Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

It's when I see a response like this that I'm increasingly of the opinion that we don't all live in the same reality.

That's not to say that you're not living in reality, NOB, but more that all of us, through the media/internet/social sources we choose to surround ourselves with, construct the reality in which we live.

From the reality I've constructed around myself, I see a POTUS that actively encourages and inflames white supremacists with all manner of racist dog whistle remarks. From the pre-election "they send us their rapists, murderers, and some of them, I assume, are good people", to the Charlottesvile "there are good people on both sides", to scheduling his big rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth, to retweeting a video where someone yells "white power" and then pulling it down like it was a "mistake".

To then suggest like he's been some champion of the black community is then met with a level of incredulity that I can't even fathom how someone could even say it--which is because that someone doesn't live in the same reality that I do.

Again, I'm not saying that I live in reality and you don't. I'm saying we've each constructed a reality around us and the two are completely different--and conflicting. And it's beyond the two of us--the right and the left in this country are not living in the same nation. They're each living in the portion of America that they choose to view, and the two views are completely and totally different.

The reality I am in is where I have seen the ENTIRE remark that Trump made in these instances instead of the "clip" that the left wing media decided to show to support the narrative that Trump is a racist, white supremacist. 

For instance, the remark made about Charlottesville, the left wing media only reported part of it. Here is what was said:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

After a reporter questioned him about it, he said:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

But you probably never saw that part because the MSM chose to ignore it as it didn't fit their narrative. If you want the entire story, you can read it here:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html

Maybe an REA kind of program for Internet?

Schooling is always key.  I saw how good schools can generate outstanding citizens from poor families.

I just made another sizeable donation.

Small and limited government ... um, yeah.

Verbiage, in my view, not substance.  Just verbiage.  Sound bites.

Like how they care for the poor and downtrodden.  Um, yeah.

Since we've basically fully devolved in to politics here, one fundamental stressor I run into in assistance for the poor is that people put as much value on something as it is valuable to them. So free stuff is often treated like trash, even if it should be really valuable. This is a world-wide phenomenon. So means testing, and charging nominal amounts for things is generally a good idea, because people value what they had to invest in. But there is a point at which we shouldn't deny basic human needs to people based on their ability to pay. People shouldn't have to choose between their children's food and their medication, etc. It's problems like that that I find difficult in public policy to help the poor.

So how do we get people adequate housing that they can be proud of without stripping it of its value, and how do we make sure people have food security, and medical security, without devaluing those things? (E.g., going to get a more expensive medical device than required because you know Medicare will pay for it.)

It's one of the reasons I don't like the universal basic income idea, or the free college for all. It shouldn't be free, but it shouldn't be out of reach, either.

And education is a tough part of this. How to deliver quality education to people who aren't food or home secure? Because once people get to the age of majority, if they don't have at least a good base, even trade schools (which should be a bigger deal) are out of reach.

One thing we can do is make sure that people who work full time can afford a basic level of comfort and security.

It may be verbiage to you, but I really do wish we could get to that. The Federal Government was never meant to be what it has become. While it will never shrink to what it should be or how the founders envisioned, it could be shrunk if we had elected officials that put aside personal aspirations and worked for the good of the nation.

There are some incremental things that could be done to start the process. For example, eliminate the Department of Education. Why not? It is nothing but a bloated agency designed to consolidate power usurped from the states. Get rid of it.

Eliminate or greatly simplify the income tax and eliminate or greatly reduce the IRS.

There are things that could be done. The biggest would be to repeal the 17th Amendment. That would go a long way in returning power back to the states where it was originally supposed to be.

currently the power is with the citizens of each state 

why would you want to take that power away

Like Chomsky said, politics is working all the time, and taking the day off to vote. 

There are things that could be done. The biggest would be to repeal the 17th Amendment. That would go a long way in returning power back to the states where it was originally supposed to be.

Back to the state government. So in this case the people of the state are not the state, but the politicians are.

We had the 17th amendment chat a while back. And in the most neutral way, it struck me as an interesting brand of elitism. I'm not saying that in terms of bringing any baggage with it. In a lot of decision-making, elitism is a benefit (a person with elite engineering knowledge should be in charge of engineering projects). But when we say, the people who select senators should be state reps and governors rather than the people of a state, we're arguing for elitism.