The General Politics Thread

Azrael

C_Chulainn

Aye.

bloodpet64

yayyyyyy our government is spending more money on things we don't need 😃

Goat

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012">http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012</a>

So, Ron Paul it is, then?

noodles

I'd trust it more if they sounded less like Ron Paul fans.

Goat

noodles wrote
I'd trust it more if they sounded less like Ron Paul fans.

Anyone who uses the phrase 'harsh social darwinism' is hardly a fanboy, if you ask me... But yes, they are more positive about Paul than any of the others.

bloodpet64

Goat wrote
noodles wrote
I'd trust it more if they sounded less like Ron Paul fans.
Anyone who uses the phrase 'harsh social darwinism' is hardly a fanboy, if you ask me... But yes, they are more positive about Paul than any of the others.

were fucked if ron paul doesn't win, im just saying.

C_Chulainn

I just found out some shocking things about the history of Scottish independence that I didn't know about and it's made my blood boil. In 1999, Tony Blair stole 6000 miles of Scottish sea water by shifting the borders in a secret agreement with the house of lords; in the 70s when Scotland discovered oil on the east coast the McCrone report, commissioned by the conservative govt in Westminster said that the oil would give an independent Scotland among the strongest currencies in Europe, and was promptly hidden from sight until 2005. Let that sink in- the UK govt had a report in favour of Scottish independence, and they buried it for 30 years. Then, in 78, when they had a referendum for devolution, it was said to be unbinding because 40% of the electorate had to vote yes- it was not enough to have a majority (which it did) among those who voted. Counting voter apathy as negative votes is incredibly undemocratic.

And people dare still preach for the Union? Are they shitting me?

Goat

<a class="postlink" href="http://yfrog.com/z/gyu5vep">http://yfrog.com/z/gyu5vep</a>

Ol' Baz must be rolling in his grave.

Azrael

<a class="postlink" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/krugman-pain-without-gain.xml">http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/op ... t-gain.xml</a>

:applause:

what i think: governments do waste money, and they were borrowing to pay older debts. the situation couldn't go on. i mean, it could, but we were just building a house of cards.
i do agree with spending cuts, and with getting your accounts in order. i do not agree with taking the axe to everything at the same time you raise taxes, which essentially strangles an economy that is already reeling from weak internal demand. bailouts buy us time and they're much better than a default (imagine portugal going back to the Escudo, it would be a disaster), but the conditions being imposed on borrowing countries are ridiculous, or at least aren't setting us up for any kind of soft landing. douchebag rating agencies come along and rate our debt as junk, saying that the economy isn't growing and we're not making enough cuts, so we make cuts, strangle the economy a bit more, and the douchebag rating agencies come along and rate our debt as junk, saying that the economy isn't growing and we're not making enough cuts.

Pillars_of_Geph

edit

Pillars_of_Geph

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Vfuj1sYpw&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Vfuj1s ... re=related</a>

As if you needed any more proof Pat Buchanan was a fucking moron.

C_Chulainn

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/4341-a-unionist-lexicon-an-a-z-of-unionist-scare-stories-myths-and-misinformation">http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.ph ... nformation</a>

You can keep Michael Gove and that arse who talks about English football as "we".

Goat

British politics is really fucking stupid at the moment.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9175292/Fuel-strike-anger-over-government-advice-grows-as-woman-burnt-in-petrol-accident.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy ... ident.html</a>

Tl;dr

Government minister says people should keep spare petrol in case of a shortgage.
Some stupid woman tips petrol over herself next to a lit oven and catches fire.
Opposition calls for minister's resignation.

Karmakosmonaut

Link doesn't function, Zad. At any rate, seems like that woman should be nominated for the Darwin Awards.

Bruce_Bitenfils

[Rant mode: ON]

Here, as you may know we're about to vote to change our President in 2 weeks (first round) and 4 weeks (2nd round). The levels of silliness and inanity our politicians are managing to reach are astounding. We're a country with a debt being about 90% of our GDP (70% of it being owned by foreign investors), our 2011 budget deficit was 5,2% of GDP, our commercial balance is... ugh, you don't wanna know, unemployment is about 10% of our total workforce (more like 16% if you take into account part-time jobs and the likes...) and European manufacturing industries are about to completely be annihilated by Chinese unfair competition because in Europe we're too dumb (or neck-deep in ideology (libertarian in our case), which is basically the same thing) to put tariffs on non-European products, especially Asian ones which don't even remotely respect the standards we have here.

Now that you have all this in mind, what has the campaign been about until now? Here goes:

Halal/dhabiha meat and butcher shops. (Yeah, because you know, knowing how the beast I'm eating a piece of was slain is obviously the most important subject in the world right now. Riiiiiiiiiiight.)
Lowering the level of legal immigration, knowing that Sarkozy already put them low enough.
Busting out islamists everywhere. Like 20 in the last two weeks. Of course this is a very important thing to get rid of nutjobs and religious fanatics of all kind, however our numerous police services have been knowing about those guys for MONTHS, so my question is : WHY THE FUCK DID IT TAKE SO FUCKING LONG? Oh right, I remember, Sarkozy and his buddies were waiting to be close to the elections. Silly me.

The good part about all this is now I know whom I'm not voting for.

[Rant mode: OFF]

Goat

Doubt that tariffs would do you any good (or be allowed under EU law)...

Bruce_Bitenfils

I was speaking at the EU level, not French level. France is an irrelevant entity, just as UK, Germany, Spain or Italy are (I'm not mentioning Flanders not to piss Karma off). EU laws need to change. We're currently at an impasse. If we keep on with our mega-libertarianism folly, we're doomed. The ever-increasing unemployed mass won't stay quiet forever, you know.

Well, in UK they most probably will, but you're weirdos anyway so that doesn't count. 😛

Goat

You're the only person I've ever known to think that the EU is a libertarian institution, heh. Everyone else sees it as the opposite...
And hey, less of calling other people weird, Frenchie! 😛

Bruce_Bitenfils

That was friendly (coming from a French, 'weirdo' is a compliment lol) 🙂

Perhaps not a full-libertarian institution, but the "free market über-alles" crap (I'm all for free market... when it actually makes sense), the European Central Bank independency dogma, and so on... those are directly coming from the Chicago school.

But really, my grudges against current UE are more philosophical than economical. After all I'm a european federalist (always been, since I'm 12), so I can hardly be happy with the crap we have.
I read something the other day about the possibility for the PIGS+France to unite and do what the UE won't. Interesting idea... such an entity would be the 3rd economy in the world, just below China and way above Germany...

(And by the way, PIGS for Portugal, Italy, Greece ans Spain, yet another nice and respectful way to put things from (some) anglo-saxon financial nazis, oops, sorry, journalists. 😃)

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