OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Ironhawk]

Note to Mods: Please do not move this thread! I dont care about shrapnel players as a whole, I just want to know what dominions players think.

If you are a US citizen who is capable of voting, I'm curious to know how you are going to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections. I think it will be really interesting to see the pattern of the dominions community.

[licker]

You need more options, there are more than 2 candidates running afterall...

fwiw, I'm voting Nader.

[Ironhawk]

My bad man - truthfully I havent been paying any attention to any candidates other than the major ones. I'd go back and re-work the poll if I could figure out the new forums system...

[Trumanator]

HOLY SH--. Its actually even after I voted. Maybe the thread I started just attracted all the people who don't like the major parties, especially McCain.

[Edratman]

I would be classified as a yellow dog democrat. :banana:

[Gandalf Parker]

Im voting my party. The Toggle Party (I made it up).
I dont feel that either major party has things SO correct that they should remain in office for too long. So I tend to vote for whichever party is not presently in the office. They both do good things but after 4 years they can take it too far. Going back and forth seems to balance things out.
Just IMHO.

Gandalf Parker
-- Politicians are alot like diapers.
They should be changed frequently. And for the same reasons.

[AdmiralZhao]

2 votes for Nader.

[licker]

Gandalf, you really should consider voting for a 3rd party then.

The distinction between the dems and repubs is really quite small if you actually look at what they do once they gain office.

[Trumanator]

Gandalf's definitely got one of the more sane and rational philosophies that I've heard over time.

[DonCorazon]

oops, i accidentally clicked McCain. sorry long day. wow and that was the tie-breaker.

[thejeff]

And here we go again:

licker, can you really say there is little difference after the last 8 years? I felt the same way after 8 years of Clinton, when I felt the Democrats had drifted too far to the center, leaving little distinction between them and Republicans. 8 years of disastrous and embarrassing foreign policies and economic disasters later...

Two quotes wandering around the internet that sort of sum up how I feel:
Republicans claim that government can't work, then get elected to prove it.
Sometimes it seems the Democrats are trying to prove they're as bad as the Republicans, and the Republicans are trying to prove them wrong.

[rdonj]

I'm not voting for either of them, they both want to do things I seriously disagree with.

[licker]

And here we go again:

licker, can you really say there is little difference after the last 8 years? I felt the same way after 8 years of Clinton, when I felt the Democrats had drifted too far to the center, leaving little distinction between them and Republicans. 8 years of disastrous and embarrassing foreign policies and economic disasters later...

Two quotes wandering around the internet that sort of sum up how I feel:
Republicans claim that government can't work, then get elected to prove it.
Sometimes it seems the Democrats are trying to prove they're as bad as the Republicans, and the Republicans are trying to prove them wrong.

What does the last 8 years have to do with anything? 4 years ago if you said the last 4 years you would have had a better point. The republican party (and McCain particularly) have distanced themselves quite a bit from Bush.

My point is that the dems and repubs are seemingly more interested in simply maintaining their own power than actually accomplishing anything. This is more a knock on congress than it is on the POTUS, but I don't care. I'm sick of being told I only have two choices, and I'm sick of those two choices constantly being subpar if not outright horrific.

Hell I haven't voted for a dem or repub since Clintons first term, and that tends to include the local races (though in some of them there is no other choice).

I take it you are a democrat, which is fine, but honestly, what do you think Obama can or will actually accomplish? What has the democratic legislature accomplished, or even tried to accomplish?

Its a disgusting mess and we would be best served by simply throwing out the lot of them and getting rid of the DNC and RNC. Too much money is at stake for these groups to give up the reins of power, and so they continue to simply do what they need to do to maintain their positions, and survive, which isn't good for the rest of us.

[Ironhawk]

I agree that the two-party system is quite lame. My preference would be to have a primer minister assembling a coalition government as many other nations do. However, we have to work with the system we have - barring a revolution.

[Edratman]

I'm not voting for either of them, they both want to do things I seriously disagree with.

The predominant problem with that attitude is that door #3 has failed to establish itself as a viable alternative at this point in time. This shortcoming on the part of door #3, and in my opinion the onus is really on door #3, reduces those who choose that option as very minor fringe dissenters.

The country has a past history of new political parties. The Republican party came into existance in the 1850's as an anti-slavery party. The Progressive party, usually known as the Bull Moose party arose in the early 1900's, but didn't generate significent legs.

I agree that one or more new political options are required. But today they do not exist and those who consider voting for the insignificent alternatives are not really dissenters, but merely non-voters in a different cloak.

[Omnirizon]

Note to Mods: Please do not move this thread! I dont care about shrapnel players as a whole, I just want to know what dominions players think.

If you are a US citizen who is capable of voting, I'm curious to know how you are going to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections. I think it will be really interesting to see the pattern of the dominions community.

you should have put "US citizen who is allowed to vote". Just being allowed to vote doesn't make one capable of voting, and being capable of voting doesn't allow one to vote.

[licker]

I'm not voting for either of them, they both want to do things I seriously disagree with.

The predominant problem with that attitude is that door #3 has failed to establish itself as a viable alternative at this point in time. This shortcoming on the part of door #3, and in my opinion the onus is really on door #3, reduces those who choose that option as very minor fringe dissenters.

The country has a past history of new political parties. The Republican party came into existance in the 1850's as an anti-slavery party. The Progressive party, usually known as the Bull Moose party arose in the early 1900's, but didn't generate significent legs.

I agree that one or more new political options are required. But today they do not exist and those who consider voting for the insignificent alternatives are not really dissenters, but merely non-voters in a different cloak.

nonsense.

Those who continue to propagate the current two party system are either sheep, or delusional enough to think that the lessor of two evils is still somehow worth voting for.

The problem is not with the candidates per se. To be sure neither Obama nor McCain are by default bad people, and neither are they crazy or socialists, or whatever other ridiculous smears have been concocted to fed the media.

The problem is with the system as it CURRENTLY exists. Its meaningless to talk about 1850 or 1900, there is no comparison to the current conditions surrounding how candidates are allowed access to the media, much less access to debates or other public avenues to present their message.

MONEY and POWER are all that we see today, and the RNC and DNC don't want to see it change. Why are no 3rd party candidates allowed to appear in the debates? Do you know when this happened? Do you know why this happened?

The league of women voters used to coordinate the debates, but dropped it as the dnc and rnc began to try to control the events and shape them into the meaningless sound clip fests they have become. The organization which controls the debates today doesn't allow 3rd party candidates to even get a sniff at participation.

So honestly, how would you know if these 3rd party candidates are worth listening to or not? Probably just because you've bought the lies the media and politicians would have you believe.

The governance of this country is a complete joke, and it doesn't matter who pretends they are in charge the end result is the same, 2 parties, 2 candidates saying whatever it takes to get elected, and then simply doing whatever they damn well please since there is no accountability for any of them.

The only way out of this is to break the 2 party stranglehold, and you don't do that by continuing to vote for those 2 parties, you don't do it by not voting (that's completely asinine). You do it by voting for a 3rd party, and giving some of your time and even money to supporting and educating others on the reasons why the 2 party system in this country is slowly but surely destroying it.

[Ironhawk]

Wow, licker, get down off the soapbox.

The two party system doesnt have anything to do with money or power or whatever. It has to do with having ONE powerful position to fill. If there were multiple positions, a la the senate and the house, then you have freedom to make more interesting choices. If there is only one tho, then you must organize into the largest possible aggregate body in order to have an impact. Its as simple as that.

[Epaminondas]

I am not a fan of either McCain or Obama, but Obama really makes me retch and puke. He seems to me the classic politico with no settled principles, willing to do anything to get elected. Ironically, he's a lot like his arch-nemeses, the Clintons, in that respect.

[rdonj]

Unfortunately, edratman, I completely agree with this assessment. But I refuse to vote for someone just because they're slightly better than the other candidate who's actually capable of being elected.

Licker: I disagree that you have to be either a sheep or delusional to vote for one of the major candidates, that is too narrow of a grouping and does not account for all variables.

I also disagree with this - "So honestly, how would you know if these 3rd party candidates are worth listening to or not? Probably just because you've bought the lies the media and politicians would have you believe."

I don't know about you but I haven't heard ANYTHING about the 3rd party candidates. And I'm sure many others haven't either. I would bet more people just don't care about them because they get no media attention. How are we ever going to elect someone who doesn't get any air time? From what I can tell the majority of american voters get most if not all of their information from television. Sad, but it seems to be the case.

[Spendios]

Cthulhu '08

Why vote for a lesser evil ?

[Meursy]

lol! :P

(high fives Spendios)

[Ironhawk]

LOL nice, spendios

[Micah]

I was for Nader in 2000, and man, did I learn that lesson. As much as the "they're all the same" rhetoric sounds nice, and even has a lot of truth to it, there's a pretty big difference between the parties, since I don't recall 8 years of wanting to flee the country before Bush was elected.

Voting for a third party is a wasted vote on a national election (though locally they can and do win, which is awesome). If you really want to get some change started and make 3rd parties a viable reality instant-runoff voting seems like a pretty damn good place to start, not shooting for the white house. If people can't even organize enough to get what's a pretty common-sense approach to voting to be enacted I can't imagine actually getting a nuanced 3rd party candidate choice voted into office.

That being said, I think a proportional representation system would be even better, but let's start small, shall we?

[licker]

Licker: I disagree that you have to be either a sheep or delusional to vote for one of the major candidates, that is too narrow of a grouping and does not account for all variables.

I also disagree with this - "So honestly, how would you know if these 3rd party candidates are worth listening to or not? Probably just because you've bought the lies the media and politicians would have you believe."

I don't know about you but I haven't heard ANYTHING about the 3rd party candidates. And I'm sure many others haven't either. I would bet more people just don't care about them because they get no media attention. How are we ever going to elect someone who doesn't get any air time? From what I can tell the majority of american voters get most if not all of their information from television. Sad, but it seems to be the case.

I agree, my first statement was a bit strong, but was only made in response to an equally strong, and equally limited statement.

As to the 3rd parties...

That's my point!

Do you think the Green party or the libertarian party does not roots? Why is it that you haven't heard what they are saying, other than that you are just taking what is spoon fed to you.

They have been on NPR, they have been in some newspapers, and they have had some limited TV exposure, but the main stream media doesn't touch them.

And why?

Because they know who is cutting them their checks for all the ad time they allow.

Take MONEY out of the political equation as much as possible and you'll start to hear more varied platforms and opinions. European nations do this, sure, they have their big parties, but the smaller parties are also heard from, with our winner takes all congressional design (which isn't necessarily a bad design, it's just been completely subverted by the haves to completely exclude the have nots) if you are not a repub or a dem you get very little monetary support (which is derived from the dnc and rnc) and have very little chance to actually compete.

Look at Obama and his earlier stance on what money he would use for the campaign, and how he completely discarded that stance when he realized he would benefit more by dropping it. Disgusting, and just another example of our politicians doing whatever they want since they know there are no consequences.

McCain is no saint here either, none of them are, that's my point. Voting for them is just casting your ballot for more of the same screw job we've become accustomed to.

For either of those candidates, if you support them and they win, write down what their campaign promises were, and then actually bother to track what and how they go about fulfilling them. Of course most people won't do this, hell most people don't even know what the promises are, other than in some incredibly pointless and generic sense.

Change? What the hell does that mean? It could mean anything, and it probably will since both campaigns are using it.

[Tichy]

Two words, guys. Judicial appointments.



As one commentator (can't remember who) put it about Obama: "It'll be nice to have a president who has read the Federalist Papers."

[DonCorazon]

I realize arguing politics is pretty hopeless since nobody ever changes their mind. I will just say that any chance that I might vote for McCain vanished when he picked Palin as VP. The thought of her as president is terrifying and IMHO reflect very poorly on McCain's judgment. Obama is smart and was against the Iraq war when it wasn't cool to be which I think reflects well on his character and intellect. For me the choice is easy and I think a vote for McCain is irresponsible because it puts the presidency one heart attack away from Palin.

[rdonj]

The one good thing about sarah palin is, so far as I can tell, she actually does what she says she's going to do. Even if she decides later it was a bad idea and tries to pretend she didn't really do it.

Personally, I want presidential campaign money to come from taxes and guarantee all candidates equal air time, or at least all candidates who received a certain amount of votes. Of course, it would be better if we didn't have to pay for it, but at least that way it would lessen the power of money to influence the elections.

[Lingchih]

Gee, this is starting to look like a landslide. I hope the general election goes the same way.

I already voted (for Obama). Unfortunately, I live in Texas, so that was a thrown away vote essentially.

[otthegreat]

I'm curious about what some of our friends outside of the US (i.e other dominions players) think about the two party system. I agree with what seems to be the general opinion here that it needs some work.

One thing I like about Vermont is that campaigns run on a very limited budget so third parties are better represented. In fact the republican candidate for senate last election spent much more money and ran the first real attack adds we've seen in the state. I was very happy when the whole scheme backfired and the independent won handily (admittedly no democrat was running).

[Ironhawk]

Yeah I'm surprised to see so many Obama votes. I had a thought that it would be more even, or perhaps McCain-leaning. Very interesting so far!

[lch]

Try something else than the Dom3 forums, then.

[AreaOfEffect]

Please people, make sure you investigate the candidates for other offices. The president is not a lawmaker, but those running for the house and senate are. The winners of these 'small' elections make up the pool of people who run for the larger national offices. I beg you, please do not allow another Sarah Palin to become a governor, a senator, or representative. Only you can prevent forest fires.

[quantum_mechani]

Yeah I'm surprised to see so many Obama votes. I had a thought that it would be more even, or perhaps McCain-leaning. Very interesting so far!Really? It's pretty much exactly what I would have predicted... I think virtually every person I've talked politics with on the dominions channel was either pro Obama (or at least anti Mcain) or didn't care at all.

I would suggest gaming in general, and probably Dominions themes in particular filters out a lot of conservative folk.

[chrispedersen]

nonsense.

Those who continue to propagate the current two party system are either sheep, or delusional enough to think that the lessor of two evils is still somehow worth voting for.


Nonsense yourself.

I've studied enough politics to have a minor in it. And have been around the world and studied various forms of government. The two party system has advantages (and disadvantages) over a multi party system and I for one am more than content in it.

I am actually surprised to see so many mccain supporters - and somewhat heartened by it. Youth and online tends to be strongly in favor of Obama - perhaps gamers are more rational (or conservative).

[chrispedersen]

Please people, make sure you investigate the candidates for other offices. The president is not a lawmaker, but those running for the house and senate are. The winners of these 'small' elections make up the pool of people who run for the larger national offices. I beg you, please do not allow another Sarah Palin to become a governor, a senator, or representative. Only you can prevent forest fires.

I would be happy to have Palin as my governor, senator or representative. Just as most of her constituents are.
Despite your opinion of her, prior to the start of this election campaign she had the highest sustained favorability rating of any governer in history.

[AreaOfEffect]

I am actually surprised to see so many mccain supporters - and somewhat heartened by it. Youth and online tends to be strongly in favor of Obama - perhaps gamers are more rational (or conservative).

Are you implying that those who don't vote for McCain are somehow less rational. Not only is that implication not sound, it is also invalid.

I would be happy to have Palin as my governor, senator or representative. Just as most of her constituents are. Despite your opinion of her, prior to the start of this election campaign she had the highest sustained favorability rating of any governer in history.

Your last statement sounds like a canned comment, but I'll indulge. I see little connection between favorablility and qualification. Please explain why she is suitable for any political position.

[rabelais]

Oy, Politics.

I have an actual button with Spendios Cthulhu slogan. :D

It is true that the parties, as game theory would suggest, are less different than we would like, but ever since reagan got elected in 1980, after making a deal to *delay* the release of the Iranian hostages, and then getting caught giving them arms as the back end of a quid pro quo, it is VERY apparent that the parties are not the same.

The previously unimaginable horror show that Chimpy, {Gombe division} Inc. (err, I mean the Bush administration) has ushered in is just the second go around farce.

The funny thing about wanting the flee the country post-bush is ...that as a friend of mine pointed out, we don't have to move, very soon we'll be living in Peronist Brazil.

My wife and I have already voted for Obama in texas. (HAHAHA... pointless I know) He may disappoint us, or prove incapable of dislodging the corporate overlordship once he gets in.... but the certainty of disaster and perpetual war with McCain and his VP "W-in-a-skirt" makes it not a difficult choice.

Particularly as the republicans stole the last two elections, have gratuitously killed over a million iraqis and have nothing but obfuscation, vote suppression and racist-dog whistle fear-mongering to recommend them. Plus the McCain of this campaign makes Mitt Romney look principled.

We have a 4 month old... the world will be bad enough when he grows up, ...we don't have to make it worse by pretending political choices don't matter, assuming you believe the election isn't controlled by a consortium of Di-e-boldic imps inside the voting machines.

Conservatism is one thing, I think history has proven conservatives are almost always wrong, but it's plausible in its no longer practiced Burkean form... these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists.

And that's all I've got to say about that....:doh:

[Trumanator]

If you're surprised at the poll results, then you probably didn't see the pres election thread I started a month or so ago. That certainly rattled the hornets' nest, particularly as I was supporting McCain.

[licker]

Wow rabelais...

And I thought my opinion would be the most off kilter in this thread...

Bravo, you've swallowed the moveon.org lines and can puke them up at will, I'm sure we'll be much better off with a group of people who don't bother to investigate the issues, but merely parrot whatever their 'intellectual' masters tell them.

And no, I'm not a supporter of Bush or McCain and have not and will not vote for them.

My guess is you would be quick to defend people like Pelosi and Reid, not to mention Jefferson just on general principles. They must be good people because they are not republicans!!!

Sheep, as I already said.

Its odd though, I was expecting at least one person to mention Ron Paul...

[Gandalf Parker]

WARNING!
When a topic shifts from a topic to individuals it is in danger of disappearing

[JimMorrison]

In the grand scheme of bureaucratic governance, two things have seemed to emerge to become more and more true in the past few decades -

1) The Democrats are bad.

2) The Republicans are even worse.


This trend, which seems to be deepening, is pushing everyone towards a third conclusion -

3) Maybe we need to change our entire system before we will actually experience these "new ideas" and this "change" that everyone seems to agree that we need, but can never agree on how to do it because the people elected to espouse it (Repubs and Demos), look towards their own needs before they look to the needs of this once flourishing and progressive nation.


However, as our hands get forced, without a viable third option (it must be someone who captures the love and imagination of the vast majority of the people - no easy task), I, like many others, voted for Obama out of little more than abject terror at the thought of even 4 years of McCain (bad enough on their own, but following the last 8 it could be disastrous).

[licker]

The current crop of republicans are hardly republicans. What they represent is indeed terrible, but I'm not convinced that the democrats solutions are any better.

Goldwater republicans would be a welcome sight, but the party has been corrupted and those few who still preach and care about fiscal conservatism have essentially been cast aside for what used to be the moral majority type fringe.

We don't need someone to capture imagination, that's what Obama is trying to do, we need someone who actually has some basis for believing them when they say what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it.

Michael Bloomberg is perhaps the closest thing we have to this, but he's not running... yet...

When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil. Man up, and don't buy the line that your vote doesn't count, because if you vote for democrat or republican, truly, your vote was wasted.

-Gandalf, understood, but its politics if someone spews a load of tripe they should be called on it (and that goes for me as well), I for one am able to keep my feelings about it separate from anything else. Though I am much more comfortable in a completely open forum setting, I understand that others do not want that.

[JimMorrison]

We don't need someone to capture imagination, that's what Obama is trying to do, we need someone who actually has some basis for believing them when they say what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it...

I didn't say "someone who can lead us off to fantasyland". Too many people look on politics with a dull, glazed-over, and disenchanted eye. They need someone whom they can BELIEVE will truly change the way that things work, for the betterment of all. Obviously, they need some kind of substance, they need something to offer us that we can believe in - both the vision and the inspiration are necessary.


When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil. Man up, and don't buy the line that your vote doesn't count, because if you vote for democrat or republican, truly, your vote was wasted.

Nonsense. That's like saying that when you're imprisoned, and they feed you, that eating that food is accepting a life of imprisonment. If I let my principles allow McCain to win (say the vote went 40% Mccain, 30% Obama, 30% Nader), then I will have failed as a citizen, because people like McCain are the greatest threat that this nation faces.


We're in a sinking ship. You have 3 choices for votes this election - continue sinking, with McCain - a little bucket, with Obama, - or a brand new ship which isn't going to come in our stocking this year.

I'll take the bucket while more people figure out that we need the new ship.

[NTJedi]

We don't need someone to capture imagination, that's what Obama is trying to do, we need someone who actually has some basis for believing them when they say what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it...

I didn't say "someone who can lead us off to fantasyland". Too many people look on politics with a dull, glazed-over, and disenchanted eye. They need someone whom they can BELIEVE will truly change the way that things work, for the betterment of all. Obviously, they need some kind of substance, they need something to offer us that we can believe in - both the vision and the inspiration are necessary.



I don't have any faith Obama has what it takes to be president. I'm not happy about McCain either, but at least he has stronger experience in the military and businesses.

Any speeches about raising taxes for those of high income have never worked because there's way too many loop holes... so many the wealthy pay multi-certified accountants to find them otherwise the wealthy would just use H&R Block or equivalent. I'm sure many high income employees are provided types of payments which are overseas and non-taxable as well. The wealthy actually fuel each others income via charities(tax right off), investments(losses are tax right offs), advertising(tax right offs), etc., .

The only real way to effectively tax the wealthy would be a flat tax rate. Yet this will never happen because too many government employees rely on the complex tax system for jobs.

[JimMorrison]

I don't have any faith Obama has what it takes to be president. I'm not happy about McCain either, but at least he has stronger experience in the military and businesses.

At what cost does this "experience" come? I honestly don't believe that anyone over 60 is going to be effectual at meeting the challenges of this rapidly changing modern world. We need someone with flexibility and ingenuity far more than we need someone with some tremendous depth of experience in running the country into the ground. Oddly enough, looking back at history, most of the presidents who did the best things for the country, were those who were younger when they took the office.


Any speeches about raising taxes for those of high income have never worked because there's way too many loop holes... so many the wealthy pay multi-certified accountants to find them otherwise the wealthy would just use H&R Block or equivalent.

I am totally mystified by this argument. Since it will be difficult to try to tax the (exorbitantly) wealthy, you would prefer to vote someone in who has already pledged to reduce taxes on those whom we seem to have trouble getting money out of in the first place? Yes, it will be an uphill struggle to make massive multi-national conglomerate corporations, and their fabulously wealthy kings contribute fairly to the governance of the nation. However, to accomplish this goal, one must try. Only one of the two candidates who stands a chance to be elected is willing to try to fill loopholes, and raise the effectiveness of the system. The other candidate has stated quite clearly, time and time again, that he is in favor of reducing stated taxes on those who can afford them, and in creating more loopholes and deductions for them.

"Tax the poor and feed the rich - and you can be quite sure that eventually the rich will be so wealthy, they will take pity on the poor, and take better care of them."


Trickle down failed so miserably, I am quite amazed that anyone with an income below 100k/year actually believes we can continue in this way.

[chrispedersen]

Oy, Politics.

I have an actual button with Spendios Cthulhu slogan. :D

It is true that the parties, as game theory would suggest, are less different than we would like, but ever since reagan got elected in 1980, after making a deal to *delay* the release of the Iranian hostages, and then getting caught giving them arms as the back end of a quid pro quo, it is VERY apparent that the parties are not the same.

The previously unimaginable horror show that Chimpy, {Gombe division} Inc. (err, I mean the Bush administration) has ushered in is just the second go around farce.

The funny thing about wanting the flee the country post-bush is ...that as a friend of mine pointed out, we don't have to move, very soon we'll be living in Peronist Brazil.

My wife and I have already voted for Obama in texas. (HAHAHA... pointless I know) He may disappoint us, or prove incapable of dislodging the corporate overlordship once he gets in.... but the certainty of disaster and perpetual war with McCain and his VP "W-in-a-skirt" makes it not a difficult choice.

Particularly as the republicans stole the last two elections, have gratuitously killed over a million iraqis and have nothing but obfuscation, vote suppression and racist-dog whistle fear-mongering to recommend them. Plus the McCain of this campaign makes Mitt Romney look principled.

We have a 4 month old... the world will be bad enough when he grows up, ...we don't have to make it worse by pretending political choices don't matter, assuming you believe the election isn't controlled by a consortium of Di-e-boldic imps inside the voting machines.

Conservatism is one thing, I think history has proven conservatives are almost always wrong, but it's plausible in its no longer practiced Burkean form... these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists.

And that's all I've got to say about that....:doh:

I find this post to be so offensive as to almost be beyond words.

We live in a social contract. Denigrating people that believe differently than you - hardly bodes well for civic discourse.

Saying such things as 'the republicans stole the elections', conservatives are almost always wrong', 'these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists' is immature, offenseive, and demonstrably wrong.

I find it particularly galling that leftists make arguments such as RRegan delayed the release of the hostages, Republicans stole the last two elections, the world trade centers were a government plot - without the merest shred of evidence.

[Cor2]

Am I the only one voting for Cynthia McKinney? I luv her :)

[Cor2]

one more thing,the republicans DID steal the elections, twice. But the democrats let them, so who cares?

[chrispedersen]

I honestly don't believe that anyone over 60 is going to be effectual at meeting the challenges of this rapidly changing modern world..

Any speeches about raising taxes for those of high income have never worked because there's way too many loop holes... so many the wealthy pay multi-certified accountants to find them otherwise the wealthy would just use H&R Block or equivalent.

Top 5% of earners pay 50% of the taxes in the U.S.




Trickle down failed so miserably, I am quite amazed that anyone with an income below 100k/year actually believes we can continue in this way.

Up until 1904 or so we had no income tax, as such were directly prohibited in the constitution. We seemed to last fairly well without confiscatory tax policies.

Under Obamas tax plan, the top marginal rate including the change to social security goes to about .. 43.1%.

If you add the 16% average local tax burden - and more for those unlucky enough to pay state income taxes... the top marginal tax rate is over 65%.

And in what world is this *fair*? The US govt spends 2 trillion dollars a year - and this is not enough? In what world is adding 1 trillion dollars a year of new government spending a good idea?

[licker]

one more thing,the republicans DID steal the elections, twice. But the democrats let them, so who cares?

Proof?

Seriously, everyone knows both sides cheat, and while that doesn't excuse any of the behavior pretending that one side actually holds some kind of moral high ground is simply not based in reality.

Obama and McCain are both qualified to be president, but neither seemingly brings what this country actually needs to pull it out of the funk it is in.

Leave aside the foreign policy concerns and focus on the internal issues, and explain how either of them actually address anything in a substantiative way.

McCain is no Bush, he is no continuation of the past administration, honestly, Obamas tax plans are actually closer to Bushes, but that's neither here nor their, since neither of them have what it takes to actually fix the system, all they do is pander to the public with useless band aid type fixes when a tourniquet is needed.

Obama tells you he will give you a tax break... never mind that the people he is promising this tax break to already pay zero income tax (not all of them, but the majority), so the claim that he is redistributing wealth is accurate. McCain is telling you that the wealthy and corporations need a tax break to keep job growth strong, never mind the evidence which suggests that this economy has more serious issues with the credit market in the first place making these tax cuts meaningless and likely damaging.

Yep, neither one is preaching any kind of sanity when it comes to the economy or the budget. Both are trying to scare you into thinking the other one will be worse, when the clear facts are that neither is going to be good.

So keep on voting for bad and pretend that that because your less bad is better than the more bad somehow you are doing good.

Or take the step and actually vote for a party or candidate who is not beholden to the existing power structure, vote for real change, vote for something actually good.

[NTJedi]

I don't have any faith Obama has what it takes to be president. I'm not happy about McCain either, but at least he has stronger experience in the military and businesses.

At what cost does this "experience" come? I honestly don't believe that anyone over 60 is going to be effectual at meeting the challenges of this rapidly changing modern world.
With age the body and mind slow down, but not to the degree you're thinking. Experience in taking a stand is important... not standing by and only voting "present" to pursue a career.


We need someone with flexibility and ingenuity far more than we need someone with some tremendous depth of experience
Flexibility... you mean by not voting for or against during tough issues. Yeah that's flexible... sit back and just vote present. Good career move not to upset anyone.
Ingenunity... you mean by sticking next to religious figures until those individuals start making him look bad and thus he distances himself from them. Both good career moves, but nothing which shows the nation strong character and strong experience.


Any speeches about raising taxes for those of high income have never worked because there's way too many loop holes... so many the wealthy pay multi-certified accountants to find them otherwise the wealthy would just use H&R Block or equivalent.

I am totally mystified by this argument. Since it will be difficult to try to tax the (exorbitantly) wealthy, you would prefer to vote someone in who has already pledged to reduce taxes on those whom we seem to have trouble getting money out of in the first place?

As I wrote earlier I'm not pleased with McCain, but he knows trying to raise their taxes will not work. Myself or McCain doesn't have 3 hours to explain every little detail. There's too many loop holes in the tax system for the wealthy. If Obama, McCain or anyone was serious about fair taxes they'd either attack these loop holes OR introduce a flat tax.


Yes, it will be an uphill struggle to make massive multi-national conglomerate corporations, and their fabulously wealthy kings contribute fairly to the governance of the nation. However, to accomplish this goal, one must try.

An inexperienced career focused politician won't provide any benefit as president. I see him as a risk where other politicians from his party will try controlling him. Having a president who sits by and votes "present" on every issue is obviously a sign of bad news. At least McCain has a background of being self-sacrificing and doing stuff even his own party disliked which he felt was for the better good.


Only one of the two candidates who stands a chance to be elected is willing to try to fill loopholes, and raise the effectiveness of the system. The other candidate has stated quite clearly, time and time again, that he is in favor of reducing stated taxes on those who can afford them, and in creating more loopholes and deductions for them.
You haven't looked clearly at Obama's track record and don't wish to recognize Obama raising taxes won't change anything. Bill Gates paid ZERO in taxes during 1999, raising taxes is not the answer and if Obama doesn't know this he would be wasting our time/money, but at least he'd let us know he was "present".



"Tax the poor and feed the rich - and you can be quite sure that eventually the rich will be so wealthy, they will take pity on the poor, and take better care of them."


Trickle down failed so miserably, I am quite amazed that anyone with an income below 100k/year actually believes we can continue in this way.
Taxing the wealthy is not the answer, neither of the candidates are any good, but McCain has experience and takes a stand. Unlike Obama who sits back voting "present" while we pay him.

[chrispedersen]

I am actually surprised to see so many mccain supporters - and somewhat heartened by it. Youth and online tends to be strongly in favor of Obama - perhaps gamers are more rational (or conservative).

Are you implying that those who don't vote for McCain are somehow less rational. Not only is that implication not sound, it is also invalid.

I would be happy to have Palin as my governor, senator or representative. Just as most of her constituents are. Despite your opinion of her, prior to the start of this election campaign she had the highest sustained favorability rating of any governer in history.

Your last statement sounds like a canned comment, but I'll indulge. I see little connection between favorablility and qualification. Please explain why she is suitable for any political position.

Make a choice. Which are we arguing qualifications or suitability?

You were asking people to investigate the candidates, thinking perhaps that if people did they would find Palin an absolutely unsuitable candidate.

Arguing qualifications for a moment - obviously, she met the qualifications. Our founding fathers put their faith in the common folk - specifically did not *want* a ruling elite, recall?

As for why palin is suitable - lets see. Renegotiated deal with the oil companies to extract HIGHER royalties from oil companies.
Broke with her own party to get a corrupt party official indicted.

And before you start spouting untruths about her, lets just lay to rest some internet fallacies, as debunked by snopes:
-Palin has never sought to have books banned, or burned.
-Has been praised by *many* of her political opponents for *not* advancing a prolife agenda.
-Did not cut funding for special needs kids - or education at all.

Finally, you seem to think that being popular is not germane. To the contrary, the ability to satisfy people across the political spectrum means that you address their common concerns and needs. It means that people believe you effectively address their concerns.

It is not the sole criteria for judging a political candidate -but how your opponents view you (favorably) is a pretty good indicator.

Now.. since you bring up the question of qualifications....
Palin has been mayor for something like 7 years, and governor for two or three.

Obama has.... good speeches - and exactly zero executive experience. So if you believe Palin is not qualified to be Vice President.. exactly how do you believe Barry Sotuero (you know, Baracks real name, before he changed it (as he admits in his book dreams of my father) to appeal to minorities) is qualified to be President?

[NTJedi]

Yep, neither one is preaching any kind of sanity when it comes to the economy or the budget. Both are trying to scare you into thinking the other one will be worse, when the clear facts are that neither is going to be good.



I completely agree

[JimMorrison]

Let me clarify, NTJedi. I don't believe that income taxes are in actuality the means to solve anything, flat or not. The system is much less abusable if we designate a specific point in the flow of currency in which to tax it.

Since I believe that this is not the individual, but rather the business, then we still come to the same point - McCain wants to reduce taxes on large businesses.

I believe the true answer to taxation, is to only tax the execution of business transactions - and never from the side of the individual. Therefore, income taxes and sales taxes would be removed. Taxes on the corporate side would be increased to balance the equation. Stated wages would obviously decrease, however we would no longer have this smokescreen of saying "didn't you know the top earners pay 65% taxes??", when obviously many of us know that those people pay much less than that (and supposedly, sometimes none at all).

To extrapolate from this, if all taxes were shifted to the business side of the economy, and few if any loopholes or deductions were left in place, then the average American should see their tax burden lightened, because if the stated relative balance between high/low income remains the same, the rich will be getting less than they did in the previous system. In effect, you will have a flat tax as far as the individual is concerned, because unless everyone is willing to watch the disparity in stated earnings grow even wider, with more and more billionaires, and more and more people at and below the poverty line - then the system will simply be measurably better than it was before.


We enacted income taxes in 1913. At that time, the bottom tax bracket (and it was easy to even still be exempt, at that time, due to low earnings) paid 1% in income taxes. The top bracket, paid 7%. Many would agree that sounded like a somewhat sane idea. However, considering how badly abused the system has become, and imagining that the same effect could have been handled by simply balancing existing taxes, rather than creating new ones - I am hard pressed to argue for anything other than an abolishment of federal taxes on the individual at all.

[DonCorazon]

Now.. since you bring up the question of qualifications....
Palin has been mayor for something like 7 years, and governor for two or three.

Obama has.... good speeches - and exactly zero executive experience. So if you believe Palin is not qualified to be Vice President.. exactly how do you believe Barry Sotuero (you know, Baracks real name, before he changed it (as he admits in his book dreams of my father) to appeal to minorities) is qualified to be President?

While I am more concerned about a potential president's intelligence and character than specific experience, since I doubt any job prepares you to be president, I would just highlight for consideration that Obama has been a US senator for four years and state senator for 7 years representing a state of 12 million, while Palin has been governor of a state of 600,000 for two years and mayor for 6 years of a city of 10,000.

Obama was a civil rights attorney that graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, and was president of the Harvard Law Review. Palin was a sports reporter, went to a number of schools and graduated with a degree in communications from the University of Idaho.

If I had those two resumes in front of me, I know who I would chose to be president.

[lch]

And here I thought Obama and McCain were the candidates. How silly of me. :D

But really, it's funny how everybody is writing off McCain already. "He's gonna die from a heart attack immediately after being elected", hilarious.

[Poopsi]

very soon we'll be living in Peronist Brazil.

uuhhhm... sorry, but you have just made one of those things that US citizens are stereotyped as doing (namely, confusing stuff about matters outside).

Juan Domingo Perón was president of Argentina, not Brazil.
And he was democratically elected too. AFAIK the current president of Argentina subscribes to Peronism (which, AFAIK, has a fairly loose definition, but still...)


For the record, from my outsider POV I hope that McCain doesn´t get elected because he has an ambiguous stance over embryonic stem cell research (and no, I don´t think that pursuing only adult stem cell research to avoid polemics is the way to go. Science doesn´t work like that). I dont think that *anyone* is able to hurt progress significatively, but everything helps. Better to have all avenues of research being pursued everywhere. Besides, you don´t want all those biotech companies in Singapore potentially monopolizing the techniçue, do you?
Other than that, I dont think there will be big differences. I doubt either of them will reform your healthcare system, or sweep off income ineçualities. For good or ill. I doubt that foerign policy will change significatively, either. I dont think that either of them will hurry into another Irak fiasco.

[NTJedi]

The system is much less abusable if we designate a specific point in the flow of currency in which to tax it.

I believe the true answer to taxation, is to only tax the execution of business transactions - and never from the side of the individual.
...

We enacted income taxes in 1913. At that time, the bottom tax bracket (and it was easy to even still be exempt, at that time, due to low earnings) paid 1% in income taxes.

Taxation of only business transactions is another solution, but we'd have to eliminate the current tax system completely to remove all the loop holes. In any case the tax system is a mess and benefits the wealthy and very wealthy... tax cuts or tax increases on the wealthy won't be changing their lives or our lives.

Originally taxes were suppose to exist only during times of war, unfortunately government corruption/greed existed even during these early years. Government today is so bad I have government letters arriving in the the mail telling me to only expect 70% of my social security and I hear its worse for younger generations.

The country does need change, but we'll see less change from someone with a strong history of avoiding issues by voting "present", instead of making a choice.

[Edratman]

McCain and his supporters are constantly touting his superior experience as a primary foundation of his qualifications to be President. I'm going to address "experience".

Fact: He was an officier in the US Navy. Does that mean that all former officers are superior tacticians, leaders of armed forces and an expert in all matters military? For the answer pick up any military history book and realize that in almost every battle, both sides had a leader with long experience and exposure to matters military. And one of them always loses!
(I am not saying Obama is/would be a better supreme commander, merely pointing out the thin validity of the experience claim.)

Another example regarding experience regards football head coaches. Just about every year, after a team wins the Super Bowl, the offensive and/or defensive coordinators are annointed as the next great head coaches. To be specific, look at the New England Patriots. A couple of years ago, both the offensive and defensive head coaches, Charlies Weiss and Romeo Crennel, went to Notre Dame and the Cleveland Browns, respectively, as head coaches. What happened then? Well, the Partriots, after losing these two "Great" coaches, never missed a beat and have been as successful as ever. Whereas the two teams with "Can't miss, gotta-be-great" head coaches have disappointed, to put it kindly. The obvious conclusion is that the Patriots head coach, Bill Belichek, is the actual source of leadership on the team and both assistants, while technically superior, relied on his leadership to get the players to do what they wanted them to do. Thus they were replaced by two other technically competent cogs and the equation for the Patriots remained unchanged.

My point is that time and proximity to a position has no relationship to an individuals skills and cannot serve as a predictor of success at the next position of responsibility. This is very true when a primary component of a position requires leadership.

True leadership ability is an extremely rare talent. There are countless definitions of leadership, but in my opinion, it comes down to one simple thing: the ability to get people to do what you want them to do. There are many ways that a person can achieve real leadership, the most common is fear; there are other and better methods, but they require better and more versitile skills to achieve success.

Think about your job. How many bosses are real leaders? How many meetings have you left and later enjoyed a laugh with your fellow co-workers at the absurdity of the next "plan-of-the-week", or received an e-mail detailing some poorly concieved and poorly executed program? Those are examples of failures in leadership and they are destined for failure because they will be only half-hearted supported by the staff.

For another example, I take you back to your jobs. How many times have you seen someone promoted beyond his/her level of competance? Most of the time you are unaware that the person will be beyond their level of competance until they actually get there. (Pride makes me refuse to even count the number of times I have made the mistake of promoting someone beyond their competance level.)

My point is that leadership is an elusive and impossible to predict asset. Experience and exposure in a lesser position is no guarantee of success. Of course, experience and exposure is infinitely better than absolutely zero experience, for the vast majority of people. Talented people will succeed without the experience and exposure, I cite Alexander the Great for one, but talented people are few and far between.

I am not touting Obama in this missive. His leadership is also still unknown and unproven. All I am intending to do is plant the seed that time and exposure is universally over-rated. One of my favoite expressions is "He does not have 20 years experience, he has had one years experience twenty times". And I would hope that you reflect on leadership at the same time.

[JimMorrison]

...
My point is that time and proximity to a position has no relationship to an individuals skills and cannot serve as a predictor of success at the next position of responsibility. This is very true when a primary component of a position requires leadership...

Incredibly well put! :happy:

[licker]

McCain and his supporters are constantly touting his superior experience as a primary foundation of his qualifications to be President. I'm going to address "experience".

Well you cannot deny that he has superior experience at least.

Fact: He was an officier in the US Navy. Does that mean that all former officers are superior tacticians, leaders of armed forces and an expert in all matters military? For the answer pick up any military history book and realize that in almost every battle, both sides had a leader with long experience and exposure to matters military. And one of them always loses!
(I am not saying Obama is/would be a better supreme commander, merely pointing out the thin validity of the experience claim.)

The military man is more likely to be a better military tactician than the non military man. That said, I don't think this is a particularly large issue anymore as the president doesn't actually formulate and tactics, nor carry them out.

Another example regarding experience regards football head coaches. Just about every year, after a team wins the Super Bowl, the offensive and/or defensive coordinators are annointed as the next great head coaches. To be specific, look at the New England Patriots. A couple of years ago, both the offensive and defensive head coaches, Charlies Weiss and Romeo Crennel, went to Notre Dame and the Cleveland Browns, respectively, as head coaches. What happened then? Well, the Partriots, after losing these two "Great" coaches, never missed a beat and have been as successful as ever. Whereas the two teams with "Can't miss, gotta-be-great" head coaches have disappointed, to put it kindly. The obvious conclusion is that the Patriots head coach, Bill Belichek, is the actual source of leadership on the team and both assistants, while technically superior, relied on his leadership to get the players to do what they wanted them to do. Thus they were replaced by two other technically competent cogs and the equation for the Patriots remained unchanged.

Indeed, many owners of NFL teams do not understand that one man cannot make much of a difference without the support and backing of the entire organization. The Patriots have become a superior organization, more due to Bob Kraft than necessarilly to Bellichek. However, you might want to double check if the Patriots have not skipped a beat since losing Weiss and Crennel... clearly they have, since they have not won a SB since those two left, and for the level they were at, that is indeed missing a beat.

In any event, Notre Dame is actually decent this year, so it took Weiss some time perhaps to get the ship going in the direction he wanted it to. The Browns are not good, and Crennel is not a good head coach, but more importantly, the organization is a poor organization without clear direction.

If you look at the entirety of the US government as an analogy for an NFL team you may be able to make a stronger comparison, however, then you must grant that the president to head coach isn't exactly the correct comparison, and even so, the president is limited by the congress and supreme court in what he can do, and ultimately limited by the fact that he has to please his party to keep himself politically viable. Which indeed may speak more to 'hiring' an older 'coach' since they won't have anything to lose once they are done.

My point is that time and proximity to a position has no relationship to an individuals skills and cannot serve as a predictor of success at the next position of responsibility. This is very true when a primary component of a position requires leadership.

No relationship? That's an overly strong statement I think most would agree. Though to be fair, neither McCain nor Obama has any executive experience anyway, and my opinion is that we need people in Washington who aren't already comfortable in Washington, as the special interests, lobbiests, and general climate there is what needs to change. And again, neither has an edge there, they are both dependent on their comities, and both beholden to outside forces.

True leadership ability is an extremely rare talent. There are countless definitions of leadership, but in my opinion, it comes down to one simple thing: the ability to get people to do what you want them to do. There are many ways that a person can achieve real leadership, the most common is fear; there are other and better methods, but they require better and more versitile skills to achieve success.

Meh, you probably agree that this country is so divided at this point that neither of these candidates can be successful at this just due to the 'D' or 'R' associated with them. I also don't think either possesses any kind of great leadership qualities.

Think about your job. How many bosses are real leaders? How many meetings have you left and later enjoyed a laugh with your fellow co-workers at the absurdity of the next "plan-of-the-week", or received an e-mail detailing some poorly concieved and poorly executed program? Those are examples of failures in leadership and they are destined for failure because they will be only half-hearted supported by the staff.

Very true, but what has this to do with McCain or Obama?

For another example, I take you back to your jobs. How many times have you seen someone promoted beyond his/her level of competance? Most of the time you are unaware that the person will be beyond their level of competance until they actually get there. (Pride makes me refuse to even count the number of times I have made the mistake of promoting someone beyond their competance level.)

Again...

My point is that leadership is an elusive and impossible to predict asset. Experience and exposure in a lesser position is no guarantee of success. Of course, experience and exposure is infinitely better than absolutely zero experience, for the vast majority of people. Talented people will succeed without the experience and exposure, I cite Alexander the Great for one, but talented people are few and far between.

Hmm... it would seem the book on leadership as it pertains to McCain is easier to write than the book on Obama. If you are saying that Obama's leadership is an unknown quantity, and that while he may be able to make pretty speeches and look like an intellectual, but ultimately he has almost nothing concrete in his background upon which to judge his leadership abilities, then I'd agree. On the other hand, McCain has a long public record from which you can ascertain that he has lead unpopular fights, and made unpopular decisions. I don't pretend to know the answer to which is potentially the better leader, just that McCain has shown it is unlikely he would be a disastrous leader, though also doubtful a transcendental leader.

I am not touting Obama in this missive. His leadership is also still unknown and unproven. All I am intending to do is plant the seed that time and exposure is universally over-rated. One of my favoite expressions is "He does not have 20 years experience, he has had one years experience twenty times". And I would hope that you reflect on leadership at the same time.

Heh. Are you sure you're not touting Obama? That's smacks of double speak.

I also think you are wrong to speak of experience as always being overrated, sure for some it can be, for others it likely is very valuable.

As it pertains to this election I would agree that it is irrelevant, since neither of them really have the experience of being an executive.

[Foodstamp]

The voters are why this country stinks, not the candidates. If you would all quit accepting the lesser evil and vote the way you wanted to vote instead, our country would be a lot better off. I will be writing in a vote and hoping next election cycle the rest of you will dissolve your ties to the party you hate the least so we can turn this country around. I know that is wishful thinking because a lot of people would rather say that their team won rather than vote in someone competent.

[rabelais]

Oy, Politics.




Conservatism is one thing, I think history has proven conservatives are almost always wrong, but it's plausible in its no longer practiced Burkean form... these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists.

And that's all I've got to say about that....:doh:

I find this post to be so offensive as to almost be beyond words.

We live in a social contract. Denigrating people that believe differently than you - hardly bodes well for civic discourse.

Saying such things as 'the republicans stole the elections', conservatives are almost always wrong', 'these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists' is immature, offenseive, and demonstrably wrong.

I find it particularly galling that leftists make arguments such as RRegan delayed the release of the hostages, Republicans stole the last two elections, the world trade centers were a government plot - without the merest shred of evidence.

Heh. I can't believe I'm going to respond to this... triumph of hope over experience explains so many things...

The increasingly obvious attempts of the GOP to suppress votes and violate the constitution which is the legal basis of our social contract makes your civic discourse ref-working laughably moot. Look at history since say, well, ever start with hunter gatherers if you like... the liberals (those in favor of agriculture, staying in one place long enough to ferment grains... or in favor of heliocentrism, public sanitation, natural selection, universal suffrage, or whatever the era happened to bring, have nearly always been right. Even the uber-liberals of yesteryear (Jefferson, Lincoln) seem bizarrely conservative by today's standards. Wait 30 years and see if gay marriage is still an issue, assuming civilization doesn't go all MadMaxish.

Saying true things may be impolite, but immature is a much higher standard. :p

In any case I think Obama is WAY more mature than I am, and conspicuously more so than McCain except neuro-degeneratively.

I said nothing about 9/11... other than I hope the goat book gets a central display case in W's presidential library, I suppose.

Did you miss the eighties or the last eight years? What I said about Reagan is not factually controversial... and the data on the elections is pretty compelling.... check out RFK jr writings, or bradblog...be interesting to see if the media episteme changes once cheney and addington are out of office.

What is conservative about the bush doctrine or monster deficits,the unitary executive, or... well almost anything they've done that wasn't cynically throwing a bone to the fundies?

Look, I'm sorry if you think I'm being unfair. But the current republican party has so violated the trust of the country that calling them out for their unprecedentedly bad behavior is really the least we should do.... it's ironic that the nigh-whimsical impeachment of clinton for bull****ting about private marital infidelity should have insulated bush from impeachment for truly world-historic crimes, at least in terms of trashing the united states.

Now I really need to work on that CBM Man pretender, if you wish to continue discussing my hypertrophic sense of alarm and civic indignation send me a PM? I think we're upsetting Gandalf.

Rabe

[Gandalf Parker]

I know Im laughably diplomatic at times but I think I prefer that in a leader also. I would rather have a president who is flexible and willing to discuss subjects with his advisors over someone who bulls thru on their opinion in spite of what experts and advisers say. I think we have already had a touch of that.

Gandalf Parker
--
Daddy? Are we a republic or a democracy?
Neither son. We are a capitalism.

[DonCorazon]

But really, it's funny how everybody is writing off McCain already. "He's gonna die from a heart attack immediately after being elected", hilarious.

It is not funny at all. McCain had Stage 2A melanoma in 2000, an invasive form of skin cancer that claims the lives of up to 34% of those diagnosed within 10 years. If he were to win, he would become the oldest first-term President in U.S. history.

I am not assuming he's dead, but think its irresponsible not to consider the possibility and if you vote for McCain, I think you should be comfortable that Palin would make a good president, just as Obama voters should feel comfortable with the thought of president Biden.

Granted we are talking about politicians so the standards are much lower, which reminds me of a question I have always had since Bush won: why isn't there a test to take as part of running for president? It would just be part of the application process, similar to applying to college. We have tests for everything else law school, business school, the foreign service, driving a car, etc. but nothing for the highest office in the land.

[JimMorrison]

Granted we are talking about politicians so the standards are much lower, which reminds me of a question I have always had since Bush won: why isn't there a test to take as part of running for president? It would just be part of the application process, similar to applying to college. We have tests for everything else law school, business school, the foreign service, driving a car, etc. but nothing for the highest office in the land.


But who writes and administers the test? And how is it realistically scored?

[Mithras]

As a european I would like Obama to win. He seems to be the lesser of two evils but to me thats not the point. I don't know how you'll take this but I see Obama as a milestone, it says to me that the US is capable of voting in a, to be frank, black person. I'm sixteen and I'd have thought I'd see it.
So no matter what he does later, I'll celebrate if he gets elected. Its a historic milestone.

[lch]

That's somewhat my notion as well. Too bad that Condi Rice isn't a candidate. The US having a black woman as president, that would really be a signal. And somehow, strangely, I'd think that she'd even have better chances of winning than Obama.

[DonCorazon]

Granted we are talking about politicians so the standards are much lower, which reminds me of a question I have always had since Bush won: why isn't there a test to take as part of running for president? It would just be part of the application process, similar to applying to college. We have tests for everything else law school, business school, the foreign service, driving a car, etc. but nothing for the highest office in the land.


But who writes and administers the test? And how is it realistically scored?

Make them take the same test you have to take if you want to work for the Department of State. IIRC that test is a mix of geography, history, political theory. Or just have them take the GMAT like anyone applying to business school.

It might help shift this country ever so slightly back in the direction of a meritocracy instead of a plutocracy.

I don't think even the most avid Bush supporters would say Bush is the best person in the US to run the country, just as I would say Gore and Kerry were sad candidates. Regardless of your party affiliation, it is always nice IMHO to see someone who does not come from a silver spoon, everything in life handed to them background. I think you need someone who has experienced some adversity in life to develop character and perspective to be able to understand and lead a nation.

Which is why Biden and Obama are interesting to me, McCain too I admit, but why I find it ludicrous that the US has put up people like George Bush, Al Gore, and John Kerry as the "best" candidates for the job. In my mind these guys are all just scions of wealthy families, who have no idea what life is really like for 95% of the nation.

[Irishmafia2020]

I'm voting for the dangerous, Muslim, Terrorist, Socialist, radical, black guy - who wants to redistribute the wealth....
Oddly, those were all selling points for me!
In his defense he has kids, plays basketball, and uses the internet.... Just like me!

[Tifone]

Now "Terrorist" and "dangerous" would hardly seem "selling points" :D

Except, well, of course those are trash as we all know...:re:

Even McCain says Obama is a "decent family man"! (someone still has to explain me why in the mind of our enlightened McCain, "arabs" cannot be "decent family men" :confused:)

[chrispedersen]

That's somewhat my notion as well. Too bad that Condi Rice isn't a candidate. The US having a black woman as president, that would really be a signal. And somehow, strangely, I'd think that she'd even have better chances of winning than Obama.

I'd vote for condi in a minute - or powell.
Just. not. Soteuro.

[chrispedersen]

Oy, Politics.




Conservatism is one thing, I think history has proven conservatives are almost always wrong, but it's plausible in its no longer practiced Burkean form... these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists.

And that's all I've got to say about that....:doh:

I find this post to be so offensive as to almost be beyond words.

We live in a social contract. Denigrating people that believe differently than you - hardly bodes well for civic discourse.

Saying such things as 'the republicans stole the elections', conservatives are almost always wrong', 'these people aren't conservatives, they are plutocratic fascists' is immature, offenseive, and demonstrably wrong.

I find it particularly galling that leftists make arguments such as RRegan delayed the release of the hostages, Republicans stole the last two elections, the world trade centers were a government plot - without the merest shred of evidence.

Heh. I can't believe I'm going to respond to this... triumph of hope over experience explains so many things...

The increasingly obvious attempts of the GOP to suppress votes and violate the constitution which is the legal basis of our social contract makes your civic discourse ref-working laughably moot. Look at history since say, well, ever start with hunter gatherers if you like... the liberals (those in favor of agriculture, staying in one place long enough to ferment grains... or in favor of heliocentrism, public sanitation, natural selection, universal suffrage, or whatever the era happened to bring, have nearly always been right. Even the uber-liberals of yesteryear (Jefferson, Lincoln) seem bizarrely conservative by today's standards. Wait 30 years and see if gay marriage is still an issue, assuming civilization doesn't go all MadMaxish.

Saying true things may be impolite, but immature is a much higher standard. :p

In any case I think Obama is WAY more mature than I am, and conspicuously more so than McCain except neuro-degeneratively.

I said nothing about 9/11... other than I hope the goat book gets a central display case in W's presidential library, I suppose.

Did you miss the eighties or the last eight years? What I said about Reagan is not factually controversial... and the data on the elections is pretty compelling.... check out RFK jr writings, or bradblog...be interesting to see if the media episteme changes once cheney and addington are out of office.

What is conservative about the bush doctrine or monster deficits,the unitary executive, or... well almost anything they've done that wasn't cynically throwing a bone to the fundies?

Look, I'm sorry if you think I'm being unfair. But the current republican party has so violated the trust of the country that calling them out for their unprecedentedly bad behavior is really the least we should do.... it's ironic that the nigh-whimsical impeachment of clinton for bull****ting about private marital infidelity should have insulated bush from impeachment for truly world-historic crimes, at least in terms of trashing the united states.

Now I really need to work on that CBM Man pretender, if you wish to continue discussing my hypertrophic sense of alarm and civic indignation send me a PM? I think we're upsetting Gandalf.

Rabe


I have never claimed that either party had a monopoly on virtue. Motivating your voter group to vote - and making it seem invincible and surpressing the vote of your opponents is the point of election - as long as its legal.

For every scandal of surpression I can name you one of fictitious voters - such as the famous daly machine in chicago - the kennedy machine in massachussets - cynthia mckinney bussing thousands of supporters to the polls after they were closed in Atlanta.

The republican party hasn't violated the trust of the country any more or less egregiously than the democrats did. Clinton perjured himself under oath - and it was proved and that was far worse than anything any republican has been proven to do.

You don't like the republicans - I get it - but this constant, weird, leftist schism between our government and our people is whats unprecedented.

Like it or not, part of the social contract is - we elected a president - now - until you can vote him out or impeach him - act like he *is* your president, it is your congress.

[Ylvali]

I'm curious about what some of our friends outside of the US (i.e other dominions players) think about the two party system. I agree with what seems to be the general opinion here that it needs some work.

Well I´m from Sweden and here many of us are quite concerned about your election as well as the finanical crisis. Regarding your political system I can only speak for myself (and to me it is horrendous) but fact is that when referring to the US as a democracy many friends of mine and other swedes put "democracy" in quotes.

For us it is simply very hard to swallow a two party system with such abysmal variation between the two alternatives as "democratic".

Especially when a majority of the votes don´t always mean victory.

I guess I´d vote for Obama if I was american, but I´m afraid that even with him we will have to continue sending humanitarian aid to, and receive refugees from, areas ravaged by US invasions and "pre-emptive strikes" (FYI one small swedish town accepts more iraqi refugees than the entire US)

Our image of the US will remain that of an unpredictable bully to be feared and watched closely. A country so powerful that you have to sign deals with it even knowing they will be systematically broken. Our goverment will remain silent in fear of repression, and our political right will seize the opportunity of the crisis to push for privatization, tax-cuts and economic deregulation (the shock doctrine on export)

It would take a LOT of work to change that image. But I do hope you´ll try, for the sake of this planet.

[sector24]

Politics is far too deceptive for me to glean any kind of understanding. I can only understand my own position and even then it's hard to say which candidate will serve me better or if either candidate will serve my interests at all. (I suspect the only one looking out for me is me)

I would like to see a strong diplomat in office. Someone who could repair our relationship with countries that are supposed to be our allies, but secretly don't like us all that much. However, neither of the candidates come close to fitting the bill. So I think we're going to spend another 4 years in which the entire world thinks we're a bunch of arrogant cowboys that do whatever we want.

Second, I would like to see an economist in office. Someone who knows how to run a business and do it successfully. Again, no luck there. So we're going to spend another 4 years in which the administration goes deeply into debt while simultaneously telling everyone in America to do the exact opposite and save their money for retirement.

Oh, also I'd really like to not have to pay more in taxes. I currently give back 52% of my income to the government. I earned it fair and square, stop stealing my money. :)

[Aezeal]

as a reply to the last few posts:

Ehm as an outsider I think Obama would fit the diplomat who fixes bonds far better than mac. (We do thing america doesn't listen much to the rest of the world and while I can respect the fact you put your own before others (they are elected to help their own) I think the way america is doing it now is not with enough consideration for the rest of the world, I'd also like to note that unlike most I'm not per definition against the war in iraq) Not in the least due to the fact that even our most rightwing political parties are more leftwing than even your democrats :D (but they would still "fit" better with us than the republicans). Also most person I hear thing america is odd cus they are being so hard on abortion and on the other hand don't do much about gun control and have a bad healthcare system for a first world country (3 things which I, and probably most around here see fixed better under democratic rule than under republican rule.)



The 2 party system as such doesn't bother me that much since politics is about compromising and in the 2 party system the compromises are made before elections within the party which then turn out the compromises and one of them gets elected and does things somewhat as they said they would. With us here all parties are generating more differnt stand points but after election they still have to work together with 2-3 parties and then they have to make compromises which always makes pplz unhappy too. (IMHO to few peoples want to understand that making compromises is what politics is all about.. you can't get it all your way... )

Sector: I don't think putting an economist in office would make that much difference I'm pretty sure all departments dealing with economy have plenty of economists in there and I'm also pretty sure they intend to do the best for their country and so will give decent advice to the one in office.

I also think pplz see taxes to much as money getting stolen, the money doesn't go to the government and vanish there (well most of the time) some of us are payed by that actually, healthcare, the roads we drive on etc etc etc etc. you all know this and it should be taken into account. Here pplz might complain abit (a lot) but in the end stuff is arranged for us etc and that costs money

PS some of the problem above probably just arise from the fact that a too large part of america is "strange" IMHO (against abortion, pro-gun, pro setting america above the rest of the worls...etc etc etc) since that is, in the end the reason politics last decades has been as it was.

I'll be the first to admit I've never been to america though.

[sector24]

Economist is probably the wrong word. Businessman perhaps would be more accurate. The problem with the current economists is that all of them have ties or used to work for the companies that caused all the trouble in the first place. I'd like a 1st line of defense that would veto bills that are financially irresponsible. I know it's a lot to ask for. :)

The stealing money thing is a joke (mostly). I don't mind paying for roads and whatnot, but 52% is a lot for the US. I think the average is something like 29-32%. You know the old saying, "A fine is a tax for doing the wrong thing. A tax is a fine for doing the right thing."

[NTJedi]

as a reply to the last few posts:
I also think pplz see taxes to much as money getting stolen, the money doesn't go to the government and vanish there (well most of the time) some of us are payed by that actually, healthcare, the roads we drive on etc etc etc etc. you all know this and it should be taken into account.

Unfortunately the more money the government takes the larger it becomes. One of the biggest and most important long term benefits would be changing taxes into a flat tax rate. There are so many people in government and outside of government who spend their lives just crunching numbers and reading tax laws. Think of all the long term benefits if all these people and the people of the future would instead be spending their lives providing medical research, new businesses, technologies, etc., etc., .

I do see higher taxes as money vanishing... I'll provide just two personal examples.
First I know a single mom of 5 kids with only highschool education who cannot take a job which pays her more than $9.50 an hour because it means the government will drastically cut the healthcare and financial support she recieves for her kids. She calculated for her to take a job which can match what the government provides it would need to start her at $60,0000 a year. This type of government interaction has trapped her into a poor lifestyle with no way out. I remember being excited how I found her a medical job where she easily qualified that paid $15.50 an hour and then I was shocked when she explained why she could not apply for the position.
Second is my brother works at one of the state universities... and you would not believe how government money is wasted. First the universities must spend X amount each year otherwise they will not recieve their yearly government increase. As a result the universities buy extra supplies ranging from computers to furniture whether or not its needed. Most of the extra supplies are sent back after a year or two to make room for new supplies. I heard another story where a dean cut three university jobs for her department which would have helped the department and then gave herself a raise claiming she saved the university money... the raise was about a $30,000 increase. What other jobs allow you to vote yourself a raise... oh yeah congress... that's messed up. :(

Within these two scenarios it's obvious there's no real system of checks & balances... the government just blindly throws money at these departments. So until I have the option to vote where my taxes are being spent I will fight against every dime being taken. Will a new president be able to redistribute the wealth fairly... NO because the government is broken and unfortunately only congress can fix it. Neither the democrats or republicans have shown effort for what really needs to be fixed.

[thejeff]

I'll agree with your single mom example. It's a silly system. A more graduated drop as you earned more would make far more sense. And universal health care would make a lot of those issues go away. Having health care tied to employment leads to a lot of problems and results in a system that costs more and produces worse results than other "developed" countries.

As for your university example, any decent sized bureaucracy works the same way. Any good sized company is full of politicking over departmental budgets and personnel. More money translates into more importance.

More importantly, I'm not sure how a flat tax addresses any of your concerns. I assume you're talking about a single income tax rate with no (or minimal) exemptions or deductions? Simplifying parts of the tax code would have benefits, but I don't see what that has to do with the actual flat part of the flat tax. You could equally well remove the deductions and keep graduated tax rates, or have a single rate with all the complex deductions.
A flat tax would also raise rates at the lower end and, especially if you also remove the deductions for her children, make your example single mom's situation worse.

[JimMorrison]

Politics is far too deceptive for me to glean any kind of understanding. I can only understand my own position and even then it's hard to say which candidate will serve me better or if either candidate will serve my interests at all. (I suspect the only one looking out for me is me)


This is exactly how they want you to feel. If you are stuck looking for a candidate who is best for you, then they can spend all of their time trying to convince you that they are the best candidate for you. As long as they can avoid the issue of who is the better candidate for the nation, their chances of election are much higher.


The simple fact, as NTJedi hints strongly at, is that our bureaucracy has become aged and bloated. Our forefathers never intended for their systems to remain mostly intact, with just a bunch of stuff tacked on, for this long. They knew that the best way to avoid corruption, was to reinvent government from time to time, to make it leaner, meaner, and less abusable. :p

[rabelais]

very soon we'll be living in Peronist Brazil.

uuhhhm... sorry, but you have just made one of those things that US citizens are stereotyped as doing (namely, confusing stuff about matters outside).

Juan Domingo Perón was president of Argentina, not Brazil.
And he was democratically elected too. AFAIK the current president of Argentina subscribes to Peronism (which, AFAIK, has a fairly loose definition, but still...)



Hi Poops. Sorry missed your reply. Yes I know peron was from argentina... I think the Brazilian model of highly insulated societies with massive wealth disparity and increasing privatization of security is more germane to the current arc of change in the US. But the quasifascist government by lobbyist in service of the corporate oligarchy... with a helping of cult of personality driven infallibility made Peron a useful bit of shorthand, apologies if I was unclear.

I'm actually convinced that no where in the northern hemisphere will be safe if the neocons stay in office... but I'd head for Australia or NZ, before south america, given the choice.

Hopefully after tuesday I can relax, and poor John Paul Stevens can retire. :)

[NTJedi]

I'll agree with your single mom example. It's a silly system. A more graduated drop as you earned more would make far more sense.
Yes, I agree.


And universal health care would make a lot of those issues go away. Having health care tied to employment leads to a lot of problems and results in a system that costs more and produces worse results than other "developed" countries.
Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems. Second we don't want to provide free healthcare for illegal aliens as it only provides them more reasons for sneaking across the border. Any illegal aliens have trouble finding work which naturally increases the rate of crime. I believe anyone should be allowed to stay in America as long as they pass health and background tests... this would help keep out criminals and STDs. The third problem with government run healthcare is we know the government poorly runs a majority of responsibilities thus we don't want to be giving the government any new responsibilities until the previous ones have been fixed. The main reason is because once the government owns something it NEVER lets it go and the country doesn't need a new Major problem.




More importantly, I'm not sure how a flat tax addresses any of your concerns. I assume you're talking about a single income tax rate with no (or minimal) exemptions or deductions? Simplifying parts of the tax code would have benefits, but I don't see what that has to do with the actual flat part of the flat tax. You could equally well remove the deductions and keep graduated tax rates, or have a single rate with all the complex deductions.
A flat tax would also raise rates at the lower end and, especially if you also remove the deductions for her children, make your example single mom's situation worse.

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.

[chrispedersen]

very soon we'll be living in Peronist Brazil.

uuhhhm... sorry, but you have just made one of those things that US citizens are stereotyped as doing (namely, confusing stuff about matters outside).

Juan Domingo Perón was president of Argentina, not Brazil.
And he was democratically elected too. AFAIK the current president of Argentina subscribes to Peronism (which, AFAIK, has a fairly loose definition, but still...)



Hi Poops. Sorry missed your reply. Yes I know peron was from argentina... I think the Brazilian model of highly insulated societies with massive wealth disparity and increasing privatization of security is more germane to the current arc of change in the US. But the quasifascist government by lobbyist in service of the corporate oligarchy... with a helping of cult of personality driven infallibility made Peron a useful bit of shorthand, apologies if I was unclear.

I'm actually convinced that no where in the northern hemisphere will be safe if the neocons stay in office... but I'd head for Australia or NZ, before south america, given the choice.

Hopefully after tuesday I can relax, and poor John Paul Stevens can retire. :)

GRRRRRRRRRRr

Do you even know what a fascist is rabelais? Or do you believe its ok to just throw around terms ignorantly? Considering your brazilian Peronist comment I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Here's the pertinent definition of fascism from dictionary.com.
"governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism"

A fascist is someone who supports such a system of government (also from dictionary.com).

Calling our present system of government - or the republican party in general fascist fails on at least 4 fronts. First, republicans are opposed to the regimentation of business by the state. Second - our system of government is a representative democracy. You might have heard of checks and balances. Since you say in one breath that Stephens can finally retire it seems you might have heard of the supreme court. Consider that the supreme court has ruled against the govt on numerous occassions (club gitmo, for example) and the congress is held by democrats - the idea that we might have a monolithic central and fascist government is .. well.. ridiculous.

Third - The very fact that the Dem party and 527's will have raised close to a BILLION dollars for this election (far in excess of any other campaign in history) pretty convincingly says that democratic activity is alive and well.

Fourth - no American I know is arguing for anything removal of your right to vote. Or a switch to dictatorship.

I said immature previously, I believe its an appropriate word. You can't just sling terms - it is inappropriate to call political opponents fascists simply because you dislike their politics. Calling people fascists is incendiary, and wrong.

[lch]

Just. not. Soteuro.
Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

[Edratman]

Many well written and thought provoking posts in this thread. Thank you all. It is a demonstration, that this game appeals to a bright and intelligent set of gamers.

I believe that is a significent factor in the substantial lead Obama has in this very small poll. I am referring to the Republican party's demonizing of intellectuals and pandering to "Joe Six-Pack" as a new definiton of the line seperating loyal Americans and (I am not sure what we are in that definiton; terrorists, socialist, dis-loyal Americans?).

While I do think the line defining intellectuals would have to be lowered and blurred quite a bit to include me, I am for sure a well-read, open minded, thoughtful and learned chap who considers himself branded as outside the Republican definition of a true and loyal American.

And that bothers me beyond description. Primarily because I think of myself as someone with a foot on both sides of the line between blue-collar and white-collar. I was raised in a lower middle class, urban, ethnic family, attended college, not by choice but really because it was the dream of my parents and grandparents that my generation would go to college.

My career is in manufacturing management, but I am very pro-union and an out spoken critic of corporate abuse of the working man. My beverage of choice is beer and I am very capable with my hands. That pretty much sums up my adherence to the Democratic party.

But it appears to me that the Republicans realized that they needed traditional Democratic supporters to achieve a plurality and they concocted a plan to achieve this objective. Yet many components of this plan are divisive, hateful and demeaning to many of the people in the classification that they wished to appeal to. On the other hand, it was successful enough to seperate adequate numbers of voters from the herd to achieve their objective.

I personally felt alienated and demonized. So I am voting, not for Obama (I do think he will do a very fine job), but against the Republican hate machine. I would vote for a yellow dog if it was running against a Republican hate monger and I also hear the echoes on 1930's Germany in the Republican "message".

[Tifone]

@ Aezeal

I just wanted to quote you on everything you said. USA on those things is really a strange country seen from Europe :D
Like, reading at NTJedi's post and seeing how Social Solidarity isn't a Constitutional duty...
Not to talk about their Creationism in science classes and that strange, old right to have guns everywhere....
And damn, I can't talk about the so called "pro-life" crew (like if the pro-choice are pro-death, lol) because we have some here too... :cold:
Hope the Democrats will change something ^^

[thejeff]

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.

So you're not actually for a flat tax, but a progressive marginally increasing tax. That's what "should gradually increase depending on income" is called.
You just want the tax code simplified and the deductions removed?

[rdonj]

@ Aezeal

I just wanted to quote you on everything you said. USA on those things is really a strange country seen from Europe :D
Like, reading at NTJedi's post and seeing how Social Solidarity isn't a Constitutional duty...
Not to talk about their Creationism in science classes and that strange, old right to have guns everywhere....
And damn, I can't talk about the so called "pro-life" crew (like if the pro-choice are pro-death, lol) because we have some here too... :cold:
Hope the Democrats will change something ^^

Part of the problem with this country is that religion plays far too large a part in politics. Theoretically there's supposed to be this thing called seperation of church and state, but democrats and republicans both continue to ignore this where it concerns major issues, such as abortion. On the bright side, I think this will die down a bit in 30 or 40 years.

[Tifone]

Aah, unfortunately that's a HUGE problem of my country too :cold:
We live in strange times, divided among the conservation of ancient and static, but still powerful, traditions - and the fast evolution-improvement of new social and scientific ideas.
We'll see how things will go :D

[JimMorrison]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....


I am always confused by these sorts of arguments.

First, under a properly administered national health scenario, everyone would contribute equally to the health-care costs of the nation. Think of it like insurance - you pay the premium, never knowing if you are someone you love will fall ill. The premium is less than the cost of the care that you might need, and everyone pays it so that those who do fall ill, do not suffer needlessly.

Secondly, why do fiscal conservatives insist on looking at "welfare" in the mold of what it is today? Our entire welfare system is completely broken. There are few rational people who are demanding that everyone be taken care of whether they contribute to society or not. Though, generally the compassionate among us would say that everyone should be taken care whether they can contribute to society or not, so as to not leave out the young, the elderly, and the chronically ill. At any rate, a functioning system would have programs that would employ "marginally functional" laborers, enforcing their minimal contribution to society, in return for a marginal living. So if someone wanted to be horribly lazy, they could get by on 15-20 hours of menial government labor, and would be given dorm style living and a small allowance.

If you want to look at that oddly controversial quote in a more rational light - "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability." - then you can see that perhaps in the context of our modern society, all a terribly lazy and amotivational slacker needs is a case of ramen and a little dorm room, because all they con contribute is a little bit of mindless drudge work. The point is not to take from the motivated to give to the leech, but rather to reach a balance between contribution and reward. The only point at which any real action needs to be taken, then, is if someone resists contributing enough to account for their bare minimal survival needs (a small room and crappy food), at which point they are put to work in places no one else wants to toil (scrubbing subway toilets, anyone?).

You can point at the throngs of homeless in America, and claim that they prove that I am wrong. However, I would argue that if you actually looked at these people, you would find that at least 99% of them fall into 2 categories - those who would gladly contribute but can't find work, and the mentally ill. So the former will work if we find something for them to do, and the latter need to be dealt with in some humane fashion, rather than condemning them to rot and fester in a dark alley, haunted by schizophrenic nightmares.


I'm just going to stop typing now. Hopefully I've made enough sense for this morning. :p

[thejeff]

I'd also like to point out that an increasingly large part of the working class doesn't have health insurance. Many low end jobs don't supply it and decent individual health insurance is far from affordable, and if you have any kind of "preexisting condition", may simply be unavailable at any price.

Those at the very bottom end of the scale often do have access to healthcare through Medicaid and other programs. It's those who are trying to climb out of the bottom rung that are screwed. Like NtJedi's single mom example. If she earns more at a job that still doesn't provide insurance, she no longer qualifies for the government programs. So she has no choice but to stay at the bottom.
Employment based health care no longer makes sense, if it ever did. The only reason it stays on, is that insurance companies stand to lose a great deal of profit, and the Republican party has spent years driving the message that government can't work and can't be trusted. And then doing their best to prove it when in power.

[chrispedersen]

Just. not. Soteuro.
Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

And presuming I am without reason is somewhat ignorant.
Do you know when he changed his name - and why? I do - both the reason he gives in his book dreams of my father, and the more likely 'real' reason.

Since you will call me a rascist etc if I tell you - I suggest you go read Dreams of my father. And read it in his own words.

Lastly, I suggest you consider why would anyone change their name from Barry Soutero to Barrack Hussein Obama? Do you think just perhaps if you were going to be involved in an activist miniority movement that somehow the name 'Barry' might not go over too well? And then look at when it happens...

When considering people in general, and politicians in specific, it is often more useful to consider what they do, rather than what they say.

[chrispedersen]

I'd also like to point out that an increasingly large part of the working class doesn't have health insurance. Many low end jobs don't supply it and decent individual health insurance is far from affordable, and if you have any kind of "preexisting condition", may simply be unavailable at any price.

Those at the very bottom end of the scale often do have access to healthcare through Medicaid and other programs. It's those who are trying to climb out of the bottom rung that are screwed. Like NtJedi's single mom example. If she earns more at a job that still doesn't provide insurance, she no longer qualifies for the government programs. So she has no choice but to stay at the bottom.
Employment based health care no longer makes sense, if it ever did. The only reason it stays on, is that insurance companies stand to lose a great deal of profit, and the Republican party has spent years driving the message that government can't work and can't be trusted. And then doing their best to prove it when in power.

Travelgate, Whitewater, Tyson foods, Hillaries amazing stock picks; Fannie Mae, Mac (including to Barrack Hussein Obama), Wm Jefferson, Barry Nagel, the mayor of detroit, PostOfficeGate, Jennifer Flowers, Espry - just a few democratic scandals that leap to mind. So the fact that you act completely ignorant of repeated democratic abuses of power suggests educating you is pointless.

However to change topics to healthcare - which I believe is a great topic for debate.

First, a few things of which you are probably unaware. The federal government is *causing* a great deal of our present problem. And before you dismiss this statement out of hand, let me show you why its so. When you think healthcare, you probably think ever increasing costs - prices that are increasing at 10+% every year.

So, every year, the federal govt. mandates a certain level of care. If you are a medicare or medicaid recipient you are entitlted to certain procedures. All well and good. However, the federal govt has never once in the *history* of the program paid for the full cost of these programs. So what happens is the federal government says you have to provide these services - and then doesn't provide the money for it.

Currently, the federal government is reimbursing at about 66% of the actual cost of providing for the service.

So, now consider if you are a hospital - your level of service is mandated. You can't deny an indigent patient medical services, yet if the service cost you $1000 and the federal govt only gives you %650 what are you going to do?

Unlike the federal government which can operate in a deficit seemingly forever, hospitals pretty much have to balance their books every year. So that $350 cost gets spread around to the people that can pay it - both insured and cash basis patients.

And every time we expand federal programs - such as this new program 'for the children' that Obama is proposing, or the prescription benefit program - the situation just gets worse.

This is one of the many examples of federal programs having unanticipated consequences. There is another problem with the federal approach.

First they are creating a sense of entitlement. I have actually heard people say they were *owed* a quadruple bypass. And they got it for free.. at a cost of over $176,000. In what way does an entitlement program encourage one to plan and conserve for ones medical needs? The fact is - it doesn't. As long as someone will foot the bill people will oversubscribe the service.

The second larger problem with the idea of health insurance - is that it no longer *IS* health insurance. I am all in favor of health insurance - but its no longer even possible to buy that in the US today.

The idea of health insurance as it was practised long ago was that *I* was responsible for the first X thousand dollars of my medical coverage. After that amount X was reached the insurer stepped in with something between 80%-100% of the coverage costs.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am in favor of the government providing basic medical services. Prenatal care, innoculations, emergeancy health care, etc.

But I am amazed that the left - the same people that worry about big government intrusion into our bedrooms (gay marriage etc), and our conversations (wireless wiretaps) are so willing to willy nilly cede complete control of their health care to a government beaurocracy.

There are a number of other factors that contribute to why our healthcare works - or doesn't work - the way it does. So, I'll give one more example: it costs more than $700 million dollars to bring a product to market in the united states. Seven Hundred MILLION. Thats because of the rules and regulations for testing, and product liability. But think about it - it means that *only* the very large companies can afford to drug trials here. And what happens when you restrict competition- prices go up.

It is easy to believe in slogans. But the good news, if I can call it that, is that the damage that barry can do in this arena is limited. He will propose more porgrams, and borrow more money to throw at it. And create a little bit more of an entitltement state - but in the end, its unsustainable even in its present form.

It is ironic - but the nucleus of McCains healthcare plan actually has the seeds of how to get out of some of this mess.
First, give every american $5000 dollars a year toward healthcare costs. Bankable or savable. But 5000 a year will pay for all the usual innoculations, and broken bones, and dental xrays. And then make things above that *your* responsbility.

Anyway.. I'm tired of typing = )

[NTJedi]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

First, under a properly administered national health scenario, everyone would contribute equally to the health-care costs of the nation.


Now see this is where the problem begins... the government has a proven history of problems spending our taxes and thus does not qualify for taking new responsibilities. If a college student is failing the majority of his classes you don't sign him up for another 4 credit class.


Secondly, why do fiscal conservatives insist on looking at "welfare" in the mold of what it is today?
Until our government can fix existing problems I don't have any faith in them controlling more of my life... such as healthcare. To blindly believe a huge government with many problems can run healthcare is like not buckling your seatbelt when the driver is heavily drunk... it's like asking for a trouble.


If you want to look at that oddly controversial quote in a more rational light - "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability." - then you can see that perhaps in the context of our modern society, all a terribly lazy and amotivational slacker needs is a case of ramen and a little dorm room, because all they con contribute is a little bit of mindless drudge work. The point is not to take from the motivated to give to the leech, but rather to reach a balance between contribution and reward. The only point at which any real action needs to be taken, then, is if someone resists contributing enough to account for their bare minimal survival needs (a small room and crappy food), at which point they are put to work in places no one else wants to toil (scrubbing subway toilets, anyone?).
Yes everyone should contribute to society when possible.


You can point at the throngs of homeless in America, and claim that they prove that I am wrong. However, I would argue that if you actually looked at these people, you would find that at least 99% of them fall into 2 categories - those who would gladly contribute but can't find work, and the mentally ill. So the former will work if we find something for them to do, and the latter need to be dealt with in some humane fashion, rather than condemning them to rot and fester in a dark alley, haunted by schizophrenic nightmares.
The mentally ill should be helped, the homeless have shelters and programs which are to get them back into being useful into society. I've done volunteer work at these locations and they are given opportunities for returning back into society and some make this progression. The problem is many choose to remain homeless because they don't want any responsibility(cleaning dishes & answering phones) or they have bad habits such as stealing, violence and leeching off others.
Universal healthcare also opens the door to all the drug addicts who would now get free insurance allowing them to fake pains at the hospital so they can receive a fix of free drugs. At least today they need to provide their own insurance before abusing this option.

[quantum_mechani]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

[Tifone]

Call me stupid, but I can't really figure out where all those masses of strongly religious people in the U.S. who go nuts about abortion and gay marriage, are when they should defend the "right to live" of less fortunate people (EXPECIALLY immigrants) who can't afford health insurance for them and their children :confused:

(Dt 10,18; 14,28-29; 24,17-20; 26,1-11; 26,12-13; 27,19; Lv 19,34; 23,22; Sal 72,13; 146,9; Mt 15,21-28; Lk 10,25-37)

Maybe some good believer which thinks those people don't deserve those cares despite what the Bible and Jesus said (or even mister KO, who knows about religions far better than me, but I'd prefer first hand material :) ) can enlighten my mind... (After all, I'm just a poor Agnostic/Buddhist/Taoist living very far from US...)

[Tifone]

Should I try to guess a self-answer? (and sorry for double post)

Should I deduce those masses of ppl are proud and loyal and angry Christians, until they have to put an hand to their pocket, not to talk about "Go, sell all your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (MT 19,21)?

It would seem pretty hypocritical. But surely I'm wrong. :)

[lch]

Just. not. Soteuro.
Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

And presuming I am without reason is somewhat ignorant.
Do you know when he changed his name - and why? I do - both the reason he gives in his book dreams of my father, and the more likely 'real' reason.
I am not ignorant, I am telling you to be reasonable. The man calls himself Barack Obama, he is enlisted as Barack Obama in the election, the media calls him Barack Obama, and thus it makes absolutely no sense that you insist on calling him Soetoro as if you are some kind of republican nutjob. Personally I would not care if he was named Barack Adolf Josef Hussein Bin Laden. So since I was the first to fall victim to your trolling, completely aware of it, I ask you to stop this kind of trolling right here and now.

[sum1lost]

Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

And presuming I am without reason is somewhat ignorant.
Do you know when he changed his name - and why? I do - both the reason he gives in his book dreams of my father, and the more likely 'real' reason.
I am not ignorant, I am telling you to be reasonable. The man calls himself Barack Obama, he is enlisted as Barack Obama in the election, the media calls him Barack Obama, and thus it makes absolutely no sense that you insist on calling him Soetoro as if you are some kind of republican nutjob. Personally I would not care if he was named Barack Adolf Josef Hussein Bin Laden. So since I was the first to fall victim to your trolling, completely aware of it, I ask you to stop this kind of trolling right here and now.

Pardon, but my mother's name is Adolf Stalin Hussein Pol Pot Bin Laden, and I am highly offended by this post. Please stop trolling.

On a slightly less retarded note, please remember, everyone, that simply because someone holds to a position that you find irrational and pointless doesn't mean that they are trolling. They might just be an irrational and pointless kind of guy, like Don Quixote.

[Mithras]

Wait a moment, is someone seriously suggesting that the guy changed his name TO something with Barack Hussein Obama?
And further more he did this to endear himself to the american voters?
Is anyone else spotting something wrong with this?

Oh and on Tifone's point... well I'm hardly an authority on the matter but it seems fairly obvious that not everything that is written in holy texts can be true as they are often contradictory, for example:
You are told to love your neighbour, but at the same time you are told that god destroyed a whole city because the men fancied other men. Oh and it (god, to aviod genderism issues) killed an innocent woman for watching the destruction. So if you have a neighbor who happens to be gay then you naturally don't like them very much because you don't want the neighborhood turned into a crator, but on the other hand you've gotta love them... bit of a pickle.
oh and to derail further, who's bright idea was it to lump the old testament in with the new one... we could have had a moderately peacefull western religion if we'd just left some of the old stuff out :D

Disclaimer... if this offends pm me and I'll remove the offending bit promise.

[AdmiralZhao]

It's not contradictory Mithras; the line about loving your neighbor was from MA Yaweh, while the city destroying was from EA Yaweh.

[Mithras]

It's not contradictory Mithras; the line about loving your neighbor was from MA Yaweh, while the city destroying was from EA Yaweh.

Unfortunately the LA version has summons from both ages, and freespawning rednecks... Watch out Abysia!

I had to give in to temptation didn't I?

[Tifone]

Damn! And they have a Greater Paliness coming out from the Gate :eek:


http://imgboot.com/images/Tifone/dinosaurs.jpg

:shock: AAAH!!! :shock:

EDIT: Sorry, I know that's a Vastness, but the Greater Otherness really looks like... ehm... a cr*p and seemed offensive :re:

[Aezeal]

I'm just gonna react on NTJEdi's post (reaction on mine, both page 8) since it contains SO MUCH I disagree with.

One of the biggest and most important long term benefits would be changing taxes into a flat tax rate.

Well as a lift wing person I of course disagree with this (and in our country only the most radical right pplz would even suggest this) I'm a firm believer in incom nivellation. Government needs money (how much is irrelevant, work for either high or low taxes) so pplz need to "give" it. Most fair and social and general "good" solution is to take more from the richest... even Robin Hood understood this (and in that role seen as a "Good guy" and not as a criminal) and I guess most of us have cheered at that as kids.. I'm surprised a lot of people lost that general sense of right and wrong when they grew up.

I do see higher taxes as money vanishing... I'll provide just two personal examples.

Sure if there is more money there is more too loose but I don't really think that makes it worse.. you 2 examples are somewhat flawed and more a reason to just improve the legislation around it all and not to say taxes should be lower. Even so I still have more to say about this.
1. The single mom thing: if there was yet MORE cash for the government then maybe there could be an arrangement where she didn't loose all when getting a job but there would be more of a gliding scale (costing more money)
2. university: well nothing new just want to sy again that this whole example has nothing to do with taxes, just with inefficency in general.

So until I have the option to vote where my taxes are being spent
you alway have an option to vote where you cash goes... candidates have different opinions on it.. to bad that in the american system of campaigning even though it takes a lot of cash etc etc a lot of these points don't seem to be adressed much. It's a daydream to think you'd ever be able to vote on all topics where spending cash is concerned it would create an unworkable situation to have either polls on all subjects (yeah about 500000 a year.. this is what you have a senate for they do the job of voting if you get (about) the right person there. Or the other solution would be there would need to be a zillion different parties all with the specific differences to their programs.. which would mean about half of them would need to team up to get a majority and they'd still need to comprimise with each other.

[rabelais]

GRRRRRRRRRRr

Do you even know what a fascist is rabelais? Or do you believe its ok to just throw around terms ignorantly? Considering your brazilian Peronist comment I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Here's the pertinent definition of fascism from dictionary.com.
"governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism"

A fascist is someone who supports such a system of government (also from dictionary.com).

Calling our present system of government - or the republican party in general fascist fails on at least 4 fronts. First, republicans are opposed to the regimentation of business by the state. Second - our system of government is a representative democracy. You might have heard of checks and balances. Since you say in one breath that Stephens can finally retire it seems you might have heard of the supreme court. Consider that the supreme court has ruled against the govt on numerous occassions (club gitmo, for example) and the congress is held by democrats - the idea that we might have a monolithic central and fascist government is .. well.. ridiculous.

Third - The very fact that the Dem party and 527's will have raised close to a BILLION dollars for this election (far in excess of any other campaign in history) pretty convincingly says that democratic activity is alive and well.

Fourth - no American I know is arguing for anything removal of your right to vote. Or a switch to dictatorship.

I said immature previously, I believe its an appropriate word. You can't just sling terms - it is inappropriate to call political opponents fascists simply because you dislike their politics. Calling people fascists is incendiary, and wrong.

Um. Breathe. Again I really shouldn't wade in, but you keep accusing me of idiocy and then using such splendid displays of illogic and grade-school level rhetoric, that I apparently can't resist.

The interesting thing about the current GOP's take on comprehensive authoritarianism is that its not so much about government controlling industry as the reverse. the whole point is to use government to engineer the socialization of risk, while maintaining the privatization of profit. Note the current financial industry bailout for examples. Thus republican scruples (ahem!) are uncompromised, since industry is pitching and the rest of us catching.

Does suppressing opposition, militarism, aggressive nationalism and racism seem to you like they don't describe the current administration?

The intentions of the administration and the current Republican party are antidemocratic, that they have no been entirely successful hardly mean that criticism of them is out of bounds until they get all their DOJ and/or talk radio jackboots in a row.

The imperial executive doesn't care about congress, to the best of its ability, ruling though executive orders and signing statements or extreme legal dubiety. Commander-in-chief is really where its at these days. Does anyone else think the Department of Homeland Security sounds like a bunch of deranged Boers went crazy at the cabinet stationary store?

The supremes got us into this mess and republicans have had the last two appointments, to describe them as a check or balance to Addington et al. is really absurd. The omni-filibuster plus joe Lieberman make democratic congressional "control" a legal fiction. Check back after February after we have 56-58 seats, not counting Holy Joe. It *might* improve, but I'm not confident. Reid is kinda a (yellow+blue= green?)-dog and a schmuck.

Obama has shut down most of the 527's on the democratic side, although they are still being heavily used on the GOP side to evade the public financing restrictions. That Obama has raised serious cash is indeed heartening, whether it will triumph in the face of vote suppression and smearing remains to be seen.

Very few people, not even Lord Voldem... Vice President Cheney or Rudy Giuliani would openly suggest limiting the franchise, they just want to make it harder for certain demographics to make their preferences binding in this time of conveniently perpetual national crisis.

I don't call them fascist because *just* because I dislike their politics... I call them fascist, because... their meta-politics are deeply authoritarian and they appear to be trending toward full-blown fascism with frightening consistency. Their behavior from november 2000 has been grotesquely antidemocratic and anti-constitutional. I will be genuinely relieved and at least a little surprised if bush/cheney leave office will no further wagging of the dog promptly on jan 20.

Besides, I tried calling them *******s for years, but that eventually just seemed wholly inadequate for the horror show they have brought upon the country and world, and unfair to mere garden variety *******s, who lack their insitutional leverage to create misery.

Chris do me a favor, send me your best idea for a MA man pretender for the doedicurus MP game... if I like your ideas I'll stop arguing with you, and if I don't like your ideas, we'll at least have something Dominions related to argue about instead. Deal?

Rabe of the Immature writing--- editing takes WAY too long! :D

[chrispedersen]

Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

And presuming I am without reason is somewhat ignorant.
Do you know when he changed his name - and why? I do - both the reason he gives in his book dreams of my father, and the more likely 'real' reason.
I am not ignorant, I am telling you to be reasonable. The man calls himself Barack Obama, he is enlisted as Barack Obama in the election, the media calls him Barack Obama, and thus it makes absolutely no sense that you insist on calling him Soetoro as if you are some kind of republican nutjob. Personally I would not care if he was named Barack Adolf Josef Hussein Bin Laden. So since I was the first to fall victim to your trolling, completely aware of it, I ask you to stop this kind of trolling right here and now.


'Be reasonable. Do it my way.'

I find it generally useful to inform others - that barack obama changed his name. So I'm afraid I shan't be following your prescription.

You may *not* be aware of the law in the United States - but when a lawyer registers to practise law, he is required *only* practise law under his registered name, and he is required to disclose any other names he may have used.

At the very least, Obama violated this law. Now, we know that Barry entered the country as Barry. But we have no knowledge did he attend college as Barry - it seems in part he did. Did he receive scholarships/acceptance as an immigrant student? We don't know. Barry won't release his records.

Furthermore, it is unlawful to run for public office under a different name. Recently here in Florida, a democrat running for office tried to change her name to something more hispanic. She was booted off the ballot by the courts for failure to abide by this law.

So, you see it very much does matter what Barry's name is. But lets not let a little matter of legality get in the way of annointing the next great democratic candidate.

[chrispedersen]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

If you ever worked in a community health clinic you'd know it wasn't a few people. Its a never ending stream.

[Tifone]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

If you ever worked in a community health clinic you'd know it wasn't a few people. Its a never ending stream.

That's just a dodge. Rephrased question so: is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people DIE without health care because a "never ending stream" abuses the system?
Isn't it far worse than the infamous "blaming the victim"?
Isn't the right way, improving efficiency (stopping the abuse) and help all the people in need?

[lch]

'Be reasonable. Do it my way.'

I find it generally useful to inform others - that barack obama changed his name. So I'm afraid I shan't be following your prescription.
If you are so bold to even claim that there are legal problems, then you should have hard evidence to back that up, and I hardly think that you're able to do that, hence your claim is without reason. From what I have seen, the absolute only documented source about a differing name is a school registration as "Barry Soetoro", made by his stepfather at the time. That is hardly a binding document about a namechange, no matter what some people try to stylize it to be. Those people then go on and claim that there's no document where the name change "back" was registered, deducing a lot more smut from that false premise, when they don't even have a document where the name change "towards" Soetoro can be seen. Poor magician's trick?

So unless you do have documented evidence, other than deliberations on conspiracy- and attack sites, that Barry was more than his nickname, and you shouldn't try to answer this if you don't, your accusations are without ground and nothing more than a bad try at trolling.

[JimMorrison]

First, a few things of which you are probably unaware. The federal government is *causing* a great deal of our present problem. And before you dismiss this statement out of hand, let me show you why its so. When you think healthcare, you probably think ever increasing costs - prices that are increasing at 10+% every year.

I have to comment here, in the middle of the thought. It just seems that you are unaware that the problem is the bureaucracy itself. It's not *just* healthcare that it is bungling up. It is screwing up just about everything that it has a thumb in, and why? It's not simply because NO government can handle large projects responsibly, it's because OUR government can't handle projects responsibly. If people would quit towing a party line, and quit making illogical attacks against the "sworn political enemy", maybe we could work out a governmental paradigm that is actually effectual.



Currently, the federal government is reimbursing at about 66% of the actual cost of providing for the service.

So, now consider if you are a hospital - your level of service is mandated. You can't deny an indigent patient medical services, yet if the service cost you $1000 and the federal govt only gives you %650 what are you going to do?

Unlike the federal government which can operate in a deficit seemingly forever, hospitals pretty much have to balance their books every year. So that $350 cost gets spread around to the people that can pay it - both insured and cash basis patients...

...This is one of the many examples of federal programs having unanticipated consequences. There is another problem with the federal approach.

This has nothing to do with the viability of a national health care system, and everything to do with our dysfunctional government. Perhaps you would like to explain to me how so many other industrialized nations pull off the illusion of accomplishing the impossible feat of comprehensive national health care?



The second larger problem with the idea of health insurance - is that it no longer *IS* health insurance. I am all in favor of health insurance - but its no longer even possible to buy that in the US today.

The idea of health insurance as it was practised long ago was that *I* was responsible for the first X thousand dollars of my medical coverage. After that amount X was reached the insurer stepped in with something between 80%-100% of the coverage costs.

Ummmm, the way that insurance in general is supposed to work, is much more simple than that, and is the essence of how "socialized" programs like national health care could and should work. The basic idea is to statistically determine the odds of severe illness, and project the costs of dealing with that illness. In abstract terms, this means that if we say that 1 in 10 people will eventually suffer from a malady that costs $1000 dollars to treat, but we have no idea which 10% of the people, then we simply need everyone to to pay in $100 to cover the expenses of those who are afflicted.

One of the reasons that this system is starting to break down as it is (not to bring up greed from every party involved), is the skyrocketing instances of cancer, heart disease, and all manner of other extremely expensive ailments in America. Odd, when you consider how many of these diseases in fact could be avoided or reduced in severity if proper measures were put in place (like making sure everyone has adequate access to early screening to detect cancer when it can be dealt with at a fraction of the cost, and a fraction of the risk).


It is ironic - but the nucleus of McCains healthcare plan actually has the seeds of how to get out of some of this mess.
First, give every american $5000 dollars a year toward healthcare costs. Bankable or savable. But 5000 a year will pay for all the usual innoculations, and broken bones, and dental xrays. And then make things above that *your* responsbility.

I'm glad that -someone- thinks that McCain's plan is not only an actual plan, but a good one at that.

The problem with McCain's solution, is first, it's a tax credit, NOT a check for $5000 (where in hell would THAT money come from? 300mil+ people, that's 1.5 trillion dollars a year if it were true). There's an enormous, gaping hole in this idea though - the vast majority of the uninsured in America don't even make enough (and therefore generate anywhere near enough if Federal Income Taxes) to fully benefit from this.

But really, the boner here, is that if he really somehow managed to find $1.5 trillion (every year!) to throw at the health care problem, he could make it go away MUCH more easily than by forcing the individual to deal with things.

Oh, and a little anecdote, because I know everyone loves my anecdotes. After suffering severe migraines and other terrible side effects from all of the pharmaceutical antihistamines I tried (too bad I can't have ephedra, it worked wonders, but some people "abuse" it, so much for liberty), I was given a prescription for Allegra. Well, Allegra worked quite well for me, and while I was eligible for the Oregon Health Plan, I was paying $15/month for that medicine, and they picked up the rest. But once I was off the health plan, the cost went to $90/month. $3 a tablet, just for an antihistime. Over $1000/year that I can't pay right now, that McCain's plan will not even touch because I earn so little in my current state of health, that I don't even pay taxes at all, and thus would not receive any "credit".

<3

[thejeff]

What you might still have missed in McCain's health care approach, is not only is the $5000 a tax credit, but it's a credit to offset any health care benefits you might get from your employer now being taxed as personal income.

And $5000 doesn't buy a lot of health insurance. Maybe a high deductible plan to cover emergencies for the young and healthy. Anyone else is out of luck.

[JimMorrison]

The mentally ill should be helped, the homeless have shelters and programs which are to get them back into being useful into society. I've done volunteer work at these locations and they are given opportunities for returning back into society and some make this progression. The problem is many choose to remain homeless because they don't want any responsibility(cleaning dishes & answering phones) or they have bad habits such as stealing, violence and leeching off others.
Universal healthcare also opens the door to all the drug addicts who would now get free insurance allowing them to fake pains at the hospital so they can receive a fix of free drugs. At least today they need to provide their own insurance before abusing this option.

The "shelters" are understaffed, and very limited in capabilities. Unfortunately, the majority of people who are helping the "needy" are also religious groups, that withhold most of their aid unless you enlist in their church. And still, very few if any of these "shelters" and other aid programs provide effective counseling to help reintegrate people into society. Many of them have been through traumatic events on their way to living in the streets, and more still experience traumatic events once there. It's kind of silly to postulate that they are actually just lazy or uncooperative, when many of them are scared, confused, conflicted, and deeply depressed - if not outright mentally ill. It is our society, and our economy that allow them to reach bottom, it is sort of our collective responsibility to help them up.

As far as people leeching off of a health care system, sure, people abuse organized systems all the time. I can imagine it's unlikely you have worked at a single place that did not have at least one employee who did not pull their weight. They were abusing their employment situation, earning the same wage as you while expending less effort. Did this mean that your employer in each case was incompetent, and should not be allowed to manage workers? Maybe it just meant that not enough care or attention was put into minimizing the abusability of the workplace, and/or disincentivizing the abuse itself?

We created these problems ourselves. We unleashed this monster of a "federal government" upon our prosperous land. 100 years ago, this was an entirely different world, with different needs, different concerns, and different ideals. 100 years later, everything has changed, but our government is still essentially the same.

A man whom I hold in high regard warned us to keep changing and improving our methods of governance, because he felt that ANY system, if left in place in any given incarnation for too long, would become abused beyond usefulness. He helped make our country, and he told us to keep changing it, to keep innovating - or we would allow ourselves to become burdened with self-interested bureaucrats and bankers.

The people who stand to lose power, will try to convince you that it is un-American to want to change our mode of governance, to want to become something greater than we already are - but in truth, it is the highest of American ideals that we have the ingenuity and the sense to form a more perfect union, each form more perfect than the last.

<3

[capnq]

Whenever a third party candidate starts to get some traction on an issue, one or both of the major parties co-opts their position and folds it into their platform (e.g. sustainable energy). If you don't expect your vote to effect the outcome, voting third party at least sends a message.

I expect the economy to continue to tank regardless of who wins the Presidency.

[PyroStock]

Unfortunately, the majority of people who are helping the "needy" are also religious groups, that withhold most of their aid unless you enlist in their church.<3

Citation Needed.

[NTJedi]

One of the biggest and most important long term benefits would be changing taxes into a flat tax rate.

Well as a lift wing person I of course disagree with this (and in our country only the most radical right pplz would even suggest this) I'm a firm believer in incom nivellation. Government needs money (how much is irrelevant, work for either high or low taxes) so pplz need to "give" it. Most fair and social and general "good" solution is to take more from the richest... even Robin Hood understood this (and in that role seen as a "Good guy" and not as a criminal) and I guess most of us have cheered at that as kids.. I'm surprised a lot of people lost that general sense of right and wrong when they grew up.

So many problems in this response... first stealing from anyone is WRONG and is one of the 10 commandments, but I guess you're not religious otherwise you'd have recognized this wrong. Second in referencing the true Robin Hood, he stole from the aristocracy; known to be the government of its time and he only started after the government began taking the mass majority of money from the people. If stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is good then it would be okay for the starving homeless to steal from you because to them you are rich. The point is its always easy to point the finger at anyone doing better than you and say take their money. Third my suggested gradual increased flat tax would actually provide those of lower income to pay less taxes and those such as Bill Gates to actually pay more, but somehow you failed to grasp the explanation.


I do see higher taxes as money vanishing... I'll provide just two personal examples.

Sure if there is more money there is more too loose but I don't really think that makes it worse.. you 2 examples are somewhat flawed and more a reason to just improve the legislation around it all and not to say taxes should be lower. Even so I still have more to say about this.
That's the problem is neither of the candidates will be improving the legislation. Only the congress can change the legistation and this has not been improving during the last 15 years. Currently the democrats are running congress the last two years and the economy is only getting worse.


1. The single mom thing: if there was yet MORE cash for the government then maybe there could be an arrangement where she didn't loose all when getting a job but there would be more of a gliding scale (costing more money)
2. university: well nothing new just want to sy again that this whole example has nothing to do with taxes, just with inefficency in general.

In both your responses the government having more money won't solve them. Both of them can be solved if the government provided a strong checks&balances system which better investigates how the money is spent and the end result. This would stop deans from giving themself a raise or wasting money in other ways I won't go into. This would also help the government realize why the single mom is not able to make her life better. Tossing more money at these departments won't solve the problem, they need to investigate and reorganize how current money is being spent.



So until I have the option to vote where my taxes are being spent
you alway have an option to vote where you cash goes... candidates have different opinions on it.. to bad that in the american system of campaigning even though it takes a lot of cash etc etc a lot of these points don't seem to be adressed much. It's a daydream to think you'd ever be able to vote on all topics where spending cash is concerned it would create an unworkable situation to have either polls on all subjects

Not voting on all subjects... that's just silly and funny to even think of such a thought. It would be nice if I could specify exactly which departments recieve my tax money. For example if I knew our government had a good Education system I could write "Education" on line 45 of my taxes form where 50% of my taxes would be sent to this department. The other 50% can be distributed evenly. This idea like the flat tax suggestion should be tested in two counties and then gradually expand.

[NTJedi]

Did this mean that your employer in each case was incompetent, and should not be allowed to manage workers? Maybe it just meant that not enough care or attention was put into minimizing the abusability of the workplace, and/or disincentivizing the abuse itself?


The difference here is that if my employer hires someone incompetent or messed up in some other way then its the company which suffers and may eventually die to competition. Now in regards to government we don't have any second, third, tenth, etc., option which will take over. You cannot compare companies to government... apples & rocks.



We created these problems ourselves. We unleashed this monster of a "federal government" upon our prosperous land. 100 years ago, this was an entirely different world, with different needs, different concerns, and different ideals. 100 years later, everything has changed, but our government is still essentially the same.

A man whom I hold in high regard warned us to keep changing and improving our methods of governance, because he felt that ANY system, if left in place in any given incarnation for too long, would become abused beyond usefulness. He helped make our country, and he told us to keep changing it, to keep innovating - or we would allow ourselves to become burdened with self-interested bureaucrats and bankers.

The people who stand to lose power, will try to convince you that it is un-American to want to change our mode of governance, to want to become something greater than we already are - but in truth, it is the highest of American ideals that we have the ingenuity and the sense to form a more perfect union, each form more perfect than the last.

<3


I agree more perfect than the last... which means we have to repair our current government departments before adding new ones such as healthcare. As I wrote earlier if a college student is having serious problems with his classes you do not sign him up with another 4 credit class.

[Mithras]

One of the biggest and most important long term benefits would be changing taxes into a flat tax rate.

Well as a lift wing person I of course disagree with this (and in our country only the most radical right pplz would even suggest this) I'm a firm believer in incom nivellation. Government needs money (how much is irrelevant, work for either high or low taxes) so pplz need to "give" it. Most fair and social and general "good" solution is to take more from the richest... even Robin Hood understood this (and in that role seen as a "Good guy" and not as a criminal) and I guess most of us have cheered at that as kids.. I'm surprised a lot of people lost that general sense of right and wrong when they grew up.

So many problems in this response... first stealing from anyone is WRONG and is one of the 10 commandments, but I guess you're not religious otherwise you'd have recognized this wrong. Second in referencing the true Robin Hood, he stole from the aristocracy; known to be the government of its time and he only started after the government began taking the mass majority of money from the people. If stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is good then it would be okay for the starving homeless to steal from you because to them you are rich. The point is its always easy to point the finger at anyone doing better than you and say take their money. Third my suggested gradual increased flat tax would actually provide those of lower income to pay less taxes and those such as Bill Gates to actually pay more, but somehow you failed to grasp the explanation.



A moral argumant about Robin Hood! :D
I think the idea is it's ok to steal from a theif especially if the theif is greedy grabbing and power hungry. Lets think a modern day parralel:
To rashly generalise one of the most religious american states (read texas)also backs the death penalty, so its ok to kill a killer (also one of the ten comandments incase you were wandering, thou shalt not kill) is perfectly ok but stealing from a theif is just wrong?
Robin Hood is a great myth. Why? Because he believed in equality. He saw rich landlords and took them down a peg to feed some starving peasants (and yes I'm aware its fiction) Are you saying its wrong to steal to save the life of another?

Now on to taxes yes graduated taxes... so lets make sure I'm getting this, Bill Gates gives out 8% of his income ie small change for him, while the single working mother who just happens to live in extreme povert (lets say $2 a day) gives up 20 cents of that a day which could mean the differance betweeen say the existance of the next meal? Ok extreme example but is that what your getting at, lowest income still pay taxes but its a smaller percentage? No exceptions, what if I earn $200 a week but have 10 children to support?

Oh and stop blaming the civil servants! Pay the elected representatives less, and make the presidental candidates donate their campaign money instead of throwing it at the voters. Never mind wastage in govenrment any elected represntative of the people is forced to wastefull... I prefer the argumant over Robin Hood, its hard to argue over government efficiency because making something like that more efficient would require genocide :D

[Bwaha]

The one position that I agree with Obama is his dislike of the "Real Id" laws. I heard some people talking about it and was horrified. Bigger Brother...:eek:

[Edratman]

I don't mind paying taxes; it buys me civilization.

[JimMorrison]

Unfortunately, the majority of people who are helping the "needy" are also religious groups, that withhold most of their aid unless you enlist in their church.<3

Citation Needed.


Wait, out of all of this bickering, you want to vet this statement? :rolleyes:

The claim is anecdotal. That is to say, it is only an observation gleaned from my own trials. Don't believe me? I don't really care if you do or not. I'm the one that made the phone calls - the list was provided by my hospital. I am afraid that I did not record the phone calls, nor publish an article about my experience, that I can then reference here.

But, thank you for caring about veracity, hopefully at some point you can find something even more meaningful to contribute to the discussion.




Did this mean that your employer in each case was incompetent, and should not be allowed to manage workers? Maybe it just meant that not enough care or attention was put into minimizing the abusability of the workplace, and/or disincentivizing the abuse itself?


The difference here is that if my employer hires someone incompetent or messed up in some other way then its the company which suffers and may eventually die to competition. Now in regards to government we don't have any second, third, tenth, etc., option which will take over. You cannot compare companies to government... apples & rocks.

I guess maybe what I was trying to say, is that perhaps our best option now is to create that second option - to give ourselves the choice between a barely functioning old workhorse, or a newer model, with more torque, that maybe has a few kinks to work out. ;)

[NTJedi]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

It's not simple to understand, but the fastest explanation is we have to look at long term solutions and not the short term solutions. The united states is a huge country with millions of homeless and its not just the homeless that are currently without healthcare. A universal healthcare would not only be more costly, but it would introduce several new problems.

First and probably least important would be everyone paying higher taxes. As I've written before our government has problems with existing departments and giving them a new responsibility would only bring new problems.

Second our doctors would be changed to a fixed government income, currently many of the best doctors from Canada move to America because of much higher pay which is the result of competition from doctor offices and specialized treatment centers. What do you think will happen within the USA to doctors once they're told the government is now the source of their future fixed income. As mentioned in other forums they will be moving out of the country to setup their offices and treatment centers.

Third and quite serious would be massively longer waiting times when going to the hospitals and offices. Currently the waiting period is 3hours at the hospitals for Urgent Care, yet this will drastically increase. There's plenty of reports describing how Europeans travel to other countries for healthcare because the waiting times are unreasonably long. The next time I have a kidney stone I don't want to discover the average waiting time is now 24hours.

Fourth is the government will never release healthcare responsibility once started, because its another source for taking money from the people. This means IF the universal healthcare changes everyones healthcare into a nightmare we will be permanently stuck under government control. The people won't be able to say, "WAIT... change it back because I didn't expect X and Y to be one of the side effects."


I believe that someday... it's possible for our government to be wise enough and experienced enough to handle a great responsiblity such as universal healthcare. Without a doubt our government cannot handle such a responsibility today and it would be a mistake.

[NTJedi]

I guess maybe what I was trying to say, is that perhaps our best option now is to create that second option - to give ourselves the choice between a barely functioning old workhorse, or a newer model, with more torque, that maybe has a few kinks to work out. ;)


I agree the healthcare system needs to be improved, but it has to be researched and approached cautiously. We don't want to crack a the walls of a dam so our farms receive more water and then discover the end result was the dam breaking and destroying a village.
Ideally we should hold a brainstorming session with the smartest minds in America to organize a list of options which include government and non-government. Then these options should each be tested within small parts of america. Problems and abuses can be identified and either fixed or re-examined. Upon success each option expands into more towns and eventually a city. Upon sucess the option is adopted into the entire state and continues to gradually expand into the rest of America.

Our government taking control of healthcare right now is way too risky.

[coobe]

im not an American, but damn any vote for Palin =)

[Ballbarian]

My vote be damned then.

[NTJedi]

A moral argumant about Robin Hood! :D
I think the idea is it's ok to steal from a theif especially if the theif is greedy grabbing and power hungry.
Lets think a modern day parralel:
To rashly generalise one of the most religious american states (read texas)also backs the death penalty, so its ok to kill a killer (also one of the ten comandments incase you were wandering, thou shalt not kill) is perfectly ok but stealing from a theif is just wrong?
In the story Robin Hood was returning the money to the now large groups of poor people from the government which was overtaxing its people. Let's hope this does not happen in the USA. The death penalty is another different ball of wax and I'm sure there's two dozen other major topics to discuss as well, but we don't want this thread splitting in too many directions.



Robin Hood is a great myth. Why? Because he believed in equality. He saw rich landlords and took them down a peg to feed some starving peasants (and yes I'm aware its fiction) Are you saying its wrong to steal to save the life of another?
As I wrote earlier Robin Hood was stealing from the government... not hardworking farmers who had extra food. And in regards to your question... would it be wrong for a starving homeless individual to break into your home so he has the nourishment to continue living? Because you weren't home when he knocked on the door and to him you are rich.


Now on to taxes yes graduated taxes... so lets make sure I'm getting this, Bill Gates gives out 8% of his income ie small change for him, while the single working mother who just happens to live in extreme povert (lets say $2 a day) gives up 20 cents of that a day which could mean the differance betweeen say the existance of the next meal? Ok extreme example but is that what your getting at, lowest income still pay taxes but its a smaller percentage? No exceptions, what if I earn $200 a week but have 10 children to support?

LOL... if you earn $200 a week paying $2 for that week in taxes won't be changing anything. Second I never said EVERYONE would be paying taxes... nice jump of wild assumptions.


Oh and stop blaming the civil servants! Pay the elected representatives less, and make the presidental candidates donate their campaign money instead of throwing it at the voters. Never mind wastage in govenrment any elected represntative of the people is forced to wastefull... I prefer the argumant over Robin Hood, its hard to argue over government efficiency because making something like that more efficient would require genocide :D
Unfortunately none of these suggestions will occur because elected representatives will never vote for a pay decrease, presidential candidates won't donate their money lottery ticket for the presidency, and tossing more money at the government has not worked in the past and won't work in the future. Finally Robin Hood stole from the government and returned the money to the poor.

[PyroStock]

Unfortunately, the majority of people who are helping the "needy" are also religious groups, that withhold most of their aid unless you enlist in their church.<3

Citation Needed.

:D
Wait, out of all of this bickering, you want to vet this statement? :rolleyes:

The claim is anecdotal. That is to say, it is only an observation gleaned from my own trials. Don't believe me?

Why so defensive??? I never said I didn't believe you saw it happen somewhere. I make a harmless request and you roll your eyes? :rolleyes:

My mistake, I thought actually were trying to form a solid argument with sound reasoning, but it's more just an opinion based on anecdotal emotions and logical fallacies. Your statement(s?) is not much different than someone saying a certain race, gender, religion is far more discriminatory (with the needy) because of their individual experience with "those people". Thanks for sharing....

I am afraid that I did not record the phone calls, nor publish an article about my experience, that I can then reference here.

:D Which would still be anecdotal evidence and be just as useless... perhaps you're trying to make me laugh. The next time someone calls BS on your negative sweeping generalizations try a different response.

But, thank you for caring about veracity, hopefully at some point you can find something even more meaningful to contribute to the discussion.

Perhaps you could contribute something meaningful to the discussion?

[rdonj]

Pyrostock - I maintain a sincere belief that anecdotal experiences are often underrated, that giving answers that are truthful is a good thing, and that as this is a gaming forum rather than a forum for political debate, we can relax the standards for what's acceptable for a person to post here just a little.

And meanwhile, before you go attacking others, why don't you go and contribute something meaningful to the conversation yourself? Currently jimmorrison's smileys are adding more to the conversation than you are. Thank you and have a nice day.

[Mithras]

Now on to taxes yes graduated taxes... so lets make sure I'm getting this, Bill Gates gives out 8% of his income ie small change for him, while the single working mother who just happens to live in extreme povert (lets say $2 a day) gives up 20 cents of that a day which could mean the differance betweeen say the existance of the next meal? Ok extreme example but is that what your getting at, lowest income still pay taxes but its a smaller percentage? No exceptions, what if I earn $200 a week but have 10 children to support?

LOL... if you earn $200 a week paying $2 for that week in taxes won't be changing anything. Second I never said EVERYONE would be paying taxes... nice jump of wild assumptions.

Hmm sorry I guess I shouldn't have taken this at face value, so you propose something more like 0%-8%? Anf 200 dollor a week thing was more of an example of tax exemptions, but I must say the lower your income is the more every penny of your money is worth, its an inversely exponentol relation ship (I think) therefore the rate of increase in taxation should increase in higher incomes. I think its whats happening now?

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.


Oh and stop blaming the civil servants! Pay the elected representatives less, and make the presidental candidates donate their campaign money instead of throwing it at the voters. Never mind wastage in govenrment any elected represntative of the people is forced to wastefull... I prefer the argumant over Robin Hood, its hard to argue over government efficiency because making something like that more efficient would require genocide :D
Unfortunately none of these suggestions will occur because elected representatives will never vote for a pay decrease, presidential candidates won't donate their money lottery ticket for the presidency, and tossing more money at the government has not worked in the past and won't work in the future. Finally Robin Hood stole from the government and returned the money to the poor.[/QUOTE]
I hope people saw that at a joke, just in case I am not promoting the murder of civil servants. BTW I was just saying I'd rather argue over the morality of Robin Hood as apposed to what type of taxing system we should use. Seeing as I knownothing about taxation and any fool who's read half the Bible (or other holy book) or in fact lived in society can argbue about morality. And before you say anything I wont stop because what I lack in expertise I make up for in having a slightly differant pointof view.
I noticed you used the word returned, there may be hope for you yet :D.


Robin Hood is a great myth. Why? Because he believed in equality. He saw rich landlords and took them down a peg to feed some starving peasants (and yes I'm aware its fiction) Are you saying its wrong to steal to save the life of another?
As I wrote earlier Robin Hood was stealing from the government... not hardworking farmers who had extra food. And in regards to your question... would it be wrong for a starving homeless individual to break into your home so he has the nourishment to continue living? Because you weren't home when he knocked on the door and to him you are rich.
Hard working farmers? I said landlords i.e. the people given the authority to tax the peasants, and abusing it.
And to answer the question it would be right if said farmer was directly responsable for the starvation of said thief. Thats the thingabout old Hood, he didn't take from any old rich people, just rich people who'd abused the poor people in the first place.

Oh and because the tax row is boring me, a summery of my stance.
Any current system of taxation leaves someone unhappy (rich, poor, government, or all of them) any other system of taxation would be costly to change to and cause at least one of the above groups unhappy. There will always be ineffiency and to a lesser degree corruption.
As long as people who could reasonalbly be saved aren't dying(this means no over taxation of the poor, a decent police service, free/affordable universal healthcar etc) Then the tax systems ok for me. But as I said I neither pay taxes nor vote, so take it all with the boring spice of your choice :D

[Omnirizon]

personal experience is the only means of knowing something, but nobody is privy to the interpretations of their personal experience.

for example, according to an article by Arthur C. Brooks, statistically the religious donate more than the secular. Brooks doesn't make his data available or even display his statistical models; and Policy Review, the journal he published in, is unapologetically conservative.

because he doesn't even display his models, Brooks is unceremoniously ignored; and rightly so. Less absolutely conservatively biased studies do display their models and indicate that Brooks is correct: even when controlling for as many relevant social factors as possible, the religious donate more. However, Brooks doesn't bother to explore the effects of social networking. The more insular a social network, the less its members donate. Ironically, religious networks are the most insular. This means that it is actually the very liberal, cosmopolitan, non-conservative, postmodern religious individual who is doing all the charity and donating; and not actual christian conservatives as Brooks implied. All Brooks did was compare a strawman atheist to a christian conservative, and showed that his conservative donates more only when aggregated with all religious individuals; the large majority of whom are not the anecdotal "christian conservative".

......
hmm....

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.

[Mithras]

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.

Now I may misunderstand this so correct me if I'm worng but I think you're saying: The conservative does not understand that they do not have the rights to the final interpritation of anything.

If this is so then I have to disagree. Because while passing judgement on others is seen as a conservative trait, liberals do it to. Are you saying that all liberals realise that when they say a conservative is wrong they are not entitled to that judgement?

Added to this I find myself being branded a conservative, it is my opinion for example that what goes on between two consenting adults in private is their entitlement. I will not hesitate to inflict this opinion on others, and argue about it constantly. I firmly believe it is right and everyone else who thinks otherwise is wrong.

Sorry for the derail, but he called me a conservative :eek:

[Gregstrom]

A lot of things depend on perspective. If you go behind the Americanised version of the Robin Hood story, you get a story of a rebel against a totalitarian state run by foreign conquerors, or maybe someone who was taking direct action against tax hikes which were funding a war of aggression against a nation in the Middle East.

What lesson do you want to read into it today?

[quantum_mechani]

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems....

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

It's not simple to understand, but the fastest explanation is we have to look at long term solutions and not the short term solutions. The united states is a huge country with millions of homeless and its not just the homeless that are currently without healthcare. A universal healthcare would not only be more costly, but it would introduce several new problems.

First and probably least important would be everyone paying higher taxes. As I've written before our government has problems with existing departments and giving them a new responsibility would only bring new problems.

Second our doctors would be changed to a fixed government income, currently many of the best doctors from Canada move to America because of much higher pay which is the result of competition from doctor offices and specialized treatment centers. What do you think will happen within the USA to doctors once they're told the government is now the source of their future fixed income. As mentioned in other forums they will be moving out of the country to setup their offices and treatment centers.

Third and quite serious would be massively longer waiting times when going to the hospitals and offices. Currently the waiting period is 3hours at the hospitals for Urgent Care, yet this will drastically increase. There's plenty of reports describing how Europeans travel to other countries for healthcare because the waiting times are unreasonably long. The next time I have a kidney stone I don't want to discover the average waiting time is now 24hours.

Fourth is the government will never release healthcare responsibility once started, because its another source for taking money from the people. This means IF the universal healthcare changes everyones healthcare into a nightmare we will be permanently stuck under government control. The people won't be able to say, "WAIT... change it back because I didn't expect X and Y to be one of the side effects."


I believe that someday... it's possible for our government to be wise enough and experienced enough to handle a great responsiblity such as universal healthcare. Without a doubt our government cannot handle such a responsibility today and it would be a mistake.Providing universal health care by no means means private health care is not an option. Lets say a public healthcare system is a bloated enterprise that only saves half as many people as it could otherwise, that's still a heck of a lot better than nothing for the people without other options.

So, if lives are worth less than some extra toys for the rich (from lower taxes) and some government inefficiency I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[NTJedi]

Hmm sorry I guess I shouldn't have taken this at face value, so you propose something more like 0%-8%? Anf 200 dollor a week thing was more of an example of tax exemptions, but I must say the lower your income is the more every penny of your money is worth, its an inversely exponentol relation ship (I think) therefore the rate of increase in taxation should increase in higher incomes. I think its whats happening now?

The 0% should be for any household earning less than $25,000 a year. The difference with my suggested taxation compared with what's happening now is because currently the wealthy and very wealthy have multiple loop holes for not paying taxes. As previously mentioned Bill Gates and the others of the wealthy class use these loop holes for paying zero or little taxes.


BTW I was just saying I'd rather argue over the morality of Robin Hood as apposed to what type of taxing system we should use. Seeing as I knownothing about taxation and any fool who's read half the Bible (or other holy book) or in fact lived in society can argbue about morality. And before you say anything I wont stop because what I lack in expertise I make up for in having a slightly differant pointof view.
I noticed you used the word returned, there may be hope for you yet :D.
Even Robin Hoods morality can be questioned depending on what version is being referenced.


Oh and because the tax row is boring me, a summery of my stance.
Any current system of taxation leaves someone unhappy (rich, poor, government, or all of them) any other system of taxation would be costly to change to and cause at least one of the above groups unhappy. There will always be ineffiency and to a lesser degree corruption.
I'm sure my taxation system would primarily upset the very wealthy which would have deep pockets for fighting against it. In the end however the people and markets in the USA is where they're probably getting all their money so they'd have to live with the fact of giving more money because they're earning millions a year. Now a better checks&balances system would reduce many of these ineffiencies and corruptions. Its only after someone reports an issue to the police or FBI does the government realize a problem exists.


As long as people who could reasonalbly be saved aren't dying(this means no over taxation of the poor, a decent police service, free/affordable universal healthcar etc) Then the tax systems ok for me. But as I said I neither pay taxes nor vote, so take it all with the boring spice of your choice :D

I've described multiple problems with a universal healthcare within another post. Basically the US government is not wise enough or experienced enough to accept such a critical responsibility. Within previous posts I listed my suggestions for moving forward.

[Omnirizon]

that wasn't a very good example of experience was it?
but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective and no one has the rights to final interpretation, not even of themselves. what separates conservatives from the rest of the world is that conservatives have not yet risen to the level of consciousness where they are able to possess this kind of irony.

Now I may misunderstand this so correct me if I'm worng but I think you're saying: The conservative does not understand that they do not have the rights to the final interpritation of anything.

If this is so then I have to disagree. Because while passing judgement on others is seen as a conservative trait, liberals do it to. Are you saying that all liberals realise that when they say a conservative is wrong they are not entitled to that judgement?

Added to this I find myself being branded a conservative, it is my opinion for example that what goes on between two consenting adults in private is their entitlement. I will not hesitate to inflict this opinion on others, and argue about it constantly. I firmly believe it is right and everyone else who thinks otherwise is wrong.

Sorry for the derail, but he called me a conservative :eek:

I don't necessarily agree with all liberals who believe they have the correct model of utopia in hand. What I look for is anyone who presents what they say as a final interpretation.

People are afraid that with this kind of relativism that there would be no way to distinguish between fact and fiction. However, making a "fact" and "fiction" dichotomy is a mistake in itself. There is no such thing as fact or fiction. Science doesn't actually prove anything, it only allows us to see what we don't know and through falsifiability create incrementally and asymptotically more and more accurate interpretive frameworks.

So the classical complaint is that with this kind of relativism the creationist are just as right as the evolutionists. But this is incorrect because the creationist must always present their interpretation as the final interpretation, that cannot be deconstructed. The evolutionist on the other hand is always in a position to be proven wrong, and often is. Evolution is not a fact but is only the interpretive framework that allows us to make falsifiable deductive statements about species and their histories. The testing of these statements allows us to continually refine the interpretive framework so that it can become a more and more accurate representation of something. We assume that something is the relationship between species and their histories, and on this grounds anyone is free to disagree. However this can only be challenged with another interpretive framework capable of making falsifiable deductions, which creationism cannot.

Evolution doesn't present itself as fact and it doesn't even present itself as necessarily representing what we call "evolution". The only thing it presents is a falsifiable and modifiable interpretive framework; from which no final interpretations can be made. Christian conservatives can stop raising cane about the whole "came from monkeys" thing. That really isn't what the theory of evolution really represents in this big debate. All it represents is a challenge to christianity, or any religion, to make final interpretations. The only possible means of disagreement now is whether or not you believe you have the right to make final interpretations. Being a conservative doesn't put you in this category, but being a christian conservative does.

[NTJedi]

Providing universal health care by no means means private health care is not an option. Lets say a public healthcare system is a bloated enterprise that only saves half as many people as it could otherwise, that's still a heck of a lot better than nothing for the people without other options.

So, if lives are worth less than some extra toys for the rich (from lower taxes) and some government inefficiency I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

That still leaves problems 1, 3 and 4. As I wrote earlier our government clearly is not wise enough or experienced enough to handle a critical responsibility such as universal public healthcare. If the government has major problems with existing departments it should not be given the responsibility of a new department. Asking for this QUICK FIX will only bring new problems. Healthcare needs to be researched and carefully tested with government and non-government options and then gradually expanded.
As I wrote earlier the wealthy have loop holes for getting around taxes which is why Bill Gates paid ZERO taxes in 1999. Raising their taxes won't change their lives or our lives because they'd use the multiple loop holes or sneak new loop holes in thru congress. Removing their loop holes will bring change, but this would take congress.

[Aezeal]

Second our doctors would be changed to a fixed government income

Now on a more personal thing this time, me, medical docter (I know this might be a shock to some :D), is not very happy with this. Few reasons: first here I make, and will make in the future (I'm not a specialist .. yet (I hope)) less money than american docters. I do however put loads of hours into my job (american docters even more btw) Still I make, and will be making less money than quite a lot of pplz who didn't work as hard in university .. pplz in business etc etc. I'm kind of opposed to limiting my income even further (well income of my american colleague's but the idea is the same.) Not to mention the fact that if we where to work for salaries we'd probably start working 38 hours weeks too and healthcare would crash, it would crash directly.

Then again this is for me a great reason to mention the fact I'm VERY MUCH against a flat tax rate (even though it's obvious it will probably benefit me now already and will certainly benefit me a lot in the future) I do think that those whe earn (or get) more cash should pay more. Some business man or prof sportsman IMHO seriously never should get payed more as a docter (I love my job and do it because I honestly think docters are have the best job and should earn most :D) but if they do they certainly should pay more taxes :D. I also think that those who get less cash than me should not pay as much taxes.

[Mithras]

BTW I was just saying I'd rather argue over the morality of Robin Hood as apposed to what type of taxing system we should use. Seeing as I knownothing about taxation and any fool who's read half the Bible (or other holy book) or in fact lived in society can argbue about morality. And before you say anything I wont stop because what I lack in expertise I make up for in having a slightly differant pointof view.
I noticed you used the word returned, there may be hope for you yet :D.
Even Robin Hoods morality can be questioned depending on what version is being referenced.

It would be a dull argumant if there was only one side to take. And as far as folk legends go he's one of the not so contreversial, discussion on wether Hansel and Gretal did the right thing anyone?


Oh and because the tax row is boring me, a summery of my stance.
Any current system of taxation leaves someone unhappy (rich, poor, government, or all of them) any other system of taxation would be costly to change to and cause at least one of the above groups unhappy. There will always be ineffiency and to a lesser degree corruption.
I'm sure my taxation system would primarily upset the very wealthy which would have deep pockets for fighting against it. In the end however the people and markets in the USA is where they're probably getting all their money so they'd have to live with the fact of giving more money because they're earning millions a year. Now a better checks&balances system would reduce many of these ineffiencies and corruptions. Its only after someone reports an issue to the police or FBI does the government realize a problem exists.

You've managed to make the whole thing more apealing, the thing is its still going to come with the cost of changing the system. And the rich pretty much run the US government, or so I have been led to believe... So you'd have trouble anyway.


As long as people who could reasonalbly be saved aren't dying(this means no over taxation of the poor, a decent police service, free/affordable universal healthcar etc) Then the tax systems ok for me. But as I said I neither pay taxes nor vote, so take it all with the boring spice of your choice :D

I've described multiple problems with a universal healthcare within another post. Basically the US government is not wise enough or experienced enough to accept such a critical responsibility. Within previous posts I listed my suggestions for moving forward.

On this basis alone I would disagree with the policy, as stated above, any form of universal healthcare is better than none at all. I refuse to attach any worth to human life, except in terms of other human lives. (any 3 is always greater than any 1, any 2 is always greater than mine. Incase you were interested) So I can't stand for the it would be inefficient argumant.

Oh and Omni, thanks for clearing that up. At first I just thought you were using lots of words to not say much (one of my favorite tricks :D) but it started to make sense in the middle, so I'll just stick to that.

I'm still confused though, I present my view that taking the life of another human is wrong as a final interpritation. It is a fact, I'd happily help anyone who didn't agree into a high security mental asylum. And I can't accept any other opinion on that matter.
I guess my point is, we all have absolute truths. Perhaps conservatives have more of them and they are more contreversial but we still have them. And the thing about final interpritations is its kind of hard to accept that other people have differant interpritations.

[lch]

That still leaves problems 1, 3 and 4. As I wrote earlier our government clearly is not wise enough or experienced enough to handle a critical responsibility such as universal public healthcare. If the government has major problems with existing departments it should not be given the responsibility of a new department. Asking for this QUICK FIX will only bring new problems. Healthcare needs to be researched and carefully tested with government and non-government options and then gradually expanded.
You make it sound like they only noticed that right now and have been completely unaware of this before. A friend of mine who moved to the US about a year or two ago is doing exactly that since over a year, analyzing and calculating models for public health care that can be applied to the US. He comes from a country where public and private health care is available since he was born, so they were happy to include him to their team which already worked on this. It's not like this is the first moon landing, there are lots of countries where this is already in effect which can be included in the research and models.

Regarding the homeless: with the exception of India, which probably still is pretty much a third world country, I have never seen so many homeless people, or to be precise with rare exceptions any at all, as I have seen in the US. I don't mean to judge this, I just noticed.

As I wrote earlier the wealthy have loop holes for getting around taxes which is why Bill Gates paid ZERO taxes in 1999. Raising their taxes won't change their lives or our lives because they'd use the multiple loop holes or sneak new loop holes in thru congress. Removing their loop holes will bring change, but this would take congress.
I heard that they have trouble to cope with his data. The story can be read here: http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/02/gates-irs-microsoft-cx_po_0202autofacescan03.html or similar versions of this same story elsewhere. Even if he somehow didn't pay any taxes, I'd be the last to be called a Microsoft or Bill Gates fan, but you have to give credit to the man for his billion-dollars backed Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That's a more direct form of help than taxes.

[chrispedersen]

While I disagree with your argument that it is necessary to show legal evidence in order to prove that a candidates behaviour is relevent - nonetheless, here you go.

Take a look a Berg V. Obama, a.k.a Berg V. the DNC. Filed by a Democrat, in the Philadephia circuit.

Here is a further example of why a candidates action do matter.
Attached is a link putattively to an attorney search in illinois for Barrack Obama. Notice that it has no other names listed for Barrack - notice also evidence that he did indeed go by Barry Soetero. http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=976

Here is the illinois court systems page where a lawyer is required to file wth the illinois supreme court if he wishes to practice under a different name: https://www.iardc.org/reg_faqs.html.

There are many supreme court cases - such as, oh, SCHWARE v. BOARD OF BAR EXAMINERS, 353 U.S. 232 (1957) where the supreme court has examined the question of a lawyers uses of aliases, and the states regulations requiring registration of same. While not the point of this case, the supreme court has long accepted that states have a legitimate purpose in so regulating.

So, I think its fairly well established that the actions of the candidate matter - that things such as citizenship, and name do matter.

In fact its so obvious, I realy wonder why you would even need it explained. Personally, I think its idiotic that Barry should have left these matters on the table. Why not release his birth certificates, and his personal records.

I mean honestly - you democrats are such hypocrates. The democrats made such huge fodder about Bushes National Guard records. And you don't think Soetoro's records are relevent?

Let me ask you something. Wouldn't you rather have these issues resolved PRIOR to the election, rather than AFTER the election? Can you even believe the ****storm we are going to be in if a court rules Soetoro isn't eligible to be president?

[NTJedi]

Second our doctors would be changed to a fixed government income

Now on a more personal thing this time, me, medical docter (I know this might be a shock to some :D), is not very happy with this. Few reasons: first here I make, and will make in the future (I'm not a specialist .. yet (I hope)) less money than american docters. I do however put loads of hours into my job (american docters even more btw) Still I make, and will be making less money than quite a lot of pplz who didn't work as hard in university .. pplz in business etc etc. I'm kind of opposed to limiting my income even further (well income of my american colleague's but the idea is the same.) Not to mention the fact that if we where to work for salaries we'd probably start working 38 hours weeks too and healthcare would crash, it would crash directly.

Then again this is for me a great reason to mention the fact I'm VERY MUCH against a flat tax rate (even though it's obvious it will probably benefit me now already and will certainly benefit me a lot in the future) I do think that those whe earn (or get) more cash should pay more. Some business man or prof sportsman IMHO seriously never should get payed more as a docter (I love my job and do it because I honestly think docters are have the best job and should earn most :D) but if they do they certainly should pay more taxes :D. I also think that those who get less cash than me should not pay as much taxes.

Universal public healthcare from other countries have experienced some of the big problems you mention in the major cities. Unfortunately once the USA owns public healthcare it will never release it, and there will probably be big problems as a result.

I read your statement about being against flat tax rate, but I don't see the specific reasons why you are against it. Your statements make it sound like you're more for this type of change.

[chrispedersen]

First, a few things of which you are probably unaware. The federal government is *causing* a great deal of our present problem. And before you dismiss this statement out of hand, let me show you why its so. When you think healthcare, you probably think ever increasing costs - prices that are increasing at 10+% every year.

I have to comment here, in the middle of the thought. It just seems that you are unaware that the problem is the bureaucracy itself. It's not *just* healthcare that it is bungling up. It is screwing up just about everything that it has a thumb in, and why? It's not simply because NO government can handle large projects responsibly, it's because OUR government can't handle projects responsibly. If people would quit towing a party line, and quit making illogical attacks against the "sworn political enemy", maybe we could work out a governmental paradigm that is actually effectual.



Currently, the federal government is reimbursing at about 66% of the actual cost of providing for the service.

So, now consider if you are a hospital - your level of service is mandated. You can't deny an indigent patient medical services, yet if the service cost you $1000 and the federal govt only gives you %650 what are you going to do?

Unlike the federal government which can operate in a deficit seemingly forever, hospitals pretty much have to balance their books every year. So that $350 cost gets spread around to the people that can pay it - both insured and cash basis patients...

...This is one of the many examples of federal programs having unanticipated consequences. There is another problem with the federal approach.

This has nothing to do with the viability of a national health care system, and everything to do with our dysfunctional government. Perhaps you would like to explain to me how so many other industrialized nations pull off the illusion of accomplishing the impossible feat of comprehensive national health care?



The second larger problem with the idea of health insurance - is that it no longer *IS* health insurance. I am all in favor of health insurance - but its no longer even possible to buy that in the US today.

The idea of health insurance as it was practised long ago was that *I* was responsible for the first X thousand dollars of my medical coverage. After that amount X was reached the insurer stepped in with something between 80%-100% of the coverage costs.

Ummmm, the way that insurance in general is supposed to work, is much more simple than that, and is the essence of how "socialized" programs like national health care could and should work. The basic idea is to statistically determine the odds of severe illness, and project the costs of dealing with that illness. In abstract terms, this means that if we say that 1 in 10 people will eventually suffer from a malady that costs $1000 dollars to treat, but we have no idea which 10% of the people, then we simply need everyone to to pay in $100 to cover the expenses of those who are afflicted.

One of the reasons that this system is starting to break down as it is (not to bring up greed from every party involved), is the skyrocketing instances of cancer, heart disease, and all manner of other extremely expensive ailments in America. Odd, when you consider how many of these diseases in fact could be avoided or reduced in severity if proper measures were put in place (like making sure everyone has adequate access to early screening to detect cancer when it can be dealt with at a fraction of the cost, and a fraction of the risk).


It is ironic - but the nucleus of McCains healthcare plan actually has the seeds of how to get out of some of this mess.
First, give every american $5000 dollars a year toward healthcare costs. Bankable or savable. But 5000 a year will pay for all the usual innoculations, and broken bones, and dental xrays. And then make things above that *your* responsbility.

I'm glad that -someone- thinks that McCain's plan is not only an actual plan, but a good one at that.

The problem with McCain's solution, is first, it's a tax credit, NOT a check for $5000 (where in hell would THAT money come from? 300mil+ people, that's 1.5 trillion dollars a year if it were true). There's an enormous, gaping hole in this idea though - the vast majority of the uninsured in America don't even make enough (and therefore generate anywhere near enough if Federal Income Taxes) to fully benefit from this.

But really, the boner here, is that if he really somehow managed to find $1.5 trillion (every year!) to throw at the health care problem, he could make it go away MUCH more easily than by forcing the individual to deal with things.

Oh, and a little anecdote, because I know everyone loves my anecdotes. After suffering severe migraines and other terrible side effects from all of the pharmaceutical antihistamines I tried (too bad I can't have ephedra, it worked wonders, but some people "abuse" it, so much for liberty), I was given a prescription for Allegra. Well, Allegra worked quite well for me, and while I was eligible for the Oregon Health Plan, I was paying $15/month for that medicine, and they picked up the rest. But once I was off the health plan, the cost went to $90/month. $3 a tablet, just for an antihistime. Over $1000/year that I can't pay right now, that McCain's plan will not even touch because I earn so little in my current state of health, that I don't even pay taxes at all, and thus would not receive any "credit".

<3

Jim, I think you are unaware of the current status of US tax laws.

Simplifying it - a bit.

Suppose your income were 20,000. and you had kids. and you were below a poverty line. The government gives you a refund despite the fact that you have paid no taxes. A portion of this is called the Earned Income Tax Credit.

When you file your taxes, things like deductions and tax credits increase the size of your deduction.

Secondly, I didn't say I agreed with McCains plan in its entirety - I said it had the seeds of some solutions to our present health care mess. FAR more than Obamas blanket expansion.

Thirdly, as others have alluded you are comparing apples and rocks - but I suggest its more like spaceships and boogars. When americans think about health care, they think about going to the doctor of their choice, and getting cutting edge medical care.

Comparing that to another nations national health care really is like comparings space ships to boogars. Please do compare american health care to any second or third world country.
You might think that unfair - fine. Would you agree that UK would be an acceptable comparison?

[lch]

While I disagree with your argument that it is necessary to show legal evidence in order to prove that a candidates behaviour is relevent - nonetheless, here you go.

Take a look a Berg V. Obama, a.k.a Berg V. the DNC. Filed by a Democrat, in the Philadephia circuit.
I did. He doesn't have any documents backing his claims either. He just calculatedly filed a lawsuit against Obama to attack his position when he was competing against Clinton. If this lawsuit is being resolved at some time and if evidence is unearthed that there is something fishy, then I will re-adjust my position accordingly. But so far it's nothing but empty accusations, and the motto is "In dubio pro reo".

Edit: I didn't bother to read the rest of your post closely before since it seemed that you were unable to comply by my request to give evidence to back your theories. I just read the rest of it now.
Here is a further example of why a candidates action do matter.
Attached is a link putattively to an attorney search in illinois for Barrack Obama. Notice that it has no other names listed for Barrack - notice also evidence that he did indeed go by Barry Soetero. http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=976
That is exactly the school registration that I have been referring to some pages back already, in case it was news to you. You may want to reread my posts.

The rest of your post is useless ranting again, I'm afraid that you still have no clothes.

[NTJedi]

You've managed to make the whole thing more apealing, the thing is its still going to come with the cost of changing the system. And the rich pretty much run the US government, or so I have been led to believe... So you'd have trouble anyway.

I'd rather go thru the trouble of arguing with the rich instead of feeling guilty of what could have been done for those less fortunate.


On this basis alone I would disagree with the policy, as stated above, any form of universal healthcare is better than none at all. I refuse to attach any worth to human life, except in terms of other human lives. (any 3 is always greater than any 1, any 2 is always greater than mine. Incase you were interested) So I can't stand for the it would be inefficient argumant.
If universal public healthcare is not done correctly many more will suffer in the long term. This universal public healthcare is in demand because many only see the short term solution without identifying the long term problems of such a move. Universal public healthcare for one of the largest countries should be researched with multiple government and non-government options... and hopefully you know the rest as previously mentioned.

[JimMorrison]

Jim, I think you are unaware of the current status of US tax laws.

Simplifying it - a bit.

Suppose your income were 20,000. and you had kids. and you were below a poverty line. The government gives you a refund despite the fact that you have paid no taxes. A portion of this is called the Earned Income Tax Credit.

When you file your taxes, things like deductions and tax credits increase the size of your deduction.

Tax credits do not just give you free money. There are two ways to reduce tax burden - deductions, which indirectly reduce taxes, by reducing taxable income - and credits, which are directly applied to the amount of taxes that you owe. YES, you can get a refund because of credits, but only up to the amount of money already deducted from your pay, for taxes, and in a case like this, ONLY from the amount deducted for FICA. So in my case, I could file taxes (again, I am below the -EXEMPT- line currently), but as I owe no taxes, I would receive nothing. McCain's plan would not do anything whatsoever to rectify my situation and help me get on the path to becoming a more overtly productive citizen again.


Thirdly, as others have alluded you are comparing apples and rocks - but I suggest its more like spaceships and boogars. When americans think about health care, they think about going to the doctor of their choice, and getting cutting edge medical care.

Comparing that to another nations national health care really is like comparings space ships to boogars. Please do compare american health care to any second or third world country.
You might think that unfair - fine. Would you agree that UK would be an acceptable comparison?

Well this seems like an odd argument. Money is money. The basic issue of who pays the money (whether us directly, our insurance company, or a decently organized governmental body), does not have any direct bearing on the quality of the product. Hell, we could have the FEMA people do our health care, and yes, I would be scared too. Or we could have the military organize it, and they would pour so much money into it ($600 stethoscopes, anyone?) that we couldn't help but smile.

But hey, I will bite. Let's compare our current health care system, in an unbiased manner, with say, the health care system in the UK. But wait! The World Health Organization has already performed this task for us. In fact, they rated all countries in the entire world. I won't completely spam the forum by listing every nation, I'll just list from the top, until we get to the good old U S of A. Should be a short list..... right?


1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America


Oh, oops. I guess that was a wrong assumption. Apparently, according to the people who know more about these things than you and I put together, think that basically every nation that has instituted nationalized health care (and even some who haven't!) have better systems than we do.

Also, we spent over 15% of our total GDP on health care this past year. Many of the countries above us on the list, spent <10%. Now, if our GDP/capita is higher than most of them, wouldn't it stand to reason that we should be able to get better coverage than they do (at least, spending more, should get a better product, right?), while still paying LESS than we currently do.



And just for the record (for you too, NTJedi), there is no reason that we couldn't adopt a sort of "half-stance" on the subject, where we simply guarantee a minimum level of coverage for all citizens. By taking care of basics (I've never once sat in a dentist's chair, in 33 years of my life, for example), we do not create as immense a burden on the taxpayers, nor responsibility for the agency in charge, in relation to the amount of benefit gained by the nation as a whole. If you would like, I can go and dig up the articles that I have read that illustrate how studies have looked into the correlation between basic health care needs, and lost days (or years!) of work under our current system. I can assure you now (but I'll find it again if you like), that the verdict was that providing a baseline amount of assistance to the uninsured, would far more than pay for itself in terms of productivity.

Also, since I mentioned the absence of a dentist in my life, let me point out another issue that this would solve. You see, I don't currently have any terrible health problems due to my teeth (I don't think!), however, I do have a few cavities that I am a bit worried about, that should be filled. I can't afford a dentist to do this relatively routine maintenance, however if one of my teeth abscesses, then whichever dental surgeon is unlucky enough to find me at their door, cannot refuse to treat me if the poison from that abscess could threaten my life (it's the law). BUT, bear in mind the actual cost of dealing with such a problem. Bear also in mind, that YOU (the universal you, meaning everyone who is indirectly impacted by the failures of our health care system) will ultimately pay for my treatment. How is this? It's simple enough, because you see, I can't afford medical care. I can't walk in on my own to receive it, but if they are obligated to save my life, they will do so, and they will bill me. And just because I receive a bill, doesn't mean that I magically also have money to pay it. So, it goes unpaid, it goes to collections, and that particular doctor is out several hundred dollars of income that he is entitled to. Now, the effect averages out, as most doctors (or hospitals) deal with this on an ongoing basis, it's the downside of being a lifegiver. However, this directly translates into higher costs, which may annoy you, but the real travesty is that it increases the costs of care for people who can barely afford it anyway.

Accounting for basic needs first, will bring the system closer to balance. Why can't we continue to pay our physicians more than other countries? Do you know how many people can get basic (and necessary) health care for the cost of one Stealth Bomber? I know, the "Stealth Bomber" argument is a bit trite by now, but the point is just a comparison between a small sliver of our military spending, and the vast amounts of good we could accomplish for the people (which, as already stated, can easily pay for itself up to a certain level).

[chrispedersen]

While I disagree with your argument that it is necessary to show legal evidence in order to prove that a candidates behaviour is relevent - nonetheless, here you go.

Take a look a Berg V. Obama, a.k.a Berg V. the DNC. Filed by a Democrat, in the Philadephia circuit.
I did. He doesn't have any documents backing his claims either. He just calculatedly filed a lawsuit against Obama to attack his position when he was competing against Clinton. If this lawsuit is being resolved at some time and if evidence is unearthed that there is something fishy, then I will re-adjust my position accordingly. But so far it's nothing but empty accusations, and the motto is "In dubio pro reo".

The rest of your post is useless ranting again, I'm afraid that you still have no clothes.

You are factually wrong. The lawsuit was filed Aug 28. The day after Obama became the nominee.

The lawsuit filed does have several affidavits in support of its position. Motions for dismissal were defeated. Ergo, the motion has some basis.

There is *no* chance it will be resolved in favor of berg, as the date of hearing was after the US election - so you won't have to adjust your position, will you?

To put matters into a bit of perspective: I filed a lawsuit yesterday. I got a hearing on December 8. Berg filed his lawsuit Aug 28. He doesn't get a hearing until..... January? Why do you suppose that is?

As for the empty rantings comment - I am here after going to ignore your arguments as you have chosen to ignore mine.

[chrispedersen]

rabelais:

MA-Man pretender design. Dormant Cyclops. +3,+1, -, +3, +1, -3.
Dom 7 iirc

Several concepts here.

First, growth to help offset the old age of your crones.
Second. Overtax. The idea is to build castles as fast as possible. You are going to use forresters (at some point) as necessary to patrol.
Third You are going to use your bards soothing song, plus the reinvig from the earth bless to have a competitive advantage in your dominion. You will be pushing drain, but your bards and reinvi will make you largely immune - which brings us to point four:
You have a unique position in that your mages have good military leadership - at least the mother of avalon does.
she will be your default military commander.
Fifth: Minor theme Foresters/bards have excellent precions especially as bards can selfbuff with eagle eye. Add a bow of bowtox, or similar to create missile thugs.
Sixth: Minor You will have very stealth capable commanders, and stealthy sacreds summons.
Seventh Minor theme. Consider fear items or with death access, terror. Your bards soothing songs will help.

I still hate MA man. But I ran a few tests of this and I was able to get three castles started in the first year without much difficulty. Late game is still your problem however, without access to death, blood, or significant astral.

[lch]

You are factually wrong. The lawsuit was filed Aug 28. The day after Obama became the nominee.
He first filed this lawsuit (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9920) on Aug 21, so a week before.

The lawsuit filed does have several affidavits in support of its position. Motions for dismissal were defeated. Ergo, the motion has some basis.
I said that he doesn't have any documented evidence, and he doesn't. All he does is poking around in the dark and trying to besmirch Obama's reputation.

There is *no* chance it will be resolved in favor of berg, as the date of hearing was after the US election - so you won't have to adjust your position, will you?
Right. If it is being resolved in favor of Berg, I'll do that, of course. Just a mere accusation doesn't make it a fact, though.

To put matters into a bit of perspective: I filed a lawsuit yesterday. I got a hearing on December 8. Berg filed his lawsuit Aug 28. He doesn't get a hearing until..... January? Why do you suppose that is?
I haven't followed it closely, but I guess it's pretty obvious to see what the real idea behind that lawsuit was. You probably don't stop a presidential candidate's campaign just because some lunatic files a complaint, as he is legally entitled to do. U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed the case (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/10/federal-judge-dismisses-obama.php), finding that Berg lacked standing to bring the suit because Obama did not face direct harm even if the allegations were true.

As for the empty rantings comment - I am here after going to ignore your arguments as you have chosen to ignore mine.
I'm sorry, but I have a scientific background and arguments not based on factual evidence, or based on wrong facts, are void to me. Since I have found out that this applies to yours, I guess it's time to give up instead of keeping up this charade any longer, yes.

[PyroStock]

Pyrostock - I maintain a sincere belief that anecdotal experiences are often underrated, that giving answers that are truthful is a good thing, and that as this is a gaming forum rather than a forum for political debate, we can relax the standards for what's acceptable for a person to post here just a little.

And meanwhile, before you go attacking others, why don't you go and contribute something meaningful to the conversation yourself? Currently jimmorrison's smileys are adding more to the conversation than you are. Thank you and have a nice day.

Thanks for your opinion, but relax. My post was no more of an "attack" than Jimmorrison's initial response to me which you conveniently ignored.

When I saw OT in the thread I falsely assumed it would be similar to those in other turn-based OT forums. I have no desire to further discuss the fallacies of anecdotal experiences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal). Since this conversation has the more vocal people value anecdotal experiences I will share mine. Of all the charities and "helping the needy" organizations I assisted/worked... none asked/insisted/pushed the needy be a certain religion. Whether it was directly helping someone in need (such as handicap bowlers or soup kitchen) or indirectly such as disaster funds... there were no "enlist in church" sheets, no brimstone&fire pseudo-preachers trying to save to the infidels and no stamps with "DENIED WRONG RELIGION" on them. I will return you to your regularly scheduled smileys... :):D:angel;)

but it still goes to show that even statistics are never objective

Of course statistics can be manipulated like the selection bias with Brooks, but that doesn't make all statistics useless. For good reason, the decisions for countless propositions, the supreme court and the next US president are ultimately decided by the results of some statistics. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away! ;)

[Aezeal]

I read your statement about being against flat tax rate, but I don't see the specific reasons why you are against it. Your statements make it sound like you're more for this type of change.

There are no specific reason to be for or against this, if you are a fair, good, social person you disagree with flat tax rates. If you are unfair, protective of your own cash and a generally unagreeable unsocial person you are pro flat tax rates.. I don't say one is better for the government as such, as long as they get a lot of cash (more than currently to arrange things better) that would be fine.. but for the people in the country in general it will be better too (to be honest, 100 dollar less for me would just be annoying and would mean 2 books and a dinner less, for others THOSE who need it more it would mean cutting in basic life neccesities if there was a flat tax rate and they'd have to pay it and not me)

socialism!!!! (I'm still surprised this word seems to be considered bad language in the US of A... says enough about the majority of the country too)

[thejeff]

Aezeal, by flat tax NTJedi doesn't seem to mean flat tax, he seems to mean a progressive graduated income tax with no deductions. This confused me for awhile.

[Aezeal]

ow.. well I can't be bothered to read all of this thread. His flat tax would probably be better for what I'm thinking then... goo socialism.

THen I don't think I can place most of his arguments very well though.

Goo socialism... gooo communism... :D

[JimMorrison]

Since this conversation has the more vocal people value anecdotal experiences I will share mine. Of all the charities and "helping the needy" organizations I assisted/worked... none asked/insisted/pushed the needy be a certain religion. Whether it was directly helping someone in need (such as handicap bowlers or soup kitchen) or indirectly such as disaster funds... there were no "enlist in church" sheets, no brimstone&fire pseudo-preachers trying to save to the infidels and no stamps with "DENIED WRONG RELIGION" on them. I will return you to your regularly scheduled smileys... :):D:angel;)


The irony here, is that while (in context) I found your other post a little insulting, and thus responded with a tinge of anger, I like this post.

Obviously, there will be many different experiences among many different people. However, anecdotal observations are invaluable in assessing the reality of situations (as long as those observers are honest), in ways that a more removed "authority" may not be able to see. That is, unless more people gathering information on such things want to take the time and effort to make up a fake story, and call around various organizations, fishing for data.

In my situation, it was simple enough though. My own "statistics" were skewed from the beginning. Probably a good 50% of the "charitable organizations" on this list provided by my hospital, stated quite clearly next to the phone number that they provided assistance to church members only. There are only 2 ways you can take that (and one is awfully optimistic), but I don't belong to ANY church, so it didn't matter. Anyway, the rest all have their own little agendas as well. Some would only help me if I had children, some would only help if I was a drug addict, and yes I applied for Oregon Health Plan again, and my rejection letter actually told me that they were only accepting unmarried males without dependents in my age bracket - if they were illegal aliens.....

[Kristoffer O]

Conclusion?

Republicans:
Wisdom: <9
Intelligence: 9+
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Democrats:
Wisdom: 9+
Intelligence: <9
Alignment: Chaotic Good

[licker]

No, neither side is good, and neither side has high wisdom nor intelligence, though they have remarkable constitutions and charismas...

[chrispedersen]

You are factually wrong. The lawsuit was filed Aug 28. The day after Obama became the nominee.
He first filed this lawsuit (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9920) on Aug 21, so a week before.

The lawsuit filed does have several affidavits in support of its position. Motions for dismissal were defeated. Ergo, the motion has some basis.
I said that he doesn't have any documented evidence, and he doesn't. All he does is poking around in the dark and trying to besmirch Obama's reputation.


Right. If it is being resolved in favor of Berg, I'll do that, of course. Just a mere accusation doesn't make it a fact, though.

To put matters into a bit of perspective: I filed a lawsuit yesterday. I got a hearing on December 8. Berg filed his lawsuit Aug 28. He doesn't get a hearing until..... January? Why do you suppose that is?
I haven't followed it closely, but I guess it's pretty obvious to see what the real idea behind that lawsuit was. You probably don't stop a presidential candidate's campaign just because some lunatic files a complaint, as he is legally entitled to do. U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed the case (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/10/federal-judge-dismisses-obama.php), finding that Berg lacked standing to bring the suit because Obama did not face direct harm even if the allegations were true.

As for the empty rantings comment - I am here after going to ignore your arguments as you have chosen to ignore mine.
I'm sorry, but I have a scientific background and arguments not based on factual evidence, or based on wrong facts, are void to me. Since I have found out that this applies to yours, I guess it's time to give up instead of keeping up this charade any longer, yes.

Bachellor of Science, Chemical Engineering, Computer engineering, Minor Psychology Ga Institute of technology. I suspect my 'scientific background' is adequate for this discussion.

My memory was close but perfect on the filing date - the date was Aug 21 not Aug 28.

But the essential *facts* of the matter are real simple. Berg asked for Obama / DNC / FEC to prove US citizenship. Rather than provide evidence of the same - the defense requested dismissal for lack of standing.

In other words, the judge said - you don't have a right to compel obama to prove he is a citizen.

I think Berg's origianl question is actually pretty reasonable, and find the whole defense, and ruling pretty unreasonable. And I would think that if the same were done to any candidate.

ymmv.

[Gandalf Parker]

Conclusion?

Republicans:
Wisdom: <9
Intelligence: 9+
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Democrats:
Wisdom: 9+
Intelligence: <9
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Not bad. I like that. Makes sense to me (altho those who dont understand DnD might take offense at the LE part but it makes perfect sense to me)

Mine has been this...
Under the Democrats we will become the Federation.
Under the Republicans we will become the Ferrengi.

[lch]

But the essential *facts* of the matter are real simple. Berg asked for Obama / DNC / FEC to prove US citizenship. Rather than provide evidence of the same - the defense requested dismissal for lack of standing.

In other words, the judge said - you don't have a right to compel obama to prove he is a citizen.

I think Berg's origianl question is actually pretty reasonable, and find the whole defense, and ruling pretty unreasonable. And I would think that if the same were done to any candidate.
His words, like I quoted, were rather "It doesn't matter". You can read the exact document at the link that I gave. Since Berg isn't satisfied with that, he appealed the same complaint to the US Supreme Court again. I wish him the best of luck.

In that second link, you'll also find a link to Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate, which is enough to prove his US citizenship to a layman like me, unless somebody can make a compelling case before court that it isn't. The second paragraph in the page that I linked to even has this: A similar court challenge was previously made to the citizenship of Obama's presidential rival, Senator John McCain, arguing that McCain did not qualify as a "natural born" US citizen so I'd say that justice was served: Surprise, surprise, they didn't stop McCain's presidential campaign dead in its tracks because of this, either.

[archaeolept]

hi Chris could you please provide me with some link to John McCain's birth certificate? I can't seem to find any evidence he is a natural born citizen :D

k thx bye in advance

Bachellor[sic] of Science, Chemical Engineering, Computer engineering, Minor Psychology Ga[lol] Institute of technology. I suspect my 'scientific background' is adequate for this discussion.the conclusion does not seem to follow :)

[Aezeal]

I can respect some republican points of view but chris is a bit strange, next he's gonna mention barack is a muslim again. PS that much bachelors to me only means you should've just gotten a master and that you've wasted government cash and/or your time but doing it all. I also wonder if yous still use all that in your current job.

[thejeff]

The only evidence backing this whole argument is an elementary school equivalent registration form his stepfather filled out. Because of that, which has no legal significance other than registering him for school, we must conclude that he legally changed his name and citizenship.

And as other's have said, his birth certificate is available. He can't produce the other documents requested since they don't exist. He never changed his citizenship or his name, so he can't produce documentation showing he changed back. Easier just to have the case dismissed.

[Mithras]

Can we be provided with a direct link to Barack's birth certificate please, just because I can't find it.
As the above have said whats in a primary school registration form? Its not legaly binding and it was filled in by his step dad, who seems rather dubious... And so what is he's a muslim? I think that could be a step forward to peace in the middle east, it would certainly give the rabid preachers less to bang on about... "The US is the land of the infedel they invade our lands because of greed and hate... What do you mean muslim?... It means nothing that they just elected a muslim president" Thet'd soon get around it but it would be one less strike agaisnt the US in the middleeast, which can only be good, even if its to late.

Oh and NT, on the question of healthcare someone has said something a couple of pages ago and I've repeated others enough today. On the tax system... how is your tax going to annoy the rich if its going to reduce their tax from 50% to 8%, (figures from the forumn so I'm not to sure about the 50% one, the other I have quoted before) You can say 'but they pay 0% now' all you want but more likely than not they'll pay 0% wether the single working mother of four gets a tax break or not, so lets save the mother shall we? Argue with the rich you say? Isn't Obama letting a tax cut for the rich expire not a step in the right direction? Only people can't vote for you :D

BTW those of you who voted/are voting, I hope it was a pleasant and festive experience. It should be.

[Tifone]

... All of that is ending soon anyway :D

[konming]

Here you go, plus the marriage certificate:

[Tifone]

Wow konmig, that was a nou-kyuu-lar bomb!! :D

[thejeff]

Good point, we've got chris arguing we can't tax the rich more because "Top 5% of earners pay 50% of the taxes in the U.S.", which is close enough to true. He neglects to mention they also bring in roughly 50% of the income. And probably a far larger percentage of actual assets.
On the other hand NTJedi claims there's no point in raising taxes on the rich since they just find loopholes and never pay taxes anyway.
I'm not quite sure how to reconcile those arguments. The facts of the first one seem to check out, and don't seem that unfair with a little bit of context. In fact, it suggests that the top 5% are barely paying their fair share ("Fair" is a fuzzy word in this context. In one sense it would be "fair" for the top 5% to pay 5% of the taxes.)
The US seemed to do quite well in 50s & 60s with top marginal tax rates up in the 90% range. What has accompanied the lowering of those rates since then is a massive transfer of wealth upwards. The top few percent control a much larger percentage of the countries wealth than at any time since the Roaring Twenties. I would like to see that reversed.

[licker]

You seriously think that in todays global economy taxing people at 90% is a good idea?

[Mithras]

I think jeff means the top 10% of the population paying 90% of the total taxes which is possible as the top 10% owns a good amount of the wealth, something like 40-60% in 2001 I can remember doing some economics work on it... anyway to tiredfor arguing

[MaxWilson]

Note to Mods: Please do not move this thread! I dont care about shrapnel players as a whole, I just want to know what dominions players think.

If you are a US citizen who is capable of voting, I'm curious to know how you are going to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections. I think it will be really interesting to see the pattern of the dominions community.

Presidential? After some vacillating, I settled on my pick while in the voting booth. McCain has annoyed me enough recently with his breathless hyperventilating that I had considered voting for a third party candidate, and I could live with Obama (there are some upsides), but I finally decided to vote against socialism and for nuclear power. So, McCain/Palin.

-Max

P.S. So, has anyone written up stats for a Barack Obama pretender yet? I'm thinking archmage stats, built-in A1 + pathcost 30, add Awe +3. 50 points.

[MaxWilson]

Good point, we've got chris arguing we can't tax the rich more because "Top 5% of earners pay 50% of the taxes in the U.S.", which is close enough to true. He neglects to mention they also bring in roughly 50% of the income.

Only the first statement is true, according to the IRS. Top 5% on the 2006 doc pays 55% of the taxes, and has 31% of the adjusted gross income.

(It would be nonsensical otherwise, in a country which has progressive taxation. The top X percent will *never* pay the same proportion of taxes as their income.)

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html

Note though that this is only federal income tax, not state/local/payroll taxes.

-Max

[thejeff]

No, I actually mean a top marginal rate of 90%.
Starting with income somewhere north of 10 million, maybe. And marginal rate, so only income above the 10 million is taxed at the highest rate. Lower rates below that until you reach the current max 35%? somewhere around 1/4 million.

Also changing the capital gains rate to a progressive structure, with a large exemption so those living off of retirement savings aren't hurt. It makes no sense to tax those just sitting back watching their money grow less than those working for a living.

I'd really be happy with something in the 70% range.

Again, this didn't destroy our economy last time we tried it. In fact we had the healthiest middle class we've ever had in this country.

Note that this is still far from socialism, more like FDR through Eisenhower & up to JFK. And far more radical than anything that scary socialist Obama is going to try.

[licker]

And you still think the global market and investment conditions are the same as a century ago?

You are right though, it isn't socialism, it's insanity.

[thejeff]

Only the first statement is true, according to the IRS. Top 5% on the 2006 doc pays 55% of the taxes, and has 31% of the adjusted gross income.


My apologies then.

I'd poked around after Chris's post and found a source giving something around 48% income for the top 5%. That probably wasn't adjusted gross income, which may account for some of the disparity. A quick look didn't find the source again. Maybe later...

[Aezeal]

I think it's completely idiotic to be discussing the birthcertificate... you shouldn't win on technicalities... but the world these days is like that and I accept that.. so does mcCain I'd say and his lawyers.. if there was more than just rumours there they'd have cracked down on it instead of just passing the rumours, it'd be blown out of proportion.

IT's just republican fanatic wishfull thinking and gossip.

I've been pretty used to seeing american make the wrong (my opinion yes) choice and I'd not be surprised if they'd do it again but pplz who keep bringing this up are just idiots

[thejeff]

And you still think the global market and investment conditions are the same as a century ago?

You are right though, it isn't socialism, it's insanity.

No, obviously the global conditions are not the same as 50 years ago.
So what?
What has changed that makes higher taxes on the top 1% or so, completely insane?
Why do those differences lead to that conclusion?

What horrible consequences do you see?

"Things are different now, that can't work" isn't an argument.

[licker]

Point being those people will simply not have their money in the US for *any* of it to be taxed.

[GrudgeBringer]

Licker,

Point well taken....

My GF is a Privite Banker and she has notices that the majority of the Largest depositers are either selling off or taking HUGE loans to themselves from the companies they control.

Money is being put on hold (and hid) it seems for another 24 hours. After that they have aprox 2 months to make that money dissaper.

Tax that gentlemen....:eek:

[GrudgeBringer]

Sorry about the spelling...(LOL) watching the Green Mile will reading this.:)

[MaxWilson]

Hauser's Law seems appropos. You *can't* soak the rich.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html?mod=opinion_main_comment aries

Or at least, not if you're trying to generate income. Thejeff's purpose seems to be more about building the middle-class. If raising the top marginal tax rates to 90% reduced IRS revenues from $1250 billion to (say) $700 billion but that $700 billion was being paid mostly by people making less than $100,000 per year--would that be a positive thing in your eyes? (Open question to anyone who cares to answer.)

Me, I'm kind of split. On the one hand, I'm pro-growth. On the other hand, the middle class will make a living one way or the other, and penalizing high earners out of existence to make way for middle-class jobs MIGHT be better than bribing the middle class with "bread and circuses." On the gripping hand I can't bring myself to favor punitive measures against people who work hard and succeed; it's un-American.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

The only evidence backing this whole argument is an elementary school equivalent registration form his stepfather filled out. Because of that, which has no legal significance other than registering him for school, we must conclude that he legally changed his name and citizenship.

And as other's have said, his birth certificate is available. He can't produce the other documents requested since they don't exist. He never changed his citizenship or his name, so he can't produce documentation showing he changed back. Easier just to have the case dismissed.

No, actually his birth certificate is *not* available. He refused to make it available. He had a copy of a birth certificate posted on his website for a few days; it was rumored to be that of his half sister.

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?

[chrispedersen]

The only evidence backing this whole argument is an elementary school equivalent registration form his stepfather filled out. Because of that, which has no legal significance other than registering him for school, we must conclude that he legally changed his name and citizenship.

And as other's have said, his birth certificate is available. He can't produce the other documents requested since they don't exist. He never changed his citizenship or his name, so he can't produce documentation showing he changed back. Easier just to have the case dismissed.

IS not the only thing backing him up - there were 2 other documents, and an interview with the principle of his school, plus a kenyan birth certificate.

I don't expect any candidate to produce name change things etc.
But I think every candidate should be able to prove they are a natural born U.S citizen.

[chrispedersen]

Good point, we've got chris arguing we can't tax the rich more because "Top 5% of earners pay 50% of the taxes in the U.S.", which is close enough to true. He neglects to mention they also bring in roughly 50% of the income. And probably a far larger percentage of actual assets.
On the other hand NTJedi claims there's no point in raising taxes on the rich since they just find loopholes and never pay taxes anyway.
I'm not quite sure how to reconcile those arguments. The facts of the first one seem to check out, and don't seem that unfair with a little bit of context. In fact, it suggests that the top 5% are barely paying their fair share ("Fair" is a fuzzy word in this context. In one sense it would be "fair" for the top 5% to pay 5% of the taxes.)
The US seemed to do quite well in 50s & 60s with top marginal tax rates up in the 90% range. What has accompanied the lowering of those rates since then is a massive transfer of wealth upwards. The top few percent control a much larger percentage of the countries wealth than at any time since the Roaring Twenties. I would like to see that reversed.

Here are some other figures for you:

Barry has proposed 1 trillion in new spending.

This is roughly: 16% of the US economy - additional spending.
Our current budget is roughly .. 2 trillion dollars. He proposes to increase govt spending 1 trillion dollars?

How is transfering 1 trillion dollars each year from the private economy to nonproductive government use.. a good thing? I mean sure, if he's giving it to you.. you're all in favor of it... but if you are looking out for the goose as a whole (you know the goose that lays the golden eggs) how is it a good thing?

We borrow roughly..$450 billion a year.. and he wants 1 trillion in additional spending. And this is on top of a financial crises where we are going to have to spend BILLIONS more in bailouts.

and this is a good idea?

How is it a good idea to increase the % of people not paying taxes from 38% to 48%.

Also an interesting statistic.. how is it possible to give a tax break to 95% of taxpayers - when 38% don't pay taxes?

Its financial insanity. As de Toqueville said.. democracy works until people realize they can vote themselves a pay raise.

[JimMorrison]

I think either someone is feeding you total bull**** interpretations of stated "plans", or you are reading something wrong.

Otherwise, he would be the first Democratic president in I don't know how long, to actually increase the deficit.

That's right, for all of the Republican blustering about Democrats spending on this or that, it is well documented that over the last century, every economic indicator is better under a Democrat, than under a Republican.

What do our presidents "increase", in the economy?

Democrats =
GDP
Taxes
Social Programs
Public Works (important, increases jobs while building infrastructure)

Republicans =
Inflation
Unemployment
Deficit
Spending (where? pork?)


For your dining pleasure - http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/

[rdonj]

Also an interesting statistic.. how is it possible to give a tax break to 95% of taxpayers - when 38% don't pay taxes?

I may be misunderstanding the question here, but aren't you not a taxpayer if you don't pay taxes? That being the case, I don't see a conflict with these numbers are they are completely unrelated.

Also, please address konming's posted birth certificates and why we should give any credence to unsubstantiated rumors spread about a candidate in a presidential election?

[sum1lost]

Obama won!!!!

As a resident of virginia, whoop!

Seriously though, that was a very, very nice speech by mccain.

[Tichy]

It was.

I could kind of sense McCain turning back into the guy he was before this race made him so unpleasant. The SNL QVC bit was a sweet bit of self-deprecating humor too.

[Trumanator]

Even though I voted for McCain, I can still respect the moment this is in History. I can still hope that Obama presides as the man he presented himself as rather than the man his past would indicate. The US has survived bad presidents, I hope Obama is not one of these, but even if he is we can survive, quite possibly even thrive.

[lwarmonger]

Yeah, seriously, what was with McCain? Wanting to win like that. That Bastard!

What so much of the media, and many Obama supporters (not entirely sure why I establish a difference), wanted McCain to do was behave like Bob Dole and essentially concede gracefully. When it turned out he was in it to win (and appeared to have a shot before the Lehman Brother's collapse) that was just him negatively campaigning. Negative campaigning has become a way of life (chiefly because it works). Both sides used it extensively, one side got blamed. Since this campaign was about Senator Obama, McCain had to be a bit more direct, but that was all.

For the debate regarding fiscal policy and economics above, Slate isn't exactly something I would bring into a debate as a source... it's like me using the Bible to "prove" the Christian God exists. Not exactly unbiased.

[lwarmonger]

Oh, and the last Democratic President to increase the deficit was Bill Clinton. The one before that was Jimmy Carter.

[Lingchih]

Woo Hoo! Obama is president.

[sum1lost]

Honestly, I didn't see very much of evil mccain that many seemed to. His running mate was far nastier than he was, and he continuously got in arguments with her and some of his campaign advisors about lines that he would draw on what was acceptable. He seemed fairly honorable through most of the campaign, even if elements of his campaign were less so.

[DonCorazon]

Free at last, thank god almighty, free at last!!!!!

[Lingchih]

Honestly, I didn't see very much of evil mccain that many seemed to. His running mate was far nastier than he was, and he continuously got in arguments with her and some of his campaign advisors about lines that he would draw on what was acceptable. He seemed fairly honorable through most of the campaign, even if elements of his campaign were less so.

McCain was an honorable man. Perhaps he still is. But he fell into the trap of the Republican party. It was his downfall.

[chrispedersen]

Also an interesting statistic.. how is it possible to give a tax break to 95% of taxpayers - when 38% don't pay taxes?

I may be misunderstanding the question here, but aren't you not a taxpayer if you don't pay taxes? That being the case, I don't see a conflict with these numbers are they are completely unrelated.

TAX-Payer. TAX*payer* tax PAYER. I don't know how else to say it.. No, if you are not paying taxes you are not a TAX PAYER.

Also, please address konming's posted birth certificates and why we should give any credence to unsubstantiated rumors spread about a candidate in a presidential election?

I did address konmings birth certificate, post. providing a document on the internet is *not* the same as providing it in court. Anyone can easily make a fake b.c. using photoshop. Providing one in court allows its authenticity to be verified.

I am not saying, (nor have I ever been) Obama isn't a US citizen.

I'm saying:

A). It was bad politics to squash the question on procedural issues. Provide a copy of the birth certificate - it ends the question definitively.

Whereas stonewalling on releasing birth certificate et.al feeds the frenzy.

B). Proving that you are eligible for the job should be part of the PAC formation. Right now according to the FEC, they are not responsible for verifying credentials. According to state of florida, Division of elections.. it is the responsibility of each of the counties subcommitties under the executive committe of the political party.

In other words, the democratic party is responsible for verifying that barack is eligible and the republican party for mccain.

[Tichy]

lwarmonger,

I readily concede that Obama used standard negative campaign tactics, such as interpreting McCain's policies in a bad light and then using that voice and that music in the ad with the grainy shot of the opponent. (Who is that woman that does "negative" voice in every dang ad? I think she showed up in ads for both Obama and McCain). McCain did the same.

But he and his camp also stooped to really scurrilous character attacks, "he's a marxist", "he's a radical", "he's not a 'real american'", "he has secret connections to terrorists," etc. That stuff was beyond the pale. It got him exactly what it should have gotten any candidate who stoops to it.

I felt badly for him. Much of the time he seemed so angry because he couldn't believe his handlers had him saying that junk. I interpreted part of his concession speech as repudiating that aspect of his own campaign...shushing the boos.

[rdonj]

TAX-Payer. TAX*payer* tax PAYER. I don't know how else to say it.. No, if you are not paying taxes you are not a TAX PAYER.

Yes, that was my point. So, either the 38% who don't pay taxes and the 95% who would theoretically get a tax break are completely unrelated ideas, or perhaps you are saying that because 38% of people are not paying taxes it is impossible to give a tax cut to said 95% of taxpayers. Or is it something else entirely? I honestly can't tell, sorry.

Thank you for clarifying the birth certificate thing, I am satisfied with this answer.

[chrispedersen]

For your dining pleasure - http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/


Yeah, bogus statistics in that slate article. Which just goes to prove you can prove anything you want to with statistics.

For example:

Why did the statistics start in 1957? Could it be to avoid including the huge deficits imposed by wwII? The great depression? If you're going exclude WWII years.. why shouldn't you exclude Korean, Vietnam, Kuwait War?

Secondly.. Democrats love to point to the years in the 50's and 60s, and the performance of the American economy.

OF COURSE the american economy did well. Europe, Japan, Russia and the rest of the 'first' world had been bombed to hell. We *had* no economic competitors.

No competition to our industry. No competition for resources. No competition for our investment into research.

But the telling fact is that a mere 25 years later, (1970) the Soviet Union never a world power, has become a military superpower, and the world (often) seems poised at the brink of nuclear destruction - and a group of Arab States are about to shake the world with the first Oil Embargo. Which, by the way, was a direct result of Kennedy's domestic oil policies - at least according to Onassis.

And quoting wiki...."After the 1954 Congressional elections, the Democratic Party now dominated both houses of Congress until 1994, except when Republicans held a majority of seats in the Senate, after the party dominated the 1980 US Presidential and US Senate elections".

So .. our competitors are in ruins; the democrats have more or less 40 years in power; and according to you they do an excellent job of managing the economy and world affairs.

Yet - if thats so how do our competitors, by 1980.. catch us? How does europe rebuild? How does Russia become a military power on par with us? You'd think that if the democrats did such a stellar job - there was no way anyone else could catch us.

Or is it in fact because perhaps in fact - that other nations - and not just one or two - but whole HOSTS of other nations.. exceeded us.

And if they exceeded us.. perhaps the democrats didn't do such a good job, did they.....

[Trumanator]

Well I doubt 95% of taxpayers make under 250k, or whatever the real number was.

Obama did associate with pseudo-marxist organizations, namely ACORN and to a lesser extent his church. He did remain in contact with Ayers until
2006, he does come from an intellectual tradition that tends to blame America first and always. I'm hoping the best for him, but I do think McCain's ads were true from a certain, exaggerated point of view. It really was on both sides. Obama alleged that McCain couldn't use a computer, it was steadily implied that he would probably die or go senile in office. I think that campaigns are dirty by their nature, and everyone condemns it, but it is not the property of one single party.

[Omnirizon]

WTF is a marxist organization?


on another note check out this **** going down on conservative forums and LAUGH YOUR ASSES OFF AT THOSE DIP****S

http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/late-breaking-news/14670-obama-officially-won.html

[chrispedersen]

[QUOTE=JimMorrison;650408]What do our presidents "increase", in the economy?

Democrats =
GDP
Taxes
Social Programs
Public Works (important, increases jobs while building infrastructure)

Republicans =
Inflation
Unemployment
Deficit
Spending (where? pork?)/[QUOTE]

Jim, I had to make one further observation. Our president's input on the economy is actually fairly small.

1. Congress passes spending bills, setting fiscal policy.
2. The federal reserve sets monetary policy.

Reference after refernce will document that the role of the president is overstated.

[AdmiralZhao]

Wow.


So .. our competitors are in ruins; the democrats have more or less 40 years in power; and according to you they do an excellent job of managing the economy and world affairs.

Yet - if thats so how do our competitors, by 1980.. catch us? How does europe rebuild? How does Russia become a military power on par with us? You'd think that if the democrats did such a stellar job - there was no way anyone else could catch us.

Or is it in fact because perhaps in fact - that other nations - and not just one or two - but whole HOSTS of other nations.. exceeded us.


Yes, I too blame the Democrats for helping Europe rebuild after WWII. o_0

[chrispedersen]

TAX-Payer. TAX*payer* tax PAYER. I don't know how else to say it.. No, if you are not paying taxes you are not a TAX PAYER.

Yes, that was my point. So, either the 38% who don't pay taxes and the 95% who would theoretically get a tax break are completely unrelated ideas, or perhaps you are saying that because 38% of people are not paying taxes it is impossible to give a tax cut to said 95% of taxpayers. Or is it something else entirely? I honestly can't tell, sorry.

Thank you for clarifying the birth certificate thing, I am satisfied with this answer.



Obama calls people tax payers that are not paying taxes, and in fact are welfare recipients.

Obamas own figures show that everyone earning under $226K a year gets a tax cut. This is where he gets the 95% figure.

My point - is that 38% of these people are not PAYING any taxes.
(48% after his plan)

So really it breaks out something like this:

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

[JimMorrison]

For the debate regarding fiscal policy and economics above, Slate isn't exactly something I would bring into a debate as a source... it's like me using the Bible to "prove" the Christian God exists. Not exactly unbiased.

If it was an opinion piece, I would accept the merit of your opinion.

However, since I am betting you did not even look at the article, I will clarify. The article uses statistics compiled from the economic report that the White House presents to the President himself, and Congress, every year. If you doubt the veracity of the analysis itself, simply because you consider the source biased - then I would offer to confirm the results. But since I am sure you would consider me biased at this point (yes, I am biased towards truth, rather than denial), then maybe you should follow the link the the government webpage that will allow you to directly download the entire report, in PDF format.



Oh, and the last Democratic President to increase the deficit was Bill Clinton. The one before that was Jimmy Carter.

Do you honestly believe that? How on Earth can you state something like that as fact? The Federal government clearly disagrees on your assertion that deficit increased under Clinton. In fact, by their records, he showed the only budget surplus since 1969 (2001 was still in surplus, but the year a President takes office, is not their budget).

[Aezeal]

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

what can I say... sounds good?

[chrispedersen]

Wow.


So .. our competitors are in ruins; the democrats have more or less 40 years in power; and according to you they do an excellent job of managing the economy and world affairs.

Yet - if thats so how do our competitors, by 1980.. catch us? How does europe rebuild? How does Russia become a military power on par with us? You'd think that if the democrats did such a stellar job - there was no way anyone else could catch us.

Or is it in fact because perhaps in fact - that other nations - and not just one or two - but whole HOSTS of other nations.. exceeded us.


Yes, I too blame the Democrats for helping Europe rebuild after WWII. o_0

Lets make it simple:

1. The USA was the only world power to escape WWII with its economy intact.
2. The democrats retained power for significantly all of the 40 year period.
3. The democrats did a world class job of managing the economy.

One of those things has to be false. Because if it were true, the US would still have an equally dominant economy.

I believe the statistics show that after wwii, the gnp of the american economy exceeded all other powers involved in the war - combined. In fact, the GNP of the American economy is more than 50% of the GNP of the rest of the world combined.

It certainly wasn't true after 40 years of democratic rule.

So Jims assertion that the democrats do (did) an outstanding job of managing the economy fails on its face.

But if you need a link, here is a comparison of US growth rates to japanese growth rates post wwii:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5aEKtvs0WHAC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=post+wwii+gnp+by+year+and+country&source=web&ots=UrsLnY66Fm&sig=oGTdWZZXlQQ2WE_iQ8NhHLAuAiQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA45,M1

Here you see similiar statistics for france, italy and spain
ie., that they are narrowing the per person gdp all through the 1960s and 1970s... IE., that the the democrats did not do an outstanding job.. indeed - they did worse than the managers of four countries.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/181

In fact, if you examine the data further, they did worse than the managers of virtually *all* those world powers over the same period.

[lch]

No, actually his birth certificate is *not* available. He refused to make it available. He had a copy of a birth certificate posted on his website for a few days; it was rumored to be that of his half sister.

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?
Obama's campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008 and launched a fact-check Web site named Fightthesmears.com in response to allegations that he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, and in response to allegations that he would be muslim (which isn't true as well). The state's Department of Health director of Hawai‘i released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate (http://www.kitv.com/politics/17860890/detail.html).

It takes me less than a minute to look up these things in Google and debunk your stories, again and again, I wonder why you don't manage to do that yourself. Again, conspiracy sites and attack sites are hardly the right source of information. If you'd make a minimal effort to check the facts yourself you wouldn't have to make such a poor impression here.

[JimMorrison]

I don't think that I stated anyone did an excellent (or stellar) job of anything. However, the statistics compiled by our own government show with clear numbers, that averaging out each year under a Democratic President there was a trend of better performance in every economic indicator, than there was under a Republican President.

Some of the statistics in the report (compiled by our government! I can't stress this enough) do start in the 40's, and some start in the 50's. I believe the reason to do the table of statistics as they were done in the article, was to only use data beginning in years when data in all areas was available


The Democrats have not "been in power" for the last 40 years, that is patently false. How can you even make such a claim, when the directly observable trends in areas of economy, society, and bureaucracy swing in VERY different directions when there is a Republican President in the White House (as there has been for 20 of the last 28 years, for example).

In fact, according to all indicators, as tracked by our own government, perhaps you could postulate that Democrats haven't done a "stellar" job with the economy, but it is also glaringly obvious from these figures that the Republicans did substantially, and reliably worse (f not horribly so).


I hardly see what deficit figures near 100% of the annual tax incomes for the last 3 years of WWII has to do with anything? The entire world was under rather unique economic stresses at the time, and we came through it the best that we could.

Let me give you an interesting bit of information, while we are on the subject of taxation, spending, deficit, and the relative performance of Presidents of different parties.....

This is the % increase in our national debt, over the period of a particular President's time in office (first 2 lumped because JFK wasn't around long enough, nor Ford....) -

JFK+LBJ = 28.24%
Nixon+Ford = 70.6%
Carter = 44.51% (I'll agree, this one is bad enough)
Reagan = 186.14% (makes Carter look like a financial GENIUS)
Bush Sr= 53.85% (worse in 4 years than even Carter as well)
Clinton = 40.65%
Bush Jr = 71.52%

So you see, according to our own internal bookkeeping, every Democrat has performed better in terms of the relative balance of revenue/spending than the Republican that followed them.


And yet, still, these numbers are embarassing. Neither party should consistently see debt growth on such a ridiculous scale. My argument the entire time was that what we truly need is a new paradigm altogether, and a new system whereby we can have a functioning economy, AND a functioning social infrastructure. While both are inarguably dysfunctional in American today (and have been for decades), there is a measurable difference, in all available benchmarking, that favors Democrats in nearly all statistical categories that we can look at.

So to reiterate - I do not think that any Democrat, Obama included, is the real answer we are looking for. But at the same time, it is ridiculous to claim that a Democrat will be worse than a Republican (in general terms), based on party affiliation, for any purpose other than your anger at having your income potential hampered, as one of those top 5% earners in the nation. If you're in the other 95%, and most of us are, then you are being completely deceived into your vote, and that is a statistically corroborated fact, because a Republican will do far more harm to you than a Democrat will.

<3

[HoneyBadger]

And it looks like Obama for the win! YAY!

[Humakty]

Yay, Obama won, it's the democrat's turn to wreck occidental economy ! Just kidding guys, don't get the guns out.By the way, I really hope BO won't get shot out.
Giving my stranger 'point de vue' : I hope he really is the change motor USA needs today to stay world leaders, chinese scare me a bit. As he is from Yale, I'm afraid he'll be just as other USA politicians : lobby rules, poor gets poorer (I'm talking of USA poor !)...etc

[Edratman]

I am relieved that Obama won.

But it sad that I am merely relieved. I think that we have so many problems that I admit to great fears that many of them will/can not be overcome. But at least there is a modicum of hope.

[Tichy]

Obama did associate with pseudo-marxist organizations, namely ACORN and to a lesser extent his church. He did remain in contact with Ayers until
2006, he does come from an intellectual tradition that tends to blame America first and always.

ACORN's not "pseudo-marxist." In fact I'm really not sure what "pseudo-marxist" is. You're either for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie or you're against it. Last I checked, Obama was against it. ACORN doesn't even have a stated position on taxes or the economy in general. Their focus is housing for low income people. The voter registration stuff spun out of that.

Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at U. Illinois Chicago. He and Obama served on a board about education reform (the Annenberg project) that had republican funding. Apparently he wasn't too much of a terrorist to get invited to sit on that board, or to be declared Chicagoan of the year in 1997 for his work on it. I'm not denying that they're acquaintances, even friends. What I'm denying is that Ayers is a "terrorist." That "didn't do enough" line about his activities in the 60's that keeps getting thrown around isn't "didn't bomb enough" but "didn't oppose the war effectively enough." Did he do some stupid things in the 60's? Yes. Is he a fringe voice or terrorist sympathizer now? Hardly.

If by "blame first and always" you mean "acknowledge errors and work to correct them," I agree. We've just had eight years of blame last and never, and boy did it work out great.

[lch]

IS not the only thing backing him up - there were 2 other documents, and an interview with the principle of his school, plus a kenyan birth certificate.
I just remembered something, and that is a story that I read in my newspaper almost exactly three months ago, about Obama's journey through life and his supporters. Among it was the heart-warming story about him visiting his old Highschool Punahou in Honolulu on December 17th in 2004, where he spent his time from 1971 (5th grade) to 1979 (12th grade). His supervisor and liaison teacher at the time, Eric Kusunoki, embarrassedly remembers how the 13-year-old Obama offered "You may call me Barry" after Kusunoki pronounced his first name like "barracks". Yes, Barry was his nickname. No, it wasn't anything else. I'd like to see a copy of that kenyan birth certificate. You should probably know by now that you're better off by assuming that that one is a manufactured forgery, instead of the Hawaiian one, like you should have assumed it in the first place. No matter how strongly you may wish that it was the other way around.

I don't expect any candidate to produce name change things etc.
But I think every candidate should be able to prove they are a natural born U.S citizen.
Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?
There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

[chrispedersen]

Obama did associate with pseudo-marxist organizations, namely ACORN and to a lesser extent his church. He did remain in contact with Ayers until
2006, he does come from an intellectual tradition that tends to blame America first and always.

ACORN's not "pseudo-marxist." In fact I'm really not sure what "pseudo-marxist" is. You're either for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie or you're against it. Last I checked, Obama was against it. ACORN doesn't even have a stated position on taxes or the economy in general. Their focus is housing for low income people. The voter registration stuff spun out of that.

Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at U. Illinois Chicago. He and Obama served on a board about education reform (the Annenberg project) that had republican funding. Apparently he wasn't too much of a terrorist to get invited to sit on that board, or to be declared Chicagoan of the year in 1997 for his work on it. I'm not denying that they're acquaintances, even friends. What I'm denying is that Ayers is a "terrorist." That "didn't do enough" line about his activities in the 60's that keeps getting thrown around isn't "didn't bomb enough" but "didn't oppose the war effectively enough." Did he do some stupid things in the 60's? Yes. Is he a fringe voice or terrorist sympathizer now? Hardly.

If by "blame first and always" you mean "acknowledge errors and work to correct them," I agree. We've just had eight years of blame last and never, and boy did it work out great.

Thats simply not true. Both in his book and in an interview after 9/11 he said he was sorry he didn't do more. When asked (after 9/11) if he was sorry if he bombed the police station he said 'no'. His wife was #1 wanted female by the FBI with a heading of 'terrorist.'

Personally, I really despise the use of labels, so had I been advising the mccain camp I would have avoided calling him a terrorist, and avoiding saying things .. like socialist, liberal.

I would have tried to explain why the facts were relevent. Just using labels tends to overstate, and I think people rejected that.

But there will always be a significant portion of the population that does not feel that ayers is a distinguished member of society.

[chrispedersen]

IS not the only thing backing him up - there were 2 other documents, and an interview with the principle of his school, plus a kenyan birth certificate.
I just remembered something, and that is a story that I read in my newspaper almost exactly three months ago, about Obama's journey through life and his supporters. Among it was the heart-warming story about him visiting his old Highschool Punahou in Honolulu on December 17th in 2004, where he spent his time from 1971 (5th grade) to 1979 (12th grade). His supervisor and liaison teacher at the time, Eric Kusunoki, embarrassedly remembers how the 13-year-old Obama offered "You may call me Barry" after Kusunoki pronounced his first name like "barracks". Yes, Barry was his nickname. No, it wasn't anything else. I'd like to see a copy of that kenyan birth certificate. You should probably know by now that you're better off by assuming that that one is a manufactured forgery, instead of the Hawaiian one, like you should have assumed it in the first place. No matter how strongly you may wish that it was the other way around.

I don't expect any candidate to produce name change things etc.
But I think every candidate should be able to prove they are a natural born U.S citizen.
Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?
There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

Dude, you are either not reading my posts or english is not your first language.

I *understand* that there was never a trial.

The *reason* there was no trial was because obama/the dnc made a motion to dismiss which was granted by the judge. Said dismissal was for lack of standing.

Obama could have (I would say should have) simply said - hey judge here's my birth certificate.

Understand - the judge didn't say - obama is a citizen. What he said was, Mr. Berg - you don't have cause to seek redress.

In other words, the question of whether Obama is actually a citizen has never been answered in a court.

[chrispedersen]

For the debate regarding fiscal policy and economics above, Slate isn't exactly something I would bring into a debate as a source... it's like me using the Bible to "prove" the Christian God exists. Not exactly unbiased.

If it was an opinion piece, I would accept the merit of your opinion.

However, since I am betting you did not even look at the article, I will clarify. The article uses statistics compiled from the economic report that the White House presents to the President himself, and Congress, every year. If you doubt the veracity of the analysis itself, simply because you consider the source biased - then I would offer to confirm the results. But since I am sure you would consider me biased at this point (yes, I am biased towards truth, rather than denial), then maybe you should follow the link the the government webpage that will allow you to directly download the entire report, in PDF format.



Oh, and the last Democratic President to increase the deficit was Bill Clinton. The one before that was Jimmy Carter.

Do you honestly believe that? How on Earth can you state something like that as fact? The Federal government clearly disagrees on your assertion that deficit increased under Clinton. In fact, by their records, he showed the only budget surplus since 1969 (2001 was still in surplus, but the year a President takes office, is not their budget).


Jim, by the way

This is where a little understanding goes a long way. Back in 1994 (if I remember) - the democrats voted to remove/take social security obligations off the table. So while social security revenues are taken in and used to 'fund' the budget, social security obligations are no longer calculated as part of the 'federal' deficit.

The deficit figure up until 1994 or so includes SSO. The deficit numbers after do not. Someone here will look up the exact date I'm sure.

When you include social security obligations, the actual national debt is somewhere around 52 trillion dollars, and has increased every year, including your vaunted clinton years.

The deficit caused by excessive govt spending was never fixed - we just pretended the emperor has clothes. voila! the problem is fixed!

The problem is really obvious is you just take a graph of govt spending and compare it to growth in gdp. Or, look at govt spending per capita.

[lch]

There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

Dude, you are either not reading my posts or english is not your first language.
I wonder if you are really reading mine. Let me quote my own post again since you seem to have troubles finding it:
No, actually his birth certificate is *not* available. He refused to make it available. He had a copy of a birth certificate posted on his website for a few days; it was rumored to be that of his half sister.

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?
Obama's campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008 and launched a fact-check Web site named Fightthesmears.com in response to allegations that he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, and in response to allegations that he would be muslim (which isn't true as well). The state's Department of Health director of Hawai‘i released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate (http://www.kitv.com/politics/17860890/detail.html).
That underlined sentence there is a link to a Web site, BTW. If you hover your mouse over it and click, you can quickly check my statement. Or you may seek other sources that give the same information. I think my Google query was something as ingenious as "Obama birth certificate valid" or so.

I'd like you to always add sources to your statements from now on, too, since it's a hassle to go through Google and find out again and again that they're not facts but conspiracy babble. That Kenyan birth certificate would be a good start, I can't find it. And I'd like you to show your own birth certificate, too, since apparently that's customary.

[Gregstrom]

Lets make it simple:

I believe the statistics show that after wwii, the gnp of the american economy exceeded all other powers involved in the war - combined. In fact, the GNP of the American economy is more than 50% of the GNP of the rest of the world combined.

It certainly wasn't true after 40 years of democratic rule.

So Jims assertion that the democrats do (did) an outstanding job of managing the economy fails on its face.



I don't believe that the two are related. I suspect that the statistics show that war-damaged economies recover faster than peace-time economies can grow. As a baseline comparison, why not use the pre-war economies?


But if you need a link, here is a comparison of US growth rates to japanese growth rates post wwii:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5aEKtvs0WHAC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=post+wwii+gnp+by+year+and+country&source=web&ots=UrsLnY66Fm&sig=oGTdWZZXlQQ2WE_iQ8NhHLAuAiQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA45,M1

Here you see similiar statistics for france, italy and spain
ie., that they are narrowing the per person gdp all through the 1960s and 1970s... IE., that the the democrats did not do an outstanding job.. indeed - they did worse than the managers of four countries.



...and of those 4 countries, 3 had strong genuinely socialist political parties between WWII and now. 2 had influential communist parties, in fact. Are you suggesting that having far-left socialist rulership is better for an economy than having a far-right and centre-right 2 party state?

[chrispedersen]

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

what can I say... sounds good?


Aezeal, it may surprise you to know that I believe we need to increase what the poor and middle class earn. And I believe that insofar as obama gives wealth to the lowest part of our economy, that he will actually help in pulling us out of the economic prolems we are in.

However, there are good ways, and bad ways to accomplish that.

I am *all* in favor of increasing aid and grants to education.
I am all in favor of giving micro loans so people can start businesses. I am in favor of increasing the minimum wage carefully so that it doesn't cause job loss.

However, using our tax code to do this is wrong.

First, at over 10,000 pages our tax code is already ridiculous. It takes an army of accountants and lawyers to figure it out - and if you can't figure it out - correctly - you're at risk.

Second, the cost of complying with the tax code is huge and non productive - and there are lots of both productive and non productive taxes in our system.

When the government taxes a sale, for example - the government gets some money. Theoretically we all benefit. The hidden kinds of taxes are when the government makes a regulation and the benefits are non existent.

Say for example you are driving - you come to a stop sign. You stop, wait your turn and then proceed. There is no traffic for miles around - you are in the middle of nebraska.

You had to stop - at risk of getting a ticket etc. It had a cost to you - it took 2 minutes out of your day, costs you gas to accelerate again. But the point is.. in this particular case - no one benefited.

In the same way, an inpenetrable tax code benefits no one - and is in fact a hidden tax on all of us.

Second:

Mixing missions is bad policy. The purpose of the IRS should be to collect taxes. Its performance can be measured. How well did it collect taxes. How many audits did it do.. etc

Once you give another role to our tax code - collecting funds AND redistributing wealth, and promoting education, and promoting home ownership, and promoting social equality - how do you measure the success of our tax code?

Every one decries tax loopholes - but here you are saying its a good thing because it benefits you personally.

Transparent politics is letting the tax code stand on its own - and then setting up a separate program - to increase home ownership - to increase education. And each of these programs can stand on its own feet - and be measured.

Im not saying this is 100% possible - but it is a goal that should be achieved as much as feasible.

Finally:

There is the old saying - give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

Benjamin Franklin said something like - the poor should not be made comfortable in poverty - then should be lead, or if necessary, driven from it.

Look, welfare reform pushed by republicans and signed by clinton was an enormous success in getting people off the welfare roles and into jobs.

We need to make jobs and living wages *more* possible for everyone, not make it easier for more people to live in welfare, which is what just giving people money is.

[Mithras]

http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/late-breaking-news/14670-obama-officially-won-1.html

Its been posted here before but I'd just like to reiterate.
Read it its scary and funy. The ignorance out there is amazing :D
For example according to some of these people the US is now:
Going to have shira law
Going to have terrorists invited round to the whitehouse.

Don't we just love fear/hate mongers. I'd like to say again that personaly I would have preferd Obama if he were Muslim but that was not very likely... he's a Muslim and worships in a church with a mad pastor... there's something wrong there... btw does Obama have a passport? He's been out of the country right? That should be adequate proof of citizenship.

Anyway read the above forumn and enjoy (but be very very scared) Oh and lets all hope that Obama is the godsend so many people wish him to be... I like him but I have a nagging feeling he'll disapoint... :(
Maybe I just haven't been brough up to expect much from the president of the united states (George Bush Jr since I was 8)

[chrispedersen]

There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

Dude, you are either not reading my posts or english is not your first language.
I wonder if you are really reading mine. Let me quote my own post again since you seem to have troubles finding it:
No, actually his birth certificate is *not* available. He refused to make it available. He had a copy of a birth certificate posted on his website for a few days; it was rumored to be that of his half sister.

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?
Obama's campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008 and launched a fact-check Web site named Fightthesmears.com in response to allegations that he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, and in response to allegations that he would be muslim (which isn't true as well). The state's Department of Health director of Hawai‘i released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate (http://www.kitv.com/politics/17860890/detail.html).
That underlined sentence there is a link to a Web site, BTW. If you hover your mouse over it and click, you can quickly check my statement. Or you may seek other sources that give the same information. I think my Google query was something as ingenious as "Obama birth certificate valid" or so.

I'd like you to always add sources to your statements from now on, too, since it's a hassle to go through Google and find out again and again that they're not facts but conspiracy babble. That Kenyan birth certificate would be a good start, I can't find it. And I'd like you to show your own birth certificate, too, since apparently that's customary.

Dude, I cannot believe you are continuing this argument.

1. There have now been THREE lawsuits on this same topic.
Source: your own kitv article. This is madness.

2. Some Democratic functionaire saying 'yes he has a legitimate' birth certificate is of *no* legal validity. Releasing a document on a webs site is of *no* legal validity.

It is a *court's* perview to settle the question. In a court, the plaintiff and the defendent could provide their own experts - and the credentials of each other can be questioned or not.

I am not taking any position on whether Obama is a citizen.

I am saying:

A. Any candidate should have to prove his qualifications.
B. Obama should have just released his birth certificate to the court, instead of squashing the suit on techical grounds.

If you want to argue with me - address those two points. I don't even see how anyone can think otherwise.

There have now been three *stupid* and time wasting lawsuits on this stupid subject. How many do we have to have? How does that help anyone? Its a big enough deal to enough people.

Obama wants to be a politician for all the people? How does it hurt anyone if he submits a birth certificate to the court *AND IT WOULD MAKE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TRUST HIM MORE*. Some of them would simply say.. huh... I guess he is eligible. Great.

You apparently think I want to discredit him as president. At the present time - I would rather he HAD a birth certificate rather than he didn't. Read it again. I would rather he had one than he didn't.

But yeah, I think a citizen has a right to know that a candidate meets the qualifications of the office.

There is a logical tactic called Reductio ad absurdum - lets use it now.

Suppose the republican party nominated Putin to be president of the United States and Karl Rove said.. yes I've seen his birth certificate. And somehow.. Putin leads in the polls. (An even better example might be renominating GWBush)

Are you really expecting me to believe that you would find that OK? You'd wouldn't want to see that in court... wouldn't expect it go to court? I know *I* would.

I think you're a liar if you say yes, you'd just accept it. So give those on the opposite side of the equation the same respect and the same rights that you'd hope to enjoy for your side.

[Foodstamp]

Hey the election is over. You can reign in your short cock competition until the next one.:smirk:

[chrispedersen]

http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/late-breaking-news/14670-obama-officially-won-1.html
btw does Obama have a passport? He's been out of the country right? That should be adequate proof of citizenship.



Mithras, No one questions whether Obama is a citizen. So a passport doesn't solve the question. Being a citizen is not enough to be president of the united states.

For example, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Henry Kissinger, Peter Jennings are all US citizens - and none of them can be president.

Britney Spears is *also* a US citizen - nor could she be president this year.

[chrispedersen]

Lets make it simple:

I believe the statistics show that after wwii, the gnp of the american economy exceeded all other powers involved in the war - combined. In fact, the GNP of the American economy is more than 50% of the GNP of the rest of the world combined.

It certainly wasn't true after 40 years of democratic rule.

So Jims assertion that the democrats do (did) an outstanding job of managing the economy fails on its face.



I don't believe that the two are related. I suspect that the statistics show that war-damaged economies recover faster than peace-time economies can grow. As a baseline comparison, why not use the pre-war economies?


But if you need a link, here is a comparison of US growth rates to japanese growth rates post wwii:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5aEKtvs0WHAC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=post+wwii+gnp+by+year+and+country&source=web&ots=UrsLnY66Fm&sig=oGTdWZZXlQQ2WE_iQ8NhHLAuAiQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA45,M1

Here you see similiar statistics for france, italy and spain
ie., that they are narrowing the per person gdp all through the 1960s and 1970s... IE., that the the democrats did not do an outstanding job.. indeed - they did worse than the managers of four countries.



...and of those 4 countries, 3 had strong genuinely socialist political parties between WWII and now. 2 had influential communist parties, in fact. Are you suggesting that having far-left socialist rulership is better for an economy than having a far-right and centre-right 2 party state?

No, I am making two assertions:

1. Statistics can be used to prove anything.
2. The statistics Jim used to prove that Democrats are better stewards are a particular egregious example of #1.

I suppose I would also advance the argument that who we are as a country now is a product of democrats and republicans - good and bad. That who we are transcends democrat or republican - and that the trends of how our country does are longer range than the time of any one president. Who can doubt that clinton benefitted from the miraculous advent of the pc and the internet when the seeds of it were sown in the late 70's and early 80s.
Who can doubt that the first two years of Obama's presidency will be dealing with the problems of this financial mess.


I don't think any serious person can argue that Reagan wasn't a great president. I personally think FDR was a disaster during the great depression -but that he was absolutely *amazing* during ww2. Who can argue that Lincoln saved the union - and Rooseveldt Teddy was a great leader.

I think Woodrew Wilson was an amazing example of american optimism and idealism - even while he did the income tax and the treaty of versailles.

Jimmy Carter, W Bush, and Grant, Taft and Polk, will all go down as mediochre presidents. And while I may not agree with you as to the role of democratic presidents in the 50s-70's.. I believe that Martin Luther King (a democrat, yes?) played a larger and more constructive role than any of those presidents.

[Tichy]

Chrispedersen: After reading your long post about taxes etc. you seem like you have political and economic views you've thought about and that are worth debating. So why hitch your horse to this whole citizenship thing? It's a non-starter as an issue.

As for Ayers, I agree that he's not repentant about what he did in the 60's. Obama rightly condemned that.
I also agree that there are many who condemn him for what he did in the 60's, and his lack of remorse for the possibility that innocents could have been hurt. When I read about his responses to these things, I find him testy and unpleasant.

But that's not what I was saying. I was talking about the smear that Ayers now holds fringe/terrorist views, and that Obama endorses them. Both of those claims are demonstrably false.

BTW: "Distinguished" is part of his job title. It means that UIC has recognized his prestige within his field by promoting him. It's the kind of title that usually goes to the one or two members of an academic department's faculty that are most prominent in their field.

[lch]

Dude, I cannot believe you are continuing this argument.
I can't believe that you still try to evade admitting that you were wrong.

1. There have now been THREE lawsuits on this same topic.
Source: your own kitv article. This is madness.
Contrary to you, I'm at least quoting a well-respected news site from a broadcasting company instead of weblogs or other unfunded sources, if any at all. I gave you the option to find further sources through Google to verify this yourself, too, should I add another dozen links that tell the same story? But wait, why don't you do your homework yourself?

Where's that Kenyan birth certificate, BTW? Or evidence for some of the other myths that you brought up, and which I debunked?

2. Some Democratic functionaire saying 'yes he has a legitimate' birth certificate is of *no* legal validity.
A statement by the Department of Health's director for verification is good enough for a layman like me unless somebody successfully disproves this in court. I don't see how the political position of the Department of Health's director matters. Yeah, "unfortunately", he is a Democrat. There's a 50/50 chance for that, perhaps a little more so if he's from Hawai'i. So what? As you already said, the prosecution is a Democrat, too.

Releasing a document on a webs site is of *no* legal validity.
Apparently some rumor on the web is good enough for you to challenge legal validity, though.

A. Any candidate should have to prove his qualifications.
B. Obama should have just released his birth certificate to the court, instead of squashing the suit on techical grounds.

If you want to argue with me - address those two points. I don't even see how anyone can think otherwise.
ad A.: like McCain, too. Remember that Obama wasn't the only one with allegations of unsure citizenship. Not that I'd think there would be reason to doubt that.
ad B.: the one that squashed the case was the judge. Regardless if there was a hearing or not, what the judge decides is what's "right". I'm not a lawyer, but I'd suppose that if a judge dismisses a case then that doesn't have to do with the defendant evading a trial, but, and let me quote you here again:
There have now been three *stupid* and time wasting lawsuits on this stupid subject. How many do we have to have? How does that help anyone? Its a big enough deal to enough people.... but, continuing my sentence from above, to avoid a nonsensical lawsuit with no sign of success that does little more but waste the time of the defendant, the judge, the jury, and the taxpayer's money over a lunatic's pipe dream.

As I already said, Berg brought the case before the US Supreme Court now. Let's see what they say about it.

There is a logical tactic called Reductio ad absurdum - lets use it now.

[some hypothetical scenario and calling me a liar]
I don't see how this matters. Desperation? And I'm really getting tired when I have to repeat myself for people that are too slow or too stubborn to admit that their arguments are groundless and that they have to take them back. I already gave you the choice between humble pie or crow to eat.

Somebody else fight the tin-foil hat people from here on, please. Unless chrispedersen admits that he's at a fault and/or apologizes, I don't care anymore.

[Mithras]

I'm probably being niave here, but theres a bit censored on the birth certificate that is shown online. Now this is just a stab in the dark but is it censored for a reason could it be used to damage Obama in some way? If so then you have a perfectly legitemate reason not to make a hard copy of said birth certificate to a publinc domain (court) unless required to do so.

But personally I don't think you'd take that as proof, perhaps the judge will be left wing as well. BTW My point is however high up this goes somebody (not neccessaraly you) can still argue it as invalid. Theres just some people out there who pay no attention to what others say. Again I'm not referring to you Chris, in fact you have been quite good. But you have been unclear about what it was you wanted, I vaguely remember you saying that ALL Obama needed to do was show a birth certificate, then gradually elevated that to it has to be in court and a hard copy.

Oh and I think you did question his citizenship, in fact a few pages ago... if you want me to dig it up I can, but right now I'm out of time.

[Tifone]

Obama is the 44th President of the USA. Being only a marginally involved European, I'll have just one word for this.

http://imgboot.com/images/Tifone/homerspinning6af.gif

WOOOOPWOPWOPWOPWOPWOOOOPWOPWOPWOPWOPWOPWOOOOP :D

No, really, I see very good things on horizon for USA now. ;) Maybe I'm mistaken. Time will tell.

[Tichy]

In some ways this is huge. For example, if it means that minorities continue an active engagement in American politics at the national level and maintain a real voice there, I think it can only be a good thing.

But I'm concerned that people have Obama built up so much in their minds that if he hasn't solved the credit crisis, put humanity on the path to enlightenment, and established universal peace in his first hundred days all of this excitement's going to turn against him. The man is an extremely smart and talented centrist politician, not Jesus.

[Tifone]

I think people know he's not the world's saviour, Tichy. But surely it will be a change and if he does even the half of what he promised, they will be all steps in the right direction.

Personally, I'm a little sad though. After 8 years, I can't say "I'm more intelligent than the President of the United States of America!!!" no more... :(

:D Sorry, stupid joke. I have even more stupid ones though ^^

[JimMorrison]

I am making two assertions:

1. Statistics can be used to prove anything.
2. The statistics Jim used to prove that Democrats are better stewards are a particular egregious example of #1.
I'm sorry if it was completely outrageous of me to draw a direct correlation between growth of debt, and a degrees of fiscal responsibility. Especially since you don't seem to care about the other economic indicators presented, either. But apparently my method of providing facts, offends yours right to just believe what you want to believe....?


Who can doubt that clinton benefitted from the miraculous advent of the pc and the internet when the seeds of it were sown in the late 70's and early 80s.

Okay, at this point I should know better, but I will bite. The assertion that the rise of the internet just suddenly made more money appear, borders on the absurd. Yes, some people made a lot of money. In fact, if you look at our government's published figures, the budget surpluses had more to do with a slowdown in proportionate spending increases, rather than a disproportionate increase in revenues.


I don't think any serious person can argue that Reagan wasn't a great president.

Trickle down theory? Make the rich richer to benefit everyone?
Iran Contra? Have the CIA sell cocaine on American soil, to fund militant extremists?
The worst income/expenditure ratio of any President?

Reagan was a tool. The worst kind, really.

[Tichy]

I just wonder what all the political satirists and late night comedians are going to do for the next few months, Tifone.

Oh, wait. Oh, crap. Two and a half months of "lame duck" jokes coming right up. Sigh. Wake me in January.

[Tifone]

Hey, Bush has 77 days left to do his worst :D Maybe he can declare some random war, or take some civil right away from you guys... (Damn, hope he's not reading or he may take those as suggestions :hurt:)

On a just marginally related topic, damn, that prop8 has passed, I couldn't believe it :eek:

[HoneyBadger]

Obama is President. Let me repeat: Barack Obama *is* President of these United States. Ok, that's a fact.

We've just suffered through 8 horrendous years of bad, stupid, and unconscionable leadership under a man-child not competent to run a 7-11 well. That, and all the disasters and embarassments occurred, in part, because many citizens of these United States chose to focus on things which had nothing whatsoever to do with the President's actual leadership ability.

The question of whether or not Barack Obama is a citizen of the U.S. was answered by his opponent, who was also of dubious citizenship. They cancelled each other out. We can now all feel free to let this one go. It really does *not* matter, and I'm sorry for you if you honestly think it does.

Mccain lost, Obama won. By an enormous landslide. If you want someone to blame for that, blame George W Bush--he's the primary reason Mccain did so poorly against the first black man ever to be elected President in this country. George W Bush forever denied the infallability of rich, white, Christian, European-Americans. If there are any racists out there, George W is basically your very own Benedict Arnold. He lost it for you, and the world has forever changed.

So now that we're past all that, can we please focus on important issues, like the energy crisis, the environment, the economy, stem-cell research, world-relations, education, National health-care, and poverty in this and other countries? Seriously, if you can't focus on these, or something of similar importance, then again I feel sorry for you, and please get out of the way of our conversation and our country, because you're just being a nuisance and a distraction.

I'm not singling any one person out, or pointing any fingers, because this is maybe a message that we all need to hear:

There's a lot of important work to be done, and if you can't manage to force yourself to be a part of the solution, then please don't make the problem bigger with your irrelevancies.

[licker]

The question of whether or not Barack Obama is a citizen of the U.S. was answered by his opponent, who was also of dubious citizenship. They cancelled each other out. We can now all feel free to let this one go. It really does *not* matter, and I'm sorry for you if you honestly think it does.



Running the risk of mentioning something irrelevant...


But, in no way does McCains 'dubious' status (and I use ''s because McCain's birth conditions are not dubious in the least) impact Obamas.

Two wrongs don't make a right afterall.

Anyway, I'm sorry if you think the laws of the United States of America should only matter when you feel like they should, I guess you may have more in common with Bush than you probably imagined.

All that said, I don't dispute that Obama is a natural American citizen, but I think its a prefectly fair question to put towards ANYONE who is running for president, and a trivial one to be answered CLEARLY, which is why some people no doubt find it odd that Obama never did answer the question beyond all shadow of doubt.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm pretty sure it's beyond all shadow of a doubt. If there's really anything to this at all, then I'll be amazed and shocked.

It's just a meaningless gripe, is the problem. Can anyone honestly suppose that if Obama really wasn't a citizen of the U.S., that it wouldn't be a debate, it would be a certainty? Every journalist in America would *love* the exclusive rights to that story. They'd kill for it. It's nothing more than a silly conspiracy theory--exactly the kind that we love in this country. The fact that Mccain's citizenship was also questioned just makes it even less valid, and much more petty.

Yes, I do think that the President of the U.S. should be a citizen of the United States. I absolutely do, so that answers that question. I just don't for one minute believe that Barack Obama *isn't* one.
I don't even waste my time wondering. I-infact-rely on the legal system of this country to present to me such questions, and to deal with them in a timely, efficient fashion.

Do you have any real, actual, physical proof that he's not? If so, please forward it to the Washington Post or the NY Times. I'm sure I'll hear about it eventually. Why you waited a whole entire year to present your incontrovertible evidence is beyond me.

In the meantime, there are real, serious problems that need to be solved.

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, Barack Obama was, as far as I know, born in Hawaii, which is an actual state. Mccain was born in Panama, which is not a part of the United States. The fact-again, as far as I know-that he was born in a sovereign state of the U.S., is-honestly-good enough for me. If you can prove that he was born somewhere else, then please keep me posted. Being born on U.S. soil does it for me--which is why I consider Mccain to be a valid Presidential candidate (and I personally consider him to be a fine human being, and a great American, just so you know where I stand. My mom likes him too.), and Arnold Schwartzenegger not to be.

[Gandalf Parker]

Does anyone really believe that he could not have gotten this far without the CIA or someone checking his background?

[HoneyBadger]

Well, people believe in a lot of things. Often very strongly. That doesn't make them so...

[licker]

I never challenged Obamas birth status, only pointed out that your logic about McCain having a dubious birth status has nothing to do with anyone elses status.

I find it odd that Obama didn't squash this story more completely, and instead released documents which were questionable (again I'm not questioning them, just observing that they are being questioned). It should be a completely trivial exercise (as it was for McCain, both parents US citizens, born at a military base, ...), yet apparently it is not.

Why? Who knows, but the fringers in the US will take any story and try to give it wheels, hell listen to Alex Jones sometime if you want an appreciation into just how insane some people actually are.

[Tichy]

HoneyBadger -- the sticking point is that to be president one must be a natural citizen (born here) and not naturalized. Schwarzeneggar was born in Austria and became a citizen later in life, so he cannot be president, though he can be a governor, senator, etc. That's what that whole lawsuit was about. The claims vary between he wasn't born in Hawai'i, or that he was born in Hawai'i pre-statehood.

Both claims are hooey, and so now the combatants are reduced to complaining that they dismissed the original bogus suit on grounds that the complainant lacked the standing to bring it, instead of going to trial and demonstrating its bogosity.

I think this debate has entered the hallowed ranks of ridiculousness previously reserved for howling about Monkey PD.

[HoneyBadger]

You don't have to tell me, Tichy, I just wanted to squash this particular conspiracy theory once and for all, and I think that's been accomplished.

As far as not going to court if you don't have to--well, who wants to do that? Who here enjoys the thought of jury duty? I also understand there are court fees involved, not to mention lawyer fees.

And the statement "You're not even qualified to bring your argument to my attention." holds as much weight for me as "Your argument is fallacious and silly and wrong." What's the difference?

[licker]

And the statement "You're not even qualified to bring your argument to my attention." holds as much weight for me as "Your argument is fallacious and silly and wrong." What's the difference?

You really are much more like Bush than you probably realize.

Just saying...

[Darkwind]

I've tried to stay out of this, but really. Comparing someone to Bush? That sounds a lot like ad hominem to me (plus, HB might like Bush and consider that a compliment, though it was fairly clearly, to me, meant as an insult).

Just saying... :)

Edit: Also, why compare HB to Bush? The current flow of the thread had very little, if anything, to do with bush. HB wasn't saying (s)he (I forget which gender HB is, unfortunately; sigh, and sorry HB) isn't like Bush, you just threw the comment out there. At least, that's how it seems to me.

[Omnirizon]

Has Godwin's Law kicked in yet?

If not that's amazing. Good job Dom3 comm.

Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law)

[chrispedersen]

I am making two assertions:

1. Statistics can be used to prove anything.
2. The statistics Jim used to prove that Democrats are better stewards are a particular egregious example of #1.
I'm sorry if it was completely outrageous of me to draw a direct correlation between growth of debt, and a degrees of fiscal responsibility. Especially since you don't seem to care about the other economic indicators presented, either. But apparently my method of providing facts, offends yours right to just believe what you want to believe....?


Who can doubt that clinton benefitted from the miraculous advent of the pc and the internet when the seeds of it were sown in the late 70's and early 80s.

Okay, at this point I should know better, but I will bite. The assertion that the rise of the internet just suddenly made more money appear, borders on the absurd. Yes, some people made a lot of money. In fact, if you look at our government's published figures, the budget surpluses had more to do with a slowdown in proportionate spending increases, rather than a disproportionate increase in revenues.


I don't think any serious person can argue that Reagan wasn't a great president.

Trickle down theory? Make the rich richer to benefit everyone?
Iran Contra? Have the CIA sell cocaine on American soil, to fund militant extremists?
The worst income/expenditure ratio of any President?

Reagan was a tool. The worst kind, really.

Wow Jim.

I dont really know how to respond to that, other than to say millions and millions of americans lined the highways of america to pay their last respect - and two polls by historians have ranked him in the top 10 of american presidents. And he is widely regarded as the icon of the american conservative movement.

A long period of prosperity at home, the most successful arms reductions we ever had with the soviets, a major role in freeing eastern europe from the USSR - dramatic reductions in unemployment, and inflation. Event he iconic are you better off now than you were 4 years ago... and so many other staples of modern political activism.. my memory tells me springs from the Reagan era.

Thousands of americans from across the political divide thought he was a great president - including those that were his political opponents such as Tip O'Neil, Walter Mondale

His allies loved him, including european leaders (thatcher for example) and his enemies respected him.

You can have the last word on Reagan....

[lwarmonger]

For the debate regarding fiscal policy and economics above, Slate isn't exactly something I would bring into a debate as a source... it's like me using the Bible to "prove" the Christian God exists. Not exactly unbiased.

If it was an opinion piece, I would accept the merit of your opinion.

However, since I am betting you did not even look at the article, I will clarify. The article uses statistics compiled from the economic report that the White House presents to the President himself, and Congress, every year. If you doubt the veracity of the analysis itself, simply because you consider the source biased - then I would offer to confirm the results. But since I am sure you would consider me biased at this point (yes, I am biased towards truth, rather than denial), then maybe you should follow the link the the government webpage that will allow you to directly download the entire report, in PDF format.


I DID look at the article, and if it is on Slate then it is an opinion piece of one kind or another. This one attempted to be more factual than most, however with a grand total of three democratic terms in the last ten presidential terms, it can hardly come up with enough evidence to make a case for Democratic stewardship of the economy (especially since President Carter's time in office was hardly known for sound economic policy or good growth).


Oh, and the last Democratic President to increase the deficit was Bill Clinton. The one before that was Jimmy Carter.

Do you honestly believe that? How on Earth can you state something like that as fact? The Federal government clearly disagrees on your assertion that deficit increased under Clinton. In fact, by their records, he showed the only budget surplus since 1969 (2001 was still in surplus, but the year a President takes office, is not their budget).

That is true... however initially deficits went up (I think it was for the first two fiscal years... then he got a Republican Congress, and it stopped being a solely Democratic government and became a bipartisan one). Just because he finished his term up doesn't mean he didn't increase the deficit during his time in office, and if one is arguing for his presidency as a whole then since the national debt increased, by the measure you are using he failed there as well.

I am not saying that is his fault... this is a structural part of the US now and became systematic long before he came into office, and deficits aren't really a good yardstick for measuring economic success or sound fiscal policy. Also keep in mind that a large part of his "balanced budget" came from slashing defense spending due to the United States being not only at peace but completely unchallenged. Said defense spending had to be dramatically increased during the Bush years to compensate for a decreased military capability trying to sustain the vast array of strategic committments in a world still unstable from the loss of the international power system after the fall of the Soviet Union and the attempted(ing) rise of successor states. A lot of it also came from a series of economic bubbles that burst right about the time he handed things over. Economic cycles mean that we tend to see the results of the last presidency in the term of the next one. Ironic, eh?

[HoneyBadger]

My party in this non-election will refrain from mudslinging, and stick to the issues, so while my inestimable non-opponent is busy sputtering, grasping at straws, and citing unfounded comparisons, name-calling, and baseless arguments, I'd rather stick to the non-topic, which, while it is itself completely silly, has yet to be backed up with any sort of topicality, reasonability, or reality.

So, in the words of our fourtieth President, Ronald Reagan: "Wake me up when something happens".

[chrispedersen]

I'm probably being niave here, but theres a bit censored on the birth certificate that is shown online. Now this is just a stab in the dark but is it censored for a reason could it be used to damage Obama in some way? If so then you have a perfectly legitemate reason not to make a hard copy of said birth certificate to a publinc domain (court) unless required to do so.

But personally I don't think you'd take that as proof, perhaps the judge will be left wing as well. BTW My point is however high up this goes somebody (not neccessaraly you) can still argue it as invalid. Theres just some people out there who pay no attention to what others say. Again I'm not referring to you Chris, in fact you have been quite good. But you have been unclear about what it was you wanted, I vaguely remember you saying that ALL Obama needed to do was show a birth certificate, then gradually elevated that to it has to be in court and a hard copy.

Oh and I think you did question his citizenship, in fact a few pages ago... if you want me to dig it up I can, but right now I'm out of time.

Please feel free to refresh your memory of the thread. This particular subthread evolved essentially as thus:

a). I fairly often referred to soetoro as soetoro. Ich accused me of trolling and asked me to quit.
b). I responded that I found it useful to inform people that Barry had changed his name. Did Ich know why he changed his name - both the reason given in his book and what I consider to be the likely actual reason.
c. The conversation devolved into why names matter, and why its relevent to the election. My post on said subject is on page 10.
I have copied it for you:

'Be reasonable. Do it my way.'

I find it generally useful to inform others - that barack obama changed his name. So I'm afraid I shan't be following your prescription.

You may *not* be aware of the law in the United States - but when a lawyer registers to practise law, he is required *only* practise law under his registered name, and he is required to disclose any other names he may have used.

At the very least, Obama violated this law. Now, we know that Barry entered the country as Barry. But we have no knowledge did he attend college as Barry - it seems in part he did. Did he receive scholarships/acceptance as an immigrant student? We don't know. Barry won't release his records.

Furthermore, it is unlawful to run for public office under a different name. Recently here in Florida, a democrat running for office tried to change her name to something more hispanic. She was booted off the ballot by the courts for failure to abide by this law.

So, you see it very much does matter what Barry's name is. But lets not let a little matter of legality get in the way of annointing the next great democratic candidate.

My next quote was on page 14:
While I disagree with your argument that it is necessary to show legal evidence in order to prove that a candidates behaviour is relevent - nonetheless, here you go.

Take a look a Berg V. Obama, a.k.a Berg V. the DNC. Filed by a Democrat, in the Philadephia circuit.

Here is a further example of why a candidates action do matter.
Attached is a link putattively to an attorney search in illinois for Barrack Obama. Notice that it has no other names listed for Barrack - notice also evidence that he did indeed go by Barry Soetero. http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=976

Here is the illinois court systems page where a lawyer is required to file wth the illinois supreme court if he wishes to practice under a different name: https://www.iardc.org/reg_faqs.html.

There are many supreme court cases - such as, oh, SCHWARE v. BOARD OF BAR EXAMINERS, 353 U.S. 232 (1957) where the supreme court has examined the question of a lawyers uses of aliases, and the states regulations requiring registration of same. While not the point of this case, the supreme court has long accepted that states have a legitimate purpose in so regulating.

So, I think its fairly well established that the actions of the candidate matter - that things such as citizenship, and name do matter.

In fact its so obvious, I realy wonder why you would even need it explained. Personally, I think its idiotic that Barry should have left these matters on the table. Why not release his birth certificates, and his personal records.

I mean honestly - you democrats are such hypocrates. The democrats made such huge fodder about Bushes National Guard records. And you don't think Soetoro's records are relevent?

Let me ask you something. Wouldn't you rather have these issues resolved PRIOR to the election, rather than AFTER the election? Can you even believe the ****storm we are going to be in if a court rules Soetoro isn't eligible to be president?

The next quote pg 15:
While I disagree with your argument that it is necessary to show legal evidence in order to prove that a candidates behaviour is relevent - nonetheless, here you go.

Take a look a Berg V. Obama, a.k.a Berg V. the DNC. Filed by a Democrat, in the Philadephia circuit.
I did. He doesn't have any documents backing his claims either. He just calculatedly filed a lawsuit against Obama to attack his position when he was competing against Clinton. If this lawsuit is being resolved at some time and if evidence is unearthed that there is something fishy, then I will re-adjust my position accordingly. But so far it's nothing but empty accusations, and the motto is "In dubio pro reo".

The rest of your post is useless ranting again, I'm afraid that you still have no clothes.

You are factually wrong. The lawsuit was filed Aug 28. The day after Obama became the nominee.

The lawsuit filed does have several affidavits in support of its position. Motions for dismissal were defeated. Ergo, the motion has some basis.

There is *no* chance it will be resolved in favor of berg, as the date of hearing was after the US election - so you won't have to adjust your position, will you?

To put matters into a bit of perspective: I filed a lawsuit yesterday. I got a hearing on December 8. Berg filed his lawsuit Aug 28. He doesn't get a hearing until..... January? Why do you suppose that is?

As for the empty rantings comment - I am here after going to ignore your arguments as you have chosen to ignore mine.

Etc. Etc. No where will you find that I believe Obama isn't a citizen, or even that he isn't a natural born US citizen. In fact on page 18? I said I hope that he *is*.

Read my argument and you will consistently see that I believe a candidates actions count; that qualifications should be examined as part of the system; and that obama as a political move should have just released the documents.

[chrispedersen]

Yes, I do think that the President of the U.S. should be a citizen of the United States. I absolutely do, so that answers that question. I just don't for one minute believe that Barack Obama *isn't* one.
I don't even waste my time wondering. I-infact-rely on the legal system of this country to present to me such questions, and to deal with them in a timely, efficient fashion.


Sighs patiently. Thats just it honey. *There *is* *no* *legal* *verification* *of* a *candidates* *qualifications*.

This is what I have been saying for 8 pages now. I looked into this for 12 hours, and ended up calling the department of elections in florida who said that the democratic party was responsible for ensuring Obama met the legal requirements.

No one else. Not the federal government. Not the states. The democratic parties. Minor candidates have to affirm an oath or some such that they meet the requirements - but major party candidates do not.

Please.. prove me wrong.. I would love it if you could.

Do you have any real, actual, physical proof that he's not?

You have it backwards - the constitution requires that a candidate be a natural born citizen of a certain age. It isn't incumbent on me to prove he isn't. Its up to the candidate to prove *he is*.

[HoneyBadger]

Ok, well, I'm glad that's straightened out. Now that he's President, it's good to know that he's a citizen of the United States. Thanks for clearing that up, Chrispedersen.