Sarah Palin not running for president?
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@AWESOMEMAN:
Steve Jobs doesn't deserve the attention he's getting. He was mentioned in the news, as he should have been, being a billionaire businessman. People are harping on as if he really made a big difference in the world though. He didn't. He sold outlandishly high priced technology that was assembled in overseas by what amounts to slave labor. At best people could say he's responsible for the personal home computer, but that wouldn't be true.
Spartan you sound like you're able to back up your claim of being educated, but I can't help noticing that your argument isn't backed up by history or reality. A glance at Europe will tell an American that socialized capitalism is the best available answer. I don't know about UK politics so I won't even attempt it. I don't understand how you can justify calling some socialist policies fascist. You're right, nothing is free, and universal healthcare, among other things would cost every person. However it's pooled wealth, it's a burden shared by the entire nation, and it ensures that every person is cared for in the end. Shared concern and shared responsibility, instead of individual privilege.
Ok lets go through your points individually:
1) A glance at Europe will tell an American that socialized capitalism is the best available answer.
Not if you examine the empirical evidence and provable fact which show that:
A) Europe's global share of GDP is in decline and has been declining for at a couple of decades.
B) That the Euro currency is about to collapse, which will cause all sorts of other crashes across Europe.
C) Individual nations within Europe are in huge debts, and when these nations default, which is expected by most financial commentators, in particular the problems in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal are thought to be the worst, Europe will be even weaker.So no the European economy is a mess and about to be a bigger mess. America by contrast is the leading economy in the world, so has things right.
2) I don't understand how you can justify calling some socialist policies fascist.
Hmm lets see…
Well first I suppose a good start would be to understand what fascism means, before labeling what is and what is not fascism.
Fascism is an interesting word, as I think it is used in the English language frequently, yet regretfully I think people, although not consciously, don't think a lot of its meaning.
I would define fascism precisely as representing "A individual, political party or organisation aggressively opposed to the principles of individual liberty and democracy'
Hitler is the most well known fascist and what made him a fascist was that he ripped down freedom and democracy, first in Germany, than across most of Europe.
Precisely and technically: He undermined the right to vote, aka universal suffrage, through his enabling act which made him dictator. He aggressively attacked freedom of religious conscience, by his assault on Judaism, and while it is less well known, by his persecution of Christianity. He violated the freedom of all Germans to justice, by his arrest, prosecution of execution of Germans, for crimes they did not commit, in courts without juries or sometimes without a jury at all.
That precisely is what a real fascism is, it is an attack on liberty and democracy, of which the escalation of the Third Reich to violence and war, was but an aspect of. Before Hitler became dictator of Germany, a lot of what I have written above had already happened in Germany.
While all dictators are fascists, not all fascists become dictators, this however does not stop a non-revolutionary party from acting in a fascist manner, if they have a predisposition to do so. Had Hitler stripped Germany of all its freedoms, except that of the vote and then got voted out, he would still be a fascist.
As the British Labour Party aggressively attacked, the freedoms of the individual, while in power, that does make them, in a technical, non-arbitrary and a precise way fascist.
Nor is this the first time a conservative has called the illiberal politics of socialism fascist once it has moved over a certain threshold. For instance there is a great educational book, which was a New York Times, best seller for a good while called Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
This book actually:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liberal-Fascism ... 406&sr=8-1
When educated Brits talk about Big Brother and how they are sick of it, they are not talking about the silly game show of the same name. Big Brother is a reference to, a surveillance state, as was the case in the UK, under socialist rule, a phrase first coined, by the former communist turned famous anti-communist George Orwell.
As a closing point, is anyone willing to debate with me that the politics of either communist Russia or China, wasn't fascist? Or accept they were fascist nations, also ones of totalitarian socialism.
3) The general point that if someone is acting under rational economic self interest, that this does not aid society as well.
Well primarily I would argue that America, a nation which very much embodies the principles of rational economic self interest, or principles of capitalism, is also the wealthiest nation in the world and also recognised as probably one of, if not the most, free nation on Earth.
In terms of more specific points, If I find myself a job, I am helping myself, if I create a business, I am also financially aiding others and increasing their general economic betterment as well. If I grow to employ a 100 people, thats a 100 people I am aiding, if a 1000, thats a 1000 people I am aiding. Capitalism does financially empower society and improve the material possessions of the individual.
In terms of the consumer choice also benefits them, as per the example on mobile phones I have already written.
Finally while I would be the first to accept that capitalism is not perfect, it is the least imperfect of all governing economic systems as history shows. Communist Russia a full socialist nation, at its fall, had a collapsed economy. Europe a continent more socialised than America has a dwindling global market share of GDP and lots of other economic problems. America which is the least economically socialised nation, is at the top of the food chain.
Spartan
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Doesn't the USA have one of the largest, if not the largest, international debts in the world?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ernal_debt
Click on the tiny black ascending order arrow in the per capita section.Largest debt in total but not per capita. US owes $47,568 per capita. As opposed to say the UK which has a per capita debt of $144,338
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Hitler is the most well known fascist and what made him a fascist was that he ripped down freedom and democracy, first in Germany, than across most of Europe.
Precisely and technically: He undermined the right to vote, aka universal suffrage, through his enabling act which made him dictator. He aggressively attacked freedom of religious conscience, by his assault on Judaism, and while it is less well known, by his persecution of Christianity. He violated the freedom of all Germans to justice, by his arrest, prosecution of execution of Germans, for crimes they did not commit, in courts without juries or sometimes without a jury at all.
• Undermining the right to vote; Several states are implementing, or trying to, new and unnecessary Voter ID laws that essentially makes it more difficult to register and vote in any election.
• Religious oppression; Conservative mouthpieces and candidates themselves express their Islamaphobia and continue to promote discrimination.
• Violation of justice?; PATRIOT Act, Military Commissions Act, etc…And you're calling Obama a fascist?
I frankly think the left just likes to frighten people as fear is powerful in overriding rational debate. As a conservative I am more of a hope and reason kind of guy. I kind of consider all this fear mongering being done by the left on this pretty sickening, especially as facts show the real truth.
Yes, because it was definitely that extremely liberal and democratic president that made up the lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Besides, with a statement like that, you'd be a perfect host for Fox News, having lost Glenn and all…
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It doesnt change the fact the "Capitalist system" many conservatives idolize about the USA does not exhist in the United States.
If no one has money to buy the products you are selling, you will not be able to hire employees, and your company will not make any money.
Most American middle class families have more debt then income, so everything they make in a paycheck goes to keeping a roof over thier head and food on the table, and not buying a produce or service.
The American Economy is consumer based, people buy things. When no one has money to buy anything, there is no corporate profit.
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Page 6, Godwin's law makes an entry!
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@Deadlock:
Don't the Brits already have Obamacare? It's called Obamacare there too right?
No its called a negligent health system. Seriously guys I wouldn't wish a state controlled health system on my worst enemy, let alone the nation I have the highest opinion of after my own…
The Daily Heil is a hate-mongering tabloid rag renown for its distorted, sensationalist reporting. I wouldn't deign to wipe my arse with it. Every single healthcare system in the world has alarming individual stories which you can adduce to speciously condemn them with, but it's the overall picture, the agglomerated whole, with which you should be most concerned about. And when you look at it that sense, America's healthcare system regularly fails in its provisions for the disadvantaged and unfortunate.
You seem under the impression that socialised healthcare eliminates competition, but as anyone working in the NHS can tell you, with their endless slew of targets and the continual vying with other primary healthcare trusts' and private healthcare providers, people working in the NHS are expected to provide their best - if not vocationally because they have a duty of care, but also because their jobs depend on it.
Neither the Heil nor the Torygraph, arguably the most right-wing, conservative papers in the UK (along with the Express), support the disestablishment of the NHS in favour of a for-profit medical industry, where the poor will and do get left behind. For those of us who see day in day out what the NHS do for the needy, no matter what their background or their financial status, it just sounds insane. It's like suggesting that the taxpayer-funded, socialised military, or the taxpayer funded socialised primary and secondary education be replaced by the private sector. It's just fucking barmy.
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Doesn't the USA have one of the largest, if not the largest, international debts in the world?
I suspect it might well have one of the largest debts in the world, this does change though that the states is still the largest economy in the world, or that although America has lots of debts, other large nations have comparable debts as well.
As for how fascist/not fascist Obama is, I don't know what sort of legislation he is enacted since coming to power, although as I said before that he seems too fond of autocracies and undermines democracies, seems to me pretty instructive. I think though in all cases any party that seems to want to draw more power into itself, through expanding the state, will always and without exception, have more fascist tendencies than one that does not.
What I would say is that the British Labour Party was fascist, because after thirteen years of them being in power, it felt like we were living in a soft police state. Virtually every single freedom of the individual was undermined by Labour, which is most definitely fascist.
As for weapons of mass destruction, Bush was acting on the intelligence of Blair, the glorious leader of Great Britain at the time and a left winger. Although all saying all that I don't think it matters if Sadam had WMD or not.
He was an evil tyrant who murdered and tortured his people by the thousands and even if he didn't have WMD, he would have tried to acquire them given time. I really sleep happier knowing the world has one less evil tyrant in the world, but I find apologists for tyrants also tends to be a left wing phenomenon.
With regards to voter ID laws, I don't consider them anti-democratic in fact I would say the precise opposite, they strengthen democracy. I think if someone genuinely intends to vote, going to the trouble of identifying themselves is not a big ask, once every couple of years. On the other hand when controls are too lax, it does mean the voter fraud goes up and such can effect the result of the general election.
As for if this can happen or does happen in Western democracies:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/electio ... ction.html
oh and this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... fraud.html
I am very much in the British conservative majority in thinking that electoral fraud almost definitely cost us the election. Postal vote fraud has been widespread in the UK, and guess which party knocked the integrity of the vote? Yup you guessed it the same one caught out committing fraud the Labour Party.
Conservatives are all Islamaphobes eh? Give me a single example of a mainstream conservative who says he hates all Muslims in the UK or the USA? Just one. Still struggling I thought so. That is just garbage implying that all conservatives are Islamaphobes.
But then the only reason why left wingers play the race card, is to make up for the complete lack of substance in their arguments. For only those who cannot attack the argument attack the person.
I actually lived with a couple of Muslims at University and the Chairman of the British Conservative Party is actually a Muslim, Baroness Warsi. As the person who is in charge of our recruiting and carrying the British Conservative Banner is a Muslim, it shows pretty clearly that the British Conservatives are pro Islam, as they are pro faith in general.
Spartan
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@Deadlock:
Don't the Brits already have Obamacare? It's called Obamacare there too right?
No its called a negligent health system. Seriously guys I wouldn't wish a state controlled health system on my worst enemy, let alone the nation I have the highest opinion of after my own…
The Daily Heil is a hate-mongering tabloid rag renown for its distorted, sensationalist reporting. I wouldn't deign to wipe my arse with it. Every single healthcare system in the world has alarming individual stories which you can adduce to speciously condemn them with, but it's the overall picture, the agglomerated whole, with which you should be most concerned about. And when you look at it that sense, America's healthcare system regularly fails in its provisions for the disadvantaged and unfortunate.
You seem under the impression that socialised healthcare eliminates competition, but as anyone working in the NHS can tell you, with their endless slew of targets and the continual vying with other primary healthcare trusts' and private healthcare providers, people working in the NHS are expected to provide their best - if not vocationally because they have a duty of care, but also because their jobs depend on it.
Neither the Heil nor the Torygraph, arguably the most right-wing, conservative papers in the UK (along with the Express), support the disestablishment of the NHS in favour of a for-profit medical industry, where the poor will and do get left behind. For those of us who see day in day out what the NHS do for the needy, no matter what their background or their financial status, it just sounds insane. It's like suggesting that the taxpayer-funded, socialised military, or the taxpayer funded socialised primary and secondary education be replaced by the private sector. It's just fucking barmy.
By sensationalist stories, do you mean the facts that a major British hospital managed to kill 1200 people? As the preservation of life is the first and most important function of a hospital, I think when a hospital manages to kill over a thousand people, it must be objective viewed as a complete and absolute failure. The press didn't make this up, this happened, nothing you can say, can change that this happened.
Nor are criticisms of the British health care system limited to right wing paper. The liberal left news station channel 4, in a program called dispatches, investigated the state of many doctors surgeries and the competence of those operating within them. It made for pretty grim viewing. Information on this show and this issue can be found here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches
Look at the doctors stories on the right hand side of the main page.
Nor is it correct to state, as you imply, that only a state funded health care system, is the only way to care for the health of the poor. The vast overwhelming majority of the Western world, notably does not have a state controlled health care system. Yet you will also find, that the poor are still usually cared for and no hospital can refuse to give treatment to someone who clearly needs it.
With regards to the paperwork that medical staff are doing and targets, this is largely part of the problem. Precisely it is that because medical personnel were spending so much time trying to 'look like' they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, instead of focusing on care, which has led to so much purely needless loss of life.
As for why the Conservative Party and the right wing press, is not as a whole, pushing for a private health care system, it is not because they think that private health care isn't better, they all know it is better, it is purely because the political fall out, would be fatal for the party if they did it, and this in turn is because of the ill informed judgements of the political left and that the left would rather 'dogmatically' stick by a socialised health system and score points on the state knowing best, rather than save lives.
As for education the new Conservative led government, is introducing private educational providers, alongside what we have to improve educational standards. While such school will be free at the point of use, competition is being introduced into the educational system, and private firms will be paid by the state to improve educational standards.
This is in complete contrast to the one choice only and that choice is the state system, which we had under Labour. Under this system incidentally, educational standards dropped like a lead weight, with it being fairly well known, that British educational standards dropped dramatically fell down the international league tables.
I wouldn't want to privatise the police, military or court system, the private sector really cant run these, purely because these institutions have power to take away freedom and life, which is not compatible with a free market model.
I do believe though in elected sheriffs and elected judges however. The Conservative led government incidentally is introducing elected sheriffs, despite both major left wing parties opposing this move.
Spartan
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@Spartan –
That's a perfect example of the sensationalism I meant. Were 1200 people really killed in a British hospital? Really? Or is it that the hospital failed to live up to the high quality standards in the rest of the NHS which may have contributed to those deaths? The very reason it was so shocking is because it was unusual, atypical of the quality of care that people receive from the NHS. But it seems you're more interested in the outliers, the anomalies, rather than the overall trends.
I would love to know how you draw the conclusion that the failures of the hospital are down to public vs private investment, when the actual official inquiry pointed to other systemic flaws, but nothing to do with how it was funded.
By the way, your claim about state controlled healthcare is misleading. The vast majority of OECD countries rely on substantive amounts public expenditure[1] for their universal healthcare programs, and though the degree of actual government involvement varies depending on the system, many of the most successful systems are those with a high level of government management.
The reason it would be political suicide for any party to advocate what you are, is not because of the supposed hegemony of the left wing. Even parties who don't have a hope of swaying over left-leaning voters to them in a general election, like UKIP, are firmly opposed to the disestablishment of the NHS, favouring things like bureaucratic reform instead. The reason why no political party supports that is because the consequences would be so disastrous that it would be sheer lunacy.
As for your assertion regarding education, even the government don't view it in those terms…
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Haha, yes academia really isn't the institution it once was. But then the left wanted to get rid of all those silly ideas like right and wrong (as it is hurtful that someone has to lose), empirical evidence (climategate anyone) or open debate (the reason why it took climategate to expose the cranks).
For those who want to read about climategate:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... l-warming/
Something I love about Great Britain, is that we have some of the best newspapers in the world. Our papers have real balls our largest papers especially.
The nutshell of climategate was that East Anglia University, the single institution which has and still does have, the most influence on climate change, was caught red handed manipulating data and actively supressing the objective facts that the worlds climate has 'cooled' not warmed up, over this last decade.
Seriously I worry about the state of some universities, as they seem more and more to swim against Enlightenment principles, those of reason, fact and objectivity.
If you're going to take your scientific information from bloggers, it's worthwhile checking if the person in question possesses the requisite expertise to be reporting on the subject. James Delingpole is an English Lit grad who has no scientific acumen whatsoever.
The emails do not provide examples of manipulating the data or suppressing the facts, which is why after a thorough investigation, the Science and Technology Select committee recommended the reinstatement of Phil Jones who was at the centre of the supposed conspiracy. Have you examined the contexts of those emails or their authors, or are you relying on bloggers to interpret the snippets?
Was the person who wrote "we can't account for the lack of warming", for example, engaging in deceit, by privately expressing thoughts contrary to their public scientific claims?
No. Actually, in that very same email, Delingpole conveniently ignores that the author cited their publicly published paper expressing his dismay at the inadequacies of a particular temperature tracking system, whilst also stating that there are many other more reliable indicators of ongoing warming, such as the melting of the polar ice caps and rising sea levels.
I'm sure that if you take the time to thoroughly investigate the emails controversy, the simplistic view presented by certain figures in the media, is shown for the distortion it truly is.
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No Emergency Room can refuse a patient, the problem is the patient is STILL charged for any medical procedures.
So a poor person could get treated for a Heart attack, but they would still get hit by a bill for $100,000 and no way to pay for it, and the right wing wants to cut funding for the programs that do help in that situation.
The current extreme right wing of the United States is basically advocating the killing of Poor people because they are a burden on Capitalism.
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The emails do not provide examples of manipulating the data or suppressing the facts, which is why after a thorough investigation, the Science and Technology Select committee recommended the reinstatement of Phil Jones who was at the centre of the supposed conspiracy.
You mean the supposed "Independent" Scientific inquiery that never investigated the science?
Dear Dr Mcintyre,
Thank you for your message. What you report may or may not be the case. But as I have pointed out to you previously the science was not the subject of our study.
Yours sincerly,
Ron OxburghLord Oxburgh President of the Carbon Capture and
Storage Association and Chairman of Falck Renewables?A sister company of Oxburgh’s Falck Renewables, Actelios, is publicly traded and had suffered serious falls in its stock price during the period of Climategate.
Prof Huw Davies
Prof Kerry Emanuel-Mann Co-Author who admitted to data deletion before congress RE: The "Hide the Decline" scandal.
Prof Lisa Graumlich-Co-author with MBH’s Malcolm Hughes (Discredited Hockey Stick graph) A Paper Edited by Phil Jones subject of the inquiry.
Prof David Hand
Prof Herbert HuppertThe emails do not provide examples of manipulating the data or suppressing the facts?
Former IPCC Leader Says Climategate Scientists “Manipulated Data.â€
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Hasn't Sarah Palin banned all these? Why are we discussing them here? Check out the list of books banned by Sarah Palin before posting, please.
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Nor is this the first time a conservative has called the illiberal politics of socialism fascist once it has moved over a certain threshold.
For Socialisim to function it needs to be centrally planned to some degree for any redistrabution to be enacted. This is usually a top down style of government.
Like the UN IPCC Official Ottmar Edenhofer Co-Chair of Working Group III: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World's Wealth. Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated. â€
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golw wins
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You mean the supposed "Independent" Scientific inquiery that never investigated the science…
You're talking about same Lord Oxburgh who up until fairly recently was the non-executive chairman of the petroleum giant Shell? That some of these scientists have worked together in the past is hardly surprising, given that the IPCC is the largest scientific gathering of its type ever in the history of the world. They have all worked in the AGW field, as virtually everyone with the qualifications to talk about it broadly agrees with the theory.
The committee's goal was not to conduct a science investigation of their own, they were inquiring into the scientific rigour of the CRU's investigations - whether the data had been fudged, whether their conclusions actually proceeded from the data collated, and so on.
Former IPCC Leader Says Climategate Scientists “Manipulated Data.â€
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Like the UN IPCC Official Ottmar Edenhofer Co-Chair of Working Group III…
That isn't a quote at all. It was falsely attributed to him, and has since has ended up doing the rounds in the blogosphere anyway, because many of them don't appear to care about the facts - they prefer to live in some neo-McCarthyite paranoid fantasy about a massive globalist socialist conspiracy. And sadly, some people take their word for it, rather than the thousands of qualified climatologists. The comment is actually taken from a subheading of an article written by the journalist, Bernhard Pötter, or one of the editoral staff of NZZ Online. They are not Edenhofer's own words.
However, Edenhofer is on the record as saying that green policies could result in the redistribution of wealth. Not because of the fraudulent Marxist agenda you claim, but because he advocates clean energy alternatives taking up the slack, instead of reliance on enormously wealthy fossil fuel companies.
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awsomeman said some pro socialist stuff
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Hows that working for you? More spending should help.
The deputy director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) Ottmar Edenhofer. The institute that when confronted in debate with empirical evidence refuting alarmist claims by (EIKE) say. "But but the models say..." Ottmar the liar? "The first remark by Edenhofer is a lie. Edenhofer was a lead author in AR4 WG3. That chapter does not reflect the literature. Papers that were at odds with the IPCC authors’ viewpoints were omitted or cited incorrectly." http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/06/von- ... chard-tol/ "
The translated text from your Ottmar link. "Climate has nothing to do with environmental protection hardly anything, says the economist Ottmar Edenhofer. The next World Climate Summit in Cancún is actually an economic summit at which it related to the distribution of resources. But it must be clearly said: we distribute through climate policy de facto capital of the world order. That the owners of coal and oil, of which are not thrilled, is obvious." Interview: Bernhard Pötter http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... 73227.html
That some of these scientists have worked together in the past is hardly surprising, given that the IPCC is the largest scientific gathering of its type ever in the history of the world. They have all worked in the AGW field, as virtually everyone with the qualifications to talk about it broadly agrees with the theory.
You forgot Ron's ties to organised crime. It's not suprising the the scientific inquiery done by a carbon mogul with a clear conflict of interest, aided by climategate co-conspiriters would take 45 hrs including coffee breaks to not ask any tough questions or interview anyone with an opposing view, or look at the actual science despite the claim that was the mandate of the pannel. http://climateaudit.org/2010/09/08/oxbu ... committee/
IPCC, Largest in history? Virtually everyone with qualifacation agrees? All 60 of them? http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions ... 17643.html Even all of those never agreed to the concensus. Ben Santer edited the Summary for Policy Makers Chapter after they signed off. http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Scien ... 95-Ch8.htm
There's 60 scientists from 17 countries working on CERN's CLOUD experiment. http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1370582 The second independant experiment to verify the theory's of Svensmark. http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/c ... e-crop.gif "The correlation between cosmic rays and temperature is much better over all time spans than that with carbon and temperature."
All this is rather moot seeing as the "Debate is Over" the "Deniers" won. http://dailybayonet.com/?p=9031 The Alarmists never could produce empirical evidence supporting their claims. http://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/dr-dav ... -evidence/ Even poor old "I invented the Internet" Al Gore is being thrown under the bus. http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/43985