Pangloss

If I might bring up a point that to me is the "Elephant in the Room". I'm quite willing to be declared wrong as I'm not from the US, but this is something that seems rather glaring from the outside.

 

Which one? You are a Union of States. Americans seem to consider themselves (politically) part of the nation "America" only when it suits them, if it suits them better then they are "Carolinans" or "Texans", or whatever. This means that a national problem that needs to be solved nationally can't be because you would have to override State rights.

 

You really need to decide what you are, a collection of pissant little nation states or a single Nation. If you're a collection of nation states then you can't expect the Federal govt to solve national problems, but if you're a Nation then the Federal gov has to have the right to squash "State rights" to solve National problems. The problem isn't Republican v Democrat, it's Federal responsibility v State Rights.

 

Your health care is a shambles because you have 50 State govs all writing their own versions of the law. If President Obama came up with the best health care plan since sliced bread, cheaper, better, more effective, a real "Nobel Prize in politics" effort, there are only two ways to get it passed. Either convince 50 separate govts to give up some of their precious "Rights" (good luck on that one Mr. President.) or to have the Federal power to force the States to toe the line. Neither of these options are currently possible and the mess remains. The same thing applies to all your "National" problems.

 

So are you a Nation, or not?

It's a valid question. We supposedly decided this in 1865 but it keeps coming back up. The problem isn't really so much a sense of state identity (which was a big part of the problem in 1850), but rather a diversity in cultural norms, with individuals seeking "sanctuary" amongst people who feel similarly.

I think the first step in solving that is recognizing that all of the cultural norms have validity. But there are also pros and cons with federal control in general that have to be weighed. It's not *automatically* a bad thing (IMO) that Arizona passed its immigration-related law. If nothing else it woke up the country to their frustrations. There are many aspects of the immigration issue that have to be dealt with on the local level without a lot of support from the federal government, particularly with regard to day-to-day law enforcement and health care.

This is where the media should be helping rather than hurting. Rather than tell us how dramatic it is and how we're headed for calamity and a big fight, the media should show us the common ground and the allied interests that are pointing the way towards solutions.

And your problem with PAYGO is...?

... that it allows for new spending to simply be attached to the deficit. That's not paying for it, it's slapping it on the credit card and figuring we can deal with it later. We're every bit as addicted to debt as a nation as we are as individuals.

I seem to remember the Republicans getting rid of it and the Democrats bringing it back, and yet the conservative furor over Obama's spending has been huge whereas there was virtually no attention paid by conservatives to the massive spending increases that took place under Bush.

You're right. And they (conservative voters) are paying attention now. Republicans may not realize it yet, but they will.

Thinking that Democrats are more fiscally responsible is the same flaw, IMO. The debt climbed something like $5 trillion on Pelosi's four-year watch.

And I'm not saying emergency spending is a bad thing, I'm saying emergency spending while continuing to pay for massive programs we can't afford is a bad thing.

I think including a "moderate" option in this poll is a bit disingenuous. In my experience people who self-identify as "moderates" in the US are generally conservatives who would rather not self-identify as conservatives.

You mean "independent"?

If a member of this forum were to say that the terms "moderate" and "liberal" were interchangeable, and that the only difference between them was the difference between "liberal" and "extremely liberal", I think there would be a mountain of outrage from the members and a rush to declare that person extremely conservative and pounce on his or her every opinion. I'd be looking at reported posts daily, enclosed with regular accusations of "logical fallacies" and "rude behavior" all over the place.

But hey, that's what makes this place fun.

The really sad part of this is not that Pelosi lost her power or that democrats won or lost. what is really sad is that nothing will change. Two years from now all will still be shit and the republicans will be crying foul that they just haven't had enough time and the Dem's will be shouting vote em out they screwed us and the reality is you can't repair a sinking boat by changing Captains. This country has real problems that will not be solved by putting someone else in power, that revolving door does not solve anything.

 

To me the politics of most of my life have been more about getting power than using it wisely. How often do you see a politician change his mind for any reason other than personal power? When will a real leader come to be that will make the hard choices? NEVER, no one can survive in power by doing anything but running in circles and barking at the moon and getting other people to do the same to the same tune as you... As far as I've seen barking at the moon has no effect, my dogs don't even do that.

I agree, and well put. You're only missing one small thing: You just said that "nothing will change", which implies that something needed to change. You're right, it did. And there is only one mechanism that the voters have to instigate change: turn out the people in power.

If you believe the system is broken, as you clearly do, you cannot vote for those in authority. You. Can. Not. Because, as you yourself just stated, those who receive that vote will accept it as a "MANDATE", and then proceed to do all the wrong things.

Is there anyone here who really believes that had there been no turnover yesterday and the Democrats returned to power, or indeed given 60 votes in the Senate, that they would NOT have seen that as a mandate to push forward? Of course they would have.

Which is why this happened. The country yesterday SCREAMED at its leadership to change course. They hollered at the top of their freaking lungs in the only way they knew how.

Sometimes I wonder how many conservatives (or even self-labeled "moderate" conservatives of the variety of the forum moderator here) are actually capable of admitting that sometimes, when liberals spend money, it actually accomplishes good things, and can even bring down the deficit like it did under Obama.

All I want is for expenditures to match receipts, and for their to be a fair debate (as there has been) when an increase in expenditures is requested. You want a trillion dollar spending program? Fine with me -- just fund it without adding to the deficit, and get the people's elected representatives to fairly agree. That's it.

Call me crazy, but I don't think it's too much to ask.

No BS about how Poor Ol' Thelma, a working mother with three children and two part times jobs, is suffering. No BS about how poor Afghan women need an intervention. No BS about weapons of mass destruction. No BS about how a handful of violent middle eastern terrorists are so threatening that we have to upset our entire way of life from top to bottom. No BS from the left, no BS from the right.

Either we can pay for it, or we cannot. That's it.

Possibly you missed where I said "context included"? (NOT excluded) Wanna try again?

Well IMO with O'Donnell the context often wasn't included. But IMO O'Donnell's problem wasn't context anyway, it was people looking for a reason to bash a Republican.

Not that I particularly cared for her -- she seemed pretty thinly disguised herself. I think if you were to pour a bucket of water over her hea... er... I mean if you were to shine a little more light on her message you would not have found a whole lot of substance. (cof) But seriously, very reminiscent of Palin in 2008. But that's no reason to burn her at the stake. (er, so to speak... cof cof) ;-)

Anyway, nice rant though. I may not agree with your conclusions but you always make a good case.

We can also increase the pool of people we have to choose from by kicking them out of office when they don't do their jobs. All 435 members of the House were up for re-election yesterday. Republicans picked up something like 60 seats. So something like 86% of the House are going right back to doing the same crappy job. That's not much of a revolution.

But we're just getting started. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News calls this "the third 'change' election in a row". He has an interesting point. I wonder what would happen if 30% of the House was turned out in 2012 (twice this year's figure). What about 50%? 60%? 80%? And a third of the Senate can be turned out every two years as well (this time only ~10% changed hands).

If the economy doesn't improve dramatically by 2012, I think we're going to find out.

I think the local polling place had adhered to the letter of the law if not the spirit. I had to walk possibly 50 meters from where I parked my car to where the sign prohibiting electioneering was posted. From there it was possibly 10 meters to the door of the building where I was to vote. During that little walk I was stopped (I say stopped in the southern sense of the word, i wasn't physically held in place) 6 times by someone who was in some way trying to make sure i voted for their favorite candidate. Mostly it was handing out literature or asking you to vote for a particular person. One girl claimed her momma was running for judge , another implored me to vote for someone i wouldn't have pissed on if he was there in person and on fire but it was mostly harmless. The guy who called me a name was just an aberration, in the south such a thing is so unheard of it's difficult to assign real meaning to the incident. Generally most people pay very close attention to manners in a possibly inflammatory social situation in the south where I live. Possibly he was some one from up north who had only recently moved to the south and didn't understand mannerly behavior. .

This has happened to me in the past. Oddly enough, I didn't see a soul outside my polling place this year. But I have had similar experiences. Mostly they just stand there and smile and wave their signs at me, but I have heard comments and arguments before.

Yes but which side isn't guilty of that?

Both sides are equally guilty in my view. Though you wouldn't know that from reading posts here, where Fox News is the only thing standing in the way of Righteous and Scientifically Proven Progress for All Mankind Whether They Want it or Not.

Get real pangloss, how could it be ok to lie, for either side? If you think it's ok to F.U.D. the other side to win then you are part of the problem not the solution.

It isn't. It's not okay when it's the right declaring the peace movement subversive and unpatriotic, and it's not okay when it's the left declaring the Tea Party Movement to be racist.

Or the people we have to choose from.

LOL! Nice, thanks for the term!

Cool story.

Well those are pretty good ideas, and I support adding a lot more transparency to government.

But the real problem is entitlement spending. Defense, including Iraq and Afghanistan, is less than $700B/yr, and no other department spends more than about 10-11% of what Defense spends. So even if you were to completely eliminate all defense spending whatsoever you'd only cut the deficit in half.

That's what people on the left don't seem to get about the public's objection to Obamacare. It's an insanely complicated way of trying to make that entitlement spending more efficient and hopefully less costly -- by a few billions here and there. In theory it might help us balance the budget in a few years. That's like saying "Oh look, if I buy this Lamborgini instead of a Volkswagon, I'll be insanely over my budget, BUT I can win races and use the winnings to cover the extra debt!"

So the solution to overspending is to get off this ridiculous notion that massive entitlement spending is a good idea. I like your idea, but until we get rid of the teat we're not going to be able to solve the problem.

Yeah, and surely most ideologies have a different view of themselves compared to an opposing ideology's view of them. So?

So I think yesterday's election results show that not listening and casting aspersions has not been a good practice.

Pangloss, if you speak, and the news records what you said (context included), then the news didn't give you its own "newsy" version of the person. They gave you what the person really said.

 

You're wrong, ajb's correct.

Yes, it tells you what they said -- out of context and amidst a narrative that prompts crass overgeneralizations. Why is that okay when the left does it, but damaging and dangerous with Fox News does it?

Turns out we have actual research on the subject, conducted by a graduate student at UCLA.

Better question, though: is your assessment based on personal interactions with tea rallies, or just on detailed accounts?

I'm not the one drawing those conclusions. The researcher I was quoting attended the rallies and gathered the data herself. The conclusions were hers.

IOW, it's illegal when a church does it.

Churches do have a legal way to affect politics.

You two have fun with that. My point was simply that, in terms of influence, a special interest is a special interest.

Can't people just, like, not join the unions if they don't want to?

This is a Wikipedia article discussing "right to work" laws:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

22 states have such laws, and all federal government jobs are theoretically union-free, though many federal employees are represented by unions.

If we keep President Obama in office much past the recovery, I predict that such laws will come under heavy fire. They are pretty antithetical to the left, and I am no longer at all under any illusions about President Obama being a moderate.

I agree with much of the above, and as always your insight into Colorado politics is interesting.

I'm still confused by the argument that Democrats "compromised too much" with Republicans over the last two years, which is frequently combined with an argument that they should not have compromised at all. Given the diverse nature of congress even when they had 60 votes in the Senate, why does it make sense to think that they would have made more progress if they had been less compromising?

Pangloss, why interesting, I would have thought it obvious. News media is a business, it exists to make a profit. I'm surprised that so few Americans seem to understand this.

Well a money motivation doesn't necessarily deny an interest in politics, IMO. I really have no way to know that Murdoch's motivation is, and he's a highly successful person, so I think it's interesting when I read about such things. The personal connection you mentioned was also part of why it was interesting.

There is however a deeper factor. Programming is decided not just by Program Managers, but by advertising. Advertisers choose which shows they want their ads in and are willing to pay a premium for that. Advertising influences the way a network develops it's programming. Put simply, what do you do if there are more advertisers wanting to advertise in a given show (let's say someone like a moderate Glen Beck) than there are spaces to sell? You can jack up the price, or have another similar show on a different part of the network. Similarly, if a network had an extreme right wing show that brought in $100k of revenue and an exteme left wing show that brought in $20k, what do you, as management do? There is only one answer that is fiscally defensible. Dump the left wing show and get another right wing one.

 

Advertisers watch their sales and show ratings very closely and move their advertising to shows that give them the best sales response. That is all they are interested in, not politics. In current affairs and commentary type shows, the shows are driven by the advertising revenue and the advertising revenue is driven by the people who watch the show.

 

Think of any programming, say the rise and fall of "Reality" shows. One came along, it went big and the advertisers jumped on the bandwagon, therefore there were suddenly heaps of reality shows. As soon as the numbers started to drop the advertisers went elsewhere and funds dried up. So there are few reality shows now. Look at a newspaper and aside from the "classifieds" section, look at the amount of ads in various sections. It varies depending on the popularity of the topics on the pages.

 

People can complain about "media bias" all they want, but the media is simply giving them what they want. People prove this by buying products advertised on the shows. Why did "Stargate" last so long? Because people watched it and the revenues were up. Why did they bring back Bobby in "Dallas" and make the whole dream sequence garbage? Because revenues dropped and they wanted them to rise again.

 

It's accepted that Hollywood is a business is out to make a profit, why do people think news media isn't?

All good points. It's the old question of whether the media reflects popular opinion, or vice-versa.

It wasn't quite the drubbing that some predicted, but it went way past the 1994 "revolution" and actually approached the 1922 record. In addition to taking control of the House, Republicans also picked up 6 seats in the Senate, bringing that body to something a 53-47 balance (several seats have yet to be decided, but it appears unlikely that the GOP will gain control of the Senate).

Many prominent Democrats, such as Russ Feingold were turned out of office, Nancy Pelosi lost the speakership of the House, and even Barack Obama's senate seat went to Republicans. Democrats were not without their victories, however, with Harry Reid keeping his seat and Jerry Brown returning to the governorship of California.

State governors also went more heavily to the GOP. This has more of an impact than many may realize. For example, Arizona governor Jan Brewer has had a huge impact lately on the national immigration issue. Voters in her state returned her overwhelmingly, and continue to support her on that issue.

How do you view the present situation, and what is the President's best path forward?

Politico has an interesting post-mortem on Nancy Pelosi's time in office. The main thrust of the piece is that while she's a heroine to liberals, she pushed too hard for a liberal agenda, not listening to the mainstream of the American public, which brought her right into the sights of both conservatives and independents seeking change.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44598_Page4.html

In addition to the big proposals on health care, energy, financial services and the $787 billion stimulus package, she pushed through dozens of lesser known bills on raising the minimum wage, children’s health care programs, equal pay for women, hate crimes and other issues favored by progressives. Pelosi built a national fundraising network matched only by presidential candidates, raising more than $65 million this year alone. Despite saying she wouldn’t be like her GOP predecessors Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert, she amassed more power in the speaker’s office than seen since the days of such giants as Sam Rayburn and Joe Cannon, controlling everything from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to communications to committee gavels.

 

An iron fist in a Gucci glove, Pelosi embodied the Democratic majority in many ways, with a relentless – though at times politically tone deaf – pursuit of liberal ideals.

Despite tremendous personal charisma, Pelosi was a poor orator who failed to impress in public events or too often uttered statements that infuriated and mobilized her opponents. She refused to recognize that the country’s mood had shifted from 2009 to this year, especially in running up huge government deficits, and in the end, she proved unable to protect the freshman and sophomore lawmakers whom she had worked so hard to elect the previous two cycles.

What do you all think?

It's illegal when a church does it. Any entity that is tax-exempt under 501-c-3 of the IRS code is prohibited from campaigning or "substantial" efforts to influence legislation.

 

http://pewforum.org/PublicationPage.aspx?id=913

It's against tax regulation, but the purpose of that law is not to prevent churches from participating in the political process, it's to prevent non-profits from leveraging their tax exemption (which should equally benefit all Americans regardless of political affiliation) to favor a candidate or legislation.

The same regulation affects labor unions under 501©(6), but with a different (arguably less effective) mechanism.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/ch04.html#en_US_2010_publink1000200390

Deduction not allowed for dues used for political or legislative activities. A taxpayer cannot deduct the part of dues or other payments to a business league, trade association, labor union, or similar organization that is for any of the following activities.

 

1. Influencing legislation.

2. Participating or intervening in a political campaign for, or against, any candidate for public office.

3. Trying to influence the general public, or part of the general public, with respect to elections, legislative matters, or referendums (also known as grass roots lobbying).

4. Communicating directly with certain executive branch officials to try to influence their official actions or positions.

Grass roots lobbying. A tax-exempt trade association, labor union, or similar organization is considered to be engaging in grass roots lobbying if it contacts prospective members or calls upon its own members to contact their employees and customers for the purpose of urging such persons to communicate with their elected state or Congressional representatives to support the promotion, defeat, or repeal of legislation that is of direct interest to the organization. Any dues or assessments directly related to such activities are not deductible by the taxpayer, since the individuals being contacted, who are not members of the organization, are a segment of the general public.

Of course both churches and labor unions find ways around these mechanisms. Churches rent out their facilities to third party entities which they don't officially support. Labor unions maybe just ignore it completely, since the regulation affects the contributor rather than the organization.

Just as a point on Fox. I've worked for, met and talked to Murdock and he really doesn't give two hoots about politics. He's in business to make money. If Fox is the way it is, it's because it's successful the way it is and makes money. If an overt liberal bias would have made more money, then Fox would be a "Liberal" network. Murdock is quite happy to own competing newspapers or networks and let them go for each others throats. Why should he care? He makes money no matter who wins. So don't blame Fox for it's demographic, blame the demographic for Fox.

Interesting post.

Also what Timo said: the French are famous for throwing wobblies.

"Throwing wobblies?" Is that a figurative term or some sort of nick-nack that's actually thrown at rallies or something? Just curious -- I love political terms.

I agree with much of your above post, I'm just saying that much of the motivation for much of the American people at the moment is a media narrative that doesn't match their ideology and compounded by a feeling of being ignored. I get that France has some pros to go with the cons, but it's presumptive to say that the American people don't know this and are really being fear-driven by Fox News et al, and it compounds the problem to say so because when you tell someone "your facts are wrong" they often hear it as "your ideology is wrong". And it's not just the right that behaves that way.

If you want to convince the American people to construct more (and more expensive) social welfare programs, first call them safety nets, and second only build them when the budget is balanced, the people are all employed, and there are plenty of presents under the CHRISTMAS tree. They'll happily go along for the ride.

Oh for sure. Churchill's a fascinating example of conflicting public opinions.

Um. I don't know. <scratches head>

Why don't we focus on US politics for this thread? Everyone seems to have an opinion about that, even if they are not in the US.

Via my small exposure to them via the media I can honesty say that I have not "warmed to them". Then again, maybe I was never supposed to, I cannot participate in American elections. However, the entire world is watching...

Well said and a good point.

I think that "racist" is a huge oversimplification, and I'm sure most tea partiers don't think of themselves as racist. And I think that calling them that doesn't help anything - since they don't consider themselves racist, being accused of racism just makes them think their opponents are foolish and/or trying to bully them into silence.

 

All that said, I don't think it's entirely wrong. It's an angry populist movement of "the real America" to "take our country back." I think it's more about culture and class and anger/fear of change than it is about race (or, you know, policy), and I think the mentality is flavored with and has a lot in common with racism.

I think that's probably pretty accurate. I also think this shows the danger of the historical liberal association between progressive causes and the elimination of racism and segregation.

It seems that most of the followers of the Tea party are Christian. (As stated by Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research)

 

I think this should be seen as worrying. Surely, most of our American posters here do not want the Christian far right having too much power in Washington?

By that measure we already have a right wing religious extremist sitting in the White House. Unless of course you believe the rumors about his secret Muslim status. ;-)

The movement states that Lincoln was an "American Hero" and stopped slavery. (This is all in the background of comparing themselves to Martin Luther King at the Lincoln mamorial!) This is true, however they fail to recognise that Lincoln imposed his will on the Southern states via force. The Tea Party wants to stop Washington interfering in their lives, so how can they idolise Lincoln? They should not like him, right?

The liberal-progressive movement believes that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was among the greatest American presidents because he constructed the social welfare system that not only saved the country from the Great Depression, but created the modern progressive movement. But he also developed the atomic bomb, the most antithetical symbol of the modern peace movement. They should not like him, right?

I am not in the US nor am I politically active, so the news and newspapers (who often have their own agenda) is indeed the main source of my information on this matter.

Right, so you're not in the US and have had zero exposure to the tea party movement in person, and yet you had no problem stating earlier: "From what I can gather the Tea Party is a homophobic, racist, Christian group who look back in history to an America that never was."

I'm not trying to give you a hard time here, I think this outcome is absolutely understandable. We like to think around here that we're smarter than the average bear, but clearly intelligence does not automatically produce immunity to the influence of bias.

BBC news reports.

 

Some of their members/supporters have said really stupid things. Also the more public members seem quite undesirable to me

 

 

• Christine O'Donnell, the witch that says I am not allowed a wan*k.
  
• Sarah Palin, she wants creationism taught in public schools.
  

 

I forget his name, but that newsreader who cries on TV has reportedly made $3 million out of the moment should also be cited. An alcoholic born again Christian who is now rich.

Let's take a look at how accurate that perception is. Turns out we have actual research on the subject, conducted by a graduate student at UCLA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/13/AR2010101303634.html?hpid=topnews

A new analysis of political signs displayed at a tea party rally in Washington last month reveals that the vast majority of activists expressed narrow concerns about the government's economic and spending policies and steered clear of the racially charged anti-Obama messages that have helped define some media coverage of such events.

There were uglier messages, too - including "Obama Bin Lyin' - Impeach Now" and "Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing its Idiot." But Ekins's analysis showed that only about a quarter of all signs reflected direct anger with Obama. Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship.

So basically you're supporting the concept of taking a small percentage of the total and then leveraging that to make a broad, sweeping generalization that does not appear to be accurate.

Kinda like SFN members regularly berate Fox News for doing to the left.

BBC news reports.

 

Some of their members/supporters have said really stupid things. Also the more public members seem quite undesirable to me

 

 

• Christine O'Donnell, the witch that says I am not allowed a wan*k.
  
• Sarah Palin, she wants creationism taught in public schools.
  

 

I forget his name, but that newsreader who cries on TV has reportedly made $3 million out of the moment should also be cited. An alcoholic born again Christian who is now rich.

Okay, so you're saying that your assessment is based on news accounts, not personal interactions.

I think this speaks directly to my point about SFN members happily supporting the exact same behavior that they accuse Fox News of perpetrating on the right.