Secession debate

[Haylo]

I'm so sick and tired of hearing people whine about tax increases when in all likelihood they have not had one cent more taxed. In fact my taxes were lowered and I now get a whopping $50 more a check. Not a big deal but I don't make more than $60k a year so it's good for me. Honestly, how many of you have or will see a tax increase. Please be honest and stop the bullshit.

Calling for secession is utterly retarded. Do you realize what a can of worms that would open up? The last thing you'd have to worry about would be a tax increase.

[brinstar]

yeah i would bet that if over 90% of the conservitards waving their teabags around a couple weeks ago thought to LOOK at their paychecks, they'd find they're actually being taxed LESS now that obama took over

that's the funniest/saddest part of the whole farce

[KaiineTN]

Arlos, I'll be quite willing to admit I'm wrong if all these Keynesian ideas prove successful in the long run, but are you willing to admit you're wrong if shit gets worse? Or will you just say the ideas weren't implemented correctly, or not enough money was spent, or whatever else? At what point, if ever, will you intellectually challenge the shit you've been spoonfed by people who, quite frankly, love to spend money and expand power?

Real conservatives are more concerned about our spending levels than our current taxation, because they know what it means in terms of future obligations. Bills have to get paid sometime.

I mean, come on, have a little common sense. Even if Keynesian economics DOES work well, we are not in a situation that will make it work. We've just spent, spent, spent, spent, spent, and crashed, and our solution is to just spend spend spend spend spend! Keynesian economic theory works under the assumption that government spending is cut back in times of economic growth, and in our times of growth spending increased tremendously! You can't have it both ways.

All the focus is on getting us back onto the unsustainable track that made us crash, rather than having sensible finances, whether it's for the individual or the country as a whole.

[brinstar]

how much do you pay in taxes flink

[Gypsiyee]

how much do you pay in taxes flink

is the unemployed bracket still 0%?

[Jay]

For Vonk.

KEYNESIAN KEYNESIAN KEYNESIAN!!

[Drem]

i hate economics

[Eziekial]

Anyone here ever play a sport without boundaries / out of bounds? Makes no sense does it?

[10sun]

Anyone here ever play a sport without boundaries / out of bounds? Makes no sense does it?

Yes. Kite flying.

Yes. It makes no sense.

[mappatazee]

when the constitution was drafted the word 'state' was analogous to 'country.' and the 1790 census was ~4 million. the people should be able to decide whether or not they are part of that union of states and the state level is the proper place to do it in my opinion. i'm no history buff, but things like having a standing army, levying a permanent income tax, an annual budget of $2 trillion and i'm sure plenty of other changes over the years need to be reversed.

one thing that i really do not understand is why we need a president that has 24/7 involvement in so many aspects of running the country. shouldn't a good government practically run itself? you don't stop every mile to grease all the bearings of a car and then give a speech to fellow motorists. i think it is a terrible detriment to have a president that doesn't have the time to write & memorize his own speeches or have more than 15 minutes at a time with an advisor.

[Tossica]

how much do you pay in taxes flink

This. Please answer. I'm really curious.

[Gypsiyee]

one thing that i really do not understand is why we need a president that has 24/7 involvement in so many aspects of running the country. shouldn't a good government practically run itself? you don't stop every mile to grease all the bearings of a car and then give a speech to fellow motorists. i think it is a terrible detriment to have a president that doesn't have the time to write & memorize his own speeches or have more than 15 minutes at a time with an advisor.

I agree with you, but only to an extent. yes, a good government should practically run itself. the problem is that we haven't had a good government.

I do love your analogy, so let's keep in line with that. you don't stop every mile to grease all the bearings of a car, no. but if your car breaks down, do you step back and stare at it waiting for some miracle to come along to make it start purring again? no, that's when you have to take it in to get fixed or it'll just keep getting worse.

what we have right now is a broken down car. for the past 8 years, instead of tightening bolts and getting oil changes or whatever the hell else you do when something starts to get sketchy on a car, we've taken parts out and replaced them with play-do. instead of taking it to an expert, we've tried the do-it-yourself handyman job and made it worse. now we have this huge mess on our hands with even more broken parts than we started with and sitting there staring at it waiting for it to start up on its own just isn't going to happen.

of course we want a well oiled machine in government, but we're not to the point where we're ready for a hands-off approach. so much of the strategy is about timing - stepping off now only serves to cause more damage.

[mappatazee]

one thing that i really do not understand is why we need a president that has 24/7 involvement in so many aspects of running the country. shouldn't a good government practically run itself? you don't stop every mile to grease all the bearings of a car and then give a speech to fellow motorists. i think it is a terrible detriment to have a president that doesn't have the time to write & memorize his own speeches or have more than 15 minutes at a time with an advisor.

I agree with you, but only to an extent. yes, a good government should practically run itself. the problem is that we haven't had a good government.

I do love your analogy, so let's keep in line with that. you don't stop every mile to grease all the bearings of a car, no. but if your car breaks down, do you step back and stare at it waiting for some miracle to come along to make it start purring again? no, that's when you have to take it in to get fixed or it'll just keep getting worse.

what we have right now is a broken down car. for the past 8 years, instead of tightening bolts and getting oil changes or whatever the hell else you do when something starts to get sketchy on a car, we've taken parts out and replaced them with play-do. instead of taking it to an expert, we've tried the do-it-yourself handyman job and made it worse. now we have this huge mess on our hands with even more broken parts than we started with and sitting there staring at it waiting for it to start up on its own just isn't going to happen.

of course we want a well oiled machine in government, but we're not to the point where we're ready for a hands-off approach. so much of the strategy is about timing - stepping off now only serves to cause more damage.

i thought it was kind of a stretch but anyway of course a car does not have an autopilot & you don't want the driver distracted by a million things but generally you want someone who knows what they are doing which i think means a wide range of practical experience. but if there's no general consensus or clear idea of where you're going or why you're going anywhere in the first place then having a president elected under those conditions isn't going to do you much good. and the way things are set up there's a huge incentive for people to want to be that person. for one thing that obviously attracts a certain kind of person. and for that reason i think that the office of president and lot of positions of power (governers, senators, etc) have too much of just that. which is why i mentioned the population of the US as of the first census. over half the states have higher populations than the entire US at that time. california has an economy on par with many countries. what point is there of a federal government of this size when states are able to keep order and defend themselves? mostly to facilitate trade i would think the states would want to come together in their own best interest but it seems like so much more could be done between the states individually than at the federal level.

[vonkaar]

i thought it was kind of a stretch but anyway of course a car does not have an autopilot & you don't want the driver distracted by a million things but generally you want someone who knows what they are doing which i think means a wide range of practical experience. but if there's no general consensus or clear idea of where you're going or why you're going anywhere in the first place then having a president elected under those conditions isn't going to do you much good. and the way things are set up there's a huge incentive for people to want to be that person. for one thing that obviously attracts a certain kind of person. and for that reason i think that the office of president and lot of positions of power (governers, senators, etc) have too much of just that. which is why i mentioned the population of the US as of the first census. over half the states have higher populations than the entire US at that time. california has an economy on par with many countries. what point is there of a federal government of this size when states are able to keep order and defend themselves? mostly to facilitate trade i would think the states would want to come together in their own best interest but it seems like so much more could be done between the states individually than at the federal level.

Wtf man, that was like one giant run-on sentence.

[mappatazee]

i thought it was kind of a stretch but anyway of course a car does not have an autopilot & you don't want the driver distracted by a million things but generally you want someone who knows what they are doing which i think means a wide range of practical experience.

but if there's no general consensus or clear idea of where you're going or why you're going anywhere in the first place then having a president elected under those conditions isn't going to do you much good. and the way things are set up there's a huge incentive for people to want to be that person.

for one thing that obviously attracts a certain kind of person. and for that reason i think that the office of president and lot of positions of power (governers, senators, etc) have too much of just that.

which is why i mentioned the population of the US as of the first census. over half the states have higher populations than the entire US at that time. california has an economy on par with many countries. what point is there of a federal government of this size when states are able to keep order and defend themselves? mostly to facilitate trade i would think the states would want to come together in their own best interest but it seems like so much more could be done between the states individually than at the federal level.

Wtf man, that was like one giant run-on sentence.

better?

[Drem]

i thought it was kind of a stretch but anyway of course a car does not have an autopilot & you don't want the driver distracted by a million things but generally you want someone who knows what they are doing which i think means a wide range of practical experience. but if there's no general consensus or clear idea of where you're going or why you're going anywhere in the first place then having a president elected under those conditions isn't going to do you much good. and the way things are set up there's a huge incentive for people to want to be that person. for one thing that obviously attracts a certain kind of person. and for that reason i think that the office of president and lot of positions of power (governers, senators, etc) have too much of just that. which is why i mentioned the population of the US as of the first census. over half the states have higher populations than the entire US at that time. california has an economy on par with many countries. what point is there of a federal government of this size when states are able to keep order and defend themselves? mostly to facilitate trade i would think the states would want to come together in their own best interest but it seems like so much more could be done between the states individually than at the federal level.

Wtf man, that was like one giant run-on sentence.

can't you tell that he did that because you cried about paragraphs on the first page

zzzzzzzzz