Obama open to single payer health insurance.

[PeZook]

I have weeped before when I heard on the news how McCain got a free raise in the polls because he owns a pet.

The guy wants to keep you in a huge boondoggle of a war impossible to win, spend tax money to further the goals of giant megacorporations, further gut the health care system and people will vote for him because he owns a pet.

Who said that the worst part about being smart is the realization how retarded the general populace is? Well, that's how I felt that day.

[Justforfun000]

God I hope that Obama gets in. He's like a gift from heaven for that country. It's hard to believe somebody that intelligent, fair minded, witty, etc., is actually a viable candidate,. From what I'm hearing it sounds like Obama and McCain are the only possible choices, and thankfully even many Republicans are seriously considering Obama since he's demonstrating hus policies to be a retread of Bush
[/code]

[Broomstick]

Yes, McCain and Obama are the only two candidates with a hope of getting a win, although we always have smaller parties running for office.

[Glocksman]

Wow. Reading Glosckmans personal examples again show me how sadly selfish people are. You'd THINK people would evaluate a candidate's voting worthiness based on their overall moral and generalized sensible policies.

But obviously there are so many that stop thinking any further then "Fuck, he might raise my taxes". That's pretty fucking sad.

You've obviously never worked in a factory. The majority of the blue-collar population is incapable of thinking beyond narrow personal prejudice and short-term self-interest. They're just too stupid, uneducated, and intellectually lazy. Worse yet, they're proud of it. And they outnumber the smart people.

As much as I'd like to argue with you on this, I can't.
There are exceptions such as myself and some others I know, but by and large you're correct.

And to prove your point further, it took GWB and his merry crew of total fuckups to open my eyes.

[irishmick79]

Heck this guy has swallowed the Kool-Aid to the point where he believes the income tax itself is 'immoral'.

I assume that if you pointed out the US might have lost the Civil War without an income tax (pressed for by Lincoln, BTW) or also that the US would have been hard pressed to finance its involvement in both world wars, his head would explode.

[Darth Wong]

Heck this guy has swallowed the Kool-Aid to the point where he believes the income tax itself is 'immoral'.

I assume that if you pointed out the US might have lost the Civil War without an income tax (pressed for by Lincoln, BTW) or also that the US would have been hard pressed to finance its involvement in both world wars, his head would explode.

People like this usually say that it was originally instated for the war, and should have been stopped immediately afterwards. They argue that it's OK if you're using it to pay for something good and noble like war, but it's immoral if you're using it to pay for stupid unnecessary shit like education, public health and welfare, administration of social services, or scientific research grants.

[irishmick79]

Heck this guy has swallowed the Kool-Aid to the point where he believes the income tax itself is 'immoral'.

I assume that if you pointed out the US might have lost the Civil War without an income tax (pressed for by Lincoln, BTW) or also that the US would have been hard pressed to finance its involvement in both world wars, his head would explode.

People like this usually say that it was originally instated for the war, and should have been stopped immediately afterwards. They argue that it's OK if you're using it to pay for something good and noble like war, but it's immoral if you're using it to pay for stupid unnecessary shit like education, public health and welfare, administration of social services, or scientific research grants.

just argue that we fund all of that stuff so that we could fight the Cold War, and now the War on Terror. Just make education, public health and welfare national security issues. America has to maintain its edge against ze eeeevildoers somehow. Problem solved. Well, at least the problem of convincing redneck assholes to support income tax spending on public projects, anyways. At least for the research grants, you could just drop the mind blowing figures that get spent on military research and development as justification.

You probably could get away without having to explain that the nuts and bolts of these particular programs don't relate to national security at all, but as long as you stay within discussing the broad generalities of the 'global threats before us' or something along those lines and paint a picture of the US marshalling all of its resources to fight the evil doers, you'll hit the right notes with these idiots. Who cares what your actual propsals are when vaguely facist and ramped up nationalistic rhetoric will draw support?

[SirNitram]

Yes, McCain and Obama are the only two candidates with a hope of getting a win, although we always have smaller parties running for office.

That's because what powers the lesser parties is always ego, never sense. I've noted before, sometimes directly to the candidates of the third's, that you need to do something in those four years between each election cycle to build the party and gather support and voters. Inevitably, they do not, they run on election day, and make the world pander to their egos so they can be spoilers and nothing more.

[Ender]

It supports limited restrictions on business and smaller government involvement in the market by advocating things like redirecting public spending from subsidiaries to investments that enhance the economy by allowing greater utilization of the factors of production (eg. infrastructure, education, or health care)

As far as I know, neoliberalism, even in theory, is explicitly against heavy public investment in infrastructure, education or healthcare, and advocates a radical and destructive privatization of all three of them for the sake of making them "more effective" and reducing "government waste spending". At least that's the way it has always been implemented in practice.

Most neoliberal arguments I've read have called for the government to do the big things like health care and roads. I guess this is the difference between theory and practice.

[Darth Wong]

Wow. Reading Glosckmans personal examples again show me how sadly selfish people are. You'd THINK people would evaluate a candidate's voting worthiness based on their overall moral and generalized sensible policies.

But obviously there are so many that stop thinking any further then "Fuck, he might raise my taxes". That's pretty fucking sad.

You've obviously never worked in a factory. The majority of the blue-collar population is incapable of thinking beyond narrow personal prejudice and short-term self-interest. They're just too stupid, uneducated, and intellectually lazy. Worse yet, they're proud of it. And they outnumber the smart people.

As much as I'd like to argue with you on this, I can't.
There are exceptions such as myself and some others I know, but by and large you're correct.

And to prove your point further, it took GWB and his merry crew of total fuckups to open my eyes.

The saddest thing is that they're only hurting themselves, but they don't know it. That's the problem with short-sighted lazy thinking. They literally vote for a guy using the same mentality they would use to pay the minimum payment on a credit-card bill: "but I'll have more money in my pocket at the end of this month!"

People hate it when you say that the common man doesn't know what's good for him. It sounds so patronizing and paternalistic. But that doesn't mean it's not true.