Republicans: Do nothing, tear everything down. Democrats: Do something, gov can be a force for good

CAVEAT: To all TLDRers, this message is probably too long for your attention span, I recommend you avoid this post.

Republicans: Do nothing, tear everything down, government is bad.

Democrats: Do something, build things, do things, government can and should be a force for good

That's the essential difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans view government as an evil force. Once in power, they try and tear everything down, except, of course, when it comes to guns and women's reproductive rights then 'government' is fine. This is why Steve Bannon once remarked that Republicans should 'deconstruct the administrative state'. This is why the Republican congress has achieved nothing since they have been in power. Hell, they can't even figure out who they want to lead them. It took them 15 votes to come up with Kevin McCarthy, who was so unwise he conceded to a rule that would allow any one to put forth a motion to remove the speaker, which means he can't effectively govern, because there is one truth in life, no matter what you do, you will always piss off someone, and you just gave that someone the power to remove you on a whim. With a rule like that, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, what could possibly go wrong turned about to be Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House who just rejected a Republican sponsored border bill that republicans in the Senate declared that it is the best border bill they could ever achieve on a bipartisan basis.

Thing is, if you were to establish a fire department to fight fires, you wouldn't hire an arsonist to be it's director, right? If you started a business, you wouldn't hire a communist to run it, right? You'd hire someone that believes in your business, in your product, not someone who hates private enterprise that they would take away control of your business, your vision, yuor idea for a product to sell to society and replace it with total employee control, which would result in chaos. Repubs seem to get everything wrong, like 'Democrats are communists', which is a lie, given that I'm a democrat and have run small businesses most of my life and would never allow my businesses to be run by employees. I know that, if I did that, it would result in chaos. Someone has to be the boss. I disagree totally with my 'democrat socialist' brethren. Dems aren't a monolithic group. This isn't to say some dem socialist cooperatives aren't a bad thing (like the Kibbutz), but it has limited application.

Similarly, if you are going to vote for leaders in government, you would elect people who believe that government can be a force for good, can do good things for people. That is to say, if you were wise.

The stupid idea that Republicans have is that government is bad, (it can be, and has been, but that doesn't mean it has to be bad and cannot be good) and the only good thing is private enterprise. this is the idea behind 'trickle down economics', the belief that if you take care of the rich, they will take care of the rest of us. That is the dumbest idea to ever have come down the pike. It is the very reason Reagan said,:

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help"​

That makes a nice sound bite, and it has fooled almost half of the population for a long time and has resulted in an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor. This is the essence of an economic philosophy called 'neoliberalism', the idea that unfettered private enterprise is the panacea for all of our economic problems. This isn't to say that the opposite is true, either. This is a fundamental error, and some dems make, that the pendulum has to be swung all the way to the right, OR left. The place where the equilibrium between the two forces rest are at the center. This is a logical fallacy(that all gov is bad) because it simply isn't true. The truth is, both (pub/private) can be good, or bad, depending on who is running the show. Fire is neutral. You can do good things with it, or you can do evil things with it. The same is true with private or public enterprise. Both can be a force for good and you want someone in charge of each sector who believes that. But, Republicans think only private enterprise is good and all public enterprise is bad. This is a half truth. And a half truth is no truth. I explored this subject in much greater detail in a post I did a few years back, I invite everyone to read it.

"Politics of the Center".
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/politics-of-the-center-what-is-it.585857/

There's another stupid soundbite floating around in conservative circles, the one offered by Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, a favorite of Ronald Reagan, who said,

"The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples money".

That's actually a falsehood. The principle of corporatism is the use of OPM, it's call 'stocks'. And no one loves other people's money more than their current leader, Donald Trump, who is constantly grifting his followers to donate to his PACS, which, in turn, have been paying for his legal bills, to the tune of some $50 million per year. For sovereign nations like America, who control and create their own coinage, money supply, it is definitely a falsehood. America simply cannot run out of money, that is a huge lie. Now, there is a flaw in socialism, just as there is a flaw in neoliberalism. (Read the above link). Repubs love these soundbites which sound good but aren't actually true.

Now then, the purpose of this post is to illuminate this idea, that government, when the people who are in charge believe it can be a force for good, is a good thing, and it was very well expressed by YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, who has achieved a small amount of fame of late, having over a million subscribers, and who has started to make TV appearances, the most recent of which was on Stephanie Rule's show on MSNBC. Here is a transcript from a recent video of her show, and Cohen does a marvelous job of explaining my point:

Stephanie Rule: These are tangible things, right? Junk fees, lower prescription drug prices, with the exception of the companies that put these fees upon us. It's not political; everybody likes this. Why isn't it sinking in, or is it, and it's not enough to move the needle?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think part of the reason it's not sinking in is because there is a coordinated campaign to distract us from watching all this. I mean, you've been speaking about the fact that the Republicans in the house are so focused on this, what we now know is a Russian disinformation campaign, to prove some non-existent fraud between Joe and Hunter Biden.

I mean, that is to distract the American people from the fact that what Biden is accomplishing in office is delivering tangible wins. I mean, legislatively, we have the PAC Act, CHIPs Act, the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure package, the gun safety law, the Inflation Reduction Act, canceling almost $150 billion for 3.9 million borrowers, and adding 14.5 million jobs. I mean, these are wins on top of wins. So the Republicans are desperate to make sure that we can't see this stuff again. They will stop at nothing to distract us because the reality is that Biden and the Democrats have been able to do what Republicans will never be able to do: govern.

Think about the whole list of accomplishments that I just wheeled off. Democrats were able to do that in 2 years. What have Republicans done with their time in office? Well, they took a ton of time to elect a speaker, then they fired that speaker, then they took a ton more time to elect another speaker, all the while passing the least amount of bills of any Congress in modern US History. These people are not there to govern; they are there to entrench dysfunction. They want to show you that government can't work so that they can then turn around and say, "See, we told you that government can't work." The only solution here is to elect small government Republicans like us so that we can get rid of it altogether.

Of course, what they don't tell you is that the only reason it doesn't work is because they are intentionally sabotaging it. Because when you've got folks in office who do believe in the fundamental mission of government, then it works. Well, again, [referring to Biden's accomplishments] almost 15 million jobs added, 24 straight months of sub-4% unemployment, inflation is down, wages are up, consumer sentiment is surging. This isn't an accident; this is what happens when competent people are put in charge. You wouldn't hire an arsonist as a park ranger; why would you hire one to control the US government?

Taken from @3:11 into the video:

 

But, everything the Democrats want to do causes more problems than it fixes. The defund agenda is proof of that.

 

Yeah, right:

 

So, do you disagree with the title of the thread?

Remember the famous Reagan quote:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

That, in essence is the attitude of the GOP towards government.

 

It will get very interesting once we get down to Trump and Biden facing off against each other. Those who are watching with open minds will see the contrast clearly.

 

The government, as it currently exists, was never the intent of the Founding Fathers. Were we meant to have 137 different alphabet agencies controlling every apect of our daily lives? No. The smaller the government, the better.

 

Yeah, right...

With Oregon facing rampant public drug use, lawmakers backpedal on pioneering decriminalization law

https://apnews.com/article/oregon-drug-decriminalization-law-3f851183d45e9c29609360b09e996d04

Yet another example of Democrats setting the dumpster fire, themselves.

 

Patricio is a very good barometer of the truth.... it's the opposite of whatever he says

 

No, that's a steaming pile of government-worshipping BS that was refuted in the other thread where you were spewing that same government-worshipping BS.

HERE is the essential difference between today's Republicans and Democrats:

 

Didn’t the founding fathers say the constitution needed to be completely rewritten every few years to keep it a modern document?

 

So one worships an imaginary sky friend that has been twisted by scholars and kings to push their own agenda while the other side worships an entity that actually exists and if used properly can promote democracy, healthcare and bettering society?

Fascinating

I bet you thought you did something

 

The problem with generalities and this post is that not all republicans are the same and not all democrats are the same.

I much prefer how it was under Trump than under Biden. Better economy, less crime, better national security and better border enforcement.

 

One worships their God and the other worships their God, i.e., Government/the State, and the latter is equally if not more fond of using its God to impose its own will on others. From the very get-go their "progressive" ideological ancestors used their God as an excuse to throw Vendéan peasants into bread ovens during the first genocide of the Modern Era. The lucky ones got guillotined and loaded onto barges and dumped in the Loire River, all in the name of the "General Will", "Reason" and the "Principle of Humanity", of course...

In ya go!

 

That's just wrong The framers allowed for amendments to the constitution because they knew the nation would grow, things would change, and there would be a need to change the constitution in order to adjust it to the needs of modernity. They knew the needs of the nation would grow more nuanced, more complex.

In that spirit, agencies, such as the many that exist, perform a vital function. Now, I'm not saying all of them are necessary but a number of them are. There is no way in hell the founders could predict the future, nor is there any logic to the notion that we must keep everything just as it was when the constitution was created, that logic is pure insanity. Hell, the framers owned slaves, so, according to you logic, if we followed it through to it's absurd conclusion, we should return to slavery.

So give up this 'we gotta do everything as the framers intended' bullshit. Let's keep the good and discard what is no longer true. We need an EPA, we need a department of Education, we need a CIA, and FBI, etc. Now, there are 17 intel agencies, perhaps that could be consolidated -- no doubt there is considerable redundancy there, but there are a number of agencies that are needed.

 

Given the Founders contempt for taxation, tell me, what, exactly makes 80,000 I.R.S agents (some of which who are armed) necessary?

 

Slavery still exists to this day, just in a different form. Try not paying your taxes, specifically property taxes on land that YOU own, and see what happens. I'm pretty sure the Founders didn't intend that to be the case.

 

My argument was left v right, your argument appears to be alter of religion versus the alter of the state.

They are similar dichotomies, but I addressed your point but in terms of right v left, in which ether extreme can be used for good or bad, just as flame can be used for good or bad. Similarly, in the history of man, we have the Spanish inquisition, and in the history of governments, we have the evil regimes of Pol Pot, etc. Religion needn't be bad, nor does a government, each are, in their inert state, neutral. it's what the operators of each, what's in their hearts and minds, that determines the outcome of good v bad.

 

When the foundational texts of your religion state that non-believers are to be killed or converted, it is far from neutral..

 

I'm sorry, clearly, you do not know what you are talking about.

The government at the time of the founders had taxation, it just wasn't in the form of an income tax. They had tariffs, fees for this or that, stamp act, sugar act, etc. and they did have property taxes back then, in several varieties.

Not paying your taxes is the same thing as stealing from society, it would be like counterfeiting money. .

You benefit from what taxes are spent on, directly or indirectly, in that government organizes and funds part of society that we all share and operate in, and if you do not pay your share, at least an amount you can afford, you will be punished as a robber or a thief is punished.

So, in essence, you are saying that a thief is a slave because he is not allowed to be thief.

You seem to think that any limit on freedom equals slavery, and that's specious reasoning. No society can operate in anarchy, and if rules do not have teeth, you have anarchy, but that does not equal 'slavery'. Slavery means "zero freedom'. And not paying a tax does not equal zero freedom. all you have to do is pay your tax. If you don't, you will be put in jail, but being a criminal is not being a slave. A slave does not deserve to lose his freedom, a criminal does. Learn the difference.

That's not slavery, that is criminal, and i assure you, that was not framer intent.

 

Ancient texts say a lot of things were were age appropriate and might be criminal today, such as stoning prostitutes. The question is, how are they practiced in modernity? That is all that counts. The vast majority of Muslims, at least the ones I've known, do not interpret the Koran to 'smite infidels' as it were.

but, some do, and some Christians are anti-gay, so some folks interpret their ancient texts to violate the law.

You can't blame the texts of antiquity, you must blame the followers.

 

You are correct. My taxes go towards services that I use. They should not, however, go towards giving other countries untold trillions of dollars over which we have absolutely no say whatsoever.

 

Well, I'm pretty sure that Muslims are still cutting off people's heads and killing their daughters in "honor killings" based on their religious beliefs. It is now 2024 and that is still happening every single day.

 

I see no evidence for that claim. In fact, the opposite is true. The constitution grants the government the right to tax.

Your questions presumes a false premise.

Research your question, then come back to me when you understand the nature and context of your question.

 

I could care less how big Tommy or George wanted the government to be, its 2024 and the world is far more complex than they ever imagined.

 

Please reread my comment, which addresses your point.