Friday, April 30, 2010

DO WE NEED A THIRD PARTY?


the british election is a dead heat
CAN YANKS LEARN FROM THE BRITISH LIB DEMS?
The Brits go to the polls next week.I've followed it a bit.
And I am curious. Has anyone else? I would imagine if anyone in America was I could find them here.
I was wondering, since we do have a history of third parties here in the USA influencing but not challenging the two party monopoly whether anyone still feels some sort of third party movement here would be productive considering how well the Liberal democrats are now doing in the British Election campaign going on now ? Its not very likey but I also would like to know how people feel about replacing our majority plurality system with proportional representation as has been suggested in Britian for many years.
Hope all is well with you all, and thank you for any comments on these subjects below.PEACE.

A little info on the British Liberal Democratic Party

and yes the LIB DEMS still exist here they are in 2010

Could a third party win in our electoral first past the post system??

Now you be irritated by this post..because its nothing to do with american politics.So why bother thinking about it?
Well thats why I'm posting this. Because I think we should think about other political systems.
other health care systems etc. If we really really want to fundamentally want to change our own system
maybe we should have a look at other places where people are ACTUALLY in the process of making fundamental changes,
like going from a two party system to a multi party system. And find out how and why they are doing it.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Contract From Which America?

Not the one that voted overwhelming Democratic majorities to the White House, Senate, House, and Governorships in 2008. The same America that rejected the failed legacy of the GOP's platform of the last 30 years. It is a case study in flawed reasoning abilities. It is fractal wrongness at its worst.


The Contract from America

We, the citizens of the United States of America, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items and advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.


The assertion of rights transcending legal protection is a respectable one, were it not for the fact that nearly all of the rights these Teabaggers claim is "inherent" exists today for them to exploit only through a long and arduous legal fight; few of these rights applied to those who claim them at the onset of out nation. It is precisely because the Government has recognized the virtue of such rights that it granted them to all citizens.

Also, peaceful expression? The use of intimidation via arms and calls for the deaths of elected officials is not peaceful. The mere fact that such vile garbage can be spewed publicly without repercussion is a testament to just how much these Teabaggers rights are not being infringed upon.

Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.


That last part is laughable. Last January we were in a state in which the small-government principles advocated here were at their zenith; our society had transformed itself into the very thing the Teabaggers claim to oppose; a corrupt, divided, economically depressed, impoverished nation. The US fell more under their philosophy than it had at any time since the Great Depression.

These people are not political philosophers; they are sophists; they are drug dealers posing as doctors, prescribing political junk to cure withdrawal. Deregulation is the source of our problems, not the solution.

Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.


Wrong again. The Socialist movement was spawned by attempts at a free market. A free market is immoral, exploitative, and unreliable. What happened in 2008 was exactly what the Teabaggers are advocating; rampant, unsupervised gaming and monetary manipulation, a financial system not designed to persist but to enrich. Hell, if these Teabaggers had gotten their way, we would have watched our economy collapse in a great free market dust cloud, and then these same pricks would be whining about how the big bad government wasn't helping them out.

1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.


Hmm...I thought there already was a system in place to do just that? Oh yeah, the Judicial branch, and the whole separation of powers concept. The only way this idea makes sense is if you honestly believe that these bills are drafted without any consideration for standing legal precedent.

2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.


Because if pollution isn't turning my lawn brown, it isn't bad. And I'm curious, but hasn't every single bit of regulation incurred criticism that it would raise prices, hurt our economy, and not do anything? Has any of that ever happened, and enough times to render the talking point a little more than crap?

3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.


Simple question; do these people advocating such a thing actually think that, for instance, during WWII 2/3 majorities would vote to raise taxes to 90%+, and that our government should have stopped spending as soon as expenditures outpaced revenue? Sometimes deficit spending is a good idea, and so long as we are responsible in doing so, it isn't a major problem.

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution.


Applying word limits to government policy, because in reality, all life really is that simple. I've known this shit isn't realistic since I was 8; what the hell is wrong with these douches?

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning


Restore? Never in our entire existence has this scenario been true; correction- never in our PHYSICAL existence. Fantasy doesn't count.

6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.


Yeah, that will work. Just like our debt limit that Congress just keeps raising.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.


A democratically elected majority passed that bill, and you want to revoke it? Since when did America become Nazi Germany? We won, we got our way. You want to enact your legislation? Then win a fucking majority. Oh, btw, this isn't government run health care.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs.


Fine. Build some nuclear power plants and store the waste near the facility. Oh wait, people don't like waste stored near them, and they're afraid of nuclear power plants without just cause. Hmmm, maybe it's little things like that that are the source of our problems, not our "over regulation".

9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.


Right. Let's take an already overburdened legislative process and increase it's complexity by a factor of 11. Before we condemn all pork, why don't we actually evaluate whether or not the projects and ideas involved have any merit or value. As opposed to turning a knee-jerk reaction to an oversimplification of an idea into public policy.

10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.


If they had provided an equivalent list of budget cuts that equaled the amount of taxes that were cut, then they would have a valid case. In our reality, the kinds of budget cuts required to balance the pre-Obama budget alone would be met with opposition even by this crowd. It sounds great, but reality prevents it from being a viable option.

This isn't policy. It's a laundry list of superficial complaints and ad-hoc solutions that are based neither in reality nor experience. The true problems facing our country are principally economic; to advocate laissez-faire as some kind of solution is to impose one's willful ignorance upon our collective society; essentially, these people are advocating for a dictatorship of their ignorance over the rest of our lives; Mao Zedong killed millions because he believed that they just needed to plant crops closer together and that steel could be made by combining almost any metals. Simplistic solutions are the scourge of humanity.

The Tea Party isn't a principled reaction to government excess; it is sophistry wrapped in stupidity and composed of complacent minds who can and should know better but elect not to. Sarah Palin is the perfect totem for them; a pretty skin hiding a dangerous and terrified creature of mild ability.

Michael

Wrath of the Tea Party

I watch a lot of movies, its pretty much what I do.
So I tend to look at life through that set of glasses.
I am also a Science Fiction Geek so the Rose tint on the glasses
comes from spending too much time in hyper space.
Its a pretty basic question, but I think its an important analysis to get right.
What exactly does the Tea Party Represent ?
Is the Tea Party the resurgence of Traditional values by the truly Patriotic?
Or is it the last gasp of a declining demographic obsessed beyond reason
with preserving centuries of privilege for itself
is the Tea Party like Ahab or Khan in Wrath of Khan?
an obsessed crazed group bent on rule or ruin?
or will the Tea Party be only the beginning of something truly
awful, like a sequel?
that IS the question.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Confederate Trea- History Month...

'Confederate History Month' Plunges VA Governor Into Firestorm

So in order to shore up his conservative base in Virginia, McDonnell is once again celebrating a treasonous and deadly war, fought over the false belief that the new, progressive President was going to launch a campaign of government takeovers and forcing people to give up their rights (in this case the right to own slaves...)? How poignant.

This Daily Kos weekly trend of Obama's approval ratings, broken into geography, is revealing. Since the first week of March, 2009, only one region of the country has had a negative opinion of the Obama Presidency. Guess which one? Still think alot of this isn't about race?

The South remains a festering boil of ignorance and idiocy on the ass of our great nation. One can only hope that the immigration of people from the North and Latin America tempers their silly obstinance and resistance to reason and progress.

Michael

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Looks Like We'll Get Another One

John Paul Stevens On Supreme Court Retirement: "I Have To Fish Or Cut Bait"

While it wouldn't alter the balance of the Court, it would preserve a liberal seat for some time. I was quite impressed with Obama's previous appointment, so I'm looking forward to what he has in store for us next.

My hope is female, brown skinned, gay, and Atheist. I'll accept 2 out of 4.

Michael