(10-18-2017 10:01 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  But the faithful will gladly scream "they are turning back the clocks

(10-18-2017 10:01 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 09:23 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:59 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 07:51 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-16-2017 09:55 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Personally, I do not know one single person who wants to turn back the clock on equality, inclusiveness, or civil rights. What a myth he has swallowed.

You may not *know* personally such people, (I do unfortunately) but you may *know of* such people: Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump for starters. And a whole bunch of other Republican elected officials. It's all well and good for you and Tang and Owl69 to get your knickers in a twist, but the *actual policies* Republicans are implementing and attempting to implement verify my "myth".

Just to take one: LBGTQ rights. Do you have any idea how many protections the Trump admin has already rolled back? Have you seen the things some of the judges he's trying to appoint have said? Now we find out he "jokes" about how Pence "wants to hang" all the gays. Hilarious! I'm sure Matthew Shepherd's mother is laughing her a** off, as are all the other loved ones of gay and trans people who have been beaten and killed in hate crimes against them.

So where are the bills to implement "separate but equal" and reintroduce segregation? Things get rolled back all the time, for example "separate but equal" and segregation. It is part of the adjustment process as our society evolves. We have a wide variety of citizens. I presume you include Pence as wanting to turn back the clock because he is a fundamentalist Christian. Well, they have rights and desires too, they need to be heard in our society just like the LBGTQ group. We should not tell the Christians to STFU.

maybe you need to be more specific in your charges. I find it difficult to refute what is assumed but not said. But as I have said before, many times, I live in a strongly Republican area. I don't hear a whisper about turning back the clock, I don't see any hint of RSMH. Just the opposite. I think all the people here would not want to turn back the clock. Maybe living in a blue area, you hear more about it.. More likely, you just hear about it from the blue people you talk to. "Oh, those horrible red people. Did you hear what they are trying to do now?"

One thing is that I assumed you meant turn back the clock to 1947 or 1875 or 1799. It appears now you mean to turn back to 2010 or so. So clarify that, please.

Specifics.

Quote:The Trump administration’s Department of Justice on Wednesday undercut the stance of the Obama administration’s DOJ and another autonomous federal agency, by arguing that an existing law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not bar an employer from firing a gay employee because he or she is gay.

The filing came the same day as President Trump’s announcement that he would bar transgender troops from serving in the military.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/27/trump-department-justice-gay-workplace-discrimination/

Quote: The executive order revokes key components of the Obama administration's previous executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or identity, gay rights advocates say...

...by revoking the requirement that companies seeking federal contracts prove they've complied with federal laws banning discrimination based on sexual identity or orientation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lgbtq-advocates-say-trump-s-news-executive-order-makes-them-n740301

Do either of you understand the concept of the very specific term of art "protected class" as it pertains to discrimination law, and its role in provided elevated status and protections?

To that end, these types of requirements actually de facto elevate the LGBT into such a 'suspect class', the way the Wisconsin plaintiffs wish for political parties to be elevated to another 'suspect class' in the gerrymandering case.

So yes, evil white pointy hat me, actually agrees with Trump in taking these requirements out.

The question underlying the issue isnt 'are we going to take them out and beat the snot out of them', but under what circumstances are we going to give a group 'elevated and specific' protections that the vast majority don't enjoy. Or do we hand that [stuff] out like lollipops to any group de jour? To be blunt, it is great lollipops for specific groups you want to suck up to, and awesome fodder to point to the evil mfers on the other side who want to question that special giveaway. A win-win, so to speak.

Even more so when the enabling law never even mentions the class, and the lollipop machines are put in for the class not by judicial determination of suspect class, nor even by an act of Congress. But by an executive order. Politics at a whim at its finest.

But I forgot, according to JAAO Democrats would *never* employ such divisive lollipop giveaways and divisive "watch out for the snaggle tooth pointy hat [deplorables] that *dare* question that lollipop that no one else enjoys" issues. So I must be completely off base....

Hate to tell you, but, those types of legal operations and mechanics really dont measure up to the knee jerk 'he's discriminating against LGBTs' by dismantling the lollipop dispenser there, *especially* when crafted out of legal gossamer as this one apparently was.

So if supporting 'taking away a special protection that no one else in the mfing world has' deems one a bigot, especially for a class that has never been designated a suspect class in all its glory in the court system, nor having any enabling legislation for the action, then I guess I am one of those evil white pointy hat [deplorables] the left screams incessantly about. But the faithful will gladly scream "they are turning back the clocks by shutting down the lollipop dispenser" (for a group that was not deemed a protected class by a court, nor was any action in the EO passed by a legislature, might I add again), which I see has happened here.

But hell, why bother with actually looking at the legal structure of something when it cuts across the emotive ring of 'you evil bigot'. Par for the course, I guess. The attempt by Obama to encompass LGBT into Title 9 was an extraordinary stretch that law, actually very unbelievable. But I find it interesting (pretty much grotesque) that the 'evil bigot' argument always seems to trump the 'do it by the rule of of law' argument so very often on the liberal agenda.

But then again, I guess the lesson of stretching DACA by EO where it contravened existing law didnt bother you either? And, I guess the rollback of that was an evil snaggle tooth bigot item, even though it directly contravened existing law and usurped the Constitutional requirement that really only Congress should be able to change that law that it had already passed.

(10-18-2017 01:40 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Have you set up shortcuts for "evil snaggle tooth bigot" and "white pointy hat"?

If yes, I commend your dedication. If you are typing them each time, well, I still commend your dedication.

[Edit: That was supposed to be a friendly joke. Apologies for poor execution if it didn't come off as such.]

(10-18-2017 08:51 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It's fine if we don't see things the same way, and I'm not trying to change your opinion on this statement (because I know I can't). However, you are providing me the perfect example of what I was explaining to Tanq previously, that plenty of people interpreted that statement just as you do.

(10-18-2017 04:54 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:51 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It's fine if we don't see things the same way, and I'm not trying to change your opinion on this statement (because I know I can't). However, you are providing me the perfect example of what I was explaining to Tanq previously, that plenty of people interpreted that statement just as you do.

Here's the point that's getting missed. Whether it's my interpretation or yours or Tanq's is not relevant to me because they're all way too collectivist/socialist/communist to suit me. They're all just different ways of saying screw the productive members of our society. And I reject them all.

(10-18-2017 06:56 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 04:54 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:51 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It's fine if we don't see things the same way, and I'm not trying to change your opinion on this statement (because I know I can't). However, you are providing me the perfect example of what I was explaining to Tanq previously, that plenty of people interpreted that statement just as you do.

Here's the point that's getting missed. Whether it's my interpretation or yours or Tanq's is not relevant to me because they're all way too collectivist/socialist/communist to suit me. They're all just different ways of saying screw the productive members of our society. And I reject them all.

That point isn't getting missed, it just isn't relevant to what I originally referenced when I brought up this comment.
This comment was originally an example I was giving of one side intentionally trying to make a candidates words mean one thing, when they didn't mean that, and how that was bad. I was originally using it to compliment how I had pointed out to people how hurtful doing the similar thing to Romeny was for his binders o' women comment.
Tanq then took issue with me using this as a comparison, because the thrust of the intentional misconstruing of Obama's comments were close to a position Obama held, where as for Romney, he wasn't a sexist. I see what he means, but that's splitting hairs, because the SPECIFIC criticism you and many others levied against Obama were unfair, just as it was unfair for many on the left to suggest Romney was sexist for his binders full of women.
The less try to use sound bites for political gain, the better. Which is just like how the uproar over Trump's comments to the gold star wife that has set the news ablaze is rather unfortunate. So what if Trump wasn't as smooth as he could have been and said something that was a bit off - he is a human put into a hard situation and sometimes you say something in the moment that could have come out better. It's really grating that people want to rake him over the coals for this. Now, his response to the criticisms about what he said, take him to task for that all day, because instead of explaining himself and perhaps saying he could have chosen better words, or explaining what he meant, he did the typical Trump thing and lashed out, called the woman a liar, and dug himself an even bigger hole.

(10-18-2017 08:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  At best he's saying, "you couldn't have done it without those roads and bridges" (which of course your taxes paid for).

(10-19-2017 08:14 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  At best he's saying, "you couldn't have done it without those roads and bridges" (which of course your taxes paid for).

It's not "at best," it's exactly his point.

What I'm not clear on, is why you find that so objectionable. Do you object to the government building roads and bridges? Fire departments? I'm asking an honest question.

From my perspective and the perspective of many in the center and left it seems the Republicans have gotten to a point where they have an issue with basic "public good" type infrastructure and services. When is it evil collectivism and when is it justifiable? Was Eisenhower's interstate highway system acceptable? The GI bill?

It's understandable that people on the left and right have different ideas of where the line on what's necessary is drawn but you seem to have declared a point where it's not just a difference of degree but of kind. That's what I'm trying (and failing) to get my head around.

Quote:What Obama said was "Since the infrastructure was already built, you didnt fully build your business by yourself, you mfing greedy bastards. Give me more of what is collectively *our* rent from your risk for that infrastructure to spread around to those who did not help in any way, shape, or form."

That context is quite clear. The fine art of community organizer slut-shaming.

(10-19-2017 08:55 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-19-2017 08:14 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  At best he's saying, "you couldn't have done it without those roads and bridges" (which of course your taxes paid for).

It's not "at best," it's exactly his point.

What I'm not clear on, is why you find that so objectionable. Do you object to the government building roads and bridges? Fire departments? I'm asking an honest question.

From my perspective and the perspective of many in the center and left it seems the Republicans have gotten to a point where they have an issue with basic "public good" type infrastructure and services. When is it evil collectivism and when is it justifiable? Was Eisenhower's interstate highway system acceptable? The GI bill?

It's understandable that people on the left and right have different ideas of where the line on what's necessary is drawn but you seem to have declared a point where it's not just a difference of degree but of kind. That's what I'm trying (and failing) to get my head around.

It is not objectionable to build and maintain infrastructure. The tone and tenor of the passage is one that I paraphrased in an earlier post.

Quote:What Obama said was "Since the infrastructure was already built, you didnt fully build your business by yourself, you mfing greedy bastards. Give me more of what is collectively *our* rent from your risk for that infrastructure to spread around to those who did not help in any way, shape, or form."

That context is quite clear. The fine art of community organizer slut-shaming.

And that constant redistribution message is crystal clear throughout modern progressivism and liberalism.

If you think that 'all taxes' go to building bridges and infrastructure, by all means you interpretation above might be correct. But you run the risk of glossing over the main use of the tax code by progressives as a redistribution mechanism. And that, sir, is the reason why this conversation is taking place (the roots being the overarching and highly focused collectivist nature and bent of modern liberals and progressives)

I highly doubt that conservatives have a problem with basic infrastructure spending. That basic services and maintenance is a highly efficient means of addressing large scale issues. Schools, roads, etc. very much fit the role of a minimal impact government program that actually helps large scale (and small scale) capital formation and operation.

Defense, police, and fire are all community wide 'helps' and make a great deal of sense being borne by large segments of the populace who are able to bear the cost (i.e. the people who 'didnt build it')

But the liberal and progressive messaging on a lot of other issues is simply raising class animus (which I know they would *never* do). Think about it. Every message on taxation from the left is "the evil mfers need to PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE".

At what point do the 55 per cent of people who pay Federal income tax PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE relative the 45 per cent of people who pay nothing in Federal income tax?

The problem might be in messaging, but Obama's screed on 'you didnt build that' simply (in many respects) hits that button square on especially with the vast overriding principle in liberal and progressive philosophy that taxes really should not implemented for actual government spending, but simply as: a) an animus-whip in order to stir a political divide that benefits them; and b) a means for the simple goal of redistribution.

So the underlying implication that the liberal policies for taxation are 'simply for capital improvements, dog catchers, defense, and infrastructure' really are not taken very seriously given the messaging that the liberals bombard with the redistribution, emotive tie in.

(10-19-2017 11:26 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Sorry, it just seems like you are projecting a lot onto Obama's speech - I don't hear a "screed" until your, IMVHO, ridiculous paraphrasing.

Quote:And so when I hear Obama in this speech, I actually hear him making a statement much closer to yours above than the collectivist call to arms you guys are hearing.

Quote:I suspect we could debate this endlessly...

(10-19-2017 08:14 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 08:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  At best he's saying, "you couldn't have done it without those roads and bridges" (which of course your taxes paid for).

It's not "at best," it's exactly his point.
What I'm not clear on, is why you find that so objectionable. Do you object to the government building roads and bridges? Fire departments? I'm asking an honest question.
From my perspective and the perspective of many in the center and left it seems the Republicans have gotten to a point where they have an issue with basic "public good" type infrastructure and services. When is it evil collectivism and when is it justifiable? Was Eisenhower's interstate highway system acceptable? The GI bill?
It's understandable that people on the left and right have different ideas of where the line on what's necessary is drawn but you seem to have declared a point where it's not just a difference of degree but of kind. That's what I'm trying (and failing) to get my head around.

(07-10-2014 12:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework, engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighborhood effects widely regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child—such government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent liberal is not an anarchist.

Yet it is also true that such a government would have clearly limited functions and would refrain from a host of activities that are now undertaken by federal and state governments in the United States, and their counterparts in other Western countries. Succeeding chapters will deal in some detail with some of these activities, and a few have been discussed above, but it may help to give a sense of proportion about the role that a liberal would assign government simply to list, in closing this chapter, some activities currently undertaken by government in the U.S., that cannot, so far as I can see, validly be justified in terms of the principles outlined above:

1. Parity price support programs for agriculture.
2. Tariffs on imports or restrictions on exports, such as current oil import quotas, sugar quotas, etc.
3. Governmental control of output, such as through the farm program, or through prorationing of oil as is done by the Texas Railroad Commission.
4. Rent control, such as is still practiced in New York, or more general price and wage controls such as were imposed during and just after World War II.
5. Legal minimum wage rates, or legal maximum prices, such as the legal maximum of zero on the rate of interest that can be paid on demand deposits by commercial banks, or the legally fixed maximum rates that can be paid on savings and time deposits.
6. Detailed regulation of industries, such as the regulation of transportation by the Interstate Commerce Commission. This had some justification on technical monopoly grounds when initially introduced for railroads; it has none now for any means of transport. Another example is detailed regulation of banking.
7. A similar example, but one which deserves special mention because of its implicit censorship and violation of free speech, is the control of radio and television by the Federal Communications Commission.
8. Present social security programs, especially the old age and retirement programs compelling people in effect (a) to spend a specified fraction of their income on the purchase of retirement annuity, (b) to buy the annuity from a publicly operated enterprise.
g. Licensure provisions in various cities and states which restrict particular enterprises or occupations or professions to people who have a license, where the license is more than a receipt for a tax which anyone who wishes to enter the activity may pay.
10. So called "Public housing" and the host of other subsidy programs directed at fostering residential construction such as F.H.A. and V.A. guarantee of mortgage, and the like.
11. Conscription to man the military services in peacetime. The appropriate free market arrangement is volunteer military forces; which is to say, hiring men to serve. There is no justification for not paying whatever price is necessary to attract the required number of men. Present arrangements are inequitable and arbitrary, seriously interfere with the freedom of young men to shape their lives, abs probably are even more costly than the market alternative. (Universal military training to provide a reserve for war time is a different problem and may be justified on liberal grounds.)
12. National parks, as noted above.
13. The legal prohibition on the carrying of mail for profit.
14. Publicly owned and operated toll roads, as noted above.

This list is far from comprehensive.

Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom, pp. 34-36 (40th anniversary edition)

(10-19-2017 02:16 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Fair share
We are told by no less than Mr. Obama that these millionaires and billionaires have all the money, but they don’t bear much if any of the burden to pay for the schools, and the roads, and the police, and the welfare benefits, and the rest of the tasks of government.
......
But raising tax rates on the rich is a proven failed policy to increase the share of taxes paid by the wealthy. History proves that cutting tax rates is a better way to get money out of the rich than raising them
....
“it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.” - JFK

(10-19-2017 08:55 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  So the underlying implication that the liberal policies for taxation are 'simply for capital improvements, dog catchers, defense, and infrastructure' really are not taken very seriously...

(10-19-2017 03:29 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(10-19-2017 08:55 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  So the underlying implication that the liberal policies for taxation are 'simply for capital improvements, dog catchers, defense, and infrastructure' really are not taken very seriously...

Nor should they be. As noted previously (somewhere) in the Quad, a great part of the leftist lust for taxation and regulation is the sheer pleasure of taking. Leftists tend to feel (but rarely admit to feeling) that taking is itself a positive good -- that the whole apparatus of taking is a positive good -- regardless of whether it generates any tangible benefits.

(10-19-2017 02:51 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-19-2017 02:16 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Fair share
We are told by no less than Mr. Obama that these millionaires and billionaires have all the money, but they don’t bear much if any of the burden to pay for the schools, and the roads, and the police, and the welfare benefits, and the rest of the tasks of government.
......
But raising tax rates on the rich is a proven failed policy to increase the share of taxes paid by the wealthy. History proves that cutting tax rates is a better way to get money out of the rich than raising them
....
“it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.” - JFK

Exactly.

Now, here's where I differ from some of my more radical conservative friends. Even with everything we can cut, we probably still need MORE tax revenues than we get now. But raising tax rates is not necessarily the way to get more REVENUES, and here's why.

There are obviously two tax rates at which we get zero tax revenues, 0% and 100% (the latter because nobody will engage in taxable activity if there is no reward). Somewhere between 0% and 100%, therefore, is some rate that must maximize tax revenues. Somewhere, most likely slightly below that rate, is a tax rate that maximizes growth and GDP in the economy. The sweet spot is probably somewhere in between those two, to address both tax revenue and economic growth concerns. Those are actually all pretty simple and elegant mathematical proof items.

Where the rub comes is figuring out what those magic rates are. I will offer this as a proposition, and offer anyone who wishes an opportunity to debate it. Specifically, it seems logical to me that the point at which you start getting diminishing returns from increased tax rates is the point at which genuine alternatives start becoming available. Not working is not really a genuine alternative, at least not until the rates become prohibitively high. But whenever the opportunity exists to go somewhere else and make the same money in a lower tax jurisdiction, then you get defection from your tax jurisdiction. And we have that now. We have the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (when state taxes are included) and among the highest top individual income tax rates (and there are many more that are significantly, say >5%, lower than there are that are significantly higher). So what do we see happening:
- Jobs are going overseas
- We are the largest net importer in the world, with net imports roughly equal to net imports for all of the 100-odd other net importers combined, and this despite the fact that foreign trade is a smaller part of out GDP than for any other developed nation
- We are the largest debtor nation, both government and private

As far as "fair share," the "wealthy" pay a larger share of our total federal income tax burden than in any other developed country. OK, you say, that's because those "wealthy" have a larger portion of total income. So to correct for that, let's compare the ratio of percent taxes paid to percent income, and guess what, our "wealthy" are sill paying a larger ratio than those of any other developed country. And that's with a large share of those wealthy moving a bunch of their income overseas to be taxed at lower foreign rates too. When you compare our tax system to, say, those in western Europe, our "wealthy" and corporations are paying a much larger "fair share" than theirs are.

"You didn't build that," is nothing more than a shrill partisan attempt to drive hysteric movements to stick it to the "wealthy" even more than we already do. The "wealthy" don't like it, but they already know how to dodge it--move more stuff overseas. That sure as hell does not help the poor or the middle class--but as long as the poor and middle class don't figure that out, democrats can keep getting votes by blaming the "wealthy" boogeyman.