Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:


What story is that? Do you believe that government has, as its
objective, to dictate the incomes of its citizens?

I'd disagree. That's more of a Soviet notion than one to be found in a
free society. Are you a communist?

JG

I am an socialist libertarian.

And, a drug addled 'tard boy!

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:

John Galt wrote:


And you need to start being honest. I was an adult during the period.
There was no public discourse about any pending economic dissolution of
the Soviet Union, and since Reagan ran on a platform of increased
military spending because of the demonstrated Soviet imperialism, it
obviously would have been raised during the campaign by Carter and the
Democrat Doves. It was not.

JG

I was a major market radio news director during the period.

Drugs put an end to that, boy?

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:
John Galt wrote:


And you need to start being honest. I was an adult during the period.
There was no public discourse about any pending economic dissolution
of the Soviet Union, and since Reagan ran on a platform of increased
military spending because of the demonstrated Soviet imperialism, it
obviously would have been raised during the campaign by Carter and the
Democrat Doves. It was not.

JG

I was a major market radio news director during the period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

See above. You may wish to focus your attention on the term "public"
prior to "discourse." These issues were not front-and-center during the
1980 presidential campaign, which is the relevant issue.

JG


(this is from your CIA)

"The Failing System

From the mid-1970s to the eve of Gorbachev's assumption of party
leadership in the spring of 1985, the CIA portrayed a Soviet Union
plagued by a deteriorating economy and intensifying societal problems.
CIA products described the growing political tensions resulting from
these failures, the prospect that sooner or later a Soviet leadership
would be forced to confront these issues, and the uncertainty over what
form this confrontation would take.

These products include the unclassified testimony from each of DCI
Admiral Stansfield Turner's annual appearances before the JEC from 1977
through 1980 (Appendix A, references 1-4)--part of the "annual public
reports" cited by the HPSCI Review Committee. Turner's testimony and the
written submissions for these hearings described a "bleak" Soviet
economy for which continued decline through most of the 1980s was
"inevitable." The hearing reports include:

* CIA descriptions of how badly Soviet economic performance lagged
behind that of the West and the prospect that Soviet leaders would be
forced to confront growing conflicts between civilian and military uses
of resources and investment.
* CIA assessments that the Brezhnev leadership recognized the
potential for larger political repercussions from the economic failure;
that the Brezhnev regime (and possibly even an initial successor) was
nonetheless likely to attempt to muddle through rather than confront the
politically difficult choices necessary to deal with the decline; that
muddling through was not a viable option for the longer term; and that
by the mid-1980s the economic picture "might look so dismal" that a
post-Brezhnev leadership might coalesce behind policies that could
include "structural reforms."



Other unclassified CIA publications disseminated in 1977 and 1980
(Appendix A, references 5 and 6) presented the same picture of a
deteriorating economy that ultimately could provoke more radical policies.

From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, CIA produced several
papers addressing the prospects for "serious economic and political
problems" arising from the combined effect of growing consumer
discontent, ethnic divisions, a corrupt and incompetent political
system, and widespread cynicism among a populace for whom the system had
failed to deliver on its promises. (Appendix A, references 7 and 8 and
10-13). One of these papers, for example, described the problems
stemming from "long continued investment priorities favoring heavy
industry and defense, coupled with a rigid and cumbersome system of
economic organization" which "have combined to produce a consumer sector
that not only lags behind both the West and Eastern Europe, but also is
in many ways primitive, grossly unbalanced, and in massive disequilibrium":

* These products portrayed a Soviet leadership caught in a
descending spiral: declining productivity was depressing the economy,
which aggravated the cynicism and alienation of the populace; this in
turn further reduced productivity.
* CIA concluded that this "vicious circle" was potentially more
significant for the 1980s than "anything the regime has had to cope with
in the past three decades," and that the leadership and elites were
fully aware they confronted major problems.
* The analyses repeated the judgment that the Brezhnev regime and
the Andropov/Chernyenko successions were likely to rely on the
traditional Soviet instruments for controlling unrest and imposing
"discipline," but that such approaches would not hold for the longer
term in the face of a Soviet populace that was becoming less pliable and
more demanding."

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...oviet.html#ft5

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:


What story is that? Do you believe that government has, as its
objective, to dictate the incomes of its citizens?

I'd disagree. That's more of a Soviet notion than one to be found in a
free society. Are you a communist?

JG

I am an socialist libertarian.

A strong central goverment is antithetical to libertarianism.

High taxes were supposed to be used to
prevent a permanent aristocracy, while benefiting society in general.
That is a concept from our Founders

Interesting theory. One would have through it would not have taken us,
then, 150 years to come up with the notion of income taxation.

(who were way smarter than Ayn Rand.)

Does that sort of "cheap shot" make you feel better about yourself and
your views?

JG

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dxAce wrote:

dave wrote:

What story is that? Do you believe that government has, as its
objective, to dictate the incomes of its citizens?

I'd disagree. That's more of a Soviet notion than one to be found in a
free society. Are you a communist?

JG

I am an socialist libertarian.

And, a drug addled 'tard boy!


Precisely what I was thinking.

JG

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

John Galt wrote:

I was a major market radio news director during the period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

See above. You may wish to focus your attention on the term "public"
prior to "discourse." These issues were not front-and-center during the
1980 presidential campaign, which is the relevant issue.

JG

It was a secret.


Do you remember Iran-Contra? Reagan had more convicted staffers than
any president since Grant probably.

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

John Galt wrote:

Interesting theory. One would have through it would not have taken us,
then, 150 years to come up with the notion of income taxation.

(who were way smarter than Ayn Rand.)

Does that sort of "cheap shot" make you feel better about yourself and
your views?

JG


Totally. I don't believe in any government larger than a community.

FYI, the entire cost of the Federal government was at one time paid for
by tariffs and duties.

Thom Hartmann may intrigue you. He has people from the Ayn Rand
Institute on his program regularly. I was kind of philosophically
adrift when I ran across Hartmann's radio show on XM back in 2002. I am
not in lock-step with him, but he helped me get my bearings. Very lucid.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/2007/11/...al-protection/

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

John Galt wrote:
dxAce wrote:



And, a drug addled 'tard boy!


Precisely what I was thinking.

JG

There you go again...

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:
John Galt wrote:

I was a major market radio news director during the period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

See above. You may wish to focus your attention on the term "public"
prior to "discourse." These issues were not front-and-center during
the 1980 presidential campaign, which is the relevant issue.

JG

It was a secret.

Exactly the point. The candidate Reagan ran, in part, on a platform of
rebuilding the military in the face of increasing Soviet imperialism. IN
HINDSIGHT, history appears to show that the USSR would have caved in on
its own over time. That's fine, but it's hardly Reagan's fault that he
was unable to see into the future. (Although his wife tried her best.)


Do you remember Iran-Contra? Reagan had more convicted staffers than
any president since Grant probably.

Nixon wins that metric, but Reagan had his share.

However, if you use that metric, the best president in modern times was
GW Bush, with zero convictions from the Cabinet or key staff.

I'm guessing you dislike that fact.

JG

Palin/Dobbs 2012
 

dave wrote:
John Galt wrote:

Interesting theory. One would have through it would not have taken us,
then, 150 years to come up with the notion of income taxation.

(who were way smarter than Ayn Rand.)

Does that sort of "cheap shot" make you feel better about yourself and
your views?

JG


Totally. I don't believe in any government larger than a community.

That would be Galt's Gulch, then.

FYI, the entire cost of the Federal government was at one time paid for
by tariffs and duties.

Never completely true. The government used to borrow in the debt market
to fund various things. Read up on what Lincoln had to do to finance the
Civil War. Fascinating read. If not for a single Jewish bond salesman,
there might not have ever been a war.

Thom Hartmann may intrigue you.

Whatever floats your boat. I support free markets and getting the
government the hell out of the way. Hartmann doesn't.

JG


He has people from the Ayn Rand
Institute on his program regularly. I was kind of philosophically
adrift when I ran across Hartmann's radio show on XM back in 2002. I am
not in lock-step with him, but he helped me get my bearings. Very lucid.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/2007/11/...al-protection/