THE POLITICAL ARENA!!! Political Gladiators Inside!!

[hicksjd9]

Well, I think you make some points above, though I found you to be a bit verbose. You are right in saying that as a society, we agree (to some degree) on our values and that we need to see how our values tie in to our society's success or lack thereof. My theory is that traditional American (read: U.S.) values of honesty, truthfulness, rugged individuality, and hard work are the pillars upon which we built our society.

A person needs to know (or at least believe) that they are being dealt with fairly, otherwise markets crumble. If you keep up with the stock market, you know that share value is based on belief, or faith, you might call it. The power of faith should not be underestimated in the financial world, but I believe that a lack of faith not only destroys markets, but also countries. I'm not speaking about religious faith, but faith that a country's direction is relatively good (read: on the right path), that leaders are above petty corruption, and that justice is blind. Let's do a poll and see who among us still has faith in these things. I'd be interested to see what the results would have been 50 years ago, 100. I have my hypotheses.

The fact is that our nation doesn't have that faith anymore and it has us flopping back and forth like a fish out of water. It's hard to turn down corruption, it's hard to work, and it's hard to be honest, but without these values society loses all abilty to trade fairly and grinds to a halt. Maybe the true crisis is that our values have shifted from these to...well, maybe nothing...or maybe selfishness, laziness, and irresponsibility. Tell me, Paul, if we all agree these are our social mores, does that make them values? Does it make us any less screwed?

[bassist_25]

Well, I think you make some points above, though I found you to be a bit verbose.

Being concise is one of my writing weaknesses, and I've been steadily improving on that. Funny enough, doing legal writing has helped a lot with that.

My theory is that traditional American (read: U.S.) values of honesty, truthfulness, rugged individuality, and hard work are the pillars upon which we built our society.

That would be the Weberian view. And I can't say that I disagree; I am largely a symbolic interactionist. However, American culture and American values are not part of this homogenous monolith that extends from the top of Maine to the bottom of California and then jumps over to Alaska and Hawaii and to all of the territories. Throughout our lives, we're socialized into other subcultures, institutions, and systems that may or may not be reflective of the dominant culture. Our workplaces would be the most notable example for the sake of this discussion. Organizations have their own cultures. If an organization's goal is to turn a profit, then its culture may reflect that goal. This situation leads to creating organizational structures that prompt people to act rationally. The cultural climate becomes its own entity and exists above and over any one individual.

A person needs to know (or at least believe) that they are being dealt with fairly, otherwise markets crumble.

And that will always be the source of tension between Marxists and Nozickian libertarians. Are markets instrinsically fair? Will people act rationally without regard to internalized values by trying to maximize the value they gain, either in money or commodities, from a market? Believing that people are being treated fairly and actually being treated fairly may be two different things.

The power of faith should not be underestimated in the financial world, but I believe that a lack of faith not only destroys markets, but also countries. I'm not speaking about religious faith, but faith that a country's direction is relatively good (read: on the right path), that leaders are above petty corruption, and that justice is blind.

In the early 1940s, the German people had a lot of faith in their leader and the direction of their country. The social culture in North Korea has also been pretty good at reinforcing a belief in the good of the current structures of the country. To believe that drifting away from the values you delineated above means that you must first accept them as axioms that are inherently good. You also have to define "good." (In America, we value rugged individuality, as you stated, but Asian countries have done well as collectivist societies. Who's right and who's wrong? Or are America and Asia both right or both wrong?)

Let's do a poll and see who among us still has faith in these things. I'd be interested to see what the results would have been 50 years ago, 100. I have my hypotheses.

The poll would need demographic questions to be a valid indicator of anomie. You'd need to dump the data into a regression model because other variables, such as race, socio-economic background, religious affiliation, geographic location, etc. are going to be predictive of whether or not someone has faith in the country's future. Would Black women in 1955 see the country as having a good collective set of values the same way as middle-class white males would? Our unique experiences, identities, and stations in life influence how we view the world.

It's hard to turn down corruption, it's hard to work, and it's hard to be honest, but without these values society loses all abilty to trade fairly and grinds to a halt.

Is corruption, laziness, and dishonestly really quantifiably larger today than it was 100 years ago? The robber barons of yore were quite underhanded people. Also, did these shift in values really happen recently? Industrialization may have created a shift in values when America went from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity due to a greater division of labor. Would you say that the nurse, airline pilot, CEO, IAM machinist, high school art teacher, and homemaker all have a fairly collective set of values? I personally do not know the answer to that.

Does it make us any less screwed?

Anomie is usually not a good thing; however, I am confident in our resilence and ingenuity. We may have to redefine our collective identity a bit, but these types of things are not static. I felt like the American Dream was sold out from under me a few years ago, but I redefined my frame. I'm optimistic; but that's just my personal opinion. I don't have any empirical evidence to feel one way or another.

[f.sciarrillo]

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[f.sciarrillo]

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[Banned]

BP Oil Barry hits new low in approval ratings, 39%.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing ... palin.html

Do the dems really want to run him in 2012?

[f.sciarrillo]

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[lonewolf]

I don't purport to be an expert on education; however, I do know that before we have any discussion about our educational success, we need to have a serious discussion about the criterion validity of our assessment systems. That is, we need to determine whether standardized testing, No Child Left Behind, etc. is actually preparing students to succeed in the real world. It's a knowledge economy out there nowadays, and are our educational systems teaching students to throw back information by rote memory or are they teaching students to think critically and actually create knowledge? It would be great if parents could get children to internalize these things, but that means creating a nation of autodidacts. Again, that's too reductionist and would be impossible short of creating a perfectly engineered society.

It is important to note that NCLB is the first comprehensive educational program that came out of the federal government. (just FYI: this is another example of how GWB, etc. were not classic conservatives or republicans)

Clinton had imposed semi-funded mandates, but still left it to the states to come up with their own programs.

There are many problems with a centralized government plan for education, but the main ones are:

1) unified set rules eliminate innovation
2) unified set rules eliminate competition
3) what if the feds are just plain WRONG?

(oh no! the feds couldn't possibly be w..wwrr..wwwrrrronnngggg...could they?)

[songsmith]

Phil, simply predicting that someone will discredit your source does not then mean you are correct. -------------------------------------->JMS

I just thought it was ironic, after f posted Newts Laws, that in a matter of minutes 2 of them were used against me!




Excuse me, I have to get back to filling the basement cupboards with food!
Good Day!

So, here's an example:
Righty: "Obama's raised everyone's taxes!"
Lefty: "No, actually 98% of us got a tax cut."
Righty: "I knew you'd say that! That makes me right!"

Of course people discredit the partisan Right. Especially when they're not factual. Newt gets discredited alot because he's flat wrong alot.

Oh, and are you stocking the basement shelves for the coming apocalypse, or just Turkey Day? --->JMS

[songsmith]

I am largely a symbolic interactionist.

I had you pegged as an Episcopalian. --->JMS

[lonewolf]

Oh, and are you stocking the basement shelves for the coming apocalypse, or just Turkey Day? --->JMS

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gloom-ang ... 8.html?x=0

tic...tic...tic...tic...tic...

[Blue Reality]

This is not a matter of if but when. There are too many external factors beyond our control that will trigger a negative impact upon our fragile economy. It might not become the equivalence of the Great Depression, but we would be happy with our present sluggish mess.

As for stocking the basement, I've got 70 chickens at the house right now. Going to be butchering 20 in the next week or two and we now sell eggs and eat as many as we want. I'm going to have an acre plowed under this spring for a huge garden. Tic Tic Tic Tic.....

For all of you blind with cynicism and skepticism, I'll be selling eggs and chicken and produce when you are hungry.

Can you hear it? Tic Tic Tic ..........

[songsmith]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/World-sto ... 3.html?x=0

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... profits+up

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-2 ... cmpid=yhoo

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/nationa ... elease.htm

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/ ... -estimate/


Shades of Y2K, anyone? Well, at least the Y2K scare led to a glut of portable generators, and brought the price way down for us camping enthusiasts. Maybe the current flirtation with "Armageddon" will be the one that helps folks take a more even keel, and not fall for every fear-tactic their media sells them (at a huge profit).

Now here's the REAL evidence that America is far smarter than the fringers admit:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.actio ... 4978726171

Bring it on! Run, Sarah, Run! --->JMS

[f.sciarrillo]

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[songsmith]

According to Newt, I just won. --->JMS

[f.sciarrillo]

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[TragicMind]

According to Newt, I just won. --->JMS

Won what? You didn't win anything, unless showing that you can't put something to rest to celebrate a national holiday; then yes, you did win.

and tHats why frank knows the score! happy Thansgiving...come tomorrow frank Will edukate us all on hoW oboma sux!

[songsmith]

C'mon dude, don't bust his chops while pretending you're dumb. Do it and be smart! Seriously, join in.
And Frank, Thanksgiving isn't a religious holiday. How does football figure into the solemn nature of the day? Parade balloons? Hangovers? Gluttony? Are you really offended that someone is posting, or just frustrated that the world isn't coming to an abrupt end?
Okay, I'll play along... I'm thankful the economy is very slowly improving. I'm thankful the Tea Party didn't take over. I'm thankful Bristol Palin lost. I'm thankful Karl Rove, Barbara Bush and the vast majority of GOP politicians don't think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president (and 67% of Americans polled). I'm mostly thankful that the G-darn turkey is finally out of the oven! (T-day at the in-laws means a 4pm start for us) Happy Thanksgiving.--->JMS

[Merge]

According to the Constitution, Sarah Palin is plenty qualified. However, that doesn't mean she should run, as I'm hoping she doesn't.

[f.sciarrillo]

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[TragicMind]

yes!!!!! frank culdn't wait until tomorrow to tell us about how he hates oboma. all is rite with the world! frank even sited faceBook as a vallid polling source. .thatz cuz frank knows the score! he knows the score so much that he shuld be the offishal score keeper for the sUperbowl!

[PStl]

Oh, and are you stocking the basement shelves for the coming apocalypse, or just Turkey Day? --->JMS

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gloom-ang ... 8.html?x=0

tic...tic...tic...tic...tic...

I was too paranoid to eat!
Seriously, we had this conversation. One thing I heard was the premise that Obama "doesn't know what he's doing", of which I replied that I think he knows exactly what he (they) are doing!
These words, said once he knew he had it won, "In five days we are going to fundamentally transform America" should have scared everyone straight. It sticks in my memory, the audacity!
Anyway, I'd like to think that my friends here will continue to be involved in the conversation, read, study. I'm usually an optimist, so I will say that I have a lot of faith that the people will come to realise that what is happening is planned (and tried before). It might be a long road back, and I'm not sure Palin can articulate it to the favor of the electorate. Personally, I'd like some straight talk from my Pres-candidate for a 'change'. Some combination Christy/Paul/Ryan/Palin. But, then again, I have a lousy record in the primaries: Perot, Forbes, Thompson!

[Banned]

yes!!!!! frank culdn't wait until tomorrow to tell us about how he hates oboma. all is rite with the world! frank even sited faceBook as a vallid polling source. .thatz cuz frank knows the score! he knows the score so much that he shuld be the offishal score keeper for the sUperbowl!

Whoever you are, you do nothing but make personal attacks. You never have anything to add to any conversation. Just personal attacks on Frank. I do not know why you are not banned.

[f.sciarrillo]

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[Hawk]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank:

"Bill: This is a democracy, not a socialist society. We work for what we got. People who spend their lives working their ass off to get where they are should not have to spread their money to people who refuse to work. As long as you work for what you got, I applaud you; if you don't work for what you got, then I rebuke you. "

Again Frank. What percentage of their money goes to lazy ass people ?

I'm more worried about the deficit and the lazy ass welfare frauds add perhaps .001% to the deficit. While the tax cuts to the top 2% has added over a trillion to the deficit.

Make an attempt to think things through Frank . What percentage does paying welfare frauds add to the deficit ? What percentage does tax cuts to the rich add to the deficit ?

I know the story line is, "don't raise taxes to the rich who create jobs". Let me see a break down of the jobs they are creating in the USA as opposed the jobs they are creating in China.

Of course we all know Frank will either avoid my questions because they require logical thinking or he will parrot some right wing crap.

[Hawk]

Frank, why is it, that in all of your political knowlege, you never address this issue?

Hawk:
"Obama has deported more illegals in two years than Bush did in Eight years. Obama must be the conservative and Bush the liberal ? It is the people who hire the illegals that keep them coming. Now tell me why the Republicans are against punishing the people who hire (support) the illegals. Why are the Republicans against the "cards" Obama proposed to prove who is legal so that ONLY the legal aliens get hired ? "

My friend was home from Phoenix Arizona and we were hanging out last night. He was quoting me some Arizona State statistics of jobs lost in various fields from construction and other markets because of the hiring of illegal aliens.
He is so pissed off that the people doing the hiring do not get punished for doing the hiring of illegals. Why are the Republicans AGAINST stopping this practice ?