Almost Classical

Tax the rich! I hear that on MSNBC, read it online, and hear it on radio. The problem is, most of the "rich" are wealthy, which means you'd have to consider income not wealth when talking about "income taxes." You cannot tax what someone has in net worth, which might be property, money, stocks, et cetera. The wealth of Bill Gates, at $45 billion, is not income — the figure is his total wealth. You can't confiscate wealth. Even if you could, it wouldn't help the U.S. budget problem. And, as my wife points out, Bill Gates and other billionaires paid income taxes  on whatever they have already. You can't tax income twice. I believe this is really about envy. We seem to want to punish success, and blame the successful for any financial problems our nation has. The simple truth is, our government suffers from out-of-control spending. With a $3.5 trillion annual budget, all the wealth of Bill Gates ($45B) would fund 1.3% (4.7 days) of the U.S. govern...

It is called sarcasm. People seem to miss it is a trap, even when the obvious absurdity is employed. Limbaugh announces "Tweak the Press"with an intro... and people still repeat the information seriously. (And did anyone taking him out of context mention the Newsweek article he was citing? "Even Babies Discriminate" Sept. 5 issue.) I don't agree with Rush on ANY social issue, but at least I know when he's manipulating the media. It's a game to him, and Carter (et al) are walking right into the trap. Sad, sad, sad. Don't play the game, people -- you end up looking bad, too. Idiotic "progressive" Web sites quote Rush out of context, making it easier for conservatives and libertarians to point out how sloppy the left and the media are. You never look good using snippets of what people say. How can you miss blatant absurdity? How can you miss the fact any time Rush uses a "segment theme" that there is a comedy routine involved? ...

There is an assumption that the GOP is making a mistake when it shift to the right. I'm not so sure, in the short term, based on my travels and work this year. I've been from Florida to California, Minnesota to Texas. What I hear is a shift, a sharp shift, to conservative fiscal views -- and a deep anti-union, anti-corporation, anti-politician sentiment. From Pew (July 16, 2010): "In assessing their own political views, 40% of voters describe their own political views as conservative (either conservative or very conservative), 36% as moderate, and 22% as liberal (including very liberal). There are substantial differences in the way that Republican and Democratic voters describe their political views." (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1669/political-ideology-democrats-seen-farther-from-center-than-republicans) Working with colleagues analyzing local views, we find a substantial "blue collar" shift to the right. Even in New Jersey, we find that 40% of "likely...

If you want to know the difference between the ruling class and the rest of us: Obama's Ohio visit points to jobs divide between public, private sector - CSMonitor.com "Republicans have more private sector employment, with 63 percent of households citing at least one members privately employed, compared with 46 percent for Democrats." From an article on the Reason website: Sixty-three percent of "the rich," those in the top 15 income segment (annual income greater than $100,000) are government employees. Among those in the top 1 percent of income($500,000 annually), 85 percent are private-sector. Bureau of Labor Statistics report reveals as of 2010 government workers earn an average of 44 percent more than similar private-sector workers and over 66 percent greater benefits. California taxpayers are already paying pensions of over $100,000 a year to more than 12,000 former government workers… Something is wrong with a system that pays the "ruling class...

The media conversation last week on HR 847 demonstrated the problem with current politics: right-leaning talking heads ("commentators") without any knowledge at all of the bill, which makes it seem like the bill in current form is okay. However, the media reports of the Republican "poison pill" on illegal immigrants presented a part of the truth, but not the depth of HR 847's problems. The bill and its evolution are available at: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h847/show The history of this bill demonstrates why the public is cynical about the two parties: The bill was introduced at 70 pages, 18,737 words. Actually, there was a 50-page version that was strong enough to survive unanimous consent and a quick voice vote, but that bill did not leave committee. The bill voted on was 222-pages, 37,500 words, and had been expanded to fit the needs of several major NYC donors to campaigns. So, while there was no pork in the bill, there certainly were changes made ...

Ms. Sherrod's Speech Was Most Certainly Not About Transcending Racism - Andy McCarthy - The Corner on National Review Online What Ms. Sherrod did say, in the present tense: You know. I haven't seen such a mean-spirited people as I've seen lately over this issue of health care. [Mumurs of agreement.] Some of the racism we thought was buried — [someone in the audience says, "It surfaced!"] Didn't it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bushes and we didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black president. [Applause] That certainly seems tinged by racial concerns, but I also appreciate her background shaped her views. Ms. Sherrod is both an inspiring story on many levels and a complex generational tale on others. Her biases are still present, whatever their causes. I can't imagine what she has endured, but to canonize her is also a mistake. She should not have been fired, but she should be held to account for being ...

The following mixes and matches several quite different groups, confounding Tea Party activists will a long list of varied demographics: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. BERNSTEIN http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/the-very-angry-tea-party/ In a bracing and astringent essay in The New York Review of Books, pointedly titled "The Tea Party Jacobins," Mark Lilla argued that the hodge-podge list of animosities Tea party supporters mention fail to cohere into a body of political grievances in the conventional sense: they lack the connecting thread of achieving political power. It is not for the sake of acquiring political power that Tea Party activists demonstrate, rally and organize; rather, Lilla argues, the appeal is to "individual opinion, individual autonomy, and individual choice, all in the service of neutralizing, not using, political power." He calls Tea Party activists a "libertarian mob" since they proclaim the belief "that they c...