Poll: 52% of Americans Feel Obama Moving the US Towards Socialism

[Dr. Shane]

1. There is little difference between El Salvador and the US when we are talking about human nature. Americans are not somehow morally superior to Salvadorans. American companies are more ethical simply because government regulations make them be.

2. I know some people disagree with the obvious and disputable. There are people that actually believe the lunar landing was a conspiracy and that man has never been to the moon.

3. I am responsible for the financial condition for my segment of the company I work for. I have been for many years. I handle the contract administration, purchasing, estimating, accounts payables and accounts recievabiles. In a typical year I handle about $10 to $12 million. However that has little to do with safety.

4. There are companies that have safety programs stricter than OSHA. In fact, they have such good safety programs that they have signed agreements with OSHA that they are exempt from OSHA inspections. That type of agreement is an incentive that OSHA offers. I think it a bit naive to believe companies would have such programs without any incentive.

[lazarus]

America is really AN IDEA, not a place, and that idea is FREEDOM.

I think your right. This place (the U.S.) has struggled with making the idea a reality. So up until 40 years ago freedom was more of a reality in Europe than it was in the USA. This delusion about the approaching specter socialism appears because Americans, have a distorted idea of freedom.

The survey results again prove Americans misunderstand what socialism is. I haven't checked the figures, but I'm sure America spent more than any other country in the World on government programs, before Obama. I bet China spends less.

What freedoms do Americans have that the average European does not have?

[karl]

Anyone who believes that OSHA has not created a safer working place is living in lala land. I mean, to believe that means drinking some very strong Kool-aid or just being so ignorant of the facts that one has no business even discussing the topic.

This is cute.

Anyone who disagrees with you has no right to speak, eh?

Do you have any data to go with that rhetoric???

[Dr. Shane]

It isn't about disagreeing with me. It is about turning their eyes away from the facts. Just look at the coal mines where people die. Every time there is a disaster we find a whole list of safety regulations that were not being followed but would have saved lives if they had been. The same is true with construction fatalities. OSHA saves lives.

[karl]

It isn't about disagreeing with me. It is about turning their eyes away from the facts. Just look at the coal mines where people die. Every time there is a disaster we find a whole list of safety regulations that were not being followed but would have saved lives if they had been. The same is true with construction fatalities. OSHA saves lives.

Unproven conclusion, Shane. Similar to your belief that paying out all that money in entitlements actually makes the GDP grow.

If I have someone run over by a truck, and OSHA finds a citable defect in the vehicle, we cannot assume that the repair of the truck would have prevented the injury. That fact that two things coincide is not proof that there is a cause-and-effect relationship.

The data show that the pre-existing (by three decades) downward slope of workplace fatalities was unchanged by the creation of OSHA. May even have been slowed a little.

[Dr. Shane]

I have never claimed that providing entitlements causes the GDP to grow. That wouldn't make any sense to me. I don't know how anyone could arrive at that conclusion. I have stated that entitlements, like food stamps, are actually subsidies for the big food corporations.

Claiming that the downward slope in workplace fatalities post-OSHA can be attributed to the downward slope that took place pre-OSHA has a cause-and-effect relationship problem. The decline in the pre-OSHA era had a lot to do with increased technology and medical science. We were having a decline of people actually working in high-risk jobs and when workers got hurt our advances in medical science were able to save more lives. The decline in post-OSHA is contributed to increased regulations actually decreasing the danger posed in high-risk jobs. For the working man, OSHA stands for "our savior has arrived".

[karl]

I have never claimed that providing entitlements causes the GDP to grow.

[bonnie]

Originally Posted By: Shane

I have never claimed that providing entitlements causes the GDP to grow.

Not true. You claimed that the coinciding increases in entitlements and GDP were caused by the entitlement spending. You even provided a graph. I'm sure I'm not the only person who saw this. Bonnie?

There have been so many of these political threads I can't remember which one it was on, but you most definitely averred that entitlement spending was responsible for the growth in GDP. The dispute was whether necessity is a stimulant to productivity or a deterrent. You claimed that the entitlements were a stimulant to productivity and caused our growth in GDP. I told you that necessity, not entitlements, was the mother of productivity (and invention.)

Originally Posted By: Shane

The decline in post-OSHA is contributed to increased regulations actually decreasing the danger posed in high-risk jobs. For the working man, OSHA stands for "our savior has arrived".

Again, do you have any actual data which might support your opinion?

I remember the conversation but not which thread it was in.

Maybe try a search. It was in that thread I believe that Shane made repeated reference to "cold hearted conservatives concerning those that do not agree that welfare recipients should not be held to any type of time frame for welfare

[Dr. Shane]

You claimed that the coinciding increases in entitlements and GDP were caused by the entitlement spending.