Any way you look at it this country is screwed. Take a look at this:
http://www.taxrates.cc/html/us-tax-rates.html
So our tax rates are at 35% for Corporate and income tax. These are some of the highest in the world. But then look at this:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/are-taxes-in-the-u-s-high-or-low/
When compared against our GDP our national tax income plummets to an 18.2% average

So this means 2 things to me -
1) Loopholes in the current tax system allow corporations to avoid paying their fair share (AKA: GE and Obama appointee Jeffrey Immelt, numerous oil corporations and any company that can afford a slew of accountants)
2) The middle class is getting screwed. Not able to afford a slew of tax accountants they are forced to run off to H&R block to file complicated tax forms they don't understand and miss out on the various savings the rich get. All while the lower income group pays little or no tax and may even get money back beyond that which they paid.

This lead me to the conclusion that the government doesn't need to increase taxes, just like they don't need to make more laws. They need to enforce what they've got, or simplify the tax code to a very basic flat tax that is free from exemptions and incentives.
Since our current administration, congress and senate aren't going to make that happen - I heartily promote Yogi's slash and burn strategy.

>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^VoodooV:
The sooner we abolish parties, the better. Party politics is what got us here.

How exactly would you do that?
You'd pretty much have to take away people's right to freely assemble, or forbid politicians from saying what they think about the issues before they're elected...

Uhh...no, not quite taking it that far. Not interested in slashing the Bill of Rights. There will always be unofficial groups and coalitions and there will be nothing you can do to stop that, nor should you. But what we can do is just refuse to recognize people as Reps or Dems, we can abolish any sort of official backing. Disband the RNC and the DNC. Simply refuse to give it legitimacy. When the state of the union happens, refuse to give a "opposition party rebuttal" At the very least! abolish this whole "reps sit on one side of the aisle, dems sit on the other side" nonsense. There is nothing wrong with people getting together, but the gov't doesn't have to recognize it and give it legitimacy so that the party eclipses the person as it is now.
The founders were definitely wary of parties and rightfully so. I don't see any problem with a concerted effort to at the VERY LEAST, discourage parties. We're seeing first hand the damage that can be done when party comes before country.
That and make all elections publicly funded..period. You'd see some drastic changes for the better


I guess my point is you're not being realistic about the dynamic at work. What's that going to cure? Are blankfist and I going to accidentally start voting for the same candidates? Probably not. Will liberals and conservatives generally refuse to organize into voting blocs to maximize their influence? Definitely not.

More to the point, what mechanism would prevent unofficial voting blocs from forming in the House and Senate? Once they form, are we really making things better by forcing them to pretend they don't exist? By refusing to let people come up with some shorthand word for them like Democrat or Republican (or Green, Monster Raving Looney, etc.)? By refusing to give TV air time to someone who wants to rebut the President?

It'd be a bit like trying to ban "alliances" in the game of Survivor. You'd have to intervene in almost every conversation to successfully do it, and even then people will still constantly be trying to do it under the radar, because the advantages are just too great. And that's a situation with at most 20 people under the most Orwellian level of surveillance possible...

Publicly funded elections on the other hand are a great idea, but that's wholly different from trying to kill organized parties. Publicly funded elections are about trying to neutralize the effect of money on the electoral process, and that's the real issue, IMO.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^VoodooV:
The sooner we abolish parties, the better. Party politics is what got us here.

How exactly would you do that?
You'd pretty much have to take away people's right to freely assemble, or forbid politicians from saying what they think about the issues before they're elected...


Uhh...no, not quite taking it that far. Not interested in slashing the Bill of Rights. There will always be unofficial groups and coalitions and there will be nothing you can do to stop that, nor should you. But what we can do is just refuse to recognize people as Reps or Dems, we can abolish any sort of official backing. Disband the RNC and the DNC. Simply refuse to give it legitimacy. When the state of the union happens, refuse to give a "opposition party rebuttal" At the very least! abolish this whole "reps sit on one side of the aisle, dems sit on the other side" nonsense. There is nothing wrong with people getting together, but the gov't doesn't have to recognize it and give it legitimacy so that the party eclipses the person as it is now.

The founders were definitely wary of parties and rightfully so. I don't see any problem with a concerted effort to at the VERY LEAST, discourage parties. We're seeing first hand the damage that can be done when party comes before country.

That and make all elections publicly funded..period. You'd see some drastic changes for the better

I have to agree with Chaosengine. Being Portuguese I can assure you our problems are not a direct result of a socialist agenda. In fact, it's the direct result of governments borrowing more than we can pay, and leaving the tab for the next guy like the assholes that they are, and spending money on completely moronic things.

Did you know Portugal is actually one of the countries in the world with the best network of roads? There are no more, no less that 3 different roads, in parallel connecting Lisbon and Porto (the two biggest cities). You have the A1 (the most important highway), then the A17 (a newer highway) and the old N1 (just a regular 2 lane road). WHY? We don't need it.

A few years back, the then Minister of Defence (who is now the foreign affairs minister, a disgusting weasel) order 2 fucking submarines from Germany. They cost 500 million euros each (1 billion in total). Now... It's true that Portugal has an absolutely huge area of the Atlantic to survey, control, and administer, but anyone with half a brain knows that you do that with frigates and fast ships. That 1 billion euros could have been used to save a big famous shipyard which is on the brink of bankruptcy, and could have easily manufactured hundreds of smaller vessels. (oh.. and that shit head of a minister, when he was the defence minister actually told the people who worked at the shipyard that they would be building what I just said. Of course, they never did)

The previous government insisted against EVERYONE that Lisbon needed a new Airport. Of course, that is now on the shelf, be cause it was completely stupid and it would cost several billion euros.

Oh, did I mention the TGV? (the high speed train). Porto and Lisbon are connected by a train called the Pendular, which looks a lot like a tgv, and is supposed to reach speeds of 250 km/h (which is great really. At that speed the trip between the two cities would take no more than 2 hours) the problem is, greedy incompetent assholes always get their hands on government funded programs, and they built the whole line between Porto and Lisbon (which is about 350km's in lenght) and the only place the train can achieve the top speed is between my city and another one to the south, in a journey of no more than 50km's (it's not a safety thing mind you, it's just the track wasn't built like it was supposed to) The rest of the time, the train hops along a 150.. 170km/h. WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE NEED A TGV between the two cities when the existing train is already great IF it had been properly built. Thankfully that's also in the shelf.

The European Championship of 2004... it was great. Portugal almost won the championship, which would have been great, since we were the hosts. And everything went great. Several new stadiums were built, the festivities were very nice, etc. The problem is, most of these stadiums are now a maintenance nightmare, because the ones left with the bill are the cities and not the government. My own city is 200 million in the red because of all this shit (a city of less than 80,000 people. although the whole district has a lot more people. About 600,000).

These are just a few examples, and not ONE of them is a result of socialism, but of stupid management and capitalism, and wanting to buy shiny things.

AND then we also get fucked nice and royally in the ass by most atrocious capitalist system in the world, the american one, which has the 3 most notorious rating agencies spewing nothing but stupidity, speculation, lies, and anything that gets their fuck buddies some extra euros or dollars. The United States was 2 days away from going into default, and only came up with a ridiculous temporary measure. Yet, none of the agencies touched the american rating. How curious! Portugal was bailed out by the IMF, it has a majority government, consensus from the people that sacrifices must be done even though they suck and in some cases are completely unfair, was actually going beyond what the IMF requested, and still Moody's slashed the rating to junk.

In short... this whole financial crisis was caused by over-consumption, really shitty management, and a lot of business practices that should, quite frankly be a crime!

^
And further to that, don't tell me you are going to improve the education system by slashing funding to it. Start working on fixes to it right now, and demonstrated that you can improve it, but I'm not voting for you because you promise you'll manage to do it after you get my vote. If you can improve something by cutting the money to it, you shouldn't need my vote to start making those changes, Ron Paul is ALREADY in a strong enough position to improve regional education, if he's not doing that already, why should we expect he'll be able to after slashing it's budget?

>> ^bobknight33:

Are you suggesting that the debt ceiling is more if a political ceiling for the parties to use for convenience, as in this case to beat up democrats in this coming election cycle?

Yes and no. Yes, it's being used as a political weapon right now, and I think that's bad for everyone. But also no, I'm not saying the debt ceiling is some toothless measure that doesn't matter beyond politics. If this ends up with the country defaulting, it's going to be really really bad for everyone.

>> ^bobknight33:
Should there be a limit? Do you see a limit to the amount of debt that the USA can take on and still be fiscally responsible nation?

A hard legal limit in dollars that Congress needs to explicitly vote to change? No.

As a more general question, sure, there absolutely is such a thing as too much debt. But I tend to think of it as being a dynamic sort of thing. I think of total debt in terms of debt/GDP ratios -- we're at something like 40% right now. In situations where countries are at war and have an economic depression, a ratio of just over 100% isn't all that uncommon. We'll want to keep our deficits under control so that hopefully we peak under 80%, but the long and short of it is that right now I see zero need to worry about the deficit at all.
>> ^bobknight33:

Are you implying that there is no accountability for the debt that is created by government?

I think the real problem is that Republicans want deficits and debt to always be high. Essentially all of our debt comes from tax cuts, starting with Reagan. Before Reagan, we'd been paying down our debt for decades. Clinton balanced the budget and got us running surpluses again, and Bush slashed taxes to get and keep us in deficit.

At the end of a 30-year plan to borrow money, and give it to the rich in tax cuts, we now have the people who got us in this mess screaming "it's out of control spending!" They then demand cuts in "spending," which means reneging on the benefits owed to people who've paid into Social Security and Medicare all their lives, but won't get because all the money in the trust fund (and then some!) got shipped off to the top 1% of income earners in tax breaks.

So no, there's no accountability on debt, because people believe the lies they're told about how we got where we're at.

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I'm hoping Google doesn't allow stupid apps or games and shit like that. Also, I hate listening to a radio commercial that says "Find us on facebook dot com slash <business name>."

1)Why the fuck would I want to go to your facebook page?
2)Why the fuck don't you just have a website of <business name>.com?


Being cheap to have its own web site and wantedto be part of the fad. Remember when MySpace was hot?

I'm hoping Google doesn't allow stupid apps or games and shit like that. Also, I hate listening to a radio commercial that says "Find us on facebook dot com slash <business name>."



1)Why the fuck would I want to go to your facebook page?

2)Why the fuck don't you just have a website of <business name>.com?

Also, it's important to check out the Youtube comments and the video uploader's description. If you did that, you'd know his non-dying performances outweigh his dying performances. Someone did all that work and now you don't need to: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/deathbycow.html

HE DIES IN:
Airborne - bye bye Toombs
Caravaggio - Rannuccio gets his throat slashed
Clarissa - Lovelace is skewered by Sean Pertwee
Don't Say a Word - Patrick Koster is buried alive
Equilibrium - Death by Poetry - Partridge is blasted away by Christian Bale while reading Yeats
Essex Boys - Jason Locke meets a nasty end in a Range Rover
Far North - Loki is frozen. Naked. In the snow. A chilling end if there ever was one.
The Field - the infamous Death by Cow - Tadgh falls over a cliff, pursued by a herd of stampeding cows
GoldenEye - Alec Trevelyan falls a long way down and is crushed by a satellite dish thing
Henry VIII - Robert Aske meets a gruesome end
The Island - Death by Clone. Merrick is shot in the throat by a nasty grabber thingy with a sharp
hook and a cable that gets wrapped around his neck, and while he's struggling with Lincoln
Six-Echo, the catwalk they're on collapses, and Merrick ends up dangling by the neck. Currently
the most creative dispatch of Sean's career. Definitely well hung.
The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King) - Death
by Orc. Boromir. Arrows. Need I say more?
Lorna Doone - Carver Doone drowns
Outlaw - Dead Dead Dead. Was there ever any question? Dead.
Patriot Games - Sean Miller is beaten up, boathooked and finally blown up by Harrison Ford
Scarlett - Lord Fenton is dispatched
Tell Me That You Love Me - Gabriel Lewis is stabbed by Laura. Or he stabs himself. We're not
quite sure about this one, actually.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Death by summoning a god's avatar. Martin Septim (the son of the Emperor, aka The Lost Heir) meets his X-Box end when he attempts to save the world.
The Hitcher - Surely you jest. You need to ask? (There were two different versions filmed. He dies
in both of them.)
War Requiem - The German Soldier dies, but returns in the afterlife


HE LIVES IN:
(Leo Tolstoy's) Anna Karenina
A Woman's Guide to Adultery
The Big Empty
The Bill
Black Beauty
Bravo Two Zero
Exploits at West Poley
Extremely Dangerous
Faceless
The Fifteen Streets
Flightplan
Fool's Gold
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
In the Border Country
Inspector Morse: Absolute Conviction
Jacob
Lady Chatterley
The Loser
My Kingdom for a Horse
National Treasure (But only because of a rewrite. In an early version
of the the script Ian Howe got eaten by alligators in the subways of
New York. Really. Honest. I wouldn't lie to you. I wouldn't.)
North Country
Percy Jackson (Zeus is more or less an immortal so death seems a bit
redundant, really...)
The Practice
Pride
Prince
Punters
Ronin
Samson & Delilah
Sharpe (14 films)
Sharpe's Challenge
Shopping
Silent Hill
Small Zones
Stormy Monday
Tom & Thomas
Troubles
The Canterbury Tales - The Nun's Priest's Tale
The Dark
The True Bride
The Vicar of Dibley
Troy
Wedded
When Saturday Comes
Windprints
Winter Flight

Major Theatrical Performances:
Macbeth ... Yes. He dies. And gets his head impaled on a spike.
Romeo & Juliet... What do you think?
Fair Maid of the West ... Spencer doesn't die!

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Awwww..... FUCK that stupid "DING" sound. OMFG.


Agreed. It was *DING!* annoying, *DING!* pointless and *DING!* did I mention fucking annoying.

I like the concept of content producers agreeing to make more stuff in exchange for policy changes though. We could get another season of Firefly if they slash the military budget. Or Pink Floyd could reform if they repeal the patriot act. Or Simon Cowell could come back to American Idol if they get rid of the TSA... actually, fuck that. I'd rather be groped by a sweaty man at an airport than have more of that shit on tv.

hmmm...

The Ewok with the Slash wig or the Jawa screaming "utini!!" and playing air drums?

I guess Lucas needed something to dim the glare of the Christmas Special.

I've met Mel twice - both times in Vancouver, BC at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

The first time He was presenting the Loony-Toon cartoons in their full and uncut versions on the big screen. (Some never seen un-cut before, as TV always hacks and slashes them - more than you've ever realized.) He introduced every one of them and talked at great length about each one. I got to meet and shake his hand.

The second time he was presenting all the operatic Buggs Bunny cartoons with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) playing the music live while the Cartoons played on big screen. Imagine the Barber of Seville played live with Rabbit of Seville playing on FULL SIZE Screen. I have a Lithographed poser of Buggs in a Canoe, signed by Mel as a memento of that event.

At both events he not only shared his voice talent, but went into detail about making each "short". He was very candid and stopped and answered questions in what was a fairly intimate setting.

Experiences I'll never forget!
An amazing speaker with amazing talent and a cherished legacy.

didn't want her children to have to go through the end of the world...
yeah, having a parental figure turn on you, slash your throat and your wrists... a much better alternative
aethiesm: we 100% promise that your parents won't try to murder you to save you from the END TIMES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qojv1bR-S0


That was quite the wall of text just for that quip.

Thanks for pointing that out. I think I mentioned that though so it makes your statement kind of insulting.

I think Paul would be better than Bush, but far, far worse than Obama. You want to blame Obama for Gitmo, apparently, but you obviously haven't cared about the topic enough to actually follow the sequence of events. Congress passed a law barring Obama from bringing the detainees onto American soil, and before that New York City opposed bringing KSM to trial there because of security concerns. I think anyone who thinks Ron Paul is somehow going to overcome those obstacles is deluding themselves.

Apparently, you are wrong about my lack of care in this particular topic. Do not generalize. Congress did pass the law, and so? They passed it, if I am correct, in 2009? So he did close it in 2008 when he had a chance? No he did not. And who cares what New York City opposed? Many states opposed blacks being integrated with whites in public schools too—and we know where that went...

I don’t think Paul can overcome the obstacles that Obama has allowed in terms of Gitmo. However, there are ways, one would be leverage. But there are plenty more.

Would the Republican party line up and vote for legislation that would let the detainees come here for Federal trials if Paul tells them to? I doubt it.

Republicans would absolutely not line up behind Ron Paul for this or most other matters. In fact, they would go against nearly every policy he tries because they are corporate hacks and they hate a truly “free” market. Corporations enjoy too many hand outs, too many protections that our government gives them… Just look at how the Republican party speak out Paul...even while pretending to emulate him.

Would Paul make Gitmo his #1 priority? I doubt it.

#1? Maybe not. And? Second or third is fine. However, pointing against your suggestion that he would not give it his best to remove this unconstitutional bullshit, he has been major in his stand on habeas corpus…

Would Paul try to repeal the Civil Rights Act? I bet he wouldn't veto a repeal if Congress passed it...

And? Congress and the House would not have the votes for a repeal, so, like I said, this is a straw-man issue we have…

Would Paul try to repeal Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and health care reform? You betcha! Priority #1, even.

Um, now who doesn’t know what they are talking about? First, Paul stated that he would not, because it was infeasible (Social security and Medicare/Medicaid.) He said he would allow opt outs, and that we would need to fulfill our obligations to those who have already been promised their dues, somehow, to those currently in the program. Just watch the video I posted a link too.

Would Paul get impeached if he tried to rapidly withdraw our troops from everywhere, and then slash the military budget? Almost certainly.

I would be honored to be impeached for doing the right thing. Since when do people only do the right thing when it is easy? That's not the right thing, that convenient. And, actually, the clamor from most republicans citizens (Even those at the VFW I go to) is to cut the military (To a significant degree) because we are in a serious financial crisis. They also, with the actions in Libya and around, wonder if we can sustain our empire. A year ago, you would have been 100% right. We must admit, most Americans want our troops home, even from Iraq and Af-gan.

For the record, I totally agreed with what heropsycho said (the comment you said was 100% right). Paul and libertarians refuse to accept the good things that government regulation has provided us, and dismiss (and decry as EVIL!) the idea that any new good could come from new regulation.

Agreed. Just make sure to note that certain people (Me and others) agree that some regulations need to be a federal issue.

Worse, they want to dismantle all the good, and absolutely forestall any more progress being made in this country on any major issue. Maybe he'd impotently try to deal with the war and associated civil liberties issues, but I doubt he'd even bother when there's still a New Deal to repeal.

He cares about bankruptcy first.

"If we made common sense about this yes I would cut all this militarism and not cut people off from medical care."

I don't see a problem with this. And his view that the dollar will go, some say is doomsday...and so they said that about the levies, and so they said that about 9/11, and so they say it till it happens.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

(Sorry for the length of this response...)

That was quite the wall of text just for that quip.

I think Paul would be better than Bush, but far, far worse than Obama. You want to blame Obama for Gitmo, apparently, but you obviously haven't cared about the topic enough to actually follow the sequence of events. Congress passed a law barring Obama from bringing the detainees onto American soil, and before that New York City opposed bringing KSM to trial there because of security concerns. I think anyone who thinks Ron Paul is somehow going to overcome those obstacles is deluding themselves.

Would the Republican party line up and vote for legislation that would let the detainees come here for Federal trials if Paul tells them to? I doubt it.

Would Paul make Gitmo his #1 priority? I doubt it.

Would Paul try to repeal the Civil Rights Act? I bet he wouldn't veto a repeal if Congress passed it...

Would Paul try to repeal Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and health care reform? You betcha! Priority #1, even.

Would Paul get impeached if he tried to rapidly withdraw our troops from everywhere, and then slash the military budget? Almost certainly.

For the record, I totally agreed with what heropsycho said (the comment you said was 100% right). Paul and libertarians refuse to accept the good things that government regulation has provided us, and dismiss (and decry as EVIL!) the idea that any new good could come from new regulation.

Worse, they want to dismantle all the good, and absolutely forestall any more progress being made in this country on any major issue. Maybe he'd impotently try to deal with the war and associated civil liberties issues, but I doubt he'd even bother when there's still a New Deal to repeal.