Explain Conservatism

[patrick jane]

What did Barry Goldwater want?

Goldwater Girls like Hitlery

 

[User Name]

Goldwater Girls like Hitlery

What do you want?

 

[Gary K]

Please expound on that statement.

Sorry about responding so late, I didn't see this until now.

I don't really understand the question as my statement seems pretty self-explanatory, but I'll give you an example or two.

First example: The local Nazi here, I forget his name, says a lot of stuff I completely disagree with, but under our constitution has every right to say it. I would not remove his right to say what he thinks, but I would certainly express my disagreement with him and combat his ideas.

Second example: I find socialism, and all forms of collectivism for that matter, completely reprehensible as an ideology, but I would not stop anyone from speaking in its favor. They have the right to disagree with me, and they have the right to hold to ideas I completely reject just as I have the right to speak out against the ideology. It's a two-way street. I don't want my ability to speak my mind removed, therefore I do not want the ability of those I disagree with to have their ability to speak out removed. I guess you could say it's the Golden Rule of speech. Whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them.

The only thing more reprehensible to me than the above is the idea that liberty of thought and conscience would be removed. That is what makes for a truly viable society. These things are God-given rights, and actually cannot be removed by any outside force. Oh, an outside force may punish a person for exercising those rights, but they cannot stop a person from exercising them. The inquisition is proof of that, and so are the Soviet gulags and Nazi concentration camps.

 

[Gary K]

Well, if you must. Though, that does leave a lot of point on the table. I understand it's a lot of points, and it takes a lot of time, but I also did invest quite a bit of effort into responding by the point.



No I don't. I believe that government can be a constructive force in the lives of its citizens, and that's why we have one. That doesn't equate to believing that government is the solution for every problem, or even most problems.



Every time? Then what is the government for? Are you a conservative, or an anarchist?



It stops where we say it will stop via our democratic process. Where do you think it should stop.



Well, lets set aside the "thinking" part of that, because there's no one who argues for that. But do you deny that there are behaviors that should be stopped? Maybe you are an anarchist, but I think you're not being honest with yourself.



I think that when you are trying to get treatment for a potentially terminal illness, you won't find it very liberating for the government to say "you're on your own, pay for it yourself or die". Sometimes liberty requires a bit more than hands-off policy (aka laissez faire).



I think even most people who are honest and self-sufficient need a rule-book to live in a shared society with others. They can't make that up themselves. That has to be a matter of consensus.



...culminating in the election of Donald Trump?



Then we can't afford a tax cut. Right?



It's a $12 trillion dollar external debt. My math says that take 12 years at $1 trillion per year. Throw in the debt owed to Social Security, and it's $20 trillion. Still not out of line. It requires discipline, but it's not just something we can't do. And if we're going to do it, we can't do tax cuts.



As I pointed out earlier, it's Democrats who are fiscal hawks. I think there are some things that we could pay for with debt, and it would be worth the trade-off, i.e. increase our collective wealth, but all the policies Democrats try to pass, they also try to pay for. It's Republicans who want tax cuts and defense spending without finding a way to pay for it.



I think that's more than a little hyperbolic. Yeah, you take on debt by giving someone else a right to demand something from you later, but most of our debt, we owe to ourselves, and just like personal debt, we take it on with the understanding that we get something worthwhile for it. That can be liberating, because it affords you the chance to do important things without first raising all the funds you need.



Well, but it is important to keep track of the distinction. $20 trillion is the realized debt. It's money we actually owe right now. The unfunded liabilities are projections of what we will owe in the future. But you have to go out decades to get the big sort of numbers like $100 trillion, $200 trillion. And it's based on the assumption that we're going to keep running deficits the whole time. But we can choose not to do that. And again, the Democrats are the more likely party to do something responsible about that.



I'm not sure where you get this idea that it's illegal for the government to raise debt. I suggest you review Article I, sections 6 and 8 of the US Constitution for the applicable law.



Here's an economic reality for you: Single payer health care is cheaper than any other kind. We can't afford not to adopt it. It's costing us trillions of dollars by doing this private insurance system with no price controls, and maximizing the power of for-profit health care companies.



The amount of money the government spends on feeding refugees is very, very small compared to the whole budget. As far as transgender operations go, that presumes that the government pays for it sometimes. I'm not sure that's happened yet. Maybe for a trans veteran. It's a thin, thin slice of a huge pie, and at the moment it would only come from an obligation that the government incurred for some generally accepted service. The biggest welfare program we have is Medicaid, which is for citizens, many of whom are elderly and unable to work. If you want to cut that, you better hope you never need a nursing home. It's hard to see where that could be cut without being inhumane, and also, the costs would just get shuffled from the government onto the people directly, at a higher price because they would be far less powerful individually than as a group. And that's still a pretty small portion of what we spend overall.



You're right that I don't spend more than I make on charity. But then, I'm not a Republican, so that's just how I roll. I pay for what I spend.

Like I said before, the Democrats are the party of fiscal discipline.



If you're serious about that, how about we balance the budget? Lets tax the rich. We can do it, and I would support it.



The same sentence of the Constitution that tells Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the common defense also tells them to serve the general welfare. In both cases, if it were absolutely clearly laid down what that should encompass, we wouldn't need a legislature, they'd just have put it in the original document.




Then vote for Democrats. Republicans say they believe in that, but they never ever do it, even given the chance.

I have a suggestion to make these posts more manageable and easier to respond to. Let's take one aspect at a time of what we are talking about for it is clear that our understanding of the issues is at so wide a variance that it will take a lot of discussion on each point. To tell the truth I doubt there is any common ground in how we view things.

Let's just address the debt issue first.

Debt is not wealth. Period. Any time you figure your net worth you deduct what you owe from your assets. It is a negative on the balance sheet.

Our government has been deficit spending for many decades and the problem is only increasing. Obama's administration basically doubled our published debt during his time in office To suggest that the Democrats are fiscal hawks is laughable. Listen to the screams of the Democrats whenever budget cuts are proposed. Obamacare is a massive financial sinkhole, and it is the exclusive brainchild of the Democrats. I compare it to the definition of owning a boat, which is a hole in the water you throw money into. Their patron saint of economics is Maynard Keynes. He is the author of the idea that deficit spending and debt is a good thing. The establishment Republicans have become just as bad, as there isn't a spending bill they don't like. They have long since left conservative economic principles far behind.

Obama also devalued our currency by a lot during his time in office. How did he do that? Through what he called his Quantitative Easing programs. The reason counterfeiting is illegal is because it devalues legitimate currency. It adds to the total currency in circulation but it isn't based upon any generation of actual, tangible, wealth. Obama's QE programs printed money at around $85 billion a month for years. In other words, he just printed money. That causes inflation, which devalues the value of the dollar. At the same time as the economy sank they pumped that money into the stock market causing an artificial rise in the stock market. You don't believe me? There are a lot of traders, stockmarket analysts, and financial analysts who will verifty this.

Let's look at some real numbers on the economy, as the Federal government has been lying to us about the real state of the economy for a long time. Let's look at it the way the Feds used to figure the numbers, rather than the new way they do things. I'll give you a link to a site that runs the numbers the way the Feds used to run them back in the 70s and 80s, and then compares them to what the official stats are. The author of the site is a very successful financial consultant and is well-versed in how government does things. He uses these numbers to help corporations plan their financial strategies, and if he wasn't accurate he wouldn't have any clients. As it is he has a very good reputation. Not with politicians, media, and the government, but with the people he works with because they can trust the info he gives them.

On the page of the website I linked to are the real numbers for unemployement, GDP growth, inflation, money supply, and the value of the US dollar.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Originally Posted by aCultureWarrior
So you're really not interested in what true conservativism is, you just want pseudo conservatives to tell you what their version of it is.

I want what the mainstream of conservatism is right now under Trump. I recognize that this is not the same as other incarnations. This is, in part, why I've found myself agreeing with you way more often since this time last year than either of us have been accustomed to prior.

By not affirming what true conservatism really is, you're allowing these Trump supporters to live a lie. That lie will not only have negative consequences on our country, but very well could have negative consequences on their souls for eternity.

Isaiah 5:20

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Quote: Originally posted by ffreeloader
1. I want... free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not,..

Quote: Originally posted by aCultureWarrior
Please expound on that statement.

Sorry about responding so late, I didn't see this until now.

I don't really understand the question as my statement seems pretty self-explanatory, but I'll give you an example or two.

First example: The local Nazi here, I forget his name, says a lot of stuff I completely disagree with, but under our constitution has every right to say it. I would not remove his right to say what he thinks, but I would certainly express my disagreement with him and combat his ideas.

So you like the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution, not the Founding Father's original intent?

 

[rexlunae]

By not affirming what true conservatism really is, you're allowing these Trump supporters to live a lie. That lie will not only have negative consequences on our country, but very well could have negative consequences on their souls for eternity.

Isaiah 5:20

Fundamentally, conservatism is what it's adherents say that it is, like other ideologies. It doesn't matter that they can't all agree on it.

 

[Gary K]

Quote: Originally posted by ffreeloader
1. I want... free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not,..

Quote: Originally posted by aCultureWarrior
Please expound on that statement.



So you like the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution, not the Founding Father's original intent?

I really don't have any idea what the ACLU's interpretation of the 1st amendment is, but I would agree with the following that comes from Blackstone's common law, and it is generally assumed this is what the original meaning was meant to be.

''The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity. To subject the press to the restrictive power of a licenser, as was formerly done, both before and since the Revolution, is to subject all freedom of sentiment to the prejudices of one man, and make him the arbitrary and infallible judge of all controverted points in learning, religion and government. But to punish as the law does at present any dangerous or offensive writings, which, when published, shall on a fair and impartial trial be adjudged of a pernicious tendency, is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order, of government and religion, the only solid foundations of civil liberty. Thus, the will of individuals is still left free: the abuse only of that free will is the object of legal punishment. Neither is any restraint hereby laid upon freedom of thought or inquiry; liberty of private sentiment is still left; the disseminating, or making public, of bad sentiments, destructive to the ends of society, is the crime which society corrects.''

The only problem I see with Blackstone's ideas is in the last sentence or two, for who determines what "bad sentiments" and "destructive to the ends of society" means? If that power is given to the political left all conservative and a lot of libertarian thought would be judged as illegal. If that same power is given to the right, then all leftist thought would be determined to be illegal. What that is, is basically totalitarianism and no chance to speak out against the ills of a society are allowed. While I agree that there should be some restrictions on free speech such as the advocating of murder, I think because of the reasons I gave above that speech should pretty much be left alone.

Seeing that the doctrine of free speech was put in place to stop the suppression of the Anti-Federalist's ideas from being expressed and discussed, my take on this goes along with the founder's intent.

I would also say that the following footnote from findlaw.com's commentary on the 1st amendment is that both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson came to hold basically the same view I have, even if they didn't hold that view during the Revolutionary War.

[Footnote 8] It would appear that Madison advanced libertarian views earlier than his Jeffersonian compatriots, as witness his leadership of a move to refuse officially to concur in Washington's condemnation of ''[c]ertain self-created societies,'' by which the President meant political clubs supporting the French Revolution, and his success in deflecting the Federalist intention to censure such societies. I. Brant, James Madison--Father of the Constitution 1787-1800, 416-20 (1950). ''If we advert to the nature of republican government,'' Madison told the House, ''we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.'' 4 Annals of Congress 934 (1794). On the other hand, the early Madison, while a member of his county's committee on public safety, had enthusiastically promoted prosecution of Loyalist speakers and the burning of their pamphlets during the Revolutionary period. 1 Papers of James Madison 147, 161-62, 190-92 (W. Hutchinson & W. Rachal eds. 1962). There seems little doubt that Jefferson held to the Blackstonian view. Writing to Madison in 1788, he said: ''A declaration that the federal government will never restrain the presses from printing anything they please, will not take away the liability of the printers for false facts printed.'' 13 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 442 (J. Boyd ed. 1955). Commenting a year later to Madison on his proposed amendment, Jefferson suggested that the free speech-free press clause might read something like: ''The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty, property, or reputation of others or affecting the peace of the confederacy with foreign nations.'' 15 Papers, supra, at 367.

 

[Gary K]

rexlunae,

I spent about 45 minutes yesterday replying to you and all of a sudden my post disappeared into the ether. I have no idea what caused it, but a small popup window appeared and then disappeared before I could read it, and then all my work vanished.

I need to find a better way to write posts as this has happened to me twice here. So don't think I'm ignoring you, I'm just casting about for a good way to write a post that won't vanish on me.

 

[kmoney]

rexlunae,

I spent about 45 minutes yesterday replying to you and all of a sudden my post disappeared into the ether. I have no idea what caused it, but a small popup window appeared and then disappeared before I could read it, and then all my work vanished.

I need to find a better way to write posts as this has happened to me twice here. So don't think I'm ignoring you, I'm just casting about for a good way to write a post that won't vanish on me.

If my connection or the site is acting finicky I'll sometimes type in a separate application, like Notepad, and then copy it in whenever I'm ready.

 

[rexlunae]

rexlunae,

I spent about 45 minutes yesterday replying to you and all of a sudden my post disappeared into the ether. I have no idea what caused it, but a small popup window appeared and then disappeared before I could read it, and then all my work vanished.

I need to find a better way to write posts as this has happened to me twice here. So don't think I'm ignoring you, I'm just casting about for a good way to write a post that won't vanish on me.

No worries. It's a long discussion, and I've had it happen to be before. I've taken to writing my longer posts in a text editor outside the web browsers when they get to be too long.

No rush. Thanks for putting in the effort.

 

[Gary K]

rexlunae,

OK. Here goes. I adopted the same method you use for writing long posts.

Every regulation has two sides, and you can have pathological growth that doesn't help either the little guy or liberty. One man might feel that it is his liberty to pollute a residential neighborhood, and anything that prevents him from doing so is an abrogation of that liberty, but the people living there might have a different opinion. I think liberty includes protection from that sort of abuse, and that such protections are worth even pretty large reductions in GDP growth. How do you feel about these sort of regulations?

In any case, this is a testable claim. If the regulations that Trump has eliminated add $3 trillion to the economy, we should see GDP growth increase by that much more. The last few years, the GDP has grown by 2-2.3%, and the number for 2016 (the last complete year) was $18569.1 billion. Assuming 2017 will end up comparable, it will be around $18,940.482 billion. So, the target for Trump to hit that goal is $18,943.482 billion.

This will not be an immediate return. It will take time for this to actually filter down to business and for them to figure out where they stand now in regards to how things are now. So I see this as having a slowly ramping up effect on job growth and business.

As to regulations, they have gone way over the line. Just recently a farmer was fined several hundred thousand dollars for cultivating a field that is dry 10 or 11 months out of the year. It only flooded during high water during the spring, but yet the EPA called that wetlands and told him he couldn't work his field.

The EPA has taken control of mud puddles at this point in it's overreach of policy. They have been about control for the last few decades, not the best interest of the nation. Regulation often has unintended side effects. Regulation has led to a lot of outright job loss. This not only affects the economy, it works hardship on a lot of people, and creates a lot of other government spending via unemployment claims, welfare costs, crime, etc.... You think you want regulation at the cost of declining economy, but how about when it costs you and your family your source of income. Will you jump up and down and celebrate that too? If you wouldn't your position is hypocritical.

I see the left often excoriating business for the price of food, dry goods, etc.... But yet regulation, the darling of the left, causes much of those increases in prices. A business has to stay profitable to stay in operation, so they must pass along the costs associated with regulation. They have no choice, but then they are excoriated for rising prices and accused of being greedy.

Would you feel that you had liberty if you were theoretically allowed to drive, but no one would sell you gas? Or let you stay in their hotel?

This is a fallacy. No one is denied anything if a Christian says, I don't want to fulfill your needs because I believe doing business with you would violate my conscience. There are lots of non-Christians in business too who would welcome the business a Christian will turn down for ethical reasons. I have turned down a lot of jobs because of moral/religious reasons--I knew those businesses were unethical in their business practices and therefore would not work for them. I didn't deny them anything they couldn't replace with someone who was unethical enough to treat their customers the way they wanted to. I also have refused to buy from companies that I know are unethical. I will not support them. I won't give them my money. I don't have cable TV because paying for it automatically sends money to those who work against my religious and political beliefs. Your side can do exactly the same thing. It doesn't require the legal system to interfere and force other people to do exactly what ever the individual wants. Express your displeasure with your pocketbook, not the legal system. The fact that your side seems to think the courts are the first resort to deal with those who disagree with you does not make your side look good.

The couple is deprived of a cake, that any other citizens would be entitled to.

Hogwash. They can go down the street and find another baker to make the same cake. They are deprived of nothing. Are you telling me there are no gay bakers in existence?

But nowhere in the Constitution is your right to be in business guaranteed, either. If you choose to be in business, the state can legitimately place limits on how you can conduct your business.

But the state cannot violate it's own laws. That is the beauty of the constitution. It is the supreme law of the land, and it guarantees that no law shall be made that limits the right of the expression of religion, which is exactly what saying no to something you find morally wrong, and against your religious beliefs, is. What you're advocating is the destruction of the constitution over something that does not effectively deny anyone anything, other than to force those who disagree with you to comply with your point of view.

I agree. But then, I wouldn't argue that he isn't perfect. I would argue that he isn't adequate. He's almost perfectly inadequate, in fact.

And, even if I agree with your estimation of Trump, I have to ask, have there never been inadequate presidents before? Therefore your point is a "so what" point. Explain why you think he is inadequate. Because he doesn't do what you want? The Democrats of the 1860s thought Abraham Lincoln was an inadequate president who was monster hiding behind sheep's clothing.

A year ago.

Ok, I'm joking. Mostly. But I would say that he was a lot better.

Well, that's odd. I find him to be the worst president since Andrew Johnson. He did more to destroy the constitution than any other president we have had, other than Johnson and his carpetbaggers who wanted to destroy the south after the civil war.

It's also a logical fallacy to set up a straw man, if we're counting.

It was not really a straw man. With all the virulent hatred of Trump because he is subject to the same frailties as all humanity is, it is not a stretch to reach the conclusion that he would have to be a perfect human being to get any respect at all from those who oppose him.

Trump's tax cut is going to increase the debt. As GW Bush's did. But the Republicans are too craven to face economic reality. Democrats are the true fiscal hawks, Republicans believe in tax cuts that we can't afford.

Do you know how JFK ramped up the economy under his presidency? He cut taxes. Cutting taxes increases the money circulating in the economy. That causes economic growth. George Bush's spending and 9/11 is what hurt the economy during his time. We don't need high taxes to lower the deficit, we need less government spending. We are taking in trillions of dollars in taxes, and yet the politicians must borrow 40 cents on every dollar they spend. That is spending problem, not a problem of not enough taxes. Anyone with any financial knowledge at all knows you must live within your income, and the federal government has ignored that for many years. You seem to too. Are you now headed for bankruptcy because you overspend so far that just to pay your bills you must borrow money? If you do, just how long do you expect to survive financially?

Our currency consists of Federal Reserve notes, which are subject to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank. None of that is secret, or undisclosed. If you don't like the deal you get by holding onto Federal Reserve notes, take your notes and buy something else with them. Buy some gold. Buy some bitcoins. Buy some stocks. Buy some foreign currency. All of those are potentially more exciting, and better at holding and gaining value. But don't pretend you don't know the deal with the notes. People hold US dollars because they are stable and reliable, and that stability and reliability is the result of the policy decisions of the Fed. You can't get that stability and reliability without the monetary policy backing it. That is really the whole point.

You really don't know what is going on in the economy. The US dollar is basically worthless. It is entirely based upon debt. All signs are pointing to imminent finacial implosion, and we have been in a depression for 16 years--a shrinking economy--except for a short period of time about 2004. I'll supply you a link to support this.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

I'd recommend you spend the time to read the entire site to understand how these figures are arrived at. What you will find is that these numbers are arrived at by the same way the government used to report national financial data a few decades ago. It's like Obama dropping the rate of unemployment in by a point in one week. How did he do it? He juggled the numbers by changing the way unemployment is figured. No more people had jobs, the government just changed its algorithm for reporting the statistics. Real honesty there, wasn't it?

A growing economy typically experiences some amount of inflation. And it's a perfectly healthy sign. Inflation has the beneficial impact of eroding both accumulated debt and accumulated wealth, which I count as a good thing.

No. You do not understand where inflation comes from. It comes from a fiat currency and debt. It is not a sign of a healthy economy. It's a sign of a manipulated currency designed to transfer wealth from the pockets of the people to government and the banks. It hurts the poor the most.

Unemployment is at a 40 year low. Jobs aren't scarce. Good jobs are harder to come by, but this is largely a product of wealth concentration. Low inflation, as we are currently experiencing, actually reinforces that problem. Yes, inflation without wage growth is bad, but if we have inflation while wages keep up with inflation, it can be good.

I've already debunked your first two assertions here. There are more than 60 million people unemployed right now, and the wealth concentration is the result of Democratic policies. Do you realize that with all the policies Obama put in place he actually raised the concentration of wealth. Results don't lie.

Here's a link to a talk on the depression immediately following the end of WWI. It shows how a stock market crash worse than the one in 1929 and a contraction in wages and prices was overcome in very short time under the policies of Warren G. Harding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI

Agreed. Specifically, the politicians promising trickle-down gains to the poor and the middle class to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. The most stimulative thing that can be done for the economy by the government is injecting wealth into the bottom of it, because the poor spend every dollar, generating jobs and economic growth. Giving money to the people with plenty of it doesn't help anyone but them.

Sorry, you have things exactly backwards. Government debt, government spending, and government interference in the economy is the reason for our economic ills.

Taxes and debt.

And who has to pay taxes and pay off the debt? The people of the nation. It comes out of their pockets. So, there is no "free" entitlement from the government. You end up paying for it in the long run.

Here's what I support: Tax the rich. Like, a lot. Expand the support to the poor and the middle class. This isn't "free stuff". It's a component of living in a free and prosperous society. And if you are fortunate to become very successful, you incur the responsibility to share that burden. If you're rich, you don't need the help. And they can afford it. Trump's approach is upside-down, will only make the problem much worse.

If you actually believe all that, you're an economic ignoramus. Sorry to have to say so, but it is true. The 1% already pay 50% of all income taxes. The bottom 60% pay 2% of all income taxes. So how much do you consider the "fair" share of a wealthy person to be? Everything he makes? That still wouldn't pay for all of government spending. Not by a long shot.

That's an unfair and inaccurate broad-brush. I've never voted for a single politician who I thought was a liar. But Trump is a standout among liars. He has no concern for the truth whatsoever.

Wow. I don't know how to respond to that other than to roll my eyes. You really think politicians are in politics because they don't like having power, but that they just care about you? Are you really that naive? If so, how do you explain all the corruption in government?

You say Trump has no concern about truth and that you've never voted for a liar, but yet the Democratic candidate was caught in lie after lie during the campaign. She colluded with Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, the head of the DNC at that time, to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination. And you see absolutely no corruption there? Just how often do you cover your eyes and plug your ears to stop learning what you don't want to know?

That they have, and I don't defend them. But not like Trump. Trump could teach a masters class on shameless lying.

So, shameless lying about what you're going to do if you're elected to a position of power isn't shameless lying? The establishment Republicans promised again and again for years what they would do if only they were re-elected. And what have they done since they have had the opportunity to fulfill all those promises? Called anyone who held them accountable for their promises crazy, insane, destructive, and many other derogative terms. And you don't think those promises were shameless lying? I wonder what they would have to do reach that level?

Why don't you give me some examples of what you consider Trump's shameless lying to be? You know. Back up your assertions with facts.

It tells me Republicans are liars or deluded. Vote Democrat.

Oh, vote for another set of deluded liars. Great solution. Sorry, I can't do that. They promote all that I stand against, for they know their promises are lies. Let's look at one of those lies. They say they are all about helping the poor black man. What are the results of their promises in areas which they have controlled for many decades? There are no positive results. The ghettos and slums in those cities suffer from more crime, an educational system that produces a lot of functional illiterates, and vast seas of hopelessness. In fact, under Obama the financial status of blacks went down. They became poorer. And yet you love those results. You see Obama as a great president. I don't. I don't measure him by his words. I measure him by his results. And his results speak for themselves.

I watch the mainstream media, and they prepared me to expect the Republicans plan to either 1. throw millions of people off of health care or 2. never pass. So far, they lead me right. But it matters who you get your information from. It's wrong to apply the "MSM" broad brush. Fox News are liars.

Oh, it's quite plain that you watch nothing but the MSM. You parrot what they say on a regular basis and display a lot of ignorance of reality, which is exactly what the MSM desire of you--to be ignorant of what is really going on around you.

If there's one thing that's important to learn about politics, it's that the simplistic and cynical position that all politicians lie actually gives cover to the worst liars. All politicians try to present themselves in a positive light, from wearing makeup when they appear on television, to soft-peddling their most controversial positions, to outright untruth. But if you just flatten all of that out to the same thing, it actually gives them all permission to be their worst selves, because it doesn't matter what they do. There are actually many, many honest people trying to do public service in the best way they can for money that doesn't reflect the weight of the decisions they make, and they deserve credit for those efforts.

I hold politicians to the same standard I hold myself responsible. If they have to lie, they are up to no good. Their lying says they are doing something they don't want the public to know about. It is the opposite of transparency, and transparency is required for the public good. Yes, there are things that government cannot tell us due to the fact it will violate our national security for if they make it public then our enemies know wll know exactly what we know. But, that does not excuse lying about it. All they have to do is say, No comment. Honesty is always the best policy.

 

[rexlunae]

This will not be an immediate return. It will take time for this to actually filter down to business and for them to figure out where they stand now in regards to how things are now. So I see this as having a slowly ramping up effect on job growth and business.

How long do you expect it to take to realize the gains? I don't see how you can make these specific numerical claims without pretty definite notions of the timeframe.

As to regulations, they have gone way over the line. Just recently a farmer was fined several hundred thousand dollars for cultivating a field that is dry 10 or 11 months out of the year. It only flooded during high water during the spring, but yet the EPA called that wetlands and told him he couldn't work his field.

I'd need a lot more information to actually look into that claim, but what I will tell you is that I've heard any number of these anecdotes over the years, and it's almost always a lot more complicated than the way the Right initially presents it. And frankly, even if this case is as bad as you suggest, the mission of the EPA is so important and so completely under attack right now that I give them an enormous benefit of the doubt. The people who work there are unsung heros, always being demagogued against by the Right, making civil servant wages (which are low, in case you were wondering), and protecting all of us, including the most vulnerable from pollution, protecting endangered species, and making sure that our world is preserved for another generation, using the best science they can.

They have been about control for the last few decades, not the best interest of the nation.

To what end? What do you think they're trying to control, and why? There are things that they are supposed to control, resulting from their legal mandate, because it is in the interest of the nation.

Regulation often has unintended side effects.

Sure. It can. Do you have any specific ones in mind?

Regulation has led to a lot of outright job loss.

Can you quantify that? I'm not so sure you're right. And honestly, regulatory compliance can create jobs, too, if that's the concern.

This not only affects the economy, it works hardship on a lot of people, and creates a lot of other government spending via unemployment claims, welfare costs, crime, etc.... You think you want regulation at the cost of declining economy, but how about when it costs you and your family your source of income. Will you jump up and down and celebrate that too? If you wouldn't your position is hypocritical.

I think that economic growth in exchange for irreversible environmental damage is generally not worth it. And I'm not convinced you're right about the loss of growth and jobs.

As far as my job goes, I'm far more worried that our country will turn against good science. That would threaten my job security more than any of what you're speculating about.

I see the left often excoriating business for the price of food, dry goods, etc....

You do? I don't think I've ever seen that. Do you have an example? I've seen the Left criticize business for exploitation. But that's not the same thing.

But yet regulation, the darling of the left, causes much of those increases in prices. A business has to stay profitable to stay in operation, so they must pass along the costs associated with regulation.

I think safe food, safe medicine, safe water, which we absolutely didn't have before government regulation, is worth the price. We subsidize the cost of food for the needy.

This is a fallacy. No one is denied anything if a Christian says, I don't want to fulfill your needs because I believe doing business with you would violate my conscience.

That's clearly not true. The would-be customer is denied the thing they sought to buy, and also a bit of their dignity.

There are lots of non-Christians in business too who would welcome the business a Christian will turn down for ethical reasons.
...
Hogwash. They can go down the street and find another baker to make the same cake. They are deprived of nothing. Are you telling me there are no gay bakers in existence?

This country is something like 80% Christian, and higher in some places. I don't think that's a given.

Express your displeasure with your pocketbook, not the legal system.

Why not both?

But the state cannot violate it's own laws. That is the beauty of the constitution. It is the supreme law of the land, and it guarantees that no law shall be made that limits the right of the expression of religion, which is exactly what saying no to something you find morally wrong, and against your religious beliefs, is. What you're advocating is the destruction of the constitution over something that does not effectively deny anyone anything, other than to force those who disagree with you to comply with your point of view.

Well, that maximalist interpretation of the First Amendment breaks down when the rights of another person come into play, as they inevitably to when you run a business because there is always another party. The Supreme Court jurisprudence is that there is room for the law to negotiate between parties what the boundaries of their rights are when they interact.

And, even if I agree with your estimation of Trump, I have to ask, have there never been inadequate presidents before?

Oh, lots of them. GW Bush. Clinton, in certain ways. Nixon. But none like Trump, even remotely.

Therefore your point is a "so what" point.

I'll put it this way. I hated George W. Bush. I thought he should have been charged with war crimes for the way he launched the Iraq war. But I would pay money for him to take over from Trump.

Explain why you think he is inadequate.

He doesn't understand the job, he doesn't seem to have any interest in doing the job well, he doesn't seem to have any interest in even basic ethics and standards of anticorruption, he attacks large segments of the people he is sworn to serve, thus dividing the nation, he attacks the laws that he is sworn to uphold (a violation of his duties as enumerated in his oath of office), he attacks the free press, he demagogues vulnerable people.

Barack Obama and Chris Christie were political opponents. But when a hurricane (technically a post-tropical storm at that point) hit Christie's state, Obama was there for him, and they worked together productively to respond. And they came away showing the kind of unity that makes for a solid nation. A hurricane hits Texas, a red state, and Trump responds diligently. A hurricane hits Florida, a swing state, and Trump responds diligently. A hurricane hits Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Island, neither having any electoral votes, and Trump is AWOL. A president has to serve the whole country, not just the parts that vote for him, or that he likes. Otherwise we aren't a country. And honestly, conservatives have spent so much energy spewing venom against liberals over the last few decades, that I know there are a lot of conservatives who sincerely wish harm to us.

Well, that's odd. I find him to be the worst president since Andrew Johnson. He did more to destroy the constitution than any other president we have had, other than Johnson and his carpetbaggers who wanted to destroy the south after the civil war.

I think this country would be a lot better now if Reconstruction had been more enduring and successful then.

It was not really a straw man. With all the virulent hatred of Trump because he is subject to the same frailties as all humanity is, it is not a stretch to reach the conclusion that he would have to be a perfect human being to get any respect at all from those who oppose him.

It amazes me that you seem to think that Trump is just a notch less than perfect. "The same human frailties as all humanity [ha]s"...are you serious? Trump's faults are so far from normal that it just shocks me that you can say something like that. A man who has said lecherous things about his daughter, including when she was underage? A man who has admitted to using his position of power as an excuse to enter the locker rooms of young women? A man who has admitted to sexual assault? I get that men can be leches, but he's so far outside normal from where I sit that the comparison seems ludicrous. And that's just one single parameter of my assessment of him.

Do you know how JFK ramped up the economy under his presidency? He cut taxes. Cutting taxes increases the money circulating in the economy. That causes economic growth.

I'm going to respond with the words of another, because I completely agree with them:

The notion of Kennedy as supply-side forerunner is a powerful myth, but it is a myth. Context is key. Conservatives love to quote a speech Kennedy gave at the Economic Club of New York in December 1962. Here's one quote—I've italicized the crucial part often left out: "Our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking." JFK was not expounding an implacable economic philosophy; he was speaking about a very specific circumstance. The top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, which JFK wanted reduced to a "more sensible" 65 percent. Compare that with today's 35 percent top rate, and ask: If supply-siders are so enamored of JFK's tax policies, would they advocate a return to a "more sensible" 65 percent top rate? Applying Kennedy's tax talk to the current structure, JFK biographer Robert Dallek says, is like comparing "apples and watermelons."

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter

And it's important to note that, while the economy did grow very fast the two years after this tax cut passed, it was growing pretty fast before the tax cut too, and after the first two years, it was back in line with what was happening before that. And the final rates after all these cuts were still far higher than they are now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1964
http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-year

It's no shock to me that cutting taxes down from a top marginal rate of 91% could help the economy grow. That hardly makes a case for cutting an already low top rate in an environment of very lopsided economic gains going to the rich and stagnant wage growth for everyone else.

George Bush's spending and 9/11 is what hurt the economy during his time. We don't need high taxes to lower the deficit, we need less government spending.

It's easy to say "just spend less", much harder to do. The reality is that pretty much every dollar is spent for some good reason, and the real problem has been a lack of commitment on the part of Republicans to raise sufficient funds to pay for what they do. Maybe you would like to just cut everything, but I think you are unaware of the consequences of doing that, and the people who have to actually do the business of figuring out how to make cuts lack the privilege of your purity.

Anyone with any financial knowledge at all knows you must live within your income, and the federal government has ignored that for many years. You seem to too. Are you now headed for bankruptcy because you overspend so far that just to pay your bills you must borrow money? If you do, just how long do you expect to survive financially?

My personal budget balances. I raise the funds for the money I spend each month, on the average. But I do understand the value of spending money to save money. I'll give you an example from my personal finances. I took out a $12,000 loan to pay for solar panels for my roof. You could say that that month, I ran a $12,000 deficit, which sounds really stupid at first. But in exchange, I got a month-to-month savings on electricity over the next 30 years, and paid off the debt in 9 months. Did I need to do that? No. But it's a clearly beneficial investment in the long run.

You really don't know what is going on in the economy. The US dollar is basically worthless.

It's clearly not. Here's a test: Take some dollars to a store. See if you can buy some stuff with them. If you can, it's not worthless.

It is entirely based upon debt. All signs are pointing to imminent finacial implosion, and we have been in a depression for 16 years--a shrinking economy--except for a short period of time about 2004.

You realize that, if true, that corresponds to the first round of the Bush tax cuts? If tax cuts juice the economy, why have two tax cuts not helped us pull out of this depression?

I'll supply you a link to support this.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

I'd recommend you spend the time to read the entire site to understand how these figures are arrived at. What you will find is that these numbers are arrived at by the same way the government used to report national financial data a few decades ago.

Is that your website?

Look, I'll make two comments about it. One, the author of it clearly has more background and detailed knowledge of economics than I do. And two, he is clearly standing outside the consensus of his discipline. So, while it is true that I am not personally in a position to refute his conclusions and his methods, I also don't feel bound by them, and to the extent that I can use his conclusions, it doesn't seem to fit what I can test about the economy.

It's like Obama dropping the rate of unemployment in by a point in one week. How did he do it? He juggled the numbers by changing the way unemployment is figured. No more people had jobs, the government just changed its algorithm for reporting the statistics. Real honesty there, wasn't it?

How did Obama juggle the unemployment numbers?

He has been criticized for touting the unemployment numbers when the long-term jobless numbers are still high. But that's not a change in how the numbers are generated.

No. You do not understand where inflation comes from. It comes from a fiat currency and debt. It is not a sign of a healthy economy. It's a sign of a manipulated currency designed to transfer wealth from the pockets of the people to government and the banks. It hurts the poor the most.

Inflation occurs when the general demand for goods increases. Why would the general demand increase? Well, one important reason is if there is more money in circulation. If people near the lower end of the economic spectrum have more money, this will raise demand, and this causes inflation. Now, creating money can also put more money into circulation, but in order for it to raise general demand, it has to actually circulate through the economy instead of just getting stuck in a liquidity trap, which generally is going to mean that some of that money ends up at the low end of the economy, and not just remain stuck in banks. If the money just goes to the banks and the wealthy, yes, it can benefit them, but it won't cause inflation because it won't increase the general demand.

But the bottom line is, you basically can't grow the economy without causing some inflation because if the growth is real, people have more money to spend, which causes prices to rise. It doesn't matter if your currency is a fiat currency, backed by gold, or if you just trade gold bars directly, that basic reality will hold.

There are more than 60 million people unemployed right now, and the wealth concentration is the result of Democratic policies.

Where are you getting that number, and how do you link it to Democratic policies? The only way you can get to 60 million unemployed is by throwing in people who aren't actively looking for work.

Do you realize that with all the policies Obama put in place he actually raised the concentration of wealth. Results don't lie.

That's certainly not a problem he created, although I wouldn't deny that some of the things Obama (or that were done during his administration by the Fed) did likely made it worse. I mean, if you look at the graph of the increasing inequality, you can't see even a little bend between Bush and Obama administrations, although you do see the collapse and recovery for the top 1% during the 2008 bubble bursting. But I also think that some of the policies he tried to pass that he couldn't get through Congress would have helped, such as a tax hike on the rich, and a public option for health insurance.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/pover...ics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality

Here's a link to a talk on the depression immediately following the end of WWI. It shows how a stock market crash worse than the one in 1929 and a contraction in wages and prices was overcome in very short time under the policies of Warren G. Harding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI

The middle of the 20th Century, we had the longest streak of solid economic growth with no boom/bust cycle, high taxes, and a huge expansion of the government's role in the economy. There were some small recessions, never much more than 3%, until the Great Recession of 2008. And that depression of 1920 that he's talking about, yes, it was short, but it was huge. The GDP dropped by almost a third. Remember the chaos of the Great Recession? That was 5%. 1920 was more than six times larger in terms of the percent of the decline, and it was preceded by a recession 10 months before it, and followed by another major recession two years later.

No one says we couldn't recover from recessions or depressions without government interference. Government activity has given us stability. Yes, it costs us some amount of the booming growth. But it also stops the massive, disruptive, deadly crashes. Keynesian economics did this for decades, until we decided to give it up for neoliberalism.

Sorry, you have things exactly backwards. Government debt, government spending, and government interference in the economy is the reason for our economic ills.

I think we just disagree on this, and I can point to the whole middle of the last century to bolster my case.

If you actually believe all that, you're an economic ignoramus. Sorry to have to say so, but it is true. The 1% already pay 50% of all income taxes. The bottom 60% pay 2% of all income taxes. So how much do you consider the "fair" share of a wealthy person to be? Everything he makes? That still wouldn't pay for all of government spending. Not by a long shot.

We've been cutting taxes for the rich for the last 40 years, and wealth inequality has been going up the whole time. At some point, we might have to notice the correlation.

Wow. I don't know how to respond to that other than to roll my eyes. You really think politicians are in politics because they don't like having power, but that they just care about you? Are you really that naive? If so, how do you explain all the corruption in government?

Why is it so hard to believe that people undertake government service for idealistic reasons?

You say Trump has no concern about truth and that you've never voted for a liar, but yet the Democratic candidate was caught in lie after lie during the campaign.

You know how I know Clinton isn't a habitual liar? Because she's so bad at it. I don't even know that she was caught in a single lie during the campaign. She definitely did some tap-dancing when she was asked about the email server.

Trump lies like it's nothing. Like there's no difference between the truth and a lie. That's a practiced liar for you.

She colluded with Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, the head of the DNC at that time, to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination.

I supported Bernie in the primary. Yeah, there were things to quibble with in how the party handled whole process. But you know what? They had no obligation to let Bernie run for the nomination. They allowed that to happen. They would have been within their rights to say you have to have been a member of their party at some point in order to run in it.

And you see absolutely no corruption there? Just how often do you cover your eyes and plug your ears to stop learning what you don't want to know?

Not corruption, no. Party politics. I kinda expect to find that in a political party.

So, shameless lying about what you're going to do if you're elected to a position of power isn't shameless lying? The establishment Republicans promised again and again for years what they would do if only they were re-elected. And what have they done since they have had the opportunity to fulfill all those promises? Called anyone who held them accountable for their promises crazy, insane, destructive, and many other derogative terms. And you don't think those promises were shameless lying? I wonder what they would have to do reach that level?

This is not a difference between us. I completely agree with you, and Trump for that matter. Everything Republicans said about repeal and replace was disingenuous. Do I think they would have liked to do it? Sure. But not at the political expense they would have incurred. But...I haven't voted for any of those jerks. I vote for Democrats, who, for the most part, seem to be pretty honest.

Why don't you give me some examples of what you consider Trump's shameless lying to be? You know. Back up your assertions with facts.

How about this one: That he won't benefit personally from his tax plan.
Or this: That he has nothing to do with Russia.

Oh, vote for another set of deluded liars. Great solution. Sorry, I can't do that.

I wouldn't expect you to, while you believe that they are deluded liars. I vote for them because I do generally trust them.

They promote all that I stand against, for they know their promises are lies. Let's look at one of those lies. They say they are all about helping the poor black man. What are the results of their promises in areas which they have controlled for many decades?

Civil Rights law. That's a big one. Fighting segregation.

There are no positive results. The ghettos and slums in those cities suffer from more crime, an educational system that produces a lot of functional illiterates, and vast seas of hopelessness. In fact, under Obama the financial status of blacks went down. They became poorer. And yet you love those results.

I can't speak for them, but I think a lot of black people have mixed feelings about the Obama years. But you can't deny that it represents progress for them. I think a lot of the reason they did poorly economically under Obama is related to the Great Recession, and the reasons for that trouble existed before and will continue to exist afterwards.

You see Obama as a great president. I don't. I don't measure him by his words. I measure him by his results. And his results speak for themselves.

That's not a genuine distinction between us either. It's just that we don't look at the same results.

Oh, it's quite plain that you watch nothing but the MSM. You parrot what they say on a regular basis and display a lot of ignorance of reality, which is exactly what the MSM desire of you--to be ignorant of what is really going on around you.

That's where you're mistaken. The difference is not that I haven't been exposed to alternative sources of information. The difference is really who we believe.

I hold politicians to the same standard I hold myself responsible. If they have to lie, they are up to no good. Their lying says they are doing something they don't want the public to know about.

No dispute here.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Originally Posted by aCultureWarrior
By not affirming what true conservatism really is, you're allowing these Trump supporters to live a lie. That lie will not only have negative consequences on our country, but very well could have negative consequences on their souls for eternity.

Isaiah 5:20

Fundamentally, conservatism is what it's adherents say that it is, like other ideologies. It doesn't matter that they can't all agree on it.

In other words: What was yesterday's liberalism is now today's conservatism.

You and I both know that fundamentally (forming a necessary base or core; of central importance) that Holy Scripture is the core of conservatism.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Quote: Originally posted by aCultureWarrior
So you like the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution, not the Founding Father's original intent?

I really don't have any idea what the ACLU's interpretation of the 1st amendment is,...

Since you talked about a Nazi having some sort of supposed right to free speech, I figured someone as well read as you would know the history behind the ACLU defending supposed free speech by Nazi's.

ACLU History: Taking a Stand for Free Speech in Skokie
https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie

but I would agree with the following that comes from Blackstone's common law, and it is generally assumed this is what the original meaning was meant to be.

Assumed by who, your fellow Libertarians?


While the Founding Fathers didn't want to suppress speech by it's citizens when it came to criticizing government, please point out in the writings of any of the Founding Fathers where immoral behavior should be considered "free speech", i.e. where perverts like the late Hugh Hefner's trash or where sexual predator Donald Trump's rainbow flag waving should be allowed in society.

 

[ClimateSanity]

Free speech in the Constitution was designed exactly for repulsive speech of which you wish to deny to people you call nazi ACW.

 

[rexlunae]

You and I both know that fundamentally (forming a necessary base or core; of central importance) that Holy Scripture is the core of conservatism.

I don't think that would have even been one of my first ten guesses.

 

[WizardofOz]

The first pillar of conservatism is liberty, or freedom.

The second pillar of conservative philosophy is tradition and order.

The third pillar is the rule of law.

The fourth pillar is belief in God.

The Pillars of Modern American Conservatism

 

[Gary K]

rexlunae,

How long do you expect it to take to realize the gains? I don't see how you can make these specific numerical claims without pretty definite notions of the timeframe.

I don't really know exactly. I'd guess no less than a year, and probably not more than 2 years, for it is going to take time for businesses to figure out how they now stand, make plans, and begin to implement them. Remember, business has been absolutely throttled by regulation for the last 20 years or so. This is going to be a big adjustment in planning, resource allocation, and implementation. It might possibly go even longer because of all the attacks on Trump. Business will be cautious lest Trump be removed from office and they get shackled with regulation once more.

I'd need a lot more information to actually look into that claim, but what I will tell you is that I've heard any number of these anecdotes over the years, and it's almost always a lot more complicated than the way the Right initially presents it. And frankly, even if this case is as bad as you suggest, the mission of the EPA is so important and so completely under attack right now that I give them an enormous benefit of the doubt. The people who work there are unsung heros, always being demagogued against by the Right, making civil servant wages (which are low, in case you were wondering), and protecting all of us, including the most vulnerable from pollution, protecting endangered species, and making sure that our world is preserved for another generation, using the best science they can.

If you would pay attention to anything other than the MSM you would be familiar with a lot of what I have said. They will not tell you about these things. They don't want you to know about them.

A lot of the environmental movement is pushed by people I consider to be loons. They worship "mother earth" and have very little use for people. They do not care a whit how much harm they cause people. They don't care a whit about how much job loss they create. In fact, the greater job loss they create, the more hardship on people, the better. I've watched them at work now for a couple of decades, and human suffering is the least of their worries. And many of these people are to be found inside the EPA and they are closely allied with the MSM so they get favorable coverage almost exclusively rather than a serious look into what they are actually doing.

I would consider myself a conservationist, but not an environmentalist. The difference, as I see it, is we need to conserve, remember I'm a conservative, what God has given us, but at the same time people are a priority of mine too. Our declaration of independence speaks to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If someone is jobless, their family is hungry, and they are in danger of losing their home because of environmental regulations, then we have stepped across a line we should not be crossing. I care more about people than I do about some political agenda that doesn't give a rip how many people it hurts. I see you as being on the other side of the fence. The fence that says people are not a consideration in what I want. I don't care how much they suffer, I have a goal and we must reach that goal whether they suffer or not.

What follows is a link to the story of the farmer. The fine though, was not in the hundreds of thousands, but in the millions of dollars. I've given you a MSM version of the story as I know you pretty much despise other sources.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/24/farmer-plowing-fine/339756001/

To what end? What do you think they're trying to control, and why? There are things that they are supposed to control, resulting from their legal mandate, because it is in the interest of the nation.

No. They have gone far beyond the mandate given them by Congress. They have created a multitude of rules which exceed their mandate, which are in effect laws created by someone with no public accoutability, and they pursue those rules hyperaggessively in their court cases and fines.

Sure. It can. Do you have any specific ones in mind?

There are so many I have a hard time figuring out where to begin. I'll give you one that I'm pretty familiar with as I grew up being affected by it as my dad was a logger.

When I was a young kid the forest service used the selective cut method of harvesting timber. What they would do is have what is called a timber cruiser walk the area to be logged and mark the mature trees that needed to be harvested. They would leave enough standing timber to reseed the forest naturally, and to hold the snow pack by the shade of the remaining timber, hold the moisture from a slowly melting snowpack rather than have the wind and sun melt it rapidly, and to hold the soil in case of heavy rain through the root structure of the trees. These were all good things. They were the proper way to have a sustainable timber harvest and reseeding of the forest. This was good conservation of existing resources.

Then they decided to force the loggers to use the clear cut method. Mind you, many, many loggers were against it because of what they knew it would do to the forests and their industry. I can tell you through personal experience that most loggers love the woods. That's why they choose to work there. But government agencies regulate. That is their function. So, the forest service forced clear cutting on the timber industry. As a result there is now no shady areas to hold snowpack in the spring. Thus the snow melts rapidly causing erosion and a lot of flooding in the lowlands. It also results in a much drier forest increasing fire danger. And, when they replant, which they never had to do before, they replant so closely that you can't even walk through some of those areas after 3 or 4 years. That means there is a lot of fuel for fires well within reach of a ground fire. And, they now have to pay people to go in and plant and thin the trees. All of this together means greatly increased costs, and much more property damage through flooding. No climate change needed to create what they created through regulation.

Can you quantify that? I'm not so sure you're right. And honestly, regulatory compliance can create jobs, too, if that's the concern.

Sure. The entire timber industry has been almost completely destroyed through regulation. This is the loss of a way of life and of very good paying jobs. Back in the mid 1960s my dad used to make $200/day falling timber. That was very good money in those days. Now those jobs are almost all gone, and have been replaced by jobs in which a guy like my dad, who only had an 8th grade education, can only make minimum wage. And you think this is not a bad thing? It has created a ton of poverty that never existed before.

I think that economic growth in exchange for irreversible environmental damage is generally not worth it. And I'm not convinced you're right about the loss of growth and jobs.

And I will bet you have never studied, nor experienced the issue in your life. You simply assume you are correct and that anyone who differs with you is a moron and a fool. It's the moron and fool who doesn't thoroughly research an issue, including what the unintended consequences will be, and how many people will be hurt by what they want to do.

As far as my job goes, I'm far more worried that our country will turn against good science. That would threaten my job security more than any of what you're speculating about.

So? See, you're already worried about what might happen to your job, and don't really give a rip about what has happened already to millions of people through what your agenda. And it's obvious you claim to be associated with "science" yet have not thoroughly studied the issues from all sides. You haven't even begun to look at the negatives of what you do, and that is supposed to be the "scientific method"? Don't make me laugh. That is as far away from any scientific method as it can get. It is brain dead arrogance and a dismissal of the suffering of millions of people.

You do? I don't think I've ever seen that. Do you have an example? I've seen the Left criticize business for exploitation. But that's not the same thing.

You really do not pay much attention to what goes on in the society around you. Do some research. You claim to be associated with science, so do what scientists do and research the issue.

I think safe food, safe medicine, safe water, which we absolutely didn't have before government regulation, is worth the price. We subsidize the cost of food for the needy.

Haven't ever really given much thought to any of this have you? Do you know have any idea how degrading it is to at one time be capable of taking care of yourself but the economy has contracted so far that no jobs are left and you must depend on someone else to feed you? What a jerk. You have never been outside your own little bubble nor considered the how people are affected by such arrogance as yours. We'll destroy your way of making a living and then give you a small dole for food because we're so wonderful. HUH? Try putting yourself in other people's shoes once in a while. I can guarantee you that you will necessarily learn a lot.

That's clearly not true. The would-be customer is denied the thing they sought to buy, and also a bit of their dignity.

What do you care about dignity? It's plain you don't care at all about the dignity of the baker, nor the millions of people you put out of work with your political agenda. You think forcing a person to go against his conscience doesn't work at destroying his dignity? I just have to shake my head in amazement at your blindness.

This country is something like 80% Christian, and higher in some places. I don't think that's a given.

No. The percentage is lower than that, but even many so-called Christians reject the idea that the law of God is in effect any more. I know of a bunch of people who claim to be Christian, they take the name, but they highly approve of the lgbt movement. Once again you speak without having any knowledge of what you are talking about.

Why not both?

So, in your mind walking over the constitutional rights of people who disagree with you is no big deal. I'm not surprised.

Well, that maximalist interpretation of the First Amendment breaks down when the rights of another person come into play, as they inevitably to when you run a business because there is always another party. The Supreme Court jurisprudence is that there is room for the law to negotiate between parties what the boundaries of their rights are when they interact.

The supreme court has for the last 100 years left the constitution far behind in most cases. It will occasionally agree with the constitution when it agrees with its agenda, but otherwise, the supreme court thinks it is the law. And, your idea of negotiation is I'm going to force you to do what I want.

Oh, lots of them. GW Bush. Clinton, in certain ways. Nixon. But none like Trump, even remotely.

Let's not forget Andrew Johnson, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and more. I could name a lot of inadequate presidents. You know why none of the presidents you're familiar with aren't anywhere close to being like Trump? Because he, even though he won the election, is still not a politician. He doesn't mealy mouth. He doesn't play to overall public opinion in what he says. He says exactly what is on his mind. I like that. He calls fake news outlet a fake news outlet. He is saying what millions of people have recognized for decades. He calls a moral swamp in Washington D.C. a moral swamp. That's what millions of US citizens have known for decades. We like that outspekenness. We don't want a "politician" for president. They have done enough harm. It's time to get rid of them.

I'll put it this way. I hated George W. Bush. I thought he should have been charged with war crimes for the way he launched the Iraq war. But I would pay money for him to take over from Trump.

Do you know why? Because at heart, and in his very foundation, he, like his father before him and Jeb, are all socialists just like you are. Trump is not a socialist at heart. He actually cares about this country. He's not a globalist who thinks the US should pay for all the world's ills.

He doesn't understand the job, he doesn't seem to have any interest in doing the job well, he doesn't seem to have any interest in even basic ethics and standards of anticorruption, he attacks large segments of the people he is sworn to serve, thus dividing the nation, he attacks the laws that he is sworn to uphold (a violation of his duties as enumerated in his oath of office), he attacks the free press, he demagogues vulnerable people.

Your perceptions are all wrong. He has a strong interest in doing his job well. His job is to make sure the people can support themselves and not rely on government. What you take as attacks are simply the same non political correctness that I endorse. Speak the truth plainly and let the chips fall where they may. Let's look at a statement of his that he has been excoriated for. He said the Mexican government has sent us a bunch of undesireables. He's correct. They allow gangs like MS13 free passage through Mexico into the US. The Mexican government allows almost unhindered drug traffic by the cartels through their territory into the US. They claim we should take anyone who crosses our border, while they do not do the same thing. If a person is going to emigrate to Mexico the Mexican government has standards that they apply to anyone making that attempt. And if you cannot meet their standards, you cannot emigrate to Mexico. It's a double standard all the way around.

You hear what the MSM wants you to hear, and do no further research, nor do you seem to care to. You place your trust in people who desire only to manipulate you for their reasons.

Barack Obama and Chris Christie were political opponents. But when a hurricane (technically a post-tropical storm at that point) hit Christie's state, Obama was there for him, and they worked together productively to respond. And they came away showing the kind of unity that makes for a solid nation. A hurricane hits Texas, a red state, and Trump responds diligently. A hurricane hits Florida, a swing state, and Trump responds diligently. A hurricane hits Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Island, neither having any electoral votes, and Trump is AWOL. A president has to serve the whole country, not just the parts that vote for him, or that he likes. Otherwise we aren't a country. And honestly, conservatives have spent so much energy spewing venom against liberals over the last few decades, that I know there are a lot of conservatives who sincerely wish harm to us.

Oh, so you're familiar with what the MSM media told you, and then didn't cover what actually happened so you know nothing about it. FEMA held up funds, delayed giving people who suffered losses the funds they required to rebuild, etc.... What you saw was a photo op. You have paid no attention to what has actually gone on since then. There are still a lot of people who haven't gotten funds to rebuild. Other's were denied on technicalities. There are areas that are still not rebuilt. And how many years has it been since Sandy? How about New Orleans? Same thing. You think government is the answer. It is not. Everything they do is politically driven. The government agencies operate on the principle of what is best for the bureaucrats in those agencies. If the public is helded, well, OK. If not, who cares if we get our funding and media coverage. Wake up!

I think this country would be a lot better now if Reconstruction had been more enduring and successful then.

If Lincoln had lived, there would have been much better relations with the black community, and the south would have recovered from the war decades earlier than it did.

It amazes me that you seem to think that Trump is just a notch less than perfect. "The same human frailties as all humanity [ha]s"...are you serious? Trump's faults are so far from normal that it just shocks me that you can say something like that. A man who has said lecherous things about his daughter, including when she was underage? A man who has admitted to using his position of power as an excuse to enter the locker rooms of young women? A man who has admitted to sexual assault? I get that men can be leches, but he's so far outside normal from where I sit that the comparison seems ludicrous. And that's just one single parameter of my assessment of him.

Where have I said he is just a "notch" below being perfect? I've said nothing of sort, nor have I implied that. He's the president. He won the election. As a citizen of this country I hope he succeeds in what he promised to do. If he does, this country will be in far better shape economically than it has been in decades, and the security of our country will be vastly improved. Our southern border is wide open to anyone who wants to cross it, and Obama wanted to make it even more so. That means terrorists had wide open access to the US. And you seem to think that limiting that access is a bad thing.

I'm going to respond with the words of another, because I completely agree with them:

The notion of Kennedy as supply-side forerunner is a powerful myth, but it is a myth. Context is key. Conservatives love to quote a speech Kennedy gave at the Economic Club of New York in December 1962. Here's one quote—I've italicized the crucial part often left out: "Our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking." JFK was not expounding an implacable economic philosophy; he was speaking about a very specific circumstance. The top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, which JFK wanted reduced to a "more sensible" 65 percent. Compare that with today's 35 percent top rate, and ask: If supply-siders are so enamored of JFK's tax policies, would they advocate a return to a "more sensible" 65 percent top rate? Applying Kennedy's tax talk to the current structure, JFK biographer Robert Dallek says, is like comparing "apples and watermelons."

LOL. Where did I say Kennedy was a fiscal conservative? He wasn't, but he understood at least some fundamental economics, and he acted on that knowledge. He obviously understood that high taxes restrain growth, siphons money out of the private economy which is what funds the public spending, and it reduces financial incentives for all the things that cause an economy to grow, such as personal effort, investment, and risk taking. This is supply side economics, whether you like it or not. Was Kennedy wedded to it? Nope. But to make the economy grow that is what he did. It is a fact that what he did caused the economy to grow. His policy resulted in growth. The results speak for themselves. Just because some guy wants to denigrate the results, doesn't mean they do not come from that which he disagrees with.

And it's important to note that, while the economy did grow very fast the two years after this tax cut passed, it was growing pretty fast before the tax cut too, and after the first two years, it was back in line with what was happening before that. And the final rates after all these cuts were still far higher than they are now.[/quote\

And what other political and Federal Reserve policies created that slowing effect? You have no idea. I don't at the moment either, but I'll bet I can find them if I do enough research.

It's no shock to me that cutting taxes down from a top marginal rate of 91% could help the economy grow. That hardly makes a case for cutting an already low top rate in an environment of very lopsided economic gains going to the rich and stagnant wage growth for everyone else.

So, 1% of the people paying 50% of all income taxes is a very low tax rate to you? And 40% of the people paying 98% of the income taxes is a fair burden? Really? In your judgement they should pay an even higher share. Where is your concept of justice and fairness? I'm a poor man, and I think the rich are already paying more than they should. Everyone needs skin in the game. Everyone needs to be involved. The way it is now, there are a lot of parasites.

It's easy to say "just spend less", much harder to do. The reality is that pretty much every dollar is spent for some good reason, and the real problem has been a lack of commitment on the part of Republicans to raise sufficient funds to pay for what they do. Maybe you would like to just cut everything, but I think you are unaware of the consequences of doing that, and the people who have to actually do the business of figuring out how to make cuts lack the privilege of your purity.

Really? Self-discipline calls for personal sacrifice? Who knew? That is just magnificent thinking on your part. Wow. What an intellect.

My personal budget balances. I raise the funds for the money I spend each month, on the average. But I do understand the value of spending money to save money. I'll give you an example from my personal finances. I took out a $12,000 loan to pay for solar panels for my roof. You could say that that month, I ran a $12,000 deficit, which sounds really stupid at first. But in exchange, I got a month-to-month savings on electricity over the next 30 years, and paid off the debt in 9 months. Did I need to do that? No. But it's a clearly beneficial investment in the long run.

And yet you think the government should be a stranger to financial discipline. I once again shake my head in amazement. The dichotomy in your thinking out to make you stagger.

It's clearly not. Here's a test: Take some dollars to a store. See if you can buy some stuff with them. If you can, it's not worthless.

Do you know that a dollar in 1910 was worth the same as $241 of today's dollars in purchasing power? That is an incredible devaluation. That is thanks to the policies of the Federal Reserve, and the cooperation of politicians. Our dollar today is based entirely upon debt. In fact it is created through the issuance of debt by the Federal Reserve. The dollar today has no relation to tangible wealth. I'd bet dollars to donuts you had no idea of that fact.

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1910-dollars-in-2014

You realize that, if true, that corresponds to the first round of the Bush tax cuts? If tax cuts juice the economy, why have two tax cuts not helped us pull out of this depression?

LOL. At the same time he cut taxes he increased our debt substantially. Until Obama came along he created more government debt than any other president, other than FDR during WWII. Debt kills an economy, and creates inflation.

Look, I'll make two comments about it. One, the author of it clearly has more background and detailed knowledge of economics than I do. And two, he is clearly standing outside the consensus of his discipline. So, while it is true that I am not personally in a position to refute his conclusions and his methods, I also don't feel bound by them, and to the extent that I can use his conclusions, it doesn't seem to fit what I can test about the economy.

He is only outside the consensus of Keynesian economists. There are many economists who think the same way he does. Economists, good ones that is, are interesting people. They look at how things actually work, rather than being given to wishful thinking.

What you can test about the economy? When you only listen to the MSM and Keynesian economists, you will never find out what is really going on. And you are bound by economic realites whether you realize it or not. Standing to one side and sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling Na, Na, Na, Na, over and over again will only stop you from knowing what is going on. It will not protect you from reality.

How did Obama juggle the unemployment numbers?

He changed the way the unemployment rate was computed. He removed several groups of unemployed people from being counted as unemployed, and voila, the unemployment rate went down. Do you realize that once an unemployed person runs out of unemployment funds he is no longer unemployed according to the government? Do you realize that if a small businessman's business goes under he isn't unemplyed according to the government? There are all kinds of sleight of hand tricks employed to make the unemployment rate look much smaller than it actually is.

Inflation occurs when the general demand for goods increases. Why would the general demand increase? Well, one important reason is if there is more money in circulation. If people near the lower end of the economic spectrum have more money, this will raise demand, and this causes inflation. Now, creating money can also put more money into circulation, but in order for it to raise general demand, it has to actually circulate through the economy instead of just getting stuck in a liquidity trap, which generally is going to mean that some of that money ends up at the low end of the economy, and not just remain stuck in banks. If the money just goes to the banks and the wealthy, yes, it can benefit them, but it won't cause inflation because it won't increase the general demand.

Inflation does not come from what you think it does. It is a devaluation of the currency. Increased supply and demand do not devalue the currency. I'll give you a simple example of how this works.

Say you have a small group of people function as a small economy that has it's own currency and basis of tangible wealth. Let's say 10 to work in round numbers. Let's also say you have 40 lbs of gold that is the foundation of the wealth in your economy and the underlying value of your currency. Let's say that gold is worth, for ease of understanding, and to keep the numbers round, $1000 a pound. Thus, the total wealth of your 10 person mining economy is $40,000. You have in circulation in your little economy 40,000 one dollar bills. Therefore your currency is equal to the value of what you have produced. Now, let's say you 10 people get really ambitious and decide to mine more gold. So, you mine another 20 lbs of gold. So what is the value of each dollar bill now? Those 40,000 dollar bills are now worth 60 lbs of gold. The value of your currency is increased by 50% over what it was because your tangible wealth has increased.

Now, let's say the opposite happens, and you don't mine more gold, but you instead print more 20,000 more dollar bills. Has your tangible wealth increased? No. You still only have 40 lbs of gold but you now have to divide the number of bills into the same amount of gold. In other words, each dollar is now worth 50% less than it was before. Your total wealth is still the same, but the dollars are decreased in value. That is inflation.

Increased production does not cause inflation, which is the devaluation of the currency and loss of buying power. This is economics 101. While this is a very simple example, this is how things work in the real world. This is reality.

But the bottom line is, you basically can't grow the economy without causing some inflation because if the growth is real, people have more money to spend, which causes prices to rise. It doesn't matter if your currency is a fiat currency, backed by gold, or if you just trade gold bars directly, that basic reality will hold.

False. I have just proven just the opposite.

Where are you getting that number, and how do you link it to Democratic policies? The only way you can get to 60 million unemployed is by throwing in people who aren't actively looking for work.

Do you have any clue as to how many people have simply given up trying to find work because there are no jobs for them? They have looked for years without success. And now they are thrown away because of economic realities? Wow. What a caring, loving attitude. Are they no longer unemployed because they have no benefits left and have become discouraged in this economy? Start looking at reality rather than how the media tells you to look at things. Think for yourself.

That's certainly not a problem he created, although I wouldn't deny that some of the things Obama (or that were done during his administration by the Fed) did likely made it worse. I mean, if you look at the graph of the increasing inequality, you can't see even a little bend between Bush and Obama administrations, although you do see the collapse and recovery for the top 1% during the 2008 bubble bursting. But I also think that some of the policies he tried to pass that he couldn't get through Congress would have helped, such as a tax hike on the rich, and a public option for health insurance.

Sometimes after what you say I about throw in the towel rather than try to get you think. I'll keep on going for a little while though.

Do you have no clue as to why the top 1% gained under Obama? All his quantitative easing, the printing of $80 some billion a month for years, went straight into the stock market via the fed and the banks. What does that do? It artifically raises the price of stocks. And who has the most money invested in stocks? The 1%. So, Obama and his policies are directly responsible. The printing of money without an increase in tangible wealth also devalues the currency causing the poorest of the nation to lose ground by reducing the purchasing power the little money they do have. Right now the Fed holds billions of dollars of stocks. Didn't know that did you? Why? Too worried about some farmer who might plow his field against regulations?

The middle of the 20th Century, we had the longest streak of solid economic growth with no boom/bust cycle, high taxes, and a huge expansion of the government's role in the economy. There were some small recessions, never much more than 3%, until the Great Recession of 2008. And that depression of 1920 that he's talking about, yes, it was short, but it was huge. The GDP dropped by almost a third. Remember the chaos of the Great Recession? That was 5%. 1920 was more than six times larger in terms of the percent of the decline, and it was preceded by a recession 10 months before it, and followed by another major recession two years later.

Your understanding of financial realities is so warped even facts don't sink in. Do you know why the depression of 1920-21 happened? Because wages, prices, and the money supply were warped all out of proprotion to reality by government spending and debt during WWI. And how was that dealt with at the time? The government took it's hands off. It allowed the contraction to happen, and the marketplace did what it does when it and the money supply are not manipulated by government interference. The pain was over in less than 2 years and the economy boomed. Now look at the depression of the 1930s. FDR interferred with the marketplace in as many ways as he thought possible. He spent government money like water. He created 10s of thousands of business regulations. And what was the result? The depression didn't really subside until WWII and the boom created by a vastly increased production of goods.

No one says we couldn't recover from recessions or depressions without government interference. Government activity has given us stability. Yes, it costs us some amount of the booming growth. But it also stops the massive, disruptive, deadly crashes. Keynesian economics did this for decades, until we decided to give it up for neoliberalism.

You have things exactly backwards. I can give you book after book on economics, and show how every boom and crash in the history of the US was caused by government interference in wages, prices, and the money supply. The marketplace, if left alone, continually self-corrects. Therefore there are no great booms and no great busts. But when currency supply is manipulated by the printing of money based upon debt it causes the booms and busts, for these artificial booms can only last so long, and then reality sets in. You really need to study some non-Keynesian economics. Open your mind things other than that which left-wing academia and left-wing media keep on telling you.

I think we just disagree on this, and I can point to the whole middle of the last century to bolster my case.

Actually you can't. Your understanding of what goes on is completely warped out of reality.

We've been cutting taxes for the rich for the last 40 years, and wealth inequality has been going up the whole time. At some point, we might have to notice the correlation.

Correlation is not causation. You seem to forget that, and you look for no factors. You are focused on one thing, and one thing only. You see nothing else, understand nothing else.

Why is it so hard to believe that people undertake government service for idealistic reasons?

Ah, all those senators and representatives who now live in multimillion dollar homes when they went there unable to afford such luxury have just been focused on the good of others and millions of dollars have just somehow crept into their pockets while they were focused on completely altruistic service. I just have to roll my eyes are your professed naivety. You're positive Trump is basically the devil, but all these career politicians are there just for your benefit. Say what? Politicians aren't susceptible to greed, selfishness, looking out for #1? They just aren't human they are soo good.

You know how I know Clinton isn't a habitual liar? Because she's so bad at it. I don't even know that she was caught in a single lie during the campaign. She definitely did some tap-dancing when she was asked about the email server.

Trump lies like it's nothing. Like there's no difference between the truth and a lie. That's a practiced liar for you.

And you think that because Hillary lied about such obvious things that she is really honest underneath all that deception? Give me a break. It tells me she is a pathological liar who thinks she can lie about anything, no matter how obvious it is, and no one will find out.

I supported Bernie in the primary. Yeah, there were things to quibble with in how the party handled whole process. But you know what? They had no obligation to let Bernie run for the nomination. They allowed that to happen. They would have been within their rights to say you have to have been a member of their party at some point in order to run in it.

Do you actually hear yourself? Your excuse is because Bernie isn't actually a Democrat it was just a small violation of ethics to manipulate the primaries against him. Say what? If they didn't want him as a candidate they should have been honest and said so up front. Instead they lied about the entire situation and then cheated him out of the nomination. I think Bernie is wrong on almost every issue, but he is far more honest than Hillary. And because of that, he was far more palatable to me than Hillary could ever be.

Not corruption, no. Party politics. I kinda expect to find that in a political party.

That right there should tell you something. You expect corruption. You expect dirty deals in those you support, so you don't care about them. HUH? And you call yourself honest? This is one of the biggest reasons our government is so corrupt. People just don't care how much politicians are bought and sold. They don't care how many times they are lied to. Thus politicians have become used to not being held accountable and they do whatever they want. They enrich themselves at the taxpayer expense and the public goes, Oh, well. Oh, well, they are stealing you blind with your consent.

This is not a difference between us. I completely agree with you, and Trump for that matter. Everything Republicans said about repeal and replace was disingenuous. Do I think they would have liked to do it? Sure. But not at the political expense they would have incurred. But...I haven't voted for any of those jerks. I vote for Democrats, who, for the most part, seem to be pretty honest.

The only reason you think they are honest is because they keep on telling you what you want to hear.

Why don't you give me some examples of what you consider Trump's shameless lying to be? You know. Back up your assertions with facts.
How about this one: That he won't benefit personally from his tax plan.
Or this: That he has nothing to do with Russia.

Oh, brother. When has he said that? You know he is serving without salary don't you? The Russina collusion story has been going on for months. Even well-known liberals such as Alan Dershowich and Robert Turley, both constitutional scholars, have said there is nothing criminal about what Trump has done. And they both say that in the latest news stories about Hillary's collusion with the Russions there is the definite smell of criminal behavior.

Did you know the Mueller stocked his staff with people who are Democrats? Did you know most of them contributed to Trump's political opponents? Now, just where is the presumption of even-handedness in that? It doesn't exist. Where is there even a glimmer of this not being a political witch hunt? And, Comey and Mueller have worked together for years, and been friends. That right there is breaking the law, for one of the things Mueller was to investigate was Comey's firing, and a special prosecuter must be free of even the appearance of favoritism. That's the law concerning special prosecutors.


Oh, vote for another set of deluded liars. Great solution. Sorry, I can't do that.
I wouldn't expect you to, while you believe that they are deluded liars. I vote for them because I do generally trust them.

Civil Rights law. That's a big one. Fighting segregation.

Don't know much about history do you. Statement, not question. The Republicans are responsible for the Civil Rights acts. They sponsored them, and voted for them in overwhelming majorities. The Democrats? They fought them tooth and nail. They filibusteredd them. Only a small percentage of them voted for the Civil Rights acts. If you can do research go and research the votes and the sponsors of the bills. You'll find out I am correct.

And, the Democrats and the KKK are forever linked. The KKK was an arm of the Democratic party for years. Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the federal government after the Republicans had desegreated it decades before. The Jim Crow laws in the south? All of them were passed by Democratic controlled state legislatures and signed into law by Democratic governors. Robert Byrd, who Hillary claims as a mentor, was an organizer for the KKK. He led the filibuster against the Civil Rights act. He is the only Senator to vote against both blacks nominated to the Supreme Court: Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. And you think the Democratic party is a big booster of civil rights?

I can't speak for them, but I think a lot of black people have mixed feelings about the Obama years. But you can't deny that it represents progress for them. I think a lot of the reason they did poorly economically under Obama is related to the Great Recession, and the reasons for that trouble existed before and will continue to exist afterwards.

Nope. Obama's policies are what really hurt them financially. And how did it do any good for them to have a president of their own color who worked against them in reality? And, how did the victimization he promoted help them? He was constantly saying how racism is all against them, when in fact there was a black president, and are black senators, black representatives, black judges, black attorneys, black law enforcement officers, black officers in the army, and blacks at every level of state, county, and city government? And there are black corporate officers at every level and size of business. Yet Obama preached on almost a daily basis that blacks were so held down that they could not succeed. It's the big lie. It's the meta lie. It's nothing but propoganda. If racism is the problem that he and the media keep on trumpeting it is why are there so many black millionaires in sports? If things were truly racist they would not be allowed to play in the professional leagues. As it is they have the physical skills to dominate, and because they do, they succeed. Racism doesn't stop them. Real racism would make sure they never got the chance.

That's not a genuine distinction between us either. It's just that we don't look at the same results.

I can see what you call success, and I call it failure.

That's where you're mistaken. The difference is not that I haven't been exposed to alternative sources of information. The difference is really who we believe.

So, any source that doesn't tell you what you desire to hear is therefore not to be believed.

No dispute here.

Well, I'm actually glad we agree on something. At least it's a start.

 

[Gary K]

Culture Warrior,

Since you talked about a Nazi having some sort of supposed right to free speech, I figured someone as well read as you would know the history behind the ACLU defending supposed free speech by Nazi's.

ACLU History: Taking a Stand for Free Speech in Skokie
https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-hist...-speech-skokie

From my reading on what happened at Skokie the Nazi's won in court because the shooting they did was return fire. Those who came to oppose them were armed, and the Nazi's knew they would come armed so they came armed, and they defended themselves. I think about any competent attorney would have won the case, so, even though I like neither white surpremecists nor the ACLU, they were both in the right in that particular court case. Shrugs, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Even sleazebags have the right to defend their lives if they think they are in danger of being killed. It's one of those God-given rights, not a "right" that is handed out by government.

Assumed by who, your fellow Libertarians?

Now you're making giant leaps without a whole lot of foundation. I'm not a Libertarian, Democrat, or Republican. I'm a registered Independent. All of the political parties support things I don't agree with, therefore in good conscience I could not be a good party member of any of them. I suppose, if you must have a label, I'd call myself, politically, a Constitutionalist. Socially I'm a pretty conservative Christian.

I'm not sure you're aware of the fact that until around the 1890s US law interpretation and practice was, for all intents and purposes, founded on Blackstone. I also don't suppose you know that Blackstone himself was a practicing Christian and derived all of his concepts of law out of the scriptures. When Blackstone published his Commentary on Law within a short time there were more copies of it purchased here than there were in England. And, lawyers here in the US studied Blackstone as the foundation for their career. Most of them studied nothing but Blackstone. A good book for this area is Gerald Whitehead's "A Second American Revolution". It wasn't until the late 19th and early 20th century that the foundation of US law began to change, and that is when the US began to drift away from it's Christian roots because the legal system began to remove the foundation of Christianity from court cases and the implied Christianity in the constitution and Blackstone's theory of law.

While the Founding Fathers didn't want to suppress speech by it's citizens when it came to criticizing government, please point out in the writings of any of the Founding Fathers where immoral behavior should be considered "free speech", i.e. where perverts like the late Hugh Hefner's trash or where sexual predator Donald Trump's rainbow flag waving should be allowed in society.

I think you're making another large stretch here. As far as I know porn was not the problem back then that it is now, because of the close ties that US society had back then to Christianity. So, if something did not really exist then in the same form it does now why would any of the founding fathers have written about it? I don't know of anyone who spends much time dwelling on things that aren't a problem, and the founding fathers had a lot of issues to deal with, so dealing with something like this wouldn't even have crossed their minds.

The last stretch I see you making is that what I have said about the rights of political speech applies to things that destroys people. Remember, this is a thread about politics so everything I've said has been within that context. I'm no fan of pornography because of what it does to people. And to say that Trump is waving a rainbow flag is pretty ridiculous. That was Obama. Trump is actually going after pedophiles in a big way. Since his inauguration the FBI has been working pretty hard on breaking up the world wide pedophelia rings and that is one reason the swamp and the media are so afraid of him. You think all the current sexual scandals have broken wide open for no reason? There is a reason for this. Do some research into Sawman Sawyer, the former Navy Seal, and what he is doing, along with a bunch of other former law enforcement and armed forces veterans. And he is working in concert with insiders in the FBI. You're going to see a lot more on sexual scandals coming up.

Do I like the sleazy things Trump has said? Nope. But I've heard a lot of people talk like he does. I think that as bombastic as he is that it is simply talk trying to make himself appear tough and worldly. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not, but from what I've seen of life, and I spent a lot of years in some very, what I now call, unsavory company, he is no different than a lot of people. I don't judge because I too was once pretty rough around the edges myself. The F-bomb was every second or third word out of my mouth. I spent more than a decade in the drug culture before finding Jesus, and I've known and been friends with some pretty rough characters. I've been a pretty rough character, so bad language and braggadocio is something I'm familiar with. The shock value of bad language is long since gone. I've known people whom you, by your own words here, would despise because of how they spoke and what they said, that in reality were pretty decent people. They would stand with their friends, and you couldn't find a more loyal and better friend than they were. They actually had some very definite ideas about right and wrong too. I've just learned to overlook the speech and look at the verifiable actions. And by verifiable actions since Trump became president he is actually friendly to Christianity and morality.