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Where does the GOP have the least grasp on reality?

Where does the GOP have the least grasp on reality?

  • Total voters
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Red versus Blue for the National League in World Series
Wonderful clean roundtable on Matthews with old Gov. Rendell, my favorite Republican Steele, and Todd.
Great rant by Steele, who I could vote for, like for Congress.
And, have you seen Reince Priebus or Ted Cruz?
iacardsfan said:
We should have been able to select more than one answer, it would make it much more effective.
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Tax cuts are supposed to trickle-down to the economy, the backbone of REagonics..
Reagan was President in the 1980's.
mpg said:
How does the term "trickle down economics" fit anything that happened in the 80s?
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NIMBY said:
Tax cuts are supposed to trickle-down to the economy, the backbone of REagonics..
Reagan was President in the 1980's.
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tax cut = "trickle down economics"? Why would anyone choose a name like that to describe a tax cut? When I hear the phrase "trickle down economics", it doesn't sound anything like a tax cut.

If you're old enough to remember the 1980s, you know that the economy went from horrible to fantastic. Unemployment dropped like a rock and median household income increased sharply. The standard of living went way up for the average American.
 
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Money from Government is supposed to Multiply to about $1.70 per dollar.
Money refunded to the top 1% is the guise Reagonomics use.
mpg said:
tax cut = "trickle down economics"? Why would anyone choose a name like that to describe a tax cut? When I hear the phrase "trickle down economics", it doesn't sound anything like a tax cut.
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NIMBY said:
Money refunded to the top 1% is the guise Reagonomics use.
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Everyone who payed income taxes saw an increase in their paycheck, including low paid workers like I was at the time. Saying that it only went to the top 1% is a laughable rewrite of history. You may as well say that Hitler won WW II.
 
Who got more??
My rebate was about $12 at one time per month..
How about those getting back $12 million..
With high interest rates, they all made a fortune on their Reagan Rebates just on interest alone..
who will be the first to $100 billion--the first Trillionaire
mpg said:
Everyone who payed income taxes saw an increase in their paycheck, including low paid workers like I was at the time. Saying that it only went to the top 1% is a laughable rewrite of history. You may as well say that Hitler won WW II.
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aberrant85 said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/u...eory-default-wouldnt-be-that-bad.html?hp&_r=0

To quote:

Both [Obama and Boehner] were counting on the prospect of a global economic meltdown to help pull restive Republicans into line. On Wall Street, among business leaders and in a vast majority of university economics departments, the threat of significant instability resulting from a debt default is not in question. But a lot of Republicans simply do not believe it.

Seeing as how this is like deja vu all over again, I pose a question: On which issue does the GOP have the loosest grasp of facts and the broad consensus of experts when it comes in opposition to their preferred ideology?
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To respond to this would be to accept the premise of the OP, which is opinion therefore invalid. It is clear this is a vehicle to generate responses from those who agree and disregard the opinion of those who do not.
 
NIMBY said:
Who got more??
My rebate was about $12 at one time per month..
How about those getting back $12 million..
With high interest rates, they all made a fortune on their Reagan Rebates just on interest alone..
who will be the first to $100 billion--the first Trillionaire
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tax cut =/= rebate
 
Woodman909 said:
To respond to this would be to accept the premise of the OP, which is opinion therefore invalid. It is clear this is a vehicle to generate responses from those who agree and disregard the opinion of those who do not.
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To disregard the premise of this poll and the quoted article as mere opinion is itself delusional. The GOP has a repeated and well-documented habit of disregarding verified data, the broad consensus of experts, accumulated evidence, and mere common sense in all of the given examples.
 
ashurbanipal said:
However government is constituted, it's going to be coercive in some way. It has to be, and I think I can guarantee that no one with very much intelligence thinks it should or could be otherwise. So the question is how to constitute government. The laws we have tend to force people into a competetive model of economic interaction.

Of course, I did not mean my remarks to extend to every area of life. I don't think conservatives see themselves as necessarily in competition with their families, for instance. But ceteris paribus, conservatives will opt for models of government which enforce competition instead of cooperation.
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I agree that government = force; however I disagree that the US law forces a competitive model. Finite resources and natural law do. In addition, competition for resources does not preclude cooperation. They are not opposing concepts. Cooperation is born out of consent of the governed at times, also charity and morality; which may or may not be constituted as law. Therefore conservatives will opt for models of government that maximize liberty, with a limited but important role reserved for government. Cooperation in the context of governmental force is extremely important to national security, equal protection, infrastructure etc… and in lesser ways maintained the local levels of government. With regard to social charity I do believe that cooperation should be largely voluntary. BTW. Conservatives tend to volunteer more time and money to private charity, so it's not a hollow philosophy.





ashurbanipal said:
I'm not sure what you mean, here. If you mean that the effect of coercion is to create resentment among those coerced, you may be right. However, I'm not sure this matters. I'm sure that time I got on to my daughter and coerced her to not stick a wire in the electrical socket left her with some resentment for a while. I'm sure there are some convicted murderers who were caught red-handed, but who nevertheless resent the police and the prosecutors who put them where they need to be.
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Bad analogy, you are not coerced not to stick a wire in a socket, you are protected, and that appropriate. A good analogy would be to stick a gun to your head (governmental force), demand half of your earnings, give your cash to someone else with a smile (never crediting the actual source of the gift), and then asking for the vote of the recipient. Kinda divisive behavior.
Conservatives have no problem with criminal law.



ashurbanipal said:
The only relevant question is what people ought to do. The argument that government ought not to coerce cooperation because it will make some people upset is pretty weak. If people should cooperate in some manner, they should do so or be made to do so.
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The problem with “ought” is, it is subjective. We are a nation of objective laws based on consent. The federal government should limit and perfect its role as the protector of rights, protector of borders, protector of commerce, and protector of the right to consent (vote). Protection does not coerce. Coercion is not necessary for cooperation.

I heard Will Cain say something I might agree with and like better than your competition vs cooperation model. The political spectrum is actually humility vs hubris.
 
johndylan1 said:
I agree that government = force; however I disagree that the US law forces a competitive model. Finite resources and natural law do.
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What do you mean? To what natural law do you refer?

johndylan1 said:
In addition, competition for resources does not preclude cooperation. They are not opposing concepts.
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It seems to me that they are, though they can each exist in the context of a single relationship at different times. So, if that's what you mean, then sure, I agree. The relevant question is just how to "cash out" in a clear manner when and to what extent each is appropriate.

johndylan1 said:
Cooperation is born out of consent of the governed at times, also charity and morality; which may or may not be constituted as law. Therefore conservatives will opt for models of government that maximize liberty, with a limited but important role reserved for government.
Click to expand...

Everything after the "therefore" doesn't seem to follow from what goes before it. Two points:

1) Cooperation is not necessarily a function of the consent of the governed. In certain things, government rightly coerces people whether they consent or not. Again, crime is an example. Ask any thief whether they consent to laws against theft, and my intuition tells me that they probably do not so consent. But nevertheless, they are forced to do so.

We can think of even more general instances. Civil rights in the south is a pretty good example: government forced cooperation despite the consent of the governed, and it was right to do so. As a general rule, I would argue that we can infer some accurate propositions about the social contract, and where those are in process of being violated, government should force compliance, regardless of who consents and who does not.

2) Who consents to what, and who subscribes to which morals, it not something that is set in stone. It's often a matter of education and belief. Especially where beliefs are simply false, and those false beliefs lead to a lack of consent where consent ought to be voluntary, again, government should force cooperation.

johndylan1 said:
Cooperation in the context of governmental force is extremely important to national security, equal protection, infrastructure etc… and in lesser ways maintained the local levels of government. With regard to social charity I do believe that cooperation should be largely voluntary. BTW. Conservatives tend to volunteer more time and money to private charity, so it's not a hollow philosophy.
Click to expand...

Two more points:

1) One thing I infer from the fact that human beings come together to cooperate for survival is that there is a social contract. A contract implies mutual action, and fulfillment of any end of the bargain is not properly categorized as charity. The simple fact is that we cooperate to ensure mutual survival. One critical aspect of this is that those who do comparatively better help those who do comparatively worse, even if the difference is due to some congenital difference in ability. The reason for this is that when there is a society and a social economy such as ours, no one earns anything by dint of their own labor.

It's quite easy to demonstrate this. We could imagine taking someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and transporting them, as young men, to, say, Mesopotamia in the year 2900 B.C. Do either of them build exactly what they have built in our contemporary society? Of course not. They obviously can't. They exist in a time when the correct resources are not available...but that's the whole point. Their fortunes have required inputs which are only generated by a society such as ours. Ergo, their fortunes are not fully their own.

2) The thought you just expressed was fairly common in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The simple fact is that it didn't work. It resulted in a huge harvest of human misery that really wasn't necessary. Had it continued, it would have resulted in civil wars...and there is at least a plausible analysis which suggests that WWI was partially a result of this line of thinking. Ditto the Great Depression.

johndylan1 said:
Bad analogy, you are not coerced not to stick a wire in a socket, you are protected, and that appropriate.
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Well, I am not, but that's only because I have all the relevant facts, the correct understanding, and the proper motivations about wires and electrical sockets. Your stated point was that coercion creates resentment. I agree, but pointed out why this is irrelevant, at least just as such.

Now, if you want to argue that certain instances of coercion rightly create resentment, because the people being coerced have the relevant facts, correct understanding, and proper motivation, all of which militate against the impetus of the coercion, I'm all ears. But so far, I haven't seen that.

johndylan1 said:
A good analogy would be to stick a gun to your head (governmental force), demand half of your earnings, give your cash to someone else with a smile (never crediting the actual source of the gift), and then asking for the vote of the recipient. Kinda divisive behavior.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be, unless you are genuinely living outside the bounds of any benefits which society bestows upon you. The fact that you're using the internet would make me suspicious of any such claims.

johndylan1 said:
The problem with “ought” is, it is subjective.
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I used to buy this line, but I don't any longer. It seems to me that there probably is an objectivity to morality, even if moral principles lack the same ontological status as rocks and clouds.

johndylan1 said:
We are a nation of objective laws based on consent.
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What do you mean, exactly, by consent here? Surely you don't mean that everyone agrees with all our laws.

johndylan1 said:
I heard Will Cain say something I might agree with and like better than your competition vs cooperation model. The political spectrum is actually humility vs hubris.
Click to expand...

Well, I think cooperation vs. competition is more about economics than politics, though the two obviously go hand in hand. I would be interested to hear a little more about humility and hubris.
 
mpg said:
How does the term "trickle down economics" fit anything that happened in the 80s?
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That was the term used to describe the economic theory the Reagan espoused. Feed the elephant well, the mice may find some undigested tidbits by waiting and then sifting through whatever crap might trickle down the elephants leg.

As to how it fits anything that happened in th 80's? It does not. The failed theory produced nothing that could be pointed to.
 
NIMBY said:
Money from Government is supposed to Multiply to about $1.70 per dollar.
Money refunded to the top 1% is the guise Reagonomics use.
Click to expand...

Government spending is supposed to yield $1.70 per $1 spent? That's a new one.
 
The problem with this thread is that it takes a bunch of blanket issues and presumes the left wing argument is automatically correct while the right wing argument is indubitably wrong without actually listing the premise for either sides' arguments. It is, ultimately, the political equivalent to the play ground retort "my daddy is tougher than your daddy" with the obvious difference being the play ground retort actually has a specific measure to discuss.
 
ksu_aviator said:
The problem with this thread is that it takes a bunch of blanket issues and presumes the left wing argument is automatically correct while the right wing argument is indubitably wrong without actually listing the premise for either sides' arguments. It is, ultimately, the political equivalent to the play ground retort "my daddy is tougher than your daddy" with the obvious difference being the play ground retort actually has a specific measure to discuss.
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Really, I'm stronger than both daddy's. ;)
 
aberrant85 said:
To disregard the premise of this poll and the quoted article as mere opinion is itself delusional. The GOP has a repeated and well-documented habit of disregarding verified data, the broad consensus of experts, accumulated evidence, and mere common sense in all of the given examples.
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And therein, you proved my point. To suggest your premise is approved by a 'broad consensus' is inaccurate. Liberals access the opinions of those who agree with them. THAT is a proven well-documented habit of their own. And 'common sense' does not mean that the majority opinion is always correct, it merely means that more people have the wrong grasp of reality.
 
ksu_aviator said:
The problem with this thread is that it takes a bunch of blanket issues and presumes the left wing argument is automatically correct while the right wing argument is indubitably wrong without actually listing the premise for either sides' arguments. It is, ultimately, the political equivalent to the play ground retort "my daddy is tougher than your daddy" with the obvious difference being the play ground retort actually has a specific measure to discuss.
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It doesn't seem to me that this is the case, unless you take the OP to claim that because there is something on which the GOP lacks a perfect grasp on reality, the Democrats must have a very firm grasp on reality.

Out of any pair of people, I can ask where one of them has gone wrong without implying that the other is perfect, or even better.
 
Woodman909 said:
And therein, you proved my point. To suggest your premise is approved by a 'broad consensus' is inaccurate. Liberals access the opinions of those who agree with them. THAT is a proven well-documented habit of their own. And 'common sense' does not mean that the majority opinion is always correct, it merely means that more people have the wrong grasp of reality.
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To dismiss outright the broad consensus of anything is nihilism.
 
johndylan1 said:
Horrible misunderstanding of conservatives. Conservatives believe in cooperation. We believe in voluntary cooperation and not coerced cooperation. The effect of coercion is usually destructive, creating division. However, voluntary cooperation leads to appreciation and mutual respect.
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You have to remember, the Republican Party is not a party of conservatives, but of neo-conservatives which is an entirely different thing. I would say people have a pretty decent understanding of neo-cons, they just don't understand what to call them.
 
rjay said:
Feed the elephant well, the mice may find some undigested tidbits by waiting and then sifting through whatever crap might trickle down the elephants leg.
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Surely there were rich folks who would've liked that, but no one would ever say something like that out loud. No politician would ever admit to supporting something like that. Proposing legislation like that would be the surest form of political suicide. No one proposed any legislation remotely close to that. Our economic policies didn't resemble that at all. You're trying to rewrite the history of the 1980s. You may as well say that the Soviets won The Cold War and that you and I are typing this in Russian.

As far as the effectiveness of Reaganomics is concerned, the GDP took off like a rocket. Unemployment and inflation went way down. Median household income went up and the middle class experienced a major improvement in the standard of living. The middle class made more money AND payed lower taxes.

Some people hate rich people so much that they consider it a loss for the middle class whenever the wealthy thrive, regardless of how much the middle class prospers. It's like a little kid crying about getting an ice cream cone, just because his sister got one too.
 
aberrant85 said:
To dismiss outright the broad consensus of anything is nihilism.
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"Inaccurate" does not mean "dismiss outright", it merely questions validity and promotes or motivates further research.
 
well its not fair to paing the GOP with one brush so lets state that first and foremost but going of a stereotypical platform i say equal rights for gays, reproductive rights are the two largest "sterotypical" failures of the GOP


but again i know tons of GOP members that totally support equal rights for gays and are pro-choice with limits like most people
 
AGENT J said:
but again i know tons of GOP members that totally support equal rights for gays and are pro-choice with limits like most people
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But they are not the ones in charge of the party, nor in charting the direction of it's platform. After the last election, the GOP sent out a questionnaire to it's members asking where they went wrong. I responded, giving my reasons why they failed so utterly, also saying that because my reasons don't fit into their ultra-right-wing, hyper-religious ideology, it will be completely and totally ignored. I was right, when the GOP released the "results" of the poll, they didn't even mention anyone who didn't respond from a hyper-religious perspective. They just don't care about anyone who doesn't fit within their narrow extremist view.
 
ashurbanipal said:
What do you mean? To what natural law do you refer?
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I can see that you have at least given substantial time and thought to your economic philosophy, therefore for you to not know what natural law refers and at the same time to speak of “social contract” seems unbelievable to me. So… I won’t be explaining that today. If you really don’t know you’ve got some study to do before firming up your philosophy, try starting with Locke and Rousseau.





ashurbanipal said:
It seems to me that they are, though they can each exist in the context of a single relationship at different times. So, if that's what you mean, then sure, I agree. The relevant question is just how to "cash out" in a clear manner when and to what extent each is appropriate.
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No. Cooperating freely apart from governmental influence is common and is part of basic economic theory. For example: Specialization creates efficiency; we can freely choose to specialize in our chosen field and then exchange our surplus goods and services without coercion at a reduced cost to other parties. Cooperation without coercion. The competition is in providing the best product at the lowest price within one’s specialization in order to liquidate surplus goods and services. Even within our specialization cooperation occurs when demand outpaces supply from a specific vendor. The vendor may ally with another vendor to supply steep demand.



ashurbanipal said:
Everything after the "therefore" doesn't seem to follow from what goes before it.
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It does follow because conservatives understand that cooperation at every level is not dependent on government. Conservatives do not seek to enact unnecessary laws, depending instead on market forces to correct inequities as they develop.

ashurbanipal said:
Two points:

1) Cooperation is not necessarily a function of the consent of the governed. In certain things, government rightly coerces people whether they consent or not. Again, crime is an example. Ask any thief whether they consent to laws against theft, and my intuition tells me that they probably do not so consent. But nevertheless, they are forced to do so.

We can think of even more general instances. Civil rights in the south is a pretty good example: government forced cooperation despite the consent of the governed, and it was right to do so. As a general rule, I would argue that we can infer some accurate propositions about the social contract, and where those are in process of being violated, government should force compliance, regardless of who consents and who does not.
Click to expand...

It needs to be said here, that you should carefully read what you have written. If “government rightly coerces” without consent, you do not have cooperation. You have authoritarianism.

“Consent” means using the democratic process, while protecting the voting minority’s rights.

Crime is a poor example of coercion without consent. Arresting one for criminal activity is a protective function, appropriate to government. Criminal law also has the consent of the people.


ashurbanipal said:
2) Who consents to what, and who subscribes to which morals, it not something that is set in stone. It's often a matter of education and belief. Especially where beliefs are simply false, and those false beliefs lead to a lack of consent where consent ought to be voluntary, again, government should force cooperation.
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You misunderstand consent. The outcome of a vote is consent, if and when all rights are protected, and the law remains within the framework of the constitution (this includes the legislative process). Moral sensibilities of the larger society may and will be embedded within the vote itself

Two more points:

ashurbanipal said:
1) One thing I infer from the fact that human beings come together to cooperate for survival is that there is a social contract. A contract implies mutual action, and fulfillment of any end of the bargain is not properly categorized as charity. The simple fact is that we cooperate to ensure mutual survival. One critical aspect of this is that those who do comparatively better help those who do comparatively worse, even if the difference is due to some congenital difference in ability. The reason for this is that when there is a society and a social economy such as ours, no one earns anything by dint of their own labor.
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To the extent that cooperation is mutually beneficial, I am all for it.

As for the “social contract”, one must understand its philosophical underpinnings of natural law in order to understand that there is a limit to what the social contract entitles one to.

One's labor is an essential capital for developing their own private property and that must be protected.

ashurbanipal said:
It's quite easy to demonstrate this. We could imagine taking someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and transporting them, as young men, to, say, Mesopotamia in the year 2900 B.C. Do either of them build exactly what they have built in our contemporary society? Of course not. They obviously can't. They exist in a time when the correct resources are not available...but that's the whole point. Their fortunes have required inputs which are only generated by a society such as ours. Ergo, their fortunes are not fully their own.
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Not so; every contemporary in their society did have access to the correct resources, and are not entitled to the labor that those men added to the resources that they fairly acquired. Except to the extent that consent or charity require.

ashurbanipal said:
2) The thought you just expressed was fairly common in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The simple fact is that it didn't work. It resulted in a huge harvest of human misery that really wasn't necessary. Had it continued, it would have resulted in civil wars...and there is at least a plausible analysis which suggests that WWI was partially a result of this line of thinking. Ditto the Great Depression.
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Actually I would posit that it did work. That is why people from all over the world came here to build this great country. At times there was misery and abuse, but in general it was that philosophy that produced capital formation and an elevated standard of living for the entire world. I will also suggest that that philosophy is doomed where morality and charity do not exist. I am also not opposed to antitrust laws, depending on how they are enforced.



ashurbanipal said:
Well, I am not, but that's only because I have all the relevant facts, the correct understanding, and the proper motivations about wires and electrical sockets. Your stated point was that coercion creates resentment. I agree, but pointed out why this is irrelevant, at least just as such.

Now, if you want to argue that certain instances of coercion rightly create resentment, because the people being coerced have the relevant facts, correct understanding, and proper motivation, all of which militate against the impetus of the coercion, I'm all ears. But so far, I haven't seen that.
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Think of two situations.

In the first a man waits at his mailbox for a welfare check to arrive, with distain in his heart he takes the check that is two days late and cusses the government agency that has failed to deliver his check on time.

The second man finds a charitable man at the local church, and receives a reprieve from the hardship he has been experiencing after a two day delay for the purpose of charitable collection. The man is grateful and appreciative, making new friends and opportunities.


ashurbanipal said:
It shouldn't be, unless you are genuinely living outside the bounds of any benefits which society bestows upon you. The fact that you're using the internet would make me suspicious of any such claims.
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Not claiming that no government is good. That’s a strawman. Of course public projects for the general welfare, with consent, are appropriate. I am a proponent of infrastructure investments by government. The cronyism and pocket padding is what I object to.



ashurbanipal said:
I used to buy this line, but I don't any longer. It seems to me that there probably is an objectivity to morality, even if moral principles lack the same ontological status as rocks and clouds.
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Yes, but morality is not the sole perview of government, morality resides in the everyday decisions of each person. A collective notion of morality will inevitable be enshrined in law and therefore gains consent. And yet at times the law errors and requires pushback. Is it a greater moral principal to protect ones right to keep earnings from labor, or to provide Obama phones?


ashurbanipal said:
Well, I think cooperation vs. competition is more about economics than politics, though the two obviously go hand in hand. I would be interested to hear a little more about humility and hubris.
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See here starts in earnest about 6 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TrxkAGxtcE
 
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