What Is Americas Biggest Problem?

[tar]

"So it is not that Schlafly, or other conservatives as sophisticated as he, can't make an argument. Rather, the problem is that when Schlafly makes an argument, it's hard to believe it has anything to do with real intellectual give and take. He's not arguing out of an openness to changing his mind. He's arguing to reaffirm what he already thinks (his "faith"), to defend the authorities he trusts, and to bolster the beliefs of his compatriots, his tribe, his team.

 

Liberals (and scientists) have too often tried to dodge the mounting evidence that this is how people work. Perhaps because it leads to a place that terrifies them: an anti-Enlightenment world in which evidence and argument don't work to change people's minds.

 

But that response, too, is a form of denial—liberal denial, a doctrine whose chief delusion is not so much the failure to accept facts, but rather, the failure to understand conservatives. And that denial can't continue. Because as President Obama's first term has shown—from the healthcare battle to the debt ceiling crisis—ignoring the psychology of the right has not only left liberals frustrated and angry, but has left the country in a considerably worse state than that."

 

How is this conclusion any different than what I have been saying in the last 30 pages?

[Willie71]

Maybe people who reject reality shouldn't be given the keys to the most powerful machine the world has ever seen?

 

Liberals understand conservatives very well. They are impervious to facts and reason. Something 30 pages of this thread has also shown. Conservatives see the world the same way Isis does. Through a mythological lens that puts everyone at great risk.

 

Are you suggesting we give Muslim extremists equal say in political discourse to balance out the secular powers? Just like giving American dominionists equal footing to secular powers?

 

 

 

The media needs to stop pandering to these people. Reporters have an ethical responsibility to call bullshit when they see it, but the media is owned by the same people who own the politicians. We need news people like Walter Cronkite who could be trusted to dig into the back story, and tell the truth. When a politician claims climate change is a hoax, they should be sent for a psych evaluation, not given equal air time. When a politician claims Isis is coming across the Mexican border, they should be laughed at, and facts should be presented. If they continue to lie, they should be sent for a psych evaluation, or reported to the police for fraud. They should be treated with the same level of respect as the factual quality of their statements.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Willie71

[Ten oz]

@ Willie71, TAR has managed to shift discussion away from policy and facts towards a philosophical dicussion about partisan ideology. That is the name of his game. When he doesn't have facts he just derails discussion while claiming ignorance. You managed to get a list of things that he felt the Republican party represented out of him but since ALL attempts to follow up have be obfuscated. TAR listed 10 things to which you responded with 10 questions; he has address ZERO of those questions. Such a clear duck of the issues at hand can not be confused merely as being a misunderstanding. TAR simply doesn't have the answers so he is changing the topic.

@ TAR, you list things you felt mattered to Republicans. Can we get back to discussioning these items? After all it is your list.

 

Willie71,

 

Your request is difficult for me to fulfill because the planks of the party platform are not set. Neither is such set for the democrats.

 

But without citation, I would say

 

Personal responsibility.

Strong military.

Christian values.

Smaller Government.

Private insurance.

Less government interference in private business.

Free market operation.

The right to bear arms.

Fight against Global terrorism.

Private property and protection of personal wealth.

 

 

Personal responsibility - I think we all agree

Strong military :
what steps have Democrats taken to weaken the Military? There is a difference between strength and use.

Christian values :
is that would religious freedom means to you?

Smaller Government :
which Republican President shrunk the size of governement ??????

Private insurance :
Eisenhower and Nixon both pushed for Government provided healthcare. When did opposing it become a Republican value?

Less government interference in private business :
which republican administration did this across the board without picking and choosing favorites?

Free market operation :
you mean like no bid contracts?

The right to bear arms :
has either party sent agents out to collect guns?

Fight against Global terrorism :
only Republcans do that?

 

 

Strong military: how strong, and can you afford it? Is what you have financially sustainable?

Christian values: violation of the constitution. This is a problem.

Smaller government: talking point. Reagan grew government more than anyone else in recent history. Bush degree the military, and gave the patriot act, an obscene growth of government power.

Private insurance. This is code for crony capitalism and corporate profits (I think you are referring to health care.)

Less government interference with private business: this resulted in numerous health and environmental catastrophes. Without government regulations, we would still have leaded paint and gas, asbestos insulation, and currently, water quality and geologic stability from fracking are unknowns. When corporate profits are the only goal, us peasants are expendable.

Free market operation: no such thing. The republican plan results in monopolies, and crony advantages. It's a nice idea, but has never really existed, and it is not what the republicans actually support in policy.

The right to bear arms: you ignored the well regulated militia part. Is this practical? Look at the buddy fiasco. They were taken down by cops, not even the military. Time to lose the fantasy. I support guns as tools, and sporting items, but self protection, and government overthrow are myths,

Fight against global terrorism: start with American terrorism, removing the fuel for the other terrorists.

Private property and protection of personal wealth: you need banking reforms to protect your investments, and protect you from property value abnormalities through the bubbles the bankers create. The republicans are actually supporting less stability for your respurces.

[overtone]

I do however have my images of some of you, that I have constructed over many posts from you on many subjects.

Occasionally you will throw in aspects of these images that dominate your responses, and I (at least) am reminded once again that this world you have created to reason from is formed of delusions. You are always (at least, I can't think of a counterexample) wrong, about me. You presume attitudes and opinions and opinions alien to me, assign me characteristics I do not possess, throw readings into my posts in conflict with the very wording of them to get them to align with your presumptions, and so forth. Quite often these basic errors comprise a view of yourself that I am supposed to hold, that someone of my image would hold.

 

That is never going to work as an answer or response to my actual posting. You are off on the wrong foot, guessing from bad information about a reality largely irrelevant here. And this costs you allies for your causes, as well as engaging you in futility.

 

When I propose the Republican Party as America's biggest problem, I mean just that: the Republican Party. I don't mean your neighbors are worthless people. I don't mean that everything somebody thinks the Party "stands for" is a bad idea. I mean the thing itself, the entity, the legally incorporated thing, has become a bad thing and is doing a great deal of harm to America.

Edited February 1, 2016 by overtone

[tar]

Willie71, Overtone and Ten Oz,

 

Facts are facts, opinions are opinion. You can spin a set of facts any way you want. I have no doubt that global warming deniers are wrong, I have no doubt that there is income inequality. I have no doubt that creationists are wrong. I have no doubt that the equations of relativity work. But the theories and beliefs of conservatives as in the ones I depicted as the platform I would support, and that I view as the Republican stance can be held by a person such as me who does not deny any facts.

You guys often characterize my stances as if I am holding them because I am a fearful deluded ignorant fool. And you ask me to prove that ideas I do not hold are true, to prove I am a conservative, and therefore wrong.

 

I did not like the government shutdowns, because its my country that is getting shut down, but the republicans obstructing progress is only a problem if you want progress in the form the other side of the isle is pushing. If you will not be talked to, and if concessions will not be made to you to make your side somewhat happy with the deal than obstructing "progress" is exactly what you need to do to get listened to.

 

Each of the platform lines I put down, you said the Republicans don't believe in, or don't act like they believe in, and you bring up some talking point that I might well have some objection to. Like saying the republicans are not for a strong defense, and forgetting the base closures and drawdowns of nuclear weapons and such that were pushed much to the chagrin of the republican party. Or saying that the Republicans previously wanted healthcare and now don't want it because a black man wants it, when you are forgetting that the arguments for bringing healthcare to children and the aged, and to vets are something that everybody wants, while bringing healthcare to able bodied men and women is not a human right, and not financially feasible. People have to take care of themselves, responsible for themselves. Take care of the children you bring onto this Earth.

 

Smaller government is something that nobody has really been able to achieve. Programs, and agencies, once established are very hard to unwind. I remember years ago hearing about a convention of WIC directors. Not a convention of WIC agents, but just directors. We are a big country. Any little thing multiplied by every community becomes rather huge, rather quickly. Equating the military or the interstate system (in terms of government spending) to an entitlement program is not reasonable.

 

Private insurance is just that. You protect yourself against big expenses, or accidents, or trees falling on your roof and such, by paying a premium. Actuaries figure out what the chances of something happening are, and what would be a fair premium to make some money and protect everybody from the loss, by pooling the risk. It is not mandatory to protect yourself in this manner. It is your choice. Pay a little every month, or don't pay anything, and risk paying huge amounts if the thing happens. Collision insurance is not mandatory. Liability insurance is. You can't drive unless you indemnify yourself against damaging somebody else. Health insurance is no different. You pool with other people and spread out the risk. Not according to Obama care however. It was started to lower health care costs. But it has managed to raise them. It started out meaning to force employers to give their workers healthcare insurance, and when it was realized that employers did not want to pay for peoples healthcare, everybody started hiring part time so they didn't have to take care of the health care. Now that the Obamacare doesn't work to reduce healthcare costs, the insurance companies and drug companies are blamed and the republican party is demonized for not letting the government set drug prices. There are plenty of facts concerning how much healthcare now costs as compared to prior Obamacare, and these facts are ignored. The only argument Phi has for universal health care is that other countries have made it work. He ignores the fact that many of these countries are socialist, and we have not made the decision yet to be a socialist country. If there are people that don't want to go that way, it is liable to make people that don't want to go that way vote to block going that way. This is no proof of being creationist, homophobe, or a bigot.

 

Less government interference with businesses, I listed as a common thread that runs through many of the republican party's objections to liberal progressive programs, that put a burden on the small businessman or land owner, or corporation, that establishes basically an unfunded mandate, that cost the business with no refund. Like making the businessman pay for healthcare, or taking land for a bird sanctuary, or making a firm hold classes or meet this or that criteria or suffer loss of government business or face high fines and loss of license and such. Much of the current regulatory aim is on Wall Street. Most of wall street is most likely as capable and trustworthy as my financial advisor. There are as well people that are not fiduciaries and game the market. I did some of this myself. Mostly lost money, but the system requires people to gauge value and invest in money making concerns. This is good for our national wealth, good to get things done, good to have capital for large projects, good for employment, good for technology, good for increasing the quality of life of everybody. The top 1 percent are not our enemies.

 

The right to bear arms makes a guy feel like he has control and can come to his country's aid should there be civil unrest or foreign invasion. Personally it is fine to own a firearm to protect yourself against drug addicts, crazy people, muggers, rapists, rabid dogs and bears. No handgrenades and artillery pieces are required. But we already have laws to keep bad people from getting firearms. And any fact checking individual can look at recent history and see that anytime more stringent gun control laws are suggested, the amount of guns on the street goes up, because every buys a gun while they still can. So if people don't need guns because the police and the army have them and will protect us from dangers, domestic and foreign then we should trust our police and military.

 

The fight against global terrorism is that pacifists go about in a different manner than war mongers. We have the power to make peace with Assad and join him in going into Raqqa and digging ISIS out of their tunnels. We just need the will to do it.

 

Overtone,

 

I have you pegged exactly, and I do not agree that Bush caused all our problems. He might have commited the original sin in invading Iraq and dismantling the Sunni Guard, but Iran backed the Shiite resistance to our troops, and Maliki lost an election held by a secular Iraq and Obama reversed the result and installed Maliki a second time. That was Obama's decision. -

 

You spout the same anti-American propaganda that I fought against on Guardian talk, after 9/11. I realized I had enemies on 9/ll that wanted to kill me and destroy my way of life. I still like my way of life, and will still die to protect it. You say the Republican party has done everything wrong and nothing right in the last 50 years. I think they did many many things right, and continue to do them right. I will not let you say that the people I have loved and respected and relied upon, that have protected me, and my way of life, for the last 50 years are the biggest problem with America, when they are exactly the folks, the party that has been on my side for the last 50 years. I think you are wrong. I think you are a self hating American, I think you are a socialist and a pacifist. I think you do not care about maintaining my way of life.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited February 2, 2016 by tar

[Willie71]

Tar, please re-read the questions and try to answer them.

[Ten oz]

Tar, please re-read the questions and try to answer them.

I gave TAR a +1 for bothering to acknowledge the questions at all. It is a big first step.

[tar]

Willie71,

 

You wanted me to answer you in particular. You, who believe a conservative is impervious to fact and reason. I have in the last 30 pages given you plenty of reason, based on all the facts linked to and discussed on this thread and available to anyone in America paying an insurance premium, paying taxes and walking the streets of the land.

 

It is a fact that I live in a country with people of different faiths, different colors, different philosophies, different areas of expertise, different wills, desires and hopes.

 

But I have to look for that way of being that is best for me, and consistent with the wills, desires and hopes of those around me. I can for instance not be for contras killing women and children, and against Shiites killing Sunni with Iran's backing, and Sunni killing Americans for Islam, and still be for the 82nd airborne, and proud that I helped the Shiites against Saddam, and still wish that Saddam's secular rule of Iraq had gone better.

 

Your arguments against billionares and creationists and homophobes do not work against billionares, creationists and homophobes. If you want the world to work for everybody, you have to include everybody in your calculations, and choose your friends and choose your enemies. Obvious enemies, that have declared war on you and would kill you, are much more of a threat to you, then a billionaire, that probably makes your world work and gives you the technology and power that you have, that is a fellow citizen, or that at least is a fellow citizen of mine. A rich, powerful American is my rich powerful guy. I lobby him to do what is best for America. There is a certain neglect of fact and reason that a socialist in a socialist country exhibits when looking at America. America is not yet socialist. Bernie wants a revolution, and wants to take back America from the super wealthy. Rubio want to take the country back from the liberal progressives who currently tell everyone they are devoid of compassion, reason and intellect and desire the power in the country to be in the hands of an intellectual elite, that draws its populace power from single women, idealistic youth, or anybody that needs government transfer payments to survive. Rubio would say that socialists fail, when they run out of other peoples money.

 

I am not going to vote for Rubio when the republican primary comes to my town in NJ. I am not going to vote for Trump or Cruz or the teaparty. Perhaps Kasich or Paul. If I was a democrat I would not have a choice. The big votes on both the democrat side and the republican side were for ideals and people I do not completely agree with. Some things good, some things bad. Some things unrealistic, some things possible but not really workable without huge unintended consequences. Like you can't keep a Muslim from coming into the country, and you can't have republicans, the drug companies and the Iranians as enemies if you are to be the president of the United States.

 

The issues of the world need attention. ISIS needs defeating. We have to use less fossil fuel and more renewable energy. Institutional racism in the U.S. has to be continually dissuaded. The crazy guy in North Korea needs to be watched.

 

The problem with America is not the Republican party. The problem with America is not the Democratic party. The problem with America is that nobody feels they are in control of the county and everybody feels that they need to take the country back from somebody. Well, my point in this thread, is we already have the county. All of us. Nobody has stolen it from us, it was, is and will be ours. We have to together make sure it prospers and continues.

 

Vote socialist if that will make you happy. Vote fascist if that will make you happy. Vote for a sensible moderate if that will make you happy...but if your candidate is trying to take America back from somebody, consider that they are talking about other Americans who already love the place and will protect their way of live with every ounce of their being. Nobody wants to loose their vision of America. Remember though, that EVERYBODY else has a vision as well.

 

Regards, TAR

was thinking about something last night

 

lets say we raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars and a big mac doubles in price fewer people eat big macs the place goes out of business and the single mom loses her job

 

lets say we tax the wealthiest americans until they are no longer the wealthiest americans...then what?

Edited February 2, 2016 by tar

[Phi for All]

lets say we tax the wealthiest americans until they are no longer the wealthiest americans...then what?

 

I get more disgusted by your ignorant approach to this discussion every day. It's like you're a child who purposely misunderstands what he's been told so he can ignore it, and go do as he pleases.

 

Eisenhower taxed the wealthiest Americans quite a lot, and they were still the wealthiest Americans afterward. This statement of yours is childish and petulant. I'm no longer posting this for you, tar, because I know it won't sink in. You'll just figure out how to ignore everything you don't want to acknowledge about your alleged critical thinking.

 

Maybe someone like you will see it and figure it out, though.

[tar]

Phi,

 

Democrats and Republicans have done reasonable things. As you point out. We have already had debates about income equality and such. Way before last year.

 

Clinton is hailed as having a good economy. His first two years he had a democratic house and a democratic senate. He tried Hilary's one payer system and it did not pass his own congress.

 

Clinton is hailed as having budget surpluses, but that was not until after the republicans took the house and the senate after his first two years. The republicans had both the house and senate for the 6 years, the last four of which had budget surplus. This is just talking about budget deficits, not talking about national debt, or promises to social security and such.

 

Read the Wiki article on Bill Clinton's presidency. It includes a paragraph on Hilary's health care plan and its failure and the reasons. The reasons did not include a blocking teaparty

 

And our problems with Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein did not start with George W. Bush. Somalia and Bin Laden blowing up stuff happened under Clinton's watch and the democrats had held the house and senate for many many years before.

 

America's problems belong to us all.

 

"In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons:

 

 

Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world", and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.[152]

 

Seeking to weaken Hussein's grip on power, Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces.[153][154] The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors."[155] American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000.[156][157]"

 

Regards TAR

 

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=665814

 

I said what happens after the wealthy are taxed until they are no longer the wealthiest.

 

Sanders doesn't want to tax high income earners, he wants to tax billionaires. Many billionaires don't even have a salary. How does he intend to take wealth away from the wealthy, without destroying every idea of private property we have?

[MigL]

"Liberals understand conservatives very well. They are impervious to facts and reason."

And liberals generalize about groups of people.

 

No, wait...

That's a bad thing.

It MUST to be a conservative trait also !

 

( next time Willie, at least use democrats and republicans; that may be a little more accurate )

[iNow]

Sanders doesn't want to tax high income earners, he wants to tax billionaires. Many billionaires don't even have a salary. How does he intend to take wealth away from the wealthy, without destroying every idea of private property we have?

https://berniesanders.com/issues/how-bernie-pays-for-his-proposals/

[Willie71]

Willie71,You wanted me to answer you in particular. You, who believe a conservative is impervious to fact and reason. I have in the last 30 pages given you plenty of reason, based on all the facts linked to and discussed on this thread and available to anyone in America paying an insurance premium, paying taxes and walking the streets of the land.It is a fact that I live in a country with people of different faiths, different colors, different philosophies, different areas of expertise, different wills, desires and hopes.But I have to look for that way of being that is best for me, and consistent with the wills, desires and hopes of those around me. I can for instance not be for contras killing women and children, and against Shiites killing Sunni with Iran's backing, and Sunni killing Americans for Islam, and still be for the 82nd airborne, and proud that I helped the Shiites against Saddam, and still wish that Saddam's secular rule of Iraq had gone better.Your arguments against billionares and creationists and homophobes do not work against billionares, creationists and homophobes. If you want the world to work for everybody, you have to include everybody in your calculations, and choose your friends and choose your enemies. Obvious enemies, that have declared war on you and would kill you, are much more of a threat to you, then a billionaire, that probably makes your world work and gives you the technology and power that you have, that is a fellow citizen, or that at least is a fellow citizen of mine. A rich, powerful American is my rich powerful guy. I lobby him to do what is best for America. There is a certain neglect of fact and reason that a socialist in a socialist country exhibits when looking at America. America is not yet socialist. Bernie wants a revolution, and wants to take back America from the super wealthy. Rubio want to take the country back from the liberal progressives who currently tell everyone they are devoid of compassion, reason and intellect and desire the power in the country to be in the hands of an intellectual elite, that draws its populace power from single women, idealistic youth, or anybody that needs government transfer payments to survive. Rubio would say that socialists fail, when they run out of other peoples money.I am not going to vote for Rubio when the republican primary comes to my town in NJ. I am not going to vote for Trump or Cruz or the teaparty. Perhaps Kasich or Paul. If I was a democrat I would not have a choice. The big votes on both the democrat side and the republican side were for ideals and people I do not completely agree with. Some things good, some things bad. Some things unrealistic, some things possible but not really workable without huge unintended consequences. Like you can't keep a Muslim from coming into the country, and you can't have republicans, the drug companies and the Iranians as enemies if you are to be the president of the United States.The issues of the world need attention. ISIS needs defeating. We have to use less fossil fuel and more renewable energy. Institutional racism in the U.S. has to be continually dissuaded. The crazy guy in North Korea needs to be watched.The problem with America is not the Republican party. The problem with America is not the Democratic party. The problem with America is that nobody feels they are in control of the county and everybody feels that they need to take the country back from somebody. Well, my point in this thread, is we already have the county. All of us. Nobody has stolen it from us, it was, is and will be ours. We have to together make sure it prospers and continues.Vote socialist if that will make you happy. Vote fascist if that will make you happy. Vote for a sensible moderate if that will make you happy...but if your candidate is trying to take America back from somebody, consider that they are talking about other Americans who already love the place and will protect their way of live with every ounce of their being. Nobody wants to loose their vision of America. Remember though, that EVERYBODY else has a vision as well.Regards, TARwas thinking about something last nightlets say we raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars and a big mac doubles in price fewer people eat big macs the place goes out of business and the single mom loses her joblets say we tax the wealthiest americans until they are no longer the wealthiest americans...then what?

Tar, these are your beliefs. You have been asked to provide examples of policies that show the Republican Party is for the working class, family values, small government, personal freedom etc. Should be easy, right?

 

The Republican Party is for the billionaires. No one disputes that. Their wants are at odds with working people. The less they pay people, the more they make. If they get a monopoly, competition doesn't keep price down, nor does customer service drive quality.

 

 

Your example of doubling minimum wage has been tried in numerous cities across America. All have enhanced the economy rather than harming it. Keeping wages low harms the economy. That is fact. Doing the math shows that the amount given up in tax breaks to the wealthy is not recovered through taxes on the jobs created. It's always a net loss, and low wages prevent people from having disposable income to stimulate the economy. I don't care what you believe, your evidence is lacking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Liberals understand conservatives very well. They are impervious to facts and reason."

And liberals generalize about groups of people.

 

No, wait...

That's a bad thing.

It MUST to be a conservative trait also !

 

( next time Willie, at least use democrats and republicans; that may be a little more accurate )

You weren't clear on which conservatives we were talking about? I was referring to the group defined by the numerous researchers discussed in Mooney's book. What is your definition?

 

 

 

Tar, you mentioned people who wish to destroy your way of life. I'm assuming you mean ISIS. Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, a republican who served under EIGHT presidents says your views are like a child's, and a national security threat. He's on your alleged team even, and he's calling you out.

 

[tar]

iNow,

 

Do you think any of those ways that Bernie wants to pay for his programs make any sense?

 

One of the things that ideas like his lack, is the knowledge of game theory. People will and people do, find a way around any move made against them.

 

If I had a wealthy father and he was going to soon die, I would make sure I had made arrangements to keep whatever wealth my family had accrued. I would have no interest in giving it to the government, and the government has no right to take it. It belongs to my family. My dad would have put it together, so I could live without worry and stress. That I could enjoy wealth and power and a good life.

 

Just because my father is not rich is no validation of me wanting to take the wealth of another family for the benefit of mine.

 

Ask yourself why people have money in offshore accounts in the first place, before you look at that money as yours. They put it there so the government would NOT steal it. Raising rates on the wealthy will just make them look for another way to handle things.

 

When I was in college I switched majors from Philosophy to accounting. I failed cost accounting because I could not make sense of the arbitrary rules, and the whole thing seems a game between accountants and the IRS. Rules would change to extract more money and accountants would adjust things so that the letter of the law was followed but the tax payments would not increase.

 

Why do you think anyone WANTS to pay more to the government, than they are already paying.

 

Look again at all his ways of obtaining money. Charging interest on capital gains and interest income and such at a high rate is contrary people with a savings account, or an investment, or a 401K or a Roth IRA or any kind of savings or investment.

 

Years ago interest rates one would get on a CD encouraged savings. A person could amass 600 thousand dollars over a life time, because of compound interest. A person could then live off the interest, and leave the principle to their children who would have a leg up on things.

 

It is absolutely NOT fair to have sensible rules that encourage savings and responsibility and investment and delayed gratification and hard work and responsibility, and then, on a whim change the rules and say it does not matter to have done all those things, every body is going to get free healthcare, and free college, and you get to pay for it.

 

Don't be surprised if you are not able to convince me that Bernie's plan is going to be good for savers and anybody whose financial plans are reliant on interest income.

 

You know, you remind me of Japan's recent negative interest rates, that will charge a person for savings and pay people to borrow and spend. Good for the economy, maybe, but it makes no sense, no sense at all. The whole meaning of stored value and delayed gratification is turned on its ear.

 

Don't expect me to vote for Bernie. And don't expect me to think his ideas anything less than stealing from the rich, to give to the poor. And to boot, he is going to charge payrole tax to pay for paid leave???? This does not even make any sense. The company pays you more, so you can pay payrole tax so you can take family leave and have the company pay you while you are out. Sure it not going to cost the government. Its an unfunded mandate. Paid for by the employer. How could anybody start a business and give another a job, under these circumstances?

 

It is wrong, and does not have a chance to become law in this country. Not a chance.

 

Regards, TAR

[iNow]

iNow,

 

Do you think any of those ways that Bernie wants to pay for his programs make any sense?

Yes

.

Just because my father is not rich is no validation of me wanting to take the wealth of another family for the benefit of mine.

You keep ignoring the fact that wealth is already being redistributed upward from the poor and middle class to the oligarchic few.

 

Why do you think anyone WANTS to pay more to the government, than they are already paying.

Some folks, like me, know how to do math and can see that we'd be paying less year over year than we are today for greater coverage on things like healthcare.

 

Don't be surprised if you are not able to convince me that Bernie's plan is going to be good for savers and anybody whose financial plans are reliant on interest income.

I won't be. You're pretty consistently impervious to facts and logic.

 

And to boot, he is going to charge payrole tax to pay for paid leave???? This does not even make any sense. The company pays you more, so you can pay payrole tax so you can take family leave and have the company pay you while you are out.

Yes, god forbid we pay an extra $1 per paycheck so parents can care for their family without losing their job.

 

It is wrong, and does not have a chance to become law in this country. Not a chance.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, but as usual, it's appears completely baseless and not rooted in fact.

 

 

http://www.makeitworkcampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MIW-SOTU-Poll-Memo.pdf

 

 

 

Our recent poll reveals American voters’ strong and intense support for equal pay, paid sick days, paid family leave, and affordable child and elder care. Support spans across the electorate and solid majorities of voters of all parties favor these proposals.

 

Equal pay is especially strong with more than 9 in 10 voters wanting to ensure women and men receive equal pay for equal work.

 

Paid sick days are also very popular: 88% of voters favor ensuring all workers earn paid sick days to care for themselves or family members, including 96% of Independents. Overwhelming majorities of voters also support the following: requiring employers to provide paid sick days (79%); expanding tax credits to assist in caring for family members (78%); and making quality and affordable childcare options available nationally (75%).

 

Voters also intensely agree with value statements about work and family. More than 4 in 5 voters (82%) agree that being able to take paid time off to care for yourself or sick family members should be something all employees earn (65% strongly agree), including 80% of Independents and 74% of Republicans. Similar overwhelming majorities believe having workplace rules ensuring equal pay, sick leave, family leave and child care is good for our economy (82%) and our nation (81%). Voters also want our government addressing these issues: nearly three-quarters (73%) of voters agree that the government has a responsibility to treat employees fairly, including paying wages that can sustain a family and providing paid time to care for family members.

 

At the same time, nearly half of voters reject the notion touted by opponents that requiring employers to provide paid sick time to their employees is too burdensome to businesses.

Edited February 2, 2016 by iNow

[tar]

you know, back in the 60s there was a counter culture revolution...anti establishment, like what is happening in the Sanders campaign and the Cruz campaign and the Trump campaign. People fed up with big business and wall street and the military industrial complex and the status quo.

 

People started communes with the thought that everybody would give to the level of their capability and take consistent with their needs.

 

Some worked out for a while. Others turned into cults. Drugs were usually involved. Illegal behavior usually encouraged. The things wound up failing because certain of the harder workers would find it unfair that someone else was not pulling their weight, and the things broke up over arguments of fairness.

 

 

I have no interest in having my government take my earned income, and interest payment. None at all. This is not a commune. I signed up to live in a representative republic that believed in private property and personal responsibility and protection of the weak and protection of other peoples rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That includes allowing the talented and beautiful, rich and powerful to be talented and beautiful, rich and powerful, as long as they follow the rules of the land and look after it.

 

We voted for "change" 8 years ago. How can Hilary be running on the same platform 8 years later? Change from what to what?

 

Regards, TAR

Edited February 2, 2016 by tar

[Willie71]

iNow,Do you think any of those ways that Bernie wants to pay for his programs make any sense?One of the things that ideas like his lack, is the knowledge of game theory. People will and people do, find a way around any move made against them.If I had a wealthy father and he was going to soon die, I would make sure I had made arrangements to keep whatever wealth my family had accrued. I would have no interest in giving it to the government, and the government has no right to take it. It belongs to my family. My dad would have put it together, so I could live without worry and stress. That I could enjoy wealth and power and a good life.Just because my father is not rich is no validation of me wanting to take the wealth of another family for the benefit of mine.Ask yourself why people have money in offshore accounts in the first place, before you look at that money as yours. They put it there so the government would NOT steal it. Raising rates on the wealthy will just make them look for another way to handle things.When I was in college I switched majors from Philosophy to accounting. I failed cost accounting because I could not make sense of the arbitrary rules, and the whole thing seems a game between accountants and the IRS. Rules would change to extract more money and accountants would adjust things so that the letter of the law was followed but the tax payments would not increase.Why do you think anyone WANTS to pay more to the government, than they are already paying.Look again at all his ways of obtaining money. Charging interest on capital gains and interest income and such at a high rate is contrary people with a savings account, or an investment, or a 401K or a Roth IRA or any kind of savings or investment.Years ago interest rates one would get on a CD encouraged savings. A person could amass 600 thousand dollars over a life time, because of compound interest. A person could then live off the interest, and leave the principle to their children who would have a leg up on things.It is absolutely NOT fair to have sensible rules that encourage savings and responsibility and investment and delayed gratification and hard work and responsibility, and then, on a whim change the rules and say it does not matter to have done all those things, every body is going to get free healthcare, and free college, and you get to pay for it.Don't be surprised if you are not able to convince me that Bernie's plan is going to be good for savers and anybody whose financial plans are reliant on interest income.You know, you remind me of Japan's recent negative interest rates, that will charge a person for savings and pay people to borrow and spend. Good for the economy, maybe, but it makes no sense, no sense at all. The whole meaning of stored value and delayed gratification is turned on its ear.Don't expect me to vote for Bernie. And don't expect me to think his ideas anything less than stealing from the rich, to give to the poor. And to boot, he is going to charge payrole tax to pay for paid leave???? This does not even make any sense. The company pays you more, so you can pay payrole tax so you can take family leave and have the company pay you while you are out. Sure it not going to cost the government. Its an unfunded mandate. Paid for by the employer. How could anybody start a business and give another a job, under these circumstances?It is wrong, and does not have a chance to become law in this country. Not a chance.Regards, TAR

You would rather pay $10,000.00 in health care premiums to an insurance company compared to $5,000.00 in single payer. You would rather pay more just so it isn't called a tax?

 

You mention the estate tax. This is what prevents the obscenely wealthy from establishing an aristocracy. Generations of people using the infrastructure paid for and maintained by tax payers without contribution from the elite. You made reference to the wealthy not drawing a wage in a previous post. The 1st generation "earned" it. The second generation takes it and uses it, but didn't "earn" it. I don't think an aristocracy us a good thing,

 

You claim the money is going to the government. Partially true. Corruption and misspending require checks and balances. No one will argue there. However, the taxes go to infrastructure, the military, schools, hospitals, policing. Do you believe you can live without those things?

 

Tar, you claim the rules have changed after your hard work. They have, the corporations and banks can take more of what you worked for, and they claim Bernie is trying to take it away from you. He is trying to return what the corporations stole from hard working people and give it back to them. Why you want the corporations and banks to keep it is baffling. Bernie isn't talking about taking your retirement fund away from you. He's trying to protect it. You don't pay estate tax on amounts less than 10 million, or some such high number. Your 600k is untouched. Your kids and grandkids get to go to college too, without student loan debt. Now what happens if you get a form of cancer your insurance doesn't cover. Your 600k won't get you more than a year into cancer treatment. It's all gone. Fair and square. You end up on the street, your kids get nothing. The insurance company made record profits last year since the regulations were relaxed. You must be relieved. They might have even created a few jobs. All worth it.

you know, back in the 60s there was a counter culture revolution...anti establishment, like what is happening in the Sanders campaign and the Cruz campaign and the Trump campaign. People fed up with big business and wall street and the military industrial complex and the status quo.People started communes with the thought that everybody would give to the level of their capability and take consistent with their needs.Some worked out for a while. Others turned into cults. Drugs were usually involved. Illegal behavior usually encouraged. The things wound up failing because certain of the harder workers would find it unfair that someone else was not pulling their weight, and the things broke up over arguments of fairness.I have no interest in having my government take my earned income, and interest payment. None at all. This is not a commune. I signed up to live in a representative republic that believed in private property and personal responsibility and protection of the weak and protection of other peoples rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That includes allowing the talented and beautiful, rich and powerful to be talented and beautiful, rich and powerful, as long as they follow the rules of the land and look after it.We voted for "change" 8 years ago. How can Hilary be running on the same platform 8 years later? Change from what to what?Regards, TAR

Then you should vote for sanders. He's the only candidate who is trying to end the corporate takeover of America.

Commune? Who the hell is suggesting that?

[tar]

iNow,

 

I have no doubt employees would vote for higher pay, better benefits, paid leave, healthcare for their children, free college for their children, a car allowance, free lunch on Tuesdays, free rehabilitation for their relative recovering from drug addiction, and an inhouse nursery for their small children, a gym to exercise in on extended break and a nap room for after lunch with a couch and earphones, free coffee and snacks and any number of other things that would make life more enjoyable.

 

Some companies actually offer all these thing. But the employees are worth it to the employers. They produce something or offer something the employer sells for money. They add value.

 

The value is not automatically in the hands of the employer. The employer might make it and not be able to sell it. Who pays for paid leave, then?

 

Regards, TAR

[iNow]

Tar - Only 12 percent of US private sector workers have access to paid family leave through their employer. The fact that you're now conflating paid leave with free lunch on Tuesdays and gyms to exercise shows only how little you seem to understand the current reality.

 

http://fortune.com/2015/02/05/paid-parental-leave-costs/

The United States is the only developed country that doesn’t guarantee paid leave for workers who are new parents. (...) Currently, only 11 percent of American workers get paid family leave through their employers or state programs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Three states— California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island —offer guaranteed paid leave; the programs are funded by employees’ payroll deductions.

(...)

Paid leave programs — financed by payroll deductions — cost individual employees less than $1 a week. (...)

Having state-mandated, paid family leave hasn’t hurt most employers’ bottom lines.

.

Also here: http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/paid-leave-good-for-business.pdf

[tar]

Willie71,

 

Someone mentioned the Marxist line of each according to his need.

 

You say no one is taking my retirement savings from me. Well I don't know about that. While I was working, I kept my 401 in near money market instruments. I earned very little that way, because of the many years of fed funds rates. What used to be possible with CDs earning 5 and 7 percent and saving accounts earning 3 and a half has not been possible in the years since the recession. Since I lost my job, I put my 401 under the care of a financial advisor. They have it invested in bonds and stocks and other instruments that will give me some growth and some protection of principle. I am already going pay income tax on the funds when I take them out. Now, if Bernie gets in, there may be attempts at getting at the principle and extracting wealth from the capital gains and interest that my investments might be making.

 

You are after obscene wealth, but you have to be careful what kind of rules that you impose, they may very well prevent you from becoming wealthy and the may very well bankrupt a potential employer.

 

Don't burden you children with debt is a fine goal. But you have to honor the flip side. Don't steal my child's inheritance, if there is anything left when I die.

 

We already have installed oligarchy protection measures. See how well they work.

 

It does not help jobs in this country if you put punitive measures in place on employers. I have witnessed and my wife has witnessed some large amount of IT spending going off shore. Free enterprise, sure. Free trade sure. But if the cost of an employee here becomes very high, and a lower cost employee can be found offshore, guess where the job is going to go?

 

Promising good paying jobs is fine, but you have to likewise allow the resource usage and the pollution and allow industry to attract productive workers with perks. Promising everybody perks whether they are productive or not, is not likely to improve productivity. Or to allow a worker to gain some intrinsic value at work by seeing the benefits of their own effort and talent.

 

One of Bernie's thoughts is to take money at a high rate from speculators. How exactly are you going to decide what is speculation and what is risk taking? And how is any innovative product ever going to be developed if nobody is taking a risk.

 

One of the problems during the crash was mortgage insurers losing more money than they had to loose, and swaps between large financial institutions. The insurance allowed banks to give loans to people that might default. They packaged loans together and sold them to others, and such. When the loans defaulted the insurers paid. Until there were too many defaults and started having trouble getting liquid funds to pay off the people they had insured. People started getting scared and took their funds out of companies that were having trouble. This caused them to have more trouble. Like a run on the banks during the great depression. Leverage was too high. It is proper to ask the banks and insurance companies to keep more liquid funds and lower the rate of leverage on their loans and such. But the government doing this is different than the government choosing winners and losers and changing the rules in the middle of the game.

 

Quantitative easing hurt savers. Saved the economy of the world, but hurt savers. Saved the skins of many a big boy. The same big boys that Bernie would like to extract a little from. But the fed is yet to unwind its balance sheet and who is going to gain and who is going to lose is yet to be seen.

 

I am not in favor of changing the rules in the middle of the game. I have made too many life decisions in the last 50 years. I have saved too much in my wife's 401K. I have endured too much stress and taken too many punches inorder to keep a job and keep the quality of my company's products and services high, to be told that the money I saved and the insurance payments I have made (social security) and the taxes I have paid to federal state and local, to be told now that those things were not the right thing to do, for 50 years. And that somehow the wealth I have squirreled away for my retirement, and the debt I have accrued helping my daughters go to school is not mine and mine alone,

 

A chicken in every pot, is a promise. You have to ask whose hen house is going to get raided to get that done.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited February 3, 2016 by tar

[Willie71]

Tar, the rules of the game have been changing all along. Wealth has been redistributed from the middle class in the socialist 50's and 60's to the elite.

 

If Reaganomics is so good for business, why aren't there any local grocers, butchers, non franchise hardware stores? Why have most of the mom and pop businesses gone out of business? Why are most goods produced in China, instead of locally?

 

Clinton deregulated banks. Obama never put the regulations back on the banks. No one has been looking out for the average American, not in decades. Obama grew the economy, but only for the wealthy, exactly what is the norm for right wing economics, Obama is only socially progressive. Economically, he is pro corporate. He did use a stimulus package, however, rather than austerity, allowing growth rather than recession.

[Phi for All]

It is a "biggest problem" that conservative fear is also fear that they actually ARE the problem. They decry intellectualism but they fear doing stupid things, it's obvious in the way they spin everything down to "it's ALL our faults, equally". Denial that humans cause climate change, or that conservatism is being manipulated pushes some over the edge.

 

If I didn't have facts about reality on my side, I too would be terrified my ideology a) was NOT being represented as portrayed by the pols I helped elect, b) has NOT been updated to include fact-checks on things I thought I knew but are being called into question, and c) developed with good intentions BUT, BUTBUTBUT, because of a) and b), has been warped into a roadblock to human endeavor in this country, perverting my support of it, and poisoning my thinking with its (I now realize) outdated biases.

Clinton deregulated banks. Obama never put the regulations back on the banks. No one has been looking out for the average American, not in decades.

 

Clinton also did more to hand over our national means of staying informed than Reagan did. Reagan knew that if the corporations could own more than just media outlets, they could control what the public knows about their businesses. He used the FCC to try to dismantle existing regulations about cross-ownership in the last days of his administration, only to be blocked by Ted Kennedy.

 

But Clinton handed the whole ball of wax over. Now we have Burlington Coat Factory and Dominoes and Disney in charge of the way our federally chartered and licensed informative news programming is relayed. Journalism dies when profit and spin is the motive. I don't know how anyone who ever watched Walter Cronkite deliver the news could compare the absolute crap we have now to "informing the People of America".

 

Now 6 companies control 90% of what we see, read, and hear when we want to inform ourselves. They have no regulations telling them they have to get it right. Their focus is NOT on informing you, it's on keeping you listening/reading/watching so they can use your number to make a profit. Nothing wrong with profit, except when it comes before something you really, really need. Like accurate data and matter of fact information that doesn't try to push you into thinking a certain way. Giving you that information should be the priority, and it never will be if they make more money by feeding you bs that makes you listen/read/watch longer.

[overtone]

Clinton is hailed as having a good economy. His first two years he had a democratic house and a democratic senate. He tried Hilary's one payer system and it did not pass his own congress.

Hillary's plan was not single payer. Hillary rejected single payer. Her plan was like Romney's, or Obama's later. And it never made it to Congress - it never had enough votes to clear a Republican filibuster in the Senate, or Democratic opposition to it in the House.

 

 

. Now, if Bernie gets in, there may be attempts at getting at the principle and extracting wealth from the capital gains and interest that my investments might be making.

Imaginary stuff that you fear for no reason is not Bernie's fault. You invent stuff to be frightened about with Bernie, and then you vote for the people who will actually to that bad stuff - Republicans.

 

 

Look again at all his ways of obtaining money. Charging interest on capital gains and interest income and such at a high rate is contrary people with a savings account, or an investment, or a 401K or a Roth IRA or any kind of savings or investment.

What are you talking about?

 

 

Years ago interest rates one would get on a CD encouraged savings.

That was before Reaganomics took hold. Rich people can still get good rates of return, of course.

 

 

We already have installed oligarchy protection measures. See how well they work

We installed them after the Great Depression, and they worked well for fifty years. We began repealing them (and cutting way back on enforcement) in bits and pieces starting in 1982 (which crashed the Savings and Loans, and began the ballooning of the Federal debt ) and especially 1998-2002, with consequences we will be living with for the rest of our lives.

 

 

It does not help jobs in this country if you put punitive measures in place on employers. I have witnessed and my wife has witnessed some large amount of IT spending going off shore.

One of the major political Parties in the US has made it their special business to give corporations large tax breaks for offshoring jobs. Now this same Party includes in its platforms the demand that we allow the profits earned by offshoring jobs for tax breaks be repatriated into the executives's and investor's pockets in the US without paying US taxes.

 

Any idea which Party that is?

 

 

One of Bernie's thoughts is to take money at a high rate from speculators. How exactly are you going to decide what is speculation and what is risk taking?

He says the criterion is going to be speed of turnover. That is a standard criterion already used in the US to separate speculation on stock price from investment in the company - there used to be (maybe still is) a higher capital gains tax on profits made by selling a purchased stock within just a few months, rather than keeping it for a few years. The free market survived.

 

 

Clinton deregulated banks.

Although Clinton was a rightwing conservative, that is unfair: he just signed a couple of bad bills while under threat of, and after being weakened by, impeachment. The guys who arranged that snuck the provisions into other bills he had to sign, that kind of thing.

 

Those were all Republican written and Republican promoted efforts.

Edited February 3, 2016 by overtone

[tar]

Willie71,

 

He is not calling me out. I cringed the same as any other reasonable person when Cruz said he would carpet bomb ISIS, or Trump said he would keep out Muslims until we could figure out what is going on, or Hilary answered that she is proud to be the enemy of the drug companies, the republicans and the Iranians, or when Sanders says he is going to give everybody health care and college and make the superrich pay for it through a political revolution.

 

But you figure if Cruz says it, I believe it.

You figure if Trump says it, I believe it.

You figure if Hilary says it, I must disagree with it.

You figure if Sanders says it, I must disagree with it.

 

If in order to be a republican I must agree with everything a republican ever said or did, then I am not a republican.

If to be a republican I have to disagree with everything a democrat ever did, I am not a republican.

 

But there is no democrat that has always done the right thing, nor is everything the democrats do right.

 

On every issue there is a debate. It is wrong to take a side on a debate find a weakness in the thinking of the other side, and then ascribe that weakness to anybody and everybody that takes the other side.

 

In my business of servicing copiers, faxes and printers, I worked on third level support and with the engineers in Japan. Producing equipment was a multi-year process. It takes time to design and engineer a thing and arrange for the fabrication of all the parts and pieces and set up the production lines and such. We worked on products we were not going to be releasing for 3 years. I learned a real term called engineering trade offs. You might make a gear out of plastic rather than metal, because of the cost of materials, and the shipping weight, and quieter operation even though the plastic was going to wear out sooner than the metal gear and you already had a metal gear supplier who would make the gear of the material you wanted to the specs you wanted, and the reliability of their product was already tested and known...or whatever. Engineering tradeoffs, where making something better in one way, degraded it in another. Like in reality with people involved where giving a child a meal, also makes it possible for the father to not worry about feeding his child, and instead can use his money to get drunk or high, or allow a mom to buy a bon bon and sit and watch court TV.

 

When I taught a few technical classes, a bright student that had worked on equipment for many years, would see a design change and ask "why did they do that" when he or she could see that the design had a down side. I would answer, "engineering tradeoff".

 

In this discussion, with overtone leading the pack, every thing wrong with America is being brought up. America, a very multifaceted place, with 318 million people, each with a mother and father, many with sisters and brothers, each with different wills, desires, intentions, capabilities, moral rules and each with various teams they belong to and rely upon. Yet overtone can think it reasonable that everything that is wrong is the result of the Republican Party.

 

I say that her being right, is flat out impossible, on two counts. One, something that the republican party has done includes something we have done as a nation. And two, even a broken analog watch is right twice a day.

 

Regards, TAR

and my company was Japanese

the shareholders lived in other countries

I was not doing the bidding of the Koch brothers, directly.

I was working for some other band of rich and powerful folk.

Yet, one day, during a time when our U.S. branch was loosing money, and Japan was subsidizing our operation, I stood, smoking a cigarette, looking out in the parking lot at the hundreds of late model cars and realized each one represented a father or a mother or a husband or a wife or a son or a daughter that was bringing home the bacon and supporting the local economy and the economy of the place where they had their house or apartment, supporting the local shoe store and grocery store and doctors office, etc.

 

Just being in business, was a big win. Even that year when we were not making a profit for the shareholders, we were winning, by eating, and feeding our families.

and my company's products were energy star compliant and we designed our plastic covers to be recyclable and remanufactured equipment and had a place where we ground up old equipment and extracted the various plastics and metals and recycled them. The company cared very deeply about corporate citizenship and taking care of the environment. Already concerned, in big, meaningful ways about global warming. I even launched a product that allowed for sharing pdfs on devices during meetings so you did not have to make copies of presentations that would waste paper, and remove a carbon sequestering tree from the forest. Imagine that, a corporation, that makes copiers, designing a product, that allows you not to use paper.

Do you figure that, a republican thing or a democrat thing?

Edited February 3, 2016 by tar

[Ten oz]

Willie71, Overtone and Ten Oz,

 

1 - Facts are facts, opinions are opinion.

 

 

Each of the platform lines I put down, you said the Republicans don't believe in, or don't act like they believe in,

 

2 - Smaller government is something that nobody has really been able to achieve. Programs, and agencies, once established are very hard to unwind. I remember years ago hearing about a convention of WIC directors. Not a convention of WIC agents, but just directors. We are a big country. Any little thing multiplied by every community becomes rather huge, rather quickly. Equating the military or the interstate system (in terms of government spending) to an entitlement program is not reasonable.

 

3 - Private insurance is just that. You protect yourself against big expenses, or accidents, or trees falling on your roof and such, by paying a premium.

 

4 - Less government interference with businesses, I listed as a common thread that runs through many of the republican party's objections to liberal progressive programs, that put a burden on the small businessman or land owner, or corporation, that establishes basically an unfunded mandate, that cost the business with no refund. Like making the businessman pay for healthcare, or taking land for a bird sanctuary, or making a firm hold classes or meet this or that criteria or suffer loss of government business or face high fines and loss of license and such

 

5 - The right to bear arms makes a guy feel like he has control and can come to his country's aid should there be civil unrest or foreign invasion. Personally it is fine to own a firearm to protect yourself against drug addicts, crazy people, muggers, rapists, rabid dogs and bears. No handgrenades and artillery pieces are required. But we already have laws to keep bad people from getting firearms. And any fact checking individual can look at recent history and see that anytime more stringent gun control laws are suggested, the amount of guns on the street goes up, because every buys a gun while they still can. So if people don't need guns because the police and the army have them and will protect us from dangers, domestic and foreign then we should trust our police and military.

 

6 - The fight against global terrorism is that pacifists go about in a different manner than war mongers. We have the power to make peace with Assad and join him in going into Raqqa and digging ISIS out of their tunnels. We just need the will to do it.

So this isn't the list of 10 reasons why you support Replicans you listed previous but it is a start.

 

1 - Facts are facts, I agree. So lets stick to facts and dispense with all the analogies and stories. You say these reasons are why you support Republicans so lets stick to the facts about what Republicans have done.

 

2 - Which Republican administraion scaled back the size of the Government? Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush all grew the size of government to my understanding. How is this honestly a Republican vs Democrat issue? Please stick to facts.

 

3 - How is this a Republican owned position? Eisenhower and Nixon both pushed universal healthcare, the GOP during the Clinton years came up with the mandate idea that is the bassis for Obamacare (ACA) and Bush spent 1.2 trillion dollars on an unfunded prescription drug plan. Again, just facts. No wordy explanations about how much you dislake Obamacare and the healthcare system in Greece.

 

4 - Can you show me by way of our nations budget where Republcans admins have been less intermingled with business. Less involved in picking winners and losers? If what you mean is de-regulation than you should say so. As for being involved in business; who built the highway systems, the internet, put satelites in space, invested the money in jet enigines and nuclear tech? There has always been a huge role played by gov't. Calling for "less"is vague and neither side Democrat or Republcan is interested in "less".

 

5 - Is either major party looking to stop you from owning a gun?

 

6 - Republican administrations sold arms to Iran, gave arms to the taliban, and trained Al Quada members. 9/11, worse terror attack ever, happened while a Republcan was in office. Do you believe the Republicans have a better history on the issue of terrorism? Please stick to facts and not should've, could've, would've. Lets focus on what is and has actually been.