US Politics Mega-thread - Page 269

On May 31 2013 12:13 Wegandi wrote:


I think it's pretty silly to get permission to cross 'borders'. It should be up to individual property owners to decide 'immigration' matters. Anyone should be free to come and go as they please. This has nothing to do with jurisdiction, since every person within the 'borders' of the US falls under US jurisdiction. This comes part and parcel with free-trade. Open-borders, free movement of goods, services, labor, and people. Doesn't mean you have to give them a vote, or citizenship, or whatever other privilege. Equating the two is a non-sequitur.

On May 31 2013 12:30 coverpunch wrote:

But immigration registration is about the government knowing who is within our borders and ensuring public safety by preventing people with felony criminal records or drugs or who intend to do harm from entering the country. People are free to enter the United States, but that freedom is not absolute.

On May 31 2013 08:47 koreasilver wrote:
I see that this thread never has the lack of people you can't take seriously at all. Makes me remember why I stopped visiting. Hilarious but a pure waste of my time.

On May 31 2013 12:51 BioNova wrote:



No offense Mr Silver, I enjoy your posts. I'd be glad to have this discussion in any venue other than this thread. TS,Vent PM, a nice game of sc2 while you beat my face in. Currently I am about 9-10 shots deep on some vodka. However, do you remember the 2012 election thread? Sure Farva and DEB, and Stealth and Falling all still have nightmares(not really), but waste a half-hour watching Ben Swann's(some outlets just didn't cover it, period.) election coverage. Get to know the GOP of today.

I'm not from Rothbard's Libertarian Wing, I'm from the new 'cope with the real' of today branch which means heavy compromise. It also brings about a realness to our situation as a country. Do I think SS and Welfare should be cut nope, not now. Perhaps when Unemployment is at 2-4%. Military, Yep. Wegandi and me differ heavily in this regards, tho I respect his adherence to lib doctrine, and Rothbard is no slouch. The U.S needs a viable third party if for nothing else but to rattle the base of the two parties of corporate-sponsored slumber. I cannot vouch for every wacky racist the might be hiding in the wings, but I will advocate Gov Responsibility, accountability, transparency, and rule-of-law from the libertarian viewpoint till another party actually display's that's what they represent. Fair enough? /respect

On May 31 2013 12:26 Wegandi wrote:


Obviously we're talking about peaceful individuals, not organized military forces...I didn't think I had to point out the obvious. Besides, you would probably think it crazy to abolish standing army, and rely on market-defense or community militia's, yet, Costa Rica did just that and is doing just fine.

Also, whoever said that Communism was the ideal form societal construct? Communists themselves lol?

On May 31 2013 13:00 Wegandi wrote:


To be fair, I'm willing to compromise. I'll take City-State Republicanism. That's about as far as I'll go though. :p

The libertarian movement has been chided by William F. Buckley, Jr., for failing to use its "strategic intelligence" in facing the major problems of our time. We have, indeed, been too often prone to "pursue our busy little seminars on whether or not to demunicipalize the garbage collectors" (as Buckley has contemptuously written), while ignoring and failing to apply libertarian theory to the most vital problem of our time: war and peace. There is a sense in which libertarians have been utopian rather than strategic in their thinking, with a tendency to divorce the ideal system which we envisage from the realities of the world in which we live. In short, too many of us have divorced theory from practice, and have then been content to hold the pure libertarian society as an abstract ideal for some remotely future time, while in the concrete world of today we follow unthinkingly the orthodox "conservative" line. To live liberty, to begin the hard but essential strategic struggle of changing the unsatisfactory world of today in the direction of our ideals, we must realize and demonstrate to the world that libertarian theory can be brought sharply to bear upon all of the world's crucial problems. By coming to grips with these problems, we can demonstrate that libertarianism is not just a beautiful ideal somewhere on Cloud Nine, but a tough-minded body of truths that enables us to take our stand and to cope with the whole host of issues of our day.

On May 31 2013 13:12 BioNova wrote:

Haha, You have to admit, from the Libertarian perspective, State-sponsored aggression is the least desirable outcome



One of the most agreeable things he(Rothbard) wrote that is applicable to the world of today. Despite Rand Paul's breaks with his father I will support him till he reveals to me he was gaming lib's and not the republican base. Ain't that the real of the "Libertarians of today. So sad.

SEATTLE -- Washington state businessmen who say they're trying to create the first national brand of marijuana received some heartfelt support Thursday from the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox.

Fox appeared at a news conference in Seattle, where he recounted how the war on drugs has ravaged his country and praised the states of Washington and Colorado for voting to legalize the recreational use of marijuana last fall.

At the news conference, former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively discussed his plans to launch a new marijuana brand named for his great-great grandfather, Diego Pellicer. He says his company is joining forces with a Washington state chain of medical marijuana dispensaries run by John Davis, the Northwest Patient Resource Center, as well as dispensaries in Colorado and California.

Shively's planned investment will total $100 million over three years, according to the Stranger.

"This historic step today is to be observed and evaluated closely by all of us, because it is a game changer," Fox said. "I applaud this group that has the courage to move ahead. They have the vision, they are clear where they're going, and I'm sure they're going to get there."

Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive who was Mexico's president from 2000-06, specified that he's not involved in the venture. He appeared at Shively's invitation. The two first met 13 years ago, when a company Shively used to run was opening a computer center in Sinaloa and Fox appeared at the inauguration, Shively said.

On May 31 2013 07:45 KwarK wrote:

On the contrary I think socially liberal and economically conservative, and its counterpart would both be viable alliances. The current alliances of social and economic policy in the Republican and Democratic party aren't uniquely good bedfellows. For example the Hispanic bloc are generally pretty hardcore Catholics who fall into the socially conservative group but due to their reliance on state support they vote Democrat against their social principles. Likewise a lot of groups who are socially liberal, such as those who care about gay rights, women's issues and so forth but are economically conservative are turned off by the Republican party.

You could reverse it and make a small government libertarian party and a "family values" big government party without changing much, both parties are uneasy alliances of two very separate ideological groups.

On June 01 2013 01:03 farvacola wrote:


With Bachmann not running, Jim Graves pulls out of 6th District race

lol really seems suspicious that he's bowing out of politics with language like that. Still, good on ya Jim.

On May 17 2013 02:57 xDaunt wrote:

On what point specifically?

House conservatives have invited several Republican senators to a closed-door policy meeting next week that will feature representatives from both sides of the immigration debate, National Journal reported on Friday.

Three senators, who each have different stances on immigration reform, had confirmed their attendance as of Friday: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

The meeting, hosted by the Republican Study Committee, will be moderated by the committee's chair, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).

This is the first significant bicameral discussion on immigration reform, according to the Journal, and will be a test for Rubio as he tries to win over reform skeptics within his own party.

Democrats, who hope to pass immigration legislation before the July 4 recess, think it will be "pretty easy" to get the legislation through the Senate.

“I talked about this to a number of my senators today...” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said. “I think we have 60 votes. Remember, we start out at 55 Democrats. I think the most I’ll lose is two or three. Let’s say I wind up with 52 Democrats. I only need eight Republicans, and I already have four, so that should be pretty easy."

On June 01 2013 04:26 Sermokala wrote:
The guy's a coward. he knows he can't win without a ton of national money so hes getting out before its too late. The democrats gerrymandered that district pretty good.

It makes me sad to see people reference the 2012 election thread and not mention sam and jdree.

It isn’t breaking news that many Wal-Mart Stores employees are dissatisfied with their current wage levels, as it was only late last year that members of OUR Walmart, a union-backed worker group, chose Black Friday to walk off the job and campaign for their rights.

Similarly, earlier in May, that same group announced its plans to meet in Bentonville, Arkansas, on the day of Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting, and campaign for a greater number of full-time jobs with predictable schedules and wages that could help them provide for their families.

A new report, however, illuminates that Wal-Mart employees might not be the only ones paying the price for their low wages. Taxpayers, too, may have a reason to take a stand.

According to The Huffington Post, Congressional Democrats released a study Thursday that demonstrated how Wal-Mart’s wages are so low that many of its workers must rely on food stamps and other government aid programs, costing taxpayers as much as $900,0000 at just one Wal-Mart Supercenter in Wisconsin.

The report, “The Low-Wage Drag on Our Economy,” was produced by Democrats with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

It explains that it chose Wisconsin as its state of study because of its data being the most recent, allowing the study to employ the state’s Medicaid data to discern the annual cost taxpayers pay in order to provide the food stamp and publicly subsidized health care programs to those Supercenter workers who require it.

Wal-Mart has long been criticized for its pattern of offering wages that force its workers to take advantage of public-assistance programs. This recent study argues that the criticism is warranted. The company had more workers enrolled in the state’s public health care program in last year’s last quarter than any other employer.

So how did the report’s authors come up with the $900,000 figure? First, they took into account the number of Wal-Mart stores and employees across Wisconsin and the per-person costs of Badgercare, the state’s health care program, estimating that the cost of the publicly funded health care comes to $251,706 per year for a Supercenter that employees 300 workers.

Then, they considered the other public-assistance programs available to these families on Badgercare. Assuming that the families take advantage of all the additional programs offered, the final cost amounts to over $900,000.

Though the study’s estimate is based on the assumption that those who qualify for the public assistance programs take advantage of all the opportunities offered to them, the number is a daunting figure nonetheless.

On June 02 2013 13:01 DeltaX wrote:


Minnesota congressional districts have been drawn by courts and non-partisan panels for the last few decades. Her district was made even more conservative by said panel last time. If dems had done it, or even if the district had been left alone she would have lost in 2010 easily.

As for him not deciding to run, I'd say the only reason a democrat would bother to run a campaign in that district would be to get rid of Bachman. Any sane republican could win that seat with their eyes closed and no amount of money is going to change that tbh.