US Presidential Elections

[Meshugger]

And oh, before returning to the presidential elections, i would like to add a comment about socialism and healthcare in Europe. First, every country has it differently, in germany for example you can have a private health-care insurance if you want to, but everyone has one that the state pays for though, unless otherwise.

 

In Finland for example, there are private and public clinics, and hospitals as well. Companies usually use private clinics, since some of them are specializes in work-related injuries. All in all, the system is tier-based. Got the flu? Go to the nearest clinic (private or public), get a diagnosis, and go to the pharmacy and get your pills. The flu got worse? Back to your clinic and the doctor puts you to the nearest hospital. If the situation goes FUBAR, then you are taken to the nearest university or central hospital. Emergency situations are done in a different manner ofcourse.

 

And for the bills? Well, you'll never see them, the doctors and hospitals file it to the state insurance company, who is non-profit, funded by the goverment through your taxes. Thus, healthcare itself is not socialized, the healthcare-insurance industry is.

 

Downsides? Well, like any insurance company, they do take their job seriously. They have their own doctor's to examine the results, looking for any possibility of cheating the system or performing unnecessary proedures (for example, getting bigger boobs for the sake of bigger boobs, and the bills go straight back to you). My dad had a beef with them a couple of years ago. His job requires a lot of travelling by car, and his back has been taking a great toll (it's so bad that he can't bend correctly anymore) in recent years. His doctor recommended him to install a special designed chair in the car in order to ease the stress on his back, which he did. The state insurance weren't exactly keen on this, so they made the claim that his condition didn't warrant the need of a specially designed chair.

 

So, my dad went to one of real specialists in this country to get his back examined, and he agreed with my dad. The doctor filed for an official complaint, and they agreed this time, since they can't claim in the court that their doctors have better judgement than the specialists in the field. Sadly, it took more time than necessary to get it done. But like the american system, it isn't perfect.

[Meshugger]

Back to topic:

Karl Rove is awesome!

[Pop]

lol reaganomics. I was a toddler during his presidency, but studying his politics, he was horrible. He was a terrible governor of California--he gutted the state's education and health systems--and then he did the same thing to America as a whole. People give him credit for winning the Cold War, but that's total bull****. The Soviet Union collapsed in on itself. It fell on its own sword in Afghanistan. Reagan leveled harsh rhetoric at the corpse and thus took credit for ending the Cold War. His diplomatic skills were legendarily comedic.

 

Of course, all of that is consistent with far-right social darwinist rape politics (observe taks' use of the socialist boogeyman) that sprung up in the 80's as a reactionary response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60's. But for people who aren't belligerent, voodoo econ is the second most discredited economic system, behind communism.

 

Also, Sarah Palin, protecting our children from the (socialist, no doubt) influence of literature.

Edited September 4, 2008 by Pop

[Hildegard]

Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'

 

Who the hell gives you the right to say what God does or doesn't do?

 

As a believer, I don't know what Gods plan is, but I certainly don't think it's invading other countries for geopolitical and economic reasons you arrogant bitch

Edited September 4, 2008 by Hildegard

[themadhatter114]

lol reaganomics. I was a toddler during his presidency, but studying his politics, he was horrible. He was a terrible governor of California--he gutted the state's education and health systems--and then he did the same thing to America as a whole. People give him credit for winning the Cold War, but that's total bull****. The Soviet Union collapsed in on itself. It fell on its own sword in Afghanistan. Reagan leveled harsh rhetoric at the corpse and thus took credit for ending the Cold War. His diplomatic skills were legendarily comedic.

 

Of course, all of that is consistent with far-right social darwinist rape politics (observe taks' use of the socialist boogeyman) that sprung up in the 80's as a reactionary response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60's. But for people who aren't belligerent, voodoo econ is the second most discredited economic system, behind communism.

 

Also, Sarah Palin, protecting our children from the (socialist, no doubt) influence of literature.

 

No books were ever banned. She asked about it because some of her constituents asked about it. And there's a difference between banning a book and not wanting it in a public library.

 

I think she just seems like a really savvy politician. She fired up the religious crowd, but then fired the chief of police because he wanted to force bars to close 3 hours earlier and because he wasn't a pro-gun advocate. Then she gets into the governor's office and pretty much drops the religion issue except to occasionally throw the Republican party a bone, when the Republicans in the legislature actually hate her (some people are raising an issue that Palin laughed nervously as a radio host called a cancer survivor a b**** and a cancer...this same poor fragile cancer survivor, a Republican, is the same woman who started the rumor that Palin faked her latest pregnancy to cover for her daughter). She vetoes a bill aimed at denying benefits for homosexual partners because it's unconstitutional and then panders to the people that they can try to change the State Constitution if they want. Then she started telling all of the oil companies to go to hell and signed a deal with a Canadian oil company instead, even though people thought she'd have a conflict of interest with her husband working for BP.

 

And this whole Troopergate scandal is just making me love her more. She actually sent e-mails to her public safety director and encouraged him to support a bill that would give cops a 99 year mandatory sentence for committing murder, she then goes on to say how much trust people put in the police and that it's a huge betrayal when they betray the public trust, and that too many troopers were betraying the public trust, and then was like "Mike Wooten, for example."

 

Then another bill that would strengthen gun prohibitions for the mentally ill, she says that she supports something like this but you also have to consider applying standards like this to the police officers, and was like "Mike Wooten, who threatened to kill my father, for instance."

 

I absolutely hate police officers' unions when they stonewall and protect a corrupt POS. I don't know if she actually pressured him to fire the guy, but there's no way that that cop should have kept his badge after everything that the investigation confirmed that he did. And now Walter Monegan is showing these non-revealing e-mails as proof that governor Palin is lying. If she did pressure him, I think she would've had every right to do so (actually she had the right to fire him for any reason whatsoever), and I don't think she would've had anything to hide.

 

It's pathetic that cops are exempt from so many of the firearms regulations that so many of the rest of us have to abide by.

 

I could be way off but I really think that Palin is a libertarian in disguise who is just playing the game for the time being. I think she did well last night but they're not going to let her get too far away from the McCain message. I really loved her message to the Alaskan Independence Party's Convention (their Chair actually apologized today and confirmed that Sarah never was a member, but that Todd Palin was a member until 2002).

Edited September 4, 2008 by themadhatter114

[Pop]

No books were ever banned. She asked about it because some of her constituents asked about it. And there's a difference between banning a book and not wanting it in a public library.

Uh... That's exactly what a banned book is. I'm not aware of the government ever banning a book from being made or sold, outside of copyright infringements and other such technicalitites. When we talk about "banned books" we generally mean either books that are disallowed from distribution in public libraries, or books that aren't allowed to be disseminated or taught in a classroom setting, usually because they contain godless faggotry or curse words or other such (socialist and unamerican) things that harm our children. This sort of "nannying" is exactly the sort of thing civil libertarians rail against, but it's interesting that when Palin endorses such action it's alright and even commendable. That her constituents want books banned is immaterial. Libertarians are supposed to get their panties all twisted over tyranny of the majority in any case, if a majority really wants books banned.

[Humodour]

hehe, there was a reason billary's efforts failed miserably. you think it's bad now, wait till the last bastion of capitalist healthcare goes socialist.

 

only american can talk like this

 

 

enjoy your AIDS while Canada and Europe facepalms at your healthcare system

 

Hey, don't forget Australia. We also enjoy a good round of mocking America's shocking healthcare and welfare systems.

[themadhatter114]

No books were ever banned. She asked about it because some of her constituents asked about it. And there's a difference between banning a book and not wanting it in a public library.

Uh... That's exactly what a banned book is. I'm not aware of the government ever banning a book from being made or sold, outside of copyright infringements and other such technicalitites. When we talk about "banned books" we generally mean either books that are disallowed from distribution in public libraries, or books that aren't allowed to be disseminated or taught in a classroom setting, usually because they contain godless faggotry or curse words or other such (socialist and unamerican) things that harm our children. This sort of "nannying" is exactly the sort of thing civil libertarians rail against, but it's interesting that when Palin endorses such action it's alright and even commendable. That her constituents want books banned is immaterial. Libertarians are supposed to get their panties all twisted over tyranny of the majority in any case, if a majority really wants books banned.

 

I guess civil libertarians have never heard of a bookstore. A real libertarian would just shut down the public library, sell all the books, cut the librarian's salary from the city budget, sell the building and give the taxpayers back their money. People don't like having their tax dollars support things that they don't support. I don't think I've borrowed a book from a library in years. I've never even been into the public library where I am. Though anyone who has even an internet connection and thinks that banning a book would affect anything is pretty dim.

 

I'm banking on Sarah having simply been politicking for her constituents a little bit. I don't see much reason not to look into the matter if the townspeople want to know if they can vote on it. Regardless, it's not an attack on your civil liberties when you can still acquire the book on your own.

 

If Sarah Palin truly is an anti-rights moral crusader, I don't think she would have had the support of the libertarian groups (endorsed by the Libertarian Party and claimed by the Alaskan Independence Party) in Alaska. I just think she's a pretty savvy politician, and considering that the book thing was like 12 years ago when she first became mayor, I'd say she probably figured out which citizens to give in to and which ones to stand up to.

Edited September 5, 2008 by themadhatter114

[Laozi]

Hah, libertarians would want public libraries shut down and let people buy the damn book in a bookstore.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2008 by Laozi

[Humodour]

No books were ever banned. She asked about it because some of her constituents asked about it. And there's a difference between banning a book and not wanting it in a public library.

Uh... That's exactly what a banned book is. I'm not aware of the government ever banning a book from being made or sold, outside of copyright infringements and other such technicalitites. When we talk about "banned books" we generally mean either books that are disallowed from distribution in public libraries, or books that aren't allowed to be disseminated or taught in a classroom setting, usually because they contain godless faggotry or curse words or other such (socialist and unamerican) things that harm our children. This sort of "nannying" is exactly the sort of thing civil libertarians rail against, but it's interesting that when Palin endorses such action it's alright and even commendable. That her constituents want books banned is immaterial. Libertarians are supposed to get their panties all twisted over tyranny of the majority in any case, if a majority really wants books banned.

 

Hah, libertarians would want public libraries shut down and let people buy the damn book in a bookstore.

 

That's why nobody (outside of America) really respects libertarians.

[Laozi]

I'm a libertarian and thats not the sort of thing we really advocate

Edited September 5, 2008 by Laozi

[thepixiesrock]

I just kept re reading that and I still don't understand why librarians would want libraries shut down.

[julianw]

I just kept re reading that and I still don't understand why librarians would want libraries shut down.

So they no longer need to deal with the homeless?

[Laozi]

I just kept re reading that and I still don't understand why librarians would want libraries shut down.

 

 

I also thought it said librarian

[Humodour]

I'm a libertarian and thats not the sort of thing we really advocate

 

Let's play some Freudian word association:

 

1) universal welfare

 

2) universal healthcare

 

3) government regulation

 

4) free market capitalism

 

5) social democracy

[Laozi]

I'm not a libertarian in the mold of Barry Goldwater or Ron Paul

[Humodour]

I'm not a libertarian in the mold of Barry Goldwater or Ron Paul

 

Phew. I tend to associate libertarian with extremist economic conservatives because that's what the majority I've met are.

[themadhatter114]

The Libertarian Case for Sarah Palin

[Pop]

Eh. I'm already aware of Palin's policy positions and they're authoritarian enough that I would dismiss her if I had any libertarian leanings. She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she realized it was politically expedient not to be. She's been active in subsidizing the oil trade, something that no libertarian of any stripe I know supports. She's presided over the single largest per-capita pork barrel in the nation as governor. She's a fiscal ****up as well, having turned her town's budget surplus into a considerable deficit as mayor. Positively Reaganesque.

 

Palin is libertarian in the way a fundie Paultard might be libertarian, which is to say, not very libertarian at all. Her selection was made to appease social conservatives, but at this point they're blind firing to get as many conservative types on board as they can. Given McCain's silence on the warrant-free wiretaps and support of the suspension of Habeus Corpus the libertarians I know who aren't stupid (which is most of them, actually) have sworn off McCain completely. Even if Palin was in actuality a libertarian, her selection would still be pandering without any real assertion of a line on policy. The GOP's cracked down on civil liberties and the 9/11 porn shown tonight is as good an indication as any that it's not going to stop.

[themadhatter114]

Eh. I'm already aware of Palin's policy positions and they're authoritarian enough that I would dismiss her if I had any libertarian leanings. She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she realized it was politically expedient not to be. She's been active in subsidizing the oil trade, something that no libertarian of any stripe I know supports. She's presided over the single largest per-capita pork barrel in the nation as governor. She's a fiscal ****up as well, having turned her town's budget surplus into a considerable deficit as mayor. Positively Reaganesque.

 

Palin is libertarian in the way a fundie Paultard might be libertarian, which is to say, not very libertarian at all. Her selection was made to appease social conservatives, but at this point they're blind firing to get as many conservative types on board as they can. Given McCain's silence on the warrant-free wiretaps and support of the suspension of Habeus Corpus the libertarians I know who aren't stupid (which is most of them, actually) have sworn off McCain completely. Even if Palin was in actuality a libertarian, her selection would still be pandering without any real assertion of a line on policy. The GOP's cracked down on civil liberties and the 9/11 porn shown tonight is as good an indication as any that it's not going to stop.

 

It's actually incorrect to say that she was for it until it was no longer politically expedient. She was for it all along until it became apparent that it would require hundreds of millions of dollars in state money that she wasn't willing to invest. So she took the federal money and applied it to other infrastructure issues.

 

I don't see any evidence that she has pushed any authoritarian issues against the citizens. In her e-mails to Monegan that have been released, she talked a few times in commentary about legislation that state troopers were less accountable with regard to their gun rights and criminally than the average citizens were, and she inserted the name of the man who'd threatened to kill her father, Mike Wooten, as an example. So I'd say that she's actually pretty supportive of citizens rights and doesn't think that police officers are a special class of citizen with more rights.

 

She lobbied for federal money, but when your state's senator is the head of the appropriations committee, then you are likely to get lots of earmarks. And that's pretty much what I expect of every state politician, because they all have to get their piece of the pie. Ron Paul gets earmarks for his district and simply justifies it by making a symbolic vote against the overall spending bill. I've seen a lot of posts about the city budget based on reports from DailyKOS readers and MoveOn.org mailings, but I haven't seen much besides some problems with a lawsuit because of the Sports Complex they were bidding on the land for. As governer, however, she was fiscally responsible with the state's money.

 

It's a little ridiculous to say that she subsidizes the oil trade when the only funding in the article is a gas pipeline agreement. You can't tell me that the state and the citizens, which own the natural gas, even if libertarian, wouldn't give incentives to actually get a pipeline done is ridiculous. If instead of state control, you simply think of her as having power of attorney to negotiate a pipeline deal on behalf of her citizens, I don't see what's so un-Libertarian about a subsidy that will help push the project through. She actually got rid of tax breaks for oil companies that had been obtained by aggressively lobbying Republicans in the legislature.

 

If you check out volokh.com a lot, you'll see that there are lots of totally false stories about Palin being planted in newspapers all across the country or being picked up from blogs (the blogs forced major media to report the pregnancy rumors, newspapers are mischaracterizing a change in the tax structure as a "windfall profits tax," news media was frequently parroting that she was mayor just 2 years ago, the Obama campaign has tried to link Palin to anti-Semitism by deceptively linking her to Pat Buchanan, and reminding people that he's (unfairly, in my opinion) considered an anti-Semite, articles questioning how she can raise her family and run for office at the same time, while Obama himself gets to pretend to be the good guy and let his bloggers and the media that's in his pocket do all that attacking for him). I think she's going to come out of this well, though.

 

Now, as for the GOP and civil liberties, I agree. Bush has been pretty bad on civil liberties and then he pushed a bill that would deny 2nd amendment rights to anyone on a terrorist watch list (just think of the number of people that can't fly on airplanes because of this BS) and it would be at the Attorney General's discretion to ever even give you a chance to know why you're on the list and at his discretion to give you a chance to get off it. Since the NRA and the GOP understand how terrible this is, the Brady Bunch started promoting the bill saying that we have a "terror gap."

 

McCain hasn't demonstrated that he cares about civil liberties any more, but Palin at the very least is a VERY strong pro-gun advocate, and she's not a fan of the War on Drugs, at least she's not a fan of the amount of resources we waste on cracking down on marijuana and would rather that those resources be used to combat meth, instead.

 

I don't think Palin's views on civil liberties are going to be much of an issue while McCain is in office, but if he dies in office or decides to not run for a second term, Palin will get a great chance to put her mark on the presidency. And once she gets out of the extremely socially conservative Alaska, I really think her views will align more with her constituency on things like gay rights (supposedly 50% of Republican delegates were in favor of gay marriage or civil unions, but in Alaska it's a very, very unpopular idea).

Edited September 5, 2008 by themadhatter114

[Humodour]

When Obama wins you have no idea how heroically drunk I am going to get.

[themadhatter114]

If Obama wins you have no idea how terrible this country will become.

[Rosbjerg]

From my extremely superficial and silly biased look at the situation in America in the last 15 years - it seems to me that the republicans hurt the economy and then the democrats come in and fix things, do something extremely stupid to loose the white house and the republicans come back to ruin the economy again.

 

In that light don't you guys need Obama to come in, fix the economy? Then you can kick him out so a new republican can come in and ruin it all over again.

[Morgoth]

From my arrogantly European (what else?) view, everything that weakens the US, makes me feel better to be an EUdssR citizen.

 

Yes.

[Hildegard]

From my extremely superficial and silly biased look at the situation in America in the last 15 years - it seems to me that the republicans hurt the economy and then the democrats come in and fix things, do something extremely stupid to loose the white house and the republicans come back to ruin the economy again.

 

In that light don't you guys need Obama to come in, fix the economy? Then you can kick him out so a new republican can come in and ruin it all over again.

 

LOL, so true.