the Republican-Democrat-Libertarian Pros and cons

Amuk said: Once again it seems that we agree on the destination but disagree on how to get there.......LOL

I think that the dems will take the white house if for no other reason than if they dont we are probibly doomed but I think it is only a short term solution. We have got to get back to the basis that this country was built on....Freedom, Self Reliance, etc.

We got to quit locking up over a million young men about half on fairly minor drug charges. Imagine if they would legalize pot, tax it and pour the money into inner city (poor Black) and rural (poor White) schools? That is just one idea that the Libertarians have.

We have got to quit sticking our noses into other countries affairs just so our leaders can turn a better profit or open a new market. After all what are a few poor peoples lives when billions of dollars of profit are at stake. Thats another.

How about pulling our army out of Europe, Asia, etc. WW2 is over they can protect themselves and the money could be used here at home. Thats another.

How about legalizing Prostitution taxing it and using the money to help poor women get the education they need to avoid that lifestyle to begin with. It would also be a why for those in the lifestyle to get the medical care that they need. Thats another.


These are just a few of what OUTSIDERS have to offer other than the same old song and dance we get from the big two.

It just seems to me kinda foolish to trust the people that got us into this mess to get us out.

I would kinda like to discuss the Republican-Democrat-Libertarian Pros and cons on another new thread if you wished.



Colonel says: What I think we really need is to go back to being a producer nation as opposed to a consumer nation. I mean, being a consumer nation is what got us in this problem in the first place. You keep consuming without producing much of anything (jobs become obsolete, shipped overseas, etc.), what do you get?

A BIG CREDIT CARD PARTY!

And sooner or later you can go bankrupt if you don't pay the bill and since we don't produce anything much to sell.....
:shk:

Colonel - you have some good points, but there are some flaws in you r thinking - we cant just pull all of our men out from everywhere - especially asia. China would soon take over most of asia if we had no presence there.

I agree on the pot and prostitution points, more so on the pot one though.

As for being a nation that exports, the problem is that we have this thing called min wage. As long as we have that we will never be able to compete with nations like China and India where there are billions of people, all poor, and all of which are more then willing to work at much lower prices... it's simple economics. An Idea is to tax the living hell out of these countries, so as to make american goods priced equally with others. This doesnt adress exporting our goods though.

In general I am a Republican, but more so I am interested in personal rights and freedoms, of which it seems to me that democrats take more away from IN GENERAL. Things like gun control really bother me. I also don't like the fact that we all don't pay EQUAL taxes. There should be a straight % taken out of your salary, and thats it.

Originally posted by American Mad Man
Colonel - you have some good points, but there are some flaws in you r thinking - we cant just pull all of our men out from everywhere - especially asia. China would soon take over most of asia if we had no presence there.

I agree on the pot and prostitution points, more so on the pot one though.

As for being a nation that exports, the problem is that we have this thing called min wage. As long as we have that we will never be able to compete with nations like China and India where there are billions of people, all poor, and all of which are more then willing to work at much lower prices... it's simple economics. An Idea is to tax the living hell out of these countries, so as to make american goods priced equally with others. This doesnt adress exporting our goods though.

In general I am a Republican, but more so I am interested in personal rights and freedoms, of which it seems to me that democrats take more away from IN GENERAL. Things like gun control really bother me. I also don't like the fact that we all don't pay EQUAL taxes. There should be a straight % taken out of your salary, and thats it.

First of all, most of those comments were written by Amuk. I am just continuing them. My comments referred to production.

I really don't think minimum wage is the issue. I don't think we shuld engage in a race to the bottom way of economics. What we need are trade laws that respects labor laws. We need trade agreements that don't abuse labor as it does now. Then, maybe our jobs won't reavel overseas.

Sorry tod etract from your thread Colonel, something just caught my eye that needed straightening.

Originally posted by American Mad Man

As for being a nation that exports, the problem is that we have this thing called min wage. As long as we have that we will never be able to compete with nations like China and India where there are billions of people, all poor, and all of which are more then willing to work at much lower prices... it's simple economics. An Idea is to tax the living hell out of these countries, so as to make american goods priced equally with others. This doesnt adress exporting our goods though.

Simple economics huh. Well it is possible for labor to be more expensive in Mexico than in the USA. Productivity. If you pay a mexican worker a third of the wage of an American, they are more than likely going to produce a third or less of the units an American would produce. In some instances it is cheaper to pay an American $16 an hour to produce goods than a Mexican $3. It has been proven. this is why nations tend to specialize, like India and software for instance.

The exportation of jobs hurts, but as a result of our low tariffs and free trade agreements, we also import thousands of jobs. You sure don't sound like a conservative, if you aren't, why are you a Republican?

Originally posted by American Mad Man
In general I am a Republican, but more so I am interested in personal rights and freedoms, of which it seems to me that democrats take more away from IN GENERAL. Things like gun control really bother me. I also don't like the fact that we all don't pay EQUAL taxes. There should be a straight % taken out of your salary, and thats it.

You don't need to be either a Dem or a rep. You sound like a Libertarian to me. Which leads me to Colonels topic.

The cons of being a Libertarian - Poor folks go unprotected while business thrives and the rich get richer.

We got to quit locking up over a million young men about half on fairly minor drug charges. Imagine if they would legalize pot, tax it and pour the money into inner city (poor Black) and rural (poor White) schools? That is just one idea that the Libertarians have.

Why we haven't done this yet is far, far beyond me. Marijuana is very close to being the biggest cash crop in the world, and it's just a matter of time until the Feds wise up and decide to capitalize on it.

Not only would we make billions from government-regulated Marijuana sales, but the revenue freed up by slashing the budget of the badly lost 'war on drugs' would add a significant amount to this already massive sum.

All in due time, I guess.

"Imagine if they would legalize pot, tax it and pour the money into inner city (poor Black) and rural (poor White) schools? That is just one idea that the Libertarians have."

This is a bad idea. Throwing money at a problem is not a solution, and no matter how much money goes into the public education system, nothing will change without reform.

We need a whole system overhaul, which would end up saving money in the long run.

As much as I pray for them to decriminalize weed..something in me tells me that this will not happen in the U.S...actually I believe the "war on drugs" will get much much worse..only the media will cover less about this "war"..but much money will be collected by government agencies and more innocent people will be turned into criminals by unjust laws.

[Edited on 2-3-2004 by McGotti]

I wouldn't say the war on drugs is unjust, but rather overzelous in some areas, and neglegent in others.

Just as many white people do drugs as black people, yet most drug offenders are black

The "war" on drugs is unjust....

Show me how it has helped in anyway at all...show me how it has not turned a large segmant of our popukation into instant criminals by simply making a self-choice..

Tell me how its right for someone to put someone else into prison because of personal beliefs about "drugs"..

The whole concept of the war on drugs just plainly goes against freedom and the persuit of happiness..

tell me how you or somebody else gets to tell me what exactly im allowed to do in order to be happy??? how is that freedom???


its not freedom and it is unjust.

oh and the war on drugs is a huge failure and and a huge waste of tax dollars...

the DEA should be disbanded immediately..

IMO of coarse

That is rediculous.

If we are talking about drugs in general, then we can ignore weed, since it is basically useless.

PCP, '___', Crack, Cocane, X, and many others do nothing but damage people.

It would not be such a problem is people did not abuse them, but that is the nature of drugs. They are addictive and ruin lives.

Weed, I don't really have a problem with occasional responcible use of this, but again, people use it to extreme.

KrazyJethro,

The war on drugs does nothing but increase the prevalence of cartels and organized crime. The price also skyrockets so you will find more people commiting more serious crimes to come up with the money to get what they want. Besides, I can tell you from experience that the war on drugs does nothing in terms of availability.

It punishes the wrong people. 25% of inmates are in jail for simple posession violations. Now that is ridiculous. Their are thousands of conspiracies that coincide with this but I will simply say that the war on drugs is lost and does not work. It is a waste of tax payers dollars. A more influential respose to the epidemic would be honest, truthful education and help for those who need it. Not jail time.

However, you KJ have your opinion and I have my own. I will let this rest now and you can have the last word if you like.


BTW, all those people who think Libertarians will lead you to Utopia, use some logic. Remember, politicians lie.

Originally posted by insite
KrazyJethro,

The war on drugs does nothing but increase the prevalence of cartels and organized crime. The price also skyrockets so you will find more people commiting more serious crimes to come up with the money to get what they want. Besides, I can tell you from experience that the war on drugs does nothing in terms of availability.

It punishes the wrong people. 25% of inmates are in jail for simple posession violations. Now that is ridiculous. Their are thousands of conspiracies that coincide with this but I will simply say that the war on drugs is lost and does not work. It is a waste of tax payers dollars. A more influential respose to the epidemic would be honest, truthful education and help for those who need it. Not jail time.

However, you KJ have your opinion and I have my own. I will let this rest now and you can have the last word if you like.


BTW, all those people who think Libertarians will lead you to Utopia, use some logic. Remember, politicians lie.

Of course it increases cartels and the likes. It makes them go underground.

The point is, is that although there are problems, should we throw it all away?

The idea of the government is to protect people, not only from invaders, but from others right here.

We can not allow people to do whatever they want whenever they want to, or we would have no function at all, and would swiftly lead to the distruction of America.

I agree that education is the key to prevention in most cases, and this is one of them.

Parenting is also a problem. The government has had to step in to curtail social problems due to the degredation of community and the distruction of parenting and the family unit.

There is the true problem. Drugs is yet another nasty side effect.

Legalizing pot would be crazy, there is a whole culture based upon it and they will all attest that they'll go on the biggest bender ever the second it was legalized. I have had 8 or so college roommates, half of them failed or dropped out due to circumstances circling thier pot addiction. Most of them started when they were 13, and it opened them up to some hardcore drugs.

As for prostitution, that would also be pretty crazy. Just look up the top 100 serial killers of all time in the world and more than 75% of them had something to do with prostitution whether one was thier mother or they killed several dozen. Also, how in the hell can you tax prostitution!? Nevada is thinking about it though. If they did, it would just force the "industry" to go more underground, out of the brothels and stuff.

As for the use of excess revenue, you really can't just throw money at things, it's been done and it don't work. The nation has exceeded the rate of growth with spending on education and we CONSISTANTLY get less for it. Look at washington DC, they pay crazy amounts of money per pupil, they have 12 kids per teacher, and it's STILL one of the worst performing school systems in the nation!

This all comes down to a societal problem, no a governmental one.

Legalizing pot would be crazy, there is a whole culture based upon it and they will all attest that they'll go on the biggest bender ever the second it was legalized. I have had 8 or so college roommates, half of them failed or dropped out due to circumstances circling thier pot addiction. Most of them started when they were 13, and it opened them up to some hardcore drugs.

then do you feel alcohol should be made illegal for all the same reasons? i'm sure alcohol is the biggest gateway drug, i know for a fact it kills more people every year than marijuana does. both it's long and short term use can have serious negative effects and the potential for abuse is extremely high.

if alcohol and tobacco are legal, marijuana should be legal.

The idea of the government is to protect people, not only from invaders, but from others right here.

i don't have a problem with them protecting me from invaders or other people but i don't need them to protect me from myself...enough with the victimless crimes.

Thinks Colonel for starting this thread for us I had to go to the dojo and didnt have time but I am back now and would like to address some of the things brought up.


"Colonel says: What I think we really need is to go back to being a producer nation as opposed to a consumer nation. I mean, being a consumer nation is what got us in this problem in the first place. You keep consuming without producing much of anything (jobs become obsolete, shipped overseas, etc.), what do you get?"


I agree 100% with this, one thing these businesses need to think about is when they have all moved overseas who is gonna buy their goods when we are all working at burger king.

I dont see the min wage issue as much of a problem I dont know anybody but kids working at McDs that make min wage anyhow. I live in a poor part of the country and most jobs pay at least 8-9 dollars an hour.

"we cant just pull all of our men out from everywhere - especially asia. China would soon take over most of asia if we had no presence there. "

If we made Japan carry itself between them and Tiawin they could stand up to China especially with us backing and arming them, we do not need to be the worlds babysitter. And why in hell do we need to have troops protecting Europe? From what? They can take care of them selves.

"The cons of being a Libertarian - Poor folks go unprotected while business thrives and the rich get richer."

I really dont think this will be much of a problem. If the Clinton years showed us anything its that a booming econamy will pretty much take care of everyone, but I agree that there should always be a safety net for those that really need it. This to me is the ONLY weak point in the Libertarian platform.


"Legalizing pot would be crazy, there is a whole culture based upon it and they will all attest that they'll go on the biggest bender ever the second it was legalized. I have had 8 or so college roommates, half of them failed or dropped out due to circumstances circling thier pot addiction. Most of them started when they were 13, and it opened them up to some hardcore drugs. "


Any one in america can get pot in a half an hour if they want it. All the laws have done is make criminals out of pot smokers. I have smoked pot for almost 40 years and have always held a job. The sad fact is a loser on pot would be a loser without it too.

"As for prostitution, that would also be pretty crazy. Just look up the top 100 serial killers of all time in the world and more than 75% of them had something to do with prostitution whether one was thier mother or they killed several dozen. Also, how in the hell can you tax prostitution!? Nevada is thinking about it though. If they did, it would just force the "industry" to go more underground, out of the brothels and stuff."

The part about serial killers is nonsense most serial killers stalk hookers BECAUSE they do not have the protection of the police, it would be a LOT less likely in a more controled setting. And other countries already tax it. I believe Nevada does too for that matter, and none of them have any problems with it.

"As for the use of excess revenue, you really can't just throw money at things, it's been done and it don't work. The nation has exceeded the rate of growth with spending on education and we CONSISTANTLY get less for it. Look at washington DC, they pay crazy amounts of money per pupil, they have 12 kids per teacher, and it's STILL one of the worst performing school systems in the nation!"


For starters how about it LOWERING the general tax burden on us all privite and business, that by itself would cause an explosion of productivity and consumer spending.

"i don't have a problem with them protecting me from invaders or other people but i don't need them to protect me from myself...enough with the victimless crimes."

I agree 100%


I would like to hear from the other two sides on this

BTW, all those people who think Libertarians will lead you to Utopia, use some logic. Remember, politicians lie.

I am a Libertarian and do not believe this. Of course politicians lie thats why we need the LEAST amount of Government possible. The Libertarians do not have ALL the answers but I think they are a LARGE step in the right direction, and there ideas need to be seriously looked at.