I --hate-- 'bipartisan'.

When a politician goes middle-of-the-road, it just BUGS me to no end. I view it as traiterous to whatever side he had claimed to be coming from. Look at the gridlock it produces. If a President is left wing, he should be a genuine liberal. If a President is right wing, he should be a genuine conservative.
How do the rest of you out there, view bipartisan?

reply to post by simonecharisse

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I think they are all liars so no matter what they call themselves my opinion is that they should be thrown into a pit.
Liberal lie or a conservative lie??
Its the same thing to me.

Well, i agree with the guy above me, there all liars and crook. If the Obamas the first black president, by no means does that mean he'll be the best president. Phelps is the best swimmer, and apparently has done drugs, doesn't make him the best person by any means (still a great swimmer and thanks for making the USA look so fkn awesome at the olympics, 8 or 9 gold medals unbelievable)

I believe the same you do, i hate far left liberals, but dammit if your one be one, don't nudge a bit. If someone senses that you may not believe in what your saying. Soon noone will believe what your saying.

reply to post by simonecharisse

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There does seem to be a lot of corruption. I think they should stick to their principals and compromise only as needed for the best of the country. Really sucks when they just do what they want to do when all of us our telling them no. I.e. Bailouts.

reply to post by simonecharisse

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really? I think Bipartisanship is absolutely necessary. No one party has all of the answers and both have their flaws. Obama wants Bipartisanship but that pathetic excuse for a human, Nancy Pelosi and the ever idiotic Harry Reid wont have it. Want to know how many people think congress is doing a good job.... 12%. Bipartisanship is NECESSARY for an effective government.

Source for 12% approval

There is only one party. It's all one body. Just like Pro-Wrestling where all the 'rivalries' are scripted.

bi-partisan is an illusion, put there by those who know we are programmed to 'win' over others. In the end, they all do the same thing, accomplish the same ends, and overlook the same abuse.

If someone hates bipartisanship, it suggests that they value political dogma over practicality.

The purpose of government is to govern, which means getting things done. Compromise, pragmatism, give and take are what make that happen.

Middle-of-the-road politicians cause gridlock? What do you call a filibuster?

I also think it's necessary. Either extreme running the country creates polarization. That experiment has already been done. We have a country full of people with a wide range of beliefs and political opinions. For one president to govern to one half for eight years and then the other takes over and swings to the far extreme makes for instability. I think if a president wants to govern the whole country, instead of leaving half of them out in the cold for eight years, he will insist on bipartisanship. I have been frustrated at times and wish Obama would just give it up, but he is a much more patient person than I am.

The ability to compromise is a trait of a strong person.

Also, it is a rare person who is totally on one 'side' or the other. It is entirely possible for someone to support freedom of choice for women regarding reproduction, a 'liberal' position, and also strongly support private ownership of firearms, a 'conservative' position. For anyone to fully support and oppose every single issue according to their respective label is under suspicion of not having a brain of their own.

Bi-partisanship just for the sake of being able to say it is worthless. True bi-partisanship, in the interest of the country, is I think a good thing.

Well, I do not regard myself as mindlessly (brain-lessly) following a dogma. But maybe I was saying bipartisan, when I should be saying "inconsistency" with their side, instead? Like, I myself am to the left, but Obama should not let the the Plutocrats (bankers, ceos, [even other countries who behave badly], etc.) have one more penny, not literally one more, for bailouts. In a post above, SailorinAZ put it better than I, when he mentioned about standing on principles, and compromising when it benefits the good of the nation.
How many of you agree with me, that between $300,million-and-$600million is not a whole lot for the US government, compared to what it has given to ceos and wars? (And other countries.....)
There are 300million people in the US. If --I-- was president, I would give everyone who had filed and recieved that pathetic $300. last year, EACH ONE of you 1-or-2 million dollars each. Just think how many people would be out buying themselves new homes and vehicles, getting themselves 'Extreme Home Improvement Makeovers', buying new appliances, computers, food, etc. Sure there would be those sorry Ones who would blow theirs on drugs gambling and sex-services, etc., but that would be their problem.
WHY IS THIS NOT A GOOD IDEA?
By the way, I JUST -- HATE -- that abortion....seems to represent the Left. Abortion horrifies me personally, and late term abortion should be regarded as premeditated -- murder -- in the First Degree.
One more thing: did it ever always bother you conservatives who were for Bush, of the Bush family history involvement in Skull And Bones? I always got the impression that the forces of Illuminatti spookiness hate Christianity and politically conservative Christians.

[edit on 9-2-2009 by simonecharisse]

[edit on 9-2-2009 by simonecharisse]

[edit on 9-2-2009 by simonecharisse]

I for one absolutely, completely agree with this. Not one more penny until they clean up their act. There are plenty of local and community type banks that are (relatively) clean, and can put the money to better use.



I agree here, as well.



Agreed, but...



The problem is, that if you assume 300 million people getting 1 million dollars each, the total cost is 300 Trillion dollars, which is out of reach.



This is something the extremist right wing tries to encourage... the view that being for freedom of choice means one is for abortion. They are not the same, by any means. I, for example, am not at ALL a fan of abortion. But I am totally committed to freedom of choice. This difference often gets blurred, sadly.



I am not and never have been anything even approaching a Bush supporter, but I'll answer this anyway... I don't know much about Skull And Bones, but there is such a surfeit of reason to despise W himself and that whole group, I don't really feel I need to know much.

This is a tricky subject for me.

Those of you who know me, also know that I am a man of strong convictions. I hold a certain set of beliefs very closely, and I do not compromise them for anyone.

Having said that, I still believe it is possible to work together with those who I disagree with, while still standing on principle. I do not have to like everything we as a country are doing, and in most cases I don't. I realize though that by offering my criticisms and objections, that I may have a chance to improve upon whatever is being done.

What I do not agree with is bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship. It seems to me that most of the people in office today are way to eager to please the other side. They all want to be liked and think that bending and breaking their conviction is the way to do that. Give me a leader who stands up for what they believe in any day, even if they are wrong.

After all, working together still accomplishes nothing if both sides are wrong.

Fact of the matter is that most people are centrist. A Bi-partisan leader therefore holds positions that represent the majority. And thats a good thing.

It means that leader is willing to listen to ideas and solutions from both sides of the table and integrate the best of both worlds into his policy.

Possibly.

Although I think a lot of time a person who claims to be a "centrist" comes across as lacking principle or conviction. They appear to waver to easily on many subjects, and can appear weak.

You must keep in mind that just because someone claims to be a liberal or a conservative, it doesn't mean they are automatically closed minded to working together.

I'm about as staunch a conservative as you'll find anywhere, but I'm open to all ideas that will better the country and it's people.

My beliefs give me a groundwork to start with, and then I can go from there.

As has already been pointed out, you'd have to print $300 trillion. Inflation would run out of control, money would lose its value and you would be back where you started from.

Shall we make it $900 billion instead? That's close to the cost of your President's proposed stimulus package, so we know it's money that can be found. Let's divide that up between the roughly 100 milllion households in the USA. That's $9,000 per household.

Now let's see if I can answer your question,


What triggered the financial crisis? I don't mean the long-term causes. I mean the immediate cause. It was the sudden inability of many financial institutions to pay their debts, which caused several of them, notably Lehman Brothers, to collapse.

What were those debts? They were promises to compensate people holding the mortgages if the mortagees defaulted. But the mortgages were turned into 'collateralized debt obligations' (CDOs) - tiny pieces of mortgages, hundreds of these little bits bundled together into one. There were millions and millions of these CDOs. They were freely traded and there was even a derivatives market based on them.

When those defaults started coming, the liability for them was spread all over the financial system. Nobody really knew who was owed for what, or how much they owed. People didn't even know what the true value of their own assets was. So nobody knew whether anybody else's credit was good enough.

Banks no longer knew whether their customers were creditworthy. They didin't even know whether they themselves were creditworthy. So they stopped lending.

That's how the financial crisis started.

It isn't enough just to hand out money to consumers. First of all, it may not raise consumer demand the way you anticipate. Everyone is scared spratless right now, so it's far more likely they'll just stash the cash under the mattress and keep their heads down till the towers stop crashing. And even if they do spend it, money going into retailers' tills doesn't translate into working capital for industry and services. To serve the demand, businesses will have to borrow money.

From banks.

Which aren't lending.

Do you see the problem? It's not primarily a shortage of money; it's a shortage of credit. Frankly, it wouldn't help much even if you could give every man, woman and child a million. You can't turn people into financiers and venture capitalists overnight, which is what would have to happen for that cool million bucks per head to translate into economic recovery. In reality, though, all a cash handout like that would do is cause instant, Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation.

[edit on 10-2-2009 by Astyanax]

Speaking of millions and billions and trillions, Astyanax, I was listening to Coast-To-Coast last night, the Monday night Feb. '09 show. In the beginning of the first hour, was this financial expert, Dr. John Curtis, of the LA Daily Journal and Online Collumnist. He said that, so far, "ten trillion" has been given to 'help' (?) this present economic situation, "but eight trillion of that has vanished". So he went to question a "communications director at the Department Of Treasury" about why eight trillion has vanished, and where are the records of what has been done with it, and how could something like that just vanish, and this person told Mr. Curtis, "that info is above my paygrade". I could not believe what I was hearing.
You made a convincing case against my handout idea. But I wonder just who it was, who decided it would be a good idea, to hand trillions over to forces that would disappear it? Thats no trick question, by ANY means, I am truly mindboggled by this shadowyness that IS above the law.

I think your just mad because Obama claims he was Bipartisan support for the bill... We all know he doesn't.

How ever ... I am concervative. I have no problem admitting that. The question is .. What are you?

I could go out on a limb and say you are a hard core liberal. I can speculate this because most concervatives WANT bipartisanship.

Liberals want it their way or the highway. OH yeh .. and Liberals will never admit where they stand. (BH)

In these days ... it is time to take a hard long look in the mirror, because when the battle lines are drawn .. who will you stand with.

Only a few fanatics are soley left or right wing on everything. Because the government is supposed to be the government for all of us... as opposed to just any given group... then by necessity it is the art of compromise... its when you have ideologues controlling everything and the government swings back and forth based on who is in power does it tear the nation apart.

Your attitude is not constructive, rather it is destructive even if you don't know it.

it's really easy to be bipartisan when the questions that divided the parties are irrelevant. screwed is screwed weather you swing left or right, and we are proper screwed.

gun control is a dead issue, america knows that guns are used to kill people but so do cars and it'll never happen to me is the general feeling.

freedom of choice is no longer a political issue, judges decide it, the government can't do a thing about it.

when the banking system is reliant on welfare and the capitalist system has collapsed questions of economic strategy is academic.

it's the same for pretty much every division between the american political parties.

bi-partisan is just a nice buzzword to replace "i have no idea what to do, any way out will be considered".

[edit on 10/2/09 by pieman]

And in the case of the current Democratic leadership, "bipartisan" is also a word used to say "Please put your name on this as well so we don't get all the blame for it"