tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post5195853687705519973..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Nationalism, the U.S. debt, and the "party of business"Noah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-36572898253538371292011-08-21T19:18:59.900-04:002011-08-21T19:18:59.900-04:00White Southern conservatives are racists who are w...White Southern conservatives are racists who are willing to destroy this country in order to get a black man out of the White House. They cannot be truly white if a black man is President. Better to bring the whole country down than to live with this insult. An analogy would be the city of Detroit from the late 40s through the early 1960s.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-10695993147733424122011-08-02T20:48:58.554-04:002011-08-02T20:48:58.554-04:00the republicans are the party of their donors (big...the republicans are the party of their donors (big business, not 'business'). the democrats are the party of their donors (unions). <br /><br />i hope that the american electorate realize this, but the evidence thus far is not promising.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-22217171378693567322011-07-31T18:28:10.199-04:002011-07-31T18:28:10.199-04:00They are the "party of business" because...They are the "party of business" because they are the ones that actively pursued deregulation, before the rise of the corporatist Democrats.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-31840226384325228422011-07-31T12:21:24.168-04:002011-07-31T12:21:24.168-04:00Another common denominator seems to be the literal...Another common denominator seems to be the literal belief in religious texts, e.g. the earth was created 6,000 years ago. In Texas, the same people still fight about teaching creationism in school. <br /><br />Antimodernism is not confined to evangelical Christians. The modern credit-driven capitalist economy is anathema to Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike who truly believe their various holy books are the revealed word of the one true God. And their resulting cultural isolation, if not outright poverty, merely reinforces their religious zeal. They *must* be right, because the world is against them!D M Smithhttp://thecagenovel.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-64255003295511826832011-07-31T02:49:57.755-04:002011-07-31T02:49:57.755-04:00I don't think that would work. It isn't w...I don't think that would work. It isn't what they want. They want a pound of flesh, they want to feel that the GOP has stood up to him, they want to see him wounded, they want to see him beaten. If he wants to get anything done with this crowd, he needs to make every compromise look like a loss for him, not a success. Giving them anything else is beside the point; a deal means he succeeded; they can only demand more in that situation. They don't want a deal; they want victory.Eric Lnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-26970652503987433752011-07-30T22:53:43.438-04:002011-07-30T22:53:43.438-04:00I wonder if Obama could get a good deal if he just...I wonder if Obama could get a good deal if he just promised not to seek a second term?Jolly Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631364433925344569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-65570336936667146402011-07-30T17:51:11.466-04:002011-07-30T17:51:11.466-04:00I grew up in a rural area outside the South (less ...I grew up in a rural area outside the South (less than 50 miles outside, but still) and judging by the way people went nuts about the Clintons, I don't think the issue is anything specifically to do with the South or with race. Honestly, the difference between then and now is that the GOP has gotten more responsive to their base.<br /><br />What I do know is this: They hate him. Hate him hate him. This has nothing to do with the deficit or the size of government or any ideological principle. What they want is to see the smirk wiped off his face as they give him the middle finger; they want to see Boehner give him a black eye, they want him to hate every minute of it. Boehner gets this. That's why he put in the title of his bill that it was about stopping Obama -- what happened to stopping the nation from defaulting? That's why he sells it based on how much Obama, Reid, and Pelosi hate it.<br /><br />Obama doesn't get this. He thinks he is negotiating with people who have strong principled positions about the way the country ought to be run. He's trying to find common ground, but to make the tea party happy the GOP needs to make sure it is not common ground, that Obama hates everything about it and has to do it anyway. And Obama has made their job very difficult by being so damn reasonable. <br /><br />If the president wanted to increase the space Republicans had to make a compromise in, he should have been much more hostile to everything even a little bit conservative; he could have laid out a very broad area that was absolutely unacceptable to him. Then Republicans and some blue dogs could have made a deal that clearly violated his terms, and he could have acted as embarrassed as possible to be signing it, and Republicans could have gotten the satisfaction they wanted out of the deal. <br /><br />But instead his reasonableness has forced them to take extreme measures.Eric Lnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-27094799042883174542011-07-30T13:19:50.301-04:002011-07-30T13:19:50.301-04:00Judging from comments of the Tea Party Republicans...Judging from comments of the Tea Party Republicans who aren't Southern, the Tea Party Republicans think that the U.S. economy and society is much like the economy and society of Kansas or Alabama. They don't understand that the U.S. has a huge, complex industrial economy whose prosperity is interdependent with the world economy. Unfortunately, a large portion of American voters and the media are just as uncomprehending.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-29590126194031056922011-07-30T10:36:53.655-04:002011-07-30T10:36:53.655-04:00Steve T- dont't forget putting their governmen...Steve T- dont't forget putting their government hands on their Medicare. That was a huge issue in the 2010 campaign, which Republicans very cynically exploited, just as they had during the Heath care debate, (notwithstanding given half a chance they would explode the program, as ably demonstrated in their unanimous Ryan budget vote, wherein, amongst other things, they made their views about the program known by exempting current retirees).<br /><br />It's a party that believes in autocracy by it's members, and scorched earth insurrection otherwise. In other words, a sham with a Southern, traitorous heart.Majorajamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12726411902275032723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-13889941064937676872011-07-30T09:24:21.754-04:002011-07-30T09:24:21.754-04:00I think there's a related phenomenon: governme...I think there's a related phenomenon: government and government spending are seen by modern Republicans as helping the 'other': 'real' Americans don't receive government aid (<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/11/a_nation_of_deluded_dependents.php" rel="nofollow">even though they do</a>). That is part ideology and part bigotry and separatism.Mike the Mad Biologisthttp://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-43258456088065392752011-07-30T08:46:36.279-04:002011-07-30T08:46:36.279-04:00Anonymous said at 2:07 p.m.
". . . but it'...<i><b>Anonymous</b> said at 2:07 p.m.</i><br /><i>". . . but it's not surprising we're having this battle when the 2010 elections were a referendum on government profligacy."</i><br /><br />Reading the polls, it actually looks like the far-far-Right Teaparty Republicans were swept into office on a wave of misinformation.<br /><br />Large numbers of voters were voting to repudiate the Democrats for "nationalizing" the health care system (they didn't), for increasing their taxes (they cut almost everyone's taxes), for "doubling" the national debt (not even close) and for nominating a president who was a terrorist-loving, secretly-Muslim, fascio-communist, illegal alien.<br /><br />What can be done when a significant portion of the electorate lives in an alternate-reality bubble?SteveTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-45104783013074529402011-07-30T03:10:17.424-04:002011-07-30T03:10:17.424-04:00A. Lincoln is usually considered to our greatest P...A. Lincoln is usually considered to our greatest President because he saved the Union.<br /><br />Is it possible that's wrong? What if we had let the South separate? Eventually, slavery would have ended through international pressure...just as in South Africa.<br /><br />The South would now probably be a less developed country on border. The North might have a social safety net on par with Europe.<br />It might be really cheap to vacation in Florida....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-78350358876645468032011-07-29T20:03:10.477-04:002011-07-29T20:03:10.477-04:00It's a valid line of thought, and being foreig...It's a valid line of thought, and being foreign I don't know enough to dispute the line of logic. I'm gonna suggest, however, that the causality might also be going the other way. The party's existing policy interests might dictate where it seeks it's votes.<br /><br />Whatever the GOP could be standing for (businesses, wealth, banks) that does not really benefit the majority of common people, the "cheapest" votes to get (in terms of real policy concessions) are the votes of people who are easily swayed by some random immigrant/gay/atheist/muslim crap and disregard actual policy that hurts them. <br /><br /><br />DMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-77709164203779706822011-07-29T17:36:10.473-04:002011-07-29T17:36:10.473-04:00Great post.Great post.Jolly Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631364433925344569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-60277783508152553912011-07-29T15:54:44.392-04:002011-07-29T15:54:44.392-04:00"This is the fact that the Republican Party i..."This is the fact that the Republican Party is willing to seriously entertain the option of a sovereign default."<br /><br />Obama threatened to veto the current (albeit struggling) Republican plan . They aren't the only ones willing to entertain that option.<br /><br />Statements like the above, exhibiting polarizing willful blindness, are really annoying.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-20580054309776899022011-07-29T14:07:09.489-04:002011-07-29T14:07:09.489-04:00The electoral vote count doesn't make much sen...The electoral vote count doesn't make much sense since it is a "winner-take-all" system. Looking at the <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/presidential-election-vote-summary.html" rel="nofollow">popular vote</a>, Republicans still garnered ~42% of the popular vote outside of the south. And that's just the presidency, to get a majority of house members voters outside the south must have sent Republicans to congress.<br /><br />Also recall that Democrats ramped up spending but then failed to increase the debt ceiling <i>on purpose</i>. <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/26/how-harry-reid-caused-the-debt-ceiling-debacle/" rel="nofollow">From Reuters</a>:<br /><br />“Let the Republicans have some buy-in on the debt. They’re going to have a majority in the House,” said Reid. “I don’t think it should be when we have a heavily Democratic Senate, heavily Democratic House and a Democratic president.”<br /><br />Defaulting is a terrible, terrible idea but it's not surprising we're having this battle when the 2010 elections were a referendum on government profligacy. Remember, none of the freshman house members voted on the spending increases! Tying it to the south and some sort of racial politics is a bit absurd.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-60222186523755769362011-07-29T11:35:51.106-04:002011-07-29T11:35:51.106-04:00I agree with you, Dr. Smith (trying to encourage y...I agree with you, Dr. Smith (trying to encourage you to finish your dissertation - from a Buckeye PhD to a Wolverine PhD candidate)...<br /><br />I'm a black man. I was laid off by a bigot, shortly after Obama was elected. A guy who read the Drudge Report every morning at his desk, first thing. Militantly proud Christian conservative. He seemed offended that I'm also a Christian, as if I didn't deserve to claim it for myself. I'm guessing you know what that means; I certainly do.<br /><br />What's been happening since 11/08 is what I've called "the Obama backlash," and I compare it to the aftermath of the period known as Reconstruction following the Civil War.<br /><br />I also recently commented that this fight is akin to the fight over slavery that became the Civil War. That fight prompted the formation of the Republican Party, and the election of its first President, who opposed slavery. It was the Confederates who fired the first shot - at Fort Sumter. And that fight was, from their perspective, not about morality but about economics.<br /><br />John Nichols observed in his recent book, "The S-Word," that the issue was originally economic: in the philosophical struggle between capital and labor, on the side of those who believed in the superiority of capital, was the position that capital can literally own its labor - that's slavery. Extreme to its opponents; business as usual, literally, to its advocates, and extreme only in the extent to which they would go to hold onto it.<br /><br />As you suggest without being more explicit, that kind of belief is again prominent, prompted by the election of a black president. History is in some respects repeating itself.<br /><br />Post-racial America? Not from where I sit. Quite the contrary.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-58096257881053254902011-07-29T06:14:26.880-04:002011-07-29T06:14:26.880-04:00How is the US South not a set of "poor countr...How is the US South not a set of "poor countries with sclerotic political systems"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com