MERGED: The Politics Thread

[Palomine]

...That's as bad as Palomine, (who's supposed to set an example around here) completely losing it and calling me ignorant, dumb, stupid and whatever else he could think of at the time...

JJ, by any reasonable definition you ARE all of those things and far, far worse... and you're a plagiarist to boot. I know the truth hurts, but you chose your lot in life, and now you're stuck with it.

I 'lost' nothing... except for the last remaining shred of respect I used to have for you as a participant here. Your inability to express any original thought, combined with your mindless repetitive whining and your complete inability to logically defend the mindless dreck you slavishly copy and paste makes it impossible for me to hold you in any sort of decent regard at all.

And by the way: 'setting an example' for the sad likes of you is most certainly NOT any part of my job description... the fact that you think so is yet another example of your inability to distinguish between actual facts and your ill-informed, personal beliefs.

[pedonbio]

Hopefully now we can get back to the way things were under Reagan.

You mean so you and I are in our thirties again?

"Hey, Babe, I'm home. Get your clothes off!"

[pedonbio]

However, the republicans and the...er...other republicans aren't about to bridge the grand canyon sized gap between the aisles...let alone their own party, so why bother having the "compromisers" even there? It's time the Democratic Party gets their shit together and steps up to the plate. When they do, they'll have the support they had when we elected Obama into office.

It's going to be interesting come March, when the debt ceiling vote comes up. Boner remembers what happened the last time a bunch of cock-sure Republicans closed down the national park system. I think the Teabaggers are going to get a lesson in practical politics.

pedon "Buh-bye Semper Fi" bio

[gOOber]

You mean so you and I are in our thirties again?

"Hey, Babe, I'm home. Get your clothes off!"

There ya go.

[CarlTL]

May I humbly suggest that this topic, the right wing tavern topic and the Barak Obama topic be merged. They've all degenerated down to the same crap.

Mod edit: that's an excellent idea. Since the two most prolific users in these threads are posting the exact same stuff to all three threads (literally the exact same copy-and-pasted verbage in some instances) and since all three threads are now essentially serving the same 'purpose' I'll merge them now, so as to give other Off Topic Forum threads their fair shot at page one. -Palomine

[Shara]

May I humbly suggest that this topic, the right wing tavern topic and the Barak Obama topic be merged. They've all degenerated down to the same crap.

Mod edit: that's an excellent idea. Since the two most prolific users in these threads are posting the exact same stuff to all three threads (literally the exact same copy-and-pasted verbage in some instances) and since all three threads are now essentially serving the same 'purpose' I'll merge them now, so as to give other Off Topic Forum threads their fair shot at page one. -Palomine

yay for awesome ideas

[Q_BE]

If we're going to organize it like this, at least put in a little information about what happened in the initial post (which happens, by timestamp, to be gOOber's).

Anyway, that's my piece, or is now *every* political post going to be rerouted here as a gigantic political-free-for-all thread?

I'm all for consolidation, as long as the topics are redundant, but not something like THIS.

Also, let's call this thread by a simpler name, like 'The Politics Thread' or 'The Op-Ed Thread'.

Q-"Or the 'Right-Wingers: Go Away' thread"-BE

[3deroticer]

If we're going to organize it like this, at least put in a little information about what happened in the initial post (which happens, by timestamp, to be gOOber's).

Anyway, that's my piece, or is now *every* political post going to be rerouted here as a gigantic political-free-for-all thread?

I'm all for consolidation, as long as the topics are redundant, but not something like THIS.

Also, let's call this thread by a simpler name, like 'The Politics Thread' or 'The Op-Ed Thread'.

Q-"Or the 'Right-Wingers: Go Away' thread"-BE

Be careful Q_BE! Having a different opinion has consequences! Not everyone respect civil discourse.

[CarlTL]

If we're going to organize it like this, at least put in a little information about what happened in the initial post (which happens, by timestamp, to be gOOber's).

Anyway, that's my piece, or is now *every* political post going to be rerouted here as a gigantic political-free-for-all thread?

I'm all for consolidation, as long as the topics are redundant, but not something like THIS.

Also, let's call this thread by a simpler name, like 'The Politics Thread' or 'The Op-Ed Thread'.

Q-"Or the 'Right-Wingers: Go Away' thread"-BE

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Whoever had Q_BE at three hours after the merge, you are a winner.

[Siria]

Also, let's call this thread by a simpler name, like 'The Politics Thread' or 'The Op-Ed Thread'.

Or the political copypasta thread.

[MunchWolf]

JJ, by any reasonable definition you ARE all of those things and far, far worse... and you're a plagiarist to boot. I know the truth hurts, but you chose your lot in life, and now you're stuck with it.

I 'lost' nothing... except for the last remaining shred of respect I used to have for you as a participant here. Your inability to express any original thought, combined with your mindless repetitive whining and your complete inability to logically defend the mindless dreck you slavishly copy and paste makes it impossible for me to hold you in any sort of decent regard at all.

And by the way: 'setting an example' for the sad likes of you is most certainly NOT any part of my job description... the fact that you think so is yet another example of your inability to distinguish between actual facts and your ill-informed, personal beliefs.

I believe I was pointing that out 2-3 years ago ... shrug ...

-Munch "can I mention he's also not funny?" Wolf

[JJ]

JJ, by any reasonable definition you ARE all of those things and far, far worse... and you're a plagiarist to boot. I know the truth hurts, but you chose your lot in life, and now you're stuck with it.

I 'lost' nothing... except for the last remaining shred of respect I used to have for you as a participant here. Your inability to express any original thought, combined with your mindless repetitive whining and your complete inability to logically defend the mindless dreck you slavishly copy and paste makes it impossible for me to hold you in any sort of decent regard at all.

And by the way: 'setting an example' for the sad likes of you is most certainly NOT any part of my job description... the fact that you think so is yet another example of your inability to distinguish between actual facts and your ill-informed, personal beliefs.

===============================================

Palomine,  I've got your number for sure in four descriptive words - HotHead and SoreLoser.

If I write two sentences, you respond with FOUR.
If I write four sentences, you respond with EIGHT.
If I write eight sentences, you respond with SIXTEEN.

It's laughable really.  Of ALL of the people who have  posted in this thread, you're the only one I have zero respect for and sadly must conclude that we just have to agree to disagree.

Look at yourself - you even write everything IN BRIGHT YELLOW TYPE?
Is that supposed to scare the enemy or something?

I've better things to do than respond to your thread above, which is the RANT of an angry out-of-control person, if ever I've seen one.

Take a deep breath and
Let it go.
Let it lay.

I have almost single-handedly taken on dozens of Left Wing believers in this thread for the past several years without ever losing it.  Most of them have been civil.  Oh yes, there was the occasional nut case such as the MunchingWolfManJack whose fuse is even shorter than yours. 

During that time I represented, what the Tuesday election showed, a solid majority of Americans who are fed up with the liberal excesses of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  Pelosi got dumped, Reid almost did and Obama will in 2012.   It's YOUR side that's always preaching tolerance, the old "let's just get along" attitude. Just because most BEA'ers are to the left doesn't mean EVERYONE here has to fall in line?

This country cannot continue to look to Washington D.C. and the White House for a job, as one poster here expects.  We are in serious financial and social trouble due to excesses of both parties the last fifty years, starting with Mr. Government himself, Franklin Roosevelt. 

We now have empirical evidence over the last two years that trusting a Democrat majority is hopeless.  The Democrats only know how to increase our debt and increase our social dependence on them for jobs, hurricane assistance, auto company bailouts, health care, and the list goes on ad nauseum. 

The other party, the Republicans, say they know how to run the government like a business, decrease our debt and prevent us from becoming a third world country.  Let's see if they actually do it this time?



Bye bye. 

[DruulEmpire]

Argh.  Bizarrely enough, I find myself in agreement with Q_BE, though no doubt from a different perspective.  I was actually feeling fairly good about the mid-term elections thread, which got dumped on from time to time but still held its own.  For all the alleged friction between the mods and JJ, for some reason the mods seem to have essentially decided that JJ should predominate all political discussion.  No doubt he'll complain about that anyway.  Meanwhile, now I look back on this thread, where once I was perfectly aware of which specific thread I wished to contribute to, and think "Eeesh, now I've officially contributed to this one anyway."

Luckily, we're in for two years of limbo.  So that's it.  If this is what's going to happen, I'm not talking politics anymore at this Archive.  Luckily I have RL friends to thrash out current events with.  Bye.   

[Shara]

and yet you keep bringing up palomine

[3deroticer]

ROFLMAO!

This thread is getting ugly!

we have a 2-3 year old wound still mending

letting "JJ" wins means letting the terrorist win in dominating all political thread

and a break down of tolerating civil discourse with a temp lockdown of thread

internet bullying with power of yielding the yellow print

I think this is so silly, because its on the wire and wasted time getting upset, when you know you can't reason with unreasonable people. I am not saying its a bad thing, as sometimes its good to show determination of principle and character. At this point I have to agree with that if this is what to come, I am out of the political show here.

The changes I would love to see is stop copy pasting the whole article and just link it, and also the copy paste wouldn't be so bad if they weren't double space in between. The link would save me time of whether the article is worth reading if it came from a reliable or a hate site. Stay on topic and stop bringing up something that happen long time ago that has nothing to do with the topic. I am okay with the name calling, and sticks and stone, it just makes it clear to others who the bully.

All this political thread lump as one crap is not something I agree with, because I see each as its own topic and an interest because of the well being of this site, if political discourse continue on it path to ban adult oriented website. Plus the number of members we have lost dued to health care issue, and the jobless members struggling are also include interest of political strife. A well inform citizens makes a well form society. 

That being said, I can understand Palomine decision to lump them all together. I could see from his point(maybe not?)that making a new thread that seem similar to the Obama  thread could be seen as attempt to run away from "JJ" copy/paste madness of plagiarize talking point of right-wing lies. We have so many thread of the similar topic, but we also have many more voters than we did for the 2008 election and more heated interest invested in shaping our future.

Can we have civil discourse? Can we agree to disagree? Can we copy paste big boobs on Christine O'Donnell?

[sidewalkpsycho]

I have almost single-handedly taken on dozens of Left Wing believers in this thread for the past several years without ever losing it. 

As in copy-pasting yet another article or ignoring the question?

[MunchWolf]

I have almost single-handedly taken on dozens of Left Wing believers in this thread for the past several years without ever losing it.  Most of them have been civil.  Oh yes, there was the occasional nut case such as the MunchingWolfManJack whose fuse is even shorter than yours. 

When numerous people have an issue with you ... maybe the issue is you?

-Munch "Lowest Common Denominator" Wolf

[DruulEmpire]

When numerous people have an issue with you ... maybe the issue is you?

-Munch "Lowest Common Denominator" Wolf

Munch has it exactly correct.

I do not for the life of me believe that conservatism can and must necessitate acting like JJ.  I've known various people with various beliefs.  For me, the ultimate issue here isn't even politics.  The issue is JJ himself -- and that's the shame, not only that a single personality should overshadow a huge arena of proper discussion, but that the personality should not only be so dreadful but so proud of it.

JJ will presume that he is disliked only because of his politics.  He will be completely wrong.  If I wanted to sabotage the image of conservatism, with any and all of its claims to transparency and graciousness and reasonable discourse, I could do no better than to create a near-spammer like JJ.  Conservatism needs him like a serious Cold War era hunt for KGB spies would need Joe McCarthy, or the re-election of Nixon would need a break-in in the Democratic headquarters.  He shuts down discourse before it can get started.  These are serious times, but this Archive has doomed itself to allow no serious thread.   

[CarlTL]

....These are serious times, but this Archive has doomed itself to allow no serious thread.   

Since I was the one to suggest that the three threads be merged, your issue is with me. I saw three threads reach the same point with repeated JJ self righteous copypasta and Q_BE rants that forced each thread to be all about them and their beliefs.

Feel free to create your own serious issue threads, hopefully the posters in them can stay level-headed.

[pedonbio]

When numerous people have an issue with you ... maybe the issue is you?

-Munch "Lowest Common Denominator" Wolf

Spot on. I'm acquainted with a former state Republican chair, and he's a lot more fun to talk politics with than the most prolific posters in this thread. Of course, fat guys over fifty need to stick together. BTW, he lives close to you, Munch. But he doesn't talk about boobies.

[Shara]

ROFLMAO!

This thread is getting ugly!

we have a 2-3 year old wound still mending

letting "JJ" wins means letting the terrorist win in dominating all political thread

and a break down of tolerating civil discourse with a temp lockdown of thread

internet bullying with power of yielding the yellow print

I think this is so silly, because its on the wire and wasted time getting upset, when you know you can't reason with unreasonable people. I am not saying its a bad thing, as sometimes its good to show determination of principle and character. At this point I have to agree with that if this is what to come, I am out of the political show here.

The changes I would love to see is stop copy pasting the whole article and just link it, and also the copy paste wouldn't be so bad if they weren't double space in between. The link would save me time of whether the article is worth reading if it came from a reliable or a hate site. Stay on topic and stop bringing up something that happen long time ago that has nothing to do with the topic. I am okay with the name calling, and sticks and stone, it just makes it clear to others who the bully.

All this political thread lump as one crap is not something I agree with, because I see each as its own topic and an interest because of the well being of this site, if political discourse continue on it path to ban adult oriented website. Plus the number of members we have lost dued to health care issue, and the jobless members struggling are also include interest of political strife. A well inform citizens makes a well form society. 

That being said, I can understand Palomine decision to lump them all together. I could see from his point(maybe not?)that making a new thread that seem similar to the Obama  thread could be seen as attempt to run away from "JJ" copy/paste madness of plagiarize talking point of right-wing lies. We have so many thread of the similar topic, but we also have many more voters than we did for the 2008 election and more heated interest invested in shaping our future.

Can we have civil discourse? Can we agree to disagree? Can we copy paste big boobs on Christine O'Donnell?

I could paste another black-guy-hanging-in-mccain's-tree-joke-pic. And you could make a big fuss about it so the thread gets locked

[3deroticer]

Shara, you have yet to form your own opinion, other than copy/paste and more delusional than "JJ"

You amuse me!

[Shara]

as long as we can agree that I'm the delusional one here, i'm fine with that .

[Shara]

My opinion, though heavily influenced by failures in the past, is quite simple. I think Obama is trying to change the US to an extent that the Reps (and especially Cons) don't even recognise it anymore. Most of his changes seem to be based on a more lenient for lower-classes Euro-style model.  Now, some people applaud this, and others want to see instant gratification. Instant gratification however in politics does not exist. What follows is two kinds of people in the opposition
1. people afraid of change: basically the category JJ belongs to, an extreme conservative. Change is bad for the economy, because a stable situation can go into disarray easily when change is introduced. Even if the end-result is/can be better. History has proven though that change is a necessary step of evolution; it's not always a positive, but there is necessity.
2. Ignorance and insta-gratification: These are the people who can't see the big picture. They hear the numbers certain TV-station or Radio-stations throw at them, and they listen to the people who shout the loudest; who are at this point, and for the last 10 years have been, right-wingers. Of course the fact that an investment is being made to guarantee a better future is completely overlooked.

Now to get this out of the way, I'm not saying Obama is God's gift to the world, he's just a president with some interesting ideas, which have the potential to bear fruits in the not too distant future. What's going to happen now is an unco-operative situation in the next 2 years where nothing will get done, 2 years later you'll probably be stuck with another Republican president, who, in turn, will basically undo everything Obama has set in motion, not allowing the now-set-in-motion plan to unfold. Therefore you'll get another huge dent in the already flailing economy, with no gain in return, which will trigger the action recent Rep presidents know best: declare war on a country with oil.

No things were copy-pastad

[Shara]

forgot make-no-sense picture

[3deroticer]

My opinion, though heavily influenced by failures in the past, is quite simple. I think Obama is trying to change the US to an extent that the Reps (and especially Cons) don't even recognize it anymore. Most of his changes seem to be based on a more lenient for lower-classes Euro-style model.  Now, some people applaud this, and others want to see instant gratification. Instant gratification however in politics does not exist. What follows is two kinds of people in the opposition
1. people afraid of change: basically the category JJ belongs to, an extreme conservative. Change is bad for the economy, because a stable situation can go into disarray easily when change is introduced. Even if the end-result is/can be better. History has proven though that change is a necessary step of evolution; it's not always a positive, but there is necessity.
2. Ignorance and insta-gratification: These are the people who can't see the big picture. They hear the numbers certain TV-station or Radio-stations throw at them, and they listen to the people who shout the loudest; who are at this point, and for the last 10 years have been, right-wingers. Of course the fact that an investment is being made to guarantee a better future is completely overlooked.

Now to get this out of the way, I'm not saying Obama is God's gift to the world, he's just a president with some interesting ideas, which have the potential to bear fruits in the not too distant future. What's going to happen now is an unco-operative situation in the next 2 years where nothing will get done, 2 years later you'll probably be stuck with another Republican president, who, in turn, will basically undo everything Obama has set in motion, not allowing the now-set-in-motion plan to unfold. Therefore you'll get another huge dent in the already flailing economy, with no gain in return, which will trigger the action recent Rep presidents know best: declare war on a country with oil.

No things were copy-pastad

Well..........I'm speechless, because I agree with you. So why not debate instead of trying to shut down the thread or cry wolf instead of answering the question? Why so much ruse? Why so much fuss?

[Shara]

cuz all these threads are just a mindless copypasta fest on one side, and then the others chiming in for a beatdown trying to illicit cleverly constructed responses which they already know they're not going to get from the copy-pasta troll who declares himself a winner when everyone else ignores him.

[3deroticer]

cuz all these threads are just a mindless copypasta fest on one side, and then the others chiming in for a beatdown trying to illicit cleverly constructed responses which they already know they're not going to get from the copy-pasta troll who declares himself a winner when everyone else ignores him.

Yep, fair enough!

Basically a black hat cowboy versus the white hat cowboy!
or Batman and the Joker creed of ethics

The good guy stick to principle and ethic in behavior while the bad guy breaks all the rules and win!

I don't bother trying to win against the "JJ" the joker

[Palomine]

===============================================

Palomine,  I've got your number for sure in four descriptive words - HotHead and SoreLoser.

If I write two sentences, you respond with FOUR.
If I write four sentences, you respond with EIGHT.
If I write eight sentences, you respond with SIXTEEN.

It's laughable really.  Of ALL of the people who have  posted in this thread, you're the only one I have zero respect for and sadly must conclude that we just have to agree to disagree.

Look at yourself - you even write everything IN BRIGHT YELLOW TYPE?
Is that supposed to scare the enemy or something?

I've better things to do than respond to your thread above, which is the RANT of an angry out-of-control person, if ever I've seen one.

Take a deep breath and
Let it go.
Let it lay.

I have almost single-handedly taken on dozens of Left Wing believers in this thread for the past several years without ever losing it.  Most of them have been civil.  Oh yes, there was the occasional nut case such as the MunchingWolfManJack whose fuse is even shorter than yours.  

During that time I represented, what the Tuesday election showed, a solid majority of Americans who are fed up with the liberal excesses of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  Pelosi got dumped, Reid almost did and Obama will in 2012.   It's YOUR side that's always preaching tolerance, the old "let's just get along" attitude. Just because most BEA'ers are to the left doesn't mean EVERYONE here has to fall in line?

This country cannot continue to look to Washington D.C. and the White House for a job, as one poster here expects.  We are in serious financial and social trouble due to excesses of both parties the last fifty years, starting with Mr. Government himself, Franklin Roosevelt.  

We now have empirical evidence over the last two years that trusting a Democrat majority is hopeless.  The Democrats only know how to increase our debt and increase our social dependence on them for jobs, hurricane assistance, auto company bailouts, health care, and the list goes on ad nauseum.  

The other party, the Republicans, say they know how to run the government like a business, decrease our debt and prevent us from becoming a third world country.  Let's see if they actually do it this time?



Bye bye.  

JJ, you're simply delusional.

All of my text in every post (not just those in this thread, or in reply to you) has been yellow for years... thus it has nothing to do with you, no matter what fantasies of self-importance or superiority you're busy nurturing. I also could not possibly care less that you think counting the number of sentences in my replies means anything... only someone as factually deficient as you could imagine the color of text or number of lines in a post mean anything in and of themselves.

For me (or anyone else who's had the misfortune to read and respond to your plagiarized winging) to be a 'sore loser' you'd have to have 'won' something... won anything. And the reality is that the only thing it seems that you've ever won here is the scorn of your fellow users: earlier today I received a PM from an active, long-time user (in good standing, unlike you) stating that it's YOU and YOUR INCESSANT mindless, indefensible, copy/pasted nonsense that keeps them from participating here like they used to. This was the third or fourth separate complaint I've received about you. And if a few long-timers took the trouble to let me know that, there are probably a dozen more who feel exactly the same way (and have reduced their participation or halted it entirely) but haven't bothered to say so. Try to understand:

You make this place less enjoyable for lots of other people... to the point where they don't want to be here.

You may think that because you post some on-topic pix you're somehow immune to the consequences of your actions here. Nothing could be further from the truth: there's NO QUESTION whatsoever that your behavior damages the morale of this community... we've tolerated it for a long time... perhaps longer than we should have. So, I'm telling you now: with your cumulative history of rule violations (including your Score, My$pace, underag3 and prohibited subjects posts) you do NOT have the leeway to continue to piss off so many other users indefinitely. I'm tired of you splattering this forum with your whiny and offensive posts, but I'm even more tired of having other users complain about you both publicly and privately.

Now JJ, you get to decide:

If you continue with your current behavior, the next time we receive a verifiable complaint about you... or witness you doing anything that negatively impacts the morale of this community or the participation of its members, you'll get temp banned. Do it again after that, and you're gone for good. It's completely up to you.

[TheZookie007]

…as far as ignorant pronouncements go, I know what I said, and I'd say it again…liberals and liberal policies got us into this mess—and conservatives and conservatism will get us out. The keys will be stripping the sectors who are bankrupting us of the power to do so—and that means chopping into the voting blocks of the unions, the black electorate at large, and of course, the burgeoning Hispanic vote.

You just said that you want to disenfranchise people who choose to be members of unions, black people, and Hispanic people.

Otherwise, we are not going to devolve culturally into the liberal morass because a vast majority of Americans are instinctually conservative—no matter how they actually vote—because they are Americans first, and policy partisans second, and the American people genuinely appreciate the greatness of the nation in which we live, contrary to those on the Left who continually drag us down with their pathetic protestations.

You just said that those that are on the Left are not Americans.

[Shara]

well yes, but he also admitted he's ignorant

[3deroticer]

We pretty much still have a broken senate, and this time the Republican own the house. Much of the Tea Party movement, I believe were basing their platform of undoing the last 2 years, and privatize social security. Other than that they probably feel no pressure to come up with a bill, and wait out the 2 years and blame everything on Obama as being an obstructionist.

How will the people at the end of the term respond, and who has the advantage of appearance to the common man of what happens in the country?

BTW, who think that Russ Feingold would make a great Democratic party leader and take over Dean position, and find more stronger liberals? Thats actually my biggest concern is the amount of money the corporate could spend they have plenty left over to really rake over the democratic party unless someone like Russ or Alan Grayson watch over it.

[pedonbio]

My opinion, though heavily influenced by failures in the past, is quite simple. I think Obama is trying to change the US to an extent that the Reps (and especially Cons) don't even recognise it anymore. Most of his changes seem to be based on a more lenient for lower-classes Euro-style model.  Now, some people applaud this, and others want to see instant gratification. Instant gratification however in politics does not exist. What follows is two kinds of people in the opposition
1. people afraid of change: basically the category JJ belongs to, an extreme conservative. Change is bad for the economy, because a stable situation can go into disarray easily when change is introduced. Even if the end-result is/can be better. History has proven though that change is a necessary step of evolution; it's not always a positive, but there is necessity.
2. Ignorance and insta-gratification: These are the people who can't see the big picture. They hear the numbers certain TV-station or Radio-stations throw at them, and they listen to the people who shout the loudest; who are at this point, and for the last 10 years have been, right-wingers. Of course the fact that an investment is being made to guarantee a better future is completely overlooked.

Now to get this out of the way, I'm not saying Obama is God's gift to the world, he's just a president with some interesting ideas, which have the potential to bear fruits in the not too distant future. What's going to happen now is an unco-operative situation in the next 2 years where nothing will get done, 2 years later you'll probably be stuck with another Republican president, who, in turn, will basically undo everything Obama has set in motion, not allowing the now-set-in-motion plan to unfold. Therefore you'll get another huge dent in the already flailing economy, with no gain in return, which will trigger the action recent Rep presidents know best: declare war on a country with oil.

No things were copy-pastad

Shara, I certainly agree with you--Most of what the "Left" in the U.S. has been trying to do is to create and sustain what we call a middle-class society. It's what Europeans would likely recognize as much like modern Germany.

There is, however, a historic overlay going back to the days of slavery. In the 1790s a political struggle began between "big government" as represented by George Washington, and "small government" as represented by Thomas Jefferson. The problem with those views was that the "small government" view was a lie from the beginning. Jefferson understood that if slavery ever became a political issue, and the central government was strong enough, slavery would be abolished. So he created an entire politics based on code words a shadow "fights". For example, he and his political party opposed the creation of the first central bank in 1793, not because there was anything wrong with having a central bank, but because a government strong enough to control the currency would eventually grow strong enough to abolish slavery.

In 1828 President Jackson was able to prevent the re-chartering of the bank, so from 1830 to 1913 we had no central bank, which led to a totally fucked financial system based on silver and gold. For about thirty years (1870 to 1900) the recurring political issue in America was whether to allow free coinage of silver, which got to be a bizarre, almost theological issue, but it was really a "debate" over what is now called the "money supply" and was always handled in Europe by the central banks.

That was the point at which the two major parties swapped sides on the "big government-little government" debate and the Democrats (under President Wilson) established what we call the "Federal Reserve".

Too long a story. Anyway, you got it right.

[Shara]

interesting story on the monetary centralization there. I believe in a larger government which allows healthy competition with private institutions. Governments are run by people chosen by 'the people' You chose them because they stand for ideas you agree with. Why would you vote for a person who wants to do nothing?

[3deroticer]

Why vote for a guy who hates govt?
Reagan been often quoted for the phrase "Hi, I'm from the govt and I am here to help you" as being the scariest word in the English language.