2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Race

[Apelila]

Liberals

god damn every time I see that it just smacks of snotty douche

Anything somebody uses liberals as an umbrella term my brain automatically shunts that person onto the retard ladder until proven otherwise.

Fun fact: No one has ever fallen off that ladder.

[Demosthenes11]

1) I agree with the Tea Party's position that debt is bad, and we should incur no further debt, and structure our budget to pay off our current debt.
2) I agree with Republican views that our corporate tax rate (as of April 1) is the highest in the world and this hurts our ability to compete.
3) I agree with Obama in that our richest pay a fraction of the taxes that are fair, but instead of raising the rates they are taxed at, I would prefer the 9 billion loopholes get closed.
4) I agree with traditionally Democratic positions about energy and environmentalism, and agree with Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy, but am confused since drilling permits have gone down and coal energy plants are getting closed, which seems to be the opposite of what he outlined.

1) stop thinking about debt in terms of a single person or a business. debt does not function this way internationally and having a deficit, while not ideal, is not a bad omen in any way. This is a great article I suggest you read http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/op...ands-debt.html

Also, ending all spending at this time would be catastrophic for the 99%. Many of the programs lost or slashed in a government spending freeze would be social programs (unemployment, disability, etc) and public works projects like building roads, bridges, funding parks, etc - all things that employ hundreds of thousands. It would also cut great things like public transportation - all in a time when people already have no jobs or have no extra funds to spend.

2) This is a ridiculous concept. The US will never be able to compete with the tax rates of countries with no regulation or extremely low tax rates. The US won't let you work more than 8 hours a day without overtime, so what do companies do? Ship the job to China where they work 12-14 hours a day. Same goes for age-labor and wages. Corporate taxes could probably be lower, but they are not due to loopholes that exist, which you touch on. As someone that works with startups in the silicon valley, it's ridiculous to say that our corporate tax rate impacts the entrepreneur. The difference between 35% and 25% will never deter anyone.

3) This would be nice, but some things that the 1% enjoy are not taxed at fair rates either way. Capital gains income is tax evasion for the rich.

4) If we poured money into energy research and development, we wouldn't need this conversation at all. Coal is dirty as fuck. There is no such thing as "clean coal." Oil is not sustainable. We should be treating the symptom of our oil/coal dependencies - big coal/oil lobby. They want us hooked on these forever, or else their profits fall. This is a bigger symptom of lobbying and corrupt politicians, but without these companies and their intervention in washington / buying out much of the market, we would likely have an alternative fuel at this point.

Coal and oil supply is also not at any sort of critical level and we don't anticipate it to be for a while. We don't need more right now. It's not making things cheaper for us - speculation is driving up the cost of oil, not supply (fuck i wish everyone knew this).

too high/tired to post more, but most important thing: stop thinking a spending freeze is a viable / good solution. Universal healthcare + public option + ending wars would do more for our nation's bank account anyways.

[Gryffes]

Oil production went down during Bush's term because of the lack of new permits issued under the Clinton administration, and has been going up under the Obama administration because of the permits issued under the Bush administration.

It's too bad liberals don't understand that it takes years to develop fields, wells, and delivery systems.

I see, so everything good that happens under Bamy is because Bush really did it and anything that bad that happens is zeros fault.
Anything bad bush did was Clintons fault and everything good he did was his achievement.

Gottit gottit, those silly liberals will never figure this one out.

[ronin sparthos]

It's too bad liberals don't understand that it takes years to develop fields, wells, and delivery systems.

Yet conservatives are the ones that would have you believe if only we drilled more the prices would instantly fall at the gas pumps.

I don't see the Republican candidates saying that it'd take years for the new wells to have effects on gas prices if any at all, do you?

[test123]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/charts/us2012.php

[Sera]

where is the "racist" area on that grid, RP/Santorum should be in that part too though

[Kuya]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/charts/us2012.php

What does right/left mean?

Also, libertarian isn't the opposite of authoritarian, exactly. Technically, liberal is the opposite of authoritarian, because historically, that's what liberalism developed in opposition to. Meanwhile, libertarian is of a modern term which might be called classical liberalism, but all forms of liberalism generally oppose all forms of authoritarianism.

But why am i telling you this though, you're dumb.

[test123]

Affirmative action = racist, ergo Ron Paul is not a racist. Checkmate!

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/bothaxes.gif

http://www.politicalcompass.org/imag...swithnames.gif

http://www.politicalcompass.org/imag...ionalchart.gif

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/eu2008.gif

[Kuya]

Checkmate liberals

[Milkster]

Affirmative action = racist, ergo Ron Paul is not a racist. Checkmate!

Exactly how is Affirmative action racist? It'd also have to be sexist as well.

[Drex]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/charts/us2012.php

the greatest part of this image is the insinuation that the stupid test this comes from is some official measure of political ideology and that the candidates actually took the test, when in reality it's some 4chan troll spamming it on /pol/ for gullible idiots to re-shitpost elsewhere as support for their stupid viewpoints

[mallister]

how is affirmative action, by definition, not racist or sexist?

[Headspace]

We should just elect the Dalai Llama

[Correction]

I love when Libertarians post Cartesian graphs. So cute when they think "Math" will save their ideology.

[Sera]

very amateur attempt at trolling. B- for effort though, Test.

[Talint]

I'd like to think that when people say "close tax loopholes", that they're tacitly admitting that Reaganomics doesn't work.

Remember, if we just lower taxes, then everybody will have no problem paying! Until it comes time to actually paying taxes. Then it's about weaseling out of as paying as much taxes as humanly possible.

Of course, I don't actually expect people to make that connection.

[RKenshin]

I agree with traditionally Democratic positions about energy and environmentalism, and agree with Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy, but am confused since drilling permits have gone down and coal energy plants are getting closed, which seems to be the opposite of what he outlined.

Oil production went down during Bush's term because of the lack of new permits issued under the Clinton administration, and has been going up under the Obama administration because of the permits issued under the Bush administration.

It's too bad liberals don't understand that it takes years to develop fields, wells, and delivery systems.

Drilling permits aren't being issued much less often than normal.

If not for the BP oil spill and the resulting halt of drilling permits followed by stricter regulation of them, we would be at (if not significantly above) our average rate of issuance.
http://denr.sd.gov/des/og/images/PermitsIssued_002.jpg
Source: http://denr.sd.gov/des/og/newpermit.aspx

[djzombie]

Could someone explain exactly what oil speculation is and how it is used to artificially inflate energy prices when every other markets prices are dictated by a combination of competition and supply and demand. Or am i simply naive to think such a thing happens with any product/market

[Xantavia]

Could someone explain exactly what oil speculation is and how it is used to artificially inflate energy prices when every other markets prices are dictated by a combination of competition and supply and demand. Or am i simply naive to think such a thing happens with any product/market

http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-s...gas-price1.htm
If i'm reading it right, basically they are just guessing how much the price of oil will be in the future. They are not actually buying or selling the oil, but more like betting how much the oil will sell for. I'm sure somebody else can actually explain it better than me.

[djzombie]

So by betting that oil prices will be higher in the future they actually cause the prices to rise ensuring their bet pays off. Seriously wtf. How can i get in on this scam called speculation that is guarenteed to print money