I didn't say that it was certain that your car would be stolen. It would be more likely to happen though. It was an example of what could happen. Since we are talking about the future, all we have are hypotheticals. You are trying to make it sound unreasonable when it is perfectly reasonable extrapolation.
Except you're presenting it as if it is a definite that it will impact it that much, in hopes of playing to peoples emotions rather than logic. Its reasonable to suggest that cuts on the police or the transit budget COULD have a negative affect...the question of course though that is more important is how much of a negative affect. Is it a 1% higher likilihood that you're going to get mugged, or a 50%? Are potholes going to go from one every once in a while to two every once in a while, or to a new one every day? From your words, you seem to be implying much of the cuts would come from those two places...since that's where you IMMEDIETELY suggested the cuts would go without mentioning anything else...and that somehow the cuts would be significantly impacting.
And if you don't think that they're definitely going to have a significant impact, there was really no reason to try and throw out such an emotionally charged argument as to why it can't be done.
They still could have handled this differently. It's not like the top 2% were facing a crisis. That's what the GOP was fighting for.
So they should've just ignored their constituents? You're creating a self fulfilling prophecy when you lament that people have no power and then basically are saying politicians should ignore the people. Not to mention, the top 2% were set to expire just the same as anyone elses, so not dealing with that now was just as foolish if you felt it was an issue than not dealing with all of it, because doing nothing defaulted to letting it raise. If they felt that NO ONES taxes should raise then they had to act NOW because by doing nothing about it the default was that it would raise.
I didn't call them evil. You keep reverting back to that strawman. Not facing a crisis is not equal to evil.
Not a strawman, it was hyperbole to match your ridiculous hyperbole of the rich having all the power and using it for nothing but their own greed.
There are those in the top 2% that are fine with their taxes going up. I didn't say that those in control were the whole top 2%.
Your made it out that you had an issue that "2% of the population" was controlling what we do about revenue. You then went on to say Politicians and Spin doctors fell in that 2%. I'm simply pointing out that its rather hypocritical for you to complain about the 2% controlling revenue when, by your definition of that 2%,
EVERY government issue is controlled by that 2% and that 2% is actually representing both sides of the revenue issue right now...because there's politicians and spin doctors arguing on both sides.
Only if you strawman my statements to mean that the top 2% were a homogenous group ideologically.
You were attempting to instill negative emotions by invoking classism by complaining about the "top 2%" controlling what happens when revenue which is a rather irrelevant comment to make considering by your own definition the top 2% control EVERYTHING that the government does in EVERY instance. Its the political equivilent of shouting at someone for spraying your chest with a squirt gun in the middle of a down pour. Its obvious disingenuous and being done for ulterior reasons.
I think too many people would be harmed by a complete immediate collapse of our economy and government. Of course, they really haven't proposed any remedies either way yet. Time will tell.
And again, as I said, its a difference in philosophy. I'll take a small portion, relative in time, of people being severely harmed for the (highly plausable in my mind) possability of a large portion being comfortable in the long run. The alternative, based on what you're suggesting, to me is harming a huge amount of people over a long period of time with no real hope for improvement, just not as bad of pain as quickly.
To give an analogy...if we have two groups of 10 people taken hostage. There's a choice where you could do one of two things:
1. The 10 will be housed in bad conditions for five years, with two of them dieing and two being severely injured with it being 50/50 if they live or die. However, after 5 years, they're all are freed.
2. All 10 get routinely beat, but never to the point of serious injury or death. They are given moderate living conditions but will be held there for the rest of their lives, as will any of their kids, and their kids kids, and onward.
To me, in such a theoritical, I'd go with number 1. While more life, in a technical sense, is preserved in number 2 I would actually prefer number 1. This is because that while some life is lost, the majority of others are actually able to LIVE their lives to the fullest and those that come from them in the future will be free to do so as well. On the flip side, number 2 is perpetually living in a crappy existance, with the number of people exposed to said bad existance increasing each time new children are born into it. They're alive, but they have no real way to truly live to the fullest.
At its hearts its the great difference in philosophy between liberals and conservatives and the reason I think there will always be a divide in this country. To me the difference is clears. Conservatives want people to be able to reach the highest of highs and accept that to have that people will also hit the lowest of lows, with the distribution of the rest falling along that trajectory in between. Liberals want people primarily to be comfortable and equitable, wanting a relatively steady middle baseline with little deviation up or down. And I think often when it comes to economic type issues that's the real heart of contention.