The Lessons of History

[Wry Catcher]

Wry has no integrity when it comes to politics, Foxfyre. He just looks at one side of the coin and swears there isn't another side.

You got that wrong (I'm not surprised); I'm neither blind nor myopic, the problem with your side of the coin is no one on this message board or running for office is able to articulate how cutting taxes, cutting regulations and cutting government actually creates jobs.

Please, in some detail explain the process, your side of the coin. I promise to read it and respond. That said I'm rewiring the garage and will check in between breaks - unless Murphy is in town.

We saw jobs created under JFK, under Reagan, under Clinton, and under George W. Bush when certain taxes were reduced and certain regulations were eased. Under Reagan and under Clinton and under George H.W. Bush we saw job creation stall and struggle when taxes were increased--and only when taxes were reduced did the job creation really take off.

It's all there on the record. All you have to do is look it up.

Currently we have American businesses sitting on an estimated 3 to 5 trillion dollars in venture capital locally and parked overseas because of the uncertainty in the current USA financial picture. They don't know what the tax structure is going to be, they don't know how much of the capital the government will claim if they put it back into operation, and they don't know what regulations are going to be or how those will affect their businesses. They simply are not going to risk all that they have until those uncertainties are removed.

Every dollar that the government does not confiscate and swallow up in the bureaucracy is a dollar that is available to save so that there is money for others to borrow, or that is availabe to invest so that businesses can start up or existing businesses and expand and grow meaning there will be more jobs. A second grader has enough math skills to see how smaller government makes more money available to grow private commerce and industry that hires people and increases their wages and benefits. Private sector jobs take nothing out of the economy and multiply the wealth. Government jobs take more money out of the economy than they will ever to be able to put back in.

Cause and effect is never easy to ascertain so easily. It's kinda funny that such clarity is assumed when the precursor events and variables - both dependent and independent are so different.

It's your right to believe what you want, I simply find such 'reasoning' unconvincing.

Your privacy argument is simple sophistry, sounds good to true believers but the evidence isn't in your post to support 'your' argument. You suggest that public employees provide no value to the economy and in a sense are little more than welfare recipients.

How do you put a value on a soldier, sailor, coast guardsman, marine or airman? A border guard, a U.S. Attorney, an FBI agent, NASA scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Public Health?

How do you put a value on local officials? Police, fire, EMT's, Probation, Parole, Social Service, Senior Centers, Playgrounds, Parks, Street Cleaners, etc. etc.

Or do you suppose it would be better to make these jobs for profit, and allow a corporation to hire these same people pay them less and provide stockholders - who in fact provide no labor - income?

Just a little food for thought, if you or others are so inclined. IMO this entire plan (to privatize) benefits only the very wealthy at an enormous cost to the hoi polloi and is not what America is or should be about.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Freddo is serious.

He's crazy enough to think HE's a normal everyman and most people think like him.

I think. I doubt that you do and I'm certain CrusaderFrank can't.

Prove to me there are fringe lefties who post regularly. Name them and explain in some detail why you believe they are far left.

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

 

[Oldstyle]

I don't agree with your premise on the main difference between the parties.

Don't put words in my mouth I didn't utter. I do believe in fiscal responsibility, my belief is rational not emotional, however I don't parrot the propaganda of the right. That does not make me a revolutionary or radical or even a liberal (in the pejorative sense of the word used by the right).

I don't disagree that spending needs to be controlled. I believe our priorities are screwed up and to achieve fiscal sanity we need to have a plan. The Romney plan is to cut taxes, cut regulations and cut government.

I find that to be myopic at best.

Cutting taxes when we are in debt is tantamount to cutting your works hours when bills are due.

A balanced budget amendment is stupid. Ask Alexander Hamilton why.

Not spending on our infrastructure is foolish, the GOP's opposition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is foolish, myopic and politically motivated. Country First is nothing but a slogan (which I might add the GOP no longer asserts).

Cutting regulations depends on which regulations are to be cut. Allowing our water, air and soil to be polluted is foolish, myopic and is not cost effective.

Cutting government means cutting jobs, we already have a job crisis, why make it worse? If we are to make government smaller, we need to do so by attrition after setting priorities.

But what CUTS do you recommend?

You seem afraid to bring that in.

We can't throw anymore Chinese money at the problems.

Ah, good question (bad comment after the good question, but I'll respond as if you had a bit of class and left off the last two stupid remarks)

I would order an across the board freeze on hiring and require a written request from any department head who believed S/He needed to replace an employee who retired, quit or died.

I would order a freeze on all non essential off site training (let supervisors and managers do the training in house).

I would order a freeze on all non essential travel.

I would close all Federal Buildings every Friday at 1 PM and reduce salaries across the board an equivalent percentage.

I would order the DEA to remove Marijuana from Schedule I status and allow the states to determine its legality.

I would order each governor who wished to receive federal largess to provide within six months a list of shovel ready projects, the problems such project would mitigate and the number of unemployed citizens such projects would provide, short term and long term.

That's enough for now, most won't read more than three paragraphs in a post and I've way gone past that number.

You know what I find most amusing about your suggestions on how to "cut" government spending, Wry? The implementation of your "cuts" would eat up most of the savings. Most of what you propose would involve lots of paper shuffling by lots of government flunkies. Now THAT'S a solution to the problem! You're going to have department heads ask in writing for replacements? Why don't you simply sit those same department heads down and inform them that they have a 10% smaller budget to work with and that it's time for them to cut the waste out of their operations or their jobs are on the line? You're going to force Governors to come up with a list of shovel ready jobs? What makes you think THAT list will be any less of a pipe dream than the shovel ready jobs that the Obama Administration promised us were ready to go before the Obama Stimulus was approved? I can tell that you worked FOR the government because your solution to a bloated government is to give it more things to do.

 

[daveman]

Probably you will, from the far left. There are no far lefties who post on this message board with regularity; the far right is represented in large numbers.

No one left of center is advocating a radical departure from the past; most of those on the right hope to end Medicare and Social Security and privatize everything. In a huge bit of irony, the middle of the road Democrat is supporting the status quo with few exceptions. It is the far right who are the radicals, who demand change in terms of suppressing the rights of gays/lesbians, unionized workers, voters, immigrants and public employees.

Have middle road Democrats become the new conservatives?

There are no far lefties who post on this message board with regularity;

are you fucking serious?....

To a Marxist, a socialist is a fundy rethug.

 

[bobgnote]

Lousy government does dirt, enforces law unevenly, and there are four levels of the shit, in the US.

Quit pussing around, with cuts:

1. End all egregious foreign aid, immediately, starting with any aid to Israel;
2. End the drug war, but tax and regulate, wisely;
3. Immediately develop hemp, switchgrass, and smart plants, for biomass energy and manufacturing uses, and for food;
4. End the war in Afghanistan, immediately.

With four suggestions, gangs and cartels are demotivated, and re-greening starts, so we can live.

 

[Wry Catcher]

He's crazy enough to think HE's a normal everyman and most people think like him.

I think. I doubt that you do and I'm certain CrusaderFrank can't.

Prove to me there are fringe lefties who post regularly. Name them and explain in some detail why you believe they are far left.

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

 

[Harry Dresden]

I think. I doubt that you do and I'm certain CrusaderFrank can't.

Prove to me there are fringe lefties who post regularly. Name them and explain in some detail why you believe they are far left.

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

 

[Foxfyre]

You got that wrong (I'm not surprised); I'm neither blind nor myopic, the problem with your side of the coin is no one on this message board or running for office is able to articulate how cutting taxes, cutting regulations and cutting government actually creates jobs.

Please, in some detail explain the process, your side of the coin. I promise to read it and respond. That said I'm rewiring the garage and will check in between breaks - unless Murphy is in town.

We saw jobs created under JFK, under Reagan, under Clinton, and under George W. Bush when certain taxes were reduced and certain regulations were eased. Under Reagan and under Clinton and under George H.W. Bush we saw job creation stall and struggle when taxes were increased--and only when taxes were reduced did the job creation really take off.

It's all there on the record. All you have to do is look it up.

Currently we have American businesses sitting on an estimated 3 to 5 trillion dollars in venture capital locally and parked overseas because of the uncertainty in the current USA financial picture. They don't know what the tax structure is going to be, they don't know how much of the capital the government will claim if they put it back into operation, and they don't know what regulations are going to be or how those will affect their businesses. They simply are not going to risk all that they have until those uncertainties are removed.

Every dollar that the government does not confiscate and swallow up in the bureaucracy is a dollar that is available to save so that there is money for others to borrow, or that is availabe to invest so that businesses can start up or existing businesses and expand and grow meaning there will be more jobs. A second grader has enough math skills to see how smaller government makes more money available to grow private commerce and industry that hires people and increases their wages and benefits. Private sector jobs take nothing out of the economy and multiply the wealth. Government jobs take more money out of the economy than they will ever to be able to put back in.

Cause and effect is never easy to ascertain so easily. It's kinda funny that such clarity is assumed when the precursor events and variables - both dependent and independent are so different.

It's your right to believe what you want, I simply find such 'reasoning' unconvincing.

Your privacy argument is simple sophistry, sounds good to true believers but the evidence isn't in your post to support 'your' argument. You suggest that public employees provide no value to the economy and in a sense are little more than welfare recipients.

How do you put a value on a soldier, sailor, coast guardsman, marine or airman? A border guard, a U.S. Attorney, an FBI agent, NASA scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Public Health?

How do you put a value on local officials? Police, fire, EMT's, Probation, Parole, Social Service, Senior Centers, Playgrounds, Parks, Street Cleaners, etc. etc.

Or do you suppose it would be better to make these jobs for profit, and allow a corporation to hire these same people pay them less and provide stockholders - who in fact provide no labor - income?

Just a little food for thought, if you or others are so inclined. IMO this entire plan (to privatize) benefits only the very wealthy at an enormous cost to the hoi polloi and is not what America is or should be about.

It isn't sophistryt when you can back it up, which I can do by looking at government revenues, by studying history, by reading analysis from countless competent economists and historians who have done exhaustive research and analysis on this subject.

You cannot back up your argument that big government is cost effective or that raising taxes is the most effective way to generate treasury revenues or that raising certain taxes does not hinder or suppress private initiative. Nor can you make a case that any of us suggest that smaller government means no government services or eliminates any critical and necessary functions of government.

Your suggested cuts are a good beginning, but if we stopped there, what you are suggesting is pouring a bucket of water on a forest fire.

To reduce government as it needs to be reduced we have to convince 50% of the people that we need to begin slowly, carefully, and humanely scaling back the government handouts, subsidies, freebies, and entitlements until those are eliminated at the federal level. Government needs to become increasingly smaller, leaner, efficient, effective and cost less throughout that process until what is left is the government we HAVE to have without all the baggage of the government that would be nice to have if money grew on trees.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

First of all I have not defended the Democrats. I have posted time and again I am a registered Democrat and have voted for Democrats in all but one Federal Election, in1980 I voted for John Anderson.

I've also posted that health care reform was and remains a critical need in our country but the Democrats were ham handed in presenting it to the American people. Yet, my stronger condemnation is saved for the Special Interests who went full out to protect their golden goose at the expense of the American people as well as the Republicans who supported them.

As for the budget matter I see the R's as disingenuous, never during the administraton of GWB was the growing debt an issue. As I understand it the Iraq mess was never budgeted, its cost weres hidden in continuing resolutions and by other tricks and slights of hand.

The Democrats in Congress were complicite in this foolery as well as giving GWB carte blanc to use force against Iraq. D's & R's are no different when it comes to entitlements, there is no "welfare queen" with a greater sense of entitlement than a member of Congress.

But I digress. Those you named are defending Democrats, not revoluton. They do not advocate the violent and immediate changes they believe, as do those who storm the streets in protest of the WTO or the few who violated common decency during Occupy Movements. Those are the members of the extreme left, much as McVeigh, Roeder and Rudolph were manifestaitons of he extreme right.

There are those on your side of the aisle who are far right, maybe not in deed as the three noted above, but their rhetoric is and that you can not deny. Those are the ones which you fail to correct, my question is why?

 

[Foxfyre]

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

First of all I have not defended the Democrats. I have posted time and again I am a registered Democrat and have voted for Democrats in all but one Federal Election, in1980 I voted for John Anderson.

I've also posted that health care reform was and remains a critical need in our country but the Democrats were ham handed in presenting it to the American people. Yet, my stronger condemnation is saved for the Special Interests who went full out to protect their golden goose at the expense of the American people as well as the Republicans who supported them.

As for the budget matter I see the R's as disingenuous, never during the administraton of GWB was the growing debt an issue. As I understand it the Iraq mess was never budgeted, its cost weres hidden in continuing resolutions and by other tricks and slights of hand.

The Democrats in Congress were complicite in this foolery as well as giving GWB carte blanc to use force against Iraq. D's & R's are no different when it comes to entitlements, there is no "welfare queen" with a greater sense of entitlement than a member of Congress.

But I digress. Those you named are defending Democrats, not revoluton. They do not advocate the violent and immediate changes they believe, as do those who storm the streets in protest of the WTO or the few who violated common decency during Occupy Movements. Those are the members of the extreme left, much as McVeigh, Roeder and Rudolph were manifestaitons of he extreme right.

There are those on your side of the aisle who are far right, maybe not in deed as the three noted above, but their rhetoric is and that you can not deny. Those are the ones which you fail to correct, my question is why?

The lesson the modern day conservatives aka classical liberals aka Tea Partiers (and similar groups) have learned, that it does no good to cast blame or demonize one group or the other. Solutions come from doing things differently that what is producing the unintended negative consequences.

It doesn't matter whether those with an "R" after their name or a "D" after their name have been disingenuous or dishonest or destructive. What matters is that the government we have doesn't seem to have the smarts or ability to stop digging the hole they are putting us in. That one side is seen as wrong does not make it more okay for the other side to also be wrong.

 

[Wry Catcher]

We saw jobs created under JFK, under Reagan, under Clinton, and under George W. Bush when certain taxes were reduced and certain regulations were eased. Under Reagan and under Clinton and under George H.W. Bush we saw job creation stall and struggle when taxes were increased--and only when taxes were reduced did the job creation really take off.

It's all there on the record. All you have to do is look it up.

Currently we have American businesses sitting on an estimated 3 to 5 trillion dollars in venture capital locally and parked overseas because of the uncertainty in the current USA financial picture. They don't know what the tax structure is going to be, they don't know how much of the capital the government will claim if they put it back into operation, and they don't know what regulations are going to be or how those will affect their businesses. They simply are not going to risk all that they have until those uncertainties are removed.

Every dollar that the government does not confiscate and swallow up in the bureaucracy is a dollar that is available to save so that there is money for others to borrow, or that is availabe to invest so that businesses can start up or existing businesses and expand and grow meaning there will be more jobs. A second grader has enough math skills to see how smaller government makes more money available to grow private commerce and industry that hires people and increases their wages and benefits. Private sector jobs take nothing out of the economy and multiply the wealth. Government jobs take more money out of the economy than they will ever to be able to put back in.

Cause and effect is never easy to ascertain so easily. It's kinda funny that such clarity is assumed when the precursor events and variables - both dependent and independent are so different.

It's your right to believe what you want, I simply find such 'reasoning' unconvincing.

Your privacy argument is simple sophistry, sounds good to true believers but the evidence isn't in your post to support 'your' argument. You suggest that public employees provide no value to the economy and in a sense are little more than welfare recipients.

How do you put a value on a soldier, sailor, coast guardsman, marine or airman? A border guard, a U.S. Attorney, an FBI agent, NASA scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Public Health?

How do you put a value on local officials? Police, fire, EMT's, Probation, Parole, Social Service, Senior Centers, Playgrounds, Parks, Street Cleaners, etc. etc.

Or do you suppose it would be better to make these jobs for profit, and allow a corporation to hire these same people pay them less and provide stockholders - who in fact provide no labor - income?

Just a little food for thought, if you or others are so inclined. IMO this entire plan (to privatize) benefits only the very wealthy at an enormous cost to the hoi polloi and is not what America is or should be about.

It isn't sophistryt when you can back it up, which I can do by looking at government revenues, by studying history, by reading analysis from countless competent economists and historians who have done exhaustive research and analysis on this subject.

You cannot back up your argument that big government is cost effective or that raising taxes is the most effective way to generate treasury revenues or that raising certain taxes does not hinder or suppress private initiative. Nor can you make a case that any of us suggest that smaller government means no government services or eliminates any critical and necessary functions of government.

Your suggested cuts are a good beginning, but if we stopped there, what you are suggesting is pouring a bucket of water on a forest fire.

To reduce government as it needs to be reduced we have to convince 50% of the people that we need to begin slowly, carefully, and humanely scaling back the government handouts, subsidies, freebies, and entitlements until those are eliminated at the federal level. See #1 below Government needs to become increasingly smaller, leaner, efficient, effective and cost less throughout that process until what is left is the government we HAVE to have without all the baggage of the government that would be nice to have if money grew on trees.

please read the reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed, and consider the amendments to our Constitution which corrected oversights by the founders

I don't have time to argue you point for point. I will offer this as the framework upon which to build my disagreement with 'your' ideas.

1. At what cost do we eliminated 'entitlements'? First, ask why entitlements came to be. Next, consider my earlier post on priorities, for what greater purpose does government exist than to protect the governed?

Gotta go, I'll check back on this thread in the late afternoon.

 

[Foxfyre]

Cause and effect is never easy to ascertain so easily. It's kinda funny that such clarity is assumed when the precursor events and variables - both dependent and independent are so different.

It's your right to believe what you want, I simply find such 'reasoning' unconvincing.

Your privacy argument is simple sophistry, sounds good to true believers but the evidence isn't in your post to support 'your' argument. You suggest that public employees provide no value to the economy and in a sense are little more than welfare recipients.

How do you put a value on a soldier, sailor, coast guardsman, marine or airman? A border guard, a U.S. Attorney, an FBI agent, NASA scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Public Health?

How do you put a value on local officials? Police, fire, EMT's, Probation, Parole, Social Service, Senior Centers, Playgrounds, Parks, Street Cleaners, etc. etc.

Or do you suppose it would be better to make these jobs for profit, and allow a corporation to hire these same people pay them less and provide stockholders - who in fact provide no labor - income?

Just a little food for thought, if you or others are so inclined. IMO this entire plan (to privatize) benefits only the very wealthy at an enormous cost to the hoi polloi and is not what America is or should be about.

It isn't sophistryt when you can back it up, which I can do by looking at government revenues, by studying history, by reading analysis from countless competent economists and historians who have done exhaustive research and analysis on this subject.

You cannot back up your argument that big government is cost effective or that raising taxes is the most effective way to generate treasury revenues or that raising certain taxes does not hinder or suppress private initiative. Nor can you make a case that any of us suggest that smaller government means no government services or eliminates any critical and necessary functions of government.

Your suggested cuts are a good beginning, but if we stopped there, what you are suggesting is pouring a bucket of water on a forest fire.

To reduce government as it needs to be reduced we have to convince 50% of the people that we need to begin slowly, carefully, and humanely scaling back the government handouts, subsidies, freebies, and entitlements until those are eliminated at the federal level. See #1 below Government needs to become increasingly smaller, leaner, efficient, effective and cost less throughout that process until what is left is the government we HAVE to have without all the baggage of the government that would be nice to have if money grew on trees.

please read the reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed, and consider the amendments to our Constitution which corrected oversights by the founders

I don't have time to argue you point for point. I will offer this as the framework upon which to build my disagreement with 'your' ideas.

1. At what cost do we eliminated 'entitlements'? First, ask why entitlements came to be. Next, consider my earlier post on priorities, for what greater purpose does government exist than to protect the governed?

Gotta go, I'll check back on this thread in the late afternoon.

The Articles served their purpose to hold things together during the eight years it took the Founders to make the case for and hammer out the compromises necessary to replace them with the U.S. Constitution.

The Articles were intended to respect the Founders' concept of self governance, but were constructed in such a way as to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the government to be able to protect and defend the unalienable rights of the people which was necessary in order for self governance to be feasible and beneficial.

Under the Articles, there was no provision for the central government to raise the revenues necessary to fund what central government there was. there was no regulation of foreign or interstate commerce, and that allowed states to practice tyranny against each other in a way that they cannot under the Constitution. There was no court system to hear and settle grievances. Amendments required a nearly impossible to obtain unanimous vote. There was no provision to enforce laws that were passed.

Eight years of study, thought, debate, and working out compromises gave us a Constitution that corrected all the weaknesses in the Articles. But in the Articles and in the Constitution, no provision, permission, or expectation was given to the federal government to confiscate property from one citizen and use it for the benefit of another. The Founders were clear and adament that such ability would not be given to the federal government. Such a concept did not develop until FDR's New Deal 144 years later. Even then FDR cut spending in government in order to finance the New Deal. But he started the snowball rolling and it has been gaining size and momentum ever since until now, 79 years later, it flattens anything in its path.

Now we need to return to a concept of a central government that does its constitutionally mandated functions and does absolutely nothing else and thereby return the power and responsbiility to the states and the people. It can't happen overnight because we didn't get into this mess overnight, but we can stop the snowball and let it begin to melt. The goal is a federal government that cannot take, borrow, or obligate a single dime from anybody for the benefit of somebody else. Whatever government does must be for the benefit of all without regard for political leanings, demographics, or socioeconomic status.

In so doing, we return government to its original functions, it is no longer a drain on and hindrance to the national economy, and we eliminate most of the graft and corruption among those dispensing the benevolence and the beneficiaries of it.

 

[Unkotare]

I think. I doubt that you do and I'm certain CrusaderFrank can't.

Prove to me there are fringe lefties who post regularly. Name them and explain in some detail why you believe they are far left.

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

Maybe you're wrong about them? ?

Now you sound disingenuous, if not outright dishonest.

 

[Meister]

Dean,Franco,Truthmatters,Luddy doright,Chris,Lakota...thats six..........these people will NEVER admit that the Democrats can be wrong,have fucked people over,have made money off of Wars,made money from the banning of things....they wont even criticize a Democrat for even being a part of a problem...but to them Republicans are responsible for EVERY SINGLE negative thing that happens in this Country....thats being Far Left Wry.....if you cant see that ....then maybe you are as far left as they are.....i dont think you are....but if you cant see that by what they post.....then maybe i am wrong about you....

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

This is where wry loses his integrity on this board.....he just can't see it through his partisan eyes, which he denies having.

 

[Darkwind]

OP hates "Tyranny of the Majority" and rightly so, but seems to support a "Tyranny of the Minority".

"You can't oppress me! Cause then I can't oppress you!"

I don't "hate". I suggest you try to read and understand before making such judgments. How do you conclude support for a "Tyranny of the Minority"? Have an example or two?

The facts are pretty simple. The Majority is deciding liberty issues, the rights of workers to freely associate and collectively bargain for salary, benefits and working conditions have been curtailed by majority vote; the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry too. Both are issues of personal liberty, yet the fringe right focuses on the right to bear arms, yet we have not seen efforts to repeal the second amendment, only hysterical claims that such is the intent of 'liberals".

I don't see the fringe right as rational, consistent, compassionate or pragmatic (Of course the same can be said of the fringe on the far left). That said, the right as represented by almost all who claim to be conservatives and post on this forum seem to be mostly of the fringe type. That's okay, it's why I post here. It confirms my vision of the right as noted in the topic sentence to this paragraph.

The right to freely associate has not been take away from anyone. What you fail to acknowledge is that the tyranny of the minority, through the purchase of favors, allowed this minority to further its own ends, at the expense of the majority.

Do you have a T. Jefferson quote for that happenstance, or would you like to continue to twist his writings to suit your own fears?

 

[Oldstyle]

Cause and effect is never easy to ascertain so easily. It's kinda funny that such clarity is assumed when the precursor events and variables - both dependent and independent are so different.

It's your right to believe what you want, I simply find such 'reasoning' unconvincing.

Your privacy argument is simple sophistry, sounds good to true believers but the evidence isn't in your post to support 'your' argument. You suggest that public employees provide no value to the economy and in a sense are little more than welfare recipients.

How do you put a value on a soldier, sailor, coast guardsman, marine or airman? A border guard, a U.S. Attorney, an FBI agent, NASA scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Public Health?

How do you put a value on local officials? Police, fire, EMT's, Probation, Parole, Social Service, Senior Centers, Playgrounds, Parks, Street Cleaners, etc. etc.

Or do you suppose it would be better to make these jobs for profit, and allow a corporation to hire these same people pay them less and provide stockholders - who in fact provide no labor - income?

Just a little food for thought, if you or others are so inclined. IMO this entire plan (to privatize) benefits only the very wealthy at an enormous cost to the hoi polloi and is not what America is or should be about.

It isn't sophistryt when you can back it up, which I can do by looking at government revenues, by studying history, by reading analysis from countless competent economists and historians who have done exhaustive research and analysis on this subject.

You cannot back up your argument that big government is cost effective or that raising taxes is the most effective way to generate treasury revenues or that raising certain taxes does not hinder or suppress private initiative. Nor can you make a case that any of us suggest that smaller government means no government services or eliminates any critical and necessary functions of government.

Your suggested cuts are a good beginning, but if we stopped there, what you are suggesting is pouring a bucket of water on a forest fire.

To reduce government as it needs to be reduced we have to convince 50% of the people that we need to begin slowly, carefully, and humanely scaling back the government handouts, subsidies, freebies, and entitlements until those are eliminated at the federal level. See #1 below Government needs to become increasingly smaller, leaner, efficient, effective and cost less throughout that process until what is left is the government we HAVE to have without all the baggage of the government that would be nice to have if money grew on trees.

please read the reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed, and consider the amendments to our Constitution which corrected oversights by the founders

I don't have time to argue you point for point. I will offer this as the framework upon which to build my disagreement with 'your' ideas.

1. At what cost do we eliminated 'entitlements'? First, ask why entitlements came to be. Next, consider my earlier post on priorities, for what greater purpose does government exist than to protect the governed?

Gotta go, I'll check back on this thread in the late afternoon.

You ask why entitlements came to be? Well, some of it was certainly need driven but now unfortunately politicians have learned that GIVING PEOPLE FREE STUFF USUALLY TRANSLATES INTO GETTING VOTES IN RETURN. You need the votes of a certain demographic? Promise to give them something. The flip side of that of course is in order to keep your opponent from getting votes...accuse them of wanting to take things away from said demographic.

 

[Foxfyre]

It isn't sophistryt when you can back it up, which I can do by looking at government revenues, by studying history, by reading analysis from countless competent economists and historians who have done exhaustive research and analysis on this subject.

You cannot back up your argument that big government is cost effective or that raising taxes is the most effective way to generate treasury revenues or that raising certain taxes does not hinder or suppress private initiative. Nor can you make a case that any of us suggest that smaller government means no government services or eliminates any critical and necessary functions of government.

Your suggested cuts are a good beginning, but if we stopped there, what you are suggesting is pouring a bucket of water on a forest fire.

To reduce government as it needs to be reduced we have to convince 50% of the people that we need to begin slowly, carefully, and humanely scaling back the government handouts, subsidies, freebies, and entitlements until those are eliminated at the federal level. See #1 below Government needs to become increasingly smaller, leaner, efficient, effective and cost less throughout that process until what is left is the government we HAVE to have without all the baggage of the government that would be nice to have if money grew on trees.

please read the reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed, and consider the amendments to our Constitution which corrected oversights by the founders

I don't have time to argue you point for point. I will offer this as the framework upon which to build my disagreement with 'your' ideas.

1. At what cost do we eliminated 'entitlements'? First, ask why entitlements came to be. Next, consider my earlier post on priorities, for what greater purpose does government exist than to protect the governed?

Gotta go, I'll check back on this thread in the late afternoon.

You ask why entitlements came to be? Well, some of it was certainly need driven but now unfortunately politicians have learned that GIVING PEOPLE FREE STUFF USUALLY TRANSLATES INTO GETTING VOTES IN RETURN. You need the votes of a certain demographic? Promise to give them something. The flip side of that of course is in order to keep your opponent from getting votes...accuse them of wanting to take things away from said demographic.

Exactly. Our government no longer promotes the general welfare but confiscates the property of the people in order to enhance their own power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes. That was the precise phenomenon that the Founders saw as the danger in allowing the federal government to engage in benevolence, and that has now been demonstrated to be a devastating danger to the Republic as they knew it would be.

 

[The T]

please read the reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed, and consider the amendments to our Constitution which corrected oversights by the founders

I don't have time to argue you point for point. I will offer this as the framework upon which to build my disagreement with 'your' ideas.

1. At what cost do we eliminated 'entitlements'? First, ask why entitlements came to be. Next, consider my earlier post on priorities, for what greater purpose does government exist than to protect the governed?

Gotta go, I'll check back on this thread in the late afternoon.

You ask why entitlements came to be? Well, some of it was certainly need driven but now unfortunately politicians have learned that GIVING PEOPLE FREE STUFF USUALLY TRANSLATES INTO GETTING VOTES IN RETURN. You need the votes of a certain demographic? Promise to give them something. The flip side of that of course is in order to keep your opponent from getting votes...accuse them of wanting to take things away from said demographic.

Exactly. Our government no longer promotes the general welfare but confiscates the property of the people in order to enhance their own power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes. That was the precise phenomenon that the Founders saw as the danger in allowing the federal government to engage in benevolence, and that has now been demonstrated to be a devastating danger to the Republic as they knew it would be.

Government has been given power over those they are supposed to serve...and have co-opted the power to make the bosses now slaves to embellish themselves.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

First of all I have not defended the Democrats. I have posted time and again I am a registered Democrat and have voted for Democrats in all but one Federal Election, in1980 I voted for John Anderson.

I've also posted that health care reform was and remains a critical need in our country but the Democrats were ham handed in presenting it to the American people. Yet, my stronger condemnation is saved for the Special Interests who went full out to protect their golden goose at the expense of the American people as well as the Republicans who supported them.

As for the budget matter I see the R's as disingenuous, never during the administraton of GWB was the growing debt an issue. As I understand it the Iraq mess was never budgeted, its cost weres hidden in continuing resolutions and by other tricks and slights of hand.

The Democrats in Congress were complicite in this foolery as well as giving GWB carte blanc to use force against Iraq. D's & R's are no different when it comes to entitlements, there is no "welfare queen" with a greater sense of entitlement than a member of Congress.

But I digress. Those you named are defending Democrats, not revoluton. They do not advocate the violent and immediate changes they believe, as do those who storm the streets in protest of the WTO or the few who violated common decency during Occupy Movements. Those are the members of the extreme left, much as McVeigh, Roeder and Rudolph were manifestaitons of he extreme right.

There are those on your side of the aisle who are far right, maybe not in deed as the three noted above, but their rhetoric is and that you can not deny. Those are the ones which you fail to correct, my question is why?

nice dance Wry....your the one who said this.....


Prove to me there are fringe lefties who post regularly. Name them and explain in some detail why you believe they are far left.
which i did.....instead of commenting on what Dean or any of those other ones have posted you said Dean was .....DEFENDING Democrats?.....if you say so Wry.....and now your asking why i did not bring up the right wingers?.....was i supposed too?....i believe i answered what you asked....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Maybe you're wrong about them? Neither the Democratic or Republican Party advocate revolution or radicalism, both want change to occur thoughtfully and lawfully. Both see necessary change differently, yet both have the best interest of the nation in its entirety in mind. Those you named see - as do I - a radicalism on the right which puts liberty and freedom and our democratic traditions at risk.

We have seen a sea change in the R party of late, one which I (and those you noted) see as dangerous and outside the parameters of slow and lawful change and at odds with the prinicples of democracy.

Do I need to outline for you our concerns once again?

Wry everyone i named i have asked them if Democrats are even partially responsible for ANY of the problems in this Country....everyone of them either ignored me or danced around....but would not give a yes or a no.... a for instance.....Dean said Republicans HATE Education and want to END it.....i asked him how so.....he said they are cutting the Education budgets,why would they do that if they dont want to eliminate it?.....i showed him a link showing how 46 States have cut their Ed. budgets including our State.....his reply....well the Republican Governors are doing it to end it, the Democratic ones are trying to get their budget in order....??..... no these kind of people are not far left.....but go ahead and defend these types Wry.....just as there are righties here who are kind of deluded.....there are Lefties also.....you can admit this Wry....they cant hurt you....

This is where wry loses his integrity on this board.....he just can't see it through his partisan eyes, which he denies having.

well he did do a nice two-step rumba when he answered me....