Last edited by James50; 01-11-2012 at 02:16 PM.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
Takes a lot of courage to have extreme views. I would guess that most positive changes in the history of our existence, came from those who dissented from what is considered main stream. Even Einstein was considered an extremist. So I would say that your son is an upstanding young man that could add something very crucial to the evolution of human kind.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a
That's kind along the lines of what I told him...That he believes what he believes and should stand by his feelings and not be ashamed or embarrassed by them. That there is nothing wrong with being an individual, even if it does put him outside of box. Personally, I have no problem with people having extreme views even if they are in opposition to mine, as long as that person respects my right to my opinion and feelings too. (Well, to a degree. I do have problem with Nazis or suicide boomers from Al Qaeda.) But generally, people who are to the far left or far right don't really bother me providing they are respectful. We all have a right to our own views.
And I think most people generally do want is best for our country, even if we disagree on how to get there or what "the best situation" is. Basically, I think the most of the average citizen's hearts are in the right place in this country regardless of what political party or ideology they support. It's the actual elected officials that I don't trust. Because I think most them become corrupted and power hungry once they get in office.
I voted for him. Jimmy Carter had done little to earn another vote from me (good person, lousy President), and I couldn't stand Ronald Reagan (who I knew was going to win anyway).
PPP has suggested that former Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, if running as a Libertarian, would take more votes from a Republican nominee than from President Obama:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/p..._NC_011012.pdfOriginally Posted by Public Policy Polling
This is in a state that the Republican nominee absolutely must win in 2012.
Now for a state that President Obama really has to win (New Mexico):
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...xico.html#moreOriginally Posted by Public Policy Polling
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
I need to agree with James, here.
This is exactly why I don't like credit cards, it creates a situation where momentary impulsiveness can cause one to buy things one can't afford, despite one's best intentions to not do so. It's kind of like trying to not overeat when there is junk food in the house, I try to keep junk food out of my cupboard lest I be tempted to gorge on it.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Rejection of the "Divine Right of Kings", abolition of slavery, votes for women, workers' right to form unions and strike, and the repeal of Jim Crow practice all used to be "extreme" views. Even homosexual marriage used to be unthinkable -- and it is becoming more acceptable.
This country may become a Scandinavian-style social democracy by the end of this 4T as the result of peaceful change and political process -- or that of perhaps the choice of Russian, Indian, Chinese, and Brazilian General Staffs in the wake of American defeat in World War III .
"Bomb, bomb, bomb -- bomb, bomb Iran!" could be a catastrophic error for America as well as a war crime.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
You might want to read up on the enneagram type 8 - the challenger and see if it fits. They can be difficult to be around, but they are the only ones who change the world.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
You know, while your waiting, maybe you should put this little tune to memory -
It would meet both your penchant for mythical hyperinflation and magical ponies (well, white horses, but what the heck. close enough).She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She'll be coming 'round the mountain, she'll be coming 'round the mountain,
She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
The same structure is repeated with the following verses:
She'll be drivin' six white horses when she comes, etc.
Oh we'll all come out to meet her when she comes, etc.
She'll be wearing pink pajamas when she comes, etc.
We will kill the old red rooster when she comes, etc.
We'll be havin' chicken and dumplings when she comes, etc.
She will have to sleep with Grandma when she comes, etc.
We'll all be shoutin' "Halleluja" when she comes, etc.
She'll be comin' down a road that's five miles long, etc.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
Well, that's very interesting. Thanks for the info. I do know that my son does have leadership qualities and I hear this from teachers or other adults he is involved with or works with. But he is still young. So it's hard to say exactly how his personality will develop when he reaches adulthood. The thing that most struck me when reading the description was how much that sounds like my husband. Maybe in this case, the acorn doesn't fall too far from the tree...Although, politically those two are on opposite sides of each other.
Effectively what is happening at the moment is this. The Federal Reserve is printing trillions of dollars to loan to banks at close to 0% interest so that they can remain solvent. Likewise the Federal Reserve has also being buying up most of the U.S. debt (plurality not majority). The reason why we haven't seen inflation, is the money that is being printed and then loaned out is only replacing the money that dissapeared after the last bubble burst. It isn't cycling down because the collapse isn't done yet. There is no reason for Golman Sachs or any of the rest of them to invest in the future of an unsustainable economy the bottom hasn't fallen out of yet.
Italy will default. When it does the stress on the newly federalized Eurozone might bring down France as well. This puts even Germany and the UK in tenuous situations. If that happens all bets are off. Likewise, China's economy is only now beginning to feel the effects of their coming collapse. Things haven't even gotten bad in the U.S. yet. Make no mistakes about it, we are in a bubble. When this one bursts, the curtain will be pulled back, and people will see what happened. By then it will be too late.
.....Newt Gingrich held the United States budget hostage in the mid 90s...Just trying to figure out your joke threshold. It sounds like it doesn't take much for someone to be a joke. Fair enough. Now I know how seriously to take your designations of the jokers in the future.
How is that "not much??"
No, not all of them, but pretty much everyone on that sorry list you gave me.All politicians are a joke is not very discriminating.
Let's start with one on the democratic list, so you don't think I'm a "liberal, commie, socialist, anti christ!!@$"
Senator Dodd: In CT, this man is a huge joke due to his support of Countrywide, Freddie and Fannie Mac, and AIG. Maybe he really was just too stupid to know what was going on...but his support of these fraudulent establishments followed by convenient financial support for his campaigns is an interesting coincidence.
And that's just typical political corruption and questionable ethics which apparently plagues pretty much everyone in congress today. That's not even getting into whether this man is capable of leading my country. And even further whether I agree with his ideas regarding where he wants to take my country.
Last edited by Felix5; 01-11-2012 at 04:51 PM.
It all boils down to this.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a
In part yes. It did not by-itself drive poorly-backed, sub-prime mortgages, or speculation with them in bundles, though it did make that speculation much more dangerous because of the huge amounts of money involved. And it made some people resort to mortgages they couldn't pay, because that was the only way to get a home-- which they thought would rise in value.
Not necessarily. Sometimes, as with the prime rate today, it can be a way of stimulating the economy, when applied temporarily and at the right time.Cheap credit always leads to bubbles.
James50
Cheap credit has little to do with student loans. There is no cheap credit, and there is no bubble. The problem is the high cost of education. I think you made some good points about that before. But I think education is a good investment by taxpayers, and we ought to help support it.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-11-2012 at 04:55 PM.
Am I the only person who thinks Ron Paul is a total nut job? Mitt Romney has proven to be more sane than this man and he believes in magic underwear.
Ron Paul is an interesting candidate. He will never be elected, nor would I support him, but he represents an alternative to the conventional politician. That is because of what your son said. He has certain ideas that are not only extreme, but wacko, like returning to the gold standard or abolishing the federal reserve. Listening to him in interviews sometimes, I think he recognizes that he could only go so far toward his ideals. He doesn't want to abolish social security, for example (at least not immediately), but wants to have an option to "opt out," which is what many government employees already have. His effort regarding the federal reserve in congress was to audit it and remove its secrecy, which seems fair to me. His opposition to government handouts also applies to corporations, which is a wise idea in many cases. Militarists are afraid he might leave the country defenseless, but I don't think not getting involved in wars leaves the country defenseless. To the extent that he and other libertarians advocate trickle-down economics, however (including pandering to the resentment of welfare), they are neither new nor interesting.
Some pundits were talking recently about the need for a Republican candidate to make a populist argument. Ron Paul, Having endorsed Occupy Wall Street, is the one Republican who could do that.
Huntsman is very little different from the other candidates in his party, except that he's less of a panderer to the extreme right. But his positions are thoroughly Republican. There's no reason he would not support his fellow moderate-conservative Mormon.
There will be a few less-known third party candidates; I don't see them going anywhere. A Paul-Kucinich ticket might be interesting. But it is a good point that Ron Paul might not do it because of where his son is, and it might be too late for him after the Republican convention to get nominated by the Libertarian Party, which has its eye on Gary Johnson.
Ron Paul seems to have a bit of corrupting influence on Kucinich. His policies seem to have gotten more wacko and Paul-like.
He started with an Army, and now he has choir. If he had been doing the right things for the last 3 years, 2010 would have been avoided and we would have had real 3ecoomic and health reform. He had the numbers. Now, it's too late to make real hange. Anything that may occur in the next four years will be in the range of incrementally progressive to dramatically reactionary, with mildly reactionary being the most likely ... regardless of who gets chosen.
I see no potential for real positive change. We seem to be adrift, muchlike the Japanese were for their two decades of depression, except we've decided not to do anyhting to make hings even marginally better. If we could take-on the infrastructure challenges, even inadequately, there might be some redemption. Instead, we're poised to eliminate capital gains taxation on the assumption that we need more capital in the private sector.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
How many of us who supported Obama never held him accountable for the numerous campaign promises he broke or his even upholding many of the Bush policies? There appeared to be a fear of putting him in a bad light, so most just made excuses for his behaviors.
Your correct, we are partially responsible. As FDR used to say, "Make me do what I say I will do." And we didn't make Obama stand up for the people. No wonder he was so pliable to the robber barons that he surrounded himself with. sigh
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a