Your responses mask a great intellect, perhaps that of a Charlie Gordon, or even Algernon.

This has been a blast, botvinnik. But this thread is old. Let’s move on to a newer article on MDN and continue this battle of wits in which I am so terribly outmatched.

No, not really.

Now, Now claims that “A GAO audit classified nearly half of all purchases on government credit cards as improper, fraudulent, or embezzled.” If that were true, then the GAO would have ended the government credit card program years ago. The checks and balances on the use of these cards are significant, and there is no way that this assertion could be true across the program (unless some very small percentage can be construed as “nearly half”).

What can you believe from Now, Now? It is hard to tell. And, in my opinion, if you have to sift through each word of a post wonder what is manufactured BS and what is legitimate, then that post is a waste of time.

Are you somehow insinuating that Obama caused more of our soldiers to die just because he is a Democrat? That the troop surge advocated by the GOP resulted in greater casualties? That eight years of Bush failure in Afghanistan because of his preoccupation with starting a manufactured war in Iraq resulted in less casualties than the last few years during which a reinvigorated Al Quaeda and disenfranchised Afghani citizens intensified the terrorist resistance against the U.S. troop surge? That Obama should be held accountable for the cost of attempting to achieve long-term stability in the region by training and gradually handing over responsibility for national security to the government and citizens of Afghanistan after Bush utterly failed to do so?

Obama did not start these wars – they are both Bush wars for two terms. I give Obama credit for trying to end them in a manner that is best for the U.S. and the citizens of these two countries.

Just what is your point of posting thisa string of numbers? It is amazing that you have the gall to attempt to belittle me when you are the one apparently lacking in wit.

It might be different if you actually posted something worthwhile from time to time to break the monotony of your “Messiah” soundbites. As far as I am concerned, you have relegated yourself to the role of a very minor impediment to either be stepped around or stepped on along the way to a rational future. I just wish that you and your ilk would all move to one state and secede from the Union. It would save a lot of trouble.

What do I despise? Well, to start with, I despise simplistic posts like yours that pretend to understand what millions of other people believe. First you label, then you classify. but you actually don’t have a clue. You just want to think that you do so that you can feel more secure in your little knothole.

I personally believe that capitalism is the best overall economic approach in keeping with the strengths and weaknesses of human nature. However, some rules and regulations are necessary to try to keep the worst excesses of capitalism in check. There are plenty of historical examples…educate yourself.

Your arguments are consistently weak. What credentials did Reagan or Bush bring to the table when they took office? Bush was governor of Texas for a while, but that position is a joke. Even the colossal idiot Rick Perry has been able to stay in that office for three terms. Bush was a business failure until he made his money via a sweetheart deal with a friend of the family for a piece of the Texas Rangers.

There is no substance to the man. As a President, Bush was far too concerned with “being right,” even when he wasn’t. He equated certainty (stay the course) with being right. As a result, he purged nearly everyone with a dissenting opinion from his administration. What do you get with a bunch of “yes” people backing the President? Failure. Example? I called “No Child Left Behind” by its proper name – Every Child Left Behind – when he kicked it off. It was clearly destined to be a federally mandated failure from the start. Not surprisingly, Republicans don’t want to talk about it anymore. The prescription drug card? Another big, costly Republican failure. It is a confusing mess that favors big business insurers over the people it was purported to help. So much for conservative ideals of non-socialist smaller government. lol

In contrast, Bush’s father (as I have often stated in this forum) is a gentleman and a statesman. I would vote for him today if he ran for President. But he is far too moderate for the current Republican party. He would have to run as a Democrat. Oh, the irony!

Something more worthy of response, please. I am tired of the easy tripe that you and others seem to enjoy posting ad nauseum.

Bush should have focused on Afghanistan and finished that war during his back-to-back administrations. Instead, Bush jumped into Iraq chasing fantasy WMDs and ended up leaving TWO unfinished wars for his successor to clean up as well as a corrupt “ally” (Pakistan) that already has nukes.

At least Obama wasn’t afraid to make the call to go into Pakistan and get Bin Laden. And he was smart enough not to return his body back to the U.S. That’s Obama 1, Bush 0. Game over.

Oh, wait a minute…I forgot. Bush said “Mission Accomplished!” about eight years ago. I guess everything has been fine since then.

Econ 101…you are such a smug and clueless tool to post a meaningless response like that. You either missed the whole friggin’ point or you are being intentionally obtuse. I am not sure which is worse.

But once again, look at the voting blocks where they are blue, then compare them to the maps of low income districts. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

I don’t doubt that you know of one Republican county that draws in more money than it puts out (especially if it has a large retirement population), but my point is much larger than one county, it covers pretty much all of the South.

Also know that the reason I did this was to goad CitizenX, who never misses a chance to diss Republicans (especially Conservatives) by throwing out mostly false but still widely held beliefs about us. His views on the right are so silly and backwards that I can even take them seriously enough to get upset, but still like to correct (although, looking at his locale, he had probably never had the opportunity to see how wrong he is….)

Wonder if MDN will censor this too?

BTW, I know what he said before and after that statement, and no amount of lying on your part is going to change the truth.

That does not mean that businesses just spontaneously arise out of this infrastructure. No one is discounting the effort and sacrifice needed to get a business going and to guide its growth. But these businesses also rely upon the foundation that was developed by the country working together and sharing resources.

The point of all of this is that both businesses and citizens utilize public infrastructure and have an obligation (as well as the selfish incentive) to maintain and improve that infrastructure. That takes resources, and that means taxes. Taxes are not evil, they are a necessary part of our society and those who seek to avoid paying their fair share while this country spirals towards bankruptcy are the true shirkers.

There is no doubt that we need to reduce spending and cut waste. We also need to raise sufficient tax revenue to cover our spending. We cannot depend on the self-serving fantasy that we can cut taxes to spur growth, with the resulting growth increasing taxable income to an extent that more than offsets the tax rate reduction. That only works when tax rates are high – above the optimum range that balances tax revenue and economic growth. And no Republican that I have ever heard has been able to define that optimum tax rate…all I hear is that lower is better. And that is true to the extent that we are collecting sufficient taxes to cover our spending over the long term. We are not doing that, and we have not done it for decades. Time to get a clue.

The unvarnished truth is critical to the long term health of a democracy. It unmasks lies, reveals deception, and untwists attempts at disinformation and spin. People who are armed with the truth understand the risks of over-reliance on government, as well as the nature of mankind which is incentivized to success by a capitalist system but, also, can be warped to extremes of greed and corruption by unfettered access to such power.

The American representative democracy has survived quite a bit of corruption over the decades. I suspect that there has been far more corruption and graft than most of us realize. But it has limits – it cannot survive merely by wishful thinking. The universe is described in terms of science and math. It is time that people, and politicians in particular, once again begin respecting the scientists, educators, and scholars who have contributed so much to this country and to the world. You can deny reality only until it brutally slaps you down.

You are in way over your head.
Try to nderstand the gist of a thread before commenting.