____twoism

PARTISAN POLITICS IS TEARING US APART!!!

Well this thread went to shit pretty quickly huh

Xtal wrote:Well this thread went to shit pretty quickly huh

heh, i saw this one coming

NEW TOPIC!

Romney and Paul seem to be leading in the Iowa primaries, last i checked?

Yeah, I think so. They seem to be the only candidates with a solid chance of winning. It's pretty unlikely, but hopefully Paul will get the nomination. That would be really cool.

isn't Ron Paul significantly more right-wing than he's letting on with his campaign?

Numerator wrote:isn't Ron Paul significantly more right-wing than he's letting on with his campaign?

I don't think so. He seems pretty honest to me and his voting history completely correlates with what he says he stands for on his campaign.

Still, no way I could know for sure. I just have to weigh what his possible faults are against the religious liar and the hope and change liar that could possibly occupy the presidency.

It'd be nice to have someone with the apparent honesty and anti-war stances like Paul who also happened to be completely politically neutral, but I'll take what we can get right now. Way I see it, the second those wars end completely, the second people start focusing on improving the US...and it needs it. Bad. Or there'll inevitably be another third world country racked up on the map.

Numerator wrote:isn't Ron Paul significantly more right-wing than he's letting on with his campaign?

Ron Paul is the least left/ right leaning of the bunch, which simply means he's not drunk and you can understand him when he speaks.

He's a staunch constitutionalist. Something you don't get from politically leaning drunkard liars.

mechanismj wrote:

Numerator wrote:isn't Ron Paul significantly more right-wing than he's letting on with his campaign?

He's a staunch constitutionalist. Something you don't get from politically leaning drunkard liars.

exactly!

he believes in going by the scripture and intent of the constitution, and he favors small government.
that's pretty much what the right-wing was SUPPOSED to be. we see what it has become now.

Waterbagel wrote:

mechanismj wrote:

Numerator wrote:isn't Ron Paul significantly more right-wing than he's letting on with his campaign?

He's a staunch constitutionalist. Something you don't get from politically leaning drunkard liars.

exactly!

he believes in going by the scripture and intent of the constitution, and he favors small government.
that's pretty much what the right-wing was SUPPOSED to be. we see what it has become now.

The right wing now serves as the opposite side of the same coin as the left. The right ensures the security and safety of the people through surveillance and the military, while the left provides the security and safety of the people through social programs like healthcare and social security. Though both seemingly different on the surface through political rhetoric, they are both building the exact same mechanism. All you have to do is take one tiny step back to see it.

mechanismj wrote: The right wing now serves as the opposite side of the same coin as the left. The right ensures the security and safety of the people through surveillance and the military, while the left provides the security and safety of the people through social programs like healthcare and social security. Though both seemingly different on the surface through political rhetoric, they are both building the exact same mechanism. All you have to do is take one tiny step back to see it.

YES

QFT

So I guess I'd be in the minority here by basically siding with the left? Because I'm all for social services. I actually like the idea of living in a society whose government serves the function of enabling even the poor and jobless and homeless to experience the benefits of living in the first world. Sorry.

And no, Ron Paul will not save you. He's all the crazy of Dubya except he's only spouting offensive idiocy some of the time instead of all of the time. That's not good enough for me.

turquoise70 wrote:So I guess I'd be in the minority here by basically siding with the left? Because I'm all for social services. I actually like the idea of living in a society whose government serves the function of enabling even the poor and jobless and homeless to experience the benefits of living in the first world. Sorry.

And no, Ron Paul will not save you. He's all the crazy of Dubya except he's only spouting offensive idiocy some of the time instead of all of the time. That's not good enough for me.

I'd like to throw out that, no, you're not minority by supporting social services and I'm pretty sure only one or two people here condemned them in entirety.

They're a great idea often, and when you can reduce them to their most limited yet essential forms and you can afford to pay for them, which would in turn mean cutting out unnecessary funding like the foreign aid, then they can be quite beneficial. Problem is, the way it seems to be right now, America is so deep in a terrible situation that all extra spending - war, social services, elected bodies that no longer represent us in honest or beneficial manners - should probably be cut or at the least drastically reduced until our situation has improved substantially. I say probably because you shouldn't be absolute with them all. While wars should be cut immediately, things like police and firefighters are social services and we need those (although the former could be reduced to an extent, i.e. not arresting pot smokers who caused no trouble and sending them to be persecuted, be it state or federally).

Alongside this, the people should take the responsibility, at its highest intensity, of regulating our current markets and making sure they're actually free. No monopolies, no anti-trust measures, no corporate blackmail horse shit that condemns new ideas, services, products and groups with blatant or borderline illegal methods. That way, everyone can find something they enjoy that will generate revenue, everyone can thrive in a fairer manner, and everyone can capitalize on their ideas and trades without being smashed by the huge corporations and the smaller but more aggressive ones as well. If implemented properly, it would actually be accurate to say that the poor people in that scenario were only like that because they were lazy, which is something that Republicans say all the time and would be a good philosophy except they forgot in their little brainwashed minds that our current market is not actually free and many people got fucked over.


Sorry, derailed a little there. Back to the social services - It's all a great idea to provide for people who can't, but it needs some foundation and actual support first, governed by a society of honest, intelligent people who elect honest, intelligent leaders, something this country has not had in my whole lifetime, and probably yours, and probably that of most of us on this forum.


I take it you don't care for Ron Paul too much though. What did he say that you found offensive and idiotic?

Also, who do you think is a better candidate at the moment?

The corrupt nature of this government is a direct reflection of those who consent to be governed. We're talking about a country loaded with people who are UNFIT TO SURVIVE without government assistance. People totally and wholly dependent on the government to eat, pay their rent and bills, and even take care of their children. The more dependence we have, the sicker the government will become.

I have no problem with social programs, provided we have citizens who can take responsibility for their lives, we have an actual honest to god free market that would keep the economy afloat, and we actually print our own currency, not borrow it from banks that operate beyond common law jurisdiction and lend money to us AS DEBT and expect us to pay the interest on fractional reserve FIAT notes backed by NOTHING but the good faith of those who are to ignorant to take responsibility for their lives.

On a lighter note, Montanans are taking advantage of their powers...

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/dece ... recall.php

And to that of those unfit to survive I say so be it. Ethical or not, nature, undecided by any of us, has dictated natural selection. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, only the strongest of the bunch survived. More recently, the strongest and the smartest have survived.

Now, everyone survives.

Not that I think people should be forced to compete for their lives in today's society or anything primitive like that, or that those who received a bad roll of the die should not be given a fair shot, but to an extent, this component of nature is essential to life because it promotes exercising your physical form to its fullest potential, physically, mentally and having a high level of ambition.

The problem with natural selection is that it doesn't correlate with humanitarian views. For example, I'm a 6'4" tall male in good shape who does weight training and spends half my day acquiring new information. There's a pretty good chance in natural selection that I'd survive, and I'd probably have some huge bulky dude as a keygrip of sorts and some skinny scientist hacker dude as our technical genius. We'd group together and survive in the wastelands or whatever, that's the way it works.

There are people though that are like 4'6", really skinny or overweight and not too intelligent and honestly a good amount of that has to do with genetics. Society has collectively decided, that because their predisposition to being a technically inferior human being in terms of natural selection is by no means their own choosing and by no means should they suffer for it, that we are going to make life completely sustainable for the good of everyone including them, adapting society to the needs of those who wouldn't survive otherwise. This is noble, generous and helpful to your brothers and sisters of your species.


But, despite all that, nature disagrees...that's all I'm saying.

So while it's absolutely necessary to maintained a civilized society, measures should be implemented here and there that demonstrate to people on a regular basis just how important it is that they take care of themselves. At some point or another, all this shit where people who are 380 god damn pounds, get up and go eat McGriddles and other chemical nonsense every morning and then remain docile and passive has to stop, and at the rate we're reconciling the problem at right now, these people will be doing such things until they're senile, demanding more and more personal mobility scooters and taking up 27 airplane seats simultaneously simply because they don't have to take care of themselves in this society and so they don't.

And how is "a totally free market with no regulation" going to entice all these lazy jobless 4'6" McDonald's-eating human wastes to change their lives?

Or would you just kind of rather they get picked off? If you do, congratulations, you should live in a 3rd world country under some gun-toting despot or scrambling for nutrients in the swamp of some godforsaken jungle. If you don't, congratulations, you are a member of a thing called civilization, where we actually think it's a -good- thing to provide for the needy, even if they needy'd themselves. Because that's what it means to be human. Jesus, you people make me feel well-adjusted.

turquoise70 wrote:And how is "a totally free market with no regulation" going to entice all these lazy jobless 4'6" McDonald's-eating human wastes to change their lives?

Or would you just kind of rather they get picked off? If you do, congratulations, you should live in a 3rd world country under some gun-toting despot or scrambling for nutrients in the swamp of some godforsaken jungle. If you don't, congratulations, you are a member of a thing called civilization, where we actually think it's a -good- thing to provide for the needy, even if they needy'd themselves. Because that's what it means to be human. Jesus, you people make me feel well-adjusted.

Who said no regulation?

When I say "free" my intention behind the terminology is not that of a corporate scumbags' intention. I mean free as in just, regulated (reasonably) and with good morale behind it, one that everyone can get an actual fair shot in. Not one where business and government are in bed together the whole time.

So I'll try a different term. Fair market. That works. In a fair market, you get fair business, and in fair business everyone typically gets paid more and receives what they were initially promised. Those who work hardest of them all and innovate make lots, which in turn they devote a large percentage of to pay their workers who in this case wouldn't be working 8 hours a day for shit wage. The rest goes down the line from there, and in turn people would probably be a lot happier, a lot more structured and a lot more productive when they aren't being screwed over. History shows it can work. However, what's happening right now is a lot less capitalistic, a lot more fascistic and is ironically very opposite from what America has claimed itself to represent in the past.

As for the latter half of your post, I agree for the most part. Some people could argue that challenging natural selection is "playing god", but I think that's a good thing. Fuck their interpretation of "god", as in an all powerful divine force that has decided everything for us. That's bullshit and that's why our ancestors created civilization and decided not to be animalistic, even though being animalistic is natural behavior.

Just want to make sure my thoughts aren't coming off wrongly...I don't think anyone here is sick enough that they want people to start being picked off because of their unfortunate shape. I do think there should be a distinction somewhere down the line though. Being dramatically overweight and out of shape, the vast majority of the time in this country, is not being needy. If people in that boat need help then people should be generous enough to help them but inevitably they should correct their own problems.

Just to make sure we're clear here, I said nothing about people being lazy human wastes... and I certainly said nothing about Mickey D's.

From the human perspective, no, I would NEVER want to see someone of my species, or any other species for that matter, get picked off or die for any reason. It's a tragedy and tears me up knowing it happens on a daily basis, especially for such utterly trivial reasons like political, religious beliefs, and the horrendously stupid personal differences you hear about on the daily news. To think I would enjoy such things is a gross misjudgement of my character.

However, understanding the state of affairs not only here in America, but the world over, we're coming to a breaking point. We've got a population exponentially increasing while resources exponentially decrease. As this occurs, we notice a drastic decline in the quality of life, of government, democracy, of the economy, of health, of education, of the air, water, food supply and quality. We're almost literally eating ourselves alive. I think we're slowly teaching ourselves a dramatic lesson whether we're aware of it or not.

Oddly enough, at the exact same time, we're seeing a conglomeration of power taking place. As globalization occurs and we slowly become more united (whether some of us like it or not), our economies, governments, and businesses eat each other up and centralize their power under world banks, world trade organizations, world health organizations, and eventually world wide governance. Because we cannot take care of ourselves, we give our powers away to increasingly powerful institutions that do all our dirty work for us.

So, in all honesty, it goes both ways. You can't blame the top for the bottom's problems, or the other way around. We're all in this together and we're eventually gonna learn that. We'll see that we need to stop giving our responsibilities and powers as individuals to institutions and old outdated belief systems and instead, apply that power to making life better for ourselves, which in turn helps out those around us.

Sadly, and this is where the natural selection kicks in, I don't see a lot of us pulling through. I don't see a lot of people out there with a mindset for personal responsibility, open ended beliefs, and the ability to think critically. Does that make anyone bad? No! Good and bad are subjective. However, natural selection, that process that ensures survival of a species in perpetual balance and harmony with its surroundings, does not give a fuck about our personal beliefs or how entitled we think we are. This is the next step in our evolution, and natural selection takes place now more than ever in our mindset. So, keep yourself informed and educated about the world around you. Don't hold old rigid beliefs that prevent you from accepting personal responsibility and the cultural diversity around you.

The time for a totally free market with no regulation is WAY WAY beyond us. We're to far into it now to go back to such a thing. So, no, I don't honestly think it would help. It's a great idea, sure.

Look at it like this. If we decide to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, bring back all our manufacturing jobs, print our own money, set up a free market, eventually, one of the other super powers of the world would come kicking our doors in and accuse us of being a fascist dictatorship... does any of this sound familiar?

My final thought. I believe that this power structure, more than anything, is a form of energy that does not confine itself to specific ideologies, institutions, and especially individual people. It belongs to everyone. If we did have a free market with no regulation, eventually the exact same thing that is happening now would occur again. The ones who made more money (energy) would gain more influence and start setting the rules, building the exact same structure we have now.

my problem with welfare and social services like it..

all too often i see people with food stamps and welfare that are buying either carts full of junk food or carts food of lobster, steaks, "higher-class" food. they also usually weigh 300-400 pounds. they also usually have several children running around. i know for a fact some of them continue to have children solely for the purpose of getting more money out of the system.

i wish i could say they're a rare occurrence or an exception.

welfare could be a good system. however, it needs to be able to teach personal responsibility. i would suggest that a drug test be required for all those on welfare/EBT/etc. not because drugs are inherently "bad" or anything, but because that is not a life essential. that is all welfare should be paying for; the bare essentials. not junk food, not filet mignon, etc.

how you would actually legislate that, i'm not sure.