The Real Mitt Romney

[Adak]

Since SS was going slowly bankrupt, Tw, isn't it just - I don't know, REASONABLE - to increase the SS taxes, to save Social Security?

Not that the poly-ticks won't probably rob it anyway later on, but that's the damn liberals for you.

Because conservatives believe that if you start a program, you FUND the program, and if the program is important, and it's going broke, you make the changes necessary to get it FUNDED properly.

Unfortunately, true conservatives like this, are few and far between, in Washington, or in our state capitals. In either party.

@BigV - am I keeping you busy?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Adak

Reagan, in 8 years: 1.65 Trillion increase
12/31/1981: 1.028 Trillion Dollars
12/31/1988: 2.684 Trillion Dollars

An increase of 0.55 trillion dollars, per year.

Obama, in 3.8 years: 3.7 Trillion increase
12/31/2009: 12.311 Trillion Dollars
10/01/2012: 16.011 Trillion Dollars

Had your information sources been moderates, then you would not be posting half facts. For example, $0.55 trillion per year in 1982 is over $1.3 trillion in 2012 dollars. That is over $4.9 trillion in 3.8 years. Why do they forget to mention that part?

Extremist talk show hosts routinely forget facts to hype an agenda. To invent propaganda. Who spent more? Obama's $3.7 trillion in 3.8 years or Reagan's $4.9 trillion? Those are your numbers when intentionally missing facts are included.

Meanwhile, learn why your extremists talk show hosts have provided erroneous numbers. And that your arithmetic is flawed.

'Big dic' thinking foolishly measures power in terms of military hardware. So we built Ohio class subs to only have most of them scrapped. How often have Los Angles submarines done anything useful? The B-1 bombers was a disaster when started in the late 1970s. It could not perform military functions until about 2000. 20 years to make the B-1 useful and you are proud of it? The B-1 after 2000 only did functions that the B-52 (a 1950s design) was doing. Too much 'big dic' thinking without a grasp of reality.

Nimitz class aircraft carriers did what? Were so ineffective that air tasking orders even had to be manually delivered. Carriers could not even get tasking orders via satellites or radio like all other Air Forces. Most Navy planes had to stay back protecting the carriers. Could not reach targets without land based refueling. Eventually all Navy planes were withdrawn from attack due their inability to hit targets. But somehow you just knew those Nimitz class carriers are better because ... they are so big or because extremists talk show hosts said so? Which is it? Why does so much expensive hardware do so little? And you are so proud? Facts mean that 'big dic' thinking would quickly deflate.

Why do you spend so much time hyping military hardware as if that makes America wealthier, healthier, educated, innovative, and strong? It doesn't despite propaganda hyped by extremist talk show hosts. Worse, all that hardware makes extremists want to use it in more useless wars (ie Mission Accomplished). Too much military hardware and 'big dic' thinking justifies unnecessary wars and creates massive debts.

The US Navy is larger than the next 12 Navies combined. 11 of those 12 are close American allies. But wacko extremist talk show hosts tell the most naive that we have diminished military. You swallowed their lie; hook, line and sinker. Only an extremists can be so easily manipulated by bogus propaganda.

Having wasted $3 trillion in Mission Accomplished, what did that war accomplish? Well it created massive debts that Obama is stuck paying for. Or did extremist talk show hosts forget to mention that Mission Accomplished was intentionally not in any George Jr's budgets? Mission Accomplished was financed by the Chinese. Now we (Obama) must repay the Chinese. Why do extremists talk show hosts forget to mention that? Why do you never ask damning questions? Moderates do. If you are not a moderate, then what are you? Uninformed? Manipulated by propaganda? A victim of half truths?

Education from extremists talk show hosts means you do not know what socialism is. Communism happens when top management subverts socialism. Cuba is a communist country. Why would anything confuse communism with socialism? Extremists talk show hosts. Had they been honest, then you knew Cuba is communist - not socialist.

But then extremists talk show hosts define a world as "liberal verses conservative" to keep their disciples confused and militant. You even confused military hardware with what makes a nation strong. Classic 'big dic' thinking.

Please learn facts so that extremist talk show hosts do not so easily manipulate you. Your many paragraphs demonstrate how easily they manipulate using lies, myths, and half truths. So bogus is your claim of a diminished Navy. Only the least educated would believe all that obvious nonsense.

Meanwhile, despite lies from extremists talk show hosts, Reagan increased (did not decrease) taxes.

[Adak]

More fun facts about socialism in action:

Here's what to expect from your new Socialist President, France:

From the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19814806

It has not been a great week to be French. Unemployment has just hit three million, growth for next year is estimated at barely above zero, and the popularity of (Socialist) President Hollande has plummeted.

...unemployment here just hit the three million mark and is going to keep rising.

Every week sees a new announcement of large-scale lay-offs. Just this week the last blast-furnace in Lorraine - once
the crucible of the French steel industry - has closed.

Taxes are going up, and no matter what the socialist government says, it is not just the rich who will be affected.

Business-creators are furious because the new rules mean that people who build up an enterprise from scratch will lose more than 60% to the government when they try to sell it on. More and more of the brightest and the best are thinking of moving abroad.

London! is now the sixth largest "French" city.

============== End of BBC Report ================

Why do I dislike Socialism? Because it doesn't work at all well, but liberals keep telling you it will work, and before long, they bring the gov't into EVERY part of your life, and your freedom and rights, go right down the drain.

It's time to Wake Up, about socialism!

[Adak]

Meanwhile, despite lies from extremists talk show hosts, Reagan increased (did not decrease) taxes.

The Congressional Budget Office, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the FHFA, and the IRS are "extremist talk show hosts", now?

You're in deep lying waters, and you have a 40 lb. tool belt of lies strapped around your middle. I suggest you lose a few of them.

So you REALLY believe that a strong military, and a strong economy, somehow combine to make us weak?

Please... that is THE MOST pathetic argument, I've heard all year.

Why don't you prove it to me, that taxes were higher in 1980 , when Reagan took office, than they were in January 1988, (or Dec. 1987), when he left office.

You can adjust for inflation if you like. It's only 8 years here, but the stats including adjustment for inflation, as well as nominal, are available at the url I posted with the data.

I'm sure if you dig around, you can find SOMEBODY whose tax loophole was closed by Reagan, and then had higher tax liability, as a result. But go ahead, it will be fun.

Because the basis of your belief system is a lie. Our country was founded on individual freedoms and opportunity - not gov't hand outs. The gov't will NEVER be nearly as efficient as the private sector. Not even the military is that efficient.

You should read up on just what our private sector has done for us:
http://www.economist.com/node/21555532

it's the kind of thing you won't see in ANY Hollywood movie, where the wicked corporation tries to take over the world, unleash biological weapons, destroy the moon, etc.

Again, it's just a fact. You can run away or slander them or whatever, but they're still THOSE DAMN FACTS.

Read it and weep!

[tw]

Originally Posted by Adak

You're in deep lying waters, and you have a 40 lb. tool belt of lies strapped around your middle. I suggest you lose a few of them.

So you REALLY believe that a strong military, and a strong economy, somehow combine to make us weak?

So the B-1 Bomber, Nimitz carrier, Ohio and Los Angles submarines, 600 ship Navy, etc all made the American economy stronger? History says just the opposite. Why are you no longer defending those weapon systems once their value was better defined? And why are you imposing extremist talk show myths to misrepresent what I posted? That misrepresentation is a classic debating trick used when the many previous claims were too far from reality.

Since those 'big dic' military claims are bogus, you are now running to blame socialism for economic malise. Nonsense again. Strong economies are not created by "deregulation verses socialism". Or conservative verse liberal. Or "them verses us". Or 'big dic' inspired wars. Strong economics occurs due to innovation found in all free market economies, including France. Political spin does not explain what makes or undermines economies. Closing tax loopholes did not end the economic disaster created by a conservative and wacko president Nixon. A president who is slightly more socialist did not suddenly create a massive recession in France.

Posting mockery does not prove knowledge. It only proves you cannot defend those myths in previous posts.

A country prospers when better educated people do not promote the extremist political agendas that you have posted. Innovation is not defined or promoted in your accusations. Innovation is the reason for America's strength. Innovation is the kind of thing you won't see in ANY Hollywood movie where the evil liberal destroys corporations, unleashes biological weapons, and creates massacres. The real threat is someone who blindly preaches half truth propganda and the resulting hate from those extremist political concepts.

A real threat is one who sees solutions in 'big dic' concepts. As we learned from useless and unnecessary deaths in Vietnam and Iraq. But no. Extremists politic, rather than logic and reality, proves 'them verses us' justifies destruction. "Conservative verse liberal" rhetoric even justified hate of Muslims in Lower Manhattan.

It is sad that your politics rather than well proven historical concepts explain the world. Those politics historically justified waste, stilfled innovation, hate, environmental disasters, fear, and even words such as nigger.

Meanwhile, other terms not found in your politics (ie STEM, R&D, education) explain what makes an economy and nation prosper. 'Big dic' military and conservative agendas did not make America prosper. A tolerant society that even welcomes immigrants does. A society not polarized by rediculous "liberal verse conservative" hate is prosperous. Your extremist politics is a serious threat to what made America great.

[DanaC]

You should read up on just what our private sector has done for us:
http://www.economist.com/node/21555532

it's the kind of thing you won't see in ANY Hollywood movie, where the wicked corporation tries to take over the world, unleash biological weapons, destroy the moon, etc.

Again, it's just a fact. You can run away or slander them or whatever, but they're still THOSE DAMN FACTS.

Read it and weep!

This caught my eye. I won't dispute the details of Herman's study; I don't know nearly enough about that period of history for my own country, let alone anyone else's. But...

Alarm bells always sound for me when I see someone cite a historian's findings as bald fact. That just isn't how history works as a field. His analysis will be replete with individual facts, but taken as a whole no analysis, no piece of research, no academic study (within humanities/arts/ social sciences) should ever be taken as the last word on a given topic.

I'm currently teaching historical skills and historiography to 1st year undergrads, and one of the first things they learn is that, unlike at school and college, the texts they read are not to be treated as unassailable fact. They are not to be approached in the same way as a school text book, where the word on the page is what you learn to be true.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by DanaC

...I'm currently teaching historical skills and historiography to 1st year undergrads, and one of the first things they learn is that, unlike at school and college, the texts they read are not to be treated as unassailable fact. They are not to be approached in the same way as a school text book, where the word on the page is what you learn to be true.

Does this scare anyone else?