Visit the Ironworks Gaming Website Email the Webmaster Graphics Library Rules and Regulations Help Support Ironworks Forum with a Donation to Keep us Online - We rely totally on Donations from members Donation goal Meter

Ironworks Gaming Radio

Ironworks Gaming Forum

Go Back   Ironworks Gaming Forum > Ironworks Gaming Forums > General Discussion
FAQ Calendar Arcade Today's Posts Search

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 01-28-2010, 01:28 PM   #11
machinehead
Drizzt Do'Urden
 

Join Date: April 9, 2001
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 69
Posts: 630
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by John D Harris View Post
We all wait with baited breath for you revelations.
I really really hope you meant bated breath as I'd hate to think what a redneck from Bama is baiting his breath with these days. :1puke:

Last edited by machinehead; 01-28-2010 at 01:30 PM.
machinehead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 02:11 PM   #12
Chewbacca
Zartan
 

Join Date: July 18, 2001
Location: America, On The Beautiful Earth
Age: 51
Posts: 5,373
Heart Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by robertthebard View Post
Actually, my question is how many representatives did we really need there? How many of those that went actually attended the event, instead of taking a paid vacation, at our expense? All typical government tactics, no matter what side of the aisle, but taking the family on vacation in Copenhagen is not supporting your stance, TL, unless your stance is that we should all get vacations in Copenhagen on the US tax payers.

Yeah, it's a GW/GC conference, so senators made their kids go to the meetings? No? Then maybe they should have left their families at home.


Why not be proud our Nation is well represented internationally and prosperous enough to send some family along? Nevermind (and darn) the sour grapers and failure enablers!
__________________
Support Local Music and Record Stores!
Got Liberty?

Last edited by Chewbacca; 01-28-2010 at 02:13 PM. Reason: drn
Chewbacca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 02:44 PM   #13
Timber Loftis
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: July 11, 2002
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 11,916
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

I'll second the wookie's point: the schadenfreude coming from the right is unseemly these days. Why do you hate the USA?
__________________
Timber Loftis is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 03:04 PM   #14
robertthebard
Xanathar Thieves Guild
 

Join Date: March 17, 2001
Location: Wichita, KS USA
Age: 62
Posts: 4,537
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chewbacca View Post
Why not be proud our Nation is well represented internationally and prosperous enough to send some family along? Nevermind (and darn) the sour grapers and failure enablers!
We're several trillions of dollars in debt. If they want to bring their families, why didn't they pay for their own transportation? Sour graper, yeah, I guess I can own that. All this extra transportation to a summit on how bad Man Made GW/CC is? Yeah, ok.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timber Loftis View Post
I'll second the wookie's point: the schadenfreude coming from the right is unseemly these days. Why do you hate the USA?
I just hate that our government thinks our money is for their entertainment.
__________________
To those we have lost; May your spirits fly free.
Interesting read, one of my blogs.
robertthebard is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 03:13 PM   #15
Timber Loftis
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: July 11, 2002
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 11,916
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by robertthebard View Post
I just hate that our government thinks our money is for their entertainment.
Two things:
1. Copenhagen was anything but entertaining except in a morose way.

2. No one likes government waste, but really how can we keep missing the forest for the trees? While you rail and bang your fist over these (truly miniscule) wasted dollars our legislators spent on travel, do you stop to consider the (truly monstrous) costs we'll face if we can't solve this crisis?

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/cost/contents.asp
__________________
Timber Loftis is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 03:58 PM   #16
Chewbacca
Zartan
 

Join Date: July 18, 2001
Location: America, On The Beautiful Earth
Age: 51
Posts: 5,373
Laughing Out Loud Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timber Loftis View Post
I'll second the wookie's point: the schadenfreude coming from the right is unseemly these days. Why do you hate the USA?
It's not just the right! It's become sorta popular to hate and blame the government. The media is obviously desperate to get on the bandwagon. So they go where the ratings go, a land fraught with big egos; and watch your anger- it may be exploited.


Spin a typical expense report into the werst gubberment waist evar! CBS no doubt now one of the dying giants imitating Fox and CNN... and failing.
__________________
Support Local Music and Record Stores!
Got Liberty?
Chewbacca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 04:03 PM   #17
Timber Loftis
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: July 11, 2002
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 11,916
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

David Brooks had this to say about the rising tide of populism, which may be what you're referring to:

The Populist Addiction
By DAVID BROOKS

Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds. The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.

These two attitudes — populism and elitism — seem different, but they’re really mirror images of one another. They both assume a country fundamentally divided. They both describe politics as a class struggle between the enlightened and the corrupt, the pure and the betrayers.

Both attitudes will always be with us, but these days populism is in vogue. The Republicans have their populists. Sarah Palin has been known to divide the country between the real Americans and the cultural elites. And the Democrats have their populists. Since the defeat in Massachusetts, many Democrats have apparently decided that their party has to mimic the rhetoric of John Edwards’s presidential campaign. They’ve taken to dividing the country into two supposedly separate groups — real Americans who live on Main Street and the insidious interests of Wall Street.

It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.

Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.

Third, populism is popular with the ruling class. Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power.

So it’s easy to see the seductiveness of populism. Nonetheless, it nearly always fails. The history of populism, going back to William Jennings Bryan, is generally a history of defeat.

That’s because voters aren’t as stupid as the populists imagine. Voters are capable of holding two ideas in their heads at one time: First, that the rich and the powerful do rig the game in their own favor; and second, that simply bashing the rich and the powerful will still not solve the country’s problems.

Political populists never get that second point. They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.

In fact, this country was built by anti-populists. It was built by people like Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln who rejected the idea that the national economy is fundamentally divided along class lines. They rejected the zero-sum mentality that is at the heart of populism, the belief that economics is a struggle over finite spoils. Instead, they believed in a united national economy — one interlocking system of labor, trade and investment.

Hamilton championed capital markets and Lincoln championed banks, not because they loved traders and bankers. They did it because they knew a vibrant capitalist economy would maximize opportunity for poor boys like themselves. They were willing to tolerate the excesses of traders because they understood that no institution is more likely to channel opportunity to new groups and new people than vigorous financial markets.

In their view, government’s role was not to side with one faction or to wage class war. It was to rouse the energy and industry of people at all levels. It was to enhance competition and make it fair — to make sure that no group, high or low, is able to erect barriers that would deprive Americans of an open field and a fair chance. Theirs was a philosophy that celebrated development, mobility and work, wherever those things might be generated.

The populists have an Us versus Them mentality. If they continue their random attacks on enterprise and capital, they will only increase the pervasive feeling of uncertainty, which is now the single biggest factor in holding back investment, job creation and growth. They will end up discrediting good policies (the Obama bank reforms are quite sensible) because they will persuade the country that the government is in the hands of reckless Huey Longs.

They will have traded dynamic optimism, which always wins, for combative divisiveness, which always loses.
__________________
Timber Loftis is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 04:05 PM   #18
Chewbacca
Zartan
 

Join Date: July 18, 2001
Location: America, On The Beautiful Earth
Age: 51
Posts: 5,373
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by robertthebard View Post
We're several trillions of dollars in debt. If they want to bring their families, why didn't they pay for their own transportation? Sour graper, yeah, I guess I can own that. All this extra transportation to a summit on how bad Man Made GW/CC is? Yeah, ok.


I just hate that our government thinks our money is for their entertainment.
I don't mind giving public servants like representatives and diplomats perks like some taking family along.



I'm not scared of the deficit, we have overcome and so we shall.


Little things won't be all that fix it.
__________________
Support Local Music and Record Stores!
Got Liberty?
Chewbacca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 04:10 PM   #19
Chewbacca
Zartan
 

Join Date: July 18, 2001
Location: America, On The Beautiful Earth
Age: 51
Posts: 5,373
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Great article T.L.!
__________________
Support Local Music and Record Stores!
Got Liberty?
Chewbacca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-28-2010, 04:55 PM   #20
robertthebard
Xanathar Thieves Guild
 

Join Date: March 17, 2001
Location: Wichita, KS USA
Age: 62
Posts: 4,537
Default Re: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chewbacca View Post
I don't mind giving public servants like representatives and diplomats perks like some taking family along.



I'm not scared of the deficit, we have overcome and so we shall.


Little things won't be all that fix it.
Don't they get enough perks? You know, I tried to vote myself a payraise at my last job, and got laughed at. What other job can you think of where you can decide you're not making enough money from your pork programs and write yourself a bigger paycheck. Granted this has been a while, but that's on hell of a perk. Note that I don't care if it's Republican or Democrat doing it. Middle of the road politics, and it's not one side of the aisle or the other that's guilty. It's all of 'em.
__________________
To those we have lost; May your spirits fly free.
Interesting read, one of my blogs.
robertthebard is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
.Obama prods Congress to pass health bill quickly Felix The Assassin General Discussion 20 01-12-2010 12:58 PM
Congress approves landmark conservation bill Chewbacca General Discussion 4 03-26-2009 10:46 AM
USA vs Denmark HammerHead General Conversation Archives (11/2000 - 01/2005) 21 04-27-2003 05:56 AM
Icewind dale 2 made it to Denmark Warhammer Icewind Dale | Heart of Winter | Icewind Dale II Forum 0 09-02-2002 09:50 AM
Did anyone see the football match between Denmark and Iceland? Neb General Conversation Archives (11/2000 - 01/2005) 0 10-06-2001 05:40 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:41 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
©2024 Ironworks Gaming & ©2024 The Great Escape Studios TM - All Rights Reserved