New political party

[WinterBorn]

But if we hadn't allowed our greed to disrupt nature to the point that it is out of balance, we wouldn't have a surplus of game due to a lack of natural predators.

That is a great sentiment, but really doesn't change the facts.

And unless you want major predators wandering in close proximity to suburbs, natural predators are not a good answer to the surplus of prey animals we currently have.

Also, there area fair number of people who eat almost exclusively what they hunt. They do it because of the additives in commercially grown meat, for the heritage of hunting, and for the health of the environment.

 

[flaja]

As for your final question... if you budget that you will spend $50k this year and that your revenue will match it at $50k, you have a balanced budget. If over the course of the year you actually spend $60k and your revenues come in as expected at $50k, then you run a deficit. Likewise if your expenses stay at $50k as projected but revenue comes in at $45k then you still have a deficit.

The trouble is that we make government budgets for a year at a time- without knowing what the revenue will be, and we pass one all-or-nothing budget that must either be signed into law or vetoed.

What we should be doing is enacting separate budgets for each government function and we should collect a year's revenue before deciding how to spend it.

 

[Demwit]

Actually I am a conservationist. I won’t call myself an environmentalist since environmentalism has left-wing associations that I don’t want any part of.

Personally I do not support hunting for either sport or fashion because it is an immoral waste of natural resources, and with modern agriculture hunting for food is not all that critical. When a heart condition made it look like I would have to give up my garden, I started thinking about taking up fishing (something I hadn’t done in almost 30 years), but I don’t support fishing for sport.

While in college I developed an interest in organic agriculture and sustainable building and energy technologies. This interest has lead me to develop what I call holistic calculus. Holism is the philosophy that sees everything as part of an inter-connected whole, and calculus is the branch of mathematics that deals with limits. Holistic calculus is a plan whereby the greatest amount of material good can be provided to the largest number of people for the longest period of time. To this end I support the conservation of natural resources so they can be used by future generations.

Global warmongers have nothing but hype. Even if the globe’s temperatures are rising (something I doubt since there was a record low where I live in Florida last night and we didn’t even make to 90 degrees today) there is no way to test whether or not human activity is the cause because we don’t have a spare earth that does not have human activity. We cannot scientifically determine how human behavior is affecting the globe because we do not know and could not isolate all of the other possible causes for anything that we think we are observing.

People actually concerned with taking care of our planet for future generations are the ultimate conservatives!

 

[Demwit]

they controlled BOTH houses for the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congress but did not control the presidency at that time, they controlled both for the 108th and 109th and did.....

that is NOT two decades of control, it is not even one decade of control.....it's not even five years of full control....

further, my comment was regarding the last two years of the Bush administration specifically because of the TARP spending that occurred in that period.....half of the "Bush" deficit came from TARP.....

TARP was 800 billion and the defecit increased about 5 trillion under Bush.

And in conclusion we are darned lucky we did not even have a decade of full republican control.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

TARP was 800 billion and the defecit increased about 5 trillion under Bush.

And in conclusion we are darned lucky we did not even have a decade of full republican control.

if we had they might have spent as much as Obama did....in February....

 

[christiefan915]

Don't we already have a Greeen party?

Exactly. And how about Ross Perot and the Reform party back in the '90's. Perot got a lot of support, as I remember.

 

[flaja]

People actually concerned with taking care of our planet for future generations are the ultimate conservatives!

That’s what I keep telling the libs. This is one of the main things that separate me and my fellow legitimate conservatives from the libertarian fringe; I am interested in long-term stability while the libertarians that masquerade as conservatives on the net are interested only in immediate profit.

I am not married and have no children, so even though I have more cash in hand than some, I have no family to inherit whatever I end up with. This may give me a luxury that others do not have in that I don’t have to worry about immediate profit, but it doesn’t give me the luxury of living an extravagant lifestyle. The need for immediate profit is not license for greed. Even if you do have a family to take care of or heirs to leave something to and must make money, you still have a moral obligation to consider the welfare of others and the welfare of society as a whole. Furthermore, libertarians cannot use family obligations as an excuse for greed because they really have no respect for the family as an institution when they advocate legalization of things like drugs and prostitution.

 

[flaja]

Exactly. And how about Ross Perot and the Reform party back in the '90's. Perot got a lot of support, as I remember.

Perot was a fiscal conservative in that he harped on cutting government spending. But he also advocated higher taxes and he was a liberal on social issues. The most his particular ideological combination ever garnered was 19% of the popular vote and the party that he went on to establish didn’t last but a few years. Perot’s coalition was very much in the minority and very much unstable.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

"But if we hadn't allowed our greed to disrupt nature to the point that it is out of balance, we wouldn't have a surplus of game due to a lack of natural predators."

Nothing we can say or do today can change what occured in the past. nothing. So you can either choose to accept the fact that WE are PREDATORS.... that we are CARNIVORES by nature, that it is natural for us to hunt for food, then that is on you. Because nothing you say or do will change either of those facts. WE are a part of nature.



Within my lifetime the earth was supposed to have been destroyed by global cooling, acid rain and the ozone hole and now global warming. None of the previous fears ever achieved the socio-economic or political force that global warming has managed to accumulate. I don’t really know how to explain why global warming has gained so much traction when the previous fears did not. The end of the Cold War may have been a factor- Soviet sympathizers had to have something else to latch onto when the Wall came down. And Americans have had their thinking skills eroded by another 20 years of TV and bad schools (public and private) so they will believe anything that has enough hype around it. But as I have said, I am perfectly willing to use the global warming hype to promote things we should be doing anyway.

No arguments on the final paragraph.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

The trouble is that we make government budgets for a year at a time- without knowing what the revenue will be, and we pass one all-or-nothing budget that must either be signed into law or vetoed.

What we should be doing is enacting separate budgets for each government function and we should collect a year's revenue before deciding how to spend it.

That is not feasible given the amount of debt this country has. We cannot go an entire year without spending. Which is what would need to take place to see the actual revenue prior to spending it.

Anyway, it is not needed. They know roughly what the numbers are going to be, they can always make spending adjustments as the year progresses to compensate for lower revenues than were forecast. People make annual budgets for themselves all the time. The smart ones adjust the budget as circumstances change.

 

[TuTu Monroe]

TARP was 800 billion and the defecit increased about 5 trillion under Bush.

And in conclusion we are darned lucky we did not even have a decade of full republican control.

Of the 643.1 billion (which is the actual figure) the treasury has committed to TARP. $441 billion has already been spent and the national debt, under Obama, might be 23 trillion. Obama is the biggest spender in the history of the US.

 

[WinterBorn]

Nothing we can say or do today can change what occured in the past. nothing. So you can either choose to accept the fact that WE are PREDATORS.... that we are CARNIVORES by nature, that it is natural for us to hunt for food, then that is on you. Because nothing you say or do will change either of those facts. WE are a part of nature.

Very well said.

If someone does not want to hunt then I would suggest they not hunt.

To try and make the case that hunting is not needed is to dismiss the facts. Unless you can come up with a better solution than one that keeps the animal population in check and is revenue positive, hunting is the best answer.

 

[Minister of Truth]

Exactly. And how about Ross Perot and the Reform party back in the '90's. Perot got a lot of support, as I remember.

Perot proved himself to be a lunatic, by the way he departed from the 1992 election and then got back in. The fact that he still got 19 million retards to vote for him is just fucking sad.

 

[WinterBorn]

Perot proved himself to be a lunatic, by the way he departed from the 1992 election and then got back in. The fact that he still got 19 million retards to vote for him is just fucking sad.

I think its a show of how disgusted many people arewith the two major parties.

Both have stopped representing the people long ago.

 

[flaja]

That is not feasible given the amount of debt this country has. We cannot go an entire year without spending. Which is what would need to take place to see the actual revenue prior to spending it.

Anyway, it is not needed. They know roughly what the numbers are going to be, they can always make spending adjustments as the year progresses to compensate for lower revenues than were forecast. People make annual budgets for themselves all the time. The smart ones adjust the budget as circumstances change.

Except that Congress lacks the will to take away funding that has been promised. The budget will always increase as the year progresses. It will never shrink.

I propose that every federal function be assigned to a distinct cabinet department and then each department would raise money by conducting a lottery with the odds of winning and prize amounts being the same for all lotteries. Tickets would be sold only to voters so voters would have a more direct say in setting spending priorities. I would do the same with federal borrowing- let each cabinet department sell government bonds to voters so voters can decide what they want to go into debt for.

 

[flaja]

I think its a show of how disgusted many people arewith the two major parties.

Both have stopped representing the people long ago.

Then why hasn’t anyone been able to pick up where Perot left off? No non-major party candidate- and all non-major party candidates combined- has come close to Perot’s 19%. If the American People are so utterly disgusted with the Democrats and Republicans, why do they persist in voting for Democrats and Republicans?

 

[WinterBorn]

Then why hasn’t anyone been able to pick up where Perot left off? No non-major party candidate- and all non-major party candidates combined- has come close to Perot’s 19%. If the American People are so utterly disgusted with the Democrats and Republicans, why do they persist in voting for Democrats and Republicans?

Two good reasons for this.

#1 - Lack of money to run a national campaign. The GOP & DNC both spend as much time fund raising as they do campaigning. They spend millions. To start a viable new party you would need to be able to spend millions to reach the same people.

#2 - The wide spread belief that voting for a third party is the same as wasting your vote. Both the GOP & DNC help foster this notion.

 

[Damocles]

Two good reasons for this.

#1 - Lack of money to run a national campaign. The GOP & DNC both spend as much time fund raising as they do campaigning. They spend millions. To start a viable new party you would need to be able to spend millions to reach the same people.

#2 - The wide spread belief that voting for a third party is the same as wasting your vote. Both the GOP & DNC help foster this notion.

Or be a self-made Billionaire who thinks frogs endanger their daughter's wedding.

 

[christiefan915]

Perot was a fiscal conservative in that he harped on cutting government spending. But he also advocated higher taxes and he was a liberal on social issues. The most his particular ideological combination ever garnered was 19% of the popular vote and the party that he went on to establish didn’t last but a few years. Perot’s coalition was very much in the minority and very much unstable.

I agree with your analysis of Perot but was addressing your question on how to organize a new political party. I remember his supporters setting up "stations" in various neighborhoods and asking people to sign petitions to get him on the ballot. His debates and flip charts, etc. seemed to address questions people had but he jumped the rails with that craziness about his daughter's wedding.

 

[christiefan915]

Perot proved himself to be a lunatic, by the way he departed from the 1992 election and then got back in. The fact that he still got 19 million retards to vote for him is just fucking sad.

In the end he was a few bricks shy, but has to get some credit for the way he mobilized people before he went off the deep end.