My Final Word On the Election

[Michael]

Personally I’m worse off than I was four years ago. My stock investments plummeted, and my house has declined in value over the years. Do I blame Bush? No. Do I credit Clinton for the 1990’s economic boom? No. As others have already pointed out, the impact that politicians have on the economy is severely overstated. However, I give Clinton credit for doing one thing very, very well: he sat back and allowed the country to run on autopilot. Instead of offering “new dealsâ€, or “great societiesâ€, or “contracts with Americaâ€, he just screwed his intern and smoked cigars. Which, in my view, makes him an excellent chief executive.

 

What disappoints me most about Bush is his lack of conservatism in some regards, and his social-conservative zeal in others. The medicare prescription drug “benefitâ€, the increased farm subsidies, the social engineering programs such as “promotion of marriage†– these are fiscally irresponsible measures that benefit neither the investor class nor the middle class, nor in most cases the poor. Bush has used taxation and government subsidies neither to advance the greater good nor to help the needy, but to redistribute wealth in accordance with his social agenda and his political strategy. It is neither conservative nor compassionate.

 

But most of all I blame Bush for refusing to admit making mistakes. Even staunch supporters of the Iraq war would agree that the occupation was mismanaged, the manpower was inadequate and the basic philosophy of dealing with the “Arab street†was flawed. Simply admitting that mistakes were made, even in the glancing sense of Reagan after the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980’s, would go a great distance toward blunting criticism and building consensus. Instead, Bush regards himself as infallible and his decisions as immutable. Everything that he did was right, everything that his advisors recommended was correct, and any dissent or argument is flawed, if not outright seditious.

 

 

BTW, after I broke my leg this past August, and the county ambulance came to fetch me, I indeed received a bill. My health insurance paid part (but not all) of it. But the curious thing is that the health insurance company negotiated with the emergency room, greatly lowering my eventual bill. I pity the fellow without health insurance, who got shafted paying the “retail†bill. See, we ALREADY have socialized medicine in this country! It’s just that the socialization is done very deviously.

[crazy280]

JMortenson,

You make a good point. I have actually had to do that a couple times in the past, where I was having problems and just had to leave. But the problem in the last few years, at least in the area I live in, has been there aren't enough well-paying jobs to go around. The only jobs left to people like me (no college degree, YET) are sh!tty minimum wage jobs. To be fair it is slowly getting better as the economy picks up.

Also, the beauty of unions is that they can take on a company even when that company is HUGE and has vast, far reaching control to the point where a single employee, or even a few employees, cannot change company policies. So the union, which is also vast and far reaching to many employees, can then negotiate, with the threat of strike to back them up. Strength in numbers, I guess.

[johnc]

Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart.

Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head.

 

- Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929)

 

Just a bit of sage advice for you young ones...

[JMortensen]

Interesting quote. Looks like I have no heart.

 

I wonder if that goes with his other quote:

All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

 

Looks like I might have some learning yet to do.

 

As far as the union goes, to me that was always just one more group who took a little cut of my paycheck. I'm telling you though, life is a lot better when you don't think you need your big badass friend the union standing behind you when you're negotiating with the boss. Nobody likes intimidation, employers or employees.

[JKDGabe]

When I talked about setting up our tax system, and you compared it to Russia, I was talking about a progressive tax system (what we have now) as opposed to a flat tax (what Republicans are pretty much headed towards). Not communism.

 

The reason I compared it to Russia is that one of the planks of the communist platform IS a progressive tax system.

 

And we DO have property tax in America

 

Never said we didn't. I was trying to say that I believe it's an unfair tax.

 

And we DO have property tax... the people continually vote to keep it that way here

 

I have never seen a vote on whether we keep the property tax or go to something else.

 

And Mikelly brings up a good point that we have incredibly low taxes compared to the rest of the world.

 

That's true, we do. But just because we're better than everybody else doesn't mean we can't do better yet.

 

I am still trying to emphasize the fact that our society is VOLUNTARY.

 

Yeah... if you don't mind being homeless. Then you won't "owe" any taxes. I pay for the roads I use with the taxes on the fuel that I buy. I pay for other services with the sales tax on food, clothes etc.

I'm not against all taxes... obviously some are necessary.

If I could live on my land and be completely self sufficient (I'm not, it's just an example) by your statement above I wouldn't owe any taxes. The system as it currently is would come demand some money even though I wasn't using any of the services they offer. If I couldn't pay they'd confiscate my land and auction it. That doesn't fit my definition of voluntary. What this boils down to is that you think government should take care of everybody. Government has proven itself to my satisfaction that they're not as competent as privately owned organizations. Sure, we need some things on a national level such as defense but not to the extent that it is now.

 

it is you who are judging me and the entire "welfare class" with your hateful statements.

 

I wasn't being hateful. The root word of "pathetic" is pathos. That's greek which basically means "emotion". I see how that was misinterpreted so I'll rephrase it. The welfare class makes me feel sad and disgusted both at the majorities laziness and the systems perpetuation of the problem. I don't despise the people on welfare however. I pointed out that there are exceptions to the rule and I'm glad that you seem to be one of them.

 

What I would like to see is government letting us keep our own money and spend it how we see fit. I donate to charities and needy individuals and would give more if the government didn't take it. The gov. happens to give it to causes that I don't think are worthy and I consider it immoral to make anyone support causes they disagree with.

 

I suggest you study the communist manifesto and see just how close to that we've moved.

 

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree...

[johnc]

FYI... I'm an ex-Teamster (local 952) and an ex-UAW (local 384). Unions have their place if administered and run in the interest of their members. Unfortunately, during the 1970s and 1980s both of the unions I belonged to above were extremely corrupt (on the national and local levels - I've got stories of personal intimidation from Teamster and UAW business agents) and stole pension and benefit funds from their members.

 

The socialist ideals of a union are appealing, but the actual implementations are crimminal.

[johnc]

BTW... seems that the basis of Hillarycare and John Kerry's health plan has gone bankrupt:

 

Tennessee to Dissolve

Expanded Medicaid Program

 

Associated Press

November 10, 2004 8:49 p.m.

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The governor announced plans Wednesday to dissolve Tennessee's expanded Medicaid system and drop 430,000 poor and disabled people from the rolls of the health-care program that has been devouring a large chunk of the state budget.

 

Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen said Tennessee will instead return to a cheaper, more basic Medicaid program. The move followed months of legal wrangling over the TennCare program, whose $7.8 billion price tag was projected to mushroom in coming years.

 

The governor held out some hope for saving the program, saying he will try for seven more days to work out an agreement with advocates who have won several court decisions about the level of health care the state must provide to TennCare recipients. But he said such a deal is unlikely.

 

"It pains me more than I can describe to take this path," Mr. Bredesen said. "This is not what I planned for or what I dreamed about doing as governor."

 

An attorney for the Medicaid recipients was also pessimistic about a last-minute deal and accused the first-term governor of making advocates into "scapegoats."

 

TennCare provides health care coverage for the poor, uninsured and disabled, covering 1.3 million Tennesseans, or about 22% of the state population. If TennCare is eliminated, some 430,000 of them would be dropped entirely, largely families of the working poor and those whose ailments and high medical bills make them uninsurable. The remaining 900,000 or so would continue to get coverage under basic Medicaid.

 

"Going back to a Medicaid plan will have a catastrophic effect on thousands of Tennesseans who will no longer have health care coverage," said C.E. "Mickey" Bilbrey, president and chief executive of University Health System.

 

Almost all states offer some supplemental Medicaid benefits, but Mr. Bredesen has said Tennessee has been more generous than other states. Mr. Bredesen ran for governor two years ago on a promise to either fix or end TennCare.

 

In the past, all TennCare participants had unlimited doctor visits and prescriptions. Mr. Bredesen has proposed a stripped-down TennCare plan that would limit 270,000 of the recipients to only 12 doctor visits and 45 days in the hospital each year, and six prescriptions a month. But advocacy groups have challenged that plan in court, and Mr. Bredesen said that unless they back off, TennCare will have to be abandoned entirely.

 

Mr. Bredesen said there is a 60-day notification period to kill the program and federal approval is required. Enrollees would have six months before TennCare disappears. The governor does not need legislative approval to end TennCare. The federal government gave that power to the governor when the program was created in 1994. Tennessee currently spends one-third of its budget on the health plan.

 

The Tennessee Justice Center, which has led the court battle against the governor's reforms, said the lawsuits will not go away even if the state rolls back to basic Medicaid.

 

Copyright © 2004 Associated Press

[JKDGabe]

The fix is simple... raise taxes!

[pparaska]

Oh, based on the website that started this thread - I sent some feed back to the childish sore loser that put that "filmstrip" up. It was probably too level headed for him to include in the feedback page...

 

Taxes. The rich pay well more than their share (based on a flat tax or $ per individual). That's the way it ought to be, IMO. And I too disagreed with giving checks out.

 

But remember - "the rich" also include those who own businesses. Lowering taxes on businesses was a Reaganesque way of going after a supply-side economy boost. Who knows if it worked or didn't.

 

Jobs: One statistic that means something to most economists is the rate of unemployment - how many "employable" people (16 or older) are unemployed. Generally, economists believe that a number like 5% is average. Less than that and they start looking for other signs of a recession. Guess what, we've been doing pretty well:

Graph: Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted)

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=LN_cpsbref3

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec     Annual (The site had "Annual" blank, I averaged the numbers over the year for you)
1994	6.6	6.6	6.5	6.4	6.1	6.1	6.1	6.0	5.9	5.8	5.6	5.5	 6.1
1995	5.6	5.4	5.4	5.8	5.6	5.6	5.7	5.7	5.6	5.5	5.6	5.6	 5.6
1996	5.6	5.5	5.5	5.6	5.6	5.3	5.5	5.1	5.2	5.2	5.4	5.4	 5.4
1997	5.3	5.2	5.2	5.1	4.9	5.0	4.9	4.8	4.9	4.7	4.6	4.7	 4.9
1998	4.6	4.6	4.7	4.3	4.4	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.6	4.5	4.4	4.4	 4.5
1999	4.3	4.4	4.2	4.3	4.2	4.3	4.3	4.2	4.2	4.1	4.1	4.0	 4.2
2000	4.0	4.1	4.0	3.8	4.0	4.0	4.0	4.1	4.0	3.9	3.9	3.9	 4.0
2001	4.2	4.2	4.3	4.4	4.3	4.5	4.6	4.9	5.0	5.4	5.6	5.7	 4.8
2002	5.6	5.7	5.7	5.9	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.7	5.7	5.7	5.9	6.0	 5.8
2003	5.8	5.9	5.8	6.0	6.1	6.3	6.2	6.1	6.1	6.0	5.9	5.7	 6.0
2004	5.6	5.6	5.7	5.6	5.6	5.6	5.5	5.4	5.4	5.5	-     -----------5.6	 	 

So, it's been 4.8 to 5.6 over the last 4 years, roughly. Whose fault (which president) is a really tough one to figure. But it appears that it started off "low" at 4.2 when Dubya took office in Jan 2001, and peaked in April 2002 at 5.9, went down a tiny bit, then peaked again in June 2003, then has been basically falling since, to a low of 5.4 in Aug and Sep 2004, and we had 5.5 in Oct 2004. Not exactly terrible, but sure, it could improve.

 

I had a tough time deciding who to vote for until the last two months or so when I heard all the lies that Kerry through out, all the contrarian Bush bashing he did (instead of telling me HOW he was going to make things better, in any kind of detail.)

 

That and watching Tom Daschle (the morning of 2 Nov) mouthing the lie about how Bush's "privatization" of Social Security would bankrupt the system that sent me 20 miles from the hospital I was at with my wife (she has some out-patient surgery on the 2nd - she's fine) to my polling place and voting for Bush. Talk about utter BS. Letting people control how 1.5% of their Social Security deductions would be invested is NOT going to bankrupt the system. BLATTANT misrepresentations like this are more galling than SUPPOSED lies made to us by Bush and his cabinet about whether there were WMDs or the infrastructure for WMDs in Iraq - like we could actually KNOW what data Bush and company based those accusations on.

 

That and seeing Tommy Franks' statement about how if Kerry were elected the soldiers would be demoralized. Do I believe that's true for every soldier and their family? No. Do I think that it's darned likely that he's right? Yes. Kerry's statements about "Wrong War" and all that aren't forgotten by the soldiers. Fact is that they are there, and I believe it's better to have them there with the mismanagement (only partial) of this administration, then there and demoralized with Kerry in the whitehouse. Just my opinion.

 

I'm glad to see that we've been seeing proof that there are Al Quida and other Muslim fundamentalist "militia" coming in from outside Iraq to fight against what most of the people in Iraq and the coalition are doing. I'm glad to hear that many of them are being slaughtered in Fallujah. Nothing is worse than a fundamentalist soldier/militia/terrorists that believes that only their brand of their religion should be allowed on the earth or in a region. They think they are doing God's work by killing/torturing/etc. and holding a country and it's people from being free and living in fear of terrorism. They are the definition of unbridled evil IMO. The faster the coalition and rational Iraqi's can slaughter them, the better. I only hope that we've waited long enough that all the martyr's from other parts of the world that believe that only their brand of Islam that is so inhumane have had a chance to make it to that part of Iraq where the slaughter of terrorists is happening.

 

Hmm. Do you think those bumbling idiots in Washington planned for Iraq to be a magnet for these terrorists from the region, so that they could gather them easier for the slaughter? Nah. Too far fetched. That'd take intelligence and planning. Jeesh, and the people of Iraq get rid of a genocidal maniac and have the world rebuild their country better than it was? It's a really sorry situation.

 

BTW, how can you tell how many those "tens of thousancds" of Iraqi's killed in the war were militia, Saddam loyalists, soldiers in civy's, or just "innocent victims". If the dead body isn't wearing a military uniform when it's found, it must be an innocent civilian? It's not like this is in any way a conventional war - counting who is a civilian and who is a soldier is difficult at best, impossible more than likely. Saddam ordered his troops to take off their uniforms and boots and retreat to their homes if things were looking bad. And the terrorists and cowardly militia who hide their faces do the same thing - blend into the innocent civilian background. Let me just say that I don't believe the "tens of thousands" of Iraqi dead are even close to mostly innocent civilians. Again, the media spins it the way of the dirt - to get ratings.

[Mikelly]

Pete, You will get NO WHERE by talking facts with this subject... Those who HATE Bush do NOT want to hear facts... Do a search and read facts posted here, and elsewhere by smart guys like yourself, and then read the responses... Sad really...

 

No, it is much like sitcom television... Reality makes to much sense, so lets ignore it and listen to the media... they WON'T lie!

 

I'm with you Pete, Lets MOW THE F'ers down... These same "extremists" were in Afghanistan, have been in Chechenya, were present in Mogadishu, and Bosnia... And they use the Muslim faith as their camoflage. We need to hunt them down and kill them where they live or where they are... Be it on a College Campus in Berkley, California or in some spiderhole in Iraq.

 

The liberal left would rather we hold hands and sing songs and "Talk and negotiate" and mend fences with the rest of the world... SCREW THAT... These people are evil and want US AMERICANS DEAD! You are either FOR the protection of the united states of america and its constitution, or you are not... And if you are not, then you need to pack the hell up and get the hell out... Plain and simple...

 

We have 18 year old kids over there fighting for our causes and MAKING a positive difference EVERY DAY, only to have the media spin and turn Iraq into a "Failure Campaign". JUST ONCE I'd like for the positive interviews with servicemen and women over there broadcast so people HERE could see the good we are doing over there... for every "Failure" broadcast by the media there are So So many good successes done by our boys and girls over there... Talk to any soldier who is or has been there and they will tell you first hand how sad it is that the TRUTH isn't being told.

 

No Pete, The media sells us lies, and those who choose to hunt out the truth, and reality, they are the smart ones... The rest are just sitting in a field munching clover...

 

Baahhhaaaahahaaaaa...

 

Mike 8)

[blueovalz]

Come on Mike, quit being a pansy and tell us how you really feel! Oh, BTW, code 12-229 of the HybridZ forum code of conduct prohibits excessive use of the emoticons. But a little known fact is the use of a will offset the other two by a 1.333:1 ratio.

[Mikelly]

 

I know Terry, I really need to come out of my shell!

 

Mike

[pparaska]

BTW... seems that the basis of Hillarycare and John Kerry's health plan has gone bankrupt:

 

Tennessee to Dissolve

Expanded Medicaid Program

 

Associated Press

November 10' date=' 2004 8:49 p.m.

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The governor announced plans Wednesday to dissolve Tennessee's expanded Medicaid system and drop 430,000 poor and disabled people from the rolls of the health-care program that has been devouring a large chunk of the state budget.

<snip>

[/quote']

 

To me it's a socialist idea to expect that everyone in the US should be entitled to unfettered access to the incredibly high level of health care the US CAN provide. Should hospitals accept everyone, insurance or not, for emergency room care for real life threatening or severe illness/injury? I think so. Should everyone have free access to as many doctor's office visits, hospital care, all possible tests, treatments and surgeries, and any perscription drugs that a doctor might ask for - for NOTHING? HELL NO.

 

But there is a minimum level of health care - that which is necessary to keep one reasonably healthy (be it preventative, reactive, etc.) and to emergency and critical care. That sounds like what a good health plan would consist of. But Tenncare's "give them access to as much as they can get" system is exactly the kind of extreme socialist "care" (be it welfare or medical) that is ridiculous and would bankrupt THE US it Hillary or Kerry or their friends had their way.

 

If you let the hand-wringers have their way, there won't be enough money left in the budget to do anything BUT provide unfettered healthcare for all US citizens and those able to get here illegally. Pass that kind of legislation, and watch the borders be gushing with incoming illegals, even more than they do now.

[crazy280]

wow

 

sounds like you guys have a lot of pent up rage and hate in your hearts...

i thought republicans were supposed to be the "moral" ones...

nuff said

[johnc]

i thought republicans were supposed to be the "moral" ones...

 

As with anything, it always depends on the viewer's definition of "morality."

 

[stereotyping]

 

Conservatives tend to believe that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for life.

 

Liberals tend to believe that you should take fish away from the fisherman to feed those that won't fish.

 

[/stereotyping]

[Mikelly]

John John John...

 

And just for ther record... I'm a registered INDEPENDANT!

 

Like I said before... earlier in this election year... WE are not represented in our government... We have a far left, and we have a far right... We do not have moderate representation for democrats or republicans...

 

...And I TOLD YOU GUYS that Bush should can a few of the top brass... and gee... of the three I named... TWO have announced resignations so far!

 

And what about my claim that Bush should keep Condi Rice? Next SECSTATE!

When you're good...

MIke 8)

[blueovalz]

No humility what-so-ever. Give a guy a big garage, and it all goes to his head

[Mikelly]

None!

 

Hey I'm here all week, don't forget to tip your bartender and waitress!

 

Mike 8)

[Michael]

Another alternative....

 

Conservative:

If you can teach yourself to fish, good.

If you have fishermen working for you, even better.

If none of the above, go f*** yourself.

 

 

Liberal:

If you’re willing to learn to fish, come and we’ll teach you for free.

If you’re unwilling to learn, that’s your problem.

 

 

Sometimes we forget that “liberal†didn’t always mean “tax and spendâ€.

[Mikelly]

Michael Michael Michael...

 

You say potato...

 

Mike