McCain Campaign Uses Spider/Diff Against Obama 1171
Vote McCain in 2008! writes "McCain's campaign is doing everything it can to erase Obama's online advantage, this time they ambushed Obama by detecting edits to his website when he updated some of his policy positions. This isn't the first time the Republicans have shown up the Democrats with their web savvy — you may remember the previous reports about the Republican Web 2.0 Consultants and their online campaigning game. This just proves that old Republicans can learn new tricks." Assuming the spider adheres to robots.txt, this is clever and well done.
New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear one definition of insanity is repeating the same action while expecting a different result each time. How many times have we thrown our votes away on the major party candidates only to get the same old status quo, regardless of the promises made? It's high time we the people just say no to the corrupt two party system. It's time we got off our lazy asses and learn about the alternatives available outside the corporate-approved "choice" spoon-fed to us by Big Media. Oh sure, probably we'll get either McCain or Obama this time, but if enough people vote outside the box it will encourage others to do the same. Maybe we can even take back our government at some point. But it'll never happen by voting for one of the two "approved" candidates. We need a new meme -- don't throw your vote away. Don't waste your vote on the Republicrats!
http://www.barackobama.com/robots.txt (Score:2, Insightful)
is totally empty... how adhering to robots.txt is clever is beyond me...
New Tricks? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA (Score:1, Insightful)
If anything, the changes simply reflect that Obama is just another politician.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The first one could be read as bashing the military (bad bad bad), the second one can't.
Mmmhmm (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt Mr. "Vote McCain in 2008!" is looking to score some points [johnmccain.com] with this one.
I'm not saying everything posted here has to be neutral by any means, but geez, this is pretty transparent.
Re:New Meme (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear one definition of insanity is repeating the same action while expecting a different result each time.
Wait, so if I roll a bunch of dice, I should actually expect them to come up the same every time? Maybe those superstitions about lucky dice or lucky numbers are actually on to something...
Why is updating your policy positions bad again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is changing what you have to say a bad thing? If you have a different set of facts or a change in thought, why is it bad to change your opinions?
And are the edits that the Obama campaign making really significant? I had a look at the differences highlighted in the linked Wired article, and they didn't really look like a significant change in substance.
So fucking what? Are we really this stupid in our politics that it's now a game of crying "flip-flopper" when you just say more or less the same thing, maybe with a different emphasis?
Re:Why is updating your policy positions bad again (Score:4, Insightful)
Hello, where have you been the last 7 years ? Changing what you say makes you a flip-flopper. Real men stay the course.
Dissonance (Score:2, Insightful)
So let me get this straight, the two biggest issues people have with a candidate are:
A. He doesn't have enough experience.
B. He might change his mind.
(C. is of course, being a secret Muslim)
If he gets some experience and changes his mind, criticize him for B. If he doesn't get any experience, criticize him for A. Genius.
Silly article writer (Score:4, Insightful)
The article concludes:
This is like comparing two drafts of James Joyce's Ulysses, noting that changes were made, and concluding, "If anything, the changes simply reflect that Joyce is just another writer." Keeping in mind that as it happens Obama is also a talented, best-selling author, we should be surprised that he prepares more than on draft, or releases more than one edition of his work?
In other news, the detection of edits in the latest kernel release prompted a clever Wired hack to print, "If nothing, the changes simply reflect that Torvalds is just another coder."
it could be worse.... (Score:3, Insightful)
... I could have been one of the idiots that voted for the guy I wanted to have a beer with. Twice. How'd that work out again?
McCain trying to hide his flip-flopping (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Obama is editing his web site and fine-tuning his message. BFD. That's what web sites are for. I don't see anything greatly inconsistent in what Obama is doing.
What is really going on is that McCain has a lousy record: he has been flip-flopping on positions and has a lot of history that he needs to hide from. This is a huge problem for the Republican party establishment, who probably would have preferred any candidate other than McCain.
So, what does McCain do? He tries to go on the offensive so that he can say "well, it's OK if I flip-flop because the other guy edits his web site, too".
Don't let McCain get away with this bullshit. McCain is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of both conservative Republicans and moderates in terms of his actual positions and record.
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dissonance (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to apologize for saying something bad about Obama. I hated that decision and I thought it was typical weak Democratic waffling.
I'm still going to vote for him in November, because basically it's him or McCain. And McCain would be at best an extension of the Bush years, and we frankly just don't need that.
Re:New Meme (Score:2, Insightful)
I hear one definition of insanity is repeating the same action while expecting a different result each time.
So, how many times have you backed a third-party candidate? Has the result changed yet?
Re:New Tricks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dissonance (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the biggest issues people have with Obama is that he participated in the whitewashing of the crimes of the Bush administration. That he somehow thinks National Security trumps the Rule of Law. That he even thinks we can have National Security without the Rule of Law. That right there shows that he is totally unfit to govern.
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:1, Insightful)
Really? Obama is 'just another democrat'? Is that what people smart enough to post in html on slashdot really think? I'm surprised it isn't obvious to more people how significant Obama is as a fundamentally new kind of candidate. More so even than JFK, Obama has inspired a whole new generation of voters to get involved in politics because they can actually relate to someone running for office. Why? Because for the first time in 40 years there is a contender who isn't a rich old white guy. For the first time EVER there is a real contender who isn't white.
After this election, there is a very good chance that we'll have a president who does NOT hail from a family of either wealth or privilege or both; he'll be a Harvard-educated, self-made minority millionaire.
If you can't see that this is an astonishing departure from the status quo, then you really are blind. I'm not sure what kind of candidate it would take to impress people like you, short of a 35-year old gay atheist inuit liberatarian.
Fortunately, the difference - if it is lost of slashdotters - is NOT lost on the rest of the world. 5 billion brown people in foreign countries know that Obama represents a tectonic shift in American politics, in American foreign-relations, and in American global leadership - economic, political, cultural, environmental, and more.
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then Obama flip-flopped on FISA and voted for a bill containing telecom immunity.
You know, I still don't get the huge deal with the telecom immunity. Yes the telecoms should be punished, at least as a preventative measure so that in the future companies think twice before following illegal government orders. And yet, the truly guilty party are the government officials who made those orders. Why are we so intend to lynch their stooges when the masterminds are getting away scot-free? Are we just settling because we know they're above the law? Isn't there a bit of a double standard here?
Just try thinking of it from the company's point of view. The government orders them to hand over records. The government obviously shows a disdain for the constitution and considers anyone who stands in their way to be terrorist accomplices. What's going to happen to you when you say 'No'?
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:4, Insightful)
^ it should be obvious that "hand over records" should be replace with "wiretap people".
Re:How can you say Republicans are "old dogs" (Score:5, Insightful)
Who came up with the Marshall Plan again ?
Re:Why is updating your policy positions bad again (Score:5, Insightful)
New words scare people. Just a couple weeks ago, Obama said in a press conference that he'd be willing to "refine" his Iraq policy during his visit there, and a combination of the media and the McCain campaign jumped all over him for "flip-flopping" on Iraq. They were pretending that he had said that he was going to change his stance on the war, and so he had to give a second press conference later that day to emphasize that he had said nothing of the sort.
The media is trying to have a repeat of 2004 by painting the Democrat as a flip-flopper, when he has only waffled, as all politicians do. Even Obama's worst flip-flop, on the FISA legislation, wasn't a complete reversal: though he voted the final bill, he still voted to strip the immunity provision. He said that he thought the bill had more good than bad in it, and while we might disagree, that's just a matter of priority, not of position.
Meanwhile, McCain directly contradicts himself time and time again, and he has so far gotten off scot-free. We don't have a liberal media or a conservative media, we have a sensationalist media that caters to the lowest common denominator by trying to place the candidates into a pre-defined mold that has existed for the better part of three decades.
Re:The Goods (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it's how long it took him. In fact violence is down to 2004 levels, so even this update isn't really reflecting actual facts on the ground.
Re:worked ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody knows that if you're fighting an asymmetric war, you make your moves at the time when you can strike and minimize your losses, and you wait patiently at all other times. Anyone who thinks the violence against US targets isn't going to go back up as soon as the surge ends OR it becomes clear by observing US political and military statements and operations that the "surge" is permanent, is kidding themselves.
I'd also like to point out that it is very unfair and biased to measure violence "in the form of attacks, and the number of US casualties in Iraq" - what about Iraqi causalities? Civilian casualties? Shouldn't those be at least as important, if not more important, now that it's clear the war isn't being fought for WMDs?
Re:it could be worse.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Depressing situation isn't it? Conservatism made the Republican Party an actual party rather than the me-tooism of the 40s and 50s. They win the House and Senate for the first time in forty years while running on an unapologetically conservative platform. Bush wins while running as some weird bleeding heart conservative.
So what do we get?
Vast increase in federal spending!
Vast increase in federal power!
They morphed into a me-too-but-more party.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't underestimate the ineptness of the average voter. When I told one guy the other day that I was a member of the Libertarian party he thought that was some terrorist or Nazi thing. They like their simple cut choices. Good/Bad (they'll assign one of those to Republican or Democrat, and the other to the left over party), and everything else is not just bad but evil and "un-American".
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just try thinking of it from the company's point of view. The government orders them to hand over records. The government obviously shows a disdain for the constitution and considers anyone who stands in their way to be terrorist accomplices. What's going to happen to you when you say 'No'?
Congratulations, you have just outlined very concisely why fascism worked. Because everyone made that calculations for themselves, came up with the answer that compliance is the only rational choice, and complied with a system they knew to be evil.
Well, almost everyone. The rest got killed or exiled by people who were "just following orders".
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:1, Insightful)
Most likely Obama is trying to avoid being destroyed by one form of negative advertising. There are apparently a lot of people who do not think rationally when they vote as evidenced by the 04 election. Well either there was widespread election fraud that explains the differences in the exit polls or, what seems more likely to me, is that fear ruled the day, and in the privacy of the voting booth they voted for whoever screamed loud enough that they would protect em from the 'Terrorists'. (If you believe our government there are now over 400k of them on their watch list. With the aliases that is now over a million which basically points out what was obvious years ago, that a simple list of names is nearly worthless, unless your goal is to capture the really stupid and incompetent ones.)
At any rate, I do not like the FISA switch either, but if he had not done it, you would have had "The great war hero commander in chief" versus the guy who "Wants to protect the Terrorists". Yes it would be amazingly stupid, but, well, it has been demonstrated that Amazingly Stupid works.
I for one fully intend to vote for him, since even if you believe he fully liked the FISA change, he is still, by far, the better choice. About the only issue I can see McCain apparently supports more is Nuclear Power, and for that matter Obama is also supporting it, just not as vocally, probably due to fear of backlash from people on the left that can't do the cost benefit math.
Like it or not we are in the real world. You can't have everything you want, and if you don't choose at all, or waste your vote, then you are basically letting someone else choose for you.
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
Until we change our voting system to something like Instant Runoff voting, the large parties will never be beaten because voting for a 3rd party really is throwing away your vote.
No, it really isn't. This is an infuriating bit of misinformation that needs to stop. The only thing that is throwing away your vote is not voting. Any vote, any vote at all, is not throwing your vote away. Period. More importantly, the only thing that keeps third parties from gaining power in this country is thinking like yours. We should get a different voting system, but barring that, people need to wake the fuck up and realize they're only shooting themselves in the foot by voting for "not that guy". Obama and McCain have clearly shown us that you're just voting for the same guy, with a different name.
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not American, so I don't know all that much about the whole thing. However, isn't part of the complaint against telecom immunity due to the fact that it may sabotage any effort to investigate and prosecute government officials?
You don't want the stooges to have immunity because you want to be able to apply pressure so they incriminate their masters.
Re:it could be worse.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now all we need is a cable channel called MTV to start playing music videos for the first time, and we will be all set.
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:2, Insightful)
You lose out on lucrative government contracts? [washingtonpost.com]
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama and McCain have clearly shown us that you're just voting for the same guy, with a different name.
Really? Really? I've been listening to this tired meme for the past three elections. "Oh, Bush and Gore are just the same guy with a different name. Vote Nader." "Oh, Bush and Kerry are the same guy with a different name. Vote Badnarik." It wasn't true then and it isn't now. Really, if you can't see that there actually are substantative differences between the two front-runners, you're not paying any attention.
Re:So what? (Score:1, Insightful)
What a strange culture we have, where criticizing a military operation is taboo but sending servicemen to their graves by the thousands is all fine and good. No wonder we end up with badly-run operations with high body counts.
robots.txt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:New Meme (Score:3, Insightful)
How many times have you not voted? Has the result changed yet?
Re:The Goods (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah it only took him months to realize what everyone else knew back in May. Now that all the surge troops are out of Iraq he has no choice but to change his position.
Also it's not just that he's changing position, it's that he's rewriting history to sound like he never argued the surge would have the opposite effect it actually has. His entire campaign is one of emphasizing judgment to compensate for his lack of experience, but this and other examples (wright, rezko, ayers, ethanol, chicago housing projects) seriously bring his judgment into question.
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because for the first time in 40 years there is a contender who isn't a rich old white guy. For the first time EVER there is a real contender who isn't white.
If you can't see that this is an astonishing departure from the status quo, then you really are blind. I'm not sure what kind of candidate it would take to impress people like you, short of a 35-year old gay atheist inuit liberatarian
If you think superficial factors make him a better candidate for president, then you're every bit as damned stupid as the racists who think that they automatically make him worse. Most of us recognize that the color of his skin is irrelevant. We judge him by his merits as a candidate. Or, as Martin Luther King, Jr., would have said, we judge him not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And I, personally, have judged him by his worth as a candidate, and found him no different than any other politician. A lot of talk, nothing to back it up. Just look at the damn FISA bill if you want evidence. If that doesn't convince you that Obama is the same breed, just with a different skin tone, nothing will.
There's this idiotic attitude that is starting to pervade our society, where people figure that because a group of people was oppressed in the past, now they should get special regard. That's every bit as immoral and insulting as oppressing them in the first place! Judge them as the person they are, not as the color of their skin, whether positively or negatively.
Re:New Meme (Score:3, Insightful)
I voted for people I wanted in office. And you know what, just because they were members of a major political party, I really don't think I was throwing my vote away. And I've never voted for an independent candidate because I've never encountered one who I thought would do a good job.
At a certain point in your life you have to start looking at things with a little more nuance. If you actually inform yourself about history you'll find that different presidents have taken drastically different actions in office. If either Gore or Kerry had won, we wouldn't be in Iraq. We just wouldn't. Now whether you support the war or are against it, I think you can agree that it's a pretty major event that has wide-ranging consequences both domestically and internationally.
I'm not elderly but I'm not a kid anymore. I've voted in the past three presidential elections, and I've tried to educate myself about the candidates each time. I've also tried to educate myself about history and learn how different ideologies produced different leadership styles and choices, and how these choices affected our country. And I kind of resent having wild-eyes 19 year olds, who until a few months ago were spending all their mental energy hanging out in the mall, suddenly lecturing me on politics. If you don't understand the difference between politicians, teach yourself--don't just assume there is no difference.
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:2, Insightful)
So essentially your argument is "vote obama, he's black". He's still no different than any other politician in every other aspect.
Re:Dissonance (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dang! Here I sit without any mod points to give this guy a +1 funny.
Why? Because for the first time in 40 years there is a contender who isn't a rich old white guy. For the first time EVER there is a real contender who isn't white.
If you believe his race is the most important thing about him, you do belong in his party. The rest of the slashdot crowd is probably a tad more sophisticated than that.
After this election, there is a very good chance that we'll have a president who does NOT hail from a family of either wealth or privilege or both; he'll be a Harvard-educated, self-made minority millionaire.
Do you remember Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton?
If you can't see that this is an astonishing departure from the status quo, then you really are blind. I'm not sure what kind of candidate it would take to impress people like you, short of a 35-year old gay atheist inuit liberatarian.
Ok, being libertarian would be impressive, buy why should we be especially impressed by a 35-year old gay atheist inuit?
Fortunately, the difference - if it is lost of slashdotters - is NOT lost on the rest of the world. 5 billion brown people in foreign countries know that Obama represents a tectonic shift in American politics, in American foreign-relations, and in American global leadership - economic, political, cultural, environmental, and more.
The U.S. needs a president for the U.S.. The rest of the world can get their own presidents so long as they don't threaten us with weapons of mass destruction (whether they are honest about actually having the weapons or not) or otherwise bother us or our allies.
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're the one not paying attention if you don't see the striking similarities, which erase any differences that there might be. Let's recap: Obama voted for the FISA bill. In doing so, he showed that, as far as he's concerned, the rule of law applies in this country only when it's convenient. So, on one hand, we have McCain, who supports immunity (i.e., does not respect the rule of law we strive for). On the other hand, we have Obama, who claims to not support immunity, but really does support it as evidenced by his actions. So he, too, does not respect the rule of law. Not to mention the fact that both of them think that it's a good idea to wiretap people just on suspicions they might be a terrorists, and all the horrible precedent that sets.
Both the candidates this year are completely worthless. If you can't see that, you're blind.
Re:A vote for POTUS is for far more than a POTUS (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with all of what you are saying and I've railed against single-issue voters in the past. I can't bring myself to get over this FISA vote though. Beyond telecom immunity this bill guts the FISA court and gives the Executive carte blanche to wiretap without warrants or judicial oversight. Do you talk to anyone overseas on the telephone? Your calls could be monitored at any time without a warrant thanks to this bill. You as an American citizen have effectively had your right against unreasonable search and seizure taken away from you just because you want to communicate with someone outside of our borders.
Obama swore an oath to defend the Constitution when elected to the Senate. He has now violated that oath. Why should I believe he will take the Presidential Oath seriously? Call me a sentimentalist but I believe that such oaths should be taken seriously. They remind all of us (from the person serving on a jury or testifying as a witness all the way up to the POTUS) that we are a nation of laws and that no one person is above those laws.
Ironically enough Obama's own statement [barackobama.com] on this issue explains my concerns far more eloquently then I can: "It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses."
Indeed. Who knew that giving retroactive immunity for past violations of the law would weaken the deterrent effect of the law? His own statement provides ample justification for opposing this law -- yet he supported it anyway? WTF?
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
That must explain why the national deficit has skyrocketed under GWB.
Re:Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
And everyone else is pretty sure you're stupid.
Funny how that works when you believe something there's no evidence for, and has never been any evidence of.
Good point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who came up with the Marshall Plan again
Democrats did, and here's the thing. Most of the "Reagan Republicans" and their intellectual descendants fondly remember when Democrats actually did embark on big visions and big crusade to try and make the world a place for free trade, free from tyranny. That old, old conservative isolationist wing of the Republican Party is basically a small minority.
What really happened is that Democrats completely lost their nerve after Viet Nam. Instead of looking at the war, and saying that they made some mistakes in its execution, and in fact, had actually started to turn things around once Westmoreland was replaced by Abrams, they have instead enshrined an ethic that lacks any sort of faith in the very government to do anything other than redistribute wealth.
I mean, Democrats are to be forever saluted for what they did from the 1940s through the 1960s. A lot of their ideas didn't work, but some did, and, we got the victory in World War II, built a national infrastructure that we've been living off of for 50 years, and put a man on the moon. They built a framework to stand against Soviet aggression and deftly avoided a world war without undermining American resolve. But, today's Democrats tend to reject a lot of that. Back in the 1960s, the Democrats who wanted NASA cut to pay for the poor were squelched, now they run the show. Today, the very idea of going to the moon, let alone mars, is considered to be just a handout, when it really, it is a project that harnesses the finest minds of the country towards a peaceful, momentus, national goal.
I would be willing to bet that if, in fact, a more muscular foreign policy candidate, one who really could articulate the American vision of free trade through Pax Americana, expansively, in the way that FDR and his ideological descendant, Reagan could, I would certainly support them, and, in fact, just about every Republican I know -would-. But instead today's Democratic party is consumed with identity politics and redistribution, sorta trying to divvying up the spoils but without the old Dems that still saw a need to get spoils to divvy.
Unfortunately though, through a catastrophe of party rules, Dems have a process that continually nominates the candidate who kowtows to a group of people that are in the minority. Republicans have a similar problem too, but, they at least have the sense to tend to set aside other policy differences so long as the free trade expansionist vision stands.
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad to see that two candidates eventually agreeing on a single bill makes them practically the same person.
Man, I agree that the FISA thing was a bad decision, but don't turn into a one-issue voter.
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:5, Insightful)
We should judge a candidate by their positions not their race. As far as I can tell in this regard Obama is 'just another democrat'. After listening to one of his speaches I discovered that (1) he is a very good rhetorician (that can be a good or bad thing), (2) he talks a lot about 'change' but never says from what to what, and (3) the few positions that he actually stated where just standard democratic positions.
I would be willing to stand corrected, but on the issues Obama looks like any other democrat. He talks slick, but that is about it.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a spending problem (and a big one), not a revenue problem.
Re:Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
That must explain why the national deficit has skyrocketed under GWB.
It's my understanding that tax cuts really do increase revenue, but I'm not insistent on either position. The big problem with GWB is that he never met a government program he didn't like. Say the tax cuts raised revenue 5% for sake of illustration. You can't then increase spending by 25% and then wonder why you're losing ground.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. It's moreso simply a party centered on freedom. Put in enough basic laws to keep society running at a reasonable level (ie, theft, rape, murder are illegal) and besides that have the government butt the hell out of our lives.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats want to enforce their morals on us. Changing the party just changes the moral code.
For the Republicans, it's "immoral" to do drugs, engage in prostitution, generally speak against the Bible or do anything non-Christian, etc.
For the Democrats, it's "immoral" to own a gun, or to not open your wallet and support every other person in the country financially.
It's actually kinda ironic that you'd call me a "selfish republican", because the Democrat idea of social services IS one of the mroe tolerable ideas I have - the Republicans are far more annoying with their holier than thou attitude. That said, the Democrats still are generally anti-gun, and still tend to rear their ugly heads when it comes to things like banning video games and such (that spans both parties, but that just means both are guilty rather than canceling anything out).
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end, the author closes with the line "If anything, the changes simply reflect that Obama is just another politician"- one of the most popular right-wing attacks on Obama.
Take a look at the picture, again: http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/15/mccain_obama_versionaista.jpg [wired.com]
That's not some sort of scrub or replacing a sentence that made him look bad or backing down from a strong position. It's an outright replacement of an older quote with a newer one. If anything, it makes Obama's Iraq policy even clearer.
At the bottom, it also shows there are two links that have been added as well.
If there is some sort of "just another politician" type of coverup of an older policy going on at Obama's site, it's certainly not in the picture given in the article; and this makes me think that this is just whining: "He updated his page instead of leaving it static from January to November? HOW DARE HE?!"
I'll think of a subject later. Oh, wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it interesting that everything involved with a politician is the politician. I'm very doubtful he writes the website himself and he might not really have much of a say on what happens on that web site.
An editor might have, probably have come along and saw "This looks bad, let's make it look better." and since it's not an image that was a little too big to fit right or formatting that just didn't fit with the page, it's seen as 'Obama said this' and not 'supporters glossing things over'.
I guess you can say that the kind of people who support someone else does reflect on what kind of person they are, but it's the same logical fallacy that happens over and over again.
Obama did what he did, and even though it went against his former statements to some degree, he didn't say "Oh, that? That was nothing.", he said exactly what he did and why he did it.
He didn't break any promises, he made a compromise he really seems to believe is important and he did make assurances that his fight for the interests is not over yet. He didn't undo anything, he just delayed (for that WHOLE SINGLE VOTE out of quite a majority) what's going to happen later.
He probably knew this would happen, too. If you try to make everyone happy, you end up making nobody happy.
I'm voting Obama, He's not the golden ticket to the perfect country but asking for a perfect person is always asking too much. His positions do involve change, but it's not such an incredible change that all the corporations will be out to stop him no matter what it takes.
We need universal healthcare, but we won't have it in 4 years. No nationwide change happens that fast (unless an explosion is involved). What we need now is to take the steps towards changing people's expectations in the system.
There's hundreds of issues we need to consider in three months, is it really so responsible to throw Obama away for one?
I mean, Christ, was everyone planning on voting for him in the first place because he was going to stick it to the telecom man?
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:4, Insightful)
I couldn't care less about that. I specify the lower case 'l' to distiguish myself from the party that denies the existence of market failures and coercive business deals.
Re:New Meme (Score:2, Insightful)
See, the problem with primaries (and with the whole US system) is that even at the primary stage, everyone votes strategically for the candidate they think can realistically move to the center and win the general election rather than the candidate they actually agree with. The whole US system has a fucking cancer of strategic voting -- vote Libertarian to Nader the Republicans, endorse Clinton to drag the party rightward, vote for the new FISA bill because it's just slightly better than total fascism even if it remains mostly fascism. YICH!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Goods (Score:5, Insightful)
So he updated his policy position when the facts changed?
Republicans are just recording that it changed. Why are people so upset they are recording the differences between what Obama used to say and what he says now?
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you are one arrogant piece of shit aren't you?
Definitely a Republican.
Ahh, making elitist judgement calls as to the character of another without examining someone in depth. Definitely a Democrat.
Re:New Meme (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been said a million times before, but Powell was not an intelligence officer. His job was to take the intelligence he was given, and hand it off to the UN. When he found out that the people who had given him the intelligence had lied to him, he quit.
Re:Who are you trying to fool? (Score:4, Insightful)
ad hominem -everyone who doesn't see this astonishing departure is blind
straw man -noone said that it would take a "35-year old gay atheist inuit liberatarian" to impress them
bandwagon -5 billion brown people can't be wrong
Racial, cultural, and class issues don't really bring much to the table. Obama has already gone back on a campaign promise before even being elected (voting for FISA, not supporting a filibuster). His voting record is far from a giant divergence from the status quo. I think slashdotters are being realistic.
Re:Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not inherently idiotic to imagine how tax cuts could in fact increase revenue
It's not "idiotic" but some of the more rapid free-market types repeat it as though it is a physical law of the universe. In the case of the last eight years we've tried to combine spending increases and the need to fund two wars with massive tax cuts on the rich. How well has that worked out for us?
How can we send our sons and daughters off to war while asking for no sacrifices from the civilian population? Well, other than the "sacrifice" of asking people to continue to spend and consume to pump up the economy that is. Can you imagine FDR responding to Pearl Harbor by asking people to go to the shopping mall and refusing to increase taxes to help pay for the war?
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I still don't get the huge deal with the telecom immunity.
Not trying to channel William Shatner on one of his priceline ads here, but we just lost the only way to find out how, when, why, where our executive branch decided to violate one of the two most important rights in the Bill of Rights, and all you say is this ???
Just try thinking of it from the company's point of view. The government orders them to hand over records.
I think that "we were just following orders" has pretty much been blown apart as a valid criminal defense, starting with the Nuremberg trials about 60 years ago. Again, not trying to add to the successes of Godwin's law, but there you have it.
McCain is not like Bush where it matters -spending (Score:3, Insightful)
And McCain would be at best an extension of the Bush years, and we frankly just don't need that.
Yes that's the meme you're being told to spread. But it simply isn't so where it counts - spending.
Both Republicans and Democrats have gone wild spending, and Bush has done nothing to reign them in. McCain swore off all earmarks last year and stuck to it. McCain is the only candidate right now who I feel has a shot at actually getting some earmark reduction in place, as he's been on a number of truly bi-partisan efforts before.
You want the war to end? Elect someone trying to save money instead of spend it. Can't save much money with a lot of troops in the field.
You don't want new wars to start? Electing someone fiscally prudent might just be a good plan. It's not like Obama isn't making noises about putting more troops into Afghanistan either you know, but he may go a little more crazy with it just to "prove himself".
If you want a change from Bush, take a REAL look at what CAN be changed and who is for it.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:1, Insightful)
Libertarianism isn't about freedom for everyone. It's about the freedom of those with money to economically oppress those without. Libertarianism is about the freedom to own slaves. That is why they want to get rid of all government regulation of industry, and all laws regarding commerce. That will lead to a new feudalism. The sad thing is, 99% of people who support libertarianism will end up being serfs if their plans ever succeeds. Libertarians think they are superior to everyone else and would end up being the new lords, but the new lords are already here, and they are laughing their asses off at the libertarians.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't get into a debate with you about 'income redistribution'. I think it's a loaded phrase used by certain members of the right in a thinly veiled attempt to use communism/socialism to discredit those that disagree with the GOP's ideas for taxation. All I'll say is that I don't see how spending money on roads, education, the military, etc, etc qualifies as "income redistribution". Personally I haven't seen a dime of money "re-distributed" into my pocket.
Besides which the main theme of my post was bemoaning the fact that we've asked for zero sacrifice from the American people even as we are involved in a two front war with no clear path to victory. During WW2 the highest tax rate reached 94%. Ninety-four percent. And yet Bush refuses to even consider reversing his tax cuts to pay for the war? WTF?
We are mortgaging our future to China and Japan because nobody in Washington had the political backbone to ask the American people to step up and do their part. Do you really think that the American people wouldn't have accepted a call for sacrifice in the months after 9/11? WTF was GWB thinking?
Re:New Meme (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish I had mod points. People are taking this one FISA vote, and going completely off the deep end. Yeah, it's not a popular vote, and yes I disagree with some of the language within the amendments (telecom immunity) but I don't think that single vote is worthy of disqualifying a great candidate.
If everyone who was pro-Obama before the FISA vote and is pro- after the FISA vote actually end up voting for a third party candidate, they're essentially helping to bring McCain in as our next president. I'll probably get flamed for this, but the bottom line is a 3rd party isn't going to win this election.
Perhaps 20 years from now, depending on how these next couple of terms turn out, we can expect serious change to our two party system. For now, in my opinion, it's imperative that we keep McCain out of office. Our country is in dire need of a new direction, and as much as the FISA bill ticks some of us off, Obama is the candidate who can get us started. I implore all of you who have flopped away from Obama because of the FISA vote, to think about the rest of what Obama brings to the table. Also, if you can find the time, think about what our country will be like if we endure another 4 (8?) years of GWB's near twin in McCain. Our country needs this vote, probably more than any other vote in my lifetime (born in '78), and we need it now.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, the libertarian rants on Slashdot typically center around how the weak should be left to die as they are nothing but parasites on the strong, which is not all that dissimilar from the justification Nazis gave for the Holocaust and their other atrocities, so I can see why people might confuse these two.
"I'd rather see you all dead from hunger or disease than pay taxes" might be a honest political view, but it isn't going to win you any votes :).
Re:New Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the typical whining of someone who thinks their extremist minority opinion should have the same chance at ruling his fellow citizens as the more centrist, moderate majority opinion... which chance it would have, if he actually went to the trouble of convincing a majority of his fellow citizens to support it, instead of demanding that they accept it even though they don't support it.
Take the Greens, for example: If the Greens were able to convince a majority of the electorates in even as few as six or seven states, they'd be well on their way to achieving the Presidency.
As it is, the Greens have yet to convince the majority of the electorate in even one state. So why should they get any play at all on the national stage? Wake me up when one of your other parties has a strong faction in their state legislature, a Congressman or two, and maybe a Senator. Then we'll talk.
Re:it could be worse.... (Score:3, Insightful)
all we need is a cable channel called MTV to start playing music videos for the first time
How about YouTube?
Re:mod what (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying it's an appropriate choice here, but as I understand it, overrated and underrated aren't subject to metamoderation
Re:New Meme (Score:2, Insightful)
Rolling dice is a mechanical random number generator, so you're not "repeating the same action" when you roll dice repeatedly.
That definition of insanity is a quote from Einstein. He's probably thought it through a little more than we would.
You might wanna listen to one of the other voices in your head. ;)
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:3, Insightful)
hey like their simple cut choices. Good/Bad (they'll assign one of those to Republican or Democrat, and the other to the left over party), and everything else is not just bad but evil and "un-American".
Maybe I'm just one of those simplistic morons... but what if one of the parties actually is evil? I mean, there is room for argument and moral ambiguity and gray areas on a lot of issues, but when it comes to things like torture, indefinite detention without trial, deliberate subversion of the Constitution, or killing tens of thousands of human lives in unnecessary wars based on lies, sometimes you've just got to put your foot down and call a spade a spade. Evil is as evil does, and the last eight years have seen a lot of evil perpetrated by the party in power.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony that the moral absolutism in my preceding paragraph sounds suspiciously like W's rhetoric in the running to the Iraq War. One of the most pernicious strategies of miscreants is to cloak their crimes in the rhetoric of the Good and Just, to confuse well-meaning people into supporting their criminal behavior.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice rant you have there, lots of poignant sentences. Care to back any of that up with an actual fact about Libertarians or Libertarianism?
Re:New Meme (Score:2, Insightful)
The only problem is that what he did behind the scenes could never be proven. I might say that he ate newborn babies behind the scene and my statement would be just as credible as yours.
robots.txt and the memory hole (Score:3, Insightful)
For something like a political or news website, I think it's eminently fair for crawlers to make periodic snapshots to prevent candidates or journalists from being able to retcon themselves to present a false lack of hypocrisy.
It's only when it goes from 'periodic' to 'DoS' that it becomes dirty pool IMHO.
Re:New Meme (Score:3, Insightful)
Out of curiosity, what do you specifically mean when you say that? Like Obama, you are uttering the word "change" or "new direction," but going to great lengths to avoid actual specifics. It's fine to say how much you won't be like the person you so personally hate, but you're not saying in what way. With Obama, I think it's because he's smart enough to know that if he actually did specific, he knows he'd alienate an enormous portion of the voting public. In cases where he's got no choice, and has been shamed into being specific (say, on dropping what we're doing, and pulling out of Iraq). When his feet are actually held to the fire, the first thing he does is show how very specifically he wouldn't really do anything differently at all. Now that he has to be specific, he's feeling more deferential to the actual commanders on the ground there who know what's going on (just like McCain, just like Bush). Confronted with the reality of networks of violent people making phone calls to and from the US and communicating through system that transit the equipment run by private companies in the US that interface with international systems, he's suddenly (a la his FISA vote) realized that the ability to tackle that call between a Hezbollah franchise office and a financier in the U.S. is actually necessary... just like McCain, just like Bush.
What is your specific "new direction?" Specifically? The president doesn't run the economy. Congress (currently run by Democrats) has FAR more to do with taxes, trade, etc., than the president. Congress can simply deny a president the Supreme Court nominee if they don't like him/her. Congress votes on budget matters. Why aren't you talking about getting a new direction there, where it will actually make more of a difference? Or is an inexperienced commander in chief - someone with zero executive experience who makes pronouncements about places like Iraq without even meeting with the people who would report to him on the subject and without simply going there as so many other policy-minded people have (and from which they return, with very different priorities once they've been there) - your idea of "different" in a good way? Or do you simply mean "different" as in, "different skin color?" Be specific - because otherwise, like him, you're just blowing smoke.
Lies about Libertarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
You would certainly be able to indenture yourself, if you choose to — to anyone, who would want such a thing from you.
Serfdom (and the outright slavery) disappeared, not because of laws or regulations, but because it was inefficient. Re-read your Marx-volume. As the means of production evolve, the uninterested slaves' labor falls further and further behind in value — despite being cheaper — than that of motivated free workers.
So stop this "slavery" fear-mongering, and smears. For decades the country's policy-makers have been moving away from Libertarianism [lp.org] despite most Americans being in the Libertarian [theadvocates.org] corner of the politics. The results, to name the most obvious are:
And all you can say against that is nonsense like: "Libertarians want to bring back slavery"?.. Pathetic...
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:4, Insightful)
Libertarians are a lot more honest about being selfish wankers.
Not all libertarians are Randroids, and we're not all interested in hoarding our wealth. What most libertarians I know have been most concerned about is having choice when it comes to how their money is spent. Why should my money go to farm subsidies, corporate welfare, or the War in Iraq when I'd prefer to give it to cancer research, the children's hospital, or invest it in a space exploration firm? That might be selfish, but greed is worse. Greedy people want to take other people's money and spend it on their own goals rather than the goals of the people they took it from.
Re:the third parties are running idiots too..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the past tense?
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait, that would be different from the current state of things how exactly?
I'm quite serious. Please, enlighten us as to why the current system isn't screwing over anyone who isn't already rich? Do you get a 7%-10% raise every year? No? Then you're not even keeping up with true inflation. And don't throw CPI at me, that doesn't include food and fuel costs and is not representative of actual inflation.
Anyone seen the M3 money report that gives the total increase of dollars in circulation? No? Oh that's right, that's because it was so horrifying that they (the Federal Reserve) stopped releasing that information.
At least the Libertarian party supports the Constitution. Show me a D or R who actually does.
The voting system needs to change before there will be real political change, until then people will still just vote for the lesser evil to keep the greater evil out of office, when really we should be voting all the evils off the ballot.
Re:OT: That's completely false and misleading. (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought he was more pointing out that by getting rid of certain laws, you'd be letting those with money do whatever the hell they wanted, which would result in the unwashed masses being treated kind of like slaves. I don't think he meant actual slaves, more like extremely cheap labour. I'm not going to say whether I think that would happen or not because I haven't looked into libertarianism, I'm just trying to point out what you seem to have overlooked.
Re:libertarian with a lowercase "l" (Score:2, Insightful)
Leave it to a libertarian to call poverty a "lifestyle choice."
Qwest's legal problems predate the NSA's request. (Score:5, Insightful)
Qwest's legal problems predate the NSA's circulating access requests to the telcos in the Fall of 2001.
The insider case that Nacchio, Qwest's CEO, claims he's being punished for, goes back to the dot-com bust when Qwest execs realized they weren't going to hit revenue projections. They started dumping stock and fraudulently shifting revenue [latimes.com] to cover up the shortfall. Again, this all happened prior to the NSA asking for data.
The company has a history of engaging in illegal activity. In 2001, they paid an additional $350,000 fine on top of the June, 2000 $1.5 million fine [bizjournals.com] they paid the FCC for slamming users. The slamming complaints started in the 90's.
Nacchio's blowing smoke by playing the role of NSA's victim.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your understanding is a myth propagated by Arthur Laffer, and embraced wholeheartedly by Reagan (which as a sibling post points out didn't work).
The theory was that if taxes are too high, then people who might be motivated to work more won't because too much of it will be taken away by Uncle Sam, and thus the overall GDP would drop down so much that the added percentage wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. This resulted in the so-called Laffer Curve.
Unfortunately, the relationship that Laffer asserted was a smooth parabolic curve actually looks more like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Neo-Laffer-Curve.svg [wikipedia.org]
Freedom to be a slave isn't freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it a valid criticism that if you're free to "voluntarily" indenture yourself, you're also open to being coerced? If someone says "be my slave and tell everyone it's voluntary, or I'll kill your family," what will you do?
Whereas currently, if the government sees that you're not getting proper wages for your work, it's taken out of your hands. You don't have the right to give up your rights - they're "inalienable."
Sometimes taking away certain freedoms actually protect others. If I travel abroad with an aid organization, and they have a policy to never negotiate with terrorists, and I'm kidnapped, my supervisors don't have the freedom to negotiate. On the other hand, this policy will probably prevent many kidnappings, increasing the actual freedom of life and limb for our staff.
Re:OT: That's completely false and misleading. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OT: That's completely false and misleading. (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments wield a lot of power. Take them out of the picture, and economics will self-organize to another group having a lot of power, if only by virtue that they make a lot of money and continue to make more until the point that they wield enough economic power to be de-facto government organizations
Re:OT: That's completely false and misleading. (Score:5, Insightful)
THAT'S your objection to libertarianism?! That someone might head a vast conspiracy to destroy your life?
You may want to invest in some tinfoil, my friend.
Besides, there are still social services available in a libertarian society. They're just provided by charity rather than government. And as organizations such as The Salvation Army and Goodwill show, it is quite possible to run such charities as non-governmental private organizations.
Re:Lies about Libertarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you can't do that in any country right now. Most countries have a constitution and laws preventing such a thing. Way to display your ignorance.
As you are so ignorant, I feel it necessary to point out that I don't mean actual slavery so much as complete economic subjugation of the poor, which is something the rich have always worked towards and continue to work towards. And you libertards are the useful idiots who spread their propaganda.
Slavery is not as prevalent today because of the hard work and sacrifice of so many rights activists around the world, not because of market forces. And it does exist, especially in places with more libertarian policies than the US. Millions of people around the world are enslaved right now. Your lack of knowledge and callous disregard for enslaved peoples world wide is simply shocking.
It is certainly economically feasible to have a work force that has no other options but to work for you at whatever level of compensation you decide upon. It is quite feasible to use economic force to keep a population dependent on you. It is absolutely feasible to create monopoly and monopsony through economic means.
In libertopia, If I own the land you live on, I can say 'you may only travel on designated parts of my land.' I can legally imprison you, decide who can sell things to you, and decide who you can sell things to.
You can't leave, because that would be trespassing. Anyone wanting to sell to you would have to trespass. And that is quite profitable for the land owners, now isn't it.
Please try to refute my actual arguments rather than straw men, and please refrain from posting false information, and perhaps I won't have to repeat myself.
Re:Good point. (Score:4, Insightful)
What really happened is that Democrats completely lost their nerve after Viet Nam.
No. What happened was that after they lost their war-of-choice in Vietnam, Republicans then sold the American public the idea that their own democratically elected government was the enemy. (Wave the flag, hate what it represents.) And persuaded them to slash taxes - largely on the mega rich.
The national infrastructure you so rightly laud cost money to build. A lot of it. That money came from taxes. Putting a man on the moon also wasn't free. With the advent of "Reaganomics", both parties had to drop non-critical programs. And guess what? To most people, keeping crooks off the street and kids from starving is more important than space exploration. So when Reagan, aided by conservative Democrat turned Republican Phil Gramm, slashed taxes on billionaires, that's what both Democrats and Republicans focused on.
The absurdity of your position is lauding the very man who brought about the destruction of America's position of leadership in the world: Ronald Reagan, and his ideological descendant, George W. Bush.
Nobody is going to follow the leadership of a nation that refuses to take care of its own people.
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:libertarian with a lowercase "l" (Score:3, Insightful)
In the US, yes it is a lifestyle choice. Perhaps not the choice of "I want to live in poverty" but the choice being "I want to spend more than I make" or "I want to drink heavily and not go to work" or "I want to live in this same place that floods every year because thats where I've always lived" or "I want to continue using " or "I'm from the south side yo and that's where I'm staying" or "I'm going to continue to have child after child" or "I'm disabled and not going to go fill out my disability paperwork" or "I'm not going to work for someone else. I'll do my own thing" (and never do.)
In some places people are physically and politically oppressed to the point where they can't escape poverty. In the US it is a choice.
Change when presented new information (Score:2, Insightful)
While you're considering that... (Score:4, Insightful)
Good/Bad (they'll assign one of those to Republican or Democrat, and the other to the left over party)
Maybe I'm just one of those simplistic morons... but what if one of the parties actually is evil?
While you're considering that, consider this:
What if BOTH of those parties actually are evil?
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Goods (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you can't refute it, just call me a hippie?
Hmmm, well, I'm on lunch break, let's take a minute and do some quick googling, shall we?
Iraq NEVER had WMD
"In March 1986 UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iran. Citing the report of four chemical warfare experts whom the UN had sent to Iran in February and March 1986, the secretary general called on Baghdad to end its violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on the use of chemical weapons. The UN report concluded that "Iraqi forces have used chemical warfare against Iranian forces"; the weapons used included both mustard gas and nerve gas..."
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm [fas.org]
NEVER had any link to terrorists.
"Turkish intelligence agents told the agency that Baghdad's support of the PKK intensified especially during the last three months when Saddam's arms and equipment were supplied to PKK bases in Iraq by the Iraqi command.."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6465/is_199912/ai_n25746892 [findarticles.com]
"Saddam has supplied the PLO] with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missile launchers and Russian-made anti-aircraft guns..."."
http://www.acpr.org.il/cloakrm/clk100.html [acpr.org.il]
"For instance, how about their support for The Army of Muhammad, a known al-Qaeda subsidiary operating in Bahrain?"
"Nor was that Saddam's only support for an AQ subsidiary. Saddam put money into Egypt's Islamic Jihad."
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/14/saddam-supported-at-least-two-al-qaeda-groups-pentagon/comment-page-1/ [hotair.com]
"Beyond cash and diplomatic help, Saddam Hussein was the Conrad Hilton of the terrorist world. He provided a place for terrorists to kick back, relax, and reflect after killing people for a living. ..."
"Saddam Hussein's general store for terrorists included medical care, too..."
"According to dissidents, journalists who have visited, and even United Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein appears to have offered training to terrorists, in addition to funding, diplomatic help, safe haven and medical care. The Associated Press reports that Coalition forces shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most notorious of these was the base at Salman Pak, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors said the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills...."
http://www.husseinandterror.com/ [husseinandterror.com]
Apparently your definition of "NEVER" is not one used by the rest of the world!
Re:Oblig. Futurama Ref. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, we're totally screwed over the constitution for one simple reason: the constitution really says nothing anywhere that protects a woman's right to have an abortion. As a country, we seem to have decided that that right is more important than preventing "constitution creep" and thereby losing all of our other rights.
Something has gone *structurally* wrong here. If people feel pasionately that we need a new right protected by the government, the mechanism should *not* be "cleverly reinterpret the constitution to protect that right". As soon as the SCOTUS began seriously talking about "emanations" and "penumbras" of the constitution instead of the actual text, we were screwed.
Baby boomers (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not demoncats or repugnicans, it is the worthless, pampered, greedy and self-centered Baby Boomers.
Worst. Generation. Ever.
I used to worry that they would destroy the US but they are so incompetent that I sleep fine now. We just have to out live them and then maybe we can start solving problems and stop being victims.
Re:OT: That's completely false and misleading. (Score:2, Insightful)
there are still social services available in a libertarian society. They're just provided by charity rather than government.
Yes, it makes perfect sense for the destitute to rely on the whims of the rich to eat that day. I can't see how that could possibly go wrong.
"Please sir, can I have some more?"
Democratic control of congress (Score:3, Insightful)
They technically have control of congress, but their control of the senate is only by one vote:
Joe Lieberman - who is currently campaigning for mccain, angling for the vice presidential slot on the republican ticket.
So in reality democrats don't have a filibuster proof majority in the senate and they cant override a presidential veto in the senate. They could introduce articles of impeachment in the house, but they would never be able to get the majority they need in the senate. So they could impeach bush, but there is very little hope of actually removing him from power.
But I am as disappointed as anyone that impeachment hasn't been "on the table" and that congressmen who are willing to hold this administration accountable are in the minority, but it is better than the republican controlled congress of 2000-2006.
Re:it could be worse.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really not sure how to follow this:
1: Lower taxes raise GDP and increase revenues as a result.
2: Revenues increased faster than GDP.
3: Lower taxes increased GDP due to (1).
From your document:
How does taking 18.4% of GDP out in taxes instead of 16.5% qualify as "lowering taxes"? It's an interesting report, but the best conclusion one can draw (and this is tenuous, since we're talking about a lot of things happening over those 3 years) is that "changing who bears the burden of taxation while raising taxes overall can increase tax revenues as a share of GDP." I can buy that.
Re:The Goods (Score:3, Insightful)
OK ... just one more post, since you're so insistent.
Now look here, son, to some of us what you casually stick your blinders on your idiot little head and refer to as "ancient history", we find a personally significant and extremely disturbing memory that there were places in the world where nerve gas and mustard gas were being used in a World War II style war of pure land grab naked aggression against a country's neighbours, while we were trying to sleep.
Add another 15-odd years to that of internal genocide against Kurds and Marsh Arabs, a second war started against a tiny neighbour out of sheer naked aggression, and the continual flouting of UN resolutions the ceasefire was contingent on ... ... and well, son, there ain't just no way you're going to convince that some of us with a memory that works over the 25 year span in consideration that killing Saddam Hussein's evil ass is anything but a service to international order. No matter how loudly and repeatedly you bleat and whine your hippie talking points.
Now, if you want to make the case that the way it was gone about was insanely expensive and extremely ill prepared indeed and a much better way to go about things do would have been to send a nice big cheque to Israel with a note "Nice work on Gerard Bull! Pity his boss is still around..." sure I can get on side with you on that.
Re:Numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's my understanding that tax cuts really do increase revenue, but I'm not insistent on either position.
We (as voters) shouldn't believe everything we are told, especially by someone running for office. Which could have something to do with the mess we're in.
The last decent study I recall reading (in Science a couple years back, IIRC) concluded that at current US marginal tax rates using the most optimistic projections for how tax rates effect growth, each dollar in tax cuts results in at least 60 cents in lost revenue.
Not to mention that there is a problem with the assumption that tax rates can be a useful tool to control economic growth. Interest rates are a far easier tool with which to control growth (although not without their own limits).
When you lower tax rates more money is available for economic activity, that increases growth rates which prompts the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in order to control growth and avoid inflation. For the average person with significant debt, the rate increase could more than eat the tax reduction. Worse, since the government is the biggest debtor, payments on the federal debt go up. Those increased payments go the those that hold the debt. To some extent that is American companies that hold bonds which could have a positive effect if that makes those companies more likely to invest, but a significant portion goes to foreign creditors, China, Japan, Canada and Great Brittan. Any effect of additional investment by creditors in the US might prompt the Federal Reserve to again increase interest rates.
So to a significant degree any income tax reduction funnels substantial money away from the federal government and towards banks and creditor nations. For the average citizen it's probably a wash. Their taxes go down, but they send more to Citibank to cover their debts.
In the real world there is probably an optimum marginal tax rate that depends upon a huge number of factors. I'm sure economists get into fist fights about what that number is. I can easily prove that it's not 0% and that it's not 100%. Below the optimum rate, reductions in taxes would tend to reduce revenues. Above the optimum rate, increases in taxes would tend to reduce revenues. If the earlier study is correct, that would suggest that our current tax rates might be below the optimum rate.
Re:Democratic control of congress (Score:3, Insightful)