America on the road to bankruptcy?

[Cuba]

The bankruptcy of America, the original topic, can be averted by two methods. Yes, one way is to cut spending. But, as history shows us, no politician, Democrat or Republican, has historically been able to do that. Irresponsible government spending has been a part of our nation for as long as I can remember. In the 80's, Reagan's DoD bought toilet seats for $500 and hammers for $200. In 2006 Bush's DoD spent $998,798 to overnight 2 19-cent washers to Iraq. As long as politicians are spending someone else's money, it will be spent in the most effective way to line their buddies pockets. Don't get me started on no-bid contracts. Irresponsible spending is the status quo. Nothing, short of a full replacement of our government, is going to change that.

The other option for preventing America's bankruptcy is to increase revenue. The government can and has done that by increasing taxes and it worked, as shown in the graphs above.

So, we have 2 solutions. One of which is impossible without completely gutting the current government and replacing it with another.

The other solution, increasing revenues, is feasible and has been historically proven to work. To me, the choice is a no-brainer. That is my argument for how to prevent America's bankruptcy.



Contrary to what you believe, I am not in 100% agreement with all of Obama's policies. I believe in investing in our country's infrastructure. I believe the most important things to all people are good health and a good education. I believe we are obligated to look for alternative energy sources, and ways to curb our fossil fuel consumption. I believe we are responsible for the damage we are doing to the environment, and we should take action to repair current damage and prevent future damage. I believe government money should be spent, but spent wisely. I believe when the guy before you leaves a huge mess to clean up, you'll have to do things you don't want to while cleaning it up. Most importantly, I believe we, as a unified country, are much stronger than a country of self-centered individuals.

So blind faith then. Gotcha, that's what I thought. Not trying to be offensive to you, but my issue is that every single person that I have spoken to about this topic that does not agree with me has no solid reason why. They can't explain why. They can explain that Bush was a bad president and spent too much, they can explain that healthcare and education are important, but they cannot explain to me how printing trillions of dollars to spend your way out of a global recession will work. They can't explain how all of the economists are wrong. They cannot make a single compelling or convincing argument FOR these policies. This both scares and saddens me. I WANT to be wrong, if I'm right we're all in for a very depressing era in America. But so far no one has even come close to showing me that I am. They all seem caught up in the idea that Obama is just the greatest, and even though everyone is saying this is unsustainable, wasteful, shortsighted, and will extend and deepen the recession, they just close their eyes and bask in the faith that Obama will provide. Never mind that he has zero education or experience in economics, or that all of these policies have been tried before in other countries and have failed miserably. Nevermind that this utopian model he is striving for, the European model, has a standard level of unemployment over 10%, and the citizens are totally reliant on near bankrupt governments to provide them with welfare handouts for survival. Look at France, that is what our plan is? Even if a plan like that "succeeds" we will have higher unemployment than we do today, and instead of the government relying on and answering to the people as was intended by our founding fathers, it will be quite the opposite.

 

[dark_isz]

Apparently, reasonable debate is just not going to happen down here.

I regret that I ever tried to enter into discussions in this political forum.

No hard feelings, though. Anyone who rides an FZ-6 (or even and FZ6R) is cool in my book.

:thumbup:

 

[Wavex]

Some of you guys should stop talking about it and start doing something about it. Complaining at how every single politician is a horrible evil monster and spending countless hours writing about it in an underground, non-political forum is quite easy and useless at the same time...
I am serious, go run for office, go show them how they should do it, expose your infallible solutions to fix the world, go in there and save America ffs!

That's my contribution of the morning, since I still see political threads in my "new posts" search

 

[Cuba]

The response to an honest question that I've asked over and over and over again is one person giving up and another launching a sarcastic attack against discussion itself rather than thoughtful insight that was requested. I am active in politics, and my views are heard elsewhere. While these discussions are quite useless for you, they aren't for me, so please just don't participate, it would be better for both of us I think. I honestly want to know why, why are these policies the correct ones? Why can you attack one president for wasteful deficit spending and praise another for ten times the wasteful deficit spending? Why is the response to this question invariably "Bush did it"?? It makes no sense. There is great responsibility in being a member of the ruling party if you indeed believe anything our president has said about not looking backwards, about bipartisanship, about solving the problems rather than scapegoating. It sounds good, but it isn't what has happened, not by him, and not by you. All I see is attempts at what, revenge? for not having been in power the past 8 years? News flash, I didn't even vote for Bush, it isn't about him, it's about what is going on right now. Why can't you explain the simple questions asked? I don't mean to make this personal, I direct this to every single person that is being so dismissive of these very real concerns. It's like talking to a brick wall, no one can explain why they support these policies, all they can do is attack old ones. Change doesn't mean improvement, don't you understand that? How can you print a trillion dollars to spend your way out of a global recession? How is what is happening now not a form of national socialism? How does the creation of a massive welfare state with centralized government control benefit society as a whole? Where are your historical references of this actually working for the people, rather than the ruling elite?

 

[wrightme43]

Apparently, reasonable debate is just not going to happen down here.

I regret that I ever tried to enter into discussions in this political forum.

No hard feelings, though. Anyone who rides an FZ-6 (or even and FZ6R) is cool in my book.

:thumbup:

I am sorry you feel that way about it man.

 

[Wavex]

The response to an honest question that I've asked over and over and over again is one person giving up and another launching a sarcastic attack against discussion itself rather than thoughtful insight that was requested. I am active in politics, and my views are heard elsewhere. While these discussions are quite useless for you, they aren't for me, so please just don't participate, it would be better for both of us I think. I honestly want to know why, why are these policies the correct ones? Why can you attack one president for wasteful deficit spending and praise another for ten times the wasteful deficit spending? Why is the response to this question invariably "Bush did it"?? It makes no sense. There is great responsibility in being a member of the ruling party if you indeed believe anything our president has said about not looking backwards, about bipartisanship, about solving the problems rather than scapegoating. It sounds good, but it isn't what has happened, not by him, and not by you. All I see is attempts at what, revenge? for not having been in power the past 8 years? News flash, I didn't even vote for Bush, it isn't about him, it's about what is going on right now. Why can't you explain the simple questions asked? I don't mean to make this personal, I direct this to every single person that is being so dismissive of these very real concerns. It's like talking to a brick wall, no one can explain why they support these policies, all they can do is attack old ones. Change doesn't mean improvement, don't you understand that? How can you print a trillion dollars to spend your way out of a global recession? How is what is happening now not a form of national socialism? How does the creation of a massive welfare state with centralized government control benefit society as a whole? Where are your historical references of this actually working for the people, rather than the ruling elite?

It's simple, I see this as a useless debate, with no real point, about who's right or who's wrong about a bunch of facts pulled from the "Media". Reality is much more complex imo.

These debates remind me of my debates with my sister. She is pretty hard core into religions and me more into rational science... so it makes for fun nights when we see each other . Anyway, the point is that we realized we were just different. Trying to convince the other was pointless since the paradigms on which our belief systems were based on were completely different. We would go on and on trying to get the other one to admit they are wrong. But no-one was right or wrong, we are just different and believe in different things.
We still talk and go into lengthy discussions about it, but we understand that there is no point trying to be proved wrong or right no matter how much information you could pull from the Media.

While I reckon that such discussions can be very interesting in a crowd of close friends or family, I have a hard time with it here... on a motorcycle forum? Trying to get strangers to say "yeah, you know what? you're right! Obama does suck!"????

I just don't get it. And sometimes I feel like expressing my frustration about that :Flip::cheer:

ps: note that I have never taken sides in this political debate.

 

[Cuba]

It's simple, I see this as a useless debate, with no real point, about who's right or who's wrong about a bunch of facts pulled from the "Media". Reality is much more complex imo.

These debates remind me of my debates with my sister. She is pretty hard core into religions and me more into rational science... so it makes for fun nights when we see each other . Anyway, the point is that we realized we were just different. Trying to convince the other was pointless since the paradigms on which our belief systems were based on were completely different. We would go on and on trying to get the other one to admit they are wrong. But no-one was right or wrong, we are just different and believe in different things.
We still talk and go into lengthy discussions about it, but we understand that there is no point trying to be proved wrong or right no matter how much information you could pull from the Media.

While I reckon that such discussions can be very interesting in a crowd of close friends or family, I have a hard time with it here... on a motorcycle forum? Trying to get strangers to say "yeah, you know what? you're right! Obama does suck!"????

I just don't get it. And sometimes I feel like expressing my frustration about that :Flip::cheer:

ps: note that I have never taken sides in this political debate.

From that standpoint certainly, but this isn't about trying to change someone's core values. I think in the short time we've been discussing the issues here we've seen a lot of growth. It started out as a bunch of opinionated people jumping in and making immatuer, ignorant comments about things they didn't research or fully understand. Now responders are far more careful, they actually tend to think before posting, they want their opinions to be defensible. That is fantastic, that is the point. Like it or not, agree with me or not, but because of these debates there are a few people that are now more informed than they were before, and are better armed to have an intelligent discussion about it elsewhere. I've learned things here that I didn't know before, from people I don't agree with. I think it's great.

Just out of curiousity, since these are completely pointless debates that only annoy you, why keep coming back?

 

[Cuba]

Apparently, reasonable debate is just not going to happen down here.

I regret that I ever tried to enter into discussions in this political forum.

No hard feelings, though. Anyone who rides an FZ-6 (or even and FZ6R) is cool in my book.

:thumbup:

I don't want to see anyone drop out, and I even agree with some of what you're saying, but it genuainely scares me that so many Americans have decided to suspend their disbelief and blindly follow something they don't understand. It wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the millions of people that aren't questioning what is happening around us at speeds never before seen. So many people seem fine with the idea of the government drastically expanding it's power and influence in our lives without first asking where it ends, or even what the goal is. What happens if there is a conservative Republican in office in three years, would you be glad you supported setting these precidents and gave him carte blanche to control so many aspects of your life?

I strongly support your rights, your freedom to have a differing opinion and to express that, to live your life the way you want, do what you want to do, live green, recycle, donate your time and money to the poor, become a big brother or big sister, start a charter school, give back to your community, these are all great things. But as a response to that don't turn around and dictate to me how I will live my life. Don't dictate how much of my genorosity is "fair", or when I'm allowed to disagree with you. Don't hold a gun to my head, give my earnings to your friends, and call it patriotic. Things are just going way to far right now, and half of the country is sleeping through it without questioning anything, and I think that's wrong. It's grossly hypocritical, the left are making all the same mistakes (that they were allowed to attack visiously for the past 6 years) that should have been learned from rather than held onto waiting for a bitter "my turn" revenge tactic. We have lost our system of checks and balances, and it puts even more pressure on the few of us that seem to care what happens to this country. The constitution matters, even when it's your guy that wants to "change" it.

Yes I have strong opinions about the economic situation, I'm a Babson grad and a finance director, so of course I do. And yes I have strong opinions about personal freedoms vs. government control, I'm Cuban, we've gone down that road before, and there are a few scary similarities here plain and simple. It's cause for concern enough to not turn your back on it, it would be irresponsible to do so. I'm not dictating what you should believe, I'm questioning why you believe it and attempting to gain more knowledge for myself, as well as maybe opening an eye or two to the importance of forming an individual opinion about these issues rather than relying on others to tell you to relax because they'll take care of that for you. Like signing a pledge to not question someone's authority and support whatever they say that day--> scary as hell, and the antithesis of what America is all about.

 

[Wavex]

From that standpoint certainly, but this isn't about trying to change someone's core values. I think in the short time we've been discussing the issues here we've seen a lot of growth. It started out as a bunch of opinionated people jumping in and making immatuer, ignorant comments about things they didn't research or fully understand. Now responders are far more careful, they actually tend to think before posting, they want their opinions to be defensible. That is fantastic, that is the point. Like it or not, agree with me or not, but because of these debates there are a few people that are now more informed than they were before, and are better armed to have an intelligent discussion about it elsewhere. I've learned things here that I didn't know before, from people I don't agree with. I think it's great.

Sure it's great, but don't you think there are better places to have such discussions and learn about politics?

Just out of curiousity, since these are completely pointless debates that only annoy you, why keep coming back?

It's pretty simple... while it's easy to say "just don't click on the link if you don't want to read it", it's irrelevant imho. With this logic, why not allow spam? Who cares if there are 3-4 spam threads everyday? Just don't click on them! Why not allow porn and religious debates too then? Just don't click on the link if you don't want to see it!

The point is that when I login in the morning and click on "new threads" I just don't want to see:
"Freaking Worthless, Useless, Lying, Scumball, Dimwit, Ignorant, Politicians."
"Our president is a criminal"
"America on the road to bankruptcy?"
" So the President can fire the CEO of Corporations now?"
etc etc

Just like when I pick up my favorite motorcycle magazine I don't want to see extreme right wing political crap in it... It has nothing to do with my political views, who cares about them anyway, it's just not the place for it. Sure Cycle World could have a political section in the magazine, and I could simply flip through it without reading it, but I would most likely start buying another magazine instead... (and Cycle World is smart enough not to do that).

I am puzzled by the fact that you guys are surprised that some of us get pissed about such threads... the fact that politics & religions are simply not good topics of discussions in a public and international place is not new... That rule is valid when you do international business, or for any situation where a bunch of strangers get together over a specific topic (other than politics or religion of course).
When I meet a bunch of strangers on a group ride, we typically avoid such topics, because it's the smart thing to do and everybody knows it (do I need to explain why???), so why would it be any different here?

On top of all of that, yes I'll admit that I am weak, and when I login in the morning and see one of these provocative thread titles, all I want to do is click on it and write "enough with this **** I don't want to see/read it on my favorite forum! Can't you guys create your own separate forum and leave this place alone with this ****?" and I know I am not alone.
That's why I was happy with the solution to eliminate these threads from the "new posts" search, at least it's not on ppl's face everyday....

If I keep seeing provocative thread titles, I will try my best to avoid them, but if I sometimes pop in there and provide a provocative answer you did not want to read, sorry, but just don't read it!

 

[H3LR4ZR]

sorry to derail the topic here, the last post really merits its own thread.

yes, there are other political forums, but I'd rather have a casual, maybe even a bit heated with discussion with some down to earth bikers any day than with a bunch of right and left wing nutjobs trying to convince you that if you don't side with them your a terrorist.

I think the forum laid out pretty good rules on the political forum that if it spills over to other forum sections you've crossed the line. Its important to at least stay informed about politics. If you care or not about the issues is another story, and thats fine.

I remember recently a big debacle about a bill in congress regarding lead in toys that would effectively ban young kids like my little brother from being able to buy small CC dirt bikes. As much as none of us likes it, the government gets its hands into alot more than it should, its our duty to be informed and speak out on issues we care about.

 

[Cuba]

Wait I guess I'm confused, I never see our threads unless I enter this forum. They don't show up in my list, where are you finding them? I thought we had already been effectively silenced. Or is it that you just don't like what is being said and don't want others to hear it either?

I don't intend to offend others, I can and do learn from people that disagree with me. But I would never try to silence them because I disagree, that's just wrong.

 

[Wavex]

"I thought we had already been effectively silenced" LMAO... man that is so typical of you crazy political nuts... "the world is after us, there is a conspiracy trying to silence us and take over everything we have" :rof: are you serious?

There's a button called "New Posts" that ppl click to see the new posts/threads that appeared since last time they logged in. The original decision made by Dennis was to remove the political stuff from that "New Post" search. Everybody was OK with this solution, but apparently it was never done since ppl still see them. If you're not seeing them when you click "New Posts" then lucky you!

If you think I am trying to silence ppl because I disagree with their views you did not understand any of my previous posts. As usual in these types of endless threads, someone writes something and someone else will feel the need to twist it and make it all sound wrong... nice try.

If you don't or can't understand why politics and religion are not topics for public forums, then forget it, we definitely live on different planets and there's no point of arguing.

All I am saying is that the provocative threads that a handful of ppl (in a forum of thousands) keep generating in here on a regular basis bother me, and I will keep expressing myself about it whether those few like it or not.

On a side note, I've had 5ppl pm me about this topic telling me they are 100% in agreement with me. That they don't understand what US politics have to do with the FZ6 on an international forum... you may have noticed we have ppl from all over the world in here, and most of them could care less about the lengthy ridiculous US political debates that a very few number of ppl entertain in here. I guess they should all post about the political issues in their countries too huh? So we can have a nice FZ6 & World politics forum in here YAY...

 

[Cuba]

man that is so typical of you crazy political nuts...

I guess they should all post about the political issues in their countries too huh? So we can have a nice FZ6 & World politics forum in here YAY...

Thanks for the attack and insults :thumbup: Calling people crazy political nuts and conspiracy theorists is a not a constructive way to go about disagreements on free speech, but in all seriousness, YOU came HERE to attack people for debating politics... in the Underground Politics Forum. We didn't seek you out, you went looking to insult and attack people because it apparently annoys you that we are allowed to voice our opinions here. I'm sorry you feel that way, maybe if you stopped participating you wouldn't be so bothered by it? No one is trying to offend you or attack you, we weren't even speaking to you, you are the aggressor here, why not just leave us alone? :ban:

Yes I just noticed they are showing up in the new posts section, it doesn't show up in the main screen though which is where I generally look.

I think international politics would be amazing! That's a really great idea, thanks. I really want to hear how citizens of other countries view what is happening right now, all of this effects them too and their opinions matter. I'd love to hear from countries that have already tried the policies being proposed here for instance. The Argentines, the Spaniards, the French, the British, all could have valuable insights in these discussions. :welcome:

 

[Wavex]

:rof: You're welcome!

I am sure everybody -except you who clearly only get your own points- got my point, so I'll just leave it at that!

Go on about your wonderful discussions...

 

[wrightme43]

Closing this thread. Way to far off topic and it being used as a way to stir up more trouble to try and get the subsection closed.

I pmed David. This is completly unneeded.