What the Republicans haven’t learned
by The Perfessor
Anyone remember the sex scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church a few years back? You remember the one, it was not so much that there were (apparently) numerous priests who were fondling alter boys but that their supervisors knew about it and instead of having the offending priests outed, defrocked, arrested, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (with the full backing of Rome), the Church would move these abominations to a different parish where they would inevitably be put in charge of — you guessed it — the youth group (and altar boys) where they would begin the cycle anew.
Apparently even thought it was in all the papers, the Republican party either never read those papers, never learned the lesson, or somehow didn’t think that those exact same “rules” would apply to them.
So for all of you mental midgets who missed it the first time let me go on the record now, and make it perfectly clear, just in case some damn fool didn’t get this message the first 10 or 20 times... Outing pedophiles (especially same-sex pedophiles) IS NOT GAY BASHING! IT IS PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN — and to that, let me also add, “you fucking morons.”
Seriously, I want every single legitimate gay organization to take the next couple of weeks and step up to the mic. and publicly make the very same statement. Because I’m willing to bet every dollar in my pocket against every dollar in the pocket of the RNC chair that gays and lesbians are every bit aghast over adults who prey on same-sex children (much in the same way that all hetro adults are aghast over adults who prey on opposite-sex children).
I mean, you don’t see teacher unions coming to the defense of teachers having sex with their students. No one simply transfers these teachers to new schools, or somehow feels that arresting them and sending them to jail is somehow a slam against teachers, or hetro adults. So why would some ass-hat moron make the public statement that somehow linked same-sex pedophilia with homosexuality? How stupid are these people? How stupid do they think we are?
Seriously, we need to vote the lot of them out of office. Like Walt, I’m not a Republican. Unlike Walt, I get to add the word “anymore” to the end of that particular sentence. Two years ago I changed to the Democratic Party. Liars and Hypocrites like Foley and Ass-hats like Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert are just two of the reasons why.
The Perfessor
October 7th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Lets get this straight...
Both parties suck.
The Republicans have been in power long enough to be as currupt as the Democrats were in 1994, when they got booted. And bush wandered into Iraq and has no idea how to get us out.
The Democrats are going to take power, pass illegal alien amnesty, and the results will be like a flash flood. Reasonable estimates that somewhere around 100 million very poor, very uneducated people coming into this country in the next decade or two. All our taxes are going to go through the roof to pay for social services for all these new immigrants.
America needs a new party that is fiscally responsible and cares about making America safe and prosperous, without getting bogged down on either side of wedge issues like abortion or gays.
October 7th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Just for the record, I’m cool with that.
The Perfessor
October 8th, 2006 at 12:48 am
Libertarian?
October 8th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
I've voted Libertarian many times over the years. I still like a lot of what the Libertarians stand for: Low taxes, individual freedom...along with maximum individual responsibility.
Unfortunately, the Libertarians believe in some things that would be disasterous. Open borders used to be part of their party platform. But if the USA had open borders, our population would rival China's in less than a generation. I'm not exagerating. Surveys have shown that their are as many as 60 Million people in Mexico who want to come work in the United States. Add Central and South America, Asia, and Africa, we could easily get over the Billion mark in a very short time.
And while I definitely agree with Libertarians on legalizing marijuana and mushrooms (with exceptions for truckers and heavy equipment operators), I don't think legalizing heroine and meth would be as harmless.
October 8th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
pop of us ~298mil
pop of south america ~371mil
pop of mexico ~100mil
pop of rest of middle america~87mil
total ~853 mil
pop of china 1313 mil
based on cia factbook numbers july 2006
"I’m not exagerating."
i don't think your going to anyone supporting legalization of heroine and meth. but i'd rather have them in in a rehab facility then a prison.
i don't think legalization is the answer, but it is a runaway policy that needs reform.
my problem is the duality of busting people for smoking pot with an iron fist, and then prescribing them marinol. it's a racket by the drug industry. if pay us licensing costs of 50 bucks a pill we'll let you have your medical thc. because when you smoke something you have to get it hot, and as we learned when we were 3 anything hot is bad.
October 8th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Actually, Mexico is closer to 108 Million, and a recent survey showed that more than half of them wanted to come to America.
Egypt has about 74 Million, and I'm sure that a you could get a pretty similar response.
China 1.3 Billion, 1.1 Billion, Indonesia 220+ Million, The African Continent 0.75 Billion.
I think with those numbers, and the fact that immigrants tend to have many, many more children than native born citizens, we could see how the 1 Billion number would be easy to reach. By easy, I mean in what's left of my lifetime. And I'm already middle-aged.
Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of good people and talent in those countries. But if we took in 1/4 of everyone who wanted to come here, every friggin street in America would be an LA-Freeway-after-a-major-collision trafic jam 24 hours a day. And that's just one indicator of quality of life.
Just last week I watched a documentary on the History Channel, that stated that the Bubonic Plaque that wiped out so much of England's population actually ended serfdom. The scarcity of labor caused peasents pay to rise, working conditions to improve, and standard of living to blossom.
The opposite is also true. A surplus of labow, such as is happening from today's immigration rates, hurts those at the bottom. When there is a labor surplus, wages fall, and the standard of living is reduced for those with the least skills.
Aside from the open borders stuff, I generally like the Libertarians.
October 8th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
That was India that had 1.1 Billion
October 8th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Guys, two things:
Politicians are supposed to help us and protect us. These dirt bags didn’t and they should be held accountable for these actions.
The Perfessor
October 9th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I'm all for a new party as long as the party:
1. Was not slavishly free-trate like the Republicans and Democrats.
2. Would promote a more civilized alternative to current income tax system, such as a flat tax or consumption tax.
3. Is pro-environment, but recognizes that population growth is the biggest threat to the environment, and worked as hard at reducing population growth as it worked on reducing green-house gasses.
October 9th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Population Control? What is this, Logan's Run?
October 9th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
I'm not talking about turning anyone into Soilent Green. But we could have immigration policies based on the idea of zero-popultion growth, as well as tax and welfare policies that don't reward people for having more children than the replacement rate.
October 9th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
if you have a guy with a phd in engineering, and makes 10 times what the gdp per capita makes, and he wants to come over i got noproblem with it. the question is who and how many. in my opinion i'd rather have someone smart come from overseas then born and raised, we don't have to pay for public schooling.
the problem with flat tax and sales taxes, is they are way to regressive, you know maybe i'll someday be in a tax bracket where i wanted a regressive tax, that's the american dream right? but until then i'd rather have the rich paying more for welfare then me, maybe i heard to many robin hood stories as a kid.
October 9th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I've spent a lot of time looking at the idea of replacing the Income Tax with a National Sales Tax, and I think the argument that it's regressive doesn't hold water.
There are various proposals fot NSTs and most of them have built in mechanisms to make sure that low income people don't get taxed on their necessities.
As far as non Necessities go, the rich guy will pay more. If a working class guy buys a $15,000 Kia, he'll pay $3000 in taxes. If a another guy pays $150,000 for a Mercedes, he'll pay $30,000 in taxes.
But the fact is that our income tax, currently builds a huge tax burden into any product made in America. If someone buys a Chevy that costs $27,000, there might be as much as $9,000 of hidden income tax and compliance costs. That means that when you buy a Chevy, you're spending an extra $9000 on welfare, military, and bureaucracy. But if you want to avoid spending that $9000 on the public sector, you can simply buy a comprable foriegn car. And under the current system, you get more for your money by not buying American.
A National Sales Tax would cover our national expenses, the rich would pay more, and it would be less of a drag on our economy.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
What's to prevent someone from buying there car in Mexico and driving it here to dodge your sales tax?
my main problem is who decides what is a necessities, is toilet paper? how about food? wait which foods. bread is tax free, but if it comes in a box it's taxed? should we adopt the European way of all foods just getting into a lower tax bracket regardless of what they are?the state i live in has a sales tax and most of the stuff i buy at the local Kroger ends up being taxed.
the amount of regressiveness of a tax is based on the percent of income paid not the amount paid. in you KIA/Mercedes example, both the poor guy and the rich guy pay the same %. this is much more regressive then our current system which higher incomes pay a higher percent.
what it really comes down to is Engel's law, and that an equal tax percentage on items with income elasticity of demand of less then 1 are likely to hurt lower income consumers.
if you earn 5 times what your neighbor does, should you be paying 25 dollars for a SUPER happy meal?
in my opinion you should be pay 3000 for that KIA, but 70,000 for the Mercedes. it would be almost impossible to do that with a sales tax, how do you determine what a car SHOULD cost? if it costs more then that then you tax more? a sales tax is a flat tax. we have a progressive tax now, switching to a flat tax would therefore be regressive.
My other problem with the idea of a national sales tax, is would probably end up like the monstrosity that is VAT. it ends up as a bureaucratic nightmare. but i'm tired of talking about it.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Again I say to you gents, I’d personally be happy with any political party whose party menbers a) didn’t molest children, and b) have other party members protect the members that did the molesting.
The Perfessor
October 9th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Mike, as it turns out, there's a VAT tax story that vaguely touches on people you and I know.
I won't go into personal details, but suffice to say that the VAT point you allude to is more than spot on.