No name calling or rudeness needed, there really is a good constuctive conversation going here, Please continue.
I myself have learned more about the real problems and how this goverment really works on this thread than anywhere else in my 56 years.
Of course I’m just an ignorant hillbilly but thank you guys.
Not really, Bill. It’s the same way people in the blue states feel when they see those same guys leveraging their wealth to protect their position and power at the expense of others. It’s the way many employees feel when the CEO sends out a message telling everyone that, because the company increased revenues and profits but not as much as projected, that everyone will lose 10% of their quarterly bonus. At the same time he is laughing all the way to bank with the outsized stock options he and his staff have been given. It’s the same way those 150 laid-off people feel when they know they are now facing the holidays without a job because the CEO wants to throw a tantrum over the election not going his way.
I’m not suggesting that those guys are completely wrong, because they’re not. But they also won’t solve their problem with an “our way or the highway” approach. They’re going to have to learn to compromise with folks who see the world differently and place value on different things.
One thing is different. Obama got re-elected. So now they are going to have to shift from confrontation to compromise. The majority of the people decided that the things Obama has done were at least acceptable and, apparently, preferable to what the Republicans were offering. So he needs to reach out to the red state constituency and they need to meet him halfway.
I think it’s entirely possible that the difference you are seeing right now has less to do with the actual outcome of the election than it does with worries about the fiscal cliff and the suspense we all feel about whether the two parties will actually recognize the danger to the country and work together to avoid it. If they do, I think you’ll see people breathe a sigh of relief and feel a bit more comfortable about spending money. If they simply retreat to their respective corners, it will get a lot worse.
Just to be clear, I expect Obama to meet the Republicans half-way as well. No one on either side should be digging in at this point.
Agreed, both should be working on a compromise, but we’ve yet to hear from either party, a suggestion of such. Harry Reid claims a mandate to “raise/let them expire” for the wealthy, Boehner(sp?) says no way…I think it would be a HUGE opportunity for the POTUS to step in and suggest a lesser percentage of a raising. That is what a leader does.
Of course, they all still need to quit spending our money at break-neck speed!
And there is the problem.
Unless The President has just been hiding his leadership qualities the past 4 years.
Bill, I think it is very bad when any segment of the population feels like they are no longer connected to the well being of the country. Every one needs to feel like they have some skin in the game. I was saying the same thing during the Bush years. You just can’t make the country fur lined for one particular group.
As I suspected you are not understanding the gravity of what I am talking about. Like I said it is incomprehensible to those that are not in the middle of it, this is not a slam on you or anyone else, I am sure that I am equally unable to fully appreciate things that happen in your back yard. This isn’t just the sour grapes of a missed bonus or even getting laid off. Those folks are not out starting new political parties or building armed bunkers. These people are seeing themselves as being completely apart from the country. They are not preparing for the country to succeed, they are preparing for the country to fail. Obama’s strategy of divide and conquer worked. He got the divide now he has to fix it. We have never had an election where the population that elected the President was so extremely polarized along race, gender, and marital status.
Again Bill, you just described how many Americans felt for 8 years under Bush. The difference now is it’s 8 years of Obama, so it’s the red folks seeing what it feels like.
And as I pointed out way earlier in this thread, first page maybe, things are very much different because this is a second term Obama. First term presidents ALWAYS have an eye on not doing too much serious stuff because they want to make sure to maintain a chance of re-election. Once that second term election comes in, a president can get things done with zero attention on re-election. It’s a very different mindset.
Give me examples of the the new political party the Liberals started (TEA party) or any parallel to the explosion in fire arms sales, or the preppers. That is not to say that liberals (what a miss used term that is…) were not unhappy, what I am saying is that ACTIONS speak louder than words. I am not concerned about a few hard feelings here. I think what is happening is bigger than that. Like I said the very first time, if you don’t see it, you can’t believe it, since there is probably no way for you to see this, it is probably impossible to see it. A lot of people had no idea that people like Timothy McVeigh existed until he blew up a building. It is patronizing to say “don’t worry your pretty little head” its just like it was… I am attempting (and failing) to wave a flag and tell people that we have to change the nature of the conversation from “we won, you lost” into something more along the lines of we are in this together. If the mindset that “I can really screw over the opposition now that I don’t have to run again” really kicks in, I think very very bad things will happen.
I am going to leave it at that. I have said my piece, and time will tell. All I am really suggesting is that I think the country will be a far better place if reconciliation takes place, right now I think the opposite is more probable.
Bill, I think we come at this from very different perspectives and maintaining good relationships here is vastly more important to me than any political argument.
I’ll leave the conversation with this observation: I don’t believe this is a one-sided argument and I fear that the folks you’re talking about see it that way. Mitch McConnell once said that the over-riding priority for the Republicans was to make Obama a one-term President. A poster here previously said he wants Obama to fail. Where is the concern about the country in those statements? Does anyone actually believe that the President of the United States can fail while the country succeeds, regardless of what party he comes from?
Those people who are preparing for failure are making themselves part of the problem. They are sending a message that they can only identify with a country that looks and acts like them. When it begins to look and act differently, they see it as “them” declaring war on “us”. The fact is that it’s just change. It’s no different than the transition that conservative Southerners had to make during the Civil Rights era or that conservative men had to make during the era of women’s liberation. This country is stronger than those changes. It’s been that way since it’s founding and through countless waves of immigration and social evolution.
You said in your more recent post that you hope for reconciliation, but how does one reconcile with someone who’s only answer is running away from you or wishing you ill? And if we start worrying about the Timothy McVeighs, then we let them define and control us. Do we need to undestand that they’re out there? Of course, but we can’t allow them to start influencing policy any more than we we’d let PETA. If we don’t want the “we won, you lost” conversation (and I heartily agree that we don’t want that), then we also have to reject the “we want you to fail” conversation and do it just as emphatically. Compromise and reconciliation requires trust and right now the rhetoric on the right suggests that reaching out to them is a darn good way to lose a hand!
There are an awful lot of good, sensible people on the right but their voices are getting lost, drowned out by the Limbaughs and Hannity’s of the world. One of those voices is Joe Scarborough and he is constantly being attacked as a RINO because he wants the party to focus on small-government conservatism instead of social values conservatism. The GOP needs to start realizing that people like him are the key to rebuilding their brand and regaining the trust of the American electorate.
You’re very much demonizing Obama there, Bill. The mindset you assumed (screw over the opposition) is your own projection; what I was talking about is that unencumbered by thoughts of re-election, Obama is now in a position to make the tough calls and take the unpalatable actions that I thought we were mostly all agreeing need to be taken. The fact that your mind immediately goes to “screw over the opposition” suggests that there isn’t a very good chance of the parties working together, as I would hazard a guess that you’re well above the nominal level of thoughtfulness in either party.
As far as “we won you lost nyah-nyah” sort of talk, I’ve seen a fair bit of that from many of the supposedly progressive folks I know on another forum. But at the same time, there have been people calling them out on it and pointing out what BS it is. And I’m one of them.
It’s the “us against them” mentality that comes along with what is essentially a two party system that always tends to divide rather than unite us. Whoever’s guy wins feels vindicated and whoever’s guy loses feels disenfranchised, and that’s usually pretty close to a 50/50 split.
As far as a new party springing forth from the Democratic Party, I’m not aware of that happening recently. It wouldn’t necessarily make sense either. The democrats held the presidency for 8 years with Clinton, and during the 8 years where Bush held it, there was always talk about how the Democratic Party needed to strengthen itself and unify itself and have a clear and strong message so they would not lose to the republicans again. Apparently they succeeded, and not surprisingly people are currently saying the exact same thing about the Republican Party. It’s a back and forth, one wins, then the other, then back and forth, each pushing their agenda and trying to undo what the other has done, focusing on their team winning and tailoring their speak to say what people want to hear to get the votes, and then not necessarily doing what is in the best interest of the nation or what they promised for that matter. And that’s not just the democrats, there was a very famous quote from the first Bush a while back that began with “read my lips” and ended with a palatable promise that got him elected and which he promptly broke.
It’s both sides.
If you’re saying that only republicans are taking action then you’ve missed out on the most visible political action taken by the populace I’ve seen during my lifetime in the Occupy Wall Street movement. I wasn’t alive in the 60’s but it seems to me this is the most vocal and participatory that Americans have been since then.
I did make it far enough into the article you linked earlier to see that the author was saying the entire premise the OWS movement was built on is BS, so I assume you would not hold the OWS movement to carry the same weight as the founding of the Tea Party movement, but it all comes down to subjective opinions I guess. Personally I think the OWS movement was interesting, but I also think it was half-baked and nowhere near close to the actual kind of popular revolution required to cause any substantial change in the way this country works.
As far as guns, a lot of that may prove to have been good foresight on the part of folks buying them (as I mentioned earlier I just bought my first) but I also know for a fact that a lot of it comes down to racism and fearmongering. The emails I’ve received regarding Obama taking away all our guns are typically written with a lot of propaganda aimed at the ignorant, and I always receive them from people I know with certainty to be racist, the kind of people who think Obama has some black agenda to hand out free money to black people while taking away guns from “good white folk”. It’s really gross to see, and that unfortunately is how red state folks tend to be perceived by blue state folks a lot of the time, based on the frequency and intensity with which such statements are made.
Everybody wants a strong and healthy America. And yet somehow instead of coming together based on our having that in common, it seems that what America always ends up doing is in-fighting, and doing the power dance back and forth, red for a while, blue for a while, always battling for control with more intensity than battling to actually solve problems.
The problem today is, based on both my gut and what I’ve seen as far as empirical evidence exhibited by the human beings that make up this country, the problems are not going to be solved.
And THAT is also part of why you see a rise in gun purchases, aside from thoughtful folks understanding Obama’s position on guns, and aside from mindless racism and xenophobia in general-- because more and more people on both sides of the wedge driven between us are realizing that it doesn’t really look like things are getting better currently or going to get better at any point in the future.
Funny thing is, while I feel like you and I are disagreeing in our perspectives and how we see the issues, I have no question in my mind that if we sat down and had a beer and talked about what the problems are and prioritized them and tried to come up with solutions, I bet we could work together quite well and come up with solutions as well as anybody. There are very few issues that we’d disagree on in the beginning for which we wouldn’t be able to easily find a compromise that we were both okay with in the end.
But that’s not how politics works. It’s not a battle to get to good solutions and implement them. It’s a battle to win and retain a position of power. And it screws us all.
:edit:
I just looked up what “preppers” means. Never knew there was a name for that. I’ve definitely had a fair bit of that in me ever since I moved to DC back in September 2001. 
I really didn’t want to get back into this discussion; but I’m too stupid (I guess) to stay out…
I think I understand what Bill B is saying, he’s describing a mindset that I’d already adopted this time 4 years ago. That’s saying a lot, considering our diverse backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. Let me throw this scenario out there, and you tell me where you think the flaws are in it:
My wife and I have been clearing $100K (pre-tax dollars) for a few years. Last year we broke $150K - almost entirely due the extra overtime we’ve had to work, because our employers were expending little (hers) or maybe even ANY (mine, at the time) money to replace people with our skillsets that had retired or moved on to other businesses or fields or even retirement. Apparently their advisors had/have the properly operating crystal balls and could see this upcoming “financial precipice”. Forgetting the advice of my parents (who were “Children of the Great Depression”); I found it hard to believe that we as a country could EVER be in this crisis. Wow, I was 100% “Perfect” in that prognostication - if you count an unadulterated ZERO PERCENT with NO exceptions as “Perfect”.
Now, my job is technical in nature; but not that hard, once you accept that there is no “perfect electrical conductor”; they all have some amount of resistance per foot, and that a longer conductor will have greater resistance. The harder part (at least for some of the people I met in Electrical Engineering classes at U of A) seems to be that, contrary to what “feels right”, current (as in moving electrons) flows from the NEGATIVE side of a DC power source through a circuit and into the POSITIVE side of the DC power source. Seems simple in theory and is proved out in chemistry; but it seems to “mess with some heads” in practice. Needless to say, it’s not rocket science.
My wife, on the other hand, has a 5 year Bachelor’s degree (I mopped, stripped and waxed a lot of bar and dance-club floors -at $5-7 per hour- to pay at least half of the last 4 semesters’ worth of tuition), as well as 30 years of required “Continuing Education” to ensure that she knows how to safely recover patients after surgery. Guess what - HER job is in more danger of ending than mine - thanks to all the requirements, provisos, “End-of-Life panels”, and the plans of MANY Internists and Surgeons to leave their fields - once ObamaCare is finalized. Yeah, I’ll be the LOUDEST to say that “I hoped he’d fail” in THAT little debacle! Why? Because, since it succeeded, my family has an EXPONENTIALLY GREATER chance of failing financially; because my income alone is at best, 3/4 of hers. So, we’ll be working on slightly less than half of our base pay. Thank God the pickups are paid off; but the $5 (or more) per gallon of gas is gonna practically kill us. Don’t know how we’re going to keep “helping out” our already-strapped older kids. So, since Obamacare succeeded, we stand a much higher chance of failing; possibly losing the house, not being able to help our children keep their homes, facing bankruptcy. And we’d still be working just as hard, except that we’d be giving even more (percentage-wise) up in taxes because we’d still at least find work of some kind! Shoot, it just MIGHT be easier, though… we could just become another welfare/food stamp family, not work, just collect our Obama checks and not stay up nights worrying about where the next soup-bone will come from.
Yeah, I can easily understand the mind-set of the people Bill B was talking about.
I just want my Country back. The one that used to reward excellence, entrepenurial spirit, a willingness to do what it takes to succeed and bring others with us. Not the one that brings us back to the “tenant farmer” days.
EDIT: I almost forgot! I’d like to hear theories on what caused the “Financial Precipice”. I have my own ideas, and I’d bet they’re not too far off - or even 5-6 years in coming.
I can’t verify if this is true because I’m an expert on neither, but isn’t Obamacare basically a copy of the healthcare system from Romney’s Massachusetts? That’s what I had heard, but have no clue if that’s accurate. Can anyone who understands both pretty well clear that up as accurate, inaccurate, or sorta accurate?
Does living on welfare pay anywhere close to $100k a year? I thought on welfare you’d still be below the poverty line, no? So making something like $5k-15k a year maybe? That doesn’t sound attractive to me. Doesn’t sound attractive to just about anyone really. The poorest people I know work very hard for their money for the most part. That’s not a new thing though. The people working 18-20 hours a day across two or three jobs don’t make anywhere close to a guy sitting in an office. That’s not new, it’s been like that for a loooong time. I would love to have $100k a year or more in income for my family. Instead I have less than that and my wife is finishing a second bachelor’s and about to start medical school to become a doctor. We’re hoping that works out okay. She works harder at her studies than anyone I know, and has a GPA of something like 3.96 right now in her senior year of a BioPhysics degree. At a private school. So we have some really big debt, between buying a house this year and all her student loans. By the time she’s done with medical school we’ll owe an amount I don’t even want to think about. Lol.
The way I look at it, with our income level as it is (which is already less than yours) we’re still in the top 10% or whatever for income worldwide, and that’s something to be thankful for.
Just read about this and found it interesting. The OWS guys aren’t just complaining apparently, they’re actually out there DOING things like you had asked for Bill!
http://m.gawker.com/5959160/occupy-wall-street-wants-to-buy-and-forgive-your-debt
So far the best criticism I’ve heard of it is that since they’re not sure exactly whose debt they’re wiping out, it could be a slumlord or other nefarious type of person. But considering how much debt is out there, it seems like people chipping in collectively to get a 30:1 return on the money they donate towards wiping it out is a pretty positive thing.
Aside from the fact that it’s a bunch of liberals freely giving their own money to randomly wipe out debt of unknown Americans (which I’m sure many will call Socialist or Communist or whatever), what is not good about this? Isn’t it a step in the right direction? Or is it just a dog and pony show, and ultimately pointless?
Dawg, you and your family aren’t the only ones in that situation. The first problem we need to solve politically is for either side to stop believing they are the only ones contributing and everyone on the other side is just taking. I work in technology and I am 100% of my family income. For me, it isn’t about having to live on less than half; it’s about having to live on 0% even as I lose everything I’ve put into the business I’d hoped would get me out of the corporate world.
I’ve got two kids in college and have no idea where either one is going to get a job when they graduate or how much debt they’re going to have by then. And I may soon be paying tax on my health care benefits. So, I too, can understand the mind-set. What I can’t understand is taking the next step of writing off your country because you don’t like the direction it’s taking at the moment.
With respect to Obamacare, I was living with it when it was just Romneycare. Obamacare is modeled on the system Romney left behind in MA so we’ve been living with it a lot longer than anyone. It’s working here but we’re past the stage of fighting about it and into the stage of making it work for us. Are there issues? Yes, there are. Some businesses are being very slow to grow past the threshold at which the requirements kick in and there are still specific requirements that need to be reworked because they’re having unintended consequences. But there isn’t anything that can’t be fixed.
Otherwise, how did we get to where we are? Democrats and Republicans both spent like there was no tomorrow. Well now tomorrow is here and it takes everyone to step up and pay the credit card bill. And that doesn’t mean that we throw a bunch of needy people overboard to free up the money while the 1% are paying the lowest tax rate in 20 years and we up the ante on defense spending as a form of corporate welfare for defense contractors.
We absolutely need to reduce entitlement spending and rationalize what we do spend. But let’s stop pretending that it’s the “other” party or the other color states that are responsible for it all. Let’s agree we need to fix it and work out a solution that everyone can live with. And let’s stop pretending that Obama is the biblical beast sent to bring this country to ruin. He inherited a mess and didn’t do with his first two years what he should have under the circumstances. After that, he had a Republican opposition that wasn’t interested in compromise and it definitely takes two to tango in that situation. Sorry for the frustration that’s seeping through on this topic, but I’m as tired of people personalizing all problems as Obama’s doing as I was when the Democrats were constantly demonizing Bush. Neither one did what they did alone or without help from Congress.
We’ve been spending too much for decades but the voters keep sending the same politicians back to do it some more. We tolerate them drawing districts that limit the potential for real opposition. We let them demagogue and don’t hold them accountable when they’re proven to be misleading us or flat out lying to us.
So yes, I’m as frustrated as anyone but I’m not going out to buy guns and prepare to hole up in my bunker. I voted for Reagan. I voted for Bush 41. I voted for Clinton and Bush 43 the first time each. I backed McCain with my wallet when he ran for the nomination against Bush 43 and then watched him turn into a caricature the second time around. I’ve been involved in Republican politics since the early 80’s. I helped Bill Weld get elected as governor of MA. And as frustrated as I am, I’m going to keep trying to find the right person to lead us out of this mess. And yes, I voted for Obama twice.
So I’m not going to burn my draft card and run off to Canada. I’m going to do my job as an American citizen and remember that we’re a country of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. I’m not going to demonize people who disagree with me. Instead, I’m going to try to find common ground and build bridges across our differences. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I’m going to go down fighting for my country, not against it. I’m most certainly not going to abandon it.
I’m going to end my participation in this thread now. I respect the opinions that everyone has expressed and I appreciate the tone the discussion has taken. But now I’ve said everything I have to say and will end up just repeating myself. Thanks to all who have participated!
tmh, if my wife were to be axed in a budget-cutting maneuver; we’d be making less than $100k annually. At best, it would be around 66,000 base-pay; more with possible overtime - although that is NOT something to be counted upon as the economy goes further downhill. Additionally, when a company starts to “right-size”, they generally look first at their payroll; which, in a service company like my employer, is the largest budget item. Looking deeper, the senior hourly wage-earners are the most expensive; and I’ve been “topped out” in my wage scale for more than a dozen years. Now, my new employer (I’m on my third company with the same job, they just hand me re-branded work shirts and change the stickers on the trucks) does very fortunately “think differently” in many ways, compared to my previous employer; which was more like those organizations mentioned a couple pages back; wherein the “guys on the line” took pay cuts while they were handing out bonuses to the folks in “The Mineral Building” in Denver. The new company hasn’t made any efforts to “break the union”; but that’s not much help because I happen to be the “local scab”, having been taught by my parents that I should stand on my own two feet and be responsible for my own advancement.
So… I am now the Senior Tech on my crew, one of the most expensive guys on my crew; and I’m 50 with one bum knee and the other starting to go, as well as (just recently found out) a ‘damaged’ rotator cuff on my left shoulder. It’s getting harder to throw a 64 lb, 28’ extension ladder on either shoulder (or strap on my hooks), put on a tool belt and climb up a pole. If your back was hard against the wall because of your budget; who on my crew would YOU look at first?
As far as Obamacare being the same as Romney-care; it sounds to me like CatVert would be your best resource for on-site information… he’s living with Romney-care! I do also remember Romney at one point saying that it is not perfect, but that they are slowly getting the bugs out. He ALSO stated that this was possible ONLY because it was managed ONLY at the STATE level; making it a 50 STATE system would make it nigh to impossible to fix. What happens then? Since Medicare - which ALL taxpayers pay into - has been gutted to fund Obamacare, there’s nothing. Cool, huh?
CatVert: I’m not jacking up and moving to Canada; the language barrier would kill me! At my age, it would take me FOREVER to learn the appropriate time to put an “EH?” in the middle of a sentence! 
So, no, not Canada. If I wasn’t so Northern Irish pasty-white; I’d become a Mexican citizen and then sneak back into the States and apply for amnesty, WIC, and Food Stamps! 
(Two bad jokes and 2 politically-incorrect smiles in the beginning of a new paragraph, I’d better wrap this up.)
No, my contrary attitude would be more at home in a different state; one that would have called for one of their US Congressional Representatives to be recalled on the day after HE called for a boycott of the State he “represents”; rather than let him stay around and be re-elected this year. One that has the attitude and the b@lls and the resources to seriously fly the “fickle finger of fate” at DC; one whose Governor, when told he was getting Stimulus Funds, told Obama to “Keep the Change”. And the only state like that would also be much closer to the States in which each of my two daughters live. It really sounds like a win-win proposition. Just gotta hold out a few more years.
Still waiting for theories on the causes and contributors to the “Financial Precipice”. Any Thomas Sowell readers out there?
I’m a “defense contractor”, no corporate welfare here.
As far as Obamacare.
Take a look at the east coast and the fantastic job the feds are doing. You sure you want the feds in charge of health care. Don’t get sick.
Defense contractor corporate welfare is forcing the Army to take tanks they don’t want and refusing to kill troubled weapons systems.
I’m on the East Coast, by the way. The biggest issues appear to be in NYC environs, where state and local authorities are doing a very poor job of enlisting help. NJ still has problems but the Republican governor is doing his job and working productively with the Democratic President to overcome them. It seems to be working better there.
Here’s the two main differences between “Romneycare” and “Obamacare” First and foremost, Romneycare had wide bipartisan support. Obamacare was only supported by the Democrats and even some of them were against it. The only way it got passed was by making deals and allowing a few states an exemption. It clearly was not supported by the majority. The second difference is that Obamacare raised taxes. Proponents argue that Romneycare used Federal funding to make it revenue neutral and the Feds do not have anyone to turn to. I will conceded that point. The real harm comes from the fact that Obamacare is funded by taxes on health care plans, insurers and medical device manufacturers. Simply stated, that means significantly increasing the cost of healthcare for the people who are already paying for it. So once again we have a case of the productive, responsible members of society paying the bill for everyone. It really doesn’t have much effect on the wealthy, they can afford it. And obviously the lower class that’s getting free healthcare aren’t adversely effected. But how about those of us that are middle class? We get it stuck in our ass yet again.
Al, I’m Stuck In The Middle With You, trying to make some sense of it all.
Al & zman, I’d say that Stuck in the Middle is where most of us are! Maybe we need to form a Centrist Party and only allow people who agree to accept term limits so we don’t end up with careerists like we have now.
We will come up with the necessary compromises here. The name of the party will be the Classic Cougar Community Party. Our presidential candidate will be Bill Basore. It will RULE.