To the GOP: Is it about your Religion? Your Rights? Your Money?

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by seabag

 

so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uh m] Show IPA
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

If we're going to use words, let's use them correctly. What we have now is not socialism, it's an:

ol·i·gar·chy [ol-i-gahr-kee] Show IPA
noun, plural ol·i·gar·chies.
1.
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

Taxation ≠ socialism nor communism.
Social responsibility ≠ socialism or communism.
Governance by rule of law ≠ socialism, communism, nor totalitarianism.

These are absolutist smokescreens used to invoke the bogeyman into the minds of those raised during the cold war and are rhetorical and empty.

The days of "Mine, mine, mine" need to end. They had a 30 year run, they were fun, and they bankrupted this nation economically and morally. Greed, despite what Mr Gekko told us, is not good.

~Heff

That's not entirely true. What we have is a form of incremental socialism known as Fabianism.

The angry left are those to to truly fear at this point.
The angry right won't be around again until the buffoon in power collapses the economy. Soooo. in about 6 months I guess.
You guys work it out. I'm going to looking for Galt's Gulch.

reply to post by NavyDoc


Haha. Wow. Amazes me how silly these people are who believe we have had anything near a free market or true capitalism in very long time. We are a corporate-dominated statist society created by incremental socialism and "progressivism". An American "Capitalist" looks a helluva lot like a European "Socialist" banker looks a helluva lot like a Chinese "Communist" businessman. One thing they all ensure is that "the people" are equally powerless, equally destitute, and equally,ignorantly thankful to their "compassionate" masters for it. Yay Democrats! You celebrate failure! That's ,like, so socially conscious and cool and stuff.
Congratulations, Democrats and Establishment Republicans, your empty suit marketing puppet Obama has fooled lots of foolish, brainless little minds that they need to be mindless servants of your cause.

It wont last much longer. Not because the morons who voted for Obama aren't complete idiots, but because your plans are mathematically destined for a quick failure.

reply to post by wildtimes


Umm. Ah Maam? Obama is a killer of women and children who have done nothing to us. He is legally a international war criminal guilty of breaking international treaties, laws of Congress, and the Constitution. Believe it. This is not a theory. Bush was only a little better. That to me sort of negates everything else you said. Our Attorney General Holder who he appointed is also by law guilty of murder of innocent civilians. When our chief executive and chief law enforcer are both guilty of murder anybody holding them up to me as a example loses any belief I might have in what they say. Sorry.

reply to post by NavyDoc


Fabianism is not an accurate assessment IMO as the end result of Fabianism is a socialist state - and that is not where we are headed. The end result of the path we are currently on will result in an Oligarchy or Plutocracy. To refer to the condition, now or along this trend as "socialism" is paramount to considering feudalism as such, based upon the notion that the serfs ( tenants ) were receiving "charity" from their lords.

Having said that, the mechanisms involved in Fabianism are similar to what we are seeing, with the caveat that Government is not taking over businesses as much as it's playing the role of enforcer for corporations.

~Heff

I love how they are against abortion that'll never involve them or their uterus or womb (since they haven't got one being male) But advocate killing prisoners (Capital Punishment) The first and most disturbing hypocracy in thier moral superiority. Oh and guns to defend yourself Which will kill, but not a single one of them for carrying tasers (Illegal in all 50 states) Which has a less margin of causing death. JS. I mean I believe in guns but I also would rather have a taser to make someone unable to attack me but still not kill them. These are the conflicting beliefs they actually have, it makes me SMDH.

Oh, I think I can show pretty clearly and easily why I'm just a bit put off by the election results. I'll learn to live with it and we'll all find a way through it somehow...but the problem is clear, unprecedented in the truest sense and absolutely impossible to avoid at this point. I don't know if the other guy would have avoided it any better or even changed the timing of it but since Paul wasn't viable at the end, it was like shooting crap on a pool table. Hope in motion because what's visible sure isn't workable.

This is what the White House projects out over the next several years. (I've made these thumbnails where they are just big on the capture.)



This one shows where the debt has historically sat in the progression of Presidents over the recent years. The spike is rather hard to miss....as are the best case projected numbers into the future.



White House FY 2013 Budget Proposal - GAO

Now some suggest the wealthy aren't paying their fair share. So, lets take a look at that. Much of the argument for the future working now is based on the idea that there is a great deal more room for the wealthy to pay.

This one defines the income groups by money we're talking about as the min. each starts at. Thats critical for the next 2 to make sense.



This one shows what the effective % is against the incomes of each group defined in the last one. A negative number denotes a tax return as opposed to paid.



Finally, here is the actual % each group represents as actually collected by Uncle Sam in various types of taxes.



CBO Report - Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes


The one that really is hard to forget though....and makes it doom in plain terms would be this one.


Source

That shows the assumed interest rates and how it translates the 1/4 trillion currently paid in the national debt today into over a half trillion in just net interest payments due and getting absolutely nothing in return but covering that expense by 2017.

Now so far, I haven't heard the President address this as even being the front and center priority of a problem that it is. What happened in the election is ...something to get past for myself and many. The above is something still ahead and Romney would have meant waiting for all new estimates and all new guesses. Here, we already have the best projections available and produced for next years budget...among other figures.

When the President addresses how this is avoided on the never ending exponential upward curve it's entered.....I'll feel a whole lot better about the next four years. Until then? It's a slow motion train wreck the leadership doesn't even seem to care much about either way.

(The above figures were ALL produced prior to the QE-3 program being started. This adds 40 Billion per month to the debt or just under another half trillion annually)

That's why I'm personally a little put off by the outcome. It's really a logical issue for me.

reply to post by wildtimes


Many Democrats and liberals are breathing a sigh of relief but we know we have to work and live with some of these monkeys and so it is short lived relief and quickly back to the daily grind of keeping the truth out there for people who are still interested in learning something a little more about life on earth than how to kill it.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Now some suggest the wealthy aren't paying their fair share.

Their fair share relative to what?

I think what some are actually suggesting is the wealthy are not paying the share they always have been required to during the most successful days of this country. People are suggesting those "shares" for the wealthy have actually dropped in value. They are not worth a quarter of what they once were, due to adjustments, loop holes, de-regulation and tax breaks offered to the rich whenever the GOP is in control of congress.

People are suggesting that the lucrative tax breaks and incentives afforded the wealthy be removed, rescinded and returned now that the country cannot afford to sponsor these breaks for them any longer.

Unfortunately - It doesn't seem to matter to them or those that represent them, they are killing the economy and bankrupting the USA. They have gotten accustomed to the "gifts" given to them via Reagan and Bush and now consider these breaks, de-regulations and loopholes an entitlement they are due.

These entitlements for the wealthy were never intended to stay in place. They are temporary examples of NO PATRIOTISM and government corruption.

They are little more than unscrupulous and unethical breaks wealthy GOP Presidents gave to their friends who helped get them elected.

They are a kick in the face to the middle class, the majority of people and will be the downfall of the country if we allow this untenable path to continue unchecked.

reply to post by NavyDoc


Wake up and smell the Oligarchy there... Fabian is it?

There is nothing socially equitable in what we've got.
The communal-ism might be where the wealthy have got together and devised a plan to screw the rest of us but that is not communism. That is an Oligarchy.

reply to post by newcovenant

Why are the people who consider themselves winners at this point (Very oddly, many of whom were themselves saying both were worthless in past months) being so vicious and hateful?

I don't understand it and it's a fair number of folks.

You won, indeed. The President won a mandate to lead the parade which the E.C. demonstrates. The near 50/50 party line split on the vote for those who even bothered getting off their butts to offer an opinion in the first place, shows those who do care are about equal to right and left. So while getting a mandate to lead, it's not a mandate to own the whole parade itself.

Congress is still a very divided branch and intentionally so IMO. Americans aren't generally as simple as Politicians would hope and among those who do vote, keeping some division for a form of check to the majority party seems important as much through history of control as today. So it's compromise or we all fall together. Circumstances leave no choice to that.

Now you'll get your shot to see how it all turns out because the above charts I posted are, in the first set, from the WHITE HOUSE 2013 Fiscal Budget. In other words, that is WITH the taxes they plan and intend factored in. The national debt and deficits higher than Bush himself ran clear out to the end of the projections are the White House produced numbers...WITH the soaking of the rich figured in at the same time they see the unemployment somehow dropping. Not sure how that works exactly...but the assumptions for the budget that the White House has show it that way. Go figure...I sure can't for that aspect.

It's not partisan and we need to knock this off. It's survival at this point and Greece within a nation of 330 MILLION people among an estimated 270 million Firearms is a REAL BAD DAY by anyone's definition. There just isn't room for right or left ideas on the path out of a mess over 30 years of Presidential decisions in the making. American ideas, yup. Partisan got left at the Election outcome.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Who are you talking about?

I think you are like that little girl who wouldn't sleep in her bed because of the pea.

The princess and the pea.

And even if "people" are getting all "told you so" to other people...So what?

You "people" have been hammering away and layering the BS as thick as thieves here for about 2 years and I ask you - How are the rest of us supposed to consider ourselves "winners" when we are stuck with dead weight from this last election? All those "people" who manufacture false ideas why Obama won and who just still don't get that partiality and favors to the rich (not the poor) is what got the country into such a hopeless mess in the first place???

And Greece is in the position THEY'RE in because they ALSO let the rich people of their country remove the wealth from their country and send it elsewhere. You call making them responsible "soaking the rich." LOL
By protecting and coddling millionaires so they could make a few extra millions they let their entire country go belly up. And you want to do the same thing here. Brilliant plan you've got there. NOT.

Return to the tax distribution structure and model prior to Reagan. Rescind the Bush cuts and re-regulate banking so they can't gamble away poor peoples money then tell investors "too bad" when it doesn't work out.
TAX THE RICH and CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES.

If you don't want to help get the country back on track - at least try to stay out of the way.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
wow
Dems are breath of fresh air?
More like toxic air!

You like slavery?

that is your idea of slavery?.... do you live in a blockhouse, with a bunk?....are your only possessions the clothes on your back?...are you awakened at sunrise and worked till sunset, and only eat what someone else gives you?...if you protest against anything, are you hung up and whipped?...are your fellow women/girl slaves taken from their bunkhouse and randomly raped? ...are you NOT allowed to read or write?...are you NOT allowed to own anything?...are you NOT allowed to leave your masters property?

with that said....now do you know why it is hard to take republicans and conservatives seriously?

Thanks to everyone who has, in good faith, come here and addressed the issues civilly. I learned from those of you (Frogs, Wrabbit, Dreine, Heff, newcovenant, and many others who entered thoughtful posts) some of the answers to my questions, and I appreciate it. While I do have strong opinions, I also am capable of listening.

Three of the main points I see here (if I were so unlucky as to have to solve this mess) are:
1) Cooperation.

We, on this thread, have shown an ability to hear one another out, ask questions of one another, and discuss alternatives and middle ground. That is the reason for our system, to find some middle ground so the majority of the people benefit.

2) Debt and its child Compound Interest.

I think perhaps that is the worst part - in the old days "business" was primarily done domestically (but make no mistake, we have ALWAYS -- since the days of the Europeans first arriving here and in other places rich with desirable resources -- traded internationally. And before that, of course, which is the nature of humanity -- to move around, to trade goods and skills, and to pull together to solve problems), and people paid for what they'd borrowed and then were satisfied (I own my home and car, and paid back everything I borrowed and then saved a bit for retirement). That doesn't happen anymore - people want more and more and more and more....and others lend them more and more and more and more, and it never ends.

3) Employment availability

If large corporations that are publicly held focus on their bottom line and investors above ALL ELSE, and move the jobs to cheaper exotic locations, that means Americans are out of work proportionately.. Therefore, small businesses MUST be supported, we should shop locally, buy locally, sell locally unless there is NO other alternative, and then the entire locality should have say in what to do next.

Domestic workers shut out in the cold = the rich getting richer. That is not "hard work" that got those Ritchie Riches there - it was by taking away, and then withholding opportunities from other (who were just as capable and more accessible, but COST MORE to put to work) countrymen and women.

Then the rich complain that they don't want to make up for having taken away those opportunities, and that just doesn't seem right.

4) Leadership

It's true that Obama has not been a demanding; he has expected Congress to work together and they failed. But leadership has to do with example setting, too.

I despise the acts of war this country engages in every 25 years or so, and I want for the USA to butt out of other people's problems and really feel ill equipped to discuss that topic, except that it seems to me our "military" is "big enough" (too big, really). Much of modern warfare has to do with power and money and resources, not so much with religious ideology or forms of government.

I think that was Romney's undoing, as many here have said, is that he is the very epitome of someone who is rich and who took away American opportunities - giving them instead to conglomerate corporations and foreign labor pools - and then also took his profits and hid them overseas to avoid accountability to the very people whose jobs he eliminated.

I, for one, can not look past that. That was, for me, the absolute bottom line about him. Why on earth anyone would think he would improve the economy and create jobs HERE is simply beyond my comprehension. Maybe he would, maybe he had some sort of "plan", but, 'once a CEO who worships profit, always a CEO who worships profit.'

There was nothing in his background that indicated he would do things any differently. So, I was unable for even a moment to consider him as a genuine and well-meaning leader.

Again, thanks for all who participated, I hope we've made some tiny forward movement to reconciliation at least among the few of us who entered the discussion!

Originally posted by sonnny1
reply to post by romney

 

I see Romney, after his loss decided to join ATS!!!


Bravo!!

I think Obama's reelection was one based on "we don't want Romney as President". Not based on his merits at what hes done the past 4 years. Now when it all goes to crap, who will Obama blame for the last 4 years?

Quite the question actually.

Not that I expect it to happen but what will you do if over the next 4 years the economy improves and they balance the budget like they did under Clinton? Still going to hate?

Originally posted by Xeven


Not that I expect it to happen but what will you do if over the next 4 years the economy improves and they balance the budget like they did under Clinton? Still going to hate?

I don't hate, but see the man for what he is.

NDAA
Keeping Gitmo Open
Resigning the Patriot Act
Fast and Furious
Non-Transparency
Etc.........


An extension of what Liberals hated Bush for.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by NavyDoc

 

Fabianism is not an accurate assessment IMO as the end result of Fabianism is a socialist state - and that is not where we are headed. The end result of the path we are currently on will result in an Oligarchy or Plutocracy. To refer to the condition, now or along this trend as "socialism" is paramount to considering feudalism as such, based upon the notion that the serfs ( tenants ) were receiving "charity" from their lords.

Having said that, the mechanisms involved in Fabianism are similar to what we are seeing, with the caveat that Government is not taking over businesses as much as it's playing the role of enforcer for corporations.

~Heff

I disagree, that is exactly where we are headed, except it would be more of a socialist oligarchy than true socialism. The people pushing for this change envision themselves as still on the top and calling the shots, rather than a pure egalitarian version of socialism (unatainable).

Government is taking over business, but indirectly by means of taxation and regulation. Huge corporations LOVE governmental regulation in reality as the regulatory burden kills new competition.

As for Obama, just look at his idols and mentors: Saul ALinsky, John MArshall Davis and read Obama's books. He is a fan of Marxist/Leninist thought, just that he (as well as most western socialists) have realized that the people would not stomach an abrupt change--hence their esposal the Fabian method of creeping incrementalism.

Eidted to add: is it really a distinction without a difference? Perhaps, as the end results are quite similar. Just pointing out that those who suggest that Obama and the system being socialist are not as ignorant as they are oft painted out to be.

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Who are you talking about?

I think you are like that little girl who wouldn't sleep in her bed because of the pea.

The princess and the pea.

And even if "people" are getting all "told you so" to other people...So what?

You "people" have been hammering away and layering the BS as thick as thieves here for about 2 years and I ask you - How are the rest of us supposed to consider ourselves "winners" when we are stuck with dead weight from this last election? All those "people" who manufacture false ideas why Obama won and who just still don't get that partiality and favors to the rich (not the poor) is what got the country into such a hopeless mess in the first place???

And Greece is in the position THEY'RE in because they ALSO let the rich people of their country remove the wealth from their country and send it elsewhere. You call making them responsible "soaking the rich." LOL
By protecting and coddling millionaires so they could make a few extra millions they let their entire country go belly up. And you want to do the same thing here. Brilliant plan you've got there. NOT.

Return to the tax distribution structure and model prior to Reagan. Rescind the Bush cuts and re-regulate banking so they can't gamble away poor peoples money then tell investors "too bad" when it doesn't work out.
TAX THE RICH and CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES.

If you don't want to help get the country back on track - at least try to stay out of the way.

edit on 9-11-2012 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)

What you propose will continue to push the country off the fiscal cliff. Don't worry, when "gimme free #" class warfare, welfare state proponents like yourself screw things up even more, hopefully hardworking, freedom loving, free market, capitalists will step in and try to fix things for you--again.

Originally posted by neo96

Originally posted by blackthorne
reply to post by wildtimes

 

the constitution says. "to promote the general welfare." i do believe that healthcare would fall under that!

as to seabag, russia was a monarchy before lenin. and the czars were autocrats. their economics were in the hands of a few rich people. that is why the people, even the military rose up against them.

No it doesn't.

The general welfare clause means government spending that everyone in the country benefits from not a demographic who is taking more out of that system than returning to it.

Where does it say that? I'm calling BS--you made that up based on a 21st century conservative interpretation of a 230 year old document, written by European-educated, enlightened men.

That has the opposite effect of "promoting the general welfare".

Only in your narrow opinion. Where did the founders differentiate between the two?

Originally posted by NavyDoc

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Who are you talking about?

I think you are like that little girl who wouldn't sleep in her bed because of the pea.

The princess and the pea.

And even if "people" are getting all "told you so" to other people...So what?

You "people" have been hammering away and layering the BS as thick as thieves here for about 2 years and I ask you - How are the rest of us supposed to consider ourselves "winners" when we are stuck with dead weight from this last election? All those "people" who manufacture false ideas why Obama won and who just still don't get that partiality and favors to the rich (not the poor) is what got the country into such a hopeless mess in the first place???

And Greece is in the position THEY'RE in because they ALSO let the rich people of their country remove the wealth from their country and send it elsewhere. You call making them responsible "soaking the rich." LOL
By protecting and coddling millionaires so they could make a few extra millions they let their entire country go belly up. And you want to do the same thing here. Brilliant plan you've got there. NOT.

Return to the tax distribution structure and model prior to Reagan. Rescind the Bush cuts and re-regulate banking so they can't gamble away poor peoples money then tell investors "too bad" when it doesn't work out.
TAX THE RICH and CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES.

If you don't want to help get the country back on track - at least try to stay out of the way.

edit on 9-11-2012 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)

What you propose will continue to push the country off the fiscal cliff. Don't worry, when "gimme free #" class warfare, welfare state proponents like yourself screw things up even more, hopefully hardworking, freedom loving, free market, capitalists will step in and try to fix things for you--again.

Nobody's cared about the fiscal cliff for 50 years. It doesn't exist. It's just a made up problem so the GOP has something to blame on Obama. If they REALLY cared about that sort of thing, they would have impeached both Reagan and Dubya. Deficits don't matter, remember?

Until they do.