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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (507115)	9/9/2012 3:43:51 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	3 Recommendations Respond to of 793843

For people who aren't stupid to remain liberals, it helps if they think nothing much has changed since the 1990s, or cannot comprehend numbers at all, so are reassured by the fact that Democrats don't sound all that different from the way they did 20 or 30 years ago.

To: i-node who wrote (507115)	9/9/2012 8:05:38 AM
From: LindyBill	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793843

Re: Stupidity "Inability or unwillingness to learn." Re: Ignorance "The amount of knowledge you don't know." “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Isaac Newton

To: i-node who wrote (507115)	9/9/2012 8:49:42 AM
From: skinowski	9 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793843

Western style "Socialism with a human face" is about the government taking from Peter to give Paul - and enjoying great status, money and power for fulfilling this function in society. Soviet style Socialism is when the government owns everything, and is redistributing it back to the people the way it wants. It is not very hard to understand what makes individuals with a vested interest vote in favor of redistributors. The "stupid" ones are more interesting. Yes, some are just plain dumb - but not all. The smart "stupid" are on the Left for the same reason that so many people still believe in Keynesian stimuli -- they, as explained by Bastiat in his analysis of the "Broken Window" fallacy -- can see what is on the surface, but fail to go one step further and see what lays just beneath. On the surface, things like fairness, equality, brotherhood of men, not leaving anyone behind - all look wonderful. These things sound like the very antithesis of cruelty, indifference, the law of the jungle. Unfortunately, as soon as you look a little deeper, you'll see that imposed equality of outcomes will stifle energy, initiative, productivity. The equality becomes one of poverty and stagnation. Moreover, the brotherhood of men inevitably becomes despotism, as leaders usurp the "moral" right to oppress those who refuse to comply with the new rules - of "equality".

To: i-node who wrote (507115)	9/9/2012 12:33:54 PM
From: KLP	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793843

Re: Stupidity "Inability or unwillingness to learn." LindyBill sent this to us, and is the perfect description of what I mean as "stupid"......In fact, most of us either feel sorry for or actually try to assist someone who has the inability to learn. It is for those who are able and are UNWILLING TO LEARN that most of us have contempt for.... Most Conservatives or people on the Right have considered the future from the Leftist POV....and have rejected the FarLeft POV entirely. The Left and Far Left know that, but still try their best to force their way and their will of how things "Should be" on Society, even though the Socialist/Marxist/Communist way has been proven NOT to enhance life in the slightest, and is, in fact, detrimental. We hear them whine and complain that the Right will not compromise. The difference between the Repubs and Dems is the Repubs "suggest", and the Dems "force" their ideas on to the general populace.

To: i-node who wrote (507115)	9/9/2012 2:15:41 PM
From: cnyndwllr	5 Recommendations Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 793843

i-node, re: " "I am torn on the "stupid" issue. For years, I've maintained that a person, to support liberalism in our country, must be intellectually challenged. And there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence found on SI that there is in fact an intellectual problem in many cases. I argue politics in many forums, including with friends over dinner and forums that are comprised of almost totally extreme liberals and a few places in between. I can now state categorically that they're not all idiots." Some differences are simply the result of different social values. Whether these differences in how we see the world are based on genetics or varying life experiences is an interesting question. I'm sure it's both but some studies find a strong genetic component so who knows. There are some issues, however, that lend themselves to a more factual discussion. Let's take a look at two positions that were, during the height of the crisis, considered by conservatives as "liberal".....the Iraq war and the theory that working people's job prospects are dependent upon tax cuts for those on the top end of the income and wealth ladder, i.e., the "job creators. I found it remarkable that in the early and middle years of the Iraq war so many conservative (and a significant number of progressive) Americans could not see the writing in the sand. That tide has turned and most Americans recognize the insurmountable problems we were facing there, the limits of our power to change societies using military force and that there are things that we can't buy with billions of dollars. Many conservatives now bemoan the loss of blood, treasure and opportunities that were lost in the hard years of that war but the sad fact is that there was very little critical thinking to counter the neocon push to war especially among self identified conservatives and Republican elected leaders. (Chuck Hagel was a courageous exception.) That's a big, big, mistake that our soldiers paid for and one where the allegedly challenged "liberal" segment of our population had a clearer vision. The second is the "liberals" rejection of the conservative theory that we create jobs for everyday Americans when we lower the tax burden on top income levels or reduce the estate taxes of massively wealthy individuals. This rationale for helping out the wealthiest Americans has been trotted out for decades. It has secured the Republican alliance with wealth and corporate America but it is absolutely counter productive where, as now, the economy is spiralling downward as a result of an overburden of federal debt and substantially diminished economic demand for goods and services. In such circumstances reducing tax receipts, putting more money in the pockets of wealthy people whose bank accounts are already swollen with uninvested funds and cutting federal spending for infrastructure and public employment simply increases the debt and further erodes economic demand. So there we have two conservative versus liberal views where the liberals weren't unthinking, bleeding hearts but were more rational, logical and clear thinking. So maybe instead of approaching these issues as non-nuanced, black and white, smart versus stupid vantage points we should all listen more to each other. I watched almost every minute of the Republican convention but I doubt that many here watched much of the Democratic convention and, in fact, the Red State article posted here and some posters seem unabashedly proud of the fact that they didn't (couldn't?) watch one minute of it. Of course that didn't stop them from strenuously criticizing it based on the reporting of others...conservative others, of course. It's all a little silly and certainly not conducive to finding common ground. Ed