I've posted one of his memos before. It's a joke. Relax. I think the various 'group months' are pretty ridiculous to be honest. That doesn't diminish my support of gay rights and gay marriage. Although I am a bit peeved that there isn't a 'Goofy-looking Tall German Descendent Month'.

This is starting to become a pattern. AP reports that another job offer was made to a candidate challenging an incumbent Democrat.

AP Sources: Admin talked jobs with Romanoff - Yahoo! News

Pattern as in both parties do this every election cycle.

And people of both parties should be thrown in jail.

But people elected Obama because he was going to be different, right? If he was going to be more of the same with a liberal lean, then he shouldn't have promised otherwise. This points to one of the greatest disappointments with Obama, especially with swing voters who believed what he promised. I suppose it's easy to say it's just more of the same, but that's pretty disappointing if true.


Agreed. That's the other hangup in this situation. Depending on how it's interpreted, this could be termed illegal.

Good luck with that. Are we going to convict Bush1, Clinton, Bush2 and Carter? What about a posthumous conviction for Reagan?

And of course the party out of power is also making these same deals just with different jobs being tossed about. And worse, it's happening all over the globe!!!

No one is disagreeing with you here. It's extremely frustrating that this continues to be allowed to happen by people who make excuses for the behavior. It needs to stop.

Thanks for that insight into swing voters. I'm sure that there are people who voted for Obama that believed they were getting their pony, but at least around here the only people holding him to that standard are those that voted for someone else.

Politics happens. Unilateral disarmament won't win you any votes and I doubt there are more than a handful of real swing voters that are paying attention to this instead of the Gulf.

There's no realistic way to make it stop. It's politics. Deals are made. Even outlawing parties won't help.

Aren't political parties supposed to support and run the folks they think will have the best chance of winning?

It's unfortunate to see even those who voted for Obama abandon the ideals and promises that his election run was based on. I stated this some time ago in this thread, but I'd love for Obama to succeed with true 'change'. When I see these actions and see comments like the above, I'm pretty sure that change that was promised isn't a priority of this president despite his words during the campaign to the contrary.

So that's what it has come down to? Simply making excuses that everyone had done it? It seems to matter which side of the fence you are on whether it becomes an illegal matter or a just something to be excused away.

So you get to decide what is change? (We'll leave out the BS about you really wanting Obama to change) And anything you deem as "not change" suddenly invalidates everything that may be change?

As I said, around here at least, the people that voted for Obama understood he was a politician that would engage in politics. If anything I've been disappointed that he hasn't engaged enough on the political side.

Well, when even the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (who have been historically hyper critical of ethical issues) say this is much ado about nothing, I'd say that is more than just "making excuses that everyone had done it"

Even CREW Says Sestak's Claim Of Job Offer Is No Scandal | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

I'm not excusing "my guy", I don't think it matters. This kind of petty horsetrading as been a part of politics since people first started ruling others.

Why is this more serious than trading a fundraising speech or a book blurb? The jobs being offered are political appointments and the party still can make it very difficult for a candidate that they want to sit out. Are we going to make it illegal for a party to support one primary candidate over another?

It doesn't matter what he does, you would say he abandoned this or that. That he did this or that wrong. It has nothing to do with his policies, it has to do with Barack Obama.

No one gives a shit about this psuedo-scandal because it fucking doesn't matter. It has zero impact on anyone in real life. There are actual real issues at stake, not the ones trumped up by whatever blog told you to believe something.

Slap at LGBT was a joke so that makes it ok. When you have lost all credibility anyways its easy to just crack jokes, or stand on principal....no one will be able to identify the difference anyways

----MBBF

You decided to come back into the discussion? Kid must be asleep. :)

Maybe I've read too many fiction novels, but I assumed that this kind of stuff happened all of the time and, in the realm of backroom politics, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal to me.

It's not a big deal - it happens all the time.

It's not a big deal at all, Obama is a politician playing a game we like to call politics. The Republicans are going to try and use this to...

A) Take on Obama and try to swindle tea party people back into the Republican party.
B) Win elections based on "Obama being a different kind of politician" not being "true".

And guess what? In 2012 a Repubican will run on "A new kind of politician" platform and win the White House, have a "scandal" like this come out in 2013, and have Democrats playing politics for votes by calling for an impeachment.

EDIT: (Standard panerd anti-government comment :) ) : Enjoy the sideshow folks! On the main stage we will continue spending you into an oblivion that kids will read about in their history books in 2110.

Of course it's business as usual and not a big deal. What is a big deal is the appearances of the continued culture of corruption and deception, which is being excused away. Hard to claim any high ground or better principles, esp. among those that were skeptical in the first place. But keep it up and you'll find yourselves in the same position as the Reps in 2006.

But does it ever change? Incumbents win everywhere... the rest of the guys are crooks but our local guy is a pretty honest fellow! It seems like there is more outrage than usual at the government (not Republican at Democrat or vice versa but actually at the government) but maybe I am just getting older and more in tune to the message? I would love to see the entrance of a true third party that tells the Republicans to "fuck off" but my guess is they will be tricked into voting for the lesser of two evils in the fall. :(

don't you mean "one of the two evils?"

or are you revealing a partisan affiliation in a Freudian slip here?

No Freudian slip at all. I mean the Republicans will convince tea party or anti-big government people to vote for the "Lesser of two evils" strategy. I am hardly a Republican at heart. I really can't explain how much disdain I have with assualts on liberty (drug laws, gay rights, government phone taps), religion in my politics, and endless war. I hate the spending and handouts also but that is both parties. The Democrats are supposed to be fighting the first ones!

I don't think Obama has been the leader he promised to be, and a lot of his supporters are still in denial about that, but I don't get at all what the problem is with offering republicans jobs to get them out of races. Republicans should be mad at their party's members that are willing to jump ship like that.

Aaaah okay...I get what you meant.

Again, when most ethics watchdog groups and non-partisan legal observers say there is nothing here that is evidence of corruption or deception, much Les illegal activity, what exactly is being excused away?

remember the short bus episode? You claim to be a supporter of gay marriage rights and then you take pot shots at them? awesome....like a big dirty diaper, awesome.

That's not true, but I'm not going to convince you otherwise.

No it's not. Allow me to let another poster explain why:


:D

You're not helping. You're going to get Flasch all wound in a tizzy. He's going to forget to put a diaper on his kid and then wonder why he's getting a warm feeling on his leg while his kid is sitting on his lap.

Not that I've ever experienced that before..........

I'm a few months ahead of you on this and I hate to have to tell you this, but it's still possible to get that "warm feeling" even if you put the diaper on properly.

Not that I've ever experienced that before either.........

While I'm at it....

Pro Tip: When diapering a baby while wearing a tie, stick the tie inside your shirt.

I wasn't doubting Recovery.org statistics, I was actually supporting the point... the trend seen in this particular instance matches a trend I noticed across the country. In lying with statistics 101 the first thing you do is 'cherrypick', they could have just grabbed a state that proves their point while ignoring the 40 states that do not.

I'm actually saying that this sample is fairly representative, although they clearly chose a slam dunk data point among the mix.

Speaking of right or left leaning sites, are there ANY non partisan/ideological sites to review information or get statistics? Are the Pew studies non partisan? Just curious.

Take the far right site and the far left site and average them together.

It's not Obama related, but it's WH related so I figure I can post it in this thread

FOXNews.com - Helen Thomas to Retire 'Effective Immediately'
Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas announced her retirement Monday following an uproar over comments she made on camera last month about Jews in Israel.

Hearst Corporation, which employed Thomas as a columnist, put out a brief story by Hearst News Service announcing the retirement "effective immediately."

The announcement came after the White House Correspondents Association decried her remarks as "indefensible" and began to consider whether Thomas should continue to have the privilege of a front-row seat in the briefing room. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called her remarks "offensive and reprehensible" on Monday, as other former White House spokesmen called for Thomas to be fired.

The controversy escalated quickly over the weekend after the video surfaced online showing Thomas last month saying that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine," suggesting they go instead to Germany, Poland and the United States. The video, shot by New York Rabbi David Nesenoff, was posted on several prominent websites and prompted a swift apology from Thomas on Friday.

"I deeply regret my comments," she said in the statement, claiming they "do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."

Too bad to see Thomas leave under these circumstances. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but hate to see her booted in a scenario where her time as a reporter likely won't be acknowledged in a more formal manner.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256068/

That's what I was afraid of. Oh well, thanks! :)

A great look at how the Washington press is in bed with anybody in power:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...ton/index.html

From TalkingPointsMemo, the very strange story of the Dem Senate primary winner in SC.

I'll agree that it's somewhat strange but then again, maybe not as strange as it might appear.

1) The roughly 60-40 win for Greene was pretty consistent across the state, he carried 42 of the 46 counties in the state. SC - Election Results

Rawl meanwhile barely managed to carry even his home county (with the 2nd largest total vote total for the D primary)

2) Rawl wasn't exactly the biggest name either, as one observer said "You had an absolute unknown [Greene] running against a virtual unknown [Rawl]," said Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon. Greene's victory "says something about the depth of the Democratic bench in South Carolina, but not much more than that."

3) Ballot order matters, pretty much everyone seems to agree on that. How much it matters is more open to debate but with some quick Googling, it appears that the general consensus is somewhere around 2.5 percent, although others put it as high as 7% or as low as 0.7%.

3) It's quite likely that at least half the voters in the SC (D) primary were black. Obama's primary margin there was 78% of the black vote (which was 55% of the primary total in '08). Greene may not have needed to campaign much further than getting his picture next to Rawl's a couple of times in the news leading up to the election to get a significant number of votes.

Meanwhile the SC Democratic Party is asking Greene to withdraw from the race due to a previously undiscovered pending felony charge. Greene was arrested back in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student.

If that truly is the only issue, he still doing better than a lot of the career politicians.

good lord this state is just a complete joke when it comes to politics.

He'll have to step it up if he wants to be the governor of S.C. someday.

So the newest conservative meme that is flooding Facebook, in virtually word for word posts from people presenting it as original thought...

{shrug} I've seen it a few times but haven't noticed anyone trying to put it over as a particularly original thought.

Part of the problem is who would you give the money to? The big reputable charities aren't working in the Gulf and likely won't because the issue isn't food/water/shelter.

That being said, there is a shocking lack of planning at all levels for transitioning many of these people out of the fishing industry. The beaches will come back, likely next year, but the fishing is fucked for years to come.

I just find the whole idea bizarre that we're going to demean someone who helped out during a tragedy that killed 230,000 people just because those people happened to not live in the United States.

And the person that started the meme must have missed those telethons/fundraisers during 9/11 and Katrina.

Where was the one for Tennessee?

Don't ask me. I wouldn't oppose telethons/fundraisers for any tragedy, but I'm certainly not going to criticize (and imply they are unpatriotic) those who gave their time for a tragedy where 230,000 people died, just because they don't hold a telethon for every single tragedy that happens in the United States.

Umm, no, they just aren't relevant to the point they're making.

Read it again, it specifically mentions sit on their... behinds for THIS disaster.

{shrug again} You aren't. A number of people are. And while I'm not particularly inclined to do so personally, I definitely understand those who are.

I'm sure that even with the destruction of the fishing industry for years to come there's billions of people in the world who would trade places with those folks in a heartbeat.

They're still comparatively well off.

I feel as bad for them as anyone, but they're nowhere near as bad off as the folks in Hati were in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Disagree with you here, it is completely relevant. They're clearly implying that celebrities/musicians/etc. care more about tragedies in "other countries" like Haiti than they do about tragedies in the USA. As I've shown, that is clearly not the case as they have stepped up in the past during local tragedies.

But my main point is that I just find entire idea of criticizing people for their charitable work morally repugnant, especially when it focuses on a charity that helped a country that lost 230,000 lives. People can't do everything, and getting self-righteous because they help out in other countries, but not always in the US is just assinine.

No, they're clearly implying (hell, I'd be comfy saying it outright) that they cared more about tragedies in other countries than they do about this particular tragedy. Or as someone pointed out just up the thread, the flooding in Tennessee, although at least some of those with local connections did step up to the plate on that one. And in fairness, at least a few have done so in the Gulf Coast as well.


And there's a number of people who find it at least equally morally repugnant that there's such a discrepancy between the number of people so inspired to devote their time, energy, and money elsewhere and but far less interested in doing anything to help in their own country this time around.

That disgust is pretty much the point to the whole posting you're talking about.

Or maybe the celebrities are just intelligent enough to realize that these people are comparatively well off and they can't hold telethons for everything otherwise they'll start to lose effectiveness.

There's also the problem of: "what exactly would you do with the money raised?" There's no need for emergency supplies or even building materials or healthcare, like there is after a disaster. There's a need for job training and assisting these people in finding jobs elsewhere essentially. Or transitioning the local economies in some way that I can't even think of and retraining all the locals. Those aren't really things that any charity organization is equipped for.

Are the celebrities supposed to hold a telethon to raise money and just write checks to the individual business owners down there or something?

I love South Carolina :D

SI

Greene sure does com across as an impressive candidate.

Hats off to South Carolina. That's something I would have expected out of Florida. It almost seems like a guy who didn't want to win and just put his name in for fun. Now that he's won, he's shit up a creek.

The lady who won the Senate primary in Nevada is also pretty crazy. She's into conspiracy theories about fluoride and abortions causing cancer. Palin looks like Margaret Thatcher compared to her.

I can't tell if we just have more information available about our candidates and these idiots have always been running, or if people with IQs over 70 are sitting these elections out.

Just generally speaking, I'd figure it's some of both. I mean, the guy who lost the primary in SC just got saved from an serious November beat down. Why not let someone else take the punishment & avoid the taint of a crushing loss just in case you have some better chance down the road someday?

I thought below article was pretty interesting. It will be interesting to see how all of this evolves and what Obama's decision will be.

Instinctively, I'm for bombing Iran but then the fallout would be significant. Although muslim governments would probably secretly approve, this would set back relations and progress with the populace.

All in all, it would seem easier to aggressively support the opposition and let the country collapse from within.

Saudis clear Israel to bomb Iran? - Iran- msnbc.com

Sometimes it's fun to play revolutionary!

I'm guessing history is not his strong suit.

Whiskey Rebellion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wait, the IRS is forcing me to buy insurance?

Umm - pretty sure you have representation Rick. In fact, you're running to be one of those representatives and pass those taxes.

Fucking idiot.

It's somewhat of a half-truth. I'm guessing he's referring to the fact that the IRS is the government branch that will enforce penalties if you do not get insurance.

.

Oh FFS.

Obviously MSNBC's smear campaign of everything anti-big government continues but can somebody explain how this is newsworthy and why it isn't a good thing for Rand Paul?

National group: Paul isn't a board-certified doc - Decision 2010- msnbc.com

For those that plan on only skimming and then commenting about how he is crazy here is the jist... Paul doesn't like the tenure system that Kentucky's eye doctor ceritifying board uses. (You don't have to be re-evalauted if you were an eye doctor before 1991) So he created another one that requires everyone to be re-evaluated. He was once a member of their organization, and he quit due to the re-cerification issue, so he did meet their standards when he was a member. This sounds like someone that would oppose teacher tenure (I am sure most would agree this would be a postive thing) or to take it to an extreme someone who wants those over 55 to have to renew their driver's licenses periodically. How is this bad at all? (Obviously most will read the headline and think that Paul cheated at becoming a doctor which is what they are hoping for)

(And this isn't any spin or Paul clarifying that I am doing, everything I just said is in the body of the ridiculously titled article)

Not a single post discussing the speech last night? Did no one care to even watch it or were you just disappointed with it as the concensus seems to be?

Obama's Oil Speech Panned: Short On Details, Broader Climate Plan

It was a boring, pretty much pointless speech. I can see the math behind making the speech as there's a lot of anger about it and his speaking could have helped blunt that. But he needed to do three things, in my mind

1) Talk about how it's going to get fixed
2) Talk about the pound of flesh he's getting from BP
3) Hammer home the need for climate change legislation now

He did some of 2 but that's about it. If you're not going to do those three things, why even have the speech at all?

SI

It seemed a little grandstanding to me (but I am sure there is more to the story than what I know right now).

Todays meeting with BP top brass should be more interesting.

I skimmed the article and don't see how it qualifies as a smear. It had most of the facts that you mentioned, along with quotes from both campaigns (which is obviously why it is newsworthy -- if Paul was not running for Congress, no one would care). There are plenty of biased programs and editorials on MSNBC, but this seems like a straight new story to me.

I don't know. I skimmed the article and he sounds crazy.

I don't know -- I can understand the appeal of a Libertarian candidate in theory (although I don't think the entire platform is in anyway realistic in practice), so I'm not going to slam the guy's opinions.

I essentially read it as he didn't like the club, so he formed his own club and keep this quote from the article in mind:


Most of these organizations are just resume-builders for physicians and a lot of them are just moneymakers (although the article does point out that Paul is not salaried for his position as president of his org).

Pretty much how I read it. It would be like a teacher running for Congress that didn't join the NEA because it is basically in bed with the states and their outragous tenure system. You don't have to be in the NEA (or AFT if you live in a different area) to be a quality teacher but you had better believe they will slam you for it. But if you don't think the title of the article is intentionally misleading...

"Paul has philosophical differnce with Kentucky board certifying rules"
vs
"Paul isn't a board certified doc"'

On a side note Rand Paul is actually a very pragmatic libertarian (unlike his dad) so I would like to hear which of his ideas are not realistic in practice. People may not agree with some of them but that doesn't make them unrealisitic. It used to be real easy to say "legal drugs" or "gold standard" and ellict laughter but now variations of both of these ideas seem to be legit alternatives to the nonsense that is going on in DC everyday.

Last night my wife encountered a strange debate on her high school reunion facebook page, here is my favorite post:

Obama will be using this tragedy as an opportunity to show an increase in jobs to make himself look better. It will only create more... See More beaurocracy and the "new jobs" will be given to his cronies paid for by the taxpayers.
As for getting big business out of government, how bout the fact that we bailed out all those banks with taxpayer dollars and now thanks to Obama, General Motors is owned by the government. How is that getting big business out of government?
As for him being black, that's pretty cool but the radical muslim lurking not too far beneath the skin is down right scary. The man will not even salute our flag. He is a disgrace to America. I could go on and on as you well know but I'd rather play farmville.

since when is any variation of the gold standard a legit alternative?

Sounds like someone parroting one of those chain emails people like to send out when they don't like the current president.

I'm just going off of Wikipedia, but I'll take a couple of easy swings:
Rand Paul - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some of his stuff is very rational and consistent. But some of it still falls into the pie-in-the-sky category of more unrealistic than even the most crazy optimistic of liberals.

"He opposes legislation limiting the amount of money individuals, corporations, and organizations can give to candidates. Additionally, Paul has proposed "mandating a clause in all federal contracts over $1 million that requires the recipient to pledge not to lobby government or contribute to campaigns during the terms of the contract."
*Totally unrealistic position. Yeah, you can give as much as you want but you have to sign a pledge to not lobby that isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

"Paul opposes the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Federal Reserve's control of the nations money supply and interest rates. He wants to allow the free market to regulate interest rates, and supports congresses constitutional role of controlling the money supply...Paul opposes inflation and supports "restoring the value of the dollar that has devalued by approximately 95% since the Federal Reserve's inception in 1913"."
*Which is totally untenable. It's great to just rail on the Fed. There are huge issues here. But I haven't seen any realistic plan of his that would actually, you know, unwind the fed that wouldn't just completely devalue the dollar. Yes, an average of 3% inflation is what's killing the dollar :rolleyes:

But, really, you have a plethora of answers where he says "the free market should decide" (energy, education, regulation, etc) on issues that the most profitable will not be what is in the utilitarian common good, which is where the government should be doing things. But now we're getting into deeper philosophical differences of "what is the role of the federal government"- I just think that hiding behind the free market is disingenuous and ignores the reality of what will actually happen.

Oh, and his abortion views run counter to the rest of his thoughts as he's cool with intruding there and same sex marriage but hides behind "it's the state's right to choose", completely ignoring how most states will react to that. Again, it's convenient to hide behind theory when you're smart enough to know how practicality will run its course.

Then again, that was perfectly illustrated when he was easily (and, arguably, unfairly) baited and then summarily crushed and had to reverse course on the Civil Rights Act question. The free market and the states don't act in the best interest of the people a lot of times and that's where it can be argued that government needs to step in, either to protect from the tyranny of the majority or to support programs that are in the public good, as a whole, but not profitable.

SI

For the Democrats: You want health care but don't like the wars. Take the money from the war part of the budget and spend it on health care.

For the Republicans: Vice versa.

Instead we just print money at will. How about I call it not spending more money than you have instead of the confusing concept of tying your money to something and not just printing trillions on a printing press?

I will just reply to this point because I really don't care to debate the Austrian school of economics vs the Keynesian system that we use. But it is pretty telling that the Austrians have answers for why these bubbles keep happening that actually have some logic and proof and not just "big business bad". But to your point on not letting free markets decide education, regulation, energy... You are right the American public school sytem is top notch, those millions of pages of government regulations really work, those endless wars are really helping with our energy problem... More government is the answer!

May I suggest a simple primer to Austrian Economic Theory, "What ever happened to Penny Candy?" by Rick Maybury? Of course there is deeper reading like Rothbard, Hayek, von Mises, etc but this does a pretty good job of explaining the problems with what we are doing and with a central bank like the federal reserve.

The American public school system- I love that example.

Was the public school system 10 years ago that much different than now? If you think 10 years has made the huge difference, then I will just respectfully disagree with you as I think the problems are much older than that. The reason I say 10 years is because NCLB really did increase the reach of the Federal Government into education substantially and not for the better. I think it will have long term bad effects not because mandates are bad but because unfunded and underfunded ones are.

But back to the example, of all the "federal" agencies, that's the one where the most control is at the local level. Who determines the funding? Again, pre-NCLB, states determined some funding and policy but a lot more was handled at a local level. What property taxes to charge, what to teach- these were done at a municipal level.

It *is* that system that most plays to that libertarian ideal of control being pushed down to the most local level. And you know what- it also sucks.

But what's the alternative? Completely private schools? Some Rand-ian dystopia where the poor are all poor by their own hand and continue to fail?

Lots of other countries seem to be brutally destroying us with their public schools. So maybe it's not that they're public that's the issue.

SI

The headline is a straight fact, though. He is not a board certified doctor. If you read the content, you can find out why. I don't even particularly think the article speaks ill of him -- it explains why he disagreed with the requirements for gaining that particular board certification. It doesn't discredit that he went to medical school, completed his residency, or that he is a practicing physician. It doesn't try to discredit his qualifications.


Your analogy makes some sense, but is it much different than:

"Clemens and Bonds Broke Rules"
vs
"Clemens and Bonds Disagree With MLB's Banned Substance Requirements"




I don't know enough about him or have time to read up on him for his intricacies to pursue this (nor did I claim to). I said that I can understand the appeal of the candidate, but don't think the entire Libertarian platform is practical. It is just another set of pie-in-the-sky campaign promises that are unattainable, in my eyes. They just have not had the opportunity to break their promises.

You seem to be proving my point. What did NCLB accomplish? Nothing. So why waste federal money trying to fix problems that can't be fixed with a giant brush? Some things suck. But the federal government just adds another layer of bureaucracy on top of it. Are they really doing anything to help poorer failing schools with all of the money (our tax money) they are throwing at the problem?

I disagree wholeheartedly. While I'll agree that, in practice, it accomplished less than desired & in theory may have actually attempted the impossible, it accomplished something extremely worthwhile.

In at least some states NCLBA put the education cabals on notice that the taxpayers are sick of the lack of accountability for their piss poor performance & aren't willing to continue to throw money down the increasingly dry hole of public education without some measure of performance.

Whether those measures are perfect, whether they're as effective as they could or should be, and any other flaws inherent to the Act pale in comparison to that accomplishment afaic.

Two totally different things.

The Austrian school of economics is laughed at by serious economists.

At no point did I argue that the Central Bank and Federal Reserve are problem-free. In fact, I'm still up in the air as to whether they create or solve more problems.

You seem to think by what I'm reading as a condescending tone that everyone loves piling up masses of government debt and wishing everyone a free pony. Hell, I would have voted for Ross Perot in 1992 if I were of voting age because I liked his approach to fighting to deficit.

And while those of us on the left get a little annoyed with the cheap-seats smugness of Libertarians, that's just bound to come from being able to throw out crazy "easy" answers that will never happen in the real world. But I think we genuinely think you're all crazy because you don't just want to exercise fiscal prudence. But you want to completely strip the government away including any government services that people feel are a good investment and do add to society just because they are a function of the government.

Speaking specifically to the Federal Reserve point you only tangentially referenced, it's completely naive to say "we're just going to abolish it". I'm not saying you can't unwind it and strip away many of its powers but you talk as if you could do it tomorrow, with no difficulty, and there would be no repercussions like a 3000 point stock market drop, a slew of bank closures, and rampant chaos. That's more pie in the sky than believing government can actually do something effectively.

In that vein, it's really hard for me to take anything seriously with the oil spill going on. You know what- the government regulation didn't work because business was too intertwined in the government. I just don't see the logical answer as "strip down the government further" and I suppose that's where we differ.

SI

No shit? The "serious" economists are Keynesian. The Austrian view is the complete opposite. Of course they wouldn't agree with them at all. In other news Republicans laugh at Democrats views' and vice versa. Read a book and make a decision for yourself. It would make sense that Paul Krugman and friends would win Nobel Prizes from a country with a planned economy. Barrack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for continuing two wars and most likely beginning a third one.

Is the subtitle for that book, "What ever happened to working for a dollar a day?"

Inflation has raised wages over time as well as prices and there's no good proof that the average person would have a substantially higher real wage if we were still on the gold standard.

The more I read your posts I really think we differ less than you might think. We are human beings and have lots of failures. The free market doesn't work a lot of the time. But here is the difference... If Ford wants to make cars that nobody wants to buy and then fail that is a problem for Ford and their employees. When the government steps in and improves nothing it adds me to the equation. Both aren't very effective at a lot of things but one is private companies making mistakes on their own dime the other is mistakes made on the taxpayer's.

Friedman also thought the Austrian school was incorrect.

and also won a Nobel.

I've likely read more books than you, so fuck you very much. :mad:

This is where what SI referred to as your "cheap-seat smugness" really shines through. Anybody who doesn't agree with your ideas you immediately label a sheep and an idiot, instead of recognizing that they quite possibly could have intellectually-derived views that differ from your own.

Fuck...even the fucking Republicans aren't as bad as you self-appointed know-it-all Libertarians.

I've got an old friend that has been posting today that Obama is purposefully stalling cleanup efforts as punishment for Gulf states voting for McCain. It didn't take too long to get to, "Well what do you expect? He's a Muslim and hates America."