Santorum Drops Out

[Baneblade]

There are plenty of things we could stop spending so much on.

[ItsTheSheppy]

Obama might have this one in the bag. I'm a little sad Santorum didn't win; he's way less electable, but I don't think Romney can do it.

I heard a very interesting breakdown of why on the radio the other day. Let me paraphrase:

DJ1: Romney might take it just because republicans will vote for him because he's not Obama. They'll hate Obama enough to go out and vote.

DJ2: Yeah but you see, winning elections is about mobilizing not your base, but the people who usually don't vote, you know? You need to get the lazy people out, and the lazy people won't get off their asses for a guy they don't care about.

DJ1: Even if they really hate the other guy?

DJ2: Look at Bush and Kerry. The left hated Bush but didn't really care about Kerry, so he lost. It doesn't matter how much your party hates the other guy. It's all about how much your candidate can motivate people, and for that, they gotta really like him. And from my perspective, republicans see Romney the same way Democrats saw Kerry. 'Meh, he's not the other guy, so he's gotta be better'. I don't think he's got a chance.

[Hamma]

They may as well just not have an election. Romney has no chance against Obama we are doomed to another 4 years.

[ItsTheSheppy]

It's not like it really matters. The president is, in my opinion, little more than a cheerleader for the party, politically speaking. His only jobs are to command the military (which, to be honest, more or less runs itself 99% of the time), enforce the laws, cheer-lead for the party, and go on expensive foreign missions to meet with other leaders and smile a lot.

I am far more dissatisfied and concerned about congress, which as far as I'm concerned is an incredibly broken and worthless governing body, and in need of a lot of revision.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Malorn

We're never going to see common ground here. You trust and believe in the government to do the right thing and I believe the opposite. I have my faith in freedom and the free market.

I will point out it's not a complete trust. You can't view topics like this as black and white. Things that can't be readily exploited with government control, like I believe healthcare fits into this group, is excellent. Things like bills relating to the Internet for instance are often worded poorly and broad and easily exploitable. Basically focusing on things the government could handle and strictly limiting their control for the benefit of society is the concept I'm usually for. Which is generally why it's so easy to refute Republicans because they view all topics as black and white when there's many options. You basically proved this by picking one thing I said and judging me based on it. Common tactic used by Fox news and Rush, so I really didn't expect anything different.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[ItsTheSheppy]

You know, I've never understood the scandal of a politician changing their mind about something. Take Romney. He passed a health care law in Mass., but he's against Obama's health care law. Okay. Maybe he changed his mind?

Can you imagine if real life worked this way? Back in the day I used to think raw fish was gross and made fun of sushi. Then I tried it and, hey, I actually like it. Now I'll tell anyone who'll listen that it's good. Or what if you used to really hate SNL, but then you saw a clip online or something and thought, oh thats sort of funny, and then you started watching it. And then suddenly all your friends are like "HOW CAN WE TRUST YOU WITH ANYTHING, FLIP-FLOPPER?"

Our ability to change our minds on stuff is a valuable asset. I'm much, much more leery of people who can never alter their opinions when presented with new evidence than people who change their tune when they realize they were singing off key.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

You know, I've never understood the scandal of a politician changing their mind about something.

It's why they changed their mind. Changing their mind is fine if they justify it. Sadly it is often because they've secretly sold out to lobbyists or are pandering toward a group.

[ItsTheSheppy]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

It's why they changed their mind. Changing their mind is fine if they justify it. Sadly it is often because they've secretly sold out to lobbyists or are pandering toward a group.

I will agree that Romney comes off as a man who will say anything if it will only get him elected president. But that's only when taken in context with some of the other stuff he says; just the vague way he talks, the queer way he acts. He's like an alien who read about these strange humans called 'conservatives' or 'citizens' and he's seen how they act on TV, but something gets lost in the translation when he tries to act like them in public.

He's kinda deep in the Uncanny Valley, I think is one of his big problems.

But I dunno, the idea that you can be for something ten years ago, but have a different opinion about it now, and have that be an OMG SCANDAL, just seems weird and sad. It would be something totally different if he was saying it after a week. Or a day.

Perhaps sadder is the fact that they often change their minds ONLY because of money and lobbying. Another example of the sheer broken nature of our governing system.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Malorn

He didn't change his mind. Romney's health care was a state decision; Obama's is federal.

It's state rights vs federal power. We fought the American Civil War over this fundamental difference in governing power. Perhaps you've heard of it?

I believe the states-rights people lost.

Also Romney did say it was a model for the national level.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition...n30_st.art.htm


Also, why do people say "Its fine for a state to mandate insurance but federal!?!?!". I see little difference between state and federal.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Shanesan]

Shit. I didn't want to make this into a Ron Paul thread. Oh well. Let me try to clear this up.

Originally Posted by Figment

Department of Defense: 501.000.000.000 (increasing each year)
Department of Veterans affairs: 59.500.000.000 (increasing each year)
Department of Homeland Security: 32.152.000.000 (fixed)

You might want to look at what those budgets are right now. There are cuts in there, in all those departments. Cuts are important in the long-term for the United States. Perpetual debt is dangerous and the wrong road to be on.

Originally Posted by Figment

Education? Who needs education!? That only creates Obama-type smart arses, right?!

You don't need education from the Federal Government. We have departments in both the State and your Local goverments that should be taking care of that. Not only that, but since the DoE's inception, our scores amongst the smartest in the world are plummeting like a bomb from a plane.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/2...he-brains-race
We spend how much more per every other country and get what out of it?

Originally Posted by Figment

Not to mention with no department of commerce, you're ruining chances of companies to create new contacts, disrupt chances of entry into foreign markets etc. Energy management? Making sure everyone has access to energy?

There are State departments for all these departments, and you obviously don't know what these departments actually do. This is like saying "The PATRIOT ACT is patriotic. I mean, look at the name!"

Department of Energy. A relatively small target at $27 billion dollars a year, the Department of Energy sets standards for vehicles, provides nuclear security, remediation, nuclear power for military application, pure science, and other services.

Energy spends 6 billion dollars a year for remediation, for example cleaning up the nuclear weapons waste left over from the cold war. That expense is substantially unavoidable, given that several of the major sites are toward the upstream ends of the Columbia and Snake rivers. Areas here include Defense Environmental Cleanup, Non-defense cleanup, and Nuclear Waste Disposal. This should be moved into the military budget. As far as Ron's actual stance on what to do with this, I'm not sure. It would probably be pushed to the DoD where it should be.

Military applications of nuclear energy, mostly weapons cost us about 7 billion dollars a year. The Cold War is over. No country shows any credible urge to attack the United States. Most other nuclear powers are friendly to the United States. Under these conditions, a substantial reduction in the investment in our weapons stockpile and thus the spending here is entirely appropriate. This item can be very substantially reduced, though there is a technical complication raised by the short half-life of tritium. Ron Paul would cut this budget significantly, and thus our huge unnecessary stockpile of nukes, and hand the rest over to the military.
Ship propulsion & R&D, which cost about 1 billion a year, are from submarine and carrier fleets are nuclear powered and need replacement parts. Given the lack of military competition, substantial research on new reactor types is difficult to justify and can be pushed to the free market. This item can be reduced and the rest can move back to the DoD.

Nonproliferation costs a little over $1 billion a year, and it mainly focuses on reducing the supply of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, which is great. On the other hand, buried in here are various efforts to manipulate the domestic policy of foreign nations that are inappropriate in a foreign policy based on truth and freedom. Some reduction is possible, but the rest is DoD spending. Ron Paul would most likely push it to the military as it's not suggested to remove it completely.

Scientific research is almost 5 billion dollars of the Energy budget. Before World War II, the Federal government substantially did not involve itself in pure scientific research. At the end of World War II, Fermi's first observation of fission (1934) became deployable weapons that turn cities into pillars of fire in less than a decade. The Strategic Bombing Survey made clear that weapons procurement was now the procurement of new laws of nature. After 50 years, it is reasonably clear that this research well has been pumped dry. High Energy and Nuclear Physics may be interesting, but seem extremely unlikely to lead to significant defense applications in the future, especially since nuking places has turned into bad publicity. Buried in here are a variety of materials programs, for example studies of neutron irradiation, that are significant for their remediation, propulsion, and weapons applications. Also buried in here are a wide variety of energy studies, for example biological energy production, that appear appropriate for private universities. Here is an area that could be substantially eliminated and push the rest to the DoD.

Nuclear, delivery, efficiency, renewables, clean coal initiatives and other research costs the DoE $2+ billion a year. The primary investment here is in areas that should return to private enterprise. Wipe it out.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve costs 300 million dollars every year! The reserve is a response to a near-war situation in the 1970s which is now used during the 4th of July to get you places cheaper. Still, it's really on your dime. Maintaining military stocks makes sense, but the real future is to replace the Strategic Petroleum reserve with a country not dependent on non-renewable foreign fuels that will in any event soon cease to be readily available. Reduce, if not eliminate

And the one we don't know much of - the Energy Information Agency which costs 100 million every year. Here we have one of the many Federal information ("spy") agencies, responsible for collecting information and making it generally available. There are an awful lot of these, and the EIAs work mirrors the work of an international agency that gives very similar answers. Cut, cut, cut!

And that's, finally, the end of the goddamn Department of Energy. Jesus.

Sorry. That was a little much. I'll continue in another post.

[Shanesan]

Originally Posted by Figment

Department of Commerce

The long and short of it, the Department of Commerce, introduced in 1913, has one specific purpose: promote economic growth. At a little over $9 billion a year, it uses most of it as handouts to companies. Even Obama cut this department.

Department of Commerce business subsidies should be abolished, including technology subsidies, handouts to fishermen, and minority business aid. The private sector does not need government help to prosper, it just needs the government to provide a stable environment with low inflation, modest taxation, and limited regulation. Companies become stressed and concerned when the government flip-flops over what tax handouts there are this year, and what the tax hike will be next year.

Get rid of the whole thing and ensure stability in taxes. That's all that's needed.

Originally Posted by Figment

Department of Education

Pick a teacher. If you talk to almost any teacher who has been around for over 10 years, you will most likely hear from them that the biggest hurdle they have for teaching is the unfunded liabilities that the Federal government has forced them to perform.

A big example of this is the No Child Left Behind program. With the additional tests that the DoE requires, it has proven, with their own devices, that the attempt to control education from the top has not fulfilled it's intended purpose - to raise grades. Grades have remained the same as they have since the DoE began, but upped the cost per student by approximately 375% in inflated dollars. Please note that the DoE doesn't fund for school lunches and other things like that, so it is really easy to cut the $70 billion/year department and replace it with the already running but currently worthless state-controlled Departments of Education, as the closer you are to the students, the better off you can cater to their individual needs or try new ideas. There was a TED talk not too long ago discussing the importance of visual learning that the DoE currently doesn't support and schools do not have the time to try because of Federal mandates.

Originally Posted by Goku

Exactly Vash. Nothing Obama has done is close to socialism IMO.

More along the lines of totalitarian policies, in my opinion.

Obama backed off on closing Guantanamo.
Obama backed off of his promise to keep lobbyists out of his administration.
Obama protected the Bush administration from prosecution for torture.
Obama authorized the assassination of U.S. citizens abroad.
Obama rescinded on his promise to not prosecute marijuana users in states where it is legal, and pushed for a 5 year prison term for a California-legal medical marijuana dispensary operaton.
Obama prosecuted child-soldier Omar Khadr using evidence gained through torture.
Obama granted 27 waivers to oil companies drilling in the weeks following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Obama fought for, and won, the right to deny habeas corpus to detainees.
He blocked UN human rights investigations at Guantanamo.
He dropped charges against the CIA for destroying videotapes documenting torture of detainees.
He continued rendition of alleged terrorists to countries where they could be tortured.
He continued indefinitely detaining alleged terrorists, WITHOUT TRIAL.
He extended the PATRIOT Act, with no reforms.
He dramatically increased government secrecy, denying more Freedom of Information Act requests in 2009 than Bush did in 2008.
He cut a secret deal to kill the public option, while still campaigning on its behalf...
He defended Don't Ask Don't Tell from legal challenges and then "celebrated" its repeal.
He reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage though he campaigns as if he supports it.
He granted waivers to 30 companies, including McDonalds, exempting them from health care reform.
He announced the single largest arms deal in history, of $60bil worth of arms, to Saudi Arabian dictatorship.
He gave permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws.
He appointed Monsanto executive Michael Taylor to the FDA.
He appointed a former Monsanto lobbyist as Chief Agriculture Negotiator.
He appointed Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury.
He increased the use of combat drones in Pakistan.
He passed a massive Wall Street bailout at the expense of the taxpayers.
He played down the importance of the WikiLeaks documents.
He pushed for mandatory DNA testing for those arrested for crimes, even if they have not been convicted.
He undercuts whistleblowers.
He promised $30bil in military aid to Israel over the next decade.
He gives $250,000 to Chevrolet every time they make a Volt.

I have links for all those.

[Malorn]

Meh.