America: A potential spectrum shift to the left?

[Bingbong]

for those who:

tl/dr,

Kuya says he has no opinion on the matter.

and that human's obsession with sex has only been around since 1700.

[Vuitton]

The IMF is also famous for telling poorer countries how they need to open their markets and privatize more and more, while the richer countries to the opposite.

The rest of the "developing" or "peripheral" countries need to take a note from South America and say, "Fuck you!", to the IMF and World Bank. If they have loans, they should try and pay them off by borrowing money from another country. Switch the debt out of the IMF's hands and you no longer are bound by the terms of your loan.

(For those who don't know, the IMF only provides emergency loans in exchange for opening of markets to free trade, annihilation social services and programs to save money, and removal of subsidies on food, medicine, ect. so outside countries can compete. This creates a ton of social instability.)

Edit:

And I agree with Guartz that nothing will change until the NWOs change. (Which I don't see happening any time soon if ever.)

[sephir]

I would say its a mixture of both liberal and conservative cultures mish-mashing. For example, Gays in the 70's and early 80's were discriminated against but now its becoming more and more accepted as a part of society. Does this mean were more liberal?

In the reverse, there is a large movement for sexual conservatism. The 60's, 70's, and 80's sexual reality is very much different from that of todays. Back then you did not really have celebrities or musicians popularize virginity like you have today. That kind of sexual conservatism is more familiar with our culture pre60's or even pre20's.

[Leif]

The OP makes some interesting points here. I agree a lot with your analysis of the American people, but I do not see any noticeable shift to the left.

The Obamessiah, this country's great savior in many people's minds, offers to implement some of the worst policies this country has ever seen. His campaign was run on some of the most whacky issues I've ever seen. Here are a few examples…

Taxing the rich - The rich do not pay taxes. Period. Deal with it. Taxing the rich means that you want to make the average idiot happy as he thinks that we are making the wealthy people pay. We aren't. Increasing taxes decreases the amount of money collected by the IRS. Period. Same deal with environmental taxes.

Releasing “torture” memos – Whether one thinks waterboarding, a method used on our own troops, is torture, illegal, whatever (it’s not), telling the masses who want to see America destroyed sure makes it seem (to the same average idiots, incidentally) that we are going to right the wrongs of the past (are racial preferences over yet?). Too bad it compromised national security and made us the joke of the rest of the world who knows what real torture is. Then again, what about those memos that Cheney and other top intelligence officials have called to be released that outline information that we gained from EITs. Does Obama not want to release those to keep with the “righting America’s wrongs” pattern or the “compromise national security” pattern?

Public Image – The idea that we need to make the rest of the world hate America less in order to reduce terrorism threats is ridiculous. Obama’s apology tour, in which he met with numerous dictator, mass murderers, and other “shady” people, makes America look pretty weak.

Health care – let’s replace our doctors with idiot half-brains in D.C. who couldn’t get a job in the private sector. America’s uninsured just show up to the ER anyways.

Financial crisis – If Obama’s plan, that will eventually trickle down to the taxpayer to the tune of 7 trillion dollars, “works” it will be the first time it has worked. It didn’t work with New Deal. I’m not too optimistic about the New New Deal.

Gay Marriage – Obamania has certainly resulted in increased support for gay rights issues, seen at the national level with the Matthew Shepard act and seen at the state levels with more and more states saying yes to gay marriage. However, while gay marriage may be the right thing to do or whatever, more hate crimes and falsely finding gay marriage somewhere in a constitution are completely ridiculous concepts. Hate crimes and judges with political agendas are a problem.

Education – Being loyal to the teacher’s unions, Obama cancelled the D.C. scholarship program. Only after parents and students that loved the program complained did he agree to continue it for the students already admitted. I wonder how much we’ll have to spend per student for people to realize that we’re wasting money. Right now, New York state spends $15,000 per child. Those same children were deemed by the court as not being smart enough to serve on juries.

I have no doubt that after we see a prolonged financial crisis, see our taxes skyrocket, see our kids get dumber (our fourth graders kick the hell out of France, but once we graduate high school the only country we can actually beat in terms of test scores is South Africa), have a city annihilated by terrorist-controlled nuclear weapons, and are all forced to get gay married (kidding on that last one) will the unwavering optimism in support of the Obamessiah finally begin to disintegrate.

People keep speaking of this liberal trend. Republicans need to be more liberal! McCain was more of the same!

The Republicans just finished running a liberal. It won't happen again. People will be begging for another Republican as soon as the destruction Obama will cause is fully realized by the American taxpayer.

So no, there is not a movement towards the left. Once Obamania is done, some will manage to see clearly again. Enough, I bet, to swing it back to the right.

[Kuya]

Guartz, where are you? I rather argue with you.

[quannum]

wow, A+ bro.

but to disagree with the OP at a different angle ... I don't think of this as a win for D as much as a loss for R. I prefer the 2-dimensional political diamond/square graphs opposed to the 1 dimension of left vs right.

I think if the Rs can give up some of that christian right authoritarian stance, that they'd be right back in this. It's not that people like Ds, they just don't like Rs stances on a couple ... several things.

the Ds are going to be at 61 in the senate and still won't get shit done, blaming the Rs. the Rs got shit done, for better or worse, with less than that. the Ds still haven't found their balls and they really need to, if they want public support.

to agree with the OP...
if the current religious trends continue, the christian right will get smaller and smaller, the Rs have won election after election for the past 30 years by depending on and pandering to this base. And in the name of pandering, have backed themselves into the anti-science ignoramous corner whether it's evolution, abortion, climate, or teh gays.

if obama can strengthen the education programs during his term, then people will move even further from this group.

which means some group will expand to fill the power vacuum, could be a spin-off Dem or Rep party, or some existing 3rd party. It will be interesting to watch at least.

[guartz]

Guartz, where are you? I rather argue with you.

Alas, I found your argument very enlightening.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Great thread and a lot of good back and forth ( as well as bit of retarded back and forth ).

I'm surprised no one has brought up the generational slide to the left as well. A lot of youth were primed for Obama, even though the numbers didn't show a staggering amount of the vote being new voters or youth this election - there were kids primed from age 13+ and kids that were paying very close attention to the issues as well as the candidates.

Couple this with America's backsliding of religious belief and church attendance ( the uncontested identifying feature of a middle to lower class Republican or Conservative is this entirely ), the right is really beginning to lack in attendance.

You have staunch Republicans who are leaving the party en masse because of idiotic stands on abortion and family values while having pathetic tag line views on fiscal policy that are basically summed up in two words: less taxes.

It's no wonder children who grow up in conservative households and go to college or have some interaction with a diverse outside world end up seeing the truth of how things are and lose their faith in their religion and politics.

Policy-wise by the end of the next 8 years of Obama's presidency this country will be defined as being more left in politics and mentality. The GOP is making the mistake of "rebranding" itself further right than it is now on hopes to distinguish itself from "those evil liberals." Maybe if they dropped their bullshit crusades against science and individual rights ( party of less gov't lol ) they could focus more on their fiscal ideals and really draw an intellectual crowd.

I mean ffs they've completely disenfranchised an entire ethnic group that lives and thinks conservatively over immigration. Talk about choosing the wrong hill to die on. The largest minority group in the country votes against their inherent Catholic principles for Dems because the GOP likes to cry about the very workforce that cheaply funds their parties donations.

Back on point, kids growing up see this bullshit dichotomy and realize this isn't the way to manage a business, much less an entire country.

We're going to see in the next 16 years one more Democrat president and the emergence of either an entirely new party or a far less right GOP, which results in a more left America.

[Beckwin]

United States public debt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



I mean, I guess you could call 20 years ridiculous and far out, but I plan on living past 40 so I guess it's more relevant for me

The information you posted is about cumulative mandatory spending, not just interest, which was your original assertion. Nice try, and you probably could make a point about the cumulative mandatory spending if you tried, but no dice on the interest thing.

[guartz]

Finesse, it's no secret corporate interests win senate elections, and to just slightly less extent, presidential elections. As it stands now, they favor the democratic ticket more so then republican. That being said, idiots are in no short supply in America, so I think you underestimate the rallying power of Jesus. All GOP has to do is offer more goodies to American corporations, something they have been remarkably good at until recently.

[Darus Grey]

I mean ffs they've completely disenfranchised an entire ethnic group that lives and thinks conservatively over immigration. Talk about choosing the wrong hill to die on. The largest minority group in the country votes against their inherent Catholic principles for Dems because the GOP likes to cry about the very workforce that cheaply funds their parties donations.

Just wanted to point out that Catholics have historically voted Democrat(as much as 92%, though 60%ish more modernly), it's the evangelicals that are the nutjob right-wingers, so I wouldn't say they vote against their "inherit principles"...cause those principles lay with the democrats and always have(they essentially only disagree on abortion, which has proven to not be enough to push them over)).

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Just wanted to point out that Catholics have historically voted Democrat(as much as 92%, though 60%ish more modernly), it's the evangelicals that are the nutjob right-wingers, so I wouldn't say they vote against their "inherit principles"...cause those principles lay with the democrats and always have(they essentially only disagree on abortion, which has proven to not be enough to push them over)).

I guess what I meant to say is that socially they identify more with the GOP ( concerning abortion and gay rights, sex-ed etc ), which for the poor and middle class are very strong emotional voting centers.

I remember reading a lot of interesting articles and even seeing a news report that looked into the dynamics of poorer urban latino communities and how much they identified socially with conservatives from the Bible belt.

But I can't find anything to back that up now and actually found this http://www.catholicsinpubliclife.org/pdfs/latino.PDF which is quite the contrary to what I've read.

[ozz]

The information you posted is about cumulative mandatory spending, not just interest, which was your original assertion. Nice try, and you probably could make a point about the cumulative mandatory spending if you tried, but no dice on the interest thing.

I understand that, but I assumed that you would in no way accept a reform that would lower that cumulative mandatory spending, composed of entitlement programs and interest on the national debt, based on your support of...entitlement programs So in essence, the only variable in that sum that we could possibly debate about lowering would be the interest on the national debt, by lowering the national debt, since the other factors will all inevitably grow. However, considering our new president has incurred more debt in his first 100 days than all previous presidents combined, I doubt we will see our national debt decrease any time soon.

So yeah, whats yours proposal

[ZarakiKujata]

The OP makes some interesting points here. I agree a lot with your analysis of the American people, but I do not see any noticeable shift to the left.

The Obamessiah, this country's great savior in many people's minds, offers to implement some of the worst policies this country has ever seen. His campaign was run on some of the most whacky issues I've ever seen. Here are a few examples…

Taxing the rich - The rich do not pay taxes. Period. Deal with it. Taxing the rich means that you want to make the average idiot happy as he thinks that we are making the wealthy people pay. We aren't. Increasing taxes decreases the amount of money collected by the IRS. Period. Same deal with environmental taxes.

Releasing “torture” memos – Whether one thinks waterboarding, a method used on our own troops, is torture, illegal, whatever (it’s not), telling the masses who want to see America destroyed sure makes it seem (to the same average idiots, incidentally) that we are going to right the wrongs of the past (are racial preferences over yet?). Too bad it compromised national security and made us the joke of the rest of the world who knows what real torture is. Then again, what about those memos that Cheney and other top intelligence officials have called to be released that outline information that we gained from EITs. Does Obama not want to release those to keep with the “righting America’s wrongs” pattern or the “compromise national security” pattern?

Public Image – The idea that we need to make the rest of the world hate America less in order to reduce terrorism threats is ridiculous. Obama’s apology tour, in which he met with numerous dictator, mass murderers, and other “shady” people, makes America look pretty weak.

Health care – let’s replace our doctors with idiot half-brains in D.C. who couldn’t get a job in the private sector. America’s uninsured just show up to the ER anyways.

Financial crisis – If Obama’s plan, that will eventually trickle down to the taxpayer to the tune of 7 trillion dollars, “works” it will be the first time it has worked. It didn’t work with New Deal. I’m not too optimistic about the New New Deal.

Gay Marriage – Obamania has certainly resulted in increased support for gay rights issues, seen at the national level with the Matthew Shepard act and seen at the state levels with more and more states saying yes to gay marriage. However, while gay marriage may be the right thing to do or whatever, more hate crimes and falsely finding gay marriage somewhere in a constitution are completely ridiculous concepts. Hate crimes and judges with political agendas are a problem.

Education – Being loyal to the teacher’s unions, Obama cancelled the D.C. scholarship program. Only after parents and students that loved the program complained did he agree to continue it for the students already admitted. I wonder how much we’ll have to spend per student for people to realize that we’re wasting money. Right now, New York state spends $15,000 per child. Those same children were deemed by the court as not being smart enough to serve on juries.

I have no doubt that after we see a prolonged financial crisis, see our taxes skyrocket, see our kids get dumber (our fourth graders kick the hell out of France, but once we graduate high school the only country we can actually beat in terms of test scores is South Africa), have a city annihilated by terrorist-controlled nuclear weapons, and are all forced to get gay married (kidding on that last one) will the unwavering optimism in support of the Obamessiah finally begin to disintegrate.

People keep speaking of this liberal trend. Republicans need to be more liberal! McCain was more of the same!

The Republicans just finished running a liberal. It won't happen again. People will be begging for another Republican as soon as the destruction Obama will cause is fully realized by the American taxpayer.

So no, there is not a movement towards the left. Once Obamania is done, some will manage to see clearly again. Enough, I bet, to swing it back to the right.

This post made me laugh for so many reasons. If you could figure out a way to fit more talking points into this you could replace Limbaugh once he dies of a pill overdose. Too lazy to go into everything but regarding the financial subheading, if the New Deal didn't work to fix the economy, what did, the Second World War? WTF was that besides massive government spending? I would argue the same is true of Reaganomics since everytime we've tried that we end up with a recession(shit how did we even get to the point of needing a New Deal if not for trickle down economics). But in reality its closer to what Marx said, capitalism is inherently self destructive and recessions will occur regardless.

In general I think this post exemplifies the conservative movement, there are no new ideas really. Sure Obama may not have the best education plan, but does the GOP have anything better? I don't get how anyone can bitch about our school system producing inferior students and not want to raise funding. Sorry, but teacher accountability and testing kids is good and all but if they don't have the money to buy textbooks from some point after the 1980s something is fucking wrong.

Likewise, good job bitching about healthcare. Those halfbrained idiots in London, Paris, Brussels, Ottawa, Havana etc sure have been doing a semi-decent job of it, or at least a good enough of one that people in this country want what they have. Again, this is another issue where the republican party seems to be entirely devoid of ideas, come up with an alternative or something then bitch. (Shit Bush sent people to Amsterdam to learn more about their healthcare system since they have a public/private hybrid that works well and you don't hear the GOP even proposing anything close). And the problem isn't that poor people go to the emergency room anyways, its that they go when they are going to die if they don't get treatment, thus raising the cost for the rest of us. If we can implement a healthcare system based on preventative medicine so that poor people aren't driving up the insurance rates for eveyrone else then maybe we can do an efficient Dutch style system that will still have private options for those who care.

As for gay marriage, judges with political agendas are cool as long as they aren't activist(read: abortion loving). You can't tell me that Clarence Thomas doesn't have a political agenda, I'll concede Scalia is not as bad since he has made some apolitical judgements(flag burning) but sorry all judges have a political viewpoint and they judge their cases based on how they interpret the constitution and laws through said viewpoint. This in my mind is just conservative sore loser bellyaching, liberals put up with the douches your guy nominates when he is in office, conservatives should do the same.

The whole public image thing is bullshit, but I guess its a matter of perspective. I would have thought the last 8 years would have taught us we don't have a military strong enough to go waving our dicks around to everybody and their mothers but I guess that hasn't set in yet. Obama acting humble has gone a long way towards undoing the damage Bush caused both with friends and enemies. And honestly blaming a terrorist attack on Obama is such bullshit, when its the Bush Administration that let Pakistan/Afghanistan get to be the way they are right now while we chased after Saddam's mythical WMD hoard.

In summation, I seriously think you overestimate the republicans political chances. The most popular republican in the country right now is Colin Powell. Your national party is tied to a highly divisive pill popping fatass that most of the country hates. The leadership is stumbling otherwise with some new governor or congressional leader(Cantor this week) going back on something they said almost weekly because Rush didn't approve. Until someone in the GOP grows a pair and stands up to him(I'm thinking maybe Romney) your fortunes won't get better even if Obama is mediocre.

[Kuya]

Why did you respond?

[Beckwin]

I understand that, but I assumed that you would in no way accept a reform that would lower that cumulative mandatory spending, composed of entitlement programs and interest on the national debt, based on your support of...entitlement programs So in essence, the only variable in that sum that we could possibly debate about lowering would be the interest on the national debt, by lowering the national debt, since the other factors will all inevitably grow. However, considering our new president has incurred more debt in his first 100 days than all previous presidents combined, I doubt we will see our national debt decrease any time soon.

So yeah, whats yours proposal

ok, stop making stuff up, for one.

massive cuts to military spending along with healthcare reforms leading to less per capita spending in the long run would alleviate much of our budgetary problems. the Dems won't be massively cutting military spending anytime soon, but at least healthcare reform is something they will attempt. for social security, it's shitty to say, but we're just kinda gonna have to weather the storm as best we can- eventually that population boom will die off. but I recall that some of the doomsday social security figures were well-argued to be very misleading or straight up false anyway. but somehow, a democrat in the not to distant past showed us how to come out with a surplus. by the by, the current president shares a similar economic stance and employs some of the old guy's advisors on the matter.

so yeah, what's the GOP's proposal? oh wait lol, they don't have one. tax cuts looooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

[ozz]

ok, stop making stuff up, for one.

massive cuts to military spending along with healthcare reforms leading to less per capita spending in the long run would alleviate much of our budgetary problems. the Dems won't be massively cutting military spending anytime soon, but at least healthcare reform is something they will attempt. for social security, it's shitty to say, but we're just kinda gonna have to weather the storm as best we can- eventually that population boom will die off. but I recall that some of the doomsday social security figures were well-argued to be very misleading or straight up false anyway. but somehow, a democrat in the not to distant past showed us how to come out with a surplus. by the by, the current president shares a similar economic stance and employs some of the old guy's advisors on the matter.

so yeah, what's the GOP's proposal? oh wait lol, they don't have one. tax cuts looooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Making stuff up?

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined

from...the Wall Street Journal.
Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama Is Moving Us Toward a European-Style Social Welfare State and Long-Run Economic Stagnation - WSJ.com
So...for one,..well anyway you get the point I didn't make it up

And no, the GOP probably doesn't have a much better idea, as they're also too liberal economically. They say they're the party of a smaller government, but in reality they are just as much for a big one as the democrats are. The proper solution would be to cut entitlement programs, the problem being if anyone actually did that they'd never be re-elected, because assholes like you love free stuff too much.

[Beckwin]

how does 3.6 trillion double the outstanding 10.5 trillion debt?

and bush ran up 500 billion dollar deficits, and I'm pretty sure a 3.6 trillion 09 budget isn't gonna result in quite a 1.5 trillion deficit on the year.

and it's widely observed that "European-Style Social Welfare State"s have a largely superior quality of life than we do- better education, better health, better working conditions, etc. but I guess throwing around words like "socialist" and "welfare" must mean it's terrible. who will think of our investor-class capitalist superheroes?!?!?

[ozz]

how does 3.6 trillion double the outstanding 10.5 trillion debt?

and bush ran up 500 billion dollar deficits, and I'm pretty sure a 3.6 trillion 09 budget isn't gonna result in quite a 1.5 trillion deficit on the year.

and it's widely observed that "European-Style Social Welfare State"s have a largely superior quality of life than we do- better education, better health, better working conditions, etc. but I guess throwing around words like "socialist" and "welfare" must mean it's terrible. who will think of our investor-class capitalist superheroes?!?!?

Ok did some more research, apparently it's in the next six years that his proposed budget will surpass the debt incurred by all previous presidents, according to Rep. John Boehner
Is it true that Obama's budget will create more National Debt than all 43 of his predecessors combined?
Read somewhere else that the total debt accumulated by his budget will be 9.3trillion, but I can't find any sources to back that up exactly.

And yes, in a capitalist nation "socialism" is terrible. And while you say it's widely observed that Europe has a superior quality of life, I don't observe it that way and I'd like to see some figures that back up your assertion, this guy wrote a piece acknowledging that your viewpoint exists and why it's flawed
Back Talk: Quality of Life in the U.S. and Europe, Part III

[Penthesilea]

I found this one on the way home from work. made me chuckle

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3913/photo4juo.jpg

the desperation is funny