A short political observation by me...

[Oni Lukos]

I thought a Republican was one who (supposedly) stuck to the ideals of "spend less, tax less" and decentralization of government.

But still, not Evangelical whack-jobs.

E] clarification

[王泥喜]

onilukos said:

I thought a Republican was one who stuck to the ideals of "spend less, tax less" and decentralization of government.

But still, not Evangelical whack-jobs.

The problem there is that our current President spent so much money that we went from having the Biggest Surplus in the world to the biggest Deficit.

To be blunt, it's like NO party has that value anymore. In fact, parties don't even HAVE "values" or "principles" - they just try to cater to whatever group of people they think the other party hasn't already catered to yet - it just ended up being that the Republicians liked sucking up to Evangelists.

They'll spend however much fuckin' money they please, anymore. BOTH sides, even when this money gets wasted on badly written anti-videogame laws.

[kyon]

I enjoy picking apart people's arguments in order to get them to think about what they're saying. I wish I had time for the whole thing, but hey, life's busy. I'll have more time later if you really want me to continue.

redrapper said:

"It’s really a funny joke to me how some people claim a religion to be a political entity"

Apparently you've never studied history. Else you would have heard of how the Roman Catholic Church rolled. Politics and religion sharing a bed is a proud tradition spanning hundreds of years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Catholic_Church)

redrapper said:

"Now they're just a bunch of evangelicals, trying to make people hate a religion to fuel a war. To be fair, that’s exactly what Palestine has been doing the last four years, putting up bullshit for people to believe, twisting words almost as much as Fox news... probably even more."

So, you accuse a group of making wide, inaccurate, hateful stereotypes about practitioners of Islam by using wide, inaccurate and hateful stereotypes about "conservatives"? The irony gods approve.

redrapper said:

"Then again, who made the so called “Conservative” Ace the master of Christians… or Republicans in general for that matter."

It seems like Republicans are like some dark force, with some shadowy figure sitting on a distant, dark throne somewhere. Since when is some blogger a "master of Christians"? Also, see above about stereotypes ^_^. Did we (Christians) have an "election" for the "master of Christians" (and Republicans, while we're at it...) office and I just happened to miss it? Remember: hyperbole's nice at times, but beyond a certain extent, it's just flaming (especially when it's blatantly inaccurate =D).

I know that I haven't addressed all the issues here. The definition of Republican that you give is in desperate need of editing. We're fiscally and socially conservative in policy, not the sole guardians of a representative method of government. Last I checked, democrats believed in a representative form of government too...

[Redrapper]

kyon said:

I enjoy picking apart people's arguments in order to get them to think about what they're saying. I wish I had time for the whole thing, but hey, life's busy. I'll have more time later if you really want me to continue.

redrapper said:

"It’s really a funny joke to me how some people claim a religion to be a political entity"

Apparently you've never studied history. Else you would have heard of how the Roman Catholic Church rolled. Politics and religion sharing a bed is a proud tradition spanning hundreds of years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Catholic_Church)



So, you accuse a group of making wide, inaccurate, hateful stereotypes about practitioners of Islam by using wide, inaccurate and hateful stereotypes about "conservatives"? The irony gods approve.

redrapper said:

"Then again, who made the so called “Conservative” Ace the master of Christians… or Republicans in general for that matter."

It seems like Republicans are like some dark force, with some shadowy figure sitting on a distant, dark throne somewhere. Since when is some blogger a "master of Christians"? Also, see above about stereotypes ^_^. Did we (Christians) have an "election" for the "master of Christians" (and Republicans, while we're at it...) office and I just happened to miss it? Remember: hyperbole's nice at times, but beyond a certain extent, it's just flaming (especially when it's blatantly inaccurate =D).

I know that I haven't addressed all the issues here. The definition of Republican that you give is in desperate need of editing. We're fiscally and socially conservative in policy, not the sole guardians of a representative method of government. Last I checked, democrats believed in a representative form of government too...

You misunderstood me. My point is, people are being misrepresented. There's a reason Conservative is in quotation marks.

I'm saying that the definition of Conservative and Republican has been so radically changed and misused and been given a bad name by these people.

If my comments came off as Bashing republicans, I didn't mean it in that sort of a sense... I don't consider Bush a Republican because he neither stands for traditional values nor anything else having to do with the party.


And Please, do NOT think that I'm bashing Christians. Anybody who knows me knows I'm the first guy to stand up for any religion, I just think extremism in any sort of the sense is wrong.

Extremism in Islam, extremism in Christianity, and Extremism in ANYTHING.

and you left out the second part of the sentence:

" when they themselves end up demeaning their own beliefs in the process by making them just that, a political entity."

Let me phrase it differently...

It's an ironic sentiment that these people accuse one group of being a political entity through a generalization, and then make their own group just that... a generlization.

And that Ace thing is a stab at the guy... as in, he's NOT the master of Christians and what they say.

If my comments came off in the wrong sense, I'm sorry.

[Redrapper]

accidently deleted my original post... that's what you get when you miss clicking modify...

[Sz]

kiddo: We've had a national deficit for a long time. The reason it's so large now is not excessive spending, but a lack of government income due to a stupid tax cut (this is what you can blame Bush for) and billions of untaxed dollars due to the explosion in online sales and Congress's inability to respond promptly to technological advances.

[Redrapper]

sz said:

kiddo: We've had a national deficit for a long time. The reason it's so large now is not excessive spending, but a lack of government income due to a stupid tax cut (this is what you can blame Bush for) and billions of untaxed dollars due to the explosion in online sales and Congress's inability to respond promptly to technological advances.

he's got a point.

[CrazyMrLēo]

redrapper said:

I'm saying that the definition of Conservative and Republican has been so radically changed and misused and been given a bad name by these people.

I didn't get a chance to read the initial post, but I should note that the definition of "Conservative" and "Liberal" change quite frequently depending on your time period and location.

[Sofox]

sz said:

kiddo: We've had a national deficit for a long time. The reason it's so large now is not excessive spending, but a lack of government income due to a stupid tax cut (this is what you can blame Bush for) and billions of untaxed dollars due to the explosion in online sales and Congress's inability to respond promptly to technological advances.

Thank gosh, I was wondering why buying stuff on American websites seemed to avoid mentioning tax (In Europe it's included in the price so you don't worry about it, but when I was in America, I realised how rarely the price tag wouldn't require you to pay extra tax on top of it ).

[CrazyMrLēo]

I believe the cut was on income tax, not sales tax. Also, not having the tax on the price tag is a North American thing.

[NeroKid]

Conservatives only worry about convserving their own money.

[Keith T. Hemari]

Yeah, with the US, the tax comes in after sales are totaled.

So, like...

Snickers-1.00
Advil-----2.00
--
Subtotal-3.00
Tax------0.15
Total----3.15

The actual amount of tax depends on what state/county you live in, ours in Indiana is generally five cents on the dollar, but certain counties have six and even seven cents. That just sales tax, though. Additional taxes, such as luxury tax and so on usually are part of the price. So a pack of cigarettes might cost a real price of $5.00, but after state, county and city taxes, could wind up being a, pre-sales tax price of $7.00, then they add on sales tax.

Yeah, the Bush tax cuts were on, I believe income tax (in which the government (national, state and local) takes about a quarter of what you earn), however, if I remember correctly, the tax break was only really good for those who were pretty well off in the first place.. so.. yeah.. any of us regular worker types would never see it.

[CrazyMrLēo]

I am almost positive that the tax break was across the board, so you did see it. It's just in the nature of tax cuts that the less money you pay, the less you get back.

[Keith T. Hemari]

crazymrleo said:

I am almost positive that the tax break was across the board, so you did see it. It's just in the nature of tax cuts that the less money you pay, the less you get back.

So basically exactly what I said. The people who benefit from this are the ones who are pulling in large incomes (like, oooh, the people who passed the law) and the ones who benefit from it the least (if at all) are those of us who have to stretch our paychecks just to have enough gas to get us to and from work every day. Thus ensuring that we can't put together enough funds to actually threaten the status quo of "Rich getting richer and poor getting screwed"

[CrazyMrLēo]

keithhemari said:

crazymrleo said:

I am almost positive that the tax break was across the board, so you did see it. It's just in the nature of tax cuts that the less money you pay, the less you get back.

So basically exactly what I said.

No, because this statement

any of us regular worker types would never see it.

Is misleading and incorrect.

[Tenniru]

You're not the only one who noticed the Republicans have lost their original values. The Republicans themselves are noticing it; the Republican Party has been deteriorating ever since 1998, but it took until their amazing defeat on November 7 that they've noticed. They're pinning their entire Senate loss on the religious right (and Bush) which happened to start heavily influencing the Republicans around '00, taking control and winding up making the Republicans even more socially Conservative... but fiscally as liberal as the Democrats (in all the wrong ways).

In the aftermath of the stinging defeat and heavy nutjob-losing of this last election and what looks like Bush and the Senate finally caving to the Democrats (and Bush's failiures to do things like ban abortion and gay marriage), the religious right, neo-cons, and Bushies are jumping ship. From what I can tell from the various conservative blogs, they're returning to the center, back to a mildly-social-conservative wise-fiscal-conservative style apparently fronted by the likes of John McCain and Gordon Smith (although they're inexplicably put Lott back in charge as well).
The good news is that when two political parties become an indentical mess of idiots, a defeat for one of them starts amazing amounts of soul-searching and they start shaping up again (as the Republicans are now). Either that or one of them makes an incredibly dumb decision and they wind up like the Federalist Party or the Whigs of old, imploding and leaving room for a new party.

Either that or America falls apart and is split up between Canada and Mexico. I've always thought we should give Texas back to Mexico and demand a refund.

[CrazyMrLēo]

I say just make every state independent and have an all out 50 country brawl.

Canada hereby backs Maine as a puppet state loyal ally.

[Sz]

"Religious right" is not the Bush administration. The Bush administration is Neo-Conservative. Possibly Neo-neo-conservative.


Anyway, in a way it's only fair for the Republican party to fall into shambles. Puts both parties on even footing, maybe we can get some moderates out of the deal.

[Tenniru]

I think we've already gotten moderates for the past few weeks now. The Democrats who toppled the Republicans (especially the suprise victory of Webb over Allen, which I didn't expect even though I volunteered in the Webb campaign) didn't do it just by being Democrats; there was a noteworthy move to the right (which, from the Democrats' previous position, means they're now in the center) by the new candidates.

[Ink The Echidna]

tenniru said:

I've always thought we should give Texas back to Mexico and demand a refund.

AHEM?