On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
Did you quote the wrong person? Because the person you quoted didn't say he wanted to get rid of all taxes.
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
That sounds absolutely awful and terrible. What about people who can't afford to subscribe to private police? They get robbed or attacked, and just have to suck it up? Taxes pay for public roads, if we get rid of all income taxes, where does that money come from? Privatize all roads? Great way to nuke the country.
To go on a rather nuanced rant, most actual roadbuilding is financed by developers. Say you're building a new shopping mall or another development (housing development, for example)...the local government does not pay for the road construction, nor the utilities to be put in, or any number of other necessary additions to the infrastructure. The developers finance all of that out of pocket and submit their plans to the local government for approval (usually the general contractor deals with city planners, etc). Only after the admittedly immense initial construction has been completed does the government proceed to take "ownership" of the newly built roads and incorporate into public land. Obviously this does not apply to more significant major roadways (interstates, freeways, etc), but it is almost without a doubt that the miles of roads in the suburbs in which most of you live were paid for by private investment (the price of which is added on to the home prices in a new area). After completion, government almost always assumes maintenance of the new routes, provided it is not within a private club area or something along those lines (and even then, the city retains a great deal of influence over regulation of power lines, sewer systems, manhole utility vaults, etc).
Not to mention governments are truly terrible at building roads. In California, most major road networks are constructed on present-day usage standards which are horribly out-of-date by the time construction actually begins, let alone finishes. In my experience, most of the planners tend to ignore the real figures behind prospective growth of local population centers and skimp on expanding road networks to keep the price tag a bit lower.
That said, obviously we need public roads and the government does a sufficiently good enough job at maintenance to avoid debilitating failures...although I wouldn't mind more foresight into major traffic route construction and addition (and preferably expand the damn roads in advance before waiting until the situation becomes unbearable and then say "time to widen X freeway, see ya in 3-5 years).
Anyways, I'd like to see Huntsman get a bit more popular as Bachmann is a running gag and Perry has the constitutional law background of a turtle
Huntsman seems like he's a defacto atheist to me. Says he's "more spiritual than religious", doesn't attend church, accepts evolution and global warming, etc. Too bad he can't actually say it.
Yeah he's pro-life but there are more pro-life atheists than you'd think.
On August 29 2011 12:15 Happy Juvia wrote: This guy is an idiot, I don't know why so many people think he's the Messiah:
“To give abortion-on-demand is to show there is no respect for life,” Paul told the National Right-to-Life Committee's (NRLC) annual convention. “I see abortion as an act of violence so I see it as a state issue. When we make it a national issue, we get what we’ve had.”
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
That sounds absolutely awful and terrible. What about people who can't afford to subscribe to private police? They get robbed or attacked, and just have to suck it up? Taxes pay for public roads, if we get rid of all income taxes, where does that money come from? Privatize all roads? Great way to nuke the country.
These questions have been asked and answered.
AnarchoCapitalism in a paragraph: Charities exist, and businesses internalize externalities. Private ownership and competition always benefits consumers. Government is institutionalized violence, taxation is extortion. Market dynamics and the price mechanism provide the most efficient (and ethical) way for people to communicate their desires and have them served. All of this follows from these two assertions: people can own property, and it is wrong to initiate coercion (violence, threats of violence, or fraud) against other people or their property.
Here's a video to answer all your questions:
These ones go into more detail on specific issues:
On August 29 2011 13:48 Defacer wrote: I have an honest question: do American's realize how weak a field this is?
From the outside (non-American) looking in, I have I hard time believing any of these people are good enough to run your country.
The field is pathetic except for Ron Paul - everyone but him is basically spouting the same statist corporatism you'd expect. Seeing as non-Americans aren't familiar with concepts of economic and personal liberty (since you haven't had it in generations) I would imagine that Ron Paul comes off as a nutcase... However, in the states his ideas resonate. His message has been consistent and correct for decades, and he has predicted every one of the calamities that currently beset us.
On August 29 2011 13:48 Defacer wrote: I have an honest question: do American's realize how weak a field this is?
From the outside (non-American) looking in, I have I hard time believing any of these people are good enough to run your country.
The field is pathetic except for Ron Paul - everyone but him is basically spouting the same statist corporatism you'd expect. Seeing as non-Americans aren't familiar with concepts of economic and personal liberty (since you haven't had it in generations) I would imagine that Ron Paul comes off as a nutcase... However, in the states his ideas resonate. His message has been consistent and correct for decades, and he has predicted every one of the calamities that currently beset us.
Ron Paul certainly is the most compelling and most importantly, consistent candidate.
Other than him, I'm not sure if some of these candidates could handle running a McDonalds, let alone the United State.
If the American concept of economic and personal 'liberty' means having overpriced education, health care and less than 1 percent of your population hoarding most of your wealth, you can can fucking keep it. You Americans: so crazy!
On August 29 2011 13:48 Defacer wrote: I have an honest question: do American's realize how weak a field this is?
From the outside (non-American) looking in, I have I hard time believing any of these people are good enough to run your country.
Of course, we all know exactly how stupid this whole process is and how terrible the selection always ends up.
Here's how it works: The stupid people will all vote for stupid criteria. So the politicians all scramble for that stupid criteria, because they know smart people will recognize that they are simply being politicians, and scrambling for the votes of the ignorant masses. The intelligent people are probably going to vote either way, and they have no choice but to pick the least of the evils.
Some people voted for Obama because they agreed with him. Others voted for him because he wasn't Bush/Republican, since they fucked up so bad. Others voted for Obama because he gave good speeches, because they bought his simplistic vision of undefined "hope and change," or simply because he was "fresh and different" from other presidents. His policies are simply more of the same either way.
In this country, we like to elect Republicans until we realize what crooks they are and how much we hate them. So we throw them out and elect Democrats, until we realize what crooks they are and how much we hate them. So we throw them out of office and elect Republicans. The mindless partisans on either side will continue voting for their party even if a turd sandwich won the nomination.
Any candidate who actually diverts from the typical party lines and advocates true reforms are mocked and ridiculed, but most often they are completely ignored by the media, causing them to be completely ignored by the people, forcing us into this two-party system for eternity, or until the American people get so fed up with both parties they elect a third party into office. Unfortunately there are too many brain-dead partisans braying it up on both sides for anyone to come together and agree on what a third party should actually run on.
Hope you enjoyed my disillusioned look at our political system. I'm sure many people would agree with these general sentiments, but they will keep voting for the crap candidates because they are rarely offered anything better.
American politics itself is a joke. It's not like anything will actually get done with the president that you want. As we've seen, time and time again, politicians always fuck us in the ass.
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
That sounds absolutely awful and terrible. What about people who can't afford to subscribe to private police? They get robbed or attacked, and just have to suck it up? Taxes pay for public roads, if we get rid of all income taxes, where does that money come from? Privatize all roads? Great way to nuke the country.
These questions have been asked and answered.
AnarchoCapitalism in a paragraph: Charities exist, and businesses internalize externalities. Private ownership and competition always benefits consumers. Government is institutionalized violence, taxation is extortion. Market dynamics and the price mechanism provide the most efficient (and ethical) way for people to communicate their desires and have them served. All of this follows from these two assertions: people can own property, and it is wrong to initiate coercion (violence, threats of violence, or fraud) against other people or their property.
None of that gives any concern to equity, which is of non-negligible importance. No, the free market does not work on its own. Deregulation, historically, has lead to issue after issue after issue. The more we free the market, the worse it runs. Sorry, the way people make decisions precludes this from working without leaving a ton of people in the cracks. It flat out doesn't work, and it won't work unless everyone somehow miraculously decides to care about how well the market works as a whole rather than lining their own pockets.
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
That sounds absolutely awful and terrible. What about people who can't afford to subscribe to private police? They get robbed or attacked, and just have to suck it up? Taxes pay for public roads, if we get rid of all income taxes, where does that money come from? Privatize all roads? Great way to nuke the country.
These questions have been asked and answered.
AnarchoCapitalism in a paragraph: Charities exist, and businesses internalize externalities. Private ownership and competition always benefits consumers. Government is institutionalized violence, taxation is extortion. Market dynamics and the price mechanism provide the most efficient (and ethical) way for people to communicate their desires and have them served. All of this follows from these two assertions: people can own property, and it is wrong to initiate coercion (violence, threats of violence, or fraud) against other people or their property.
None of that gives any concern to equity, which is of non-negligible importance. No, the free market does not work on its own. Deregulation, historically, has lead to issue after issue after issue. The more we free the market, the worse it runs. Sorry, the way people make decisions precludes this from working without leaving a ton of people in the cracks. It flat out doesn't work, and it won't work unless everyone somehow miraculously decides to care about how well the market works as a whole rather than lining their own pockets.
The recent recession was caused by the housing bubble, which inflated investors expectations and caused over-investment in both housing and mortgage backed securities. The bubble had it's beginnings in the federal reserve's policies in 2001 of artificially low interest rates, as well as government insured mortgages. Therefore this and any other recent recessions cannot be used as an argument against a free market, because we've never actually had a free market. Some deregulation is bad and some regulation is even worse. It's important to not make knee-jerk reactions either way.
On August 29 2011 14:19 An_Hero wrote: American politics itself is a joke. It's not like anything will actually get done with the president that you want. As we've seen, time and time again, politicians always fuck us in the ass.
Right, but the problem is everyone disagrees on how they are fucking us. Some people believe they are fucking us with ever increasing authoritarian control, taxation, and bureaucratic inefficiency. Others complain that the government simply serves the rich and corporations, and should have MORE control.
This is why we REALLY can't get anything done... because we can't agree on what we should actually be doing! So we simply take the worst of both sides: reduce civil liberties under Bush/Republicans, and reduce economic liberties under Obama/Democrats.
On August 27 2011 07:42 ohnoitschrishansen wrote: 4 things that will absolutely earn my vote but no president will ever actually pull off.
1) Repeal the Patriot Act. Whether you love the "security" it provides or you are a terrorist sympathizer this is absolutely directly against the Bill of Rights. 2)Ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Oppressing a culture simply to prevent the possibility they are able to attack us on our own soil. They certainly need a working government and stabilizing the region to prevent possibly falling under Iran's control but at the cost, it is unsustainable. 3) End the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Ridiculous how republicans are for increasing taxes and on the poor/middle classes. 4)Controlling our borders. Illegal immigration not only hurts our economy by taking away jobs from americans but hurts the immigrants themselves. From women being raped by the coyotes to workers rights and safe work conditions. The lack of documentation hurts them just as much as it hurts americans.
--------- Not as important but a big plus. 5) Legalize marijuana/hemp. Having grown/smoked it, I strongly disagree with how this plant is looked at.From drug smugglers and gangs making profit, if we legalized and controlled it, any farmer could turn a profit from it whether it is used to smoke or make textiles from.
So far Ron Paul is as close as it gets but I realize it takes more than a president to give me what I am looking for.
Amen on all of these points. I don't give a damn about the politicians looks or religious beliefs or scientific beliefs, it's these types of policies that matter. Ron Paul is perhaps one of the few politicians in the country who would actually follow through with the principles he espouses instead of giving them lip service and then backpedaling.
I would say that I think simplifying our tax code and closing the many loopholes is actually better and more profitable than simply a higher tax rate on the rich.
On point I want to make regarding issues like evolution, etc... The politicians ACTUAL opinions don't matter, and they probably only rarely match up with what they espouse. When the politicians are campaigning in Iowa, which is more evangelical than most states, they will espouse evangelical positions. So people like Perry will give half-answers in attempt to have it both ways, ie. "I think both should be taught and the students should decide." Then when he gets to states like California he can say "I never said I believe in creationism."
Huntsman is not campaigning in Iowa, which is why he has little fear of coming out and stating he believes in evolution and global warming. He's simply using different tactics and going after different states. You guys gotta look at things from a strategic perspective like they do instead of freaking out and saying "OMG in Iowa they denied evolution!" They are politicians they will say whatever it takes to get votes.
uhh how about stop the trouble alltogether?? Like instead of bicker about rich paying less taxes or taxes not progressive enough... how about fuckin abolish income tax????
0/0/0% tax bracket for everyone. fair to everyone no matter what style u prefer
and thatts what ron paul will do
No taxes is possibly the dumbest thing I can think of. How, pray tell, do you expect there to be these necessary services like the police, firemen, and other emergency services, not to mention road repairs/building and other important things without taxes?
it would all be just private corporations. private police that you'd have to be subscribed to, private roads that would have tolls and potentially some kind of necessary membership to use.
That sounds absolutely awful and terrible. What about people who can't afford to subscribe to private police? They get robbed or attacked, and just have to suck it up? Taxes pay for public roads, if we get rid of all income taxes, where does that money come from? Privatize all roads? Great way to nuke the country.
These questions have been asked and answered.
AnarchoCapitalism in a paragraph: Charities exist, and businesses internalize externalities. Private ownership and competition always benefits consumers. Government is institutionalized violence, taxation is extortion. Market dynamics and the price mechanism provide the most efficient (and ethical) way for people to communicate their desires and have them served. All of this follows from these two assertions: people can own property, and it is wrong to initiate coercion (violence, threats of violence, or fraud) against other people or their property.
None of that gives any concern to equity, which is of non-negligible importance. No, the free market does not work on its own. Deregulation, historically, has lead to issue after issue after issue. The more we free the market, the worse it runs. Sorry, the way people make decisions precludes this from working without leaving a ton of people in the cracks. It flat out doesn't work, and it won't work unless everyone somehow miraculously decides to care about how well the market works as a whole rather than lining their own pockets.
The recent recession was caused by the housing bubble, which inflated investors expectations and caused over-investment in both housing and mortgage backed securities. The bubble had it's beginnings in the federal reserve's policies in 2001 of artificially low interest rates, as well as government insured mortgages. Therefore this and any other recent recessions cannot be used as an argument against a free market, because we've never actually had a free market. Some deregulation is bad and some regulation is even worse. It's important to not make knee-jerk reactions either way.
On August 29 2011 14:19 An_Hero wrote: American politics itself is a joke. It's not like anything will actually get done with the president that you want. As we've seen, time and time again, politicians always fuck us in the ass.
Right, but the problem is everyone disagrees on how they are fucking us. Some people believe they are fucking us with ever increasing authoritarian control, taxation, and bureaucratic inefficiency. Others complain that the government simply serves the rich and corporations, and should have MORE control.
This is why we REALLY can't get anything done... because we can't agree on what we should actually be doing! So we simply take the worst of both sides: reduce civil liberties under Bush/Republicans, and reduce economic liberties under Obama/Democrats.
I should point out that if it wasn't for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, the recent recession never would have happened. Ironically, it was a Republican Congress in 1999 that repealed it (Clinton signed it), and in 2009, Senator John McCain started leading the charge to reinstate it after seeing how much of a disaster it was. Obama tried in 2010 to implement something similar to the Glass-Steagall act but failed (it was a weaker version of it).
Also, I'm not sure I'd qualify "restricting economic liberties" as something bad. After a certain point, yeah, it's bad, but it's a very good thing to have a lot of regulation in place, because frankly, people are greedy assholes who will do whatever they can to get as much money for themselves. Without regulations in place, the market would have failed a long time ago. There's really no question as to whether a certain amount of regulation is a good thing: it's obvious it is. The disagreement comes from how much regulation and in what areas.
The only one I can support at all is Huntsman. I can't even tolerate the rest. I'm from Massachusetts and I remember Romney as governor too vividly. He would often make comments about his position on things in office being based on his religious beliefs, it very strongly influences him. Bachman, Perry, and Ron Paul are all nutjobs, and Guilliani mentions terrorism in nearly every speech, as if he doesn't have anything else to talk about.
“To give abortion-on-demand is to show there is no respect for life,” Paul told the National Right-to-Life Committee's (NRLC) annual convention. “I see abortion as an act of violence so I see it as a state issue. When we make it a national issue, we get what we’ve had.”
so hes an idiot just because you think hes wrong on one unrelated issue?
Whats wrong with the above statement anyway?
"A politician's attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today."
“To give abortion-on-demand is to show there is no respect for life,” Paul told the National Right-to-Life Committee's (NRLC) annual convention. “I see abortion as an act of violence so I see it as a state issue. When we make it a national issue, we get what we’ve had.”
so hes an idiot just because you think hes wrong on one unrelated issue?
Whats wrong with the above statement anyway?
"A politician's attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today."
- Dawkins.
That quote by dawkins is fallacious. I believe that evolution is real, but just cos someone doesn't believe in it doesn't make him uncultivated, or inadequate. That's pure intellectual snobbery right there.
And again, how is this relevant to the election? I still don't understand why Americans give a shit about all these trivial matters when voting for their politicians. Does any other country in the world determine their leaders based on their stance on abortion or evolution?
EPT
