Log in or Sign up

ET News & Sponsor Info

General Topics

Markets

Technical Topics

Brokerage Firms

Company Specific

Interactive Brokers

Tools of the Trade

Trading for a Living

Community Lounge

Site Support

Feedback

'Left vs. Right' or 'Freedom vs. Tyranny'?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Rearden Metal, Dec 7, 2010.

trefoil
- 3,522
  Posts
- 4
  Likes
Quote from Free Thinker:

which side instituted the patriot act, the tsa, warrentless wiretaps?
republicans dreamed all this crap up. i know that obama has gone right along with it but he didnt start it.
More...

Obama is the last Republican president, in the same way that Nixon who, for instance, severed the last remaining link between the dollar and gold, was the last Democratic one.
The next Democratic president will be the one who changes the terms of the debate. Since Reagan, the debate has been fought on Republican territory, in much the same way the debate was fought on Democratic territory from FDR's time to Reagan's.
This tax "compromise" has finally forced the left into realizing that what they elected in Obama was a moderate Republican. There is no such thing in the Republican party anymore: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Olympia Snowe all signed that letter promising not to allow anything to pass the Senate until the Bush tax cuts were extended for everyone. That shows you there is no such thing. Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times years ago that the Republican party was no longer a conservative party, but a radical one. He was right.
This is, as I have observed before, the right's 1968 moment. It will last about as long. They should enjoy it while they can. It's a once in a lifetime thing.
The tax "compromise" is waking up the left. The right is about to find out that we can demonstrate and shout just as loud as they can, with this difference: the majority stand with us.

#21 Dec 8, 2010

Share
Mnphats
- 735
  Posts
- 0
  Likes
Quote from trefoil:

Oh dear Lord.
The left is the left because, in the US, it stands for the regular folks against corporate interests. That would be freedom vs tyranny.
You guys figure it's the government vs the people, which is a completely ahistorical view.
Going all the way back to the dawn of Western civilization, in your average Greek city-state, the aristocracy were from the Indo-European conquerors, and they kept, being the conquerors, their family histories. They made slaves & serfs of the folks they conquered, and since these could be bought & sold at will, they had no family history they could trace. The conquerors did, of course.
So the aristocracy could trace their families all the way back, and each of them claimed descent, when you went as far back as memory permitted, to a god.
So, each city was ruled by an aristocratic elite that could trace its family history back to a god and everyone else lived in the city at their pleasure. Within these elites there were clans, and each clan guarded its privileges jealously. They were, as a result, interested in having as weak a central government as possible.
The slaves & peasants, of course, were interested in having a stronger central government as a counterweight to their power.
Fast forward to today, and the situation is similar. The Bushes, for instance, are part of the American aristocracy. Not surprisingly, they'd like a weak central government, and since the US was founded in rebellion against the powerful central government of England, this has remained as a sort of residual ideology, enshrined in the Constitution in its strict separation of powers among the branches of government.
The regular folks find themselves victimized by stuff like BP oil spills, exploding mines, and poisoned water from shale gas extraction, and look to the government as the only sufficiently strong counterweight to the power of the BP's of the world.
In walk the naifs: folks like RM and GC, self-made, figuring they don't owe much to anyone, and thinking their interests lie with a weak central government. Folks like the Bushes are of course more than happy to use them as a bludgeon to keep the ordinary people from getting too fond of seeing injustice made right by a strong central government.
Of course the government we're talking about is a republic, and its officials are subject to recall every two, four or six years. So the whole idea of a tyrannical central government is, to put it tactfully, nuts.
Abraham Lincoln said we were in an experiment to see whether government of, by and for the people can continue. We're still in that experiment.
It was a powerful central government, using every power at its command, that forced the Southern aristocracy to free the slaves. A hundred years later, it used its powers again to break the power of poll taxes and Jim Crow, both of which were still being used against the descendants of those slaves by private interests that were in many cases the descendants of the Southern aristocracy that had enslaved them.*
That powerful central government ended child labor, forced safety laws that, among other things, keep mine explosions to a minimum, and enforces all kinds of other laws that protect ordinary people from the power of national and multinational corporations with pockets far deeper than any single private person could ever muster.
That's freedom, versus the tyranny of an aristocracy that would otherwise keep us all as their serfs.

*
More...

LOL.....

I love it, a direct look into the mind of loony liberal kook.

Thanks for the laugh, classic.

#22 Dec 8, 2010

Share
Mnphats
- 735
  Posts
- 0
  Likes
Quote from trefoil:

Obama is the last Republican president, in the same way that Nixon who, for instance, severed the last remaining link between the dollar and gold, was the last Democratic one.
The next Democratic president will be the one who changes the terms of the debate. Since Reagan, the debate has been fought on Republican territory, in much the same way the debate was fought on Democratic territory from FDR's time to Reagan's.
This tax "compromise" has finally forced the left into realizing that what they elected in Obama was a moderate Republican. There is no such thing in the Republican party anymore: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Olympia Snowe all signed that letter promising not to allow anything to pass the Senate until the Bush tax cuts were extended for everyone. That shows you there is no such thing. Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times years ago that the Republican party was no longer a conservative party, but a radical one. He was right.
This is, as I have observed before, the right's 1968 moment. It will last about as long. They should enjoy it while they can. It's a once in a lifetime thing.
The tax "compromise" is waking up the left. The right is about to find out that we can demonstrate and shout just as loud as they can, with this difference: the majority stand with us.
More...

And again......

#23 Dec 8, 2010

Share
Hello
- 3,213
  Posts
- 0
  Likes
Tinfoil and freeloader are good examples of liberalism run amok, the boss is a good cure.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZarmRLa2p9Q

<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZarmRLa2p9Q?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZarmRLa2p9Q?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object>

#24 Dec 8, 2010

Share
Hello
- 3,213
  Posts
- 0
  Likes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICaTsTkBPV8

#25 Dec 8, 2010

Share
AMT4SWA
- 7,307
  Posts
- 8
  Likes
Come on guys.......obama and his selected BIG SIS are just what we need!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czoww2l1xdw

#26 Dec 9, 2010

Share
AMT4SWA
- 7,307
  Posts
- 8
  Likes
Alex you "called it" 14 years ago (govt messages at high traffic locations)............. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntCYiegLcxw&feature=related

#27 Dec 9, 2010

Share
AMT4SWA
- 7,307
  Posts
- 8
  Likes
and even more....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RxelpBRuWc&feature=related

#28 Dec 9, 2010

Share
OPTIONAL777
- 10,950
  Posts
- 1
  Likes
Ain't pattern recognition grand?

Quote from Gabfly1:

RM, with due respect, you're just pissed off at the drug laws and you're wrapping a flag around it.
More...

#29 Dec 9, 2010

Share
Hello
- 3,213
  Posts
- 0
  Likes
sorry amstw your a day late and a dollar short.... unless these evil flapjacks at smitty's were out to initiate 9/11 due to an overabundance of syrup.....

#30 Dec 9, 2010

Share

(You must log in or sign up to reply here.)

Search