America's biggest threat is itself.

The government is more concerned with polishing the shoes of big business rather than representing the majority.

The people are too Distracted, Deceived, and Divided to work towards any substantial change.

I do believe there are such things as terrorists, some of which are even Muslim, but I think the reason the US is a target is a result of our meddling in foreign affairs; not our way of life. We should pull back our military, focus on national defense and ridding the country of corruption.

Why wouldn't the village elders be a better judge of what child to "get rid of?"

Why would they kill both of them?

Why doesn't she consider that an option?

Our goal is to build CreateDebate into an incredibly useful learning tool that will help groups of people to sort through issues, viewpoints and opinions so that consensus and understanding can be reached and better decisions can be made.

People assume that evolution explains where consciousness comes from.

I don't think this is a widely held belief Joe. I'm sure there might be some people who speculate that evolution can explain how or why consciousness developed in certain life forms, but its not something that gets posited in mainstream science. Not yet anyway.

How consciousness developed in life forms is certainly an intriguing question worth studying but saying that not having an answer presents a problem for the theory of evolution is fallacious.

I got 927 ...

LOL@ "Poor people don't have money to handle improperly, that's a huge reason why they are poor."

I never said ALL people on welfare are lazy dead beats. I'm talking about the ones who are! Can you grasp that simple fact?

Perhaps. Maybe if you tried referencing some actual data rather than pulling baseless claims out of your ass.

These dead beats are stealing from every disabled truly needy person in our nation. You should care and the Democrat party should care and try to toughen our welfare rules.

There are people who cheat the system in all areas of society. Yes there should be measures in place to reduce the amount of cheating and there already are but you will never catch every criminal or cheater and you’re delusional if you think you can.

When ever the GOP tries to toughen the welfare programs, the Democrats crucify them with attacks against them.

Because treating all welfare recipients like criminals based on the actions of a few lazy cheaters is not the right answer.

What toughening the welfare programs amounts to is making it hard for anyone to apply even if you genuinely need it, as if everyone’s a culprit of trying to cheat the system and as if there aren’t measures in place already to reduce fraud.

The reason Democrats do not go after these dead beats and scam artists is because they are their voting block.

Or perhaps they don’t consider a few thousand cheaters a major threat to the economy like Republicans do. Perhaps they would rather spend their time and resources focusing on actual problems.

You say “This is what people on the Left always do. I never said ALL people on welfare are lazy dead beats.” But when you say that deadbeats and scam artists are the democratic voting block, it implies a lot about how you truly feel about ALL welfare recipients. Maybe if you chose your words more carefully the people on the left wouldn’t be able to see you for how you truly feel.

This new age closet Socialist Democrat party has the compassion of a fence post. It's not their money they give away, it's the tax payer's money but Democrats will make you think they give it to you out of their pockets.

Both parties give away money that’s not theirs to their own benefit, that’s what governments do; they have no money of their own, doesn’t matter if their red or blue.

I live in a Blue state with high taxes & I still was able to raise my family on $40,000 on one income.

Ok, this doesn’t really say anything. Even within the same state living expenses can range drastically. And the decade matters too.

Besides, what you say is just anecdotal, I said that “40k a year is not enough to support a family in most places these days”

Just because you could do it wherever you were living at whatever time doesn’t mean that it’s a practical income for the rest of the country during this day and age.

Sell their houses and move in a trailer if they can't afford life. No more dinners out, get rid of the cell phones, drive old cars, no vacations, etc. etc. All these steps and others should be taken before you beg for handouts because many of those tax payers you are asking money from do not run down to welfare when they make no more than you.

And many of those tax payers, like myself, would much RATHER their taxes be spent trying to help people out of poverty instead of going to corrupt politicians, billion dollar corporations or trillion dollar wars.

I’m not so dimwitted as to believe you speak for all taxpayers. I have a vote too and you do a piss poor job at convincing me that I should vote in your favor. I could pose a more convincing argument than you for YOUR position.

Are you telling me people who have jobs will starve to death if they don't run down to social services to get free handouts from the tax payers?

No. I’m saying that people who collect welfare are not the lazy, jobless, drains on society you were brainwashed into believing.

I know people who make $40,000 per year and STILL have no shame when they run down to social services to get free handouts of anything they can get. GET SOME PRIDE! Quit being a bunch of free loaders taking money from the truly needy and disabled.

40k a year is not enough to support a family in most places these days and just because people seek aid doesn’t mean they don’t feel shame in it.

I probably averaged around $40,000 most of my life with a wife and two children and one income. Don't tell me it can't be done. It requires responsibility to live within your means.

It depends on where you live and what era. I make just under 50k and where I live it’s just enough to pay all my bills and have a few hundred for savings/investments every month. We sacrifice quite a lot already to live in that way; if I made 40k I would most likely have to apply for aid and/or move to a poorer community.

But today we have a Democrat party actually advertising with commercials telling you to go down to get your free food stamps even though you don't think you need it.

I haven’t seen any. Was it really the Democratic Party? Or was it a social service organization? Not that it matters, I’m largely anti-advertising so I take issue with 90 percent of ads anyway.

This new extreme liberal Democrat party is truly destroying our great nation with this welfare mentality PURELY to play class warfare and get the low income vote.

That’s one way to look at it.

Another would be to admit that poverty is a real issue, and the people who suffer from it are not the ones keeping them there.

Your missing the meaning of the phrase "big government". Governments that tax to highly and unequally, and governments that regulate too heavily, stifle economic growth.

I’m well aware of what ‘big government means.’ Taxing high and regulating are not the only factors that lead to a government that surpasses its boundaries. Tax breaks, bailouts, criminalizing victimless behavior, shady deals/crony capitalism, these are some more examples of why we need smaller government, and the list can go on.

Food stamp use has gone up sharply and is now at all time highs. This is at the same time that Obama's administration claims the economy is improved. Explain this apparent contradiction.

I’m pretty certain I already did but I’ll attempt to simplify it even more. When the fed superficially increases the money supply, that newly created money absorbs value from the money that is already in circulation. This causes the value of dollars to go down which negatively effects many things in the economy, the brunt of which is felt primarily by middle and lower classes whose paychecks primarily go to their fixed expenses. When your fixed expenses increase and the value of the dollars you make decreases you end up struggling to make ends meet.

So yea. People may be employed and that may be celebrated as an improvement by the Obama administration but the other decisions made in Washington mean that having a job isn’t enough if the wages you earn can barely stimulate your own living expenses let alone the economy.

Republicans as a group are not complaining about short term help for people how need it, nor long term help for people who cannot fend for themselves. The valid argument is that tens of thousand of freeloaders are also known to be out there gaming the system. Yet simple accountability has slackened rather that improved.

Yes, well perhaps they should focus their energy on some more productive efforts than targeting the .03 or so percent of people gaming the system.

The GOP believes in smaller Government.

Actions speak louder than words. The GOP may tout that slogan but they are still in the business of running people’s lives; primarily in the area of civil liberties, monopolizing industry and defense spending (which accounts for the largest portion of US discretionary spending).

Stop the easy food stamps and make able bodied people stand in food bank lines. They would save billions and millions of Americans would all of a sudden not need the free food because they have money for food if it means not having to stand in line.

There’s a fundamental flaw in this assumption that food stamp recipients are just lazy and looking for handouts. It ignores the fact that the majority of welfare recipients already have jobs. So why is it still a problem for people to survive without aid if they are employed?

The largest contributing factor to poverty is not caused by the government giving back the money that taxpayers earned in the form of food vouchers or healthcare, it’s caused by a deliberate theft in the form of inflation. That is, increasing the money supply so that the value of the dollar decreases. Value of the dollar decreases, retailers increase prices to compensate for any loss in profit and the cost of living goes up without any sufficient changes to income. In this way, the Owners of the country effectively funnel money in their direction.

Not one GOP member voted for the lie of Obamacare. THAT ALONE should make you vote for them next time.

It’s when you say things like this that I honestly begin to wonder if you’re just trolling.

You can't keep punishing the workers and rewarding the non workers.

You’re definitions of ‘workers’ and ‘non-workers’ are probably questionable. The working class (Those of us who work and earn less than 70k a year, and yes, many of whom still struggle to make ends meet and so apply for aid) suffer as a direct result of republican policies which only benefit themselves and other wealthy people.