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Romney Taps Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan As Running Mate
Shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, Republican candidate Mitt Romney officially announced (via phone app) his selection of 42-year-old Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as running mate for the 2012 U.S. presidential race. Ryan's selection was announced by the Romney campaign to various media outlets earlier this morning. Ryan is considered popular among a wide range of Republican voters, being a budget hawk who favors less liberal laws concerning abortion. Ryan's lauded popularity among Tea Party voters is mixed; some reports describe him as a Tea Party favorite, others as a far-right imposter.
When Romney brought out Ryan, was that music from Armageddon or was it another movie?
How the fuck is this news for nerds?? Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers.
This does not belong on slashdot. Stop using this as your personal blog, timothy.
Now I expect this to turn into a left-wing bashfest. Commence.
neither is your comment, but you posted it anyway. Stop using slasdot as your personal rebuttal space.
Wrong dill hole we can discuss evolution or creation or Muons and Hadrons but politics is sleezy humanism. The only importance it maintains in our society is what credit peole like YOU give it. There is nothing 'technical' about this story. timothy shouldn't be banned he's offered lots of good stories for us but someone should smack him thats for sure.
No matter how much the left will want to make this about Ryan wanting to kill little old ladies (as in their ad showing him literally throwing one off a cliff), what this will really do is force people like Biden (in debates, with Ryan) to directly address some specific things that the current administration would really, really rather not talk about. Which is good for everyone, no matter how the voting goes.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I think this falls under the, "stuff that matters", bit.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
"retard"
Fine message to send. "My Party is an obsolete old rustbucket that went aground so hard it was laid up for years as they patched it together again. Oh by the way, it uses so much oil to get anywhere we can't afford to run it anymore."
On the other hand, maybe it is an appropriate message after all. And I say this as a Navy veteran and former resident of Wisconsin.
what the fuck is a "credit peole"? is this some new banking scam from goldman sachs?
Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers
Seriously? Have you been on a deep space mission and not read Slashdot since 2000 or something?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So Romney, who has attacked Obama for having "no private sector experience" taps a career politician to be his VP. One with less executive experience than Sarah Palin, and one who has advocated for what Newt Gingrich called "right-wing social engineering".
Nice one, Mittens.
Stuff that matters? enough said...
All points of time and space are connected.
Why pick a guy that appeals to those on the far right of the spectrum when you already know none of those people would ever vote for Obama....
Maybe Romney will try to paint himself as more of a moderate now?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I fine this particularly lulzy. I don't think he could have picked a less likable running mate.
It's disappointing that Romney couldn't find a diversity candidate, a woman, African-American, Latino etc. How does he expect to beat Obama in the election with this ticket? Saying the economy is terrible isn't enough.
For those that wonder how this article got on the front page, remember it's News for nerds, stuff that matters. I think a presidential election is something that matters.
That's a nice try but I'll give you less intelligence than a chat bot if you can't get the context out of a conversation over a simple spelling mistake.
I don't see a real tech angle on this, and it's not even particularly surprising or that interesting from a political angle. GOP candidate makes reasonably "safe" GOP choice, perhaps leaning right, but given his current party, it's not like there was much elsewhere he could've leant. I was vaguely intrigued by a suggestion that Romney could try a gambit of picking a pro-choice moderate to win over independents, at the risk of really pissing off the Republican base. But I don't think anyone seriously expected that to happen.
Overall I think the pick is a NOOP; few people who previously disliked Romney are now going to be won over, and vice versa.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It only matters because you people give it credit that it does not deserve. You would be better off to be apathetic than to support politics by engagement.
One man pisses in the ocean once a day... will it ever amount to anything?
Republicans will be (mostly) pleased with Romney's choice, since Ryan has built up some street cred with them through his knock-down, drag-out fight with Democrats in Wisconsin. But Democrats see Ryan as a monster who must be stopped at all costs, and will likely be motivated to come out and vote against him. It should be an interesting election.
"credit people" with a typo.
I'd rather have the 16 yr old idealists from Anonymous running our country than any polititian. Screw MITT, SCREW BAMMY.
Looks like the story from the other day about knowing Romney's VP from Wikipedia edits was wrong.
Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick
Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the "next President of the United States"
What ever candidate had a father who was NOT a bigamist!
This seems to be the political equivalent of Microsoft's forthcoming release of Windows Vista 2.0... Pretty, but dysfunctional... sleek but pointless, rich but morally and ethically bankrupt.
I get enough of this bullshit in the papers, TV, radio, diner, pamphlets, grandpa.... etc.. I come to /. to get away from stupid shit. Do you really believe this website is a peer on politics. Nope. Is it a peer in tech? Yep. Don't polarize this website with political prop.
he he he's not black, female, or even Hispanic! he's not Mormon either! what's Romney trying to do?!? lose?
Perhaps Romney is simultaneously announcing his choice of running mate and his plan to commit suicide if elected.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, these maroons are liable to cut funding for any nifty science-y type stuff to zip zed zero, so I guess there's a geek hook in there someplace.
And yeah, I spelled 'morons' 'wrong', I'm channeling Bugs Bunny this morning. Need more coffee before these bozos make it illegal...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Ayn Rand also nearly worshipped a sadistic child murderer and mutilator. She called this man "ideal".... Ayn Rand's Early Inspiration: A Child Killer
This certainly belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. As J. Brendan Ritchie, who flagged it for me, wrote: "Apparently Ayn Rand was heavily inspired by (and admired) a psychopath. Incidently, objectivism now makes a lot more sense to me."
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
No, it t does not matter a bit what will be the name or skin color of the next corporate puppet.
He's the future princess of Dumbfuckistan. Of course it matters!
When it matters, then I'll give a damn. Till then...
The US is not the world, but they do have a huge influence over it.
Dilbert RSS feed
Politicians should be a minor issue, no different than being a job applicant for the people to hire, based on the applicants ability to integrate and implement the funding instructions of the people
The Government has failed budgeting and accounting massively. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Why do we still use Voting machines? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV_ZerkPIMU&feature=player_embedded
Contrary to what many think, the U.S. is not a Democracy, its a Republic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4r0VUybeXY
"No Taxation without representation" So do lying politicians represent you? (one of many links) http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/31/big-lies-in-politics
So how do we correct these obvious spoiled addiction failures?
Taxpayers are to define where their taxes are to be allocated/used. Me regarding mine and your regarding yours, etc. Like open source or crowd sourcing fund. Option to "trust the government to decide" is also available to those who do, or some portion of their taxes. The tax processors at all the different levels of government (i.e. local, state, federal) are to allocate each taxpayers taxes as instructed by that taxpayer and provide a receipt of having done so. If the tax processing agencies of government cannot do this then we can do this through credit unions and provide the tax processing agencies with receipts to our funding. Government must prove it is using our funding correctly before it is reimbursed (obviously it has unlimited borrowing power otherwise we'd not be in such deficit). It is the debt of the few who created the debt not by the choice of the people but by their own decision. This way they can file bankruptcy rather than bankrupting those not responsible for teh actions of the obviously spoiled.
The voting process is only to determine who to hire to implement the job the taxpayers and voters (who can vote to help determine where the funding of "trust the government to decide") is used. This way "No Taxation without representation" is not violated.
Of course this means government has to be transparent regarding what it believes it needs funding for and each of the people can decide for themselves to fund or not. However, amendment 16 of the U.S. Constitution give power to congress to lay and collect taxes. However if does not and cannot say where those taxes are to be used. Otherwise it would be in violation of the Declaration of Independence (a document that gives each of us the right and duty to do this core change).
Taxes are to be used within the constraint of: Supporting the organized structures for the optimization of teamwork benefits shared and the funding of generating such benefits. Taxes are not to be defined by the tax payers or voters as being beneficial solely to that taxpayer or voter, but must be in a manner of teamwork benefits shared.
The only thing lacking here for this core change to be initiated is the paper work for the taxpayers to define where the taxes they pay are to be used and the allocation system for the tax processors which include a receipt/verification feedback loop. We file tax returns at least once a year, and here is where we allocate/instruct government of where our funding is to be used.
Does any of the babbling of political campaigns express any candidates ability to do this job?
Again.
Lookin at opensecrets.org for paul ryan... Hey guess whos the bankers, traders, and insurance companies boy!
4 more years of the same ol shit!
No matter who wins. America loses. Again.
Video of Romney introducing Ryan as the next president here. Later he comes back, puts his arm around Ryan and says he has been know to make a few mistakes. Great start.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Now the Dems can segue from pounding on Romney about not releasing his tax returns to pounding on Republicans about wanting to turn Medicare into a voucher program so rich people don't have to pay more in taxes.
Whoever decided to release this on Saturday should be beat with sticks. Had the announcement gone out on Monday, they could have owned the news cycle. Now the Dems will have their surrogates ready with a simple talking point that they can just keep hammering all the way to November.
The best thing I can say about picking Ryan is it was better than picking Sarah Palin.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Austerity is a death spiral that creates needless suffering at a time when govt should be fulfilling the Constitutional mandate to "provide for the general welfare."
Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand advocate.
So many nerds on this site LOVE Ayn Rand and want us to follow her teachings.
Watch the right-wing bashfest.
"what the fuck is a "credit peole"?"
It was ( obviously ) a typo, but in this case it is also an intelligence test which you failed.
Interestingly the fight in Wisconsin lead to Wisconsin being distanced by the rest of the USA in what concerns job performance. See this graph which shows the total number of nonfarm employees in Wisconsin (blue) vs. the entire US (red). Note how in early 2011, when Wisconsin's job creation policies were enacted Wisconsin stopped following the upwards trend of the country. (Details: the graph is normalized to the 2009 numbers, any other pre-2011 normalization wouldn't change the picture; nonfarm to not be distorted by seasonal variations; employment numbers instead of unemployment to accoutn for people leaving the state).
I don't know how much of Wisonsin's policies Ryan could claim for himself, but it certainly looks like he shouldn't at all.
"Far right"? Don't demonize your political adversareis. This causes polarization, hatred, alienation and isolation. It also makes collabortation almost imposssible.
Paul Ryan is not "far right" any more than the DEM is "far left".
believe it or not, there are actually morons out there ignorant enough to actually believe you are serious.
There are legitimate grounds to oppose President Obama; it is disingenious to yell "SHUT UP you racist!" everytime someone criticizes bailouts or oppose federal medicine.
NOTE: I am not opposing federal medicine, just arguing that we should get over skin color.
There's a different between ignorance and apathy.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Wow. Who told you this was craigslist?
They had no problems voting for white people when they were the best candidates in other elections. Seems like you are transferring your own bigotry onto others.
Nope, because News for Nerds *is* the Stuff That Matters. There are plenty of political forums to discuss non-tech stuff.
If he was, I think Ryan has decided to not being him back.
Paul Ryan proposed an additional 6% budget cut for NASA in the Ryan Budget so that he could increase DOD spending.
Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Ryan's the best choice that was available to Willard, since nobody with any integrity would settle for Willard as the candidate.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Real question for the new GOP team is what can they do to stop a US Dollar collapse? Or is it too late already? http://usdebtclock.org/
Given 73% of Slashdot's traffic is non-US based (and the lack of cross-over between geek news and politics), surely this musters a giant yawn at best ??
Oh, it's a conspiracy.Are Jews and the CIA involved?
WHAT? The Dems are progressives. They strongly adopted the values of the New Left (Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Theoror Adorno).
To claim they are "right wing" is astonishing... What are your sources? Michael Moore perhaps?
some reports describe him as a Tea Party favorite, others as a far-right imposter.
The "imposter" link just proves that you can find a blogger to represent any idea, however absurd. The Tea Party isn't right wing? Please.
Ryan is the so-called "intellectual leader" of the Republican party. According to him, his intellectual hero is Ayn Rand. That is all.
Ayn Rand? That bitch owes me $20.
She either coughs up, or I make her guzzle my rancid sperm.
Barack Obama introduces Joe Biden as the "next President of the United States"
Maybe for a psychology geek learning what it takes to work a crowd. I mean, really, <rhetorical question> how is it possible these people get a single vote?</rhetorical question>
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How the fuck is this news for nerds?? Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers.
This does not belong on slashdot. Stop using this as your personal blog, timothy.
Now I expect this to turn into a left-wing bashfest. Commence.
The potential next President and VP certainly IS news for Nerds, since it will affect all of us one way or another, even if one isn't American. Unless you live under a rock, or your Mom's basement. Now shut the fuck up please :)
Your modern world frightens and confuses me.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
You people all need to stop feeding trolls like axlr8or. You just give him or her the attention they want when you do so.
I tend to agree with you, but evidently those who run the site think it's stuff that matters. Although I have to admit that I like reading all the political banter on /. Gives me some good laughs occasionally.
All points of time and space are connected.
If the tea party wasn't so dead stuck on tax cuts for the wealthy, I'd give them more credence, but when you want to cut medicare/medicaid, funding for schools and teachers, and on top of that, you want to cut taxes for the wealthy? Fuck the tea party for being Koch brothers sock puppets.
We'll be seeing that on the Daily Show come Monday.
Obama did the same thing when he announced Biden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QCcwJjk54
Really, I don't remember the media mentioning that. :-)
Having supported TARP and government bailouts of car companies, I don't really know how you can claim that he advocates Ayn Rand. Perhaps you mean he invokes Rand and her vision of small government while actually taking on the role of a Randian villain?
Ryan's budgets and other plans consistently pass the house and are blocked from even getting a vote in the Senate by Reid.
This choice gives all Americans a chance to do what Reid doesn't want to allow: vote for Ryan's plans for America.
If 2010 is any indication, Romney just won the election with this pick.
Work Safe Porn
Historically that's been "stuff that matters" with a technical leaning. Or, I dunno, stuff that actually matters.
Fighting over Romney and Obama is like fighting over who gets to lick the toilet seat. No matter what, someone is going to wind up with a turd in their mouth. South Park's Douche And Turd episode is completely spot on.
If you support either one of these idiots, you literally are a large part of the problem with this country.
Is the guy who invented Almond Joy
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Nope, he rejects her because she was an atheist. He's always rejected her, didn't you know? All those words of praise in the past never happened, we all imagined it! We've always been at war with EastAsia!!
Using sarcasm only debases the debate.
The original subject: Paul Ryan is not far right. You only believe he is far right if you take your news from Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone or some other wacko.
PS: I know that Chomsky gave excellent contributions to linguistics and other areas; that does not change the fact that politically he is a wacko.
Gottlob Frege admired Hitler (yeah, Godwin), and his technical genius doesn't make Hitler-admiration any less crazy.
Thanks for that informative post, I never knew that. I tried to read Rand once, couldn't make much sense of her work. If what you've posted is true (I trust it is, but will verify), than she, like many of 'the greats' you hear the real stories about, was an easily impressed fool. Glad I never fell for her shit back then.
Fine message to send. "My Party is an obsolete old rustbucket that went aground so hard it was laid up for years as they patched it together again. Oh by the way, it uses so much oil to get anywhere we can't afford to run it anymore." On the other hand, maybe it is an appropriate message after all. And I say this as a Navy veteran and former resident of Wisconsin.
Actually they are not so rusty. The battleships are quite useful in one of their historic roles and some of these "museum" ships are required by law to be maintained at a level that would permit them to be recommissioned should the need arise.
The role is shore bombardment. There is nothing like those big 16-inch guns for bombardment. Battleships basically own anything within 25 miles of the coast. Ask any U.S. Marine contemplating an amphibious assault on a contested beach, or who needs artillery support. Or consider a Syrian General in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley that made the mistake of firing on U.S. aircraft. A U.S. battleship put 16-inch shells into his command post. The Syrian officers who replaced this general and his staff moved the command post farther inland.
Regarding vulnerability. Consider that these ships were designed to slug it out with other ships of their class. Modern weapons were designed for ships with much thinner armor. After an Exocet missile took out a British ship during the Falkland Islands war the commander of a U.S. battleship was asked about his ship's vulnerability to the Exocet, Silkworm and other similar anti-ship missiles. The commander pointed out that the ship has 12 inches of steel armor and would take about 30 minutes to repaint the dent from an Exocet hit.
In her niche of shore bombardment the battleship still rules.
What a deeply ignorant opinion this is, in the best sense of the word. Hilter was an authoritarian. The right wing in the US is libertarian.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Okay, I'll be the straight man and set up the joke. What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
> If the tea party wasn't so dead stuck on tax cuts for the wealthy
And if YOU could get away from the Soros/Think Progress/CAP/Kos talking points you might realize we aren't for 'tax cuts for the wealthy' we are for either keeping rates WHERE THEY ARE AND HAVE BEEN FOR A DECADE or for a major overhaul of the tax code to reduce rates across the board in exchange for eliminating deductions, carveouts and loopholes such that it is revenue neutral on the static CBO scoring but will actually produce MORE revenue to the treasury, almost all from the 'wealkthy', from a growing economy.
> but when you want to cut medicare/medicaid, funding for schools and teachers
We are spending over a trillion more than we are taking in and Obama plans to do that into the forcastable future. That isn't a sustainable plan. And most of the spending growth is in the welfare state. Taxes at all levels (fed, state, local) are almost certainly on the side of the laffer curve where raising rates won't bring in more actual revenue and my team isn't into 'redistributive justice' so why in the name of hell would we want to raise tax rates? So that leaves cutting spending untl it matches revenues or making the tax base grow until it can support the spending. So lets hear YOUR plan. What do you want to cut? Or do you want to try inflating our way out? Or what? There aren't many choices available so please stop bitching about our choices and pick something to be for.
And screw the teachers. We have more than doubled per pupil spending in the last generation and test scores have went down. The best thing we could do for the students is fire the lot of em and sell off the infrastructure to private entities. At least some of them would succeed.
Democrat delenda est
when some self-serving nut job thinks that just because he doesn't consider himself to be a right wing idiot, that the entire world has somehow adjusted itself to make his ignorant blather mainstream. I take it you sig line is serious also. After all, once you've outed yourself to be a self-serving ignoramus, why not add shameless corporate whore to the mix.
That could also mean that Europe is dominated by leftism? When you find it normal to arrest a person for saying that "homosexuality is a sin", then you are quite leftist, yes?
People forget that the Left nowadays if very focused on feminism, abortion, affirmative action, immigrants; people think that a country is "right-wing" because it has private banks... They have missed the whole New Left development.
1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7668448/Christian-preacher-arrested-for-saying-homosexuality-is-a-sin.html
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7952526/Last-Catholic-adoption-agency-faces-closure-after-Charity-Commission-ruling.html
There are plenty of political forums to discuss non-tech stuff.
You mean like politics.slashdot.org, where this was posted?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And they like intra-vaginal ultrasounds. Keep telling yourself lies, buddy: the US right is libertarian like I am turnip.
Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term. Obama inherited the mess of a deficit from Bush Junior
Actually Jr inherited the fake prosperity of the Internet Bubble and its popping, a popping that began under Clinton. Jr was then immediately hit with 9/11. Clearly the economy took hits that were not Jr's doing.
And despite this Jr managed a recovery of sorts within a few years. Something Obama seems incapable of. However then the Housing Bubble popped. And who authorized those Credit Default Swaps so critical to the current economic crisis? It was Clinton. Clinton not only authorized these financial WMDs but he also made it illegal for states to enact state-level laws that would regulate them.
It seems Clinton had far more of a role in the current economic crisis than Jr. Jr did not help with his spending however Obama is going far beyond Jr in terms of spending and that is also contributing to the ongoing crisis.
1. We spent 804 billion dollars in Iraq and didn't even get a "thank you card"..or a drop of oil 2. We spent 90 billion dollars on reconstruction in Afghanistan to "win hearts and minds"...and they hate us
And Obama continued Jr's war policy and exited Iraq on Jr's timetable.
3. We spent 2.5 billion dollars sending CURIOSITY to MARS, a technological feat that set space exploration ahead 50 years, sent a message to the world that the US is still the leader in technology.... and will provide us with a wealth of scientific data for years to come.
And the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission began and hardware and software mostly completed under Jr's term.
I don't think he could have picked a less likable running mate.
Both Bush Jr and Obama are quite likable guys. How has electing guys for likability been working out?
Basing your vote on skin color, ethnicity or sex is preposterous.
We should call racism for what it is.
Even blacks themselves would benefit by the end of anti-white racism. Because the victory over racism will only be achieved when race becomes a non-issue. As long as there are pundits saying that white politicians hate blacks, that the police hates blacks, etc., blacks will be distrustful of whites, will be consumed by hate, will be more likely to drift into crime, and will be over-represented in the prison population, in a vicious circle.
What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?
Don't know, don't care.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Economically, the DEM may be centrist by European standards.
But on social issues (abortion, homosexualism, etc.) it ties with Hollande.
People forget that the Left nowadays if very focused on feminism, abortion, affirmative action, immigrants; people think that a country is "right-wing" because it has private banks... They have missed the whole New Left development.
It's the new in-store credit card that will be issued by Walmart.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
A decade of tax cuts which the cutters in question promised to end in 2010, because otherwise they totally raped the deficit, and doing so it was the only way to get them past the Byrd rule and passed under Reconciliation rules. And at that, only after Trent Lott had the first senate parliamentarian fired for not accepting their fairy-story economic growth projections (which didn't pan out, either).
See this is what the election is going to come down to. The Republican platform is now "Vote for us, or else we will become Greece." And whenever someone voices and disagreement, factually or otherwise, Paul Ryan will do what he's done his entire career: he'll climb up on a cross, demand the spikes be hammered, and declaim from on high "They are doing this to me because I dared tell the Truth!"
And I bet this will work. American folk history is filled with valorizations of people who are persecuted for speaking out, even when the guy speaking out is lying through his teeth.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The Alex P. Keaton's of the 1980s are all grown up!
The left wing in the USA thinks that the government should control every aspect of your lives. The right wing thinks that this can be done more efficiently by the private sector. Both are authoritarian, it's just that your left wants to retain the illusion that you have some influence over your oppressors via elections, while the right wants to retain the illusion that you have some influence over your oppressors via marketplace competition.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Don't pretend that the original poster was flamebait. It wasn't.
Not because of any active racism (which is quite small nowadays), but because African-Americans are less than 13% of the population and, additionally, they are still (probably due to inertia) under-represented in the upper classes.
Partly due to inertia, and partly because women are naturally (due to child-rearing) less likely to have stellar careers*, and people with mediocre careers are less likely to win an election in this money-focused society.
They identify as Christians, but many of them don't practice.
The Left makes a huge hatefest when some politician is accused of having read some Josemaria Escrivá (founder of Opus Dei) book. That these same people complain about Islamophobia is a textbook example of hypocrisy.
* I'm not saying that women are bad politicians, or should be forbidden to work, or that they are all less talented. I am just saying that a significant percentage of them choose to be a housewife or to work shorter hours so they can care of their children, and this makes them less appealing as political candidates because our society is so focused on money and careers.
And if YOU could get away from the Soros/Think Progress/CAP/Kos talking points you might realize we aren't for 'tax cuts for the wealthy' we are for either keeping rates WHERE THEY ARE AND HAVE BEEN FOR A DECADE or for a major overhaul of the tax code to reduce rates across the board in exchange for eliminating deductions, carveouts and loopholes such that it is revenue neutral on the static CBO scoring but will actually produce MORE revenue to the treasury, almost all from the 'wealkthy', from a growing economy.
Wow! The liberal mods are out today. You know, the ones that are out to mod down any comment they are unable to counter so they do whatever they can to silence it. In this case, it was labeled "Troll", even though there is absolutely nothing "trollish" about it. It's the same way that liberals will call conservatives "racist" or "only looking out for the rich".
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won" - Mumford and Sons I Gave You My All
Political pundits often claim that part of the reason you pick the VP candidate should be to help win a key state. Obviously that wasn't an issue with Palin in 08 since Alaska is dark red, but Wisconsin has been light blue the last couple elections, and with Scott Walker surviving his recall election here, perhaps Romney is hoping Ryan will help flip the state red? As a native Wisconsinite I don't think it's too likely... The state hasn't gone red that often, in fact you'd have to go back to 1984 to find Wisconsin flipping red in a Presidential election. Still, past performance isn't always a guarantee and the Romney team might feel energized by Walker's recall victory. Then again it could just be that Romney is afraid the base thinks he's too moderate and wants a loyal Tea Party running mate to fire up the base. That has the potential to backfire though, since moderate voters might shy away from Ryan, and elderly voters will almost certainly have a hard time voting for the guy that prioritizes tax-breaks for millionaires over social security and medicare. And of course Ryan is now going to be thrust into the spotlight more than he's ever been in the past, with every last detail of his life examined and scrutinized. I have no reason to believe there's any skeletons in his closet, but if there are you can bet the media will dig them up. Overall though the VP pick is really only important in what it shows about the Presidential candidate, and Romney has had a problem of never really wanting to commit on issues since he's likely afraid whatever he says will come back to bite him. His VP pick is obviously something he can't easily walk away from, but I think it's too early to tell if it will help or hurt him.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Well, at least if Romney gets elected, Ryan will be reduced to legislative impotence instead of being Congress's most influential moron.
The right wing in the US is libertarian
Libertarianism is objectively pro-$strongest. In the US, $strongest is the corporations. Thus, the right wing in the US is corporatist. I'd say "fascist", but that's a word that people in the US associate with a charismatic "leader for life", and a degree of internal oppression to which we have not yet risen.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He has shown no evidence of dislike of atheist _people_. He criticized an atheist _philosophy_. Those are different things.
Second, it is possible to change one's mind. I have changed mine some times. About AGW for example.
In economic terms, the DEM is centrist by European standards, yes.
But in social (abortion, feminism, affirmative action, immigration), the DEM is clearly leftist.
People have missed the whole New Left (Marcuse, Adorno, Foucault) development and they think leftism is dead. Couldn't be farther from the truth; it is alive and kicking.
I'm looking forward to the Ryan vs Biden debate. Real hair vs Hair plugs.
Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
PS. This guy above is not a Troll. He is merely wrong. Do not censor this discourse.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Nice editing there. What Obama actually said was "...the next president, the next vice president of the United States of America, Joe Biden." Mediaite's clip from Fox News, of all places.
have known.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
” Like many conservatives, he claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” he told me, “I said, ‘Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.’ What I liked about her novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.” He dived into Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.
In a 2005 speech to a group of Rand devotees called the Atlas Society, Ryan said that Rand was required reading for his office staff and interns. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he told the group. “The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” To me he was careful to point out that he rejects Rand’s atheism.
Ayn Rand also nearly worshipped a sadistic child murderer and mutilator. She called this man "ideal".... Ayn Rand's Early Inspiration: A Child Killer
This certainly belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. As J. Brendan Ritchie, who flagged it for me, wrote: "Apparently Ayn Rand was heavily inspired by (and admired) a psychopath. Incidently, objectivism now makes a lot more sense to me."
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
I'm not advocating for his budget moves (I do not have enough information), but you have to do better than that.
A 6% budget cut, which presumably would be reversed once the economy recovers, is not killing the Space program.
His budget move does not necessarily mean that he thinks NASA in unimportant.
Regarding the defense budget, he may think we are in an emergency (due to the war in Afghanistan), which would be
reversed in a few years.
Anyway, I do agree that the USA is a bit too aggressive. You should fix your electoral system so that more than two parties have a chance. A non-interventionist party (which neither the GOP or the DEMs are) would get at lot of votes.
if they are already demons. Even the Catholic Church campaigns against Paul Ryan's Economic plans. Meanwhile the 1% has 2 or 3 times the national debt tucked away in offshore accounts. You want to know where our debt comes from, there's your answer.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you've ever had the feeling that there was something fundamentally sociopathic about Ayn Rand's philosophy, you may have been on to something. Apparently one of Ayn Rand's early "heroes" was a serial killer named William Edward Hickman. When he was arrested Hickman became quite famous -- the talk of the town, so to speak, but for the entire country. Rand took things a bit further than most, though, and modeled at least one of her literary characters on Hickman.
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation.
Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
Source: AlterNet
We shouldn't assume that Ayn Rand admired everything about Hickman. After all, it's not unreasonable to find the odd admirable quality in even the worst human being. On the other hand, those "odd admirable qualities" can be found more easily in people who are more admirable overall. The choice of William Hickman cannot be separated from the reasons for his notoriety -- and it does appear that what she admired in him was not something innocuous, such as being good to dogs, but rather precisely the qualities which made him a sociopath...
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)
It's one thing to be heedless of people who are simply negative and are trying to dissuade you from trying something new, but quite another to simply never "feel other people" and to ignore the very existence of "other people." That describes a sociopath, not an innovator. An innovator is heedless of opinions that are negative about their goals; a sociopath is simply heedless of everyone else because they lack the ability to muster any empathy for others.
What's worse is that others have come to idolize the same sociopathic tendencies precisely because Ayn Rand popularized them. Justice Clarence Thomas is just one of many...
What's really unsettling is that even former Central Bank chief Alan Greenspan, whose relationship with Rand dated back to the 1950s, did some parasite-bashing of his own. In response to a 1958 New York Times book review slamming Atlas Shrugged, Greenspan, defending his mentor, published a letter to the editor that ends: "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Alan Greenspan." ..
Republican faithful like GOP Congressman Paul Ryan read Ayn Rand and declare, with pride, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism."
Sociopathy is the opposite of morality, and promoting it as a core feature of democratic capitalism isn't a recommendation for either Ayn Rand or capitalism. I doub
No, it t does not matter a bit what will be the name or skin color of the next corporate puppet.
Actually, it does. Because one of them is just an ordinary suck-up center-right corporate puppet, and the other is a batshit crazy corporate puppet who's so corrupt (or possibly criminal) that he doesn't dare show you his tax returns.
Yeah, it would be nice to have a candidate who isn't a corporate puppet. But what do you expect, if you say corporations are people and money is speech?
Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/paul-ryan-vp/
Voted YES on terminating funding for National Public Radio.
Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless surveillance.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted YES on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting.
Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry.
Voted YES on banning Internet gambling by credit card.
Voted YES on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.
Ryan co-sponsored permanently banning state & local taxation of Internet access
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Paul_Ryan_technology.htm
(*sigh*)
Another bad economy denier.
Wake up and realize Obama really screwed up!
Nope, he rejects her because she was an atheist. He's always rejected her, didn't you know? All those words of praise in the past never happened, we all imagined it! We've always been at war with EastAsia!!
This is the kind of dishonest argument we see on Slashdot all too much. One can agree with some of a person's positions and not all of them. Thinking that Atlas Shrugs is an important book doesn't necessarily imply that you agree with Ayn Rand on every single thing she believes. I'm fond of saying that Rand got many things right for the wrong reasons. I certainly don't agree with her on her anti-religious beliefs, and I have some serious misgivings with Objectivism. But that doesn't change the fact that I think she made a lot of important arguments in her books. You seem to be arguing, however, that to endorse one idea is to be forced to endorse all the ideas of the writer. This simply isn't true. Do YOU endorse every single idea of the writers that you read? No? Then why do you expect others to do so?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Well, whenever he gets "the Truth" we'll be right there with the cross and spikes. Until then... But I do agree with your point, as the "they're persecuting me" is used by politicians and con artists--yea, that's largely redundant--to justify all sorts of things, including various religious revivals. Of course, there's also "Truth to Power" which only proves that if you're annoying/egregious enough, you can make power flinch regardless of what you're saying--which is one major reason I've always disliked Hamlet. But, then, all the world is a stage; I just wish politicians were more entertaining actors.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
> The Republican platform is now "Vote for us, or else we will become Greece."
Consider why that strategy is one you are afraid will work. It is a combination of two factors, remove either one and it wouldn't work. One you can argue isn't under your control/isn't Obama's fault/blah blah but the other certainly is.
One, the economy is in the crapper and most Americans think it is more likely to get worse than to get better. Worse they think, by a large margain, that we are on the wrong course.
Second, the D team is offering no plan at all to deal with the elephant in the room. The ginormous deficit and rampant spending. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half and instead doubled it. Congress didn't even try to pass a budget in 2010 and the Senate refuses to even start debate on one for the third year in a row. Obama's last two budgets were forced to a vote by the Republicans and went down in flames by his own party. In short, the entire Democrat machine is totally AWOL, ceding the most important issue to the voters to the Republicans.
Ok, you don't like Ryan's budgets. You aren't supposed to, that is why we have two parties. But you won't beat something with nothing. Right now Ryan looks like the adult in the room while you guys are banging your spoons on the high chair. Get you ass in the game and tell us what you are for, we know what you are against. We are spending a trillion a year we don't have and the cutrrent plan is to do that until things go kaboom. What is your plan, other than kaboom. We can see Greece and hell, we can see California; we know how this story ends and it isn't somewhere we want to go.
Democrat delenda est
holie fuck I nee mod points for this guy, +1 insightful... cut-pasted and printed the whole page.
C|N>K
You know who else thought you could pick and choose ideas from the writings of various authors? Hitler.
See that url? politics.slashdot.org
If you don't like political news, disable the politics section in your account settings.
But his politics do effect nerd stuff.
Obomas and Romneys spending for NASA and general science are different.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Obama is probably down in the Situation Room standing in front of a poster of Richard M. Nixon while 'beating off' and saluting.
LoL
This is a copy of a post made by someone else on the ArsTechinica Soapbox forum which was fantastic enough I thought to share here. It sums up Ryan perfectly.
"Ryan on Ayn Rand: ... and/51711/
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics
Quote:
“I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people.”
“I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.”
“It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.”
“But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”
“And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.”
“It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are.”
“Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”
And some video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmW19uoyuO8
Quote:
Ryan: “I think a lot of people would observe that we are right now living in an Ayn Rand novel, metaphorically speaking. Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”
And then the 180: ... bert-costa
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/
Quote:
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
Apparently, some nerds live in the USA, and who is running the government affects their ability to play with computers due to various laws these politicians pass.
Anarchists never rule
Incurring God's wrath by ignoring the plight of the poor is actually central to the Judeo-Christian mythology. Decadence is cited as the reason god cursed and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and also why Jehovah abandoned Judea and Israel when the Babylonians attacked. Jesus himself was killed because he attacked the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple, whom he claimed were economically exploiting the pilgrims. Ayn Rand specifically stated that her aims were to change culture by replacing our morality by a new one that is not guided by our religious past. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6LSpFgxL94
Except they aren't the "potential next president and vp", they're absolutely unelectable.
Republicans, business owners and low-functioners will vote for them. This despite the dog-abuse, the disconnect with anyone not earning millions, the almost daily gaffes, the business destroying history at Bain, the "you people" attitude of the wife, the "I like trees", "I like firing people", "I know some NASCAR team owners", "people are entitled to the best education they can afford" and the other, seemingly endless stream of "I'm a big cheese, you're nothing" attitude expressed in the form of repeated "oopsies.".
Democrats will vote to keep Obama. They like him, and he's given them good reason to like them. They know congress screwed up the healthcare plan, not Obama.
Swing voters will vote for Obama. That's because they actually inform themselves about current events; hence the swing. They know Obama's been working to get us back from the disastrous policies of the republican administrations of 2000...2008. They know Obama has turned the job market around. They know Obama has pushed back hard on the credit card companies abuse of cardholders. They know Obama has kicked out the idiot anti-gay retardation in the military, and with regard to marriage. They know that Obama considers health care for them to be as important as education in making the country productive and strong. They know Obama is forcing the insurance companies to rebate excess profits; to keep kids on parent's policies; and lastly, they know that with the election out of the way, some of the other items on Obama's agenda are likely to come to pass, and that this country needs quite a few of them.
You just watch. Romney will go down in flames. And deservedly so. The man is about as presidential as a dog turd. :a swing voter
Bullshit claim is bullshit:
http://www.tnr.com/article/82962/conservatives-economic-chart-fox-de-rugy
Indeed, the real story here isn’t necessarily Emmerich’s fuzzy math; as important is the fact that the chart was posted again and again with so little discussion of its accuracy. If those who pushed the chart along in its Internet journey cared about its content and the methodology, rather than its underlying political message, they could have done a little Googling. It wouldn’t have taken much to crack the surface, get below the presumption that poor people are coddled by the government, and find the beginning of a long list of problems with Emmerich’s work. But, perhaps because of ideological bent or maybe due to simple laziness, people decided that no fact-checking was required.
The right wing thinks that this can be done more efficiently by the private sector.
Except for your bedroom. That's too important to be left to the whims of the market, apparently.
Second, the D team is offering no plan at all to deal with the elephant in the room. The ginormous deficit and rampant spending. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half and instead doubled it
Without being dishonest, explain why offering large tax cuts for the wealthy somehow solves the problem of the deficit?
"Deficits are too high" is a red herring for selfish pricks that are too cowardly to actually say what they mean.
Paul Ryan was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and one of the first things he did after taking office was to support legislation attempting to criminalize forms of already widely accepted birth control.
Can the parent post possibly be described as against Slashdot guidelines?
It is my genuine opinion, I was polite, and it is ontopic.
This is crystal-clear moderation abuse.
Ayn Rand died on welfare and medicare, two things Ryan would cut to the bone if he had a chance. Part of the reason she was living on government assistance was that she was sick with cancer. She refused to believe the medical warnings about smoking. In that way she was a forerunner of the TEA party type denialists. The mentality of believing what you want because your opinion matters as much as someone who has studied something for years when you have not.
Romney just surrendered this campaign to Obama. Ryan's far-right perspective on fiscal and social issues will drive away all the independent voters that Romney may have been able to pick up. The only hope for the GOP now is that they can suppress or discourage enough voters to manage to win just on the republicans showing up in larger numbers than the democrats.
Romney would have been better off choosing just about anyone else if he wanted to get undecided voters to come to his side.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I think you are living in a fact free zone.
The Republicans are not offering real solutions. All they want to do is give tax breaks that will mostly go to their rich cronies and privatise everything, again for the benefit of the richest.
They are in the process of killing the U. S. Postal service by requiring that they fund their retirement system 75 years in advance. They want to sell off our national treasures and they don't mind rigging elections to get that done.
Right now they are enacting voter suppression laws that will primarily suppress voting in areas that would tend to vote for Obama under the guise of preventing voter fraud even though voter fraud has never been a major problem.
They create gridlock like little children throwing a tantrum. Can you say filibuster, filibuster, filibuster? Sure you can! And then claim that Obama can't get anything done. Well no shit Sherlock. Remember that they admitted that their number one priority was to make Obama a one term President! THERE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY! Screw the economy, screw anything else. And they announced their evil little pin head plan right from the start.
The American people cannot afford to allow these cheating low life scum bags to stay in office. They almost destroyed our country during the eight years that Bush and his cronies ran the country and we just can not afford to have a repeat. Oh, and isn't it curious that Bush didn't even really win the election but the Republicans suppressed the recount which later showed that he lost!!
Get ready folks. These bastards are gearing up to steal the election again. They have already voted in Iowa to extend the voting period for Republican leaning counties while shortening the voting period for Democratic leaning counties! That's right! Make it harder to cast your vote if you live in a primarily Democrat county and easier if most of the people would vote Republican!
Is it any wonder people are getting pissed off?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
If you pay no taxes, and someone else does, when it comes time to "cut taxes" you don't get a check genius.
The wealthy in the US are the only ones actually paying taxes, so getting butt hurt over them paying less is a bullshit position.
You end up with a more balanced political debate here than on for example Fox News
You really need to take an economics class. Might learn something.
Or just google for "sales tax". Or are you saying sales tax is not tax?
Oh please. A dictionary does not list every possible combination of words.
"Atheist philosophy" is often understood to mean "materialist philosophy", and this is what matters.
(Posting anonymously because I hit the 25-comment limit).
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This may be true I don't know, but I feel you're focusing on 'OMG CHILD KILLER' and missing the point. It's like praising Hitler, because of his charisma and ability to gather people so strongly behind him. Yea he did bad things, but he was a good speaker.
It's the same here, these sociopathic qualities brought such a different way of thinking it opened her eyes. It allowed her to see things from a different viewpoint, and base her characters around that. Hell, the whole Galt's Gulch idea could've come from this. It fits the "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," idea pretty well.
In fact her openly admitting this shows how she took this lesson to heart. It takes a pretty strong person to tell the truth openly and completely all the time, but the idea she gained from this man, and the idea she says in her books, is that you should do exactly this, live life like 'other people do not exist for you, and do not see why they should.' Now that's not to say go out and kill a 12-year-old, but just to be yourself, and not what you think society would want you to be.
Why do I care where she got her beliefs? I read the books and attained my own beliefs based on them.
Must be why your side is the one demanding government funding of bedroom activity
It's important to make the point that I don't think the strategy is fact-based; I don't think most political arguments are fact-based, and there's nothing wrong with that. The facts of the matter are irrelevant, in the end these are politicians making promises, promises which, from the White House, are impossible to guarantee. John Boehner and Eric Cantor will be the ones writing the law if Romney/Ryan wins, and they'll have to get it past Harry Reid -- it's impossible for a president to make any sort of specific promises on such a basis (it pisses me off that they even try).
What it's really about is providing a certain amount of people with a satisfying story to tell themselves. Moderates swoon for "mavericks," people who "buck their own party" and tell the "hard truths"; these low-information voters generally assume that any solution to a problem that is painful must be the right one. They crave to be told that America has been "indulgent" and "spending like a drunken sailor," on "luxuries" like health care or retirement -- this attitude is completely independent of the fiscal health of the country, its programs or anything else. They naturally gravitate towards these people not because of the actual policy goals, but because they say and do things that signal they are "serious."
I for one don't go into this style of moralistic narrative, I go in for different ones. But it's not about the actual laws that will get passed, it's about what sort of person people trust to write the law for them. As you say, Ryan "looks" like the adult in the room. And that's all it is, looks.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
How did you know what "my side" is? Are you a telepath?
Contrary to what many think, the U.S. is not a Democracy, its a Republic
I get so tired of people spouting this off like it means something.
A republic is necessarily democratic. A republic is a government of the people -- literally a "people's thing", <em>res publica</em>. Democracy is rule by the people. The two terms are virtually synonyms. (You can technically have a government which is not a republic -- where supreme authority ostensibly resides in the hands of someone besides the people -- which is nevertheless governed day-to-day by democratic methods. The UK's monarchy is one prominent current example of this).
The distinction you're trying to make is between a direct democracy and a representative democracy. Both the US and the UK have representative democracies, but one (the US) is a republic and the other (the UK) is not.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
So you don't consider someone who might be the next leader of the U.S., a person who can hugely influence on how much the U.S. government funds basic science projects as well as major scientific organizations like NASA, the CDC, the EPA, etc. etc. etc. ... you don't consider what this person thinks and who he surrounds himself with to be very important or interesting to a group of people interested in science? You're a fucking idiot. Get out of the 1940's nuclear bomb lab... what goes on inside a technical shop is affected by outside influences like who it the potential next president and his running mate, and the outside world is affected by work done in many labs. There are consequences in both directions.
And just because he isn't elected yet (if he ever will be) doesn't mean he won't affect spending patterns. His policies could influence Obama's if Obama decides he needs to change his current ones in order to get re-elected. Narrow minded narrow focused... get a grip, some things outside of science are very, very important to science.
Personally I'm glad he chose Ryan. This guy is so tea party crazy right he has the power to induce a La Chattalier stress on the system and push moderates and undecideds towards Obama. Don't get me wrong. Normally I do side with the democrats, but I really don't like how Obama has performed in many respects and would have liked to have seen the more moderate side of Romney to provide at least an alternative or to force Obama to back off of all the Bush era policies he adopted. But by going hard right as Romney has been doing of late, Obama is likely to seem like the only sane choice to more people (not the rabid right, but more like the silent majority). Especially with the tea bagger Romney just picked. Who doesn't want medicare when they hit 65? Vote Romney!
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Right now Ryan looks like the adult in the room while you guys are banging your spoons on the high chair.
Wait, how did we get to the point where a Republican congressman of all people "looks like the adult in the room". This is the group that is so into stonewalling the legislative process the US's debt rating got downgraded.
Read more about what she said. You'll ignore it, because it ruins this little talking point.
So lets hear YOUR plan. What do you want to cut?
You actually have to ask what the left would want to cut? Hint: They're currently deployed in Afganistan and Iraq and it's one of the other two spending groups that is roughly the size of medicare.
Well, both Ryan and Romney are on record for ending or massively reducing government funding for scientific research and for education. Their budget proposes a more than 60% reduction in most science programs and education programs over a ten year period, since they believe that such spending should be left to the discretion of the wealthy and corporations, which are indistinguishable in Romney's view. Consequently, those who do science, particularly computational science, which will be massively impacted, might want to reflect on the choice, making this an excellent and most appropriate topic for Slashdot users.
Bubbles look good before they burst.
It's pretty clear that the Democrats are going with a "make the rich pay" sort of campaign. They will do everything they can to demonize Romney and his wealth while conveniently ignoring several very wealthy Democrats (Pelosi, Kerry, pick a Kennedy any Kennedy, John Edwards, etc.). The clear message being that it's ok to be rich if you're a Democrat but if you're a rich Republican then you're a prick. Say what you want about Romney's money, at least he worked for it. Sure, venture capitalism has questionable ethics at times but show me a single really rich person - Republican or Democrat - that hasn't broken a few rules on the way up. His father was of modest means and he earned his way to success. John Kerry got his money the old fashioned way. He married some rich old broad with a trust fund. John Edwards was an ambulance chasing lawyer that made hundreds of millions of dollars in asbestos lawsuits. The Kennedys got their money the real old fashioned way - they stole it. Not only that, they have their family fortune squirreled away in tax havens such as the Isle of Man and Fiji where they don't pay one red cent of tax on a family fortune estimated by some to be several hundred million dollars. Isn't this exactly what the Democrats are going after Romney for? For having a Swiss bank account? He is alleged to have had $3 million in that Swiss account and it was closed in 2010. Why do people put money in Swiss banks? To avoid taxes of course. See a pattern emerging here? Republican or Democrat, if they are rich they are all doing this sort of thing to some degree or other. So let's just stop with these silly games shall we. Would someone please wake me up when the mud slinging is finished and we actually start talking in an honest way about the real issues that face America and what to do about them?
Wrong. Clinton was more of a corporatist than the past three Republican presidents. There are different forms of corporatism and Clinton relied heavily upon his neo-corporatist advisors.
There is also fascist-corporatism. What we might be seeing is actually a return of Absolutist Corporatism to enforce social hierarchy.
The tobacco companies have made the world a better place after all. Never thought I would say this but "Thank gods for cancer"
I suggest that everybody, Democrats, Republicans, come to the elections with one mission - put either Ron Paul or Gary Johnson in the office and nobody else.
You can't handle the truth.
Romney and Ryan remind me of that famous comedy team of long ago, Laurel and Laurel.
Ayn Rand died on welfare and medicare
- she died in 1982, which means she paid into the system for quite a number of years since it was established. Being unjustly forced to pay into the unjust system and then voluntarily refusing to draw from it is stupid, and it doesn't prevent one from being against the injustice of being forced into the unjust system.
You can't handle the truth.
Dammit, based on that tally, 5-3 I should vote for him...that's why I hate looking at real data.
Try taking a remedial math class maybe you can learn to add and subtract.
I never said they would be elected, but just being on the ballot is newsworthy and falls under 'stuff that matters'. I think Obama will be re-elected despite his piss poor performance because Romney is that bad of a candidate. For the record, I too am a swing voter and registered as unaffiliated. I've voted both sides of the aisle, even in the same election cycles. You seem to assume otherwise, or perhaps I misinterpreted your diatribe.
I do however disagree with your assessment that it is a slam dunk for Obama. I think it will be a very close election but I do believe he'll get another 4 years.
I meant just what I said to the GP. This is news that belongs here. Unfortunately someone with mod points thought that was flamebait, though that could have been my 'shut the fuck up' piece. I stand by it.
The problem is the voters are used to the current tax rate, provided by a government that cut taxes too much in wartime and incurred massive debts. They don't concern themselves with what happens when the central bank loses faith in their currency and switches to another one and the recession that follows, all they care about is the government letting them keep more money so they can continue to pay off their own credit card and the minor recession that would follow some tax increase from any part of taxmageddon. America is all about the me, and not about the us.
I agree - Libertarians feel many businesses are too big and should be broken up to create competition. The right wing would prefer all businesses be monopolies they own.
Also...
Libertarians want social freedom. The right wing seems to favor surveillance on its own people
Libertarians think drugs should be decriminalized (and even some legalized). The right wing thinks they are winning the war on drugs (and blowing billions fighting a war they can't win the way they are fighting it - basic economics will tell you that removing the demand is how you win it, not reducing the supply).
Libertarians want small government. The right wing says they want small government, but what they really want is a police state with more military spending*
Libertarians think the government has WAY TOO MANY LAWS. Both parties write one new one a week, and nobody can keep up.
Libertarians want to balance the budget, ditch the fed and go back to the gold standard (I disagree with them here, but I agree we should abolish the fed). Neither party has shown any fiscal responsibility.
Libertarians are typically moderate, and don't base their views solely on religion because church and state are separate. The right relies on Christianity to guide their philosophies (For instance, Jews believe that a fetus doesn't have a soul until 6 days after birth, so abortion would not be murder for them, right? This is why we need to have a healthy medium for our legal system and if you believe it is wrong, preach it in church. Same for gay marriage and other issues).
I don't always see eye-to-eye with Libertarians (for instance, I think we should decriminalizing drugs, not legalization at a federal level - let states decide both legalization and criminalization and only enforce trafficking at a federal level), but I tend to agree with them more than Democrats or Republicans.
*and Democrats want a nanny state with massive underfunded social welfare
Ayn Rand wrote ALL of 'Atlas Shrugged' in a single 18 day bender with prescription methamphetamine. Ayn Rand was a drug addled hack writer, and a less than amateur philosopher.
The point you miss is that Rand and her entire body of work were both entirely sociopathic, and their impact on civilisation has been nothing but sociopathic and destructive. Also, Rand was deeply addicted to amphetamines. She was a drug addled hack writer, and a sophomoric philosopher.
Another clueless fucking idiot. Child tax credit _REDUCES_ the amount of taxes you pay for to IRS, not give you money back. And is only $1k/child.
Seeing that most states have sales tax of between 5%-12%, are you saying that this family with 5 children are living on $20k/year? That's below the fucking poverty line - and you still want to tax the shit out of them? You are a heartless bastard in addition to being a fucking idiot and a damned liar.
So, to summarize: Child tax credit does not give you money, only reduces your tax burden to IRS. And you're a fucking idiot.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106182,00.html
This just goes to show how wide the political spectrum is in the U.S. today, where I live most people are Repulican, and the general vibe I get is that they feel Romey is so liberal that the base of the party will just boycott the election without someone more conservative on the ticket to make them bother showing up at the polling places on election day.
You don't generally get as rich as Romney by being a liberal. Shows the stupidity of many of the republican base lately. Fox news and Limbaugh are rotting their brains.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
http://www.thisblogrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ayn-rand-dominates-alan-greenspan.jpg
My point to you was (only) just what I said: Romney and his running mate aren't potentially the next president and vice president. Then I explained why I said that.
I agree the news -- such as it is -- belongs here, and I certainly don't think Obama has lived up to his promises (yet), nor do I think the man actually understands the constitution, which is sad for someone with his credentials -- but Romney... good grief, no sane, thinking person could vote for that man -- if Obama were considerably worse than he is, he'd still look oodles better than Romney, who is basically Bush-II/cloned but without any mass appeal.
I don't think it'll be close. Not only does the pro-Romney voter have to either completely uninformed or mouth-breather stupid, for anyone but that top 1%, they actually have to vote against their own self-interest. I can't see that happening in numbers anywhere near large enough to give us another four years of Bush-level malfeasance.
We will see. This fuckery will be over soon enough.
Or he knows that releasing his taxes will sink his chances of getting elected, thus elevating VP-candidate Ryan to the position of "front-runner" for 2016.
If Romney wants to win he really should steer far away from the tea party types like Paul Ryan as they're more a liability then an asset. His best chance to win would be to choose Ron Paul as a running mate. Yes this would piss off a lot of people in the GOP but the old GOP has become hated because of the Bush corruption and change is the only way they can regain what they have lost.
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I like politics in the USA.
It is like football (soccer) here in Europe.
There are towns of people cheering and waving flags.
The players do loads of show off and rarely score.
Apart from that they look like they earn too much money...
Still people are happy. =D
Paul Ryan go I choose you ! Use water gun!
Game Over.
Isn't Warren Buffet considered to be a liberal?
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Without being dishonest, explain why offering large tax cuts for the wealthy somehow solves the problem of the deficit?
Without being dishonest, explain how higher taxes on the wealthy could make more than a tiny dent in the deficits we are in.
the liberal mindset of my neighbor claims ownership of 999 out of 1000 bicycles, and me and the other 999 people in my neighborhood have to fight over the one left.
Better: A rich man, a Union man and a Blue Collar man sit at a table. There are 10 cookies on the table. The rich man grabs 9 cookies, sticks 'em in his pocket and turns to the Blue Collar man and says: "Hey, I think he's gonna steal your cookie".
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from you and me to them (well, assuming you're not an Astroturfer working for them). It's not possible to accumulate that sort of wealth through honest means. If you trace their wealth it's mostly government contracts and (as others have pointed out) buyouts. Take Paul Ryan. He used social security to pay for school while his family had millions from a road paving business that made it's money filling potholes.
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I don't know if he really is or not. Maybe from a republican standpoint. From Europe or Canada he might be center at most. He might be an Eisenhower republican, which OK, is a liberal to the new republicans. After all he believes the tax base should pay for the services they use, like in Ike's day, when taxes were near or at their highest levels ever. This was so the war debt incurred by Ike's generation could be paid off. I think Buffet has those same radical left (50's right) ideas. But the modern republican wants to not tax the over 600 or 700 thousand a year earners (like Wall Street republican party donators, I mean bankers, I mean honest hard working bonus receiving workers) because they think they're going to spend more when taxed less when they already spend as much as they want right now, because they're rich. If they want that Beemer or big house they can already afford it. When they get a big tax reduction what, are they going to all of a sudden go ape shit and by tens of thousands of dollars on jello to put in their swimming pools? They already buy what they want to buy, I mean they'll have to think up some crazy shit in order to spend their extra untax payments. So if they're not spending more where is that trickle down coming from... nowhere. It's a bullshit strategy that didn't work in Regan's time, and still doesn't. :)
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