Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
What China practices isn't "Capitalism", it's state sponsored Corporatism. Or as know by it's original title, "Fascism".
Not a model I want to copy.
You are obtuse. Reagan created as much debt in 8 years as all the previous president...COMBINED.
Until the OP sees the difference between Ron Paul and Ronald Reagan, we are in terrible shape.... (because he votes)
You're a pig if you are claiming they were better off before.
Well you're a pig anyway...
You're a pig if you are claiming they were better off before.
Well you're a pig anyway...
I'm saying for your average Chinese, it kind of sucked living there, and it kind of sucks living there now. They still have a billion people in grinding poverty. Same as it was under the Communists, the Guamoutang, the Manchus, and so on.
A few people are rich, and the government is becoming worried that they will stir up the kind of class envy and disorder that put the Communists in charge to start with. So they cancel TV shows celebrating wealth and replace them with shows celebrating labor.
Oh, another thing. The bunch currently running China are still oppressing Christians... So they can't be all bad.
Until the OP sees the difference between Ron Paul and Ronald Reagan, we are in terrible shape.... (because he votes)
there is no difference in ideology. In practice, Republicans compromise to get elected, often do get elected, and often do wield power.
Libertarians don't compromise, don't get elected, and so are perfectly impotent
Welcome to the American Conservative PartyThe conservative view is that the government should be a useful servant of the people's needs. However, you give it too much money, power, authority it becomes the worst sort of master.
Why is it that so many Conservatives don't see how their party increased the size, budget, and power of Washington. Indeed, some of their most respected leaders have grown government much larger than anything imagined by Carter, Clinton, or Obama. They don't know the truth because they get their news from [wait for it] government, i.e., movement conservatism, which is an interlocking set of doctrinal structures that stretch from think tanks & publishing groups to the blogosphere and FOX News.
Look at Reagan's slice of the Cold War. He used it as a context for globalization, i.e., he used the Soviet Threat to pull developing nations under America's protective wing. In crude terms, he used the IMF to make structural adjustment loans to countries who had valuable assets. Corruptible representatives from those countries would strategically default on those loans, than the U.S. would gain leverage over their markets (i.e., open them to foreign investment). Reagan did all over the glove, especially in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. In each case he grew Washington's size and reach. He didn't just create a Washington big enough to manage the USA; nope, he created one big enough to manage the globe. In simple terms, heincreased the Pentagon's budget so that he could stabilize the 3rd world, so that he could protect and expand necessary markets. The point remains the same: he used the Cold War to grow the size, budget, and power of Washington more than anything his democratic predecessor ever dreamed.
Jimmy Carter lamented American involvement in the Middle East. He didn't think Washington had the resources to stabilize the Muslim world. He simply didn't have that kind of faith in the power of government to control the globe for its energy resources. He launched the most ambitious alternative energy and conservation plan in order to get Washington out of the middle east. He predicted that some day the Washington investment in Petroleum (as opposed to alternatives and conservation) would lead to bankruptcy in places like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
Reagan laughed at Carter. He trusted Big Government's ability to control world events. He didn't seek independence from the middle easy - nope. He convinced CONSERVATIVES that Washington could control and stabilize the middle east. He doubled down on the region, increasing American bases tenfold. And he made sure that the military investment in the middle east was severed from the cost of oil, so that the market would not send the wrong price signals, causing investments to flow into alternative fuels. Reagan convinced his loyal, obedient conservatives that Washington was competent enough to police the globe.
And then comes George W Bush. He convinced conservative voters that Washington was powerful enough to rebuild the greater middle east. Washington can't run a laundromat, yet conservatives gave it the power to change the way the muslim world lives. As if Washington was powerful and competent enough to force Islam into western modernity.
Watch what happens when the GOP re-takes Washington next January. Next stop Iran. They don't want a Washington big enough to control the 50 states, nope - they want a Washington big enough to control whole other continents.
Listen, I would love to save the world and spread utopian freedom to everyone. But I don't trust government to do such big things. I believe if you give government a concentrated lever of power, than you increase the chances that a fallible bureaucrat will misuse that power. This is why I don't want the power to exist in the first place. Because once you create a government agency - around the weapons industry - that agency begins to grow and feed only itself. It becomes a self perpetuating budget drag where parasitic special interests form and rot the taxpayers wallet from the core.
The Cold War and the War on Terrorism grew Washington's power more than anything ever imagined by the Left. Bush (and Obama, Bush junior) used the War on Terrorism to create the largest, most expensive, most secretive bureaucracy ever - the Department of Homeland Security, which is growing beyond control. A hidden world, growing beyond control | washingtonpost.com
The problem with the original poster is that he doesn't realize that his party has expanded the power of Washington more than any in history. He needs to turn off talk radio and take university course in how the Cold War and War on Terrorism put Washington on steroids. If he cared about small government, he would puke every time Reagan's name was mentioned. He would go back to the old isolationist conservatives who opposed the big liberal world improvers, FDR and Truman.
Until the OP sees the difference between Ron Paul and Ronald Reagan, we are in terrible shape.... (because he votes)
Hey, Sparky, did you know that there IS no "Conservative Party" in the US? Maybe if you learned the difference between "conservatives" and "Republicans", people wouldn't have to spend so much time and energy viewing you with contempt. Just a little service you could offer your fellow man, if it's not too much trouble.
A liberal will concoct schemes to "help" people in their selected protected classes.i dispute the REpublicans are doing it more slowly. Who makes you more in need of a safety net, the guy who puts up the net or the guy who pushes you off the platform to need it?
The problem is the Republicans are Pro-Business at the cost of being anti-worker, anti-consumer and and average guy. And when Romney and his sort destroy those nice union jobs at AmPad and replace them with McJobs at Staples, they make people more dependent on government.
The fact the businessman makes out for now isn't going to help them when those folks finally get democrats with enough balls to say, "Yeah, let's up the taxes on the rich."
As long as you acknowledge that is your opinion unsupportable by any known data in the universe, I will accept it as your opinion.
I will also say that (most) Republicans believe that promoting, encouraging, and helping business succeed is the finest form of compasion and assistance a country can give to the worker, the consumer, and the average guy including the poorest guy. It goes back to the old concept of giving people a fish that once consumed leaves them in need of another fish. And people being people, once they discover that there are free fish to be had, will vote for those who will keep those free fish coming, most especially if they are promised even more or bigger fish. The fact that the fish must be provided by somebody who is working to catch the fish doesn't bother the giver or receiver in the least. Until the fisherman becomes weary of having so many of his fish confiscated and decides it is easier to just not fish and take the free fish.
The Republicans, at least the conservative ones, see the better road as teachong somebody to fish and making it possible and profitable to do so. And because his destiny is then in his hands, and there is profit to be made in fishing, and no profit to be made by not fishing, he will fish and be grateful for the opportunity to do so.
The difference between you and me is likely which of these two scenarios is the most caring, compassionate, honorable, profitable, and fairest to all concerned.
What a pile of self righteous manure. Conservatives believe in teaching? Give me a fucking break.
Conservatives believe in punishment...PERIOD. There is never a single penny of human capital in any of their solutions. Conservatives idea of teaching people to swim is to throw them in the river, the ones that survive are 'taught'
What China practices isn't "Capitalism", it's state sponsored Corporatism. Or as know by it's original title, "Fascism".
Not a model I want to copy.
BO just took over health care. Is that fascism?
Your chart is fucking laughable.
I like how you fail to or give credit to the congress. But only when it suits your fucking pathetic partisan needs.
A liberal will concoct schemes to "help" people in their selected protected classes.
Thier schemes invariably require others fund the scheme.
Never will liberals lead by example, fund the program themselves through private donations to see how it works out. Nope. It's always "you must pay for these things to make US feel better about our noble efforts".
When faced with the suggestion of self help, liberals often explode into a rage. The result are canned responses such as " selfish" "wealthy" "the rich" "corporate" "white". All nicely packaged buzz terms to incite class envy and class warfare.
In the early part of the 20th century we had this little thing called the Great Depression. Contrary to today's entitlement minded social program collectors, those people were eager to work. They took menial jobs with the prospect of earning a living to support themselves and their families. Not today. Programs such as the WPA would be found with empty recruitment offices.
Give a man a fish and he eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
This notion offends you liberals to your very core.
The living standards of the typical Chinese poor person is much better than it was a generation ago. Working sweatshops is a much better living than subsistence agriculture. That's why 100 million Chinese have migrated from the rural areas to the coasts and the cities - they have a much better living.
The living standards of the typical Chinese poor person is much better than it was a generation ago. Working sweatshops is a much better living than subsistence agriculture. That's why 100 million Chinese have migrated from the rural areas to the coasts and the cities - they have a much better living.
Yeah, so that's why so many of these folks are killing themselves... because they are just so happy being exploited by MNC.
I live for the day we hang Outsourcers as the traitors they are.
Why is it that so many Conservatives don't see how their party increased the size, budget, and power of Washington.
of course that is perfectly idiotic. Republicans, most of whom are conservative, have been for reduced or limited government since Jefferson founded the party in 1792. This is why for example they have introduced 30 Balanced Budget Amendments. Newts passed in the House and fell one vote short in the Senate. Do you know what our debt would be today were in not for the dastardly Democrats?
You are obtuse. Reagan created as much debt in 8 years as all the previous president...COMBINED.
Paul O'Neill - George Bush's first Treasury Secretary
The president had promised to cut taxes, and he did. Within six months of taking office, he pushed a trillion dollars worth of tax cuts through Congress.
But O'Neill thought it should have been the end. After 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, the budget deficit was growing. So at a meeting with the vice president after the mid-term elections in 2002, Suskind writes that O'Neill argued against a second round of tax cuts.
"Cheney, at this moment, shows his hand," says Suskind. "He says, 'You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.' … O'Neill is speechless."
"It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society," says O'Neill. "And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction."
Did he think it was irresponsible? "Well, it's for sure not what I would have done," says O'Neill.
You mean like the way anyone receiving public assistance is a welfare cheat and all union workers are lazy, overpaid slobs?
You mean like the way anyone receiving public assistance is a welfare cheat and all union workers are lazy, overpaid slobs?
I've never seen a conservative claim everyone on welfare is a cheat or that union workers are lazy. However we now have the highest percentage of people taking government entitlements than ever in our history. Do you really believe nearly half the population cannot provide for themselves any longer without hand outs?. . . .
