Are you on the left or on the right?

[cinch]

Obi:

I'm confused.

Are you advocating the Romanow plan? The same Romanow plan that the Alliance are no fans of? The same Romanow plan that the NDP are interested in?

I thought you were trying to convince me to vote Alliance???

[Dauphin]

Edit - OK, I need to make sure I read things in context.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by red_jon


It's a better theory than the right who believe taking money away will improve things

Normally we want an efficient and running system. Okay, throwing money at something may sound nice. They did that in Argentina. They threw money at everything.. guess where it went? Into somebody's bank account in Switzerland. Socialism will never work.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Odd
I would be right wing in Brazil and left wing in America. Brazil has plenty of ultra left-wings that believe that the "international speculators" corrupted the coutry, like Hitler blamed "jewish bankers" for corrupting Germany. That makes me sick. I do believe that the state shouldn´t mess with non essential things (e.g. be a socialist with capitalist clothes and subsidy agricuture and steel industries), and I hate deficts... so I´m an economic right wing. I like a lot of stuff related to american culture, and agree with their vision about democracy.
I believe that americans should remember that France has a trauma of war deeper than the trauma americans have with terrorism. In fact, justifing a war towards Iraq based on their evil regime sounds as bad as using a dictatorship as an excuse to blow up embassies using suicide bombers. That´s plain wrong, even if the embassies actually belonged to an evil regime.
Bah, I shouldn´t have brought in this subject. Let´s wait ten years, then we will see if Bush was right. Right now is just speculation.

Odd, my wife is Brazilian. According to here, American "investment" in Brazil is the source of all Brazil's problems.

Also, your bit about dictators being a justification for blowing up embassies is so different from Iraq as to not be an apt analogy. Actually, WWII and Britain's declaration of war on Germany is more apt. Sure we liberated the Germans, but we also eliminated a real, demonstrated threat to international peace and security.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Ned


Odd, my wife is Brazilian.

Interesting... I'm glad to know that!

..........According to here, American "investment" in Brazil is the source of all Brazil's problems.

This is true only for the "speculative capital" (I don't know if I'm calling this by its correct name... My broken English doesn't help ). I mean, we need capital. But we need this money in the productive sector. Your money is wellcome, I'm not against the globalization... I promise to you we'll take good care with these dollars...

[*End Is Forever*]

I'm a pragmatic centrist. How should I vote?

[Kuciwalker]

psst right

[St Leo]

Left is the only rational choice.

[Kontiki]

Fez, as usual you are advocating completely contradictory positions without having a clue as to why. You denounce communism and socialism (fine), claim "the freer the market, the freer the people", advocate "law enforcement" and "monitoring" of corporate activities, don't see anything socialist about government spending on healthcare, education and transportation, and want greater limitations on personal freedom. Do you really not see how amazingly flawed these positions, taken in total, are?

A free market isn't about taxation, it's about government regulation/interference. If you want monitoring on corporations and strong "law enforcement" (which laws in particular, BTW, and who makes up these laws?), then you only want a free market to a limited extent. If you're going to spout off things like "the freer the market, the freer the people", then you have to realize that putting regulations in place would necessarily limit the freedom of the people. Which, I guess, would be ok for you since you want less personal freedoms anyway (which begs the question, why even say "the freer the market, the freer the people" in the first place?).

If you don't see government spending on healthcare, education and transportation as socialist, then what do you see as socialist? These are extremely socialist things. It doesn't make them wrong, but you can't call them anything but socialist. And if you want to see these things, where do you propose to get the money from? You are going to have to collect revenues somehow, presumably from taxes. Would you prefer those to come from individuals or corporations? Maybe both? That's what we have in Canada (and pretty much everywhere else in the western world, to varying degrees). You can't have minimal taxes and still have government funded health care, education and transportation, to say nothing of any other government services.

So what do you really want? It seems to me that you do really do want social democracy, but wouldn't be able to actually admit that to save your life. If you really want a completely right-wing (economically) free market, then you'd be much closer to the libertarian position. However, you don't seem to want this, and you do like some socialist policies, and favor limiting personal freedoms to boot.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Fez, as usual you are advocating completely contradictory positions without having a clue as to why.

And this surpises you?

[Al B. Sure!]

Imran... he said "as usual" so it's not a surprise to him nor anyone

[Giancarlo]

Kontiki, I am like Menem. A person with a double edge to try to change people from illogical leftism.

I do not support strong law enforcement and heavy interference with the economy. It is either the free market or coercion. I want a fragmented private owned healthcare, education systems with government subsidies as a possiblitity.

As socialism is an illegal form of government, I would rather see a transparency, not a heavy handed Stalinist system as you propose.

I HATE all socialist policies. They will send things to hell in the handbasket.

[Kuciwalker]

Fez... I'm a right-wing extremist, and even I don't think we should privatize education in any form. That's a little extreme.

[Giancarlo]

Again, I am like Menem. Sell off everything. Privatization is best for the health system too.... if done properly it will work well.

We can either have coercion or capitalism. Capitalism is freedom, socialism is coercion. But again those are my beliefs...

[Aro]

Originally posted by Fez
Again, I am like Menem.
..................

Now you scared me...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Fez
Kontiki, I am like Menem. A person with a double edge to try to change people from illogical leftism.

I do not support strong law enforcement and heavy interference with the economy. It is either the free market or coercion. I want a fragmented private owned healthcare, education systems with government subsidies as a possiblitity.

As socialism is an illegal form of government, I would rather see a transparency, not a heavy handed Stalinist system as you propose.

I HATE all socialist policies. They will send things to hell in the handbasket.

I knew the new form of Fez wouldn(t last two days

[Giancarlo]

Hahahahahaha... tricked yah! You get a few serious sentences out of me.. and I get all wacky...

Anyways, I do like Menem. He is a great person and a great statesman. President Menem that is.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Fez
Kontiki, I am like Menem. A person with a double edge to try to change people from illogical leftism.

I do not support strong law enforcement and heavy interference with the economy. It is either the free market or coercion. I want a fragmented private owned healthcare, education systems with government subsidies as a possiblitity.

As socialism is an illegal form of government, I would rather see a transparency, not a heavy handed Stalinist system as you propose.

I HATE all socialist policies. They will send things to hell in the handbasket.

I'm not proposing any system, let alone a "heavy handed Stalinist system". I'm just citing you. YOU claimed you supported monitoring of corporations and strict law enforcement. YOU said, and I quote, "I don't see anything socialist about governent spending in healthcare, education and transportation....I never advocated against it".

Now, you are claiming "either free market or coercion" as if it were an either or option. So which is it? A free market with no government intervention - in which case, Enron did nothing illegal (remember, they didn't kill anyone or steal any property, they violtated securities legislation)- or coercion? And if you HATE all socialist policies, how can you possibly support any form of government subsidies in education, health care or transportation? You'd have to be a libertarian and support the exclusive use of user fees - anything else, by definition, is a socialist policy.

[Giancarlo]

I supported strict law enforcement? Okay.. lets get this down right the first time.

What I support... whatever I said before that contradicts this is invalid.

1) Privatized Health and Education Systems
2) Privatized Insurance
3) Reduced State Size
4) Decentralized State
5) Reduced Pensions for civil employees, but marginally more benefits for them during their service
6) Minimal Government interference.. only busting a corp exec when they do something bad.. in the case of Enron.
7) ZERO coercion
8) Defamation of Socialism
9) Forget it... no subsidies... only for business.

So this is what I want.

A strong corporatist system.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Fez
I supported strict law enforcement? Okay.. lets get this down right the first time.

What I support... whatever I said before that contradicts this is invalid.

1) Privatized Health and Education Systems
2) Privatized Insurance
3) Reduced State Size
4) Decentralized State
5) Reduced Pensions for civil employees, but marginally more benefits for them during their service
6) Minimal Government interference.. only busting a corp exec when they do something bad.. in the case of Enron.
7) ZERO coercion
8) Defamation of Socialism
9) Forget it... no subsidies... only for business.

So this is what I want.

A strong corporatist system.

Alright, so just to be clear, this is now your position? Everything you've said up until this point is crap then? Should we assume that this trend will continue into other threads?

[Giancarlo]

Sorry.. I kinda had a little too much wine.. but those 9 points is what I think. My official position.

[*End Is Forever*]

Originally posted by Fez
A strong corporatist system.

Do you even know what corporatism is?

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by *End Is Forever*


Do you even know what corporatism is?

Where the corporation has a strong hand in the government.

"Of or relating to a government or political system in which the principal economic functions, such as banking, industry, labor, and government, are organized as corporate entities."

http://www.dictionary.com

[Zoid]

I´m usually left-wing, a sorry mess of green, anarchist and communist ideas But sever bouts of depression lately has made me somewhat nihilistic, I don´t think anything matters much anymore. Everything just turns to **** in the end anyway...

[Giancarlo]

You know.. believe it or not.. in the past two months.. politics has played an ever decreasing role in my life...

[Zoid]

I´m sure you´ve had a lot of other things on your mind...

[Aro]

Originally posted by Fez
You know.. believe it or not.. in the past two months.. politics has played an ever decreasing role in my life...

You don't need politics anymore. You have your own "Ten Commandments"... I mean, Nine.

One more, to make this a round number?

[Giancarlo]

Certainly... knowing how I would deal with the prom with my relationship... it is the first of its kind...

Politics.. bah... just causes arguments..

[Zoid]

And relationships don´t?

[Giancarlo]

Well this is with my bestfriend who happens to be a guy...