[TheRookie]

American politics is at a very dangerous crossroads. As bad as democracy and the two-party system is, a one-party system would be much more dangerous. Right now, there appears to be a concerted effort in the Democratic party and national media to pulverize and crush the Republican party.

See: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/pr...88288.html

I am not a Republican and I have never been a Republican. I have always found Republicans to be repulsive and fake, with the exception of Ron Paul. They refuse to stand in favor of liberty and dignity for the common man. They are war-hungry, feminist-lite, welfare-lite, pro-drug war, and under George W. Bush they paved the way for the destruction of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th amendments; a mauling of basic freedoms that Barack Obama has happily accelerated.

But, a strong opposition party is necessary to obstruct and delay the ambitions of the ruling party. Under George W. Bush, the Democrats were far too weak and allowed the president to invade multiple foreign countries and destroy some of our liberties. At any time, they could have begun impeachment proceedings and refused to fund Bush's wars.

Obama is using every dirty trick and a compliant media to absolutely make a mockery of the faction of the Republican party that stands for liberty and prosperity. They are trying to crush any Republican who refuses to increase the federal budget, stand for 2nd amendment gun rights, lower taxes, and eliminate regulations that strangle the working classes and small business owners. They are using dirty, Alinksyite tricks to paint anyone who wants to cut the federal budget, cut taxes, and support gun rights as a crazy, homophobic, racist straight white male.

Instead of standing firm and re-framing the debate by painting Democrats under Obama as tax-raising, big-spending, anti-freedom leftists, the Republican response is to trot out the questionably heterosexual narcissist Marco Rubio and make democrat-lite arguments.

Meanwhile, a piddling $85 billion in cuts from the scheduled increase means that women, babies, feminists, old people, minorities, and small animals are all going to die. Here's Obama, employing Rule 9 from Rules for Radicals:

"Are Republicans in Congress really willing to let these cuts fall on our kids’ schools and mental health care just to protect tax loopholes for corporate jet owners? Are they really willing to slash military health care and the Border Patrol just because they refuse to eliminate tax breaks for big oil companies?"

Here are more doomsday stories from a variety of news outlets:
http://jezebel.com/5987920/what-does-the...adies-lots
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/...tml?ref=us
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-kierna...89223.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...s-say.html
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/0...ists-hard/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-5757...own-looms/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/0...W220130302

For Christ's sake, Maxine Waters just had a press conference and said 170 million American would lose their jobs, which just goes to show how terrible wymmyns are at abstract reasoning and statistics.

Here is the reality of sequestration:





If things continue on this current path, I pity a country ruled by Democrats and a token, acquiescent loyal opposition led by the likes of closeted homosexual Lindsey Graham and hot-headed idiot John McCain. Luckily, large unpredictable events tend to knock things off their current path and make the future unpredictable. We can only hope.

[that guy]

Lol your own chart disproves your entire argument. The federal spending rate has sharply decreased under Obama, after increasing massively under Bush. And lol at the idea republicans are for lower taxes. If that was the case why are they trying to raise the sales tax in multiple states while lowering the income tax, resulting in a net tax increase for the majority of americans? You must get all your information from fox news. There's so much misinformation and sensationalism here I'm not even going to try.

Furthermore your second chart provides absolutely no useful information about how any of the numbers were calculated. This is the type of argument usually meant to appeal to women or people already set in their ways who just want to be told their right. You entire posts lacks all substance of any kind.

[scorpion]

This entire thing is a charade, it doesn't matter which party controls the White House. Spending will not be cut in any significant degree, and would not be if McCain or Romney were President, either. Our economic and monetary system is built on debt. Debt is required for the machine to function, just like your car requires gasoline to function. Without new debt, there is no new money created, and deflation results. The mandate of the Federal Reserve is to prevent this from happening, under the guise of promoting full employment and stable prices. The result is a steady flow of new debt and inflation.

At some point the system will implode under its own weight and there will be some kind of monetary reset. Nothing either party could conceivably do would be able to prevent this, even if they wanted to (they don't).

This entire sequester drama is being fought over $85 billion. Out of a deficit of $1 trillion, or $1000 billion. Do you think a deficit of "only" $915 billion is really going to make a difference compared to $1000 billion? It's a joke. This is all theatre.

Republicans call themselves fiscal conservatives, but when put in charge they start two unfunded wars and create a new Medicate entitlement, all while cutting taxes. Now that Obama is in charge they suddenly find Jesus and decry all spending. You've got to be an idiot to fall for this.

Meanwhile, Democrats are the party of spineless ineptitude and hypocrisy in almost every regard. When Bush was in office, they raised hell about warrantless wiretapping and torture. Now that Obama is in office, they couldn't care less about the targeted assassination of American citizens. Apparently, listening to someone's phone call is a worse crime than blowing him up with a Predator drone. Again, what kind of idiot can look at this with a straight face?

If you believe that either of these two parties have the best interest of the country in mind, you need to take the political red pill.

[Mr.Barbarian]

Overall, the, I'm with the OP. Here's another graph about the situation, via Roissy, via Charles Murray.



But it is what it is. I work in a gummint office that administers benefits, and it makes me ill. I look forward to catastrophe, even at the price of my own job.

[TheRookie]

Way to go, you completely missed the point.

(03-02-2013 02:48 PM)that guy Wrote:  

Lol your own chart disproves your entire argument. The federal spending rate has sharply decreased under Obama, after increasing massively under Bush.

I made it clear that I thought Bush was terrible, and I am not a Republican. So if Bush does something and Obama continues it, it doesn't automatically make it right. If anything, it proves my point. Bush massively raised spending as a Keynesian response to a recession, and Obama maintained this atrociously high level of spending. If I take on $25,000 in student loans this year and $25,000 in student loans next year, I have not changed my rate of spending, but I am still broke and still an idiot.

Quote:

And lol at the idea republicans are for lower taxes. If that was the case why are they trying to raise the sales tax in multiple states while lowering the income tax, resulting in a net tax increase for the majority of americans?

I said in my article that I am not a Republican and Republicans are by and large idiots. That being said, there is a faction in the Republican party that at least claims to stand for lower taxes, and this is the faction being targeted by national media and the Republicans.

Quote:

You must get all your information from fox news. There's so much misinformation and sensationalism here I'm not even going to try.

I already said that Republicans are idiots. Fox News is the mouthpiece of the Republican party and I get none of my information from them. Now I am beginning to sound like a broken record.

Quote:

Furthermore your second chart provides absolutely no useful information about how any of the numbers were calculated.

Here is the link.

Quote:

This is the type of argument usually meant to appeal to women or people already set in their ways who just want to be told their right. You entire posts lacks all substance of any kind.

This is the height of irony as your post ignores the points I made, is punctuated with "lols", and accuses me of watching Fox News.

[TheRookie]

Thank you Scorpion. I agree with all of this. If it is unclear about my post, I was not trying to make a grand, systematic statement on American politics. There are enough books out there and blogs that say it better than me. The only point I was trying to make is that Obama is trying to crush a certain sentiment in favor of liberty that barely exists in the hypocritical Republican party.

(03-02-2013 03:07 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

This entire thing is a charade, it doesn't matter which party controls the White House. Spending will not be cut in any significant degree, and would not be if McCain or Romney were President, either. Our economic and monetary system is built on debt. Debt is required for the machine to function, just like your car requires gasoline to function. Without new debt, there is no new money created, and deflation results. The mandate of the Federal Reserve is to prevent this from happening, under the guise of promoting full employment and stable prices. The result is a steady flow of new debt and inflation.

At some point the system will implode under its own weight and there will be some kind of monetary reset. Nothing either party could conceivably do would be able to prevent this, even if they wanted to (they don't).

This entire sequester drama is being fought over $85 billion. Out of a deficit of $1 trillion, or $1000 billion. Do you think a deficit of "only" $915 billion is really going to make a difference compared to $1000 billion? It's a joke. This is all theatre.

Republicans call themselves fiscal conservatives, but when put in charge they start two unfunded wars and create a new Medicate entitlement, all while cutting taxes. Now that Obama is in charge they suddenly find Jesus and decry all spending. You've got to be an idiot to fall for this.

Meanwhile, Democrats are the party of spineless ineptitude and hypocrisy in almost every regard. When Bush was in office, they raised hell about warrantless wiretapping and torture. Now that Obama is in office, they couldn't care less about the targeted assassination of American citizens. Apparently, listening to someone's phone call is a worse crime than blowing him up with a Predator drone. Again, what kind of idiot can look at this with a straight face?

If you believe that either of these two parties have the best interest of the country in mind, you need to take the political red pill.

[kbell]

I would say the Democratic party is war hungry as well. And very similar wars as well and there is no gnashing of the media about being in war with foreign countries this time around.

Both parties also don't support men and view men as subservient to women. Although Fox is the only channel to have Mark Rudov so that's one point in their favor. They also both seem to support a variation of centralized government.

[Damedius]

Maybe it's just the view from the outside. But I already thought there was one party rule in the States.

The 2 party sham seems to be an illusion to keep the masses out of politics. They nitpick about insignificant issues to keep you distracted. Meanwhile they continue to take your hard earned money and give it out in the form of corporate welfare to elites who know how to game the system.

Basically democracy existed for a short period of time until smart and/or ruthless people learned how to bypass and circumvent it.

I also don't think this only extends to the USA. The same problem exists in most if not all of the world's democracies.

[nek]

(03-03-2013 12:42 AM)Damedius Wrote:  

Maybe it's just the view from the outside. But I already thought there was one party rule in the States.

The 2 party sham seems to be an illusion to keep the masses out of politics. They nitpick about insignificant issues to keep you distracted. Meanwhile they continue to take your hard earned money and give it out in the form of corporate welfare to elites who know how to game the system.

Basically democracy existed for a short period of time until smart and/or ruthless people learned how to bypass and circumvent it.

I also don't think this only extends to the USA. The same problem exists in most if not all of the world's democracies.

Power always finds a way to do what it wants.

[greensteelhead]

At some point, you zombie-like Obama supporters will have to admit that Barak Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm, mmm) increased the amount of debt like no other before him (the data doesn't lie - his first term racked up $5.8 trillion of the total $16.4 trillion in debt, and it will continue to be growing, ladies).
Source: http://m.cnsnews.com/news/article/first-...s-53-terms

That is truth you cannot deny....let it sink in for a moment.

This level of spending and debt are unsustainable in the long term. We owe $16.4 trillion here in the US, and we are about to debate raising that debt ceiling AGAIN. How many times can you up your limit and run that credit card before the music stops? We seem hellbent to see and try.

When the US finally collapses on itself (as it has to do), the rest of the world will collapse as well.

I predict that the Republicans will be thrown out of the House in 2014, and the accelerator will be pushed to the floor to pay off constituents before the Presidential election in 2016. There are many grubby, outstretched hands looking for that payoff, and the Statists have figured out the game. It is all about paying to play -- Chicago-style.

At some point, this house of cards will topple, but not before the political elite grab the money out of their reach: 401ks, IRAs and other corporate dollars sitting on the sidelines. They will fold those retirement funds into some new department.

You'd best get a strategy, boys. Get your money out of the system and get ready. In the next 20 years or so, we are going to have radical change.

The only way out of the current debt problem is to radically cut spending and/or have massive growth. Good luck with the later given the financial environment, regulation and leadership these days. This is not a pro-growth administration.

The Republican and Democrat Parties need to die a quick death so we can actually rebuild once the shitstorm hits. Obama might even destroy the Republicans first, but it might be a blessing since they suck so bad.

Enjoy the decline of Western civilization!

[soup]

Guess what, it's too late.

The parties are branches of the same corporate trees.

Two party system is sham.

[Tex Pro]

I sometimes wonder what would happen if there was a Greek-style debt crisis in the USA? The USA has far more guns floating around than Greece and this country already is somewhat fractured due to the various states. It could get ugly. I guess we will have to wait and see.

I too don't see an end to these trillion dollar plus deficits, so eventually we will have to pay the piper. Right now what is helping the USA is that the Euro is in worse shape than the dollar. Eventually, though, we will accumulate too much debt and there will be a dollar crisis. Don't know how much longer the USA has since the federal reserve and the moderately recovering economy could still give us another decade or more of time before the hammer falls, but I suspect that when the hammer does fall, so to speak, it will be too late to do anything about it. Austerity, riots, assassinations and anarchy will follow.

[j r]

(03-03-2013 02:35 AM)greensteelhead Wrote:  

At some point, you zombie-like Obama supporters will have to admit that Barak Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm, mmm) increased the amount of debt like no other before him...

Who exactly are you accusing of being a "zombie-like Obama supporter?"

And what's the mmm mmm mmm about?

[iknowexactly]

Money talks bullshit walks. Here's one chart that addresses what's real.

Note the increasing power of the 1%.

"there's class warfare, all right, and our class--the rich-- are winning"

Warren Buffett.

[Lemmo]

Another reason for those of you who are outside the US to look at the requirements to obtain a local passport. Since the US is one of the few countries to tax its citizens even if they are outside the US, you'll need to give up your US citizenship to avoid whatever confiscatory taxes eventually come down to deal with the debt. Of course, the IRS will still try to screw you even when you are no longer a citizen.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...73802.html

[WestCoast]

(03-03-2013 03:04 AM)Lemmo Wrote:  

Another reason for those of you who are outside the US to look at the requirements to obtain a local passport. Since the US is one of the few countries to tax its citizens even if they are outside the US, you'll need to give up your US citizenship to avoid whatever confiscatory taxes eventually come down to deal with the debt. Of course, the IRS will still try to screw you even when you are no longer a citizen.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...73802.html

Damn, more people are coming up with all the loopholes i've already laid out for myself.

This is a great plan and one everyone should do once they pull the goodbye trigger (if they want to or have enough to do so).

I've seen a few guys do this already, genius plan.

Renounce and pull down capital, the return profile is insane long-term.

[Lemmo]

(03-03-2013 03:22 AM)WestCoast Wrote:  

(03-03-2013 03:04 AM)Lemmo Wrote:  

Another reason for those of you who are outside the US to look at the requirements to obtain a local passport. Since the US is one of the few countries to tax its citizens even if they are outside the US, you'll need to give up your US citizenship to avoid whatever confiscatory taxes eventually come down to deal with the debt. Of course, the IRS will still try to screw you even when you are no longer a citizen.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...73802.html

Damn, more people are coming up with all the loopholes i've already laid out for myself.

This is a great plan and one everyone should do once they pull the goodbye trigger (if they want to or have enough to do so).

I've seen a few guys do this already, genius plan.

Renounce and pull down capital, the return profile is insane long-term.

Drudge also had a relevant link today http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/9904314...-rise.html

US expats in HK and Singapore are really getting screwed - easily paying 2x the taxes they'd pay if they were a citizen of any other country.

[Vicious]

TheRookie as in the Rookie VK hangs with?

[michelin]

DOn't worry dude. It is not because of a party (Republican) is in crisis that it will disappear. It's a myth that it cannot recover. If it wants to become succesfull, it needs to rethink its principles and have a strong leader. As long as that isn't the case, it will keep agonizing at expenses of the stronger party. I favor a multi-party system, but hey, this is the US, a country with its qualities and flaws, like any other country.

[rudebwoy]

(03-03-2013 12:42 AM)Damedius Wrote:  

Maybe it's just the view from the outside. But I already thought there was one party rule in the States.

The 2 party sham seems to be an illusion to keep the masses out of politics. They nitpick about insignificant issues to keep you distracted. Meanwhile they continue to take your hard earned money and give it out in the form of corporate welfare to elites who know how to game the system.

Basically democracy existed for a short period of time until smart and/or ruthless people learned how to bypass and circumvent it.

I also don't think this only extends to the USA. The same problem exists in most if not all of the world's democracies.

Choice is an illusion, to think it matters whether you vote Democrat or Republican is the funniest thing I have EVER heard.
President's are the front men for the EVIL forces in the back room(Bankers, Lobbyist Groups, Super-Rich)

[Mr.Barbarian]

The late evil, racist, bad bad bad proto-White Nationalist Sam Francis

I have a friend who works on Capitol Hill for one of the Republican staff organizations in Congress. It's part of his job to escort foreign visitors around the Capitol and explain how the U.S. government works. This is no easy task because ... in this country, among other things, we don't have two clear-cut ideological parties, a party of the Left and a party of the Right, and foreigners never understand exactly what the Republican Party and Democratic party are about.

So my friend has discovered a very simple way of explaining it to them: "In this country we have two parties, the Stupid Party, and the Evil Party. Sometimes the two parties work together for a common end, in which case the outcome is both stupid and evil. This is known as bipartisanship."

And he says that the foreign visitors always say, "Well! We now understand it. This is exactly what we have in our government!"

[Walderschmidt]

(03-03-2013 06:14 PM)Mr.Barbarian Wrote:  

The late evil, racist, bad bad bad proto-White Nationalist Sam Francis

I have a friend who works on Capitol Hill for one of the Republican staff organizations in Congress. It's part of his job to escort foreign visitors around the Capitol and explain how the U.S. government works. This is no easy task because ... in this country, among other things, we don't have two clear-cut ideological parties, a party of the Left and a party of the Right, and foreigners never understand exactly what the Republican Party and Democratic party are about.

So my friend has discovered a very simple way of explaining it to them: "In this country we have two parties, the Stupid Party, and the Evil Party. Sometimes the two parties work together for a common end, in which case the outcome is both stupid and evil. This is known as bipartisanship."

And he says that the foreign visitors always say, "Well! We now understand it. This is exactly what we have in our government!"

This! This is how I will explain it from now on.