• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Where They Stand: The Republican Candidates on the Issues (Simplified)

Lessig's belief, and it's one that I share, is that the only way to stop the madness is to take the money out of politics. Unfortunately, thanks to some whacky SC decisions, that will require a constitutional amendment. And because Congress is highly unlikely to cut off its own money supply, it will have to come up through the states. That's also quite improblable, but maybe not impossible. This is one thing that liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and everyone in between should be able to agree on.

You realize health care reform has been on the back burner since I've been alive, some 53+ years. Putting it on the back burner, especially if republicans are elected means no reform at all. And certianly not UHC. If the issue matters to you at all, you vote for people likley to move it forward and not backward. This redorm is not perfect, far from it, but moving backward does not help in any way. Improve it, work to make the proer changes, but move it forward.

BTW, proper healthcare reform can help the economy. If you really want to help business, have UHC and remove it from the work place.

You know, sometimes I really wonder if those on the Right who are in favor of repealling ObamaCare truly know how deep the underhandedness goes with the Republican party's strongarming, bullying and manipulation on the health care reform front. I've just begun reading the book, "The Big Con," and it gives a very strong inditement of the Republican party on their efforts to kill health care reform during the Clinton era!

From pages 54 and 55 on how Republican party insiders pressured business lobbyist to change their position from supporting HillaryCare to denouncing it:

And yet...corporate power in Washington [DC] was still not fully realized. At the beginning of Bill Clinton's presidency, K Street was larger than ever in its physical size and scope, but its ideological and operational unity had deteriorated. Many businessmen noted that Clinton was not terribly liberal by the standards of the time - he favored expanded free trade and deficit reduction - and consider him the sort of Democrat that could live with.

But that moment in the early 1990s turned out to be a mere pause at the foot of an ascent just as steep as the one that occurred during the 1970s. And the episode that set off this next revolution in the role of business in government was Clinton's efforts to remake the health care system. At the time, health care reform seemed an unlikely candidate to spark a business backlash. Everybody assumed some kind of major health reform would pass. Solid majorities of the public said they favored overhauling health care in general and like the Clinton plan in particular. Business not only reconciled itself to reform but for the most part actively favord it, since skyrocking health care costs were, after all, eating away at profit margins. At the outset of Clinton's first term, the giant of the business lobby - the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers - all favored universal health care.

In due time, however, business turned sharply against this reform - but not because its interests were under attack. It did so because conservatives demanded it. Republicans, for both partisan and ideological reasons, wanted to kill health care reform and were enraged at business's conciliatory posture. The conservative activist Grover Norquist began convening a weekly meeting of business lobbyists opposed to health care (mostly representing small businesses, which for the most part did not insure their workers and did not want to start) along with conservative groups like the National Rifle Association and right-leaning pundits. These stragegy sessions produced, among other things, a concerted effort to pressure business lobbies to withdraw their supoprt for reform. The conservatives denounced groups like the Chamber of Commerce as a sellout to big government and disseminated their attacks through talk radio, taped television sports, and Wall Street Journal editorials. Congressional Republicans boycotted a Chamber awards ceremony and threatened to ignore Chamber lobbying on other issues. Under this pressure, the Chamber reversed itself, and corporate support for health care reform collapsed.

Footnote 18 from The Big Con: "Right in the Middle Of the Revolution; Activist Rises to Influence In Conservative Movement," Washington Post article dated September 4, 1995

With this backdrop in history, does anyone honestly believe that should any of the GOP presidential hopefuls get into the White House they'd replace health care reform with anything meaningful if anything at all? Everyone one of them are in Grover Norquist's back pocket; if not his then some other business lobby holds sway over them. Think of all the campaign financing Mitt Romney alone as received not from average citizens but from corporations and SuperPACs. Not one has the American people's interest at heart - except maybe Ron Paul, but his economic and foreign policy agendi are so radical I'd be terribly afraid to support him.

My point here is very simple, folks: If conservative activist led by Grover Norquist have been able to manipulate the Republican party into doing what he wants as opposed to doing what's in the best interest of the country, why would you support any of them who'd keep in place the same policies that got this country in the position its in now? The rhetoric we're hearing now is truly a rehash of the same BS that came out of the Depression era, as well as the Clinton era. All Republicans have done is dust off the old playbooks and found ways to :spin: the arguments anew. They don't offer anything of real substance.

To that, I thank Conservative for giving me the best advice I've received since joining this forum. I stopped reading liesurely SCI-FI novels and picked up a few books that tell the real story of our American politic. If more people took the time to learn the truth behind how America's been hijacked by crony capitalism from the Right for the last 30 years folks would likely never vote Republican again.
 
Last edited:
If the issue matters to you at all, you vote for people likley to move it forward and not backward. This redorm is not perfect, far from it, but moving backward does not help in any way. Improve it, work to make the proer changes, but move it forward.

Forward does no good when you're moving in the wrong direction. We need to go backward, out of this mess we're in, in order to make progress in the right direction.

BTW, proper healthcare reform can help the economy. If you really want to help business, have UHC and remove it from the work place.

I absolutely agree with you, but forcing businesses to buy approved healthcare plans from third party providers-- or pay fines to the government-- is the opposite of this.
 
Forward does no good when you're moving in the wrong direction. We need to go backward, out of this mess we're in, in order to make progress in the right direction.



I absolutely agree with you, but forcing businesses to buy approved healthcare plans from third party providers-- or pay fines to the government-- is the opposite of this.

Then move it forward. Vote for those most likley to move toward UHC. Backward means doing nothing.
 
Each person and each train of thought has a different view of what "moving forward" is. This is why I hate the label "progressive" because it incorrectly labels them as the group that wants to move forward and make "progress." It's all purely in their view and they have no monopoly on it.

We really need to correct the mistakes of the Democrats and Obama. We need to repeal his healthcare bill, we need to cut his budget, we really need to get our debt situation that he has allowed to escalate out of control, and we need someone with strong principals who will see through with this and get it done.
 
I agree with that it's all a matter of perception. In my opinion I think that it is too early to tell if this healthcare law is right or wrong. There are still provisions that are set to be in effect in 2014 that will create a new competitive insurance marketplace with state-run health insurance exchanges.
 
Each person and each train of thought has a different view of what "moving forward" is. This is why I hate the label "progressive" because it incorrectly labels them as the group that wants to move forward and make "progress." It's all purely in their view and they have no monopoly on it.

We really need to correct the mistakes of the Democrats and Obama. We need to repeal his healthcare bill, we need to cut his budget, we really need to get our debt situation that he has allowed to escalate out of control, and we need someone with strong principals who will see through with this and get it done.
Proper health care reform will have a positive effect on the budget. I have no care for terms like progressive, neocon, liberal or conservative. The fact is we need reform that lowers cost and increases access. Use whatever term you prefer. If done properly, it will help the economy. Removing health care from employment alone will do much more to help the economy than anything else government can do. Much of the economy is simply outside the government's domain.
 
Do you have to pay a license fee and tax money to support most of those media outlets? I don't currently reside in Britain, but when I do again soon I will be forced to be pay for the BBC, so I think I can be allowed my frustration. How about, when I go back to blighty, you pay my license fee and then I'll agree to get over it. Deal?

I don't live in Britain, I don't know about what they pay in "media fees" or whatever, and what does that have to do with anything? Some of our state tax dollars go to National Public Radio, so the same basic thing happens over here. Ahem..."get over it".

The piece you posted was shocking in the way it was riddled with subtle, but constant contempt and patronising tones towards anything remotely conservative, particularly socially and culturally.

The problem with claiming bias in a particular medium is that usually your own bias is what frames the context of your criticism. There is always some side of something being left out of every story.

A newspaper reports that a man attacked another man. The religious nuts will point out, "Oh, the biased media failed to mention that the victim was a Christian, so that means the story has an anti-Christian bias!" The New Black Panthers will point out, "The alleged attacker was black, so this another example of racially biased media sensationalizing black crime!" The feminists will point out "The biased media failed to mention the victim had a previous domestic violence record, so this is another example of bias in the media against women." And on and on and on...

Seems to me that most people who complain the most about supposed media bias are just pissed off that there own biased takes on events aren't being given the limelight.

You're complaining about the BBC's representation of the Republican candidate's position. You claim there are "sublte" jabs at conservative positions. I'm sure there are, if by "jabs" you mean they weren't extolling the perfect virtues of how Republicans will restore America to it's former greatness and beat back the Satanic liberal demons intent on ruling the world with a Stalinist dictatorship.

Dude, give me some concrete examples of how that article misrepresented Republican platforms! I've watched most of the debates, I keep up fairly well on American politics and as far as a condensed cheat sheet on the candidates goes, I don't see the problem you have with it, beyond them not favoring your take over an objective one.

It's very rare that I've ever seen any type of "media bias" criticism that wasn't instantly identifiable as a boo-hooing about personal opinion not be put up on a pedestal.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom