They’ve already got one: Rockefeller Republicans. But they’re a dead or dying breed.
(emphasis added)
Not that it matters terribly to the debate in this thread, but I happened to pop in and see this claim. The CBO says premiums will go up, but that they will cost people less because of the subsidies. So your complaint about the middle class being screwed is…well, at the very least, more complicated. What you’d have to show is that the middle class will pay more in taxes than they get in decreased premium costs. Since the CBO also projects the bill to be deficit neutral, you can’t rely on them for that particular claim.
:rolleyes: Dude, what color is the sky on your planet? The Democratic Party has long since been hijacked by the right, or “neoliberals,” not the left. And that shows no sign of changing. Obama has turned out to be just another Bill Clinton DLC conservative. The “Roosevelt Democrats” are pretty much the left wing of the party now, and “socialists” of any definition are barely marginal. Insightful discussion here and here. You would profit immensely by reading these articles.
I’m confused-is Obama a far-left wing proto-commie or a pandering weak-kneed middle of the roader?
Well, we agree on something.
Since when do fiscal responsibility and free-market economics have anything to do with each other?
That too.
But, sum it all up, it’s still an improvement over what we have now. Art of the possible, you know?
Fiscal responsibility and Republicans; you’re kidding, right?
So the Tea Party movement is in reality a front for gay rights? Who knew? And here I thought diversity was a liberal character flaw!
I am taking a class right now with 5 other people. Out of the 8 people in the classroom (2 instructors) I am the only one that qualifies as a moderate, which makes me a screaming liberal to all of them, especially since I am a Democrat. So the odds are about 7 to 1 in most political discussions, so it is about even. (I don’t say that because they are stupid, because most of them are not, but because they just throw out the latest talking points from Rush, O’Reilly, and Beck, without bothering with silly things like facts.)
At least 4 of the people in the class think that both of the things you listed are very good ideas.
Of course, at least once a week they all complain about how there is too much government and it is destroying the country. I always have a hard time not laughing out loud when they do that.
The class is part of the Adult Education Program at the local Vocational School (paid for by taxes) and is being offered because the local office of the Workforce Investment Act (Federal program) put up the money for it. The 2 instructors are both receiving Social Security (and Medicare of course) as well as their checks from the school, and 4 of us in the class are receiving unemployment. One student is basically living off of his grandmother, because he can’t get unemployment, and the last student is actually working a temp job that he wishes would end so he could get unemployment.
So the only 2 people out of the 8 of us in the classroom that are not getting paid by the government to take a class being paid for by the government, wish they could be. But there is too much government out there, it needs to be cut back. :dubious:
The whole giver/receiver thing is really missing the point. The point is that they dubbed themselves with a name that in the twenty-first century, has a crude sexual connotation; one that the people who use it in that way have the sense to filter out of their conversation when they’re not engaging in ribald repartee with their intimates.
P. S. when I say “the point,” what I’m talking about is “the point of the ridicule directed at them (the Tea Party-ers).”
According to your user date, you just signed up last week. :dubious:
Oh wait – you’ve been “lurking for years”, right? Uh huh. Sure.
Oh, here we go! “Wah wah wah!!! I’m being persecuted because I’m a conservative!!! Oh it’s sooooo unfair!!! You big meanies!!!”
:rolleyes:
They were dismissed as RINOs by the Republican party. Today, they are mostly represented by the Clinton/Rubin wing of the Democratic party.
Ok, so enlightened conservatives are basically part of the Democratic coalition now. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have empirically oriented arch conservatives. After all, not all conservatives are hyper-emotional: some respect science and fact-based uncompromising analysis.
Separately, I haven’t frequented GD lately, but I have to agree with John Mace that phrases like repugs and forces of darkness should be used with circumspection. Yet I think they are more a symptom of poor expression than a central aspect of it.
But it’s flattering to think that you’re an independent kinda guy who doesn’t need no handouts (or rural electrification or public transit systems such as interstate highways or any number of public goods), yes? Republican memes certainly appeal to the blusterers and the vain.
Well, the class is supposedly about learning how to handle logistics and dispatching for companies, with the final part being getting our own CDL. So they kind of have to avoid complaining about the interstate highways. 
But they do plenty of complaining about DOT regs, especially upcoming ones that are Obama’s fautl, despite being set up by the Bush administration. 
It will never get old.
Wait, what? the Roosevelt you’re talking about is FDR, right? The current Democratic party is more conservative than FDR.
Wait a minute, you are an old time Democrat, registered since 1986? Please tell me that is a tyop and you meant 1968, or I am going to start feeling really old. I registered as a Democrat to vote in my first election at 17 in 1980. My first political memories (well, after Watergate, Agnew’s resignation and then Nixon’s resignation) are of watching the 1976 Republican National Convention and the speculation that Reagan would be Ford’s VP choice (with some added powers for the VP, wouldn’t that have been fun).
As a moderate, i.e. real liberals call me conservative and real conservatives call me liberal, I agree there are people here that have knee jerk reactions to the other party and start out with name calling and descend from there. But there are also people on both sides that can and do give reasoned and thoughtful responses to discussions. Frankly, your talking about licking boots and circle-jerks tends to paint you more as belonging to the first group than the second.
And Yookeroo is right, the current Democratic party is more conservative than FDR. Hillary worked for Goldwater’s election in 1964, and while she has moved left from those times, she has not moved that far left. And while some people looked at Obama as the Great Progressive Hope, a more accurate term would be the Great Pragmatic Hope. The complaints about him not being as liberal as he promised tell me a lot of people did not really listen to what he promised.
I am sure you are very right about that !
[bolding mine] :dubious: Whatever gave you an idea that the SD is a bastion of PETA support?
IME, PETA gets virtually nothing but derision and mocking from both sides. Methinks thou dost protest too much.