Dictatorship by dreamtrove

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Dictatorship

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Sunday, February 5, 2012 19:14
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Thursday, February 2, 2012 6:01 PM

I'm at loss. On the one hand, there's Obama. I'm stunned that anyone on the board defends Obama, I cannot even fathom what position this comes from, short of some sort of suicide cult devotion on the level of Jonestown. Even the most right wing republicans didn't defend Bush like this, and those that did, maybe there were two or three here, they did it in an on and off manner.

I'm not sure if Obama is just blatantly worse than Bush, or if reversing the two chronologically would produce the identical effect. I suspect it would, meaning the president an ruling party have no influence at all, which I suspect is pretty close to the case.

That said, the opposition is offering me nothing to get excited about. Jon Stewart just did a wonderful indictment of Romney's corporate raider biz, in his interview with Jon Macey.

As for Newt? I think this platform was made up on the spur of the moment. Probably Newt would be okay, but I don't imagine he'd win, and I doubt the result would be ideal, or that corruption would go away.

Ron Paul is the only decent choice, and he's not going to win the primary.

So far I see no third party candidates on the horizon.

Is there a choice left?

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 4:14 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

You do realise that Ron Paul's idealogy would have him remove most government regulation, including environmental ones. So things such as fracking would only get worse.

Oh, and just because you don't like your choices does not mean they are not choices.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 4:45 AM

DREAMTROVE

Nick

I don't believe the EPA is effective. I don't want to see it repealed to make corporations lives easier as Romney would do, but I think that Paul's idea of replacing it with new environmental property rights might be more effective, I do not thing it would make fracking worse, but rather make careless frackers targets of massive lawsuits.

I was holding onto the idea that Obama was somehow better than the opposition, but at the moment I can't, because he seems to just be bad on every score. My point about dictatorship and the lack of choice is really that I don't think Obama is personally the most evil person in the world in his head, but he's very close to the most evil person in the world in practice, and to figure out why that is you have to look to the process by which things get done.

Humor me for a sec. I know we're both dems, and you're a fair amount to the left of me, but what we believe doesn't seem to have much to do with what our candidates do. Here's how I think it works:

Various power groups who possess organizations for running campaigns and govt. affairs; people with lots of money; people who have issuing power of currency; people who control mass influence enterprises like the mainstream media and international energy cartels; these groups all exert influence over the politicians, write policy, and support candidates the most in line with them or the most willing to bend in their direction. The result is an Obama administration that despite whatever he may believe, results in a policy of about 100% of what the backers believe and about 0% of what Obama believes.

Paul has the advantage of being singularly uncompromising. That's what makes him better, not that I ultimately agree with him on everything, because I don't.

Romney and Gingrich are arch-compromisers, but at this level of "let the bad guys get whatever they want" it doesn't matter if Obama compromises 95% of the way and Gingrich 96% and Romney 97%, it's sort of splitting hairs at that point. It's like saying "oh, the bad guys will always get what they want, and will always add it to the evils of the last administration thus guaranteeing that every administration will be worse than the last."

Yeah, sure, it will, as long as we continue to accept this compromising with evil in exchange for 5% of a progressive agenda. I don't think that's an acceptable compromise, it seems to me more like unconditional surrender to the powers that be.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 5:22 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

I don't know how far we are going to get simple because we have vastly different outlooks, but...

Individual environmental property rights is an interesting concept until you start to ask who could sue and for what. You may own a piece of property, but you don't own the air above it. If a stream runs through you property can someone draw all the water out up stream while it is on their property? Then you have to look at how well lawsuits really work. Yes people might be able to win a large suit after they prove a company contaminated their well, but that damage has already been done. Not to mention the cost of those suits.

I thin the EPA may be slow, but I think it is effective. More so if the politicians would leave it alone.

I also don't see corporations or the very rich as evil entities. I don't agree with everything they do, but they do serve a purpose. Of course those powerful will support those whose ideals are closest to theirs, or might help their agenda. Ron Paul has a super pack as well.

Obama may not have followed everything he said while trying to become president but if people really were paying attention he is pretty much as advertised. He has also had to compromise to get things passed. Nothing that has gotten passed is a secret. The bills are all their for people to read.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 7:21 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Even the most right wing republicans didn't defend Bush like this,

BWAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA.

Thanks for starting my day with a chuckle.

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Friday, February 3, 2012 7:31 AM

BYTEMITE

Water rights allotments generally are used to prevent people from just taking all the water out of a stream away from those downstream (or polluting it so it's unusable). Though it's not perfect, and in order to work, it can't just be stagnant and volume based, but has to consider changing water conditions, a good idea of average yearly flow, and percentages. That's probably something that needs to be fixed, but to a degree it's workable. You could do something similar with the air, because air also has a flow.

I'd also say that polluting businesses have become a lot more interested in pursuing clean-up and environmentally friendly practices lately. Not out of altruism or because they care for anything but their bottom line, but because the banks are putting pressure on them to avoid the liability issues. And the big hit from liability isn't actually the government fines, it's the class action lawsuits. There's an order of magnitude difference. For small businesses it's tens of thousands of dollars for the fines, versus millions for civil settlements. Then look at a big business, like BP and the oil spill - the government only got BP to put aside about 20 million dollars to pay out to victims of that. It'd be much higher if the victims could pursue a lawsuit, but it looks like they can't.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 4:33 PM

DREAMTROVE

Nick

We don't need to debate the semantics of what constitutes your property because this was all worked out in the 19th c. Anything that impacts your home is your property. That means if the air above your house floats smog into your house, it's affecting your house. If it's in the stratosphere, it's not. Same for water. Under the original law, which was repealed after the civil war to make it easy for industry, it's harmful to your property if it's detectable from your home or land one day of the year.

I don't think the EPA is effective, because I think it's staffed by industry people, like my uncle, who is, sure, very environmentalist, but he's much more industry friendly than I am, or than anyone who isn't in the industry.

As for Obama, I'm not calling Obama a dictator here, I'm thinking that anyone who holds that seat is taking the dictation from TPTB, and writing it down, and then circulating it to congress, meaning I think that POTUS is secretary of the dictatorship I guess. But most of the policies that he has forwarded anyone would have because the job doesn't really account for much freedom, I think they're pretty much told what to do.

Story,

I wasn't here in the 2004 re-election campaign, which would be the most parallel, but I recall the Rap-republicans defending Bush on select points, maybe half the time, and the Geezer-republicans as basically never defending push if they could possibly help it. By contrast I see obama's battered wives defending him on all issues all the time, which is a pretty absurd position. Okay, maybe Bush's gay gop lovers were doing this in 2004, I don't know, I wasn't here, and I have no inclination to go and read the rants.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 8:25 PM

FREMDFIRMA

I don't think it's so much defending Obama as preferring him to the batshit crazy, wackjob wingnut death worshipping lunatics who wanna start WWIII and turn our living space into a radioactive wasteland hoping that their decitful hateful demongod will keep his phony promises and lift them all into happyfluffyrainbowland...
Which given previous behavior, is more likely gonna leave em here to suffer and die horribly for the sick amusement of that abomination and when their agonizing end comes those pearly gates are gonna open on a firey pit and the howling, mocking laughter of a blind, mad god.
Anyhow, leaving aside the fact that most of our so-called-candidates are in gleeful service to a monster, there's also this...

Say you do subvert or swamp the process and Ron Paul "wins" and then the powers that be refuse to accept it as they have times before (See Also: Victor L Berger) and simply pitch the meaningless 'vote' out like the pathetic joke it is...

AND. THEN. WHAT?

Protest and whine some more ?
Put on the dunce hat and collect yourself in a nice convenient little package to be put on a list, kettled, beaten, mocked and ignored - oh yes that's SOOOOooooo bloody effective, innit ?

Or what, the long overdue and way too late use of force, when the bastards are just WAITING for an excuse, half the military is so brainwashed they see US a fractious servants, goddamn commie-terror-symp weaklings who need to be put in their place and are itching to do it ?
Not gonna help much when they drop a 50KT tactical on your ass and blame you "Terrorists" as the rest of the country cheers on command like a bunch of dancing puppets and helps pave the way to some serious tyranny, rattling their own chains in celebration all the while.

No, you give me ANSWERS, you want my help, and not polite little fictions, not wishful thinking, and sure as hell not this clap-your-hands faerytale bullshit about working within a system that's nothing more than a scam and a trap, and was from it's very inception.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, February 4, 2012 5:10 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

We don't need to debate the semantics of what constitutes your property because this was all worked out in the 19th c. Anything that impacts your home is your property. That means if the air above your house floats smog into your house, it's affecting your house. If it's in the stratosphere, it's not. Same for water. Under the original law, which was repealed after the civil war to make it easy for industry, it's harmful to your property if it's detectable from your home or land one day of the year.

In the modern world that is unworkable. Get a whiff on a near by plant at your home a few days a year, lawsuit. Your neighbor drills a new well and it affects your water quality, lawsuit.

Not to mention that if an industry or the like does do real damage to your property you can sue them. Again, that is after the fact.

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I don't think the EPA is effective, because I think it's staffed by industry people, like my uncle, who is, sure, very environmentalist, but he's much more industry friendly than I am, or than anyone who isn't in the industry.

Those people also understand how those industries work. Without that understanding it becomes the regulators telling the industry they need to do something, but not knowing how to do it. That and any regulator that does not know the industry or come from industry can have the wool pulled over their eye much easier.

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:As for Obama, I'm not calling Obama a dictator here, I'm thinking that anyone who holds that seat is taking the dictation from TPTB, and writing it down, and then circulating it to congress, meaning I think that POTUS is secretary of the dictatorship I guess. But most of the policies that he has forwarded anyone would have because the job doesn't really account for much freedom, I think they're pretty much told what to do..

I think the whole TPTB thing is a fantasy. I think it is a huge cop out buy people who feel things are wrong, but don't want to do real work to change them.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Sunday, February 5, 2012 7:14 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

DT got me thinking and wondering: I don't agree with a lot of things that Ron Paul is for. But lets just say he wins, how much can he actually do? Everything Obama tries gets annalyzed and ultimately passed or failed by senate and congress. So probably all the stuff I don't like about Ron Paul would be filtered out by senate and congress?

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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