Oh and 4) Having plenty of oil.

3 and 4 have more exceptions to your "rule" than there are examples of it.

Hi kids! Let's play.. SUM UP THE THREAD AND LET IT DIE.

1) The US will, as long as it can get away with it, dictate as much foreign policy as it can and interfere. Like the way they're trying to force the Yuan to be revalued because it's screwing with their economy.
2) Xavius and Daganev both need to be dragged out the back and shot.
3) Anything that differs from the global norm, even if it's going the right way in general with a rocky start, will be jumped on.
4) The global norm is capitalism.
5) Maybe Verithrax, too. Just because coffee prices went up, which is obviously a result of his sloth.

Hey! All done! Let's take our debate and psuedo intellectuals to the next blatant bait thread.

@Mugulu: All information I can find says that Hussein believed that Kuwait was one of his provinces. He seemed to believe that America would view it like the re-unification of Germany. I think you made that up or are using shoddy sources.

@Yrael: ZOMG PERSONAL ATTACK!!!!1

You should help me come up with an idea for the new bait thread. Life isn't complete without a daily dose of controlled, non-personal vitriol.

I think the basic difference in opinion here is whether this is ok or not.

Here is an interesting angle on this immigration issue. The left is usually in the pocket of labor unions. Illegal immigration is killing off all the wage inflation laws labor unions have lobbied for. Even if they are legal, a large influx of legal labor will still have a downward pressure on wages. So why would the left be support it?

The right usually argues that the government is pretty incompetent at what it does. The argue it is too inept to be able to end poverty, create racial harmony, create jobs, dish out health care, etc., etc. They also argue for less powerful government. So if it is so bumbling and incompetent, why support a large-scale massive immigration program that will increase the power of the government, including over its citizens since US citizens will need to abide by the same laws immigrants due to prove they are legal? (National internal passport, etc.) They also argue for strict constructionism of the US Constitution, which forbids Congress from regulating immigration.

I honestly don't understand why each side is taking the side it is. I would expect the labor unions to make the left anti-immigrant and the small government conservatives calling for less government control over immigration and declaring immigration laws unconstitutional. It's funny how these things end up.

Because the Republican party is run by a racist, patriarchal cabal of (With apologies to everyone who hates the term since Michael Moore misappropriated it) stupid white men? And because the Democrat party is too disorganised, bumbling and ineffectual to be in anyone's pocket or have any real opinions or plans or projects about anything?

Also, the Republican party isn't really for small government. The only Republican I've seen actually argue for small government is Ron Paul; all the rest of them are for small welfare/health/education and big NSA/CIA/Military.

totally wrong here.

The reaons the republicans are doing what they are doing (except they arn't because the radio talk shows have organized against it) is because of what Bush called "Compasionate conservativsm" when he originally ran for office in 2000. Many people seem to have forgotten that aspect of Bush's desired changes when he became elected.

Compassionate conservatism... that's like free-market communism.

It's also a rare stance among Republicans. His party has always openly disagreed. It didn't start moving until the Democrats got Congressional control.



The left-wing analysis is a tad too economic. They usually support freer borders for humanitarian reasons. I find it to be a very arrogant stance, but the stance is that the US has the influence to make entire ethnic groups better through dialogue, cultural exchange, and aid programs. It goes right in line with "Why don't we sit down and talk with the terrorists?" I'm all in favor of peaceful resolution, but Israel's got a better shot at it than we do, and we know how well that's gone.

Verithrax hit the nail on the head for right-wing small government theory. It's a buzzword that hasn't been practiced for as far back as my history reading can see. They're very pro-corporation (for what they believe to be humanitarian reasons) and pro-military (for economic and security reasons), though.

For some reason we still describe the major parties in basically the same way we always have, but as others have said, at this point, it's basically entirely wrong.

As I see it, the Left tries to help people, and the Right tries to let people help themselves. In practice, this seems to usually amount to the Left trying to regulate corporations, and the Right trying to deregulate them, which in turn helps the middle class or upper class, respectively. The lower class kind of gets left out of things altogether unless they're actively focused on so politicians look humanitarian. The government is just used to whatever ends the party in charge thinks it should be, i.e. socialist-leaning progams for the left and the military for the right. IMO, of course.

I'll have to agree with you there.

when I looked into doing mostly charity work, I was a bit surprised by what I found. I realised that the democratic based charities, really relied heavily on keeping the people they helped in a position to be helped. That is, high turn over of people actually got them paid less than a demonstrated long term relationship with the people they helped. Their organizations also got funding based mostly on the idea that the community they were helping, would need help for generations. This got me pretty upset with the idea of government funded institunonlized charity.

The republican outlook however, isn't much better becuase it assumes and relies heavily on a person having a personal network of people who can help them.

I think this says it all about the immigration "debate."