Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: BlueFlames on August 11, 2012, 11:35:00 am
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http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=qPK
Obama wins, 324 to 214. The casting of ballots, at this point, is a formality necessary only to verify this result. (Actually, I'm waffling on Virginia and Iowa, but give me my moment.)
I got up this morning, and read that Romney had announced his VP at an hour on Saturday morning, when nobody would be awake to hear him, and I get the sneaking suspicion that that was by design, because what an awful pick. Mitt Romney choosing to run alongside Paul Ryan is literally the same as John McCain choosing to run alongside Sarah Palin. Romney gains nothing from the choice and ensures key swing states vote against him.
Do you know who else was on Romney's short list? Rob Portman. Rob Portman would have brought Ohio within reach of the Romney campaign. What would Portman have cost the Romney campaign? Michigan? It's been pretty bloody obvious for a month, now, that Romney has no chance of winning Michigan. Rob Portman could have provided the Romney campaign a path to victory (http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=piN). Yes, they'd have had to work pretty hard to win all of the other east coast swing states, but the path was there.
The Paul Ryan choice not only avoids this path to victory for Romney, but it ensures that Obama can easily turn the elderly population of Florida against the GOP ticket this year. If you live in Florida and own a television, then prepare to be hammered with ads, from now, until November, about the Romney ticket standing for an end to Medicare, because that's all you're going to hear, and that's all that Obama needs to say to carry the state.
Now, if you're wondering why this is coming off as so ranty, it's not because I'm a Romney supporter, quite the opposite, in fact. I just hate seeing political strategy that's so blatantly bone-headed as this play out. I mean sweet, ****ting Christ, at least when McCain picked Palin, she was an unknown. Paul Ryan made his wingnuttiness well-known with his budget proposal, back in March. This decision says to me that the GOP is so preoccupied with pandering to the Tea Party that they just don't care whether or not they see the inside of the White House again for twenty-plus years. This rant would be no different, if Obama were making decisions to actively court the Democratic Socialists of America. You cannot base important decisions in a Presidential campaign around what the <5% on the furthest extreme of your party want of you. In a general election, you have to swing away from the extremes you took in the primary and back to the center. This is Political Strategy 101 (and I do mean that any university freshman taking a PoliSci course should be able to figure this **** out), so it offends me that there are people raking in a ludicrous salary this year to be such utter morons. While Romney's pandering to the far right, he could always have his strategists shot to try to further secure the 2.5% of the national population that value an NRA endorsement and were going to vote for him, regardless. Maybe then, with a team of replacements, he could actually make some vaguely competent effort to win.
tl;dr: I, someone who wants to see Romney lose the Presidental election, would do a better at helping him win than his current advisors and strategists for a fraction of the price. (And yeah, if given an offer, I'd probably take it, because at this point, nobody can make Romney win. A political ninja might be able to shrink that 110ev margin a bit, but you can't snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, when defeat has swallowed victory, digested it, and shat it out the other end already.)
[edit] Fixed the first map link, as it seemed to be pointing to the blank map. [/edit]
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I just hate seeing political strategy that's so blatantly bone-headed as this play out. ... This decision says to me that the GOP is so preoccupied with pandering to the Tea Party that they just don't care whether or not they see the inside of the White House again for twenty-plus years.
If they want to be boneheads and stay out of power, let 'em. ****ers.
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This is a good thread.
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After reading an angry blog post by George RR martin, the republicans don't really care about their strategy, they will just take away your ability to vote...
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The way I see it, regardless of anything else we will wind up with a crook in the oval office.
I don't think I am even going to bother going to the poles. As you said, the outcome is pretty much decided already, and with all the cash in politics I refuse to recognize this as genuine democracy.
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I don't think I am even going to bother going to the poles. As you said, the outcome is pretty much decided already, and with all the cash in politics I refuse to recognize this as genuine democracy.
Kudos to those who find the fallacy with this statement. :P
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I don't think I am even going to bother going to the poles. As you said, the outcome is pretty much decided already, and with all the cash in politics I refuse to recognize this as genuine democracy.
Kudos to those who find the fallacy with this statement. :P
1) Going or not going to a wooden or metal rod (or even a collection of such rods) does not have anything to do with voting.
2) Correcting for the incorrectly-chosen word, a population that is disenfranchised, whether voluntarily, forcibly, or legislatively (see new state-level voter ID laws) decreases the legitimacy of democracy.
3) The post feigns agreement with the opening post of the thread, while actually discussing a totally different topic (campaign finance versus bone-headed political strategy).
4) The post took the opening post's hyperbole about not needing to cast ballots as literal. Elections are still decided by how the ballots are cast. Results may correlate to campaign spending, but it is not the spending itself that determines the outcome.
5) The post actually ignores something implicit about the opening post, that being that Presidential elections in the United States are run on a state-by-state basis, and so if he is in a swing state (or a swing district of Nebraska or Maine), his vote has much greater potential than someone in a state, where the candidates are separated by a wide margin.
6) Very few ballots will have only the Presidential candidates on them. All will also have House members running for re-election, and many will have Senators running for re-election. There may also be local and state offices up for grabs by candidates, who contrary to the poster's implication about campaign financing, are hardly swimming in money and media coverage, despite their offices often having the most power to immediately and practically affect your daily life.
I have a feeling that you're referring to #2, but do I get a prize for the double-hattrick?
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Oh hm... We haven't had a thread about the new voter ID laws yet, have we? Do people outside of the US know about that? If so, more or less than people inside the US?
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/me dons flame-resistant clothing.
Romney has my vote this election.
Of course, I live in California so "worthless" isn't a strong enough word to describe a single Republican's vote in this state.
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Romney has my vote this election.
To the point of the thread, was it the choice of Paul Ryan as Romney's VP candidate that made you make that decision, or had you already made your mind up to vote for Romney, regardless? In either case, do you think that Paul Ryan was a sound choice, given other possible running mates, who could have given Romney an edge in key swing states and given that some of Paul Ryan's stated positions will turn off, not just voters in some of those states, but entire voting blocks, across the nation (the AARP, after all, is the largest and most powerful of special interest groups in the United States and isn't very likely to endorse a ticket with someone who's endorsed the privatization of Social Security or dismantling of Medicare)?
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/me dons flame-resistant clothing.
Romney has my vote this election.
I wonder, as someone who is presumably not a member of the 1%, what do you hope a modern conservative government would do for you? What makes Romney/Ryan desirable for you?
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I'm not sure you could call me a modern conservative. I'm agnostic, support gay marriage, females serving in combat roles in the military, and the complete legalization of marijuana. On the other hand, stuff like the bailouts, TARP, and the crap-ton of stimulus spending and yes, Obamacare sit pretty poorly with me since I'm disinclined towards hefty government spending and intervention in the private sector. Greece is a good example of how not to run a government since their massive borrowing and deficit spending would have ruined them sooner or later, recession or no recession, just like a private citizen who keeps maxing out credit cards and taking out bank mortgages. America's headed down that same path, too, and I'd like to see that progress halted.
Now, I'm risking peeing on the third rail with that Obamacare statement, so let me just put some stuff out there. There was no free market health care system before Obamacare. Various states all had heavy coverage mandates, which will drive up the cost of insurance since companies will charge for whatever they're covering. You also couldn't purchase insurance across state lines, so you had a pretty ****ty field of options depending on what your state allowed to be sold. There's also very hefty restrictions on who exactly can provide care, so doctors essentially have a monopoly on providing health care despite physician assistants and nurses being extremely capable in certain areas. You don't need a medical school degree to do a few stitches, set a broken leg, or do a basic checkup where you ask people where it hurts and start poking them until they go "ow". Those procedures can all be handled at a lesser level of expertise than a full medical degree. I went to the dentist about a week ago, and 90% of the visit was the dental hygienist scraping gunk off my teeth, and all the dentist did was aim a mirror in my mouth and say I had a tiny cavity, none of which is exactly fancy dentistry degree stuff. Fixing the cavity is dentist's work, but that entire visit could have been handled by that same dental hygienist operating independently out of her own office. In my ideal health care world insurance would be only for serious situations and prescription medicine, with everything else being cash-for-service like every other business with doctors only providing care that requires a medical degree. Of course, people going to nurses and physician assistants for care would require a system where people don't immediately demand a top-end professional just to be told that yes, they are suffering from arthritis in their knee.
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n my ideal health care world insurance would be only for serious situations and prescription medicine, with everything else being cash-for-service like every other business with doctors only providing care that requires a medical degree. Of course, people going to nurses and physician assistants for care would require a system where people don't immediately demand a top-end professional just to be told that yes, they are suffering from arthritis in their knee.
You may want to read this, sparda: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/12/how-i-lost-my-fear-universal-health-care
The bottom line is, the fact that in countries with universal health care, people can afford to go to Doctors even for stuff that may not seem like it needs a real doctor to look at helps to make the entire population healthier, since it enables early diagnosis of conditions that may turn into something more serious later on.
As for bailouts etc, please provide indicators that a "conservative" government would not have done the exact same thing.
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I don't think I am even going to bother going to the poles. As you said, the outcome is pretty much decided already, and with all the cash in politics I refuse to recognize this as genuine democracy.
Kudos to those who find the fallacy with this statement. :P
1) Going or not going to a wooden or metal rod (or even a collection of such rods) does not have anything to do with voting.
2) Correcting for the incorrectly-chosen word, a population that is disenfranchised, whether voluntarily, forcibly, or legislatively (see new state-level voter ID laws) decreases the legitimacy of democracy.
3) The post feigns agreement with the opening post of the thread, while actually discussing a totally different topic (campaign finance versus bone-headed political strategy).
4) The post took the opening post's hyperbole about not needing to cast ballots as literal. Elections are still decided by how the ballots are cast. Results may correlate to campaign spending, but it is not the spending itself that determines the outcome.
5) The post actually ignores something implicit about the opening post, that being that Presidential elections in the United States are run on a state-by-state basis, and so if he is in a swing state (or a swing district of Nebraska or Maine), his vote has much greater potential than someone in a state, where the candidates are separated by a wide margin.
6) Very few ballots will have only the Presidential candidates on them. All will also have House members running for re-election, and many will have Senators running for re-election. There may also be local and state offices up for grabs by candidates, who contrary to the poster's implication about campaign financing, are hardly swimming in money and media coverage, despite their offices often having the most power to immediately and practically affect your daily life.
I have a feeling that you're referring to #2, but do I get a prize for the double-hattrick?
You, sir, win 2 internets. :yes:
Last time I voted at the voting polls, they gave me one of two cards: A card that had all of the Republican nominees, and a card that had all of the Democratic nominees (local, state, and federal). I asked the voting poll administrators if I could get both cards so I could vote for different candidates (for a corresponding different seat), and they said no. I don't like this.
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On the other hand, stuff like the bailouts, TARP, and the crap-ton of stimulus spending...
I just want to have a pause here.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was the big stimulus package, passed by the Obama administration, about a month after his inauguration, with a pricetag of $787 billion.
Prior to that, there was the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which was essentially a pre-bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and came with a $152 billion pricetag. Later that year, there was the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which came with a $300 billion pricetag and placed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae under government management. Still in 2008, there was the Trouble Asset Relief Program, which was a blanket authorization for the executive branch to spend up to $700 billion in bailing out troubled businesses, and this was the source of funding for the bank and auto bailouts. These were all three signed into law, without any threat of veto, by President Bush.
Funny factoid: The Obama administration would later sign into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which reduced the TARP authorization from its original $700 billion to $475 billion.
If we're just totting up spending figures for bailouts and stimulus, that means that the conservative Bush administration authorized $1.15 trillion in such spending, while Obama racked up $787 billion, less $225 billion for what he deauthorized from TARP, leaving $562 billion.
Of course, Romney was in no place to vote or have any influence on the signing of these bailout/stimulus packages (and rhetoric is easy, when you aren't actually making policy), but Paul Ryan was. Where's he stand?
Economic Stimulus Act of 2008: Yea
Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008: No
Troubled Asset Relief Program: Yea (as amended by Senate)
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: No
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act: No
Make of that what you will.
Opposing the bailouts also begs the question about whether or not you think the nation's economy would be better off, had the automotive industry and banking sector been allowed to collapse. What would have been gained by allowing these truly massive businesses to fail, instead of injecting them with capital and restoring regulations (particularly with the banks), previously dismantled, necessary to prevent such catastrophic failure from recurring?
I'll add these questions to the other two that you didn't address, quoted below, for convenient reference:
To the point of the thread, was it the choice of Paul Ryan as Romney's VP candidate that made you make that decision, or had you already made your mind up to vote for Romney, regardless? In either case, do you think that Paul Ryan was a sound choice, given other possible running mates, who could have given Romney an edge in key swing states and given that some of Paul Ryan's stated positions will turn off, not just voters in some of those states, but entire voting blocks, across the nation?
Moving on...
Various states all had heavy coverage mandates, which will drive up the cost of insurance since companies will charge for whatever they're covering.
I'm going to have to ask you to be more specific, when you say, "various states." The only health insurance mandates that I've found in US history include Romney's healthcare bill for Massachusetts and a federal law dating back to 1798, when the Adams administration mandated that owners of US-flagged merchant vessels provide a form of proto-health insurance for their sailors. Now, you can't say much of anything about the 1798 mandate's effect on health insurance premiums, since health insurance wasn't a thing in 1798. I'd be interested if that leaves you with more examples than just Massachusetts, or if you want to cite examples of other countries with universal healthcare systems and longer life expectancies.
You, sir, win 2 internets.
I will accept my two internets in the form of DARPA Net and Ted Stevens' series of tubes.
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So, Ryan voted against three out of five programs. That's above-par for Washington which typically spends like drunken heiresses.
As to that coverage mandate, I was referring to states that mandate that insurance providers cover certain medical expenses rather than insurance companies being allowed to offer to cover what they want to cover.
I'm not fond of Obama so I was already going to vote for Romney, but I really wouldn't have liked it. I'm sure some of the hardcore Bible Belters would have just stayed home if Romney had a moderate VP, so Ryan was probably a calculated choice by Romney to get more conservatives on board with his campaign. Its worth noting that Ronald Reagan ran conservative campaigns both times and he won 44 states the first election and 49 the second. Granted, the first time was against Jimmy Carter so he was pretty much a shoo-in, but winning 49 states the second time around is a damn fine showing.
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I feel like the gist of BlueFlames post just got ignored . . . then followed by a "well my information wasn't right, but i didnt like Obama anyway so I wasnt going to vote for him"...
also where did Ronald Reagan come from? that popped outa nowhere.
I would like to see a complete overhaul of our tax code, campaign finance reform, and more infrastructure development. don't think any of that is going to happen. Anyway I just can't see romeny being good for me/middle class. I also don't think he's worked a day of hard work in his life. too much handed to him. and I'm wondering if overhaul of social security is a bad idea, I don't want to see it scrapped mind you, just it's worth taking a look at to see if it could be done better.
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I feel like the gist of BlueFlames post just got ignored . . . then followed by a "well my information wasn't right, but i didnt like Obama anyway so I wasnt going to vote for him"...
also where did Ronald Reagan come from? that popped outa nowhere.
To the point of the thread, was it the choice of Paul Ryan as Romney's VP candidate that made you make that decision, or had you already made your mind up to vote for Romney, regardless? In either case, do you think that Paul Ryan was a sound choice, given other possible running mates, who could have given Romney an edge in key swing states and given that some of Paul Ryan's stated positions will turn off, not just voters in some of those states, but entire voting blocks, across the nation?
Let's start here. I had already decided to vote for Romney, so Paul Ryan wasn't a reason. Yes, Paul Ryan was a good choice since he's going to attract conservative voters. I think that some of the voters that Ryan might turn off would probably just vote for Obama anyways. I included Reagan as proof that a conservative candidate could win elections, which is what Paul Ryan might let Romney campaign as.
As to the part about the failures and the economy: GM would have gone under, and it would restructure, and maybe it would have come out better. As to the banking system, the bailout didn't correct the primary issue that bankers make a ton of risky deals that risk a repeat, and if some had gone under other firms would have been a lot more cautious.
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I'm no longer a conservative, which automatically gets me labled a bleeding heart liberal by friends and family. Got to love south west Virginia with it's no room for moderates you are either with us or the devil mentality.
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Bailouts: I agree in principle that "too big to fail" is a silly idea, but if you're going to complain about the money, blame Bush. He's responsible for 67% of it (citation: BlueFlames' post).
Insurance companies: Profits = income - expenses. As far as I'm aware, they aren't in the negative. Note, employee salaries is not somehow exempted from being counted as an expense; if their income decreases a tiny bit, it's no excuse to lay off employees.
Deficit spending in general: Would work better if Obama could raise taxes on the rich (like a "hoarding tax", you only lose the money you if you don't spend it)... but no tax increases are going to get past the Republican-controlled House.
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Hoarding tax? :wtf:
You do know about depreciation, right?
Last time I checked, the federal income tax system really does what it can to tax the "rich." Is this enough, is this not enough, will the citizens actually pay their taxes?
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Depreciation? *googles to see if you're using some specific meaning here*
Oh, that. Meh. Important thing is that they have way more money than they have any practical use for.
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Last time I checked, the federal income tax system really does what it can to tax the "rich." Is this enough, is this not enough, will the citizens actually pay their taxes?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/business/in-the-superrich-clues-to-romneys-tax-returns-common-sense.html?_r=1&ref=politics&gwh=056BE4E187DAB333220D7F8BC5E83185
Read that. And the stats in the article are from the IRS, BTW.
In essence, the superich actually pay a lot less than some other demographic groups. Most dramatically, 6/400 of the richest Americans succeeded in having to pay ZERO in taxes in 2009. ZERO.
America might nominally have a progressive tax structure, but the simple fact of the matter is that there exists such a ridiculous number of loopholes and stupidity like the ridiculously low capital gains tax that it really does not exist as such for many of the "1%".
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Thread starter, I hope you're right! I know I'll definitely be voting.
Also: As far as I'm aware, Bush (Republican/neoconservative) was a huge spender of tax payer dollars, moreso than Obama. Why would Romney be different? After all, he told his conservative base that he wants to go to war with Iran. I expect him to take a unilateral approach internationally (like Bush), which can only be bad for the US.
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Not to mention every presidential candidate who's campaigned as a "fiscal conservative" since [Nixon? fill in the blank] has actually increased the debt, and (with the possible exception of Obama) everyone who's opposed them has done the opposite.
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I don't think there was ever a president since Nixon under which the debt did not increase. Periods where it slowed, sure, particularly under Clinton, but it's always uphill. The increase in debt under Obama's 4 years has been fairly depressing, much as with GWB's 8.
(http://ygraph.com/graphs/usdebtgraph-20110921T013832-3tu9uda.png)
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So, Ryan voted against three out of five programs. That's above-par for Washington which typically spends like drunken heiresses.
Atleast one of those programs was spefically designed to reduce spending - I suggest you read the thing again.
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Its worth noting that Ronald Reagan ran conservative campaigns...
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I included Reagan as proof that a conservative candidate could win elections...
...twenty-eight and thirty-two years ago. The political landscape has changed significantly. Voters and candidates both tend to be more polarized; information disseminates more rapidly, and the nation's demography is radically different than in the 1980's. Even between 2000 and now, the political landscape has changed. The George W. Bush campaign ran in 2000 and 2004, in part, on their strong opposition to gay rights. Gay rights were a wedge issue that Karl Rove correctly surmised could render Democratic candidates unelectable. Now, gay rights are still a wedge issue, but it is Republicans who want to avoid that issue, because the majority has turned against them.
It's also worth noting that in many ways, Reagan governed more liberally than Republicans have let Obama. In particular, Reagan passed a $37.5 billion tax-increase, principally to save Social Security. By contrast, nearly every current Republican member of Congress has signed a pledge not to introduce any tax increases and to oppose any attempt to increase taxes, whatever the circumstance. Likewise, Reagan expanded the Office of Management and Budget, specifically to slow the functioning of other government agencies, while Obama has been conceiving of ways to consolidate the Department of Commerce and several related elements of the federal bureaucracy. If you think that Reagan, Romney, and Ryan are all of the same political stripe, then you either have some information about Romney and Ryan that the general public does not, or your memory of Reagan is actually a construct of today's GOP, rather than any kind of reflection of history.
More to the point, John McCain campaigned as a conservative much more recently than Reagan, and having made sure to jump into bed with the right-wing in the eight years, after losing a primary bid to George W. Bush, he had a recent legislative record to match his rhetoric. His VP choice was, as I've already mentioned, not too dissimilar to the Romney's pick, and what did it get him? It put McCain on the wrong side of a 192 electoral vote margin. He lost Florida, a kingmaker in the electoral college. He lost North Carolina and Virginia, which hadn't been blue since 1976, when the election was a referendum on the pardoning of Richard Nixon. He lost Indiana, which hadn't been blue since 1964, when the Civil Rights Act passed.
Converting yourself from a moderate into a Bible-thumping, right-wing candidate is not a winning formula for a general election. It might have worked (and did) in 2000 and the 1980's, but it's not 2000 or the 1980's anymore.
Ruth Marcus, in the Washington Post, quite neatly summarized my thoughts on the Paul Ryan pick:
Here’s a rule of thumb: If you are the Republican nominee and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, The Weekly Standard and The National Review are all urging you to do the same thing, run the other way. Romney doesn’t need the base; if they are not enthusiastically for him, they are enthusiastically against Obama, which ought to be enough.
Romney doesn't need help in Louisiana or Tennessee or Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia. He's led those polls, from the time he locked up the nomination to now by ten points or more. He doesn't need help in Montana or the Dakotas or Wyoming. He's led those polls by ten points or more, from the time he locked up the nomination. He doesn't need help in Arizona or Texas or Oklahoma or Arkansas. He's led those polls by ten points or more, from the time he locked up the nomination. Where Romney does need help is in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, where Romney has never left the margin for error in the polls or trailed Obama by five or more points and all states where Paul Ryan is either no help or a liability.
To the issues, again, then:
GM would have gone under, and it would restructure, and maybe it would have come out better.
And how many manufacturing jobs would have been lost in the United States, only to be picked up by European and Japanese auto makers? When you work on an automotive assembly line, what are your qualifications for jobs outside of the automotive industry? When the company providing for your healthcare and retirement goes up in smoke, what assets do you have available to facilitate a career change? My question was not whether or not GM could successfully drag itself out of bankruptcy; it was about how losing one of the very few large manufacturing businesses left in the United States would affect the nation's economy.
As to the banking system, the bailout didn't correct the primary issue that bankers make a ton of risky deals that risk a repeat...
Then point the blame at the people responsible for passing the bills that funded the bailout. Again, Paul Ryan voted for (which is the opposite of against) the initial bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which were given final approval by the George W. Bush administration. Paul Ryan then voted against a bill intended to rebuild regulations (that the GOP had previously been busy disassembling in the 1980's and 1990's) that would inhibit banks from taking the kinds of risks that had led to the sub-prime mortage bubble.
Deficit spending in general: Would work better if Obama could raise taxes on the rich (like a "hoarding tax", you only lose the money you if you don't spend it)... but no tax increases are going to get past the Republican-controlled House.
While I won't agree with a hoarding tax, the GOP has done a good job of erasing from the public consciousness the fact that the biggest spending programs of the Bush adminstration were the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts on capital gains and the top tax brackets, easily outpacing the expense of both of the wars in the Middle East. There's also a certain level of forgetfulness about how much top-tier earners have been taxed in the past and the remarkable lack of a negative effect that it had on the economy. In the most extreme case, the Eisenhower administration taxed the wealthy at a 90% rate, and not only did the economy not collapse, but we got an interstate highway system out of the deal. Granted, the economy of the 1950's is not the economy of today, but bumping the top-tier tax rates from 33% and 35% to the Clinton-era (you know, when we had a balanced budget) 38% and 40% is hardly going to destroy jobs or end the recovery, as the GOP's rhetoric would not-too-subtly suggest.
Final note: I fixed the first link in the opening post, so that it actually goes to my electoral college prediction, instead of a blank electoral college map.
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I don't know about anyone else, but I'm moving to Finland. Seriously, when was the last time they were on the news? Probably for finishing in 100th place in the Olympics, which really doesn't matter. Nothing bad happens in Finland. All they do is chill out and carve soap statues.
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I'll be visiting Finland next year. I know it's cold, that Santa lives there, and that a few good metal bands originate from there. Oh, and they make one pretty good APC (the Patria or something), on which Poland based it's own Rosomak (it's just like Patria, except made from poor materials by medicore factory). :)
So, I guess it's a nice place to live. And I imagine you'll get your Xmas presents earlier, what with the Santa living so close.
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I'll be visiting Finland next year. I know it's cold, that Santa lives there, and that a few good metal bands originate from there. Oh, and they make one pretty good APC (the Patria or something), on which Poland based it's own Rosomak (it's just like Patria, except made from poor materials by medicore factory). :)
So, I guess it's a nice place to live. And I imagine you'll get your Xmas presents earlier, what with the Santa living so close.
In regards to
- coldness: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KvqtVXWz4Ko/TyzpEAb6M9I/AAAAAAAAAlM/3sK3_D_5xH4/s1600/Meanwhile_in_Finland.jpg
- Santa and Christmas: we celebrate Christmas on the 24th so you'll be a full day ahead of everyone else
- metal bands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0A7WtCj7yc
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@watsisname et al:
Oops. I must have been thinking about the deficit, not the debt. Point still stands.
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And the harassment begins, came home to a Mitt Romney sign in my yard. Obama doesn't have a chance in my district.
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im voting for romny just on the grounds that hes not obama. and he scores a lot of points on the nuke-all-the-things-o-meter.
of course alaska only gets one electoral vote, and it always goes red. so i dont even have to vote to get the same results.
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of course alaska only gets one electoral vote...
Three, Nuke. Every state gets a number of electoral votes equal to the number of people in its entire Congressional delegation, which is, at a minimum, three.
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I didn't notice this addition to z64555's post, earlier:
Last time I voted at the voting polls, they gave me one of two cards: A card that had all of the Republican nominees, and a card that had all of the Democratic nominees (local, state, and federal). I asked the voting poll administrators if I could get both cards so I could vote for different candidates (for a corresponding different seat), and they said no. I don't like this.
That sounds like you were at a primary in a state that uses closed primary rules in a manner very similar to Tennessee.
In a closed primary, only members of a given political party can vote in that party's primary election. States determine what constitutes a member of a political party, but in Tennessee (and many other states), your party affiliation is determined by what primary you vote in. If you voted in the Democratic primary this year, then until the next primary election, you are recognized by the state as a Democrat. If you voted in the Republican primary this year, then until the next primary election, you are recognized by the state as a Republican. If you chose not to vote for candidates in either primary (some states will have a general election on the day of the primary to run referenda and special elections to prematurely vacant seats), then until the next primary election, you are recognized by the state as independent of party affiliation.
The reason you couldn't get ballots for both primaries is because the state will only recognize one party affiliation at a time. When you go to the polls in November (or for early voting, if your state/district is set up for it), you'll receive a ballot with names for each seat corresponding to those who won their primaries, earlier in the year.
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In Pennsylvania, inconveniently enough, you have to register as a member of a specific party when you initially register to vote, so if you're registered as an independent, you're SOL in primaries. I think I'm still registered as a Republican (funny what a difference eight years makes) for the sole reason that it lets me vote in a primary...not that I probably ever will, but it's nice to have the option.
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@watsisname et al:
Oops. I must have been thinking about the deficit, not the debt. Point still stands.
Definitely. It was predicted that if Clinton had his trend going, we'd actually have been out of a debt. Bush turned everything around when he started two wars and cut taxes.
Mongoose: Most primaries are like that. They're not usually opened. Michigan was an exception. I'm not sure if they're still open. Ohio is a closed primary as well.
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Louisiana did a jungle primary for the governor's office once. Sadly, there was no Daily Show at the time to lampoon the resulting madness. The short version of it is that in October, a ballot ran with twelve candidates, and when none of them captured a majority of the vote (a plurality was insufficient for a win at this stage), a runoff election was scheduled for November 16. That runoff was between Edwin Edwards, then three-time governor of the state, well-known for his not-entirely-proper-and-slightly-less-than-legal use of state funds, and David Duke. Yes, that David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and who once claimed a sixth sense for discerning when he was talking to "a n****r" over the phone.
Bearing in mind that, for a run-off in a jungle primary, there are no write-ins, who would you have voted for on November 16, 1991? If that question boggles the mind a little too much, then consider the easier formulation: Who would you have voted against?
Jungle primaries! Where **** floats to the top!
(funny what a difference eight years makes)
As someone who's read your posts on each end of those eight years, I'd say "amazing" is the word. It's not even that you've changed positions on issues (though that's impressive enough, given the way internet message boards breed obstinence), but more the way you've changed how you arrive at and defend your positions. I used to dismiss you, in political threads, as the guy who would fall back to the, "because the church says so," line, in the face of a firm opposition. Nowadays, I know I can get into a political discussion or debate with you, and know that you're going to provide evidence to defend your position, rather than try to shut down the conversation with a cheap argument from authority.
I'm sorry if that comes off as crass brown-nosing, but you deserve credit for becoming a better debater.
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This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate - assuming your party doesn't select bat**** insane candidates.
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It's my deepest hope that the entire GOP is doing all of this ironically and that most of the party isn't this insane or out of touch with reality.
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This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate
You are assuming this isn't exactly what happened. :p
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This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/)
I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here. Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.
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This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate
You are assuming this isn't exactly what happened. :p
My mother did exactly that, back in the 1970's. In that respect, I think she might deserve some credit for Nixon, but don't tell her I said that. ;)
The problem is, when it gets done en masse, instead of winding up with a selection of candidates that the members of each party feel are their best, you wind up with the candidates that the members of the opposing party think are the worst. In other words, instead of choosing from a selection of the best (or at least high-tier) candidates, during the general election, you're left choosing from a selection of the worst.
Consider an alternative, though: Instead of registering with the other party to vote for the worst candidate, what about registering with the party you oppose to vote for the primary candidate, on their ballot, with whom you most agree? Done in large enough numbers, instead of getting bad candidates, you get a general election ballot full of moderates and begin moving the parties toward the political center. (If done by too many people, though, the parties just switch positions and continue on out to opposite extreme that they had been previously pursuing.)
It would be interesting to see a study conducted to determine how often either sort of primary-sabotage happens and if it is having any noticeable effect on the outcome of primaries.
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This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/)
I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here. Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.
Numbers? Facts? These aren't god-given and are therefore invalid. Socialist scum!
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This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/)
I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here. Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.
[sarcasm]Numbers? Facts? These aren't god-given and are therefore invalid. Socialist scum![/sarcasm]
There, FTFY. :)
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It's my deepest hope that the entire GOP is doing all of this ironically and that most of the party isn't this insane or out of touch with reality.
I have some bad news for you...
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This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate - assuming your party doesn't select bat**** insane candidates.
That's what happened in Michigan!
That's also why Ohio forces registered voters for a party (as determined by previous year's voting record) to only vote intra party so long as the voter casts a ballot for an election of some sort. I don't know the details too well to be honest. Ballotpedia may/may not explain it better.
Michigan example: It's a potentially close election if the moderate in a primary wins for Republicans and Democrats. Because anyone can vote in any primary, the Republicans vote for an extremist Democrat in the primary, and because of the influx of Republican voters, that Democrat wins the primary. During the election, the Democrat, being the extremist that he is, is unpopular with mainstream Michigan and loses the election.
Ohio example*: You voted Democrat for an election. Next year, you want to be Republican and want to vote in the Republican primary. Because you voted Democrat the year before, the system says "Screw you. You can only vote Democrat this year or not at all for the primary." You opted to not vote in the primary nor the election. When you want to vote again in a primary some years later, you can choose whichever party you want because you didn't vote the year before.
*Details may be wrong.
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Just to toss in some conversation here, when I saw the ad about Mitt Romney paying 14% tax, and middle-class probably paying more, I actually thought "great, so the middle class needs a tax break", vs. "RAAAAGE! I R jealous of you, wealthy pig!" 14% doesn't seem a bad figure.
However that being said, my opinion on loopholes: Erase them. No more loopholes. NONE. Pay your f***ing taxes.
If your income is so low that you are at or below the cost of living in your area, then maybe do progressive tax right down to 0% tax, just so the poor / fixed income ppls aren't being kicked in the teeth.
I'm also not against welfare / foodstamps / etc if you actually need it, but if you're just trolling the system, well, screw you. Of course, determining who is actually trolling the system is hard, as trolls will just lie, and it's harder when the job market sucks and the unemployment rate is 15% (Yes, you have to count those who aren't looking for jobs any more in order to get an accurate unemployment rate, I don't know what this **** is about only counting the people who are still looking for work as unemployed.)
Spending can be used to jump start an economy if done right, but I don't really know if anyone's really nailed this. Raising taxes? I don't think that will get you too far. Think. The rich will shuffle some numbers and nothing will change. The upper middle class will become mid-to lower middle class, as their extra income goes to the government. The lower class won't change. So, in other words, the government gets more money. What do you think they will actually do with it? Something ill-advised and ineffective, targeted at their special interest groups back home, for their next election campaign, no doubt. Of course, a tax increase in the form of closed loopholes would be nice.. as long as it's accompanied by a tax cut for some (IIRC, the middle class tax that someone living in NY State would end up paying is like 49.~%... this is unacceptable, where does the government think it gets off eating half of someone's income?? IDC if they are Bill Gates, that's just wrong. As wrong as a billionaire paying between 0 and 5 % (unless we were just well enough off that the flat tax rate was 5% or something, I suppose that'd be fair as long as everyone was being taxed the same at that point, but I don't see that being logistically possible).
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It's hardly a "loophole"; it's Bush II's "tax cuts".
bit of a tangent:
Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 90%, and nothing bad came of it. So if you want to use the interstate highway system, you should have to pay Eisenhower-era % taxes :P
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Wonderful. So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make? OK, what's 10% of that? Why (if I was that rich) would I bother? What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit? Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that. Yes? So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.
Didn't the Russians move to a 13% flat tax rate and actually experience a net gain in tax revenue, as the wealthy and corporations found it cheaper to just pay their taxes, rather than trying to avoid them?
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Wonderful. So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make? OK, what's 10% of that? Why (if I was that rich) would I bother? What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit? Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that. Yes? So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.
This is something that I noticed during SimCity when playing with the tax rates... when I rose the taxes for the $$$ citizens, they where less inclined to flock to my cities (as well as the higher-tech companies and businesses). Whenever I tried to mimic the U.S. federal income tax rates, my cities would end up stalling after the 5th year or so... However. Whenever I tried reversing it, such as 10.2%, 10.1%, 10% ($, $$, and $$$ respectively), my cities had a boon of income and would flurish.
This reason this happened was due to the fact that there's a population gradient that goes from $ to $$$, with $ being the most populous. By having an inverse tax gradient, it encouraged the little $ sims to work hard and educate themselves, pushing themselves into the $$ and $$$ brackets and overall reducing the population gradient to be more or less uniform (i.e. 34% $, 33% $$, and 33% $$$ of total population).
Granted, there's a whole bunch more variables in the real world than with the simulators, but I don't see a reason why City, State, and/or Federal government can't experiment with the idea over 10 to 20 years or so. Note: the differences between tax brackets should be really, really minor. As in, it shouldn't gouge the poor and middle-class bracket's wallets, but rather reflect on how many/much services are being provided by the government(s) (roads, public schools, power, etc.). The cost of these services should therefore dictate the tax rates, and the net sum of the cost of said services and the net income from taxes should be barely above $0 per tax period.
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I always found that with a high tax rate I could build the kind of city my sims wanted to live in, and as a result I had high growth and in fact found the game too easy most of the time. :p
The "Well they'll take their business elsewhere/won't work as hard" argument is bollocks. If the government is taxing 90% of your 300 million a year salary you're still going to be making more than 40-50 million a year (tax brackets, remember!). If that's so little you don't want to work hard, **** you. Market forces mean that there will be someone willing to work harder for only 30 million a year. Cause that's still a ****load of money.
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It's not 90% of your total income, it's just 90% of the income that's in the highest bracket. So you'd be paying 90% on everything beyond like $300,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Federal_income_tax_rates
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Wonderful. So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make? OK, what's 10% of that? Why (if I was that rich) would I bother? What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit? Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that. Yes? So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.
The fact that despite the higher taxes, the people with the most wealth would still earn more probably has something to do with that...
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It's hardly a "loophole"; it's Bush II's "tax cuts".
bit of a tangent:
Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 90%, and nothing bad came of it. So if you want to use the interstate highway system, you should have to pay Eisenhower-era % taxes :P
i dont like eisenhower. he had a standing order that all cats on the whitehouse lawn be shot on site. that genocidal bastard.
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The fact that despite the higher taxes, the people with the most wealth would still earn more probably has something to do with that...
Yes, ok, but regardless, taxes are supposed to be for paying the government for the services / governing that they provide. Why the **** should the rich pay for themselves and 3,000 others???? It's their money. Theirs. Not the government's, not the poor's. I can see that they need to provide for more given that they have a lot of... assets, and the government needs to govern them and all of those assets, but how does "you have a lot of stuff, so I can take a lot of stuff" get justified? How? That's called stealing. Pay your taxes, 14% of $1,000,000,000 (billion) is 140 million ****ing dollars. That's the ENTIRE INCOME {not tax paid, entire INCOME} of 3,154 AVERAGE US households, PAID.IN.TAXES.TO.THE.GOVERNMENT if someone making $1 billion was taxed at 14%.
Do you see the small little problem here? Where the **** does the money/work-time go? Basically, one person, making $1 billion, is sending the government, the working equivalent of 3,000+ average US households' worth of work, full-time, one year {{at 14%}}. You think that's enough?
90% tax would put that number at 20,275 (20 thousand)
Think about this a little, then tell me you wouldn't get a little motivated to hide some of that if the government just came in and took 20 thousand work-years away from you. The fact that you have 2,000 (two thousand) years left is overshadowed by the fact that the government just took 10 times that amount from you.
Is the world ending? Is the country in danger (WW3)? Then the government has no business doing this ****.
Sorry for the French (language).
EDIT: And sorry for the maths errors. Fixx0red, I think. Figures based on average income of $44,389, in 2004
Edit 2: Also fixed the fonts. Italics and bold add more than enough emphasis without this trend catching on. Thanks ;) - Fineus
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Been reading Ayn Rand again, have we?
I think, however, that you are not going far enough. Why should someone with a high income pay the same tax rate as those less fortunate? After all, as your income grows, your dependence on state-run services lessens, wouldn't it be therefore logical to lessen the relative tax load on the rich? After all, that would give them the opportunity to reinvest more of their money so that wealth trickles down the various strata of society, would it not?
[engage serious mode]
Yeah, no. You want the wealthy to become even more wealthy. You want the gap between the people just scraping by and those who can wipe their asses with diamond-encrusted towels to increase even more.
I'm sorry, but how brainwashed do you have to be to be in favour of a policy that will never, ever be relevant for you (unless, of course, you manage to break through the glass ceiling separating the middle class from the upper levels), and that will only serve to create an environment (in the legal and social sense) that is functionally identical to ye olde aristocracy?
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*snip, lol*
The 16th amendment has been around for barely shy of 100 years, by continuing to live here you implicitly agree to these terms. If you want to repeal the amendment please explain how this will improve socio-economic mobility in the US. If you can't do that you are perfectly free to seek refuge from the IRS in one of the many beautiful nations that do not collect income taxes. If you are rich enough for your argument to make any amount of sense this will not affect your quality of life.
Do you see the small little problem here? Where the **** does the money/work-time go? Basically, one person, making $1 billion, is sending the government, the working equivalent of 3,000+ average US households' worth of work, full-time, one year {{at 14%}}. You think that's enough?
90% tax would put that number at 20,275 (20 thousand)
Think about this a little, then tell me you wouldn't get a little motivated to hide some of that if the government just came in and took 20 thousand work-years away from you. The fact that you have 2,000 (two thousand) years left is overshadowed by the fact that the government just took 10 times that amount from you.
I'm quoting this because it's hilarious how you think the kind of person that makes 1,000,000,000USD/year works anywhere near as hard as the kind of person that works at the grocery store full time.
edit2: Just to clarify, it's because it's literally impossible for one person to work 20,275 worker-years. A dude at your typical piss-**** job will make less than $20000/year. If we define how hard to work to be your hourly wage then it's clear that the guy making $1,000,000,000/year is working 50,000 times harder than the guy with the awful job. So if we get all of our CEOs to work in construction sites for a day they'll be able to do what would take a normal worker 50 years. But this isn't the case, you don't always make money based on how hard you work, you don't always deserve the money you get, etc. This is what happens when individuals take credit for something a group did.
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First of all:
[quote with cleverly altered date]
{size=12pt}
{b}CAPS!{/b}
[inappropriate, mid-sentence end-punctuation]
{b}{i}{/b}{/i}{/b}
{/size}
None of these things enhance your credibility, and when applied to an entire post or every other sentence, they lose the effect of emphasis, for which you're trying to use them. In fact, their overuse, in making your post more difficult to read, will lead more people to ignore it.
Then the government has no business doing this ****.
Actually, the government not only has business doing this ****, but an obligation to do this ****. You see, the government is formed of representatives, elected by citizens. Those citizens have made it quite clear to their representatives that they want certain services guaranteed. Those services must be paid for, and therefore the government must raise revenue.
Before you launch into another rant about pork-barrel spending bleeding the wealthy of their dollars, maybe read up (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258) on how tax dollars are actually spent.
That's the ENTIRE INCOME {not tax paid, entire INCOME} of 3,154 AVERAGE US households.
Are you suggesting that someone bringing in a billion dollars of taxable income per year is doing the work or contributing an equivilant amount to society (before taxes) of 22,528 average US households? Likewise, does that mean that someone working a full-time, minimum-wage job is a third of a person? Be careful, when you create false equivilancies, or they might get turned around on you.
Been reading Ayn Rand again, have we?
Tenuous link to topic: The Catholic church recently called out Paul Ryan for his long-standing office policy of making Ayn Rand's work required reading among his Congressional staff. Because the GOP fancies itself the party of God (or at least religiously conservative Christians), within twenty-four hours, he had publicly disowned Ayn Rand's formulation of objectivism, on sole basis of her having been an atheist, yet somehow managed to do so without changing any of his economic policy positions. Methinks he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.
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This topic is too numbers, and politics heavy....
I'mma step out now.
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Ooh, nice pie charts. Now make each slice of the pie a pie chart (http://www.usfederalbudget.us/federal_budget_detail_fy13bs12012n_1014_554#usgs302), and each slice of those a pie chart (c'mon, they're spending the money, they might better know where it's going) ... what's all of this? Health Care > Public Health Services > Consumer and occupational health and safety (554) > Now we have 7 entries labelled "Salaries and Expenses", described as "discretionary" (I bet!) "non-grant", and "on-budget" and no more details. Huh...
If Paul Ryan did that, well, good for him, then he sucks. Atheists can be right too. (Speaking as someone who is not an atheist, and thinks atheists are wrong, in that respect.) I don't know where anyone gets off saying that a person's entire contribution(s) to society are unwanted / incorrect, just because you believe (and could very well be 100% correct) that ONE of their beliefs are wrong, or even MULTIPLE beliefs they hold are wrong. It's not a chain of beliefs, it's a network. Maybe one of the chains in the belief system affects the others in the network, maybe not. Regardless, it doesn't affect the truth. That'd be like a discovery made by a YEC (*waves hand and then dodges the shotgun pellets*) being dismissed, when it does not necessarily have anything to do with YEC, just because you disagree with his beliefs on YEC, and therefore, everything he/she comes up with must be false.
wtf
Yes, government has services they need to provide. However, I'd like to question the government's 'representation' of the public in this matter. Kinda convenient, when politicians, who end up controlling / benefiting from the policies they implement (special interest projects back home in their election district) just so happen to enact policies that require large amounts of money / resources. Seems like a good ol boy network, where everyone's doing it, but no one will hold their own representatives accountable, because "handouts pl0x, kk u have my vote, you my h33r0!" That goes for the welfare bum who decided working was for losers and the millionaire who only wants to pay 3% tax. No free lunch, either of the two!
I don't mean to come off as sounding extreme (stfu, I know what you are thinking now, you n00b), {{EDIT: that was directed at anyone dismissing what I'm saying because they think that I'm being extreme, without actually pausing to consider how much has merit, just to clarify}} however, there needs to be balance. The reason trickle-down doesn't work is because the government is at every pool in that river, where the surplus collects, draining as they see fit, supposedly for the benefit of the poor / needy / infrastructure / yadayada. {{EDIT: From the top, with the suppliers and their entire copy of the following chain, to the stockholders, to the corporation, to the distributors, to the consumers}}
I'm kind of on the fence with the whole "value" of the rich. Yeah they don't really work that much, but, working is not just about manual labor. It's about sound decisions, managing risk vs. potential in investments, managing people well, and hopefully, investing in your team, from the management through the laborer. (Yes I know some CEOs would rather just have a bunch of slaves, however...)
So, you can, through smart application of your team and resources, indeed, accomplish many times what one person could... but not that much.
Ha! I have it! For a billionaire, tax the 10% of income that he makes as that income, and divide the rest of it tax-free among the other employees of the company. j/k, that's just a random thought and wouldn't work.
OK, here's a thought: Let's say you own some property. Let's say you're really good with robotics, and you create a factory, that requires minimal staffing (let's say yourself and a team of 10 engineers). Now let's say that you begin producing, I dunno, semi-conductors at this factory, cheaper than anyone else can. You spent your money, hired your employees to do this work. Now let's say you're rivaling Intel et al... You hire a manager to take care of the factory, and basically are set for life, not having to do anything but provide guidance to your company from time to time. How much of your income is the government entitled to? All of it, riiiiight? You don't do any work any more. Based on the logic displayed above, you get nothing and the government keeps it all. Or, perhaps they should give you a minimum-wage 40-hour x 52 week portion of it, just for the idea.
Somewhere in here is the correct answer.
In the situation above, if the government is taking 90% of your income, and (insert % here) of the company's revenue, how are you supposed to react when you have a bright idea that couldn't be implemented before, because it would have required $billions in investment capital?
Ayn Rand, no, no, just struck by the audacity of it all. Government is as bad as the companies that don't pay their employees what they are worth because no one else does, so they can get away with it and keep the profit.
Oh, and the date wasn't altered on purpose, that was me doing multiple edits and fat-fingering it somewhere. Glad it made an impression, though. :yes: :rolleyes:
As for the glass ceiling.. well, that's kind of up to your ingenuity. Although I do realize that the top tier won't necessarily be encouraging (some of them won't). e.g., Tucker Car vs the Big Three, etc. Honestly I'd be happy to just be paid what I'm worth, rewarded for hard work and inventive solutions, and not expected to pay more than my fair share to the public coffers (FWIW {{not much on an internet forum, I know}}, at this point, I'd qualify for handouts, except the social services department says I'm not qualified according to their refusal letter, as I supposedly make in a month on my own what my wife and I can't make together in that time... guess it's cause we actually work for a living, based on all the people we see on handouts of different types that don't work and haven't for 5+ years). Actually, I think they went back to January, took what I make on my two weeks' Annual Training in the Reserves in that month, added it to what I make in my regular job, and applied it to the entire year, just 'cause they're cool like that.
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Yeeeeeeaaah, nothing to do here.
That'd be like a discovery made by a YEC (*waves hand and then dodges the shotgun pellets*) being dismissed
Holding YEC beliefs is generally not consistent with adherence to proper scientific protocol. At the very least, it is an indication for a severe blind spot in the YEC's critical thinking capability.
However, I'd like to question the government's 'representation' of the public in this matter. Kinda convenient, when politicians, who end up controlling / benefiting from the policies they implement (special interest projects back home in their election district) just so happen to enact policies that require large amounts of money / resources. Seems like a good ol boy network, where everyone's doing it, but no one will hold their own representatives accountable, because "handouts pl0x, kk u have my vote, you my h33r0!" That goes for the welfare bum who decided working was for losers and the millionaire who only wants to pay 3% tax. No free lunch, either of the two!
Okay, so you're saying that democratic governments don't work because the people elected into position are partially partisan? Or that charismatic dirtbags can get themselves elected?
Newsflash, we are humans. That's how it has always been, and that's how it's going to be in the foreseeable future. We somehow still manage to muddle along.
I don't mean to come off as sounding extreme
Too late for that, I'm afraid.
The reason trickle-down doesn't work is because the government is at every pool in that river, where the surplus collects, draining as they see fit, supposedly for the benefit of the poor / needy / infrastructure / yadayada.
lolno. The reason why trickle-down does not work is because there is nothing trickling down. For all practical intents and purposes, once money has reached the coffers of the "1%", it exhibits a remarkable tendency to stay there.
Yeah they don't really work that much, but, working is not just about manual labor. It's about sound decisions, managing risk vs. potential in investments, managing people well, and hopefully, investing in your team, from the management through the laborer. (Yes I know some CEOs would rather just have a bunch of slaves, however...)
Noone is arguing that a high-level executive's workload is the same as someone who stacks the shelves at the local supermarket. But, here's the thing, does the changed scope of the work justify an increase in wage by several thousand percent? Some increase is justified, certainly, due to said scope, and due to the expectation for high-level executives to be always on-call, but is the stratospheric gap we're seeing at the moment really an accurate representation of the differing levels of qualification needed for the job?
OK, here's a thought: Let's say you own some property. Let's say you're really good with robotics, and you create a factory, that requires minimal staffing (let's say yourself and a team of 10 engineers). Now let's say that you begin producing, I dunno, semi-conductors at this factory, cheaper than anyone else can. You spent your money, hired your employees to do this work. Now let's say you're rivaling Intel et al... You hire a manager to take care of the factory, and basically are set for life, not having to do anything but provide guidance to your company from time to time. How much of your income is the government entitled to? All of it, riiiiight? You don't do any work any more. Based on the logic displayed above, you get nothing and the government keeps it all. Or, perhaps they should give you a minimum-wage 40-hour x 52 week portion of it, just for the idea.
What. The. ****. Did I just read. You have a basic misunderstanding of the role a company CEO or Chairman of the Board has. They don't just sit back and occasionally release edicts from on-high. Running a company the size of Intel, even at the very high abstraction level at the top, is a fulltime job.
And no, there is no logic in saying "he doesn't work, he needs to pay all his income to the state", because a) that person would very definitely do work and b) noone in their right mind is seriously arguing for a 100% tay rate.
I think I detect a vague hint of communistophobia here (A phobia widely spread amongst those who think that "paying taxes" is just a moniker for "being robbed").
In the situation above, if the government is taking 90% of your income, and (insert % here) of the company's revenue, how are you supposed to react when you have a bright idea that couldn't be implemented before, because it would have required $billions in investment capital?
You mean in the completely fictional, overblown, absolutely unrealistic case mentioned above?
As for the glass ceiling.. well, that's kind of up to your ingenuity.
Lolno. Unless you go to the right schools, make the right connections, have the drive to be slightly sociopathic, and have a little luck, you aren't going to make it. Ingenuity has very little to do with it, Marc Zuckerberg et al notwithstanding.
Regarding your circumstances alluded to in the last post: I genuinely feel sorry for you.
However, I still feel like you are arguing against your better interests. I understand that you feel screwed by the state, and as such are possibly biased heavily against it; but from my perspective, the state is the only thing that can act as a balancing force between the super-rich and powerful and the little people. That was the original intent of democracy, and it's an ideal that I think is worth aspiring to.
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Now we have 7 entries labelled "Salaries and Expenses", described as "discretionary" (I bet!) "non-grant", and "on-budget" and no more details. Huh...
So, because you don't understand government budget terminology, those expenditures must be unnecessary?
How much of your income is the government entitled to? All of it, riiiiight? You don't do any work any more. Based on the logic displayed above, you get nothing and the government keeps it all.
:lol:
Fight the good fight, sir. Keep us safe from that terrible strawman army.
I may reply in greater detail and length later, but for now, I've got to head in to my $13/hour job in the healthcare industry. I'll be sure to ask my supervisor, on your behalf, though, if we can stop servicing Medicare/Medicaid recipients, so that we can try to reclaim that 20% of the federal budget.
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Yes, government has services they need to provide. However, I'd like to question the government's 'representation' of the public in this matter. Kinda convenient, when politicians, who end up controlling / benefiting from the policies they implement (special interest projects back home in their election district) just so happen to enact policies that require large amounts of money / resources. Seems like a good ol boy network, where everyone's doing it, but no one will hold their own representatives accountable, because "handouts pl0x, kk u have my vote, you my h33r0!" That goes for the welfare bum who decided working was for losers and the millionaire who only wants to pay 3% tax. No free lunch, either of the two!
Well this is an interesting take on the whole "rich people control everything" conspiracy theory. Protip: BlueFlames already pointed out that pork barrel spending is a small part of the federal spending breakdown. Also I think it's hilarious how you're comparing someone with a six figure income to someone with no income when talking about free lunches.
I'm kind of on the fence with the whole "value" of the rich. Yeah they don't really work that much, but, working is not just about manual labor. It's about sound decisions, managing risk vs. potential in investments, managing people well, and hopefully, investing in your team, from the management through the laborer. (Yes I know some CEOs would rather just have a bunch of slaves, however...)
So, you can, through smart application of your team and resources, indeed, accomplish many times what one person could... but not that much.
My argument wasn't at all comparing the difficulty of manual labour to management. It was about the ratio of work done to compensation of management types vs worker types.
OK, here's a thought: Let's say you own some property. Let's say you're really good with robotics, and you create a factory, that requires minimal staffing (let's say yourself and a team of 10 engineers). Now let's say that you begin producing, I dunno, semi-conductors at this factory, cheaper than anyone else can. You spent your money, hired your employees to do this work. Now let's say you're rivaling Intel et al... You hire a manager to take care of the factory, and basically are set for life, not having to do anything but provide guidance to your company from time to time. How much of your income is the government entitled to? All of it, riiiiight? You don't do any work any more. Based on the logic displayed above, you get nothing and the government keeps it all. Or, perhaps they should give you a minimum-wage 40-hour x 52 week portion of it, just for the idea.
In the situation above, if the government is taking 90% of your income, and (insert % here) of the company's revenue, how are you supposed to react when you have a bright idea that couldn't be implemented before, because it would have required $billions in investment capital?
I never once suggested the government judge how much of your income deserve and take the rest. I was pointing out how incredibly absurd it is for you to talk about income of the wealthy in terms of average-worker-years. It's simply laughable (for the reasons in my previous post) to suggest that the fact that individuals can be taxed multiple average-worker-years worth of money as an argument when by definition there are lots of people earning much less than that amount. And there will always be people that can't afford something. Whether it be buying a Ferrari or having kids, there's just nothing anyone will be able to do to make everyone able to afford everything. The best we can do is set up the game so everyone has a fair shot.
And also I agree with everything BlueFlames and The E just said, not that I really need to point it out.
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The six figure income and no income folks in that example have one thing in common: not doing their part. The six figure dude wants to keep what is owed to the state for himself, 'cause I guess he thinks his roads aught to be paved for him for free. The no income dude wants to be taken care of for free. Same idea.
As for the wealth staying at the 1%... umm, they buy mansions, yes? Crazy expensive cars? Hire people to drive them, and people to answer their door? Buy their own planes, and hire people to fly them, stay at fancy hotels, etc etc etc.... They blow through a ton of money. Where does all of that go? I would think if they had more, they would spend more. There's no point to holding on to money besides to maintain whatever standard of living you want when you stop making income, and/or unless you're planning on giving it to someone or a cause when you die. For serious, you can't use it after you die. This actually makes the idea of only ridicu-taxing if the wealthy sit on it seem like a good idea. Obviously, let them hold on to some for retirement / funds for their children or w/e.
Alright. Now. Be sure to check out the "Archives" section on the site referenced below. It's got one link for every month from March 2009 through current. I do hope you're not seriously going to just say 'lolno' to this. It's all made up, exaggerated by 30x, right? ofc it is. Go back to sleep. I'm not trying to say all government spending and programs need to end, I'm trying to say they just go wild with it 'cause it's not their money.
EDIT: “I place economy among the first and most Important virtues – and debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load with perpetual debt. If we can prevent the Government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, we will be happy.”
Can You Identify the Most Egregious Example of Wasteful Spending by the Welfare State? (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/can-you-identify-the-most-egregious-example-of-wasteful-spending-by-the-welfare-state/)
December 23, 2011 by Dan Mitchell
I’ve commented many times about wasteful government spending, including Social Security bureaucrats spending $700 thousand (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/social-security-administration-bureaucrats-have-a-party%E2%80%A6and-taxpayers-pick-up-a-700000-tab/) to party at a luxury resort, HUD bureaucrats giving huge subsidies (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/another-compelling-reason-to-shut-down-the-department-of-housing-and-urban-development/) for welfare recipients to live in upscale neighborhoods, rampant fraud (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/more-disgusting-examples-of-government-waste-fraud-and-abuse/) in the unemployment insurance program, and tax dollars being used to subsidize (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/social-security-administration-sides-with-adult-baby-dumps-diaper-contents-on-taxpayers/) a grown man wearing diapers and living as an “adult baby.”
Those are depressing examples, but here are three additional stories that may be even worse. They all show how entitlement programs squander other people’s money.
1. A local news outlet in Oregon (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/02/food-stamps-used-for-starbucks-frappuccinos/) revealed that recipients can use food stamps to buy luxury products:
Oregon Trail Cards — which are part of the state’s food stamp program — can be used to purchase luxury coffee concoctions at Starbucks counters inside grocery stores, investigators from Fox 12 in Oregon have discovered. …According to federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) guidelines, people cannot buy foods that will be eaten in the store or hot foods. However, luxury items that are allowed include soft drinks, candy, cookies, ice cream, even bakery cakes and energy drinks that have a nutrition facts label.
2. Benjamin Domenech of the Heartland Institute (http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/06/quarter-billion-taxpayer-dollars-spent-penis-pumps) reports that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on penis pumps:
According to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare has spent more than $240 million of taxpayer money on penis pumps for elderly men over the past decade, and will surpass a quarter of a billion dollars this year for costs since 2001. The cost to taxpayers for the pumps more than quadrupled during that period… And these represent only the costs for external devices, technically classified as “Male Vacuum Erection Systems,” not implantable devices or oral drugs such as Viagra.”
3. A Seattle TV station has an expose (http://www.theroot.com/buzz/seattle-welfare-recipient-lives-12-million-home) about a woman receiving various forms of welfare even though she lives in a million-dollar home.
Search warrant documents unsealed Friday in federal court reveal that she received more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus monthly cash from the federal and state government for a disability, as well as food stamps. Property records show the woman lives in a 2,500 square-foot home, with gardens and a boat dock, that is valued at $1.2 million. Records show she has received welfare benefits while living in the plush home since 2003. Records also show she truthfully provided her address when she applied for benefits.
These are the stories that I keep in mind every time I hear some politician whining (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/the-no-tax-hike-pledge-is-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition-to-restrain-big-government/) that “spending has been cut to the bone” and higher taxes are needed.
P.S. I’m happy to report that American taxpayers were not victimized by the all-time record for the most absurd example of government waste, which took place when British taxpayers financed sex trips to Amsterdam for welfare recipients (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/taxpayer-funded-sex-trips-to-amsterdam/).
In Addition to Its Many other Flaws, Obamacare Is Becoming a Racket for Overpaid Government Bureaucrats (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/in-addition-to-its-many-other-flaws-obamacare-is-becoming-a-racket-for-overpaid-government-bureaucrats/)
I’ve certainly complained about Obamacare from a fiscal perspective, warning that it means higher taxes and more spending (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/obamacare-will-be-a-budget-buster/).
And I’ve also warned that it will make our health care system less efficient and could lead to some of the horrifying examples of rationing and poor care (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/the-deadly-impact-of-government-run-healthcare-in-the-u-k-but-dont-expect-a-krugman-retraction-or-apology/) that you find in the United Kingdom (scroll to the bottom of this post for some shocking examples).
But if you need another reason to be upset, it turns out that Obamacare is going to be a very lucrative gig for a new crop of government bureaucrats.
Here are some very disturbing details from the Pueblo Chieftan in Colorado (http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/eye-popping-salaries-proposed-for-health-care-exchange/article_b0062332-e01d-11e0-b452-001cc4c002e0.html).
Eye-popping salaries proposed for employees of the health benefits exchange being formed in Colorado grabbed the attention of Republicans and Democrats alike on Thursday. A subcommittee of the board charged with establishing the exchange is considering a draft budget for its federal grant application that would create 24 positions and pay those employees a total of more than $3 million annually to manage the health care cooperative. The average annual salary of a health benefits exchange employee would exceed $125,000 under the plan. …“We have executive directors (of state departments) that are in charge of thousands of people here that make significantly less than that,” said Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. …A Democrat on the committee overseeing enactment of health benefits exchange legislation in the state agreed that the figures are worthy of scrutiny. …Under the health care overhaul, states were required to establish exchanges. Colorado authorized its exchange this year in SB200.
Keep in mind that the $125,000 figure is an average, which means many of the bureaucrats will be getting much bigger paychecks.
And also remember that we’re talking Colorado, not someplace like New York City where the cost of living is a bit higher.
Even more important, the article refers to the “average annual salary,” which means it probably doesn’t include the gold-plated benefit packages that are far more generous than generally available in the private sector (state and local bureaucrats, for instance, make out like bandits on pensions (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/government-employee-pensions-are-a-budget-issue-but-also-a-growth-and-fairness-issue/)).
And to show that this story is just the tip of the iceberg, let’s recycle my video about overpaid government bureaucrats (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/taxpayers-vs-bureaucrats-the-video-version/).
And if all the data in the video doesn’t convince you, check out this chart (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/one-chart-that-tells-you-everything-you-need-to-know-about-whether-state-and-local-bureaucrats-are-over-compensated/).
The Joy of Government-Run Healthcare: The UK’s Gilded Bureaucrats and Dying Patients (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/the-joy-of-government-run-healthcare-the-uks-gilded-bureaucrats-and-dying-patients/)
I’m not sure whether this is a post about America’s dismal future if Obamacare (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/obamacare-will-be-a-budget-buster/) is allowed to take root or whether this is a post about bureaucrats (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/taxpayers-vs-bureaucrats-the-video-version/) ripping off taxpayers.
But I do know that it shows that the insiders take care of themselves quite nicely when the government seizes more control of a nation’s healthcare sector.
Here’s a report from the UK-based Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9370075/NHS-staff-drive-fleet-of-taxpayer-funded-luxury-cars.html) about how bureaucrats at a Scottish branch of the National Health Service are bilking taxpayers.
National Procurement, a branch of the NHS National Services Division, arranged for staff who are deemed to be “regular users” of cars for business to get the cars through a taxpayer-backed vehicle-leasing scheme. …Figures provided by National Procurement in response to a Freedom of Information request showed that…one in eight members of staff, had used the 4x4s and convertibles to drive to work. Much of the insurance, petrol, road tax and leasing is funded by the state.
And we’re not talking cheap automobiles. Keep in mind, when you read this next passage, that £25,000 is almost $40,000.
One employee was leased a £27,000 Mercedes, while three other workers have been driving £23,000 S-line Audi A3 sports cars. Another employee received a £28,300 Audi TT. Since the beginning of this year, five new cars have been leased to staff, including a four-door BMW worth more than £30,500. Other leased vehicles include another Audi sports car worth more than £25,000 and three Range Rover Evoques costing up to £29,500.
So how do they work this scam? Simple, they take needless trips.
…staff have had to clock up a minimum of 5000 business miles during office hours to qualify for the scheme. …A department source told the Herald newspaper that some members of staff were using their leased cars for 80-mile round trips between National Procurement’s two offices, in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, and South Gyle in Edinburgh, even though there are adequate video conferencing facilities at both locations.
One hopes that this scandal in a Scottish branch is an exception and that most bureaucrats don’t behave in a similarly reprehensible fashion.
But given the bloated size of the National Health Service bureaucracy, it’s more likely that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
(http://jec.senate.gov/republicans/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=2ac21312-e94e-48bc-a951-4f34b7744ab2)
There is an entitlement culture in most government bureaucracies, and I would be shocked in the paper pushers and memo writers hadn’t figured out how to manipulate the system
And since there are more than 1.6 million of them, the magnitude of the fraud is presumably enormous.
The obvious follow-up question is whether taxpayers in the United Kingdom are getting some good value from this army of cosseted bureaucrats?
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Here are some chilling excerpts from a story in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html).
NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday. Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia… There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP. Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’.
Here are a couple of horrifying examples.
Professor Pullicino revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated. He said this showed that claims they had hours or days left are ‘palpably false’. In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift. Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP. ‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,’ he said. ‘His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,’ he said.
In other words, government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom is a great scam if you’re an insider. But not such a good deal if you’re someone who needs, well, healthcare.
Sort of makes you wonder what Paul Krugman was thinking (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/the-deadly-impact-of-government-run-healthcare-in-the-u-k-but-dont-expect-a-krugman-retraction-or-apology/) when he wrote, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”
I guess the English newspapers are making up stories to denigrate their own nation. If you want to see more of these “false” stories, click here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/another-horror-story-about-government-run-healthcare-that-cant-possibly-be-true-according-to-paul-krugman/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/09/06/from-the-u-k-another-great-moment-in-government-run-healthcare/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2011/07/28/notwithstanding-paul-krugmans-assurances-the-united-kingdom-announces-more-healthcare-rationing/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2011/06/09/an-unoffical-death-panel-in-englad-shows-how-to-save-money-in-a-government-run-healthcare-system/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2011/05/21/the-joys-of-government-run-healthcare-more-spending-longer-waiting-lines-fewer-patients-treated/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2011/02/15/englands-slow-motion-death-panels/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2010/09/04/the-joy-of-government-run-healthcare-2/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2010/07/21/great-moments-in-government-run-healthcare-2/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2010/05/20/great-moments-in-government-run-healthcare/), here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/more-great-moments-in-government-run-healthcare/) and here (http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/2011/10/15/2010/02/27/yes-simon-people-in-the-united-kingdom-die-because-of-government-run-healthcare/).
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(http://i.imgur.com/mTTiy.jpg)
your posts are too long, you win
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@jr2: take a position:
1. Are you for or against Bush's tax cuts, i.e. the elimination of the capital gains tax, i.e. the "loophole" that allows however many of the top 1% to pay $0 in taxes?
2. Suppose you have a choice: you can improve the quality of life for the vast majority of people, and not significantly make the quality of life worse for hardly anyone, or you can do nothing. What would you choose?
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this is relevant
Money (http://xkcd.com/980/)
also i should point out that if rich people dont want to pay more taxes then maybe they should create jobs for the 15% unemployed in the us. dont put that new factory you want to build in china just cause you will make more money out of it. sure you wont make as much money if you put that factory in the us, but you will ease unemployment. and those people who just got jobs will pay taxes. and since everyone happy and more people can pay taxes, no reason to increase them taxes, and less welfare to pay out.
if you start trickling sideways instead of down, then **** them, they do not care about the us. government, take their money! so we dont have bums littering the streets. id rather have them put up in dinky studio apartments, fed, and treated for their mental disorders, ect, than have them ask me for my change, or stealing my stuff so they can buy crack. yes you are going to have a whole slew of asshats taking advantage of the social services and healthcare, both on the inside and out. thats what the law is for.
you may also want to pay workers a little better than welfare does. i've known working class families making less than families on welfare, and thats shameful of those who create jobs. if what you get from welfare/food stamps/housing organizations/etc is more than what you would receive from a minimum wage job, then perhaps that job needs to pay more. you offer no incentive for free lunch types to move up into the working class, and for working class types to stay working class.
im all for basic human needs being a civil right. with all this money flying around, the cost of this is pocket change to the 1%. this is also within reason, with restriction on living space sizes, restrictions on money/food/healthcare dollar amounts. this should be equivalent to maybe 50-75% of the minimum wage, to provide the incentive to jump from looserville to the working class. sure the rich dont want to pay for all that stuff, but its not like they didnt dig this hole themselves. they exported jobs to china, they took advantage of the workforce, they refused to give them health benefits, they refused to pay their personal and corporate taxes, they refused to create jobs. with wealth comes responsibility.
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A fact re: glass ceiling that everyone may find interesting:
In virtually all democratic countries, the strongest predictor of your household income at any given time in your life is your parent's household income. Not education, not where you live, not who you marry, not who you know, but what your parent's household made in income when you were growing up. THAT is what the glass ceiling means, and it's why people like jr2 are delusional when they talk about money and social hierarchy.
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[foreword]
I was in the process of writing a much longer post, but as I reread jr2's last post, the image really came together, and I realized that there's only one salient point to be made. I've trimmed the fat, as it were, and left what I feel addresses the crux of the problem.
[/foreword]
Be sure to check out the "Archives" section on the site referenced below.
Color me unimpressed. It's a right-wing blog that cites itself more than any outside source, and when it does cite outside sources, it cites right-wing newspapers, tabloids, and lobbying groups, which, yes, do all have credibility issues of their own.
Just to grab one (and then a couple more), if you did even a cursory investigation into The Heartland Institute, you'd have found out that this organization made its living in the 1990's producing garbage "science" to convince Congress that second-hand tobacco smoke isn't a public health hazard, while engaging in shady backroom business with the GOP to ensure that the party would be their consistant ally on the issue. The Cato Institute (with whom the blog's author is "a senior Fellow") spends most of its time, these days, opposing environmental legislation, which you might expect from a lobbying group founded and funded, in large-part, by oil mogul Charles Koch. The Daily Mail is a UK rag tabloid that, were it to be printed in the United States, would compete with The National Enquirer because they both lack any journalistic integrity or qualms about making **** up.
Citing a lobbying group with a history of making up junk science to support its pre-determined conclusions isn't convincing, unless your readers are unwilling to do a cursory investigation of that lobbying group. Citing a tabloid isn't convincing, unless your audience is unwilling to read so much as another article in the same tabloid to realize that they just make **** up. Padding out citations with links to your own blog isn't convincing, unless your audience doesn't even bother to mouse-over the links and is just dumbstruck by the sheer number of them. The three used in concert are only impressive in as far as they demonstrate the expected level of intellectual laziness of the target audience.
This blog is absolutely not something to take at face-value, especially when it relies on citations of this quality and has such strong ties to overtly partisan organizations. In fact, you'd be ill-advised to take nearly any source at face-value, particularly in the realm of politics. You've got to dig into and through the sources to find out who wrote them, who funded them, and whether they describe reality or twist it to fit a preconceived conclusion. In the case of a study conducted by a partisan group, to lend it any credibility, you have to see if a study's findings are corroborated by similar studies run by organizations with a neutral or opposing viewpoint on the issue in question. Without taking those extra steps to verify the veracity of your source, there's nothing separating your citation from an empassioned use of Thomas the Tank Engine as evidence that the government long ago built sentient trains.
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Hmm, well, if that organization was trying to say second-hand smoke wasn't harmful... yeah that's shady. Let me go dig down the links. I knew many were inside the blog, but I assumed all salient points would have external references, let me check.
Personally, I do know quite a few obvious issues with government waste, just working for them, so, it's there, if not as big as some sites say. In other words, I don't think someone just made all this **** up.
Cause honestly, if I'd made all that up, I'd have done a better job. :rolleyes:
Case in point, we are doing our classes on VMWare using Panasonic CF-52s that, I've heard from our shop (workcenter) cost the US taxpayers ~$7,000 a piece. Current price brand new is ~$2,000 for a CF-53. But we have to buy them at that price because we have a contract, and we can't order parts from other sources, if the company we <USMC> have a contract with has the part or product we need in stock. I'm in the reserves, so I only really interact with this environment once a month, but... if we are doing that at a reserve base, and we haev proabably a few hundred of these at least... it seems like everything the government touches just gets raped by people trying to take advantage of it. Cause stealing from the collective is somehow ok. I guess sort of how stealing from individuals is ok as long as you don't get caught. (Yeah been victim of that too).
Just so I'm clear, it's not that life took a turn for the worse and now I'm all upset. I've been upset, my life has been rather sucky for a couple of years now at least, but I've thought this way for a while. {{years before all of these current circumstances}}
I'm not far-right extreme (let the rich get out of taxes and cut all benefits to the under priviledged), but I'm not far-left either (tax the **** out of the rich 'cause they've got money and they don't need it, and just give it to anyone who asks {{apparently, unless they have a job, and just need a little assistance, that is}})
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I'm not far-right extreme (let the rich get out of taxes and cut all benefits to the under priviledged), but I'm not far-left either (tax the **** out of the rich 'cause they've got money and they don't need it, and just give it to anyone who asks {{apparently, unless they have a job, and just need a little assistance, that is}})
I don't quite think that's what left and right mean...
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$125,400,000,000 ,,,
(http://i45.tinypic.com/2z6tp42.png)
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And did you notice how small that is compared to a lot of other things on that chart? **** ballistic missile submarines.
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Heh, it's even smaller than "estimated direct annual agricultural value of bees". :)
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Download the image (http://xkcd.com/980/sources/) and view it in GIMP (http://www.gimp.org), and put in View > Display Navigation Window.
And, obviously, the amount shown is only what they caught.
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So this is logic then? Because the government make improper payments the idea of making the proper payments is somehow incorrect?
You'll need to do a ****load better than that.
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that big block at the bottom, thats all nukes
:cool:
never said burning the earth is cheap.
i can totally agree that our government is a wasteful pig however. i vote down every new government agency/organization/board/committee/whatever that comes across my ballot. we got plenty of bureaucracy already. id rather the money get spent on solving actual problems than imaginary problems that politicians convince that everyone exists because some lobbyist told them they do.
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So this is logic then? Because the government make improper payments the idea of making the proper payments is somehow incorrect?
You'll need to do a ****load better than that.
-_- Cut out the waste, fraud, and abuse, and you won't need as many proper payments. Cut out the unnecessary spending, and you'll need even less.
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And you believe that left-wingers don't want to cut out the waste, fraud, and abuse?
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Going back off-tangent and off-topic:
WTF Republicans. The economy is in the toilet, you're in several global conflict zones, the environment needs some serious attention, and your focus is on restricting a woman's right to abortion? (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/american-politicians-put-abortion-access-at-risk/article4494619/)
GOP - Get Off [Earth] Please. For everyone's sake.
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I've been off on the GOP's abortion stance on IRC. It's so fundamentally backwards.
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Left-wingers {{at least, they seem to from my perspective}} think that the government doesn't inherently lean towards growing larger and larger, taking more and more power for itself, in the name of protecting its constituents and the 'greater good'. Problem is, the human element in the government picture brings in 'power corrupts'. Like a less-extreme {{at least ATM}} version of the Standford Prison Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment).
Basically, the bigger you allow government to become, and the more power you allow it to have, the more likely it is to mutate into something it was never intended to be, just because it can. Why does the government spend multiple millions of dollars on research grants to study the life cycle of some certain type of moth? Study it, sure, but you don't need to spend that kind of money, unless perhaps it's a new invasive species that's attempting to cause havoc and you need to know how to combat it.
Take the census, for example. All of the extra man-hours and production costs to make it into this huge questionnaire, asking what the **** you drink with your breakfast, etc?? Honestly, all the necessary questions should fit on one page, maybe make it double sided if that's not enough.
Government needs to be compartmentalized, with each compartment being limited in scope and power, to prevent cancer from breaking out. Take the complexity of the law, for example. Why does it need to be so complex? Why can't they trust the judges to hand down the correct rulings on a set of common-sense, straightforward laws? They make such a complex mess out of law, taxes, healthcare.... that it wastes a ton of manpower and resources, just to get someone to interpret how the rules actually apply to real life. It's called overhead; the more government you have, the more the percentage of that waste increases, and it's something you would generally want to keep to a minimum, not encourage more of.
EDIT: And honestly, the abortion issue I'm sure is used as a political tool by both parties, but when it comes down to it, the real issue is whether you are taking a human life or not. If you aren't, you don't have a problem, and I wouldn't have an issue with abortion. It boils down to belief system. I believe it is taking a human life.
A) If you believed that abortion was taking a human life, would you agree with it?
1) If not, we agree on that, and we disagree on whether abortion actually does take a human life
2) If yes, and you still think it should be allowed, then I don't know what your problem is. This line of thinking would basically, when followed through, allow parents to just get rid of their children (parents' life, parents' right to do what they want, and you already established that the matter of human life is of no consequence to you). Next step: Euthanasia of the old, the sick, the disabled, then the mentally ill, then undesirables, which then branches out to whoever you don't agree with.
B) If you don't believe abortion is taking a human life, at what point to you believe a <<developing non-human as of yet lifeform>> becomes a viable human life? That would be the point where you would disagree with abortion, unless taking human life doesn't matter to you. What establishes human life? Careful now. Brain waves? Heartbeat? Response to external stimuli? The ability to express an awareness of one's self? Oh, that last one could allow infanticide, couldn't it...
C) Anyways, I think we would all agree that abortion would need to be limited at some point. Where's that point? I think it shouldn't be allowed, because I think that all life is created by God. However, since you disagree, let's at least agree that after a certain point, abortion should not be allowed. My question to you is, what's that point? <<Cue thread split here>>
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I believe it is taking a human life.
But does your belief allow you, or others who believe the same thing, to impose your interpretation on others? Does your simplistic interpretation of the legal situation cover all possible situations under which a woman might need to consider aborting a pregnancy? Do you, as a male, have any authority whatsoever to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do solely because of your morality (Yes, in a normal relationship, the partner sure has a right to voice his opinions, he does not, however, have a right to impose his will on his partner)?
The point is, you are perfectly free to disagree with people who want to have abortions perform. However, your right to disagree ends at that disagreement, you do NOT have the moral right to forcefully intervene when someone has made a decision to abort a pregnancy. You especially do not have the moral right to force others to follow your morality.
Government needs to be compartmentalized, with each compartment being limited in scope and power
When looking at a government's org chart, you will find that they are far away from being monolithic entities. Not sure exactly how "compartmentalized" you want them to be, when you also want them to work efficiently.
Why can't they trust the judges to hand down the correct rulings on a set of common-sense, straightforward laws?
Because common sense isn't. When studying your society's code of laws, written and unwritten, you will find that most laws will follow roughly the same guidelines. The complexity of the law comes from the legislators' desire to create a legal framework that is not very open to subjective interpretation, one where all people operating under that law code can expect pretty much the same treatment wherever they are in that law codes' area of influence.
Would it be desirable to cut down on the greebles? Sure. But the second you were done, cruft would start accumulating again.
Why does the government spend multiple millions of dollars on research grants to study the life cycle of some certain type of moth? Study it, sure, but you don't need to spend that kind of money, unless perhaps it's a new invasive species that's attempting to cause havoc and you need to know how to combat it.
Even assuming your example would be true (it most certainly isn't), what would make you qualified to make such a call? Also, one of the very biggest things a government can do that private companies can't is to finance "pure research" projects, i.e. Projects that do not have (or do not seem to have) immediate practical applications. NASA, for example.
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But does your belief allow you, or others who believe the same thing, to impose your interpretation on others? Does your simplistic interpretation of the legal situation cover all possible situations under which a woman might need to consider aborting a pregnancy? Do you, as a male, have any authority whatsoever to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do solely because of your morality (Yes, in a normal relationship, the partner sure has a right to voice his opinions, he does not, however, have a right to impose his will on his partner)?
The point is, you are perfectly free to disagree with people who want to have abortions perform. However, your right to disagree ends at that disagreement, you do NOT have the moral right to forcefully intervene when someone has made a decision to abort a pregnancy. You especially do not have the moral right to force others to follow your morality.
Government needs to be compartmentalized, with each compartment being limited in scope and power
When looking at a government's org chart, you will find that they are far away from being monolithic entities. Not sure exactly how "compartmentalized" you want them to be, when you also want them to work efficiently.
I don't think that's what jr2 meant by compartmentalized. Well I hope not because I didn't actually read his post and I'm going to talk about what I thought he meant anyway. When you consider something like abortion at national level you're always going to have people that disagree with each other. The problem I have with people that say "Well legalize it and if you don't like it don't do it" is that it doesn't resolve the argument. You've got to be totally off your rocker if you think regulating these things at a national level when they're still socially charged issues is a good way to spend our government's time. Not only is it quite a stretch to even say that congress or the courts have any authority to pass laws or judgements on the matter, even if they do anyway you'll still have the other side ***** and moan about it until they get their way. The only legitimate reason the federal government should get into the whole mess of these kinds of arguments is if it's something that could actually affect inter-state affairs. Unfortunately, 99% of the time diametrically opposed arguments are referenced in politics (even ones where the federal government DOES have a legitimate reason to address) it's just because of either campaigning or pork as opposed to any actual discourse or action.
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I believe it is taking a human life.
But does your belief allow you, or others who believe the same thing, to impose your interpretation on others? Does your simplistic interpretation of the legal situation cover all possible situations under which a woman might need to consider aborting a pregnancy? Do you, as a male, have any authority whatsoever to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do solely because of your morality (Yes, in a normal relationship, the partner sure has a right to voice his opinions, he does not, however, have a right to impose his will on his partner)?
The point is, you are perfectly free to disagree with people who want to have abortions perform. However, your right to disagree ends at that disagreement, you do NOT have the moral right to forcefully intervene when someone has made a decision to abort a pregnancy. You especially do not have the moral right to force others to follow your morality.
That's all well and good from your standpoint. If you have the capability of re-thinking your entire decision structure from the standpoint of someone who sees abortion as ending a life, then what would you say? In that case, there is a another set of rights at stake, and that would be the rights of the life that is up for termination. Basically what is happening, is those rights are being automatically negated by the assumption that they do not exist, as they do not belong to an actually existing entity. Which they should be, if that is indeed the case. I see you skipped right over the question of where life, and therefore, the right to life, begins.
Where does it begin? OK, so you can't be sure? Then where ARE you sure? Pick a point. It's ok if it's just an opinion and you can't be sure. Where would you personally say there is no doubt that a second set of rights are on the table and must not be infringed upon?
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Didn't we already have a xbawks hueg discussion about that a while back and it essentially boiled down to abortion as we know it not actually terminating a sentient being?
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Dunno, I avoided that discussion.
Anyways, 'abortion as we know it'
Which is? 1st, 2nd trimester?
When does the being become sentient? Based on what evidence of sentience?
How much of a margin of error are you giving this avoidance?
Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.
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let me rephrase my post for you: go look it up
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If you have the capability of re-thinking your entire decision structure from the standpoint of someone who sees abortion as ending a life, then what would you say?
I would say the exact same thing. Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to have an abortion is not mine to make. I would certainly hope that my partner would include me in the decision-making process, but neither would I try to force my viewpoint on her, nor would I abandon her after the decision has been made. If that sounds like dodging the decision, it kinda is. Because I have no ****ing right whatsoever to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do with her body, and as such refuse to be dragged into moralistic arguments made by people who are (ultimately) not ****ing relevant to the discussion.
As for the question when an abortion would become legally problematic: Never. As far as I am concerned, it is only after birth that a human life exists independent of the mother.
Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.
You will get the answers you get. You will not dictate to us the the tools we use to debate with you.
Of course, that's assuming you are at all interested in a debate (as in, a process by which through the applications of arguments and counterarguments the opinions of the participants are laid bare, tested, and modified), and not just here to play the "imma christian and i'm right" song.
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I'm not sure if you're deliberately misunderstanding jr2 or not, because he's definitely arguing that the woman's body is only half the story when there's a foetus crammed in there. Continuing to ignore what he's talking about in the hopes that he'll just decide to switch sides about isn't going to move this discussion anywhere. Not that I'm one to talk since I ignored half his posts in this thread. :nervous:
edit: oh I just saw what you edited in, nm sorry
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Well, I do disagree with his notion that a foetus is a human being from the moment of conception forward. In all cases, I value the life of the mother higher than that of the foetus; and if a mother is unable to care adequately for a child due to economic or personal reasons, she should be able to abort the pregnancy without fear of being criminalized for doing so. In other words, I'd rather have no child at all than an unwanted one.
Also, and this is the big elephant in the room for me, as a man I am ultimately insulated from the decision because women are the only ones who have to make it and who will have to deal with more direct consequences. I can pontificate all day about how abortion is a sin, a crime, a perversion of medicine, but I will never have to actually make a decision about it.
I am also deeply distrustful of people like jr2 who, on one hand, rant on and on about how evil and wasteful and intrusive government is, but who see nothing wrong with using government to enforce parts of their worldview on others.
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Maybe before focusing on the issue of terminating a barely sentient foetus for medically justified reasons, we should focus on an issue of terminating fully sentient, adult humans to get their resources.
OK, it's a hyperbole. Some abortions are performed for nonmedical reasons and resources aren't the only reason for the ongoing conflicts, but I think that wars should take precedence over the abortion debate. At least, there's a general consensus a war is a bad (and expensive) thing. I don't think changes in abortion policy would affect the budget nearly as much as changes to military policy. Which brings us to another problem, the economy, which is currently in a sorry state. Solve the critical problems, and you can debate about less important ones. Also, no religious arguments please, science and logic only. Religion shouldn't mix with politics because historically, hardly anything good ever came out of it.
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I believe it is taking a human life.
But does your belief allow you, or others who believe the same thing, to impose your interpretation on others? Does your simplistic interpretation of the legal situation cover all possible situations under which a woman might need to consider aborting a pregnancy? Do you, as a male, have any authority whatsoever to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do solely because of your morality (Yes, in a normal relationship, the partner sure has a right to voice his opinions, he does not, however, have a right to impose his will on his partner)?
The point is, you are perfectly free to disagree with people who want to have abortions perform. However, your right to disagree ends at that disagreement, you do NOT have the moral right to forcefully intervene when someone has made a decision to abort a pregnancy. You especially do not have the moral right to force others to follow your morality.
That's all well and good from your standpoint. If you have the capability of re-thinking your entire decision structure from the standpoint of someone who sees abortion as ending a life, then what would you say? In that case, there is a another set of rights at stake, and that would be the rights of the life that is up for termination. Basically what is happening, is those rights are being automatically negated by the assumption that they do not exist, as they do not belong to an actually existing entity. Which they should be, if that is indeed the case. I see you skipped right over the question of where life, and therefore, the right to life, begins.
Where does it begin? OK, so you can't be sure? Then where ARE you sure? Pick a point. It's ok if it's just an opinion and you can't be sure. Where would you personally say there is no doubt that a second set of rights are on the table and must not be infringed upon?
Why not go all the way and fight for the right of every sperm mh? ;) After all it has the potential to create life.... potential that would be wasted if it isn t realized... what about the rights of that potential life huh?
And yes that means you have to stop masturbating.... you mass murderer :p
Alternatively we could just grow up and expose the whole "be fruitful and prosper" (and program your children according to faith X) gospel for what it is...
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Seeing as this is still a hotly constested topic (the rights to abort a pregnacy), here are my comments:
Abortion is ending a life, that fact is clear.
However, as you might not have noticed elseware, almost all living lifeforms on Earth end the life of some other creature in order to sustain their own life. Herbavores consume the life of plants, Carnivores consume the life of creatures, and Omnivores consume the life of all - just so that they can live another day.
With that in mind, let's comment about the causes behind wanting/needing to go through an abortion:
- The child bearer cannot survive through childbirth
- The child is malformed to a point where it cannot survive through the childbirth
- The parent(s) cannot keep the child alive in the immediate future, due to a number of things (namely lack of resources)
- And, perhaps the most loathsome of causes: the parent(s) do not want the child in the first place
There may be many more causes, but I believe the last two that I listed are the ones that are the centerpoints of the legality/ethics of abortions.
Why not go all the way and fight for the right of every sperm mh? ;) After all it has the potential to create life.... potential that would be wasted if it isn t realized... what about the rights of that potential life huh?
And yes that means you have to stop masturbating.... you mass murderer :p
Alternatively we could just grow up and expose the whole "be fruitful and prosper" (and program your children according to faith X) gospel for what it is...
Back when the human population was in the hundreds, I believe such ideals where valid, because unnecessary discharges of sex cells where wasteful in the sense that it did not make full use of the energy and resources that went in to produce them. You have to remember at this time, living was quite hard, and it was man vs. nature for every day, let alone man vs. man when the time came to fight over fertile lands where food and water could be found.
Nowadays, in most "first-world" regions, such ideals are perhaps invalid, because food and water are not as scarce, and the human population is in no immediate danger of mass extinction.
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Back when the human population was in the hundreds, I believe such ideals where valid, because unnecessary discharges of sex cells where wasteful in the sense that it did not make full use of the energy and resources that went in to produce them. You have to remember at this time, living was quite hard, and it was man vs. nature for every day, let alone man vs. man when the time came to fight over fertile lands where food and water could be found.
Nowadays, in most "first-world" regions, such ideals are perhaps invalid, because food and water are not as scarce, and the human population is in no immediate danger of mass extinction.
Which is the whole point. Nowadays there is no logical reason, none, that would justify to take away a woman's choice to create or not to create life.
The logical reasoning is actually rather straightforward... once a being has the capacity to suffer usually everyone agrees that harming that being is immoral... but a fertilized egg/clump of cells has no more a capacity to suffer than a sperm or an egg cell.
The only reasons against women's choice past this point are twisted/religious ones that usually amount to little else than "*I* know better than you what's best for you... because *I* believe that's what everyone should think!".
(And we know why they are there as well as those reasons are an integral part of the mechanism religions used to propagate themselves throughout the ages: Have many children and raise them to be faithful followers of God ABC so we can send them to slaughter followers of god XYZ - Rinse and repeat for success... it's sad how something like that can evolve into tradition that haunts us still today.)
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Good point.
I think that other people have right to do anything they want, as long as they take full responsibility for it and don't interfere in the same right of other people. Somebody might even believe in human sacrifice, as long as he doesn't actually sacrifice anyone. I also don't force anybody to believe what I do, though I am fond of (politely, and using logic of course) poking holes in religious argumentations. I never tried converting anybody to Buddhism (which is the "religion" I currently sort of follow), though I can argument about why I consider it "better" than other religions. My stance on abortion is the same. The woman and the doctor are the only people who have any right to decide whether to perform an abortion, and the doctor should honor his patient's decision unless there are medical reasons for not performing it.
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Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place? And no, I don't just mean abstinence.
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Well, that's how most people do it. However, the methods used are not 100% effective, and pregnancy may still happen, despite the decision. Abortion is 100% effective, but it should be used as a last resort, if only because it's a surgery and thus not exactly easy on the would be mother's body. And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree. Perhaps taxing abortion for non-medical reasons for women who weren't raped could help preventing it from becoming too widespread.
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Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place? And no, I don't just mean abstinence.
Please don't clarify this. Just let us guess at what else you mean and open yourself up for misinterpretation. I'm sure that will be conducive to a calm and reasonable discussion. :p
EDIT: but yeah, if we're going for the contraceptive angle here, it doesn't make sense that a woman should have to deal with pregnancy and childbirth just because she's a woman, especially if she's taking reasonable measures to avoid pregnancy in the first place. Yeah, nature isn't fair, but we have the ability to even things out now, so I think it should be okay to do just that.
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Hypothetical:
If you had to choose between the life of some stranger's unwanted fetus, or the life of my favorite pet, which would you save?
I would choose my pet. And I don't think anyone here would choose otherwise, if the decision actually came up.
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Sorry I'm half a page behind, but I don't have a coherent comment on the abortion thing. (also, for some wierd reason, I just tried to type "abourtion" three times... go figure)
Take the census, for example. All of the extra man-hours and production costs to make it into this huge questionnaire, asking what the **** you drink with your breakfast, etc?? Honestly, all the necessary questions should fit on one page, maybe make it double sided if that's not enough.
WRONG!
Sorry, but as (among half-a-dozen other jobs I've managed to get my hands on since graduation while I waited for the economy to recover) an on-the-ground employee of the census across the entire 2010 count, you couldn't be more wrong with this unresearched bogus echo-chamber talking point. The census asked a total of perhaps eighteen questions this time around. Of those, the majority (as many as ten or twelve questions, depending on which dialogue tree was followed) boiled down to "Am I at the right address, do you live here, did you live here on the official census date, and if not can I speak to someone who does or did, and what time should I come back to find them home?" The only data collected on the residents was name, age, relation to head-of-household, and self-declared ethnic group.
So take your damned (and I mean that literally - those talking points and the liars who spewed them should be damned to hell for the situations they made some of the charming little-old-ladies I was supervising go through. Would you want an elderly grandmother trying to pick up a little spare money in her free time to get huge dogs sicked on her?) Glenn Beck talking points and shove them someplace very uncomfortable, please. (What, like the back of a Volkswagen? (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vc7_NEinAjI))
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Dunno, I avoided that discussion.
Anyways, 'abortion as we know it'
Which is? 1st, 2nd trimester?
When does the being become sentient? Based on what evidence of sentience?
How much of a margin of error are you giving this avoidance?
Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.
we have the technology to abort while the future dead baby is still an embryo. first trimester maybe. after that, abort the mother. im all for women having the right to abortion, after all noone wants to grow up a rape baby. but make the decision in a timely manor, it is after all a time critical decision and it should be made quickly. because the longer you wait, the more human it becomes (its an iterative process, not the flip of a switch). after that at least recycle the corpse, maybe as cat food or whatever.
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Dunno, I avoided that discussion.
Anyways, 'abortion as we know it'
Which is? 1st, 2nd trimester?
When does the being become sentient? Based on what evidence of sentience?
How much of a margin of error are you giving this avoidance?
Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.
we have the technology to abort while the future dead baby is still an embryo. first trimester maybe. after that, abort the mother. im all for women having the right to abortion, after all noone wants to grow up a rape baby. but make the decision in a timely manor, it is after all a time critical decision and it should be made quickly. because the longer you wait, the more human it becomes (its an iterative process, not the flip of a switch). after that at least recycle the corpse, maybe as cat food or whatever.
Which corpse, of the mother? I tried to follow your line of thought throughout the paragraph, but went slightly insane in the process :)
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any and all corpses generated in the process.
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Well, that's how most people do it. However, the methods used are not 100% effective, and pregnancy may still happen, despite the decision. Abortion is 100% effective, but it should be used as a last resort, if only because it's a surgery and thus not exactly easy on the would be mother's body. And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree. Perhaps taxing abortion for non-medical reasons for women who weren't raped could help preventing it from becoming too widespread.
There you go, imposing your morality through law. What the **** gives you the right to say "abortion is too wide-spread"?
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Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place? And no, I don't just mean abstinence.
And guess what. The same people who oppose abortion are generally the strongest advocates against teaching about this "choice"
Stupid isn't it?
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I don't like the vibe I'm getting here. All human life has equal value. I still don't have a ****ing answer to when you think human life is human enough from your point of view to have value equal to the value of the life that so capriciously created it. Seriously... is the sole value of a human life the value that you assign to it? So if you don't care for your kid, just slip them some poison? I know that's not your opinion on that matter, however, your opinion seems to be absent based on your responses. All I'm getting is the same static over the mother's rights. Will you ****ing get the point that Jeffrey Dahmer has rights too, but that his rights cease right at the line where they intersect with yours?? I asked when a human life become that, and what your opinion is concerning what makes it human. I never once stated my opinion on using the government in the abortion decision, or contraceptives. That's ok, cause I guess I already told you my opinion based on your responses (no, they don't line up to your arrogant stereotype). I think I'm done with this discussion, this is why I avoided the other thread, kthxbai
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All human life has equal value.
The question is at what point a foetus becomes a human though.
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****! Yes, will you answer my question???
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****! Yes, will you answer my question???
I'm under the impression that it doesn't matter what any one of us say where that line lays, but rather what society as a whole believes where it is when it comes to discussing the legality of the whole thing.
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I don't like the vibe I'm getting here. All human life has equal value. I still don't have a ****ing answer to when you think human life is human enough from your point of view to have value equal to the value of the life that so capriciously created it.
As far as I am concerned, it is only after birth that a human life exists independent of the mother.
So if you don't care for your kid, just slip them some poison?
As implied by the previous statement, that would definitely be murder and as such, punishable in my opinion. It seems that most law codes in the western world agree.
your opinion seems to be absent based on your responses.
My opinion is that, whatever my opinion may be (Incidentally, my opinion is that abortion is completely justified in all cases where the mother is not sure of her ability to ensure that the child grows up in a supportive environment. It is not a decision one should make in the heat of the moment, as it were, but the ability to make the decision is crucial), it is ultimately irrelevant because my opinion is not the one that determines the outcome of any decision for or against an abortion.
All I'm getting is the same static over the mother's rights.
As far as I am concerned, the mother's rights are the only thing that matters in this discussion, as per previous statements.
Will you ****ing get the point that Jeffrey Dahmer has rights too, but that his rights cease right at the line where they intersect with yours??
How does a serial killer and sex offender who was murdered in prison figure into this?
what your opinion is concerning what makes it human.
A large degree of similarity (to the 99.999th percentile) of the dataset gathered by the human genome project would be a good start.
I never once stated my opinion on using the government in the abortion decision, or contraceptives.
Let me quote yourself:
C) Anyways, I think we would all agree that abortion would need to be limited at some point. Where's that point? I think it shouldn't be allowed, because I think that all life is created by God.
You were saying?
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I didn't say what the some point was... well, logically, since I believe life is life from conception, that's my opinion, however, if you honestly don't believe that, as society doesn't, until such a time as they actually believe that, I wouldn't expect the same opinion from them, and thus the law would be set to wherever they think the line is as far as unborn life being human. Reading your responses, you seem to think that abortion two weeks before due date is A-ok.
Serial killer??? OK, what was wrong with what he did? He had the right to have fun be happy do what he wanted yadayada yukyuk right up until his little fun injured / killed someone. Women have all the rights in the world, but that right does not include terminating another's life, so therefore, you have to determine what constitutes another life. You continuously say that the mother's rights are paramount, to which I would then respond, if you think that a fully functional human life should be allowed to be terminated for the convenience of of another human life, well then, your opinion should also include the rights of parents to do the same after birth. Maybe we can have some societal progress here and discover some new rights to do whatever the **** we want.
Part of being human is learning that your rights must not infringe on another's. And I'm not even starting to touch on responsibility. You brought a life into the world, you take care of them, or find someone who can. I can see that opinion is different with others who don't think that a life is really human... ok... I follow your train of thought. However, I don't follow this "it's all up to the mother, lolz, who the **** cares if an infant is being killed".
RE: your human genome project comment. You're nuts. :wtf: The first time the single cell splits, it has two complete copies of the new human's DNA, that will not change for their life.
Another, sort of separate issue IMESHO is the method of abortion. You wouldn't used an over-sided over-powered vacuum in a swimming pool to put down your cat through dismemberment. Neither would you chemically burn it to death. I assume you wouldn't puncture its cranium and deflate its skull.
Honestly, I wasn't really going to try to argue or debate here, just throw some ideas around, and I got such a knee jerk reaction that I remembered why I try to avoid threads like this. :nono: And here I thought I could have some good old political discussion without getting into anything that controversial. ahahahaHLP
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You're the one who brought up abortion again!
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The idea behind abortion is that you're not ending someone's life. A foetus isn't sentient. It's not a person, and it's not a fully functional life. It can't even live outside of its mother short of life support, you can't use that as an argument. Giving it rights like it were a person makes less sense than asking a minor to go buy you booze because "he'll be an adult soon anyway". And before you go bashing HLP consider that you're the one making barely legible posts and repeating the same argument over and over, ignoring the issues we've brought up that put massive holes in that argument. You're not allowed To make multiple posts on a topic only to get up and say "well I never wanted to discuss it anyway, you must have tricked me".
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****! Yes, will you answer my question???
when it has more neurons than a house cat (a chimp or a dolphin would be better choices but i like kitties they're so cute). when it comes to sentience, its all about neuron count. like how the performance of a cpu is based on transistor count. what you bible thumpers call a soul is really just the way its wired together, like the vhdl code for an fpga. its meat, and subject to decay.
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So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)
However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates. I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover. This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?
Again, not arguing here, just getting opinions and exploring.
@Nuke: I think your example at least makes sense to me, in its own way. What is your line of reasoning on that? House cat has some sort of sentience?
EDIT:
You're the one who brought up abortion again!
Yeah, it was mentioned in the thread I was posting in. If I plugged for YEC in a thread on Global Warming, would you let that slide?
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So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)
However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates. I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover. This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?
Again, not arguing here, just getting opinions and exploring.
Any definition of human life is arbitrary. The fact that you can reduce any definition to absurdity just demonstrates that.
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So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)
However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates. I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover. This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?
If this is revenge for me not reading your posts I am sorry, but please, if you are going to write a direct response to my post please actually read what I said.
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@Nuke: I think your example at least makes sense to me, in its own way. What is your line of reasoning on that? House cat has some sort of sentience?
as i said in the prins, house cat is probibly a bad choice (though im convinced mine have some master plan in the works). ape/dolphin would be better as there has been some research into the self awareness of those species. mirror reaction tests, ability to follow human instructions, some apes have been able to learn sign language (to be fair all animals communicate, and im not sure what separates animal communication from actual language). i dont have sources, just things ive seen in documentaries on pbs/discovery/whatever, whos titles ive long forgotten. so id say science has a rough estimate of the number of neurons neccisary to count as sentient life (again speculation). it likely has lots to do with emergent complexity, chaos theory, fractals, etc. patterns from chaos, more neurons > more chaos > more patterns > more sentience.
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as i said in the prins, house cat is probibly a bad choice (though im convinced mine have some master plan in the works). ape/dolphin would be better as there has been some research into the self awareness of those species. mirror reaction tests, ability to follow human instructions, some apes have been able to learn sign language (to be fair all animals communicate, and im not sure what separates animal communication from actual language). i dont have sources, just things ive seen in documentaries on pbs/discovery/whatever, whos titles ive long forgotten. so id say science has a rough estimate of the number of neurons neccisary to count as sentient life (again speculation). it likely has lots to do with emergent complexity, chaos theory, fractals, etc. patterns from chaos, more neurons > more chaos > more patterns > more sentience.
More neurons don't correlate to more sentience, unless you mean to say whales have some sort of super-sentience.
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There you go, imposing your morality through law. What the **** gives you the right to say "abortion is too wide-spread"?
Nothing. And in keeping with this I never said that. What I did say was that it is possible for it to become too widespread (note: nothing about likelihood of this happening) and that it's not a good thing. Basically, it should not replace other, safer methods. Here, I'm talking medical concerns (which are objective), not ethics. Granted, people do have their right to be reckless, but I've seen them exercise said right with a disturbing frequency.
Though maybe I'm not giving people enough credit. Maybe this should be indeed left to them, without any additional control measures (though it's not like the government couldn't use the extra money, and a control measure such as a tax could quiet down some detractors). Tax may indeed be a bit extreme suggestion, simply educating people might be enough.
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Yeah, it was mentioned in the thread I was posting in. If I plugged for YEC in a thread on Global Warming, would you let that slide?
My point was that you brought it up and then complained about the topic. You brought up the topic. It's your fault! Don't try to pin the blame on HLP!
However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates. I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover. This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?
And whose health is the guy from the accident risking just by existing? Who's forced to severe medical complications just cause the guy who had an accident continues to live?
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Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place? And no, I don't just mean abstinence.
And guess what. The same people who oppose abortion are generally the strongest advocates against teaching about this "choice"
Stupid isn't it?
Yes, absolutely; I won't deny that for a second. I may have my own beliefs, but I'm certainly a realist...I don't really see casual sex outside of some sort of committed relationship to be a particularly wise choice, but it's going to happen. If you want to have vaginal intercourse and don't want pregnancy to result, you should be using protection. And if you want to absolutely avoid even the remotest chance of pregnancy, you should not be having vaginal sex. There are other ways to express sexuality that don't involve that particular horizontal mambo. :p
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Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place? And no, I don't just mean abstinence.
And guess what. The same people who oppose abortion are generally the strongest advocates against teaching about this "choice"
Stupid isn't it?
Yes, absolutely; I won't deny that for a second. I may have my own beliefs, but I'm certainly a realist...I don't really see casual sex outside of some sort of committed relationship to be a particularly wise choice, but it's going to happen. If you want to have vaginal intercourse and don't want pregnancy to result, you should be using protection. And if you want to absolutely avoid even the remotest chance of pregnancy, you should not be having vaginal sex. There are other ways to express sexuality that don't involve that particular horizontal mambo. :p
You should also avoid masturbating if you do not want to go blind.
Now back to reality, mm kay?
If a girl is really scared of pregnancy she can simply combine contraceptives, like the pill and condoms and make pregnancy statistically rather impropable.
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You should also avoid masturbating if you do not want to go blind.
Now back to reality, mm kay?
If a girl is really scared of pregnancy she can simply combine contraceptives, like the pill and condoms and make pregnancy statistically rather impropable.
Um...in what way was what I said separated from reality? My conclusion was the same as yours: if you want to make pregnancy very improbable, use protection. And if you want to eliminate even that minuscule possibility, avoid vaginal sex.
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What most pro-life people forget is that most pro-choice people desperately want to reduce the number of abortions too. Abortion absolutely should be the last resort. Use of contraception is the most practical method of cutting down pregnancies (reliance on abstinence only actually increases pregnancy rates!)
So it's a crying shame that people insist on preventing proper sexual education. Especially given that doctors actually recommend that women take the pill at some point in their life regardless of whether or not they are actually having sex due to the protection it gives against ovarian cancer.
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as i said in the prins, house cat is probibly a bad choice (though im convinced mine have some master plan in the works). ape/dolphin would be better as there has been some research into the self awareness of those species. mirror reaction tests, ability to follow human instructions, some apes have been able to learn sign language (to be fair all animals communicate, and im not sure what separates animal communication from actual language). i dont have sources, just things ive seen in documentaries on pbs/discovery/whatever, whos titles ive long forgotten. so id say science has a rough estimate of the number of neurons neccisary to count as sentient life (again speculation). it likely has lots to do with emergent complexity, chaos theory, fractals, etc. patterns from chaos, more neurons > more chaos > more patterns > more sentience.
More neurons don't correlate to more sentience, unless you mean to say whales have some sort of super-sentience.
not directly, no. whales likely need more grey matter just to control the hardware, so to speak. more sensory input, larger muscles to control, things like that. it is the cerebral cortex that gives us most of our smarts. so neuron count in that particular part of the brain are what counts. im also not sure what kind of whales have been tested for sentience. i think orcas and dolphins have passed self awareness tests. other whales, especially the larger ones, makes doing this test problematic. mainly because all tests have been carried out on captive specimens. so we really dont have a whole lot of data to go by.
what defines sentience is not well defined. but i can imagine science refining our understanding enough so that we have a reasonable guideline for when abortions are acceptable.
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as i said in the prins, house cat is probibly a bad choice (though im convinced mine have some master plan in the works). ape/dolphin would be better as there has been some research into the self awareness of those species. mirror reaction tests, ability to follow human instructions, some apes have been able to learn sign language (to be fair all animals communicate, and im not sure what separates animal communication from actual language). i dont have sources, just things ive seen in documentaries on pbs/discovery/whatever, whos titles ive long forgotten. so id say science has a rough estimate of the number of neurons neccisary to count as sentient life (again speculation). it likely has lots to do with emergent complexity, chaos theory, fractals, etc. patterns from chaos, more neurons > more chaos > more patterns > more sentience.
More neurons don't correlate to more sentience, unless you mean to say whales have some sort of super-sentience.
not directly, no. whales likely need more grey matter just to control the hardware, so to speak. more sensory input, larger muscles to control, things like that. it is the cerebral cortex that gives us most of our smarts. so neuron count in that particular part of the brain are what counts. im also not sure what kind of whales have been tested for sentience. i think orcas and dolphins have passed self awareness tests. other whales, especially the larger ones, makes doing this test problematic. mainly because all tests have been carried out on captive specimens. so we really dont have a whole lot of data to go by.
what defines sentience is not well defined. but i can imagine science refining our understanding enough so that we have a reasonable guideline for when abortions are acceptable.
I don't doubt there are some factors of the brain that contribute for intelligence, it's just that any metric that we come up with is flawed.
Average surface area of the human cerebral cortex = 2,500 cm^2
Average surface area of the African elephant cerebral cortex = 6,300 cm^2
And if you try to adjust for size or weight, suddenly the tree shrew and some birds have higher ratios than us... it's just not worth the effort to try to justify based solely on weight, size, quantity, whatever.
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yea, more research into the area is neccisary. im pretty certain science will hammer down an equation for sentience at some point. it probibly has more to do with the connection count than the actual neuron count. having more neurons is not going to do much good if their connections are limited. just need to look at more brains under the microscope is all.
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... And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree.
I know I'm late to the party, but I'm calling bull**** on this. If a woman was drugged (or drunk) and was then taken advantage of, then it is rape. While I do believe that everyone should be careful, to say that it's the woman's fault and that she was asking for it, that she deserved it, or that she should've expected it is crap.
This thread reminded me why I hate the Theocratic Wingnuts Party.
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I'm gonna call overreaction on that. He said "should know better" than to get in such a state to be taken advantage of. Nowhere did he say it was the woman's fault, or she was asking for it, or she deserved it, or should have expected it. Nowhere.
And, to be honest, everyone should know better than to get blackout drunk without at least somebody to make sure **** like that doesn't happen.
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Everyone should but sometimes things just don't work out. Sometimes, people just aren't rational. I was mad that there was an apparent distinction of being drugged and other forms of rape when in fact there shouldn't be.
Also, how else can I interpret "should have known better" than "if you did it, then you're stupid and it's your fault"?
EDIT: One thing I'd like to clarify: I didn't mean to associate Dragon with Republicans. The abortion issue was what reminded me that I can't even stand what they're running on their platform.
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... And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree.
I know I'm late to the party, but I'm calling bull**** on this. If a woman was drugged (or drunk) and was then taken advantage of, then it is rape.
Remember though, drunk, regrettable sex =/= rape.
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... And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree.
I know I'm late to the party, but I'm calling bull**** on this. If a woman was drugged (or drunk) and was then taken advantage of, then it is rape.
Remember though, drunk, regrettable sex =/= rape.
Although severely drunk, near-passed-out sex = unable to legally consent = rape.
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Ah, but what if the guy was drunk too?
how does that matter, you ask?
Well, then who raped who??
Perhaps statistically, the guy is more likely to initiate, but, even saying the guy did initiate, when no one has the wits to know what they are doing, who is responsible (I mean for the actions taken while being drunk, not responsible for getting that drunk to begin with)? Aha! The DD should have been watching for this and stepped in! Let's charge him with the rape! EDIT: would have put a lol emoticon here, for the blaming the DD bit, but the topic is rape, which isn't funny.. :/
Just curious, not really making any serious points there, just playing with existing points from a different perspective.
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Ah, but what if the guy was drunk too?
Well, then who raped who??
Rape isn't gender-specific. If a sexual partner is mentally compromised due to intoxication, they are unable to consent to anything (legally). Male or female is irrelevant. Now, obviously cases where both partners are at that level of intoxication are prosecuted are extremely rare as neither party can actually consent, and in order to prosecute rape there must be evidence (i.e. testimony).
The fact that rape has an incredibly low reporting rate among women, and infinitely lower among men, means that most of these issues never actually see a courtroom. But yeah - if one partner is impaired due to drugs or alcohol, they cannot legally consent to sex and a sober other partner is statutorily guilty of rape.
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:yes: That sounds fair and just, IMHO.
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Returning back on topic (the 2012 elections) I wanted to share this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKNpNpPRZY0&feature=related
I have nothing else to add for the moment regarding this subject.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/texas-judge-warns-of-civil-war-if-obama-re-elected/article4504647/
In a nutshell, here’s what worries Judge Head, who also leads Lubbock’s emergency preparedness unit and must plan for everything from tornadoes to civil strife: Should President Barack Obama win another four years in the Oval Office, the president will “hand over sovereignty of the United Sates to the UN,” Judge Head explained in a televised interview. And like any forward-thinking emergency planner, Judge Head wants to be ready for the ensuing bloodbath.
“I’m thinking worst-case scenario – civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe,” as U.S. citizens rise up to defend the nation, the judge continued. “And we’re not talking just a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy,” he added. At that point, in Judge Head’s scenario, the beleaguered president will “send in UN troops” to crush American (and Texan) patriots.
Which brings us back to the tax hike and the looming risk of armed confrontation on the outskirts of Lubbock.
“I don’t want them in Lubbock County,” Judge Head said of the foreign invaders. But nor does he want to face the blue-helmeted hordes alone. “I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there who have no training and little equipment. I want seasoned, veteran people who are trained that have got equipment,” which, he said, justifies the need for a sales tax hike.
Even the addition of some tough Texas lawmen may not be enough. “You know, we may have two or three hundred deputies facing maybe a thousand UN troops. We may have to call out the militia,” Judge Head warned.
Ladies and gentlemen, elected voices from the Republican party!
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yay, civil war! i call grey!
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This pussy socialist judge doesn't think we can both lower taxes and win our inevitable war with the UN?
News flash, judge tax-happy: the name of this country is America, not Amsterdam! Go back to Canada!
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WTF. IF Obama handed over sovereignty of the US to the UN, then worry about it. There's plenty of time for a bloodbath when it comes, which hopefully it doesn't. I don't think Obama or any US president would be foolish enough to attempt that. If the United States of America were to join some one-world government, then it would need to be done with the full knowledge and approval of its citizens, and the three branches of government. You'd have to change the US Constitution, yada yada. It's not something you would want to just foist on the people, or, indeed, you would probably have civil war. I don't think anyone wants to go down in history as the President that started a Civil War.
Not to mention, every member of the Armed Services is sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"... realistically, the only way you could cede control to the UN or anyone would be to change the Constitution.
So, exactly how does the good judge figure Obama is going to pull this off again??
United States Armed Forces oath of enlistment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces_oath_of_enlistment)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Upon enlisting in the United States Armed Forces, each person enlisting in an armed force (whether a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine) takes an oath of enlistment required by federal statute in 10 U.S.C. § 502. That section provides the text of the oath and sets out who may administer the oath:
§ 502. Enlistment oath: who may administer
(a) Enlistment Oath.— Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
"I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
(b) Who May Administer.— The oath may be taken before the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, any commissioned officer, or any other person designated under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense.
Army Regulation 601-210, Active and Reserve Components Enlistment Program provides that:
A commissioned officer of any service will administer the Oath of Enlistment in DD Form 4 orally, in English, to each application. Make a suitable arrangement to ensure that the oath is administered in a dignified manner and in proper surroundings. display the U.S. flag prominently near the officer giving the oath. The words "So help me God" may be omitted for persons who desire to affirm rather than to swear to the oath.[1]
There is no duration defined in the Oath itself. The term of service for each enlisted person is written on the DD Form 4 series, the contract which specifies the enlistment period, which for a first-time enlistee is typically eight years, which can be a combination of active duty and time spent in a reserve component, although enlisted reservists are subject to activation until the end of the eight-year initial military obligation.
Officers do not take the same oath as enlisted personnel, instead taking a similar United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office.
United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All officers of the seven Uniformed services of the United States take swear or affirm an oath of office upon commissioning. It differs slightly from that of the oath of enlistment that enlisted members recite when they enter the service. It is required by statute, the oath being prescribed by Section 3331, Title 5, United States Code.[1] It is traditional for officers to recite the oath upon promotion but as long as the officer's service is continuous this is not actually required.[2] One notable difference between the officer and enlisted oaths is that the oath taken by officers does not include any provision to obey orders; while enlisted personnel are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice to obey lawful orders, officers in the service of the United States are bound by this oath to disobey any order that violates the Constitution of the United States.[3]
Text of the Oath
I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.[1]
Note that the last sentence is not required to be said if the speaker has a personal or moral objection, as is true of all oaths administered by the United States government; Article Six of the United States Constitution requires that there be no religious test for public office.
The oath is for an indeterminate period; no duration is specifically defined.
Officers of the National Guard of the various States, however, take an additional oath:
I, [name], do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of ___ against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of ___, that I make this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the Office of [grade] in the Army/Air National Guard of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of ___ upon which I am about to enter, so help me God.[4]
Commissioned Officers (O-1 through O-10 second lieutenant or ensign through general or admiral, and W-2 through W-5 (chief warrant officers)) are commissioned under the authority of the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, Warrant Officers (WO-1) are given a warrant under the authority of their respective Service Secretary (e.g. Secretary of the Army), National Guard officers are additionally committed to the authority of the governor of their state. They may be activated in the service of their state in time of local or state emergency in addition to Federal activation. Reserve officers may only be activated by the President of the United States.
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What socialist wikipedia won't tell you is that those oaths have been preemptively struck down by the 2009 world executive pact. The danger is very real my friends, and only the republican party can stop it, but it will come at a terrible price. We have to choose between raising taxes or being overrun by a million man army from Obamastan: either way, America will be destroyed :(
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What socialist wikipedia won't tell you is that those oaths have been preemptively struck down by the 2009 world executive pact.[Citation Needed]
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His posts are dripping with sarcasm, there is no citation needed for that...
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z, your sarcasm detector, it is broken.
I hope.
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Sarcasm or no, citation is still needed. :P
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No time to confirm sources, I've just learned that the Obama regime is building WMDs at this very moment!
EDIT: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES WE ARE SCREWED
(http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/5917/2z6tp42.png)
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On the whole Obama and UN thing, doesn't he head the U.N. Security Council, and isn't that supposed to be illegal, to be working for a foreign government while also the President of the U.S? I'm not aware of what implications these things have or if it's a big deal or not.
Found two charges against Obama regarding this:
Surrendering sovereign U.S. war-making to foreign powers and international authorities by attacking Libya without consulting Congress, in violation of U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8 and U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 33:1541-1548;
Accepting foreign title and office while acting as U.S. President and without consulting Congress when in 2009, Obama assumed the Chairmanship of the UN Security Council, the international body responsible for declaring war on behalf of the UN, in violation of U.S. Constitution Article I, Section 9
Above two examples taken from this website (http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obama-has-commited-treasonous-acts-against-the-constitutionit-is-time-that-he-is-brought-up-on-char/question-2855471/), if the above charges are shown to be true then I can understand fears that Obama might come to the decision to let the UN take charge of all things regarding U.S. government matters.
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Don't you see? That judge is actually very clever. (He's not actually a "judge" judge btw, that's just a title given to Texan county leaders. Why? Idk.) He knows that his county needs higher taxes to function properly, but he also knows that the only way he can pitch it to his ultra-conservative population is by appealing to their fears of foreign invasion.
"Look, guys... we need more money for new police cars and to fix potholes and stuff..... so we can better fight the UN horde!" :mad2:
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Uh, from everything I've read, part of that man's occupation is to concieve of extreme scenarios, and I believe he himself stated that the liklihood of that scenario happening was extremely unlikely. Sensationalsim in the media brought that scenario to light, and sensationalism is propagating it here. Seriously, get over it.
Returning back on topic (the 2012 elections) I wanted to share this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKNpNpPRZY0&feature=related
I have nothing else to add for the moment regarding this subject.
The above quote is far more concerning, and many thanks for posting it. Everyone should be aware of that issue, especially if you are a US citizen. I think this not only sheds light on the Republican party, but I think it must reflect all of the major parties here as well. Both lend themselves to dishonesty and mal-dealings. In the above case, I don't doubt that f-ing Romney would have carried the majority of the vote on the floor, but the tampering and fixing of that outcome is so damn obvious that it's truly disgusting. What would be even more disgusting is if they let it get swept under the rug:
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/mduncan/romney-camp-removing-rules-committee-members
http://www.redstate.com/2012/08/28/gop-rules-committee-rapidly-moving-to-shut-out-grassroots-at-200-p-m-today/
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So, I normally hate the GOP and their reactionary (conservative? Hardly) policies. That said, Paul Ryan is actually a pretty good guy. If he were running as a candidate and not as a VP on the ticket, he might actually get my vote.
This is relevent, right? :nervous:
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I have discovered that I am in fact a libertarian - unfortunately with the way the system works, I don't think Ron Paul has much of a chance. A Paul/Johnson ticket would be incredible in my book.
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I have discovered that I am in fact a libertarian - unfortunately with the way the system works, I don't think Ron Paul has much of a chance. A Paul/Johnson ticket would be incredible in my book.
Good incredible or bad incredible?
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Definately a good. But, before this boils into a "you're wrong because I'm right" political discussion about candidate views, the thing I think must be countered in the nation is the disgusting nature of the political system, which does its work through stealth, subterfuge, and utter dishonesty. A union is a means of furthering an agenda, but like many trade unions, oft that agenda goes sour - this is the exact nature of both the Republican and Democratic parties today.
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Thaeris: Then I would like to ask you as well, what do you think a Romney/Ryan administration would do to improve your personal situation? And conversely, what has the Obama administration done that had a negative impact on your quality of life?
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Thaeris: Then I would like to ask you as well, what do you think a Romney/Ryan administration would do to improve your personal situation? And conversely, what has the Obama administration done that had a negative impact on your quality of life?
I feel this is the wrong way to go about choosing who to vote for president. The president's actual job is so loosely related to a person's quality of life that his campaigning and campaign promises will have a far greater impact than he ever will otherwise.
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If you cite any "social improvement" on the Obama front, I think you are clearly mistaken. Many of his key objectives during the 2008 election were NOT rectified, namely Guantanamo Bay, the Patroit Act, and a general expansion of US militarism. Not only were those issues not rectified, they were augmented in both scale and intensity. I need to do further research on my part for why and how one would be better off not voting "Democratic," but I think it's safe to say that any problems or issues you had with Bush have not only survived with Obama, but thrived with him.
I will note to you that I am neither for nor against socialism, but understand that socialism requires a unique environment for it to be successful - mutual ideals and goals must be shared on both a local and national level, and all members must contribute. The United States as of now does NOT meet this criteria, and large scale socialism thus cannot function efficiently or fairly. I think it is fair to state that broad-scale socialism seems to work in smaller nations, where the local level of activity does not differ much from the national level, but in nations of high populations (superpowers) socialism seems to lead to either some grandeous form of inefficiency or totalitarianism (such as USSR-esque communism). Both of those outcomes are not acceptable - the problems that be are caused by root inefficiencies elsewhere, and the Federal Government is attempting to intervene with large-scale enactments rather than regulating the root issues. The Democratic party may disagree with the arguments against socialism, but both parties are guilty of the failings due to the root causes.
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Gitmo shutdown never happened because congress wouldn't let it, and Obama didn't have the balls to use his commander-in-chief hat. Agree about PATRIOT Act / militarism gripe, though.
USSR totalitarianism was because the dictatorship was only supposed to be a transitional phase, but Stalin was a major asshole. And then China, Cuba, etc. decided to imitate them instead of doing things by the book.
Socialism > Corporatism
Anyone disagree? I'll take arguments of "what the Republicans are leading us toward isn't Corporatism" as agreement unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Maybe what needs to happen is a "private socialism" ... rather than try to get the government to create a better system through legislation, have private individuals (and maybe some progressive businesses) build a better system from the ground up. Like communes, but modernized and with Internets. Also coöps.
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I feel this is the wrong way to go about choosing who to vote for president. The president's actual job is so loosely related to a person's quality of life that his campaigning and campaign promises will have a far greater impact than he ever will otherwise.
I don't understand what you're saying here--the president's job(s) directly impact the quality of life for millions of people in and out of the states. Think about all the people in the military whose lives were changed in Iraq (not to mention the Iraqis) in an invasion/occupation that very likely would not have happened under hypothetical president Gore. Likewise, all the people who have or will have some form of health insurance under a bill that would certainly have drawn a veto from president McCain, if it had even gotten started. Those are major quality of life issues that are clearly attributable to the president's direct powers--why wouldn't a voter look to that stuff when deciding who best to vote for?
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I feel this is the wrong way to go about choosing who to vote for president. The president's actual job is so loosely related to a person's quality of life that his campaigning and campaign promises will have a far greater impact than he ever will otherwise.
I don't understand what you're saying here--the president's job(s) directly impact the quality of life for millions of people in and out of the states. Think about all the people in the military whose lives were changed in Iraq (not to mention the Iraqis) in an invasion/occupation that very likely would not have happened under hypothetical president Gore. Likewise, all the people who have or will have some form of health insurance under a bill that would certainly have drawn a veto from president McCain, if it had even gotten started. Those are major quality of life issues that are clearly attributable to the president's direct powers--why wouldn't a voter look to that stuff when deciding who best to vote for?
Note that there's a difference between personal quality of life and general quality of life. I read The E's post as him asking about Thaeris in particular, which is primarily what I had an objection to. I'd also like to point out that the economy is the biggest issue at these elections and typically what people think of when they think of quality of life (as opposed to getting nuked by the DPRK, getting drafted, and law signing - all big deals, but not regularly relevant), and is something that the president has very little direct control over.
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Even if you do not like any of the candidates noted, any of the parties noted, I still encourage you to "rage against the machine," where your democratic/republic system is being stifled and laid to waste by men and women with motives they choose to hide from you for their own gain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=35OXo9SSj5I
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I feel this is the wrong way to go about choosing who to vote for president. The president's actual job is so loosely related to a person's quality of life that his campaigning and campaign promises will have a far greater impact than he ever will otherwise.
I don't understand what you're saying here--the president's job(s) directly impact the quality of life for millions of people in and out of the states. Think about all the people in the military whose lives were changed in Iraq (not to mention the Iraqis) in an invasion/occupation that very likely would not have happened under hypothetical president Gore. Likewise, all the people who have or will have some form of health insurance under a bill that would certainly have drawn a veto from president McCain, if it had even gotten started. Those are major quality of life issues that are clearly attributable to the president's direct powers--why wouldn't a voter look to that stuff when deciding who best to vote for?
Note that there's a difference between personal quality of life and general quality of life. I read The E's post as him asking about Thaeris in particular, which is primarily what I had an objection to. I'd also like to point out that the economy is the biggest issue at these elections and typically what people think of when they think of quality of life (as opposed to getting nuked by the DPRK, getting drafted, and law signing - all big deals, but not regularly relevant), and is something that the president has very little direct control over.
So you are criticizing voters who make their decisions based on how they think the candidates' policies will affect them because ultimately the economy determines quality of life and the president can't influence the economy? What should people base their decisions on then?
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Speaking of policy... one wonders if Bush was as bad economically as one is led to believe - check out this interesting chart:
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/budget-create-deficits?gclid=cjsp-iixk7icfykwmgodexuaiq
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Why isn't FDR on that list? :p
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Or more recently, good ol' 90%-taxing Eisenhower
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a general expansion of US militarism.
Considering the withdrawal from Iraq, the ongoing changeover in Afghanistan, leaving most of Libya to the EU, and the fact that the US military is in a draw-down rather than an expansion phase and emphatically does not want to commit to any major action in the near future, this statement is not only bizarre, but suggests you aren't really paying attention.
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I can confirm the draw-down, too. The Army, at the very least, is flat out not accepting new active duty recruits. You either go reserves/national guard, or you don't enlist.
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I'd like to point out that the DoD's budget has grown for 3 out of the 4 years that Obama has been in office. My statement could certainly use some clarification, but it is by no means completely untrue. Find page 8, Figure 1-2 in the following link:
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/FY2013_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf
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So you are criticizing voters who make their decisions based on how they think the candidates' policies will affect them because ultimately the economy determines quality of life and the president can't influence the economy? What should people base their decisions on then?
Yes I am criticizing them. It's an awful way to decide who to vote for. Congress is more important to fixing the economy. There are plenty of social caveats about presidential elections since most of his social views mean squat after his honeymoon, but it feels damn weird to vote for a homophobic guy no matter how much experience he has with foreign relations. I honestly think you should vote based on experience, party support, and what party you think will be holding congress for the brunt of his term.
Also it's obviously going to hurt my last argument, but sue me; I'm an asshole and an idiot. I'm probably just going to end up voting for Obama out of spite. If you watched the news coverage about the RNC, I think it was MSNBC that I watched, it was nice to see the republicans get called out on the **** they gave Obama during his term (and lies spoken during paul ryan's speech). Obama was a bit of a disappointing president tbh, but god dammit I hate those republicans so much.
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I don't think you're an asshole or an idiot, I just think that a major cornerstone of republican national campaigns in the time I've been voting has been convincing people of exactly what you are saying--that their choice basically doesn't affect their day to day lives and should be made based on more intangible criteria such as (as you mentioned) leadership qualities or which way the political winds might turn over the next four years. Once that step is made, it's easy for them to frame the debate in more "gut feeling" or emotional terms, at which point they can pretty much dominate by default by not being a black dude with a foreign sounding name who wants to give our hard-earned money to lazy pot-smoking good-for-nothings.
I agree with you that congress (and the people who pay for their campaigns) have the most important role in setting up the nation's economic framework, but you'll have a hard time convincing me that the president isn't really really very really super powerful and responsible for many decisions that directly impact all of our lives, economically and otherwise.
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Nope, the president has nothing to do with it. Unless it was Bill Clinton. 'cause, you know, he was the reason the economy was just rolling back then. Or Bush, cause he's responsible for the mess we're in now. :rolleyes:
I think the President is a big piece in the puzzle though.
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(https://p.twimg.com/A1l9D9nCUAAUrXu.jpg:large)
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id vote eastwood, i dont care what party he supports :D
"I know what you're thinking. "Did he drop six nukes or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a B53 nuclear bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon in the world*, and would incinerate your capitol clear to the ground, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"
*in service, im not counting tsar bomba and some of our test nukes or the mk-41, or anything which would be a treaty violation for us to own, but which we probibly do anyway because were badasses.
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I'd like to point out that the DoD's budget has grown for 3 out of the 4 years that Obama has been in office. My statement could certainly use some clarification, but it is by no means completely untrue.
Militarism is not military spending. It is the embrace of military power as an end unto itself and the sole instrument of national policy. Your statement is, in fact, untrue, as it is demonstrably true that the US is further from that mindset both as a nation and as a culture today than it was when Obama took office.
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I'm not entirely in agreement about militarism not being military spending, as the two are inherently in relation. However, you do make a point, and I cannot justly deny all of the implications therein.
I will note that there are still elements of the current admin's military and defence policies which I find very disagreeable, though one can argue that those matters were inhereted from the previous admin. I do not believe either the existing admin nor the primary opposition offers acceptable solutions for defence policies in the coming years, and that both principal parties offer up a continuation of Cold War militarism that has been both wasteful and destructive (and not to mention largely unneeded) since the mid 1990's. The Cold War is over, damnit!
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i cant wait till Cold War II, or WWIII for that matter :D
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OHMAHLAWD!
It seems there is imputus to identify some of the anomalies we have been seeing in the behavior of the RNC. All things with a grain of salt, of course, but this helps pull together the seeming connections between some of the past allegations I've heard of whilst adressing the obvious very non-democratic/republic proceedings at the convention in August. It also greatly appeals to my desire to see Romney's lying sack-o'-crap backside, as well as the backsides of those behind his remarkably peculiar advancement get fried. And burned in the process.
http://electionfraudremedy.com/
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I saw the word socialism appear in some earlier posts by Thaeris and I'd like to point out that nothing Obama has done, not even healthcare reform, actually even comes close to a socialist governing style. Obama would be considered a conservative politician in virtually every other first-world democratic nation.
The fact that anyone can use Obama and socialist in the same sentence without irony indicators is a sad commentary on the state of American politics.
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i always say america's left is further right than the world's left.
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*bump*
Or, to play into the expectations of someone on another forum I lurk through: *das bumpski, Comrade*
(Mongoose knows who I'm talking about.)
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=qPK
Obama wins, 324 to 214. The casting of ballots, at this point, is a formality necessary only to verify this result. (Actually, I'm waffling on Virginia and Iowa, but give me my moment.)
:D
I do so enjoy being right, especially when it produces so many delicious Republican tears. Okay, okay, so I did give the Romney-Ryan ticket too many electoral votes in that projection. I admit that I did not consider that duo to be as useless and incompetent on the campaign trail as they turned out to be.
Bravado aside, there is something that the media beat to death on election night and that I touched on early in the thread that deserves one more whack:
I included Reagan as proof that a conservative candidate could win elections...
...twenty-eight and thirty-two years ago. The political landscape has changed significantly. Voters and candidates both tend to be more polarized; information disseminates more rapidly, and the nation's demography is radically different than in the 1980's.
(Emphasis added.)
In the 1980's, over nine-tenths of the electorate was white, and the Republicans were still very effectively using an electoral holdover from 1964, the Southern Strategy. In its basest terms, the Southern Strategy was the use of dogwhistles to trigger racial and social prejudices in the white electorate to turn them against Democrats. Remember when the death penalty was a big issue in national politics in 1988? It's something that I recommend looking into, if you haven't already, but in short the elder George Bush's ad campaign about Dukkakis being "soft on crime" is now considered a textbook example of the kind of dogwhistle politics that were iconic of the later days of the Southern Strategy. Specific to Reagan, was the mythical Welfare Queen, the black woman who used her welfare cheque to buy herself a new Cadillac. She's still brought up by the modern GOP, albeit behind a slightly thicker veil, when Republicans remark about the "makers and takers" or Romney's infamous forty-seven percent.
These dogwhistles don't work as well anymore, though, since the electorate is now seventy-percent white, instead of ninety. Moreover, as the strategy is more easily recognized, it becomes less effective, both because knowledge of the strategy innoculates people against it (i.e. you recognize and are disgusted by it) and because the implementation has to become more subtle and narrowly targetted.
That twenty percent drop in the national proportion of white voters, though, belies the actual effect on Presidential politics. Because of the way electoral votes are apportioned, you have to dig into the geographic distribution of these growing minority populations. Consider New Mexico: Prior to the 1990's, this was a rural, white state that tended to swing as the national electorate swung. From 1972 to 1992, the state defied the election results once, in 1976, favoring Gerry Ford over Jimmy Carter. Beginning in the 1990's, the population of Mexico-born, naturalized citizens living in the state began to spike, and the state quickly changed from swing to blue. Case-in-point, Obama held a double-digit lead in New Mexico, in both of his electoral victories.
What other states have rapidly-growing populations of Mexican-Americans? Arizona, Colorado, and Texas all have Hispanic populations growing at three to four times the rate of the Caucasian population. If the GOP does not make themselves attractive to this demographic, then they are going to see Colorado's nine electoral votes slip beyond their grasp before the next national census. Shortly thereafter, they'll find themselves fighting for the forty-nine (likely more, after subsequent censuses, given the overall population growth) electoral votes that used to be safely in their pocket.
Pile on Virginia. As the District of Columbia continues to expand south, across the Virginia state line, more D.C. residents/voters will technically be Virginians, pushing their electoral votes more and more firmly into the Democratic column. Virginia could potentially cede more territory to the District, but this would have the unfortunate side-effect of expelling members of the state's tax base, purely in the name of national politics. Barring a Republican governor from the state giving very serious thought to running him/herself for President, I don't see that happening. Chalk up another thirteen for the Democrats, regardless of GOP attempts to draw in Latinos.
Finally, Puerto Rico: The population of this protectorate has begun to warm to the notion of statehood. They tend to favor liberal candidates as well. In joining the Union, they would add two members to the Senate, and gain at least one seat (likely three or four) in the House, the latter at the expense of another state. The electoral vote(s) lost would likely be lost from a blue state, as it is the populous blue states that are shrinking in population (or not growing as quickly as the rest of the nation), but this would still be a net-gain of two electoral votes for the Democrats. (Note that this also moves the goalpost from 270 to 271 to win.)
By 2032, then, we're looking at a map, where the Democrat has 277 electoral votes safely in his/her column, compared to the GOP's 163, assuming North Carolina and Iowa swing their way, without contest. There's 100 electoral votes to fight for, future censuses not withstanding, found in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire, but it doesn't matter, because the Democrat only needs to win the safe states in order to win the election. By 2052, if the trends continue, and the GOP doesn't undertake major reforms to appeal to minority groups, the numbers become 326 safe Democratic electoral votes to the same 163 safe GOP electoral votes, with only fifty-one to fight over. The GOP are effectively setting the Democrats up to win the White House in landslide after consistant landslide in the second half of the century.
This prediction is by no means infallible. The younger George Bush managed to win about forty percent of the Hispanic vote, but since then, the GOP has become dogmatically anti-immigrant, at least in part because the far right wing of the party has taken the leadership by a short leash and is leading them down this path to national irrelevance.
Oddly enough, less than a month after the election, there is foreshadowing of what the GOP intends to do with its immigration position: House Resolution 6429, the STEM Jobs Act of 2012. On initial inspection, this looks like a decent bill for the GOP to put forward, as it offers a new visa program for people seeking entry to the United States with a graduate degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (hence, STEM). Then, you get to the very cryptically written section three. When you dive into the Immigration and Nationality Act to read all of the text being struck from that law by section three of H.R. 6429, you see that what's being eliminated is a lottery that allows about 50,000 applicants per year to receive a visa, without sponsorship of an employer or spouse. How many visas would H.R. 6429 create? About 50,000. So the message being sent by this resolution is something to the effect of, "Send us your mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, but keep the rest of the rabble to yourselves."
Why am I characterizing that as a Republican message? The bill was introduced in the House by Richard Nugent, Republican, from Florida's fifth district. The bill passed the House with 218 Republicans supporting the bill to five opposed, with seventeen not voting. By contrast, only twenty-seven Democrats voted in favor of the House version of the bill. President Obama has threatened to veto the House version of this bill, should it reach his desk, but that is unlikely to be necessary, as the version circulating in the Democrat-controlled Senate provides a STEM degree as an additional avenue to getting a visa, rather than an exclusive alternative to the lottery system.
Now, it is two years before the next Congressional election and four before the next Presidential election, so it's possible that the GOP is going to try to make a course correction closer to one of those dates, banking on the short memory of the American voter. This may prove to be a blunder, though. The Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first bill President Obama signed into law in 2009 over unified Republican opposition, was chronologically distant from the 2012 election, but when women's issues entered the spotlight in the Presidential and several Senate races, so too did that piece of legislation. Romney ignored it, saying that he could not comment on a bill he hadn't read, and then he apparently refused to read it at any point in October, because when he was asked about it again in early November, he still said he couldn't comment on legislation he hadn't read. I can't help but feel that STEM or something similar will do in 2016 and beyond what Ledbetter did in 2012.
tl;dr - I need to build a bottling plant, just outside the White House gates, because if the GOP doesn't make some major changes to its immigration stance, starting yesterday, then traditional methods of gathering their delicious tears, after each election, will be inadequate in the years and decades to come.
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Screw that. Make your bottling plant for delicious White House beer (http://"http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chief-white-house-beer-recipe"), which is only second to the wonderful Boshe Beer of course.
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The GOP should be taking a critical look in the mirror and realizing that the party of some great Presidents, Senators, and House Representatives has been hijacked by the lunatics on the extreme-right fringe, then setting a new course accordingly (since the extreme right has nowhere to politically turn, they either become guaranteed Republicans by default or become totally irrelevant). The GOP needs to resume a serious policy fight for the centre, and that comes from - gasp - having sound policies.
Unfortunately, a lot of the current commentary from GOP observers isn't suggesting that's the correct approach at all and is advocating further-right swings. To which I say a huge WTF...
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The only thing that will save the Republican party if they want to keep the alliance of social and fiscal conservatives is to be staunchly pro-immigration (I'm talking amnesty if you have a business license and are employing citizens level of pro-immigration) and win the Latino vote. They can overlap with conservative Catholic values and people wanting small businesses as immigrants.
Of course never correct your enemy when he's making a mistake, so please continue and allow for the unlikely alliance of socially conservative immigrants with social liberals.
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[snip...] a lot of the current commentary from GOP observers isn't suggesting that's the correct approach at all and is advocating further-right swings. To which I say a huge WTF...
The reason many of those observers are saying that is partly because that's the only thing that they tend to hear in the right-wing echo chamber (drudge-to-fox, fox-to-rush, rush-to-drudge, and around it goes), and mostly because, as observers and pundits, their job isn't to write policy or engage in governance, but instead to sell their show or column or whatever media item it is that they produce, and the way for them to be noticed and therefore sell more papers (or pageviews or whatever) is to be louder and more extreme than anyone else.
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Unfortunately, a lot of the current commentary from GOP observers isn't suggesting that's the correct approach at all and is advocating further-right swings.
Ineffectiveness results in radicalization which results in further ineffectiveness which results in further radicalization until somebody stomps on you hard.
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49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/12/republicans-not-handling-election-results-well.html
It's been four weeks now. Will this glorious schadenfreude ever go away?