martha
Blue Crack Supplier
Sorry about that! I blame the snarky reply on march madness. My bracket got busted up a little last night.
No worries. I've been known to make snarky replies with no excuse!
Limbaugh - "We don't have the money"
- Thread starter financeguy
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No worries. I've been known to make snarky replies with no excuse!
I also completely agree. The way that the U.S. (military, government, and ultimately citizenry) has treated our armed forces throughout the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts has been disgraceful. So many of these people truly answered the unselfish call to serve their country after the horror of September 11. Some enlisted full time, some (with families and careers) volunteered for the reserves or national guard. What they got was Iraq and repeated/extended/endless combat tours away from family/career through the shameful (but necessary because there were not enough volunteers) "stop loss" program. Most reservists and guard members make significantly less money while on military duty than their real careers (causing additional family hardships). Too many who suffered injuries have been denied benefits by the V.A. or enjoyed treatment at the luxurious accomodations at Walter Reed Army Hospital and the like.
These brave volunteers carried the burden for every American of what was supposed to be the response to September 11. Meanwhile, the rest of us (self included) chewed our fingernails with anxiety but otherwise did nothing except watch the news and applaud for a returning soldier in the airport if we saw them. I think it is a national scandal, and I am ashamed to be complicit in it. Given the outrage of the $trillion$-plus bailout given to our "best and brightest" on Wall Street (for doing nothing but stuffing as much money in their pockets as fast as they could), I sincerely think it is time for some U.S. Congressperson to introduce legislation to give a meaningful stimulous check of gratitude to these veterans. Every last one of these returning veterans should be made an instant millionaire. I am not kidding. And despite what Rush Limbaugh or anyone else says, we do have the money for that. We'd better, or we are otherwise worthless as a society.
Limbaugh is a sack of shit. Conservatives are the ones who especially use the ideology of smaller government and individual rights for the sake of control; they are unprincipled fascists with no principles except whatever they want to do. Such a hypocritical prick.
The only Republican I respect is former senator of Nebraska Chuck Hagel. The rest of these guys all of a sudden care about future generations. Lying bastards!
You have to understand, Finance Guy, they sound all principled when they're delivering speeches, but you have to look at the wider range of their activities to get a sense of how hypocritical they are. Newt Gingrich is the same way; sounds perfectly intelligent on talk shows, but he ruled with a fascistic intolerant mindset.
In the end, Republican ideology has led to a serious decline in the American educational system since the end of WWII and Dems have felt pressured to move to the right. Democratic left-wingers have led to massive spending, but it's nearly always resulted in some kind of progressive enhancement -- whether FDR's New Deal, LBJ's civil rights legislation and War on Poverty. They may not have always succeeded, mostly out of feeling the need to appease the right, but their hearts were in the right place; they weren't just excusing "greed is good" as an ideology. Clinton wasn't much of a Democrat, but he was better than Bush for lower class Americans and he only veered to the right after the 1994 election scared him away from gay rights and health care into signing that despicable Welfare Reform.
Of course the government would go into debt for health care, but it's a better alternative than going into debt for nothing but war and screwing poor people over. The fact is the upper class and middle class have resisted reform because it's been framed as helping those more needy. People have to be coerced sometimes for the greater good because otherwise more people will suffer and crime is going to go up, and Republicans will be happy to blame it on race and foreigners, and nothing will get better, and the global warming will get worse and the rich will survive the longest because, even if George W. Bush choses to not believe in it, he'll be able to afford clean drinking water and other resources, while most suffer.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
If you think fascists are conservatives then you obviously don't know what a fascist is.
Fascism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Conservatives don't believe in single-party states. They aren't nationalist socialists.
Most believe in small government and individual effort to achieve happiness, not government authoritarianism.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
well now we know that Rush Limbaugh is actually Fred Savage.
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Bush was not that conservative. He was part of the "new tone". He barely won the election by electoral college so he felt that he had to do the "compassionate conservative" movement to placate Democrats which is a strategy Dubya is starting to admit failed. The reason why real conservatives didn't like Bush's spending was because "compassionate conservatism" is not compassionate to taxpayers. Hence the big debt. No child left behind was very expensive and yielded little results. The scatterbrained attitude of Bush (and Republican congress) was shown when he lowered taxes while increasing spending. The laffer curve only works when the taxes were too high and then lowered. Any further tax cuts have to be followed by spending cuts or else the debt will increase. Obama is now just continuing the problem further because Keynesian economists are using the Great Depression as a boogyman to scare politicians into throwing money at the problem. Of course there are differing opinions on how the U.S. got out of the Depression. Keynesians think high spending did it and many libertarians and myself feel that 20% personal savings rate and lowering of the trade barriers lead to the better economy afterward. Japan has since the '90s been doing the same spending tactics and yielded little results.
The political cycle starts with idealism (usually in think tanks and party conventions) and then it is faced with some defeat. Then a more popular compromised version of the ideas comes up as a "realistic" application and eventually succeeds. When that success happens then the opposition goes through the same process based on perceived mistakes of the current government.
To make it more entangled and complex you also get political parties that switch allegences and take credit for opposition party ideas. A lot of the spending proposals from Bush and Amnesty ideas come from Democrats. I remember Clinton openly criticizing Bush for taking his ideas (including Sadaam Hussein WMD). Of course Clinton took credit for Gingrich's Contract with America and the ensuing balanced budget. The cycle keeps going on and on. At least with a two party system it's not as useless as proportionate representation like in Israel. Too many parties and platforms that are released during the campaign are quickly left aside as the new coalition forms. Then the platform can be entirely left behind when a coalition breaks and reforms into a different permutation. Who takes credit for what and who is to blame? Good question.
One of the American founding fathers (don't know which) said that he didn't like party politics because of factionalism and partisanship but he didn't illustrate a viable efficient alternative and no one has since. If there's anybody who knows of an alternative they should write a book and get a Nobel Prize. No one has been able to break the back of that problem yet.
Neither Reagan nor Bush, Sr. was that "kind of conservative" either, especially if you look at their national debt figures. In fact, feel free to give me an example of such a conservative that has actually lived up to these ideals in practice, not just in rhetoric.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Gingrich in the '90s.
Reagan was but Democrats in congress did not cooperate. Remember the public has to demand this and they often don't really go all the way. That's why you get one political party in congress and one in the presidency.
Bush Sr. is a Nixon wing conservative or what some call Rockerfeller Republican. Reagan was Goldwater wing.
In practice it is always different than in theory. Watch the debt figures for on I.O.U.S.A. at 3:47. Though please keep in mind that they are looking at presidents. Congress is 2/3 of the power of the U.S. government. It's easy to pick on one guy and ignore everyone else.
YouTube - I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized - The 30 Minute Version
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
Both Gingrich and Reagan were more than willing to use big government when it suited their purpose.
That's why I'll ask it again: Where the hell have those conservatives been the last 30 years? We could have used a few.
That's why I'll ask it again: Where the hell have those conservatives been the last 30 years? We could have used a few.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Consevatives believe that a large military is what is keeping freedom in the world. They feel it suits all our purposes. Of course feel free to disagree.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
He thinks you can just veto everything and expect to be elected?
What about people demanding more spending? You would think Reagan was a dictator in a vacuum and Democrats and their constituents have no effect. It's a total disingenuous article. As a president to do all you want when there's lots of opposition is not realistic. Even Obama is finding out that even with a majority of Democrats in Congress.Libertarians need to learn to convince the public of their ideas before they see politicians go to that level. Politicians will only go as far as constituents want them to.
When it comes to the cold war I don't see any arguments that will replace Reagan's involvement. In fact he sounds like a hack.
Reagan proved that with lower taxes the government actually collected more receipts and that by itself created the ultimate argument against high taxes for even leftists.
With Gingrich well he did presided over a balanced budget and championed welfare reform that couldn't have been done without Reagan's tax reforms.
Obama has already broken promises on earmarks (as expected) and that will be nothing compared to a Republican congress opposing him. Bill Clinton (ahem Hillary) wanted to bring in nationalized health care but even Democrats balked at it because they were worried they might lose voters. This is a common situation in Republics. The U.S. is a republic. Political opposition will always be there.
This guy also is a big supporter of legalizing drugs so he feels that selling drugs is not violent. That is pretentious to say the least. Drug dealers do enormous damage. They are like vampires. When your brain chemistry changes and assumes cocaine is a neurotransmitter your capacity to make a choice like to stop taking drugs is diminished. Freedom is only for you to do what you ought to do, not just do whatever. Also when addicts run out of money and lose their jobs (for obvious reasons) they turn to crime to pay for their fixes. You can't decouple the justice system from drugs.
Libertarians need to be demoralized. They sound like jealous spouses. Politics always involves compromises and that's the reason why they are a rump party. They are thinking of a world without the military technology we have today. The small 1800's style government is a dream. Crime was low and many people had a fear of God. Plus drug addiction was rare during this period. You would have to ignore the 20th century to dream that its possible to go back. Maybe if all countries in the world were legitimate democracies can we actually see military shrink and focus more on natural disasters.
The public is not going to let ALL social programs disappear and Reagan was never intended to do so. Reagan said precisely that on his inaurguration. The problem was too much government. The 70% marginal tax rate was punishing. Why would people get ambitious enough to move forward in their careers with that disincentive.
Sure the right doesn't always get what they want just like the left doesn't either.
What are the libertarians doing about it? Not much that I can see. Can they really convince most of the public to abandon the U.S. military might and to legalize drugs? If a baby is born with an expensive disease would they eliminate medicaid? Some people don't buy insurance for dumb reasons but they do it anyway. When politicians are faced with these choices they aren't going to go to a pure libertarian way. Those libertarians that also wouldn't go that way aren't really libertarian then are they? To me the best part of libertarians is their understanding of monetary policy and fiscal policy. That's the only thing that keeps them from completely disappearing off the political map. Ignoring exceptions and problems won't make them go away.INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
And yet just look at how those two pseudo-conservatives were demonized and vilified as "uncaring" and "mean" for merely slowing the growth of government spending.
One of "those conservatives" wouldn't stand a chance in our culture of expanding entitlement, victimhood and unaccountability would they?
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
so, i can understand the "expanding entitlement" thing, but how do you quantify the second two? i thought "Welfare Queen" was a debunked notion by the time 1990 rolled around?
No it's mutated. Now we have Wall Street Queens.
OP
OP
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Not necessarily.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Excluding many libertarians of course.
OP
OP
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Yes and arguably some paleos. Although paleos are generally pro-strong military but disagree fundamentally on neo-cons as to when it should be used.
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