What Conservatives?

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's too obvious a point. Who is going to argue for nonproductive spending?

Needless deficit spending is non-productive spending and the Republicans have been calling for such since the 80s.

 

[Horatio Parker]

It's too obvious a point. Who is going to argue for nonproductive spending?

Needless deficit spending is non-productive spending and the Republicans have been calling for such since the 80s.

Needless spending is needless spending regardless of the deficit. Has nothing to do with it.

 

[Rayschism]

This is a fun thread and has taught me a lot about human cognitive biases.

Thanks.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This is a fun thread and has taught me a lot about human cognitive biases.

Thanks.

I doubt you learned anything new that you didn't think you already "knew".

 

[Rayschism]

This is a fun thread and has taught me a lot about human cognitive biases.

Thanks.

I doubt you learned anything new that you didn't think you already "knew".

You'd be surprised. T%here was a lot of reinforcement for my own biases, but I learned a few new things.

 

[SimpleDon]

Republicans increase military spending, maintain non-military spending level, cut taxes. This leads to higher deficits: every...single....time. This lead to higher deficits under Reagan, Bush sr, Bush jr., and will happen under Trump.

Didn''t Obama increase the deficit (IIRC)? He didn't do much for military spending so what was his excuse?

He struggled with the largest recession since the great Depression that he inherited from Bush the lesser. He did reduce the deficit from the last Bush administration deficit of 1.4 trillion dollars in fiscal year 2009. He more than cut it in half without creating a financial bubble, the favorite method of the Republicans.

He did this in spite of Congress re-defining the deficit to mean the difference between the amount of money spent by the government and the amount of money the government takes in revenue, in terms conservatives will understand, the amount of money that the government steals from its citizens to waste on things other than defense contractors. The previous administration of Bush the second excluded spending on the various wars against terrorism from the calculation of the budget deficit. If you include these expenditures the last Bush the duller's deficit was about 1.6 trillion dollars.

It was irresponsible of Obama to lower the deficit so dramatically during the near depression. This is the main reason that we recovered so slowly from Bush's deregulation frenzy induced financial crisis and depression. Obama did this because of the widespread delusion of the so-called Washington Consensus that we should practice austerity during a recession.

The very fact that this idea is supported by conservatives should have warned him off of it. Conservatives are always wrong about the solutions that we should pursue to the problems that we are having.

 

[braces_for_impact]

So conservatives whine about how Obamacare is all wrong for the nation.
Then dismantle it and create their own.
Then proceed to spend al ot more money on health care than liberals ever could.
Each year is liberals outspend conservatives then conservatives out spend liberals.
When I was a child all the way back in the eighties, I was taught that conservatives tried to save money for an emergency and spent it only when necessary while liberals love to spend other people's money than their own/
I don't see conservatives doing that any more. At all.
So I'm not entirely sure that there is such a thing as conservatives any more.
So could it be that the liberals have won and have destroyed them?
Conservatives are just not conserving anything anymore.
At least as far as i know.

The label "conservative" has lost most of its meaning, as conservative political leaders realized that true conservative philosophy had very little appeal among the poor working class. In the days when voters were male and usually prosperous, conservatism could hold its own in a debate. That was lost as the franchise to vote was extended to most men, and later to most women.

I doubt one will ever find an example of a modern conservative government "saving" money for a rainy day. Our new breed of conservatives do not believe government has any right to money, and taxation is a form of theft. This is the bedrock of a type of cognitive dissonance that has stained the modern conservative movement. They want to spend government funds on the things that benefit them directly and in a tangible way, and consider anything else to be a total waste.

This dissonance becomes most stark when we see conservatives state that people who do not have school age children have no obligation to support for public schools. Even though their rhetoric is undone by the simplest examination, they cannot see any benefit to government spending, unless there is an immediate and tangible benefit to themselves.

[emoji106] This. It makes no more sense to call them Conservatives than it does when Trump reminds us Lincoln was a Republican.

 

[lpetrich]

Even though their rhetoric is undone by the simplest examination, they cannot see any benefit to government spending, unless there is an immediate and tangible benefit to themselves.

[emoji106] This. It makes no more sense to call them Conservatives than it does when Trump reminds us Lincoln was a Republican.

If you look at what Abraham Lincoln said and did, present-day conservatives would sneer that he was a Republican In Name Only -- a RINO. Or even worse, a Democrat who pretends to be a Republican. Raising taxes, fighting the South, supporting black civil rights, supporting education and infrastructure, ...

 

[J842P]

So conservatives whine about how Obamacare is all wrong for the nation.

Then dismantle it and create their own.

Then proceed to spend al ot more money on health care than liberals ever could.

Each year is liberals outspend conservatives then conservatives out spend liberals.

When I was a child all the way back in the eighties, I was taught that conservatives tried to save money for an emergency and spent it only when necessary while liberals love to spend other people's money than their own/

I don't see conservatives doing that any more. At all.

So I'm not entirely sure that there is such a thing as conservatives any more.

So could it be that the liberals have won and have destroyed them?

Conservatives are just not conserving anything anymore.

At least as far as i know.

The "conservatives" have never done that, certainly not in the 80s.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is that you are mistaking the neo-cons with the conservatives.

The neo-cons retain just about everything bad with the conservatives but none of the good.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Didn''t Obama increase the deficit (IIRC)? He didn't do much for military spending so what was his excuse?

Where did I say that Obama reduced the debt? Obama also decreased taxes and increased spending. He did so to get us out of a severe recession. The difference is that he didn't run on balancing the deficit. There are many who only vote republican because they wrongly believe that republicans are more fiscally conservative. And this is false. It's magic. Trump will cut more taxes than Obama, and he will increase spending more. And the deficit will go up at a higher rate than under Obama.

Doubling a national debt is more likely to lead to a bigger recession on the long run. Obama Care be it a good concept would have needed to be managed better in terms of balancing the books.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So conservatives whine about how Obamacare is all wrong for the nation.

Then dismantle it and create their own.

Then proceed to spend al ot more money on health care than liberals ever could.

Each year is liberals outspend conservatives then conservatives out spend liberals.

When I was a child all the way back in the eighties, I was taught that conservatives tried to save money for an emergency and spent it only when necessary while liberals love to spend other people's money than their own/

I don't see conservatives doing that any more. At all.

So I'm not entirely sure that there is such a thing as conservatives any more.

So could it be that the liberals have won and have destroyed them?

Conservatives are just not conserving anything anymore.

At least as far as i know.

Conservatives want to conserve culture and included within that culture is class structure, ranking of people, and institutions (like church) that are used by them to have control.

 

[iolo]

So conservatives whine about how Obamacare is all wrong for the nation.

Then dismantle it and create their own.

Then proceed to spend al ot more money on health care than liberals ever could.

Each year is liberals outspend conservatives then conservatives out spend liberals.

When I was a child all the way back in the eighties, I was taught that conservatives tried to save money for an emergency and spent it only when necessary while liberals love to spend other people's money than their own/

I don't see conservatives doing that any more. At all.

So I'm not entirely sure that there is such a thing as conservatives any more.

So could it be that the liberals have won and have destroyed them?

Conservatives are just not conserving anything anymore.

At least as far as i know.

Conservatives want to conserve culture and included within that culture is class structure, ranking of people, and institutions (like church) that are used by them to have control.

Conservatives usually want to defend the indefensible aspects of their own culture, in your case deep-seated racism based on silly competition between groups, ludicrous playing cowboys with bang-bangs and an insanely old-fashioned form of capitalism which prefers spite to survival. Enjoy!

 

[Horatio Parker]

It was irresponsible of Obama to lower the deficit so dramatically during the near depression. This is the main reason that we recovered so slowly from Bush's deregulation frenzy induced financial crisis and depression. Obama did this because of the widespread delusion of the so-called Washington Consensus that we should practice austerity during a recession.

The very fact that this idea is supported by conservatives should have warned him off of it. Conservatives are always wrong about the solutions that we should pursue to the problems that we are having.

Obama was raised by his grandparents, and his grandmother was a banker. I've wondered if that influenced who he listened to during the GFC.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Where did I say that Obama reduced the debt? Obama also decreased taxes and increased spending. He did so to get us out of a severe recession. The difference is that he didn't run on balancing the deficit. There are many who only vote republican because they wrongly believe that republicans are more fiscally conservative. And this is false. It's magic. Trump will cut more taxes than Obama, and he will increase spending more. And the deficit will go up at a higher rate than under Obama.

Doubling a national debt is more likely to lead to a bigger recession on the long run. Obama Care be it a good concept would have needed to be managed better in terms of balancing the books.

Shit, now it is just doing madlibs.

Didn''t Obama increase the deficit (IIRC)? He didn't do much for military spending so what was his excuse?

He struggled with the largest recession since the great Depression that he inherited from Bush the lesser. He did reduce the deficit from the last Bush administration deficit of 1.4 trillion dollars in fiscal year 2009. He more than cut it in half without creating a financial bubble, the favorite method of the Republicans.

He did this in spite of Congress re-defining the deficit to mean the difference between the amount of money spent by the government and the amount of money the government takes in revenue, in terms conservatives will understand, the amount of money that the government steals from its citizens to waste on things other than defense contractors. The previous administration of Bush the second excluded spending on the various wars against terrorism from the calculation of the budget deficit. If you include these expenditures the last Bush the duller's deficit was about 1.6 trillion dollars.

It was irresponsible of Obama to lower the deficit so dramatically during the near depression.

But the deficit increases we saw were largely revenue driven. The deficits dropped in large part when the revenues began to recover. Obama did hold discretionary spending relatively level, but there were hikes to help support those affected the most.

This is the main reason that we recovered so slowly from Bush's deregulation frenzy induced financial crisis and depression. Obama did this because of the widespread delusion of the so-called Washington Consensus that we should practice austerity during a recession.

I thought it was slow because we were making up for the ridiculous housing inflation that deflated and that takes time to normalize.

 

[Rayschism]

So conservatives whine about how Obamacare is all wrong for the nation.

Then dismantle it and create their own.

Then proceed to spend al ot more money on health care than liberals ever could.

Each year is liberals outspend conservatives then conservatives out spend liberals.

When I was a child all the way back in the eighties, I was taught that conservatives tried to save money for an emergency and spent it only when necessary while liberals love to spend other people's money than their own/

I don't see conservatives doing that any more. At all.

So I'm not entirely sure that there is such a thing as conservatives any more.

So could it be that the liberals have won and have destroyed them?

Conservatives are just not conserving anything anymore.

At least as far as i know.

Conservatives want to conserve culture and included within that culture is class structure, ranking of people, and institutions (like church) that are used by them to have control.

Liberals are any different how?

They may want to change all that, but the thing about human nature is, it doesn't really matter what the beliefs or opinions are, once there is change, the force of change will fight tooth and nail to keep their status quo.

And not all change is for the better, or for freedom and democracy.

 

[untermensche]

Conservatives want to conserve culture and included within that culture is class structure, ranking of people, and institutions (like church) that are used by them to have control.

Liberals are any different how?

The question is where do we find liberals?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not liberals. They are what not very long ago was called a moderate Republican. Nixon proposed a negative income tax. He actually cared about the problem of poverty and all the resultant problems we must deal with when we have huge pockets of poverty.

Now we have the for-profit prison system as a "solution" to the problem.

 

[Rayschism]

Liberals are any different how?

The question is where do we find liberals?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not liberals. They are what not very long ago was called a moderate Republican. Nixon proposed a negative income tax. He actually cared about the problem of poverty and all the resultant problems we must deal with when we have huge pockets of poverty.

Now we have the for-profit prison system as a "solution" to the problem.

Huh? You lost me there.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Conservatives want to conserve culture and included within that culture is class structure, ranking of people, and institutions (like church) that are used by them to have control.

Liberals are any different how?

They may want to change all that, but the thing about human nature is, it doesn't really matter what the beliefs or opinions are, once there is change, the force of change will fight tooth and nail to keep their status quo.

And not all change is for the better, or for freedom and democracy.

Your commentary isn't relevant to our discussion. My point in responding to you is that your definition of conservative is wrong. That's all.

Now I hear "liberals are bad, too. nanny nanny booboo."

I don't care what you have to say, start a new thread.

For the current one, you've started with an incorrect definition.

 

[Rayschism]

Liberals are any different how?

They may want to change all that, but the thing about human nature is, it doesn't really matter what the beliefs or opinions are, once there is change, the force of change will fight tooth and nail to keep their status quo.

And not all change is for the better, or for freedom and democracy.

Your commentary isn't relevant to our discussion. My point in responding to you is that your definition of conservative is wrong. That's all.

Now I hear "liberals are bad, too. nanny nanny booboo."

I don't care what you have to say, start a new thread.

For the current one, you've started with an incorrect definition.

So why do you have the correct one? What do you claim is the correct one? And why do you claim it's the defacto correct one when liberals will change in a few years so they won't match that one anyway?

And you start another thread, this one is mine.