More Bipartisanship, Less Stimulus

[KrauserKrauser]

What a moron. When Democrats go to "war" against abstract ideas, maybe some money gets wasted or it wasn't well thought out. When Republicans do it, they kill hundreds of thousand of people for abstract political purposes.

Jesus, IP, do you need glasses or something, I explicitly removed the Iraq from the "War on Terror" to allow for better debate.

I mean, if you want to talk about Democrats going to war and killing hundreds of thousands of people for abstract political purposes, I'll gladly throw Vietnam on the table. Democrat started, Republican ended. Iraq war, Republican started, presumably Democrat ended. Again, both parties have histories of this type of shit, does that suddenly open the flood gates for blatant bullshit to be spewed without being challened?

Edit* Because if they aren't enthusiastic about it, that somehow means something, somewhere. I know it makes it better for you to sleep at night. That's it. Nice cop out.

[KrauserKrauser]

Since abstract ideas cannot be destroyed, they are in effect endless wars. The war on terror has inevitably cost more money and lives combined than any abstract war on ideas the Democrats may have cooked up.

How about the war on "Communist Expansionism" circa JFK and LBJ. Could have sworn a shit ton more people died on both sides due to that.

Nobody's saying the Republicans are unique in this, you stupid twat. Idiots like you always miss the point and think it's about absolving the Democrats of anything instead of realizing that the Republicans share an even larger portion of the blame than anyone else.

DA proposed that one side was " full of corrupt racist warmongering totalitarians" while the other side, presumably, was not. I first requested him to back up the statement of Republican's supporting "Endless Wars" and then when you brought up the War on Terror and Drugs I showed the Democrats also have supported such idelogical wars in the past making them just as much "full of corrupt racist warmongering totalitarians" as the Republicans, using the support of "Endless Wars" as the point of judgement.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What a moron. When Democrats go to "war" against abstract ideas, maybe some money gets wasted or it wasn't well thought out. When Republicans do it, they kill hundreds of thousand of people for abstract political purposes.

Jesus, IP, do you need glasses or something, I explicitly removed the Iraq from the "War on Terror" to allow for better debate.

Why? Afterall, the GOP is the one that INSISTS that Iraq is VITAL to the War on Terror. Do you get to make up your own GOP for the purposes of the argument? That's moving goalposts.

I mean, if you want to talk about Democrats going to war and killing hundreds of thousands of people for abstract political purposes, I'll gladly throw Vietnam on the table.

Only if thousands of advisers in Vietnam before Kennedy took office or our support for France in Indochina doesn't count. And to be fair, liberal/progressives have generally opposed all these conflicts.

Democrat started, Republican ended. Iraq war, Republican started, presumably Democrat ended. Again, both parties have histories of this type of shit, does that suddenly open the flood gates for blatant bullshit to be spewed without being challened?

Clearly the progressive-liberal position on these conflicts and policies has been consistently in the right. It is the further you go to the right, be it moderate or conservative Democrat, followed by GOP (far-right) which supports these things. Are you arguing it wasn't William F. Buckley and lunatics like the Birchers who were the conservative anti-communist zealots? Were these the core of the Democrat coalition? What about McCarthy? Warmongers love the GOP, and the GOP loves warmongers.

Edit* Because if they aren't enthusiastic about it, that somehow means something, somewhere. I know it makes it better for you to sleep at night. That's it. Nice cop out.

You're squealing about Mike saying the GOP is full of quasi-fascists and far-right extremists. It is. The institutional right-wing quality of the Democrats does not reflect any differently on the GOP. What, do you think Mike votes for the Democrats or thinks they should stay where they are right now or move further to the Left? I vote for the party with the fewest warmongering, business-cockglobbling, religious fanatic, quasi-authoritarians as I can.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Since abstract ideas cannot be destroyed, they are in effect endless wars. The war on terror has inevitably cost more money and lives combined than any abstract war on ideas the Democrats may have cooked up.

How about the war on "Communist Expansionism" circa JFK and LBJ. Could have sworn a shit ton more people died on both sides due to that.

At least some people in the Democratic Party and on the left opposed the U.S. anti-democratic, high-body-count anti-communist foriegn policy back then, and at least some support it in part now. The GOP has made muscular opposition and far-right politics its calling card. The tu quoque is still not a valid logical argument, you know.

Nobody's saying the Republicans are unique in this, you stupid twat. Idiots like you always miss the point and think it's about absolving the Democrats of anything instead of realizing that the Republicans share an even larger portion of the blame than anyone else.

DA proposed that one side was " full of corrupt racist warmongering totalitarians" while the other side, presumably, was not. I first requested him to back up the statement of Republican's supporting "Endless Wars" and then when you brought up the War on Terror and Drugs I showed the Democrats also have supported such idelogical wars in the past making them just as much "full of corrupt racist warmongering totalitarians" as the Republicans, using the support of "Endless Wars" as the point of judgement.

The Democrats have fewer and less enthusiastic racists, warmonger, and authoritarians. Though they still have some. Does that mean the two are equivalent? Of course not.

[Samuel]

It requires you to provide a rebuttal in equal length due to government fiat. Find the constitutional legitimacy for this, please, I would love to see some evidence of this being anything other than government mandated limits to free speech.

All laws are propounded by government fiat- they just have different justifications. I believe the legitimacy is that the government owns the air waves and thus can dictate terms.

I don't understand the reference, do you have a source showing that Reblicans in Congress have called for the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine? if so, please provide it. Did I say any old member of the Democrat Party? No, I didn't, you obviously didn't read the part where I said members of the Democrat party who have been elected to Congress have made motions towards to the Fairness Doctrine, not just the batshit regular members of the party.

Source please. please prove that this was the general opinion of the entire Republican party and not just a lone viewpoint.

War on Poverty of LBJ or "the moral equivalent of war" with respect to the energy crisis with Carter mean anything to you? Both parties have a tradition of this shit, it's not unique to Bush Jr., Bush Sr., or Reagan. Hell I can say we just took a page from the Democrat play book.

Of those, the war against the energy crisis was actually measurable and winnable. So it doesn't really count. We could have gotten the US to the point where oil and gas imports were not large enough to shut down the economy.

[ray245]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090210/ ... news_pl242

Before his stimulus plan passed the Senate in a 61-37 vote, President Obama's approval ratings far outweighed those of his $838 billion bill. Which is why, in the last 48 hours, he traveled to hard-hit Elkhart, Indiana, to host his first town hall since becoming president, returned to D.C. to host his first news conference, then flew to Florida to promote his plan alongside Republican Gov. Charlie Crist. A push for bipartisanship (the bill garnered only three GOP votes from all of Congress)? A PR spree for America? More likely, both. As the House and Senate dig in for what will likely be tough negotiations on a final package, Obama is working hard to save the stimulus in the court of public opinion.

A recent poll by Pew Research Center found that a narrow majority of Americans, just 51%, support the stimulus. And that's down from 57% in January. Even worse for the administration, support seems to be dropping among people who say they've learned more about the stimulus:


Notably, support for the proposal is now much lower than it was in January among those who have heard a lot about the economic stimulus. By 49% to 41%, those who have heard a lot about the proposal now see it as a good idea; in January, those who had heard a lot favored it by more than two-to-one.

Furthermore, a poll from Rasmussen reports that 62% of voters want more tax cuts and less government spending in the plan. This must be music to the ears of Republicans, who have been on a media blitz of their own, arguing for the same. Newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele wasted no time in explaining why he thinks his party should vote no.


"The fastest way to help those families is by letting them keep more of the money they earn. Individual empowerment: that's how you stimulate the economy."

On "Face the Nation," Sen. John McCain took a few whacks at his former opponent's stimulus bill, calling it everything from "a setback to change" to "not bipartisan" to "generational theft" to "fundamentally bad for America."

It's not just lawmakers who are working to change the package. Conservative public policy group Americans for Prosperity has become a huge Search spike on Yahoo! after circulating an online petition and sending an open letter to the U.S. Senate urging "no" votes on the stimulus.

While on the campaign trail, Obama's speeches were often crucial in turning a negative story his way. With public opinion waning, his recent treks to hard-hit American towns may be just the stimulus his stimulus plan needs.

Arg, 62% disagreed with the Stimulus plan because of a lack of tax cuts?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Years of free-market indoctrination and a failure by the supposed populist politicians to develop government as a tool to help the average person or even to permit debate on things considered mainstream and important to them (health care, wages, jobs) has taken its toll. Credibility has been completely spent, the people are atomized and do not trust the State to do anything than redistribute their money to special interest, political patronage, and to the ruling class. So the logic of Every One For Themselves has taken over, and collective reasoning against tax cuts falls on deaf ears. Add completely incompetent information management by the supposed progressives and their "Change" candidate, and you have a complete failure.

[Dominus Atheos]

Ok, point by point analysis coming up.

continue torturing people even though they probably don't know anything - Source please. please prove that this was the general opinion of the entire Republican party and not just a lone viewpoint.

Source. It's a WaPo story after Bush vetoed a bill that would have banned all interrogation techniques that are not in the Army Field Manual. When it passed the Senate, it only got 51 votes.

oppose the stimulus package just because they want to other side to fail even if it takes the whole country with them - I'll assume that you are referring to Rush's "I want Obama's Socialist programs to fail" Sure I could arge semantics on this, but I seriously doubt that will lead to anything constructive. The GOP currently opposes the stimulus package in its current form, that is true.

That's on thing, but I'm referring to the way Obama tried to reach across the aisle, loaded the bill with shit, and asked the GOP if there was anything else he could change that would make them happier, but every republician in the house voted against it anyway.

endless war - I definitely want a source for this one. I know I didn't check off "Endless War" in my super secret GOP Only decoder ring ballot. Support this with actual reports.

You want a source on the republician opposition to ending the Iraq war? Are you retarded? How about the Vietnam war, do you remember that? If conservatives had their way, we'd still be fighting over there. Or Iran, despite the fact we're already fighting two wars? You want sources for all those?

serious restrictions, if not outright removal of, free speech, privacy, and freedom of (and from) religion - And yet it's been Democrat Congress members bringing up the fairness doctrine for freedom of speech. From Religion I'll give you, but freedom of Religion, back that up, sources for that would be greatly appreciated. Privacy restrictions? Yeah, Patriot Act and all, but personally some sacrifices may need to be made to reduce the incidence of terrist attacks, I'll give you that one as well, but personally it's more of a grey area that either of the other two.

John McCain supports teaching Creationism in school.