>> ^Barbar:

Dystopianfuturetoday:
I'm not looking to debate anything here, I'm just curious as to your reasoning for considering Hitchens as an (at least) one time neo-con. What information led you to this opinion? As it seems distinctly opposed to what I've read in his memoirs and other writings.


ill answer for ya @Barber
hitchens was all for the iraq war and went even as far as to say waterboarding was not only NOT torture but necessary.
in his defense he did step down from both those positions.it should also be noted that hitchens actually allowed himself to be waterboarded and immediately (and i do mean immediately) changed his position that waterboarding was most certainly torture.which to me was a tribute to this mans intelligence.a true believer would never change his ideology but the intelligent person,when confronted with incontrovertible evidence,will change.

one final note @Enzoblue
neo-conservatism was anything BUT conservative.the neo-conservative philosophy began in the 1940's by leon strauss from the university of chicago.the basic premise is to use america's military might to secure american interests globally.this small fringe group of intellectuals had very little influence until the late 70's when they co-opted the christian right for their cause.

and so began the conflation of the christian right and american nationalism in the form of the republican party.
oh the delicious irony.

so when you say "old school neoconservative" what you are really referring to is the time the neo-cons had minimal influence (still there though) rumsfeld and cheney being big players during the reagan administration.which of course was made possible by the christian rights entering the political sphere (up till then most churches stayed out of politics).these same players brought in their fellow neo-cons during the bush administration and that administration read like a who's-who of prominent neocons:rumsfeld,cheny,pearl,wolfowitz,amratige,addington,woo.the list is massive.
so it wasnt so much about a change in philosophy but rather this fringe group (catapulted by the naive christian right) as having come into their own in terms of power and influence.

and all i have to say to that merry bunch of fucks is: THANKS DICKHEADS.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism or judgement. No one is going to arrest you for what you say here, but when you engage in controversial speech, you should expect assessment.

I don't say these things to you for political gain. To be blunt, your commentary easily harms your cause more than it helps it. Your unique blend of childish language and unfocussed rage is not a threat. You are ignored, mocked and humbled in argument on a daily basis. Even when you do occasionally engage in lengthier analysis, it usually does not command much interest, support or respect. You do a fair job at keeping yourself marginalized without any help from me, so let's not pretend this is about keeping your politics down.

I'm not sure what you are getting at with disease and mental health. The gay people I know seem higher than average when it comes to mental health, and HIV effects both gay and straight, both women and men. I'm not sure what your point is. Do you think gay people should not be treated with respect or given equal rights because they are at higher risk of getting AIDS? Do you want to quarantine gay people? Sterilized? Do you want it mandated that they to go through life without romantic love because you don't approve? Or do you just want to be able to say you don't like homosexuality free from judgement? None of these is going to happen for you.

I disagree with your contention that conservatism is a one way street. I've seen many conservatives convert to the more liberal conservative libertarianism movement, shedding the prejudice, aggression, nationalism and repression that characterizes the social conservatism of the mainstream right. I see very few conservative libertarians take the next step to liberalism, so you might be right about going all the way, but there is certainly evidence to suggest that your brand of social conservatism dies a little more with each new generation.

Uh - no offense - but Frank Luntz is about as 'insider' as you can get. He is not a conservative. He is a GOP wonk. Putting it simply - he's one of those RINOs that real conservatives can't stand and who sells true conservatism down the river every chance he gets.

The GOP insiders want Romney. They want Romney because he is the person they have polled as being the most 'normal'. Above all else, the GOP insiders want someone bland, flavorless, and easy to swallow. They don't want the Sarah Palins, or the Herman Cains, or Ron Paul, or anyone else. They want vanilla, plain-jane, smart sounding, pretty for the camera, non-controversial candidates.

Romney would probably lose to Obama though. So why does the GOP want him? Quite simply, the GOP (as a political party) wants to keep the House, and win the Senate. And they think that Romney is the guy that would give them the best chance to do that. He is so inoffensive, that he would not really 'damage' the critical House/Senate races they want to win in 2012. And if the GOP keeps the House and wins the Senate then the GOP gets to head up all those committee chairmanships, get charge of all the appropriations, and basically run the show. They wouldn't care whether Obama was still President as long as they got to run the town. That is the perspective that Luntz is coming from. Any candidate that risks the GOP 'master plan' is seen as someone to beat down and toss off the overpass rolled up in a flaming carpet.

The normal voters don't give a flying handshake about OWS. OWS is a bunch of freaks, losers, and radicals who will have absolutely no impact on the presidential election whatsoever. But they have a remote chance of messing up a few House & Senate races... That's the only thing our dear Frank cares about.

>> ^packo:

>> ^marbles:
Let me get this straight. MoveOn.org, a lobby group for the Wall Street financed Obama administration that is funded by Wall Street billionaire and financial criminal George Soros, has a problem with political spending? That's rich, Ha.
Oh and the "tax the rich" plan MoveOn and other groups are trying to push are widely supported by Wall Street oligarchs. Why is that? Hmmm....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576504650
932556900.html
"Roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama’s plan aren’t millionaires, and 99.99% aren’t billionaires."
It is the middle class – not Warren Buffett or Wall Street corporations – who will be most hurt by the very policies the "tax the rich" crowd are calling for.

did you actually read that article? the only thing you got right is the 90% of tax filers wouldn't be millionaires... if you think the 99% is made of people making 200k+ / yr... you are living in a world where pigs fly and Nickelback rocks
and to defend the 200k+/yr statement against the fact that anyone with half a brain knows that the 99% make an avg wage/salary FAR FAR lower than that, the article defends itself by saying these "200 thousandnaires" might only make this level of pay for a few years of their life... wow! how will they ever get by when a few thousand is obviously so much more large a number to them than people making millions
woops, i guess cold hearted conservatism kinda blinds one to the ironic nature of the difference someone making 30-50k/yr might figure a few thousand is proportionally
cry, cry for the 200 thousandnaires... because the American Dream no longer works as a carrot on a stick when dealing with millions... while you may not be able to become a millionaire, you might be able to still become a 200 thousandnaire... so you better not mess with them
the irony that most won't become a 200 thousandnaire is probably lost on you as well
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html


Thanks for confirming what I've already said.

The "tax the rich" legislation is mostly a tax on the middle class and small business owners and NOT on millionaires and corporations.

By the way, it ignores the crux of the problem anyway. ie: Financial fraud and corruption.

>> ^marbles:

Let me get this straight. MoveOn.org, a lobby group for the Wall Street financed Obama administration that is funded by Wall Street billionaire and financial criminal George Soros, has a problem with political spending? That's rich, Ha.
Oh and the "tax the rich" plan MoveOn and other groups are trying to push are widely supported by Wall Street oligarchs. Why is that? Hmmm....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576504650
932556900.html
"Roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama’s plan aren’t millionaires, and 99.99% aren’t billionaires."
It is the middle class – not Warren Buffett or Wall Street corporations – who will be most hurt by the very policies the "tax the rich" crowd are calling for.


did you actually read that article? the only thing you got right is the 90% of tax filers wouldn't be millionaires... if you think the 99% is made of people making 200k+ / yr... you are living in a world where pigs fly and Nickelback rocks

and to defend the 200k+/yr statement against the fact that anyone with half a brain knows that the 99% make an avg wage/salary FAR FAR lower than that, the article defends itself by saying these "200 thousandnaires" might only make this level of pay for a few years of their life... wow! how will they ever get by when a few thousand is obviously so much more large a number to them than people making millions

woops, i guess cold hearted conservatism kinda blinds one to the ironic nature of the difference someone making 30-50k/yr might figure a few thousand is proportionally

cry, cry for the 200 thousandnaires... because the American Dream no longer works as a carrot on a stick when dealing with millions... while you may not be able to become a millionaire, you might be able to still become a 200 thousandnaire... so you better not mess with them

the irony that most won't become a 200 thousandnaire is probably lost on you as well

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

>> ^quantumushroom:

I take no pleasure in Britain quickening demise; anywhere socialism rises, freedom falls, that's how it always ends. Fortunately, neither my being a bot or you being a non-expert will make this explanation difficult:
People have unlimited wants and a supposed set of finite needs. When socialists attempt to satisfy basic needs (with other people's money) it works at first, until people realize they can satisfy more of their wants by relabeling them needs (or rights). Health care is a right. Daycare is a right. Living wage is a right, etc.
British "conservatism" is a far cry from American conservatism. Define it as, "Too little, too late".
Britain leads Europe in the proportion of single mothers and co-leads the European Union in violent crime, alcohol and drug abuse, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases. Yep, that must all be due to conservatism! Certainly the welfare state wouldn't destroy people's interest in helping themselves.


>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^csnel3:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Oh, where to begin?
There are probably dozens of these moments on the scorecard of every celebrity, great and small. I'll even give Obama a free pass for calling Hawaii "ASIA" during one of his many campaign stops taxpayer-funded vacations important meetings. Props to the libmedia who downplay His Earness's gaffes. His larger gaffes, like the economy, price of gasoline, failures as Commander-In-Chief, we'll leave to the few history books not written by leftards.
Referring to this BBC show: no one across the pond should be calling anyone here dumb. USA may be almost a police state, but Britain's been disarmed and defeated by socialism for decades. Bankrupt Eurounion. Smile for the 10,000,000 cameras, serfs.
Wales? Not enough to even register one who-gives-a-shit. Last time I heard of anything Welsh was a maintenance man killed by a werewolf in Stephen King's Silver Bullet.
Bush flew jets. You're a spoiled singer. Deal.
You're wearing me down QM. I actually agree with almost everything you just said. Will this cost me some power points or something?
Really though I dont respond well to criticisms from across the pond right now, I dont think they have our back, I'm not sure they have their own back.

Heh. I guess i better say something like "Welcome to the UK, bitch!" Nice insult. But don't get too in-depth with QM, i suspect he's actually just a cleverly programmed bot that repeats political catchphrases and buzzwords from fox news.
For example - margaret thatcher was in power up until 1990 and elected 11 years before that. So i think it's fairly safe to say that she was in charge of "Britain" 20 years ago. Margaret thatcher was not a socialist - she was incredibly critical of it, and her policies reflected that.
Many of Britain's big state owned companies/whatever were privatised, john major followed and was himself a thatcherite, followed by labour around the millennium who were more willing to adopt in-place conservative economic policies.
So it's relatively safe to say that britain has become significantly less socialist since 30 years ago and was well into that stride 20 years ago.
But of course, he's just a political catchphrase bot, that's why he said "Britain's been defeated by socialism since...", there's no meaning behind it.
I'm no expert on politics (which makes me immediately more qualified than QM), but i think one word you couldn't apply to margaret thatcher's britain is socialist.
We're IN a shit state because of thatcher. The Britain we all remember fondly? Amazing NHS, schools, industry, army, politeness, fairness? That's pre-80s britain, dude.



Then you have once more constructed a circular argument in which you win.

If socialism is in place, we are defeated by socialism.
If socialism is not in place, we are defeated by socialism?

You leave no criteria for the answer to be any different, as far as i can tell this argument leads to the idea that even if socialism didn't exist we'd be defeated by it.

I take no pleasure in Britain quickening demise; anywhere socialism rises, freedom falls, that's how it always ends. Fortunately, neither my being a bot or you being a non-expert will make this explanation difficult:

People have unlimited wants and a supposed set of finite needs. When socialists attempt to satisfy basic needs (with other people's money) it works at first, until people realize they can satisfy more of their wants by relabeling them needs (or rights). Health care is a right. Daycare is a right. Living wage is a right, etc.

British "conservatism" is a far cry from American conservatism. Define it as, "Too little, too late".

Britain leads Europe in the proportion of single mothers and co-leads the European Union in violent crime, alcohol and drug abuse, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases. Yep, that must all be due to conservatism! Certainly the welfare state wouldn't destroy people's interest in helping themselves.




>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^csnel3:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Oh, where to begin?
There are probably dozens of these moments on the scorecard of every celebrity, great and small. I'll even give Obama a free pass for calling Hawaii "ASIA" during one of his many campaign stops taxpayer-funded vacations important meetings. Props to the libmedia who downplay His Earness's gaffes. His larger gaffes, like the economy, price of gasoline, failures as Commander-In-Chief, we'll leave to the few history books not written by leftards.
Referring to this BBC show: no one across the pond should be calling anyone here dumb. USA may be almost a police state, but Britain's been disarmed and defeated by socialism for decades. Bankrupt Eurounion. Smile for the 10,000,000 cameras, serfs.
Wales? Not enough to even register one who-gives-a-shit. Last time I heard of anything Welsh was a maintenance man killed by a werewolf in Stephen King's Silver Bullet.
Bush flew jets. You're a spoiled singer. Deal.
You're wearing me down QM. I actually agree with almost everything you just said. Will this cost me some power points or something?
Really though I dont respond well to criticisms from across the pond right now, I dont think they have our back, I'm not sure they have their own back.

Heh. I guess i better say something like "Welcome to the UK, bitch!" Nice insult. But don't get too in-depth with QM, i suspect he's actually just a cleverly programmed bot that repeats political catchphrases and buzzwords from fox news.
For example - margaret thatcher was in power up until 1990 and elected 11 years before that. So i think it's fairly safe to say that she was in charge of "Britain" 20 years ago. Margaret thatcher was not a socialist - she was incredibly critical of it, and her policies reflected that.
Many of Britain's big state owned companies/whatever were privatised, john major followed and was himself a thatcherite, followed by labour around the millennium who were more willing to adopt in-place conservative economic policies.
So it's relatively safe to say that britain has become significantly less socialist since 30 years ago and was well into that stride 20 years ago.
But of course, he's just a political catchphrase bot, that's why he said "Britain's been defeated by socialism since...", there's no meaning behind it.
I'm no expert on politics (which makes me immediately more qualified than QM), but i think one word you couldn't apply to margaret thatcher's britain is socialist.
We're IN a shit state because of thatcher. The Britain we all remember fondly? Amazing NHS, schools, industry, army, politeness, fairness? That's pre-80s britain, dude.

Better read again, because the articles do discuss equivalent jobs. But – because I anticipate (and compensate) for your laziness in advance…

http://blog.american.com/2011/07/the-value-of-public-sector-job-security/
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/19/group-says-ill-state-workers-paid-more-than-private-sector-peers/
http://www.dispatch.com/content/downloads/2011/09/BRT-Public-Sector-Comp-Study.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-01-1Apublicworkers01_ST_N.htm
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-10-05/news/fl-jscol-pensions-salaries-public-smith-1005-20111005_1_private-sector-government-workers-salaries
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/cj30n1-5.pdf

I implore that just once you attempt to penetrate the callus of propaganda that buries your free-thought. Public workers are not underpaid. They are – in fact – paid notably more than private sector equivalents.

The thing that really amazes me about your fight to screw people out of their promised wages

So the public should have to pay for the bad deals made in bad faith by unelected union scalps collaborating with politicians behind closed doors to arrange unrealistic benefits packages in exchange for power, labor dues, and votes? Nope. Not buying it. The public had no say in these deals, and therefore the public has no obligation to pick up the tab when those lousy deals made by crooks go belly up. Public workers should get mad at thier union mafiosos and the lefties that connive with them - not the private-sector citizens who had nothing to do with it.

77 Billion dollars?

That’s just for federal employees. It deals in no way with the many other areas where the Federal government vastly overspends – defense included.

77 Billion dollars is what you're saying is going to bring this country to it's knees? That's your "silver plated budget?" What a crock

The 77 billion is just one example out of literally thousands of areas where government overspending is indeed bringing the country to its knees. But – I never said that alone was the reason for the federal government’s budget failures. On the federal level the blame lies almost entirely on entitlement spending – of which federal employees are a significant portion but certainly not all. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the primary offenders there. However, you are ignoring the Illinois example. Illinois’ budget woes are almost entirely due to paying its employee burden of wages, benefits, retirement, and health care. They offer gold plated packages, but don’t have two pennies to rub together.

As an American, you should be ashamed of yourself

Back atcha, Clyde. A real American wouldn't have anything to do with the commie BS crap you are cheerleading. The fault of everything you’re whining about lies at the feet of the liberals who ran these unions and governments into the ground. And you have the temerity, audacity, and gall to complain about grown-ups and other good folks that have to come in and clean up the filthy mess made by your philosophies? Leftists deserve to be pilloried, tarred and feathered, and then run out of the country on a rail for their bullcrap policies because it is leftists that have ruined these people’s lives. It is leftists who end up crushing the ‘little people’ all in the name of big government socialist policies. Leftists do more to squash human dignity and push more people into poverty, ruin, and oppression than any other philosophy in history. For leftists to gripe about conservatives who have to fix stupid liberal screw-ups in order to save the system from collapse is pretty rich. What's your solution? Oh yeah - tax and spend. The same level of stupid that got us here in the first place. The solution is conservatism which means cutting back - and yes that means on stupid contracts made with evil unions that put unrealistic burdens on the private sector.

>> ^packo:
because things like religion, abortion, immigration... while important to people, aren't important to politicians who use them as "look over here, don't look there" tactics...
they don't want you to focus on how they are blatantly working against the average American citizen's economic interest for their corporate and financial masters
they want you to fight over issues they themselves deem unimportant while feigning concern
they'll use semantics to confuse issues rather than take action
they'll wrap themselves in the flag, all the while ushering in fascism for their own short term social/economic benefit
these people aren't patriots, they are committing treason, and should be hounded through the streets until they can no longer run due to exhaustion; then made public examples of
public servants? the only people they are servicing are themselves
these aren't the departments of this or that I'm talking about... I'm talking directly about the people elected by the citizenry to represent them
they're selling your future, and the future of your children... for the right to suckle at the tit of your new corporate and banking masters


I agree with a lot of what you're saying here but you also make a lot of common mistakes.

first of all, the "important issues" that "matter to people" that powerful people cloak themselves in. Things like abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, terrorism...are wholey fabricated by those same politicians. They're not just using these issues to disctract you, they're creating these issues and convincing you that you care about them to polarize you against fellow Americans. Obama's gonna "tik ur guuuuns" right? Because liberals don't like guns? Bullshit. Of course there are liberals that don't believe in guns, but liberals on the whole split about evenly with the rest of America on the issue. It's a fabricated issue.

Why aren't teapartiers supportingthe OWS movement? Isn't the movement founded on the same frustration that got all those conservatives to load up on the Fox news busses? Oh wait! It's because OWS is against Wallstreet and Teapartiers are against Government! Bullshit. The citizens of America, in the course of serving their own corporate masters have been manipulated once again.

You give politicians too much credit. There is not vast conspiracy to sell out to corporations. Politicians are merely narcisists who are taken by the delusion that their own ideas are important enough to matter to the country. or their narcisists who believe they're own unique personal attributes make them qualified to lead other people. They're not driven a plan to sell out to corporations, they're driven by massive egos. And this is what makes them susecptible to corporations. Big money finds ytheir flaws and draws them out. Politicians succumb to whatever weekness drives them, money, power, sex altruism...big money can give you anything you want.

This is not a problem with liberalism, conservatism, politicians, corporations...this is an issue of human nature. How do you fix that?

If you figure out a way, please let the rest of us know. In the mean time, stop getting sucked into the argument that your corporate masters have duped you into. They know what drives you, they know your weaknesses...and they're playing you against your fellow americans the same way they play politicians against themselves.

@dystopianfuturetoday

Yeah, I'm sure most libertarians aren't high-IQ types, but I can't think of a strong counter-argument against the statement about averages. I think the argument for it is:

1. Libertarianism is described by advocates as contributing to the world through successful individualism in an economic meritocracy, whereas liberalism and conservatism are described by advocates as contributing to the world through collectivist goals and social tastes.

2. Liberalism and conservatism both have strong below average IQ segments. Among conservatives, it's in the form of hillbillies and the religious, and among liberals, it's in the form of educational achievement gaps among non-Asian minorities (with Asian minorities and Jewish minorities scoring above European-descended groups). I can't think of any below average IQ segment within libertarianism.


Personally, I haven't read much Milton Friedman, but the people I've been exposed to who seem to me to be the smartest people alive - Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, and Steven Pinker - are all libertarian.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS096098
2211002892.pdf?intermediate=true
28 sample size? Give me a break. Though, I do find this interesting, this study seems to be lacking a bit. Also, what is the criteria for conservative and liberal? I consider myself a classical liberal, what does that mean for this study?


There were actually 90 people in the original test group (61% female). The group of 28 was an independent sample to verify the original findings afterward.

As far as the liberal vs conservative labeling, it was a simple 5-point scale between "very liberal" and "very conservative" as reported by the participants.

I suppose it would have been more accurate to say that they were correlating brain attributes to self-identified ideological leanings. I don't think it had anything to do with a participant's opinion on any particular issue or situation.


Edit: A few more random details. All participants were students at UCL (London), and none of them chose "very conservative" on their questionnaire.

Given the sample size and the population from which it came, this study was obviously not intended to conclusively establish anything. The results are interesting, but that's about it.

The only real problem I have with the study is the false dichotomy between liberalism and conservatism. Those labels mean different things in different regions, and they are certainly not the only options. I'd love to see a larger study with a more developed classification system, but I'm not sure that it would prove anything meaningful.

>> ^mxxcon:

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Rep. Steve Chabot Criticized By Tea Party Activists For Seizing Cameras From Democrats At Town Halls
Surprised HuffPo would report anything positive about the Tea Party.

The article pointed out an instance of Tea Party members agreeing with Progressives on a liberty issue, which doesn't really sound out of character.
I'd be more surprised to see any republicans defending the confiscation. Hopefully Progressives would be equally critical of any Democrat who would do something similar.
Hey Glenn Beck puppet, do you even understand the meaning of the word "progressive", how it's applied to political believes and the difference between "progressives" and Democrats? Based on your reply above, doesn't look like it. Keep on watching Fox News!


The article specifically references Progressives (ideology) being upset about the actions of a Republican (political party) Congressman and how members of the Tea Party agree. (I tend to share that opinion)

I stated that I'd be surprised to see any Republicans (political party) defending (or even repeating) the same behavior, which was a tacit reference to ideals of personal liberty within Conservatism (ideology).

I then said that hopefully Progressives (ideology) would be equally upset about similar actions from a Democrat (political party), many of whom claim to be Progressives (ideology).

Is there a specific part of that you disagree with? I apologize if Glenn Beck has said something similar... I don't follow any of his shows.

Agreed, It's extremely frustrating knowing that I agree with him in matters of foreign policy and getting out of the drug war and out of people's bedrooms, but he's a complete nutbag when it comes to other things like economic policy. He's a perfect example of how you simply can't apply one political philosophy (liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, etc) to all situations. Not all situations are equal. some things are served better by liberalism, some things are better served by conservatism, etc. You can't apply one formula to all things.

I agree completely with ChaosEngine, it has been demonstrated time and time again that you simply cannot trust a business to do the right thing when profit motive is involved. Yes, public retaliation plays a role, but the bigger a company is, the harder it is retaliate because it requires more and more dissatisfied customers to put a big enough dent in profits to motivate them to change.

I don't recall who said it, but Capitalism is an awesome engine for progress and innovation, but it's a shitty way to run a just and fair society. Forget separation of church and state..we need separation of profit and ethics

>> ^garmachi:

Ron Paul is dangerous. But in a good way.


That's not danger, that's true Conservatism.

@dystopianfuturetoday, are these news outlets also part of the big corporations you claim "inform my politics"? Looks like the corporations don't much care for Libertarianism even when mixed with a folksy dose of Conservatism. They do love them some status quo like Romney, Bachmann and, oh yeah, even Obama gets his day in the sun.

In case you're foggy what I mean, let me cite that for you.