Are republicans willing to let the economy fail to win an election?

I need to spread some rep because something you are funny as ****.

 

In answer to the question, "Are Republicans willing to let the economy fail to win an election?" the answer is obviously yes. It pains me to say it, and that's the truth, but after watching politics play out on the national stage for decades, I'm finally witnessing the unthinkable. The Republican Party is deliberately attempting to drive the economy over a cliff in order to win the next presidential election. They want a trifecta, and they think they can pull it off.

 

Well frankly I take that as a compliment that you as a person who has by your own admission taken rather strong ideological positions think of me as in the middle and are flustered by it.

I don't know if you are asking me to apologize, agree with you or just ruminating out loud. I stated something that I was on my mind to add to the debate and discussion, as the forum is called, obviously not expecting everyone to agree with it and for that matter not even stating it as an ideological position yet it seems to have struck something with you to the point of almost making it personal.

None of us agree with each other 100% and this place would be much much more boring if we did. I appreciate that you think I am a knowledgeable poster and for the record I think you are too but you (and Rhad and Glynch recently) seem to almost take personally that I don't agree with you and call me out on it often using my real name (I'm not offended since that was my moniker for a long time but I rarely see that done except for calling out FFB by his real name when people are pissed at him).

 

First off I've only used your real first name in that way that I use RM95 with groogrux - just a callback to a prior user name. Not intended in any nasty way.

I do get flustered, not because I think you are in the middle, but because you seem to think the middle is the only righteous place to be. You seem almost obsessed with "seeing both sides" and treating them as equals, even (or almost especially) when that is a clearly irrational response to one party doing something egregious and the other party not doing so.

Your example that "everybody does it" because a speaker at a Nader rally did what McConnell, Boehner and Cantor do on a regular basis was not just a reach; it was a reinforcement of a very dangerous meme.

I say dangerous not because it is dangerous to one party or cause or another, but because when everyone is lumped together (whether it's deserved or not), it directly contributes to the cynicism that leads people to staying home rather than participating in the democratic process.

It is a cliche, but a demonstrably false one. I call you out on it not so you will agree with me but because I think it needs to be brought to your attention that the center isn't a righteous place to be when the center keeps moving and always in the same direction.

By the mere act of saying well everyone does it and then presenting an exceptionally lame example to make your point, you are doing the work of the people who behave extraordinarily badly and hope to get away with it under the guise of 'everybody does it.'

It's not me (or rhad or any other Dem) that's gotten more partisan. In fact, in many cases and especially in critical negotiations, I give Obama a lot of benefit of the doubt because I was never under the illusion that he'd be a firebrand when he campaigned as and always was a pragmatist.

It's not me that's gotten more rigid or more partisan or more delusional in his anger; it is the Republican party.

There are extremely reasonable people in the Republican party, in elected positions, but they are becoming an endangered species as the party leadership exacts a strategy of our way or the highway. It's ironic that you seem to insist on 'seeing both sides' and being 'in the center' when one of the major parties is aggressively primary-ing anyone in their party that even glances at a moderate position on anything.

Bringing up a Nader speaker (in direct comparison to the freaking Speaker of the House) in order to say well they're all the same on both sides does a real disservice to the truth as well as encouraging apathy and cynicism on the part of the electorate. You should know better than that.

You're not CNN. It's not your job (as you seem to think it is) to give equal time to both positions even when one position is intensely radical and unwavering and the other is intensely conciliatory. Those things are not "the same." They are the opposite of the same.

I'm not arguing for Democrats here; I'm arguing for rationality.

 

That's fine. Just checking but I have noticed that some posters tend to use my personal name when they are calling me out over something and not just in general. Obviously I don't expect you to speak for them.

Honestly I'm not sure you're in the position to be talking about righteousness as to be blunt your post frankly come off as self-righteous including this one.

That said I have a pedantic style of posting which I will admit is one of my failings. If people find me self-righteous and lecturing. I apologize.

I think you are reading way too much into this. If I was truly doing that I wouldn't have said you had a good point. I'm not New Yorker and trying to play devils advocate to get people riled up. I brought up something to add to the discussion with the expectation that people would respond to it in a way to further the discussion, which you did by bringing up an excellent point. Regarding the fact that Boehnor et al are actually in power.

Honestly this seems way more self-righteous than anything I have written. I can largely agree with you on most of this but just reading this it seems more like a call to battle than an intellectual discussion. I understand these are important issues but it often seems like that you and some others are way too caught up in this and seeing it as a zero sum game. If you give an inch they will take a mile.

In the realm of Clutchfans D & D I agree with you more often than not but that doesn't mean that I don't have an abiding skepticism and intellectual curiosity to the point that I will raise points just to hear how others argue them. It also doesn't mean that I will agree with you on everything and I don't expect you to agree with me either but frankly these posts often sound like the orthodox lecturing a heretic.

Anyway I don't want to belabor this and I will admit some personal annoyance that I am probably unfairly dumping on you so will leave it at that.

 

Not incidentally, it is an especially dim view to say that "everyone does it" in this particular case, when we are talking about wanting the country to fail in order to benefit one's party.

Not only are the Republicans doing this and the Democrats aren't and didn't and haven't, but we just went through about 6 years when opposing the president on literally anything was translated into the opposition not supporting the troops, wanting them to fail or even endangering their lives by voicing opposition on any issue at all.

Note that in both cases (with Obama and Bush) I am talking only about party leadership and official party positions. I am not including any idiot that gets to talk into a live mic.

In the case of Bush, Democrats were accused of wanting failure when they never did a single thing to signal that failure was even on their radar.

In the case of Obama, it is the explicit strategy and policy of Republicans to want the country to fail in order to achieve their stated number one priority of making Obama a one-term president. Yes, many Dems said they wanted Bush to be a one-term president, but that didn't stop them from compromising like crazy to get stuff done. The stated policy of today's GOP is to demand everything, concede nothing, to let the country go to hell if they don't get their way (100%) and to threaten a filibuster on every single thing Obama tries, from a court nomination to resolving the deficit.

I am giving you evidence here. I am making clear arguments that don't come from any newspaper or website but from my own educated assessment of the situation. I'd appreciate it if you'd return that favor. If you continue to stick to your position that both parties are essentially the same when I am demonstrating so many ways they are fundamentally different, the onus is on you to address my arguments and not just say well you're a radical so I'm proud that I don't agree with you.

 

I didn't say "self-righteous," which I admit to being; I said "righteous." The words have entirely different meanings.

I said that you seemed to believe that seeing both sides as equal and so deserving of equal respect even when they are demonstrably not equal, in other words finding the "middle" and sticking to it regardless of how far the middle moves rightward, to be "righteous." I meant that you, IMO, often make the mistake of saying they're all the same as a matter of presenting yourself (whether to us or just to yourself) as a "centrist."

When the center moves, being a centrist is neither a righteous position nor even a lucid one.

Yeah, I'm self-righteous, sure. That's just the way I am. But I do my best to support my arguments and confine them to ones that have some evidence behind them. I never said Iraq was for oil. I never even really b****ed about Halliburton. I never slammed Bush on 9/11. I hold strong, leftist views, but none of them are a result of my bias and I don't hang with the most radical elements in my party. I think they're stupid too. (Meanwhile, the GOP which you are so quick to equate with the Dems hangs ONLY with the most radical elements and shuns anyone that is in any way moderate on any issue or in any way open to compromise.) My arguments are all supported and I don't march in lockstep. You do however seem to march in lockstep, not in favor of one party over the other, but in what seems almost like a pathological need not to. Ever.

 

Please don't think any of my posts here indicate a dislike or disrespect for you. Neither is true.

 

I understand that but whether you realize it or not your posts do come off as expressing personal offense including the one above and the fact that you've posted a similar angry post in another thread just reinforces that.

I think you are still reading way more into what I posted. Again you are treating this as a zero sum game. While I pointed out that yes all sorts of people do this, which you agree with, I never said it was equal or that all sides are the same. You are the one projecting that view on me. As I said before you raise a good point and you have argued it well but apparently you seem so locked into your perception that you continue arguing even when I acknowledge that and then even follow it into another thread.

Again I think you have been so caught up with those who truly are completely rigid and inflexible in their thinking and are only here to rile people up that you are no longer seeing the give and take of real intellectual discussion.

I really really apologize to the rest of Clutchfans D & D for belaboring this and perhaps I am more thin skinned than I would like to think.

 

The primary difference between you and I, judoka, is that I am a dick a lot of the time and you never are. I freely concede that point.

 

Eric Cantor will personally benefit if the debt ceiling isn't raised. He's already benefiting after he called off talks last Thus.

The article this comes from discusses it in more detail.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/27/eric_cantor_conflict_of_interest

 

I wish they just made blind trusts mandatory for all federal politicians. Presidents use blind trusts but other officials dont.

Very stupid situation if you ask me.

 

They prefer to be blind to the travails of the country, and I don't know why you stopped at the federal level. The problem is just as bad at the state, county, and local level. It's simply a matter of degree.

 

oh my, too bad we can't use political sigs.

 

I think you are wrong there. The main difference is that Sishir can see both side of an argument, and speak intelligently about his side where as you come off as the liberal version of Basso.

 

Considering Basso does nothing but post links hidden in really cliche memes (along with youtube videos), I'd say you are incorrect.

 

I also write my own material, unlike basso. I also answer every challenge that is addressed to me, unlike basso who actually never does. I also don't make baseless accusations (such as if you oppose Bush on taxes you wish American troops would die or if you're opposed to anything about Palin you hate disabled children), as basso does. I also find fault in my own party and my preferred president, as basso does not. I also don't find fault in the opposition without backing it up with my own thoughts and in my own words, as basso never does.

rocketsjudoka does exactly what rockbox did here, comparing completely unequal things and presenting them as equal regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. Though judoka (his preferred name here btw, rockbox) generally does so in a considerably more thoughtful way than rockbox did here.

I am not blindly partisan; I just have a dickish debating style. That quality in me is worthy of condemnation to be sure and I wish I wasn't that way, but to say I am like basso is lazy and stupid.

 

Ha!

I have to spoiler this for NSFW langauge.

Spoiler

To quote Team America. There are three types of people: p*****s, dicks and assholes. Now the dicks just want to f#ck everything so the p*****s don't like them but dicks don't just f#ck p*****s they also f#ck assholes. If not for the dicks we would just have assholes sh^tting all over p*****s.

 

I wonder if that is a potential ethics violation on the part of Cantor if he doesn't divest himself or at least put it in a blind trust.

 

I appreciate the plug but can you stop using my real name? There is a reason why I changed my moniker since it was an accident that it was my real name initially and I don't want Clutchfans threads showing up in searches about me.

Also while I have my disagreements with BJ he isn't a bad guy and is very genuine.