El Presidente In 2012?

[atlcomedy]

Originally Posted by Sa_artman

Our foreign policies need to be handled with tack and diplomacy not a heavy hand. We tried that for years and it's failing us..

Originally Posted by John Bull

At least he wasn't running around bowing and scraping to foreign potentates.

Diplomacy is one thing but I'll take a heavy hand any day as opposed to a guy flying around in AF1 playing bottom boy to any world leader that offers him a meal.

Originally Posted by Sa_artman

I would surely nominate Mrs. Palin, that would ensure we don't get another Republican President for of least 4 more years.

I don't know if I'd vote for her, but I would like for her to privately stop by the house and have her try to "earn" my vote

Originally Posted by John Bull

I don't know about this board being all that conservative. Seems pretty well split to me. And then there is always WTF to bring us back to reality.

In particular it seems some of more recent additions have balanced things a bit.

But Charlie, I'm confused. Do you define a conservative as "anyone that doesn't agree with me?" On more than one occasion more than one member has pointed out to you that they are more libertarian than conservative....

[charlestudor2005]

Maybe your can shed some light on your own confusion.

It seems to me that self-proclaimed Libertarians agree with Conservatives more often than they do with Liberals (yes, I'll use the L word).

Make 2 lists atl: a comparison of points where Libertarians and Conservatives agree. And another list comparing points where Libertarians and Liberals agree.

When you get done, share the two lists here. I would be very much surprised if the Libertarian/Conservative list didn't outstrip the Libertarian/Liberal list by a substantial amount.

[pjorourke]

There are personal issues (freedom) and economic issues. Liberals, Libertarians and Conservatives are different mixes of the two scales. See here: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz_res...0_100.gif&p=90

[charlestudor2005]

Took the quiz. You and I scored the same on Personal Issues. But on Economic Issues, where you scored 100, I scored 30. Not surprising on a Libertarian website, where they would skew the scoring so that viewpoints that agree are rated "high" while those that disagree are rated "low." The same could be done on a "liberal" site.

However, just as you don't apologize for your viewpoints, I don't apologize for mine. Yours is more of a "survival of the fittest" approach, while mine is more of a team approach. IOW, mine is: we're all in this together, so let's help support one another.

Yours is: to hell with those who can't survive. They're just a drag on the economy and society anyway, and I don't want them squandering MY money.

[pjorourke]

Now Charles, is that nice? Gratuitously impugning my character after I was nice enough to give you that link so you would better understand the differences between Liberals and Libertarians. I've been cut to the quick.
(And if you have ever had your quick cut, you know how much that hurts.)

[charlestudor2005]

Sorry. And my quick was cut when I was a day or so old, so I really don't remember the pain. I do, however, squeeze my knees together in reflex when anything else comes close.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

how about Chris Christie? Right now he seems like such a breath of fresh air.

He certainly is aggressively undertaking the badly needed task of confronting the issue of unaffordable public employee union contracts and pensions that are driving so many states into deep fiscal holes. But he just assumed office. Perhaps it's too early to tell whether he will become a true political heavyweight.

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

...mine is more of a team approach. IOW, mine is: we're all in this together, so let's help support one another.

People like me and P.J. would prefer a more libertarian state, while others would prefer that we travel a fair distance down the path toward a European-style social democracy. On this issue, reasonable people can obviously disagree.

Where reasonable people cannot disagree is that such an expanded entitlement state must be paid for. The current agenda is extremely expensive. And we already had a large structural fiscal deficit in 2007. The only reason that wasn't so obvious was that we were in the mature phase of an unsustainable debt-fueled consumption boom, driving tax revenues to new records. Adding hundreds of billions of dollars of new annual spending will just make the fiscal outlook much worse.

Politicians have told people they can have all these goodies while not raising taxes on anyone making less than about $250K/year. In other words, it's OK to run deficits of close to 10% of GDP year after year after year.

Unless there's a very big change of course, this is not going to end well.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Unless there's a very big change of course, this is not going to end well.

Word!

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

The current agenda is extremely expensive. And we already had a large structural fiscal deficit in 2007.

So, how much of this is money spent on the mideast wars: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan?

I don't really know, but I suspect the wars are like the old adage my dad used to use about boats: it's a hole (in the water) into which we throw money.

Or is DoD exempt from criticisms from Libertarians and Conservatives?

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

Or is DoD exempt from criticisms from Libertarians and Conservatives?

Not at all.

I think I've read that the incremental spending on the ME wars is still less than the Spendulus Bill. I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will correct me (that and I'm sure WTF will link useless pages exaggerating how much the military "actually" costs. )

[oden]

When a war is over the spending winds down. With an entitlement program it just keeps growing and growing forever.

[Marcus Aurelius]

So what do you believe? If we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and save the money, would the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leave us alone or do you believe they'd start blowing up shopping malls here?

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

Or is DoD exempt from criticisms from Libertarians and Conservatives?

Of course not.

As I noted in another thread, the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of almost 50 years ago is alive and well. In fact, it has grown substantially. And I don't recall anyone saying Eisenhower was a liberal softy who was weak on national security.

But note that liberals seem to have a never-ending penchant for implying that military spending is the main reason for our budget deficits. (That and the hated tax cuts for the "rich.")

Consider this:

Federal spending was about $1.8 trillion in 2000. That's about $2.3 trillion adjusted for inflation. Now we're spending at a rate of $3.7 trillion annually, about a 60% increase in inflation-adjusted terms. If the wars end, and if we roll back the defense budget to (inflation-adjusted) year 2000 levels, we might knock off about $250 billion annually.

Put another way, we would still be spending well over a trillion (inflation-adjusted) dollars per year more than we were 10 years ago.

Beginning to see the problem?

Still think the military budget is the major offender?

[..]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

As I noted in another thread, the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of almost 50 years ago is alive and well. In fact, it has grown substantially.

Word!

Federal spending was about $1.8 trillion in 2000. That's about $2.3 trillion adjusted for inflation. Now we're spending at a rate of $3.7 trillion annually, about a 60% increase in inflation-adjusted terms. If the wars end, and if we roll back the defense budget to (inflation-adjusted) year 2000 levels, we might knock off about $250 billion annually.

Put another way, we would still be spending well over a trillion (inflation-adjusted) dollars per year more than we were 10 years ago.

All correct and agreed.

Still think the military budget is the major offender?

Yes!

Since Bush government does lots of costly quasi-military bullshit like Homeland Security, all kinds of wars on terror, etc.

None of that crap was reduced or stopped by Obama.

[..]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Not at all.

I think I've read that the incremental spending on the ME wars is still less than the Spendulus Bill.

Well do the math. Besides the Spendulus Bill contains part of the cost of war.