U.S. Presidential race - Republican Discussion

[bergmann620]

I hope it's Santorum, and and I PRAY he picks Bachmann.

I'm voting Gary Johnson either way, because I like sleeping at night.

I hope Rubio doesn't get tapped, because it would sully his career running with any of these guys.

In my dream world, I see Santorum/Bachmann implode the Republican Party, with the sane half voting for a Gary Johnson/?? ticket, along with the youth, fiscal conservative independents, and the gay rights / immigrant crowds, and disconcerted Democrats. Obama steps in something, and loses the election.

In the real world, Obama beats Romney, and four years from now, a Christie/Rubio ticket cruises to a landslide... The Dems are going to run who? Biden? Yea, right. The only way they have a shot is if Obama dumps Biden for Hilary this election.

The WORST case scenario would be if Obama screws the pooch hard enough and long enough to throw the election to Santorum. After that, the next worst would be Romney beating Obama, as that's just electing a whiter shade of Obama.

[emulsion]

I don't know if you intended that to be a pun type joke, but I chuckled nonetheless.

:-)

That's a very very interesting question. It's hard for me to put my finger on it but I really struggle to see Ron Paul as a VP candidate for any of them. I think the main issue is that his views are so divergent from the rest of the candidates it would present some significant problems I would think in the general election campaign and debates. You'd have a VP who would hold positions almost directly opposite the presidential candidate...not sure that's a viable strategy. But it does bring an interesting point of bringing in a different segment of the voters.

Of course I'm not sure how much impact the VP choice actually has.

I would see Jed Bush or Marco Rubio as the likely VP choices. Maybe...oh what's his name...Chris Christie.

Chris Christie reminds me of every one of my Italian relatives in Philly/Jersey. Yes, even the women. (zing?)

I agree. It would be tough to see Romney and Paul come to some sort of compatible position regarding defense particularly without making significant concessions.

[Illuwin]

If Romney gets the nomination, I'm pretty sure he'll pick Marco Rubio.

Gotta agree here, or someone similar demographic wise. I don't know that courting the youth vote would be wise, especially when going against Obama, who will probably capture that regardless of who is picked for VP. I see Romney trying to court the Hispanic vote rather than Youth.

[NineSpine]

"X caused Y" can very easily be an opinion. We can have differing views on how much each issue contributed to the overall meltdown. If the issues and solutions were so easy to see, even in hindsight, we wouldn't need to talk about it or debate what laws to pass to prevent it in the future. If you can't see that, I don't know how to continue having a discussion. Not that we've really been having one the last few pages...

How much each issue contributed has been pretty thoroughly broken down and analyzed by numerous independent sources, and there simply aren't the facts to back up that it was aggressive government action that caused the problem. While we can have meaningful disagreements about how much each part of what BANKS were doing contributed, the idea that the government caused it with aggressive action is flatly detached from reality. It's an attempt to patch over clear holes in the capitalist model by people who want capitalism to be flawless.

That doesn't even get to the issue that 'facts' are almost meaningless any more, as the word is so readily abused. A study doesn't often release 'facts.' A statistic doesn't guarantee anything- it merely shows tendencies, or correlations, or in the rare best-case scenario, possible causation.

That's just nonsense. You are arguing that facts don't matter because you don't have facts to back up your stances. While you may have a point in general, on this topic you really don't.

you want evidence of the effect of regulation on business, I think the real impact is the businesses that simply never get off the ground. Most markets already have stiff barriers to entry, before the government ever gets involved. When you throw in 'regulations' along with all of the hassles involved in actually hiring someone, and then add in an arcane tax system that penalizes you if you can't afford a top-notch accountant, it can be daunting. I understand that many of these things can/are good and necessary, but at some point, I'm sure many people that are trying to get off the ground with nothing but an idea/dream and some credit cards look around and say, "Fuck it."

Right here is the problem. Saying something is so is not evidence. You just made a declaration and called it evidence. An argument is not evidence. You need to show some kind of data that backs up your point, but let me save you the time: It doesn't exist. There has NEVER been a study that showed that regulation was a significant issue. The truth is that we heard these SAME arguments against the 40 hour work week, the 8 hour work day, minimum wage, abolition of child labor, workplace safety laws, and on and on and on. They always prove to be totally wrong.

Your point about the tax code is correct though, but you are approaching it from the wrong angle. The tax code is broken because anti-tax zealots vote for every loophole and subsidy that comes across their desk. Over time, this radically warps the tax code and makes it unfair and cumbersome. Then, when you try to fix that problem, people say you are raising taxes. That's how you end up in the current situation where the top 400 households are paying a lower effective tax rate than I am.

It's tough to separate Obamacare's contributions to rising medical costs from the default rise in costs, but one can look at its' provisions thus far, and see whether or not they are likely to decrease costs. 'Free' wellness visits, coverage for dependent children until 26, and forced coverage of those with pre-existing conditions will all increase costs beyond the increases we've been seeing every year anyways. In reality, there are virtually no 'facts' about Obamacare at all, so one can't make the argument that it isn't contributing to cost increases, either. That's why it's a debate.

There are plenty of facts. The fact is that only a handful of virtually meaningless provisions have been enacted. That's a fact. Increased access to preventative care reduces costs in the long run. The dirty little secret is that American capitalism is BROKEN and businesses aren't acting in their long term interest, like they should. They act in their short term interests, and it screws up the whole thing.

Here's another fact: Spending was way out of control way before Obamacare, and the trajectory of the increasing costs hasn't really changed. In FACT, Obamacare includes provisions that forces insurance companies to spend a certain percentage of their revenues on providing care, which could possibly reduce costs. This depends on how much they are allowed to use loopholes and just ignore those provisions, which I have no doubt Republicans and most Democrats will dutifully do for their REAL bosses: the corporations.

Lastly, and I won't speak for Diurdi specifically, but when I think of the CRA, I think of government's effort in general promote an 'ideal' (Home ownership for all) without regards to reality. There will always be lots of people that don't own homes- whether due to hardship, the market, lack of desire, or lack of responsibility. Consider the following, an excerpt of a HUD document from the Clinton White House:

That's not really the problem. The problem was people being given deceptive, exploding mortgages. People were defrauded. They were lied to and tricked into taking these mortgages. When those mortgages collapsed, it brought down the value of other homes, creating a domino effect. The banks were committing mass fraud, and the government sat idly by while they did it. That's the problem.

An impediment to home ownership is people not being able to afford to buy homes. I feel like I should type that twice for great justice. Financing strategies, fueled by 'creativity.' Could anyone describe the bubble and crash any better? I'm sure greed and deregulation played a role (Let's not forget, too, that Clinton, not Bush, signed the partial repeal on G-S). I'm just as sure that general government permissibility played a large role. As did the Fed's free money policy.

All of the government home ownership programs had decades of success. The CRA was around for DECADES before the collapse. There were no substantive changes to it in that time. All that changed is that the government systematically stripped away regulations on the finance industry. Fannie an Freddie, while I agree are idiotic organizations that should be destroyed right away, had a default rate of half the national average. In some periods, subprime borrowers under the programs we are talking about had better default rates than the national average, because it's significantly more difficult for a poor person to walk away from a shitty mortgage than a middle class or upper class person, so they were seeing it through. What changed is that instead of being given lower grade mortgages, they started being given insanely fraudulent exploding mortgages that were purposefully designed to fail.

I remember seeing you in other discussions, before your opinions and rhetoric seemingly calcified, and it makes me kind of sad.

I apologize to you for going off on Diurdi, but it's getting old with him. He comes into every thread and absolutely refuses to provide substantive responses to questions until you berate him for pages and pages to do so. He just repeats himself over and over and over, even after he has been flatly proven wrong on numerous issues, and he just doesn't answer arguments or questions. I've asked him a hundred times why he thinks these "libertarian" successes in these tiny, third world countries overshadow the wild success of social democracy in countries like Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and THe United States, but he simply refuses to answer.

---------- Post added 2012-02-28 at 04:37 PM ----------

That looks mostly like personal attacks and alot of anger, but very meager on facts - exactly what you're accusing me of. Now, if you would please re-read what I actually posted instead of attacking a strawman of what you think I believe.

For example, you say that I believe that "therefore the banks can do NO WRONG.". Yet if you had actually read the post you quoted, I said that they participated in Fraud.



Anyway, FHA's "Best Practices Initiative" was intended to reduce underwriting standards to increase lending to low income borrowers. And for the record, Government played a huge role in issuing high-risk mortgages. However, the Subprime mortgages and high-risk mortgages were not the biggest issue with the financial crisis. So government participation in the fairly small subprime mortgage market cannot be attributed as the big reason for the whole crisis and bubble.

Here's a distribution of high-risk loans (not the exact same table I'm using, but I can't copy it as the material is not publicly accessible).



The whole point was to show that Glass-Steagal had nothing to do with the crisis. The practice of having commercial and investment banking under one umbrella was common everywhere else in the world, and the repeal of one provision of the act did not remove the rest of the act's regulations. Yet this repeal is considered by many ill-informed people as the biggest reason for the crisis. They say that "deregulation" caused it, yet this is the only signficiant deregulation that took place.

Those numbers are bogus, likely because you are taking that chart out of context and trying to use it to say what it doesn't say. Here is a much more detailed list of the facts:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/1...ot-fannie.html

---------- Post added 2012-02-28 at 04:40 PM ----------

When these arguments break down into this kind of self-indulgent, self-righteous ranting where one person starts to claim that he/she or his/her "side" is the only one privy to the "truth," it becomes a battle of who can craft the most reflexive accusation. I don't know what the point of this post is. You don't know him, you only know what he's written in defense of a particular political philosophy, and you're willing to call him dogmatic and special when you probably consider yourself, at the very least, special enough to indulge in these kinds of insults lacking empirical evidence of his personhood, and very readily defend your political philosophy in a similarly dogmatic fashion.

His secret libertarian key is your secret progressive key to everyone else but you and him.

Diurdi jumps into every single thread he can and turns it into his own personal soapbox to preach fact-free and totally baseless libertarian nonsense. He almost never engages in any kind of discussion until you berate him for pages to produce some kind of evidence to back up his point, which usually results in him posting something that's fallacious or totally out of context. It's been going on forever. Welcome to the forums.

User infracted: Play nice

[Illuwin]

we get it, you really, really don't like republicans and really really want people in the republican thread to know about it. Can we move on and discuss what this thread is intended to discuss, the candidates running for the republican ticket?

[emulsion]

NineSpine jumps into every single thread he can and turns it into his own personal soapbox to preach fact-free and totally baseless progressive nonsense. He almost never engages in any kind of discussion until you berate him for pages to produce some kind of evidence to back up his point, which usually results in him posting something that's fallacious or totally out of context. It's been going on forever. Welcome to the forums.

Overwrought, activist heroism. One hundred percent reflexive, rhetoric dependent on words that are receptacles for meaning.

User infracted

[Xeones]

I hope it's Santorum, and and I PRAY he picks Bachmann.

I'm voting Gary Johnson either way, because I like sleeping at night.

I hope Rubio doesn't get tapped, because it would sully his career running with any of these guys.

In my dream world, I see Santorum/Bachmann implode the Republican Party, with the sane half voting for a Gary Johnson/?? ticket, along with the youth, fiscal conservative independents, and the gay rights / immigrant crowds, and disconcerted Democrats. Obama steps in something, and loses the election.

In the real world, Obama beats Romney, and four years from now, a Christie/Rubio ticket cruises to a landslide... The Dems are going to run who? Biden? Yea, right. The only way they have a shot is if Obama dumps Biden for Hilary this election.

The WORST case scenario would be if Obama screws the pooch hard enough and long enough to throw the election to Santorum. After that, the next worst would be Romney beating Obama, as that's just electing a whiter shade of Obama.

Given that Christie just vetoed a gay rights bill, he might have a harder time than you think. Each year people are more and more open minded while those who are less open minded die off.

Also, claiming the Dems have no one is laughable, Obama came out of no where and beat out the clear choice. What really depends on whether it is a land slide or not is not who runs but what happens between now and then.

[bergmann620]

Given that Christie just vetoed a gay rights bill, he might have a harder time than you think. Each year people are more and more open minded while those who are less open minded die off.

Also, claiming the Dems have no one is laughable, Obama came out of no where and beat out the clear choice. What really depends on whether it is a land slide or not is not who runs but what happens between now and then.

Christie vetoed a gay marriage bill. Not the same thing if you don't believe marriage is a right. Further, as he stated, he is fine putting it on the ballot for the people of New Jersey to decide. That's open-minded enough for me.

Biden can't win the presidency on the top of the ticket. Since Obama doesn't need an 'experienced' VP anymore, Biden is already dead weight on the ticket. You lose the momentum of incumbency if the VP doesn't step up.

Obama coming out of nowhere was aided by some very tricky primary machinations, and aided in the election by a serious hangover following Bush.

[Archangel Tyrael]

Is there a specific reason for this thread to have more arguing than the Democrat thread?

This one almost has double the pages the other one does !

[Sunseeker]

Is there a specific reason for this thread to have more arguing than the Democrat thread?

This one almost has double the pages the other one does !

There are 4 Republican candidates.
They're all saying different and sometimes stupid things.
They're not the President.

[Lenonis]

Further, as he stated, he is fine putting it on the ballot for the people of New Jersey to decide.

Except civil rights don't get to be decided by popular vote. Never have, never will.

The fundamental question to this is whether or not sexual orientation is a "protected class" under the constitution. At this point it appears it will only be a matter of time until that answer is "yes" -- as it stands most of the court rulings are moving in that direction.

I can certainly appreciate that people don't like the gays due to personal or religious reasons, but ultimately that doesn't give you the right to deny the rights of others.

And just to be clear, personally I think the entire system should be revamped. Everyone should be able to get a civil union, gay or straight, and that gives you all the legal benefits (inheritance, healthcare decisions, adoption, taxes, etc.) and then people can choose to get a religious marriage. Then you have true separation of church and state, and in theory everyone should be appeased as no one will be required to violate their own religious/personal beliefs in their own actions.

It's not quite honest to state that Christie's veto won't have political fallout, since it will. The question is whether or not it is enough fallout to matter.

[Deleted]

Is there a specific reason for this thread to have more arguing than the Democrat thread?

This one almost has double the pages the other one does !

There also isn't much happening in the democratic side of the presidential race right now lol.

[Archangel Tyrael]

There are 4 Republican candidates.
They're all saying different and sometimes stupid things.
They're not the President.

There also isn't much happening in the democratic presidential race right now lol.

This should explain it. Thank you both

[Lenonis]

This should explain it. Thank you both

I'm gathering from your location you aren't from the US...to expand on what was stated -- we're what is considered the primary season right now. This is where various candidates on both sides debate and get chosen on who will actually run for president.

In this case we have a president who is eligible to run for re-election who is a Democrat and thus is running unopposed on his side. The Republicans started with something like about a dozen candidates and are now down to 4. There has been a TON of debates and ads and campaigning for those Republicans to try to win the votes needed to run for president. The Democrats are just waiting.

That's why there is so much more focus and debate on the Republican side then the Democratic side. In a couple months the general election will start with 1 democrat vs 1 republican and you'll see a more even discussion.

[Archangel Tyrael]

@Leonis - thanks for expanding on that one, I'm not from the US of A, but I like to keep track of what's going on there

[bergmann620]

Except civil rights don't get to be decided by popular vote.

Except getting married isn't a civil right.

The real discussion, if someone believes traditional marriage needs to be protected, is why does a religious ceremony need governmental acknowledgement?

If you want to draw up a government/court accepted power-of-attorney, go to legalzoom.com.

If you want a frilly ceremony, join a church or find a shaman or some such.

In either case, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it- and the IRS shouldn't either.

[Deleted]

In either case, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it- and the IRS shouldn't either.

The way I see it, the government should approve an union between any consenting adults and register this (and apply all the laws that are today applied to marriage like tax rules and inheritance).

The individual people can then call that union whatever they want depending on their religion. It's then up to the different religious institutions to decide the rules under which they marry.

[Wells]

Since Ninespine got banned I'd love to see you answer this Diurdi

I've asked him a hundred times why he thinks these "libertarian" successes in these tiny, third world countries overshadow the wild success of social democracy in countries like Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and THe United States, but he simply refuses to answer.

[Sivick]

Except getting married isn't a civil right.

The real discussion, if someone believes traditional marriage needs to be protected, is why does a religious ceremony need governmental acknowledgement?

If you want to draw up a government/court accepted power-of-attorney, go to legalzoom.com.

If you want a frilly ceremony, join a church or find a shaman or some such.

In either case, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it- and the IRS shouldn't either.

Sure it is. Back when my grandparents were young-ish it wasn't if gay people should be allowed to get married but if people from different races should be allowed to marry. To us young people it's the same stupid argument all over again. Just old people shaking their sticks at people. Don't worry. Once all you guys die and we're in charge, this won't even be an issue. Try to prove me wrong. You're fighting against the inevitable here.

[Wells]

In either case, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it- and the IRS shouldn't either.

There are tons of reasons to have state recognized marriage that go far beyond power of attorney.

And equal protection demands marriage apply to homosexuals as well.