The fact that you cannot discern that speaks volumes about your judgment.

And, how long would the Depression have lasted, had we not had WWII? Care to venture a guess that you can back up with fact on that? Even with the war, there were places where the Depression extended beyond WWII … like Appalachia, where my father grew up.

Like I said to Louise — we have sound principle on our side.

Even if you carry Election Day, you will not be able to get around that … and when the people grow tired of the suffering your policies bring, you won’t even be able to carry the next Election Day.

Referring to government-funded social support as “insurance” instead of calling it “welfare” doesn’t make it any less SOCIALIST.

Rich: actually, we weathered the Great Depression because of a Keynesian intervention. Of course, World War II also helped. Sadly, this is not the 1930′s, and war doesn’t seem to do the trick like it did back in the good old days.

Louise said everything else I was going to say. Well done, Louise.

Tea baggers: take your tea to the middle east. They hate America over there as much as you seem to.

ONLY A MORON REPUBLICAN LIKE BUSH WILL REJOICE IN TEA PARTIES.

IT’S A TOOL OF THE CONSTITUTION AND LIBERTARIAN PARTIES.

IT SIGNALS THE FACT THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS ALREADY DESTROYED. NO LEADER. ASHAMED OF ITSELF. DISOWNED. WE, LIBERALS, DON’T EVEN HAVE TO RAISE OUR WEAPONS AGAINST THE Rs.

THEY ARE SELF-DESTRUCTING.

SO…. FOR YOUR OWN SAKE JEN…. GIVE UP THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

YOU CAN BE A LIBERTARIAN OR A CONSTITUIONAL PARTY MEMBER.

OR IF YOU WANT ….. GO FOR DEMOCRATIC PARTY. WE’RE A BIG TENT TOO.

And we’ve tried your “chemo” before, back in the 1960′s and 1970′s … and we found it was actually snake oil.

When funding for government programs is advertised as “stimulus” for a flagging economy, but is not slated to be spent until years later … spending that looks like a hard-Left wish list … something isn’t adding up here.

I don’t demonize the poor … but neither do I give them a pass when they act as greedily as the worst hedge fund managers, by absorbing our monetary expressions of compassion in perpetuity instead of giving it everything they got to become self-sufficient … choosing to “get by” on the dole at the expense of your and my getting ahead.

OTOH, soaking the rich soaks US … either in higher prices, or in my case reducing the profit-sharing my employer provides for every employee.

And for what? Health-care programs that threaten my civil liberties far more than the PATRIOT Act? Alternative-energy programs where the principles of economics, the laws of physics and the state-of-the-art do not square with Utopian dreams? Unaccountable bailout programs, run by tax cheats who got a free pass you and I would never get? The imposition, by force of law, of a cult belief in man-made climate change that is on grounds as shaky as that of the Terracentric Catholic Church of Galileo’s day?

You are right, though, in saying that we should get to work … apparently, managing our own lives and staying off the government teat left the door open for the hard Left to seize the levers of power.

But understand this … we have something more than numbers, or hours, on our side of this debate.

We have sound principles … principles like the notion that life and liberty are conferred upon us by a Higher Power than the State … the idea that the locals can manage society better than the “experts” in DC … the idea that sometimes, confrontation and even violence is the optimum form of “diplomacy” …

… and the most fundamental sound principle of all … that there are principles beyond the relativism that has infected so many of your fellow-travelers, principles that are IMPERVIOUS to CHANGE, no matter how many of y’all, or how many thousands of hours y’all, HOPE to change them to suit your feelings.

It took 45 years for Democrats in Virginia to “come out of the wilderness.” And you “Teabaggers” are bragging about your incoherent “Tax Day” rallies of 5,000 people — each with a different agenda, as the “beginning of the end” of Obama, the Federal Government and the “oppression of liberalism?”

Get real.

If you really want to have a voice in what is going on, stop being so passive and expecting that whining, complaining and lying will get you what you want.

Stop demonizing the the poor. Hedge Fund Managers paid lobbyists to get them an INCOME tax rate of 15% — on the stupid argument that their income should be taxed at same rate as the equities they sold. Huh?

But, allowing the working poor — the ones in our country who are out there, working hard, day in and day out, actually building things and caring for you and your children — in small factories and day care centers are “stealing your money with the “Earned Income Tax” benefit? One of the most important ways our country has created a middle-class that is able to buy goods and services from the more wealthy? WHO DO YOU THINK THE CUSTOMERS AND CLIENTS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE?

And, finally, why do conservatives and “independents” get to talk in such disrespectful and almost traitorous ways during a time of war and during one of the most dangerous economic times in modern history? It is sickening.

And you keep complaining about the “medicine” the US has to “take” to get well — the “bailouts” and the Stimulus Package” — like a bunch of ignorant people who won’t take “poisonous chemo therapy” to kill their cancer.

Well, we have to take some chemo for a while, get sick, have some hair fall out and feel kind of rotten. But, if we work hard, eat well, keep a good attitude, do what the doctor says — we may end up feeling better than we did before. Especially if we stop eating junk food, start exercising, going to the doctor before we have a crisis and stop acting like asses.

And finally, coud you stop calling those who do not have your same ideas names? “Libtards.” You do realize you are calling liberals “retarded,” right? None of you has liberal friends or family members? Would you call them “retarded to their faces? Shame on you!

Get your own house in order and work hard. The next election is coming up. YOU DO HAVE REPRESENTATION. Our forefathers and mothers DIED for you to have the gift of representation. Are you so ungrateful? Work hard for the candidates of your choice. Spend the time you currently spend in front of the TV with Beck or listening to Rush on the radio — and actual do something.

Those of us who elected Obama spend THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of hours working for him and his election. And we continue to tell him our views. Our president listens to US because WE have credibility. We have not only talked the talk — WE HAVE WALKED THE WALK. Hundred of miles — as a matter of fact.

So get to work for what you believe. But, please stop the insults and paranoia; it is your country — but IT IS OUR COUNTRY TOO.

Some of those older folks are old enough to remember the truth about the Depression and what it took to get us out of it (hint: it wasn’t nanny-state socialism).

Virtually all of them, though, are old enough to remember the social-engineering and command-economy follies of the 1970′s, and how these follies worked against preserving our prosperity.

To such as these, the new Messiah looks a lot like the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter … and they have been there, endured that, and don’t want to go back.

I’m one of them. We know a few things you young’uns don’t know yet … and our opposition is in part an effort to keep y’all from having to learn the hard way, like we did.

Veterans’ benefits are even closer to the insurance paradigm … as they are EARNED, not granted.

It is one thing to assist the elderly and those who defend us with insurance programs … another thing entirely to spend trillions on “stimulus”, that will not be applied to this economy for YEARS, in the form of a Leftist wish list.

Ever consider that these people would like to keep some Ivy League idiots from bankrupting their insurer in the name of “progressive” ideology?

(Probably not.)