Ignoring facts is the staple format for the GOP candidates

[Joseph27]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/2 ... lp00000009

I am constantly amazed that any person could actually argue against evolution in favor of intelligent design... it is staggering to see someone who could quite possibly get the nomination argue this. Of course I am not so naive to think that Rick Perry genuinely believes this but the sheer fact that he needs to pander to the most stupid, religiously inspired nut jobs (literally the white equivalent of Wahhabi Islamists) to get a nomination to represent the middle ground of America, defies comprehension. This is one of the most powerful positions in the World - if not the single most powerful - and yet these beliefs are espoused.

How can you argue against evolution? Sure I can understand arguments for some form of god however surely the facts are in... and evolution is fact. I had a conversation recently with an American new age christian who argued passionately that every time he had seen a mutation in nature it had been unable to reproduce such was his answer to the impossibility of evolution. It is amazing how he ignored everything Darwin originally observed and countless others have written about since.

It's the Fox news method of obfuscation of facts by pointless dribble and when there is enough dribble, the more stupid the audience, the more likely they can create doubt; after all David Irving can always convince part of his audience that despite the records, the photos, the memories, the witness accounts from people who were there, the gas chambers and the bodies - there is still reasonable doubt that the holocaust never occurred.

At least there is one good statistic out of the US and that is that the fastest growing religious group are atheist...

Obama 2012 (maybe he will become the angry black man in his 2nd term)

[Burbage]

How can atheists be a religious group?

[Joseph27]

Being deliberately cheeky - but from the 100% - christians may be number one two three and four in whatever version that choose to present themselves but around 16% are now atheists - a lot more atheist than jews, moroms and yet the most silent of all

[T2K]

Perry, like many or even most people in the US and the world (including Obama), probably actually does believe in some version of a creation myth.

While I think that is, along with belief in the tooth fairy, silly - I really don't care what mythology potential US Presidents believe in as much as I care about what their views are on the budget and other fiscal matters. Based on what is known at this point, Perry has the more rational view (ie spend less than you take in) than Obama does.

[Fat Bob]

I can't believe we're already talking about people who will not take office for at least another 18 months. Can't we let the current administration finish their job first?

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Based on what is known at this point, Perry has the more rational view (ie spend less than you take in) than Obama does.

But he's still a politician. And as governor of Texas, how can anyone be sure, by your same measure T2K, that the money saved from spending cuts won't just be channeled for tax breaks and subsidies to his buddies over at big oil who got him elected in the first place?

[Joseph27]

I love the logic Jon Stewart went through the other day in his attack of the Fox network - a small tax increase for the richest of the rich would bring in $700billion over the next 10 years and everyone of the Fox news anchors and many republican pundits said it makes no real difference whilst they simultaneously talked of stripping $1million from this program, $100million from another - ANYTHING that could help people was considered bad and anything that taxed the rich even slightly was considered sacrilegious. There seems to be an almighty push on the ideological front to do away with any form of helping the poor whilst protecting the rich. Even when money floods back to the Koch brothers and other billionaires - Fox news doesnt mention it - they just show how evil it is to accept government (that is unless its a subsidy for some already super rich person). Crazy system.

Perry has over seen more executions that Bush - nice to see a humanitarian who openly organizes prayer meetings to combat America's woes taking a run at the whitehouse... Basically Bush on steroids.

[T2K]

FB - Yep. Among the many massive, serious overhauls we need in the US system (taxation and immigration being others), the election process is a big one. There shouldn't be a damn peep out of anyone's mouth about or a single dollar spent on campaigning until, at most, 6 months before the US Presidential election. For Congressional elections, 3 months.

Lili - As I mentioned before, past performance is a good indicator of future behaviour. Perry, while still a politician, has shown a very strong inclination towards fiscally conservative policies, and his track record in that area as governor of Texas is good. Obama had no track record as chief executive of anything before becoming President, and during his tenure in his current office he's demonstrated no aversion to debt and borrowing. If I had the choice of Perry or Obama, I would vote for Perry. I still, of course, hope a fiscal radical like Ron Paul or Herman Cain can get the R nomination - but I'm not optimistic. Our electorate isn't smart enough to see the need, and things haven't gotten bad enough yet for people to see the need to take their medicine. They will.

J27 - 700 Billion would pay the interest on our national debt for about 3 years...and you say new taxes would raise that amount in 10 years. Sounds like a winning plan? Any new taxes need to be specific to reduction of the national debt, in my opinion, otherwise history shows us that they will be pissed away on "programs" that yield nothing. The US has spent TRILLIONS on "helping the poor" over the past four decades, and we have more poor people with nearly nil chance at employability than ever. The deficit is finite and huge and it will crush us if it isn't turned around.

[skank-la]

Perry, while still a politician, has shown a very strong inclination towards fiscally conservative policies, and his track record in that area as governor of Texas is good.

What Kool-Aid have you been drinking? One of biggest stories of the summer has been how Texas is in as bad or even worse shape than CA. etc ......

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/m ... e-finally/

Some in Texas had talked tough about solving the state's budget problem by austerity alone, but lawmakers finally faced a hard fact: Texas is in serious financial trouble.

The severity of the state's $27 billion budget crisis was evident in the furrowed brows, sad eyes and pained expressions of legislators. They fidgeted in their seats as hundreds of teachers, parents and disabled people explained in testimony in recent weeks how proposed budget cuts would ruin their lives.

Legislatures elsewhere are facing budget problems, but most are blending cuts with asset sales, increased fees and tax modifications to soften the impact. Texas prides itself on lean government so Republicans here promised to solve the crisis here by budget cuts alone.

Then rhetoric hit reality this week. The result was the latest and most vivid example of a state taking steps it had fiercely resisted

[T2K]

He's had 10 years of balanced budgets as TX governor, and built up a USD9,000,000,000 surplus. Some of that is being used to balance the budget again this year, along with spending cuts. TX is in better shape financially than most other states and the US as a whole, with increased job creation and low unemployment.

California? Seriously? CA has a mult-billion dollar deficit and government shutdowns. Texas is Singapore compared to California. But at least the Kool Aid is abundant there?

[slinky]

From a purely fiscal standpoint, yes, Rick Perry seems to look pretty decent. However, he also seems like he leans hard toward the religious-nutjobbery part of the spectrum & that's a problem. I've seen stuff where he comes off anti-gay, for example, and then there was that faith rally thingamajig where he was leading prayers for the US economy or some such nonsense. I just look at stuff like that and think, WTF?? I just don't think anything religious should come into government and politics and anyone who tries to put it there just turns me off.

[T2K]

I would prefer someone who balances the federal budget, reduces the US deficit and keeps his beliefs on religion to himself.

Failing that, I'll take anyone that can do the first two things.

[slinky]

I would prefer someone who balances the federal budget, reduces the US deficit and keeps his beliefs on religion to himself.

Agree.

Failing that, I'll take anyone that can do the first two things.

The problem with this part is if he can't keep his religious beliefs to himself, he runs a great risk of being un-electable even if he can do the first two things.

[cromasaig]

I'd really like to hear someone - anyone - on the right acknowledge just how much of this 'out of control' spending is due to the last Republican Texan starting two wars and repeatedly raising America's debt ceiling.

And I agree with Slinks too. Regardless of political leanings, it's hard to trust the judgement of someone so divorced from evidence and logic that they're a creationist.

[Joseph27]

J27 - 700 Billion would pay the interest on our national debt for about 3 years...and you say new taxes would raise that amount in 10 years. Sounds like a winning plan? Any new taxes need to be specific to reduction of the national debt, in my opinion, otherwise history shows us that they will be pissed away on "programs" that yield nothing. The US has spent TRILLIONS on "helping the poor" over the past four decades, and we have more poor people with nearly nil chance at employability than ever. The deficit is finite and huge and it will crush us if it isn't turned around.

Understood - the argument was that so much energy is being focused on cutting small programs that help people and making note of every dollar where as any increase was written off as meaningless because, as you say, it only equated to 3 years of interest on debt payments.

When you have a military industrial complex that supplies a lot of friends with aid - aka military aid, and fight simultaneous wars ultimately worth a few trillion, maintain a monumental defense force right across the globe and yet let the infrastructure of the US fall apart - it just seems harsh to be attacking the lowest rung of that society. It would seem that the elite has a lot more to answer for than the poor and yet the GOP & Fox media cycle seems bent on attacking the less fortunate for collection welfare.

Perhaps a more visionary President could look towards rebuilding America, with American labor, rebuilding american schools, dismantling american prisons and ending the war on drugs. Instead of being positive and focused on tomorrow - it just seems that all those chasing the GOP nomination would happily keep building jails, keep the military strong, keep cutting help for the poor, interfering with same sex marriage, making the entire society swallow jesus, At the end of the day they are just going to help Obama get another 4 years.

oh BTW Michelle Bachman is one crazy ass bitch... jesus between her and Palin, they are doing all they can to de-legitimize female politicians.

[T2K]

I'd really like to hear someone - anyone - on the right acknowledge just how much of this 'out of control' spending is due to the last Republican Texan starting two wars and repeatedly raising America's debt ceiling.

And I agree with Slinks too. Regardless of political leanings, it's hard to trust the judgement of someone so divorced from evidence and logic that they're a creationist.

When it comes to fiscal poilicy, I'm a conservative so I guess that makes me someone on the right. Bush didn't reduce the deficit, he added to it and the debt ceiling was raised many times under him = FAIL. Clinton didn't reduce the deficit, he added to it and the debt ceiling was raised many times under him = FAIL. How many presidents do you want to go back? More debt has been added under the current president than any other = FAIL.
We have no recent precedent of success to look at. And aren't all Christians by definition creationists? I mean, they all are at least supposed to believe all that stuff Adam and Eve stuff, right?

[slinky]

And aren't all Christians by definition creationists? I mean, they all are at least supposed to believe all that stuff Adam and Eve stuff, right?

Not necessarily. There are Christians - and almost certainly other religious groups as well - who believe/accept the theory of evolution and look at the Adam and Eve stuff as stories with some sort of moral lesson and not as how it all or we all actually came to be.

[Joseph27]

The old Pope accepted evolution - its more the new age fundamentalists who go for the 6,000 year old earth with Adam and Eve, Noah's ark and all that rubbish. It's hard not to be contemptible of people so stupid as to believe something so absurd however I find the notion of trying extract meaning from the old testament as a template for how to live our lives today not that far behind. This is surely a time where we should be happy to throw the baby out with the bath water - these people lived thousand years ago, christians a few thousand years and muslims slight newer still but none of their books, writings or sayings contain anything that couldnt be written by a person of the time, with the mindset of the time. The best Jesus really had to offer was the sermon on the mount but realistically Confucius beat him to the mark with more enlightened philosophy long before mary started loitering around stables. Not that any of that would affect the fundamentalist christian in america rapidly approaching 'end times' - after all they know the truth, the way and the light

[sluggo]

There 25 states that have a lower unemployment rate than Texas. Texas is tied with Mississippi for highest percentage of minimum wage jobs. These are hard facts.. Rick Perry has not been a great governor to "all" Texans just the rich ones. And I'm a Texan.

[skank-la]

T2K ignores the facts & proclaims the opposite is true
Perry is Bush on steroids cutting taxes increasing spending & therefore debt

I like having him on this board; indicative of certain mindset here.
If you like somebody's position then they can do no wrong damn the real numbers

For all his talk of fiscal conservationism on the national stage, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) hasn’t been so parsimonious at home, where his state is racking up debt at a faster rate than the national government and in greater amounts than most other states. Perry regularly attacks President Obama for engaging in “too much spending” and running up too much debt, but as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Mitchell Schnurman writes today, Texas’ refusal to raise taxes has led to its own debt ballooning faster than Washington’s:

From 2001 to 2010, state debt alone grew from $13.4 billion to $37.8 billion, according to the Texas Bond Review Board. That’s an increase of 281 percent. Over the same time, the national debt rose almost 234 percent. [...]

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Politifact website says Perry's not telling the whole story. And the site's raison d'etre is to keep an eye on Obama, so I would have expected them to go easy on one of their own.

"John O’Brien, director of the Legislative Budget Board, which advises legislators on budget matters, recently estimated that the current pace of spending will exceed incoming revenue by $11 billion by the time the 2012 fiscal year begins on Sept. 1, 2011."

http://www.politifact.com/texas/stateme ... s-surplus/

[T2K]

Score! I got promoted to "a certain mindset". Too much groupthink going on in this post, zero ideas for improvement in the US. If we keep doing the same crap the Republicans and Democrats have been doing for the past several decades we're going to get the same results. And those are plain to see.

Skank advocates the very successful "more of the same" policy which has taken the US to the lofty heights we've now ascended to. "The policies of failure have failed, we need to make them work again!" - I'm glad he's here, we need to hear the voice of the establishment.

[Joseph27]

The only candidate saying anything different is the one totally shunted by MSM - the rest harp the same tune... the systems broken and no one can fix it until there is a complete overhaul; the big problem being that no one wants to kick out the ladder that put them there whilst they are still there. So regardless of what anyone says - the only real winner is vested interest and nothing can change.

[Tas]

speaking of group think - this transcript was recommended to me
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/s ... 268792.htm

[Joseph27]

speaking of group think - this transcript was recommended to me
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/s ... 268792.htm

Great link Tas