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Post by bprimerano on Jul 5, 2010 17:06:51 GMT
Big government in practice is actually the best argument against big government in theory. agreed. That's why the big arm of the government, the military MUST have its budget slashed. Unfortunately, Republicans LOVE HUGE GOVERNMENT. Providing for the defense of the country is one of the FEW tasks that the federal government is actually suppose to do.
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Post by icefisher on Jul 5, 2010 17:24:52 GMT
Actually not quite. I deride both major parties for adding to the problem of big government spending. Sometimes the boat tacks left, sometimes right but it is always headed in the same direction. The government is the only entity you can look to to guarantee a living besides yourself. Keep up the good fight Maggie! Ultimately its small business that provides innovation, provides the most jobs, provides the most opportunities for growth. Regulation and taxation hits hardest at the small business level and those opportunities. John Stossel had a great documentary on What's Great about America that hit the small business angle right on the head! As part of it he showed how much easier it was to start a small business in America compared to most places (with the exception of Hong Kong).
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 17:29:27 GMT
Actually not quite. I deride both major parties for adding to the problem of big government spending. Sometimes the boat tacks left, sometimes right but it is always headed in the same direction. The government is the only entity you can look to to guarantee a living besides yourself. Keep up the good fight Maggie! Ultimately its small business that provides innovation, provides the most jobs, provides the most opportunities for growth. Regulation and taxation hits hardest at the small business level and those opportunities. John Stossel had a great documentary on What's Great about America that hit the small business angle right on the head! As part of it he showed how much easier it was to start a small business in America compared to most places (with the exception of Hong Kong). As a former small business owner, I would totally agree.
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Post by icefisher on Jul 5, 2010 18:24:40 GMT
As a former small business owner, I would totally agree. I noted you worked for the Granger's a locally-oriented not-for-profit operated to support small farm businesses. Great organization! Even though I don't see eye to eye with them on water issues. Anybody who gives money to national or international NGOs needs a head examination. . . .or maybe even a head transplantation. Folks that think they understand big systems simply have never dealt with real systems. . . . where in fact the universal maximum is a corollary to the Peter's Principle.
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Post by touko on Jul 5, 2010 18:34:31 GMT
I see, a Tea Party Autostimulation session by another name! Are you afraid your spouse might know?
Touko
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Post by slh1234 on Jul 5, 2010 18:42:45 GMT
Interestingly, the total military budget for the US in 2010 is $685.1 billion. The budget deficit in 2009 was $1.9 trillion. So even if you could completely eliminate the military spending, you would still be about $1.3 billion from balancing the budget. So it seems that there is a lot of big government out there that is not military. In fact, the military is a small minority of just the deficit. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_Statesen.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debtRINO, whatever you call the other side, it seems to me that politics still boils down to "Hooray for my above reproach side! The other side is just <insert distortions, name calling, straw men, fear mongering, etc. here>. and I arrived by all of that logically of couse, which the other side just can't do." Actually not quite. I deride both major parties for adding to the problem of big government spending. Sometimes the boat tacks left, sometimes right but it is always headed in the same direction. I said both sides, but I meant ALL sides. I still stand by it.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 18:55:46 GMT
As a former small business owner, I would totally agree. I noted you worked for the Granger's a locally-oriented not-for-profit operated to support small farm businesses. Great organization! Even though I don't see eye to eye with them on water issues. Anybody who gives money to national or international NGOs needs a head examination. . . .or maybe even a head transplantation. Folks that think they understand big systems simply have never dealt with real systems. . . . where in fact the universal maximum is a corollary to the Peter's Principle. Yes I was the Legislative Director for the California State Grange. There is NO Grange policy that didn't come from a local Grange first. I am curious about your disagreement with them on water policy. I don't agree with everything they do as well. I'm not even a member at this point though I do work with one of my local Granges on their pioneer days. I do quilt demonstrations for them.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 18:58:18 GMT
I see, a Tea Party Autostimulation session by another name! Are you afraid your spouse might know? Touko I have problems with the Tea Party movement. It has been taken over by Republican Neocons for the most part. The best way to control the opposition is to lead them. They have taken that axiom to heart.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 18:59:33 GMT
Actually not quite. I deride both major parties for adding to the problem of big government spending. Sometimes the boat tacks left, sometimes right but it is always headed in the same direction. I said both sides, but I meant ALL sides. I still stand by it. Your actions speak louder.
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Post by icefisher on Jul 5, 2010 19:01:53 GMT
I am curious about your disagreement with them on water policy. I love salmon fishing.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 19:33:06 GMT
I am curious about your disagreement with them on water policy. I love salmon fishing. I love eating Salmon. you'll have to be more specific. I can tell you that the Grange fought against shutting down the water to Klamath farmers. California State Grange won a case delisting the COHO.
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Post by icefisher on Jul 5, 2010 20:48:31 GMT
I love eating Salmon. you'll have to be more specific. I can tell you that the Grange fought against shutting down the water to Klamath farmers. California State Grange won a case delisting the COHO. As they say whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over I am not a rabid purist as I recognize that part of the compromise needs to include enhancement and conservation. The Klamath issue wasn't so much about shutting water down to Klamath farmers as it was an issue of who gets the water . . . .salmon or farmers. Mother Nature provides a variable flow of water and growing crops requires essentially a steady flow. If you allocate water at some point in time by quantity and mother nature does not cooperate it in effect results in shutting down water to farmers, though if you keep the spigots open then it results in shutting down water to salmon. Obviously these are issues that are difficult to manage. Like I said I am not a purist so I also take exception to listing specific runs as endangered or threatened as that ends up being a huge obstruction to innovative anthropogenic approaches in preserving salmon runs. But if you strip those protections from the runs then it becomes entirely political with big corporate farm bucks against relatively poor salmon fishermen. Environmentalists have become masters at keeping that split among users going I think to both of our losses. But this is a little off topic and I am no salmon expert beyond enjoying the sport and noting that it was a salmon manager that really brought forth science on ocean oscillations by linking the PDO to salmon production success that the AGW folks completely missed and as a resulted they attempted to co-opt the temperature changes from the PDO into being caused by CO2. (something they will not admit to their dying breath). If indeed the oscillation continues as it appears to be its only going to get worse for them. BTW, the one degree positive for June is from Sacramento Executive Airport. Sacramento downtown shows a slight negative perhaps demonstrating there is more UHI at airports than in the center of the city. In fact, looking at NWS data it looks like for the Sacramento valley they only compile upwards Redding Airport, Sacramento Executive Airport, and Stockton Airport which jointly compile to a positive. Other stations in the area not upwards compiled into summaries and they all show negatives.(based upon a sample of 4 other locations in the area) so it appears your perception is a bit sharper than NCDC who oversees the compilations. Power to the people! In my zone we are a negative 3 degrees for June and almost negative 3 degrees for May.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 5, 2010 21:49:33 GMT
I love eating Salmon. you'll have to be more specific. I can tell you that the Grange fought against shutting down the water to Klamath farmers. California State Grange won a case delisting the COHO. As they say whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over And I'm sure we could go back and forth with no resolution. Whiskey is on me.
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Post by slh1234 on Jul 6, 2010 0:32:37 GMT
I said both sides, but I meant ALL sides. I still stand by it. Your actions speak louder. I'm going to have to take it that you intentionally meant that to be humorous in context with my original input which is excluded from your response. But humorous or not, if we just look at this thread, we have at least these list of names and distortions: "Republicans LOVE HUGE GOVERNMENT" (The one I was originally responding to) "RINO's" "Neocons" (best I can see, you introduced this one into this thread) "Soros wing of the Dims" (I'll exclude "tea party" since that is what they call themselves and it seems to have been used in a positive sense in this thread. If we had time, I'm sure we'd have someone come along and call them something like "Teabaggers," but it hasn't happened yet.) So it looks to me like what I said is, in fact, happening in this thread as well. There are some who seem to genuinely try to discuss possibilities and historical perspectives rather than politics, but the politics is in this thread ... but try to find me a complete political thread anywhere that is not full of name calling, distortions, straw men, finger pointing, etc. My observations is that's just the essence of political discourse almost always. I have reasons i think this is, but I'll save it for later.
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Post by stranger on Jul 6, 2010 1:14:09 GMT
Slh, I said and meant the "Soros wing of the Democratic Party, the Dimocrats." Anything more than a flippant comment on that line would take several hundred thousand bytes, and I doubt Kevin would care to spare the bandwidth. So instead of a point by point commentary on history, I will give you a prediction.
Starting with the fact that while a great many R's do love big government as much as the Democrats, far more do not. Add to that the fact that the overwhelming majority of independent voters detest big government.
Given the reality that the majority of the States election laws provide no real room in the United States for a third party, some reshuffling of the political parties is virtually inevitable. And that reshuffling will probably come on a "big/small government split."
The outcome with the highest probability is that the small government faction of the Republican Party will merge with the "Taxed Enough Already" parties, and the big government faction will be forced to join the Democrats. A la Florida's Charlie Crist - who is the Democratic party candidate in everything but name.
In fact, the Utah TEA Party already controls Utah's Republican Party, and Utah's long time Congressman Bob Bennett is a lame duck. As are other big spenders. The same thing is quietly happening in a dozen other states as well. Including both my home state and my current state of residence.
As the world economy continues to falter, ( in comparison to the last Depression we are roughly up to 1930, with another twenty years to go) American's appetite for the unaffordable big government that created this economic disaster will be further reduced.
The reality is that right now only about 20% of the American public really supports the current regimes tax and blow policies. "Pie in the sky" might induce the 10% of the public who are habitual suckers to support big government. And the big government Republicans who cannot abide the TEA Party influx will not add much to that total.
Economically speakiing, 2016 will be much like 1936. A year I remember for its bread lines, farmers strikes, and general misery. A year when voter turnout and voter enthusiasm was very high - among those who could pay their poll tax.
So I expect the 2016 Elections to produce a Congress much like those from the Depression era; but with the "parties" reversed and the Republican/TEA Party in firm control. And with the very firm support of 70 percent or more of the voters.
Stranger
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