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OT: American Politics

HabsAddict said:
Given that people will read what they are biased too, if you don't attend a rally to get first hand impressions then an opinion is questionable. This is not a case of clear cut politics or the radicalism of far left or far right rally. This is a case where one side of the political spectrum has done everything possible in a very deliberate manner to discredit the legitimacy of the other side protest. Including sending in people to create the impression of radicalism.

Nor does volume and vociferousness of any side in any media or means make it more valid or true. It should be self evident that the media is biased and the internet multiplies bias by 100.

You want to know what the OWS stand for? Attend their rally and ignore the rights wants you to believe. You want to know what the Tea Party stand for? Attend their rallies and ignore what the left wants you to believe. You may come out with the same opinion you went in with, but at least you validated it first hand.

Last year, when I went to Greece, I "attended" one of their protest. I had the media impression that the protesters where mostly hood wearing anarchist, I saw more old people then black hood wearers. When it comes to movements and POLITICAL protests, first hand can be an eye opener.

(As an aside, talking about rallies, I wish I attended the Million Man March.)
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There;s a problem here - you're assuming all members of these movements, and each rally, largely agree on what "they' stand for. But they really don't. There is no doubt value in going to these rallies in person, but even if you do, you'll only be getting a small part of the picture.

Besides, I would arguet that the greater import of these movements is not the differing opinions of everyone who attends the rallies, but their overall cumulative effect on public opinion and policy.
 
The right-leaning pols must laugh their arses off when they see their followers buying into the whole "debt" red herring that they only bring up to futher their own agendas.

America's economy isn't in trouble due to the Debt. Not in the slightest.
 
zeke said:
Obama offered to refrain from any criticism of Romney's tax transparency if he agreed to release 5 more year of returns. Romney refused.
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this whole line of attack just reeks of desperation. biggest red herring of the entire campaign, right up there with the birthers. pretty much no one in congress releases their tax records, including many of those attacking romney, and romney has already released more than all of them. this is nothing more than stoking class envy and obscuring hopeychange's disastrous stewardship of the economy.
 
zeke said:
The right-leaning pols must laugh their arses off when they see their followers buying into the whole "debt" red herring that they only bring up to futher their own agendas.

America's economy isn't in trouble due to the Debt. Not in the slightest.
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again, you have a fundamental, fatal misunderstanding of economics if you don't think $15+tril of debt is a problem.
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
this whole line of attack just reeks of desperation. biggest red herring of the entire campaign, right up there with the birthers. pretty much no one in congress releases their tax records, including many of those attacking romney, and romney has already released more than all of them. this is nothing more than stoking class envy and obscuring hopeychange's disastrous stewardship of the economy.
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Presidents release more than 1.5yrs of tax returns.

Romney is running a campaign based entirely on the issue of fair distribution of taxes, and specifically promoting large tax cuts to people such as himself.

Romney would release them if he had nothing to hide.

There is no red herring here, or desperation. Romney should have released those records long ago, but knows that he can't - which should concern everyone.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

Proposed $100 bill removed from circulation depicting a female Asian researcher because it was too "insensitive" (other groups called the decision to remove it "insensitive"):

The Bank of Canada purged the image of an Asian-looking woman from its new $100 banknotes after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity.

The original image intended for the reverse of the plastic polymer banknotes, which began circulating last November, showed an Asian-looking woman scientist peering into a microscope.

The image, alongside a bottle of insulin, was meant to celebrate Canada’s medical innovations.

But eight focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 banknote series were especially critical of the choice of an Asian for the largest denomination.

“Some have concerns that the researcher appears to be Asian,” says a 2009 report commissioned by the bank from The Strategic Counsel, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

“Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology and/or the sciences. Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes. Other ethnicities should also be shown.”

A few even said the yellow-brown colour of the $100 banknote reinforced the perception the woman was Asian, and “racialized” the note.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ew-100-bills-after-complaints/article4485307/

God I hate this country sometimes. And some of those who commented on the article were overwhelmingly correct in asserting that they should have just depicted Banting and Best if they wanted to show medical innovation.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

lecoqsportif said:
That's a completely different issue. The are 10s of millions of people (probably 100s) in the world who speak more than one language for a variety of reasons. But, they only have one mother tongue. It is the language in which they are the most comfortable to deal with life issues (lawyers, banking, health), to educate their kids... it is a fundamental element of culture and identity. And don't tell me those issues don't matter, because they f@cking do (big time, actually).
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That doesn't matter. The idea that someone living in Canada would raise their children and not have them learning english first is stupid, stubborn, naive...and blind.
 
no. he's running a campaign based on the fact that hopeychange cannot continue to be allowed to have control over the pursestrings of the US gov't, because as we've seen these past 3+ years, he is terrible at it. and unless you vote him out now, you're going to get 4 more years of it and things will get even worse. romney is running a campaign based on allowing the private sector to create jobs to turn the economy around, rather than counting on gov't spending and deficits to do it.
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
again, you have a fundamental, fatal misunderstanding of economics if you don't think $15+tril of debt is a problem.
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you don't get it. nobody disagrees that over the long term the debt needs to be addressed. the debt can be dealt with.

but the federal deficit is barely above normal historical levels.

there are more pressing issues to deal wtih than the debt, and the whole problem with dealing with the debt is that doing so is going to exacerbate all of the most pressing current problems with the economy... unemployment and, uhm, unemployment.
 
yes, people are vehemently disagreeing that the debt needs to be addressed. your boy zeke here is saying it isnt a problem at all. its a non-issue for him, and for millions of his fellow lefties. which is why they don't even blink when they see gov'ts spend more and more and more.
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
u cant hold up the netherlands and norway as examples. they are swimming in north sea petrodollars.

you look at the european model as a whole, and it is unsustainable. creating massive states that take up 55-60%+ of the economy, where all kinds of byzantine regulations apply, and where economic efficiency and growth is sacrificed to "equality", and over time it collapses. st.maggie said it best. that system works beautifully until you run out of other people's money to spread around.
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How about Sweden, Finland, Germany & Denmark then? If we can't use Norway as an example of course, why not them?
 
germany has a dynamic, well-educated, historically powerful economy that has been built on trade. sweden has in the last decade started to rethink its model, has elected rightist gov'ts that have brought in reforms that have led to a big jump in growth and productivity. finland is based on the strength of some corporate giants like nokia, not on gov't largesse. and denmark? who cares?
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
yes, people are vehemently disagreeing that the debt needs to be addressed. your boy zeke here is saying it isnt a problem at all. its a non-issue for him, and for millions of his fellow lefties. which is why they don't even blink when they see gov'ts spend more and more and more.
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I have never said it isn't a problem "at all".

I have said that it's not the problem we should be worrying about at the moment, and that addressing this problem right now instead of the much more important economic problems will actually hurt us, not help us.

I have also said that the right-wing pols don't care about the debt either (and considering the parties' track records, care less about it than the left), and use it only to misguide their sheep when they want to cut spending to finance tax cuts for corporations.
 
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theREALkoreaboy said:
no. he's running a campaign based on the fact that hopeychange cannot continue to be allowed to have control over the pursestrings of the US gov't, because as we've seen these past 3+ years, he is terrible at it. and unless you vote him out now, you're going to get 4 more years of it and things will get even worse. romney is running a campaign based on allowing the private sector to create jobs to turn the economy around, rather than counting on gov't spending and deficits to do it.
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The last GOP presidency took a healthy vibrant economy and drove it into the ditch. An absolute economic policy disaster. (Though, of course, for corporations and the top1% it was a tremendously successful economic period).

The current Obama presidency currently sees a better economy than the one he inherited, despite his policies being mostly blocked by the republican opposition.

Romney is currently campaigning on the same economic policies of the last GOP presidency - except he's trying to double down on those policies. This includes campaigning on massive tax cuts for people and coporations like himself....financed entirely by massive cuts to programs serving the middle and lower classes, and most likely a healthy tax increase on them as well. His campaign rests entirely on the idea that corporations and the top 1% are being unfairly and unproductively taxed, and that cutting taxes for these groups is by far and away the most important method to kickstarting the economy.

One would think that the right would want to demonstrate how unfair the tax burden is - but instead their presidential candidate is hiding his tax returns, and in fact proudly boasting that he pays 13% in taxes - less than most of the rest of the country. It's ridiculous, and it will kill him - and justifiably so.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

For the record, my own cousins learned Italian first because that's what Nana and Nono spoke in the house. My mother is not Italian so I didn't have that problem, but I still remember them starting school, after being born and raised in Canada, and struggling with the english language. I also remember the blasting they gave their parents when they were much older...about how screwed up that was, and how crappy the first bit of school was.
 
MindzEye said:
If the bolded holds true, do we get to hold up various banana republics around the world as cautionary tales of not enough government?

The funny thing about the Greek example, is that it's a cautionary tale of not enough government...not too much. If Greek tax collection practice/policy was functional, this problem would have been almost entirely averted. This is a problem created by the absence of functional government.
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It IS the case of a Western country whose socialist policies and politics have failed miserably...and the consequences that followed. Other then Canadian natural resources, there is nothing different. If for example Newfoundland were a country without resources and it followed a left agenda of unfettered expenditures and entitlements, they would be in the exact same boat the Greeks are.

As for your second paragraph, it makes no sense at all. You haven't witnessed the breathtaking view of rows upon rows of people in 1950's style desks doing...........NOTHING. I have literally been instructed to see a certain person in a certain desk deal with a specific subject based on the fist letter of my last name.

If you want to argue that there was not enough tax collectors, that is not true either. They simply could not do their jobs because various versions of left governments made it impossible for the tax collectors to go after THEIR base or interests. If you think that is far fetched in Canada, then you are not paying attention or don't know of the favourable tax rates something like green energy has in Ontario. I'm sure it goes on with other sectors too but I am not that familiar with them.

Early retirement, relatively generous pensions, protected interests and sectors, bloated burro'cracy and wasteful agenda driven government projects did them in. By no means is unfettered expenditures and entitlements a unique Greek problem. It could do the same to any country which follows the same path. Greece IS a very relevant lesson in big government and leftist policy failures.
 
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