[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Adak

The conservatives are not against a nationalized health care service, IF they run a pilot in a region, and show it can work as well as they claim it will.

You can't just take over some odd 20% of the nations economy (the health care system), with something as full of nonsense as Obama care.

Get back to me when Vermont has its single-payer going and kicking ass. Though I could easily point to all the other countries already doing it and performing minor miracles with it. I lived in Taiwan, dude. I've seen it. I've been an "uninsured" person in a single-payer system, and the reinbursement requests to Tricare were often not even worth sending in because out-of-pocket care was so cheap even off the single-payer system.

Originally Posted by Adak

Well, let's see:

1) North Korea - has nukes, developing ICBM's, and a crackpot of a dictator. Need I say more?

2) We are providing security for every tanker (almost) that travels through the Straits of Hormuz, because the Iranians have attacked several of them with high speed gunboats.

3) We are still in Afghanistan - another year or two for that.

4) Still guarding Japan, which is in a heated argument with China, over ownership of some islands between the two.

5) Assad in Syria has chemical weapons, and is moving them around. At some point, he's likely to use them, since he is slowly losing the civil war.

Guess who will have to step in, if a slaughter is (hopefully), to be avoided?

6) If Iran goes ahead with developing nuclear weapons, or closes the Straits of Hormuz, we will immediately be at war, since nearly 38% of the world's oil passes through those Straits.

Yes, we need to keep our military strong, clearly. The UK, for instance, doesn't even have a single full size air craft carrier, for 2013.

I think we can deal with most of these problems without a ridiculous buildup of troops to a cold-war level. I think American political support has nearly the power of American military support. We would be much better off finding diplomatic solutions to these, and I believe we will, and in fact would EASILY solve the problems if we didnt have such belligerently neocolonial motivations.

Originally Posted by Adak

He tried - the calls to the Senate and House switchboards were so numerous, he had to stop.

I call bullshit. Show me one statement from Obama, or Obama-endorsed bill, that would have limited gun right. Just one.

Originally Posted by Adak

The Republicans have to plead "guilty" on this one. They want to favor their constituents with tax exemptions, etc., just as much as Democrats want to favor theirs. Conservatives just want low taxes, and a relatively flat tax rate.

I guess if I can call "liberal" something near - or slightly-left-of - Bernie Sanders, and democrats mostly centrists/moderates, you're allowed to say the same thing about the mainstream Republican party.

Except that from an international perspective, I'm right, because America sits so far to the authoritarian-right of northern europe and the developed world in general on most issues. right-wing parties in most of europe are economically about where democrats are, and left-wing parties are to the left.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than scandinavia and iceland - and nowhere is more successful at proving liberal political theory.

Originally Posted by Adak

You can't slam a business for responding to a new law or treaty, that demands they act, or risk going bankrupt. It's our politicians we should be furious at, not our businessmen. They didn't WANT to have to move to China, they were forced into it, by economic realities which our signed treaties forced down their throats.

How were businesses "forced" to outsource? Please give specific examples.

Originally Posted by Adak

Oh, China doesn't call their workers "virtual slaves", NO, NO! The workers there have been committing suicide at the Foxconn (Intel motherboards) plant, because they really LIKE their jobs.

The first round of suicides at Foxconn plants in China were right after the Taiwan-based company raised wages minutely. The local Party boss wanted to stick it to Foxconn, get their factory, and stop their own workers for asking for equally improved wages. The bodies were dead before they hit the ground. PM me if you want to know the authority on which I can say that.

Later suicides were, as far as I know, accurately reported.

Originally Posted by Adak

Nobody likes wars, but what are you going to do when Assad starts using nerve gas on the rebels, from aircraft sprayers (like Chemical Ali did in Iraq)?

What are you going to do when Iran stops all the oil going through the Straits, as they have threatened, and attacks our fleet in the Gulf of Persia? I don't believe running away and hiding is a viable option.

I'm not sure what point you're making here - could you elaborate further? Do you think our existing military is incapable of handing these threats, as unlikely as most analysts believe the odds to be?

Originally Posted by Adak

I don't want to increase funds to the military, but I do want to stop any cuts to it, and use our funds better - and we can't do that with our personnel spread out all over the globe, guarding nations that have long ago been able to guard themselves. That's very expensive, year after year. Very hard on the military families, as well. My nephew was an officer in the Army - and was overseas or in the field, nearly all the time. Bosnia, Iraq, year long training in Germany, year long deployment in South Korea, long field training, exercises, etc. After 10 years of that, his marriage was in the toilet. He got out, but it was too late to save his marriage.

and yet my family is a wonderful success story of an Air Force officer and his wife and two kids moving around America and the Far East, learning about the world, gaining an international perspective, and in my case, becoming a potential new diplomat. Find me one policy without stories of failure. I believe strongly in an international US military liaison/humanitarian capacity, and I'm sorry to those with personal stories of hardship associated with this pro-american, pro-peace policy.

Originally Posted by Adak

I haven't documented all of my assertions in this thread, because I believe the most basic one, is self-evident.

We have sharply increased our spending, and we can't continue to do that, without running the risk of a total fiscal crisis. Which would be much worse than the fiscal "cliff", btw.

We CAN and we SHOULD cut our current spending, back to the levels of the Clinton years, and perhaps, increase our tax revenues, as well - and not just on the rich.

Problem is, the Democrats won't hear of cutting our current spending, and only want to even TALK about cutting our projected spending, by a small percentage.

That won't do the job. It still continues to run up our National Debt, and continually diminish the value of every US dollar, everywhere. This seems like easy to understand, common sense to me.

And this is where we disagree. I believe in Keynesian economics - that spending money, in a down economy, is ultimately stimulative, and that aggressive social safety nets and anti-poverty spending is the easiest way to improve the economy for all Americans. I also understand that as the economic stratification of our society becomes more and more top-heavy, that leaves the economy as a whole sicker and sicker. I think progressive taxes, taking more money from the wealthiest, is the best way to make more wealthy people, and more middle-class people, and fewer poor people.

This is a fundamental theoretical disagreement between us. I'd rather argue specific policies than universal theories - policies illustrate the importance and truth of the theory, but if it's just you saying "CONSERVATISM!" and me saying "KEYNESIANISM AND SOCIALISM!" we'll get nowhere.