FaceBook--Breading Ground for Political Threads

Here is an interesing, ongoing political discource I've been a party to on Facebook recently:

Andrew--“Republicans denied adequate health care to the heroes who developed illnesses from rushing into burning buildings on 9/11,” he said. “Yet they will stop at nothing to give tax breaks to millionaires and C.E.O.’s, even though they will explode our deficit and fail to create jobs. That tells you everything you need to know about their priorities.”-Harry Reid... I concur.

Peter--I make it a point never to agree with Mr. Harry Reid.

Andrew--I really could not care less who said it- they're right.

Rick--Here's something another Harry said:
Lord Voldemort: [to Dumbledore thru Harry] You've lost, old man.
Harry Potter: [to Voldemort] You're the weak one. And you'll never know love,or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.
...I feel sorry for republicans

Peter--Yes because Republicans couldn't possibly be human could they?

Rick--you're right, cheap shot. But still--who but the rich have benefited the most from: government bailouts, the wars to keep oil interests safe, and the deregulation that even Alan Greenspan is now apologizing for. It's not too much to ask that they now pay their fair share. The republican idea that any way you can make money without being thrown in jail is then yours, yours fair and square--this idea will be the death of our nation, children's futures, planet, troops, etcetera...

Peter-- It would seem your beef is with Enron-style capitalism. There are millions of small business owners out there just trying to make a living, (and, by doing so, they provide incomes for millions more in the process) - they're the ones who ho...ld our future - and the government is currently not doing them any favors. I'm all for winnowing out the greedy, and prosecuting the guilty when the law has been broken. Conservatism, contrary to popular liberal belief, does not distill down to a 'screw thy neighbor' ethos.
Regarding government bailouts - it would seem we have all benefited - for we have managed to avert total financial collapse - at least for the moment. Obama recognized this threat, and acted prudently, rationally and correctly - I believe. The state of the US economy would have been incomparably harsher, had banks been allowed to fail and car companies been allowed to fold.
Regarding wars to keep oil interests safe - I assume you are referring to the singular war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan has nothing - quite literally - to do with oil. There are not "wars." Regarding Iraq, opinions vary - I still believe we intervened, not only to protect our own oil interests, but the oil interests of the entire world, which were being held hostage by a mad tyrant, (who was our responsibility) and his sons. I believe that war with Iraq was inevitable - and that it was preferable we decide the timing, rather than he.

Regarding Greenspan - there is no economist in the world, who understands how exactly the free market economy is going to play out. As the saying goes - "Put 10 economists in a room and you'll get 10 different opinions." The people who put their faith in him as fed chief should have known better than to put all their eggs in one basket. Ultimately he did what he though was right, and it turned out he was wrong - not malicious, just wrong. In this regard, he is neither the first, nor the last to have made that mistake.
The ability to make money in this country, does not spell our demise. On the contrary, it is a fundamental component of our success.
We live in a dynamic system - an experiment - and tweaks and modifications are constantly being made... this is our real strength. We have a system that is capable of adapting - and adapt we must - and adapt we shall.

Rick--touché, well put. Still--no new net jobs have been created in this country since 2000, and tax cuts have not seemed to help that figure. I also think that anyone earning 250k+ can no longer be considered to be " just trying to make a living...." That designation should be reserved for the man who picks soybeans for 10 hours a day six days a week. Tell me--What makes it fair that the owner of his soybean company make 400 times as much as he, the picker? (In 1980, the ratio between highest paid and average, -average- compensation in a Fortune 500 company was 42 to one. By 2007, the ratio was 411 to one.) Government is the only way to enforce a truely fairer slicing of the gifts which our planet has to offer us. The government is us--we the people--it is not some bogey man waiting to screw you over (as you fairly pointed out--neither are most capitalist republicans, my apologies.) Stil, Ask not what your country can do for you, and so on and so forth.
The justification for the Iraq war and 100,000 civilian deaths aside--I still think that Bush, if he really believed in the war, should have asked us to pay for it while it was happening. Vietnam was not put on a credit card; and by draft, citizens were asked to serve(thanks dad). WWII was also fought by an America where resources were rationed, everyone knew a soldier who fought, and the rich paid 60 percent more in taxes than they do now...Today we are in Afghanistan, and how do we honor our troops' service? By banning coffins from Network TV.
Once again, sorry---I know the majority of Conservatives are hard working people that just want to live in a free society... I too hope we will adapt, and I hope that every 250+ earner's tax break will trickle down like it has never proven to do before. One thing is certain--No new soybean pickers can be hired when none in the lower classes can afford to buy them...

Peter--We avoided a near total financial meltdown - it was all set to make the Great Depression look like a mild slump. People really do have short memories. It is a source of constant mystery to me that Obama gets almost no credit for stopping ...this. His courage, leadership and common sense prevailed - and yet Republicans, and more disheartening, Liberals just can not give this guy his due.
Unemployment was at historic low points both in 2000 and 2007 - but this is irrelevant, because what you really want to say is that it remains very high today. Yes, this is true. As it happens, in the last decade GDP increased from 10 trillion to 14 trillion - again, who cares - the economy still seems sluggish. The economy is, in fact, growing - though unemployment is still high - and seeing as the government can not actually "create" real, permanent jobs - then we must stimulate economic growth. There's is no getting around the shift to a global economy, however. The world is - as Thomas Friedman says - flat.
Hence tax cuts, which generally have a stimulating effect on economies - and, counter-intuitively, revenues. Even JFK, who you quoted, understood this - and his tax cuts were among the some of the most effective for stimulating growth and increasing revenue. Perhaps you should have quoted him when he said:
"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now."
By the way, in 1950 $30,000 was roughly equivalent to $250,000 today. $250,000 may sound like a lot to you and me - but it ain't the rich, relatively speaking.
However - Bush's primary mistake was that he did not control spending - but then again, neither did his congress. It is true that tax cuts are not enough... federal spending must also be reduced. Bush's other big flaw was that he, and his administration, were positively abysmal at public relations.
If you'd rather, we can debate the merits and pitfalls of communist-style redistribution of wealth... that would seem to be the direction you're headed. At times you sound like a proper Marxist. Certainly, the soy bean picker and the owner of the soy bean company should not earn the same amount - I would argue.
There were about 50,000,000 civilian deaths, in WWII - but regardless of this horrendously high number, the war needed to be fought. I think it is safe to say that G.W. Bush really did believe that the Iraq war was necessary... as he went into it despite the French and German obloquy. Is it your assertion that soldiers in WWII and Vietnam were not paid, despite being drafted? Not only were they paid - but the money they earned was tax free.
For the sake of this debate - I actually don't consider myself a dyed-in the wool conservative. I am technically a "classical liberal" or at the very least an independent. I have an intense distaste for the current state of affairs on the right side of the isle - as it has become prone to whining, puerility and fear-mongering. Gone are its saner heads... and charismatic leaders. Furthermore, I have no interest in courting the Christian vote. In this respect I am pure Goldwater. Keep an eye on Paul Ryan... he's a good egg.

Rick--Balance my friend. Marx, if you read his works, was capitalist. He believed that societies could progress from feudalism, to capitalism, then socialism, and then, if a society was ready and desired it, could become communist if they so chose. He would have been ashamed to see the perversions of his ideas by Russian and Chinese Regimes. It’s true that Left thinking unchecked will lead to the communism that the Right fears, and everyone should fear. Right thinking run rampant will push us back into slavery (It's the slave owner's plantation after all, the slaves get room and board--they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't like it!) Slavery used to be perfectly legal—much of what is unjust in our Capitalist system is currently just as legal.
The guys who are too big to fail and often too big to jail? —I think you might have an issue with them, as you do Enron, if you look at mega business as a perversion of the kind of capitalism you preach. Think about it. The corner capitalism of the small business person is not the same as what happens in big business. Small businesses work within the market. Big businesses manipulate the market. That perversion of markets didn't stop with the 19th century robber barons. It's alive and well on Wall Street. Hedge funds and investment banks even call it "making markets." That sounds like a bad homophone, but they created markets for CDOs (e.g. toxic mortgage securities) and then sold Credit Default Swaps to insure them. This scam was aided by intentional deregulation that said a CDS wasn't insurance and didn't need collateral. You think the Fed creates funny money? What would you call the up to $45 Trillion in CDSs that they sold to your insurance companies, pension funds and 401ks. The reason we had to bail them out was to give the markets time to pay off enough bad mortgages to soften the blow on that bogus "insurance" The mega businesses call themselves capitalists, but they are, in reality, oligarchs; giants stomping around looking for advantage and squelching small time capitalists and their employees in the process. I am, at this point, a Democrat because we at least say we are on the side of the people who really are the street corner, strip mall, family farm capitalists and employees. It's always puzzled me why any small business would support WalMart/Wall Street capitalism. Maybe we've just been blinded by the fact that the rules the big guys make up and live by have nothing in common with the capitalism they preach. It's bait and switch. And when government, Republican or Democrat, sides with them, look out. So up with regulation, transparency, involvement, and wealth management that reduces the gap between the biggest of the big and the rest of us. These guys don't think they're evil. They just think they are doing what's best for the rest of us ... and paying themselves hundreds of times what the rest of us could ever earn under their system. Again I ask you—what makes it fair that someone can make 400 times as much money as anyone else who works in their company? What makes that just? Should that ratio be reduced to 1 to 1? Of course not! That is the communism you fear, and I fear. Again, balance must be achieved; we must open our eyes to the causes of “wealth redistribution” from the poor to the rich, much more so than from the rich to the poor…
Thank you for putting unemployment into perspective; I was perhaps, being a tad unfair there.
On war, I would argue that no war NEED be fought. Every one of theirs we kill breeds hatred that will create two more. Again I report—half of our taxes go to pay for this war and war debt, and every day you and I give money to War Profiteers who have no desire to see Osama bin Laden brought to justice. War is unsustainable; Non-Violence is the only course historically proven to have any deffusionary results, to stop humans fighting. Why are wars fought? Because evil-doers are evil and must be eliminated? No—because someone who lives in poverty, who makes 1/400th the amount as another in their country, or across the sea, can easily be persuaded to join in a “terrorist cause”, or even Nazi or Communist cause, when they are convinced that others are hording the wealth of the world. It is very easy for them to think, when they see our country usurping the resources of the world, hey, that’s not fair! I want to fight that. It is also easy to gain enemies when videos such as these are wikileaked:

http://svtplay.se/v/2264028/wikirebels_the_documentary

I see that you are a filmmaker and a musician. Please watch this. Please do independent research outside of our major, capitalist, News Orginizations...
My opinion is that your values are good. Capitalist values are on the whole, a just, efficient way for people to make a living. But we must be ever vigilant in exposing and swiftly rectifying the injustices that invariably arise from the imperfections in its design…