September 18, 2016
If you love your country, doesn't it mean that you love the people in your country?
If you believe in democracy, shouldn't you maintain a solid respect for the choice made by the people in your country?
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You can love people and still not want them to have any say over how you live your life.
Who can love a Deplorable?
What if they're making choices that are based on non-reality (like Scott Adams says)?
Then, if you truly love them shouldn't you avoid satiating their impulses that are not reality based?
George Soros has spent a billion dollars to start up Charley Manson's war on the WASP American population. That is having its effect so far. But with a leader like Trump, we may win that war.
Why do you ask?
We live in a republic, if we can keep it, and this is specifically to counteract the negatives of a pure democracy.
Or is this about the rage of Obama that any black might vote for Trump, or that of Hillary deploring the deplorables?
For sure, you get the big chair, you need to be the president of everybody. I think that's something that Donald Trump gets a lot better than Hillary Clinton.
It's very simple, they don't believe in democracy unless it delivers the result they want.
"What we generally call participation in the political process, [the Intellectual Yet Idiot] calls by two distinct designations: “democracy” when it fits the IYI, and “populism” when the plebeians dare voting in a way that contradicts his preferences. While rich people believe in one tax dollar one vote, more humanistic ones in one man one vote, Monsanto in one lobbyist one vote, the IYI believes in one Ivy League degree one-vote, with some equivalence for foreign elite schools and PhDs as these are needed in the club."
I thought democracy looked like a bunch of assholes, representing a small minority, making a nuisance out of themselves.
No love, nothing but hate, for anyone who is not totally, 100%, in sync with their way of thinking.
John Henry
50 years ago, when I was a young kid,
Mad Magazine anticipated the Trump fans when it stated:
"A superpatriot is someone who proclaims his love of America
-- while hating most of the people who live in it."
Not the deplorable ones.
OK sinz52,
Mad Mag ain't bad. But I've got the Trump card:
"The town in Georgia's got a law on the books
Says if we all got guns then we won't have crooks
Now what could make them think that way?
What could make them act that way?
They're just right-wing pigeons from outer space
Sent here to destroy the human race
They don't give a damn about you or me
They just buy guns and a-watches TV, let's go!
The lady in Detroit owns a can of mace
Got pissed at my brother so she sprayed it in his face
Now what could make her think that way?
What could make her act that way?
She's just a right-wing pigeon from outer space
Sent here to destroy the human race
She don't give a damn about you or me
She just buys guns and watches TV
The man in the White House who just don't care
He starves little kids and he dyes his hair
Now what could make him think that way?
What could make him act that way?
He's just a right-wing pigeon from outer space
Sent here to destroy the human race
He don't give a damn about you or me
He just buys guns and watches TV, go!"
US population 325 million. How do you get your arms around that?
In any case, 83% of the population are identified as Christian. Shouldn't the dictates of Christianity (love your neighbor) be much more powerful than patriotism? No doubt the other religions that people in America belong to also stress love of neighbor.
Actually Americans better than almost any in the sense that we see to let bygones be bygones with our wartime foes faster and more sincerely than others.
One typical conservative (and to a lesser degree libertarian) view is that the US is a "creedal nation." You can love the Federalist Papers, the Declaration, and the Constitution without loving the people they govern. (I think a lot of conservatives do love a pretty broad group of the american people, but it isn't necessary.
Loving "the people" seems more necessary for a blood and soil nationalist. Bernie and Trump both have a bit of that flavor.
Progressives love only power. The people are the means by which they acquire it. The country is means by which they project it. They love the people who give them power. They love the country as long as they rule it.
"Progressives love only power. The people are the means by which they acquire it."
To what end?
You only say that they want to rule it. Is that it? They want to say "We're the ruler!"
I should add that the libertarian view is that we don't have to love our neighbors - or even like them. We just have to leave each other alone. A country that was really like that would be easy to love.
"To what end?" Why does a billionaire want more money? Why does a glutton want more food? No one wonders why the medieval church left a lust for power out of the list of deadly sins.
Well..I don't believe in democracy, primarily because I don't respect the choices made by the masses.
This country has gone downhill as it has become more democratic.
Repeal the 17th, 19th and 26th Amendments now.
An observation that gets to the core of the argument. I happen to believe in Western values and principles. The dignity of the individual and the common man. Respect people for who they are. Who else put a man on the moon? When is Venezuela going to make a positive contribution to he Human Ethos? For three hundred years people have sacrificed and taken huge risks to come here. Why? What are they escaping? What do they see? I believe they see opportunity to throw off the mantle of oppression from their betters. The people who believe they are better than everybody else. Okay, time to settle down and enjoy the martini until I am told it is bad for my health by my betters. Cynic that I am.
The country I come from is called the midwest.
In theory. But with 240 years of government growth, expanded after rounding up Japanese and Germans and putting them in concentration camps, and then increasing taxes to pay for all the new government agencies that do only 1/100th of what they say they will.
Every time a candidate talks about taxes, they are showing their hand as a failure. Income taxes were a tool of the industrial revolution. Those jobs, and that class of people are gone.
All that are left, is retired unproductive people of that era, and the peasants that sell them burgers in strip malls next to gas stations for refueling their RV to go to Colorado and smoke dope.
If you could trust democracy, we wouldn't need The Constitution.
"If you believe in democracy, shouldn't you maintain a solid respect for the choice made by the people in your country?"
Is that like, "If you believe in Santa Claus, then you didn't really want a pony"?
Gahrie, while I don't favor repealing the 19th Amendment, I will admit that we are no better off for having ratified it.
I was changing into clean underwear and have missed what happened.
I am Laslo.
@ Meade
Migrants from Mexico call your country the Meade west.
Very suspicious.
Democracy is dangerous and destructive. That's why the Founders created a constitutional Republic.
"The country I come from is called the midwest."
Hopefully the list of potential post-lawprof airbnb landing spots include international locations.
Y'all can still plan to land long term in your country of origin, but at least consider going expat for a bit. Most folks need to go outside of the US to experience expat flavor, so I suppose that you can count yourself as lucky for having such a limited POV on life.
Since most Americans are white, it's racist to love most Americans.
I wish everybody I loved made great decisions. Wouldn't that be awesome?
"Shouldn't you maintain a solid respect for the choice made by the people in your country?"
Tell it to Hillary.
Tell it to the left generally.
mockturtle said...
"Gahrie, while I don't favor repealing the 19th Amendment, I will admit that we are no better off for having ratified it."
Now that people can be whichever sex they prefer at the moment, it probably doesn't make any difference. But I would be in favor of an amendment that said only married women can vote. A property qualification, so to speak.
If you love your country, doesn't it mean that you love the people in your country?
Trick question from a university professor! What do you mean by "the people in your country"? All the people? Including serial rapists, child murderers, Marxist professors, and other folks like that? Or just the people in general, the kind who show up to shovel a neighbor's side and driveway because they know that neighbor is sick and can't do it herself? The kind who get up in the morning and give an honest day's work at a job they don't like because that's how you put food on the table. Those people I respect; they've earned it.
If you believe in democracy, shouldn't you maintain a solid respect for the choice made by the people in your country?
First of all, we aren't a democracy -- Little Jemmy Madison and the rest of the people who worked to hammer out our Constitution were explicit that we would not be a democracy. Should I respect the choice made by the people? No. The choice may turn out to be a bad choice, e.g., Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter. In the army there is a saying that "you salute the rank, not the person." I respect the office a person holds, even when I think the person holding that office is not up to the job.
There is a real chance that the next President will not get a majority of the vote, and I think that the majority is right.
To the first question, I don't see why. I love the ideals of my country. The people I'm more ambivalent about.
To the second question, yes. Supporting dmocracy means supporting the outcome of the demcratic process, regardless of the specific outcome.
Oh, Bob,
my name it ain't nothin'
My age it means less
An infelicitous turn of phrase, liable to misinterpretation. "Only women can vote, and only while they are married."
I think it was Jimmy Madison.
"If men were angels no government would be necessary."
I am not sure why Ann - the constitutional scholar - phrases this question as she does. We are not, never have been a democracy. As noted above the Founders feared democracy almost as much as monarchy. We have certainly evolved toward a more democratic state, but fortunately we have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to move to a pure democracy.
As to loving everybody in order to be a patriot; what a foolish question. There are those I like, those I respect, those I think are dumb, those who I think are foolish or misguided. They are my fellow citizens and I recognize them as such. Love them no. The oath I took said "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Not the people; the Constitution (!). I wish more people took the defense of the Constitution seriously.
"The Flight 93 Election" better articulated my thoughts than I theretofore had myself. The metaphor it offers is apposite and compelling. I have no desire to play Russian Roulette, but if I am compelled to play, I'll pick doing it with a revolver instead of a loaded semiautomatic.
And the little old lady with time on her hands runs your HOA. Because she lusts for power.
That is the reason power should not be accumulated centrally. It should be dispersed.
Otherwise, the country will be run like the worst HOA.
By people like PBandJ.
First up, for all those making the observation that we're not a democracy: c'mon. We're not a "pure" democracy --- some things are off the democratic table, many are filtered through elected legislatures --- but our founding creed is that our government is of the people and by the people. So in the historical sweep of things, we are very much a democracy.
Now to Ann's questions: I think the answer to both should be yes. The "love" is the group type, and no one needs to love all the individuals.
As election day looms, and with it the possibility of electing a guy who horrifies many of our elites, I think respecting the process, and the people engaged in that process, is indeed quite important. This is not just because in theory the vote of the street sweeper is worth as much as the vote of the CEO, but because if you don't maintain that respect, it's very difficult to see how you support democracy at all.
Many people aren't high-information voters, and that horrifies some of us who are. But in some ways that probably means they're better adjusted than the rest of us, and I think people who vote on gut are entitled to respect. (And as I think Scott Adams would observe, those of us who think we don't vote on gut are probably deluding ourselves.)
I think the American people, in the aggregate, carry a lot of common sense. I'm glad these decisions are up to all of us collectively, and not to me.
I support and strive for a reconciliation of moral, natural, and personal imperatives.
Love the country means love the rules. You don't have to like anybody, but you agree on the rules.
Meade said... [hush][hide comment]
Oh, Bob,
my name it ain't nothin'
My age it means less
With God on your side
To quote Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall after his ticket lost an election, "Well, the people have spoken, damn them!!"
"But I would be in favor of an amendment that said only married women can vote. A property qualification, so to speak."
Since a married woman "owns" her husband?
Of course, we should respect the will of the people. And if the people are wrong, we should work to change their minds.
And I don't think that "Love of Country" means you have to love every single person in it. And what about the Americans who obviously hate their country? How can you show your "love of country" by loving those who hate the country?
And can we stop with the "We're not a Democracy, we're a Republic" nonsense? Thanks Captain obvious - yeah, we're not a pure democracy unlike uhhhh.....thinking.....yeah you know that country somewhere,someplace, where the people get to vote on Everything*.
* and no, Switzerland is not a pure democracy.
Meade wrote: The country I come from is called the midwest
Very hoosierly statement
@Mattman 26. We are not a democracy. The electoral college puts the lie to your claim right away. The members of the house and Senate are elected only by the people of their states not the entire citizenry. The citizenry does not vote on bills or legislation. Athen's was a democracy; " It was a system of direct democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills." That is not our structure. We are a "Republic if you can keep it".
FullMoon,
God was more on Mama's side. Pa's side is where the ornery heretics came from. Deplorable, I know.
If I am a sheep, and wolves in the majority choose me to be dinner, must I love them?
If you believe in democracy, shouldn't you maintain a solid respect for the choice made by the people in your country?
Liberals believe in democracy, but they've almost come to their stop.
khesanh0802, you are being a pedant, and not a very good one.
I love my country and I hate Lefties. Mainly because they are always trying to destroy my country.
The scary thing about Clinton's "basket of deplorables" line is that it's a justification for denying the vote to American citizens who have the wrong beliefs, because why should we listen to a racist or a homophobe, etc.
Generally, yes. I love my country in spite of the many assholes who inhabit it.
Not lately. And that is true of left and right.
The left is worse since Bush was elected. Their hatred of him was off the charts.
It starts at the top, with elected officials demonizing those who do not agree with him.
My Exhibit A for the Obama years is the President himself disrespecting and literally looking down upon the Supreme Court during the State of the Union. Astonishing moment.
From the Dowd post below. It's sad to realize how much the South and middle America embraced NY on 9/11 and after. Sent their sons and daughters to fight to protect it. Now those New Yorkers just look down their noses at those same people, and think they should just shut up and do what they're told.
How do folks who don't have much, or any, net worth define "their" country? On paper, their ownership of the country is quite miniscule, or in the hole (w/ neg net worth), compared to the really rich few who actually have ownership of the country.
It's cute to think that poor cons get all blustery and self righteous about their country even if they don't actually posses a notable (or any) a piece of it. Anywho, I'm sure it'll trickle down to them. Maybe that trickle is them being pissed on, but that's something!
PBandJ_LeDouanier said...
How do folks who don't have much, or any, net worth define "their" country? On paper, their ownership of the country is quite miniscule, or in the hole (w/ neg net worth), compared to the really rich few who actually have ownership of the country.
I don't own any of my country. I own some property, and some other assets within my country, but they have nothing to do with making this my country.
I have a family. They are my family. I do not own any of them.
Apparently, America is the only nation with rich people and poor people, and it seems to be a recent development. Back in the day, we must have been all citizens with an equal vote, due to the equal stipend we got from the government unicorn farm, but that's before my time. If I could just find a nation where everyone earns the same I bet it would be awesome!
IisB,
I think that's it, folks will support more and more US GDP increases and assets going to ever fewer really rich folks because of the family card. If folks get fussy about thinking they should have a better life, they're betraying their families. It's like: What, your family isn't enough for you? Ingrate!
There are people I love who make terrible decisions, which I try to talk them out of. But because they are adults, I have no right to use force to make them do the right thing.
@PB&J:I think that's it, folks will support more and more US GDP increases and assets going to ever fewer really rich folks
Yeah, this is not happening. What IS happening, perhaps, is that the PERCENTAGE owned by them increases, but in fact most people in our society have been getting richer together.
If I can afford one more car than I could last year, and the guy down the street can afford two, does that mean he stole a car from me? No.
There's actually a country song with the title, "If I can't be Number One in your Life, then Number Two on You."
Which is sort of the attitude of the coastal elites towards the plebes. If we don't do what they want, vote the way they want us to etc, than they'll literally crap all over us. But every now and then, the plebes rise up and say "Nope--ain't gonna do it that way no more." Then they roll over and go back to sleep. But I suspect they will stay awake for this election cycle.
Gareiel,
Hold on to that thought. For now the US is out of greatness. But, I hear that there's someone who will make it great again. After that you'll want to say that everything is great thanks to trickle down economics. Too early now.
@PB&J:you'll want to say that everything is great thanks to trickle down economics.
Trump is not running on that. He's running on protectionism.
I'm an old man and have been wrong about quite a lot of things in my life. The electorate has also missed a few calls. I'm trying to determine if the electorate has been wrong more often than me. I just don't know, but the majority is always the majority. So I'll defer to their judgment. There's just no fool proof way of knowing of how things will work out so just pretend this is the best of all possible political systems.
Trump is running on putting America first for existing American citizen, just like corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for existing shareholders.
Gabriel,
His tax plan does have the big dollar amounts going to rich folks.
But, that's not important. The important thing is to remember that, even though he may have been born here, BHO has made America not-great right now, but it can be great again if DJT does [fill in the blank, e.g. you may choose protectionism].
@PB&J:His tax plan does have the big dollar amounts going to rich folks.
Since they pay the vast majority of the taxes, wouldn't it have to?
Who do you think is getting wind farm tax credits and ethanol tax credits, single mothers?
" PBandJ_LeDouanier said...
Gareiel,
Hold on to that thought. For now the US is out of greatness. But, I hear that there's someone who will make it great again. After that you'll want to say that everything is great thanks to trickle down economics. Too early now."
From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by
6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when average
incomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012.
However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by
31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012.
Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years
of the recovery
http://eml.berkeley.edu//~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf
In the liberal version of 'trickle-down economics', all of the GDP growth is captured by the economic elites. This is not an accident. So many working people are deplorable.
"Since they pay the vast majority of the taxes, wouldn't it have to?
Who do you think is getting wind farm tax credits and ethanol tax credits, single mothers?"
I'm not going to pretend that I think you believe what this combination of sentences says. Instead, I'm assuming that you were going for the red herring rather than suggesting that a substantial percentage of US of taxes and tax cuts are associated w/ wind farms and ethanol.
Anywho, here's an update for you: "America is not-great right now, but it can be great again if DJT does protectionism and no tax cuts for windfarms and ethanol."
Terry,
Do you think that lowering more taxes for the job creators will cause them to keep less of the nation's GDP growth?
Obama is the first president in my lifetime whom I believe really doesn't like my type. From dissing the rubes who cling to guns etc., to refusing Federal emergency funds for Texas when most of the state was on fire, I believe he plays favorites, and gets off on being able to make the rest suffer.
I don't think he loves this country, nor half the people in it.
@PB&J:substantial percentage of US of taxes and tax cuts
If any taxes are cut at all, the tax cut would have to go to the people who pay them. The US has the most progressive income tax code in the First World.
PB&J:Do you think that lowering more taxes for the job creators will cause them to keep less of the nation's GDP growth?
Why do I care what % of the GDP growth they keep? That does not break my leg nor pick my pocket.
Sorry, my vote cannot be bought by your offer to expropriate others and then let me have a little.
That's a nonsense question, PB&J. It's like asking 'do you think decreasing government spending will help the middle class?' Too many variables. What is a 'job creator'? What taxes? Property taxes? Income taxes? Capital gains taxes?
If want to stop the rich from collecting a large portion of the GDP, you can always kill them and take their stuff.
I think most patriotism is more local. You don't love AMERICA, exactly, you love the patch where you've put down roots. So you could easily trust your neighbors, but not those idiots in other places.....
@Terry: If want to stop the rich from collecting a large portion of the GDP, you can always kill them and take their stuff.
Now that's not fair to Pb&J, he just wants to take their stuff, and give it to other people so they will vote for the stuff-takers, and the cycle will repeat.
He dreams of a world where no one can have anything unless the government gives it to them. He despises money and loves power.
Terry,
Job creators are rich folks, that's a Frank Luntz way of persuading not-rich folks to vote for tax cuts for rich folks. And, there aren't as many variables as you suggest, I'm asking if folks here support DJT's most recent tax plan which is adjusted so that the job creators (i.e. rich folks) keep a lot more dough? You don't need to worry about the deficit because cons (but not economists) tell us that a) tax cuts for rich folks pay for themselves because of growth and/or b) as DJT says rates are low so it's a good time to rack up debt.
@PB&JI'm asking if folks here support DJT's most recent tax plan which is adjusted so that the job creators (i.e. rich folks) keep a lot more dough?
Again, since the US has the most progressive tax structure in the First World, and the highest corporate taxes, who else could benefit from a tax cut?
Why don't you tell us your tax plan? Who do you want to expropriate and whom do you want to give the money to?
@PB&J: Why don't you tell us how much it is fair for rich people to have, and how you want to make sure they are kept from getting any more?
"Why don't you tell us how much it is fair for rich people to have, and how you want to make sure they are kept from getting any more?"
I think HRC's planned extra percent or so for the richest is ok, with the promised extra access to higher ed (manu jobs are never coming back from poor folks overseas, we need smarts). I'd put the death tax at 20% and have it start for folks w/ 100 million (which means, w/ accountants and careful transfers of business ownership stakes, it should be easy to clear the first billion) and I'd make sure the health care mandate is bigger and harder to elude so that people are force to contribute to what will almost inevitably be a huge medical bill over a lifetime.
That's a start.
@PB&J:That's a start.
Do go on. Because 20% of people with $100 million is not a very large payday. It's only 5000 households, and you have to wait (I guess) for them to die. That's not going to pay for the higher ed mandate.
How big is the health care mandate going to be? And what will you do to people who don't participate?
Don't confuse with a Trump voter, PB&J. And who is Frank Luntz?
"And, there aren't as many variables as you suggest, . . ."
There are far more variables than you or even I can imagine. Economists usually preface some statement on economic principle with the words 'all alse being equal . . .', which is shorthand for saying that all the variables that will affect the validity of the statement are assumed to be known and are constants. Economists even have a Latin phrase for it, "ceteris paribus." Most people, especially politicians and political ideologues, think that ceteris paribus is boiler-plate, a throw away phrase. It is not, because all else is never equal. The qualifier is more important than the statement that follows.
Economics does not have a lot of absolutes. People will not willingly pay a price for something that is more than the value that they assign that something. Compound interest increases wealth at an exponential rate.
Free trade has dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Unfortunately, nearly all of them are not American citizens. So is free trade good or bad?
The first thing they teach you in economics is that economics is the study of the rationing of scarce goods, and that a scarce good is anything for which the demand exceeds the supply.
The second thing they teach you is that human needs are infinite.
Ok Terry,
I'll try to be more clear:
DJT plan=approve?
or
DJT plan=not approve?
Hillary's deplorables are working class white males -- no one, for a moment, believes that her basket included 'sexist, homophobic' Blacks or Muslims. So her problem, and the problem all liberals have, is that if those deplorables have economic power, they will have political power.
And that scares them to death. Ask PB&J if you don't believe me.
Gabriel,
Don't forget that it's not hard to get around the death tax, if folks are willing to give up technical ownership of entities while they're still alive. I'd be surprised if a lot of folks couldn't clear a billion, or a lot more than that.
I'd make the healthcare thing just like FICA so people see it on their check stubs every time they're paid. Folks need to feel skin in the game to exert pressure on health care costs and overuse. The amount should be actuarially determined so folks can't turn into big moochers in later years while contributing nothing or little earlier on. Of course, if people have insurance themselves or from an employer, there would be no penalty.
@PBJ:DJT plan=approve? or
DJT plan=not approve?
Yeah, you got nuttin.
Looking over your plan those households you plan to expropriate have about about $5 trillion. If they all died in one year--not that you'd ever suggest hurrying the process--you would collect $1 trillion, which is a little less than the government borrows every year. You could murder all their hers annually for the next 5 years, then that's it. All done.
If you prefer to wait for natural causes, you might get 1/2% of that money every year, which would be $25 billion. That's what FedGov spent annually on maintaining vacant properties. So, no, you're not balancing the budget that way.
So when you say "that's a start" you got that right. You're going to be digging way into the middle class.
@PB&J:Folks need to feel skin in the game to exert pressure on health care costs and overuse
The people you are talking about, who don't buy insurance and are overusing, are almost all poor.
Nice of you to call them moochers, Mitt Romney.
"The country I come from is called the midwest." Correction: "The country I come from is called the Midwest."
I approve of any politician's economic policies that will promote high and wide economic growth, PB&J. I don't pay much attention to the specifics of proposed economic policies.
You want to improve the lot of Americans across the board? Push for policies that promote high economic growth. You know, cheap energy, cheap education, cheap housing, cheap transportation, cheap food. Once the basics are paid for, people invest what is left over, and investment has a return > 1.0, or at least it did before the government started to manage the economy.
readering said...Americans better than almost any in the sense that we see to let bygones be bygones with our wartime foes faster and more sincerely than others.
--
After defeating them.
The primary question PBJ wants to discuss is who makes the decisions to apply capital. PBJ Argues that the government does a better job of applying capital than people like me.
Trickle down economics means people like me start businesses and hire people.
Trickle down government means the government takes my money and gives it to people.
The people getting the most money from the government in the Obama administration have way more money than I do. PBJ wants government to take capital from me and give it to people who give Obama and Hillary money. More taxes and more cronies.
Also of note any increase in taxation over the last 20 years includes ways for rich people who give politicians money to avoid those taxes to the point where if you are not politically connected you pay all of the taxes. PBJ is for the destruction of all businesses incapable of lobbying DC.
"If you love your country, doesn't it mean that you love the people in your country?"
No.
If I did what Hillary Clinton did I would be in jail for life. There are dozens of service members in jail for far less than what she did. The only reason she is not in jail is because she is rich and there are enough people willing to do away with the rule of law for whatever they think they will get from Hillary.
These people are disgusting.
Compare and contrast:
People who call themselves social conservatives criticized homosexual behavior, sometimes saying "love the sinner, hate the sin" and were demonized by the left as homophobic hate-mongers. They said they believed in possible redemption for all.
HRC views the "basket of deplorables" as irredeemable.
Who is the real hate-monger?
Screw that love shit.
If people believe in the notion of a republic (so, for just one example of that, our U.S. Constitution, including, as a plus, the attached Bill of Rights) and that power should mostly reside locally, closest to those who will have to live by the edicts of of those who will be the rulers, why on earth ARE people making the choices being made?
I think that there's been a whole lot of lying going on for a number of decades now, most specifically in terms of particular voters--that is to say, precisely, those who first started voting, for themselves, largesse to themselves. That sort of stuff becomes addictive, and both poor and rich are most susceptible in terms the like of that.
I think the answer is "No, not necessarily" for a lot of the reasons described above.
But the question brings to mind the hypocrisy of Democrats, who will use any and all means to drive up turnout among poor urban blacks, and demonize Republicans for opposing those tactics, but are now apoplectic over a Republican candidate who might drive up voter turnout among a different group of voters they deem "deplorable".
I'd make the healthcare thing just like FICA so people see it on their check stubs every time they're paid.
Oh. You mean like Medicare. And we all know that works great.
I've often pondered what it would take for me to leave my country and renounce my citizenship. It would take a fundamental transformation of the country- far more than Obama has been able to achieve. I would have to be denied my livelihood, denied my religion, denied my family. I had considered leaving with some seriousness when Obama and the Democratic majority was elected in 2008. They had such sweeping plans for healthcare that I knew it would upset my livelihood to an unprecedented degree. However, when I read that Terry Gilliam had renounced his citizenship many years ago and as a result could only spend a limited amount of time in the US every year, I knew I couldn't do it. I would miss this land, my family, the freedoms we still have.
Can I just love the people of the country I was born into in 1953?
Or would that be deplorable?
Does that mean that birthers like Trump don't really love the country?
If they'd let those who don't agree be left alone, nobody would care.
But THEY WILL MAKE YOU CARE.
So, people become less enamored of it.
In any case, 83% of the population are identified as Christian. Shouldn't the dictates of Christianity (love your neighbor) be much more powerful than patriotism? No doubt the other religions that people in America belong to also stress love of neighbor.
So that ONE aspect of Christianity should be paramount. The rest? Well, separation of church and state, amirite?
Jesus loved sinners. But he did expect them to stop sinning. "Go and sin no more" and all.
From the Dowd post below. It's sad to realize how much the South and middle America embraced NY on 9/11 and after. Sent their sons and daughters to fight to protect it. Now those New Yorkers just look down their noses at those same people, and think they should just shut up and do what they're told.
Basically, yes. Makes one wonder if 9/11 happened again, would anybody actually empathize with NYC?
I know I give no shits about the bombings there this weekend.
I think HRC's planned extra percent or so for the richest is ok, with the promised extra access to higher ed (manu jobs are never coming back from poor folks overseas, we need smarts).
No concerns about why college costs so much? Why tuition increases are higher than medical inflation and have been for years? Just chuck more money at a group who has produced less and less of value every year while sucking up more and more money.
...oh, wait. They give to Democrats. Heavily. So no question about them being those "evil" rich who screw over the poor and the young.
Even though they do. Horribly so.
And how much of this proposed "extra access to higher ed" can be funded solely by increasing taxes 1% on "the rich" (an undefined term, mind you)?
I'd make sure the health care mandate is bigger and harder to elude so that people are force to contribute to what will almost inevitably be a huge medical bill over a lifetime.
So force people to pay through the nose for insurance that is terrible or else face crippling fines?
Mighty humanitarian of you.
Your side fucked up health insurance. I don't trust you to "fix" anything. Stop it and let somebody else at least clean up the mess people like you made and applauded being made.
I'd make the healthcare thing just like FICA so people see it on their check stubs every time they're paid. Folks need to feel skin in the game to exert pressure on health care costs and overuse.
Yes, because seeing their FICA totals have convinced them to not use Social Security.
Every single issue with Obamacare that critics like me said would happen has happened. Pretty much all of them. These same issues that people like you said would not happen.
But you got it figured out now.
The people who don't pay now either cannot pay (which is A LOT of people) or see absolutely no benefit in paying. Given that the lion's share cannot actually pay it in the first place and not become homeless, what is your plan? Increase subsidies?
Mind you, folks like you said ACA would bend the cost curve down and it's done the opposite.
Does that mean that birthers like Trump don't really love the country?
He's not a Birther.
And just like Democrats with gay marriage, once he says he opposes something, the past becomes immaterial.
"I'd make the healthcare thing just like FICA so people see it on their check stubs every time they're paid.
How about we make it an individual account so people really internalize the costs?
"Actually Americans better than almost any in the sense that we see to let bygones be bygones with our wartime foes faster and more sincerely than others."
To the degree this is true, it's because America typically suffers very little from the wars we fight.
The problem with treating health care insurance like FICA is that it would sever the relationship between inputs and outputs. No way would they tie the amount or quality of coverage to how much is contributed (e.g. Maybe clay plan below $20k a year, bronze between $20k and $30k, silver between $30k and $50k, etc). That wouldn't be "fair". FICA kinda works, because we know that what we get back from the program is, for most of us, roughly proportional to what we put in. Can't really do that directly with healthcare insurance.
The other part of this is that this sort of thing would never pass a Republican controlled house of Congress. Right now it looks like they have a decent chance at keeping the Senate, which means that the Dems have a snowballs chance of retaking the House any time soon. Probably not as long as Republicans can scare their voters with pictures of witch Pelosi getting the Speaker's gavel back. And the Dems couldn't pass that sort of thing when she did have the gavel last, suitcases of ballots in MN had given Dingy Harry Reied a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and It Obama had AF-1 for his golf trips. Ain't gonna happen any time soon.
@ Mattman 26 It is not pedantic to accurately describe our system of government. To immediately resort to an ad hominem attack only emphasizes the weakness of your analysis.
@MathMom: I don't think [Obama] loves this country, nor half the people in it.
"You're likeable enough, America."
R Cook, 8:18: "To the degree this is true, it's because America typically suffers very little from the wars we fight."
Yeah. Only several hundred thousand dead and several million wounded.
Small potatoes compared to what the fellow travelers condone in peacetime from Communist/atheist regimes, eh, Cookie.
rhhardin: Love the country means love the rules. You don't have to like anybody, but you agree on the rules.
Indeed. Unfortunately, that there is an "agreement on the rules" cannot be ascertained by questionnaire. Too much of what goes into "agreement" is tacit and culturally bound.
That's the problem with making a stark dichotomy of "blood and soil" vs. "proposition". You can have a country that's pretty free and easy on the "blood" thing, as long as you force assimilation to the cultural habits of the people who made the rules in the first place. Once you start believing that the rules are universalist abstractions, and they become entirely cut-ff from the people and cultural traditions the "propostions" grew out of, the rules come to mean anything, or nothing.
The Brits, e.g., had a far more robust culture of free speech and keeping the government out of your face when they had a more concrete, "nation" conception of who and what they were. Then they went all in for multiculturalism and importing very alien cultures hand over fist, and decided that "British values" are just lovely abstractions that have nothing to do with any particular culture or people. Free speech is now dead there, and they live in a surveillance state. A cautionary tale. And no, in the end you won't be saved from this fate because your constitution was written down.
I'm a libertarian elitist of the Nock-Mencken variety, so I am inclined to say "No."
"Yeah. Only several hundred thousand dead and several million wounded."
All or most of them soldiers. How about countries with millions dead, with civilians killed by the tens or hundreds of thousands, with whole cities and regions left as bombed-out wastelands or turned into lawless free-fire zones? Think about vast regions of Europe during and after WWII.
I repeat: America suffers very little from the wars we fight and have fought, as they're all elsewhere. Few Americans have any real notion of the daily living conditions for people who live in the countries were we fight. The last war that devastated this country in the way that the wars we fight devastate other countries was the Civil War.
Perhaps we're just really good at it. I like armies that don't suffer millions of casualties.
You should also respect a concern for their well-being. "Should" being the operative word.
But some people don't care for their fellow citizens all that much.
Some historians claim that the Thirty Years War is where it all went wrong for Germany. In that war, some of the German states lost half their populations and some cities there lost over 80%. Losing wars doesn't build character or national cohesion........One of the things that bond Americans together is their success in war. The most dispirited time in American history--at least during my lifetime-- is when we lost the war in Vietnam. Things seemed to be falling apart.
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