I was talking to a friend's little girl, and she said she wanted to have affordable, universal healthcare some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were in their house getting ready to canvass for Obama, so I asked her, 'If you were President, how would you propose we pay for this?'
She replied, 'First, I'd repeal the Bush tax cuts and close corporate taxation loopholes that have allowed big businesses to pay essentially zero tax on their profits and end their outsourcing of American jobs to keep our economy strong. Next, I would cut America's defense spending by 20%, which would still allow us to have the most advanced, modernized military in the world while adding over $180 billion dollars to the federal budget. Lastly, I would return our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in a responsible and timely manner, returning more than $8.4 billion dollars a month to the federal coffers. Taken together, all of these things would allow America to implement this much needed social reform.'
Then I punched her in the face, because I had absolutely no logical refutation of her points. She ran inside to her parents, crying, and streaming a trail of blood behind her. I chuckled as I thought of the healthcare bills her parents would face to repair her broken nose.
I called after her and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party, sweetheart."
ID:54497
 Feb 21 2009, 3:45 pm
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Feb 21 2009, 5:20 pm
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Stephen001
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I'm going to be honest, it made me smile.
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I've got a bunch more like it
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Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans are equally scum. Rather than allowing themselves to back their policies with reason, they cower behind a political machine with an agenda they could never hope to understand.
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Disturbed Puppy wrote:
Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans are equally scum. /facepalm... just /facepalm. | |
Yeah disagreed, there are lots of decent liberals and decent conservatives. It is those who rely on misinformation and bad politics that are bad. Republicans are capable of being decent people, they just have to be more honest and find a more sensible economic platform. Democrats are currently revitalized and doing a good job. It may be an issue that this power the Democrats have will corrupt them, but their idealogy is one that I agree with, still, generalizing both parties as "scum" makes you anti-american, since over 99% of America falls into one of those two categories.
Lawl. | |
Lastly, I would return our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in a responsible and timely manner, returning more than $8.4 billion dollars a month to the federal coffers.' "Hey, we invaded your country, we know. But now, you see, we're just going to leave you to the Australian's and the Dutch! So... bye!" Yeah, no. Removing troops from Iraq now would be what I consider is a bad idea. The armies went in, things didn't go as well as planned, and now you want to sweep it under the rug? Not going to happen. I have two friends serving over in Afghanistan, they came back on leave for a couple of weeks a little while back. Needless to say, the fighting over there is still nice and strong. | |
Yeah, though I'd classify myself as definitely left-leaning and liberal (if not entirely a Democrat), I'm very much against just pulling our troops out of the places we've gone in and destroyed...lol
We made the mess, we need to (help) clean it up... My patience is running thin, though... We never hear of any sort of progress... The only news we really get out of Iraq and Afghanistan is the death toll, never anything that we've accomplished in setting them back on their feet... Of course, bad news sells... | |
Tiberath wrote:
The armies went in, things didn't go as well as planned, and now you want to sweep it under the rug? Not going to happen. Worked with Vietnam. Well, maybe not. It'll be interesting to see how Iraq plays out after withdrawal. I wonder if it will completely fall off the radar. SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote: We never hear of any sort of progress... I've got a feeling a lot of people are sitting on their hands at this point. It's an unpopular war, and like any other war it isn't pretty. Nobody wants to risk getting themselves attached to this thing anymore than they have to. Even inside the military they've got to be nervous. They have to know that even after a roaring success a photo and a headline can sink a career. I'm really hoping that after this America wakes up and realizes that as good as their military is they simply can't use it anymore. The public can't stand the sight of war and the media love nothing more than showing them the worst of it as 24-7. As much as the people claim to want what the war stands for they're always going to change their mind the second the first casualty is reported. | |
DarkView wrote:
I've got a feeling a lot of people are sitting on their hands at this point. The thing is, what exactly are we doing over there? I mean, the troops (and non-military workers and such) can't be just standing/driving around all day... They have to be working on something, right? (at least some of them) Yet we never get any word of that sort of thing... We're never told "today we restored water to this city, trained X number of Iraqis as police/military, repaved some roads, rebuilt some buildings, etc" And of course we can't trust the press to report that sort of thing, we can only rely on them to report the negative... So the military themselves should be giving regular (civilian/declassified/public) progress reports, but if they are, they don't seem to be trickling into my view... I will admit that I'm not self-motivated to look for that news; it needs to be put in front of me... So perhaps it is out there regularly, and I just personally never see it... But I do see the death reports, so if those can be prevalent enough to get to me, then why not anything positive? Since virtually all we see are reports of deaths, the public opinion becomes one of "Are we just doing nothing but standing around getting shot at/blown up? We need to get out, then!" I think that if we were told more of the accomplishments made along with the cost in lives, instead of just the latter, we'd be a bit more supportive... At this point, it feels like we're only over there to fight "insurgents"... But those "insurgents" are only fighting because we are there... We're there to fight those that are there to fight us... Without any sort of progress reported to us, that's all we see it as... | |
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
I think that if we were told more of the accomplishments made along with the cost in lives, instead of just the latter, we'd be a bit more supportive... If the Military were to release reports as to what was happening, the insurgents could easily see where we were struggling the most, and launch some sort of counter-attack. While this may not seem like a big deal at a glance, even causing one fatality is far too great a sacrifice so the public can know the details of our campaign. The DoD releases information when they feel it no longer threatens our security(de-classifies), and I'm fine with only knowing what they feel is okay to release. | |
Disturbed Puppy wrote:
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote: Or you could just want Iraq to be a success, that you'll blindly believe that it is a success so that you don't have to reevaluate your world view. | |
Tiberath wrote:
Lastly, I would return our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in a responsible and timely manner, returning more than $8.4 billion dollars a month to the federal coffers.' Yeah, leaving in a responsible and timely manner means a Saigon-esque total pullout at once ;) | |
Techgamer wrote:
Or you could just want Iraq to be a success, that you'll blindly believe that it is a success so that you don't have to reevaluate your world view. I'll admit, it's a double-edged sword. However, coming from a military background, I can tell you that releasing the information in question(regarding operations and missions) too soon can, and WILL have consequences ranging from future missions being aborted to having personnel wounded, or even killed. There's an added level of privacy our military needs to succeed. I'm not saying "don't release any information". What I'm saying is giving these reports is a bad idea. | |
Disturbed Puppy wrote:
Techgamer wrote: Yeah, but the thing is, is that it's an occupation, it's really hard to hide info on operations and such when your enemies look like civillians. I don't see why if, lets say, the amount of students in highschool increased in Iraq since the invasion, why it would be confidential. | |
Techgamer wrote:
Yeah, but the thing is, is that it's an occupation, it's really hard to hide info on operations and such when your enemies look like civillians. I don't see why if, lets say, the amount of students in highschool increased in Iraq since the invasion, why it would be confidential. Well, it could possibly endanger our contractors. Let's say the DoD releases a report that says the number of students enrolled in high school has increased by 200 in the Baghdad area. This means that a new high school may need built. From here, insurgents could attack in a couple ways. One would be to attack the now-overcrowding high school(s). This endangers the public, mainly students who are trying to further themselves. Another way is to look for locations where a High School is likely to be built, and attack those constructing the high school being built. | |