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The GOP has two kinds of voters: rich people and suckers

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03-17-2015 , 07:02 PM

PoundingTheUnder

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Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 1,738

when i first started paying attention to politics on a serious level. the people i was most fascinated by were working class republicans. i just couldn't understand them.

after doing a little thinking it became obvious that they were just simpletons who bought into wedge issues and consistently voted against their economic interests.

watching a little hartmann today, and he breaks it down hilariously. "the GOP has two kinds of voters, rich people and suckers."

03-17-2015 , 07:13 PM

Anais

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 6,663

Conventional wisdom is usually an idiot

03-17-2015 , 07:15 PM

JohnyCrash

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,537

They just want to be one of the rich and to them keeping that dream alive is more important then reality.

03-17-2015 , 07:20 PM

PoundingTheUnder

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Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 1,738

good point johnny. i never really considered the 'stick on the carrot' 'i can be rich too' crowd when i was thinking about this.

03-17-2015 , 07:22 PM

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

All voters are suckers. (Voting only gives you the illusion of choice.)

Democrats and Republicans are different sides of the same coin.

That coin is a monopoly on force. ("No, we should force people to obey these things THIS WAY!" "Nuh uh...we should make them do THIS instead!")

All politicians are into wealth redistribution.

03-17-2015 , 07:26 PM

PoundingTheUnder

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the mainstream of both parties are pretty similar, of course, but... not voting is not an option. if you're dissatisfied with the both parties, vote for ****ing Nader (or whoever).

03-17-2015 , 07:31 PM

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoundingTheUnder

the mainstream of both parties are pretty similar, of course, but... not voting is not an option. if you're dissatisfied with the both parties, vote for ****ing Nader (or whoever).

Third party...lol.

Real change will come from outside the political arena.

03-17-2015 , 07:33 PM

LetsGambool

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Proph change (revenge killings for petty theft, legalized drunk driving, and a flourishing free market in child prostitutes) will certainly not come from within the system. That is true.

03-17-2015 , 07:44 PM

PoundingTheUnder

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proph law is to sharia law what communism is to socialism.

03-17-2015 , 07:45 PM

#10

Proph

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Political change occurs after social change.

03-17-2015 , 07:47 PM

#11

PoundingTheUnder

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if you're saying take to the streets. i agree but that won't stop the media from marginalizing your efforts.

so how does social change occur in our day and age (with never seen before mass-propaganda)?

03-17-2015 , 07:56 PM

#12

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoundingTheUnder

if you're saying take to the streets. i agree but that won't stop the media from marginalizing your efforts.

so how does social change occur in our day and age (with never seen before mass-propaganda)?

Propagandists.

Call them what they are.

Change happens beginning with discussions like this.

03-17-2015 , 10:03 PM

#13

DudeImBetter

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 10,664

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proph

Propagandists.

Call them what they are.

Change happens beginning with discussions like this.

Keep your anarchy aids where it belongs.

03-17-2015 , 10:16 PM

#14

omnishakira

High Troller

Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 9,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proph

those platitudes are redundant after a while

03-17-2015 , 10:22 PM

#15

Proph

banned

Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

Quote:

Originally Posted by DudeImBetter

Keep your anarchy aids where it belongs.

In your bum, mate?

Have you pooped out my previous ejections by now?

It took you long enough!

The penetration was only temporary, but the shame will last you a lifetime. (And the AIDS. That'll probably last a while too, until a brilliant scientist cures it via free market principles.)

03-17-2015 , 10:45 PM

#16

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

This article seems appropriate for this thread:

Quote:

One of my intellectual inspirations Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek wrote an essay once titled: “Why I Am Not A Conservative.” In it, he describes the reasoning for his rejecting of the label of a conservative. Hayek saw conservatism as a necessary rejection of modern liberalism at the time (the piece was written in 1960), which had become synonymous with socialism, as it still very much is today. Hayek however could not call himself a conservative due to the willingness of conservatives to use the force of government in order to resist the changes pushed by progressives, and therefore rejecting the spontaneity that is championed by modern libertarians in an economic system referred to as Austrian Economics. Hayek wrote: “This fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is closely related to two other characteristics of conservatism: its fondness for authority and its lack of understanding of economic forces.”

As a modern libertarian, I must agree with Hayek and concede that conservatism today is still lacking in its belief in free markets, indeed in the very idea of freedom itself. The conservative claims to favor free markets, but will still champion farm bills and subsidies that result in the passage of welfare in the form of food stamps. Also, conservatism today does not believe in a free market in labor, which is the argument to be made against immigration.

[...]

The ability to invest one’s capital as one sees fit is an important component of the total package that is liberty. Progressivism today seeks to capture the wealth of the individual, and demand that it serve subjectively defined collective good. For instance, Obamacare. While it may seem objectively that public health is an issue of critical importance, and it is, the modern progressive today does not realize that economics is about the allocation of scarce resources. Health care is not a limitless resource. The amount of time and energy that doctors and nurses can spend treating patients is finite, even if the amount of prescriptions that could be written were enough to satisfy every disease known to man. There simply are not enough minutes in a day and doctors available to treat every single human being in need. This is why a price system is important and must be used in order to allocate scarce resources.

Consider the quandary once posed to me by libertarian scholar Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute [PoundingTheUnder's favorite organization!]. Palmer related to me an inherent contradiction contained within the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. In it, there is a definitive statement that all humans have a right to healthcare. And in another passage, it claims that every human has a right to leisure time. The contradiction is laid bare when one consider the fact that if a doctor has a right to time off, then how can a patient demand they be treated at the same time? The doctor’s right to leisure is in conflict with the right of the patient to be healed. These are not rights, so much as incoherent demands. Modern liberals seek to institute laws that put humans in positions to which they cannot obey, and then punishes them for not obeying.

Another reason to reject modern liberalism is its push for material egalitarianism. They push economic fallacies such as the idea of a gender wage gap, which has been thoroughly debunked and lies on the assumption that both genders want the same things, or at least they should want the same things. Liberals decry the inequality of wealth in the world, while ignoring the fact that modern capitalism has provided for even the poor to have greater wealth than at any point in history. As Grover Norquist wrote about the president’s recent state of the union address: “The grinding poverty of the Middle Ages had great income equality. Even the kings didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity. No one had life extending health care. Mao’s China gave us another prolonged period of great income equality. The frenetic first days of the French Revolution reduced income inequality by lopping off the heads of the aristocracy — the political bosses of the day.”

[...]

03-17-2015 , 10:54 PM

#17

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

As for Thom Hartmann's comments on the armor piercing green tips:

Quote:

The White House is trying to get 5.56 “armor piercing” rounds classified as “cop killer” bullets. But there’s only one problem: no cop has ever been killed by the “green-tipped” AR-15 ammunition.

Still, the President claims that banning the ammunition is just a “common sense” way to protect police officers. Speaking on his behalf, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the 5.56/.223-caliber M855 ball ammunition must be banned because it can shoot through bullet proof vests. While that is true, so can just about any rifle hunting round. Are they next?

[...]

03-17-2015 , 11:12 PM

#18

LetsGambool

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TLDR, cliffs: Proph has AIDS.

03-17-2015 , 11:17 PM

#19

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

Quote:

Originally Posted by LetsGambool

TLDR, cliffs: Proph has AIDS.

And he gave them to a Dude...ImButtHurt.

03-18-2015 , 02:54 AM

#20

chezlaw

Limey Bastard

Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 47,030

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoundingTheUnder

after doing a little thinking it became obvious that they were just simpletons who bought into wedge issues and consistently voted against their economic interests.

That's not a bad thing is it? it's not just poor people who vote for more redistribution, free health care etc

A problem for democracy is people voting in their (perceived) economic interest, that's leads to the politics of electoral bribes, unrealistic promises and trying to distort the economy.

03-18-2015 , 03:22 AM

#21

Proph

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

03-18-2015 , 03:40 AM

#22

PoundingTheUnder

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Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 1,738

Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

here's what you're not grasping. the rich are already doing that (using bribes to further their interests). why do their bidding? we (working people and the elites) have generally opposing interests.

these guys (working class conservatives, voting solely on wedge issues) are no more than useful idiots for the ruling elites.

if they weren't so bigoted and stupid, they'd be ashamed/embarrassed.

edit: also poors don't vote in our country.

Last edited by PoundingTheUnder; 03-18-2015 at 03:46 AM.

03-18-2015 , 03:56 AM

#23

Proph

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Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 3,834

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoundingTheUnder

People are wising up, slowly but surely.

TBH, I'm surprised the maximum approval rating isn't closer to the 20% range by now, though.

(Obligatory: lol polls! and EFF YOU FRANK!

)

03-18-2015 , 06:02 AM

#24

chezlaw

Limey Bastard

Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 47,030

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoundingTheUnder

That's way too extreme.

A lot of working people (who are not bribing anybody) will vote for redistribution even though they are net contributors and lose out from it. Similarly many net recipients will vote for less redistribution. Both have, frequently very strong views about what is right. Similarly on many social issues which frequently have minimal impact on people who have very strong views.

What it seems you're doing is encouraging the idea among conservatives that those who support progressive policies are misguided or feathering their own nest. That is the anti-liberal argument and it's not true either.