Election 2008, United States

[Ancien Régime]

Well, I can definitely say very very many of them do. And lol capitalist bourgeois overlords in quotations. do you think they do not exist or something.

that's a concept created by people resentful of sucessful people.

"Oh we're not as good as making money lets blame it on business!"

Not saying that some aspects of capitalism are undesireable, but nearly every aspect of say, socialism, is undesirable.

Yes but under a voucher system or something similar then inner-city public schools would likely receive less attention than they already do. And what do you me in saying entry would weed out students based on parents who don't want to educate/afford private school and those who can't? What would be the difference in regards to the student?

Actually at least one inner-city school system has a high rate of spending per capita - Washington DC is one of the worst school systems in the country, yet spends the most money.

Basically, there may be legitimate reasons why a parent can't homeschool or can't use private school. That's what the public system would be for. Not for people who have the money but want to be "cheap"

At least that's what I thought, I probably want to back off from that system anyway.

human-being in anything other than a genetic sense.

You just admitted that a fetus is human in a genetic sense. If you have a coherent moral philosophy, then that is sufficient to say "it has rights as a virtue of being human"...unless you favor killing people in comas and persistent vegatative states (btw PVS is NOT recognized as death anywhere)

 

[akuchi]

no, as you seem to think the only 'coherent moral philosophy' is deontological ethics.

 

[God.]

that's a concept created by people resentful of sucessful people.

"Oh we're not as good as making money lets blame it on business!"

Not saying that some aspects of capitalism are undesireable, but nearly every aspect of say, socialism, is undesirable.

No, it is a reality recognized by people who don't like the fact that a whole lot of rich people were simply born rich and stayed rich, and taken advantage of the working class and abuse them. I myself am looking to start a business, and am interested in the stock market, etc, so I definitely don't hate hate business or resent financial success or anything like that, but it is a fact that a lot of rich people didn't do anything for their money except be born into it, but they still control the world, take advantage and spit on the working class, and rape third world nations.

There are plenty of aspects of socialism that are way better than capitalism. Equality, healthcare for everyone, third world countries not being raped by industrial countries, no rich businessmen creating sweatshops in foreign countries where they pay cents per hour, these are a few things socialism has over capitalism. Certainly hard-line socialism doesn't work though, but there are plenty of socialist programs that have a place in any decent country, such as healthcare, social welfare, high-quality public education available for all, etc.

Basically, there may be legitimate reasons why a parent can't homeschool or can't use private school. That's what the public system would be for. Not for people who have the money but want to be "cheap"

Well if parents don't want to homeschool/pay for private school, that is basically the same as them not being able to, as far as the effect it will have on the child's education is concerned.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Not saying that some aspects of capitalism are undesireable, but nearly every aspect of say, socialism, is undesirable.

What, precisely, do you think Socialism is, Ancien Regime? How is it relevant to this debate. None of Obama's policies are remotely 'socialistic' in that they do not propose putting doctors and nurses in charge of regulating and organising the health system. We're going down a weird path here. The choice is between self-serving "theocratic libertarianism" in McCain, which is as retardly paradoxical as it sounds, or regulated capitalism under Obama.

The truth is we've never even seen Socialism. No previous Socialist revolutions have been successful, every time they've been attempted all of the true Socialists (Marxists and Trotskyists) have promptly been murdered, exiled or usurped by non-socialist Fascists (Stalinists and Maoists). If you were even slightly interested in analysising history you would realise this. The problem with Socialism is not the system itself, it is whether trying to get that system up and running necessarily allows for opportunists to seize control.

I think from the comment above you've revealed that (A.) You don't know what Socialism is and are pulling misconceptions out of your arse, and (B.) You are more interested in your self-serving political agenda than an object analysis.

that's a concept created by people resentful of sucessful people.

OIC. So "successful people" have "earned" the right to exploit the working class? What about if they inheret? Is it bad for the underpaid to resent their employers? Is it bad for people with no chance of success due to circumstance (and there are plenty of those people in the United States) to resent those who maintain a system of excessive priviledge?

 

[Misty]

Socialism is a terrible idea and does not work. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not paid attention to history. The closest thing that does work is European social democracy on the Swedish model, but this kind of thing requires either a) ridiculously high taxes, which stunts growth, or b) valuable commodities, which are subject to losing value (Sweden ended up cutting a lot of their safety net during the '98 commodities bust, and numerous oil-producing nations have had this problem too). In either case, inflation abounds, which causes its own problems.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Socialism is a terrible idea and does not work.

I never said socialism works. I said it has never come about.

I also, hopefully, pointed out that none of Obama's policies bear any connection to socialism, at least not that which is outlined in Marx (it is questionable to call Mao, Castro, Chauvez, or Stalin socialists because they never implemented basic Marxism - that workers control the means of production). I may sound sympathetic to socialism, but that is because pop-culture (and even pop-academia) has traditionally interpreted socialism from a militarised, paranoid viewpoint. There is a case to be made against socialism and that is that it possibly cannot get off the ground. Nevertheless, Obama is a committed capitalist, and these attempts to smear him with the term 'socialist' are ignorant at best, malicious at worst.

 

[tea_and_blues]

If that was directed at me, then apologies for continuing the tangent. I shall stop.

Still, I bear the fact that McCain wants to overturn Roe vs Wade in my mind at all times. It's the most regressive policy I've heard of from a potential leader of a developed nation.

 

[Zathura]

fox news, hannity and co. are miracle workers for convincing people that McCain is middling.
if you look at his voting record over the past few years, you'll see that he goes with bush the majority of the time.
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53270

i'm an obama guy myself. i'm afraid that mccain will be tempted to follow party lines.
i don't like bob barr because he's a spoiler for mccain.
i also really like obama's hairstyle

 

[Ancien Régime]

Equality

Equality under the law? Or equality of resources? Economic egalitarianism is:

1: stupid as it ignores the fact that some people are better at using their resources than others
2: impossible
3: cripples the economy
4: Unethical as it essentially punishes the well-off for being...well-off without their consent (i.e. state-sanctioned theft)

healthcare for everyone

universal healthcare is fucking lol, considering that:

Britain is increasinly turning over health care services to private firms.

91% of people who are able to opt out of Spain's universal health care system do so.

Universal health care within states has been a failure.

U.S citizens are 10% more satisfied with their current coverage than Canadians.

no rich businessmen creating sweatshops in foreign countries where they pay cents per hour

My first instinct is to say "strike and demand more pay", except for that whole "starvation" thing. But remember - conditions for workers improved in this country largely because of voluntary unions, rather than top-down government intervention.

Still, the free market actually can solved this - once one company decides to increase the sweatshop pay to $5 or more per hour for unskilled labor(remember, U.S minimum wage is actually fairly decent because of 3rd world economic conditions), they've just monopolized the labor market in that country, forcing everyone else to keep up.

 

[Misty]

Our health care is superior but, unfortunately, much more expensive - and that is why we have the Medicare/Medicaid crisis...

 

[Zathura]

it is worthwhile to note that the united states spends more money per capita on healthcare than any other country, but our healthcare is not universal and has a plethora of other problems.
case in point: medicar spends 8 dollars per liter on saline solution; veteran affairs spends just 1. hmmm...

to me, it seems that the two major drains on the economy at this point are the military and various facets of the bureacracy.
to insist that we actually NEED the military at the rate we're spending on it is pure fear mongering. like somebody else pointed out, who exactly has the naivete to attack us? we economically and militaristically have enough to maintain the status quo.
and, as much as some may insist, entitlements are necessary and popular.
it should be clear where we must cut spending.

 

[Misty]

unfortunately, since 9/11, Congress (and this means both parties) has engaged in an orgy of military spending. The reasons are certainly acceptable - Bill Clinton's "peace dividend" caused military spending to drop to record lows, and we certainly couldn't fight two wars on that. Unfortunately, Congress has also abdicated its responsibility of oversight, permitting a rash of overfunded, bloated, past-deadline projects to chew up the federal budget. It's the worst kind of wasteful spending, but unfortunately, it's not likely to go away any time soon.

 

[Zathura]

yes.
at this point in time, it looks like obama might be more willing to pull out of iraq with haste, which will curtail some of the expenses.
personally, if i had my way, i would just leave. afghanistan style.
i'm guessing that the vast majority of the american population (as they consistently demonstrate; it's a psychological fact that we tend to care more about things that are immediately dangerous to us. a child in darfur getting malaria does not fit that requirement. me getting stomach ulcers from coke does) doesn't give a damn about iraq, we should cut our losses immediately.
i'd also like to add that i am in the akuchi boat for being scared of mccain, for pretty much the same reasons she listed.
i'd also categorize him, in the way he's conducted his personal life, as "evil."
adultery and perjury are irresponsible.
divorcing your disabled wife is...evil.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Oh for goodness' sake! There is no reason to label McCain "evil", I'm sure he means well in most that he does. He just has a skewed worldview and a poor grasp of morality. Perhaps you might like to read Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, while not a treatise on "evil" it's the origin of the phrase 'the banality of evil' and it goes a long to dispelling the use of words like "evil" to describe the merely miseducated.

 

[Misty]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06122008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/gates_the_great_115062.htm?page=1

Opinion from the New York Post about Gates and how military spending has gotten out of control. Fair amount of hyperbole, so I'd be hard-pressed to call it a "good" article, but if you look past that you can see my point.

 

[Cronkite]

Ron Paul is ending his Presidential run tonight. This is after how many months since McCain clinched the nomination?

 

[Misty]

he clinched March 4, so 3

 

[Deck Knight]

it is worthwhile to note that the united states spends more money per capita on healthcare than any other country, but our healthcare is not universal and has a plethora of other problems.
case in point: medicar spends 8 dollars per liter on saline solution; veteran affairs spends just 1. hmmm...

to me, it seems that the two major drains on the economy at this point are the military and various facets of the bureacracy.
to insist that we actually NEED the military at the rate we're spending on it is pure fear mongering. like somebody else pointed out, who exactly has the naivete to attack us? we economically and militaristically have enough to maintain the status quo.
and, as much as some may insist, entitlements are necessary and popular.
it should be clear where we must cut spending.

Health Care:
Tell me in what country that has "universal" health care could Ted Kennedy get diagnosed and treated for brain cancer in seven days. The answer is: None. Ted would still be waiting for the government to call him back to schedule his appointment with an approved doctor. He would then need to wait several more months or years before recieving treatment. By this time the tumor would have killed him.

Now Ted gets to be alive and fairly well to try and inflict the universal health care that would have doomed him on all of us through the votes of fools that think free universal health care has no costs and covers all people.

Who would attack us?

19 Saudis seemed to find it fitting to attack us. Wouldn't you love it if they got a suitcase nuke from Iran? No country is ever going to declare war on the United States because they know in a direct conflict we beat the shit out of them 3 ways to Sunday without a single boot on the ground. Our military understands that so they devote more resources to assymetrical warfare. Resources that Barack Obama would like to stall because Obama likes his proletariat dependent and defenseless.

The real evil: Marxism.

As for the people calling McCain "evil," they're willing to overlook Obama's ties to domestic terrorists, crooked Chicago politicians, racist spiritual advisors, as well as his inability to be pinned down to any one position (bar Marxist health care that kills the sick while making the healthy feel better about themselves for caring so much). That he thinks infants should die on cold tables is simply the stone-cold icing on the frigid evil cake. He also agrees with Hillary that infants can have their skulls crushed and their brains sucked out.

But McCain is the evil guy because he isn't a die hard abortion-coddling Marxist douchebag. Marxism and its permutations Nazism, Fascism, Socialism, and Communism have impoverished, starved, and killed more people in the 20th Century than every other political philosophy combined over the course of recorded history. Hirohito's Imperialism is a joke compared to Hitler's concentration camps and Stalin's gulags, never mind good old Mao's killing spree.

Socialism has come about tea_and_blues; millions got slaughtered. How many millions more have to die at the hands of another statist bastard before you stop saying "utopia has yet to arrive! Please don't discount socialism yet! We just need the right PEOPLE(usu. !me!) to lead it!"

Why do you think all socialist revolutions have "failed?" Because Marx was an educated idiot who thought if you allow the opportunity for one human being to cease absolute control of all power in a large area that he will not abuse that power. The only difference between Marx and today's educated idiots is that today's educated idiots haven't even bothered to learn from history, still chasing the dream that absolute power leads to utopia and not totalitarianism, despite hundreds of millions being left in Marxism's wake.

Ultimately what happens when the workers rise up is some opportunist says he will represent their best interests, and then he proceeds to use all the power they have given him to rule over them in the name of "The People." See: "The People's Republic of China." Nevermind the basic idea that there is the humble oppressed proletariat and the evil demonic borgeoise is a stupid formulation to begin with. Every time the proletariat elected an enforcer to supress the borgeoisie, that enforcer would rule over everyone while placating the idiot proletariat with sweet Party-approved lies.

Now trust me: McCain isn't a saint, I didn't vote for the guy, but please, his level of evil pales in comparison to that which would be wrought be an Obama presidency. But then, since about 1960 Democrats have always thought it is a greater crime for whores and thugs to face reality than for cities to be leveled. Bill Clinton realized this with his "oral sex isn't really sex" line combined with his gutting defense and intelligence agencies and declining to get Osama when he has the chance.

Back to education:

There is still no good reason for sub-60 proficiency rates in reading and math. If 85% of students graduate, it means at least 25% graduate illiterate.

The voucher system exists entirely to help poor families by paying the difference for the cost of a better school. You have vouchers entirely backward by saying they favor the wealthy. The wealthy don't need vouchers to send their kids to school, and wouldn't even be eligible for them.

 

[Misty]

Let me ask you this: do you see a problem that 47 million people (i.e., the people not as fortunate as Ted Kennedy) are unable to get health care?

lol, your misunderstanding of Marxism is pretty funny.

With the voucher thing, I am concerned that free markets, where there are winners and losers, some places will inevitably breed losers. When a company loses in the marketplace, it disappears; the same would happen to a school that loses in a voucher environment. This kind of thing could be a major detriment to students in the area of the "loser" who lack the mobility (say, if both of the student's parents work) to access the better schools. An inferior education is better than no education.

 

[Zathura]

Out of all of the things you said, the Hirohito comment pissed my off the most.
In terms of sheer numbers, the Holocaust pales in comparison to the stuff that Imperial Japan did. As a
That entire post demonstrates your simple lack of understanding of history.
Moreover, Communism does not entail totalitarian dictatorship; it just so happens that most of the Leon Trotzky's get killed. If you knew your history, you would know that Lenin suggested the idea of an intellectual "vanguard party"; and Stalin who obviously took that a step further.

Frankly, I don't give a damn about Ted Kennedy. I will likely never be as rich or famous as him so your elitist and, frankly, disgusting example does not impress me.
Again, fear mongering. It might seem complacent to you, but it is a fact that Iran is years away from a suitcase nuke. If they haven’t even tested a conventional nuke yet, how do you think that they can miniaturize it to such a scary extent? If they aren’t where we were in 1945, I highly doubt that they can do as you say.
I don’t want to drag too far into the quagmire of abortion, but two things; first, the whole anti-abortion sentiment is too short-sighted. If it is to be based in reason (as it should), then we need to establish the basic (not emotional: “that fetus looks like a baby OMGOMGOMGOMG”) difference between a fetus (as they say, a “bundle of cells”) and a baby. Obviously past six months, it’s no fair game.
But before that, how can we say? Many things are encompassed by preventing POTENTIAL lives. Should we pass an anti condom law? You are certainly preventing a POTENTIAL life there.
To take it further, all couples should have to be licensed, and women would have to take detailed notes of their menstrual cycles. Then, the state would mail notices to the men that they would need to sow the seed those few days, or otherwise they would be preventing a “potential life.”
Second, as well as I can see, most anti-abortion sentiment is motivated by religion, and I am revolted by religion. Religion also is SUPPOSED to have no place in the government so… it looks like I win on that account.
When I was talking about evil, I just thought that it was bad that he ditched his faithful, crippled wife, and then married a model.
Hey, if people bash Bill Clinton, I think McCain is fair game.
--no need to rebut anti-Marxist sentiment—

As to education, vouchers are again detrimental to narrowing the class differences (which is the ideal, right?)
If you want to look at a practical example, look at the sour-grapes hell that going on with colleges right now; specifically, look at how impossible it is to get into an Ivy league school.
I can see the primary school system getting to be like that because there would be essentially no restraints on it from becoming so.

 

[Zathura]

I also don;t think morality should be criteria for a law.
Do justify that, can I say that I think hate crime legislation and affirmative action are both bullshit notions? (and I say this as a minority!)

 

[Minwu]

Yeah, hate crime laws are pretty retarded. Almost all crimes are provoked by hate towards the target of said crime.

 

[tea_and_blues]

Why do you think all socialist revolutions have "failed?" Because Marx was an educated idiot who thought if you allow the opportunity for one human being to cease absolute control of all power in a large area that he will not abuse that power. The only difference between Marx and today's educated idiots is that today's educated idiots haven't even bothered to learn from history, still chasing the dream that absolute power leads to utopia and not totalitarianism, despite hundreds of millions being left in Marxism's wake.

People who rant about Marx when they are too lazy to read Marx are hilarious.

I'm not even a Marxist, but you cannot possibly claim that Nazism and Fascism are 'permutations' of Marxism, they have effectively the opposite idealogy to Marx! Likewise, 'Socialism' is not a permutation of Marxism, but an umbrella term used for a group of quite different forms of governance.

You're just being weird.

I have to agree about the hate crime laws, they're unconstitutional as they hamper freedom of speech. I think people should be allowed to say horrible things, and that the sane in this world might eventually outnumber the idiots and tell them to STFU.

 

[akuchi]

Hey Deck Knight - Marxism and Fascism aren't the same thing. If they were fascists wouldn't go around kicking the crap out of marxists [and vice-versa].

Authoritarianism does not a marxist system of governance make.

 

[Ambitions]

Ron Pauls calling a quits so after he "announce a new effort to help elect libertarian-leaning Republican to public offices around the country."

O well, guess I have to vote for Cynthia McKiney or some shit now. Maybe Obama if he comes to his senses and starts to see how fucking stupid National ID's, RFID chips, and finger printing people ever where they go is.