>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
So when a news outlet is actually 'fair and balanced’ your radical-left blinders force you to see it as being ‘right wing neocon'.

Is that perhaps the same "fair and balanced" news organization with hosts who routinely compare Obama to Nazis and Stalinists? The same news station that still says Obama hasn't released any birth records and criticizes his actions when he repeats something they praised a conservative for doing?

Just curious if that's the news source you're trusting, because it would certainly explain many of your political positions.

There's just no place to start with someone as blatantly dishonest as you

Well with a rational argument like that, you’re fully qualified to be a journalist for the Washington Post. Send in your application today while it still exists.

Hollywood, CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, the NYT, AP, and PBS are not liberal bastions. They only appear to be to you because your viewpoints are so hopelessly skewed to the right of the scale.

A person such as yourself looks at the vast swathe of center/left to hard/left media and thinks, “nothing wrong here…” From this radical position, any news story that doesn’t hew to a leftist ideology offends you. So when a news outlet is actually 'fair and balanced’ your radical-left blinders force you to see it as being ‘right wing neocon'. You say the media isn’t liberal. Facts dismiss your opinion as incorrect and confirm my statements as accurate.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

using another unrepresentative quote?

Unrepresentative? No. Totally representative. And know what? IMMA DOIN' IT AGAIN!

You said “I’m sure there’ll be sufficient oversight” and then made a few unsupported opinions related to this naïve assumption. There is no need to triple down in the repetition. It was a bunch of non-factual opinions based assumptions which deny reality and precedent. Every specious opinion about “sufficient oversight” was also made regarding the tobacco settlement. The bulk of that never reached the ‘victims’. Same for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, and even the vaunted 9/11 Victim's Fund can't account for hundreds of millions of lost dollars. This'll be no different.

Apparently it won't be controlled by the government either, and both BP and Obama are saying "[t]his fund does not supersede either individuals' rights or states' rights to present claims in court."

1. Putting the fund under his pay czar is putting it ‘under the government’. 2. You can’t trust anything Obama says as far as you could throw a tar-soaked dolphin. 3. !I! was the one that said people can sue anyway. That’s the point. If people can sue, then let them go to the courts. That’s where this belongs. We shouldn't get into the BAD habit of creating government slush funds for every event that comes down the pike. That will just repeat the "failed policies of the past".

Oh - and just so you know - I won't get my knickers in a knot if you just use 'pull quotes' from my massive texts. That's common practice for brevity - nothing sinister. It would be a truly silly goofball who would take umbrage to that...

@thinker247, he's not his father. The only thing that Ron Paul agrees with that puts him at odds with Libertarians is his belief in protecting our borders (which is a euphemism for keeping immigrants out). Rand Paul, however, believes in a strong 'neocon-type' national defense, closed borders, and (according to this video) he's for the death penalty.

The only fail here is a failure in BansheeX's sarcasm detector. It's really sad that you cannot tell I was being facetious. You're wasting your time.

Oh and even in jest I didn't say TPers and Libertarians were the same thing. Get your eyes checked (maybe your brain as well while you're at it).

>> ^BansheeX:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
If they're going to deregulate then they should just scrub all the fraud laws. Hell why stop at economic relationships, why not de-regulate interpersonal relations too? Murder, rape, et al. Get big government out of my mass grave! Nosy bureaucrats, poking their noses into every little murder.
C'mon Libertarians, isn't that what you want? Don't Tea Partiers want the freedom to shoot illegal immigrants, suspected illegal immigrants (ie brown people) and (on a slow day) a few legal immigrants too?

There is so much fail in this post, I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the tea parties were started by libertarians but have since been hijacked by typical party-line neocons. Only a fraction of people there are libertarians.
Second, fraud is illegal and has been for a long time. Misrepresenting a product is fraud, which is exactly what Goldman did. You seem to think libertarians are anarchists who don't want contract laws to penalize fraud and other laws to penalize coercive behavior like murder. You are incorrect, sir.
Concerning regulations, the problem is quite simple:
If the government insures commercial bank deposits, the risk of losing one's deposit is offloaded onto holder's of dollars (mainly foreign central banks now) not involved in the transaction. With depositors having no skin in the game, banks wanting to make risky investments are more easily able to obtain deposits with which to speculate. To prevent that from happening, the banks have to be restricted on what they can do with deposits when they take FDIC.
Glass-Steagall was a 1933 Roosevelt bill that provided FDIC with restrictions. Clinton and most politicians from both parties were heavily lobbied by banks to keep the FDIC but remove the restrictions, and that's exactly what they did with the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999". No longer restricted from doing investment banking and unfearful of losing customers on deposit safety concerns, the inevitable happened.
Libertarians want FDIC eliminated because offloading risk onto other parties changes human behavior. Greed is normally offset by the fear of loss. When you eliminate the fear, all that's left is the greed and shit happens. We only support Glass-Steagall on the condition that we can't get rid of FDIC. Understanding now? Good, only 97% of the population left to go.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

If they're going to deregulate then they should just scrub all the fraud laws. Hell why stop at economic relationships, why not de-regulate interpersonal relations too? Murder, rape, et al. Get big government out of my mass grave! Nosy bureaucrats, poking their noses into every little murder.
C'mon Libertarians, isn't that what you want? Don't Tea Partiers want the freedom to shoot illegal immigrants, suspected illegal immigrants (ie brown people) and (on a slow day) a few legal immigrants too?


There is so much fail in this post, I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the tea parties were started by libertarians but have since been hijacked by typical party-line neocons. Only a fraction of people there are libertarians.

Second, fraud is illegal and has been for a long time. Misrepresenting a product is fraud, which is exactly what Goldman did. You seem to think libertarians are anarchists who don't want contract laws to penalize fraud and other laws to penalize coercive behavior like murder. You are incorrect, sir.

Concerning regulations, the problem is quite simple:

If the government insures commercial bank deposits, the risk of losing one's deposit is offloaded onto holder's of dollars (mainly foreign central banks now) not involved in the transaction. With depositors having no skin in the game, banks wanting to make risky investments are more easily able to obtain deposits with which to speculate. To prevent that from happening, the banks have to be restricted on what they can do with deposits when they take FDIC.

Glass-Steagall was a 1933 Roosevelt bill that provided FDIC with restrictions. Clinton and most politicians from both parties were heavily lobbied by banks to keep the FDIC but remove the restrictions, and that's exactly what they did with the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999". No longer restricted from doing investment banking and unfearful of losing customers on deposit safety concerns, rampant speculation ensued.

Libertarians want FDIC eliminated because offloading risk onto other parties changes human behavior. Greed is normally offset by the fear of loss. When you eliminate the fear, all that's left is the greed and shit happens. We only support Glass-Steagall on the condition that we can't get rid of both FDIC and interest rate price fixing. Understanding now? Good, only 97% of the population left to go.

Obama is no marxist. His policies are centrist liberal. Yes, he cut some taxes but they are not enough.

Furthermore, let's not forget the policies of Reagan were an antidote to the high inflation caused by the military Keynesianism/supposed golden era of Liberalism of the post war boom period (1945-67). Unions were too strong and corrupt, durable and nondurable good consumption started falling in the late 60's, the emergence of OPEC, the expansion of the communist menace leading us into Vietnam, various conflicts to combat Marxist-Leninist-Maonist armed resistence groups taking power under political party fronts and an arms race with the Soviets and off the gold standard...While Europe had their social welfare experiment, we were busy policing the globe.

After the Volcker shock of 1979 (boosted IR to 20%) this lead to the financialization of the economy and the move away from manufacturing. All of this happened under the Carter Administration. Realizing the golden era of liberalism was untenable it brought the inevitable Reagan to prominence whose new regime (following the prescription of Milton Freidman and others was to allow consumers and the market to decide and to decrease the centralized control of government) - as denationalization of the public sector was the only way to create more opportunities and jobs. Cheap credit was not only championed by Wall Street as an antitode to problems, but was also championed by Democrats.

Democrats were almost completely unelectable in the White House until Bill Clinton and his administration (was Republican lite in essence as enacting Welfare Reform and setting the infrastructure for the War in Iraq and following the financial privitization schemes of the Chicago School, the FED fueled dotcom and mortgage bubble which created the much ballyhooed and fictitiuous Clinton surplus) is the reason for the financial deregulation in the late 90's (Clinton is now distancing himself from Rubin and Summers regading derivatives). The Neoconservatives and Democrats have much in common - as they both believe in crazy spending. Neocons through military (some of which does create nascent industries of the future), and Democrats who spend on any frivoulous social programs that work to break states and keep their politicos electable. Where is the incentive to become a producer in this country? If you are not paying high taxes you are competing against government subsidized monopolies (stop whining for more jobs when you overregulate ad penalize big corporations for doing what they need to do to make profits). The Democrats kill the ability to start a small to medium sized business thus making it more attractive to join big firms - that everyone continues to attack - sending them racing abroad.

And last time I checked the "real left" - which Obama distances himself from for good reason - is too busy scratching their heads ain petty sectarianism about how all of their wonderfully utopian ideas caused over 70 years of dreary totalitarianism. Seems the working class in the US now wants nothing to do with them. They want Palin. While you upper middle class liberals eat organic, sip latte's, do your hipster environmental thing and make fun of these people - they are forming the next grassroots that will be a vital contituency to covet.

These people may not be smart - but know that Obama is untrustworthy if he thinks the Federal Government can spend its way out of this mess, not understanding that for every 1/2 cent we have saved we still owe 2 dollars and that if we start increasing our deficits to create new jobs, the Chinese will sell off their currency reserves which are in dollars and then...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm getting sick of the "chosen one" polarizing hyperbole bullshit. My eye rolls are wearing out. He's not the chosen one- but seems to be a pretty good president. Though this particular "press availability" is hokey and fakey as all get-out.

I'm starting to hear "chosen one" and "arrogant" as the redneck dog whistle that it is. For the Neocon Southerner- these two terms are heard as "uppity".

>> ^dannym3141:

Must be some serious fascist downvoting blank's comments there. I've restored the balance.
Maybe it's some sort of washington siftspy. HE'S QUESTIONING THE MOTIVES OF THE CHOSEN ONE. DO NOT QUESTION BUT BLINDLY FOLLOW THE MAN WHO HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED WITH EVERYONE'S MONEY AND SAFETY! DISCREDIT HIM QUICKLY LEST HE TURN SHEEP INTO PEOPLE!

Corporations fund the think tanks that tell you what to think. Are you a fan of Cato or Reason magazine? They are funded by the likes of Koch and Mellon Scaife, the same folks who fund all the hard right and neo-con think tanks. I take you at your word that your belief system is different from the corporatists, and I respect that, but regardless, you are still being led down a path by people who don't give a shit about these ideals; people who build up your ego by telling you that you are different, that you are special, that you have wisely risen above the two party nattering, but only on the condition that you obediently do as they say. What do you think will happen once you get your tiny government and deregulated markets? Utopia?

Conflating 'free market' capitalism with liberty is naive. The two are unrelated.

>> ^BansheeX:

God, this site just has the same uneducated people spewing socialist nonsense and even going so far as to smear mostly agreeable libertarians like Friedman. The Shock Doctrine is complete poop, there is no other way to say it. Anyone who recommends that book has probably read absolutely nothing from any libertarian ever. Here's a crash course on how utterly illogical and distorted that book is:
http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman/2
GeeSussFreeK: People whom desire power to rule over others are usually of the type that are corruptible; even Obama is a professed pragmatist (as opposed to an idealist). It isn't a new problem either.

Looks like someone is dangerously close to understanding the best political system. We're not supposed to be a democracy, because there are some things that no one should be able to vote on. 99 people shouldn't be able to vote away 1 guy's property because they don't like him. That basic truth gives way to the realization that we need to be ruled in some form by a benevolent dictator that can't easily be corrupted. That is the idea behind a republic: the constitution is nothing more than a paper dictator. Our dictators were highly intelligent people for their time, battled tyranny, and debated lengthily about how much power the Federal government should have over the states. Read the Federalist Papers, sometime. I don't think our schools bother to assign it anymore. People and judges still have to obey the paper dictator, however, and it's largely been subverted over time because it isn't clear enough in places. You can spend years studying how and why and dream of a replacement knowing what we know today. That most of the people on this forum still don't understand anything I've said in this paragraph is just flipping amazing. I would pay money to watch Friedman's zombie corpse debate the likes of anyone on this forum, because you're clearly not even 1% as capable of rational thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk
It's fucking scary how people on this forum associate neocons and libertarians. Modern day liberals and neocons are practically the same, it's the libertarians who are different. It's the libertarians who are saying "no, we don't think corporations should influence elections, but it's THIS unconstitutional power being exercised that's enabling that kind of influence." We understand that the market largely self-regulates because greed is offset by fear of loss. But when the government tries to eliminate fear by bailing out failed management with money appropriated from healthy businesses, insuring deposits on every bank, price fixing interest rates, and guaranteeing loans, rampant fraud and speculation ensues. DUH. Certain groups are always trying to offload their risk to someone else through the government, including debt to a future generation that hasn't been born yet. DISABLE IT ALREADY. FUCK. Politicians aren't efficient with money because they have no fear of losing what they didn't have to work to obtain. Again, DUH.

>> ^BansheeX:

God, this site just has the same uneducated people spewing socialist nonsense and even going so far as to smear mostly agreeable libertarians like Friedman. The Shock Doctrine is complete poop, there is no other way to say it. Anyone who recommends that book has probably read absolutely nothing from any libertarian ever. Here's a crash course on how utterly illogical and distorted that book is:
http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman/2
GeeSussFreeK: People whom desire power to rule over others are usually of the type that are corruptible; even Obama is a professed pragmatist (as opposed to an idealist). It isn't a new problem either.
Looks like someone is dangerously close to understanding the best political system. We're not supposed to be a democracy, because there are some things that no one should be able to vote on. 99 people shouldn't be able to vote away 1 guy's property because they don't like him. That basic truth gives way to the realization that we need to be ruled in some form by a benevolent dictator that can't easily be corrupted. That is the idea behind a republic: the constitution is nothing more than a paper dictator. Our dictators were highly intelligent people for their time, battled tyranny, and debated lengthily about how much power the Federal government should have over the states. Read the Federalist Papers, sometime. I don't think our schools bother to assign it anymore. People and judges still have to obey the paper dictator, however, and it's largely been subverted over time because it isn't clear enough in places. You can spend years studying how and why and dream of a replacement knowing what we know today. That most of the people on this forum still don't understand anything I've said in this paragraph is just flipping amazing. I would pay money to watch Friedman's zombie corpse debate the likes of anyone on this forum, because you're clearly not even 1% as capable of rational thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk
It's fucking scary how people on this forum associate neocons and libertarians. Modern day liberals and neocons are practically the same, it's the libertarians who are different. It's the libertarians who are saying "no, we don't think corporations should influence elections, but it's THIS unconstitutional power being exercised that's enabling that kind of influence." We understand that the market largely self-regulates because greed is offset by fear of loss. But when the government tries to eliminate fear by bailing out failed management with money appropriated from healthy businesses, insuring deposits on every bank, price fixing interest rates, and guaranteeing loans, rampant fraud and speculation ensues. DUH. Certain groups are always trying to offload their risk to someone else through the government, including debt to a future generation that hasn't been born yet. DISABLE IT ALREADY. FUCK. Politicians aren't efficient with money because they have no fear of losing what they didn't have to work to obtain. Again, DUH.


ya know.
you made some great points too bad they got buried under your presumption and seeming bitterness.
word of advice:
if you wish people to take you seriously and consider any points you may make try to avoid calling people names before you begin your rant.
so you read the federalist papers,what do you want? a cookie?a pat on the back? a young polynesian prostitute?
so you are a libertarian and evidenced by your post you feel you have enough credible information to back up why.
are you going for the cookie again?
have you even considered that political ideology may..just MAY..be a very diverse substrate and that many with differing views can ALSO back up why they feel the way they do and can do it just as succinctly and competently as YOU did?
come on man!
you act like you are the only one who ever read a book,watched a lecture and came to a conclusion,everybody else is just retarded.
we have pretty simple rules here on the sift:
DON'T BE A WANKER.

God, this site just has the same uneducated people spewing socialist nonsense and even going so far as to smear mostly agreeable libertarians like Friedman. The Shock Doctrine is complete poop, there is no other way to say it. Anyone who recommends that book has probably read absolutely nothing from any libertarian ever. Here's a crash course on how utterly illogical and distorted that book is:

http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman/

GeeSussFreeK: People whom desire power to rule over others are usually of the type that are corruptible; even Obama is a professed pragmatist (as opposed to an idealist). It isn't a new problem either.



Looks like someone is dangerously close to understanding the best political system. We're not supposed to be a democracy, because there are some things that no one should be able to vote on. 99 people shouldn't be able to vote away 1 guy's property because they don't like him. That basic truth gives way to the realization that we need to be ruled in some form by a benevolent dictator that can't easily be corrupted. That is the idea behind a republic: the constitution is nothing more than a paper dictator. Our dictators were highly intelligent people for their time, battled tyranny, and debated lengthily about how much power the Federal government should have over the states. Read the Federalist Papers, sometime. I don't think our schools bother to assign it anymore. People and judges still have to obey the paper dictator, however, and it's largely been subverted over time because it isn't clear enough in places. You can spend years studying how and why and dream of a replacement knowing what we know today. That most of the people on this forum still don't understand anything I've said in this paragraph is just flipping amazing. I would pay money to watch Friedman's zombie corpse debate the likes of anyone on this forum, because you're clearly not even 1% as capable of rational thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk

It's fucking scary how people on this forum associate neocons and libertarians. Modern day liberals and neocons are practically the same, it's the libertarians who are different. It's the libertarians who are saying "no, we don't think corporations should influence elections, but it's THIS unconstitutional power being exercised that's enabling that kind of influence." We understand that the market largely self-regulates because greed is offset by fear of loss. But when the government tries to eliminate fear by bailing out failed management with money appropriated from healthy businesses, insuring deposits on every bank, price fixing interest rates, and guaranteeing loans, rampant fraud and speculation ensues. DUH. Certain groups are always trying to offload their risk to someone else through the government, including debt to a future generation that hasn't been born yet. DISABLE IT ALREADY. FUCK. Politicians aren't efficient with money because they have no fear of losing what they didn't have to work to obtain. Again, DUH.

How can people rationally discuss the ideas of a Kenyan Nazi Socialist?

How can people rationally discuss the agenda of a stupid, bible-thumping, drunken, chicken-hawk, racist sexist homophobe neocon? From Reagan to Bush to Palin - those are the lables the left applies. Conservative politicians are not engaged on the merits of policy. They are attacked with ad hominems.

Barak Obama does not discuss conservative policy. He dismisses it blythely and pretends he didn't hear it. Like when the Republicans took him to the woodshed just before the health care vote. They cleaned his clock. They beat him like a rug with his own bill. But he ignored every conservative point and said crap like "that's just a prop..." and proceeded to parade sob stories as if they justify his position.

When it comes to policy the GOP has been more than willing to talk substance. The blogosphere and talk radio are not so egalitarian, but they bring up many facts that go otherwise unreported by the left leaning news media. They all certainly are given to fits of exaggeration and rhetoical hyperbole - but since when was that uncommon in politics? But now all of a sudden "oooo - it's mean spirited". Bullcrap. The left ate, drank, breathed and slept in mean spiritedness for 8 years and now they're all offended by it? The public isn't buying it because they aren't that stupid. The left's crocodile tears ring hollow because it's just rhetoric. The right whined about it during Bush, and this is nothing more than the cycle of life in the political world.

A more apt question might be, "Why do so many Democrats discuss polls from Media Matters as if they had credibility?"

To be frank about this - why lie when the truth is better? Back in the 00s, Democrats created a whole bunch of talking points about Bush, Rove & their agenda items. Horror stories of the military industrial complex, deficits, debt, neocons, and such were easy to sell to the left because there was some truth to it. Bush did hike military spending, increase the deficit, run up debt, and philosophically tilted towards pro-Israel foreign policy. There was meat on the Democrat propoganda bones. Like all demagogues, there was ridiculousness mixed in - but the core wasn't all that off the mark.

"Lies about Obama..." So far they aren't so much lies as they are very slight exaggerations. The GOP says Obama is socialist, is running up unsupportable debt, is taking over key industries, wants single-payer health care, energy taxes, illegal amnesty, and so on. So far I'm not seeing anything that disproves those as 'lies' any more than Democrats were 'lying' about Bush.

As far as I can tell, what the GOP is saying about Obama's agenda is just about spot on. The icky health care bill is indeed designed to wipe out private insurance and redistribute wealth while not saving money at all. Obama is warming up to hit the entire US with pointless energy taxes next. He's already leaking talking points for illegal amnesty. He's already 'bailed out' big labor pension plans using the TARP money, and is looking like he's out to use more funds to bail out other labor goons including the Teacher's union & state pensions. The CBO just released a projection that by 2020, 90% of the entire nation's GDP will be needed to meet government obligations. Please explain how the GOP is wrong in their analysis of Barak Obama as a radical leftist, socialist, big government tax & $pender who is well on the way to ruining the economy.

I did read it. I guess I was looking for some intellectual honesty instead of partisan bullying.

If you don't buy a compulsory policy, then you have to pay a fine. That fine goes to the government. As I understand it, it's 2.5% of your income.

Maybe you should read more of your "progressive" sites: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/fact-sheet-the-truth-about-the-health-care-bill/

They even oppose the bill instead of being apologetic like you. Maybe they see how this will be another black eye against the progressive movement. Sometimes, nr, I think you're a neocon troll sent to disrupt the order of the progressive left.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'tds, jon stewart, glenn beck, js, conservative, libertarian, bert, neocon' to 'tds, jon stewart, glenn beck, js, conservative, libertarian, bert, neocon, impression' - edited by jwray

>> ^blankfist:
Damn impressive. OF course I wish Beck would stop associating himself with libertarians. His stance on immigration and war make him a neocon.


QFT, Blanky. Fox News has been using that as essentially a bait and switch tactic. It's getting to the point where what it means to be a libertarian is becoming more and more diluted.