Campaign '08: Now With 100% More Hatin'!

[elpollodiablo]

Looks like GI learned a new PHIL buzz word

[Good Intentions]

I've been stocking them up for some time, actually, waiting to smack the next kid trying to lift himself up by the bootstraps back into a world that embraces mediocrity.

[Antero]

We're left in the position too much like that of someone crouching down to get face to face with an excitable puppy, going: "What is it, boy?! What is it?! Wow, he sure seems worked up about something!"

Oooooh.  Burrrrrn.

[Andrew_TSKS]

I wish Andrew were here so he could respond somewhat sensibly and thoughtfully to what I said instead of a bunch of empty one liners.

wow, i appreciate the thought. for the record, i do have some thoughts concerning your post on page 21 of the old thread. (also, i haven't read any posts after the post i'm quoting above, so i may reply multiple times in a row to this post. what the hell, it's 4 am). let's get to it.

i think this is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard of. dismantling every government institution and counting on rich businessmen to actually take care of the interests of the country mean that we'd only have the interests that serve the rich being protected.

Isn't that kind of what has been the case for the past 50 years, though, and what's happening right now, today?  As that interview above indicates?  Ron Paul would stop all that.

dude. DUDE. no he wouldn't. the thing is this--a pseudo-free market in which corporations are given every advantage is bad. no doubt. but an unfettered free market is WORSE. going "our tax burdens are unequally distributed so let's get rid of them entirely" is a huge baby-with-bathwater proposition, and it'll bankrupt the country. which makes this:

"which we will never be able to repay"? who's repaying what here? are you talking about the idea that people our age aren't going to be able to benefit from social security by the time we get old? i've read up on that, and it's a blatant fucking lie perpetrated by the rove squadron.

[T]here is a long-run financing problem.
But it's a problem of modest size. The [CBO] report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending — less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts — roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.
Given these numbers, it's not at all hard to come up with fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes, for generations to come.

that's my short answer to that one.

Well, I think that RP agrees with that, since the basic gist is cut spending and actually put money into Social Security instead of taxing and loaning it out in the form of subsidies to large corporations.  To quote him,

"The Social Security crisis is a spending crisis. The program could be saved tomorrow if Congress simply would stop spending so much money, apply even 10% of the bloated federal budget to a real trust fund, and begin saving your contributions to earn simple interest. That this simple approach seems impossible speaks volumes about the inability of Congress to cut spending no matter what the circumstances."

...VERY inconsistent. talking about funneling spending on defense into social security is well and good, but where are we gonna get the money when ron paul just wants to cut taxes even further than bush already has? i'll beat this dead horse AS LONG AS IT TAKES [shoutout to my man milly balgeary]: top federal income tax bracket under eisenhower during republican-utopia 1950s era: 91%. that figure again: NINETY-ONE PER CENT. would you like to see the country return to a similar era of prosperity? slashing income taxes is not the way to do it.

this is the most absurd shit you said in this post. so, what--children shouldn't be allowed to be educated, AT ALL, unless their parents are in an economic position to pay for their education out of pocket? are you eager to return to the days of uneducated child labor? 1912 and shit? why? what the hell makes you think that removing our current federally sponsored education system, flawed as it may be, would do anything but make life WORSE for the majority of our country's children? and why the hell would you want to do that? this is like saying you support kicking puppies--i just can't see any possible defense for it.

Note that getting rid of the Dept. of Education does not mean getting rid of public schooling.  Just fucking let schools be run locally.  Why do we need national standards on education?  Quoting again,

Funding decisions increasingly have been controlled by bureaucrats in Washington, causing public and even some private schools to follow the dictates of these federal "educrats" to an ever-greater degree to preserve their funding. As a result, curricula, teacher standards, textbook selection, and discipline policies have been crafted in Washington. Rigorous classes in basics such as mathematics, grammar, science, Western civilization, and history have been reduced or eliminated, while politically favored subjects have been forced upon students.

Of course, he goes on in the next sentence to complain about how religious observation has been forbidden in schools, which for me is neither here nor there.  Point is, as a nation over the past 20 years or whatever, we've been getting progressively stupider.  Even Mike Huckabee acknowledges that.  The solution is NOT more federal control.

ok, well, i misunderstood what you were suggesting, so my bad there, but as for the thing you actually are suggesting: eh, maybe yes, maybe no, but i lean towards no. as far as i've seen from my own experience with public schools and from what i've read about them over the last 20 or more years, one of the biggest problems public schools face is unequal distribution of funds. the reason some schools are way far behind others is because, rather than education money being allocated to whatever schools in the country need it the most, it's broken up not only by state but by district, so that the school district that has the most tax contributions gets the most tax contributions, and the school district with the least tax contributions gets the least. having lived in poor school districts and rich school districts, and attended public school in both, i can tell you that the difference is obvious. if you live in a rich school district, you've got no reason to send your children to private school (unless you have wack-job religious beliefs that you can't stand not to force upon your children), because the public school education is very good. meanwhile, whenever the army needs money, public education budgets are the first to get cut. we need to change the way education budgets are distributed, and we need to make the school's budgets a lot bigger. we also need to get rid of no child left behind, which basically punishes children for being born in poorly performing school districts--which, lo and behold, are probably performing poorly because they're budget-starved.

as for national standards of education, paul's comments about "rigorous classes in basics", etc, are flat out untrue, and the only reason kids in poorer neighborhoods aren't receiving quality education in these basic subjects are the reasons i outlined above. there's nothing wrong with a national education standard, and although i hate the s.o.l.s and no child left behind, i certainly don't have a problem with some standardization of curriculum. and all this "oh they're being pc and depriving my children of a proper education" hype is just a smokescreen for a prayer in schools platform. evangelicals recognize that coded language, and you're being suckered.

[John]

this is pretty much my standard schtick but whenever somebody anybody wants to talk about how our generation/the young generation/any generation is better/worse/smarter/dumber/prettier/uglier etc etc than another, I have to call bullshit. read Juvenal, who 2000 years ago was on the same "this generation is fucking dumb, men of the past had their fucking shit together, all anybody wants to do now is get drunk and fondle the whores" tip that people are still on today. it's a defense mechanism; it's a stance. it's a way of attempting to differentiate oneself from the herd, often. but it's not true. the present generation is as smart as the one before it, and probably a hair smarter. people just like to hate on their own generation; reach back as far as Hesiod, who in one of my favorite lines in all poetry (in "Works and Days") spends a lot of time detailing the degeneration of man throughout the generations and when he gets to his own time says "I wish that I had not been born among this generation, but had died or been born later." It's an old feeling, is what I'm saying; it's not rooted in anything true. Although now that I think of it, ok, yeah, the present generation is not nearly as pretty as my generation. But that can't be helped. The point generally stands.

[milesofsparks]

the present generation is not nearly as pretty as my generation

so true it had to be sigged.

[C of heartbreak]

Haha wow, This is some fucking hardcore h8eration.

In fairness to mesmerize on a couple points:

Whether you support it or not, the federal education system IS a failure. I'll give that it's done a decent job with financial aid for college, though anyone who's ever filled out a FAFSA knows they could do better. But education is still wildly unequal in this country, and that seems to be the primary thing the DoE should be addressing. The richest communities have schools that rival prestigious boarding schools, while most inner-city schools are no more than glorified daycare centers. This is a problem that goes beyond issues of funding and academic standards, and appears to be one that a federal agency--in its current incarnation, at least--is incapable of handling. As far as leaving it to the free market--I mean I don't have any reason to think that would work, but the current system definitely isn't working.

Re strict constructionalist view of the Constitution: I'd say the confusion of this issue here is that people tend to make it an argument between "the founding fathers knew everything" and "the Constitution is outdated." I think they ignore two important necessities: 1) The Constitution needs to be followed, and 2) as a result, the Constitution needs to be relevant. Really, right now the Constitution is only a guideline if anything else, as even the Bill of Rights is being eroded. And I say this is BAD, because having a rule of law that is above the acting government is the cornerstone of democracy. Which isn't to say we should do away with the income tax or social security or the president's military powers, per se, but that these things should be amended into the Constitution as necessary, so that they may be regulated and limited and legitimized.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Yeah the federal education system is pretty messed up, but Paul's answer isn't an answer that's going to fix anything.  Completely privatized education is a fantasy.  If every kid still had to be in school under a free market system, only the charter schools with rich kids would stay afloat without, guess what, government subsidies for admitting low income students. 

What will fix the education system?  Well they're trying to do it here in DC but have been met with some pretty violent opposition.  Its official folks, our nations capitol has the worst public schools in the nation.  They're trying to shut down under-enrolled schools, to start.  Then they can focus the extra resources on seriously improving the consolidated schools.  Its a great plan. 

But that's not all that needs to be done.  There needs to be some serious accountability in the dept of ed, all the way down the line.  When there is a shitty teacher, they can't fire that teacher because of tenure, so they just give them a raise and stick them in administration.  Our public school system, across the board, is so god damned top heavy with worthless administrators, that we completely waste a good portion of money that should be going to improving schools and teacher pay. 

We don't need to take a chainsaw to the federal education system and cut it to the ground, we need to take a fucking steak knife to it and trim off all the damn fat.

(oooh waaaah, I wan't free money from the government to go to college but I don't want to spend an hour filling out a fafsa)

[jebreject]

I was a capital-L Libertarian for a hot minute in high school until I started wondering how the fuck I would pay for college.

Listen, I'm all for local control and government, but you have to actually empower people first, not just dismantle bureaucracies from the top-down. Without the proper infrastructure in place, all this shit is just gonna collapse. It's the anarchist slogan: build the new society in the shell of the old. Dudes like Paul have a lot of fiery rhetoric, but what they say doesn't actually mean anything.

[jebreject]

Also, Knucks, metaphors aren't really your strong point. Just so you know.

[C of heartbreak]

It's the anarchist slogan: build the new society in the shell of the old.

I've never heard this slogan before but the anarchist in me has some pretty serious problems with it. Though this is so far from here or there that its actual location is probably named in Nepali or something.

[DCDave]

The DoE isn't powerful enough.  It's not too powerful.  We're the only industrialized nation that gives over as much control to localities as we do, and for what?  So the teacher's union gets to run the schools, essentially.  Meanwhile, the standards experiment of No Child Left Behind might give everyone the same test, but a passing grade in South Carolina is in the 71st percentile, and a passing grade in Michigan is in the 14th. 

The Federal DoE budget on R&D is 260 million.  The NIH R&D budget is 28 billion.  That is totally fucked.


From Mark Twain:

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards."

[jebreject]

It's the anarchist slogan: build the new society in the shell of the old.

I've never heard this slogan before but the anarchist in me has some pretty serious problems with it. Though this is so far from here or there that its actual location is probably named in Nepali or something.

Well, I probably have some problems with it too, and I'm actually not entirely sure whether it's an anarchist slogan or not.* But yeah, this doesn't have anything to do with anything. I'm just saying that abolishing the Department of Education is probably not a very good idea.

* EDIT: Okay, yeah, it's from the preamble to the IWW constitution. I thought so. (I know, I know, I should have the damn thing memorized, but I always get stuck after the first paragraph: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.")

EDIT 2: Gary, I think you're problem with it though might be incongruous with what it's actually meant to mean. Though this is a discussion we should take off board if you're interested in having it.

[Mesmerize]

dude. DUDE. no he wouldn't. the thing is this--a pseudo-free market in which corporations are given every advantage is bad. no doubt. but an unfettered free market is WORSE. going "our tax burdens are unequally distributed so let's get rid of them entirely" is a huge baby-with-bathwater proposition, and it'll bankrupt the country. which makes this:

"which we will never be able to repay"? who's repaying what here? are you talking about the idea that people our age aren't going to be able to benefit from social security by the time we get old? i've read up on that, and it's a blatant fucking lie perpetrated by the rove squadron.

[T]here is a long-run financing problem.
But it's a problem of modest size. The [CBO] report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending — less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts — roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.
Given these numbers, it's not at all hard to come up with fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes, for generations to come.

that's my short answer to that one.

Well, I think that RP agrees with that, since the basic gist is cut spending and actually put money into Social Security instead of taxing and loaning it out in the form of subsidies to large corporations.  To quote him,

"The Social Security crisis is a spending crisis. The program could be saved tomorrow if Congress simply would stop spending so much money, apply even 10% of the bloated federal budget to a real trust fund, and begin saving your contributions to earn simple interest. That this simple approach seems impossible speaks volumes about the inability of Congress to cut spending no matter what the circumstances."

...VERY inconsistent. talking about funneling spending on defense into social security is well and good, but where are we gonna get the money when ron paul just wants to cut taxes even further than bush already has? i'll beat this dead horse AS LONG AS IT TAKES [shoutout to my man milly balgeary]: top federal income tax bracket under eisenhower during republican-utopia 1950s era: 91%. that figure again: NINETY-ONE PER CENT. would you like to see the country return to a similar era of prosperity? slashing income taxes is not the way to do it.

That sounds all well and good and I wouldn't oppose such a figure for the top bracket (meaning like <1% where 98% of the wealth is), but income taxes for the top bracket and taxes for the middle and poor class are completely different stories.  Taxing the incomes for people like you and me only serves to benefit that top 1%.  I reject the idea that I need to fork over half of whatever I earn to the government in order to be more prosperous.  There wouldn't be a problem if the government wasn't spending trillions of dollars on foreign interventions, because they wouldn't need the money, we could keep it and spend it where we want to spend it and should spend it:  here, on things that benefit *us* and our economy.  Quoting again,

Congressman Charlie Rangel recently unveiled a tax plan that Republicans estimate would raise taxes by $3.5 trillion over 10 years. Democrats questioned the math.  Now, the Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee have released a report on the total costs of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including "hidden costs" such as interest on the money we're borrowing, and long-term healthcare for vets. The bill comes to $3.5 trillion. Republicans are, of course, questioning the math on this item.
[snip]
If $3.5 trillion is the true cost of these military adventures, $11,500 is the amount every man, woman and child in this country pays. So, a family of four would pay $46,000 just for this war. This is an especially painful number to me, as the median household income of my constituency in Texas is just $43,000 a year. In other words, war has cost more than an entire year’s worth of income from each middle class Texas family.
What about the impact of these costs on education, the very thing that so often helps to increase earnings? $46,000 would cover 90% of the tuition costs to attend a four-year public university in Texas for both children in that family of four. Obviously, it would far outpace the cost of a community college degree, so vital to so many in the workforce.

It all goes back to the war and our empire that we CANNOT AFFORD, which you know.  RP is the only candidate that would put an end to it, and that, to me, is the absolute MOST vital issue right now.  Most everything else, like Education, which this thread has unfortunately turned mostly into a discussion of, is peanuts comparatively speaking.  Inflation shot up last year by the largest amount in 26 years!  You can't talk about fixing inflation if you continue to print money whenever you need it to go fight your foreign resource wars!  Did you read that quote in my last post by Alan Greenspan on the Fed/Gold standard?  The Constitution says that only gold and silver are legal tender, not paper.  Read this.  Gold just hit record high prices, by the way. 

And it most certainly would not "bankrupt the country."  Quite the opposite, in fact.  It would let the people living in the country actually keep their money and spend it however they see fit.  It would certainly give the Federal government less money, but that's okay because the Federal government doesn't need billions upon billions of dollars, especially if they are no longer having to fund an empire stretching across the entire globe.  What IS bankrupting this country is being trillions of dollars in debt.

ok, well, i misunderstood what you were suggesting, so my bad there, but as for the thing you actually are suggesting: eh, maybe yes, maybe no, but i lean towards no. as far as i've seen from my own experience with public schools and from what i've read about them over the last 20 or more years, one of the biggest problems public schools face is unequal distribution of funds. the reason some schools are way far behind others is because, rather than education money being allocated to whatever schools in the country need it the most, it's broken up not only by state but by district, so that the school district that has the most tax contributions gets the most tax contributions, and the school district with the least tax contributions gets the least. [snip] meanwhile, whenever the army needs money, public education budgets are the first to get cut. we need to change the way education budgets are distributed, and we need to make the school's budgets a lot bigger. we also need to get rid of no child left behind, which basically punishes children for being born in poorly performing school districts--which, lo and behold, are probably performing poorly because they're budget-starved.

I can't argue with that.  Quoting RP again,

The bill increases the Education department budget by a whopping 22 percent- more than even the liberals had hoped. The $9.2 billion increase brings the total department budget to more than $50 billion. No one mentions the high tax rates we all pay to finance this spending. We must remember that every dollar parents send to Washington is a dollar they don't have to spend directly on their children's education. Most education tax dollars sent to Washington fund the federal bureaucracy; far less than half of each dollar is ever returned to local schools.
[snip]
I have introduced three education tax credit bills which keep more tax dollars and more decision making power at the local level. The first provides parents with a $3,000 per child credit for educational expenses, including tuition, books, computers, and tutors. The second allows parents or individuals to claim up to $3,000 in tax credits for cash or in-kind donations to schools and scholarship programs. The third bill grants all teachers a $1,000 tax credit, effectively raising their salaries without spending tax dollars.

Yeah the federal education system is pretty messed up, but Paul's answer isn't an answer that's going to fix anything.  Completely privatized education is a fantasy.

Yeah that's not his answer, but ok.

If anything, I'd just like to say that I'm glad this discussion has gone this far without one comment about RP being a racist, bigot, homophobe, or whatever.  In my mind, that's real progress.

[dieblucasdie]

Ron Paul is a racist, a bigot, and a homophobe.

[jebreject]

Mesmerize why don't you become a Communist or Anarchist as was hip with the kids in my days

[jebreject]

And I'm sorry dude but I tend to agree with GI: You aren't actually saying anything.

[C of heartbreak]

Oddly enough, my interest in anarchism is what led to my brief flirtation with libertarianism (which, you might still call me a libertarian, but mainly the kind who doesn't like to pay taxes and considers sending mailbombs to city hall when he receives a municipal parking ticket). Also, my initial interest in anarchism was a result of being into to a certain 90s band whom I'll decline to mention by name, but you can probably guess.

[Mesmerize]

And I'm sorry dude but I tend to agree with GI: You aren't actually saying anything.

heh, and you are?

[DCDave]

Pete Wentz endorsed Obama.

[elpollodiablo]

Suddenly Ron Paul looks much better

[dieblucasdie]

hahaha oh my god, that lead me to look up Ron Paul's endorsements (nooooooes not Anya!) and this chick I went to high school with (I was already aware that she was a non-famous professional singer) is the one who recorded the "Ron Paul Revolution" theme song.  Oh God, I'm dying here.

This makes the Huckabee rap look like Public Enemy.  Seriously, guys.

[Andrew_TSKS]

That sounds all well and good and I wouldn't oppose such a figure for the top bracket (meaning like <1% where 98% of the wealth is), but income taxes for the top bracket and taxes for the middle and poor class are completely different stories.  Taxing the incomes for people like you and me only serves to benefit that top 1%.  I reject the idea that I need to fork over half of whatever I earn to the government in order to be more prosperous.  There wouldn't be a problem if the government wasn't spending trillions of dollars on foreign interventions, because they wouldn't need the money, we could keep it and spend it where we want to spend it and should spend it:  here, on things that benefit *us* and our economy.

see, it's things like this that leave people saying "you don't understand ron paul's positions". if you told ron paul "hey dude, let's tax the shit out of that richest 1%--you know, 80%, 90% of their income. that would solve a lot of budgetary problems", he'd have a coronary. ron paul is a free market advocate, and free market advocates believe that lowering taxes on the rich stimulates the economy. that whole trickle-down/reaganomics/supply-side/voodoo economics/whatever you wanna call it thing that ronald reagan thought was the shit in the early 80s when he got his first term as president, and which threw the country right into a recession the second he implemented it. he ended up having to reverse all his tax cuts on the rich by 1982 just to keep the country's economy from getting any worse. but for whatever reason, this lesson was completely lost on the libertarians, who still think that the best thing to do is let businessmen and corporations keep all of the money, because private interests will do a better job than government programs. therefore, ron paul would be violently opposed to balancing the federal budget with huge tax increases on even the richest 1% (who, for the record, pay 35% federal income tax right now, as does everyone who earns a yearly income above $357,701 [source]), because it would restrict the market, and the market, in his opinion, should be as free as possible. granted, this also leads him to opposing the kind of tax breaks and favors for corporations that the republicans favor right now, but getting rid of those things is only part of the battle. if their tax levels stay the same as they are now, we're screwed even without corporations and businesses getting special favors.

[Andrew_TSKS]

hey, also:

ok, well, i misunderstood what you were suggesting, so my bad there, but as for the thing you actually are suggesting: eh, maybe yes, maybe no, but i lean towards no. as far as i've seen from my own experience with public schools and from what i've read about them over the last 20 or more years, one of the biggest problems public schools face is unequal distribution of funds. the reason some schools are way far behind others is because, rather than education money being allocated to whatever schools in the country need it the most, it's broken up not only by state but by district, so that the school district that has the most tax contributions gets the most tax contributions, and the school district with the least tax contributions gets the least. [snip] meanwhile, whenever the army needs money, public education budgets are the first to get cut. we need to change the way education budgets are distributed, and we need to make the school's budgets a lot bigger. we also need to get rid of no child left behind, which basically punishes children for being born in poorly performing school districts--which, lo and behold, are probably performing poorly because they're budget-starved.

I can't argue with that.  Quoting RP again,

The bill increases the Education department budget by a whopping 22 percent- more than even the liberals had hoped. The $9.2 billion increase brings the total department budget to more than $50 billion. No one mentions the high tax rates we all pay to finance this spending. We must remember that every dollar parents send to Washington is a dollar they don't have to spend directly on their children's education. Most education tax dollars sent to Washington fund the federal bureaucracy; far less than half of each dollar is ever returned to local schools.
[snip]
I have introduced three education tax credit bills which keep more tax dollars and more decision making power at the local level. The first provides parents with a $3,000 per child credit for educational expenses, including tuition, books, computers, and tutors. The second allows parents or individuals to claim up to $3,000 in tax credits for cash or in-kind donations to schools and scholarship programs. The third bill grants all teachers a $1,000 tax credit, effectively raising their salaries without spending tax dollars.

where this is concerned, i don't even think splitting up the education budget by state is a good idea. we'll end up with a situation where states like california educate their children much better than a state like, say, north dakota. if you break up all of the federal programs like education and make each state in charge of their own individual program, you'll create huge economic disparities between different states, on so many different levels. it'll be like 50 different countries, and could create conditions that would lead to a second civil war. maybe not, but maybe so. it's the federal government that holds this huge-ass country together, and weakening it will weaken the country. no one who wrote the constitution could have foreseen that, but then again, when the constitution was written, 80% of what is now the usa belonged to other countries. they didn't see this coming. and see, that's why it's nice that the constitution is amendable, but i know you agree with me on that part, so yeah.

[dieblucasdie]

I think it would be good for me to reiterate here just how useless both the IL governor and legislature are.  I don't want to even think about what would happen to the *3rd largest city in the country* if they were given carte blanche w/r/t allocating federal funds.