The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: AlohaDawg on May 18, 2006, 09:09:16 pm
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Sarandon Endorses Hillary's Senate Challenger (http://www.wnbc.com/politics/9239941/detail.html)
In the History thread, we were talking about this a little so I thought I'd open a thread.
So what I was wondering about this story was what effect losing a Senate race (I doubt she will) would have on her Presidential campaign and, also, what some of you guyses opinion is on the impact of political statements by people like Ms Sarandon or Barbra Streisand or Ben Afflec or Alec Baldwin or others that have spoken out over the past few years.
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OK, maybe I am a snob but I can't imagine why we should care what a movie actor thinks about politics. All movie actors know how to do is pretend to be other people who aren't even real. This may be good preparation for being a politician, but not in a good way, so I don't see what they know that should lend any weight to their opinions.
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Oh man, I wish I knew who Sarandon was supporting before I threw away my votes in the primary!
Of course, I'm a Republican*, so her endorsements probably wouldn't do me much good anyway.
* Yeah, I'm a Republican that hates pretty much all of the currently sitting Republicans - fuck you. Tell me how liberal you are after you cash your first paycheque, slacker.
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Weird.. I've never had any problem cashing my paycheque.
huh.
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Isn't it the trend for people to become more right-wing/republican/conservative as they get older?
When you have kids of your own, they need to be protected. When you're young, it does of course make perfect sense to want the best for everyone: you know now the suffering of people more unfortunate than yourself, and want to make everything better for everyone perhaps at your own expense. However, as people get older, some quite understandably may just want to make sure that their families and young ones are safe. And think this may be how Republicans swing.
I'm not suggesting that somebody supporting the Republicans is selgiraffe. I think they instead realise that all you can do in life is try to make things better for yourself and your family. It's a noble thing to want to alleviate the suffering of strangers and those less fortunate than you, but it's equally noble to provide either yourself or your family with a safe, secure and happy life.
I think it would be interesting to see if that applies to this board. I would guess that the older dudes with families and so forth nearly always contrast politically with the young dudes here. Is this the case?
EDIT: With celebrities, most (I think) tend to lean towards the left. But they do not have the concerns of the common man. D'you see? They want to help others, but maybe that's because they don't have to support a family in the same way a middle income Dad does.
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I am once again shooting myself in the foot here.
but to paraphrase myself:
You have to realize one thing. people who act, or sing, or play guitar for a living... their entire job is to feel. and so, when they talk about being liberal, do they say "I don't support tax cuts-- they are poor fiscal policy?" No. They say "look at the poor starving children!" This is a temperament uniquely suited to being a liberal. this is why artists are so often the most liberal.
also: the social factor. artists are typically more in favor of more progressive morality.
is this necessarily a bad thing? no.
really... susan sarandon's opinion has about as much importance as that of my neighbor down the street, or anyone posting on this board.
Maybe less. maybe a little more. I don't know, maybe she majored in poli-sci or something.
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I'm mostly with Ash, at least more with than not. But Judy's contention is more or less correct in my limited experience - however, if you start a student leftist radical and grow into a more moderate leftist, it could be because your core values have changed (mot people's don't), but it also could be because your experience and maturity has led you to an understanding of how things work and you've learned to pick your battles better. On the other side of the coin, I started off far more conservative than I am now. I think that perhaps it's a sort of regression toward the mean...for the same reasons. Having children has led me not only to be more protective and expect more from schools and society in general, it's also led me to be more compassionate toward families who are less blessed than we or are in 'circumstances'.
Ash's statements also to me bring up questions not only about taxation but also about the rights and responsibilities of individual states and those of the Federal government. We pay taxes to both but there is a lot of division about what each entity should be responsible for in terms of services and programs for citizens. Ash contributes taxes as required but also goes beyond that with his personal resources. That's a responsible thing to do as a community member. It's a more personally responsible position than tax and spend.
Also, I also think a Senate loss would be fatal to a presidential run but I seriously doubt even the mighty Susan Sarandon (even combined with her wonder twin Tim Robbins) can propel the challenger over Mrs. Clinton. At what point does it become insulting to the voters that it is perceived that they can be herded through an election like so many sheep by a celebrity?
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I'm a slacker uni student who works art time in a gas station so, y'know, fairly liberal (fun fact: the most conservative of the two major parties in australia is called the Liberals), but from my understanding in their ideal terms republicans and democrats don't have much to do with liberal/conservative values as they seem to today.
Correct if I'm wrong but the ideal republican is basically all about how the government should step the fuck off while the ideal democrat is all about strong government protecting the little guy yes?
Given those (rather simplistic) definitions I can't see any reason someone couldn't be liberal and republican.
As for my own politics I think people should be able to do what they want so long as they aren't hurting or endangering anyone else (and I mean in a quantifiable way, I don't care if you think morality is in decline or x religion is in danger, if something can't be quantified or separated into black and white there should not be a law related to it). That said I am all for governments pouring as much money as is possible into healthcare and education. I can understand objections to healthcare, if people worked hard enough they would be able to afford their own, but free high quality education, especially in the developed world where we are increasingly moving away from economies fuled by unskilled and semi-skilled labour that can be easily outsourced, just makes goddamn sense. If we educate people they can contribute more to our society which will result in a better economy etc. etc. you'd think most of the righ wing folks would have heard of investment for chrissake (chris onstad's sake that is, keeping it clean here).
As to Judy's contention: I think it can be observed that older people are more cnservative but it is difficult to say whether this is a function of age or of the period when a given person grew up. Though it still shits me to tears that my dad can straight-facedly make an argument for how free university isn't economical when he himself benefitted from free higher education.
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Isn't it the trend for people to become more right-wing/republican/conservative as they get older?
Not my Dad. He went from voting for Goldwater in '64 to strongly supporting Howard Dean last time around.
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You have to realize one thing. people who act, or sing, or play guitar for a living... their entire job is to feel. and so, when they talk about being liberal, do they say "I don't support tax cuts-- they are poor fiscal policy?" No. They say "look at the poor starving children!" This is a temperament uniquely suited to being a liberal. this is why artists are so often the most liberal.
This is an interesting observation.
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My politics pretty much run along with Doc's. Let people do what they want, Gay marriage? AOK. Weed and maybe other harder drugs? Sure, come by my place we'll hang. Guns? As long as you're certifiably not a crazy person. On economics, I've gradually shifted away from being a pretty hardcore socialist, mainly because it's just not going to happen. I'm still pretty much in favor of corporations not being able to drown out the rest of our voices and whatever laws need to be enacted to this end are good. RE: the 06 election, this will be the first one I get to vote in, and Our Friend Jim Talent is up for re-election. The lady running against him (Claire McCaskill) I'm a fan of, good old-school liberal democrat. Honestly, if the democrats were actually a viable political party with a platform and an identity the republicans wouldn't stand a chance this year. But as is, they're shooting themselves in the foot again. Re: the 08 elections, if it comes down to hillary vs. mccain or something, I would go for mccain. I don't trust hillary, and I definitely don't want her as president, if only because she wants to do horrible things to my precious video games. She also, like all politicians, just keeps inching towards the inoffensive center, which is a proven way not to win.
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I don't know if I'm a liberal or a conservative. I think the death penalty and abortion are horribly wrong. I think people should be able to ingest whatever substances they want. What people do in their bedroom is none of my business. If two people love each other and want to get married, what business is it of mine? I think the government is too big and puts their noses waaaaaaaaay too far into the business of its citizenry, which really *is* the government, or at least should be. But no.
What other conservative/liberal issues are there? I'm for stronger immigration policies. I'm against giving tax breaks to companies who manufacture things or provide services to U.S. citizens from overseas because it's cheaper to do those things there. I think Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon are idiots but George Clooney seems to have a pretty good handle on things. Sean Penn is a fatuous windbag but a brilliant actor.
Oh, and the President is an idiot, and every time I see Sen. Santorum I want to smack him upside his head and ask him if he has any GODDAMN fuck*ng DECENCY.
Also, Arlen Spector can suck my dick.
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that observation was largely due to my lunch table, consisting almost entirely of drama kids, being so liberal that i want to cry. And I realized one day-- their liberalism is based entirely on groovy beliefs about religion being bad, and personal choice beging good, and taking care of poor people is great because that's what the people in RENT want them to do or whatever.
I think i can define myself politically as someone who is so liberal. so liberal.
but the other day I found myself arguing in favor of the Iraq war. so. I guess I feel like I have a pretty balanced perspective.
It seems to me that we need both sides-- obviously communism/socialism isn't as successful as we could hope, and pure capitalism screws the little guy. so some balance between conservatives and liberals is the best option.
I wrote my "senior ethical statement" (basically NPR's "This I Believe", compiled into a book) about this. My super-knee-jerk-liberal english teacher said "daniel! I love it! it's so true!"
I really wanted to tell her that I almost used her as an example of how people who I agree with are often just as closed-minded, in their own way.
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I'm generally considered a conservative but I have more liberal leanings on some social issues.
I can go down the libertarian road a short way but I run into the wall when I start seeing social cost that is generally borne by everyone (or, at least, everyone paying taxes) stemming from a small number of people's behavior. That's where the 'do what you want' thing kind of falls by the wayside for me, but for the most part, that can be allayed nearly completely if there were a higher level and standard of personal responsibility generally held, modeled, applied and occasionally enforced.
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My super-knee-jerk-liberal english teacher said "daniel! I love it! it's so true!"
I really wanted to tell her that I almost used her as an example of how people who I agree with are often just as closed-minded, in their own way.
Oh for sure. There's nothing worse or more humorless than the most extreme left-winger.
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On the whole celebrities-in-politics thing: as with anyone, it depends on how much they care and how much they bother to learn. As opposed to everyone else, they have the time, the money, and the media coverage to make it known what they believe. So I don't begrudge anyone their platform. Some of them are extremely thoughtful and knowledgeable--Janeane Garafalo usually comes off looking smarter than blowhards like O'Reilly (who we should somehow care what he thinks?).
If you don't care what they think, don't pay attention. Too often, it's again "Don't express opinions that I don't agree with"--did the people who cursed the Dixie Chicks also tell Charlie Daniels to stop expressing his opinions?
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Yeah, alienating your fan base and then crying censorship is pretty senseless.
Running a successful business of any kind means keeping your customers happy, comfortable, and wanting more. Charlie Daniels' fans listen possibly because they appreciate his comments. He's aware enough to understand his opinions are acceptable so he can say them without fear of backlash. Natalie Maines can have any belief she wants and say whatever she wants, but she didn't seem to be prepared to take personal responsibility for her statements - and externalizing the blame for what happened next only made things worse.
I like their music, though.
That's the problem with so many performers becoming self-appointed opinion leaders - it puts so many people in conflict because you like what they do on stage or screen, but now you have to reconcile that with your views and values. Some people can't do it. In some cases, even if you probably don't agree with someone politically, you can applaud their actions and purpose - it's hard to be mad at John Melon Cougarcamp or Willie Nelson for working on Farm Aid, or Bob Geldof for some of the big benefits he has organized. Because, usually, the politics stay more or less out of it. That's commendable to me.
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Dude, we own his music, we've seen his concerts. Just funnin' with the boy from Seymour who has displayed more social consciousness with his actions than most performers I know of.
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Like they held a gun to his head. He'll always be Johnny Cougar to me.
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Like Jough, i'm liberal on some issues and conservative on others. I've no love for the democrats, but I can't stand the republicans. The way I see it, probably the biggest political problem we have in this country is coprorate special interest that have both sides of the aisle in their pocket. It's hard for the Dems to get upset about the Repubican's bending over for Halliburton when their on their knees sucking Pfizer's dick.
As for Susan Sarandon, she has really nice tits so I'll vote for whoever she tells me to.
~Paul
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Susan Sarandon? Really?
I think I'd need at least, I don't know let's say someone like Christina Ricci, someone who has hotness but could convince me she's actually vaguely knowledgable. Actually I've just kind of got Christina Ricci on the brain today so maybe that's not a great example.
Susan Sarandon though is kind of in the same space in my head as Goldy Hawn.
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I'll go back and read your ideologies in a minute, 'cause I am genuinely interested, but I really don't think the Dems will allow Hillary to run. There really is no way she could win, even against the most unpopular republican they could dig up. She'd mobilize the conservatives, and alienate the liberals. She leans so far center she'll send even more nutcases over to Nader/whoever the leftie will be this time. I don't even know if I could vote for her. Because of this, I really hope there are some dudes up there in NY with enough of a sack to tell her to stay out of it.
Now an Edwards/Obama ticket? With Russ Feingold thrown in there someplace for flavor? Maybe not this time, but in a few years? I'd quit my job and follow them around in a van, selling my karma and pb & j sandwiches for weed in the parking lots of their speeches.
And August - my parents both voted for Nixon in 1972! Die-hard democrats ever since - I guess they learned their lesson.
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Reading these posts and Ash's last in particular, it seems to me like the manner in which we practice Democracy in the US could be part of the problem since it invests so much in one party or the other. Although I think our system is more effective (in terms of making decisions and getting things done (not factoring in what gets done, just how it does)) because of this, a parliamentary government would adjust for that concentration of power by usually requiring a coalition of parties to have the majority of power invested in them. It's a bit slower, requires a lot more compromise, and often results in elections earlier than planned, it's an interesting comparison.
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Oh, man, a multiparty system would be grelicious. I would be all over that. Having more than two functional parties on a national scale would be frikking awesome.
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I watched Nashville last night. That's some good stuff.
~Paul
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I tend to vote for whoever has a reasonable chance of winning who most fits the following criteria:
Probably is gonna let people do what they want if they aren't hurting others
Probably is gonna take money from people richer than me and give it to me or people poorer than me
Probably isn't gonna kill nobody except in direct self-defense
Generally, that means the Democrat but, really, it comes down to my wanting to vote for Batman.
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We all want Batman to be president. He is our hero.
But the election isn't for another two years in the U.S. Candidates aren't even throwing their hats into the ring yet.
TOO SOON
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Probably is gonna let people do what they want if they aren't hurting others
Probably is gonna take money from people richer than me and give it to me or people poorer than me
Probably isn't gonna kill nobody except in direct self-defense
The criteria sound more like a mixture between a libertarian and a democrat. Democrats used to be the ones that wanted to go to war even if there was no direct threat, and most democrats, it seems, support strong anti-drug legislation. In high school I wrote a letter to Senator Patty Murray, D-Washington, and she totally wouldn't even support the legalization of medicinal marijuana. She was all, "blah blah more scientific investigation, blah blah, protect our children, blah." Democrats are just less likely to want to restrict what we can do in our bedrooms, as long as it doesn't involve getting high.
Incidentally, those criteria are basically mine, too. I just don't see too many candidates that fit them, and usually end up voting for democrats because of key issues.
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littlefallsmets don't those first two criteria kind of contradict each other
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hey
come on
lacklustre shenanigans
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I certainly don't go to celebrities for political advice.
I look at the ballot, pick the most left-wing person with a reasonable chance of winning and hope that... over the course of decades... this will lead to some kind of Darwinian "survival of the liberal" whereupon slowly but surely all politics are pulled toward, like, letting people marry who they wanna and only go to war in direct self-defense and maybe letting poor people go to the doctors occasionally and so on.
I find that, oddly enough, this strategy offends my friends to the left of me, far more than it does my friends to the right of me. People to the right of me at least respect my pragmatism and patience whereas, like, people who voted for Ralph Nader want to punch me in the head for not throwing my vote away on the principle of a thing.
My main beef with American Liberalism today is that... we, they, whatever... there's this certain group of people who really just expect to have one election that just changes the world completely for the better and for forever and ever amen.
The big changes... women's rights, civil rights... in America have never been overnight. They've been about generations of vigilence, taking little steps forward as you hold off the people trying to take the whole thing big steps back.
It might be some kind of weird arrogance? But I think it's more just that...
History is taught in a really dumb way in American schools. It makes history sound like a few... zaps of a welder's torch, you know? Boom, that guy gets shot, that piece of paper gets signed, this new kind of bomb kills a bunch of people and... things change.
But history ain't a welder's game, history is the realm of sculptor's fine chisel.
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littlefallsmets don't those first two criteria kind of contradict each other
To speak to this point belatedly...
Currency is not a freedom, a right or a liberty... it is a construct... a tool of economic convenience, created and regulated by the state as an extension of the people, all of the people, not just the people with large amounts of that currency.
If it exists as a tool of all the people, as one of the keys of a stable and functioning society and all of the people therein, then it needs to be created and regulated to the benefit of all the people... and taxed with respect to what the needs of all of the people are and the amount which a given taxed individual within the state can give.
We'll call, for this discussion, a baseline of... dignified subsistence... an economic potential for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this society, the wealth is great enough where that shared dignified substance can include... food and shelter, health and education.
So if I live above that line to the point where... I should be able to give up a Wednesday or five at the comic book shop and a rock star, say, should be able to give up that new yacht... then these are the prices we pay for the safety of a shared stable and dignified society.
If we have the resources, say, to take that schizophrenic man begging for quarters in front of the 7-11 at Sunset and LaBrea and rehabilitate him in a hospital... and we surely do... then my fair chunk above dignified subsistence and, oh, Axl Rose's fair chunk above dignified subsistence should be taxed away.
Because that currency is not my right or Axl's right or whatever, it's a tool of all of the people, through our surrogate, the state.
Many people would and will talk a big game about their "rights" to their money but... I have to imagine would quickly blanche at the realities of a society not stabilized by the benefits of taxation and... furthermore, I'd also argue that with additional taxations that would be almost unnoticeable to the working poor and lower-middle-class and that... would only be fairly expected of the rich...
Our society would be all the more enriched by the overall gains in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all... by that minor and only-fair redistribution of a tool that belongs to each and every American through their participation in the shared American Experiment.
A man, whose philosophy I deeply respect though of whom personally there might be too much made, may have said it best that... you've gotta render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Money is money, there is nothing essential at all to it in comparison to the dignity and divinity that is in every woman and man.
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littlefallsmets don't those first two criteria kind of contradict each other
People significantly richer than me don't count as "people." So in my logic, the two never contradicted.
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In re: people getting more conservative as they get older, I've certainly gone the other route. I was pretty conservative until midway through high school, when I started reading lots of political theory (Locke and Hobbes, etc) and got really into existentialism (Emerson could kick Thoreau's ass).
My friend went all conservative when his daughter was born, totally did that "wait you mean someday MY LITTLE GIRL could have an abortion without me even knowing who I have to kneecap?" thing. I've been getting steadily more liberal since college and having a kid has made that waaaay worse. Having a kid with autism who is getting services through county government at no cost to us has only reconfirmed my faith in the welfare state.
At this point I'm pretty much basically a socialist. I think that big government is a good thing because more government = more services. I'm all about nationalized health care (and if anyone cares to debate this point you may as well split this thread now). I'm also all about eliminating abortion, because I think it is a social problem, but I think outlawing the practice is a backwards way to approach it. Abortion is a last resort for most women and I believe that the process further victimizes women of limited options. I think women are better served by directing resources towards preventing unwanted pregnancies, which I believe can be aided by universal access to quality health care.
Basically I feel like separation of church and state is important but that there needs to be a universal moral standard that we all agree to live by. If that's so, some minimal level of morality must come from the government in the form of good citizenship and civic virtue, enforceable by law as well as by societal pressure. I personally think that marijuana should be legalized (and regulated and taxed, like tobacco) but if the consensus in this country is that weed is a social ill, so be it. It's a small price to pay for the privilege of living in a place of relative safety and peace.
That said, back in the real world, I'd love to see a race between McCain and Obama. If they both got the nomination, I might have a hard time figuring out who to vote for instead of against.
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John McCain is like my favorite guy. Except for now he is all Pandering to the Base, and that is no fun.
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littlefallsmets i think where i don't get your logic is where you assume that since our currency has been established as a tool of the people, it should represent each person equally?
i mean if a person generates a lot of wealth, how is it fair that that wealth belongs to everyone, against the person's will?
i actually think people who have money have a moral obligation to help those in need, but in a "free" society, that obligation shouldn't be law.
how would anything else qualify as "letting people do what they want if they aren't hurting others"?
i do appreciate why people prefer socialism and i know i'm simplifying things here, but you can't be given a lot of freedom by a government makes it illegal to not help keep every person healthy and happy.
sorry for being bad at wording things
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WHOA. Sorry for not getting in this sooner as some of you know my political views are far radical and entertaining...
Paper Currency evolved as a form of warehouse slip whereby it represented something valuable somewhere that it could be redeemed. Now it is fiat currency in the U.S.A. meaning it has no worthy what so ever other than what we give it as a society. The government says you have to use to pay taxes so generally we keep it around as the most convenient thing going.
What LFM seems to advocate is that we should all have some basic standard of equality. And some of you seem to agree in this socialist propaganda.
Look. Life sucks for a lot of people whether it is their choice or not. That is not my problem. I have enough problems. I work extremely hard for my money and if I don't give the government what it wants- men with guns will come to my door and take away my rights.
There are things I believe in helping such as schizophrenia-leukemia-and i am a volunteer firefighter. Many of you claim to have lots of beliefs in where money should go. Well then... put your money there. I believe we all know what we want to do with the money we earned and should be allowed to make that decision rather than have a couple hundred people in D.C. tell us what we want to do with our money.
We tried socialism on this planet remember? People died. Millions of people starved to death. It didn't work.
We also tried capitalism. Look around you. Look in your fridge. Life is better.
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I am not going to argue, as I don't know my shit well enough to come off as anything other than an Interested Amateur.
Firstly, it seems to me that Communism has never really existed on this earth. Neither has socialism. Both have been co-opted by power-hungry elites in order to become... basically serfdom? Capitalism too seems to be slowly fuck*ng up as we enter a new millennium where the rich get ever-richer and the poor get ever-poorer.
secondly, in regards to your final question; this is hardly a fair sample. By default, someone who is spending their time posting on Message Boards about Alive Stuffed Animals probably has at least some level of monetary success-- at least enough to own a computer, have an internet connection, etc.
Lately I'm coming to think that large-scale human governments are destined to fail. Humans are capable of some wonderful things... as well as horrible things. Corruption is just as inevitable as do-goodery. Unfortunately, corruption necessarily means a gain of power, whereas do-goodery rarely does.
However, based on what I've read/heard, anarchism basically repulses me.
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The purer capitalism gets, the more it fails. See the Great Depression, see the Guilded Age.
See the death of the American Middle Class in the dawning of the 21st Century.
Ditto for socialism. Pure socialism has pretty much failed as well.
A hybrid wherein those things essential to human dignity and national stability are provided through taxation and the collective purchasing power of government and... the rest is left to a free market, albeit a free market that is regulated to an extent that it doesn't become a beast of its own... seems to be what has worked best for human rights and socioeconomic peace.
Western Europe and to a lesser extent Canada seem to have found a sane and equitable middle ground between these theories and... crafted something that actually works, better than laisse-faire or collective farming ever could've.
The problem with a free market is that... it seems like a pretty awesome idea at first... and it stays a pretty awesome idea when contained to small scale or constrained by regulation from being corrupt.
But there comes a tipping point in free-market capitalism where competition is overwhelmed by economic momentum and you... no longer have a free market. Once a family or a company has crossed a certain threshold, free competition no longer applies to them and is no longer the tool they use to make money.
You cross a tipping point and... monopolies form... and the innovation of competition is crushed by monopoly. Workers no longer function in a market where they're paid what they are worth because the whole show falls under one roof.
You cross a tipping point and that business or family or industry and... they have the money to cheat and get away with it. They have the money and influence to rewrite laws or move outside of the reach of the law.
The end-game of an unfettered free-market is a completely un-free and closed marketplace, where business and government are interchangable and the business world is an interlocking mosiac of corporate fiefdoms where... innovation is irrevelant to profit, talent is irrelevant to profit, etc.
All that really matters is the momentum of the capital held by the company previously... or the family previously. Enough Prescott Bushes on the reigns and there's never gonna be the space for a Bill Gates to breathe and grow again.
The free-market is awesome as a snowball but when you let it roll, you have an avalanche of suck.
An avalance of suck wherein there is certainly no room for anarchists of any stripe.
But that's my numbers-and-facts argument.
My gut feeling as a humanist is that... all of the above is fine... but if we have the resources to provide everyone within our society with a certain level of dignity in this brief and stumbling charade called human life, it is our moral obligation as a collective society to provide as such.
This is a mad and heartbreaking enough a journey without the deck being stacked against most of us from the start. The trick is, yes, to find the balance where the most human dignity is provided without stifling too much the human desire to grow and innovate and... not fall into Soviet stagnation.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, man. Ain't no one extreme that's ever fixed anything.
But Western and Northern Europe seem to have the best idea so far in human history, providing the basic tools of life... an education, health care, enough money for bare minimum food and housing... without stifling the creative drive and averaging everything out into a dull gray.
The bonus for businessmen who aren't looking to cheat or rig the system of that is... a stable educated class of people really able to do things that isn't constantly being driven toward revolt.
The New Deal saved American business with a little dab of socialism by... preventing an eventual revolt of the underclass that could've well turned full-on-communistic or military or Christ knows what.
FDR, after all, was old motherfuck*ng money. He understood the score. A socio-economically unbalanced society will make for great profits in the short term but will eventually collapse under the weight of its own inequity.
The underpinnings of American innovation and capitalism has been an underlying safety net of certain public entitlements and government regulation preventing the tipping points of monopoly from upending the entire fuck*ng apple cart.
Not to mention that most economic booms have been driven by... good ol' government-driven military development. The prosperity of the 50s that we were arguably still coasting on until the Eighties was jumpstarted by the government nationalising industry in the WW2 effort.
Only place there's one thing or the other, man, is in text books.
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LFM-- you do not have to pay for the cans I am giving to you. Consider them a Service.
Or, if you will, payment for services rendered.
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As long as you are reading it in the voice of James Whitmore, that is payment enough.
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You sir, are a wonderful writer. However, I am completely in disagreement with you on your concept and world view.
Unfortunately, it's not a battle I'm equipped to run with particularly as well as you.
But I find your vision of the future absolutely destructive to the manner in which I've conducted my life. I think you underestimate the impacts of a governmental and social construct that I see as stifling the necessary rewards of achievement. People have already learned they can vote in any damn old bread and circus under the current system, and to maintain political currency the reinholders are more than willing to drive down that road. I also don't find your Europen examples persuasive. Europe is on the precipice of turning a casual, leisurly decline into an apocolyptic plummet. Even our benign lovely neighbor to the North is relying on foreign imports as their more than adequate university system is not turning out enough natives with skills in the solid sciences.
But hey, we're different. I just happen to feel that this country still allows one the best chance to reach as high as one is willing to grasp. I feel that achievement is up to the individual and should be an incentive to use all the resources so immenently available to do so. I feel governments role should be severely curtailed to keeping the playing field fair, structuring necessary public services and providing enough of a social safety net that people don't freeze in the streets when a cold snap hits or go with less than one meal a day.
I believe in a leg up rather than the hand out.
But hey, we're different. See you at the polls.
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I really want to say something trite like "this is why Democracy works!"
but seriously folks, the balance is what makes everything work. Or... mostly work.
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The great depression was not a product of capitalism. The great depression was a product of government messing around in the economy and distorting it from its natural state. The war based economy forced the UK to abandon the gold standard so it could inflate the money supply. Then in 1925 they snapped back to it against the advice of economists. The result was a shock to the monetary base. The money supply in the U.S. slipped to 66% of its pre 1930 size while the federal reserve refused to contribute to inflation. What would have been a natural but painful correction in the market was made into a global crisis by government reaction with the Smoot-hawley tariffs that effectively shut down the global free market (ITS HArD TO SELL YOUr GOODS WHEN THE GOVErNMENT WONT LET YOU).
The only way that government appears to help the economy is that it has the power to spend money it doesn't have. It does this whenever things look bad and politicians dont want to lose their jobs. rather than loosen up restrictions to let money move freely across the economy the government tightens up with regulation and spends money to look like the hero. Meanwhile its debt grows to numbers so large that we can't even comprehend.
All of those government programs we all cheer have left the government with $8,836,411,390,201+ in debt (To put that in perspective there is only $6.25 trillion in circulation by the broadest definition of money M3). Most of this owed to foreigners who fully expect to cash in. Ben Bernanke himself pointed out just last week, If we don't find a way to cut social programs like welfare and social security and healthcare... well be looking at how to shutdown the defense department along with everything else in the not too distant future. The money simply doesn't exist.
Sure it feels good to help the poor among us. But at what cost?
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Meanwhile its debt grows to numbers so large that we can't even comprehend.
All of those government programs we all cheer have left the government with $8,836,411,390,201+ in debt (To put that in perspective there is only $6.25 trillion in circulation by the broadest definition of money M3). Most of this owed to foreigners who fully expect to cash in.
I'm trying to not get involved , but seriously... Let's blame social welfare programs and not, say, the war. Tallies like $100,000 a minute, and $5.8 billion per month, and you blame social welfare - which you know, actually helps people - for your governments debts.
We are in Europe, we have universal health care, new deal programs for new business, guaranteed income for the unemployed and support for asylum seekers and refugees, and we are in the same war as you guys...
Sorry, but letting more people die at home so you can kill more elsewhere just seems really, really fucked up to me! It may seem like hyperbole, but, you know, not so much.
And the quoted debt - well, your current administration raised the possible debt level to 9 trilliion so it could pump more money into the war, so that debt is only even possible thanks to their dedication to wasting your money abroad.
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I'm trying to not get involved , but seriously... Let's blame social welfare programs and not, say, the war. Tallies like $100,000 a minute, and $5.8 billion per month, and you blame social welfare - which you know, actually helps people - for your governments debts.
We are in Europe, we have universal health care, new deal programs for new business, guaranteed income for the unemployed and support for asylum seekers and refugees, and we are in the same war as you guys...
Sorry, but letting more people die at home so you can kill more elsewhere just seems really, really fucked up to me! It may seem like hyperbole, but, you know, not so much.
And the quoted debt - well, your current administration raised the possible debt level to 9 trilliion so it could pump more money into the war, so that debt is only even possible thanks to their dedication to wasting your money abroad.
I don't blame social welfare- I blame government mismanagement. I am absolutely opposed to government waging war with my money in my name. The fact is that social welfare is about half of the federal budget and defense spending is closer to 20%. War does nothing good for economies. It appears to do so when the economy is flooded with deficit spending but these artificial surges have no real long term benefits (the debt is passed on to the next generation who then has the burden of dissaving to pay it back. See: now)
I am not in favor of buying guns for my oppressors nor am I in favor of them telling me how to allocate my philanthropic spending.
But in the words of the great Jay-Z: Fuck this I'm going golfing. (the weather is amazing here today)
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Well, like I say, we've each kind of established our positions and to go much further would turn into Point-CointerPount bullshit.
But I will say, man, if you're worried about strengthening your oppressors... the eventual result of a completely free market would end up a far more effective and brutal oppressor than any mixed-economic-model representative-democracy could ever be.
If I have to choose between the oppression of a mosaic of corporate fiefdoms or the mild economic stifling of the Northern European mixed-economic model, if those are the only two choices on the table, I'm taking Norway in a New York minute.
Anyway, the "hand up/hand out" false dicotomy has always rung as really short-sighted to me. If our lifetimes were the only thing we were worrying about, I'd be more sympathetic to that "well, everyone needs to just hit their bootstraps" thing...
But it doesn't work like that. We have to think trans-generationally and... unless there are some leveling counter-balances to the free market, economic momentum will barrel us toward a tiny near-oligarchic class and one vast unskilled underclass without the resources to "bootstrap" and will eventually revolt out of blind frustration with their suffering.
Yes, in many situations for certain windows of time, an unfettered free market seems like the scenario that grants the most liberty and democracy. But we're talking about an entire society and an entire society hopefully over five, ten, fifteen more generations.
Framing social safety nets as the government forcing you to make hand-outs is... convenient and possibly even sounds correct, when viewed at the individual level and in the short-term. But in the wider view, social safety nets are a collective investment in the preservation of the stabilizing forces that are the middle classes... as well as a buffer against the free market spiraling out of control and crushing competition/innovation/etc.
I'm a bleeding heart, yeah, but I have rational arguments for that way of thinking as well.
I think the arguements against my earlier point miss the long-view. In the short term, a completely free market sounds great... but money begets more money begets even more money... and that's the rub. It quickly spins out of control. That's why at the start of the American Experiment, corporations were only allowed to exist for the span of a man's adult working life, they were incorporated with the public good as the primary goal by law and state officials dissolved corporations on a regular basis.
Unregulated business can metastasize into an oppressive force as least as nasty as government can become.
Again, it's about balance.
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I disagree with you long view in regards to the preference you've stated.
I'd posit that the cumulative effects from let's say FDR & the New Deal on have been to initially grow govornment in a direction beneficial to society as a whole. From LBJ on though it's taken a nasty turn towards behemoth government overhead, congestion and waste supported by two classes, those benefitting from it and those aquiring socio-political power through the implementation of those benefits. Still the under/over class dichotomy that you purport to dread. Growing and expanding the reach and scope of these policies is only going to further promulgate the extremes of the current situation.
I'm trying to get out of the capitalist/socialist box here.
I want:
A support structure leanly administrated that provides people don't die in the streets or go hungry and if they have an expensive or tragic malady they receive aid. Basic health services need to be available to avoid the growth of simple ills into major crisis and to alleviate the impacts of those issues affecting large communities.
A business environment friendly to entrepnuers while defining and monitoring with a light hand until necessary the effect and influence of pan-national corporations based in this country.
A domestic agenda focused on the development of infrastructure.
An increased focus on education with emphasis on academic success support and particularly retention.
Less jail and more diversion and treatment sentencing. (Second offenders get whacked in my world, but if I don't get it I won't have a cow).
Political reform involving term limits, redistricting courts and funding (less is better). Naked debates.
None of these things need be done within any particular -ism. None of these things are unnattainable right fuck*ng now.
I've spent my political time finding and supporting local canidates with this kind of focus. You want long view? Majo change in this country is going to come about through dedicated people helping to push like minded folk that aren't chained to the donkey or the elephant (RINO/DINO) from a local level up the ladder until they can reach a broad base.
I'm not a bleeding heart, but I'm not a cruel son-of-a-bitch either.
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See it's funny when people actually talk about what they want instead of -isms they tend to get along better, from his earlier posts I would have assumed I'd disagree with Sub but I agree with just about every point (I don't like to whack people no matter what they've done, we remove them from society if we have to but I don't like to take away something I can't give back).
Socialism seems to be based on the idea that we can give everyone a good life (by our rather high standards), and really we don't have enough money.
Capitalism tells people they can do whatever they want if only they try hard enough. This too is bullshit.
In my ideal society people can be educated (preferably to the university level but that's not always doable) for free, likewise people should also not have to agonise about going to see the doctor when they have the flu let alone when they have a more serious injury so there should be some level of free healthcare too.
I think the fact that we have a level of luxury that we can even debate this point means there is some onus on us to do something to pass our good fortune on to others. And despite all the horatio alger stories we are fortunate, if only to be born in the part of the civilised world we are if not for any of the people who have helped us out in our own life. I want to have a good life for myself, and I have no illusions that if push came to shove I would look after me and mine first but while push isn't coming to shove I don't see why I shouldn't give a little of what I have to others. Frankly I think a government can be trusted to do this better than any private organisation, at least they are accountable to the people at large.
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Where is all this money coming from?
In my ideal society we all have computers made of gold and ***** house pets that dont poop on the floor!
Lots of things sound good feel good and thats why Obama has so much momentum. In reality things cost money. Money we don't have. How can we afford to pay the unemployed when the employed can't even pay their nation's debt?
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Where is all this money coming from?
In my ideal society we all have computers made of gold and ##### house pets that dont poop on the floor!
Lots of things sound good feel good and thats why Obama has so much momentum. In reality things cost money. Money we don't have. How can we afford to pay the unemployed when the employed can't even pay their nation's debt?
A-CAP, I call bullshit. There is not one thing on my list that has co$t attached to it that is not currently part of the federal and (in my state) budget.
The tough work is going to be the leaning out or outright end of other wasteful and unproductive programs and overheads to achieve a better allotment of existing funds. Basiclly, to hit the things I want it's not going to take moremoremore, but it will reqire a fundamental shift in the way government does business. Hence, the tough part of the cow.
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You know, there was a little bit of discussion about whether people should listen to the political opinion of folks in the entertainment industry earlier. I would like to point out that I am old enough to be elected president of this great country, and I certainly woudn't respect the opinion (on first blush) of anybody my age pretty much at all. We can talk about this stuff until we are blue in the face, but no extra cachet should be attached to anyone's opinion just because of what they do for a living.
I think on the continuum, the space between chowderhead yokel and ivory-tower egghead is very small indeed. People talk about the folks in the think-tanks being out of touch with the common man, and then turn around and talk about country bumpkins not knowing what is good for them.
However, when you are famous, it is a lot easier to get a soapbox for you idiotic backwards ideas. Or smart ideas, if that's what you have, but what are the odds of that?
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when you are famous, it is a lot easier to get a soapbox for you idiotic backwards ideas. Or smart ideas, if that's what you have, but what are the odds of that?
From all available evidence, it is low indeed.
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A-CAP, I call bullshit. There is not one thing on my list that has co$t attached to it that is not currently part of the federal and (in my state) budget.
The tough work is going to be the leaning out or outright end of other wasteful and unproductive programs and overheads to achieve a better allotment of existing funds. Basiclly, to hit the things I want it's not going to take moremoremore, but it will reqire a fundamental shift in the way government does business. Hence, the tough part of the cow.
The current federal and state budgets will have us bankrupt within our lifetime. No one wants to believe that we are spending money at such a rate that the government will break. In our political system congressmen and senators are given every incentive to spend money as fast as possible for the time they are alive and in office. There is no incentive for them to care about the next generation's debt and how they will repay it. The result is literally a pyramid scam on the world.
There are two ways government can generate revenue. Taxes and debt instruments (bonds). The current debt pays interest at such a rate that even more debt has to be sold pay off the old debt. And when it comes time to pay that off yet another round of debt will be sold. The natural conclusion is that of any other pyramid scam. Only this time the scammers have guns and can steal your money (taxes). Now just sit back and imagine how much tax has to be collected to fund all that pyramiding debt.
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Are you elaborating on my post or trying to state a new position?
Your pyramid run is part of the underlying assumption of the second part of my quoted post.
ALSO: Nabu had a point, I'm on short hiatus from this topic.
HENCE: You owe me a response in the shooting sports thread as to what you took out to the range the other day...I need to talk grains, FPS, CUP/PSI, twist rate, BC, SD, meplat, ogive, factory crimp dies and ballistic trajectory. If none of y'all'll do it I'm off to Levergunluvers, Marlin Owners or Bear Tooth Bullets...
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I think it is strange that the expenditure used for war has been largely ignored, particularly considering its relevance to the current discussion. Looking at countries that have succeeded in being both socialist and wealthy (mostly West European nations, particularly Scandinavia), the status that I believe is ideal, they have universally avoided military expenditure. Their military endeavors are almost exclusively defensive in nature. If America were to adopt a similar isolationist policy, imagine how much money could be spent on improving the general standard of living in the nation. Regardless of where the money is spent, it seems to me that reconsidering the way the military is funded benefits both right and left wing ideology.
To clarify, I'm not talking about the Iraq war in specific, but the general philosophy surrounding military spending. Nor am I suggesting that the US is in the same position as, say Finland as far as threat to the populace is concerned (though I believe that threat is infinitesimally small). However, history has shown that wartime economies will rise to the circumstance. It seems to me that since the glory achieved in World War II, America has treated the military as if there is constantly a war going on, and has sought wars to justify it, instead of following the traditional order.
Other than this, there is not much I can add to the thread that has not been said far more eloquently by littlefallsmets.
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I'd like to point out that I live in a country with universal health care and that had free education up to the university level till about 15 years ago. We no longer have the free university stuff but we do have interest free government loans available to anyone who can qualify to get into a university which are automagically added onto your tax once you start earning above a certain amount.
We also have a 10 billion dollar surplus.
These things are not fantasy, they are extremely doable. The people who are getting your money now just want you to believe otherwise.
Damn that last line just made me look like a total fruit loop and undermined my argument didn't it?
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Also, your entire country has the population of Texas in an area the size of the contiguous US. Admittedly, a lot of its pretty harsh livin'. Not that Texas isn't.
Edited to replace California with Texas. Cali has 33 million now!
Also:
California Australia
1980 23.6M 15.0M
2006 33.8M 20.7M
I was chatting with my wife about this and she asked me where I got the impression that the two regions had the same population. I said, "My Dad, but apparently he was pulling it out of his ass" and she said, "Oh, but isn't he a businessman? That shouldn't surprise you".
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Damn that last line just made me look like a total fruit loop and undermined my argument didn't it?
I am really not feeling up to entering into a political debate right now, but I wanted to thank you for finally prompting me to find out what Froot Loops actually are. That's been bugging me just enough to not be worth chasing up for about eight years.
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Does anyone think Obama or Clinton will actually get the nomination?
They say a lot of things that liberal democrats love to hear but will the democrats risk such an important election by trying to make history?
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I don't see how having less people spread over a larger area makes it easier? Surely having more people closer together would reduce overall infrastructure costs per person? (Edit: we DO have natural resources up the wazoo actually, but the US isn't exactly hurting for cash compared to many other, much more densely populated, countries.)
RB: Glad I could bring something constructive to this.
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They say a lot of things that liberal democrats love to hear but will the democrats risk such an important election by trying to make history?
I don't see that it is an important election. Even if a republican gets in I get the feeling they are going to move away from Bush's hardcore neocon shit and a democrat who gets in is probably still going to have to be fairly moderate just to get elected.
I should say here there are still lots of things I disagree with from your 'democrat' side of politics. Using tariffs and other bullshit because you don't want your country's (not YOUR country, just countries in general) industries to have to compete in the real world is some grade a bullshit in my book, so I tend to swing back and forth in my voting depending on whether I think our economy needs a boost or social services need some more attention.
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I tend to swing back and forth in my voting depending on whether I think our economy needs a boost or social services need some more attention.
So what is your call on the current election, where we are pretty much in need of both?
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This is the thing about the free-market that I've been saying that... people haven't been responding to.
A completely free-market is awesome for about three seconds until an elite sorts out and subverts the rules of a completely free-market into a system that is not at all about a free-market and completely about protecting and multiplying their power, resources and elite status.
And if the government and media are owned by and/or unduely influenced by that elite... then they're going to have the government and media say that things like universal education and health care are impossible.
Because the models that allow these things will tax the elite to the point where they can only buy two new yachts this year.
The myth of the completely free-market isn't an end, it's a mean to an end that is promptly discarded once an elite has consolidated power through it. Once the monopoly exists, suddenly the people who own the monopoly don't believe in competition anymore.
The acceptance of this idea by people without the resources of the elite is at best the arrogance of the person believing that, well, THEY are strong enough to find a trick if all the rules are off or at worst, a societal Stockholm Syndrome, an underclass functioning as "Uncle Tom slaves" did, believing that if they just behave enough, they'll get the master's leftovers instead of gruel.
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This is the thing about the free-market that I've been saying that... people haven't been responding to.
A business environment friendly to entrepnuers while defining and monitoring with a light hand until necessary the effect and influence of pan-national corporations based in this country.
Political reform involving term limits, redistricting courts and funding (less is better). Naked debates.
Actually, those two were thrown in because of the effects of econical/political power mating resulting in the type of issues you so graphically describe.
Just I gotta different idea on how to neuter the beast birthed of the two.
Plus, I mean c'mon, NAKED DEBATES!
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Plus, I mean c'mon, NAKED DEBATES!
Fuck, nobody watches 'em as it is - do you want there just to be three voters that decide everything?
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Well youre giraffeing for a response so I'll give it.
Your idea of the end-game is distorted. In true capitalism there is competition and competition insures that your situation never occurs. Look at places where wal-mart is the only game in town. Does wal-mart then sky rocket prices to steal all the money from the area? No that would be foolish because someone would just come in and offer things at reasonable prices. In fact wal-mart does just the opposite- they offer low prices to remain competitive. In a purely capitalist society there are incentives to please the consumer not rob him blind or oppress him. In government there the incentive is just the opposite. Government lacks a residual claimant who is interested in satisfying the consumer and has only incentives to give rewards to the few at the cost of many- diffused costs and concentrated benefits.
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... redistricting courts ...
I've purposely been staying out of this, and I fully intend to continue with this policy. I'm just intrigued by the idea that redistricting courts could have some significant effect. Care to elaborate on that one?
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I'm trying to place this as mildly as possible. You are suggesting that "places where Wal-Mart is the only game in town" are examples of the pinnacle of capitalism.
To me this is not a Good Thing.
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I was using it as a counter-example of the nightmare presented by LFM. Wal-mart provides a wide variety of cheap stuff to people that otherwise wouldn't have a wide variety or cheap stuff. WM's logistical beast is able to bring more stuff to more people at a lower price than most of their competitors and for this reason it finds itself in a situation where it is the only game in many towns. And yet they don't charge people outrageous prices or turn the town folk into slaves. In fact they do everything possible to keep their prices low and satisfy consumers.
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I was using it as a counter-example of the nightmare presented by LFM. Wal-mart provides a wide variety of cheap stuff to people that otherwise wouldn't have a wide variety or cheap stuff. WM's logistical beast is able to bring more stuff to more people at a lower price than most of their competitors and for this reason it finds itself in a situation where it is the only game in many towns. And yet they don't charge people outrageous prices or turn the town folk into slaves. In fact they do everything possible to keep their prices low and satisfy consumers.
A-CAP, everything you say just sounds like "WANK WANK WANK".
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A-CAP, everything you say just sounds like "WANK WANK WANK".
Wow. Just... wow.
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A-CAP, I gotta say I'm glad you're around. Since AlohaDawg hasn't been around the minority view hasn't been voiced much around here. I may not agree with your political views, but I'm glad you're here spouting them off.
Now, how do you feel about eating babies?
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I'm just intrigued by the idea that redistricting courts could have some significant effect.
California example: Voters districts or precincts are redrawn by the state assembly which results in a winner's get the spoils drawing of borders. This has spawned a plethora of convoluted districts often segmenting homogenous areas along party lines. The end result is a bunch of disticts that are modeled to be 'safe' for one major party or the other. It's hard as dickens to have anysort of open competition or to shoehorn any sort of dynamic churn when the precincts are so ideologically stratified. I'd like to see redistricting run on strict contiguos geographical and population method with a third party drawing the lines, which is why I chuck the judiciary at it. Hell, I'd make it a Cali Supremes (sounds like a fast food item) issue.
My thinking is that with honest districting we're likely to have more areas in which, instead of pandering to only the base, canidates will have to tailor a message and agenda that is more issue driven and addresses the real concerns of the community. I'd love to see these people forced to commit to positions and actual agendas and have to convince the swayable middle why their shit is the least smelly, as opposed to the current play amongst ouselves setup. I think redistricting, term limits and campaign finance controls would go a long ways into delivering more ideas and commitments into the political anointment.
I haven't solved the accountability issue yet as that has to be driven by the populace. I try to do my part by being a shit-stirrer and writing editorial replies and direct contact with representatives offices. Every now and then I'll show up at a meeting for open mike time and air out some concerns.
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Now, how do you feel about eating babies?
No No, Nabu's got that covered! (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,3474.msg85479.html#msg85479)
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Baby is both nutritious and delicious. Eating baby solves both world hunger and overpopulation.
In my ideal universe baby is sold by a megamart chain in every town and is traded on the Chicago Merc as a commodity in the same way as say pork bellies.
I kid. I kid.
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California example: Voters districts or precincts are redrawn by the state assembly which results in a winner's get the spoils drawing of borders. This has spawned a plethora of convoluted districts often segmenting homogenous areas along party lines. The end result is a bunch of disticts that are modeled to be 'safe' for one major party or the other. It's hard as dickens to have anysort of open competition or to shoehorn any sort of dynamic churn when the precincts are so ideologically stratified. I'd like to see redistricting run on strict contiguos geographical and population method with a third party drawing the lines, which is why I chuck the judiciary at it. Hell, I'd make it a Cali Supremes (sounds like a fast food item) issue.
My thinking is that with honest districting we're likely to have more areas in which, instead of pandering to only the base, canidates will have to tailor a message and agenda that is more issue driven and addresses the real concerns of the community. I'd love to see these people forced to commit to positions and actual agendas and have to convince the swayable middle why their shit is the least smelly, as opposed to the current play amongst ouselves setup. I think redistricting, term limits and campaign finance controls would go a long ways into delivering more ideas and commitments into the political anointment.
I haven't solved the accountability issue yet as that has to be driven by the populace. I try to do my part by being a shit-stirrer and writing editorial replies and direct contact with representatives offices. Every now and then I'll show up at a meeting for open mike time and air out some concerns.
Oooooh. You're talking about gerrymandering. I absolutely agree that it has a corrosive effect on the democratic process.
See, when you say "court redistricting" I think "re-drawing the boundaries where particular judges have jurisdiction." And while that could be important on a microcosmic level, I had trouble understanding how it could have much larger social impact.
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A-CAP, I gotta say I'm glad you're around.
I concur. Ain't no fun bein' Hawkeye or BJ Hunnicut without a Winchester with which to spar.
As long as it's a Winchester and not a Frank Burns, y'know?
Winchester was... pretty much always wrong but he was always an elegant and worthy adversary.
I salute you, Ennewhy, for being a Winchester and not a Burns. Nostrovia.
However, I will say, I wouldn't generally associate being right-wing with having a sense of humour compatable with Achewood, though. It's an over-generalization, of course, but I must admit to it.
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There's a thing that Democrats and others of the more-or-less left don't seem to get, which is that its possible to be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. This is pretty much the definition of a small-l libertarian. The less-is-more approach to government. The role of government should be as an arbitrator between equals, rather than a cop or a nanny. Its roles should be minimized to keep its costs moderate. Unfortunately, part of the human condition seems to be that we yearn for an ultimate Authority, to whom any decision can be deferred. This is the seed at the core of the UN idea as well. The alternative is negotiation where both parties seek a common ground, and act with responsibility and good faith in the resulting contract. Unfortunately, this is Work, which is an unpopular concept.
To be fair, the Republicans aren't much better at rising above the Left/Right false dichotomy. They listen to a libertarian's take on fiscal policy with nodding heads, then scream the "L" word when you demur on funding "Faith Based Initiatives", school prayer, or Abstinence-Only sex ed. God forbid you opine that people shouldn't be prevented from entering into a domestic partnership with someone of the same sex. "We've got to Defend the Institution of Marriage", they'll proclaim (standing firmly next to their 3rd wife).
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A-CAP: What about the way Wal Mart treats its workers, essentially making them go to welfare, instead of company health care, and not allowing many workers to work full time. Plus about 15 other thing I am not going to type.
Whether you have a point or not, please never use Wal Mart as a good example. You will come off as wrong.
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So what is your call on the current election, where we are pretty much in need of both?
Since I don't live over there I don't really feel I have enough knowledge to make a call on that. Weirdly enough if I thought a republican government could be trusted to reign in spending and rebuild your economy I'd back them. I suspect though that they have too much pride to back down on the whole war thing. Unfortunately in politics pride can count for an awful lot.
In the election in my own country I'll be voting the other way. Mainly because our economy is doing rather well and feel that some redistribution of that money is in order, and because the current government has been in power for over 11 years now, I feel they are getting narrow minded and that sometimes a change for change's sake is not entirely innappropriate. For that matter we actually have a pretty good opposition leader this year too.
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A-CAP: What about the way Wal Mart treats its workers, essentially making them go to welfare, instead of company health care, and not allowing many workers to work full time. Plus about 15 other thing I am not going to type.
Whether you have a point or not, please never use Wal Mart as a good example. You will come off as wrong.
I worked for Sam's Club for about a year after I got my degree, because I couldn't find a job in my field. They straight-up fuck people every chance they can get.
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Wal-Mart is also notorious for squeezing its suppliers for every little penny, demanding lower costs year after year, to the point that they drive companies to manufacture overseas where the labor's cheaper.
Yeah, those Wal-Mart low prices are great for a lot of people. But yet, they have their costs.
I keep meaning to read "Nickel & Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which she takes jobs at Wal-Mart and other minimum wage gigs.
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And yes, Wal-Mart finds (underhanded) ways to bring the savings to you, the customer, but it also puts small, local shops out of business in the process. I only tend to focus on that happening when it's grocers and butchers going out of business to supermarkets, as it's where you get the good produce rather than the cheap shit from the big chains, but I object to it happening all round.
Anyway, saving you money isn't going to bring the nation's debt under control... Not until you spend it on things produced in your nation!
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I knew while I was typing it that I shouldn't have used Wal-Mart as it can produce a visceral response from many people. I'm not Wal-Mart's cheerleader or anything but when I was living in farmville Viriginia (actual name of town) I really appreciated the wide variety of affordable products. Local businesses go out of business because they are unable to compete. That's the nature of capitalism. I'm not sure what the advantage is to shopping at small local overpriced shops as opposed to one large convenient affordable store. If people truly did value those little local shops then they would still be in business. In reality people express their true beliefs with their actions and the people have chosen lower prices and convenience at wal-mart.
It is easy to pick on the biggest employer in the country and find things they "should" be doing. I ask you what the alternative is for those working there. Again-people show their true beliefs with their actions and people have chosen to work there. Low-skill low-education people need jobs too and wal-mart is helping them with cheap goods and jobs. Would they have healthcare if Wal-mart wasn't there? Would they have better jobs? Or is it possible that in the labor market wal mart is demanding labor that is being supplied willingly because they are the best option available.
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I love to talk politics, but I'm opting to stay the hell out of this discussion because it a) is on the internet and b) involves libertarianism. I am saying this as a dude who himself subscribes to basically quasi-libertarian beliefs. It is a blanket policy. Don't anyone get offended or anything.
However, as far as speculating about the presidential election (which nobody really seems to have done in this thread since last May)...
My own imagined scenario (at least until the last year's election; it doesn't work now) was Bush getting assassinated, Cheney dying from a heart attack, and Ted Stevens being sworn in as President and deciding to run for another term in 2008, with Mike Gravel winning the Democratic nomination. Two candidates from Alaska! It could have happened, people!
Basically what I am saying is that I think this is cool enough that I am posting in a thread I have been trying to avoid just to share it with everybody.
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My own imagined scenario (at least until the last year's election; it doesn't work now) was Bush getting assassinated, Cheney dying from a heart attack, and Ted Stevens being sworn in as President and deciding to run for another term in 2008, with Mike Gravel winning the Democratic nomination. Two candidates from Alaska! It could have happened, people!
Basically what I am saying is that I think this is cool enough that I am posting in a thread I have been trying to avoid just to share it with everybody.
Holy shit - I didn't even know this was happening.
It is easy to pick on the biggest employer in the country and find things they "should" be doing. I ask you what the alternative is for those working there.
Man that sounds similar to "my country right or wrong". Hope you don't mind if I keep asking for things to get better instead of saying that they could be worse.
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Well, then, what you're kind of saying is that... free-market capitalism because in the short term it feels like it works for you?
That sort of seems to be your argument, Ennewhy, Wal-Mart works for you and so it is good.
Not everyone has the resources with which to vote with their dollars. Very few people do, in fact. They have to take whatever is cheapest just to get by, because of prevailing economic forces, without having the luxury to pay more for quality. Which... takes out local businesses, worsens the local economy and makes them all the more dependent on places that can be a little cheaper by abusing their employees and buying from foreign and/or exploitive suppliers... and it becomes a cycle.
It becomes a race to the bottom of the drain, I believe is the analogy. Again, the momentum of advantage pulls everyone in its wake down except for a bunch of stockholders living half the country away if not on the other side of the world.
A third of the stores in the town next to my hometown of Little Falls, Herkimer, were boarded up and another third are slowly dying because Wal-Mart came in and hollowed the town out. And I can name at least one friend who found such pain in working for Wal-Mart that his only other option was signing up as Iraq cannon fodder in the armed services and... he sadly took that option.
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I'm not sure what the advantage is to shopping at small local overpriced shops as opposed to one large convenient affordable store. If people truly did value those little local shops then they would still be in business.
The value is, as I say, decent produce that isn't farmed in squalid and unconscionable cruelty, and that for instance, actually tastes of something. Andas for people not seeing the value in it - people are idiots. People pay McDonald's for the all-shite patties they hock, and pay Starbucks for coffee that tastes of plastic and all the myriad flavoured versions full of chemical goodness. This is all well and good but it's not the point.
The point you seemed to have missed, is that if you want the US economoy to be strong, more money needs to be spent on products from within the US. They may be more expensive, but that's half the point, it means more money going into the economy rather than on international trade or wallowing in accounts where it does nothing...
Big companies don't care where they source their goods as long as they turn as high a profit as they can, which again doesn't help the majority of the populace. Yes, people can get underpaid jobs, and get shafted out of full-time work so they are paid, but I truly don't see the lowering of employment standards as a good thing! Wal-Mart will continue to be a success as long as they can buy cheap, sell marginally less cheap and pay even worse. That doesn't mean it's what people want... People by and large want support from their government in times of need, instead of their only option being an underprivelaged, underpaid, undersupported job at Wal-Mart. It's a vicious circle, yes, but it's one Wal-Mart and companies like it are only too happy to keep going, to turn a profit.
US farmers and lumber get lots of government support. They're huge industries, which could be outsourced all too easily, but it's money which needs to stay in the economy...
It's not just that Wal-Mart is an example which creates a gut reaction. It's that your argument is flawed to begin with.
And I took so long writing that out... Good post lfm.
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Holy shit - I didn't even know this was happening.
Gravel 2008: Let the People Decide (http://www.gravel2008.us/)
I could actually get behind him if it weren't for the whole National Initiative thing, which strikes me as being a colossal mistake. Unfortunately that's the main issue he's running on. It'll be fun watching him in the primary debates, though.
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Fuck it, AK represent, yo. Also, I know Ted Stevens, and I'd just as soon get a real zombie in there.
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My argument is simple. If there was a better place to work people would work there. If there was a better place to shop then people would shop there. when it comes down to it most people abandon their philosophical notions of nationalism and welfare of the common man as soon as a "Sale!" sign is put in the window. A minority of people make it their personal missions to shun the megamart and support the local businessman because they get satisfaction out of that. I'm not convinced that spending money on American products will contribute to paying down my government's debt. My government has proven that it chooses to spend any money they get rather than pay down its debt.
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You're assuming all sorts of things about people and their options.
Most people don't HAVE the option to not work at a Wal-Mart or some roughly-equal equivalent to Wal-Mart... in many cases, because Wal-Mart moved into a market and shuttered or economically weakened its extant local competition.
Most people don't HAVE the option to even consider applying philosophical notions to most of their purposes... in many cases, because a Wal-Mart type company came in and shuttered or economically weakened their employers and potential future employers.
You're talking about ideas that work perfectly well in the vacuum of theory and on the page of a text book... or for people with prior advantages that allow them the luxury of making informed ideological choices about their employment and their consumer choices. If this were a vacuum or everyone started from the base line of middle-class assumptions?
You might be right.
But it isn't a vacuum and most people aren't nearly as fortunate as you or I.
It's not that I disagree with the viability of your theories in a perfect theoretical world. I get how they'd work in that scenario.
It's that in the real world and over long timescales, those theories deteriorate under the weight of their own practical application.
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Well I guess we'll have to disagree on the wal-mart story. All those books and lectures have been lieing to me.
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Man that sounds similar to "my country right or wrong". Hope you don't mind if I keep asking for things to get better instead of saying that they could be worse.
I meditated on this while I was on the can and then again while I oiled my rifles and then again while I plucked a bird out of the sky with a hollow point. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. First you convince me to move to Alaska - now this. Get out of my head.
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Well I guess we'll have to disagree on the wal-mart story. All those books and lectures have been lieing to me.
Well, man, I realize that you are being dismissive in a sarcastic/sardonic sort of way but...
Yeah, yeah they have been. From a certain point of view.
While I was certainly not an economics major, I took a coupla classes in school that were dual economics/history type electives and... what you have to realize is... who is writing those books, who is giving those lectures, who formed those theories.
And those theories were formulated and written and taught by people coming from a distinctly upper-class American perspective and even if not every person in that chain was born into privilege, the ideas came from a point of privilege and disseminated for the purposes of those in privilege.
I'm not going to be Conspiracy Guy and say that these theories are necessarily put forward to specifically torpedo a more just and sane economic model... though in some cases, that could well be part of the story... but they were created and popularized and turned into college courses by people working from the assumptions of starting the game from a level at least above the working middle class. The professional class, if not the elite born directly into wealth.
Those theories do work... if you're born on second base and need to perceive yourself as having hit a double.
They function exceedingly well for the purposes of those who largely generated the theories and those who largely consume the theories... those starting in the professional class and trying to work up or those born into wealth and trying to maintain or compound that luck-of-the-womb.
While some of the flaw might well be conspiratorial, the majority of the blame falls simply on the fact of a lack of being able to step out of one's perspective. These were ideas created by Ivory Tower Landed Gentry Conservatives, for the purposes of those Ivory Tower Conservatives and, indeed, work well for the direct private interests of those Ivory Tower Conservatives.
Those textbook writers and professors... and the people who came up with the ideas they're channelling back at an audience of students who are largely the children of at-least the professional class... can no more easily step out of their circumstances to understand the flaws of their theories than a dog can stop to consider the souls of the fleas it is killing by scratching its back.
It's outside of the dog's purview to consider that. His back itches and killing the fleas improves his situation, that's all he knows.
But because those theorists and professors are also incredibly well-educated, of course their theories are airtight garages of logic... sitting there on the page, every number checks out against every other number and it all looks neat and clean like a teevee machine.
And for the short-term applications of those who started with advantage, they do seem to work! There's no doubtsy-boutsy.
But for practical application, for the purposes of the vast majority of people, they're bullshit.
If you're saying, Ennewhy, that laisse-faire will probably work for you in your life, either because you come from privilege or believe that you will earn/luck your way into privilege that you'll want to preserve and multiply for your later life and for your descendants?
You may be right.
But deregulation and wacky bank loans and out-sourcing and multi-national corporations and downsizing and mergers and all the things that Reaganite Laisse-Faire Theory hath laid out... they're chewed out the core of the American middle class and, indeed, Middle America leaving us with... parking lots and closed down factories and dollar stores and wig shops and dusty children barefoot in the streets and... small gated communities ten miles out of towns, covetously guarding their churches and McMansions from the decay of the underclass rabble.
But the dudes in Ivory Towers in... A-CAP or... Syracuse University or... wherever... that's not their world, those things don't effect them and while most of them are just to set in their ways to even notice the actual larger effects of their theories, those who DO notice know that to reverse that decay would mean undermining the things that allow them to have McMansions and Ivory Towers.
So, yeah. The books and lectures are lying to you.
The good news is, they probably don't even know that they're lying, if that is some kind of cold comfort.
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Those theories do work... if you're born on second base and need to perceive yourself as having hit a double.
I like your shit, but this is the second time I know of that you have used this.
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but this is the second time I know of that you have used this.
Really? Sorry about that.
Spring training on the brain. LASTINGS MILLEDGE FOR PRESIDENT.
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No problem. The first time I ever heard this expression was on that Pearl Jam album - is this a common saying that I am not farmiliar with?
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I heard and started using that phrase long enough ago where I don't remember when I first heard it.
Though in the pop-culture sphere, that Pearl Jam song is probably its most well-known usage.
I don't think it's an exceedingly common saying, it's just that being a baseball guy, it stuck with me.
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Stay in one persona, dammit!
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US farmers and lumber get lots of government support. They're huge industries, which could be outsourced all too easily, but it's money which needs to stay in the economy...
Government tarriffs are one thing that make me apply my (I think) fairly liberal views in a fairly hard arsed way. I really don't like them because I feel they prevent the economy and job market from evolving, my impression is that they tend to make people complacent and fight to keep their old jobs when really they should be learning and building skills so they can get new and more relevant jobs. Sooner or later every job that can be outsourced to somewhere where people will do it for 30 cents an hour or done by a ***** will be and I see tarriffs as a temporary stopgap at best. If countries were forced to compete on a more even playing field I think governments in well off countries like ours would quickly realise that many developed countries have little to offer the world that cannot be had for cheaper elsewhere with the major exception of our expertise, technology and knowledge (oxford comma be damned!) and that these are what we should be exporting and what our governments should be throwing money behind so we have a well educated and skilled workforce that can really start competing on an international level. This also has to be done fairly soon since china and india are going to be able to surpass us (where they don't already) in these areas very soon. My (admittedly pretty extreme) end game with tarriffs as they are is that they slowly fail and all unskilled and lowskilled jobs slowly seep away until we have a huge unskilled workforce that are only suitable for service industry jobs and a country where everything is imported and we only make money selling it to each other.
The corrolory to this is that more judicious application of foreign aid could allow foreign workers to expect a standard of employment and payment that we have come to expect, this is obviously a much more difficult goal but would see greater wages and benefits to those in pretty despicable conditions and would mean we would see less jobs going overseas (though there would probably be wage cuts but it's better than the jobs going altogether).
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I finally figured out what gives me an immediate reaction of distaste to a lot of your viewpoints. There is constant limitations, repressions and restraints, as well as herd behaviour but very little exibition of free will. I tend to think people can exercise themselves to do any damn old thing, obstacles or no. Your perspective puts me in mind of a viewpoint in which people, for the lacks within and without themselves, require shepherding. It's a nice entiment, but one I will not accept into my worldview.
As to free will... it's a nice sentiment, I agree. Sounds great in a philosophy text book, wonderful for speechifyin' about, slices, dices, juliannes, makes its own sauce in its already-included pan.
But... I'd also really like to be able to move a penny with my mind. I'd do it for hours as a kid, just concentrating on a penny, convinced that I could be telekinetic (at least a little bit) if I just put my mind to it. From time to time, even as an adult, I'll try it for a minute or two.
It's never happened. It's never gonna happen. Maybe one or two people CAN do it, for all I know. But that's immaterial. I ain't never gonna move that penny with my mind, all the free will, all the positive thinking and boot-straps and hands-up-not-hand-outs in the world...
That penny ain't doing shit.
Similarly, I'm never gonna get that time machine working so that I can fuck Sophia Loren when she was in her early thirties. Been working on that goddamn thing ever since I found out about that whole "putting your c*ck inside pretty ladies" deal back around twelve.
Milton Hershey went bankrupt fifteen times while walking to school through five feet of snow in shoes made out of broken glass because that's all they had to put on their feet back then... and he's got a roller coaster named after him!
...most of the people who go bankrupt pretty much never recover from it financially and some day they'll be an old person in a really shitty nursing home, hating themselves for never having been Milton Hershey.
America has this weird obsession with believing that everyone can be the exception to the rule. I ain't immune, I'm probably the biggest sucker born in the particular minute I was cut out of my mom... I'm trying to get paid to write movies... I could be the biggest rube in the whole damn Rubix cube.
We're so into the exception that we honestly believe anybody can be the exception. And we hate ourselves for never becoming the exception. And we hate everyone around us for not being the exception we were supposed to be, either. 98% of the nation hating themselves, thinking they're failures because they can't beat a rigged game.
A nation of sitcom-level get-rick-quick schemes. Pretending that stocks aren't just another way of buying lottery tickets. People taking out loans for houses they can't afford after the first two years, thinking the property value will go up so fast that it won't be no thang.
The only real person who ever got rich in a Horatio Alger story was Horatio Alger.
And yet there is this... Stockholm Syndrome. This "house slave" mentality. The self-defeating belief that instead of working to raise everyone up, we should instead try and be the fluke. Worship those who have touched The Magic and hope that we shall be like them, instead. Knock our brother-man the fuck down in pursuit of that goddamn rainbow.
Motherfuckers fighting over the crumbs of the crust instead of trying to get the whole pie cut up a little more equitable-wise. And like I say, that's me, too. I ain't... running for local office in Little Falls or... all bein' a lawyer to oppressed motherfuckers in South Central or... nothin'. I'm on a computer, in Van Nuys, talkin' all raw typing-style, drinking cheap wine and thinkin' my names gonna be on the bottom of movie posters.
It's as much my fault as anyone's. I am, we shall say, part of the precipitant, if you follow.
However.
I'm not saying that people need to be sheparded, so much as... there needs to be someone making sure the wolves don't get too goddamn saucy until there ain't no people no more at all.
Because most people who go bankrupt don't bounce back and be all roller-coaster-named in a hundred years. Most people just fade away. And... our responsibility as a nation or as a society isn't to the 0.5% of us running around with roller-coasters. Those aren't the people who NEED the help.
It doesn't say "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness... for dudes whose parents were rich or who hit the lotto or whatever". That whole part after the ellipsis isn't in there at all, as far as I can tell. I'm pretty sure those guys didn't say "dude" back then.
My ethos does not revolve around sympathy for dudes who drive Hummers with vanity plates bragging about their low gas mileage while another dude wakes up in the morning and has to decide whether to put on the Wal-Mart smock or shoot himself.
With sincere respect to all other points of view, I am rooting for that second guy.
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LFM, prolix much?
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I... have no idea what prolix is.
I looked it up and only found this: http://www.prolixlubricant.com/ (http://www.prolixlubricant.com/)
I can safely say that I have never lubricated a gun, that I know of. I have done some crazy things on the sauce. If I have ever lubricated a gun, I do not remember.
But I definitely wrote half of that before running out to pick up my brother after work and do some shopping and then the second half afterwards. Perhaps that is what made my theories particularly gun-lubricating?
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Definitions of prolix on the Web:
* tediously prolonged or tending to speak or write at great length; "editing a prolix manuscript"; "a prolix lecturer telling you more than you want to know"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
LFM. Learn what google is. Learn how to use google.
The web address is http://www.google.com
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Oh. Gotcha.
There is no doubt I have a tendency for being long-winded and rambling.
It comes from a desire to not be misunderstood or misconstrued. I have this subconscious drive to lay out every different permutation and nuance of what I am trying to say, so as to not be taken out of context, on accident or purpose.
I'll try to keep an eye on that in these parts, if people aren't digging on it.
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Don't bother me, none. I enjoy a well turned phrase. There's a talk show host out here on the Left Coast named Gene Burns (who has also spent time in Florida and Massachussets IIRC) who is particularly erudite. To pick up an earlier thread, think of a less pretentious Charles Winchester with a more general American accent. But that level of precision, and (dare I mention it) well executed Latin syntax to his English.
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I'll try to keep an eye on that in these parts, if people aren't digging on it.
Nah, don't change. I'm just yanking your chain.
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Nah, don't change. I'm just yanking your chain.
Which is much better than being pegged, definitely.
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But... I'd also really like to be able to move a penny with my mind. I'd do it for hours as a kid, just concentrating on a penny, convinced that I could be telekinetic (at least a little bit) if I just put my mind to it. From time to time, even as an adult, I'll try it for a minute or two.
It's never happened. It's never gonna happen. Maybe one or two people CAN do it, for all I know. But that's immaterial. I ain't never gonna move that penny with my mind, all the free will, all the positive thinking and boot-straps and hands-up-not-hand-outs in the world...
That penny ain't doing shit.
Similarly, I'm never gonna get that time machine working so that I can fuck Sophia Loren when she was in her early thirties. Been working on that goddamn thing ever since I found out about that whole "putting your c*ck inside pretty ladies" deal back around twelve.
fuck*ng quitter.
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LFM, August just wanted to say prollix.
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LFM, August just wanted to say prollix.
Busted!
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Well, my point is that... that middle ground of people just wanting to have a house and get their kids through college and retire to a place where nurses won't steal their medication... shrinks and shrinks as capitalism is less and less fettered.
And that middle ground doesn't shrink because they're joining The Gods behind their gated communities, they join the masses just scraping on by.
My major argument is that purer and purer forms of free-market don't actually aid the vast majority of Americans, they ultimately shrink the middle classes and make the working and destitute classes's situations much more dire... while concentrating the wealth of the upper classes and a few lottery winners from the underclass who can Sing Really Well or Throw A Football or so on.
Perhaps I'm assailable on the fact that I exaggerate a bit as I ramble but... that trend is what it clearly happening and... it is my belief that preventing and reversing that effect is more important to the people and the stability of our country than across-the-board-and-in-all-cases protecting the free will of those born into privilege or the arbitrary few who stumble into it.
Most of us aren't and most of us won't. Building the system to protect those who are and do makes no sense to me. And, as I say, I don't believe that pure socialism would work any better than pure capitalism...
My belief is that we need a mix of economic models that have worked best in a number of cases and... we are imbalanced toward one direction and becoming more unbalanced in that direction.
However, I would never hold liking to use big words against anyone.
I dig using LOTS of words and that's at least as bad as big words, if not worse.
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So the difference between Marx's view of capitalism and your view of capitalism is that you think the bottom class will never have the wherewithall to get itself together? You just think the middle and working classes are so dumb they'll just cede power to the Waldens?
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Well, as a humanist before any kind of other -ist, I recognize that a violent uprising by the suppressed classes could only end up as Bad Times. I am pretty much Batman on the idea of people rising up with guns and killing until there ain't no plutocrats left to run the country. We've seen that movie, we know what happens. It sucks.
So I'd like to not see things get to that point. I don't doubt the eventual inevitability of that scenario if that happens but that solution to the problem is at least as bad as the problem if not flat-out worse.
I reject allowing it to get to the point of Violent Revolt because I reject killin' on principle. I reject killin' as anything other than direct self-defense as probably my first law of Mikebotics. "Rule One, don't kill anyone unless it's the only way to prevent being killed, all other rules are superceded by this rule."
The difficulty with the current American model is that... the underprivileged classes are functioning within a media and culture landscape that seems structured completely toward enforcing the idea that... if you are not rich, it is Your Fault and you are Bad For Not Being Rich. Worship the rich and protect them because, who knows, there is a very small chance you could be one of them some day!
Whether by ignorance or by conspiracy (more ignorance than anything but probably a little conspiracy, too) the whole deal is rigged to lay out the idea that the needs of the many don't mean shit, it is your job to try and grab what you can for yourself.
Cultural hegemony is completely different than in The Flawed-But-Well-Meaning Mr. Marx's day.
The whole deal is rigged against people seeing the peaceful path toward raising nearly everyone up to perpetuate the current situation. I have the nasty fear that by the time people see what's actually going on, violent revolt will be the only way out.
I do not dig that scenario. At all.
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I am pretty much Batman. I do not dig [this] scenario at all.
I can not imagine a more effective way to end an argument.
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If it's Hillary VS Guiliani, I'm voting for Hillary and will in fact actively campaign for her.
My theory is that I might as well do my part to run everything into the ground so that I'm still around to work things back together when they're being rebuilt, instead of just fudging things off for my children's children to get stuck with.
Basically I want to either put someone in power who will try to make a socialist power grab, or do something about fixing our southern border and work on from there.
Illegal immigration is killing our country, guys. Why do you think this mortgage bailout is being pushed so hard? So that it can be done before the general populace figures out that it was because of loans being made to "undocumented immigrants" and runs riot.* Not to mention that our social services get fucked, our citizens living on the border get their property fucked, etc. It doesn't help that Jorge Bush has his lips pressed firmly to Mexico's ass and hates everyone who might do such a thing as patrol their own property (OH NO, vigilantes!). But this is because our polichickens are scared shitless of having a revolution in mexico, so they allow our country to be used as a pressure release valve, and big business loves it. The rest of us get stuck with illegals "commiting the crimes that ordinary americans don't want to commit."
I am probably horribly off topic now, but this is our biggest issue. We can't fix half of our shit without dealing with this. It affects so many things.
*Sadly, our chances for a popular uprising are slim as long as the only people with M249s and M4s are a) rich, monopolistic C3 dealers, b) government thugs or c) soldiers, and as long as the food distribution and Nascar and NFL keep running.
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Does anyone think Obama or Clinton will actually get the nomination?
They say a lot of things that liberal democrats love to hear but will the democrats risk such an important election by trying to make history?
Just curious -- why do you consider those candidates risky for the democrats? Are there democrats running who you would consider less risky?
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Just curious -- why do you consider those candidates risky for the democrats? Are there democrats running who you would consider less risky?
We TALKED about this! (http://www.gravel2008.us/)
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Just curious -- why do you consider those candidates risky for the democrats? Are there democrats running who you would consider less risky?
Obama is risky because he is a far liberal black guy and Clinton is risky because she is a Clinton woman from New York. Who is less risky?
Uh Joe Biden is a good looking old white guy from Delaware and he hasn't said much that makes me weep for the future.
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Obama is risky because he is black and Clinton is risky because she is a woman.
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has she been asked yet...
I mean... what I want to know is...
can we elect a president who has probably given Blowjobs to a previous president? Or, I mean, was Slick Willy's willy not getting what it needed from her?
and to make it fair, Is Obama pro- or anti- blowjob?
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My doubts about Obama float around his inexperience and his ability to triangulate with the religious right far too quickly.
My doubts about Clinton float around her disturbing ability to triangulate with the hawks at the drop of a goddamn hat.
But the big question is as such: which will the Republican base of largely ignorant social conservatives in the South and lower Midwest hate more, the idea of a black man in the White House or the idea of a Clinton in the White House?
The good news is that if the Republicans put Guliani or McCain up there, many of the churchies are either gonna just not vote or... more likely... prop up the right-wing version of a Nader, some crazy ideologue "out to prove a point" but much more concerned with being famous (just like Nader) and any Democrat wins.
McCain was too independent in the past to be forgiven by the hardliners and Guliani is... a socially-moderate Catholic from the Northeast. As a Catholic from the Northeast myself, I could well point out what the people in charge of the right-wing agenda did to the last Catholic from the Northeast who had the temerity to run for President...
They blew his head off in Dallas.
Nah, if a Republican can hope to win, it isn't any of the front-runners out there now.
If they put the whole machine behind Thompson early on, I could see him being enough of a Reagan-ese cypher to maybe win... someone who can be whoever each person wants them to be. Happily, Gingrich and Cheney are already cartoon characters who could never win.
I have this weird fear that if everything goes to crap, they're gonna trot out Jeb in the eleventh hour.
Though that is similarly mirrored by my biggest dream, which would be that if Clinton stumbled hard early, Gore rides in like a white knight, like an electric simitar, like a superdriver of the Golden West, like a sole hero in a soul mobile, like the last beautiful free soul on this planet...
Like an aging Clark Kent ripping off his glasses and farmboy flannels in his Kansas retirement to be the Superman once again.
I mean, I'll vote for just about any Democrat other than Uncle Tom Lieberman but...
Of the front-runners, I feel like the Republican base might end up hating Hilary more for being the wife of the Glorious Bastard Who Beat Them At Their Own Goddamn Game than they hate Obama for being black. Which... I guess... is progress?
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and Clinton is risky because she is a Clinton woman from New York.
Is that true? She's their senator now, but isn't she from Connecticut or Vermont or something originally?
If they put the whole machine behind Thompson early on, I could see him being enough of a Reagan-ese cypher to maybe win... someone who can be whoever each person wants them to be.
I heard Fred Thompson subbing in for Paul Harvey this morning on the radio - I was curious about whether my previous impression of him as the DA in Law&Order would color how I took his performance. It didn't - and I found myself thinking he sounded better than Harvey's kid, who I find annoying. He does homespun pretty well, which seems to be a mark of Presidentiality these days.
I have this weird fear that if everything goes to crap, they're gonna trot out Jeb in the eleventh hour.
Speaking as a guy who voted against Daddy, and Gore, and for George II the second time around - if they bring George III in I'll not only vote Peach & Freedom or some damn thing - I'll go on a pilgrimmage to Washington, Jefferson and Adams' graves just to put my ears to the ground to listen to the spinning.
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As much as I like Gore I'd be worried if he tried to come back into it, while he's done a lot to bring attention to global warming and other environment issues his presence has also politicised them hugely which is really counter-productive. I'd worry about what would happen if he actually got into politics again.
But I doubt it would happen anyway.
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Is that true? She's their senator now, but isn't she from Connecticut or Vermont or something originally?
Madame Senator grew up in the Chicago 'burbs, I believe.
I met her, briefly, at a function because my uncle was the head of the Democratic Party in one of those little counties in the Adirondacks where there are only 2,000 Democrats in the entire county, because there are only 20,000 people in the entire country and most of the population are Psychotic Adirondack Hillbilly Christian-Apocalyptic Nutjobs.
She is probably the smartest person running for president and would not be a bad president.
I just worry a bit about her ability to compromise ideals in the flush of The Will to Power.
I'll vote for her if she's the D but... I'd feel better about it if she would just be giraffe-or-fowl about the Iraq Tragedy.
She'll have to be, eventually.
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Anyone who wants Hillary to be president for any reasons other than "Fuck it, burn the mother to the GROUND" obviously doesn't have a problem with this little "Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush" thing we've been having.
I mean, god damn, almost all those "I'm above the law!" kennedys are dead and here we go creating dynasties again. Fuck that shit. Tancredo for Prez.
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Anyone who wants Hillary to be president for any reasons other than "Fuck it, burn the mother to the GROUND" obviously doesn't have a problem with this little "Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush" thing we've been having.
I mean, god damn, almost all those "I'm above the law!" kennedys are dead and here we go creating dynasties again. Fuck that shit. Tancredo for Prez.
CAN.
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Anyone who wants Hillary to be president for any reasons other than "Fuck it, burn the mother to the GROUND" obviously doesn't have a problem with this little "Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush" thing we've been having.
I mean, god damn, almost all those "I'm above the law!" kennedys are dead and here we go creating dynasties again. Fuck that shit. Tancredo for Prez.
I don't know, I kind of like it for symmetry's sake. B C C B B C!
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Anyone who wants Hillary to be president for any reasons other than "Fuck it, burn the mother to the GROUND" obviously doesn't have a problem with this little "Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush" thing we've been having.
I mean, god damn, almost all those "I'm above the law!" kennedys are dead and here we go creating dynasties again. Fuck that shit. Tancredo for Prez.
I think about this a lot. Two families will have led our nation for TWENTY YEARS. If Hillary wins in '08 and a presumed reelection in four, that would be almost THIRTY YEARS. And shit, by then, Chelsea will be just about old enough to run.
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I think about this a lot. Two families will have led our nation for TWENTY YEARS. If Hillary wins in '08 and a presumed reelection in four, that would be almost THIRTY YEARS. And shit, by then, Chelsea will be just about old enough to run.
And once the Bush twins get their shit together . . .
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Here's the thing:
Chelsea was in the same class at Stanford as my high school class' valedictorian. Our snotty stuck-up valedictorian Tess. But the Secret Service didn't let Tess live in Chelsea's dorm. The Secret Service said Tess wasn't good enough.
It was a tiny victory for LFHS class of 97. All thanks to Chelsea.
Plus... you KNOW she's gotta be a lot better in the sack than the Bush twins. Coked-out blandly Texas-good-looking rich girls probably just lay there and giggle.
Chelsea, being only a shade or two over plain, TRIES HARDER.
...that and she's Bill's kid. That means she's buckwild, straight up.
Bill Clinton is the closest real person we have to The Highlander. The Adrian Paul television Highlander. If Jesus met Bill Clinton, H(h)e would say "man, I met Bill Clinton! that's so rad! Bill Clinton is the man!"
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Here's the thing:
Chelsea was in the same class at Stanford as my high school class' valedictorian. Our snotty stuck-up valedictorian Tess. But the Secret Service didn't let Tess live in Chelsea's dorm. The Secret Service said Tess wasn't good enough.
It was a tiny victory for LFHS class of 97. All thanks to Chelsea.
Plus... you KNOW she's gotta be a lot better in the sack than the Bush twins. Coked-out blandly Texas-good-looking rich girls probably just lay there and giggle.
Chelsea, being only a shade or two over plain, TRIES HARDER.
...that and she's Bill's kid. That means she's buckwild, straight up.
Bill Clinton is the closest real person we have to The Highlander. The Adrian Paul television Highlander. If Jesus met Bill Clinton, H(h)e would say "man, I met Bill Clinton! that's so rad! Bill Clinton is the man!"
That's cool and all, but are you Rush? I mean, Chelsea is a shade (http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/Chelsea-Clinton-Split-Up-From-Boyfriend-2.jpg) or two (http://thebosh.com/archives/chelsea_clinton13.jpg) over plain? I think she's pretty cute, personally. Maybe my standards aren't as high as yours. At least you didn't call her Clinton family dog.
Also, what does everyone think of Obama's take on the 1984 apple ad? It can be found on Youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo) My gut feeling is that it was a mistake (although a clever one) and it was too early to go negative.
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I'm not saying Chelsea is ugly. She isn't. She is perfectly acceptable looking. But also nothing that particularly stirs my loins. Her cheeks and nose look like they belong on two different people's faces and... I can't get past that. Just can't.
As for the Obama ad, great ad, horrific timing. That's the ad you bust out three days before Iowa and New Hampshire to get the people riding the fence to jump over to your side without enough time to let the Clinton Machine fully call you on going negativo.
Give Bill's braintrust a week and a half and they'll figure out to backfire that motherfucker.
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that ad was made by some random internet guy-- Obama's campaign has come out saying they don't endorse the message. I cannot find the place where I read this, however.
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Ah, plausable deniability in the internet age.
Also, the Bush campaign had NOTHING to do with the Swift Boat Veterans, right?
This is why I love politics but could never be a politician. Too much meta-thinking for my taste.
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There's a copycat video with Obama on the screen now. Too little, too late.
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I don't like Rush. I don't like that drug addicted Kennedy either, but I don't see any of the people who were so righteously indignant about Rush's addiction to pain pills saying a damn thing about Kennedy.
Heaven forbid we hold an elected official to a higher fuck*ng standard.
Hillary has had one thing as her goal for the past twenty years: power. I've known some of their business associates from Arkansas and scumbag slimeball criminals who think they are above the law doesn't even begin to describe it. I'd still go bowling with Bill, just sayin' the truth here.
Then we have Bush and his drunk kids, and his brother, and HIS drunk kids. See our nation, guys? This is what happens when we constantly elect rich family frat boys from pricey universities, and lawyers.
I'm half from NY and half from TN, which is why Hillary's "I'm a new yawker!" carpetbagging stunt pissed me off so much. Did anyone really think getting elected in NY was anything but a steppingstone for the presidency?
By the time anyone gets involved in politics at a federal level, they are broken. Fuck the two party system, fuck the baby boomers, fuck all of these guys.
Our society is now three meals away from rampant disorder. When the world breaks down, you guys are welcome in my survivalist compound.
...wolverines!
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I don't like Rush. I don't like that drug addicted Kennedy either, but I don't see any of the people who were so righteously indignant about Rush's addiction to pain pills saying a damn thing about Kennedy.
I think people were mainly pissed about this because Rush spent a lot of time basically advocating capital punishment for holding a gram of weed, and then the worm turns and all his buddies are like "he needs treatment! It's a disease!"
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I think people were mainly pissed about this because Rush spent a lot of time basically advocating capital punishment for holding a gram of weed, and then the worm turns and all his buddies are like "he needs treatment! It's a disease!"
That's because it seems like everyone cares more about defending their buddies than about what is right.
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Yeah.
It ain't the misdeed, it's the hypocrisy.
I could see getting addicted to pain pills, from the times I've been on them after minor surgeries and injuries and so on. They make you feel completely rad.
But when you're a dude who spends half your eight-digit-salaried radio show dissing on dudes for trying weed a coupla times in college or pretending that all African-Americans smoke crack cocaine or whatever... and then you're so wacked out on painkillers that they've fucked up your inner ear and you're going deaf from it?
Fouc*ult you, Rush Limbaugh.
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I'm not a Rush fan, but, devil's advocate mode here, isn't it possible that a drug addict who drives his car around and also happens to be someone who is partially in charge of our country is more of a serious problem than a fat radio show host?
The war on some drugs is a crock, also, but it won't go away because it keeps people in jobs. Prohibition was repealed and we got the ATF to keep revenue agents in jobs. I can only assume that if weed was legalized, we'd get another petty fiefdom devoted to restricting automobiles. California would pass an Assault Vehicle Ban, because of criminals killing our kids in high powered racecars. Honda Civics would be limited to no more than two of the following: Giant Wing that enables car to fly, Underbody levitation lights, wide diameter jet-flow exhaust, high capacity fuel tank.
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see, I hated being on pain pills so much. They made me feel stupid and fuzzy, and not in a good way.
Although it was quite an experience when I realized that I might have thrown them out, and I NEEDED them, and I was digging through the trash looking for them. praying that they were there.
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I'm not a Rush fan, but, devil's advocate mode here, isn't it possible that a drug addict who drives his car around and also happens to be someone who is partially in charge of our country is more of a serious problem than a fat radio show host?
It ain't the misdeed, it's the hypocrisy.
Rush hammered the users, until he was shown to be a user. Now, I'm no Ted Kennedy biographer, but I suspect he;s never come out railing against folks who have drinking or drug problems. I could be wrong, in which case I'd love to see citations.
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PATRICK Kennedy.
Not the Hero of Chappaquiddick.
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Has Patrick Kennedy been running around telling people that if they have a joint on them, they should go in prison and be anally-raped for twenty years? If this is the case, I have missed it.
It is not about protecting "ours" or "theirs"... it is about hypocrisy.
Also: I have a very sneaking suspicion that Chappaquiddick was not quite the thing we have been told. When both of a dude's brothers were assassinated under shround of secrecy, it is not crazy to believe that perhaps with Ted, they figured out a way to kill his asperations to national leadership without actually pulling off the Assassination Hat-trick.
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PATRICK Kennedy.
Not the Hero of Chappaquiddick.
Oh sure, Patrick Kennedy. Yeah, that fucker is always dogging out drug addicts and drunks, even though he admits to being a junkie who has attempted treatment numerous times. My bad, I was way off base and being a dick.
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Also: I have a very sneaking suspicion that Chappaquiddick was not quite the thing we have been told. When both of a dude's brothers were assassinated under shround of secrecy, it is not crazy to believe that perhaps with Ted, they figured out a way to kill his asperations to national leadership without actually pulling off the Assassination Hat-trick.
That dirty, vile Mary Jo. She was a conspirator, you know. All sacrificing her life to a painful underwater suffocation just to sabotage Teddy. With her psychic powers, she got him to delay going for help until it was too late.
Stock in Reynold's Wrap is up.
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Oh sure, Patrick Kennedy. Yeah, that fucker is always dogging out drug addicts and drunks, even though he admits to being a junkie who has attempted treatment numerous times. My bad, I was way off base and being a dick.
Sometimes I wonder if he voted in favor of going into Iraq while high.
That pisses me off all kinds of ways.
Isn't it neat how celebrities can just check into rehab for a few weeks and be forgiven, while us normal guys can struggle with substance abuse for entire lifetimes? Yay, free passes for the more equal animals.
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Fuck it, you're a troll. It's quite clear what the point was, and you are being willfully obtuse. I expect it on Metafilter, but I'm not interested here.
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Fuck it, you're a troll.
If by 'troll' you mean 'person who is confused and scared about the fate of a nation being piloted by douchebags' then yes.
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I want to subscribe to Fooker's newsletter. How do I do this.
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F-Bomb, if you aren't trolling, you pretty much have to concede that we're saying:
Limbaugh is a douche because he is a hypocrite regarding his statement on drug abuse and addiction.
You seem to be trying to ignore that by saying "you are mad at him because he is a Republican! look at one of the Kennedy people!"
And then we say "no, it is not because of party affiliation, the Kennedy people are very fair and understanding in their statements and political actions in regards to drug abuse and addiction."
And then you say "No, LOOK OVER THERE, GODZILLA! HA HA, I WON BY POINTING OUT GODZILLA!"
And then we say "What the hell are you talking about?"
That is trolling.
If you are confused and doing that on accident, your accident has been pointed out to you.
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(I've never seen LFM that pissed off... and he was pissed off at a concept I had never heard of until today.)
So I had to look up what "trolling" was. I don't think thats what hes doing on purpose, but I guess that was the result.
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I think that Rush is a crap dude and that the Kennedys are also crap dudes.
Rush is a crap dude for being a loudmouth blusterbutt who happens to be a hypocrite.
The Kennedys are crap dudes because they think they are above the law. They are elected representatives, therefore they should be held to at least the same standards that I would be held to if I were caught driving drunk or under the influence of pills, and tried to lie my way out of it.
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Pissed off? Nah.
Annoyed enough to get didactic? Sure.
Since he's still trying to make this about attacking the Kennedies and glossing over the main point of the conversation, Limbaugh's hypocrisy, I gotta assume the dude's just trying to rile people up.
Randomly changing the topic when you are "losing" the argument is rule number one of trolling.
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(I've never seen LFM that pissed off... and he was pissed off at a concept I had never heard of until today.)
So I had to look up what "trolling" was. I don't think thats what hes doing on purpose, but I guess that was the result.
You've never heard of trolling? I am proud of being a member of your first message board ever.
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To be fair, when you're not the internet, the tactic is called "the GOPAC Talking Points Fax of the Day". Veterans being treated for their wounds in Dickensian conductions? YELL A LOT ABOUT THE GAYS. A bunch of attorneys fired for not smearing Democrats before the election? YELL A LOT ABOUT THE GAYS.
It is only on the internet that this is called "trolling".
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So basically, because Kennedy never was on an anti-drug campaign like Rush was, that means he's ok because he isn't a hypocrite? Is that what I am not getting?
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I just noticed that both of the mods of this board are guys who don't come around here much anymore so I am going to jump in. I think I will lock this thread as having outlived its usefulness and in the hopes that you will all go spend your energy posting more interesting posts elsewhere.
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Yay for Wombat!!!