Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

[MattS]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Since you obviously missed my point. They all do it, but what we are doing now unprecendented.

Oh...Oh...OK, I understand now. So what you are saying is that all of the previous spending was OK because this is just way too much. Got it.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

It's sillier than that, since it's a basic logical error to take these concepts that mean something to us and reimpose them back on a time when they meant nothing because all the actors, motivations and philosophies were completely different. It would be just as accurate to say that the Cistercians, who were communistic and revived the economy of western Europe in the 12th century, "prove" socialism works.

But to a Misean man with only an Austrian hammer who believes social "laws" are as invariant as gravity, it all makes sense. It's very reminiscent of whichever of those books Marx wrote where he did a historical analysis of Europe since the stone age and "discovered," surprise, that the political and cultural aspects of every age are simply derivative of materialist relations to the means of production.

I'll bet it was gratifying to him when he realized, shockingly, that he'd been right.

It is but one example of many through history that show individual freedom and self interest yield the greatest results for the whole. History has shown that the oppressive nature of the collective is a hinderance to progress and everyone suffers the more the collective interest is stressed. To put it simply, we can have the unequal distribution of wealth or the equal distribution of poverty.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

It is but one example of many through history that show individual freedom and self interest yield the greatest results for the whole. History has shown that the oppressive nature of the collective is a hinderance to progress and everyone suffers the more the collective interest is stressed.

And history is also full of examples of people banding together and being stronger than their constituent parts, and of people making personal sacrifices for goals they value more than their personal, immediate interests.

History is a fruit cake. You can't just pull out the ones you like and call it a raisin cake.

Socialism works under some historical conditions and not others, same as capitalism. Economic theory is like religion -- it's manufactured out of the needs of a certain time, and declaring it to be universal is just Springfield saying they can beat Shelbyville.

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -- William James

Well, that was him (and me) being snarky, but he actually hit it right on the head, here:

"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community."

Life pretty much always comes back to the Phantom Toll Booth.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Right. That would totally be applied fairly.

Not withstanding the racial history (and likely future) behind such tests, I'd be all for it.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

History is also full of examples of people banding together and being stronger than their constituent parts, and of people making personal sacrifices in order to protect themselves better.

History is a fruit cake. You can't just pull out the ones you want and call it a raisin cake.

I would argue that their banding together was often because of their self interest, but we don't need to go back-and-forth all day. I'm well aware that are are a bunch of things in the cake; we just differ on what the dominant flavor is.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Since you obviously missed the point. The point was: it's too much and they all do it.

It's gotten progressively worse, with Obama now making Bush look comparatively spendthrift, which of course he was anything but.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Not withstanding the racial history (and likely future) behind such tests, I'd be all for it.

Sure, I would too in theory. But in practice, it would never ever work.

Not even a racial thing necessarily.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Man, that was the best earmark ban ever. It almost lasted a whole week!

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Man, that was the best earmark ban ever. It almost lasted a whole week!

Dems and Repubs alike need to be booted from Congress. 99% are scum

 

[Carter]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

It's gotten progressively worse, with Obama now making Bush look comparatively spendthrift, which of course he was anything but.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Two things:

1. Your faith in Russia actually complying if that's passed is so misguided it physically pains me to read that.

2. Rammstein is quite possibly the largest base outside of the US. It's used as a launching pad for pretty much anything east of the Atlantic. Yep, let's shut that down because obviously it isn't needed.

What? Sorry...but you're hopelessly out of date. Its long past time to bring home our troops stationed in the EU.

Putin Proposes European Trade Zone Stretching `From Lisbon to Vladivostok'

By Patrick Donahue - Nov 25, 2010 8:00 AM CT inShareMore

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed closer economic links between Russia and the European Union that would eventually lead to establishing a free-trade zone stretching “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”

The response to the financial crisis should be a “joint continental market,” particularly in heavy industry and energy, Putin wrote in a commentary published today in German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Putin is on a visit to Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and business leaders tomorrow.

“In the future a free-trade zone could come into being and we could even consider more advanced economic integration,” Putin wrote. “Indeed, a joint continental market would then be created whose capacities would be in the trillions of euros.”

The Russian prime minister said broad-based economic cooperation would take place only in stages and over a long period of time, though he pitched ties with Russia as a remedy to weaknesses in the EU’s heavy industry and high-technology goods production, a result, he said, of de-industrialization.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...zone-from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-update1-.html

 

[joecct]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Oh I know! How about a poll tax? Seems like a good idea to me...

I get what you're saying, but I think things are just fine as they are. So some people vote stupidly, who cares?

What about a requirement that you must serve your country (civillian or military) for a set period before being granted the right to vote?

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Hasn't this country already gone down the road of creating two separate groups of citizens by law? Aside from the reasoning behind the two-class system being proposed in this last page or so, how can this even be seriously contemplated? I may not like the results of many of these elections, of my vote being offset by someone who votes for a candidate because he's bald (my roommate & Gov. Turnbuckle, true story), but legally setting rules is just going to create animosity between citizens. To that end, whether people want to admit it or not, those not able or willing to comprehend a simple poll-test have historically been quickest to riot.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Too be fair, "spendthrift" is an etymologically weird word. It developed out of "scattergood" (a wonderful word we should all revive), so the "thrift" part is what is being spent -- a synonymous sentence would be "a profligate who wastes what has up to then been carefully saved."

I guess you could say Dubya was the ultimate spendthrift since he blew the surplus.

Anyway, I always have to think twice about that word.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

You're correct. How about, Bush makes Obama look spendthift?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Too be fair, "spendthrift" is an etymologically weird word. It developed out of "scattergood" (a wonderful word we should all revive), so the "thrift" part is what is being spent -- a synonymous sentence would be "a profligate who wastes what has up to then been carefully saved."

I guess you could say Dubya was the ultimate spendthrift since he blew the surplus.

Anyway, I always have to think twice about that word.

Surplus? What is this you speak of?

 

[ScottM]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Surplus? What is this you speak of?

It was that day when somebody "carried the 1", multiplied that sum by X and divided by the 1948 GNP of Mongolia. Otherwise, known as "governmental accounting".

 

[Patman]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

It was that day when somebody "carried the 1", multiplied that sum by X and divided by the 1948 GNP of Mongolia. Otherwise, known as "governmental accounting".

I didn't know you could divide by 3 yaks and half a pound of cheese.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Surplus? What is this you speak of?

From FY 1998-2001 this country had a surplus. In the four years the surplus was $560B. At that time, it was expected to be as much as $1T over the coming decade. That was the "lock box" that everyone had so much fun ridiculing Al Gore over. A few things happened to end those days: The Internet boom went bust, hijackers flew planes into the WTC and Pentagon and the president and Congress slashed taxes while simultaneously increasing spending (govt spending went up 50% from FY01 to FY06). We went from a budget surplus of $128B to a then-record deficit of $412B just three years later.

 

[joecct]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Obama takes a shot to the chops. From the press notes, it appears it was not an right wing attack.