[Editor’s note: according to the latest tabulations, Romney/Ryan actually got 47,000 more votes than McCain/Palin: 59,995,405 to 59,948,323. Thus my assertion that the GOP got “1.8 million fewer votes” than McCain/Palin is incorrect.]
Last week, I wrote an essay called “Have We Reached the Tipping Point?” It was an immediate post-mortem on the recent election. Little has changed in my mind from its preliminary conclusions. Having more time think about it however, what follows is my best guess as to why Romney was defeated and where we go — if anywhwere — from here.
I was going to entitle this post “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” However, there is so little good to report, a whole lot of bad and a plethora of ugly. Here they are in no particular order.
First of all, incumbent presidents always have the inside track. Especially if they don’t have to win bruising renomination campaigns. Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush fought back vigorous challenges from within their parties and they went on to lose the general election. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush did not. Now we can add Barack H Obama to that list. A dark note however: all presidents who win reelection expand their base by increasing their vote share. Obama lost 7 million voters; whereas he won in 2008 with 53% of the vote this year he barely won 51%. Not a good sign. G. W. Bush did better than that and he had a miserable second term. Chalk this up as Good (at least for the Conservative movement).
Romney therefore was always at a disadvantage. However his stellar performance in the first debate was a literal game-changer. Overnight he became the frontrunner. The millions of dollars that the Democrat Party sunk into his demonization over the summer appeared to have been wasted. Within a month, Romney not only led in the polls but in the popular culture. He and Paul Ryan were filling stadiums in Colorado, Ohio, and Wisconsin. People were actually turned away from Romney events, which were packed to overflowing. Major newspapers who had not endorsed a Republican for decades found themselves endorsing Romney. The moral case for four more years simply wasn’t there. Certainly the economic case wasn’t there. Any other president with these kinds of numbers would have been lucky to carry the Hamptons.
Essentially, those who supported Obama were reduced to arguing “well, we’d be racists if we didn’t reelect the first black man as president.” Serious men like Michael Barone and George Will thought that Romney was going to win. A previously infallible econometric model put out by two professors at the University of Colorado showed Romney winning 325 electoral votes. The look of dread on the faces of the anchors at MSNBC was worth the price of cable television. Hell, even Lindsey Lohan came out in favor of Romney; overnight, he had acquired “The Mittmentum.”
So what changed? What sucked the air out of Mitt’s momentum?
One thing that changed was demographics. No longer is the United States a predominately middle class, white-majority, broadly Christian country with an agreed-upon moral consensus. Nor are we people who are optimistic about the future. More and more people — whites as well as blacks and other minorities — are dependent upon the government for their income; we’re older and thus less confident. It was the height of folly for the GOP to think that people in the bottom 50% cared about tax rates. This is because they don’t pay income tax. In California, the people voted overwhelmingly to continue raising taxes “on the rich” in order to continue funding the Welfare State. The fact is that California is becoming a Third World nation means little to those who can’t make it on their own. Glimmers of hope? Not really. Sure, Wisconsin fought back the statists earlier this year and dealt the public employees union a much-needed black eye but in the end it didn’t matter as that state went for Obama. Conclusion? California is the new governing model. That’s some of the Bad.
So how did we get to California? To believing that economic policies don’t matter. We’re America after all and we always bounce back, don’t we? How did we go from self-reliance to Cultural Marxism? How did the Obamaphone Lady replace Lady Liberty?
Various factors have driven the degeneration of our nation, a lot of it can be chalked up to “diversity” but that’s a catch-all. Here they are in no particular order: untrammeled illegal immigration, legal Third World immigration, feminization, the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, public education, acculturated immorality, vote fraud, a corrupt media, and neoconservatism. There’s a lot of overlap here. Each of these maladies were pioneered by the Democrat Party and each of them were foolishly taken up by the GOP. Only neoconservatism will likely be jettisoned soon. The rest are here to stay. And that’s a whole lotta Ugly.
The New Normal
This is the New Normal. Let us take them serially.
Illegal immigration. The degenerative effects of illegal immigration are obvious to anybody who has been in to border states. Public schools, emergency rooms, and basic services have reached the breaking point. Crime is far worse among this new underclass than than the “family values” people will let on. Hispanics are undergoing the same pathology that has destroyed the black underclass since we started the “War on Poverty.” The lunacy that Latinos are “natural conservatives” is just that –lunacy. Establishment, Chamber of Commerce-type Republicans may say the opposite but they’re wrong. What they want is cheap labor. Any type of “outreach” would include opening the borders even more, thereby further adding yet more to the Welfare rolls. Sorry, I love Mexican food, am fascinated by Iberian culture, and have Hispanic nephews and nieces but their mother’s family has been in America for at least six generations. She’s as American as Apple Pie. No dependency anywhere in sight. (And she’s quite lovely too.)
Legal Third World immigration. The importation of non-Christian populations from the Third World has led to increasing crime (think honor killings among Muslims) and a further devaluation of America’s Christian culture. The ACLU champions loudspeakers which broadcast the Muslim Call to Prayer in states like Ohio but works overtime to relabel Christmas vacation as “Winterval” or “Winter Break.” Remember when you were young and the city center had a Nativity Scene? Not anymore. If Proms interfere with Passover then some school districts change the date. This is a rather more insidious decline than an economic one (South Asians for example are pretty well-off financially and don’t collect Welfare) but it inexorably leads to the increased Balkanization of a once-united country. Our elites could not change the voting habits of the European majority so they chose to elect a new people. Thank you Ted Kennedy. I hope you didn’t forget to say hello to Mary Jo on your way past the Toll Houses.
Feminization. Single white females are now in the same slough of despond that black women have found themselves in for half a century. They know that there are no eligible men and so they’ve opted out of marriage choosing promiscuity instead. Illegitimacy is the wave of the future. Government is now their sugar daddy. Sandra Fluke, a thirty-something terminal student who wants the government to pay for her screwing around is the poster girl.
Call this the Slut Vote. Men are part of the problem too. With no-fault divorce and no inherent strong parental rights why should a twenty-something young man with little prospects yoke himself to a woman who’s going to have a claim on his meager paycheck for the next twenty years? Will he have the right to consortium? No, so why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Let Uncle Sugar raise the little bastards.
The loser in all of this? Besides civilizaton, the Catholic Church took it on the chin. The Church foolishly made a mistake when it went with Obamacare (based on a questionable social justice ethic); they thought that the government would respect their theology if they supported Obamacare. They were wrong. Obama had to make a choice: support Sluts or the Catholic Church. In the end, it was no contest. The Catholic Church got bitch-slapped and bad. Conclusion? The girly-men who make up the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops have no stomach for this; let’s not forget that they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Obamacare/HHS mandate imbroglio in the first place. So they’ll go back to doing what they do best which is licking Caesar’s boots.
Look no more for the OCA bishops to engage the culture either. The illegal ouster of Metropolitan Jonah sends a clear message: don’t engage, you do, and you’re out. With a non-entity who has to have his meals vetted by the Synod, this won’t be a worry. (Prediction: look for only the most perfunctory participation by the OCA in the Washington March-for-Life, if that. Also, the OCA will remain in the NCC, all protests to the contrary. Well played, Lefty.)
Outsourcing manufacturing jobs. Pretty much a no-brainer. NAFTA, GATT, WTO, are all good ideas in general, after all, who is against free trade? Unfortunately one can’t trade freely with Third World countries that employ slave labor. We can thank public education and feminism as well which have worked overtime to debase and devalorize traditional masculine jobs. And of course Hollywood and TV has done its best to portray married fathers as genial oafs.
Public education. Whenever I see the word “public” I put it in front of another noun to see if it’s a good thing. You try it: “public” and “bathrooms.” Need I say more?
Acculturated immorality. Those of us who believe in traditional marriage took it on the chin. The gay brownshirts were in it for the long haul. Whereas in the past gay marriage went down to defeat 100% of the time (32 states out of 32 voted against it), it made significant inroads this time around. Even Dick Cheney, who was formerly Dark Lord of Haliburton, became Beatific Bearer of Light this time around. It’s called the cost of doing business if you’re on the Right. This couldn’t have happened had the Christian denominations not ceded their moral authority but the Protestants gave up preaching right and wrong sometime in the mid-60s. (Again, we can thank the NCC for this.)
Since then, Berrigan brother wannabe priests, Lesbo nuns and the Novus Ordo Mass have worked the same magic on the Roman Catholics. That’s one reason why the Catholic bishops lost in the Obamacare debate. The bishops were right but the people in the pews couldn’t care less. Thanks to Cafeteria Catholicism the Roman Church is all chiefs, no Indians. Again, we Orthodox are marginal to the discussion but with “bishops” like Lazar Puhalo who believe that the Church should stay out of this debate (because you know, we’re not perfect), then we might as well just fold up our tent and “go peaceable into that dark night.”
Vote fraud. Sorry, but it’s impossible to believe that in 59 precincts in Philadelphia alone Romney got a total of zero votes. Can’t happen, not in this space-and-time continuum. Stories abound about anomalies in Ohio, Colorado, and elsewhere. According to the latest vote count, Romney-Ryan got 1.8 million fewer votes than McCain-Palin. Sure, about 1.1 million of them were in New York and California so it wouldn’t have really mattered as a Republican vote in these two Welfare States is wasted. That does mean on the other hand that had the GOP turned out 700,000 more votes in Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Florida, Romney would have won. Admittedly, this is the equivalent of drawing an inside straight –it can happen but you really shouldn’t bet on it. Yeah, there was vote fraud but in the end, but in the Freeloading Coalition was gonna carry the day.
A corrupt media. I’m sorry, but in this case the tired refrain of the conservatives/GOP is spot on. The Mainstream Media is beyond corrupt, it’s slavish and toadying. Stalin and Mao couldn’t have had a more obsequious press. Rush Limbaugh called them “Obama’s stenographers,” or “the butt-boy media.” Both are correct. Look at Hurricane Sandy. This was a humanitarian disaster that rivaled Katrina. Obama shows up in his bomber jacket for 2 hours then jets off to Las Vegas with Eva Longoria to raise money. George W Bush is still living down (what exactly I don’t know) his activities during Katrina.
The Benghazi coverup another case in point. This fiasco is a million times worse than Watergate but until some bimbos started erupting, you couldn’t get The New York Times to look into it. And yeah, I’m gonna say it: the White House knew about Petraeus’ affair almost a year ago. Just like that poor Egyptian sap whom they arrested for making that stupid video, they didn’t do anything until after the election. Isn’t that interesting? How convenient. Everybody got all hot and bothered though about the Pussy Rioters though. Somewhere Vladimir Putin must be laughing.
Neoconservatism. The irrational idea that all nations are the same and that they all want to be led by “little-d” democrats is absurd. The Arab nations in particular are tribal. The family, clan, and tribe (in that order) are what matters, not the lines on a map or the latest, annotated edition of The Federalist Papers. And that’s true for most of the rest of the world. George Washington, James Monroe, and the America Firsters were right: God bless you people, we wish you well, you look quaint in your funny hats and costumes, but here’s a deal: we’ll leave you alone, you leave us the alone. Capiche?
This vision first took over the Democrat Party under Woodrow Wilson and was called Neoliberalism. It later made inroads into the GOP and morphed into Neoconservatism. It was pioneered by disciples of Leon Trotsky back in the 20s and it remains committed to his ideals to this day. Regardless, as all things Trotskyite, it is an abomination. We should have taken those people out in way back in the 20s and given Joe McCarthy a pass in the 50s. Silver lining? Basically, the American people have no more stomach for foreign adventures. Both Romney and Obama pretty much jettisoned military adventurism. That’s a minor net plus.
OK, so where are we? Not in a very good place. An economy that sucks is now “the new normal.” That’s because the Freeloading Coalition knows that without government, they can’t make it on their own. Sure they’ve suffered –horribly–under Obama. But they really have no other choice. Like single females who know that they will never have a stable marriage, the majority who are on Welfare cannot envision any other life for themselves. Under these conditions, a true conservative, classically liberal message articulated in an optimistic manner by a even the most charismatic Republican won’t stand a chance. It’s going to be tribalism and racial spoils-system from here on in.
Recriminations
First of all, we can stop blaming the Evangelicals and committed Catholics for supposedly being queasy about Mormonism. Mark Tooley crunched the numbers and found that committed Evangelicals and Catholics came out en masse for Romney/Ryan. The more traditional the denomination, the more Republican they voted. Romney got over 80 percent of the votes of those who attend church more than six times a month. Ditto the Tea Party. It’s just that for every middle-class, normal American who works hard and plays by the rules, there were at least six moochers who beat them to the polls, or voting machines that “didn’t work,” or Black Panthers that glared at little old white ladies who showed up to vote. In the fight between Baracka Clause and Thomas Jefferson, Baracka Clause is gonna win every time. Reagan couldn’t have beat this people.
Caveat, Ron Paul should have been part of this coalition or at least given a chance to speak at the GOP convention but our Neocon overlords would have none of it. That did depress votes at the margins, probably in states like Virginia and Florida, the latter two which have heavy concentrations of military voters. It might not have mattered because even if Romney had take Florida and Virginia, he still wouldn’t have carried the Electoral College. Bottom line: no prospects and a Welfare check still trump patriotism and self-reliance. It’s basically over.
Two men stand out as particularly Ugly in this whole sordid affair. They are Gov Chris Christie of New Jersey and Chief Justice John Roberts. Perhaps single-handedly more than anybody else they greased the skids for Obama’s reelection. To Chris Christie all I can say is “I get that you’re a governor and that we only have one president at a time, but did you have to go out of your way to kiss Obama’s ass?” Look for him to become 2013’s version of Jumping Jim Jeffords and bolt to the Democrats. Good riddance Lard-Ass. (The buffet line starts to the left.)
Personally, I think we in the GOP have bent over backwards for too long accommodating Yankee Republicans who continually push us to the left and who wind up losing anyway in the end. (The only exception to this is Rudy Guiliani. I’d vote for him. He’s got major cojones.) The other Judas is Roberts.
Here’s an idea: instead of being too cute by half with your vote, why not just vote on its constitutionality up or down? Obama never said that Obamacare was a tax, he never sold it to Congress or the people as such, so why did you say it was? I pray that you especially are shunned in polite company from now until the day you die. If you are ever seen in public it would be condign punishment for your fellows to treat you like the moral leper that you are.
Also-rans: Sen John McCain. Look, I know you took a bullet for a lot of guys back in ‘Nam and spent five hellacious years in the Hanoi Hilton. That would have broken a lesser man. But you should have listened to your running-mate and torn the hide off of Obama’s ass back in 2008. Stop being a Guilty White Man who’s scared of being called a racist. Had you played it right it’d have been you in the White House these last four years. Think of it: no auto-bailout, no Stimulus I, II, or III, no Obamacare. That alone adds up to about $3 trillion. The deficit would have been half the size of what it is now. Now that Obama’s won re-election there’s no way we’re going to claw our way out of this. Impossible.
Predictions
1. Hurricane Sandy will probably bring our GDP down to 0.5% and the debasement of our currency via serial Quantitative Easing has erased our margin for error. We will be able to kick the can down the road a few more years but normal recoveries (e.g. 7% growth) are not going to be part of the picture. We’d be lucky to get 2 percent growth overall. Each recession therefore will be much deeper and depress the resulting growth period. In the 80s and 90s, Liberals criticized “hamburger-flipping jobs.” Now you’ll be lucky if you even have one.
2. Obamacare stays. Rationing and tax hikes are part of the mix. Healthcare will suffer but that’s OK, because that’s part of the New Normal. “Death Panels” anyone? It’s just accepted. Don’t believe me? Go to any other country where they have socialized medicine. The people know its crap. The rich have a choice, everybody else just grins and bears it. Ironically, the quantity of physicians will remain stable and thus alleviate most of Obamacare’s excesses for the short term. This is due to immigration from Third World countries; rural America is still a better place to practice medicine than Bangalore, India. I give it another five years before the entire system collapses. It’s ironic but the increase in waiting times will depress costs in that people will die quicker. Look for redefinitions of morbidity/mortality. Example: in America, a live birth is counted from the day the baby leaves his mother’s womb. In Japan, babies are not considered “live” until they’ve survived one day outside their mother’s womb. Hence the real reason Japan has a “lower” infant mortality rate. It’s a definitional trick. Malpractice will clog the court system even more but that will result in less cases making it to the docket. Voila! Malpractice reform!
3. More spending. Like a heroin addict who needs more and more drug in order to stave off delerium tremens, the United States cannot and will not make the necessary cuts to stave off financial collapse. It would result in widespread rioting. Some of this rioting will be delicious to watch in that the rioters will turn on the Democrats and Obama but the mainstream media will do what they can to paper over the damage as best they can. Oh, a deal will be struck in which “spending cuts” will take place –in 2020–but the bond markets won’t be fooled. Look for Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) to start looking at gold as the reserve currency sometime in 2014. (By the way, that’s ultimately what did Khaddafi in, he was going to start taking gold instead of dollars for his oil.)
4. Imperialism. No, I’m not talking about making Estonia the 51st state. I’m talking about the hoopla that the Obamas surround themselves in. You know how much the British pay to maintain the Royal Family? Not even $60 million a year. You know how much we pay so that Michelle can jet off to Costa del Sol for 2 weeks? 1.5 billion (that’s with a “b”) dollars. When Reagan and the Bushes were in the White House, they purposely spent Christmas in Washington rather than at their beloved ranches. You wanna know why? Because they didn’t want to take Secret Servicemen away from their families on that day. The Obama entourage makes the court at Versailles look like a Trappist monastery in comparison. I don’t hear Michael Moore complaining about “the One Percent,” do you?
Conclusion
The day before the election I went on The Drudge Report. I saw a photo of President Obama and saw tears streaming down his face. I thought to myself that he saw the internals and knew he was going to lose. I was wrong, he was crying because he knew he was going to win. And there is no reservoir of goodwill from which he can draw from. Indeed, the well itself has been poisoned by him and his allies.
Do the Dems have any tricks up their sleeves? Not really, if things get really bad for the President, look for them to remove Biden. The poor guy can’t help himself. One more gaffe at a funeral (“Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”) and his doctor will inform the President that his aneurysm is back. Obama will “regretfully” have to accept his resignation “for the good of the country.” Madame Clinton will step into his job. For some insane reason the press corps believes that she’s done a standout job at State. I guess you can say that in comparison to Biden’s multiple gaffes, she looks good. Anyway, the positive press coverage will buy some time but it’s a temporary game-changer, first female Vice President and all.
As for the GOP, they’re already starting to cave on illegal immigration. I expect Boehner to get weak in the knees and capitulate to whatever Obama wants. The President has already proven that he doesn’t need Congress to govern what with Executive Orders and a whirlwind of regulations. The Senate hasn’t voted on a budget in three years. Who needs them? If the Republicans ever do win again it will be by default. That’s basically how Obama won this time.
This is the New Normal. Am I despondent? Not really. All things being equal, the United States is still a better market for foreign capital. I read the other day where Miami is now called The Russian Riveria, the place where mega-wealthy oligarchs are dropping tens of millions of dollars for 30,000 sq ft mansions. Depressed land prices are sucking foreign capital from China as well. That could stabilize the deflation in the housing market but that’s not going to help some poor American schlub who can’t afford to get as mortgage. I’m older now and so is the nation. Like a lot of older people, I accept a lot of the aches and pains that come with age. Things I wouldn’t have put up with in my twenties and thirties are part of everyday life for me now. You learn to settle. I’m sure that’s true for most of us. Regardless, it’s gonna be a bad four years. If we’re lucky, we won’t end up in Thunderdome.
“Vote fraud. Sorry, but it’s impossible to believe that in 59 precincts in Philadelphia alone Romney got a total of zero votes. Can’t happen, not in this space-and-time continuum.”
Sure looks to me like what should have been a landslide Republican victory was electronically flipped into a win for Obama. Such obvious fraud not even being contested by the Republicans means they are nothing but a controlled fake opposition. I’ve felt for some years now that this is no longer a free country governed by the Constitution and the rule of law and this most recent election was just more confirmation of that.
Oh well, America will die, as do all nations and sometimes even local (national) Orthodox churches, but Orthodoxy will remain until the Second Coming, and my soul is eternal, so just means that all that all my time, effort, and money will be invested with that in mind.
I know you’re upset about the results of the election but this diatribe is really unnecessary. Some of your points, such as: Legal 3rd World Immigration, Outsourcing of Manufacturing Jobs, and Neoconcervatism were part and parcel of President Bush II and his ilk. To try to pin them solely on the Democratic party is revisionist history.
Your complaint about Illegal Immigration is unfounded. Every ethnic group that has been the focus of ongoing immigration to this country has been demonized, held up as a corrupting influence, and a source of crime. The truth is that most of these people are hard working, just like my family was when they immigrated from Europe 100yrs ago. Forget about the rule of law nonsense, if my relatives had been able to hop a fence they would have been here, law be damned. To say that there Latinos are not inherently a conservative society shows that you don’t know them. The problem is that when you demonize them and discriminate against them they are not going to run to your cause. Your best bet is to advocate for citizenship, decry Right Wing thinly veiled racist propaganda, and try to help them.
Public Education, you are entitled to your opinion.
Acculturated immorality, yes I agree that’s a problem but the NCC is not the cause (certainly it’s a symptom). The cause is Western Apostasy running it’s course. The Protestants have capitulated because they capitulated 1200 years ago when they allowed Charlemagne’s Frankish clergy to carry out reforms in the West that lead to the corruption of the Patriarchate of Rome. That cuts both ways, Left and Right.
The bottom line is that we live in an Apostate society. Hitching your wagon to a moralistic pagan (Mormonism is pagan BTW) and clinging to Right Wing propaganda blinds you to that fact. Mitt Romney is not an Orthodox Christian, heck he isn’t even a Christian. George Bush II, who is regarded as a Christian, did more to destroy the lives of Christians in the Middle East than any other western ruler or figurehead before him. The Muslim Reign of Terror (so called Arab Spring) did not magically occur because Obama was elected. Stop whining, bitching, and moaning about how dependent our society is and get a life.
You will notice that I said that each and every one of these defects that brought us to The Tipping Point were actively championed first by the Democrats and then by the Republicans. Therefore these is no essential quarrell between us.
George,
Vote fraud is the most surprising factor you cite, to this non-American anyway.
I believe Romney was the best candidate the Republicans could field and would have made a good President if he had not initiated any more unnecessary wars while in office, but surely one must also factor into the equation of why he lost his own greatest failure: his failure to connect with “ordinary people” and aggresively prosecute a case (or “tell a story” in post-modern speak) for an alternative worldview to that which Obama and small l liberals stand for.
Actually, Ron Paul was the best candidate the Republicans could have fielded. Romney offered uncommitted voters no real reason to vote for him, since he was simply another Obama with an R after his name – pro-war, pro-big government, pro-big business, pro-high taxes, etc. etc. etc. He couldn’t prosecute a case for an alternative world view because he didn’t have one, especially since he was bought and paid for by the same oligarchs that have bought and paid for Obama. The oligarchs didn’t care who won, because they owned both candidates before the first vote was cast.
Ron Paul, on the other hand, has a true alternate world view – faithfulness to the Constitution, pro-sound money, pro-small government, anti-foreign adventures and phoney wars, pro-personal freedom and self-reliance; historic American values, unlike the oligarchic statist socialism that elitist shills like Obama and Romney push. When the Republicans worked to destroy Ron Paul’s campaign, they lost any chance for getting the votes of Ron Paul’s supporters for a Republican candidate (not that any of us could have voted in good conscience for Romney under any circumstances). Until Republicans return to the principles of America’s Founding Fathers (if you wonder what they are, check Ron Paul’s campaign platform), Republicans will continue to experience election results like we saw in November 2012.
Libertrad,
I agree that Ron Paul has better policies for America, but he is unelectable for various reasons.
In that sense Romney was a better candidate politically.
Of course! Romney showed us how ‘electable” he was.
Listen – I buy the demographic excuse to a point but if we play this tune too long and loud it makes one seem a bit too sure in himself and I’m sorry to say, arrogant. I have a bit more faith in the spirit of people with regards to them being able to tell the difference between right and wrong. There is always hope and we as Orthodox do not believe in total depravity.
Two things: 1.) Did we miss the GOP convention? A core group of voters were completely isolated from the GOP ticket as well as solidifying their vote. Whether or not they would have thrown Romney over the top is beyond my scope of knowledge. But if we’re going to be accountable (like we claim we are compared to the rest) we talk about this FIRST then we blame others via demographics. Blaming this completely on demographics is not only irresponsible, but it’s like Romney blaming his loss on “Obama’s gifts.” If anything this is characteristic of men not being able to man up and look ourselves in the mirror. We got our ass handed to us because of us, not because of someone else.
Americans believe in the Constitution. Our soldiers swear to uphold the Constitution. Our politicians have forsaken the Constitution. Start with the basics then talk to me about stats and demographics. People who focus their arguments solely on stats are attempting to spin something.
2.) Voter fraud? You mean Republicans, and more recently Democrats, haven’t been buying votes via tax loopholes for corporations for years? They haven’t been creating this corporate climate, which promotes illegal immigration for years upon years? If we’re going to be responsible and be honest, we’ll admit it. If not we’ll continue to blame the demographics.
The only thing that Obama did was utilize the same tactic for the lower tier welfare. This is his “revenge” campaign. I don’t find this moral by any means, but if the hats are off in politics like Karl Rove declared with his own actions in the previous campaigns, I don’t really blame Obama’s people quite honestly. And, this would be the only reason why I don’t buy the “Obama is a socialist” bit. I’m sorry but a socialist doesn’t get millions upon millions from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. This is something more evil than socialism or even Islam.
The GOP either goes back to her Classical Liberal roots, i.e. Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, or we’ll spend the next decade nominated shallow candidates who have the rhetoric down, give us snappy one liners to make us giggle, but then vote to, as George says, ” put more people in the wagon than there is to pull” so we can continue to talk about how we’re losing because of demographics. Our choice.
I take issue with your assertion that “most Americans believe in the Constitution.” That is decidedly not the case. Almost nothing since the New Deal has been done with the approval of the Constitution, which is a document that severely limited a limited number of ennumerated Federal powers.
The issue may be that most or a lot may not be able to recite the Constitution, but I am of firm conviction Americans are smart enough to understand what is in there hearts. The Constitution may not be a “christian document” per sea but it does result from the tenants of ‘higher law’ that God inscribed in our hearts.
Now there has been a lot of manipulation of this on both ends …
Well, MacedonianR, it was a close election. How much better do you think R Paul would have done?
Speaking for myself, not much better. In fact, worse. That was the point of my essay: we have reached the tipping point. Freedom in all its manifestations no longer sells. I fervently believe that Reagan could not have won this (or any future) election.
How is it possible to have done worse? He would have gotten the entire of Romney’s vote, plus those independents that left the GOP camp and were brought on by the so-called Ron Paul Revolution when Romney ham fisted the Paul camp in Tampa? Remember Boehner’s face when he overran the Yea’s and the Ney’s?
Whether we like them or not and I don’t always like them, Ron Paul gather a vote that would have voted Democrat four years ago and pulled them into the GOP.
This part of your analysis George has not rational argument.
I’m very sympathetic to Ron Paul. My assertion is based on my hunch that Paul’s crystal clear libertarianism is ananthema to those whose only recourse in life is to the suck at the federal teats. The thesis of The Tipping POint is that we are at that point in time where enough people have abandandoned liberty in favor of being coddled by the government. In other word’s candidacy would have really revved up the freeloading vote. Mind you, I could be wrong but when you consider the fact that blacks and Hispanics have fared worse under Obama but still came out to vote for him, that left me with only one conclusion: “we need the safety net, even if it is fraying.”
And the GOP statists too
Basil, if you’re not familiar with American politics, ‘voter fraud’ is Republican code for voter suppression. I suppose there are actual instances of voter fraud; just as with anything criminal, crime always exist. However, even when dealing with violent crime, most Americans are unwilling to part with their constitutional freedoms and guarantees.
Logan, were the Black Panthers who stood outside of the voting precincts in Philly Republican?
Logan, you asked me in another thread for “names, numbers” as far as “who is in the wagon”. OK, let’s start here: since Obama took office the number of people on food stamps has increased to 47,000,000 people. Let’s see, 47,000,000 divided by 300,000,000 = 15% of the population. How’s that for starters?
When “Willard” talked about the 47% he said it five months ago, not after the election. Still, he was right. I may have been wrong however, I think we reached the tipping point in 2008.
George, about people on food stamps, how many of those 47M are the “working poor?” (The average monthly food stamp benefit in 2011 was $133.45.) How many of these pay taxes of some sort–income, property, sales, gas, utilities, etc.,? Is it valid to make character determinations on the single basis of that person receiving food stamps, and therefore is nothing more than a “taker?”
Yet, Willard and you blame the outcome of the election because the “Food Stamp President” bought their votes with “gifts.” It’s also interesting that the highest participation rates in the food stamp program are the southern Republican red states. How many whites on food stamps in southern states voted for Obama? And how many southern states did Obama carry?
And why, pray tell is the highest participation in food stamps in the Red States? Can you answer that question? Dare you?
Because the Southern Red States rank in the bottom of just about every measure that shows economic well being, education, health, etc. Why is it in these states where Republicans are in charge, the wagon is filled to the brim and spilling over?
Those are assertions, not explanations. You still haven’t answer the question, have you Logan?
Ok, George, since you’re dying to, and I dare not, why don’t you tell everyone? 🙂
Beware of statistical fallacies, Logan. You assert the red states are at the bottom in virutally every economic measure. First,, I’m not sure htat your assertion is true. There are a lot of “red states” in any given year. There were a huge number in the Reagan elections and even with Bush was opposed by Kerry.
I suspect you have in mind the red states of the deep south, no–where the recovery from the War Between the States is still not complete and where there are other factors such as a larger rural poplulaton and newly arriving Latinos working up from the lower economic rungs and, yes, African American ones who for various reasons had been inhibited from complete participation on an equal basis until recent years.
Also, in many of these states our incomes are lower; but so is our cost of living. It’s important not to look at any statistics in isolation.
lxc
Lex, the deep south (red) states are in the bottom quartile on just about any metric measuring health of the population, education, and economic well-being. George says Republicans lost the election because we have more people in the welfare wagon than people pulling it. To back his claim up, he cites 47 million Americans receiving food stamps. I wondered if there was any correlation to the fact that the highest participation rate in the food stamp program was from the the deep south red states. These states have Republican legislatures and Republican governors–you would think they should be successful models of Repulican economic views and the advantage of laissez faire government. That’s all.
You offer some explanations in that the deep south still hasn’t recovered from the War of the Rebellion, larger rural population, and past roadblocks for minority integration. Maybe so, but again you would think that decades of Republican ascendancy at the state and local level would hint at perhaps their views need revamping, or at least tweaking.
The fact that the majority of people in America are dependent upon the Fed gov’t for a percentage of their income is an established fact. The fact that you don’t want to acknowledge it and live in sugar-candy land in which everything is hunky-dory and our country is getting ready to fall off a fiscal cliff is of no concern to me. Two options await whether you like them or not: fascist totalitarianism or criminal anarchy. See you on the flip side.
The fact is George, that the majority of American people have paid into SS, Medicare & Medicaid all their lives. Now, because the Repubs started two wars they couldn’t fund and ran up a huge national debt, they give this as a reason to get rid of SS, Medicare & Medicaid. Since FDR the Rpubs have been trying to do this and now they will try again. It’s all malarkey. Tax the rich and make them pay out of the nose for all the profits they reaped on behalf of all Americans. The Sacandinavians have it right; taxes are close to 50% for everyone, but everyone is covered from birth to death for healthcare and retirement.
“They paid into SS” is true but only so far as it goes. It was always a seperate fund but in reality it devolved into just another transfer payment to a demographic group (in this case old people). When Reagan and Tip O’Neal realized this they used the “trust fund” to bring down the deficit.
As for the two wars that Bush started (with overwhelming Congressional/Dem support) we can argue the merits. Unfortunately, they added precious little to Bush’s deficits. A year ago, I published a chart which showed the Bush-era deficits. At no time did they exceed $400 billion, only in his last year when he foolishly agreed to TARP which (brought the deficit to $800 billion). Regardless, that’s still less than the $1 Trillion deficits that are cooked into each and every one of Obama’s eight years.
Having said that, the deficits actually declined during the periods 2005-2007 which was the time of the most intense fighting in Iraq. Just sayin’.
An established fact? Really? Please do establish it. Because without data and citations I’m throwing a penalty flag.
First off, I’m assuming you are not including Social Security and Medicare benefits in those numbers, for obvious reasons. If you are, then I’m throwing another penalty flag for being deliberately disingenuous to pad your numbers to try and stretch a rant about a nation of moochers. For shame. Because if that’s the case, everybody with a 401(k) is mooching off the stock market.
When you include federal *and* state government and include things like Social Security and Medicare, you do *almost* get to a majority of Americans receiving some form of governmental benefits, see: http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/nation-of-dependents-analysis.pdf But that is a very different fact from the assertion you were making.
But remember, the magic number for majority of the people in America (from current census bureau estimations): 157,429,401. Considering the overlap in means-tested programs, you have a rather big hill to climb. Unless when you use the word “fact” you don’t mean actual facts. In which case, knock yourself out.
I will gladly do so. Kindly give me several days (if not weeks) to gather the facts. In the meantime, this is what we have to contend with:
1. 47 million people on food stamps (which is massive increase since the time of Bush 43)
2. Senior citizens becoming the largest demographic cohort presently all of them getting SS
3. At least 11 million illegal aliens receiving government handouts in the form of public education, AFDC, Medicaid, emergency room medical care, etc.
4. A serious spike in unemployment due to small business laying off just enough workers to fly under the Obamacare radar
5. A real unemployment level of 17% with the majority of these people receiving unemployment compensation
6. A black unemployment rate of 25%
7. A hispanic unemployment rate of 23%
I realize that there is some overlap in these groupings. (A legal hispanic who got laid off, a senior who is on both Medicaid and Medicare, etc.) but the cursory picture which I just painted is not a pretty one.
> George Michalopulos said
George,
I may not be able to stop you from tilting at large anti-immigrant windmills, but perhaps I can at least clarify some things for you, at least on a Federal level.
1. *Legal* immigrants are ineligible for food stamps and disability. Furthermore , legal immigrants have a long ineligibility window for other programs such as TANF, Medicaid or SCHIP. All of this was severely curtailed back in the mid-90s during the welfare reform days. That you apparently do not understand the restrictions on legal immigrants receiving government aid tends to suggest to me that you grossly overestimate the ability of illegal immigrants to obtain “government handouts”.
2. AFDC? AFDC as a Federal program went away during those same welfare reforms under Clinton in the mid-90s. If I didn’t know better, I would swear you were basing your arguments on things you vaguely recall from having heard on Rush Limbaugh in say, *1995*.
3. Public education? Really? I must have missed the secret to how illegal immigrants can live in housing that isn’t subject to property taxes, or buy goods not subject to sales taxes. That is to say, they are “paying into” the system they put their children into. Usually when I consider people complaining about their taxes going to subsidize the education of other people’s children, I think of the materialistic DINK yuppie couple, or perhaps, for this audience here, a stereotypical homosexual couple who dote on their small dog. You don’t have a Pekingese, do you George?
Some opinions and views, even when backed by accurate factual analysis remain xenophobic or outright racist. The appropriateness of such harsh labels increases on a power curve the more said opinions and views are rooted in outright baloney. If essays like this are “The New Normal”, I don’t think I’ll be shorting shares in Oscar Mayer any time soon.
I said “illegal aliens.” Yes, you’re right, “legal” immigrants are ineligible. And guess what? they have to play by the rules and fly right or they get deported. Ain’t it a shame. If they were smart they’d book passage to Vera Cruz and just waltz across the southern border and get freebies. I guess you don’t get the irony of it all. (Nor where the money comes from to subsidize the New Servitude.)
The lack of ability to reply to deeply threaded posts directly is most annoying, I could have avoided an apparently double-post had I known. Ah well.
> George Michalopulos said:
You are utterly discounting the collapse in governmental revenues caused by the Great Recession.
From the OMB Historical Tables:
FY2008, On-Budget Revenue: 1,865,945
FY2009, On-Budget Revenue: 1,450,980
When the budget forecasts expected greater revenues in FY2009, and instead you get over $400 billion less than what you got in FY2008, guess what happens to your budget deficit? Answer: Whoops, we were off by around $600 billion.
And, of course, after that the US not only increased federal government spending in response, but further reduced revenue by lowering taxes. Lest we not forget, a substantial chunk of the much decried stimulus bill wasn’t technically spending, but revenue reduction.
I tend to find a depressing correlation between people who think that the arrival of $1T deficits are entirely due to and the result of Obama, and people who don’t actually have any understanding of government revenues, government expenditures, or the basic shape of the federal budget, much less how authorization and appropriation works.
Nate, did you not read my essay from earlier this year in which I analyzed the graph which showed the Bush deficits in comparison to the Obama ones? I will gladly repost it soon for your edification.
I saw it. I’m amused you reference it since my response to the assertions in your post above also directly apply as criticisms to your essay. Starting off, one of my greatest criticsms of your essay is centered around what you just reiterated saying you did: “analyzed the graph”. In your post you wrote:
You seem to be operating from a belief that you can construct some kind of convincing broad argument on the basis of a single chart which shows but a single number without getting into the details of why that number is what it was, or the underlying fundamentals going into those numbers, much less the single number you are making your case around.
Where it gets really delicious is even using such simplistic shallow construction, you still are faced with the requirement to attempt to handwave away the federal deficit leap to over a trillion dollars in Bush’s final fiscal year. Do you do so by getting into the weeds of budget wonkery and breaking things down from say actual OMB revenue and outlay data? Apparently not, because that would have required a nuanced explaination that included, among other things, a realization that deficits are affected not just by spending but also by revenues, and the financial crash of 2008 nuked a giant smoking crater in revenue projections. Instead, you attempt to explain Bush breaking the $1T barrier due to a one off $750 billion hit for TARP. Too bad this is factually incorrect, which, again, is something you would have discovered had you bothered into delve into actual historical data. This is an inexcusable error to make for an essay written in early 2012. The actual number was $154 billion, which, as you can see from the link was a number easily obtained even by cursory research at the time you wrote your essay.
If we want a nuanced analysis based on actual facts, I would propose more along the lines the following:
1) FY2009 was doomed to explode to $1T by the crash.
2) Regardless of who was President, it would have been exceptionally difficult to get the deficit below $1T in FY2010. It doesn’t really matter if it was McCain or a hypothetical third Bush term.
3) While in my estimation it is fair to take Bush to the $1T threshhold based on revenue numbers and legislation he signed, I have no qualms about a couple hundred billion on top of that being “owned” by Obama in FY2009 due to the protracted way the appropriations went on during the ongoing crisis. However, in light of point 2, when considering FY2009, FY2010, FY2011, I think it is disingenuous when considering alternate fiscal policies to pretend that a more aggressive posture of revenue decreases (tax cuts/credits) versus increased outlays (spending) wouldn’t have yielded similiar results if the overall deficit picture. Remember, even with the huge shovels of cash the Federal government was dishing out to the states, state and local governments still had to shed large numbers of jobs. If you’re going to say “well, we could have had even more tax cuts than what Obama did and less spending”, I think you have to acknowledge the the deficit figures might have been about the same only with unemployment figures peaking even higher.
So yes, I saw your essay. It was profoundly lacking.
So, the fact that the average Bush-era deficit was less than $400 billion dollars while the average Obama-era deficit is no LESS than $1 trillion dollars cannot enter into your mental calculus? Or that Obama-level GDPs are less than 2% while Bush’s were in the 5% range (TQ 2003 was a Reaganesque 7.8% btw) must also be studiously ignored as well?
I see as well you continue to refuse to answer the question of what the unemployment rate under Bush, even though I give you wide latitude in actually letting pick any year you want.
“He seemed like the healthiest man in the world before that heart attack!” Of course, the heart attack still happened while Bush was in office.
That the final Bush-era deficit topped $1 trillion seems to be a reality you wish to deny at all costs. As I just laid out, one can make a very convincing case based on the federal financials that a universe where Bush had a third-term would have averaged $1T+ deficits. In that light, I find your hyperbolic demonization of Obama utterly puerile since at it’s heart, you are busy publicly expressing strong opinions rooted in ignorance of the finances of the US Federal Government.
I posted a complete set of BLS numbers, which I just noticed you approved and replied to in the Obama’s Soviet Mistake thread. Looking at the timestamps I can only presume you didn’t see that until after you had written that reply. I guess now I’m off to that thread again…
I do deny it. It was $800 billion, not a trillion. Having said that I was completely against TARP. I think Bush was wrong to do it. Since I crave consistency however I cannot indict Bush for TARP but give Obama a pass for Stimulus I, GM/Chrysler bailout, or Obamacare. That would be hypocritical.
Given that you were off in your understanding of the impact of TARP on the FY2009 budget by $600 billion dollars, I would, perhaps, suggest you not be so prone to make confident snap assertions.
Please look at the graph again. It’s from the Congressional Budget Office, I didn’t pull it out of thin air.
Yes, the graph from your essay shows FY2009 as having a deficit of $1.4 trillion dollars. FY2009 is the final fiscal year of the Bush Administration.
Are you misreading your own chart?
No, TARP added $800 billion to and otherwise fairly large (for Bush) deficit. That doesn’t mean that because Bush did this stupid thing that Obama should have doubled down. If we’re talking in principle about deficit spending then you shouldn’t have any problem at all with Bush’s deficits. But I suspect you do because you don’t like what he spent them on. In other words, there are deficits, then there are “deficits.”
George,
No, TARP did not add $800 billion to the FY2009 deficit. You are incorrect in this assertion. Repeating your assertion it will not make it less false.
I already refuted this with the actual data. I shall do it again. The actual number that TARP ultimately added to the FY2009 deficit was $154 billion. I really don’t know what to make of the fact that when I point you to the government reporting of the actual outlays you persist with repeating your inaccurate number.
Do you not understand the difference between the authorized ceiling and the actual appropriation? That would explain a lot.
When I look at your chart, I see a $1.4 trillion deficit in Bush’s final fiscal year. When I look at the government reporting. I see the $1.4 trillion deficit. When I look at the actual governmental breakdowns of outlays, TARP gets…$154 billion.
We aren’t talking about principle of deficit spending, we are talking about you having a false understanding of reality and writing inaccurate essays about said understanding of reality.
You sure about that?
Blue State Schools: The Shame of a Nation
Fr. Hans, your article is somewhat misleading. It cited public schools in Texas being toprated, such as the #2 ranked School for the Talented and Gifted, a magnet school, in the Dallas Independent School District. This is not an example of public education in Texas, as only the brightest pupils are admitted to that particular school. It’s quite a different story when you look at the entire Dallas school district. Last year only 74.6% of the senior class, district-wide, successfully graduated from the 4-year high school curriculum. That’s not that stellar. Texas, I suspect, does better than Mississippi, Alabama, etc, because of better funding. All of this was by way of saying to George that explanations of poverty and attaching value judgments to those in poverty is not as simple as he presents.
Actually, I published a piece by Dave Burge of Iowahawk fame earlier this year in which he compared Wisconsin to Texas and Texas came out on top.
Logan, read the article again, then read this:
Longhorns 17, Badgers 1
Be careful of unexamined assumptions.
To Logan 46
It is not the fault of the teachers or the educational system if there is a high drop out rate. If students drop out of school it is their fault and the fault of parents who do not teach their children the value of hard work and getting an education. All the money in the world and the best teachers cannot force someone to learn who does not want to learn. In reality the high drop out rate is the product of a welfare system out of control. 14 and 15 year old girls deliberately get pregnant so that they can go on welfare young boys do not get an education because society will provide for them through welfare. Politicians like Obama support this system of dependency because they can be counted upon to vote Democratic. In fact, it was the takers who reelected Obama. When Christ told us to care for the poor, He did not intend for us to create a system in which a whole class of people lives off of the work of others. He meant for us to care for the needy poor the people who cannot help themselves, not those who will not take care of themselves.
I expect this from George, but Fr. Morris do you realize how demeaning that term (takers) is? I get a social security check each month and I have a Medicare card. Does that make me a “taker?” I’m what is wrong with America? Obama was re-elected because Republicans had demeaned just about every large voter constituency, except middle aged white males.
To Logan 46
I did not mean people who receive Social Security or Medicare when I wrote about takers. You paid into Social Security and Medicare and have a right to expect a return on your investment. When I write about takers, I mean healthy people who could work or get an education so that they can work, but choose to live off of welfare. The Republicans have pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare which will go broke unless we make some changes to protect them. Every election, the Democrats use scare tactics to accuse the Republicans of wanting to end Social Security and Medicare. They are either self-deceived or they are not being honest with the American people.
When I read things like:
I tend to wonder what country the writer actually lives in or how on earth they got their hands on a time machine to travel forward to America in 2012.
It would be amusing to learn your mental number of how big this seeming army of “takers” is. I suspect it is out of touch with reality by, ooh, maybe three orders of magnitude? Of course, one can only speculate since you haven’t shared any data.
Looking at numbers, I can’t help but suspect that the number of voters that qualify under the statistical classification of “welfare dependent” (which, among other things doesn’t necessarily mean they are jobless) that voted for Obama over Romney is quite possibly a smaller number than the number of voting homosexuals who voted for Obama over Romney. So, bad news is, I’m not sure you can actually shake your fist at “takers” as public enemy number one for re-electing Obama. But maybe you can shake your fist at the “sodomites” or something.
To Nate Trost below:
Perhaps like a lot of people you do not see the welfare fraud. Because of the location of my parish, I drive through an area with lots of people on welfare every day. Every day, I see young men who should either be in school or at work walking up and down the street. When I go to the grocery store, I see teenagers with their children and no wedding ring all over the place. Today over 70% of African American babies are born out of wedlock. Like it or not one major reason why so many teens get pregnant is so that they can get on welfare. You can hide your head in the sand, but the sad reality is that a lot of people are on welfare because they are too lazy to work. For some families welfare has become a way of life with several generations living off of welfare. Giving them more money and not forcing them to work or get an education so that they can get a job is like giving a glass of whiskey to an alcoholic. If we do not get the welfare state under control, we it will bankrupt our nation.
When I challenge your assertions about the size of the population “taking” by living off welfare, which appear to be rooted in nothing more than your own feelings, I’m not going to be terribly impressed when you pull out the welfare fraud canard. However large or small the subset of welfare recipients receiving fraudulent benefits may be, it is still a subset of a larger number. And I question whether or not you actually have any accurate idea what that larger number even is. So shouting “fraud!” while doing jazz hands isn’t going to work as misdirection.
I can’t even get to the point of the inevitable wishful sigh while explaining that anecdotes are not data, because first I must stand in awe of your apparent psychic powers:
Things you did not say:
“area with lots of people on welfare every day. Here are the relevant statistics for this place.”
“..I know this because X% of my parish is on welfare.”
“I see young men I know, who should either be in school or at work walking up and down the street.”
I walked into town in the middle of the afternoon today. Given your lack of details and qualifiers it sure sounds like if you had driven past me you would have shaken your head and clucked “just another moocher”. Thankfully your psychic powers would have let you know that actually, I was having such a busy day at work I didn’t manage to catch a break for lunch until mid-afternoon.
Or perhaps you aren’t psychic and are just making assumptions based on your cognitive biases.
If you’re going to make such a wild assertion, you should really back it up. Of course when pressed for actual proof, you can always handwave the qualifier of “major reason” as actually meaning something of statistical insignificance. So, yawn.
I mean, if we get to play that game, then why don’t I just throw out big sweeping assertions, like blaming you personally and people like you for Mississippi’s teenage birth rate (highest in the nation at 55:1000), due to intentionally rendering sexual education in the state either non-existent (in many parts of the state), and woefully inadequate where it is available. Attempting to blame the practical failure of your moral high ground on a desire for free goodies is certainly audacious, I’ll give you that.
“A lot” 12? 100,000,000? What percentage of the population constitutes a lot? Do you even bother looking at things like TANF recipient statistics or census bureau data on cash public assistance statistics, even for your own state? Hint: 25,079 recipients CY 2011 average and 2.2% of households respectively. You’re welcome.
The 1980s want their argument back. Step away from the time machine and acquaint yourself with the strings attached to the modern American “social safety net”.
If by “welfare” you actually mean “Medicare” then I agree with you. Otherwise you probably have a hilariously inflated sense of welfare spending. Or the trends of that spending.
Hint: estimated MS state and local welfare spending FY2013 excluding unemployment ($862 million, < 1% estimated GSP) source Delta increase federal medicare outlays from FY13-14 from CBO 3/12 baseline: $62 billion.
The structural fiscal challenge for the nation is: health care for the elderly. Everything else? Not so much.
To Nate Trost
About 40% of the people of Mississippi are on some sort of governmental assistance. I know from reading the local newspaper that the costs of Medicaid are bankrupting our state. That means that those of us who pay taxes have to pay more to make up for the taxes not paid by people on welfare. It also harms us in other ways. After being hospitalized in New Orleans, I realized that our local hospital charges a lot more than the hospital in New Orleans. I believe that they charge those who can pay more to make up for the low payments they receive for taking care of Medicaid patients.
I believe that the high teen age pregnancy rate is due to teen age girls getting pregnant so that they can go on welfare. As far as sex education is concerned, this must be the dumbest generation in world history. No other generation has had to have a class in school on how to have sex. My wife and I never had sex education in school, but we figured out how to give birth to two children. Condoms are available in every drug and grocery store here. What kind of idiot cannot figure out how to use a condom?
You may not like it, but I firmly believe that our welfare system has been a total failure. Johnson declared war on poverty and poverty won. Despite spending $15 billion on programs since the Great Society, poverty is just as high as it was before Johnson announced the Great Society. Throwing money at a problem will not solve it. Giving people money without conditions is the surest way to keep people on welfare. Why work, if you can get stuff for free from the government? Requiring personal responsibility for one’s behavior, providing educational opportunities, and building up a strong economy is the best way to end poverty. Everyone should have to work, no one should receive a free ride at the expense of those of us who work for a living.
Here’s some numbers on welfare. In 2012 there were about 4 million Americans on welfare (TANF) out of approx 330 million, or about 1.2% of our population. In 1996, there were 12 million Americans on welfare (AFDC.) That’s a dramatic reduction, and even more so considering the 2008-2012 recession. The maximum number of years one can be on welfare in their lifetime is 5 years. After 2 years on welfare, you must find work. Don’t assume the people you see standing around are on welfare. Welfare is not bankrupting our nation. You may want to consider the dramatic increase in income inequality and the ongoing destruction of the middle class as one of the main drivers in our fiscal malaise.
I, like you, am dismayed at the startling decline in long term marriages and the traditional, nuclear family. But it is naive, and incorrect, to think only women on welfare or African American women have children out of wedlock. The fault is in us and not our government. And respectfully, I would add, our religious institutions and leaders.
To Archpriest John W. Morris
And does that figure include Social Security and Medicare? Because it sure isn’t the percentage of people on what you’re railing against as ‘welfare’. From the data I’ve linked, that figure seems to be in the low single digits. When it comes to Medicaid assistance the number is 17%.
You are being exceptionally unclear here. Are you seriously equating receiving Medicaid benefits with not paying taxes and/or being on welfare? I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you aren’t suggesting anything quite that absurd.
As to suggesting that there is a large enough population mooching an actual living off welfare to make a serious dent in the challenges of funding the state portions of Medicaid programs, you have your work cut out for you to make that case. By all means, give me an actual hard factual number of moochers and an overview of their economic impact.
You can believe whatever you like, but I don’t recommend doing so out of intuition. To a certain extent, your belief has some basis in reality…to a point. But only to a point. It is clear you have utterly no clue as to the reality of the gigantic mess that is medical pricing and billing in the United States. Each itemized element in whatever you had care for could itself have had dozens of prospective prices depending on the agreements the hospital or health group had with respective insurers. Furthermore, the prices at another nearby hospital could vary wildly in contrast to the hospital you went to depending on different ownership or the status of its agreements with various insurers. Providers that accept Medicaid will try to eke out better margins from other insurers, but that is subject to their own limitations in negotiating pricing.
Yes, you believe it. I’m not going to question that you believe it to be true. I’m going to question whether you can prove it. Personally, I don’t like expressing firm beliefs or holding strong opinions that I can’t adequately back up with hard facts.
I’m not arguing with you over the merits of a social safety net or welfare system as policy, I’m arguing with you over your amusingly overblown estimation of the size, scope and cost of welfare programs in the United States in the year 2012.
Heh, from this, two thoughts. One is that it’s always relative. From where some sit, relatively speaking, they could consider you a bit of a free rider, being clergy does have some unique tax perks.
The other thought is that there will be some interesting implications from technological development society has to grapple while moving forward through this century. We may find ourselves with far more people than modern advanced technological economies require in order to operate said economies. You might live long enough to where I see you stop tilting at a welfare windmill and start shaking your fist at robots and automated cars. We’ll see.
Mr Trost, this is the mendacity of the Left: you complain about Social Security. But wasn’t SS sold to the American people as a “trust fund,” i.e. not “welfare”? This is an excellent example of the bait-and-switch tactics of the Left.
Where am I complaining about Social Security? I’m certainly not conflating it with “welfare”, although am I getting annoyed if people use statistics that include SS to pad figures to support a belief in armies of young, able-bodied should-be workers supposedly living off “welfare”. Social Security is frankly really boring as far as governmental entitlement programs go. For all the sound and fury associated with tinkering with it, changes to maintain trust fund solvency are minor.
By all means, elaborate on your comment about the mendacity of the Left (not sure who you are addressing that to), or bait-and-switch tactics, because it is rather unclear what argument you are attempting to make. Are you suggesting that Social Security is just really a giant welfare program?
After the 2008 Minnesota election, it was discovered that 1,099 ineligible felons had illegally voted. As of August, they had 177 convictions, with more cases still in the legal pipeline.
Cheating in elections has been an essential tool for Democrats at least since the early 19th century. It kept Tamany Hall in power in NYC for a century. It kept Democrats in power in Louisiana for nearly as long. And it probably got JFK elected in 1960.
If you want to talk about voter suppression, take a look at the difficulties that overseas military personnel have had getting absentee ballots from Democrat-controlled states.
Here in Mississippi there are counties with more registered voters than people. In the last election, the local newspaper caught poll workers using white out so that more than one person could vote using the same name. In one county the Bush Administration found convincing evidence of African American suppression of white voters. They got one conviction, but he appealed and the Obama Administration dropped the case arguing that the voting rights laws are only to protect minorities not white voters. They do not have enough power to overcome the white majority on state wide races, but the corrupt African American machine is able to control local races in some areas of the state. Black ministers demand bribes from politicians for their endorsement and tell their people who to vote for. The people of our state passed a constitutional amendment requiring voter identification, but the Holder Justice Department has moved to prevent its application. We do have voter fraud and need to combat it with strict voter Id requirements and strict supervision of absentee ballots. We also need to stop people from going around nursing homes and getting signatures of people who are barely conscience on absentee ballots. Our election system is seriously flawed and must be reformed.
“Here in Mississippi there are counties with more registered voters than people.”
And why is this tolerated? Who is responsible for fixing it?
I can’t imagine this happening in Canada, Australia, the UK or even France, not to mention Germany.
It may not effect the outcome of elections because these are safe Dem seats but it corrupts the democratic process.
It is tolerated because the Obama administration fights every effort to correct the problem. Our state passed a constitutional amendment requiring voter id, but the NAACP filed a law suite to stop it with support from the Obama administration which calls voter id laws voter suppression. This is pure bunk. You have to have an id to get a driver’s license, cash a check, fly or do almost anything. The state provides free ids for those who cannot afford them. When I moved here and registered to vote, I did not have to produce any identification to prove that I am an American citizen or that I am who I say I am. The Bush Administration began an investigation and got at least one conviction against a black political leader for suppressing the white vote, but when Obama came to power the federal government dropped the case. The Obama justice department has taken the position that the laws protecting voting rights only apply to minorities and not the white majority. We all know how the Obama administration dropped the case against the New Black Panthers who were harassing white voters in Philadelphia.
This is tribal politics. I am afraid that we are going to become a banana republic; it is a question of when.
Thanks Fr John.
I believe the requirement for photo id complicates things unnecessarily. All you need to ensure the integrity of the democratic process is a properly maintained electoral roll – that is what pertains in Britain and all of the Anglophone Commonwealth countries as far as I know and they have minimal to no reports of vote meddling. With computerisation it is easier to do than ever before too and without infringing upon privacy.
Carl, I fear you are right.
And if Pres. Obama has broken his oath to uphold the Constitution, why doesn’t someone in Congress institute impeachment proceedings or a group of concerned citizens take him to court? Evil triumphs when the good do nothing. I’m sorry, but living outside the US means I don’t always get to follow American politics closely enough to know what’s going on – please inform me as to any responses to Obama’s over-riding of the Marriage Act..
Our brother Basil asks: <>
Could it be because conviction on impeachment and removal from office requires a 2/3rds vote in the Senate sitting as the tribunal–a threshhold impossible to attain–and with regard to action court proviate citizens are probably without standing to sue, furthermore no legal cause of action lies for breach of oath of office and if it did the president is immune from prosecution while in office.
lxc
That invites the possibility of tyranny, lc.
I disagree. In Third World countries like Mexico and Greece, photo-ID’s are mandatory. Although I disagree in principle with the concept of the UN and UN observers at elections, the ones who showed up at the 2012 elections were shocked that there were no identificaton requirements for American voters. (I’ve seen the ones used for Mexican elections, they are quite sophisticated.)
Another useful concept from Greece: there is no such thing as voting season, just voting day. You have to show up at your precinct on the appointed day to vote. If you’re living abroad, a Greek has to go to the nearest Greek consulate to vote on that very same day. Early voting in America leads to much mischief.
George,
Maybe the British and the people of their former dominions are inherently more honest than others?
Or maybe the US is already a banana republic (pace Kraeff)?
Seriously, the British electoral system works perfectly well if you can rely on the honesty of the electors. How sad if the US can’t! In that case, go to photo id.
It is not so much the electors that cannot be relied upon, it is the management of the whole system by party hacks (of both parties) and a bunch of largely unsophisticated volunteers who are getting older and older in my county. The maniuplation, fraud, intimidation, etc. that ensues is not the fault of us so much as who we allow to control the system. It is neither as free as it should be nor as fair.
They control the access, the rolls, the appeals, all of it. Polling stations are sometimes changed without notice which depresses turnout.
Digital voting machines are no more reliable than the old paper systems, and can be hacked.
Internet voiting is a farce. Early voting is a farce. Absentee votes are sometimes not even counted unless the election is close.
Some of the ID requirements, like producing birth certificates, etc. can be a hurdle if a person has never done had one. Although since those are public record in most states, anyone can order one and claim to be that person.
The only way to insure some measure of honesty in our elections is to require photo ids, eliminate early voting, and strictly control absentee voting. Because I was scheduled for an operation on election day, my wife and requested an absentee voter form. It was sent in the mail. We did not have to provide any proof that we were who we claimed. I could have been anyone trying to cast a ballot. We need control over people roaming the halls of nursing homes getting the signatures of people suffering from dementia to use their votes for their candidate. We also need strict laws requiring the poll workers to have watchers from each party at all stages of the process to look for any signs of voter fraud. Finally, we have to enforce the same rules on African American Churches as we do on every other Church and require that African American Churches stay out of secular politics the same way that a white Church is required to stay out of secular politics. If a black preacher preaches from his pulpit that not to vote for any white candidate or for a Republican, or pass out lists telling his people for whom to vote, as some of them do, he and his church should lose its IRS tax exemption.
I strongly disagree. During the last election, the local newspaper caught poll workers using white out on the voter registration book so that more than one person could vote using the same name. I have a right to know that my vote counts and that it will not be cancelled by someone who votes more than once. It does not take much effort to get an valid picture I.D. and should be required for all voters. Our elections must be honest or they are worthless.
Fr John,
If that happened in a Commonwealth country the perpetrators would be in prison.
Why does the US electoral commission employ dishonest/untrustworthy people?
Or is it state based?
This does have the whiff of “banana republic” about it. Commiserations; if I were American I would be ashamed by this.
Election officials in most counties are locally elected or appointed. In an African American majority county like the one in which I live, that means that they control the electoral process. It may not be politically correct to write it, but blacks can be just as racists as any other people. Black leaders especially black clergy play on resentment over the past to whip up anti-white feelings.
Basil, election shenanigans have always been a part of our system. In fact, such things have been one way that minorities have been integrated into our political culture. America has always been about, in part, making money through access to power. The lack of a monarch makes the process quite messy and cheating quite common. It has been a long time since the white Protestant majority has been on the short end of the stick.
It’s what Obama wants to rule in hell.
Nuts
Logan46: A good many Americans have absolutely no idea what their Constitutional protections, rights and responsibility are, they just want “fairness”. Which ultimately means its not fair to say no to anything they want. That’s their “right” after all. Like the Obama phone lady, and the Detroit pol who demanded pay back for delivering the votes.
Without reverence for God, the is no righteous law. Without righteous law, there is no proper polity.
The Republican Party is going to need to change. They can’t ignore the fact that the demographics have changed, and that there are people like me, black conservatives, who are here to stay and we’re not going anywhere despite being tagged as house negros, Uncle Toms, and whatnot. They need to stand up and have our back, rather than running away to hide under the sofa when we’re being attacked by the so-called progressive Democrats (who are really Leftists) for not toeing the line that they’ve set up, that all blacks should be loyal to the Democrat party that has not done one darned thing to reduce the level of property, promote self-sufficiency, improve the quality of inner-city schools by making it easier to fire incompetent teachers, to name just a few.
The Republican Party also needs to stop being Democrat-Lite. Why vote for a moderate or liberal Republican when one can easily vote Democrat? They also need to grow a S-P-I-N-E. If they can’t, there will be a new party that is truly, clearly the opposite of the Democrat Party with no equivocations.
Yessir. That pretty much says it all.
Read this article. It says a lot.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/
Brilliant and right on target.
I am glad George M. explains accurately the problem of the mainstream media.
It’s an articulate essay.
About Qaddafi, I am not sure but I think he already had started the switchover to the dinar.
This sent all Central Bankers and the world’s financial elite into panic. Presto : a revolution invented
to overthrow this bold character.
Sure enough, reports say that one of the first things implemented in the New Libya was
the installation of a Central Bank.
Maybe the Libyans can eventually weasel out of this strangehold on any nation.
The people were quite well taken care of, too.
They were headed quite an opposite direction from the decline of America into – yes, well said –
serfdom.
Nuts::
What has really happened is one of the most radical cultural shifts in history. Our entire culture chaged almost over night. The radicals of the 60s took over our educational institutions and indoctrinated a whole generation with their leftist views which are highly influenced by radical feminism. My generation of fairly conservative male Ph.D. was driven out of the academic world. Not one of my friends from graduate school remained in higher education. At the college where I received my undergrduate education, I had great professors, but they were also somewhat conservative. The administration eventuallly drove them all out of the school on one pretext after another and after another and replaced with more liberal professors. I look at the faculty and program today where I received my graduate education. It is completely different and has a very leftest tinge. Radical feminism swept through the college where I taught like a title wave and drove out all who refusd to yield to the new affirmative action programs and feminiization of our higher education system. Compare an American history text from the 60s to the ones used today and you will see a radical difference. Now the texts emphasize feminist history, and the dark side of American history. Instead of seeing the good in the Founding Fathers, they are all now seen as rich slave owning white males or at least members of the upper class who set up a system to benefit themselves. The old texts admitted the fauilures of American history, now they emphasize them and belittle the positive aspects of our history. Even when I began teaching on the college level in 1974, it was assumed that if one is an academic one had to be a liberal Democrat. Now that is not enough, you have to be a leftist. When I taught at Kent State, the world hisory text accepted without question Boswell’s views that the Orthodox Church blessed same-sex relations until fairly recently. I visited the office of the campus ministry organization only once. I saw all that I needed to see when I saw a large pro-gay rights poster in their office. The feminists and leftists also gained control over the media and the entertainment business to further indoctrinate the people with their point of view. The media not accepts as normal same-sex marriage. Men are portrayed as idiots. Father knows best has been replaced with Father is a bum. Every program has at least one gay character who is portrayed in a positive manner. Romney never had a chance. The election was a farce because our media produced a pro-Obama progagand campaign that would have made Goebbels proud. Liberals took over the mainline Protestant sects contributing to the rejection of traditional Christian morality. Obama won by appealing to the greed of those who want the government to take from the so called rich to gvive free things to the so called poor. Make no mistake about it, Obama is not pro-Middle Class. He is for a society in which everyone is dependent on government which takes from the workers and producers to give to people who want the government to take care of all their needs and who can be counted upon to vote Democratic. The old America may very well be a think of the past. Our freedom may have been lost to an all powerful government that runs every aspect of our lives. It does not matter where he was born, Obama is not an American and does not share the polticial philosophy that made American great.
What has really happened is one of the most radical cultural shifts in history. Our entire culture changed almost over night. The radicals of the 60s took over our educational institutions and indoctrinated a whole generation with their leftist views which are highly influenced by radical feminism and gay liberation. My generation of fairly conservative male Ph.D. was driven out of the academic world. Not one of my friends from graduate school remained in higher education. At the college where I received my undergraduate education, I had great professors, but they were also somewhat conservative. The administration eventually drove them all out of the school on one pretext after another and after another and replaced with more liberal professors. I look at the faculty and program today where I received my graduate education. It is completely different and has a very leftest tinge. Radical feminism swept through the college where I taught like a title wave and drove out all who refused to yield to the new affirmative action programs and feminiization of our higher education system. Compare an American history text from the 60s to the ones used today and you will see a radical difference. Now the texts emphasize feminist history, and the dark side of American history. Instead of seeing the good in the Founding Fathers, they are all now seen as rich slave owning white males who set up a system to benefit themselves. Even when I began teaching on the college level in 1974, it was assumed that if one is an academic one had to be a liberal Democrat. Now that is not enough, you have to be a leftist. When I taught at Kent State, the world history text accepted without question Boswell’s views that the Orthodox Church blessed same-sex relations until fairly recently. I visited the office of the campus ministry organization only once. I saw all that I needed to see when I saw a large pro-gay rights poster in their office. The feminists and leftists also gained control over the media and the entertainment business to further indoctrinate the people with their point of view. the old “Father Knows Best,” became “Father is an idiot.” The media now accepts as normal same-sex marriage. Every program has at least one gay character who is portrayed in a positive manner. Romney never had a chance. The election was a farce because our media produced a pro-Obama propaganda campaign that would have made Goebbels proud. Liberals took over the mainline Protestant sects contributing to the rejection of traditional Christian morality. It does not matter where Obama was born. He is not an American and does not accept the principles of our constitution or the ideas that made America a great nation.
As usual, I agree with Father Morris.
I think our battle now is for hearts and minds. Only conversion will save America. God help us.
Fr. John;
It seems that there are many posting here that feel this “liberal vs. conservative” thing “real” and a big issue. Rather the real issue is “individual freedom” vs. “limited individual freedom.” Do you think the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Russian Empire, etc. were any different than America today? Homosexuality has always been around, abortion has always been around, other moral deviant behaviors have always been around. Sin is personal. No one has to participate and this is what our churches need to teach. Not that Obama is bad and Romney would have been better, baloney. Want to change abortion? Have it re-argued at the Supreme Court that abortion is murder. Want to have traditional marriage preserved? Have Congress legislate it. Etc. But don’t blame it on the President who represents all the American people. The “laws” are made by Congress and the Supreme Court decides what is or is not Constitutional. The President only “executes” what they decide.
You’ve missed the complete point: the demoralization of the American people has been an active project by the liberals/progressives for decades. Abortion can no more be argued credibly or correctly at the Supreme Court as could properly defined sexual roles. The Left won. End of story.
No George. It seems you’re the one that is missing the point on this one. Don’t speak out against neoconservatives unless you’re able to look at this honestly and with some accountability.
Classical Liberals characterize conservatives and liberals in the same boat. Since the GOP has deconstructed, or dare I say, demoralized free market oriented folks from their party, they are in the same boat as the liberals. What we have today is a two party system run by neo-conservatives, with a growing Libertarian party that has no real identity outside free marijuana and exhibitionism. This is not to discount those in that Party who actually hold true the tenants of Classical Liberalism.
BOTH parties have simultaneously demoralized the American people. Neo-conservatism won. End of story.
I do not agree. We had as clear a difference between the two candidates from the two parties as at any point in American history. Our country is just about as divided as any point American history except for 1860. The only way out of our problems is working out a series of compromises on some issues. That is how we avoided a Civil War for decades. When both sides decided compromise was no longer possible after the death of people like Henry Clay, we had the bloodiest war in our history. I do not think that Obama has the ability to compromise on issues. He is too stubborn and inexperienced with leadership to recognize the importance of compromise. That is why we have not had a federal budget since he took office. A leader would bring the leaders of both parties in congress together and work out some compromises to resolve the budget problems facing our nation. Instead, he has dug in his heals and refuses to consider compromise. There are also those on the other side of the ideological side who are too ideological to recognize the necessity of compromise. We need to learn from the British who somehow muddle through.
This simply isn’t true. I had previously corrected you on this point, yet you still repeat it.
Thomas Paine, I did not think you were so naive. The President has chosen not to execute a number of laws and the idea that the Supreme Court would hear abortion as murder re-argued before it is unthinkable. The Defense of Marriage Act ( a law passed by Congress) has been ignored and repudiated by the President. Incidentally, the courts (none of them, SC included) do NOT make the laws; they were created to interpret the laws (within narrow constraints). The Courts as law-makers and law-givers is the result of 20th century progressive ideology.
Not that any of this matters. “They” won, “we” lost (playing leftist/liberal/progressive against right/conservative/traditional persuasions).
Historically the power of the US Supreme Court to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional was only used twice during the first 100 years of American History. In Marbury v. Madison in 1803 and the Dred Scott decision in 1857. Lest we think that the court is infallible, in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the court ruled that segregation was constitutional establishing the principle of “separate but equal” that did so much harm to our nation by perpetuating racial segregation. Since the court overthrew Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v Board of Education in 1954 the court has greatly expanded the right of judicial review far beyond John Marshall’s original intention. When it gets to the point that the 9th circuit court can overturn the vote of the people of California to forbid same-sex marriage the courts have taken upon themselves too much power.
I disagree for one major reason. The president has a lot of persuasive power. No president has been more pro abortion and pro gay than Obama. He violated the constitution when he ordered the justice department not to enforce or support the Defense of Marriage Act. His party celebrated abortion and same sex marriage at their convention. He and his party are active opponents of traditional Christian morality and use the power of the federal government in their effort to challenge the teachings of our Church on these issues. That is why, I as an Orthodox Christian could not even consider voting for Obama. He is the most anti-Christian president in American history.
So much for community. Sin is personal, but not individual. It infects communities. A nation whose people do not have the worship of God at heart will fall.
I agree with Father John, who was a superb history professor before he became an outstanding priest.
George, I agree with much of what you write here, but you are simply wrong about the American bishops. This is not the USCCB of yesteryear — most of the Old School has been replaced with Young Turks, in case you haven’t noticed 😉 — and the bishops are already clearly signaling that they will NOT comply. As one bishop put it, the era of the casual Catholic is over.
Beyond that, I agree with your analysis. I do wonder what role anti-Mormon bigotry played in suppressing the turnout of the Republican base. But anyway….
OK, now I am really depressed. LOL.
You know, there’s a reason people are urged “not to drink the Koolaid.” This group generally is an insular one. The members are either in complete or mostly complete agreement with much of what is the problem in American society. That is a growing self-reinforcing predilection to believe the most extreme and least supported rumors as if they had facts to support them.
I just did a search of ‘voter fraud Philadelphia 2012 ‘ with Google to discover that out of the first two pages of links, only one was not from a right-wing news source. And the one which most people would put in the right side of the mainstream press, the Philadelphia Inquirer, explained the past histories of polling places in mostly Black districts have had no votes for the Republican opponent in other states in the past, notably Chicago and Atlanta. Clearly the number of voting districts is high and ought to be investigated. Even with that said, the majority vote would have been for Obama. This “investigation” will not change the overall result. This is why it is this has no traction in the national media.
Despite all the excesses which the “right wing” haven’t achieved, the country as a whole is moving towards conservatism. This is clear with a number of issues. First, even before the past 2 years of state anti-abortion legislation,the rate of abortions have steadily decreased. Second, despite all other reports of spending, the current administration has been spending less than its Republican predecessor.
I don’t generally like to throw around the “race card.”. The statement that white people were afraid they’d be called racist if Pres. Obama didn’t win a second term, I think that the racist name calling reverts back to the author of the first post in this thread. The racist element that is exposed here is that you think that American white people are racist because far & away they voted against Obama. None of that makes sense. I’m white; I wanted this really genuine American to be re-elected because Romney gets bored with governing after a while. I live in Massachusetts.He did some good things here. But, he didn’t like the people here; we were too liberal, supposedly. So after about two years of governing, he left to position himself for his first presidential election., (2008). All that time while still governor here, he said very demeaning things about his fellow Massachusetts citizens. It was never clear from his statements why he wanted to be president. He took the opportunity this time because he thought given the problems with the economy and the general hatred for Pres. Obama by the “right Wing”, which includes the Tea Party, which was formed by republicans using funds provided by either one or both of the Koch brothers that this would be his one chance.
Hurricane Sandy was a random act of nature possibly a sign of the kind of weather changes which global warming may be setting up. Yes, its gonna be a big drag on the economy. Yet, without help from federal, state, voluntary organizations, the current status could be much worse. No one state was crippled by the storm, several were.
The idea that the people coming into the US are not coming to gain employment is just nonsense. I live around and have worked with many recent immigrants. Yes, they know they can get food stamps or WIC cards. That is because due to their income, they need the assistance. Poverty is the illness that help from the government is trying to alleviate as many symptoms as possible.
Lots of people are saying that the hurricane slowed Romney’s momentum. If you look at the statistics that have been proven to the the correct figures, Romney’s decline predates by one or two days ahead of the storm coming ashore in HY, NJ et al. What you didn’t see on the ground is the very sound and well crafted ground organization Pres.Obama’s campaign had put together. Collectively the data was indicating a big win for Presidemt Obama.
Gov. Chritsie is getting hammered by the Republicans because he was making nice with the President.This very issue, that bi-partisan efforts can achieve great successes, disturbs the right wing. Rather than fearing such contacts, the Republicans ought to be using these situations to increase bi-partisanship, as should the Democrat;s as well. Gov. Christie knows what he is doing. First, he needed and wanted to be on the top of the storm clean-up effort, because he remembered the problem Bush II had with Katrina. He couldn’t fail in this since he must gain a large share of Democrats if he wishes to be re-elected governor. And he does. Give him a break and see him in 2015.
The voter fraud issue is a nasty one. Beside the “issue” in Philly, the only cases of voter fraud involved the Republicans. Seems like you like over looking facts like that. Did you know that Tagg Romney’s company (name I can’t recall) provides voting machines and services many of these machines in Ohio? Lets take that shoe off that foot and put it on a close relative of Pres. Obama’s in the same situation. Can you imagine what the Fox-oholics would be saying then?
The long lines, the reductions of early voting days, the lists of people from Republican Gov & Sec’ty’s of State sent out to purge the rolls: as they faced these tasks those responsible investigated and determine almost no one on the lists was not supposed to be on it.
If anything is going to denigrate America’s culture, it will be depriving people their right to vote due to shenanigans by politicians who need to stack the deck for their party in order for their party’s nominee to win.
Nice post Marty. You beat me to the punch. Hey it’s Thanksgiving.
Peter
You mean, “thanks for giving”
Marty, the fact that “only right wing websites” wrote about voter suppression/vote fraud is immaterial. Is what they wrote correct? The answer is clearly “yes.” The fact that the MSM won’t comment or report on it is a black eye for them, as was the non-reportage of the Benghazi debacle.
As for a President being “bored after awhile,” I’d stand up and cheer. The Founding Fathers did not want a Napoleonic president. The Twenties were “roaring” because Harding/Coolidge did next to nothing on the federal level but cut taxes, spending and let the dissidents that Wilson locked up during WWI out of prison.
Christie was not bipartisan. He was slavish. Big difference. And why is “bipartisan” a good thing? If one party feels its right to confiscate the wealth of hard-working people and another party feels its fundamentally immoral to do so, how can there be a “bipartisan” consensus? Should there be? What has Beliar to do with light?
If Party A thinks that we should eat human feces while Party B thinks that would be horrible, does bipartisanship mean we should put one scoop of feces for every one scoop of ice cream in a bowl and eat it?
Well said. Thank you.
Obama is a genuine American? Ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha! Please don’t make me laugh, seriously.
Tell me again . . . did he grow up having spent time in a Boy Scout troop, marching in a 4th of July parade, going on school field trips to important American historical sites? He spent most of his formative years outside of the United States and on the perimeters of the country, and it shows, abundantly, in his outlook.
Lola, Obama could put most of these concerns to rest if he just released his college transcripts. (Notice I said nothing about his birth certificate: I for one believe he was born in Hawaii.) Regardless, from what we know about his mother, she was definately an anti-American cosmopolite who was besotted by the Third World.
Mine were agnostic Republicans. I am neither.
I think the Metropolitan has two or three more days in the Edmond St. residence before he is supposed to move out. Meanwhile:
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Important Announcement regarding Annual Parish Meeting
To: announce@list.stnicholasdc.org
Dear Parishioners:
In a letter, written on 19 November 2012, explaining the present state and activities of St. Nicholas Cathedral, all of the Cathedral clergy unanimously requested that His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, give permission for us to delay our annual meeting to elect new members of the Parish Council. We wrote:
[The following letter presupposes another missiver or telephone call we do not see]
_______________________________________________
Your Beatitude:
“As we explained to [Your Beatitude], our first and urgent concern is to request your written directive to delay holding the annual parish meeting, which is scheduled for 9 December 2012, until shortly after Pascha (5 May 2013). Our legal counsel, Mr. Jonathan Russin, has advised that you have the authority to grant such a delay, though the delay should not be longer than six months.
“Our pressing reasons for asking for such a delay are as follows: (1) We will be intensely focused on preparations for your Enthronement on 27 January 2013. (2) Immediately after your Enthronement, we must begin the major renovations of the basement. Contracts are ready to be signed. To avoid significant loss of revenues, the renovations must be finished by Pascha. (3) The present members of the Parish Council know what must be done to launch and successfully complete the renovations. A change in membership on the Parish Council would bring in new members who will not be “up to speed” and inevitably that would make management of the renovation less efficient. (4) To give time to your Beatitude and [whomever will be] the newly appointed Dean of the Cathedral to know the parish better before electing new members to the Parish Council.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Archpriest John Perich
Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley
Archpriest George Kokhno
Priest Valery Shemchuk
______________________________________
On 24 November 2012, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon responded:
_____________________________________
November 24, 2012
Archpriest John Perich
Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley
Archpriest George Kokhno
Priest Valery Shemchuk
St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral
Washington, DC
Dear Fr. John and Cathedral clergy,
You have my blessing to postpone the Annual Meeting for St Nicholas Cathedral in Washington, DC in order to address the issues outlined in your letter of November 19, 2012.
This meeting should take place within the next 6 months and within the shortest delay possible.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+Metropolitan Tikhon
To the Members of St. Nicholas Cathedral:
We respectfully ask that our parishioners understand our pastorlal and practical reasons for asking for this delay, and work with us to resolve the pressing issues mentioned in our letter.
We ask for your prayers and support at this important moment in the life of our Cathedral community. We are confident that, together, we can move forward.
Sincerely in Christ
Archpriest John Perich
Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley
Archpriest George Kokhno
Priest Valery Shemchuk
____________________________________________________________________
Notes: To subscribe to the cathedral email list, go to http://www.stnicholasdc.org/ and fill out the little subscribe boxes on the lower right column
How did we get to California, get rid of thousands of white people out of Orange County and San Diego. Believe it or the OC voted more for Romeny than Harris and Dallas did in Texas at 53 percent while Harris supported OBama won Harris at 49 and 53 in Dallas. The difference is California has big old Los Angeles at 9 million people. TExas has a lot of suburban Counties and rural counties that offset Harris, Dallas, and Travis. Bush support for minority ownership cause Bilray who was good on illegal immirgantion to lost in San Diego since thousands of white people left San Diego for Cheaper housing in the Inland Empire or states like Texas. ROmeny won Maricopia and Orange among the 10 largest counties and lost all the others including even San Diego.. Maricopia in Arizona at 55 and Orange at 53, its turning the US in the most third world place in the US Brownsville Texas 99 percent hispanic. So, old Texas is next with the George W Bush Brownsville mentality cheap housing for Brownsville.
Well, George I’m honesst the liberal areas of California are actually the less third world since they have a much lower percentage of illegal immirgants except Los Angeles. The Bay area liberal Dem area is under 30 precent hispanic. The more conservative inland counties like Kern looked more third world since farmers pay low wages to illegal immirgants. Imperial County is highly hispanic and votes Democratic, it fits your sterotype. Santa Clara a liberal Dem County has more asians which are not as much from the lower skilled as hisapnics.
Romney took most of the rest of the county, piling up margins topping 70 percent in Newport Beach and parts of San Juan Capistrano, Coto de Caza and Yorba Linda. As mention the demographic changes Republicans need old wealth not new wealth and more white folks that want kids and minorites that allow to assimlate instead of the continue guest worker poor hispanics of some of the eliste of the Republican Party and more assimlation for the asians as well.
George: Remember please the press that kept claiming Romney was going to win. The whole week prior to the election, there were claims: Dick Norris, Fox news pundits incl Karl Rove. Every one predicted that Romney would win. Yet he didn’t. All were right wing media, (RWM). So if all the reports about voter fraud in Philadelphia come from right wing media, ought they right to be skeptical about their other claims including Bengahzi? They are the ones who have been inaccurate–make that wrong–in much of the reporting they did during elections. Romney lied and whatever he said they swore to it. There will need to be reports in MSM before I put much attn on claims from the RWM. You claim that the reporters are right,but not a single proof can they give. The fact that something “looks” suspicious doesn’t make it suspicious. I agree the number of voter districts gives me cause to say that they should be investigated. I’m not going out on a limb to agree with the RWM when so often it is wrong and biased. This situation ought to give those who listen to RWM cause to reconsider their reliance on Faux News and RWM talk radio.
RE: Bipartisanship: no one is talking eating feces. What is being talked about is each side looking at the problem and try to give and take on issues. Certainly there won’t be such a discussion about abortion. However, regarding areas where there are opinions held regarding the target to be reached, both sides will have to give. The House Speaker is out singing the same old lyrics with different tunes. Just because you agree with one party’s position doesn’t mean that compromise is not to occur. Compromise has produced many important pieces of legislation.
Lets recall that after the Harding-Coolidge happy days approach came the Great Depression. One reason for people to be wary of a Romney style presidency, is that it too could have resulted in severe economic trouble like the great Recession.
George are you familar with Tom Tancredo a lot better on illegal immirgation than ROn Paul or the Republican elites but Tom you probably would not agree with him on foreign policy..
The democrats buying votes from the treasury is nothing new. The media supporting the liberal candidate is nothing new. The left screaming that the GOP will take away your social security and Medicare is nothing new (although give them credit for the BS contraception ploy. BTW, it was that weasel George Stephanopoulos that started that whole “war on woman” campaign when he interviewed Romney ten months ago. Yes, that son of an Orthodox priest George Stephanopoulos). In the end the Chicago way played politics better than the Utah Mormon. If the GOP can’t find a communicator of the same ability of Reagan soon they may be out of the White House for generations.
Now we live with the results of having an atheist president who has no respect for the traditions of this nation while he deplores the idea of American exceptionalism and individual freedom.
The Democrats are much better street fighters than the Republicans don’t know how to overcome the thuggish and dishonest methods of the Democrats. The media is completely corrupt and distorts the news in a liberal direction in all areas. Have you ever read a discussion of women’s ordination or same-sex marriage on the secular media that does not take it for granted that every intelligent person favors women’s ordination and same-sex marriage? Every time that Rome comes down on a liberal theologian who is teaching against the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the media makes a martyr for free speech out of them. Look at how the secular press covered the sacrilege by that punk rock band with the obscene name to make Orthodox look like a bunch on intolerant kooks.
Following an operation, I am lying in the surgical ward of a camp hospital. I cannot move. I am hot and feverish, but nonetheless my thoughts do not dissolve into delerium, and I am grateful to Dr. Boris Nikolayevich Kornfeld, who is sitting beside my cot and talking to me all evening. The light has been turned out, so it will not hurt my eyes. There is no one else in the ward.
Fervently he tells me the long story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. I am astonished at the conviction of the new convert, at the ardor of his words.
We know each other very slightly, and he was not the one responsible for my treatment, but there was simply no one here with whom he could share his feelings. He was a gentle and well-mannered person. I could see nothing bad in him, nor did I know anything bad about him. However, I was on guard because Kornfeld had now been living for two months inside the hospital barracks, without going outside. He had shut himself up in here, at his place of work, and avoided moving around camp at all.
This meant that he was afraid of having his throat cut. In our camp it had recently become fashionable to cut the throats of stool pigeons. This has an effect. But who could guarantee that only stoolies were getting their throats cut? One prisoner had had his throat cut in a clear case of settling a sordid grudge. Therefore the self-imprisonment of Kornfeld in the hospital did not necessarily prove that he was a stool pigeon.
It is already late. The whole hospital is asleep. Kornfeld is finishing his story:
“And on the whole, do you know, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.”
I cannot see his face. Through the window come only the scattered reflections of the lights of the perimeter outside. The door from the corridor gleams in a yellow electrical glow. But there is such mystical knowledge in his voice that I shudder.
Those were the last words of Boris Kornfeld. Noiselessly he went into one of the nearby wards and there lay down to sleep. Everyone slept. There was no one with whom he could speak. I went off to sleep myself.
I was wakened in the morning by running about and tramping in the corridor; the orderlies were carrying Kornfeld’s body to the operating room. He had been dealt eight blows on the skull with a plasterer’s mallet while he slept. He died on the operating table, without regaining consciousness.
And so it happened that Kornfeld’s prophetic words were his last words on earth, and those words lay upon me as an inheritance. You cannot brush off that kind of inheritance by shrugging your shoulders.
But by that time I myself had matured to similar thoughts. I would have been inclined to endow his words with the significance of a universal law of life. However, one can get all tangled up that way. One would have to admit that, on that basis, those who had received even crueler punishments than imprisonment,those who were shot or burned at the stake, were some sort of super-evildoers. And yet it is the the innocent who are punished most zealously. And what would one then have to say about our torturers? Why does fate not punish them? Why do they prosper?
The only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine; they are departing downward from humanity. From that point of view punishment is inflicted on those whose development . . . holds out hope.
But there was something in Kornfeld’s last words that touched a sensitive chord, and that I completely accept for myself. And many will accept the same for themselves.
In the seventh year of my imprisonment I had gone over and re-examined my life and had come to understand why everything had happened to me: both prison and my malignant tumor. And I would not have murmured even if all that punishment had been considered inadequate.
I lay there a long time in that recovery room from which Kornfeld had gone forth to his death, and all alone during sleepless nights I pondered with astonishment my own life and the turns it had taken. Looking back, I saw that for my whole conscious life I had not understood either myself or my strivings. What had seemed for so long to be beneficial now turned out in actuality to be fatal, and I had been striving to go in the opposite direction to that which was truly necessary for me. But just as the waves of the sea knock the inexperienced swimmer off his feet and keep tossing him back onto the shore, so also was I painfully tossed back on dry land by the blows of misfortune. And it was only because of this that I was able to travel the path which I had always really wanted to travel.
It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: they struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.
(Excerpted and abridged from The Gulag Archipelago.)
I really can’t agree with George’s editorial points much, but I have this to offer.
Romney didn’t seem geniune. Ryan was a bad veep choice because of his reactionary views.
All the past presidents have seemed like very genuine people that believed the things they said and didn’t say them because they sounded good. Bush Jr seemed unintelligent to many, but never disingenous. He may have just been cutting brush on the ranch, but at least we knew that was what he was doing. Obama is truly a liberal, and never doubts his own words.
Romney lost that appeal as did John Kerry after way too much coaching at the roundtable.
Cutting taxes 20% while Karl Rove was pushing the debt fear chronicles would have been some magic, for example. Americans didn’t buy it.
If you want to knock off an incumbent; better be genuine and reasonable. 20% tax cuts aren’t reasonable, by the way… And skip the grow the economy stuff. It ain’t the point. I’m talking about things that I found to be bizarre suggestions by Romney. Stuff I don’t think he believed in for a second.
Sometimes when you are selling something you don’t really think is right; you don’t convince.
If any lesson is to be learned; believe in what you are selling or don’t sell it.
Ron Paul does this well, but he is really a pessimist in my view.
Christie might be that guy. He seems genuine and he doesn’t seem too reactionary either.
The Republican party needs to do a better job of not throwing the babies out with the bath water.
Well, the good news is immirgant birth rates are down. Now not all Mexican and Cnetral American people are Catholic there is at least 20 percent of more that are protestant where birth control is ok. For the latinos to get anywhere now the middle class less children would help.
Actually, I was the few that like Romeny better than Bush. He was one of those northern politicans that got pushed. He actually was a lot more sensible on immirgation than Bush hittting some companies that hired people with false id’s is good. Unforunately Ryan was apart of the usual Republican group and only knew about spending cuts.
Logan what is interesting is that cost of living was included amd the south was not at the bottom, California and Washington DC have the highest povery when you do cost of living at 23 percent, Arizona and Florida would be next at 19 percent, Texas is 10 worst at 16.8 and MIssisppi had lower poverty than New York and Texas at 15 percent. The old poverty system did not include cost of living. Blue states with high immirgant populations not fair well in school stats, in fact Iowa is 14 while New York is 30th. Logan immirgation is a bigger factor in poverty these days than the old black/white divde since most of the high poverty states with the new measure have high foreign born populations with high poverty rates, high cost of living and 4 of them were apart of the housing bubble, Nevada also was at 18 percent poverty rate under the new study.
When we moved to Mississippi, we found the cost of living much higher than it was in Texas. For one thing taxes are much higher. Texas does not have an income tax as does Mississippi. Food is much more expensive here because in a small town like Vicksburg there is not as much competition.
George M states:
Ok, let’s take these one at a time:
1. 47 million people on food stamps (which is massive increase since the time of Bush 43)
This number is true and accurate, but somewhat misleading. This is what I mean. The aricultural committee of Congress is the committee directly responsible for these programs and that committee is comprised of Democrats and Republicans. The politicians on this committee keep doling out food stamps, and yes, increased the number of food stamps not just becuase people have been hit hard by the Recession (Depression?), but because Agriculutural Corporations WANT people to be on food stamps. This is the so-called “Corporate” Welfare that we head and read about. A good and balanced article to this issue is written by Eric Pianin of the Fiscal Times:http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/04/24/Food-Stamps-Desperate-Need-or-Double-Dealing.aspx#page1. So this issue is NOT as black and white (literally and figuratively) as we think, nor led to believe. This issue has been used to breed unnecessary Class Warfare when Agricultural corporations are the ones making millions off of this programs. So there is abise and fraud, but it not necessarily the people ON the food stamps that are sbusing the programs but the entities that WANT the program because it adds money to their coffers.
2. Senior citizens becoming the largest demographic cohort presently all of them getting SS
This statement is also true, but I believe being offered to say that SS somehow affects the deficit. Well, not really. If so, what did Ronald Reagan not believe this?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihUoRD4pYzI. I believe Regan’s Speech in this regard, and in many others, is very instructive and illuminating on this issue.
3. At least 11 million illegal aliens receiving government handouts in the form of public education, AFDC, Medicaid, emergency room medical care, etc.
This again is true or somewhat true, but certain caveats needs to be put in place. Illegal immigrants are already eligible for emergency care through the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, signed by President Reagan in 1986. This emergency care is often paid for by Emergency Medicaid, private insurance if the patients have it, out-of-pocket, or it’s written off as bad debt or charity care by the hospital. This law is not only applicable to the 11 Million Illegals that are in the country, but to all of us as Emergency Care CANNOT be dependent on whether someone has insurance or not. That goes for Legal Citizens and Illegals.
Further, the previously mentioned Agricultural Corporations were the ones back in the later 70s and 80s to WANT those 11 Million Illegals to come to America and work our farms. The produce we get at the grocery store is picked by someone. Well, meet the “Someone” that does all that hard, back breaking work. Also, who cleans our hotel rooms? Who cuts our lawns? Who stocks our stores? Who works in our Restaurants as cooks and busboys and so on? 11 Million Illegals. That’s our work force. No minimum wage, no health coverage, no Unions, no nothing. That’s Corporations wanted them. Cheap labor and very little to no complaining.
Now they have been here and their kids born here and educated here and now THEY want to be treated with dignity and respect. Under the circumstances, I can understand and support.
4. A serious spike in unemployment due to small business laying off just enough workers to fly under the Obamacare radar
This is also true, but not as widespread as reported. Yes, places like Papa John’s and Appalebees have complained about the cost to them in regards to the Affordable Care Act, but, in the end, this is the cost of doing business and yes that cost will be passed on to the consummer. Like everythinhg else, businesses needed to have mandatory Workers’ Compensation Insurance, Mandatory Liability Insurance, some will even need O & D (Officers & Directors) Insurance, etc. It is the cost of doing business.
My dad runs a Gas Station and complains about his insurance burden all the time, but when something happens at the shop (and it has not been that often Thank God) to a customer or to a Mechanic my dad is always glad he had insurance to cover the situation and that the money was not coming out of his pocket.
Its the same for sick workers. If the business does not provide Healthcare because it does not want to pay for it so reduces its workers (i.e. Productivity) then that business will have to discover if it will take the hit on Taxes or on Productivity that also affects its bottom line. There is no clear answer here and every business and employee must make an informed decision on this.
Although I have been a big advocate of givng Small Business the same if not more tax breaks that most big companies like Catipilar gets. State and Federal Taxes should be lowers or suspened across the board for 5 to 10 years to give small business tax relief. Why we haven’t do that, but reserve such perks for the Big Box stores is beyond me. So BP’s Gas Stations get tax breaks and get liquor licenses while the local mom and pop Gas Stations (like my dad’s) do not. I personally was involved in getting our stattion’s liquor license and the local government told us no because we were to close to schools and neighborhoods. Yet BP that was just as close except 1 1/2 miles further qualified for the liquor license. Same people that came to us went to them. So BP is ok but my dad’s business is not? Also the local alderman wanted a “donation” or $5K to see what he could do about that license. No thank you. So this is a mixed bag and one that again is not as clear cut as we may like to think.
5. A real unemployment level of 17% with the majority of these people receiving unemployment compensation
6. A black unemployment rate of 25%
7. A hispanic unemployment rate of 23%
These I can treat together in simply saying that for the Black unemployment number certain other factors are not considers such as drug abuse and dependency, Gang Involment, usually with the Drug Trade, and community and institutional Racisim that still exists in our country. A good example of the Drug Trade here in Chicago is two stories of how one Local Photographer was running a VERY successful Maijuana Lab and Garden in the basement of his Photography business. When the police raided this place it was overflowing with bundles of CASH! Further, files upon files of documents were obtained that showed his Dealers and Distributors and they were ALL the Black and Latino Gangs in Chicago. To say this is a Lucretive Business would be and understatement.
Second was the discovery of 2 1/2 football fields worth of a Maijuana JUNGLE on the southside of Chicago over in the Stoney Island area. The Cook County Sheriff’s office basically went in with several trucks and men just to clear out the maijuana and I still don’t know if they are done. In fact, what they found was a fenced off area with a GUARD TOWER. This was not One Guy, but an Organization (i.e. Gang) that set up and ran this place for years. Even if it was One Guy that one Guy has help and a distribution system that is only set up through a Gang.
Why would a young Black and Lation youth want to work at McDonalds or Target and deal with an underpaying job and societies discrimination when he has this Drug Trade and his Gang Affiliation that give him, In his Mind, acceptance and worth? That’s the reality of life for inner-City Blacks and Latinos. I do not approve of it and many in their communities have fought back from it, but to deny its affects is simply wrong.
As for white unemployment, yup those numbers are probably correct, but that’s the general Great Recession (Depression) that Wall Street and the Banks gave us. What do we do about it? Do we go after the Wall Street crooks? Put them in Jail? Nope! Just give them a bail out and call all the people that are unemployed lazy and good for nothing. I just can’t accept that.
Anyway those are just my thought. Alot of truth there, but its how we interpret that truth that really matters.
Peter A. Papoutsis
Peter, I owe you, Logan46, et al an apology of sorts. I never meant to imply that people can’t or don’t vote for the Democrat candidate because of conviction. All I was trying to do was come up with a thesis that tried to explain how an incumbent President could win with such a crappy economy. I still stand by what I wrote by the way.
There are many reasons and many people who are voted for the incumbent besides the reasons I wrote. Some people are doing well, or reasonably so. Others have an antipathy to the GOP. Yet others do so for ancestral reasons (“yellow dog Democrats” for example). Those are all valid.
Let us consider just two groups: Jews and Asians. Both of these demographics are in the top income quintile. It’s been said that “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” There’s lots of reasons for this. One is because the Democrat Party from the time of Reconstruction was largely a party for “out groups”: dispocessed Southern whites, unwelcome immigrants, etc. Another is because most Jews over forty are not observant and thus exercize their religious impulse of caring for the poor by voting for largesse from the Treasury to those less fortunate than themselves. Some Jewish intellectuals propagated Progressive policies because they wanted to dilute the influence of traditional Protestantism. The traditional Jewish culture of critique in other words.
Asians on the other hand have no such critique of culture but not being part of the historic Anglo-Northern European stock that settled and founded the Republic, they feel no sense of belongingness to the party that represents this tradition. There’s nothing wrong with this per se, after all Israeli Arabs don’t go around joining Zionist parties in Israel.
Both groups voted 70% for Obama (although the Jewish share dropped from 78% in 2008 to 69% in 2012).
Also, liberal whites with some college education (32%?) voted for Obama for a variety of reasons: gay marriage, anti-Christian traditionalism, generalized Progressivism, bureaucrats, etc.).
What I was concerned with was the fact that those cohorts that are heavily dependant upon the Federal treasury came out in disproportionate numbers in order to maintain the goodies. And that this is the new governing coalition, the “new normal.” In other words, a permanently entrenched marginal demographic that cannot make it without having the gov’t take money away from the productive classes.
An example would be Venezuala. There is no doubt that Hugo Chavez is a thug who has bankrupted his country and trod on human rights to a degree that embarrasses even his supporters. The economy is a shambles. One of my cousins is an airline pilot and whenever they fly to Caracas, his flight crew is told to never leave the hotel, it’s that dangerous. Yet as bad as things are and despite the fact that the average person knows that things have gotten worse under Chavez, he won an unprecedented third term. The fact that he barely won (and probably with some vote fraud) is immaterial: he won. Why? Good question.
No apology necessary George. You make good point and we are having a great debate about these issues. Your blog is one of many public square forums where Democracy lives and breathes.
However, our society is now well passed the tipping point on moral issues and has done a complete 180 on everything Christian, even a 180 on basic decency and morality whether Christian or not.
What we need now is to engage our culture as Orthodox Christians like never before. We need to engage our World. This means we need to get the Church up and running and putting aside all of our little mems and start working together First as combined Orthodox Jurisidctions and then as a Unified American Orthodox Church. Whether independent or not I do not know, and given the degree of rot in our Counrty and World I do not care.
So we need a call to action and strategic battle plan to get our Orthodox Faith out of the shadows and into the dominate culture. This will mean confronting not only Atheists but also Calvinists and Charismatics. We need to do it in a spirit of love and understanding but also firmness of faith.
Remember neither Atheist nor Evangelical has ever been shy about attcking us head on. So whether is Prof. Richard Dawkins on the Secular Atheist side or Dr. John Akenberg on the Christian Evangelical side we, along with the Catholics, have been attacked because we pose a real threat to them on both sides of the spectrum. Its time American Orthodox stated standing on their own and offer the TRUE Gospel of Christ. We have made alliances with the Protestant Modernists through the NCCC and the WCC and that got us nothing spiritually. We then attempted to form alliances with the Evangelicals and that got us nothing spiritually. After all these alliances are we dominate? Have we flooded this country with Orthodox Churches? NO! ENOUGH with alliances WE ARE THE CHURCH! If we preach Christ and his Gospel Orthodoxy will bloom in this country and world like nothing before
To paraphase and change somewhat a famous phrase from Field of Dreams: “If you preach it (Orthodoxy) they will come.” If the people become Orthodox the politics will change not visa versa. That’s all I am saying.
Peter
We of all people ought to know something about immigrants. All or our older parishes were founded by immigrants who came here with nothing, but worked hard with no help from the government while facing all sorts of anti-immigrant prejudice, yet the made it not because of welfare programs, but because they were honest hard working people. How is it fair to the man in Moscow, Beirut, or Athens who is patiently waiting for a visa to come here legally to let people who broke the laws have special rights not given to the man in Moscow Beirut or Athens? The real reason Obama and the Democrats want amnesty and citizenship opportunities is that they think that they can be counted on to vote Democratic. If they thought that there was the slightest possibility that they would vote Republican, Obama and his people would be the first ones to oppose immigration reform.
George, Romeny lost because of some of the stupid things of Geroge W Bush. According to the late Terry Anderson an africian-american Bush once a training program for Casinos but you had to be Latino. Ronald Reagan never did Affirmative Action programs and Bush did some for Hispanics not blacks or whites. Bush also got rid of lend downpayments so hispanics that came here illegality could purchase homes thru their construcation jobs and Bush tried 3 times or so to legalizated them. He created job competition between immirgants legal or illegal, native born Latinos, Whites and blacks. At one time Bakersfield Ca had a house that was brought by an illegal immirgant for 600,000.
Unlike you archpriest Morris, I’m mainly self taught on history but I agree with you history in the university system defintely has a biases and Rev Wright’s history of Roman history is pretty medocre. This doesn’t stopped the professors of their biases. Romans are Garlic nose Italians and Jews are subharian blacks according to Rev Wright. Granted, Romey’s mormon aith believe that Jesus came to the new world and there is no proof of it. But Obama’s faith in Wright’s history by the smart professors who know ancient history is ok.
Well, there are some Republicans that pushed legalization George W Bush and Jeb Bush its not just the left. There are bad apples on both the left and right and the Mexican government is the big pusher of this. I know because I saw the results of Reagan’s legalization in 1986.
Well, Austin is known for low pay for its cost of living, housing average’s around 250,000 because of a lot of out of state people. Austin and some of the Dallas and Houston area not as cheap as 10 years ago. Texas has the 13th highest property tax. All states wihout income taxes make it up by property taxes. One man paid 2,000 less in property by moving to Missouri and even paid less taxes in Missouri since property tax was cheaper. Three, Texas has 1.6 illegal immirgants when the housing boom was going they could get good construcation jobs that has been cut in half that why even under the new study poverty is around 16.8 percent.
Vann will become spiritual leader for 1.3 million Orange County Catholics, who now make up 41 percent of the county’s population. The diocese is the 10th-largest in the U.S., the second-largest in California and, by some estimates, the nation’s fastest-growing.Following decades of immigration from Latin America and Vietnam, regions with strong Catholic traditions, Catholicism is now a prominent religious and cultural force in a county historically known as a birthplace of evangelical Protestant megachurches. Well, as stated before immirgation is a factor. An area about 30 years ago which was mainly protestant and protesants are more likely to vote Republican is now turn into more for Catholicism thanks to immirgation which is more divded between the two parties. George’s wonder why California is so democratic well immirgation was vertainly a big factor.