The overwhelming majority of Conservatives claim it violates Conservative economic principles, and then fail to mention any actual principle. As you just did.

Hmm. Like when I said

The fact remains that regardless of what any given congresscritter might have said at any point, the approach of this bill is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles, related to things like raising taxes, growing government, adding entitlements, perverting market incentives, and on and on.

You ignored that. Which makes your quote above, well, let’s say “problematic” instead of “a lie”. For civility’s sake. And please note that I listed those things in good faith, despite my full awareness that should our “discussion” continue, you’d provide some elaborate explanation for why conservatives were wrong to think this bill raises taxes, adds entitlements, and perverts market incentives. For both of our sakes, don’t bother. We clearly disagree, and no conservative would trust your ongoing spin, so just wind down, amigo. Really. It’s OK.

I don’t really care what conservatives “claim” about this bill. That’s an obsession with political gamesmanship. I’ve been consistently talking about what conservatives truly believe. I don’t consider myself a conservative, but I do my best to try to understand their points of view and discuss them in good faith.

Conservatives believe in good faith that the approach of this bill is fundamentally the wrong approach. That some or even many Republican politicians are playing fast and loose with this ideals does not dent the actual ideals. And what Bob Dole or Richard Nixon might have proposed at one point or another is neither here nor there in any discussion about what conservatives believe about economics.

The Republicans first task these days is to restore their credibility with conservatives who dislike big government programs, mandates, regulations, and so on. You’re free to see merit in big programs, regulations and so on, and you won’t even get any disagreement from me. But in the view of Republican supporters the party went astray by losing sight of its principles in favor of the principle “let’s get re-elected.” Right now, they are trying to go back to their principles and taking their medicine. That this may be a theater show on the part of some bad Republican actors doesn’t delegitimize the trend as a whole.

Nick, you’ve got an opportunity to learn something about politics that goes beyond the practice of partisan argumentation. Don’t squander it. I am afraid that if you really and truly can’t understand why components of this bill are anathema to conservatives, then it’s down the rabbit hole for you.

Bottom line is this turkey of a bill has a cost benefit ratio far in excess of “1.” It will cost us FAR more than it will benefit us.

Back to square one and REAL debate of reforms. There is NO reason at all that health care reform must be done as a take-it-or-leave-it humongo-package deal that disrupts 1/6th of the economy on a purely partisan basis. None. There is EVERY reason to consider the incremental pieces of effective reform individually; their cost, their constitutionality, their likely unintended impacts, and how they actually address the problems they purport to address.

and all through the senate and the house

Liberals and Progressives were selling us out

You see the companies making contributions to conservatives really have the legislative clout

Unfortunately, most progressive and liberal outsiders haven’t figured this out

To leave these companies alone will just seal our fate

where we progressives and liberals do not carry much political weight

but if we join together and boycott conservative funders asses

We’ll get real progressive legislation that passes.

If you want to solve the problem of too much company influence over legislation click on my username.

“Polarize a target” is a nonsense phrase.
Here’s another example of you being dishonest:

As to Nic.

Saul Alinsky…

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, POLARIZE it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

I agree Nic its a nonsense phrase but hey the Liberals have been using it for 40 years now.

As to being dishonest.

I buy health care insurance. The government does not buy it for me. If the government was not involved in health care then the price of health care would be immaterial to the government.

However the government now is committing themselves to pay for up to 45 million more Americans health care so suddenly the price of health care is a great big problem.

Wrong……

Health care is for the most part a private enterprise in America. So is building automobiles. The prices of Automobiles are going thru the roof yet that does not affect the national debt. Why should health care affect the national debt.

Now if the Us Government decided to subsidize vehicles for 45 million Americans to the tune of several thousand dollars per year then yes……absolutely the price of Autos would contribute greatly to our deficit.

But….Healthcare must be demonized….the American people sold a lie in order to make the people agree that there is a crisis when in fact the only crisis is that our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has spent the piggy bank dry.

So what do they do? THEY go out and agree to spend even more money they dont have and then claim that their massive spending will actually make things all better.

That reminds me of the idiot that went out and bought a motorcycle to save money because gasoline got so expensive. He still had the car payment and the insurance payment on the car….and now he had a motorcycle payment and the insurance on the motorcycle to pay…..but it did save in 14 dollars a month in gasoline.

At the expense of 200 dollars in new monthly indebtedness. Sorta like this democratic congress.

If we just insure 45 million more people and give them FREE insurance OUR DEFICITS WILL SHRINK……..

RIIIIGGGHHHHTTTTT.

If thats dishonest then what would you call the spin the Democrats are putting on this 2400 page bill from hell?

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama. After all everything that Bush did had ulterior and sinister motives therefore everything that Obama does has ulterior and sinister motives.

This was the full quote. Notice the satire. I know…I know…satire doesnt play well on blogs. But then hey. Neither does calling the GOP believers in police states, invasions and then pretending outrage over the hint that you might be suggesting Bush is Hitler.

So be it. I have no reason to believe that you think Bush is Hitler by accepting your own admission that he is not.

On we go.

My question still stands. Why did Obama do it. The repercussions are enormous and they were done leading up to a series of trials to be embarked upon in the USA in which even the Citizens of NYC are anti Obama.

Do I hate Obama. Actually no. I think he personally is trying to be somewhat centrist while making a huge mistake of surrounding himself with idealogical czars that influence him into actions that are detrimental to a centrist approach.

but then whats that got to do with passing this EO?

I personally care why he did it. For 16 years its been perfectly fine the way it is and then suddenly we have members of the justice department who are assigned interpol duties with trials coming up and suddenly the justice department files cannot be subpoena’d?

Hmm I don’t know but it stirs up my quizzical nature and I must admit that if you go back a read your very first post addressed to me you were basically spouting far left progressive talking points about Obama to me.

I took that as you wanted to spar. Laying down the gauntlet if you will.

So? Is this where you freeze, cut off and isloate the subject so you can demonize him, hit him from all angles to deflect the discussion away from the real point

Seriously? No, it’s just poor form and shows a lack of originality. Either way, I don’t see that I’ve avoided “the real point” at all. The cut-and-paste thing was explicitly a “BTW.” You chose to continue writing about it. I’m more than happy to drop it, if you like.

Which is WHY did Obama issue this EO?

I offered my reasoning. I did not say he committed a crime. Did anything wrong. I simply questioned the motives behind this Executive Order.

You didn’t simply question his motives. You implied specific motives through your very specific proposed questions (Terrorist) and asserted that this motives were “ulterior and sinister.” You also stated that this was a precursor to all sorts of things:

The only remaining step will be to join the world court and American Citizens can be apprehended by the world court via Interpol who is above the law and whisked off to foreign lands to stand trials.

George W. Bush will be arrested by Interpol at his home in Texas and forced to stand trial for war crimes.

Your wish will come true. Patience my friend…you just have to give Obama time to move with his Alinsky methods to prevent up in arms reactions.

As to your reasoning, it seems to be “I dislike Obama intensely and will assume the worst” as far as I can tell. You’re entitled to your opinion and your own thoughts, but that’s not a very convincing argument for me.

If you don’t know and you seem to not care…then why did you even respond to my question?

Because you asked and did so as though my ability or lack thereof to answer the question somehow affirmed your position. I’m not sure why you think I don’t seem to care. If you produced some evidence that there was a sinister motive behind this EO, I’d be upset about it. That I’m not upset over the simple fact that you are doesn’t mean that I don’t care. In fact, I’m somewhat curious to find out what this is all about, but I’m not going to put too much effort to find out because I’m reasonably sure that someone will respond to allegations such as yours in fairly short order.

Do I personally attack you?

Are you incapable of having a debate without personal attacks?

Are you capable of engaging in a debate at all?

“Polarize a target” is a nonsense phrase.
Here’s another example of you being dishonest:

Hence the Democrats know they are going to be left holding the bag with ZERO GOP support for a bill that will most likely bankrupt America sometime in the next 15-20 years or raise taxes so high that 10 percent unemployment is the norm.

That great French health care system produces unemployment rates of between 7.5 and 10 percent yearly. All the countries that have a national health care system have very high unemployment rates because of the massive costs that require massive taxation to pay for them.

Everyone knows that without reform the system will go bankrupt in the next few decades. In other words this argument is irrelevant to the health debate. Unless you have some numbers, from some trusted source, projecting that these reforms will accelerate that process it just doesn’t matter.

Your point on taxes is equally irrelevant. Our government already spends more, per capita, on health care then they do. By $1,400:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per-health-spending-per-person
Ergo if high government health spending causes long-term unemployment we’d have a worse unemployment situation then the French do.

And the Canadians have a lower unemployment rate than we do, so you can’t claim universal health care causes unemployment very well either.

The EO allows for the Interpol agency to have the same diplomatic status as nations with embassies.

They cannot be searched. Their records and dossiers can now not be used in courts of law. They cannot be subpoena’d.

With the lefts desire to join the world court and the movement of the Detainees to Illinois one has to wonder why Obama would do something like this.

He would do it because InterPol is a legitimate international organization, and legitimate international organizations get diplomatic immunity. It’s also rather difficult to see when we’d want to raid an InterPol office. As far as I know they’ve got a desk in DC. In the Justice Department. That’s not exactly a great nucleus for an international Cocaine-smuggling ring, and if they tried Obama could rescind the Executive Order.

The Illinois move is, as expected, irrelevant to the point you’re making. It’s being done largely because there’s no reason to keep those guys in GitMo, and having them in GitMo was an effective propaganda tool for our enemies. It’s extremely stupid to give your enemies an effective tool, don’t you think?

@kk

How utterly preposterous, Nick. The overwhelming majority of genuine legitimate conservatives (of whom I am not one, by the way) honestly believes that this reform effort is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles.

The overwhelming majority of Conservatives claim it violates Conservative economic principles, and then fail to mention any actual principle. As you just did. I’m all for good faith arguments with people who provide smart reasoning, but I’ve yet to see anyone provide any reasoning for the idea that the Senate bill violates Conservative economic principles.

It seems a lot like their being ornery because being ornery is a politically effective tactic, and using unnamed “Conservative principles” to cover up their transparent political calculations.

And, as I said, even if you could provide a list of principles it violated those principles would have been violated by the Nixon plan, the Dole plan, the McCain plan of 2008, and the plan moderate Republicans were helping write back in June. Logically this means Conservative principles changed at exactly the moment it would be most politically useful for those principles to change (aka: in August), or I’m right.

I though Bush was a terrible president, but there’s really no comparing him to Hitler AT ALL. So knock it off. It’s not cool – not one bit.

Really and I dont recall saying that YOU DID compare Bush to Hitler. Perhaps its too much exposure to this…..

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612

and this

http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20090816

or this

http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html

Im sorry but your initial response to my post was…..

(Lately it’s hard to tell what the GOP is for, other than tax cuts, invasions and the police state.

So in essence you might have well just called him Bush. But my apologies for putting words in your mouth but as you can see after years of Bush is Hitler sentiment with police state visiages…I was almost sure that you were calling Bush Hitler.

so it was obvious that you cut and pasted it from somewhere without saying so.

So? Is this where you freeze, cut off and isloate the subject so you can demonize him, hit him from all angles to deflect the discussion away from the real point.

Which is WHY did Obama issue this EO?

I offered my reasoning. I did not say he committed a crime. Did anything wrong. I simply questioned the motives behind this Executive Order.

If you don’t know and you seem to not care…then why did you even respond to my question?

Incidently WHQ the site you quote is not the site I quoted.

Yeah, I get that. They stated that it was a quote from someone else. And whether you got it from the site they quoted or not doesn’t matter. The exact wording was the same, so it was obvious that you cut and pasted it from somewhere without saying so.

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama.

I didn’t say it did, regardless whether those motives exist or not. The more relevant question is, what evidence do you have of ulterior or sinister motives?

Oh thats right. Obama is a good American and Bush was Hitler. I fergot.

Can you quote me comparing Bush to Hitler? It’s not the sort of thing I would do, since I take Hitler’s crimes rather seriously. I though Bush was a terrible president, but there’s really no comparing him to Hitler AT ALL. So knock it off. It’s not cool – not one bit.

There is little doubt that America resembles Philadelphia circa 1776 and yet it is every bit a part of who we are.

The democrats racists roots are a part of their history. To claim otherwise continues the slippery slope of denial in vain attempts to seek cover for racist slurs against the GOP while ignoring the same racism that is rampant throughout the Democratic party.

Incidently WHQ the site you quote is not the site I quoted. They simply lifted that first bit of posting from another site. I actually got my original posting from a site called the lonely conservative.

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama. After all everything that Bush did had ulterior and sinister motives therefore everything that Obama does has ulterior and sinister motives.

No?

Oh thats right. Obama is a good American and Bush was Hitler. I fergot.

That said, I don’t find the Dems to be possessed of some stellar record on race, and accusations that they pander to minorities in order to secure votes while doing little to actually help them (similarly, Reagan catered to socons like Falwell and Roberts and then effectively ignored that constituency) seem to have some basis.

FWIW, I’ve made exactly the same arguments which mw’s quoted author do and continue to feel that way. The attribution of racist motives will continue to be a slippery slope for the duration of Obama’s tenure, and most of it is clearly an expeditious way to invalidate opposition opinion based on some extant but unmeasurable segment of said opposition which holds racist views. I’m not surprised that Mike Reynolds continues to plow this infertile terrain. It’s too bad, really.

You tell me. Why make it so interpopls records cannot be subpoena’d in a trial.

Whether or not I can tell you why this was done has not bearing on the validity of your personal theories, Doomed. I’m simply open to the idea that his was done for boring reasons.

The EO is within the discretion afforded to the president under current law. If it’s such a problem, congress can explicitly carve out INTERPOL from any or all diplomatic immunity by legislation.

BTW, nice uncredited cut-and-paste from another blog. From UN Dispatch (notice the language of the quoted part):

Last week, the Obama Administration issued an executive order that extended certain diplomatic privileges to Interpol–the International Criminal Police Organization. This was a pretty innocuous bureaucratic move, but it has apparently sparked some serious concerns among a certain cadre of blogger. For example, you have Steve Shippert and Clyde Middleton of ThreatsWatch worrying that this “could conceivably include…Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.” And Andy McCarthy of National Review writes,

“This international police force…will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States…Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies?”

Both McCarthy and the ThreatsWatch duo’s understanding of how Interpol works seems to be heavily shaped by fiction and film. In real life, Interpol is also not an “international police force.” This would imply that Interpol is composed of units of officers that can chase criminals across the world, Jason Bourne style. In fact, there is no such thing as an “Interpol officer,” as such. Rather, law enforcement officers from Interpol’s member states are seconded to the organization from national law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, ect.

(…)

I doubt you’ll be able to show me a single Conservative principle this plan violates unambiguously. It reduces entitlement spending, makes future tax cuts easier, promotes private business, improves the small group and individual insurance markets, and makes future tax cuts much easier to pass due to reduced health spending.

How utterly preposterous, Nick. The overwhelming majority of genuine legitimate conservatives (of whom I am not one, by the way) honestly believes that this reform effort is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles.

And yet, somehow the bill is NOT diametrically opposed to conservative principles because YOU say it isn’t. Whether you consider yourself a progressive or a liberal or a moderate or whatever, for what reason would any conservative accept YOUR testimony? Seriously. You have come to the sad point of no longer being able to realize when you are spinning facts. You actually believe your weak-sense critical thinking spin is objective truth, and not selective shading.

You would be very well-served to examine your method of argumentation here, this method of declaring that you understand conservative principles and how they are to be applied better than conservatives themselves do. Because it will give you some really good clues should you ever, at some point in the future, come to wonde rwhy you are so often unable to persuade a conservative or find points of agreement with one.

If you want to believe that the GOP really agreed with the broad outlines back in June, aside from the public option and abortion, you go ahead and knock yourself out. Whether this is naivete, or wishful thinking, or just an attempt to claim the moral high ground, I don’t know. Or care, really, since it’s not relevant to the question of whether this reform accords with conservative principles on spending, and government involvement in the economy and social welfare.

The fact remains that regardless of what any given congresscritter might have said at any point, the approach of this bill is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles, related to things like raising taxes, growing government, adding entitlements, perverting market incentives, and on and on. And on. [Clearly you continue to believe that this bill really will reduce entitlement spending. Conservatives do not. Neither do I. We don't think the medicare cuts will endure..]

The fact that you can spin a counter-argument that feels persuasive to you will avail you nothing with longtime conservatives who know what they stand for and what they oppose. They also recognize attempts to get cooperation that follow the lines of “if you stop squirming and struggling, I promise not to stick it all the way in.”

I think there is plenty of room to criticize the Republicans’ role and conduct during the unfolding of the healthcare reform effort. Plenty. What you really should be doing is taking notes on how a minority party can do its best to prevent reform that is diametrically opposed to their principles. You do it by extending the length of the game whenever you can, wearing out the opposition, testing their comittment, fostering divisions within the ranks of opponents, and so on.

The GOP has done this like a bunch of seasoned pros. Complain about that and I’ll agree with you. But please, for honesty’s sake, just don’t tell me this reform accords with conservative principles. You’re embarrassing yourself.

They cannot be searched. Their records and dossiers can now not be used in courts of law. They cannot be subpoena’d.

With the lefts desire to join the world court and the movement of the Detainees to Illinois one has to wonder why Obama would do something like this.

It was obviously done for a reason. He just didnt wake up one morning and decide that the USA should make the records of the Interpol agency untouchable.

Why?

After all when GWB was the president everything he did was decidely done in order to make himself dictator and to establish Martial Law in the USA.

So now its Obama’s turn. Why would he do this?

Diplomatic immunity for Interpol who has offices in our Justice Department?

Did they find some information about him (Terrorist)that could be subpoena’d. Did they find information that could be USED to seriously undermine the LEFTS positions on the upcoming trials in NYC?

There is absolutely NO reason to do this on the surface. Underneath. With the terrorist moving to Illinois and facing normal trials. With the Terrorist being tried in NYC….I rather suspect that its to keep secret things that the defence would like the American people to know.

You tell me. Why make it so interpopls records cannot be subpoena’d in a trial.

HMMMM?

Conspiracy? No But then questioning why things are done out of the blue that have the repercussions that this has is a valid question any reasonable person would have given the MSM’s total absence in questioning this president on anything he does.