Political discussion thread

Raff wrote: Garion81 wrote: Democrats while not pushing a complete socialist order do employ many of its tenants. For example in Obama's Tax restructure he has asked that the wealthy (or what he claims to be wealthy) be taxed at a higher rate and have deductions limited.  The revenue that is earned from this will be redistributed to people making less money in the forms of Tax Credits or in his upcoming health care package.  Like it or not redistribution of wealth is a socialist goal. I am not debating if these things are good or if they will work.  I am merely stating that Obama and most of the Democrats do invoke a socialist leaning political view.  The problem being is that the Republicans have used the word in a negative sense so Democrats actually get offended when they are called socialists.   Whatever.     Brian, I have nothing against socialism, on the contrary. However, what Obama is doing is what happens in most western European countries, many of which (including Italy) are ruled by conservative-leaning government coalitions. Therefore, seeing my country or others branded as 'socialist' makes me laugh. And don't get me started on the whole 'Obama is a Marxist' farce...

While I maintain that capitalism is one of the best systems, it is far from perfect and often given to excess.  Capitalism works best when tempered with some Socialism and it is well regulated.

Edited by Slartibartfast - March 06 2009 at 19:18

The Doctor wrote: I just thank god I never had to work for tips.  Well, I did once, but I quit after 2 1/2 hours.    One thing you find out when you have to serve people is that people suck.  Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether they are conservative, liberal, or somewhere in the middle.  They still suck.    Pretty crappy what this guy in AZ is doing, but people will find ways to be cheap.

I believe the character Randall, the video store clerk,  in Clerks said something to the effect that he liked everything about the job except for the customers.


Edited by Slartibartfast - March 09 2009 at 16:28

As I read this, it seemed like one of those "duh duh duuuuuuuhhhhhh" moments:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_china_incident

Just curious what some of you think about this incident. Is it not that big of a deal or do you think this could be the start of something bigger? Also how do you think Obama should deal with China? Or for that matter, Asia as a whole?

Go nuts fellow political junkies.

Slartibartfast wrote: While I maintain that capitalism is one of the best systems, it is far from perfect and often given to excess.  Capitalism works best when tempered with some Socialism and it is well regulated.

The books you promote about Reagan are no different from the countless Clinton books. You can take all the policies, deregulations or whatever and interpret them to whatever your agenda fits. What your basically reading are nothing but 300 page op eds. They're others that look at Carter starting the economic meltdown. Anything can be made evil OR good.

If that's your Kool-Aid, then drink up. What your buddy Barack is doing is no change whats so ever. He's just reintstituting the New deal and Johnson's Great Society, and we know the failures of those.

Don't worry, I'm not jumping down your throat all the way. I loved your Rush put downs. I was laughing my ass off. As a conservative myself, I agree with his core principles, but he is a serious a****le! It seems lately that his goal is to piss-off the left than to promote conservativism. Thank you Rush, but I'll just stick with William Buckley if you don't mind.

Totally OT, I know, but Andrew, kudos to you for your new sig... That Blake poem is one of my all-time favourites (though I don't know the Tangerine Dream version)!

Slartibartfast wrote: marktheshark wrote: ] The books you promote about Reagan are no different from the countless Clinton books. You can take all the policies, deregulations or whatever and interpret them to whatever your agenda fits. What your basically reading are nothing but 300 page op eds. They're others that look at Carter starting the economic meltdown. Anything can be made evil OR good. If that's your Kool-Aid, then drink up. What your buddy Barack is doing is no change whats so ever. He's just reintstituting the New deal and Johnson's Great Society, and we know the failures of those. Don't worry, I'm not jumping down your throat all the way. I loved your Rush put downs. I was laughing my ass off. As a conservative myself, I agree with his core principles, but he is a serious a****le! It seems lately that his goal is to piss-off the left than to promote conservativism. Thank you Rush, but I'll just stick with William Buckley if you don't mind. First of all there's an overriding principle I believe in when it comes to heated discussion in these forums: "I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." Thomas Jefferson My corollary to this principle is that I will consider you a friend unless you prove to be otherwise. Having said that the Reagan books I mention are quite different than the countless Clinton books. The Clinton books to which you refer were by and large a bunch lies and smears.  The books I mention about Reagan are all about countering with facts the myths and historical revisionism about Reagan that the right wingers, conservatives, and Republicans have been engaged in, just as they are also actively engaged in historical revisionism regarding the New Deal and the Great Society. I also have to say that I really don't have a lot of respect for Clinton, just more than any Republican president in my lifetime.  If he had governed as liberally as he was accused of he would have been a great president.  Polls showed both a lot of support for him as president simultaneously with people believing him to be far more liberal than actually he was in practice.  And I completely disrespect him for that whole Lewinsky affair which after the years of spurious attacks finally gave them some actual ammunition, even though I believe it was a private affair.  And for all that obsession to turn a blind eye to what GW Bush is just inexcusable. Barrack Obama is not my buddy (I was an Edwards supporter ), I am a far left progressive (or maybe I just seem that way), despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, Obama is a centrist and those on the political left have been plenty critical and centrist democrats really haven't been too much help. Do keep in mind that while just about anything can be made to look evil or good, some things unquestionably are, and then there are those gray areas. In the end I'll have to say I don't like Rush in general or Buckley's political views, however it is quite true Rush can't hold a candle to WFB.  He was certainly a skilled debater. Here's a nice op-ed about the man from that liberal rag, The Nation, you might find interesting: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/291671 Here's some much more scathing commentary from the same magazine, you might not want to go here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/19880611/sherrill/

But 14-20 million Dittoheaded idiots can't be wrong when it comes to Rush. Can they?

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?'

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers; 'Sure, Why not?' 

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .

Within mere seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data is stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'

'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'
 
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?'

'You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government', says Bud.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required.', answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep. . . .Now give me back my dog.

birdwithteeth11 wrote: A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?' Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers; 'Sure, Why not?'  The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . Within mere seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data is stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.' 'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'   The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?' 'You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government', says Bud. 'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?' 'No guessing required.', answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep. . . .Now give me back my dog.

Pretty much sums up our government.

Here's a nice feature a site called democratic underground.  They have a bi-weekly or so feature called the top 10 conservative idiots http://journals.democraticunderground.com/top10/361
House Republicans

Last week the House Republican leadership finally took the incredibly obvious bait that President Obama has been dangling in front of their faces and announced that HARUMPH! YES WE HAVE AN ECONOMIC PLAN ACTUALLY SO THERE!

Indeed they do, and it's a whole 19 pages long (including the very nice cover page). Oh, but don't worry - more details are coming this week. I can hardly wait.

The GOP plan may be short on specifics but it contains some very interesting graphics, like this one:



Which, if you think about it, makes about as much sense as:


Or...


Or...


Or...


Or...


"An energetic Jindal told 1,200 partisans that Republicans are finished 'navel gazing' on the direction of their party and must be prepared to rebound."

In case you were wondering what that's going to look like, I'm guessing something like this:





Edited by Slartibartfast - March 30 2009 at 11:14