What Are Conservatives Trying to Conserve?

[Claudette]

All those services could be provided for less cost if contracted out. Then the government would have more money without raising taxes.

And that's incorrect. Don't believe me? Try mailing a regular letter via FEDEX or UPS.

So you think that if the government didn't monopolize mailing of letters that no other company could possibly fill that niche?

Fed Ex and UPS have no need to offer that service now so why should they?

If there was a need either one or both of those companies would be competing to fill void

Yep. The CEO of Fed Ex wanted to take over the US Post Office.

I'm sure he would have done a better job than the'Govt is doing as the PO is in the hole very year due to their bs policies on retirement.

 

[UpAndAbout]

God you're dense.

If your pay comes 100% from taxes taken from me and then you give 20% of that to the government for taxes. where did the money to pay for those taxes come from?

It came from me not you.

Therefore ALL tax revenue is created by and taken from the private sector. Therefore the private sector pays for everything.

And where does mucn of the corporate private sector get THEIR money?

From the government they sell stuff to.


For example...BAth Iron works makes US warships.


Their workers DEPEND on US taxpayer to pay their PRIVATE incomes.

My point here is that huge DIVIDE you see between public organizations and private ones is wildly overstated, Skull.


Every cent the government spends ends up in the hands of the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Where it is taxed thus starting the whole cycle all over again.

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Nope they don't. Government employees also don't pay into social security since they already get a government-paid retirement.

 

[Claudette]

A tax payer funded retirement I might add.

 

[Avatar4321]

Our Constitution and Liberty.

Why exactly are you working so hard to "progress" past them?

This is 2012, the United States has progressed way too far to revert back to 1776, everyone knows how it was in those days so stop trying to bullshat people, thats a day and age you never lived it.

I have the same God given liberties those men in 1776 had. You do too. Why you want to throw them away is beyond me.

I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I intend to do so for the rest of my life, it's a shame you dont have the integrity to uphold your oath.

 

[Flaylo]

These are the same people who support waterboarding and torture and say they are seeking to conserve human life and human rights?

 

[Flaylo]

God you're dense.

If your pay comes 100% from taxes taken from me and then you give 20% of that to the government for taxes. where did the money to pay for those taxes come from?

It came from me not you.

Therefore ALL tax revenue is created by and taken from the private sector. Therefore the private sector pays for everything.

And where does mucn of the corporate private sector get THEIR money?

From the government they sell stuff to.


For example...BAth Iron works makes US warships.


Their workers DEPEND on US taxpayer to pay their PRIVATE incomes.

My point here is that huge DIVIDE you see between public organizations and private ones is wildly overstated, Skull.


Every cent the government spends ends up in the hands of the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Where it is taxed thus starting the whole cycle all over again.

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Yes they do, stop the bullshatting.

 

[Skull Pilot]

These are the same people who support waterboarding and torture and say they are seeking to conserve human life and human rights?

FYI I don't support state sanctioned torture. I happen to be against the death penalty as well.

 

[Flaylo]

Our Constitution and Liberty.

Why exactly are you working so hard to "progress" past them?

This is 2012, the United States has progressed way too far to revert back to 1776, everyone knows how it was in those days so stop trying to bullshat people, thats a day and age you never lived it.

I have the same God given liberties those men in 1776 had. You do too. Why you want to throw them away is beyond me.

I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I intend to do so for the rest of my life, it's a shame you dont have the integrity to uphold your oath.

STFU, I'm not trying to throw anything away but you Repugs are sure totrying strip away others'.

 

[Avatar4321]

People define individual rights in some many ways, what it meant in 1776 is not what it means today so trying to make America of 2012 into the America of 1776 is senseless.

Really? The Bill of Rights has changed in what it means?

You can explain what those changes are, right?

Yeah, I'd like to hear that myself. So we are not entitled to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happinesss" anymore, huh? That's new to me.

He thinks we've "progressed" to a point in time where human nature is no longer a factor and government can do everything for us.

 

[Avatar4321]

What is your interpretation of Life Liberty and pursuit of happiness, because what they thought those three things were almost 300 years ago are not the same today.

Yes, in fact, they are. Because human nature hasn't changed at all.

Case in point: People are still selfish ignorant people. Example: You

 

[Flaylo]

And where does mucn of the corporate private sector get THEIR money?

From the government they sell stuff to.


For example...BAth Iron works makes US warships.


Their workers DEPEND on US taxpayer to pay their PRIVATE incomes.

My point here is that huge DIVIDE you see between public organizations and private ones is wildly overstated, Skull.


Every cent the government spends ends up in the hands of the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Where it is taxed thus starting the whole cycle all over again.

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Nope they don't. Government employees also don't pay into social security since they already get a government-paid retirement.

Yes they do, they pay taxes, if they made money and paid nothing back thats taking and not adding. The private secotor get their money from government Mr "contract it out" man.

 

[Si modo]

And where does mucn of the corporate private sector get THEIR money?

From the government they sell stuff to.


For example...BAth Iron works makes US warships.


Their workers DEPEND on US taxpayer to pay their PRIVATE incomes.

My point here is that huge DIVIDE you see between public organizations and private ones is wildly overstated, Skull.


Every cent the government spends ends up in the hands of the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Where it is taxed thus starting the whole cycle all over again.

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Nope they don't. Government employees also don't pay into social security since they already get a government-paid retirement.

Ummmm, yes they do. Government employees sure as hell pay into SS and have been doing so since the 80s, I believe (unless they were already a government employee when the retirement plan changed).

 

[Skull Pilot]

And where does mucn of the corporate private sector get THEIR money?

From the government they sell stuff to.


For example...BAth Iron works makes US warships.


Their workers DEPEND on US taxpayer to pay their PRIVATE incomes.

My point here is that huge DIVIDE you see between public organizations and private ones is wildly overstated, Skull.


Every cent the government spends ends up in the hands of the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Where it is taxed thus starting the whole cycle all over again.

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Yes they do, stop the bullshatting.

How then?

If 10 people all make 100 dollars a week and they pay the government with no employees 20 dollars a week the total tax revenue of the government is 200 a week.

If the government then hires one employee and pays that employee 100 a week and out of that the government employee pays 20 dollars in taxes what is the net tax revenue of the government?

Here's the math.

10 people pay the government 20 a week for a total of 200 the government then pays an employee 100 a week.

The net tax revenue is now 100 a week but the government employee pays 20 in taxes.

What is the net tax revenue of the government now?

It's 120 a week.

Before there was a government employee it was 200 a week therefore government employees do not add to the net tax base.

 

[Avatar4321]

Bullshat, if you guys were for freedom of religion you wouldn't be bashing gays and Muslims.

Gays are a religion now? Who knew?

How exactly does an individual exercising his free speech to bash gays or Muslims at all prevent them from exercising their religion free of government interference?

BTW You do realize there is a difference between individuals and the government, right?

 

[Avatar4321]

All those services could be provided for less cost if contracted out. Then the government would have more money without raising taxes.

And that's incorrect. Don't believe me? Try mailing a regular letter via FEDEX or UPS.

So you think that if the government didn't monopolize mailing of letters that no other company could possibly fill that niche?

Fed Ex and UPS have no need to offer that service now so why should they?

If there was a need either one or both of those companies would be competing to fill void

I have no doubt that they would, were it legal for them to do so.

 

[Avatar4321]

This is 2012, the United States has progressed way too far to revert back to 1776, everyone knows how it was in those days so stop trying to bullshat people, thats a day and age you never lived it.

I have the same God given liberties those men in 1776 had. You do too. Why you want to throw them away is beyond me.

I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I intend to do so for the rest of my life, it's a shame you dont have the integrity to uphold your oath.

STFU, I'm not trying to throw anything away but you Repugs are sure totrying strip away others'.

No. Im not going to shut up. You'd like that though, wouldn't you? But thankfully I have the freedom of speech.

Sad that you can't even attempt to have an intellectual discussion on our God given rights. Is your position really that weak that you can't even attempt to explain how I don't have the same rights our Founders did?

 

[Dragon]

The point is that government employees do not add to the net tax revenue.

Untrue. If government employees didn't do their jobs, the entire economy would collapse into chaos, and there wouldn't be any tax revenue at all.

Arguments like yours only work if you imagine the government's contribution of law and order and public service being provided by acts of God, or benevolent fairies or something.

 

[UpAndAbout]

A tax payer funded retirement I might add.

Yes, I hate to admit it, too, but we are getting one of those. But you know what? He WORKED for it. He didn't sit home on his ass. He worked for it. It was actually interesting work and he met lots of wonderful people in the process. Some not so wonderful, but mostly really nice people.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Ira Glasser: What Are Conservatives Trying to Conserve?

In 1980 Reagan was elected, and the modern conservative political movement began, not as a protest, but as a hegemony. The lasting accomplishments of the Reagan years may have been the changes in the tax code and regulatory regimes that had prevailed for nearly a half century. But that was not what fueled his electoral success; what fueled his electoral success was the fundamentalist movement represented by Falwell, Pat Robertson and what came to be called the social agenda. Censorship of Kurt Vonnegut, Judy Blume and others, movements to pass "creationist" statutes that attempted to elevate the book of Genesis to a branch of science; hostility to the claims of gays, women and reproductive rights all combined to generate what began to be called "the culture wars." To a very demonstrable extent, I think, the conservative movement of the last 30 years (absent the economic issues of deregulation, also supported by Clinton and Robert Rubin and beyond the comprehension or the interest of most voters) may be seen as a panic response to a crumbling world and to the rights expansions of the '60s that struck like a tsunami, washing away all the prior governing arrangements. For these people, reality itself, or at least a reality where they felt in charge, was disappearing. As always, it was the symbols of these changes that were attacked: the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, which (unelected) had rendered many of these decisions; the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, which had brought many of the cases or performed hated services; books and magazines and films; television and Hollywood and "eastern elites." When Pat Buchanan roared, in his quixotic presidential campaign, that "we" needed to "take back our country," he was talking about a country prior to the rights revolutions of the 60s, when people who looked and believed like him ruled the roost and did not have their powers limited by the rights we had won. What conservatives were desperately trying to conserve was not the values at America's origin (the Bill of Rights was, after all, ratified in 1791), but rather the privileges and powers of 19th century and early 20th century America. This is what has fueled the reactionary politics of the past three decades, and it is what we are seeing now in the Republican base and its candidates.

Can the forum say Amen? I do, conservatives aren't conserving anything that works to the good of all Americans.

....Since
1981!!!

 

[peach174]

Our Constitution and Liberty.

Why exactly are you working so hard to "progress" past them?

This is 2012, the United States has progressed way too far to revert back to 1776, everyone knows how it was in those days so stop trying to bullshat people, thats a day and age you never lived it.

The left is progressing us into the Government control, of which we had the Revolutionary war over.
So by your argument, the left is progressing us back to before 1776.