So, this has been happening....

[AerchAngel]

You know, I typed out a fairly long (well not for me) response to this, but you know what, I just don't want to continue with this. It's obvious we don't agree and we never will. Keep believing that the Repubs are the right, correct, and noble party that wants to help regular folks when the only things he you ever hear from them are let's cut SNAP (while rolling that money back into more subsidies for "corporate ag"), cutting funding for the arts and PBS, that Social Security is a non-sustainable "entitlement", even though those people have been paying in (along with their employers) for years or even decades and it's Congress who can't stop spending the money. Keep cutting those PELL grants because $5000 or so YEAR is just too damn much money to give to college students, while their kids are getting full paid scholarships to big named schools whether they're straight A students or straight D-minus students. After all we don't want to muddy the waters of college graduates with a bunch of "takers" do we? Keep talking about Benghazi and ignoring all the embassy attacks and those American casualties while W was president, keep pretending that 85 people worldwide owning as much wealth as 3 1/2 BILLION people is a good and admirable thing and that just gives those 3 1/2 BILLION people some real role models to emulate. Keep thinking Obamacare is the devil when major US corporations make BILLIONS in profits and don't want to cut into their CEO's A-Rod type contracts by giving some back to their workers (I actually about small businesses having an exemption) but how long have major corporations hidden behind helping small businesses, that is when they're not using laws they helped create to put them out of business or take them over legally. Let's keep giving BILLIONS in subsidies to oil companies but at the same time pretending the oil and gas business is simply a supply and demand industry with no collusion going on.

Republicans didn't create all those problems but they sure seem to support them all don't they? Even the Pope gets called names for suggesting that maybe just having almost all the wealth in the world might be enough, and that maybe they should actually listen sometimes when they're sitting in the front row of their churches to all that nonsense about the poor not being just put here on this Earth for their amusement and starvation. After all it's the suggestion that maybe they shouldn't exploit all those rules and laws they and their bought and paid for legislators created to not be happy until they have 100% of the world's wealth. But is that really going to make them happy either???

Picture it this way, you're on a mountaintop with two other people, one is actively trying to push you off, stepping on your fingers as you hold on for dear life, while the other guys sits there telling you how much he cares about you, while reading a Gold Digest and a copy of Ebony, bemoaning your fate but not actually doing anything about it, except to occasionally tossing you a biscuit that you can eat as long as you can do so while dodging the other guys' attempt to finish you off. Want to guess which political party (and their agenda) goes with which guy?

So go ahead and believe whatever you want, defend Reagan perpetually, defend Bush 41 and 43, blast anyone who favors a system where everyone might have a chance to make it, though to be fair are only passive supporters of that philosophy. I'll bet that after having your fingers stomped on for a few years by one of those guys, especially when you spend most of your life supporting him, sounds even worse than the other guy, even though he isn't really anything to write home about either.

Oh and be careful of those straw men, sometimes those finger stomping guys come dressed as one of those and you only find out the truth after you're hanging from the ledge.

Where to start?

So much truth in this. The black eye of the Republican Party ways so eloquently put together in this post.

nice job!

 

[AerchAngel]

Well, that's disappointing. I feel like I made some good arguments itt and dispelled a few Reagan myths. I would have liked to hear your opinion on those. If anything I think sturg has something to complain about rather than the liberals. Reagan is more up my alley as a moderate conservative... A compassionate conservative. Never underestood the liberal hate for him. It's pretty obvious to me that he never intended current pub philosophy of no tax increases no matter what and no debt. He seemed quite translational in his decision making. Also, he believed in defense by strength but that was during the cold war. It's unfair to extrapolate that policy to today when there isn't a cold war. Sure you could argue slippery slope, but why only argue that in the case of conservatism. Sturg's libertarianism is based on slippery slope. They very well could be right, but it doesn't fit the liberal perspective.

As I admired Okies post, I admire this as well. There is some truth in this but the bottom line is Liberals/Democrats are idiots as well. They hate Reagan because he has an R denoted to his party. They, Dems and Liberals have sheep like mentality that if you aren't with them, they will "hate" you.

 

[The Tariff King]

As I admired Okies post, I admire this as well. There is some truth in this but the bottom line is Conservatives/Republicans are idiots as well. They hate Obama because he has a D denoted to his party. They, GOP and conservatives have sheep like mentality that if you aren't with them, they will "hate" you.

Took the words out of my mouth.

 

[AerchAngel]

Every time I read or hear the term compassionate conservative... I just wonder why they just don't say A Conservative that likes Spending.

Compassionate conservative makes it sound like they really care and are breaking their own rules to help out.

Reality is the conservatives like spending just as much as the liberals.

After Bush I can see that, but not to the extent of Liberals. They like to make money magically appear so they can spend on schit we don't need. Sturg audit request would be very interesting.

Reagan tried to help out the less unfortunate but ever since he left office, the Republicans was all about oil business and power...aka neoconic philosophy and since they beat the Democrats to the punch, the Democrats decided to poison the well by attacking social/illegal principals that Republicans stand for, ie illegal immigration (which helps Republican pocket books but Democrat voting block), christian morality (abortion, male on male marriage, etc).

This is why I can't stand either party, you both think you are right and you are not. All you doing is hurting the people and they have no voice to get rid of this crap. The last 14 years of crappy presidents and even more crappy choices. Dumb (Chimpy) and Dumber (Elephant Ears) lead our nation the last 14 years.

 

[AerchAngel]

Took the words out of my mouth.

no, because he is black.

Big difference. Republicans like even some love Clinton. Do you see any Republicans ripping him? Nope. If they do, it is rare.

Republicans will ripped their own president as well on here, the Democrats would defend that piss of caca we have in office to their last dying breath, for what? He boned you and laughed while doing it.

 

[BedellBrave]

Making the rich less rich sounds like a good idea. How do you guys make that happen for CEOs, lobbyists, Hollywood stars, musicians, union bigwigs, Big-University administrators, Joel Osteen and his tribe of goobers, and pro-athletes?

How?

National wage controls? Tax penalties? It's got to be something airtight for these rascals can hire some pretty sharp accountants to get around things.

Oh, that we didn't have the filthy rich among us. Maybe Jesus was wrong about that.

All that said, this actually seems like a problem for both parties. They just got different rich folk that they take their money from and their marching orders....

Most all are whores for somebody.

 

[Krgrecw]

no, because he is black.

Big difference. Republicans like even some love Clinton. Do you see any Republicans ripping him? Nope. If they do, it is rare.

Republicans will ripped their own president as well on here, the Democrats would defend that piss of caca we have in office to their last dying breath, for what? He boned you and laughed while doing it.

Not only do the defend him they also deflect everything.

A) it's Bushs fault

B) the house isn't cooperating

C) it's the 1% and big business and banks behind this

And if that doesn't work they always have the Race card to play.

Or they can take the road of: lots talk **** about Palin even though she has no power whatsoever because God Knows we can't talk about the man with power

 

[weso1]

Every time I read or hear the term compassionate conservative... I just wonder why they just don't say A Conservative that likes Spending.

Compassionate conservative makes it sound like they really care and are breaking their own rules to help out.

Reality is the conservatives like spending just as much as the liberals.

It's just a political phrase. Like how fetus termination is called abortion or how a surveillance bill is called The Patriot Act. To me it just means moderate conservative. Those who recognize a need for some social programs but expect them to be implemented in a responsible manner. I think most of them do care or they wouldn't be moderate conservatives in the first place. It doesn't mean moderate conservatives like spending, but they feel it's necessary to spend on some social programs. We aren't too far away from moderate dems, but moderate dems are pretty much marginalized in this country from an economic sense. They have to become moderate republicans for their voice to be heard. I would imagine Ohawk as a moderate democrat feels marginalized.

Also, there are many different subsets of all political parties. Even the libertarian party has subsets. You seem to want to tie every republican in to the vision that you have of the republican party.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

It's just a political phrase. Like how fetus termination is called abortion or how a surveillance bill is called The Patriot Act. To me it just means moderate conservative. Those who recognize a need for some social programs but expect them to be implemented in a responsible manner. I think most of them do care or they wouldn't be moderate conservatives in the first place. It doesn't mean moderate conservatives like spending, but they feel it's necessary to spend on some social programs. We aren't too far away from moderate dems, but moderate dems are pretty much marginalized in this country from an economic sense. They have to become moderate republicans for their voice to be heard. I would imagine Ohawk as a moderate democrat feels marginalized.

Also, there are many different subsets of all political parties. Even the libertarian party has subsets. You seem to want to tie every republican in to the vision that you have of the republican party.

I think weso's right, after all if people actually called things like they really were instead of coming up with all these BS euphemisms it might actually wake up the American people and piss them off to a point where they might actually get up off their arses, turn off American Idol, or the Real Housewives of BFE or whatever and go and take their damn country back before it's too late. And we certainly couldn't have that, could we?

 

[BedellBrave]

It's the easy thing to do... (In response to weso's last sentence)

 

[Oklahomahawk]

It's the easy thing to do... (In response to weso's last sentence)

True, but how many times do conservative pundits try to act like every lib is as far out as Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. Or how about Hillary should be debated with Bill's affairs rather than policy stuff? I think all of us on here are guilty sometimes of preferring to nit pick or use lawyer tactics, etc, to keep the other side from making any points, like it even matters at the end of the day which party wins the day's "gotcha" extravaganza. It's really just good old fashioned "divide and conquer" at the national level that keeps us arguing amongst ourselves rather than seeing what those aholes are up to.

 

[50PoundHead]

I'm to the left of weso, but I pretty much agree with his assessment. The United States is a center/right country that has periodic center/left hiccups. I think where the national Republicans have gone a bit wrong (and only a bit, because they will likely control the US House of Representatives for most of this century given the population's geographic distribution) is that they have left this gaping hole in the political center that allows a moderate Democrat (often less scary than their Republican opponent) to occupy the middle ground more deftly in statewide and perhaps national races. That's going to give Hillary a leg up in 2016.

The United States has never been that ideological a country. Our revolution was not the French Revolution. We're pretty much a nation of pragmatists who know that there has to be some measure of activist government to keep things in balance. Of course, there's always an argument over where the needle should ultimately land, but I don't think there is much argument whether or not that needle should exist.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

But there is sometimes a HUGE difference between being a conservative or a liberal and actually being in lock step with Repubs or Dems. I think this is one of the main areas where they get us, they say some or even most of what we want to hear then go off on their own self serving tangents but since they say we're on the same side we go ahead and follow/support them anyway.

 

[BedellBrave]

Making the rich less rich sounds like a good idea. How do you guys make that happen for CEOs, lobbyists, Hollywood stars, musicians, union bigwigs, Big-University administrators, Joel Osteen and his tribe of goobers, and pro-athletes?

How?

National wage controls? Tax penalties? It's got to be something airtight for these rascals can hire some pretty sharp accountants to get around things.

Oh, that we didn't have the filthy rich among us. Maybe Jesus was wrong about that.

All that said, this actually seems like a problem for both parties. They just got different rich folk that they take their money from and their marching orders....

Most all are whores for somebody.

Got any good suggestions Hawk?

 

[50PoundHead]

But there is sometimes a HUGE difference between being a conservative or a liberal and actually being in lock step with Repubs or Dems. I think this is one of the main areas where they get us, they say some or even most of what we want to hear then go off on their own self serving tangents but since they say we're on the same side we go ahead and follow/support them anyway.

I think that has a lot to do with the candidate selection process, especially in caucus/convention states where a handful of activists pretty much pick the initial candidate. Sure, an opponent can win the primary against the "insider" choice, but it's often an uphill battle. A lot of this has changed because of the proliferation of media.

I hate to pick easy targets, but the Koch brothers on one hand and the unions on the other haven't helped with this.

 

[AerchAngel]

I'm to the left of weso, but I pretty much agree with his assessment. The United States is a center/right country that has periodic center/left hiccups. I think where the national Republicans have gone a bit wrong (and only a bit, because they will likely control the US House of Representatives for most of this century given the population's geographic distribution) is that they have left this gaping hole in the political center that allows a moderate Democrat (often less scary than their Republican opponent) to occupy the middle ground more deftly in statewide and perhaps national races. That's going to give Hillary a leg up in 2016.

The United States has never been that ideological a country. Our revolution was not the French Revolution. We're pretty much a nation of pragmatists who know that there has to be some measure of activist government to keep things in balance. Of course, there's always an argument over where the needle should ultimately land, but I don't think there is much argument whether or not that needle should exist.

Spot on.

Slick Willie was a D president by name, but acted much more in the middle and actually allow Republicans to work with him instead of antagonizing them. I won you lost deal with it macho crap that this president has spouted and he wonders why they give him the middle finger.

If Hillary do what her husband done and take us to the middle, this country will be better off.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

Got any good suggestions Hawk?

I'm not an economics guy, but I can tell you that those who have gotten noticeably richer since the Reagan 80's sure knew how to run this plan in reverse, so yeah I know it can be done, but given how loud these poor little mistreated pampered folks are I'll bet the shrieking would burst all our eardrums. It's a hell of a lot better than what else is coming their way one day soon if they don't change their tunes, but I'm sure a grand total of zero of them would believe me on that.

I'll go ahead and repost the same old table that I always post to try and point out how bad things are getting as far as wealth distribution goes but I'm sure it'll just be shrugged off like usual. I know I get on some people's nerves sometimes (and despite what you're all thinking I NEVER do this on purpose), depending on who I'm criticizing on any given day but I really believe politicians use our best emotions and tendencies against us. Weso likes to believe the economy will straighten itself out and the skewing we see is just "one of those things" and will correct itself in time and while I completely respect his right to feel this way, I can't for the life of me see where he gets any evidence to support this point of view.

We all have our blind spots and our preconceived ideas that we just can't or won't give up, and I guess that'll never change, in fact it's my opinion that the only thing that will change any of our mindsets on these political arguments is when something akin to Saul's epiphany on the road to Damascus. That's what happened to me back in the 1980s, though I don't expect any Repubs on this board to pay any heed to it (I gave that up long ago). Until a person experiences what I did way back then I don't guess it would be possible for them to change from a hardcore Reagan Republican to whatever the hell I am now unless they walk a mile in my geriatric shoes.

With that said, I believe that conservatives are just as blind about Reagan and Reaganomics and things like wealth distribution (and the fact that is doesn't all just happen by chance or hard work) as the Dems are when they tell themselves that abortion is totally acceptable because it really isn't a baby anyway, it's just a globule of protoplasm and nobody has the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body (which as long as it just affects her own body I would totally agree with) and that the corporations and all rich people are greedy aholes who never do anything good.

Clearly there are good people and bad people in every group, though those at the most extreme ends of things are the ones we all concentrate on because their often the most visible and in my particular case those are the best teaching tools, after all plain old dull drab good people, whatever group they're in are WAY under appreciated, but let's face it they usually aren't the stuff of front page news, though they ought to be.

I wish that whatever side a person was on they could look at this graph and how things have changed in the last 30 years or so and see that if something isn't done and soon we're all gonna be faced with a bunch of stuff we don't like very much. So, you have my permission to pre-ignore it if you so choose. Any of you young tech savvy whippersnappers also have my permission to clean up my tables which as you can see didn't copy over all that smoothly.

Table 2: Distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States, 1983-2010
Total Net Worth
Top 1 percent Next 19 percent Bottom 80 percent
1983 33.8% 47.5% 18.7%
1989 37.4% 46.2% 16.5%
1992 37.2% 46.6% 16.2%
1995 38.5% 45.4% 16.1%
1998 38.1% 45.3% 16.6%
2001 33.4% 51.0% 15.6%
2004 34.3% 50.3% 15.3%
2007 34.6% 50.5% 15.0%
2010 35.4% 53.5% 11.1%

Table 1: Income, net worth, and financial worth in the U.S. by percentile, in 2010 dollars
Wealth or income class Mean household income Mean household net worth Mean household financial (non-home) wealth

Top 1 percent $1,318,200 $16,439,400 $15,171,600
Top 20 percent $226,200 $2,061,600 $1,719,800
60th-80th percentile $72,000 $216,900 $100,700
40th-60th percentile $41,700 $61,000 $12,200
Bottom 40 percent $17,300 -$10,600 -$14,800
From Wolff (2012); only mean figures are available, not medians. Note that income and wealth are separate measures; so, for example, the top 1% of income-earners is not exactly the same group of people as the top 1% of wealth-holders, although there is considerable overlap.

Source:

 

[Oklahomahawk]

I think that has a lot to do with the candidate selection process, especially in caucus/convention states where a handful of activists pretty much pick the initial candidate. Sure, an opponent can win the primary against the "insider" choice, but it's often an uphill battle. A lot of this has changed because of the proliferation of media.

I hate to pick easy targets, but the Koch brothers on one hand and the unions on the other haven't helped with this.

Well those who don't like the Koch brothers are spot on IMO, those aholes are godawful, I wish more Repubs would distance themselves from these pricks. I had a conversation with a liberal friend the other day and tried to tell him that if he got his legislation or amendment (whichever one they're after today) to get rid of Citizens United and that does actually remove the Koch brothers from politics he would also have to give up his pal George Soros who he refers to as "benevolent", yeah I'm definitely a lib, that's why I get along so well with them. LOL

As for the unions I think that is getting to border on one of weso and bedell's straw man arguments. At one time unions were powerful force in this country but today I think anybody who can't see how far they fallen just isn't looking. yeah a whole bunch of the leadership of the unions that are still around are corrupt as hell but the overall numbers aren't even close to what they once were.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

Spot on.

Slick Willie was a D president by name, but acted much more in the middle and actually allow Republicans to work with him instead of antagonizing them. I won you lost deal with it macho crap that this president has spouted and he wonders why they give him the middle finger.

If Hillary do what her husband done and take us to the middle, this country will be better off.

So, what do you think about Rand Paul's (and there are others though I"m not sure who all is on board with this right now) vow to blatantly use Bill's affairs as a campaign tool to beat Hillary in 2016??

 

[weso1]

I think weso's right, after all if people actually called things like they really were instead of coming up with all these BS euphemisms it might actually wake up the American people and piss them off to a point where they might actually get up off their arses, turn off American Idol, or the Real Housewives of BFE or whatever and go and take their damn country back before it's too late. And we certainly couldn't have that, could we?

I agree completely. Oh and also don't forget to pay your individual shared responsibility payment if you choose not to obtain healthcare for yourself next year.