* The patent system (Select someone for office that is less conservative and cooperate founded and a change might happen..)
Agreed.
* The health care system (Again, select someone a tad more social, and they'll do something about it long term)
This is a tough one. Our health care system as it stands stinks for a lot of people but we are still the World leader in pharmaceuticals and we still have the best doctors in the World -- there's a reason why so many foreign leaders/rich businessmen come here for their operations. Personally I think we could improve our health care system far more if we worked to make it less expensive -- and this could be accomplished without nationalizing the system (tort reform and patent reform both come to mind)
* The war on everyone, to either "crush" taliban or more preferably invade and give Iraqi oil to one of my friends oil companies (Select someone less aggressive towards the world around you, and the world will most likely be less aggressive back)
Don't give us grief for the war in Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the Taliban did harbor the man who murdered 3,000 Americans (and others -- people from over 50 countries died that day) and refused to hand him over to face justice. We have a legitimate chance at building a better nation there and the mission in that country is supported by the UN and our NATO allies.
I won't argue with you on Iraq but we are where we are -- so what do you want to do about it? I'd love to see our troops brought home -- but I also don't want to see that country turn into the next failed-state (the next Afghanistan) if it collapses when we leave. Again it would seem that we actually have a chance at building a better nation here -- we owe the Iraqi people something after we knocked off their Government and turned their country into a whirlpool of violence and murder.
* Intelligent design (Select someone that doesn't mix religion with politics that much, and you might get out of the dark ages too(again)..)
This isn't fair. It seems to me that you are only receiving news that portrays us in a bad light. If you looked a little bit beyond GWB or the few heavily Conservative states (Georgia and Kansas come to mind) I think you'd find that most Americans see right through ID for what it really is -- creationism with a fancier name. There's no "debate" about evolution here in the Northeast. There's no debate about it on the West coast. There isn't even a debate about it in most of the Conservative-leaning states (they never tried to teach creationism to me in North Carolina). Please don't judge us by our hicks -- even if one of them managed to become President.
But I'd be perfectly OK with a sane compromise like yours that reserves punishment for people who actually deserve to be punished.
So what other left/right disagreements can we solve?;) I'm against gun-control -- but that places me squarely in the minority on this side of the aisle.
Now, I know that comes across as more cold and harsh than I mean, and I'm not saying that my life is more valuable than yours in any other sense. From a strictly financial perspective, though, it is.
I disagree. My life should be worth at least my earnings potential even if I don't have a spouse or kids who be harmed financially by my untimely demise. I'm still going to have an estate when I die. My assets are going to be distributed somehow (my choice as a single person is to dictate that they go to charities and political causes that I support). If I'm killed due to someones gross negligence or malice (the drunk doctor or GM knowingly making bad brakes) that someone shouldn't get a free pass because I didn't have a wife and kids to feed. IMHO anyway.
Now, I love capitalism and I'm firmly behind the idea of consenting adults to work out contracts amongst themselves, but that's just repulsive.
The entire credit industry is repulsive if you look at how it really works. Back before Providian got gobbled up by WaMu they had to settle with the FTC for some insane (>$400,000,000 as I recall) amount of money. What they had done was changed the terms and conditions of their credit cards to say that "Payments must be received by 10am on the date due to be credited that day" whereas it had previously said 3pm as the cutoff time. Why'd they make that change? Because the mail was being delivered at noon and with the 10am cutoff time they could charge late fees even for payments that arrived on the day they were due.
Now I generally don't have sympathy for people that sign contracts without reading them (though if it's a critical service that you need what choice do you have?) but what they tried to do was absolutely repulsive. That's one of the many reasons why I'd find it hard to back a truly laissez-faire economic policy (as advocated for by the Libertarian Party).
I'm in favor of some regulation and consumer protection. As an example I don't think your credit card company should be able to increase the interest on money already borrowed. Granted, they should be able to offer a variable rate (such as those tied to the prime rate) but they shouldn't be able to increase the interest on money I've already borrowed from 10% to 29% because I missed a payment or because of some change on my FICO score. They should be able to apply that new higher rate to future money that you borrow but I really don't think it's equitable that they get to impose it retroactively -- when they loaned me that money last month this is the rate they told me it would be.
I also would like to see an end to the "we can change the terms at any time and you have to deal with it" clauses in virtually every consumer contract (credit cards to cell phones). A contract is supposed to be a consideration between two people or entities -- a meeting of the minds as it were. I don't think contract law ever envisioned one party forcing the other to hand over all their rights for the other to provide a service that they don't even promise will work (wireless/cable/internet/blah/blah/blah) and which offers you no recourse (wireless companies won't even waive their ETF if their service tanks on you) if indeed doesn't work.
We did the same in Vietnam. There was a study done in the 50s after the Vietnamese had managed to drive the French out of the country. It suggested that we could pull Ho Chi Minn into our orbit if we had been inclined to engage him instead of isolating him. We opted to let our paranoia rule the day (remember the Reds are coming...) and look what happened -- we wound up fighting a decades long war with a movement that quoted our own Declaration of Independence (while trying to free themselves from French colonial rule) and which had actually been on our side against the Japanese in WW2.
I love my country dearly but it's amazing how many decisions we've allowed ourselves to make out of fear. Fear of Communism. Fear of Socialism. Fear of Terrorism. How did we go from "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to being afraid of "isms"? I can at least understand it in the context of the 50s and early 60s -- when it appeared the that Soviet Union was beating us in science and space exploration and the memory of Pearl Harbor was still fresh. What the hell is our excuse now?
My for tort reform: tax punitive damages at 100%. That way you still have the ability to punish a large corporation if they deserve it, but there's no longer a profit motive
Actually, rather than seeing a cap on punitive damages I would just like to see the requirement that you be able to prove malice on the part of the person who harmed you before you can get punitive damages. Under that scenario if your wife operates on me in good faith and screws up I can't receive more than my damages (medical bills, lost wages, etc). If she shows up to the OR drunk though I should be able to rake her over the coals for everything she is worth and then some. That would seem to be fair to me.
My dad's idea: you shouldn't be able to sue for wrongful death damages for more money than the person carried in life insurance. If they only took out a $20,000 policy, they shouldn't be able to claim $4,000,000 in actual damages.
I get the idea behind that but I don't think that's entirely fair either. There's lots of scenarios where it doesn't make sense to purchase life insurance or where it does but you can't afford it. I'm a single person with no kids -- why the hell should I carry life insurance? Does that mean my life is only worth the cost of my funeral? Granted, I wouldn't have anybody who would be (financially) harmed by my untimely demise but what about the working parent who simply can't afford to pay for it?
Still, if you're an attorney and your face is on the back of then phone book, then you need shot.
Still, if you're a businessman and your face is on the back of then phone book, then you need shot
Fixed that for you;) Sorry, I couldn't help but think of all of the "reputable" used car salesmen and loan shark^W^Wpayday lenders I've seen on the back of the phone book.
We can start buy cutting out all of the pork and then work from there
Again, what exactly is pork? Everybody seems to think that something is pork..... unless it's being spent in their own hometown, in which case it's "economic development". Why do you think that Congress as a whole has a 18% approval rating but most of the bastards are still re-elected over and over again? (Well, to be fair gerrymandering has something to do with that too but I think you get my drift)
That was a typo. Meant to say lower taxes in general.
Ok, so you aren't a heartless bastard:) My mistake for jumping on you like that but that's how it read and I've seen my fair share of right-leaning trolls that would make a statement like that....
Of course this will be spun as a tax cut for the rich since they are the only ones who pay taxes
Where do you get this idea that they are the only ones who pay taxes? This study says that in 2004 the top 20% paid 52.8% of Federal taxes. That suggests that the bottom 80% are paying almost half. You might argue from a philosophical standpoint that you find that unfair -- the counter-argument to that is that the richest 1% of this country holds 33% of the wealth and the richest 20% holds 51% (source).
My wife's a doctor, and consequently I know quite a few
It's good to admit your biases and interests up front;)
Malpractice lawsuits have driven up insurance rates
Yeah it has. And some would argue that tort reform would be beneficial. I would personally like to see some sort of no-fault system (similar to what a few states have for auto insurance) that would just pay out for most mistakes without the expense of litigation. That would solve most of the cases of those are who genuinely harmed by a MDs mistake. The legal system should still be available but it wouldn't have to be the first stop under such a system.
I just take issue with your hatred of all personal injury attorneys. It's easy to hate a personal injury/defense/divorce attorney until you need one. There's a lot of scumsucking bottom feeders out there but there are also those that do good -- and at the end of the day most of the blame should be placed on those that would abuse the legal system (I got rear-ended so I'm gonna sue even though I'm perfectly ok!) and not on those that are representing them.
I'm curious if you actually looked into any of Edwards' cases or if you just dismissed him because of his profession? I'll admit that I've never looked into his case history either (he always seemed like a bit of a pretty boy to me -- I disagree with almost everything Cheney says but I still think he schooled Edwards in the VP debate) but it would be interesting to see if he took on some real cases or made his fortune by ambulance chasing.
I jokingly gave you crap just a few paragraphs ago about admitting your biases so let me admit mine: A number of years ago I found myself charged with a crime that I didn't commit. To make a long story short I found a good defense attorney and he saved my ass. Ever since then I've been inclined to defend lawyers and give them the benefit of the doubt.
The Democrats have achieved the goal of restoring FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means of conducting surveillance. They have also achieved the goal of restoring basic judicial oversight to the process.
And all of that means zero if nobody is punished for past violations of the FISA law. People seem to forget this. Why should we expect that future administrations (D or R) won't violate the law when the existing administration just got a get-out-of-jail free card for doing so? Obama himself said in his statement that including telecom immunity "weakens the deterrent effect of the law".
and action has been taken to prevent the problem from reoccurring in the future
What action? The free pass for prior violations of the law? How will that stop the problem from reoccurring in the future? If there is no enforcement behind the law then what incentive do I have to follow it?
Furthermore, effective and necessary intelligence gathering tools are no longer in danger of becoming unavailable due to the bureaucratic hangup
They were never going to become unavailable. The existing FISA law provided a 72 hour window to wiretap someone without a warrant. Please tell me why that was insufficient.
On top of all that, the compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place.
Yes! The Executive Branch gets to clean it's own house. Why even bother having a judicial branch? Prediction: Anything 'juicy' in the IG report will be classified like the sections of the 9/11 Commission report relating to Saudi Arabia.
but revoking your support for Obama over this issue indicates to me that you're not seeing the bigger picture.
What bigger picture? I still haven't heard a compelling argument for why the FISA law that was already in affect on 9/10/2001 wasn't good enough? Is obtaining a warrant within 72 hours in front of the court that approves 99.999999% of them to much of a burden? And why should we believe that giving the Government more power to wiretap us will prevent terrorism? Had GWB paid attention to his memos or had the FBI paid attention to field agents who reported suspicious activity at flight schools it's quite probable that 9/11 could have been prevented without expanding the scope of the Governments power.
Well, then we have a left-wing president who thinks he's king Obama instead of King Bush, gun laws are stricter and nobody can defend themselves, terrorists win because they already have their guns, we try to reason with North Korea and Iran and they laugh all the way to the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' buttons - and we're basically F'ed.
It seems kind of foolish to criticize Obama (or McCain) for wanting to reason with North Korea when this is exactly what GWB is doing. Unless you are going to criticize him too -- but your post seemed wholly directed at the 'left-wing' president.
And do you really believe that they would push the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' button? Have you ever heard of this?
This change-tracking by the McCain campaign is a great service to the public. It will help catch any attempts to shift "beliefs" according to public mood. Hopefully the Obamites will respond in kind and then we, the public, will get the benefit of an overall increase politicians being monitored for duplicity.
Yeah, right. They might catch a duplicated recipe or two but if you think this will lead to anything productive then I want some of what you are smoking.
Prediction: This will lead to some "scandal" that gets Olbermann and/or O'Reilly up into a frenzy of manufactured outrage while disillusioning the rest of us who actually had some hope for our country.
Depending on your point of view he either made a smart political calculation or cynically pissed on your rights during his ride to the White House
I'm opting for pissed on my rights since it really doesn't seem like that smart of a political calculation. Now instead of being called weak on national security he's being called a flip-flopper. Of course we all know that being called that has NEVER cost anyone an election.....
Kerry just sounded for the world like he was hopelessly out of touch with the day-to-day workings of American life (not that GWB was much better, mind you)
Didn't you just undercut your own argument?
I am of the firmly held conviction that personal injury attorneys are one of the driving forces making this country a crappier place to live
Would you still think that if you were genuinely injured and had your insurance company try to shove some "settlement" down your throat that didn't even come close to paying for your medical bills?
I guess, in summary, that they both came across as wholly fake and manufactured. Again, I'm not saying that Bush had none of those properties. It's just that I couldn't stand the idea of pulling the lever for either of the Johns.
So instead of voting for the unknown quality that came across as wholly fake and manufactured you voted for the known incompetent quality that came across as wholly fake and manufactured?
If you want to argue that it's a morally superior position to insist on more of our incomes going to the government, you can do that. If you want to insist that people having more of the money they make is a bad thing, then you can do that as well.
I don't think it's "morally superior" to "insist" that more money go to Government. I just think there are certain things that only the Government is equipped to do. I'm also in general favor of social programs that "level the playing field" for those willing to help themselves -- i.e: Government backed student loans. That's why I can't get behind someone like Ron Paul -- because if there's anything we learned from the 18th and 19th centuries it's that true laissez-faire economics results in the creation of a permanent underclass.
It's all well and good to bitch about regulation, unions, taxes, etc, etc. Go tour some of the old coal mines in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Find out the conditions that those people worked in -- for very little or no actual reward (many were forced to live on company property and buy all of their stuff from company owned stores). Then bitch about unions or regulation.
If people are going to argue about tax cuts, then they should argue on the merits... should government have more of our money and "spend it for us" on public projects? Or are we better off spending more of it ourselves.
As with most things each position (left and right wing) has some merit to it. I don't agree with the left-wingers when they start talking about nationalizing key industries (telecommunications and energy being the top two). I also don't agree with the right-wingers when they start talking about gutting all Government programs. Could it just be that there is a middle ground somewhere that provides for a uniquely American solution? Something that provides a level playing field so that everybody has the same opportunities (if willing to seize them) but still allows for individual freedoms and innovation?
For all the people that bitch about FISA, did you know that in WW II the government censored all mail? Listened in on all phone calls? We truly haven't sacrificed squat. We have liberties undreamed of to the WW II generation.
If you want to make the argument that we need FISA to protect ourselves during a time of war (even though Congress hasn't actually declared war -- another pet peeve of mine) then I'm game. I'd really like to know why the existing FISA law which allowed the wiretapping of anyone without a warrant as long as one was obtained within 72 hours was insufficient? Please explain why the Government needs more power than that. The rubber-stamp court that has only denied a dozen or so requests out of tens of thousands was too much of a stumbling block?
Well, did encourage spending on some things... he knew we couldn't go completely bone-dry in our wants and needs.
I didn't say he didn't. Just pointing out the contrast between him and GWB. We were actually asked to sacrifice back then. Nowadays we are just asked to go shopping. And people wonder why the war is so easily forgotten?
Ok, which programs do you want to cut? I've never seen a (mainstream) Republican candidate actually spell this out. They rail against Government spending but never offer any specifics of what they would actually cut spending on. This suggests to me that they either don't have a plan or they do have a plan but know it would face opposition if the details were actually known.
and raise lower taxes.
That's a great idea! Because in a time when income growth for the lower classes has stagnated and everything from energy to food is going up in price we need to tax the lower income earners more.
I don't have a solution for you. It's not my party and it's not my job to clean it up. I'm just stating the obvious -- there a lot of people in this country that agree with Republican principles (smaller Government, less taxes, more personal responsibility) that wind up voting Democrat or just staying home because they are disgusted and/or terrified by the fact that the GOP is in bed with religious zealots and ideologues.
Most people just want to be left alone to conduct their day to day lives -- they don't want the Government interfering in their lives -- that includes the bedroom as well as the checkbook.
That's an interesting definition of "re-distribution", seeing as how I paid over four times the amount of that "rebate" in Federal taxes last year. Not that the rebates weren't a dumbass idea anyway -- but that's a really stupid example to make given the fact that most taxpayers pay more than $600 in Federal taxes.
whose excessive productivity excludes you from the welfare class
"Welfare class" -- another loaded phrase. You might have an argument if you were talking about the earned income tax credit but even at that I don't think you are going to find many people willing to stand up and rail against something going to people who make less than $10,000-$15,000/yr.
However, my only point is that like any good crime fighter, we need to focus on the ringleader (the Bush Administration), not the mindless thugs who obeyed orders (the telecoms).
And any good prosecutor (the other half of the crime fighting family -- at least according to Dick Wolf;) does that by charging the mindless thugs and offering to cut them a deal if they flip on the ringleader(s).
Instead we cut them a deal and got zero out of it. Imagine Jack McCoy doing that;) Hell kidding aside, we could use someone like him....
I won't get into a debate with you about 'income redistribution'. I think it's a loaded phrase used by certain members of the right in a thinly veiled attempt to use communism/socialism to discredit those that disagree with the GOP's ideas for taxation. All I'll say is that I don't see how spending money on roads, education, the military, etc, etc qualifies as "income redistribution". Personally I haven't seen a dime of money "re-distributed" into my pocket.
Besides which the main theme of my post was bemoaning the fact that we've asked for zero sacrifice from the American people even as we are involved in a two front war with no clear path to victory. During WW2 the highest tax rate reached 94%. Ninety-four percent. And yet Bush refuses to even consider reversing his tax cuts to pay for the war? WTF?
We are mortgaging our future to China and Japan because nobody in Washington had the political backbone to ask the American people to step up and do their part. Do you really think that the American people wouldn't have accepted a call for sacrifice in the months after 9/11? WTF was GWB thinking?
So how many times are Republicans forced to vote for a lesser candidate
Probably a lot more since you allowed your party (assuming you are a Republican?) to be taken over by the religious right. That right there is a huge stumbling block for many people that I know who would be Republicans if the GOP could manage to excise the Jerry Falwell wannabes from it's ranks.
It's not inherently idiotic to imagine how tax cuts could in fact increase revenue
It's not "idiotic" but some of the more rapid free-market types repeat it as though it is a physical law of the universe. In the case of the last eight years we've tried to combine spending increases and the need to fund two wars with massive tax cuts on the rich. How well has that worked out for us?
How can we send our sons and daughters off to war while asking for no sacrifices from the civilian population? Well, other than the "sacrifice" of asking people to continue to spend and consume to pump up the economy that is. Can you imagine FDR responding to Pearl Harbor by asking people to go to the shopping mall and refusing to increase taxes to help pay for the war?
If a police officer asks you to do something, saying he has the proper paperwork taken care of, you'll most likely do it. It's the same thing with the telecoms.
No, actually I wouldn't. This is/. so I'll make the tech analogy: If a police officer asked me to hand him over the e-mails of one of my users and told me that he had the "proper paperwork taken care of" I would ask him to produce said paperwork. If said paperwork did not consist of a legal warrant signed by a judge authorizing the seizure of my users files I would deny his request.
Granted, these are huge telecoms, but they still have a responsibility to their shareholders.
The fiduciary responsibility to ones shareholders does not override the responsibility to follow the law. If it did then one could almost make the argument that Enron was justified in pumping up their stock price with 'creative' accounting.
That's the whole point of this exercise. While going after the telecoms, the legal discovery process reveals dirt on the government. That's the real reason the current administration needs the telecoms to have immunity.
None of which explains why Obama sold us out on this issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn he's good.
Or he bought off someone at your ISP ;)
* The patent system (Select someone for office that is less conservative and cooperate founded and a change might happen..)
Agreed.
* The health care system (Again, select someone a tad more social, and they'll do something about it long term)
This is a tough one. Our health care system as it stands stinks for a lot of people but we are still the World leader in pharmaceuticals and we still have the best doctors in the World -- there's a reason why so many foreign leaders/rich businessmen come here for their operations. Personally I think we could improve our health care system far more if we worked to make it less expensive -- and this could be accomplished without nationalizing the system (tort reform and patent reform both come to mind)
* The war on everyone, to either "crush" taliban or more preferably invade and give Iraqi oil to one of my friends oil companies (Select someone less aggressive towards the world around you, and the world will most likely be less aggressive back)
Don't give us grief for the war in Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the Taliban did harbor the man who murdered 3,000 Americans (and others -- people from over 50 countries died that day) and refused to hand him over to face justice. We have a legitimate chance at building a better nation there and the mission in that country is supported by the UN and our NATO allies.
I won't argue with you on Iraq but we are where we are -- so what do you want to do about it? I'd love to see our troops brought home -- but I also don't want to see that country turn into the next failed-state (the next Afghanistan) if it collapses when we leave. Again it would seem that we actually have a chance at building a better nation here -- we owe the Iraqi people something after we knocked off their Government and turned their country into a whirlpool of violence and murder.
* Intelligent design (Select someone that doesn't mix religion with politics that much, and you might get out of the dark ages too(again)..)
This isn't fair. It seems to me that you are only receiving news that portrays us in a bad light. If you looked a little bit beyond GWB or the few heavily Conservative states (Georgia and Kansas come to mind) I think you'd find that most Americans see right through ID for what it really is -- creationism with a fancier name. There's no "debate" about evolution here in the Northeast. There's no debate about it on the West coast. There isn't even a debate about it in most of the Conservative-leaning states (they never tried to teach creationism to me in North Carolina). Please don't judge us by our hicks -- even if one of them managed to become President.
But I'd be perfectly OK with a sane compromise like yours that reserves punishment for people who actually deserve to be punished.
So what other left/right disagreements can we solve? ;) I'm against gun-control -- but that places me squarely in the minority on this side of the aisle.
Now, I know that comes across as more cold and harsh than I mean, and I'm not saying that my life is more valuable than yours in any other sense. From a strictly financial perspective, though, it is.
I disagree. My life should be worth at least my earnings potential even if I don't have a spouse or kids who be harmed financially by my untimely demise. I'm still going to have an estate when I die. My assets are going to be distributed somehow (my choice as a single person is to dictate that they go to charities and political causes that I support). If I'm killed due to someones gross negligence or malice (the drunk doctor or GM knowingly making bad brakes) that someone shouldn't get a free pass because I didn't have a wife and kids to feed. IMHO anyway.
Now, I love capitalism and I'm firmly behind the idea of consenting adults to work out contracts amongst themselves, but that's just repulsive.
The entire credit industry is repulsive if you look at how it really works. Back before Providian got gobbled up by WaMu they had to settle with the FTC for some insane (>$400,000,000 as I recall) amount of money. What they had done was changed the terms and conditions of their credit cards to say that "Payments must be received by 10am on the date due to be credited that day" whereas it had previously said 3pm as the cutoff time. Why'd they make that change? Because the mail was being delivered at noon and with the 10am cutoff time they could charge late fees even for payments that arrived on the day they were due.
Now I generally don't have sympathy for people that sign contracts without reading them (though if it's a critical service that you need what choice do you have?) but what they tried to do was absolutely repulsive. That's one of the many reasons why I'd find it hard to back a truly laissez-faire economic policy (as advocated for by the Libertarian Party).
I'm in favor of some regulation and consumer protection. As an example I don't think your credit card company should be able to increase the interest on money already borrowed. Granted, they should be able to offer a variable rate (such as those tied to the prime rate) but they shouldn't be able to increase the interest on money I've already borrowed from 10% to 29% because I missed a payment or because of some change on my FICO score. They should be able to apply that new higher rate to future money that you borrow but I really don't think it's equitable that they get to impose it retroactively -- when they loaned me that money last month this is the rate they told me it would be.
I also would like to see an end to the "we can change the terms at any time and you have to deal with it" clauses in virtually every consumer contract (credit cards to cell phones). A contract is supposed to be a consideration between two people or entities -- a meeting of the minds as it were. I don't think contract law ever envisioned one party forcing the other to hand over all their rights for the other to provide a service that they don't even promise will work (wireless/cable/internet/blah/blah/blah) and which offers you no recourse (wireless companies won't even waive their ETF if their service tanks on you) if indeed doesn't work.
We (the U.S.) screwed up the same way in Iran.
We did the same in Vietnam. There was a study done in the 50s after the Vietnamese had managed to drive the French out of the country. It suggested that we could pull Ho Chi Minn into our orbit if we had been inclined to engage him instead of isolating him. We opted to let our paranoia rule the day (remember the Reds are coming...) and look what happened -- we wound up fighting a decades long war with a movement that quoted our own Declaration of Independence (while trying to free themselves from French colonial rule) and which had actually been on our side against the Japanese in WW2.
I love my country dearly but it's amazing how many decisions we've allowed ourselves to make out of fear. Fear of Communism. Fear of Socialism. Fear of Terrorism. How did we go from "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to being afraid of "isms"? I can at least understand it in the context of the 50s and early 60s -- when it appeared the that Soviet Union was beating us in science and space exploration and the memory of Pearl Harbor was still fresh. What the hell is our excuse now?
My for tort reform: tax punitive damages at 100%. That way you still have the ability to punish a large corporation if they deserve it, but there's no longer a profit motive
Actually, rather than seeing a cap on punitive damages I would just like to see the requirement that you be able to prove malice on the part of the person who harmed you before you can get punitive damages. Under that scenario if your wife operates on me in good faith and screws up I can't receive more than my damages (medical bills, lost wages, etc). If she shows up to the OR drunk though I should be able to rake her over the coals for everything she is worth and then some. That would seem to be fair to me.
My dad's idea: you shouldn't be able to sue for wrongful death damages for more money than the person carried in life insurance. If they only took out a $20,000 policy, they shouldn't be able to claim $4,000,000 in actual damages.
I get the idea behind that but I don't think that's entirely fair either. There's lots of scenarios where it doesn't make sense to purchase life insurance or where it does but you can't afford it. I'm a single person with no kids -- why the hell should I carry life insurance? Does that mean my life is only worth the cost of my funeral? Granted, I wouldn't have anybody who would be (financially) harmed by my untimely demise but what about the working parent who simply can't afford to pay for it?
Still, if you're an attorney and your face is on the back of then phone book, then you need shot.
Still, if you're a businessman and your face is on the back of then phone book, then you need shot
Fixed that for you ;) Sorry, I couldn't help but think of all of the "reputable" used car salesmen and loan shark^W^Wpayday lenders I've seen on the back of the phone book.
We can start buy cutting out all of the pork and then work from there
Again, what exactly is pork? Everybody seems to think that something is pork..... unless it's being spent in their own hometown, in which case it's "economic development". Why do you think that Congress as a whole has a 18% approval rating but most of the bastards are still re-elected over and over again? (Well, to be fair gerrymandering has something to do with that too but I think you get my drift)
That was a typo. Meant to say lower taxes in general.
Ok, so you aren't a heartless bastard :) My mistake for jumping on you like that but that's how it read and I've seen my fair share of right-leaning trolls that would make a statement like that....
Of course this will be spun as a tax cut for the rich since they are the only ones who pay taxes
Where do you get this idea that they are the only ones who pay taxes? This study says that in 2004 the top 20% paid 52.8% of Federal taxes. That suggests that the bottom 80% are paying almost half. You might argue from a philosophical standpoint that you find that unfair -- the counter-argument to that is that the richest 1% of this country holds 33% of the wealth and the richest 20% holds 51% (source).
My wife's a doctor, and consequently I know quite a few
It's good to admit your biases and interests up front ;)
Malpractice lawsuits have driven up insurance rates
Yeah it has. And some would argue that tort reform would be beneficial. I would personally like to see some sort of no-fault system (similar to what a few states have for auto insurance) that would just pay out for most mistakes without the expense of litigation. That would solve most of the cases of those are who genuinely harmed by a MDs mistake. The legal system should still be available but it wouldn't have to be the first stop under such a system.
I just take issue with your hatred of all personal injury attorneys. It's easy to hate a personal injury/defense/divorce attorney until you need one. There's a lot of scumsucking bottom feeders out there but there are also those that do good -- and at the end of the day most of the blame should be placed on those that would abuse the legal system (I got rear-ended so I'm gonna sue even though I'm perfectly ok!) and not on those that are representing them.
I'm curious if you actually looked into any of Edwards' cases or if you just dismissed him because of his profession? I'll admit that I've never looked into his case history either (he always seemed like a bit of a pretty boy to me -- I disagree with almost everything Cheney says but I still think he schooled Edwards in the VP debate) but it would be interesting to see if he took on some real cases or made his fortune by ambulance chasing.
I jokingly gave you crap just a few paragraphs ago about admitting your biases so let me admit mine: A number of years ago I found myself charged with a crime that I didn't commit. To make a long story short I found a good defense attorney and he saved my ass. Ever since then I've been inclined to defend lawyers and give them the benefit of the doubt.
The Democrats have achieved the goal of restoring FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means of conducting surveillance. They have also achieved the goal of restoring basic judicial oversight to the process.
And all of that means zero if nobody is punished for past violations of the FISA law. People seem to forget this. Why should we expect that future administrations (D or R) won't violate the law when the existing administration just got a get-out-of-jail free card for doing so? Obama himself said in his statement that including telecom immunity "weakens the deterrent effect of the law".
and action has been taken to prevent the problem from reoccurring in the future
What action? The free pass for prior violations of the law? How will that stop the problem from reoccurring in the future? If there is no enforcement behind the law then what incentive do I have to follow it?
Furthermore, effective and necessary intelligence gathering tools are no longer in danger of becoming unavailable due to the bureaucratic hangup
They were never going to become unavailable. The existing FISA law provided a 72 hour window to wiretap someone without a warrant. Please tell me why that was insufficient.
On top of all that, the compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place.
Yes! The Executive Branch gets to clean it's own house. Why even bother having a judicial branch? Prediction: Anything 'juicy' in the IG report will be classified like the sections of the 9/11 Commission report relating to Saudi Arabia.
but revoking your support for Obama over this issue indicates to me that you're not seeing the bigger picture.
What bigger picture? I still haven't heard a compelling argument for why the FISA law that was already in affect on 9/10/2001 wasn't good enough? Is obtaining a warrant within 72 hours in front of the court that approves 99.999999% of them to much of a burden? And why should we believe that giving the Government more power to wiretap us will prevent terrorism? Had GWB paid attention to his memos or had the FBI paid attention to field agents who reported suspicious activity at flight schools it's quite probable that 9/11 could have been prevented without expanding the scope of the Governments power.
Well, then we have a left-wing president who thinks he's king Obama instead of King Bush, gun laws are stricter and nobody can defend themselves, terrorists win because they already have their guns, we try to reason with North Korea and Iran and they laugh all the way to the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' buttons - and we're basically F'ed.
It seems kind of foolish to criticize Obama (or McCain) for wanting to reason with North Korea when this is exactly what GWB is doing. Unless you are going to criticize him too -- but your post seemed wholly directed at the 'left-wing' president.
And do you really believe that they would push the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' button? Have you ever heard of this?
This change-tracking by the McCain campaign is a great service to the public. It will help catch any attempts to shift "beliefs" according to public mood. Hopefully the Obamites will respond in kind and then we, the public, will get the benefit of an overall increase politicians being monitored for duplicity.
Yeah, right. They might catch a duplicated recipe or two but if you think this will lead to anything productive then I want some of what you are smoking.
Prediction: This will lead to some "scandal" that gets Olbermann and/or O'Reilly up into a frenzy of manufactured outrage while disillusioning the rest of us who actually had some hope for our country.
Depending on your point of view he either made a smart political calculation or cynically pissed on your rights during his ride to the White House
I'm opting for pissed on my rights since it really doesn't seem like that smart of a political calculation. Now instead of being called weak on national security he's being called a flip-flopper. Of course we all know that being called that has NEVER cost anyone an election.....
Either the President has gotten Congressional authority for measures, or Federal Court authority
So which Act of Congress authorized tortur.... err "enhanced interrogation"?
Win an election and change things
We did as I seem to recall. Didn't help much now did it?
Kerry just sounded for the world like he was hopelessly out of touch with the day-to-day workings of American life (not that GWB was much better, mind you)
Didn't you just undercut your own argument?
I am of the firmly held conviction that personal injury attorneys are one of the driving forces making this country a crappier place to live
Would you still think that if you were genuinely injured and had your insurance company try to shove some "settlement" down your throat that didn't even come close to paying for your medical bills?
I guess, in summary, that they both came across as wholly fake and manufactured. Again, I'm not saying that Bush had none of those properties. It's just that I couldn't stand the idea of pulling the lever for either of the Johns.
So instead of voting for the unknown quality that came across as wholly fake and manufactured you voted for the known incompetent quality that came across as wholly fake and manufactured?
The table even makes sense without any other theory
Wouldn't have anything at all to do with inflation would it?
If you want to argue that it's a morally superior position to insist on more of our incomes going to the government, you can do that. If you want to insist that people having more of the money they make is a bad thing, then you can do that as well.
I don't think it's "morally superior" to "insist" that more money go to Government. I just think there are certain things that only the Government is equipped to do. I'm also in general favor of social programs that "level the playing field" for those willing to help themselves -- i.e: Government backed student loans. That's why I can't get behind someone like Ron Paul -- because if there's anything we learned from the 18th and 19th centuries it's that true laissez-faire economics results in the creation of a permanent underclass.
It's all well and good to bitch about regulation, unions, taxes, etc, etc. Go tour some of the old coal mines in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Find out the conditions that those people worked in -- for very little or no actual reward (many were forced to live on company property and buy all of their stuff from company owned stores). Then bitch about unions or regulation.
If people are going to argue about tax cuts, then they should argue on the merits... should government have more of our money and "spend it for us" on public projects? Or are we better off spending more of it ourselves.
As with most things each position (left and right wing) has some merit to it. I don't agree with the left-wingers when they start talking about nationalizing key industries (telecommunications and energy being the top two). I also don't agree with the right-wingers when they start talking about gutting all Government programs. Could it just be that there is a middle ground somewhere that provides for a uniquely American solution? Something that provides a level playing field so that everybody has the same opportunities (if willing to seize them) but still allows for individual freedoms and innovation?
For all the people that bitch about FISA, did you know that in WW II the government censored all mail? Listened in on all phone calls? We truly haven't sacrificed squat. We have liberties undreamed of to the WW II generation.
If you want to make the argument that we need FISA to protect ourselves during a time of war (even though Congress hasn't actually declared war -- another pet peeve of mine) then I'm game. I'd really like to know why the existing FISA law which allowed the wiretapping of anyone without a warrant as long as one was obtained within 72 hours was insufficient? Please explain why the Government needs more power than that. The rubber-stamp court that has only denied a dozen or so requests out of tens of thousands was too much of a stumbling block?
Well, did encourage spending on some things... he knew we couldn't go completely bone-dry in our wants and needs.
I didn't say he didn't. Just pointing out the contrast between him and GWB. We were actually asked to sacrifice back then. Nowadays we are just asked to go shopping. And people wonder why the war is so easily forgotten?
My idea is to cut spending
Ok, which programs do you want to cut? I've never seen a (mainstream) Republican candidate actually spell this out. They rail against Government spending but never offer any specifics of what they would actually cut spending on. This suggests to me that they either don't have a plan or they do have a plan but know it would face opposition if the details were actually known.
and raise lower taxes.
That's a great idea! Because in a time when income growth for the lower classes has stagnated and everything from energy to food is going up in price we need to tax the lower income earners more.
I don't have a solution for you. It's not my party and it's not my job to clean it up. I'm just stating the obvious -- there a lot of people in this country that agree with Republican principles (smaller Government, less taxes, more personal responsibility) that wind up voting Democrat or just staying home because they are disgusted and/or terrified by the fact that the GOP is in bed with religious zealots and ideologues.
Most people just want to be left alone to conduct their day to day lives -- they don't want the Government interfering in their lives -- that includes the bedroom as well as the checkbook.
That's an interesting definition of "re-distribution", seeing as how I paid over four times the amount of that "rebate" in Federal taxes last year. Not that the rebates weren't a dumbass idea anyway -- but that's a really stupid example to make given the fact that most taxpayers pay more than $600 in Federal taxes.
whose excessive productivity excludes you from the welfare class
"Welfare class" -- another loaded phrase. You might have an argument if you were talking about the earned income tax credit but even at that I don't think you are going to find many people willing to stand up and rail against something going to people who make less than $10,000-$15,000/yr.
However, my only point is that like any good crime fighter, we need to focus on the ringleader (the Bush Administration), not the mindless thugs who obeyed orders (the telecoms).
And any good prosecutor (the other half of the crime fighting family -- at least according to Dick Wolf ;) does that by charging the mindless thugs and offering to cut them a deal if they flip on the ringleader(s).
Instead we cut them a deal and got zero out of it. Imagine Jack McCoy doing that ;) Hell kidding aside, we could use someone like him....
I won't get into a debate with you about 'income redistribution'. I think it's a loaded phrase used by certain members of the right in a thinly veiled attempt to use communism/socialism to discredit those that disagree with the GOP's ideas for taxation. All I'll say is that I don't see how spending money on roads, education, the military, etc, etc qualifies as "income redistribution". Personally I haven't seen a dime of money "re-distributed" into my pocket.
Besides which the main theme of my post was bemoaning the fact that we've asked for zero sacrifice from the American people even as we are involved in a two front war with no clear path to victory. During WW2 the highest tax rate reached 94%. Ninety-four percent. And yet Bush refuses to even consider reversing his tax cuts to pay for the war? WTF?
We are mortgaging our future to China and Japan because nobody in Washington had the political backbone to ask the American people to step up and do their part. Do you really think that the American people wouldn't have accepted a call for sacrifice in the months after 9/11? WTF was GWB thinking?
So how many times are Republicans forced to vote for a lesser candidate
Probably a lot more since you allowed your party (assuming you are a Republican?) to be taken over by the religious right. That right there is a huge stumbling block for many people that I know who would be Republicans if the GOP could manage to excise the Jerry Falwell wannabes from it's ranks.
It's not inherently idiotic to imagine how tax cuts could in fact increase revenue
It's not "idiotic" but some of the more rapid free-market types repeat it as though it is a physical law of the universe. In the case of the last eight years we've tried to combine spending increases and the need to fund two wars with massive tax cuts on the rich. How well has that worked out for us?
How can we send our sons and daughters off to war while asking for no sacrifices from the civilian population? Well, other than the "sacrifice" of asking people to continue to spend and consume to pump up the economy that is. Can you imagine FDR responding to Pearl Harbor by asking people to go to the shopping mall and refusing to increase taxes to help pay for the war?
And how many regular German citizens have we tried as war criminals?
Not very many but we made up for that by bombing the shit out of them.
The German people paid dearly for supporting that regime.
If a police officer asks you to do something, saying he has the proper paperwork taken care of, you'll most likely do it. It's the same thing with the telecoms.
No, actually I wouldn't. This is /. so I'll make the tech analogy: If a police officer asked me to hand him over the e-mails of one of my users and told me that he had the "proper paperwork taken care of" I would ask him to produce said paperwork. If said paperwork did not consist of a legal warrant signed by a judge authorizing the seizure of my users files I would deny his request.
Granted, these are huge telecoms, but they still have a responsibility to their shareholders.
The fiduciary responsibility to ones shareholders does not override the responsibility to follow the law. If it did then one could almost make the argument that Enron was justified in pumping up their stock price with 'creative' accounting.
That's the whole point of this exercise. While going after the telecoms, the legal discovery process reveals dirt on the government. That's the real reason the current administration needs the telecoms to have immunity.
None of which explains why Obama sold us out on this issue.