The Smiley Smile Message Board

Go on, pretend you aren't glad Romney lost. I dare ya.  ;D

I am just stoked that my Facebook news feed wont have 47 post's a day from Peter Reum!!

Little things, right?

lol, america. i can see some sort of gray davis scenario playing out in the next year or two.

Bruce Johnston is angrily downing yet another Pacifico...staring dumbfounded at the flickering teevee screen >:D

I'm a happy man tonight. Very very happy.

It's over, it's finally over

We lost when Ron Paul started winning state after state, that is when TPTB put an end to his campaign. The freedom movement is no more.

Only Obama cult followers remain. They have no idea what NDAA is, they know nothing about 15 000 drones soon flying over America or how currency is created and so on. They are just ecstatic and enthralled the "good guy" hailed by lamestream media won the election. I have seriously lost faith in large parts of mankind.

Tell yrself that whilst decent healthcare becomes the norm, la.

btw Gary Johnson apparently got over a million votes, which is a record for a libertarian candidate.

Voted for Jill Stein. Not a big fan of Obama, but at least Mittens didn't win. I'm more stoked about pot being legal in 2 states now.

Where will this decent healthcare come from? A magic wand? The US government's unfunded liabilities are over 60 trillion dollars, no-one will receive anything in the future. What is your solution to that?

Yeah, it's sad that we no longer have free elections in this country. This is what the founders warned about when they talked about tyranny of the majority.

End the wars!!

(http://i.imgur.com/27XpK.jpg)

"The tyranny of the state"

From my totally empirical and scientific studies, is it only white guys in their twenties who go in for full libertarian whinging?

No, that's called confirmation bias.

Just sayin' I don't see any women going 'it's all the same'. Maybe because it actually isn't to them. Anti-abortion rhetoric etc.

Anyway, just sleep deprived and glad the lesser of two evils won.

For the last LOL Republican swansong, http://dailycurrant.com/2012/11/06/george-bush-accidently-votes-obama

Case in point, when it comes to making fun of libertarian's reading habits you wouldn't miss an opportunity to mock Ayn Rand, but as soon as you switch over to the ol' "young white men" prejudice then you're quick to forget about her.

Bruce probably smashed the TV using skills he learn from hanging out with Keith Moon.

Can't believe I missed an opportunity to mock Ayn Rand. Must be slipping in my old age.

Yay! Four more years of handouts, shitty education, drone strikes, and empirical dominance around the world (all of which we can't afford!)!

Anyone who thinks Romney or Obama are the solution are delusional.

The "solution to that" is public healthcare since it has now been shown convincingly by economist Dean Baker that the very act of socializing health care would work to eliminate the deficit.

                                                (http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/dorphas/this20.gif)

Steve, you always have the best emoticons and images. :lol

A vote for either Obama or Romney was a vote for war, more debt, less freedom, and more tyranny.

But hey...Obama can no longer blame the failings of his predecessor for his own failings. I wonder how well that will register with his retarded, racist (and in the case of the whites, self-hating) acolytes.

Really?  The same government that can't prepare or respond to a hurricane is going to deliver better healthcare than we have today?  That makes total sense to me.

Oh wait...you only said "decent" healthcare will become "the norm."  That makes sense now.  My family's great healthcare will become "decent."  Define decent -- no, wait -- don't.  I'm tired of propaganda and bumper stickers.  I'll allow reality to define what decent healthcare will mean for everyone.

Reality's coming.  Tick, tock...

A convincing conclusion as a result of a research study.

Huh? I thought we all knew, from that outburst in NYC captured on video, that he didn't like Mitt and thought the last really good Republican was Reagan.

Anyway, I guess this means that the prospects for the guys playing a White House dinner before 2017 are pretty much nil, since I figure our President will stick to his tried-and-true performers like Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, etc.

Hype lives in a country where coverage is universal and a woman can go to the hospital where she is refused treatment because government drone "doctors" think that cancer is "nerve pain and anxiety". I dare you to watch the video in the link below and still tell me you supported socialized medicine.

John Bull's tyranny has gone to the point where you basically can't get treatment at all if you're sick, regardless of whether or not you can pay for it. Stay classy, England. Stay classy. If there's one country governed by people with no regard for human life, it's England.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2215532/My-sisters-cervical-cancer-misdiagnosed-30-times-mother-wrongly-told-suffering-anxiety.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

i just edited my post to that because i thought calling swedish frog a conspiracy nut was a bad idea. Little did I know.

hey, you want the best healthcare, you can pay for it. No biggie. If you wanna pay for private healthcare in my socialist english utopia, you're welcome to do it. But everyone gets healthcare regardless.

I've said it before, but if that's socialism, I f***ing love socialism.


TRBB if I started parroting articles from FOX as the gospel, you'd laugh in my face, so just realise you're doing the exact same thing with the Daily Mail in this instance. The NHS is under attack from your equivalents in Britain, and that's what they're parroting. Not. the. case. If it's true, that kind of thing is what you get after three years of government (a party I don't support) deregulation, shipping elements off to private companies, and cutting public funds. So really, the NHS is being controlled in a way that you would approve of.

I mean hell, I can't blame for you being uninformed on the matter, you get your news from The Daily Mail!

Here's a good case for comparison. Either you can agree with the position that believes a more privatized system is faulty not only because it is the most expensive system but also because according to the framers of the health care policy, functions to deny care, and despite the fact that the US taxpayer pays more for health than any other industrialized system, it has nevertheless denied 10 of millions of people from care. Or you can believe the other side who believes that socialized medicine is bad because one time it affected one person badly. Seriously, if you honestly want to critique a system in a serious way (and I'm sure you don't - it's hard to take serious a guy like TRBB who is in favor of letting 4 and a half million children die per year on principle) then you can't simply pull out one case and then brush your hands like it's a job well done.

4.5 million children die each year?  Are we talking healthcare or abortion?

by the way abortion is a great way to cut healtcare cost.  Communists know all about that.  So is letting granny die.  But there's plenty of time to find this stuff out for reals.

Yay Death Panels!

I'm talking about neither but am rather referencing a former conversation between me and TRBB that you had no involvement in.

Still, that's a lot of children.

Yep. That's so how it works over here. In fact this was published in the latest Hansard,

"Honourable Member, what do you propose to do about the deficit? We are billions in debt!"

"As the honourable member from across the floor says, we are indeed billions in debt. But The Tories have the solution - KILL THE GRANNIES."

*Speaker calls everyone to order*

There is absolutely no credible study that supports the idea of death panels. It is widely understood that this was pure fabrication in order to stir up hysteria. And clearly, in some extremist circles, it still works despite the voluminous evidence that undermines it. Every other country in the industrialized world has a socialized health care system and do not have these death panels. It is telling that the ultra-right could not even tolerate a business-friendly non-socialist health care plan that had been twice offered by Republicans (Dole and Romney) but when your motivation is only to block whatever Obama is doing on the basis that Obama is doing it (nobody brought up death panels when Romney and Dole offered virtually identical health care plans) it is not surprising that one quickly stoops to outright hysterical lies and fabrications that are also the very textbook definition of hypocrisy.

It is. Prey tell, where do these children live?

Too right. If there is any system that kills the grannies, it is the one that finishes second last amonst industrialized countries in effective care and last in safe care and as a result last in long, healthy, productive lives.

They're dead.

On a lighter note, Bruce Johnston has probably just fled California screaming http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Democrats-seize-supermajority-in-state-Legislature-4015861.php

Bruce is planning a revolution with Donald Trump as we speak.

Why don't we just leave it at you don't know what you're talking about and haven't bothered to understand the context of the remark.

Wow, that's pretty ballsy of them to say it like that.

In America, I suspect they'll just make Granny wait in a really long line.  And if she's still alive when her number's called, the nice lady at the desk will tell her "Sorry, you don't qualify for this procedure.  But here's a pain pill."

But hey... I like your country's way too!!   ;D

Actually, what you're describing is not Obamacare but rather how the US privitized health care system is supposed to work, according to the main framers of the policy. Remember too that Obamacare is nothing like the socialized health care system that you see in other industrialized nations.

Hey...what's the matter with my ending?  Too bleak?   ;)  (Reality's coming...tick, tock...)


Either way...I agree.  Let's stick with your ending -- "I don't know what I'm talking about...because I don't understand the full conversation you were having."  Actually, I'm fine with ending it on "I hate women" or "war on women." "Right to choose," "it's their body" yadda, yadda, yadda.

There....I feel better.  Kind of like a pain pill!   :lol

I think the last time we debated here on this subject, we ended on "we're never going to convince each other..."  Hence my annoying mantra "Reality's coming...tick, tock."  We'll find out who's right.  The only question is how long can the media convince people it's working.  Long enough, I suspect, until no one remembers any other way.  And with fewer and fewer free societies on the market... it'll all be better if we just take our pill.

Erm, no. My problem is that you don't know who I am referring to when I talk about the 4 and a half million children - you don't know who they are, where they are from, and why they are dying. This is why I have no patience for you sticking with your initial hunch that the number had anything to do with health care and or abortion. If you want to talk about those 4 and half million children, I am happy to do so. But I want to talk about the real ones not the pretend fairy tale ones that you have made up. I also have no patience for the pride you are taking in your ignorance nor your supremely despicable attempt to put words in my mouth. And the words you put into my mouth only reaffirm that you want to live in a fairy tale land. Why would I say you "hate women" - well, you think I would call you that, because you bizarrely think we are having a conversation about abortion, which I never brought up and haven't alluded to in the slightest until this very moment. Using your logic, I might as well rip your "yadda yadda yadda" comment from its context and assume that you're making some comment about Seinfeld. This is an embarrassment and for your own sake, I think you should drop it.

Your posts so far demonstrate that you are in no position to even begin to comment on reality. Why don't you deal with the substance of my post instead of showing me how you can spell the sound a clock makes.

:lol  Fair enough. 

Oh, just one more thing... this reality-thing, that I know nothing about... won't need me to comment on it.

Can you demonstrate at all that you haven't been entirely misunderstanding my posts today? Can you show me one piece of evidence about death panels that hasn't since been discredited with actual analysis? Or is your proof solely something that you claim will happen in the future? Boy, I haven't seen that line of reasoning before! I'm glad you can laugh at it though...

That made me laugh! I just picture good ol' BJ sitting there all bummed sippin' a brewski.  And Mike too, who more than likely voted for a guy who changed positions on issues more times than his underwear.  Romoney musta re-invented himself a hundred times.

And, like you Ched, I'm happy and I raised a toast to Barrack last night.  California wasn't really a factor (even with 55 electoral votes) but my state sure slam dunked it on home last night, didinit?  ;D

Four more years of political gridlock, empty rhetoric ("Hope!" "Change!"), empty promises ("We'll cut the deficit in half!"), economic decline, and unobjective bickering between two completely dysfunctional parties.  Whilst Romney was never considered the optimal Republican candidate, he did have a record of success.  Obama does not. 

To steal and rename a famous line from Chris Rock: "What the f_ck did we win?!  Every day I check my mailbox for my Obama prize...nuthin'!"

I mentioned yesterday that I hated Obummer and somebody told me I was racist. Maybe when his next 4 years are over they should look for a candidate who is black, gay and in a wheelchair and then no one will dare criticize them.

Wow.  The ignorance here is stunning.  Reminds me of when I was in Russia years ago and several people I met had such a narrow, bigoted view of the west from years of listening to (and not questioning) tired demagogues and their view of the world.

And nice to see you use a picture of a child abuser for your avatar.  Ah, humor...

 :o

Not sure why you hate us English so much TRBB. Our government is terrible but I don't think they have quite the disregard for human life that say the Zimbabwean or Syrian governments have or indeed the good ol' U.S.A.

tick, tock...

In other words, yes, your proof is solely something that you claim will happen in the future.

Not anymore.

You're right, using an image of a dead child abuser as my avatar is in poor taste. Instead I have decided to use a picture of my favourite director Roman Polanski.

You wag!

Seriously, he should be locked up too. I just dread to think what other showbiz stars were up to at the time (and, yeah, I know about Jimmy Page and the 14 year-old and that David Bowie had (allegedly) been there first when she was 13) - including some of the Boys...

What is it that Gaines says about Dennis?  If the girl was underage, he would only go down on her...?

Hahaha...

There's nothing funnier than watching Americans try to talk about politics.

'ooh ooh! Here's some right wing propaganda from the Daily fucking Mail, this PROVES that poor people should get the freedom to die in the streets'

LOL :lol

My bile is not directed at the British people as much as it is at the British government. I've had no problems with British people as of yet and I hope it stays that way.

He meant business success.  (Now who has the problem understanding discussions?   ;)  Score one for reality.)

Business success, financial success is the kind of success the country could have used.  That's reality.  Real success.  Real results.  Romney is a good man.  Obama and Biden could have learned something from him.  But it's hard to win popularity contests when you have to first "humanize" yourself and defend yourself against claims that you hate women and that you killed somebody's wife.


All Obama had to do was...well, here -- I'll let her enlighten you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

It was a joke, so the answer to your question is still you.


As Business Insider reported in October, Romney was suggesting an economic policy that has plunged Europe into an even deeper crisis. The "Real results" of Romney's economic plan is not "success" but rather, failure and that is mostly derived from his overall lack of understanding of how economies work.

So, looking FORWARD is bad?
(http://lehighacresgazette.info/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/forward-300x214.png)

I've said for years:  the opposite of what the Left says is true.

Since I do not support Obama in any way, and never have, and have actively and repeatedly said as much here, I should fail to see why you should use his empty, meaningless, rhetorical logo in an attempt to undermine my point. This moment reveals two things. One: you are an enormous ignoramus. I have made my own political position clear with you a number of times but you are so utterly incapable of even comprehending what independent thought means, that you can only categorize me as an Obama supporter just because I happen to call attention to the ongoing falsities and lapses of logic and absence of anything resembling an actual argument in your statements, which is why in your lack of knowledge about anything political you can only resort to catchphrases like "death panels" and "Forward" because you have no real knowledge of the political world. Naturally, since I don't like Romney then I must be beholden to the all important Obama logo!  ::) And Two: You are incapable of actually responding to my points. If all you can muster as a response is a logo and some pithy question that relies on caps lock to make its point, then you quite simply have nothing of substance to say nor are you willing to actually engage with substance.


Nothing pleases me more to hear someone with your level of critique making an observation like that.

"The more ignorant a man is the more he knows, positively and indignantly"

the only
real change yesterday happened in the states of washington and colorado. they took a bigger step in a single day towards ending the drug war in mexico than obama has in the past 4 years. unfortunately it'll take a lot more than just 2 states legalizing pot to put a big dent in the cartels' profits.

everything else is just more of the same. we've rested on our laurels and let everything go to hell and instead of working towards actual change we just ignore it and pretend everything is going just peachy because there's a democrat in the white house. sad but true. people are so wrapped up in their little political parties that they donate billions of dollars to these rich fucks so they can continue to spend way too much of your money on things that aren't benefiting you or your fellow countryman.

get to know your neighbors well because when things go wrong the government isn't always going to be there to help you out. it's always too little too late with them when disaster strikes. they get so stuck trying to fix past problems that they forget to look ahead and before you know it it's the apocalypse and you're riding around in a dune buggy shooting at zombies because you need to reunite with your family because you got separated when the boat they escaped on capsized but they managed to make it to shore before you were swept away by the current and got saved by a dolphin trained by a mermaid. you know they survived because you found a note, though it was hastily written and unfinished. it was obvious the zombies had been through there. the old man you were trying to save laid there maimed. they must've scaled these steep cliffs; it looks like the only way off this beach. shortly after reaching the top you hear a scream. by the time you get there it's already too late and you have to take down these 3 zombies and the now infected woman with this piece of driftwood i forgot to tell you you carried up the cliff.

Congratulations, you either just blindingly satirised what is wrong with American political discourse today or you are just crazy. Think the dolphins trained by mermaids is tipping me towards the former, tbh.  ;D

I really wonder how the Obama administration is going to respond, they absolutely do not want to see pot legalized, but if they try and enforce federal law in spite of the measure they're only going to alienate a lot of voters from the party.

I think people would have voted for him regardless, purely because they didn't want to be exposed as the racists they obviously are.

Yep. Clearly the only reason people would vote for a Democrat. To say nothing of the fact that he got the much higher percentages of minority voters than Romney. All racists, though. Do you even listen to yourself?

One thing I don't get about these threads is why you're so giddy about Obama hypehat. I mean, I was under the impression that you were English, so I can't understand why you're so happy. Did you have money riding on the election or something? I haven't actually spoken to anyone yet that's as overjoyed as you are. I went to school in Chicago during the 2008 election, and in 2012, even my college-friends who were diehards 4 years ago, even the people that I know who dutifully voted for Obama *again* on Tuesday don't seem to be nearly as pleased as you.

Barely more than 50% of voters even care enough to cast ballots, and Obama only got 50% of that, and only half of *those* voters even rated themselves as being particularly enthusiastic about Obama in the first place. Democrats are only unified behind Obama when there's a few Republicans around, most of the time, nobody in America really thinks Obama is all that great. It's just the same old sh*t, and the only way the Democratic party even got the vote out this year was with the whole 'lesser of two evils' schtick.

I'm happy because American conservatism is insane, socially inhibiting to anyone who isn't a straight white male, and just abhorrent in it's discourse. They are dumb people. I mean, when the right's discourse is something like this (I know The Corner is dumb, but people read this sh*t and this sort of stuff is parroted everywhere else enough - full article if u fancy a laugh http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332979/bitterfest-2012-jay-nordlinger?pg=2)


I really wonder what f***ing universe these people live in. So if that mindset, even in a watered-down Rombot version, doesn't get elected President I'm down with that. Aren't you? Not even a little? You can admit it, it's fine.

As an aside, I had £1 riding on Bam - some guy I work with thought Mitt would have an outside chance and we're both a bit broke so we did the fishermans bet thing. I'm not THAT happy about a quid, mind.  ;D

It's nice to see that in some of the amendments and stuff the vote went more to the left too, what with that gay senator, the legalisation of pot, equal marriage in a few states. Sucks about the GM thing. Not bad, USA.

Interesting article I found, which goes some way to explaining the bun fight, and why all the brain washed right wingers spout such utter sh*t about Socialism (Obama is right leaning moderate, if anyone cares)

"Conservatism has became a faith-based ecosystem, resistant to any facts that complicate its version of reality. It is driven by apocalyptic terrors. The future of the republic itself is always in danger. The Constitution is destined for the shredder. The American eagle hangs its head. Ironically, the two issues that come closest to a real existential threat — climate change and the 2008 banking crisis — don’t trigger any anxiety in conservatives, while the phantasm of a socialist dictatorship has them trembling with fear and rage."



http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/the-gop-delusion-how-conservatives-were-mugged-by-reality/

Despite the facetious comments earlier...I actually find it quite sad that so many political opinions have been bought by the rich right wing extremists.

My problem with Obama (forget Romney, he's a lost cause) is that he's not the champion of civil liberties and liberty and justice for all that his acolytes think he is. He's the same man who signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which allots dictatorial authority to the president to detain American citizens without trial, due process, or charges. It was already reprehensible when the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Terrorists was used to detain anyone in the world minus American citizens without trial, due process, or charges...but now it's gone into a truly despicable realm of evil.

Obama is the same president who has a kill list and has assassinated American citizens without trial, due process, or charges. Now, I don't know what human rights treaties he or his illustrious predecessor has been privy to, but that sh*t goes back to the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus. Due process of law. Even the Constitution protects that fundamental right, and not just for Americans but ANYONE who is held by the United States government.

Those who think Romney would have been better are kidding themselves...he's just as bad.

So I was quite glad to "waste my vote" for Libertarian candidates because I'm sick and tired of these corporate stooges and terrorists that idiotic Americans vote in every two, four, or six years.

Yo TRBB, you should probably explain how every Obama voter is racist.

Gotta ask, what's with the support of labeling GM foods? I wasn't in a state that voted for it (cast my vote for gay marriage in in Maryland, though!) but I would have likely voted against it if given the choice.

People like to know what they're eating? It's been standard practice for years over my end.

I can understand that, but virtually everything we've been eating here has been genetically modified to a degree. While I'm no fan of Monsanto or similar patent-happy agricultural conglomerates, the foods produced by GMOs have no negative impact on human health.  Mandating a label on foods that contain GMOs (which is a LOT of them) would send the message that they're somehow dangerous compared to organic foods.

Government mandates labels on harmful products like tobacco or alcohol. GMOs should not be in the same category.

Well, considering how the Democratic Party is the same party that led to the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers, and morons like Jesse Helms and David Duke...I'd say there's plenty to back up that claim. In an effort to save face, the guilty white liberals of the Democratic Party decided to endorse Obama...you know, since he talks and looks like them. I think that's horrible and reprehensible. When Democrats hear about folks like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan...let's just say they don't respond in kind. sh*t, there were a bunch of Democrats on the Huffington Post who referred to Allen West (GOP Congressman from Florida and NOT a guy I like) as "Uncle Tom" and "the plantation negro". Seriously? Because he doesn't belong to the "party of tolerance" he's just another ****** from the South? I think the way the Democrats exploit the so-called "minorities" is horrible. It's a backwards policy and it needs to stop. Then when people come along who say that they want to let the market work and let people have an equal shot, they're referred to as "racists". The War on Drugs is a race war, and the Democrats have escalated it.

I mean hey, believe what you wanna believe, but the Democrats need to stop going on like they're the party of tolerance. They're the party of tolerance as long as you toe their line.

While some GMOs are harmless to people, they do have the potential to be very dangerous. People have the right to know what they are eating. The information is out there, but the average American has no idea where to look. Giving Americans the tools to educate themselves about their own health will empower them to make better choices if they care to, which benefits the whole country in the long.

Besides, since the FDA doesn't allow any testing on humans, we really don't know what the long-term effects of GMOs (or basically, any other food additive) will be until it has already been introduced to the population. The changes that American consumers should be fighting in regards food labeling start with the loose FDA and USDA regulations and loopholes that put lobbyist interests in front of consumer concerns.

Your post also seemed to imply a concern for how GMO labeling would effect the market, and there have been studies that show that labeling GMOs do not either help or hinder product sales. About 5 years ago a study was published in the UK (where as Hypehat mentioned, they do label GMOs) where they actually overstated the dangers of genetically modified canned tomatoes and it had no effect on that products sales.

This is why government regulation is worse than letting the market self-regulate. GMOs are not good, but they're not terrible. People should know what's in their food or drink.

May I ask what state you live in TRBB?

My folks live in Idaho (don't ask my why) and in a place like that, the line between the Democrats and the Republicans is extreme, to say the least. Go out to any local bar and it's angry white guys with Bud Lights screaming and yelling about that damn n**ger in the White House and all the poor n**gers and Mexicans who are trying to take away their freedoms..... And then these same people go cash their unemployment checks or get in line for food stamps..... And then you'll have a quiet table of Democrats who will shake their heads and keep quiet but go put in hours and $$ campaigning for Obama or whoever... I know these people. Both sides. It's somewhat scary to have such things we big city folk write off as stereotypical nonsense right in your face as 3D reality.....

I know you're talking about politicians/policy makers and not the common folk, but still.....

Some of you guys voted for Johnson right? He did quite well.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gary-johnson-ran-most-successful-libertarian-campaign-party-193500973--politics.html?fb_action_ids= (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gary-johnson-ran-most-successful-libertarian-campaign-party-193500973--politics.html?fb_action_ids=)

May I ask where you draw the line on this train of thought? .... If the airline industry self regulated, we'd have planes falling from the sky once a week because the suits would see it as cheaper to take a loss here and there than implement costly self-regulation and they'd be cutting every conceivable corner with safety.

Oh no, Republicans, 50% of the country, they're so evil and racist, and they're going to destroy the country!

The country is already destroyed, Obama's been in office for a term already, stop acting like he's going to do anything to help our current situation.

He got my vote!

I live in Pennsylvania. And I'm referring to a mix of both. It doesn't apply to ALL, but certainly many. And it's also not an endorsement of the GOP, either.

Got it!

I was glad to waste my vote for him. He got about 1% of the vote. Not bad. Lots of Ron Paul write-ins, too.

Who's acting like he's gonna do anything or help anything?

Why doesn't Bruce just run already???

Think of all the mic adjusting chances he'll get during even a single state-of-the-union address!!!

"My name is Bruce Historical Pistol-Whippin' Johnston, and I WROTE THE SONGS!"

I dunno, when I see what we're still a country where half the population still doesn't support evolution, I find it hard to be optimistic about people going out of their way to spend time to find unbiased, scientific sources regarding the safety of GMOs.

We've been genetically modifying foods since the dawn of agriculture, albeit through more primitive cross-breeding methods. Genetic engineering of plants essentially accomplishes the same goals, higher yields and longer shelf lives, just without the hassle of having to wait many generations for results. We've been at that for decades now. I've eaten GMO-containing foods all my life with no negative health impact, as have many others here. I haven't read up on how the FDA regulates GMOs, but from a biological standpoint, I don't see how making a crop resistant to herbicides would ever impact its safety. I'm not against rigorous testing of GMOs, I just fear that labeling them would result in a knee jerk reaction from a public that so often doubts science (global warming, anyone?).

Want to label your food as organic? GMO-free? Sure, be my guest. I just see mandatory GMO labeling as doing more harm than good, especially in an era where GMOs may be necessary to tackle the rise of global hunger.

 :lol :lol :lol :lol :-D ;D

I'd vote for Bruce

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

Bruce Historical Pistol-Whippin' Johnston and Michael E. "Thug Life" Love for President/Vice President! Because it's a LOVE THANG.

...but then we'd be back to the days of late 19th century patent medicine where companies could promise anything and everything. Without any safety or quality standards, how are people supposed to make informed choices? Waiting until a whole bunch of people are harmed by misleading advertising before the free market kicks in and makes the company go bankrupt is not an acceptable alternative.

One hour of Michael E Love-led meditation each morning via the family telescreen :)

It's not the government's duty to save people from themselves. If people are going to poison themselves no amount of government regulation will stop it from happening. The market can self-regulate and produce results. Read about Underwriters Laboratories, or UL for short. Classic example of the market self-regulating and allowing for quality control without government oversight. There's no reason a similar group can't regulate food, water, drink, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

Should we have allowed polio to just self-regulate itself into good behavior?

...it's definitely the government's duty to keep people safe. That's... why we have a government. Y'know, that whole "promoting the general welfare" thing. Kind of a principle we founded the country on.

TRBB, do you remember the Jalisco Cheese disaster in LA of 1985?

62 people died before CDC of Los Angeles tracked it down to a single manufacturing plant that was not pasteurizing milk for their cheese. These people died from Listeria monocytogenes via an outfit that was simply not self-regulating. And even when caught they denied any wrong doing..... So, what would the difference be to you if some private company found this out and told you "Sir, you might want to consider NOT eating that cheese because you will die" or if the Government told you? And was it an insult to the free market to then pull the contaminated cheese from stores so that no one else could consume it and die or should consumers have been left to make their own informed (or uninformed) decision?

I'm just trying to get to the root of this.

And if it's not the Government's job to do a single damn thing, may I please have my taxes back? Thank you!

But if we make the information easily accessible, people won't have to spend a bunch of time researching it. If people choose to ignore the information that's right in front of them, that's their business. Same if they choose to only listen to the information that they like, which is what most people do when it comes to their health or any scientific matter. The only responsible thing for the people in leadership positions to do is make the information available and allow the people to make their own informed decisions. Keeping people in the dark does not help us move forward.

Clearly there are benefits to GMOs and I am not against modifying crops to get a higher yield or increasing the nutritional value. There are potential physiological problems these crops could present, however. Let's look specifically at increased shelf-life. Changes made to foods to increase self-life are at their core, processes that stop the degradation of carbons in the presence of oxygen. The breakdown of carbons are what we need to produce energy and the same processes that cause foods to breakdown on the shelf allows food to breakdown in our body. At the very least this will slow down the enzymatic process of converting calories to usable energy, which could have implications at all stages of metabolism, to at it's most extreme, result in calories that we can take in but cannot use. What good is food to the population if it cannot be used as fuel? Calories we don't breakdown either leave our bodies as waste or they get stored as fat, and I don't think any Americans need more opportunity to increase their fat mass. I typed out 2 other physiological implications, but probably no know else cares enough to delve into all the details of bio-availability.

The scariest parts of GMOs are things like what the WHO proposed in 2005; planting crops in Africa genetically modified to produce antibiotics. Or, in a closer to home example, genetic modifications of cows allowing them to produce milk earlier. That practice combined with an increase in bovine hormone injections has been linked to the early onset of puberty seen in American children over the last 15 years. The mean age for a girl to start her period has shifted from 17 a generation ago, to the current average of 11. Again, since we aren't allowed to test on humans we have no idea what this shift in maturity could mean to our population as a whole.

You say that you haven't had any ill effects of eating GMOs, but do you really know whether you have? If that's all you've even known, it is your normal and may not reflect what your body's peak performance could be. Like you said, most people don't care enough to seek out scientific information, so in that case, those same people probably won't care about GMO labeling either. People flipped out over pink slime but it didn't hurt any fast food restaurants.

Well, that's a ridiculous question.


Government has proven woefully inadequate and frighteningly wasteful when it comes to "promoting the general welfare" to the tune of trillions of dollars of welfare and warfare. I think the private sector can do it better and cheaper.


Jalisco had an unlicensed technician monitor and pasteurize the cheese. The technician wasn't certified by anyone. Jalisco was clearly in the wrong and the families of the 52 dead had every right to sue for damages. That's not a failure of the free market, it's just a bad company.

I hear you, but that doesn't answer my question.

Not that I'm saying the government has a sterling record here, but in theory, wouldn't the free market or private enterprise have an even worse record since they wouldn't HAVE to do anything?

They can be held accountable by the customers. It's as simple as that. Think like a class action lawsuit.

But who would be in charge of getting the information out there?

What good is a class action suit if you're dead?

But I do think we're getting somewhere here.

Who would be in charge of getting the information out there? Either people within the company or the customer base. The customer base can boycott the company until they come clean. The threat of going out of business due to no revenue will make any company cooperate. A class action lawsuit could be filed by surviving members of the families of the deceased.

How about we have someone set standards before a tragedy happens, hmm?

The private sector can still do that.

Perhaps, but the private sector has little interest or motivation. Like I said, a private company would rather allow a tragedy to occur if preventing such a tragedy would mean spending more money.

This happens on each and every conceivable level. I  mean, a supermarket that's open 24/7 will happily let people stand in one single massive line because having an extra cashier on hand would cost more money. They figure the amount of angry customers who'll give up and leave will ultimately cost them less and their billions spent on keeping the store's image intact via advertising will keep them in the green. There is ultimately no accountability in the private sector. At least no willing accountability.

In fact, the private sector is compelled to put profits ahead of all else. The reason why government regulations were put in place in the first place is precisely because private companies were not regulating themselves nor was there anything that compelled them to - certainly not the ol' loss of profits chestnut that libertarians like to pull out. The EPA was created in part because private companies dumped so many toxins into the Cuyahoga River that it caught fire. Repeatedly. To pretend as if corporations would regulate themselves is a fantasy that depends on flat out erasing any and all history that exists before the implementation of regulations.

wrong wrong wrong. they have no idea what happens long term when people eat genetically modified food regularly. less than a generation has passed since they started feeding people that stuff.

these plants easily cross pollinate with the naturally occurring varieties and will pollute their gene pool.

nature has been doing its thing for billions of years and people think they already understand the processes enough to f*** with them. we're literally ruining every single thing possible to ruin. turning the land into deserts, acidifying the ocean, killing plants and animals, and then doing frankenstein type experiments on the ones we havent managed to kill off yet. the sooner i can get off this planet or everybody goes extinct, the better.

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

Is this a joke?

well, no, they should just not drink milk. though yeah, if it's causing you to die and you dont stop drinking it, you probably should just die, because intelligence.

People should die "because intelligence"?

if it's Jan Wenner: yes, he should continue drinking the milk!

If you want to judge the Democrat party on the 1800s, be my guest. Yeah, if I was thinking about that time I'd be all for Republican politics. Thaddeus Stevens, that man laid it down. It's 2012 now, btw

Jesse Jackson is a major Democrat (or at least Obama) advocate! You clearly don't get the paper edition of The Guardian, he wrote a very passionate defence of Obama in that paper the day before the election. And I have heard no sh*t about him from all quarters. Cite some sources on yr 'Uncle Tom' claims. I've seen none.

Minorities voted for Obama. You're going to have to deal with that.

Huffpo is back to our Daily Mail problem again. Bad journalism is bad journalism. But show some proof, please?

You are projecting a hell of a lot onto this whole thing. There is going to be no political party that toes your specific line (although a 1% for Gary Johnson means the Libertarian thing is getting traction. I never said you were wasting your vote, you voted!)

 Sure, Obama is not perfect (those acts you cited are fine examples) but you do not accept the fact that he has done socially progressive things, and you dismiss with saying 'he is trying to get vote's, to which to I say bullshit, because if they are what the voters desire, then responding to the populace re: gay marriage and womens rights is his job as President. If he allows gay marriage and rights to abortion, he is OK in my book.

If progressive stances on gay and womens rights get you elected, then yippe-kay-ay, motherfucker. I like that. f*** the Tea Party and GOP. They are dangerous swine.

Erik H & rockandroll - laying it down this evening.

I love your quote on Thad. Stevens. :lol

But considering all the private companies out there (booze/cigarette/fast food) raking in massive profits on betting that people will continue making bad decisions.....shouldn't we have just a bit more respect for those making such bad decisions that keep the free market kicking?

(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/29889148.jpg)

No one's going to hold a gun to your head if you don't buy a Big Mac with a large fries and 32-ounce Coca-Cola. Someone will if you don't comply with government regulators.

sh*t, Thaddeus Stevens wanted total war with the south to end slavery, shot down attempts to block the public school system and disenfranchise the vote to African-Americans, tried to impeach the President for not advocating the rights of African-Americans, and had an underground railroad station under his office. That man is a credit to America.

What's your point?



That's a lie.

OK, then if the CDC or the FDA were private companies who told you not to buy a Big Mac or Jalisco cheese (and thus regulated such companies) and not the Government: what the "F" would the difference be?

I mean, if we're reducing everything down to just base primal intelligence, then what the F good is education or any steps mankind has taken since we crawled from the ocean?

You simply can't make your way though life without putting yourself at some sort of risk. Each time you get in a car, you might be the smartest most careful person in human history, but that doesn't mean some drunk asshole won't plow into you or a rotting bridge won't collapse and send you plummeting to your death. I guess because you didn't think ahead and trick up your car with an ejector seat and parachute you're so stupid you should be removed from the gene pool, right? C'mon, you can't remove all possible risk without seriously infringing on human rights/liberty: correct, but SOMETHING has to be done to assure that all possible dangers and the facts regarding such dangers are made available to the citizens of the country and thus the world and that such dangers be eradicated or at least reduced through prevention and knowledge..... If the free market doesn't like this F*ck the free market.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
best sentence ever :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

That would make for a great signature, I think.

You guys just habitually conceptualize what "the market" is in very prejudicial way. You hear the words "the market" and you have all these associations polluting your understanding of the pure concept of the thing. You're conflating the market with the stock market, corporate profits, shady executives, and profit margins. None of those things are inherent to the actual concept of the free market, they're just actualities that need to be separated from the abstract idea. By being able to look at the concept and the reality individually you can actually determine how the two things deviate and discover the reasons why they've deviated.

The concept of the free market is not morally wrong, the free market is completely impartial, it's not a *thing* that floats around up in the air like God and decides who lives and who dies. The concept of the free market is just a concept that describes the natural way in which members of society mitigate between how they want things to be and how things actually are. People value things according to their own preferences, that's just human nature, and you can't think of these things as just material objects with a price tag in dollars. You define who you are and which part of society you identify with through the things you own, the clothes you wear, the style of furniture you have in your house, the books on your bookshelf, even the food you eat. People use these things to create the appearance of themselves that they project into the world, and these appearances, taken in aggregate, form our culture.

The idea of the market is not purely utilitarian, cold, calculating, and profit driven. There are fields of economics that go far beyond this basic understanding of the market. The malformed understanding that many people have of capitalism is based more on the frequent repetition of a very simple formulation of "the invisible hand", "if everyone does what's best for himself society will improve", but this is very misleading if you don't have any greater experience with the finer ideas of economics. Doing what's "best for yourself" is *not*, and I really have to stress this point, *not* measured by dollars and cents. When students of economic theory say that, they don't literally mean that the world will be a better place if everyone is a ruthless buisnessman who slits his brother's throat for a quarter. Doing what's "best for yourself" means doing what makes you the happiest, if working 20 hours a week instead of 40 makes you happier, if you *value* leisure time more, even though you're making less money, you're still ultimately participating in the free market by making that type of decision. In economics, studying these types of tradeoffs, understanding why people make sacrifices and do things that don't directly contribute to their material wealth is called Price Theory.

When everyone participates in society according to his own values, doing the things that satisfy him the most, and living the life that makes him the happiest within society, society improves, but only when he's allowed to make his own free decisions and isn't compelled to make certain transactions by an outside party. Someone who's a starving artist isn't rejecting the concept of the free market because he didn't go to business school, he's doing what gratifies his own tastes, what brings him the most satisfaction.

The free market typically produces more progressive outcomes than the government does using legal measures of control. The film and music industries are two great examples. Those are capitalist, profit driven industries, industries where black artists gained recognition for their talents long before the government repealed the laws that it had established in the first place legally condoning institutional racism.

The government can't save everyone, people are going to die regardless of what the government does. Should the government have infinite control over our society and be able to regulate all of our actions completely in order to save lives? Where do you draw the line, how do you fairly determine what's reasonable? The government could save us all from diseases and carcinogens and poverty by putting us all in protective bubbles and feeding as concentrated nutrients in paste form. How much money is too much to spend to save a single life, why is it fair for the government to take money away from taxpayers and make them worse off in order to save others. Where does the responsibility end?   

I agree.  The Democrats have been leading minorities around on a leash for decades.  The sad thing is, minorities have willingly put themselves on said leash.  It's a pretty sad state of affairs that, despite how far we've progressed, we're still hung up in matters as trivial as the color of one person's skin. 

*Sigh*

I always shake my head at the stupidity of the argument that the GOP/Republicans/Conservatives are against women's rights.  There are plenty of women that are involved with the GOP...are they self-loathing then?  Then of course, there's the asinine argument that if you chose to be pro-life,  you automatically hate women.  Yes, because God forbid we might value the life of an innocent, unborn baby!  Sure, there are contentions where compromise is in order (rape, incest, mother's life is in danger, etc.), but I think you'd find that most pro-lifers would be willing to make such exceptions. 

What bothers me more is that we're living in a society of people whom can not only not accept a viewpoint different from their own, but must take it so far to villify that person or group of people over it.  Mitt Romney wasn't perfect, but he was hardly the "villain" that the left painted him out to be.  The GOP regularly gets trashed on, and while some of the criticisms might be warranted, the group as a whole are no better or worse than the Democrats.  There are good and bad people on all sides of the political spectrum; we don't need to lash out at them just because we might not agree.  Please don't be so ignorant.

I have not read all of your posts and I do not know where you stand politically, but the difference would be companies are not forced to follow "regulations" ("certifications" is a better word) set up by another private company.

If I am not completely mistaken ISO certifications are a good example of "private regulations".

What it all boils down to is the initiation of force, anarcho-capitalist Stefan Molyneux (http://www.freedomainradio.com/) talks about this a lot. A private certification company does not initiate force should you not request their services - the state for sure would(!). The state would even put you in prison.

A hamburger place probably wants to be certified by a certification company if that attracts more customers, because otherwise they would lose customers. Thus the state's regulations, initiations of force and severe punishments are not needed.

Maybe so, just not Senate Republicans! Do I need to post the .gif or are you aware of the downright stupid views of Todd Akin and the ilk?

Men who are pro-life hate women. It's probably that simple. Tied up with a lot of religious hokum. It's their right to choose, for either way, and men should gtfo of it unless they are the potential father. But that's it.

wrt this - going 'yeah, the free market has such potential for good if it weren't for the people who run it' is not really the most convincing argument. CEO's, bankers, and the ilk aren't noble sorts. If it's a case of 'hate the player, love the game' sure, but I really don't like the players.

Also lol at using the film and music industries as models of accepting, caring social models.

1. Women do not have a right to their bodies. I wish that they did, I wish that I had a right to my body, it seems very constitutional to think that anyone actually does have that right, but unfortunately that right is gone. Precedence just isn't on the side of people who talk about women having a "right" to their bodies. What you do with your body can and is regulated. The constitutional right that women have that allows them to take birth control and have abortions is the same right that theoretically allows people to smoke, eat junk food, drink soda, use marijuana, take medicines that haven't been approved by the FDA, drink unpasteurized milk, and avoid vaccination. What you do with your own body should be your own choice, but it's not. It's a constitutional issue, and by not supporting this right being infringed in other circumstances they've only opened the door for current "war on women"

2. You're being naive if you think US politics really works like you're describing, where politicians vote based on the principle of their beliefs. Members of the congress have only a very limited independence from that political positions they're told to mouth by their party's leadership. Republicans are against whatever Democrats are for, and Democrats are for whatever Republicans are against. A bill that is, in one year, supported by liberals, is, the following year, decried by them. It's a game of strategy played by corporate interests and high level political leaders in which most lower ranking members of the legislature are only pawns. Bills are not read, issues are not studied, debates are not paid attention to. In order to get appropriations bills passed allocating governmental space change for a pet project back in your district, you are forced to vote as the party leadership tells you. The "war on women" is a purely political issue, both parties are vocal about it because it's an issue that plays well with their respective bases. To talk about a member of congress really "believing" in this or that position is faintly ridiculous. Some certainly do, but it's a growing minority of members as local communities have been so completely undermined that the days of being elected as a public official based upon personal reputation within your community are over. The real cause of congressional gridlock isn't ideological, it's the fact that members of congress have become completely dependent upon leadership and are no longer concerned with being critically minded or doing the right thing. The problem isn't that the principles are too uncompromising, it's that there are no principles. Every issue will cause a standstill because either party will always take the opposite position of their opponent party regardless of anything else.

Think hypehat, use your head, develop some critical thinking skills. You aren't reading, only reacting.


The film and music industries led the way for desegregation. If the US Government had controlled the Academy Awards, Hattie McDaniel would never have won her oscar.

And here we go with yet another post where you define "the market" in yet another way. This, like always, is about as convicing as your attempts to suggest that "There's nothing particularly Kantian about Welfare." In other words, you attempt to define something not in terms of what it is really like but rather in terms of the way you would like it to be. But let's pretend for a moment that you are correct - that the free market is simply "the natural way in which members of society mitigate between how they want things to be and how things actually are." I suppose my question to this is, where does this exist? You say: "When everyone participates in society according to his own values, doing the things that satisfy him the most, and living the life that makes him the happiest within society, society improves, but only when he's allowed to make his own free decisions and isn't compelled to make certain transactions by an outside party." Give me an example of this society and demonstrate how "society" has improved.

Hypehat, I'm beginning to think that rational thought is beyond you.  You clearly think with your heart, but you should try thinking with your head, because you can say some truly ridiculous things sometimes (such as Eric Clapton being some horrible racist. Remember that humdinger?).  Try this one on for size: I consider myself pro-life, with a few obvious exceptions.  I am not religious.  I simply believe that if a couple is sexually active, then they are taking the responsibility with it.  I don't view it as any rights being denied here (except maybe the right to life).  There are plenty of things a couple can do to responsibly avoid procreation.  Please, explain to me how that makes me hate women?  Go on...I'm waiting...

Mmm.  Good point.  As in the "YouTube Video" guy who was recently detained by the Obama SS.  He made the now infamous video that Obama blamed for the whole Benghazi debacle.  Oh, sure...they say he was detained for "parking tickets" or something...yeah.  Al Capone was too.

Unbelievable.  In the land formerly known as America, nonetheless.  Put this on in the "can you freakin' imagine if Bush did that" bucket.

The jubilant thread title:  "Four more years!" was a dead giveaway.  Anybody excited about four more years of this mess has clearly already had a "rationality abortion."  [insert obamaphone lady video]

Why one might assume they "hate" rationality.   :-D

"The film and music industries led the way for desegregation. If the US Government had controlled the Academy Awards, Hattie McDaniel would never have won her oscar."

- Fishmonk


Gotta admit, this one made me smile Fishmonk!

But I wish we would stop with the morality/immorality line. I don't think it's much of a concern really. I mean, what good are those words if one has no innate concept of them beyond the words used to quantify what they are intended to mean?

There's a whole world outside of the faculty lounge, rockandroll!!   :lol  Here... this a wonderful example of the Left's idea of a "FREE" market...
 
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FKvAD6lsPl8/UGTlqDXwJ1I/AAAAAAAAAbc/DMUl_LcwKqo/s1600/ObamaPhone.jpg)

There is no shortage of idiots on either side:


http://liberal-agenda.com/2012/11/watch-a-terrifying-glimpse-into-the-mind-of-a-romney-supporter/

Same here. Hypehat, I'm FAR from religious, I'm pro life because I don't know where/when consciousness is born (if at all) in the fetus. It has nothing to do with religion, it's not because I hate women (which I don't), but it's purely because I love life and think that any consciousness born into this universe deserves a chance. And I'm not intelligent enough to know when "life" appears in a child/baby (or if consciousness exists at all).

I really don't understand where your pro-Obama sentiment comes from, either. All of these jerks work for somebody with a bigger agenda. They don't work for the American people.

I don't think Hyphat is talking about guys like you. Unfortunately, the types who scream the loudest on the anti-abortion front are angry old men who just love to send kids off to die in wars and love to cut funding for schools etc etc, so it just adds up as hypocritical hogwash. Also, anyone who wants to block the possibility of abortion even in the case of rape or when the life of the mother is in danger, has some serious issues....

Sure. So for example, there is the hospital lounge where I spent nearly every day of my life for three months (while undertaking a PhD degree) because my daughter was born three and a half months premature, weighing a pound and a half. Of course, after you are born, you inevitably lose weight so she ended up dropping down to a pound but by that time she started suffering from a level 3 brain bleed so we had to focus on other things. That was in October of 2010. Our New Year's Eve that year was watching our daughter slip into the early stages of meningitis about a month before she was supposed to come home. But eventually she pulled through and she just recently celebrated her 2nd birthday and appears to be in perfect health for a child her age (with our without prematurity). Hospital lounges are something that I had been familiar with already since my mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 32 when I was three and half years old. She had been diagnosed with it 6 months after I was born.

I don't tell you this because I feel particularly special in this regard. Quite the oppose - I know that there are plenty of stories like this, and, in fact, I have only given you a very abridged version of my own experiences.

But I will say this, and you should follow it closely because these are the last words I will say to you: You are a piece of s#!t and just because you are so incapable of actually coming up with a response to what I have actually said and therefore rely on using the work that I do as some sort of dim-witted attempt to de-legitimize me, this ultimately gives you exactly zero grounds to even begin to comment on my experience with so-called "reality." You know exactly NOTHING about me, my experiences, or my life. And that you have even begun to presume that you do know something given the experiences that I have had is exactly what makes you scum. I have absolutely nothing more to say to you because you disgust me. And when you try to belittle my experiences with reality as you have done here and so have others, you unknowingly belittle the experiences that I described above and that is offensive both to me and my daughter who I watched struggle to stay alive for months. Now I most likely experienced reality in those three months more so than you probably will in your entire lifetime but I have never once used that as a way to try to de-legitimize your own points. I could have. But I am better than that. My hope is that you will say absolutely nothing more to me because that's the only response you will get from me from now on.

But this is inconsistent with reality. As is well established by now, as women have more opportunities, more education, have access to better medical care, education, and family planning information, fertility rates go down and abortion goes down, and childen are better cared for and women are healthier. There are ways of saving hundreds of thousands of lives and actively reducing abortion levels that are well under social control that don't violate women's right to choose. But getting to that point demands an acknowledgement of reality - that being sexually responsible is a luxury that a particular class of society can have and that that luxury doesn't apply to everyone. So if you're serious about both being pro-life and being responsible, then to me the sensible option is not to oppose a woman's right to choose.

If couples were both sexually active AND responsible there would be about 12 people walking the earth......

Very brave of you to share such a difficult personal situation rockandroll. :) There is a movement in america to make academics look like they are emotionless robots who mislead college students, when the truth is they are normal people with personal lives and families who do a service to nation being educators.

Thank you.

Yes, it's a common tactic. It's a common tactic to use against anyone who happens to express different ideas in a thoroughly indoctrinated society - one so outside of anything resembling reality that one could suggest with a serious face that Obama and his supporters represent "the left" and very few object to this blatantly false characterization. So in the USSR, any Russian dissident who critiqued the Soviet Union were oftened imprisoned. In the US, there exists a freer society so it is necessary to find other means of silencing unfavourable opinions and one of those ways is to actively attempt to shame the people who hold them and if that doesn't work, shame the very methods one has used to come to their conclusions. These are the kinds of things that you quite simply don't see in advanced, secure, free societies.

+1

Just to quote Hype: "Men who are pro-life hate women."  So yes, he is talking about guys like us.  Fortunately for him, I'll overlook his blatant ignorance. 
 

Let's not make over-generalizations here.  No one loves to "send kids off to die in wars" nor is anyone intentfully trying to hurt education.  Yes, there are those whom take the pro-life thing a little too far and won't make any exceptions.  But there are plenty of views on pro-life and many of them don't reach this conclusion.   

Calm down.

Oh, there are certainly people out there with serious war fetishes... I know a few myself....

Fishmomk: thank you! You have officially confirmed that you are completely inhuman.....

You too. Calm down.

And I'm assuming they're tickled pink when one of their own gets killed in one?

These people usually don't serve or have kids that do. Or they're guys who served but never saw any action but sit and play Call of Duty 24/7

And yes, I am making an over generalization here: I do realize that and don't feel good about it. But I'm just talking about people I know and experiences I've had.

And this is where the impass is:  Those who are pro-life aren't actively trying to deny women of anything; they simply want to protect the life of an unborn baby.  Unfortunately, the issue has been spun out of control that this is conflicting with women's rights. I get that viewpoint, but simply reject that this is anyone's true intent.  Yet those who are pro-life are considered "women haters" by the pro-choice group.  This is unproductive and downright stupid.

Then hold *those* individuals accountable for their actions.  Please don't umbrella an entire group of people with such blanket statements. 

Well, they are certainly not the only people like that, but I hear ya.

EXACTLY.

As long as this thoughtfulness toward the life of an unborn baby also extens to babies/kids AFTER they've been born: I'm fine with it. But I just don't think it's anyone's business to force a woman to bear a child. I'm not pro-abortion, I just don't think it's anyone's business but the woman, the father (if he's around and gives an F) and her doctor..... I mean, kids and babies are dying everyday from malnutrition and lack of access to health care and do you do anything about it?

Hey, if there were a magical switch that would create babies only when we wanted to have them, then all this would be moot.  There isn't one though.

No but there is a magic wand! But it's often used inappropriately! Doh!!!  >:D

You win this round, Erik... :lol

I don't think there is an impass or at least don't understand what you mean when you use the term. Like I said, if you want to "protect the life of an unborn baby" there are plenty of ways to do it that don't deny women the right to choose. And in fact if your position is solely protecting the life of the unborn then there are plenty of issues that are of immediate concern that are well within our power, like significantly reducing poverty, and reducing rates of malnutrition, allowing for easier access to education, etc. - these things are instrumental in protecting the life of unborn children.

I don't think anyone is against solving these issues you mention.  Yes, they would probably help eliminate many abortions.  But even if we resolved said issues, you still have plenty of couples whom accidently get pregnant and can't/don't want to have the child and would rather abort it, thus making said issues moot.  Isn't that what the "right to choose" is all about? 

Again though the number of couples "whom accidentally get pregnant" is reduced substantially in societies that have more opportunities, more education, have access to better medical care, education, and family planning information so I don't think that does make "said issues moot." Rather, I think that's why they are relevant.

Societies such as New York...? 

http://nyc41percent.com/

Well, look at the numbers - if you look at where the statistics link, you will find that abortions in New York are far more common within communities with less access to opportunity, education, and so on. So, African Americans make up 46% of abortions in New York while caucasions make up 11%. Is that a coincidence?

Points noted and I agree with you to some degree.  But regardless, how does having less opportunity or being less fortunate make abortions any more acceptable or justifiable? 

Oh, it doesn't. Not at all.

But it's just the reality that there is a correlation between abortion and lack of resources, opportunity education, information. So it seems to me that if one is serious about reducing abortion then this is the area that you look to change, whether or not you are concerned with the general freedom of society to be able to have some control over their own lives. I think that changing that would ultimately profoundly reduce abortion and also fertility rates but it would improve obstetric care which would also work towards preventing unintended terminations and to me this is a far superior option to simply outlawing abortion, which merely works to drive the industry underground and increase the risk of health issues not just for women but also even for unborn children in general.

No. By adopting the stance that children ARE sacred...nay...that EVERY human life is sacred, I think then people would start trying to make a better society.

If we can't treat our babies in the womb like the priceless treasures they are then how are we to treat the LIVING this way?
_____

Again I'll say: I'm not a religious nut at all (agnostic actually). But I agree that ALL life deserves a chance to live. I wholeheartedly agree with Rocknroll that humans need to start making it easier for children to be raised on this planet. But I also don't think that until that time do we ignore the sanctity of life either.

Well I think we're all in agreement here.  Let's go grab a beer.  :-)

Does this mean we go over to the what beer do you drink thread?

:lol

Sounds good to me! :beer :drunks

I just popped open a Gulden Draak!  Will see you guys at the bar  ;D

I hear that after 3 or 4 bottles of O'Doul's, Hypehat will be swearin' like a sailor.   :afro

I have nothing to add to this, so here's some unrelated pictures

(http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7132500/7132804_d44a_625x1000.jpg)

(http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7137000/7137014_adca_625x1000.jpg)

(http://rookery.s3.amazonaws.com/3089500/3089787_5fc4_625x1000.jpg)

(http://rookery.s3.amazonaws.com/1870000/1870097_f5f0_625x1000.jpg)
(http://rookery.s3.amazonaws.com/1130500/1130590_d6e9_625x1000.jpg)

What, you didn't think I was going to respond? 

I was going to come on here today and praise you for your demeanor -- as being a fun person to spar with.  But then I go and read this.  I'm not sure why you are telling me this story...but I do understand you were attempting to directly insult me.  I'm a little disappointed but not surprised.

While attacking me personally is a little bit of diversion for you -- (can we agree, it's certainly not your bread n' butter?) -- it is actually a popular tactic.  Do you really think I am that unreachable or have you simply reached a limit of your own?  By my response, I've dismissed the likelihood of the former as a rational possibility.

Regardless...you can take comfort in knowing that, despite your limits of compassion for me -- I have an unlimited supply for you.

Well, of course.  But, let's be real.  One side is in the business of keepin'em dum and givin'em stuff -- so they continue to vote "Obama In Prezidennt."

Huge difference, I think.  I find it sad and immoral -- if you "axe" me.  Quite the opposite of compassion.  The resulting efforts of a bunch of charlatans.  While it's fun to expose these faux-compassionate "leaders" as such, I look at all the people who've they treated like animals -- left holding worthless beans, wondering when the drought will end.

The sad part is that most people don't even know that the welfare programs were designed by Democrats to keep the minorities down. How appropriate for the "party of tolerance".

Keeping WHO dumb and givin WHO stuff?

Same logic applies, as the only reason you guys are screaming and crying about welfare and food stamps, employment insurance etc is because your idols on the right are screaming and crying about it and idiots in the video I posted are screaming about it BECAUSE..... you see it's a big circle and you're caught in it. And you talk about compassion knowing full well that you have NONE for anyone on any scale, top or bottom. Just admit it..... Look at the margin Obama won by: not a landslide, sure, but do you REALLY believe that every vote cast for the guy was by some poor minority on welfare? C'mon. Why don't you guys just shut the F up about all that stuff anyhow? How many people do you know on welfare or on food stamps? How many friends of yours, or family? I'd hazard to guess none. Just be thankful you're doing OK and have some humility. But, I tell you what: I can't count the number of bosses I've had over the years or currently who've been on unemployment at some point in their lives or on food stamps as young married couples, etc. The CFO of NBC (where I work) tells all new hires the same rags to riches story and damn if it ain't inspiring... Don't drink ALL the kool-aid, kids. And do you really think a 5 year old kid in some hood gives an sh*t if the mulch he's being fed comes from a program designed to keep his kind down? I call bullshit on that. As I've said before, this faux moralizing by you guys is disgusting. It's like listening to Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez and John Wayne Gacy sitting around a table and black slapping each other on their world views.... I don't know why anyone's even bothering. There is plenty of suffering and misery to go around and here you guys are sitting there on your fat asses smiling smugly.

http://twitchy.com/2012/11/11/insanity-papa-johns-olive-garden-others-attacked-as-racist-for-anticipated-responses-to-obamacare/

Seriously...you liberals had better UNFUCK YOURSELVES. You don't have a right to the product of someone else's labor. Health care is not a right. If you work for a company that offers it, great. But forcing companies to buy a product is beyond the pale. I know that the Food Stamp President (much like his idiot supporters) doesn't understand that, but hey. No one's holding a gun to your heads and forcing you to work a job that doesn't offer benefits. So shut the f*** up and get another fucking job that pays benefits, you lazy fucking liberal pieces of sh*t.

And WHAT in the blue Christ of c*** f*** is "racist pizza"?

For someone who cries endlessly about his precious rights, you just feel completely comfortable rattling off a list of what other people DO NOT have a right to???

C'mon man, join the human race or build yourself a supersonic rocket ship and, oh, but wait:


"Let me take you on a little trip
My supersonic ship's at your disposal
If you feel so inclined. Well alright.
We're gonna travel faster than light
So do up your overcoat tight
And you'll go anywhere you want to decide. Well alright.
Too many people side by side
Got no place to hide.

On my supersonic rocket ship
Nobody has to be hip
Nobody needs to be out of sight. Out of sight.
Nobody's gonna travel second class
There'll be equality
And no suppression of minorities. Well alright.
We'll take this planet, shake it round
And turn it upside down.
My supersonic rocket ship.

It ain't no magic, ain't no lie,
You'll laugh so loud you'll cry.
Up and down, round and round
On my supersonic rocket ship.

Let me take you on a little trip
My supersonic ship's at your disposal
If you feel so inclined. Well alright.
Nobody's gonna travel second class
There'll be equality
And no suppression of minorities. Well alright.
Let me take you on a little trip
On my supersonic rocket ship."

Ole, Ray and you might have some major disagreements.....

Racist pizza??? Ya got me? What, do the green peppers hate the olives because they're black???

And you really need to quit plugging this paranoid idea of what a liberal is and you need to understand the vast difference between a liberal, a socialist or a communist. I mean, I know you DO understand the difference but you and your like just love to lump them all together just like the far left loves to lump racists, rednecks, serial killers, nazis, teabaggers, and Republicans all together. None of it is far. Most so called liberals I know (myself included) value hard work and earning your keep and don't advocate endless handouts. Only difference is we understand that there will always be poor people and those people deserve not to have to die in the street. Simple as that.

Your rights end where mine begin. Health care isn't a right. And no one has a right to health insurance simply because he or she is employed. Those benefits are a PRIVILEGE, not a right. If I agree to pay benefits to my employees, it's a non-issue; I already determined I can and want to pay those benefits. However, if I cannot or do not want to pay benefits, the government forcing me to do so under the pain of a penalty is an unjust deprivation of the product of my labor and a threat to my business.

A threat to WHAT business exactly?

And no one's even arguing with you anyway. You just need to stop being so ugly about this stuff.

And the only reason you have any freaking rights is because you are in a structured society that places a value on the word, otherwise it would be guys with more guns than you taking your damn rights from you and then making you lick their boots.

And we are also in a society that places the lowest possible value on labor performed, so don't try and pull that sh*t!

I was using it as an example.

As far as being ugly about it...the people who support bullshit like Obamacare are the people who are supporting the destruction of the American job market. These are, coincidentally, the same people who bitch and moan left and right about their inability to find jobs. Gee, I wonder why? If I said "don't worry baby, everything will be all right", I'd be lying.

For the record, I work for a company that DOES pay benefits and I'm lucky to have that privilege.

You're right...except in the case of business owners, they ARE having their rights taken away from them. The labor theory of value is a farce.

Both sides bitch left and right, ya know? Sometimes it just becomes an irritating wind-tunnel and that's kind of where I'm at with it at the moment, and that's informing my tone.

Maybe it's also because I spent a year in Chile and tend to feel that rights are fragile and can be taken away when the wind blows the wrong way....

I'm sure Chileans circa 1973 would agree with that statement wholeheartedly.

It is in no way a farce. I mean labor is IT. Without labor, you're f***ed... I mean unless you have slaves building the pyramids, you're f***ed. What rights do business owners even have if there's no business because there's no one to run the business or put up the walls???

If businesses want to keep employees they will work to ensure their employees are taken care of. Either they pay them a good wage or help with benefits. But it's down to the employee to find the best deal for him or herself.

For example, I was a shift manager making $10 years ago. My current job pays the same...with about half of the responsibilities, better benefits, paid vacation, and sick pay. I didn't exploit my employer to get those - they were offered to me. And even the employee handbook for my company says that their policy is subject to change. But it's neither here nor there...my employer and I entered into a voluntary agreement that was satisfactory to both. There's no reason that people who got their hours cut or their jobs canned because of this can't find another job that offers a better deal. They have to look and (GASP!) work hard to find it.

I just don't buy this "they're so helpless" farce. They're not helpless, they're lazy and in possession of a false sense of entitlement - like they're OWED something.

I'd wager you don't know what the labor theory of value is since Erik is not even talking about that.

Employee handbooks also pretty much say flat out that employer can fire you at any moment for any reason without explanation.

Do I have to rattle off a list of how the situation you describe is compromised and abused left and right on a daily basis?

It's not that what you're describing does not work and should not work. When it does, it's beautiful. I make quite a bit more than you with good benefits and I tell you, I didn't get there by being a nice guy and nodding my head and showing up for work. You have to do a certain amount or clawing or most jobs will happily let you sit there and stagnate forever.

It depends where you are. In every industrialized country, health care is considered a right and not a commodity. Because of course, it's not a commodity. And if it is, we should really privatize all sexual acts while we're at it.

I'm in favor of legalized prostitution...so make of that what you will. Hey, if medical professionals wish to offer their services for free, that's on them.

Oh no! Marcella's back in business :)

There's nothing wrong with clawing if it results in a decision that both can agree upon. Making a request is one thing, threatening violence is another.

I'm talking about all sexual acts, not legalized prostitution. After all, one could easily say that sex is a privilege. Because, well, it is. So might as well put it on the profit model. If sexual professionals wish to offer sex for free, they can, but of course, they won't because if they can either profit or not profit, they will choose the former. So, please tell me, why shouldn't we make all sexual acts a for-profit enterprise?

If both sides agree to it, why not?

I don't understand how one's rights can be unassailable and holy but health care: a privilege!

Wouldn't this really mean your rights would be mere privileges too? I mean how can you separate well being and the ability to seek/receive medical attention as a privilege while there still being these so-called rights? I know our society has been set-up to cloud the subject but this does not make it right. I mean, if three guys are hunting in the woods and one guy accidentally shoots another and they can save the guy's life by stopping the bleeding etc etc, are the two other guys gonna stand back and go "Hey, wait! But what are you going to do for US"? Would it be criminal for the guys to refuse to save the guy's life when they are perfectly capable to do so?

Well, I'm an atheist, so I don't subscribe to the "God-given rights" bullshit.

Health care is a service. When it comes to a life and death matter like health care I think it's logical to want an ineffective, wasteful entity such as government as far away from it as possible. Maybe I'm in the minority. I like to be healthy and pay for what I use.

Well, let's put aside the fact that commodity culture de-humanizes all of us and making sex strictly an object of exchange reinforces that. This is hardly a matter of what "both sides agree to" - the majority of the American population have long called for a public option in health care so I find it hard to believe that your stance on health care has anything to do with what anyone "agrees to" do.

I don't believe in God either, so leave him/it out of this.

I'm asking you to think!!!  Sh*t happens....... If we're hiking in the woods and you slip and crack your head open and I refuse to carry you back to camp and to help because you have no money on you and can't pay me and I look at hauling you back to camp as A SERVICE and you die. What does this make me???

This though is delusional since the United States has the health care system with the least government involvement in the industrialized world and is the most wasteful and expensive and doesn't even cover everybody, making it the most inefficient health care system in a first world country. As studies have shown, the United States can eliminate their deficit by adopting a public health care system - such is the understood waste of the private health care model.

I think you're reaching really far with this, but I doubt that would be the first thought in your mind if that ever happened. Your first response would be to help. I doubt payment would be an issue especially if it was a friend of yours who was injured.

It's remarkable that in our most basic relationships, we find the tenets of free market capitalism to be largely useless.

But I would consider the same to apply to a stranger who I see fall and crack their head open.

And I'm not reaching. "Reaching" is the situation we are in as a nation health-care-wise.

That's right.

It's simple.  Health Care is a service...provided by Health Care professionals.  To have a right to their services is ...well, kinda like how Democrats viewed the world in the 1860s.  'Cept back then, they used chains -- now it's hanging chads and food stamps.

Say...Erik, what do you do for a living?  Don't answer... it don't matter.  I want your services anyhow.  How does 2 AM sound?  Doesn't matter... I comin' round, and I have a right to them.  So, if you hear a knock..  :lol

Ain't Obama's Amerika grand?



Erik H -- you know I'm kidding about 2 am, right?  I'm just making a point.   ;D

My alarm is set regardless  >:D

Slavery never ended...it "evolved" into welfare state measures. If you can't see that welfare was designed to keep the minorities down, you're seriously fooling yourself.

Go tell this to all the poor white trash on Gov assistance in the God Fearing,  Romney voting Bible-belt.

OK, so we instantly do away with all Gov assistance to the poor/needy. What happens then? Let's hear it!

Spoken from the guy who has fooled himself so much that he believes that articles that disagree with him agree with him.

I agree though that slavery never ended - as Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party acknowledged in the 19th Century, capitalism was just another form of slavery and the Republicans in the conservative tradition feared that "wage labor...was supplanting free labor."

They go to work. It's really that simple.

How do we overcome the systemic inequality in the capitalist system? And then how do we pretend that the system isn't still particularly tipped against particular segments of society, like African-Americans.

Nothing is ever that simple.

You don't make a lot of money, TRBB. I don't know your situation, but what would happen if you got laid off and then got sick or injured soon afterward. Would you just go to work and all would be solved?

It's interesting to note that health care wasn't always provided through employers. When the government instituted wage controls during world war 2, businesses needed to find a way to compete for scarce labor so they started offering health coverage. Whenever the government steps in and tries to do something, it creates unexpected consequences that require additional government interference to solve, and those solutions cause even more problems which require more intervention to solve. One problem leads to 2, leads to 4, leads to 16, and spending grows exponentially.

So why does the United States have the most expensive health care system in the industrialized world?

Capitalism is all about equality. Two people engaging in voluntary exchange of whatever. Capitalism is not a racist or racialist system, either. That's government, for you...capitalists never took human rights away from Africans who were brought to the United States. The government did. And the government continued to allow it. What are rights if some governmental body can just take them away? sh*t, ask the Japanese, the Germans, and the Italians who were interred in concentration camps in World War II.

I'm not sure how that question follows.

Price is the mitigating factor, price controls create inequality because the natural equilibrium that prices would assume is prevented in order to ensure outcomes preselected by regulators. Price controls create inequality because they give either the buyer or seller in a transaction an unfair advantage. The systemic inequality you're talking about is explicitly caused by government intervention. 

What might be true in conception is seriously lacking in excecution.

And it's not like myself or anyone else are so seriously in love with Government but nor are we seething with misdirected hatred of it either.

If I got laid off I'd be on the job hunt as soon as I left the building. I would try my damnedest to ensure that I get a job as soon as possible. See, unlike most Americans, I'm not "above" doing menial tasks. Before I was a shift manager at a restaurant I was the dishwasher. It sucked but it was a paycheck. If I have to go back to washing dishes, I'm not going to bitch and moan and say I'll sponge off of the taxpayers. I have a little thing called PRIDE. If it means washing dishes, so be it. I'll be making money and I'll be able to figure things out from there.

At one point I was without health insurance for two years. All the more reason to work harder and save more just so I could afford a private plan. And I did it. Wasn't the easiest of diets mind you, what with rent and other expenses, but I did it. Then I ended up in my current position and was lucky to have benefits.

You operate off of the mentality that people are helpless. I don't believe that. Lazy, sure. Spoiled, f*** YEAH. Helpless, no. Not at all. Sometimes work means you roll up your damned sleeves and work over a sink for twelve hours.

Fishmonk, would you please quit droning on simply explaining things we already know?

You're talking about a free market - or I should say you think you're talking about a free market, because you're not even talking about that - not capitalism. Free markets can exist in socialist states. Capitalism is simply the private ownership of the means of production and the creation of products specifically for profit. And yes, within this structure, inequality is inevitable - it's built into the system.


I didn't say that but you can basically chalk up a great deal of modern racism as being an outgrowth of capitalism. But that has nothing to do with what I said. What I meant was that many welfare programs help to rectify the fact that a history of racism has ultimately left some people more disadvantaged than others and to take those programs away and simply say work, fails to account for that inequality. It would be nice to pretend that we can all start from scratch, but taking away government programs certainly doesn't do that.


For what reason? For fun? No, because slaves constituted cheap labor which is crucial in a capitalist market.

If you already knew them I wouldn't bother explaining them.

My problem with government is that it is such a woefully ineffective, wasteful, and mismanaged affair that monkeys could do it better. Even a nutcase like Ronald Reagan understood that government was a farce. Of course, what he understood and what he did were two different things...

You noted that as soon as the government intervenes, "spending grows exponentially" but the United States has long had the most private health care system in the industrialized world and the most expensive. So since your claim appears false, I'm curious why you believe the US spends so much more on health care than any other country with a socialized health care system.

No, I'm talking about how the capitalist system creates wealth through the exploitation of surplus value.  A worker creates more goods than he could possibly need, and the excess is sold on the market.  In this sense, the working class will continue to be at a disadvantage because the value of their labor will go straight to the top. That is an inequality that is built into the capitalist model and it is the reason why in capitalist countries with less government protection, you find a much larger gap between the wealthy and the poor because the system is built to create that gap.

You have no idea what I do or do not know.

Fishmonk: I gotta say, upon thinking about just why I react so harshly to your posts, I think it has to do with your avatar! Your posts along with the image of a bearded, smirking Mike might bring about the wrong chemical reaction!!

Who was it who had the avatar of David Leaf a while back? That guy didn't seem to have it very easy!

It's different when you have a family to support though. I had a job making almost 40K per year which I lost after a mild stroke. I couldn't get nothing but min wage job. Wife is on disability. Can't afford insurance on any of us including my five year old. Better job now but still no insurance and make too much for assistance. Some nights I go hungry

That's what I'm saying. TRBB seems to think that everyone has the same circumstances and that sh*t just plainly doesn't happen.

Contentious.

No it isn't.

The difference between us is that you view things through the lens of marxist social theory and I conceptualize them from the vantage of modern scientific/statistical economics.

No, you're just lying. Explain to me how the system does not work in the way that I described it.

That's fine.

Oh, I see it bro.  They always have a sales pitch, too.  For welfare, it was "the safety net."   :angel:  The holy safety net.  For slavery (and the current open borders/sub-cheap labor debate) -- it's the economy.  "It's the economy stupid."   :P

This is the depraved mind of a Stateist -- Americans are lacking something only they, the State can provide.  The safety net did not exist until they, the State arrived to declare it so.   Things will be fair now -- ObamaCare is here!!  They're astonished when people care for each other.  Human beings, caring for themselves and one another -- without them -- literally blows their minds.  Pisses 'em off.  Because, in their world, people are helpless turds who need their intellect.

They're smart.  We're not.  A State system -- administered by the Stateist -- is always needed.  And they won't stop until that's achieved.  Because that's how they've defined "equality."

I assume your bags are packed and you'll be on the next flight out of here and away from the state. Meaanwhile, you take full advantage of regulations of the state and can comfortably presume the plane won't fall from the sky.

You are all a bunch of crybaby hypocrites preaching from the comfort of your parent's basements and protected by the efforts of others to lavish you with your precious rights and all you can do is blather about the way thinga are with zero altruism or redeeming factors whatsoever and you bitch and bitch about those less fortunate then your fat greedy selves. Good riddence.... And then there are your bad points which I won't even get into. You guys personify the stupid, mean and ugly American in all his pathetic splendor and you know it and consider it a strength.

Calm down, just calm down already, I repeat, CALM DOWN. You're going over the edge every other post you make, and you just aren't showing good judgement in what you're posting. I'm not telling you this to be mean to you, I'm telling you this as your friend who thinks that you're doing yourself a disservice by carrying on like this. Be the bigger man for once, you're taking the discussion here way too personally and you let yourself be set off by anything whether it was directed at you or not. You're acting shamefully, and I don't care who you think started it or if you think someone else was just as bad, you're an adult, and you need to start acting like it.

Dude, Eric Clapton went up on a stage and lectured a crowd in one of the most racially diverse cities in Britain about Enoch Powell and that they should 'Keep Britain White'. So, not racist.  ::)

It makes you hate women because you're telling them that they can't get contraception. That's the implication when you say 'I'm pro-life'. It's no skin off your nose. You won't get pregnant. The implication that when a woman gets pregnant she is being 'irresponsible' for having sex, when of course being responsible would go hand in hand with easy contraceptive access and abortions and using those resources and being able to have a child when they want, is sexist and insulting.


Of course, I'm not implying that either you and Rab (whose reasons make a whole lot more sense than your responsibility guff) are members of the Westboro Baptists or something, we're all just kicking these balls around on the internet.

I go away for one weekend, huh....  ;D

And Fishmonk, this is exactly what I mean when I say I don't trust businessmen. They are clearly not expressing any consideration for the customer by manipulating bloody gas prices in a recession.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/12/libor-like-manipulation-gas-markets

(as an aside, just edited a book on the FSA and there are cases coming out of their ears about people in The City manipulating the markets for personal gain. Not isolated)

Oh, and there's this - Did you know, Starbucks 'doesn't make a profit in the UK', so they don't pay any income or corporation tax? What charity!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/12/amazon-google-starbucks-diverting-uk-profits

Not with everybody. I believe that abortion is okay if a woman is raped (take THAT, teabillies) or if there is a high probability that the mother and/or the baby won't survive the pregnancy. I don't agree with it if it was a case where there was consensual sex and then the two people are like 'oh noes....we don't want a baby'. Well, should have thought of that first, huh? It's called using protection.

New term:Teabillies :lol

As an Englishman I would be interested to hear American posters perspectives on our NHS. The plus for us is we never have to worry about not being able to afford being treated if we become ill, the minus is it is funded by our excessive tax system. Our government would tax us everytime we lifted our leg and farted if they could figure out a way to do so. Plus half of Eastern fucking Europe sneak over here to abuse our healthcare system when they are not entitled to.

If you could pick, either system what would it be?

I don't believe people shouldn't have access to contraception. But at the same time I don't want to and shouldn't have to pay for someone else's behaviors. But this whole idea of "free contraception" and "free abortions" as of late is just off the map. I am pro-choice and understand the value of contraception beyond its usual prescribed use. But it's not my problem and certainly not my responsibility to ensure that someone else who wants contraceptives or wants an abortion gets them at no charge to them but at a charge to me via taxation under Obamadoesn'tcare.

Contraceptives should be as easily available as condoms. Period. I don't think you'll find a more pro-women deal than that.


You mean like the "legitimate rape" that led to Roe v. Wade?

Private. Always. If a public option ever became the standard in the United States I would hope it's an OPTION. I don't want to wait six months to see a doctor when I can pay for the privilege and get it done.

Like they say...

Good service cheap won't be fast.
Cheap service fast won't be good.
Fast service good won't be cheap.

I don't wanna beef with you, man, but accidents happen even with protection. If a woman does not want to be pregnant, that's all there is to it.

(As you all may have guessed, I am not sympathetic to the plight of the foetus...)

TRBB, I've been to my GP tonnes lately and haven't had to wait more than, ooo, a week at the very latest, for an appointment. Most of the time I get appointments the same day. On the other hand, I have to wait months to see my private dentist. You don't know jack about the NHS, outside of the Daily Mail.

We have private healthcare over here too such as BUPA and anyone that can afford it usually chooses to do so rather than use the NHS.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7127602.stm
http://www.theinformationdaily.com/2007/09/24/csr-07-health-the-public-expects

I'm thankful I never had to live in Britain and you couldn't pay me a billion g*ddamned dollars to live there either with a system that you guys call "health care".


Except people have to pay twice to use those services. Either you pay for one or the other, not both. That's not fair. Why should someone pay both for a product they will use and a product they won't use in order to receive the product they will use?

I'm sorry, Fishmonk but it was a well deserved tirade. Why don't you try calming down and asking yourself if you truly have anything to contribute to any such discussion beyond name calling and tiresome droning. Please ask yourself.... And it is personal! This is serious stuff and you guys are acting like a bunch of spoiled babies and are myopic in your views to the extreme...

This crap isn't rocket science. People like TRBB advocating no government and privatization across the board have their points, but in both the short run and long run, it is impracticable and borderline suicidal and anyone for complete and total government rule over every aspect of society(which no one here is even doing)  has issues as well. There has to be another way of doing things. Rattling on and on and on how thing simply run/work as-is, is not helping anything and that's why you annoy me, Fishmonk. You've brought nothing to the discussion. If I was here at work asking how we can knock the ratings up for a program, I'd have you sitting to my right smugly droning on and on and on about how the ratings system works, and it wouldn't help anyone.

Exactly. As a very soon to be ex NHS employee I'd love for it to disappear. In fact it's not so much of a question as will the NHS will go as when. They have made such a balls up of it and now we have reached the point where NHS hospitals are being taken over by private companies because they are such money pits. They have made cutback after cutback in an attempt to save money which has resulted in overworked staff who are unable to provide proper healthcare and fucking hate their jobs.

In an ideal world I'd like to see an end to the NHS - which in theory should give us much lower tax rates, cheaper VAT etc..  Cheap basic Healthcare Insurance Companies would become the norm and Doctors, G.Ps, Dentists and Specialists would then be forced to make their rates competitive to gain custom like any other form of business.

Now here we go! Someone presenting an actual idea! I may not agree with it completely, but it's forward thinking at least.

I said the exact same thing (albeit worded differently).

So what you're saying is that your information on the NHS is five years old? One of them is about EU Law, and the other says that people were too optimistic about the NHS when a new Prime Minister took office? What's your point?

Oh right, it's another instance of 'white' to your 'black' so you dismiss it out of hand.

Mike's Beard, what if the government actually stopped cutting the NHS and invested money in it (not that that's going to happen soon with this fuckin govt)? It's been cut back and attacked since the eighties, no wonder it's in a state. The government sold them off because of the neoliberal ideas that you are suggesting.

The fact that the government decides the funding for the NHS is the most damning part of it. I just don't get why anyone would entrust their health care to the government.

Yeah, and it's the wording around here that sets off the wrong buttons....

And I could say the same thing about entrusting my health care to a unregulated private company looking out for its shareholders/profit first and foremost. Sure, they might curb their behavior to suit public demand/outcry but probably not until after some serious disasters.

Because it turns out you get typically better care. According to the World Health Report, despite spending the most on health care, the US ultimately ranks 15th in overall performance.

No it wouldn't. The UK spends half as much on healthcare per person as the US.

Rocknroll, we're dealing with people who have an irrational hatred of the Government in any form. These are people who are basically saying something akin to "Our prison system isn't working so let's let all the prisoners out and because they're now free, all the rapists and killers will behave because if they don't behave, people won't like them".... Pure fantasy land. There is no point discussing with them. You can present facts but they don't hear them. This is a VERY personal thing with them. This seething hatred of government. It's easy to do some psychoanalyzing as to perhaps why: but that would be cruel and uncalled for. This is a message board, mind you.  

To say that the opposition to myself, Fishmonk, Mike's Beard, and Bean Bag have provided "facts" would be giving the opposition WAY too much credit.

Well, at least SOME credit is due the opposition as opposed to the other side...... So there....

I'm signing off for good. Soon, Rocknroll, Hyphat, Guitarfool will bow out and the circle jerk will go on unabated.

One silly Beer-Hall-Putsch with no Hitler..... THE BEER HALL PUTZ!

Ciao.

My end doesn't exactly just pull this sh*t out of our asses. Read Mises, Hayek, Friedman...lots of evidence.

I HAVE and I am still entitled to disagree with them or you guys.....

and there is always another side to whatever you read.

rockandroll cited the World Health Report. You cited a five year old news item somewhere from the bowels of the BBC and a five year old blog post. Are you serious?

Erik, what is your opinion on our current system? Central planning, our debt based monetary system, fractional reserve banking, the importance (?) of maintaining a currency's purchasing power, forced redistribution and so on...

Hypehat's free to answer too, since we seem to disagree on things.

Rocknroll: we're dealing with extremists here. Nothing wrong with that and I can fully respect it, but it makes attempts at discussion useless. You can find any amount of literature, philosophy or thought to suit whatever view you choose to take. It's easy. But that's missing the point of literature, philosophy or thought. Otherwise, each book ever written would be the last.....

I feel largely the same way you guys do: difference is, I disagree that the most unfortunate among us should have to suffer even more due to a faulty system of due to  individual's manhood issues.

It is true health care is considered a right in western countries, but that does not mean the government has to produce and distribute health care (like in Sweden). Think of this way: politicians say both health care and food are human rights. The Swedish state produces and distributes health care, but not food. We don't have any state employed farmers, but we have state employed doctors and nurses.

Why is that the case when both health care and food are claimed to be human rights?

The answer (I believe) is politicians know they are unable to effectively produce and distribute health care and food. When you call your local medical center in Sweden the first thing they do is convince you you do not need to see a nurse or a doctor (because they lack resources). Then if you need a hip surgery for example you have to wait for two long years. People accept that. People accept not receiving health care in time. What would happen if the state produced all food in a country, what would the people do if the state said "Do you really need food today?" or "You have to wait two years for food."? Nobody would accept that. People would riot and attack the state in a violent attempt to get rid of the politicians.

That is the main reason why states produce and distribute health care, but not food. They are incapable and they know it.

Food is produced and distributed in the private sector and there is an abundance of cheap and accessible food in every corner of every city or village. We can unfortunately not say the same thing about health care.

 

 

So, what is the answer? Or what can be done...... ASIDE from privatization across the board?  We've heard that argument.

As you well know, I have a 5 year old daughter. My other two kids would be 8 and 7 if they had lived. That's why I feel the way I do.

I didn't know that about the other two. I'm really sorry if I touched a nerve. Also caught your post upthread, damn. Be well, OK?

I'm good.  And really, I may feel the way I do, but I am tolerant of others' beliefs.  I'm not like some people I know offline that cast aside friends who don't share their beliefs. I agree with bits and pieces of a lot of things I've read, but haven't contributed my two cents yet because 1) it'll be very long  and 2) I'm gonna rub some of you all the wrong way, as I'm very passionate about my beliefs and some of you all my look at me a bit 'differently', and I'm having too much of that offline to bring it online.

I agree, except I'm not tolerant of others' beliefs if their beliefs resulted in actions that would deprive me of my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

I have more questions than answers. But I think history shows us the smaller the government the more (cheaper and better) goods and services in the economy. Goods and services which make our lives better. Especially the lives of poor people.

Hence why Sweden has opened itself up to leagues of private investment in recent years. Sweden has done pretty well considering.

Yeah, true. You are now able to choose your health care provider.

Health care is still heavily regulated, but it's a small step in the right direction though.

Man, we're all rubbing each other up the wrong way here so don't worry about that  ;D

Billy, we'll be looking at you with (Michale Edward size) Love no matter what your views are!

And I would apologize for my tirades but I'm pretty sure you all can handle it perfectly well and I know I'm a damn easy target myself...

If you go into a political discussion and don't expect some bile, you're kidding yourself. Although to be honest...the barbs here are pretty light. Go on a gun forum and tell them you love Obama! Then you'll really see some barbs (none that I agree with, though).

If there was a god, Bruce would be jumping in on these topics  >:D

Historical Pistol-Whippin' Thug Life!

Pacific Palisades Represent! :hat

My argument is not that health care should be subsidized because it's a human right. My argument is that the private market is historically disastrous and the public ends up paying for the repeated failures of an unregulated market anyhow - one pin in the haystack being the private health care system in the United States - so it only makes sense to remove the profit model.


Since there is no historical basis for that, I find it difficult to believe.


You can hear bad stories about any nation's health care but according to the research, Sweden has one of the best health care systems in the world for overall performance and is far more efficient than the US system where you not only pay more for health care than you do in Sweden but receive less quality, access, efficiency, equity, and less healthy lives. Cancer survival rates, infant mortality and life expectancy figures are better in Sweden than virtually anywhere else in Europe.

So you're going to base the man's entire life and career over some ill-choiced comments he made back in the 70's (also during a time he was into drugs and alcohol)?  One simple look at Clapton's career, the music he plays, his influences, the musicians he associates with, and the whole racist accusation simply does not hold a lot of weight.  


I don't even know where to begin here.  You make a lot of ignorant, close-minded assumptions.  You're assuming that all pro-lifers are against contraception.  This is false (although contraceptives being included in health care is another story).  You also assume that pro-lifers are only placing blame on the female whom gets pregnant.  This is false and also ridiculous.  If I impregnate a woman, I am no less responsible for the baby than she is.  Finally, you make it sound like procreation is entirely a choice.  It's not.  Even when taking steps to avoid it (like wearing a condom), there is no guarantee that you wouldn't impregnate a female during intercourse.  Which is why a couple needs to take this possibility seriously.  And calling procreation "sexist" is laughable.  As I said before, if there was some magic switch that would only make babies when we wanted them, then all of this would be moot.

Not every pro-life person shares the same exact opinion over the matter and some people go way overboard in their beliefs, but ultimately the focus is on protecting the life of an unborn, not trying to deny women of anything.      


You do reallze that you were a foetus once, right?

Hype, being the adult you claim to be, it would be refreshing if you could be a little more open-minded here.  I may not agree with your political opinions, but I don't disrespect you for having them.  However, I do disrespect the childish way you convey them.  You seem to label anyone with a differing point of view as "hateful".  All you are demonstrating here is how insecure and close-minded you really are to people of differing opinions.  I do believe there are good and bad people on all sides of the political spectrum, and I try not to "villify" a point of view simply because I do not agree with it.  You should try that sometime.  :-)

I don't dispute that. That wasn't my point. My point was that with no NHS the people in the UK would not be taxed to the extent that they are. Where the US is failing is that too many healthcare insurance companies are more than willing to take your money but drag their heels when it comes to paying up. The best of both worlds would be private healthcare companies which operate under strict government guidelines to ensure that people don't get the shaft.

You're not dealing with extremists.  You're dealing with people with different viewpoints to your own.  

...in a country where our founding principles dictate that government should provide for the welfare of the people (and has been doing so for centuries0, I think the idea of having the government bow out and let corporations take over seems a tad extreme.

"Providing for the welfare" didn't refer to welfare programs. Welfare programs were called "welfare" programs in order to justify their constitutionality using that association.

That is not how the word extreme is used. It is always other people's views that extreme, never your own ideas. The words extreme and extremist are used to denigrate someone who disagrees with you.

This way of arguing is very effective and hollow cultural-marxist words like racist, extremist, hate, discrimination and segregation are used all of the time and very few people want to be a racist, extremist, hater or someone who discriminates against others. This is how you control the masses. Make them feel guilty about things by inventing words with negative connotations.

I'm not talking about welfare programs. More related to the arguments in this thread against government regulation of things like food and drug safety.

Man, statists and their CODE WORDS!

When have any of the anti-government people in this thread said that they want corporations to take over? Corporations basically run the country to begin with!

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121114142116909809.html

wait for it.

Well...didn't Israel give Gaza the "green light" to hold elections a few years back? They did. I guess they elected the wrong people. This isn't a defense of Hamas. Hamas is just as bad as Israel.

Still...Israel can take care of themselves. Unless they try to pull another USS Liberty on us...and then I'd be just fine if the United States turned them into glass.

DING DING!

We have a winner!


Wouldn't rampant privatization of what little the government is left to run mean the corporations have finally taken complete control? Or do we think they'd let mom and pop run a health care outfit on the corner?

What about the IRS? Isn't it out of control enough as it is? How would privatizing it help us in any way? Maybe it would. Who knows?

Corporations are allowed to exist because of government, not in spite of government.

I know that. But what can possibly be done?

ONE:  We're all on here to gripe and moan (or cheer), Erik.  So...let's put on our reality hats and have fun blasting each other.  I, for one, wasn't expecting to change anyone's mind, much less solve the world's problems by posting in the Sandbox.  My aim is to humiliate those beating their chest for the demise of the United States of America.  See?

TWO:  The Hitler comments -- I understand, weren't serious.  But it does illustrate the irrationality and intensity of the Statist.  They're scary, nasty people.  In the empty, collegiate Statist mind, they view people who don't want the State running healthcare -- as extreme.  That's twisted.  And immensely self-aggrandizing.  But that's who they are -- they're the smart ones.  We're "hillbillies."  (How'my doin'?  Sound 'bout right?  Yeeeeah...I know it does.)

Since when has wanting to be left alone become extreme?  Answser:  since the statist took over.  On what planet does that make sense?  Answer:  The Santa Clause planet.  The lazy, "gimme-my-obamaphone" planet.  And many a great things we can expect from THAT planet.   In reality (remember that?) -- it's the leftist, the Statist who is extreme.  Not us.  Not those who want to be left alone.  So...in your joke -- You're the Hitlers.

THREE:  At what age did you wave bye-bye to freedom?  We're talking about the government.  In a free nation, the gov't is supposed to be the referees.  To make sure the game is played fairly.  They regulate.  They regulate air-traffic.  Just the flow of traffic.  They don't own anything...not the cars and planes and the mechanic who fix the cars or the companies that make the cars -- oh.  Oh wait.  They own GM.

R.I.P. U.S.A.


Dear Third World,
We want to suck just like you!!!

Your Friend,
The American Statist.

The guy in your awesome new profile picture might have some answers. :hat

Oh come on man, I'm no statist. I think I've demonstrated the ability to conceded when someone contrary to myself has a good point, but I see very little of that on the other side. Thus, the extremist comment. OR maybe we're all correct about each other. I think we can live with that possibility.

Being left alone just isn't all that practical in a planet with as many folks running around as we have. I respect wanting to be alone and feel that way often myself... But still..... As for my Hitler comments: that was just me being a dick... I admit it.

The guy in my avatar would smack us across the face and order us to get on our knees and put all the tapes back into his mellotron.....NEATLY! .... Meanwhile Ray Thomas is standing behind us ready to do things we don't want him to with his flute.

Mike and Ray haven't been this pissed since the Octave Recording sessions. :lol

And here comes Patrick Moraz wielding an axe!! (well, a Key-tar)

I'm extreme when I use that dastardly yellow font!

As for Statism, it's the new black.  People are more sympathetic to Communism than they are Capitalism.  While anything involving man is doomed to be imperfect, captialism gives us the opportunity to take our business elsewhere.

Snuffing out freedom in the name of the unattainable perfection -- is fashionable.  It's cool.  It's hip.  It's even...compassionate.

(http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2007/06/cameron-diaz-bag-peru.jpg) (http://www.bobbyshred.com/images/santache.jpg)

Fair enough but most people's thinking is a lot more shaded than you might be giving credit for. The idiots you used as above examples certainly don't hurt your case though...

I mean, I hardly consider total rule by corporations as "freedom" just because I'm free to buy their crap. Capitalism works to an extent, but it does not work to another extent and there is nothing wrong with pointing this out. Let's not forget the massive for-profit punishment industry that is just waiting giddily for any one of us to slip up just a bit..... There are valid grievances with capitalism as we know it here and now. Does this make me a statist or a communist or a socialist or an anti-freedom-er? Absolutely not.

As an liberally conservative reformed orthodox atheist, I find it hilarious when so many alleged "atheists" were at the Obama campaign stops looking at him like he's Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick.

Statism is more than just a political stance...it's a RELIGION. sh*t, the statists and the Christian conservatives should work together!

Those "communist" items are capitalism at its finest. Selling goods in demand and making a profit.

EXACTLY!

So let these college age "viva la revolucion" fuckwits buy their Che Guevara t-shirts. The real irony is when you see a black guy wearing one. Somehow you'd think they wouldn't like it so much if they knew that Che Guevara was also a vicious racist...

you're free not to buy their crap.

No, you're right -- it doesn't.  But the proverbial gun has been put to the proverbial head of healthcare industry.  It's back is against the wall, blind-fold applied, awaiting Jan 1, 2014...

Was the private health care insurance industry fantastic?  No.  But I do not want them to pull the trigger on it because 20 or 40 million people who didn't "buy it" -- should get it for free -- and the 250 million people who did buy it, lose it forever...doomed to crawl to the door of the State system, begging for that hip transplant at age 78, that the State feels is of little cost-benefit to the State?

For the cash Obama blew on windmills and Chevy Volts we could have bought the 20 million a damn HC plan -- AND a pack of smokes.

Now...we're fncked.  Fncked in the a5s.

This happens with urban outfitters, the owners are white older republicans who gave money to (gasp!) Rick Santorum.

At it's finest?  Let's see...

In Communist countries, sporting a Capitalism bag gets you shot in the face.  And in south Philly a Mitt Romney button gets you a Black Panther, billystick up the pooper.  In Detriot a Romney/Ryan sign gets your brakes cut by an SEIU union thug.   :lol

No...it's symbolic.  Self-hating Capitalism, shielding themselves from their guilt.  Freedom at it's most ignorant.  Capitalism on the wane.  Snake eating it's tail.  Head up a5s.

But, hey...freedom to be ignorant, and someone making a buck on it.  Gotta love it!

Try wearing an Obama shirt where my folks live in Idaho....

My mom worked for a lawyer out there who had Obama signs on his front lawn.... The guy left the state after getting repeated death threats!

And let's not forget all the racist, insane, war loving, closeted, Romney voting psychopaths  packing them mega-churches and keeping the fish-bumper-ornament makers in business.....

The idiots in the shirts in those pictures would wear a shirt with Charles Manson on it if it were popular or would make them look cool (this actually WAS cool for a while there) and are not examples of anything other than simple idiocy.

People just need to chill out and enjoy life. Its hard to live in this world with minions of political parties making life difficult just because you use your right to free speech and thought.

And for every one of those instances...there's 10,000 instances of the violence, hatred and intolerance of the Left.

I just don't buy the propaganda of "they do it, so it's okay if we do it."  Or "Republicans are just as bad."  They're not.  The RNC blows chunks, they're dweebs and the suck -- and they might even be stealing pennies from the take-a-penny jar.

But..the Democrat Party.  They're torching the place.  They've got plastic explosives set to go off and a $300 million insurance policy they're prepared to collect on.  And they're not waiting until grandma gets out of the building.

They're not the same.

This "Us and them" thinking process is what is killing america. People need to work together, not be in factions.

Oh, come on! That isn't exact math you've done is it?

Fishmonk will love this, but: calm down!

I'll try it myself....

No one's even arguing with you. There are idiots on all sides. That's a fact.

Sadly, it's more than that.  It's a growing anti-American, anti-freedom movement.  It'll lose because it sucks.  But when?  What'll be the damage.  Will it be irreversible?  I don't know.

We did just re-elect all those things.  I mean, put a fnking Che t-shirt on dude, shut down our energy production.  Towel the door and turn on the gas.  Let's go Commie.

(http://sydwalker.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/obama_chavez_meet.jpg)

OK, you're a Right-Winger. We get it. Can we move on?

And there is NO anti-freedom movement in this country. There might be some idiots but it is certainly not a movement These are just your words to de-legitimize anyone you see as "Left" or as otherwise not as paranoid as yourself.

It's always the real freedom haters who hate how others express their freedom or dare question anything.....

Indeed.  Calm down and let the gas do it's thang.   :afro

I'll bet Brian has some gas goin' on under that blanket.....  :3d

Hating how people "express their freedom" is simply being a critic.  I could really care less about that.

I'm only trying to wake people up about those who are actually taking (or support the taking) of freedom.  I think that's kind of important.

OK, I understand that. But is there really a movement of people out there who sit around a table going "So, how do we get rid of our freedoms? How can we be disappeared in the middle of the night and tortured? How can we engineer a military coup and subject ourselves to an untold number of years under the iron fisted rule of some military dictator who will shut down all liberal arts and torture/kill most of us with impunity???

Or is anyone who is simply being a critic themselves but whom you disagree with a freedom hater?
 

The anti-freedom movement is a democratic movement run by people who think they have more rights than others and think they deserve special treatment. Combine that with its democratic intent, and yes, it is an anti-freedom movement.

In an ocean or in a glass...

I don't buy that for a second.... And if so, there are those folks on both ends of the spectrum....

 >:D

It is comprised of folks on both ends of the left-leaning spectrum. The socialists on the far-left and the Christian conservatives on the center-left.

Oh, and you mean to tell me there are no far right folk or neo-cons who believe they have more rights than someone on the opposite end of the spectrum? You can honestly tell me that?

You guys are just falling down your own rabbit hole. Yes, there is some truth to what you are saying but you're blowing it out of proportion to suit your own views and are just screaming into your own wind tunnel.

The so-called "far right" and "neoconservative" folks are by no means right-wing. Their social and fiscal policies place them in the left-wing and quite far to the left, too.

You need to stop putting people in little boxes.... It ain't healthy.

And you know reality is much more complicated than you're pretending it is.

If we're talking about extremists here, then there will always be THEM or idiots or people who take themselves far too seriously. What's the difference between a bunch of rednecks in a barn bitching about them lefties or a bunch of college students in a library bitching about them damn right wingers? People bitch and moan about each other and it will never end.

No, the reality is really quite simple. Those who advocate any form of control over the life of another are left-wingers. You have people on the real far left like the Nazis, Maoists, Stalinists, Ku Klux Klan, Black Panthers, Weather Underground, the bastardized "tea party" movement. You have people on the middle end of the left like the Christian conservatives, the neocons, and the Obama and Bush regimes. And the people just left-of-center are your usual college age kids with a Che Guevara t-shirt and a semen-stained copy of the Communist Manifesto nestled in between their Playboy magazines.

You are beyond ridiculous and this subject deserves no further reply..... Someone else might want to point out the idiocy of your paranoia but it won't be me...

I'm paranoid because I want to be left alone and leave others alone? Because I want to lead a voluntary lifestyle? The new extremism is liberty. I'm sure the British thought the same about the colonists in 1776, too.

There are two types of people in the world: those who want to be left alone and those who don't want to leave others alone.  :-D

No you're paranoid because your rights have become a sort of extreme anti-social disease in your mind and a form of sociopathology. You see hordes of evil people coming over a hill in the distance to come take your rights away. No one gives two sh*ts enough or even know who the hell you are to want to take away your rights other than the usual suspects who do not form a simple left/right situation.

You want to be left alone. Go for it. Go be alone and don't cry about it. Don't be the type of person who draws a gun and scares the hell out of someone because they're passing you on the sidewalk and happened to invade your scared personal space that you have the right to defend with violence.

Who took those people's rights away in Chilea circa 1973 that we discussed earlier? It was your beloved Republican Prez Nixon and your sacred corporation ITT, so please.....

I'm not a fan of Nixon, so that won't work on me.

The examples don't stop with him, but I've got better things to do....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZs9RDj3i7E

Ron Paul just KILLED it here. He called the government "psychopathic authoritarians"...and I LOVE IT!

It's almost as if...as if...America wasn't really meant to be as democratic a nation as it's become. Perhaps these deluded masses weren't meant to have so much say in how things are run...like we were supposed to be some sort of limited republic with guaranteed rights to protect minority groups from popular tyranny....

He also killed the freedom movement by giving up earlier this year.

I wouldn't say that. It's going to continue. There's still Rand Paul and Justin Amash in Congress, and lots of people in my area are starting up campaigns to run at the state level and then work their ways up. I'd run myself if my atheism wouldn't overshadow my politics in the eyes of the people.

This is a fun chart
(http://i.imgur.com/uZjLr.png)

Keynesian money printing FTW!

At the end of the day that's what all economic "stimulus" boils down to, defying gravity. All those excess dollars have to come out of the economy sooner or later, and each downward plunge is just the law of supply and demand at work, supply and demand desperately trying to find a true equilibrium that discounts all the easy money pumped into the system by the government. And each time it happens, why, we just need more stimulus to keep the party going, so we push harder and take ever more drastic measures with ever diminishing returns until finally the entire system collapses under its own weight. Government manipulation of the interest rate is the problem with our economy, it always has been, it's the core issue here that everyone ignores. It's price fixing at its most destructive.

"Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones
 to trust to keep the government pure and our rights
 secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth
who were the source of corruption in government."

- Thomas Jefferson

Agreed completely.

And the great wind tunnel blows on!

Yep

Man, you gotta stop putting these politicians on a pedestal like they're Jesus Christ on a bloody pogo stick just because they say things you agree with. What kind of slavish moron are you? Think for yourself, bro... etc etc.

I wish I had found this before the Election ended. Nonetheless I guarantee you guys will love this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_1B0w7Hzc&list=PLQ-7WiWmOuK-55mfcd_tdcvy-57VMCkOW&index=3&feature=plpp_video

I don't exactly put the man up on a pedestal but he's right about what he's saying. Granted, he's addressing a populace that wallows in stupidity on a daily basis, but...

That is one of my favorite series on the internet. "Romney" destroyed "Obama" in that one. But that's usually what they go for with those shows. The "politically incorrect" competitor usually wins. Check out the Darth Vader v. Adolf Hitler one.

Funnily enough the Vader vs Hitler was the first one I ever saw.

Love this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlwilbVYvUg&noredirect=1

This is by far the most epic political rap battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

Friedrich von Hayek vs John Maynard Keynes.

Greed, corruption.  Booze, prostitution.  Not wise pursuits.  But..what about Hitler?  Mao?  Stalin?  What was that about, Erik?  Anyone? China...1 kid, forced abortions.  Genocide, infanticide, holocaust, gas chambers.  Women stoned to death, beheadings.  Saddam Hussein, Iran, Hamas.
 
What explains that stuff?
Is it Exxon?  Bain Capital?   ::)


Demonize profit, wealth and freedom all you want.  Jefferson's honorable concept of civil service is not to demonize corporations and the pursuit of wealth in the private sector.  And it sure don't mean federal "bails outs" of Wall Street and federal "buy outs" of GM.  It doesn't mean the President should be picking winners and losers in the private sector -- giving billions to Solyndra, while taxing/regulating the American Coal and Oil industry into oblivion.

That's $5/gallon gas.  $6/gallon gas.  $7/gallon gas.  Etc.  But most importantly, it's not the role of Gov't.  That's too much power.  That's delusional and suicidal.

What's bubbling up in the world today is bad.  The same seed that lead to human suffering on the scale of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.  It always has.  Tyranny.  The opposite of YOU.  The opposite of FREEDOM.  They make the decisions.  And people are marching right along.

It starts by destroying the one entity that most threatens government's dominance.  The private sector.

Because that's where you and I get to make decisions INSTANTLY with MYRIAD options -- without them.  The private sector feeds us, clothes us, iPhones us, Beach Boys us.  The private sector is wonderful.  It provides for us...infinitely better than GOVERNMENT ever could.  There's those that will tell you differently.  But look at the world around you!  Don't listen to them.  None of this could have been created if they had their way.  None of it!


LISTEN...by supporting this march to demonize the Private Sector and Capitalism...you are supporting Tyranny.  Tattoo it on yourself, if it helps.  You're handing them everything....

Oh stop! I'm just taking something of a middle-ground on these issues.

Thr group-think on this thread is annoying btw! A dissenting view is healthy in such situations. BTW: what makes the private sector even possible if not some form of organization??

I can love and hate capitalism at my will! Hell, it might even sell Michael Moore a DVD, so you ought to praise me. Do I have to unconditionally love an abusive spouse or parent?

Reality is shaded and so is the marketplace/private sector. Take a break from the kool-Aid.

I hear ya.  Thanks for hanging in there.  But what if pop-culture is the kool-aid?  Making you believe that you're "middle ground" on the issues.  It's worth a thought...

Here's a spectrum:  1 2 3 4 5

5 is total anarchy.  1 is total government.  The Articles of Confederation was a 4.75.  Apparently, too weak.  Didn't work.  So the Constitution was created at about 4.  They stopped there.  What's that?  3 is more reasonable in these modern times?  Ok fine, you got "social security."  We're all 3's now.

What if our concept of 5 fades away.  We can't imagine full blown freedom no more.  And the 4's become our max.  Wouldn't a 2.5 be middle ground?  You bet'chya.  We're 2.5s now!  And what if our sense of anarchy/total freedom is now a 3 -- like back in those wild west days, when we could buy a 20 oz soda in NYC and smoke in a bar.  Is the 2 now more reasonable?  You know it is.

1 2 3 4 5

What if we use a temperature scale.  The human body operates at 98.6.  Let's say 105 is total anarchy and 72 is total gov't.  Now the scale is no longer relative to our fancy.  It's 98.6 or stuff breaks.  It's based on parameters beyond our control -- with results we can't fake.

The thermometer decides.  The consequences are real.  You can say you're middle-ground till your blue in the face, but who are you negotiating with?  I think life's a little more like this.  Everything has consequences.


POINT IS:  :3d  It's important that we (as a nation) understand the extremes, together.  And have a common understanding of them.  I assumed we did.  But I've heard all sorts of stuff.  Up is down, left is right.  I've heard people swear that John McCain and Mitt Romney were "far right."  That is impossible -- unless you understand the scale.

I am way to the right of John McCain/Mitt Romney...but I'm nowhere NEAR anarchy.  Even I can't imagine life under the Constitution!  I'm not off the map...because what about anarchy?  The only thing that explains it is we are 2s now.  4's and 5's no longer are "conceivable" to many people.

Simply put -- something is intentionally obscuring people's range of visibility.  And that's why I'm concerned.  Einstein's dead...so I don't think anyone's looking into it.   :smokin

Thank you Bean Bag. It's nice to see one of you guys presenting ideas rather than just complaining or droning out "the facts"

I think a lot of backslapping cats in this thread are too young to actually remember Reagan and that whole trajectory. I don't hate the free market and pop culture is nothing other than what the term itself suggests and then it's still only some guy's term anyhow. Do I hate cars because one runs me over? Laying blame where blame is due is only sensible but it pays to be realistic as you've pointed out.

As for freedom: did you ever have to sit on a long plane flight full of smokers back when you could blaze in-flight? Freedom to breath in oxygen is the same freedom to burn a free market cigarette. See, you can't oversimplify.

I'm stoked I don't have to post 47 times a day for the next 4 years

Just catching up on this thread....

Yeah bro, I hear ya... nothing's ever "simple."  Yet many always try to make it so.  Human nature.

Smoking is an interesting case in point.  One can bust out the ole' chestnut:  "your freedom ends where it meets my face" or something like that.   :lol  I'm always reluctant or hesitant to go down the banning route.  They made similar cases with alcohol... "it's the children and the wives who get beaten by all the drunk dads" etc.  And you know... those are real concerns.  Nobody wants that.  So... people vote "yeah!"  And they felt good about themselves.  Like they had stopped bad stuff.  No, they banned alcohol.  Let's be real.  Nobody banned beating.  If they only banned beating!  Which I assume was already illegal... but I'm no lawyer.

In reality -- just reality now -- it wasn't the alcohol that was beating the kids.  It was dad.  All along.  Who knew!  And, sure, dad may have stopped beating because he was no longer drinking... or sh**t maybe, being sober caused it more.  And maybe he got better at it (more focused.)  Or maybe it stayed the same, sh**t I don't konw.

The only thing we knew for sure was booze got made real dirty, in people's basements, with wood alcohol in it.  And it was poison!

I was talking about on a freaking plane! A cramped enclosed space where kids and the elderly and the infirm have to all share the same canned air....C'mon, man!  I'm not for banning smoking in bars or outdoors. Not at all. There is always a line where one's ideology is tested and this separates the sociopaths from the rest of us...... Always..... As does this board.

Oh, I know what you meant.  :-D  I was just saying I'm always hesitant to take any such action.  Even though I probably agree with you about on smokes on a plane.  I'm just not so sure about taking any actions of the sort... and would veto it myself.  Precisely because it "never ends there."  It creates a precedent.  It emboldens our lesser selves.  "Let the f***ing airlines deal with it..." would be my ruling.  And they would.  Smoke free flights.

But... in today's society, something is always going to offend somebody.  Trans fats.  Cell phone brain tumors.  20 oz sodas.  Our society today -- I think -- does not have the perspective to be respectful to other people.  Sadly, nor do our elected and appointed officials.  We're very much an island society that is living, ironically "all up in people's grill."

It's been beaten into our culture that THIS is how you deal with things.  It's happening bro...

Please don't call me bro. This isn't a frat house or a sports bar.

And if you had your way, the plane wouldn't even make it into the air because there would be no airline regulation or maintenance standards that were strictly enforced.

Sorry.  You keep changing your name, man.  Can I say "man?"  You called me that... so I thought it would be cool.  So what causal term of affection do you prefer?

C'mon "insert name" I thought we were just talking about smokes on a plane!   :lol

Remember, I posted earlier -- in this very thread -- about the scale.  1 2 3 4 5.  Five = total anarchy.  I surmised that we've shaved off 4 and 5.  So... now the 3's are like, totally extreme far right.

I'm really not trying to be difficult.   :afro  I'm just not sure our nation understands the box it's opened.  Ban this!  Ban that!  I think, we've gone "3."  We're soft.  We can't take it.  We've quit.  We're babies, ready for the harvest.  (What?)  We're no longer tolerant.  We're intolerant.  We're offended.  We're offendable.

None of this applies to me, of course, but society.  Does such a view point offend?  ;)  Don't answer... I know.

Could we just have one right wing politics thread, the sandbox is clogged with three threads ranting about the "communists" already. I am tired of this "us and them" mentality that is killing america right now.

You have no coherent point of view to offend with. And being blatantly simplistic and narrow minded is not being difficult.......just idiotic.

So, if I lived next door to you and you were blasting bestiality porn loudly at all hours of the night and I knocked on your door and you screamed at me "It's my goshdarn house, and you're on my porch, therefore you are trespassing" and you went to grab your shotgun. What is the situation here? Yes, it's your house and I've no right to tell you or order you to keep the porn down, however I live next door on the same street, therefore I have the right to at least ask you to please keep it down. If this is invading your right, then you are a psychopath and are afraid that next I'll be demanding you switch to straight porn and next you'll be afraid I'll be confiscating your VCR, and then and then and then...... That's what this country has become...

What are you talking about!!!???   :lol

What?

Ok, ok.  This is... what, the third call today (?) for having only "one right-wing thread?"   :o  Let me address that.  Is there only three? -- nevermind... you want only one, right?  Ok...

First... I'm tired of it too.

Second... I agree that an "us and them" mentality is killing America.  Sort of.  Actually it's just the "them."  They're killing America.

Third... "us and them" is exactly what it's all about.  Pinder mentioned (in one of these "sandbox clogging" right wing threads) that there's no liberals, leftists... or nothing.  He said it was just corporatists, fascists, and all the rest of us.  Or something like that.  Doesn't matter he was way off.   ;D  It's more simple than that.  It's just us and them.  It's "them" and "the rest of us."  (Ok. Pinder was right about "the rest of us" part).


Oh and lest I forget... before anyone says I'm stupid for "believing something so complex... could be so simple."  I'll save the sandbox another right wing thread -- and get to the point.  It's actually not simple.  It's still just "them" and "the rest of us" but it's not simple.  You know why?  Here's why:  most people don't even know which side they're on.

OMG, am I  starting to believe that I'm actually Mike Pinder????

Obama supporters shocked, angry at new tax increases
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/6/obama-supporters-shocked-angry-new-tax-increases/

"Sometimes, watching a Democrat learn something is wonderful, like seeing the family dog finally sit and stay at your command.  'My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?'

Shocker. Democrats who supported the president’s re-election just had NO idea that his steadfast pledge to raise taxes meant that he was really going to raise taxes. They thought he planned to just hit those filthy “1 percenters,”'

Soooo... is story this funny or sad to you?

On one hand yes, it's funny to watch clueless people walk into a wall.   Hee-hee.  I like slapstick.  But it's sad how naive people are... and even more sad that they VOTE and drag me and millions of innocent, hardworking families (but mostly me) along for the ride.

I vote sad.  :'(  I simply can't afford to pay for people's first-grade-level, life-lessons.  Can you?  I applaud people learning, and don't want to disparage the process of learning... but I'm strapped, I can't afford it -- financially.  And while watching people walk into walls and such is funny... I really don't like to walk into walls much myself.  I prefer to look up now and then and avoid life's obvious obstacles.  What about you guys?



(PS:  If you want to vote "C:  this is just a lie, it's not happening... the story is a complete fabrication of Conservatives... be my guest.  But, please.. watch out for walls.)

The payroll tax "holiday"--which is the increase people are seeing--is something that the president initiated, renewed, and intended to renew. Republicans resisted that, and thus that tax holiday ended and that tax went to its previous rate as part of the eventual compromise. It wasn't some sneaky backdoor way for the president to raise taxes on lower and middle earners.

On the positive side, this tax funds Social Security, which most (non-Tea Party) people agree is a worthwhile program...

I find it more amusing than anything...but I don't run off of the assumption that Obamatards actually listen to what comes out of his mouth. The way they stare at him you'd swear he was the second coming of Jesus Christ or something. As if we needed any more proof that statism is a religion...

While my political views are more often liberal than not, I agree that the way people projected their utopia on a relatively centrist candidate, then are shocked when he acts like a typical centrist president, is funny.

Obama is "relatively centrist"? He's another George W. Bush.

On many issues, I agree. So I guess it all depends on your issues of focus (and frame of reference, since people with further right views think of him as the farthest left president ever, while most of my liberal friends think he is basically a traditional Republican living in a right-trending landscape). I guess what I mean is, between the past 30 years' worth of Republican and Democratic views, if all averaged out issue by issue, I'd say he ends up pretty close to the middle. On a broader political spectrum, or even just thinking about political philosophies (as opposed to ruling on American issue by issue with Republican or Democratic positions), that would be a different story.

I think Obama's very radical.  I believe he'll continue to demonstrate this -- with acceleration -- over the next 4 years.  His entire reign reminds me of the last few horrific weeks of the George W Bush presidency.  Everything turned upside down.  Rock, rock roll... plymouth rock rollover.  Bailouts, gov't take-overs.  Billions of dollars turned into nickels and dimes.  Right before our eyes.  Trillions, gone!  It was like the biggest heist in American history... and everyone was left stunned.

It's been like one extended, long nightmare since October 2008.  And everyone's confused, the smoke still hasn't cleared.  No one knows what to do.  It's been a nightmare to live through this.  It's like the devil snapped his fingers and everyone was mystified, can't see through the smoke.

What really gets me about Obama though is the lying.  I've never heard anyone lie so openly like him.  Yet be so openly radical and honest about his evil plans at other times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4  Obama:  "Under my plan, energy prices would necessarily skyrocket."   What you say?  I use energy all the time, pal... are you, mad?  This is bananas, guys.  Not just his madcap "ideas" -- but shouldn't saying something like that damn a politician from office?  Used to.  But... no.  Satan's cloud of mystery, mystifies all!  *POOF!*

 >:D

Seriously.  Stop and think.  Can you win friends by telling people they suck?  Can you pick up chicks by telling them you're gonna smack them in their fat, ugly face?  Can you buy a car and tell the salesman, "I won't pay you a nickel -- and you'll like it!?!?"  Guys... this is weird sh*t!   :lol  This is some weird sh*t going on right now.

Because Obama's racist white liberal supporters will always respond to those who criticize the Dear Leader with cries of "racist", therefore he conceivably will get away with murder.

I think that's basically correct - Obama is right of centre, certainly, but nowhere near George W. Bush who was a reactionary right-wing extremist. In order to put this in the proper perspective, Obama's central tax plan (the last I heard) was to raise the highest individual income tax rates to 39.6 percent from 35 percent (this is quite apart from the nonsense over this holiday tax issue which I'm unaware of what makes it an issue). Compare this to revered right-wing Presidents. So Eisenhower, for example, did the proper thing and lowered the top income tax - he lowered it from 92 percent to 91 percent. The percentage remained in the 70s with Nixon. Much of this was a consequence of the fact that the rate was at its lowest (25%) just before the crash of 1929, and it was understood that it was a lack of regulation on the elite institutions that caused the collapse, just as was the case in 2008. The fact is the problem is not that Obama wants to raise taxes. Ultimately, government spending has slowed down to levels unseen since the 50s under Obama and his tax rate come nowhere near the extremely high levels that were seen in perhaps the most prosperous times in American history. The problem is that the public has been brainwashed into hysteria so that they hate the decisions that may even only trivially have negative effects on the elite members of society and they have been conditioned to the extent that the history that I mentioned has been erased in the most obviously Orwellian fashion so that these minimal changes look positively socialist.

I think we should stop using "soft" facts in political discourse, "most agreed that X was caused by Y". Causal relationships cannot be speculated about, and the social sciences are not a "hard" science, economics included. To try and insinuate that low taxes on the rich or 'deregulation' somehow caused some financial crisis is highly contentious when there's an equally, if not more convincing case to be made that low interest rates and the excess of credit caused the overspeculation. I actually get the impression that, if the consensus does count for anything, it's actually moving in just that direction.

Sorry but I don't get that impression at all. In fact, just about every serious study I've seen on the matter generally accepts as a given the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission which cited “Widespread failures in financial regulation” as a leading factor in the crisis. And the reason why these conclusions are accepted is because it is the most rational conclusion one can reach. Remember that it was understood that a central factor behind the crash of 1929 was precisely the banks making too many high risk loans for securities speculation or as one bank President stated, "reaping the natural fruit of the orgy of speculation in which millions of people have indulged." The crash followed what was considered to be a "speculative boom" in which more than 8.5 billion was out on loan.

It was understood immediately that regulations were needed to distinguish commercial banks from investment banks and prevent banks from turning into hedge funds – hence the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and others in the same period. These regulations in fact worked and it is interesting to note what happened once neo-liberal policies came into effect which saw the general dismantling of these regulations. The US government had been deregulating the financial institutions on a wide scale in the 1970s, including the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act which led directly to the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 80s. When the Clinton Administration repealed Glass-Steagall in the 90s he did so knowing full well of its effect in preventing major crises post-crash of 29 but they added some caveat about how these were different times and the economy was different now than it was then, or some sort of lip-service on behalf of the nation’s elite. What happened of course was perfectly predictable as the system very quickly reverted back to a pre-1929 status with the creation of yet another speculative boom. Interestingly enough the same situation was going on in the population at large so as neo-liberal policies worked to dismantle New Deal welfare policies, the gap between the rich and the poor essentially worked its way back to pre-1929 levels as well.

And, of course, the consequences of all this was perfectly predictable. These regulations which separated commercial and investment banks and placed limitations on interest rates and loans by banks would have outright prevented financial institutions from using off-balance sheet securitization and derivatives and creating shadow banking systems to mask the excessive risks being taken with mortgage lending which is precisely what caused the crisis. To pretend now as if this was the result of anything other than de-regulation is to live in a fantasy world where, quite simply, history doesn’t exist. Again, I refer you to Orwell and 1984, where there is never any past, only continuous present and the past becomes whatever we want so that we are never wrong in the present.

That’s something like what’s going on when we act as if deregulation had nothing to do with any of this. In reality though, the history of capitalism is generally found to be that the free market is inherently bound to fail but it can make a small group of people lots of money. So markets are de-regulated for a period, serving the interests of the wealthy elite and when it inevitably fails, the public pays for it and the public will always be the safety net for the excessive risks and whims of the extremely wealthy and then they are made to be outraged whenever anyone suggests raising taxes on the wealthy. Again a real testament to the power of indoctrination.

You read econ research papers for fun?

It's interesting what's going on now.  As I talk to people -- Obama supporters, leftist, whatever -- they do realize we're in the fiscal toilet.  They know we're out of money.  Curious.  Do they not make the connection as to WHY -- or more to the point -- WHO or WHAT ideology/practice is responsible?

Is Newsweek magazine is right? -- we're all Socialists now?  Do they want this?  Well... people flirt with dumb sh-t all the time... and they sure don't like to be told they're dumb while they're doing it.  So it's possible.  For now we're socialists.  In our society's collectively regressed state of mind -- it's the Rich who are to blame.  Yes, that's it... the people who are succeeding are responsible for ... wait for it... failing.   :lol  Makes total sense!  Up really is down!!

Anyway... Obama, on his steed, is gonna "fix 'er."  To those of regressed inclination -- yes, that's right -- you really can have candy and soda for dinner.  If that's what they want, that's what they get.

The hangover is going to be epic.  The bathroom is going to smell bad.  But... who cares.  You can't have any ice cream until you finish your Slurpee!  Detroit is the goal.

(http://bcdownload.gannett.edgesuite.net/detroitfreep/35547428001/35547428001_1485643140001_ari-origin07-arc-181-1330724219369.jpg?pubId=35547428001)

I'll finish my slurpee. It's only fair since you've drank all the kool-aid ;) ;)

 :ahh  Ahhh!!  Toilets are all stopped up... poo everywhere!!

Cool-Air and Slurpees have that effect I guess  :smokin

Capitalism is a system based on voluntary association in which everyone has an equal chance of success. Socialism is a system based on involuntary association in which everyone is equally miserable.

The states need to check the federal government. BIG TIME.

That's completely false. I wrote this on another thread but it bears repeating here:

Recall that the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism in England and throughout the general region was part of a long process that essentially began with actions carried out first by landowners than by landowners with the backing authority of British Parliament to dispossess people of commonly shared land, often by force, seizing their land and placing under private ownership. Thus private property as we understand it comes into being specifically with an act of violent force that actively works to undermine and delegitimize the common rights of the population. Thus private property simply doesn’t exist without force. And, of course, this whole system which is now considered mostly by the fringe Libertarian movement as being “natural” and some sort of metaphor for a real and genuine human experience was resisted by large movements that simply had to be put down by the ownership class. Thus, you have movements such as Kett’s Rebellion of 1549, the Midland Revolt and Newton Rebellion of 1607 which was mostly peasant-based activist movements to try to reclaim the commonly shared land from which they were forcefully uprooted and dispossessed. The very beginnings of the industrial revolution are typically credited to this shift away from an agrarian-based economy which was operated commonly under an open field system to a machine-based manufacturing system. This could only, happen, though, once the common system had been destroyed and following that, once the active resistance to this destruction by those who were dispossessed, had been put down.

The inevitable consequence of the land being conquered by the wealthy elite and the creation of private property was, of course, the criminalization of the peasant class (since vagrancy was considered criminal) and therefore the rise of crime and pauperism as villagers lost their means of subsistence. But furthermore, it also provided a necessary labour class for the manufacturing industry to exploit in their need for profit. This is why the age-old argument by the right that “no one is forcing you, you can always find another job” is always painfully hollow and remarkably ignorant since this version of “freedom” is only a freedom that has been created for us on behalf of the ownership class, once they actually historically eliminated the kind of society that allowed people to have real genuine control over what they do and how they live their lives. Historically, then, capitalism (or, a system based on the private ownership of the means of production) simply could not have existed or lasted without the elite class forcefully and violently seizing land of the peasantry, actively suppressing resistance to this movement by force, turning their common productive space into privately owned land in order to make profit, and sending the peasant society into the city because they had no other option for their survival as legitimate citizens. So, there’s nothing voluntary about it. The capitalist society was created by force and the owners of this society created the limited options that people choose from, with the basic option being either creating profit for the ownership class or being a criminal, or society’s detritus.

The notion that everyone has an equal chance of success in a capitalist society is ludicrous. The capitalist system works to create wealth through the exploitation of surplus value.  A worker creates more goods than he could possibly need, and the excess is sold on the market.  In this sense, the working class will continue to be at a disadvantage because the value of their labor will go straight to the top. That is an inequality that is built into the capitalist model and it is the reason why in capitalist countries with less government protection, you find a much larger gap between the wealthy and the poor because the system is built to create that gap.

Meanwhile, the very notion of "involuntary association" is in contradiction with socialism which is a society that is run with no political power, so the kind of force you are talking about when you evoke a phrase like "involuntary association" is really ultimately impossible.

You think I make this stuff up, Pinder, I know you do...  :lol

AIDE SAYS EX-DETROIT MAYOR TOOK BRIBE IN BATHROOM
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DETROIT_EX_MAYOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-01-10-20-01-31

(http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2011/07/dumb-and-dumber.jpg)

I'm kinda glad Romney lost. It will make the 2016 Marco Rubio Presidential victory all the sweeter after four more years of Obamanomics.

Marco Rubio presidential victory...we don't need another Republican liberal. They're just as bad as Obama.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You're glad the Republicans lost so that they will win later? If the goal is that the Republicans win, why would you be glad the Republicans lost?

Mitt Romney was the wrong kind of "Republican". That political party is moribund at this point. The Bush family killed it off decisively.

I agree with that.

I would argue that it was effectively killed off long before the Bush family. Considering how folks like Robert Taft were considered extreme in the 1940s and early 1950s when they were basically following the original principles of the party...yeah, the party was dead long before the Bush regimes.

Had it been dead, there would not have been 20 years of Republican rule in a 28 year period. What Poet means when he says that the party was dead, I think, is that after Bush, the party had disenfranchised itself from political legitimacy.

The original principles of the party included an opposition to capitalism since they were organized by conservatives. Obviously that wasn't going to last long in the US.

I don't know what Republican Party you're talking about, but I've never read that anywhere.

Beside watergate, Richard Nixon was a great president for the GOP with foreigh policy and domestic policy.

You're joking, right?

Yeah? Which of the Nixon-founded Agencies do you work for? The EPA or the DEA? Real domestic policy savants.

Hey, I've always told the gun control freaks who hate Ronald Reagan that they actually agree with him on gun control.

No, his foreign policy had a nuclear treaty with Russia, got us out of Vietnam, and he went to China. The domestic policy with the EPA was needed in the USA to clean up those older industrial areas that were making people sick. The paranoia part of his presidency ruined all that though.

Those agencies are needed to combat pollution and drug/gun crimes.

Doesn't the value of a workers labor go directly to him in the form of a paycheck by which he is compensated exactly the amount his labor his worth?

Then you should look up what Lincoln and his associates had to say about wage slavery.

Had to respond quickly so some of this is a repeat:

Labourers don’t get paid for their work. They are paid for their labour time. In a capitalist system, a worker sells their labor to an owner who buys their labor from them at the lowest possible price so that they can make the highest amount of profit (I suppose this how "the amount his labor is worth" is determined) and the only people who are in a legitimate position to decide the terms of this relationship are the owners/shareholders, while the laborer gets absolutely no say, despite the fact that the owner is appropriating the product of their labor and selling it on the market for their own personal profit. This is textbook exploitation. There are ways to make this less exploitative - so, for instance, there might be mechanisms put in place where labor has some kind of bargaining power (i.e. unions). This allows labor to play some role in deciding the terms of the relationship but whatever they get (pensions, vacations, etc.) the relationship will always be a shameful, exploitative, and altogether barbaric one, as long as labor does not get to profit off their own work.

Why don't the owners/shareholders just pay laborers nothing and make that much more profit? Seems like an easy decision.

Yeah, it has happened many many times - it's called chattel slavery and I'm sure if owners and shareholders could still get away with it they would. In fact, even after the abolition of slavery in the US, businessmen were still finding ways to hold onto the old system and to a much smaller degree it does happen in the US where possible. But as it turns out, we are now living in a modern industrial age where people need to be reasonably educated to do the work that the owner requires (plus the system is not structured in a way that allows the owner to devote the time to ensuring that their labour doesn't go malnourished) which means that, one, they need at least some money if they are going to fulfill the ultimate needs of the owners and two, their education does not make them as easily exploitable in the same way. Yes, this was an easier decision in a different time when labour meant something different, which is why there was so much slavery then. But it simply doesn't work in a high-tech industrial first world nation anymore - the owners wouldn't stand a chance.

In what way are people less "exploitable" though? If a major chain retailer simply said they would pay everyone $0/hour starting tomorrow, hypothetically, how would the people working there keep from being "exploited"? People who work in the service industry do not need to be "reasonably" educated, and for that matter, didn't slaves also preform many duties throughout history that required far more specialized skills than service industry labor does today?

"Starting tomorrow" no one would show up to work and the only ones who would lose would be the employers (well, the employees suddenly having to find work as of tomorrow wouldn't be too happy either: so, everyone loses it would be stupidity itself that was exploited)

Because they are more educated - or, let's just flat out say, they are educated.


Well, as you know, the people wouldn't have to "keep from being 'exploited'" in the way that we're using the term (they are always exploited in a basic owner/labour relationship) - because the law prevents that.


How many illiterates and people who can't do basic math do you believe work "in the service industry"?


Being trained for a particular job is not the same as being reasonably educated. Despite all these "specialized skills", by 1860, about 5% of black slaves in the United States were literate. Is that same number true of those who work in the service industry?

To be honest, I don't see the relevance of these questions.

Sheesh...this Marxism thing sure is tiring! That's probably why only the very young and the politically immature have the energy for it.

Stop throwing insults at rockandroll, and debate his ideas with substance for once. ::)

They're doing such a great job of it. Just ask small organic farm owners, Mexican border town residents or Brian Terry's parents.

Would you feel better without them with the cartel having free reign in the southwest US? These cartels are so powerful as "shadow nations" in mexico that the US government has to fight them to ensure "the general welfare" of the people as layed out in the preamble of the Constitution.

Or you'll do what? The Marxist/Capitalist debate ended in 1989. The Socialists can never win when the people are informed and motivated.
Hence the last election here...where a fraud was given a second term by the citizens of "The People's Republic Of Honey Boo-Boo-istan".

I'd feel better if the Justice Dept./ATF/DEA hadn't provided the weapons to the drug cartels TO shoot up the Southwest US with.

That program had a good purpose on paper, sell marked guns to cartels to eventually trace them later. The cartels would be caught with the marked guns and thrown in jail. The program was really to show the problem with gun smuggling from gun shops in the southwest. It is honestly more shameful for american citizens to sell guns to gangs for cheap cash than the government trying a novel program to stop the violence and save lives.

Debate you....

Different program SMiLE Brian.  You're referring to George W's plan.  Yes, it was "noble" in spirit, but it didn't work -- so the Bush Administration ended it.  The obama team however, reinstated the program -- but, get this -- without the "marking" or tracing aspect.  That key aspect was conspicuously REMOVED from the program.

Now... that's some crazy sh-t right there folks.  Evil.

What I read was the guns were allowed to go to mexico instead of arresting the gun smugglers  in an attempt to build a stronger case. The guns were traced from the dealers, so the "unmarked" guns were already on record.

In an attempt to implicate the dealers?  That's what a lot of people are thinking.  We may never get to the bottom of this.  Obama evoked "executive privilege."  Understandable that he did.  Many believe this program was reinstated and altered as I stated to create a national narrative on "how easy is to get guns here in America, and then have them wind up in Mexican drug cartels."

And the media was poised, pen-in-hand to carry that ball over the goal line... But, it kind of blew up.  And Obama and Holder are pinching their buttcheeks tightly -- "nothing to see here.  move along."

Evil and smarmy.  What kind of people think like this?

There should be a debate on firearms laws if straw purchases of heavy assault weapons are so common in the South Western US. Either the guns need to be banned or the laws tightened to prevent the cartels' massive campaigns of using people to buy firearms in massive quantities from gun stores.

Ultimately that was the aim of the Administration.  To "get a debate going."  Really, to force a ban.  There's no debating with liberals.  They play for keeps.  The plan was to shut down the gun shows.

In other words, "lets stock the pool with sharks, spread some chum... and then get that swimming ban we wanted."

Nutjobs with assault weapons also play for keeps every time.

Which is why Obama armed them.  He's too is a nutjob.

I wanted to respond to this more for other posters than GreatUrduPoet who I don’t believe particularly cares to have a reasonable debate but since he does appear to value that notion that people should be informed, it only makes sense that I should clear a few things up here. I suppose the central argument that Poet makes here  when he notes that “The Marxist/Capitalist debate ended in 1989” is that the essential failure of the Soviet Union which was probably understood most dramatically in the United States when the wall fell signified the essential failure of socialism as a system and the clear superiority of capitalism.

The argument while a cliché now bears some investigation because, after all, what you discover when you investigate the matter is that it is built on nothing more than fanciful historical revisionism that has mostly been concocted by the major indoctrination systems of our time. First off, the notion that the Soviet Union was Marxist at all is an entirely false one. Remember that Marx articulates his particular economic system in chapter two of The Communist Manifesto as one that has no political power. And indeed, this position was represented in Russia in the years leading up to the revolution – most notably represented by figures such as Antonie Pannekoek, Emma Goldman and others who essentially pushed for the Marxist position, namely a relatively powerless society that was organized in terms of worker’s councils and trade unions.

By 1909, Lenin and Alexander had these members expelled from the Bolsheviks deeming it too left wing and from that point forward essentially ran the Bolshevik movement as a right wing version of communism, much to the dismay of the traditionalists. You see, ultimately when GreatUrduPoet notes that “only the very young and the politically immature have the energy for” Marxism, he unwittingly draws a crucial comparison – namely between himself and the leaders of the communist Russian revolution who happened to entirely agree with this point. So about a year after the Russian Revolution takes place, the traditional Marxists immediately objected to Lenin’s control noting correctly that Lenin did not represent a Marxist position. After all, socialism if it was anything, was workers in control over the means of production without any interference and there was none of that occurring whatsoever in Russia nor were there any plans for it to occur and more over, Lenin’s purposeful destruction of the factory councils as soon as he entered power, reaffirmed his opposition to Marxist socialism in practice. Lenin responded to the criticisms by publishing a book of his own writings called Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder and in that book he essentially criticizes Marxism and socialism, targeting the central figures in particular such as Pannekoek and Sylvia Pankhurst for their Marxist beliefs. So again, GreatUrduPoet and the leaders of the Russian communist movement are in total agreement about Marxism.

Within a few years Lenin was outright calling the economic system what it was – state capitalism. He stated that state capitalism was "one of the principal aspects" of the New Economic Policy of the Soviet Union. By that time Lenin had enough power that he could afford to be honest. The ultimate failure of the Soviet project was not a failure of Marxism. It was never Marxism nor was it intended to be – the leaders of the movement hated Marxism, hated the Marxists, attacked them in print and outright opposed in practice the very tenets that Marx suggests. The fact that it was more of a capitalist system suggests that it was a loss for capitalism.

Nor was it a victory for capitalism in the sense that the United States happened to be on “the winning side” in this scenario. There’s never been a genuinely capitalist system in the United States, whether you are looking at the largely interventionist and protectionist policies of Alexander Hamilton or the major advancements of both the 19th and 20th century: the railroads, the automotive industry, aviation, weapons, computers, satellites, which were all largely created as a result of public investment, rather than private industry.

So to suggest that the “Marxist/Capitalist debate ended in 1989” is nothing short of pure fantasy, mostly perpetuated by indoctrination systems. Take for example, why the Soviet Union was widely understood as a Marxist/socialist nation when it so clearly was not. Well, the reason why is because it benefited the two most powerful, elite institutions in the world for people to believe in such a myth. It was important for the Soviet Union to perpetuate the myth that they were a socialist state because it made the Russian people falsely believe that even as they were living in a total hellhole that they were in a system that was largely working for their benefit. And simultaneously, it was important for the United States to perpetuate the myth that Russia was a socialist system because genuine socialism represents a legitimate threat to the wealthy elite who essentially run the country and therefore it was essential to concoct a negative model that could be called socialist. When the two great indoctrination systems (US and Soviets) were pushing the same lie, it is no surprise that so many people should believe the myth while being blinded to both the historical and documentary record that so easily undermines it.

Ultimately I do agree with GreatUrduPoet on a central point here and that is that wonderful things can happen when people are informed.

I'm no fan of Alex Jones, but I love the Obamaphone Lady!
http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-wakes-up-obama-phone-lady/

It's settled, this really is the twilight zone.  The two of them sitting down -- crazy!  Is this some kind of joke, the whole world's in on it... 'cept me?

Apparently she thinks Obama won't even finish out his second term.  Wha???  Hey, don't scoff.  Remember -- she picked the winner and she said "Romney sucks."

Alex Jones sounds like Ned out of South Park.

But what happens when the people are informed but don't care or listen and have already made up their minds based upon this indoctrinated idea of a "free market" or the "left" being weak and the "right" being strong? .... How do you inform those who care not to be informed?

As I see it, the only relevance "right" or "left" has is if you are a corporate CEO and need to pick politicians to bankroll so they'll get your corporation more government subsidies....

What do we do?  We stop doing.  That's what I would do!  Who's job is it to do the informing anyway?  Informing of what?  Who's entitled to know -- who decides who doesn't know?

If we weaken/lessen government involvement in every damn aspect of human and business existence... they have no power to misinform.  No power to be futzing corporations.  No money to pass out... no power.  Shut'em down.  Shut down the gravy train.

But won't SOMETHING take over from there? And please don't say "The Free Market"

You can take apart the puzzle and cut the pieces into different shapes, but you put the puzzle back together and it's still the same picture....

Can I say... free people?

That's more like it  :)