Wrath of Dagon

What I'm talking about is a new law that's about to be passed, which has to do with elections on whether a workplace will be represented by a union or not. Before it was a secret ballot vote by all the employees, under Federal supervision. Under the new law union representation will only require a majority of employees to sign union cards, without having an election at all. In addition, a provision for binding arbitration means the government can set wages and working conditions in the newly unionized workplace.

Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for striking illegally, because you can't strike against the government in the US. And I'm not talking about banning unions, I'm talking about keeping union elections fair thus keeping them from vastly expanding their death grip on the economy.

If your employer doesn't listen to you, go find another employer. Someone who doesn't pay market wages won't stay in business long.

That's ridiculous, it's historically proven that only capitalism creates wealth and improves living standards. As taks said, this crisis is not the failure of capitalism, it's a failure of government policies and government ineptitude. Anyone who thinks we have a free economy with the government gobbling up 1/3 of gross domestic product is fooling themselves. As for unions, the fundemental problem with them is they're anti-market. You should be paid because your skills are in demand, not because you coerced the employer. Card check makes this far worse because it gets rid of the secret ballot for union representation. Open ballot was used in Soviet elections, for good reason. This is a favorite tactic of the left, if you can't win a fair election, change the rules in your favor.

If card check and binding arbitration passes, which it will unless Republicans have enough votes to filibuster, the government will be telling just about every business how to run it. If that's not socialism, I don't know what is. Also one of the leaders of the American Socialist party said a long time ago, paraphrasing, "The American people will never accept socialism, but they will accept it in pieces, under the guise of liberalism."

Checkpoints are bad enough, but what about checkpoints you can't even save? *cough* Ubisoft *cough*

By numbers, factory assembled games, which is 99% of them.

All that means is that younger voters respond better to charisma, idealism and vague world changing promises than older and wiser voters. There hasn't been any great idealogical shift yet, perhaps there will be one if Obama does extremely well or if this turns into a great depression. Reagan almost lost to Carter lolz, then he won 49 states, then Bush was losing to Dukakis in the polls but managed to destroy him in the campaign and win, then losing to Clinton. You can't read too much into any one election, they all depend on conditions on the ground. As far as purging moderates, that's typical Republican grumbling after every loss, I don't think it means much.

Sounds like a really good book, I need to get it next time I buy books, thanks.

And yet it's the place to be.

Well, I agreed with most of your statement. And obviously if they voted for Obama, they preferred Obama, for whatever reason. The rest of my comment I added for myself, not really commenting on what you said, and I take it we disagree on that, so I'm back to not being amazed, everything's right with the world again.

For once to my amazement I agree with Volourn. The only reasons Republicans lost was because everyone hates Bush and the economy tanked. Also I don't remember Clinton ever cutting taxes.

In general it's the extension of governmental control in every sphere of our lives. A couple of examples: Card check - doing away with secret vote for union representation elections and instead replacing it with a signed card, thus making voter intimidation possible. This passed the House last year but was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate. The Fairness doctrine - requiring balanced viewpoints to be expressed on the radio, which makes right wing talk radio no longer commercially viable since its audience will tune out as soon as a liberal comes on. The left claims they're for democracy, free speech, and the constitution, but their deeds prove otherwise.

Yes, that was voluntary sharing, socialism is coercive sharing.

I'm playing Halo 3 right now, seems pretty fun although the level design is really stupid. Edit: A great shooter no one has heard of is Project Snowblind, people complain it's pretty short. Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is a really fun shooter that's different. Those are both Xbox titles though. The best tactical shooter I ever played is the original Brothers in Arms.

McCain definitely did not win because he was the most moderate, you only have to look at his contest with George Bush to see that. It is well known that Republicans tend to go for the most conservative credible candidate. Another thing to keep in mind is that there were no true conservatives in the Republican race. Romney was a recent convert, most likely for purely political reasons, and Huckabee was a conservative only on social issues, and otherwise more of a populist. McCain is a solid conservative on about half the issues, but also tends to take positions on other issues which really piss off most Republicans. Also as I mentioned McCain was instumental in getting the surge in Iraq done, which gave a lot of conservatives a reason to vote for him which they wouldn't have otherwise.

@Krezack My point exactly, by Super Tuesday McCain had build up too much momentum to be beaten. Take a look at the Florida results http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide.../states/FL.html McCain barely defeated Romney, and without Huckabee Romney is likely to have won, which would've completely changed the dynamics. Also the Republican system is vastly preferable to the slow death of a thousand cuts of the Democrats.

Yeah, I'm sure you have an intricate understanding of American politics from Australia. Well, your understanding of socialism is confused and you misunderstand the way in which the Primary Elections are demographically unbalanced (they are, but because of state sizes and scheduling issues, not "radical activists"). For instance, your claim that McCain won because Romney and Huckabee split the extremist demographic is false. McCain won 32 states and 47% of the popular vote. Huckabee and Romney combined won only 19 states and 42% of the popular vote. McCain won about 1,300 delegates while Mitt and Mike combined won only about 550 delegates. That's because Romney withdrew once it became obvious the he couldn't win. You obviously don't understand how American primaries work, once a candidate wins a few early states his momentum becomes insurmountable. Had Hillary not won New Hampshire, she would be finished right there. Please don't argue about things you know nothing about. Lieberman wasn't a Republican, but was McCain's first choice for VP. He would've done better with Democrats and independents (but probably still lost: low base enthusiasm -> low base turnout). You can't have a pro-abortion candidate as a Republican nominee, plus Lieberman is quite liberal on most other social issues. Whatever independent votes McCain would've picked up wouldn't offset all the conservatives that would simply stay home. The obvious and probably the best VP choice was Romney, but he also had a problem of some far-right Christians unwilling to vote for a Mormon, plus McCain doesn't like him.

Yeah, I'm sure you have an intricate understanding of American politics from Australia. As far as Palin, that was a horrible decision, I was shocked when I heard it. She obviously wasn't ready to be president, even before all the evidence of her utter ignorance came out. One of McCain's problems was his age, and one of his advantages was experience, and he screwed himself on both fronts with that selection. McCain has a reputation of being somewhat erratic and taking strange positions, and that certainly came out during the campaign. Still, with the financial crisis and all the hatred for Bush, I doubt any Republican would've done much better.

The left wing of the Democratic party, which is to say most of them is trying to take us to European style "socialism", such as socialized medicine. It's not true that the centrist candidate usually wins the parties' nomination, it is party activists who are the most influential, and they're the more radical ones in both parties. This is a big part of the reason Obama won over Hillary, and this is why he won almost all caucuses, since those are the most dominated by party activists. McCain won because Romney and Huckaby split the conservative vote amonst them, leaving McCain a plurality. The fact that he was the only one pushing for the surge in Iraq also helped him in the Republican primary. As far as Obama himself, it's hard to predict what he'll actually do as president, as he seems to be more of an opportunist than an idealogue. He's already managed to take both sides of almost every issue.

Supposed to be more precise, since they'll explain what you will say or do, so you won't pull a gun when you don't expect to.

@Enoch It's a question of whether the redistribution of wealth is an end in itself. Of course any social program will involve redistribution of wealth, but that's not necessarily the ultimate goal. In other words you can try to help those in need, or you can try to make incomes more equal, which isn't quite the same thing. Edit: Let's not forget that Republicans apparently still have enough votes to filibuster in the Senate, which will probably at least prevent such anti-democratic, anti- free speech laws as card check, fairness doctrine, and socialistic stuff like a 15% income tax surcharge.

Serial killers are not the only ones who kill adults, child killers are the only ones who kill children intentionally though.

Ah, well. It was worth a shot - you'll have to live not understanding, then... I don't think I can help you if you fail to realize that people are free to think whatever they wish, regardless of how sick and perverted you deem it to be. They may be free to think whatever, but there's certainly no reason to pander to them.

I was born in Europe (in a true socialist country, too), so may be I qualify. He's a socialist in the sense that he wants to redistribute wealth, which is a socialist idea, not in the sense that he wants to nationalize means of production, which is true socialism.