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Should The National Endowment For The Arts (NEA) Be Abolished?

Should We Abolish The NEA?

  • Yes, replace it with nothing.

    Votes: 20 35.7%
  • Yes, privatize it.

    Votes: 7 12.5%
  • Yes, localize it and let the states handle it.

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • No, keep it.

    Votes: 17 30.4%
  • No, but it needs strong reforms.

    Votes: 5 8.9%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 5.4%

  • Total voters
    56
If we were running a surplus that would be one thing. We are not so, dump it. Though on general principles it ought to be dumped anyhow. Its not the governments place to fund that.

Says it all for me.
 
I find art offensive. Just like some people find The Nativity offensive. Since some places ban Nativity scenes we should ban all art.



I find you offensive. Maybe we should just ban you, since the vast majority enjoys art.

What do you think about that idea?




"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen."
~ Tommy Smothers
 
If you really care about "the arts", fund them yourselves. The arts I care about have nothing to do with the NEA, but through my consumption they are maintained.

Besides, it is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. It is comical to suggest so.

It is also comical to suggest that paying for this agency is more important than balancing the budget.
Charles Pinckney proposed the federal government fund the arts at the Constitutional convention, and he was soundly rebutted.



Charles Pinckney has been dead and buried for a long time, but those who oppose his ideas are not all dead. Yet.

The NEA will outlive all of them.

Wait and see.
 
Is it best to have government based on limited functions like protecting people, or one based on funding whatever people like (redistribution)?

I find the reduction of individual preference to be very uninspiring. And there is something to be said for forcibly taking as little money from people as possible.

(As for NASA, I would keep the military component and dump the fantasy component.
Private industry is stepping up in that area anyway.)



You're not running the U.S. government and I doubt that you ever will be.
 
The NEA should have been dissolved a long time ago. It's another example of a federal creature that is not authorized by anything in the Constitution, meaning that creating it was an an illegitimate exercise of government power.
 
I find you offensive. Maybe we should just ban you, since the vast majority enjoys art.

What do you think about that idea?




"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen."
~ Tommy Smothers

Ban away. If you got the juice...do it. If not just STFU.
 
The
NEA should have been dissolved a long time ago.
It's another example of a federal creature that is not authorized by anything in the Constitution, meaning that creating it was an an illegitimate exercise of government power.



Believe whatever you want to believe but you'll never live to see the day that the NEA goes away.

Wait and see.
 
Believe whatever you want to believe but you'll never live to see the day that the NEA goes away.

Wait and see.

While you are probably right, it's not because there is some pressing need to have the NEA exist. More to do with the fact that Government can't stop itself from spending itself into oblivion.

You know that the arts will continue to exist even without the NEA right?
 
You're the person who brought up the banning idea. Think about it.

You'll never shut me up.

Alright, I thought about it. Now are you going to ban me? You are the one who wanted to ban me. Go for it.
 
While you are probably right, it's not because there is some pressing need to have the NEA exist. More to do with the fact that Government can't stop itself from spending itself into oblivion.

You know that the arts will continue to exist even without the NEA right?



I know that the NEA will continue to exist for a long time, So your rhetorical question is meaningless.

Accept reality and move on.
 
Blatantly unconstitutional.

Should be abolished immediately.
 
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I sure would, and I have.

How do you know that one of the artists that some would cut off funding for isn't on the verge of creating a work of art just as great as Michelangelos's David? The answer, of course, is that you don't and you don't care care because you just want to cut funding.

People like you will never put an end to the NEA.Deal with it.

Wow! With such an emphasis on what might be, you are clearly anti-abortion. And as you believe you have the right to force me from my money in order to support the possibility that it would be the enabling means for the next Michealangelo, the you surely do not mind stifling a woman's right to choose after she has already chosen to spread her legs. You really are a hard case.
 
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I sure would, and I have.

How do you know that one of the artists that some would cut off funding for isn't on the verge of creating a work of art just as great as Michelangelos's David? The answer, of course, is that you don't and you don't care care because you just want to cut funding.

People like you will never put an end to the NEA.Deal with it.

So?

No one is going to drop dead if some wunderkind painter goes unrecognized.

Besides, how many of the masses give a rat's buttocks about painting's? Almost none.

If the public are so desperate for a NEA, they can fund it themselves...through private/corporate donations.

And if not enough do, then the bloody thing should die.

This notion that the government should take hard-working, taxpayer's dollars to fund artistic endeavours that the vast majority do not care in the slightest about is ridiculous, IMO.
 
Lets dump everything that has ever inspired anyone (like NASA) so we can eventually become a nation of uninspired robots.

1) He said nothing about NASA.

2) why don't you ask him what he thinks about a subject (NASA) before you (virtually) put words in his mouth on it?
 
Charles Pinckney has been dead and buried for a long time, but those who oppose his ideas are not all dead. Yet.

The NEA will outlive all of them.

Wait and see.
You're not running the U.S. government and I doubt that you ever will be.


Seem I hit a nerve.

I am under no illusion that my libertarian/originalist intent ideas will come to pass (although, the NEA could very likely be on the chopping block in the next GOP administration), but please understand that the thread is meant to be about opinions, not predictions.
 
Seem I hit a nerve.

I am under no illusion that my libertarian/originalist intent ideas will come to pass (although,
the NEA could very likely be on the chopping block in the next GOP administration)
, but please understand that the thread is meant to be about opinions, not predictions.



What makes you think that there will be a GOP administration anytime in the near future?




"Better days are coming."
~ But not for the old white men in today's out of touch, running out of time, GOP.
 
I've not come across a single post which seeks to outlaw art. Terminating taxpayer funding of the arts through the NEA is nothing close to failure to support cultural advancement.

Actually, it is the very definition of our society failing to support cultural achievement and advancement. Great art is one of the signs of a great culture.
 
Where, in the Constitution, does it say anything about the federal government having any responsibility or authority for “supporting cultural advancement”?

Congress has the power to provide for "general welfare". There's also nothing in the Constitution that specifically enumerates a good number of programs but, for some reason, conservatives and libertarians seem to get their panties in a twist over that one program specifically.
 
Congress has the power to provide for "general welfare". There's also nothing in the Constitution that specifically enumerates a good number of programs but, for some reason, conservatives and libertarians seem to get their panties in a twist over that one program specifically.

You apparently don't know much about libertarians or libertarianism. Libertarians object to any government program that picks winners and losers and subsidizing practically anything. To say that we object to one specific program shows that you don't know anything about what we stand for.
 
Congress has the power to provide for "general welfare". There's also nothing in the Constitution that specifically enumerates a good number of programs but, for some reason, conservatives and libertarians seem to get their panties in a twist over that one program specifically.

The federal government is supposed to be limited, but the "general welfare" is an unlimited statement. That is a contradiction.

Actually, the federal government has specific powers, which are described as being for the general welfare.
 
I've heard many arguments, from both the left and the right, that the NEA should be abolished for a variety of reasons. Among them I have heard:

-it is wasteful,

-it turns art into cultural elitism,

-it subsidizes obscene and pornographic art

-it's unconstitutional.

-it only funds "politically correct" art.

What do you think? Should the NEA be abolished? If so, what should we replace it with if at all?

One of the least egregious of bureaucracies that we have. I wouldn't ban them at this point, there are other agencies that need to be handled well before we get to this level.
 
Once a society stops supporting the arts, isn't that one of the signs that it's in a downward spiral?

No, I wouldn't like to see the NEA banished, but I certainly wouldn't like it to continue to support alleged art such as
Piss Christ is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition,[SUP][1][/SUP] which was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects, without controlling content.
Piss Christ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That is just beyond what I'd consider acceptable. Yeah, I know, what's art to some isn't to others. But really?
 
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