G.W. Bush - no idea about foreign politics- 2.0 :D?
People need to stop letting themselves be swept away in such trivial nonesense.
In London he said that he wasn't sure if they were ready yet. Oke, that isn't the answer people wanted him to give, they wanted him to jump up and down like a monkey and give two thumbs up. For a change the guy gives what seems like an honest answer instead of giving the populist reply, and they bash him.
In Poland he wasn't even the guy to make the mistake.
In Israel he said that Israel flourished as a result of its culture, whereas its neighbours struggled because of their culture. It isn't a popular position, but there does seem to be a point to it. Israel does outperform its neighbours to such a degree that you have to wonder what the deal is. There has to be some systemic difference that explains those differences, and culture can indeed be one of those.
Does it reflect on his foreign politics? No. It reflects on people's need for cheap headlines and simple narratives.
It is hard to not be amused when you see people complain that politicians are liars, but when they give their honest opinion, they get bashed for it.
Wait a minute now. At first glance you might say that Israel as a culture that allowed it to prosper compared to other Middle Eastern nations, because it is more prosperous than some of them. But then you start to pay more attention to the issue. First of all that's not what Romney said. He said that Israel's culture is superior to that of the Palestinian Territories, because of GDP. That's not a very solid point to make, if you look at how much foreign aid Israel has received compared to Palestine (plogamer mentioned that). Then there's the fact that Israel has set up land as well as sea blockade, making it near impossible for the Palestinians to ex/import anything which would allow their economy to grow. You also have them steadily eroding Palestinian land (taking it away) to make room for Israeli settlers or as safety zones, demolishing villages in the process. Even if you weren't comparing it to Palestine, the argument would make no sense, since there are plenty of Middle Eastern nations with much greater GDP per capita than Israel, mainly rich, oil exporting countries. According to Romney's logic, their culture would now be superior to Israel's. It doesn't work this way. You can't make a judgement like that without examining the history of the country (where is it moving and why?) while basing it on GDP.
In Israel he does the exact thing that people, apparently, wanted him to do in London.
In London he gives a straight answer, he does pay lip-service, he says what he feels.
In Israel he praises Israel, regardless of any sense of reality.
The guy can't win. He is honest in England? Fuck him. He panders in Israel? Fuck him.
I still wouldn't call his comments in Israel an actual mistake. Siding with the Palestinians would have been a real political mistake. You can attack his comments on whether they paint an accurate portrait, but you can't say they are a political mistake considering Israel is pretty popular in America.
I think speaking of superior and inferior cultures is extremely unpopular, because it is a throwback to old views people had, and it brushes up against racism. So, using those charged words is always bad when aiming for office, but praising Israel is a good move when you want to be president of the US.
Are you serious? His comment on Israel are just stupid. There are ways of sidings with people. Being idiot is not one of them. The video from the young turk says it all, does arabic countries with higher GDP than Israel have a "better culture" ? I think everybody knows the obvious response to that idiotic question. There are people on this very forum that take the side of Israel and who have better arguments than the running republican candidate for the presidency of the united state of america.
Being smarter, or having the better arguments, are in no way reflective of a person's ability to win an election.
Again, when talking politics, it doesn't matter whether his comment has any basis in reality. It doesn't matter if he pissed off Palestinians either. You can win votes by supporting Israel, you can't win any serious amount by siding with the Palestinians.
It might sound cynical, but in terms of politics it wasn't a real mistake, regardless of whether it is true or not.
On August 01 2012 23:38 mijagi182 wrote: To be honest i dont think Romney and his crew are producing much more facepalm moments than any other american establishment in regard of foreign policy. Even Obama has his huge moment elaborating about "Polish Deathcamps" when decorating Jan Karski (post mortem) with Presidential Medal of Freedom.
That may be true - but Romney right now is under the microscope for his foreign policies and actions. He deliberately went on this trip to prove he won't make gaffes and he can make friends. If his campaign was completely and utterly serious about that, they really should have made sure he would toe the middle line whenever possible.
He doesn't need to "side" with people - he just needs to instill confidence that he won't make stupid comments. Heck, praise the Israelis! Just don't put it in a way that contrasts it with their mortal enemies.
On August 01 2012 13:03 DoubleReed wrote: Eh, the fact is that race is a biological myth. There's no real basis for race in biology or genetics. The genetic distance between 'races' is smaller than the genetic variability within a 'race.' So the delineation is basically meaningless. It would be like organizing people by eye color, facial structure, height, or skin pigmentation. A white person has something like a 10% chance to be closer to the average African than the average European. That's pretty high, when you think about it. I found a source that was really good at explaining the race myth, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
But yea, the belief that race is genetically insignificant actually has a huge basis in science. It is much more surprising than you would initially suspect.
How are you defining "race," if not by skin pigmentation?
Well, skin pigmentation doesn't make sense. Island tribes and aboriginese can have similar skin pigmentation but be genetically further from one another and such. Typically race refers to several features rather than just skin pigments. Facial and body types and such are usually grouped in there.
Oh and sunprince, if you make it more specific than race then yes sure it works better. But even at it's height racial features are something like 4% or something. These are more like genetic markers than serious scientific racism or anything. There's really nothing to support that kind of thing. So I'm not really sure why you're acting as if what you're saying is offensive. Because the actual science really isn't.
Like you're being all like "neener neener truth hurts" but either you don't understand it yourself or you're terrible at explaining to others. Because it really isn't offensive. There's really no political correctness going on at all. People are just better at describing things now.
In this thread, we have two people accusing me of racism because I presented a coherent, logical explanation for some of the disparities between different American ethnic groups. That's pretty much the epitome of polical correctness gone awry.
I certainly don't find the science offensive, but they apparently do.
I don't have the slightest problem with population genetics, but nothing in that field so much as hints at your theory. Your theory is nothing more than non-expert speculation with no serious evidence to back it up.
I don't think it's unscientific to ask that you actually have evidence rather than speculation when you claim that African Americans are innately cognitively inferior to the rest of Americans. I also don't think it's crazy to myself speculate that the reason so many people seem to enjoy such baseless speculation lies with the well documented implicit biases that society ingrains in us.
As far as Israel goes, Israel = Florida, and 29 swing state electoral votes. That's all you need to know. And about as deep an analysis as anyone needs to make. There is no concievable 270 electoral solution for Romney that does not include Florida.
"While only 3.4 percent of Floridians are Jewish, Jews are probably five to eight percent of voters and most elections are won by two to eight percentage points," Ira Sheskin, the director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami, said in The Jerusalem Post in March. He pointed out that 78 percent of the Jewish vote nationally went for Obama in 2008, and noted Florida's 29 electoral votes.
Jobs data coming out in the next week and a half will overshadow anything and everything Mitt did/said overseas. I don't see any independent voter sitting there in the voting booth taking a deep breath and thinking.. "Well Mitt pissed off the Brits 3 months ago, I'm voting Obama" or "Well Mitt panders to much to Israel, I'm voting Obama".
Today's ADP number of +163,000 isn't great, when you consider the official number is now expected to be ~100,000 next Friday...that would effectively be a loss of jobs (as a % of population), when you take into account monthly population growth.
Jobs/economy will be the deciding issue for Romney.
On August 01 2012 13:03 DoubleReed wrote: Eh, the fact is that race is a biological myth. There's no real basis for race in biology or genetics. The genetic distance between 'races' is smaller than the genetic variability within a 'race.' So the delineation is basically meaningless. It would be like organizing people by eye color, facial structure, height, or skin pigmentation. A white person has something like a 10% chance to be closer to the average African than the average European. That's pretty high, when you think about it. I found a source that was really good at explaining the race myth, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
But yea, the belief that race is genetically insignificant actually has a huge basis in science. It is much more surprising than you would initially suspect.
How are you defining "race," if not by skin pigmentation?
Well, skin pigmentation doesn't make sense. Island tribes and aboriginese can have similar skin pigmentation but be genetically further from one another and such. Typically race refers to several features rather than just skin pigments. Facial and body types and such are usually grouped in there.
Oh and sunprince, if you make it more specific than race then yes sure it works better. But even at it's height racial features are something like 4% or something. These are more like genetic markers than serious scientific racism or anything. There's really nothing to support that kind of thing. So I'm not really sure why you're acting as if what you're saying is offensive. Because the actual science really isn't.
Like you're being all like "neener neener truth hurts" but either you don't understand it yourself or you're terrible at explaining to others. Because it really isn't offensive. There's really no political correctness going on at all. People are just better at describing things now.
In this thread, we have two people accusing me of racism because I presented a coherent, logical explanation for some of the disparities between different American ethnic groups. That's pretty much the epitome of polical correctness gone awry.
I certainly don't find the science offensive, but they apparently do.
It's not coherent, nor logical, it's just plain racist. It has been disproven ages ago that such theories were incorrect. So now it is "political correctness" to just shows how stupid, uneducated and racist you are digging such old theories. Interesting.
On August 01 2012 13:03 DoubleReed wrote: Eh, the fact is that race is a biological myth. There's no real basis for race in biology or genetics. The genetic distance between 'races' is smaller than the genetic variability within a 'race.' So the delineation is basically meaningless. It would be like organizing people by eye color, facial structure, height, or skin pigmentation. A white person has something like a 10% chance to be closer to the average African than the average European. That's pretty high, when you think about it. I found a source that was really good at explaining the race myth, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
But yea, the belief that race is genetically insignificant actually has a huge basis in science. It is much more surprising than you would initially suspect.
How are you defining "race," if not by skin pigmentation?
Well, skin pigmentation doesn't make sense. Island tribes and aboriginese can have similar skin pigmentation but be genetically further from one another and such. Typically race refers to several features rather than just skin pigments. Facial and body types and such are usually grouped in there.
Oh and sunprince, if you make it more specific than race then yes sure it works better. But even at it's height racial features are something like 4% or something. These are more like genetic markers than serious scientific racism or anything. There's really nothing to support that kind of thing. So I'm not really sure why you're acting as if what you're saying is offensive. Because the actual science really isn't.
Like you're being all like "neener neener truth hurts" but either you don't understand it yourself or you're terrible at explaining to others. Because it really isn't offensive. There's really no political correctness going on at all. People are just better at describing things now.
In this thread, we have two people accusing me of racism because I presented a coherent, logical explanation for some of the disparities between different American ethnic groups. That's pretty much the epitome of polical correctness gone awry.
I certainly don't find the science offensive, but they apparently do.
It's not coherent, nor logical, it's just plain racist. It has been disproven ages ago that such theories were incorrect. So now it is "political correctness" to just shows how stupid, uneducated and racist you are digging such old theories. Interesting.
There's nothing racist about it. The studies are inconclusive. I've seen them go both ways. It's just a shame that some people are so intellectually small so as to demonize the research. It is what it is, regardless of how it is ultimately determined.
On August 01 2012 13:03 DoubleReed wrote: Eh, the fact is that race is a biological myth. There's no real basis for race in biology or genetics. The genetic distance between 'races' is smaller than the genetic variability within a 'race.' So the delineation is basically meaningless. It would be like organizing people by eye color, facial structure, height, or skin pigmentation. A white person has something like a 10% chance to be closer to the average African than the average European. That's pretty high, when you think about it. I found a source that was really good at explaining the race myth, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
But yea, the belief that race is genetically insignificant actually has a huge basis in science. It is much more surprising than you would initially suspect.
How are you defining "race," if not by skin pigmentation?
Well, skin pigmentation doesn't make sense. Island tribes and aboriginese can have similar skin pigmentation but be genetically further from one another and such. Typically race refers to several features rather than just skin pigments. Facial and body types and such are usually grouped in there.
Oh and sunprince, if you make it more specific than race then yes sure it works better. But even at it's height racial features are something like 4% or something. These are more like genetic markers than serious scientific racism or anything. There's really nothing to support that kind of thing. So I'm not really sure why you're acting as if what you're saying is offensive. Because the actual science really isn't.
Like you're being all like "neener neener truth hurts" but either you don't understand it yourself or you're terrible at explaining to others. Because it really isn't offensive. There's really no political correctness going on at all. People are just better at describing things now.
In this thread, we have two people accusing me of racism because I presented a coherent, logical explanation for some of the disparities between different American ethnic groups. That's pretty much the epitome of polical correctness gone awry.
I certainly don't find the science offensive, but they apparently do.
It's not coherent, nor logical, it's just plain racist. It has been disproven ages ago that such theories were incorrect. So now it is "political correctness" to just shows how stupid, uneducated and racist you are digging such old theories. Interesting.
There's nothing racist about it. The studies are inconclusive. I've seen them go both ways. It's just a shame that some people are so intellectually small so as to demonize the research. It is what it is, regardless of how it is ultimately determined.
No, it really doesn't work that way. There is no evidence that such a theory is correct or even plausible, even after the sheer amounts of population genetics that we have discovered. It's like treating creationism as credible theory.
And the idea that sunprince immediately thought that such research shows racist ideas to be true (when, if anything, it shows that they are false) does not speak very highly of him in terms of implicit biases.
Anyway, I'm done beating up on him for now. Hopefully he won't give in to Pride and double down.
It's actually kind of hilarious how incredibly fucked Romney is because of a trip that was supposed to make him more appealing. The guy just doesn't know when to be quiet.
On August 02 2012 00:34 RCMDVA wrote: As far as Israel goes, Israel = Florida, and 29 swing state electoral votes. That's all you need to know. And about as deep an analysis as anyone needs to make. There is no concievable 270 electoral solution for Romney that does not include Florida.
"While only 3.4 percent of Floridians are Jewish, Jews are probably five to eight percent of voters and most elections are won by two to eight percentage points," Ira Sheskin, the director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami, said in The Jerusalem Post in March. He pointed out that 78 percent of the Jewish vote nationally went for Obama in 2008, and noted Florida's 29 electoral votes.
Jobs data coming out in the next week and a half will overshadow anything and everything Mitt did/said overseas. I don't see any independent voter sitting there in the voting booth taking a deep breath and thinking.. "Well Mitt pissed off the Brits 3 months ago, I'm voting Obama" or "Well Mitt panders to much to Israel, I'm voting Obama".
Today's ADP number of +163,000 isn't great, when you consider the official number is now expected to be ~100,000 next Friday...that would effectively be a loss of jobs (as a % of population), when you take into account monthly population growth.
Jobs/economy will be the deciding issue for Romney.
I'm not very familiar with voting behavior of different populations in the U.S., but you said yourself that Obama got about 80% of the Jewish vote in 2008, and he increased U.S. aid to Israel dramatically. Romney might try to win over Jewish voters, but I think he's more likely trying to appeal to the usual, fundamentally Christian conservative base. But most of all I think that it's about the money, as it is so often. Remember the statistics pointing out that in what, 90% of cases the candidate with more campaign money wins? Watch this (timer):
Apparently Sheldon Adelson was watching Romney closely, and offered the prospect of an additional $100 million contribution to the Romney campaign. He also happens to own an Israeli newspaper, so it would seem that he has a vested interest in this topic.
On August 02 2012 00:34 RCMDVA wrote: As far as Israel goes, Israel = Florida, and 29 swing state electoral votes. That's all you need to know. And about as deep an analysis as anyone needs to make. There is no concievable 270 electoral solution for Romney that does not include Florida.
"While only 3.4 percent of Floridians are Jewish, Jews are probably five to eight percent of voters and most elections are won by two to eight percentage points," Ira Sheskin, the director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami, said in The Jerusalem Post in March. He pointed out that 78 percent of the Jewish vote nationally went for Obama in 2008, and noted Florida's 29 electoral votes.
Jobs data coming out in the next week and a half will overshadow anything and everything Mitt did/said overseas. I don't see any independent voter sitting there in the voting booth taking a deep breath and thinking.. "Well Mitt pissed off the Brits 3 months ago, I'm voting Obama" or "Well Mitt panders to much to Israel, I'm voting Obama".
Today's ADP number of +163,000 isn't great, when you consider the official number is now expected to be ~100,000 next Friday...that would effectively be a loss of jobs (as a % of population), when you take into account monthly population growth.
Jobs/economy will be the deciding issue for Romney.
I'm not very familiar with voting behavior of different populations in the U.S., but you said yourself that Obama got about 80% of the Jewish vote in 2008, and he increased U.S. aid to Israel dramatically. Romney might try to win over Jewish voters, but I think he's more likely trying to appeal to the usual, fundamentally Christian conservative base. But most of all I think that it's about the money, as it is so often. Remember the statistics pointing out that in what, 90% of cases the candidate with more campaign money wins? Watch this (timer): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ak2YLdszs#t=390s
Apparently Sheldon Adelson was watching Romney closely, and offered the prospect of an additional $100 million contribution to the Romney campaign. He also happens to own an Israeli newspaper, so it would seem that he has a vested interest in this topic.
Glad to see in record unemployment and economic hardships, billionaires can find so much money to play with the future of our country in some sort of twisted game.
Romney is probably the most unmarketable candidate to have ever graced the presidential election as long as I can remember. It depresses me that some people actually take this guy seriously. Not that Obama is particularly an attractive candidate but he's certainly a better alternative than this superficial bigot.
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney hailed Poland's economy Tuesday as something akin to a Republican dream: a place of small government, individual empowerment and free enterprise.
While it's true that Poland is one of Europe's fastest-growing economies and boasts dynamic entrepreneurs, Romney's depiction of Poland as a place of small government is debatable. Even 23 years after throwing off a communist command economy, the Polish government continues to have a strong presence in people's lives: it gives women $300 for each baby they have, doubling that sum for poor families; it fully funds state university educations; and it guarantees health care to all its 38 million citizens.
And while Poland's economic growth has certainly been impressive in recent years, this is partly the result of economic redistribution in the form of subsidies that have been flowing in from the European Union since it joined the bloc in 2004...
That article wasn't very good. Just because Poland has a slightly larger government than the US doesn't mean you can't praise them for their success. They used to be communists, now they are capitalists - other communist countries have had a much tougher time with the transition. That is worthy of praise, is it not?
Sounds like reporters are playing the game of "give us more news or we'll make up our own".
In his praise of Poland, Romney conveniently forgets to mention the important role of the government in the economic success the country is enjoying. Why would it be bias or distortion to notice this? Imagine a candidate X is advocating policy A and criticizing policy B. Policy A & B together bring success to another country. Candidate X visits the country and says the success of the country is owed to policy A, which he happens to also advocate at home, and does not mention the role of policy B. It would be bias to mention that he conveniently left out the role of policy B?
I also like how this is in direct succession to his praise of the Israeli healthcare system, which happens to work thanks to heavy government intervention.
Romney is not advocating that government offers zero benefits to society. So he doesn't need to mention that government offers benefits to society.
Romney was using Poland as an example of an economy that grew during a period of declining government involvement. Romney also used Poland as an example of an economy that is growing without ballooning government debt. These two points are in line with Romney's platform (smaller government, smaller deficits).
The size of Poland's government is irrelevant to either point.
No, the size of Poland's government is certainly not irrelevant. When you say Romney advocates "smaller government", he advocates "smaller government" than what is currently found in the United States. Since in some ways the Polish government is actually bigger (proportionately) than its US counterpart (see the article) and has played a considerable role in the current economic situation of the country, it would be disingenuous to defend the idea (as Romney is implicitly doing in his speech, as was pointed out in the article) that Poland's story indicates that "smaller government" is the way to go for the US. In fact, it would indicate the opposite, namely that bigger government would be the way to go for the US.
You can't simply say "hey look, this economy grew during a period of declining government involvement, this is in line with my platform", when the points of departure in terms of government involvement are completely different. In fact, if we look at total government expenditure as a percentage of GDP, the point of arrival for Poland (44 percent of GDP) is higher than the point of departure for the US (41 percent).
On August 01 2012 12:15 JonnyBNoHo wrote: As for Israel's health care - Romney's point was to praise Israel's lower health care costs.
Lower health care costs is not what Obamacare provides. Obamacare is about increasing coverage but will do little to lower costs. The fact that government is involved in lowering healthcare costs is irrelevant because Romney is not advocating zero government involvement in healthcare.
Lower health costs are in Israel notably the result of the role the country's national government plays in healthcare. Romney has advocated going in the opposite direction (less national government in healthcare). Can't you see the contradiction in him praising the Israeli healthcare system?
His only point was that Poland grew while the government shrunk and debt was kept in check. He was NOT using Poland as an example of a small government.
If you want to argue that points of departure matter than you are making a counter argument - and a debatable one at that. Just because you don't agree with his point doesn't mean that he can't make it. Nor is he required to list all possible criticisms to his point in the middle of the speech.
At this point I'm going to need you to go read Romney's comments again. He was very clearly using Poland as an example that limiting government intervention in the economy brings success, and implicitly drawing a parallel with his own platform. I explained why this was disingenuous - government plays in some respects a bigger role in the economy in Poland than in the US, and government intervention played a role in Poland's economic success.
No, I'm not going to read his comments again. I read the entire speech. You seem to be hung up on an article that is taking certain comments out of context. He pointed out in his speech that the private sector was 65% of the economy. The "heavy hand of government" and the "government dominated economy" he referred to was a communist government that controlled 85% of the economy.
On August 01 2012 13:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote: As for healthcare, just because Romney is advocating against a specific form of government involvement (Obamacare) doesn't mean that he has to advocate against all government forms of government involvement.
In case you haven't been following the campaign, Romney has very clearly put the emphasis on denouncing "socialized healthcare" and government intervention in healthcare. That he would praise a healthcare system that is socialized and that features government intervention in healthcare is therefore contradictory, as is correctly pointed out in Ezra Klein's article.
The debate over healthcare is more than just "private" vs "socialized" (two extremely generalized terms) healthcare - it is about fixing a healthcare system that doesn't work too well. The two main issues are coverage and cost. Obamacare (mostly) solves the coverage issue but does little on the cost side.
"We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs."
He was pointing out that healthcare costs in the US are too high. How we lower those costs is up for debate - there are MANY different healthcare systems around the world that we can emulate to make that happen (some 'socialized', some not). But Obamacare itself won't make that happen.
Is it a little wonky to use Israel as the example? Sure... but he was there. If this was in the middle of a debate it would be a bad example - and Obama would call him out on it. But since he was in Israel, the comparison is fine and the criticism is over the top.
On August 02 2012 02:00 synapse wrote: It's actually kind of hilarious how incredibly fucked Romney is because of a trip that was supposed to make him more appealing. The guy just doesn't know when to be quiet.
If you're speaking of his Olympics gaffe, I'd like to point out that he was basically right. For example, there is a thread right now of the badminton players who were expelled for throwing games (for easier seeding). I'm not saying "if only they'd listened to Romney," but given how much a stir his remarks created, I think some of the critics have to be scratching their heads. "Gee, maybe we shouldn't have been so hard on him," as things have not gone perfectly.
It was still probably an out-of-place thing to say (and quite obvious, in hindsight), but it would just be nice for some acknowledgement of fault by those who don't have an election to lose. Even my newspaper, the Denver Post, printed an article about some of the Olmpyic issues, like "where the heck is the torch?" barking dogs (I assume he mentioned this as it could be a popular complaint, like Vuvuzelas were), scaffolding, and a very stressed "Lord Sebastian Coe," a former Olympian now running the Games. Similarly, this article didn't bother to cut any slack for Romney, not even a wry aside.
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney hailed Poland's economy Tuesday as something akin to a Republican dream: a place of small government, individual empowerment and free enterprise.
While it's true that Poland is one of Europe's fastest-growing economies and boasts dynamic entrepreneurs, Romney's depiction of Poland as a place of small government is debatable. Even 23 years after throwing off a communist command economy, the Polish government continues to have a strong presence in people's lives: it gives women $300 for each baby they have, doubling that sum for poor families; it fully funds state university educations; and it guarantees health care to all its 38 million citizens.
And while Poland's economic growth has certainly been impressive in recent years, this is partly the result of economic redistribution in the form of subsidies that have been flowing in from the European Union since it joined the bloc in 2004...
That article wasn't very good. Just because Poland has a slightly larger government than the US doesn't mean you can't praise them for their success. They used to be communists, now they are capitalists - other communist countries have had a much tougher time with the transition. That is worthy of praise, is it not?
Sounds like reporters are playing the game of "give us more news or we'll make up our own".
In his praise of Poland, Romney conveniently forgets to mention the important role of the government in the economic success the country is enjoying. Why would it be bias or distortion to notice this? Imagine a candidate X is advocating policy A and criticizing policy B. Policy A & B together bring success to another country. Candidate X visits the country and says the success of the country is owed to policy A, which he happens to also advocate at home, and does not mention the role of policy B. It would be bias to mention that he conveniently left out the role of policy B?
I also like how this is in direct succession to his praise of the Israeli healthcare system, which happens to work thanks to heavy government intervention.
Romney is not advocating that government offers zero benefits to society. So he doesn't need to mention that government offers benefits to society.
Romney was using Poland as an example of an economy that grew during a period of declining government involvement. Romney also used Poland as an example of an economy that is growing without ballooning government debt. These two points are in line with Romney's platform (smaller government, smaller deficits).
The size of Poland's government is irrelevant to either point.
No, the size of Poland's government is certainly not irrelevant. When you say Romney advocates "smaller government", he advocates "smaller government" than what is currently found in the United States. Since in some ways the Polish government is actually bigger (proportionately) than its US counterpart (see the article) and has played a considerable role in the current economic situation of the country, it would be disingenuous to defend the idea (as Romney is implicitly doing in his speech, as was pointed out in the article) that Poland's story indicates that "smaller government" is the way to go for the US. In fact, it would indicate the opposite, namely that bigger government would be the way to go for the US.
You can't simply say "hey look, this economy grew during a period of declining government involvement, this is in line with my platform", when the points of departure in terms of government involvement are completely different. In fact, if we look at total government expenditure as a percentage of GDP, the point of arrival for Poland (44 percent of GDP) is higher than the point of departure for the US (41 percent).
On August 01 2012 12:15 JonnyBNoHo wrote: As for Israel's health care - Romney's point was to praise Israel's lower health care costs.
Lower health care costs is not what Obamacare provides. Obamacare is about increasing coverage but will do little to lower costs. The fact that government is involved in lowering healthcare costs is irrelevant because Romney is not advocating zero government involvement in healthcare.
Lower health costs are in Israel notably the result of the role the country's national government plays in healthcare. Romney has advocated going in the opposite direction (less national government in healthcare). Can't you see the contradiction in him praising the Israeli healthcare system?
His only point was that Poland grew while the government shrunk and debt was kept in check. He was NOT using Poland as an example of a small government.
If you want to argue that points of departure matter than you are making a counter argument - and a debatable one at that. Just because you don't agree with his point doesn't mean that he can't make it. Nor is he required to list all possible criticisms to his point in the middle of the speech.
At this point I'm going to need you to go read Romney's comments again. He was very clearly using Poland as an example that limiting government intervention in the economy brings success, and implicitly drawing a parallel with his own platform. I explained why this was disingenuous - government plays in some respects a bigger role in the economy in Poland than in the US, and government intervention played a role in Poland's economic success.
No, I'm not going to read his comments again. I read the entire speech. You seem to be hung up on an article that is taking certain comments out of context. He pointed out in his speech that the private sector was 65% of the economy. The "heavy hand of government" and the "government dominated economy" he referred to was a communist government that controlled 85% of the economy.
No, the article analyzes his comments pertaining to the Polish economy, it certainly does not take them out of context. You said yourself that the points he was making about Poland were in line with his platform for the US (notably his push for "smaller government"). What I and the article are arguing is that he conveniently left out of his assessment of what contributed to making Poland's economy successful what is NOT in his platform, namely government intervention. If he was simply saying "hey, good job for moving from communism to capitalism", you'd have a point. But he wasn't, so you don't. He very clearly identified several factors that contributed to Poland's success not just as opposed to communist states but as opposed to other states in general, communist or not. And he purposively left out the factors that contradict his own platform.
On August 01 2012 13:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote: As for healthcare, just because Romney is advocating against a specific form of government involvement (Obamacare) doesn't mean that he has to advocate against all government forms of government involvement.
In case you haven't been following the campaign, Romney has very clearly put the emphasis on denouncing "socialized healthcare" and government intervention in healthcare. That he would praise a healthcare system that is socialized and that features government intervention in healthcare is therefore contradictory, as is correctly pointed out in Ezra Klein's article.
The debate over healthcare is more than just "private" vs "socialized" (two extremely generalized terms) healthcare - it is about fixing a healthcare system that doesn't work too well. The two main issues are coverage and cost. Obamacare (mostly) solves the coverage issue but does little on the cost side.
"We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs."
He was pointing out that healthcare costs in the US are too high. How we lower those costs is up for debate - there are MANY different healthcare systems around the world that we can emulate to make that happen (some 'socialized', some not). But Obamacare itself won't make that happen.
Is it a little wonky to use Israel as the example? Sure... but he was there. If this was in the middle of a debate it would be a bad example - and Obama would call him out on it. But since he was in Israel, the comparison is fine and the criticism is over the top.
I know the debate over healthcare is more than just "private" vs "socialized". The point is that Romney has been pushing in the direction OPPOSED to the direction the Israeli healthcare system that he's praising took. Do you understand this, yes or no?
In response to the people who refuse to see the point about Israel.
It's not that he praised Israel that is the issue. That's 100% A-OK. It's that he praised Israel by comparing it to Palestine, a place hindered by Israel's controls.
Again. It's not that he praised Israel. It's that he praise Israel by bashing another country that is partly in it's current situation b/c of Israel.
Last time. It's not that he praised Israel. It's that he praised Israel while at the same time putting down Palestine at a time when he should be trying to keep the peace.
On August 02 2012 03:18 DoubleReed wrote: So when do debates start? I'm looking forward to the foreign policy debate.
The economy is going to be a wash, maybe slightly in Romney's favor. Foreign policy will lean to Obama b/c of not only Romney's recent actions, but his wanting war while dodging military service. Social issues will lean to Obama b/c of Republican insistence on gays being subhuman. Science is a toss-up, but I think Obama wins b/c Republicans believe in private sector science research outside of military spending.
I'm missing some topics, but we'll see where this leads. In the debates Romney will portray himself as different from the current president, and Obama will try to imply that since he doesn't need to worry about reelection his second term will be much more liberal leaning than his first.
Edit: Obama will win the debates. Whites will vote Romney, everyone else will vote Obama.
On August 02 2012 03:18 DoubleReed wrote: So when do debates start? I'm looking forward to the foreign policy debate.
The economy is going to be a wash, maybe slightly in Romney's favor. Foreign policy will lean to Obama b/c of not only Romney's recent actions, but his wanting war while dodging military service. Social issues will lean to Obama b/c of Republican insistence on gays being subhuman. Science is a toss-up, but I think Obama wins b/c Republicans believe in private sector science research outside of military spending.
I'm missing some topics, but we'll see where this leads. In the debates Romney will portray himself as different from the current president, and Obama will try to imply that since he doesn't need to worry about reelection his second term will be much more liberal leaning than his first.
Edit: Obama will win the debates. Whites will vote Romney, everyone else will vote Obama.
I was never impressed with Romney's public speaking skills, nor his arguments during the Republican primary debates. He was always behind Santorum in speaking energy, Ron Paul in facts and rebuttals, and Gingrich in sheer meanness. I do not think he can actually debate against Obama...
EPT
