OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by sector24

Politics is far too deceptive for me to glean any kind of understanding. I can only understand my own position and even then it's hard to say which candidate will serve me better or if either candidate will serve my interests at all. (I suspect the only one looking out for me is me)

This is exactly how they want you to feel. If you are stuck looking for a candidate who is best for you, then they can spend all of their time trying to convince you that they are the best candidate for you. As long as they can avoid the issue of who is the better candidate for the nation, their chances of election are much higher.


The simple fact, as NTJedi hints strongly at, is that our bureaucracy has become aged and bloated. Our forefathers never intended for their systems to remain mostly intact, with just a bunch of stuff tacked on, for this long. They knew that the best way to avoid corruption, was to reinvent government from time to time, to make it leaner, meaner, and less abusable.

[rabelais]

Originally Posted by Poopsi

uuhhhm... sorry, but you have just made one of those things that US citizens are stereotyped as doing (namely, confusing stuff about matters outside).

Juan Domingo Perón was president of Argentina, not Brazil.
And he was democratically elected too. AFAIK the current president of Argentina subscribes to Peronism (which, AFAIK, has a fairly loose definition, but still...)

Hi Poops. Sorry missed your reply. Yes I know peron was from argentina... I think the Brazilian model of highly insulated societies with massive wealth disparity and increasing privatization of security is more germane to the current arc of change in the US. But the quasifascist government by lobbyist in service of the corporate oligarchy... with a helping of cult of personality driven infallibility made Peron a useful bit of shorthand, apologies if I was unclear.

I'm actually convinced that no where in the northern hemisphere will be safe if the neocons stay in office... but I'd head for Australia or NZ, before south america, given the choice.

Hopefully after tuesday I can relax, and poor John Paul Stevens can retire.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by thejeff

I'll agree with your single mom example. It's a silly system. A more graduated drop as you earned more would make far more sense.

Yes, I agree.

Originally Posted by thejeff

And universal health care would make a lot of those issues go away. Having health care tied to employment leads to a lot of problems and results in a system that costs more and produces worse results than other "developed" countries.

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems. Second we don't want to provide free healthcare for illegal aliens as it only provides them more reasons for sneaking across the border. Any illegal aliens have trouble finding work which naturally increases the rate of crime. I believe anyone should be allowed to stay in America as long as they pass health and background tests... this would help keep out criminals and STDs. The third problem with government run healthcare is we know the government poorly runs a majority of responsibilities thus we don't want to be giving the government any new responsibilities until the previous ones have been fixed. The main reason is because once the government owns something it NEVER lets it go and the country doesn't need a new Major problem.

Originally Posted by thejeff

More importantly, I'm not sure how a flat tax addresses any of your concerns. I assume you're talking about a single income tax rate with no (or minimal) exemptions or deductions? Simplifying parts of the tax code would have benefits, but I don't see what that has to do with the actual flat part of the flat tax. You could equally well remove the deductions and keep graduated tax rates, or have a single rate with all the complex deductions.
A flat tax would also raise rates at the lower end and, especially if you also remove the deductions for her children, make your example single mom's situation worse.

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rabelais

Hi Poops. Sorry missed your reply. Yes I know peron was from argentina... I think the Brazilian model of highly insulated societies with massive wealth disparity and increasing privatization of security is more germane to the current arc of change in the US. But the quasifascist government by lobbyist in service of the corporate oligarchy... with a helping of cult of personality driven infallibility made Peron a useful bit of shorthand, apologies if I was unclear.

I'm actually convinced that no where in the northern hemisphere will be safe if the neocons stay in office... but I'd head for Australia or NZ, before south america, given the choice.

Hopefully after tuesday I can relax, and poor John Paul Stevens can retire.

GRRRRRRRRRRr

Do you even know what a fascist is rabelais? Or do you believe its ok to just throw around terms ignorantly? Considering your brazilian Peronist comment I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Here's the pertinent definition of fascism from dictionary.com.
"governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism"

A fascist is someone who supports such a system of government (also from dictionary.com).

Calling our present system of government - or the republican party in general fascist fails on at least 4 fronts. First, republicans are opposed to the regimentation of business by the state. Second - our system of government is a representative democracy. You might have heard of checks and balances. Since you say in one breath that Stephens can finally retire it seems you might have heard of the supreme court. Consider that the supreme court has ruled against the govt on numerous occassions (club gitmo, for example) and the congress is held by democrats - the idea that we might have a monolithic central and fascist government is .. well.. ridiculous.

Third - The very fact that the Dem party and 527's will have raised close to a BILLION dollars for this election (far in excess of any other campaign in history) pretty convincingly says that democratic activity is alive and well.

Fourth - no American I know is arguing for anything removal of your right to vote. Or a switch to dictatorship.

I said immature previously, I believe its an appropriate word. You can't just sling terms - it is inappropriate to call political opponents fascists simply because you dislike their politics. Calling people fascists is incendiary, and wrong.

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Just. not. Soteuro.

Why do you insist on calling him that? He was born as Barack Hussein Obama II to Barack Hussein Obama Senior, so I'd guess that he's entitled to the name. Do you have that little faith in the government that you'd think they let somebody run for president of the United States under a false name? Sticking to calling him Soetoro without any reason is just trolling.

[Edratman]

Many well written and thought provoking posts in this thread. Thank you all. It is a demonstration, that this game appeals to a bright and intelligent set of gamers.

I believe that is a significent factor in the substantial lead Obama has in this very small poll. I am referring to the Republican party's demonizing of intellectuals and pandering to "Joe Six-Pack" as a new definiton of the line seperating loyal Americans and (I am not sure what we are in that definiton; terrorists, socialist, dis-loyal Americans?).

While I do think the line defining intellectuals would have to be lowered and blurred quite a bit to include me, I am for sure a well-read, open minded, thoughtful and learned chap who considers himself branded as outside the Republican definition of a true and loyal American.

And that bothers me beyond description. Primarily because I think of myself as someone with a foot on both sides of the line between blue-collar and white-collar. I was raised in a lower middle class, urban, ethnic family, attended college, not by choice but really because it was the dream of my parents and grandparents that my generation would go to college.

My career is in manufacturing management, but I am very pro-union and an out spoken critic of corporate abuse of the working man. My beverage of choice is beer and I am very capable with my hands. That pretty much sums up my adherence to the Democratic party.

But it appears to me that the Republicans realized that they needed traditional Democratic supporters to achieve a plurality and they concocted a plan to achieve this objective. Yet many components of this plan are divisive, hateful and demeaning to many of the people in the classification that they wished to appeal to. On the other hand, it was successful enough to seperate adequate numbers of voters from the herd to achieve their objective.

I personally felt alienated and demonized. So I am voting, not for Obama (I do think he will do a very fine job), but against the Republican hate machine. I would vote for a yellow dog if it was running against a Republican hate monger and I also hear the echoes on 1930's Germany in the Republican "message".

[Tifone]

@ Aezeal

I just wanted to quote you on everything you said. USA on those things is really a strange country seen from Europe
Like, reading at NTJedi's post and seeing how Social Solidarity isn't a Constitutional duty...
Not to talk about their Creationism in science classes and that strange, old right to have guns everywhere....
And damn, I can't talk about the so called "pro-life" crew (like if the pro-choice are pro-death, lol) because we have some here too...
Hope the Democrats will change something ^^

[thejeff]

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.

So you're not actually for a flat tax, but a progressive marginally increasing tax. That's what "should gradually increase depending on income" is called.
You just want the tax code simplified and the deductions removed?

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Tifone

@ Aezeal

I just wanted to quote you on everything you said. USA on those things is really a strange country seen from Europe
Like, reading at NTJedi's post and seeing how Social Solidarity isn't a Constitutional duty...
Not to talk about their Creationism in science classes and that strange, old right to have guns everywhere....
And damn, I can't talk about the so called "pro-life" crew (like if the pro-choice are pro-death, lol) because we have some here too...
Hope the Democrats will change something ^^

Part of the problem with this country is that religion plays far too large a part in politics. Theoretically there's supposed to be this thing called seperation of church and state, but democrats and republicans both continue to ignore this where it concerns major issues, such as abortion. On the bright side, I think this will die down a bit in 30 or 40 years.

[Tifone]

Aah, unfortunately that's a HUGE problem of my country too
We live in strange times, divided among the conservation of ancient and static, but still powerful, traditions - and the fast evolution-improvement of new social and scientific ideas.
We'll see how things will go