Election thread

[Buster's Uncle]

They're going to get indoctrinated no matter what we do unless we do get different teachers - but tell me: who decides what's indoctrination and what's teaching?  Me? You?  What's the fair standard here?

And no.  I had never been in the physical presence of anything by Rand until years of knowing Randists in college had already poisoned me against her.  I've read about Rand and her ideas a fair bit, and talked to a lot of her cultists.  My reading habits tend to words assembled in a sequence, but there are limits.  That woman and what she taught was vile.

[Earthmichael]

They're going to get indoctrinated no matter what we do unless we do get different teachers - but tell me: who decides what's indoctrination and what's teaching?  Me? You?  What's the fair standard here?

The fair standard is to teach a variety of philosophies.

And no.  I had never been in the physical presence of anything by Rand until years of knowing Randists in college had already poisoned me against her.  I've read about Rand and her ideas a fair bit, and talked to a lot of her cultists.  My reading habits tend to words assembled in a sequence, but there are limits.  That woman and what she taught was vile.

How can you actually know what she taught unless you read one of her fiction books?  Not second-hand accounts or summaries, but one of her actual ficiton books?  You label her vile without having read her work!?!  Start with "Anthem"; it is short, and can be read in 1 or 2 hours.  Try to read with an open mind.  Then can you explain exactly what you find vile about it?

By this standard, I should have never read anything by Marx or any other socialist or humanist work, because of rabid socialist and humanists in college with their closed-minded poison.  But I have read several works of these kinds, so that I can understand.

Personally, I have rarely read a more vile statement than "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."  Though some claim that Jesus taught this, he taught no such thing.  This is a most morally bankrupt philosphy, that my ability becomes the basis of theft of my work, and that one's need becomes the authority to perform the theft. 

I am very scared that so many people in the world accept this as a valid philosophy of life!  They need to be exposed to other philosophical views.  Then if they still hold to that view, so be it.  But most hold it because they are told they can occupy the moral high ground using it, and they are not exposed to other philosophies that illustrate just how depraved this philosophy actually is!

[Rusty Edge]

I think you have a good point about discussing the Civil War re-enforces the idea that you can't let go of it. I respect that.

When I remember Lincoln, I think of two things he accomplished that shaped and united America-

Transcontinental Railroad Act.
The Homestead Act.

[Rusty Edge]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting my ranys to post

[Rusty Edge]

Or rather

"rants"

I'll try again tomorrow

[JarlWolf]

Just read the vast majority of the political explosion before me, and I'll give my view on the American system, and democracy etc. overall.

I am a solid communist, one that has the ideal so entrenched that it's surprising I haven't turned dogmatic about it. I'm fairly close. The thing is I find politics as a whole, where you apply directly ideals of socio/economic principles, REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE THEY ARE, will lead to failure within the system. It does not matter whether its a more capitalist, (or in this day and age, Corporatist) type of system that privatizes everything, and if businesses could get away with it, privatize the very air we breathe, or a total communist system where resources are so thoroughly, equally distributed that society is so focused on maintaining equity that focus on progress is nearly impossible.

I am a Communist in the cultural and social sense(not political), and I believe that private property has turned people into near fetishistic materialists, always wanting to expand their wealth. We have men and women who are so wealthy they practically swim in it, and could last their entire lifetime with wiping their bottoms with their currency, but they are obsessed with making even more and securing their profits, even if it's at the expense of people. Communism doesn't ignore material, and is very well materialist itself, but it goes as far as supplying need over the urges of profit and want.

Democracy itself, as stated, and especially in the United States and more capitalist societies as a whole has brought the concept of wealth and it's relation to politics and have not only fortified it more then it already was within politics, but have intrinsically entwined wealth into politics to the point where anyone who is considered "conservative" now a days is not willing to sacrifice their precious shares, stocks and what have you. Or you have moralistic morons who think they have the right to determine how people live their lives. It's a rapid slide into a cesspit.

With that in mind, I am probably something identifiable as someone of more conservative values myself, just not in the perception Americans perceive it. I believe in progressive change under carefully monitored and planned conditions, without rapid change, so the status quo is kept at a comfortable level, without stagnating. I don't agree with the volatile market economic systems, and especially do not advise such a volatile and unbalanced system in something as precarious as democracy. Democracy alone, even in it's modern representative form is unstable and most often, with nations that actually try to uphold consistent elections, the terms are so short that any promises made by politicians will never be met. Goals are negligible for the long term, and the overall political system is so short sighted that it's incredibly unstable for the system.

For an extensive problem such as the one the United States has gotten itself into, with rising inflation rates, increasing debt, of which much of that debt is to either China or a organization NOT even involved with the American government, the so called "federal Reserves," which basically loan out money to the American government.

And the solutions to these major problems? band aid solutions of providing insurances, bailing out companies with unadaptive, failed strategies and merely creating more bureaucracy so nothing gets done. Am I saying that I as a person could devise a full solution to such a problem? No.

A system that large, and with that many problems and so much rapid, near fascist changes needs much more strenuous changes. It goes against my nature normally to even consider such stringent changes but for America to start recovering from it's conundrum it needs to cut spending in bloated industries, such as military expenditures, and not only that is really needs to attack it's bureaucracy and overall administration and take charge of things. Easier said then done.

Also, on the account of Europe, Europe has been driven into debt not due to Socialist policies, but more of the European Union incorporating nations who do not regulate their spending and have extreme corruption problems. Add in the point that the European Union actually LIBERALIZED most of the European market, removing protection systems and government run institutions and such, (such as in Sweden with their pharmaceutical companies,) and the overall elitist rule averaging expenditures and introducing policies which are highly unbalanced, you have not only a financial tidal wave from America with failing stocks, bankrupt states such as Greece and Portugal, and the removal of actual government run institutions and the filth that is liberalization and privatization of industries that are essential to the welfare and services of a nation's people. You end with not only debt, but also growing animosity and support of nationalistic movements. Nationalism that is not only destructive and in terms of nation's, self absorbed, but also degrading of an already horrible situation. Why you think Switzerland didn't join the European Union? It didn't want to forsake it's control over it's banking and industry, and influence in the global market and have it's pockets drained by incompetence.

Overall I think democracy can work but not in the way we have it setup currently, and I think while municipal/local elections and such are good, constantly electing whole new governments every given X years or so is just highly disruptive and allows no real progress.

Liberalization is a one sided, short lived benefit system that has not only started to ruin Europe, if you want further evidence of why it is destructive, look at Africa. Nations just emerging from the despairs of colonialism and imperialism, trying to carve their own corner, setting up their own industries and dealing with their own problems, and then add in the greed of western markets trying to pry open borders and removing the protectionist systems aimed to help protect the growing local industries. And im not even going to start on he political interference of nation's abroad, just mentioning the CIA is enough to get me grinded.

[Buster's Uncle]

Charles Darwin gets 4,000 write-in votes in Georgia
By David Beasley | Reuters – 22 hrs ago.. .


ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia congressman who attacked the theory of evolution found himself with an unlikely opponent in Tuesday's U.S. election, when 4,000 voters in one county cast write-in ballots for the 19th century father of evolution, British naturalist Charles Darwin.
 
In a September 27 speech, Paul Broun, a physician and member of the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee, called evolution and the Big Bang Theory, "lies straight from the pit of hell."
 
Since Broun, a Republican, had no opposition in the general election, a University of Georgia plant biology professor, Jim Leebens-Mack, and others started a write-in campaign for Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution.
 
"We don't feel our interests are being best served by an anti-science fundamentalist representing us on the Science, Space and Technology Committee," Leebens-Mack told Reuters on Friday.
 
The write-in votes in Athens-Clarke County will not count officially since Darwin was never certified as a write-in candidate, but Leebens-Mack hopes the campaign will encourage a strong candidate, Democrat or Republican, to challenge Broun in 2014.
 
"I think there could be Democratic opposition, but even more likely is having a rational Republican who understands issues like global warming, scientific reasoning more generally," said Leebens-Mack.
 
Broun received 16,980 votes in Athens-Clarke County, home of the University of Georgia, Broun's undergraduate alma mater.
 
Broun's office issued a statement on Friday that did not directly address Darwin, saying that the congressman "looks forward to representing the ... constitutional conservative principles" of his constituents.
 
The statement also noted that Broun "received a higher level of support from his constituents in Athens-Clarke County this election cycle than in any of his previous campaigns."

http://news.yahoo.com/evolutionist-charles-darwin-gets-4-000-write-votes-160159056.html

 
Losing 20% of the vote in the county to a long-dead foreigner who never resided in the district or the US?  Priceless.

[Buster's Uncle]

I think you have a good point about discussing the Civil War re-enforces the idea that you can't let go of it. I respect that.

When I remember Lincoln, I think of two things he accomplished that shaped and united America-

Transcontinental Railroad Act.
The Homestead Act.

In fact, the South alone did immeasurably worse with the man dead than alive after the unpleasantness.  He was pursuing a sensible, sane, conciliatory policy that we're all Americans together again.  He might have been able to make it stick.  He would, I guarantee, have left office the most unpopular President  ever, because the Yankees were so mad for revenge that they impeached Andrew Johnson, a man history has since done much injustice, just for pursuing the same mild policies.

With Lincoln dead, the South was treated like dirt, like conquered territory full of traitors, the first part of that being true.  The region has never recovered and the propaganda and slanderous jokes are still  EVERYWHERE, 150 years later.  And we are, indeed, a little backwards.  It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Good job there, Yankees.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting my rants to post

Tell me about this problem; we'd like to track it down and fix it, but this is a new one by me.  I keep seeing you trying to post, and I'd been thinking you kept changing your mind...

[Rusty Edge]

I also hate when they (fictitiously) accuse him of pulling the kind of lame crap Republicans do all the time.  Anyone on the right with a stronger criticism of his economic work than "he hasn't done a good enough job" (true), but instead accusing him of sending the economy into the toilet?  Republicans who say that ought to be struck by lightning for the hypocrisy.

And he's liberal like the Clintons, which is to say not liberal at all.  I'm sick of the fantasies and the "liberal" news media letting them pass.

Thanks for the USS Constitution, Buncle!

Where to begin?

Hello everyone. While Civ has been my primary computer game passion over the years, II is the only version I've never owned or completed .  It wasn't compatible with the hardware I had at the time.

It just now occurs to me that II is something I will likely get around to eventually now that V is a bust.

So I'm the alleged conservative BUncle invited over to ad some some balance. Oddly enough, I thought I was a conservative until Ronald Reagan was elected. Afterall, "fiscal" is implicit in conservative isn't it? Reagan was only asking for our government to live within it's means, same as every family has to, and he was going to balance the budget by 1983, 1984 at the latest.

So I found out I was more of a Libertarian, and I found out from the heir of Conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, that I was actually a Kook rather than a Conservative.

Uh .. whenever I would try to preview a post it would tend to crawl and lock up. If I tried again it would say I 'd already posted, but my posts would disapear. Today it appears to be functioning normally.

[Buster's Uncle]

You're a true Liberatarian, which makes you one of the very rare genuine conservatives, and I like you guys and can talk to you, and think you're right a non-trivial part of the time.  I can talk very happily to almost any conservative who hasn't even drank the Reagan koolaide.  Do you realize how rare that makes you?

And I never hear you spouting the moldy old McCarthyist bullcrap that usually comes with listening to Libertarians.  You're an extremely, incredibly, rare bird, sir. 



Maybe you might tell us about the Byzantine Empire to begin making your case?

[Rusty Edge]

Where was I? I officially registered Libertarian befroe the turn of the millenia.

Make no mistake, I blame Bush the Lesser and his party for spending, borrowing, and rewriting the regulations which tore the toilet seat from underneath the world economy.

But my contempt extends to every  elected federal sitting at the time of the financial market collapse.
They should have over-reacted rapidly to restore stabillity and prevent the calamity.

I have particular contempt for one junior Senator who abandoned his post . Instead he was traveling the country telling anyone who would listen how well he was qualified to become president , because he was a leader in the senate and the voice of his party, and how he had the answers for the economy. That makes him about as bad as those responsible for the financial crisis.

On my cynical days, I wonder if he made any callus decision to let things slide on W's watch so that he could look great on his own as they came back to normal, and he just misjudged things.

Anyway, I also blame Obama for floundering in the toilet with the economy. Had he bothered to put in a full term in the US Senate he might have developed working relationships, respect, and a sense of how to get things done by building consensus.

The world's toughest job is on-the-job-training, and hopefully the next four years will be better for everyone's sake.

I've got an unseasonably warm afternoon going to waste, and some rain gutters to clear of wet leaves before they freeze solid, and a mother to call , among other things.
I'll get back to you  this evening.

Great to see you again, Buncle!

[Buster's Uncle]

That does NOT make him as bad. 

However, (without getting into my belief that Bush/Cheney's backers wanted to clean up in a bull market, thus the monkey badmouthing the economy his entire time as President Appoint, and well into his first term as acting President, which had driven the stock market into the toilet even BEFORE that thing happened in New York, which is actual treason, if it can ever be proven) the fairest knock out there against Bakrama is that he didn't pay his dues, wasn't ready and wasn't qualified.  (I think the quality of his presidency thus far bears me out.)  We gotta stop even considering tolerating these clowns trying to jump straight to the top without doing their homework.  I voted for him against Mrs. Clinton because I don't like or trust such a desperate panderer, but she, at least, had worked in the White House for years, including acting as Chief of Staff for a while, on top of just as much time as a Senator.  It was a crappy choice to have to make.  Edwards shouldn't have been in the race on the same grounds of experience.

And, as I've mentioned, Romney had the same sort of qualification problem (Bakrama's experience as a state legislator in a major state compensating somewhat), and Republicans had even less of a choice, him being the only sane adult running for the nomination who was viable at all. 

Shame on these unqualified people for even running, and shame on us all for supporting any of them, and shame on both parties for not finding some sort of farm system to to develop qualified candidates.  Party leadership should make a big, big, BIG point of STRONGLY discouraging the unqualified who've held less than five elected public offices, at least two for full terms on the national level (or one and a Governorship) for no less than a total of ten years real world experience in governing and politics.  Any less is a recipe for terrible failed Presidencies.

[Buster's Uncle]

-Also, great to see you, Rusty.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, I hate to get into conspiracies, because usually I think it's more likely a matter of incompetence followed by a lot of CYA. I mean if those ( insert conspirators here ) could have managed that without leaving proof, they could have managed to do their jobs well.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You could be right.

I think Romney's experience as a governor without a legislative majority is an excellent qualification. I wish more presidents knew how to get things done without one.

I think credible qualifications are Governors, Senators, and major generals.  I also think that combat command experience  ( Truman, George McGovern, George the Elder ) makes a guy good in a high pressure emergency.   

And for the record, I did vote for Obama against Hilary in our open primary.  I can't stand that woman.  I'm not sorry that he is president and she is not. Making her Sec. of State was the next best thing to deporting her.

Back to work...