The key phrase is “just because.” I don’t think there’s anyone out there who’s saying “I think the democrats are rather rude, therefore I shall not vote for them!” That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a factor in how they vote, though.
I’m roughly acquainted with some of those folks, the ‘just because’ crowd. They do exist.
And yes, it is still a moronic decision to vote even using that as a factor. At the end of the day (and the beginning too) the tone of people not running for office won’t even affect those running for office, let alone the actual pollicies which’ll be enacted if one candidate gets elected over another.
Issues matter.
Non-issues do not.
Because the federal income tax needs to account for the fact that the same gross income will give you different net incomes depending on what state you’re in. We need to recognize that Californians and New Yorkers see a lot less of a $100,000 gross income than Floridians do, so we allow them to pay a wee bit less federal tax.
I disagree. A political party isn’t just the politicians that get elected to office–it’s the politicians, the party officials, and most importantly the members of that party. When you have a lot of Democrats who come off as jerks, that does reflect on the party as a whole, to some extent. It’s psychologically quite powerful: people don’t want to associate with people who call them names and obviously don’t think much of them. You can say that they should ignore that, but frankly I think that’s asking an awful lot.
At the end of the day though, does it really matter if you think they should just suck it up or not? It obviously does matter to many people, and you telling them they’re morons for not supporting a political party whose members frequently call them stupid isn’t gonna win their hearts or minds, is it? We desperately need their votes, and this attitude ain’t gonna get 'em.
I don’t want to hijack World Eater’s thread anymore, I’ll just say that political parties are not fungible and that we shouldn’t need to be ‘winning hearts and minds’. If someone lets their ego get in the way of electing a better candidate, they’ve made a profoundly stupid move. (I’d also add that since I’m not a member of either party, my only vested interest is seeing the best politicans get into office. I couldn’t care less if a democrat is elected next go around as long as the person who is elected is the best person for the job)
If you’d like to create another thread to hash this out, send me a link and I’ll hop in.
Politics is the art of persuasion, folks. Not the science of interests.
Calling people who disagree with you ‘stupid’ and whatnot just guarantees that they’ll never pay attention to your arguments. You’ve just marginalized yourself in their thinking. And therefore lost the argument.
Doesn’t bother me, I see it more as a side argument.
Isn’t politics the art of saying “nice doggie” until you can find a rock? Or is that diplomacy?
Hrmmm. Tangents can be important…
And at least as long as I’ve got the OP’s permission I suppose continuing this hijack might be fruitful.
I really should make a cup of tea and get back to some work though, so perhaps I’ll stop by this thread later on today to put a couple pennies in.
Well, I think you’re falling into the trap of the “big, bad Democrats hurt our feelings” without looking at the fact that the Republicans are the ones who have used slander and possibly some of the worse mud-slinging I have ever witnessed. People on the left side of the aisle are responding to the past 12 years of rhetoric and hate. I personally think the left is just giving the right the medicine they deserve. Calling us “hippies” and “tree huggers” isn’t going to win any hearts on this side either (not that I’m accusing you of saying it, just the right in general).
As for the OP, does it really surprise anyone? He has free reign to do whatever he pleases, we all saw it coming (hence why we call the Right “dumb”). He lied about a war, do you honestly think he’d tell the truth about much anything else?
::shakes head::
It’s gonna be a loooooooooong 4 years . . . .
Uh huh. I see this policy as a big reward for those states that choose to have higher tax burdens on earned income. It provides political cover every time politicians want to raise payroll taxes.
Why should such a thing be encouraged? If taxes need to be raised, this action should be defensible on its own merits.
In Canada, we have no deduction for provincial taxes on our federal tax.
I can’t see the logic in the deduction. If for example, Oregon decides to fund a health care system similar to Canada’s, relieving private individuals of this direct financial burden,although increasing state income taxes, should the citizens of Oregon recieve an additional benefit at the expense of other Americans? If you guys have an unfair tax code, you should change it. Period.
After the GOP smeared Bill and Hillary with accusations of rape (Juanita Broadrick) and murder (Vince Foster), after they hamdtrung his presidencyt with a baseless witch hunt (Whitewater), after the GOP’s embrace of commentators who routinely use the foulest ad hominme libels to smear the Democrats, for the GOP to complain that Democrats overstep the bounds of civility by calling them “stupid” is the rankest hypocrisy.
That’s right Pubs, I called you hypocrites.
Actually, when I refer to the Bush voters as stupid, I’m not speaking directly to Bush voters, but more to Democrats, and my interest is clarity of expression, not insult.
I honestly feel that the 2004 election was a clear and unambiguous example of a political party gulling various interest groups whose members are largely composed of people who are below average in intelligence and education into voting for them. One-issue voters on gun rights, abortion and most of all, people who were so frightened by 9/11 that they completely lost what critical thinking facilties they might have once had. I mean, most Bush voters thought Saddam had something to do with 9/11. The Bush admin. did everything in their power to convey that impression without coming right out and saying it. ( They didn’t come right out and say it because that would be setting themselves up for a ton of public discussion on the topic that would have proved them wrong and also might have educted a few voters). But the facts were so obviously counter to that, and so easily obtained, that it’s hard to characterize any of the Bush voters who held that opinion as informed, and also hard to think of them as intelligent.
It seems to me that if we are forever condemned to not discussing the nature of the election forthrightly, we’re unlikely to come to any kind of clear understanding of it, and thus be unable to formulate an effective strategy for seeing that it doesn’t happen again. If we allow the mealy-mouthers to control our use of language, they also control the way we think about what really happened, to our very great disadvantage.
However, if it makes our Bush-voting brethren any happier, I will state for the record that while I’m quite frank in my assessments of Bush voters here and on boards like Democratic Underground, I am much more circumspect in my language on boards like Slate, which have a much stronger representation among conservatives.
Only there aren’t any GOP representatives or members in this thread who are saying that calling Republicans stupid oversteps the bounds of civility.
So far, it’s just been me, and I’m a Democrat.
The problem with using a tu quoque argument when accused of possesing some negative trait is that you’re kind of admitting you have the trait…
To avoid double taxation.
Please provide a cite showing that the groups that support Republicans are “largely composed of people who are below average in intelligence and education.”
Reasonable question. Here is one example why: imagine a state with a state income tax uses it to subsidize local school districts. Furthermore, imagine that this helps the students in the schools do better.
Meanwhile, another state has no state income tax and underfunds it’s schools. The US govt will step in and send money to the latter’s school districts to make them better. So the residents in the former state are not only paying for their own schools, they are paying for the other state’s as well.
Except for the fact that in your example, you use a home which is almost half of the median home price in my area. In fact, most middle-class families purchase homes well over $540,000 because the $320,000 house is in the fucking ghetto.
Taxes due on a piece of property valued at the median home price is closer to $7000 or more.
Not only do I not gice 2 shits about your support, I never once intimated that this was about smug republicans pulling a fast one on the huddled massed-even though it is. This is an assault on the middle class from the wealthy white men who run this country without once thinking of their constituency or the people who support it and make sure that things go as smoothly as possible.
So anyways, Bush’s next term is already WAY ahead of schedule. We’ve already had sneaky anti-abortion bill riders, sneaky bill riders that violate our privacy, and now monkey boy is trying to raise our taxes on the sly.
Sam
I forgot to add one little comment to the bottom of my reply. It should read:
(Not that Bush wrote or endorsed the first 2 specifically).