I'm really not so certain that the coalition did leave a mess.  In fact, I'm pretty certain that Rudd said that he wasn't going to touch much when it came to the economy - which is an acknowledgment that even he believes things were run pretty well from an economic point of view.  Not only that, but Labor and the Coalition had pretty much identical election campaigns.  The only reason the country voted for Labor is because they were bored of the coalition, and Howard had been in power long enough to have accumulated a critical mass of the hatred that every leader attracts.  Rudd will experience the same if he lasts three terms.

Anyway - in regards to the US situation, and how to fix it?  Unfortunately I'd say there's two ways to fix it:

1.  The Right Way - this will be some piece of decisive action that will put things right back on track in the shortest time possible. But it will be painful for a lot of people, and upset pretty much everyone.
2. The way it'll actually happen - whoever is in power will fiddle a bit with tax rates here, incentive schemes there, and try not to upset anyone and hope like hell that it fixes itself while they're in power so they can claim the praise.

The trouble with running a country, is that it's hard, and there's no solution to that problem.

@ mabs - hehehe!

And the mess I was refferring to was more to do with the dodgy defense contracts which big Kev is already throwing out than any economic policy.

But yea, I forsee whoever wins the election won do much about your current situation. You guys need a leader to kick some arse.

-X

we're too domesticated and it's too late, internalize your ethics and stick to your loved ones and build warm local communities, we will not be around for much longer.

Have you ever noticed, Firs, that a good portion of the world's revolutionaries came from the middle class?

That is was the largely educated, reasonably employed, enlightened people that chose to stand up and fight for the rights of those below them?

Your government knows this well. They have taken steps over long periods of time to ensure a 'divide and conquer' mentality amongst it's own citizens. (I won't claim Canada to be enlightened on this subject, we've just been driven down a different path to the same end.)

It's not easy to look at the ignorant, the uninformed, the willfully misguided and say, "those are my people." Maybe it's impossible. But if it is, then 'they' win, don't they?

Okay, I'm going to get in a bit of trouble on this one, probably, but a few things need to be said...

One, point me to where, precisely, this is the current president's fault.  You go to town, because it ain't his fault.  As for why he wound up in office as opposed to the guys he ran against, the fact that he won speaks more against them than for the stupidity of the people that voted for him, wouldn't you say?  I voted for Bush, I freely admit that, just as I freely admit that I voted for him because Gore in 2000 and Kerry in '04 scared the pants off of me.  Two more two-faced, stereotypical, vacillating self-absorbed folks I haven't seen on TV being that popular since Billy boy Clinton and his wife got into all those wonderful scandals during their eight years (scandals that nobody wants to talk about, surprise surprise).

Had I believed that the opponent of the current president was worth voting for, I'd have voted for them.  But they weren't.  Going above and beyond that, though, the current economic pooch-screw that we're falling into has little to do with the President, as it's NOT within the realm of presidential powers to do anything about it other than point fingers and talk about leadership.  I want a leader, somebody that can get the fat sons of b**ches on the Hill off their butts and working towards a solution.  And the economic plan that Bush's people put forward in '04 (you know, the one that was talking about individualized retirement funds rather than taxation that put money into the general fund) was a viable one that got shot to hell by Congress, again with the surprise.

Head to the "liberal" pockets, have you lost your mind?  Look, my life sucks, financially speaking, I'll grant anybody that.  I make just enough money to never qualify for anything, but not enough money to ever be comfortable.  And I'm not sorry about that, not in the slightest.  The majority of "Liberals" lean towards socialism, which frankly scares me almost as bad as the candidates they've been running up in the last score of years.  I want to make a living as a writer, and the environment they talk fast about creating would kill my hopes completely.

That said, those ignorant, uninformed and willfully misguided folks out there, guess what, those are my people.  And 230 years ago the majority of the population was made up by folks just like them, but the leaders of the day set out to make something better, and they did it.  But not because the majority of folks necessarily knew what was going on.  It's why we live in a republic, not a democracy.

And scary enough, Firs, is your last statement.  I say this for two reasons.  One, it's understandable, because survival is what it is, but it's exactly the kind of mindset that's got us in the economic conditions that we're in now.  I am not one to advocate anything but capitalism, but social responsibility has to play in there a bit, too, if only because you can't do business without people, and corporations and governments, due to HR people and economic advisers, look at people as statistics, resources, but not people.  You know the people I'm talking about.  My people.

John Dickenson, one of the members of the 2nd Continental Congress said a number of things during his life that sound a great deal like what you're saying Firs.  He called for a maintenance of the status quo because he didn't wish to lose what he had to the people who were hurting the hardest by the obnoxiously high (and in many cases seemingly whimsical) taxes levied against the colonists in his day.  He was so against revolution and so in favor of holding what he had (calling for reconciliation instead) that he didn't even sign the Declaration, despite the fact that, after the Declaration of Independence was fully ratified, he joined the Pennsylvania Associators to fight against British Troops.

The problem with the things that you're saying is that you're doing EXACTLY what you're saying is being done by the power elite.  You're engaging in flinging the insults of the "liberal" politicians, who are JUST as corrupt as the people they're insulting.  It's a distraction technique they use, and it works, but it doesn't solve the problem.  You're job, the one that you don't want to lose, guess what, doesn't solve the problem.  Nor does any adherence to the rather fallacious statement "You voted for him, you're fault."  Might I point out that in '04 the presidential election and the congressional and senatorial elections wound the country up primarily in the conservatives.  And during those two years, nothing happened, true, that made things better in the long run, economically.  However, the minute that the liberal side of the political spectrum had the majority of power in their hands, how much worse did things get between 06 and 08?

I'm not a conservative, I'm a moderate, so I have no political stake in talking about this, but it's an interesting thing to notice...  Just some thoughts.

I'm not sure, either.

hehe, that pretty much sums it up :)

strangeshe wrote:

And,

"Do not worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia." (Charles Schulz)

*g*

how's that supposed to make _me_ feel better?

ahhhhh....I see :)

You are indeed. :)

And I apologize for making light of a topic  (or better, making light -in- a topic) that is quite important and serious to the participants. I do actually have many thoughts on the subject, but they tend to be more general and philosophical than specific and following the rules of good argument. (Which is why I just never could last long in conversations with Auros and the debaters, if I got involved at all.)

And yet, the topic is rolling around in my head firing off lots of synapses, but I think it will only be later that I might be able to articulate any of them :)


(And just look at me. Smilies all over the place, after a successful swearing-off for all of 2007. Heh.)

WARNING: REALLY big honkin' post following (you've been warned), after this brief PSA from the writer of said post...

Sorry if my previous post was confusing... looking it over myself, yeah, confusion abounds, and I'm the one that wrote it.  I'm a bit off currently, getting over a cold and being tired from taking care of me, my brother and my daughter as we all get past the friggin' thing.  Been a rough week.  That said... on to the lengthy written post:

*grins* Firstly, I don't blame democrats, I blame 'em all.  All of 'em, get one big paint brush labeled "fault" start at one end of the political area of D.C. and just keep walking around the sucker.  I'd love to be doing more at the immediate moment, but that's pretty much what's in my power.  I'm astonished by the amount of work that goes into getting people to just agree on something.  I hate politics and diplomacy, great fun to study and argue about, not fun to try and work in and around.

Jen, you're right, the system is WAY larger than just one person, but the problem is that everybody falls into some of the long standing "look to the king for guidance" kind of mentality.  Never mind that POTUS is incredibly limited in overall power, if you just listen to the debates the people who are campaigning have no clue how limited the powers of the president actually are.

The majority of power SHOULD rest with the people.  Government is there for those people, and should actually be referred to as Servitude, since that's what they're supposed to be doing.  Governor, however, is a much cooler, more ego-stroking word than Servant (never mind that, essentially, once upon a time they meant the same basic thing).

Socialism is such a wide-ranging term anymore that I guess I'm going to have to boil it down to what, inherently, I'm opposed to about it.  Most specifically it's the "proletarian" aspect of sociology, which lays at the base of Marxism and Communism, and so on and so on.  The idea of a commonly owned everything (meaning that all benefit from success), creates a faceless impersonal mass of people, and that just doesn't appeal to me (or even most people, frankly).  Look at the majority of those societies throughout history and you'll find that they fail, and while they're failing life sucks really hard for everybody.

There needs to be a wealthy elite, that's one of those things that I've always believed.  If there's not a wealthy class, then there will never seem to be any rewards for anything, other than intrinsic rewards, and I want a big, honkin' flat screen plasma TV someday.  It's just a way to gauge certain things in a satisfactory (i.e. easily demonstrable) light.  Stuff is magical in its way, has been since the dawn of time, when folks first found things like gold and said "shiny, pretty, MINE!" *appropriate bashing noise*.

Socialism is, at its heart, a wonderful ideal.  But at the most basic level in the philosophy it's flawed in two distinct points.  One, the ideal social situation that would allow for socialism requires that all people be rewarded primarily on the intrinsic basis, and what extrinsic rewards there are are all held in equal esteem.  This is simply not the case.  Proof is in the sports we watch and the money they make.  They strain their bodies for our entertainment and they make LOTS of money.  Way more than I will ever make as a writer, no matter how I strain my brain for your entertainment, barring an unrealistic amount of success.  I'm idealistic enough to believe that I'll do well, but pragmatic enough to understand that I'll never make tens of millions of dollars.  People are different, they have different ideas of what's cool, and socialism takes that flavor away from the whole thing.  Which leads to point number two, People can all have equal, basic rights, but we aren't all equal.  Everybody has areas that they shine in, and there is no objective way to make everything even.  Can't happen.  Genetic gifts of physical and mental ability vary from person to person, evidenced by the number of people who have siblings they flat don't understand.  Two siblings draw from the same genetic pool, and it's six to five and picking whether or not they'll both be gifted in the same ways... generally they aren't.  My brother and I?  Generally we're gifted towards the softer sciences, but that's where the similarities tend to end.  We're half-brothers, though, making an even better example out of my biological father, who has multiple degrees, Literary, Philosophy, Social, all that kind of thing.  He works at, surprise, surprise, a college as a teacher.  His full blood sister?  Yeah, she works for NASA.  Not an uncommon level of differentiation, really.

One of the more "socialist" ideals of the DNC and the liberal WAY left is the idea that life will be better for everybody if there's just a minimum wage in place.  This is patently untrue, evidenced by the rather rapid decrease in the value of the American dollar in the last fifty years.  In 1965, when my mother was nine years old, her parents could feed her family of eight on less than 50 dollars a month.  A single dollar would buy enough food for that family for an evening.  Milk, for instance, ran them 10 cents a gallon.  In 1986, the year my brother was born and I was just a young kid, I remember milk being 75 cents.  That's a 750 percent increase in just 20 years.  For me to buy a gallon of milk now runs $3.85 on average.  That's a five hundred percent increase in 20 years.  What's happened in that time?  Socialist programs like Welfare, frequent increases in minimum wage (my first job I made 5 bucks an hour, a full dollar more than minimum wage at the time).  Minimum wage is now 7.50 or so an hour, and you have to work for more than 30 minutes to buy a gallon of milk.  I don't know about you, but I average two gallons of milk a week used in my house.  That means that an hour's work won't buy me a week's supply.  An hour's work won't get me enough gas to get through a day, much less a week, and I don't drive much.

Canada has an institution of "Socialized Medicine" which works great on paper, until you realize that, in Ontario at least, the vast majority of people who need major surgery have been coming over to America for decades, simply because they can actually get it done before they die (mild dramatization perhaps, but true in many cases).  The fiscal rewards of capitalistic success have caused some pretty gross spikes in the cost of getting things fixed, true, but this is where many of the best doctors are at least taught, even if they don't all stay here.  Evidenced by my brother having an exceedingly rare biological condition (when he was born there were all of fifteen people in the world who had any real knowledge of it, and then it was still in the research stages) which would have killed him in a society that worked around the idea of "everybody's equal in the eyes of medicine" because nobody would have gotten around to fixing him before he died.  It would have been sad eyes and "I'm sorry to say"...  Poor guy was a friggin' guinea pig for the first sixteen years of his life while they studied him and performed tests to figure out what caused it and whether or not what they found would help other kids, both better off and worse off, live more normal lives.

How would these things kill me being able to live as a writer?  Partly because I don't just want to live as a writer, I want to succeed, and I want to do it big.  I want to make enough money as a writer that I can see my kids off to school in the morning, work for a few hours until they get home, and be there to greet them as they come in the door.  I want to see myself on the top of the NY Times best sellers list at least once.  I want the financial rewards of doing REALLY well, and the "white bread and mayonnaise" world of socialism goes against many of the things that would allow for that.

Certain, basic "socialistic" programs may be helpful.  Governmental grants to assist people, this is not unheard of, nor is it a bad thing.  Hell, way more than half of the scientific research done in the US is funded by governmental grants.  Many of our top minds, that's how they make their living.  And we have programs in place that do the same for writers, painters, musicians.  Good on them, help them through the rough patch.  The survival of the fittest mentality doesn't really work in a world where people make their living in paper and on the computer screen.  But, cut that out completely and you wind up with a world that freezes its people into complete stagnation.

However, from the capitalistic economy angle, success is rewarded to people working hard for what they want.  The extrinsic rewards help a great deal.  Without that, it's hard to gauge a number of things (this is based on the psychosocial principles that say that many people never get to the point where they work on something they love solely because they love it), and that same financial success can help them further what they're doing, bringing that success to other people, too.  Some folks never get past working at "Wal-mart", simply because they've not had the opportunity to find what they excel at.  Talent, like marketing, is about drive and advertisement as much as it's about work.  Many folks are more content with an honest day's wage for an honest days work than they are with going further than that.  More power to 'em.  But, that should not be used by the government, nor other people, as an excuse to control those that DO want more.  Quash that spirit too bad, you wind up with the U.S.S.R. which was a complete pooch screw from one end to the other, socially, economically, politically.  They want more, let 'em work for it, let them succeed, the world will probably be a better place for their success (I point you to Warren Buffet and his financial enterprises, and the thousands and thousands of stockholders who jumped on his wagon back in the late sixties and early seventies.  I point you to his Dogliness and the fact that enjoyment of his work brought us all here, enriching our lives in many ways).  At it's base, capitalism is about freedom of the market, to succeed where you've the ability to succeed, and to fail where you suck at it.

Being a moderate (Libertarian, yes, but moderate), yeah, kind of like being a centrist.  For all of my tendency to spark argument and debate all around me, I do sit in the "can't we all just get along" middle ground, silly as that is.  I don't buy into the GOP's conservative crap, nor do I buy into the DNC's left wing liberal crap, really.  There's a middle ground that benefits the people and the country, and the polarization of the two parties to the extreme sides of the thing has prevented advancement in either category.  But a quick rundown of where I sit on the "Issues"....

Iraq War: the one I get in the most trouble for.  I'm for it.  Absolutely, without reservation, and for a couple of reasons.  First, War is good for the economy.  There it is.  The economic downturn we've been having would have come years ago but for that war.  War creates waste, it creates voids in the job markets, and these gaps need to be filled.  BOOM work and production.  All of a sudden, rounds for rifles need making, clothes need making, packages that store food to be dropped to the troops need making, electronic components to replace the ones that have been destroyed by explosions, sand and general wear and tear, medicine and surgical supplies... name it, and it's getting used.  Secondly, the vast majority of American military families are barely subsisting on the money they make.  And I mean barely.  Three sergeants in my platoon when I was in, all of them married, and only one of those couples didn't have to get food stamps to help make ends meet.  Think about that for a moment.  And the married Corporals and Lance Corporals, way worse off.  In the war zone there is increased risk, but there's also hazard pay, which is one of the reasons that many of those guys go back for second and third tours, because they can get caught up on the bills, and maybe even get a little bit ahead.  I support my troops with my good wishes and my tax dollars, and as one of those guys who used to jump at the chance for hazard pay, I'll smile and wave and pray they come back to enjoy it, but I will NEVER tell them that what they're doing has no meaning.  I have too much respect for them for that... even the Air Force *grins*.  Besides, they ARE having an impact, and it does have meaning.  But this kind of thing takes time.  Look at the rebuilding of Germany 60 years ago for a reference.  And there was WAY less political diffusion during that bit of history, even as there were way more casualties (the amount of dead American troops during the total Iraq War, not as many dead troops as the first three months of rebuilding Germany, and nowhere near the total number of wounded).

Cuba:  I'm going to avoid this one at the moment, because I've been concentrating on other things.

Venezuela:  Seriously in need of smacking for some of the things they've been doing, but they have legitimate gripes with the Corporations that have been screwing them.

North American Integration:  Not a subject I've put much thought into recently, so I offer no opinion at this time.  I'll get back to you on it once I'm able to sit and think about that one for a while, same with the Cuba issue.

Abortion and Gay Marriage:  We've been over both of these in this forum, so I'll politely decline to reiterate those statements I've made that have been inflammatory or upsetting for some.  In the briefest of senses; Abortion, against it for the most part, Gay Marriage, totally for it.

Religion:  In general I'm against religion as an organization.  Personal beliefs and faith, hey, what works for somebody works for them.  They should be free to practice their religion, so long as nobody gets hurt.  This is, of course, idealistic in the extreme, given what constitutes "hurt" anymore.

Immigration:  I've got nothing against legitimate immigration.  It's the illegitimate immigration I have a problem with.  You want in, do the damned paperwork like my ancestors did.  Period.  Pay your taxes, don't sneak across the border and take jobs for dirt pay that other people in my country need, thus preventing them from being able to provide for their own family.

The environment:  Another one of those that gets me in trouble.  The majority of environmental concerns are ridiculous.  "Global Warming" is the catchall phrase of whatever "unnatural evils" man has committed upon an uncaring world today.  Global Warming will bring on the next Ice Age, and isn't that completely stupid?  It's an oxymoron, just at the basic level.  Do I think that there are legitimate problems in emissions and pollution?  Yep.  Do I think we need to take steps to deal with what's been done and prevent further misconduct and environmental damage?  Yep, you only have to look at one fish caught in Michigan waters to know about mercury poisoning and DDT and fun stuff like that.  Hideous.  However, using that catchall phrase the way that they are now?  Do you know, in the last few years several scientific researchers have been drummed out of their places of employment, and had their reputations smeared, for finding evidence contrary to current global warming doom-sayers?  True story.  Look up the researcher from Minnesota who was doing tropical plankton research and his findings on Hurricane Cycles, and then read why he was forced to resign (read FIRED).  That is complete and utter bulls**t, but it happened, because people just didn't want to hear things that ran contradictory to their "message".  The Kyoto findings basically boils down to "CO2 emissions are so high because there are just too many people.  This needs fixing".  Read the damn thing, it's in there.

Where do you sit on these things?  This kind of discussion IS important, but the freedom to have it is of the utmost importance, which is where I actually start to get categorized as a zealot.  I'm all about freedom, which is one of the things I have against the proletariat socialism (and in many ways, socialism in general).  No room for that in there, not in reality.  That's part of making every single person like every other single person, there's no FREEDOM in it, because everybody's restricted to what other people find the be the average.  I don't want that, I wants me my freedom, to succeed or fail, to be different from some and the same as others, in my expressions of self through stuff, verbal descriptions and textual intercourse, name it.

I agree with you.  People need to talk about what needs doing, find the best common ground and get out the tools to start building.  Your system and my system are, in the main, diametrically opposed, and both of them have their weak points.  Pure capitalism lends itself to an almost Feudalistic finish as big corporations destroy little businesses, but a little bit of socialistic ideal and BOOM the monopolies are curbed by the Anti-trust actions that America put into place in the first half of the 20th century.  Pure socialism leads to the faceless mass type of thing where nobody can shine, against their very own ideal of everybody succeeds at what they want to succeed at.  Subsequently, the very few become the very powerful and the rest are even worse off, to the point of slavery in some cases (i.e. Communism, that filthy, dirty word).  A healthy mixture of both ideals... good things can come about.  And I'm cool with that, so long as the people are free to spend their own money, do their own thing... and buy my friggin' books once I get published *grins*.

Gods, Mal. Now I have to think my way through all that. At least when my brain breaks I can call upon my socialised health care system to fail me. ;P

To clear things up about about our health care, it's largely due to mismanagement that it's not as functional as it should be at the moment. It hasn't always been this way and it's really fixable. There is a lot of b.s. in government about how this should be fixed or about whether we should bother. Here, your brother would have been looked after, poked and prodded, just as he was down there. My son was looked after, poked and prodded and handed off to me bill-free, as I imagine your brother was, too. You do have health plans that see to covering the costs of these types of situations.

The reasons we have backlogs of patients waiting for elective surgery are manifold. We have a shortage of nurses, of doctors and like I mentioned people who would rather demand care up front and fast because they're rich. There are funding issues, revolving around such things as... Oh god. You don't care. lol! It's not perfect. I know that. Nothing is perfect. But it can be better. One reason I'm opposed to a two-teired system is that it makes some people better and more deserving than others, which they are not. Another reason is that once we breach that issue, NAFTA can force us to drop socialised medicine all together. I refuse to allow that to happen. And while it's mostly the weathly that want what they feel they deserve as their right--just for being wealthy--most Canadans still believe in universal access.

Okay, 'nuff said on that.

The Issues:

Iraq: Ugh. I cant back you on this one. But I am 100% behind those in the armed forces. Yes, even the Air Force. ;) I can't back this war or it's objectives, though I freely admit that war does have its upside. I couldn't be against the forces though. I mean, just today I was looking to see if they had removed the age limit on the Canadian Forces Enlistment page. I've heard they have, but I dunno. Can't find proof. It's always been my back-up plan.

Cuba: I'll leave this off the table until/if you feel like going there. I will fight like a rabid dog for Cuba, though. :)

Venezuala: Same. I believe in the sovereignty of nations and have a principal of Trek-ish non-interferance running through me. I like what Chavez has done for his people--so far--but if he turns out to be corrupt, well, I'll cheer his people on as they take him down. They've done some damn brave stuff already.

Now if you want to see me in an utter rage (which I've been told is kinda cute) you should debate me on North American integration. Nothing will make me angrier faster. Honest. I hit the inability to make articulate sounds in about three seconds. Note, this isn't an invitation. Stop grinning, you. But if you look it up, I've got good links if you're truly interested and you may have some very good perspectives, especially on the military sharing agreement which was just signed and so forth. But really, my friend. I go freaky. Fast.

Abortion, Gay Marriage, Religion and Immigration: we pretty much have the same standpoint. I strongly belive in a woman's right to chose, however. And with Immigration I think that there are larger issues which need to be addressed, but hey, not by me, not right now.

The environment: I have very little to say about this. I don't care if humans are causing global warming or not. My bottom line is that we are polluting our world and that is just freaking wrong. It's got to change. Chemicals, plastics, fossil fuels, it's gotta change. It's unhealthy for all who live in this world and I find that a big problem, one that has to be dealt with swiftly.


Now. Back to socialism. I can't stand Marxist ideals. I don't like Communism. Though I find it funny that I come out as a communist on that politcal compass thing. Every freaking politicky test I do pegs me as a Communist.

I don't know why. Honestly. I have a strong socialist moral streak, but true old-fashioned Communism doesn't work for me. Oh, its got its good points, I won't deny that, but it has its bad points, too. Collectivism being one of them. It's dehumanising and that's one of the bigger reasons why it's looked back on with horror by the Russians.

I don't see socialism as a system that excludes individualty, that forces people into tiny ignorant little boxes. Communism can do that, though, and darn fast if you don't pay attention. So can any system. How many unemployed serfs live in our countries? Do they want to be that way? No. Do they want to work for better? Many of them do. I want better for me and I can't get it.

I do, however, draw a moral line between the rampant desire to own, own, own pretty shiny nothings and rapidly growing class divide. It's wrong and unhealthy. (Yeah, I can just make statements like that. I'm that tired. And I'm older than you. Respect me!) That said, people have to have something to strive for, which is another area where communism fails.

You will always have your elite, deserving or not. That's the only problem with the anarchy of capitalism. The 'every man for himself and all for profit' ideal will always protect your rich while your poor will suffer. I see immorality there. Maybe it's because I'm not a religious person, that I put morals and ethics into play in systems that espouse an inherent lack of them.

I don't know. I do know that I've stopped making sense. I'm too tired and too pained-up to go on right now. I'm miss-typing every word. I'll come back tomorrow and fix stuff up. :)