right. the us is dangerous, but we meant to the bad guys. and they are imperialist, but we meant culturally. that mean the US is neither dangerous nor imperialist.
Right, but being dangerous is not to be evil or in the wrong, which I understood to be the unstated value judgment that martin was making (that the US is fundamentally good).
No, he was suggesting that the US is always good, unerringly good, infallibly good. Such that it could never be considered to be dangerous. This is naive, of course. martin is incapable of thinking outside his small bubble. My point is that America can be a force for good and a shining beacon of freedom and still be dangerous, ruthless, self-righteous, unpredictable, and rash. They are not mutually exclusive. "America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair." -- Arnold Toynbee
Sounds like you have read the article now. Of course, that's why he's speculating. Everyone has asked what his plan is, Cuban took a stab, I agree. He has no "plan" per se with exact things he would do. He has a framework and himself as a guy who can make it happen. People have a hard time understanding that and the blog I posted states it directly and with an explanation why Romney would feel this way. Once again, correct. He makes no argument as to why we should accept Mitt Romney's plan and neither have I. I just thought it was a good explanation and angle as to why Romney is approaching this this way. No, of course not. I have not said that neither did Mark Cuban in his blog. I was not making an argument for or against the plan, I was just trying to explain what the plan was and I liked Cuban's method of breaking down Romney's thought process and his (Romney's) implicit argument of why it would work. But instead, you categorized my post as an argument for the plan, which I specifically stated it wasn't, and you even said that Mark Cuban endorsed Romney in that article. Cuban did not endorse Romney in that article (which you now concede) or in any way. You made an assumption as to what I thought about Romney's tax plan. What's that? you want to know what I think? Well thanks for asking. In a nutshell I think Romney's plan doesn't work. The math is bad and he can't do what he says he can. but..... I can't in good conscience vote for a president that has made zero effort to solve our fiscal crisis and has resided over the most partisan political climate in my lifetime. Having said that, I think it was supa that said if you're not in a swing state, you should vote for Gary Johnson to help the cause for a third party in our country. I like that idea. So instead of staying home and not voting as I had planned, I will be going to the polls to vote for Gary Johnson.
Zero effort? What do you call the stimulus? Whether you like it or not, it was unequivocally a major effort to arrest the snowballing recession and it worked. The recession was gone 6 months later. What do you call the rescue of GM? Another major effort. 16 straight quarters of positive GDP. Have you been paying attention? Freudian slip? Yes Obama has resided over the partisan squabble, not presided over it. Most AMericans think that the GOP is the party responsible for the gridlock we now experience. They openly pride themselves on their "no compromise" position. it's like they don't understand how a democracy works. Excellent.
The recovery had already begun. Negative GDP growth had slowed substantially from -6.4% to -.2% before ARRA was passed and the GDP was growing before ARRA funds had been expended. Truly analystical, non-partisan economists nearly universally say ARRA had little effect on the recovery. 16 quarters of a shallow recovery from a deep recession. The level of growth is pitiful. Obama is the only President in our hostory to not reach a rate of 4% growth even once during his presidency. The Republicans were elected with a mandate in 2010. The mandate was don't work with Obama. They will hold their majority in the house, and have a shot at the senate. Had they produced a good candidate they could have taken the executive branch as well.
The true mark of democracy is doing things that are pragmatic and balanced. Too much of a thing can be bad, or good. What we must realize is that principles have no place in democracy. Only pragmatic, ambiguous, nonsense that is balanced. The key is to do just the right amount of whatever, but something must always be done because only government can solve problems.
