American Politics

[QUOTE=DeepCover]Or could it be that there is really some empirical fact to be explained? If you were interested in empirical evidence then I could point to American meddling in Haitian affairs going back to an embargo imposed by Thomas Jefferson, who didn't want them being a bad example for "Negro Slaves in America".[/quote]Ok, can I get an idea of the scale of this meddling? And since they were on Hispaniola, why didn't they just do the same thing with the Dominican Republic? And I think you are "Texas Sharpshooting." You can find examples of governments that were taken over by blacks and then ruined independent of anything that the United States had to do with it. Zimbabwe, for example.
[quote] I might mention how France demanded and received "reparations for loss of property". [/quote] Ok, so can I get a dollar amount? If it was 0.1% of the GDP of any given year (and it has been a long time since France was in Haiti)? Or was it ANY amount worth worrying about? China suffered a lot of pain during the Japanese invasion and then for several decades even after that, but they are getting their shit together-- in a country that has an unfathomably large population to deal with. The Haitians have had twice as much time (something like 206 years since independence) to come up with NOTHING.
[quote]I might end my presentation by pointing out how many times America meddled in Haitian affairs by invasions and imposition of a parasitic elite.[/quote]You might end it, but you never started it to begin with. I mean think about it from the perspective of the US: Do you really want a government to collapse and send a bunch of illiterate refugees onto your shores? The US has done itself irreparable harm just by accepting so many immigrants from Cuba (those guys are actually educated and can read-- not much of which could be said for the Haitians)-- and they are just the beginning of what will possibly morph into a long, bitter language conflict.
[quote]That would leave little space to show how major cities (not suburbs like Redford, Warren etc which recieved more funding) were systematically defunded and deindustrialized[/quote]I get so tired of hearing that bullshit that is repeated endlessly in Pan African Studies Departments without thinking about what it actually means. How do you systematically defund a city? (Especially given that the services that Detroit can't provide are all city funded services every place else). I'm sorry, but Coleman Young single-handedly ran the city of Detroit into the ground. [quote]and I would even point out that this phenomenon even happened to cities without Black mayors.[/quote]Give me, say, 5 examples (of where this happened without black mayors) and give me a idea of the magnitude and rate of change per unit of time. (So, did city X have $5 of federal funding in the year 2000 and then only $2.5 of funding 10 years later? Or did the funding decrease by 20% every year for 5 years?) If you take a random sample of 10 black administered cities and compare the financial solvencies of 10 non black cities (again, no Texas sharpshooting).[quote] All that would be a waste because in the end facts are not what brought you to your conclusion.[/quote] Well, no, facts ARE what brought me to my conclusion. RTFF (look it up in abbreviations) and you will see where the conversation went.

[quote]It simply is lazy stupid thinking. An analysis of American and world economics is deeper than simply saying "The Blacks fukkked it up". That thinking is a throw back to "The weather is bad cause God is angry" or a person is sick because he or she is cursed. It is stupid when white guys like me say it but it sounds particularly ignorant coming from someone purporting to be Black.[/QUOTE]I didn't make my remarks with respect to the world economy. I made it with respect to economies that have met ruin at the hands of successive black administration. Some of them were whole countries (Haiti, Zimbabwe) and others were not independent countries (Detroit, East St. Louis, Washington DC). Saying that the weather is bad because God was angry is not the same as saying that this city was ruined because of X. I can test the second because it exists in reality, but not the first.

But seriously........just based on IQ arguments, TBC did a very interesting expansion of some of the difficulties of managing people with low cognitive functioning-ability. They did it in the abstract in some of the chapters and not with respect to race.

President Obama has been squawking consistently about the "budget deficit" he inherited from George W. Bush.

Oh, really? Where did that budget originate?
[quote=The Constitution of the United States]
Article 1, Section 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of representatives; but the senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. [/quote]In other words, it's not the President's budget. It belongs to Congress. Yes, Congress.

The last "Republican" budget was 2007, with a deficit of $161 billion - reduced from about $400 billion in 2004. The 2008 budget, with its record (then) deficit of $455 billion, was the product of a Democrat-run Congress; George W. Bush forced some compromises in that one. In 2009, Congress bypassed Dubya entirely through "continuing resolutions" to keep the Federal government running until Obama came into office. The 2009 budget nearly QUADRUPLED that "record-setting" $455,000,000,000 deficit from 2008.

The smallest CBO-projected budget in the attached graph is for 2011. The Congressional Budget Office expects that one to be over $600 billion dollars; and after that, the deficit goes whoopin' and hollerin' into the sunset.

Incidentally, Barack Obama was in the Senate to vote for the 2008 budget and the 2009 "continuing resolutions".

Whose budget?

THANK YOU!

I get so sick of hearing people babbling about "....he inherited that deficit from Bush," as if no one knew that the budget is set every single year by Congress. Of necessity, things that are part of one budget in an earlier year can't go into the next because they can't be approved by Congress until then. It seems like almost no one pays attention in their government classes.

From page 25 of Bush’s Budget Proposal on the heals of Clinton’s budget surplus. Note the bullet points.

THE PRESIDENT’S 2002 BUDGET:
A budget is much more than a collection of numbers. A budget is a
reflection of a nation’s priorities, needs, and promise. With this budget I
am confident that we can make a great Nation even better. In the midst
of this budget’s heft and detail, there is a vision for a better and more
prosperous America.—President George W. Bush
President George W. Bush’s 2002 Budget is shaped around a clearly defined
goal —the belief that Government should be activist but limited. Government
cannot create a strong economy, but it can create the conditions that permit
a free citizenry to do so.
At the same time, Government must also learn from the private sector,
finding ways to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction. The President’s
Budget moderates the rapid growth of discretionary spending that began with
the arrival of budget surpluses in 1998 while funding key Federal priorities in
education, health, environment, and other programs.
Thematic Highlights of President Bush’s 2002 Budget
• Funds the Nation’s spending priorities. For example, the budget
strengthens and reforms education, granting the Education Department the
largest percentage spending increase of any department (11.5 percent
increase in 2002).
• Moderates recent explosive growth in discretionary spending to 4.0 percent
growth in 2002, an increase of $26 billion over 2001.
• Achieves historic levels of debt reduction, retiring the maximum amount of
debt possible over 10 years ($2 trillion).
• Allocates projected $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years. Breakdown of
surplus:
—Saves all of Social Security surplus ($2.6 trillion) for Social Security
and commits to reforming the program.
—Lets taxpayers keep roughly one-fourth of the surplus they produced
($1.6 trillion over 10 years).

The rest is history. We all know but many refuse to accept reality what and why the budget became an economic disaster over the following 8 fiscal years including the steps necessary to eliminate the debt and return to prosperity achieved in the 1990s. It will take more than 2, probably more than 4 years to reverse the budget trend after 8 years of mismanagement.

[QUOTE=NYC Expat]From page 25 of Bush's Budget Proposal on the heals of Clinton's budget surplus. Note the bullet points.

THE PRESIDENT'S 2002 BUDGET:

A budget is much more than a collection of numbers. A budget is a reflection of a nation's priorities, needs, and promise. With this budget I am confident that we can make a great Nation even better. In the midst of this budget's heft and detail, there is a vision for a better and more prosperous America. —President George W. Bush

President George W. Bush's 2002 Budget is shaped around a clearly defined goal —the belief that Government should be activist but limited. Government cannot create a strong economy, but it can create the conditions that permit a free citizenry to do so.

At the same time, Government must also learn from the private sector, finding ways to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction. The President's Budget moderates the rapid growth of discretionary spending that began with the arrival of budget surpluses in 1998 while funding key Federal priorities in education, health, environment, and other programs.

Thematic Highlights of President Bush's 2002 Budget

• Funds the Nation's spending priorities. For example, the budget strengthens and reforms education, granting the Education Department the largest percentage spending increase of any department (11. 5 percent increase in 2002).

• Moderates recent explosive growth in discretionary spending to 4.0 percent growth in 2002, an increase of $26 billion over 2001.

• Achieves historic levels of debt reduction, retiring the maximum amount of debt possible over 10 years ($2 trillion). • Allocates projected $5. 6 trillion surplus over 10 years. Breakdown of surplus:

— Saves all of Social Security surplus ($2. 6 trillion) for Social Security and commits to reforming the program.

— Lets taxpayers keep roughly one-fourth of the surplus they produced ($1.6 trillion over 10 years).

The rest is history. We all know but many refuse to accept reality what and why the budget became an economic disaster over the following 8 fiscal years including the steps necessary to eliminate the debt and return to prosperity achieved in the 1990s. It will take more than 2, probably more than 4 years to reverse the budget trend after 8 years of mismanagement.[/QUOTE]The current administration has "spent more" than ALL previous administrations COMBINED. Please explain how we could do this and still have the official unemployment rate at 9. 6%. The Obama election team told America that they had it figured out. It would not take long to re-start the economy. How many jobs have we lost since the "stimulus Bill" was passed? We were promised an unemployment rate of no higher than 8%. Now we are told that "they" didn't realize how severe the economy was. Now that they "realize" how bad the economy is & the lack of jobs that are out there what have the ruling party provided to America? The law making body of our government has been controlled by one party since Jan 2007. Now throw in the White House and there has been TOTAL control since Jan 2009. I have one question for all that disagree How has this administration & congress helped Americans continue the American dream?

Your conclusion that Black People are inferior is just as much magical thinking as believing in Leprachauns. Neither racism or leprachauns are debatable since both are motivated by the irrational.

Thomas Sowell was interviewed recently on the BBC where he complains that there are too many smart people in control of government. This underscores the American conservative lionization of ignorance. Little wonder that American Conservatives loved the idiot George Bush and are all weak in the knees over the Dumbass from the North, Sara Palin. Black conservatives like one of our fellow mongers below actually wants to argue the innate inferiority of Black people forgetting that he too is allegedly "Blackish".

Having traveled to all continents but Australia I can safely say few are as stupid and hypocritical as the American conservative. Dick Cheney claimed that Ronald Reagan proved (after spending more than all previous presidents combined) that deficits don't matter. Bush occupied two nations and threatened more war but American conservatives have yet to say one billion dollars per month is too much. In fact they want to attack Iran.

In the long run American conservatives will take up arms against the nation they claim to love just as their dim witted Confederate forebearers did over a century ago. It is then that they will learn that not all progressives believe in Gun Control.

[QUOTE=DeepCover]Your conclusion that Black People are inferior is just as much magical thinking as believing in Leprachauns. Neither racism or leprachauns are debatable since both are motivated by the irrational.[/QUOTE]Leprechauns are great for a budget because they can make up the deficit. That pot of gold they hide at the end of the rainbow, you know. Now if there were only a pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow Coalition.

[QUOTE=Hunts]The current administration has "spent more" than ALL previous administrations COMBINED. Please explain how we could do this and still have the official unemployment rate at 9. 6%. The Obama election team told America that they had it figured out. It would not take long to re-start the economy. How many jobs have we lost since the "stimulus Bill" was passed? We were promised an unemployment rate of no higher than 8%. Now we are told that "they" didn't realize how severe the economy was. Now that they "realize" how bad the economy is & the lack of jobs that are out there what have the ruling party provided to America? The law making body of our government has been controlled by one party since Jan 2007. Now throw in the White House and there has been TOTAL control since Jan 2009. I have one question for all that disagree How has this administration & congress helped Americans continue the American dream?[/QUOTE]These same old problems go round and round, both parties are responsible for the mess the good ole USA is in right now, but the real problem is the Repugs, going back to Reagan. Times were good during that era. But we are paying for it now. Deregulate, deregulate, deregulate, the government is the problem yadayada! So when I read all the horseshit being laid on Obama, my blood starts to boil. Do you recall what it was like in the early 90's, unemployment, factories shutting down. It was called the worst Recession since the Depression. Oh! It was Clinton's fault. So after 8 years of the Bush Crime Family, the awesome costs of the Iraq war, and a Repug controlled Congress, laying the blame on Obama is ludicrous. Something had to be done and the Dems have done it. Remember the first State of the Union message by Clinton? The Recession was going to last. Bill had it lucky. The information age was dropped in his lap. Well, Obama his the same problem. This Recession is going to be long and painful for many. Hopefully the change that will come slowly will be permanent. I fear the Repugs will have the upper hand again and the kind of rapid change endemic to their kind of policies, boom and bust economies, will just continue the downward spiral. I just hope my Social Security checks keep coming until I die. Following the mantra that social welfare like Social Security must be privatized is like lemming going off a cliff. I am a WASP, retired blue collar and I fear America is imperiled by TeaBaggers, and Repugs who want to return to the good old days. Whenever that was, I certainly don't want it.

[QUOTE=DeepCover]Your conclusion that Black People are inferior is just as much magical thinking as believing in Leprachauns. Neither racism or leprachauns are debatable since both are motivated by the irrational.[/QUOTE]
That's not what I said. I just said that it appears (from all evidence) that they can't run governments. And in that case, it is not just black people. The first time Chinese people ever set up a republic was 2200 years after the first emperor. The Arabs/ Persians have also had a hard way to go in the modern world. It may or may not be genetic.

But, as long as there is market capitalism, there is something for everyone to do. So, one area in which black people are very competent is entertainment. If you listen to the recordings of the old jazz masters, those guys could find work even during times when they weren't allowed to sit in the places in which they played. And in terms of jazz technical ability, Art Tatum has not been equaled. Markets know no color.

If some person says that he doesn't enjoy the society of black people (for whatever reason), then he is not being any less rational/ more irrational than a man that says he likes shaved vagina compared to a man that won't have one. Or steak vs. pork chops. Just a matter of prefernce.

You got to love French politicians - if not French politics!

First you get President Nicholas Sarkozy ditching his wife shortly after being elected, to take up with beautiful model and singer Carla Bruni.

And an article today about the French Immigration Minister (52) marrying a hot 24 year-old Tunisian-French art student (photo below).

Not so cool is Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, who proudly proclaimed his homosexual paedophilic romps in Thai "slave markets" in his autobiography ...

"I got into the habit of paying for boys," Mitterrand wrote, adding that his attraction to young male prostitutes continued even though he knew "the sordid details of this traffic."

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously ... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

And all these guys continue to serve in cabinet!
But if an American politician gets caught dicking around it is a huge scandal, ending in divorce, usually resulting in loss of office, and an appearance on Oprah!

And then of course there is Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, in a class by himself....

I just hope my Social Security checks keep coming until I die. Following the mantra that social welfare like Social Security must be privatized is like lemming going off a cliff. I am a WASP, retired blue collar and I fear America is imperiled by TeaBaggers, and Repugs who want to return to the good old days. Whenever that was, I certainly don't want it.[/QUOTE]When Slick Willy was Pres the congress was Republican. It seems that as a typical lefty you are only concerned that your social security keeps coming.Who said socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money?

[quote=deepcover]thomas sowell was interviewed recently on the bbc where he complains that there are too many smart people in control of government. this underscores the american conservative lionization of ignorance. little wonder that american conservatives loved the idiot george bush and are all weak in the knees over the dumbass from the north, sara palin.[/quote] i wonder who is dumb now? thomas sowell has been writing for decades and makes a great salary at the hoover institution after someone found out that his talents were much better used as a writer and speaker. i think he gets about $20,000 for an hour speech. as it happens, i have just read (and sold) his book "intellectuals and society" (it was reviewed on amazon.com) and so i know what he said on the bbc.

his point was (are you reading?-- one of the benefits of the written language is that you can read it as many times as necessary before you understand it without my repeating it) that: people who are intelligent in one area (such as linguistics), will over-extrapolate that intelligence to try to make/ speak on public policy. now, if you think of someone like lee kwan yew (who was a brilliant man), he was not a person who did a lot of talking. instead, he looked back on historical examples when he built singapore and engineered a *very* successful city state-- possibly the most successful majority chinese state in over 20 centuries. you could compare him to someone like the current president of the us (b. hussein obama), who is an attorney (like about 44% of the congress of the us is/ has been). his expertise is with verbal dexterity, but not necessarily engineering things (as in, "what would be the best way to allocate educational resources so as to get the optimum output?"). so, b. hussein can talk and make you believe that something will happen-- it's just that it has no resemblance to reality. (since every single word out of his mouth-- including "the" and "and" are lies-- i can pick an easy example.) remember the thing about "saving or creating x number of jobs?" that sentence was repeated so many times, that is was almost easy enough to forget that they are two separate claims. so, which is which? he was also giving speech number 10,001 talking about education. but no one seriously believes in reforming education, because if they did, they would hire an economist and then make implementations in the same no-nonsense way that japanese/ chinese people educate. (as in, if you pass this test you can move on. if not, we are going to just make a cut and it's not open for discussion.)
[quote] black conservatives like one of our fellow mongers below actually wants to argue the innate inferiority of black people forgetting that he too is allegedly "blackish". [/quote]that's not what i said. what i was saying (over the course of this conversation) is that for some reason, every time black people take over a government, it is a disaster. (haiti-- a 208 year disaster. almost every country in africa. nearly every black-administered city in the united states.) what you came back with--with neither defense nor proof-- was "oh, they were systematically defunded and deindustrialized," to which i replied that (1) there are cities next door that are doing just fine (and that never had any industry) and (2) the things that detroit and east st. louis highland park and (well, you get the idea) can't even do things that are funded locally-- you know, police and public transport and things like that. there may be a mechanism behind this. (you can read murry and herrnstein where they discuss an example at great length. much of it deals with people who are not conceptually able to understand laws because of low cognitive ability.) do i need to mention that the congressional black caucus has all of the current cases for corruption? something like 42 members and (less than 10% of congress but 100% of the cases for corruption at once?). then there was that asshole jefferson (forget his name) that hid money in his freezer (???!!!??!!!).

before you diss black conservatives, why don't you actually read some things that they have written? everyone has an opinion on clarence thomas and hasn't even read his book (he's written exactly one). everyone has an opinion on bt washington and hasn't even read his one single book.

what can i say if i do make a better living in a place where i can't vote (and never will be able to) and where no one is black compared to if i did move to detroit? i wouldn't even be able to find a job washing dishes there (and that's with two degrees) because no one else can find a job there (because the city was that badly mismanaged). does "political empowerment" really matter that much? chinese people are not politically empowered (in china, indonesia, malaysia, or in the united states) but getting rich (in taiwan/ hk/ macau/ singapore/ indonesia/ malaysia they are already rich). zimbabweans are politically empowered and dying of aids. nigerians are dying of aids and relying on the chinese to maintain their infrastructure in exchange for preferred access to their oil? and the chinese come there and use their own people to do everything and don't hire even a single african. but the africans are politically free! (and unemployed and not able to handle their own infrastructure.)

[quote]having traveled to all continents but australia i can safely say few are as stupid and hypocritical as the american conservative. dick cheney claimed that ronald reagan proved (after spending more than all previous presidents combined) that deficits don't matter.[/quote]do you have any numbers to back this up? [quote] bush occupied two nations and threatened more war but american conservatives have yet to say one billion dollars per month is too much. in fact they want to attack iran.[/quote]for the same reason that they wanted to attack adolf hitler.
[quote]
in the long run american conservatives will take up arms against the nation they claim to love just as their dim witted confederate forebearers did over a century ago. it is then that they will learn that not all progressives believe in gun control.[/quote]they don't have to take up arms against their nation. it will tear itself apart long before that is necessary. it could be language conflict (very likely) or just a general weakining of law enforcement (for any variety of reasons, including weird federal judiciary behavior or too much money invested in fighting drugs or financing a 5th column (universities) inside their country or [you fill it in]).

but after it is all said and done: i can't repeat enough times (since you didn't read any of sowell's many books or even follow his argument) that getting enough of the right people in the wrong place is enough to make a nation collapse. and that's happened many, many, many times.

so, if you look at the imperial examination system of china (textbook example) china went absolutely nowhere for 2,200 years because everyone was so busy studying the confucian classics and not trying to do any practical innovation on anything. now, they have finally come up with the idea of a republic (sort of) and they have engineers that are at the head of government-- and the government here makes policies like engineers and runs the country that same way.

something that they realize (the prc government, that is) is that: 1. most people cannot understand most of what happens around them with respect to the management of a country. (if you stipulated an average iq one standard deviation above the mean to be able to comment intelligently on a policy issue, that successfully excludes 68% of the population.); 2. there is no use trying to promise things that you can't pay for/ produce anyway, and so the easiest way to do that is to just not allow the citizens to vote so that you don't have to deliver on any promises you can't keep in any case. (i would not go that far, but i would put in an iq/ civics test as a condition of being able to vote. people who could not pass the civics test and have a score in excess of 108 would be politely refused the right to vote.)3. the easiest way to not have to get bogged down in a discussion about public policy is to just not start the discussion to begin with.

[QUOTE=Clandestine782]That's not what I said. I just said that it appears (from all evidence) that they can't run governments.

Jumping to that conclusion based upon what goes on in some American Cities is like saying American Indians can't run governments because of the condition of Indians on reservations. The same can holds true of post colonial African governments.



If some person says that he doesn't enjoy the society of black people (for whatever reason), then he is not being any less rational

The "Society of Black People"? Don't try to impress me with big words.

/ more irrational than a man that says he likes shaved vagina compared to a man that won't have one. Or steak vs. pork chops. Just a matter of prefernce.[/QUOTE]

Bullshyt! the idea that Black people are inferior is more than simply preference. History has shown those that promoted it have stifled the human potential of millions. It is no less odious when the person promoting it claims to be Black.

[QUOTE=DeepCover]History has shown those that promoted it have stifled the human potential of millions.[/QUOTE]What has most stifled human potential in American blacks is the victim mentality constantly drilled into their heads by the Left.