The latest chain letter making its round on the internets, “FW: FW: FW: FW: RE: Why I’m Voting Democrat,” shares the same punchy aphoristic style and damning dearth of substance, ably mocked by Slate, common to all internet mass-mails. Even setting aside the deliberately incorrect truncation of the Democratic Party’s name, the Savage-brand oversimplification of the issues running throughout the mail is still an insult to the intelligence of the American voter. Let’s analyze (letter in bold, reply in plain):
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would. How unsurprising that a paean to the Republican Party begins on the note of the pocketbook. This argument against taxes fundamentally misunderstands the role of the citizen and the government. While “you” can probably better spend elements of your money, “you” can’t spend your money to build roads or fund the national defense; “you” delegate that spending power to the government, which represents your money and its potential uses. We can debate about the proper size of taxes, but this argument doesn’t even present that issue.
- I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it. A common conservative tactic, this talking point conflates the legal bounds of freedom of speech with the cultural bounds of politeness, to frame “political correctness” as a form of thought control that runs contrary to the First Amendment. Wrong. The “liberal” belief in political correctness is simply a commitment to respect, not a threat of criminal sanctions against the impolitic. No-one wants to criminalize speech simply because it’s offensive (except the late Jesse Helms, Focus on the Family, and other theocrats), and while freedom of speech allows us to say what we want, it does not immunize you from criticism for our rudeness.
- I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraqi trust [sic] that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people. First, neither party advocates “pulling out” of Iraq: Obama’s plan leaves a residual peacekeeping force in the country to be used for limited counterterrorism missions – the original goal of the war on terror (remember that?). Second, it was Republicans – not Democrats – who naiveley thought that, if we gave the Iraqis “democracy,” they’d start thinking we were good people, and fall into line.
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius. This point fosters a mistrust in global warming science by pretending that scientists are little more than weather men. Interestingly, your weather man is not a peer reviewed, published scientist, but environmental biologists, et al, are. The scientific community, after decades of research, has concluded from retrospective analysis of climate trends that global warming is a reality. That’s a far cry from Doppler Radar.
- I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive. Arguably, it is contradictory to oppose the death penalty and favor abortion – if we all agree that fetuses are “human.” Which we don’t. This point glosses over and muddles the real difference between “liberals” and “conservatives” on these issues (what is “humanity”?), to attempt to catch Democrats in a contradiction that doesn’t exist. The converse position – pro-death penalty, anti-abortion – is, however, a real contradiction. Just ask the Pope: the “sanctity of life” doesn’t end at birth.
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit. Which Democratic legislator argues this, again? Straw man. In the sense that this is just a hyperbolic criticism of the tax code, it’s still wrong. Small business under Obama would do better than they would under McCain, whose tax breaks go to large corporations and individuals earning over $150,000 a year. And taxing large corporations makes sense, as a way of managing the externalities they tend to create.
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters. Anti-elitism at its finest. No, no, we can’t trust those “smart” people. Burn them!!! This argument miscomprehends the goal of a republican democracy. Direct democracy is intended to give voice to the majority; the law, and other republican institutions, are meant to prevent the majority from running roughshod and unjustly over “discrete and insular” minorities. The Constitution exists to protect the minority from the majority, as we have periodically needed in our nation. If we didn’t have “pointy headed elitist liberals” looking out for the “kooks” of the world, we wouldn’t have desegregated our schools until, probably, yesterday. The law and the Constitution, as interpreted, not rewritten, exist to vindicate those deserving “kooks” who the rest of us don’t understand.
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don’t have to hide from us over there, when they come over here I don’t want to have any guns in the house to fight them off with. Grammar aside, are we really concerned about a homeland invasion by Al Qaeda? And which modern Democratic legislator actually wants to outlaw handguns, again?
- I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse. Gaze in wonder at a rare hybrid: a straw man fused with a slippery slope argument! Obviously no Democrats want to extend the marriage right between species, and, as I’ve written before, same-sex marriage does not inevitably terminate in interspecies marriage. To posit this slippery slope is intellectually dishonest and needlessly inflammatory.
- I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t. Apples and oranges, no?
- Makes ya wonder how anyone would EVER vote Democrat , now doesn’t it? No. But it does make me wonder how Republicans get into office with arguments like this. While I know many honest, well-spoke, brilliant Republicans – two people who comment on this site come to mind immediately – it amazes me how different they are from the base of the Republican Party, who’re apparently willing to swallow this intellectual backwash.
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And which modern Democratic legislator actually wants to outlaw handguns, again?
In 1996 Obama was asked this question: “Do you support state legislation to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?”
His answer was yes.
He also supported legislation banning semi-automatic weapons. He also supported a ban on gun stores within a 5 mile radius of schools, which would have forced over 90% of gun stores to move. He also supported legislation making it a felony if a gun stolen from your home was used to commit a crime and you didn’t store it properly (locked in a safe and/or dissasembled).
There is no way to know what he would do about guns in office, but his previous record is appaling.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 1, 2008, 12:55 pmSmall business under Obama would do better than they would under McCain, whose tax breaks go to large corporations and individuals earning over $150,000 a year.
I just don’t know how you can say that Ames. Obama’s economic policy is insane. He wants to nearly double the capital gains tax. He wants to significantly increase the tax on dividends. What is he going to do with this new revenue? Give it to people lower down the scale in the form of a tax credit. This is classic income-redistribution and every other time it has been tried, tax revenues actually went down and businesses and their employees were hurt.
I’m not an expert on economics by a long shot, but I have enough sense to know that you keep the money where it will do the most good. The ‘wealthy’ buy stock, invest and keep people employed. Give my neighbor $1000 and she will go by an Xbox and blow the rest at the track.
Even your ‘small business owner’ needs wealthy investors. He needs someone to invest in his business and ‘taking a company public’ is a sign you’ve hit the bigtime. Obama’s tax plan will kill that.
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 1, 2008, 1:00 pmYou know my opinion on guns, PC – I think I’m with on this one, that if that’s Obama’s plan today, and all indications point to a reasonable change of heart, I would be against him on that issue.
And is that “trickle-down”? I just don’t buy that. How is giving money to people who blow it on the track and X-Boxes not good for the economy? If the rich sit on it, keep it in the bank, and let it accrue interest, it’s not doing anything; if it’s going to track owners and Microsoft, at least it is making it back into the flow.
End analysis though: I don’t know much about econ either. At least I’m in good company: you, me, and McCain :-)
Posted by Ames | August 1, 2008, 1:22 pmWhile consumption does help the economy, investment is what drives it. The ‘rich’ that liberals seem to hate so much do not just leave their money in the bank. Most of them got rich through business decisions and no bank can offer the kind of returns that even a conservative investment portfolio will give. There is this incorrect perception that the rich are hoarding their wealth. I don’t know where that comes from.
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 1, 2008, 1:48 pm“Give my neighbor $1000 and she will go by an Xbox and blow the rest at the track”
I’m slightly taken aback that we can, in one sweeping sentence, declare that lower to middle income people are unable to spend their money properly. It is horribly parternalistic to suggest that a poor person is incapable of knowing what his basic needs are. I’m skeptical of the implication that only the college educated are capable of correctly allocating their wealth.
On a separate note, you both have the economic argument partly right. You need capital to invest in companies/enterprise. This will create jobs. You also need enough wealth at the bottom and middle tier to consume these goods, or else you need a big export market where foreigners can pay for them.
The real question is not of economic efficiency (which the free market is more than capable of producing) but of fairness. While the market decides how much a person is compensated for their labor/effort, we as a society must decide how much a person is compensated for their lack of opportunities or human capital. There will be those with minimal access to education, poor health, and a poor upbringing. What does fairness require of us? The Democratic Party (rightly in my view) believes that we should compensate those who perform worse by no fault of their own and give opportunities to their offspring to do better in the future. The market will punish those who failed to take advantage of the opportunities they were given.
Posted by Trey Howard | August 1, 2008, 2:15 pmP.S. I’m not actually all that offended by this Republican letter, because there was a liberal video about “why I’m voting Republican”, and it was hysterical. The link is posted below.
Posted by Trey Howard | August 1, 2008, 2:22 pmI’m slightly taken aback that we can, in one sweeping sentence, declare that lower to middle income people are unable to spend their money properly. It is horribly parternalistic to suggest that a poor person is incapable of knowing what his basic needs are. I’m skeptical of the implication that only the college educated are capable of correctly allocating their wealth.
All one has to do is look at the debt ratio for the average American to know that most people are not good at using their income wisely. My wife is a social worker and many, many poor people do not know what their basic needs are, unfortunately. And it’s not just the poor. Many people in the upper tiers are just as dumb. But investors, by their nature they are at least trying to make their money work for them. That’s why I want the money in their hands, not the schmuck down the street.
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 1, 2008, 2:24 pmThis is a rather novel economic philosophy. I thought that conservatives believed that everyone could spend their own money better than the government. I did not realize there was such a distrust of the poor.
Economic theory is predicated on the notion that we are all rational actors who spend money in ways to maximize our utility. A poor person may buy unhealthy food because it is cheaper (and even alcohol because it is a cheap form of entertainment). A middle income person may have high credit card debt because they made a rational decision to consume more now to the detriment of future consumption. If you save your money, you make the opposite decision to hurt your current consumption for future benefit. Neither decision is wrong, and both have upsides. Let’s not assume that everyone is ignorant of the consequences of their actions. Perhaps they picked the best of a bad set of options.
Posted by Trey Howard | August 1, 2008, 2:36 pmI’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.
Oh, my. One of the most idiotic arguments ever. Animals can enter legally binding contracts? And perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I infer a subtext that homosexuals are less than human.
Posted by James F | August 1, 2008, 3:01 pmwell, i think it is nice that you have a point-by-point response to this email, but what is most glaring is that republicans simply are not funny. they really have no skill when it comes to satire.
we got a similar email lampooning republicans. i am putting it up on our blog right now.
Posted by didionsmommy | August 1, 2008, 3:59 pmThat’s economic theory, Trey, but neoclassical economic theory is mostly just conjecture. The past few decades have seen a tremendous amount of work done in establishing that people do not behave rationally. Even if you suppose that a realistic rational maximizer with odd preferences might blow all of his money on booze and potato chips, there are examples that can’t be dismissed by reference to long lists of preferences.
Undoubtedly some of what appears to be irrational behavior is merely a result of strange preferences, but the vast majority is not. Especially when it comes to weighing risks, calculating future value, or judging the worth of our own assets, the human animal is systematically and significantly biased. It is worth noting, though, that the rich are hardly immune to this. Many are merely lucky that their particular irrationalities have been favored in the marketplace (because the market has such a strong random element, it’s entirely possible for an irrational strategy to pay off, and, when it does, it pays better than a rational strategy with better risk management). But it’s certainly not the case that this is a rational decision to take certain sorts of risks – everything I’ve seen on and from traders indicates that most have a strong bias in favor of thinking that their particular strategy is foolproof, and most who proceed to lose everything are dumbfounded, as they were certain that it was impossible.
Intelligence is going to matter a little bit, but I imagine that education matters less than upbringing. That people who go to college overwhelmingly come from families which can afford to send their children to college is going to skew the sample towards financial responsibility. The upper middle class are going to tend to be the most fiscally responsible group.
I do agree with your main point that fairness demands some sort of redistributive scheme. The difference between kajillions in income and several hundred thousand is primarily a matter of luck, anyway, and has virtually nothing to do with most traits that we consider valuable, and so I don’t feel all that much of a need to respect their earned money past a point. As well, because luck plays such a large factor, it’s arguable that much higher taxes on the super-rich don’t significantly reduce people’s incentive to do the things that make them super-rich. I’m not sure whether I buy that last, though.
Posted by Gotchaye | August 1, 2008, 4:36 pmWell, I think the idea of hording the wealth is due to the really bad stats you can hear about the economy.
You can read anywhere about the lack of real income, the growing disparity between the income classes, etc.http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/01/SWA06_Table1.11.jpg
That site has some information.
Maybe it’s not the whole story, but giving and giving to the higher income groups and corporations while ignoring smaller businesses and lower/middle income people, isn’t a good way of handling the economy in my opinion. It pushes the imbalance further.
There needs to be a more balanced approach to economics than…let’s just keep giving to the rich and hope it helps everyone else out in the end.
Posted by oneiroi | August 1, 2008, 4:48 pmIf I may, Gotchaye, economics is not just “conjecture”. It is a social science that has predictive capability, from the most basic: when the price goes up, demand goes down; to the more complicated: game theoretical models first developed by John Nash of Princeton. To ignore it leaves one unable to understand why certain government interventions attempting to alleviate poverty work (i.e. the earned income tax credit), while others don’t (i.e. tariffs). Economics also explains why vast differences in wealth (measured by the gini coefficient) can stymie economic growth, and thus provides a reason for some redistribution.
Rationality, when used academically, simply means that one will maximize one’s own happiness as they see fit. Of course they are biased, and of course their preferences will differ.
Without trying to assume too much, I imagine that you come from one of these “families which can afford to send their children to college…[and] tend to be the most fiscally responsible”. This leads you (incorrectly, I argue) to assume that the poor are oblivious to better economic options/outcomes. I am also not certain how you conclude that the rich are just as irrational but perhaps luckier. Which is it? Are the wealthy more fiscally responsible, or are they just as crazy as those stupid poor people? There seems to be too much randomness in this argument.
If we return to an economic framework, we might see that the poor are not incapable of creating wealth, they just lack the resources. They need more human capital, better healthcare, more money. In turn, we can see that the rich have benefitted from the above endowments. Let us not be so quick to lose faith in our fellow humans. The recent rise in wealth in some countries of the developing world proves that even poor peasants know how to grab economic opportunities by the balls and not let go.
Posted by Trey Howard | August 1, 2008, 6:02 pmSome investments help production or employment. Buying a bond from its issuer, or buying stock during an IPO, or being the angel investor in a venture capital situation. Some investments don’t, though, and really don’t seem to make any contribution to the economy besides providing an additional revenue stream for the productive investments, through greater-fool resale. For instance, had I’d spent ten grand buying GE stock way the hell back in 1878, I’d have been making an investment that helped drive the economy, since GE would have been receiving the money from me and using it to build facilities, or pay employees until sales revenue started coming in, or whatever else. If I were to buy GE stock today, though, that ten grand wouldn’t go anywhere near GE – nowhere near a factory, or a supplier, or an employee, or any other thing that would convert that money into useful economic work. Instead, I’d simply be putting that ten grand in the pocket of the previous shareholder, in order for them to recoup the money they put in the pocket of the shareholder before them, who’d given money to yet another prior shareholder, ad nauseum back to the one person who actually invested in GE stock at the one point in time that the investment was doing work in the economy. In short, if I buy GE stock now, the way I see it that’s the economic equivalent of frictional heat loss wasting energy. Or if I spend 10 grand buying StuffCorp bonds from StuffCorp, I’m loaning them 10 grand to expand a factory (say) and make more stuff, so the investment’s contributing to the economy. The bond-interest profit I’ll be getting is justified as a reward for doing that, yes. But if I turn around and sell the bond on the market… whoever buys it from me won’t be contributing to the economy, they’ll be contributing to me. Unless I turn around and buy some stuff…
Basically, the way I see it the consumption/production cycle doesn’t help the economy, it is the economy. Today my company has shareholders, and I went in to work where I produce a good/service for which a customer is paying money that 1) pays my salary 2) pays our overhead, 3) pays for the cost of the raw materials for me to do the work, and 4) leaves profit leftover. If over the weekend, every shareholder dies, their stock certificates – if they have any – burn, and the corporation gets legally dissolved… what’s the reason that on Monday, I shouldn’t go in to work and do work to create the good/service for which customers will pay money that 1) pays my salary 2) pays our overhead, and 3) pays for the cost of the raw materials for me to do the work? None. So the whole shareholder/investment aspect was extraneous. Right?
Posted by Steve | August 1, 2008, 6:24 pmTrey, I didn’t mean to imply that economics as a whole was just conjecture. I meant that neoclassical theory was only loosely related to reality. Conjecture was probably the wrong word, and for that I apologize. It is a simple fantasy that “we are all rational actors who spend money in ways to maximize our utility”. To bring up one of the more common examples, people will pay more for flight insurance that only covers terrorism-related incidents than they will for flight insurance that covers all cases. The theory has a small amount of rough predictive ability, but my understanding is that most of the achievements of modern macroeconomics come from the statistical side of things – explanations from first principles are only backfitted onto the results. Again, I agree that economics is a valuable tool and that it’s reasonably predictive for a social science; I was really only disagreeing with you in that I don’t think it’s plausible to assume rationality on the part of all actors, and especially not in some of the cases you mentioned.
I think you may be reading something into my comments on fiscal responsibility that I didn’t intend. My point there was merely that being able to handle money well is a skill that can be taught, and that, to a point, wealthier families are going to have undergone selection for that skill, and they’ll have taught it to their children. I did not mean to create the impression that I thought the skill was somehow innate (this is how I’m interpreting your ‘stupid poor people’ remark). It’s also not really a matter of being ignorant to better outcomes; it’s a matter of habitually exercising foresight. The key is that, even though everyone -can- do it, it has to be made a habit.
I then went off on a tangent about the super-rich. Usually coming out of the upper middle class, they’re generally selected for a lack of fiscal responsibility.
It seems to me that you’re arguing that people are inherently capable of handling money well, and that they don’t need to be taught to do so. Is this accurate?
Posted by Gotchaye | August 1, 2008, 6:58 pmFrom Trey:
This is a rather novel economic philosophy. I thought that conservatives believed that everyone could spend their own money better than the government. I did not realize there was such a distrust of the poor.
It’s not so much that we believe all the money should stay with one group or the other, but wealth redistribution is just dumb. Especially taking it from people who clearly understand how it works and giving it to groups that for the most part don’t manage it well.
Wealth redistribution works better when you teach the people at the bottom how to move up, rather than taking from the people at the top.
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 2, 2008, 11:47 amI still say it’s an imbalanced way of looking at the economy PC.
And it’s great to talk about moving up and money eventually reaching the work classes (which I would debate more and more isn’t, due to the international economy), but for most people it isn’t about moving up necessarily but it’s about having households take additional jobs to get by, it’s about losing your house (which starts affecting the whole economy), it’s about all sorts of things that isn’t all about how to make more money that does indeed help the economy as a whole.
As far as I can tell, we’ve had a government favoring the rich and business for 8 years, and trying to balance that a just a bit will help long term. Just so we don’t have as much of a struggling economy.
It works both ways, if the businesses want to keep improving/increasing, they need consumers to be able to stay above the water. I just say when you support pushing one side (business/rich) and not the working class you create problems. Both sides need to be handled.
Posted by oneiroi | August 2, 2008, 12:41 pmProgressive Conservative said, on the old site,
Plenty of people have done very well during the last 8 years. Unemployment has been low and pay for skilled jobs has risen.
Home foreclosures are not a sign that conservative economics have failed this country. Conservatively speaking, taking a home loan for a house that you can’t afford is a bad decision. Foreclosures are the logic result of poor decision making on the part of the lender AND the borrower. In a way it’s a good thing because the market is cleaning itself up.
Posted by Ames | August 3, 2008, 3:46 amI was just using the foreclosures as an example of how the two groups are inexorably tied. The different classes, the businesses and the people. How when one goes down so does the other.
Which leads me to my point that they both need to be supported in order to foster a stable and strong economy. Not an imbalanced approach that focuses only on benefiting businesses or the upper percents.
As I mentioned earlier, the real wage of workers has barely moved in decades, and the disparity of classes is growing larger (I’m sorry for the typical liberal talking point there). I think a large part of the reason is because of that strategy.
Besides that, the approach you mentioned is really diluted with the global market spreading money out internationally. So the strategy of putting money with one group or one area and hoping it will help everyone else, is much less potent than it once was.
I’m just saying, helping out the majority of Americans also helps out businesses. It works both ways, both need each other, and so helping out both will also help the economy.
Posted by Oneiroi | August 3, 2008, 11:37 am“Home foreclosures are not a sign that conservative economics have failed this country. Conservatively speaking, taking a home loan for a house that you can’t afford is a bad decision. Foreclosures are the logic result of poor decision making on the part of the lender AND the borrower. In a way it’s a good thing because the market is cleaning itself up.”
Moreover, foreclosures are a fair result of selfish decision making on the part of the borrower. By taking out loans they couldn’t afford and, motivated by greed, buying houses as a money-making plan rather than as a place to live, people drove housing prices up. They bought more house than they can afford, and in the process changed what was affordable to everyone. When they did that, they priced people out of the market, making it so any person who [wasn't gambling their credit and was working hard and saving for a down payment and refusing to take any loan with monthly payments they weren't certain they could meet] either couldn’t afford to buy a house at all or could only afford a worse house – either smaller, or in a farther out neighborhood, or otherwise inferior to what they would have been able to buy if the market didn’t include the excess demand of speculators and gamblers. And since houses don’t get torn down when they’re foreclosed… it seems perfectly fair to me that someone who spent outside their means and in the process lowered someone else’s means now loses what they bought and frees that house up for the person they’d priced out of the market.
Posted by Steve | August 3, 2008, 11:56 amCome on Steve, it’s just as much fault to the lenders as the borrowers. And I think the greed is definitely in the lenders corner as well. They started hearing that other companies were selling these bad types of loans with no credit checks, and they started doing it to for the sake of competition. They weren’t checking at all whether or not the person they were giving the loans to could pay them. And now the businesses are paying for it.
They both made the bad decisions, it isn’t squarely to blame on any one party.
Posted by Oneiroi | August 3, 2008, 12:38 pmFron Oneiroi:
Which leads me to my point that they both need to be supported in order to foster a stable and strong economy. Not an imbalanced approach that focuses only on benefiting businesses or the upper percents.
As a Progressive I favor HUGE support for the poorest of us. I just don’t think the solution is to re-distribute wealth through tax and spend policies. It’s in the interest of the government AND the wealthy to help the poor move up.
Example: There are a lot of wealthy business owners who are desperate for skilled labor. They need things like machinests, welders, etc. Not enough people are going into these trades which is creating a huge market vaccuum and earning potential is climbing rapidly. Helping the poor take a step up to a lifelong and productive career is so much more effective than any of the social programs Obama is advocating.
Posted by Progressive Conservative | August 3, 2008, 8:09 pmRemember, folks: If you’re poor, it’s because God hates you.
And taxes have never produced anything good. The interstate highways system, the Apollo program, public libraries, and the G. I. Bill never existed.
Posted by Pope Disturban the Vth | August 8, 2008, 1:40 amHey, Ames, sometimes you could start these on RW so we could turn you upside down and backwards ;) I’m not so sure how I feel about private writing and the GFDL myself…
Posted by Human | August 8, 2008, 1:58 am@ #5, further to Trey H, “I’m slightly taken aback that we can, in one sweeping sentence, declare that lower to middle income people are unable to spend their money properly.”
That’s ironic coming from a conservative, given the context. So poor people, or at least your neighbor, can’t be trusted with money? So the conservative nanny state would make sure only the rich have money to distribute, since *they* know what they are doing with it?
Posted by Human | August 9, 2008, 9:45 pm@ PC… “Even your ’small business owner’ needs wealthy investors.” Actually (I have been running a *really* small business for 20 years) what I need are *customers* – and although some of them throw some serious cash, 2-3 grand my way, most are spending about a hundred bucks, and they aren’t “rich” – they’re regular folks. In order to survive, I need *them* to be able to afford to spend $100-200 to fix their old speakers.
The capital market mean nothing to me until they, as hey do time and time again, wreck the economy for a few years and move more fundamental wealth to the wealthiest.
PS, many, or even most, of the “wealthy” did not get there by their innate smarts – they *inherited* it.
Posted by Human | August 9, 2008, 9:49 pmThinking out loud……..
I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.
I’m voting Republican because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money we don’t have than I would.
I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
I’m voting Republican because I believe freedom of speech includes hate speech against those of a different race, color, creed, religion, or gender.
I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
I’m voting Republican because women should not have the right to decide what goes on with their own bodies and I believe the government will do a better job of judgment against them than God would.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitists need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.
I’m voting Republican because George Bush referred to the Constitution as “…just a goddamned piece of paper”, I believe him and the Republicans have already rewritten the Constitution to my liking via the Patriot Act.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don’t have to hide from us over there, they will come over here and I won’t have any guns in the house to fight them off with.
I’m voting Republican because George Bush has identified the terrorists for us and we’re killing them and I don’t have any guns in my house to defend myself because I had to sell ‘em to buy milk, bread and gas.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.
I’m voting Republican because the oil companies are making unprecedented profits while our grandchildren pay for the war, we go broke, our economy gets ruined, we lose our jobs, and the numero uno reason: I don’t have to pay my fair share.
Posted by DesertRat | August 22, 2008, 1:28 amGood combination!
Posted by Ames | August 22, 2008, 1:30 amI’m Voting Republican In 2008
I’m voting Republican because like Democrats, I believe the government will do a better job of spending my money than I would, only the Republicans won’t tax me, they’ll just run the national debt up another $4 Trillion.
I’m voting Republican because freedom of speech is fine as long as we don’t say anything negative about a candidate within 60 days of the election. Also, as long as we don’t say anything that the Republicans don’t like.
I’m voting Republican because, as in Iraq, I think we should just blow any damned country we feel like back into the stone. To hell with international law, it’s just a piece of paper.
I’m voting Republican because I believe that people who can’t balance the budget ought to be bailing out banks, businesses and speculators on the backs of our children.
I’m voting Republican because I think a woman should be a baby machine and submissive to a man’s whims. Women are there for one purpose, after all.
I’m voting Republican because I believe that business should be able to do anything they want including the pollution of the environment, clear cutting forests, strip mining the tops off of mountains, and doing as THEY see fit.
I’m voting Republican because I believe it’s better for three or four religious kooks to rewrite the constitution to meet their religious beliefs since they would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.
I’m voting Republican because I believe that we need to create as many terrorists as we can by supressing freedoms in foreign countries. That way we can instill fear in the American public, which makes it easier to strip their rights away.
I’m voting Republican because I think that it’s better to create strawman arguments and twist logic to meet some zelot’s interpretation of a book written over 1500 years ago than to actually leave people alone and allow them to be happy.
I’m voting Republican because I believe that government needs to give more tax breaks and financial incentives to businesses (like big oil) because we haven’t drained the last drop of oil or ruined that last bit of land yet.
Makes you wonder how anyone with any brains would EVER vote Republican, doesn’t it?
Actually, if you were paying attention, you’d be a Libertarian.
Posted by Lee | August 23, 2008, 6:52 am