http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110306413.html

quite the um, leader they have.

I saw that on election night and at first, both Carlos & I thought he was getting sick-not choking up. But, maybe that was us getting sick knowing that this @$$hole is going to be the speaker.




Cat

Heck, I must admit that I throw up in my mouth a little bit when I think of Nancy Pelosi being followed by the Boner.

Never woulda predicted that one.  ;D

I saw that on election night and at first, both Carlos & I thought he was getting sick-not choking up. But, maybe that was us getting sick knowing that this @$$hole is going to be the speaker.

Cat
Independents and Republicans disliked Pelosi as much as you don't like Boehner.

Independents and Republicans disliked Pelosi as much as you don't like Boehner.


You got that right.  San Francisco liberal.  Stereotype in motion!

Anyway,  I don't want to see John Boehner do anything but walk.  Walk away.  Keep walking and NEVER come back!
::)

You got that right.  San Francisco liberal.  Stereotype in motion!

Anyway,  I don't want to see John Boehner do anything but walk.  Walk away.  Keep walking and NEVER come back!
::)


When does Boehner pitch his tent in Pelosi's office?  Is that in January? ???

When does Boehner pitch his tent in Pelosi's office?  Is that in January? ???


Yep...January.

Pelosi can now push San Francisco to NOT have McDonald's at all...let alone not having a Happy Meal in there!

Independents and Republicans disliked Pelosi as much as you don't like Boehner.



I AM an Independent.



Cat

When does Boehner pitch his tent in Pelosi's office?  Is that in January? ???


The idea of Boehner pitching his tent anywhere near Pelosi is a rather sickening thought.

The John Boenher who handed out checks from the tobacco lobby to congressmen on the floor of the House...during a debate and vote to end the tobacco subsidy?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAC2xeT2yOg

I AM an Independent.



Cat
No but your an independent progressive. Thats different. Your gonna like Pelosi since she is a liberal and since she is pretty close to you in the political spectrum. Somebody like me who is right of center or in the center isn't gonna like Pelosi.

The John Boenher who handed out checks from the tobacco lobby to congressmen on the floor of the House...during a debate and vote to end the tobacco subsidy?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAC2xeT2yOg


I guess you could say...  In Congress, they have a Boehner for corruption.

The John Boenher who handed out checks from the tobacco lobby to congressmen on the floor of the House...during a debate and vote to end the tobacco subsidy?


So the people that were passing out the checks won.*

--Rep. Steve Largent

Welcome to American politics, kid! 

First they subsidize the producers, then they tax the consumers.  They tell us smoking makes you sick and dead to our faces, then they hand out taxpayers' money to those who make the poison.  Makes a lot of sense, wouldn't you say so?

*unless your name is Keith Olbermann!

No but your an independent progressive. Thats different. Your gonna like Pelosi since she is a liberal and since she is pretty close to you in the political spectrum. Somebody like me who is right of center or in the center isn't gonna like Pelosi.


Many "progressives" are independent, maybe most.  Do the name Bernie Sanders ring a bell?

No but your an independent progressive. Thats different. Your gonna like Pelosi since she is a liberal and since she is pretty close to you in the political spectrum. Somebody like me who is right of center or in the center isn't gonna like Pelosi.




Many "progressives" are independent, maybe most.  Do the name Bernie Sanders ring a bell?



Pretty much what I was going to say but once again, you beat me to it.



Cat

So the people that were passing out the checks won.*

--Rep. Steve Largent
Welcome to American politics, kid! 

First they subsidize the producers, then they tax the consumers.  They tell us smoking makes you sick and dead to our faces, then they hand out taxpayers' money to those who make the poison.  Makes a lot of sense, wouldn't you say so?

*unless your name is Keith Olbermann!
Isn't Steve Largent a former NFL wide reciever for the Seattle Seahawks?

Many "progressives" are independent, maybe most.  Do the name Bernie Sanders ring a bell?
I just always think "Independent" means your in the center of the political spectrum and you could vote for any political party(republican, dem, or independent.) I mean in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll only 8% of Independents had a favorable view of Pelosi and 61% had an unfavorable view of her.

I just always think "Independent" means your in the center of the political spectrum and you could vote for any political party(republican, dem, or independent.) I mean in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll only 8% of Independents had a favorable view of Pelosi and 61% had an unfavorable view of her.





Independent means you are not registered as either a Repub or a Dem. An Independent can be anywhere on the political spectrum. There are some FAR right Independents (even farther right than the Repub party). There are some Independents who are to the FAR left (even farther left than our own Don Carlos-who is farther left than I am) and there are some Independents who are smack in the middle of the spectrum.



Cat

Independent means you are not registered as either a Repub or a Dem. An Independent can be anywhere on the political spectrum. There are some FAR right Independents (even farther right than the Repub party). There are some Independents who are to the FAR left  (even farther left than our own Don Carlos-who is farther left than I am) and there are some Independents who are smack in the middle of the spectrum.



Cat
Yeah I forgot I mean Lincoln Chafee ran as an independent for Governor of Rhode Island just recently and won and he was farther to the left than the Democratic Nominee(Frank Capiro.)

I just always think "Independent" means your in the center of the political spectrum and you could vote for any political party(republican, dem, or independent.) I mean in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll only 8% of Independents had a favorable view of Pelosi and 61% had an unfavorable view of her.


Yeah, you've gotta stop thinking like that.  That NBC poll probably suggests that a lot of Republicans who left the (R) party in disgust over Bush II, but who didn't actually change any of their political opinions, are now calling themselves Independents.  They are Independents - but that doesn't mean that any given Independent has to hate Pelosi.  If a third (presumably a "Tea") party formed, they'd probably register for it.  Other independents wouldn't.  (Which is why the Republicans will never permit an actual "Tea" party to form, because R-leaning voters would be split between (R) and (T), leaving (D) as the winner of every race with a 50% D, 25% R, and 25% T margin.  Even in R-safe districts, numbers that used to go 60% R / 40% D would go 40% D, 30% R, 30% T, and the (D) would win.)

Independent just means you're not registered with any political party.  A registered Democrat can vote for a Republican, and a registered Republican can vote for a Democrat.  They probably won't, but anyone can vote for anyone they want.  In terms of candidates, (I) is also meaningless.  Sometimes it refers to a Dem/Pub who got kicked out of his party, but still thinks he can win re-election, so he runs on his own name, even though he hasn't changed a single opinion.  Sometimes it means someone just said they're running for office, unaffiliated with any party.  They put an (I) beside their names, even though their politics could be anything from Commie to Nazi.  

center of the political spectrum


And while we're on the subject, the whole political "spectrum" is a bit of a leftover from the Cold War.  The only reason it's kept around is that the Demopublicans like the idea that as long as we pretend that there are only two options for governance (labeled "left" and "right", or "blue" vs "red"), we'll keep voting for either the Blue Party or the Red Party.

The problem with the political spectrum is that politics is multidmensional, and our brains have a very hard time dealing with more than two, and a very hard time dealing with more than three.  I'm hard to place on the political spectrum, because I like money, but don't really care about what hippies smoke, or how gay people boink.  In present-day America, I can't be characterized by the words "conservative" or "liberal".  (Both of those groups would find something to hate in me!)

Others have suggested a 2-dimensional model.  The most common ones on the 'net are the political compass and the World's Smallest Political Quiz, because these models take into account the fact that your views on economic freedoms aren't necessarily your views on social freedoms.  

Here are a few characters represented in a 2D model:

http://reasonableminds.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/political-compass-2007.png

On the grid, I'm somewhere in the libertarian right.  (Go on, take the test, you might surprise yourself.)

Still others have attempted to build a political cube defined by three axes: personal, economic, and political freedoms.  

The guy also wrote a hilarious novel (It's been a few years since I thought about Max Barry, and since then he's written two more books, which I've just ordered!  Woohoo, karma for making me look!), and his humor is evident in both the model and the game.  Anyways, here's the political cube:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/NS_politicalmap.png

In NationStates, you play by making a governmental decision every day or so, and your country's performance is defined by its accumulated policies along the lines of civil rights, economic performance, and political freedom.  Here are some fictional countries (sorted by a different random characteristic every day) with various governmental types categorized by their position in the cube, and a thread in which people speculate on America's position in the cube.  (The people in the NS thread have suggested that the US is a Capitalist Paradise - and if East Jade's representative, they're probably pretty close.)

To get back to your original point - the political spectrum was an adequate oversimplification when we lived in a world with choices limited to either a Conservative Democracy (the USA in the age of "Leave it to Beaver") and a Psychotic Dictatorship (USSR under Stalin).

In a multipolar world, there's simply no straight line that encompasses every possible society from Psychotic Dictatorship to Anarchy.  Why not the Left-Wing Utopia of Chazzistan?  Or the Moralistic Democracy of Opodeldok?

Me?  The Corporate Bordello of Northern Borland sounds like a nice place to live.  There are 50000 countries in NationStates.  Where would you like to move?

Here's me:

Economic Left/Right: -1.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.00

http://i51.tinypic.com/e02zpd.jpg

First they subsidize the producers, then they tax the consumers.  They tell us smoking makes you sick and dead to our faces, then they hand out taxpayers' money to those who make the poison.  Makes a lot of sense, wouldn't you say so?


Where's your compassion Max?

By taxing tabakky, the paternalistic government can claim that they are trying to control the behavior of smokers for their own good.

And by subsidizing the tabakky farmers, they can claim that they are looking out for the social welfare of farmers who could not possibly think of any other crop to grow.

I think we ought to start a new government entitlement program that incents tabakky farmers to shift their crops to a more profitable one, like poppies.  :P

Where's your compassion Max?

By taxing tabakky, the paternalistic government can claim that they are trying to control the behavior of smokers for their own good.

And by subsidizing the tabakky farmers, they can claim that they are looking out for the social welfare of farmers who could not possibly think of any other crop to grow.

I think we ought to start a new government entitlement program that incents tabakky farmers to shift their crops to a more profitable one, like poppies.  :P


Or pot.  The ag dept is doing the same thing with milk fat, one the one hand discouraging it and on the other encouraging cheese consumption

Or pot.  The ag dept is doing the same thing with milk fat, one the one hand discouraging it and on the other encouraging cheese consumption


Little story from this weekend regarding why it's so hard to make marijuana legal.

My aunt's first husband was and still is a big-time dope dealer.  He spent several years in South American prisons in the 1970s and a fair amount of time in American ones in the 1970s and 1980s.  When he got out, he'd go right back to dealing dope.  He's sort of a George Jung figure.  He's also batshift crazy, watches FOX News all day, and, according to my cousin, is drunk and/or stoned most of the time.  He drives a big Mercedes and lives large.  He's smuggled hundreds of kilos of hashish out of Muslim countries.  He's bribed state politicians (I'm not going to say what state) and foreign diplomats.  He's dodged bullets -- literally.  He dealt with Pablo Escobar and lived to tell about it for chrissakes!

He showed up at a family event this weekend.  First time I'd seen him in 22 years.  He threw his arm over my shoulder and told me what a great guy I was, and how he remembered me when I was just a little baby, and he told me if I ever needed anything, anything at all, I should never hesitate to call -- "Eh, WTF, call me anyway, me and your old man go way back, I love you and your whole family..." (etc., etc.)  

He took us all to the swankiest restaurant/hotel in town and kept the bottles of Merlot and champaign flowing.  Steaks, racks of lamb, lobster bisque, cheesecakes, chocolate tarts..."Whatever TF you want, it's on me 'cos I love every one of you with all my heart!"  He kept whispering some sh*t to the waiter.  I think he was trying to get himself a hooker for his suite upstairs.  Prolly would have gotten me one too if I'd pushed for it!  

I also remembered this fellow as a young man when I was just a tadpole -- he was out on parole when he was chasing my aunt with carving knife and threw her new boyfriend off a high railing.  I remember him divvying up staggering amounts of hash and all kinds of other things in my dad's barn with all these scary-looking dudes bustling in and out of the place.  The guy is the most dangerous character I've ever met.  Stone cold sociopath. A rip-roaring great time for an evening but mad, bad, and dangerous to know!  

He's not the nickel-and-dime kid on the corner.  He's in the, ahem, high echelons of drug dealing.  

The point is...as a a high-stakes marijuana importer, he donates big bucks to Republican politicians of the most anti-pot variety.  I knew this before because I Googled his name and saw his donations.  "If they legalize pot," he told me, "It's gonna wreck my livelihood!"  Mind you, he doesn't list his occupation as "dope dealer," he's in real estate and such.  Gotta launder that money somehow!

It was just interesting to see the cynical big business end of illegal drugs up close and personal.

Am I going to call him?  Fug no!  He'll wanna seduce me into some "deal" that will fetch me a big chunk of change so as to turn me over to the feds in exchange for saving his own hide.  Might even end up in a hotel bathtub full of ice in Peru with one of my kidneys missing.  
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/03/diablotin.gif

Here's me:

Economic Left/Right: -1.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.00

http://i51.tinypic.com/e02zpd.jpg
I got about the same as you on that test.

Dam, I forgot how contagious that test is.  Well, if it's going to be this kind of party...

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=4.12&soc=-4.00

...I'm going to stick my own pin into the map of potatoes :)

I could probably move my pin up at least a full point towards authoritarianism by suggesting that the world would be a better place if everyone, anually, took some variant of this test, and that they must, by law, wear a colored headband of red, blue, green, or purple.  (Preferably shaded with the RGB values associated with their exact position on an analog color mapping of that diagram.)  You get your headband on January 1st and don't get to change it for any reason until next year, so no last-minute shenanigans by politicians are permitted during the 10 months before election season.

We'd at least be able to have more meaningful discussions with each other.  My assumption that free markets are pretty neat could be tempered by a blue person's notion that what Jesus thinks is more important, or and I could respect that a green person might have more in common with me than I'd previously thought.  Some Red dude and I could sorta give each other the hairy eyeball, but we could go into any discussion knowing that we might not share any assumptions in common, so we could start by trying to identify the few things we could agree upon and building from there, rather than just flinging poop at each other. :)