Republican ex-candidate slams Europe, oil producers
US News
Feb 7, 2008, 21:21 GMT
Talkback
Add your comment (no registration required)
page: 1
So what was incorrect about what he said?
What was incorrect about what he said? Since when does a declining birthrate make a country second class? To me it makes it smarter. We are not being held hostage by the oil tyrants he mentioned. We are being held hostage by our refusal to come up with and use viable alternatives - and the speculators who help to jack up the price. Now the immorality part I can agree with.
What is incorrect ?First of all it does not define the things that makes a nation great .I like to think that taking care of your own population is important .A well performing health care system,education,available for all who want to study,affordable housing,etc,etc.Not the silly notion of military superiority .What good has that sdone to the USA,lost in Vietnam,lost in Somalia,lost in Iraq,losing in Afghanistan ,but still bullying the world .Meanwhile the power of the future is emerging ,it is China undoubtfully .The entire defense budget of China is less than the difference of miltary spending in the USA between 2003 and 2008 .
I like to think this insane spending of valuable resources and human labor on weapons is only weakening the USA as it is digging a hole in the state budget that can only be filled if asking a tremendous sacrifice from the american population.
Every year 100.000 lives are lost in the USA due poor health care .Isn't that more important than having the most powerfull army in the world ?
How exactly do you sell values to the rest of the world that leave your own population out in the cold ?By proclaiming that Europeans are decadent ,like Mitt Romney?Get real.
RE:'What is incorrect ?First of all it does not define the things that makes a nation great .'
A fair complaint.
RE:'I like to think that taking care of your own population is important .'
True statement, but remember that real freedom includes the freedom to fail.
RE:'A well performing health care system,'
We have the best in the world in terms of performance. People from all over the world travel to the US to receive the treatments offered by our health care system. Our system is not free, but then health care should NOT be free. It cannot be free. It MUST be paid for. In Europe it is paid for out of taxes. Here, it is paid for by a combination of taxes, charity, patients' pockets and insurance programs.
RE:'education,available for all who want to study,'
Twelve years of education in the United States is both free and mandatory. Higher education is another matter. Money for higher education can be found for anyone who demonstrates good study habits and the intelligence to take advantage of those habits. No grades, no money. Low grades? Find a job and go to school part time. High grades and good study habits? Money can be found and usually is.
RE:'affordable housing,etc,etc.'
Affordable housing can be found across large expanses of the United States. It is not to be had for anyone in certain markets, however. It is unavailable in New York City and most of California. After a brief examination of the regulations imposed in those areas, by leftists for the most part, one is amazed that housing at any price can be found in any of them.
RE:'Not the silly notion of military superiority.'
Imperial Japan--defeated.
NAZI Germany--defeated.
USSR--defeated.
RE:'lost in Vietnam,'
One battle of the Cold War. We lost that battle, yes, but we won the war.
RE:'lost in Somalia,'
Embarrassed in Somalia because of the Clinton Clan's stupidity.
RE:'lost in Iraq,'
Ongoing struggle and you should not listen to religious fools like Senator Harry Reid.
RE:'losing in Afghanistan'
Not yet.
'...but still bullying the world'
Oh, really? When did we last 'bully' Belgium? Or France, or the UK or Spain or Portugal or even Mexico for that matter? Here you are simply indulging in an outright lie.
RE:'Meanwhile the power of the future is emerging ,it is China undoubtfully.'
Wait a minute! I thought you did not believe China to be a threat.
RE:'The entire defense budget of China is less than the difference of miltary spending in the USA between 2003 and 2008 .'
Neither you nor I nor anyone else outside of China has a good grip on China's defense budget. They lie about it.
RE:'I like to think this insane spending of valuable resources and human labor on weapons is only weakening the USA as it is digging a hole in the state budget that can only be filled if asking a tremendous sacrifice from the american population.'
Yes, I am sure you do like thinking such things, but that does not make your thinking realistic.
RE:'Every year 100.000 lives are lost in the USA due poor health care.'
Says who? Some British bureaucrat? Post that link again, Tonny.
RE:'Isn't that more important than having the most powerful army in the world?'
In the context of today's world? No.
RE:'How exactly do you sell values to the rest of the world that leave your own population out in the cold?'
The sad fact of the matter is that we ARE leaving people out in the cold, but not in the ways you suggest or for the reasons you suggest.
RE:'By proclaiming that Europeans are decadent,like Mitt Romney?Get real.'
European birthrates have fallen through the floor. You are not replacing your own numbers. That is not a good thing for Europeans or Americans. We Americans really have come close to destroying family life here in the states--mostly due to misguided tax policies. The extended family started dying right after WWII and in this day-in-age is non-existent.
I am not religious, but Governor Romney is not that far off the mark, Tonny. There is a lot to be said for a solid family life and it is disappearing or completely dysfunctional in nearly all of the industrialized countries.
Concerning Harry Reid:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid
He is a devout Mormon, by the way.
Noharness,if I were you I'd be carefull in lying so much.The best performing health care system in the world ?Typical republican lies.You don't care about your own people at all.100?000 lives get lost in the USA every year due poor performance of your health care (what's in a word !)
from the Washington Post:
A separate study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine provided further evidence that the United States often falls short on health outcomes despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country. That research, also published today in Health Affairs, found that the United States ranked worst among 19 countries in the number of deaths that could have been prevented through better access to timely and effective health care.
Had the United States performed as well as the top three countries -- France, Japan and Australia -- it would have seen about 101,000 fewer deaths per year from conditions such as hypertension, appendicitis, tuberculosis, and colon and cervical cancers.....
Al the rest of your post is of similar nature,afirmation upon afirmation of pure neocon propaganda,completely at odds with reality .
Lucky for the world your breed is on the way out.Good riddance and welcome back USA in the world community of civilized nations after the next elections.
And where did I say I see China as a menace?Nowhere..I am not as paranoiac as you,China has the biggest population,the biggest potential,China was the biggest power in the world for millenia.What makes you think it will not reclaim it's place in the future?Your ridiculous military potential ?That is only ruining your own population.The entire military budget of China is smaller than the raise of your own military budget during the Bush era ,did you even know that .
During the last decade Bush and the neocons proclaimed US unilateralism as the odfficial policy ,in the process trying to destroy the UN and claiming leadership in the world forcing other countries to act as obedient vassals doing nothing for the world except antagonizing it .
Like the rest of the world I can hardly wait for your stupid republicans to march to the garbage bins of history ,there long overdue habitat.
RE:'Noharness,if I were you I'd be carefull in lying so much. The best performing health care system in the world?'
Now, now, Tonny! Whose leaving out the definitions now? Here in the States you can get any treatment you need. Our hospitals are the best equipped in the world. Even better, none of our surgeon go on break during the middle of surgery. Oh, but none of this comes for free. You WILL get a bill. Whether it is the best or not all depends on how you set about measuring it.
'You don't care about your own people at all.'
I care a good deal more than you do. I live in the United States. All of my family lives in the United States. I am an American.
RE:'100?000 lives get lost in the USA every year due poor performance of your health care (what's in a word !)
from the Washington Post:
A separate study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine provided further evidence that the United States often falls short on health outcomes despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country. That research, also published today in Health Affairs, found that the United States ranked worst among 19 countries in the number of deaths that could have been prevented through better access to timely and effective health care.'
Are you talking about this particular problem?
www.cio.com/article/19679/Bush_s_Proposal_for_Electronic_Medical_Record s_Poses_Privacy_Risks
Take a look at who is trying to fix it! None other than George Bush, the sitting President of the United States. Oh, and look who is picking a fight with him about it! The Democrats. There are 'privacy' concerns, they say.
RE:'Al the rest of your post is of similar nature,afirmation upon afirmation of pure neocon propaganda,completely at odds with reality .'
When in panic or in doubt, it's about the neocons we must cream and shout. I'm a liberal, Tonny. Neither the neocons nor the conservatives will have me. No surprise there, I get a kick out of tweaking their noses as much as I do leftist noses. Oh, it's 'affirmation' and I think you really meant 'baseless assertion.' An affirmation would be me saying that I agree with something or that such-and-so happened. It sometimes also used in the context of taking an oath.
Re:'Lucky for the world your breed is on the way out.'
You keep right on telling yourself that, Tonny. Sooner or later, the real liberals in this world will win.
RE:'Good riddance and welcome back USA in the world community of civilized nations after the next elections.'
Ain't never gonna happen. The world's leftists cannot abide the US, no matter which of our political parties are in power.
Now for a few facts:
French demographics from the Wikipedia:
However, after the 1973 energy crisis, laws limiting immigration were passed. In addition, the country's birth rate dropped significantly during this time. Since the 1980s, France has ceased being a country of mass immigration. Meanwhile, the national birth rate, after continuing to drop for a time, began to rebound in the 1990s and currently the country's fertility rate is close to the replacement level. In recent years, immigrants have accounted for one quarter of the population growth - a lower proportion than in most other European countries. According to an INSEE 2006 study, 'The natural increase is close to 300,000 persons, a level that has not been reached in more than thirty years. Net migration is estimated at 93,600 persons, slightly more than in 2005.'
For how much longer do you think France will remain French?
Demographics of Italy:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Italy
For how much longer will Italy remain Italian?
Demographics of Japan:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan
For how much longer can Japan remain Japanese?
Here's the really cute one. China is killing off so many female fetus's that they are about to have major crisis on their hands. If they keep it up, they are cruising for a major nookie crisis in about twenty-years.
We in the US are only just barely replacing our numbers and nearly all of our population growth is in the form of illegal immigration:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
I ain't pullin' your leg, Tonny. Just tweakin' your nose a little. And, why not? You bloody well get a kick out of tweaking mine.
RE:'And where did I say I see China as a menace?'
You addressed China in the context of the US military and pointed out that China would ultimately become THE POWER. Are wt to simply capitulate to every Chinese whim? Rest assured, that is EXACTLY what they hold in store for us if we are not careful. Have you checked China's human rights record lately? No, you are always too busy criticizing the United States.
RE:'I am not as paranoiac as you,China has the biggest population,the biggest potential,China was the biggest power in the world for millenia.What makes you think it will not reclaim it's place in the future?'
Absolutely nothing at this point in time. It will not last, of course. By refusing to raise female children they are choking off their own future. Right now, the real population bomb is in the Middle East and among Muslim cultures everywhere found.
RE:'Your ridiculous military potential?'
Actually, no. It is economic potential that makes the real difference. If you have a lousy economy and a large military you end up in the same sad shape as every other Marxist state that ever rose and decayed. That was an important point Governor Romney made in his concession speech.
RE:'That is only ruining your own population.The entire military budget of China is smaller than the raise of your own military budget during the Bush era ,did you even know that.'
Perhaps, but we lack the manpower that China or even the Middle Eastern countries can raise and it is therefore necessary to trade expenditure for lives. If you want a realistic appraisal of the situation, and not the silly crap put out by leftist organizations there is a good one here:
www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/budget.htm
RE:'During the last decade Bush and the neocons proclaimed US unilateralism as the official policy ,in the process trying to destroy the UN and claiming leadership in the world forcing other countries to act as obedient vassals doing nothing for the world except antagonizing it.'
Mostly true. Rumsfeld and Cheyney really are like bulls in the china shop.
RE:'Like the rest of the world I can hardly wait for your stupid republicans to march to the garbage bins of history ,there long overdue habitat.'
You're in for a very long wait, Tonny. Don't let your wishful thinking lure you into an attempt to hold your breathe while waiting for that to happen.
Some more evidence of the USA's 'best healthcare system in the world' and willingness to look after it's population -
In the USA nearly 40 million people live in poverty—the largest percentage in the industrialized world.
Nearly one in four children lives below the poverty line.
The U.S. ranks 29th in the world in infant mortality.
High school graduation rates in the U.S. are not in the top ten of industrialized nations.
One in nine Americans is functionally-illiterate.
Sixty-five percent of Americans believe God created humans. The percentage believing Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is the lowest of any industrialized nation.
American high school students rank 28th in math, but believe themselves to be first.
Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind France, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Singapore, and Spain.
The infant mortality rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than India.
In the Economic Freedom index, a measure of freedom from governmental intervention and restriction, the USA came tenth.
The United States has the world’s largest trade deficit.
United States teens lead the world in obesity, as defined by body-mass index.
China graduates ten times as many engineers per year as Americans. Even per capita, China’s number is higher.
Noharness is a believer in fairy tales .Except his empty claims that the USA has the vest performing hospitals in the world ,based on his conviction,nothing is presented to prove that .I present statistics and figures that prove his is bending the truth.If he cared for his fellow citizens he would try to improve the bad standards of education and heath care.He doesn't like SP4 he is satisfied with his own opinion void of factual correlation to the outside world.Poor neocon,posing as a conservative.
RE:'In the USA nearly 40 million people live in poverty—the largest percentage in the industrialized world.'
Define poverty. Mexico has poverty. Brazil has poverty. Puerto Rico has a horrible unemployment rate, but you would be hard put to find the kind of poverty there that you will find in Mexico or Brazil.
Blacks in the United States have suffered horribly thanks to our wide open, let's not have a border immigration system--something the Billary is very fond of right now because it is keep Them in the race.
Nearly one in four children lives below the poverty line.
And this can be easily attributed to our insane immigration policy and abusive treatment of illegal aliens. Something our politicians on BOTH ends of the political spectrum refuse to effectively address. Still, even though these children are below what we consider to be a poverty line, they are better off here than they would be in the countries their parents originated from.
Re:'The U.S. ranks 29th in the world in infant mortality.'
And at least ten percent of that number is directly attributable to drug abuse. The remainder, once again, can be traced back to our rather silly and shameful method of increasing the size of our workforce.
RE:'High school graduation rates in the U.S. are not in the top ten of industrialized nations.'
Nearly every 'teaching college' in the United States is also infamous for being a 'party school.' We have thrown enough money at this problem to solve it three or four times. We are throwing money at the wrong problem.
1) We need to improve pay scales for teaches in the US.
2) We must insist that teachers be fully qualified to teach.
3) We must remove disruptive students from classrooms.
4) We need to revamp the education system from the ground up. It is currently designed to work with an agricultural country. Agriculture employs only about 2% of our population.
RE:'One in nine Americans is functionally-illiterate.'
And completely innumerate, especially if they are journalists or a politician, I know. You can insist that parents send their children to school, but unless parents rears the child properly the child will grow into a lazy and stupid adult.
Re:'Sixty-five percent of Americans believe God created humans. The percentage believing Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is the lowest of any industrialized nation.'
We have religious freedom in this country. Learn to live with it because that will not change.
RE:'Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind France, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Singapore, and Spain.'
There are a host of contributing factors for this, too many to discuss in a single post, but the main problem is a lack of exercise between ages 7 and 35.
Re:'The infant mortality rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than India.'
Nearly all of which is directly attributable to drug abuse.
Re:'In the Economic Freedom index, a measure of freedom from governmental intervention and restriction, the USA came tenth.'
I gather then, that you would be in favor of eliminating the IRS and OSHA, right?
Re:'The United States has the world’s largest trade deficit.'
And has had for many, many years, mostly owing to our reluctance to find and use something other than crude oil for our transport needs.
Re:'United States teens lead the world in obesity, as defined by body-mass index.'
Too many video games, too many hours of television and not enough chores to do. When the majority of Americans grew up on farms, this did not happen and people generally ate more than they do now. Also, nearly everything you buy now has sugar in it, even a can of gorramned green beans. A victory garden program might not be such a bad idea.
Re:'China graduates ten times as many engineers per year as Americans. Even per capita, China’s number is higher.'
And that will not improve until it is worthwhile for a person to go through the agony and frustration of engineering school. Oh, we should put stop to a number of other immigration abuses in this area as well.
Yes noharness,blame the rest of the world for your own stupidity .So now we have to put the blame on illegal immigrants for your lack of decent living standards ?How convenient,typical republican bullshit .Be wise,blame Reagan and Bush for tearing down the standards of education and welfare ,throwing the state budget at the industrial military complex and giving tax returns to the richest part of your own population .Call that democarcy if you want but at least have the decency to keep your believe in fairy tales a private matter .Anyway a new mindframe is forming in the USA,for the benefit of the lowae classes .To which you even probably belong ,only you are to ignorant to recognize your own interests .
Simply put ,a nation that spends as much on armaments as the rest of the world combined has nothing to offer to it's own population.You can't feed the poor with bullets and missiles .Stop wasting human resources,fhelp find a solution to the real problems such as climate change .Your children need that to have a chance of a decent living.
Re:'Yes noharness,blame the rest of the world for your own stupidity.'
Show me one place where I laid blame on any other country, Tonny. Show me one place. I have done no such thing.
Re:'So now we have to put the blame on illegal immigrants for your lack of decent living standards?'
Actually, no. We must lay the blame on the way said workers are abused when they come here. That is a very different thing, isn't it? It is something that I have complained about on these boards before, isn't it? I am telling the truth about this. Making matters worse, the number of illegal aliens is likely much higher than the number reported because it is a politically sensitive. Our politicians are no better than the politicians of any other country when it comes to such things.
By the way, the current immigration mess really is Reagan's fault. He tookthe word of Tip O'neill and Edward Kennedy at face value. He should have known better. He also should have realized that the leaders of his own party would do nothing about controlling our southern border as well. Shame on him.
Re:'How convenient,typical republican bullshit .Be wise,blame Reagan and Bush for tearing down the standards of education and welfare ,throwing the state budget at the industrial military complex and giving tax returns to the richest part of your own population.'
Both education and welfare were a frikkin' mess when Reagan was elected. He also had to work out compromises with a Senate and Congress that were being led by Democrats.
Our welfare system has been much improved since those days and the Clinton Clan actually went further with Reagan's reforms than Reagan did on welfare.
The education system is still a mess, but there is more than one reason for that problem and a lack of money cannot be blamed for it. Education begins in the home with parents placing a high value on education and seeing after their children. No amount of money will fix that problem if parents fail in their jobs.
When Reagan increased military spending in the United States, the Soviet Union was on a par with the US military and gaining a lead. Those expenditures, as painful as they were, forced the USSR out of business. You are welcome to dislike that outcome, but I am as pleased as punch with it.
I have never, not once in all my days, been given work by a poor man. It was always a rich man or a corporation with money who gave me work. Rich people and corporations had been badly treated by Jimmy Carter and his penchant for punitive taxation in those days. If anything, Reagan did not cut taxes enough.
Re:'Call that democarcy if you want but at least have the decency to keep your believe in fairy tales a private matter .'
I call it democracy because it was and it still is, Tonny. Ronald Reagan was constantly at odds with the man who controlled the purse strings, a Democrat named Tip O'neill. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_O%27Neill
We have free speech in the US, Tonny. I will post the truth anywhere and everywhere I like where ever I am able. You are more than welcome to express any opinions of the truth that you might have. That is the way free speech works. You are welcome to dislike free speech if you want, but become accustomed to it, it's here to stay.
RE:'Anyway a new mindframe is forming in the USA,for the benefit of the lowae classes .To which you even probably belong ,only you are to ignorant to recognize your own interests .'
You bring up an interesting point. I lied about my age and started holding down a full time job when I was sixteen. I have never drawn welfare a single time in my entire life. I know about being poor and I know about being fairly well off, Tonny. Ignorance is not one of my problems, as frustrating as that may be for you.
RE:'Simply put ,a nation that spends as much on armaments as the rest of the world combined has nothing to offer to it's own population.'
It offers them and secures their freedom, Tonny and it is doing a fine job so far.
Re:'You can't feed the poor with bullets and missiles.'
No and we don't try to do that. Our poor people are having problems with obesity. Perhaps we should draft them into non-military work programs. 'Poverty' here is absolutely nothing like the poverty you find in Brazil or Mexico, or China or Vietnam, or Venezuela or Nicaragua, or...How long of a list do you want?
Re:'Stop wasting human resources,fhelp find a solution to the real problems such as climate change.'
Sure, but tell me this, Tonny. When will you and yours get out of the way and let us build nuclear power plants, hmm? Now that we have become serious about alternative fuels your crowd is screaming that this will not work either. We have already raised CAFE standards, but not enough to suit me. Of course, my motivations are different. I want to starve the militants in the Middle East. I want so see the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia selling the palaces we gave them the money to build. I want to see Iran so short of cash that they have to cancel their weapons programs. I want to put an end to the rising dominance of an increasingly Imperial Russia.
Your crowd does not really want a solution to these alleged problems. All you want is the issue so that you will have something to cry about.
Re:'Your children need that to have a chance of a decent living.'
Indeed! And what we must make a priority is scrubbing out the last vestiges of socialism.
Food for thought :
Total fertility rate
France 1.98 children born/woman (2007 est.)
US 2.09 children born/woman (2007 est.)
Infant mortality rate
France 3.41 deaths/1,000 live births
US 6.37 deaths/1,000 live births
Source : CIA
How that amounts to a significant difference is beyond me; it is true that some other countries in Europe have demographic issues, but Romney picked a poor target as France fares quiet well in that aera.
As for the 7-year term mariage nonsense, I have never heard of such a phony idea. Hell I should know, as a French living in France... What would be the point, as marriage isn't an obligation for couples with or without children in our depraved parts? I seems to me more like something American lawyers would cook up in a pre-nup agreement.
My guess in Romney hasn't set foot in Europe since the 60s (now, he probably didn't run into heaps of gay marriages at the time) and that he is simply talking about countries he has no longer a clue about in a kind of symbolic way... Seeing the way the American far-right caters to its own insecurities by endlessly bashing on other countries and bragging about America being the best in everything, they could adopt 'Ignorance is bliss' as their motto.
Interestingly, Tonny is right:
we do lose, easily, 100,000 lives a year to our healthcare system, but it is not the lack of care, it is the screwups hospitals make i.e. basic mistakes in care that is applied by, arguably, very competent care providers, and conditions that are incureable.
These include wrong medicines, screw ups in surgical procedures, many include elective procedures, etc. Some deaths are unavoidable, i.e. gunshots, auto wrecks, incurable or untreatable conditions, etc. One of the reasons these deaths are recorded is BECAUSE they were given care that simply could not save them. In many nations, people simply don't get the care in a timely manner and die (cancer treatment in Canada, GB, etc.), making the statistic in that nation look all that much better! After all, death therapy is 100%!
It's easy to make a nation like...say...Switzerland, get coverage totally, because it's the size of New Jersey, and does not have to support 300 million people and 12 million illegal aliens. Pick nations our size and compare care.
When you look at emergency survival rates, America has some of the best in the world, because of our wide coverage emergency room care in America. In other nations, they do not record some of these because the patient never gets the care to begin with.
Nonetheless, isn't Mitt really saying wht the libnazis have been pimping since they vacated the oval office:
There is something wrong with America?
Gee, Mitt, get in line.
What a loser. He's finally showing his true colors. Since when does religion make a country great, or make it a powerful entity? It's the way a country treats it's people, the way it treats other countries, the way it does business, etc. that make it great. Romney is nothing but a bigoted moron, whining like a baby that he can't force his personal beliefs on everybody else around him. And to insult other countries? That's as low as being a bigot. It's that kind of hateful and intolerant attitude that we need to destroy in this country, and all others. Then maybe we'll have peace. Live and let live, it's as simple as that. Too bad Romney, and all the other religious zealots just don't get it.
p.s. Tonny from Belgium-Well stated as usual. Intelligent and unbiased, I like that.
Did he actually say that France and other countries aren't world powers because they're not as christian as he believes they should be? I thought the country with the most money, and the biggest army was always the world power?
page: 1
Latest Headlines in US
- 1. Survey: US is largest importer and exporter of small arms
- 2. US suspects North Korea was behind cyber attacks
- 3. Franken sworn in, fills final Senate place from 2008 election
- 4. US Senate takes up landmark climate bill for first time (Roundup)
- 5. US Senate takes up landmark climate bill for first time
The dog is goneFeb 7th, 2008 - 21:39:17
Mutt has shot his bolt. Now he does the typical Republican thing and flames everybody. What a jack*ss. It goes to show that he is not presidential material, but a poor, whining, spoiled little brat. He does not have the decency to bow out gracefully.
Report this comment