My final thread on John Kerry, I promise. Options

[*CrackedRearView*]

This is a formal challenge to all who plan on voting for John Kerry. I know this is going to be hard, because it's a 12 minute documentary created by the Republican National Committee, and I understand that that's an immediate turn-off. But just follow me on this.

http://www.kerryoniraq.com/

Go there and watch the documentary. What's special about this documentary is that it's Kerry's words over time, on not only this Iraq war but the last as well, taken directly from newscasts. There's a clip of Howard Dean and some news footage from various stations, but it's almost exclusively Kerry talking. It follows his stances from 1998, as one of the only men in the Senate urging a war on Iraq, to 2004, where he considers himself an "anti-war candidate," and a possible (almost certain) motive for his policy reversal.

So my challenge is to watch this video. Its hard to consider yourself fully informed about your candidate without understanding where he's voting and why, and this gives very interesting information about his thought process and voting records through the years.

Now, I know there are lots of reasons to vote for Kerry. You like what he'll do with the economy, you like paying taxes, you like an unpredictable government, you think he might actually do this health care thing like he says he will. But if you honestly think he's a good man to run our foreign policy, watch this, and then tell me why you think that. And if you can still wave your "UnBush 2004" sign and tell me he's our best option for commander-in-chief, then there's nothing else I can say to change your mind on the fact that this man is a complete idiot when it comes to foreign policy.

And that, my debate colleagues, will be my final topic on John F. Kerry.

[ComradeRed]

[quote]Yes, the human rights infringements that happened during the 70's. Oh my. And the US treated African Americans badly before and after the civil war. Are we going to get into a debate about that? We could say that the US has some of the worst human rights infringements as well.[/quote]

United States human rights infringements are mostly due to the insane War on Drugs. Chinese infringements happen tremendously today -- Censorship of the Internet, Tiananmen Square, arrest of political prisoners -- While I agree that by some indicators the US is a more oppressive government than China (the nonviolent prison populaiton indicator, for example, makes Russia the most oppressive country and America the second most), the Chinese still conduct massive amounts of rights violations today. The main reason they do not rank high on the prison indicator, is because the population is so big that it is rendered mostly irrelevent. In reality, China is probably the worst rights violator of any large country, this is reflected by relative freedom of speech and press.

[quote]Yes, population crises, when let's see China population 1.3 billion compared to India 1.2 billion. India is about oh I dunno 1.5 times smaller than China. China which is also lossening restrictions on their one child laws, why? Because there is no population crises. Your arguments are pointless.[/quote]

CRV, there is NO population crisis. The population OF THE ENTIRE WORLD could fit into Connecticut if we lived at the density of Hong Kong. We could fit into former Yugoslavia if we lived at the density of New York City. If we lived at the density of an average European City, we could all fit into Texas.

Notice except for isolated urban centers, most of hte world is sparsely inhabited.

[quote]Japan is only developed because the US felt sorry for them after bombing two cities with nuclear bombs and thus sent billions in aid to them. Just so you know, richest country in the world is the United Arab Emarites (spelt wrong of course). South Korea is rich because the US sent billions in aid to them during and after the Korean war because they wanted to fight the North Koreans and try and stop Communism.[/quote]

Incorrect. The Marshal Plan actually SLOWED DOWN growth in Europe. The country that recieved the MOST US aid was Great Britain, yet it DEVELOPED THE SLOWEST. Greece and Italy receieved the LEAST US aid, but they developed the fastest. Most of US aid to South Korea was in the form of military base rent.

The richest country in the world is not the UAE. According to the CIA WOrld Factbook and the United Nations, it is Luxembourg, with the US second. The richest country IN THE MID EAST is Bahrain -- which they owe to their free market system, ranked the third freest in the world next to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Speaking of which, Hong Kong recieved NO US aid, yet it developed into the richest part of East Asia.

[quote]China has not reseved (spelled wrong of course) aid from the US in the form that Japan and South Korea have. China merely has trading relations with the US. That's about it. Besides buying goods from China, the US doesn't send any other money over there.[/quote]

Trading relations are better than aid. The US send billions in aid to subsaharan africa, and no good comes out of it. We send billions to Israel and they haven't been able to sustain good economic growth. We don't send aid to Japan any more, though South Korea does get military assisstance.

[quote]How dumb do you think I am? Sending money to Bush. He'd probably turn around and try and use the money I send him to fund some other BS plan to increase his PR. But more likely he'd pocket it and go and buy some crack.[/quote]

Then send it to Congress.

[quote]What if everyone pays higher taxes? I really wouldn't mind if millionaires paid more taxes do you?[/quote]

I'm sure the millionaires would. And I DO mind -- because it's a slippery slope. Raise taxes on some, eventually all will get taxed higher -- this theory has worked every time in history.

[quote]Think about it, the tax cut didn't give a set amount of cash to everyone it gave a percentage according to what you pay each year. What do the poor get? Somewhere around $50. Woohoo! $50! What do the rich get? $1,000's. See the difference. Who'd the tax cut help? Oh yea the wealthy.[/quote]

Well, DUH!!!! THEY ARE THE ONES PAYING THE FREAKING TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE!! If the poor only pay $50 in taxes (this is an overstatement -- most do not pay at all), of course the most they can get is $50. But if a billionaire is paying $50,000,000 in taxes a year, of course he should get more back.

[quote]You forgot to mention that they have no sales tax, thought I'd point it out to you. But you also fail to mention that China has a completely Capitalist Economy except for a few State owned monopolies, eg. China Mobile and China Unicom. The Soviet Economy was FAR from capitalist. They were trying to crush capitalism but found that that was bad for the economy and allowed some.[/quote]

And my point was that hte Soviet Economy in the 1930s was the fastest-growing economy ever to exist -- poor countries, when they get their act together [more or less], grow faster than rich countries.

[quote]He raised spending while decreasing the revenue the government was taking in, tax cut. But the fact that he made the tax cut effective for 10 YEARS while trying to help stablize the economy is moronic. Much like using a bazooka to kill a fly.[/quote]

More like taking away a bazooka from a fly.

When you want to stabilize the economy, you want to cut taxes as much as you can -- because the economy is based in the private sector. Moreover, he should've made the tax cuts immediate, because we know some politician 10 years from now will reverse them.

As for foreign debt, we should default on it.

The people who had the money (the government) spent it irresponsibily and on unconstitutional functions. Third-world countries that have recently undergone a revolution ALL use the excuse that the former people misused the money to default on their debt. It is only fair that we do the same.

Now for CrackedRearView

[quote]Horrid treatment of non-violent offenders in prison.[/quote]

Hmm... what does this remind me of... that's right, AMERICA! Sure, being stuck in an American jail is much better than in a Chinese one, but the fact is 0.45% of Americans are in jail for NONVIOLENT offenses, compared to only 0.08% of Chinese. This, can, however, be attributed to the fact that China has less surveillance technology (now) than the US does. As China becomes more developed, that number should go up very quickly.

[quote]China now has more than 1.2 billion people; the largest population in the world--one-fifth of the total, and every year the country adds another 12 million.

However, China only has 7% of the world's arable land and fresh water, 3% of the forests and only 2% of the oil. And although China's landmass is roughly the same size as the United States, it has 4.5 times the population. In addition, China's enormous population is unevenly distributed, with 94% living in the southeastern part of the country. (In the United States, this distribution would translate to nearly 1 billion people living east of the Mississippi River).[/quote]

The only resource China will have problem with is oil. 1 billion people could damn well live east of the Mississippi. In fact, according to my Atlas there is 878,195 square miles east of hte Mississippi. If one billion people lived there, that would be 1,138 per square mile -- LESS THAN THE CURRENT DENSITY OF NEW JERSEY.

If we all lived as close together as in New Jersey -- which is a very comfortable life I may add -- 1 billion people could live east of the Mississippi.

All six billion people living in Alaska is 10,152 people per square mile -- roughly the population density of the City of Pittsburgh.

[quote]India has a little over 1 billion people, but the main differences are:

1.) The population is more evenly spread out.
2.) India has the iron ore, bauxite, copper, petroleum, and enough coal to last for 120 years. They could stay afloat should they come to rely on these resources. China, on the other hand, contains very rocky, unarable soil, and lacks in mineral resources.[/quote]

Resources does not mean economic growth. Tanzania practically sits on top of a gold mine and it's dirt poor. Japan and Switzerland have no natural resources on their countries -- yet they're filthy rich.

[quote]And about their economic growth, this is from the University of Pittsburgh:

China exaggerated its economic growth, prof's research shows
While neighboring countries have struggled to recover from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, China has been claiming economic growth rates of 7 percent or better in recent years.
But a Pitt economics professor says those claims are exaggerated -- so much so, that China's growth since 1997 may have been only 40 percent of official rates.

Thomas G. Rawski has been making headlines internationally with his published findings that official measures of provincial and national growth have succumbed to jiabao fukuafeng (a wind of falsification and embellishment).

"My research convinces me that it is entirely possible that the Chinese economy actually contracted by about 2 percent in 1998, when the government was reporting an increase in GDP [Gross Domestic Product] of 7.8 percent," said Rawski. "A similar contraction may have occurred during 1999."

Chinese reports of 7-8 percent growth during the last two years "probably are exaggerated, too," but closer to reality than the official numbers from the late 1990s, Rawski said.[/quote]

I disagree. China was saved from the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 because it had so much currency floating around it was hard to speculate on it, which is what caused the crisis in other countries. In Malaysia, currency speculation was not allowed, and they did not suffer teh crisis either.

[quote]Examining publicly available sources such as The China Statistical Yearbook ("the skeptic's bible," he calls it) and Chinese press reports, Rawski detected trends that contradict claims of economic growth: declining energy consumption, sluggish retail sales, falling incomes in rural areas, and a steep decline in employment growth. Rawski also questions how farm output could have increased during 1997-98 in all but one province (as the government reported) despite floods that ranked among China's worst natural disasters of the 20th century.[/quote]

Simple: China is developing hydroponics farming technology. I've seen two plants of those. Explanations for other stuff:

Falling incomes in rural areas -- because people are moving to the cityies
Decline in employment growth -- under a state-run system, the employment rate was 100%. Of course it's going to be lower in a capitalist system.

[quote]"The year that I studied most closely was 1998. And, to me, the single most convincing element [contradicting growth claims] was civilian airline traffic," Rawski said.

"We know that, in China, income inequality is large and expanding rapidly. So, whatever income growth was in 1998, rich peoples' incomes would have gone up faster, and rich people are more likely to travel by airplane. On top of that, there was a price war in China's airlines industry in 1998. Fares were routinely discounted by 30-40 percent. [/quote]

China's airline industry is state owned. It's acronym, CAAC supposed to stand for Chinese Airplanes Always Crash. Chinese airlines are so bad, that most rich people in China choose to fly on Japanese or American instead.