The ban was done under Republican EPA administrator Ruckelshaus, appointed by Republican Nixon,, who founded the EPA. Reagan, another Republican, later appointed him administrator for the EPA during part of his term.

The entire program was started and run by Republicans. Why are you making absurd claims about “the left” and blaming me for killing millions. I didn’t do it! The Republicans in power did!

As for being a heartless monster, that is just your imagination gone wild.
For a fact, regarding drilling for oil, Obama has opened up the Eastern shelf which was closed under Bush. In addition, there are 86 billion barrels of oil which are open for drilling in the Gulf (with only 18 billion restricted). The big oil companies are NOT drilling because they can both make more money by limiting supplies, just like OPEC does, and thus keeping the price higher and then they can, relying on ignoramuses like you, claim the government is keeping them from drilling. It isn’t! They 86 billion barrels to drill for but choose not to. Of the 13 drilling rigs in the Gulf, only 3 are currently being used.

You need to take your meds, stop calling people you don’t know monsters and murderers, and stop getting your information from a website which promotes Lynden LaRouche, who is described as:

“The Washington Post and The New York Times, have described him over the years as a conspiracy theorist, fascist, and anti-Semite, and have characterized his movement as a cult.”

Wikipedia reports: “According to The Los Angeles Times, LaRouche established ties with the Ku Klux Klan and the Liberty Lobby in 1974.[44] Frank Donner and Randall Rothenberg wrote that he made successful overtures to the Liberty Lobby and George Wallace’s American Independent Party, adding that the “racist” policies of LaRouche’s U.S. Labor Party endeared it to members of the Ku Klux Klan.”

You seem both ignorant and extremist, a dangerous combination.

The studies that were cited in my previous post all showed that DDT has harmful effects on human reproduction. It is not banned for spraying for maleria but for spraying on food crops. You are welcome to eat as much DDT as you please.

More on the Larouche connection of the website you offered as telling the truth that DDT is harmless to humans.

“1984: NBC lawsuit
In January 1984 NBC aired a news segment about LaRouche, and in March a “First Camera” report produced by Pat Lynch. In an article for the Columbia Journalism Review in 1985, Lynch wrote that the reports included the allegation that LaRouche was “the leader of a violence-prone, anti-Semitic cult that smeared its opponents and sued its critics.”[93] In interviews, former members of the movement gave details about their fundraising practices, and alleged that LaRouche had spoken about assassinating U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The reports said an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would lead to an indictment, and quoted Irwin Suall, the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) fact-finding director, who called LaRouche a “small-time Hitler.” After the broadcast, LaRouche members picketed NBC’s office carrying signs saying “Lynch Pat Lynch,” and the NBC switchboard said it received a death threat against her. Another NBC researcher said someone placed fliers around her parents’ neighborhood saying she was running a call-girl ring from her parents’ home.[94] Lynch said LaRouche members began to impersonate her and her researchers in telephone calls, and called her “Fat Lynch” in their publications.[93]
LaRouche filed a defamation suit against NBC and the ADL, arguing that the programs were the result of a deliberate campaign of defamation against him.[95] The judge ruled that NBC need not reveal its sources, and LaRouche lost the case. NBC won a countersuit, the jury awarding the network $3 million in damages,,,,: (Wikipedia)

You have lost all credibility. I will not stoop to your level but let the facts speak for themselves. I have no interest in continuing the “dialogue.” It is idiotic to argue with idiots. But I thank you for showing your true colors (fascist black). Fini.

Oh come on now. It was obviously a 60′s liberal policy to ban ddt, and I never said, implied or thought that there are always conservatives in Republican office. But these left leaning Republicans were lobbied by clearly leftist environmentalists (near always one in the same) to ban DDT. You are making excuses. Bottom line is that the Left, who wanted this, were told it would likely cause death, and they did not care. They cared more about the bird eggs. Despicable. And your websites by pathetic leftists trying to rewrite history (as usual) will not change anything.

And energy, you really do live in a dream world. Even as Obama is backing down from approving the pipe line from Canada. They are now saying they will simply sell their oil to Asia instead (where there are *less* environmental controls, and on the same planet, genius) The EPA has written 8 volumes over years now, to conclude that it is environmentally safe to have that pipeline. Yet YOU DO NOT CARE! Nor will admit it is the fault of the Left that we are likely losing this opportunity.
Also, Obama had personally used the gulf spill to prevent off-shore drilling, beyond even what was recommended. France gets 80% of their energy from nuclear power. We get hardly any, even though most of the concern has long been proven to be nonsense and fear mongering.

You leftists simply do not care about human life over what you want to believe and your emotion driven ideals.
And I don’t who this LaRouche is, or care. That website was found in 20 seconds, which seemed to lay out succinctly this issue of DDT. Yet it was you, the Left, who started the K*K and used them as the strong arm of the Democratic party. It was the Democrats who wouldn’t enforce existing civil rights laws when in power, and so sparked the whole need for the civil rights movement in the first place, once out of office. As usual they capitalized on compassion. Far more Republicans voted for the civil rights bill than Dems anyway. You on the Left always re-write history. But the truth will always come out, eventually.
When blacks find out how they’ve been had, and how you’ve decimated their communities for 40 years, it’s over. Republican MLK’s dream of a color-blind society just may have a chance to finally be realized once people like you are not in able to get lies out there, as easily as now.

re your: “stop calling people you don’t know monsters and murderers” My tongue remains firmly in cheek, as for years now, you on the Left have been calling people like my mother racists, horrible human beings and worse, for simply being in the Tea Party. It is disgusting, and simply because they believe that the bigger the government gets, the smaller the citizen.

You have no excuse for what you’ve done, especially after we see how the Left’s version of the tea party has turned out. So really, now that you know how feels, how do you like it, racist?

NAZI does not equal socialist. You are using an accident of etymology to claim the Nazi’s were leftist. None of their political actions were socialist. None of their economics were socialist. If you know anything about the pre WWII nazi party you would know they fought street battles with the Communists and socialists.

Hey there, racist. Besides my example of them banning guns, it took me 30 secs to find out you are wrong about the Nazis. Check out this post )not my writing)
+++++++++
Here in America the National Socialist Democrat Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Democrat Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP or simply “the Nazi Party”, or even more simply “the Democrats”) use strongarm tactics to remove Christianity from public view, populate the universities and newsrooms to rewrite history and propagandize the daily news, attack traditional cultural institutions like marriage, the nuclear family, and even the Boy Scouts, and personally destroy scientists and professors who do not toe the line with regard to Democrat Party doctrine on abortion, embryonic stem cells, the environment, and “global warming”.
Naturally, imposing rationed state-controlled health care on the masses, threatening to suppress opposing opinion and free speech through a “fairness doctrine”, and using quasi-terrorist tactics to stonewall any attempt to roll back socialism (for example, legislators in Wisconsin fleeing the state with a clap on the back from Fuhrer Ubama in order to prevent a vote on pending legislation) perfectly fits the modus operandi of America’s own 21st century Nazi party.

In other words, America’s Democrats are operating in EXACTLY the same way the original version of their party operated in Germany during the 1930s.
+++++++++++++++++++

Ruff: Besides my example of them banning guns, it took me 30 secs to find out you are wrong about the Nazis. Check out this post (not my writing)
++++++
Here in America the National Socialist Democrat Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Democrat Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP or simply “the Nazi Party”, or even more simply “the Democrats”) use strongarm tactics to remove Christianity from public view, populate the universities and newsrooms to rewrite history and propagandize the daily news, attack traditional cultural institutions like marriage, the nuclear family, and even the Boy Scouts, and personally destroy scientists and professors who do not toe the line with regard to Democrat Party doctrine on abortion, embryonic stem cells, the environment, and “global warming”.
Naturally, imposing rationed state-controlled health care on the masses, threatening to suppress opposing opinion and free speech through a “fairness doctrine”, and using quasi-terrorist tactics to stonewall any attempt to roll back socialism (for example, legislators in Wisconsin fleeing the state with a clap on the back from Fuhrer Ubama in order to prevent a vote on pending legislation) perfectly fits the modus operandi of America’s own 21st century Nazi party.

In other words, America’s Democrats are operating in EXACTLY the same way the original version of their party operated in Germany during the 1930s.
++++++++++

Every example he gives I’ve heard about the Nazis doing. (…but worse than the Left in the States, of course)

Hitler demonized liberals and leftists, and they were the first to be taken to the concentration camps. All serious scholars of Nazism find it rooted in the extreme rightwing, which gained power by demonizing the liberal Weimar Republic.

The American fascist rightwing has tried to revise history by claiming Hitler was a lefty. Goldberg cites a term “liberal fascism” once used by HG Wells in 1932.
The fact is that Hilter hated the left and persecuted them; the rightwing in the US also hates and persecutes liberals, using the same dehumanizing rhetoric that Hitler used. For confirmation see the speechs of Hitler and the Doctrine of Fascism (1932) by Mussolini.

Rightwing fascism is the merging of the interests of the corporations and the state (Mussolini called it corporatocracy). The fascists attacked the left, denounced liberalism and democracy, and found fellow travelers among American rightwingers like Edison and Lindberg.

The anti-fascists were leftwingers who fought against Hitler and the fascists in Italy and Spain.

The new fascism is to call those who fought against fascism “fascists.”

Just as the Democratic Republic of North Korea is not “democratic,” the National socialists were not “socialists” but rather rounded them up and killed them.

Socialism is against corporate rule, against the class structure of society, and supports strong unions. The fascists merged with the corporations, embraced class structure, and banned and attacked union leaders.

Guns were strongly regulated long before Hitler took power. Hitler was a Christian who got the support of mainstream churches. David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992…” You need to spend more than 30 seconds locating a rightwing revisionist “history” to refute 80 years of solid scholarship on fascism.

There is actually no such thing as “extreme right wing”. That’s just emotive crap, and lies, repeated by leftists over and over and over, and over, again. Yet as I’ve shown, near everything about Hitler, the supposed most extreme right winger of all, was a leftist in what he actually did and much of what he said. He did NOT believe that the bigger the government the smaller the citizen. His core values were NOT rooted in individual liberty over and above the State. He did NOT believe that all people were precious and sacred, even the unborn, because they had *objective* worth as being made by God; the source of all value itself. You are repeating garbage, and you will continue to do so, because you don’t care for the truth.
You don’t care about why you are wrong, because you and others like you want control over others, you want to be like God because you do not want to believe in God. And I think you, and leftists in general, are deeply pathetic, and probably far worse than I can imagine.

Can we agree that none of us want to live in a Nazi, Fascist, Totalitarian, elitist, or otherwise dictatorial regime here in the US?

We might all find out that we have common ground.

Some elements in our nation is trying to turn us all against each other, an incite civil or class war.

I am not on the left, and I am not on the right. I am among the majority who disapprove of my Congress, my judiciary, and my corporate leadership.

I am a capitalist, patriot, and I want all of you to be free, especially anyone who I don;t agree with. I want you to have freedom the most.

Thank you Mic, for your, frankly, gentle and wise words. I do believe I am fighting for truth, often, when I am putting my thoughts out there. But yours are the deeper truth and the real point.

Calling people monsters (especially Christians like myself) is hardly fighting for truth. Repeating rightwing dogma is hardly fighting for the truth. The truth comes when you put aside ideology and look at things as they actually are.

Name-calling, personal attacks, etc. strip you of all credibility.

PS they only call it class warfare when you fight back.

IMO, whoever “they” is calls it class war when tey want large groups of the population to go to war against each other.

I believe that America in 2011 is savvy enough to find out who the criminal and corrupt individuals are, and to administer justice to them.

Class War is the Wizard of Oz. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Nice try Ruff. You missed the part where I said I often feel and believe I am fighting for truth, not always. There are times though, when dealing with clear, outspoken deceivers like yourself, that I find myself getting a bit uppity. It is nothing less than you deserve though, frankly.
It was also, as explained, in irony beside your calling people like my beautiful Mother, in the tea party, subhuman beasts (as racists, essentially, are.) You should know how it feels, fancy pants.

Honest Japes, I don’t know your beautiful mother and I never called her anything, not knowing her. I never called anyone subhuman. You must have mistaken me for someone else.

As for my fancy pants, well that’s your perverse imagination at work.

And as for your logic: since someone called some Tea Party people racists (some actually are, of course, but not your lovely mother), you have decided to blame it on me and thus justify calling me a racist. Now a racist discriminates against a certain racial group. Exactly what racial group have I discriminated against?.

I admit I marched with Dr King in Selma but that does not make me anti-white, for his call for equality was universal.

Racists discriminate against other races. What race did I discriminate against?

And since I did not DID NOT I REALLY DID NOT HONEST TO gOD CALL YOUR mother a racist, I swear! I expect you as an honorable person to apologize for your mistake.

I honor your beautiful mother and condemn whoever called her a racist.
Did you know there are no races: it’s a myth. Racism was invented by slave owners to justify treating other humans as subhuman. Point that out does not mean I am calling anyone subhuman. Only fascists do that; I am totally anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-evil…..

So forgive me for not calling your mother a racist. I hardly know her.

The Left have uniformly, and on a daily basis for over 2 years, been calling people in the tea party unjust, dehumanizing names.
Yet Ruff, there are millions of tea party people, millions of video phones on leftists like yourself, and barely evidence in all this time to back up the accusation in the cultural ether. This means that the scant evidence, in science or logic is called a ‘statistical anomaly’, which means it *proves the opposite* of the Left’s ugly accusation.
Now, from memory (I don’t pay enough attention to user names) I thought you had been calling people in the tea party “tea-baggers”. (The Left knowing this means two men sucking on each other’s genitals, which is why they use it to try and dehumanize people like my mom.)
If I am wrong, that you have never, ever used this term to describe the people in the tea party. If you have never portrayed the group as racist or uneducated or red-neck or similar (in spite of the now scientific evidence that these accusing leftists, even in the main stream media, are incorrect) than I will apologize.

But if you have judged and accused this entire group in such ways, in the past two years or so, than again, fancy pants, you should know how it feels. ie. Are you a racist? Can you prove you are not?
Do you get it now? No? I didn’t think so.

“The single greatest weapon of the Left is to demonize their opponents.”
Dennis Prager

Now do you see the evil done by judging individuals on the basis of an abstract label like “leftist?” This is guilt by association, which is an injustice. If a KKK wizard like David Duke runs (and wins) as a Republican, can I then portray all Republicans as racists? If a OWS protester makes a stupid or extreme statement, does that mean that all OWS protesters share that statement? No. So it is wrong for you to go around calling people YOU lump together as “the Left” monsters, etc. There is no such thing as “the Left,” and individuals who disagree with you cannot, with justice, be condemned because they fit into YOUR label for them.

I know there are racists in the Tea Party because in several “discussions” with Tea Party members (at Townhall.com), they referred me to links like the Stormfront.org David Duke racist website to back up their opinions. If David Duke is your*in the generic sense) authority, I think it reasonable to assume you share his White Pride philosophy of racism. This is not guilt by association, for it was the Tea Party people who directed me to the racist website. Nor does this mean all Tea Party members are racists, but even the Tea Party Nation had to distance itself from the racism of some members.

The origin of the term Tea baggers arose because some of the original Tea Party people called themselves tea baggers and wore tea bangs dangling from their hats. This was picked up by critics and used to mock their naive use of the term.

I believe people have the right to be called by the name they choose (I do not like to be called Ruff). Tea Party people should not be called tea baggers (even by themselves) just as those who call the President Obummer and Democrats libtards are offending common decency. This does NOT mean that a person who uses red-baiting and other fascist rhetorical tactics should be tolerated without calling him out. I use fascism in its historical text, based on the scholarship on the fascist movements and the primary sources such as Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism (1932) and the speeches of Hitler. Fascism is the merging of the interests of the state and the corporations, a form of crony capitalism, with an aggressive military posture and the denunciation of liberalism and democracy. If someone defends corporate ability to integrate their private interests with that of the government, urges pre-emptive war, and blames all evil on liberals, I call lthat historic fascism.

The Tea Party, which began in 2007 with the Ron Paul anti-war/anti corporate welfare state rallies, has since been hijacked and transformed into an arm of the Republican Party urging corporate subsidies, military aggression, and blaming liberals for all that is evil…in other words, it is totally reversed the positions of the libertarian Tea Party to become a fascist look-a-like, in the historical sense.
If your mother disagrees with the co-opted Tea Party, she might consider resigning unless she agrees with these pro-corporate,pro-war positions.

I accept your apology for falsely condemning me for actions I did not do.
If you are going to call people monsters, you ought to first find out if they are the guilty parties. Otherwise, you are acting like a Brownshirt lumping all lefties together and then attacking. Your apology, tho hedged, shows you have the makings of a decent person. Now stop judging all on “the Left” by the stereotypes promulgated in the corporate media and educate yourself on “the Left” by reading journals like the Nation and the Progressive. You will find that your ideas of the left are distorted by the rightwing media. Always go to the primary sources to validate your opinions. Relying on propaganda is a deadend on the journey to truth.

Denying the achievements of government “bureaucrats” who invented nuclear energy, the internet, the GPS, and satellite technology is NOT the way to honor the achievements of individuals. Government bureaucrats, teachers, cops, and researchers are also individuals. It is important to recognize their accomplishments.

It makes no sense to celebrate Steve Jobs, who invented the mouse, while ignoring that his whole career and innovations were based on a system created by individuals (working in teams, as they do in private industry) working for the government. To be fair, we must admit that the government has provided the innovations which have revolutionized the past half century while celebrating the achievements, based on these innovations, by private individuals.

Apology accepted.

Oh come on Ruff! The word ‘leftist’ is not an insult, it is descriptive of a person’s value system. Just like the word conservative or libertarian. What are you talking about? Calling someone a teabagger is meant to dehumanize and insult, and you know it.

A leftist has a whole set of values and dogmas and faiths, just like any other value system. They just often try and pretend that they don’t have contrasting views with others, to appear utterly ‘normal’. It is why Bolshevism, (which means the majority) who were a minority called themselves bolshevics, to give the illusion that they were the majority. I think secular leftism and Statism is a bad one world view with bad ideas, which have greatly increased cruelty, suffering and death on earth. Yet leftists think horribly of conservatives, but usually attack the person instead of their ideas. (eg. He is greedy from wanting to cut that tax and doesn’t care about kids. Rather than addressing his idea/belief that cutting the tax would bring in more for the kids.) The MO of the Left is to attack the motives, or the person. Which is what I was doing a parody of with you. I do still believe that you are deceitful, to be honest.

And look at what you’re writing. You completely missed the point that out of *millions* of tea party people, thousands of protests over two years, and millions of video phones, that the relatively scant evidence of bad behavior is literally a statistical anomaly. Why this is important is that a statistical anomaly suggests that the *opposite* is true. ie. Tea Party people are disproportionately decent rather than otherwise.
Yet the amount of bad behavior from your side, the Left or in this OWS version of the tea party, has gone beyond a statistical anomaly for evidence of bad behavior. And it was they who have been calling the tea party people dehumanizing names all these years. Is the irony is too rich for you, still? Don’t you get it? I didn’t think so.
P.S.
I never apologized, because you never answered my criteria. Pay attention: Ruff!!!

P.S.
And Hitler was functioning, before and during the time he was trying to gain power, in a deeply Christian culture or one that had centuries of Christian capital that he had to work with. You’ll notice that *before* he got total control over everyone (him and his STATE Gov., that is…ie. a leftist) he used Christian terminology. Once he had power he didn’t bother, and in fact said many things (as well as did) which utterly contradicted any notion that he was a believer. So if you think Hitler was a Christian, and you know what I’m saying, than you are nothing more than an idiot or a liar.

P.P.S.
Socialism is about growing the State’s power over individuals. (Sure, ostensibly for and with good intentions as in western Europe) Hitler grew the power the State had over individual liberty a thousandfold. He was the exact opposite of a small government libertarian/conservative. I’m sick of you and your pathetic lies. Lies are the real source of all evil. Grow up, and stop trying to hurt others for the sake of what you *want* to be true.

There are many socialist traditions: the original socialist utopian vision was of self-governing collectives of worker-owned enterprise (compatible with free markets); Marx’s vision was of the ELIMINATION OF THE STATE, and the end of a class-based society with worker-ownership and control of industry. Both of these traditions are anti-statist.

The statist version of socialism is epitomized by Stalin, who turned the traditions of socialism on their head by having the state own everything, which is a form of state capitalism (the state owns all the capital).

The social democracies of all the developed nations are a hybrid of socialist values (equality, liberty, workers rights) within a capitalist market economy.
These hybrid systems have both an excellent record of civil rights and econoimic growth.

So there are 3 distinct traditions of socialism: anti-statist worker-run collectives (of which there are thousands in the US, from steel foundaries to bakeries), state socialism (which exists only in a few marginal societies like North Koriea), and the social democracies, which incorporate socialist workers’ values and rights into market economies.

A 4th variation is the Chinese example of an authoritarian state which operates,, both on the public and private levels, in a free market economy. Please note that this variation has the highest growth of GDP, profits, jobs, and rising wages, but that it has a strong fascist element of a state-controlled system of corporations.Of the top 45 corps in China, 90% are state-owned.

So we have at least 4 distinct varieties of socialism. Critics usually ignore 3 of them and focus on the state socialism model, which today is rare except for China. To have a rational discussion about socialism, it is necessary to define which kind of socialism you are talking about. After all, the police and teachers are all part of a socialist concept of public instituitions.

For those of us on the libertarian left, the only way that we can actually have free enterprise in free markets is to dismantle the corporatocracy (the state merged with corporate interests, which is how Mussolini defined fascism) and create a system of employee-owned enterprise, non-profits (like the credit unions, which have 93 million owner-members and did not collapse as the private banks did), and private enterprise with robust workers’s rights, as in the case of the co-determination models of Europe, or Southwest Airlines, with 39 yrs of consecutive profit in a risky industry, and 90% unionized.

Making sweeping generalizations about socialism or capitalism without defining terms inevitably leads to chaos. Left libertarians support decentralized, non-statist socialism, in which employees own and control their business. Only when the current corporatocracy is crushed (Jefferson wrote we must “crush…the moneyed aristocracy” before they destroy liberty) and replaced with a pluralistic, decentralized system of coops, non-profits, and private enterprise with strong worker representation. This transformation will end the corruption of government by ending the rule of the wealthy corporations. Among the many new forms of economic organization, we can envision public or municipal enterprise, such as current city utilities which operate 10% cheaper than private utilities.

Economic democracy will bring political democracy. If this bothers you, perhaps you could think about Hitler’s famous speech in which he said: “Liberalism will create democracy which will create communism.”

This statement shows how undefined terms can be used to link anything.

Those inclined to use personal attacks instead of rational discourse should be warned in advance that ad hominem is a logical fallacy and discredits those who use insults and denunciations (always in undefined terms) as a replacement for rational discussion.

Under utopian and Marxian socialism,the state withers away and actual workers take control. This is the opposite of state socialism, which we already have in the form of socialism for the rich, the corporate welfare state. For example, one industry, drugs, gets more each yr in free money (120 billion a year) from the government than do the TANF (welfare) and Foodstamps combined.

Educate yourself and organize and make your voice heard. But first, define your terms.

Remember, generalizations are the Mother of wisdom. Yet examples need to be given. You wrote about “statist version of socialism”., yet I am saying that there really is no other possible version of socialism but one that includes an unacceptably large State or abusive infringement on individual liberty.
The reason for this is basically that individual liberty and egalitarianism are very often mutually exclusive. Or, one *has* to be prioritized over the other. EVERY type of socialism prioritized our decent instinct for egalitarianism far more than is acceptable to the small gov conservative or Libertarian. We really do see government as almost always the problem and not the solution. The Socialist depends on the State, the conservative depends on themselves and each other; thereby making real community.

“The bigger the government the smaller the citizen”
Dennis Prager

“the bigger the government the smaller the church”
“the bigger the government the smaller the charities”
“the bigger the government the smaller the families.”
“the bigger the government the smaller the trust in each other”
“the bigger the government the smaller the art.”
“the bigger the government the smaller the character”
“the bigger the government the smaller the liberty”
“the bigger the government the smaller the innovation”
“the bigger the government the smaller the prosperity”
“the bigger the government the smaller the quality”
“the bigger the government the smaller the peace”

The historical record refutes your ideological dogma. The nations with the biggest governments have the strongest economies, including China and the European and Asian social democracies. The nations with the weakest governments are the poorest and most violent: for example,, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Sudan.

Big government is the creation of Big Industry, which requires a big state to protect foreign economic interests as well as provide bailouts and subsidies, and to socialize the the costs of the inevitable result of financial capitalism: the cast off and unemployed.

The system we currently have is economic fascism, which is the merging of state and corporate interests, the integration of wealth and power.. In this system, corporations profit by promoting wars, which the government must borrow and expand in order to execute.

For example, Reagan tripled the debt while drastically increasing defense spending, which provides lucrative contracts to large weapons, etc. corporations. Cheney, who had been CEO of Haliburton, gave Haliburton a no-bid 9 billion contract after invading Iraq. Bush doubled the debt with massive defense spending, as he created zero private sector jobs but 2 million new federal l jobs (mostly in defense).

All Republican Presidents since Hoover have increased the debt ratio and expanding the size of government; all Democratic Presidents since Truman have decreased the debt ratio, reducing the size of government relative to the GDP.

Under Obama, government jobs have been lost by the hundreds of thousands at all levels. Government has shrunk, relative to the enormous wealth of this nation, to the point where even in the wealthy county where I live, the govt can’t afford to fix the roads or keep the libraries open. This in a country where the average household income is 70K!

In the richest nation ever, goverrnment is starved of funds as the corporations and the rich have appropriated all new wealth for the past 30 yrs. The Bush recession caused a decrease in govt revenues of 20%. But in order to fund wars and tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for large corps, we must borrow.

The more sweeping the generalization, the more likely it is to be wrong.

The happiest people in the world, according to a poll of 80,000 worldwide, are the Danes, who have the highest taxes in the world and a large public sector.
Why are they satisfied? Because for their higher taxes, they get universal healthcare and education, a strong social safety net, and a record of excellence in civil rights. Big government, a robust economy, a satisfied public, liberty and a higher degree of equality all combine in Denmark. Canada, much more socialist than the US, has, according to Forbes, a freer economy, as do many European nations.

To have a sustainable and growing economy, it is necessary to have both a robust government and a robust private sector in balance.

The biggest government, China, has the highest growth and wage hikes in the world and 300 million have risen from abject poverty in just one generation.

History refutes your dogmatic assertions. The unhappiest people in the world are in Somalia, with the weakest government. The happiest people are in Scandanavia, with big governments which deliver big benefits.

BTW, Jefferson and most of the FF were against the church, so a smaller church would be good; smaller famiilies are also a great benefit. As for art, some of the greatest art has been produced under the most tyrannical regimes.

Here is the truth you are avoiding: the smaller the government, the bigger the private corporations, armies, and warlords. Corporations and armies exercise more tyrannical control over people than government and they cannot be voted out, like politicians.

Short version: if big government is bad, what is the alternative? Big banks and corporations. That leads to (remember 2008) economic collapse, which then requires Big Government to bail them out. Big Industry created Big Government,*executed by the Republicans, for the most part) and has brainwashed the masses into thinking they want small government.
That is a naive illusion. Small government means the citizens are at the mercy of the corporations and private unaccountable powers. That is why all of us have lost 15 trillion in equity in the past 5 years. When corporations can control government thru their wealth, they will redistribute all wealth to themselves at the expense of the working class. This is theft and only citizen activisim (democracy in action) can challenge the corruption of government by the corporatocracy and return us to a point of balance.

If workers median wages had risen at the same rate as the top 1% did over the past 30 yrs, today the median wage (which is 26K) would be over 100K! The govt coffers would be full of tax revenue and business would be brisk with high consumer demand. The engineered inequality which is choking the economy (the demand gap) would be replaced with rising wages and growing profits for business, as during 1945-75, the golden era of shared prosperity.

It’s not about big…it’s about effective. As Jefferson said, “We must crush the moneyed aristocracy…” before they defy government and the laws. He also said: “Banks are even more dangerous than standing armies.” He saw the need for a strong government to balance the power of the corporations and banks and warned us 200 yrs ago. It’s time to listen to his message.

Ps..re innovations, the govt developed the internet, GPS, and the NIH drug research is the basis of US drug profits. NASA developed the satellite technology which we all use today. Government innovations have been the primary engine of economic growth for many decades, going back to the Interstate Highway System under Eisenhower. Govt innovations have created millions of new jobs (commercialized by the private sector as a gift/benefit of govt) and trillions in new wealth. It ought to be shared.

The bigger the lie, the more often it is repeated.
The bigger the myth, the more it is believed.
The bigger the dogma, the more vehemently it is defended.
The bigger the unsupported claims, the more name-calling will ensue when it is challenged.

The strongest economiies today are China and Germany, both with Big Governments. Canada is both more socialistic and richer and has a freer economy than the US. Denmark with the highest taxes has the most satisfied citizens. The poorest countries like Afghanistan and Somalia have the smallest governments. The US under the Articles of Confederation was a weak and failed state: thus the Constitution. Facts are stubborn things.

Wow! You’ve talked yourself into a tizzy there. You forget to mention that the issue is not only about a big government being bad, or not, for the economy. It is also about it being bad for the individual, their character and for innovation. (eg. compare the innovation of those countries you’ve mentioned compared to the State in the 20th century even.) You also forget to mention that to what degree China is successful, it is because they’ve *allowed8″ a certain degree of freedom from the State (Like land ownership or capitalism within their parameters) In other words, it is because of the State has held back, that they have had any success at all. Look at the bread lines image re Russia, or look at Cuba. One man and the bad idea of Communism has destroyed two generations of people. It used to be such a prosperous place until the State took over individual liberties. You fight, with passion, for the misery of your fellow human beings.
You have everything, in every way, completely backwards. You must have gone to graduate school.

“The bigger the government the smaller the citizen.”
Dennis Prager

P.S.
Canada’s recent success has to do with two things. One, they elected a conservative government. Two, they are exploiting their natural resources big time. You’ve just talked yourself into a corner there Ruff. Also, re innovation, you talk about the government getting involved with funding research of other individual Americans, as if bureaucrats actually have discovered or done anything useful. What a joke! The State never should have gotten involved in the first place. Every-time they do, for one thing, things get more expensive. Columbia U used to be about 10k only about a decade ago. Now it is many times that, and since the government got involved with tuition. You leftists did the same thing to medicine. It’s gotten so expensive because the government got involved. (of course, your solution now is to only get more involved) Look what happened to Japan. Everyone thought they’d be the next great power and for a long time, in the 80′s. The government got too intermingled in their free market and they’ve been in the economic doldrums for over 20 years.

Everything you do via your big State, big government solutions, ends up making things worse. Everything.

Government innovations which have created millions of jobs and trillions in wealth for the private sector:

the internet, GPS, basic drug research by NIH, satellite technology thru NASA research and development, nuclear power. These government innovations, developed by government employees, have been the chief engines of recent economic growth, just as the Interstate Highway system under Eisenhower led to great productivity and economic growth in an earlier era.

Yes, what you call bureaucrats developed nuclear energy, the internet, the global positioning system, the foundation for many commercialized drugs, the satellite technology I am using right now (along with the internet) to communicate with you. These are indisputable facts which demolish your “as if bureaucrats actually have discovered or done anything useful.” conceit. The inventors of the internet and the other revolutionary technologies which have boosted our economy were all “bureaucrats,” just like the other other useless bureaucrats like teachers, cops, firemen, food inspectors, and other parasitical public servants.

I am for a decentralized self-goverment model, both political and economic, but I recognize that the government has created the enabling innovations of our time and you have to use them to even tell me how full of shi. I am. QED.

So take that Macfarland, you knucklehead (but I still love ya).

PS: I did not call your attractive mother a racist. I don’t even know what race she is. Besides, there is no such thing as race: only racism, the myth/lie that men are divided into races. That makes as much sense as dividing people by their eye color. Therefore, logically, since I do not believe that races exist, I cannot by definition be a racist. Only those who believe in races are racists.

I reject the concept of race and repeat once more, I did not nor will I ever call your gorgeous mother a racist, whatever her race might be.

Courage!

Of course there’s no such thing as race. There are only two races, the decent and the indecent. And I came back and explained why I brought my mom into it (she could be called a tea party person) and said I would apologize if certain things were true that you’ve said or did not say. You did not answer these, and went back to saying you didn’t specifically call my mother names. Obviously, but that was no longer the point.

Innovations are by individuals. The government getting involved with grants and building whole bureaucratic systems around certain schools in and in conjunction with bribes or agenda driven lobbying and so on, has only hindered progress, in my opinion. (that’s a hard one to prove) Yet I see how government involvement in general has made so much else worse in our society (eg. education, healthcare, poverty, crime, community, culture, etc.)

So there is no ‘conceit’ as you accuse. Obviously, by saying it wasn’t government I was standing up for the achievements of those *individuals* who have made so many disproportionately amazing discoveries in America (compared to the rest of the world for the last couple hundred years. That includes not only things like the airplane, car, motorcycle and telephone and lightbulb and vital areas of medicine; but Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Rock and Roll, movies, and fun stuff too.)
Saying “the government invented the internet” is an oft repeated assertion leftists use to justify growing the State. I don’t agree.

P.P.S.
Cuba has recently, finally, decided to allow land ownership.
Sorry Charlie.