"That might lead one to not worry about bears if you're hiking, and to think that carrying a gun and shooting bear could actually make things worse."

Again, I agree I just like to play devils advocate with the gun/pepper spray thing because I think a lot of the 'pepper spray for bears' advocates are in reality anti-gun. I think if I went in to grizzly country I would probably carry spray.

Here are another couple examples to stir the pot...

several of these kids had bear spray, nobody used it
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaska-bear-attack-nols-kids-did-phenomenal-job

this guy shot and killed his hunting buddy with a large caliber rifle during the attack
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44648280/ns/us_news-life/t/bullet-not-bear-killed-hunter-mont-grizzly-attack/#.TvSMYNQV0sI

Edited by TylerD on 12/23/2011 07:17:53 MST.

"In fact now the Tea Party is so ingrained in the Republican Party that they are practically running the show."

I think "the tea party" has been subsumed and corrupted by the right wingers that are in control of the Republican Party.

I remember demonstrations where people carried signs "keep your government hands off my social security". Recently, the tea party Republicans passed a bill to turn SS into a voucher system which I think would lead to a reduction in SS, definitely the government hands were reducing SS. Even Newt Gengrich said it was "right wing social engineering" until he got slapped down.

The Tea Party Republican's #1 (and #2 and #3) issue is tax cuts (for rich people). They never say "rich people" but you can infer that. In 2009, 2010 they fillibustered almost everything until they cut a deal preserving the Bush tax cuts which went primarily to rich people and then agreed to some liberal bills like allowing homesexuals in the military, extending unemployment,...

Now, when there's a bill to preserve payroll tax cut (for moderate income people) they voted against it, except they may be caving on that because it's so embarrasing and obvious they only care about tax cuts for rich people.

The "tea party Republicans" only care about tax cuts for rich people and don't care about the 99%.

I disagree, I think the Tea Party is controlling the Republican Party to the detriment of the Republican Party. I think the Tea Party has Rep's so scared that if they compromise one inch they will be replaced in the next election. We can argue weather this is a good or bad thing but I think it has been incredibly effective.

I think by "keep your hands off my social security" they mean stop spending the money, leave it in a lock box and let it earn interest rather than borrowing against it and leaving a bunch of IOU's.

One of my problems with the Republican party is the tax cuts for the rich. One of the things I like about the Tea Party and Libertarians is that they want smaller government and tax cuts across the board. In fact a lot of Tea Partiers and Libertarians want such a small government that income would not be taxed for anyone. To me that is the core of the Tea Party. Republican RHINO's are the ones I see pushing for tax cuts only for the rich.

The payroll tax cut is really a cut in contributions to SS which is already severely underfunded. Calling it a "payroll tax cut" is a really misleading name in my opinion to the point of being detrimental. This issue is a perfect example of how the Tea Party has effectively hijacked the Republican Party. I think most Repubs want to compromise, go home for xmas and pass it but the Tea Party has them scared to death that if they agree to 1 cent in tax raises in exchange for 1,000 in tax cuts that they are RHINO's and will be replaced by a true conservative. Perfect example of how the Tea Party is literally controlling the country on some issues. The Occupy people have had not even a fraction of this type of effectiveness. They are too busy being arrested and being pepper sprayed for lack of paperwork and fighting with the police over park overnight camping rules.

I agree Repubs fight for the rich, that is what ticks me off the most about my party. A true conservative, libertarian, tea partier, whatever you want to call it wants such small government that income taxes are unnecessary.

Did you know our annual income tax collected roughly equals the annual interest we pay on our debt. If we had no debt we could have no income tax. To say it another way, all of our income taxes, both rich and poor, only pays for interest on our massive debt. What if instead of accumulating debt, we were loaning money out at interest instead, there were no income taxes, and then we could argue about how to spend the interest earned not how to pay for the interest we owe.

Edited by TylerD on 12/23/2011 09:04:41 MST.

"Did you know our annual income tax collected roughly equals the annual interest we pay on our debt. If we had no debt we could have no income tax."

From wikipedia - tax $2.2B, interest $0.2B, interest is relatively small portion of budget





Did you know that the deficit created by Obama is small, almost all of it is a carry over from Bush, but the Republicans fillibuster any attempt by Obama to fix it?:

We were talking about income tax, not total Federal Tax receipts.

But I was wrong...the figures as they stand are $200 billion in interest expense, and $880 billion in income taxes collected. What I should have said that by 2019 interest expense is projected to equal total income taxes collected if nothing changes.

Forget Bush, I don't know why Democrats are STILL harping on Bush versus Obama, how about this country? I never liked Bush, nor do I like Obama. Politicians have bankrupted us and there are no brakes on the spending. I hate the Patriot Act, I hate the Iraq and Afghan wars, I don't know what Medicare Part D is but I probably hate it too. I hate that Bush bailed out the banks, I hate all that. I hate Bush, I hate Obama, I hate all politicians and I want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

By "attempts by Obama to fix" you mean raise taxes. I don't want to raise taxes, I want to cut the spending, we cannot afford it. You are right, weather its Repubs or Dems in office they spend more than we have. I want to massively reduce the size of govt. I want a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, cut defense (stop all wars and occupations, fortify our borders and give Star Wars to anyone that wants it so nuclear missiles are all worthless), cut SS (raise age, keep the money in the acct earning interest), cut Medicare/Medicaid (reduce benefits to rich people, arrest people for the fraud), end foreign aid except to a select few poor/starving countries, cut welfare (drug test and audit recipients), I want to legalize pot and tax it, use that money to pay for the police and prisons, I want to decriminalize drug use and use some of the pot taxes to pay for rehab and work programs so we generate citizens not criminals, there is more I want but overall I want to just stop the spending. I want to cut until we have 0% income taxes for everyone or maybe just an income tax starting at people making over $1M or something, only tax the 1% to a reasonable level, no tax income tax for the 99%, cut the size of the IRS, EPA, Defense Dept, end all farm subsidies, cut cut cut. Once we have a surplus loan out money, earn interest and apply that towards reducing our debt. If we decide Healthcare is a right, then I want to end health insurance and go single payer healthcare. There is no need for a middle man and all this Obama Care/half way nonsense. If we all get it then we don't need insurance we just need providers.

None of this is going to happen though. To reverse the course of the ship at this point is impossible because we would have to accept a bunch of economic temporary pain willingly. Ultimately we are going to spend ourselves into a massive economic collapse and then we will see what happens from there.

Edited by TylerD on 12/23/2011 10:26:49 MST.

Actually, you and I might not be that far apart : )

"If we decide Healthcare is a right, then I want to end health insurance and go single payer healthcare."

applause....

Obamacare is a compromise imposed by the right wingers. There are some things good about it but single payer would be much simpler.

Medicare part D is for prescription drugs. Passed during Bush. Democrats voted for it too - better than nothing and we can fix it later? Provision that we can't negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies, like we do for veteran's health care. This is just to pay back Pharma for political contributions.

This produces large defecit. I think it a "poison pill" designed to bankrupt medicare so later they can just say we can't afford medicare and kill it.

Since I am posting my wish list...I also want to aggressively exploit every avenue we have for domestic energy production. I want to drill, build wind, solar, nuclear, whatever. I want all those billions of dollars to stay in the US and circulate instead of sending it overseas.

I also don't understand this issue very well but I want China to play fair in currency and trade. Not sure how we do it but I think improvements can be made in this area.

And if Iran wants to mess with us I want to carpet bomb them into the stone age from the stratosphere. I don't want one single American boot to touch the ground over there I just want planes running 24/7 for about a year bombing them over and over and over and over until they are begging for mercy. When it is over I don't want to fix one single thing we blew up, I just don't care. I would first bomb their nuclear facilities then bomb every factory, every bridge, every government building, every Ahmadinejad safe house, everything. If they don't like it they shouldn't have let a terrorist government take control of their country. Same goes for North Korea.

-----------------
Getting a bit extreme there Tyler. I am not going to censor this, but if it goes too far into hate-mail I may have to.
Hey - it's Xmas!

Cheers
Roger Caffin
Online Community Monitor
Backpacking Light

Edited by rcaffin on 12/23/2011 17:14:09 MST.

I agree, exploit domestic energy, cheapest is improving efficiency

Same here, I don't understand trade issues but I'm sure we're screwing ourselves - evidence is the huge trade imbalance

What have you against Iran? The Iranian right wingers are in control, like here, so they make inflamatory statements. If we didn't rely on middle East oil we could just ignore them. If we bombed them, it will pi$$ them off and they'll retaliate, like by hijacking planes and running them into our buildings. Oh, wait a second, that was the Saudis that did that...

You are right, leave them alone but I don't want them to.get nukes. I guess I should have said if they get frisky with nukes...bomb them into oblivion. What I don't want to do is go blow up a 2 million dollar bridge with a 5 million.dollar missile, spend 1 million and loose 12 Americans securing the area so that we can build them a 5 million dollar bridge.

You are right about 911 what was it like 16 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, Osama was in Pakistan so we attack Iraq killing a bunch of civilians in the crossfire...huh wonder why they don't like us?

If what u say about Medicare d is true people should go to jail. If a govt employee or politician uses no bid no negotiation contracts they should go to jail.

" If a govt employee or politician uses no bid no negotiation contracts they should go to jail."

I have this image of Cheney and Bush in these cells. Glass fronts. People can walk by and look at them. Area for toilet that you can still see their feet.

"You are right, leave them alone but I don't want them to.get nukes."

I don't want them to have nukes, but there's a lot of countries with nukes yet we survive. Pakistan and North Korea are enough to worry a person.

"Osama was in Pakistan so we attack Iraq killing a bunch of civilians in the crossfire"

One of the Bush people made a nice quote about there being no targets in Afganistan, have to attack Iraq where the targets (and oil) are...

Looks like the silent majority has been pepper sprayed by Bush era tax cuts .... Do you want to know where that money ends up? I can tell you about a percentage of it...and not, what I like to call toward, "tinkle down" economics.

I worked as an assistant for one the top brass at a company that is at the very top of US companies. His son is unfortunately a druggy drunk, entirely uneducated, lost and then there's the outright meanness I was subjected to, and he's childishly rude toward his super rich parents. He mentioned to me how much he loves Bush for his tax cuts. The family is European and that's where he lives drinking and spending away millions that could potentially be here .... money stemming from lawless balloon payments for muckitymucks of public companies. I don't think this is an uncommon story (upper management are not US citizens and their kids are troubled)

When I say meanness, ironically the son once cooked a meal 'for' me and purposefully put in it an inetible amount of hot peppers. Another time he threw a case of soda at me. This son was about 40, at the time and it was all because I wouldn't hide his beer in my fridge. He stands to gain millions more from current inheritance tax laws as well. These are the people we're entrusting with ideals that they are going to do right by us?

Back when the parents of the baby boomers were bread winners the wealthy were taxed at a much higher rate and guess what the chasm between the rich and poor was navigatable and there was a burgeoning middle class.

Just the overly lenient inheritance tax money alone from this one misguided offspring could keep several families afloat with good government jobs for some years, or finance a community program. I guess what Im trying to say is exactly how much the wealthy don't need tax breaks, the money. It's not only unfair, it's unhealthy. It's ultimately personal.

Less government also means fewer jobs and less rules to protect from avarice. Most wealthy don't care at all about social responsibility. I actually gave more in charity for example than this family and that isn't very much percentage-wise. They care about getting wealthier I don't see corporations by and large providing more jobs with all that they've been handed. That's why there needs to be rules. I see the GOP taking jobs away. (and wanting more govermental rules for certain bodily rights for women or desiring more governmental teeth regarding privacy to name a few) When it comes to health care the Insurance companies are simply after our family's surplus. There is no way we would be taxed anywhere near close to costly premiums.

The USA is so behind the globe with health care it's embarrassing. It's all the ultra rich paying for feeding groups like TP a bunch of rhetoric. They are tools for the rich to get richer and to think there going to share in an equitable way is naivity.... as corporations and individuals.

Just need to hit the trails ... So how bout that pepper spray?

Edited by Janefree on 02/04/2012 22:15:15 MST.