<Removed>

[Night Strike]

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

[Symmetry]

And aside from all of those quotes, you never did answer me as to why my lack of knowledge of the Senator's gender has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the issue.

Hell, I could've played the dishonest game and just said that it was a typo on my part and I meant to type "she" there...nobody would've been able to dispute that.

But I didn't.[/list] So why are you playing the dishonest game, John?

for the last time, i don't have a problem with your position on the issue of disabled veterans. i have a problem with you talking about something you don't know about (in this case, an article that you didn't read).

why would i be debating you on the "issue" of COL for veterans if i agreed with you on that issue? doesn't make sense.

it's interesting watching you weasel your way out of situations in which your ignorance has been exposed. your recent claim that tax increases cannot negatively affect businesses comes to mind. i would have more respect for you if you were able to admit when you were clearly and undeniably wrong. but once again you took the low road and got exposed as a child who can't admit his mistakes.

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

Surely the government has a degree of responsibility toward those it employs.

I'm not sure that your "pay cuts for marines" rhetoric will play out too well.

[luns101]

Alright, I admit I can't adequately answer all your questions. You'll just have to accept that in my answer(s). My post will undoubtedly be biased as I'm in the conservative wing of the Republican party. I am a Bible-believing Christian as well, which I think transcends any allegiance to a political party. Oh yeah, and I still cheer for the Cubs so factor that into what you may call "blind faith". That being said, I'll attempt to give as much clarity as to what I want the party to be, and try to balance it with what I think it actually is.

Is it the tea-party that wants to shrink government?

Partly. I believe that most of the tea party people have left the Republican party and become independents. They're tired of having to choose between entitlement spending increases (Dems) and small rates in spending reductions (Repubs). They're told by the GOP that if you elect us we'll cut spending, only seeing them cave in as soon as the mainstream media labels them as uncaring. Sure, there's a tea party element within the Republican party, but I think most of them are leaving, with a wait-and-see approach to see how much actual action they'll take in fulfilling campaign promises of less spending.

Is it OWS that wants equality for the common man?

Definitely not. Even the moderate wing of the Republican party does not believe in dictated equality of results.

Is it the religious right that wants the bible to be the constitution?

I object to the characterization unless you're willing to add the 'religious left' into the conversation. What most Bible-believing Christians want (if they're politically involved at all) is an adherence to natural law. We believe the Declaration of Independence outlines that in its basic 3 categories of God-given rights...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. And no, we don't think that pursuit of happiness means being allowed to do whatever you want in whatever way you wish. American culture/society will never be perfect, but an adherence to the principle of natural law allows others who don't share my exact interpretation of the Scriptures to still be grateful that these rights are naturally given, and it's government's role to protect them. It also motivates others who don't share my exact Biblical Christian worldview to preserve/conserve that principle. The moderate wing is probably not interested in this issue, and most likely embarrassed to discuss it in the terms that I've used.

Is it the bigots that wants to take away peoples rights?

This is so broad and biased how could anyone give a serious response to it? I'm assuming that you're referring to homosexual marriage or abortion. Your question also assumes that whoever the "bigots" are, that they are subject to your definition.

Is it the ron pauls that want equal rights?

There's definitely a libertarian element that's more focused on American not being involved in foreign affairs any more than absolutely necessary as part of our national interest and/or defense. I disagree with them, but they are within the party. My personal belief is that it's more rooted in a cult of personality towards the man himself than what he stands for, but then I'm projecting my own bias into why they like him so much. Their main concern is stopping spending, and getting government out of the business of being a referee on social issues. Not all, but many.

Is it the rmoney's that want to f*ck over the 99% to make the 1% richer?

I think all the different elements of the GOP would disagree and take issue with your premise on this. What I believe is that dictated equality of results can't be achieved is futile. What I don't like is having the top income earners demonized and automatically being labeled as hostile to 'the poor'. They pay more than their 'fair share' in helping society. I believe the best way to get more people off the government dole is to offer the incentive to keep more of what they earn through work. I believe that work is dignified and to be preferred over a perpetual position of dependency to the state [through entitlement programs]. The moderates and conservatives probably agree on this one. Example of what I believe is harmful to the human spirit through dependency.

Is it the angry/scared people that wants to take over the world with a larger army?

I don't want to take over the world, and I think the moderate wing doesn't either. We have enough problems dealing with governing ourselves. Your question also assumes (argues from omniscience) that the motivation for wanting a strong military is based on fear. The best way to contain dictatorships and other types of ruthless regimes is to force them to think twice about attacking us or our allies through military force - not what I like, but it needs to be a reality that they'll suffer a military response if they attempt to intimidate. What I would like to see is peaceful world, but knowing my Bible and believing in its prophecies, I know that ultimately all human efforts at this will fail.

Is it the NSA people who want to watch your every move?

Well maybe, there's a huge element of the Republican party that likes Sting & The Police. There's really no reconciling this between conservatives and liberals because they define interrogation techniques differently, and government's role in protecting vs. providing. Conservatives like myself probably see the NSA people like Jack Bauer, and the liberals probably see them as the govt. agents from V For Vendetta.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility and compassion for your neighbor?

It's always been there. We (actually I, but you know what I'm saying) reject the left's general definition of both terms. Personally, I believe it is wrong to encourage class envy (and yes, I define this 'unfairness' charge as class envy) against those who are risking their capital to provide a good or service in the attempt to make profit. To me, true compassion is providing a temporary safety net for those needing help. Unfortunately, government entitlement programs have become too much of a breeding ground for perpetual dependency. It robs people of their God-given natural right to find dignity through earning profit and pursue the happiness of keeping the property that they've acquired through hard work.

I do think that the moderate wing of the Republican party would only partially agree with me on that point. They think that entitlement programs need to be run more proficiently and executed properly for them to work correctly.

That's the best you're going to get from me anyway. I had time to post, and most of the games I've watched on TV today are boring blowouts because the replacement refs are gone, unable to change the outcomes (teasing guys). It's been awhile since I really wrote anything anways. You should join us, Bedub. We're proud of our first nominee, Lincoln, and are making a major push for him to be included in the next Avengers movie since he's already been known to kill vampires. Any photoshop geniuses want to try to insert Lincoln in that group? Saxi?

[Night Strike]

Surely the government has a degree of responsibility toward those it employs.

I'm not sure that your "pay cuts for marines" rhetoric will play out too well.

It also provides those adjustments to people who live off the government without working for the government. And either way, you still didn't address my point: the government gets all its money from the private sector (or through debt), so if the private sector isn't providing cost of living adjustments, why is the government automatically doing so?

[Symmetry]

Surely the government has a degree of responsibility toward those it employs.

I'm not sure that your "pay cuts for marines" rhetoric will play out too well.

It also provides those adjustments to people who live off the government without working for the government. And either way, you still didn't address my point: the government gets all its money from the private sector (or through debt), so if the private sector isn't providing cost of living adjustments, why is the government automatically doing so?

Source your claims. I'd like proof that the private sector doesn't provide cost of living adjustments, and that the government gets all its money from the private sector (or through debt).

You're getting increasingly ridiculous, so I hope it's time to ask you to back some of your claims up.

[Woodruff]

What is the Republican Party? Well, here's what they used to be:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25838

How the mighty have fallen. <sigh>

[Woodruff]

And aside from all of those quotes, you never did answer me as to why my lack of knowledge of the Senator's gender has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the issue.

Hell, I could've played the dishonest game and just said that it was a typo on my part and I meant to type "she" there...nobody would've been able to dispute that.

But I didn't. So why are you playing the dishonest game, John?

for the last time, i don't have a problem with your position on the issue of disabled veterans. i have a problem with you talking about something you don't know about (in this case, an article that you didn't read).

Didn't you, just a few posts ago before I proved you wrong, claim that you didn't say that I didn't know about this issue? And now you're saying it again?

why would i be debating you on the "issue" of COL for veterans if i agreed with you on that issue? doesn't make sense.

As far as I've seen, you neither agree nor disagree with me on this issue. I don't believe I've seen you take a stance. All you've done is yell "You don't know what you're talking about" several times, apparently because I didn't know the gender of a particular Senator.

it's interesting watching you weasel your way out of situations in which your ignorance has been exposed.

The only "ignorance that's been exposed" is that I didn't know the gender of a particular Senator, which I HAVE REPEATEDLY ADMITTED MYSELF. As far as the actual ISSUE HERE, I have had no ignorance exposed. What has been exposed is your desire to go down in flames while attempting to hang your hat on something that doesn't affect the issue itself in any way at all.

i would have more respect for you if you were able to admit when you were clearly and undeniably wrong. but once again you took the low road and got exposed as a child who can't admit his mistakes.

You mean like you're doing in this thread? Thanks, Mr Moderate.

[Woodruff]

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

So you don't believe that the US Government should stand by the promises they make to military veterans? That'd make a hell of a recruiting slogan.

[Night Strike]

Surely the government has a degree of responsibility toward those it employs.

I'm not sure that your "pay cuts for marines" rhetoric will play out too well.

It also provides those adjustments to people who live off the government without working for the government. And either way, you still didn't address my point: the government gets all its money from the private sector (or through debt), so if the private sector isn't providing cost of living adjustments, why is the government automatically doing so?

Source your claims. I'd like proof that the private sector doesn't provide cost of living adjustments, and that the government gets all its money from the private sector (or through debt).

You're getting increasingly ridiculous, so I hope it's time to ask you to back some of your claims up.

Just doing a quick search shows

In the private sector, contracts with cost-of-living raises have been disappearing over the past several decades. The reasons include the low level of annual inflation, the waning power of unions, and employees' focus on other benefits, like health insurance.

The pay raises companies offer today are more likely to depend on productivity and profitability than on the level of inflation. Employers want to avoid automatic pay increases. They would rather give a one-time bonus to counteract a year of higher inflation than be stuck with permanent increases.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/business/professional-development/cost-of-living-raises1.htm

As for how the government gets money: they get it from the private sector or from debt (printing). There is no other way for the government to get money because they do not create wealth. It's the simple fact of how governments work (unless they're completely Communist and control all the means of production within the country).

[Woodruff]

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

So you don't believe that the US Government should stand by the promises they make to military veterans? That'd make a hell of a recruiting slogan.

[Night Strike]

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

So you don't believe that the US Government should stand by the promises they make to military veterans? That'd make a hell of a recruiting slogan.

It's easy to make a ton of promises based in the future when you know you don't have to be around to carry them out. And like I have said, military veterans should be the only group the federal government should be providing long-term benefits to. I say cut long-term welfare payments so we know there will be enough/more money to give to veterans.

[BigBallinStalin]

This book is relevant:


Murray Rothbard's Betrayal of the American Right

ccording to Rothbard, the corruption of the right began in the ten years after the end of the Second World War. Before then, a strong movement of journalists, writers, and even politicians had formed during the New Deal and after. There was a burgeoning literature to explain why New Deal-style central planning was bad for American liberty. They also saw that central planning and war were linked as two socialistic programs.

The experience of war was telling. Prices were controlled by central edict. Businesses were not free to buy and sell. Government spending went through the roof. The Fed's money machine ran constantly. The war was a continuation of the New Deal by others means. They learned that a president dictatorial enough to manipulate the country into war would think nothing of ending liberty at home.

There were wonderful intellectuals in this movement: Frank Chodorov, John T. Flynn, Garet Garrett, Albert Jay Nock, Rose Wilder Lane, and dozens of others. This movement didn't want to conserve anything but liberty. They wanted to overthrow the alien regime that had taken hold of the country and restore respect for the Constitution. They believed in the free market as a creative mechanism to improve society. They favored a restoration of the gold standard, decentralized government, and peace and friendship with all nations (as George Washington wanted).

Murray Rothbard recounts all this, and then enters into the picture. He was a central player in the unfolding events. As a young man, he first encountered the new generation of people on the right who departed dramatically from the old. They were the first "neoconservatives." They favored war as a means. They were soft on executive dictatorship. They considered economics rather trivial compared with the struggle against international foes.

They found new uses for the state in the domestic realm as well. They like the CIA, the FBI, and no amount of military spending was enough for them. A leader of the movement—William F. Buckley—even called for a "totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" so long as Russia, which had been an alley in the war, had a communist system.

This transformation was formative for Rothbard. He began an intellectual journey that would lead to a break from the movement that was now calling itself conservative. He studied with Ludwig von Mises during and after his graduate school years. He wrote a seminal book on economics. He wrote at a fevered pace for the popular press. By 1965, he found that he was pretty much alone in carrying on the Old Right vision. Most everyone else had died or had entered into that long trajectory that would lead to George Bush.

As Thomas Woods writes in the introduction, "It is not just a history of the Old Right, or of the anti-interventionist tradition in America. It is the story—at least in part—of Rothbard's own political and intellectual development: the books he read, the people he met, the friends he made, the organizations he joined, and so much more."

http://mises.org/document/3316/The-Betrayal-of-the-American-Right

[Woodruff]

Why should any upward cost of living adjustment (that are never adjusted down, fyi) for anyone getting money from the government be automatic when those same adjustments aren't automatic for private sector employees, especially in a down economy?

So you don't believe that the US Government should stand by the promises they make to military veterans? That'd make a hell of a recruiting slogan.

It's easy to make a ton of promises based in the future when you know you don't have to be around to carry them out. And like I have said, military veterans should be the only group the federal government should be providing long-term benefits to. I say cut long-term welfare payments so we know there will be enough/more money to give to veterans.

Why is it so difficult for you to just say "Senator Murray is wrong on this one"? I mean, you would clearly seem to believe that she (fixed!) is. Why must you reflexively support anything done by a Republican, even when you disagree with them?

[Juan_Bottom]

U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) reportedly asked his wife to be his "porn star" in a hand-written letter from Iraq in 2003, detailing "non-negotiable" sex acts she was to perform on his return and ordering her to wear only two-piece bathing suits.

[Woodruff]

U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) reportedly asked his wife to be his "porn star" in a hand-written letter from Iraq in 2003, detailing "non-negotiable" sex acts she was to perform on his return and ordering her to wear only two-piece bathing suits.

Honestly, this is a complete non-issue and should be only between the two of them.

If you want to attack Allen West, there are far more relevant and appropriate things to attack him on. This is not one of them. Frankly, you embarrass yourself by posting this, in my opinion.

[Juan_Bottom]

Awww, normally I'd agree with you, but I thought that it was pretty relevant to his character because Allen West is part of the Republican War on Women.

“We need you to come in and lock shields to strengthen up the men that will go into the fight for you. To let these other women know, on the other side, these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women who have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness, to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient.”

Now his own wife can't even negotiate what deviant sex acts he does to her body.

[Night Strike]

the Republican War on Women.

Doesn't exist.


By the way, you should post the ad where Allen West received his deployment orders and was preparing his troops for that deployment on the same night his opponent was arrested for disorderly conduct in a bar.

[Woodruff]

Why in the hell would anyone who agrees with Ron Paul here ever vote for Mitt Romney OR Barack Obama? I just don't get it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BbIPbLSRw&feature=related

[Woodruff]

Awww, normally I'd agree with you, but I thought that it was pretty relevant to his character because Allen West is part of the Republican War on Women.

“We need you to come in and lock shields to strengthen up the men that will go into the fight for you. To let these other women know, on the other side, these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women who have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness, to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient.”

Now his own wife can't even negotiate what deviant sex acts he does to her body.

She can leave. That's a valid part of any negotiation.

[Woodruff]

the Republican War on Women.

Doesn't exist.

By the way, you should post the ad where Allen West received his deployment orders and was preparing his troops for that deployment on the same night his opponent was arrested for disorderly conduct in a bar.

Completely and utterly irrelevant.

[Juan_Bottom]

Almost 2,400 Millionaires Pocketed Unemployment Benefits

“Sending millionaires unemployment checks is a case study in out-of-control spending,” U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, said in an e-mail. “Providing welfare to the wealthy undermines the program for those who need it most while burdening future generations with senseless debt.”

[Juan_Bottom]

Michele Bachmann (R) Makes Surprise Visit To Synagogue, Congregants Storm Out And Donate To Her Opponent

I felt that the best way to ‘honor’ Ms. Bachmann’s visit was to make a contribution to your campaign. Even though I do not vote in Minnesota, please do everything in your power to take away this evil woman’s soapbox.

The Graves campaign told the Chicago Tribune that it experienced a 400 percent growth in donations from the Chicago area last week, although it’s unclear to what extent the Synagogue attendees are responsible for this.

lololololol

[john9blue]

you know juan, i agree with most of your criticisms against the republican party, but it's the fact that you think democrats are so much different that makes you a deluded fool IMO

you criticize millionaires for receiving welfare... and yet the democratic party supports the expansion of welfare. wut??

you just hate rich people. you realize that being rich usually means people greatly value your contributions to society, right?

[Juan_Bottom]

I haven't taken a position on millionaires receiving welfare!

[john9blue]

unemployment benefits are a type of welfare...