A great article on Obama

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K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

Post by K.Snyder »

written by Andrew Sullivan in Newsweek. Andrew Sullivan perhaps can best be described as being politically independent which is why I think the article can grab the attention of many more readers in contrast to authors that tend to be biased...

Andrew Sullivan: How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics

[...]

A president in the last year of his first term will always get attacked mercilessly by his partisan opponents, and also, often, by the feistier members of his base. And when unemployment is at remarkably high levels, and with the national debt setting records, the criticism will—and should be—even fiercer. But this time, with this president, something different has happened. It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply—empirically—wrong.

[...]

His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama.

[...]

What liberals have never understood about Obama is that he practices a show-don’t-tell, long-game form of domestic politics. What matters to him is what he can get done, not what he can immediately take credit for


"But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb. Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game—and why his reelection remains, in my view, as essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008." is my sentiment exactly

The article continues full article

Here's a brief interview with Andrew Sullivan on the article Andrew Sullivan on Hardball/ Why are Obama's critics so dumb? - Democratic Underground

Obama's long game is exactly why I think he'll be the best damn president the US has ever had after 2016
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Bryn Mawr
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A great article on Obama

Post by Bryn Mawr »

Certainly a lot more considered a response than I've been used to in the political arena and, if the figures quoted are accurate, quite a telling point.
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Lon
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A great article on Obama

Post by Lon »

David Frum Strikes Back at Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama - The Daily Beast
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Bryn Mawr
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A great article on Obama

Post by Bryn Mawr »

Lon;1382184 wrote: David Frum Strikes Back at Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama - The Daily Beast


That's more like it - emotive language designed to manipulate opinion rather than inform.
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

Post by K.Snyder »

Lon;1382184 wrote: David Frum Strikes Back at Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama - The Daily Beast


I'm honestly still trying to understand how this propagandist dung heap of an article relates to the links in the original post...

This link is a sarcastic way of highlighting the garbage that politics have been reduced to isn't it?
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Bryn Mawr
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A great article on Obama

Post by Bryn Mawr »

K.Snyder;1382187 wrote: I'm honestly still trying to understand how this propagandist dung heap of an article relates to the links in the original post...

This link is a sarcastic way of highlighting the garbage that politics have been reduced to isn't it?


It has to be related - it mentions his name :-)

I still think my phrasing was better though :p
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Snooz
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A great article on Obama

Post by Snooz »

The site Lon posted has a good entertainment section. :)
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Lon
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A great article on Obama

Post by Lon »

K.Snyder;1382187 wrote: I'm honestly still trying to understand how this propagandist dung heap of an article relates to the links in the original post...

This link is a sarcastic way of highlighting the garbage that politics have been reduced to isn't it?


It relates since both authors pieces appear in the "Daily Beast "
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

Post by K.Snyder »

Lon;1382196 wrote: It relates since both authors pieces appear in the "Daily Beast ":wah: Well at least you can make me laugh Lon
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

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Bryn Mawr;1382189 wrote: It has to be related - it mentions his name :-)

I still think my phrasing was better though :pOh? Was it the "propagandist dung heap" bit that turned you off Bryn?

In my defense I did prefer that over "Big steaming, heaping pile of brown nutted horse $#!+!
koan
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A great article on Obama

Post by koan »

It's a dilemma. Do you vote for the current president? He signed an indefinite detention bill with a frowny face stating that his government alone promises to never use their right to eliminate your rights... but if another party gets elected... well, we don't know.

Or do you vote for one of the Republican Muppets who are discovering that Super PACs can expose the fact that they are purely muppets and far from respectable people who deserve the high honour of representative of the people?

If you don't vote then what other options do you have?

If you do vote, then you are responsible for encouraging some of the most manipulative, irresponsible sociopaths that ever could say they rule because people wanted it.

It's a conundrum.
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A great article on Obama

Post by LarsMac »

koan;1382213 wrote: It's a dilemma. Do you vote for the current president? He signed an indefinite detention bill with a frowny face stating that his government alone promises to never use their right to eliminate your rights... but if another party gets elected... well, we don't know.

Or do you vote for one of the Republican Muppets who are discovering that Super PACs can expose the fact that they are purely muppets and far from respectable people who deserve the high honour of representative of the people?

If you don't vote then what other options do you have?

If you do vote, then you are responsible for encouraging some of the most manipulative, irresponsible sociopaths that ever could say they rule because people wanted it.

It's a conundrum.


Yes it is.

But when making a choice, you select the one that is least offensive, or you make no choice, and let others decide.

Since it would appear that the Goppies will likely control Congress for another few years, I prefer to have the White House inhabited by their opposition.

I don't think we can take another few years of GOP controlling both Executive and Legislative branches. Look what we got last time that happened.
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koan
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A great article on Obama

Post by koan »

hmmm. the Republicans force a bill through then point fingers at a Democrat when he signs it and then run campaigns saying they would have done something different.

So, who's ruling the country?

What are the options?
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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The "Goppies" have no opposition. They all agree in centralized gov't, subordinating the States - a word Americans think is means 'big county' which Washington is happy to encourage - and violating at every whim the Constitution they each swore to uphold.

Why don't we just make it official and vote - sorry, no vote needed - issue an Executive Order to retire the Constitution? Nobody seems to give a **** anyway, and few even seem to know what it says.
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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My response to portions of the article:

But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion.None of which are remotely constitutional.

All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for.All these decisions deserve impeachment. Any success is Machiavellian, at best.

The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed.and still just as unconstitutional as any honest scholar would claim.

Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. And when the moment for decision came, the president overruled both his secretary of state and vice president in ordering the riskiest—but most ambitious—plan on the table. He even personally ordered the extra helicopters that saved the mission. It was a triumph, not only in killing America’s primary global enemy, but in getting a massive trove of intelligence to undermine al Qaeda even further. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted.I give Obama the credit he's due, here.

Obama’s foreign policy, like Dwight Eisenhower’s or George H.W. Bush’s, eschews short-term political hits for long-term strategic advantage. It is forged by someone interested in advancing American interests—not asserting an ideology and enforcing it regardless of the consequences by force of arms. By hanging back a little, by “leading from behind” in Libya and elsewhere, Obama has made other countries actively seek America’s help and reappreciate our role. As an antidote to the bad feelings of the Iraq War, it has worked close to perfectly.This is not foreign policy; it is military policy. Our military is supposed to be for defense. We haven't used it for US defense since 1945, and haven't done it in accordance with our Constitution since then, either.

Yes, Obama has waged a war based on a reading of executive power that many civil libertarians, including myself, oppose. And he has signed into law the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial (even as he pledged never to invoke this tyrannical power himself). But he has done the most important thing of all: excising the cancer of torture from military detention and military justice. If he is not reelected, that cancer may well return.So now if we don't reelect him, not only might they bring back torture, they can legally do it to our own citizens. What kind of twisted .... aauauughhgghg!!



*breathe .... breathe .... *

We as a nation would be far better off in the long run had the economy been allowed to collapse. The corporate sponsors who controlled GW Bush and control Obama, Romney, Gingrich, & Santorum might not be able to control Washington anymore. We would have had a chance to return to individual liberty. Instead, we continue status quo.

I pray for another collapse and soon.
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A great article on Obama

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There is something the author writes that I do agree with:

If you are an Independent and can vote in a GOP primary, vote Paul. If you are a Republican concerned about the degeneracy of the GOP, vote Paul. If you are a citizen who wants more decency and honesty in our politics, vote Paul. If you want someone in the White House who has spent decades in Washington and never been corrupted, vote Paul.
Ron Paul For The GOP Nomination - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

Post by K.Snyder »

Accountable;1382230 wrote: The "Goppies" have no opposition. They all agree in centralized gov't, subordinating the States - a word Americans think is means 'big county' which Washington is happy to encourage - and violating at every whim the Constitution they each swore to uphold.Perhaps it's evident that the constitution was a fantastic model for a country that never fathomed a population above 300,000,000.

With the population being estimated at around 2.5 million people during the time the constitutions was written compared to roughly 300,000,000 today(Personally I'd say at least 330,000,000 but whatever what's 30 million right?) why can't people see the need for a majority to protect the rights of individuals for them?

The constitution is great, not perfect. It needs to be adjusted accordingly. Without so much freedom that you advocate our economy wouldn't be on the verge of bankruptcy with as many blood sucking vultures raking their greedy hands over everyone's lives simply because they can manipulate incompetent laws based off of a misconceived premise that originated during a time with 00.83% of the population it is today(Those are two zeros in front of the .83)

If everyone thought to never change their ideologies then we wouldn't be much beyond metal bending

Accountable;1382230 wrote:

Why don't we just make it official and vote - sorry, no vote needed - issue an Executive Order to retire the Constitution? Nobody seems to give a **** anyway, and few even seem to know what it says.Actually I'm sure alot more people will agree with you than you realize,..

they're called republicans...
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

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Accountable;1382233 wrote: There is something the author writes that I do agree with:



Ron Paul For The GOP Nomination - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily BeastPerhaps you skimmed the article and overlooked this...Which brings me to Ron Paul. Let me immediately say I do not support many of his nuttier policy proposals. I am not a doctrinaire libertarian. Paul's campaign for greater oversight of the Fed is great, but abolition of it is utopian and dangerous. A veto of anything but an immediately balanced budget would tip the US and the world into a serious downturn (a process to get there in one or two terms makes much more sense). Cutting taxes as he wants to is also fiscally irresponsible without spending cuts first. He adds deductions to the tax code rather than abolish them. His energy policy would intensify our reliance on carbon, not decrease it. He has no policy for the uninsured. There are times when he is rightly described as a crank. He has had associations in the past that are creepy when not downright ugly.

But all this is why a conservative like me is for Obama. What we are talking about here is who to support in a primary dominated by extremes, resentment, absence of ideas and Obama-hatred.Ron Paul For The GOP Nomination - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

Your quote is obviously aimed at those able to vote in the republican primaries and nothing else, which shows the very frightening nature the possibility one of these morons will win office truly is.

That was a breath of fresh air...
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

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Accountable;1382231 wrote: My response to portions of the article:

None of which are remotely constitutional.

All these decisions deserve impeachment. Any success is Machiavellian, at best.

and still just as unconstitutional as any honest scholar would claim.

I give Obama the credit he's due, here.

This is not foreign policy; it is military policy. Our military is supposed to be for defense. We haven't used it for US defense since 1945, and haven't done it in accordance with our Constitution since then, either.

So now if we don't reelect him, not only might they bring back torture, they can legally do it to our own citizens. What kind of twisted .... aauauughhgghg!!



*breathe .... breathe .... *

We as a nation would be far better off in the long run had the economy been allowed to collapse. The corporate sponsors who controlled GW Bush and control Obama, Romney, Gingrich, & Santorum might not be able to control Washington anymore. We would have had a chance to return to individual liberty. Instead, we continue status quo.

I pray for another collapse and soon.Everything you seem to be for is synonymous of holding every citizen hostage with the chance they might starve all in order to rant and rave about the constitution...

Why not give the man credit for saving our economy instead of expecting everyone can swim to save their own life? I'm sorry but if the constitution encourages everyone to only care about themselves and watch people suffer then it should have never been their to begin with.

Then to give Obama credit for taking out Osama Bin Laden, as if he were the only one he'd taken out, and then turning around and saying "This is not foreign policy; it is military policy. Our military is supposed to be for defense..." what is that? Obama decimated al Qaeda and has now fully withdrawn from Iraq... ???

So far I've yet to see one credible argument against the article...Usually when one cannot come up with one then it's truly a great article...A great article being one of fact and with the least amount of pure emotive impulse that I thought was well put by Bryn.

Ok, ok,..his was phrasing was better than mine :rolleyes:
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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K.Snyder;1382236 wrote: Perhaps it's evident that the constitution was a fantastic model for a country that never fathomed a population above 300,000,000.

With the population being estimated at around 2.5 million people during the time the constitutions was written compared to roughly 300,000,000 today(Personally I'd say at least 330,000,000 but whatever what's 30 million right?) why can't people see the need for a majority to protect the rights of individuals for them? The right that needs to be protected is the right to liberty. That's the one that is being taken away. I'm talking to a deaf person though, so I'll stop wasting my time.
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A great article on Obama

Post by Accountable »

K.Snyder;1382236 wrote: Actually I'm sure alot more people will agree with you than you realize,..

they're called republicans...
Blind partisan.
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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K.Snyder;1382239 wrote: Perhaps you skimmed the article and overlooked this...I quoted what I said I agree with and you say I overlooked that? That implies you think I agree with it. I don't.



K.Snyder;1382239 wrote: Your quote is obviously aimed at those able to vote in the republican primaries and nothing else,Apparently your area forces you to claim a party and only allows you to vote that way. Texas has no such restriction. If you want to vote in the Repub primaries you may, without ever having to "declare" any party. Your use of the word "obviously" belies your closed mind.
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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K.Snyder;1382241 wrote: Everything you seem to be for is synonymous of holding every citizen hostage with the chance they might starve all in order to rant and rave about the constitution...

Why not give the man credit for saving our economy instead of expecting everyone can swim to save their own life? I'm sorry but if the constitution encourages everyone to only care about themselves and watch people suffer then it should have never been their to begin with.

Then to give Obama credit for taking out Osama Bin Laden, as if he were the only one he'd taken out, and then turning around and saying "This is not foreign policy; it is military policy. Our military is supposed to be for defense..." what is that? Obama decimated al Qaeda and has now fully withdrawn from Iraq... ???

So far I've yet to see one credible argument against the article...Usually when one cannot come up with one then it's truly a great article...A great article being one of fact and with the least amount of pure emotive impulse that I thought was well put by Bryn.

Ok, ok,..his was phrasing was better than mine :rolleyes:
The rule of law is meaningless to you.
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

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Accountable;1382292 wrote: The right that needs to be protected is the right to liberty. That's the one that is being taken away. I'm talking to a deaf person though, so I'll stop wasting my time.You're mistake is thinking that the constitution ensures freedom, it doesn't. The freedom of our stock market, or "liberty" you like to call it, is the plague of society and it's destroyed our economy and it keeps our children from becoming educated...The more educated a society the more business has to work in in order to sell their products. A free for all society that cares nothing about anyone but money and to praise a constitution that failed to even protect the rights of an entire race of people...Are you familiar with what "open mindedness" means?

It's obvious you cannot see how much destruction a free society imposes, I'm obviously speaking with a blind person. And you're right, I'm not listening

... I did, however listen to the President's State of the Union address last night and thought it was great.
K.Snyder
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A great article on Obama

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Accountable;1382293 wrote: Blind partisan.We'll see about that considering this definition of "private ownership" you seem to dream up has no historical fact and is based solely on a form of logic that is wholeheartedly ignorant of macrosociological precedence. The methodology isn't much different either: oppose the obvious evils of the world with a fairy tale. The communist of 1910 couldn't point to a single real-world instance of his utopia; neither can the present-day libertarian. Yet they're unshakeable in their conviction that it can and must happen.

Academic libertarians love abstract, fact-free arguments-- often, justifications for why property is an absolute right. As a random example, from one James Craig Green:

This concept of property originated in some of those primitive tribes when individuals claimed possessions for themselves as against the collective ownership of their groups. Based on individual initiative, labor, and innovation, some were successful at establishing a separate, private ownership role for themselves. [...]

Examples of natural property in land and water resources have already been given, but deserve more detail. An illustration of how this would be accomplished is a farm with irrigation ditches to grow crops in dry western states. To appropriate unowned natural resources, a settler used his labor to clear the land and dug ditches to carry water from a river for irrigation. Crops were planted, buildings were constructed, and the property thus created was protected by the owner from aggression or the later claims of others. This process was a legitimate creation of property.

The first paragraph is pure fantasy, and is simply untrue as a portrait of "primitive tribes", which are generally extremely collectivist by American standards. The second sounds good precisely because it leaves out all the actual facts of American history: the settlers' land was not "unowned" but stolen from the Indians by state conquest (and much of it stolen from the Mexicans as well); the lands were granted to the settlers by government; the communities were linked to the national economy by railroads founded by government grant; the crops were adapted to local conditions by land grant colleges.

Thanks to my essay on taxes, I routinely get mail featuring impassioned harangues which never once mention a real-world fact-- or which simply make up the statistics they want.

This sort of balls-out aggressivity probably wins points at parties, where no one is going to take down an almanac and check their figures; but to me it's a cardinal sin. If someone has an answer for everything, advocates changes which have never been tried, and presents dishonest evidence, he's a crackpot. If a man has no doubts, it's because his hypothesis is unfalsifiable.

Distaste for facts isn't merely a habit of a few Internet cranks; it's actually libertarian doctrine, the foundation of the 'Austrian school'. Here's Ludwig von Mises in Epistemological Problems of Economics:

As there is no discernible regularity in the emergence and concatenation of ideas and judgments of value, and therefore also not in the succession and concatenation of human acts, the role that experience plays in the study of human action is radically different from that which it plays in the natural sciences. Experience of human action is history. Historical experience does not provide facts that could render in the construction of a theoretical science services that could be compared to those which laboratory experiments and observation render to physics. Historical events are always the joint effect of the cooperation of various factors and chains of causation. In matters of human action no experiments can be performed. History needs to be interpreted by theoretical insight gained previously from other sources.

The 'other sources' turn out to be armchair ruminations on how things must be. It's true enough that economics is not physics; but that's not warrant to turn our backs on the methods of science and return to scholastic speculation. Economics should always move in the direction of science, experiment, and falsifiability. If it were really true that it cannot, then no one, including the libertarians, would be entitled to strong belief in any economic program.


Accountable;1382294 wrote: Apparently your area forces you to claim a party and only allows you to vote that way. Texas has no such restriction. If you want to vote in the Repub primaries you may, without ever having to "declare" any party. Your use of the word "obviously" belies your closed mind.You're not understanding what I'd written. Where do you find a complete distinction between "If you are an Independent and can vote in a GOP primary, vote Paul" and "Your quote is obviously aimed at those able to vote in the republican primaries and nothing else"... It's obviously worth noting the true intention of the text so that I can prevent the closed minded suggestion Ron Paul is a better candidate than Barack Obama which was never advised by the author, you're just not reading in context...

Accountable;1382295 wrote: The rule of law is meaningless to you.Which is always the fundamental backbone of an argument entirely derived from the logic "Because I said so" Crackpots are usually harmless; how about the Libertarian Party?

[...]

Why are libertarian ideas important? Because of their influence on the Republican Party. They form the ideological basis for the Reagan/Gingrich/Bush revolution. The Republicans have taken the libertarian "Government is Bad" horse and ridden far with it

[...]

Can you smell the compromise here? Hold your nose and vote for the Repubs, boys. But then don't pretend to be uninvolved when the Republicans start making a mockery of limited government.

There's a deeper lesson here, and it's part of why I don't buy libertarian portraits of the future utopia. Movements out of power are always anti-authoritarian; it's no guarantee that they'll stay that way. Communists before 1917 promised the withering away of the state. Fascists out of power sounded something like socialists. The Republicans were big on term limits when they could be used to unseat Democrats; they say nothing about them today. If you don't think it can happen to you, you're not being honest about human nature and human history. And for the constitutionalist garbage rhetoric that follows At this point some libertarian readers are pumping their hands in the air like a piston, anxious to explain that their ideal isn't Rothbard or von Mises or Hayek, but the Founding Fathers.

Nice try. Everybody wants the Founders on their side; but it was a different country back then-- 95% agricultural, low density, highly homogenous, primitive in technology-- and modern libertarianism simply doesn't apply. (The OED's citations of the word for the time are all theological.)

All American political movements have their roots in the 1700s-- indeed, in the winning side, since Loyalist opinion essentially disappeared. We are all-- liberals, conservatives, libertarians-- against the Georgian monarchy and for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You can certainly find places where one Founder or another rants against government; you can find other places where one Founder or another rants against rebellion, anarchy, and the opponents of federalism. Sometimes the same Founder can be quoted on both sides. They were a mixed bunch, and lived long enough lives to encounter different situations.

It cannot have escaped those who have attended with candor to the arguments employed against the extensive powers of the government, that the authors of them have very little considered how far these powers were necessary means of attaining a necessary end. --James Madison

Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. --Thomas Jefferson

All the Property that is necessary to a man is his natural Right, which none may justly deprive him of, but all Property superfluous to such Purposes is the property of the Public who, by their Laws have created it and who may, by other Laws dispose of it. --Benjamin Franklin

The Constitution is above all a definition of a strengthened government, and the Federalist Papers are an extended argument for it. The Founders negotiated a balance between a government that was arbitrary and coercive (their experience as British colonial subjects) and one that was powerless and divided (the failed Articles of Confederation).

The Founders didn't anticipate the New Deal-- there was no need for them to-- but they were as quick to resort to the resources of the state as any modern liberal. Ben Franklin, for instance, played the Pennsylvania legislature like a violin-- using it to fund a hospital he wanted to establish, for instance. Obviously he had no qualms about using state power to do good social works.

It's also worth pointing out that the Founders' words were nobler than their deeds. Most were quite comfortable with slave-owning, for instance. No one worried about women's consent to be governed. Washington's own administration made it a crime to criticize the government. And as Robert Allen Rutland reminds us,

For almost 150 years, in fact, the Bill of Rights was paid lip service in patriotic orations and ignored in the marketplace. It wasn't until after World War I that the Supreme Court began the process of giving real meaning to the Bill of Rights.

The process of giving life to our constitutional rights has largely been the work of liberals. On the greatest fight of all, to treat blacks as human beings, libertarians supported the other side.


What's wrong with libertarianism
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Accountable
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A great article on Obama

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K.Snyder;1382334 wrote: . And you're right, I'm not listening.Then we're done.
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A great article on Obama

Post by K.Snyder »

Accountable;1382400 wrote: Then we're done.


You haven't been listening to anyone either Accountable so I don't know why you'd think ranting off into an emotional conniption fit serves your nobility any justice.

Andrew Sullivan mocked Ron Paul's Presidential campaign by suggesting he's the least destructive candidate in the GOP and you agreed, wholeheartedly, to the very political philosophy you've for so long opposed. Ron Paul has as much leadership quality as a baboon leading a NASA mission to Mars. Not listening and "Blind partisan" comes to mind.

When someone either purposely takes something out of context to throw around their own personal agenda or misses it out of closed mindedness then not listening becomes something I'd rather take my chances with Accountable.
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