| Author | Message | ||
| rdub Rating: N/A |
Anybody ever hear of a replacement transmission dipstick tube for an Allison V731VR selling for $207.45? ........where does it end? | ||
| TWO DOGS Rating: N/A |
look in the ebay section ,at "ONLY 500.00" | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
My experience is that the world has a true overabundance of dipsticks. Apparantly many were elected to office. | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
Thank goodness the bigest dips+it of them all was REJECTED by a nice 3,000,000+ plurality. FAST FRED | ||
| James Maxwell (Jmaxwell)
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FF: I would rebut your ass, but I found out a long time ago that it accomplishes nothing to speak to an empty room. | ||
| Johnny Rating: N/A |
Too bad ALL of them running in November were dipsticks. | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Yup. There's a new style of voting being used in a few places called "Ranked Choice Voting" - you vote first for the guy you want in the most, then again for who you'd want if "plan A" loses, then your third choice, etc. Then they mathematically calculate who won. The idea is to reduce "lesser of two evils" voting. Except this last race, the entire nation had Ranked Choice Voting. Bush and Kerry were both pretty damn rank  . | ||
| Johnny Rating: N/A |
Got that right. Too bad I couldn't vote for "none of the above". | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
Jim, Johnny & James Assuming what you say is true, who would be an acceptable candidate? I'm curious as to the necessary skill and qualification sets sufficient to meet your critera of acceptable. I'm not looking to argue, I'm truly curious. Onward and Upward | ||
| Derek (Derek_l)
Rating: N/A |
Vote Nader. eh? | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
Newt would be a fine candidate, even after the LESS (Libreal Establishment State Socalists) (almost dead "journalism") attempted to tear him apart. Smart fellow , with REALISTIC solutions to: the second plank of the Communist Manifesto, (Income tax scheme) The unfunded PONZI Scheme known as Socalist Security, and Newt is serious about defanging the Liars for Hire (trial Liars like J Kerry who get RICH on selecting imbecilic juries and sobbing to them with JUNK SCIENCE). FAST FRED | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Marc, Speaking as a libertarian, the main thing gov't is good for is settling disputes between citizens (read: providing for a court system, enforcement of civil contract law and a criminal code that penalizes actual harmful or VERY dangerous behavior). And that whole "national defense" thing. The above can be handled without an income tax. No problem at all. Modest import taxes will do. Past that, "big government" is NOT THE ANSWER. Government must be strictly limited in scope. It should DAMN well not be used to redistribute wealth (one common failing on the left, and Kerry was notorious) *OR* be used to enforce a religious code (currently the main failing on the "right" but note that "social engineering" is practiced on both sides, more heavily on the left via the left's infiltration of the entire educational system top pre-school through Harvard). Upshot: RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT! Now, we're not going to get all the way there in one jump. The Republicans are closer; there's a group within them called the "Republican Liberty Caucus" that's basically ex-Libertarian party infiltrators who don't think the LP as such is going anywhere, of which I'm a member. Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would be a good first step as one could control the level of taxation they deal with by simply living simpler. Classic example of the sales tax benefit: instead of buying that $500,000+ brand new Provost custom bus that looks like Vegas on three axles, you buy an early '70s Bufallo or whatever and do it up yourself, which is what we're already about on this board. The same thinking can be applied across the board, allowing somebody with other expenses or priorities (putting kids through college, etc) to limit their total tax exposure, something IMPOSSIBLE to do today. The rumblings of this sort of tax reform was one of two key reasons I held my nose and voted Bush despite Ashcroft's jailing of Tommy Chong, the Patriot Act and other insanities. The other was Dubya's stance on guns. | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Need to define terms: note how I called myself a "libertarian" with a lower-case "L"? Means I'm not registered with the Libertarian Party, but I hold Libertarian ideals (mostly, they've gone a bit squirrelly on Iraq). So I'm registered Republican, member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, small-L libertarian.  | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
AS a libertarian my self , my biggest concern with the big L party is they dream of open borders. With open borders we loose the country. (Also my biggest gripe with GWB ,his unlimited endless amnisty for aliens. FAST FRED | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Agreed. Open borders are "theoretically nice" when the whole WORLD has gone mostly libertarian. Until then...nope. Now that said, a certain degree of immigration is a good thing as long as it's limited to "working folks" and welfare while on green-card status is impossible. A key thing that needs to be balanced is the ratio of workers to retirees and right now US democraphics are going to put us behind the 8-ball in that department. A flow of incoming young workers HELPS. This is actually the same factor that cause the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Young workers from East Germany figured out a way to get to West Germany En Mass through some other country, I forget the details. But in any case, West Germany just *loved* this new influx of people who shared the same language, weren't all THAT far off culturally and had decent education levels. East Germany on the other hand realized that their economic back was broken...the people who "voted with their feet" actually made a huge difference back home, one of the few times where that's happened. So anyways...NOT all immigration is a bad thing. It just needs to be managed properly, one of the few very legitimate government functions. | ||
| James Maxwell (Jmaxwell)
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Here's my position: My cardiologist maintains that the only reason he has continued to treat me for 30 years is because he must maintain his "quota" of Liberals as imposed upon him; so he has two of us to keep the ACLU at bay. That pretty much sums up my position on social and political issues, though I do tend to be conservative on economic issues, and even a traditional conservative on the budget deficit issue. What this current clown and his party have done with our deficit is nothing short of disaster for this country. Jim of CA: Any sales tax is about the most regressive tax anyone can imagine. The heaviest burden of it is borne by the least able to pay it. It discourages consumption, which in turn stifles growth. It also smacks of contradiction of one of OUR basic tenants in this country: Seek a better life, not a lesser one. Nothing is accomplished by replacing one tax with another, even if it turns out to be "revenue neutral". Now there is an oxymoron if u ever heard one: Revenue neutral Tax! Re-distribution of Wealth: History reveals, thruout the World, that if government fails to address the matter and wealth becomes too concentrated, you will eventually undergo a revolution by the masses. FF: "Closed Borders". I think that concept sort of disappeared with the invention of sailing ships. The Indians (pardon me, Native Americans) had that same idea and look what happened to them! Closed Borders come from the position of Isolationism, which may sound good in theory, but which is practically impossible. Take it one step further with the popular Republican theme of "States Rights". Are we also to allow Nebraska to close it's state line to people from New Jersey, or products produced in Louisiana. You and I probably are closer on the issue of Immigration and Our Border than would appear from above, but I like to look at the big picture and implications of short term solutions. I fully agree that we need to do some "tightening" but I don't agree that "closing" is the solution. Iraq is a perfect example of trying to survive as isolated. Sooner or later, someone will decide to kick down your door and the invention of the ICBM makes that possible anywhere. Un-funded Ponzi scheme of Social Security. I don't know where you developed that idea from, since there is a little matter of 6.3% of the average wage earners money "earmarked" for just that purpose, along with a matching contribution from their employer. You think perhaps that maybe the decades of "schemes" to relieve the fund of it's surpluses has had a little bit to do with the shortfalls that it encounters (such as GWB proceeded to do the day after 911)? It's all well and good for people who have already gotten their dollars out of it or those who don't need it anyway, to say it's no good and doesn't work, but tell that to some guy who has paid into it for 20-25 yrs, is now facing the declining years of wage earning (a statistical fact), only to realize that somebody gutted it for a true "Ponzi" scheme of investing it in Enron, MCI, Tyco, etc. Yes, I know, you will argue that they can make "safe" investments like US Securities, which the Chinese won't even buy anymore, and get a safe return, about .5% less than inflation currently. The Socialist Yellow Dog Democrat!! | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
Jim, I have a name, but I should have been more clear that I was seeking qualifications. Are you of the opinion that no one with the necessary qualifications is a member of either the Democratic or Republican Parties? I ask this just because a member of either seems to have the only real chance of becoming elected (for reasons that do not need to be listed) Thanks, Marc | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Marc: What do you mean by "qualifications"? I'm quite serious. What's needed is a guy willing to say "I'm going to set the government up to do the minimum things needed without social engineering and without meddleing in people's lives". I don't think ANY one guy can do it. Constitutional limits can...or at least should, that was the original plan. Quoting James Maxwell: "Re-distribution of Wealth: History reveals, thruout the World, that if government fails to address the matter and wealth becomes too concentrated, you will eventually undergo a revolution by the masses." I disagree. The governments which have fostered revolution have tried to enforce a class structure LIMITING the upward mobility of the lower classes. In the US, the classic expression of this was police repression of the union movements on a mass scale starting around 1875-1880 (spotty prior) and continuing pretty heavily through at least the 1920s and spotty thereafter through the 40's and even into the 50's. (Hell, happens now and again to this day, isolated incidents where a corrupt sheriff is paid to break up a picket line.) Same thing happened in England in the same period. It got bad enough to start Socialist (with some full commies mixed in) movements in both nations; their concepts didn't go away, but got merged into the Democratic and Labor parties respectively. As a backlash to the repression! OK, think of it like this: there are certain very old, very basic "instincts" left over from way back in the human race. Tendencies towards "obeying an overlord", "centralizing power", "arming the aristocracy", etc. For millenia, the way you could tell a slave from a free man was in whether or not they bore arms, or at least had the right to. A very few societies abandoned that one and went to a less gradiated social scale with universal armament...the Greeks among the first, then the Scots, then the Swiss. Another instinct is that people have their "place". And when they try and get out of their "place", the "powers that be" try and put them back in. Study the history of the union movement in the US if you don't believe me. These instincts towards class, obedience, totalitarianism, power restrictions via arms control, racial conflicts and the rest are ALL not to be trusted. BUT: when the power of the state redistributes wealth, they ALWAYS screw it up. | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
" Any sales tax is about the most regressive tax anyone can imagine. The heaviest burden of it is borne by the least able to pay it. It discourages consumption, which in turn stifles growth. " FOOD is exempt , so there is no excess burden on the low income folks . AND they get the positive efffect of BEING taxpayers , not mere tax consumers. AS almost 50% of the working stiffs DO NOT pay ANY income tax , they are DEAF to the harm that taxes cause, as it seems are you! " History reveals, thruout the World, that if government fails to address the matter and wealth becomes too concentrated, you will eventually undergo a revolution by the masses. " PURE TRIPE , Marx got it wrong 150 years ago.And 75,000,000 murdered in the Soviet Empire and another 100,000,000 murdered by the Chimese should BURY that concept. " I think that concept sort of disappeared with the invention of sailing ships. The Indians (pardon me, Native Americans) had that same idea and look what happened to them!" A better understanding of real history would show the "Indian" abborigones that were here in early times are ALSO migrants from another land. THERE are NO "native Americans" as homo sapiens migrated from Africa thru China . If we wish to remain a sovergin country Immigration needs to be from a pool of folks that WANT to become AMERICAN Citizens , not just pass thru and then go "home" .Or worse demanding WE adapt to their concept of "law" . Anyone want to try to stuff their bride into a Burka , or explain how the 3 new wives will get to share the bed? The Melting pot , not the privledged class of "Injured" minorities, seeking endless redress. WE do not need open borders , we do nead a realistic immigration policy to allow EDUCATED folk that will not be a constant Welfare Drain on the existing citizens. "Un-funded Ponzi scheme of Social Security. I don't know where you developed that idea from, since there is a little matter of 6.3% of the average wage earners money "earmarked" for just that purpose, along with a matching contribution from their employer". ALL the "moneys" in the SS Ponzi Scheme are "invested" in Gov DEBT! So the cash was spent , right from 1936 to pay for gov debt , money already spent. All thats in the SS "lockbox" is DEBT Cretificates of money long long GONE (US Bonds). | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
As Fred said, food would be tax excempt, as would a number of other "basics"...I would include rent up to a certain figure. Medical costs/insurance of all sorts of course...several other items. And yes, this IS part of the current discussion in DC. Fred is absolutely correct about Social (in)Security being a giant ponzi scheme. There is NO other proper description. | ||
| Johnny Rating: N/A |
What Jim said, basically. Republican-turned-Libertarian here. However, I think the borders need to be not just closed, but SEALED. As in, build a wall, & anybody climbing it is shot on sight. | ||
| Ron Walker (Prevost82)
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Well Johnny...thanks a lot...from your Canadian neighbor. There are a lot of Canadian's that travel (read spend money) in the US and there are a lot of American's that travel in Canada....so where's the leave us... I'm sure if you look at your own personal blood line, your ancestors too came across on a boat or at least crossed the border....and became productive US citizens. So I guess if the people of the day, used your train of thought you wouldn't be a US citizen.... so where's it stop? JMO Ron | ||
| Jim in California Rating: N/A |
Ron, nobody is saying that legitimate border-crossers from Canada should be sealed out. The issue is the ILLEGITIMATE types, which is mostly a southern border thing but also happens on the Canadian border. So we're clear: even if a total border seal WAS possible on either or both borders, people willing to pass through checkpoints and such and legitimately enter our borders with the proper documentation are fine. That's what I meant by "legitimate" (and NOT based on race, if that's what you were thinking I meant). You're absolutely right, Canadian (or Mexican!) visitors are welcome now and should remain so - as long as they're willing to cross the border properly. In 15+ years or so, real border sealing may become possible via wireless networks of cheap sensor array gear air-dropped in a mass stream and a border patrol "reaction force" able to deal with alerts. | ||
| Johnny Rating: N/A |
I have no problem with legal immigrants (heck, I married one). I object to the flood of criminals coming from the southern border, though. It MUST BE STOPPED. | ||
| Carroll4104 Rating: N/A |
I hope that ole Newt does run for prez in 08, be a good time to show the world what a hypocrit he and his followers are. Carroll 4104 |