YOUR COMMENTS ARE ENCOURAGED. LIBERAL HATE IS NOT. THX FOR PADDING OUR STATS!
Ben, awesome post. And yes! It made my hair curl. You know the first part hurt..but I have to deal with the truth once and for all. Maybe I will call him out on it?
God Bless! Your Sister in Crime,
Your fellow Infidel~
Ana
Revealing evil is no crime, Ana, it only offends evil and its apologists.
As the readers return to their offices Monday and log on to see what they missed while celebrating Mother's Day, this post will be waiting to surprise them.
I am an authentic leftist, an unapologetic socialist now for 30+ years -- very definitely over 40 and still a socialist in the US. I know that we are not exactly the overwhelming majority in the US.
Afraid of McCain? First, the question is whether he is the strongest candidate that the Repugs (who without getting trashed for it have used the epithet "Democrat Party" at least since the 76 election) could put up. There is an argument that Romney or someone else who would fudge the hawkish stance on the Iraq War (unlike McCain, who is OPENLY gung-ho for this unpopular war) would be stronger. But McCain's media preened image of a 'maverick' obviously strengthens his assets as a hardline RW hawk.
As for a McCain presidency? It means endless and unabashed spending on a ridiculous war that the US should never have started, and of course, similarly gross limitations on spending on such things as 'eco-industrialization', something needed for many reasons, including to avoid catastrophic Greenhouse Effect developments. Of course, the RW generally doesn't take things like global warming seriously, so they aren't "chicken littles" like me who thought the Iraq War was perverse from day 1 and who believe people like Jim Hansen (leading US climatologist) on the Greenhouse Effect. Sure, McCain sounds concerned enough about Global Warming to satisfy nearly all Repugs and RWers, even those who are not in denial, but what is needed is really far MORE than liberals like Gore and Pelosi advocate. They are WAY OFF, but in the OPPOSITE direction from that claimed by the RW.
So authentic progressives like myself are especially afraid of McCain, as he means LOTS more war, a renewed draft of some kind (possibly packaged as part of a not necessarily military 'national service' requirement), and ecological disaster.
(Plus lots of other problems like ballooning deficits, something FAR worse under Repugs than Dems)
cloudy...dufus...par
move someplace else because your kind are not welcome here
well, it's good to see that the spirit of free debate and inquiry is alive and well in these parts
debating with a self-professed "leftist" is a waste of time.
There is NOTHING that you say that can be reconciled with the United States Constitution.
Period.
The end.
well, I agree that the full achievement of socialism would require amending the Constitution, but then again, so did the abolition of slavery.
I would also agree that socialism is not likely near-term in the US (after all, there have been socialist parties of various kinds in power in many parts of Europe for many generations now, without capitalism being abolished as of yet. The particulars that progressives in FACT debate in US politics (eg the Iraq War, something few conservatives were willing to oppose just a few years ago) are another matter altogether. [What are you talking about? Abolishing capitalism isn't necessary for a country to turn socialist. --JZ]
Personally, I don't spend much of my time debating the merits of socialism, but far more concrete issues, including, of course WITHIN the Left. As for the virtues of McCain over Obama, that too involves a debate over the merits of the war, although there is of course the argument that, even though the war was a complete mistake, we now must stay in it. [I dismiss your claim that it was a complete mistake. That's nonsense. Please prove that it was a 'complete mistake'. --JZ] There are arguments in favor of the huge tax cuts to the richest few percent [Wrong again! How many times will you write such nonsense? The tax cut benefited everyone. --JZ] that have resulted in megadeficits, something over the past 30 years FAR more characteristic of the GOP than of the Democrats. [LOLOLOL! Again? No one spends more than democrats! Are you listening to the spending plans YOUR stupid candidates are proposing? Wake up! Stop your LYING! --JZ] And then the environmental issues, such as global warming. [... which does NOT exist, and has been proven, here, on this blog. Temperatures are now cooling. PLEASE, try to keep up. --JZ]
So, even for those who have no interest in debating the merits of socialism, there are still many things to debate. [Funny how YOU don't want to debate the failure that is socialism. --JZ]
OK, here's some issues to debate, with "JZ".
First 'Abolishing capitalism isn't necessary for a country to turn socialist'. Well, there are MANY definitions of socialism, but the purest definition (eg Marx's) is the abolition of private property in the means of production (as distinct, incidentally, from personal property), with the private ownership of the means of production as the definition of capitalism. Now even in Marx, there are many levels of abstraction ('the method of successive abstractions') so he himself advocated in the Communist Manifesto that when the Communists came to power they would start by radically reforming capitalism, not with full blown socialism, though the latter is a longer term goal. (Incidentally, I've never been a Marxist, but in understanding socialist theory, he's a good place to start). At any rate, the problem here is the myriad of definitions of "socialism" and you need to define your terms clearly before launching the kind of critique launched here.
That's a long, long post of BS-ing your way to nothing. You didn't take on the topic at all. We both know what socialism is. You must have driven your instructors in school crazy on the 'long answer' tests, providing 100 words that went here and there, but never got anywhere. Next time you pull that, I'm deleting your comments.
'Was the Iraq War a "complete" mistake?' First of all, one cannot 'prove' that something was 'bad' as the latter is both a value judgment and a partisan application of concepts (eg standards for what is a mistake).
Wrong but go ahead.
That said, I would argue that in terms of US national security interests, considering all the putative pluses and the minuses to date, OUR OWN strategic position in the region is worse than it was in Feb 2003, when Hussein, WITHOUT AN ARSENAL OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, was effectively at bay and yet the region was much more stable than it is now.
Wrong again. He had WMDs. The world's finest intelligence agencies knew it.
Further, the position of Iran, arguably by FAR the most threatening power in the region, in 2003 as today, is much STRONGER vis a vis the US than it was in 2002, or than it likely would have been had inspections and now war would have been pursued. (Yes, the latter is a "speculation" but such speculation is intrinsically a part of ANY claim that the war WAS or, for that matter, was NOT a mistake).
Iraq was the threat at the time. Clearly you are willing to dismiss the intelligence, but thankfully, the President was not. Hussein is gone, and the middle east is better for it. One down, more to go. We have a lot of cleaning up to do, and I'm thankful you appreciate the need to go after Iran.
'The tax cut benefited everyone'. First, this is false.
No it's not. *L*
Those MANY individuals who paid no net income tax got no tax cut, and most of those are in the poorest 30%.
Only a moonbat liberal would argue that those who didn't earn money should get a tax cut, cutting their tax liability from zero to less than zero. Egads, you're a moron.
More to the point, who benefits more, if someone making $30K gets a $300 tax cut, and someone making millions gets a HUMONGOUS tax cut (not only in the initial Bush tax cut but in subsequent ones also, eg the drastic cutback and narrowing, pending anticipated abolition of the so-called 'death tax', which NEVER affected so much as 3% of all estates of people when they died, even in 2000, like my dad (Sept 2000), whose estate owed no tax)? And tax cuts should really be targetted to those who need them, in my arrogant opinion, which does NOT include those raking in over $250 K per year, nearly 10x what I live on TOTAL.
Another idiotic statement. You're full of them aincha? Those who PAY MORE TAXES will benefit more from a tax cut. Drrrr... How can you argue so illogically? Oh yeah - you're a liberal.
About the Democrats and spending... [blah blah blah]
You never did take on the issue: the spending Nobama and Shrillary are proposing. Try again.
Again, we have to get back to the issue of DEFINING socialism,... [blah blah blah]
Again, I know what we're talking about.
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Do you?
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