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If they keep over spending on everything, eventually this government will run out of money(it has) and run out of places to borrow(it will) and then we won't have social programs OR a military and then everyone loses.

Mayo, if you taxed 100% of the rich you wouldn't be able to run the government for more than like 3 months. Obama's plan is a rain bucket in the pacific ocean at best. Until spending is cut by a metric shit ton, this country is on the fast track to broke town.

There will be no future should the GOP win. I mean, isn't "future" and "progress" the anti-christs in conservative philosophy? The whole let's pretend it's still the past and throw things like stem cell research, gay marriage, alternative energy, and other things that invest in ourselves out the window?

Please, you're no longer fooling anyone. The only people who cling to this dying ideology are those who won't see any direct (monetary or otherwise) benefit from progress.

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Prediction for next four years (and yes I will say "I told you so")
-Romney will get like 45% of the vote and steal what he needs to win
-Obama will refuse to push the issue
-Right-wingers will give all kinds of specious nonsense why it's not a steal
-Romney will raise taxes on the poor and middle tax and champion some sort of feudal-like wage slavery program
-Romney will dramatically increase military and Gestapo spending, while not making enough extra in tax receipts to cover it
-Romney will make some token efforts to axe Social Security but will be frustrated in this by Democrats, then sit on his hands as mandatory cuts roll in, leave states to pick up the difference then push for removal of federal health & safety regulation so corporations can divide and conquer
-All of this will STILL not get the economy rolling, solve our monetary issues, or reduce the deficit
-Country will sink into poverty and third-world chaos
-The right-wing will continue to be a bunch of "frustrated millionaires" and blame the liberals for everything

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

No matter which side wins, there's always a bunch of morons on the other side saying this. It hasn't been true so far, it's not going to be any truer this election.



No, that's just something unthinking liberals tell themselves so they can feel smugly superior.



The gay marriage thing is a moral/cultural issue. Some people don't want to see things change. Not surprisingly, a lot of them are in the party that draws more evangelical Christians. Go figure. However, it's not just republicans that have a problem with gay marriage. The majority of blacks vote democrat, and there's a huge backlash against gay marriage in the black community.

Stem cells aren't just a scientific issue, they're a moral/ethical issue, as well. Unfortunately, since the issue has been linked to abortion due to the use or suggested use of fetal stem cells, there are obviously going to be some people who are opposed to public funding when it's discussed as a moral ethical issue.

As a scientific issue, stem cells and alternative energy aren't opposed because "republicans hate science" or whatever the most recent idiocy of that nature is. As a matter of budget, republicans are supposed to oppose this kind of spending not because there is something wrong with what is being developed, but because those things should be developed through the markets, where the most efficient and profitable technology will win out. The fact that republicans in general fail to live up to the ideals they're supposed to represent and continually fund subsidies and special tax breaks gives cover to the idea that they're opposing funding because they're a bunch of luddites.



Since everyone sees a benefit, tangible or not, from what most people would call "progress," then obviously nobody opposes progress and it's kind of a moot point.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

I think they just vote for whoever has a cooler flag pin

Brawlsack

Taking an extended hiatus from gaming

We're here, aren't we? At this dismal juncture with no good way out? Were we "always" here or did we get here through 60 years of bad and mostly right-wing decisions?



You're doing it again - manifesting your painful insecurity by way of projection. Where some people overcome their insecurity by expanding their minds, you accomplish the same end by thickening your skull to resist intrusions of the outside world.

Conservative philosophy is all about smug superiority. Stupid Americans who have more than they deserve insisting they got it entirely on their own, without any help from society or government, and that it's only the unworthy insisting that a nation with a future demands some sacrifice that they think they're better than having to make, whether it's taxation, changes in energy lifestyle, military service, or just plain reading some books.

No matter how low the bar is set they insist they are better than having to climb it. That is "smug superiority".




Neither are social or moral issues - they're superstitions.

What is really wrong with American society and morals is that Americans have so far lost their way as to what "social and moral" issues really are that they have forgotten the very existence of the concepts that were fixed in the minds of the great white men who built this country.



Doesn't work that way, never has.

We've gone over this. You were provided facts to that effect. You didn't want to engage the facts. This is the right-wing Jezebel. Reject reality and subscribe to your preferred brand of unreality, then make up the difference with long-winded blather. As I observed, the pattern of behavior is larger than the arbitrary affiliations it creates.



I think most people call "progress" a better world. Safer, more prosperous, more secure, more livable and of course happier.

But that's not what conservatives talk about. In true 1984 fashion they constantly allude to peace, prosperity and social harmony while loudly advocating the opposite. Orwell was prescient.

Let the record show: wars, poverty, debt slavery, the blaming of every other group in society than affluent WASPs who have traditionally had most of the power and been responsible for setting the country's direction for good and bad, passing the costs onto the environment and insisting that the way to the future is in making people hungry, desperate, and at the mercy of the rich and powerful.

I remember watching the movie production of 1984. There's a poignant scene which is actually not in the book, but is so well done unlike most original scenes in book-to-movie that it actually does honor to Orwell's work.

Winston Smith gets on a train to go to the outskirts of the town. On the train he notices a youth group chorus singing about the future, and they're very good singers, too... then the camera pans away and we see the train pulling away from the station. It's an old hulk from the 1900s, one of those with an oblong-shaped smokestack. The Party talks about the future even while barely scraping by on the crumbling ruins of the past.

We see that in America too. Talk about the future, about education, the economy, the environment.

Talk about Romney as a master economic planner, as if he didn't make his fortune selling everything this country worked so long and hard to build to the Chinese so we could hear how he "made HIS money", and now tells us the road to prosperity is through inescapable poverty. As if Romney ever in his life rolled up his sleeves not to make a self-serving speech but to wash dishes or serve tables.

Talk about how a better future awaits us, so we must squander what little is left of our environmental resources, including those wisely set aside by men like Teddy Roosevelt.

Talk about how a freer and more equal society await, so we must blame black people, immigrants, the poor, the Europeans, Chinese and Arabs, and everyone else who's never had it so good - like Winston Smith watching an old couple of foreign extraction be ignited by a mob - everyone but those driving the train to nowhere.

The entire point of that scene, what makes it so poignant, is the unasked and unanswered question:
What will the Party do when that train finally breaks down?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

A "dismal juncture" still represents some option, not a dead end. As for someone "doing it again," that response not only really doesn't address anything that I said, it represents little more than "you're wrong because I said so." There are definitely conservatives who are as smugly condescending as any liberal, but in neither case do those who are smug and condescending represent the majority. Not every liberal is Bill Maher, and I'm not so partisan as to believe that's the case, which is why I limit the insult to "unthinking liberals" of the type that need to validate themselves by suggesting the only reason anyone would disagree with them relates to some deficiency of intellect or outlook.

Whether you prefer to dismiss the moral discussion about policy matters as "superstition" or not doesn't change the fact that morality is a factor in policy matters.

Nor do I need your "facts" to tell me exactly what I'd just said: That republican elected officials fail to uphold the principles many of their constituents elect them to support. The only reason they continue to be elected has nothing to do with "cognitive dissonance" and everything to do with the fact that the only alternative are politicians who don't even bother to pay lip service to those ideals and instead think subsidies, tax breaks, and cronyism are great ways to build and maintain the country.

Progress can be a lot of things. Sometimes it's realizing you're heading in the wrong direction and changing course. Many of our actual advances seem to have come hand-in-hand with many of our actual declines. We've moved in a positive direction in the last 100 years on issues like gender/race equality only to watch ourselves slip on issues like single-parent families, divorce, and teen pregnancy.

So what will the party do when the train finally breaks down? That depends on the party. We have at least one that will build some trains and fuel them, but we have another that would rather pour those resources into developing hovercars and ban the coal that runs the trains before a single hovercar is off the ground. The choice is only complicated if you don't mind walking to where you're going.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Sorry, Fanta. I love how the argument is, "You can't like Romney because his economic plan, and the math, just doesn't add up!" Well, neither did Obama's.

1.4T Deficit in 2009.
1.2T Deficit in 2010.
1.3T Deficit in 2011.
1.1T Deficit in 2012.

At worst, we get more massive deficits. At best, we get a stronger recovery. I'm not sure if reducing taxes, closing loopholes and reducing deductions is a solvent plan... but, that's not all he's proposing. His plan also calls for cutting several programs, reducing the federal workforce by 10%, capping the federal governments ability to spend, reducing the corporate tax rate to be competitive in the world, reforming some entitlement programs (which, according to a report released by the Congressional Research Service, entitlement spending for low income people has risen 38% in 2011 to nearly $800B -- which is more than the government appropriated in 2011 to the department of defense's operations and foreign/economic aid combined), reducing needless regulation (not removing all regulation), repeal expensive legislation (like ObamaCare) among other things. His hope is to make our country appealing to business and industry in hopes they return return to America. He's betting on the labor force growing to provide for more tax revenue. Will that make it solvent? Who knows... but, like I said countless times before... if it fails, it'll be no different than Obama's economic record.

@Thul - I have a meeting to prepare for. I'll get you my reasoning (quotes and all) for why Romney was stronger on those subjects soon.

When in doubt, speak in vague generalizations, turn the exception into the rule, and deny all terms and definitions.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Are you willing to get canned? Or see your salary cut to what someone with your qualifications would earn in the private sector?

If that's what cutting the federal budget means, will you cheerfully bite that bullet? Yes or no?



Civilian welfare goes directly back into the economy through civil spending. Military welfare does not.
One is an economic break-even. The other is a hole in the ground.




There's a very simple flaw in this argument, though.

To "make business return to America" we would have to steal unskilled jobs from China. We can't compete with the EU and India in skilled labor because our educational system blows.

Chinese workers get paid something like a dollar a day. Even if the tax rate were 100%, it isn't mathematically possible to undercut China and yield enough revenue to make good the difference.

More than that, let me ask: are you - you, personally - willing to live the way the Chinese do? You the same person who doesn't want to sustain tax cuts for fear of YOUR standard of living etc?

What, in your mind, puts you in a position expect other Americans to live like peasants when you won't even make the most marginal of sacrifices?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Things are looking great!

Guys. This ship is sinking, and your choices here are simply which party you think might stall the inevitable. Our system is broken beyond repair, and this is why neither candidate can give us anything we can sink our teeth into. They have no answers because there are no answers to $16+ TRILLION that don't cause more pain than Americans are willing to bear. We need to stop pretending. Globally, America is Lance Armstrong…exposed as a fraud. It is laughable, arrogant, hypocritical (other words, too) that we would force our broken system on other countries to fix them. At home, politicians are reduced to weak counter-punch band-aids to huge problems because we are bankrupt. Broke. Beggars. We used to buy our friends and bludgeon our enemies with money. That shit is finished. Instead of figuring out who you want to vote for, you should be getting your “life vest” prepared. The greatest captain in history can’t save this ship under the current conditions. We’re all about to get wet.

Boredalt - 80 Dwarf Priest - Dissension

Ron Paul 2012

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I don't entirely agree.

The debt is payable and the economy fixable - but doing so would require measures Americans aren't yet scared enough to accept:

-Massive tax hikes on gasoline
-Require foreign-made goods sold in America to be produced in accordance with American law
-Nationalize core areas of the economy (water, power, telecom, hospitals)
-Nationalize most banks and divy up their assets, cancelling most mortgages at a stroke
-Introduce price controls on rent, tuition, and other plebian expenses
-Massive tax increases on the wealthy
-Disband much of the military and sell off many military assets
-Disband the Fed and integrate its functions into one of the branches of government
-Write T-bills held by banks and foreign investors down to the principal
-Annul the current currency, replace it with a new one, and introduce a retroactive tax on the big winners in the economy. Turn-ins of old dollars for new currency greater than $25k must include documentation proving the money was earned legally and taxed according to both the old and new code, otherwise the currency is deemed void
-State and federal debt redeemed for the new currency at a discount against the outstanding balance

The national debt isn't caused by federal spending, it's caused by the overpoweredness of the American currency coupled with the weakness of the American economy. Obviously a currency that has been too strong for too long encourages buying things from abroad, with the result that the domestic economy withers away.

The only way to change this is to restructure the economy so that the core - the cost of land, food, power, basic materials - is stable and brings the cost of living, working and doing business down. The power of big business must be broken and the country's wealth (by that I mean mainly land and access to cash) spread more evenly so the wheels of capitalism can get spinning again. There must also be massive investment in domestic infrastructure and education, and the only way we can afford that is, again, restructure the economy so that the cost of living goes down.

I am convinced that the biggest problem with the economy is overinvestment in land, that is driving an epidemic of sprawl and speculation that has driven the cost of housing in urban and suburban areas through the roof. It must stop. The best way to stop it is Henry George economics, heavy taxes on owning non-homestead land, and introducing restrictive zoning ordinances to prevent sprawl. There also need to be incentives, positive as well as negative, to encourage more high-rise construction and thus more cheap urban housing.

Cheap housing, cheap power and cheap utilities will make it possible to invest in infrastructure buildup - train tracks, shipyards, power plants, vocational colleges, water projects, reforestation, medical clinics.

This is how a good economy is made. This is what China and Germany did. This is how it's done. The "hurr durr free market" doesn't create wealth out of thin air, it operates in whatever economic and legal environment is established. And the way a favorable environment is established is through vigorous government programs. It's what works, it's what has always worked, and it's what will always work.

Like I said, eventually Americans will get poor and desperate enough that they'll start listening to new old ideas. The problems we have aren't unsolvable, people just aren't ready for the solutions yet.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

I like a lot of those ideas Aestu, but I think the tax hikes on gasoline wouldn't have the desired affect. The problem is the profits of the huge oil companies....if you just taxed gas more, they will just pass all of that onto the consumer. You need to make something that gouges the profits of big oil (Exxon, BP) - put a cap or something on it. No oil company can have a profit margin greater than .05% or something intense.

Causing gas prices to skyrocket will fuck over commuters and a lot of people who have to travel far for shitty jobs. Not to mention how it would mess up air travel and mobility. The way America is set up...gas needs to remain cheap to continue the economy. Europe can handle it because everything is so much closer together, cities are set up differently, and public transit is much more efficient.

If you cause gas prices to skyrocket...a city like Houston, Texas, one of the best economic/job growth cities, will get absolutely handicapped.