I’m sure we could. Can you find any construct associated with the economy at all that is more in the desirable direction under Republicans than Democrats? (For instance, as they note at eriposte.com, the amount of change in federal spending (total or non-defense) is better under Democrats only if you think lower spending is better. If you think spending increases are better, then it favors Republicans).
We can argue all you like about why the sun moves across the sky from the east to the west. We just can’t argue about why it moves from the north to the south.
I am not entirely convinced that am all Democratic government is any worse than a divided government but an all Republican one seems to be disastrous. As far as I can tell, the reason for this is that the Democrats aren’t quite as disciplined as the Republicans and there is enough internal dissent in the Democratic party to maintain some internal checks and balances. With all this said, I think the check of a second party in government is not something you can totally disregard. So I guess if I was given the choice between a split government, a Democratic government or a Republican government, it would be a soplit government followed by a Democratic government with a Republican government placing a very distant third.
What do you mean? If you mean that people think that Republicans (not just Bush and the neoconservatives) present good counterpoints to the Democrats then I guess I fall into that camp of blinded masses but if you mean that Republicans have become the safe haven for all the racist refugees from the Democratic party, or that they pander to religious hypocrites like Pat Robertson, or that they have sold themselves to narrow special interests (see estate tax repeal and the energy bill generally), then I guess I agree.
If by conciliatory and gracious you mean not rubbing the Republican noses in the fact that they have lead the country to ruin over the last 6 years, then I think Democrats have indeed been conciliatory and gracious. If by conciliatory and gracious you mean, go along with the “surge” idea and all the other stupid ideas that emanated from this white house (from Iraq to the tax cuts), I guess I think its a terrible time to be conciliatory and gracious.
What I mean is that the data suggests that things go better under Democrats. I mean that any examination of “tax and spend” suggests that this is bullshit. I mean that the Democrats are better at running the government.
But the Republicans benefit from spreading the idea that the two parties are equally bad. It’s a bit like an older brother who spends the day tormenting, pounding, and wedgie-ing his younger brother, and then their mother comes in and says “I’ve had it with you two. You’re both grounded.”
I’m pretty confident it’s a good time for them to be instruments of major change in this country. They could do so with a goodly amount of evenhandedness I suppose; indeed, change toward a more equitable society demands balance and neutrality in government. They could even, theoretically and were the Democratic party constructed of perfect people, affect such change with a certain amount of grace. Can’t see how they could do it while being conciliatory toward agents of the status quo…
And yes, I realize I’m dreaming, and that most Democritters are just as much agents for the existing economic powers as are their Republicritter counterparts. But no matter how you look at it, conciliation within Congress toward the same assholes who led us into our current situation would hardly be a victory for the People.
For all intents and purposes, the only examples we have of Republican party rule in modern history is Eisenhower for a couple of years and George Bush for 4 years, the Democratic governments have always either reduced the debt or pretty much treaded water. If you only look at debt, our entire national debt can be accounted for by WWII, Reagan, Bush I and Bush Jr. But you also have to remember that prior to Reagan, we had marginal tax rates as high as 90% (I am not against high marginal tax rates for really large incomes but 90% seems confiscatory). If we removed the cap on social security tax and we increased the top marginal rate to about 50% for people who make more than $1,000,000/year, we could probably forget about the social security crisis, run a budget surplus and at least start to think about things like nationalized healthcare and education.
With that said, there are “tax and spend” Democrats but that is probably better than “cut taxes and then cut them even more for monied special intersts and then spend even more than the Democrats ever dreamed of” Republicans, it just rolls off the tonuge better.
Huh? I didn’t mean all that. I know that the leaders will forever be in match-to-the-death struggles over piddly shit. I’m talking about people like you and me and the OP. Rank and file. Ordinary Joes and Janes. Let’s just stop calling each other cunts and idiots. We’re not. And let’s just move on. The gracious ones will stop first.
I’m not rank and file anything. To me rank and file means those people who go to party functions and volunteer or fundraise to help people’s campaigns. If people call Republicans generally (rank and file or merely registered) cunts and idiots then it is an unfair characterization but it is the the result of who they choose to keep company with. I know plenty of Republicans who have hated George Bush since the invasion of Iraq and I know even more that are extremely disappointed with his fiscal irresponsibility and if it weren’t for the entire pro-choice/pro-life debate (along with the attendant family values/gay rights debate), there is a huge chunk of Republicans who wouldn’t support this President. With that said, the particular Republicans that seem to be running the party these days are PNAC/AEI types and they ARE cunts and idiots so once again if someone calls you a cunt or an idiot because you are a Republican, you have been subjected to an unfair generalization but when you look at the face of Republicanism these days, you can see why the words cunt and idiot seem so appropriate.
That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as you wrote it. If you mean that the Republicans only display fiscal conservatism against stuff they don’t like, than yes, there’s truth in that.
I agree that that tends to be a false characterization. Probably not for the reasons you think. The national debt is not a good measure in and of itself. One would expect the debt to grow proportionately with the economy so the measure you would want to use would be some kind of governmental debt/equity ratio, perhaps GDP? For example, if the economy has grown 500% but the debt has only grown 10% during a given administration one might argue they were fiscally conservative. To make it more complex remember that it’s not the debt one carries that matters as much as the cost of servicing it. It’s a lot easier to carry 30 year bonds at 5-6% than it is to carry them at 12-15% so you can carry more of them easily. Also remember that we have a fiat currency and debt and float are economic tools that can be used to benefit the economy. Government debts is in some respects and in some instances, an extra task, since the interest rates are low now, and they pay back in dollars depreciated by inflation and they can print as much as they want. Finally, Presidents don’t start from scratch. They have to deal with the economy their predecessor left them. So, it’s a difficult thing to measure, but on the whole, I would tend to agree with you that in recent years the Republicans have not shown themselves to be particularly fiscally conservative.
Well, no, not morally, but these things are nowhere near equivalent in scale.
Hmmm. No. The image is still there. Medicare and SS are big big ticket items. I think it’s more an issue of theory here. Allow me to overgeneralize. Theoretically, the Repbublicans are against big entitlement programs and socialistic spending, and theoretically the Democrats are for these things (or not as against them.)
So, on paper you would think that the Republicans would be more fiscally conservative. Alas, where the rubber hits the road this is not often the case.
Meh. Fiscally, I hate George Bush.
As far as I’m concerned, a blowjob is always a big deal.
I’m a Republican, and I used to think that they were the fiscally conservative party. Lately though, I’ve come to realize that words “Republican” and “Fiscally Conservative” are an oxymoron.
Look, I agree with a focus on honest exchange of ideas and on respect for those with differing views. But I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t believe conciliation enters into it.
Honest exchange of ideas and respect etc. call for blunt correction of idiotic, cuntlike ideas. If the turd mongers who push concepts like “preventive war” and the Big Dog theory of forced democratization of the Middle East take that personally, well, maybe they have a right. But whether you or they feel it’s ungracious, slapping down stupid and morally bankrupt ideas forcefully is both necessary and reasonable.
The biggest mistake liberals have made over the past 20 years is treating simpleminded, meanspirited and damned unAmerican concepts as if they were arguably acceptable simply because they were mouthed by respectable opponents. And the second biggest mistake was conflating respect for our opponents with studied ignorance of their campaign of disrespect toward us.
So now you advise us to be gracious and conciliatory. Well I won’t call anyone an idiot or a cunt over a difference of political opinion. But I don’t recommend you or I waste any time pretending turd salesmen have anything useful or healthy in their display case.