Why the Protestant Church Needs Another Ninety-Five Theses

[Teancum]

On 3/6/2025 at 1:45 PM, smac97 said:

There is some "division" within the Church, but I think not nearly as bad as what we see in Islam.

Likely because Islam does not have a centralized hierarchy like Mormonism does.

[Teancum]

On 3/7/2025 at 12:59 PM, Stargazer said:

I happened to read something today that kind of interfaces with some of these sentiments. It was on the Testify YouTube channel, and he posted this:

"With the barbarians of atheism and Muhammadism at the gate, I’m not wasting my time debating which sect of Christianity is the “one true church.” If Christians put half as much zeal into evangelizing the world as they do into converting each other to their own brand of Christianity, we’d be in the middle of a revival. Don't lose sight of the real spiritual war going on."

On the other hand, he has posted at least eight videos specifically against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maybe as a Protestant he feels free to do this, but it doesn't make any sense in light of what he wrote here. I responded:

So... what about those 8 videos on your channel that zealously drag Mormonism through the mud? In your little statement here, you are essentially making clear that you believe there is no "one true church." Fair enough. But if there is no "one true church," why did you spend an inordinate amount of effort denigrating the faith of 15 million or so Christians? Unless you are about to tell me that Mormons aren't Christians? And if that's how you feel, how can you say there is no "one true church," if you then declare that this church or that church isn't really Christian? Every Christian church is true, unless it believes A, B, or C? Or the only churches that are true are ones that believe X, Y, or Z? In that case, you are contradicting yourself about there being no "one true church," because if you do either of those two things, you've just defined the "one true church." It seems you've painted yourself into a corner.

 

 

He would argue that Mormonism is not a Christian sect, but rather a heretical cult that worships a false nonbiblical Jesus..

[Teancum]

On 3/7/2025 at 12:59 PM, Stargazer said:

I happened to read something today that kind of interfaces with some of these sentiments. It was on the Testify YouTube channel, and he posted this:

"With the barbarians of atheism and Muhammadism at the gate, I’m not wasting my time debating which sect of Christianity is the “one true church.” If Christians put half as much zeal into evangelizing the world as they do into converting each other to their own brand of Christianity, we’d be in the middle of a revival. Don't lose sight of the real spiritual war going on."

On the other hand, he has posted at least eight videos specifically against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maybe as a Protestant he feels free to do this, but it doesn't make any sense in light of what he wrote here. I responded:

So... what about those 8 videos on your channel that zealously drag Mormonism through the mud? In your little statement here, you are essentially making clear that you believe there is no "one true church." Fair enough. But if there is no "one true church," why did you spend an inordinate amount of effort denigrating the faith of 15 million or so Christians? Unless you are about to tell me that Mormons aren't Christians? And if that's how you feel, how can you say there is no "one true church," if you then declare that this church or that church isn't really Christian? Every Christian church is true, unless it believes A, B, or C? Or the only churches that are true are ones that believe X, Y, or Z? In that case, you are contradicting yourself about there being no "one true church," because if you do either of those two things, you've just defined the "one true church." It seems you've painted yourself into a corner.

 

 

He would argue that Mormonism is not a Christian sect, but rather a heretical cult that worships a false nonbiblical Jesus.

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, Teancum said:

He would argue that Mormonism is not a Christian sect, but rather a heretical cult that worships a false nonbiblical Jesus..

And since our members are likely heading for hell in his view, testifying against us is a good use of his and other Christian’s’ time (I do no fault them for doing so, assuming they believe it can save people from hell).

[Calm]

On 3/7/2025 at 11:45 AM, The Nehor said:

If they can other all of Islam and atheism into “barbarians at the gates” they aren’t looking to be inclusive. Arguing that you are “one of the good ones” and not a barbarian might work but only until they no longer need you. This has ‘alliance of necessity’ written all over it. We have to defeat the real enemy! Then later we can prune out the Christians that are semi-barbaric.

While some who are holding their nose (figuratively speaking) while politically allying might view us as Christian, my guess is more do not.  They sincerely view us as going to hell because we worship a false Christ even if Christ is in our name and we believe the Bible.

The other possibility is heresy which is bad enough to damn us and anyone we convert.

There is a difference between joining political forces and praying with someone, I don’t fault anyone who does the first but refuses to do the second.  A political alliance does not send the message that we are religiously okay…or shouldn’t since politics and religion are two different things and alliance shouldn’t mean anymore than two competing land developers who are comfortable to team up to keep a garbage dump out of their area, but they don’t stop trying to get the nice land for themselves and bring the customers to their homes and not their competitors…and no one expects them to change this way.

I do think the religious overtones and explicit appeals to faith in political campaigns can confuse things, making it appear two faiths are compatible in someone’s view when they are not.  It should be easy enough to understand that you can like someone a lot and still believe they are going to hell if you believe God has certain standards of behaviour/belief or even just chooses who he wants to save no matter what they believe or do (as some Calvinists appear to believe imo) just as Saints believe those we love will still need to attend Spirit Prison and repent for any false ideas or sinful behaviours and replace them with pure truths and righteousness before being able to experience the higher kingdoms at least (not sure if replacement is required for Telestial or just the forsaking of sin and false belief). 

 But some politicians apparently don’t think their constituents are capable of separating the two different arenas, the political and the religious and therefore may go overboard in looking like they completely accept someone who is at other times they would and have criticized.

And then maybe even start to believe it themselves.

[Devobah]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Interesting. I will think about your question as it applies to Mormonism.

 

Thank you. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

 

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

He would argue that Mormonism is not a Christian sect, but rather a heretical cult that worships a false nonbiblical Jesus.

I did want to touch on this. Most would agree that unless you believe the Creedal View of Christ (the Trinity) then you are not saved. But something I don't think a lot of people also understand is that the major branches of Christianity have different views on what Christ says. I think this video is a humorous view on that fact. They differ on scripture and therefore differ on what Christ says. This isn't new news but it is interesting to think about.

 

[Teancum]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

And since our members are likely heading for hell in his view, testifying against us is a good use of his and other Christian’s’ time (I do no fault them for doing so, assuming they believe it can save people from hell).

I understand the sentiment but Islam thinks the same. Even the Jihadist types. This is one of the major problems with religion.  Everyone thinks then need to save someone else from some thing or another.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

I understand the sentiment but Islam thinks the same. Even the Jihadist types. This is one of the major problems with religion.  Everyone thinks then need to save someone else from some thing or another.

Yes, I agree there are the positive, non destructive ways or the hateful ways to treat those we see as others, just as there are positive, nondestructive, even loving ways of treating those we love, but also abusive, soul damaging treatments of those we love, often leaving them finding it difficult to love and trust themselves….and yet some still manage to do so.

Edited March 13 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 3/11/2025 at 11:51 PM, Calm said:

This argues against the Church keeping records of anyone not currently participating as that contributes to data integrity. Seems like the same issue.

No, it doesn't, and no it isn't.

Data integrity refers to keeping accurate records, and not having contradictory records in different tables. I had a weird problem crop up in my genealogical database for the software I use, which is called "RootsMagic." There were two different versions of "Me" in there, suddenly. That is a data integrity issue, and it doesn't argue at all against not keeping records. I used the programs features to find the issue, and then fix it.

On 3/11/2025 at 11:51 PM, Calm said:

Not seeing a problem storing past expiration date names and info, especially since it can be used to check possible identity theft (ripping off names and locations and possibly SS numbers and altering dates is much more likely to come from another source than the SSA database, I am guessing).

The problem is that these are long-standing data integrity issues. Believe you me that if I had been a programmer working for the SSA I would have immediately written a utility program to search for and document this particular problem, with a view to fixing it. In my career as a programmer I used to write such data research programs looking for this kind of thing. Finding millions of records indicating millions of people older than 115 is a Big Red Flag. That should have been caught decades ago.

But besides utter sloppiness, there might be something nefarious going on, at least in short time frames. Occasionally we do hear of people cashing their deceased relatives' SSA checks. That can also be done for people who never actually existed, who might also in the database. And might also be receiving checks. The bureaucrats say they don't have anything bad going on. Do we trust them?

On 3/11/2025 at 11:51 PM, Calm said:

I assume the SSA database I’d used for more things than just sending out checks.  It likely is a good source for research.

It is a good source for research. The SSA even publishes a death index -- I used to use it for my research before online resources became possible due to the growth of the internet.

[Stargazer]

On 3/11/2025 at 11:57 PM, Calm said:

You aren’t reading the sources I linked to, are you?

They say they look at anything over 90.

If they aren’t paying out benefits, what is the problem when the complaint category is inappropriate benefits paid?

I did.  

"While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records."

It sounds very much like they aren't sure whether they are paying anything out to them. I found news articles from just the past December and January where it was found in a group of states that they were paying benefits worth 30 and 40 million dollars to people that had died quite some time ago. It was a pilot program -- which indicates to me that they are not actually routinely checking this. The blog entry you posted was in response to President Trump's speech to Congress. It's reactionary, not proactive. Of course the head of the department is going to say what she said. She would say it even if they hadn't given two figs about "accurate and complete records."

It is almost an article of faith among bureaucrats that the way to progress in their careers is to increase headcount. Because more headcount means they must be doing more work, and thus deserve promotion. I can't tell you offhand which agency deals with food stamps. Dept of Agriculture? Health and Human Services? Whatever. But there was a time in the past that success in that category was being measured according to how many people were on food stamps, with workers going out canvassing neighborhoods looking for candidates to sign up. A number of years ago, during the Obama administration, in my county in Washington state there were workers canvassing retirement communities looking to sign up as many people as possible. Elderly retired people with completely paid for homes worth millions of dollars, owning tens of thousands of dollars worth of cars, furnishings, art, and you name it were being signed up for food stamps. How could that happen? Well, their incomes were not particularly substantial, so the canvassers could check the box signifying "low income." Most were millionaires, and some were multi-millionaires. And now on food stamps. Why? Because the administration measured success by how many people they could put on food stamps. The more the merrier, apparently. That got corrected, eventually, once this came to light. If there had been any means-testing (or if it hadn't been bypassed) those people would never have been put on that program.

As you know, I live in the UK. We have the National Health Service, paid for by taxes. The system is rife with waste; it is also rife with inadequate care. For decades the standard promise by both major political parties has been fixing the problems with the NHS. One of the problems is waiting lists for care. Each party as it comes into power promises to fix the wait list problems that their opponents have failed to fix, until the other party gets into power, and then it promises to fix the problems its opponents have failed to fix. Round and round. But the NHS bureaucracy goes blithely on regardless.

We actually have quite a novelty going on right at this moment! Our Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with his public approval rating in the gutter and a new national party (Reform UK) nipping at his heels, has ironically decided to take a page from Trump's book, and has abolished the body running the NHS, "NHS England," to bring the service back directly under the government. "Sir Keir Starmer has abolished NHS England to bring the health service back into government control in an attempt to cut bureaucracy and save money." Fat chance this is going to fix anything; but at least he's trying.

You may find the following videos amusing, but hard to believe. It's a comedy, but lest you think this video to be entirely fictional, it is a based on real situations going on back in the 70s and 80s that have not changed. And don't think that American government bureaucracies are all that much better. 

 

 

Edited March 14 by Stargazer

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Finding millions of records indicating millions of people older than 115 is a Big Red Flag

Why?  Have there not been millions of people on SSA who would now be 115 if living?  You are not saying delete the record, correct?  Just stop the age increase?  Is that necessary?  Since they don’t have deceased dates for them, doesn’t it make sense to keep it open?  They are not getting benefits. They are just in the system.  It would be like the church keeping people on record as members while not knowing their address even though there is a good chance they don’t consider themselves members anymore or they would have contacted the new ward when they moved. But there is enough of a possibility that they still want to be on record even if there is no contact, it’s best not to assume.

[Stargazer]

On 3/12/2025 at 8:38 PM, Teancum said:

He would argue that Mormonism is not a Christian sect, but rather a heretical cult that worships a false nonbiblical Jesus.

Well, he does argue that kind of thing in some of his videos. But that's beside the point.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Occasionally we do hear of people cashing their deceased relatives' SSA checks

But this isn’t happening for over 115. The fraud is likely at lower ages and I agree it is important to create a system where this is less likely to happen, while making sure they are not spending too much more money preventing fraud than they would lose to fraud if the point is to save money.  If the point is to prevent fraud, then invest whatever amount they see fit is appropriate.

Edited March 14 by Calm

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

It sounds very much like they aren't sure whether they are paying anything out to them. I found news articles from just the past December and January where it was found in a group of states that they were paying benefits worth 30 and 40 million dollars to people that had died quite some time ago.

Were any of them in those articles over 115?

English being English the “may not be receiving” could mean they definitely aren’t receiving benefits, but there is another condition we should pay attention to, in this case “accurate records” or “we aren’t sure if they are receiving benefits or not”.

It seems to me the most effective use of tax payers money would be to identify the ages of the identities most often used to commit fraud, focus first on that area and then expand out to the somewhat less areas.  

I am not against accurate records.  I hate blank spaces in my FH documents.  What I am wondering here is where taxpayer money is being lost for the numerous records of the over 115 group if no benefits are paid if over 115?

If the SSA report was accurate (and while that is always debatable, I find it more likely to be accurate than the original claim), then the over 115 group has a very low fraud rate with no benefits being paid out.

From the fox article:

“The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of $9 million. As of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.”

Seems more reasonable to worry about the less that 115 group than the over 115 group given the less than could actually get benefits inappropriately, though the SSA starts checking at 90.  Likely some fall through the cracks given how many 90-115 years old there are.

Looks like the 110-114 group still got benefits after 2015 and that has been tightened up some, but as of 2022 they were still working on it

https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf

 

If the cost of updating is $9 million and people are reporting income of over $8.5 billion to the over 100, under 115 group, it does seem odd not to update the records using available databases, though that sounds more like people using false ids to work and not get benefits (sounds like those earnings get sent into limbo, placed on hold), which is why the SSA does not see it as a cost effective investment (see the Agency Response section that I did not quote explaining their reasoning).  Given there are more being affected than just the SSA (see the OIG response), it seems like an overall worthwhile expense to me even if it’s cost the SSA more money in the long run.

Edited March 14 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 3/12/2025 at 3:26 PM, Chum said:

I was discussing both to highlight scenarios where ignorance of the newborn's/stillbirth's existence leads to wrong assumptions of the cause of the mother's death.  

I see your point. But as best I could observe, there very few of my ancestresses dying while still in their child-bearing years. For some of those in the more distant past I didn't have death dates, so it's possible there might have been a case or two. 

On 3/12/2025 at 3:26 PM, Chum said:

Last month, I helping someone with their (well researched) line and turned up an unknown birth that coincided with the mom's death.

The moral of the story is that assumptions we make about our lines have strong potential to be wrong and routinely are.

If one assumes that it almost never happens then one is definitely going to be wrong. But I don't assume that it almost never happens. I observe that it is a rare occurrence in the data I possess, which I possibly incorrectly extend to a generality. The most common birth/death event is definitely infant mortality/miscarriage/stillbirth. I think back on poor Anne, the Queen of England. 17 pregnancies, but only 5 live births, two of which lived less than a day, and none that survived until their teens. 

[Stargazer]

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

Were any of them in those articles over 115?

No info. 

[edited to add] I just saw that you had updated your post just before I posted my reply. Thanks for the new info. 

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

English being English the “may not be receiving” could mean they definitely aren’t receiving benefits, but there is another condition we should pay attention to, in this case “accurate records” or “we aren’t sure if they are receiving benefits or not”.

It seems to me the most effective use of tax payers money would be to identify the ages of the identities most often used to commit fraud, focus first on that area and then expand out to the somewhat less areas.

I agree.

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

If the SSA report was accurate (and while that is always debatable, I find it more likely to be accurate than the original claim), then the over 115 group has a very low fraud rate with no benefits being paid out.

From the fox article:

“The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of $9 million. As of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.”

$9 million to update the database to flip the bit on "Dead" to true? LOL. If it's a relational database management system using structured query language, I could write the code to do the job in 10 minutes. At $40 per hour, that comes to $6.67.

UPDATE ssa_person_table SET dead_flag = true WHERE calculated_age > 115

On the other hand, I just checked to see what they were actually using, and I kid you not, they are NOT using a relational DBMS, but VSAM, an absolutely ancient indexed flat-file system. This about caused me to faint dead away! <- obviously I'm exaggerating, but as I type this I am still staggered. On one hand, I can't hardly believe they are still using it. On the other, it explains everything: mystery solved! When I started my programming career in 1987, VSAM had been a dinosaur for twenty years, at least. I learned how to use it (part of the degree program), but never had to use it because nobody in our state government was still using it. And I've since forgotten everything I ever knew about it.

No wonder everything is FUBAR at SSA.  

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

Seems more reasonable to worry about the less that 115 group than the over 115 group given the less than could actually get benefits inappropriately, though the SSA starts checking at 90.  Likely some fall through the cracks given how many 90-115 years old there are.

Of course. 

Edited March 14 by Stargazer

[The Nehor]

On 3/11/2025 at 6:30 PM, Stargazer said:

Well, I wasn't looking so it took me forever!  I just figured we'd find out more eventually. As a retired data processing professional, let me tell you: having 16 million records indicating ages over 115 is a serious red flag as regards data integrity. Regardless of whether they stopped paying them.

I sure hope to heck that they were stopping payment after 115 -- but the oldest person in the country who is still alive is 114. So it does seem like they were stopping payments way too late. "As of September 2015, the SSA began to automate terminating benefits once people reached age 115..." but how many millions were being paid out to dead people before then?

This is one of those cases where one might feel relieved it wasn't as bad as it seemed, since they stop payment after 115, but who was letting those payments going out to probably dead people who were less than 115 years old?!  Yeah, well, instead of mailing checks to 16 million dead people, they were thank goodness only mailing checks to... what? 1 million? 2 million? 3 million dead people? You inspired to do some checking of my own, and it turns out that they have been occasionally identifying mispayments to dead people before now. A March 2019 article said they had "identified that nearly $42 million was paid to about 500 dead people in three states." On 15 January 2025 the "U.S. Department of the Treasury announced it prevented and recovered more than $31 million in fraud and improper payments during a five-month pilot with the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Full Death Master File." "A 2023 audit by the SSA Office of the Inspector General found that 18.9 million Social Security number holders born in 1920 or earlier were not marked as deceased, due to technological changes. However, most of these individuals were not receiving benefits."

They've known that this data integrity issue has existed since 2015, and they still haven't fixed it? I am only slightly mollified by the fact that they've fixed a few of these bad records. Slop in data used to be one of my biggest peeves as a programmer.

It was a deliberate lie.

The actual reports from Social Security is that of the roughly 67 million people receiving benefits less than 0.1% are over the age of 100. So less than one in a thousand.

And the people who spread this lie knew that. Now they are going to try to take an ax to Social Security on the basis of that lie to ‘clean it up’. When someone makes up a lie as a pretext for doing something that generally means that whatever they are doing is not to the benefit of and is probably to the detriment of whomever they are lying to.

Edited March 15 by The Nehor

[Stargazer]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It was a deliberate lie.

What was the lie? That there were 16 million person records over 115 years old without a flag indicating they were dead? That there are no possible ways to reduce waste and possible corruption in the Social Security Administration? The SSA had realized that they had problems even well before the election and were trying to start doing something about those problems. If they were doing that before the election, then it was something that needed doing, but wasn't getting done very quickly at all.

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The actual reports from Social Security is that of the roughly 67 million people receiving benefits less than 0.1% are over the age of 100. So less than one in a thousand.

Yep, that's what they say, all right. Are they correct? Or are they obfuscating?

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

And the people who spread this lie knew that. Now they are going to try to take an ax to Social Security on the basis of that lie to ‘clean it up’. When someone makes up a lie as a pretext for doing something that generally means that whatever they are doing is not to the benefit of and is probably to the detriment of whomever they are lying to.

What I heard about was the fact that millions of records were marked "not dead" when there is no possible way they could be alive. The suspicion is that many of these were being paid benefits. Something that I don't recall being claimed in any certainty. You say it's a very small percentage. But given that they are still finding these as they look (the regular SSA people, not the DOGE folks), there are obviously more such -- they've admitted to finding these in just a subset of the cases of benefits payout. You want to minimize the problem, or the potential problem. But maybe you should wait until a thorough examination has occurred. "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

What ax are they going to take? Do I have to fear for my soc sec check now? That's the best lie of all, trying to scare all the senior citizens (of which I am one, but I'm not scared).

 

Edited March 15 by Stargazer

[The Nehor]

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

What was the lie? That there were 16 million person records over 115 years old without a flag indicating they were dead? That there are no possible ways to reduce waste and possible corruption in the Social Security Administration? The SSA had realized that they had problems even well before the election and were trying to start doing something about those problems. If they were doing that before the election, then it was something that needed doing, but wasn't getting done very quickly at all.

There was an implied lie that you fell for that there were massive amounts of Social Security money going out to dead people.

Now there is backpedaling that there could be some problems (that is true of anything and anyone ever so it is meaningless) and defending the liars.

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Yep, that's what they say, all right. Are they correct? Or are they obfuscating?

Given the choice of believing a boring report as part of a routine audit or the politicized ranting of known liars I will pick the former. Plus if they had evidence of massive corruption they would use that instead of playing all these stupid word games.

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

What I heard about was the fact that millions of records were marked "not dead" when there is no possible way they could be alive. The suspicion is that many of these were being paid benefits. Something that I don't recall being claimed in any certainty. You say it's a very small percentage. But given that they are still finding these as they look (the regular SSA people, not the DOGE folks), there are obviously more such -- they've admitted to finding these in just a subset of the cases of benefits payout. You want to minimize the problem, or the potential problem. But maybe you should wait until a thorough examination has occurred. "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

The suspicion of whom? The people who could have an audit run and actually check. They don’t. They just insinuate. They are liars. That is what they do. If you have a smoking gun you use it. If you are just implying there could potentially be smoke it is a good bet that you have no evidence there is a fire. This whole thing is ostensibly about weeding out inefficiency and corruption but where are the reports about all the corruption they have found.

All the agencies that are supposedly filled with corruption were not previously running without audits. Why is it assumed there is all this corruption being rooted out when no one is actually producing any. Are there inefficiencies present? Yeah, probably. Corruption? Yeah, there is probably some. This approach won’t find any though. It is just haphazardly hacking away at things without any understanding if those cuts are justified or realistically possible while maintaining government services.

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

What ax are they going to take?

Slashing the Social Security Administration. It was already at a 50 year low in staffing before these potential cuts and the number of beneficiaries has not been going down. They were already stretched thin. Their system is outdated and Congress has not deigned to fund upgrades which is its own thing. Congress doesn’t pass budgets anymore so long-term projects like large-scale upgrades are all but impossible. The latest report I have seen says they want to cut about 12% of the SSA’s staff and funding at least. A week ago they wanted to cut the staff in half so who knows what the final tally will be.

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Do I have to fear for my soc sec check now?

Yes, and Medicaid if you use that. It is not inevitable but it is very possible.

There was a report that they were going to cut phone services to the bone which would have impacted about 40% of beneficiaries who do most of their Social Security updating and changing address and whatever via phone. The report was confirmed and it blew up a few days ago. The administration is reporting scaling down the cuts now but we’ll see if that holds.

21 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's the best lie of all, trying to scare all the senior citizens (of which I am one, but I'm not scared).

The Veterans weren’t scared either at first. Now there are mass protests (including some big ones today) over their loss of federal jobs and the steep cuts at the VA impacting their benefits.

The fear is justified. No one knows what they are doing and they haven’t been careful in other cuts.

Good luck. I hope it doesn’t impact you.

[Stargazer]

16 hours ago, The Nehor said:

There was an implied lie that you fell for that there were massive amounts of Social Security money going out to dead people.

I didn't fall for a lie. I was suspicious that there might be some sort of thing going on. Given the amount of waste the US government has been involved with, I think that's a reasonable suspicion. We still don't know how much of this is going on. You're assuming that we're going to know it all immediately, when we're not.

And DOGE didn't find massive amounts of SSA money going out to dead people. It found that there were millions of records for people who were way past any reasonable "alive" age. Finding that such records existed raises the specter that there might be billions of dollars going out to dead people. It is still not certain how much money is going and has already gone out to dead people. The SSA itself was in the midst of a pilot program to investigate this possibility even before the election. And they were finding tens and tens of millions of dollars going to dead people. We'll know finally once the dust clears. If only the Dem politicians would stop grandstanding about it.

I seriously wanted to answer you point by point on your entire post. I did, in fact. But just before hitting "Submit" I changed my mind and I deleted it all. I'm pretty sure it would have been a waste of time. And these kinds of posts are going to get this thread closed if it goes on. It's about the 95 theses, after all. Feel free to not respond to me. I wont' post again in this thread. Unless it's to address the actual OP.

[The Nehor]

26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I didn't fall for a lie. I was suspicious that there might be some sort of thing going on. Given the amount of waste the US government has been involved with, I think that's a reasonable suspicion. We still don't know how much of this is going on. You're assuming that we're going to know it all immediately, when we're not.

But the people spreading the lie do know what is going on and can tell you if it is true or not.

26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

And DOGE didn't find massive amounts of SSA money going out to dead people. It found that there were millions of records for people who were way past any reasonable "alive" age. Finding that such records existed raises the specter that there might be billions of dollars going out to dead people. It is still not certain how much money is going and has already gone out to dead people. The SSA itself was in the midst of a pilot program to investigate this possibility even before the election. And they were finding tens and tens of millions of dollars going to dead people. We'll know finally once the dust clears. If only the Dem politicians would stop grandstanding about it.

Again, the people spreading the misinformation are literally the ones who could check to see if this is happening. They either haven’t (because they don’t actually care) or they have and didn’t find anything. They spread the misinformation anyway. That is deception. It is lying.

They are not grandstanding about it. They are warning about possible consequences of the impending cuts based on no solid information and even if it were solid ‘punishing’ the agency wouldn’t solve the problem. The grandstanding is being done by the ones spreading misinformation.

26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I seriously wanted to answer you point by point on your entire post. I did, in fact. But just before hitting "Submit" I changed my mind and I deleted it all. I'm pretty sure it would have been a waste of time. And these kinds of posts are going to get this thread closed if it goes on. It's about the 95 theses, after all. Feel free to not respond to me. I wont' post again in this thread. Unless it's to address the actual OP.

Okay.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I didn't fall for a lie.

Also stargazer: “Ofcourse if we cut off the SSA out checks going out to the 16million people aged 115 and over, ”

Sure you didn’t. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

I got kicked off the playground for a week for barely mentioning politics- but cool carry-on.

😐

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I got kicked off the playground for a week for barely mentioning politics- but cool carry-on.

😐

I get thread banned and suspended pretty regularly even when I didn’t start it.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

19 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I got kicked off the playground for a week for barely mentioning politics- but cool carry-on.

😐

 

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I get thread banned and suspended pretty regularly even when I didn’t start it.

Me too. FWIW.