Political discussion thread

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Finnforest wrote: Howard Dean has said that "going over the fiscal cliff" is the best thing progressives could do.  They would get huge tax increases plus large defense cuts, certainly a better deal than a compromise will yield.  I heard him advocate for Obama doing this.  Curious if our Dem friends here  agree with the Governor.  Well, I would prefer that we didn't "go over the cliff".  But if we do, I don't think it'll be the end of the world.  It'll be tough, for sure, but not the end of the world.  And it seems to me like Obama has tried very hard to compromise with the Republicans and they just are not budging, but are sticking to the various myths they believe instead.  So, if that's what it takes - I say go over the darn thing! Or you could see it the other way, as the Republicans trying to compromise and Obama not budging!  Honestly, I think they'll probably get a deal done at the last minute; both sides are going to be stubborn in order to gain an advantage for final negotiations and to try and pressure the other side into giving in.  I don't have any great confidence in the intelligence of the members of congress (republican or democrat), but surely the Republicans aren't dense enough not to notice that the fiscal cliff would raise taxes much more than Obama's proposal would.  There are times when sticking to your guns is just counter-productive.

I really don't think so.  The Republican high priesthood is sticking to their sacred law of not taxing the rich, which is the one thing that Obama will not budge on.  So he gives them some spending cuts in his budget proposal, and Boehner says "is he serious?  He gave us NO spending cuts."  Yeah, who isn't negotiating?  The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner and all they can do now is rage incoherently.  Which is what they're best at these days anyways.

Well, I don't believe either side has made a good faith effort at reaching out, even the media has acknowledged this in between bouts of O-lovin. 

First term Obama reached out. He gave away the store. Clinton did the same thing with his triangulation business. You're not supposed to "reach out" in a negotiation. If I can settle for 50/50 I don't propose 50/50. I propose 80/20 and let you strong arm me down to 50/50 if you can. He seems to have finally learned this.

HackettFan wrote: thellama73 wrote: I hope we go over the cliff. It's the only way we'll get spending cuts, and I don't think those cuts will hurt the economy as much as projected. Don't really know, but you might be right. Are you troubled by the Defense cuts, or do we converge on that?

There is massive amounts of money that could be cut from defense without harming our national security. I'm not worried.

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Finnforest wrote: Howard Dean has said that "going over the fiscal cliff" is the best thing progressives could do.  They would get huge tax increases plus large defense cuts, certainly a better deal than a compromise will yield.  I heard him advocate for Obama doing this.  Curious if our Dem friends here  agree with the Governor.  Well, I would prefer that we didn't "go over the cliff".  But if we do, I don't think it'll be the end of the world.  It'll be tough, for sure, but not the end of the world.  And it seems to me like Obama has tried very hard to compromise with the Republicans and they just are not budging, but are sticking to the various myths they believe instead.  So, if that's what it takes - I say go over the darn thing! Or you could see it the other way, as the Republicans trying to compromise and Obama not budging!  Honestly, I think they'll probably get a deal done at the last minute; both sides are going to be stubborn in order to gain an advantage for final negotiations and to try and pressure the other side into giving in.  I don't have any great confidence in the intelligence of the members of congress (republican or democrat), but surely the Republicans aren't dense enough not to notice that the fiscal cliff would raise taxes much more than Obama's proposal would.  There are times when sticking to your guns is just counter-productive. I really don't think so.  The Republican high priesthood is sticking to their sacred law of not taxing the rich, which is the one thing that Obama will not budge on.  So he gives them some spending cuts in his budget proposal, and Boehner says "is he serious?  He gave us NO spending cuts."  Yeah, who isn't negotiating?  The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner and all they can do now is rage incoherently.  Which is what they're best at these days anyways.

None of this will matter anyway.  Know why?

dtguitarfan wrote: HackettFan wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: I really don't think so.  The Republican high priesthood is sticking to their sacred law of not taxing the rich, which is the one thing that Obama will not budge on.  So he gives them some spending cuts in his budget proposal, and Boehner says "is he serious?  He gave us NO spending cuts."  Yeah, who isn't negotiating?  The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner and all they can do now is rage incoherently.  Which is what they're best at these days anyways. Well put. Thanks.  What can I say - I'm an angry former Republican.  It started with an uneasy feeling - somewhere in the back of my head I knew something was wrong.  Then, for Obama's 1st election, I didn't like how McCain was trying to sell me all the Bush policies and pretending it was something new,

You do realize Obama is Bush Jr, right?  He has advanced the Bush policies.

What really blew my mind is when Bill Kristol said "yeah ill be real with ya, taxing the wealthy more wont destroy us, lets stop helping a bunch of millionaires" and some moderate Republicans were ok with it. Not that I advocate the position, just think it was good to see some people not being total stubborn asses.
Then again Kristol is a neocon and they really don't care about the economic realm here...long as they can run the US with an iron fist and invade all those sweet other lands that are evil and not merka

What was I saying? Eh IDK...the GOP is a joke until they support some real limited gov folk

There are differences between the parties, some of them big, but in the overall picture...they occupy the same space.
They may punch each other to death with one hand, but each have their other down the same pair of pants ; )

Note when the parties do agree: it's always the worst...

dtguitarfan wrote: HackettFan wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: I really don't think so.  The Republican high priesthood is sticking to their sacred law of not taxing the rich, which is the one thing that Obama will not budge on.  So he gives them some spending cuts in his budget proposal, and Boehner says "is he serious?  He gave us NO spending cuts."  Yeah, who isn't negotiating?  The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner and all they can do now is rage incoherently.  Which is what they're best at these days anyways. Well put. Thanks.  What can I say - I'm an angry former Republican.  It started with an uneasy feeling - somewhere in the back of my head I knew something was wrong.  Then, for Obama's 1st election, I didn't like how McCain was trying to sell me all the Bush policies and pretending it was something new, and I REALLY didn't like Palin - but I just thought that was because she was an idiot.  Over the next four years, as I heard some of the things my friends were saying about Obama that were so fearful, the uneasiness grew - I knew these things couldn't be true.  Finally, I read some things - at first it was just so I could have ammo for these types of discussions.  But then, when I read a couple books about the history of the Conservative movement and its roots in paranoid racism...the history of the greatest lie ever - the "Conservative Christian" - well...now I'm just mad.  I try to give little bits of the truth to people I'm friends with every now and again, hoping it will lead them to want to discover the rest, but it's like I'm dealing with brainwashing - nothing the Liberals say could possibly be true, and nothing the Conservatives say could possibly be a lie!  It's so disgusting, really.

The problem is that Obama won't cut the programs the Republicans want him to cut.  Medicare, entitlements, social security, etc.  In their eyes, those are the programs that are really hurting the economy.  The solution is simple enough; the Republicans will eventually agree to raise taxes on the rich, and the democrats will cut some of the entitlements.  But it won't get done until the eleventh hour, because that's how these negotiations always work.  And the "solution" will really just involve kicking the can down the road once again.

I don't think you can really say that the conservative movement has its roots in racism; you'd be closer if you said that social conservatism was rooted in racism, but even that would be a generalization.  What really happened was that Lyndon Johnson's "great society" programs provoked a backlash from libertarian-leaning fiscal conservatives (predominantly located in the Western United States), and at the same time, many southern democrats were feeling alienated by their party's embracing of civil rights (with Kennedy coming out to support it and all that).  The republican party saw an opportunity to pick up some new members, so they courted these disgruntled racist southern democrats.  So you had fiscal conservatism on the rise in response to Johnson's policies, and at the same time you had many socially conservative southern democrats moving into the party, and that's how the modern republican party originated.  So does racism tie in there?  Yeah, but it definitely doesn't define the republican party and it's not even really associated with the fiscal conservative movement.  Before the influx of ex-southern democrats, the republican party was the party of civil rights, actually.

Actually, Republicans have always voted for Civil Rights legislation in far greater numbers than Democrats. The first Civil Rights bill to enjoy widespread Democratic support was the one passed under Lyndon Johnson, although still more Republicans voted for it than Democrats, and there were many other such bills sponsored by Republicans prior to that.