sure it would

but you don't understand that for somebody to live easy,others have to work

for somebody to enjoy more of your money's worth,somebody else wealth has to have lower significance

Americas power is a great weapon.

a simple question,do you really think USA just goes into Egypt or iraq for war?

every war has to have some aim

This i sincerely disagree with. Conservatives are always looking for their messiah too, namely their dead messiah Reagan (who was much more moderate than the Tea Party would be willing to tolerate today), and many conservatives seem to blindly put their faith in "the entrepreneur," or "the rich," people who have greater reasons to be purely self-interested yet have no true proof of actually being smarter or better able than the rest of us

Fascism and Communism are not bad ideas (well, fascism also has a dim, darwinian view of human nature), it's just that no-one has resolved the problems that human nature poses against them (namely that a self-interested elite without any sort of tilt against them will inevitably emerge, diluting the ideology that got them in their position in the first place, like the incredibly bureaucratic Soviet Union of the Brezhnev years). For now democracy is the best bet we have to hedge against our pessimistic view of human nature, but it's not necessarily the best overall

Eh, I doubt it.

Unlike most countries... Democracy is basically the defining trait of the USA. The first thing most Americans thing of is "The land of the Free" which they consider Democracy.

If anything i'd expect it to be like the other times in US history where the two main parties got too idiotic.

A third party would come and upend them both, causing the survivors of one party to merge with the party they just hated not too long ago.


I mean, waaaay down the line perhaps.... but we'd never live to see it.

I know every war has other motives.  War only benefits a few companies and doesn't help the overall economy at all.  A big war like WW2 helps out the overall economy but having a few individual companies making sophisticated weapons (modern warfare) barely benefits a few.  The only companies I see benefiting from USA's two most recent wars would be Halliburton, Lockhead Martin, Boeing, and a few others.  The oil companies might benefit if we can trick the Iraqi's into privatizing their oil fields.  Pretty much the main reason why we went into Iraq.

Though if your defining fascism as a mere "Appealing for fear".

Well, that already happened.

See the Neo Conservatives on the right who were born from the Old Democratic Liberals who fled the party after the arrival of the New Left.

That was basically their whole point. Spend like Democrats and Tax like Republicans because of the Soviet Union... and later Terrorism.

Maybe because over the past few years the Republicans have found themselves holding no levers of power at all and have only recently regained one house of Congress, so they have not been - and still are not - in a position to govern? Also, we have seen this business of $3 of promised spending cuts per $1 of tax hikes time and again. The tax hikes happen; the spending cuts don't.

So the only no-brainer here is David Brooks himself. Honestly, he should stick to writing paeans to Obama's pant leg. It's at least less embarrassing than when he tries to talk about policy.

On the topic of Charasmatic leaders portrayed as a Mesiah ... Since I was old enough to start paying attention to politics (about 20 years ago) there hasn't really been any charasmatic conservative leaders who were portrayed as a rock star or messiah like figure in any western country I can think of, and yet in every country I can think of there have been several instances of political figures on the left being portrayed in this way. It doesn't matter though, my core point was the elevation of a political figure to this level is the problem not which party does it more.

Beyond that, communal living is a very efficient way to live in very small communities but it simply doesn't scale well. There are still cultures and communities around the world that are thriving based on a communal lifestyle but these communities never grow larger than about 100 people; religious sects like the Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites have rules in place to prevent the community from getting too large and the communes split when they reach a size of (about) 100 people.

Communism is effectively trying to take the same system that starts to become corrupt and inefficient for 100 or more people and scaling it to try to meet the needs of millions of people. It is one of the most corrupt and abusive government types and it ensures the greatest disparity in standard of living because those in control of the system get to live in luxury while those without power don't have their basic needs met.

Even if you assume that the flaws inherent to communism could be addressed it is still based on the assumption that the government knows and can meet your needs, wants and dreams far better than you can; which is a flawed premise.

Communism is a very bad idea that has been implemented as best as it ever could be, and the abuse of power and failing to meet the needs of the citizens of a country will exist in any communist state regardless of who implements it.

I'm just wondering what tax hikes you are talking about?  Obama re-signed the "Bush cuts".  I agree that spending needs to be put in check but no politician has enough balls to do that.   If you look at the budget then it is obvious cuts have to happen from SS, Medicare/Medicaid, and the military.  If you cut anything else then it really doesn't amount to shit when it comes to the overall budget.  Perhaps we should conscript all the old people into the military and send them to the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

I would like to just point out the "savoir" of the Republican party - Reagan.   He actually increased taxes 7 of his 8 years in office.  He tripled the budget deficit, grew the size of government, gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants not solving the immigration problem at all, helped the Taliban and Osama, illegally gave weapons to Iran, etc...

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/

We haven't had a decent leader in the the USA since perhaps FDR times (and I am sure you can dig up plenty of dirt on FDR).   USA is void of leadership.  Funny thing is that Nixon actually passed a lot of environment protection (although most without any teeth)

"Nixon announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Nixon broke new ground by discussing environment policy his State of the Union speech; other initiatives supported by Nixon included the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); the National Environmental Policy Act required environmental impact statements for many Federal projects.[139] Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972, but his objection was not the policy goals of the legislation, but the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.[140]" - wiki 

The tax hikes the Democrats want as a part of the debt ceiling deal, of course. I'm not sure why you're confused about that. Brooks says Republicans are being foolish and fanatical not to take the Democrats' offer, but this is an old game. Until Democrats offer specific cuts, promising $3 or 4 trillion (or even $40 trillion) in theoretical cuts down the line means nothing.

I thought you were talking about actual tax hikes that have occurred since the late 90s.  Now, I understand you were talking about the whole bs situation and the debt ceiling.