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Liberal/Conservative Divide Only Grows Uglier
It would be easy for me to dismiss Obama supporters as mentally defective but for one inconvenient fact: my mother, sharp as a tack at 92, is voting for him. And so is my sister, a San Francisco attorney who is no slouch in the brains department. I’m not sure where my brother, a municipal employee, stands, but neither am I eager to find out. There is no bridging the political gap between us, and so we simply avoid discussing politics. The same goes for old friends, although newer ones are another matter. One of them walked out on our dinner together in a huff when an innocuous remark I’d made about Abe Lincoln evidently bruised his self-righteously liberal, morally perfect heart . Good riddance. It is far better friends than he that I am worried about. Will they draw the line when I let slip my support for the right to bear arms, even concealed? A few of my wife’s closest friends are unmitigated liberals, and it’s unclear how much longer we’ll be able to tiptoe around the political rough edges when we get together socially.
The truce with my siblings and mother has held, but not without strain. When the latter referred to the eminently decent Mitt Romney as “a jerk,” I returned fire with an over-the-top fusillade of anti-Obama invective. That was a month ago, and we haven’t talked about the election since. Nor do I plan to rub it in after Romney wins on Tuesday — an outcome I believe is inevitable because the nation has been wallowing for nearly five years in an officially undeclared, if not to say brazenly-lied-about, state of recession. Romney voters will have to stifle the hubris, though, since there is no way he will be able to reverse the country’s inexorable slide into economic darkness. To be fair, I should state that Obama is no more culpable for the abysmal state of the economy than Bill Clinton was praiseworthy for its resurgence during his presidency. He got lucky, is all, while Obama inherited a disaster two generations in the making. Economic cycles are far bigger than the presidency, and this one is going to take its ruinous course no matter who is in the White House.
Dating Game’s Top ‘No-No’
In the meantime, the political gap between liberals and conservatives can only continue to widen. And to grow uglier. This unfortunate trend was underscored by a recent Wall Street Journal story that focused on dating services. It seems the matchmaking business has declined in recent years because clients seeking mates are increasingly putting political compatibility at the top of their lists. “In this neck-and-neck, ideologically fraught election season, politically active singles won’t cross party lines,” the Journal noted. “The result is a dating desert populated by reds and blues who refuse to make purple.” So much for romance these days. Time was when smoking, drinking, religion, education level and physical attractiveness were the main concerns of men and women looking for love; now, apparently, a date-seeker’s political views trumps them all.
Until a crisis equal to the Great Depression arrives, liberals and conservatives are unlikely to bury the hatchet. For voters on either side of the divide, the stakes in this election will not seem to have been exaggerated; for they involve nothing less than a fight for the nation’s economic well-being – nay, for its very soul. Over the next four years, and probably long thereafter, moral and financial jeopardy will confront each of us in ways that seem likely to widen political divisions. Putting aside the wild card of Iran, one of the most difficult issues we face will entail putting public employees’ pension and health care benefits on a sound financial basis. The unions will claim, correctly, that there is no legal precedent for denying workers benefits that were promised them when they were hired. Their employers will claim, also correctly, that the money simply isn’t there. But anyone who thinks the Federal Government will be able to “solve” this problem simply by printing money is in for a rude awakening.
The financial liability is in fact so large that attempting to monetize it would be tantamount to hyperinflating. If, say, the Government were to offer lump-sum settlements averaging $150,000, the money could conceivably be worthless on delivery, since the actual disbursement of digital cash would be taken as a sign by the rest of us that Uncle Sam was on the hook for everyone’s financial needs. If the Government were instead to assume responsibility for years of scheduled payments in “real” dollars, taxpayers would eventually riot in the streets. No matter how you work the numbers, there is no easy way out, at least not using monetary shenanigans. The very clear implication is that the “solution” will come in the form of a dramatically lowered standard of living for most Americans.
Pensions Too Big to Bail Out
What is the dollar amount of the unfunded liability? Many hundreds of trillions of dollars, according to some published estimates. Consider that a bankrupt Flint, Michigan, under the direction of a conservator, has cut its budget to the bone to effect annual savings of around $10 million. But the long-term structural shortfall imposed by Flint’s retirement promises is on the order of $600 million dollars over the next 25 years. Of course, Detroit’s long-term problems are orders of magnitude larger, and New York City’s vastly larger still — too big, in the aggregate, for even the U.S. Government to fix. Or rather, pretend to fix, since that’s all that the would-be fixers have been doing all along. Yes, the bailout has been a fraud – a con-game made easier by the fact that most of the bailout “money” has gone to sustain the illusion that the assets of our biggest banks net out to a positive number. But there can be no such shell game when it comes time to send out pension and healthcare checks after the coffers of states and cities have gone empty. Paying for the lives of retired workers will require coughing up real dollars each and every month, not virtual ones such as are posted as “reserves” by the banks. And that’s why it will be impossible for the Federal Government to pretend, as it has with the banks, that the bailout is other than a charade.
Under the circumstances, hostility can only grow between liberals and conservatives, haves and have-nots, public and private workers, taxpayers and recipients. We wish Mr. Romney luck, but he’ll have his hands full merely trying to keep blood from running in the streets, never mind returning America to prosperity.
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Dr. Acula said:
I'm not Barack Obama or Willard Romney, and I approve this message.
Well, you have one of those paradigmatic, physcopathic, schitzophrenic fantasies going on there, in the womb, so to speak.
The reason some people don't like Obama is due to a genetic anamoly. On chromosome 3 is a gene which enables group-think mind control. It's very useful for living in harmony under a harsh tribal leader. Some of us have defective alleles so we aren't able to delude ourselves that the Kenyan Messiah has arrived. I'm joking about the gene but not about the mind control. Evidence is provided by Chris Matthews's leg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no9fpKVXxCc
LOL, Mathews is such a tool...
America is divided into those who can read the Constitution(and respect it) and perform basic math calculations, on the one hand, and Obama voters and liberals on the other hand. Sharp as a tack, the latter aint.
America is divided into those who can read the Constitution(and respect it) and perform basic math calculations, on the one hand, and Obama voters and liberals on the other hand. Sharp as a tack, the latter aint.
Here I fixed that for you:
America is divided into those who can read the Constitution(and respect it) and perform basic math calculations, on the one hand, and Obama/Romney voters who cheer for "their side" of the liberal/conservative mock dichotomy on the other hand. Sharp as a tack, the latter aint.
.
...and Romney voters, on the third hand, who think that 1+1+1=2 and that the labels "liberal" and "conservative" are anything more than meaningless concepts used to divide Americans into opposing groups in order to keep them arguing with each other while the politicians of America's one-party system steal their wallets while sodomizing them.
Sharp as a bowling ball, all but the first of the three groups are.
With all due politeness and civility: You sir are a clueless moron if you think either one of those clowns is good for the country.
With all due politeness and civility: You sir are a clueless moron if you think either one of those clowns is good for the Planet. Fixed it for ya Billy.
The planet will be just fine, it's the people that are fucked.
Carlin's fleas, we are.
"Carlin's fleas, we are."
With the worst examples typically running for public office.
maybe the planet wanted plastic, didn't know how to make it..
Fuck politness and civility you, you, picture maker. Get a job.
It's not either one,
It's one is verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry bad for this country.
Course, you being an artiste and all will be employed in one or another Ministry's of Propoganda.
Tortuga, talking in his sleep, said:
Yes, that's it, Tortuga, stay asleep.
One nice thing about working thirty plus years of my life on 24/7 call for whining but PAYING clients, I get to sit here now with my feet over my head and fart in the general direction of mindless fucktards such as yourself.
Sorry I meant, mindless peckerheaded fucktards...
Go and get a dictionary and learn how to spell propaganda, Mr Completely.
If I doesn't know how to spell it, why would I use a dicktionary?
Now I see your posting style. You are a double extender.
Carry on....
Psssttt...... you are showing your ass, fool.
HOW is the jersey and new york area doing after the disaster depending on government to fix it. How do all the liberals like not being able to own a gun to protect themselves
Im convinced the only way to end liberalism is for an economic crash and people turn to the government for help and receive nothing
A good example is the 4 dead in bengazi as a result of dependence on the goverment to protect them. Sorry but your protection does not fit into our political narrative.
Bloomberg is concerned about gun control as a nationwide issue. He wants the whole country to be as (legal) gun-free as the 5 boros. And he is far from alone.
"Im convinced the only way to end liberalism is for an economic crash and people turn to the government for help and receive nothing" sorry but history indicates the odds are staggering that this would lead to blatant socialism if not outright communism. World Wars I and II and their aftermath are good modern examples.
before i trash your comment, im giving you the benefit of the doubt...........i assume by liberalism, you mean both dems and repubs?.................
Liberalism equals totalitarianism
I agree with you in that I am for freedom
I hate both chicken shit parties
Well Rick, maybe you should look in the mirror. If smart people are voting for the Obama, there's a reason. Perhaps one like "Romney alone is only slightly worse. Romney/Ryan is a concept that's actually scary."
A benevolant incompetent or a malevolent competent. I guess I'm voting for Obama. I may hate him, but I hate him less.
In all seriousness why is Ryan malevolent?
typical liberal, only your emotions matter
How about having the brains and the balls to admit it doesn't fucking matter and the only difference it makes, if your vote counted at all, which it doesn't, is what hand will be fucking and sodomizing you and your family for the next 4 years, the left or the right.
Either way your ass will still be sore.
I'll go along with the bit about the 2nd Amendment and concealed carry.
AARP anyone?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/09/22/the-aarps-2-8-billion-reasons-for-supporting-obamacares-cuts-to-medicare/
Funny, I had a different reaction--I was repulsed by his cowardice of hiding his conviction of supporting the right to bear arms from his "friends" -- though he has a very strange definition of "friends" in my view.
"It is far better friends than he that I am worried about. Will they draw the line when I let slip my support for the right to bear arms, even concealed?"
Pathetic.
To associate this with the candidate who was quite proud of passing the ban on skeery looking guns in Massachusetts seems to smack of hypocritical bullshit. Thanks for fostering that very divide you speak of, Rick.
When one opens one's mouth, all doubt is removed. The word "twit" seems appropriate. Wear it little Ricky.
Silentium est aureum.
"The very clear implication is that the “solution” will come in the form of a dramatically lowered standard of living for most Americans."
He was incorrect on a lot of shit in that post, but this quote was accurate. 105% debt to gdp ratio = pain, period, end of story.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
does your sharp as a tack Nan realise Bumma has not delivered peace but yet more deranged warmongering? That he has not delivered "change" or any other coinage but a huge bill to repay? That his ever more tyranical State powers stop people opening bank accounts abroad, has added 30,000 tax thieves to steal even more (that'll help recovery) and that the US Govt is on track to own 50% of all land?
'Public' Land you can't step on, camp on and wilderness you're not allowed to see let alone enjoy
and Bumma is bankrollled in his election campaign in the main by Wall Street banks... has she seen the havoc and fraud they're wreaked in US property not to mention banking itself
really people are so head in the clouds with liberal jingosim they can't see the wood for the rotten to the core trees
PS. Bumma to Win ...yes i know, a tragedy i agree.. he's cooked the books (statistics) well enough to fake a half-decent economy (another lie)
He delivered plenty of change, it just wasn't as advertised.
We were supposed to get Luke Skywalker and instead got Anakin. Help us Kevin Harvy, you're our only hope!
promised Luke Skywalker and got Jabba the Hut you mean
Govt is one bloated MF'er, and Barney Frank its poster child
Nor do I plan to rub it in after Romney wins on Tuesday........
ARE YOU KIDDING ME RICK???? wow, rick ackerman the perfect partisan parrot..........rick, wake up, there is little to NO difference between either candidate......both are big government, both have every intention to continue with the same broken system...
obama signed NDAA, romney openly supported it, and romneys sidekick ryan voted for it....and speaking of paul ryan, the guy voted for every big government bill since bush jr------medicare expansion, patriot act, both wars, tarp.....bailout of gm....etc.....paul ryan wants to balance the budget in 27 years!!! paul ryans votes on spending amounted to just under 7 TRILLION DOLLARS added to the national debt...............
and these are the words of romneys main economic advisor, glenn hubbard in 2004:
"Third, in the United States, the capital markets have helped make the housing market less volatile. With the development of a secondary mortgage market and the elimination of interest rate ceilings on bank deposits, “credit crunches” of the sort that periodically shut off the supply of funds to home buyers, and crushed the homebuilding industry between 1966 and 1982, are a thing of the past." ....................and romney wants to tap hubbard for fed chariman or treas sec!!!!! too funny!!!................. and rick, here is ron paul in 2002, two years before romneys genius said housing busts are history: "Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges of Fannie, Freddie, and HLBB have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans." .................rick ackerman, please wake up.....you only have a week to do it.............."wake up, there is little to NO difference between either candidate"
Exactly! And here's much of their game (public employee unions need to be added, but I'm not an artist):
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r100/EGoldstein1984/what-corporate-am...
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME RICK???? wow, rick ackerman the perfect partisan parrot..........rick, wake up, there is little to NO difference between either candidate"
Easily falsifiable statement.
What an Obama - free of reelection pressures and tempted to go "native" in a second term - might do is a complete unknown. However his basic world view and anti-white biases are well known.
The real Romney is also and unknown, since he has been saying whatever he needs to say to get elected, liberal in Mass. "conservative" in the red states he must win. The key unknown is whether Romney knows that he must administer some very harsh economic medicine in the first year of his new adminstration, or he will never win a second term.
Like most voters, Ackerman is merely sizing up the probable impulses and biases of the two candidates, understanding full well the constraints imposed upon them by those who provide campaign cash.
actually, "like most voters" Ackerman appears to be choosing a side to defend, something to puff the chest out and argue over, not do any critical thinking about the process/game, just decide he's right, then FIGHT about everyone else being wrong.
voters are tedious drones. and while I'm here, go read kito's post above. . . a few times if you need to. . .
so your point is that my statement is falsifiable because what obama might do is an unknown and romney is an unknown.....thats BRILLIANT!!!!
mehhhhhhhhh....keep grazin mr. palladium..............romney isnt administering any harsh medicine.....romneys main economic guru was in line with the delusion of greenspan and bernanke.......romneys biggest donors are 12345 all tbtf..............
you should study some history...........presidents spend money, congress spends money....that will not change.....the great small government conservative hero ronald reagan TRIPLED THE NATIONAL DEBT......and you think romney is going to administer harsh medicine???? .......romney wants to push the pentagon budget HIGHER!!!!......every president needs an excuse to spend money to boost the economy........dems throw it at social programs, repbubs throw it at military spending.....nothing changes............
I was going to comment but your comment summed it all up. There is no difference between liberals and conservatives as Ackerman mentions. It never gets better. Republicans and Democrats play for the same team as does Fox News and MSNBS. A vote for Rombama or Obamney is truly a wasted vote.
Economic cycles are far bigger than the presidency, and this one is going to take its ruinous course no matter who is in the White House.
And this is why Obama should win... so his stupid supporters figure that out or at least realize that his economic policies/economists he has supported (Krugman, Bernanke, Keynesianism) are total BS.
And all points toward an Obama victory... unless democrats stay home by the millions.
"And this is why Obama should win... so his stupid supporters figure that out . . ."
What makes you think that Obama's supporters will figure anything out? Obama's whole program is to increase the welfare burden while shifting the costs onto the backs of the productive. Why should the recipients feel any pain or figure anything out as long as those productively employed in the private sector meekly continue submitting to the ever increasing burdens and the ever decreasing living standards. From the perspective of Obama's supporters division of the electorate makes sense as long as the productive middle class remains submissive and quiescent.
Why, that sounds as though you have read the Cloward-Piven strategy from the mid-'60s.
N'est ce pas?
- Ned
Soon, all arguments will stop. There will be so many dependent on the nanny state there will be only one party.
Think of the $$$ saved on lobbying.
Is there such a thing as a "White Swan" event???
That's what I want!
I marked this down to poor -- but it's really sub-poor.
First, obviously many of us with functioning brains don't accept such nonsense that Obama is a "liberal" (Prof. Dyson's idiocy notwithstanding). Larry Summers, Diana Farrell, Larry Fuhrman, Gary Gensler, Marc Grossman, Victoria Nuland, et al., ad infinitum, "liberal"??????
Are you completely nuts? Or just completely ignorant?
Next, your statement below (one doesn't have time to deconstruct all of them...)
"Economic cycles are far bigger than the presidency, "
Economic cycles???? Completely ignorant ye must be --- this is an ultra-leveraged bank run, almost exactly modeled on the 1920s leveraged bank run, leading up to their Great Crash --- how can you be sooo positively devoid of any knowledge whatsoever???
Have a nice day.....
Got that one right on the first shot. Head-shot.
Greenie.
- Ned
"...Will they draw the line when I let slip my support for the right to bear arms, even concealed?"
Libtards don't get it. When I tell everyone more available guns and ammo make everyone safer I get strange looks. When I start lecturing them on my belief that everyone should have their own suitcase nuke in order to maximize liberty they walk out of the room.
I'd say good riddance if they hadn't stuck me with the resaurant bill. Libtard freeloader.
D00d, the suitcase nuke routine is a bit over the top...