Should the ‘Smarties’ Really Be Put in Charge of Health Care?
In a delicious coincidence, another supposedly scientific study telling us that liberals and atheists are more intelligent than everyone else appeared during a weekend when two dreadful reports on the tangible results of their supposedly superior circuitry arrived.
I’ll leave detailed critiques of the study to others, but you’ll have to excuse me for suspecting that its conclusions were reached using the same degree of experimental rigor and attention to detail last seen in attempts to “prove” that human activity causes global warming.
The Treasury Department delivered most of the evidence of the wonders done for us, or I should say to us, during the past 75 years by those higher beings on the left known as liberals, leftists, and “progressives” last Friday. It came in the form of the “2009 Financial Report of the United States Government,” a 254-page, 2.4 megabyte behemoth which tells us where the nation stood financially on September 30 of last year in painstaking detail — with a heavy emphasis on the pain.
The report’s Table 1 lays out Uncle Sam’s balance sheet, but also has two big line items near its bottom, under the category called “Social Insurance Net Expenditures.” These really represent taxpayers’ obligations to future government entitlement program beneficiaries. The first listing, amounting to $7.677 trillion, is Social Security.
Following much of the model pioneering smarties like Bismarck had initiated in Europe, that quintessential smarty Franklin Delano Roosevelt got his rubber-stamp Congress to pass the Social Security Act in 1935, primarily as an old-age retirement plan. Its early cost of 1% of the first $3,000 of individual earnings, plus a matching amount paid by employers, was modest enough, while early Social Security Administration publications promised workers and employers that their taxes would never increase.
Oops. The program’s subsequent history is one of continually increasing tax rates and taxable amounts, while the roster of those forced to make “contributions” has grown to include the self-employed and many others. In 2010, employers and employees must each pay 6.2% of the employee’s first $106,800 of earnings into the system. The maximum amount a person and his employer might pay of $13,243 (12.4% x $106,800) is over 220 times the program’s initial price tag of $60 (2% x $3,000).
Tom,
I’ll stipulate for arguments sake that the smarties tend, when it comes to actually getting good, constructive things done, to have a less than admirable track record of success. Social security, medicare, the post office being a couple of ignominiously bankrupt examples of ineptitudinal brainpower. But I’d like to give the smarties a chance to redeem themselves at least in the mind of lil’ ol’ blond haired, blue eyed Rachel. Should their eyes see these words, I’d like them to consider the following sentence a proposition. I promise to put all my weight in favor of ObamaCare, hailed by Bostonians aplenty as an extremely smart piece of progressive legislation if they promise something in return.
If the brilliant thinkers behind ObamaCare promise to cure a delusional President Obama, I, Rachel Peepers, being of sound mind and slender body, promise to support it.
Certainly, ObamaCare, as a 2,600 page piece of booby trap legislation, does, I’m sure even the smarties will admit, have its problems. But so does the guy who’s demanding Congress vote for it. Could it be that Obama’s mental state is bound to suffer because there are so many bad ideas bound within the Bill? Bad ideas even he can’t defend? You think? Perhaps you caught the apparent contradiction when the pro-ObamaCare forces were pushing their legislative train wreck this past week?
A guy came on Fox and, having not just his talking points but the kind of speaking patterns and appearance that reminded me of a senile old lady, dished about the ways ObamaCare would lower costs, reduce the deficit: One point he raised struck me as especially telling. Specifically, this guy said that the uninsured would no longer go to emergency rooms for medical problems. Which, to me, goes against the implication that 30 million uninsured Americans are going without the care they need. Truth is, the vast majority are getting the care they need for free. Either at emergency rooms or free clinics. Or simply getting doctors’ care and not paying for it. Sure, the paying public ends up footing the bills, but that’s okay with me if the alternative is a budget busting, premium soaring, governmentally controlled, trillion plus dollar healthcare reinventive abortion. To jam this distasteful prescription for medical chaos and catastrophe down the taxpayers’ throats, Obama demands an up or down vote on March 18, a date I wrote a missive about on “Eternity Road”, titled: “Balogna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’m sick of it.”
To wit: since when does the Constitution give a Presidential pipsqueak or any other President the power to make congress meet his demands? There’s a little thing called separation of powers which, unfortunately, hasn’t stopped our gloriously progressive President from separating himself from reality. ObamaCare or not, how much longer can we permit this chain smoking, hard liquor drinking, delusional President go untreated?
Somehow delusional and trigger finger on enough weapons to destroy humanity don’t, how shall I put it? Don’t go together like Astaire & Rogers, like bacon and eggs, like Lennon and McCartney. Unless, of course, one’s idea of a symphony for the senses is a world wide series of mushroom cloud visuals and accompanying booming soundtracks.
Harvey Mansfield of Harvard has candidly admitted that even he participates in the widespread fraud going on at our “elite” universities. Most of the softer discipline degrees awarded at our so-called better academic institutions are unearned. This is not a big secret to the insiders. Everybody knows what is going on. It is only the unwashed outsiders who are supposed to be kept in the dark.
The leftist establishment is comprised of ill educated individuals. Never forget that the disastrous affirmative action policies were instituted in the mid to late 1960s. Blacks and other minorities were the first ones to benefit from the organized scam job. White students jumped aboard the inflated grades gravy train by no later than 1975. It has only gotten much worse since then. Affirmative action grading provided the perfect excuse for wealthy white parents to bribe administrators to give top grades to their less than qualified children.
I am tired (not being American, BTW) of Al Gore-style hysterics aimed at gullible.
For starters, SS is the system of wealth re-distribution, NOT government taxation/entitlement. It taxes current employees to provide pensions and benefits to retired folks and infirm. There is no unfunded obligations in the system: whatever future SS payroll taxes will be collected, it will be re-distributed among retired folks. The only federal government obligation is about 1.5 trillion dollars of last 20 years SS taxation SURPLUS which was mandated to buy special treasury bonds. That’s why you 40 millions retiring American folks should take care to physically eliminate Barry/Pelosi/Reid hacks from the political scene. They are stealing 1.5 trillion of your retirement money, by simple action of drunken sailor spending, which will lead to inflation of said hard-earned 1.5 trillion into zero.
To be exact, if any of current Barry/Demmy enterprises (health care, green energy, etc.) will achieve efficiency of US Post Office (most of purchases over E-bay are shipped via USPS, anyway), I will call it unmitigated success.
Fat chance, thought.
Another way to say it: The poor overwhelmingly vote for democrats year in and year out, so why are they still poor?
Without the attitude, they’ve got nothing. They know it too, which is why there can never be any debate. Opposition is personal, because it strikes at the core of who they are. To be more precise, that should say who they imagine themselves to be.
Just remember that Vietnam was brought to us courtesy of the “Best and Brightest”.
Yup. And the nice boys from Enron were “The smartest guys in the room.”
#1 Rachel, delusion is his essence, so I would suggest saving your “sound mind and slender body” (rub it in, why doncha?) for something that has a chance of success.
How many times has Obama said, “If you like your plan (or doctor, or provider), you can keep it” only to see it debunked and re-debunked by pointing to actual language in the legislation’s various drafts? It doesn’t matter; he just repeats it, apparently in the belief that if he says it enough, we’ll believe it.
The condition you describe, and that we observe daily, is not curable.
Social Security is broke because of LBJ and Teddy Kennedy and their ilk , The “Great Society” SSI and other wealth distribution plans. Most of these plans evolved since the 60′S. Elected officials now build kingdoms and do not serve the people that elected them. Reemember the congress and the Senate get a pension after 6 years, do you?? Government officials take trips that cost so much that Louis the 14th would have balked at the cost. I cannot think of anything the government has done as planned and on budget since I was a kid. These I am tired of politicians in general and tend to vote for the outsider the nut or against the incumbent in the hope that at least that will slow down this train wreck.
Equating intellectualism with money is like comparing Ghandi with Limbo.
After Obama’s one term, I predict he’ll announce that he’s assuming the empty throne of America’s Nation of Islam, fesses up to the Moslem thing, chuckles that not one college prof. in the country believed his true religion while every truck driver in the land did, and then leads them to a Sunni revival before heading to Mecca as the 23rd something or other to emerge fom a well. With Saudi money, he becomes the Caliph and leads the Muslim world, as he and The House of Saud always intended, in the continueing conquest of Europe and West.
Do you think our smart guys and gals see this coming?
Sarah does.
Crabby
Why are the “smarties” driving us into bankruptcy?
It’s not that they’re not intelligent, though your typical “smarty” isn’t nearly as bright as he preens himself for being. And in the main, it’s not because they have evil intentions, though some almost certainly do. In the usual case, it’s because they’ve freed themselves from the feedback mechanisms that make results more important than intentions.
Most of us are woefully inadequate at everything beyond our personal specialties. One who fancies himself an Anything Authority is almost certainly in denial about this fundamental fact. But such a person, equipped with sufficient vanity, might nevertheless presume to prescribe and proscribe for the rest of us.
Trouble is, he won’t be the one to bear the costs of his errors.
He who stakes his self-worth on a conviction of intellectual and / or moral superiority, can’t bear to confront the harm he’s done. He’ll find ways to wish it away, to make it someone else’s fault. And he’ll quite naturally hate anyone who insists that the odium is properly his to bear.
In the argot of the day, he’ll damn his critics and “double down.” Disaster usually follows.
No smarties in government! PLEASE!
If leftists are so intelligent, why are we so broke?
Maybe because that’s their goal.
#JWF- Easy answer, they went to public schools in an urban environment.
They are not the best or the brightess just utopians and dreamers.Everything they advocate has been tried before and failed. History has never been a strong suit with these folks.
Are liberals more intelligent when it comes to government?
Forbes not long ago released their annual list of the 20 most miserable cities in America.
I looked up the last two mayors of those cities to find out, if there were a trend toward a certain party. And oh boy did I find a trend.
1. Cleveland, Ohio –
Jane L. Campbell, Democrat
Frank G. Jackson, Democrat
2. Stockton, California
Ed Chavez, Democrat
Ann Johnston, Democrat
3. Memphis, Tennessee
Willie W. Herenton, Democrat
A C Wharton, Jr, Democrat
4. Detroit, Michigan
Kenneth Cockrel, Jr, Democrat
Dave Bing, Democrat
5. Flint, Michigan
Dayne Walling, Democrat
Don Williamson, Democrat
6. Miami, Florida
Manny Diaz, Independent
Tomás Pedro Regalado, Republican
7. St. Louis, Missouri
Clarence Harmon, Democrat
Francis G. Slay, Democrat
8. Buffalo, New York
Anthony Masiello, Democrat
Byron Brown – Democrat
9. Canton, Ohio
Mary Cirelli, Democrat
William J. Healy II, Democrat
10. Chicago, Illinois
Eugene Sawyer, Democrat
Richard M. Daley, Democrat
11. Modesto, California
Richard A. Lang, Republican
Jim Ridenour, Republican
12. Akron, Ohio
Thomas C. Sawyer, Democrat
Donald L. Plusquellic, Democrat
13. Kansas City, Missouri
Kay Barnes, Democrat
Mark Funkhouser, Democrat
14. Rockford, Illinois
Douglas P. Scott, Democrat
Larry Morrissey, Independent
15. Toledo, Ohio
Carleton S. Finkbeiner, Democrat
Michael P. Bell, Democrat
16. New York, New York
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Republican
Michael R. Bloomberg, Republican/Independent
17. Sacramento, California
Heather Fargo, Democrat
Kevin Johnson, Democrat
18. Youngstown, Ohio
George McKelvey, Democrat
Jay Williams, Democrat/Independent
19. Gary, Indiana
Scott King, Democrat
Rudy Clay, Democrat
20. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
John F. Street, Democrat
Michael Nutter, Democrat
Way to cope with those unsettling stats! Dumb is good! Smart is bad! That’s the ticket!
17. Shef Rogers:
Actually… sophistry is bad, and common sense is good. And the philosopher king of the Sophists is Barry the Magnificent and Charismatic.
As per the oft cited claim that liberals are more educated…factor out the vanity liberal arts degrees and the numbers invert.
I’ll leave detailed critiques of the study to others, but you’ll have to excuse me for suspecting that its conclusions were reached using the same degree of experimental rigor and attention to detail last seen in attempts to “prove” that human activity causes global warming.
In almost any university in America, this paragraph alone would have earned you a D.
To 8. Bohemond:
“…the nice boys from Enron were “The smartest guys in the room.””
The Enron guys were crooks. Now, do you see the resemblance?
The self-annointed “smart guys,” “achievatrons,” whatever, have quite a record since the “amiable dunce” left town. In 1989 the US was at the pinnacle of power and success. The world was at peace, the evil empire was in its early death throes, and the American economy was the envy of the world. Now look at the quagmire we are in after 20 years of Ivy League einsteins running things.
I believe I’ll stick with stupid over here.
We’re broke because of Wall Street (Republicans) and George Bush, not because of ‘smart people”
“Smarties” were running the White House from 1992 to 2000 and things got better; and when dumbasses were running it from 2000 to 2008, things got worse, a lot worse.
Has anyone been able to read through the liberal/atheist article(the real one, not the one linked here)? I’m pretty curious to read the methods and results, but far from curious enough to pay 32$ for the privilege.
Shall we say it ?
The goal of the totalitarian nihilists is nil.
And I am pretty sure that the nihilist brainwashing will lead nearly all the readers to think that I am using a metaphor.
Nope.
The totalitarian nihilist do not lead the societies that they control to ruin and destruction only because they are wrong.
They lead the society to their own proper home, the absolute nothing.
Actually… sophistry is bad, and common sense is good. And the philosopher king of the Sophists is Barry the Magnificent and Charismatic.
As per the oft cited claim that liberals are more educated…factor out the vanity liberal arts degrees and the numbers invert.
You bring up an interesting point, which I’ve thought about over the years. I have both a “vanity liberal arts degree” (in Classics, which is about as useless as a degree gets, although from my experience, those getting the degree are far more intelligent than those getting other “vanity liberal arts degrees”, most of whom couldn’t handle the Greek and Latin language requirements) and an MBA, with an emphasis on statistical analysis and hard-core number-crunching.
Anyway, the Classical model of politics is definitely based on sophistry, i.e. societies are to be ruled by persuasive speakers, regardless of the factual content of their speeches. This was understandable in the days before the scientific method and the emergence of more sophisticated ways of understanding data about social phenomena. Yet, we see this model continue to exert an influence in the politics of today, with, I agree, Obama being among the most egregious offenders.
On the other hand, were politics to be based on the kinds of statistical analysis I work with daily, the people who didn’t survive the number-crunching would yelp and howl, despite the quite objective processes used to conclude that, in the final analysis, those individuals are useless and their fate is of zero importance in the grand scheme of things.
So, a balance is required between blowing smoke up the populace’s butt with fancy words and having such a “green eyeshades” view of the world that your only possible conclusion is that the bottom half of the population should be wiped off the face of the earth due to their objective uselessness.
The problem with the Left isn’t that some of them aren’t intelligent, it’s that they use that intelligence in the service of a false premise, i.e. that “collectivism” can work. Just as no amount of intelligence in a physicist can help him solve quantum mechanics problems using the assumptions of Newtonian physics, no amount of intelligence in a Leftist can help him solve problems which can’t be collectivised using the assumptions of collectivism. Their entire corpus of “intellectual work” is for naught, because the collectivist assumption is false. It’s as bad or worse than the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages.
For my money, the only people who combine intelligence and common sense are those who understand that the source of value is the individual, acting either in concert with other individuals on a voluntary basis or alone, not the collective, and that competition is always better than non-competition.
The new red is green and the neo-nomenklatura have gifted themselves with the term “intellectual.” Praise be to the front lobally gifted who know better than I! I work at a high tech company, which means I’m just… you know, smart…but not an intellectual or anything.
having just read on American Thinker that U Tenn is granting the brilliant Albert Gore, Jr. a doctorate degree in May: “Vice President Gore’s career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better. He is among the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history, and it is fitting that he should be honored by the flagship education institution of his home state,” says one Jimmy Cheek(an apt name for a cheeky fool) pres. of said university, i can only conclude that institutions of higher learning are dumbing down America, awards and doctorates have been rendered meaningless. Yeah, being a democrat really makes you smart. And I’ve got a highway that leads to utopia to sell you.
One can argue the “delusion”, or better yet, the “self-delusion” of the “smarties” who insist on foisting their government programs on us for the betterment of the citizenry, but the ol’ saying rings true here:
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
So it goes with the left…
In their “wisdom” of DOING SOMETHING for all those down-trodden, uninsured, masses (yearning to be “entitled”) they see present situations as their canvas for painting their grand vision of a future utopia and happiness for all…
The ultimate end of course being communism where needs are meet for EVERYONE by the state…and the state ALONE!
Maybe it’s pathological, or maybe it IS their devious and sinister motivation for power and the need to pander for the votes of the poor and less fortunate…whatever it is, it works and HAS worked…most of the time.
Maybe we finally are coming to the end of the rope on that whole scenario though. The end being, of course, a BROKE and BANKRUPT country!
We are seeing it played out in Europe right now, especially Greece, but the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) at the trough of the EU are finding it harder to get fed…so we’ll see what happens there.
WE, of course, are on our own…to sink or swim by our own government programs that hang a millstone around our neck!
That “saint” of liberal thinking, Bobby Kennedy, who paraphrased George Bernard Shaw, said the following (in praise of GOVERNMENT intervention, of course):
“Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’”
I’ll tell you WHY NOT:
“BECAUSE WE CAN’T CONTINUE TO PAY FOR THEM…THAT’S WHY NOT!!!”
It’s the end of the line for THAT “smart” way of thinking.
And EVERYONE is realizing it…
Time for someone to unleash the TRUE greatness of America:
The INDIVIDUAL citizen and entrepreneur! FREE of a “smart” GOVERNMENT’s “good” intentions.
“Are liberals more intelligent when it comes to government?
Forbes not long ago released their annual list of the 20 most miserable cities in America.
I looked up the last two mayors of those cities to find out, if there were a trend toward a certain party. And oh boy did I find a trend.”
Correlation is not causality. I think the more likely chain of events begins with wealth producing citizens leaving and the less capable electing the collectivist candidate. But the decline is more connected to the decline in citizen quality. Misgoverning will accelerate the process.
Of course it is possible that in some cases the flight began as the result of bad government. In other cases it began with an influx of less capable residents.
JL, POSTER#16-look a little further-the top 15 most crime-ridden cities in the last 15 yrs-only ONE of them has had anything other than a demonrat-and that city is NEW YORK, which has had 3 liberal rinos(Lindsay, Guilliani,and the current idiot Bollomberg). Chicago hasnt had a GOP mayor since 1932. New Orleans has NEVER had one. Niether has Baltimore. Also check out the Red/Blue maps the media loves to use during elections. Funny how the Blue(demonrat) has the highest crime,highest taxes and highest unemployment numbers. Yet there are still dolts who vote for them.
PlatoBunker-
You bring up a good point…California being a good example…
But then, California is probably the CAPITAL of “smart, wealth producing” citizens bequiled by the promises of BAD politicians.
But we are learning…the hard way.
Well, after fifty-six (56) straight years of Paul Krugman presiding over the Federal Reserve system, Dr. Bones, what else was reasonably to be expected?
Healthy days.
Articles like this drive me crazy. The author makes the same fatal mistake that Republicans have been making for the last few decades, which is to confuse a symptom (money) for a cause (progressive state-as-god government).
You can argue correctly that progessive government spends too much, but at the end of the day, what does it matter? Your average progressive certainly doesn’t care. To him, money is irrelevant, other than a useful tool by which to lead the sheeple around by their collective nose.
The GOP is the only organized opposition to progressivism, but they have failed miserably over the past decades to effectively counteract it because their only position amounts to “it costs too much”. This mantra ultimately falls on deaf ears because it triumphs no underlying principles, and emasculates Republicans in the eyes of the general public.
As commentator Mark Steyn has pointed out, if the GOP is unable or unwilling to change, then the US will continue its slide into European-style socialism, and the GOP will be reduced to the role of “Christian Democrat” in which they no longer argue against the welfare state, but only on whether they can make it more efficient.
Please wake up! Know your enemy, and know that he is extremely smart, dedicated, and experienced. Confront him with logic based on bedrock Conservative principles, NOT “it costs too much.”
Of course we should surrender to the authority of the best and the brightest graduates of a handful of schools. It worked so well in Vietnam.
“If leftists are so intelligent, why are we so broke?”
Yeah right. Obama broke the country in 12 months.
Had nothing to do the trillion dollar war, the trillion dollar Big Pharma give away, the 1 1/2 reillion tax cuts to the richest, the trillions stolen by the banks, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman…. …all the products of Bush and republicans.
You people are stupid. Even your own party leaders have acknowledged it.
22. Albert:
Please don’t you think you’ve gotten all the mileage out of George Bush that you can.What about Barny Frank with forced lending to people that should never have gotten loans?? What about Ted(the dead) Kennedy that never saw someone else’s dollar he didn’t want to give away?? If you want to blame Republicans OK pick McCain and Bush S, they were both dumb enough to agree with Ronald R’s last failed amnesty for criminals (read illegal aliens) no not undocumented workers ILLEGALS. It was a stupid and expensive failure then and will be worse the next time and very expensive.
I’ll agree that Bush made some dumb decisions with his heart when he should have used his mind. Both AIDS aid to Africa and his Prescription Plan.
Can you admit that Obama does not walk on water or change water int wine, and just might be a tiny bit socialist??
Shut up you rubes!
We are trying to make society BETTER! If you’ll just shut up, do as you’re told, pay more taxes, we’ll finish deindustrializing to spread the US’s remaining ill-gotten wealth to other countries, we’ll let in more illegals to dilute the ideas that may have survived from prior generations like thrift and mindless loyalty to the US, passs cap and trade to suppress your outrageously high standard of living, limit the use of excess toilet tissue, heat, hot water and mindless sports, and we’ll soon have the country euro-ized to the point where no one can be fired, evryone’s a professsor, student or union worker and everyone will get subsidies from the State. Just like Greece!
We may have missed the mark on Europe as Nirvanah in the 30′s, (where’d that Hitler guy come from?), Castro as an agraraian reformer predicting mass starvation (Population Bomb -1970), that minerals will run out (the Club of Rome 1972), that inslattion of Pershing II missles in Europe would cause a war (1985), lobotomies were good, and we fibbed a bit in emphasizing AIDS as a disease anyone coud catch, that the people of Nicuragura wanted communist rule (1986), and that the USSR would last (1989).
But we are right this time so shut up, pay up, sit down, and vote Democratic.
Number 31 is correct. Ruin always comes wearing the clothing of altruism.
“22. Albert:
“We’re broke because of Wall Street (Republicans) and George Bush, not because of ’smart people””
Oh, dear. And who are the “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street? Yeo- those Ivy League MBA’s. We’re broke because of George Bush? Are you insane? Well, yes: classic BDS.
———————-
Harpy,
puh-leez. Wall Street is “Republican?” Wall Street knows no loyalty, and has no ideology beyond self-interest. They contributed far, far more money to Dems then Reps the last two cycles- and Goldman Sachs is up Obama’s rectum to the hilt.
What sort of cognitive dissonance enables you to proclaim that Clinton’s (forced) budget-balancing was great, and Obama’s batshit insane deficits are also great? Look at California, at Illinois, at Michigan, at Greece, and then try to defend liberalism as an economic system. “Eventually” has arrived- there’s no more Other People’s Money left to spend.
Don’t you mean the “best and the brightest?” Yeah, look how they’ve done. In 1942 it took 6 months to build the Alaskan hyway. Today they can’t even get the world trade center rebuilt after nine years, and it only took a couple years to build the original. Wait till they’re in charge of enemas and changing diapers, which is what Washington is really in need of.
No means no.
I support all non violent means to stop them.
@25. BC: – “Smarties” were running the White House …
The White House, maybe. But Congress ultimately determines fiscal policy, and it had a Republican majority from 1995 until 2006. During that time GDP grew consistently, with the historically short exception of the dot-com/Enron/WorldComm recession and the aftermath of 9/11, neither of which were the direct result of government fiscal policies. During that time unemployment was held to an average of roughly 5.3%. Between 2001 and 2006, the economy grew at 3% per year (for a total of 20% real growth by 2008); inflation-adjusted, federal revenue peaked at historic levels; personal disposable income grew by 9% and the federal deficit declined each year from 2004 to 2007, at which point the government was on track for a balanced budget by late 2008.
Your cherry-picked fiscal data is revealing – it reveals the depth of your bias. Here, try this more complete data set.
That data shows where things took a nosedive, starting in 2007, when the “smarties” took control of Congress. That “smarty”-led nosedive produced a tripled federal deficit in only one year, and an exploded deficit – by a FACTOR OF TEN TIMES – in only three years. The “smarties” also managed to DOUBLE unemployment from its preceding 12-year average in that same short time span. While pursuing this economic destruction, the “smarties” also managed to “miscalculate” (read: lie about) the effects of the wasted Spendulu$ on unemployment with an error rate of OVER THIRTY PERCENT (10.2 rather than 7.8% – and the real unemployment rate is closer to 18%). That error will only get worse as soon as the second, deeper wave of the double-dip recession hits.
Your “smarties” are a bunch of dummies, BC.
why do you lump atheists in with liberals ?
isn’t ridicule one of Saul Alinski’s tricks ?
just because a person has critical though and therefore sees no evidence of “god” does not put some one in the liberal/progressive camp.
not every one speaks to the “great imaginary friend”. you know the one who brought you the jihad and the inquisition. …sorry didn’t mean to ridicule.
maybe you should be discussing dishonest people instead of smart people.
Jose Ortega y Gasset: The Revolt of the Masses
IQ is not the distinguishing factor;
A more subtle psychological flaw characterizes
Ortega’s ‘Mass Man’: He believes everyone is equal,
and destroys society trying to validate his belief.
Ortega observed that this process could not begin
until technological progress rescued the Mass Man
from the frequent, fatal reminders that he could
not survive without guidance from his Betters;
We are about to go through a remedial course in
acceptance of that reality.
Smartie’s? Thanks for the laugh. I’m sure they think it’s a compliment.
They have never got beyond puberty at best; Sucking the teat of the state is their lifelong pursuit, and only goal in life.
Complete parasites.
If left/liberals are so smart, 1. Why are they f*cking around with healthcare like this, and 2. Why are they left/libtards?
With Rothchilds and FED pulling strings of the USA shadow government, it is impossible NOT to be in debt. FED issues dollars WITHOUT CONSIDERATION. Americans will argue until they’re blue in the face because they are delusional and cannot do simple maths. The banksters MUST call loans and create depressions so all property returns to the bankster’s title. That is the objective: feudal debt serfs with bankster overlords. The banksters put out dollars and antidollars. Calling loans forces the two to mutually annihilate into nothingness, giving victims of usury no recourse/wages to pay interest on the now nonexistent dollars.
Banksters hide the antidollars in government/corporate debts during booms so dumb Americans are tricked into thinking their dollars are real. Banksters then call all loans whereupon it is too late for the sheeple. Americans have sold themselves and their offspring into perpetual slavery, a counter-reformation tactic promoted by the Vatican.
“just because a person has critical though and therefore sees no evidence of “god” does not put some one in the liberal/progressive camp.
not every one speaks to the “great imaginary friend”. you know the one who brought you the jihad and the inquisition. …sorry didn’t mean to ridicule.”
If you’d followed the link, you’d see that it led to an article on CNN about a recent “study” which reached those conclusions.
Has anyone else ever noted that on the internet, posts degrading another person’s intellect, or inflating one’s own, never seem to be written properly, even if they are only a couple sentences?
“If leftists are so intelligent, why are we so broke?” They’re not. But they love power. Which is why we are so broke.
@28 VVV: “The problem with the Left isn’t that some of them aren’t intelligent, it’s that they use that intelligence in the service of a false premise, i.e. that “collectivism” can work. Just as no amount of intelligence in a physicist can help him solve quantum mechanics problems using the assumptions of Newtonian physics”. Bingo! Almost no other discussion is necessary.
We have no evidence that collectivism works and so much evidence that it does not. Even if it appears to work for a while in a manner satisfying to progressives, it is inherently unstable and the very definition of a slippery slope. Government and its individual programs and departments spend a large portion of their time and funding to justify their own expansions, entitlements breed more dependents and this requires more entitlements. A collectivist government quickly grows beyond the ability of its productive people to support it. That leads to both a credit addiction and unfunded liabilities. Even money printing does not offer a way out because entitlement liabilities are ratcheted up by the inevitable inflation that folows an increased money supply. It all has to end badly unless the government acts to reverse its own growth – and given the political unpopularity of cutting untenable programs, it is unlikely that this corrective action will be taken.
The progressives don’t even try to understand these things probably because the path of understanding would expose their ideology as unattainable utopia. Instead these “Smarties” are satisfied to rely on people like Paul Krugman and John Keynes who should (should have) known better but had their own ideological blinders to deal with.
Nero, mind explaining why the Vatican would be working in support of the New World Order when the NWO is explicitly anti-Christian (and even described in Scripture as such)? Why do people like you and kochevnik always have to bring the Vatican into stuff like this?
54@Mike G
>We have no evidence that collectivism works and so much evidence
>that it does not.
Then you agree the USA military must be disbanded? After all, war is the most collectivist action a nation undertakes.
38. jharp:
Welcome back buddy, I just needed to remind you that your messiah was getting busy getting his knees dirty in front of a slumlord for years before he get his knees dirty in front of Chavez and Ahmadenijhad.
I seem to recall that Chamberlaine was an intellectual and churchill wasn’t… At some point in the 30′s? Hmmm…
@55. myth buster: – Why do people like you and kochevnik always have to bring the Vatican into stuff like this?
The most likely reason for their like-mindedness is that Nero and kochevnik are two sockpuppets animated by the same troll.
@Nero #56
The US military is all volunteer, so it is not collectivist in the slightest.
56
Then you agree the USA military must be disbanded? After all, war is the most collectivist action a nation undertakes.
Typical red-herring non-sequitur. The pursuit of war on the part of a nation represents that nation’s collective voluntary will to continued existence “as-is” in the face of the alternative of becoming the plaything of the potential vanquishing enemy. As such, it fits the criterion of “voluntary collectivism” in a way that the current set of Ponzi-esque financial and health-related entitlements, the paradigm of which ObamaCare would continue, do not. Also, war has typically had a finite set of goals and did not represent an open-ended commitment to an unsustainable course of action.
LEARN HOW TO DISTINGUISH AMONG NON-COMPARABLE HUMAN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES, PLEASE. You merely waste everyone’s time making what logicians would call “category errors” and then expect us to believe that your IQ is above room temperature? It is far past time when people such as yourself, with your glib false analogies and non-sequiturs, just shut up and let those capable of rational discussion lead the conversation, to which you add nothing but obfuscation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
59@Tom Perkins
>The US military is all volunteer, so it is not collectivist in the slightest.
Oh ok so when do we get our $trillion back, Tom? I am owed big time.
60@venividivici
Funny I didn’t volunteer contributions to Iraq and Afghanistan. When do I get my money back? Thanks for letting me know the money you stole from me was simply miscategorized!
Victoria Jackson: “There’s A Communist Living in the White House!!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWi182CMJY8&feature=player_embedded
SCARY……
Is this REALLY our AMERICA??????
Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 – Key Points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaSP31Be8
The highly destructive Cap and Trade. An inferior healthcare plan that no one wants and cannot afford to pay. The threat to jail and/or fine those who don’t purchase the government enforced plan. Massive spending as if there is no tomorrow. Massive debt. The massive printing of paper money. There is no question that the total DESTRUCTION of America’s economy is planned. The results will be horrifying. In the once wealthy and great nation of America, millions of Americans will become destitute, hungry and homeless with no money or resources to help them.
http://www.worldtribune.com
Organized CRIME: The ‘looting’ of $11 TRILLION from the U.S. economy
March 5, 2010
The following is based on a report by Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media.
Zubi Diamond, author of the powerful new book, Wizards of Wall Street, says the agenda of Soros and other short sellers is clear. Their purpose, he says, is “to loot America and any foreign country which invested in America. Greece was one of them. Iceland was ravaged and annihilated.”
“The most influential members of Managed Funds Association, the hedge fund short sellers, have an anti-capitalism agenda, an anti-industrialized nation agenda, and a far left liberal, Marxist radical agenda,” …“George Soros put the support of the organization [the MFA] behind Obama,
“They feel invincible. They have a license to destroy any company or country or hold the company or country hostage while preying on the investors. They are having dinner meetings, openly discussing collusion to attack a particular asset class, equity, or a country’s currency. If this is not organized crime, I do not know what is.”
…“The Managed Fund Association is the government,” Diamond charges. “They bought the policy makers and regulators, and then took over our government.”
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/ss_economy0172_03_05.asp
I, for one am tired of people equating politicians to drunken sailors. Having spent some time as a drunken sailor, I can assure you that drunken sailors only throw away their own money.
Democrats stay in power by promising the people more and more. They cannot deliver, but the people do not seem to notice, because each time there are more promises. In the end, they destroy the whole system because it cannot survive their confiscating the wealth. Sorta like taking a farmers cows and giving them to all the villagers. The cows crap on everything, have to be fed and milked twice a day and soon the cows are dead because the villagers ate them, then there is no meat, and no milk, and no jobs on the farm. But having a free cow sounded so good.
60@venividivici
Funny I didn’t volunteer contributions to Iraq and Afghanistan. When do I get my money back? Thanks for letting me know the money you stole from me was simply miscategorized!
What a lame response.
Anyway, the policy to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan was, AGAIN, based on the notion that in order to prevent further terrorist attacks, which is undeniably in the public interests of the entire nation, up to and including the possible use of WMD, we needed to enact regime change in those countries. People can disagree on whether or not this was the right policy, but where sensible people don’t differ is on whether or not war-making falls under the category of “public goods”.
Have you ever taken even an elementary class in political theory? I’m getting the sense that even at this simple level you are in over your head, which is why you resort to trite snark in response.
Please, get or buy a clue before responding again.
66@venividivici
>What a lame response.
The war cost me $4745. That’s what you and your technocrats owe me for your useless war that is NOT a PUBLIC GOOD. It was a Blackwater good which benefited a confessed christofascist. Where is the public good? Probably as worthless as your categorization skills acquired in your lame poly-sci course. No I didn’t take that course it was filled with people like you who cringed at calculus. If you had anything to real to offer you would have hit science and maths.
Add to your collectivist communist action the ongoing Afghan war. How are you going to repay me, venividivici?
68. Killing jihadists is prima facie a public good.
70@myth buster
Why draw the line with only one Abrahamic religion? If anything christianity has a far more egregious track record. Both religions are nothing more than clandestine Roman fascism created under Constantine.
68
The war cost me $4745. That’s what you and your technocrats owe me for your useless war that is NOT a PUBLIC GOOD
I’m going to type this slowly. “War” and “military action”, in general, have ALWAYS fallen under the category of “public goods”. You may disagree with a specific war, either in the fact that it was undertaken or in the way it was executed, but you CANNOT argue that “war” and “war-making” are public goods. Hence, it would be an error to regard them as “collectivist” in the same way that Social Security or Medicare are “collectivist”.
Are you even capable of abstract thought? It’s supposed to be hardwired into the human brain, but you’re making me wonder about that assertion.
71. I dare you to try. Fact is, the Church always stands victorious over the ashes of those who seek its destruction. Besides that, there can be no liberty without the Holy Spirit. Attacking the Church only creates tyranny.
72@venividivici
>“War” and “military action”, in general, have ALWAYS fallen
>under the category of “public goods”.
War isn’t a public good, venividivici. It’s the destruction of public goods. Are you capable of thought?
73@myth buster
So you admit you’re a nazi sympathizer? Thanks for coming clean, mb. BTW you know what spirit is? It’s air. The planets, moon and angels flew in the spirit. But I don’t recommend you try it yourself.
1. rachel peepers:
“To wit: since when does the Constitution give a Presidential pipsqueak or any other President the power to make congress meet his demands? There’s a little thing called separation of powers”
Why do you think it’s called the Executive Branch?
74. First, I am not a Nazi sympathizer, but I testify that the Church stands victorious over the ashes of the Nazis, who, though they professed Christ, sought to exterminate anyone who actually acted on the words of Christ and resisted the evil actions of the Nazi regime. The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. There has never been a time when Christians have not been persecuted somewhere in the world, but every time, the regime that persecutes Christians collapses, and the Church marches on into the heart of enemy territory, winning converts all the way. To wit, persecution makes the Church grow faster.
Also, “spirit” does not mean air; it means breath, or that which gives life.
76@myth buster
Nazis are simply priests of Holy See. Your little turf war cost tens of millions of lives and now a nazi of that era heads your church. You won converts by killing all who didn’t. Your nazi friends burned 18million alive in WWII. Exactly what kind of persecution do you claim, when you comprise the 80% majority? You rant as a paranoid fascist regrouping for his next crusade. In fact your contemporary Erik Prince of Blackwater “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.”
Your ‘heaven’ is full of spirit. Breath is the soul. I mean, your distinctions are laughable. The stars and heavenly bodies fly around in the ‘holy’ spirit because the wackos high on mushrooms who wrote your fairy tales thought air was a mysterious substance. Rome fell soon after Constatine founded your intolerant, fascist religion in 325AD. Christianity is nothing but an amalgamation of religions and symbols in contemporary polytheist Rome, rebooted as fascism and intolerance.
76@myth buster
Nazis are simply priests of Holy See. Your little turf war cost tens of millions of lives and now a nazi of that era heads your church. You won converts by killing all who didn’t. Your nazi friends burned 18million alive in WWII. Exactly what kind of persecution do you claim, when you comprise the 80% majority? You rant as a paranoid fascist regrouping for his next crusade. In fact your contemporary Erik Prince of Blackwater “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.”
Your ‘heaven’ is full of spirit. Breath is the soul. I mean, your distinctions are laughable. The stars and heavenly bodies fly around in the ‘holy’ spirit because the wackos high on mushrooms who wrote your fairy tales thought air was a mysterious substance. Rome fell soon after Constatine founded your intolerant, fascist religion in 325AD. Christianity is nothing but an amalgamation of religions and symbols in contemporary polytheist Rome, rebooted as fascism and intolerance.
There is no unfunded obligations in the system: whatever future SS payroll taxes will be collected, it will be re-distributed among retired folks. The only federal government obligation is about 1.5 trillion dollars of last 20 years SS taxation SURPLUS which was mandated to buy special treasury bonds. That’s why you 40 millions retiring American folks should take care to physically eliminate Barry/Pelosi/Reid hacks from the political scene.
Komrade K, are you pretending to have two witnesses for these absurd statements by pretending to be two people? I mean, come on, identical posts back to back, one minute apart, differing only in the pseudonym of the poster? How dumb do you think we are?
As for the persecution charge, I was not speaking of America, but of the world. Worldwide, Christians have been persecuted somewhere since Jesus walked among us, and it never ceased in one place before emerging someplace else.
You’re a fool. You’ve been a fool this whole time, and you will continue to be a fool. You think I worship air? How insane do you have to be to make such an allegation? The pagans who falsely accused Christians of cannibalism made more coherent charges than that! Nay, the Holy Spirit I worship is the One who purifies men’s hearts, and brings forth in them love, kindness, charity, right judgment, good conduct and self-discipline.
79. You’re right. Any deficit once those bonds have been paid off by law must be covered by cutting benefits. The SSA has no claim on the general fund beyond those bonds they hold.
AMAZING HOW PROGRESIVES JUST CANT ACCEPT THAT WHAT THE FACTS SHOW
IS NEVER SO SIMPLY THE CAUSE , BUT A MAGICAL TWIST OF CAUSE & EVENTS (AKA – LIES) PROBABLY BECAUSE THE FACTS CLEARLY SHOW THE GREEDY LEADERS RIGHT WINGERS WORSHIP CAUSED EVERY AMERICAN FINANCIAL & SOCIAL DISASTER SINCE THE 1880
WHEN THE RICHEST 1% 1ST USED THIER $POWER TO CUT TAXES & FINANCIAL REGUALTIONS TO THE BONE UNTIL A BLEED WET BANKING SYSTEM ALL UP TO ITS BUNS IN MARGIN CALLS COLLAPSED ! BOOM
THEN AMERICA ACTUALLY WISED UP & BOOTED NEO FACT ANTI TAX LEA’S E BS (ie- LEAVE US ALONG TO ROB) ECONOMICS OUT OF MOST POWER CIRCLES
AND AMAZINLY THE NEXT 4+ DECADES WERE THE GREATEST THE COUNTRY EVER KNEW WEALTH AND STABILATY SPREAD AMONG WEALTH CLASSES IN AN ALMOST STORY BOOK WAY !
THEN AROUND 1980 AMERICANS LET THE RIGHT WING (NON -THINKERS)& TAX CUTERS BACK IN POWER & AMAZINGLY THE DEBT PILED UP TO THE SKY SOON MANY JOBS WENT SOUTH (OR EAST !) & WEALTH & SECURITY WERE GONE !
(EXCEPT FOR 8 YEARS UNDER SLICK WILLIE & ALL HE HAD TO GIVE THE GOP WAS HIS OK TO A PAK OF GOP-REG CUTS THAT KILLED THE U.S A. LENDING/BANKING INDUSTRY ! ( ONE STEP FORWARD 2 STEPS BACK)
BUT I KNOW ITS ALL ONLY A COWINKI DINKIE AND ACTUALLY PROGRESIVES ARE TO BLAME SNIFFFFFFFFFFF SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
What really sad is there so many US voters that simply dont know what the hell they are doing !
Wow, marvelous blog structure! How lengthy have you been blogging for? you make running a blog look easy. The overall look of your web site is great, let alone the content!