Where's the old heated debate?
 

I've been absent from the forum for a while due to many personal issues and when I was active I generally didn't post on the politics forum because it seemed so very inflammatory on both ends of the politcal spectrum. Now that I've returned, I see things are a bit more civil. The biggest change I see though is the far right conservative side seems to be more silent. So what gives? There are still some lefties that sound off as much as before, the right though seem to have stifled their bark a bit. I'm just curious, have the events we've witnessed over the past few years given one doubts? Perhaps we grow in wisdom through experience ( Bush has still to learn that, pity.) Where is all the piss and vinegar? I guess we're saving it to blame on the next administration. I dunno, I just don't see all the crowing about Bush I used to see posted. Truly, I don't wish to be crass, but have any minds been changed, or are we just quietly scraping off the "W" stickers from our trucks?

I think it's a significant oversimplification to equate conservative political thought with support of George W. Bush. You're absolutely right that conservatives are posting less and less in Tilted Politics, but I think this has more to do with TFP than with anyone's opinions about the President. In my personal experience, posting in Tilted Politics is exhausting because very nearly everyone disagrees with my positions on any issue I might care to discuss. The fact of the matter is that dialogue only happens when people disagree over at least some debatable points. Hence, the fact that fewer conservative posters results in less heated debate. As I learned to my sorrow last September, a very large number of TFP members have some extremely flawed fundamental assumptions about politics that they do not wish to have challenged. Consequently, I have not again felt the need to engage in any sort of radical critique of the leftist thought that is taken for granted in this forum.

What I'm really trying to say is that the liberal majority in Tilted Politics is interested in discussing only a narrow range of issues that are predicated on false assumptions about the nature of politics. Sound like fun to you? Me neither.

Well, politicophile, Why don't you present topics that you'd like to discuss and see if anyone bites. As far as I can tell, that's pure assumption.

I wasnt around TFP when you had these discussions and came to the conclusions about the liberal flawed assumptions.

I am curious to learn more....perhaps you can provide a brief summary or point me to an archived thread.

Frankly I was around Politics when there was a very loud conservative faction - a faction which got away with flamebait and bullshit on a routine basis while those of us on the left were slapped back when we'd respond. I think it's rather nice that issues can now be discussed without the left being baselessly accused of being unpatriotic, etc.

I'd love to see some real conservatives come in here and debate intelligently so that we can discuss issues. I would NOT like to see us return to neo-con parrots quoting everything W says as though it's the absolute truth.

politico:

i guess i should add my confusion to the list of confusions--when you said this:

you appear to be saying that you see some kind of misunderstanding amongst the "liberal majority" here concerning how the political is defined/understood as a category.
or you could have been saying "they argue on premises that i disagree with"--which is not the same.
which did you mean?
if the first, i really dont see what you are referring to, but it'd be maybe an interesting conversation to have.
if you meant the second, i dont see what there is to say about it--because all it would entail is "there are different viewpoints that depart from different assumptions about x or y"...

as for your "radical critique"--bring it. it'd be interesting to see, and i think the collective could deal with it.

Huh? In addition to roachboy's questions, I would agree in that I have seen a thread or two where a few of us liberals maintained an unwillingness to explore an opposing idea/political view. The same can be said of both sides, however, this does not make it right. It should run in accordance with your signature...
There is a majority of people on this forum who do maintain willingness to explore the opposing side. This may not speak for everyone, but it seems to be prominent in many posters on our forum. The community benifits from us learning how to become civil and learn from each other, not by declaring the situation void.

Liberals often avoid addressing good points and avoid answering direct questions. So after making the same points a few times or asking the same questions a few times it gets a bit boring.

Personally, I have been in self-directed therapy with the goal of being more civil and less vicious. For the most part I have had success, although I have been tested.

after the Congressional elections I concluded that we should leave Iraq because Bush does not have the support of the American people or Congress (at least that is what I thought - now it looks like Congress simply has no balls or convictions). However, I am still 100% behind using military force preemptively if needed.

Bush's wisdom is lost on those who have no convictions. Bush says what he is going to do and does it. "Politicos" don't get it.

Personnally, I have been making an effort to understand the liberal mind and have taken a "kinder and gentler" approach during my exploration. So far it is pretty foggy. It seems the basis is emotion and then goes to extremist indefensible positions, peppered with illogical thought.
I have already started with the Democratic Congress, but i am really looking forward to Hilery being our next Pres. I actually think liberals are going to be disappointed when she takes a moderate stance on most issues and doesn't lead us into socialism.

Bush is basically a lame duck. The only issue on his plate is Iraq. The economy is strong, there is job growth, inflation is low, the deficit is getting smaller, no attacks within our boarders, etc, etc. If he gets Iraq under control he will have had a good presidency. I think the problem you see is the result of the fact that liberals don't have much to complain about other than Iraq.

See, this is the kind of crap I was talking about. Baseless insults hurled at the left simply because it's the left. This is the kind of garbage that doesn't need to be in here.


You're right. We don't understand the value in leaping headfirst into a volcano with both eyes shut while yelling "I'm the decider!" simply because you said you'd do it in a moment of stupidity.

More vague insults that don't add anything to the discussion. Again, this is the kind of crap that needed to be cleansed.



Yet a third instance of insulting those of us who aren't Bush Brownnosers. Just because we think the conservatives are wrong does not mean we're either radical liberals or socialists. But then you know that, don't you, and you just couldn't pass up the opportunity to slam the left with cheap, thoughtless pronouncements that break down completely under even the slightest scrutiny.

The only issue on his plate that he's paying any attention to is Iraq. There's plenty more on his plate, but he's ignoring that.

No, it is not. It's based on a shaky tower of credit card debt, and is not at all sustainable.

As has been covered before, if you get rid of millions of good, well-paying middle class jobs and replace them with jobs at Walmart, that is not growth.

Relative to what?


We are still talking about the united states right? Oh sure, for now the deficit is a little smaller than last year's. That's kinda like saying the Rockies aren't as big as the Alps. And when you realize that the deficit is cumulative and is then called debt, and you realize that the national debt is still hurtling upward at breakneck pace, you realize that claiming the deficit is smaller really doesn't mean anything.

You're trying to prove a negative. Because we haven't had any attacks, that MUST mean what the president is doing is working. But correlation does not equal causation. Just because we have had no attacks concurrent with Bush's policies does not mean Bush's policies are causing that no-attack condition. After all, the sun has not gone supernova in the past six years either. Would you suggest that this, too, is thanks to Bush and his leadership?

First, that's a VERY VERY big if, something along the lines of "if he fills in the grand canyon using only tweezers," and second, managing to stabilize Iraq does not mean he had a good presidency. He has a lot more to answer for, and we cannot forget that the ends do not always justify the means.


The hell we don't. Iraq just happens to be the biggest thing to complain about at the moment.

*Bush has also been an economic disaster (you can claim the economy's booming all you want - - go talk to the homeless shelters and the salvation army and all the other charities and they'll tell you something VERY different. Go talk to the libraries who's budgets have been slashed, and the schools who have 30+ kids to a classroom, and the formerly middle class people who are reduced to working at poverty wages because of downsizing, and you'll no longer be able to honestly claim that the economy is great).

*He has been a civil rights disaster (the patriot act, the Guantanamo prisoners, the secret CIA operations that are kidnapping innocent civilians from around the world and ferrying them to torture chambers in places such as Syria, Pakistan, and Iraq so that we can question them under torture while claiming that WE didn't actually torture them),
*he has been a scientific/medical disaster (stem cell bans forcing millions of people with diseases that could potentially be cured via stem cell research to rot away in the interest of protecting some frozen embryos - - -embryos which, btw, will be thrown away by the thousands by fertility clinics),
*a free press disaster (I'm not just talking about his media inaccessibility which, btw, is inexcuseable for a government official who is answerable to the public, but also his refusal to speak out against the FCC's anti-democratic, pro corporate lifting of media ownership restrictions),
*an energy disaster (pushing ethanol and hydrogen, the two "alternative fuel" technologies which are more resource intensive and environmentally damaging than gasoline,
*an environmental disaster (wants to drill the ANWR, pulled out of the Kyoto treaty, pretends global warming doesn't exist),
* a foreign policy disaster (damn near EVERY nation is pissed off at us now, sabre rattling with Iran and North Korea - we are very lucky that Korea got sensible in time and realized the path of disaster they were allowing Bush to lead them down),
*and a disaster relief disaster (New Orleans still looks pretty much the way it did a week after Katrina hit)

In short, this president is an all around disaster. I've tried but I can't think of one thing he's done well or competently. He got off to a good start with Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 but he lost interest in them quickly (which is why the man who attacked us is still on the loose, and Bush claims he doesn't really care about getting him). Instead he went after Iraq, where precisely none of the terrorists who attacked us were from, and left the real terrorist hotbed to fend for itself.

We have PLENTY to complain about - the only question is knowing where to start.

I guess the answer to the question in the OP is that the liberals are too oppressively irrational to be debated with. ;)

Based on my observations of this thread, it might be because some of the conservative members feel outnumbered and would much rather cruise around in the waaaaaaambulance listening to the cure.

I think that it's because ustwo hasn't posted much at all since the election, and he was kind of an inspiration to many of the conservative posters.

I was referring to the "premises that I disagree with," in your words. It is not a misunderstanding of the political as a category, per se, but rather a misconception of the purpose of government, the principle of maximal liberty, the practice of legislating morality, etc. I will try to write up my radical critique in detail when I have time.

Overall, I think this is a fair assessment. You might be surprised by the names of people I believe are unwilling to debate certain issues, though. There are some very respected members on TFP that are... less than receptive to radically different points of view.

Politico:

Do you think the criticisms of the recent opinion poll you posted was based on flawed liberal assumptions or were they a fair and honest assessment (with which you may disagree) of the validity and value of the poll as well as your subsequent conclusions?
(an either/or question - bad technique on my part :confused: )

Nah, I saw no manifestation of those assumptions in my poll thread. As far as I could tell, the criticisms consisted of legitimate concerns about the question wording and sample selection, with a few snarky remarks about the poll being "tripe" thrown in for good measure. When I get around to my radical critique, I think you'll have a better idea of what I mean.

:raises hand: That was me.

Would you have preferred "trifle"? At least that's a tasty dessert.

Really? Are you serious?

The reason I stopped posting is because everytime I did I was declared Racist, Imperialist, Ignorant, Ultra-Religious (trying to bring on the Apocolypse), and hundreds of other things hurled left and right. Though because they described it as "the right" it was not an insult and nothing was done.

Now there are conservative posters here that did flame, the last month of Ustwo's posts here I agree were pretty unacceptable. But to play the "pity us" card is equally unacceptable.

I can and have made the same observation on the other side, which is why I have come to the conclusion that there are a very few here with whom I am so far apart in our respective outlooks on the very nature of politics that further direct discussions have become pointless. (my first use ever of the "ignore" feature on a political forum :no: )

But,Politico...I do look forward to your "radical critiques"!

Completely, although I do not recall ever seeing you exhibit those behaviors.


I do not remember anyone assigning those titles to you specifically. Could you point me to a thread? I don't want to base arguments on my flaky memory ;)


And they are the ones to whom I refer

Pity us? I think you misunderstood. The only pity us card I see being played is being played on behalf of the conservatives. I neither deserve nor want pity - I just want decent debate - something we can't have if we constantly hurl baseless insults and half truths - not to say baldfaced lies - at each other.

My observations are based on my experience on TFP. Your response seems emotional and you seem to assume my observation is baseless. So rather than exploring the basis of my observation you respond with emotion, validating my point. thank you.


There are many threads discussing the war. Why did Democrats in Congress vote to give Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq? Where they lied to? Where they asleep at the wheel? Did they assume Bush would not use the athority? There are also other questions on this issue not honestly and directly answered by liberals.

You are correct. My coment was insulting. But, like I said I am making an effort to be nicer. I am sorry that I so easily offended you and others.

Are you calling me a "Brownnoser"? Are you guilty of what you accuse me of? Should I expect an apology? Will I get one? I doubt it, after all I started it. Right?

True.


That was somewhat hyperbole on my part. I did not think that literally he was only dealing with Iraq. I guess I should not use hyperbole. Have you used hyperbole? But wait, I started it. I get it now.

If the "tower" falls, what happens? The economy will keep going. There are many factors affecting our economy, credit card debt is one, but it is minor. Credit card issuers have carefully measured default risk and have priced their product accordingly. That is why people are paying between 11% and 21% interest. Some currently have no option but to work mutiple jobs at low wages because they won't sacrifice and save. As long as they have no options and won't reduce expenses, employment will be high, wage growth low, and consumer spending high. The rich will get richer. As a conservative I say each person in that situation is responsible for getting out of it. What do you say as a liberal?



What about the good jobs created requiring higher education? I factor those in, I guess you don't. Yes, fewer American's work in factories, but more work in clean airconditioned offices than ever in history.



Real work in exchange for goods and services. Today people work less for more and better goods and services than at any time in history.

Government has a printing press, They can always print more money to pay debt obligations. The real important measure is interest rates, which are at historically low levels. If you thought the government was at risk, you would demand a high interest rate for money you lent to the government. If you felt future inflation was going to be high you would want more than 5% on a 30 year bond. Low interest rates mean people with money to lend have confidence.

No. I was just stating a fact. I don't think Bush gets 100% credit/blame for our economy either. However, it it was a problem I would expect him to try to help fix it.

Perhaps in your book. I think the ends do justify the means.

True. You only have two more years of Bush bashing, what's next?

Bush has not had a real impact on the above one way or the other. Government spenting is higher than ever even if you take out war related costs. What is your answer, should he have spent more money? I think making people and agencies more accountable is the answer.

Now we switch to the "fake attack on the tactic" tactic. Let's falsely classify my response as an emotional rant rather than a valid retort. Unfortunately for you the majority of people who post here are far too smart to fall for these parlor tricks.


1) they didn't. They voted to give him the authority to take the necessary steps to defend this country from the terrorists. Bush then lied his way into trying to make it look like Iraq was a necessary step in that defense.

2) Despite the fact that republicans are extremely good at screwing up the government, democrats are not immune from mistakes themselves. They (meaning the collective congress - let's not forget that the republicans voted for this crap too) should never have placed that much authority in the hands of one branch of the government. We have a system of checks and balances for a reason - short circuit that and. . well, this happens.

Yes

To a point, yes.

Of course not. They assumed he would. Where they went wrong was assuming he would use it honestly, competently, and only when necessary. Especially given the man's track record, that was an appallingly stupid decision on the part of both republicans, and democrats.

Well if you'd bother to pose them, perhaps we would answer them.

You'll have to work much harder than that to offend me. You and your insulting comments are merely an annoyance, and an impediment to real debate and discussion.

No. Why? Are you one?

No, I certainly have never hurled insults at people who don't follow Bush.

No, and no.

I appreciate your candor in admitting that.


Yeah, I have. But in this case what you thought was hyperbole was actually the sad truth. Iraq is all Bush is thinking about right now, because he knows full well that his entire presidential legacy rests on the outcome in Iraq. If Iraq turns into a shining example of democracy, his reputation will be salvaged. If it doesn't, he'll go down in history as an abject failure - possibly the worst president to date. He KNOWS that and he's terrified of it. That's why much of the funding for his presidential library will go to pay a think tank to try and justify what he's done in Iraq. He's gonna keep pouring resources down the rathole that is now Iraq until he finally triumphs or has to leave office. I don't feel I'm stepping out on much of a limb here when I say he's going to be disappointed with the results.

Of course it will. Unfortunately it'll be going down in a nosedive. Remember the Great Depression. Yeah, neither do I - fortunately I'm not that old, but I've read plenty about it and ya know what? The situation was pretty similar. A different mechanism brought it down (asinine stock trading practices that resulted in a lot more money being thrown around than people actually had, instead of the current situation - asinine credit practices which are resulting in a lot more money being thrown around than people actually have) but the end result could well be the same. The economy is all about confidence, and once people realize they're in debt up to their eyeballs they'll stop spending - either by choice or because they simply can't get any more credit extended to them. Once that happens on a large scale, the economy will collapse.

You have a good point in that people are responsible for their own finances. Of course you're right, and I don't want you to think that I want the government to sweep in and magically erase all the credit card debt out there. Not only can the government not afford it, but it'd just teach people they can spend whatever they want and get bailed out later.

BUT, we have to look at WHY credit card spending is up so much. One reason is the economy. You're a middle class executive, you get downsized, now you work at walmart. But you still have the mortgage and the car note on a car that's not worth as much as the loan is for, gas prices are up more than 100%, natural gas and electricity prices are through the roof as well, and you still somehow have to eat. It's VERY easy to whip out that credit card not to buy the HDTV, but to buy bread and milk. Since the downsizing scenario has been happening left and right since Bush took the economic reins, it's not hard to see that the US economy is now chugging along largely because of credit card debt.

While the credit card companies will come out on top by charging obscene interest rates on their loans, the rest of the economy will collapse. If I can't get any more credit, and all of my money is going to pay off my debt, then I don't have any money left to actually buy anything. Repeat that over millions of people and voila, instant stalled economy.

We can play the "Fuck 'em, it's their fault, they can dig out of it" if we want, but we have to realize that if that many people stop spending money, it's going to depress the economy, which will effect OUR wealth as well.

List them, and show me how there are more good jobs requring higher education now than there were 6 years ago?

And more of those who are working in those offices are at risk of getting downsized. And once you're downsized it's damn hard to get back into one of those clean offices. You're far more likely to find yourself in a dirty walmart wearing a blue vest.

SOME people work less for more and better goods. Others barely scrape by. I find it disingenuous to compare this to historical times. Sure, we're better off now than we were in the middle ages, but that doesn't mean we're where we want or ought to be.


This demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the economy. We can also declare that the leaf is legal tender and everyone will now be stinking rich. But if you just print money, you devalue the money out there. If everyone's a millionaire, then things will cost a lot more. It wasn't at all uncommon in Germany after the first world war for people to have piles of money in their house. But when it takes 2 wheelbarrows of it to buy a loaf of bread, that doesn't do much good.

The government goes apeshit on counterfeit currency cases not because they don't want the counterfeiter to have more money, but because that counterfeit currency artificially lowers the value of everyone's money.

Low interest rates mean Treasury hasn't adjusted them upwards yet. And they're in a bind there, because if they do, it's not just the interest rates on the money we loan the government that goes up, but more importantly the interest rates on the money we have borrowed from the bank also goes up. If you want to bankrupt everyone in the nation real quick, spike the rates real high and then wait for the mortgage to be due.


No, not 100%, but he gets a big ol' chunk of the blame. I would expect him to try and help fix it too, but then he's not real interested in fixing things that are broken - - look at New Orleans.


Really? I want to win this argument. If I kill you, you can't argue back and therefore I will win. Would that end justify the means?


Depends entirely on who gets elected. Don't for a minute think I won't be hard on a democratic president. If TFP had been around during the Carter administration I'd have been kicking his butt on here too. And don't think I won't support a republican president who has the right ideas - unfortunately we haven't had one of those in decades.


Yes, he absolutely has.

. . .

No, he should have spent less money.

Funny thing about neocon republicans (which are unfortunately the only ones to hold office since Reagan started it in 1980) is that they have this idea that lowering taxes (cutting income) while spending more money is a good way to lower the debt. That's insane. If that worked I'd quit my job, buy a ferarri, and have the house paid off in no time.

I've been gone for a few months now and am just now getting back (after a major computer disaster, which was predicated by a bit of a life disaster), and I want to honestly answer the question the OP posted.

I quit posting here even before the above disasters because:

1. As a conservative, I found it difficult to mentally/emotionally fight through the overwhelming liberal majority on this thread. It just took too much to put up and back a position.

2. I am not as learned as so very many here, so I felt and believed my opinion wasn't respected as just an "opinion" - I was pushed and prodded to have numerous bits of evidence for what I thought that I just don't have the experience google-wise to access, nor do I have the appropriate degree designations behind my little intense1 name.

3. My opinion is just that - an opinion. I believe what I believe because of foundational principles in my life and thought. When expressed, these were always discounted as irrelevant. (or, to be honest, when others expressed the things I believe, they were discounted. I sometimes live vicariously, as it helps keep the missiles away. :) )

4. I was often "pegged" as a follower of "Brent Bozell", and therefore, my opinion/posts were discounted as invalid by some posters. I wasn't even aware of who Brent Bozell actually is until I was accused of kissing his conservative butt here on TFP's delightful politics thread. For the record, I kiss no one's butt unless I know them personally. :no:

5. It was just getting too hostile for what I could handle, ya'll. I mean, dah-yum.

Perhaps we should have a division of sorts - there's one TFP POLITICS FULL THROTTLE and another TFP Politict thread for those who don't want to feel bashed for our political beliefs.

And - just to add - I find it a bit ironic that those who say "conservatives are wrong" (as I read a few posts down) castigate conservatives for calling liberals wrong..... I'm just sayin......

BTW - don't bash me, please. :shakehead:

A New Thought
 

I do not like the dichotomy that is generally accepted and imposed upon the US political positions. It's always right v. left, liberal v. conservative, democrat v. republican, etc. In reality there is no single set of positions that defines either one. If one can't fully subscribe to either one, all that remains is a undefined "moderate" position.

Hal has offered an opportunity to participate in a collaborative forum and I would like to suggest one that allows all of us that participate in Politics to deconstruct the artificial dichotomy and redefine a more accurate set of political beliefs that go beyond us v. them. Our members with a different kind of political governance, would be most welcome to engage with us.

I don't know what the outcome might be, but the effort has value in it's own right, imo.

Does this idea interest anyone else?

Hee hee, I got a kiss from Elphaba (hope you're a man and that you don't have a wife, or that your wife is European, one who appreciates cheek-kissy.)

I post again because I read Elphaba's sig - Molly Ivin's politics were certainly not any that I agreed with, but dang, she could make me laugh! Perhaps it was because she wrote with a 'twang, but seeing her column in the Tennessean newspaper made me both cringe and giggle. She was a good ol' broad, as many others called her. May she rest in peace, and may God bless her family.

But I wonder how many libs would say something similar about Thomas Sowell, Cal Thomas or even (sometimes) George Will. Not to even mention what would be said about Rush Limbaugh, or Gordon Liddy. (I do not include someone like Michael Savage - I consider him a hatemonger.)

All I ask as a conservative is reciprocity. A little respect from me and a little respect from you.

Too much to ask? Too na'ive?

Well if you're looking for a liberal on here to pull what the conservative jackasses on Fark did when Ivins died (die in a fire, have fun in hell, glad the bitch is gone, etc) then I think you're gonna be looking for a long time.

But I should point out that there's a fundamental difference between Ivins and Limbaugh. She argued with facts that she researched. He argues with facts that he makes up.

As for bashing you, I'm not going to do that, but I will point out that you seem to be saying you want to voice an opinion without being required to have a foundation for that opinion. I think you'll find that such an attitude doesn't go very far here. It's great that you have opinions, but the general expectation is that it will be an informed opinion. If it is not, you can expect to be questioned heavilly about it.

First, who says Limbaugh's arguments aren't based on facts? Who says Ivin's arguments were? I've certainly learned here that "FACT" is a relative term, depending on which batch of evidence you unearth to support said "fact".

Am I to take all of respected poster Host's evidence links as fact? Or yours? Who is to say what is fact? You cast aspersions on Limbaugh, but where is your evidence to say he is incorrect in the things he says? I personally am not a Limbaugh fan, to the contrary. But I also cannot say that much of what Molly Ivins said was actually based on FACT, and not on opinion. I read her stuff - she blasted Bush often with what was evidently her liberal bias. And that's ok, as she was a liberal columnist. I didn't agree with her, but I respected her.

I notice you wrote of Limbaugh, the most controversial of conservatives. What would you say of Sowell's writings? He's a very conservative writer and thinker - what say you of Thomas Sowell?

How can you debate my opinion? When I say that I believe in a certain position on a certain issue, and when challenged, I state that it is based on the principles by which I was raised, and I have decided as an adult to adopt them on my own - how can you debate this? Why should I have to find some meaningless google-tripe to support it?

On the other hand, I would ask you the same thing!!!! Hee hee, dang, I hate this whole seeing both sides of an issue..... :)

Sorry, I'm not a man, but thrilled that another women has ventured into Politics. The best journalist ever, imo, is George Will. Sowell, Thomas and the rest aren't worthy to be mentioned in the same breath.

And no one is going to replace Molly.

Now see, this is a debate on opinion - sister Elphaba (thanks for the sister kiss) and I do not agree about the brilliance of Thomas Sowell or of Cal Thomas. Cal is a bit more based on religious beliefs, I think, but Sowell is more intellectual.

I don't think anyone can replace Ms Ivins, but that's because I don't see any middle aged Texan or southern women who have the panache she did. Same as Ann Richards - couldn't stand her politics, but her personality made it bearable.

Perhaps I am yearning for an earlier age in politics, where it was more civil to disagree with one who does not hold the same beliefs. It did not get personal, and despite the Clintonian call of halting the "politics of personal destruction", it continues, with great abandon, in the Clintons' own party. By the Clintons themselves, as evidenced by the Clinton/Obama goings-on these last few days.

Right now, I am watching conservatives and the Republican party in what is unfolding. I must now ask myself if I want a traditional conservative or if I want a more moderate one. I'm still making up my mind. There are many in the field.

Read any of his books lately? I liked The Way Things Ought to Be. Good read. Chock full'o bullshit.

He claims the Sierra Club wants to limit families to 2 children only. Nowhere in any of its documentation does the Sierra Club advocate this position. I have personally interviewed leaders of the Sierra Club and have asked them this question, and they have emphatically denied it. Where did Rush get this information from? How does he know?


He claims that Mount Pinatubo emits more than a thousand times as much ozone depleting chemicals in just one eruption than all of the chemicals made by all of the corporations in history. Trouble is, he's making shit up again. The chemicals released by volcanos are water soluable, which means they dissolve and come back to earth as rain without harming the ozone layer. CFC's do not. (Sources: NASA, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)

He claimed that the repair of the highways after the big Californa earthquake in the early 90's was completed so quickly becuase competitive bidding was not used due to the state of emergency declared. He said "Government got the hell out of the way. in several TV shows in April of 94.

But according to an article in the LA Times on May 1st of 1994, there was in fact competitive bidding in which the winning contractor beat 4 others for the job. Oh, and according to the same article, not only did the government not get out of the way, but the federal government picked up the entire tab.

He claimed on one of his radio show episodes in the summer of '93 that banks take on risks by issuing student loans. But since student loans are federally insured, banks aren't actually taking any risks at all.

He claimed in the above mentioned book on page 70 that "Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America [in the '80s] resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth."

In fact according to the CBO, in 1980 the richest fifth of our population had 8 times the income of the poorest fifth. In 1989, the richest fifth had 20 times the income of the poorest fifth.

This last example is clearly either a blatant lie - i.e. he read the facts, they didn't support his argument, so he lied about them - or something that he has no actual knowledge of, and is simply making up.

There are lots more examples, but I think my point is proven.



Nope. Challenge 'em. Prove us wrong. But you'd better have YOUR facts in order if you want to try.

Well if we're going to assume that we can't ever know the facts or the truth about anything then we may as well shut down the entire TFP. After all it could just be a figment of our collective imagination that is distorting reality in such a way as to be harmful to our real lives. How can we know? Facts are facts. If the CBO says the rich/poor gap has expanded, and they provide statistics to back that up, then that is a fact. Unless you can prove that the CBO is lying (good luck with that) then we can accept that as a fact. We can certainly say that it is a fact that the CBO said it, whether it's true or not. For Rush to then say that the CBO said the opposite of what the CBO in fact said shows that Rush either has no command of the facts, or is lying. Either way, it doesn't look good for Rush.


See above.

Give me evidence where she made stuff up or twisted the facts to strengthen her argument, like I have given you such evidence with Limbaugh. I'll give you a hint: she didn't have to.

Um, you brought him up. . .

Well he's better than Limbaugh, which admittedly isn't saying a whole helluvalot.

He wrote an article last week about global warming that indicated his ignorance of science. He expressed disgust that the people in the 1970's who predicted a future ice age are now talking about global warming. What he fails to understand is that global warming is precisely what leads to an ice age. As the earth warms, the ice melts, the water evaporates, and covers the planet in cloud. This blocks out the sun, causing global temperatures to plummet. They only need to go down a few degrees to cause the glaciers to advance again. Keep in mind we're in a warm period of an ice age right now, but we're still in an ice age. We still have glaciers, permafrost, all the halmarks of an ice age. Drop the average global temp. a few degrees and the glaciers advance. As this happens they reflect sunlight, and things keep getting colder. This of course is a grossly oversimplified explanation because this is not the thread to get into writing a science book.


Um, that's pretty much the core of debate.

You don't have to. But you complained about being ignored before, and yet you are now setting yourself up to be ignored again. People who just spout opinions without any factual basis for them are not interested in actually debating that opinion. At that point, it becomes impossible to debate with you. You have an opinion on something. That's great. We all agree that you have an opinion. Untill you tell us WHY you have that opinion (and by the way saying "because of the principles by which I was raised" is the same thing as saying "because I just do") then we cannot debate with you. And since this is a debate forum, yes, you are likely to be ignored if you choose that tactic.

You see Shakran, that's why I don't post anymore. It isn't because I am afraid of taking on your challenges, but simply because I don't have the strength to do so. So perhaps I should not post here anymore.

Bye

I lean to the right on many issues, but I think I'd be considered more of a Libertarian than a conservative. I don't post in Tilted Politics very often because I don't post at TFP as a whole very often. Since the time I spend here is limited, I've decided that I don't want to spend that time arguing - especially when most people won't ever change their minds (that includes me).

Does this mean I won't debate politics again at TFP? No. It just means I won't bother to do it all that much.

We have gone off topic. I would be happy to disuss any of the issues in a new thread or one of the existing threads already covering the topic.

Just one final point from me here on "does the means justify the ends" because it is fundemental to our differences. I will do whatever it takes, regardless of the means, to protect my family, property, and liberty. I draw the line at cheating, lieing, stealing, etc, for personal gain. However, I never assume others wont.

I had an experience when I was a child, I overheard my mother talking to a friend who was in an abusive relationship. At one point my mother (a person of impecable character) asked her friend "what are you willing to do to protect your children and get out of the situation"? My mother's friend was crying and said she did not know. then my mother angrily said - "if you are not willing to lie cheat, steal and fight for you children to protect your children, you don't deserve to be a mother". Those words resonate in my mind every day. My mothers friend did get out of the relationship. So when I think of national defense issues - I think in terms of doing what need to be done. When I think of economic issues - I think in terms of each individual needing to take control of their situation. This is the conservative view point I have. If it is wrong, so be it. It is the view I will take to my grave.

Ace, small observation:

This doesn't really jive with what you wrote above about being confused by the liberal outlook because it is clouded with emotion. From your description, the conservative viewpiont is much more emotionally based than the posts I see from our more liberal members.

Am I misunderstanding one of your posts or is this just one of those things?

The rational response to a superpower who will "lie cheat and steal" on a whim is to build nuclear weapons, aim them at the superpower, and say "do you feel lucky, punk?"

The rational response to a superpower who acts in a predictable, rule-of-law, justified manner is to engage in dialog and economic exchange.

Which of these two worlds would you rather live in? The one where the rational response is to ally with the USA, or the one where the rational response is to aim nukes at the USA?

Enlightened self-interest argues that behaving honourably is in your own best interest, above and beyond the moral reasons to behave honourably.

Responding to an attack that is nearly completely based on Fear with "lie, cheat and steal" tactics is not just morally repugnant, but politicaly stupid. The USA is not in serious danger from any terrorist tactic -- if a 9/11 sized event happened every single year, the cost of life and economic damage from automobile accidents would still be greater by an order of magnitude.

Terror is not an existential threat to the USA -- the response to Terror is.

And, btw, the rule is "the ends do not always justify the means". Not "the ends do not justify the means" or "the ends justify the means" -- both of those two positions are equally morally bankrupt.

It is morally defendable to be willing to "lie, cheat and steal" to protect the very life of your children (you missed kill) -- but if you break into a school in order to change your child's mark from an A- to an A... One must wonder if your behaviour might be a sign of stupidity.

When you see someone holding a gun to a loved one's head, shooting them in the head (the means) are justified by the ends (saving your loved one).

Spot on.

I think my viewpoint is grounded in reality. In theory it may feel good to pretend that the means doen't justify the ends but in the real world feel good theory doesn't always work. Liberals tend to get upset when things don't fit into their feel good theories. For example there was a thread on the UN, Bolton and diplomacy. In theory using diplomacy you create "win-win" situations where everyone feels good. In reality there are winners and losers. The liberal resonse to this reality was an emotionally charged response about Bolton's personality rather than the issues at the UN.

you seem to be advocating slash and burn foreign relations. You seem to be of the opinion that our foreign policy should be if you don't agree with us, we'll kick the crap out of you until you do.

But history doesn't bear you out. Time and time again throughout history the military conquerer has eventually been soundly defeated. Rome, Napoeleon, Britain, Nazi Germany, Japan - all of them finally pissed off enough of the world that they got pounded, and not one of them has returned to anywhere near their full territorial glory. If that's the end that you want to see happen to the United States then we're on the right path to achieve that goal. Eventually we're going to piss off the world enough that they turn against us militarilly and suppress our power out of self defense. After all, we're a very dangerous bully right now. We've had a wonderful time poking our tanks into places they do not belong for decades, and not one of those little excursions has turned out well for the interested parties. Eventually the world will put a stop to it and stamp out the danger that we have become.

You inserted "whim" I did not. There are certain situations that I personally take serious. When people threaten to kill me, my family, Americans simply because we exist, is a problem. Personally, I am willing to do what it takes to protect my family and other Americans, even torture. I have no problem with the Patriot Act, and no problem with the Bush Admin. wire-taps or holding suspected terrorists without trial. I know not everyone feels this way and I am more extreme than most, but that is why i need folks like you. But on the otherhand you need folks like me, even if you don't understand why.

If other nations want an arms race, I say bring it on. We won one in the past, we can do it again. Like I have written before we are the top dog. We are going to remain the top dog.

When you study history, you know that power struggles have never been rational.

We live in a world where "nukes" are aimed at the USA. This is a false choice.

In theory I agree. I wish we did live in a world where we did not have to get our "hands dirty".

If you were President and we were at the verge of war, would you authorize a spy program against our potential enemy? Would you spy program involve under-cover agents who lied, cheated and stole information?

Your "morally repugnant" comment strikes me as pollyannish. But you are a liberal.

P.S. Please feel free to avoid the questions on the spy program, I would not want you to get lost deeper into the fog.

It's all well and good to stand by "the ends justify the means" but so far I have seen very few satisfactory "ends" coming out of American interventionism.

Latin America is a mess in part because of US foreign policy of supporting military dictators

The Middle East is unstable largely thanks to interventions like the coup of an elected government that was replaced with the Shah (orchestrated by the CIA).


I am not saying that America doesn't do good things it's just that saying the ends justifies the means comes across as a bullshit excuse to simply throw your military weight around. There *are* other ways to achieve "ends" and they don't always involve military might.

The problem is they typically take longer to implement than a four-year term.

We are not an agressive nation. We use force to protect our national interests, that is a big difference.

Actually, I don't see any difference at all. Can you elaborate? It seems to me that an aggressive nation by definition is one that uses force to protect it's national interest. A passive nation, the logical antithesis, would not.

I think you choose your moments. I agree if you go around doing what ever you want based on saying the means justify the ends, that is a problem. I am not saying that. Are you saying the means never justify the ends? Are we talking about degrees of difference in our views or what?

the historical examples Shakran gave all included empire buiders. We are not trying to build an empire.

Invading Iraq did not protect our national interets. In fact, it endangered them terribly, because that REALLY pissed off the middle east. Invading Viet Nam did not protect our national interests. The Bay of Pigs did not protect our national interest. Mogadishu did not protect our national interests. Cambodia did not protect our national interests. All of these actions worsened our national interests because they angered the world.


If you're so gung ho on protecting our national interestes, then why don't we fix the economy, fix education, and fix hunger - it's pathetic that the most powerful and richest nation on the planet still has people going hungry every night. It's high time we stop thinking our national interests can be addressed by killing people from other countries, and started realizing that our national interests must be addressed by improving the lives of our own people.

i cant think of a more naive claim than "my viewpoint is grounded in reality."
what does that mean?

it seems to me of a piece with something that i see quite alot from conservative comrades--the use of claims/categories in totally superficial ways that functions to (a) exclude certain questions by (b) claiming that conservative ideology has resolved them in advance. if you push at these claims conceptually, you find that they really mean nothing--but if you link them to the way in which the various straw men of the Other get constructed--you know, the "liberal" the "leftist" the "socialist" you get a better idea of how this little machine works.

"liberal" (lefist, socialist, terrorist, dissenter, bad person) is an empty category. its contents are projections. these projections are often little more than inversions of qualities that conservatives apparently find to be aesthetically appealing--so if you want to define yourself as manly, you do so by positing wimpy liberals; if you want to define yourself as a "realist" you do so by positing abstracted liberals; if you want to be a "patriot" you can posit "anti-american" liberals--it goes on and one, one great heap of tedious repetitions.

what is strange about this is that all these claims/projections are about the persona who speaks rather than about the content of the arguments.
it is as if the content of the arguments follows necessarily from the identity assumed by the speaker.

so you can claim that you "speak from reality" without having the faintest idea what that entails as a claim because what matters is not that you have thought particularly about the claim, but because you, as conservative, are not liberal, and liberals, by definition, do not speak "from reality" so in conservativeland q.e.d.

from within this, you can explain some of the more curious features of ace's posts above, for example: that he can simultaneously claim that "liberal arguments are grounded in emotion" and relay instance after instance wherein it is obvious that his positions are grounded in emotions follows from the definition of the identity of a conservative speaker, and not from the content of what that speakers may say. so for ace (or his functional equivalent) to claim to "speak from reality" is axoimatic--it is redundant---it is like saying conservative twice.

i wonder sometimes how general this is---there is a variety within the folk here who post conservative positions, not all do exactly what ace is wont to--but i nonetheless wonder the extent to which more attention is devoted to defining the position from which a conservative speaks than to what a conservative might argue, as if definitions and logic take care of themselves once you have the positioning work done.

if this is true, then it would follow that one explanation for the talking-past-each-other that characterizes much of the "heat" in heate debates comes from there being different assumptions about the game of thinking the political itself--one that is about identity and that functions through projection, another that transfers questions of identity onto the arguments themselves.

I say it did, you say it didn't, what's next? All I know is that Congress agreed with Bush before the invasion.

Here is were it gets foggy. I say America is not an agressive nation, that we are not an empire builder? I am not clear on what you think, and you give examples that don't relate to the issue and say we made some people mad. I think we have made mistakes, but our intensions have been honorable, in terms of doing what we thought was right in terms of protecting our interest.


How does a person go hungry every night in this country? Please explain how that happens and how frequently? I did some volunteer work in a kitchen feeding homless people, the irony is that almost all of them were able bodied men.

Read it in context of what has been written.

I have given some specific examples and have explained what I mean by my words. there is no hidden agenda or menaing. The simplicity has gotten lost in your analysis.

It also makes discussion more efficient.

Why not give a few of the opposite, i.e. comapsionate v. cold hearted conservative.

You are correct. I should state that I speak from my reality. If I lived at Disney Land my reality would be very different from living where I acutally live.

I do repeat myself. But it is usually a function of necessity, at least from my point of view. I also have been guilty of making the same point using different words. Ooops, did it again.

Not sure how you would seperate one's view point from one's arguments while being intelectually honest, do you?

Ace... I think we are talking about degrees of difference but it was important to have that clarified.

Invading Iraq was important to American oil interests. Seen from one perspective the invasion of Iraq was supposed to lead to stability in the Middle East (some believe it still will). I don't think there should be any doubt of that the intention of the invasion was for this purpose.

The problem is that it didn't go as planned (these sorts of adventures rarely do).

As for America not being an Empire builder... in the traditional modernist definition of Empire I would agree. However, there is a very strong case to be made that the US is the first and only postmodern Empire.

The American empire is held through a colonization of culture and economics enforced by a roving, rapid response military. There is no need to occupy the land when you control their economy through institutions like the IMF and their ideologies through mass culture.

So if some Brazillian outcast, trained by crack Arintinian death squads, living in Mexico said "I will kill Americans", what is the correct scale of response?
1> Nuke the city the person is in.
2> Ignore the crazy dumb-fuck.
3> Place all people you suspect are mexicans or mexican sympasizers in concentration camps.
4> Invade and occupy Venezuala.

Now suppose the person mananged to kill 5 Americans. 50 Americans. 500 Americans. 5000 Americans.

Now suppose 20 years pass. You occupied Venezuala (and currently have about twice as many armed forces there as the Venezualian government does), and supported a revolution in Mexico in order to kill the person who killed the 5 Americans. You are supporting dictators in the vast majority of latin american states.

A Venezualian who the USA trained to be a Mexican revolutionary shoots the vice president, saying "Venezualia will be free!". The assasin gets away, smuggled away by Mexicans. What do you do?
1> Nuke Argentina.
2> Track down and arrest the killer.
3> Invade Cuba.
4> Build a wall between Bolivia and Paraguay.
5> Say that the Venezualian terrorist hates freedom, and occupy Argentina.

...

Feel free to add other answers. I tried to pick ones that seemed to line up with current US foriegn policy.

Your family is in more danger from automobies than it is from terrorists. By orders of magnitude. Massive orders of magnitude.

Your family is in more danger from an oppresive government than terrorists. Oppressive governments have killed many times more people than any act of any foriegn power in any time in history.

So are you willing to say "the government can put anyone away for as long as they want, with no appeal, 100% secrecy, and I'll support them"? And if so, why do you hate your family so much that you want to increase government oppression?

Replace "suspected terrorists" with "anyone the government wants".

Do you have any problem with the government being able to hold anyone they want, torture anyone they want, and do it on any scale they want to?

By "the government", I'm talking anyone with any significant government rank. An appointed beaurocrat, someone with enough seniority, the ultra-left-wing democrat cabinate member who becomes president after the VP and Pres are assasinatd in 2015?

Or by "suspected terrorists" do you mean "bad guys"?

Because I can't see anything in the actual things you are supporting that restricts the powers you want the government to have to only apply to the "bad guys". Can you point it out?

You probably do not need me. I'm actually in favour of a Canadian nuclear arms program (secret) in order to provide a defence against American aggression. That is because I'm a Canadian, and I don't think America is to be trusted, given the attidude of people like you.

Such a nuclear arms program should be unofficial, of course. Canada should profess that we are nuclear arms free. We should just have medium-range rockets right next to "non-functioning" nuclear bombs (ie, the switch turned off).

Given the attitude of the USA, nothing else will keep Canada safe and soveriegn against a day when a US president wants to start an arbitrary war to funnel money to his power base.

As demonstrated by Russia and N. Korea, having a nuclear deterrant will slow and/or stop American imperial ambitions quite effectively.

Care to explain it to me? I would be much happier if the USA wasn't forcing me to support nuclear arming Canada.

Do you care more about being national top dog, or do you care more about the wellbeing of your family?

Usually, great power struggles are about one growing power wanting power and freedom and feeling justified in taking it, while a fading power feels justified in blocking the power and freedom of the growing power.

The only nukes aimed at the USA are in Russia, last I checked. Russia is not threatening to fire them. Between 1988 and 2000, Russia was quite reasonably friendly with the USA.

However, the Russian president, in response to recent American imperial invasions has started making some quite strong anti-American rhetoric.

So, I must ask, which nukes are you talking about? Korean nukes don't have nearly the range, and the only nuke they set off could easily have been a large conventional bomb. Britian isn't currently aiming nukes at the USA. France isn't aiming nukes at the USA, as far as I know. South Africa disarmed themselves reasonably credibly. India and Pakistan don't have the range to hit non-imperial American targets. Isreal might have a nuke aimed at the USA.

China probably has a handful of nukes aimed at the USA. I'm guessing more are aimed at American imperial forces in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the like.

Am I missing a nuclear power?

I understand. The moral pain that the raper of small children feels makes me feel sorry for the poor rapist. He wishes he lived in a world that he did not have to rape children, then kill them, chop their corpses up, and then console their poor parents over the loss of their child. If only the world understood that he has no choice. Oh woe is him.

Oh wait, that's not right. I don't feel sorry for the child rapist.

"Wishing" you didn't "have" to be evil means nothing. I'm not saying you rape small children and chop up their corpses -- I'm just saying you support acts that are morally worse, that from your perspective "have" to be done.

Most people who are evil and/or support evil feel justified, and wish that they didn't "have" to.

First, who is the war against, and what is it about?

Are we talking "Falkland Islands" skirmish-war, or a "I'm Britian/Russia and they are germany and it is WW2" existential-crisis war?

But in short, yes -- the ends can justify some means. On the other hand, one does not sign off on arbitrary means for an end of limited usefulness. That is stupid and evil.

How so? I was using "lie, cheat and steal" as a proxy for "the ends justify the means" -- ie, discard any usual restriction one has on one's acts.

Actually, I don't belong to the Liberal party. I don't strongly follow liberal-economic theory, but that isn't probably what you mean. I think that the communist party is foolish, and most socialists don't understand the raw power and usefulness of modern economics.

So, by liberal, what do you mean? The opposite of "conservative"?

If so, the opposite of which "conservative" -- fiscal responsibility, government intruding on personal lives, cut-tax-and-spend, the military industiral complex, anti-enthropy, don't think just feel, do whatever my parents did?

I'm just wondering which pigeon you think I'm sharing a hole with.

I really don't need any permission from you to ignore a question. Is this an attempt at trolling for flame response?

BTW, what fog are you talking about?

In what way is the world-wide network of US vassal-states and military bases not an Empire?

That the US government doesn't use the word Empire to describe itself means no more than lack of formal declaration of war during the Iraq war. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, swims like a duck and looks like a duck, calling it a duck sure seems reasonable.

You, personally, might not like having an Empire. You might not personally be supporting Empire building in order to have an Empire. But you got one.

let's take this sentence as an example of the problems with claiming to "argue from reality"---the data is experiential (i worked in a kitchen) which comes with particular advantages (grain of experience, say) and certain disadvantages---among the disadvantages are problems of generalization.

if you move from an experience that had you, say, standing across a table handing out food to making statements about who you were handing food to and, more problematically, why these folk were there, you run into trouble, yes?

well, that depends on what you think the social world is and, by extension, what you think "reality" is. if i were to try to unpack what ace seems to think reality is from the sentence, it'd go like this:

you, ace, see these people as objects: you read off information from clothing, posture, etc.--the conclusion is that "ironically" for some reason, they were mostly "able-bodied men"---and that's it.

so the political conclusion i would draw from this is that ace looks at these folk and just looks at them--when he goes to explain why they might be there, he simply transposes the looking across a table onto the social level--nothing changes about how he sees these folk--and his interpretation appears to follow from that--if folk are hungry in the united states, it is their fault--their lack of gumption or whatever meaningless adjective you like is to blame.

now the conceptual problem:
so what is this "reality" that ace speaks from?
it is an accumulation of objects.
human beings are a particular type of object.
both are defined by features that inhere in them.
so if you are going to move from the individual experience level to that of the social, you need make no adjustments--to think otherwise would be like.....say you are trying to understand what a vase is.
so you start off by looking at one of them in isolation.
you want to know what features define a vase.
if you do this with one and then later find yourself looking at, say, 30 of them, nothing in particular changes about the question "what is a vase" or how you'd go about answering it---well, maybe you could do a comparison amongst the 30 vases and isolate a feature or two that defines vases in general that you hadn't thought of--but adding more objects to one object does not create any particular problem.

since human beings are a type of object, it would follow then that moving from a particular instance to making general statements about not only what these human-things are but why they are as they are also poses no particular trouble.

but does it make sense to see human beings as things, a objects?

i guess it does if you imagine that, say, television news footage presents you with the world as it is and not with an image of the world, an image that has certain features which get superimposed on the world these images are assumed to represent.
but if you think about human beings as the results of social processes (growing up, acquiring language, ordering themselves as being-in-a-world as they begin to order the world, as operating within social contexts FROM WHICH THEY ARE NOT SEPARABLE---human beings as complex systems of dynamic systems, say) then there is a REAL problem with treating them conceptually as if they were objects. and if you want to think about what the social world is, you wont get anywhere by acting as though it is simply given, as if what you see and how you see is functionally like a camera, reflecting a world that is as it is with no particular problems attending either the arrangement of the world or of your sensory apparatus.

if you want to think about poverty, you are thinking about a complex of social relations---say class---and specific questions of social position in relation to, say, labor markets and their structure. poverty is a social fact: it is relational (it does not mean the same thing context to context)...ace is consistent in his refusal to consider social factors on this order: in keeping with the assumption that human beings are things, he looks for some internal attribute (real or imagined) that he can look to to explain poverty.

i dont think treating human beings as things is a particularly useful basis for claiming that you "operate from reality" ace.

You failed to address the primary question in my post and choose to create a "strawman arguement" around personal experience that was insignificant at best relative to Shackran's point that hunger is a problem in this country. this is another example of what I refer to as "fog".

The only significance of my comment about able bodied men, was that I stop doing that volunteer work because I thought I would be helping woman, children, elderly and the disabled. My new reality, based on my experience, proved different from my initial perception based on reports of hunger. I do admit that my experience may not be representative, but I am curious to know what others have experienced through their volunteer work.

ace....you say you have a "reality based", POV, but we can't discuss or debate anything...because you refuse to let data....facts....dent your "reality":
ace, I showed you, in this Oct., 2006 post, why your claims of "deficit" reduction were grossly misleading, and could be claimed to be false:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=44

....and, in the post at the above link, I referred you to my June, 2006 post, at the next link:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=31

.....and it explain why there was no actual economic growth....it all came from an inefficient stimulus of increased federal borrowing and spending, and from MEW (mortgage equity extraction) and it predicts the "news" below, the implosion of the subprime lending industry, which will be followed by a residential realty valuation implosion, IMO.

Here are federal borrowing comparisons over the last ten years. The "deficit reduction" which you tout, has already been thoroughly explained to you....by me...as deliberate moving by the president and his administration, of "on budget" items, to "off-budget" status, as two articles below, strongly support.

10/01/1996 $5,234,730,786,626 to
02/23/1999 $5,619,947,525,857
<b>$385 billion= Additonal Federal Borrowing in second term of previous president</b>

10/01/2004 $7,409,510,200,267 to
02/21/2007 $8,752,478,768,342
<b>$1343 billion= Additonal Federal Borrowing in second term of current president</b>


<b>Last year Federal borrowing, fiscal year to date, vs. this year:</b>

09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723 to
02/23/2006 $8,248,764,007,091
<b>February 2006= $316 billion increase in federal borrowing in 4 mos. and 23 days...</b>

10/02/2006 $8,506,973,899,215 to
02/21/2007 $8,752,478,768,342
<b>February 2007= $246 billion increase in federal borrowing in 4 mos. and 23 days...</b>

<b>This years federal borrowing increase rate has been slowed by the previous congress's decision to walk away from it's budget making responsibilities, leaving the task to the new congress:</b>
<b>News Report on last years supplemental appropriations:</b>
Per data available here:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPD...application=np

Link to source..."You're seeing 40 or 50 (subprime companies) a day throughout the country going down in one form or another. I expect that to continue throughout the year," Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial, told investors in a recent conference call."

do you work for hillary clinton?

edit: you ARE hillary clinton!!! :eek:

I would employ "splinter cells" to investigate. If we found credible plans to kill Americans, I would take pre-emptive action to disrupt those plans and send a message the their commrades. This almost sounds like a Tom Clancy plot.

I would not occupy Venezuala. I am now of the opinion that occupying Iraq is a mistake.

If the action was an act of war on the part of the governments of enemy nations. I would use laser directed smart bombs to strike military and government targets to overthrow the government(s). Again sending a message - If you f*** with us, there will be consequences, so don't f*** with us.

Like I wrote earlier, my tendency would be to over-react, like Bush. My tendency is also to get fixated, like Bush. I would need Congress or my wife to keep me under control. If Congress or my wife feeds my aggression, then they failed when I needed them most. To me Bush has done everything he said he would do. congress has failed and is continuing to fail, because they have the power to snap Bush out of his fixation.


That is why I drive. I am a control freak, in addition to other problems I have.

That is why I support the 2nd amendment.

Terrorist don't have Constitutional rights in my view.



I agree, its a fine line. But like they say - If my aunt had balls and a penis, she would be my uncle.

Yes. I think war is different than criminal activity.



Family, and freedom.

Perhaps, N. Korea. Perhaps Iran. Perhaps China. Perhaps terrorists have a few. Perhaps Cuba has one from 1950. No one has ever totally accounted for the nukes from the USSR, so who knows where they are pointed.

Please revisit the thread. We agreed on some points and disagreed on others. The deficit is misleading because it doesn't measure all federal government spending. But they consitently measure it wrong, dating back decades.

Also national debt numbers are misleading as well as trade deficit numbers. Where we differ is on the significance of it, not the factual numbers.

....no, ace...where we differ is much simpler than your description, above. I eliminated the "misleading deficit", because I only compare the constant....year to year....and Oct. 1, 200x to Feb. 23, 200x....of increases in total federal debt.

I demonstrated multiple times....in my last post, and in the other two that I linked to in my last post.....that the "deficit reduction" you refer to, is misleading.

Haven't you contradicted one of your main points that I've already highlighted in bold? Here is what I responded to....challenge my points....not your own about meaningless deficit reduction, masked by "off-budget" deception....and what of the "strong economy"....isn't "where it's headed", the "reality" argument?....it doen't look good, going forward (Visit the "Ailing Companies" link on the "implodometer" page in my last post):
Hanxter....what's up with your new, daily , "drive-by" posts....? Seems like "pissing in the corn flakes", to me, anyway....

thanx!!! i needed that - funniest thing for me in days...

What the hell is this thread about anyway?

Are we talking the total debt or anual deficit spending. Either way I still don't dispute the facts, although you avoid looking at the debt as a percent of national wealth and the deficit in terms of a percent of national tax income.
I am more than happy to debate economics, we can revive the old thread or start a new one.

It is an example of why most conservatives no longer get into heated debates. We find it diffucult to see through the fog.

Good....I'm glad that you took it in the spirit that I intended....

<b>on edit, ace....now that your last post was read....you have always used the deficit numbers to advance a positive opinion of the direction/trend of this administration's deficit management. In your post before this last one, you seemed to admit that the deficit data is unreliable. I've only relied on US treasury debt accumulation data to support my contrary opinion.

Why do you say that I don't consider increased GDP vs. debt increases? I already showed, in my posts of June and Oct., 2006, that those increases came from the stimulus of $1.15 of new MEW and new federal borrowing and spending, for every 75 cents increase in GDP. IMO, we've had our debate, but you've posted today about reduced deficit trends and a "ggod economy", anyway....thus my response that your arguments are not "reality based"....</b>

...now ace....after re-reading your last post, are you saying that you believe that the US treasury debt info here:
...is no more reliable than the deficit numbers that the white house quotes?

If that is what you are saying, ace...
.....that the figures I retrieve to counter all of your posts about a "declining deficit", are "misleading" ?

Since the US treasury debt data that I use has been moved in the last few weeks, rolled into this new site described as:
....doesn't it follow, that, if your belief is that the borrowing data I'm posting from that site is in error, or misleading, that it is also true that the US treasury is offering securities for sale, via the provision of deceptive data? Isn't that an accusation of official, securities fraud?

National debt according to most sources is $8.7 trillion. Annual deficit spending is projected by the CBO to be about $170 billion in 2007. They project a reduction in deficit spending as well as the Whitehouse, they project a surplus of $170 billion by 20012. Tax dollars collected have increased at a faster pace than on-budget spending over the past few years.

No. Smart money knows the weaknesses in trying to measure government spending and tax collections. Dumb money doesn't rely on the numbers anyway.

Does anyone else think it is somewhat humorous that this thread has become a heated debate?

I have done my part to maintain a spirit of light heartedness.:paranoid:

I blame Stephen. :)

Amused? No - more like encouraged. We haven't had a good mix up like this in what seems like forever in here. I've been enjoying it personally.

And Ace - I'm not ignoring what you posted- -just happen to be busy ATM - - I'll get back to ya on what you replied ;)

Heated? How is this thread heated?

Ace and Host are very civil and "tame" although Host does not seem to have discovered the new function Halx made for him.

I apologize that you had to preform the unbearable task of scrolling for a moment or two.

As do I...

Although I must admit, much of it comes from the odd compulsion I feel to light a spliff whenever I read his name and/or posts :D

sorry, ace, but if you agree at all with that old hoary margaret thatcher line "when i look around me i dont see society, i see individuals" then those *are* your premises.
unpleasant, aren't they?
but hey, maybe i'm wrong: why dont you lay out your assumptions concerning how you would go from your answer to shakran's question outward to any claims about poverty as a social phenomenon. maybe not the argument: more like how you'd make the argument. it'd be interesting.


hmm...


....you know, now that you mention a spliff, smooth.....not of course that i would do or endorse that kind of thing.....i just like thinking about them. thinking is psychokinetic, you know....

wait. i'm not stephen.
i'm roachboy.


uh oh.....

The Bush Dept of Agriculture no longer uses the term "hunger" to describe the condtions faced by more than 10 million Americans...rather, they experience "very low food security"

New Labels Describe Ranges of Food Security is what I would refer to as "fog".
In 2005, 35 million people lived in food-insecure households, including 12.4 million children.

Of these individuals, 7.6 million adults and 3.2 million children lived in households with very low food security.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Foo...ity/trends.htm

As promised, my rebuttal, finally.

And that automatically makes it right, how?


Any nation that sends its military after countries that aren't doing anything to it is an aggressive nation. Whether you think Iraq was justified or not (although considering none of the terrorists were from there I'm not sure how you could), you must admit that Yugoslavia, Mogadishu, etc, were not doing anything to us. We chose to go play army anyway. That's aggressive.

We don't have to be an empire builder to be aggressive. The schoolyard bully isn't trying to take the kid's house, but he beats the kid up anyway.

Whether our intentions are honorable or not, people are still angry at us. You speak of wanting to enhance our national security. A real good way to do that is to try and avoid pissing people off. You're much less likely to kick my butt if you like me. It's the same with nations. The nations that are our allies and are our friends and who like us are not the ones attacking us. Want to enhance national security? Stop casting the country in the role of world cop.



I'm glad that you did that - I wish more people would follow your good example. But do you really think that one meal a day is good enough? I too have volunteered in those kitchens, and many of the people I fed were having their first meal with us at 5pm. I also note that you mention they are homeless people. Why do you think it is acceptable that in the richest nation on earth we still have homeless people, and we still have people who can't afford to feed themselves?

I think it's a heated debate over whether or not we have heated debates in Tilted Politics.

It's the heated debate about everything including heated debate thread.

Ran into this:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...ed_risk_1.html
which is a wonderful little treatise on risk. Basically, it explains what most of the major errors people have with misestimating risk.

People underestimate:
Any risk they choose to take.
Any risk they feel cannot be reduced.
Any common risk.
Any risk they are used to.
Any risk they feel personal control over.
Any risk that is rarely talked about.
Any risk that is non-intentional.

People overestimate:
Any risk they don't have a choice about.
Any risk they feel can or should be reduced.
Any rare risk.
Any risk they are not used to.
Any risk they don't have personal control over.
Any risk that is commonly talked about.
Any risk that is intentional.

"Cars are far more dangerous than terrorists, so I drive" is a classic example of this. By choosing to drive and taking personal control, you reduce the feeling of risk. Driving deaths and risks are not that reported, and driving is a common risk, so that also reduces the feeling of risk. People don't consider driving deaths as "solveable", so that reduces the feeling of risk. Most car accidents are accidents, not done intentionally.

On the other hand, terrorists deaths are out of your immediate control. You don't choose to take on terrorist risk. It is rare and outside of your experience. People consider it solveable. And it is in the news. And it is intentional.

So we get people with a seriously whacked up and error prone feelings about the relative risks of traffic accidents and terrorist attacks to the security of one's nation.

What???

One person says people in this country are going hungry everyday, suggesting that it is a problem in this country. I ask what is the basis for that comment, and simply gave an anecdotal experience that caused me to change my behavior. If children, elderly and disabled people are in fact going hungry everyday, I am very interested in fixing the problem, I am also interested in fixing the world hunger problem and I think we could if we could get food the to the people who need it rather than "warloards".

Here is another anecdote - even when I was in poverty as a child, we had enough to eat. In fact we had enough to eat and my mother had enough left over to buy cigaretts.

What??? Sadaam was the aggressive one. He is the one who invaded Kuwait for no reason, he is the one who defied the UN, he is the one who fired at our military planes, he is the one that paid $25k to terrorist families, he is the one that killed thousands of his own people.

Perhaps we use the word "aggressive" in different ways. We clearly don't see the world the same way.


Many of the homeless were what they called "transitional" homeless. As a local business owner in my community I participated in several "homeless forums" with community leaders. In our county at the time there were several programs for homless people. It was rare that women with children, the elderly or truely disabled people would not have a bed and food. The most difficult category were homeless men. In most of these situations the men had opportunities get get on their feet. There were a handful who "lived the life" of a homelss person, regardless of the attempts to help.

that's nice, ace.
but you didnt answer the question.
could you please?

ah--i see you were doing what i do and editing the post as i was responding.

ok: your response seems to confirm what i am arguing: it repeats the thatcherite logic--read what you said and maybe you'll see it. i asked you how you would go about moving from the anecdotal (i see person x, person x is hungry) to a system-level explanation for hunger in the states. you dont do it. you could: but you chose not to. so i'm asking you again.

I understand the relative risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack and being in a car accident. And I would not describe my position as "whacked up". My position is clear when it comes to risk and I know this seems odd but - I place more value on my freedom than on my life. Terrorists are interested in controlling people through the threat of terrorist acts. I can not accept being controlled by terrorists. Like I said I am a control freak. Perhaps people who are not control freaks don't care, but I do.

I don't think I understand the question. But here is a shot at an answer.

Hunger is measured on an individual level. Macro-level statistics are abstract. If hunger is a problem we can not understand it on a statisical level, we need to dig into the problem, community by community, houshold by houshold, person by person. Me being one individual, I can only address the issue based on what I see around me, or what I search for. At one point I was very motivated to get involved with the issue, however based on my experience I decided there were bigger issues more worthy of my time and resources. If hunger is a problem in this country, I am interested in getting back into the issue, because hunger is a "base" issue that has to be addressed before other issues like education, healthcare, employment, etc.

so i take it that you see no social causes for hunger in the states then.

Um, what if you pretty much ignored them? Terrorists can only control you if you let them.

Their goal isn't "increase the security around the door to an airplane", there goal is to impact US foriegn policy (which, I might note, they have done). When a terrorist nutjob hijacks a plane and rams it into a building:
1> Increase airplane pilot's door security.
2> Teach hostages to not go along with terrorist demands on a plane.
3> Maybe fund a real air-marshal program.

And now the entire avenue of attack used on 9/11 has been blocked.

Terrorism only generates policy changes if you let it. Currently, Terrorism has caused massive policy changes on the part of the US government.

My point is, using the Terrorism to justify the enroachment upon civil liberties, invasions of states, nuclear bunker buster bombs, or massive increases in military spending is disingenious. Terrorism really isn't dangerous enough to justify such large changes.

The reaction is overblown. It would be like firing a nuclear weapon because someone killed a single citizen -- the killing of a citizen is a problem that should be delt with, but responding in an overkill manner just makes more problems.

Not in this country. I would define a social cause as somthing similar to what occurs in Africa, where food is deprived from people for power, political or other reasons. That does not happen here. Generally there is help for people who want it in this country.

Good point. I was ignoring them prior to 9/11, but they were not ignoring us. I would love to get back to the day when I felt comfortable ignoring them.

I agree some of our reactions have been pointless, over-the -top and have been harmfull to our freedoms. Some feel the attacks were our fault, I don't. My initial raction is to increase the consequences of terrorist activity on the terrorist. I know my feelings are "wrong" but my initial reaction is that if you hit us, we hit you back with 25 times the intensity.

My reactions are primal on many levels, but at least I know what they are when they arise. I think the "liberal mind" is different. The problem in communication arises because they often see this difference in terms of being some how, better, smarter than the "simplistic" conservative mind. An exampe is - your assumption that I did not understand the levels of risk from being a victim of a terrorist attack V. being in a car accident. Or, when I say when it comes to protecting you family the means justifies the ends, the liberal mind translates that to being immoral and that they would never act in such a manner. I think we know thats B.S., but if I call it B.S. the liberal mind gets offended.

I'm glad I'm part of a liberal mind hyper-brain. :)

BTW, I suspect you mean "when protecting one's family, the ends justify the means", not "when protecting one's family, the means justify the ends". *chuckle*

[quote]I agree some of our reactions have been pointless, over-the -top and have been harmfull to our freedoms. Some feel the attacks were our fault, I don't. My initial raction is to increase the consequences of terrorist activity on the terrorist. I know my feelings are "wrong" but my initial reaction is that if you hit us, we hit you back with 25 times the intensity./quote]

Fault is an interesting question. The attacks and the motivation behind them where understandable, and the USA has done (as a nation) some pretty horrid things. If you measure how "evil" some organization is based off of the number and magnatude of the evil acts done by the organization, the USA comes off pretty badly -- simply because it is a very large, very powerful, and very active organization. The USA comes off better if you measure the fraction of consequences of the organizations actions that are "evil".

Or just accept them as a price of projecting power. They are a clear example of covert action backwash -- if you believe that the USA should be engaged in covert actions around the world, then you should also accept that the USA will be burned by those actions.

The fact that the designated mastermind behind 9/11 was a CIA trained anti-Russian revolutionary is not a coincidence. The fact that Saddam was a CIA trained and backed operative is also not a coincidence. The choice of using proxy troops and leaders to implement US foriegn policy means that those proxy troops will more than occasionally attack and kill American interests.

Just because it is an incident of backwash doesn't mean that America is not allowed to intervien.

Much as "your choice to drive to your grandmothers" was one of the reasons why "your family was killed by the drunk driver": had you not driven to your grandmothers, the drunk driver would not have killed your family. The USAs past support for proxy warriors is one of the reasons behind 9/11. The question of what "fault" means becomes interesting and complex at this point.

There is the "I am right" side, which states that so long as I identify with X, X is not at fault for anything.

Then there are approaches that try to work out how predictable such a result is. If you drive at 200 mph on a motorcycle, you are more "at fault" for dieing to a drunk driver than if you drive at 60 mph in a top-safety car.

Then there are the karma based ones -- if you have killed 10 people while driving to your grandmother's, and you get killed, you are karmically at fault.

The existance of multiple interpritations leads to fault lines in opinion. :)

There isn't a massive war on traffic in the USA, so I figured that most people consider car accidents to be less of a problem then terrorist attacks.

What if it isn't B.S.? There are people who wouldn't kill, steal or lie to protect their family.

Good example of how people think similarly on different topics. Osama bin Laden attacked us, so we annihilated Saddam, who had nothing to do with it.

People die in traffic wrecks because they're not good drivers, so we attack the speed limits, which have nothing to do with it, instead of attacking the absolutely craptacular drivers education and licensing system in this country. Deaths per mile are lower on the Autobahn, where you can go well north of 200mph if your car's fast enough, than they are on the US interstate system. German driver training is much more stringent than the US, and german licensing is much less forgiving. Get a DWI? You'll never drive again. Period. Think you can pass a German driving test by parallel parking and driving slowly around a parking lot while not hitting cones? Think again - you're gonna show them you know how to control a car or you fail. What does this tell us? It's much more likely that crappy driving skills are causing the wrecks, not the speed.

But it's more fun to blame something that requires almost no thought, no effort, and which has almost nothing to do with the actual problem. Just like Iraq.

While I don't think there was much 'unacceptable' in my last month, after having been called every name in the book on this forum including cock sucker for my beliefs I can't say I really care if any liberals think I was flaming them.

I had a very long response to this, when I just happened for unknown reasons to check out this forum again, but the wife came by the office and we went out to lunch. I was thinking of not bothering to post it as it would still be wasted and a computer freeze took care of it for me.

With age comes wisdom, and I received a bit of a dose this last year or two. There is no need to be angry and agitated over that which you can not control. The difference between liberalism and conservatism seems to be one rallies against human nature and tries to force us to become what they think humans should be, while one accepts it and works out the best solutions we can understanding that nature and accepting its short comings.

It takes decades to see a change from one mind set to the other, and some never accept it, but regardless it makes arguing with someone who thinks the individual exists to serve the collective pointless with someone who thinks collectives form because they serve individuals.

Over my years posting here, I've had a number of PM's from people thanking me for posting or showing them there is another side of the debate. I was glad to know at least someone was gaining something from my efforts but such education wasn't worth having to deal with the rest. There was SOME good debate, but it gets buried in a mountain of over the top biased articles, communist pseudo-intellectual drivel, and cut and paste insanity which was once controlled a bit by the mods and no longer was (art was the best at this and he wasn't any easier on me).

So I came to a conclusion. Why bother getting mad? The politics of the world haven't changed because I no longer post on tfp. I have a mountain of personal goals to work on and a family which I'd rather spend more and more of my time with. I could argue with some 20 something who hasn't even figured out his own life about how the world should be run, or enjoy the life I have worked for and created myself without getting mad at the interweb political debate.

You're right. Conservatives want to force us to live under a literal interpretation of their Christian bible combined with their strict and narrow interpretation of the Constitution.

On a serous note, that is probably the most baseless mischaracterization of liberalism/conservatisim I have ever seen.

Sorry you wont stay around to debate it. But, from my experience, that has been your practice...."hit and run" before your arguments can be challenged.

In any case, from one 40something to another, I wish you well in getting on with your life.

Hit and run? You know I covered this in my original long post.

There are about 15 liberals to one conservative that posts, I'm not going to respond to everyone who thinks they have a point.

I won't bother with the rest, as I said, there is no point, if you can't see it yet in your 40's so be it, you might be one of those who never does.

Here is your test. I'd be pretty happy under a Libertarian government, would you be?

First off, welcome back Ustwo. We missed you (especially host).
That's an interesting idea, but I might have to disagree with you. Liberalism is a part of a two sided scale, the front side being liberal and the back side being conservative. On the liberal side of the scale, we have people who constantly pull society forward, always trying to reach above and beyond. On the conservative end, we have people who are content with stagnation or the status quo and who pull back against the liberals. As an 'equilibriust' (I just made that word up), and a student of anthropology, I am led to conclude that in a society that is too liberal, things move forward too fast...so fast that mistakes are made. It is in that way that conservatism becomes useful. Move too fast and you won't have time to consider the repercussions of every decision. A society that is too conservative, however, stagnates. As it is the natural state for all life to evolve over a slow period of time through processes of mutation and natural selection, so also society must develop, and therein lies the problem with your assertion. Human nature constantly evolves. We are not the same humans we were 10,000 years ago and we are not the same humans we were 1,000,000 years ago. As with all evolution, what is new today will eventually become old. Likewise, notions that are liberal today will become less liberal and eventually conservative. Take, for example, the idea of transfusion. When the idea of sharing blood for medical purposes was originally introduced, conservatives overwhelmingly condemned it as wrong. That is no longer the case except in very specific cases today. I doubt we would see Rush Limbaugh telling people not to give blood today. As such, liberal notions today such as homosexual marriage being accepted by the state or universal health care will either be destroyed by conservatism or undoubtedly become less liberal over time. Even you, Ustwo, are a product of societal development occurring for hundreds of thousands of years. That's liberalism eventually coming out on top consistently throughout human existence.
Ironically, I must disagree. Meaning is relativistic. A 'personalist' and socialist could easily decide based on precedent and reason what the real world applications would be of each philosophy.
Communism is one type of socialism. Not only is the term 'communist' inaccurate in referring to your adversaries here, but it carries with it a negative connotation because of McCarthyism. Just so you're aware, that's what a lot of people get mad about. I'm sure you'd be just as pissed if I inaccurately called you a fascist.

Just fyi, a new feature was added so that ultra-long articles can be better organized for the ease of the reader.
Personal goals are awesome. I agree that it's important to spend time with family an all that jazz. I wish you all the best in that.

You were a 20 something once upon a time, and I'm sure you had just as many big opinions on things as you do now. I'm also sure that you would have been pissed off if some older person tried to dismiss you and/or your ideas based solely on your age. Have the courtesy of showing others the respect they earn. If someone is an idiot, call them an idiot for the things they say and do, not their age.

Thank you for, if nothing else, at least illuminating EXACTLY what the entire liberal mind set is all about. I've struggled personally with thoughts of something similar but the nuts and bolts eluded me. You nailed it!!!!

I can't say I completely agree with this characterization of conservatism, at least in it's present incarnation in US politics.

Essentially I think that the stripes of both "ideologies" are for the most identical, and essentially boil down to staying in power, at what ever cost.

Classical liberalism or true libertarianism I think is concerned with understanding human nature and adapting appropriate solutions and present day liberalism is essentially (and has yet to chalk up a single success. This lack of success or even a single improvement is key) attempting to create a utopia based on how the population of a utopia "should" behave. Obviously and without a doubt dillusional in assuming that human nature can be utopic or even in the slightest way manufactured or steered in such a direction.

Anywho....Ustwo, I miss your insights, and wish you well in your quest for family happiness and whatever other goals you seek to accomplish.

-bear

Ustwo....show me a successful Libertarian government anywhere in the world in the last 200 years.

Its a fine model on paper and may work well in a small, agrarian, homogenous, isolationist nation. I dont believe for a second that such a government can represent its citizens best interests in a post-industrial, geo-politically and economically complex 21st century.

No, I would not be happy living under such a government, because, IMO, most likely it would be a failed state.

***
edit:
FYI...here is an example of "hit and run" I am talking about....from you last post in Feb on global warming: (link)
You find one scientist that attributes global warming to solar activity (I found the article to be informative and may certainly have some validity)....AND with that you discount any other scientific possibility (like the findings of the 100+ scientists and climatologists of the International Panel on Climate Change) as well as making smug comments directed towards those here who disagree with you.
You conclude that your scientiist is right, the others are wrong, yet you dont hang around to debate....(you" don't plan on posting anytime soon again.") - hit and run...and a very disengenuous way to participate in a forum.

My apologies to others for the threadjack and and making it personal.

Would you explain how it is a mischaracterization? If it is baseless, then add the foundation that you think should be there.
If you knew this, why did you persist?




Thanks for stopping by Ustwo. Hopefully your new found ability to let go of anger and disdain is contagious.

I wish you and your family well.

Ch'i....if you want to start a new thread on liberalism/conservatism (based on Ustwo's premise or not), I will be happy to debate it.
For now, I will suggest that it was predominantly "liberal" programs and liberalism (as it is/was characterized and practiced in US politics.. ie an active govt role vs limited govt conservatism.. rather than a classical political/economic sense) that created the post-WW II middle class (GI bill - opening the opportunity for college to millions of returing vets, programs to expand home ownership - Fannie Mae, programs enhancing small business opportunities - SBA loan programs, etc), provided retirement and affordable health security to seniors (social security and Medicare- both need fixing now), intiated the civil rights movement and programs to protect the environment, promoted scientific and technological research through government grants.....

Now if you think these examples are "against human nature and tries to force us to become what they think humans should be", as I said, I would be happy to discuss it further in a new thread....I would suggest it is religious social conservatism in the US that has these characteristics.

And, I persisted with my observation regarding Ustwo's follow-up comment to my initial observation of his "hit and run" tactics ("There are about 15 liberals to one conservative that posts, I'm not going to respond to everyone who thinks they have a point.") with an example -- I simply pointed out he if post an article and comment that criticizes others here as "armchair experts", he should stay around and debate it.

The same would apply to his latest sweeping characterization (or mischaracterization IMO) of liberalism/conservatiism. If he is going to offer that kind of controversial commentary, he should have the courage of his convictions to debate it and defend it.

I thought a public response was reasonable (considering all the threadjacking that goes on in the political forum) and I stand by what I wrote.

....speaking of empathy.....let's hop in the "way back" machine, for a sec...

Seaver in this post on Aug. 12, 2006:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=53
Post #15, on this thread:
From post #78, on this thread:
....a re-run...in a "drive-by", from a "conversation" that took place, last august?:

In this post http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=204

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...40#post2106840

....and now....it's more than 130 weeks since the "offense" took place....he received an apology.....while I'm still waiting for one....silently....but for the subject being dredged up, again....

My post has to do with the statements made about hunger in the US - I am amazed that anyone would say that there is true "hunger" in the US, true hunger meaning there is no access to services or ministries that would alleviate an actual physical hunger.

I have lived in Thailand for years, I have walked amongst poverty stricken people there in the slums of Klong Tuey and have walked down the streets of Vientienne, Laos, and in the eastern border towns between Thailand and Cambodia. I have walked in Myanmar, and have seen hungry kids asking for money for food (or for their weekly amounts they must give their handlers who are watching on the side)

I have walked in Egypt and had kids asking for "bahksheesh", kids who don't have homes and who only eat when a foreigner gives them money.

In these years I have been privileged to walk amongst such children, never have I seen a "fat" kid, a child who obviously and truly had enough to eat. Not like most all American kids I have seen, even in the most impoverished of American kids.

So don't say that there is true "hunger" here in America - there are services available, and failing that, there are ministries who will care for these kids. In other countries, there is nothing - no government, no services, no ministries.

These kids are truly "hungry".

Americans need to pull their heads out of their asses and see what is going on in the world, and not just think the sun rises and sets on them.

And I am an American.

Please read the following article and tell me that you don't sound remarkably similar to candidate Bush during his first presidential campaign:
....and why would you compare the hunger problem in the US to the situations in third world countries such as Thailand, with 1/5 of per capita income of the US, and Egypt, with less than 1/10 of US per capita income?

But, since you did compare the US to those countries, please take note of the fact that Thailand has a lower poverty rate than the US does, compared to the respective mean incomes in each country. Notice, too....that in both Egypt and Thailand, the bottome ten percent enjoy almost twice the 1.8 percent of total national income that reaches the bottom ten percent of the US population.

Are you defending the idea that, in the US, a country where the average income is five to ten times the average income in Thailand and Egypt, hunger that is say....."half" as severe, for the bottom ten percent here in the US, as it is in those much poorer places, is acceptable, or out of the realm of your belief system, as it seemed to be out of candidate Bush's?

Your opinions contradict the reports from the USDA, and the CIA factbook offers statistics that indicate that the bottom ten percent here control only 1.8 percent of the total wealth, 1/17 of the top ten percents' 1997 figure of 30.5 percent. ....and if the CIA factbook can tell us the income distribution in the last few years in foreing countries, why do your think that 30.5 percent wealth figure for the top ten percent in the US is from 1997...nine years old now.....?

You say that it is not so bad here....but don't the income numbers tell us that it should be five times better for the poorest here, than in Thailand?
Your comparisons of conditions of the poorest of the population living in the wealthiest major country in the world, with the plight of the poorest in 4 or 5 impoverished third world countries, as a method to dismiss the hunger problem in the wealthiest major country, is unconvincing and disturbing to me. It reminds me of Newt's shameful rhetoric:
You and the political agenda that you support does not recognize that there is a crisis in the US. and that hunger is only a real symptom of it. Keep backing bills like the "bankruptcy reform act", and reduction of short term capital gains taxes from 28 percent to 15 percent, and tax cuts that shift, even slightly, the total tax burden from the top ten percent to the bottom twenty percent of income earners, and a "fair tax" that eliminates progressive income taxation, or propaganda that changes the description of estate taxes to "death" taxes.

Keep pushing an agenda that makes it impossible for the rural poor to obtain birth control and sex education, and birth control products and access to safe clinical abortion.....

Keep doing all of the things that I've described republicans' supporting, and you'll succeed in shifting that last 1.8 percent of the national income that does trickle down to the poorest ten percent in the US, and keep denying that there is a hunger problem, here, because you have witnessed REAL hunger....and maybe you'll get to see REAL hunger here, too!

Ustwo, I really do understand where you came from. You see that little warning bar under my name? That is because I got sick of the feces which was pouring out from another TF'er and I simply didn't care. I never apologized and I never will. By the end of your tenure, however, you were doing nothing more than flame baiting.

We saw eye to eye on most issues, and would try to mutually support each others arguments against the heavy tilt which is TF Politics. However by the end of it you didn't care and it showed, hell I hardly post here anymore. Even salmon give up after swimming up stream long enough, but simply not posting is much more civil than the one liners you were using.

You've pointed out another example of government doublespeak. It's not hunger. It's just low food security. And the janitor is really a custodial systems engineer. And a 13 cent nut becomes a $100 hexiform rotatable surface compression unit.

You can make up any word you want for hunger but it's still hunger. Note I said hunger, not starvation. Sure, there are few, if any, people in America that are truly starving. Sure, there are many countries where the people are a whole lot hungrier than we are. But comparing the USA to egypt and saying "See? Look! We're not as bad as them so things are great" is disingenuous. It's rather like coming home to mom and dad with a D on your report card and saying "Yeah, but this other kid got an F, so compared to him I'm awesome and therefore don't need to do anything to improve!" It simply doesn't fly.

There are certainly organizations that you can turn to for help if you can't afford to buy food - - - but why should we think it's acceptable that so many Americans *have* to turn to those organizations. If the citizens in the richest country on earth can't afford to buy even cheap, crappy food for themselves, while the government drops BILLIONS into a front of the "war on terr" that in fact has nothing to do with the fictitious war on terror, what does that say about our priorities?

You can have low food security without being hungry. You can have low food security and be fat.

A non-reliable or unsafe source of food is a food security problem. A non-nutritious source of food is a food security problem.

I thought that most industrialized nations engage in practices to increase the price of food?

80% warn and proud of it :thumbsup: Ironicly I took more heat for mentioning some wicca or pagan fest as a place to pick up easy hippy chicks than anything on politics, I guess the LARPers and their made up regilion get upset very easily, its only ok to make fun of Christianity here :) The current warning system as a gaping obvious flaw of course, but I won't bother with that.

You did nail it though, I didn't care anymore, but I wouldn't say I was flame baiting. If you recall ANY post of mine became a flame bait to the slavering horde, it doesn't matter on how it was presented. My posts did stand out more, but when you think of the outright flames, no bait, just complete flames, I would get without any moderator action until it was pointed out since the moderators never bothered to read those posts, I should take some solace in that my posts were at least read.

In the end I've just decided to look at the path my life has taken, and then the paths of others and wonder who's philosophy should be the rule of law. Maybe now I am 'The Man' in many eyes, but I am what I am by taking control of my own life and hard work, not by leeching off the work of others or complaining it wasn't fair.

I never read any of those posts, Ustwo. Seems I was wrong in thinking that you had grasped at any sense of humility as well. Not really sure why I did in the first place. Oh wait, that's right! I thought you had actually meant something when you said "With age comes wisdom, and I received a bit of a dose this last year or two."

My mistake.

my my, ustwo.....such Grand Pronouncements.

it is i guess nice to see that your time spent in an ashram had such effects, focussing you on the Big Picture and reducing those of us who scuttle about here to a suitably small scale.

just be careful up there in those Olympian Heights: the air is thin and it makes you dizzy the way drinking in boulder can.

one consequence of this thinness in the air is that your sentences--you know, those transmissions aimed at us Little People--dont really make sense at times. like your equating of your "life path" and that of "whose philosophy should be the rule of Law". i dont recall your having much of a philosophy.

but, as one of those Little People that you use in order to get a sense of the scale of your Magnificence, i am sure that the problem of recognizing your philosophy lay entirely with me: as does the sense of garble in your last post.

so no worries: next time you feel inclined to stride mightily downward from the Heights in order to deliver a Transmission, i'll be just as grateful as i am right now. it is always lovely to see you and your sentences. god knows there's nothing quite like reading a post from someone who imagines himself to be copping a squat on you from a great height: it really makes me feel inclined to say welcome back.

Ustwo, what's wrong with being the "Man"? People reap what they sow. Not everyone gets this. *shrug*

I have a great quote (paraphrase cause I can't remember it verbatim) for you that you may like from one of my favorite statesmen:

Winston Churchill:

"If you are not a rebel by the time you are 20, then you have no heart. But if you are not part of the establishment by the time you are 30 then you have no brain."

I hope you stick around Ustwo, it brings a little balance to this place.

The only balance it brought was by the end of the third page there is a big red mod warning. other than that, the conversation was going fine...so it seems "where's the old heated debate" is answered in that a few specific people are no longer posting derogatory comments.

People come and go all the time...thats the nature of political forums.

I do find added entertainment value from those who feel a need for an extended public farewell tour.

Yes remember, because its important that you only listen to people who agree with you.

You just don't get it, but thats ok.

Seems you are in Chicago now? Wanna get a beer?

now there's a meeting i would like to see.