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I believe WWII was "guns or butter" - goods were rationed. During most the Vietnam War, the economy boomed enough to revise the slogan to "guns and butter".Honestly, I remember "Guns or butter" and an anti-war ad with politicians fighting personally (had I known about Burr and Hamilton, it wouldn't have as much of an impression). I don't remember "Guns and butter." Not dismissing it, only I don't remember it.
As a tangent, I do remember the dollar going off the gold standard and a political cartoon with a dollar leaping into a partially filled pool with a then well known politician (who I can't recall at the moment) saying "Let's see if it floats." It's a tangent memory, because there was already inflation when the US moved to fiat currency.
It very well may date to WWII. I just remember it as a Vietnam War era argument for social programs instead of armaments.I believe WWII was "guns or butter" - goods were rationed. During most the Vietnam War, the economy boomed enough to revise the slogan to "guns and butter".
My memory is unreliable - you may very well be right.It very well may date to WWII. I just remember it as a Vietnam War era argument for social programs instead of armaments.
It originated in 1916, Secretary of State Bryan at the start of WWI. William Jennings Bryan made it popular (1860 -1925)I first encountered it in the Vietnam era doesn't mean it originated then.
California Senate candidate and Congressmember Adam Schiff is calling for a major overhaul of American institutions, including getting rid of the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court and eliminating the filibuster in the name of protecting democracy.I believe that if the leftist Democratic party remains in power in the White House after January 2025, then America will never ever be the same again. .... and not in a good way, either.
As for the first post in this thread, the OP did make more than a couple very valid, interesting, and informed points.
I cannot vote in your election though close relatives can. But it seems to me that this election is one of the most important ever. So what advice would you give my relatives as to the most important issues in this election?
From my European perspective, the following seems most pertinent. But I would be interested to learn what Americans think are the key issues:
1) POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP threatens to split the country and even provoke a civil war - much to the delight of America's rivals. So what candidate can best unite America and reconcile those on both sides? How can personality politics, abortion obsessions, lies about election fraud, and 'plan-demics' be put into proper perspective?
2) AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND POWER ARE UNEQUALLY SHARED - Your super-rich grows richer while those at the bottom struggle with high prices, debt, a lack of proper health care, and educational disparities. Social mobility continues to decline and various voices among the superrich are too loud while those of the people can hardly be heard. Seething resentment is dismissed as socialism but this just feeds the underlying discontent.
3) PUBLIC DEBT levels are at a record high and this is becoming unsustainable. The political culture seems to disallow the possibility of a balanced budget.
California Senate candidate and Congressmember Adam Schiff is calling for a major overhaul of American institutions, including getting rid of the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court and eliminating the filibuster in the name of protecting democracy.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...-save-democracy-abolishing-electoral-college/
What the left means by "protect our democracy" is really protect THEIR power. Someone once said, "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms." Sadly, that seems to be the direction America is heading.
By your argument, why have 50 Senators?What makes those policies anti-democratic? So the Electoral College, if we get rid of it we get back to the concept of one citizen, one vote. What is anti-Democratic about that? Why is a vote in Wyoming worth roughly 3 votes, compared to a single vote in California and Texas -- is that Democratic? Is installing a President who came in second in the popular vote Democratic; largely because 160 years ago we needed a system where Black slaves were counted as getting 2/3rds of a vote each? I have a hard time seeing anything despotic there.
By your argument, why have 50 Senators?
So you mean:Besides, though maybe I mistake your question about Senators, but I would think the better question is if we should change the states -- why do we have a state (with two Senators) with only about half a million people, when we have other states that have 50 times that population? Don't get me wrong, I'm not serious about this proposal, but it does seem like disparity in state sizes causes many issues (including in some of those larger states, where there are too many distinct areas that don't blend well).
1. Electoral College: Isn't going away w/o 2/3rds vote in both houses + ratification of states. It wasn't that great in 1787 and it's been a bad idea and had needed to go for a long time.California Senate candidate and Congressmember Adam Schiff is calling for a major overhaul of American institutions, including getting rid of the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court and eliminating the filibuster in the name of protecting democracy.
"GP" = Jim Hoft's far right conspiracy and insurrection blog.https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...-save-democracy-abolishing-electoral-college/
What the left means by "protect our democracy" is really protect THEIR power. Someone once said, "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms." Sadly, that seems to be the direction America is heading.
So you mean:
Why not apportion representation and government according to population. Just have Administrative Districts like Congressional Districts?
One Dirty Word: Gerrymander.
Congressional Districts were supposed to be apportioned by population. Create districts according to how many people were in that area. In our square states, the districts should not look like snake tracks. And that is exactly what Gerrymandering does. Snake Tracks.
The States are incapable of starting in one corner and drawing basically (in many States) square areas of equal population.
And the Courts entertain this nonsense of "redrawing congressional districts" according to race and lately, political persuasion.
At this point I really think it should be character and virtue, a kind of leadership that inspires others to be better people.I cannot vote in your election though close relatives can. But it seems to me that this election is one of the most important ever. So what advice would you give my relatives as to the most important issues in this election?
From my European perspective, the following seems most pertinent. But I would be interested to learn what Americans think are the key issues:
1) POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP threatens to split the country and even provoke a civil war - much to the delight of America's rivals. So what candidate can best unite America and reconcile those on both sides? How can personality politics, abortion obsessions, lies about election fraud, and 'plan-demics' be put into proper perspective?
2) AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND POWER ARE UNEQUALLY SHARED - Your super-rich grows richer while those at the bottom struggle with high prices, debt, a lack of proper health care, and educational disparities. Social mobility continues to decline and various voices among the superrich are too loud while those of the people can hardly be heard. Seething resentment is dismissed as socialism but this just feeds the underlying discontent.
3) PUBLIC DEBT levels are at a record high and this is becoming unsustainable. The political culture seems to disallow the possibility of a balanced budget.
I agreeI know it doesn't seem fair or whatever to see rural areas that are less populous to have equal representation, but we are literally the bread and butter of America...
I agree
And the Democrats would throw a fit if the small Congressional Districts that were created for racial groups were redrawn as part of the larger population. Those folks have representation equal to districts with much larger populations.
The Democrats want it both ways.
Equal representation is 1 person = 1 vote. New York has rural areas. Those rural NY areas have their own Representatives.I think one of the issues I see, is that due to different ways of living and different life challenges, large population centers vote differently than rural areas.
Having equal representation goes out the window when New York, for instance, can cancel out the representation the rural areas would like to have representing them.
The new Republican party was regional. It wasn't operating in slave territory as it favored restriction on slavery expansion. Lincoln won the EC because the states that voted for him had a bigger population than the ones that didn't or couldn't. Same as every other presidential election.Very similarly to just prior to the civil war, where Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in 10 states (just memory, I would have to look up again for precision in fact here) yet he got voted in as President.
It was proof to the citizenry of those 10 states they need never bother with voting, because they have no representation.
The slaveocracy was a population minority. They didn't get to elect the president by themselves.Representation really matters to people .. it's lack starts wars.
Representative districts are equal in population. It takes the same number of rural people to make a district as it does urban people.I know it doesn't seem fair or whatever to see rural areas that are less populous to have equal representation, but we are literally the bread and butter of America...
Without the rural areas cities would starve... What's wrong with us having representation?
They don't "cancel you out", there are just more of them. Welcome to democracy.I'm in southwest Virginia... Northern Virginia cancels out our vote every single election. Literally cancels it out except on those, increasingly rare occasions we might happen to agree.
The further I read into your post the more I begin to wonder if you truly understand the rural/urban population divide.It really is voting most the time for the sake of protest against establishment Washington. lol...
I live with a good size mama bear and her family (3 cubs this year!) Who dens a couple hundred feet from our front door. Our trees provide food (nuts, berries and fruits) for her and she lives without fear of being hunted so she is more sizable than other black bears...
She also uses our yard as a thoroughfare. It's nothing to step out on the porch and be altogether too close for comfort...
As a result, we don't want to use a gun on her (this is her home too!) But that doesn't mean we don't live in a certain amount of daily danger should we happen to startle her at the wrong time.
Therefore, we do (okay, my husband does.. I still don't) like to remain armed in some way just in case.
We had to declare our counties out here to be 2A sanctuaries as a result of actions of people who don't live with the same types of concerns the mountain people have to live with...
Over various concerns, my sheriff who was a Democrat at the time, switched parties to Republican. It got that bad.
He was such a good man that even though he was a registered Democrat all the Republicans and the Dems voted him in out here... But switch parties he was forced to do as a matter of conscious.
This was only a couple years ago...
I think we do need to acknowledge rural areas don't have the same concerns as wealthy city dwellers and we need to figure out how we get represented too .. so that we just aren't cancelled out every election...
It's a problem.
Terrorists are terrorists, it doesn't matter where they live.At least take rural concerns into real consideration for goodness sake and stop treating Americans like terrorists or something...
So you mean:
Why not apportion representation and government according to population. Just have Administrative Districts like Congressional Districts?
One Dirty Word: Gerrymander.
Congressional Districts were supposed to be apportioned by population. Create districts according to how many people were in that area. In our square states, the districts should not look like snake tracks. And that is exactly what Gerrymandering does. Snake Tracks.
The States are incapable of starting in one corner and drawing basically (in many States) square areas of equal population.
And the Courts entertain this nonsense of "redrawing congressional districts" according to race and lately, political persuasion.
I agree
And the Democrats would throw a fit if the small Congressional Districts that were created for racial groups were redrawn as part of the larger population. Those folks have representation equal to districts with much larger populations.
The Democrats want it both ways.
The further I read into your post the more I begin to wonder if you truly understand the rural/urban population divide.
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