Evil...or Stupid?

[g5000]

There are times when a politician says something incredible and yet the significance of the statement seems to pass right over the heads of the intended audience. It is at times like this I like to ask if the politician is evil...or stupid.

I know...I know. You want to say, "BOTH!" before I even give you any examples.

But let me give you some examples, and then explain why such statements are either motivated by evil or stupidity on the part of the politician.

Then I will solicit all of you to provide your own examples, and then explain what makes them evil or stupid. This should be fun.


Okay. I will start with Barack Obama.

During the 2008 campaign, before the whole world economy went to shit, Obama was writing a lot of checks our government would not be able to cash. He was going to spend more on education, more on this, more on that. He said he would pay for all these programs with the "savings" from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So here's the evil/stupid part. If you earned $1000 a week, and spend $2000 a week, and then promise to end $500 of spending and use the "savings" to take your wife out to dinner every night, how does that math work, exactly?

It doesn't.

If you cut $500 of spending, you are still spending $1500 a week on a $1000 a week income. There is no "savings".

So was Obama being evil...or stupid? Vote evil if you think he knew he was pulling a fast one on the rubes, vote stupid you think he really didn't know the math doesn't work.



Next, we move on to Trump, Rand, and Cruz.

Trump, Rand, and Cruz have all promised a one page tax return if elected. The problem with that promise is there is only one way to create a one page tax return.

You have to end the $1.2 trillion of government giveways in the form of deductions, credits, and exemptions in the tax code.

All of them.

It's the only way.

The odds of that happening are about as likely as Sarah Palin giving head to Barack Obama on Rachel Maddow's show.

It needs to be done, but it just ain't gonna happen.

So are Trump, Rand, and Cruz evil...or stupid?


And now a new one has come to my attention. Hillary Clinton. She says she wants some kind of gun buyback program to get this gun violence under control. She then said, "Australia is a good example, Canada is a good example, the UK is a good example."

Here's the thing.

Australia's gun buyback program was compulsory.

The UK did not have a buyback program. They simply banned the private ownership of handguns, and toughened the rules for owning long arms.

There is only one way either of these "good examples" could be implemented in the US. We would have to repeal the Second Amendment.

Not gonna happen.


So is Clinton evil...or stupid?



Your turn for more examples.

 

[g5000]

Important note: The audience has to not catch on to the full significance of the politician's statement to qualify as an "evil...or stupid" moment. The audience has to be utterly snookered into drinking the piss.

"Yayyyy...he'll be able to buy free puppies for hookers with the 'savings'!"

 

[bendog]

I guess I have to go for evil, but I'm not sure I really thing it's evil in the sense of being "against God." But, I didn't vote for Reagan simply because I realized he was lying his ass off about being worried about deficits. I voted for Anderson and sat out 84. Not that I'm oh so high and might principled, but any have way aware voter has to have line over which a pol simply can't lie and get their vote.

Obama's lie is a bit different, because the economy didn't melt down till the closing days of his campaign that took around two years. Sometimes, a guy just has to play the hand he was dealt. Hill and the gopers are pandering to their constituency.

Hillary's pandering doesn't really bother me much because it's so transparently absurd, and totally without any effect on any policy she might pursue ... other than she would like to regulate guns to the maximum extent possible, so if that bothers anyone, they shouldn't vote for her.

The Gop has so fuced this country over taxes and deficits, and prevented any compromise to pull us back to fiscal sanity ... along the lines of a compromise Slick and Kasich and Newt worked out .... that, for me, their pandering is a non-starter.

 

[g5000]

Obama's lie is a bit different, because the economy didn't melt down till the closing days of his campaign that took around two years. Sometimes, a guy just has to play the hand he was dealt. Hill and the gopers are pandering to their constituency.

Even if the economy had not melted down, it is a mathematical impossibility to have "savings" by reducing a deficit. You just have smaller deficits.

Ending the wars would not have brought us a surplus, no matter what alternative Universe you live in.

You can't spend "savings" you don't have.

 

[The Great Goose]

Well yes, the Jews are ah.. well..

wait, oh I only read the title...

yes, ahem. As you were...

 

[g5000]

Is The Great Goose evil...or stupid?

 

[Timmy]

Evil is a strong word.

 

[Siete]

key word, deficit ... an impossibility if you're saving.

my ruling? duuuuuurrrrrrr

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obama is evil. I didn't read the rest of it

 

[bendog]

Obama's lie is a bit different, because the economy didn't melt down till the closing days of his campaign that took around two years. Sometimes, a guy just has to play the hand he was dealt. Hill and the gopers are pandering to their constituency.

Even if the economy had not melted down, it is a mathematical impossibility to have "savings" by reducing a deficit. You just have smaller deficits.

Ending the wars would not have brought us a surplus, no matter what alternative Universe you live in.

You can't spend "savings" you don't have.

True. I misread your OP. But, I expect to be lied to. The question for me is how big the lie. The fun thing about Obama was you had to know he was going to disillusion people. What bothered me most about him was AFTER he was elected, he decided to expand the Afghan war. It may be that in two decades of nation building something will come of it, but 1% is doing the heavy lifting and dying.

 

[g5000]

Evil is a strong word.

We're $18 trillion in debt. Time to stop fucking around and start throwing these bastards into the lake of fire where they belong.

 

[g5000]

But, I expect to be lied to.

Then you deserve to be lied to.

We need to start calling the liars on their shit. And not just politicians, but their media lapdogs, too.

The media is supposed to be the last line of defense against lying, evil politicians. They long ago put their teeth in a glass.

 

[bendog]

But, I expect to be lied to.

Then you deserve to be lied to.

We need to start calling the liars on their shit.

They've been lying since Adams and Jefferson. All one can do is identify the lie and ask "does this make a difference to me?" Or, is it just some damn campaign rhetoric. With W, I plainly expected him to pay off the 1% with the initial tax cut. I didn't like it, but it wasn't a deal breaker for me, because I thought he was better than Gore, overall. But, then he came back for more tax cuts, expanded medicare and engaged in elective wars. But, his lie was really immaterial to how horrible a potus he turned out to be.

With the gopers lie on taxes, it seems obvious to me none of them has any interest if raising revenues and cutting spending to regain fiscal sanity. And that is a non-starter for me.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Evil and Stupid: Every last politician aside from Reagan who decreed "I will lower spending and cut the deficit" or "I will cut taxes or create jobs" without doing it.