Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

[c1ue]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Realistically though, who can deliver on this sort of promise? We all know the gov already over promised between social security and medicare; there is no way they'll be able to fund everything.

Absolutely true, but equally true is that the SS and Medicare issue won't be critical in the next 4 years.

To expect that Obama will fail in delivering is to assume SS and Medicare income stops much sooner than expected - that just isn't very likely.

The problem will be in 7 years, give or take 2 years, as the bulge boomer bracket starts their draw.

Were I Republican, I'd go win a 1 term presidency now and THEN leave it to the Demos.

After all, once you're out - so long as blame can't be directly attached to you, it ain't your problem. Just look at Lyndon Johnson/Vietnam and JFK. Or Nixon/Gold standard and Lyndon Johnson. Or Bush I/economy and Reagan. The list goes on and on.

[Scott4139]

not so sure about that...

my first post!!!

Lots of theories, issues, polls and data out there....

But if I was to bet, I'd go with simple demographics. Based on my personal assessment the 60+ crowd is going to go McCain all the way. Even if everyone under 30 went Obama it wouldn't matter.

Everyone will answer the phone for a poll, but at the end of the day we know who will show on Tuesday.

I think Clinton would have split the 60+ vote and had a high probability of winning.

[ASH]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

It is a thin line. For instance, I might opine that there is a conspiracy to cover up what really happened behind the 'anthrax attacks', especially in light of this report that was published by New Scientist Magazine: Anthrax attack bug "identical" to army strain "The DNA sequence of the anthrax sent through the US mail in 2001 has been revealed and confirms suspicions that the bacteria originally came from a US military laboratory" and Itulip would officially say what, that the the FedGov lied about Hatfill and now the lone dead guy being responsible for everything, what is the difference? Or have I not gone far enough with this example (i.e. and directly implicated the FedGov in carrying out the anthrax mailings) for there to be a difference?

Your position doesn't make any sense to me at all.

For what purpose would the government carry out the anthrax mailings? To scare people into supporting the government? Why would that have been necessary so soon after 9/11?

For that matter, how come do you imagine that the government's security services are staffed by the type of psychopaths who would consider attacking their own countrymen with biological weapons?

If the government was behind the anthrax mailings, why did the investigation focus so rapidly upon a domestic source? If the fix was in, why give up the opportunity to pin this on Iraq (which is what everyone first thought, and would have been politically useful), or other external enemies?

"Lied" about Steven Hatfill? This is the standard "omniscient/omnipotent government" fallacy of conspiracy theories. How about "was wrong" about Steven Hatfill. Read up on the circumstantial case against him, and you'll see what roused their suspicion and why their case fell apart.

For that matter, if the fix was in as far as identifying a scapegoat, why the hell did it take 7 years of investigation? In the first place, wouldn't they have made it stick to Steven Hatfill? In the second place, what is the point of stretching out the investigation for 7 years, only to point the finger at a trusted scientist from a government lab? If you're covering up a government conspiracy, doesn't it seem odd to go out of your way to identify the government as the source of the anthrax -- I mean, that was the basis of their entire public case against Ivins.

If this was a conspiracy, then either (1) the investigation would have identified a politically helpful perpetrator, or (2) it would have silently gone away without being resolved. It most definitely would not have featured Ft. Detrick as the source of the anthrax.

[ASH]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

For example (as per FRED's post) when the government releases BS inflation numbers it isn't an "oops" or some "bad apple", it's groups of people willfully torturing numbers for political purposes.

But is it still a conspiracy if the manipulation is not hidden? I mean, according to John Williams, the BLS very dutifully records changes made to their methodology for calculating CPI. These changes are openly debated before being implemented. It's just that the public isn't really following along when this happens, doesn't understand the implications, and is content to uncritically trust that their public servants are acting in their best interest.

In my view, politicians and the bureaucrats who work for them willfully torture numbers for political purposes in broad daylight. It is the apathy and ignorance of the voter -- the voter's complicity with their own deception -- which is to blame for the outcome. I suppose it's semantics, but if the public allows itself to be misled through laziness, then I don't think the manipulations are secret enough to be thought a true "conspiracy".

=============

The following is not directed to Judas, but rather is a general comment about conspiracies.

You will see me arguing elsewhere in this thread against the domestic anthrax mailings having been a government conspiracy. I am often accused (especially in internet circles) of being hopelessly naive. I don't have blind faith in the government -- far from it. Rather, where others see a sinister and secret plan, I see incompetence, laziness, and the average failings of human nature. Where others imagine villains of inhuman malice and tortured motivations with legions of accomplices who follow orders blindly with absolute and unquestioning loyalty, I substitute knowledge of actual humans with common morals, motivations, and their own thoughts.

Fundamentally, I agree with the viewpoint that conspiracy is attractive to those who don't understand how things actually work. It's not that conspiracies never occur -- it's just that they are invoked far too often to explain things that have other obvious, and less sexy, explanations. Alternatively, when faced with a phenomenon that is essentially capricious, people invoke conspiracy to explain something that would otherwise be simply random. (This, by the way, is something conspiracy has in common with superstition. The human brain is trained to look for connections, and in a world that includes some random phenomena, it will occasionally see connections where there aren't any.) In that capacity, conspiracy is to the workings of the human world as religion is to the physical sciences. The moment you invoke a conspiracy, you create a black box and absolve yourself of explaining motives, the logistics of execution, and the reasoning in any detail. After all, parts of the conspiracy are hidden, and its perpetrators are so evil as to defy an attempt to fully understand their motivations or reasoning.

Again, my position is not that there are no conspiracies. In fact, 9/11 was a conspiracy (but, you know, the boring type -- a conspiracy of Islamic fundamentalists, orchestrated from overseas; not an inside job). My position is that if your explanation for most things is a conspiracy, then you are habitually taking an intellectual position that is equivalent to attributing cell phones, weather, and the blue color of the sky to "God", when you should be trying to understand physics.

[Guest]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

The point that conspiracy theorists don't seem to get is the phenomenal compounding which occurs over time of potential leaks, and the supposition of a magical, apparently supernatural ability of conspiratorial groups to steer real-time events consistently down through the years past all the pitfalls of unfolding reality. This is attempting a task where "unforseens" make any sort of "pre-planning" of a compounding complexity that would probably overload a Cray Supercomputer, merely trying to extrapolate plan contingencies out past six months.

A plan set in motion across time, not just weeks, but years, decades and centuries, gets so hopelessly bogged down in the cumulative entropy of "unforseens" that whatever emerges at the other end has only the vaguest resemblance to the original plan. The notion is naive. The compounding of follow-on ramifications, of "unforseens" is exponential, probably running off the charts in short order.

Take for example Sapien's Bilderberger / Freemason / Pilgrim Society / Elders of Zion theses. The premise there is that with each successive generation you are breezily conscripting new members with "solemn oaths of silence" and that over DECADES and CENTURIES no-one ever leaks anything anywhere. The conception of a hermetic secrecy impervious to leakage down through the centuries relies heavily on the predisposition to believe.

The entropy of random events upon a multi decade "plan" renders it's execution with any resemblance to the original intent a supreme conceit, at least for us humans. Yes, old money congregates into interest groups and can arrogate tremendous power, but it cannot "plan" a future with any any better assurance than even the smartest stock speculator can plan his next day's market. If he thought that, he would be a stupid speculator, not a smart one.

The notion that secret societies can "plan" events spanning secular durations requires very uncritical allegiance to the conspiracy idea as a viable method for groups to plan and obtain their wishes by elaborate subterfuge in the world.

Yes, there are probably a few colllusions and conspiracies at the core of the current administration, one look at Cheney might cure a lot of doubters. But this cookie cutter needs to be employed exceedingly sparingly otherwise. If it's got conspiracy stamped on it, I would redouble my scrutiny because nine tenths of the conspiracy theories are baseless, precisely because of the "entropy of secrecy" point made above. Conspiracies are very, very difficult to carry through, and to keep airtight for long periods of time - I think there is supposed to be an exponential progression of "leakiness" dependent on very small increments in the number of people tied into the conspiracy loop. Large groups or societies therefore exasperate that problem a lot further than the number of their group would suggest.

Imagine the Bilderbergers today - I've read endless tracts going over their doings in Heironymus Bosch like detail - like a medieval shop of horrors. Then you start to notice that new Bilderberger conscriptees are making their way into the inductee rolls with bewildering rapidity as people rise and fall from the pinnacles of power in the world with great frequency also! You've got a whole slew of who's who contemporary names, for instance any recent US President, who gets himself elected and suddenly by virtue of his new post he's a must-have conscriptee to the Bilderbergers.

Now stop and think - how are they keeping a muzzle on all the ex-Presidents, or ex-heads of the World Bank, or ex-EU Premiers, or ex-whatever the hell else, when they leave office and move on from the active Bilderberger ranks? Or when they draft a new one, how can they be assured that a "mole for free societies" does not eventually infiltrate to the highest levels and blow the whistle?

To imagine none would after centuries implies a childish credulity. Here you've got a freaking REVOLVING DOOR of Bilfderberger conscriptees all sworn to blood oaths or whatever the heck it is they swear to, and not a single one of those getting spit out after their term of Bilderberger service ever utter a peep about the tiniest scrap of intel on the nefarious Bilderberger anti-republic manipulations?

It boggles the mind. The allied invasion of Normandy was one of the greatest feats in history of keeping a massive plan's final destination and timing under wraps for just a few months. Here we have Bilderbergers manipulating the WORLD, with a who's who of incoming new members as people achieve the highest ranks of power, and concomitantly a flood of outgoing members as they are retired from those ranks, and not a single one of these in a hundred years has provided any juicy interviews or tidbits exposing their inner dealings?
The people that buy into this stuff wholesale seem to get almost detached from the ground - floating up a few inches heavenwards in the rapture that comes from peeling back imaginary layers of the grand and secretive plans being hatched all around us.

A wonderful example of it's going mainstream is hearing someone like Nancy Pelosi swearing solemnly in senate hearings with "Big Oil" executives that they are collluding Enron style to fleece the nation. "Big oil conspiracy". I cringed, watching an hour long debate a year ago of her embarassing the entire Senate by getting so strident she was shrilly cross examining the Exxon CEO as though he were a common, already perjured criminal. The readiness to see conspiracy among your adversaries encroaches upon the intellect like an illness, once it is officialized and believed by it's unwitting host to be a form of "truth-digging".

There is a lot of conspiracy theorizing about the present governent from the party in opposition but after two consecutive democrat administrations I'll wager we find it every bit as much among the Republicans. The sitting government is a ripe target for conspiracy theorizing about everything but the kitchen sink as the opposition rank and file employ imaginative ways to vent their frustration after years out of power.

[Judas]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I suppose it's semantics, but if the public allows itself to be misled through laziness, then I don't think the manipulations are secret enough to be thought a true "conspiracy".

I guess we do differ slightly in definitions, and can see why you would bristle at the term.

As an aside, I'm not some paranoid, but I also get annoyed that any time someone mentions an untoward act by government it is immediately called a "conspiracy theory" and dismissed (especially by those of the same political party/movement/etc. of course). Our history is replete with government conspiracies: feeding LSD to civilians, radiation tests, black service members purposely left to suffer from syphilis, the Gulf of Tonkin... I (or you) could likely list a thousand underhanded plots within the hour. So when someone mentions some possible plot I don't immediately believe it- but don't dismiss it out of hand either. As you mention, regular humans with their regular foibles. But those foibles include serious evil when vast amounts of wealth or power are in play.

[Judas]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

The point that conspiracy theorists don't seem to get is the phenomenal compounding which occurs over time of potential leaks...

The whole "too many leaks" thing isn't really a valid criticism. For every willful deception there are always people screaming bloody murder. The problem is that someone says "that's just a conspiracy theory!" and people shuffle by, or it just doesn't grab enough attention, or goes against preconceptions, or whatever.

Hell, look at David Walker. He is on a national tour trying to wake people up, has the most bulletproof credentials in the world, and nobody will listen or care. Politicians know the nation's broke, but will keep on proposing massive expenditures/promises as long as possible and the people will follow along until it all comes down. Or look at gun control advocates; they have for years openly called for banning guns. But each incremental proposal is "limited" and you are paranoid if you worry about things like registration. In California SKS rifles were registered with the promise that they wouldn't be confiscated. A few years later they were confiscated. All of the crazy conspiracy theorists maybe had a point...

[ASH]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I guess we do differ slightly in definitions, and can see why you would bristle at the term.

As an aside, I'm not some paranoid, but I also get annoyed that any time someone mentions an untoward act by government it is immediately called a "conspiracy theory" and dismissed (especially by those of the same political party/movement/etc. of course). Our history is replete with government conspiracies: feeding LSD to civilians, radiation tests, black service members purposely left to suffer from syphilis, the Gulf of Tonkin... I (or you) could likely list a thousand underhanded plots within the hour. So when someone mentions some possible plot I don't immediately believe it- but don't dismiss it out of hand either. As you mention, regular humans with their regular foibles. But those foibles include serious evil when vast amounts of wealth or power are in play.

You don't seem paranoid to me. The stuff you have been complaining about is all real, and your grasp on reality solid. It is just semantics, I guess: categorically different from the brand of conspiracy theory that I object to.

Heck -- I'm the one in my circle of friends who is forever railing about manipulated economic statistics and impending fiscal "doom". My friends typically experience cognitive dissonance, because they can't reconcile my usual credibility in other areas with their reflexive belief in government competence. For instance, when I try to explain how the money supply has been mismanaged -- or the nature of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds -- I'm met with uneasy skepticism. Most folks simply can't get their minds around the possibility that public affairs have been so poorly managed. They assume that since the flaws are so blindingly obvious as I describe them, it cannot possibly be the case that things are set up this way, because any fool would see the folly.

It is precisely because people have a knee-jerk tendency to dismiss tales of government cooking the books as "conspiracy theory" that I try to resist describing it in those terms. The thing is, I HAVE to blame the public rather than a conspiracy, because the ignorance is willful to the point of perversion. Every year I show people the part of the Summary of the Annual Reports of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees which says that "neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury" -- yet they persist in believing in the trust funds. Who is to blame here? The (largely Democratic) politicians who say the entitlement crisis is a tempest in a teapot, and that it concerns projected shortfalls that are decades away? Is that really a conspiracy? What of the citizens who don't trouble themselves to get the public data straight from the horse's mouth (in this case the Trustees)?

[Judas]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

For instance, when I try to explain how the money supply has been mismanaged... They assume that since the flaws are so blindingly obvious as I describe them, it cannot possibly be the case that things are set up this way, because any fool would see the folly.

It is precisely because people have a knee-jerk tendency to dismiss tales of government cooking the books as "conspiracy theory" that I try to resist describing it in those terms... Every year I show people the part of the Summary of the Annual Reports of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees which says that "neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury"... Is that really a conspiracy? What of the citizens who don't trouble themselves to get the public data straight from the horse's mouth (in this case the Trustees)?

True enough. Like the recent dollar bounce. It stinks to high heaven, but people I talk to think that since the market is reacting that way the value must be real. No, it couldn't be something like this. ;)

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Your position doesn't make any sense to me at all.

I think you misunderstood a little bit.

I'm looking for a hard line, the difference, the definition that seperates a pack of a willingly told lies from a conspiracy.

"Lied" about Steven Hatfill? This is the standard "omniscient/omnipotent government" fallacy of conspiracy theories. How about "was wrong" about Steven Hatfill. Read up on the circumstantial case against him, and you'll see what roused their suspicion and why their case fell apart.

For that matter, if the fix was in as far as identifying a scapegoat, why the hell did it take 7 years of investigation? In the first place, wouldn't they have made it stick to Steven Hatfill? In the second place, what is the point of stretching out the investigation for 7 years, only to point the finger at a trusted scientist from a government lab? If you're covering up a government conspiracy, doesn't it seem odd to go out of your way to identify the government as the source of the anthrax -- I mean, that was the basis of their entire public case against Ivins.

If this was a conspiracy, then either (1) the investigation would have identified a politically helpful perpetrator, or (2) it would have silently gone away without being resolved. It most definitely would not have featured Ft. Detrick as the source of the anthrax.

Chill Ash, it was an example pulled from the news of the day in regards to the question posed above. I am not here to debate the finer points of the anthrax mess.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Heck -- I'm the one in my circle of friends who is forever railing about manipulated economic statistics and impending fiscal "doom".

there are probably quite a few of us here.

[ASH]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I think you misunderstood a little bit.

...


Chill Ash...

Duly noted. Chillin' ;)

[phirang]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

there are probably quite a few of us here.

EJ should change the name of the site to, "i-cassandra".

[photoncounter]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

Most folks simply can't get their minds around the possibility that public affairs have been so poorly managed. They assume that since the flaws are so blindingly obvious as I describe them, it cannot possibly be the case that things are set up this way, because any fool would see the folly.

Exactly ! Moreover, it surprises me that it is not only the not-so-well-informed crowd that does not want to even consider for a moment that such things could happen, but, also the well-informed crowd !

[flintlock]

Re: Election 2008: Get your bets in because McCain has no chance

I think it will be very close, but in the end the blue hairs will pull McCain along. Could go either way though, based on what happens between now and the election. I think if things get worse with Russia, it will give people something to think about regarding Obama. McCain's VP selection will be critical. Good chance he won't make it 4 years.