Bush Just Lost the Election

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Spiffor
the whole focus will be on Iraq, homeland security and abortion / gay marriage during the campaign.

Iraq is already dropping as a campaign issue.

Homeland security is big, but jobs is still the number one concern for those that don't have them and those that are afraid of losing them.

Abortion isn't an issue except for committed Dems and Reps.

Gay marriage isn't as key an issue as the Reps want to hope. It will galvanize the Christian right, but they were already galvanized. The CR is gonna blow their wad on a constitutional amendment campaign when polls indicate 58% of Americans feel it is an issue that should be left to individual states to decide. It'll backfire.

Any politician that forgets the number one concern of Americans is the economy is doomed to fail.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Dang wouldn't it just be the world coming to an end if the Fed's predictions for recovery come true?

[chequita guevara]

I'd be happy if it did. I don't want people to suffer just to get rid of Bush.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Yes, there is a possibility that at some point I will be unemployed.

Dear God. Please let this be so. Please let him be forced to claim welfare, if even for only a week.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'd be happy if it did. I don't want people to suffer just to get rid of Bush.

You've always been somewhat reasonable Che (Did I just say that?). There are some whose hatred of the other side is so otherwise blinding. (Applies to both Repubs and Dems)

[Imran Siddiqui]

You've always been somewhat reasonable Che

Now, now... let's not go too crazy .

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Well I did qualify it with somewhat afterall

[Odin]

The one thing that annoys me is that people want social programs, but then complain that thier taxes are going up. It's like people don't get the connection between that new school in town and taxes. Politicians then drive us into deficits by pandering to this ignorance.

[DanS]

Please let him be forced to claim welfare, if even for only a week.

Welfare? I doubt it. He might get unemployment insurance payments, but that's different. He is paying premiums on that now, so...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I don't want social programs. By and large, they absolve too many folks of individual responsibility.

OTOH the so called safety net we have is now ingrained into the political process. The likelihood of dismantling it is very unlikely.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Politicians then drive us into deficits by pandering to this ignorance.

And you wish for more democracy?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Odin
The one thing that annoys me is that people want social programs, but then complain that thier taxes are going up. It's like people don't get the connection between that new school in town and taxes. Politicians then drive us into deficits by pandering to this ignorance.

It's quite natural.

Each person wants everyone else to pay for it because they have a natural desire to free ride. If taxes weren't compulsory, almost no one would pay them because it is rational not to (the old Prisoner's Dilemma).

The fact that any government that reduces taxes too much is being irresponsible has escaped the right, since they naively believe that the market will suffice (when the reason we have these things is that markets fail to provide them).

[monkspider]

Bush is finished!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
"Freedom" in the deeply flawed libertarian sense.

Actually, freedom in the "libertarian" sense (I'm thinking Mill limit here) is possibly the most coherent, internally consistent definition of freedom possible

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by skywalker


Actually, freedom in the "libertarian" sense (I'm thinking Mill limit here) is possibly the most coherent, internally consistent definition of freedom possible

Wake up, dude. Mill is NOT libertarian, and his philosophy is from the 19th century.