COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, March 14, 2011

Have Courage to Only Say No Dear Brother.




Quirk said...
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Whether you think that is good or bad does not matter:

Exactly.

We're Broke.

Irrelevant. At least when it comes to winning elections.

I'm against public service unions especially their right to go on strike. Walker pushed through a bill to limit them in WI through some manipulation with the language of the bill. You could say he won. Yet he also completely reinvigorated the Dem base across the country. There were 100,000 people there to greet and cheer on the Dem legislators when they got back in state. Those legislators have vowed to reverse anything Walker did as soon as they get back in power.

In D.C., Chairman Ryan will introduce a budget this week against the advice of the GOP leadership that he says will be balanced and help address the deficit problem. It will include major changes in entitlement spending. While I feel there are better ways to attack the entitlements than what he is suggesting, I also have to admit that the guy walks the walk. That being said, when he offered basically the same bill last year, he had a total of 13 Pubs who signed on with him. The 'massive' cuts the GOP wants take a small bite out of the 1/12th of the budget that is called discretionary spending, another euphemism since all spending is dicretionionary. This at the same time they defend subsidies to the oil companies on the basis that we need them to assure that the oil companies will stay in the US. Laughable. Ludicrous. Unctuous. Hypocritical. Paternalistic. Is it any wonder Congress' approval rating is so low?

Here in MI, Snyder was elected governor in a landslide. In two months he has offered up a budget that is balanced. However, his pre-election pledge to not raise taxes has morphed into no 'net' increase in taxes. His budget gives big tax cuts to business (again under the assumption that that alone with encourage them to create jobs). He covers the cost by increasing taxes to retirees and the poor and lower middle class. His approval ratings have plummeted and he now has the AARP organizing against him.

As you stated, whether I think what the GOP is doing is good or bad doesn't matter. The same can be said of you.

You say we are broke. Doesn't matter. When you can print as much money as you want, it also is irrelavant, at least in the short run. What is more important, in the short run, is a 10% unemployment rate.

The Dems lost last year because of hubris. The GOP is setting themselves up for a loss in 2012 because of hubris. The fact that a couple of bloggers prefer the GOP's hubris to the Dems? Irrelevant. The election won't be won by the partisans on the left or right but by independants in the middle.

Right now, to my mind, they are looking a little sour.

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Mon Mar 14, 08:50:00 PM EDT

4 comments:

  1. Irrelevant

    as in ...the opinions of Rufus and Doug are irrelavant in the big picture

    Similarly, by extending the logic this post/thread is also irrelevant in the big picture

    Interesting then, that some spend so much time blogging when it really does not amount to squat

    ReplyDelete
  2. .

    Finally, an insight from one of the anonymous anonymi.

    Interesting?

    Only if you where under the impression that anyone is here for anything more than the pure enjoyment of bitching and letting off a little steam.

    If you think you will be changing many minds, especially with the demographics of this blog, you have much to learn grasshopper.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Despite the cascade of equipment failures at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, some nuclear experts noted that the fuel rods there, whose temperature could have risen to as high as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, would lose some of their heat over the next few days and would probably remain encased, even in the worst-case scenario, in a secondary containment structure with several feet of steel and concrete walls.

    But the new explosion raises new questions. With it impossible to see into the reactor vessels, officials were in large part speculating about what is happening inside by using a variety of gauges and indicators.

    “Let’s hope they can get these reactors under control,” said Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They’re not there yet.”


    Nuclear Catastrophe

    ReplyDelete
  4. When moral relativism is the touchstone, one can conveniently blame the victim at will.

    As though there is no difference between the people being robbed and the robbers.

    Just a matter of style, to some.

    ReplyDelete