Thread: Obama camp furious!

Originally Posted by Wildtim

It's true that Police and Fire protection are areas the Government should handle, as well as road maintenance. However if you talk to anyone in government the don't encourage competition they resent it. If they were doing their jobs as well as they are supposed to there would be no need for the private companies, companies which by government regulation are not allowed to compete directly with the government in these sectors. Also when cities contract with private companies to provide these essential services essentially putting them back into the private sector why does service invariably improve?

I agree with this. Look how well FedEx and UPS deliver packages. Our US Postal Service has sucked for a long time. I wonder how well FedEx and UPS would handle the mail? We need to dismantle much of our government and put it into the private sector.

bj

Originally Posted by 2Sharp

I agree with this. Look how well FedEx and UPS deliver packages. Our US Postal Service has sucked for a long time. I wonder how well FedEx and UPS would handle the mail? We need to dismantle much of our government and put it into the private sector.

bj

LOL..I couldn't agree more. I got this today when I tried to check on some Mama Bear's soap..Oh, and I'm still in awe of their ability to crush a Wapi
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Status: Missent

Your item was misrouted. The error has been corrected and every effort is being made to deliver it as soon as possible. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

I contend that any of the above that is truly good or useful would have been brought about by private individuals had they been allowed to. Most of it though you will have to explain why it is a good thing for all of us not just the one individual who gets to suck at the government teat. Why is it now that private individuals can put things into space for a fraction the cost of a NASA launch yet they are not allowed to do so.

But you see, this is precisely where your logic fails, for all these things I mentioned were needed at a scope and scale that no private actor could provide. These are not things needed by some small segment of society, but by everyone. And for the most part, government did not implement those solutions blindly. Social Security and Medicare are merely different types of insurance, and private insurance is a very old practice indeed, in fact so old that at one time, it was specifically outlawed by at least one state as a form of fraud, after all, how much sense does it make to bet against yourself? However, when used prudently, insurance can be an important and even necessary safeguard against the contingencies of living in an unpredictable and dangerous world.

And it's not as if something was preventing private companies from providing such insurance to everyone prior to the 1930s, it certainly wasn't the government stopping them. What keeps them from being able to provide that service universally are two simple economic facts. First, very few private individuals or companies ever acquire a resource base large enough to meet these needs. The scope of the social requirement is simply too large to wait for some one individual or group to amass the wealth necessary to meet this universal need. Second, there is no profit in providing such coverage universally. This is easier to see when we look at our electrical infrastructure. It takes many millions (if not billions) of dollars to build the power plants and run the lines to provide juice to those who live outside the cities and suburbs. Yet so few people live out there, and those that do on average have such little money, that even combined they do not have the wealth to pay for such needed infrastructure. No private company would lay out such a huge investment when there is literally no way they can make their money back on that investment, even in the mid to long term. But we have a social, that is universal, need for such access to this infrastructure. What economic production occurs in these rural areas is made vastly more efficient when they have access to power, and the universality of coverage permits flexibility in growth, permitting new companies and factories to have a much wider choice in where to site their new business.

You see, while there can be profit in providing those goods and services to some narrow sector of the population, those who can pay for it and who can leverage the benefits it brings into immediate profits themselves, there isn't any profit in providing these thing universally, not because there isn't real value created by doing so, but because what value is created is spread so diffusely through society that there is no mechanism for the private enterprise to capture some part of that value as profit. The only way to recoup the value of their investment would be to *gasp* impose universal taxes, but if they did so, they would simply be the government, and worse, a undemocratic government accountable only to its owners, and not to its citizens.

This is part of where the government gains the justification to take a quarter of your income in taxes, but more fundamentally, they have that right because without the framework that only government has the capacity to provide, the legal and infrastructural framework that all modern business depends upon to produce their products and reach their consumers, you wouldn't be able to have an income at all.

Thank you, Bruno, for explaining the necessity of a state-run space program as a first step to the possibility of any space program at all, whether public or private. I applaud the steps private enterprise is now taking in reaching for the stars, but these steps would not be possible if it weren't for the research, innovation and discovery blazed by our public space program. Let me add that not only must government be the trail-blazer here, but in all areas where the benefits of such investment lie in the remote future and where such benefits are diffused throughout society as a whole, or where such research might run down an expensive, but dead end. Moreover, many of the innovations we rely upon today, and which generate massive profit for the private sector, would not have even been thought of were it not for the pressure on research and creativity provided by this project. Everything from velcro to the very computer you are using and the cell phone in your pocket would not have been possible without the technological innovations demanded by the space program, and as eloquently argued by Bruno, such a program must first be a public program.

Then it would be governments only job to ensure that each individual has the protection to act in his ore her on self-interest.

On this we agree, where we find our disagreement is in what constitutes that protection. You believe that it is sufficient that we simply keep people from directly and intentionally harming others, while I believe that much more is needed. The individual does not have the capacity to act on his or her own self interest when they are restricted in their access to the basic resources needed to provide for it. Moreover, harm can be caused indirectly and unintentionally as well. You might not think you are harming me by driving a gas-guzzling SUV, and indeed, directly you are not. But indirectly, your higher consumption of gas has down-stream market effects on the price of fuel, and that effects me and harms me when it causes fuel prices to rise. The pollution generated by that vehicle, in itself insignificant, but when combined with millions of other similar vehicles, damages the environment and makes me less healthy, which is certainly an indirect harm. Every economic activity has externalities, and taxation and regulation are the social means of pricing those externalities back into the cost of that activity. Otherwise, everyone pays for the costs of such activity, while only a few reap its benefits.

Look how well FedEx and UPS deliver packages. Our US Postal Service has sucked for a long time. I wonder how well FedEx and UPS would handle the mail? We need to dismantle much of our government and put it into the private sector.

Did it ever occur to you that the only way these private delivery companies can maintain such high standards of service is because the vast majority of mail delivery is still routed through the USPS? I find it funny that conservatives point to the longest running and most successful domestic government program as evidence that government doesn't work, simply because a few private couriers appear to be able to move packages faster. They wouldn't be able to do so if they had to deal with the sheer volume of mail, literally in the trillions of pieces per day, that the USPS does. The wonder is that they are as efficient as they are considering the task before them.

What you conservatives have to get through your thick skulls is that our government is not some nameless, faceless malicious and incompetent "other" merely out to raid your pocketbook and line theirs. I know it seems that way given that this is how conservatives have attempted to govern in the past 20 or so years that they have been in power, but in our country, WE elect our government, and WE are responsible for the direction it takes and the things it does. In other words, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, not Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or James Sensenbrenner or Mitch McConnell and certainly not George W. Bush. They are our servants and representatives to our government, mere tools for us to discern and implement the public will. Stop playing the victim and take responsibility for the way our government works and the things it does. Let government solve the problems only it can solve and let private enterprise provide the goods and services only it can provide. There is no contradiction between private and free enterprise and a robust and active government. The choice is not between communism and anarchism. There is a rational and sensible middle ground, but it takes a great deal of work and trial and error to find it. Stop being perfectionists and start getting on board with making things better.

And for God's sake, drop the unreasonable and unjustified faith that whatever government can do, private individuals and corporations can do better. When we look through history and across the face of this planet, we see the nations that have attempted to implement private market solutions to public problems. To a "T" every one of them is a third-world banana republic with huge amounts of social unrest. When we look at nations with the lowest infant mortality rates, the lowest poverty rates, the lowest levels of illiteracy, and so forth, we find that every one of them has a robust and very active government that works with and complements private enterprise, and that indeed have fairly high levels of taxation compared to our own, but also have greater opportunities for advancement and personal enrichment. Stop seeing this issue as black and white, us against them, and recognize that there are huge shades of gray, and that each of us have dreams, hopes and desires in common. We all need peace, security, good food, adequate shelter and access to basic medical care. We all desire a better future for our children, and work that is fulfilling and makes us feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves and larger than some narrow money-making scheme of capitalist investors.

On what I hope to be a conciliatory note, I would like to say that I have enjoyed the opportunity to present and explain my views, and what I take to be the views of progressive and liberal Americans. I may not be able to convince JMS, Wildtim, 2sharp, or fallout55, but if others read this thread and are at least inspired to think seriously and deeply about these things, rather than simply accepting the easy talking-points and stereotyping from either left or right, then I would consider the time and effort I have spent here to be well spent indeed.

Thank you, that was a wonderful load of waffle, but it doesn't have anything to do with Obama.
You have successfully generalized a whole lot of garbage that has little to do with why Obama could be the right guy for the job.

If you want to break down Democrats vs. Republicans
Why not look at areas controlled by a strong partisan contingent.

I live in California, a very liberal state. We have the strictest gun control laws with the exception of Washington DC, and the highest violent crime rates... again with the exception of Washington DC.
Your government suported police force has little influence on everyday life here, they can't stop violent crime. In fact according to some of the highest courts in the US they have no obligation to protect us. They are here to protect the public in general. If the liberal democrats had their way, guns would be outlawed, and only criminals would have them.
I personally find this foolish to a fault. On 3 separate occasions a loaded gun has saved my life. Without firing a shot. Brandishing a weapon has prevented 2 armed robberey attempts, and an attempted home invasion. When the police were called they didn't even show up to take a report.
More violent crime goes unreported in California every year than most states have in a decade.
You want to look at race in this? more black men are murdered in California each year than in Texas and Alabama combined... There's your liberal politics at work.
You can't regulate everything with government unless you have absolute power to enforce these regulations. California is sliding down hill very quickly under a democrat controlled circus show.

Now lets get back on topic... Obama.
How is he supposed to fix things?
He's making promises he's going to single handedly fix the world...
He's going to overhaul NAFTA, and end the war in Iraq...
Great speeches don't fix problems.
I don't care if he voted against the war, that doesn't stop it...
The only absolute way to stop one people from hating or fighting with another is genocide... is that his great plan?

I'm sick of politicians making empty promises to get votes, I'm sick of political waffle. Obama strikes me as nothing more than another dishonest politician.

Nice post Mike

Back to the post office example. You do realize that Parcel post Via the USPS is now subcontracted to Fed-Ex. Once again proving that the private sector triumphs over the government every time. Also in electricity which is now in almost all cases run by privately held corporations.

I'll sum up our differences. I believe that given the freedom to choose their own course people will choose the course that most advances their own well being. You seem to feel that we must choose a government then let them have the power to provide for our well being. Thats why we will never find the middle ground. You believe the government needs the power I believe that my power is mine alone to use as I see fit. My power combined with many other peoples power who all find that a common direction is the best for each individually is the way this country was designed to work. We were never meant to give up one iota of our power to any entity or government for any reason. Thats why our constitution was written to define and limit the governments power not to tell the people what they were allowed to do, this is what has really gotten skewed over the years and is at the heart of all the governmental problems now facing us.

This will be my last post on this thread unless those of you who wish to engage me on these issues refrain from strawmen and ad hominem attacks.

Crime has virtually no relationship to gun control or gun control laws. The gun control in Great Britain is far stricter than ours, to the extent that they do not recognize a right to bear arms, and yet their rates of violent crime are far far lower than ours. Contradicting this, virtually every state that has passed concealed and carry laws has seen a reduction in their crime rates as well. At any rate, this issue is largely moot, as Democrats and liberals have recognized for at least the last ten years that gun control issues are regional. What works in cities is not going to be what works in rural or suburban areas. It is up to each community to decide how to best handle gun control issues, within the Second Amendment. Get out of the 90s, it's the 21st century.

On the other hand, crime is highly correlated to dense poverty, and California has among the densest concentrations of poverty in the country, surpassed only by Texas, which also has a high rate of violent crime. You want to reduce crime? Reduce the motivations for people to commit crime. This, combined with a dictatorial war on drugs, which creates and sustains organized crime, are the largest causes of crime in our country.


As for California being a bastion of liberalness, while it's true that its greatest population centers are unabashedly liberal, everywhere else it is moderately to strongly conservative. To the extent that Republicans have obstructed any real progress in the State legislature and the state has even elected a Republican governor. The most liberal state in the country is alternatively Massachusetts or Vermont, and both of those states have lower than average crime and poverty rates, and higher than average literacy rates and other positive indicators.

As for your distortions of what Obama has claimed and promised, he never said he'd be perfect and he never said he'd fix all the world's problems. What he has said is that he would govern by building the political coalitions needed to tackle problems head on and make things better. When you look at opinions around the world, most people would prefer Obama as President, a fact that will go a long way toward fixing international tensions and improving America's image abroad. And if you think Obama's all talk and no action, then maybe you should look at what he's done just since he's been in the US Senate.

Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 570 bills in the 109th and 110th Congress.
Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 15 bills that have become LAW since he joined the Senate in 2005.
Senator Obama has also introduced amendments to 50 bills, of which 16 were adopted by the Senate.

What was all this legislation he wrote?

Of the 15 bills Senator Obama sponsored or co-sponsored in 2005-7 that became law:
Two addressed foreign policy:
Promote relief, security and democracy in the Congo (2125)
Develop democratic institutions in areas under Palestinian control (2370).
Three addressed public health:
Improve mine safety (2803)
Increased breast cancer funding (597)
Reduce preterm delivery and complications, reduce infant mortality (707).
Two addressed openness and accountability in government:
Strengthening the Freedom of Information Act (2488)
Full disclosure of all entities receiving federal funds (2590)
Two addressed national security
Extend Terrorist Risk Insurance (467)
Amend the Patriot Act (2167)
One addressed the needs of the Armed Forces
Wave passport fees to visit graves, attend memorials/funerals of veterans abroad (1184).
Of the 570 bills Senator Obama introduced into the Senate during the 109th and 110th Congress (Senate Bill numbers are in parentheses), they can be summarized as follows:
25 addressed Energy Efficiency and Climate Change
Suspend royalty relief for oil and gas (115)
Reduce dependence on oil; use of alternative energy sources (133)
Increase fuel economy standards for cars (767, 768)
Auto industry incentives for fuel efficient vehicles (1151)
Reduce green house gas emissions (1324)
Establish at NSF a climate change education program (1389)
Increase renewable content of gasoline (2202)
Energy emergency relief for small businesses and farms (269)
Strategic gasoline and fuel reserves (1794)
Alternative diesel standards (3554)
Coal to liquid fuel promotion (3623)
Renewable diesel standards (1920)
Reducing global warming pollution from vehicles (2555)
Fuel security and consumer choice (1994, 2025)
Alternative energy refueling system (2614)
Climate change education (1389)
Low income energy assistance (2405)
Oil savings targets (339)
Fuel economy reform (3694)
Plug-in electric drive vehicles (1617)
Nuclear release notice (2348)
Passenger rail investment (294)
Energy relief for low income families (2405)
21 addressed Health Care
Drug re-importation (334)
Health information technology (1262, 1418)
Discount drug prices (2347)
Health care associated infections (2278)
Hospital quality report cards (692, 1824)
Medical error disclosure and compensation (1784)
Emergency medical care and response (1873)
Stem cell research (5)
Medical Malpractice insurance (1525)
Health centers renewal (901, 3771)
Children’s health insurance (401)
Home health care (2061)
Medicare independent living (2103)
Microbicides for HIV/AIDS (823)
Ovarian cancer biomarker research (2569)
Gynological cancers (1172)
Access to personalized medicine through use of human genome (976)
Paralysis research and care (1183)
20 addressed Public Health:
Violence against women (1197)
Biodefense and pandemic preparedness and response (1821, 1880)
Viral influenza control (969)
End homelessness (1518)
Reduce STDs/unintended pregnancy (1790)
Smoking prevention and tobacco control (625)
Minority health improvement and disparity elimination (4024)
Nutrition and physical education in schools (2066)
Health impact assessments (1067, 2506)
Healthy communities (1068)
Combat methamphetamines (2071)
Paid sick leave (910)
Prohibit mercury sales (833, 1818)
Prohibit sale of lead products (1306, 2132)
Lead exposure in children (1811, 2132)
14 address Consumer Protection/Labor
Stop unfair labor practices (842)
Fair minimum wage (2, 1062, 2725, 3829)
Internet freedom (2917)
Credit card safety (2411)
Media ownership (2332)
Protecting taxpayer privacy (2484)
Working family child assistance (218)
Habeus Corpus Restoration (185)
Bankruptcy protection for employees and retirees (2092)
FAA fair labor management dispute resolution (2201)
Working families flexibility (2419).
13 addressed the Needs of Veterans and the Armed Forces:
Improve Benefits (117)
Suicide prevention (479)
Needs of homeless veterans (1180)
Homes for veterans (1084)
GI Bill enhancement (43)
Military job protection
Dignity in care for wounded vets (713)
Housing assistance for low income veterans (1084)
Military children in public schools (2151)
Military eye injury research and care (1999)
Research physical/mental health needs from Iraq War (1271)
Proper administration of discharge for personality disorder (1817, 1885)
Security of personal data of veterans (3592)
12 addressed Congressional Ethics and Accountability
Lobbying and ethics reform (230)
Stop fraud (2280)
Legislative transparency and accountability (525)
Open government (2180, 2488)
Restoring fiscal discipline (10)
Transparency and integrity in earmarks (2261)
Accountability of conference committee deliberations and reports (2179)
Federal funding accountability and transparency (2590)
Accountability and oversight for private security functions under Federal
contract (674)
Accountability for contractors and personnel under federal contracts
(2147) Resctrictions awarding government contracts (2519)
10 addressed Foreign Policy:
Iraq war de-escalation (313)
US policy for Iraq (433),
Divestiture from Iran (1430)
Sudan divestment authorization (831)
Millennium Development Goals (2433)
Multilateral debt relief (1320)
Development bank reform (1129)
Nuclear nonproliferation (3131,977,2224).
9 address Voting/Elections
Prohibit deceptive practices in Federal elections (453)
Voter access to polls and services in Federal elections (737)
Voter intimidation and deceptive practices (1975)
Senate campaign disclosure parity (185)
Require reporting for bundled campaign contributions (2030)
Election jamming prevention (4102)
Campaign disclosure parity (223)
Presidential funding (2412)
Integrity of electronic voting systems (1487)
11 addressed Education
Increase access of low income African Americans to higher education (1513)
Establish teaching residency programs (1574)
Increase early intervention services (2111)
Middle school curriculum improvements (2227)
Public database of scholarships, fellowships and financial aid (2428)
Summer learning programs (116)
TANF financial education promotion (924)
Higher education (1642)
Build capacity at community colleges (379)
Campus law enforcement in emergencies (1228)
Support for teachers (2060).
6 addressed Hurrican Katrina
Hurricane Katrina recovery (2319)
Emergency relief (1637)
Bankruptcy relief and community protection (1647)
Working family tax relief (2257)
Fair wages for recovery workers (1749)
Gulf coast infrastructure redevelopment (1836)
5 addressed the Environment
Drinking water security (218, 1426)
Water resources development (728)
Waste water treatment (1995)
Combat illegal logging (1930)
Spent nuclear fuel tracking and Acountability (1194)
Asian Carp Prevention and Control Act (Introduced in Senate)[S.726.IS ]
4 addressed Discrimination
Claims for civil class action based on discrimination (1989)
Domestic partnership benefits (2521)
Unresolved civil rights crimes (535)
Equality or two parent families (2286)
4 addressed Homeland Security
Judicial review of FISA orders (2369)
National emergency family locator (1630)
Amend US Patriot Act (2167)
Chemical security and safety (2486)

That's a pretty impressive list, by anyone's standards. And since he rarely touts his legislative accomplishments in his campaign speeches, rather than being all talk and no action, we get the best of both worlds with inspirational speech and a great deal of action.


Finally, your ludicrous assertion that the only way to end wars is through genocide shows that you have no clue about war or history. Stop listening to right wing talk radio and Faux News and open a freaking book. Maybe you shouldn't be talking about things about which you have no clue, and instead go and learn about these things for yourself. Getting talking points from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or John Gibson is not thinking, it is regurgitating, as in vomit.

Back to the post office example. You do realize that Parcel post Via the USPS is now subcontracted to Fed-Ex. Once again proving that the private sector triumphs over the government every time. Also in electricity which is now in almost all cases run by privately held corporations.

As an isolated data point, it proves nothing, because it does not establish why the USPS is now subcontracting out parcel post to Fed-Ex. It couldn't possibly be because those now in charge of the USPS are Bush appointees who are ideologically opposed to the government providing any services to its people, or who themselves have a financial stake in these private courier's profitability.

You seem to feel that we must choose a government then let them have the power to provide for our well being.

There you go again with this Us vs. Them thinking. What do I have to do show demonstrate to you that in the democratic system we have, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. There is no Us vs. Them, there's just us.

My power combined with many other peoples power who all find that a common direction is the best for each individually is the way this country was designed to work.

I'm glad we agree. I feel that we have a responsibility to use our collective power to ensure that each of us individuals have a right to equal and ample opportunity and freedom from oppression. And keep in mind that oppression can come from more places than your bogeyman "government."

Originally Posted by Mike_ratliff

I'm sick of politicians making empty promises to get votes, I'm sick of political waffle...strikes me as nothing more than another dishonest politician.

George W. Bush anyone?

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

I'm glad we agree. I feel that we have a responsibility to use our collective power to ensure that each of us individuals have a right to equal and ample opportunity and freedom from oppression. And keep in mind that oppression can come from more places than your bogeyman "government."

You don't feel that higher taxes are oppressive? That putting the government in control of your access to health care is oppressive? That having to count on the Government to be in charge of the bulk of your retirement savings is oppressive?

I find all of the above or the threat of the above to be onerous burdens and ones that if the government had stuck to its mandate and operated withing the confines of the constitution would never have happened or be non-issues.

When the government begins making demands upon my money and through it my self which I can neither contest nor with hold it does become a THEM in all caps. It has ceased to serve me and is now simply a burden. I'm tired of paying for the chronically unemployed to live, I'm tired of giving medical care to non-citizens. Obama has promised nothing but more of the same, and there indeed both the democrats and the republican are in near agreement. Which is why neigther major party will be getting my vote this fall.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

T

Finally, your ludicrous assertion that the only way to end wars is through genocide shows that you have no clue about war or history. Stop listening to right wing talk radio and Faux News and open a freaking book. Maybe you shouldn't be talking about things about which you have no clue, and instead go and learn about these things for yourself. Getting talking points from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or John Gibson is not thinking, it is regurgitating, as in vomit.

Did Mike say that? Maybe I missed something.

Justin