A Liberal Supermajority

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Sloth wrote:

I honestly don’t think that’ll happen. I’m tempted to believe Libertarianism might actually grow in appeal as a foil to Democrats.

Hard to see it actually getting a foothold though; seems too esoteric for majority of Americans, too ideologically based, not “practical,” kinda exotic, etc.[/quote]

Something related. I can’t help but feel the GoP is in danger of permanentally pushing libertarian and Paleo-Conservative, yet tradiontally Republican, minded voters out of the party over to the Libertarian and Constitution parties. Basically, abandoning the major parties and throwing their support behind third parties.

Or, maybe not even bothering to vote. We’ll see. However, I can think of one important policy stance that both have become disgusted with the Republican party over.

62

[quote]Sloth wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Sloth wrote:

I honestly don’t think that’ll happen. I’m tempted to believe Libertarianism might actually grow in appeal as a foil to Democrats.

Hard to see it actually getting a foothold though; seems too esoteric for majority of Americans, too ideologically based, not “practical,” kinda exotic, etc.

Something related. I can’t help but feel the GoP is in danger of permanentally pushing libertarian and Paleo-Conservative, yet tradiontally Republican, minded voters out of the party over to the Libertarian and Constitution parties. Basically, abandoning the major parties and throwing their support behind third parties. Or, maybe not even bothering to vote. We’ll see. However, I can think of one important policy stance that both have become disgusted with the Republican party over.[/quote]

Sloth, you mean the war and intervening internationally presumably??

I think we need - and may get within four years - new conservative leaders constellating around a core set of conservative principles; ones that presumably both paleos and libertarians should be comfortable with. Perhaps the isolationist v. interventionist thing is the deal breaker though.

63

[quote]Sloth wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Sloth wrote:

I honestly don’t think that’ll happen. I’m tempted to believe Libertarianism might actually grow in appeal as a foil to Democrats.

Hard to see it actually getting a foothold though; seems too esoteric for majority of Americans, too ideologically based, not “practical,” kinda exotic, etc.

Something related. I can’t help but feel the GoP is in danger of permanentally pushing libertarian and Paleo-Conservative, yet tradiontally Republican, minded voters out of the party over to the Libertarian and Constitution parties. Basically, abandoning the major parties and throwing their support behind third parties.

Or, maybe not even bothering to vote. We’ll see. However, I can think of one important policy stance that both have become disgusted with the Republican party over.[/quote]

Whatever the GOP has done, it’s days of getting elected to POTUS are demographically over. They’ve brought too many Democrats into the country.

64

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Whats most scary to me is that this is a major newspaper reporting this. WSJ, while undoubtedly leaning conservative, has been extremely good about staying mostly un-cheerleader like, and pretty good at remain unbiased and fair in criticisms of both Mccain and Obama.
[/quote]

Huh?! The news page is perfectly credible, but the op-eds (of which this is one) are more biased than anything you will find in the NYT.

65

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Actually the great recession that we are about to enter may check the democrats unnatural lust for taxing everything that moves. If we’re lucky by the time obama’s four years are up he and the democrats may get the blame for this economic mess, which they deserve the majority of anyway.
[/quote]
Are you kidding me? This will all be blamed on Bush.

[quote]
One more positive; obama as the first black President will have proven that there are no need for “special rights”. Most by then might just be fed up with quotas, protected classes and other racial insults.

Keep in mind the country had to endure four years of Jimmy Carter before we got to Ronald Reagan and eventually 12 straight years of republican rule.

This entire liberal mess might just workout fine in the long run.[/quote]

66

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Sloth wrote:
<<<<
Not at all. Cuba would certainely count as a bordering nation, in my mind. Therefore, when positioning missiles into Cuba, one could only conclude we’d be a target of any possible strike. However, an invasion wasn’t even required. Having agreed to remove our own missiles from Turkey the Russians ceased their own action.

What if they hadn’t?
[/quote]

All of your examples have virtually no connection to reality.

The Russians went into Georgia, disciplined a country that was part of their state for most of the past two centuries, in the process exposed the fact that their army is decades behind ours, and then left. Invading Ukraine, let alone Poland, is HIGHLY unlikely. Repercussions would be far more severe.

Also not happening. South Korea is much more populous and thousands of times wealthier. They can pay to defend themselves.

Why do we have some intrinsic right to the oil of OTHER COUNTRIES? Oh yeah, because our “way of life” is built on cheap gas. Maybe we need to change our behavior.

And who would take Iraq’s oil? Iran? That only became remotely feasible after we invaded.

Again, not going to happen. I dated a Venezuelan chick last summer, Chavez is increasingly ineffective at home, let alone abroad. His military would get mopped up by the Colombians, let alone a bigger power down there.

[quote]
These situations directly affect us and our security. The world is much smaller than in the past and these people do not go away if we ignore them.

On the contrary every unchecked advance emboldens and empowers them until eventually we WILL be forced to defend our own shores against an enemy much more formidable than he would’ve been had we stopped him early.

I just don’t know how you could be willing to gamble that that never happens.[/quote]

Perpetual war for perpetual peace. And completely detached from reality at that. Who on earth could possibly invade America?! We have oceans between us and any conceivable enemy, and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. We’ve been blessed by geography, time we started realizing that.

67

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Sloth wrote:

I honestly don’t think that’ll happen. I’m tempted to believe Libertarianism might actually grow in appeal as a foil to Democrats.

Hard to see it actually getting a foothold though; seems too esoteric for majority of Americans, too ideologically based, not “practical,” kinda exotic, etc.

Hey, I happen to like the libertarians and find them more common sense based than you are giving them credit for.

It’s anarchist light. One can only dream.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t eventually some sort of backlash against the ever leftward leaning political stage.

I like them too and always have - I used to work at CATO, which is fairly libertarian, and have gotten to know quite a few libertarian candidates.

They often, however, get too theoretical (I agree with some of what they say, but still when they start talking about “spontaneously ordered systems” they lose most people - and yet, how else can they argue against the orthodoxy except by bringing up theory?); and candidates often find themselves getting ridiculed for things like, say, advocating privatizing sidewalks - things that they often have to say in order to get nominated because they compete among each other (in the libertarian party) as to who is more pure/extreme as a libertarian v. who is “selling out,” etc. [/quote]

That’s why we need Friedman not Rothbard. This is why Ron Paul will always be seen as a kook. What we really need is conservatism minus the religious BS and just a hint of isolationism.

68

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
It took a Dem to help us out of the last great depression (and he enjoyed 12 years as Pres).

Reagan’s “trickle-down” is a failure. Even Bush 41 knew this when he called it “fuzzy math”. [/quote]

Read a history book. Then read a economics book. Then get someone that is only mildly retarded to explain it to you.

71

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Obama Chavez will be very busy spreading that wealth. Without any serious opposition. It’s going to get real ugly.[/quote]

I wouldn’t worry about that, you know what they wealthy do when people start to take their money? They leave. You know what companies do when people come after their money? They leave and they take the jobs with them.

We had this in the same problem in the late '70’s. Boy that went well.

72

[quote]pat wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Obama Chavez will be very busy spreading that wealth. Without any serious opposition. It’s going to get real ugly.

I wouldn’t worry about that, you know what they wealthy do when people start to take their money? They leave. You know what companies do when people come after their money? They leave and they take the jobs with them.

We had this in the same problem in the late '70’s. Boy that went well.[/quote]

Yep.

73

[quote]pat wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Obama Chavez will be very busy spreading that wealth. Without any serious opposition. It’s going to get real ugly.

I wouldn’t worry about that, you know what they wealthy do when people start to take their money? They leave. You know what companies do when people come after their money? They leave and they take the jobs with them.

We had this in the same problem in the late '70’s. Boy that went well.[/quote]

Well I’ve heard enough now to motivate me to do something. Taking steps right now to hide, i mean protect money. I will not be paying as much this year as I did last year. Way to go progressive tax system. At least we’ve created an otherwise worthless profession of tax accounting.

74

[quote]dhickey wrote:
pat wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Obama Chavez will be very busy spreading that wealth. Without any serious opposition. It’s going to get real ugly.

I wouldn’t worry about that, you know what they wealthy do when people start to take their money? They leave. You know what companies do when people come after their money? They leave and they take the jobs with them.

We had this in the same problem in the late '70’s. Boy that went well.

Well I’ve heard enough now to motivate me to do something. Taking steps right now to hide, i mean protect money. I will not be paying as much this year as I did last year. Way to go progressive tax system. At least we’ve created an otherwise worthless profession of tax accounting.[/quote]

Double digit inflation devalues even hidden money…

75

Simple: whoever we invite over here through our lax immigration restrictions. A Dearbornistan here, a little Somalia there, and pretty soon the number of jihadists begins to add up, as its starting to do now. Just wait until we pass the next amnesty - we’ll have at least 100 million people here over night, and many of them will not like us.

76

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Who on earth could possibly invade America?! We have oceans between us and any conceivable enemy, and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. We’ve been blessed by geography, time we started realizing that.

Simple: whoever we invite over here through our lax immigration restrictions. A Dearbornistan here, a little Somalia there, and pretty soon the number of jihadists begins to add up, as its starting to do now. Just wait until we pass the next amnesty - we’ll have at least 100 million people here over night, and many of them will not like us. [/quote]

That was the one exception I was debating making. But it won’t be Muslims - the numbers are still a tiny minority, and the majority of Arabs in this country are Christians. Hispanic mass immigration is a whole other ballgame, although I don’t quite buy the apocalyptic Buchanan line.

77

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Who on earth could possibly invade America?! We have oceans between us and any conceivable enemy, and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. We’ve been blessed by geography, time we started realizing that.

Simple: whoever we invite over here through our lax immigration restrictions. A Dearbornistan here, a little Somalia there, and pretty soon the number of jihadists begins to add up, as its starting to do now. Just wait until we pass the next amnesty - we’ll have at least 100 million people here over night, and many of them will not like us.

That was the one exception I was debating making. But it won’t be Muslims - the numbers are still a tiny minority, and the majority of Arabs in this country are Christians. Hispanic mass immigration is a whole other ballgame, although I don’t quite buy the apocalyptic Buchanan line.[/quote]

There’s no apocalypse to be had, just a gradual transformation into Mexico, with everything that goes along with that. The writing is on the wall.

78

Here’s the thing, America has always been a country of immigrants. But here is the problem, we have allowed cultural relativism to trump our Eurocentric values.
By Eurocentric values, I intend basically those values that issued from the Renaissance, The Enlightenment, the American and French revolutions. Now the European/American/Enligthenment project is on-going process. Many groups in America have been historically disenfranchised and had to fight for the promises made in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc: freedom of religion, expression, right to assemble, etc. However, the principles behind the Enlightenment, European values etc were correct. Or maybe correct is the wrong word. It is how I want to live and how most people in the West want to live.

Muslims have every right to become members of our society, but ANYBODY, Muslim/Christian/whatever who violates the basic tenants of Eurocentrism and tries to promote, say, putting women in Birkas because it’s part of their religion, need to go.
That’s not just a case of cultural diversity, it is a cultural entity of some that represents extreme reaction against Eurocentric ideals.

Diversity, yes. Cultural mores that violate Eurocentric ideals, NO!

79

Well, that’s the real problem, isn’t it? - Special rules for special people, and certain people thinking they have a divine mandate for those special rules? That’s what shari’ah is - an alternative Constitution handed down from Allah that says, “Do this and not that.” But given our complete cultural capitulation to every minority that feels it doesn’t have economic and academic “equality,” it will be hard to recover any sort of resistance to the former.

But what you’re saying also involves nonwhites subscribing to ideas that came from European civilization. Many may view any pressure to subscribe to those ideas as “racism.” Many are also apt to view the lack of the success of their own civilization as a product of “white colonialism,” not as a product of their own cultural values, just as I believe the relative success of Western civilization comes from the values that you described initially. I don’t believe these are “white” values - I believe they are universal. But I’m not sure nonwhites will view them the same way.

80

[quote]entheogens wrote:
<<< Diversity, yes. Cultural mores that violate Eurocentric ideals, NO![/quote]

I actually agree with this statement… I think.

I don’t care care where anybody comes from or what color they are. People are people as far as ethnicity or racial heritage is concerned. I do care when they bring their country with them. Anybody from anywhere can be a good American, but dammit if you come to live in my country then you better become an American. Do it legally, learn our language, obey our laws, participate as a productive contributor to our economy and demonstrate patriotic loyalty to the United States.

If not, stay the hell out or go the hell home. There are entire sections of our urban centers that have been reduced to 3rd world shitholes because none of my above guidelines are being enforced there.