Just say it didn't work (scott)

Wouldn't it be nice if politicians would admit they messed up. They would get up onto TV or whatever and tell everyone, their plan that they thought would work didn't. Then everyone could move on to trying to fix the problem. That goes for both sides the other side and the independent side. I would tell them "don't worry, its not as if we already think you have no clue what your doing."
just a rant for the day.

Primary Impulses and Secondary Impulses

I read "America Alone" and he describes governments in Europe and mainly Britain that they have place more importance on secondary impulses over primary ones. He explains that primary impulses for a government and for a society are things such as; national defense, family, self-reliance, and reproductive activity. Secondary impulses are and not limited to; government health-care, paternity leave, vacation lengths, pensions and so on.
I would rename the two and call them Needs and Luxuries for a society. Without the Needs there are no luxuries, without luxuries you still have needs.

What do you think are a societies Needs, and once they are met what are a societies Luxuries?


Mark Steyn (who wrote America Alone) goes on to worry that Luxuries if too many can limit and impair the Needs, thereby unstabilizing the society. Something like a snowball effect. Do you see this as the case?

Perhaps this would work if we maybe wrote down what we think are Needs for a society to function and function well. And maybe a little of Luxuries and then go from there.

by scott

I just don't understand the benefits of a social-welfare state. Can someone help me understand it? (random post I know, but i couldn't think of anything deep and felt it was better to post than to not post at all.)

by scott

"presidential power... continued to approve when the Soviet threat and the broader Cold War led to permanent and still underappreciated expansions in the constitutional powers of the president. Rather than fully demobilize, as in past wars, the government maintained a multimillion-person peacetime standing army for the remainder of the Cold War, and in 1947 it established new institutions--including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council--to manage the peacetime military bureaucracy. These and similar institutions concentrated unprecedented authority in the president, which Harry Truman was quick to exercise. Most momentously, in 1950, without congressional authorization or consultation, he dispatched American troops to defend South Korea from North Korean attack and announced his intention to send four divisions (about 100,000 men) to a NATO force in Europe."

Interesting concept. That the power of the president in modern times is linked to the rise of military strength. Had the US demobilized like other wars, would Truman have had the power to move to South Korea? Who Johnson have the power to go into Vietnam? Would Bush had the power to go to Iraq?
Military force, which under the constitution is given to the president from congress. However, this check and balance no longer is needed since the military is at all times "ready for duty" at the call of the president.

Need of a leader by Scott

I was reading this article, by Todd Purdum from Vanity Fair, looking for something else, when I came across this paragraph

"Sure, Obama has made his share of mistakes, rookie and otherwise. But don’t count him out—not just yet. For the fault, dear readers, lies not in our stars, nor even in our rock-star president, but in ourselves: in our impatience, our intemperance, our lack of perspective, our susceptibility to the easy untruth and the quick fix. Barack Obama only rarely falls victim to any of these vices, and, with luck, he may yet save us from ourselves."

Is this worship of a governmental leader healthy for a democratic/republic style government?

I have overheard people say things such as, "if congress just got out of Obama's way then he could fix everything." or "it's Nancy and Harry that are messing things up and making Obama look bad, they should just get out of the way."

Is this article and others attacking the very foundation of our government or am I over-reacting?

Here is the article. It is very amazing on how he believes Obama can do no wrong.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/purdum-on-obama-201001

What do elections tell us? by Scott

As the people the real only voice they have is in an election. So what did the election of Scott Brown tell us?

Jacob S. Hacker and Daniel Hopkins wrote in the Washington Post "If there is a lesson in the Massachusetts vote, it is this: pass a [health-care] bill. The nation needs reform. Democrats need an accomplishment. And Democratic activists and voters need a new cause: fixing reform, not abandoning it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011902846.html

Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard, "The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly. It’s one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/health-care-bill-dead

Todd Purdum writes this from Vanity Fair, "If a wildly popular new president, with sizable majorities in both houses of Congress, couldn't bend the system to his will already, the fate of a single Massachusetts Senate candidate should hardly matter a damn."

Obama: Bank Tax

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_bank_fees

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/us/15tax.html?ref=business

"I think it is entirely reasonable to say that the industry that, A, caused these problems more than any other and, B, benefited from the activity, should be contributing," said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

"Politics have overtaken the economics," said Scott Talbott, the chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, a group representing large Wall Street institutions. "This is a punitive tax on companies that repaid TARP in full or never took TARP."

Even before details came out, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said: "Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea."

What do you think?

diplomacy

Here is a question. Obama recently visited Japan and bowed down to the emperor there. while our First Diplomat is visiting other countries, how far should he/she go in respecting the other country's customers at the expense of our own?

Post from Nathan

I would have posted this for open post monday but this will have to due. Its a politically related sort of hypothetical: if we remove the issue of slavery (so that ethical considerations don't play as much of a role here) would you rather live under the USA or the Confederacy?

CA v. TX

This artilce is long but it is worth the read. Please read it and tell me what you think. It is comparing CA to TX, but more importantly it is comparing high-tax states to low-tax states.
I'm very interested in your thoughts.

http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=5433

Bigger is Better?!?!

Read an article about expanding the size of congress. Congress has 435 people in it as of right now and that has been the case since 1929. (the us population at that time was 121,700,000 which meant for every one congressmen there were 280,000 people.) Today, on average, for every one congressmen there are 689,600 people. In places like Montana there is only one congressmen for 900,000 people, but two in Rhode Island which is about 400,000 per a congressmen. This means Montanans are underrepresented.

Should we expand the US congress?

At the beginning of the nation, we had 67 congressmen each representing only 30,000. But for today's sake, why not we make it 300,000 or some where around there. That would mean we need to add about 1,000 more congressmen.

What do you think?

two sides of annoying

There are two presidents that I am really beginning to hate (it's a strong word but I will go with it). It's not really the presidents themselves or their adminstrations (although i do enjoy debating them), but more of my hate is towards the people that love, embrace, worship the presidents.

The first president is FDR.
people talk about him as if he is the greatest man that ever was. they forget about the facts and just assume everything he touched he turned it to gold and that he was so moral and good. The hero worship has to stop.

The second president is Reagan.
The worship of this guy is so out of control. He defeated communism! not really, and i have proof of that. His economics were amazing! his spending wasn't, that's for sure.

both presidents have become the lords of the parties. From the left people are hoping Obama will be the next FDR, and people on the right are searching for the next Reagan. What's funny is that both sides have made these two men into gods, which they never were, so when they are hoping and looking for the next FDR, or Reagan they are really looking for the next god of their party. I'm laughing because that day will never come.

however, worship of public figures is very interesting. Is it healthy for a Republic? Is it something to worry about? Is it a good thing to have examples, even if they are false ones?

paying health-care

I'm not a huge fan of health-care but I would like to pretend that we do have health-care, just for a little bit. Many people proposing for the health-care plan say this about our current health-care system,

"President Barack Obama praised their work, saying it will “begin the process of fixing what’s broken” in the system.
“We can’t continue to put more and more money into health care,” said Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who runs the House Energy and Commerce Committee."

The threat is that in a few years the cost of the current system would be somewhere around 12% of the GDP of america, or even more. I understand that number is very high and i don't like it either, but here is my question. What if the health-care reform is past and within a few years or so, maybe 10 or 15, the cost of the program reaches 12% of GDP, would we then scrap that program and look for another or would the government continue to run the state-run health-care? I know this question is a "what if" question, and i would rather stay with the facts, but it is highly likely that the cost could reach 12% of GDP or somewhere near that. If it does, then under the rationalization of those who proposed the bill, we should discard that system and find another.

Here is another topic of concern,

"The 1,018-page House Democratic plan builds on a June 19 draft and for the first time includes details on how to pay for the measure. In addition to the levy on millionaire households, the House would place surtaxes of 1.5 percent on couples with incomes of $500,000 to $1 million and 1 percent on those with incomes of more than $350,000.
In 2012, the White House budget office would review the estimated savings from the health-care overhaul. If the savings are $150 billion more than expected, then the government would scrap a planned second set of increases for those making between $350,000 and $1 million. If the extra savings top $175 billion, the surcharge for those incomes would be eliminated altogether.
The surtax on wealthier Americans would be imposed based on adjusted gross income, meaning it would also apply to capital gains and dividends, which are currently taxed at a 15 percent rate. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said lawmakers targeted high earners because it “causes the least amount of pain on the least amount of people.”

I am not one against taxing the rich, they can afford it. But there does come a time when you can tax the rich too much. In addition, the rich can afford tax experts, and they can find fun and easy ways to get around the tax code. Just look at the 7 people Obama nominated, i'm sure some of bush's guys too but they just didn't get caught. But I want to draw to the last quote by Charles Rangel, "causes the least amount of pain on the least amount of people". I find this quote to be horrifically in bad taste. Yes, they are the rich, but they are still people and to single them out is discriminatory. I'm going to go to the extreme here, but only to prove my point, Let's say some american in 1805 said that slavery of africans "causes the least amount of pain on the least amount of people". He should be shot! but at the time africans were a small minority and there was really no pain for most of the rest of the americans. Or what about today and gay marriage, not allowing gays to marry "causes the least amount of pain on the least amount of people". I'm not sticking up for the rich, but shouldn't we be careful not to single out any group that is a minority? That's what republics do? Is economics a way to categorize people?

the Two parties and spending

I read this from an article that talks about how much taxes need to be raised to balance the budget in 2020. it's kind of crazy how much.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/13/the_consequences_of_big_government.html

here is a quote from it that i think sums up really well how the two parties work when it comes to spending and taxes. "Everyone favors benefits and opposes burdens (taxes). Republicans want to cut taxes without cutting spending. Democrats want to increase spending without increasing taxes, except on the rich. The differences between the parties are shades of gray."
I think that is right on.
Can we think of any other subjects that the two parties are just different shades of gray?

Atheism and foriegn policy

I found this article on huffington post about atheism and foreign policy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wright/why-the-new-atheists-are_b_230448.html

He talks about how new atheists are very hawkish in their ideas of foreign policy. He brings up an interesting point, that i would like to talk about. because new atheism believes religion is one of (if not the most) problems the world faces, they have essentially declared war on religion. So their world view is seen through the glasses that if one just eliminates religion the problems of the world would go away, or dramatically decline. Is this view constructive in dealing with foreign policy? Is this idea of eliminating religion a good and constructive goal to uphold?

Pope and economics

I feel like i'm in the middle ages all over again. The pope had this to say about the economic situation,

"...every economic decision had a moral consequence and called for "forms of redistribution" of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.
"...there is an urgent need of a true world political authority" whose task would be "to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result."
Such an authority would have to be "regulated by law" and "would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights."

wow, didn't think that kind of talk would come out from the pope. I nominate the Catholic Church.

should the church be talking about such secular consepts such as the economy? Is this the indorsment that many people, like PM Brown (England), were looking for?

(A side note, there is always a war going on between security and LIBERTY. so everytime I see the word security, red flags fly up. When the word security is tied to the phrase 'security for all' i get in panic mode.)

cost of caring

The purpose of the government is to protect the people. healthcare, as some say, falls under the role of the government. But what happens when the government and the nation can't afford it? Right now in the last year Bush and Obama have spent about 1.8 trillion. There is no plan on how to pay for the spending, other than obama saying the economy in the next 5 years is going to grow 4% which will then pay for the spending. That sounds like a lot of hope there. So how can the government write a bill that will cost 1 trillion in the next 10 years?

Should the government just say, "nope, we can't afford healthcare right now"? It seems to me that is the only reasonable option, and it really isn't a very good one.

How much is too much for a government to spend? This is going way past even what Kenyes was thinking. Can the US handle this debt?

Who and what can we tax and cut to afford all this?

Sarah Palin

I have to say this, I'm really enjoying watching all the "experts" on TV and in the paper trying to figure out why she left. They have no idea and it just shows you how stupid their jobs are.

I also find this disheartening. Today everyone in the news is going to be covering Michael Jackson, while in China there are the biggest protest in 20 years. Isn't that a huge topic! Iran's protests had a few people arrested (I'm sure more), but China has arrested almost 1,500 people (which means more). That is huge! The media once again has failed us.

sorry for the rants

health-care

This is my thoughts on health-care and this is how I would try to fix the very complicated problem of expensive health-care.

First I would make health insurance like how we have car insurance. by law you have to have health insurance, because it costs the community way too much if those who don't have it get hurt and go to the ER. If you don't have a health insurance card or id with you when you go to the ER then you will not get help.

Second, for those who are poor and can't afford health-care, then they get the basic kind of insurance with an addition of help from the state governments. The national government gives X amount of money to the states, but it is the states who decided how much they will help pay for the insurance for those who can't afford it. This may mean 10% help of pay or even all, if that state wants that. But it is out of the hands of the national government. If a state can't afford to even help the poor pay for health-care than thats really not that great of state and the poor should leave to a state that does.

Third, i have noticed alot of the costs in health-care come from doctors doing too much unneeded tests. It is because their pay is based on how many tests and exams they do on each patient. I would look into paying doctors just a salary as they have done in some places already with good results. A basic doctor gets paid X, a surgeon Y and a specialist Z. In theory this would make the doctors more worried about treating the patient instead of trying to make some money.

Those are just ideas...

politics in every part of our lives

I was talking with a friend today and he brought up an interesting thought. The idea is that almost everything in our everyday lives has become political. Example, someone who ones an ipod is more liberal than someone who bought their mp3 player at walmart. Where you drink your coffee, or where you eat. if you eat here you are this and if you eat that you are something else.
so is this really true? is this really going on? and if so is it healthy or unhealthy for a society?