With Bush and the Republican Party? I'm banking on the first scenario to be most likely. He's already looking at re-activating the draft [wikipedia.org] in March of 2005, and has pushed hard for the PATRIOT Act to stay right where it is
Seems a good place to toss in some inflammable trivia...
I recently heard a Kerry campaign ad. It made two points:
1) Bush dragged his heels for almost a year in creating the Homeland Security Agency (or whatever it was called), while Kerry pushed hard to get it in place from the beginning.
2) Kerry is enthusiastically supporting the PATRIOT Act, having authored parts of it.
If not, you were born rich (through no fault of your own) and someone somewhere back there went to a public school that gave them the leg up that they needed to get rich enough to send all their kids to private school.
You don't have to be rich to go to a private school. My daughter has gone to a private school for years, and I am far from rich. At best, upper middle-class, more realistically middle middle-class.
And I pay taxes to support public schools every year.
Trickle-down economics? Grow up. They don't work, and never have.
Trickle-down economics may or may not be effective. Consider, though, tax revenue which seems to suggest that Reagan's tax cuts increased tax revenues by 50% over his terms in office.
I'll bite. What action should he have taken right then, and why? As part of the "why", explain both why the action was the correct action to take, but why it was obviously, at that point, with the information he had, the correct action.
* Folding/telescoping stock I'd imagine that it's harder to carry a rifle concealed if folding stocks are banned. How often do hunters or sport-shooters really need concealed weapons?
What do hunters or sport-shooters have to do with it? The 2nd Amendment doesn't mention either hunting or sport?
That said, if you look carefully, you'll see that a folding/telescoping stock wasn't made illegal. Yes, you can still buy them, and still own them.
* Semi-automatic version of a fully automatic weapon This is a hugely important distinction. It is generally easy to convert a semi-automatic weapon to become fully automatic. If a weapon was only ever designed to be semi-automatic, it may be very difficult to make it fully automatic.
Umm, no. John Browning once modified a lever action winchester for fully automatic fire. Neat solution to the problem, but a fairly conclusive demonstration that pretty much any firearm can be made fully automatic, if you wish to make the effort. By the way, Browning did his mod one afternoon, I understand.
* Shotgun with fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds Unless you're using it as an "assault" weapon, do you really need more than 5 rounds in a shotgun?
And this is an issue because? Tell me, do you really NEED a computer? A car? A house?
A shotgun with more than a three round magazine is not a hunting weapon (at least, not in any state I've ever lived). Mostly, they are used in home-defense, or by Police. Is a shotgun with a large magazine really more dangerous than a shotgun with only a few shots? If you think so, you've obviously never tried a double-barrel.
Anyhow, if the assault weapons ban is so badly written, what alternative do you propose? No law at all? Or a better written law that targets assault weapons properly?
No law at all. We managed to get by just fine without one till 1994.
That said, the Ban was about cosmetics, rather than reality, because there is NO real basis for such a ban. "assault weapons" are NOT more powerful than other rifles (my most powerful rifle is a.30-06 single shot), nor are they used in crimes very much (even the gun-ban-nuts say it's only 2%, and that with a rather more generous definition of "assault weapon" than the Ban uses), nor are they "military" weapons. "Military" weapons are fully automatic or selective-fire. Both of which are still legal in the USA, and were all through the years of the Ban, being not covered by the Ban in any way. Interesting how I could own a REAL AK-47 if I wanted to, but not a semi-auto-only version.
I currently have a gun at home with a 35 round magazine, a flash suppressor, and a pistol-grip. All were after-market add-ons. That particular gun, with those mods, is on the "exempt" list of the Ban. I have another rifle with a ten round magazine, no pistol grip, and no flash-suppressor. It is on the list of "assault weapons". The two fire the same cartridge, at similar muzzle speeds, with similar accuracy (the exempt gun is somewhat more accurate, but not enough to matter at reasonable ranges).
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nobody has a legitimate reason for owning a 30 round clip.
Of course, the ban didn't stop at 30 round magazines (not clips - that's a different thing entirely). It banned 11 round magazines.
Now, that had an interesting effect. Back before the ban, the big thing in handguns was the socalled "wondernine" - a modern (then) 9mm pistol with a double-column magazine. Some of those weapons had 13 round magazines, some as high as 18.
BUT, suddenly it became illegal to buy a new pistol with an 18 round magazine. Fine, the manufacturers put blocks in the magazines so they only held 10. And people started buying smaller 9mm pistols - why get a big gun with 10 round magazine when you can get a smaller, more concealable gun with the same magazine.
Then the manufacturers looked at it and realized that they could put 10.40 caliber bullets into the same magazine as held 13 9mm. So they started making.40 caliber handguns, which sold like hotcakes. I have one myself. Just like my old Browning 9mm, but in.40 caliber.
Net effect of 10 round magazine limit: people started using smaller handguns, or larger caliber handguns, depending on personal taste.
Reminds me vaguely of the Saturday Night Special bans. People stopped using cheap.22 caliber handguns, and started using expensive.45 and 9mm handfuns. Net effect - fewer minor gunshot wounds, more fatal or serious wounds.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
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The GOP is retardo for obvious reasons--who the hell needs a machine gun?
Again, machine guns were not covered by the Assault Weapon Ban. Sorry.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
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I mean, 200 years ago a bunch of farmers with rifles could stand as a fighting force, but do you have any concept of what a modern military would do to a bunch of guys with guns?
Same thing the Vietcong did? Or the French Resistance in WW2? Or the Russian Partisans? Or the Yugoslavian Partisans? The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising?
Consider that the USA has 12 combat divisions, each of ~30000 men. A single division would be hard-put to put down an armed insurrection in a single major city, such as New York or Los Angeles.
The militia of the USA consists of perhaps 50,000,000 men. And there are enough firearms to equip them all. Consider the situation in Iraq now. A few thousand rebels under arms, with no great desire on the part of the USA to smash them flat, and they are doing fine. The same could be done here, with a few million under arms, if push came to shove.
In addition, this ignores the need of a major army for supply. Continuously, and in large amounts. If the country were to rebel against the government, no military would suffice to prevent it, without using nuclear weapons, and likely not even then.
Especially since use of the military against American citizens would likely drive more citizens into open revolt.
So, no, we do NOT need the support of the military to successfully revolt, anymore than George Washington's army needed the cooperation of the British Army they were revolting against.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
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I personally do not own weapons, don't want to. But I feel a little better knowing that there are those paranoid bastards out in the woods packing fully automatic weapons
Umm, the Assault Weapons Ban did not include fully automatic weapons. It limited manufacture or importation of some semi-automatic weapons. The fully automatic weapons were still quite legal.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
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Because they meant militias- the second ammendment was meant to be a right for the states, allowing them to have an army
No. People have Rights. Governments have Powers. State governments are still governments.
Read the Militia Act. It is quite clear as to what the Militia is.
2. Call the cops, even for minor things. See someone prowling around? Call 911 and tell them you see someone prowling around your neighborhood. A side effect is that you begin to develop a sense of community with the police. They will even begin coming to you asking questions about things you didn't report. "Someone in the neighborhood reported a crime last night. Did you see anything suspicious?"
Do that enough, and the Police will issue you a summons for a false alarm. Same will happen if your security/fire alarm gives too many false alarms. Or the police will just stop responding.
Just thought I should mention that (happened where my inlaws lived to a couple down the street), as the ways that police respond to 911 calls cary from place to place.
Select the weapons of choice. I happen to like shotguns: you don't miss, and you'll think twice before you riddle your home with shot.
I happen to dislike shotguns. They don't actually make hitting any easier. At the range you are shooting in a house, the spread of shot will be no larger than a coffeecup.
A handgun? I'm not that good of a shot and I don't like home intruders that close
If they're in your house, they're already that close. I think I could manage a forty foot clear line of fire in my house, if a burglar cooperated and stood in just the right spot. And if I defended from just the right spot. Realistically, home defense is done at 25 foot range or less. Usually less.
Seriously, the best thing about a shotgun is the view from the front - point one at a burglar, and his imagination will do most of the fighting for you. Handgun is less effective that way, but a physically imposing handgun (military-sized automatic, or big revolver) has much the same effect.
Properly, a handgun is the weapon you have for emergencies. It's not what you use if you have even one minute to prepare - then you use the shotgun, or rifle, if you prefer rifles.
They didn't have to pass the law. The law was passed, not to legalize something, but to save the person doing the home defense the trouble of hiring a lawyer.
Previous to the law being passed, you could shoot someone entering your home, be arrested, tried, then acquitted. Noone was ever convicted for doing so. Usually, you weren't even prosecuted, but some DA's used to harass people that way.
So they wrote that into law, just to minimize the inconvenience to the homeowners who might have to defend themselves.
It is arguable that the Soviets won the Second World War. It is NOT arguable that they surrendered in the First World War.
Read more history. The Germans WON the Eastern Front in WW1. Big time. They forced a really shameful surrender on the Soviets (who were the guys in charge when it came time to surrender). Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as I recall.
The Germans lost WW1 because they stopped doing what they had done so successfully for four years, and attacked the French/British/Americans in 1918. Bad judgement on their part, but nothing to do with Russia.
I'll leave WW2 for another discussion. However, check out Lend-Lease. It's quite informative.
It fascinates me how many people think that it was wrong for the USA to stay out of a European War, but assert confidently that we had little to do with the victory after we joined in. If we had so little to do with the final victory, why does it matter a whit that we didn't dive in earlier?
He (and the Republican Congress) lowered the deficit by cutting spending and raising revenues.
The Republican Congress certainly raised revenue, Clinton went along with it when he had to (note that he didn't suggest such a thing when he had a Dem Congress to support him).
Cutting spending? I suggest you look very carefully over the budgets for those years. The only reduction in spending was the military budget, when the military was reduced in size. That was MORE than offset by the increases in other sectors of the budget.
Because of Clinton's economic policies, we had the dot bomb hit in 2000--but the normal economic cycle would have had it hit about 1997.
No. Not sure whether the policies that led to the dot-bombs were Clinton's, or Bush the Elder's. However, the dot-bombs weren't part of the "normal" economic cycle. They were part and parcel of that "irrational exuberance" that Greenspan went on about - people were investing billions in startups that made no sense at all. Hell, if I had realized at the time that I could get millions of dollars with a business plan that summarized as "lose a little bit on each sale, but make it up in volume", and could stomach the idea of ripping off investors, I'd be rich now.
Fortunately (or not), I am either a little slow, or too ethical.
But if it ends up working, I'll give Bush full props.
Yah, after he's out of office, history can give him the credit/blame he is due. Nothing he's done for/to the economy will make enough difference to matter till after the election. Same will be true of Kerry. If he wins, his economy will be the one Bush made, good or bad. Kerry will then proceed to tweak things to suit himself, and his successor will get the credit/blame. Same as always.
Re:And this is an issue because?
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You don't know exactly what to do about our trade deficit, but you are for or against NAFTA? Why?
If you don't know what to do about our trade deficit, any opinion you have on Nafta is likely to be ideological or ignorant. Why does it matter what you think of it till you know enough to make an informed decision?
These are people whose lives are typically focused on politics. To expect them to have SOME ideas on a wide range of topics without having to consult a committee is not unreasonable. If they have to consult a committee every time they turn around, why are they running? They aren't leaders. We aren't electing managers. We're electing leaders.
Politics isn't about knowing things, it's about getting elected, and dealing with the process (both the one that got you elected, and the one needed to make things work in Washington/wherever).
If you expect your politicians to know enough about everything to properly represent you on a wide range of issues, you'd better start work on that eugenics program to develop a better grade of human. And get to work on that improved school system too. Those upgrade-humans will need it, to know enough to make informed decisions.
The General Staff was developed in the 19th century when it became obvious that war had gotten too complicated for one man to hold it all in his head - he'd have to know too much about too many things to make informed decisions. It applies to political office just as surely. Live with it.
Re:And this is an issue because?
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I love it when people fall back to state counting. 39 is more than 11! Oh NO! Ridiculous. There are 11 key states, because more people live there. Yes, if you get on the ballot in those 11 key states, you deserve to be heard. You have the support of a significant portion of the public, enough that their chosen voice deserves to be heard by others, end of story.
So, if 10,000 signatures are required to get on a ballot, then you are showing that you have "the support of a significant portion of the public" by getting them.?
Actually, the point about the 39 and 11 wasn't that it was bad that you only needed eleven states. But it's bad to assume that being on the ballot in 39 states is intrinsically worse than being on the ballot in the other eleven. Why draw an arbitrary (and stupid) line?
And yes, assuming that a reasonable dividing point is that if someone carries every state he is on the ballot, he could be President, therefore he deserves the national spotlight is intrinsically stupid. It's a random, arbitrary setpoint, just like 15% in the polls is. It doesn't represent a "better" system, unless of course your favorite candidate is included in that system.
For those with memories that go back a ways, Pat Paulson used to get on enough ballots to have qualified for the debates once or twice. He was a comedian who made fun of the Presidential race every four years by running....
It's fine to not do anything in haste. However if you are running for president and you cannot speak definitively about your stances on a wide range of issues, you should not be president.
Really? Why do you assume that a Presidential candidate should know so very much more than, say, you do, about any given issue? I don't assume that. I assume he has a staff that can provide him with information as needed to make decisions. Could be a bad assumption, but there isn't a man alive I would trust to know enough aout EVERYTHING to meet your qualification.
Secondly, sure, politicians will always lie. However, intelligent debate can expose some unrealistic assumptions, challenge the pie in the sky bullshit, and help counteract such crap.
And yet, when Clinton went to Florida 12 years back and told them he would not allow more oil-drilling in the Gulf, then went to Louisiana and told them that more oil-drilling in the Gulf was part of his plan for energy independence, noone called him on it at any of the debates. Intelligent debate may be a wonderful thing, but "allowing more people to take part" is NOT synonymous with "intelligent"
Ahh. True enough. Original assumption gave the Electors discretion in casting their votes so that they could exercise their own judgement. Which was assumed to be good (their judgement), since theory said that you picked reliable, thoughtful men for the job, not idiots or Congressmen. But, as Twain said, I repeat myself.
Which is not a bad thing. However, an Elector that asserts before the election that he won't vote for the person he was chosen to vote for, no matter what, is distorting the process - he should be removed from the list of Electors now.
Just out of curiousity, how often does he vote with the Democrats, and how often with the Republicans? And how often with neither?
Re:And this is an issue because?
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The only requirement should be "are you on the ballot in enough states to get the 270 EC votes you need to win"
Let's look at this one. The eleven largest states control 271 Electoral votes (plus or minus a few - I may be arithmatically challenged today)). The forty smallest states control 280 Electoral votes. DC has two of its own.
That first block has 161 million people. The second, 129 million. You'd have no problem offering national legitimacy to someone less than 45% of the population even has a CHANCE to vote for?? Especially given that the conferred legitimacy might very well mean he'd actually carry his 40 states (or eleven), and thus attain to the Presidency? Hmm, three way split means 15% of the cast vote could very well make a President that way (19% for the guy in eleven select states).
So, how many of you are happy with the thought of an elected President earning less than 15% of the cast vote? Based on how many people are still freaking over Bush winning the Presidency with the 47% or so he got, I would expect it to be a lot.
Or do you only get upset when the Electoral College system works AGAINST your candidate, not for?
Realistically, it would be really nice if we had national rules for qualifying for the ballots in the several states. On the other hand, since the States elect the President, perhaps allowing each State to make up its own mind how to qualify candidates isn't such a bad thing.
Clinton has a record of 19% job growth over two terms. That's just one example of his promises kept vs. GW not keeping his. GW just keeps saying the economy's getting better without doing anything constructive to actually attempt to make it so.
And what did he do to cause this 2.2% annual job growth rate? I'm curious. Evidence tends to support the opinion that any economic effects of a President's policies falls primarily on his successor - So Bush gets to take the blame for the slump caused by the dot-Bombs, even though he had nothing to do with them. As Carter got to take the blame for the economy he inherited from Nixon and Ford.
I should point out, by the way, that 2.2% annual job growth is lower than the elder Bush's Presidency had (which the elder Bush wasn't responsible for either - he inherited it from Reagan).
Frankly, I can't think of anything a President can do that would produce an immediate shift in job growth rates. About all he can really do is take credit/blame for his predecessor's actions, and hope he can keep it up or stop it before his turn in the hot seat is over.
And no, if it is not obvious, I don't believe that Presidents have much control over the economy. I don't give them credit for good times, nor blame for bad times. I *do* give them credit for things that they do that make it easier for me (lowering my taxes), or harder for me (raising my taxes), while also allowing for the fact that deficit spending is a bad thing (and if you think we have a deficit now, wait till 2018! Whoever gets the hotseat then is going to have a REAL disaster to overcome), and should be brought under control.
I have a preference for bringing it under control by lowering spending rather than raising my taxes, of course. Primarily because evidence is that if taxes are increased, for whatever reason, spending will increase right along with it.
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Seems a good place to toss in some inflammable trivia...
I recently heard a Kerry campaign ad. It made two points:
1) Bush dragged his heels for almost a year in creating the Homeland Security Agency (or whatever it was called), while Kerry pushed hard to get it in place from the beginning.
2) Kerry is enthusiastically supporting the PATRIOT Act, having authored parts of it.
One might think you are unaware that Robin Hood was stealing from the tax-collectors, and returning the money to the ones it was collected from.
Nah, that couldn't be, though...;)
You don't have to be rich to go to a private school. My daughter has gone to a private school for years, and I am far from rich. At best, upper middle-class, more realistically middle middle-class.
And I pay taxes to support public schools every year.
Would Gates bother to earn a billion a year after having 99.9% of it taxed away? Frankly, if that was all I could look forward to, I wouldn't bother.
And then, you'd have a billion dollars less next year to spend, and those jobs would vanish.
Trickle-down economics may or may not be effective. Consider, though, tax revenue which seems to suggest that Reagan's tax cuts increased tax revenues by 50% over his terms in office.
I'll bite. What action should he have taken right then, and why? As part of the "why", explain both why the action was the correct action to take, but why it was obviously, at that point, with the information he had, the correct action.
And in every state I have lived, the .223 was illegal for deer. It's considered much too weak to make an effective deer rifle.
What do hunters or sport-shooters have to do with it? The 2nd Amendment doesn't mention either hunting or sport?
That said, if you look carefully, you'll see that a folding/telescoping stock wasn't made illegal. Yes, you can still buy them, and still own them.
* Semi-automatic version of a fully automatic weapon This is a hugely important distinction. It is generally easy to convert a semi-automatic weapon to become fully automatic. If a weapon was only ever designed to be semi-automatic, it may be very difficult to make it fully automatic.
Umm, no. John Browning once modified a lever action winchester for fully automatic fire. Neat solution to the problem, but a fairly conclusive demonstration that pretty much any firearm can be made fully automatic, if you wish to make the effort. By the way, Browning did his mod one afternoon, I understand.
* Shotgun with fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds Unless you're using it as an "assault" weapon, do you really need more than 5 rounds in a shotgun?
And this is an issue because? Tell me, do you really NEED a computer? A car? A house?
A shotgun with more than a three round magazine is not a hunting weapon (at least, not in any state I've ever lived). Mostly, they are used in home-defense, or by Police. Is a shotgun with a large magazine really more dangerous than a shotgun with only a few shots? If you think so, you've obviously never tried a double-barrel.
Anyhow, if the assault weapons ban is so badly written, what alternative do you propose? No law at all? Or a better written law that targets assault weapons properly?
No law at all. We managed to get by just fine without one till 1994.
That said, the Ban was about cosmetics, rather than reality, because there is NO real basis for such a ban. "assault weapons" are NOT more powerful than other rifles (my most powerful rifle is a .30-06 single shot), nor are they used in crimes very much (even the gun-ban-nuts say it's only 2%, and that with a rather more generous definition of "assault weapon" than the Ban uses), nor are they "military" weapons. "Military" weapons are fully automatic or selective-fire. Both of which are still legal in the USA, and were all through the years of the Ban, being not covered by the Ban in any way. Interesting how I could own a REAL AK-47 if I wanted to, but not a semi-auto-only version.
I currently have a gun at home with a 35 round magazine, a flash suppressor, and a pistol-grip. All were after-market add-ons. That particular gun, with those mods, is on the "exempt" list of the Ban. I have another rifle with a ten round magazine, no pistol grip, and no flash-suppressor. It is on the list of "assault weapons". The two fire the same cartridge, at similar muzzle speeds, with similar accuracy (the exempt gun is somewhat more accurate, but not enough to matter at reasonable ranges).
Of course, the ban didn't stop at 30 round magazines (not clips - that's a different thing entirely). It banned 11 round magazines.
Now, that had an interesting effect. Back before the ban, the big thing in handguns was the socalled "wondernine" - a modern (then) 9mm pistol with a double-column magazine. Some of those weapons had 13 round magazines, some as high as 18.
BUT, suddenly it became illegal to buy a new pistol with an 18 round magazine. Fine, the manufacturers put blocks in the magazines so they only held 10. And people started buying smaller 9mm pistols - why get a big gun with 10 round magazine when you can get a smaller, more concealable gun with the same magazine.
Then the manufacturers looked at it and realized that they could put 10 .40 caliber bullets into the same magazine as held 13 9mm. So they started making .40 caliber handguns, which sold like hotcakes. I have one myself. Just like my old Browning 9mm, but in .40 caliber.
Net effect of 10 round magazine limit: people started using smaller handguns, or larger caliber handguns, depending on personal taste.
Reminds me vaguely of the Saturday Night Special bans. People stopped using cheap .22 caliber handguns, and started using expensive .45 and 9mm handfuns. Net effect - fewer minor gunshot wounds, more fatal or serious wounds.
Again, machine guns were not covered by the Assault Weapon Ban. Sorry.
Same thing the Vietcong did? Or the French Resistance in WW2? Or the Russian Partisans? Or the Yugoslavian Partisans? The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising?
Consider that the USA has 12 combat divisions, each of ~30000 men. A single division would be hard-put to put down an armed insurrection in a single major city, such as New York or Los Angeles.
The militia of the USA consists of perhaps 50,000,000 men. And there are enough firearms to equip them all. Consider the situation in Iraq now. A few thousand rebels under arms, with no great desire on the part of the USA to smash them flat, and they are doing fine. The same could be done here, with a few million under arms, if push came to shove.
In addition, this ignores the need of a major army for supply. Continuously, and in large amounts. If the country were to rebel against the government, no military would suffice to prevent it, without using nuclear weapons, and likely not even then.
Especially since use of the military against American citizens would likely drive more citizens into open revolt.
So, no, we do NOT need the support of the military to successfully revolt, anymore than George Washington's army needed the cooperation of the British Army they were revolting against.
Umm, the Assault Weapons Ban did not include fully automatic weapons. It limited manufacture or importation of some semi-automatic weapons. The fully automatic weapons were still quite legal.
No. People have Rights. Governments have Powers. State governments are still governments.
Read the Militia Act. It is quite clear as to what the Militia is.
Do that enough, and the Police will issue you a summons for a false alarm. Same will happen if your security/fire alarm gives too many false alarms. Or the police will just stop responding.
Just thought I should mention that (happened where my inlaws lived to a couple down the street), as the ways that police respond to 911 calls cary from place to place.
My wife had one as a child. The dog wouldn't even let her father spank her....
I happen to dislike shotguns. They don't actually make hitting any easier. At the range you are shooting in a house, the spread of shot will be no larger than a coffeecup.
A handgun? I'm not that good of a shot and I don't like home intruders that close
If they're in your house, they're already that close. I think I could manage a forty foot clear line of fire in my house, if a burglar cooperated and stood in just the right spot. And if I defended from just the right spot. Realistically, home defense is done at 25 foot range or less. Usually less.
Seriously, the best thing about a shotgun is the view from the front - point one at a burglar, and his imagination will do most of the fighting for you. Handgun is less effective that way, but a physically imposing handgun (military-sized automatic, or big revolver) has much the same effect.
Properly, a handgun is the weapon you have for emergencies. It's not what you use if you have even one minute to prepare - then you use the shotgun, or rifle, if you prefer rifles.
Previous to the law being passed, you could shoot someone entering your home, be arrested, tried, then acquitted. Noone was ever convicted for doing so. Usually, you weren't even prosecuted, but some DA's used to harass people that way.
So they wrote that into law, just to minimize the inconvenience to the homeowners who might have to defend themselves.
It is arguable that the Soviets won the Second World War. It is NOT arguable that they surrendered in the First World War.
Read more history. The Germans WON the Eastern Front in WW1. Big time. They forced a really shameful surrender on the Soviets (who were the guys in charge when it came time to surrender). Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as I recall.
The Germans lost WW1 because they stopped doing what they had done so successfully for four years, and attacked the French/British/Americans in 1918. Bad judgement on their part, but nothing to do with Russia.
I'll leave WW2 for another discussion. However, check out Lend-Lease. It's quite informative.
It fascinates me how many people think that it was wrong for the USA to stay out of a European War, but assert confidently that we had little to do with the victory after we joined in. If we had so little to do with the final victory, why does it matter a whit that we didn't dive in earlier?
The Republican Congress certainly raised revenue, Clinton went along with it when he had to (note that he didn't suggest such a thing when he had a Dem Congress to support him).
Cutting spending? I suggest you look very carefully over the budgets for those years. The only reduction in spending was the military budget, when the military was reduced in size. That was MORE than offset by the increases in other sectors of the budget.
Because of Clinton's economic policies, we had the dot bomb hit in 2000--but the normal economic cycle would have had it hit about 1997.
No. Not sure whether the policies that led to the dot-bombs were Clinton's, or Bush the Elder's. However, the dot-bombs weren't part of the "normal" economic cycle. They were part and parcel of that "irrational exuberance" that Greenspan went on about - people were investing billions in startups that made no sense at all. Hell, if I had realized at the time that I could get millions of dollars with a business plan that summarized as "lose a little bit on each sale, but make it up in volume", and could stomach the idea of ripping off investors, I'd be rich now.
Fortunately (or not), I am either a little slow, or too ethical.
But if it ends up working, I'll give Bush full props.
Yah, after he's out of office, history can give him the credit/blame he is due. Nothing he's done for/to the economy will make enough difference to matter till after the election. Same will be true of Kerry. If he wins, his economy will be the one Bush made, good or bad. Kerry will then proceed to tweak things to suit himself, and his successor will get the credit/blame. Same as always.
If you don't know what to do about our trade deficit, any opinion you have on Nafta is likely to be ideological or ignorant. Why does it matter what you think of it till you know enough to make an informed decision?
These are people whose lives are typically focused on politics. To expect them to have SOME ideas on a wide range of topics without having to consult a committee is not unreasonable. If they have to consult a committee every time they turn around, why are they running? They aren't leaders. We aren't electing managers. We're electing leaders.
Politics isn't about knowing things, it's about getting elected, and dealing with the process (both the one that got you elected, and the one needed to make things work in Washington/wherever).
If you expect your politicians to know enough about everything to properly represent you on a wide range of issues, you'd better start work on that eugenics program to develop a better grade of human. And get to work on that improved school system too. Those upgrade-humans will need it, to know enough to make informed decisions.
The General Staff was developed in the 19th century when it became obvious that war had gotten too complicated for one man to hold it all in his head - he'd have to know too much about too many things to make informed decisions. It applies to political office just as surely. Live with it.
So, if 10,000 signatures are required to get on a ballot, then you are showing that you have "the support of a significant portion of the public" by getting them.?
Actually, the point about the 39 and 11 wasn't that it was bad that you only needed eleven states. But it's bad to assume that being on the ballot in 39 states is intrinsically worse than being on the ballot in the other eleven. Why draw an arbitrary (and stupid) line?
And yes, assuming that a reasonable dividing point is that if someone carries every state he is on the ballot, he could be President, therefore he deserves the national spotlight is intrinsically stupid. It's a random, arbitrary setpoint, just like 15% in the polls is. It doesn't represent a "better" system, unless of course your favorite candidate is included in that system.
For those with memories that go back a ways, Pat Paulson used to get on enough ballots to have qualified for the debates once or twice. He was a comedian who made fun of the Presidential race every four years by running....
It's fine to not do anything in haste. However if you are running for president and you cannot speak definitively about your stances on a wide range of issues, you should not be president.
Really? Why do you assume that a Presidential candidate should know so very much more than, say, you do, about any given issue? I don't assume that. I assume he has a staff that can provide him with information as needed to make decisions. Could be a bad assumption, but there isn't a man alive I would trust to know enough aout EVERYTHING to meet your qualification.
Secondly, sure, politicians will always lie. However, intelligent debate can expose some unrealistic assumptions, challenge the pie in the sky bullshit, and help counteract such crap.
And yet, when Clinton went to Florida 12 years back and told them he would not allow more oil-drilling in the Gulf, then went to Louisiana and told them that more oil-drilling in the Gulf was part of his plan for energy independence, noone called him on it at any of the debates. Intelligent debate may be a wonderful thing, but "allowing more people to take part" is NOT synonymous with "intelligent"
Which is not a bad thing. However, an Elector that asserts before the election that he won't vote for the person he was chosen to vote for, no matter what, is distorting the process - he should be removed from the list of Electors now.
Just out of curiousity, how often does he vote with the Democrats, and how often with the Republicans? And how often with neither?
Let's look at this one. The eleven largest states control 271 Electoral votes (plus or minus a few - I may be arithmatically challenged today)). The forty smallest states control 280 Electoral votes. DC has two of its own.
That first block has 161 million people. The second, 129 million. You'd have no problem offering national legitimacy to someone less than 45% of the population even has a CHANCE to vote for?? Especially given that the conferred legitimacy might very well mean he'd actually carry his 40 states (or eleven), and thus attain to the Presidency? Hmm, three way split means 15% of the cast vote could very well make a President that way (19% for the guy in eleven select states).
So, how many of you are happy with the thought of an elected President earning less than 15% of the cast vote? Based on how many people are still freaking over Bush winning the Presidency with the 47% or so he got, I would expect it to be a lot.
Or do you only get upset when the Electoral College system works AGAINST your candidate, not for?
Realistically, it would be really nice if we had national rules for qualifying for the ballots in the several states. On the other hand, since the States elect the President, perhaps allowing each State to make up its own mind how to qualify candidates isn't such a bad thing.
And what did he do to cause this 2.2% annual job growth rate? I'm curious. Evidence tends to support the opinion that any economic effects of a President's policies falls primarily on his successor - So Bush gets to take the blame for the slump caused by the dot-Bombs, even though he had nothing to do with them. As Carter got to take the blame for the economy he inherited from Nixon and Ford. I should point out, by the way, that 2.2% annual job growth is lower than the elder Bush's Presidency had (which the elder Bush wasn't responsible for either - he inherited it from Reagan).
Frankly, I can't think of anything a President can do that would produce an immediate shift in job growth rates. About all he can really do is take credit/blame for his predecessor's actions, and hope he can keep it up or stop it before his turn in the hot seat is over.
And no, if it is not obvious, I don't believe that Presidents have much control over the economy. I don't give them credit for good times, nor blame for bad times. I *do* give them credit for things that they do that make it easier for me (lowering my taxes), or harder for me (raising my taxes), while also allowing for the fact that deficit spending is a bad thing (and if you think we have a deficit now, wait till 2018! Whoever gets the hotseat then is going to have a REAL disaster to overcome), and should be brought under control.
I have a preference for bringing it under control by lowering spending rather than raising my taxes, of course. Primarily because evidence is that if taxes are increased, for whatever reason, spending will increase right along with it.