patrick.net

I thought conservatives had always been "..totally fucked in the head about everything."

HEY YOU says

I thought conservatives had always been "..totally fucked in the head about everything."

Not at all. Pre Reagan conservatives were an entirely different animal than post Reagan conservatives. That immoral lying sack of shit gringrich ushered in the modern conservative era. Now he whines politics are too uncivil. What a douchebag.

Dems are not that much different. if you look at the major issues-NSA/Patriot act/free trade-the two are exactly the same. One can say that the dems under Obama are even more aggressive on these issues.
For men and upper income women, it is a wash. While obozo fights for birth control for all and equal pay by sex organ-instead of performance/market-the repubs are fighting stone age politics . Abortion and gays are their main battles-not outsized child support/alimony-the intrusion of gubmnt in every American family's lives etc..

One thing that worries me is Obozo's war on upper middle class folks and a tendency of the lefties to tar us folks with the 1%. Weather it is Obozocare or the failed plan to tax college 529s or his new scheme for inheritance taxes-his redistribution target has increased. Maybe his aim is to make the takers close to 50-60% and then he will be assured a vote for the dems in perpetuity -unless it all collapses and then cannibal anarchy will reign.

Repubs can take a tough stand and openly come out and say that ya know-not everybody needs a college education. if everybody wants to be a corporate drone-then who is going to be the plumber/toll booth collector/bus driver/police officer/clerk/garbage truck driver/farm worker/butcher etc etc. Maybe it is time to look at this concept that some jobs are "beneath" Americans and so can only be done by illegals. Also automatic citizenship was for the slaves and made sense-now people hop the border and have kids and they become citizens and get all the benefits-that is not what it was intended for.

If people are forced off welfare and feel the hunger in their belly and reduce from being 300+ couch potatoes to hungry folks-most of this countries problems will be solved. Free trade would be shut down and politicians will start negotiating terms that will benefit the solid majority and work on jobs. Now no one cares and the folks who make decent money are evil.

Bellingham Bill says

Conservatives are not going to apologize about being wrong about letting Nazi Germany have its way militarily in Europe in the 1930s, defending racial segregation in the 50s and 60s, getting 50,000+ Americans killed in Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, starting the 1980s DOD rebuilding that culminated in our Iraq and Afghanistan neocon misadventures

I didn't realize FDR, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were conservatives?

Bellingham Bill says

(especially combined with their 1990s deregulation and de-supervision of the financial sector) severely unbalanced our economy last decade,

I don't realize Bill Clinton and the neoliberals who brought us NAFTA and deregulation of the financial sector were conservatives? Also Hillary did vote for Iraq.

Conservatives have established a rather impressive public enlightenment messaging machine, starting in the 1970s with the Heritage Foundation, Cato, etc.

Which is what led us to embrace such terrible legislation as ppaca

Thanks, heritage foundation brain washed dems and your obamacare!

In both of these cases the Democrats went along with the conservative program. It was the right who wanted to defend "our" catholic regime in Saigon -- the one THEY had put there in the 1950s. Kennedy was cautious getting involved, and LBJ was forced to yield to the military's demands so that he didn't "lose" Indochina in the 1960s like Truman lost China twenty years earlier.

As for NAFTA and neoliberalism of the 1990s, that was of course the conservative program being signed off (or not opposed at least) by the Democratic policy bloc (just like the Democrats stood aside as all the housing bubble BS got going last decade)

Democrats are not of one mind, they stretch from quite far to the right to centrists like Pelosi and Obama.

Actual leftists in the public space are few and far between. But Clinton did get Robert Reich as Secretary of Labor, and he's a good guy AFAICT, so Clinton wasn't all bad.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/reich/congress/022295rr.htm

Please don't pretend Democrats and Republicans are the same. That's the Big Lie conservatives want people to believe.

errc says

Which is what led us to embrace such terrible legislation as ppaca

PPACA is not 'terrible'. It was the minimally acceptable idea from the right that the 2009-2010 Congress could get behind.

A true public option was a bridge too far, given how disruptive it would be to the insurance industry, the same interest group that easily swatted down HillaryCare in the 90s.

PPACA is made out to be a policy disaster, but I don't see it. The silver coverage tier is what everyone should be carrying anyway.

People need to start actually budgeting for their health care, so that we don't bid up housing costs (rents and mortgage payments) so much.

PPACA's mandate is a step in the right direction. No more free rides for people wanting to cheap-out on health coverage, blithely intending to just stick everyone else with their health care bills.

PPACA put teeth in the 1990s GOP proposal by funding the thing -- actually funding the premium subsidies was what terminated their plan in mid-90s.

sbh says

We definitely see the neoliberal willingness to crawl into bed with business in Clinton's NAFTA and Obama's ACA.

Don't forget the giant free trade deal Obama is negotiating in secret. I mean the dude is a constitutional scholar and he negotiates in secret-for six years almost now-the biggest free trade deal in the history of the USA. I mean that is just despicable.

I think they are all the same. Some conservative governors are now raising taxes too. It is like if you go to a pig sty-one pig might bite you, the other might kick you-but they are all just pigs.

lostand confused says

Don't forget the giant free trade deal Obama is negotiating in secret. I mean the dude is a constitutional scholar and he negotiates in secret-for six years almost now-the biggest free trade deal in the history of the USA. I mean that is just despicable.

And Congress is waiting with the pen.
They'll have a few hours to "read" the bill. Their donors will call and say "Don't read it, Sign it!"