His argument:
"What I meant is that if you don't have the education you really don't know what is good for the economy and what isn't. However, there are people who are blind to the truth, because they don't care. And that right there is what is frustrating. They are so wrap up in the lies that the media tell them, that they don't look around for the facts. They don't research these things."
So basically, his argument that you need education to know what is good for the economy and what isn't, and that those that don't hate Obama are "blind to the truth".
My argument:
"But the fact simply is that you're claiming that others that disagree with you about Obama must be ignorant while you hold onto the One Truth, which does sound incredibly insulting.
The facts don't make any of the other candidates look good. Maybe Ron Paul, because he seems the only politician in the race that was capable of saying, even when it wasn't popular, that bombing Iran was stupid instead of going with the "we should declare war!" line -- something that Obama is being criticized for not doing himself. Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich seem more jokes than real presidential candidates.
I haven't seen much involving the economy that hasn't been cherry picked; Obama isn't doing perfectly to suddenly change the economy, even though the economy has been slowly getting better. That's kind of to be expected. It would be nice if he could pull an FDR and throw out a ton of resolutions to solve the problem, but there are real restrictions to that with the Supreme Court and Congress throwing their lot into things, and now super PACs mean that more and more politics are going to be decided by corporate influence than even before (whether or not Obama ends up in the white house for re-election).
The fact is, we might get more done if the Republican Party was more willing to compromise, but they are growing more and more extremist. They are ousting their moderates or browbeating them into toeing the party line, they are stronger than ever before on neoconservative social issues, and can you really justify Grover Norquist's requirement of never raising taxes, ever? If you want a stupid economic policy, that's it; when you're in a time of plenty and without war, you lower taxes, but then you can't raise them if war falls on you or a major event occurs, which would cripple the country."
He returns:
"The Republican Party are willing to compromise. The reason they aren't is because the Democratic Party are trying to get things voted in that the people of the United States don't want. The Democrats are trying to put their agenda, which is full of Socialist and Communist ideals by the way, in power. They want to get rid of the second amendments which allows people to own fire arms, )if they get rid of this amendment I'm still going to own my own gun.) They want to change the Constitution which is what our nation is built apon. If they get rid of the Constitution then America is done for. They want Obamacare because, oh "Europe has the best medicare in the world." Nothing, in the Democrats agenda is good for America. That is all there is to it."
Basically: "The Republican Party are willing to compromise, but they won't because the Democrats are Communists." I mean, this is basically "They're willing to compromise, but they won't compromise because..." This kind of logic is a little baffling.
But I fire back:
"So you know economics and I don't, but you're claiming that the Democrats are pushing "Communist ideals". Maybe you should look into what Communism is about.
The second amendment does not socialism or communism make. Furthermore, "the people of the United States" do not all agree like a great hive-mind about the second amendment or its limits. There is a lot of room for debate on the second amendment. I should also add that the second amendment does not an economy make.
You do realize that the Occupy movement is made up of "American people", right? Yes, they're Americans, whether you like it or not -- though I wouldn't say that all of them support Obama (but they certainly aren't for business or the rich, which Romney almost entirely represents in every way, shape, and form, and is the one that super PACs have put most of their support behind).
You know, I looked up "Obamacare" when it came up (being the ignorant person I was). I still can't see why there's such an uproar in calling him a communist or Hitler over it. It's not this major awe-inspiring fundamental change to healthcare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reforms certain aspects of private and public health insurance programs and industry, increases insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions, expands access of insurance, increases projected national medical spending and lowers projected Medicare spending. It's making amendments to how health care was previously handled, and speaking as someone who recently got into an accident and isn't broke because of health care, that isn't a bad thing.
(I also want to note that I lived in Germany for quite a bit of my life and fail to see the dystopian health care system there...)
You say nothing in the Democrats agenda is "good for America", and that I'm ignorant because I don't see things your way. But yet, the more I look into things, the more it seems like you have an oversimplified view of things, and focus quite a bit on fringe issues.
You also haven't explained why "never raise taxes, ever" is a good policy. Yet it's a BIG Republican policy! You claim that Republicans are able to compromise, but yet 41 out of 47 Senate Republicans and 238 out of 242 House Republicans signed Norquist's pledge, to "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."
I don't see anything that even remotely looks like compromise there."
Finally, he explains his stance on Taxes, defending Grover Norquist's absolutist stance:
"Okay, the thing about the taxes is, that if the government raise taxes, the people get less and less money. If the people gets less and less money, they aren't going to buy things, they won't even go anywhere. If the people don't buy things then production stops. If production stops, then the economy fails. If the economy fails, then the government is screwed.
If the government lower taxes, then the people will have more money. If the people have more money, then everything I have just said about raising taxes is reversed. The production indistery productions skyrockets, the economy gets back on it's feet, and people will have jobs.
The problem with Obamacare is that it doesn't give the right that everyone gets treated. Let me give you an example. Say you need a heart implant and you make enough money just to get by and you've been waiting to get it. After so many months you've finally get a donor and you've been prep for surgy. It looks like you are going to live. But then a guy comes in and he is rich and he needs your heart transplant. Who are they going to give it too. Not you, because you don't contribute enough to society. Because unlike you the other guy owns a big corpration that brings in money. So your heart transplant goes to him and you are kicked out of the hospital and left to die.
You probably don't think that Obamacare is going to be like that. But the truth is that it's not about what the Obama medicare plan is or how it's going to work. If it's a socailist ideal, then that's what it will be like. Because Communism controlls everything. Communism controlls how you work, where you live and weither or not to give you medicare. That is what Obamacare is. It's all about controll."
Now this is where I get wordy, people, and THIS is what I think is so silly about all of this anti-tax rhetoric. I make three different posts, so I'll keep them separate in three sets of quotation marks:
"That's an extremely oversimplified (and thus false) view of the economy. You aren't impressing me as having the sole knowledge of the economy by far.
Taxes are there to provide services -- to pay for police, for public education, fire services, and yes, the military (which takes a pretty good chunk of the budget), just for the top priorities. If there is a major event -- for instance, declaring a war and engaging in an occupation lasting several years -- money has to come from somewhere. Where do you think the money for bombing Iran will come from? Or sustaining forces in Afghanistan?
Generally, lowering taxes is a good popular move during a time of peace and plenty, but there comes a time when tax rates need to hike. Eisenhower, a Republican, knew that; tax rates under him were critically high. Even Reagan raised taxes. Lincoln would not have been able to wage the Civil War if he was not able to raise taxes at all.
The economy and the government are related, but one does not entirely control the other, nor does one entirely destroy the other. Except in the case of Communism, but we haven't even come close to that (no matter what you say).
If the tax rate were truly high enough, what you say would be theoretically true. But even Eisenhower taxed those making over $400,000 92-91% of their income! This does not cause a grinding halt to our economy at all.
Taxes do not break the economy in and of themselves, and refusing the ability to raise taxes will cripple a government from propertly functioning in times of crisis. You cannot engage in conflict and then simultaneously cut taxes, or you run into an even larger deficit (as we are).
Furthermore, this isn't even mentioning the power of government services. We require skilled labor to get anywhere, but skilled labor can only really be acquired through higher education (even trade schools and apprenticeships). Investing in the education of the populace helps that populace get jobs in the future, and helps their ability to apply themselves to the economy. While there are private schools, the vast majority of the populace will go to a public school or otherwise be subsidized in some way, whether by government or some form of tuition.
In fact, investments in better education have real, demonstrable results that can be seen in studies and research -- whereas we don't see this idea that "lower taxes cause instant economic boom". In fact, during this whole recession, do you know who pay the least amount of taxes? It's those that own the greatest amount of wealth; they keep far more money than they give back into the system. Yet we still suffered a recession, being the biggest elephant in the room with your argument.
Your bit on Obamacare doesn't seem to have anything to do with the proposals, the reforms, or anything. It also intermixes the concepts of Socialism and Communism, which are not the same thing -- and you still don't seem to understand what Communism is. You assert that this will be Communism, but you offer no validation of this claim. I am sorry, but I have yet to see ONE SINGLE PERSON validate their idea that Obama is a Communist or is pushing Communism. I'm a history major; I've read the words of Marx, and I know the differences between Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism (I've done quite a bit of research on China, its history and its present state), and I still don't see anything similar to that and anything Obama has done.
About the only two arguments have been "healthcare is communism" and "he gave bailouts". But in the case of healthcare we already had that (he's just expanding it) with medicare and medicaid. And the bailouts had nothing to do with Communism; he gave money to major corporations to keep them from going under, because of the dramatic results of what would happen if some of the top, most powerful, most influential, international corporations tanked -- you don't achieve Socialism OR Communism by supporting corporations from collapsing. While there is room to debate the wisdom of his decision, it's not a discussion of Communism vs. Capitalism.
Also, if he's such a Communist, why is he accepting millions and millions of dollars in Super PAC money? Sure, they aren't throwing as much money at him as they are Romney, but he's still got a damn decent chunk of change."
"And just to further the point about economics vs. ignorance: Robert Reich is an economist. This is something he's studied. He also completely disagrees with you. [link]
However, you can say that he might not necessarily be right. Hey, that might be true; there's lots of economists, and several of them disagree with each other. One can even say that economics isn't an exact science. But if you reject his ideas out of hand, you have to reconcile that with the claim that the people who support Obama must necessarily be ignorant of economics."
"Sorry, this will be my last post. I forgot to mention something else that I find very important in the discussion.
The Great Depression was a major event, and it wasn't caused by government taxes (though one could say it wasn't helped from protectionism and tariffs on trade goods that made foreign countries not want to deal with us, which IS an example of how government interference isn't always a good thing). It happened partly thanks to a barely regulated stock market, a system of "boom and busts", and a good series of events that would take a book to adequately summarize.
Yet the Presidents that handled it refused to give government aid to those that needed work. It was FDR that really pulled our asses out of the fire (and WWII didn't hurt, either), but it was through government interference. He also did a lot to try to prevent the ecological damage of the dust bowl, which was an immense and terrifying event. Yet his policies didn't destroy America, it helped it rise up again. He threw out hundreds and hundreds of proposals, so many that few history books really try to enumerate them, and tried to see which would "stick" and discarding that which didn't seem to be helping. It seemed to help."
I haven't gotten a response yet, and it's only been a few hours, so the discussion isn't quite finished. I may post more of it up here, but I'm not sure if this is really going to lead anywhere. But I've seen these viewpoints mirrored in several different locations on the net, not simply here.
Here's the really scary part though. From here: http://balddog4.deviantart.com/#/d4qz9ox
"Yep, and I for one will not stand by and let this country fall because of people who hate America. That's why when I'm 35 years old, I'm going to run for President."
If he ran for president in this election, and was pitted against Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich*... would you have noticed the difference?
*Existence of Ron Paul redacted as being irrelevant to politics
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