In today's society, to be a functioning member of society you need a phone. If you don't think you do, try getting a job without a phone. Especially a job that might have variable hours. This is a huge stumbling block for people that have fallen on hard times. In fact, some unexpected and temporary homeless are able to use the shelter's phone, but that isn't nearly the same as having your own phone. That seems like a fairly straight-forward point, right?

2)
In an effort to raise these people out of poverty, they are given phones.

3)
With today's technology, getting a cell phone is exceeding more convenient and much cheaper. Emphasis on the much cheaper.



Free money to CEOs? Aren't they providing a service? Is there no support entailed? Do you have the same response to chapter 7 housing subsidies? Are landlords getting free money?

<curiosity>

how do we feel about this: the father of my children is legitimately and severely mentally ill. he is a highly skilled electrician by trade. but has not been able to hold a job for several years because his unstable mental condition puts others at risk. his illness gets worse with age. i get no child support. i have never gotten any child support. we do fine. i work 2 jobs and am reasonably frugal. so now he is being forced by the attorney general to pursue social security disability to provide his half of the child support. at this point its draw disability, or sit in jail until somehow the $20-30,000 he owes me magically appears. either way the system will be supporting him. if he gets approved for disability i will get about a $1000 check every month for the care of his children. now i didnt ask for this. technically we dont NEED it though it would dramatically improve our quality of life. id rather get $0 than have to deal with him ever again. the attorney general says its not up to me. i have no choice, i must accept whatever $$ they can get out of him.

soooo... are we against ssi supporting the children of the incapacitated? in particular criminal and insane abusive alcoholic deadbeat dads?

also, i could be in a much more dire financial situation, i could actually NEED the money. does that make it different?

</curiosity>

peggedbea,

If you or others like you want to work and give some of what you have to him, or others like him, do it.

Why should I be your children's father's slave, and how do you have the nerve to ask me to be? That $1000 doesn't come from the "state" or some other magical entity, it comes from your friends, neighbors, coworkers, other people you see when you go out in public. That $1000 in your pocket is $1000 less in someone else's pocket. Why do you think you, or him, deserves it anymore than anyone else?

People might call my position "selfish" but I'm not the one who thinks I deserve anything more than anyone else. That would be the "selfish" position.

curiousity,

The argument that you can't find a job without a phone is just nonsense. Especially a minimum wage job typical of someone rising out of poverty. If a poor person walks into a business with a "position available sign" what is stopping them from being hired on the spot? Or have you forgotten that you can walk to places of work, without calling them? Whats stopping them from submitting a resume in person and checking back the next day to arrange an interview? Whats stopping them from checking back the next day or week to see if they got the job? Nothing. How do you think people get jobs in countries without phones, or how people got jobs before phones were invented? If it truly is no longer possible, how is that progress, and why is your culture (and you) so narrow minded as to be unable to hire someone without a phone? Clearly there is no physical barrier, so any barrier must be mental. If this is what you are arguing, then I have yet another complaint about this disease of a culture we live in.

Even if I grant you that its impossible, another reason its impossible is because of the government. If the applicant is hired immediately, why do they need a phone? In order to be hired immediately they could offer a great deal on their labor. Why can't they do this? Why can't they just walk in and offer to work for less than the employer is asking? Why can't they offer such a great deal that the employer would practically have to hire them?

Because they aren't legally allowed to work for the wage they want. Rather than work for only $5 an hour, they can't work at all. Thats not my fault, thats YOUR fault for supporting such policies. You do support minimum wage laws don't you?

>> ^imstellar28:
curiousity,
The argument that you can't find a job without a phone is just nonsense. Especially a minimum wage job typical of someone rising out of poverty. If a poor person walks into a business with a "position available sign" what is stopping them from being hired on the spot? Or have you forgotten that you can walk to places of work, without calling them? Whats stopping them from submitting a resume in person and checking back the next day to arrange an interview? Whats stopping them from checking back the next day or week to see if they got the job? Nothing.
Even if I grant you that its impossible, the reason its impossible is because of the government. If they are hired immediately, why do they need a phone? In order to be hired immediately they could offer a great deal on their labor. Why can't they do this? Why can't they just walk in and offer to work for less than the employer is asking? Why can't they offer such a great deal that the employer would practically have to hire them?
Because they aren't legally allowed to work for the wage they want. Rather than work for only $5 an hour, they can't work at all. Thats not my fault, thats YOUR fault for supporting such policies. You do support minimum wage laws don't you?


I can see that you have no idea what you are talking about. It's not worth continuing this discussion because you have no real world experience with this and that wonderful quality of assuming that you already know everything. Please continue to be angry and ignorant from your armchair.

^Give one line that is incorrect and state why