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[NinjaBoot]

Conservative politicians have never been fiscally conservative. There was never an idealized past where that was true no matter how many times they lie to people. Reagan was far far from fiscally conservative.

Indeed, but what are be using as the standard for fiscal responsibility? 

If we take the current administration's ability to spend money, then yes, every other single republican administration would be fiscally conservative compared to this, including democratic ones. 

Right now we are using the "rhetoric" as the standard I suppose.  Look at what the current Republicans have said about their stances in regards to government spending.  Its all a unilateral "less spending".  Are these Republicans campaigning on a platform of fiscal spending?  No.  They are advocating for fiscal responsibility.

Unfortunately due to politicians being politicians, you will have to take it with a grain of salt.  For the sake of argument, there you go. 

[Montague]

No... Really, republicans for the last 50+ years have been very very big on deficit spending. All you have to do is look at what they actually DO.

You may have a point here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Nadaka]

No... Really, republicans for the last 50+ years have been very very big on deficit spending. All you have to do is look at what they actually DO.

You may have a point here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And if you chart the debt along that same timeline, you will see a much more dramatic difference.

[Montague]

No... Really, republicans for the last 50+ years have been very very big on deficit spending. All you have to do is look at what they actually DO.

You may have a point here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And if you chart the debt along that same timeline, you will see a much more dramatic difference.

Well, it dipped with Clinton in office, but Obama is no Clinton. Although I imagine at some point, the debt is going to have to drop one way or another regardless of who is in office.

Hopefully these latest batch of Republicans, if elected, don't emulate Reagan quite as ardently as they advertise with this respect.

[Nadaka]

The rate of debt increase has been far higher under republican presidents.

Clinton is my favorite president, Obama is more of a moderate republican anyway.

[scriver]

Wrong.  That is what the media wants you to believe. 

Dude, I wasn't born yesterday. I was around during the Clinton years, and I can compare the different attitudes. "The media" doesn't need to tell me anything.

And no, bush did not unjustly invade anywhere.  He at the very least had the approval of congress to go to war (unlike Obama's war against Libya). 

Quick history lesson:  Getting rid of Saddam Hussein has been American foreign policy ever since the first Iraq-conflict.  This includes the Clinton Administration.  They have tried everything short of invading prior to Bush's presidency.

Whether or not a war is or is viewed worldwide as just has nothing to do with the decisions of a petty little government body. Neither does America's feelings toward Hussein.

[Heron TSG]

Aqizzar, there will be no revolt. Republicans will vote for ANYONE not named Obama. They want him out of office.

Not always true. I've talked to quite a few Republicans in my rather conservative small town, and most say that if it comes down to Romney vs. Obama, they're going to vote Obama. They say that they're basically the same on quite a few policies, but keeping Obama around for a while gives them a better shot at a good presidential candidate in 2016. Failing that, people say that they would rather stay home than vote for Santorum.

[NinjaBoot]

Now, I'm a just wandering past here, but I have to say, this argument and many like it that you seem to be making strike me as odd. I don't know who here said that he could do such things, just that the common thought is that he would want to.

And why is that?  It should strike you as odd that people should have these kinds of ideas.  Its akin to people currently saying that Obama is a Marxist or a Communist.

Not to mention the president is a very powerful position. He might not have the power to regress the world three hundred years and throw us into a new dark age, but that does not mean he would not be immensely harmful to the nation and the world.

This is why there is a clear division of power within the government.  This is why congress is there in the first place.

Some other thoughts that crossed my mind:

So yeah, the problem is not about having birth control, it is the effect of having birth control that is creating this illusion of "sexual freedom" for younger women.  Combine this with a lack of morals/parenting on both sides and you get a generation of children being raised without knowing what it takes to make a relationship work.

Are you stating here that birth control actually increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies, or are you stating that a society that is hostile to unmarried births is preferable to a society that is accepting? Because for both of these statements you will have to excuse me for asking for sources.

Yes, birth control increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies through simple numbers.  By increasing the amount of people wanting to have sex (because its now safe), you are also increasing the chances of "accidents" happening.  "Oh, I didn't take the pill."  "The condom broke."  "The Pill didn't work" (give me proof that it is 100% effective). 

Such religious intolerance!

I understand this is your idea of a punchline, but there is no joke. There was no talk of religion in the quoted post, so I can only assume you are having issues reading, it might do you good to look closer at what people say and assume
less.

I suppose it is because I read a little too much into things!

at least give a guy a fair shake.  If we disqualified candidates on what they have said before that sounds highly strange, then we'd have literally nobody to elect.  Go throughout the history of any candidate and you are likely to find statements that are troubling to some degree, depending on your perspective.

How do you expect anyone to vote for anyone? There is literally no other way to tell what they plan other then by looking at their actions in the past and their words. In both of these Santorum has been in my opinion less then sanitary. Very few leaders have done everyone they have promised, this is true, but it does not mean that you should ignore everything they say. Seriously, what metric do you use? Who do you want to vote for and why?

Currently I am in the "get Barack Obama out of office at all costs" metric.  Welcome to politics I suppose. 

Seriously though, he would be the best choice to actually follow through on his claims of fiscal responsibility. 

Wrong.  That is what the media wants you to believe.   

Although we all know the big liberal media is always lying to us, do you... Have... Anything at all to back that up?

Fuck, so long as we discount anything that could count as a actual source, let me tell you. Most people I have talked to that do not live in america and dislike america specifically mention Bush as the point where they started disliking america.

[/quote]

Look at the whole media explosion over Sarah Palin being tapped VP wrought.  Remember, VP is a pretty useless position, yet the media could just not stop talking negatively about Sarah Palin. 

Look at the whole circus that came to town when Barack Obama won the nomination.  A candidate whom only had a few years of back-benching in the senate, and prior to that.. what?  Community organizing?  Yet it was a bad thing that a useless position like VP be filled by Sarah Palin, who had real experience in managing organizations (mayor, senator), yet was somehow less experienced than Barack Obama? 

Look at the contrast to when Bush when to war and when Obama to war. 

Etc etc.  I'll stop there because I don't want to derail this thread (my apologies if I already did!)

[Heron TSG]

Well, we're talking about candidates. It can't really be a derail.

And why is that?  It should strike you as odd that people should have these kinds of ideas.  Its akin to people currently saying that Obama is a Marxist or a Communist.

Difference being that Obama actually isn't either of those things, and Santorum actually said those things.

[Montague]

The media is pretty good at trashing Democrats too, to be fair.

Remember Al Gore? Nobody could dig up any dirt at all on that guy! He was bland, inoffensive and the media managed to turn that around on him to convince the public that he was somehow a slightly insane/ robotic automation / hippie cult leader dude or whatever.

Sarah Palin, in contrast, was an extraordinarily easy target for the media to throw poop at and so they did.

So naturally, the media is going to pick apart everybody. Cept' maybe Ron Paul.

[NinjaBoot]

Santorum is a fan of earmarks and pet projects. He isn't consistently fiscally conservative, if you look at his voting record and the types of things he's attempted to get done.

That is more a fault of the system itself than a politician using it to ensure he gets reelected.  This also ties in with government being big enough to doll out earmarks in such a fashion as to now have them as a means to influence voting patterns.  People are more willing to vote for a candidate that offers them money rather than a candidate that doesn't. 

Santorum is also hard core on the idea of American Exceptionalism. While it's true everybody is going to hate the USA no matter what it does, Santorum is going to insist on the same sort of ideas that got the country into Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn't help or country to act under the idea that the US is literally blessed with a divine mission to lead the world, let alone help America's popularity overseas.

Hey, doesn't matter if American is doing the Obama Apology World Tour, they will still go to war.  Look at what happened in Libya. 

Conservative politicians have never been fiscally conservative. There was never an idealized past where that was true no matter how many times they lie to people. Reagan was far far from fiscally conservative.

Fiscally conservative is a relative term here. The neoconservative faction is definitely not fiscally conservative, but traditionally it is part of the core Republican party platform.

[/quote]

Of course, this is why we talk about "deficit reduction" instead of "debt reduction". 

[GlyphGryph]

"Oh, I didn't take the pill."  "The condom broke."  "The Pill didn't work" (give me proof that it is 100% effective). 

No birth control is 100% effective. Even abstinence only has an effective use rate of something like 70%/99.5% (Which, mind you, is actually a lower success rate for both effective and perfect use than the birth control pill.)

Yes, birth control increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies through simple numbers.  By increasing the amount of people wanting to have sex (because its now safe), you are also increasing the chances of "accidents" happening.

It's simple math, because simple math is all I can do.

You are just... incredibly wrong here. Like, look at any numbers, any surveys, any studies. Not one of them support your viewpoint on this. Birth control is tightly, INCREDIBLY tightly correlated with a tremendous drop in unwanted pregnancies.

[G-Flex]

Yes, birth control increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies through simple numbers.  By increasing the amount of people wanting to have sex (because its now safe), you are also increasing the chances of "accidents" happening.  "Oh, I didn't take the pill."  "The condom broke."  "The Pill didn't work" (give me proof that it is 100% effective).

Please back this up with at least some sort of factual information. Especially the notion that, without birth control, people wouldn't be having sex unless they wanted to get pregnant. If you're going to say stuff that is this controversial, you should probably cite your sources.

[NinjaBoot]

Well, we're talking about candidates. It can't really be a derail.

And why is that?  It should strike you as odd that people should have these kinds of ideas.  Its akin to people currently saying that Obama is a Marxist or a Communist.

Difference being that Obama actually isn't either of those things, and Santorum actually said those things.

You sure about that?  Obama nationalized the student loans industry.  He is also in the process of nationalising Healthcare.  He also ensured that the government now owns a portion of GM. 

[GlyphGryph]

Hey, doesn't matter if American is doing the Obama Apology World Tour, they will still go to war.  Look at what happened in Libya. 

Yes, please, tell me - how many soldiers did we lose in Obama's war compared to Bush's war? How long did it take us to win Obama's war compared to Bush's war? How much did we spend? The people asked us to be there, begged us to come, and we earned goodwill from the citizens of the country rather than their hatred. And, to top it all off, we didn't START this war - we joined it midway through due to treaty obligations we are expected to fulfil, and which congress, in fact, approved.

Libya did far more good for us and accomplished quite a bit more for quite a bit less than the mess we got into in Iraq. I could see someone who was opposed to the Iraq war making a good case against Libya, and I'd have no problem with them. But the SOLE argument people use is "see - Obama does it to!", and that's a bullshit argument hands down.