I wanna be a Republican

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

I have about had it with the actions of my own party as of late.

 

 

First of all, for those living under a rock, California is sinking under a huge deficit. We can't get the kind of funds from the feds that other states can because while the rest of the world has been drifting right, we stubbornly keep sending Democrats to Washington again and again like some kind of rebels, and thus the Republican-dominated capitol just sneers at us and chuckes as we sink further into the quicksand.

 

So now we have the State Senate fighting over budgeting. What we had so far is this:

 

DEMS: We need to raise taxes!

GOP: No! No new taxes! Fix this massive budget without raising taxes!

DEMS: Un-possible! If you think that's so easy, well then why don't you try?

GOP: Okay, here's our proposed budget. As you can see, we've cut funding for some of the large...

DEMS: REJECTED! Where is all the money for the welfare bums and people too lazy to work? The homeless gotta have their hooch!

GOP: Yeah okay well we figured you'd say that so we drew up a second budget that kind of cuts into the disability funds but...

DEMS: REJECTED! For the same reason. It is a requirement that we spend large amounts of money to help those who won't help themselves! It is far, far more important than saving our state's economy from financial collapse!

 

This is the second time now that this has happened. The first time someone said that "the poor will be dying in the streets." Seriously. Now it's...

The Senate soundly rejected a Republican budget plan Tuesday after the Democrats' leader said it would "pick on the lame" to erase a deficit that could reach $38.2 billion.

 

"It's easy to pick on those who can't fight back," said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, complaining that the plan would cut too deeply into programs that help the poor, elderly and disabled.

 

In SF, some official dude got totally roasted for suggesting a plan called "Care Not Cash" where SF's homeless (homeless is becoming a huge problem there as they spend so much attention and money on the homeless that homeless from other cities move in to take advantage of it) because he wanted to just give food and shelter and aid to homeless people without giving them the cold, hard, cash they're always begging for to buy cigs and scotch. Gee, how dare he try and stem the flow of the city becoming a big destination for vagrants! We really, really want to give money to those who don't want to earn it!

 

Finally, Congress introduced a bill to put MP3 downloaders in jail. Yeah, really, let's put 90% of internet-using Americans in jail. The music industry is creaming it's pants at this, of course. And what do I see?

 

A Conyers staffer said the bill had won the backing of many Democrats but Republicans had yet to endorse it.

 

Please! Take me to the brainwashing facility and try and teach me all the lessons I need to know (I especially need "Why States Should Decide Everything", "Gun Control And Why It's Bad For You", and a huge heaping helping of "Why George W Bush Is Good For America" because I still haven't figured that one out.) If this kind of crap continues for another three months I may just give up.

 

Someone, clean the crappy politicians out of the Dem party for once? Please? I may have to start the process by moving out of California. With the economy as it is, I don't think I can afford to keep living here.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Speaking as a registered Rep., it's always nice to be on the side with all the money.

 

However, think about this. The country has a $450 billion deficit and Reps. allegedly run things on Capital Hill. I know there's a War on Terror going on, but there is currently too much wasteful spending that has nothing to do with Iraq.

 

BUT, whenever I start to wonder if I'm in the right Party, the Dems always do something to re-affirm my Party status.

 

I guess one big change will be the letters you get asking for campaign donations. Instead of stuff like (I imagine since I don't actually get Dem. fundraising letters) "Help stop the facist Bush regime" you'll get "We need you to put an end to Hillary."

 

Either way trees are still being killed...

[Guest Ripper]

I say become a hippie and just say fuck all politics.

 

 

Hippie in '04 - the way to go!

 

*Gives thumbs up and cheesy smile at imaginary camera*

[Guest JMA]

I myself don't belong to either party. I feel it's the best way to go.

[Guest Mad Dog]

Well at least your seeing what a lot of the Republicans on here have been saying for the past year.

 

I used to be an independant but the Democrats basically dropped me on the Republican HQ doorstep with all their actions.

[Guest Ripper]

Get laid off a few times and you'll be saying fuck the Republican party right along with the Democrats. We need a third party that just comes out and says "Both these guys REALLY suck and don't care about you at all. Voteforme!!"

 

I say...the Hippie Party...

[Guest JMA]

Get laid off a few times and you'll be saying fuck the Republican party right along with the Democrats. We need a third party that just comes out and says "Both these guys REALLY suck and don't care about you at all. Voteforme!!"

 

I say...the Hippie Party...

You should use the "Hippie Party" as a posting gimmick. It could be interesting.

[Guest Mad Dog]

Ripper,

 

That's kind of funny that everytime I get a paycheck I want to yell fuck the Democratic Party everytime I look at how much taxes took out.

[Guest Ripper]

When they take taxes OUT YOUR CHECK! Imagine not getting one AT ALL.

 

I remember the good ol' Clinton days where if I went to work and they asked me to do something unreasonable I could be like "Fuck that, I QUIT...I can get another job TODAY!!!" And they would be like. "Okay, maybe we were asking too much."

 

Now they can come in and say "Hey, William, I need you to go outside and wash my car with your favorite shirt..." And all I could say is..."Do you want one coat of wax or two."

 

People who bitch about taxes don't know the pain of no check. Fucking republicans turning a record surplus into a record deficit.

[Guest Mad Dog]

Yeah I guess the economic slowdown at the end of Clinton's term is all Bush's fault. Experts had been saying well before Clinton's term was over that it was going to happen and 9-11 made things worse than it was going to be.

[Guest JMA]

Here we go...

[Guest Mad Dog]

Me thinks that was my last comment so as not to start a fight.

[Guest Ripper]

It wouldn't be much of a argument because I hate basically all the political bullshit. I just think that Bush's staff has done a pretty shitty job and Clintons Staff did a better one. Anyone with the balls to be the target of numerous death threats and personal attacks can be president. Its all about their staff.

 

Thats why I vote Hippie. If anyone ask "Mr. President what about taxes." he would respond " Man...i don't..ermsjklafo..jus don't cut down the trees man...no war...." and his entire staff would just start laughing and asking for more cheetos.

 

See, if we had hippies in the White House, at least there would be a REASON for having a fucked up economy. A bunch of College degree having Harvard graduates fucking things up pisses me off.

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

It sounds like the Democrats are like the Conservative party in the UK. The government needs an alternative, but the alternative is so crap it leaves people with no-one to go to.

[Guest Vyce]

Some more good news for CA democrats - Dems party heads are so outraged by the potential (probable?) Davis recall, they've sworn that to punish all of you they will not run a democratic candidate to replace him.

 

So look forward to Governor Arnold!!!!

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Im all for a 3rd party, but I don't think a viable 3rd party will ever exist, and even if a 3rd party candidate pulled off a miracle upset and became President, they'd never be able to move any legislation through Congress.

[Guest Anglesault]

Jobber, wasn't there a plan like last year to stuff all your homeless on a cruise ship for some months?

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

However, think about this. The country has a $450 billion deficit and Reps. allegedly run things on Capital Hill. I know there's a War on Terror going on, but there is currently too much wasteful spending that has nothing to do with Iraq.

This is true. Put nothing but Republicans in power and suddently "Conservatives" get a thing for pork.

 

But what's going on here is ridiculous. The SF voters actually voted for "Care not Cash" and a judge overruled it. Now all the bleeding-hearts are trying to pick it apart.

 

EDIT: AngleSault, yep there was actually a plan to use an abandoned ship as a homeless shelter. SF also once thought about running city-owned marijuana producing plants and, get this, paying the homeless to maintain it. Yeah, they're not going to put their hands in the proverbial cookie jar or anything.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Wasn't it the Mayor of New York City's idea to put homeless people on cruise ships?

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

No, actually. That was ours.

 

We have more homeless people than New York City, even though NYC has so many bazillions more people than SF does. Heck, San Jose to the south now has more people in it than SF does. There's just a huge amount of poverty there.

 

Someone once jokingly said that we should send the cruise ships to New York, but anyway...

 

Seems the GOP's second budget proposal was pretty half-assed. From the Chronicle's sole conservative-leaning columnist:

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...18/ED141014.DTL

 

Alas, the GOP has failed to come across as the party with a serious solution. Tuesday afternoon, Senate Republicans voted on their own budget proposals. Senate GOP leader Jim Brulte patted the Rs on their collective back for not raising taxes. True, the GOP bill did target some egregious small- ticket boondoggles. But in the name of cutting spending, the GOP also tried to raise spending by restoring Democrat-proposed budget cuts in the over- protected Department of Corrections. The net "savings" added up to just $2.7 billion. Bottom line: It wasn't a serious effort. They didn't even pass their own bill. None of the Senate's 25 Democrats voted for the measure. Worse, two of the Senate's 15 Repubs failed to support it.

 

Even some Democrats concede the GOP may win its quest to get a budget passed without a tax hike -- that is, other than the $4 billion car-fee tax raised administratively by Team Davis in June. Legislators have seen polls that show that voters oppose essentially any tax -- unless it squeezes smokers or rich people.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

This is true. Put nothing but Republicans in power and suddently "Conservatives" get a thing for pork.

It happens no matter who is in power. It's funny that we as voters bitch about pork spending and then we re-elect these same pols because they "bring money back to the state or district."

 

I pretty much gave up on the Republican Party back in the mid-'90 with the debate over whether or not to fund the National Endowment for the Arts. Instead of abolishing it, they gave the institution MORE money.

 

If we can't get rid of -- or at least cut back -- this little pimple of program, how the heck are we going to "fix" the big ones (Social Security, Medicare, etc)?

 

Vote GOP -- at least they won't raise your taxes RIGHT AWAY...

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Yeah I guess the economic slowdown at the end of Clinton's term is all Bush's fault.  Experts had been saying well before Clinton's term was over that it was going to happen and 9-11 made things worse than it was going to be.

It was interesting to watch the economic meltdown happen in March of 2000 while Bill was prancing around the world.

 

However, it's funny sometimes to watch pundits say our current conditions are all Clintion's fault, despite the fact it has been THREE years since 2000. It also seems like the economy is getting back on track, which should have Dems crapping their pants in '04...

[Guest Big Poppa Popick]

Jobber,

 

Embrace the light. Go Libertarian. Best of both worlds =)

 

No, in all seriousness, what fucked Cali up is the referendums which Reagan rode into the White House on. Moving democracy more grass-roots, that's what referendums did, and they're allowing Special Interests to pass legislations without having to go to the capital *be it state or national* to do it. The mass democratization of the last twenty years has reduced the "liberalness" of America, and thats where our problems lie.

 

America is meant to be liberal, classically liberal, founding fathers liberal, not the pervereted versions of today. And again, its the referendums that are the problem. America, supposedly being a "representative republic" now legislations completely democratically, involving all the people.

 

Sadly, short of shooting all the lobbyists and changing quite a few election laws, we're screwed until the mass of america wakes up to see all the governments been taken over by small group lobbies.

 

Sucks, doesnt it

 

Vote Libertarian. We won't win, but at least you didn't vote Democrat

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

It was interesting to watch the economic meltdown happen in March of 2000 while Bill was prancing around the world.

Oh dear. Rather than trying to shift blame on a President, let's just admit that the .com companies were only sellling equipment to each other and after they stopped feeding themselves and the stockholders wanted to see some profit, the bottom fell out.

 

I wind up with somewhere between kkk and poppick. I understand lowercase-l libertarians (people who subscribe to libertarian beliefs but vote and register Republican because there's no chance a third party wins) and uppcase-l Libertarians (people who actually register and vote for that party and watch it lose repeatedly.)

 

The former seems a little less crazy than the latter, but the Republicans have suddently changed to going faster than hell on the war machine. After all this time of peaceful activity I don't feel comfortable going back to the Cold War time of going to sleep feeling uneasy about the world and reading war reports every morning in the news. I wish the "post-9/11 era" could come to an end already and we could put away the rhetoric and return to a rather normal life, even though we acknowledge that our landmass is not as invulnerable to attack as we previously believed.

[Guest Big Poppa Popick]

I echo those sentiments Jobber...

 

Though not an isolationist by any means, in this day and age when we're so far ahead of the game compared to the rest of the world, perhaps save the EU who is just behind ...

 

why are we so damn worried about things.

 

I would place bets that alot of the messes were in now wouldnt be around if we just practiced what we preach and shut up about peep's business.

 

I don't think imperial and democracy are terms we're supposed to be using together...

 

Oops.

 

Why am I moving to DC again? Ill probably wind up going crazy

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Join the Dark Side Jobber.

 

:evil cackle:

 

All joking aside. I'm not completley happy with the Republican party. Bush is becoming too much of a big gov't conservative for my liking. I like what he's doing on foreign policy, but domestically he needs improvment.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

See, Bush is what gets me. Although we can't necessarily call it a day and say the piper has been paid until Al-Qaeda has been disassembled, what we need to prevent another 9/11 is beefing up defenses at home. At the same time, most of dismantling Al-Qaeda is freezing financial assets and arresting fugitives. Those things have nothing to do with planes taking off aircraft carriers and tanks rolling around in the desert. =/

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Securing the borders would be a start. The President doesn't seem interested in doing this. I don't know if he believes that illgal immigrants should be allowed in, or if he's afraid to upset such a large voting base.

The use of military force has removed a safe haven for Al Qaeda, and has overthrown the Hussein regime. It also shows that the U.S. isn't afraid to take on the enemy.

[Guest DrTom]

I understand lowercase-l libertarians (people who subscribe to libertarian beliefs but vote and register Republican because there's no chance a third party wins)...

That's me right there. Though my reason for not voting Libertarian is different: the party has some dreadfully stupid platforms, and all the candidates I've seen come across as wackos and malcontents. I buy into the basic small-L libertarian ideals, though, some of which are also at the core of conservatism. I vote Republican because the GOP candidates' beliefs come closer to mine.

 

Well, that and Democrats suck.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Honestly...

 

It's better to stay independent. Everywhere in our nation, politicians tend to be greedy, self-important bastards with only their re-election campaigns in mind. I don't care on which side of the fence you're sitting; frankly, the Republicans and the Democrats both fall for the trick. If you're too ideological and will only vote for one party, you will often make the mistake of voting for these fools who would just as soon lie to you as they would do the right thing.

 

I find that the Democratic party, in itself, seems to be much closer to my interests than any other (as if that's a surprise), but I also find that they rarely actually do what is in my best interest. Therefore, the best way to avoid falling into the trap is to stay independent and let your best interests determine the way you vote. Of course, that'll never happen; it requires that you actually research the candidate and hold him/her accountable for what he/she is supposed to be doing.