Will Democrats lose for a decade or go far-right?

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It's simply not true that every man has his price. For every corrupt politician, there are many more who aren't. There are various motivations that cause people to enter politics - ideology, principle, a desire to serve the public, self-aggrandizement - but it's wrong to conclude that every politician is in it primarily for monetary enrichment. And it's even more wrong to conclude that since "they're all crooks", the only thing we can do is minimize government & surrender to the monied interests.

On the other point, I never said that the U.S. isn't a republic. What I said is that the U.S. is a republic AND a democracy. Pithy Franklin quote notwithstanding, this is hardly convincing as a refutation to the point I made.

Polls in Wisconsin or nationally? 'And when? Feelings in Wisconsin were a lot different in say April last year than than what they settled into by the recall election. There was also an element of people not wanting to recall a sitting governor who committed no crimes and that they only had a political disagreement with.

I don't think the collective bargaining issue was particularly compelling to the majority of voters tho. I think evidence of that beyond Scott Walker's win was that the union's chosen candidate Kathleen Falk got crushed by Tom Barrett in the primary despite raising more money and having all the union support. Kathleen Falk does not lack name recognition in the state either. Tom Barrett pretty much stayed away from the issue and had used the reforms himself.

I don't know if you've ever been a public employee or if things are even the same where you're from but most of the public employees I know(quite a few) aren't really big fans of the bureaucracy or their co-workers. I imagine that played a large part in why a lot of them would of rather 15,000 state workers be laid off than there being a shared sacrifice. A lot think state workers think that other state workers are lazy, incompetent, or just unnecessary with no way of recourse, Something like 38% of union households voted for Walker, actually more than when he was elected in 2010.

I never said that they are all crooks. My point is that the ones who are can't sell what they don't possess.

Just because your point was wordier, doesn't mean it was more convincing. If the people who intentionally designed the US to be a constitutionally limited repeatedly state that it is a republic, any argument against it is purely a denial of reality. Unless you could make a case showing that the Founding Fathers didn't know the difference between the two. The only thing remotely democratic about the US is our electoral system. What I, and Franklin, are referring to is the policy making system; which is certainly a Constitutionally limited Republic.

For every corrupt politicians there are many more who are not yet corrupt. Given them a chance. They won't disappoint.

ruveyn

ruveyn -- You are correct. Remember Lord Acton's quote, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Actually the problem for the Democrats is that they have moved so far to the left they have completely alienated centrists. The really hysterical thing is that Democrats believe that what they think is what most of America believes, when quite frankly most of America doesn't agree with them.

Americans are also ticked off with the Democrats because of how they were demonized and accused en-mass of being racist.

Fact of the matter is, the course the Democrats have put us on is unsustainable, they have made President Bush's deficit spending look like Bush was running a surplus...

Obama wants us to be more like Europe, well considering Europe is collapsing from their irresponsible spending and that's just for starters, I quite frankly don't want to be like Europe. I consider Europe to be an example of what NOT to do.

Please provide an example of a Democrat policy which is "far left."

Obamacare which includes a mandate that forces people to buy a product or be penalized simply because they are breathing.

Obama's war on every from of energy production except windmills and solar panels...

Obama's attempt to increase entitlement spending along with his other insane spending programs.

Obama's ignoring bankruptcy law concerning GM and Chrysler.

I also suspect that Fast & Furious was intended to deliberately provide guns to drug cartels, and it would have continued except that Gun Dealerships suspected something was wrong and started taping their conversations with the DoJ.

Hah! Trick questions. Democrats have already gone far right. Ask Obama.

Fearless Leader learned his politics in Chicago.

Saul Alinsky was his intellectual god-father.

ruveyn

Obamacare might not exactly be right-wing (although it is based off of the program Romney created when he was governor of Massachusetts), but it certainly is not left-wing. It still maintains a for-profit healthcare system, is not a single-payer system, and is not universal healthcare. The response from a truly far-left party can be found here. Conservatives in most other developed countries would view Obamacare as absurdly right-wing.

What has Obama done (other than produce enough hot air to make global warming go even faster) to phase out fossil fuels? He talks about energy security using oil from Alberta (not an American colony, no matter what you and Stephen Harper might like to think) and natural gas. He has made no substantial effort to institute an effective carbon tax or cap-and-trade system (yes, one exists, but it doesn't seem to do much) and CO2 emissions have continued to rise during his term. Also, such a policy doesn't make him far-left; Angela Merkel's (centre-right) government has been a big supporter of solar technology in Germany.

The USA has extremely low social spending when compared with the rest of the Western world. And in any case, increasing entitlements is an example of "social democracy" which is centre-left at most. Far-left usually refers to revolutionary socialism/communism (Trotskyists, Left Communists, international socialists, etc.) You might use it to refer to a party that drastically increases social spending and taxes on the rich, is explicitly anti-corporate, and decides to nationalize a few things (like banks, oil companies, or railways) while they're in power. Obama has done none of that.

Obama's bailouts are corporatist, not left-wing. Such policies are not free market right-wing, but they most certainly are not left-wing either. A left-wing party would nationalise failed businesses, as was done with some of the banks in Iceland. And once again, left-wing parties such as the Greens and the various minor socialist parties are strongly opposed to the way bailout money is being handed over to corporations. Normally a left-wing government would choose to use stimulus funding through a) public works b) investing in small business (such as Gillard did in Australia).

I fail to see how Operation Fast and Furious makes Obama left-wing. Unethical, certainly, but I already knew that about him. And I would say that any participation in the gun trade is a more socially conservative stance.

Not going to go through and deconstruct your entire post but I will point out at least two key fallacies.

1. I have never said that I consider Romney to be a Conservative, and quite frankly I consider him to be a Massachusetts moderate (translation a liberal).

2. Operation Fast & Furious was used to provide a push for more anti-gun laws.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-5 ... e1.channel

CBS News is rather late to the party, on this particular item (Fox News uncovered this months ago), but I will say they've demonstrated more integrity than NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and ABC combined when it comes to this issue.

Then deconstruct just the one on social spending. You are not supporting your case that Obama is far-left


Irrelevant to my central thesis that Obama's health reforms are not left-wing by any international standard and even by the standard of the minor left-wing parties, as can be seen by comparing them to healthcare systems in the rest of the Western world.

All right, but have a bit of perspective. In most places support for gun control begins at around the political centre. It does not make him far-left. Which, as I mentioned earlier, usually refers to revolutionary socialists, or at least the sort of person who would do some major nationalisations. Also, using such slimy methods to bring about gun control is somewhat authoritarian, which is independent of the left/right spectrum.

If you hadn't noticed Obama's insane spending by now, I could probably write a 20 page paper complete with sources and you would still be screaming that Obama is in the political center and is a great President...



I don't care what the political environment is in the rest of the world. This is the United States of America, the only people that should be voting in our elections are US citizens. Government run healthcare which is what Obamacare is designed to impliment, is a Left-Wing Agenda. Furthermore, Mitt Romney is also a liberal, unless he's changed recently, which is why I'm so disgusted with this election.



Actually gun control garbage starts from the left, the mainstream media does not represent the political center of this country. Liberals have simply had a monopoly on broadcast media until Rush Limbaugh came on the air and more importantly Fox News.

Outright gun ban are not supported by the political center, they are a left wing agenda. Part of the problem with liberals is that they think the mainstream thinks like them, and if you disagree you must be racist, evil, stupid, etc.

You will never hear me saying that Obama is a great president. I don't particularly like him. And I don't see claiming someone to be centrist to be a compliment, considering I am very left wing. But let's look at spending patterns. The USA was running a surplus under Clinton. The current deficit began under Bush and was made worse by the recession. I do think that it could be handled a lot better than Obama is doing. But considering the place where the USA spends the most compared to other countries is military stuff, I view that as the big culprit. Not the relatively modest levels of social spending that you have. But in any case, social spending is centre-left, not far-left.
It is worth considering what other environments are like though in order to give some perspective. By your standard Canada has a Communist government right now (despite the fact that it is probably the most right-wing we've had in living memory), which is obviously not the case. And government run healthcare is supported by the left only because it allows for universal coverage, does so at more affordable rates, and is a single-payer system (since profits are removed from the picture). Obama's policies will achieve none of that. And in any case, hospitals will still mostly be privately owned, so I'd hardly call that government-run healthcare.


First, I did not get the impression that in this case the government was trying to institute an outright ban. I could be wrong, since I'd never heard of this particular story until you brought it up. But in any case...

Some information that I found showed that Americans are fairly evenly split on the issue of gun control (source). So calling for increased control seems like a fairly moderate position to me. If you have evidence that this is not in fact the case then I'd be more than willing to take a look.

There is very little diversity in the media in the USA. Sure, it might talk about gun control or social spending or the environment, but none of the mainstream sources offer a fundamentally different view of society. This is a problem that can be seen throughout the West. Most media outlets conform to the current neoliberal (that is, fiscally right-wing) orthodoxy. If you think I am wrong then consider this: how often does the media call for tax increases? How often does it mention nationalisation? In the USA, how often do they talk about any political party or view other than Republican and Democrat? When's the last time a major media outlet has brought up a steady state economy? Has anyone, liberal or conservative, ever said a good thing about Hugo Chavez? (I'm not expressing support for Chavez, merely giving an example of a non-mainstream view) If I mention these things I am called a radical, or a hippie, or a commie, or just out-right crazy.

On a more semantic note, I would go so far as to say that the fact that the Democrats are able to get elected shows that there is some significant amount of support for them. To me that signifies that in the local political spectrum (which you have established as the only one of significance) they are towards the centre (although still centre left). Radicalism involves going against the prevailing societal opinion and the fact that such large segments of the USA support Democrat ideology (current polls show the nation about evenly split) means that it is not radical.

On a closing note:


source

For Christ's sake, if you're going to attack Obama at least attack him for his many, many legitimate failings and not for this vague "far left socialist" meme that isn't supported by evidence.

Did he push through a national healthcare law? Yes. Who did it benefit? Insurance companies. Pretty left wing, right?

How about foreign policy. W invaded Afghanistan and Iraq; Obama has continued those wars (on W's timetable), while also attacking people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and probably a few more I'm either forgetting or don't know about. He's established a f*cking assassination czar. Now state sponsored hit squads may be a feature of authoritarians of all stripes, but the American left certainly wouldn't endorse such a policy on their own. Now keeping mum because it's "their" guy in office is another story.

Immigration? Obama has deported record numbers of immigrants, and his temporary reprieve is just a drop in the bucket compared to the pace he's set, a naked political stunt to pander to the Latin vote. That sound like a lefty socialist?

Even on guns, my pet issue, he's really done nothing overt to arouse me ire, SCOTUS appointments and Eric Holder aside. Even in the area where I'm most concerned, his Supreme Court appointments, I don't think gun control was really the point, it was more incidental to the type of justices he was going to appoint period. I'm (for the moment) putting Fast and Furious squarely on Holder, though this invocation of privilege concerning it certainly suggests executive involvement. I don't think he wants the political fight that taking on America's gun owners directly would bring, so I remain fairly unconcerned in this area.

Leaks? Obama has been the most aggressive prosecutor of whistleblowers and (non-sanctioned)leaks EVER. Again, perhaps universal to authoritarians (Obama's TRUE color), but hardly liberal.

Drugs? Obama has escalated the drug war to record levels and ruthlessly pursued federal charges against people obeying state law with regards to medical marijuana, among other things. Yet again, not exactly left wing.

With all the legitimate reasons to attack Obama, why f*ck around with the BS? Go after him from the right and from the left, he's guilty no matter which angle you look from.