Democrats & Liberals Archives

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”

Is he wrong? This is the big threat to our great nation, that a large number will become dependent on the charity of their nation and vote rather than earn it.

“And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Mitt Romney talking about 47% of Americans.

Wonder how he feels about the Swiss and Cayman Islanders?

C&J: “Is he wrong?”

Is he wrong that that the 47% of people who pay no income tax all vote for Obama, depend on the government for support, and take no responsibility for their own lives? Yes. He’s wrong on so many levels. But I can see it resonates with you and all this after our talk today about poor people being poor because of their own actions.

Jack,

That a huge number of people would become dependent on the government would be a bad thing.

However…

Whether there is actually 47% dependent is an interesting question, and even if were true, which I seriously doubt, that would also include the conservatives, and the Tea Party members collecting Social Security.

Hardly a group that Obama could depend on to vote for him.

But it’s OK, Romney won’t allow fact check to dictate his campaign.

Rocky

phx8

And Obama doesn’t worry so much about the 53% of Americans whose work supports the rest.

We are in a dangerous place where so many live off the fat of the land and are starting to consider it right and proper to use the political system to get money instead of earning it through their work.

Rocky

Romney is talking, just as Obama was telling everyone that people in the heartland of America were a bunch of hicks who would cling to their guns and religion. Did we fact check that?

Mitt’s answer to our problems is to tax the poor, low income, and lower middle class? My son going to college is now a deadbeat who wants to live off the government? My 82 year old mother and father don’t pay income taxes. They sacrificed and paid cash for everything their whole working lives. They are deadbeats? The working poor who get up and work every day for the miserable minimum wage that the Republicans don’t want to increase… they are DEADBEATS????? If they have kids and medical expenses… they aren’t paying income taxes. These are the deadbeats to Republicans. Do you want them to work for slave wages? For free? Live in tenement houses? the gutter? What is your plan? Everybody is above average?

Or are you insinuating that 47% of Americans are unemployed leeches? Really? Look around.

FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!! It isn’t ending up in the offshore bank accounts of the poor.

Adam

I am not sure that all the non-working class will vote Obama. Many still want to take care of themselves.

Re poor people - anybody can become poor for a while or in some circumstances. If you remain poor for a long time, you are definitely doing something to contribute to our plight.

The only think constant in all your failures (or successes) is you.

But it’s OK, Romney won’t allow fact check to dictate his campaign.

How can he when he if campaigning against someone who has the same philosophy? If he were to start worrying about the truth, there would be a truth gap between him and Obama and he would be fighting with one hand tied behind his back against a guy with 3 arms…

BTW, having spent a good part of a lifetime (I’m not a youngun) working on the only thing that people who are poor need to stop being poor, mentoring, I can tell you that C&J are right on this one, the reason people are ‘poor’ for any long stretch of time is because of attitude, view on life, feelings of entitlement, etc.

When people stop feeling sorry, get off of the things that are holding them back (mental issues, drugs, laziness, etc) then they will become successfully in charge of their own lives. They may never make ‘millions’, but they will not be dependant upon others for their well being.

Mitt’s answer to our problems is to tax the poor, low income, and lower middle class?

And the other option is to what? You do realize that if you take all of the income from the wealth 1% (tax them at 100%) it would run the country for about a day and a half.

We are in a problem today because people like you don’t like to hear the honest truth and want to play the class warfare card.

Do you want to help those that are struggling? Eliminate the income tax and capital gains taxes and vote for the Fair Tax. At least the poor would have a fighting chance, unlike the system we have now where the poor are paying so many taxes that they can’t see because of people like you who want to ‘tax the rich’, not thinking about how that trickles down…

We have a 23% sales tax in this country already called the income tax/corporate tax. Those costs are added to the price of the goods or services that the poor end up paying.

When you really want to ‘help’ those people, let me and the other Libertarians know. Until then you are just participating in the destruction of our country and are part of the problem, not the solution.

Oh and “In a report just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the top 20% of tax payers in the United States are now paying 94% of the “total tax collected”, up from 86% in 2007 and 81% in 2001. “

http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43373-06-11-HouseholdIncomeandFedTaxes.pdf

C&J-
This reminds me of this scene in The American President where Michael J. Fox’s character gets off the phone after having cursed out a Congressman, saying “We just lost Jarrett.”, and the other guy goes, “I hope so. ‘Cause, you know, if that was an “undecided,” then we need to work on our people skills.”

The GOP has no people skills. It’s like Austin Powers in that scene right after he’s been unfrozen, when he has no internal monologue. The irony is, not everybody in that 47% that doesn’t pay net income tax is a Democrat, so you’re not necessarily saving yourself pain by continuing to insult these people. You’re including a ****load of your own supporters. And no, not everybody who does pay net income tax is somebody who didn’t work for what they got, so you just insulted them too, this time personally.

Keep the charm offensive up. It’s been very helpful.

Rhinehold,

“If he were to start worrying about the truth, there would be a truth gap between him and Obama and he would be fighting with one hand tied behind his back against a guy with 3 arms…”

Yeah, but at least he would be telling the truth.

Rocky

“Charm offensive”! Snort. That’s funny.

Why does Romney would even want to be president? He seems to perceive about half of all Americans as mere freeloaders.

In fact, Americans are among the hardest working, most productive people in the world, and they take less vacation than almost anyone else. A boatload of statistics backs that up.

C&J,
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”

Is he wrong? This is the big threat to our great nation, that a large number will become dependent on the charity of their nation and vote rather than earn it.

As one of that 47%… YES, He’s wrong!
1. Everyone living in this country IS entitled to food. Only conservatives think otherwise.
2. Everyone living in this country IS entitled to health care. Only conservatives think otherwise.
3. Everyone in this country IS entitled to housing. Only conservatives think otherwise.
4. Most of us AREN’T dependent on government. Most of the middle class work for their money and pay taxes on it. It’s just that they don’t see any reason why they should pay more taxes just so the government can afford to give billionaires another tax break.
5. If people can’t find jobs because of Republican Plutocrats and the uneducated voters who think “trickle-down” works despite 30 years of evidence to the contrary… THEN THE POOR DON’T NEED TO EARN JACK SHIT! And yes it is charity! And you know what else? I’m PROUD that my government is handing out all this money for free! After all, unlike plutocrats like Mitt Romney, I’m paying my fair share into the well-being of society!

Right now, the rich pay a smaller percentage of income than the middle class. Republican policy (Romney included) is to lower taxes on the rich even further and eliminate tax credits for the middle class. Since you apparently support them, your statements about “dependent on the charity” and “earning it” basically amount to the Republican/Plutocrat policy of “Fuck you, I’ve got mine.”

Whether you intended it or not, you’re implication is that people who CAN’T work are lazy. I don’t know whether you believe that, but a lot of Republicans do, and it is the backbone of their economic platform. Civilized people who want to live in a first-world society, on the other hand, think otherwise. That’s the biggest reason why Romney is loosing even though the economy is still bad.

And don’t get me started on stagnant wages (again, the fault of Plutocrats and Republicans who think the middle class should subsidize the rich)!

We are in a dangerous place where so many live off the fat of the land and are starting to consider it right and proper to use the political system to get money instead of earning it through their work.B/blockquote>

C&J we agree, glad to see you coming around. I have been saying this for years. It is time to call out these nefarious slugs who bribe our politicians with campaign funds expecting to get legislation favoring their business at the expense of those that work for a living. The guy who threw the shindig in Fla where Romney made these comments is a vulture capitalist like Romney. Why doesn’t he earn his money through his own work instead of buying and wrecking companies that were the work of others?

Maybe Romney is hoping the poorer 47% of Americans will do like the latinos, and self-deport.

Yeah, but at least he would be telling the truth.

Ask Gary Johnson what telling the truth gets you in the presidential race…

People don’t want to hear the truth, they want to be told what they want to hear and believe it as truth.

Like ‘the rich aren’t paying their fair share’, yet no explanation of what rich means, meanwhile we find that the top 20% are now paying 94% of all of the taxes.

Like ‘the debt isn’t that big of a deal and we can build ourselves back into being able to pay it back’, yet we are spending so much now that just the mere suggestion of going back to 2006 spending levels is considered ‘ruinous’ to the country.

Like ‘my guy tells the truth and your guys lies all the time’ when we have both major party candidates on record lying left and right, and have been for the better part of a year, but we seemed somehow ‘shocked!’ when we see it from the other guy and explain it away when it is ours…

Get with the times, this is american politics at its finest, a wallowing slimefest designed to keep us from realizing how much we are being screwed over and how many of our rights are being taken away on a daily basis by the very people who say that they are here to help us. We should be helping each other without the guns of the government pointed at our heads…

Here’s a prime example… Ted Olsen is helping Ryan with debate prep. Queue the ‘outrage’.

The outrage for Olson’s assistance to Ryan, little that there is, seems a bit on the “faux” side. The Blade contacted Jerame Davis, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, for a response:

“After he has spent as much time, money, and reputation on overturning Prop 8 as he has, it’s shocking to learn that Ted Olson would lift a finger to help the Romney-Ryan ticket during debate prep,” Davis said. “The Romney-Ryan ticket stands completely counter to the goals of [The American Foundation for Equal Rights] and Ted Olson’s stated belief that Prop 8 should be overturned. I have always been concerned that the architect of Bush v. Gore was one of the lead attorney’s in the fight to overturn Prop 8, but I honestly never expected Olson to so blatantly contradict his own argument by supporting a ticket that would stand squarely in opposition to what he calls one of the most important cases of his career.”

So here’s a thought exercise: Imagine that somebody from the antigay National Organization for Marriage was serving as Ryan’s debate buddy. Do you think there would be any less outrage from Davis in response? Of course not. It is the job for partisan functionaries to be outraged by every act on the other team. Davis would likely object to any debate partner except a random Kardashian or perhaps a friendly sea lion. Davis probably objects to Ryan even showing up for the debate in the first place.

That such a prominent conservative supporter of gay marriage has the direct ear of Ryan and Mitt Romney is a win for the gay community, which even Rick Jacobs of the progressive Courage Campaign begrudgingly noted:

“I hope he spends some of the hours he will spend with Congressman Ryan educating him that this is the civil rights issue of our time and that he and his running mate stand squarely on the wrong side of history.”

Olson engaging these two is exactly what the gay movement needs, unless, of course, you’re terribly worried about who in your party is only in it for the civil liberties and aren’t really progressives at all. What would happen to the Democratic Party if and when the Republicans finally embraced gay marriage as policy?

Rhinehold,
Why should we conduct a thought exercise and imagine something that is not true? In fact, in truth, the GOP is opposed to gay marriage as a core principle, and its candidate for president has advocated a constitutional amendment making it illegal. Just a non-partisan, truthful observation.

Sometimes one party is wrong and bigoted and hateful, and funadamentally opposed to basic civil rights, while the other party is right and acting in a way that is consistent with “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” There’s nothing wrong with Libertarians actually agreeing with Democrats, you know.

Hey, I bet that 47% of Americans who aren’t paying income taxes secretly stashed their money in Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts. Bunch of freeloaders.

Poor people get all the breaks.

In fact, in truth, the GOP is opposed to gay marriage as a core principle, and its candidate for president has advocated a constitutional amendment making it illegal. Just a non-partisan, truthful observation.

And up until a month ago, the same was true of the Democratic Party.

Sometimes one party is wrong and bigoted and hateful, and funadamentally opposed to basic civil rights, while the other party is right and acting in a way that is consistent with “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

Where are the Democrats in this equation exactly?

There’s nothing wrong with Libertarians actually agreeing with Democrats, you know.

Nope, there isn’t, when they agree. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party over the last four years has a WORSE record on civil rights than the Bush administration.

Wow — what an Epic Fail!
Stick a fork in Mitt — he’s done!
One doesn’t generally become president by stating that they only want to be the president of rich people. American presidents are expected to consider the needs of everyone in the nation — and with this video, he just announced that will never, ever be the case.

It was sort of nice to hear him tell truth as he sees it for a change though, huh? It was probably the first time we’ve heard him honestly speak during his whole sorry campaign!

Speaking of which… Hello! Romney’s campaign has got to rank amongst some of the worst-run campaigns in U.S. history.
In fact, it’s been run so tragically-comically bad, that sometimes I find myself wondering if this is actually intentional…? I mean, perhaps a while back he decided he really doesn’t actually want to become president, so he’s doing everything he can to ensure he doesn’t stand any chance?

For all we know, it might be the case that he’s really needed back on his home planet: Kolab!

Anyway, you know that huge and ever widening gap for Obama in the polls?
I was just thinking how nice it is that Mitt can in all honesty claim: “I built that”!

:^)

The debates should be very interesting indeed…

Marc A

“Everyone living in this country IS entitled to food. Only conservatives think otherwise.
2. Everyone living in this country IS entitled to health care. Only conservatives think otherwise.
3. Everyone in this country IS entitled to housing. Only conservatives think otherwise.”

It depends on how you want to give it to them. You think it is the job of Federal bureaucrats. In that respect, ask yourself about the results here and in other countries, when governments took responsibility for these things.

j2t2

I am talking about anybody who doesn’t actually do some work that somebody else is willing to pay for. The idle rich are no better than the idle poor.

My comment on the poor is more as Rhinhold explained. I think we HURT the poor when we provide external excuses for their plight. It is not oppression that keeps people poor. It is their behaviors and attitudes, coupled with some random chance.

If we address the wrong problems, we will not produce workable solutions.

Romney trashing 47% of Americans as free loaders? I can’t wait for Sean Hannity to decry all this class warfare…

The problem for Romney is that the one moment when he’s absolutely sincere, where he doesn’t come off as a political Ken Doll, is when he’s been brazenly offensive to the “lucky-duckies”, to the people who are either too retired, too unemployed, or making too little at their jobs to qualify for tax cuts.

More ironically, they are complaining about their own policies, policies they cooked up because otherwise people wouldn’t have gone with the tax cut. The lucky ducky’s below gave Bush the political room to satisfy the lucky-duckies above.

I little bit of advice here: kicking people when they’re down is not advisable when it comes to asking for their votes. I know Republicans think it’s their number one job to stop the freeloaders from weighing down the system, but they’re missing something they didn’t in 2010: people want to hear that help is coming, when they’re down on their luck. They don’t want somebody with a huge fortune in the bank complaining about how unfair the system is, and how they should have to sacrifice even more to make everything alright.

Republicans are being fundamentally naive about how much folks really agreed. And since we saw neither hide nor hair of any jobs program coming from them, they can’t maintain the mandate they got from 2010, which was largely built on job creation. Republicans should have been self-aware enough to realize that what their obstructionism gained them was the Democrats were wasting their mandate to improve America’s situation in general. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they showed, even with a President willing to negotiate, that they had no concern for the mandate they ran upon, and instead tried to push policy according to a totally different mandate people didn’t know existed.

I think Republicans are overestimating people’s patience, and will pay the price.

I don’t see the Mitt unplugged comments changing any polls.

But I can’t figure out why Obama is saddled with the blame for the poor. Weren’t there poor people on food stamps under Bush? Don’t democrats wish the unemployment rate was lower? What policies are we arguing about here?

The remarks of Romney are nothing but a terrible and hurtful lie. It simply is not true that 47% of Americans don’t pay taxes. When all taxes are included, the share of taxes paid by all groups is relatively correlated with their share of income. While, the overall tax system is slightly progressive, it is not dramatically so. http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2012/04/who_pays_taxes_in_america.php

It would also be helpful if people making such charges would simply look at the sources of revenue for the federal government. It is clear that payroll taxes have become an increasingly larger share of revenue over the past thirty years. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm

So now we move on to another leftist talking point; meant to change the subject from failed foreign policies, failed economic stimuli, failed job creation, and a failed energy policy.

There is nothing in Romney’s “secret” video that is untrue. The “untruth” is the way the left wants to twist the comments to fit their agenda. Just as there is a percent of people who will vote for Obama, no matter what he says or does; there is a percent of leftist on WB whose sole purpose is to talk about anything but the truth.

This is simply another talking point that will consume the oxygen in the room for a week or so, and then the left will move on to another talking point.

For the past week, the Obama talking point has been that no presidential candidate has the right to question Obama’s foreign policies. The Middle-East is in complete meltdown do to Obama’s failed policies; in fact Obama is so arrogant to believe just electing him president and his messianic status is enough to create peace in the Middle-East, but Oh how he has failed. His apologetic attitude to this part of the world has created a sense of weakness in America.

The complete ignorance and incompetence of his administration is seen in the rounds of speeches on the Sunday talking circuit as each Obama spokesperson blamed the unrest and the murders of American’s on a movie trailer that no one has seen. Even the interim president in Libya has stated this attack and murder was preplanned and the warnings were given to Obama, which he chose to ignore.

I wait with baited breath for the next round of anti-Romney talking points. This one is DOA; the left will use this to try to energize the base (the 47%), but the latest OWS outrage and protests this week is a microcosm of the democrat’s base. The OWS protests this week were a failure, and the energizing of Obama’s base will be a failure. Obama’s base does not care about outrage; they care about what they can get for free. Obama blew his wad on that subject 4 years ago; promising free food, free health, free housing, free money (remember the video when the woman said “we get Obama’s stash…OBAMA, OBAMA, OBAMA).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBexiCMkXo

They didn’t get what Obama promised them. This is an example of the worshippers of Obama. Do you think it will work again???

Marc

The 2nd Bill of Rights BS is nothing but the liberals vote pandering, not law. If you want to be entitled to live off and be taken care of by the government, make it law.
With half the country now dependent on government in one way or another, you’re halfway there.

As far as Romney, anybody who was already going to vote for him probably already understood this fact.
The Obama and media lies and propaganda will probably show Romney losing a few points in “polling” though.

I little bit of advice here: kicking people when they’re down is not advisable when it comes to asking for their votes. I know Republicans think it’s their number one job to stop the freeloaders from weighing down the system, but they’re missing something they didn’t in 2010: people want to hear that help is coming, when they’re down on their luck

Like I said, in order to get elected you have to lie to people to get their votes. Few want the truth, as Stephen has pointed out here.

The fact is we have been spending without consideration for being able to pay it back for over a decade, we even lied about ‘balancing the budget’ under Clinton, which never happened. The ONLY way we are going to be able to pay it back is to quit spending as much as we are and start actually paying it back. But that doesn’t get you elected. So we are pretty much screwed…

kctim,

“With half the country now dependent on government in one way or another, you’re halfway there.”

This statement is absurd on it’s face.

This would mean that nearly 200 million people in this country are “dependent” on the government in some way shape or form for their lives.

I have seen this 50% number thrown out there way too often over the last few years without any facts ever to back it up.

Even if we included the people that actually work for the government, and the people (including conservatives) collecting SS the number is less than 20%.

Do the math.

Rocky

Oh, and BTW…,

Romney’s biggest problem in this election isn’t talking points or even Obama.

Romney’s biggest problem is Romney.

Rocky

C&J,

It depends on how you want to give it to them. You think it is the job of Federal bureaucrats. In that respect, ask yourself about the results here and in other countries, when governments took responsibility for these things.

We can look right here at home. Social Security and Medicare (the recipients of which being part of Mitt’s 47%) work just fine. Not perfect, but pretty darn efficient.

As for food housing, welfare, etc. for the poor and people who can’t find work… We pay because we care about them (some of us, anyway). I just wish the middle class wasn’t paying more of their money than the rich, since it was the rich who caused these conditions in the first place… Oh well. Like I said, SOMEONE has to pay the price to keep this a first-world country.

Tell you what… Stop supporting plutocrats like Romney who want stagnant wages and jobs going overseas. Stop supporting the defunding of social programs (unless conditions improve to the point where we don’t need them). Start supporting government investment in education and infrastructure. Start supporting hire taxes on the rich to pay for these investments. Unless you do, there’s nothing a Republican supporter can say about the economy that doesn’t boil down to “Fuck the poor (and the retired, and the sick, and the out of work), I’ve got mine.”
You’d think the Republicans would at least PRETEND to care about their fellow Americans, at least for the sake of the election!

Do the math.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/18/romneys-47-percent-line-is-a-common-gop

in the middle of Mitt Romney’s secretly taped fundraising comments going viral, “The media probably didn’t know that this 53/47 thing is common currency on the right.” This dynamic explains a lot about both the media (and its outraged reaction to Romney’s comments yesterday, today, and tomorrow), and about the right, which is used to making such claims without sanction.

[…]

This is economic determinism at its worst, going against the very message the Republican Party was trying to sell to the world during its quadrennial national convention last month. Over and over again, we heard speakers there talk about how their immigrant grandparents came to this country, worked hard, built “that,” never asked for a handout, and as a result their descendants have enjoyed the American Dream of ever-upward mobility. What the 53/47 dividing line says, to the direct contrary, is that income status is a permanent political condition, defrocking all Americans of agency and independent thought.

Most people at some point will be part of the 47 percent (indeed, nearly most already are). When my friends and I were comparatively poor, as people often are in their 20s and early 30s, we (for the most part) didn’t “believe” that we were “victims,” didn’t “believe the government has a responsibility” to care for us, and didn’t vote for Democratic political candidates “no matter what.” We mostly took personal responsibility and care for our lives, and acted according to our idiosyncratic individual values and whims.

I should theoretically be the target audience for this stuff. I never took out a federally guaranteed student loan, never enjoyed the mortgage-interest deduction; I worry all the time about government spending and entitlements, and I am not unfamiliar with the looter/moocher formulation. But this kind of reductionism does not reflect individualism (as David Brooks charges), it rejects individualism, by insisting that income tax is destiny. It judges U.S. residents not as humans but as productive (or unproductive) units. (Though as long as people are thinking that way, is there any category of resident less taker-y than illegal immigrants with fake Social Security cards who file income taxes?) And it prematurely valorizes one class of government-gobbling Americans while prematurely writing off another.

There are to my mind many more important things to consider in this presidential race than Mitt Romney’s reductive parroting of plausible-but-wrong GOP tropes. But the reason this controversy will have legs is ultimately because many Republicans think Romney’s comments were just fine. They are about to learn what the rest of the country thinks about that.

I just wish the middle class wasn’t paying more of their money than the rich, since it was the rich who caused these conditions in the first place…

Wow, you accuse Romney of trotting out incorrect ‘tropes’ and then back it up with some of your own…

You’d think the Republicans would at least PRETEND to care about their fellow Americans, at least for the sake of the election!

So, apparently, to the ignorant, ‘caring’ means giving the government more authority to put a gun to a citizen’s head to force them to care about who and what you care about, am I right?

Let me explain what our ‘caring’ system entails.

3 guys are eating lunch on a park bench. A guy comes up and asks for some money. 2 of the three say ok, I’ll give you 5 bucks and then looks to the 3rd guy. He says he can’t (he has a sick daughter to take care of). The 2 press harder and the 3rd keeps rejecting, then the 2 guys beat him up, hold him down and take 5 bucks out of his wallet, giving the 15 dollars to the guy asking for change.

Is that caring? Or is that really selfishness? I know how it looks to me…

kctim,
The 2nd Bill of Rights BS is nothing but the liberals vote pandering, not law. If you want to be entitled to live off and be taken care of by the government, make it law.
With half the country now dependent on government in one way or another, you’re halfway there.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me you’re saying that all people AREN’T entitled to food, shelter, health care, etc.? Because if you are, that’s… scary.

Rhinehold,
So, apparently, to the ignorant, ‘caring’ means giving the government more authority to put a gun to a citizen’s head to force them to care about who and what you care about, am I right?

I apologize for expecting you to care about the wellbeing your fellow Americans. Obviously, that’s highly offensive to you, for some reason… Sorry.

3 guys are eating lunch on a park bench. A guy comes up and asks for some money. 2 of the three say ok, I’ll give you 5 bucks and then looks to the 3rd guy. He says he can’t (he has a sick daughter to take care of). The 2 press harder and the 3rd keeps rejecting, then the 2 guys beat him up, hold him down and take 5 bucks out of his wallet, giving the 15 dollars to the guy asking for change.
Is that caring? Or is that really selfishness? I know how it looks to me…

I can’t really see how that applies to this. Doesn’t even make much sense…

Rocky
We obviously differ on what we consider being dependent on, means. For myself, it is of course receiving ANY government check, but it is also benifiting without contributing.
If the far-left can say the “rich” don’t pay their “fair share” for what government provides them, then it is only fair to say that those who don’t pay are dependent on government to provide for them.

Marc

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me you’re saying that all people AREN’T entitled to food, shelter, health care, etc.? Because if you are, that’s… scary.”

We are not entitled to be provided those things by government, especially if to the detriment of others. Do you agree with violating the rights and lowering the standard of living of one, in order to raise the standard of living for another?

What we are “entitled” to is a level playing field in obtaining such things. A level playing field based on the individual rights and freedoms of ALL, not the emotions of some.

Adriene, Willards campaign has indeed held a three stooges like persona. Thanks for the hilarious post. I love the “I built that” quote at the end. Good Stuff!

We should all be thanking him for reinforcing his clear distinction between classes that he previously had been working so hard to tear down. There is no longer any doubt where he stands in regard to the class war, it apparently is alive and well, and very clearly defines where Willard stands as to the worth of all us underlings. You know who I mean, all those middle class workers who according to his words make around two hundred and fifty grand a year. Does that mean poverty level wage earners are in the one hundred grand area? If so I am well below poverty level. Surely I must be entitled to something. LOL!!!

The man just wrote off half of Americans who as it turns out the top ten abusing states are all solidly republican. Building trust via insult and indictment of the lesser blood sucking class of citizens is surely a new and unique approach to campaigning. I doubt it will catch on anytime soon though. Thanks again for the laugh.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me you’re saying that all people AREN’T entitled to food, shelter, health care, etc.? Because if you are, that’s… scary.

No, it’s not ‘scary’ (unless the thought of people providing for themselves is scary), it is however the facts.

People are not ‘entitled’ to have those things provided to them, but they are ‘entitled’ to acquire those things if they choose. You would have to do some research on the differences between ‘natural rights’ and ‘positive rights’.

Basically, everyone has natural rights, the right to free speech, to scratch an itch on your back, to breathe, etc. These exist as they are without the need for anyone else to be forced to do anything for them to exist.

However, when you start adding in ‘positive rights’, rights that require the action of someone else for you to obtain them, then those ‘rights’ have to inheritely violate the natural rights that others have. And since those natural rights are ‘inalienable’, according to the founding documents of this country, violating those ‘inalienable’ rights to provide someone with a positive right is against the ideals of this country…

I apologize for expecting you to care about the wellbeing your fellow Americans. Obviously, that’s highly offensive to you, for some reason… Sorry.

LOL, yeah, you got me. Here I’ve been spending decades of my life running several non-profit charities, helping countless people better themselves through mentoring programs that I’ve created and run, finding jobs for people who have shown me that they are willing to better their life, etc… It’s obvious I do all of that because I don’t ‘care’ about people…

You seem to be a newly minted progressive, let me try to help blunt some of that ‘born again’ emotion you are feeling.

Enacting laws (ie, authorizing the use of force against another) to force people to help others does not make one ‘caring’. It makes one an ‘authoritarian’.

I can’t really see how that applies to this. Doesn’t even make much sense…

Yeah, you seem to be missing some basic facts of life in your emotive lashing out, so it might be above you at the moment…

You see, what I have described is exactly how our welfare system works. Replace the guy who is asking for money as a homeless person, replace the two guys as the majority of americans who have voted to authorize the police to use force on the third guy, the forgotten man, who is the victim of the ‘caring’ of the other two. Trying to make ends meet, he is forced to pay to help another because of the decision of the first two guys. Where is the caring for him?

I would recommend reading ‘The Forgotten Man’ by William Graham Sumner

It is when we come to the proposed measures of relief for the evils which have caught public attention that we reach the real subject which deserves our attention. As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better have done it without any law, ‘but what I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.

FYI, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Graham_Sumner

William Graham Sumner “held the first professorship in sociology” at Yale College. He was a polymath with numerous books and essays on American history, economic history, political theory, sociology, and anthropology. He is credited with introducing the term “ethnocentrism,” a term intended to identify imperialists’ chief means of justification, in his book Folkways (1906). He was also the first to teach a course entitled “Sociology”.

sorry, forgot the link for ‘The Forgotten Man’

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2396&chapter=226423&layout=html&Itemid=27

Rhinehold said:

“The ONLY way we are going to be able to pay it back is to quit spending as much as we are and start actually paying it back.”

I might also add, Base Line Budgeting needs to be abolished. There are NEVER cuts to any program, even though the left squeals like stuck pigs when Republicans talk of cuts:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread733182/pg#pid11916968

Rocky Marks said:

“This would mean that nearly 200 million people in this country are “dependent” on the government in some way shape or form for their lives.”

Rocky Marks is either using leftist revisionist census numbers, or he counting illegals.

Marc A, I’m surprised you left the OWS protest long enough to grace us with your ignorance of the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. Are you comments being read off the sign you held at the OWS rally?

We have the right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”; we have the “Bill of Rights” which guarantees freedoms, but we have to right to entitlements. That is unless we consider the Constitution and the Bill of Rights an evolving document.

Re/the topic of this post; Mother Jones had this information about Romney since last May. Don’t you find it interesting that it would come out when Obama is facing his “Watergate” moment of covering up what took place with the American deaths in Libya.

Romney is being accused of dividing America, by a president who is the most divider in chief president we have ever had. The moves by mother jones simply supports the fact that obama is in bed with the media to set the agenda.

“A level playing field based on the individual rights and freedoms of ALL, not the emotions of some.”

Posted by: kctim at September 18, 2012 12:03 PM

kctim, you have hit a sensative point with the leftist. Accusing then of operating from emotion rather than logic.

I have a theory; I believe SD and Marc A. are the same person; either that or they are twin brothers who both attended Baylor U. They both have high IQ’s and are both legends in their own minds. I think SD is trying to project the more leftist side of himself through Marc A. If that is possible.

kctim,

“For myself, it is of course receiving ANY government check, but it is also benifiting without contributing.”

Then by your logic virtually everyone is dependent on government, because by your statement above “For myself, it is of course receiving ANY government check…” that would include tax returns.

Hardly a reliable means of measurement.

Rocky

RickIL, glad you liked my post — I can’t help but find Romney and his campaign hilarious!

The man just wrote off half of Americans who as it turns out the top ten abusing states are all solidly republican. Building trust via insult and indictment of the lesser blood sucking class of citizens is surely a new and unique approach to campaigning.

When you think about it, it’s really a lot more than just half of America who Mitt just gravely insulted! I mean, just because someone may have a job and be doing just fine financially doesn’t automatically mean they don’t have family members and friends who can’t find jobs no matter how hard and long they’ve searched, or can’t find a job that pays them decently, or can’t find any opportunity for a starting position after getting their college degree.
Or know people who became very sick and suffered catastrophic financial losses as a result — even losing everything they’ve worked so hard for —including their formerly well-paying job.

Clearly only people of the 1% such as Thurston Mittens and Annie Howell the Third don’t know anyone at all who has found themselves in these sorts of situations. I also busted a gut laughing when I heard that he has subsequently said that these remarks “were not elegantly stated”! It seems this man simply cannot speak without coming off like an rich, callous and clueless assh*le!
And have you heard how the fundraiser where Romney made these truly incredible and disgusting statements was staged by a man who often conducts sex parties on Long Island?
Hahahahaha! Oh that “Family Values” Party and their incredible irony!

Frank: “There is nothing in Romney’s ‘secret’ video that is untrue.”

Except for of course the things that aren’t true. For instance four things that come to mind right away from the videos:

1. That 47% of people not paying income taxes are government dependents

2. That these same people are voting for Obama

3. That Obama promised employment under 8%.

4. That 50% of college graduates are unemployed

“Mother Jones had this information about Romney since last May.”

Do you know they had it since May or just that footage was shot in May?

“Don’t you find it interesting that it would come out when Obama is facing his ‘Watergate’ moment of covering up what took place with the American deaths in Libya.”

Really? A Watergate moment? Wow.

Frank,

“Rocky Marks is either using leftist revisionist census numbers, or he counting illegals.”

According to the Census bureau the population of the US is about 314,402,443.

Whether Frank wants to ignore the illegals or not they are here.

My estimate was a bit high. So sue me.

The point is Frank that there isn’t anywhere close to 47% dependent on the government.

So again, you’re wrong, as usual.

Rocky

kctim,
We are not entitled to be provided those things by government, especially if to the detriment of others. Do you agree with violating the rights and lowering the standard of living of one, in order to raise the standard of living for another?
What we are “entitled” to is a level playing field in obtaining such things. A level playing field based on the individual rights and freedoms of ALL, not the emotions of some.

No you don’t believe in a level playing field. That would contradict the “let them eat cake” attitude of your first paragraph. The Plutocrats you support don’t want such a situation, anyway.
To answer your question, it IS the government’s roll to provide this things, when people incapable of working for them or they are not available in the first place. THAT is where a real level playing field comes from. Just whose standard of living do you think this will lower? Do you really think idle rich people like Mitt Romney are going to suffer if they don’t get another tax break, or (God forbid) have to pay the same percentage as the middle class?

Rocky, tax returns? A portion of your money that is returned to you is now the same as receiving something for nothing?
You are much better than that my friend.

kctim,

“Rocky, tax returns?”

I hate to bring it up, but you said;

“it is of course receiving ANY government check…”

Those were your words.

Sorry, regardless of whether it is my money or not a tax return is a government check.

Rocky

Speaking of tax returns… Where’s Mitten’s Tax Returns? How do we know he isn’t in the “47% who don’t pay taxes” because he’s a tax cheat hiding his money in the Caymans and in Swiss bank accounts.

BTW Tim,

I understood what you meant and was being sarcastic, and as I think emoticons are silly…

Rocky

Marc,
Sigh, please don’t try the ‘siding with the evil rich’ rhetoric with me. I believe the bum, the single father or mother, you, me, Romney, Kerry and even a Kennedy ALL are entitled to the same rights and freedoms.

“To answer your question, it IS the government’s roll to provide this things, when people incapable of working for them or they are not available in the first place.”

Where does it say in the Constitution that it is the governments job to provide such things to anybody?

I like how your NOW add “when people incapable of working for them or they are not available in the first place,” when before you said “EVERYBODY.” Which is it?

“No you don’t believe in a level playing field. That would contradict the “let them eat cake” attitude of your first paragraph.”

Why is it that you lefties have such a hard time with the personal responsibility part of that statement?

“The Plutocrats you support don’t want such a situation, anyway.”

But the plutocrats you support do? Give me a freaking break.

“Do you really think idle rich people like Mitt Romney are going to suffer if they don’t get another tax break, or (God forbid) have to pay the same percentage as the middle class?”

What do you consider “rich?” They pay a lower income tax rate than the middle class? They pay a lower capital gains tax than the middle class? They pay less state taxes than the middle class does? They pay less sales tax than the middle class?
Wow. I will have to read up on that.

“and as I think emoticons are silly…”

Gah! Tell me about it. I have a 15 year old daughter, my life is emoticon hell. lol

Uh oh! More video out today at Mother Jones that was filmed at that same hedge-fund-manager-who-likes-sex-parties hosted fundraiser:
SECRET VIDEO: On Israel, Romney Trashes Two-State Solution
At a private fundraiser, the GOP candidate calls Middle East peace “almost unthinkable” and says he would “kick the ball down the field.”

At a private fundraiser, the GOP candidate calls Middle East peace “almost unthinkable” and says he would “kick the ball down the field.”

Just another example of how Romney and Obama are pretty much the same…

Obviously, some Republicans are fully aware of how Romney’s comments are going to cost them in November.

Romney’s 47% Claim Rankles Conservative Policy Wonks

Quote from the link:

“Since when has it been the job of Republicans and conservatives to make sure everyone has IRS obligations?” wrote Jim Antle at the Daily Caller. He accused Romney of “[i]gnoring the rising payroll tax burden of the last few decades while dismissing many of those who have borne it as deadbeats.” Antle’s blog post was approvingly tweeted by Ryan Ellis, the top lobbyist for anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. He was joined by Salam and Ponnuru in noting — and defending — three decades of Republican-driven policies that built the current tax system via tax cuts and credits. They also argued that the 53-47 analysis papers over economic mobility. “Conservatives have even less reason for worrying about people who don’t pay federal income taxes,” wrote Ponnuru. “A major reason that the number of those people has grown is that a Republican-controlled Congress created, and the Bush administration expanded, a tax credit for parents.”

Frank and Rhinehold,

I’ll ignore the personal insults and get right to the crux of the matter…
There are people in this country who are incapable of working. There are also people who can’t find work that pays enough to support them and their families. There are people who are disabled and people who are simply old and retired. It’s the government’s place to support them. You’re mistaken about the constitution. The rights therein are not granted by the constitution, but singled out by it for special importance. They are not the only rights that exist. You go tell the disabled veteran that his kids don’t have an inherent right to food or a roof over their heads. You tell the woman that got laid off by Bain so her job could go to a Chinese slave that she doesn’t have a right to health care.
It’s laudable if you help charities, but charities can’t do enough and will never be able to.
Oh, and your “forgotten man” scenario doesn’t hold water when the man in question isn’t contributing to society not because it would hurt him, but because he’s rich and powerful enough not to have to.

Enacting laws (ie, authorizing the use of force against another) to force people to help others does not make one ‘caring’. It makes one an ‘authoritarian’.

Actually, it doesn’t do either of those. It makes one part of a civilized first-world society. You can scream “authoritarianism,” but it’s really just a disguise for the same old “F.Y.I.G.M.” attitude.

People are not ‘entitled’ to have those things provided to them, but they are ‘entitled’ to acquire those things if they choose. You would have to do some research on the differences between ‘natural rights’ and ‘positive rights’.

Yup. “Fuck you I’ve got mine” in all its disgusting glory.

Frank-
Complete meltdown? No. Some Islamist groups are furious about a video insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Many others find those protestors an embarrassment, and genuinely decry the attack. And can I point down here that any meltdown that is occuring, occured because some right-wing Islamists got a hold of what some nuts on your side cooked up to provoke them?

Should we reward your side for wanting to cause trouble, distrupt the peace? No. The failure is in the Right Wing’s ability to work and play well with others, to represent their country well, not in Obama’s policy of supporting Democracy movements in the Middle East.

And no, there was no apology to the people who attacked us. There never was. It’s just that people like you are short of legitimate criticisms, so you turn to the illegitimate.

Last but not least, let me say this: Romney’s message isn’t controversial because he suggested there would be people who wouldn’t vote for him. The trouble is, he’s pushing the offensive notions that all 47% of these people are the lucky duckies who don’t pay income tax, and that these people are all victims who can’t take responsibility for their lives and improve their lot. But even worse, he’s most likely wrong, and the people he just insulted constitute a cross section of some of his supporters- or former supporters- as well.

There is nothing he can’t **** up, that you won’t apologize for yourself.

kctim-
The most insulting thing about what he said is that many of the people paying no net income tax are gainfully employed, or retired after a lifetime of gainful employment. Unfortunately, from Mitt’s point of view, anybody who’s not a rich “job creator” like him is a liability, a drag on the great men of society.

Rhinehold-
No, cutting spending isn’t the only way to bring down the deficit. In fact, the simplest, most intuitive way to pay things back is to start paying more as individuals! Of course, we’re talking about doing this while we’re still recovering from an economic disaster, so that’s kind of the cart before the horse.

We need to vastly improve the economy, and then pay down our debts from that extra growth. We don’t need to be causing new recessions and undermine the fiscal situation by doing that.

Oh, by the way, you’ve taken that “Forgotten man”, and policy wised basically defined him or her as somebody with incredible riches, especially if you buy the arguments of Mitt and the others. I have trouble with calling the rich, the Wall Streeters of the world forgotten.

kctim,
Sigh, please don’t try the ‘siding with the evil rich’ rhetoric with me. I believe the bum, the single father or mother, you, me, Romney, Kerry and even a Kennedy ALL are entitled to the same rights and freedoms.

Except for food, shelter and health care for people without the means to provide for themselves?

Where does it say in the Constitution that it is the governments job to provide such things to anybody?

Where does it say it isn’t? Also, if giving food and shelter to someone who can’t provide it for himself isn’t “promoting the general welfare,” I’d like to know what is.

I like how your NOW add “when people incapable of working for them or they are not available in the first place,” when before you said “EVERYBODY.” Which is it?

Everybody has a right to these things. Only people who need help should be getting them from the government. I thought I was clear on that.

Why is it that you lefties have such a hard time with the personal responsibility part of that statement?

Because most of the people the right screams “personal responsibility” at are either incapable or don’t have the means to take such responsibility.

But the plutocrats you support do? Give me a freaking break.

Heh. Well, at least they pretend to…

What do you consider “rich?” They pay a lower income tax rate than the middle class? They pay a lower capital gains tax than the middle class? They pay less state taxes than the middle class does? They pay less sales tax than the middle class?
Wow. I will have to read up on that.

Good.
Read up on all the loopholes and subsidies they’ve privileged themselves with too. And look up the term “offshore tax shelter.”

“Frank: “There is nothing in Romney’s ‘secret’ video that is untrue.”
Except for of course the things that aren’t true. For instance four things that come to mind right away from the videos:
1. That 47% of people not paying income taxes are government dependents
2. That these same people are voting for Obama
3. That Obama promised employment under 8%.
4. That 50% of college graduates are unemployed
“Mother Jones had this information about Romney since last May.”
Do you know they had it since May or just that footage was shot in May?
“Don’t you find it interesting that it would come out when Obama is facing his ‘Watergate’ moment of covering up what took place with the American deaths in Libya.”
Really? A Watergate moment? Wow.”
Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 18, 2012 1:05 PM

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/18/the-data-behind-romneys-47-comments/

By the way Adam, Obama’s 7 point lead (bounce) has evaporated to a 1 point lead.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150743/Obama-Romney.aspx

Re/8% unemployment: Obama said unemployment would exceed 8% without stimulus efforts, so (you have to use your brain now) it’s implied that Obama was saying the stimulus was his way of keeping unemployment under 8%. We all see how well that worked, but the same people who spent over a year bashing Dubya over an unemployment rate approaching 7% are now singing the praises of the beloved most holy Obamessiah for unemployment that still has not dropped below 8% — nor has it taken into account the 1.5 million+ individuals who have stopped actively looking for work over the past three years.

Re/ tape from May; who gives a crap Adam? The tape of Romney was probably meant to be the October surprise, but they had to release it early because Obama is in so much trouble over his foreign middle-east policies.

“The point is Frank that there isn’t anywhere close to 47% dependent on the government.

So again, you’re wrong, as usual.

Rocky”

See above WSJ figures to AD.

Marc

It is not governments place to support anybody, governments job is to run government.

Yep, there are people who need help. There are also millions of people who do not need help but get it anyway. And there are also millions of people who “say” they care about others needing help, just not enough to give up their lattes, cell phone and internet.

Taking away the rights of one person in order to “create” a so-called right for a group you are pandering for votes from, is not how the game is played. Sorry.

“Actually, it doesn’t do either of those. It makes one part of a civilized first-world society”

But not a part of a civilized FREE society.
I’ll take free over your opinion of first-world any day.

“…in all its disgusting glory”

I take it that that means you do not wish to further educate yourself? Sad.

Let’s see now:
If we are judging something “in all its disgusting glory,” I’d have to say your ‘Ef you, give me yours’ really takes the top prize.

PS
Again, arguing and legislating from emotion does not work.

Romney could announce he was gay, an adulterer, had illegal off shore accounts, was bi-polar, and not in good health and I would still vote for him. Obama has been that bad. Romney should run ads showing O making all the unkept promises he made when running last time. I’m afraid it would be a little too lengthly for a conventional ad spot.

Marc A., I don’t even know where to begin in your socialist liberal rant in Comment #353300. I guess it would be best for you to just provide us some documentation from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights supporting your leftist claims. Your comments show you to be nothing more than a socialist left wing radical making absurd statements. Go back to the kos or huffpost, or whatever other rock you crawled out from under. We easily identify leftist idiots on WB, and we don’t use the “F” word on this site, except for our resident “lady” Adrienne, who has been admonished for doing so.

I’ll ignore the personal insults and get right to the crux of the matter…

As usual, ‘I want to insult you but if you insult me I will act butt hurt’. Why would I expect anything else?

There are people in this country who are incapable of working.

Yup, and we should be helping those people, just as I have been doing for decades. Why you think the government has to be involved is where the problem is. You know why you think it does, but you don’t want to vocalize it.

It’s the government’s place to support them.

That’s where you lose me. Why? You make this as a statement of fact, can you back up WHY it is the government’s place to ‘support them’? Why do we need government involved in the issue at all, especially when doing so introduces both politics AND force into the equation where it does NOT need to be?

You go tell the disabled veteran that his kids don’t have an inherent right to food or a roof over their heads. You tell the woman that got laid off by Bain so her job could go to a Chinese slave that she doesn’t have a right to health care.

As a disabled veteran, I have no problem saying those things to those people because they are the facts.

It’s laudable if you help charities, but charities can’t do enough and will never be able to.

Why not? You’re getting close, just answer the question and we can get to the heart of the issue you want to avoid…

Oh, and your “forgotten man” scenario doesn’t hold water when the man in question isn’t contributing to society not because it would hurt him, but because he’s rich and powerful enough not to have to.

Actually, the issue is not the ‘20%’ who pay 94% of all of the taxes, which apparently you feel is ‘not a fair share’. (if you could define that, it would be helpful). The real issue are people like you who think to ‘get the rich’ to pay their fair share enact corporate taxation and income taxes on businesses that end up getting passed down to the poor and middle class, hidden in the price of the goods and services we buy.

You do realize that if we were to tax the ‘rich’ 100% of their income, we could run our government for 1 and half days right? Your rhetoric sounds ‘good’ to the emotionally charged, but it just doesn’t hold up to the facts.

Actually, it doesn’t do either of those. It makes one part of a civilized first-world society. You can scream “authoritarianism,” but it’s really just a disguise for the same old “F.Y.I.G.M.” attitude.

So, putting a gun to someone’s head is a ‘civilized society’? No-knock warrants that kills innocent pets and children while looking for drugs, the new Jim Crow laws supported by both parties that have over 30% of the black male population behind bars, having the highest per capita incarceration rates in the world, violating the civil liberties of Americans to ‘get the terrorists’ including assassinating American citizens without trial, these are all part of being in a ‘civilized society’?

I don’t think you understand the terms being used…

Yup. “Fuck you I’ve got mine” in all its disgusting glory.

Again, you ignore the facts as I present them and want to talk emotive rhetoric that is neither ‘helpful’ nor based in any kind of reality. It’s a real shame that people like you vote and can group together to have the police come to my house and kill me just because I choose to live my life different than you…

Maybe someday the ideals that this country were founded upon will be taken up by a more enlightened people and continue the American Dream that has died in the US decades ago apparently…

No, cutting spending isn’t the only way to bring down the deficit. In fact, the simplest, most intuitive way to pay things back is to start paying more as individuals! Of course, we’re talking about doing this while we’re still recovering from an economic disaster, so that’s kind of the cart before the horse.

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen (the economy is NOT going to get better) until we do something about the debt. Especially when we have a fed in this country that is intent on keeping the economy down with artificially low interest rates. You did see that Moody’s has said they will be lowering our credit rating if we don’t do something about the debt, right? How long do you think we have to do something before we meltdown completely?

Oh, by the way, you’ve taken that “Forgotten man”, and policy wised basically defined him or her as somebody with incredible riches, especially if you buy the arguments of Mitt and the others. I have trouble with calling the rich, the Wall Streeters of the world forgotten.

You’ll have to explain that one to me. You see, I don’t see people as ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ but as individuals. So this inherit hatred of rich people isn’t ingrained in my soul like so many progressives, you’ll have to spell it out a bit more for me here. You want to ‘make the rich pay their fair share’, but the math does NOT add up, you realize. It is the person who is trying to make house payments, save for their children’s college, pay their medical bills, etc that are going to be the ones who are going to have to do without so we can pay back this debt some day, of course if the progressives have their way that will be long after they are part of the working society…

“Frank-
Complete meltdown? No. Some Islamist groups are furious about a video insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Many others find those protestors an embarrassment, and genuinely decry the attack. And can I point down here that any meltdown that is occuring, occured because some right-wing Islamists got a hold of what some nuts on your side cooked up to provoke them?”

Please tell me Stephen Daugherty, have you seen this video? Perhaps you should look at a map of the attacks, protests, murders, movement of Iranian ships and troops, killings of NATO (US) troops in Afghan, etc. in the ME and then tell me if there is a meltdown taking place.

“not in Obama’s policy of supporting Democracy movements in the Middle East.”

Yes Stephen, it turns out the RPG’s given to the “Arab Spring” rebels by Obama, for the purpose of overthrowing Kaddafi, were used to kill the US Ambassador. Let’s not forget Obama’s support of the Arab Spring in Egypt, when they used to be our ally, but now run by the Muslim Brotherhood, and now according to Obama, they are no longer our ally. Stephen, you’re gonna have to stretch this one pretty far to say Obama’s policies have made the ME a safer place. Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Obama campaigns and fund raises while the ME meltsdown.

“There is nothing he can’t **** up, that you won’t apologize for yourself.”

Stephen, unlike you, I am more than willing to call a spade a spade. If I thought there was anything to the left’s latest talking point claim, I would be more than willing to say something. But this is nothing but a leftist talking point; it’s a fart in the wind, here today and gone tomorrow. Next week the left will move on to another talking point. After all the personal attacks by the left on Romney….what are the results…nothing. In fact Romney is once again rising in the polls and Obama dropping. This is nothing more than panic from the left…gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. It means nothing, and your protégé Adrienne is still stuck on the same idiotic IRS tax returns and Cayman Island accounts. How pitiful…

Marc

“Except for food, shelter and health care for people without the means to provide for themselves?”

This goes back to the beginning: you are not “entitled” to have those things provided to you. You are confusing the desire for something with rights.

“Where does it say it isn’t? Also, if giving food and shelter to someone who can’t provide it for himself isn’t “promoting the general welfare,” I’d like to know what is.”

Now THAT can be taken as a legitimate point. It can be argued that promote does not mean provide, that it means welfare of the country and not welfare of the people, that general does not mean absolute, and a number of many other things. But aside from those, a satisfied people is what is best for the general welfare of the country, so I have to ask you this:
Is government dependency what is in our nations general welfare, or are our individual rights and freedoms what is best for the general welfare of our nation? I tend to side with the latter.

“Everybody has a right to these things. Only people who need help should be getting them from the government. I thought I was clear on that.”

No, you said everybody is “entitled” to them, which we are not. You did not specify only the needy should be getting them from government.
Seems our disagreement is over why you believe it is only government that can take care of the needy, which is one of the main differences between being left or right.

“Because most of the people the right screams “personal responsibility” at are either incapable or don’t have the means to take such responsibility.”

BS. This would be a non issue IF it was only the incapable or needy who received government assistance. Instead, living off the govt has become a way of life for far too many people.
Most people on the right have no problem with government programs helping those who truly need help, and they have even less problem with volunteering their personal time and money to help.

“Read up on all the loopholes and subsidies they’ve privileged themselves with too. And look up the term “offshore tax shelter.””

I already have. The higher your income, the higher your bracket, the more you pay. We all pay the same sales taxes in the area we purchase something and, if I remember correctly, you too would pay 12 or 15% on your capital gains.

Re offshore tax shelters, I don’t condemn people for using them. It’s their money and they are free to do with it what they like.
My question is why do we have a tax code that encourages people to seek them, and how do we minimize them from wanting to do so.

So Romney is wrong for wanting Americans to work and better their own lives when he accused Obama of trying to place all Americans of government entitlements? What is Obama trying to do with this:

http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia

BTW

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/Carter-Grandson-Gets-Thumbs-Up-for-Romney-Video-170179036.html

The grandson of former president Jimmy Carter revealed he helped expose the secret Romney fundraiser video that sparked a firestorm on the campaign trail. He said his motivation “is to help get Democrats elected” and to get back at the GOP presidential nominee for his criticism of his grandfather’s presidency.

“It gets under my skin— mostly the weakness on the foreign policy stuff,” James Carter IV told NBC News. “I just think it’s ridiculous. I don’t like criticism of my family.”
He told NBC News that he e-mailed his grandfather Mother Jones’ story about the tape and was congratulated Tuesday morning. “James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa,” Carter said the former president responded.

oh, and this is interesting…

http://reason.com/24-7/2012/09/18/doj-media-matters-work-together-to-targe

Newly published emails show the top spokeswoman at the U.S. Justice Department regularly collaborating with the liberal advocacy group Media Matters on stories that slam the administration’s critics.

The emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published by The Daily Caller, often show department public affairs chief Tracy Schmaler communicating with Media Matters bloggers. Sometimes, the emails were in response to inquiries. Other times, Schmaler was pitching ideas, according to the Caller.

Frank,

“See above WSJ figures to AD.”

So is the WSJ using the same “leftist revisionist census numbers” that you accuse me of using in their calculations?

From your own link;

“There can be a lot of overlap in which programs benefit certain households. For example, millions of people receiving Social Security benefits also receive Medicare health benefits.”

And;

“Mr. Romney implied that anyone receiving government benefits wouldn’t likely be one of his voters. But there’s no clear partisan split among beneficiaries, especially for broad-based federal retirement and health-care programs.”

It’s hard not to get dizzy from all of the spinning going on.

Rocky

“In a report just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the top 20% of tax payers
in the United States are now paying 94% of the “total tax collected”, up from 86% in 2007”

Interesting report Rhinehold, but unfortunately while you provide interesting links, your
comprehension tends to be lacking. The report actually says same percentage, but it only
applies to income tax paid, not all taxes. The report also goes on to say that:

“The overall average federal tax rates of 18.0 in 2008 and 17.4 in 2009 were the lowest
in the 1979 – 2009 period” …”The average tax rate for households in the 81sat to 99th
percentile of the income distribution also reached a low point in 2009, about 4 percentage
points below its 1979 level…Tax rates for households in the top percentile declined after
2000. The decline was especially rapid in 2003 …”

Just an fyi, income tax collected only amounts to 47% of all Federal taxes collected.

“Do the math.” I did the math and saw what you wrote did not add up.

Stephen, what happened to “context?” You know, that thing you guys are always claiming for Obama. How he didn’t mean us dumb rednecks and our guns, God and gays beliefs, but that we cling because we have been brainwashed.

Romney was talking about those people dependent on government who want more government and who always vote for the person who promises them more government.

I’m not sure that I agree that all 47% who don’t pay income taxes are liberals, but I would say that the ones who want government to take care of them, are, and that they make up the majority of that 47%.

Marc A

Medicare is bankrupting the country and in a few years our nations young people will pay fantastic taxes to allow old people like me the leisure to play golf. If you think this is success, it is hard to know what you mean by failure.

Re generosity - you cannot be generous with other people’s money. Conservatives give more to charity than liberals, as study after study has shown.

From the way you write, I will safely assume that I give much more to charity than you do. So please don’t assume the moral high ground that you do not deserve to occupy.

It is not generous to demand that others give more money to give you things. They usually call that extortion or theft

I am going to make a huge assumption here when I write that many Americans receiving food stamps, subsidized housing, medical care, and other government welfare are able-bodied and able to work. Some on the left may object to my use of the word “welfare”, but since they justify it under the “welfare clause” I deem it appropriate.

Most of us have seen folks standing on a road holding a sign reading…”Will work for food.” Many of us have been accosted by someone on a city street begging (working) for money.

Is it fair, is it constitutional, is it character building to ask those who need our help, and are able to work, to perform some kind of community service in return for that help? Is it just possible for those on the left to read into the “welfare clause” a requirement for those receiving government benefits to also contribute to the nation’s welfare by doing community work? Or, is it just a one-way “right”?

If giving stuff to people who need it is a worthy and necessary gesture under the “welfare clause”, surely it is just as necessary to require work in exchange for that stuff by those able to work. After all, that work would also be for the “general welfare”.

Cube

You are confusing rates with amounts.

If you make $100 and your rate is 10%, you pay $10

If you make $200 and your rate is 7.5%, you pay $15

In general, higher income people pay higher rates and much higher taxes. You all look for exceptional cases where rates are lower, but even there taxes are higher.

I think we are looking at the same CBO report that shows rates by quintile from lowest to highest
1.0%
6.8%
11.1%
15.1%
23.2%

The top 1% pays 28.9%

I know it bothers you guys that the “rich” don’t pay 100% of their income in taxes, but your REAL argument is NOT that the rich do not pay more, but rather you want them to pay even more.

All people, rich and poor, should contribute to the upkeep of their country. The rich should and DO pay more. Conservatives like me usually have no problem with that. What we dislike it when people who are not paying much in taxes demand a tax increase so that they can get more free stuff. It is not “shared sacrifice” if I tax you more so that I can have more.

Frank-
Funny thing about that “Eight Percent Promise”. First things first, it was never a promise, it was a projection. It was a projection with WIDE margins of uncertainty, where unemployment could rise as far as 11%. which were stated outright in the report. And Obama didn’t deliver it, Christina Romer and the President’s Council of Economic advisers did.

Another factor to consider is that nobody realized how severe the economic crisis was. It’s like Obama was told to expect he was going to be hunting deer, and instead an elephant showed up.

So, your takedown misses some fundamental truths: unemployment and GDP reports at the time underestimated the damage, so the Stimulus faced more resistance. Nobody counted on the effect of State and Local government layoffs, either, without which we could likely be at 7, rather than 8.

And really, has any Republican done a single thing except block Obama policy, slander that policy, and then praise themselves as heroes just for saying no, making filibusters, etc? No. In fact, their lasting contribution is effectively an anti-stimulus, forcing a pro-cyclical fiscal cliff on the average American. Congratulations Republican, you’ve managed to make the situation suck worse.

America is being burdened by a party that can’t bother to earn its way back into the good graces of voters.

As for the situation overseas?

First, it’s been suggested that the rocket attack was in retaliation for killing one of their leaders, and that they merely co-opted the protests. The people of Libya poured out tons of support, helped beat back the militants at the cost even of their own lives. So, the Arab Spring didn’t work? Well, sorry, it’s not going to be a simple or easy process, especially with Right Wing Hacks like Terry Jones willingly provoking people, and the radical hacks on their side willingly taking the bait.

And really, is the Situation in Libya as troublesome, say, as the situation in Iraq got? A handful of people die in that country, and you’re wailing like a punk that things are going out of control. Get some perspective. We’ve seen out of control, not only that, seen people like you apologize for out of control. Seems your perspective on that is largely based on who’s in the White House, and who’s not.

As for calling a spade a spade, what do you call it when you tell somebody they won’t take responsibility for their lives? I call it a profound insult to them. Well, he identified people who didn’t pay taxes exclusively as Obama supporters (I think many would dispute that) and exclusively as folks just mooching off the system when many people are actually working class people or retirees, who under Republican rules don’t have to pay those taxes.

So, he really shot his mouth off again, and failed to really hit the mark to boot.

There is no panic. Democrats see the massive 12,000 dollar loafer in Mitt Romney’s mouth and are rejoicing! He’s just insulted millions, and his Libya comments? Not well received. Your man is doing everything to blow this election, and we are welcoming his services to our party. Thank you, and good night.

kctim-
The Government’s job is to look out for the best interests of the country, both through measures that prevent harm to it, and measures that increase its prosperity and good fortune.

And for the love of God, quit with the liberal stereotype. If you want to argue with your self, why not comment with dialogues with your imaginary freedom-hating liberal?

The Real liberals understand the value of work, understand the virtue of fiscal responsibility. Republicans and conservatives have lashed together a strawman, which has become ragged and worn over the years, not only as Democrats have shown greater fiscal responsibility, but as Republicans have shown a fundamental lack of same.

What the Conservatives really have is the claim that they are better, a hard to fault sentiment - that government budgets should be balanced, and a bunch of policies which they say improve things in that direction, but do not. It’s only the mindless insistence on this lie that keeps it going.

John Johnson-
Funny how we get beat up for being strong supporters of Obama. But for all the promises you say he broke, we can point to dozens that he kept. Nobody expects Obama to keep every promises. But he has taken out Bin Laden, he did fight to keep the markets together, despite being handed a historic economic disaster. He’s repealed DADT, vastly improved the situation for GLBT Rights, improved the situation for unions, fought back against China’s unfair trade practices, fought for equal pay for equal work, passed healthcare reform, doubled solar energy, doubled wind energy, etc…

It’s not a perfect record, but it’s not the black hole of actual productive behavior that the Republicans are running on. And you know what? There’s plenty that Romney could run on, if he had the balls and the ability to stand up to his party.

Frank:

In your WSJ article I fail to see it make the point that those not paying taxes are dependent on Government and also vote for Obama. Maybe you can cite me the part I’m missing.

“By the way Adam, Obama’s 7 point lead (bounce) has evaporated to a 1 point lead.”

Indeed. Polls changing. Oh the conspiracy!

“Re/8% unemployment: Obama said unemployment would exceed 8% without stimulus efforts, so (you have to use your brain now) it’s implied that Obama was saying the stimulus was his way of keeping unemployment under 8%.”

It’s been said dozens of times on this blog but let me repeat it again for you. Obama said it would exceed 9% without it, and only go to near 8% with it. Of course that estimate was made in December 2008 and it also said the real high mark could be 11% not 9% due to the unpredictable nature of the economy. By the time the stimulus was law unemployment had already exceeded 8%. It wasn’t magically going to lock in 8% just because en estimate.

“Re/ tape from May; who gives a crap Adam?”

I assume that answer is you. You brought it up, not me. Time for a nap old man.

C&J,

I am not confusing rates and amounts. The figure I got for percentage of total tax collected,
I had to get from the “taxpolicycenter.org” website – Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.
This information was not in the CBO report that Rhinehold misquoted.

Yes, I understand we have a progressive tax rate. I relearn that every year, when I have my taxes
done. I’m glad you understand the reason for a progressive tax rate and even agree to it, so do I.

“What we dislike it when people who are not paying much in taxes demand a tax increase so that they
can get more free stuff.”

So what free stuff is being handed out? Ipad’s (by the way I enjoy mind), smartphones, or is it food,
education, healthcare. I would agree entitlement programs are and should be a work in progress,
but we still have a need for them.

I always find it humorous when I read someone blasting the left for some “redistribution of wealth”,
only to read then or previously that they are receiving subsidies from the government. Be it Social
Security, Medicare or something else. Evidently redistribution of wealth is in the eyes of the
beholder, or perhaps the 47% Romney was speaking of.

SD writes; “America is being burdened by a party that can’t bother to earn its way back into the good graces of voters.”

America is being burdened by a party that can’t even pass a budget for America for how many months now? America is being burdened by a president who has time to campaign on the Letterman TV show but pleads “no time” to meet with our only ally in the Middle East.

America is being burdened by a president and party who added $5 trillion in new debt on the backs of American workers, present and future, with little substantive return except for their friends.

America is being burdened by over 2500 new regulations being forced on our nations businesses and individuals.

America is being burdened by obama and his party refusing to allow the full development and use of our fossil fuel resources.

America and her children are being burdened by a huge government agency that dictates to our states and local school districts nearly every thing that must be taught, or not taught, in our classrooms with the result being that we are quickly falling behind the rest of the world in education excellence.

America and her seniors on Medicare will soon be subject to the whims of government bureaucrats for approval of their medical care.

C&J,

Certainly the top income groups pay a lions share of total taxes collected. But, that is simply because they also have a lions share of total income. The truth of the matter is that total taxation closely correlates with total income with a slightly progressive aspect.

I always find it humorous when I read someone blasting the left for some “redistribution of wealth”,
only to read then or previously that they are receiving subsidies from the government. Be it Social
Security, Medicare or something else. Evidently redistribution of wealth is in the eyes of the
beholder, or perhaps the 47% Romney was speaking of.
Posted by: Cube at September 18, 2012

Sorry Cube…you need to get in line with the liberal thinking on this. They tell us that these programs are self-sustaining with no “subsidies” required. Of course, they must say that as the new, and even bigger “obama health care” program is also self-sustaining.

“America and her seniors on Medicare will soon be subject to the whims of government bureaucrats for approval of their medical care.”

Sure, it will be much better that America and her seniors be subject to the whims of profit oriented private sector bureaucrats with a defined contribution from the feds. Good idea! They have done so well controlling costs.

Cube

I parted company with “progressives” in the 1960s.

I believe government has the duty to build and maintain big infrastructure, ensure domestic tranquility, defend us from foreign foes and generally create conditions by which people can produce prosperity.

I don’t believe it has the duty or even the right to fine tune relationships among Americans.

We all get some benefits from the government. We all benefit from public goods. But we should strive to be net contributors. This is where I think liberals have lost their way.

The liberals on this blog are always talking about our duty to the poor. What about the poor’s duty to their country? In the old days, the poor enlisted in the army etc. Today they don’t. The lowest quintile has the lowest rate of service. In the old days the poor did lots of work. Today they don’t. The poorest quintile puts in the fewest work hours and the highest puts in the most.

If you are poor, you have the duty to become less poor so that you can contribute more. You may fail in this attempt, but you need to make it and stop complaining.

Behaviors and habits make a big difference. People should work on developing better behaviors and habits. It makes me mad to see someone who is “disabled” because they are fat. Such a person has let us all down by letting himself go.

I believe in what the liberal politician JFK said. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” I believe the words of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, that we should judge by the content of character not color of skin. It seems to me that today liberals have given up on both these things.

Rich…glad you agree that government bureaucrats will determine seniors medical care. I never expected that from you. Are there any other honest libs on WB?

Rich

“Certainly the top income groups pay a lions share of total taxes collected. But, that is simply because they also have a lions share of total income. The truth of the matter is that total taxation closely correlates with total income with a slightly progressive aspect.”

We agree on these facts. I don’t see a problem, however.

C&J,

OK, lets agree further. The rich are not getting away with bloody murder and the poor aren’t begging pan handlers dependent upon government handouts. The extreme arguments from both sides do a great disservice to all Americans.

Rich

I would agree in general.

My problem with “the poor” is not as much the poor but rather policies toward them. Long-term poor suffer their plight because of behaviors, habits and attitudes. Those have to be changed before the poor can become more successful.

We are often applying economic solutions to anthropological problems. It can make the problem worse. If we tell people who are already behaving in ways that are not effective are told that solutions to their problems are beyond their ability to change or the fault of others, they will not change their ways and improve.

But let’s also talk about what we are talking about in “poor”. Anybody can be poor for a while. Most of us were poor at some point in our lives. I have problems with those who stay poor.

Rich

I would add that government policies should be aimed at creating conditions by which the poor can stop being poor. We would expect that many people would still go through periods of poverty, which often really doesn’t hurt and can be character building, especially when people are young, but they would not stay that way.

kctim,

If we are judging something “in all its disgusting glory,” I’d have to say your ‘Ef you, give me yours’ really takes the top prize.

I never even implied that was my attitude. As a Liberal, I’m perfectly willing to pay my taxes to help my fellow Americans. Everything I get through the government (like the GI Bill), I’ve earned. The fact that earning it is a luxury these days IS THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL. Liberals are PROUD to do our fair share. Which brings us to YOUR attitude…

After you talked about all being entitled to rights and freedoms, I asked: “Except for food, shelter and health care for people without the means to provide for themselves?”

You responded:This goes back to the beginning: you are not “entitled” to have those things provided to you. You are confusing the desire for something with rights.

Wow, that’s messed up. How much more antisocial can you get? your attitude isn’t “let them eat cake,” it’s “LET THEM DIE!” I don’t care what else you wrote, this is just evil.

Which brings us to…

Rhinehold,
I said: “You go tell the disabled veteran that his kids don’t have an inherent right to food or a roof over their heads. You tell the woman that got laid off by Bain so her job could go to a Chinese slave that she doesn’t have a right to health care.”

You responded: As a disabled veteran, I have no problem saying those things to those people because they are the facts.

Thank you for your service, but everything else you’ve wrote adds up to you denigrating others for collecting the same benefits you do. Wait, I’m sorry, that’s wrong… You denigrate THE GOVERNMENT for giving others the same benefits you get. Wow, that’s messed up. How much more antisocial can you get? Your attitude isn’t “F.Y.I.G.M,” but “YOU CAN DIE, I’VE GOT MINE (and so can your family)!” You conservatives really do sound like Disney villains sometimes.

“Long-term poor suffer their plight because of behaviors, habits and attitudes.”

C&J,

And, limited opportunities for education, role models, family structure, cultural isolation, racism, poverty, etc.

It is not a one sided issue. There are many reasons. It is not simply by chance that some are successful and some are destined to a life of poverty.

I think that all would agree with your observation “that government policies should be aimed at creating conditions by which the poor can stop being poor.”

However, the devil is in the details. What are the conditions that government should create or promote to alleviate poverty? I suspect that an honest examination of that question would be disappointing to the radical elements of both sides.

Sorry guys, I just had to break in here for a moment or two to show some of the hypocracy of the right over last week’s trouble in the Middle East;

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-17-2012/actual-democalypse-2012—-conservatives-rethink-middle-eastern-democracy

Talk about a flip-flop.

I now return you to your circular argument.

Rocky

It’s pretty obvious Romney, his donors and the repub and conservative apologist for Romney are waging class warfare against not just the middle class but against the poor as well. The blatant misrepresentation by Romney trying to explain the 47% as being the Obama team is proof positive of the class warfare he is engaging in.

The funny thing to me is how many conservatives will accept and defend the misinformation half truths and outright lies from movement leaders. The fact that many of the “moochers” are red state moochers who will vote for him seems to go right over their heads. The fact that many of the 47% are the elderly on SS and medicaid who will vote for him as well. Doesn’t it occur to you guys as you are on your knees licking the boots of these rich guys that they are also talking about you?

C&J your misrepresentation of the poor is a great example of class warfare as is the myth that conservatives give more to charity.

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/20/158947667/study-reveals-the-geography-of-charitable-giving

j2t2,
It’s pretty obvious Romney, his donors and the repub and conservative apologist for Romney are waging class warfare against not just the middle class but against the poor as well

YES! And not just the poor, but the people who are FORCED to be poor! In this thread, kctim and Rhinehold came right out and told me that people who CAN’T earn a living don’t deserve food, shelter and health care! They came right out and said it with their bare faces hanging out!!!

As this discussion proves, the real class warfare is being led by the ultra-rich plutocrats like Romney and their uneducated supporters against the people with no way to earn enough money to have a say in the system! People are wising up to this and that’s why Romney and the Republicans are in trouble. And now the pollsters are telling us that the Reps are in danger of loosing the Senate. Hmm… Wonder what caused that turnaround all of a sudden…

Romney trying to defend his 47% remarks on Fox is so full of BS, it’s absolutely amazing!

Check this out:

Romney did not disown his remarks in Tuesday’s FOX News interview, but he did claim that he merely meant he wanted to find good jobs for everyone.

“I do believe that we should have enough jobs and enough take home pay so that people have the privilege of higher income that allows them to be paying taxes,” he said. “I think people would like to be paying taxes. If you are doing well enough you can pay a tax. The problem right now, you see in this country, so many people have fallen in poverty that they are not paying taxes. They have to rely on government and the right course is not government handing out but government helping people get back to good jobs.”

Hahahaha!
Let’s break that down line by line.

“I do believe that we should have enough jobs and enough take home pay so that people have the privilege of higher income that allows them to be paying taxes,” he said.

Oh look, suddenly the GOP thinks a higher income job is a “privilege” they want everyone to have in order to pay taxes??? At least for the Middle Class and the Poor that is — since rich people deserve only tax breaks.
The problem with that of course is the fact that part of Mitt Romney’s “business” was to outsource American jobs, and now there aren’t “enough” of them, even though he thinks there “should” be! Gee Willikers Mittens I guess that you and many other “businessmen” shouldn’t have moved enormous numbers of good paying jobs out of this country!

“I think people would like to be paying taxes.

Sure and when he says “people” what he really means is the “Little People.” Us Poor Slobs. The Rabble. The Great Unwashed Masses.

Not the Rich. No, no. Can’t have that. After all, these all-important Rich People, or “Supercalifragilistic Job Creators” certainly don’t “like to be paying taxes” at all, right ? Sure, otherwise extraordinarily wealthy people like Mittens and Ann wouldn’t be hiding mountains of money in Swiss Bank Accounts and other off shore tax havens!

If you are doing well enough you can pay a tax.

Unless you’re REALLY well off, of course. Then you don’t have to pay taxes. The Super-Rich always find all the loopholes that were purposely written into the laws so that they can avoid having to pay taxes.

The problem right now, you see in this country, so many people have fallen in poverty that they are not paying taxes.

Yes, so many people are poor — and it’s all due to Republican policies. They’ve fallen into poverty through many, many years of Republican Union Busting. And they’ve fallen into poverty because for years and years on end “businessmen” like Mittens have been intentionally outsourcing huge numbers of what used to be good paying jobs. Fallen into poverty because they got sick, but Republican politicians with comprehensive tax payer funded government health care feel that comprehensive tax payer funded government health care for all is “Socialism.” Fallen into poverty because Republican unfunded wars, and complete mismanagement of the American economy, along with their total deregulation of Wall Street caused a catastrophic financial meltdown that will likely end up taking a decade or more for this nation to recover from.

They have to rely on government and the right course is not government handing out but government helping people get back to good jobs.”

Yes why should people think they can rely on the government for anything? Just because you paid into Social Security all your life shouldn’t mean you can collect it! Just because you’ve paid into the program doesn’t mean it should be considered an “entitlement” people should collect! Same with Medicare — that’s “Socialism”!!!
And never mind the fact that Congressional Republicans rejected EVERY SINGLE Jobs Bill, including such popular bills as the Bring Jobs Home Act which would have eliminated existing tax breaks for employers (like Mitt) who ship American jobs overseas, and the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act, and the Infrastructure Jobs Bill. Why, the government shouldn’t be expected to “help people!” That’s nothing but “Socialism”! The GOP wants all of America to hold out for that magical, golden day when enough taxes on the rich have been cut, and their bogus Trickle Down economic theory will suddenly and miraculously begin to produce glowing results!
And how dare anyone ask why the “The Job Creators” haven’t yet been able to produce any of these magical results after so many years of Tax Cuts! Don’t they understand that it’s all a question of Patriotism and Religious Faith in the Holy Invisible Hand of the “Free Market!”
Those damn Liberals and Progressives of the 47%! How dare they question the utter bogusness of ANY of the GOP’s magical rich-guy claims!

Adam

It will only be a blip. The left would love for it to gain traction, but it won’t.

“Yes why should people think they can rely on the government for anything? Just because you paid into Social Security all your life shouldn’t mean you can collect it! Just because you’ve paid into the program doesn’t mean it should be considered an “entitlement” people should collect! Same with Medicare — that’s “Socialism”!!!”

Actually that would not be socialism. If you get a return on what you paid it is actually a type of contract law in the free market.

Socialism would be more akin to where government decides what you get w/o regard to what you paid.

In the case of SS, the distribution of benefits would be very different if you really got back “what you paid”.

Re paying taxes - Romney is right. We all should be doing our parts. If you can earn more money than I do - and so you pay more taxes - it is good for everybody.

Rich

“And, limited opportunities for education, role models, family structure, cultural isolation, racism, poverty, etc.”

All these things are dynamic. Take “opportunity for education” - you can create them or not and different people respond differently. I understand that some school are terrible and we (government society) should provide other opportunities. We need to defeat entrenched interests to do that and it has not been easy. But even in bad areas, there are opportunities.

Family structure, role models, cultural isolation are all aspects of habits and behaviors. Indeed, there is a culture of poverty that we should be trying to change. We have done a great disservice to the poor by pretending that the problem lies elsehwhere.

Let me grab that third rail. If you look at inner city black culture, it is not very good at producing success. This may be the result of past racism, but it is not the result of current racism, since obviously some blacks can be phenomenally successful to become presidents, secretaries of state, four star generals, attorney generals and millionaires. But if we tell the people of the ghetto that their plight is the result of racism, it allows them and us to neglect the real cultural changes needed.

A person with the attitudes and behaviors of the ghetto will not generally be successful. There is really no way to change that by “respecting” the differences. The habits and behaviors of Colin Powell, Condi Rice of President Obama lead to success. Those of the poor ghetto kid lead to failure and often early death. We should work on changing them.

Dbs: “It will only be a blip. The left would love for it to gain traction, but it won’t.”

Maybe. I’ve seen the whole video and it’s chock full of things that will distract but it’s certainly not going to collapse his campaign like some hoped early on. The right has been quick to suggest it’s nothing at all but Romney’s response to it says otherwise. He looks bad in it, he knows it, and he’s been in damage control ever since.

It looks like his blotched Middle East comments hurt him in polling. It will be interesting to see how this changes his numbers if it does.

“Let me grab that third rail. If you look at inner city black culture, it is not very good at producing success. This may be the result of past racism, but it is not the result of current racism,…”

C&J,

Agree with your analysis. The problem, therefore, is how to remedy the consequences of past racism that has left a large part of our population trapped in an isolated cultural abyss. What do we do about the legacy of racism?

Rich

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

We need to stop talking about racism as if it is a current problem and stop wallowing in the guilt and pity of it.

Cultures can and do change. We have seen this internationally and in the U.S. Immigrant groups have come from horrible oppression to wonderful success in the U.S. within a generation. If a kid who flees communist death camps on a small boat and arrives in the U.S. with nothing but the ragged clothes on his back can make it, anybody can make it. Even African groups such as West Africans and Jamaicans do very well in the U.S.

In fact, I think that immigrants might help solve the problem. As black immigrants come to the U.S., they will provide those role models you talk about.

But we need to just move forward. I know there is some discontent with affirmative action among blacks, who complain that affirmative action benefits immigrant blacks (like Colon Powell) or those with lots of non-black ancestry or culture (like Obama). This is probably true, but not useful. We need to get the good culture to replace the bad.

I will say also that no big social problems are really solved; they are transcended. At some point it just won’t matter.

We had an interesting case with Asians. I remember when Asian were classified as minorities and there was talk of affirmative action for them. Today it is just the opposite and Asians are included with whites for all intents and purposes. In fact, if we held to the “non-white” definition, many of our best universities are already majority minority.

Royal Flush-
Republicans are in charge of the House. They refuse to acknowledge the constitutional truth that Democrats are under no obligation to approve their agenda list as law, and Democrats have realized they gain no political advantage by letting Republicans extort further concessions out of them.

We passed a budget when we had the chance, when we had enough votes to get past filibuster. We took care of business. It’s the Republicans, with their obstruction, and now their complete unwillingness to submit themselves to the logic of the constitution on legislative matters, that has the budget process broken.

And when Republicans did have exclusive control over fiscal matters, should I remind you what they did with it? You blame Obama for all that new debt, but it’s mostly tax cuts and wars, policies you originated, and which you preserved.

As far as full development of fossil fuels? America’s had both a boom in natural gas and oil, and although the first has dropped prices considerably for electricity, the latter’s not done crap to lower prices at the pump, in part because even with every resource developed, America wouldn’t be the only consumer, nor the the only producer, and the world market would only change prics by a few cents at best.

We need to move on from fossil fuels, not increase our reliance.

Second to the last paragraph: who was it now who founded No Child Left Behind, who insisted on changing the national educational landscape to favor test-taking over real education, most importantly to skew the advantage towards private institutions?

Long story short, here’s the problem: the problem is that Republicans are so steeped in their own propaganda that they can’t even see straight to recognize their own policies at work. They blast the 47% for not paying taxes, even though their policies took that burden off that 47%. They blast Democrats, essentially, for running their own healthcare reforms. They blast Democrats for the the results of their own fiscal policy, for the cost of two wars, a Medicare drug benefit their people passed, and a tax cut, too. In short, the Republicans blew it, and don’t want to admit it.

If Republicans were to realize these facts, and accept the failures of their policies, they might be able to do something about it, and avoid further failure. But since Republicans favor being oblivious and scapegoating the Democrats, they’ll never get away from their mistakes, they’ll just repeat them over and over.

C&J-
The poor still do lots of work. They’re just not visible to you. You pass them in the Supermarket, you pass them in the gas station. This notion that the Rich are doing all the work is little different than the Planters sitting on the porch sipping mint juleps and complaining about how lazy the slaves have gotten.

You lecture us on character, as if we’re kids who haven’t learned this on our own. Again, a kind of blindness. What if all you’re doing is patronizing us, annoying us by telling us something we already knew as if we didn’t?

Your party has become wrapped up in its own mythology, autistic even. Your party speaks with tin ears, behaves with little regard for how others might perceive their actions. Then they complain that they have been portrayed as too obnoxious, that their actions have been misunderstood, their words taken out of context. Could it be that your party says and does things that are objectively obnoxious, or at least disfavored by most Americans? Could it be that in trying to correct what they saw as a liberal bias in the media, Republicans and conservatives have sunk themselves so deep in their own bias that their judgment, political or practical, has been compromised? Who is left, that the right will listen to, to tell the emperors of the GOP that they’re all walking around naked, not wearing the splendor of a party in ascendance?

I don’t know what effect this will have on the election. At first blush, it seems pretty damning. But I have observed over time that the Republican’s ability to convince themselves that they’re not naked on an issue is profound. That said, Romney has suffered a series of such missteps, and they don’t seem to be misfortunes visited on him from without, but inflicted by his own isolated perspective.

I would tell you that at some point, not acknowledging that the damage can be done, or has been done, is a good way to ensure that it is never undone. Republicans could have eased back, reconsidered themselves after 2008. Unfortunately, they decided to relitigate the 2008 election. You could pretend that 2010 was an unqualified success, but what has come of it? Rather than improve the GOP’s fortunes, it’s left them with a Congress people absolutely hate, a fiscal cliff looming, and a Presidential candidate so obnoxious that half the people who might vote for him, are only voting to get back at Obama, not to support him.

Republicans wanted back power too quickly, and without earning it. They rented their resurgence, and now the bill comes due.

Adam

I don’t think Romney should have commented as he did because we should stand with our president in times of stress like that. However, he was not wrong in all he said.

The people who attacked our Embassies were wrong. The fact that there was a film on the internet makes no difference and we should not even bring it up. They had no right to attack us by any standard or reason or civilization. We should simply condemn the attacks. Period. We should not indulge the bad guys by linking their murderous barbarity with a movie on the internet.

Stephen

“The poor still do lots of work. They’re just not visible to you. You pass them in the Supermarket, you pass them in the gas station.”

If you have a fulltime job in a supermarket or gas station, you don’t stay poor. There is a difference between being not poor and being rich. I am not saying all will become rich.

The lowest 20% tends not to work much or at all. That is precisely the problem. You are conflating the working people with the poor. I will remind you that the white working class mostly votes Republican.

You slave analogy is just way out of date and may explain some of your misunderstanding. In the past, and still in many places, the rich were idle and the poor worked. In today’s America, we have seen an inversion of this. The richest 20% works many more hours than the poorest 20%. We now have a bigger problem with the idle poor.

Re character - I don’t think you have learned this on your own. It takes a lot of work to build character. I think that people like you think that it is somehow a natural thing, that all people have it in similar measure.

Old guys like me lecture young guys like you because we have seen more and have been where you are. I was a lefty when I was young for the same reasons you are. I had not seen enough of how things work. I thought that life was mostly based on luck or birth. As I got more experience, I saw how small changes in behavior or attitude can lead to really big differences in results. You don’t have to be twice as good to accomplish twice as much. A difference of a few % compounded over time make all the difference.

Re “most Americans” - I believe most Americans want to earn with their own efforts, want to get ahead and succeed and do not envy people (at least not much) who have succeeded. if I am right, conservatives will do well. If I am wrong, we are looking at a more liberal and poorer future.

If Romney has no compassion on the 47% as the left says; then Obama most certainly has no respect for the other 53% who work and pay for the entitlments promoted by the left. Obama is a European socialist and now we have proof. It’s a shame Obama was never vetted by the press 4 years ago; in fact the MSM will ignore this too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge3aGJfDSg4

Stephen

For the love of God, read and respond to what people actually write. I clearly said that a satisified people is in the best interest of the country and that we differ on what is more harmful: not providing or losing our rights and freedoms.
Without freedom, prosperity and good fortune don’t mean jack crap.

“And for the love of God, quit with the liberal stereotype. If you want to argue with your self, why not comment with dialogues with your imaginary freedom-hating liberal?”

Ah yes. This point always gets your blood boiling doesn’t it. Sadly, all I ever get is the typical response that all of “your people” seem spout.
Face it Stephen, liberal policy is dependent on infringing on the rights of the individual, so you guys are willing to sacrifice the rights of all in order to get that policy. In order to accomplish that, you guys do what you always do and redefine a word so that it covers your ass.

I know “your people” don’t hate freedom as you define it, but that does not mean the rest of us agree with your definition. Millions of us still believe in it as it was spelled out for us.
So, instead of dodging points, how about you quit with the stereotypes of those on the right, address the points actually made and back up your own points with facts, rather than emotion.

“The Real liberals understand the value of work, understand the virtue of fiscal responsibility.”

Then why do you promote taking more and more from those who work? Why do you support policy that discourages fiscal responsibility?
I understand that many liberals value work and are fiscally responsible, what I don’t understand is why you believe it is perfectly ok to force support for your beliefs.

“What the Conservatives really have…”

What the Conservatives really have is that they are not liberals. They run against you guys and then they do nothing because they fear losing re-election.
They claim to be better by saying they will take less in taxes and infringing less on rights. They run on balancing the budget because commonsense that it is bad to be in debt. And they run on policies that that don’t improve things because they don’t follow through with the needed cuts.

If you guys went back to being Democrats instead of hard left liberals, you would own the House, Senate and White House for years to come.

If you have a fulltime job in a supermarket or gas station, you don’t stay poor. There is a difference between being not poor and being rich. I am not saying all will become rich.
The lowest 20% tends not to work much or at all. That is precisely the problem. You are conflating the working people with the poor. I will remind you that the white working class mostly votes Republican.

Conservatives are so out of touch with the way people live in this country, it boggles the mind!
The guy who can’t find a job? He just needs to do more work! The woman trying to raise a family on minimum wage? She’s not poor because she has a job! THIS IS WHAT CONSERVATIVES ACTUALLY BELIEVE!
But you can get the poor and undereducated to vote Republican, so we can all be happy about that, right? Unreal…

Ah, Marc

“I never even implied that was my attitude.”

Forcefully taking from one and giving it to another IS ‘ef you, give me yours.’

“As a Liberal, I’m perfectly willing to pay my taxes to help my fellow Americans.”

As am I. We just have different beliefs on what “help” is, and this is based on what governments job is. For myself, living free helps Americans the most.

“Everything I get through the government (like the GI Bill), I’ve earned.”

Cool. I also earned and voluntarily paid for my GI Bill.

“The fact that earning it is a luxury these days IS THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL. Liberals are PROUD to do our fair share.”

Earning something for yourself is a problem? You lost me here.

Actually, you are PROUD to do what YOU believe is your “fair share,” and you condemn others who do not do what YOU believe should be their “fair share.”

“Which brings us to YOUR attitude…”

Yay, another emotional argument against individual rights and freedoms. I can’t wait.

“Wow, that’s messed up. How much more antisocial can you get? your attitude isn’t “let them eat cake,” it’s “LET THEM DIE!” I don’t care what else you wrote, this is just evil”

Of course you don’t care what else I wrote, that would require you base your opinion on facts instead of emotion.

Show me where any of us are “entitled” to have those things provided to us by government, and I will change my mind.
Prove to me that forcefully taking from one and giving to another is not infringing on the rights and freedoms of those you take from, and I will change my mind.
Prove to me that government infringing on the rights of the individual is the ONLY way to help people, and I will change my mind.

BTW, I view the taking away of individual rights and freedoms to be the ultimate “evil.”
IF you care about people being helped, stop demanding others be forced to help them, and help them yourself.
At least, that’s what I do.

kctim,
Then why do you promote taking more and more from those who work? Why do you support policy that discourages fiscal responsibility?

Statements like this are predicated on the conservative myth of the hard-working rich and the lazy poor. Go out and look around. When you see just who has to do most of the actual work in this country, maybe then we can have an honest discussion about whose money we want to “take.”

I always get a good laugh when conservatives try to talk about “fiscal responsibility.” Outside of the balanced budgets in the 90s (which had just as much to do with Clinton as the Reps in Congress), Republicans have nothing in my lifetime they can point to as being fiscally responsible, least of all their presidents… Hell, you could make the argument that Reagan and Bush 2 were the most fiscally irresponsible people in history!

The problem for Republicans is not just what they defend on Romney’s part, but what they have to sacrifice in terms of arguing common sense to do so. The more involved and esoteric the apologetics get, the more the supporter sever themselves from popular perception of Romney, or any candidate for that man, and the more they end up being ineffective and frustrated on that count.

Years worth of this has made it difficult for the GOP to keep out of damage control, much less get good candidates out there. They exile the normal human beings, the folks who can agree with most other American on most of what they want, and replace them with inarticulate, often offensive ideologues who rely on trying to turn people against each other to win.

Obama’s not losing against Romney right now for one very crucial reason: any time he gets a chance to build the biggest coalition, the President at least tries to build that coalition, and he doesn’t carry the kind of attitudes that make comments like Mitt Romney’s inevitable in moments of candor. You can manage image all you want to, but sooner or later your candidate’s going to tell people what he really thinks, and if you’re afraid of that happening, if that’s a disaster when people find out the truth, then maybe your politics and your choice of candidates needs some work.

kctim,
I said: “The fact that earning it is a luxury these days IS THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL. Liberals are PROUD to do our fair share.”

You replied: Earning something for yourself is a problem? You lost me here.

The problem is that a lot of people either can’t or don’t have the opportunity to earn enough for themselves. See the difference?

Show me where any of us are “entitled” to have those things provided to us by government, and I will change my mind.
Prove to me that forcefully taking from one and giving to another is not infringing on the rights and freedoms of those you take from, and I will change my mind.
Prove to me that government infringing on the rights of the individual is the ONLY way to help people, and I will change my mind.
BTW, I view the taking away of individual rights and freedoms to be the ultimate “evil.”
IF you care about people being helped, stop demanding others be forced to help them, and help them yourself.
At least, that’s what I do.

You know, I’ve never felt the need to pull out the “you should go live in Somalia” card on anyone before now. But you take this kind of talk a lot further than even most conservatives. I have to wonder if you, personally, wouldn’t prefer a place with anarchy and no actual “society” at all…

Frank: “It’s a shame Obama was never vetted by the press 4 years ago; in fact the MSM will ignore this too…”

The funny thing about that video is that he’s basically talking about redistribution in the same sense as when he told Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread the wealth around by increasing taxes on the top income earners. You know of that phrase and you know about Joe the Plumber right? So how can your new video be evidence President Obama wasn’t vetted? Obama campaigned on redistribution even if he didn’t always use that word to describe it. We know what he means.

This is a dead horse you keep beating. No one was vetted more than Obama in the history of campaigns but because there is always one more thing you want you have to say he wasn’t vetted enough.

Marc A

Some people have problems. This is how it was, how it is and how it ever will be. We can feel human compassion for a woman trying to raise a family on minimum wage, but from a policy point of view we need to ask what decisions she made put her into this unpleasant situation. It could be simply the result of really bad luck, but there is usually some other factors at work. These should be addressed.

You have actually proposed no solutions. Rather you have chosen to revel in the ersatz morality of one who wants to be generous by giving away other people’s money, w/o regard to whether it makes the underlying situation better or worse.

Few people earn minimum wage for more than a short time. As they get experience and skills, they move up. Even McDonald’s and Pizza Hut do not pay most of their employees only minimum wage.

The question, however, is not how poor people are or not, but how to help them stop being poor. This is good for them and for society if they can make greater contributions and get paid more for that.

Re your comment to kctim

I love government and consider the U.S. Federal government one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The problem is that it has been misused and misdirected. I oppose government handouts to the rich, which is one big reason I oppose Obama’s crony capitalism. I also oppose handouts to the poor. Government should stick to its core functions and do them well. We used to build roads and airports much more effectively than we do today. We would be unable to build Hoover Dam today the way our government works now. Let’s get back to what we do well and let the rest alone.

We also used to provide better public education and we did it when government and budgets were much smaller.

Our government has grown bigger and fatter but not more effective. If you take a once great athlete, now grown fat, giving him more food does not improve the situation.

“Frank: “It’s a shame Obama was never vetted by the press 4 years ago; in fact the MSM will ignore this too…”

The funny thing about that video is that he’s basically talking about redistribution in the same sense as when he told Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread the wealth around by increasing taxes on the top income earners. You know of that phrase and you know about Joe the Plumber right? So how can your new video be evidence President Obama wasn’t vetted? Obama campaigned on redistribution even if he didn’t always use that word to describe it. We know what he means.

This is a dead horse you keep beating. No one was vetted more than Obama in the history of campaigns but because there is always one more thing you want you have to say he wasn’t vetted enough.”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 19, 2012 11:22 AM

Adam Ducker, thank you for not letting us down. I heard the exact same response from Alan Combs this morning on Fox News. That he was not talking about personal income; he was talking about government wealth.

Well…what a dumbass comment…the government doesn’t have any wealth, except for what they take from US citizens. Obama was vetted by no one in the leftist MSM. It took 1 billion dollars and the MSM to get Obama elected in 2008; and it will take 1 billion dollars and the leftist MSM to try to get him elected again. He was vetted??? What a dumbass comment… The MSM is covering for him…why do you think the MSM newspapers are going bankrupt; why do you think Fox News has the audience? It won’t happen again.

Mother Jones had a little over 2 million hits on their site yesterday, even after the MSM ran the Romney video ALL DAY LONG. Glenn Beck’s the Blaze (internet TV, you do know about the Blaze, don’t you) has 3 1/2 million daily viewers. No one went to Mother Jones, because no one cares about the Romney video. It’s just another Obama talking point and by next week will be no more. In the mean time Romney is passing Obama in the polls, but you don’t really believe polls do you Adam?

C&J,
I don’t disagree with what you say about government inefficiency and Obama’s attitude toward economics. But when try to write about what our workers are going through, you are still amazingly out of touch.

We can feel human compassion for a woman trying to raise a family on minimum wage, but from a policy point of view we need to ask what decisions she made put her into this unpleasant situation.

Interesting that right off the bat, you just assume that it’s most likely their own fault. This goes back to the conservative myth of the lazy poor.

The question, however, is not how poor people are or not, but how to help them stop being poor. This is good for them and for society if they can make greater contributions and get paid more for that.

That’s a peculiar thing to say in a country with less and less opportunity for upward mobility and 30 years of stagnant wages. Like I said, out of touch.

I oppose government handouts to the rich, which is one big reason I oppose Obama’s crony capitalism.

While this is rather touching C&J , opposing the handouts to the rich and all why do our conservatives in Congress continue to give tax credits to companies that off shore jobs?

Do you also oppose the crony capitalism of Reagan, Bush and most of the conservatives in Congress? Or is it just Obama’s you oppose? Seems to me you are saying this just to attack Obama and not because you are against crony capitalism.

Obama was vetted by no one in the leftist MSM. It took 1 billion dollars and the MSM to get Obama elected in 2008; and it will take 1 billion dollars and the leftist MSM to try to get him elected again. He was vetted??? What a dumbass comment… The MSM is covering for him…

The only dumb ass comment Frank is yours. You are blaming the MSM for Romney, for Obama, for everything, how much more of a dumb ass can you be? Especially whilst you tell us you are a FAUX viewer. The intentional dumbing down of conservatives by Faux and other such media outlets has taken its toll on the country Frank. In fact it now seems safe to say Faux is not only dumbing you down it is “dumbassing” you down.

It is time to take responsibility conservatives you picked Romney and you blame the media for his continuing meltdown. You change the subject to Obama, you do everything but accept responsibility, how pathetic is that?

Marc

“YES! And not just the poor, but the people who are FORCED to be poor! In this thread, kctim and Rhinehold came right out and told me that people who CAN’T earn a living don’t deserve food, shelter and health care! They came right out and said it with their bare faces hanging out!!!”

Now that’s not entirely true, is it Marc? What I said was that none of us are “entitled” to have those things provided to us by government. It has nothing to do with what a person “deserves” because emotion is needed to determine that.

And, for the record, I am not a Conservative. I believe in and support our country and its Constitution, not a political party.
If you hang around long, you will see that I am consistent in those views.

According to a new Gallup poll (Sept 6-9, 2012), the vast majority of Democrats believe the government doesn’t do enough. Gollleee…who would have guessed that?

% Gov doing too much Rep 82% Dems 24% Inds 62%
% Gov should do more Rep 15% Dems 67% Inds 29%

Along with the economy and the inflamed Middle East, I believe the election will also be decided on how the voter perceives whether the government is doing too much or too little. Dems should be worried about the number of Independents who believe government does too much.

Royal Flush; when one takes a look at the polls regarding how the voters feel about the direction America is going, one finds the polls to be in complete disagreement with the MSM polls who are trying to show Obama with a lead. They always seem to show Romney slightly behind Obama; but Obama never seems to get more than 45-46% of the vote. Why are we to believe there is 10% of Americans who are yet undecided? Who believes 10% of the voters are undecided?

Let’s go back to these undesputed polls: 40% conservative, 40% moderate, and 20% liberal. Now let’s throw in Obama’s 1998 call for redistribution of wealth, Obama’s complete lack of knowledge of what’s going on in the ME, Obama’s war on oil/gas/coal energy (1200 coal miners losing their jobs in WV this week), Obama’s payoff to his bundlers with tax dollars, and Obama’s lack of being involved in any of his security meetings but plenty of time for Letterman/JZ/Beyonce. It don’t look good for Obama with the independents.

I have a question. Isn’t it illegal to record someone in Florida, according to Florida law, without their approval or knowledge?

You’re right rank. Please don’t let the dem/libs on WB know this as they are already paranoid enough. Let them keep reveling in all the good news they read in the MSM. When their bubble bursts after the November election we will just get on with the business of undoing much of the harm they have caused.

Don’t you just love this one: 63% of voters either don’t care or are MORE likely to vote for Romney as a result of his 47% comment. Can anyone say “fart in the wind”? The attacks on Romney were a waste of time. I love it.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157544/voters-reaction-romney-comments-tilts-negative.aspx

“These results are from a one-night USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Sept. 18 among 885 registered voters. Respondents were read a direct quotation from Romney’s comments (exact wording in the graph above) and asked to give their reaction.

A substantial majority of Americans have already made up their minds about their vote choice, so it is likely that many of those who claim to be “more likely” or “less likely” to vote for Romney are, in essence, indicating that the comments reinforced their pre-existing vote choice. This may be particularly true of Democrats, who have the strongest immediate reactions, with more than two-thirds saying the comments make them less likely to vote for Romney. Given that Gallup Daily tracking data show that only 5% of Democrats are voting for Romney anyway, it is unlikely that these sentiments from Democrats will significantly change the course of the election.

Similarly, since 92% of Republicans are voting for Romney, it is unlikely that the 44% of Republicans who say the comments make them more likely to vote for Romney will affect the race.

But independents — voters who are, by definition, less fixed in their partisanship — tilt toward the “less likely” over the “more likely” view by a 29% to 15% margin — although more than half say Romney’s comments make no difference.”

Sorry Royal, typo, it is Frank and not rank; although some may consider me to be rank, LOL.

What will SD, AD, Adrienne, j2, and the rest of the leftist do the day after the election? With the money spent, and the MSM in the tank for Obama; when he loses, what will they do? Are we talking suicide watch?

These parroting liberals on WB live in a cocoon of Obamaland; but I guarantee the Obama people are in panic mode. As I said before, I know no one who claims they are voting for Obama and I was viciously attacked for living in a small world. But, unlike SD and AD, who are ashamed of their lily white skin and are wanna be afro-Americans; but I am the real thing, and I know no blacks in my circle of acquaintances who say they are voting for Obama.

Well Frank…let us not worry about all the libs on this site or what they may do after the election. Those who work will do fine. Those who can work and won’t…well, they won’t fare so well.

Marc A, great posts in this thread.

Sadly however, I’m aware that all that you have said here will not make any impression whatsoever.
Nothing anyone on the left can say ever makes an impression because we are talking to people who have proved over and over (both in this blog and all over the country) that they aren’t interested in facts, reality, ethics or morality.

What’s amazing about this is that whenever we see Middle Class (and Poor) Republicans defending Mitt Romney, including his recent outrageous remarks, it is clear that they are choosing not to think Mitt could ever be talking about THEM!

Even though he was.

When he says 47% of Americans are worthless moochers because they’re on the left, they assume that means they must automatically be worthy-producer types simply because they vote Republican!
It doesn’t matter if these people are often on Social Security and/or use Medicare and are not taxed. Or if are collecting some sort of disability assistance and are not taxed. Or if they have children who are in the military or in college and are not taxed. Or if they’ve been deducting child tax credits off their income tax, and therefore don’t end up paying taxes, he couldn’t have been talking about people like them.

Yet that was exactly what Romney was doing. The filthy rich guy who keeps a mountain of money in Swiss bank accounts and in the Cayman Islands and a bunch of other off shore tax havens in order to avoid paying a ton of taxes in America was ragging on middle class and poor Americans for not paying enough taxes — a fact he intends to rectify.
If there was ever any doubt that the GOP stands for class warfare of the rich against the poor, Mitt Romney just removed every bit of doubt.

But these idiots will continue to deny this.

Because these are the kind of people who have always been willing to cut off their own noses to spite their faces. So, when Republicans who are not wealthy heard Mitt Romney looking down his nose at them, and trashing and belittling the character of anyone who isn’t rich like him and all the people in the room at that 50,000 dollar a plate fundraiser, that didn’t apply to them. When he calls half the people in this country worthless moochers and takers who he doesn’t care at all about, and who he won’t concern himself with should he become president, they will insist that he simply COULDN’T be talking about anyone who stands on the political right!

No, it’s got to be all those horrible “Socialist” people on the Left! None of whom work. None of whom strive hard for anything! Many of whom are often (gasp!) Brown and Black people!

It’s tragically sad, but true.

Frank: “…when he loses, what will they do? Are we talking suicide watch?”

Don’t get me wrong. I think Obama can lose this. But so far he’s still in the lead. You’ll need your candidate to not look like an idiot for at least a few days in a row between now and the election to pull this thing out. Since his failure of a convention it’s been one misstep after another. Instead of questioning the quality of Romney as a candidate you just blame liberals for his failings instead. Convenient, right?

“These parroting liberals on WB live in a cocoon of Obamaland; but I guarantee the Obama people are in panic mode.”

It’s rich to hear talk of cocoons from a man who sees conspiracy behind any evidence that the economy is OK or that Romney is losing. Does this level of buffoonery on your part require great effort or does it just come natural to you?

Royal Flush

“let us not worry about all the libs on this site or what they may do after the election.”

Thinking about the meltdown the left here will have when Obama loses sends a tingle up my leg. lol!

Adam…do you really believe…”the economy is OK”? Your belief that Romney is losing is based upon what?

Can one of the lefties please tell me why obama said he didn’t have time to meet with the leader of Israel, our only ally in the Middle East, but found time to politic on the Letterman TV show? I suggest this kind of non-presidential conduct by obama is beyond “buffoonery” and is actual incompetence.

I have two very liberal step-sons who lived with their biological liberal father for a couple of years. Their liberal ideas about sharing the wealth of others extended to sharing their clothing. After washing clothes, which didn’t occur often, everything would go in a big pile in the middle of a room. They would all take clothes from the pile as needed.

Sometimes one of my sons would complain that either his brother or father wasn’t being fair as they were taking more clean clothes out of the pile than he was.

Well…folks, that’s the end of my little story, but I believe it shows how liberals really think.

The libs on WB believe all wealth should be placed in a pile and each should withdraw what they need. Trouble is, some would take more than others and then…the killing would begin.

Royal Flush: “Adam…do you really believe…’the economy is OK’?”

Yes, indeed I do. Employment lags many factors in the economy. With the housing market improving, consumer confidence up, small business optimism on the rise, the auto industry doing OK, we are primed to see actual notable gains in employment next year.

“Your belief that Romney is losing is based upon what?”

Polls show Obama leading Romney both on a national level and on an electoral college level as of today. If you have an alternative measurement of the state of the race let us know.

“Can one of the lefties please tell me why obama said he didn’t have time to meet with the leader of Israel, our only ally in the Middle East, but found time to politic on the Letterman TV show?”

Netanyahu himself said they’ve met a lot and he didn’t feel snubbed due to the scheduling conflict. The only ones making a big deal about this are folks who look for any excuse to suggest Obama hates Israel. It’s hilarious how the Christian Right uses Israel as a wedge issue.

Royal Flush: “The libs on WB believe all wealth should be placed in a pile and each should withdraw what they need.”

Really? I doubt a single liberal on this blog believes that. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone ever who believes that.

Charts: You Might Be the 47 Percent If…
…you don’t owe federal income taxes because you’re a working mom, a soldier, a millionaire, or a corporation.

Adam writes; “Polls show Obama leading Romney both on a national level and on an electoral college level as of today. If you have an alternative measurement of the state of the race let us know.”

If one only accepts the polls they agree with I can understand why they don’t know what is going on. My belief in a Romney win is based upon much more than fallible and skewed polls.

Netanyahu is a statesman and I would not expect him to embarrass the American president. One can’t say the same for obama. Do you really believe the White House bullshit about scheduling conflict? obama had time to spend politicking. Adam…stand on your head for a few minutes…it is being starved of blood.

Adam writes; “I doubt a single liberal on this blog believes that (wealth should be shared equally). You’d be hard pressed to find anyone ever who believes that.”

Adam…you just must pay better attention to your fellow libs on WB. I recall that every single lib on WB supports OWS. The goal of that nasty group was to distribute wealth. obama has declared that his goal is to distribute wealth. Doughboy writes about wealth distribution. Adrienne has an orgasm every time she finds an article promoting wealth distribution.

But tell us Adam…is it a fact that you don’t believe in wealth distribution?

Funny stuff there Adrienne.
You speak of “facts” and “reality,” and then post a link to a fictional TV show and then provide only your opinion of Romney and those on the right.

And then, to top it all off, you mention “morality?” Seriously? When you do nothing but preach about Conservatives pushing their morals onto you? LOL!!!

Freakin classic!

Adam…a little more about polls. Here was the reporting about the recall election of Gov Walker in Wisconsin shortly before the election results were determined…

“Public opinion polls leading up to the vote had shown Walker holding a narrowing lead and early exit polls suggested the race would be tight, with 34% of those responding identifying themselves as Democrats, 35% saying they’re Republicans and 31% saying they’re independents.”

The actual results of the election were…Walker 53, Barrett 46.

Anyone who studied the election in Wisconsin knew, from sources other than polls, and by using their own thinking, that Walker would win. Libs on WB were convinced he wouldn’t…just as you now believe obama will win based upon the polls you watch.

You are not part of that 47 Percent If…

You’re not part of that 47 percent who voted for Obama the first time.
You don’t consider yourself a victim.
You don’t want government to take care of you.
You don’t believe you are entitled to everything.
You won’t vote for Obama no matter what.

I don’t see what the big deal is with the Romney tape.
Fact is, it isn’t in either candidates best interest to worry about or even care about getting the votes of people who are going to vote for their opponent no matter what. Might as well concentrate on the votes you can get.
Now, if Romney were to become President and then disregard and exclude the beliefs, values and lives of half the population, as Obama has done, THEN you guys will have something to complain about.

First, I’m going to deal with this “Obama hasn’t been vetted” BS. Folks, you’re really telling me that after four years of this crap, you’re not through vetting him? He has been denied the benefit of the doubt to an extreme extent by his rivals, even down to his birthplace.

Nonetheless, they have neither managed to send him to the depths of his predecessor, nor prove their most inflammatory charges.

Obama’s been vetted, folks. If you’re still trying at this point, move on.

C&J-
You can talk about being generous with our money, and frame that as being wrong, but can’t I turn that around on you, and ask why we were being violent with our money for the last decade? I’m no dove, but I say that to point out that you’re hiding the fact that you are trying to sneak past your political views as to whether government should be generous or not past the fact that any such generosity (or violence), is decided as an act of Congress, as it should be, as it was designed to be.

Frank-
Mister, his words are out there, and I don’t know what kind of context justifies him alleging that 47% of Americans, particularly the ones who pay no income taxes, are all just mooches. Leaving out the fact that he is speaking of a group that demographically should include many of his own voters, including seniors and working class whites, this man is passing judgment on those who his own party’s policies consigned to this category.

You’re going around with the mistaken impression that surely if your people’s comments are getting negative flack, it must be how they are being reported. Except, often enough, these things are often just chucked out there wholesale. You get to hear the context, often enough, and it doesn’t necessarily dull the sharp edges of what’s being said.

The problem for Republicans here is that they are sharpening their talking points, coming out of the closet on some pretty hair-raising positions and beliefs, but have convinced themselves that any negative reaction is the result of media bias against them.

No, sir, you’re not naked, you’re just wearing clothes that only the people who truly admire your majesty can see!

The tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes is a classic for a reason. In most of Europe, for the longest time, people were ruled by folks who were often flattered and echo-chambered in their courts into believing that they were well loved, and that their policies were working well, when they were not.

Here, we have the advantage of a free press, of free speech, and the fact we democratically elect our leaders. But you still get situations where parties and their followers get trapped in cycles of flattery and self-aggrandizement, which only get broken when the whole trainwreck slams into something solid.

Your party’s problem is that it’s got few people in it with the inclination or the courage to tell its people that they’re being morons, that they’re being obnoxious, that their policies aren’t working, and aren’t popular, to boot. You got too many yes men, too much of a biased media operation of your own. You think what you need is a media system that kisses your ass, but what you really need is a system that holds your people’s feet to the fire and questions your assumptions.

You need people who will tell folks like Mitt Romney much, much earlier that they’re screwing up, because once you get to this point, once you’ve gotten that far into the mess, you’ve already lost in many ways.

As far as the polls go on the response? Don’t think that I don’t see your tactic. One thing you should consider is that in an election this close, you really shouldn’t spare any percentage, and this is not going to be forgotten by anybody, anytime soon. This is a new open front for the Democrats, just as the Libya comments, the tax returns, the rather flat convention, the lies your side depended on, etc.

We’re going to use it, it’s going to play in commercials. The damage is not all done, not in this instant. This is going to hurt for quite a long time.

Royal Flush: “If one only accepts the polls they agree with I can understand why they don’t know what is going on. My belief in a Romney win is based upon much more than fallible and skewed polls.

I typically go with an average of multiple polls. It tends to be a bit more accurate than just those I agree with and I trust polls better than whatever it is you’re going with.

“… The actual results of the election were…Walker 53, Barrett 46.”

It’s untruthful to suggest the results of the Walker election differed dramatically from the polls. The polls predicted the outcome and the average of the polls in the last week or so before the election was +6.7% with a final result of +6.8%. I fail to see your point given how reality differs from your opinion of the events.

“Do you really believe the White House bullshit about scheduling conflict?”

I don’t really care, frankly. I’m not obsessed with making folks think I give a crap about the nation of Israel the way the American right wing does. Israel is our ally and our relationship is strong. Obama has done no more or no less to support Israel than any president ever has.

“But tell us Adam…is it a fact that you don’t believe in wealth distribution?”

I, like President Obama and probably every liberal on this blog, believe the rich should continue to pay more in taxes than the poor do and that percentages of our tax dollars should go into programs to support segments of the American population like old people, children, unemployed persons, underemployed person, etc. Only a liar would distort those views to suggest we believe all wealth should be placed in a pile and each should withdraw what they need. So what are you doing?

SD wrote; “Your party’s problem is that it’s got few people in it with the inclination or the courage to tell its people that they’re being morons, that they’re being obnoxious, that their policies aren’t working, and aren’t popular, to boot.”

Yup…except for the results of the election in 2010 when the dems got their asses kicked. Do you really think voter sentiment has changed that much in two years? If so, you should also stand on your head for a few minutes to get some more blood to your brain.

obmam is circling the drain and will be washed away in November.

So Adam does believe in wealth distribution. Now…we are only debating how much he believes should go into the community pile.

Royal Flush: “…just as you now believe obama will win based upon the polls you watch.”

And again for the record I do not anywhere say Obama is going to win because he leads polls right now. I’ve said multiple times that Obama is leading now and if and only if this trend holds he will win.

Royal Flush-
You should take note of something: many of them thought in the recall that the purpose of such a recall was restricted to official misconduct. Also, one of the more recent polls there has Obama Ahead 54 to 40.

I should point out that the Gallup Poll that Republicans talk about shows lower self-identification numbers for Republicans than Democrats, and they also show that most of the moderates skew to the Democrats, in addition to the liberals.

I should also point out, on the more recent question of what the effect of the 47% controversy polls would be, is that Romney’s net negative on that poll. The headline itself says it. More people have told them that they are less likely to vote for Romney than have told them that they’re more likely.

I wouldn’t argue that’s necessarily huge, but if you were looking for a positive here, your biggest positive is the 43% who didn’t change their minds. But those 43% likely are both the people who are for him, and now 36% are less likely to vote for him.

It doesn’t take much of those people to turn a close election into one that leans Obama. I don’t think fate will be kind enough to Republicans to let the blood in this wound clot. I think Romney’s going to keep on making stupid comments, and he’s going to keep on giving responses that are going to be no more convincing than his other remarks.

Adam…I stand corrected.

Royal Flush: “So Adam does believe in wealth distribution. Now…we are only debating how much he believes should go into the community pile.”

A debate would imply you are somehow making logical arguments or presenting facts. What you’re doing is the exact opposite of debate and I wish you’d give it a rest.

I gave a direct quote from a leading poll taker and exit poller regarding polls and Walker’s recall vote election and Daugherty writes this…

“You should take note of something: many of them thought in the recall that the purpose of such a recall was restricted to official misconduct.”

What the hell has that got to do with flawed and skewed polls?

Now, Doughboy tells us of a magical poll showing obama leading by 14 points. I think SD is writing too much fiction and is getting that confused with reality.

Please tell us Mr. Daugherty why the electorate has changed so much from the rout they gave the dems two years ago.

Adam…the cloths pile in this instance is the amount of revenue collected and the money from debt incurred that is spent by the government. You want more money in the cloths pile to be distributed to those who don’t put any money in the cloths pile. Am I wrong about that?

RF,

“I recall that every single lib on WB supports OWS. The goal of that nasty group was to distribute wealth.”

Do you disagree with their “right” to demonstrate?

While I don’t necessarily agree with everything they demonstrated for, I do support their right to do so.

You say their goal was distribute wealth. Do you assume that is their only goal? Did you even bother to look it up?

Rocky

Rocky asks; “Do you disagree with their (OWS) “right” to demonstrate? Nope. I disagree with breaking the law.

Yes, I did look at their posts about their goals. Most of it was simply nonsense and centered on taking from those who have and giving it to them. Could you define the Noble Goals you found in their movement?

Stephen

“You can talk about being generous with our money, and frame that as being wrong …”

These are policy choices. You cannot be generous by advocating the use of government money, just as I cannot be brave by advocating that others go and fight.

What bothers me is that many liberals think that they are generous because they advocate more government spending. Conversely they accuse conservatives of being stingy for not wanting to do this. These are policy choices.

Liberals are not generous by their policy choices, as conservatives are not brave by theirs. It depends on what YOU do. If you give your money to charity, you may be called generous. If I go to Iraq I might be called brave, but in neither case does our voting come into the question.

Adrienne

I don’t know if you work or are brown or black. I oppose the growth of government programs because I believe that they often exacerbate poverty and hurt those they supposedly help. We saw that with the war on poverty.

Marc A

“Interesting that right off the bat, you just assume that it’s most likely their own fault.” When you have a problem, it is smart to look for the things that you can change. I do believe that if you remain poor for a long period of time it results from your choices and behaviors.

The only think consistent in all your success and failures is you. If you are looking for the variable that make the difference, that is the first place to look.

Incomes have risen in the median from 1982-2007. They have recently dropped to 1995 levels during the Obama doldrums. But even if we do have stagnant income, it does not mean that YOUR income is stagnant.

I have lived in all five quintiles from the poorest to the richest. Most people are poorer when younger and build wealth. Those that who do not are probably making poor choices or are very unlucky. I am not sure which is dominant in any particular case, but poor decisions are more commonly the cause than poor luck.

Royal Flush: “You want more money in the cloths pile to be distributed to those who don’t put any money in the cloths pile. Am I wrong about that?”

First of all I disagree with the suggestion that we’re taking money from those who contribute to give to those who do not. That’s hateful right wing nonsense. Second, I would like the top 1% to pay 3% more or so but that is mostly about paying off debt than it is about having more money to “redistribute” to folks.

RF,

“Could you define the Noble Goals you found in their movement?”

Can you define the “Noble Goals” set out in the RNC?

Surely you don’t agree with all of them, or are you just a dittohead that agrees with everything Rush says?

Two goals that stuck out were;

A reduction in the influence of corporations on politics.

and

Repeal of Citizens United.

At the sites I visited redistribution of wealth was way down the list.

Look, nothing is ever perfect. Even though I try to be perfect in my work every day some days are better than others, but I am at least trying to achive perfection.

Rocky

Oh, this is very funny!

Ann Romney: Really, Mitt doesn’t disdain the Poor! And, the reason everyone should vote for him is because he’s so rich he doesn’t even need to take the president’s job for of the money!

Hahaha! I think they should get Annie out there more often! Either of these would make a fantastic campaign slogans, no?

Mitt Romney 2012 — I know it sounded like it, but I truly don’t disdain the poor!
Mitt Romney 2012 — It’s not like I actually need this job!

Btw, I know it’s hard to keep up with all the flip-flopping, but it seems that Mittens has decided the time is now right to be proud of RomneyCare!

Why the change, you may ask? Well according to Mitt, before he couldn’t admit how proud he was, because:

during my primary we thought it might not be helpful.”

Yeah, you see, he once needed the Tea Baggers on board for the primary, so he acted like he had changed his mind and decided an individual mandate was not at all good. That was “helpful” to him then. But now he seems to like it!

Or does he???
Hmmm…. Perhaps this could be subject to change at a later date…?

And yet, that being the case I’m now hoping that maybe next week Slippery Flippery Mitt Romney will also decide to embrace being adamantly “devoted and dedicated to a woman’s right to choose”?!
After all, that was very “helpful” too, once upon a time…

Saw this quote. It really gets to the heart of the matter as to why democrats can’t stand Mitt Romney, and why many republicans really don’t like him much either. I don’t 100% disagree with some republican policies, but this guy is just not the guy to run the country:

“I don’t care who anyone votes for as long as its not Romney. Here is a man who has no core values, no real beliefs, no sincerity, no honor, and no loyalty even to himself. You cannot respect a man who lies several times a day. He is just a man who is so ambitious that he threw away whatever he really believes on issues a long time ago. He can change 100% in less than a day. He says something, and if it turns out to not be popular, he changes it.”

“It’s rich to hear talk of cocoons from a man who sees conspiracy behind any evidence that the economy is OK or that Romney is losing. Does this level of buffoonery on your part require great effort or does it just come natural to you?”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 19, 2012 4:04 PM

I love it; keep running your mouth Ducker. It will just mean more crow for you to eat in November.

“Polls show Obama leading Romney both on a national level and on an electoral college level as of today. If you have an alternative measurement of the state of the race let us know.”

So Adam Ducker, now you trust the polls? So what we have is you now trust the polls, before you didn’t trust the polls. Adam, it seems every time you talk about polls, you have a different view.

“Can one of the lefties please tell me why obama said he didn’t have time to meet with the leader of Israel, our only ally in the Middle East, but found time to politic on the Letterman TV show?”

“Netanyahu himself said they’ve met a lot and he didn’t feel snubbed due to the scheduling conflict. The only ones making a big deal about this are folks who look for any excuse to suggest Obama hates Israel. It’s hilarious how the Christian Right uses Israel as a wedge issue.”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 19, 2012 5:00 PM

You know Adam; if you would listen to Netanyahu’s comments, you would understand his sense of urgency; urgency that is not shared by Obama. Obama is talk and Israel knows it. Obama cares more for the Muslims than he does Israel and he will not support Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kkQjoXWkGZs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kkQjoXWkGZs

Stephen Daugherty, Re/Romney’s comments; who gives a shit. The polls have already been posted by Gallup, 63% of voters either don’t care or would vote for Romney for making the comments. So your continued dumbass comments don’t mean a thing. Farts in the wind.

“As far as the polls go on the response? Don’t think that I don’t see your tactic. One thing you should consider is that in an election this close, you really shouldn’t spare any percentage, and this is not going to be forgotten by anybody, anytime soon. This is a new open front for the Democrats, just as the Libya comments, the tax returns, the rather flat convention, the lies your side depended on, etc.

We’re going to use it, it’s going to play in commercials. The damage is not all done, not in this instant. This is going to hurt for quite a long time.”

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at September 19, 2012 6:04 PM

Stephen, your side has nothing else; you have thrown everything you have at Romney and Obama hasn’t moved in the polls. Obama is losing, unless you are able to commit voter fraud, he doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of wining. The real question is, what will you do Stephen? The loss of Obama is only part of the lefts defeat. You will lose the Senate too; and conservative TP candidates will move closer to setting the agenda. We will demand the abolishment of the DOE and the EPA. We will demand fossil fuel independence by drilling and mining for our own. We will demand tax reform and real cuts. We will demand the end of base line budgeting. My guess is Reid, Pelosi, and a few more will retire and I say don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

I saved this last comment for last: “You think what you need is a media system that kisses your ass, but what you really need is a system that holds your people’s feet to the fire and questions your assumptions.”

This qualifies as a super “Dumbass” comment by Doughboy. I can’t believe you can even use “media” and “hold your feet to the fire” in the same sentence. We certainly know the media never holds the lefts feet to the fire. This is a joke.

Re/OWS; another fart in the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow.

It’s interesting how the socialists on WB get everything wrong. Have they ever made a correct prediction?

Frank: “I love it; keep running your mouth Ducker. It will just mean more crow for you to eat in November.”

What will I have to eat crow about? Do tell. I’m beginning to have doubts about your reading comprehension skills if you think I’ve made some statements I’ll have to take back come November.

“So Adam Ducker, now you trust the polls? So what we have is you now trust the polls, before you didn’t trust the polls. Adam, it seems every time you talk about polls, you have a different view.”

I honestly have no clue what you’re talking about. I love polls and have for years. Find me a time when I said I didn’t trust polls. I have consistently defended polls against folks like yourself and Bill who seek to discredit any poll that differs from your anecdotal view of the world.

“Obama cares more for the Muslims than he does Israel and he will not support Israel.”

To suggest Obama’s policies on Israel differ in any way from other modern presidents is simply a right wing fantasy. The right’s phony obsession with Israel is hilarious.

Frank: “Obama is losing, unless you are able to commit voter fraud, he doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of wining.”

Obama is losing? Based on what metric? What measurement? No one you know is voting for Obama so he’s probably going to lose zero to 98% to Romney? Right?

At this point I believe you’re just shouting whatever you think at any given moment and you don’t care how much reality differs from how you want things to be.

No time for Netanyahu, but does have time for this:

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/statuses/248501257055121409

Royal Flush-
Do I think voter sentiment has changed so much in two years? So you’re saying its impossible? Why? Voters went from reconfirming the GOP majority and Presidency in 2004, in such a way that they were talking about a permanent majority, to 2006, where they lost both houses at once. Democrats went from getting overwhelming numbers in 2008, to getting whacked pretty hard in 2010. So, empirically, we can say that voter sentiments can switch pretty fast, and your party, of all parties, should know better.

As for Wisconsin, Here’s the Washington Times.. The article does allege that the poll’s somewhat skewed in its population sample, but even then, it says if that were corrected for, the President would still lead by 51-to-43 points, an eight point margin. Still not good news for the governor.

What you’re counting on, the fear, the disgust over the whole Healthcare Reform debate in Washington, is old news. The Tea Party’s actually gotten into power, and what has it to show for that? Not much. The Tea Party House has been more party than house, with shorter work weeks, much, much less output, and a serious lack of willingness to make the compromises necessary to legislate successfully with a Democratic President and Democratic Senate in office.

The Tea Party should be no more secure, given its promises, tha the President should have been given his. It says something that the rate of job creation has lessened since they got into office, not increased, and that the main challenge to our economy at this point, the fiscal cliff, would have never existed, but for their actions in forcing the debt ceiling debacle.

C&J-
It’s a distraction, and an assumption on your part that we’re trying to be generous for our own sake, to make ourselves feel generous. I think the better way to put it is that we believe poverty needs to be reduced and mitigated if we want a society that functions not merely more fairly, but more prosperously. If the poor are not allowed to get too poor, it also means that businesses can take root in those communities, making jobs easier to attain. Easier job creation makes for people who have a way out, and that in turn helps keeps the cost down on anti-poverty measures.

We would like to think that we would never need help. Ask many people ten years ago whether they’d be on assistance, and you’d get a lot of no’s. But when events like those we’ve just been through occur, there is a need, and when that need is fulfilled, a person who might have had their ability to act as part of the economy crushed will have the chance, later on, to get back into the system.

The Republican model of extreme self-reliance is a best-case scenario model, like too many of its policies, and the truth is, the world doesn’t present us with the best outcomes in life, either as individuals, who can get sick or injured, or as a people, who can be struck by recession and disaster. If don’t plan for those, if we don’t create a social safety net for those, then the consequences of all those events will be magnified, and we will pay the price on the back end.

Frank-
Oh, polls, polls, polls. I figure the polls tell me something about the dynamic of the race, even if they don’t foretell the conclusion. In your twisted logic, you fail to even consider where you fall on the truth value of them. You’re always pretending, for example, that Democrats are all liberals, even though the same poll you would cite only has them as 40% of the party, most of the rest being moderates, of which the Republicans only have a quarter. Oh, and did you notice where your party fell in terms of self-identification? That might be useful to notice.

It’s not one thing, it’s everything noted in its proper place.

I am not going to get too concerned about your claims, because they’re mostly based off of your wishful thinking. Voting fraud, for instance. How much of that has really been proved, even under Bush, who made a point of investigating it fiercely? Not all that much. But you claim it, since you can’t bear to think that Americans would actually vote for the Democrats, that it isn’t some ruse.

Thinking that way, you could crab your way all the way to believing anything. No need to acknowledge any empirical information, what you feel is true matters more!

You feel the MSM kisses Obama’s butt and everything. But that hasn’t been my impression. They constantly questioned him, portended doom, showed polls showing he was in trouble. Yes, they showed some positive things, but But most of the coverage was negative, in the lead up. Now, the coverage is Mutually negative.

But that probably isn’t true in the conservative media, now is it? You got Rush Limbaugh in there, attack Obama, supporting Romney. You got FoxNews and other outlets doing various degrees of happy talk about Romney, explaining away all his gaffes, criticizing the rest of the media for their bias, and so on and so forth.

The question is, would they ever settle down and give you the empirical truth about things, the truth you could prove on the facts. Your people are under the mistaken impression that the cure for bias is to become biased in your own direction. It’s not. The cure for bias is to look at the facts, and find out where they fall. If Romney’s attack is dishonest, say so. Obama, the same. Base this not on feelings that won’t necessarily be shared or supported by the evidence, but on the facts.

Your problem is, Romney won’t campaign on what objectively his biggest achievements because one set of those achievements are objectively clouded by the nature of the business he was in, by its “creatively destructive” nature, and the other set, because of how far the GOP has shifted on the subject, has gone from being a bonus to being a liability.

Meanwhile, Obama doesn’t have to run from much of what he’s done. He can tout the popular parts of his healthcare reform bill, he can tout the auto rescue, and he can say that his administration gave the orders that got Bin Laden, and dozens of other terrorists. He can claim he did a lot to promote renewable energy, and that many jobs have returned under his administration.

There’s a lot he can say.

Your problem here is that you’re expecting your feelings to be shared without much evidence to back them up. You want us to make all the exceptions you do. You want us to color events the way you do. And you provide no more justification for this than your own sort of arrogant insistence on being right.

Well, if you don’t have factual backup, then that’s just your opinion, and we have our own.

Oh, and that last part? Do us all a favor, and get a life. Netanyahu himself disclaims your claim, and it’s silly to allege that one joke photo represents a lost opportunity to visit with a foreign leader.

Weekly jobless claimes up again this week:

Unexpectedly up to 382,000; but will be revised up to 390k by next week.

“Is Barack Obama America’s Most Dishonest Politician?

A lot of politicians are dishonest, but Barack Obama may be in a league by himself. He appeared on the David Letterman show last night, and Letterman asked him about the national debt (somewhat surprisingly). Obama’s answer was a masterpiece of prevarication. He described how the debt originated, and claimed, falsely, that he inherited a $1 trillion deficit. In fact, this country had never run a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion until FY 2009, the first year of the Obama administration. (And, no, Bush isn’t to blame for it; the Democratic Congress waited until Obama was in office to pass the vast majority of the bloated spending for that fiscal year.) Letterman, to his credit, went on to ask Obama how much the national debt actually is. Obama evidently knew that if he said $16 trillion his audience would be horrified, so, incredibly, he pretended not to know! You have to see it to believe it:”

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/is-barack-obama-americas-most-dishonest-politician.php

What Frank means to say is that jobless claims are down to 382,000 from last week’s revised figure of 385,000 and the 4-week moving average is hovering around a four year low at 377,750, an increase of 2,000 from last week’s revised average of 375,750.

This is the figure the right loves to site as evidence that DOL puts out a good number this week and secretly revises it next week to look worse when nobody is watching.

Adam Ducker, Oh lover of polls…since you know so much about polls, what will be your explanation when the polls “unexpectedly” start shifting strongly for Romney in the next few weeks? At what point do you believe the polls by the leftist media have been skewed toward getting Obama re-elected? Do you believe they will migrate toward the truth for the reason of self preservation, or in other words, to protect their own butts?

Adam, if you want to know about the polls, that you love so much, you might find this series by Paul Mirengoff, entitled, “On the ground in Northern Virginia”. It makes the same claims I made a few days ago about support for Obama, you remember, my personal observations that you made a joke about. It appears I’m not the only one seeing support for Obama, among black democrats, waning.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/on-the-ground-in-northern-virginia.php

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/on-the-ground-in-northern-virginia-part-two.php

Stephen Daugherty…talk, talk, talk. You go on about the most idiotic blather. Get a life and get out of your leftist bubble. The rest of America has moved on; your ideals represent a minute part of society. I classify you, Adrienne, and Adam Ducker as three peas in the same pod; totally detached from reality. The 2012 elections are going to be especially hard on you.

Adam Ducker-
People just like him have said that the President’s spent 100 days golfing, and neglect to mention that this would be about a golf game every other week, on average. They’ll mention the first time unemployment claims, so they can avoid talking about the more relevant monthly job increases.

It’s about distraction, sleight of hand, making Obama look terrible out of information that might argue otherwise taken at face value.

Frank-
Let’s ask some rational questions here. Was the 2009 budget going to pass if Democrats, say, ended the wars, or ended the tax cuts? No. Bush was not an afterthought in this process. He had to sign all legislation, budget or otherwise, to make it law. This is true whether it came from GOP or Dem controlled Congresses.

Bush and the GOP Congress are the primary authors of both the war and Tax policies. The GOP has insisted on those policies, criticizing Obama for trying to end the wars too soon, and for trying to end the Bush tax cuts.

If most of the deficit comes from these two policies, and Republicans are eagerly willing to continue them, I can’t see where you can blame Democrats, especially given the effective and excessive use of the filibuster.

As for the rest? I’ve survived two bad elections for my side, and celebrated two good ones, since I started blogging. I don’t go into catatonic despair when my side loses or anything. I get busy paving the way for the next contest. We elect our leaders democratically, and as such, what comes up can go down. If you’re not willing or able to absorb this like a mature man, that’s your problem, not mine. I always have faith that our system of government is correctable by peaceful means.

You’re trash-talking the wrong person.

“What Frank means to say is that jobless claims are down to 382,000 from last week’s revised figure of 385,000 and the 4-week moving average is hovering around a four year low at 377,750, an increase of 2,000 from last week’s revised average of 375,750.

This is the figure the right loves to site as evidence that DOL puts out a good number this week and secretly revises it next week to look worse when nobody is watching.”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 20, 2012 9:01 AM

Nice copy and paste from the DOL, you need to provide the link. Of course this was the Seasonally Adjusted Data, meaning the juggled numbers.

Re/secretly revised numbers: From April 5, 2012 WSJ article “Jobless Claims Keep Getting Revised Up”:

“News Thursday that the U.S. Department of Labor revised upward its weekly initial jobless-claims number for the previous week didn’t cause much of a huge stir on financial markets, but it represented the latest in an unusual string of adjustments to the closely followed data.

The Labor Department has now revised upward its first estimate of seasonally adjusted claims in 56 of the past 57 weeks, a Dow Jones analysis of claims reports found. Revisions to government data occur on a regular basis but it is uncommon for numbers to nearly always be restated in the same direction.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/04/05/jobless-claims-keep-getting-revised-up/

Since April we find the same fudging on numbers each week and then the standard revision the following week. Here’s another link that might help you to understand the revised numbers each week:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/05/31/if_it_s_thursday_we_have_revised_jobless_numbers

Stephen Daugherty; what is the unemployment when those who have given up are counted. There is no way either of you can seriously talk numbers, when so much juggleing is done.

How about telling us when the last Budget was passed by the Reid Senate?

Frank: “Adam Ducker, Oh lover of polls…since you know so much about polls, what will be your explanation when the polls ‘unexpectedly’ start shifting strongly for Romney in the next few weeks?”

Unlike you I understand that there are sometimes as many as 8% of those polled still undecided and there are others that will change their mind in the next five weeks. You seem to think that pointing out Obama is ahead now means I think Obama will be ahead still in five weeks. He might. He might not. We’ll just have to see where polls stand a couple of days before the election. I’ve said it over and over but you don’t read.

“It makes the same claims I made a few days ago about support for Obama, you remember, my personal observations that you made a joke about.”

It’s not that I made a joke so much as I stated an opinion based on poll data and you stated an opinion based on anecdotal observations of folks around you. It’s just not that sound of an argument but I know now you don’t grasp that concept.

“The 2012 elections are going to be especially hard on you.”

You’ll be disapointed, I’m sure. It will be no harder than 2004 and 2010 were for us and 2006 and 2008 were for your side. Faced with the situation you seem to be certain will happen some of us will be shaken and upset and others of us will just go back to work advancing progressive policies at state and local levels and work toward more Democrats in Congress.

“I classify you, Adrienne, and Adam Ducker as three peas in the same pod; totally detached from reality.”

Detached from reality? Rich. Your level of projection is astounding, Frank. I’d be amazed if I thought you’d worked hard to be this obtuse but it seems like you’ve probably just grown into this in your old age to the great disappointment of your friends and family. I picture you about like some of the older members of my own family who sit and ramble hateful things to empty living rooms long after people got tired of hearing and just left.

Frank: “Nice copy and paste from the DOL, you need to provide the link. Of course this was the Seasonally Adjusted Data, meaning the juggled numbers.”

Notice how Frank was fine with the numbers when he could spin them to make Obama look bad but once he realized they actually look pretty good he had to discredit his own source.

“Here’s another link that might help you to understand the revised numbers each week…”

Save your Limbaugh lies for somebody who cares. If I wanted to laugh at nonsense until I threw up I’d find a video of dogs saying funny stuff on YouTube.

I changed the above comment to say “it will be no harder” instead of “it will be harder”…

Frank,

“Re/OWS; another fart in the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

So you’re telling us you are for corporate influence in politics?

Rocky

Mr. Daugherty wrote; “It’s a distraction, and an assumption on your part that we’re trying to be generous for our own sake, to make ourselves feel generous. I think the better way to put it is that we believe poverty needs to be reduced and mitigated if we want a society that functions not merely more fairly, but more prosperously. If the poor are not allowed to get too poor, it also means that businesses can take root in those communities, making jobs easier to attain.”

Wow…talk about Big Brother. Don’t allow the poor to get too poor and don’t allow the rich to get too rich.

Of course we all realize that the definition of “poverty” in this country is merely a government construct measured in dollars.

I have visited many counties in the world and saw real poverty up close. There is not one single person living in the United States that lives in poverty anywhere approaching that of some countries. I exclude “street people” in that statement or anyone else who doesn’t take advantage of all the anti-poverty programs that abound in our country.

The typical leftie wants government to define what is too poor and what is too rich. On a world view, one is not living in poverty if they regularly have their necessities of life provided; food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

We could end “poverty” in this country with a stroke of a pen if that was wanted and desirable. How you ask? Simple, just send enough money to folks to push them above the recognized poverty level. Why don’t we do that? Simple. Once everyone is pushed above the poverty level there will be no incentive to work or produce. In fact, I believe we have already provided an incentive for many not to work or produce.

I have said before that those receiving welfare from the government, and are able to work, should be required to work for those benefits. If we see no value in working and producing, why would we do it?

Those of us who do work do not expect to be paid if we don’t show up for work. Why should those receiving welfare benefits be exempted from working for what they receive if they are able?

We have requirements that children must attend school until they reach a certain age. Why is that? Well…we value education and know for certain that without it, those children will become wards of the state. We can also require those receiving government welfare, who are able to work, to work in our communities in exchange for those benefits.

Frank-
They seasonally adjust numbers to account for employees who get hired for Summer or Holiday jobs. It’s not some conspiracy. It merely means we aren’t counting job gains that only come with that kind of employment, or job losses that come around as a matter of course. We deal with the permanent jobs.

Oh, something else. You know that pirate photo you either saw on Fox and Friends or Drudge? 2009 in vintage, a joke for the White House Correspondents Dinner of that year. Too bad your media companies don’t let you know when the joke is on you.

As far as the other revisions to job numbers go, well, they’re estimates, and estimates change as new information comes in. It was originally thought that the last quarter GDP of 2008 had a loss of 3.7, 3.8%. Now we know it was closer to 8.9%.

In the real world, adults can’t always get perfect information, so we do the best we can.

As for unemployment, the funky thing about your whole approach is that if you were in charge, we wouldn’t be doing anything much to actively change that number, and when we are in charge, you’re actively doing much to keep us from doing anything. So what’s the value of taking your criticism seriously, since you’ve made it a self-fulfilling prophecy on purpose, just in order to do absolutely nothing about it? We need more responsible leadership than you’re willing to support.

Adam, you people on the left can never deal with the context; you always have to attack the source:

“It’s not that I made a joke so much as I stated an opinion based on poll data and you stated an opinion based on anecdotal observations of folks around you. It’s just not that sound of an argument but I know now you don’t grasp that concept.”

The links I provided to you from Powerline were anecdotal observations as well, yet you said nothing about them. My point was Powerline’s observations were the same as mine; your answer…attack me as being an old man talking to an empty room. My anecdotal observations and the observations of Powerline are just as accurate as the polls you love so much. You talk out of both sides of your mouth like Stephen Daugherty; you quote polls you like and when they don’t meet you preformed ideas, you either dismiss them, or you make the statement “He might. He might not”, as if you don’t really care. My belief is, since you have stated you love the polls and since you love to post polls, you spend all your time analyzing the polls. Tell me Adam, when a poll questions a larger number of Democrats than they do Republicans, do you consider it an accurate poll? When the poll registered voters compared to likely voters, do you consider it accurate? When they play with the questions instead of asking up or down questions, do you consider it accurate?

“I’d be amazed if I thought you’d worked hard to be this obtuse but it seems like you’ve probably just grown into this in your old age to the great disappointment of your friends and family. I picture you about like some of the older members of my own family who sit and ramble hateful things to empty living rooms long after people got tired of hearing and just left.”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 20, 2012 11:09 AM

Haha, I honestly wish I could tell you who I talk to each week, but I cannot. I will say I do not sit alone in my living room. I speak before hundreds of people each week and I will leave it at that. I have stated on WB previously, I started and owned several businesses. I came from very humble beginnings as the son of a share cropper in the south, and my parents encouraged me to attend college, which I did. I am black and accomplished things during a time when it was nearly impossible. My greatest opposition came from the left; therefore I have no love for liberalism. You nor Stephen are nowhere near old enough to remember the Democrat Party of old; the party of JFK, but I can assure you, the Democrat Party has changed a lot more than the Republican Party over the years.

The second attack by Adam Ducker:

“Save your Limbaugh lies for somebody who cares. If I wanted to laugh at nonsense until I threw up I’d find a video of dogs saying funny stuff on YouTube.”

Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 20, 2012 11:18 AM

Adam, I gave you a link with facts, and once again, instead of dealing with the facts, you simply throw personal attacks at Limbaugh.

By the way Adam, no comments on the fact that the weekly job numbers have been revised up each week for years? Or is it still a figment of my imagination.

“Frank,
“Re/OWS; another fart in the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow.”
So you’re telling us you are for corporate influence in politics?
Rocky
Posted by: Rocky Marks at September 20, 2012 1:17 PM

Rocky Marks, please tell me, what has the OWS movement accomplished? They are nothing; they are an attempt by the left to match the TP conservatives; they are a failure; the Democrat politicians who once identified with them, have run for cover; they are a fart in the wind.

SD

“What you’re counting on, the fear, the disgust over the whole Healthcare Reform debate in Washington, is old news. The Tea Party’s actually gotten into power, and what has it to show for that? Not much. The Tea Party House has been more party than house, with shorter work weeks, much, much less output, and a serious lack of willingness to make the compromises necessary to legislate successfully with a Democratic President and Democratic Senate in office.

The Tea Party should be no more secure, given its promises, tha the President should have been given his. It says something that the rate of job creation has lessened since they got into office, not increased, and that the main challenge to our economy at this point, the fiscal cliff, would have never existed, but for their actions in forcing the debt ceiling debacle.”

Just in case you are not thinking clear, which is what I suspect, that is called spin, distortion, iggnorance and more.

The GOP that has leadership in the house is not the Tea Party leadership. That makes your statement above look like what someone else on WB has said, a dumbass statement.
Maranatha

Frank,

“please tell me, what has the OWS movement accomplished?

What they have accomplished is to raise their points to the public.
It doesn’t matter a whit if the politicians back away if the people are more aware of the issues that have been raised.

“They are nothing; they are an attempt by the left to match the TP conservatives…”

Is this one of your half-vast assumptions or do you actually have facts to back up your claim?

The ows is made up mostly of the young with their whole lives are ahead of them. The tea party is mostly middle aged to old who think only of the past.

Rocky

Frank writes; “You nor Stephen are nowhere near old enough to remember the Democrat Party of old; the party of JFK, but I can assure you, the Democrat Party has changed a lot more than the Republican Party over the years.”

Frank, I am old enough to have voted for JFK. I liked the democrat party back then and what they stood for. I see little resemblance of the party of the 60’s to the party of today. Now, the platform committee of the democrat party saw fit, and didn’t believe the American people would object, to take even God out of their declared beliefs. I sat stunned while watching the vote to restore God’s name in the platform and heard, by voice vote, the majority objecting to it.

The democrat party of today is Godless, with no regard for our founding documents, our most cherished historic beliefs about self-sufficiency and individualism, our belief that we…Americans…are unique among nations for our Constitution and willingness to help other nations in times of war and peace. We are the most charitable people on the face of the earth toward each other and those in foreign lands. Yet, the democrat party of today attempts to humble America and her great achievements both at home and abroad. They tell us that we are selfish at home to those in poverty and apologize to foreign nations for our greatness.

The democrat party no longer believes in the equality of all men, and has replaced this with equality of outcome for all men. The democrat party has presided over our failing morality as a nation, our failing educational system, and our failing prominence in the world.

The democrat party has allowed itself to be identified by the groups it can pander to in its overpowering grab for power. The democrat party deliberately and disastrously created class envy and class division among our citizens.

The democrat party decries success and rewards indolence.

Frank: “The links I provided to you from Powerline were anecdotal observations as well, yet you said nothing about them.”

What’s there to say really? What’s two sets of anecdotes? What’s four or even eight? I cited you an average of polls from a conservative news source that historically has been very accurate with it’s measurements and you still claimed they’re phony because they don’t line up with your opinion of how it should be based on talking to folks. Do you not notice the problem with that? Facts should form your opinions. Your opinion seems to form your facts.

“…and my parents encouraged me to attend college, which I did.”

If only that college would have taught you the critical thinking skills needed to understand the difference between evidence and opinion.

“Adam, I gave you a link with facts, and once again, instead of dealing with the facts, you simply throw personal attacks at Limbaugh.”

I don’t know why this is confusing to you every time. Limbaugh is not a trustworthy source of information and anyone citing him as so should be mocked. He’s a liar. He never stops lying. About the only reason I’d ever turn to Limbaugh is if I had a hot air balloon that needed a boost.

“By the way Adam, no comments on the fact that the weekly job numbers have been revised up each week for years? Or is it still a figment of my imagination.”

It’s just a basic fact that they are revised each week and I’m not sure what you want me to say about it. Sometimes they are revised down, a lot of times they are revised up. That only means something if you think revising complicated measurements over time as more information becomes available is evidence of conspiracy.

Royal Flush: “I sat stunned while watching the vote to restore God’s name in the platform and heard, by voice vote, the majority objecting to it.”

I objected to it and I’m a Christian. I don’t need my party platform to mention God one time or, in the case of the GOP, twelve times to understand the role God plays in my life and the life of many members of my political party. But maybe that’s just me…

Adam, I respect your opinion about naming God in the democrat party platform. I used the deliberate and popular omission of God as one example of the democrat party of today and that of the 60’s. Certainly you will agree that the democrat party of today doesn’t begin to resemble the party of JFK in many respects. You may, or may not consider that a good thing, but I could be a democrat today if not for all the changes I have witnessed.

Perhaps some democrat can help me understand that even though the majority of delegates at the convention wanted to disavow God, the leaders of the party continue to exclaim…May God Bless Our Country. In fact, every single president we have had since, and including Washington, have recognized God as being critical to our continued success. If not, why ask God for His continued blessing?

I wonder how the folks on WatchBlog would rate the United States if it were a flesh and blood person being given a prognosis after a thorough examination of its social and economic health. I will list just a few possibilities…you may wish to add your own. I believe I would choose number 3.

1. Nothing to worry about, take an aspirin and get some sleep.

2. Your blood pressure and bad cholesterol are a little high, have this prescription filled and you’ll be just fine.

3. I recommend you have an MRI and CAT scan to determine why you are having these serious symptoms.

4. Wait right here while I call an ambulance and alert the hospital.

5. I sure hate to lose you as a patient…I will be sure to come to your funeral in a few days.

Royal Flush:

I think the Democratic Party has gone through many changes from FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton, and now Obama. It’s certainly a different party the same way the Republican party is not the same as was 80 years ago or even 50 years ago. I don’t know if it’s better or worse but it certainly represents my political values much more today than any other party. Certain things don’t change about our country but many of the things that do change are reflected in modern political parties.

The delegates were not disavowing God though. I feel like they just didn’t want to be bullied by the right into adding the word ‘God’ back into a platform that already deals with the subject of faith in a way relevant to the demographics of the party. This was a gotcha moment for Fox News and the Democrats just played right into that.

Adam, that’s an interesting take on the God vote and one I have not heard before. According to your comment, the “demographics of the party” preclude naming God in their platform. According to Gallup, about 4% of Americans are atheists. Hmmm…could that be the tail wagging the dog?

Adam, it occurred to me that as Christians we know about the many thousands of early Christians who endured horrible deaths rather than disavow our God. Today’s democrats do it to “save face”?

The Democratic Party much more so than the Republican Party is inclusive of differing faiths and that was reflected in the platform even as it’s true the majority of Democrats are Christians. This is what the Christian Right does these days. It stokes outrage over every thing Obama or Democrats do that can be construed as against God or Israel. It’s pathetic and trivial but that’s how they make their money.

Are they doing it to save face or are they just a party that places less value than the GOP in appearing to be Super Christians who love Israel second only to the United States of the 1950s?

RF,

“it occurred to me that as Christians we know about the many thousands of early Christians who endured horrible deaths rather than disavow our God. Today’s democrats do it to “save face”?”

Wow, really?

Through the ages thousands of people of lots of faiths have given their lives simply because they didn’t worship the Deity du jour.

Americans come from many faiths, not just Christians, and America is the better for it.

The Democrats didn’t “disavow” God, they chose not to have religion associated with their platform.

I find it interesting that the right chooses to spin this as an insult to Christians.

After all, you Christian folks have been so welcoming of other faiths in the recent past.

Rocky

Rocky writes; “The Democrats didn’t “disavow” God, they chose not to have religion associated with their platform.”

Finally, a truthful statement…thanks Rocky.

By the way Rocky, a belief in God does not imply any particular religion.

RF,

“…a belief in God does not imply any particular religion.

How many religions call God, God?

Just asking…

Rocky

Well Rocky, since we are discussing the disavowal of God by the democrat party, I will go with the same God many of our founders believed in. Let’s use their language and call God the “Creator”.

Are you suggesting that the party delegates would have approved of the word “Creator” if given the choice?

Just asking…

RF,

“Are you suggesting that the party delegates would have approved of the word “Creator” if given the choice?”

I have no idea, but why should they be required to?

Would you approve of the word Shiva or Buddha Or Allah?

The “Creators” of the Constitution placed no religious requirement to run for office, yet you seem to imply that if one party chooses to not place a Deity in the wording their platform, that the platform is somehow lacking.

Furthermore, it is implied that someone could use it as a mere talking point to placate your masses.

Why would you denigrate your God that way?

Rocky

A political party platform lays out what they believe in and is designed to attract people to the party and those who represent the party standing for national election. When the democrat platform committee decided to reject the historical precedence of mentioning the name of God or “Creator” if you prefer, that makes a loud and significant change.

As it stands now, the democrat party has rejected God to apparently placate the approximate 4% of members who are atheists. It is important. It is significant. It is despicable.

RF,

“A political party platform lays out what they believe in and is designed to attract people to the party and those who represent the party standing for national election.”

So what you’re saying is that it is OK to use God as a political tool to sway the masses so that you could get elected.

I’ll ask again, why would you choose to denigrate your God that way?

Rocky

Crickets…

It figures.

Stephen

You guys are the ones who use the word generous when talking about your advocacy of using other people’s money instead of your own and you are the one who make moral judgements.

You did it again here. “The Republican model of extreme self-reliance” There is no such thing. Conservatives are more generous than liberals. We do not believe in making anybody suffer. We believe that the best way to avoid poverty and the pernicious effects of poverty is generally through voluntary mechanisms and market forces.

We know that during the 1970s, government housing policies CREATED extremely horrible conditions for the poor, exacerbating their poverty with violence and hopelessness. This happened BECAUSE of not in spite of government efforts. This is not a good outcome.

BTW - congratulations on getting almost 200 comments. We have not seen that for a while.

I heard a question asked today, “What is the difference between the socialist Democratic Party and radical Islam”; the answer, there is none.

Ted:

It’s hard to be a troll on a site that enjoys so much cross talk between people with different views but I think you’ve found a way.

Ted

We should not advocate in our rhetoric what we know in our hearts is not true.

I castigate our Democratic friends for the stupid analogies they make. They actually are very happy when someone makes an outrageous comparison as you just did.

In fact, I would suspect that you are simply an agent provocateur, since I doubt anyone who could actually write a sentence really believes the kind of thing you just wrote.

Jack,

“In fact, I would suspect that you are simply an agent provocateur, since I doubt anyone who could actually write a sentence really believes the kind of thing you just wrote.”

Haven’t you been reading Frank and Bills posts?

Socialism is running rampant within the Democratic party. Their leader Obama is a Muslim loving Kenyan.

Royal Flush thinks using God as a tool is fine if the Conservatives can win the election with him.

All of the writers in the Blue column are merely lackeys that use Liberal talking points to make Romney look bad.

Ted is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Rocky

200

I asked a simple question, what do liberals and Islamist have in common? Not a troll comment, but a serious question. Let’s see how much the American left has in common with militant Islam:

1.They have a common enemy, and the common enemy is American conservatives.

2.They’re both totalitarian.

3.They believe in the largest central command and control, commanding and telling everybody what they can and can’t do. Where they can and can’t go. What they can and can’t eat.

4.We believe in freedom, and that doesn’t go with either liberalism or Islam.

From the LA Times op-ed, which claims that freedom of speech probably does go too far when it involves Islam: “The point is to emphasize that US law makes a distinction between speech that is simply offensive and speech that is deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk…Especially in the heightened volatility of today’s Middle East, such provocation is certainly irresponsible — and reveals an ironic alliance of convenience between Christian extremists and the Islamist extremists they claim to hate.”

What do “Christian extremists” have to do with this? Why does the words “Christian Extremist” even enter the article?

Let’s ask this question, if your average liberal had a choice to rid the world of Muslim extremism or American conservatism, what do you think the liberal would choose?

What’s being taught in schools about who the real enemy is in America today? The real enemy is any Republican and any conservative, and for all the clichéd reasons. By the same token, do teachers in schools rev their kids up to the dangers of militant Islam? “No way! We can’t offend those people,” but you can offend American conservatives all day long. You give your average liberal a choice, who would they rid the world of: conservatives or Islamist?

Tomorrow the world is going to be absent either militant Muslims or militant conservatives. Which do you choose? Who represents the greater threat to the left?

5.They are in common on their controlling characteristics, domineering characteristics, their arrogance.

They want to be in control of things that people eat, drink, use, high-tech, all this. Liberals have to have control over people, largely based in the belief… Well, it’s a raw thirst for power but it’s also rooted in the fact they have contempt for people’s ability to handle the rigors of life on their own. The Islamists want to do it just to keep this rigid moral code intact and fealty to the Quran.

We want freedom, individual responsibility, individuality, entrepreneurism. You make the best of life however you can. Equality of outcomes is not possible. They want sameness everywhere, even sameness in dress. It’s really striking when you think about it, all the areas of similarity. When a terrorist act happens, what’s the liberals’ first reaction? To blame conservatives! Dark Knight Rising? Tea Party! Gabby Gifford! Sarah Palin!

I would say that God should not be mentioned in the party platform of any party that isn’t going to be able to legislate on matters of religion.

Which is all of them. It is not a party’s purpose to proselytize for any one religion. Even the GOP has diverse groups within it (though it often unwisely alienates them.) Democrats, I feel, simply don’t want to muddle politics with a matter they firmly believe is beyond the authority of government to intervene in.

We don’t need God on our money. It hasn’t made the uses of that money any more sacred.

If we want God in our lives, or did not want God in our lives, I don’t know how it being in party platform or on money is going to put it there, nor take it away by its absence. You cannot insist that another person take God into their heart, respond to his grace. They will do that, or not do that by their own choice, and if you force them to go through the motions, you’ve only pushed them into seeking the reward of another’s approval, not a personal relationship with God.

Stephen

Nothing wrong with mentioning God on money. Abe Lincoln put it there. It doesn’t say that we control God, but rather that we trust in him.

Abe Lincoln, BTW, was not worried whether or not God was on his side but wanted to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

And Teddy Roosevelt thought it was sacreligious. Everybody’s got an opinion.

Mine is one of apathy. I don’t care. “In God We Trust” is just one of a dozen statements and symbols on our paper and coined money that rarely gets much more than a millisecond’s attention. It got put there mainly by people who were nervous about secularism. It’s success in preventing the nation’s slide towards that is debateable to say the least. Mostly it becomes a joke, since those who center their lives around money don’t exactly act in the most Godly way.

It’s not a great bad in my view, but it’s not a great good, either, and it doesn’t really serve its original purpose. Sometimes you take a sacred thing, or a pious statement, and you mass produced it enough, it becomes more an element of the worldly, profane order of things, than a window in the spiritual universe.

Ask yourself: Do Republicans mostly make noise about this because they’re genuinely concerned that people will fall away from God if their money doesn’t state that we trust in him, or is it because they’re looking to drum up opposition to the other guy, and praise for themselves?

Stephen,

It’s cool to bitch about the commercialization of Christmas…
But leave my money alone.

Rocky

Ted, radical Islam is conservatism in action. The religious fanaticism of conservatives in the Islamic world is a bit more extreme than the religious fanaticism of the repubs and conservatives here in this country, but many on the right are working hard to catch up with the conservatives in the middle east.

As an example take Royals outrage at the dems for not including God in politics. Authoritarian, The conservatives are the people that insist on controlling women’s actions and bodies, not liberals. Common Enemy! It is conservatives that tell us liberals that Islam is bad, they are the enemy just as liberals are to conservatives. Conservatives spout freedom but it means only for themselves screw everyone else, Ted.

So Ted we can tell you are a conservative by your arrogant remarks just as you tell us radical Islamist are arrogant. Also the lack of critical thinking skills is apparent in your comments, a typical conservative trait. So time to rethink your analogy.

j2t2, so what is the answer to the question; “if your average liberal had a choice to rid the world of Muslim extremism or American conservatism, what do you think the liberal would choose?”

Stephen said:

“And Teddy Roosevelt thought it was sacreligious. Everybody’s got an opinion.”

Tell me Stephen, since you have told us you are Catholic and the Catholic Church has made a very strong stand against abortion and since the Catholic Church has said life begins at conception; do you consider the murder of millions of babies each year as “sacreligious”?

“Mine is one of apathy. I don’t care”

If you don’t care, why do you push so hard to remove the mention of God from everything from the Democrat Platform, to schools, to government buildings, to public lands, and to our money?

I don’t know Ted, what would the average conservative choose if the choice were between liberalism and Muslim extremist?

You do realize that this question, either way it is asked, doesn’t do a thing to prove your theory, right?

Nothing wrong with mentioning God on money.

It is a bit tacky IMHO C&J.

Abe Lincoln, BTW, was not worried whether or not God was on his side but wanted to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

Abe Lincoln was inline with the northern ministers who wanted God on their side in the Civil War, C&J. While God is always right those that use his name for their own personal and political purposes often are wrong C&J, and that is the problem. God is being used for political gain and that is just wrong. Shame on the conservatives who do this,and that includes you Royal.

Look at Royal’s criticism of the dems for not mixing religious beliefs and politics. The real issue should be why are the repubs using God, and therefore becoming exclusive in the process, in politics? The radical Islamist do this and we see how well that works don’t we?

Yes J2, using the words of God as a guide is sooooo much different than using the words of liberals. How dare anyone help their neighbor in the name of God, it is much better they be forced to help in the name of government.

It doesn’t matter where ones beliefs come from, forcing them onto others in the name of anything, religion or liberalism, is wrong.

And as far as Republicans and Conservatives being basically the same as muslims? BS.
Republicans are not trying to force you to believe in God or worship one in any way.
Any kind of “critical thinking” shows that there is only one group of people who wish to force their beliefs onto everybody else and dictate how to live their lives, and that group is the one that purposely divids us, and who just forced the ACA on us.

Billinflorida-
Murder is a sin, but that doesn’t make it sacrilege. Shooting a Priest while he’s giving out communion would be sacrilege. Breaking into a house and crapping on the floors is not sacrilege, but breaking into a church and urinating on the host is.

Get the distinction?

Funny how you come up with an irrelevant, loaded example in order to deflect the main point: that some might think using God’s name with Caesar’s coin might be more a debasement of God’s name than an elevation of Caesar’s coin.

As far as God and the public sphere, the question is, if you talk about God, whose God do you talk about, whose vision of him? If a group takes over that is either militantly atheist, or of a different religion? The smart thing the Framers did was to stop the argument before it began. The dumb thing you want to do is to make Christian doctrine again a matter of policy, despite the fact that you can’t get a majority of Christians to agree on everything as a private matter.

I simply don’t care to have my government getting in the middle of the public debate about religion and its value. Where it’s stuck its head in, it seems to have turn the brightness and wonder of spirituality into cynicism, division and despair. The government shouldn’t proselytize. Besides, what makes you think the Government or its officials giving that kind of lip service means either they or the people they’re serving suddenly believe more? It’s amazing how you don’t trust the government on the simplest things, but you trust them to use their power properly when it comes to matter of deepest conscience.

Ted-
You can be a rival with somebody without the need to destroy them. I would happily send people and drones to kill and capture al-Qaeda members, and I was overjoyed to hear of Bin Laden’s well deserved death.

I don’t particularly see the success of your movement as necessary to the failure of Bin Laden’s, so there’s no need for me to fall victim to your blatantly loaded question. I don’t need to take your self-serving dilemma by it’s horns.

Yes J2, using the words of God as a guide is sooooo much different than using the words of liberals. How dare anyone help their neighbor in the name of God, it is much better they be forced to help in the name of government.

kctim I hope you didn’t hurt yourself with all the twisting and turning needed to get this response from what I said.

It doesn’t matter where ones beliefs come from, forcing them onto others in the name of anything, religion or liberalism, is wrong.

Liberalism is a political belief just as conservatism is kctim, different from a religious belief IMHO. Lets change our national motto each year kctim, next year it can say in Allah we trust the year after it can say in Buddha we trust and so on. Religion and Government was separated for a good reason by our founding fathers.

And as far as Republicans and Conservatives being basically the same as muslims? BS.

Republicans are not trying to force you to believe in God or worship one in any way.

Sure they are kctim. They use the “war on religion” meme to do so.

Any kind of “critical thinking” shows that there is only one group of people who wish to force their beliefs onto everybody else and dictate how to live their lives, and that group is the one that purposely divids us, and who just forced the ACA on us.

Perhaps you are using one track critical thinking kctim, if you think it is only the dems/liberals that force things on people.

So what you’re saying is that it is OK to use God as a political tool to sway the masses so that you could get elected.

I’ll ask again, why would you choose to denigrate your God that way?

Rocky

To include the name of God or the word “Creator” in a party platform is hardly a denigration of Him…except in your mind. You foolishly describe such an inclusion as a political tool to sway the masses. Really? Please tell me why your party has seen fit to use the Creators name in past platforms? Why wasn’t that considered a political tool then? When a national figure says…”God Bless America” are they merely trying to “sway the masses”? Were our founders trying to sway the masses when they used the Creators name in our founding documents? Was that use a denigration of God?

Your use of the words…”to sway the masses”, could have been a direct quote of Karl Marx.

Religious beliefs do have a place in our political life. When government can and does things to denigrate our religious liberty we have every reason to make this a political issue.

Doughboy writes; “We don’t need God on our money. It hasn’t made the uses of that money any more sacred.”

Simply a brain-dead comment. Sacred money…Please! Only a fool could possibly not understand why “In God We Trust” is printed on our money.

Doughboy, since you seem to have clout with libs, please push to take the word “Creator” out of the constitution.

Here’s an idea about a slogan for our money Doughboy. “Trust in No One”. Since our money is quickly becoming worthless, one should not place much trust in it either. For me however, I will continue to place my trust in God.

obama’s latest gaff was just great. He said…”you can’t fix Washington from the inside”. I agree, he can’t, throw the bum out.

Aw, come on J2, it was you who mentioned “critical thinking,” perhaps you can apply some to support your thinking?

I didn’t have to twist anything to say what I did, your very words show that you believe it is ok to force liberal gospel onto others, but others cannot do the same.

“Liberalism is a political belief just as conservatism is kctim, different from a religious belief IMHO.”

Regardless of where they come from or what they are based on, they are the same. This is why beliefs were not to be forced onto others.

“Religion and Government was separated for a good reason by our founding fathers.”

That does not mean ‘from’ though, J2. Even being an atheist I understand that a persons religious beliefs are going to influence their vote and that it unrealistic to suggest they don’t.

“More so than liberals and radical muslims being the same kc, where is your defense of liberals?”

My defense of liberals is that while they also believe in government forcing people to believe a certain way, also “protest” when they don’t get their way, also are offended by everything not in line with their beliefs, at least they are not violent.

“Sure they are kctim. They use the “war on religion” meme to do so.”

Give me a break. That ‘meme’ is used because liberals have gone from ‘freedom of religion’ to ‘freedom from religion.’ Liberals have stripped individuals of expressing their religion out of fear of supposedly offending someone.

“Perhaps you are using one track critical thinking kctim, if you think it is only the dems/liberals that force things on people”

No, it is not only liberals who do it, I speak up when anybody tries to force their beliefs onto another. Liberals just happen to be the ones who are guilty of using government to do it most of the time.

Stephen, I notice you have much to say, but you ignored the question about abortion:

“Tell me Stephen, since you have told us you are Catholic and the Catholic Church has made a very strong stand against abortion and since the Catholic Church has said life begins at conception; do you consider the murder of millions of babies each year as “sacreligious”?

You said:

“Billinflorida-
Murder is a sin, but that doesn’t make it sacrilege. Shooting a Priest while he’s giving out communion would be sacrilege. Breaking into a house and crapping on the floors is not sacrilege, but breaking into a church and urinating on the host is.

Get the distinction?”

No I don’t; but in your vast knowledge of religion; what is the difference between killing a priest or killing a priest when he is giving out communion? Since Jesus said “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” than to hurt a child; and since the Catholic Church has determined life begins at conception and that abortion is a mortal sin, where does that place you Stephen, who supports the killing of these little ones.

Many of these leftists on WB claim to be athiest, but you Stephen claim to be a Christian. Are you committing a mortal sin by supporting abortion?

Re/the movie that caused so much trouble in the middle-east, and Obama’s flip-flop blaming the murders on the movie or not on the movie; what is you opinion on the art exibit “Piss Christ” artwork by Andres Serrano coming again to New York.

Stephen, would you consider this a sacriledge; or would you consider this in the same catagory as the movie trailer re/Muslim religion; or does it not matter because it deals with Christianity and therefore okay?

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/art_controversy_back_in_ny_ZjuqKoVhysXZ3eQg6U6n1H#ixzz278dd6E2Q

Bill, when Doughboy has checked with his liberal mentors he will I am sure provide you with an answer. Stephens comments never seem to align with the official position of the religion he espouses. We do understand that Stephan’s first allegiance is to the liberal political philosophy, secondly to the dem party, and in a distant third might be his adherence to his religion of choice.

Mr. Daugherty has convictions of convenience.

Bill, thanks for the link to the “Piss Christ” article. Here’s a brief quote from the article that I have commented on.

“A rep for the Midtown gallery confirmed it was beefing up security in anticipation of protests, but wouldn’t elaborate further.”

It would seem that the Midtown gallery has more common sense than our own State Dept. regarding security.

“He adds, the situation around NEA funding that “Piss Christ” ignited “never got better … the budget of the NEA was slashed in half. There seems to be a sort of dislike for the arts, and for the government supporting the arts. It’s not right.”

What a blooming idiot.

I guess now that Romney has released many more tax returns we can watch Harry Reid eat his words.

J2t2

I castigated Ted for a radical remark. You have seen him and raised the stakes with “Ted, radical Islam is conservatism in action. The religious fanaticism of conservatives in the Islamic world is a bit more extreme than the religious fanaticism of the repubs and conservatives here in this country, but many on the right are working hard to catch up with the conservatives in the middle east.””

The difference between conservatives here and liberals is that conservatives (like me) will call our own people to task. Your liberal buddies will not only not castigate you for this remark, they will jump on the bandwagon. Who is more radical?

J2t2

I castigated Ted for a radical remark. You have seen him and raised the stakes with “Ted, radical Islam is conservatism in action. The religious fanaticism of conservatives in the Islamic world is a bit more extreme than the religious fanaticism of the repubs and conservatives here in this country, but many on the right are working hard to catch up with the conservatives in the middle east.”

The difference between conservatives here and liberals is that conservatives (like me) will call our own people to task. Your liberal buddies will not only not castigate you for this remark, they will jump on the bandwagon. Who is more radical?

Royal Flush-
Look, if I want to have a religious experience, I read the bible, I pray to God. I don’t contemplate a dollar bill. Money is about the most secular thing there is, and as you pack the symbols on it, you do it mostly to be ignored.

Folks like you fail to perceive that even though the founders of Israel created a Kingdom based on their religion, it was very quickly splintered and hacked apart. The Kingdom of man, the City of this world is perishable and corruptible.

Oh, and as far as I know, there is no mention of a creator in the Constitution, only in the Declaration of Independence, and that is a document written by a man who didn’t believe in miracles.

As for Obama’s statement? Obama was saying that change had to come from outside pressure by the citizens of this country. So, if you can explain to me how this is different than your notion that we have to elect the right leaders, and then put political pressure on them, please, do so. It’s one thing to ding somebody, say, for stating that 47 percent of Americans don’t want to take responsibility for themselves. It’s another thing to ding somebody for saying that 100% of Americans need to take responsibility for the shape of their government, if they want things done. One of these is a slander, and the other is God’s honest truth in a Republic like ours.

Stephen, Obama is on the inside, he and his buddies in congress just can’t take the hint from outside sources. So I guess the outside sources must change what is on the inside.

Stephen

“So, if you can explain to me how this is different than your notion that we have to elect the right leaders…”

We did not elect the right leader when we elected Obama. That was the problem.

KAP-
Obama beats Romney on all sorts of front. The supposed gaffe here is Obama saying to people that his mistake was not enlisting more popular support to pressure the folks outside and inside his party to do something.

You’re just at a loss for a good argument, and therefore have to twist Obama’s.

C&J-
So, how has it worked out with the “right people” from the right? A congress that apparently misses the point of our system of government, trying to insist on getting policy its way, rather than cooperating with everybody, that insists on creating crises, when we have enough troubles to deal with, without their theatrics.

Billinflorida-
You are taking something that is consecrated as holy, like a church service, a chalice used in communion, and taking away that holiness by purposefully defiling it.

There is no real religious purpose in abortions. I would think it would be incredibly rare to see an abortion done just for the purpose of rebelling against God, or something like that. It’s overwhelmingly a secular medical act, which the religious have specific doctrinal objections to.

Yes, I would argue that to a Muslim, that movie was sacrilegious, just as I could understand that The Da Vinci Code, The Last Temptation of Christ, the Life of Brian, and dozens of other movies might seem sacrilegious to Christians.

I don’t personally support abortion, but that is a decision I made on religious grounds, and I make it as a man who will never be pregnant. I recognize that my religious beliefs are not necessarily held in common, and that others see no problem with it, at least not on those grounds. You act like people simply do it thinking the same things you do, but deliberately acting out of malice towards God or man. You usurp God’s judgment and self-aggrandize yourself to become his avenger.

I have two opinions on the matter you bring up. First, I find Piss Christ rather tasteless. Second, I don’t lose an hour’s sleep over it. We are told we will be ridiculed, that we will suffer scorn and all the rest. What you seem to forget, unfortunately for yourself, is the mission of forgiveness and mercy God has us on. I’ve been a secular humanist in my life, so I understand where they come from.

Some have malice, but most don’t care, and many who support abortion don’t believe that early in that pregnancy that you’re dealing with something that’s grown far enough to be likened to a human being. If you look at the statistics, most abortions take place by over ninety percent, before the first trimester is over. This is not coincidentally the point at which the fetus becomes more recognizeably human. What I would say is that people aren’t sociopaths looking to commit infanticide. They’re no more trying to kill a child or a human being than they’re trying to suffocate one if the man in the relationship wears a condom.

They just don’t take a “life begins at conception” approach.

But you condemn them as if they ripped a child from the hands of its mother and dashed its head against a wall. You project your fierce anger and hatred against them, as if that is the way they thought. But I think God knows better. I think he understands, one way or another, what the personal motivations were, what the facts are.

You’ve got to let go of your hatred. How many people do you leave, every day, feeling less human, less calm. How many people do you turn against Republicans and Christians alike by the obnoxiousness of your behavior?

Royal Flush-
He released the second of two promised tax returns, and a notarized letter from his accountants on his tax rates. Romney is making a mockery of his disclosure doing things that way. Folks aren’t asking his percentages, they’re asking how he got to them.

Stephen

Obama had it all his way the first half of his term. If he could not succeed it is because he screwed it up. No excuses. The man is just not up to the job.

Re “right wing leaders” there are limits to what any political leadership can do. That is why we should not ask too much of government.

Re the film insulting Muslims - too bad. There is nothing we can do to stop this. If a film that nobody saw will set off these pinheads, we just have to figure out how to avoid them. They are wrong. Period. No apologies.

Stephen, Obama is a piss poor leader, he goes off to Vegas while his Ambassador and 3 others get killed in a terror attack that took him 8 days to realize it was a terror attack. Even the Lybian Predident knew it was a terror attack. Hell the man is AWOL from his daily brefings. As C&J say THE MAN IS NOT UP TO THER JOB. Change from the outside is needed. YOUR PEOPLE in the Senate are the ones who are obstructing by not bringing the bills sent from the house up for debate especially the jobs bill that have been sent up. Lets face it Obama talked hisself into the job nbow he don’t know what to do with it. Time for him and Uncle Joe to take the highway home.

The difference between conservatives here and liberals is that conservatives (like me) will call our own people to task.

C&J how funny, conservatives call their own to task, just because you commented once to Ted. If only conservatives would do that to movement leaders. You did comment to Ted but you did not castigate him by any stretch C&J, had you castigated him I would not have had to comment.

I chose to refute his point. Letting outright lies like Ted’s go unchallenged will allow conservatives like Ted to convince other conservatives that his point has merit. Hopefully Ted now understands this.

As far as who is more radical, if you are talking liberals and conservatives without Muslim radicals thrown in I would have to say that conservatives are still more radical, C&J. Look at what they are reading for one thing. Secondly they have tossed more logical conservatives like Frum under the bus for speaking the truth. Thirdly take a look at your writings and you may realize you are drifting farther right into talk radio conservatism this past year or so.

http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Radical-Conservatives-Beating-America/dp/1400168600

J2t2

I told Ted that “I doubt anyone who could actually write a sentence really believes the kind of thing you just wrote.”

I understate. This is my soft-spoken equivalent of Adrienne’s vulgarity.

But in fairness, I would say the same thing to you re what you wrote about conservatives. I don’t think you believe and I doubt anybody smart enough to write a whole sentence is dumb enough to believe those sorts of things.

However, it appears that you and Ted really do believe. It goes to show how the ostensibly far right and the ostensibly far left are both nuts and more similar to each other than either is to intelligent people more in the middle.

Re talk radio conservatism - I don’t know, since I never listen to talk radio conservatism. I actually listen to podcasts of NPR, when I listen to radio. I don’t get Fox News and most of my written sources are non-American. Most of what I read and hear is pro-Obama, so I suppose I am reacting to that renewed hagiography, which is annoying.

Re talk radio conservatism - I don’t know, since I never listen to talk radio conservatism.

Just my opinion C&J.

“We don’t need God on our money. It hasn’t made the uses of that money any more sacred.”

Simply a brain-dead comment.

Not really we survived for years without the motto on our currency.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/1-silver-certificate-still-looking-pretty-sharp-175434007.html

No, it is not only liberals who do it, I speak up when anybody tries to force their beliefs onto another. Liberals just happen to be the ones who are guilty of using government to do it most of the time

Not only is that “one track critical thinking” kctim it is “one eyed one track critical thinking”. Take the blinders off and perhaps you will see conservatives using government to force us into believing in their misguided ways.

RF,

“Please tell me why your party has seen fit to use the Creators name in past platforms? Why wasn’t that considered a political tool then?… Were our founders trying to sway the masses when they used the Creators name in our founding documents? Was that use a denigration of God?”

The Founders used the words God, and Creator once each in the Preamble to The Declaration of Independence.

These words appear nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in the Bill of Rights, and nowhere in the Articles of Confederation.

Where else would you have me look?

The song “God Bless America” was introduced in 1938.

“In God we Trust” didn’t appear on all US coins until 1938, and on Silver certificates in 1957. It began to appear on the Federal Reserve notes in 1964.

“In God we trust” replaced “E pluribus unum” as the National motto in 1956.

God wasn’t officially in the “Pledge of Allegiance” until 1954.

How exactly did America prosper before these acts?

“When a national figure says…”God Bless America” are they merely trying to “sway the masses”?”

I would say that, in a sense yes, it is pandering to a segment of the population no matter who uses it.

I was brought up to believe that a man’s relationship with God was a personal thing, and not something to be bandied loosely about. I believe that using God as a wedge issue to gain votes in a political campaign is abhorrent, and yes, denigrating.

Rocky

Stephen says:

“I don’t personally support abortion, but that is a decision I made on religious grounds,”

Yes you do Stephen; when you support the Democratic platform, you support abortion. It may ease your conscience to say you personally don’t support abortion, but I doubt that excuse will fly when you come face to face with God.

“Some have malice, but most don’t care, and many who support abortion don’t believe that early in that pregnancy that you’re dealing with something that’s grown far enough to be likened to a human being. If you look at the statistics, most abortions take place by over ninety percent, before the first trimester is over. This is not coincidentally the point at which the fetus becomes more recognizeably human. What I would say is that people aren’t sociopaths looking to commit infanticide. They’re no more trying to kill a child or a human being than they’re trying to suffocate one if the man in the relationship wears a condom.

They just don’t take a “life begins at conception” approach.”

Then how can you say you are a Catholic, since the Catholic Church has determined life to begin at conception? I am not asking you when you or others believe life begins, I am stating what the Church believes and since you say you are a Catholic, and a praying Christian, Oh well.

“But you condemn them as if they ripped a child from the hands of its mother and dashed its head against a wall. You project your fierce anger and hatred against them, as if that is the way they thought. But I think God knows better. I think he understands, one way or another, what the personal motivations were, what the facts are.”

So you are saying that when God says, “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea”; He didn’t really mean what e said. Instead, He meant, “you can offend one of these little ones, if your motive is right”. Does that mean any murder is okay ans long as the motive is right?

Re/ripping a child from his mother’s arms: Obama, when a state senator, supported infanticide and the killing of babies who survived abortions. How does this fit into you trimester theory?

“You’ve got to let go of your hatred. How many people do you leave, every day, feeling less human, less calm. How many people do you turn against Republicans and Christians alike by the obnoxiousness of your behavior?”

Did I say anything about hatred Stephen? I simply asked you a series of questions; you are the one who brought sacrilege into the conversation. You are also the one who told us you were a praying Catholic Christian. The bible says, to Christians, that whatsoever we do, we are to do all to the glory of God, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

I guess my real question to you Stephen is when you support the killing of babies through abortion, since the church considers a life to begin at conception; when you pray as you say you do, do you say to God, “God I want you to get glory out of my support given to those who kill babies”?

Rocky wrote; “I was brought up to believe that a man’s relationship with God was a personal thing…”

You should have learned more before you begin pontificating. Read the Gospels and learn about spreading the faith thru witnessing and proselytizing.

Rocky also writes; “I believe that using God as a wedge issue…”

Sorry Rocky…that may be true of some politicians on both sides, but for the 87% of Americans who believe in God, it is so much more. I know you can’t understand why so many folks place God before politics. It is really very simple and the motto on our money says it best. In God We Trust.

Your party delegates made it very clear by voice vote that they don’t want God’s name mentioned in the same breath or in the same writing as their party platform. I don’t believe the majority of Democrats feel that way, but the delegates certainly do. It was so embarrassing to the party that the majority voice vote against God had to be ignored.

Now that has significant meaning for Americans, of all political stripes. It brought to my mind the Gospel account of the trial of Jesus when the crowd yelled…Crucify Him.

KAP-
Gutting the EPA’s authority isn’t a jobs bill. The Ryan Budget isn’t a jobs bill. They’re just calling things jobs bills so they can hide the fact that they haven’t done **** to create actual jobs.

As far as the two canards you pushed on Libya? Mere propaganda. I doubt the President was left unaware of the attack, especially since he commented on it the next day. I also doubt the man getting the daily brief and reading it everyday was in the dark about who we thought we were dealing with there.

I’m not going to believe stupid crap like this. Why you, as a supposed independent, don’t take a step back and realize how self-serving the Romney campaign narratives are is beyond me.

Stephen, 29 jobs bills sent up to Ole Harry, and not a one brought up for a vote. Stephen I’m not thrilled about Romney but I’ve seen what YOUR PEOPLE and Obama have done and I hate it. Stephen maybe you don’t hear to good but Obama and his cronies have said for 8 days that the protest in the M.E. were spontanious because of a video, maybe the video had some part in it but they were terror attacks plain and simple and planned out. NO president with half a brain would leave DC to go on a campaign trip when his Ambassadors and Embassies are being attacked. 4 people died because that self centered piece of crap for a president didn’t have the brains to go to brifeings. I guess hob nobbing with Beyonce and other Hollywood personallities is more important. As I stated Obama is a PISS POOR LEADER. There will be change from the outside come Nov.

j2t2

“Just my opinion C&J.” You can give an opinion based on ignorance, but it is not worth much.

The extend that my opinions correlate with those of talk radio (in your opinion) is not based on any causation. Since you seem actually to know what is on conservative talk radio, you must listen to it more than I do. I suspect that you conflate any conservative ideas with talk radio. If I quote Cato or Edmund Burke I am sure you would think those guys must listen to talk radio.

I would also say that to the extent that someone on talk radio say that same thing I do, they agree with me, so they are probably right.

RF,

“You should have learned more before you begin pontificating. Read the Gospels and learn about spreading the faith thru witnessing and proselytizing.”

What has this got to do with my statement about how I was brought up?

I have no interest in reading the Gospels, and I find witnessing and proselytizing downright annoying. I would compare it to a man standing on a street corner waving his arms and yelling at cars as they passed by.
I left having faith behind in the ninth grade when I asked questions and was told the answer required faith to understand.

I understand things I can observe. Things that require the senses.

Pontificating? I gave an opinion.

“I know you can’t understand why so many folks place God before politics.”

Actually what I can’t understand is I see many folks putting politics before their God, andI see people belittling others when they don’t do the same.

“Your party delegates…”

You know, you keep saying this as if saying it makes it true. It’s not.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a registered Democrat. I have repeatedly stated this fact since I began posting here nearly 8 years ago.
It’s you the doesn’t get it.

You guys on the far right fringe read only what you want and ignore the facts. Then you try to make the facts fit your opinion.

Rocky

Rockey writes a question;

RF,

“You should have learned more before you begin pontificating. Read the Gospels and learn about spreading the faith thru witnessing and proselytizing.”

What has this got to do with my statement about how I was brought up?

Your statement said that you were brought up to believe “man’s relationship with God was a personal thing…” and God did not have a place in a party platform. I believe He does and wrote why I believe that.

You can give an opinion based on ignorance, but it is not worth much.

As could you C&J, as could you.

I suspect that you conflate any conservative ideas with talk radio. If I quote Cato or Edmund Burke I am sure you would think those guys must listen to talk radio.

Surely you jest C&J It would be rather hard to confuse Limbaugh, Hannity, et al. with Cato or Burke. Or did Cato and/or Burke blame feminism for smaller penis size today as Limbaugh has recently done.

http://www.ibtimes.com/rush-limbaugh-blames-declining-average-penis-size-feminazis-794457

I would also say that to the extent that someone on talk radio say that same thing I do, they agree with me, so they are probably right.

Which is the point C&J,not just right,C&J, far right. More radical than in the past, IMHO.

j2t2

You make my point. Have you ever read a comment by me that was like the penis thing? I am grounded in Cato, Burke and others. You want to compare to talk radio. I don’t know, since I don’t listen to it.

As they used to say on the TV, any resemblance is purely coincidental.

Perhaps it appear to you that I have move right because you have moved left.

j2t2

Actually your attack is very much in the liberal manner. You accuse us of flip flopping and of never changing, of marching in lockstep and on being unable to agree.

So if you quote things that Limbaugh said that I have not said or have not supported or have even heard of except from you guys, it is very hard for a logical person to associate that with me. On the other hand, I agree with Limbaugh when he says that Obama is a bad president. But lots of people agree with him about that.

Re making comments out of ignorance - I COULD be like you in this but I never do. You may disagree with my conclusions but my analysis is always based on sources that any reasonable person can check.

In fact, the thing that annoys me about much of the analysis here is how sloppy it is. You and other liberals here rarely even read your own sources, much less go to the original work. When I point it out, I get called names.

I think; you guys just link. I suppose you think those are equally good; I don’t.

Actually your attack is very much in the liberal manner.

Attacking C&J? I was stating an opinion. It seems to me you have moved farther right this past year or two. It also seems to me conservatives in general have moved farther and farther to the extreme right over the years. Reagan and GWB had a lot in common but since Obama has become president many on the right have lost the ability to discern truth from fiction,IMHO.

On the other hand, I agree with Limbaugh when he says that Obama is a bad president. But lots of people agree with him about that.

Much of what you post here is talk radio conservatism,IMHO. The penis thing was comparing Limbaugh and Cato/Burke as it was the issue until you twisted it here.

Comparing you to Cato and Burke, (seriously! again you jest), would lead one to ask when either of them used misinformation to tell the reader Obama took us to the fiscal cliff despite the USA being off the cliff prior to Obama being sworn in as an example? Cato, Burke and C&J, or Limbaugh, Coulter and C&J?

Talk Radio Conservatives in general C&J suffer from low effort thought, you didn’t seem to be one of those until this past year or so, IMHO.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/16/0146167212439213.abstract?rss=1

Actually your attack is very much in the liberal manner.

Attacking C&J? I was stating an opinion. It seems to me you have moved farther right this past year or two. It also seems to me conservatives in general have moved farther and farther to the extreme right over the years. Reagan and GWB had a lot in common but since Obama has become president many on the right have lost the ability to discern truth from fiction,IMHO.

On the other hand, I agree with Limbaugh when he says that Obama is a bad president. But lots of people agree with him about that.

Much of what you post here is talk radio conservatism,IMHO. The penis thing was comparing Limbaugh and Cato/Burke as it was the issue until you twisted it here.

Comparing you to Cato and Burke, (seriously! again you jest), would lead one to ask when either of them used misinformation to tell the reader Obama took us to the fiscal cliff despite the USA being off the cliff prior to Obama being sworn in as an example? Cato, Burke and C&J, or Limbaugh, Coulter and C&J?

Talk Radio Conservatives in general C&J suffer from low effort thought, you didn’t seem to be one of those until this past year or so, IMHO.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/16/0146167212439213.abstract?rss=1

j2t2

So you think it is a good thing to move farther right?

Okay, don’t call it an attack. You may indeed believe that I have moved farther to the right and you may have a point. I don’t know. It is hard to judge one’s own judgements.

But what I can tell you with 100% certainty is that I am not parroting the words of any of the talk radio. people you talk about because I have not heard them.

You bring up a silly thing about penis size. I had not heard that anywhere until Stephen brought it up. It is not something I have ever said. My guess is that you bring it up as a straw man. But it is not mine. I feel no reason to either defend or attack the idea. It has nothing to do with me at all.

I regularly slap you all around intellectually. Instead of actually reading sources or analyzing information, you all try to claim that my ideas are from talk radio, which you evidently think are prima facie wrong.

I will remind you again that facts and reason can come from any source. Sometimes even odious people are right and virtuous ones wrong.

I don’t know what is on talk radio. I do not get American talk radio where I live. My American radio news comes from the sterling liberal source NPR, which I get on I-tunes.

Yesterday I was listening to the Dianne Rehm show. They had some radical from Mother Jones talking about the news. As I listened to his absurd statement about Obama and Romney, I started to react with counter logic. IMO, NPR liberal commentators are drifting farther to the left. The Obama worship is coming back. Hope is winning out over experience.

Perhaps my connection with the people you mention is that we both listen to liberal media and react to the illogical and silly ideology there expressed.

Anyway, what I ask of you and others is simply to analyze your sources. This begins with actually reading them and thinking for yourselves rather that count up votes and label them by ostensible ideology. This is much harder. It requires more “thought effort” than you guys are willing or able to do.

In fact, my biggest complaint against liberal on this blog is that you are often sloppy. I believe that Adam actually reads sources and tries to figure out connections. Most of the rest of you do not. You don’t even read or assess the things you link to. On many occasions I have had to point out that your links do not prove the things you claim they do. This was the recent case with the link that both you and Adrienne made to a study that the rich don’t give as much money to charity. As I pointed out, the study was interesting but it has nothing to do with the point of liberal-conservative giving. This was beyond your collective ken and I expect you to link again in the future in much the same thoughtless way.

KAP-
You call them jobs bills, but their subjects are deregulation and dismantling government oversight of the economy and the environment, not to mention the dismantlement of Social Security and Medicare as we know them (Yes, the Ryan Budget is part of that parcel).

You tell me, why are Democrats obligated to pass this kind of far-right horsecrap? Nothing we are pushing is anywhere near as controversial.

C&J-
I used to be pretty centrist. But now, what’s the point? You’ve justified the GOP’s obstruction on ideological grounds, so you have no cause to gripe about the real world consequences of not cultivating negotiation and compromise with the Democrats. The old guard of bargainers and capitulators simply have nothing to show for being doormats, no bills they negotiated with the Republicans, no appointments to get passed when otherwise they wouldn’t be.

Centrists nowadays just don’t get anything done, thanks to your Congressional blockade. You’re depriving them of a habitat. And no, this isn’t equal opportunity deprivation, we can show you plenty of evidence that Democrats were willing to bargain in earlier times.

You are going to see the Democrats go further the left than they otherwise would because they have nothing to gain from making concessions that do not yield results. I know you think your side meant to starve the ideologues out, but what it’s really done is deprive those who want bipartisanship of any real political advantage. If Democrats can achieve more, or at least look better by sticking to their guns, then you will see them do so.

When you’re ready to bargain, maybe then you’ll get the center back.

As far as the Rush penis size thing? I just want people to know just how far over the cliff Republicans have driven their party, that their de facto spokesman is talking about Women’s Lib having made men shorter. You might not listen to him, but there are plenty of people in your party who actually take him seriously.

C&J

What you last expressed is generally how I feel. The left/liberal, etc remind me of a fireworks display. You fire a volley, then watch the display as it flashes in a random pattern, then the flash goes out and the hot ashes are all that is left. The only thing is that a fireworks effort is not done in a sloppy manner only the display becomes random. The liberal/left here may use links, but the links are not very conclusive nor are they truthful to a large degree.

Your remarks re/Mother Jones reminds me of the editing job on Romneys 47% remarks. David Corn edited remarks about the Israel/Palastinian situation. The entire tape was altered and in my opinion made the tape void of understanding and truth. So what’s new from the left. Just more distortion, lies, and a lack of straightforward honesty.

Maranatha

Stephen, You tell me why Republicans are obligated to pass the BS crap comming from your side? Two wrongs don’t make a right both sides need to be more tolerant and bring bills up for debate and amendment then a vote if then they fail so be it.

So you think it is a good thing to move farther right?

Seriously?

But what I can tell you with 100% certainty is that I am not parroting the words of any of the talk radio. people you talk about because I have not heard them.

Whatever C&J, same talking points so maybe they parrot you.

C&J speaking of strawman here you go. One more time “The penis thing was comparing Limbaugh and Cato/Burke as it was the issue until you twisted it here.”

I regularly slap you all around intellectually.

Only in your own mind C&J. The fact is you tend to resort to intellectual dishonesty to make a point. Then you claim you have slapped me around. You have a habit of ignoring what was said and changing your tune to score points with yourself. Ignoring the other persons comments doesn’t mean you have won any points C&J it simply means you have ignored the other person.

Instead of actually reading sources or analyzing information, you all try to claim that my ideas are from talk radio, which you evidently think are prima facie wrong.

So it seems you are claiming original thought here and by doing so are also claiming Limbaugh and others are copying you? My point is you have drifted from intelligent conservatism into talk radio conservatism more and more this past year or so. Using misinformation half truths and outright lies as a strategy to misinform the public is characteristic of talk radio conservatism.

Perhaps my connection with the people you mention is that we both listen to liberal media and react to the illogical and silly ideology there expressed.

You and Rush listen to liberal radio! In the case of Limbaugh and penis size you would think you would be telling me his illogical and silly ideology is a problem. In addition the many illogical conservative theories you have defended should tell your intellectual self you have a problem calling anyone else illogical.

Anyway, what I ask of you and others is simply to analyze your sources.

Coming from the guy that links to a conservative guy telling us conservatives give more to charity than liberals is amusing C&J!

This was the recent case with the link that both you and Adrienne made to a study that the rich don’t give as much money to charity. As I pointed out, the study was interesting but it has nothing to do with the point of liberal-conservative giving.

C&J you are missing the point with this study. We all give to charity. In many cases the middle class give more than the rich percentage wise. The study you use to make the claim is to biased and inconclusive,IMHO. The Philanthropy link acknowledges this. The NPR link mentions the claim you make and explains why what you consider to be red states ranks higher. If you make the mistake of thinking only conservatives give in red states you are wrong IMHO.

From the NPR link-
“The Chronicle found that it’s the same across the country. High-income people who live in economically diverse neighborhoods give more on average than high-income people who live in wealthier neighborhoods.”

From the philanthropy.com link-
“Readers should understand some of the weaknesses of data available about charitable giving.”

The liberal/left here may use links, but the links are not very conclusive nor are they truthful to a large degree.

Tom,The conservative /right here may use links, but the links are not very conclusive nor are they truthful to a large degree. Not to mention biased to a large degree on most occasions.

Stephen

Only you guys bring up the small penis thing. Worried about your shortcomings, are you?

j2t2

“Whatever C&J, same talking points so maybe they parrot you.” Who knew they were all reading Watchblog?

Re slapping you around intellectually. I understand that this doesn’t happen as far as you know. But those of us who understand the use of evidence know that, when I demonstrate that your source doesn’t support your claim, I do not have to address the specifics of the argument.

Re linking - If you look at the sources I link, you find that there is a wide variety – I looked at the sources of my articles still up on the page. I sources the following, A Thesis on Chemical Engineering, NPR, Perdue University Nanoforestry Institute, The Economist (3 times), The New Scientist, the Washington Post & WSJ.

The Economist endorsed Obama; Washington Post and NPR are generally considered liberal; the New Scientist, Chemical Engineering and Nanoforesty Institute are non-political. WSJ is center right.

You would have to be a really loony leftist to call this mix of sources “right wing”

Do you want to admit to being wrong or being loony left?

Re your use of the NPR study - it is simply beside the point. It indicates nothing about what you are trying to prove. I think it is a fine study. Unlike you, I read it. But you cannot use it for the purpose you tried.

This is the nature of pursuing excellence and truth. You have to be more rigorous than you are willing or able to be.

tom humes-
When I charge somebody with editing out context, I provide context as a way of selling that argument’s truth. What comments soften the impact of saying that 47% of Americans will never take responsibility for themselves?

C&J-
I don’t drive a sports car, if that’s what you’re saying. ;-)

But really, I think it just shows how paranoid and misanthropic the right’s leaders have become. There’s so much you have to rationalize, so much it seems that you end up having to agree with, even though it’s crazy or stupid.

Personally, I don’t like that. I’ll disagree with my own fellow party members when I think its necessary. There’s only so far you can push a defense of one thing before it becomes a threat to other things you support, before the rationalization corrupts your politics, your beliefs.

Sorry I took so long to respond C&J.

Re slapping you around intellectually. I understand that this doesn’t happen as far as you know. But those of us who understand the use of evidence know that, when I demonstrate that your source doesn’t support your claim, I do not have to address the specifics of the argument.

So you have went from slapping me around regularly to one instance where you do not see a specific correlation between the link I provided and the issue? Seems you are coming back down to earth a bit C&J. SO I will concede that I have been intellectually slapped for using the NPR link.

Do you want to admit to being wrong or being loony left?

How about I admit that such a small sampling of links and you omitting the link under discussion doesn’t make me all that wrong nor all the looney, C&J.

This is the nature of pursuing excellence and truth. You have to be more rigorous than you are willing or able to be.

I believe that the pursuit of excellence and truth cannot come from the link you use to make your blanket statement that conservatives are more generous that liberals. While the NPR link may not refute the onerous link you previously provided it does tell us the data is hard to come by were truth the real goal.

Further using just links as the means to pursue the truth leaves out many other means of getting to the truth of the matter. Have you reviewed any of your posts and/or my comments on these same posts from years past and compared the “excellence” and “truth” in them with the current batch of “excellence” and “truth” posts? Or have you used the low road and excluded other paths to excellent and truth by attacking me instead? When we start with “who is most radical” and come around to the NPR link from a post in another column as your proof of excellence and truth, well… I think we still have a ways to go to get to excellence and even a longer road to truth.

So to summarize here C&J I still maintain that over the past year or so you have shown more radical TRC thought and less intelligent intellectual conservative thought in your articles and posts. More Limbaugh less Frum as it were. I have not noticed where you disagreed with the first two points of why conservatives are more radical IMHO,BTW.

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