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Originally posted by Harlan Huckleby
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Great idea! I think there is no reason why Chelsea Clinton couldn't be a part of that ticket...as far as I know.I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
They're going to hear from me - Leonard Cohen -
Yawn. Same old belligerence, same old boring ad hominem attacks, but Tex, surely even you realize there's nothing that can actually be debated in what you're saying. It's either speculative assertions that can neither be proven nor disproven (Bush prevented further terrorist attacks, the economic downturn would have been even worse with Gore in office) or its patriotic hyperbole that has no connection to the real world ("God damned idiot America-hating environmentalists"). Then, when no one steps forward to object "Wait a minute, those aren't America-hating environmentalists, they're patriotic environmentalists!" you accuse your "opponents" of being afraid or unable to defend their positions. Have you ever considered that the silence that follows your posts around like a shadow just might be a reflection of the quality of thought that goes into your posts in the first place? And that you would stand a much better chance of getting a response if you would (a) ground your posts in facts or opinions that can be meaningfully discussed; (b) show some intellectual honesty when your positions are challenged with real facts (I'm thinking specifically of your response to the homosexuality and drug use statistics, where you dismiss studies done by the highly respected Urban League because it was founded by a liberal, LBJ.Originally posted by texaspackerbackerComment
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Hoosier, the clear simple question is do you have the BALLS to discuss the issues--you know, those horrendously anti-American positions of your guy/your side?
I doubt you do--and well you shouldn't because the Dem/lib positions on pretty much any issue you can name, from the most important ones on down are VIRTUALLY INDEFENSIBLE.What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?Comment
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Sound of crickets.
Someday Tex will figure it out.Comment
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Let's define exactly what the issues are, in terms free from hyperbole and empty rhetoric ("God damned America-hating" has no place in a debate). If we can agree on a definition of the issues, and if we can agree on some mutually recognized criteria for truth (e.g. you can't dismiss fact claims just because they come from an institute founded by a Democratic president, just as I couldn't legitimately dismiss something for the sole reason that it came from an institution led by a former Reagan appointee), then sure, let's get it on. But only as long as those criteria are followed. Otherwise it's crickets.Originally posted by texaspackerbackerComment
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Yes, let's do that, Hoosier. I said in the first post of this thread, if any of you guys didn't like the way I characterized things, feel free to rephrase or re-order the issues.
Of course, none of you guys did. Are you now going to show some courage? If so, define away--anyway you want to. Anyway you cut it, your side's positions are horrendously bad for America to the point of being indefensible in a what's-good-for-America criterion. You don't agree? Well, how about some details, maybe a lot of details why.
For the record, "God damned America-hating" indeed DOES have a place in the debate. "America-hating" accurately describes the result and very probably the motivation of your side's positions (feel free to DETAIL your disagreement). And ANYTHING or ANYONE that is hateful of America absolutely NEEDS to be damned by God--or don't you agree?
As for "fact claims", anything proveable or so obvious as to be mutually agreed to is a fact. Anything which is the position of a biased commission or whatever is not--not automatically, anyway. I could come up with plenty of those kinds of "facts" that I'm sure you wouldn't accept--and that includes things put out by the U.S. Government and the U.S. Military.What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?Comment
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Ok, I'm near libertarian, but I have mainly voted republican in the past so read my 2cents accordingly.
Tex, one point you miss BIG TIME is that most elections are a referendum on the GOP. If they stick to their guns they win, if they act like liberals they lose. Thats been a fact as long as I've been alive (1970 on). Trying to prove to liberals they are wrong on the issues is pointless, their faith (on most, not all issues) is not based on debate, but what they want/feel. (see taxes, tax rates and revenues which proves with hard data that raising taxes does NOT raise revenues to the treasury but DOES deflate growth) You won't win their votes, you have to win by sticking to what the GOP does well.
You however have figured out that they are inherently wrong most of the time, but you fail to see when the GOP is wrong. And when they are wrong, people either don't vote, or vote the other way to "cleanse" the party. This is part of McCains problem, he wants to be "middle of the road" and most of america is actually conservative (fiscally). The referendum on him won't be favorable.
OK, starting with the war, first understand why we actually have to get involved....we aren't energy independent, but don't misread that as we are fighting for oil, read it as the middle east has oil and that equates wealth. First you have to realize that radical islam wants us dead, not just islam in the middle east, but in africa and even small pockets of asia too. The difference is that the radical muslims in the middle east has a valuable resource that we rely on and that equates wealth which equates the ability to make weapons of mass destruction....following? You don't see us taking out dictators in Africa who are just like saddam do you, cuz they have no wealth which equals ability to create nukes.
So what do we do, attack Iran? (the country closest to having a nuke, but much bigger than iraq) No, we make saddam out to be pure evil, take over his country, and build a MONSTER air base 12 minutes flight from Iran...get it, this whole war was about Iran (axis of evil and all). See Korea we could attack diplomatically, they have NOTHING we need, we merely cripple them economically (even worse than they are) and they can't afford to continue their nuclear proliferation (nor can any country not wealthy enough). Another difference is that korea isn't radical islam and actually worries about repercussions if they ever did nuke us.
Now liberals might think this is unacceptable, I personally don't, but I wish the debate had been formed honestly by bush from the start. He nor anyone else was ever worried about a terrorist attack killing 3000 people, they were worried about the attack on our financial systems. (how many people die heinous deaths every year without terrorism?) They were also worried about the next clinton selling iran the technology to actually get a nuke over here once they can create one, or nuking israel throwing the middle east into disarry choking off oil supplies.....WE CAN'T LET A RADICAL MUSLIM REGIME GET A NUKE!!
Ok, now lets look at it closer, what might have been a better strategy, but the leftists wouldn't let us take that course, and I'm not sure the rightys wanted to. How about instead of spending a ton of money on a war and inflating oil prices by not drilling here we drill like crazy, anwar, offshore, backyard everywhere. We also make a national innitiative to increase nuclear power dramatically. While we are at it we offer BILLION dollar prizes for certain benchmark improvements in solar, wind and any renewable energy source.
The purpose of drilling and going nuclear is to deflate the global price of oil NOW thus financially damaging the middle east in the short term thus reducing our need for them, while maintaining their need for us. The purpose of the benchmark prizes is to get us off dirty and non renewable power long term as demand for energy worldwide continue to climb. It also makes us the world leader in the most valuable resource on the planet.....ENERGY (always has been, always will be)
I have faith in the american people and I think if bush had framed the debate this way we never would have had to go to war and the people would have spoken loudly giving him a huge re-election and we would be nearly there already. Thats enough of a post for now, I don't even want to get started on the other topics.The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary -- Vince LombardiComment
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Ok, I showered and shaved now I'm ready to rant some more, although I hope I'm not too late to this thread as I'm just getting warmed up.
How about George Bush and his wonderful medicare prescription drug add-on. Lets see our country is already 46 TRILLION behind on social programs and unfunded liabilities but we might as well tack on more.
Libs scream its a give away for big pharma as though somehow we were supposed to pass a part D drug plan that didn't pay the companies that created the drugs. The GOP, who claims to be for personal responsibility decided that even though joe shmoe blew his money all life long and didn't save for prescription drugs he still deserves for me to pay for them.
sidenote: do you really want the company that constantly cuts back on SS benefits and has bankrupted the simplist scheme in history running your healthcare? I'm a finance guy so if you want me to start a new thread on what SS benefits would be if you put the money in a frickin bank CD I will (but warning, you will be REALLY pissed at LBJ and the rest for raiding your ss trust fund)
Yep, pursuit of life liberty and gov't sponsored health care. Look I'm not cruel, I wish everyone had good healthcare, I'm even for DEREGULATING IT in an effort to make it more affordable. Look, the market takes care of itself with time, and you can't expect big pharma to pay for research into blockbuster drugs then not be able to collect the rewards. When the patents expire you can buy generic zocor at sam's or walgreens for $5.90 a month, not a bad deal. But until the patents expire, no one has a god given right to get it for free, the market just won't allow for it to ever get created if there is no profit in it.
The reason the GOP got wasted in the last election and will again in November has nothing to do with democrats, it was, as I said earlier, a referendum on them. They passed a huge social program, porked up the budget, bush couldn't veto anythiing that spent money it seemed, and they took a bath.
If they had cut taxes (they did) reduced spending (not even close) and horsed thru a social security reform in the way of privatization (can you say crumbled at the first critique) they would have won in a landslide. Big deficits are not the way of the GOP if they want to win.
Tex, you said the GOP was against earmarks, but I don't see it, the minority party regardless of who it is SAYS they are against earmarks and pork, but when they get in, FEED THE PIG!! The exception to this was the Gingrich led house who was doing well before that snake in the grass Bob Dole went behind his back and negotiated a deal with Clinton. We see how that worked out, House GOP won a big re-election.....Clinton slaughtered Dole.
sidenote: if I have to hear one more liberal claim clinton balanced the budget I'll scream, he fought gingrich every step of the way to a balanced budget.
Ok, thats all i got on taxes and spending, more later.The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary -- Vince LombardiComment
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Bobblehead, I read and devoured both of your "rants" with great interest. Debating politics is unbridled FUN, in addition to being relevant and significant.
I have grudging respect for traditional Libertarians with regard to domestic issues. However, I sincerely hope you don't turn out to be a follower of the loon, Ron Paul and his anti-American/anti-interventionist views.
I agree with what you said about Iraq very possibly being all about Iran. The question is, do you write that from that point of view that it is a wonderful idea? Or are you disparaging the idea?
The leftists in this forum and otherwise are so blinded by their Bush-hate that they don't seem to realize what you stated--that Bush has gone a long way in their direction in terms of social programs, etc. that he has proposed and gotten pushed through.
Where I differ with Libertarians--and many other Republicans--is that I don't see great harm in government spending/deficit spending. Economically, it helps far more than hurts in a Keynesian Multiplier sense. As for the "Nanny-state" programs, I'm with you guys in the sense that with government help comes inefficiency, dependence, regulation, and increased government intrusion in our lives. Still, if administered properly--which I admit is very unlikely to happen, the boot-strapping of Americans by direct government aid is not that horrible a thing.
The biggest danger, as I see it, is that the leftist candidate--Obama, most likely--uses the attractiveness to voters of these nanny-state programs to get in and execute a horribly anti-American agenda in the more critical areas of defense, security, and foreign policy.
I know that runs directly contrary to what you said about elections being referendums on the Republicans and conservative/Republican ideals. To an extent, you are right in the sense that national level liberal politicians are just like our gutless forum leftists--they run and hide and fail to even discuss and directly defend the crap they stand for--and they get away with it because of the ability of their media allies to shape the playing field of the election.
You were also on target with that regarding the election of Ronald Reagan. The libs were so damned elitist that they didn't take Reagan seriously. They just couldn't believe that the electorate would fail to buy the liberal programs they had been foisting on people for 50 years. It may even have still been that way when the first Bush was elected, as libs thought Reagan was an aberration and they could return to business as usual. The '94 Congressional elections--the Gingrich Revolution seemed to finish them off once and for all and make "LIBERAL" the dirty word that it should be. However, never under-estimate the power of the elitist leftist mainstream media to demagogue, propagandize, and generally corrupt the electorate.
George W. Bush did NOT get elected twice so much as a referendum on pristine conservative principals as he got in by a combination of pro-American security and foreign policy and pandering to desires for "compassionate conservatism"--a slightly lighter version of those left wing programs the Dem/libs were pushing.
The bottom line IMO is that McCain--who would seem to be the fulfillment of all the fears of you Libertarians--is not only exactly what we need to win the election and defeat the worst electoral threat to our way of life since McGovern, but he also is NOT harmful to the country himself because he is strong on the most important issues--security, defense, and interventionist foreign policy--and in spite of the fact that he, like Bush, may be a little bit squishy on liberal social programs. The key is if he is as good as his word on NOT raising taxes.
You mentioned earmarks. I didn't say "Republicans" were against them--just that McCain was against them. He has at least, made a major point of that in his campaign.What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?Comment
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I don't think Ron Paul is a loon necessarily and I think if the media had covered him more fairly (including the right wing media) you would have found out that what he stands for is similar to what I called my solution where we would have dominated the energy market and dismissed the middle east as irrelavent. Where I break from Paul is that given the current climate of NO DRILLING at any cost war was the only reasonable option left.
Problem with the war was we used the rumsfeld model of a sleek high tech military and tried to occupy with it cuz bush naively thought the iraqis would simply rebuild and live happily ever after even though guys like patreaus were telling him all along we needed more ground troups if we were gonna nation build. In the very beginning of the war I told my friends if we are serious we have to disarm the nation and seal the borders for 2 years after saddam is toppled while we rebuild....now if I could see it coming, bush and rumsfeld should have.
I guess, to answer your question, I write from the point of view that it was nowhere near wonderful idea, but necessary and then boy did we piss all over ourselves in execution (until patreaus took over). I also thought we should have built our base, then let the country fall into civil war if they can't work it out since our goal all along was a military presence in the region.
As far as bush hate goes, he is naive there too, he thought he could make the left like him by being a liberal social spender, but they still hate him, and now his own party does too. He has spent the last year and a half trying to get the deficit back down and vetoing superfluous spending because....now its the democrats proposing such spending instead of his own party, and he (and the congressman) cost themselves the majority by not knowing my rule.....the election is a referendum on them, not democrats.
OK, so now for the harm in gov't spending. The only good spending is infrastructure, you know, things that actually grow an economy. Bridges, commerce, possibly hospitals (but not run by gov't). I believe in public education, but they even seem to screw that up, gov'ts latest trick is to spend as much on they can on anything but education, build in waste, then use schools as an excuse to tax us more. We spend something like 8k per student and have 30+ in a classroom, you do the math, its sufficiently funded. Gov't spending on social programs to help people out is good in principal but rarely works as intended. The keynsian multiplier only applies where the spending expands an economy...again, infrastructure...there is no multiplier effect in taking money from bill gates and giving it to joe blow. Now if you pay for joe's education it will have an effect. (of course once the gov't efficiencey multiplier is factored in I could argue its still a net negative). A better idea is having gates keep the money, reinvest in his business and create a few hundred more jobs.
sidenote: funny you said libertarians call you leftist, i can explain why. You have bought into the "compassion" of social programs when all they really do is create a subclass of people. The money taken from the economy to run said program costs jobs hurting the populace further. I don't stand against social programs cuz I'm cruel or even because it upsets me to have a welfare mom get my money, I'm against them cuz they don't work and hurt those they purport to help.
Medicare part D will get too expensive down the road, the gov't will "dictate" prices to the drug companies, the companies won't be making sufficient profits, they will stop reinvesting in new drugs and technology will hold still. Sure this is probably about 15 years away, but you can see where its heading already.
I do give mccain credit for never having slipped in an earmark. He is a rock on the subject....global warming, illegal immigrants, 1st ammendment crushing campaign finance reform, callling the bush tax cuts "tax cuts that benefit the wealthy".....these are all issues where he disgusts me. Remember immigration refore in 1986? It looked IDENTICAL to mccain's bill, but we never actually did any of it except for amnesty. Do you know any foreigners? People with brothers and sisters on 9 year waiting lists to come here? I do, and NO WAY will i ever support any candidate who wants to let some people stay because they snuck in and broke the law. I don't blame the illegals one iota, I would have done the exact same thing in their shoes, but that doesn't mean we let them stay. Simply dry up the jobs with crippling fines and the problem will solve itself.
Ok, fingers are sore, maybe later I can do a thread on the succession of elections and how each one was a referendum on republicans. Contrary to what most people think, the voters are NOT in favor of big social programs.The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary -- Vince LombardiComment
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And the award for bad timing goes to.....Hoosier!Originally posted by hoosier
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May 25, 2008
Are We Safer? by John Hinderaker
On the stump, Barack Obama usually concludes his comments on Iraq by saying, "and it hasn't made us safer." It is an article of faith on the left that nothing the Bush administration has done has enhanced our security, and, on the contrary, its various alleged blunders have only contributed to the number of jihadists who want to attack us.
Empirically, however, it seems beyond dispute that something has made us safer since 2001. Over the course of the Bush administration, successful attacks on the United States and its interests overseas have dwindled to virtually nothing.
Some perspective here is required. While most Americans may not have been paying attention, a considerable number of terrorist attacks on America and American interests abroad were launched from the 1980s forward, too many of which were successful. What follows is a partial history:
1988
February: Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Higgens, Chief of the U.N. Truce Force, was kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah.
December: Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was blown up over Scotland, killing 270 people, including 35 from Syracuse University and a number of American military personnel.
1991
November: American University in Beirut bombed.
1993
January: A Pakistani terrorist opened fire outside CIA headquarters, killing two agents and wounding three.
February: World Trade Center bombed, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.
1995
January: Operation Bojinka, Osama bin Laden's plan to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific Ocean, discovered.
November: Five Americans killed in attack on a U.S. Army office in Saudi Arabia.
1996
June: Truck bomb at Khobar Towers kills 19 American servicemen and injures 240.
June: Terrorist opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one.
1997
February: Palestinian opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one and wounding more than a dozen.
November: Terrorists murder four American oil company employees in Pakistan.
1998
January: U.S. Embassy in Peru bombed.
August: Simultaneous bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 300 people and injured over 5,000.
1999
October: Egypt Air flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing 100 Americans among the more than 200 on board; the pilot yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he steered the airplane into the ocean.
2000
October: A suicide boat exploded next to the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39.
2001
September: Terrorists with four hijacked airplanes kill around 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
December: Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," tries to blow up a transatlantic flight, but is stopped by passengers.
The September 11 attack was a propaganda triumph for al Qaeda, celebrated by a dismaying number of Muslims around the world. Everyone expected that it would draw more Muslims to bin Laden's cause and that more such attacks would follow. In fact, though, what happened was quite different: the pace of successful jihadist attacks against the United States slowed, decelerated further after the onset of the Iraq war, and has now dwindled to essentially zero. Here is the record:
2002
October: Diplomat Laurence Foley murdered in Jordan, in an operation planned, directed and financed by Zarqawi in Iraq, perhaps with the complicity of Saddam's government.
2003
May: Suicide bombers killed 10 Americans, and killed and wounded many others, at housing compounds for westerners in Saudi Arabia.
October: More bombings of United States housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 26 and injured 160.
2004
There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2005
There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2006
There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2007
There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2008
So far, there have been no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
I have omitted from the above accounting a few "lone wolf" Islamic terrorist incidents, like the Washington, D.C. snipers, the Egyptian who attacked the El Al counter in Los Angeles, and an incident or two when a Muslim driver steered his vehicle into a crowd. These are, in a sense, exceptions that prove the rule, since the "lone wolves" were not, as far as we know, in contact with international Islamic terrorist groups and therefore could not have been detected by surveillance of terrorist conversations or interrogations of al Qaeda leaders.
It should also be noted that the decline in attacks on the U.S. was not the result of jihadists abandoning the field. Our government stopped a number of incipient attacks and broke up several terrorist cells, while Islamic terrorists continued to carry out successful attacks around the world, in England, Spain, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia and elsewhere.
There are a number of possible reasons why our government's actions after September 11 may have made us safer. Overthrowing the Taliban and depriving al Qaeda of its training grounds in Afghanistan certainly impaired the effectiveness of that organization. Waterboarding three top al Qaeda leaders for a minute or so apiece may have given us the vital information we needed to head off plots in progress and to kill or apprehend three-quarters of al Qaeda's leadership. The National Security Agency's eavesdropping on international terrorist communications may have allowed us to identify and penetrate cells here in the U.S., as well as to identify and kill terrorists overseas. We may have penetrated al Qaeda's communications network, perhaps through the mysterious Naeem Noor Khan, whose laptop may have been the 21st century equivalent of the Enigma machine. Al Qaeda's announcement that Iraq is the central front in its war against the West, and its call for jihadis to find their way to Iraq to fight American troops, may have distracted the terrorists from attacks on the United States. The fact that al Qaeda loyalists gathered in Iraq, where they have been decimated by American and Iraqi troops, may have crippled their ability to launch attacks elsewhere. The conduct of al Qaeda in Iraq, which revealed that it is an organization of sociopaths, not freedom fighters, may have destroyed its credibility in the Islamic world. The Bush administration's skillful diplomacy may have convinced other nations to take stronger actions against their own domestic terrorists. (This certainly happened in Saudi Arabia, for whatever reason.) Our intelligence agencies may have gotten their act together after decades of failure. The Department of Homeland Security, despite its moments of obvious lameness, may not be as useless as many of us had thought.
No doubt there are officials inside the Bush administration who could better allocate credit among these, and probably other, explanations of our success in preventing terrorist attacks. But based on the clear historical record, it is obvious that the Bush administration has done something since 2001 that has dramatically improved our security against such attacks. To fail to recognize this, and to rail against the Bush administration's security policies as failures or worse, is to sow the seeds of greatly increased susceptibility to terrorist attack in the next administration.
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I don't have the time or the patience to address each of the cases of supposed "terrorist attacks" on US interests prior to the Dubya regime. But I have to ask, if Hinderaker is willing to discount the DC snipers as "lone wolves" (itself a highly arguable proposition; "lone nuts" would seem just as plausible) why does he get to include the Empire State and CIA shootings as well as the Egypt Air crash? The two shootings were never convincingly linked to any organized terrorist group, and the Egypt Air crash was never definitely linked to any cause whatsoever. Just because a deranged person makes allusions to "jihad" or "Allah" while going off doesn't make it a terrorist attack...unless, I guess, you have an ideological agenda to sellOriginally posted by Kiwon
But by far the most questionable premise here is one that has already been debated in other threads. Of course there have been fewer attacks on US and US interests since the start of the war! Iraq has become the main front for Islamic extremism. How then is it possible for this Hinderaker guy to say "Wow, no more violence against US interests"??? Do US military casualties during the insurgencies not count as US interests? Is his real argument that it's better to inflict enormous destruction, suffering and death on Iraqis so that we in the US can return to pre-9/11 "normalcy"? Let me guess: Hinderaker is also a Bible-thumping, moralizing right-wing Christian.Comment
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Well, Bobblehead, given the patheticness of our testiclularly challenged forum leftists, I guess we just have to discuss issues from a couple different shades of conservatism.
I refer to Ron Paul as a "loon" because of his non-interventionist foreign policy and his distinct tone of hate and disdain for America. While oil was certainly a factor in the war, it was far from the only one. I have a degree of respect for Paul's position on government spending /intrusion, although I don't have near the problem with it that he does.
The "Rumsfeld Model" worked fine for the actual war. It was working fine for the nation-building, until al Qaeda decided to prioritize screwing up Iraq over hitting us at home. That cost us dearly there, but undoubtedly saved a lot of lives here at home. I remember writing for the first year or two how all the scheduled landmarks were being met on time. Then al Qaeda blew up the mosque at Samarra and all hell broke loose.
I, too, would have been just fine with getting rid of Saddam, and just letting the chips fall while we were holed up in our secure base, but can you imagine the crap the elitist America-hating leftists in this country would have spewed about American cruelty or whatever if we had done that? In hindsight, I also would have been fine with not totally disbanding Saddam's military and using it to help control things. That would have saved the several year period we have been reconstructing the Iraq military.
One way of looking at it is that Bush was naively trying to placate the liberals with his domestic programs. The other way is the Bush just is what he is, and the libs demagogued it and irrationally hated him, even though he pushed out of real compassiona lot of the same stuff they push. Six of one half a dozen of the other.
I disagree with you about the government spending/Keynesian Multiplier stuff. Whether it is leaving money in people's hands with tax cuts or injecting it with spending, that money is SPENT or INVESTED. Thus, it becomes income for somebody else who also spends it or invests it, having it become income for another somebody--and so on and so on. The tax revenue generated from all that additional income ends up being more than the original tax cut or spending program. It worked like a charm for the Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush II tax cuts. It didn't work for the massive poverty programs of the pre-Reagan era because the libs stupidly "paid for" their spending with tax increases that had a horrible reverse multiplier effect, culminating with the rottenness of the Carter years.
Deficits are no more harmful than corporate debt--euphemized as leverage--or personal debt like mortgages, credit cards, and consumer debt. It's actually less harmful, because the government will never default. Inflation, you say? It isn't happening to any significant extent at all as long as economic growth outstrips the increase in debt--which it always does, unless the Dem/libs screw the pooch by raising taxes--again, see the Carter era.
Regarding buying into the liberal idea of "compassion" for the recipients of government largesse, I heartily subscribe to what Rush says--that the intention and result of those programs was to keep people in marginal poverty and dependent so they would vote for the Democrats pushing the programs. However, I also look at it like this: This is America. Nobody should do without the basics. Keeping people out of the depths of depravity is a luxury we CAN afford--like when I bought a swimming pool long before I could really afford it--but while my kids were still young enough to get full benefit from it. Look at the before and after of Social Security, for example. It would really be a stretch to still be opposing that after all the good it has done for so many.
While I oppose socialized medicine, for example, because of what I've seen personally of the inefficiency of government-provided healthcare in the military. However, I really think that NO AMERICAN should ever have to do without needed treatment. Thus, some kind of program--undoubtedly not the Hillary or Obama method--should be put in place, even if it is extremely costly. And it should be done WITHOUT people having to sacrifice through the stupidity of tax increases.
As I said, the true nightmare scenario is that the Dem/libs get in power by advocating those types of programs, and then procede to ruin the country by their horrendously bad policies on security, defense, and foreign policy.What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?Comment
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Agreed, for crippling an enemy and winning a war, the rumsfeld model is second to none. For nation building....not so much. You need ground troops to survey the population constantly. You need to beat down dissent (I know the libs are going nuts on that one), and you need to dissarm the populace while you rebuild.
The main difference between you and I is that I am able to set aside my compassion and analyze a little bit more....I would say honestly, you might say brutally. When looking for solutions you have to look at the big picture and be able to accept statements like "the world needs ditch diggers too". I used to be a boss who tried to make all my employees happy all the time and it didn't work. Now I'm more of a hard ass and 90% of my employees are very happy and the malcontents who can't accept that nothing is perfect get moved along. It is a better model than constantly trying to placate the malcontents and ending up with only 70% of your workforce happy. I do make exceptions to the rules sometimes, and when someone complains about it my answer is "tough, you better hope I make an exception when you need it"
Deficits aren't the same as corporate debt, corporations leverage returns, there is minimal return on gov't spending therefore no mulitiplier (read leverage) is possible. If you leverage an investment and it loses money you have a bigger net negative. If you leave it with the people who may (or may not) invest it you will always get a better net return than government. And everytime the government borrows money, they are effectively making that money unavailable to real world people who would borrow it and do something positive with it. The only exception is when government simply prints (or taps on a keyboard) money into existence which has the negative effect of debasing the dollar, thus weakening purchasing power, thus reducing the keynsian multiplier effect.
quick sidenote before I leave: I sometimes think GW intentionally debased our dollar to hurt china...call it punishment for that little stunt early in his presidency where they knocked down our spy plane. Now all those TRILLIONS that china is holding in our gov't bonds is worth about 60% of what it was before they did that......but maybe I am giving him too much credit.The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary -- Vince LombardiComment
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I seem to be missing the coordinated subway attacks in London and Spain on this list..."Greatness is not an act... but a habit.Greatness is not an act... but a habit." -Greg JenningsComment
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