Who will take on Obama in 2012?

You still seem to be laboring under the assumption that you can make this case by listing the crazy things these people say. But that isn't the issue. The reason politicians get away with these sorts of associations is not because the people in question aren't crazy, or don't say insane things, it's because voters have shown over and over again that they don't care who you're "tied" to when being "tied" to someone refers to such casual associations. Example: most of what you're saying above applies to Jerry Falwell to some degree. Not all of it, but he's said similarly intolerant and ridiculous things, yes? How many politicians had loose "ties" to him? Quite a few. Did it hurt them? For many, it was a non-issue. So clearly, your conclusion requires some exceptions that you're ignoring.

And again: none of this holds a candle to Ayers. Fischer's words are terrible...but they're still words. Ayers is responsible for deaths. And Obama raised money at his house. Those are two things are worse than the "connections" you keep trying to sell as controversy. So rather than go on and on doing meaningless research about how bad these people are (as if that was ever in dispute), how about you answer these questions?

1) Is participating in domestic terrorism that results in actual human deaths much, much worse than saying very intolerant things?
2) Are a politician's ties to someone closer if they help them actually raise money, rather than merely share a stage?

Seems to me the answers to these questions are both unambiguously "yes." Which is why Ayers is worse. A worse offense and a more meaningful connection. If you'd like to dispute this (and I know you will), please be specific about which question or principle you take issue with.

Yeah, because you didn't convince anyone the first nineteen times you said this, but the twentieth? Well, that one really drives it home.

Anyone reading this thread even in passing is perfectly aware of your oft-stated position on Perry, I'm sure. And just to make sure I don't miss a beat, my position continues to be that statements like this exhibit a false confidence.

Perhaps Perry will crash and burn--it wouldn't stun me. But a lot of very intelligent and well-informed people think he won't, or at least find it far from a given. I would find ths sort of pronouncement to be unjustifiable even if it came from a very astute political analyst, backed by solid reasoning. But of course, an astute political analyst wouldn't make it to begin with, because to do so is to lay claim to a lot more insight than any of them possess. Throw in the fact that I find the reasoning here to be weirdly arbitrary and historically selective, and you can see why I balk at this stuff.

Okay, quick note: I wrote most of this before I saw your edits, Pidd. So you'll have to excuse me if any of it seems at all out of date. I've reworked it a bit, but it might still have us talking past one another a bit.

The edits seem to sort of indicate that in many of your comments about sustainability, you're talking about the environment. But some of your statements seem to be about the unsustainability of growth in general, and not just growth as it relates to pollution. Either way, it's not entirely clear to me if you're talking about one, the other, or both, so you'll have to clarify that. It may have led to a good deal of confusion, but I'm not sure.

On we go...

I think you are equating two things, which are not the same. The first is the idea that the growth developed countries enjoy is growth being deprived of undeveloped countries. I think that's entirely wrong, but we'll get to it in a second. The second idea is that all growth takes from someone else. And it's that second idea that I was arguing with. Because while it's true that the standard of living has gone up dramatically in some places, it hasn't gone down dramatically in others. In fact, I'd say it hasn't gone down at all in even poorer places. In most it's probably even gone up a little, just not very much. So think about the basic math here: growth has "expanded explosively" (to use your words) in some places, and not correspondingly dropped elsewhere. Which means that, while you can say you wished growth were taking place in more areas, it can't be said that growth is always taken from someone else. For that to be true, every growing area would have to have a corresponding shrinking area. And Africa, for all its problems, is not getting dramatically poorer.

This still leaves the issue of why some countries are growing and others are not, but it first establishes the principle that growing and taking are not the same thing, which is an important principle for the rest of the discussion.

What is being stolen, and how is it being stolen? Because I have a pretty strong suspicion that, when you say "stolen," you're actually talking about trade, right?

No, that's not my logic at all. Low taxes don't lead to growth no matter what else is happening. Lots of things can stop growth even if taxes are low. For example, constant war. Copius numbers of warlords illegally taking control of natural resources. Natural disasters. Or the complete lack of a a stable government, or the regular enforcement of basic laws.

I feel weird even having to say this. Did you actually think I was saying that having low taxes is some magical thing that's supposed to spur growth even if people don't even have the rule of law or a reliable government?

But I didn't; I chose an old one and a new one. And both are important, for two reasons:

1) To show that the fear of unsustainability is a recurring fear with a bad empirical track record that keeps popping up again.

2) Because just as Malthus had to make his calculations and predictions with the information he had then, we have to make the same calculations and predictions with the information we have now. And there really isn't any good reason to think that the way the world looks now is the same way it's going to look in even a few decades. If Malthus could not possibly comprehend the changes that were coming, what makes you think we can? The fact that our calculations are going to be out of date is the entire point. Such doomsday predictions assume a staticness which never actually exists.

Correct, that was one of his errors. Do you have any reason to think this won't continue as affluence increases, then?

You just switched arguments right in the middle of this paragraph. You start by talking about energy use, and then you switch to carbon emissions. Obviously one is related to the other, but saying energy is unsustainable from a pollutionary standpoint is a very different argument. Up until this point you've been talkin about whether or not the growth itself is sustainable, and in this paragraph, the only number you cite is one that supports my position: that the energy it takes to run the gloal economy is one-third of what it was forty years ago. And that's one of my core arguments: that claims of unsustainability fail to account for the fact that we have invariably found new sources of energy, and found better ways to use the ones we already have.

So it might help if you clarify which thing you're arguing. Are you actually arguing that our growth and energy use is unsustainable from an energy standpoint, or are you only arguing that it has the byproduct of carbon emissions? Because they're two very different claims, and up until this paragraph it seemed as if we'd been arguing about the former.

He thought we would outstrip our natural resources, they would become untenably expensive, and there would be mass starvation. He thought pretty much everything was going to become scarcer as a result (hence the bet with Simon). I doubt modern counterparts are foolish enough to make such stark predictions, but the basic idea--saying our lifestyle is unsustainable based on math which completely discounts technology, population shifts, and innovation--seems to show up in all such predictions.

That's not ironic at all, and nothing about capitalism denies any of this. Yes, natural resources are finite. Who says otherwise?

Far from denying the finiteness of resources, capitalism works precisely because it accounts for them with prices. We start to run out of something, the price goes up, and that price prompts us to put more emphasis on alternatives. Nothing about capitalism at all suggests that anything is never-ending or will always remain abundant. To the contrary, it is set up in such a way as to specifically alert and encourage us to shift away from such things when necessary.

I'm not sure how to even reply to the statement that "the supply is never-ending which motivates lower prices on raw materials." Prices aren't low because some giant Capitalist appears on television and tells everyone the supply is never-ending. Prices are low when something is readily available at a given time.

Boy, I'd sure like to see how he goes about proving that. It seems obviously false: if we create a new, highly efficient type of car, and it were used in high numbers, it would obviously reduce the amount of energy used by far more than whatever we spent in researching it. Many types of research uses very little energy at all, comparatively speaking.

Also, if we took this claim at face value, does that mean you're against researching sustainable energy like solar or wind power? Because it seems the same logic would apply there: you would use more energy researching the technology than you would save from it, right? So the natural consequence of this principle, if it's true, would be not only to cease all research into clean energy, but to stop all attempts to improve machines.

I have to go back and look at what I wrote because it isn't clear from your remarks what I said.

I read the comment and don't understand your point.

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

How much money is a child worth? I saw children, infants, babies? Is it worth an "American" life?

I would give my life to save a child - from any country.

But that is just me I guess.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I thought Perry would be a formidable candidate and had a good chance of winning the nomination and said so, but that religious rally with a bunch of crazy ministers far to the right of even Falwell and Robertson changed my mind. Falwell and Robertson made occasional crazy remarks, which they usually apologized for, which shows a little common sense on their part (but I am surprised they would do it again then apologize again). Fischer is an entirely different sort. And my comments about Perry were a reaction to what he did before I knew what others were saying, but he has been criticized in pretty much the same way by even some Republican strategists. You may think I am blowing smoke and Perry's other critics about this prayer thing are full of hot air, and that is your right, but I know political suicide when I see it. Perry's way to the White House was by emphasizing his job record as Governor, not his religious right connections. He has made that now the issue and he won't be able to switch to his more politically effective message because the media will not let him. Nor will more mainstream Republican voters. The way for him to challenge Romney was to talk about the supposed Texas miracle, not by thumping the bible and sharing the stage with hatemongers.

Are you talking about abortion?

awwww yeah

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Romney is getting flack because he said "Corporations are people, too. " That doesn't bother me, but reading his other comments it sounds like Romney is doing bland talking points again, trying to package himself instead of talking in a straightforward manner. That could cause him problems, but not from Perry anymore. If Pawlenty was a little sharper he could take advantage of Perry's prayer blunder and Romney's inclination to say whatever he thinks people want to hear without offending anyone. But Pawlenty is a fumbler. Can Huntsman take advantage? Probably not at this point. The party has moved too far right from where he is. Romney is as moderate as they will accept.

Is this a serious response?

If so it is a non sequitur because it had nothing to do with what I was talking about. And you would give your life to save the life of an aborted baby, what exactly do you mean?

Instead of googling earmarks I switched to pork barrel spending (same thing) and here are the numbers:


According to Citizens Against Government Waste, there has been more pork-barrel spending during the Bush years than at any time in American history. Both the amount of money and the number of pork-barrel projects have risen every year, from $18.5 billion and 6,333 projects in 2001 to $27.3 billion and an amazing 13,999 projects in 2005

I just found out something about Ayers. He was never charged with killing anyone. You said he was responsible for deaths. What deaths? He still is a piece of crap and a terrorist, but Israel once had a prime minister who bombed a hotel where British civilians lost their lives. The guy served his time, got out of prison and was accepted for a while by the political mainstream in Chicago and it was then Obama had some contact with him. He was no longer among his contacts when he ran for the White House. But Perry has close ties with a man who uses the airwaves to preach hate, which includs some very shrill, almost incoherent comments about Obama, worse even than Glenn Beck who set an extremely low threshhold. Fallwell and Robertson rarely got explicitly political on the air. Through organizations like the Moral Majority, yeah, not so much on their broadcasts.

For the record, Rick Santorum is absolutely insane.

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If I had a dollar for every existential crisis I've ever had, does money really even matter?

That still doesn't explain why Obama spent as much as Bush's 8 year term in 3 years. You're not even defending anything or arguing for something.

Yoda asked me to cite a source that earmarks went up under Bush and that was the answer. As for why Obama's spending went up it was an attempt to combat an economic meltdown the likes of this country has not seen since the stock market crash and bank failures of the Great Depression that happened during the Bush Administration. You can criticize Obama for the stimulus effort, but the spending would not have occurred if the economy didn't crap out during Bush's stewardship. What did we get under Bush? Tax cuts that immediately eliminated the surplus he inherited, out of control budgets by Republicans that controlled Congress that exceed Bush's Budget requests and which he never vetoed. He could have been aggressive with Republicans about spending, but he didn't. He got us under false pretenses into a costly war in Iraq that made the deficit even wider and then everything went to hell economically at the end of his term and his administration made a gigantic commitment to to bail out banks. And Obama and Democrats are the sole bad guys according to you Republicans. I will repeat it. This is the road that Bush built and for Republicans to pretend they are blameless for the situation we are in doesn't change the reality. If Bush did things differently and Obama still became president we would not have this horrible inherited economy from him and more debt that was designed for two things, not one: 1) to get us out of it and 2) to prevent it from becoming substantially worse. The first effort failed. The economy still sucks. And there is no way to prove if the second purpose succeeded or not. There was the real danger we could have slipped into a depression, not recession, and that didn't happen. The bank bailout and possibly the auto one certainly prevented that from happening. Did the stimulus do that as well? Hard to say. it certainly wasn't the success Obama and Democrats hoped for. But we are mostly in this mess because of problems created during the Bush Administration. You can criticize Obama for not doing a better job to combat it, whether or not that is justified. You can't blame him for creating the mess. Bush inherited a surplus from Clinton. And Bush left Obama manure.

If you're simply saying that the continued bailouts and the stimulus make up most of the deficit, well, yes, of course. Obama didn't just randomly take $1.6 trillion and burn it or something. I'm not accusing him of deliberate sabotage, I'm accusing him of incompetency. Of course he spent it in response to something; that doesn't mean it was wise. In fact, you can make a good case that large, unwise amounts of spending wouldn't usually take place if not for some direct crisis.

It comes from the fact that some things are worth going into debt for, and some are not, and that being okay with $400 billion is not the same as being okay with $1.6 trillion. I'm running out of ways to say this. The charge of hypocriscy is nonsense, because you're comparing not only different situations, but different amounts. Very different amounts.

Also, which case are you making? That Republicans have no credibility, or that they're wrong? Because they're not the same thing. I really don't care if you think Republicans have "credibility" or not, and I don't even necessarily disagree with the idea that either party, with total control of government, is liable to spend too much. First and foremost I'm defending an ideology, rather than a political party.

Yeah, that GOP majority in Congress (which was slashing budgets and called heartless for it, just like they are today) had nothing to do with that, I'm sure.

Regardless, I'm not sure what this has to do with what I said. You said it was "partisan" to talk about different budget sizes, to which I replied that being able to count isn't partisan. So what's your response? What is inherently partisan by pointing out that deficits are much higher now than they were before?

What? How? This sounds like the kind of idea that only exists as long as it's vague. As soon as it gets specific, it ceases to exist.

And based on what the Obama administration is saying about the stimulus, it sounds like if the debt had been similar, they'd have simply used it to enact an even larger stimulus. And if the effect of the existing one can serve as any sort of guide (and it should), that's not a good thing.

While it's true that no President is an island (though it's funny that those sorts of qualifications are nowhere to be found when you want to compare Bush and Clinton), the deficits we have now are absolutely Obama and the Democrats' responsibility. They continued bailouts, enacated entirely new ones (like the political giveaway that was the auto bailout), and actively pushed for the stimulus. We're coming up on three years. They own these decisions.

The word "trying" seems pretty important here. Yes, I put it higher than trying to prevent a depression, if the means of trying to do so is foolish and relies on economic fallacies. Absolutely. And, again: we're talking about different amounts. You keep comparing one debt to another as if the only difference were its reason, but that just isn't so, and it's tiresome to have to keep pointing this out.

The fact that debt can be justified or not does not mean the "issue is not debt." Under that logic, debt could never be an issue. But of course it is. We've spent money on things. I feel some of it's been wasted, and the empirical evidence for that position is pretty overwhelming at this point.

1) What? It was almost a trillion dollars. Of coure it matters if it was effective. It was the centerpiece of the administration's economic plan! How could its utter failure not matter?

2) It's not that I "think" it was not effective. It was not effective. The Obama administration's own standards say it was not effective. Please stop trying to play the failure down with "maybe they oversold it" or with phrases like "you say it was not effective." If you want to defend the stimulus, you can go right ahead. But really, enough with half-heartedly chipping away at the far edges of the argument with this sort of phrasing.

And which system of government is more likely to establish long-running, stable governments? Democracy or despotism?

I asked which was more likely, not whether or not any examples ever exist to the contrary. Which is more likely to create a more peaceful society: a democratic state, or a non-democratic one?

So? It takes awhile for a pain reliever to kick in, too, but the sooner you take it, the sooner it does. The fact that it's not instantaneous is irrelevant to the point, which was that democracy tends to reduce human suffering.

Yes, I absolutely think that it's less likely. Being accountable to the people, who feel the brunt of war more than most leaders, absolutely makes war less likely. What else are you comparing India and Pakistan to? Are you discounting the possibility that it could be worse, or that they might have already nuked each other if both were militaristic states?

I didn't ask if it was impossible to trade, but whether or not more democratic countries have more opportunities for trade and growth. And a lot of people think that China is sort of backing into a more Democratic form of government, anyway, the way they've sorta-kinda backed into capitalism, too.

But let's make it simpler. I'll boil it down to one question: do you want there to be more democracies in the world? If the answer is yes, then the idea that we should ascribe zero value to the potentiality of a democracy in Iraq does not hold.

And, on a more personal level: shouldn't it just matter on a human level? Forget, for the moment, whether or not you find that to justify an attack. The question in front of us is whether or not overthrowing Hussein has value. And in the process of answering that question, you've indicated that you simply do not care about non-democratic states if they don't affect us directly. Which leads me to say 1) that it's kind of cold to have absolutely no regard for the humanitarian aspect of things, and b) I think the idea that despots overseas don't affect us is short-sighted. Particularly Saddam, who harbored the 1993 WTC bombers, and offered lump sums of cash to the families of suicide bombers. You might not find this sufficient to justify war, but I can't see how you could say it is valueless. That's an extreme position.

So was ours. It took us, what, 13 years to even get a Constitution in place? And we even devolved into Civil War.

Yes, revolution is messy, no doubt. But I never made any attempt to defend it as pristine, or perfect. I haven't taken an extreme position---that everything's going to turn out great. But you have taken an extreme position, by claiming you assign absolutely zero value to the potentiality of an Iraqi democracy. I just don't see how someone can defend that statement.

It wasn't really a point. I was saying that that single sentence struck me was completely reasonable, which makes all the previous stuff about not caring if they have a democracy all the more inexplicable.

Whoa, hold up. I'm not saying that don't care under any circumstances. I'm saying it clearly doesn't generally disqualify candidates for them. The salient fact is not that Obama had to make a complete break (which is true), the salient fact is that he was able to, and didn't suffer too many ill effects after that.

So, your argument should not be that Perry is doomed, but that you think Perry will have to distance himself from them at some point, right? And if past campaigns are any indication, doing so should probably neutralize the issue pretty well.

Well, first off, I specifically said Falwell was a bit different, but dramatically different? I don't think so. Robertson, for example, said it wouldn't be a bad thing if someone dropped a nuke on the State Department. And frankly, I think the difference between "really really crazy stuff" and "really really really crazy stuff" is far from massive. At some point it all gets lumped together as crazy.

The inclusiveness of the event was the point, however. The entire idea was to pray together; I don't think that should be taken as an endorsement, and there's no reason to unless you're already going out of your way to attack Perry. Fischer sounds like a terrible guy, and probably a bit worse than Falwell, but they don't have to be the same to make the point in question. Falwell had "ties" to lots of politicians and caused very little issue for them. That needs to be factored in. It's not that Falwell almost sunk a candidacy, so some guy a bit worse than him is definitely going to. It was a non-issue.

Do you actually believe he didn't know he was taking money from a domestic terrorist? Is that even better?

And Perry was not, by holding a prayer event, endorsing in any way what Fischer said.

I absolutely might, because that absolutely might contribute to the degree to which it matters. And I'm not disputing that it might matter, I'm disputing that it spells inevitable doom.

Is that a "yes"?

Raising money is a more substantial, connected political act than allowing someone to organize a prayer meeting. I'm not sure how this is even arguable. Money creates a tangible obligation and a literal, traceable connection.

No, I wouldn't. And I'm not arguing that it's awesome that he organized the event. I'm arguing that it dooms his candidacy, or that it even should. I'm arguing that every major candidate ends up shaking hands or organizing an event with or even taking money from some unsavory characters. And I'm arguing that this is what partisans do: unless they're just bad people, they don't make stuff up, but they apply reasoning selectively, magnifying some things while playing down others even though they're similar.

But he hasn't run. You're comparing what Obama did eventually to some future Rick Perry whose decisions and positions we haven't even een yet.

Well, first off, I would hope it's obvious that saying you've said it nineteen times is hyperbole. But I wasn't talking about the very specific claim that Perry would lose the nomination, I'm talking about the positively incessant rhetoric about how allegedly unelectable he is. A small sampling that took me only a few minutes to find:

"He apparently thinks he can get the Republican nomination the way he won elections in Texas. He can't."

"If the Republicans are so stupid to nominate Perry the negative campaign against him will be tremendous."

"Rick Perry by doing this can't save the Republican Party from Mitt Romney, who is still the only candidate who can beat Obama."

"...he has already killed his chances for the nomination."

"If Rick Perry thinks the way to the White House is that cynical and phony stunt he just pulled he is sadly mistaken. That nonsense does not play outside of the South."

"It doesn't matter what Rick Perry is really like. He can be portrayed like a nut job in commercials."

"they are not going to win with boring Pawlenty or a Texan to the right of George Bush like Rick Perry"

"I think he would be a very poor candidate"

"...that is another nail in their coffin if he is their candidate"

"Rick Perry will not be vaguely acceptable to most Americans."

"...he probably won't be if you Republicans nominate Rick Perry."

"It shows what a load of crap Perry is"

"the Republicans need a Romney or a Huntsman to defeat him, but they will probably shoot themselves in the foot with Perry"

It's getting kind of tired.

So you keep saying. But if the economy gets worse, it's going to dominate the headlines. Whatever "controversy" this represents, it's nothing out of the ordinary. It takes a real scandal to dwarf month after month of terrible economic news and jobs reports. If it gets better, than Perry wouldn't have won anyway. If it doesn't, it'll be the most important topic, unless Perry kicks a puppy on live television.

Correct; he went on the lam. He was never charged because of a technicality; the FBI obtained evidence against him illegally, if I recall correctly.

The majority of bombing was just property damage, and the deaths in question were actually people affiliated with their own organizations, though that's kind of what you get when you make bombs. He didn't personally bomb innocent civilians, if that's your point, no. But he bombed government buildings (sometimes personally), went into hiding when he was charged with crimes relating to that, and there's at least one attack that was fatal which he's often been suspected of, though it hasn't been proven.

Under any standard, however, the guy's a terrorist, and he's probably lucky there was as little loss of life as there was. But this is, I hope you can agree, nibbling around the edges. Pipe bombs are infinitely worse than words.

The fact that he was able to be accepted by the political mainstream in Chicago is not a defense of Ayers, it's a damning of Chicago.

Taking money is a more significant political tie than organizing a prayer meeting. Bombing government buildings is a worse act than pretty much any degree of hateful rhetoric. I honestly don't see how someone can contort their mind in such a way as to get around these facts. I really don't.

Whoa, hold up. I asked you for a source, but only because you brought it up. His question still applies to your initial segue. And he's right: you have repeatedly tried to equivocate the two budgets, but they're not equal. I'm going blue in the face pointing this out, man.

Not according to me. In fact, I've gone well out of my way to criticize Republican actions, particularly around the end of Bush's term. You can't just ignore that because it's inconvenient to the kind of exaggeration in the quote above.


And I'll repeat myself, too:

"You've said something like this before; "got the ball rolling" or "put us on this road." And I keep pointing out that it means nothing. Bush's decisions do not contain financial magnetism that pulls itself forward or forces people to continue it, or triple it in size, or anything of the sort. The fact that someone ran a $400 billion deficit in no way, shape, or form, puts us on a "road" that inevitably leads to a $1.6 trillion deficit."

The last time I said this, you just called Republicans hypocrites again, basically and said Obama did it because of the situation he found himself in. Which was irrelevant to the point in question. It makes no sense to use phrases like "got the ball rolling" or "got us on this road" to explain away Obama's decisions, as if he were forced into them.

The bank bailout might be arguable. The auto bailout is not; it is completely indefensible. A naked political giveaway with basically no serious economic thought to support it. I have a post to this effect up in another thread. Even the most ardent Obama supporters have to cringe when they consider the details of the auto bailout.

We've actually moved backwards since it was enacted.

I don't. I blame him for failing to identify the cause OR the solution, and I blame him for failing to properly reconsider his position when confronted by this failure. True or false: these are reasonable complaints and reasonable reasons not to vote for the man.

@will
The Bush bashing is unbelievably tiresome. The economic problems have been ever-increasing since the 60s but all the sudden we have a single scapegoat. You're arguing about the wrong things