So how does it end?

[Yukon Cornelius]

Listened the SOTU last night on NPR; watched Paul Ryan, or Paul Rand, or Rand Paul --- whoever --- give the response.

In general O-WhamO is talking about "freezing spending" while "redoubling" spending. Meantime Paul/Rand/Ryan says the Republicans 'really mean it this time' and "it might take another election cycle" to make things all better.

Can we all FINALLY agree that, without hyperbole of ANY kind, we are being Good-Cop/Bad-Copped by an institutionally deranged pack of whoring politicians, who will do NOTHING but make America's problems worse, until such a time when we essentially "run out" of money? Can we admit that, systemically speaking, any sort of constructive change is an impossibility? Can we admit that there is a political paradigm that -- à la Khun -- that will have to literally be shocked out of existence by a "serious" crisis?

[Marcus]

[monster_gardener]

[Marcus]

Just got this in an email from Texas . . click on the video . . .

http://bertram31.com/newbb/viewtopic.php?t=5978" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[YMix]

[Marcus]

[Yukon Cornelius]

[YMix]

[Marcus]

[Marcus]

[Tinker]

Social progressivism need not be in total conflict with fiscal conservatism. There are a lot of things that can be cut from the budget at all levels that are more or less small tyrannies that are anti-thetical to social justice. Basically, we could start by cutting things where the government has to pay money to reduce people's freedom to no real social benefit.

Of course Social Conservatism and freedom are not compatible.

[Captain Murphy]

[Marcus]

[YMix]

[Demon of Undoing]

There are no unconnected strings , folks. It's all one big ball of yarn. You know what the point if me hammering on the debt was ? To show that while a surmountable problem , nobody can attack it. The people will go batty on whoever does , some way or another. Cut out the pork in military infrastructure and you will start to see the effect on R&D overnight. You will lose, for instance , the ability to make subs once the nightmare that is Groton is opened up. What you will find in defense spending and pretty much everything else in the Federal budget is a bribe. Stop food subsidies, and the public loses badly needed consumption power for other things , other things that run the economy. And there is layer on layer on layer.

YC is wrong. It's not an addiction. I mean , it sort of is and I used to look at it like that. It's a racket , you can't stop just one part if a racket , it all falls apart. It's a rigged game , and you know what ? We demand it be so , whether we know it or not. I want massive cuts to many social programs. But I also know people that , were Medicare halved tomorrow , would be dead in short order. Are we willing to pay the price to come to Jesus ? Can we pay the price without the hustle eating itself ? We got lots of palms to grease , and if we don't , you'll see some sort of conflagration internally as sure as God made little green apples. You can't condition three or four generations to think of Uncle Sam as the go to guy and then just turn him back into an occasional partner.

Even more , if we can't change ourselves before it goes critical without some kind of fight breaking out , what makes us think that when it is critical and does hit the wall that we will survive the domestic shitstorm and be able to fix what decades of bad habits broke , all while the world is finding better things to do with it's money than give it to the loanshark for safekeeping ?

"Whole world's coming to an end , Mal. " - Mickey Knox

[YMix]

[Atmosphere]

At the rate that Dems and Reps try to screw each other over, I don't get the feeling that the whole system is a joint racket on the taxpayer. It's too incompetent to be intentional. Rather, I see just a bunch of average people (C and D students). No design. Just anarchy within guidlines.

For it to come out in a good way, you'd have to have the government packed with people who are seriously ideologically oriented toward restraining themselves, and managing a budget. If that idealistic moment passes, then it doesn't really end, but continues into the larger global anarchy that has existed for all of time.

[Mr. Perfect]

[Yukon Cornelius]

[anderson]

Well, to quote my favorite crotchety old crank, "not to worry. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of you."

[Demon of Undoing]

Yeah , except now , we have to power to actually end the world. Well , the human part , anyways.

[thecontributer]

[Colonel Sun]

I recall reading that something on the order of 2/3rds of the annual US fed budget increases are mandated by law.

[Simple Minded]

[Yukon Cornelius]