What in the hell is wrong with people?

[peach174]

Except that it didn't work. World War II came along and Ike found it took 66 days to get an Army Unit from the East Coast to the West Coast using roads that were made by local governments.

So he had the brilliant idea to build a NATIONAL highway system of bridges and roads to link up the country. It made us stronger, more economically competitive and improved our lives.

If Republicans were like Ike, they'd be sane.

The national interstate highway system was, and is, good for the country. Bridges to nowhere (pork bridges) are not. Thats the point.

As to Ike, if he was alive today he would be a charter member of the tea party, so would Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman.

Speculation fallacy, but one that is at least entertainingly wackadoodle.

This speech by Kennedy sounds like the tea party of today.
Lower Taxes, fiscal responsibility.

 

[Montrovant]

What are some of the countless things that liberals believe that are counter to reality?

Just about everything liberals believe are counter to reality or rationality. No need in listing them for you, we already know how you'll react. You'll chortle and guffaw, rolling your eyes and pretending we're being ridiculous, because you live in a different reality. It's a complete waste of time since you don't intend to have an honest discussion.

This sounds a lot more like 'everything liberals believe is wrong' than 'everything liberals believe is counter to reality'.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Has one political faction in this country gone completely insane?

Yes, we believe that one side has indeed lost its mind. And if you want to ask for ID, for something as important to this country as voting is, make sure everyone has one first. Cart after the horse, not before. Simple right, if you think about it.

 

[Pogo]

The national interstate highway system was, and is, good for the country. Bridges to nowhere (pork bridges) are not. Thats the point.

As to Ike, if he was alive today he would be a charter member of the tea party, so would Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman.

Speculation fallacy, but one that is at least entertainingly wackadoodle.

This speech by Kennedy sounds like the tea party of today.
Lower Taxes, fiscal responsibility.

I guess that all depends on what the Tea Party sounds like to the observer.

To this one it sounds like a herd of Koch-Fox sheep bleating. Hence my amusement. Especially as regards Eisenhower, considering his courageous warning about the dangers of the MIC.

 

[JoeB131]

[

Roads and bridges are built by state and local governments when there is a need expressed by the people for roads and bridges to be built. THAT is reality. It's counter to reality to expect a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington to know where people need roads and bridges built or fund such ventures in any sort of proportionally fair manner.
.

Except that it didn't work. World War II came along and Ike found it took 66 days to get an Army Unit from the East Coast to the West Coast using roads that were made by local governments.

So he had the brilliant idea to build a NATIONAL highway system of bridges and roads to link up the country. It made us stronger, more economically competitive and improved our lives.

If Republicans were like Ike, they'd be sane.

So you consider it to be sane and rational to pretend the reality we live in is 1950, and we are in need of an interstate highway system because we don't have that?

The one we have is falling apart because Republicans keep cutting funds to infrastructure. That is when they aren't building bridges to nowhere.

Now it used to be the GOP was for smart, efficient government. That's before the Libertarian crazies took over.

 

[JoeB131]

[

The national interstate highway system was, and is, good for the country. Bridges to nowhere (pork bridges) are not. Thats the point.

As to Ike, if he was alive today he would be a charter member of the tea party, so would Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman.

NO, they wouldn't be.

Now, if you want to argue against pork, I'm all for it.

Heck, I even think the argument against earmarks is good. Absolutely, we need to make good decisions. But, hey, let's take a look at this map.

This is a map that shows how much money comes back to a state per recipiant vs. how much they send to washington.

For instance, Commie-Lib Minnesota gets only .64 of every dollar it sends to Washington. MEANWHILE, Idaho gets 1.61 back. MS is the biggest hog, it gets back 2.73 for every dollar that goes to Washington. and their big argument was who was the most right win guy to send back to the senate.

 

[eagle7_31]

Okay, I realize this runs the risk of being bumped over to the Flame Zone board, but I am genuinely not intending to flame here. I think this is a legitimate topic of discussion amongst the non-crazy people in society. Every day, I am confronted with yet another liberal who seems to have completely lost their mind. At first, I thought it was just a simple difference in ideology, which is normally a good thing in political discourse, you need another side to certain arguments, it is a healthy thing for society to have contrasting viewpoints.

I started noticing during the Bush years, the rhetoric from the left became more shrill and harsh, the resentfulness and hostility was thick, and I chalked it all up to Bush just not being their cup of tea. Many on the left were still angry over what happened to Clinton, so I figured okay, turn about is fair play, Bush is going to be the scapegoat for all this angst. And of course, they railed on Bush and are still railing on Bush, but this goes even deeper.

It has now become outright ridiculous. Almost 6 years into the Obama presidency, and arguably the worst performance of a president in modern history with one failure on top of another as far as they eye can see. Scandals unfolding on a daily basis, and not just little meaningless ones, really big ones... impeachable ones, as a matter of fact. The economy is still in the crapper, jobs are still virtually non-existent, despite all the fluff and propaganda being fed to us daily. But still, I can rationalize that left-wing liberals are still standing by their guy because that's who brought them to the dance. Fair enough, Bush had avid supporters who loved everything he did and still do. This goes deeper.

We can go through a host of issues, it doesn't really matter what they are... Illegal immigration, voter IDs, gay marriage, global warming... whatever it is, the left has their talking points ready and are prepared to do battle. But it's not just these issues, it's the level at which they absolutely refuse to acknowledge any other viewpoint and just automatically reject anything the right has to say... on ANYTHING. Doesn't matter! If the political right came out tomorrow in favor of fuzzy puppies and fluffy kittens, the left would launch an anti-fuzzy puppy and fluffy kitten campaign, charging that the right were racist bigots who were out of touch with mainstream Americans.

I realized the level at which this has reached today, as I was discussing the Israeli mobilization on Gaza with a liberal friend. He says... "What right does Israel have to exist?" Now, this person has always been liberal, but I've always respected the arguments they made and felt like they articulated some valid points, even when I didn't agree with them. But this just blew me away. I couldn't believe he said that. Then I notice that he and several other liberals were posting all these videos put out by Al Jazeera, showing the civilian casualties and whatnot.

Then I come here and there is a debate about voter ID and some liberal is saying "you just don't want the poor to vote!" Like the poor are somehow suddenly unable to show identification to prove who they are, even though they must've shown ID to get food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, AFDC, EIC, and all other government subsidies. In another thread, some liberal is whining about the greedy corporations getting rich off the bailouts and stimulus that OBAMA DEMANDED!

All over my facebook, there are my liberal friends posting cartoons which depict the Mayflower arriving to the shores of America and the Native American's watching... the meme is about how they look like "illegal immigrants" to them! Each day, I see images of literally thousands of illegals climbing the fences into America and nothing being done to stop it... in fact, we're sending them aid! Hell, they're probably getting Obama phones and food stamps by now!

What in the hell is wrong with people, have they just lost their goddamn minds? Has one political faction in this country gone completely insane? Because that is how it seems to me, and I don't know why. It's not simply politics, it's mentally disturbing. It's as if the left is poised to take a counter position to rationality in any form. The more off-the-rails the better! And it's not just a handful of nutters, it's the whole entire left wing. It's not just a little bit of stupid, it's complete ignorance of anything approaching common sense reasoning. They don't even bother debating anymore, they just blurt out something sublimely ignorant and start hurling names at republicans and "teabaggers!"

Is this something in the water they're drinking? Hormones in the meat? Have radical Islamists contaminated our food supply? Are they under some kind of hypnotic spell? Minds being controlled by aliens? What in the hell is wrong with people???

Yeah, give Bush a pass. He's just "not our cup of tea". If anyone is under some kind of spell, it has to be republicans. I swear, if Obama came out tomorrow in favor of breathing, republicans would all be turning blue within minutes.

And you are full of sh** your eyes are brown.

 

[Boss]

Has one political faction in this country gone completely insane?

Yes, we believe that one side has indeed lost its mind. And if you want to ask for ID, for something as important to this country as voting is, make sure everyone has one first. Cart after the horse, not before. Simple right, if you think about it.

You've somehow gotten things backwards in bizarro world... It's because voting IS important that we MUST require ID. We certainly do require ID for things much less important. We cannot "make sure everyone has one" any more than we can make sure everyone votes. All we can do is make IDs available for those who need them. I venture to guess, most "poor" people already have some form of ID with which they've applied for the various and sundry government benefits available. I don't know of any government benefit that is available without some form of ID. So this insane notion that we're somehow disenfranchising the poor by requiring a simple ID, is flat out bullshit.

 

[Boss]

Except that it didn't work. World War II came along and Ike found it took 66 days to get an Army Unit from the East Coast to the West Coast using roads that were made by local governments.

So he had the brilliant idea to build a NATIONAL highway system of bridges and roads to link up the country. It made us stronger, more economically competitive and improved our lives.

If Republicans were like Ike, they'd be sane.

So you consider it to be sane and rational to pretend the reality we live in is 1950, and we are in need of an interstate highway system because we don't have that?

The one we have is falling apart because Republicans keep cutting funds to infrastructure. That is when they aren't building bridges to nowhere.

Now it used to be the GOP was for smart, efficient government. That's before the Libertarian crazies took over.

No, the interstates are not falling apart. Republicans have not cut funding to infrastructure, in fact... Republicans joined Democrats in appropriating over $80 billion for "shovel ready jobs" the president specifically requested as a part of his campaign promises of hope and change. Afterwards, he had to sheepishly admit there weren't any "shovel ready jobs" out there.

There is nothing smart or efficient about a government that remains mired in massive debt to the tune of over $17 trillion, and there is nothing smart about liberal nitwits hollering for MORE money that we don't have, to build roads and bridges we don't need. This year, we will again have to borrow $1.7 trillion from China just to continue funding the unfunded liabilities we have which are now in excess of $100 trillion. This cannot continue.

 

[JoeB131]

[

No, the interstates are not falling apart. Republicans have not cut funding to infrastructure, in fact... Republicans joined Democrats in appropriating over $80 billion for "shovel ready jobs" the president specifically requested as a part of his campaign promises of hope and change. Afterwards, he had to sheepishly admit there weren't any "shovel ready jobs" out there.

There is nothing smart or efficient about a government that remains mired in massive debt to the tune of over $17 trillion, and there is nothing smart about liberal nitwits hollering for MORE money that we don't have, to build roads and bridges we don't need. This year, we will again have to borrow $1.7 trillion from China just to continue funding the unfunded liabilities we have which are now in excess of $100 trillion. This cannot continue.

There's plenty of money out there to be had. Tax the rich at an appropriate level, bring back the estate tax, and so on.

I agree this can't go on, but you guys don't have the answer.

Clinton was posting surpluses in 2000. Bush fucked that up pretty quickly. By the end we had trillion dollar deficits.

 

[Boss]

[

No, the interstates are not falling apart. Republicans have not cut funding to infrastructure, in fact... Republicans joined Democrats in appropriating over $80 billion for "shovel ready jobs" the president specifically requested as a part of his campaign promises of hope and change. Afterwards, he had to sheepishly admit there weren't any "shovel ready jobs" out there.

There is nothing smart or efficient about a government that remains mired in massive debt to the tune of over $17 trillion, and there is nothing smart about liberal nitwits hollering for MORE money that we don't have, to build roads and bridges we don't need. This year, we will again have to borrow $1.7 trillion from China just to continue funding the unfunded liabilities we have which are now in excess of $100 trillion. This cannot continue.

There's plenty of money out there to be had. Tax the rich at an appropriate level, bring back the estate tax, and so on.

I agree this can't go on, but you guys don't have the answer.

Clinton was posting surpluses in 2000. Bush fucked that up pretty quickly. By the end we had trillion dollar deficits.

More evidence of your clinical insanity. The estate tax was brought back in 2011. Also, the top marginal tax rate was increased. It's not enough to offset Obama's massive deficits. You can tax the so-called wealthy at 100%, if they don't earn income, you don't gain revenue. We can go back in history for the past 100+ years, any time we've increased the top marginal rates it has resulted in LESS revenue. This is because the wealthy do not need to earn incomes like everyone else. Subsequently, every time the top marginal rate has been lowered, we've realized an INCREASE in revenue when adjusted for GDP.

Clinton never had a surplus, it was smoke and mirrors based on CBO projections ten years out and assuming the trend of dot-com growth would continue as it had... it didn't, it collapsed. Also, they voted in Congress to allow the Social Security trust fund (you know, that thing Algore wanted to put in a lock box?) could be counted as part of the "general fund" which gave an artificial surplus for the time being. So we used the money we had set aside to pay future retirees as part of the general fund, giving the temporary appearance of a surplus. Bush spent a chunk of it being a "compassionate conservative" and Obama has now spent 4x as much as Bush did. The money is gone, we've spent it already.

The ANSWER is fiscal responsibility! We've got to STOP spending like drunken crack whores with a credit card! But this is impossible because at every turn, there is a liberal idiot who is yammering about how we need to build roads and bridges! We can't even make sensible cuts in the rate of INCREASE in spending, the insane people begin moaning and whining that it's a CUT and the babies are all going to starve in the streets! You turn every fucking thing into a political football and paint the right as a bunch of uncaring and unconcerned people who want to see poor folks suffer. You've learned this is an effective strategy because we now have more profoundly stupid people who vote than those of us who have a modicum of common sense.

No... The money is NOT out there! The ONLY way there is money out there to be had is if we relax the burdens on capitalism and allow capitalists to prosper. As long as we have hippies shitting on cop cars, protesting the Evil Wall Street, then we will continue to stifle the ONE thing that can bring us out of economic disparity. As long as we have absolute insane morons calling the shots, formulating our fiscal policies like a bunch of unruly children in a candy store, then we are pretty much FUCKED! We will simply spend ourselves into bankruptcy and civil society will collapse, like in other places around the world where they couldn't sustain their debt.

Of course, when that all goes down and we have chaos and anarchy in the streets of America, you will blame that on the Evil Republicans... because you are all mentally INSANE!

 

[Rikurzhen]

There's plenty of money out there to be had. Tax the rich at an appropriate level, bring back the estate tax, and so on.

Really?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbRKfXyQEw]Eat the Rich - Bill Whittle - YouTube[/ame]

Clinton was posting surpluses in 2000.

Propaganda. The total government indebtedness increased EVERY SINGLE YEAR during the Clinton Presidency, making it definitionally impossible to have a surplus.

You can't increase your household debt levels and then claim that you saved money (had a surplus) at the end of the year.

 

[JoeB131]

Always amazed when USMB Basement dwellers worry so much about the fucking rich.

 

[Pete7469]

There's plenty of money out there to be had. Tax the rich at an appropriate level, bring back the estate tax, and so on.

Really?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbRKfXyQEw]Eat the Rich - Bill Whittle - YouTube[/ame]

Clinton was posting surpluses in 2000.

Propaganda. The total government indebtedness increased EVERY SINGLE YEAR during the Clinton Presidency, making it definitionally impossible to have a surplus.

You can't increase your household debt levels and then claim that you saved money (had a surplus) at the end of the year.

I love this video.

It breaks down reality into such small pieces anyone with any brains can absorb it.

This proves liberals have no brains.

 

[Boss]

It's absolutely pointless trying to explain this stuff to an insane liberal. They live in a completely different reality than the rest of us. They think we live in some 19th-century European dynasty where a hand full of land barons and ruling class elite control all the wealth and the rest of us are helpless peasants who have no means of acquiring wealth unless Big Government confiscates it from "The Rich" and gives it to the poor. They actively promote this fallacy because that is how Marxism was promoted across Europe and Asia by people like Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot and others. They divide us into "classes" so they can perpetuate this myth that we are unable to ever escape our destiny and become anything other than peasants and serfs.

HERE is a dose of TRUTH for the clinically insane:


This is data from the US Census... a completely NON-BIAS source.
It shows that while the "middle class" families are indeed shrinking (a constant liberal meme) they are NOT becoming part of the "low income" but instead, are joining the ranks of the wealthy. Middle income families are shrinking, upper income families are growing, lower income families are remaining relatively the same.

They will predictably IGNORE this and continue to promote their mantra because they've been brainwashed into believing 19th-century Marxist propaganda. They simply do not recognize that NO ONE in America is imprisoned to their "class" forever. That EVERY American citizen is FREE to engage in free market capitalism and compete to become as wealthy as they please. They want to DESTROY that freedom and make it essentially IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to gain economic prosperity... that's the ONLY way their Marxist-Socialist model makes any rational sense.

They have simply departed from their right minds.

 

[JoeB131]

Yawn, ho-hum. Marxist Socialist, let's repeat the tired mantras that got us through the Cold War.

Fact was, we enjoyed our greatest prosperity when the rich were taxed at confiscatory levels. WWII let FDR tax the rich at the proper rate, and we left those rates mostly intact until Reagan. ANd we enjoyed our greatest prosperity during that time.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Yawn, ho-hum. Marxist Socialist, let's repeat the tired mantras that got us through the Cold War.

Fact was, we enjoyed our greatest prosperity when the rich were taxed at confiscatory levels. WWII let FDR tax the rich at the proper rate, and we left those rates mostly intact until Reagan. ANd we enjoyed our greatest prosperity during that time.

We enjoyed our greatest prosperity during a multidecade immigration moratorium. Labor scarcity does wonders for raising the share of national income which gets allocated to Labor and away from Capital.

 

[S.J.]

[

The national interstate highway system was, and is, good for the country. Bridges to nowhere (pork bridges) are not. Thats the point.

As to Ike, if he was alive today he would be a charter member of the tea party, so would Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman.

NO, they wouldn't be.

Now, if you want to argue against pork, I'm all for it.

Heck, I even think the argument against earmarks is good. Absolutely, we need to make good decisions. But, hey, let's take a look at this map.

This is a map that shows how much money comes back to a state per recipiant vs. how much they send to washington.

For instance, Commie-Lib Minnesota gets only .64 of every dollar it sends to Washington. MEANWHILE, Idaho gets 1.61 back. MS is the biggest hog, it gets back 2.73 for every dollar that goes to Washington. and their big argument was who was the most right win guy to send back to the senate.

Funny that none of that money ever found it's way into my pocket, but the bum across the street from me who doesn't work (or want to) gets a welfare check.

 

[S.J.]

[

No, the interstates are not falling apart. Republicans have not cut funding to infrastructure, in fact... Republicans joined Democrats in appropriating over $80 billion for "shovel ready jobs" the president specifically requested as a part of his campaign promises of hope and change. Afterwards, he had to sheepishly admit there weren't any "shovel ready jobs" out there.

There is nothing smart or efficient about a government that remains mired in massive debt to the tune of over $17 trillion, and there is nothing smart about liberal nitwits hollering for MORE money that we don't have, to build roads and bridges we don't need. This year, we will again have to borrow $1.7 trillion from China just to continue funding the unfunded liabilities we have which are now in excess of $100 trillion. This cannot continue.

There's plenty of money out there to be had. Tax the rich at an appropriate level, bring back the estate tax, and so on.

I agree this can't go on, but you guys don't have the answer.

Clinton was posting surpluses in 2000. Bush fucked that up pretty quickly. By the end we had trillion dollar deficits.

Dumb shit doesn't know the difference between deficits and debt.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Okay, I realize this runs the risk of being bumped over to the Flame Zone board, but I am genuinely not intending to flame here. I think this is a legitimate topic of discussion amongst the non-crazy people in society. Every day, I am confronted with yet another liberal who seems to have completely lost their mind. At first, I thought it was just a simple difference in ideology, which is normally a good thing in political discourse, you need another side to certain arguments, it is a healthy thing for society to have contrasting viewpoints.

I started noticing during the Bush years, the rhetoric from the left became more shrill and harsh, the resentfulness and hostility was thick, and I chalked it all up to Bush just not being their cup of tea. Many on the left were still angry over what happened to Clinton, so I figured okay, turn about is fair play, Bush is going to be the scapegoat for all this angst. And of course, they railed on Bush and are still railing on Bush, but this goes even deeper.

It has now become outright ridiculous. Almost 6 years into the Obama presidency, and arguably the worst performance of a president in modern history with one failure on top of another as far as they eye can see. Scandals unfolding on a daily basis, and not just little meaningless ones, really big ones... impeachable ones, as a matter of fact. The economy is still in the crapper, jobs are still virtually non-existent, despite all the fluff and propaganda being fed to us daily. But still, I can rationalize that left-wing liberals are still standing by their guy because that's who brought them to the dance. Fair enough, Bush had avid supporters who loved everything he did and still do. This goes deeper.

We can go through a host of issues, it doesn't really matter what they are... Illegal immigration, voter IDs, gay marriage, global warming... whatever it is, the left has their talking points ready and are prepared to do battle. But it's not just these issues, it's the level at which they absolutely refuse to acknowledge any other viewpoint and just automatically reject anything the right has to say... on ANYTHING. Doesn't matter! If the political right came out tomorrow in favor of fuzzy puppies and fluffy kittens, the left would launch an anti-fuzzy puppy and fluffy kitten campaign, charging that the right were racist bigots who were out of touch with mainstream Americans.

I realized the level at which this has reached today, as I was discussing the Israeli mobilization on Gaza with a liberal friend. He says... "What right does Israel have to exist?" Now, this person has always been liberal, but I've always respected the arguments they made and felt like they articulated some valid points, even when I didn't agree with them. But this just blew me away. I couldn't believe he said that. Then I notice that he and several other liberals were posting all these videos put out by Al Jazeera, showing the civilian casualties and whatnot.

Then I come here and there is a debate about voter ID and some liberal is saying "you just don't want the poor to vote!" Like the poor are somehow suddenly unable to show identification to prove who they are, even though they must've shown ID to get food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, AFDC, EIC, and all other government subsidies. In another thread, some liberal is whining about the greedy corporations getting rich off the bailouts and stimulus that OBAMA DEMANDED!

All over my facebook, there are my liberal friends posting cartoons which depict the Mayflower arriving to the shores of America and the Native American's watching... the meme is about how they look like "illegal immigrants" to them! Each day, I see images of literally thousands of illegals climbing the fences into America and nothing being done to stop it... in fact, we're sending them aid! Hell, they're probably getting Obama phones and food stamps by now!

What in the hell is wrong with people, have they just lost their goddamn minds? Has one political faction in this country gone completely insane? Because that is how it seems to me, and I don't know why. It's not simply politics, it's mentally disturbing. It's as if the left is poised to take a counter position to rationality in any form. The more off-the-rails the better! And it's not just a handful of nutters, it's the whole entire left wing. It's not just a little bit of stupid, it's complete ignorance of anything approaching common sense reasoning. They don't even bother debating anymore, they just blurt out something sublimely ignorant and start hurling names at republicans and "teabaggers!"

Is this something in the water they're drinking? Hormones in the meat? Have radical Islamists contaminated our food supply? Are they under some kind of hypnotic spell? Minds being controlled by aliens? What in the hell is wrong with people???

Always disturbing when evidence arises of some liberal hiring themselves out to ghost write for a conservative.