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Couldn't agree more. Although many societal issues aren't based on knowledge or ignorance, they are based on opinion. That's the first step in understanding that absolutes in most of the important social issues do not exist. It's just opinion. That's a hard reality to accept.

No, it's the economy, stupid.

What you should be doing is railing against that Franklin Delano Roosevelt asshole. Was that jerk a troop-grinder or what?

We need to add Abe to this discussion: 620,000 deaths during his term in office. 51,000 in two days at Gettysburg alone. Now that man was a meat grinder!

Totem

It has to be Lincoln. The man grew into the office, was open to changing his opinions (re the role of Blacks in America) did not let himself be pushed around by men accomplished in politics such as Seward, and had a working class background. He was not above party politics in making appointments, and his suspension of Habeaous Corpus was most likely extra legal, but he did not have the luxury of going to Congress in April 1861.
Jefferson is a close second with FDR third.

Oh and fruby is correct about deaths in the war. 1 out of every 82 soldiers and sailors died in combat or from wounds. 3 of 4 deaths in the war was due to disease.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2008 4:50pm by Jonwin

I have never denied this, and have in fact argued for exactly this on many occasions. I'm a Republican, not a Libertarian.

The key word is "frugal". Republicans believe that small amounts of carefully targeted government spending programs are very useful and in some cases necessary to a healthy economy. We simply oppose the "if a little is good, then a lot is better!" approach that Democrats seem to have.



While I'm sure there are exceptions, I'm not personally aware of *any* true "private industry" workplaces that require drug testing.

A huge amount of government jobs do though. Just thought you might was to consider which side of the bread this particular imposition on freedom is coming from...

Just as a side note, the totally wrong definition of supply side economics was mentioned above. Although this may well be the definition used by the academics who argued for this policy initially (I have not read their papers), it is certainly not the common use. Basically supply side economics is about cutting taxes to give people cash in their hands right now. As I mentioned in prior discussions, there is no correlation between tax cuts and per capita GDP growth for the US as a whole. So demonstratively, either it doesn't work, or the effect is so small that it is swamped by other, more significant forces. Further damning to the whole proposition is the fact it leads to giant deficits, on which we now pay interest and thus any temporary boon (even if it could be dredged up) would likely totally pale beside the debt bomb we are leaving for the next generation.

For the current situation, Truman would be my choice, simply because he would be the most honest. And after Clinton and Bush, I think that is what we need. That said, I think he would have absolutely no chance of being elected. Or re-elected.

Let's be clear though. Smash originally said "fiscal conservative", which is not exactly identical to "supply side economics". One is the political action, the other a broader economic theory. Um... But in simple terms, you're basically correct, but with one caveat. The objective of supply side economics is to "grow the supply side" of the economy. The tax cuts are a means to that end, but is not itself an end.

A "fiscal conservative" has the goal of decreasing tax burden on the citizens. It's a political goal, and is based on the belief that tax burden represents an inherent reduction of liberties (you're taking people's property away from them afterall). I think it's pretty obvious that a political policy like that would be pretty well married to an economic model that used exactly that as a means toward increased economic growth.

So yeah. They're linked, but they're not exactly the same thing.



Except for both occasions in which specific supply side oriented tax cut programs have been used (Reagan and Bush).

Since the mid 70s, when the theory was codified and the term "supply side" was coined, there have been three Republican US presidents. Two out of those three have used supply side economic tools and both achieved positive results.




What demonstrably? You declaring them a failure doesn't make it so. I already in another thread listed off all the horrible economic indicators present when Reagan began to use supply side tools and how quickly he fixed economic stagnation that had been present for nearly a decade in the US (and had been growing for much longer then that).

Same deal with the Bush tax cuts. Seriously. Pull out some numbers or facts if you want to claim otherwise. I've already supported my position multiple times and it gets tiring refuting the same false assumptions over and over.


How about you actually "demonstrate" something instead of just saying it?




No. It doesn't. Deficits, yes. But "debt"? No. Debt is measured as a percentage of GDP. I've already disproved this about 8 times now. Do I have to do this again? If the tax cuts are done by the appropriate amounts and at the right time, they result in a net increase in economic growth and don't actually reduce relative debt at all. Bush's tax cuts are a textbook example of this since he achieved that economic recovery and then growth while maintaining a constant debt rate.

I've already explained this before. Sheesh!

Edited, Mar 4th 2008 6:52pm by gbaji

Lol, RACK that. Heheh, classic Taco.

Totem

He did turn into an old lesbian as he aged.

Only if your "history" starts sometime in the early to mid 20th century...

Yes. But the socialist movements that spawned from thinkers like Marx didn't actually redefine political terminology until the early to mid 20th century, depending on which nation we're talking about.


In the US specifically, pretty much no one associated "political left" with socialism/communism until sometime after the 1920s. Prior to that point, the left/right debates were largely about the role of the federal government, states rights, monetary systems, taxes and tariffs, anti-trust laws, etc...

The idea of the left being associated with wealth distribution is incredibly new. But, just as Dems like to claim to be the party of racial equality, reinventing the past to redefine the present seems to be a pretty common trait for you guys.

Reading comprehension is just not your strong suit.

In the US, the political LEFT was not associated with socialism/communism until sometime after the 1920s.

I think you're confusing where a given person or groups position lies within a political scale and what the population in general thinks of when talking about a particular "side" of that scale. Yes. Socialism is "to the left". But if you were to ask someone in the US in the 1880s what "the leftists" were about, you'd be hard pressed to find one who'd say "They're trying to redistribute the wealth of the nation!!!".


Red's statement that this association between "left/right" and how wealth is distributed is some kind of longstanding historical meaning is false. Simply put, left means change. Right means status quo. What exactly each is associated changes over time based on what the status quo is and what new changes those on the left are proposing.


What's funny is that Red, as a Frenchie, should know the historical meaning of those terms. Yet he apparently doesn't... Like I said. Reinvention of history is a common theme for you guys.