Wonky Pundit
USMB's Silent Snowden
All of the bolded items above are meaningless (and unprovable) one-liners that have absolutely nothing to do with fixing the Federal government.I know it is offensive to those on the left to be papered over with a generality just as it is offensive to those on the right. There is a fine line between "being offensive" and being uncivil however. I didn't think the line re macroeconomics was a sweeping generalization at all, certainly not in the same sense as the illustrations you used. In doing message boarding and teaching management courses for a long time now, I saw the sentence as accurate. Righties are not 'Bible thumbing social Nazis' and that is clearly intended as an insult. But if you said 'righties are not going to agree to increased taxes on the rich or keynesian spending projects' that is also generalizations that might not pertain to each and every 'rightie' but I would see it as an essentially accurate statement.
I would have phrased the macroeconomics line more diplomatically but I don't think it was intended as an insult but rather a statement of fact. Sort of like 'that outfit makes you look fat'.
The fact is, I honestly don't believe leftists do understand macroeconomics or there would not be many economic leftists.
The option on the poll choices taking away the ability of Congress and the President to use the people's money for any form of charity or targeted benefit speaks to that. And I seriously doubt any staunch economic leftist really understands why that is so important.
For that matter probably some on the Right don't see why that is important either, and might not ever agree with it, but if they were inclined to really think through the rationale, I think they would understand it. I honestly have attempted to teach the reasoning to staunch leftists who meant well, but they were unable to grasp the concept well enough to explain it.
'SOME lefties don't understand macro economics' is like 'that dress makes you look fat' because it singles out the particular fat girl like the designated lefties are singled out by the use of the qualifier 'some'.
Teaching right-brained reasoning to a leftist is like teaching most men to clean thoroughly. The smart ones will be able to dig what your saying and perform to proper standards if they want to continue getting laid, but relating to how thorough cleaning makes a woman feel is not going to happen. The beautiful goal of our system is to glean the best of all sides, something sweeping generalizations inhibit.
P.S. - I understand macro economics just fine, thank you very much, I simply see the results of the study and the predictions yielded by them in a slightly different light than many self described 'righties'.
Ah, but you see, 'that dress makes you look fat' does not always infer that the person wearing it is fat. It likely infers only that the dress is unflattering.
Saying that 'leftists don't understand macroecoomics' does not imply that the left is stupid or ignorant. It only implies that the left doesn't understand how their concepts, ideas, and proposals fit into the consequences that are outlined in macroeconomics.
And because I do understand macroecnomics, at least as much as most lay people do, I don't think our system should be looking to 'glean the best of all sides.' Some sides we don't want period. Easing people into economic slavery is only slightly less painful than shoving them brutally into it--think Obamacare or Cap & Trade--but the end result is economic slavery. Sometimes there is no side worth embracing.
Those who understand macroeconomics can look at such programs and see the dangers. Those who cannot--and that will more often than not will be the left--see only the positives and can ignore or blow off the negatives as 'worth it' for some vague altruistic concept they imagine.
That in a nutshell is what separates rightists from leftists in America.
The right accepts short term pain, even if it may include going against their own personal interests, in order to achieve a long term goal.
The left embraces short term comfort in trust that there will be no pain as a consequence for it.
The right wants to govern themselves.
The left wants a central power to govern everybody as the left wants it to govern.
Disclaimer: Statements here are rhetorical and do not imply there will be no exceptions within any group.