Commencing Countdown, Engines On

[midnightranter]

In a week, Americans will go to the polls, if they haven't already and vote for president. In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue. Seriously, if you don't know when the election is and you read this blog, then there might not be help for you. Well, yeah, that is too far, but well, that's how politics is going these days. The recent

Comments

[doitalone]

People are calling Obama's tax plan communism or socialism or what have you because he wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire and send us BACK to the socialism that led us to the dot com tech boom under Clinton.

Incorrect - and you know it. The tech boom had absolutely nothing to do with Clinton, he just got lucky.

Bush raised taxes, that doesn't make him a communist or socialist. Other presidents raised taxes, they're not communists. Other presidents increased social programs, they're not communists.

True, but this 4% is only what Obama is proposing now. There are other ways to raise taxes and increase social programs, and I think that is what people are most afraid of. What if two years from now, Obama wants to raise taxes again. Soon at 4% is 40%.

[midnightranter]

Yah I know clinton had nothing to do with the tech boom. that was actaully my point that his massive taxes had no effect, positive or negative, on the economy growing at too fast a rate.

As for your slippery slope fallacy, what if bush wants to declare not just war on terrorists, but war on people with brown hair. Just as big a jump, given the factor of ten you used.

[doitalone]

For example, President Eisenhower took a lot of tax money, billions of it, and made big roads all across the country that don't always charge tolls that anyone with a car can use. This is not communism, yet people who didn't pay in federal income taxes benefit as much as people who paid in at the top percentage.
Roads is a bad example because they are one thing that does fall under the feds as interstate commerse once you had cars and stuff like that. But, many of his programs were meant to be temporary - and that's now how it turned out so...

The campaign has been hoping that Obama ignoring/rising above it and preaching platitudes about unity, togetherness and working hard together to make things happen will be enough to get people out to the polls.
I don't need anyone to preech that to me. I'm way ahead of him on that.

We're not talking about how McCain helped shepherd de-regulation that led to banks doing things they probably shouldn't have been. That is such bullshit. Quit saying that. It's oversimplifying a very large

[doitalone]

Oh - and back to the housing crisis. They should have let them fall instead of propping them up. That's how a free market works. I understood both of them voted for it, so they both suck in my mind, but freemarket works because people make mistakes, and then they lose their business - making way for other businesses to come up and make their fortune. Propping these banks up does nothing but set the free market back. :(

[midnightranter]

And part of my point is that the free market idea is a crock. They all want police to enforce laws against theft, they want governments to build them ports to ship things, they want all want streets to drive on and armies to defend from invasion. They want government to provide everything they don't want to invest capital into, THEN they want the government hands off. The problem is, history keeps proving, depressingly enough from my perspective, that banks can't be trusted to do anything beyond fuck people over hard and fast.

[doitalone]

I've been trying to find a way to respond to this but I can't. The things you commented on have specific reasons why they are funded by the government.

Free market works - it has for YEARS. The issue with this situation is because the banks are all like "free market yay we can do what we want" then when it collaspes they run to the feds to bail them out.

[midnightranter]

I'd like to present to the rest of the audience the above discussion. Both sides are passionate about what each believes, each is intelligent, politically aware and definitely going to vote on Tuesday. And note they did not call each other bad people, they did not go for ad hominem attacks, and they stuck to (mostly) how their side is better for America, not how the other person will destroy America by selling us out to someone else or some other nonsense.

This is what I have missed in recent debate.

[fndragon]

You suck and you're a sucky person.

Oh, and I hope you get cancer.

Love, Rando

[midnightranter]

DIAF and I hope your TV rots from the inside.

Love, MidnightRanter

[fndragon]

Do flat screen TV's really have an inside? No electron gun = no inside necessary.

[fndragon]

Comments now disabled?

Rabble rabble rabble!

[fndragon]

Actually we haven't lost the capacity for reasoned debate. It's the 24/7 sound bite sniping and the lack of focus by the average american that is causing the general irritability and "team mentality" of the modern body politic.

Have you read Gore's "Assault on Reason" that he published last year? It's relevant to this discussion, and he published it before the current media conflagration.

[midnightranter]

that's what has caused us to lose our ability for debate and rationality.

[fndragon]

Also, I know you, Mr. Ranter. I'm willing to bet a beer that you couldn't quite figure out *how* to disable comments on this thread without destroying the entire livejournal server at the same time!

:)

(feel free to prove me wrong and collect, beers must be collected in-person.)

[j00licious]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH!!!

*ahem*

[midnightranter]

yeah
oh jump on AIM at some point, I have news for you.