bmdrocks21

Amen(to the third suggestion) :D

Boy, you know I would contribute as much as the AFKs

Hey, at least we can agree they are garbage :)

Yes, they are a mashup of left and right policies. They don't belong anywhere.

They are for corporate welfare, as well. That is central planning, therefore left-wing. They also support the modern welfare state. I hate them a lot -_-

They share some ideas with you like inheritance taxes and the progressive income tax. They share a couple with us as well. 

But that would also mean I could put neo-cons in your party.

You know, you might be almost right about them being similar to moderate Republicans. I'd say they would be the liberal faction. Not that they should be in the party at all. Just the fact that you have a bunch of stupid neo-cons mixed in with the actual conservatives. So, by default.... maybe? 

Could you see any moderate Democrats flipping votes if Warren or Sanders gets the nomination?

What is "this far out" have to do with trusting Trump? That makes no sense. My comment makes sense regarding polls since most people haven't tuned in yet. We don't know if people will refuse to vote Democrat if their candidate doesn't make it. A candidate could take a bad stance and screw up. A million different things could happen, and the polls aren't as relevant over a year from the election. 

Do you have any comment to my comments?

Exactly which candidate would be welcomed into the Republican party?

In your poll, the national average of polls showed Hillary winning by 3%. My point is the polls aren't always to be trusted. Especially this far out.

Depends on the polls.

Remember everyone, nearly every poll showed Trump losing significantly.

Well that is fantastic! Thank you for your service!

Well, tortoises are turtles... just a specific kind of turtle. I own a Russian tortoise named Yurtle. Nice fella :). If you want a lifelong companion, I recommend them.

Also, dude, you were a combat medic?!?

What do you think of turtles?

Left wing policies are not always better. Look at Venezuela, North Korea, the previous Soviet Union, and China under Mao lol. Those were the most left-wing policies ever passed, and they destroyed the economies of those countries.

FDR essentially crowded out private spending and investments. Many economists believe that he prolonged the Great Depression. 

I will say that I am also a little apprehensive about lawyers. There are negatives to every way of stopping big companies from harming us, obviously.

However, lawyers have an incentive of going too far with "regulating" because that is how they make money. They sue companies that don't really deserve it.

I watch John Stossel, and he made a short video on the matter: https://youtu.be/gTQtVsggZXY

However, if we could change how liability works a little bit, I think I could be down with your idea.

Wouldn't right wing policies be best in times of recession? They make it less risky to invest and start businesses. They allow businesses to grow faster, which is good for consumer confidence.

So, you would like to destroy domestic industries in order to keep manufacturing jobs? Should we still use assembly lines without no automation for automobile manufacturing like they did for Henry Ford? Do you think anyone would buy our cars if they were more expensive and lower quality because we refuse to automate? You think that will keep jobs, or ultimately lose them all?

Automation makes products higher quality and cheaper. I don't think we should automate too quickly, as some short run issues could occur, but stopping progress is foolish.

Reducing taxes and regulations would also help small businesses, but you seem to have a problem with that. Hmm.... When you increase the corporate tax rate, you will still hurt the small businesses. I'm also not sure that strengthening unions is a good thing. I will point to General Motors and the teachers union as examples of their failures and greed.

You know what would reduce costs even more? The answer is what historically has: competition. We need to allow health insurance companies to compete on a national level rather than state levels. State companies essentially have oligopolies. Also, your Democrat politicians over-regulate the health insurance markets. You force companies to cover a lot of different things like hearing aids, no matter the insurance plan. Families should tailor their plan to their needs, not pay more for something they may never need. 

You admit that wages are the largest cost of company. Then you talk about increasing wages. Exactly how will that stop them from automating? Also, how do you know that these companies would start paying employees more just because of healthcare costs going away? Or that the increase would be equal to the burden lifted(assuming universal healthcare doesn't drastically increase expenditures)?

I would prefer limiting immigration to reduce supply of labor, and therefore increase the value of labor. That would increase wages. As for cost of living increases, that is likely due to high taxes and regulation.

How would you propose we "fix the system"?

So, I as a prescient individual, am saving for retirement over four decades in advance. Other people are stupid and don't save. They spend all of their money on expensive shoes, liquor, etc. When they are sixty, they have no money for retirement. Do they have a right to steal my income to pay for their housing, healthcare, and food?

Maybe social security is a trash system and that retirement savings should be done by individuals. Ever heard of a Roth IRA/IRA/401k? There are plenty of opportunities to save without having to burden everyone who works to pay for people who don't. 

Roth IRAs are the most incredible things ever made. You don't have to pay any taxes for money gained on investments. I'm 19, and I have already started one. 

I don't know. That is a second-hand accountability. We didn't vote for them, yet they have just as much power over our lives as the people we did vote for. If a private company inspection company not affiliated with the government screwed it up, there would be hell to pay. A company like that wouldn't exist any longer. However, the government can screw it up, then make rules as to how much they have to give out. It forces a monopoly on that market, so obviously bad prices and bad quality are expected. How does that work?

Am I sensing some sarcasm?

Socialists are real democrats?

I hate that when your party radicalizes, you pretend that human filth like Pelosi and that pedophile Joe Biden are really just Republicans. They are not. They are career politicians who didn't change with their party. A party which is going down a rather self-destructive, un-American route.

Yeah, what is the point of having regulators that can't be held accountable? 

+1

If Trump won the presidency, wouldn't it be very unlikely that the Dems would have the numbers in the House to impeach?

It is their job to watch people, not just a hobby. I believe that if we use government regulation, that often leads to crony capitalism as Mr. Parrot says. Either big companies support regulations that crowd out smaller companies through large barriers to entry/compliance costs, or they get ex-ante regulation, which doesn't apply to established companies at all- it applies to new companies only. So, the difference is that these watchdog groups would cause companies to fail from their carelessness. They don't have the power to pass laws that help special interests.

If it is on private property, it wouldn't be a problem. If it leached into some water supplies, that would be a problem. Forcing companies to report where they dump waste would probably prevent such carelessness. 

The EPA has continuously proven itself incompetent. They caused a huge release of toxic wastewater in Colorado just a few years back. The government is incompetent, and I would prefer not allowing an inflated, slow and expensive bureaucracy to regulate everything.

I take a little different stance than greyparrot. I believe in small amounts of regulation mixed with groups like Greenpeace that advertise the crap out of irresponsibility from companies like that. (Not a big fan of a lot of what they do, but some things are reasonable). When consumers know that you are dumping toxic chemicals in some city's drinking water or are killing thousands of animals, there will be backlash. Perhaps regulation should essentially force companies to be transparent about where they dump any toxic chemicals?

I was pointing out that there is a heck of a lot more to do with it than just gun availability. Like I showed, we have over 400x the gun ownership rates, yet a lower suicide rate. If there is an effect of guns, it would be rather minor compared to cultural effects.

"The most common method among both genders in Japan was hanging, followed by jumping from a high place."

Interesting.

Country:            Gun Ownership per capita     |Total Guns|      Suicide Rate

                                                                        |                 |

Japan:                                                    .3      |    377,000|  14.3

                                                                        |                 |   

United States:                                    120.5    |393,347,000 |     13.7         

We have a per capita gun ownership rate over 400x larger than Japan, yet their suicide rate is higher. Hmmmm. Almost like they just use other methods.

I was more referring to the dumping part and the negative attention it received. But people seeing all of that dead sea life gives really negative publicity. Companies can lose billions of dollars over issues like that, which is why BP puts stricter internal regulations on themselves.

You neglect that the market can self-regulate. Companies like Greenpeace are evidence of that. They put pressure on Apple to switch harmful chemicals out of their computers. 

Two months after the BP oil spill, their stock was 55% of what it was prior to the spill.

Yeah, but what about putting tariffs on the commies?

That mixed with the fact that less than 1/5 of gun crime is committed by legal gun owners shows we have a gun trafficking problem. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/new-evidence-confirms-what-gun-rights-advocates-have-been-saying-for-a-long-time-about-crime/   (I have seen other estimates as low as 3-5%)

The reason we have a large amount of gun violence is because we have a large amount of gangs (33,000). https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/gangs

92% of gang homicides are committed with guns https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/gun-violence-america

60% of all gun deaths are suicides https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

In terms of Russia, his administration has also put sanctions on Russian oligarchs, increased funding to the EDI, and has sent weapons to Ukraine. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630659379/is-trump-the-toughest-ever-on-russia

In terms of "buddying up" that is a good thing in my opinion. If you called Putin a murderous tyrant, he probably wouldn't be willing to work with you.

Yeah, the 9/11 thing and Iran crap are shameful. If we do get involved, say with ISIS, I want us to go in full force, complete our predetermined objectives, and then leave. He has pulled some troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, though.

Yes the unemployment rate was already decreasing. My point is that in many ways, these are record levels. 

The deregulation and new regulations added have saved taxpayers and businesses nearly $8 billion. Regulations create inefficiencies in the market, and are generally unnecessary. 

I read about the methane regulation from your link. It said that small companies were against it, while big companies supported it. That leads me to believe that compliance costs were too large for the small companies, which helped big companies retain their market share. Either that or it was an ex ante regulation, meaning the rules might not have applied to them at all.

Yeah, but he has cut regulations, reduced unemployment, passed criminal justice reform, took down ISIS, and has been much more tough on Russia than Obama. 

Some of these are at least commendable things, aren't they?

You wouldn't support Trump over any of those candidates? Did he do any specifically to cause such disdain, or would you never support any Republican? 

You know Nixon was considered a losing candidate at one time :)

He lost to Kennedy and lost the governor race in California. I don't count people out like that. 

You are probably right, though. The gender thing plays into the identity politics game (I'm with her type of crap) and the fact that he is a loser are likely big causes. 

Just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite candidate yet?

Why do you think Warren is beating Sanders? They have very similar policies.

At least we agreed on something :)

Had you read the thread, you would have seen that most of that has been cleared up. But thanks ^_^

Sure, addressed. Have to agree to disagree on some areas.

I guess that is a fair position. I just look through the temp. banned's profile and usually can't find anything scandalous. I like to know the concrete examples to better shape my behavior. 

I also feel enforcement is too common. Dr. Franklin gets a ton of temp. bans, and he is harmless.

The permanent bans comment was related to what I thought a ban by request was. My bad.

Page not found. I'll take your word for it. Was that added after the initial post? 

I am aware of that. I just think it would make more sense to also mention why temporary bans were placed.