Whenever I talk to a conservative and start talking about how most of our problems seem from issues with the last administration usually my dad will respond "Typical liberal always going back to Bush to blame things". When in reality I remembered hearing everything get blamed on Clinton during the Bush years :-p
That is kind of what people do. The problem is that policies made from four Presidents ago could still be at work, while simultaneously, the market might do something totally independent of Presidential/governmental policy. Since there is no mathematical way to analyze the results of political policy (although people certainly try), it all comes down to making arguments that cannot be proven nor disproven.
In essence, every problem facing America today comes from hatin' on Carter for admitting the hard truths and trying to to change it, and electing Reagan for saying what made Americans feel good. It set a terrible precedent that is destroying your country today.
In essence, every problem facing America today comes from hatin' on Carter for admitting the hard truths and trying to to change it, and electing Reagan for saying what made Americans feel good. It set a terrible precedent that is destroying your country today.
Whenever I talk to a conservative and start talking about how most of our problems seem from issues with the last administration usually my dad will respond "Typical liberal always going back to Bush to blame things". When in reality I remembered hearing everything get blamed on Clinton during the Bush years :-p
Oh, That makes sense. We have a similar thing down here, called "Blaming howard" - It's essentially where Labor diehards blame all our current problems on the last Liberal(Not left wing, that's just the name. In reality, both parties are very christian right wing) prime minister, John Howard, and what they can't blame on him(very few things, I've found) they blame on Tony Abbot.
We haven't had a good name since the 50's. Between scapegoat wars, extreme conservatism, and the establishment of an idiocracy, the rest of the industrialized world lost all respect for us decades ago!
LOL. Many years ago, I accused Steve of being a bot.
Kilarney is a little like Steve raised to the tenth power.
@Kilarney: Which of your predictions was right about the last elections? Or the ones in 2008? In fact the ONLY thing in recent history that you 'predicted' with your obviously Nostrodomous-like abilities was that the health care bill would be watered down. Other than that, where are all these victories you're claiming?
This is why I don't like predictions. They are only useful to the people who think they've been proven right so they can do their little superior dance. If k wants to crow about his awesome predictive capability, it sounds suspiciously like he's just overcompensating by using that as a substitute for an inadequate piece of his anatomy - kind of like driving a new Mustang, only he can't afford a new Mustang, so he comes here occasionally to bolster his feelings of inadequacy by harassing us. "Playground Bully" is another analogy.
What he really needs is a hug. loltsundere, would you please give k a hug?
LOL. Many years ago, I accused Steve of being a bot.
Kilarney is a little like Steve raised to the tenth power.
Not to raise this argument again, but just because Kilarney likes to toss bombs and make strong pronouncements he actually is pretty moderate in his positions.
LOL. Many years ago, I accused Steve of being a bot.
Kilarney is a little like Steve raised to the tenth power.
Not to raise this argument again, but just because Kilarney likes to toss bombs and make strong pronouncements he actually is pretty moderate in his positions.
Just because he says he's a moderate doesn't mean he's a moderate. I can say that I'm a Radiologist - that doesn't necessarily make it so.
All we really have to go by to make the decision about whether he actually is moderate is to look at the comments he's made. Does anyone here really think that he's moderate with respect to Obama or democratic policies? How many comments has he made that genuinely say, "Obama did this right" or "The democrats did this right" as opposed to "I hate Obama! Bargle! Bargle!" An occasional sprinkling of the phrase, "Both parties are at fault" doesn't do anything to rectify matters. I cannot think of one instance in which he's criticized a specifically republican endeavour, but I do remember him saying that Rick Perry is likely to beat Obama because of his awesome skills, that Sarah Palin is "savvy", and that he admires the tea party. That doesn't sound very moderate.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that this is a trend among otherwise stalwart republicans that are a little gun-shy about being branded as a republican after all the Bush failures. I've seen and heard lots of people who are actually republican, but don't want to be associated with people like GWB, Palin, Bachman, Paul, and the Beck crowd starting to say they're "moderate" or "libertarian" instead, while they are still, for all intents and purposes, republican. I'd submit that, these days, "moderate" is code for "republican but too ashamed to admit it".
I understand what you're saying Cremlian, and it's admirable. However, it's indicative of the problem Obama and democrats in general have with the new style of cut-throat partisanship. Obama and the democrats continue to have an abiding optimism that the people on the other side are reasonable, good people. They make excuses for them, like you've made excuses for kilarney and Steve, and that's admirable because that shows a degree of empathy and an attempt to understand opposing viewpoints. The only problem is that the people on the other side are not reasonable. They want to win at any cost. So, while we're over here trying to understand what they want and how we might compromise with them, they're rousing up their base and ossifying their positions until there's just no communicating with them.
Think of kilarney as a moderate if you want, if that makes you feel happy. The plain language of his comments show that he is anything but moderate.
Go back to Page 50 of this discussion where we had a nice conversation about Stimulus, Kilarney raised a point and was then presented with facts, he was persuaded but raised some other points. He also at that point said that taxes should be raised and spending should be cut. That's not really a Tea party position :-p
I cannot think of one instance in which he's criticized a specifically republican endeavour, but I do remember him saying that Rick Perry is likely to beat Obama because of his awesome skills, that Sarah Palin is "savvy", and that he admires the tea party. That doesn't sound very moderate.
I admire the tea party and Sarah Palin for what they have achieved in the field of politics. Giving credit where credit is due, even though they are wrong and in many ways misguided they have been a driving force in politics the past two years. While I won't make predictions at this point it could be true that Rick Perry storms the primary and beats Obama, I might be a nObama supporter but I'm going to tell you if it looks bad for Obama, currently I'm not so sure about that. Too many factors are up in the air and his base is not leaving. Independents are going to be left with a strange choice in November depending on who the republicans put forward. I wouldn't be surprised if a strong third party "Ross Perot" type character emerges.
//Obviously as a strong Democratic supporter I'm hoping they win, but I can tell you when the other side is making smart political moves even when I disagree with them. Sarah Palin figured out how to make a ton of money. Good for her.
So, out of 55 pages of discussion, he's convinced one time that taxes need to be raised and spending needs to ne cut? Okay, that's not really politics so much as arithmetic, but that's what convinces you that he's moderate? That one comment weighed against all the many, many harsh comments against Obama in particular and democratic policies in general made in this and other threads? Seriously?
If that's the standard, you must think I'm a moderate too. I know I said at least once that I thought that some spending program should be cut, and I vaguely remember coming up with three good things to say about GWB in response to a challenge from Jason. So, does your standard of weighing one or two comments leaning to the other political side make me a moderate too? Will you be as fair to me in deciding whether I'm a moderate?
Oh, That makes sense. We have a similar thing down here, called "Blaming howard" - It's essentially where Labor diehards blame all our current problems on the last Liberal(Not left wing, that's just the name. In reality, both parties are very christian right wing) prime minister, John Howard, and what they can't blame on him(very few things, I've found) they blame on Tony Abbot.
OMG!!! You've been away from Australia for too long mate. There are plenty, PLENTY of things that can be laid at the feet of Howard! Don't get me start on Mad Monk Abbott, did you forget his ridiculous election slogan "Stop the boats and Stop the waste(ful spending)".
Granted Julia did backstab the most popular PM of all time (K-Rudd) and had a equally bad campaign "Real Julia and Moving forward". Even now she is a puppet to the factional powerbrokers.
I digress, things to blame Howard on:
GST (Let's add 10% to everything and we'll have 10% more money... How much GST is on a cake?)
Sale of Telstra (not the actual sale, but done wrong because wholesale and retail were packaged as one. This then led to the famous Mexican/American CEO that ran the company into the ground and fought the government on everything. Not only did we not get infrastructure upgrades, but maintainence and service became worst! Only now are we catching up due to the NBN, why because we told Telstra to go fuck itself and threatened force seperation.)
Private Health Insurance (A failed attempt to destroy MediCare. Basically a way to seperate the rich and the poor. Because it's not means tested, the rich who can afford private health cover don't pay for the medicare levy and actually get tax cuts because of it. While the poor who can't afford it have to get taxed.)
Workplace Relations (trying to pull one over the unions, good thing K-Rudd got rid of that!)
Budget Surpluses (Just handing everyone, especially "breeders" tax cuts during election time. Not actually spending money on infrastructure, health or education. Imagine the rail roads and ports we could've had if mining boom Mk1 was managed better.)
Education Funding (Let's cut funding to unis, get rid of HEC [it's now called HELP and it's indexed], force unis to cut government funded places in favour of overseas students, and force everyone to join the student guild, adding a unnecassary compulsary $250 cost every semester! Funding for private schools when they charge a shit load anyway.)
Going to War (Did not need to get involved at all)
Citizenship Test (WTF does this achieve? Waste of government resources)
Shortening the term in office (From 4 years to 3. So incumbent governments have less time to to implement policies)
Indian giver (Offered the leadership to Costello, but took it back after he won)
Immigration (Basically killed the multi-cultural dream in Australia and fed into racism. Remeber the Cronulla riots and that teenager with the homemade shirt saying "We grew here, You flew here")
That's all I can think of for now. But yeah... "not" a lot to blame Howard for...
Note that if you actually read it, Churba's (not Chu-Bra's, although Chu-Bra's opinions on Australian politics could be interesting) post made no claim as to whether or not current problems are actually Howard's fault.
I warn you, this gets verbose - talking too much is what I do best! Well, that, and let's face it, you were a lot of different kinds of wrong. I'll even forgive you for that you're not going to read more than half the first post. I'm charitable like that.
OMG!!! You've been away from Australia for too long mate.
I'm baffled as to where you think I am right now. To be clear, I've been back in the country for more than a year now. And It's not like my job doesn't directly involve knowing what's going on in politics in this country from the top to the bottom, so that I can sell telling people about it. Freelance Journalist, remember? I'm no Grog's Gamut, but gimme a break, here.
There are plenty, PLENTY of things that can be laid at the feet of Howard!
No shit, Dude. However, I've heard people blame things on him such as the Global financial crisis, the Stolen Generation, Rudd Getting knifed, so on, so on. Sure, The guy did stupid shit, he made some mistakes, every single politician and administration does - Or have you rapidly forgotten the 2 billion dollar money sink that was the home insulation scheme? - But I'm simply saying that people blame him for more than he actually did. Just like the Republicans might say that people are blaming bush for more than he did, or as a reflexive arse-covering for any mistake their party might make, and how democrats are saying the same thing but with different people.
Now, let's talk turkey about your points.
- The GST. Well, yeah, that's his thing. It replaced the horrendously complex system of sales taxes and wholesale taxes, by making it one tax across the board. On top of that, it gave the economy a bit of a boost by giving more money back to the makers and sellers of items, as well as giving the states all a well needed cash injection. Or did you forget about the 22 Billion dollar surplus that was handed to the Labor government, and was promptly pissed up the fucking wall? You shouldn't forget about it, you got tossed a Grand worth out of it, but hey, memories are short in politics.
Oh, and how much GST is there on a cake? If you're buying a cake, Ten Percent. If you're Making a cake, None, unless you want to count the 10% GST on each total ingredient, in which case it's not really on the cake, but you're desperately scrabbling for a foothold when you start using that argument, so I'll be kind and let you have it. Oh, and by the way, You're referencing an interview with John HEWSON not John HOWARD. Two different blokes, if you couldn't tell by the eyebrows, or by the fact that that was a completely different GST plan, which was at least three years prior to John howard even becoming the Prime Minister, Let alone introducing a GST plan, which was at least six years prior to him introducing his own.
Oops, forgot to mention, I'm not a complete fucking moron when it comes to political history, sorry to make your life harder.
Oh! Speaking of political history, you make a point of fact about Political history which I feel the need to provide a little context for so not to lie to our American friends by omission - I also remember that when Rudd Got the boot, Not only had his approval rating hit rock bottom after a three year decline, and it was lower than Howard's when Howard got the boot. And on top of that, Rudd's highest approval rating, which came right after the election(in fact, the February after he took over in December of 2007) - and we all know how well that went for him. However, Howard is the holder of the title for Second highest approval rating in Australian political history, five points behind Rudd, and this was seven years, rather than two months, after he became Prime Minister. Rudd's title looses a little bit of impact, when you don't look at it totally insulated from the reality of the situation.
- The Telstra Sale. Yeah, you're right, They did take a nosedive post privatization - going from fourteen billion dollars of profit to ten billion, going from ten million plus subscribers to about seven and a half million, They took away completely new services, Had less marketing and selling capability owait I got those reversed, it was actually 1991 to 1996, before the privatization that they only made ten billion, and it was post privatization that they made four billion dollars more, gained about three million subscribers, introduced a bunch of new tech, and modernized their entire network. It wasn't entirely the best thing to do, but I'd say Running the company into the ground is a bit harsh to accuse old Solomon Trujillo of.
I mean, it's not like Telstra was effected by the Global Financial Crisis at all(During the Rudd Years) or that the real worst thing to happen during Solomon's time as CEO of Telstra was Big Brother Conroy the crazy catholic crusader's Suddenly and Unexpectedly turning down their Tender for the NBN, during his period where he fucked about and fucked about and fucked about, because he didn't want to go ahead with the NBN without the filter in place.
Oh yeah, what was that again...Oh, Labor's plan to censor the internet, which apparently included a little more than just the ludicrous banning of anything worse than an MA15+ rating.
But, It's funny, though. How they fucked off Telstra out of the NBN. Which means that the Eleven Billion that the government gave Telstra to hand over customers to the NBN just doesn't exist, then? Or the fact that the NBN includes a plan to use any Previously existing Telstra fiber, exchanges and network ducting where possible? Because if we're going to start pretending things don't exist for the sake of argumentative convenience, this is going to be really confusing.
All that said, do I think that the Telstra Sale was a good idea? Eh, not the greatest. It did provide short term benefit, but generally, it could have been handled much, much better.
Private Health Insurance (A failed attempt to destroy MediCare. Basically a way to seperated the rich and the poor. Because it's not means tested, the rich who can afford private health cover don't pay for the medicare levy and actually get tax cuts because of it. While the poor who can't afford it have to get taxed.)
What in all the fucks do you think you're talking about? Hold that thought, we're only at the third point, and I already need a drink, so I'm going to have a warm, refreshing bowl of
Let Me give you a brief rundown of the history of Howard and Medicare - Howard, being a total bastard, indeed divided the Rich and the poor on medicare. For example, introducing an extra 1% Medicare Levy on and poor, down on his luck soul earning more than $70 Grand a year, to try and encourage Australians who can afford to to move to private healthcare - in fact, they had a specific one in mind, and you also saw a great big uptick in the amount of advertisements and general marketing push for it, just this little fund called Medibank Private, the Government owned Private healthcare fund - simultaneously both encouraging more people who CAN afford healthcare to get private insurance and providing more money for the people who CAN'T afford private health insurance.
The worst Howard did to that whole deal was promise to Privatize medibank private if he won the 2007 election, but you know how that turned out.
Workplace relations (trying to pull one over the unions, good thing K-Rudd got rid of that!)
I realize our American friends might not be familiar with the workchoices legislation (which was a bit of a dog, it's true) So let me run down the basics for you, but if you're crazy, You can read the whole thing here. Did he just link to the entire legislation which I'll put down money you have not previously read? Oh shit, he did!
-It restricted the Australian Industrial relations commission on what could be included in awards(standards set for each particular industry and job) to the classification of employees, hours of work, rates of pay, piece rates, tallies and bonuses, various forms of leave (eg. annual and long service leave), public holidays, allowances, penalty rates, redundancy pay, notice of termination, dispute settling procedures, stand down provisions, jury service, and pay and conditions.
-Introduced "Australian workplace agreements", which allowed individuals to negotiate with the company independently of union negotiations, but only if they chose to do so, and if they did not, union agreements still applied. Fun Fact- Previous to this, if you weren't a member of a union, the union could negotiate an agreement with an employer that dicked over non-union members, and you had literally no say in this whatsoever. Your only options were 1)Join a union or 2)bend over, here comes the pineapple.
-Expanded the Use and scope of Enterprise Bargaining agreements(Re-named to collective agreements), where the unions negotiate with individual organizations on matters usually covered by the award, however, these agreements usually worked out so that workers could get tailored agreements that got them greater net benefit than the award provided, but these agreements were previously allowed to specifically exclude non-union employees. Part of what the unions were so pissed about in this legislation was The removal of their ability to do just that.
-Placed restrictions on Union Activity - such as their ability to fuck over non-union employees. Actual beneficial union activities were generally not affected.
-Outlawing "Closed Shops" - Another thing the unions were SUPER pissed about, because that means that it was illegal for an employer or union or make any sort of agreement for an employer to hire only union Employees. Which was kinda important, considering that the unions already made sure that union employees were more expensive than non-union employees, because they wanted to provide a nice big incentive for joining the union and paying their dues.
However, it also reduced some employee protections, such as changing the unfair dismissals laws(some of which were utter bullshit, some were not, but the former outweighed the latter), removed unfair dismissal protection from employees of any company with less than 101 employees, Removed the "No Disadvantages test" from agreements(but later introduced a Fairness test, to be fair, which the unions hated just as much, despite being more comprehensive than the previous standard), and the changes to the agreement certification process were not fantastic - I'd be lying if I said I liked any of those, but I must state them for completeness. After all, lying by omission is still lying. Y'know, sort of like how you said the changes Howard introduced to medicare were not means tested, which is an absolute lie, except that is a lie in the traditional sense of making shit up, rather than omission.
Budget surpluses (Just handing everyone, especially "breeders" tax cuts during election time. Not actually spending money on infrastructure, health or education. Imagine the rail roads and ports we could've had if mining boom Mk1 was managed better.)
What. Yeah, the Howard government was responsible for a Budget Surplus, but I lack understanding on how Tax cuts, reducing federal income, can lead to having MORE money. Infrastructure is very generally a STATE responsibility, not a federal one - the federal government can give money, but the states choose how to spend it - unless you'd fancy to explain how the federal government is directly responsible for, say, the repeated failure of a Paramatta to Epping high speed rail link, which tends to cost quite a bit every time it comes up? For example, it's not Howard's fault that the NSW state labor government have been pissing every infrastructure cent they've been given up the wall. However, You can't really call Rudd's incredible overspending a positive - after all, where are all those computers for schools? All the indigenous housing he promised? Two Billion dollar failure of the Insulation scheme? The enormous amount of money spent on the NBN spinning it's wheels?
Also, you seem to willfully forget that the Howard government made those cuts because they were recovering from the fucking 1990s recession - That's right, unlike our current labor government, they decided to save some money instead of urinating it up every structural support in sight - And that's how we ended up with a 22 billion dollar surplus despite having to recover from a recession, because they didn't spend money foolishly. They could have done better, sure, but it's hard to criticize a net success that had a few smaller problems, rather than the string of enormous failures we had under The Milky Bar kid.
-Going to war. Hum. I'm not the biggest fan, I'm generally against it, and I think we went to war when it was not properly justified by concrete evidence - however, on the other hand, It's not like the nation was not right alongside America in Baying for blood right after the 9/11 attacks. It's not like Rudd didn't continue the war, though I will give him credit for scaling it back a little when he pulled out all combat troops, though they were the vast minority of our forces in the middle east. I think I'm missing the part where it's uncommon for a nation to go to war alongside it's allies. Not to mention we Bayed for blood AGAIN after the bali bombings - If the Australian government had listened to the majority of the Australian public at that time, we'd have been at war with every fucking muslim country on the face of the earth. Also, as a fun note - the biggest part of our involvement? Reconstruction and Logistics. The majority of our combat troops were special forces, not regulars, assisting American special forces.
Education Funding (Let's cut funding to unis, get rid of HEC [it's now called HELP and it's indexed], force unis to cut government funded places in favour of overseas students, and force everyone to join the student guild, adding a unnecassary compulsary $250 cost every semester! Funding for private schools when they charge a shit load anyway.)
Yeah, Howard did cut government funding to Universities, which was less of a change than when He also deregulated them, and allowed them to increase their fees by 25%, which pretty much all of them have done. They didn't get Rid of HECS (You missed the S) that is an outright lie - It's now part of the HELP scheme, and other than the Name change to HECS-HELP, it's largely unchanged, along with radically changing PELS (now FEE-HELP) to assist students with a loan cover postgraduate fees.
If they'd removed HECS, then shit, my mate dDn would be in trouble - He's got something like 80-90 thousand bucks worth of HECS-HELP debt, because he lost his scholarship before Voluntary student unionism, as he couldn't afford to pay his union dues. The Student union Didn't give a fuck, withheld his results, and caused him to lose his scholarship, and saddling him with his entire student debt. Thanks, student union. But that bit aside, if they had really gotten rid of HECS like you claim, then he'd have that debt dropped straight on him - which isn't the case.
Also, I might add, you are getting Howard confused with...God knows what, honestly. I don't know where you're getting this "Forced everyone to join a guild" - by the way, I assume you mean union by that, since I don't really recall any sort of thing similar to a guild that anyone is forced to join, and costs about 250 bucks - Howard REMOVED Compulsory Student Unionism, thus meaning that it was no longer compulsory to join a student union, not the other way around. Because of Howard, you NO LONGER have to pay that 250 bucks per semester, if unions are what you're talking about. If you're talking about that universities can now choose to charge students up to 250 dollars per semester for Amenities such as Counseling, sporting fields and childcare, then you get a big, big Fail stamped on your "Which government is which?" test, because that was The Gillard Government, in September last year.
Shortening the term in office (From 4 years to 3. So incumbent governments have less time to to implement policies)
No. You're either vastly wrong and clueless about our political system or lying through your teeth. All of Howard's terms were approximately 3 years, And before Howard we haven't even had a term of over three years since 1969, a full FIVE YEARS before Howard got his first seat. This Keeps Carrying Back to Ming the Merciless's First term, before Howard even entered politics. The system is still in place in 1931, James Scullin's first turn at prime minister, which was a full decade before Howard was even born. And Yes, I checked - I'm good, but I'm not that good.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but I'm starting to suspect strongly that you don't actually know a fucking thing about what you're talking about.
Indian giver (Offered the leadership to Costello, but took it back after he won)
Internal party politics that don't really matter unless you're either Peter Costello, or one of his Massive fans, of which there are fuck all.
Immigration (Basically killed the multi-cultural dream in Australia and fed into racism.)
What? The only time that Howard introduced legislation to that effect was way back when he was the leader of the opposition, and it didn't get through. If anyone is killing the multicultural dream, It's the Mad Monk and fucking Peppermint Patty, with their stop the boats mantras and Anti-immigration stances - Oh yeah, you forgot to Mention that both parties are chanting the same thing about stopping the boats. I wonder why. Oh wait, no I don't.
Now, there is something I need to tell you - Other than the fact that I don't like you very much because now I've defended Howard in the interest of truth, and that's someone I have as an immense dislike for as any other politician hanging about today - and it is thus: Considering one of your Points against Howard was based on a gross fundamental misunderstanding of our political system, You seem to have mixed up Hewson and Howard, You were either lying or didn't know about the deal with HECS, You either lied or didn't know about the changes to the medicare levy, You were misinformed or are lying about the majority of workchoices, And one of your talking points was something that was completely irrelevant - so Don't bother.
That's right - You actually failed so enormously that I shall brook no further argument, because it is literally pointless to discuss this further with you, because you lack the knowledge to even attempt to debate the topic. I don't care if your next argument is to drown me half to death in rum and then have the milky bar kid pay for whores that all vaugely resemble Miranda Lawson to screw me the rest of the way to death, I'm still just going to ignore any further attempt to argue back because it is not even worth my almost literally valueless time.
And that's fucking saying something, considering how arguments normally go around here.
I've been on a writing jag today. You just argued on the wrong day, and ended up on the end of one of my incredibly, irritatingly long posts.
If it's any consolation, my mild dislike of you for putting me in a position defending Howard has cooled - It happens, and now we all know more things, so net benefit in the end for everybody who has a spare hour and a half for reading a goddamn short novel of a post.
Comments
Kilarney is a little like Steve raised to the tenth power. This is why I don't like predictions. They are only useful to the people who think they've been proven right so they can do their little superior dance. If k wants to crow about his awesome predictive capability, it sounds suspiciously like he's just overcompensating by using that as a substitute for an inadequate piece of his anatomy - kind of like driving a new Mustang, only he can't afford a new Mustang, so he comes here occasionally to bolster his feelings of inadequacy by harassing us. "Playground Bully" is another analogy.
What he really needs is a hug. loltsundere, would you please give k a hug?
All we really have to go by to make the decision about whether he actually is moderate is to look at the comments he's made. Does anyone here really think that he's moderate with respect to Obama or democratic policies? How many comments has he made that genuinely say, "Obama did this right" or "The democrats did this right" as opposed to "I hate Obama! Bargle! Bargle!" An occasional sprinkling of the phrase, "Both parties are at fault" doesn't do anything to rectify matters. I cannot think of one instance in which he's criticized a specifically republican endeavour, but I do remember him saying that Rick Perry is likely to beat Obama because of his awesome skills, that Sarah Palin is "savvy", and that he admires the tea party. That doesn't sound very moderate.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that this is a trend among otherwise stalwart republicans that are a little gun-shy about being branded as a republican after all the Bush failures. I've seen and heard lots of people who are actually republican, but don't want to be associated with people like GWB, Palin, Bachman, Paul, and the Beck crowd starting to say they're "moderate" or "libertarian" instead, while they are still, for all intents and purposes, republican. I'd submit that, these days, "moderate" is code for "republican but too ashamed to admit it".
I understand what you're saying Cremlian, and it's admirable. However, it's indicative of the problem Obama and democrats in general have with the new style of cut-throat partisanship. Obama and the democrats continue to have an abiding optimism that the people on the other side are reasonable, good people. They make excuses for them, like you've made excuses for kilarney and Steve, and that's admirable because that shows a degree of empathy and an attempt to understand opposing viewpoints. The only problem is that the people on the other side are not reasonable. They want to win at any cost. So, while we're over here trying to understand what they want and how we might compromise with them, they're rousing up their base and ossifying their positions until there's just no communicating with them.
Think of kilarney as a moderate if you want, if that makes you feel happy. The plain language of his comments show that he is anything but moderate.
What makes you think I'm not moderate? Is it what I've written in previous posts? See how that works?
Do you really think kilarney is moderate? Point out some comments in which he's been as harsh with republicans as he's been with Obama and democrats.
I admire the tea party and Sarah Palin for what they have achieved in the field of politics. Giving credit where credit is due, even though they are wrong and in many ways misguided they have been a driving force in politics the past two years. While I won't make predictions at this point it could be true that Rick Perry storms the primary and beats Obama, I might be a nObama supporter but I'm going to tell you if it looks bad for Obama, currently I'm not so sure about that. Too many factors are up in the air and his base is not leaving. Independents are going to be left with a strange choice in November depending on who the republicans put forward. I wouldn't be surprised if a strong third party "Ross Perot" type character emerges.
//Obviously as a strong Democratic supporter I'm hoping they win, but I can tell you when the other side is making smart political moves even when I disagree with them. Sarah Palin figured out how to make a ton of money. Good for her.
That one comment weighed against all the many, many harsh comments against Obama in particular and democratic policies in general made in this and other threads? Seriously?
If that's the standard, you must think I'm a moderate too. I know I said at least once that I thought that some spending program should be cut, and I vaguely remember coming up with three good things to say about GWB in response to a challenge from Jason. So, does your standard of weighing one or two comments leaning to the other political side make me a moderate too? Will you be as fair to me in deciding whether I'm a moderate?
Granted Julia did backstab the most popular PM of all time (K-Rudd) and had a equally bad campaign "Real Julia and Moving forward". Even now she is a puppet to the factional powerbrokers.
I digress, things to blame Howard on:
GST (Let's add 10% to everything and we'll have 10% more money... How much GST is on a cake?)
Sale of Telstra (not the actual sale, but done wrong because wholesale and retail were packaged as one. This then led to the famous Mexican/American CEO that ran the company into the ground and fought the government on everything. Not only did we not get infrastructure upgrades, but maintainence and service became worst! Only now are we catching up due to the NBN, why because we told Telstra to go fuck itself and threatened force seperation.)
Private Health Insurance (A failed attempt to destroy MediCare. Basically a way to seperate the rich and the poor. Because it's not means tested, the rich who can afford private health cover don't pay for the medicare levy and actually get tax cuts because of it. While the poor who can't afford it have to get taxed.)
Workplace Relations (trying to pull one over the unions, good thing K-Rudd got rid of that!)
Budget Surpluses (Just handing everyone, especially "breeders" tax cuts during election time. Not actually spending money on infrastructure, health or education. Imagine the rail roads and ports we could've had if mining boom Mk1 was managed better.)
Education Funding (Let's cut funding to unis, get rid of HEC [it's now called HELP and it's indexed], force unis to cut government funded places in favour of overseas students, and force everyone to join the student guild, adding a unnecassary compulsary $250 cost every semester! Funding for private schools when they charge a shit load anyway.)
Going to War (Did not need to get involved at all)
Citizenship Test (WTF does this achieve? Waste of government resources)
Shortening the term in office (From 4 years to 3. So incumbent governments have less time to to implement policies)
Indian giver (Offered the leadership to Costello, but took it back after he won)
Immigration (Basically killed the multi-cultural dream in Australia and fed into racism. Remeber the Cronulla riots and that teenager with the homemade shirt saying "We grew here, You flew here")
That's all I can think of for now. But yeah... "not" a lot to blame Howard for...
It's still Howard's fault, the man had nearly 12 years in office with the last term having control of both the house of reps and senate.
That's 12 years of dicking Australia over!
I'll even forgive you for that you're not going to read more than half the first post. I'm charitable like that. I'm baffled as to where you think I am right now. To be clear, I've been back in the country for more than a year now. And It's not like my job doesn't directly involve knowing what's going on in politics in this country from the top to the bottom, so that I can sell telling people about it. Freelance Journalist, remember? I'm no Grog's Gamut, but gimme a break, here. No shit, Dude. However, I've heard people blame things on him such as the Global financial crisis, the Stolen Generation, Rudd Getting knifed, so on, so on. Sure, The guy did stupid shit, he made some mistakes, every single politician and administration does - Or have you rapidly forgotten the 2 billion dollar money sink that was the home insulation scheme? - But I'm simply saying that people blame him for more than he actually did. Just like the Republicans might say that people are blaming bush for more than he did, or as a reflexive arse-covering for any mistake their party might make, and how democrats are saying the same thing but with different people.
Now, let's talk turkey about your points.
- The GST. Well, yeah, that's his thing. It replaced the horrendously complex system of sales taxes and wholesale taxes, by making it one tax across the board. On top of that, it gave the economy a bit of a boost by giving more money back to the makers and sellers of items, as well as giving the states all a well needed cash injection. Or did you forget about the 22 Billion dollar surplus that was handed to the Labor government, and was promptly pissed up the fucking wall? You shouldn't forget about it, you got tossed a Grand worth out of it, but hey, memories are short in politics.
Oh, and how much GST is there on a cake? If you're buying a cake, Ten Percent. If you're Making a cake, None, unless you want to count the 10% GST on each total ingredient, in which case it's not really on the cake, but you're desperately scrabbling for a foothold when you start using that argument, so I'll be kind and let you have it.
Oh, and by the way, You're referencing an interview with John HEWSON not John HOWARD. Two different blokes, if you couldn't tell by the eyebrows, or by the fact that that was a completely different GST plan, which was at least three years prior to John howard even becoming the Prime Minister, Let alone introducing a GST plan, which was at least six years prior to him introducing his own.
Oops, forgot to mention, I'm not a complete fucking moron when it comes to political history, sorry to make your life harder.
Oh! Speaking of political history, you make a point of fact about Political history which I feel the need to provide a little context for so not to lie to our American friends by omission - I also remember that when Rudd Got the boot, Not only had his approval rating hit rock bottom after a three year decline, and it was lower than Howard's when Howard got the boot. And on top of that, Rudd's highest approval rating, which came right after the election(in fact, the February after he took over in December of 2007) - and we all know how well that went for him. However, Howard is the holder of the title for Second highest approval rating in Australian political history, five points behind Rudd, and this was seven years, rather than two months, after he became Prime Minister. Rudd's title looses a little bit of impact, when you don't look at it totally insulated from the reality of the situation.
- The Telstra Sale. Yeah, you're right, They did take a nosedive post privatization - going from fourteen billion dollars of profit to ten billion, going from ten million plus subscribers to about seven and a half million, They took away completely new services, Had less marketing and selling capability owait I got those reversed, it was actually 1991 to 1996, before the privatization that they only made ten billion, and it was post privatization that they made four billion dollars more, gained about three million subscribers, introduced a bunch of new tech, and modernized their entire network. It wasn't entirely the best thing to do, but I'd say Running the company into the ground is a bit harsh to accuse old Solomon Trujillo of.
I mean, it's not like Telstra was effected by the Global Financial Crisis at all(During the Rudd Years) or that the real worst thing to happen during Solomon's time as CEO of Telstra was Big Brother Conroy the crazy catholic crusader's Suddenly and Unexpectedly turning down their Tender for the NBN, during his period where he fucked about and fucked about and fucked about, because he didn't want to go ahead with the NBN without the filter in place.
Oh yeah, what was that again...Oh, Labor's plan to censor the internet, which apparently included a little more than just the ludicrous banning of anything worse than an MA15+ rating.
But, It's funny, though. How they fucked off Telstra out of the NBN. Which means that the Eleven Billion that the government gave Telstra to hand over customers to the NBN just doesn't exist, then? Or the fact that the NBN includes a plan to use any Previously existing Telstra fiber, exchanges and network ducting where possible? Because if we're going to start pretending things don't exist for the sake of argumentative convenience, this is going to be really confusing.
All that said, do I think that the Telstra Sale was a good idea? Eh, not the greatest. It did provide short term benefit, but generally, it could have been handled much, much better. What in all the fucks do you think you're talking about?
Hold that thought, we're only at the third point, and I already need a drink, so I'm going to have a warm, refreshing bowl of
Let Me give you a brief rundown of the history of Howard and Medicare - Howard, being a total bastard, indeed divided the Rich and the poor on medicare. For example, introducing an extra 1% Medicare Levy on and poor, down on his luck soul earning more than $70 Grand a year, to try and encourage Australians who can afford to to move to private healthcare - in fact, they had a specific one in mind, and you also saw a great big uptick in the amount of advertisements and general marketing push for it, just this little fund called Medibank Private, the Government owned Private healthcare fund - simultaneously both encouraging more people who CAN afford healthcare to get private insurance and providing more money for the people who CAN'T afford private health insurance.
The worst Howard did to that whole deal was promise to Privatize medibank private if he won the 2007 election, but you know how that turned out. I realize our American friends might not be familiar with the workchoices legislation (which was a bit of a dog, it's true) So let me run down the basics for you, but if you're crazy, You can read the whole thing here. Did he just link to the entire legislation which I'll put down money you have not previously read? Oh shit, he did!
-Introduced "Australian workplace agreements", which allowed individuals to negotiate with the company independently of union negotiations, but only if they chose to do so, and if they did not, union agreements still applied. Fun Fact- Previous to this, if you weren't a member of a union, the union could negotiate an agreement with an employer that dicked over non-union members, and you had literally no say in this whatsoever. Your only options were 1)Join a union or 2)bend over, here comes the pineapple.
-Expanded the Use and scope of Enterprise Bargaining agreements(Re-named to collective agreements), where the unions negotiate with individual organizations on matters usually covered by the award, however, these agreements usually worked out so that workers could get tailored agreements that got them greater net benefit than the award provided, but these agreements were previously allowed to specifically exclude non-union employees. Part of what the unions were so pissed about in this legislation was The removal of their ability to do just that.
-Placed restrictions on Union Activity - such as their ability to fuck over non-union employees. Actual beneficial union activities were generally not affected.
-Outlawing "Closed Shops" - Another thing the unions were SUPER pissed about, because that means that it was illegal for an employer or union or make any sort of agreement for an employer to hire only union Employees. Which was kinda important, considering that the unions already made sure that union employees were more expensive than non-union employees, because they wanted to provide a nice big incentive for joining the union and paying their dues.
However, it also reduced some employee protections, such as changing the unfair dismissals laws(some of which were utter bullshit, some were not, but the former outweighed the latter), removed unfair dismissal protection from employees of any company with less than 101 employees, Removed the "No Disadvantages test" from agreements(but later introduced a Fairness test, to be fair, which the unions hated just as much, despite being more comprehensive than the previous standard), and the changes to the agreement certification process were not fantastic - I'd be lying if I said I liked any of those, but I must state them for completeness. After all, lying by omission is still lying. Y'know, sort of like how you said the changes Howard introduced to medicare were not means tested, which is an absolute lie, except that is a lie in the traditional sense of making shit up, rather than omission. What. Yeah, the Howard government was responsible for a Budget Surplus, but I lack understanding on how Tax cuts, reducing federal income, can lead to having MORE money. Infrastructure is very generally a STATE responsibility, not a federal one - the federal government can give money, but the states choose how to spend it - unless you'd fancy to explain how the federal government is directly responsible for, say, the repeated failure of a Paramatta to Epping high speed rail link, which tends to cost quite a bit every time it comes up? For example, it's not Howard's fault that the NSW state labor government have been pissing every infrastructure cent they've been given up the wall. However, You can't really call Rudd's incredible overspending a positive - after all, where are all those computers for schools? All the indigenous housing he promised? Two Billion dollar failure of the Insulation scheme? The enormous amount of money spent on the NBN spinning it's wheels?
Also, you seem to willfully forget that the Howard government made those cuts because they were recovering from the fucking 1990s recession - That's right, unlike our current labor government, they decided to save some money instead of urinating it up every structural support in sight - And that's how we ended up with a 22 billion dollar surplus despite having to recover from a recession, because they didn't spend money foolishly. They could have done better, sure, but it's hard to criticize a net success that had a few smaller problems, rather than the string of enormous failures we had under The Milky Bar kid.
-Going to war. Hum. I'm not the biggest fan, I'm generally against it, and I think we went to war when it was not properly justified by concrete evidence - however, on the other hand, It's not like the nation was not right alongside America in Baying for blood right after the 9/11 attacks. It's not like Rudd didn't continue the war, though I will give him credit for scaling it back a little when he pulled out all combat troops, though they were the vast minority of our forces in the middle east. I think I'm missing the part where it's uncommon for a nation to go to war alongside it's allies. Not to mention we Bayed for blood AGAIN after the bali bombings - If the Australian government had listened to the majority of the Australian public at that time, we'd have been at war with every fucking muslim country on the face of the earth. Also, as a fun note - the biggest part of our involvement? Reconstruction and Logistics. The majority of our combat troops were special forces, not regulars, assisting American special forces. Yeah, Howard did cut government funding to Universities, which was less of a change than when He also deregulated them, and allowed them to increase their fees by 25%, which pretty much all of them have done.
They didn't get Rid of HECS (You missed the S) that is an outright lie - It's now part of the HELP scheme, and other than the Name change to HECS-HELP, it's largely unchanged, along with radically changing PELS (now FEE-HELP) to assist students with a loan cover postgraduate fees.
If they'd removed HECS, then shit, my mate dDn would be in trouble - He's got something like 80-90 thousand bucks worth of HECS-HELP debt, because he lost his scholarship before Voluntary student unionism, as he couldn't afford to pay his union dues. The Student union Didn't give a fuck, withheld his results, and caused him to lose his scholarship, and saddling him with his entire student debt. Thanks, student union. But that bit aside, if they had really gotten rid of HECS like you claim, then he'd have that debt dropped straight on him - which isn't the case.
Also, I might add, you are getting Howard confused with...God knows what, honestly. I don't know where you're getting this "Forced everyone to join a guild" - by the way, I assume you mean union by that, since I don't really recall any sort of thing similar to a guild that anyone is forced to join, and costs about 250 bucks - Howard REMOVED Compulsory Student Unionism, thus meaning that it was no longer compulsory to join a student union, not the other way around. Because of Howard, you NO LONGER have to pay that 250 bucks per semester, if unions are what you're talking about.
If you're talking about that universities can now choose to charge students up to 250 dollars per semester for Amenities such as Counseling, sporting fields and childcare, then you get a big, big Fail stamped on your "Which government is which?" test, because that was The Gillard Government, in September last year.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but I'm starting to suspect strongly that you don't actually know a fucking thing about what you're talking about. Internal party politics that don't really matter unless you're either Peter Costello, or one of his Massive fans, of which there are fuck all. What? The only time that Howard introduced legislation to that effect was way back when he was the leader of the opposition, and it didn't get through. If anyone is killing the multicultural dream, It's the Mad Monk and fucking Peppermint Patty, with their stop the boats mantras and Anti-immigration stances - Oh yeah, you forgot to Mention that both parties are chanting the same thing about stopping the boats. I wonder why. Oh wait, no I don't.
Now, there is something I need to tell you - Other than the fact that I don't like you very much because now I've defended Howard in the interest of truth, and that's someone I have as an immense dislike for as any other politician hanging about today - and it is thus: Considering one of your Points against Howard was based on a gross fundamental misunderstanding of our political system, You seem to have mixed up Hewson and Howard, You were either lying or didn't know about the deal with HECS, You either lied or didn't know about the changes to the medicare levy, You were misinformed or are lying about the majority of workchoices, And one of your talking points was something that was completely irrelevant - so Don't bother.
That's right - You actually failed so enormously that I shall brook no further argument, because it is literally pointless to discuss this further with you, because you lack the knowledge to even attempt to debate the topic. I don't care if your next argument is to drown me half to death in rum and then have the milky bar kid pay for whores that all vaugely resemble Miranda Lawson to screw me the rest of the way to death, I'm still just going to ignore any further attempt to argue back because it is not even worth my almost literally valueless time.
And that's fucking saying something, considering how arguments normally go around here.
If it's any consolation, my mild dislike of you for putting me in a position defending Howard has cooled - It happens, and now we all know more things, so net benefit in the end for everybody who has a spare hour and a half for reading a goddamn short novel of a post.