Question, by Squab Dove: Is it me or do most people only know the word “compromise” as if compromise is the best option? Compromise by its definition means both parties get less than what they wanted. Why don’t people seek out a collaborative agreement, a win-win? Do we not understand what that means? Are we too greedy to care?

The trouble is competing ideology. Either side has a totally different approach to constructing the solution for certain problems.

But yes, indeed, we are talking about negotiation when we talk about compromise. Obama seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what negotiation means. Think of the whole opening dialogue with Iran campaign point. He doesn’t seem to grasp that negotiation is and adjustment of wills according to leverage. And the goal is to have both sides leave happy. He seems to think negotiation is charming someone into doing something that they otherwise wouldn’t have without your enlightening charm.

The two sides should come together and discuss each others priorities – and make trade, like two kids trading lunch items. The more leverage you have, the more you can demand. That’s negotiation. That’s how business deals work.

Taking Obama’s legislation as an example. He made one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a negotiation, and gave the Republicans one of the biggest forms of leverage: Ability to withdraw. At first he though he had ALL the leverage, so they went after the Pelosi Special. But this scared off many conservative Dems, let everyone know the Obama administration was being belligerent, and didn’t include any Republican priorities, giving the Republicans that one big stick: Ability to withdraw and form a bipartisan opposition.

There was nothing keeping the Reps in the negotiation – actually – they were kicked right out. Remember? The closed door?

Obama claims ending the filibuster will increase compromise. That’s illogical. Ending the filibuster will only shift more leverage to the majority side. It won’t increase compromise in any way. It will only make one side able to demand more – or kick the other side out all together. This would be in the Democrat’s overall interest, because they’re “Progressives” and have a long list of big changes.

That was the fundamental failure of this presidency. He can try blaming others, but what really happened was he thought he could dictate change and ruined his position, in all of two months. Good work Pelosi. Obama could have pulled the other side in and ONLY passed solutions both sides agreed upon, and strengthened his position – validated his Obama mystique.

Think about that. Think about if he had immediately passed a short and easily implementable healthcare reform bill that first fall. A bill both sides had a stake in and showed some pleasant results that year. He would have earned credibility, and significantly increased his leverage for Phase 2. And Phase 3 might happen in year 6 of the Obama administration and look like a public option.

And yes, there would have been butt-hurt Reps over there holding out on anything. But he could have grabbed half or a third with an honest healthcare reform bill, or at least kept all his Democrats. Had Obama lead his legislative efforts more thoughtfully, the Republicans wouldn’t have had a choice but to support a small attractive bill. They wouldn’t have had the Ability to Withdraw.

Instead he now has the record of passing, or attempting to pass, three bills, all with purely partisan support, and all with bipartisan opposition:

1. Spent $800 billion that didn’t seem to do one good-damn thing.
2. Half passed a cap’n trade bill that scared – and is scaring – the shit out of business during a recession.
3. Passed a health care bill against the will of the people and through the use of parliamentary tricks.

Bad economy or not, the reason Obama’s support has dwindled is this: He didn’t do enough for the Left, and the moderates feel like they got scammed.

I was watching the news recently and there was a Clean Coal commercial talking about how they already trap a lot of CO2 from their processes and contain it.  The commercial went on to describe new breakthrough ideas and concepts for storing this trapped CO2, like burying it under the ground and at the bottom of the ocean.  These are ideas that have really gained a lot of exposure lately.  This is apparently the next big hope of the global warming camp for saving the planet.  And why shouldn’t it be?  I mean, hasn’t burying toxic, harmful, and other health hazardous materials always worked like a charm?

If I hadn’t seen hour long specials on Discovery about these methods and didn’t know these ideas were serious, I’d totally think they were the product of some 3rd grade science project with the cute little displays assembled in a half box with paper mache and sand held down with globs of Elmer’s Glue.  This IS the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard for storing the world’s CO2.  Never mind the general idea of trapping all CO2 in the world in the first place, which is completely ignorant for obvious reason.  If we could and then ram-rodded it all underground and pumped it to the bottom of the oceans, we’d destroy the planet for sure.  It would probably cause some global life ending catastrophe.

Hasn’t the history and success record of storing dangerous things underground or at the bottom of the ocean already proved over and over that we shouldn’t purposefully use this as a means of containment?  All you hear about is how these materials stored underground, or even above ground that seeped underground, contaminate ground and drinking water.  There are cases of CO2, having seeped out of the ground and kept pressurized at the bottom of lakes, is disturbed by a landslide and escapes, killing hundreds of people in their sleep, like a cloud of death.  Community organizations and committees always vehemently protest and fight such things as garbage dumps and underground toxic containment sites from being built near their cities.  Everyone knows these things are bad for the environment and will inevitably cause cancer, birth defects, and worse.

Imagine now trapping all the CO2 in the world and trying to find a city willing to serve as the underground storage site for it.  There would be outrage or probably worse, because everyone knows its a horrible idea.  Common sense tells us this is a disaster waiting to happen.  Why has it taken thousands of scientists, engineers, and others to come up with the worst idea possible?  This is elementary stuff.  Common sense stuff.  Even idiot common sense stuff.  But yet it’s the premier storage idea for all this CO2 they want to trap.  Bury it… Seriously?

The reason I’m called Squab Dove is because I’m the youngest and least experienced Dove on the team here at NoisyDove.com. Some may also refer to this as the most naive. I like to think of myself as the most daring, hopeful, and courageous. Noisy Dove probably thinks of me as a little too idealistic, but I help round things out around here I think.

I’m definitely more conservative in my views and beliefs. But there are times when I try to wrap my head around politics and politicians without thinking in terms of conservative, liberal, or progressive. One such thought is, what do politicians really get out of pushing their agendas, policies, and politics on a personal level? Do they really receive some kind of personal profit from such actions? Does the president make money himself some how by pushing climate reform for example? Or does he take hold of some kind of personal power and persuasion over the country and people that enable him to benefit from that power on a personal level, apart from maybe an ego boost?

I think this is an important question to ask, because the answer has profound implications. I’m not saying I will or can answer this, but you know what I mean. If there is no personal benefit to pushing certain agendas and such, then it would lead me to conclude that politicians do what they do because they really think it is the best thing for the country and people in it. But if they do it for real personal gain, then its all pretty much what it looks like and their is little surprise. I would love to be surprised to discover that most politicians push their agendas because they think it truly is best for the country and people. That’s the sad part really though isn’t it? That we mostly think politicians push certain agendas for personal gain of some kind.

In the end, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle, as answers usually do. There are probably some who do receive some kind of personal gain and those that are actually more concerned with doing good for the country and people, turning down personal gain on grounds of principle and national pride.

One figure that comes to mind when I think of whether politicians get some kind of personal gain from pushing their agendas is Al Gore. I think he is a prime example of one who exploits his political position for personal gain, both financial and influential (or power). He is by far one of the slimiest SOB’s out there, well, one of the slimiest out there that is dumb enough to make his efforts and evil agenda so obvious and visible. Al Gore has positioned himself to make millions and millions of dollars off of his “green” push. He is SO bold though in doing stupid shit completely contrary to his “green” preaching, sermons, and documentaries. Like his latest hypocritical move, buying that 9 million dollar home, on the dam OCEAN. The same one he warned everyone else not to buy land on because the rising climate would cause it to be completely covered by the ocean as ocean levels rise. Al Gore is just the tip of the iceberg though. His agenda is mild and child like compared to some of the darker more insidious figures in Washington.

Perhaps some of the worst offenders are those that push an agenda that is really bad for the country and people, but they actually and truly think it is the best. Like those that think gas prices need to go to $10 a gallon to force a “green” economy and permanent shift to electric, wind, and other power sources. Or those that push an agenda that leads American toward socialism, thinking that a socialist government and country if superior to our capitalistic democracy. These people are totally whacked and need to spend a year in an actual socialist country. They would shit themselves and cry for capitalism like a bunch of little scared girls.

What do you think? are our politicians and Washington in it for personal gain? Or are they in it for noble and principled reasons and motives? I sure hope more for the later.

*sigh*

I’m exasperated by our current events. Obama… Yeah… He did another talk. He said a bunch of things he and his team determined would garner him support, based on their analysis. “I’m sticking a moratorium on offshore oil.”

Why? Because offshore oil is in the news and people are angry at it? No. Apparently we want to find out if there’s like – trouble – or something, with drilling.

I’ve been tempted to make the argument against a moratorium. You know, point out the chances of another exploding rig, the magnitude of difference between the cost of this spill and the much greater cost of the moratorium, the fact we’ll replace the offshore oil with imported oil, and the fact that the gulf coast economy is half fishing/tourism and half offshore oil. And don’t forget we NEED oil. A reality with 200 million electric cars running on wind-generated electricity is a little ways off, and we can’t get there without oil.

Obama tried telling us he’s got things under control – he’s doing the right stuff – everything’s being done right now. Yeah, Obama is like the flight attendant on Die Hard 2 who tells McClain’s wife they have plenty of fuel, but an hour later the pilots are attempting a desperate night landing on a terrorist controlled runway with no lights in the middle of the night during a blizzard without ground clearance.

And Obama is using the crisis as a stick to hit his opposition to the cap and trade bill. Not the best tactic if you ask me. To anyone directly affected by the disaster, it will seem cheap – a politician tapping us for political capital. To people already apposed to tricky taxes on energy, it will also look cheap. The only people buying the idea that an oil leak is a reason to tax carbon are the people already wanting to tax carbon.

- All this without talking about stopping the leak. All he said was that BP would be recovering up to 90% of the oil gushing out – soon. Up to? Seriously? Is this an ad for a weight loss program???

If I had to describe the address in a tweet, it would be thus: Obama trying to talk himself out of trouble.

As for Obama’s support regardless of the address, this one is just another bean for sorting. The same Democrats who were blaming anything and everything on Bush – and are still – are now defending Obama with the simple logic that eluded them so throughout most of this decade. And the same Republicans who were defending Bush are now content to let Obama drown in the sea of ignorant public perception, finding it a just irony.

In the recent primaries and elections, the Tea Party has proven itself a political force. I still don’t know what to make of them, though. They’s stated they don’t want to create another political party, but reform the ones we’ve got. I like that. Yet there’s something about their decked out patriot costumes and slogans that shouts Obama Birthers and 9/11 Truthers. What do you think? Is the Tea Party something to support?

Movements can be powerful. A powerful movement is good or dangerous – depending on your politics.

The Tea Party is a unique type of movement for the United States. It’s large and quiet. Most US movements are small and loud, representing specific minority issues, and are often organized and financed by unions and other organizations.

The Tea Party movement represents the general ideas of efficiently small government and personal responsibility, which are ideas held by the majority of working Americans, regardless of past voting habits. And the movement is ‘grass roots,’ meaning it simply sprang up comprising numerous like-minded people throughout society. That’s why Tea Party rallies are held on the weekend, so the whole group doesn’t have to get the day off, unlike the common Hippy-Liberal rallies that appear on weekdays intentionally to be disruptive.

You can tell the Tea Party movement is powerful just by how nervous it makes outspoken Liberals. And the Liberal criticism of the movement is weak at best. Liberals, including Obama, describe the Tea Party like they’re Anarchists, wanting no government – but the Tea Party just wants government to stop growing wildly. They agree government is a good thing.

Liberals describe the Tea Party as hateful and dangerous – but the Tea Party has harmed no one, committed no property damage (unheard of at Liberal rallies), don’t cause disruption, and even pick up after themselves. The favorite Liberalcriticism of the Tea Party, of course, is that Tea Party activists are anti-Obama racists – but the only examples of racist behavior has been by Liberals planting themselves at Tea Party rallies. There’s even a $100,000 reward for evidence of a Tea Partier using a racial slur – unclaimed!

The Tea Party has proven a strong force in the few special elections held since its appearance. And if you believe in its basic principles – not further growing/financing more government bureaucracies – then supporting it is natural. The few goofballs wearing the 1700s gear, birthers, and 9/11 truthers are few at most. As far as political rallies go, you’d expect to see more weirdos. But the average Tea Partier is the average working American. Don’t be fooled by the press and its tendency to show only the most eccentric or dangerous looking members of a protest in its news reports. Yeah, the Tea Party is mostly white, but so is America.

The real question is strategic: What will this movement mean for the direction of the country? Movements like this can be extremely productive in promoting their ideas – but can be equally as destructive to them.

Electing Brown in Massachusetts was an example of a productive direction of power. It stuck a republican into one of the most traditionally Democratic seats in Congress. An example of a possibly destructive direction was the Tea Party induced victory of Rand Paul over Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s Republican primary election for the mid-term Senate race. Grayson was the more electable candidate, the one establishment Republicans were backing. And Rand Paul, somewhat a radical, has since already said a few ‘unelectable’ things…

So we’ll see. If this were a Democrat upsergence I’d predict that the eventual result would be repetition of history: Dems splitting the vote and handing victory to the minority, how Lincoln got elected. But the Tea Party is mostly Republican and Libertarian. The Libertarians worry me, but Republicans are generally a big-picture type of people who will recognize the necessity of electing electable people, rather than ideal people.

And by ‘electable’ I don’t mean moderate. Indeed, America wants a moderate government, one that will provide expert non-ideological solutions. But that would require expert non-ideological people. And those kinds of people rarely run for political office and even more rarely are elected (they’re usually ugly and/or awkward). So we have to settle for electing the most reasonable seeming ideologs in even numbers on each side of the spectrum. Right now we’re dealing with a swinging pendulum in that respect.

We witnessed a fairly unique political exchange in the experience of this summit. Has no one anything to say about it?

The president seemed to concede that some of the acquired votes he needs for the bill were ill-gotten, agreeing with Sen. McCain that Medicare recipients in FL shouldn’t be treated differently than those in AZ. But whenever discussion came up about redoing the bill, the canned response was a slap on the nose for political jockeying and moving off topic. Anything the president didn’t want to deal with was off topic! It is fair to guide the conversation when there’s limited time involved. But it also is too easily used as a dodge.

It seems to me the president has determined this bill in its current form is his program. He believes it will work, and doesn’t believe in the numbers of those who say it won’t. He also believes the American people, or at least the American people that count to him right now, want him to press ahead with his plan. What alarmed me most was his statement to Sen. McCain that he believes the American people are more interested in a vote than in how the vote is achieved.

Some of the people in that room set terrible examples for negotiative governments world-wide. Even the president couldn’t help smiling at that CBO run-around:

“The CBO was given inaccurate numbers to work with. Consequently, its conclusions are inaccurate.”
“Well! I just don’t see how we can proceed with colleagues who call into question the integrity of the distinguished Congressional Budget Office.”

Snake.

Can you believe these guys ramping up to use Reconciliation to pass the Senate bill? Oh my… You know – when Brown ganked Massachusetts, the evil partisan strategic side of me was like – Oh sweet destiny. Let them come. Oh – let them come. Draw them into the teeth of our forces. Harden their hearts and confuse their minds. Oh – let them use Reconciliation. Oh sweet arrogance – let them use Reconciliation.

There is an email going around and posted in other places on the web with some supposed quotes by Thomas Jefferson:

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe,
we shall become as corrupt as Europe .
Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.
A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the
government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson-

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Jefferson is easily applicable to today’s politics – assuming you hold the foundational principles of minimal government and isolationism. The disparity in Jefferson’s views on voting weren’t philosophical – they were social. Indians, women, and black people weren’t simply citizens viewed as not deserving of rights. Indians were the equivalent of foreigners (like Germans to France), women in that time were committed necessarily to child having, and black people were imported slaves essential to the southern economy.

Thankfully the foundational principles behind the Constitution made women’s and minority rights inevitable as the nation matured and encompassed everyone and technology freed women from the demands of maintaining the population.

Indeed though – reaching to apply a specific argument made in the 1770’s to a specific issue today is rarely specifically valid. But fundamentally, their problems were the same as ours, so were the proposed solutions.

One of my favorite misuses of founding father quotations is the one Benjamin Franklin made, for which there are numerous versions of, but are essentially this: He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

People tried using this one to argue against the patriot act. Franklin’s actual use of the phrase was in motivating the pussy-ass too-rich-and-comfortable community leaders to make war with the English Empire.

Phrase flashing is stupid anyway. There are so many perverted quotations…

Oh – and what the hell is the problem with – Tough row to hoe? Seriously! If I hear one more jerk on the TV or radio stumble over, Tough road to go, or whatever derivation – I’m going to go slap a baby. Seriously – what doe road even rhyme with?

F-me 72 minutes long.

I appreciate efforts to make positive comments. But holy horses ass don’t you hate being treated like you’re a stupid jerk who has no idea what’s happened in the past year?

Indeed, I love the idea of a capital gains tax cut on small business investment. But I’ll swear this right now – and let it be heard: If Obama and his Democrats pass such a tax cut, and actual cut and not in name only, the following Saturday, at the first strike of noon, I will cross my front street and take a shit in my mail box.

This address has amazed me. I wasn’t expecting Obama to be so brazenly and blatantly contradictory and – well – disingenuous. This address was one contradiction after another – and one skewed view of reality after another.

Seriously – he’s still trying to sell the Recovery Act as a jobs creator? Even MSNBC is calling that bill a big fat failure. No one with a brain is proud of that load of pork – Liberal victory party.

Seriously – he thinks there’s no support for this asinine health reform bill because he didn’t explain it well enough? Does he really think we’re that stupid??? Who the hell knows what is in that bill? The week before last his camp had locked themselves in a room, made dirty secret deals in order to grab votes for a secret bill. All the while Obama is constantly – on every channel every week – spouted poetry about vague ideas of health reform. Didn’t explain it well enough… Oh yeah – if only the American people understood the bill they’d all be on board. YOU KNOW DAMN WELL YOU KEPT IT A F****G SECRET BECAUSE YOU KNEW DAMN WELL IF AMERICA DID KNOW WHAT WAS IN IT THEY’D SHIT THEMSELVES OVER IT!!!!

Seriously – he wants to talk about putting old Washington politics aside? That’s what he spent the last bit of the address about, an emotionally calling for a start of new, and so on. Seriously? HE – Obama – was calling for an end to the perpetual campaign???  Come on – we aren’t all stupid. Obama himself IS that dirty style of politics – where you do [this] but talk [that]. That’s what this address IS!!!. He’s talking [$that] while doing [$this].

$that = nuclear, drilling, tax cuts, spending freeze, veto

$this = health takeover, redistribution, climate religion, command economics

I noticed something interesting. He claimed with regard to healthcare reform that he didn’t take it on to take a political victory. As he said it though, watch his body language. He didn’t believe what he was saying, or at least he wasn’t comfortable or confident saying it.

But the most honest thing he said was that he’d focus on job creation in 2010. No – I don’t believe he will focus on job creation in 2010. It’s just honest that he basically admitted that he sure as shit wasn’t focusing on jobs creation in 2009 – unless you count government jobs.

I’d get more detailed, but I’m just exhausted. Obama’s idea of sharing a cake is to take the whole damn thing up to his room. Of course his brother will disagree with that policy. So Obama will accuse his brother of “not sharing” by blocking his policy of sharing the cake.

I can’t believe a single thing Obama says anymore. I just can’t. It’s not partisanship either, or any of that blind religious belief in conservativism some would like to accuse me of, or racism, or prejudice against left handed people. It’s a simple fact I learned long ago: Some people lie.

Also, does anyone else find his narcissism a little off-putting? Shit, this whole speech was focused on Obama. I-I-I-I-I-I-I…

It is funny that every Democrat commenting on the speech has had something derogatory to say about Republicans holding up legislation. Those poor Dems… If they ever took a group trip to Baskin Robins we’d never see them again.

Come on Republicans. Get on board with our cake sharing policy! Don’t you believe we should share cake??? Why won’t you let us share the cake with you? You just want the whole cake for yourselves don’t you. Yeah, you’re selfish. Obama has bent over backwards to compromise with your guys and you’ll have nothing to do with it. It’s like – you expect Obama’s cake sharing policy to actually let you have some of the cake or something…

Shit I shouldn’t have watched this thing so early in the day. I was going to watch it last night but my connection got sick. Maybe I’ll have more detailed and less frustrated comments later.

Ha ha, look at the title of the video on the left.  It says “Secret Jesus Bible Codes”.  LOL!!  Secret Jesus Bible codes….lol.

So they put scripture as part of the serial number.  Should add some fuel to the extremist recruiting fire.