Republicans vote against their own self interests?

I don't see how you can say Democrats do more of it than anyone else. Each party needs a majority of votes. And why is it you are ok with welfare for corporations and the banking elite but not for the poor Joe or Jane trying to eek out a living on skid row?

See previous.

So? That is how the system is set up. Individuals are elected by voters in certian states to represent them in Congress. If they deliver what those that elected them want then they get reelected.

And who determines what is pork? Something in Kansas or Nebraska might be considered pork to someone from New Jersey and the reverse could be true as well. So who determines what is and is not pork.

If the founders of the Constitution wanted national elections of Congressmen they would have set up the government that way. They choose not too. Your example has nothing to do with the roll of special interest money in our elections.

Yes, it is called the First Amendment. We need to hold to our principals...even when it hurts. If the Nazi Party organized itself and ran for political office the same laws would apply to them that apply to everyone else.

 

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We do?

The more common sort of political rhetoric implies the opposite - that the Dems are an elite, looking down their noses at regular people, and the Reps are more in touch with the common folk, and care about them.

That seemed to be the point of all those criticisms of Al Gore and John Kerry, for example - W was supposed to be the regular guy, the one you'd want to have a beer with, the one who understood and cared about ordinary people.

So if anyone is "falling for" a politician's claim to care about the ordinary citizen, it would be those courted by such claims, no? Including those who fall for some campaign rhetoric about so-and-so being an elitist, a snob, having a fancy haircut, not driving a regular truck or car, liking something French, that kind of stuff.

The people who fall for that kind of rhetoric sure are suckers, aren't they.

Meanwhile, I confess to remaining undisturbed at the prospect of government officials and representatives "buying votes" from the regular folks, by using taxpayer money to supply them with government services. Of all the buying of votes of various kinds that we have seen in the US these recent decades, that seems to me the least troublesome.

 

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Exactly. This thread itself is evidence of the arrogance of the Left. I mean, what is the premise behind it? Anyone that votes Republican is stupidly voting against their own interests. After all, the Left knows what's best. It's only the idiocy of the voters who keep voting for Republicsns that prevent the wise and benevolent Left from turning the US into a virtual Utopia. Right?

 

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Unless you are rich, that's true.

 

The Left are going to continue to appear arrogant to the Republican base, as they have since the current Republican base was formed, whenever they describe the political and economic history of the US in accurate declarative sentences.

Not much can be done about that.

 

I really think it's more than just an appearance.

 

In the first place, if you base your political stances and doings on such trivial grounds, that's self fulfilling.

Keep embracing ignorance and doing dumb things and getting played by the same schtick-mongers over and over and over, and you lose whatever respect from the informed and reasonable you had.

It's not just your own lives and country you have been wrecking, you know. Other people are suffering for your incredible (and strikingly arrogant) inability even to admit the consequences of what you've done and are doing, let alone take responsibility for them.

Lefty: "That's dumb and ignorant, you are being lied to and played, and it will lead to disaster."
Tea Party ancestor (Bigot, Fundie, Republican, "Conservative", etc): "That's elitist - those are my beliefs, and I have just as much right to my opinions as anyone else. We're going to win!"
- - - {disaster happens} - - - -
L: "You are doing it again. This new tack is dumb and ignorant just like before, you are being lied to and played just like before, and it will lead to disaster just like before."
TP: "That's elitist. Your opinions are no better than mine, and us normal folks have just as much right to our beliefs as you do. We're going to win!"
- - - {disaster happens} - - -
da capo ad infinitum

In the second place: If you want examples of sheer arrogance, brass balls presumption of impunity and superiority of status, the behavior of W&Co in office and their justifiers in the various "think tanks" would be hard to top. If arrogance as a character flaw were the problem, the entire Tea Party Republican faction would have voted for a German Shepherd rather than W in 2004. W and Cheney would have lost every Republican primary, and been forced to run Independent or go home.

So we have to look at some other factor than arrogance in the official or intellectual. How about gullibility on the part of their marks?

Apparently we have an entire political faction of the US who thinks being pandered to and stroked is a sign of respect.

 

A statement of fact is simply a statement of fact...nothing more, nothing less.

You want to talk about arrogance, have you ever watched Fox News or el rushbo?

 

People who make less than 100K a year (and a great many of these people make less than 50K a year) who worry about tax rates increasing on those who make over 250K a year have been duped. And that's putting it kindly. The top one percent can take care of themselves, but they appreciate the support all the same.

 

So you're advocating that you don't care if someone else is being wronged or unjustly treated or oppressed by an arbitrary taxation system so long as you're not affected?

Very noble of you.

Yeah, sure, they can "take care of themselves" (i.e., shoulder the extra arbitrary taxation burden), but the right question to ask is, should they?

Again, you are simply preaching that people in lower classes should form an oppressive majority and loot the incomes and possessions of other people. Sorry, but that's morally wrong.

 

Nobody cares that you think progressive taxation is morally wrong. You remind me of Mr. Pink in the restaurant scene of reservoir dogs. As you're no doubt aware, the United States most successful decades were during a time when the top brackets were much steeper than they are now.

Portraying it as "The lower classes forming an oppressive majority to loot the upper" is a ridiculous strawman, almost certainly lifted from talk radio.

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"Boo, hoo hoo, the mean poors want to oppressively tax me! Whatever will I do?"

Maye Paris Hilton will go Galt. In her case, I guess that'd mean no more sex tapes.

 

And the right answer is yes.

They owe for the maintenance and infrastructural costs of the system they used to make their money, same as anyone who rents machinery or office space. We supplied them with their means, and we have a perfect right to present our bill, and expect payment.

 

Very empty, shallow argument that's oft repeated here and not well thought-through. The wealthy already pay their share and then some. Remember, the top 1 percent paid 27.6 percent of all federal taxes.

Uh, how? By serving them a vanilla shake at Burger King?

 

Actually it is worse than that - the police force, the army etc. are disproportionally for their protection - Not only have the poor little to be stolen, but even if it is the police usually do nothing to find who took their TV, but let some rich lady's joules* be stolen, then considerable tax-payer's money will be spent by the police to try to recover them.

---------------
*That is jewels, but I did not correct in text to show what years of teaching physics and some dyslexia can do.

 

First, police are, by and large, funded locally or by the state, not with federal funds. There are some federal allowances for law enforcement initiatives, but by and large, law enforcement is funded locally.

The military protects the entire nation, not just the wealthy, and the wealthy are not in any way "more" protected by the military. That's just a not-well-thought-out reach.

Now I have a question for you. I've noticed in several threads that a common argument of folks on the left is that the wealthy use "more" of the infrastructure than poorer people, so therefore they should pay more in taxes.

More infrastructure = more taxes, right? Let's nevermind the other arguments for now (eg, that a flat tax would account for that) just for the sake of the discussion and say that, yes, it's "fair" for the wealthy to pay more in taxes because they use more of the infrastructure.

Everyone should pay their fair share for the infrastructure they use, correct? That's logical, correct?

All right, then how do you square that with the fact that almost half of Americans pay no federal taxes?! People with lower incomes actually *profit* from the federal tax system. See here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1

So quite clearly those folks are not paying their fair share for their use of the infrastructure! Poor people use roads, bridges, schools, parks, and need military defense, too...so why do they get away for free?

Again, your argument is use of infrastructure = paying tax, right?

I think it's safe to say that that argument is dismissed.

 

Yes, they should!

 

The wealthy have much more wealth, which the military protects, and much more interest in international security as they travel, invest, etc.

The poor are only "protected" to the extent they would be worse off under a different government, with different people as the wealthy, and they need only the protection necessary to prevent that. That is a decreasing extent, in the US, particularly for the very poor. (If conquered by Canada, for example, most of the working poor in the US would be significantly better off).

And the US military has been "defending" those investments, trade structures and agreements, far more than it has been "defending" the US. None of the poor in the US are being defended by the war in Iraq, for example - rather, as soldiers and suppliers, they are being endangered. The rich should pay the poor big bucks for their services in that war, in addition to covering the costs of the war itself.

The wealthy, especially the upper 1% with the international interests, on those grounds should be paying for the entire military, more or less.

They should also be prevented from extracting money from the poor for military supply and contracting, bond interest on military debt they own, etc. On the grounds of paying for services, all that should come from their pockets.

So the upper few percent should, for starters, cover the entire military budget for foreign wars and all related expenses (such as debt service). That's off the top, before we consider the domestic economy and infrastructure.

Bullshit. You must think the only federal tax is the income tax. Even there, most working poor lose interest and pay opportunity costs - including some significant ones, such as payday loans.

You talking Federal, or ranging afield?

The lower 80% - the non rich - pay for all that stuff. They pay higher overall rates of taxation than the rich, who add insult to the injury by taking a cut even of the benefits only the non rich use personally (their labor costs are lower for employees who can bus themselves to work from serviced housing, for example. When the buses run slow in my town, the first complaint calls come from the big downtown businesses whose employees can't get to work).

 

This is a ridiculous argument, grounded in little more than puerile Marxism, myopia and a complete denial of the reality of international relations, trade and economics -- to say nothing of things such as the War on Terror.

 

I am shocked - shocked - that people would respond to insult and condescension with hostile rejection, rather than with calm introspection and productive revision. That's just totally alien to standard human behavior.

 

Way too much to respond to, so I'm just going to do a bullet list:

- False about the military protecting people's wealth. The military protects all.

- Ridiculous comment about people being better off under a Canadian invasion.

- Oh, and to your outrageous comment about the miltary just protecting the poor from being put under a different government, tell that to the Poles of 1939.

- The military protects our interests worldwide, and virtually everyone in our society benefits. When, for example, the military blocked Saddam Hussein from invading Saudi Arabia, the poor benefited by not having gas shoot up to $5 a gallon. So no, the rich don't owe the poor anything extra for wars.

- The military now is 100% volunteers, so the poor are not harmed by it. Actually, quite the contrary. Many poor people use the military to open up new opportunities for themselves. I was once dirt poor myself and joined the military to gain new opportunities. Worked out pretty well for me. Oh, and by the way, when I was poor, never did I think the rich should pay a higher percentage in taxes than me.

- Payday loans have nothing to do with the discussion.

- Your thing about the poor paying 80% of something is just ludicrous. Rich people pay the federal taxes in this country. Period. End of story.

- Your example of the busses is telling. Perhaps that's your problem -- you view the world and its problem from a very, very local experience and then expand that perspective to the entire nation, as in, "Oh, poor people ride the busses in my town; therefore, rich people are the real benefactors from everything!"

BOTTOM LINE (PAY ATTENTION, LIBERALS!):

- The rich do not owe you anything
- You did not -- REPEAT -- did NOT help the rich get rich
- The government does not owe you anything
- The rich are already paying their share -- and then some -- of federal tax
- Rich people give you your jobs and opportunities. You should thank them
- Make your own way in life. Never take a handout. You'll be much happier

People who hold views like those spouted by Ice Aura are typically a) young and inexperienced in life and just don't know any better or b) poor themselves and expect that the government should "do something" to help them. And when presented with fair arguments about how extra taxing the rich is unjust, unfair, or counter-productive, they offer up contrived arguments and twisted rationalizations (like the ones presented by Ice Aura and others around here) that they use to dismiss that little angel sitting on their shoulders, telling them repeatedly in their ear that what they're doing or thinking is wrong.