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On January 06 2011 14:13 InvalidID wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:09 furymonkey wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Lefnui wrote:On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't. Did anyone claim that we are? Or are you just arguing with yourself? Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not. Did anyone propose that we stop all military spending? We are discussing the amount of military spending, not the concept of it existing entirely. You seem desperately confused over the topic of debate. I simply replied to your statement about USA spending is much higher than the rest of the world, that the spending is backed up by the % of GDP, also an indication of standard of living. The assets I refer to aren't just physical things within the country, but influence over the world. US defense spending is also well below historical norms. Graph stops in 2003, but the current number is 4.6% of the GDP, 10% of what it was during WW2 and 50% of what it was during Vietnam. http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size-graph.php?meas=GDP
Very nice information that I was thinking about posting myself. It's a really good measure of where we really stand. People haven't seen a real war in over a generation, and we haven't seen a massive direct threat in 65 years. There's a major lack of perspective in this country and it's lead to alarming complacency. People need to look at history, take a deep breath, and relax. People think every decade is the 90s, but that's the great exception to the norm. This is far closer to normal by historical standards than 15 years ago.
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The spending on DoD is clearly way too much, and since conservative platform is cutting spending, I don't see why we don't cut in this sector. The United States is not threatened by anything, the chance of a major attack is basically zero, and as such it is really unnecessary to have the excessive budget for defense that we have. Ron Paul says that the United States has to stop massive spending on DoD and imperialistic overseas expenditures and I agree with him completely.
Edit: As Phoenix says above me, we haven't seen a massive threat in 65 years.
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On January 06 2011 14:10 Gentleman7 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:51 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 13:33 Superiorwolf wrote:[Eternal]Phoenix, do you really think we should cut things that help the American people in favor of a pointless and stupid war? We should force American people at home to suffer just because politicians in Washington feel the need to flex their political muscle? Do you know that our spending on military alone is greater than the spending on military for the entire rest of the world COMBINED? Half of our discretionary budget is spent on defense. Fifty percent! Medicare / Social Security are necessary things paid for by tax revenues, the war spending is unnecessary and guess what - people WANT to spend taxes for welfare like Medicare / Social Security because it benefits THEM. At this point almost no one wants to fund America's stupid wars, except for our crazy politicans and military-industrial complex. I don't understand. If you're an old person, would you like to have your social security check cut by 10% because some diehard conservative wants to fund a pointless war? That might be your only source of income. let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. Ok I guess you're trolling o.o This country has existed for 150 years before social security was even conceived of. In addition, social security actually is a byproduct of a mass of failed (and some decently successful) experiments in the Great Depression. Nobody needs it, and in fact every person nowadays is urged to save for their own retirement and invest privately because only an idiot would rely on social security for their wellbeing. If we didn't have it at all, people on the whole would actually be better off since everyone would be forced to take care of themselves. The good part of social security is of course helping disabled people, or elderly who've lost pensions or such. It does play a good role, but it's so bloated and misused it's become a broken system. Cutting it does more good than harm to the country at this point IMO, but that's just my opinion. As for medicare/medicaid, these ideas were invented less than half a century ago. America was just fine in the 1950s before these ideas were even implemented. Sure, there were other problems with 1950s America (social equality, racism, sexism, etc.) but those have nothing to do with gov't entitlement. And lastly, I just supported the so called "pointless war" with 2 powerful arguments that you just ignored. First, there was clear indication of a WMD developmental project in Iraq. If they got ahold of those weapons they could end up in the hands of terrorists who could harm America or its allies. In addition, if Israel ever finds out any non-friendly nation in the region has nuclear weapons they will destroy them, and nuclear capabilities will almost certainly be used. They have too much to lose by 1 nuke going off in their country to risk it. Any violence in the region would lead to economic disaster in the area, skyrocketing the price of oil, hurting American economy by impacting industry, which means less taxes and higher prices for all of America. In the end, every American is losing more money by having to buy more expensive goods and having to pay more taxes to make up for the lost revenue from commerce. Either way we pay, but in this case a war is actually cheaper (and it stimulates the defense sector, creating jobs!) I'm going to entirely ignore your bit on the middle east, because if you don't believe the reports that their were no WMDs in Iraq, then theirs no point in discussing that with you. Social Security is important for a few reasons: 1. People pay into it. When they get their monthly check, its like an investment into the govt. being paid back to them. This has a few positive effects: a. Good flow of money. b. Government gets a loan and thus more spending money.
Social security is NOT an investment... it is redistribution from the currently working to those who cannot work (and in the long term its a redistribution from those who die early to the long lived and disabled)
And if people want to invest their money in a loan to the government, then they can buy government bonds.
The biggest effect of Social Security is to force stupid people to save.
If people weren't stupid and short-sighted 95% of Social Security would be unnecessary.
On January 06 2011 14:10 Gentleman7 wrote:
2. The only people who lose money in the system are the super rich who would be more inclined to save that money anyway, thus being a detriment to the economy.
Saved (equals invested unless they are putting it in gold or under their mattress) money is GOOD for the economy.. it buys capital goods that allow people to actually be productive.
And the super rich do not lose in Social security or any of those entitlement programs... they don't pay into them.
They probably net benefit because they tend to live longer (and can manipulate their income levels easily)
On January 06 2011 14:10 Gentleman7 wrote:
3. All of these welfare programs could be paid for simply by increasing tax rates to what they were pre- Reagan. (Which, I might add, you said was a good era in American history (the 1950's that is)).
The 1950's was good (primarily because the US was the only remaining industrialized country), but the pre-Reagan 70's era was terrible.
I do agree defense spending should be cut, but the entitlement programs Really need to be cut a lot more.
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On January 06 2011 14:25 Superiorwolf wrote:
The spending on DoD is clearly way too much, and since conservative platform is cutting spending, I don't see why we don't cut in this sector. The United States is not threatened by anything, the chance of a major attack is basically zero, and as such it is really unnecessary to have the excessive budget for defense that we have. Ron Paul says that the United States has to stop massive spending on DoD and imperialistic overseas expenditures and I agree with him completely.
Edit: As Phoenix says above me, we haven't seen a massive threat in 65 years.
A good reason why we haven't seen a major threat in 20 years(I would call the soviet union a fairly major threat, we were close to global thermonuclear war on many occasions), is our defense spending. We don't magically have the worlds most powerful army by spending nothing, and defense technology is not acquired over-night.
Non operational DoD spending has already been cut majorly. The DDG-1000 program was scaled back to a few ships. The F-22 program was majorly scaled back. The next generation bomber programs were canceled. The future warrior systems programs were delayed. I don't know what more cuts you can ask for? Pretty-much all the money is going into replacing things that are so old they can no longer be retrofitted, and active operations.
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On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact.
You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information.
Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves.
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On January 06 2011 14:32 InvalidID wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:25 Superiorwolf wrote:
The spending on DoD is clearly way too much, and since conservative platform is cutting spending, I don't see why we don't cut in this sector. The United States is not threatened by anything, the chance of a major attack is basically zero, and as such it is really unnecessary to have the excessive budget for defense that we have. Ron Paul says that the United States has to stop massive spending on DoD and imperialistic overseas expenditures and I agree with him completely.
Edit: As Phoenix says above me, we haven't seen a massive threat in 65 years. A good reason why we haven't seen a major threat in 15 years(I would call the soviet union a fairly major threat, we were close to global thermonuclear war on many occasions), is our defense spending. We don't magically have the worlds most powerful army by spending nothing, and defense technology is not acquired over-night. Non operational DoD spending has already been cut majorly. The DDG-1000 program was scaled back to a few ships. The F-22 program was majorly scaled back. The next generation bomber programs were canceled. The future warrior systems programs were delayed. I don't know what more cuts you can ask for? Pretty-much all the money is going into replacing things that are so old they can no longer be retrofitted, and active operations.
My family, and many families of my friends in the area work in the defense sector. Defense research is getting massive cutbacks already. It is much harder to cut back the size of a standing army overnight, and it is also extremely dangerous to cut back on task forces and operational military.
However, the cutting of defense research has the most profound and lasting effects on our ability to stay in power as the #1 military. Remember, china has way more people, and a bigger standing army.
If anything, more money needs to be going into DoD research. It creates jobs and it helps secure our position as the globally dominant military. Also, it's far less money than people think. We could spend 10x what we do on military research and development and it'd be a fairly small overall budget increase.
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On January 06 2011 14:35 Zooper31 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact. You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information. Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves.
Wikipedia is pretty good for directly verifiable facts. If you dont believe something there, you can click the reference button. In the case of the US budget it is: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf . If you believe that source is inaccurate, I would challenge you to present a more reputable source for the US budget.
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On January 06 2011 14:38 InvalidID wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:35 Zooper31 wrote:On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact. You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information. Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves. Wikipedia is pretty good for directly verifiable facts. If you dont believe something there, you can click the reference button. In the case of the US budget it is: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf . If you believe that source is inaccurate, I would challenge you to present a more reputable source for the US budget.
How hard was that now.
Just linking a wikipedia page shows nothing. Anyone on the internet can change information on any page and then link that page as proof of fact.
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On January 06 2011 14:41 Zooper31 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:38 InvalidID wrote:On January 06 2011 14:35 Zooper31 wrote:On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact. You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information. Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves. Wikipedia is pretty good for directly verifiable facts. If you dont believe something there, you can click the reference button. In the case of the US budget it is: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf . If you believe that source is inaccurate, I would challenge you to present a more reputable source for the US budget. How hard was that now. Just linking a wikipedia page shows nothing. Anyone on the internet can change information on any page and then link that page as proof of fact.
Actually not true. Many pages must be verified by staff before being changed. I have a friend who does a lot of work for Wikipedia. I also have to say that it's the most accessible and well organized place for information. The article they have is really easy to read and is just a good article. Many college professors are fond of Wikipedia for objective information, because it's really really good.
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On January 06 2011 14:44 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:41 Zooper31 wrote:On January 06 2011 14:38 InvalidID wrote:On January 06 2011 14:35 Zooper31 wrote:On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact. You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information. Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves. Wikipedia is pretty good for directly verifiable facts. If you dont believe something there, you can click the reference button. In the case of the US budget it is: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf . If you believe that source is inaccurate, I would challenge you to present a more reputable source for the US budget. How hard was that now. Just linking a wikipedia page shows nothing. Anyone on the internet can change information on any page and then link that page as proof of fact. Actually not true. Many pages must be verified by staff before being changed. I have a friend who does a lot of work for Wikipedia. I also have to say that it's the most accessible and well organized place for information. The article they have is really easy to read and is just a good article. Many college professors are fond of Wikipedia for objective information, because it's really really good.
Is that why every teacher in every subject refused wikipedia as a source when I went to school? I do agree with the fact that its an amazingly awesome website for information, just take any information you get and double check it imo.
Back on topic though.
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Ya I tried to change something once on wikipedia years ago and it was reverted within like 2 minutes because there was no source. Wiki's actually pretty good in my opinion, especially for research papers lol XD
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On January 06 2011 13:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 12:41 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:39 tso wrote:On January 06 2011 12:37 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:27 Amber[LighT] wrote:
Oh wait voting Tea Party was a terrible idea?
As a conservative I'm afraid/nervous to see what's going to happen with this Republican Congress. Between November and now the political atmosphere has been changing and it has become more of a us vs them battle than ever before. yeah, I'm pretty scared. Nothing inherently wrong with tea party, but :/ well i don't know about that.. Tea party wants to do good things. Are these things good? Will it turn out well? But just because somebody identifies with tea party ideals doesn't mean they are stupid or evil. Well, alright tea party ideals aren't inherently evil. Misthought? maybe The party is, but no more than any other party. The point obama is moving towards socialism is reasonable, and defendable. But that we're anywhere close to a socialism is not. Listen. Everyone who identifies the tea party as a single entity should honestly be banned from further discussions because they don't know what they're talking about. The "tea party" movement is just a name for the general grassroots gathering of moderate and conservative Americans who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that current Republicans (and democrats) are incapable of resolving the issue. Tea Parties as they are called are meetings whereby like-minded people share their common interest in changing the direction America is headed in. The movement is not a unified group seeking election of people it chooses. It is not even a group with a uniform agenda. It is a collection of people with similar, but not identical views on the major problems in America - these being: big gov't, heavy spending, socialist policy shifts, and others. The major emphasis of all tea party movements is a dramatic cut on spending on gov't. It's actually closer to a libertarian movement than a truly right wing one, though what we're seeing is that the candidates who are the most controversial (i.e. heavy right wing religious people) are getting the most press (which, lets face it, is extremely liberal and has a liberal leaning in all reports, with the exception of Fox). Therefore, the public thinks the tea-party movement is full of racists, bigots, religions nuts, and extremists. In fact the movement is 99.9% average Americans who have a legitimate concern about our gov't and the direction its heading.
Wow, where to begin? Let's start by dispelling the (carefully crafted) image of the teaparty as a grassroots organization. For starters, their protests have been funded primarily by the usual Republican politicos using their 501 non-profits to conceal their financing - the Koch brothers via Americans for Prosperity, Dick Armey via FreedomWorks, and Patrick Ruffini via Don'tGO.
As a movement, they have been publicized and given disproportionate media coverage relative to their numbers (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3955) by the flagship conservative media networks and punditry (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh...).
Given that a grassroots organization is one that is "driven by the politics of the community, not orchestrated by the traditional power structures," in what sense is the Tea Party a grassroots organization? For your consideration, the definition of astroturf is as follows - "PR or political campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but are disguised as spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior." Given the Tea Party is funded and publicized almost entirely by the GOP old guard, which term sounds more accurate to you?
Simply put, you've bought into the bullshit. Like every other conservative 'grassroots' organization, they adopt a veneer of 'traditional' conservative values by outlining a nostalgic philosophy so vague as to be meaningless in order to both draw support from people like yourself and to obscure the true goal of their organization - the undermining of liberal politics and politicians.
My recommendation? Instead of thinking that every media organization except for FOX is 'extremely liberal' (a tenuous assertion at best which verifies exactly where you get your news from), try obtaining news from multiple sources not reputed for their political biases (FOX, MSNBC, I'm lookin at you). NPR, PBS, BBC, the New Yorker are good starting points.
My grandparents have been to nearly every tea-party event in the DC area. They used to vote democrat 30 years ago. Democrat vs republican no longer means what it used to. It's not about civil rights anymore. It's about socialism vs capitalism and big gov't regulation and centralization vs federalism, small gov't, and the free market.
In what sense have Republicans been in favor of a free market or small government since Eisenhower? Bush the Second presided over the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR. One difference between the parties' economic policy are where your taxes go - towards social programs and regulation (which is not a 4-letter word, btw), or towards subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy class and their corporations concealed by paying public lip service to small gov't.
Now more than ever the debate is about civil rights - it just pertains to a different minority. The DREAM Act, Arizona SB1070, etc... have established the Republican party as firmly against the civil rights of immigrants.
As for the situation in Congress - the Republicans have a very tough role to fill, and the Democrats have a choice. Obama can pull a Clinton and just cede authority to the Republican congress and let them pass what they want in order to make it look like he's both more moderate (which might make him reelectable, as per Clinton) and like he's accomplishing something. On the other hand he can veto every single thing possible and lock down Congress and create basically what is a 2 year lame duck period where gov't almost shuts down. He can try to spin it like Republicans are blocking the Democrats from doing anything, but I think that time has passed and the American people won't stand for it. (In addition, it actually isn't even possible for that to occur, since all bills will originate within a Republican house and will be killed by democrats).
Obama would be right to call out the Republicans on their obstructionism - the time hasn't passed, if anything it has become more egregious now that they've been emboldened by taking the House.
Are you familiar with the recent Zadroga Bill controversy? In a nutshell, the Republican party decided to filibuster the Zadroga Bill (a bill that would guarantee healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders, who to date have not received a dime in healthcare aid despite their service) until the Bush tax cuts were extended to the top 1% of earners (the Democrats wanted to extend the tax cuts to all Americans making under 250,000$/yr, but Republicans just couldn't stomach it). Unfortunately, the Republicans got their wish.
Either way, the era of democrat control is over, and all they can do now is damage control. If they really want power back, they need to make a massive shift towards the right and become more moderate.
Where have I heard this before?
It's clear that both parties are severely polarized, and IMO the party that chooses to identify itself as moderate first is the one that will have power (as it should be).
If both parties continue to polarize, I think we may finally see a shift from 2 party politics given a strong enough independent candidate.
There will under no circumstances be a shift from 2-party politics - in spite of how 'polarized' you believe the 2 parties are, there is one thing they can agree on - legislative blocks against funding for independents.
I don't know why I responded seriously as your post reads like a Tea Party talking-points memo, but here's hoping you won't dismiss me outright and educate yourself. Before you claim this as liberal spin, all of this is well documented. Check out the wiki on the Tea Party. Cheers.
EDIT:
let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies.
Ohhh, so you are trolling.
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On January 06 2011 14:38 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
If anything, more money needs to be going into DoD research. It creates jobs .
BAD, EVIL ARGUMENT...
All government spending creates "jobs"....
even a person on unemployment has the "job" of showing up and saying that they were looking for work.
Arguably defense spending pays people for doing something slightly useful.
The issue is how useful it is.
Especially when military superiority is threatening out economic superiority (excess borrowing or taxes required to pay for it)
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On January 06 2011 13:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 12:41 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:39 tso wrote:On January 06 2011 12:37 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:27 Amber[LighT] wrote:
Oh wait voting Tea Party was a terrible idea?
As a conservative I'm afraid/nervous to see what's going to happen with this Republican Congress. Between November and now the political atmosphere has been changing and it has become more of a us vs them battle than ever before. yeah, I'm pretty scared. Nothing inherently wrong with tea party, but :/ well i don't know about that.. Tea party wants to do good things. Are these things good? Will it turn out well? But just because somebody identifies with tea party ideals doesn't mean they are stupid or evil. Well, alright tea party ideals aren't inherently evil. Misthought? maybe The party is, but no more than any other party. The point obama is moving towards socialism is reasonable, and defendable. But that we're anywhere close to a socialism is not. My grandparents have been to nearly every tea-party event in the DC area. They used to vote democrat 30 years ago. Democrat vs republican no longer means what it used to. It's not about civil rights anymore. It's about socialism vs capitalism and big gov't regulation and centralization vs federalism, small gov't, and the free market.
Oh yes, civil rights is still an issue.
Just ask my (theoretical) boyfriend why we can't get married, why either one of us could be fired from our jobs simply for being ourselves, and why we can't file a joint tax return.
As of 2004: 1138 Rights related to marriage that I'll never have in this kind of political climate, simply for who I am.
Source: + Show Spoiler +http://www.hrc.org/issues/5540.htm
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If the Republicans were really aiming at restoring the Constitutional foundations of the country, this would be an excellent thing for people who like freedom and liberty. However, a lot of the Republicans will probably continue to expand the Department of Education, take away liberties and freedom to fight 'terrorism', continue to let the fractional reserve banking cartel do anything they want, etc...
So all in all, I don't think the new Congress will accomplish much.
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On January 06 2011 14:25 Superiorwolf wrote:
The spending on DoD is clearly way too much, and since conservative platform is cutting spending, I don't see why we don't cut in this sector. The United States is not threatened by anything, the chance of a major attack is basically zero, and as such it is really unnecessary to have the excessive budget for defense that we have. Ron Paul says that the United States has to stop massive spending on DoD and imperialistic overseas expenditures and I agree with him completely.
Edit: As Phoenix says above me, we haven't seen a massive threat in 65 years.
One could argue that we haven't seen a massive threat due to our military spending. I would also cut that 65 years figure because clearly no one has ever heard of the Cold War (it wasn't a direct military confrontation but there WAS a threat)
I'm going to link a figure from wikipedia so take this with a grain of salt and feel free to correct me but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Debt_to_GDP_Forecast_Chart.png
See the massive spike? The US is fine right now, I don't mind our debt levels, as massive as they are because it's entirely manageable atm... but according to the US Government Accountability Office we need to cut our social spending or we're doomed.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02845t.pdf
This article is from 2002 nearly ten years ago and outlines the problems that are beginning to arise with Social Security. The major problem brought up in the article is the slowing of labor force growth due to people not having babies. In fact, the only reason the US still has a growing labor force is due to immigrants as seen in this article...
http://www.susps.org/overview/immigration.html
In spite of how biased the article is, (Who seriously believes the population growth is going to follow their red line?) the point remains that without immigration American women have been averaging more along the lines of 1.9 babies which increases the burden on the young due to the way social security is structured...
Edit...
On January 06 2011 14:35 Zooper31 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact. You should stop using wikipedia as you're only source of information. Also wheres the proof, because it seems the US, the people who invaded solely on that fact, can't seem to find it themselves.
Go read the wikileaks thread for proof that Hussein was preparing to have WMDs
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 06 2011 14:52 EzCheeze wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:41 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:39 tso wrote:On January 06 2011 12:37 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:27 Amber[LighT] wrote:
Oh wait voting Tea Party was a terrible idea?
As a conservative I'm afraid/nervous to see what's going to happen with this Republican Congress. Between November and now the political atmosphere has been changing and it has become more of a us vs them battle than ever before. yeah, I'm pretty scared. Nothing inherently wrong with tea party, but :/ well i don't know about that.. Tea party wants to do good things. Are these things good? Will it turn out well? But just because somebody identifies with tea party ideals doesn't mean they are stupid or evil. Well, alright tea party ideals aren't inherently evil. Misthought? maybe The party is, but no more than any other party. The point obama is moving towards socialism is reasonable, and defendable. But that we're anywhere close to a socialism is not. Listen. Everyone who identifies the tea party as a single entity should honestly be banned from further discussions because they don't know what they're talking about. The "tea party" movement is just a name for the general grassroots gathering of moderate and conservative Americans who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that current Republicans (and democrats) are incapable of resolving the issue. Tea Parties as they are called are meetings whereby like-minded people share their common interest in changing the direction America is headed in. The movement is not a unified group seeking election of people it chooses. It is not even a group with a uniform agenda. It is a collection of people with similar, but not identical views on the major problems in America - these being: big gov't, heavy spending, socialist policy shifts, and others. The major emphasis of all tea party movements is a dramatic cut on spending on gov't. It's actually closer to a libertarian movement than a truly right wing one, though what we're seeing is that the candidates who are the most controversial (i.e. heavy right wing religious people) are getting the most press (which, lets face it, is extremely liberal and has a liberal leaning in all reports, with the exception of Fox). Therefore, the public thinks the tea-party movement is full of racists, bigots, religions nuts, and extremists. In fact the movement is 99.9% average Americans who have a legitimate concern about our gov't and the direction its heading. Wow, where to begin? Let's start by dispelling the (carefully crafted) image of the teaparty as a grassroots organization. For starters, their protests have been funded primarily by the usual Republican politicos using their 501 non-profits to conceal their financing - the Koch brothers via Americans for Prosperity, Dick Armey via FreedomWorks, and Patrick Ruffini via Don'tGO. As a movement, they have been publicized and given disproportionate media coverage relative to their numbers (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3955) by the flagship conservative media networks and punditry (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh...). Given that a grassroots organization is one that is "driven by the politics of the community, not orchestrated by the traditional power structures," in what sense is the Tea Party a grassroots organization? For your consideration, the definition of astroturf is as follows - "PR or political campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but are disguised as spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior." Given the Tea Party is funded and publicized almost entirely by the GOP old guard, which term sounds more accurate to you? Simply put, you've bought into the bullshit. Like every other conservative 'grassroots' organization, they adopt a veneer of 'traditional' conservative values by outlining a nostalgic philosophy so vague as to be meaningless in order to both draw support from people like yourself and to obscure the true goal of their organization - the undermining of liberal politics and politicians. My recommendation? Instead of thinking that every media organization except for FOX is 'extremely liberal' (a tenuous assertion at best which verifies exactly where you get your news from), try obtaining news from multiple sources not reputed for their political biases (FOX, MSNBC, I'm lookin at you). NPR, PBS, BBC, the New Yorker are good starting points. Show nested quote +My grandparents have been to nearly every tea-party event in the DC area. They used to vote democrat 30 years ago. Democrat vs republican no longer means what it used to. It's not about civil rights anymore. It's about socialism vs capitalism and big gov't regulation and centralization vs federalism, small gov't, and the free market. In what sense have Republicans been in favor of a free market or small government since Eisenhower? Bush the Second presided over the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR. One difference between the parties' economic policy are where your taxes go - towards social programs and regulation (which is not a 4-letter word, btw), or towards subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy class and their corporations concealed by paying public lip service to small gov't. Now more than ever the debate is about civil rights - it just pertains to a different minority. The DREAM Act, Arizona SB1070, etc... have established the Republican party as firmly against the civil rights of immigrants. Show nested quote +As for the situation in Congress - the Republicans have a very tough role to fill, and the Democrats have a choice. Obama can pull a Clinton and just cede authority to the Republican congress and let them pass what they want in order to make it look like he's both more moderate (which might make him reelectable, as per Clinton) and like he's accomplishing something. On the other hand he can veto every single thing possible and lock down Congress and create basically what is a 2 year lame duck period where gov't almost shuts down. He can try to spin it like Republicans are blocking the Democrats from doing anything, but I think that time has passed and the American people won't stand for it. (In addition, it actually isn't even possible for that to occur, since all bills will originate within a Republican house and will be killed by democrats). Obama would be right to call out the Republicans on their obstructionism - the time hasn't passed, if anything it has become more egregious now that they've been emboldened by taking the House. Are you familiar with the recent Zadroga Bill controversy? In a nutshell, the Republican party decided to filibuster the Zadroga Bill (a bill that would guarantee healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders, who to date have not received a dime in healthcare aid despite their service) until the Bush tax cuts were extended to the top 1% of earners (the Democrats wanted to extend the tax cuts to all Americans making under 250,000$/yr, but Republicans just couldn't stomach it). Unfortunately, the Republicans got their wish. Show nested quote +Either way, the era of democrat control is over, and all they can do now is damage control. If they really want power back, they need to make a massive shift towards the right and become more moderate. Where have I heard this before? Show nested quote + It's clear that both parties are severely polarized, and IMO the party that chooses to identify itself as moderate first is the one that will have power (as it should be).
If both parties continue to polarize, I think we may finally see a shift from 2 party politics given a strong enough independent candidate. There will under no circumstances be a shift from 2-party politics - in spite of how 'polarized' you believe the 2 parties are, there is one thing they can agree on - legislative blocks against funding for independents. I don't know why I responded seriously as your post reads like a Tea Party talking-points memo, but here's hoping you won't dismiss me outright and educate yourself. Before you claim this as liberal spin, all of this is well documented. Check out the wiki on the Tea Party. Cheers. EDIT: Ohhh, so you are trolling.
Thank you for spelling out how foolish it is to believe the Tea Party is some grassroots movement and not a fully endorsed Republican operation.
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On January 06 2011 14:56 Risen wrote:
One could argue that we haven't seen a massive threat due to our military spending. I would also cut that 65 years figure because clearly no one has ever heard of the Cold War (it wasn't a direct military confrontation but there WAS a threat)
Yah you're probably right, but if you look at spending levels they of course were much higher during WWII than after. I'm pretty sure they dropped after 1990 as well due to the collapse of the USSR, but I don't have anything to back that up ATM. I'll try to look for something but if someone else can that'd be cool.
The real point is that we spend a good bit to keep ourselves safe, but we clearly can spend a lot more. People should look at history and see that we're well within norms to spend money on national safety at these levels currently.
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On January 06 2011 15:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:56 Risen wrote:
One could argue that we haven't seen a massive threat due to our military spending. I would also cut that 65 years figure because clearly no one has ever heard of the Cold War (it wasn't a direct military confrontation but there WAS a threat)
Yah you're probably right, but if you look at spending levels they of course were much higher during WWII than after. I'm pretty sure they dropped after 1990 as well due to the collapse of the USSR, but I don't have anything to back that up ATM. I'll try to look for something but if someone else can that'd be cool. The real point is that we spend a good bit to keep ourselves safe, but we clearly can spend a lot more. People should look at history and see that we're well within norms to spend money on national safety at these levels currently.
I already linked the graph above which shows exactly what you describe in terms of military spending. If you go to the website it gives sources, which are reputable but not as condensed.
On January 06 2011 14:52 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:38 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
If anything, more money needs to be going into DoD research. It creates jobs . BAD, EVIL ARGUMENT... All government spending creates "jobs".... even a person on unemployment has the "job" of showing up and saying that they were looking for work. Arguably defense spending pays people for doing something slightly useful. The issue is how useful it is. Especially when military superiority is threatening out economic superiority (excess borrowing or taxes required to pay for it)
The value of military research spending, compared to general research spending is difficult to cost.
A large portion of defense research ends up having civilian mixed uses(eg Nuclear Power plants from military nuclear research, the internet from defense communications research, cell phones from military radio technology etc), but it is hard to statistically analyze those benefits.
Another factor you have to look at is the cost of having inferior military technology, if you are involved in a conflict. Basically analyze the costs of having a modern fighter jet/military gizmo x versus the cost of achieving the same goal with ground troops.
I have yet to see good statistics on any of these calculations though I would welcome anyone to provide them.
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On January 06 2011 15:03 Risen wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 06 2011 14:52 EzCheeze wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:41 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:39 tso wrote:On January 06 2011 12:37 Froadac wrote:On January 06 2011 12:27 Amber[LighT] wrote:
Oh wait voting Tea Party was a terrible idea?
As a conservative I'm afraid/nervous to see what's going to happen with this Republican Congress. Between November and now the political atmosphere has been changing and it has become more of a us vs them battle than ever before. yeah, I'm pretty scared. Nothing inherently wrong with tea party, but :/ well i don't know about that.. Tea party wants to do good things. Are these things good? Will it turn out well? But just because somebody identifies with tea party ideals doesn't mean they are stupid or evil. Well, alright tea party ideals aren't inherently evil. Misthought? maybe The party is, but no more than any other party. The point obama is moving towards socialism is reasonable, and defendable. But that we're anywhere close to a socialism is not. Listen. Everyone who identifies the tea party as a single entity should honestly be banned from further discussions because they don't know what they're talking about. The "tea party" movement is just a name for the general grassroots gathering of moderate and conservative Americans who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that current Republicans (and democrats) are incapable of resolving the issue. Tea Parties as they are called are meetings whereby like-minded people share their common interest in changing the direction America is headed in. The movement is not a unified group seeking election of people it chooses. It is not even a group with a uniform agenda. It is a collection of people with similar, but not identical views on the major problems in America - these being: big gov't, heavy spending, socialist policy shifts, and others. The major emphasis of all tea party movements is a dramatic cut on spending on gov't. It's actually closer to a libertarian movement than a truly right wing one, though what we're seeing is that the candidates who are the most controversial (i.e. heavy right wing religious people) are getting the most press (which, lets face it, is extremely liberal and has a liberal leaning in all reports, with the exception of Fox). Therefore, the public thinks the tea-party movement is full of racists, bigots, religions nuts, and extremists. In fact the movement is 99.9% average Americans who have a legitimate concern about our gov't and the direction its heading. Wow, where to begin? Let's start by dispelling the (carefully crafted) image of the teaparty as a grassroots organization. For starters, their protests have been funded primarily by the usual Republican politicos using their 501 non-profits to conceal their financing - the Koch brothers via Americans for Prosperity, Dick Armey via FreedomWorks, and Patrick Ruffini via Don'tGO. As a movement, they have been publicized and given disproportionate media coverage relative to their numbers (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3955) by the flagship conservative media networks and punditry (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh...). Given that a grassroots organization is one that is "driven by the politics of the community, not orchestrated by the traditional power structures," in what sense is the Tea Party a grassroots organization? For your consideration, the definition of astroturf is as follows - "PR or political campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but are disguised as spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior." Given the Tea Party is funded and publicized almost entirely by the GOP old guard, which term sounds more accurate to you? Simply put, you've bought into the bullshit. Like every other conservative 'grassroots' organization, they adopt a veneer of 'traditional' conservative values by outlining a nostalgic philosophy so vague as to be meaningless in order to both draw support from people like yourself and to obscure the true goal of their organization - the undermining of liberal politics and politicians. My recommendation? Instead of thinking that every media organization except for FOX is 'extremely liberal' (a tenuous assertion at best which verifies exactly where you get your news from), try obtaining news from multiple sources not reputed for their political biases (FOX, MSNBC, I'm lookin at you). NPR, PBS, BBC, the New Yorker are good starting points. Show nested quote +My grandparents have been to nearly every tea-party event in the DC area. They used to vote democrat 30 years ago. Democrat vs republican no longer means what it used to. It's not about civil rights anymore. It's about socialism vs capitalism and big gov't regulation and centralization vs federalism, small gov't, and the free market. In what sense have Republicans been in favor of a free market or small government since Eisenhower? Bush the Second presided over the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR. One difference between the parties' economic policy are where your taxes go - towards social programs and regulation (which is not a 4-letter word, btw), or towards subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy class and their corporations concealed by paying public lip service to small gov't. Now more than ever the debate is about civil rights - it just pertains to a different minority. The DREAM Act, Arizona SB1070, etc... have established the Republican party as firmly against the civil rights of immigrants. Show nested quote +As for the situation in Congress - the Republicans have a very tough role to fill, and the Democrats have a choice. Obama can pull a Clinton and just cede authority to the Republican congress and let them pass what they want in order to make it look like he's both more moderate (which might make him reelectable, as per Clinton) and like he's accomplishing something. On the other hand he can veto every single thing possible and lock down Congress and create basically what is a 2 year lame duck period where gov't almost shuts down. He can try to spin it like Republicans are blocking the Democrats from doing anything, but I think that time has passed and the American people won't stand for it. (In addition, it actually isn't even possible for that to occur, since all bills will originate within a Republican house and will be killed by democrats). Obama would be right to call out the Republicans on their obstructionism - the time hasn't passed, if anything it has become more egregious now that they've been emboldened by taking the House. Are you familiar with the recent Zadroga Bill controversy? In a nutshell, the Republican party decided to filibuster the Zadroga Bill (a bill that would guarantee healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders, who to date have not received a dime in healthcare aid despite their service) until the Bush tax cuts were extended to the top 1% of earners (the Democrats wanted to extend the tax cuts to all Americans making under 250,000$/yr, but Republicans just couldn't stomach it). Unfortunately, the Republicans got their wish. Show nested quote +Either way, the era of democrat control is over, and all they can do now is damage control. If they really want power back, they need to make a massive shift towards the right and become more moderate. Where have I heard this before? Show nested quote + It's clear that both parties are severely polarized, and IMO the party that chooses to identify itself as moderate first is the one that will have power (as it should be).
If both parties continue to polarize, I think we may finally see a shift from 2 party politics given a strong enough independent candidate. There will under no circumstances be a shift from 2-party politics - in spite of how 'polarized' you believe the 2 parties are, there is one thing they can agree on - legislative blocks against funding for independents. I don't know why I responded seriously as your post reads like a Tea Party talking-points memo, but here's hoping you won't dismiss me outright and educate yourself. Before you claim this as liberal spin, all of this is well documented. Check out the wiki on the Tea Party. Cheers. EDIT: Ohhh, so you are trolling. Thank you for spelling out how foolish it is to believe the Tea Party is some grassroots movement and not a fully endorsed Republican operation.
You do have a good point regarding the tea party, and I believe it is easy to draw your conclusions given a lack of understanding of proper cause and effect. The Tea Party movement is still driven by the motivations of Americans to see our gov't not go the direction Barrack Obama was leading it. However, any movement needs funding, and the fact is there's a lot of money in the GOP that they'd gladly give to see Obama destroyed and the democrats taken out. It wasn't that the GOP created the movement, it was that the movement enlisted the GOP.
Of course at this point they are rather indiscernible, so your sentiments regarding them are still largely justified.
Nothing is truly independent in American politics.
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EPT
