j_b

Benefits that demand access to resources have always been constrained by the size of group resources as you certainly ought to know since your main opposition to the right to a living wage is your bogus claim that we can't afford them. An abortion has little cost and no impact on anybody but the woman (and minimally on the sperm donor). Expensive medical procedures paid by the collectivity drain resources that are needed for other essential tasks and the return on such procedure unfortunately has to be part of the equation until we find a way to reduce its cost or find a way around it. Ergo, you are attempting to compare apples and oranges.

[video:youtube]HfuwNU0jsk0

Abortion is certainly a right. Freaking jackboot wanting to control women's bodies. So much for "liberty", hypocritical liar.

A significant majority of Rethug males have the hots for Palin but she isn't so popular with the gals. What do tea-baggers dudes think about when O'Donnell lectures them on masturbation?

Tell that to Bill. My only gun is a 12-gauge that I occasionally carry around for work in Alaska.

Defense is why we spend more in military expenditures than the rest of the world combined. These furiners are aggressive little fuckers, aren't they?

Bill - For 30+ years, rhetoric against big government spending has been the privilege of sociopaths who have plundered the treasury, and made sure that revenues weren't sufficient, in order to "drown government in a bathtub". All the while, they switched the tax burden onto wage earners while they raised local regressive taxes and pay-to-play fees. Rhetoric against "big government" spending always reaches a crescendo when advocates of social fairness try to implement measures to that effect while it hardly ever comes up when these sociopaths turn into budget busting warmongers/tax breaks for the wealthy. Reducing the deficit has become code word for slashing the public sector and social programs in order to implement the neoliberal/libertarian vision of limited government. Regressives are trying to seize the opportunity presented by this crisis to implement "shock therapy" (privatization and deregulation) that will strengthen the stranglehold of corporatism on society

Nobody who is getting significant airtime that's for sure. The green party has perhaps a platform close to it these days?

they only spend trillions in advertising and P.R. per year to "convince" people to buy their things. They call it "free will" “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it.” Bernays, pioneer of the advertising industry, in 1928 on the creation of the PR industry and the “engineering of consent.” Bernays called it "propaganda" until Goebbels (who was a great admirer) and his pals made a mess of it and ruined that terminology for all. [video:youtube]V0OrT-8gXMs

I knew you'd eventually understand that a balanced budget depends on revenue as well as expense. actually, despite claims by the corporate media and their toadies, the deficit ranks quite low on Americans' concern list. Creating jobs and the economy is the order of the day for most and only government spending money on infrastructure can do it since it is also pretty clear by now that corporations have no intention of investing into good jobs. right, let's slash the war budget, the war on drugs and the attenting jail industrial complex, get rid of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that don't reinvest in the economy to start with.

but again, fair elections aren't a right until the corporatist judges agree to it. Exactly like, African Americans didn't have any civil rights until congress voted the civil right act, but then it only happened because of "mobs" that took to the street and an intrusive "big government" that trampled the rights of the racist to deny civil rights to African Americans. Robespierre then cut a few heads and since then we have lived under the tyranny of the majority. Hypocrites of the world unite to defend your right to trample other people's right. [/clown mode]

But you know, putting a cap on contributions would be denying their "right" to deny your right to participate in a fair election. It's basically the same self-serving logic used by slave owners to defend their right to human chattel.

I am glad to let you know we were talking about cash donations for elections. Cash donations for campaigning on issues are a different topic.

YOu are switching topic. We were talking about elections.

More evidence of your cluelessness. The corporate media reports only what it wants to report. Clueless again. Fox frames the issues and the rest of the corporate media follows. Nooooo! you are an elitist for not accounting for consent being manufactured through political and commercial propaganda, shitty education, pandering to the lowest common denominator, outright lying, media blackouts, self-censorship, outright censorship, etc .. it does matter that you ignore the role of the corporate media and wildly disproportionate financial muscles.

Yup. Get busy, jb! lying piece of shit! if small contributors don't come through, fOrget it. We don't need the untold millions spent on sound-bytes. Many other countries have a more engaged, knowlaedgeable populations and spend a fraction of what we spend on elections.

Now we're getting to the heart of your objections. If the distribution of spending favored your side, we wouldn't be hearing much from you, methinks. Liar. I have no problem with any organization spending money on elections when their money comes from many small contributions.

because the institutionalization of corporations buying elections don't reduce your political power? You are clueless. spoken like an elitist who ignores how corporate media manufacture consents, how a perpetually dysfunctional government betrays constituencies year after year leading to disenfranchisement of ~50% of the population, etc ..

I think he's quite okay with that set of consequences from the Citizen's United ruling. It's the impartiality that's problematic. JayB and the other nincompoops have already forgotten about the Washington post article posted 2 pages ago showing that ad-hoc conservative organizations are outspending liberal ones 7:1, while most of their contributions come form large wealthy donors and corporations.

and 100's of millions will be spent on the elections by liberal ad-hoc organizations, supposedly independent from campaigns... you myopic fucktard sorry but we aren't going to restart this argument because morons like you can't read.

there is little doubt about it whatever confusion may ensconce the fetishists.

Nope. By the end of this election cycle, 100's of million will be spent on the elections by conservative ad-hoc organizations, supposedly independent from campaigns. I am not sure what you are talking about not everyone being able to speak freely. Speaking freely has little to do with corporations or the uber-rich pouring untold amount of cash into slanderous propaganda.

I didn't say it had open floodgates to campaigns. You did.

Where do you think an 80% casualty rate for a total population of 5 people over 30 years would plot compared to a 10% casualty rate for a population of 200 million over 5 years? How meaningful would that graph be? Moreover, do you think this graph is telling us that Germany and Russia had a war death rate of .15% over the course of the 20th century? That seems quite high.