The boats in dry dock, there's nothing to rock. Things wont change to the multiparty system because they under our current framework they cant change; and even if they did we'd be left with a slightly more diverse but ultimately the same animal were dealing with right now.

The point is Ron Paul or whoever only has 1/435th or at best 1/100th control the of legislature no matter what party he's in. Similairly your vote is going to be 1/~140 million no matter what party you're voting for. That's the system TBT, you dont like it and I dont really like it, but that's the system.

I guess I can see your point there, but it's not so much the belief that I have to vote for a "winner" so much as it is that everyone else feels that way, so why bother wasting my vote? If things are ever going to change it's going to have to happen on a much larger scale than 'one vote at a time, one election at a time.'

This isn't working for me. I can't even pretend to care anymore. I tried but I really don't care about any of this.

They are not playing the all or nothing game. They are playing the mortgage our future on shit that is designed to fail or nothing game. Which is precisely what we need right now given the current state of the economy. Not one single Republican voted for the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill which has been a complete and utter failure. Meanwhile the democrats keep voting to raise the debt ceiling so that they can continue to buy support from their own party in the biggest vote buying scandals I have seen in my lifetime. So I ask you, why is healthcare for a few (non taxpayers) such a priority to this administration when we have responsible (legitimate) taxpayers out of work (10% unemployment and rising) and losing their homes?

I am a firm believer in personal responsibility so yes I do support legalized drugs, prostitution and gambling. I think it ties up legal resources that could be used for real criminals. When we allow the government to choose what is best for us, we have allowed them our liberty.

The Republicans can't get everything they want, they can either say it's all or nothing or actually compromise. Getting something that you think would work is better than getting nothing. The healthcare bill wouldn't only benefit a few it would provide protections for all, while yes there are parts that will help those that are uninsured but that isn't the entirety of the bill.

As far as unemployment goes there's only so much you can do, the bleeding has slowed down. Even the great Ronald Reagan took a while to fix things (2 years into his presidency), it's not an easy thing to do. Obama may not be doing things the way you think he should but hopefully things do turn around.

Also I'm pretty sure Collins and Snow (won't count Specter) supported the stimulus.

But at least we can agree on something (personal responsibility/liberty).

Personal responsibility is a great concept, but the fact is the majority of people aren't responsible enough to handle legalizing drugs & such.

It's my basic problem with the republican platform. It'd be real nice if everyone could do for themselves and nobody needed help from the government or anyone else, but that's not the world we live in and it wouldn't be if we eliminated all entitlement programs. We'd just have thousands of more homeless people on the streets and emergency rooms would be filled with even more uninsured people who have nowhere else to go when they need treatment.

The whole notion of this 'everyone for themselves', Darwin-economics driven country where if you're sick and can't afford to see a doctor it's just 'tough shit', I dunno, that's just not the kind of country I want to live in. And I don't think it's the country the founding fathers had in mind.

for the record, Obama met with republicans before the health care thing started and said "i'll give you tort reform, what will you budge on" to silence.

Also, there's damn good reasons that you don't open up competition across state lines.

Which is...?

Damn and you were starting to get into character again.

opening up competition across state lines would lead to a race to the bottom, all the hc firms would move to the state with the lowest regulations, and health care would then be unregulated. The Senate bill actually allows more interstate competition, while ensuring that some basic regulations are allowed.

You know why the Democrats keep raising the debt ceiling? Do you know what happens if they DON'T raise the debt ceiling? The United States defaults on its debt... bad, bad, bad. You think shit is bad now... right.

Unless you think you can just eliminate the deficit by slashing areas of the government (spoiler: you can't)... and I know there are a lot of people that genuinely think that's what should happen. But before anybody says that they really need to start looking at a pie chart and see where the government's money is actually going, and it's almost never where they think. You ever notice when presidents say they are going to go line by line through the budget and always say they won't touch Social Security, Medicare, or defense spending (Obama said it in his SOTU last week)? And then nothing ends up happening. Those 3 things are probably 2/3 of the budget all on their own. Then you have smaller chunks of things like VA funding and military retiree benefits, and probably the next biggest chunk is "discretionary spending" which sounds like you can cut a lot from, but not really because it's basic administrative costs for things that you can't just dump in one fell swoop (or that it would be dumb to try).

And in a recession, there are less jobs, so there is less tax to collect. Reducing government spending in a recession is terrible economic policy, nobody who's serious about economic policy will actually suggest you do that, you'll just exacerbate your problems.

legalize marijuana and gay marriage tomorrow.

jobs at dispensaries/legit grow houses and new tax revenue. gay wedding registries. more business for divorce attorneys.

get off my fucking lawn.

Where's the gigantic BS flag when you need it.

Yeah just look what it did to the auto insurance industry [/sarcasm]

How come you progressives see all profit as evil? It has been proven time and time again that the private sector does a much better job of providing services than the federal government. Once they socialize medicine the cost will go up, availability and customer service will go down.

Don't listen to me though I'm just the guy that predicted double digit unemployment if Obama won the presidency.

Because there would not be double digit unemployment if Obama lost. lol. I've been trying to stay out of this but that's fucking hilarious. One of the things about not being a communist country is the president can't just randomly decide the economy do certain things and it happens just because he said so.

Also, since some people apparently live in an insulated information loop that creates an alternate reality, here is that "BS flag" that bmags needed thrown at him:


http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... 06,00.html


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... z0eo3EnIbI

Except the health insurance industry and our health care has actually created the most inefficient system in the industrialized world. God havoc it's like you descended from sarah palin you are so retarded

Thank you Teddy.

Lol.

I think that's true for the most part, maybe even true of health care, but the issue is the number of people left out by the current system. The private sector is all about profit and that works for most things, but it's just not a good idea to have the people running our health care industry be more concerned with profit than with the health of their 'customers.'

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Well, considering that it was already at 8% when he took office, that's not really all that surprising.