Republican Ben Stein on Fox News: Called a Commie!

[Matt1970]

2007 Budget was $2.8 Trillion with $2.6 Trillion in Revenue
2011 we spent $3.83 Trillion with $2.5 Trillion in Revenue

*EDIT - We have a small revenue problem but a massive spending problem.

 

[Incorruptible]

2007 Budget was $2.8 Trillion with $2.6 Trillion in Revenue
2011 we spent $3.83 Trillion with $2.5 Trillion in Revenue

We have a spending problem.

This is quite obvious but do you really expect the ignorant leftists to understand this? They just want to tax the rich to be "fair" and for "economic justice"

 

[Matt1970]

"Leeway" isn't just about money, but rather politics, as well. A return to Clinton era taxes is just a small step in the right direction.
It's also about the problem facing all advanced economies, excessive concentration of economic power & resource ownership. The top 1% share of national income has doubled over the last 30 years, thanks to a flawed tax & corporate structure, and will likely double again over the next 30 years if current thinking prevails.

Plutocracy & egalitarian democracy aren't really compatible, no matter how desperately Righties want to believe that they are.

Yep, Jhhnn won't be happy unless we are back at 70% upper income tax rates.

 

[Moonbeam]

chucky2: I never said taxes don't need to be raised.

M: Cool.

c: They do.

M: Very cool.

c: On Everyone living above whatever the new poverty line would be with the increased taxes.

M: Just your opinion, which, if I may add mine, would be absurd in some cases.

c: What I've said is that raising taxes before the Fed (and State/county/local) can demonstrate they first are trustable to live within their means, or make massive steps towards that, is batshit F'ing insane.

M: Because you don't accept that the problem is real. I get that already, as I've told you.

c: More insane that even your last post here.

M: But you know how sanity looks if you are the one who is insane. You should know that your opinion means nothing, especially, if like buckshot, you do so little introspection.

c: And the reason it is that insane is because any money sent to these fools in Congress and the Executive is met with a burp and an exclamation of 'That's it? More please...'. They will just spend the increased money, and the yearly budget gap will never be seriously addressed, and the national debt will never be paid down. So what was the point of sending them more money again? That's right, there isn't one. So why do you keep advocating doing that before they've proved themselves?

M: That's easy and I've already told you now many times now?. The deficit problem is real. You think if you just keep jumping up and down shouting your formulaic garbage you've been stuffed full of like a Thanksgiving turkey, it will all somehow convince yourself it isn't and your delusions are sufficient to cure it. In order to be a dare I say it, 'sane contributor to the problem, you will first have to acknowledge it's real. The problem you present to yourself in your head IS your insanity. The problem isn't the half of a loaf you keep shouting about, the problem is we're out of bread. The problem is real. All you're doing is grinding an ax.

Think of it this way. You are stuck on a frozen rock in the middle of a river in winter and up stream there's been a big rain and a wave is coming that will wash you away. And there you are on your rock, the shore x yards away, screaming it's insane to swim in this river, the water is too cold. So lucky you, because you live in an altered universe that knows what is insane, you will wait to do your swimming when the shore is x plus flood yards away, and the current will be a torrent. And there you are screaming 'swimming in cold water is insane'.

c: You've ducked all 4 questions I've asked you now, and posted more insanity. Honestly I can't tell if you're still doing parody posting or if you really are posting for real (they are very hard to tell apart most often). What was the problem answering the 4 questions, were they uncomfortable for your argument?

M: See my answer to buckshot on questions and why they are asked. We want to focus on the fact you won't admit the problem is real. That is what I think is important.

 

[Darwin333]

Generally 'user fees' and such things are flatter than income taxes. It's one of the reasons they are currently in vogue. Even property taxes are flatter than income. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the answer to your question is that the distribution of tax payment is flatter now than it would be under a more income-tax dominant system. I don't think that's the answer you were looking for here.

There really isn't an answer. I was simply pointing out that as a percentage of GDP the various .govs are already collecting near record (only 2 years ever higher I believe, maybe 3) in taxes. What is the maximum amount of GDP that you, or anyone else, thinks should be extracted by the various .govs? A full third? Half?

Jhhnn, there's not a lot of room for flexibility, if by flexibility you mean the usual, which is 'spend more'. Responsible deleveraging is going to require cutting up the national credit card, and making some seriously hard choices. Like any debtor (well, any debtor who wakes up and makes a plan to repay, before it's too late), there will have to be spending along the way (people gotta eat!), but your statement is exactly why buckshot made the statement he made.

He's wrong; spending cuts alone cannot, will not get America out of the hole it is in. I would estimate 10-15 years of increased taxes, severely careful spending, a focus on debt reduction, and possibly a mild inflationary monetary policy (which, when intentional, is just another 'tax'; albeit one that acts as an incentive to invest). This might bring Debt:GDP to a level that is sustainable and not crippling.

But you are wrong, too; public spending needs to be focused on maintaining existing infrastructure, meeting so-called 'entitlement' commitments, particularly to those too late in their careers to adjust (in case it matters, this would not include me), industrial and business regulation and support, emergency services, etc.

Those "so-called entitlement" commitments are exactly what is going to eat us alive going forward. Using what you just said, not changing it for people who are to late in life to adjust this is what Federal healthcare spending will look like going forward:

Without changes we are looking at a full $2 trillion a year in just 10 years, 4 trillion less than 10 years later, and it just keeps getting more absurd. Also note that this is using only the historical rate of inflation in the Federal healthcare costs and does not include the massive increase (per-capita) of people that will be on it these programs going forward.

 

[Moonbeam]

To take your example further, it'd be like agreeing that the yards in the neighborhood absolutely need to be cut, they're way too high. Each and every time we've lent the lawnmower (which is plenty big enough to get the job done) to the kid that cuts them, he F'ing destroys the lawnmower, each time promising he'll get it right this time, each time, F'ing it up worse.

Moonie is suggesting we send the kid out with our lawnmower again. I'm suggesting we don't and let the kid figure out how to get the lawns cut which is his responsibility to do. Maybe the kid will finally figure it out. If he doesn't, are we any worse off? Nope, but at least we've got a working lawnmower and our own yards are straight.

Interesting point: When asked if Moonie is going to lend the kid his lawnmower this time, Moonie ducks question with insane post. Weirdly, other Lefties on this board when asked same question don't like it either. Shocker.....

The deficit problem is real, a real problem.

Long grass is not. It is a problem as a flea is to an elephant.

 

[Jhhnn]

Generally 'user fees' and such things are flatter than income taxes. It's one of the reasons they are currently in vogue. Even property taxes are flatter than income. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the answer to your question is that the distribution of tax payment is flatter now than it would be under a more income-tax dominant system. I don't think that's the answer you were looking for here.

In vogue among Repub pundits, anyway. Moving income share up the foodchain while moving the tax burden down is always the goal of fee & retail transaction based taxation.

Jhhnn, there's not a lot of room for flexibility, if by flexibility you mean the usual, which is 'spend more'. Responsible deleveraging is going to require cutting up the national credit card, and making some seriously hard choices. Like any debtor (well, any debtor who wakes up and makes a plan to repay, before it's too late), there will have to be spending along the way (people gotta eat!), but your statement is exactly why buckshot made the statement he made.

He's wrong; spending cuts alone cannot, will not get America out of the hole it is in. I would estimate 10-15 years of increased taxes, severely careful spending, a focus on debt reduction, and possibly a mild inflationary monetary policy (which, when intentional, is just another 'tax'; albeit one that acts as an incentive to invest). This might bring Debt:GDP to a level that is sustainable and not crippling.

But you are wrong, too; public spending needs to be focused on maintaining existing infrastructure, meeting so-called 'entitlement' commitments, particularly to those too late in their careers to adjust (in case it matters, this would not include me), industrial and business regulation and support, emergency services, etc.

That sounds peachy, until we realize that one man's debt is another's financial asset, and that private debt dwarfs public debt entirely, thanks in no small part to the Ownership Society lifting us above any level of sustainability.

The private sector is undergoing massive deleveraging, and that won't be quick or easy due to the nature of mortgage debt & the ability of borrowers to pay. Repayment necessarily enriches the financial elite, who own the debt, yet inhibits spending, saving & investment among the vast majority of the population who don't.

Given that our current malaise exists because of low demand, some other mechanism must be employed if we're to boost demand, and that mechanism is govt spending. W/O that, the end of the current liquidity trap is well over the horizon.

The bailout saved the financial elite from ruin, and from the consequences of cascading economic contraction through defaults. It also saved them from extremely unpleasant political consequences that arose in the Great Depression, the last time this kind of economic collapse was allowed to occur. Slightly higher taxes are a small price for them to pay for all of that & for govt spending to increase demand for the goods & services they sell. They're incapable & unwilling to do that themselves.

 

[chucky2]

snip

Think of it this way. You are stuck on a frozen rock in the middle of a river in winter and up stream there's been a big rain and a wave is coming that will wash you away. And there you are on your rock, the shore x yards away, screaming it's insane to swim in this river, the water is too cold. So lucky you, because you live in an altered universe that knows what is insane, you will wait to do your swimming when the shore is x plus flood yards away, and the current will be a torrent. And there you are screaming 'swimming in cold water is insane'.

c: You've ducked all 4 questions I've asked you now, and posted more insanity. Honestly I can't tell if you're still doing parody posting or if you really are posting for real (they are very hard to tell apart most often). What was the problem answering the 4 questions, were they uncomfortable for your argument?

M: See my answer to buckshot on questions and why they are asked. We want to focus on the fact you won't admit the problem is real. That is what I think is important.

I see now, you're simply insane, calling the sane, insane. Let me try and help you out with your own example, make it much more accurate so possibly even you can understand:

• We live in a coastal community to start, everyone having as nice views as they can have where wood is plentiful (can't live without wood).
• At some point, someone figures out that the views from that island are amazing, and they move out there, despite knowing that island will eventually flood; Everyone knows this, it is no secret.
• Problem is, the island only has so much wood on it.
• So for years, the people that moved out to the island laugh hysterically, talk derisively to the people with lesser views, trying to get them to come out to the island with them. Some go, others who are prudent stay, because they know, some day, that island is going to be flooded.
• All the while, as the number of people on the island grow, the wood on the island keeps being used at a faster and faster rate. Soon, so they can keep enjoying their views, they get people on the mainland to give them some mainland wood.
• At some point, the mainland people are done giving the selfish and shortsighted islanders wood. Either live within the wood budget that the island has, or, get off the island....the island that eventually will be flooded, remember that?
• Decades go by, the number of islanders grows and grows, but by god, the deficit spent wood to obtain those views, they're incredible!
• People on the mainland can see that enough time has gone by, that island is due for a flood, and the wood consumption on the island is just insane. It's got so bad, the wooden boats the prudent and merciful mainlands have sent so the islanders can get off the island are instead torn up and used for Pepsi and Cheeto huts, unneccessary fires, etc. etc.
• When told to start using these wooden boats they keep squandering to get off the island before its too late, the mainlanders are laughed at by the islanders.
• This goes on for at least a couple of decades. Each year, many wooden boats sent. Each year, squandered.
• Finally, your flood comes, but its another decade or two off in the distance. The islanders watch it from their incredible viewing site, laughing at the stupid mainlanders for still sending them these wooden boats they just keep consuming at insane rates.
• Some day in the future, the flood reaches the island. The islanders plea for wooden boats to get the F off the island they never should have been on in the first place, the island they were told would flood (and they themselves knew all along), the island they were given decades of wooden boats to get off of yet they squandered.
• The flood comes and wipes out all the islanders. The mainlanders shrug and say, I told you so.

Now your analogy is pretty accurate. What you're telling me is, as a mainlander, I should keep sending my wood, the wood I actually need myself, to the boat shop, so wooden boats can be made to get the islanders off, but for the last 3 decades, each year when we send the gaggle of boats, they have a party, break them up, and burn them up on stupid island shit rather than getting the F off the island like they're supposed to.

Scratch that, you're actually telling me, send more wood than in past years, because if more wooden boats arrive, this year, somehow, it'll be different from the last 30. This year they'll actually get on the wooden boat and come back to the mainland, so as to avoid the flood.

Exactly what indications have you seen that any of the islander Leadership actually has taken steps to start building their own boats, a sign that they do intend to finally get off the island? Because from what I've seen, they've got fires going all over the island, burning wood like a mofo, not giving one F that your flood is coming.

I await your 'sane' answer... :whiste:

Chuck

 

[Matt1970]

That sounds peachy, until we realize that one man's debt is another's financial asset, and that private debt dwarfs public debt entirely, thanks in no small part to the Ownership Society lifting us above any level of sustainability.

.

Yep, the Ownership society came around here last week forcing everyone to max out their credit cards and take out loans. I didn't answer the door.

Is there anything you won't blame on the rich and Reagonomics?

 

[buckshot24]

-snip-

Same time next week doc?

Now:

"We know raising taxes won't help the economy, right?"

What we know is that all questions are motivated. They are asked for a reason, usually to set a mental trap, to confine one to a chain of rationalizations that lead the bigot from his feeling there is a good to the notion that good is as he defines it. So the real importance of your question isn't a yes or no answer that serves your motivation, but to know what your game is.

The economy doesn't care what my motivations are for asking the question.

"Do you agree with that or no?"

Yes. But it doesn't matter. The problem is real, deficits are a real problem, and that's what you won't accept. You already have told yourself you have your answers. You already know what the good is. You live in an altered reality, as I said.

Of course I accept that deficits are a real problem, that's why I want to cut spending drastically. Getting $70 billion more out of raising tax rates on the "wealthy" is a band aid and we know it won't stimulate growth in the economy. That is if we use it to pay down the deficit instead of "redistribute" like libs like to do to stimulate economies.

Our focus should be 100% on what will grow the economy where people can get off of assistance and we cut the $1 trillion we spent on means tested welfare programs last year organically. Since raising taxes can't help the economy we probably shouldn't do it.

 

[Moonbeam]

I see now, you're simply insane, calling the sane, insane. Let me try and help you out with your own example, make it much more accurate so possibly even you can understand:

• We live in a coastal community to start, everyone having as nice views as they can have where wood is plentiful (can't live without wood).
• At some point, someone figures out that the views from that island are amazing, and they move out there, despite knowing that island will eventually flood; Everyone knows this, it is no secret.
• Problem is, the island only has so much wood on it.
• So for years, the people that moved out to the island laugh hysterically, talk derisively to the people with lesser views, trying to get them to come out to the island with them. Some go, others who are prudent stay, because they know, some day, that island is going to be flooded.
• All the while, as the number of people on the island grow, the wood on the island keeps being used at a faster and faster rate. Soon, so they can keep enjoying their views, they get people on the mainland to give them some mainland wood.
• At some point, the mainland people are done giving the selfish and shortsighted islanders wood. Either live within the wood budget that the island has, or, get off the island....the island that eventually will be flooded, remember that?
• Decades go by, the number of islanders grows and grows, but by god, the deficit spent wood to obtain those views, they're incredible!
• People on the mainland can see that enough time has gone by, that island is due for a flood, and the wood consumption on the island is just insane. It's got so bad, the wooden boats the prudent and merciful mainlands have sent so the islanders can get off the island are instead torn up and used for Pepsi and Cheeto huts, unneccessary fires, etc. etc.
• When told to start using these wooden boats they keep squandering to get off the island before its too late, the mainlanders are laughed at by the islanders.
• This goes on for at least a couple of decades. Each year, many wooden boats sent. Each year, squandered.
• Finally, your flood comes, but its another decade or two off in the distance. The islanders watch it from their incredible viewing site, laughing at the stupid mainlanders for still sending them these wooden boats they just keep consuming at insane rates.
• Some day in the future, the flood reaches the island. The islanders plea for wooden boats to get the F off the island they never should have been on in the first place, the island they were told would flood (and they themselves knew all along), the island they were given decades of wooden boats to get off of yet they squandered.
• The flood comes and wipes out all the islanders. The mainlanders shrug and say, I told you so.

Now your analogy is pretty accurate. What you're telling me is, as a mainlander, I should keep sending my wood, the wood I actually need myself, to the boat shop, so wooden boats can be made to get the islanders off, but for the last 3 decades, each year when we send the gaggle of boats, they have a party, break them up, and burn them up on stupid island shit rather than getting the F off the island like they're supposed to.

Scratch that, you're actually telling me, send more wood than in past years, because if more wooden boats arrive, this year, somehow, it'll be different from the last 30. This year they'll actually get on the wooden boat and come back to the mainland, so as to avoid the flood.

Exactly what indications have you seen that any of the islander Leadership actually has taken steps to start building their own boats, a sign that they do intend to finally get off the island? Because from what I've seen, they've got fires going all over the island, burning wood like a mofo, not giving one F that your flood is coming.

I await your 'sane' answer... :whiste:

Chuck

My answer is the same. You are blind living in an altered reality. You do not take the problem seriously but can only repeat over and over again what you have learned, mechanically, the tripe you have been fed. Nobody who sees the problem as real believes as you do. The past means nothing when the problem is real and the problem is real. It will be dealt with by real people, not by people like you caught like a bug in amber. You are like a blind prisoner in a cage walking back and forth in the same path thumping the bars with a cane. You can't comprehend that the cage is of your own making. You are Mr. Jones. Something is happening but you don't know what it is.

Love you Chuck. Relax and be happy.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yep, the Ownership society came around here last week forcing everyone to max out their credit cards and take out loans. I didn't answer the door.

Is there anything you won't blame on the rich and Reagonomics?

People respond to leadership on an emotional level. Incompetent leadership yields irrational responses & poor results.

History is shot through with it.

 

[Moonbeam]

Same time next week doc?
The economy doesn't care what my motivations are for asking the question.
Of course I accept that deficits are a real problem, that's why I want to cut spending drastically. Getting $70 billion more out of raising tax rates on the "wealthy" is a band aid and we know it won't stimulate growth in the economy. That is if we use it to pay down the deficit instead of "redistribute" like libs like to do to stimulate economies.

Our focus should be 100% on what will grow the economy where people can get off of assistance and we cut the $1 trillion we spent on means tested welfare programs last year organically. Since raising taxes can't help the economy we probably shouldn't do it.

This is what I call pucking on demand, the regurgitation of old script, the pianola rolling out the notes punched in paper. Do yourself a real favor and puck it all up, the whole routine, the whole program. Live naked and without fear. I know you'll like it. When you puke up stupid you'll be a better person and you are already OK. Your assignment for the week, until we next meet, is to go to the local zoo, right down your ideas on peanuts, and throw them to the elephants.

Mommy Mommy, I wasted my life telling you Johnny spent all my money and now Moonbeam wants me to buy peanuts. Hold me, Mommy, while I go crazy.

Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my
blurglecruncheon, see if I don't

 

[Matt1970]

People respond to leadership on an emotional level. Incompetent leadership yields irrational responses & poor results.

History is shot through with it.

 

[Jhhnn]

Over your head, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYvtvcBKgIQ

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/09/19/29464/bush-ownership-society/

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Over your head, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYvtvcBKgIQ


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/09/19/29464/bush-ownership-society/

Really you guys on the left sure know how to play the blame game.

Nice video. It just further illustrates how government was part of the issue doesn't it? Go on admit it this was a government created fiasco. However being that your so blinded by your own political ideologue you refuse to see that your own "team" was also knee deep in this mess as well. So lets not ignore Democrats flat out refusing to acknowledge the real structural issue behind Freddie and Fannie Mae and governments role in the whole ordeal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbIb75JdwY

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/27/and-you-thought-the-housing-cr

 

[Matt1970]

Over your head, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYvtvcBKgIQ

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/09/19/29464/bush-ownership-society/

No, I am still trying to understand what "people responding to leadership on an emotional level" has to do with the Ownership Society.

 

[cwjerome]

Don't argue. Regardless who who promotes it or any results, hardcore libs will always oppose anything like the "Ownership Society" because the principles behind the concept push towards personal, private power and responsibility... something liberals are hardwired to fear and loath. Anything that attempts to empower people and not government will be rejected as dangerous.

Private debt had climbed drastically in the 40 years before Bush, but yeah, let's blame the ownership society.

 

[shortylickens]

He's not a blind christian zealot so yeah, people on Fox will call him a commie.

 

[Jhhnn]

Really you guys on the left sure know how to play the blame game.

Nice video. It just further illustrates how government was part of the issue doesn't it? Go on admit it this was a government created fiasco. However being that your so blinded by your own political ideologue you refuse to see that your own "team" was also knee deep in this mess as well. So lets not ignore Democrats flat out refusing to acknowledge the real structural issue behind Freddie and Fannie Mae and governments role in the whole ordeal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbIb75JdwY

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/27/and-you-thought-the-housing-cr

Your video is from a period of time when what Dems wanted didn't matter. Repubs held the HOR, the Senate & the White House. Had they wanted to do more than establish plausible deniability, which you've accepted, they would have actually done something. They didn't. It was concern trolling.

The article is pure speculation & fearmongering, which you've also accepted.

 

[Jhhnn]

Don't argue. Regardless who who promotes it or any results, hardcore libs will always oppose anything like the "Ownership Society" because the principles behind the concept push towards personal, private power and responsibility... something liberals are hardwired to fear and loath. Anything that attempts to empower people and not government will be rejected as dangerous.

Private debt had climbed drastically in the 40 years before Bush, but yeah, let's blame the ownership society.

Nice bit of unsupported attribution & deflection.

You've fallen for the usual emotionally loaded memes so favored by Repubs. It doesn't matter what it does, just so long as it sounds good. Compassionate Conservatism. Clear skies initiative. Healthy forests restoration. No child left behind. War on Terror. Patriot Act. American Dream Downpayment act. Homeland Security. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief ( Relief! Whew!) Reconciliation Act. Innovative financial products. Self regulated banking.

The "Ownership Society" turned out to be the biggest sucker play of them all. It should have been named the "There's a sucker born every minute society", Particularly when GWB, Alan Greenspan & every right wing pundit & politician was making the pitch, fluffing the wolves of Wall St as some sort of beneficent masters of the universe.

Somehow, it just didn't work out that way.

The answer, obviously, is to blame the victims, reward the perps with another tax cut, a la Mitt Romney, and make up the difference by closing off the deductions that middle class families use. Cut spending to force layoffs to vanquish unemployment, too. It'll fix everything.

 

[Jhhnn]

2007 Budget was $2.8 Trillion with $2.6 Trillion in Revenue
2011 we spent $3.83 Trillion with $2.5 Trillion in Revenue

*EDIT - We have a small revenue problem but a massive spending problem.

Citing bullshit accounting doesn't make the truth any different.

The debt rose by $500B in FY2007, $1T in FY2008, and $1.9T in FY2009. The debt doubled over the course of the Bush presidency.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Now that we're living the aftermath of the greatest Repub policy induced credit bubble ever, when the need for govt spending is the greatest, Righties want to make it worse with tight fisted hard money policy benefiting only the wealthiest among us.

The best time to be rich is when everybody else is broke, busted, in debt & begging, and Repub politicians are striving to make that dream come true.

 

[buckshot24]

-rambling lunacy-

I'll give it to you, you're original. Nuts too.

 

[buckshot24]

The debt rose by $500B in FY2007, $1T in FY2008, and $1.9T in FY2009. The debt doubled over the course of the Bush presidency.

And Obama is set to double it again.

Now that we're living the aftermath of the greatest Repub policy induced credit bubble ever, when the need for govt spending is the greatest, Righties want to make it worse with tight fisted hard money policy benefiting only the wealthiest among us.

Which policies are those?

 

[Moonbeam]

Don't argue. Regardless who who promotes it or any results, hardcore libs will always oppose anything like the "Ownership Society" because the principles behind the concept push towards personal, private power and responsibility... something liberals are hardwired to fear and loath. Anything that attempts to empower people and not government will be rejected as dangerous.

Private debt had climbed drastically in the 40 years before Bush, but yeah, let's blame the ownership society.

Don't be an idiot. A beggar borrows little, a rich and powerful society, a lot. It's you who is spouting hard wired garbage and you are so blinded by it you can't even see it. But the scientists do. They tell us it's conservatives who live in an alternate reality bubble, and they tell us why, bigotry, ego connected to concept such that when a conservative knows something in his gut, not only does he feel he is right when he isn't, he is also proud that he feels right, although he isn't either. So conservatives are two things, certain idiots and egotistical fools. But because you are one you won't ever see it. You don't have the nerve. That fear and loathing you see is you via your projection. The liberal part of the brain that magnifies fear is enlarged in conservatives and the part that keeps fear from interfering in judgment isn't developed like it is in liberals. You totally struck out according to what science tells us, but then again, conservatives doubt science if it tells them what they don't want to believe. Amazing you could be so far from the truth and yet so proud of your opinion. But that's the way of conservatives.