TakeYouToTasker

What's immoral is capping an individuals value, restricting the freedom of exchange and association, and legislating theft.

He's targeting morons who are completely ignorant of economics and markets, and those of low morals who believe it's OK to steal from others.

No. No it isn't. Not even remotely.

No. This is the height of unintentional irony: Hyphenated Non-hyphenated

I see you're shifting the goal posts, making bare assertions, and offering post hoc fallacies. The middle class in this country has already been decimated. The people you now refer to as middle class are actually working class. If you want to reflect on why this is, then I suggest you start by examining our economic system, and then move on to our confiscatory tax system. And now, using your own standard, please show metrics demonstrating a causal relationship between all of the things you've listed and a worsening middle/working class.

You'll note that baskin also mentioned the banning of a certain poster in his OP. "Perhaps the posters who want to vote out dissent"

Can you guys please migrate the "conservatisms successes" talk over to baskin's new thread?

I'll start off by once again pointing out that calls for the banning of a particular poster have nothing at all to do with his political positions. You'll note that no other poster is receiving such calls. The reason that a ban has been brought up is because he sets out to intentionally downgrade all threads, and derail them. As often as I and others have disagreed with, say, birddog or yourself, no one has ever called for their posting privileges to be removed. Why is that, do you think? Now, onto the purpose of this thread: The country has been drifting to the left since it's inception, and the further to the left it has drifted, the worse our economy has become, and the weaker our moral standards have become. Government programs, failed or otherwise, become the legacy of their legislators, and are nearly never scrapped. Government spending increases every year, as does our debt. "Cut taxes for high earners" Taxes on all earners should be cut. An individual's success does not somehow entitle the government to a higher percentage of their wage. The insistence that it does is immoral. "Lowered union power" I can only assume you're speaking to removal of compulsory membership in a work place, and mandatory dues for non-members in a workplace. This is a good thing as it empowers individual workers. "NAFTA" The overwhelming majority of American citizens benefit from NAFTA. It's also important to point out that NAFTA was the work of two subsequent administrations, one Republican and one Democratic. "Fought SSM" The acknowledgement that Social Security and Medicare are broken and unsustainable is central to either fixing them, or scrapping them in favor of a plan that is workable and sustainable. Anything else is simply jamming your head into the sand and ignoring reality. "Unfunded wars in the ME" Is this a critique of our economic system or of the war itself? Our government is always taking unfunded action. We don't even have a budget process anymore. The reality is that sometimes a nation has to go to war. We (the larger we, not you and I) may disagree over the necessity of the war, but the reality is that as a spending issue, it will be accounted for the same way everything is accounted for within our government. "Voter ID laws" The franchise is an exclusive privilege. I believe it to be very reasonable that individuals should have to prove that they are actually supposed to be permitted to participate in American democracy, before we allow them to participate. If the vote is sacred, it should be treated as such. "Gun rights" Gun ownership is guaranteed to us by the Constitution, and is a cornerstone of free society, which has only existed in the whole history of the world which was prior dominated by Totalitarianism, for 240 years. Conservatives are on the right side of this issue. "Citizens United" Again, free speech is guaranteed to us by the Constitution, and political speech is the most important type of speech there is. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Money absolutely is speech as long as different mediums for speech have different costs associated with them. One person's inability to afford a particular medium of speech does not somehow magically invalidate another individual's explicit right to use that medium himself. This is absolutely problematic, but it is far more problematic to have a system in which the government is empowered to restrict political speech, which is the most important type of free speech there is. The only way to prevent this sort of spending in politics is to limit the scope of government, such that there is no influence to purchase. You'll note that limiting the scope of government is another thing that conservatives are right about. "Fought environmental conservatism" Do you mean "fought against the decimation of the domestic and global economy by religious zealots"? "Lower regulation for the financial industry" Fought against ham handed and poor regulation. Removing bad regulations is not synonymous with "lowering regulations".

This thread has nothing to do with liberalism. This thread is about removing a troll's ability to ruin discussions. If you'd like to start a new thread, I'll gladly engage you.

I could care less about his liberalism. This forum desperately needs more well spoken lefties. The problem with gatorman is that he isn't interested in discussion, debate, or even honest argument; rather his only goal is to ruin the discussions, debates, and honest arguments that everyone else is having. His goal is to make this forum worse.

Yes. He doesn't add value to threads or sub conversations within those threads, instead seeking simply to derail those threads with either irrelevant information, side tracking with the introduction of unrelated ad hom attacks, or general flame throwing. Every conversation he injects himself in to is immediately downgraded, and that's his intention. He makes this board a worse place to read or post. There's zero value in that. Addition by subtraction.

You'll have to explain then, why no one has called for birddog, TGregg, blzrul, baskin, Dorkington, Buftex, reddogblitz, Juror#8, or the many other left leaning posters who post in PPP to be banned.

Exactly. I could care less about the occasional insult, and am more than OK with people expressing poorly reasoned, bad, or dissenting opinions. What I do care about are posters whose sole mission is to drag down the quality of the board with douche-baggery.

Liberty includes the freedom to enter into restrictive contracts as one desires.

228 years of electoral history says you're an idiot.

I apologize. I gave you too much credit. I won't let it happen again. The Democratic and Republican Parties are not beholden to the citizens of the United States, end of story. They are private organizations, which serve their own interests, and membership is voluntary. The entire reason that political parties exist is to consolidate power and direct policy in the way that is best for the majority of the power elite within that party; and the rules of the party for nominating their candidate are constructed towards those ends. You'll notice the highlighted word "nominating". That's a very different word than "electing". "Electing" implies a somewhat democratic process, and "nominating" does not. The simple truth is that private organizations can tap their leaders any way they want to. Neither major party even needs to have a primary or caucus. Both could amend their rules, and simply advance whomever the party leaders felt was their best candidate after some internal deliberations. Don't like it? Too bad. You don't have a say, nor do you deserve a say in the internal workings of a private organization beyond what they themselves decide to offer you, or not, in the way of a vote. You always have the option of disaffiliating.

So, you agree with me, but you don't like the outcome. Great. Advocate for your preferred candidates better.

The Democratic and Republican Parties are private organizations. They are not part of the government. Further, you are not required to vote for a candidate of either party; nor are the candidates required to run as a Republican or Democrat. No one is getting screwed. The outcome is the final summation of free will.

Bernie is a sitting Senator and member of the power elite within the Democratic Party. He knows the rules related to his own Party's nominating process, and he agreed to them when he decided to run for the Democratic nomination. He made the choice to run a a Democrat instead of a Socialist for the benefit of using the establishment apparatus instead of being honest and fighting an uphill battle as a third party candidate. He's not getting screwed.

No he isn't. "Getting screwed" implies undeserved results obtained outside of the rules.

Please explain how running adjacent ads, sold with equal opportunity, across multiple platforms, content providers, and mediums constitutes "screaming over"?

You can't troll someone who already knows you're a habitual liar and an intentional dick head.

No one's free speech rights are infringed upon, or screamed over, by someone else purchasing adds in order to exercise their rights to free speech. The listener is perfectly able to hear both arguments, and decided for either one, a different point of view entirely, or none at all.

HOA's and banning people from internet forums both fit very snugly inside of a libertarian philosophy. The HOA is a known commodity when purchasing a home, and you contractually obligate yourself to them. Nothing wrong with that. And internet forum is privately owned and operated, and you have no right to post or participate. The owners and operators are free to suspend anyone's privileges at any point. Nothing wrong with that either.

HOA's aren't for me either. I also live out in the sticks. Property is much cheaper, and the community is much warmer. But that's really not the point. It was a metaphor.