Tea Parties

[guerilla]

Dude, you're totally wrong on this one. This is your proof? McCain? He's a fucking center-leftist. NOT A SINGLE conservative takes him seriously. McCain is NOT right on that issue, he's left as he is on most issues.

Well apparently a lot of *cough* conservatives took him seriously, because they chose him to run for President out of a pretty wide and diverse field.

Yes, he is left on most issues. The right is full of leftists, but when they are in power, no one complains about leftist policies. They even have the balls to nominate a leftist to be their leader!

There IS a difference between right and left in this country. Maybe you don't know what they are, which is understandable, but you should educate yourself before repeating this ignorant canard over and over again.

Right and left is a false paradigm. Stalin was far left, and Hitler was far right. If you're in the center, you're a progressive.

I contend, as Reagan did when he stumped for Goldwater, that there is no left and right, only up to liberty or down into tyranny.

Ronald Reagan - A Time for Choosing
*Greatest stump speech ever*

No, I'm not. I made a very simple assertion: Obama's spending is UNPRECEDENTED. You haven't refuted it because you can't.

I don't have to refute your strawman. I never argued that Obama's spending is not unprecedented.

Prior to Obama, Bush was the biggest spending President.

 

[egreenie]

What's curious is that you and HB both won't repudiate Bush spending. That's all you have to do. Admit Bush spent like a drunken sailor, and he was wrong, which makes Obama spending even more super wrong.

Is that so hard to do?

I'll say it, and that's what I was trying to say in my first post. Bush was wrong to spend so much, and Obama is even more wrong.

To the people that actually believe that the spending he is doing on health care and education has anything to do with fixing the economy - I have a bridge in the Sahara Desert to sell you.

 

[hellblazer]

Well apparently a lot of *cough* conservatives took him seriously, because they chose him to run for President out of a pretty wide and diverse field.

No, there wasn't a wide and diverse field. There was total crap candidates. Romney was probably the closest thing to a conservative, but Huckabee sabotaged his chances by staying in when he knew he had no chance, leaving McCain with no competition. Nobody 'chose' him. Our entire nomination process was hijacked.

..when they are in power, no one complains about leftist policies...

Clearly you don't listen to conservative media at all. You just have your false paradigm of right=left emblazoned on your mind when in reality the truth is 180 degrees opposite of that.

...Hitler was far right...

Sorry guerilla, but you're really going off the rails now. Hitler's party was the National Socialists. They had centrally planned economies. Hitler supported ABORTION, as long as it wasn't Aryan women.

Here's a little quote from your 'far right' Hitler:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." - Adolf Hitler

Yup - sounds really 'far right' to me.

I contend, ...that there is no left and right, only up to liberty or down into tyranny...

Your contention is wrong.

I never argued that Obama's spending is not unprecedented.

Which means you do not refute my assertion and thus agree with me that Obama's spending is unprecedented. Thank you.

 

[LogicFlux]

A Paul Krugman link? You've just lost all my respect. Goodbye.

I seek no respect from douchebags. So are you going to cry liberal in a childish attempt to avoid backing up your claim or are you going to post a link from someone with similar expertise and renown(Krugman won a Nobel Prize whether he's a flaming liberal or not) in the field of economics who says Fannie, Freddie and ACORN were the sole causes of the crisis?


Or maybe you're smart enough to refute this yourself:

But here's the thing: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.


Partly that's because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didn't do any subprime lending, because they can't: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn't meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.
​

Go ahead and foolishly cry liberal again. I've got a bunch of charts and graphs for you next time.

Better yet, put me on ignore and I'll stop making you look like a retard who only knows what Sean Hannity tells him.

 

[guerilla]

Clearly you don't listen to conservative media at all.

Not quite. I listen to all media. I don't wall off ideas from the right, or the left or the fringe. You can't truly be informed if you only choose to be informed in one narrow manner.

Left and right is a false paradigm, even Reagan knew it in 64. This red team, blue team crap is a shell game, meant to keep people arguing with each other, rather than arguing against policy. While people complain about Obama, the same people under the Bush Treasury and Clinton Treasury are looting the public. But they want fiscal conservatives to complain about Obama, because it is so easy to manipulate modern conservatives, who have no conception of conservative principles.

Sorry guerilla, but you're really going off the rails now. Hitler's party was the National Socialists. They had centrally planned economies. Hitler supported ABORTION, as long as it wasn't Aryan women.

Here's a little quote from your 'far right' Hitler:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." - Adolf Hitler

Yup - sounds really 'far right' to me.

If you ask any political scientist, fascism is considered extreme right on the political spectrum.

But thank you for making my point. Stalin was a communist, and Hitler was a fascist, and they describe the far left and far right of the political spectrum, which means...

ding ding ding

The entire political spectrum is inherently socialist.

Your contention is wrong.

Hey moron, I was paraphrasing Reagan.

Which means you do not refute my assertion and thus agree with me that Obama's spending is unprecedented. Thank you.

Your assertion is correct, but you don't stand for economic (or any) liberty. Its that you prefer red state fascism to blue state socialism.


Anyone curious about where they fall on a Nolan chart, which is a political spectrum with two axises (means and ends, not just ends), take the survey. Nolan Chart

 

[LotsOfZeros]

(Krugman won a Nobel Prize whether he's a flaming liberal or not)

I know of another named Al Gore (who refuses to debate scientists who can debunk his propaganda). Winning a Nobel doesn't exactly lend one to further credibility.

 

[LogicFlux]

Anyone curious about where they fall on a Nolan chart, which is a political spectrum with two axises (means and ends, not just ends), take the survey. Nolan Chart

Holy shit, now maybe instead of getting a knee jerk reaction from Hannity cock gobblers and thinking I'm a weasel who's up Obama's ass, we can instead be friends? Hellblazer, want to hug?



But honestly, I took a different one of those a while back and it said I was center left and approaching libertarian instead of center right and approaching libertarian. I think it's the free trade question that makes me swing.

 

[LogicFlux]

I know of another named Al Gore (who refuses to debate scientists who can debunk his propaganda). Winning a Nobel doesn't exactly lend one to further credibility.

Yeah because the peace prize and the prize in economics are exactly the same!! Same level of scientific/technical background required, same level of technical expertise must have been demonstrated over a long period of time, same significance in technical break-through, etc.
You got me there. Gore won the peace prize, so Krugman surely is an lefty idiot and shouldn't be listened to. While we're at it. Fuck Nobel laureates in physics as well. Fuck Einstein and everything else that stands for reason.


Still waiting for credible proof that Fannie, Freddie and ACORN caused the problem.

Guerilla and I both know what was at the root of the problem. We just disagree on the details. And it wasn't something that could so easily and conveniently be used to pin the blame on one party a month or so before the election, as the Fannie/Freddie/ACORN boogie man was.

 

[guerilla]

Actually, there is no Nobel Prize for Economics. It is awarded by the Swiss Banks. It's commonly referred to as a Nobel, but it is really an industry driven award.

For example, Mises and Rothbard both deserve the recognition of a Nobel, but they were both anti-fiat money, anti-Keynes, and anti-inflation. So being anti-banking establishment, they did not get the award, although they were two of the most important economists in history (I would argue Mises was more important than Marx and Keynes combined).

FA Hayek shared an economics Nobel, but that is only because most of his arguments against Keynes were only published posthumously.

Just a random fact.

Krugman is a Keynesian, which means he is wrong. But as far as Keynesians go, he's one of the best. Most of the "conservatives" in this thread are Keynesians too, so while you can hate Krugman for his leftism (and he is a big lefty), you can't hate his economics, because he has the same fundamental position as Bush, Greenspan, Paulson, etc.

 

[popeye]

How dare Popeye be a hypocrite, and then protest when people claim he has no credibility?

Hey, Obama is getting a free pass. Bush got a free pass in 2001, 2002 and 2003. This is what happens when Bush's fanboys defend him, then can't understand why Obama's fanboys defend him.

I don't see the problem. The game was fine if you were on the winning team, but now that people are on the losing team, it's all sour grapes.




Cap and trade is insane. Seriously. This is the dumbest most insane shit ever.

First, there is no conclusive proof that carbon dioxide (plant food) creates global warming.

Second, there is no proof that man's industrial activities drives climate change.

Third, by attacking cheap sources of energy, this will create two negative by-products.

i. It will destroy the last bit of the American manufacturing base, as the Asians have no problem embracing coal and other dirtier energies.
ii. It will lay the path for a UN or global environmental tax, which will institutionalize super government taxation without representation. No longer will the UN defer to the US because the US funds it. This will allow the UN to operate aggressively against the US with no consequences from a funding standpoint.

But again, Bush pushed global warming and climate change kookery as well.

So why is everyone surprised Obama is following through on it? McCain is 100% behind Cap & Trade, if Obama had lost the election, McCain would be advancing this agenda as well.

That's what I mean about right and left being a false paradigm. Both sides are pursuing the same agenda, with minor variances in what policies appear in which order.

Do you guys really think Obama or Bush pushed their own ideas and wrote their own legislation?

Wake the fuck up.

Im not sure how many times I have to state that I do not agree with alot that GB did. So if you are critical of BO, then you are a bush lover?

To tell the truth I really didnt pay too much attention to what bush was doing untill a few years ago, I was too busy dodging bullets and IEDs.

 

[guerilla]

So if you are critical of BO, then you are a bush lover?

No. Because I think they both rep the same policies. Their administrations have far more in common than they have in difference.

But the game is to keep people arguing about left and right, not what the government is doing under either government.

Lefties hate Bush, righties hate Obama, they argue over Bush and Obama, meanwhile the bankers are stealing trillions.

Same thing with making the automakers testify. They gave hundreds of billions to European banks as bailouts and no one asked a question. Domestic automakers want $20 billion in LOANS and it's front page news for 2 weeks. Same thing with the AIG bonuses. AIG gets hundreds of billions, and people are supposed to get upset about less than 1% that was used as bonuses.

It's all wagging the dog.

 

[guerilla]

I think it's the free trade question that makes me swing.

How do you feel about free trade?

 

[LogicFlux]

How do you feel about free trade?

I'm biased. I come from a hardcore manufacturing background. Ask me today I might answer different than tomorrow. It's an emotional issue I guess. There's a side of me that thinks considering some form of mild protectionism would be smart in the face of a rising China and India. I don't see how our manufacturing can compete when a workforce of 100s of millions are rising from the shadows abroad who will work for pennies on the dollar.
And I think a lot of the reason we're in the mess we're in today is because we stopped focusing on making real stuff and instead making fake wealth on paper. We have to find a way to compete while making real stuff.

 

[guerilla]

I'm biased. I come from a hardcore manufacturing background.

Me too.

Ask me today I might answer different than tomorrow. It's an emotional issue I guess. There's a side of me that thinks considering some form of mild protectionism would be smart in the face of a rising China and India. I don't see how our manufacturing can compete when a workforce of 100s of millions are rising from the shadows abroad who will work for pennies on the dollar.

And I think a lot of the reason we're in the mess we're in today is because we stopped focusing on making real stuff and instead making fake wealth on paper. We have to find a way to compete while making real stuff.

There is a way. Cut spending, taxes and regulation. Lower protections on IP. And get back to sound money (which will encourage foreign investment and domestic savings).

Basically, reverse the course that has lead to manufacturing dying. It's not rocket science. It's just not politically popular because people like to borrow more than to save, and to spend more than to produce.

 

[hellblazer]

But they want fiscal conservatives to complain about Obama, because it is so easy to manipulate modern conservatives, who have no conception of conservative principles.

Alright, since you apparently will have a woody until I say this, here it is: Bush's spending was not fiscally conservative. I thought it sucked. There was a couple things Bush did that I really hated. However, he was conservative on national security which was a big plus in my book. Being the most successful country in the world makes enemies - a lot of them. Happy now?

Fiscal conservatism is the correct way to go. Whether or not Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, Green party members actually implement fiscal conservatism is another matter.

If fiscal conservatism was actually practiced by our politicians, we would have a much stronger position in the geopolitical order.

If you ask any political scientist, fascism is considered extreme right on the political spectrum.

And now you are reduced to quoting 'political scientists' to hold onto your fantasy that right=left. Hitler was left. Not right. Left.

Fascism is left. There is nothing that proves fascism belongs on the right side of the spectrum at all. It's a myth propagated by liberals, one that you have unfortunately swallowed. Even having famed 'political scientists' on your side does nothing if they're all full of shit. I thought your assertive skills were better than this.

But thank you for making my point. Stalin was a communist, and Hitler was a fascist, and they describe the far left and far right of the political spectrum, which means...

You manifest evidence of liberal indoctrination by stubbornly clutching on to this meme, which claims right and left are the same. They're not. Here's why I think you believe this - because the Republican Party was hijacked not long ago by fiscal leftists, and to a degree, social leftists. While the Democrat Party is totally insane and beyond rescue, the true conservatives in the Republican Party are waging an intense battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. You and people like you are frustrated because you see the leftists who have infiltrated the Republican Party and think that they stand for conservatism. THEY DON'T.

Anyone curious about where they fall on a Nolan chart, which is a political spectrum with two axises (means and ends, not just ends), take the survey. Nolan Chart

I took that. I found the choices rather limited, especially regarding gay marriage(I think they should have civil unions with full legal benefits, but NOT marriage) and I highly doubt I'm a straight-up libertarian like it says.

 

[hellblazer]

Holy shit, now maybe instead of getting a knee jerk reaction from Hannity cock gobblers and thinking I'm a weasel who's up Obama's ass, we can instead be friends? Hellblazer, want to hug?

You are up Obama's ass when you produce the response that he wants you to have whenever someone criticizes him. He has brainwashed a segment of the public into responding with "Well, Bush did it too!" whenever somebody criticizes his spending habits.

It doesn't make it right. It doesn't justify it. And yet you're buying into the propaganda. Just because the Nolan chart says your right-libertarian doesn't make it so, because you sound like a liberal/flamingly gay liberal to me.

I'm sick of having to always say that I disapproved of Bush's spending whenever I criticize Obama's spending too. Obviously both were bad. But Bush is gone now. Let's live in the present. If I had my way, I'd stop funding for almost all social programs and just fund national security and essential stuff, like roads, bridges, electricity, etc..ONLY absolute essentials. Fuck unemployment. Fuck welfare. Fuck pouring billions into shithole public schools. I'd slash those tax rates to near suicidal levels. The economy would get a hard on in a second.

But he doesn't give a shit about that. He's following the Cloward-Piven strategy. This article comes pretty close to the truth, although your small, pea-sized closedminded brain would probably froth at the mouth at its 'fundamentalism'. But he's trying to destroy the economy in order to have a socialist paradise emerge from the ashes. And he'll most likely succeed.

 

[guerilla]

And now you are reduced to quoting 'political scientists' to hold onto your fantasy that right=left. Hitler was left. Not right. Left.

I didn't quote anyone. Hitler is left, and fascism was left, in the respect that all statism (left-right) is socialism. The state undermines private property rights by definition. But as conventionally defined, Hitler was right. His National Socialist Party rose to power against a bolshevik uprising in Germany. The Bolsheviks were the communists who established the USSR.

So yes, Hitler was a socialist. A fascist, not a communist.

And the extreme right wing is fascistic.

You manifest evidence of liberal indoctrination by stubbornly clutching on to this meme, which claims right and left are the same.

Now you're calling me a liberal for repeating what Reagan said. This is what I mean. Most so-called modern day conservatives don't know the first thing about conservatism. My positions, are almost verbatim from Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative" which is the bible of modern western Conservatism.

So calling me a liberal, makes you look really uninformed. Not to mention it is an Ad Hominem.

Fox News is not conservative. The Republican Party is not conservative. Conservatism is a group of principles, and I encourage you to discover them if you want to sincerely call yourself conservative.

You and people like you are frustrated because you see the leftists who have infiltrated the Republican Party and think that they stand for conservatism. THEY DON'T.

They do think leftism is conservatism. They booed Ron Paul for recommending to close the Dept. of Ed (which was party platform for 20 years). They nominated McCain. They think deficit spending, pork barrel spending is ok if they are doing it.

They have no principles. No conservative with any principles would vote Republican. But some do, because they are partisans, not conservatives. They like being on the red team. They hate the blue team.

I know what conservatism is, I have been living it my entire life. It's not about seeking power over other men, or getting to run the show. It's about defending the principle of human liberty.

I took that. I found the choices rather limited, especially regarding gay marriage(I think they should have civil unions with full legal benefits, but NOT marriage) and I highly doubt I'm a straight-up libertarian like it says.

It's not meant to be precise. I'm surprised you aren't surprised you're more centrist than right. You shouldn't be surprised about having libertarian sentiments because...

This is what Reagan had to say about libertarianism,

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.​

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.​

 

[riddarhusetgal]

Who spends like this? Like I said before, anyone who subscribes to Keynesian economics, which is most of the people in both of the major parties. The biggest difference is what it would be spent on.




You are outraged at the thought of people getting unemployment benefits, yet you have no problem with the people who caused their unemployment.




So the problem wasn't that the mortgages were given to people they shouldn't have been given to because of an improperly regulated market, the problem was that they were going to default.
Wow, where do you work, are you the head tautologist there?

Freddie/Fannie played a part in buying up mortgages in the secondary market but they didn't cause the problem. And Bush also supported the initiatives to get more people into home ownership.

You can't blame the government for trying to lower credit barriers and at the same time absolve those who would let the institutions leverage themselves by ungodly ratios and let the financial markets devise any financial instruments they could at any whim, regardless of its risk.




I haven't heard one serious economist or financial wizard bring up Fannie, Freddie or ACORN as the sole culprits. The only people I've heard trying to stick the problem on these institutions/organizations are staunch partisan democrat/Obama haters.

I have a source from the most recent winner of the Nobel prize in economics saying it wasn't Freddie and Fannie. And while he may be a lib, he still has the most prestigious credential in his field to back it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html

Give me something similarly credible from a recognized expert to show Freddie, Fannie and ACORN caused this problem.

quick tip: GIVE IT UP! Only a fool argues with zealots. How much is your time worth?

 

[LogicFlux]

quick tip: GIVE IT UP! Only a fool argues with zealots. How much is your time worth?

Yeah, I know. There's no telling how much money I've blown(wasted time) arguing with tards on the internets(which makes me a tard). I've been doing better lately. Thanks for snapping me back to reality.

 

[schockergd]

3rd Parties don't do well in national elections, however on the local level they're fair game (The mayor of my town is 3rd party) and we have plenty of people on the state level that aren't Republicans or Democrats.


The reason there are 2 parties is because alot of people on the national level have seen what happens in parliamentary style governments. Got a 3 party system like Canada? Just because you loose an election doesn't mean you can't go back , make allies with one of the other loosers and come aganist the winner. Heck , they were calling for a new election becuase they didn't like the voting results (The concervative won, and the bloc + liberals lost).


No , what america needs is to get back to it's republic roots, and realize that we have LAWS governing our nation more so than elected officals and start to stick by em.