[PrestonSturges]

I didn't miss a damned thing, and I was never a member of the Tea Party, either. By the way, you are displaying the exact attitude that was determined to be the epitome of Fascism in this thread earlier. By which I mean, you obviously think that government gridlock is a bad thing.

So..... the epitome of Fascism is passing laws?

You think the Nazis passed laws?

Name two laws passed by the Nazis. Go ahead, I'll wait.

[KaiserJeep]

Not interested. My earlier meaning was that most laws end up forcing people to behave in a certain way, instead of what comes natural. Something like 90% of the riders on named pieces of legislation are for the express purpose of giving one business an advantage over another. IOW, paid for by a lobbyist. Others are for nasty things like forcing healthy people to buy health insurance they don't need, or forcing the rest of us to pay for things they don't believe in, such as abortions on demand, which many people object to on religious or moral grounds.

Each law takes away a piece of freedom. If I had my way, I would rate the merit of politicians based on how many existing laws they repealed, not how many they enacted.

As for all you nasty Fascists that think the Federal Government should be messing around in Health or Education or in fact doing anything except what the US Constitution explicitly permits, a pox on all of you.

[ennui2]

That ancient planetary clock is a form of ancient analog computer. The knowledge to understand it's working was never lost

Then where were they? Gearwork like in the mechanism wasn't capable of being manufactured in europe until clocktowers started appearing in the middle-ages.

Knowledge without application is useless. We can preserve books on how to build a Saturn V rocket but what good is it if we don't have all of the requirements that go into manufacturing it? It's more than just theory.

Where did you learn history? Every single thing I said about the Democratic Party is established historical fact

You are trying to drag me back into a "my team--good--your team--bad" debate. This is what I'm objecting to. I don't want to score-keep, KJ. I am crying foul of your entire argument because you simply can't prove your side is "better" without closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears, and humming when we shove all the GOP mud in your face.

you obviously think that government gridlock is a bad thing.

Yeah. I do. Mr. Smith excepted, we don't elect leaders to go to Washington filibusterer. Politics is the art of compromise.

I believe that government gridlock was designed into our system deliberately by the Founding Fathers.

If the founding fathers conducted themselves the way the GOP does now, we'd never have a constitution. They knew when to finally STFU and get on with it if they were in the minority.

The most famous case I can think of when rigidity won out would be succession and the civil war. I suppose you supported that?

laws are the enemy of personal freedom.

Why have elected leaders at all, then? Total personal freedom is anarchy. Personal freedom needs to make way for the needs of society, and the society's dependence on a sustainable 'commons'. Look at post-Katrina. Left to their own devices, people go "zombie". Your ideology simply doesn't work.

All it leads to if you keep voting GOP is corporatocracy as big oil, big ag, etc... use your platitudes to sell their own agenda at society's greater expense.

utter failure to bring minorities into the mainstream of American life

For the next election, you go into the hood and explain to all the minorities that the Democrats are to blame for their misery. See if they buy it.

Listen, I've heard the whole "welfare state creates a self-fulfilling prophecy" spiel that I'm sure is on the tip of your tongue, and while there may be some truth to it, the fact remains that those who beat that drum the loudest tend to be the "I'm alright jack, keep your hands off of my stack" and "are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" crowd.

So spare me your heartfelt concern for the poor and downtrodden. It's just a talking point to try to attack the Dems at the pillar of their base, and not a very compelling one.

[ennui2]

most laws end up forcing people to behave in a certain way, instead of what comes natural.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I mean, what comes "natural"[sic]? Everyone joining hands and singing cumbaya? Or what few samples of anarchy we have to go by, like post-Katrina or the fall of Baghdad?

You do realize that a big draw of zombie movies is the idea of doing whatever you want without consequences. Everyone has childlike fantasies of how great it would be if there was no law and order. Most are wise enough to realize it ain't all it's cracked up to be.

...one business an advantage over another.

Don't talk to me about business advantages as if the GOP plays no part in this.

forcing healthy people to buy health insurance they don't need, or forcing the rest of us to pay for things they don't believe in, such as abortions on demand, which many people object to on religious or moral grounds.

And now we teeter into typical Fox News talking-point territory. :sigh:

the Federal Government should be messing around in Health or Education or in fact doing anything except what the US Constitution explicitly permits, a pox on all of you.

I take it you will be rejecting social security or medicare when you retire?

:sound of crickets:

[Cid_Yama]

I am crying foul of your entire argument because you simply can't prove your side is "better" without closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears, and humming when we shove all the GOP mud in your face.

+1

I noticed his response was:

Nor do I care what Henry Ford or the ancestral Bushes...

Which actually demonstrated which side the fascists were actually on (the subject of this thread) and who was providing Hitler the means to do his thing.

Do you think without the support of the ruling families, Hitler would have gotten anywhere? He was a failed artist and a beer hall soapboxer before their support came. Mein Kampf got him noticed, and the support of the elite got him the Chancellorship.

[ennui2]

The thing is, libertarianism and the GOP platform don't go together. The GOP only wants to borrow ideas from libertarianism in order to push for further deregulation on behalf of their corporate taskmasters, and this has done wonders to pull libertarians into the tent, but it's ultimately a bait-and-switch. You'd think KJ would know better than to put forward the GOP as the true party of limited government. It's the party of using government deliberately hamstringing itself to cede power to corporations. Has nothing to do with personal freedom.

[Cid_Yama]

The GOP only wants to borrow ideas from libertarianism in order to push for further deregulation on behalf of their corporate taskmasters, and this has done wonders to pull libertarians into the tent, but it's ultimately a bait-and-switch.
It's the party of using government deliberately hamstringing itself to cede power to corporations. Has nothing to do with personal freedom.

Another +1 - you're on a roll.

[sparky]

.
Both parties are grovelling to special interests and have no concern at all for the average citizen
only their respective constituencies , it is the governance party system
we rule for our respective masters and you get fed expensive propaganda tailored by advertisement firms
.....mad men soap politics ,
the usual result of the rottenness of public life is the people calling or welcoming an authoritarian system
which cut trough the legal and red tape maze , imposing decisions with little regard for legal or administrative obstacles
claiming a direct link between the people and him as legitimacy

...that's the essence of Fascism , and the people love it !
it work great for about 10 years

[onlooker]

haha, don't we have the perversion of poor whites down South reliably voting Republican each and every time despite it being overtly against their interests. the TPTB have so many so confused and deceived that they could probably convince some to jump off a bridge thinking it was the right thing to do.

[KaiserJeep]

Look, for the simple-minded among you: I am not, and never have been, a Republican or a Democrat. Your inability to understand this concept illustrates a simple point: You cannot conceive anything except a "me good, you bad" simplistic interpretation of American politics.

IOW, you are all champions of Bipartisanship, which I recognize as the real problem with American politics today. Nobody gets a break from me because they have an "R" or a "D" after their name. Instead, I look at the issue at hand, and I use an online source of information:

http://votesmart.org/

...to determine the voting history of the politician involved. I simply want to know whether they have a consistent pattern of support or opposition to the issue the legislation is nominally about. No discernable pattern is indicative of a corrupt public official who votes as he is paid to vote. Sadly, most Democrats and Republicans fall into this classification.

Now I am going to ask you to remember a fact that I know all of you were taught in High School Civics class, but that you probably overlook on a regular basis. There are two parts to Legislation, in the Federal Congress and in almost all State Legislatures.

First comes the public vote, which if successful, enacts a piece of legislation in either the House or the Senate. This vote is about politicos posturing before cameras, speaking words they do not mean about issues they either have the opposite position on, or simply do not care about supporting or opposing, other than as a corrupt source of funds. This establishes the "position" of the politician for the public record. In many cases, the only vote a given piece of legislation gets is when (to use the US Federal Government as an example) there exist incompatible versions within the House and Senate - and the fix is in, so to speak: this bill is dying in committee.

Secondly there is the appropriations phase of legislation. This is where they sort out the few laws which they actually planning to use from the majority, those which will never have any impact because they were passed to mollify a politician's base of supporters, and not because he really believes or really cares about an issue. The appropriations phase of legislation takes place off camera and off the record, and only the results are known. This is where the rubber meets the road, this is where a politician's true colors are showing. In appropriations, there is either a clear record which represents a rare politician with convictions who votes his convictions, or the usual case, which is somebody with no consistent record, because his vote is for sale.

The web page votesmart.org will help you, but you still have to do your homework. You will discover amazing things this way - Democrats who are themselves minorities but have absolutely no record of voting in support of minority themed legislation. Republicans who are publicly fiscally conservative, who spend Federal funds like drunken sailors.

If this is too much trouble for you, and you cannot be bothered to find out a politician's true colors, then IMHO you are simply too ignorant to vote, and a sucker for the oldest con game going, which proves again and again that you get the government that you deserve.

Ask yourself how a prominent Republican like Dennis Hastert comes up with 3.5 million dollars in hush money. Ask yourself how Hillary R. Clinton and her husband became multi-millionaires in two terms at the White House, with Bill's salary as POTUS $450,000 per year, and also ask how Hillary made a real estate investment (Whitewater) pay off $1100 for every buck invested.

For the love of <insert deity name>, show a grown-up's understanding of politics, and a grown-up's understanding of how the system actually works.

Now I am going the state a personal opinion, and I'm telling you this so there is no no misunderstanding: In the United States, both the Democrats and the Republicans are frequently found to be bigots or supremely uncaring about those issues which they nominally say they support. Most of the politicians of both parties are clearly corrupt, there is no significant discernable difference between the actual voting records for appropriations between the two major parties. This is because the Lobbyists spread the money around both parties, and believe me, most Lobbyists do understand how the system works - because like Dennis Hastert and Bill Clinton, they used to be part of it. (For the truly clueless among you, William J. Clinton is NOT a motivational speaker, he maintains a cover as such because if he openly worked as the lobbyist he is, Hillary who still has political ambitions would have his scrotum for a purse.)

IOW, the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" are both useless and deceptive.

[Ibon]

Now I am going the state a personal opinion, and I'm telling you this so there is no no misunderstanding: In the United States, both the Democrats and the Republicans are frequently found to be bigots or supremely uncaring about those issues which they nominally say they support. Most of the politicians of both parties are clearly corrupt, there is no significant discernable difference between the actual voting records for appropriations between the two major parties. .

What do you think of Bernie Sanders KJ?

[KaiserJeep]

In short, I have a problem with Bernie, the same flaw I find in most Democrats - he is a Big Government supporter, who clearly believes that if we could only pass enough laws, all would be sweetness and light. (I told you more than once, I am a libertarian, and I use the small "l" because as a party they have problems, too.)

Bernie's record on the environment and Climate Change is clear. His stance on most social issues is that of an entirely conventional Democrat.

He simply is not a candidate who can win. He can't get on the ticket in most states, he doesn't have a political base to do so, by petition, or enough money. He won't even get half the votes that Ross Perot got.

Depending upon who else is running as a 3rd party candidate in California or Wisconsin when I vote there, he might get my vote. However I am already thinking this is yet another election where there are no true leaders running, only scumbags.

[Keith_McClary]

One feature of authoritarian regimes not mentioned in the article, they like to have a plethora of vague laws with draconian penalties which they can selectively enforce when they want to "get" someone. They like to say "The Law is the Law."

[KaiserJeep]

I find myself in agreement with that, Keith. Both the Clinton and Obama administrations are infamous for attacking their political opponents using the Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS, etc. Pure Fascist behavior, and as you point out, a textbook example of abuse of power.

[Lore]

One feature of authoritarian regimes not mentioned in the article, they like to have a plethora of vague laws with draconian penalties which they can selectively enforce when they want to "get" someone. They like to say "The Law is the Law."

You mean like TX and OK politicians not allowing towns and cities to ban fracking. It would seem that some of them only like small government when it doesn't interfere with their big corporate masters. Sounds like fascism?

Fracking Bans Are No Longer Allowed In Oklahoma
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/0 ... king-bans/

[KaiserJeep]

You mean like TX and OK politicians not allowing towns and cities to ban fracking. It would seem that some of them only like small government when it doesn't interfere with their big corporate masters. Sounds like fascism?

Fracking Bans Are No Longer Allowed In Oklahoma
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/0 ... king-bans/

No, you got that one exactly backwards. The chaotic matrix of local laws is replaced by a single, clear statute in effect state-wide. Which is absolutely Republican and anti-Fascist. That's also the reason I don't support Republicans, their incessant stimulation of business is predictable, tiresome, and ultimately doomed to failure as the economy continues to contract - after energy prices start to rise again, that is.

The hysteria over fracking is also tiresome. Fracking is after all at the bottom of the current production surge and price decline in oil and gas.

[Lore]

You mean like TX and OK politicians not allowing towns and cities to ban fracking. It would seem that some of them only like small government when it doesn't interfere with their big corporate masters. Sounds like fascism?

Fracking Bans Are No Longer Allowed In Oklahoma
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/0 ... king-bans/

No, you got that one exactly backwards. The chaotic matrix of local laws is replaced by a single, clear statute in effect state-wide. Which is absolutely Republican and anti-Fascist. That's also the reason I don't support Republicans, their incessant stimulation of business is predictable, tiresome, and ultimately doomed to failure as the economy continues to contract - after energy prices start to rise again, that is.

The hysteria over fracking is also tiresome. Fracking is after all at the bottom of the current production surge and price decline in oil and gas.

Which goes to show you're just making up stuff as you go along. Another straw man excuse.

By definition such laws are faciest being created by a centralized autocratic government. Municipalities have always had the ability to limit commerce within their jurisdiction in order to safeguard and reflect its local citizens concerns. Whether it be strip clubs, industrial locations or no liquor on Sunday. There is no confusion other then in your mind.

[KaiserJeep]

To the contrary, YOU need a lesson in mineral rights. Both Oklahoma and Texas are long-producing petroleum states, and in virtually every county and township the mineral rights from every parcel that has changed hands in the last century have been severed from the real estate.

This means that the owner of the property does not own the oil and gas in a parcel, unless it has not changed hands since the late 19th century, or the mineral rights were specifically conveyed with the land itself when sold. This is rare because it is typical that the mineral rights in known oil fields are worth far more than the land itself.

This idea has never been popular with the landowners, but they actually have no standing to contest how the oil and gas rights are exploited unless they can demonstrate that their business or property have been damaged by the fracking process.

[Lore]

I have no idea what you're talking about. The only separation of rights is in the surface estate and the mineral estate underlying the land from seller to buyer. What the state laws are restricting is that local governments are not allowed to regulate how the extraction of minerals are done on leased land no matter how they may impact the community. As in this case, fracking. Which is to say, if some community does not trust the fracking method, tough luck.

Purely a faciest maneuver along party lines.

[ennui2]

If KJ is a small-l libertarian and he won't support Bernie in part because he "can't win" then I don't know why he would even vote.

When I say politics is the art of compromise, it also means being willing to support a candidate who isn't necessarily your ideal, because odds are that person doesn't exist, just like finding your soulmate is next to impossible.

I don't necessarily like supporting the "least objectionable candidate" but how many here, as red-pillers, really identify 100% with any mainstream candidate? At some level ALL these people are blue-piller BAU sheeple, yes, even Bernie Sanders.