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Forums - Politics Discussion - The American Right and Anti-Intellectualism

Mr Khan on 15 March 2012
HappySqurriel said:
Kasz216 said:
KungKras said:
Reading about american politics is always fun, because it is so different from europen politics. And opinions seem to be so polarized when you don't have a broad spectrum of parties to choose from.

I always found it funny that you guys keep using the term "left" when talking about the liberal party, even though you only have right (liberals) and far, far right (republicans). I know they're called left because they are the left wing of the availible political parties, but it's fun to imagine what say, a social democratic party would be called if one was ever formed xD

Does it even exist any other parties than the liberals and the republicans? I mean, there used to be a wiggs party before, right? Would the american system support more than two parties if more were ever to be formed?

That's a weird statement considering the Euro debt crisis... and europe following through with what would be considered an "Ultra Conservative economics plan that could only be devised by someone from the Teaparty."

Austerity in europe right now is being held up as a proof that the stimulus was right, and that Europes right wing economic policies are why it hasn't recovered.  (Ignoring of course, that at the same time, things were still going way downhill with the implentation of the stimulus... despite the fact that government spending is one of the metrics used to figure out the all important GDP.)


I don't follow your logic ...

The European debt crisis is caused by governments facing the consequences of out of control deficit spending, how does this demonstrate that out of control deficit spending was the right course of action?

Realistically, all the stimulus did was change the timeline of the eventual default in the USA from sometime between 2020 and 2030 based on Bush's moronic economic policies and move it forward to 2015 to 2020 based on Obama's even worse economic policies.

Now there's an interesting doomsday prediction that i haven't heard before. Have some backup on that?



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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lordmandeep on 15 March 2012

Frankly arguements against Austerity are rather silly.


The negative of Austerity are short term in nature.

The costs of reckless spending is long term in nature.


What is truly worse?



HappySqurriel on 15 March 2012
Mr Khan said:
HappySqurriel said:
Kasz216 said:
KungKras said:
Reading about american politics is always fun, because it is so different from europen politics. And opinions seem to be so polarized when you don't have a broad spectrum of parties to choose from.

I always found it funny that you guys keep using the term "left" when talking about the liberal party, even though you only have right (liberals) and far, far right (republicans). I know they're called left because they are the left wing of the availible political parties, but it's fun to imagine what say, a social democratic party would be called if one was ever formed xD

Does it even exist any other parties than the liberals and the republicans? I mean, there used to be a wiggs party before, right? Would the american system support more than two parties if more were ever to be formed?

That's a weird statement considering the Euro debt crisis... and europe following through with what would be considered an "Ultra Conservative economics plan that could only be devised by someone from the Teaparty."

Austerity in europe right now is being held up as a proof that the stimulus was right, and that Europes right wing economic policies are why it hasn't recovered.  (Ignoring of course, that at the same time, things were still going way downhill with the implentation of the stimulus... despite the fact that government spending is one of the metrics used to figure out the all important GDP.)


I don't follow your logic ...

The European debt crisis is caused by governments facing the consequences of out of control deficit spending, how does this demonstrate that out of control deficit spending was the right course of action?

Realistically, all the stimulus did was change the timeline of the eventual default in the USA from sometime between 2020 and 2030 based on Bush's moronic economic policies and move it forward to 2015 to 2020 based on Obama's even worse economic policies.

Now there's an interesting doomsday prediction that i haven't heard before. Have some backup on that?

The debt-to-GDP ratio in the United States has already passed 100% in the United States and is increasing by about 10% per year, and there is no real effort to reduce the deficit to non-moronic levels by anyone in power. When the debt level will hit a point where investors will lose confidence in the United States’ ability to repay their debt and interest rates will begin to increase which will (likely) cause speculators to short government bonds accelerating the rate that interest rates increase.

This (of course) can not be managed by increasing taxes at that point because for every 1% interest rates increase tax revenues will have to increase between 4% and 10% to compensate, which leaves 3 options:

  1. Austerity
  2. Inflation
  3. Default

Austerity would require cutting government services to levels below third world levels to cover the interest on the debt, inflation would be disasterous to the poor and middle class, and defaulting would result in a worldwide economic collapse that would make the great depression look pleasant.

 

Of course, this could all be prevented  ...





Dark_Lord_2008 on 15 March 2012

Politics in the US is completely different to Europe. Democrats are seen outside of the US as right wing and the Republicans are hard right wing. There is no true left wing party in the US. 

Europe has far more diversity in political parties ranging from Socialists, Environmentalists, Social Democrats and Moderates on the left side of politics. On the right side of politics are: Conservatives, Liberals, Christian Democrats and Moderates. Europe has Coalitions running government, European politicians must make some  compromises instead of just sticking to the party line.

Only 50% of the population of the US votes. European nations have around 70% of the population who votes. The government in any given European nation is more representative of the people than the US political system.



lordmandeep on 16 March 2012

well to be fair electoral turnouts in the 2004 and 2008 election were as high as most countries and frankly Canada now has a worse electoral turnout then the US and we are not falling apart at...


So the argument that strong electoral turnouts are needed to have good times is false. When times are good, that is when people stop voting...

The 1990's had the worst turnout and it was some of the best times for America.



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Kasz216 on 17 March 2012
Dark_Lord_2008 said:

Politics in the US is completely different to Europe. Democrats are seen outside of the US as right wing and the Republicans are hard right wing. There is no true left wing party in the US.

Which is a myth if you do a FULL breakdown of all policies, instead of just looking at 3-4 issues hot button issues the US is the odd man out on...

I'd put the US's left wing credibility against a country like France anyday, with it's much worse laws and practices in relation to sexism, racism, ability of the powerful to be be unaccountable, freedom of speech and discrimination against minority religions.

Example

http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/france-should-follow-america-s-209707.aspx

And unless something has changed recently, i'm pretty sure France has no affirmitive action programs in regards to race... at all.

And stories like these make US ones seem trivial in comparison

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1574817,00.html

 

And people say tough times are forcing Romeny to move right...   He's got NOTHING on Sarkozy when it comes to pandering to the hard right.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/03/08/sarkozys-xenophobia-french-president-panders-to-the-extreme-right/



Jumpin on 18 March 2012

The US just needs to start ignorning the Libertarians, and leave their crazy backwards policies in the 19th century where they belong (or well, didn't belong, but were there regardless).



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

badgenome on 18 March 2012
Jumpin said:
Why do people have the idea that Conservatives in the US are better with money than Liberals? Reagan and Bush Sr. the economy tanked, then with Clinton the economy flourished to new heights. Bush comes in, the economy tanks at levels not seen since Black Monday during the Reagan administration.

Hint: look at who controlled Congress.



lordmandeep on 18 March 2012

Frankly the Libertarians in the US who are the only decent people left.


Democrat supports want to see Big govt, Republican supports want govt to regulate morality.



badgenome on 18 March 2012

Jumpin said:

The US just needs to get rid of the libertarians.

You know who else just wanted to get rid of people...

Nice edit. Here's another hint: they already do ignore us. That's the problem.