[Russell Crowe]

poko, on 10 March 2011 - 10:06 AM, said:

No one came here to say Ronald Reagan sucks or was awesome or anything. I think the point is something like, "Republicans, you keep using that name, I don't think he means what you think he means."

Yup. Especially when everybody knows it was really Rocky Balboa who defeated communism.

[Apocalypse]

ensign edwards, on 10 March 2011 - 11:17 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic. At least, I hope he was...

I was being silly.

Russell Crowe, on 10 March 2011 - 11:31 AM, said:

Yup. Especially when everybody knows it was really Rocky Balboa who defeated communism.

Reagan was like, half responsible.

[ensign edwards]

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I was being silly.

That's what I thought.

Quote

Reagan was like, half responsible.

I'm not an expert on the cold war, but it always seemed to me that the communists defeated themselves.

[poko]

I wasn't assuming any argument or disagreement or anything I just wanted to use a princess bride quote to describe Regan and clarify my point.

[sevnson_71]

trekkin, on 10 March 2011 - 06:00 AM, said:

*dips toe in water...it does not disintegrate....*

WELL....I had sworn off politics threads...but once in a while I feel the need to pipe in here and there.

Unions....necessary evil. I've worked for the Teamsters and the UFCW. As an educated person, I could probably have advocated for myself in a better manner that the union did for me. BUT...unions protect people who cannot advocate for themselves. People who are ill educated, just plain dumb, new to this country and may not understand the customs and the language. We speak about money and health insurance with unions but often forget that is is the unions that brought about safety in the workplace. Job security is an important factor in unions. Our own gov't. has a non-union job called the Census. They work in general, 6 week "missions". You are asked to do your job to perfection (Any mistake can be a reason for termination.), risk your life entering strange neighborhoods, work up to 70 hours and be paid for only 40. Once the mission has ended...you are let go...and re-hired for the next mission. If you squawk...you do not get re-hired. Simple. What if every job were offered on that basis? It is a real strategy that can happen.

I agree with unions for the most part, but think through what I've seen the big ones leaders serve themselves before the members. Collective bargaining can be equally effective without a union.

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RI....The City of Providence HAS fired all of it's teachers. They will be re-hired at their current rate of pay dependent upon the needs of the reduced size of the school system. Watch out...Providence will have a whole lot of green teachers because you don't think they are hiring back 20 year veterans at twice the pay...do you?

Wisconsin is part of the Republican strategy to goad the Democrats into siding with Labor and appearing as Leftists. The best thing the Dems can do is to let the Republicans hang themselves.

I like the idea of this Coffee Party...but I'm not against a 2 party system any longer. I've seen a 3 party election or two in my lifetime. I'm not really psyched about people being put into such a huge position of power with the backing of only 34% of the vote. It is very easy for one party to trump up a candidate to split the other party's vote. (How the infamous Buddy Cianci, a felon, got re-elected to the mayoral seat in Providence in the '90's)

Remember though the Coffee Party is just a political action group, not an actual recognized party with a platform and vetted candidates. Their sole purpose is to cut through the bullcrap and get our politicians working for the citizens again instead of pushing the agendas of corporate patrons.

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How we got Bill Clinton (But hey...I voted for that guy)

I dunno...I think people should just pay closer attention to their local politics and work their way up from there.

AND frighteningly enough...I miss Ronald Reagan. I had a lot more rights in the 1980's. I can't believe I've lived to see enough evil to think that Reagan was somehow more palatable than anything out there today. Just shoot me now.

They usually don't until it involves them directly like a shopping plaza going into the land abutting theirs etc. in my experience. 90% of the time I've served on the planning board our audience area has been empty save for the camera girl.

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What about that Governor who is trying to eliminate the local town gov'ts in his state? THAT is scary. I also saw posted on one of my NH friend's walls that NH is trying to make it a felony for a teacher to disarm a student who has a firearm.

We got a few headcases in the last cycle too sadly They also made it legal to carry in the State House chamber gallery again. It had been banned since 9/11.

Russell Crowe, on 10 March 2011 - 11:31 AM, said:

Yup. Especially when everybody knows it was really Rocky Balboa who defeated communism.

I thought it was Pope John Paul II (he backed Walesa's Solidariti movement that brought collective bargaining to Gadansk).

[Apocalypse]

ensign edwards, on 10 March 2011 - 01:31 PM, said:

I'm not an expert on the cold war, but it always seemed to me that the communists defeated themselves.

Pretty sure Reagan jetpacked over to Berlin and tore down the Berlin Wall, and then threw the moon into the Soviet Union.

[trekkin']

MTV, Levi's and Coca Cola defeated communism.

Yeah...well some idiot in RI tried to have the name of the State changed during the last election. Crazy was the norm...right?

Oh...well...btw, my chief complaint about my union when I worked for the Supermarket was that I only had emergency room coverage on my health insurance, but those fat phloxtards were having their meetings in the Bahamas and such. Sketchy to say the least.

[sevnson_71]

That is my chief gripe with major unions. I honestly hate to see the hard earned dollars of anyone go to waste. The leaders of some of these unions pull in crazy salaries, but don't hesitate to throw the rank and files under the bus when it suits them.

[poko]

sevnson_71, on 11 March 2011 - 04:27 AM, said:

That is my chief gripe with major unions. I honestly hate to see the hard earned dollars of anyone go to waste. The leaders of some of these unions pull in crazy salaries, but don't hesitate to throw the rank and files under the bus when it suits them.

You're going to get bad eggs in anything. I'm not going to say all governors are awful just because one wants to disenfranchise his entire state. Maybe the due paying members need to elect someone else.


http://www.politicus...ews-wisconsin-2

[poko]

[sevnson_71]

poko, on 13 March 2011 - 04:48 AM, said:

You're going to get bad eggs in anything. I'm not going to say all governors are awful just because one wants to disenfranchise his entire state. Maybe the due paying members need to elect someone else.


http://www.politicus...ews-wisconsin-2

Oh without a doubt. Not saying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I will say I disagree with making one join a union a condition of employment. It shouldn't need to be compulsory.

[JulesLuvsShinzon]

It's funny, but I never thought I'd see Ensign Edwards back in force trying to persuade the rest of us that the Canadian multi-party system was somehow superior to those two-party systems working in other countries.

I just hope thre good ensign has improved his knowledge of some of the surprisingly niche concerns that occupy the minds of some of these little parties - what many would call "single issue", or even better,"non issues".

For the record - once again - I state that a party that campaign solely on wanting Quebec to be a country in its own right and campaigns on issues relevant only to Quebec, is indicative of a political system that doesn't work as well as EE would have us believe - and I say this in the wake of one of our two major political parties being able to form a coalition with our third party after some considerable negotiations. Goodness knows what would have happened in the wake of our hung parliament situation if the Tories had had to go and pander to the little, single issues parties.

As for TR's opening post - I agree wholeheartedly and we are facing the same situation over here while the "little people" shoulder the burden of getting out economy back on track while the bankers still get their bonuses.

At least - perhaps - I should be grateful that no one in our Parliament has tried to make it law that women who have suffered miscarriages should be made subject to a criminal investigation.

This post has been edited by JulesLuvsShinzon: 21 March 2011 - 02:09 AM

[Apocalypse]

JulesLuvsShinzon, on 21 March 2011 - 02:06 AM, said:

For the record - once again - I state that a party that campaign solely on wanting Quebec to be a country in its own right and campaigns on issues relevant only to Quebec, is indicative of a political system that doesn't work as well as EE would have us believe -

To be fair to Quebec, we have Texas.

[sevnson_71]

JulesLuvsShinzon, on 21 March 2011 - 02:06 AM, said:

At least - perhaps - I should be grateful that no one in our Parliament has tried to make it law that women who have suffered miscarriages should be made subject to a criminal investigation.

That is just a state initiative, not a Federal one. Remember I mentioned in the past that our state governments have the right to define and restrict Federal statute as they see fit so long as it doesn't violate the Constitution. Like in Tennessee where they left the issue of alcohol prohibition to the counties. That is the reason why the people making Jack Daniels can't buy it at the store legally.

[ensign edwards]

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I just hope thre good ensign has improved his knowledge of some of the surprisingly niche concerns that occupy the minds of some of these little parties - what many would call "single issue", or even better,"non issues".

It amuses me that you still think you know my political system better than I do.

[sevnson_71]

Maybe the ins and outs of it more than the individual players EE. Your parliamentary system is a much closer genome to the UK's than ours.

[JulesLuvsShinzon]

ensign edwards, on 21 March 2011 - 11:37 PM, said:

It amuses me that you still think you know my political system better than I do.

I believe that I actually proved that I did - because I am certain it was you who mentioned the Quebec case and then I went and gave you the full scope of their separatist ideology, after which you had to admit that you weren't really that well up on their policies and that I had a point! I used google BTW!

I think we eventually agreed to disagree since neither of us were swayed by the other's arguments! I'm still claiming it as a victory though!

ensign edwards, on 10 March 2011 - 01:31 PM, said:

I'm not an expert on the cold war, but it always seemed to me that the communists defeated themselves.

That is essentially correct. Certainly the notionally Communist states fell apart from the inside. However, could they ever have been really Communist when these countries were run by a political elite who certainly lived better lives than the proletariat forced to live under the ideology that they themselves seemed singularly unwilling to impose on their own selves, and that ideology being reinforced by secret police and harsh imprisonment for dissidents. Who was really a Communist in those countries? Not the ruling elite and certainly not the people who brought these regimes down!

Apocalypse, on 21 March 2011 - 04:26 AM, said:

To be fair to Quebec, we have Texas.

Well, that's a topic for me at the moment because one of my American pals has recently moved from Chicago to Texas and I'm fascinated to learn about the differences between the two states from the point fo view of an American who has moved. I'm sort of assuming that it must almost be like moving countries, and I listen with interest - currently she's a Democrat negotiating her way through Republican territory, but she praises the Texans for their good manners. However, even a Brit can see that certain US states could be considered as nations in their own right and maybe there are Texans who would like to be their own state as something quite apart from the rest of the United States. Certainly I sense a degree of self-regard in realtion to the "purity" of a certain kind of political thinking.

I could also cite the Scots and Welsh closer to home who want greater devolved powers. They already have their own parliaments - but there is some extremist thinking in Scotland in particular that would envisage the English needing passports to cross the border, and one politician who rather provocatively suggested that the Scots should make laws for the English. Meanwhile, there are English politicians who would rather the Scottish politicians no longer had any right to vote in our parliament.

This post has been edited by JulesLuvsShinzon: 22 March 2011 - 07:57 PM

[Russell Crowe]

JulesLuvsShinzon, on 22 March 2011 - 07:45 PM, said:

That is essentially correct. Certainly the notionally Communist states fell apart from the inside. However, could they ever have been really Communist when these countries were run by a political elite who certainly lived better lives than the proletariat forced to live under the ideology that they themselves seemed singularly unwilling to impose on their own selves, and that ideology being reinforced by secret police and harsh imprisonment for dissidents. Who was really a Communist in those countries? Not the ruling elite and certainly not the people who brought these regimes down!

But by that line of reasoning, there's never actually been a Communist government anywhere in the world (at least in the capital 'C' sense of the word). One might just as accurately claim that the United States isn't a capitalist country because our markets are not freely competitive and are instead controlled by large corporations. Nominally true, but at the end of the day those labels have a lot more meaning inside a textbook or a manifesto than they do in real-world practice.


I'm not sure what my point was supposed to be, there... just expelling random thoughts from my brain

[sevnson_71]

JulesLuvsShinzon, on 22 March 2011 - 07:45 PM, said:

I believe that I actually proved that I did - because I am certain it was you who mentioned the Quebec case and then I went and gave you the full scope of their separatist ideology, after which you had to admit that you weren't really that well up on their policies and that I had a point! I used google BTW!

I think we eventually agreed to disagree since neither of us were swayed by the other's arguments! I'm still claiming it as a victory though!



That is essentially correct. Certainly the notionally Communist states fell apart from the inside. However, could they ever have been really Communist when these countries were run by a political elite who certainly lived better lives than the proletariat forced to live under the ideology that they themselves seemed singularly unwilling to impose on their own selves, and that ideology being reinforced by secret police and harsh imprisonment for dissidents. Who was really a Communist in those countries? Not the ruling elite and certainly not the people who brought these regimes down!



Well, that's a topic for me at the moment because one of my American pals has recently moved from Chicago to Texas and I'm fascinated to learn about the differences between the two states from the point fo view of an American who has moved. I'm sort of assuming that it must almost be like moving countries, and I listen with interest - currently she's a Democrat negotiating her way through Republican territory, but she praises the Texans for their good manners. However, even a Brit can see that certain US states could be considered as nations in their own right and maybe there are Texans who would like to be their own state as something quite apart from the rest of the United States. Certainly I sense a degree of self-regard in realtion to the "purity" of a certain kind of political thinking.

I could also cite the Scots and Welsh closer to home who want greater devolved powers. They already have their own parliaments - but there is some extremist thinking in Scotland in particular that would envisage the English needing passports to cross the border, and one politician who rather provocatively suggested that the Scots should make laws for the English. Meanwhile, there are English politicians who would rather the Scottish politicians no longer had any right to vote in our parliament.

Yeah we have some yahoos in Alaska that disagree with their having become a state (Sarah Palin's hubby was in such a group) and want to secede. There are also people in US territories like Puerto Rico which would like to petition for statehood. The last measure was narrowly defeated because many enjoy their exemption from US income taxes. The US like any large country has many regional flavors, customs, and even dialects though. But you also need to figure in the fact each state is quasi-sovereign in it's own right by design. I think what you are seeing in the UK may be something of an evolution towards that idea, where central governance is still in London, but each of the old lands that make up the UK will be semi autonomous. But admittedly my family's relationship with the Crown being a couple centuries removed I might well be a little ignorant on how things are broken up there

[JulesLuvsShinzon]

Russell Crowe, on 23 March 2011 - 06:13 AM, said:

But by that line of reasoning, there's never actually been a Communist government anywhere in the world (at least in the capital 'C' sense of the word). One might just as accurately claim that the United States isn't a capitalist country because our markets are not freely competitive and are instead controlled by large corporations. Nominally true, but at the end of the day those labels have a lot more meaning inside a textbook or a manifesto than they do in real-world practice.


I'm not sure what my point was supposed to be, there... just expelling random thoughts from my brain

Well, I think I get what you're saying and it's kind of topical for me since I've recently had discussions with both my father and my daughter on these points quite recently. My daughter is reading International Relations at university and one of her early assigments was to get to grips with the textbook definitions of Marxism, which, of course, is an ideology begun my Marx, combined with, added to and interpreted by Engels and then constantly redefined and reinterpreted thereafter, so what we now think of as "Marxism" has less to do with Marx and more like an interelated collection of different schools of thought. With my Dad, we talked about how absolute and basically pure political thought could never practically be applied to human society. Basically Communism as applied in the USSR looked a lot like the Facism applied in Germany, basically both ends of the political spectrum curve right around to form a circle and not a continuum. In the USSR it was an elite who understood the aims of the State and in Germany it was an elite based on racial purity - different tribal demarcations but the same result in terms of oppressed and persecuted underclass put into Gulags or concentration camps.

Political theory is fine, but in order for it work practically in its purest form, all of the population to whom it is to be applied must all be of one mind. I think Locke argues against this ever being the case as people will always act out of self-interest and there must always be leaders to force the regime from the top down, forming political elites. This argues aginst one school of Marxism that says that, basically, all societies will eventually evolve into Mraxist societies as the height of human civilisation through a series of measured and necessary steps. Others argue that some of these steps can missed out and a Communist/Socialist state acclerated by missing some or all the steps by a catalyst such as ...revolution. I think we know which route to Communism history has shown works ...and then ultimately fails because theory can never keep up or override prcatice or human nature.