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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
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"Its talking about the Republican Senate filibustering everything"
when? the dems had a filibuster proof majority for two years
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:43pm PT
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I am an irrational drug addict
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:50pm PT
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This is just terrible
Ter ble
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:59pm PT
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skipt - you win again. Its funny that these Liberals are not
able to make a better showing arguing their positions.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:11pm PT
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Again
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:05pm PT
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"If a wealthy person earns so much money that he doesn’t or can’t spend it all each year, when his taxes go down his income after taxes goes up. This is largely because there’s little or no relationship between what he “needs to live on” and what he’s “earning.”
do you really want all of us to have only "what we need to live one"? i don't "need" any climbing gear...i don't "need" a car...i don't "need" my little 2br cape cod house...i don't "need" most of what i own...what about you? again, NOBODY is stopping you from having such a life so unless you're willing to walk the walk, don't whine about the rich
"So average Americans tend to support tax cuts because they think they’ll have more money in the bank as a result"
they will
"but if their taxes go up, they’ll have less money in the bank"
they will
"Unlike the rich, most working people spend pretty much all of what they earn"
because they CHOOSE to spend all of what they earn
"their discretionary income is extremely limited"
not true for the "average" american if they manage their money
"and in many cases zero"
again, not true
"Savings rates in the United States among working people typically are small—1 to 5 percent"
is this what people can save or what they do save? i'm a teacher; there's a guy in my school who has 14 kids, and his wife doesn't work...14 kids on a single teacher's salary in the dc suburbs...if he can do it, we all can do it
"So the take-home pay that people have after taxes—regardless of what the tax rate may be—is pretty much what they live on"
wrong. the take-home pay DOES go up when taxes go down; just because some people decide more take-home pay means more to spend rather than more to save has NOTHING to do with the tax rate or with rich people
my cell phone costs $39...i just dropped dsl because i can save $40/month with a verizon myfi contract for internet use...i just refied my mortgage to save $350/month, which i'm putting into a savings account because i expect i'll need a new car in about three years (when my truck will be 10 years old)...i brown bag my lunch everyday...i use a wood burning stove to offset my heating bills
yeah, i wish i had more money, but i don't hate rich people just because they have more money than i do...not even if they inherited it and do nothing but sit on their asses all day
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:29pm PT
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Skip:
The single greatest thing over the past 2 years was the awakening of average Americans to the reality of what Obama, and radical progressivism, really is. The TEA party movement really began under Bush as a mostly underground sentiment amongst many people that our federal government, run by both parties, was destroying this country through massive foreign-owned debt and impossible-to-pay-for domestic spending programs (social security, medicare, medical, etc.). Both parties represent a status quo that believes there really is nothing that the federal government should not be involved in, from our health care to how we educate kids locally to how much water comes out of our showers to what kind of lightbulb we can buy. Both parties are a disaster and represent a clear and present danger to our Constitutional framework. Further, the federal government abdicates what it primarily should be doing -- e.g., controlling the borders.
Keep up the fight. The revolution has only just begun.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:32pm PT
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IN BRITAIN, devolution. “David Cameron’s assertion that this Government would be the first in a generation to leave office wielding less power than it started with was more than a rhetorical flourish. The Localism Bill published yesterday sets out in some detail the mechanisms by which the Coalition intends to divest Whitehall of power and hand it instead to local communities and local government.”
Wow. Even Britain is getting smart. If only our leaders could do the same.
From Instapundit.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:54pm PT
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SUAP,
"Radical progressivism" is really just the reactionary left. The fact that they call themselves "progressive" doesn't obligate us to use their moniker. The "progressive" agenda is little more than a return to the pre-industrial revolution, mercantilist (or sometimes, late medieval) economy, and a neo-isolationist foreign policy -- at least when it comes to defending American interests with military force. There's no progress in it.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:59pm PT
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I didn't say we need to rule the world, and I am very reluctant to use military force, but the radical left seems to think that we have no armed enemies. Reality says otherwise.
John
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Robb
Social climber
The other "Magic City on the Plains"
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:04pm PT
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Hey how about that new budget proposal! Didn't someone recently run for office promising no more earmarks?
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:20pm PT
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J -- as I understand it, the "progressive" movement is both a direct and indirect attack on our Constitutional structure. Our Founders' Constitution was a decree of negative liberties with its foundation being one of natural or inate law. The Founders' primary purpose was to protect your God-given individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit (not acquisition) of happiness.
The Progressives beginning in the early 1900s with Hoover ridiculed and debased our Founders ideals, claiming they were antiquated and outmoded. They claimed that what we needed was a new Bill of Rights, a second Bill of Rights, that gave citizens positive rights -- rights that forced the government to provide individuals happiness (i.e., public benefits). But of course, as anyone with half a brain knows, the Government produces nothing (except lots of employees and waste) and what it gives to some it must take from others.
Obama in a 2000 interview supported this view, lamenting the restrictions the current Constitution placed on government's ability to redistribute wealth.
Obama and the Progressives represent collectivism, a tried and failed ideology time and time again, that denigrates private property and individual initiative in favor of universal misery and mediocrity.
Obama and the Progressives represent the antithesis of our Constitution's protection of individual liberty, and these leaders are hell-bound to correct -- by whatever means necessary -- the perceived injustice that our current system creates. Which is why revolution against them has just started.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:33pm PT
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Aleister -- please educate me -- what is a fascist? Can you tell me about Mussolini and the Fascisti? What were some of their primary objectives? Please, I am intrigued.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:39pm PT
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Lets remember what Obama and the left's progressive hero FDR said about the original fascist -- Benito Mussolini:
"There seems to be no question that [Mussolini] is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy."
"I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman."
Comment on Benito Mussolini in 1933,
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:41pm PT
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The Founders' focus was protecting individuals from government. Period.
The progressive's focus is just the opposite -- empowering and enlarging government at the expense of the individual. Which is why you see the progressives saying that the Commerce Clause means that the federal government can do anything it wants, no restrictions, a la Obamacare.
Progressivism = Obamism = Totalitarianism.
The revolution has just begun.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:45pm PT
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The central question for liberals (oh, they now call themselves "progressives") is this -- if liberals are really about freedom, why are the Dems they elect so strongly for enlarging the size and scope of government in our lives?
Simple question.
The revolution has just begun.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:51pm PT
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FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR RE PROGRESSIVISM:
The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
You want a more 'progressive' America? Careful what you wish for.
Voters should remember what happened under Woodrow Wilson.
Jonah Goldberg
(Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jonah Goldberg
posted February 5, 2008 at 12:00 am EST
I'm thinking of an American president who demonized ethnic groups as enemies of the state, censored the press, imprisoned dissidents, bullied political opponents, spewed propaganda, often expressed contempt for the Constitution, approved warrantless searches and eavesdropping, and pursued his policies with a blind, religious certainty.
Oh, and I'm not thinking of George W. Bush, but another "W" – actually "WW": Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat who served from 1913 to 1921.
President Wilson is mostly remembered today as the first modern liberal president, the first (and only) POTUS with a PhD, and the only political scientist to occupy the Oval Office. He was the champion of "self determination" and the author of the idealistic but doomed "Fourteen Points" – his vision of peace for Europe and his hope for a League of Nations. But the nature of his presidency has largely been forgotten.
That's a shame, because Wilson's two terms in office provide the clearest historical window into the soul of progressivism. Wilson's racism, his ideological rigidity, and his antipathy toward the Constitution were all products of the progressive worldview. And since "progressivism" is suddenly in vogue – today's leading Democrats proudly wear the label – it's worth actually reviewing what progressivism was and what actually happened under the last full-throated progressive president.
The record should give sober pause to anyone who's mesmerized by the progressive promise.
Wilson, like the bulk of progressive intellectuals in fin-de-siècle America, was deeply influenced by three strands of thought: philosophical Pragmatism, Hegelianism, and Darwinism. This heady intellectual cocktail produced a drunken arrogance and the conviction that the old rules no longer applied.
The classical liberalism of the Founders – free markets, individualism, property rights, etc. – had been eclipsed by a new "experimental" age. Horace Kallen, a protégé of Pragmatism exponent William James, denounced fixed philosophical dogmas as mere rationalizations of the status quo. Sounding much like today's critical theorists, Mr. Kallen lamented that "Men have invented philosophy precisely because they find change, chance, and process too much for them, and desire infallible security and certainty."
The old conception of absolute truths and immutable laws had been replaced by a "Darwinian" vision of organic change.
Hence Wilson argued that the old "Newtonian" vision – fixed rules enshrined in the Constitution and laws – had to give way to the "Darwinian" view of "living constitutions" and the like.
"Government," Wilson wrote approvingly in his magnum opus, "The State," "does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." "No doubt," he wrote elsewhere, taking dead aim at the Declaration of Independence, "a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle."
In his 1890 essay, "Leaders of Men," Wilson explained that a "true leader" uses the masses like "tools." He must inflame their passions with little heed for the facts. "Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader."
Wilson once told a black delegation, that "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." But his racism wasn't just a product of his Southern roots; it was often of a piece with the reigning progressive obsession with eugenics, the pseudoscience that strove to perfect society through better breeding.
Again, Wilson was merely one voice in the progressive chorus of the age. "[W]e must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection to the activity of the many," declared the progressive social activist Jane Addams.
"New forms of association must be created," explained Walter Rauschenbusch, a leading progressive theologian of the Social Gospel movement, in 1896. "Our disorganized competitive life must pass into an organic cooperative life." Elsewhere, Rauschenbusch put it more simply: "Individualism means tyranny."
Not surprisingly, such intellectual kindling was easy to ignite when World War I broke out. The philosopher John Dewey, New Republic founder Herbert Croly, and countless other progressive intellectuals welcomed what Mr. Dewey dubbed "the social possibilities of war." The war provided an opportunity to force Americans to, as journalist Frederick Lewis Allen put it, "lay by our good-natured individualism and march in step." Or as another progressive put it, "Laissez faire is dead. Long live social control."
With the intellectuals on their side, Wilson recruited journalist George Creel to become a propaganda minister as head of the newly formed Committee on Public Information (CPI).
Mr. Creel declared that it was his mission to inflame the American public into "one white-hot mass" under the banner of "100 percent Americanism." Fear was a vital tool, he argued, "an important element to be bred in the civilian population."
The CPI printed millions of posters, buttons, pamphlets, that did just that. A typical poster for Liberty Bonds cautioned, "I am Public Opinion. All men fear me!... f you have the money to buy and do not buy, I will make this No Man's Land for you!" One of Creel's greatest ideas – an instance of "viral marketing" before its time – was the creation of an army of about 75,000 "Four Minute Men." Each was equipped and trained by the CPI to deliver a four-minute speech at town meetings, in restaurants, in theaters – anyplace they could get an audience – to spread the word that the "very future of democracy" was at stake. In 1917-18 alone, some 7,555,190 speeches were delivered in 5,200 communities. These speeches celebrated Wilson as a larger-than-life leader and the Germans as less-than-human Huns.
Meanwhile, the CPI released a string of propaganda films with such titles as "The Kaiser," "The Beast of Berlin," and "The Prussian Cur." Remember when French fries became "freedom fries" in the run-up to the Iraq war? Thanks in part to the CPI, sauerkraut become "victory cabbage."
Under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, Wilson's administration shut down newspapers and magazines at an astounding pace. Indeed, any criticism of the government, even in your own home, could earn you a prison sentence. One man was brought to trial for explaining in his own home why he didn't want to buy Liberty Bonds.
The Wilson administration sanctioned what could be called an American fascisti, the American Protective League. The APL – a quarter million strong at its height, with offices in 600 cities – carried government-issued badges while beating up dissidents and protesters and conducting warrantless searches and interrogations. Even after the war, Wilson refused to release the last of America's political prisoners, leaving it to subsequent Republican administrations to free the anti-war Socialist Eugene V. Debs and others.
Now, obviously, none of the current crop of self-described progressives are eager to replay this dark chapter. But we make a mistake when we assume that we can cherry pick only the good parts of our past to re-create.
Today's progressives still share many of the core assumptions of the progressives of yore. It may be gauche to talk about patriotism too much in liberal circles, but what is Barack Obama's obsession with unity other than patriotism by another name? Indeed, he champions unity for its own sake, as a good in and of itself. But unity can be quite amoral. Mobs and gangs are dangerous because of their unblinking unity.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, often insists that we must move "beyond" ideology, labels, partisanship, etc. The sentiment is a direct echo of the Pragmatists who felt that dogma needed to be jettisoned to give social planners a free hand. Of course, then as now, the "beyond ideology" refrain is itself an ideological position favoring whatever state intervention social planners prefer.
In Senator Clinton's case, the most vital intervention is intruding on the family. Mrs. Clinton proudly follows the "child saver" tradition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Jane Addams. In 1996, she proclaimed "as adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn't really any such thing as someone else's child." In her book, "It Takes A Village," she insists that children are born in crisis, requiring progressive government intervention from infancy on. She seems to subscribe to Wilson's view, when president of Princeton, that the chief job of an educator is to make children as unlike their parents as possible.
In a Democratic debate, Clinton famously rejected the word "liberal" in favor of "progressive." Shouldn't we at least ask what that means? If Mike Huckabee proclaimed that he prefers the label "confederate" over "conservative," pundits would rightly denounce his association with such a tainted legacy. But when it comes to progressivism, there's no such obligation to account for your ideological heritage. It seems progressivism is never wrong.
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dirtbag
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:55pm PT
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Funny he has to go back 90 years to find a supposed progressive President he doesn't like.
I only have to go back 2 years to find an awful conservative.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 05:56pm PT
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Goldberg merely quotes the leaders that founded progressivism.
Again -- please libs -- if you are for protecting freedom why do your Dems constantly move to expand the size and scope of government?
The revolution has just begun.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 06:02pm PT
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I have to say, however, that Obama has done some wonderful things:
1. Renewed the Patriot Act so we can listen to foreign Al Qaeda calls to the U.S.;
2. Kept Gitmo open;
3. Renditioning continues;
4. Keeping tax rates lower
5. Pushing missile defense (aka Star Wars) in Europe
6. The bombing in Afghanistan continues
7. Increased troops in Afghanistan.
8. Reinvigorated the conservative movement leading to the biggest shellacking any party has taken in 70 years.
Damn -- maybe Obama aint so bad after all. Nahhhhh.
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