• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

From WashPo: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom

Lafayette

Lafayette

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Messages
9,594
Reaction score
2,072
Location
France
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Centrist
From: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom
Conservatives believe that human beings are fallible and prone to ambition, passion and selfishness. They (actually, we) tend to become swaggering dictators in realms where we can act with impunity — a motor vehicle department office, a hostile traffic stop, a country under personal rule. It is the particular genius of the American system to balance ambition with ambition through a divided government (executive, legislative and judicial). The American system employs human nature to limit the power of the state — assuming that every branch of government is both dedicated to the common good and jealous of its own power.

Conservatives believe that finite and fallen creatures are often wrong. We know that many of our attitudes and beliefs are the brain’s justification for pre-rational tendencies and desires. This does not make perception of truth impossible, or truth itself relative, but it should encourage healthy self-examination and a suspicion of all forms of fanaticism. All of us have things to learn, even from our political opponents. The truth is out there, but it is generally broken into pieces and scattered across the human experience. We only reassemble it through listening and civil communication.

And conservatives believe that a just society depends on the moral striving of finite and fallen creatures who treat each other with a respect and decency that laws can encourage but not enforce. Such virtues, often rooted in faith, are what turn families and communities into the nurseries of citizenship. These institutions not only shape good people, they inculcate the belief that humans have a dignity that, while often dishonored, can never be effaced. In the midst of all our justified skepticism, we can never be skeptical of this: that the reason for politics is to honor the equal value of every life, beginning with the weakest and most vulnerable. No bad goal — say, racial purity or communist ideology — outweighs this commitment. And no good goal — the efficiency of markets or the pursuit of greater equality — does either.
Click to expand...

I have a more heartless and less kind version of American conservatism. One that is the blind devotion of maintaining, on behalf of a select and finite group of Super-rich Conservatives, the Money-to-Wealth Pump that was established by Reckless Ronnie's distorted flat-rate upper-income taxation.

The one that looks like this:
Taxation - Total Effective Tax Rates (US) 2014.jpg

It is by means of this mechanism that America arrives at its gross distortion of Wealth as Piketty has shown here:
Income - Piketty Split.jpg

The above demonstrates aptly the unfair tax-engendered "rip-off" by a minute section (0.1%) of upper-class Americans upon the rest of us. And for what?

What can they possibly do with all that money? Through lose inheritance taxation send it onto their children. Having replaced a monarch in America more than two centuries ago, all on our own, we have come back to the very same.

A "monarchy" of sorts but purely American in design - no kings or queens (except on Web celebrity pages). But plenty of plutocrats polluting electoral waters in order to "above all" not change the status of Upper-income Taxation in the US ...​
 
Last edited:
Lafayette said:
From: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom


I have a more heartless and less kind version of American conservatism. One that is the blind devotion of maintaining, on behalf of a select and finite group of Super-rich Conservatives, the Money-to-Wealth Pump that was established by Reckless Ronnie's distorted flat-rate upper-income taxation.

The one that looks like this:
View attachment 67211388

It is by means of this mechanism that America arrives at its gross distortion of Wealth as Piketty has shown here:
View attachment 67211389

The above demonstrates aptly the unfair tax-engendered "rip-off" by a minute section (0.1%) of upper-class Americans upon the rest of us. And for what?

What can they possibly do with all that money? Through lose inheritance taxation send it onto their children. Having replaced a monarch in America more than two centuries ago, all on our own, we have come back to the very same.

A "monarchy" of sorts but purely American in design - no kings or queens (except on Web celebrity pages). But plenty of plutocrats polluting electoral waters in order to "above all" not change the status of Upper-income Taxation in the US ...​
Click to expand...
I am king at my house, who is king at yours?

I have plenty to eat, with variety and quality, I eat better than most kings a hundred years ago precisely because America went the way we did. I have a car that runs better, has better climate control, better tunes, better gas mileage and four wheel drive that can outdo the kings of old carriages or cars. I have access to information that no king could have even dreamed of one hundred, fifty, twenty five years ago because of the system created and the trickle down benefits it bestows on us, the common man. Hell, I can communicate, even have capability to talk on video to you from here in Panama faster and with more ease, definitely cheaper than a king could even 15 years ago...

Why, and you never ever really answer this question, why after all needs are met and so many wants also fulfilled for such a large number of people, far more people than ever before in history, do you feel compelled to complain so much about what others have even though we all have so much in this system?

Your sense of imbalance in the system takes no consideration of the standard of living raised to such a high degree, to this only relative poverty, as opposed to places where there still is, the very sinking reality, that of absolute poverty. That is real poverty.

Do you not see in your misguided self with this angst, this jealousy that blinds you from seeing all the positive, the general prosperity?
 
Gaugingcatenate said:
I am king at my house, who is king at yours?

I have plenty to eat, with variety and quality, I eat better than most kings a hundred years ago precisely because America went the way we did. I have a car that runs better, has better climate control, better tunes, better gas mileage and four wheel drive that can outdo the kings of old carriages or cars. I have access to information that no king could have even dreamed of one hundred, fifty, twenty five years ago because of the system created and the trickle down benefits it bestows on us, the common man. Hell, I can communicate, even have capability to talk on video to you from here in Panama faster and with more ease, definitely cheaper than a king could even 15 years ago...

Why, and you never ever really answer this question, why after all needs are met and so many wants also fulfilled for such a large number of people, far more people than ever before in history, do you feel compelled to complain so much about what others have even though we all have so much in this system?

Your sense of imbalance in the system takes no consideration of the standard of living raised to such a high degree, to this only relative poverty, as opposed to places where there still is, the very sinking reality, that of absolute poverty. That is real poverty.

Do you not see in your misguided self with this angst, this jealousy that blinds you from seeing all the positive, the general prosperity?
Click to expand...

It is not so much misguided, I believe, as the will to sow envy, discord and hate. It is the elemental approach of socialism and in its milder and more treacherous form social demcracy. But he is well enough educated to know this and how bad the solutions he indicates are for society. But he goes on and on anyway.
 
Lafayette said:
From: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom


I have a more heartless and less kind version of American conservatism. One that is the blind devotion of maintaining, on behalf of a select and finite group of Super-rich Conservatives, the Money-to-Wealth Pump that was established by Reckless Ronnie's distorted flat-rate upper-income taxation.

The one that looks like this:
View attachment 67211388

It is by means of this mechanism that America arrives at its gross distortion of Wealth as Piketty has shown here:
View attachment 67211389

The above demonstrates aptly the unfair tax-engendered "rip-off" by a minute section (0.1%) of upper-class Americans upon the rest of us. And for what?

What can they possibly do with all that money? Through lose inheritance taxation send it onto their children. Having replaced a monarch in America more than two centuries ago, all on our own, we have come back to the very same.

A "monarchy" of sorts but purely American in design - no kings or queens (except on Web celebrity pages). But plenty of plutocrats polluting electoral waters in order to "above all" not change the status of Upper-income Taxation in the US ...​
Click to expand...

Trying to sow envy and hate again, I see. Why don't you try to be more constructive?
 
joG said:
Trying to sow envy and hate again, I see. Why don't you try to be more constructive?
Click to expand...

Because if the truth hurts, it is also the most constructive manner in which to change the present condition ...
 
Lafayette said:
Because if the truth hurts, it is also the most constructive manner in which to change the present condition ...
Click to expand...

The truth doesn’t hurt. It is fine, really. it has supplied a rich life so far. And sowing envy and hate by populism is not very constructive. And it is dire populism. What you want is only possible given today's societal, technical and economic levels of development, if we do gross harm to to the majority. True, there woukd be some profiteers, ss is the case in any revolution. But most would lose.
 
joG said:
The truth doesn’t hurt. It is fine, really. it has supplied a rich life so far. And sowing envy and hate by populism is not very constructive. And it is dire populism. What you want is only possible given today's societal, technical and economic levels of development, if we do gross harm to to the majority. True, there woukd be some profiteers, ss is the case in any revolution. But most would lose.
Click to expand...

Cheap shot.

I'm debating a principle, not "sowing hate".

Moving right along ...
 
joG said:
It is not so much misguided, I believe, as the will to sow envy, discord and hate. It is the elemental approach of socialism and in its milder and more treacherous form social demcracy. But he is well enough educated to know this and how bad the solutions he indicates are for society. But he goes on and on anyway.
Click to expand...
Will start with the positive.

Laff at least always swoops in with many actual positions, often with links/visuals, this thread is a case in point, plenty of words with which to actually take a position.

To me, however misguided, he is the true opposition platform no matter how well or poorly presented. Just plain wrong, of course, but persistent. Makes my head, of its own, want to explode at times, Nonetheless, I appreciate his style far more than the OLTWs, one liner time wasters, aka one line slingers. Ad hom, deadly shots to the head yet un-phased, maddeningly excruciatingly slow on every point, drawing it out, making it worse looking.

Have grown tired of the normal opposite side poster that has no appreciable knowledge in ANY field, but drops in for a drive by with some smarmy comment, one line slinging is what I call it. Well, Laff is not one of those usual suspects, whom we all know.

Laff, however, does what you describe. Whenever I have time, see one of his posts advocating stealing from producers, or the progeny of original producers [those that earned can give it to whomever they choose ] giving it to nonproducers promotes, imo, sloth. And negative time. Negative time I would define as leisure time with not enough money to do anything fun/productive. So one sits around with others and, well, bitch. About everything they can think to critize. Human nature. Similar to unions being too good for American workers, priced them out of the market, instead of lean and efficient style workers began promoting a lesser work ethic. Now? Look around you... everybody, the left says this constantly, for instance, hey, "these others will do the work Americans won't, not anymore.". Anybody not pressured, not at minimum having to scramble for survival, too frequently the public assistance engenders this lesser inner expectation and weathered by winds of constant negativity, over ample time, time drifts by for the idle to sew, interweaving into a naturally reproducing negativity, tight tapestry of poor quality yet stronger than merited. Counterproductive to society and to that individual.

Its just not right.

Systemwide.

Some people, especially the pessimistic, try to change, perfect man, as if that possible. The founders found a way to work those selfish natures into a stronger and better whole. Including the rich, including us all. But some just feel the rich to be inherently bad. Some are, some aren't. Need to narrow that list down first. Punishing whole classes, any class, of people for the deeds of some of its members? Not smart. Not right.

My thing is that we should be encouraging excellence, not negativity. Easier said than done, no doubt. But, crowding out, at least attempting, the negativity would, I would smartly wager, garner happier peoples and societal benefit. Monetary improvement up to the individual, that we may all create our own personal, tailored to each individual, in whatever way we, individually or in association, in such way that we may so provide.

This already too abundant negativity needs be countered each time with strength lest these people inflict the unnecessary.
 
Lafayette said:
Cheap shot.

I'm debating a principle, not "sowing hate".

Moving right along ...
Click to expand...

That's what populist ideologues will tend to say.
 
RickJames3000 said:
What an awfully tedious post.:2razz:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I beleive in debate, not so much the one line slinging of sarcasm which is not debate. I come here to discuss things with people, in doing so I am putting the pieces of the jigsaw in my puzzling out of the system we live in, just because I find it interesting.


So, tedious post... with all those words, this is all you have? And you waste my time why, again?
 
Gaugingcatenate said:
Yeah, I beleive in debate, not so much the one line slinging of sarcasm which is not debate. I come here to discuss things with people, in doing so I am putting the pieces of the jigsaw in my puzzling out of the system we live in, just because I find it interesting.


So, tedious post... with all those words, this is all you have? And you waste my time why, again?
Click to expand...

You're the one wasting your own time. I can't compel you to read or respond to my posts.
But since you asked...

“Since brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief…”

You use way too many words to convey way too little content.
And you use too many commas.
 
RickJames3000 said:
You're the one wasting your own time. I can't compel you to read or respond to my posts.
But since you asked...

“Since brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief…”

You use way too many words to convey way too little content.
And you use too many commas.
Click to expand...
Do us both a favor then, quit reading my too many words, too many commas. I write for myself, its a proven waste on you. You with too few words and NO content.

I ll stick with my little bit of content.
 
joG said:
It is not so much misguided, I believe, as the will to sow envy, discord and hate. It is the elemental approach of socialism and in its milder and more treacherous form social demcracy. But he is well enough educated to know this and how bad the solutions he indicates are for society. But he goes on and on anyway.
Click to expand...

The genius of the American system of government is that the three branches hold one another in check. A tripod can find its footing on any continuous contour.

We rejected the pyramid hierarchy in government. It was hit or miss, based on the benevolence of the leader, the roll of the dice. No more would we accept rule from above!

Or so we thought. Money has become power, and what organization do companies employ? A pyramid hierarchy. Without providing power and influence to the employees, the consumers, and the public, the power will be consolidated and unchecked.

Consolidated and unchecked power is exactly what our ancestors fought and died to prevent!!
 
Absentglare said:
The genius of the American system of government is that the three branches hold one another in check. A tripod can find its footing on any continuous contour.

We rejected the pyramid hierarchy in government. It was hit or miss, based on the benevolence of the leader, the roll of the dice. No more would we accept rule from above!

Or so we thought. Money has become power, and what organization do companies employ? A pyramid hierarchy. Without providing power and influence to the employees, the consumers, and the public, the power will be consolidated and unchecked.

Consolidated and unchecked power is exactly what our ancestors fought and died to prevent!!
Click to expand...

Money is always power. It was at the time of the Revolution as much as today. You didn't go chat about Constitutions, if you didn't have a functioning financial basis from which to pay for dinner with the other discussants. There is an interesting section in Calculus of Consent on that that points out why it makes societal sense to have successful individuals have informal greater say in a democratic system of political decision making. It will tend to increase general welfare of the society. This might not be the proper goal, but it also cannot be discarded out of hand.

That does not mean that we have best structure to achieve this. But it does mean that the flat and populist way of discussing it demonstrated in the OP is certainly not the way to go about it. The best way to structure societies and their polity is a technical topic of a societal instrument and its mechanisms. Mixing in envy and stoking hate is not a smart way to go about that type of job. Approaching it as in the OP is looking for unthinking supporters and not for good solutions.
 
I don't know if you have been paying attention but Bush and Trump are hardly conservative. Conservatives lost the GOP awhile back. The scary thing is that the furthest left Republican (Trump) and the furthest left Democrat (Sanders) were the most popular candidates. The future looks pretty bleak for this country if that is a sign for what's coming in this country.
 
Nap said:
I don't know if you have been paying attention but Bush and Trump are hardly conservative. Conservatives lost the GOP awhile back. The scary thing is that the furthest left Republican (Trump) and the furthest left Democrat (Sanders) were the most popular candidates. The future looks pretty bleak for this country if that is a sign for what's coming in this country.
Click to expand...

That is quite right. The voters have been going for the populist offers that socialism, social democracy and greatness are typical of. We see here in DP a number of foristi that are trying to sell these themes, again, with the populist methods of hate and envy. The damage this kind of ideology represents has already spread, as you point out.
 
Lafayette said:
From: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom


I have a more heartless and less kind version of American conservatism. One that is the blind devotion of maintaining, on behalf of a select and finite group of Super-rich Conservatives, the Money-to-Wealth Pump that was established by Reckless Ronnie's distorted flat-rate upper-income taxation.

The one that looks like this:
View attachment 67211388

It is by means of this mechanism that America arrives at its gross distortion of Wealth as Piketty has shown here:
View attachment 67211389

The above demonstrates aptly the unfair tax-engendered "rip-off" by a minute section (0.1%) of upper-class Americans upon the rest of us. And for what?

What can they possibly do with all that money? Through lose inheritance taxation send it onto their children. Having replaced a monarch in America more than two centuries ago, all on our own, we have come back to the very same.

A "monarchy" of sorts but purely American in design - no kings or queens (except on Web celebrity pages). But plenty of plutocrats polluting electoral waters in order to "above all" not change the status of Upper-income Taxation in the US ...​
Click to expand...

Way too funny! Just two months ago you guys were saying that Republicans and conservatives were dead, never to arise again, and that Trump had severely fragmented the party beyond repair. Any more opinions you would like to share?
 
Lafayette said:
From: The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom


I have a more heartless and less kind version of American conservatism. One that is the blind devotion of maintaining, on behalf of a select and finite group of Super-rich Conservatives, the Money-to-Wealth Pump that was established by Reckless Ronnie's distorted flat-rate upper-income taxation.

The one that looks like this:
View attachment 67211388

It is by means of this mechanism that America arrives at its gross distortion of Wealth as Piketty has shown here:
View attachment 67211389

The above demonstrates aptly the unfair tax-engendered "rip-off" by a minute section (0.1%) of upper-class Americans upon the rest of us. And for what?

What can they possibly do with all that money? Through lose inheritance taxation send it onto their children. Having replaced a monarch in America more than two centuries ago, all on our own, we have come back to the very same.

A "monarchy" of sorts but purely American in design - no kings or queens (except on Web celebrity pages). But plenty of plutocrats polluting electoral waters in order to "above all" not change the status of Upper-income Taxation in the US ...​
Click to expand...

Personally, I think that focusing on the concentration of wealth and income at the top is a bit of red herring. Its far more important to look at growth in median household income and the reduction of poverty rates.

For example, in the 90s, the median household income went up every single year and the poverty rate went down every single year. At the same time, as always the rich got richer, but no one really cared because everyone was doing better. In my opinion focusing on increasing median household incomes is far more important than trying to take more from the rich (liberals), or give more to the rich (conservatives).
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Personally, I think that focusing on the concentration of wealth and income at the top is a bit of red herring. Its far more important to look at growth in median household income and the reduction of poverty rates.

For example, in the 90s, the median household income went up every single year and the poverty rate went down every single year. At the same time, as always the rich got richer, but no one really cared because everyone was doing better. In my opinion focusing on increasing median household incomes is far more important than trying to take more from the rich (liberals), or give more to the rich (conservatives).
Click to expand...

most people have no clue what it would mean if the rich stopped getting richer. it would mean that investments no longer made money and that means anyone with a pension or a 401K is going to be SOL
 
TurtleDude said:
most people have no clue what it would mean if the rich stopped getting richer. it would mean that investments no longer made money and that means anyone with a pension or a 401K is going to be SOL
Click to expand...

Fortunately we don't have to worry about that because the rich always get richer. That is even true in the Nordic countries.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom