For all the misinformation and assumptions tossed around, I think it's time we clarify one thing about the rich: they aren't a strong gop voting block. 40% of the 99% are conservatives, while 39% of the 1% are conservatives. the-politics-of-the-1-percent/
- Well Dugh! Go look at the politics the 1% fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Dupont Foundation, the Kennedy Foundation... Look at the Leftist Political Causes and Charities the truly wealthy Elite support, and you'll find a who is who list of core Democratic Party mouthpieces. -
Of the 40% that call themselves conservatives, far less than half are the right wing extremists the GOP now must count on for total loyalty. The Party's pandering to this paranoid and delusional segment of the population is driving conservative centrists away from the Republican Party. This is going to destroy the GOP, and for the good of the nation as a whole, that day cannot come too soon.
What do you think the left is if not extreme? Don't you guys want to make useless government bigger then the productive private sector?
Government is NOT useless. In a perfect world, filled with perfect people, socialism would be wonderful. But we are in the Real world with all too fallible people. Big Government fails, were modest government with lots of Capitalism succeeds because of very simple fact; Government is easily corrupted because it is not accountable to Share Holders, Employees, or Customers. Bad Corporations and Business fail allot faster than corrupt Government, and you've got many Businesses to pick from any given time, but you only get ONE Government at a time. So for Governments, there is no quick Competitive Elimination to keep them honest, effective and efficient. This Obama Experiment in American Socialism will fail. Hell, it has been failing from day one. -
Agreed. The part of government they have been growing though for the last 50 years is the useless part though.
I believe I read in the Federalist Papers somewhere, one of the founding fathers wrote "Once the General Public Realizes that they can vote themselves largess from the public till, this experiment will fail". Or something very close to that. The Experiment served the people of North America very well for far longer than most of the founding fathers expected it to last. We'll make our socialist mistakes, suffer for it, learn and rebuild. How does that Chinese Curse go? "May you live in interesting times..." -
Okay, but shall we trace this “largess” to the very beginning … to those who started it? First of all you have to be willing to know the fact that government spending increases land productivity and therefore the rent which landowners can collect. When government builds a new road, school, park, or other infrastructure, that activity makes nearby landowners richer. This relationship of government spending and increasing land values is indeed so strong that it has been proven that under ideal conditions, with all government spending being 100% efficient, that aggregate land values will increase by $1 or more for every $1 of government spending. In other words, landowners are pocketing all the value created by government spending. The founding fathers understood this relationship between government spending and land values. This is why the founders required (in the original constitution) that all federal revenue be collected from the states in accordance to the land values held in those states. From the original constitution: So what happened? Well the rich, greedy, privileged landowners didn't want to pay the taxes which would provide funding for government services, funding which would increase the productivity of their land holdings. These greedy landowners knew that if they could get the government to collect revenue in other ways, that they could get rich off the backs of those who would be forced to pay these other taxes. And so these rich, greedy landowners had the original constitution replaced with a corrupted constitution, one which would allow them to pocket the value created by government spending, but not have to pay for that spending through taxation. In other words, these landowners pushed for a new constitution which would allow them to use the government as a tool with which to force others to pay for infrastructure which would make their land more productive and valuable. With landowners clearly using government as a tool to redistribute wealth from producers to themselves, it wasn't long and other groups started demanding countervailing privileges. So what we have today is a government which, for all intents and purposes, exists solely to serve the special interests at the expense of the productive ... and it all started with landowners demanding that they get something for nothing, and using government as a tool to that end.
You should be scared of a 1 party system either way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even when I viciously disagree with my liberal countrymen I am still glad they exist, as without them, there would be no check to conservative power. You'd be foolish not to acknowledge the vice-versa scenario. Luckily, as power in either party starts to build, it usually leads to a shift in the political spectrum. This usually causes moderates to "flip" sides as they see the spectrum switch put them on the opposite side of the aisle. I think the Bush administration did this which effectively has given the Democrats the presidency for 8 years, but believe me after 4 more of Obama and ESPECIALLY if we get 4-8 yrs out of Hillary, I am positive you will see the opposite occur.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph Highly recommended "A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244." Lots of graphs. The product of bipartisan tax cuts since JFK. The article only goes back to the late seventies. Moi
The problem is the money that funds the political machines on both sides comes from the 1% . So they contribute to both sides so they always get what they want....simple really.
VOTE FOR CHANGE! That won't happen... Funded by X, Y and Z Corporations/Foundations. VOTE FOR CONSERVATIVE VALUES! That won't happen... Funded by A, B and C Corporations/Foundations.
I don't think that's what some on here wanted to here. You just let the cat out of the bag with that post. This is what intelligent people such as yourself had figured out a long time ago.
I don't care about the 1% .. the privileged landowners.. the 40% conservatives... the 99% this and that... I just want my money back...
The thing that's always gotten me is how liberals like to claim that the Republican party is the "party of the rich" and yet they can't seem to explain why the cost of living is so much higher in places like New York and California and Massachusetts than it is in places like Texas. And the wealth gap in places like Los Angeles is ridiculous. Everybody there is either a millionaire or dirt poor. Does L.A. even have a middle class? The GOP is largely blue collar. Independent blue collar workers who believe in self-sufficiency rather than unions. They are the people that build and maintain the world that the Democrats take for granted everyday.
You can't have it, and you will continue to be robbed. You are forced to pay for government TWICE so that landowners can pocket one of your payments in return for nothing. That is not going to change unless you wake up, smarten up, and start doing something about it.
Of course not. They are too few to even be on the radar screen as a voting block. It is not their voting that is the issue, but the political power their political donations give them. Duh. Looks like you didn't even read the article you linked to. Here: GET IT??
The problem is Republican policies that concentrate wealth in 1% of the population. How they vote doesn't matter. Liberal millionaires from the entertainment business make up part of the 1% And how in the heck can 1% be a significant voting bloc anyway? Do the math!!
