Future or Past

[Justice]

Now that I've had the chance to hear both candidates give a speech during their respective conventions, I came to one conclusion. Do you want a President that lives in the past or do you want a President that has a future?

 

McCain never fails to bring up his past and remind us all of how big a hero he is. We know the man is courageous and was a great war hero but, should we give him the presidency just because of his past? McCain's introductory tonight was great and his autobiography was inspiring, but he should've mentioned something about the future as well. I realize McCain is probably in better shape, besides his skin cancer, than most people is age, but I wont even let my 71 year old grandfather drive the car on a family trip much less run the country.

 

I, for one, truly believe that some nations will be better off with younger blood running their countries. Let's use Israel and Palestine as an example. Bring in a Palestinian President and an Israeli Prime Minister that truly believes in peace and the fighting will stop. The problem here is people often vote in the wrong guy. Only younger blood will see things more clearly. Our parents' generation was far more racist than ours is, for example.

 

If McCain becomes President, how can he go to other nations preaching peace when all he does is vote in favor of anything pro-war? The war will resume and oil prices will climb.

 

BTW. Has anyone else noticed the price of gas lately? It's going down. I wonder if that has anything to do with the election.

[Chef Jim]

This election sure has brought the best and brightest out of the woodwork.

[Justice]

This election sure has brought the best and brightest out of the woodwork.

 

Tell me why I'm wrong.

[ieatcrayonz]

Now that I've had the chance to hear both candidates give a speech during their respective conventions, I came to one conclusion. Do you want a President that lives in the past or do you want a President that has a future?

 

McCain never fails to bring up his past and remind us all of how big a hero he is. We know the man is courageous and was a great war hero but, should we give him the presidency just because of his past? McCain's introductory tonight was great and his autobiography was inspiring, but he should've mentioned something about the future as well. I realize McCain is probably in better shape, besides his skin cancer, than most people is age, but I wont even let my 71 year old grandfather drive the car on a family trip much less run the country.

 

I, for one, truly believe that some nations will be better off with younger blood running their countries. Let's use Israel and Palestine as an example. Bring in a Palestinian President and an Israeli Prime Minister that truly believes in peace and the fighting will stop. The problem here is people often vote in the wrong guy. Only younger blood will see things more clearly. Our parents' generation was far more racist than ours is, for example.

 

If McCain becomes President, how can he go to other nations preaching peace when all he does is vote in favor of anything pro-war? The war will resume and oil prices will climb.

 

BTW. Has anyone else noticed the price of gas lately? It's going down. I wonder if that has anything to do with the election.

Dude. I agree with you on Obama. He is going to give us lots of stuff. Plus, I have as much or more respect than anyone for old people, but let's face it, if McCain has to change his compostory bag 12 times a day, he won't have time to handle the tough stuff.

 

I don't agree with you about gas prices. They are going down because we found more oil in some place in Alaska that Palin knew about but wouldn't tell anyone until she got the VP offer.

 

Anyway, the brilliant part of your post is the whole Middle East thing. Young guys that truly want peace. I think you should e-mail that to someone. Maybe that UN guy Crazy Infoomay Infoomay or something like that. I forget his name but I know it's so nice, he says it twice.

 

Maybe the Israeli young dude and the Palestinian young dude could share a spliff and a few laughs. The Israeli could teach him the proper intonation for "Oy Vey" while the Palestinian guy could teach vest assembly.

[Passepartout]

Let's just say I won't be happy if Obama gets elected.

And leave it at that.

[OCinBuffalo]

Tell me why I'm wrong.

Easy one.

 

Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are the past. They are failing. They are failing not because they weren't good ideas once. They were great ideas 40+ years ago when we were either trying to get out of the Great Depression(SSI), or living in an artificial booming economy in a world where we had no competition, because everybody else's factories/infrastructure were bombed to hell, ours were at full production coming off a war, we thought that things would "always be this way", and we had more money that we knew what to do with. All that = "why shouldn't Teamsters get paid $60/hour for doing something that's only worth $10, and with all this extra cash why not create a free health care system in case they get hurt, as well?"(Medicaid/Medicare) Um, they didn't plan for "the elderly" to turn into "the poor" because they didn't do the math, and they didn't expect people to live so long, even though the data was easily available. Medicare/Medicaid was supposed to be primarily for an injured/disabled young worker, not dominated by the entire AARP. Paraphrasing the West Wing: "When FDR was coming up with social security, he wasn't thinking about 20 years of shuffleboard." I'm not suggesting we put 90-year-old people to work, I am suggesting some common sense, and setting the age to both reflect current age averages, and keep with FDR's original intent.

 

The problem? This isn't 40-70 years ago when these programs made sense as they were designed. They quite literally define the past. Supporting them in their current forms, and/or demanding massive tax increases to fix them(even though that won't work either, because their business processes and rules are broken, antiquated permanently, or flat out wrong)...

 

...is fully supporting the past.

 

Like it or not, whenever the far-left or Pat Buchannon gets done emoting, we now live in a global economy and that is the future. Other countries depend on us economically, and we depend on them. This is good thing because: it prevents large-scale war. And yes, wars of the future will be based fully on world market/economic interests because they are the very thing that must be protected, world-wide, to prevent a big war from happening. Big War = WWII = multiple battles like Tarawa, where we lost more people in a single day than we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, combined. Which one do you think is better, fighting a small war now, or a big one later?

 

The key is getting so many economic allies lined up, that nobody wants to fight a war because it's bad for business, which it is. An "A+" would be getting every country in the world on board, and that would essentially be the end of war as we know it. This is why Bono's(U2) "forgive the debt" concept makes all the sense in the world. That debt conversion alone would cut world-wide inflation by a staggering amount which reduces the price of everything, and significantly increases the earning power of the poor. This is why free markets make infinite sense of over planned economies (socialism), because you don't ever have to stick to the plan, and, somebody is always willing to make an extra buck, or billions of them, by turning a failing economy around if you ended up with a bad plan...

 

...and free markets and a global economy are without doubt, the future.

 

However, we trade no more WW II-type wars for having to be extremely competitive with multiple countries, in multiple industries. These are the rules of the future's game, again, whenever the idiots get done talking, they will still be the rules of the game. We can't un-ring the bell, and old-school, Pat Buchannon(on the right), AFL-CIO(on the left) protectionist economic policy will simply turn us into a third world country.

 

We will not be competitive with the 2nd highest, or 5th highest(however you define it) corporate tax rate in the world<--this is where we are are at right friggin now. The future depends on competition, and we cannot afford to hamstring ourselves in any way. Especially not when you consider that we routinely hamstring ourselves for diplomatic reasons. We always allow other countries to cheat and "dump" their products on our economy in return for economic stability and, again, No large-scale, or even small-scale, War. We need to streamline our entire economy, and that includes our government, just as any entity has to do when faced with increased competition. We need to EVOLVE, not merely "change".

 

So streamlining our government = massively reforming, removing or replacing the largest drain by far on our Federal budget = entitlement programs like Meidcare, Medicaid, SSI, making the corporate tax rate = to the average of what other countries pay, and hopefully sharing the burden of defense spending(reducing it for us), or reasonably reducing the need for it, with and because of our now even stronger economic, as well as strategic, allies....

 

...is fully supporting the future.

 

I will leave it to you to figure out which candidate favors which, but, it doesn't really matter, because if either of these guys or anybody in the future ignores these rules, we will fire them. Regardless of whenever either of the candidates, or their supporters, get done talking, these things will still be true. Why? Because these are facts, Jack, not opinions, and, like I said, they are the new rules of the game, like it or not. You can hate the game all you want, you can hate the player too, but, when you get up the next day, all the hate changes exactly nothing....

 

...because this is the future. We can either B word about or deal with it. The decision comes down to: who is going to do more dealing and less bitching?

[swede316]

OCin...Why aren't you running for office? Couldn't agree more.

[molson_golden2002]

Easy one.

 

Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are the past. They are failing.

No, they are doing great!

[Chef Jim]

Tell me why I'm wrong.

 

Gas prices are going down because the election is near? That's a good one.

[Chef Jim]

OCin...Why aren't you running for office? Couldn't agree more.

 

Because based on his posts 75% of Congress would pass away before he finished his State of the Union address.

[Justice]

Gas prices are going down because the election is near? That's a good one.

 

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/08/gaso...-elections.html

 

Here's a small piece from this article:

 

But interestingly, since the oil market was deregulated, gasoline prices have shown a different seasonal pattern in presidential election years.

 

In presidential election years the fall peak in gasoline prices shifts back to the spring and in the months running up to the election, gasoline prices are essentially unchanged.

 

In the last seven presidential election years gasoline prices peaked in May three times, in June three times and in July once. So the question is why in non-presidential election years do gas prices peak just before November, but in election years they peak months earlier and are flat running up to the election?

[OCinBuffalo]

Because based on his posts 75% of Congress would pass away before he finished his State of the Union address.

Truer words have never been spoken. But, given the current congress, is that such a bad thing?

[OCinBuffalo]

OCin...Why aren't you running for office? Couldn't agree more.

Thanks, I guess.

 

I am doing something that I think is infinitely more useful around these issues, and I don't have to put up with worrying about some tool asking my my stance on abortion. If most of it goes to plan, you will see a result that actually makes both reasonable sides, and even the unreasonable people, happy. Especially because they will all get to take credit for it, and no one will be bothering me.