In today’s American Thinker there is an excellent article entitled “Debate Questions That Obama Won’t be Asked” in which the author, Daren Jonescu, comes up with three excellent questions he would like to ask the President. Just click on the link on our blogroll if you would like to read the entire article.
The takeaway quote for me was “Thinking is, to a large extent, a matter of asking questions and of pursuing answers with enthusiasm, and without fear of the truth one might discover.” This set me to thinking about how so many in today’s shallow American society have either not learned or forgotten the art of actually thinking something through. To get to the truth, whatever it may be, you must ask yourself all possible questions until you can reach a conclusion. If new information becomes available you must ask any and all new questions which are raised and repeat this process over and over and over for your entire life.
It occurred to me that, in so many ways, liberals make their arguments on emotion rather than facts or as part of a “my team vs. their team” mentality. This often leads them to a conclusion so early in the process that they never really ask many questions which need to be asked. With that in mind, I’ve come up with “starter list” of a few questions with a bent toward helping those liberals who are stuck in emotional and/or team mode. Please feel free to add, share, or discuss.
1. When government taxes individuals and businesses it takes in “X” dollars. When it spends that money back into the economy, it spends “X” minus whatever it costs for the government to run the program. By taking out more than you put back how is that a positive for the economy?
2. In the entire history of the world there has never been a “collectivist” system (socialist, communist, pick your term) which has not suffered decline and/or financial collapse. All of Europe is currently following that path before our very eyes. What makes you think those policies will work now?
3. Assume you have a card which says you are guaranteed health care “coverage” by the government. If you have to wait 10-15 weeks to see a doctor and lower your odds of survival of the most common cancers by 20% (as in Great Britain’s National Health Service) is this a “coverage” you would actually choose were you given an option?
4. If a woman is allowed to choose a gender-based abortion solely due to the fact that the child is female is this a “pro-woman” position?
5. Is there a difference between the right to have access to something (health care, contraception, a cell phone) and the right to get it for free?
6. If it is contributing to the stripping of the planet, third world starvation, and is also forcing food prices at home to astronomic levels why are we still putting corn (ethanol) in our gas tanks?
7. How, exactly, does it help create jobs to make what is already the most expensive place in the world to do business even more expensive?
8. If you were going to open a business and you had a choice to open it in a location where the tax rate was 50% or one where the rate was 20% where would you set up shop?
9. In the above example, if you had an existing business which was having its tax rate raised from 50% to 52% do you think you might relocate to the 20% location?
10. When taxes are raised on businesses who always winds up paying those dollars?
11. In the case where a woman chooses an abortion which is “botched” should doctors be legally forced to allow the now living, breathing baby to die a slow, painful “death by abandonment” in a closet somewhere?
12. Due to the unpredictable nature of the wind, wind power turbines must be installed with a fossil fuel backup which must be left running. What benefit is gained in an ecological sense?
13. If the President can publicly state that he refuses to enforce a law passed by your representatives in Congress and you agree with that action on his part what will your reaction be when this power is in the hands of a President on the opposite end of the spectrum who refuses to enforce a law you agree with?
14. In a supposed effort to provide health care for millions more people, why does Obamacare hire tens of thousands of IRS agents and drive away doctors?
15. Which is better…. Medicare and Social Security programs with some adjustments now to keep them solvent or programs which go bankrupt and disappear entirely?
16. You have your choice between two retirement programs…. A program which takes roughly $580,000 from you over your lifetime and pays you back $550,000 in benefits when you turn 65 or a program which takes the same $580,000 and pays you back a minimum of $995,000 in benefits when you turn 65. Which would you choose?
17. What is your level of economic expertise or honesty (choose one) when you claim the same $780 billion savings twice in your budget projections?
18. What is your level of competence or honesty (choose one) if you are the chief law enforcement office in the country and cannot or will not find the person(s) in your own office responsible for willfully sending guns across an international border to Mexican drug lords which resulted in the deaths of dozens, including U.S. border agents?
19. Somewhere between 50 and 80 million people are not counted in the unemployment statistics you see on TV. This includes those who have “given up” looking for a job and college students who are looking but, since they have never been “employed,” can’t be “un-employed.” Can the numbers you see be anywhere close to accurate?
20. A hypothetical President has total control of government for his first two years and control of two-thirds of the three branches for the second two years. His results include $5 trillion in new debt (more than all previous presidents combined), over 8% unemployment when he projected 5%, an economy on life-support, total paralysis in the business community, and a large transfer of power from the Congress to the Executive Branch. Should this President be re-elected?
These twenty were very easy to begin with. Many more are possible as well as needed but it’s a start.