Ron Paul "Black This Out" Money Bomb Today (Oct 19)!

[Darkfinn]

I would agree that bad businesses should be allowed to fail, but when they are allowed to grow to the size they are now where they play such a huge role in the economy, what would you want to do when they fail?

When the banks failed they should have been broken up. Split B of A, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, etc. into smaller regional banks and their ups and downs will have less of an effect on the national economy. Instead the govt. gave them all money and they used that money to become even larger, further solidifying their positions as "too big to fail" which gives them even more free reign to do what they want.

Treat business just like you treat a child. If they misbehave they get punished. Our government did the exact opposite, it rewarded misbehavior. What do you think the bankers learned from all this?

[Repaid1]

ehhh I don't do Political discussions, but I do like Johnny Cash! Note: the following video is not expressed as views or opinions by this poster or this website

[Necros]

ehhh I don't do Political discussions, but I do like Johnny Cash! Note: the following video is not expressed as views or opinions by this poster or this website

Sorry but that video is absolutely idiotic XD

[Diaper Mike 05]

B of A bought out Fleet bank in 2005, I think it was. They bought Security Pacific Bank in 1992. They were forced to split off some of their acquisitions at times, yet they just keep growing.

As a B of A customer, I'm looking to leave them.

And the truth is that the Democratic Party we see now has taken up the Socialist agenda in small chunks for a long time now. But then again, the far right is as guilty as the left with their damage, and neither side seems to realize the answer is just right-of-center.

[square_duck]

Sorry but that video is absolutely idiotic XD

It may be idiotic, but unfortunately VERY true

[Diapered Jason]

It may be idiotic, but unfortunately VERY true

Are you guys serious? There is nothing factual or even remotely close to reality about it and I have never heard so much garbage spewed in one song before. If you plan to vote in the 2012 election, consider this. Anyone who doesn't vote for Obama because he/she thinks he is a Marxist or thinks socialism is a bad word is in fact a member of Al-Qaeda. The reason you know this is true is because I did not say LOL afterwards. Seriously people, stop falling for the rhetoric and think of real reasons to dislike somebody before just saying he is an evil Marxist vampire who is going to socialize our economy.

[sarah_ab]

ohhh vampires are SOOOO in right now! we should all vote for the vampire!!!

did i mention how friggin hot obama is?

[Necros]

I think people should educate themselves before spewing out random words that they think is true (because fox news said so, or some random song).

Learn the real differences between the different political ideologies and what it would imply in this society. Even more important than this, make absolutely sure that the information you're reading is at least unbiased! Be critical of the information and don't let the shiny factor lure you into an early conclusion ... think!

Necros~

[redneck diaper boy]

I grew up learning about capitalism. I had a Russian professor that escaped Stalin's reign of terror.

If Obama is not a socialist, I don't know what he is.

Obama's objective is to oversee the systematic destruction of America. It is Obama's objective to place the United States in such financial disarray so that the electorate will accept socialism. Obama knows that taxing the wealthy will not begin to fund his excessive spending. This is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook "Rules for Radicals"! Obama was born and bread to be a Marxist. Both his mother and father were avid communists.

The sooner we rid our White House, of this Communist menace, the better off America will be.

Socialism is dangerous because it is a stepping stone to Communism. Nikita Khruschev couldn't have been more specific: "We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."

If you want to see Marxism, look no further than the Occupy Wall Street bunch. These idiots want everyone else to support their whims. Watch the video clips of these people who want you to pay for their education and healthcare. Watch them bash corporations but they carry IPODS, cellular phones and laptop computers. Now they are really pissed because the OWS bunch has almost 500,000 dollars in the bank and the wealth is not making it to the protestors! They are so angry that one of them expressed himself by taking a shit on a New York City police car!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html

[Leilin]

I don't know what he is.

I will say simply that this is the most accurate excerpt I have EVER seen of your political posts. You should heavily consider refraining from political discussion in general.

[underwhere]

I am not a multi-billionaire. Therefore, no candidate has my concerns in mind. After all, I can not fund their election campaign, or their re-election campaign, in any substantive way. I can't own them like corporations can.

Anybody I might be interested in voting for would easily be assassinated by some very powerful forces. It's happened before. History is my guide. Anybody who has ever stood up for the interests of working-class people has either been killed, maimed, or defamed.

Martin Luther King was not killed because he was black. He was killed because he understood, and had the charisma to communicate, that what mattered (and still matters) most in this country is not the color of your skin, not the religion you belong to, not the sex you are, not the [fill in the blank for however you want to separate people], but the fact that those who have money, those who have means, they are the ones who possess undue influence on the political and judicial processes. While Malcolm X did not believe in peaceful protest like King did, he too was killed, because he also understood that if you unite all of the working class together, those in power would have to either give up power, which will never happen voluntarily, or have power taken from them, typically by militaristic force.

I don't believe in labels. If anything, I find them intentionally confusing. After all, the labor movement has fought the so-called "Red Scare" for as long as the labor movement has been around. It comes out even in this discussion. Why are we so afraid of communists? Perhaps it is because nobody knows what communism really means.

Carl Marx was not stupid. Read his works. He understood that so-called capitalism would fail, primarily on account of greed of a select few. The Great Depression was, and our current economic peril is, caused by some startlingly similar circumstances. An economy which can not sustain itself, primarily because the desire for low-cost production leads to higher profits for corporations and less income for those in the working-class to spend on purchasing what is produced, is bound to fail time after time after time.

Boom. Bust. Boom. Bust. That is the way of history. That will also be the way of the future, unless we the people wake up and take back our country, take back our world. Working class people the world over are fighting the same battles. Why are we all fighting against each other? A multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't care if they have to move a factory from the USA to China to India and back again, as long as they are able to reap the same profits off the backs of the people they pretend are their "valued employees". As long as they make their profits, Wall Street is happy. CEO's get their bonuses, and the world moves on. This, too, has happened plenty of times before.

Check out this book which gives an early overview of how economics and politics collide, usually at the disadvantage of working-class people: Labor's Untold Story

I do not agree with the conclusion of the book, in light of later events which transpired proving such a strategy as difficult, if not impossible, to bring about due to various changes in labor laws. Nonetheless, the spirit of the book, the fact that we all MUST either unite together or fall together, rings as true now as it ever did.

Given the choices for who to vote for, falling together (since politicians lay in the same bed as corporation) looks more likely. Please, America, prove me wrong.

[sarah_ab]

i'm just gonna say i'm pretty sure the color of malcom x's and MLK jr's skin did have a pretty big role in their being assassinated... was it the only reason? no... but pretty sure it was a reason....

[Diaper Mike 05]

And if you listen to CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, you'll get more facts? They are unabashed lefties and not afraid to flaunt it.

Underwhere is mostly right - no major political candidate is going to put the workers of this country first. I have answers to problems but I have no platform to implement the answers. No major candidate would pick my brain for ideas.

This country is in trouble because of both over- and under-reuglation. I work in manufacturing and we have a few things we need to do or had to do to get up to OSHA code. The issue - none of these things actually made anybody or anything safer. The issues - they wanted signs on our machines to show if they are running parts or in set-up (which is obvious just looking at the machines and guests are not allowed in the machining area as any visitors must remain in the marked walkways) and pipes painted to indicate what they carried (the pipes currently have stickers every 10 feet on them designating what they are). Under-regulation is the opening up of the utility monopolies (it is much more efficient for one carrier to provide energy to an area than many).

There are many more issues which both sides contributed to, but I don't have time to get to them.

And for those who support Obama, you are supporting a failure as a leader. As President, he should be able to call on his own party to follow his lead. No, he cannot write legislation, but he should be able to get his party behind something he can convince them is for the greater good. Yet, all I see from him in the media is "pass my jobs bill" and excuses about what he inherited. Bush was not a great President and Obama is worse (and I'd rank Bush as 42 and Obama as 44, what I have heard about Carter puts him in at 43).

And has anyone actually SEEN the jobs bill? I am currently looking for it, but it seems conceptual for now.

Oh yeah, someone please define "fair share" in concrete terms. OWS and the ilk are bogus until they come out and say what they are asking for, and "fair share" isn't something that means the same to everyone. The rich pay their fair share already IMO, because they pay the largest percentage overall into the pot.

[DiaperPony]

And for those who support Obama, you are supporting a failure as a leader. As President, he should be able to call on his own party to follow his lead. No, he cannot write legislation, but he should be able to get his party behind something he can convince them is for the greater good. Yet, all I see from him in the media is "pass my jobs bill" and excuses about what he inherited. Bush was not a great President and Obama is worse (and I'd rank Bush as 42 and Obama as 44, what I have heard about Carter puts him in at 43).

You have a point here. When Obama ran, he talked about all the things he was going to do. I think most people voted for him despite a lot of those things. He may have taken them as a mandate, but besides the die-hard Democrats, the country wasn't really behind him on those issues, they just really were sick of the war, and the economy was hosed. People weren't about to vote in McCain who was definitely more of the same and they saw Obama as not being too extreme. However, when you look at what Obama wanted compared to what the Democrat loons really want, he's barely in line with the party.

Ron Paul might face a similar problem. The Republicans don't like him because his policies are not the anti-gay and neo-con war trash that they have been pushing for years. They don't even really like the Tea Party movement and it gets bashed at every opportunity (from both sides). Democrats don't like Ron Paul because he doesn't promote their environmentalist and welfare/entitlement policies. However, I think the difference with Ron Paul is that because he is seen as extreme, in order for him to get voted in, the people really have to want him. Basically, if he gets elected, the people will be behind him and the house will scramble to align with his economic policies. The senate won't, though.

I could see his presidency as having trouble getting budgets through the senate. He is not afraid of government shutdowns or credit downgrades, and he would aggressively use the veto power (he's "Dr. No", after all), so that gives him a lot of leverage. And some changes are possible with executive orders alone. But, I'd say his largest problem might be assassination. The large companies built up around wars and banks would stand to lose a lot, and I could see them killing him just like with some past presidents that got in their way.

[Leilin]

Part of the problem here is that parties, both parties, value ideological purity over the impact of that ideology on our country. This is why people like Michael Moore and Grover Norquist, neither of whom should be listened to by anybody with an IQ larger than their shoe-size without fact-checking each and every statement they make to assure context and basis, both have so much influence.

If we had an actual libertarian candidate, that would be really cool, but the "closest" we get is Ron Paul, who is libertarian (NEVER with a big L) only when it's politically convenient, which is why most actual Libertarians think he's trash.

FYI: If you value state rights over individual rights, you shouldn't be calling yourself a libertarian. Not ever.

If we had a viable third party, this would be really cool, but instead we're stuck with two and a half options:

1: The Republicans, who believe that the solution to all problems, seemingly, is to cut taxes on the wealthy and lower regulations.

1A: The TEA party, which pretends to be attached to neither party but supports republicans 100 percent of the time, and is responsible for a good amount of the factual ignorance on several news channels day by day, as people speaking to them in the media seem to have lost the ability to critically analyze their statements.

2: The democrats, who pretend to support social liberties, but are as corporatist as the Republicans (just for different corporations sometimes).

This is, perhaps, part of why the OWS movement may be important, not that I think it will actually grow enough to make a difference. If there is one prevalent message amongst them (and there isn't, yet, but I seem to have observed this one in the plurality) that message is that the corporate ownership/sponsorship/influence of our government is an incredibly negative thing and damages our country and everybody in it except those few who profit so obscenely from the misfortune that they thrust on others.

It was said earlier in this thread that an ideal for the US government would be right of center.

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the US government IS right of center.

The ideal? On economics, I personally would prefer slightly right of center, with fewer regulations on financial activity of corporations but harsher regulations regarding impacts to environment and population. The people asking for the EPA, FCC, and FDA to be dissolved are ignorant, shortsighted morons, to say the least. If anything, right now, part of the current glut of advertising which lies to the consumer with very direct impacts on the health of the general population because of small intentionally misleading language loopholes is due to the fact that those three organizations are incredibly poorly structured, top-heavy, and in cases like the FDA are not given the manpower to do the job they have been charged with doing.

Socially, however, there is only one solution which actually adheres to our constitution and the intent behind it: Libertarianism:

1. The government stays the hell out of your religion, and vice versa. Civil Unions become the only license the government has anything to do with, and become iirespective of sex, gender, and any modifier but age of consent. Marriages become a process that a church can undertake if it so chooses. Yes. This means that there will be gay marriages because some churches will do that. Yes, this means that some bigoted asshats will be pulled kicking and screaming out of the Crusades, once and for all. Any religious organization that stumps for a candidate loses its tax-exempt status and gains the same taxation status as any other PAC.

2. The government stays the hell out of anything that you do that does not harm or cause reasonable risk of harm to another individual. Whatever you do in your own home, if it does not hurt another being, is not the business of the government. Yes, this means that "harm" must be quantified.

3. Corporate personhood ends. It is one of the worst civil developments in the history of our nation and it deserves to be undone. Funny enough, neither party seems to be in a hurry to do this.

4. Restructure campaign reform to eliminate the ability of the super-rich to buy an office. If this means equal government funding to all candidates with limits on the time in public media that can be devoted to a candidate, then so be it. The age of the political dynasties of Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, Reagan, Pelosi et al needs to end.

Ron Paul might face a similar problem. The Republicans don't like him because his policies are not the anti-gay and neo-con war trash that they have been pushing for years.

These are two of the very few positions of Paul's that I support at least partially, though as I mentioned previously, his support of state rights over individual rights is annoying (but still better than the rest of the pool's). If he wasn't anti-choice and pro-regressive tax structure, he'd be awesome.

[sarah_ab]

Again Vote SARAH_AB 2020!!!!!! I will make good on all my promises... what do i promise?

Well, i promise if i don't know a word I will look it up.

I promise I will not use taxpayer money for my own benefit, except when its something i REALLLLLYYYY want.... like an ipad.

I promise I will not tell too many lies, but I also promise you won't always like the truth!

SARAH_AB 2020!!!!!!

[Diapered Jason]

Have any of you guys heard of Buddy Roemer? He is limiting all campaign contributions for his Republican presidential candidacy to $100/individual.

[Leilin]

Have any of you guys heard of Buddy Roemer? He is limiting all campaign contributions for his Republican presidential candidacy to $100/individual.

This is a completely silly gesture until all candidates are held to the same standard.

[Darkfinn]

Have any of you guys heard of Buddy Roemer? He is limiting all campaign contributions for his Republican presidential candidacy to $100/individual.

Probably why we haven't heard of him.

Big business and the super rich control politics, the only people who get nominated are the ones they want. Doesn't really matter who you vote for, the people are screwed either way.