Guess the Caucus (Repub Edition)Follow

I'm not sure why but this made me giggle.

That's all I was asking, yo.

Nexa (who is only dating Smasharoo, but is not, actually, Smasharoo you know)

Yes, but terribly disappointed most of the time.

Nexa

No. Stated goal is to reverse Roe v. Wade and to provide a "right to life" to unborn children.

The more important platform goal in this area is to allow individual states to determine when that "life" begins rather then via judicial fiat at the Federal level.

Uh huh. You are correct. Thank for pointing out that very unimportant distinction in phrasing.

Given that Nexa's original statement was to question why any "moderate/non-religious" Republican would vote for him (Huckabee), I think it's reasonable to assume that she herself was assuming that his religious views would impact his policies (else why care about it when deciding to vote for him?).

I'm not questioning that assumption either. Just using the phrase "non-religious" in the same context she used it.

To be fair...I wasn't "assuming that his religious views would impact his policies", since he's stated it repeatedly. But I accept your use of "non-religious" in that context since, while I don't believe that a religious person is capable of completely separating themselves from such an ingrained aspect of themselves at all times while creating policy, I think there have been and are people who are capable of doing an acceptable job of it. Obviously, Huckabee would not be one of those people.

In a country that is roughly 85% Christian, I would be hard pressed to find a candidate who was not at all religious and also held the same views as myself who would have any chance of winning in a general election.

Nexa

*waves* Guess who has the best advantage?!

Nexa

Yeah. Sorry. I actually left off the second part of what I was going to say there (damn phones as work!), so it didn't end up being what I meant at all.


The "non-religious" phrase was originally applied to the people making the decision to support or not support Huckabee, not to Huckabee himself. What I was trying to get at (but missed completely in my haste) was that the use of that label to people making the decision to support him implies that they would be voting or not voting based on the degree to which their own religious views should be made public policy (or more specifically his views).


If we accept the tenant that Huckabee has a religious political agenda (which I'm not fully sure of, but I'll grant for the purpose of this discussion), then the only reason to make a differentiation about "non-religious" voters is if you are assuming that anyone "non-religious" is someone who does not want Huckabee's religious beliefs to become a political agenda. Clearly, you didn't just mean people who held no religious beliefs themselves, cause that would have made no sense in the context of what you said.

No. It's that way for Liberals. It's not that way for Conservatives.

Wrong.

Would you like 100 examples?

Lol! You just proved my point Smash.


I'm betting you don't see it though. Cause, like I said, you have to believe that Conservatives hold their positions cause they just hate <insert group here>.


I'll give you a hint: We don't believe that poverty is best fought by giving free stuff to poor people. All it does is remove the disincentive to be poor, which in turn increases the number of poor, all of whom are now beholden to the government that's giving them free stuff, making it progressively (hah!) harder for them to end the cycle. It makes poverty generational and virtually impossible to escape, while increasing the burden of poverty on those who've so far managed to avoid it until eventually everyone except the very wealthy end up being poor.


But hey! I guess it's just easier to say that conservatives don't like poor people. Yup. That must be it. Sigh...

Interesting how in your world view, not taking money away from people is equivalent to "giving free stuff" to them.





Ah. Focus on the victims. Ignore everything else.

News flash. This bill in no way affects whether or not, or to what degree members of the military receive pay raises. The actual pay schedule is set already. This is a funding bill. Yeah. It would be nice to allocate funds to pay for those raises in this bill today, but it can be allocated at any time over the next 10 years or so.

It really isn't about the pay. But I suppose it makes a great point to pull on people's heart strings if you make it seem like it is.





I see. So it's perfectly ok to freeze needed assets owned by the current Iraqi government (and investors) which are desperately needed to help rebuild that nation because the previous government of that nation did some bad things. Um... They did some bad things to the Iraqi's as well! How about we not punish them a second time? Did that occur to you at all? Funny how often the Bush administration is criticized for the slow rebuilding of Iraq's economy and infrastructure, and the high unemployment rate, yet when they take a measure to prevent further delays in said reconstruction, they're bashed for utterly bogus reasons. At what point do you realize that the rhetoric simply doesn't match the reality here?


Seriously. Engage brain first. Learn that these issues are more then the surface that you seem to see.

I'm betting you don't see it though.

Um, yeah. I know you live in this strange elaborate fairy tale world where you rhetorically outmaneuver people and "get" things that they miss and then benevolently explain to them, however:

The reality is that the only time I "don't see" one of your dastardly cunning ploys to bait me to say exactly what I'd have said otherwise is when I'm all hopped up on Peyote. That not being the case now, you're out of luck.


I'll give you a hint: We don't believe that poverty is best fought by giving free stuff to poor people. All it does is remove the disincentive to be poor, which in turn increases the number of poor, all of whom are now beholden to the government that's giving them free stuff, making it progressively (hah!) harder for them to end the cycle. It makes poverty generational and virtually impossible to escape, while increasing the burden of poverty on those who've so far managed to avoid it until eventually everyone except the very wealthy end up being poor.


But hey! I guess it's just easier to say that conservatives don't like poor people. Yup. That must be it. Sigh...

Yeah, ok. That's great and all, and I'll freely admit that giving the poor just enough income to live a bare bones hopeless existence doesn't tend to give them extra incentive to go apply for that $5 an hour job with no benefits at Wal-Mart, the problem isn't that you're giving them too much money. It's, you guessed it, that you're not giving them *enough* money.

Oh no! You trixed me into again, I said we should give more money to the poor! You know that that implies! We'll have to raise taxes!! Oh nos!!

Your bankrupt economic theory *cannot* be put into practice in representative government. It can't, it won't, it's not going to happen. Let's set aside, just for the moment the fact that it would fail spectacularly, and just deal with the practical side:

I'll make it simple:

1. The current holders of cooperate power benefit from the current size of government, or to be more accurate, they perceive that they do. It's not really relevant if they do or not. The commandeer the apparatus of government constantly for their own ends, most importantly their structural status as cooperations that largely prevents them from facing any real consequence when they take otherwise illegal actions. They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever advocate for smaller government. They have all the money.

2. People just crave conformity and comfort. They want to be led by other charismatic people and *WANT TO BE TOLD WHAT TO AND THINK*. This can't be a shock to you. You and I, and many of the posters here might be capable of surviving in a world where other people don't determine our entire world views, but most people would not. That's how it is. Is everyone on the planet was as able as you are to grasp the ideas you advocate, they might have a chance of being implemented. Of course if everyone was as able as me to grasp them, they'd have been laughed into oblivion a century ago, but that's another issue entirely.