Quote:Democracts' only focus and goal is protection of the people.
That's not entirely true...while democrats are more willing to spend money on social services and environmental issues, as a group, they tend to be more liberal and less prone to military action.
Quote:Democrats never vote along party lines.
The only times that Dems will vote party lines is in votes to uphold and protect the constitution.
Case in point. The Democrats in the Senate voted right down the party line in the Clinton impeachment vote. They were not voting to protect Clinton. They were voting to protect a mans constitutional right to have his nob polished in his place of work, and his right to lie about it. You know, that whole pursuit of happiness thing.
Quote:Ok...i now love Polly more than spit.
Sorry spit.
:bah:
uicide:
Edited By Spitfire on May 22 2002 at 2:35
FDR saw how to get a nation out of a depression. And even though it took forever he tried his damn best to make it better. Bush just can't compare.
1. We are not in a depression. We were BARELY in a recession.
2. Free market economics are cyclical. When is crashes, it causes opportunities for people to start companies with little or no risk, create low-salary jobs, and capitalize on otheropportunities. This causes a recovery. The larger the crash, the larger the recovery. It has nothing to do with the politics
3. Government can do nothing in a Capitalist economy to help the economy. It can only hurt the economy. The only thing the government can do is put up obstacles, taxes, regulations, and impediments that slows down, or stops economic growth all together. It is when the government lifts regulations (capital gains, income taxe reductions, and other evil republican schemes) that the economy gets the biggest boosts
4. FDR's "New Deal" is a giant black cloud that has been hovering over economic growth for the last 70 years. Social Security will be the death of our economy when the baby boomers start retiring unless it is scrapped, eligability is pushed back about 15 years, or is privatized. It's a ponzi scheme that is illegal in all other fields of our country, but is mandated by our government.
And OAS. Are you serious? Are you really that naive? Democrats don't along party lines for the sake of politics? I'm not even going to cite specific examples. They're politicians. Republican/Democrat whatever. Whoever is right in any specfic issue, the fact still remains that they are all politicians and after power before any social changes they want.
It is Clinton's constitutional right to purjure himself in front of Congress? I missed that part of the constitution. The whole Clinton thing was a mess, and I don't care who sucks his dick where, but that wasn't the point of the whole "witch hunt". The probolem was that he lied to Congress. It doesn't matter what he was talking about. HE LIED UNDER OATH IN FRONT OF CONGRESS. All he had to do is say "you have no right to ask, and this has no bearing on any issue we are talking about". But instead, he took his typical scumbag position, insulting the intelligence of the American people, and decided to put himself above the constitution.
Edited By Galt on May 22 2002 at 8:58
3. Pure economic systems always fail. Why? If America went to pure Capitalism we would be in a depression within weeks. If we went onto full on state control we would be in a depression within weeks. Pure Capitalism has shown itself to not work. State control has shown itself to be inefficient as well(I'm the type of Socialist that's aganist the State controlling the economy excessively).
4. FDR's economic ideas may not have been the best but he did realize that he needed to do something. America was on the verge of pure chaos with massive labor strikes, etc. He had to do something. Wall Street wasn't going to do anything. The New Deal gave people work. Which Wall Street couldn't do.
Quote:The probolem was that he lied to Congress.
I'm sure Reagan never did that. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Democrat but Clinton has done a lot worse things. I mean honestly are you going to go up to the fucking Congress of the USA and say you got head from a chick half your age.
Quote:and decided to put himself above the constitution.
Sounds very similar to good ole Ronnie Reagan.
I'm not saying I'm for pure lassiez-faire (spelling please??) Capitalism because monopolies, price fixing, and other exploitations would run rampant (though the media and fast flow of information would stem some of that due to public outcry--but I digress). But under Capitalism, the only thing that the government can do is put impediments in front of the economy's growth, or assist in its slowdown. FDR handing out money to poor people and setting up a government-sponsored pyramid retirement scheme isn't what jumpstarted the economy in the 30s. Like every other economic downturn in this country's past and future, entrepreneurship fixed it.
And if Regan had ever been proven to have lied under oath in Congress to a direct yes or no question or have been proved to violate the constitution in any way (which he hasn't -- even in Iran Contra, there's no actual proof despite years of digging) I would have said that he should have been impeached as well.
PS:
Quote:Pure Capitalism has shown itself to not work
Where? When? Socialists always say that you can't say Socialism wouldn't work becuase "pure" Socialism has never been tried. When has "pure" Capitalism ever been tried? Are you talking about turn of the century when there were very few controls on business and we had the biggest technical and economic boom in the country's history?
Edited By Galt on May 23 2002 at 12:23
Quote:Pure Capitalism has shown itself to not work
Neither does pure socialism.
Socialism only works on the small scale. A farming community with a couple hundred people at most. Why? Because of the fundamental human need for incentives and threat of punishment. In a pure socialist society, everyone gets the exact same alotment of food, shelter, entertainment, etc. no matter what their performance is. So, why push yourself to do more than the absolute bare minimum? If you work extra hard, you don't get anything for your effort. If your a lazy bastard and slacker, you still get your share.
So, there is no incentive to work harder and no incentive to be inovative. No reward.
The only reason socialism works on a small scale is becasue of social pressure. If your a lazy bum, everyone knows it and treats you badly. You end up being ostracized. The simple act of EVERYONE not liking you and refusing to talk to you is devistating to the human psyche.
But on the large scale, why should I care what you think of me? If everyone I work with doesn't want to talk to me, so what? It's a city of a few million people. They can't all know what I do or don't do. So, I leave work and go home to family and friends who don't care about what I do at work. That's why socialism fails on the large scale. No social pressure to replace monetary incentive or the risk of losing your allotment.
Communism is socialism with incentive in the form of state terror.
Quote:And OAS. Are you serious? Are you really that naive? Democrats don't along party lines for the sake of politics? I'm not even going to cite specific examples. They're politicians. Republican/Democrat whatever. Whoever is right in any specfic issue, the fact still remains that they are all politicians and after power before any social changes they want.
Galt, go back and read my post. If you find anything serious in my poor attempt at humor about the impeachment vote, please let me know what it was.
I don't promote pure Socialism either. Sure maybe 300000 years from now we can all live in an Utopian society but it just isnt practical. And there is no such thing as Pure "Socialism" since Socialism isn't a very concete word it means many different things to many different people. Therefore there is no Pure idea of Socialism. Marxists will say theirs is the purest, as will Utopian Socialists(even though you'd be hard pressed to find a Utopian Socialist these days).
However pure capitalism can be defined as an economy lacking protectionist measures, etc.
As for Reagan going in conflict with the Constitution how about looking into FEMA. FEMA has the power to override many parts of the Constitution in times of "emergency".
Quote:Like every other economic downturn in this country's past and future, entrepreneurship fixed it.
Are you serious? What saved the American economy was World War II. If it wasn't for World War II who knows how long the Depression would have lasted.
Protectionist measures are important in an economy. We had way more depressions in the 19th Century than in the 20th Century.
And has anyone noticed whenever there is a thread on Democrats vs. Republicans it quickly becomes an ideological battleground.
We had more depressions in the 19th century because there was no major industry to jumpstart the economy into recovery, or cause any sustained growth to prevent one.
WWII was nearly 10 years after the depression. That's not what caused the recovery. It definately created even more jobs and more growth than was originally happening, but that is not the sole cause. It sped up the recovery and greatly assisted in prolonging growth.
The sole reason for this country's continued leadership in business is entrepreneurship. Unlike any other country, entrepreneurship thrives here. This is because of the way the economy is set up, the tax breaks for businesses, the competitive nature, the fact that entrepreneurship breeds more entrepreneurship, and the great American virtue of greed. They keep pushing everything to get better and cheaper so they can profit off it. When that happens, every one in the society benefits.
Save for anti-trust laws, the government only slows things down.
hind site is 20/20. clues were given since before bush took office, you can't blame him alone for this. do i think something could have been done to prevent it? absolutely not. they were going to do something, and they knew nothing was going to stop them. not here or abroad. they've been able to blow up one of our navy ships, wasn't that supposed to be manned 24/7? they were able o drive 2 cars into 2 of our embassies in africe. why is anyone surprised by this??
Ok, allow me to burst some bubbles here. First of all, Gonzo, I know for a fact you are a better historian than this post lets on. FDR may possibly be the most overrated president this nation has ever seen. He is credited with ending the great depression. Lets see.... he created a series of crackpot organizations to give people jobs, of course, they had to be paid..... no biggie, we'll just add that to the Federal Defecit. Despite his clever programs, the depression continued, but more Americans were working, feeling good about themselves, and FDR's popularity rose, sadly.... none of his programs brought about the desired effect.
One of the oldest axiohms in the historical world is "war is good for the economy". You are president of a nation that is in economic turmoil, there is the largest war the planet has ever seen, yet you are not involved...... hmmmm. Fine, FDR was this super-righteous person that was completely selfless..... either way, he didn't end the depression, WWII did. By the way.... funny how he is the only president that didn't follow George Washington's precedent and step down after two terms..... oh, and thanks to him, it did become law that no president can serve more than 10 years.
Enough about the lesser Roosevelt, lets move on. Clinton? Can someone explain to me exactly what good he brought this country? Oh, that's right, he saved us all billions of dollars by reducing the military. Oddly enough, the biggest cuts had to do with intelligence. That's right, our intelligence community has been for the last 9 years seriously undermanned. it was all well and good when the bad guys weren't feeling overly uppity, but I'm thinking it kinda came back to bite us in the ass. How 'bout that Cole? Oh..... that's right, Clinton did manage to get us on the cover of every tabloid in the world. But you gotta give the guy credit, somehow he and Hillary were the only two people known to be involved in the Whitewater deal that did absolutely nothing "wrong", yet they made lots of money.
As far as "other than Afghanistan" goes..... what do you expect? Are we by now to have invaded every country that has ever harbored terrorists? How easily we put the lives of the young men and women that have magnanimously endeavored to protect our well being. I'm sorry if the front hasn't gotten big enough to make you feel all warm and cozy. Do me a favor? Tell the grunt in a foxhole in the desert that you don't feel safe yet, and ask if he could please fight more "bad guys".
Edited By slackjaw on May 24 2002 at 01:32
It's funny how people forget that Clinton ordered those cruise missile attacks on Al Qeada installations back in 98 or 99. And liberals were calling him a criminal for striking first. Seems he was getting SOME intelligence back then.
Surely you jest Arthur. Clinton's cruise missle attacks were ordered to divert attention from the Lewinski scandal. Forget that there was intellegence that suggested bin Laden was in the camp. Forget that if the strike would have hit 20 minutes earlier bin Laden may have been killed. Forget that Clinton wanted to launch a full scale commando assault against al Quida but congress nixed the entire action. Forget that Clinton signed the bill to cut the military and CIA budgets because he signed Newt Gingrichs "Plan for America" package that recommended the cuts because we had not had a significant military need since Desert Storm. Remember, the only thing he accomplished was getting rich from Whitewater and getting his knob polished.
Quote:It's funny how people forget that Clinton ordered those cruise missile attacks on Al Qeada installations back in 98 or 99. And liberals were calling him a criminal for striking first. Seems he was getting SOME intelligence back then.
did you forget also that clinton was offered to have bin laden delivered into his hands, and he refused? this didn't start on 9/11, it's been continuing since the gulf war. this is pres #3, we can't blame gwb alone.
[quote]? Our leaders are saying something's coming and we don't know when...[quote]
i am sorry, but i can't help but think that this and the "big announcement" someplace else have something in common with each other