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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (125234)	11/20/2009 8:07:33 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543322

Speaking of "truthfulness" Anyone know Grayson from Florida?; Ron Paul and Alan Grayson team up in attempt to audit the Federal Reserve November 20, 4:40 PMDetroit Law and Politics ExaminerBrad Templeman The sponsors of an amendment to audit the Federal Reserve, Alan Grayson and Ron Paul, are a legislative dream team: a true libertarian who questions whether the Civil War should have been fought and the guy who said that the Republican health care plan is for people to "die quickly." They have sponsored a bill to allow the first-ever audit of the nearly 100 year old Federal Reserve: The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed's opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal. The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow. A desperate, last-minute attempt to thwart the move came in the form of an amendment championed by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) and described by its supporters as more reasonable. On Tuesday, however, the Huffington Post reported that, on a close reading, his amendment would in fact decrease transparency at the Fed by adding additional restrictions. Ron Paul (who has been introducing something like this since 1983) has more far reaching-aspirations (not sure about Grayson): For three decades, Rep. Ron Paul has waged a lonely battle in Congress to abolish the Federal Reserve. But he has more foot soldiers across the nation today, particularly after the financial crisis, who are leading the drive for wider congressional audits of the central bank. (See today’s Journal story for more on their movement.) In his new book — “ End the Fed” — released today, Rep. Paul walks through his critique of the central bank and lays out a strategy (briefly) for eliminating it. We sat down with the congressman to hear his views on a money system backed by gold, the Fed’s challenge of withdrawing its stimulus and his legislation to audit the central bank. That's not all: How would an audit lead to ending the Fed? It’s a stepping stone. I think what’s going to lead to the next step is the destruction of the dollar, just like economic events moved further ahead than my legislative process. I wasn’t getting anywhere. But the economic events demanded that we look into it. So even if this bill passes and we have more information and we’re talking about monetary policy reform, I don’t think that’s the way this system is going to be ended. I think it’ll be ended when it’s a total failure and then it’ll have to be replaced by something. It could be replaced with a more authoritarian government, a more socialistic government. Do you think the Fed will be abolished during your career? I always thought the day would come… This economy is going to get worse and this dollar is going to get a lot worse. It’ll take care of itself. My real goal is educating people to the nature of money so that when this system fails, that they’ll know what to do and not just say ‘Well, we need a better manager.’ So far, the bill has only made it out of the House Financial Services Committee, and it will be interesting to see whether President Obama would actually sign a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. Maybe he would side with House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, who opposed it because it might look like they were trying to influence monetary policy (which could lead to inflation). With Paul and Grayson as the dynamic duo at the center of this fight, it could be a very interesting story to follow. examiner.com

To: JohnM who wrote (125234)	11/21/2009 10:24:10 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543322

John, I have not read these authors so the discussion would all be coming from your side. In fact, it wouldn't be a discussion if that were the case--although I might be able to comment on the concepts derived from those authors My original intention here was only to defend Bachmann from being labeled a "nutjob". And not to get into an extended discourse on the relativistic aspects of political cultures. I asserted, essentially, with reference to Bachman, that a "nutjob" application only has reference in relation to normative values--what the norm is for that politician's cultural value set (otherwise one man's "nutjob" is another man's wise philosopher). Cogito and Pangloss argued, if I understood them correctly, that it wasn't a matter of relative values at all inasmuch some of Bachmann's values/ideas were out of sync with scientific "reality". Therefore, scientific values/reality were a more valid standard to judge Bachmann by, ergo, she's a nutjob. I countered with the argument that scientific values only have validity for humans in so far as they have been adopted by human culture and that at present, here in the US, there are differing cultural norms that are competing for ascendency. So until science has completed its ascendency (as THE cultural norm, if it ever does, there will always be a relativistic value set on which to judge politicians by. That's the state of the argument as I see it. I really don't want to go into the particulars of Palin and/or Gay marriage unless the thrust of those particulars go to the central tenet of the argument. In fact, since both the issues of Palin and Gay Marriage carry so much emotional baggage attached to them it would be better, IMHO, to not use those subjects, if possible, in relation to political cultural "norms". If we could limit it to Bachmann that would be preferable to me. Now in the thrust of the recap of the argument I've laid out where do you want to go from there?