[DianaraVP]

Oh, and Mr Sandy-vag, you're correct in that I'm misusing the word "socialism." I did acknowledge that and, well, in spite of my degree, I have a bad habit of doing that from time to time. I won't offer excuses, but I will say that if you think socialism/communism/Marxism are just economic models, you haven't actually studied them. The whole "socialism is an economic theory" line is one I heard in high school, if my memory serves correctly, and I latched onto it like a little lemming until I actually read the Communist Manifesto. Almost all political theories, however, are built around re-shaping the way that society thinks and acts. Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill were two of the last big-name philosophers to try to figure out a way to reformat the world, but the tradition stretches back to Plato and Aristotle as far as written records are concerned.

I'm aware of the fact that they are trying to change thought, which is part of the reason why Marx advocates atheism. Nevertheless, it is rare that anyone uses those terms to refer to the social aspects of the theories. Short of reading the philosophies, the social aspects of the theories are almost never discussed. Dick.

[Cruzandercerberus]

Wright is crazy, Farrakhan is a douche, and everyone panders to the Christians to get votes. Hell look at Bush (Sorry) he didn't do a god damned thing for the religious right's agenda once in office. And they still love him like every word he says is made of money, sunbeams, and hot buttered sex.

One can only hope that Obama is like bush in that regard, and will throw his religious connections under the bus once he's in office.

[Cruzandercerberus]

The social aspects of the theories are almost never discussed. Dick.

That's because like most of Marx, they were shortsighted and misguided. Hell under Marxism, Karl Marx shouldn't even have a working class conscience. He was the bourgeois son of a lawyer and was supported by a rich patron in Engels. The fact that a man who never had to work a day in his life was trying to be the champion of the proletariat thereby proving himself completely fucking wrong from the get-go should tell you something about how fundamentally wrong Marx really was on the social side.

[pathwriter]

Short of reading the philosophies

Considering my background is primarily in political theory, let's just chalk this up to my bias. Hell if I can figure out what your background is, though. You're from a heavily political city, you claim to have studied political science, and I'm just going to make an assumption that whatever department you studied with was worth half a damn, so it confuses the hell out of me that you're willfully unaware of how our government works.

And, Cruz, the real problem with Marx and his theories is that none of the proletariat, at least those living in reasonable conditions (e.g., the US, western Europe, etc., rather than under a feudal tzar), have ever supported it. They're pleasant ideas to bandy around among the people who intend to be in control. I mean, Lenin and Stalin and Mao and all the rest pretty well proved that. Only the bourgeois, by virtue of neither having to struggle to survive nor possessing the perceived luxury that wealth affords are drawn to "Everyone should be the same" theories. Poor people want to be rich and rich people want to preserve their exclusivity, but stick someone in the middle and they start talking about equality. I wish I was less of a cynic and could believe that most of them genuinely want everyone to be equal, but it seems more likely they want most people to be equal but, owing to their obvious greatness, they would ascend to a position of rulership or, at the very least, easy luxury. It's like a paunchy man saying that everyone ought to be able to eat the same, but in the back of his mind he knows damned well that he won't suffer an 1800 calorie diet like the rest of the world.

[Cruzandercerberus]

Yes all that is true, That is a pretty concise explanation of the historical failures of Marxism in practice. I was just pointing out some logical fallacies within the theory.

[DianaraVP]

Considering my background is primarily in political theory, let's just chalk this up to my bias. Hell if I can figure out what your background is, though. You're from a heavily political city, you claim to have studied political science, and I'm just going to make an assumption that whatever department you studied with was worth half a damn, so it confuses the hell out of me that you're willfully unaware of how our government works.

I'm not exactly sure why you brought up "how our government works" in this thread, but the fact is that I do not agree with any of the theories you have expressed about the functions of our government or economic system.

[pathwriter]

Since I'm in a relatively good mood, let's see if we can try to maintain some semblance of civility here. Let's say that the way I've described the government is theoretical. What is your counter-theory? As a student of political science, which I guess you've finally accepted as truth, it's incredibly frustrating for me to put forth a thought and then never read that of my opposition. Unlike you, I possess the ability to change my opinion if presented with an idea that makes sense, so try me. Seriously.

[DianaraVP]

Fair enough, but I have to ask you to be more specific in your question.

What I mean is, give me something less broad than the way the entire government works. Say President perhaps, since it came up last thread.

[pathwriter]

Sure, that works. You refute my claim that the President is largely ineffectual in creating domestic policy. I've said that he's little more than a particularly influential lobbyist in terms of convincing Congress (and primarily but not exclusively) his own party to create legislation which he agrees with. This is particularly in the context of "What can the President do, by virtue of his office, that would allow him to fundamentally affect the economy domestically?"

I posit that the reason people think that the Executive has the ability to do so is because a.) he has veto power, which is quite powerful, and b.) legislation from his party tends to get associated to his name (e.g., the "rebate" most people got this past spring was attributed to Bush but it was still Congress who made it). I will concede that the President does have certain power to affect the US economy, though. A good example would be NAFTA, which was an international treaty (as I've said, the President is our foreign affairs guy) that made a significant change in the economy. Trade treaties are fairly common, but they rarely are able to effect the sort of change that comes with Congress passing a tax law.

[Villainous]

Alaska probe finds Palin 'abused her power'

Ethics violations? Misuse of office? Ruh-roh shaggy!
McCain's staffers have great timing. I hope the integrity issue wasn't their trump card.
The guys running his train wreck of a campaign should start writing for SNL.

[Cruzandercerberus]

I don't understand the cult of Sarah Palin.

[DianaraVP]

What can the President do, by virtue of his office, that would allow him to fundamentally affect the economy domestically?

Sorry for the delayed response, but contrary to popular belief I do have a life outside of KI. Two words... er... Three words... Hookers and blow.

I'm going to start with the first point that you brought up in your previous post; "[the President] is little more than a particularly influential lobbyist in terms of convincing Congress his own party to create legislation which he agrees with."

Not often realized by the American public, due to the understanding of Congress' job as we were taught in school that they "make the laws," the President often writes (or has people write for him, ie. staff members) legislation and has members of Congress introduce it for him; this is an aspect of the Presidency that has evolved over the course of time. As we watch the on going campaign, we are constantly hearing both presidential candidates make promises to cut taxes; not a power the President possesses under the Constitution. In a case such as this, the President would have his budget committee draw up legislation to change the current tax policies to hand to a member of Congress to introduce.

Once the President hands over the bill to Congress, it is out of his hands. Negotiations will take place and parts of the bill will most like be changed in order to appease members outside of the President's political party. This is where the relationship between Congress and the President has become blurred and distorted over time; due to the two-party system Congress has become more or less an arm of the Executive branch (one could argue that it was an inevitable evolution). Due to the President's veto power, it is unlikely that a bill that the President does not approve of will be passed. So, if at any point in time the President's party holds a majority the President (almost) may introduce legislation at will. Additionally, he will be able to take other actions unchecked (this includes, but is not limited to office appointments, make treaties, and approving budgets).

It is important to note that your idea that the President is little more than a lobbyist for Congress is actually close, only it's backwards. There is a direct correlation between the President's party and the party in control of Congress to the President's power. Pretty much only time that Congress exercises its checks against the Executive Branch are when the President's party is not in control of Congress. Essentially, the power of Congress gets handed over to the Executive Branch during times where the President's party in in control of Congress, and Congress becomes impotent when they have anything less than a veto proof majority and are controlled by a party other than the President's.

Take for example the so-called "Do Nothing Congress" of 2006-Present; prior to 2006 Congress was controlled by the Republican party, and during that time the Republicans passed some of their most influential legislation (Tax Cuts, Patriot Act, Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, etc.). After 2006 Republicans Congress lost both Houses of Congress to the Democrats. Naturally during that time the Democrats attempted to enact Democrat-supported legislation; however they lacked a veto proof majority, and as a consequence the majority of legislation introduced during this period was either not passed or vetoed.

During President Bush's time in office he has used his veto power 12 times, which is not a lot for a President of two terms. By comparison, President Bill Clinton, who served as President for two terms, used his veto power 37 times. Of Bush's 12 vetoes, how many would you guess were made after the 2006 elections? I'm pretty sure you got the answer - all 12. During Clinton's time in office, Congress was controlled by Republicans from 1995 until 2006 - long after he left office. I'm sure it won't surprise you to find out that all 37 of his vetoes took place after 1995.

The connection here is that President's are made powerful or "less powerful" by their respective Congresses. Either a President will be made powerful as a result of unchecked authority by a like-partied Congress or he will prevent Congress from acting by vetoing their legislation. And to bring this full circle if a President is the one who is writing the bills, and he is in control of what passes and what does not, then essentially he (as the head of his party) controls the laws of the land. This would mean that not only does he enforce the laws of the land, he can make them.

Please watch the video. It speaks directly to the argument I am making.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jh...le=Nancy-Pelosi

I'm taking a moment of pause here to point out that we have not yet established how this would allow the President to effect the economy domestically. We are getting to that. Go grab a drink or something.

Thus far, we have established one major aspect of Presidential power; his relationship with Congress and how that relationship serves to provide power for the Executive Branch. That relationship, while only one of many different facets of Presidential power, serves his ability to directly effect domestic economic affairs - consequently the national economy. Since we brought it up before in this post, and it is a major issue in most elections, we will use the relationship of the President to Congress to explore federal budget and tax policy and how they have an effect on the national economy.

The President is responsible for preparing the Budget of the United States, although Congress must approve it (we already established why that isn't a problem). The Office of Management and Budget, not coincidentally the largest office within the Cabinet, assists the President in this task. Essentially, these are the people, led by the President and guided by his policies, who control the government projects that our tax dollars go toward supporting. If these individuals decide to, say, cut spending for education, then schools cannot afford to pay teachers and fund programs, and as a result people lose jobs or receive pay cuts. Even though he is not a President, California Governor Schwarzenegger is currently dealing with this very problem - one can easily draw parallels of the state and federal level budget issues.

Inversely, if the President decides to create a new program or issue new contracts jobs are created and money is allotted to those projects. Now of course, that money for new programs has to come from some where - taxes (and to a lesser extent foreign/domestic investment). During the Great Depression FDR's New Deal made great use of government projects and programs in order to stimulate growth by injecting money into the economy, while at the same time upgrading the infrastructure of the country. A more modern example would be the issuing of defense contracts to foreign nations. Of the top 10 contractors in the world, 7 of them are American, and it shouldn't strike anyone as odd that one of our top industries is defense. To reiterate, the President's roll in our federal budget has a major impact on our economy through the creation or removal of jobs and infusion of funds into the domestic economy.

It is only natural that the discussion of the federal budget brings us back to a President's tax polices and how they effect the domestic economy. Almost every President makes promises to change the tax policies of the last party's administration - we see this happening with the current presidential campaign. As we discussed before, it is not up to the President himself to introduce a tax bill to Congress. What often happens is that the Presidential Administration will draft the bill and sponsor it, hand it over to a member of Congress, and if the President's party is the dominant one have it passed. This was the case with the Bush Tax Cuts of 2003. Quite frankly, had the President handed Congress a tax bill written in dog shit they would have likely passed it due to the nature of the Presidential/Congressional party relationship.

It is worth noting here that a few hundred economists stated in a signed letter to Bush that the tax cuts would have an adverse effect on our economy. Here is that signed statement:

Economic growth, though positive, has not been sufficient to generate jobs and prevent unemployment from rising. In fact, there are now more than two million fewer private sector jobs than at the start of the current recession. Overcapacity, corporate scandals, and uncertainty have and will continue to weigh down the economy.

The tax cut plan proposed by President Bush is not the answer to these problems. Regardless of how one views the specifics of the Bush plan, there is wide agreement that its purpose is a permanent change in the tax structure and not the creation of jobs and growth in the near-term. The permanent dividend tax cut, in particular, is not credible as a short-term stimulus. As tax reform, the dividend tax cut is misdirected in that it targets individuals rather than corporations, is overly complex, and could be, but is not, part of a revenue-neutral tax reform effort.

Passing these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook, adding to the nation’s projected chronic deficits. This fiscal deterioration will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research. Moreover, the proposed tax cuts will generate further inequalities in after-tax income.

To be effective, a stimulus plan should rely on immediate but temporary spending and tax measures to expand demand, and it should also rely on immediate but temporary incentives for investment. Such a stimulus plan would spur growth and jobs in the short term without exacerbating the long-term budget outlook.

I cited this particular statement for two reasons: I hate George Bush because he is a shitty President and that it makes note of the effect of these tax cuts on various government programs. As I stated a few paragraphs ago, if you make budget cuts you likely will not be able to fund certain programs. In this particular case, it was stated that the resulting decrease in tax income would make it more likely that we would unable to fund government programs. Again as stated in a previous paragraph, budget cuts as a result of, say extreme tax cuts, would likely result in the loss of government-funded jobs or severe pay cuts.

These job losses and pay cuts eventually can bleed into other areas. Grocery stores are a good example of this direct cause and effect system of job loss/pay cut (or inversely job creation/pay increase), but I will spare you the explanation of remedial economics and take for granted that you can make this link on your own. The point is that the President's policies have direct and indirect impacts on the domestic (and global) economy. This fact is exacerbated by Congress' lack of interest in doing the duty they were assigned under the Constitution - be the voice of the people and provide oversight over the Executive Branch. The last time that was done on a major level was when Clinton was impeached for perjury over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The last REAL time that was done on a major level was when Nixon was forced to resign due to Congress' assurance that he would lose his impeachment case.

Now, I think I have fairly established that the President has a large scope of influence on the economic affairs of the nation. I didn't even get into his ability to sign treaties and make appointments. I believed that you could make those connections on your own based on the example (that I myself would have used) of NAFTA. Additionally, he has enormous influence through powers such as holding economic meetings with other nations like the G8, or making appointments to governmental economic institutions like the SEC or OMB. If you are curious how those examples would have an effect, or something like the President starting a war would have an effect, on the economy simply apply the principles that I outlined in the first part of this (casual) essay.

Lastly, I want to add that the power of the President has been significantly expanded over the course of our nation's history. It has been expanded through law, interpretations (or misinterpretations) of the Constitution, and precedents set by other Presidents. I totally disagree with you that the President is some sort of puppet. He is every bit as powerful as he seems that he is, and as the Leader of the Free World he holds enormous influence with the international community. You would be hard pressed to show that he doesn't wield vast power, and I do not believe that any professional studies of politics would agree with you there. If you want to argue that he is heavily influenced by others like lobbyists or corporations, I would be forced to give you some grace there, but he is not the impotent figure head that you make him seem.

Agree or disagree with my argument, that's fine. But I ask two things of you all: that you speak to the argument and you be respectful. I really don't care if you don't agree with my position, but if you don't agree with the position don't present straw man arguments or try to attack me for being "anti-Bush" or socialist or some other atypical nonsense like that. I'm not really trying to hear it. I stated this before and I will say it again, if you don't agree and you don't speak to the issue then it only seems like you don't understand the argument or don't care to. I hope that you respect the fact that I took the time out to write this essay and that you take it as an olive branch representative of my intention to engage in civil discourse.

As for my sources, I did the majority of this from memory. What I did have to look up I used Wikipedia for more detailed information that I couldn't possibly remember if I tried.

[pathwriter]

I don't want to ask how long it took you to type that out.

You've said nothing that I can fundamentally disagree with. The major difference is in our conclusions.

Yes, the Executive has grabbed a lot of power for itself down the years. Among the few Presidents we've had who haven't tried to enhance their power, the anti-monarchist Washington is probably foremost, but his successor, Adams, was quick to illegally enhance upon the power of the Executive. Assuming you've done a decent study of the American Presidency, you'd see that our Presidents have been a pretty mixed bag. George Bush, Jr., has not been the worst in terms of abusing his office (for good or ill, I'd say FDR abused the office most and, had he not conveniently died, would have pushed the US closer and closer towards a constitutional monarchy like the UK is, if we pretend that the monarch has the power of the PM), but he certainly was a very, very long way from being the best. It keeps slipping people's minds, I suppose because it happened to the towel-heads and not "real people" (read: Americans), but the attempt to suspend habeas corpus was one of his biggest perversions and a lot of people who actually are into constitutional law, like presumably your hero, have been both shocked and gratified that the conservative, relatively Bush-aligned Supreme Court rushed through two court cases to strip that stolen power.

So, yes, I thoroughly agree that the President is a powerful person. He's got substantially more power in terms of negotiating with other nations because, as I have posited, that's his real job. Even Monroe, who was as isolationist a President as we've ever had, said "We're going to take care of the Western Hemisphere," rather than limiting himself exclusively to US borders. It's exactly because of the international clout that we've increasingly been able to swing that we've become the world hegemon. If the Congress, a group of 600-odd people whose careers can range from volatile to life-long, were in charge of our foreign policy, I imagine that Haiti could invade and conquer us.

If it isn't clear, I don't particularly like Congress. Their triumph is that the multiplicity of voices acts as insurance against spurious legislation, but it's an imperfect defense as the USPATRIOT Act and the recent bailout demonstrate (I'm still of mixed opinion as to whether or not creating more debt and establishing a plan of attack will ultimately be in our best interests), though we could go back as far as the Alien and Sedition Acts if we really wanted to. The multiplicity, though, also means that they're slow and frequently ineffectual. In terms of foreign policy, that would be devastating. To my knowledge, most of the world agrees that our presence in Afghanistan was justified and continues to be, but Congress never did officially declare war with the Taliban government of Afghanistan (I could be wrong, please correct me).

Anyhow, I'm wandering off-topic. Forgive me, I just woke up and something as complex as this tends to draw me along a series of tangents.

The difference between our interpretations of the way that domestic policy is enacted is that I see very little in the office of the President that grants him that sort of power. The man in that office often has a great deal of power, both with his party, with his faction within that party, with influential friends, etc. etc. By that definition, though, we could say the same of pretty much anyone with enough money and influence and, indeed, there are very likely a few shadowy people who manipulate the parties and lobbyists to push towards a certain result. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy but merely people who, possibly because they're sane, prefer not to be visible on the national scene. Unfortunately, I don't have any good example to throw out, so this is largely speculation, but I see no reason for it to be untrue (of course I don't, I'm the one positing the idea!).

Clinton and Bush are quite good examples of what happens when a President has or has not support in Congress. Much of what Clinton wanted to see enacted into law didn't make it anywhere near his desk because of the antagonistic Congress. Even though he did employ his veto power, he still signed a lot of things he shouldn't have (DOMA springs instantly to mind, not least of which because it likely violates the Constitution). I would be very, very wrong if I were to claim that the Democratic party has any real interest in the rights of gay Americans, but they tend to at least pay mouth service to insulting "separate but equal" ideas. Things like DOMA, though, are a clear example of how the Congress can strong-arm something through. By contrast, the USPATRIOT Act was something that the President, since he had a supporting Congress, was able to strong-arm past the panicked and ineffectual Democrats. It's a fluid sort of relationship. If FDR had a Republican Congress at some point during his reign, he would have found his actions quickly curtailed, but the stock market crash (which happened for most of the same reasons as the current credit meltdown) scared people into voting for Democrats. Two years of Hoover being flummoxed to fix the problem ensured their place of power for the coming decade, too. I wonder how things would have been different if it had been a Democratic President who was incapable of dealing with the '29 crash.

In essence, we're both saying the same thing. You appear to interpret that whether or not the power is vested in the elected office, it is vested in the man who sits in office. I prefer to get less personal (which is odd, since I'm a humanist) and have simply been saying that the office of the President does not have the means to directly impose its will on domestic policy. We're talking about quite subtle shades of difference, which is why I got a little irritated when you repeatedly said "You know nothing, you're wrong" without any explanation.

As I've repeated, though, I do agree that Bush was a terrible President. He deserves bashing for a lot of things and it is probably safe to say that his rubber stamp on the bad policy decisions of the Republican Congress makes him inherently culpable in our current crisis. Left-wing groups like ACORN (and, yes, I find the link to Obama too tenuous to consider meaningful) are also to blame, as is Clinton for having signed off on legislation that contributed to forcible deregulation. People from all sides of the aisle and even into the wings where the hardcore socialists and serious bullies (point of note, I don't strictly consider fascism a bad thing, but I'm a Machiavellian) have had a role to play in it.

My contention has been, though, that for all that he's a terrible leader, I see no way in which Bush could have foreseen the current problem and acted to stop it. By the time the problem was starting to loom high enough that some of the smarter economists and investors noticed, it was 2006 and he'd lost his backup in Congress, so he didn't even have the kind of social clout that you've been referring to that would have been necessary to try to prevent the current recession. Nor do I see any of his actions, which have been almost exclusively international or security-related in scope since 9/11/2001, as having fatally destablized our ability to react. He and his party's delusions that we're not in a recession and that everything is fine have certainly been insulting, but Congress has been scrambling as fast as possible and delaying the bailout legislation by half a week will be little more than a footnote in terms of affecting its efficacy.

When Barack Obama is elected President, because it certainly feels like a foregone conclusion at the moment, it'll mean that Democrats in Congress will feel a bit more secure about pushing through certain legislation because he's a Democrat and is ideologically on the far left of our conventional spectrum. Maybe he'll start pushing for legislation like he hasn't done in his current position, which is far better equipped to do so, but I suspect he's quickly going to learn that there are only 24 hours in the day and there's always an international problem to deal with. Right now, the international problem and the domestic problem are highly interconnected and interdependent, so I suppose that Bush is in the overwhelming position of actually having to give a damn about the electorate instead of putting on flight suits and killing darkies on the other side of the planet. The poor little man must be having fits, considering what a boon it was for 9/11 to happen and distract from the abysmal failures that were his attempts to improve the domestic scene.

I suppose what I've really been saying, though, is that not only do I see little invested in the office of the President to directly affect domestic policy, but I'd also prefer that the President keep his dick out of domestic policy. There is a very distinct reason why the Executive branch is given a fair amount of foreign powers and limited domestic powers and it's exactly because the Founding Fathers rightly feared an autocrat, even an elected one. I get very worried when people start assuming that the President has greater scope of power than is true because there is a certain point where, if enough people believe something, it either becomes accepted as true or it becomes effortless to make it true. Again, FDR is an extraordinary example of too many people thinking he ought to have the power he ripped out of Congress's hands with their desperate approval.

[Aegidius]

Watch him as he goes

There goes my hero

He's ordinary

etc

[DianaraVP]

I don't know how many times I have to say this, Obama is not a Marxist or a socialist. If you try to deride him as such, it is likely that you don't really understand what these words mean. Additionally, to suggest that Marxism or socialism are bad in and of themselves is just incorrect. There are many good aspects of socialism and Marxism that we have incorporated into our society. The concepts of egalitarianism that form the basis of socialism/Marxism can be found within our constitution and many programs that we have to help better society.

It is a pathetic comparison to state that Obama or any other Democratic leader is socialist or Marxist, no less than it would be to call McCain or a Republican a fascist.

[Cruzandercerberus]

I don't know how many times I have to say this, Obama is not a Marxist or a socialist. If you try to deride him as such, it is likely that you don't really understand what these words mean. Additionally, to suggest that Marxism or socialism are bad in and of themselves is just incorrect. There are many good aspects of socialism and Marxism that we have incorporated into our society. The concepts of egalitarianism that form the basis of socialism/Marxism can be found within our constitution and many programs that we have to help better society.

It is a pathetic comparison to state that Obama or any other Democratic leader is socialist or Marxist, no less than it would be to call McCain or a Republican a fascist.

The underlying principle of Marxism isn't egalitarianism. Socialism and Communism yes, marxism no. The underlying principle of Marxism is metaphysical materialism. You are right that there's nothing inherhely bad about Marxism though. Marx just predicted that socialism and communism would happen as the next steps in social evolution. Not that either was morally right.

[DianaraVP]

You're right, I was just lumping them together to reply quickly. The general point remains the same.

In all fairness, however, Marxism is often described as a type of socialism.

[Cruzandercerberus]

Socialists love Marx because he presents a hopelessly optomistic view of what socialism is.

Orwell was a socialist too but for some reason socialists don't like to use the term "Orwellian" to describe their social engineering expiramentation. And of the two I tend to believe that Orwell had a better grasp of what the changes the domination of socialist governance would eventually bring.

[Cruzandercerberus]

Edit: I have see some evidence in the ACORN investigation. It looks like they did attempt to commit voter fraud. They did not imply any link toward Obama, however.

Correction: Obama did, in fact, contribute funds to ACORN. Also, he helped them during a suit dealing with voter rights. What they did not imply is that Obama had any knowledge of the voter fraud.

Them's his people though.

[pathwriter]

Orwell was a socialist too but for some reason socialists don't like to use the term "Orwellian" to describe their social engineering expiramentation.

Are you trying to be funny?