The Top 10 Liberal Superstitions

they all have a plan it is called stopping Obamas agenda and the was elected so carry out that plan
when you have a water pipe bust in your house don't you work on getting the pipe fixed and stop the water leak before you figure out away to clean up and work on the damage it has caused
well republican where elected in mass to fix the pipe

 

Usually you need a plan to fix the leak. Just thinking about the leak stopping usually doesn't do much good. Now can we dispose with silly analogies and get back to issues. Tax reform, and immigration reform are issues that existed before Obama continue to be issues. Terrorism was clearly an issue before Obama and is clearly still an issue. Health care in America was an issue before the ACA and is still an issue.

The reason Republicans don't have any plans is that being negative has been proven to be a winning strategy in politics. Unfortunatly for America it isn't much of a winning strategy for solving problems.

 

The negativity was from Reid, who stopped every bill coming out of the House. That's about to change, big time.

 

Until it's cited otherwise, that's exactly why it switched. Because the Democrat policy failed, they failed to win the election. It happens....

 

They were not elected to oppose Obama, that is delusional thinking, they were hired to get the government off their dead arses and get back to work, don't do it and there will be another change.
BYW: You stop the leak and fix the pipe before looking at repairing the damage.

 

Adapt or die. Species have been dying off since time immemorial. What country got displaced? The US has record crops yearly. I don't care what happens outside our borders.

I don't care what happens in other countries. That has no bearing on what happens in the US. You can't spend your self out of a recession.

So the GAO lied? Completely wrong.

So 40 million losing their health care coverage, coverage they liked and could afford, to insure 10 million? You call that a success. And if I spent 9 years in med school, I would want to charge what I charge to pay back student loans. Or can you pick up the tab yourself?

Standard regurgitated liberal fare. Nothing else to see here.

 

Those "tired platitudes" are in response to a poster who regularly cherrypicks my posts by ignoring the actual substantive points I make and repeat in favor of quibbling over minutiae. Same poster regularly puts words in my mouth that I didn't post, is -nothing but- tired platitudes, and calls me a racist regularly, so kiss off.

Why don't you tell me all about it then? Someone who chose the handle "giftedone" on a forum should certainly be able to do so with little trouble.

strawman

Yes, but it's obvious you don't. Did you mean "oligarchy' by chance? That would still be wrong, but a bit closer to the mark.

Oligopolies don't "run" anything other than their various industries in the private sector. If you claimed that the US government supported oligopolies to the detriment of other firms, I'd agree with you, but that's not what you said. As a matter of indisputable fact, the US is run by a tripartite government composed of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, mostly elected by voters, not companies, and certainly not by oligopolies. Perhaps you meant to say that large companies and other special interests exert undue influence on US political outcomes. I'd agree with that. But do go ahead and name these various "oligopolies" that "run" the US. Should be interesting.

I realize that everyone in the WH or Congress got there with political contributions from various sources. None are from "oligopolies" though.

There's some truth in this. What's your point as pertains to any specific point in any of the posts I've made to this thread, though? Nada I imagine.

1. For the second time, I didn't post anything remotely like the former proposition. Care to comment on something that I actually posted, as opposed to making things up? 2. As far as brainwashing by oligopolies, by all means let's do put an end to that hideous practice. When they come around to do their brainwashing, do they wear black suits and dark glasses perchance? Do they drive in big humvees with an "O" for "Oligopoly" on the side?

I feel great.

Hold on a sec someone's at the door. O CRAP IT'S THE OLIGOPOLY BRAINWASHERS! Gotta run hide in the saferoom. Later.

 

It is not my fault that you do not know what an Oligopoly is. No need to shoot the messenger because the message is something that does not fit in with your fantasy of the day.

When you figure it out come back and perhaps I can educate you further

 

I understand your being embarrassed at your misuse of the term as many times as you repeated the error in the post.

 

I don't agree on food additives. But I agree on everything else.

 

That's true, but who has the right to take away from someone to give to someone else?

Jesus said to be charitable. He didn't say to steal and give your loot to the poor.

Liberalism is for idiots.

 

I did not misuse the term. Anyone can stand up on a soapbox and claim "you misused a term".

The question is can you justify that claim.

I am still waiting for you to define what an Oligopoly even is, never mind having you explain how the term was improperly used.

 

In regards to GMOs, I can't account for what others have said, but as a person with years of farming experience, I can tell you that the concern isn't about human health, it is about biodiversity and soil health. Simple truth is that monoculture is actually less effective than traditional agricultural methods (such as crop rotation and biological pest control). If we continue to rely on it, I predict disaster.

 

What do you think of the idea that property is theft?

 

1. An "oligopoly" is a small number of companies exercising dominance and control over a market absent collusion (or the term would be "cartel"). 2. They do not "run" anything other than their own industry, certainly impossible for an oligopoly to "run" a government that elects representatives and a president by popular vote. Neither oligopolies nor any companies vote, you see. Individuals do. 3. An "oligopoly" is not an entity unto itself that can either contribute to a campaign or buy influence. Individual companies can, and you might have made a better case had you used the term "cartel," (illegal under US law though) but you didn't.

 

You make a bunch of inferred logical fallacies. Your first misguided assumption is that actions of single companies within the oligopoly do not affect the oligopoly as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When one or a number of drug companies trying to affect regulations (and they have every right to sit at the table) on patents for generics this affects the whole. The politicians sitting at the table are supposed to represent the people. All too often the regulation comes down on the side of protecting the Oligopoly. This is one reason why our drug costs are way out of wack in comparison to other countries.

Then of course there is price fixing and you can look up numerous examples of companies that have been fined. Most anti competitive actions however go either undetected or intentionally unnoticed.

Your most nonsensical assumption is that "Oligopolies" do not contribute to or influence politicians. This is painfully ignorant.

Individual companies within an Oligopoly make contributions to politicians in order to further the goals of the Oligopoly.

What is perhaps even more distressingly ignorant is your claim that collusion is not present in an Oligopoly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

In other words, Oligopolies are often the result of collusion.

I did not ask you to "make up" a definition for Oligopoly. I asked you what the definition of Oligopoly was.

So, once again, first you need to figure out what an Oligopoly actually is and then perhaps we can have an intelligent discussion.

Here is a short definition from Investopedia

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/oligopoly.asp

Here is a slightly longer definition:

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/oligopoly.html#ixzz3InBZwffv

As you will note from this definition the idea that Oligopolies act in collusion is pretty much assumed although it is not always the case.

Let me know if you now understand what an Oligopoly is ?

Once you are done with semantics and making up your own definitions perhaps we can have an intelligent discussion.

 

That's impossible, sorry. I stand by my prior post in its entirety.

 

Have you figured out what an Oligopoly is yet ?

 

On the contrary. Conservatism is for idiots. Common sense dictates that any system that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, is an unfair system. As such, re-allocating resources towards a more equitable distribution, is certainly "God's work." Look, I don't believe in Jesus, anymore than I believe in the tooth fairy. But even under the rules of your own religion, you are still wrong. Jesus entered the temple and threw out the moneychangers--so clearly, he would not approve of today's economic system, which is largely based on greed and which concerntrates wealth in the hands of a few (mostly bankers - aka moneychangers). There are also multiple references in the bible, which show that Jesus was a huge fan of taxation:

Romans 13:1 - "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."
Romans 13:5-7 - "Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."

So there you have it. You are wrong according to the rules of common sense morality. And you are also wrong according to the rules of of Christianity. So you really have nothing to stand on.

 

When was "concentrating wealth in the hands of a few" a core principle of conservatism? Does this mean there are no wealthy liberals?

 

When someone says they want to "repeal and replace" something, and then the only response you get when you ask them what they're going to replace it with is, "Uhhhhhhh...." it's not hard to figure out what's really going.

Ummm, you're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking. You seriously don't know what Congressional Republicans say about the President? Aside from the usual stuff about Obama being a socialist or a muslim, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," from Mitch McConnell jumps to mind. And I'm pretty sure no one ever interupted one of Reagan's State of the Union speeches by yelling, "You lie!" from the gallery. Or how about Darrell Issa comparing Obama failing to cooperate with his "investigations" to genocide: "When an administration says 'no,' it's no different than when Andrew Jackson marched Indians down the Trail of Tears, to their death.”

If you're looking for crazy quotes, the Republicans have had several gifts that just keep giving in recent years. Like Michele Bachmann.

"We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves."

"The news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would, I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they are pro-America or anti-America... I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large... Absolutely, I'm very concerned that (Barack Obama) may have anti-American views... I never questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism."

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Or Allen West.

“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine.”

“I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

"Our senior generals... have to be very careful about blindly following a commander in chief that really does not have the best intent for our military."

As a way to appease Tea Party crazies who were threatening to push the government into default. Please explain to me how suggesting a solution that was used in the Clinton years to a manufactured crisis makes it Obama's fault? Besides, the point of the sequester was that it was so awful that the parties would be forced to compromise to avoid it. It was never envisioned that it would actually happen. It was Republicans who created the crisis. It was Republicans who demanded extreme spending cuts. And it was Republicans who decided they wouldn't have to compromise since the sequester wasn't actually all that bad. Responsibility for the squester lies squarely on the shoulders of the GOP.

If there are any gods involved with the Tea Party, it is undoubtedly Eris, who surely finds this entire situation hilarious.

But I digress. You're right that there was nothing bipartisan about Obamacare, and that the Republicans were united in their opposition to it. There was also nothing bipartisan about preventing a second great depression - Republicans uniformly opposed that too. I guess preventing unemployment from hitting 25% is an extreme liberal ideology. The fact of the matter is that Republicans decided shortly after the '08 election that they would simply automatically oppose anything Obama proposed because they considered that their best way to regain power in '10 and '12. See the above quote from Mitch McConnell. Or consider the Republican strategy meeting the night of Obama's inauguration where Rep. Kevin McCarthy (who is currently the House Majority Leader) said, "If you act like you're the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority. We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.” Joe Biden said that during the transition period, he talked to seven different Republican Senators who all told him that McConnell demanded united opposition to anything the administration did. "The way it was characterized to me was: 'For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back.' "

Obama has bent over backward trying to reach out to Republicans, and they have simply refused to sit down at the table because they figured the American voters would be stupid enough to simply blame everything that goes wrong on the President, even though they were the ones sabotaging the country. Obama's a far left ideologue? Why? What has ever said or done that's extremist? He's gone to great pains to try to govern from the center.

I believe the latest poll numbers are that a plurality of Americans support Obamacare, 49% - 47%. And something like a third of those opposed reject it because it's not liberal enough and doesn't go far enough. A program that gets its support from the middle half of Americans is not extreme. Besides, even among people who say they oppose Obamacare, the individual provisions of the law all enjoy broad support. The only problem Republicans have with Obamacare is that there's a black man's name on it.

(Sigh) I believe I've already explained this. The economy is doing relatively well despite the sequester. Cutting spending has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt to be a major drag on the economy when an ill advised attempt to balance the budget in 1937 immediately triggered the Recession of 1937, which made unemployment shoot up five points and undid years of recovery from the Great Depression. The economy would most likely be doing substantially better if we hadn't had a House of Representatives bent on sabotaging the economy for the last four years. At the very least, the economy would have been doing better much sooner without the Tea Party.

(Shrugs) What exactly do you think a Republican Senate will do? It still takes 60 votes to move any major legislation through the Senate, which the Republicans do not have. They certainly don't have nearly enough votes to override a Presidential veto in either the House or the Senate. The stuff the House has been passing has been purely symbolic, giving Obama the finger. It would have never passed the Senate no matter who's the leader. The only difference that McConnell will make will be that he will be able to force Democrats to take votes that he thinks can be used against them in the next election.

Not that the Republican House has been able to pass even its own agenda. They completely failed to pass the Ryan Budget, if you've forgotten. In any event, the Tea Party base is addicted to being outraged for the sake of being outraged. Congress could abolish the IRS and the Tea Party would find some reason to declare it treason against all true conservatives. So a Republican Congress will do exactly nothing. $10 says that no major legislation of any consequence will come out of this Congress. At best they'll sit on their hands and do nothing. At worst we'll have repeats of the phoney dramas of the last few years.

However, a Republican Senate will be able to cause mischief in other ways. Continuing to refuse to confirm Obama's nominations for dog catcher, opening more phoney investigations into non-scandals, that sort of thing. But while that will be annoying for the Administration, it will not change the fundamental power dynamic in Washington.

And I suppose that it's purely coincidental that Texas's economy is largely based on resource extraction (particularly energy) and California's is largely about finance, education, and entertainment?

I really don't know enough about the history of Hong Kong, and don't care enough to research the subject. However, considering how fictional most of the rest of your claims are, I'll take that story with a few truckloads of salt.

It's an historical term. From Wikipedia, "In social criticism and economic literature, robber baron became a derogatory term applied to wealthy and powerful 19th-century American businessmen that appeared in North American periodical literature as early as the August 1870 issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. By the late 1800s, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth."

(Facepalm) If you want to learn about history, read a history book, not the Wall Street Journal. At the very best this is a gross distortion of what actually happened. Hoover was a believer in laissez-faire and the idea that markets are always self correcting. He also did several things that made the Depression worse, such as trying to balance the budget. However, as the crisis continued to go on and get worse for years, Hoover was forced to recognize that things were so bad that he had to do something. Late in his Presidency, Hoover did start to implement a few stimulus and relief policies, but they were too little and too late, both for the economy and his Presidency. But I suppose you have a point that Hoover wasn't a true conservative by today's standards - he let a little thing like the facts get in the way of ideology.

If you want to actually learn something about the Depression, seriously, go find a history textbook.

And when that private company dumps toxic waste in the drinking water supply? When it becomes the only employer in town? In the US, we've created a division between economic power and governmental power. For most of history, the two were one and the same. Without the checks and balances of a government held accountable to the people, they would undoubtedly become the same thing again.

You seem to be confusing budget deficits with the size of government. A very large government can run a healthy surplus, and a very small government can rack up huge debts.

(Double facepalm) That's in England!!

 

My concession? At what point were we discussing how to run a business in any way, shape or form? Running a government and running a business are completely different things, and a great many of the skill sets do not transfer. While it may be shocking for you, the truth is that the universe does not revolve around business.

Ahem. When you include, "the noble poor," in a list of "leftist BS," that implies that the poor are the opposite of noble, ie, worthless.

Yes, you give examples of people who work hard over a lifetime and wind up rich. You also refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the very many more people who work equally hard over a lifetime and wind up poor. Which I would say is really missing the point.

Luck and hard work are not mutually exclusive. Generally speaking, getting to the top of the ladder requires hard work and good luck. This should be quite obvious. Or are you going to claim that you have complete control over your destiny? That random and uncontrollable events simply do not occur? Or that you are somehow magically immune to them? That's the very essence of hubris in the classical sense. I'd be careful about saying such things too loudly - that's rather like walking around with a karmic "Kick me" sign on your back.

And as I've said before, simply whining about a set of arguments being "leftist BS" is not an argument. You are effectively saying that what I said is completely wrong, but you don't have the faintest idea how or why, and have no arguments or evidence to present against them.

Why do you have to pay taxes if money isn't everything? Because money has two separate functions in our culture. It has a nuts and bolts function as an accounting device, a counter used in managing the distribution of goods and services. In that regard it serves essentially the same function as, say, your electric meter. It also has a completely separate function as the primary marker of social status. Excessive hoarding of money for the sake of social status interferes with the nuts and bolts aspect of it. To continue the analogy with electricity, it's fine if you want to show up your neighbors by putting up an excessive Christmas lights display. Unless it's so excessive that it starts causing brownouts in the rest of town, electrical fires, equipment failures, that sort of thing.

Considering that something like 2/3's of the voters didn't even bother to turn out, I'd say the main message of the election was one of disgust, hopelessness, and apathy with the entire political system.

I have repeatedly asked you what substantive points I've ignored. I have yet to get a response. If you have a point that you want me to address, then just say so explicitly. Whining about me ignoring these mysterious unspecified substantive points makes it sound like you're just upset that your arguments have gotten taken apart.

I put words in your mouth? No, I don't. I point out the logical implications of what you say, and when you realize how utterly indefensible they are you try to claim you didn't say what you said. For example, insisting that saying that undocumented immigrants coming over the Mexican border should be summarily deported because they're drug mules, gang members, and disease carriers isn't racist. If you can't deal with what you yourself say, you should really stop saying it.

 

Wrong again. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/GOPHealthPlan_061709.pdf How did you like the recent story about the Obama guy admitting they lied to get Obamacare passed and figured the American people were too stupid to notice. Checkmate.

Unlike you, I admit both sides do this. You and I just happen to disagree on which statements are true.

If not slaves, then sheeple. The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. You know, you remind me of when Reagan would say something common sense, and the libs would call it a gaffe.

Reasonable, considering Obama having out with the terrorist Bill Ayers and his childhood mentor, the communist Frank Marshall I believe his name was. Wouldn't you be alarmed if a Republican hung out with someone from the KKK?

I don't get the obsession with Ms. Bachman, who isn't in Congress, when we have a certified moron in Joe Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Verified by the Obama official who admitted they lied to pass Obamacare.

Agree with that last one, Obama ignored the generals on leaving troops in Iraq and the advance of ISIS, with disastrous results.

Always the Republican's fault, you sound like a parrot.

Pure speculation, we have had a weak recovery despite Obama, not because of him. You must not meet very many businessmen if you think he's doing a good job on the economy.

Why would conservatives support an extremist liberal agenda? Do you think Democrats didn't oppose Bush's agenda, including reining in Fannie Mae and the Iraq surge, making treasonous statements in the process.

I wouldn't take anything Joe Biden says on face value.

LOL, you mean like meeting with Mitch McConnell once!

I guess you can't see the water if you're a fish. In 2005 Obama had a 100% ADA liberal rating. I could go on all way with extreme position he's taken and extremists he's nominated, like his corrupt flack Eric Holder. Look, this is a center right country, and Obama had the good fortune to run after an unpopular president (as the GOP will in '16), he was very articulate and personable and basically stupided his way way into the White House. As last Tuesday showed, the American people are on to him now.

'Racism' is the last refuge of a scoundrel. You're more delusional than I though if you think the this turkey would be supported if a white had dreamed it up. As stupid as saying the GOP opposed Hillarycare because she's a woman. Tell me, how is it the majority who elected Obama oppose Obamacare? Did they not notice he was black when he ran? It is exactly that kind of embarrassing statement that is why you all got your rear's handed to you last Tuesday. IMHO the Supreme Court is going to end Obamacare next June, we're still a nation of laws despite Obama.

Pure speculation. The economy didn't do too well when Obama had a veto proof Dem congress.

Is that how liberals think? The GOP will flood Obama with bills 'stonewall' Reid has bottled up, such as the popular Keystone pipeline that will create 40,000 jobs. The only job Reid cares about is Obama's.

I'll take that bet, does Keystone count?

Let's hope the days of Obama nominating extremists is over. It's call the system of checks and balances, what do you want, Obama to be dictator?

Irrelevant, and have you not noticed the drop in oil prices? The TX economy should be crashing if your theory was true.

Basically you're admitting you're ignorant on this and intend to stay this way. Wouldn't want to see any facts that go against your preconceived worldview, would you?

Yes, I've heard it, no doubt Democrats were as good at demogogery back than as now.

Ad hominem, address the content if you can.

Sigh, obviously you didn't read the link, Hoover was emphatically not a believer in lassez-faire (successful Hong Kong was) and differed little from FDR, including raising taxes. Calvin Coolidge was a conservative (heck, most Democrats of the time were), Hoover was not.

I just put history in front of your face in the form of that link, and you refuse to look. Here:

Far from a free-market idealist, Hoover was an ardent believer in government intervention to support incomes and employment. This is critical to understanding the origins of the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt didn't reverse course upon moving into the White House in 1933; he went further down the path that Hoover had blazed over the previous four years. That was the path to disaster.

Hoover, a one-time business whiz and a would-be all-purpose social problem-solver in the Lee Iacocca mold, was a bowling ball looking for pins to scatter. He was a government activist fixated on the idea of running the country as an energetic CEO might run a giant corporation. It was Hoover, not Roosevelt, who initiated the practice of piling up big deficits to support huge public-works projects. After declining or holding steady through most of the 1920s, federal spending soared between 1929 and 1932 -- increasing by more than 50%, the biggest increase in federal spending ever recorded during peacetime.

Public projects undertaken by Hoover included the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and Hoover Dam. The Republican president won plaudits from the American Federation of Labor for his industrial policy, which included jawboning business leaders to refrain from cutting wages as the economy fell. Referring to counteracting the business cycle and propping up wages, Hoover said: "No president before has ever believed that there was a government responsibility in such cases . . . we had to pioneer a new field." Though he did not coin the phrase, Hoover championed many of the basic ideas -- such as central planning and control of the economy -- that came to be known as the New Deal.

Hoover differed far more from Coolidge than FDR.

You mean like what happened last Tuesday?

No kidding Sherlock, do you think that doesn't happen here?

 

What evidence do you have that the 2/3rd who didn't vote felt any different from the ones who did? My son didn't vote and he thinks Obama is an idiot.

 

What makes you think because your son does not like Obama that everyone else that did not vote believe the same. You do know Obama was not running in the last election, nor will he be running in the next. The more important questions are; is the GOP going to finally get some work done over the next 24 months and is the GOP going to simply present the same old past rejects or will they actually offer some good alternatives to what the Dems will offer. The people, well those that bothered to vote, supported the Repubs so break the deadlock in Washington and to get the wheels of government moving again, if the GOP does not accomplish at least some forward progress they will not have to worry about being the main act in the Circus called Washington after the next election, what The People can give they can also take away. As for the GOP presidential candidates so far I am see mostly the same old past rejects wanting to take another stab at getting the nomination, hopefully in the end the GOP will find a good Moderate Republican to offer up to The People, any extremist will lose by a landslide, no matter who the Dems trot out. So the ball is in the GOP end of the court, let's hope they use their limited time wisely, if they don't we will be back to square one once again in 24 months.