So what exactly does the Right stand for these days?

[Craig234]

Yes, I am serious. This is an election year, if the republicans stop something the voters want I would expect the republicans to lose even more ground. As I said, the republicans are selling themselves as won't vote for the democrat's bills. IF the people are ok with that, the republicans will probably do ok, if they people are not ok with that the republicans will suffer even more.

No, they're not, and no they won't.

Republicans are sellng themselves as "we'd love to vote for ll the things you want, but the meanie radical Democrats won't talk to us, and they're all communists who want crazy things so we protected you."

The voters of the 40 most Republican states - well, rememeber, *Sarah Palin*, the most unqualified national nominee if not candidate I've ever seen, got over 45% of the vote.

These are not mainstream Americans wanting healthcare ready to punish Republicans if they don't vote for it. These are people at odds with the majority of American who LOVE their Republicans' obstructionism.

That's why 40% are not supposed ot have a veto. But they do and this is what we get. But don't tell the falsehood that Democrats can get this passed just by it being a good bill. They can't.

It is very possible that the democrats will suffer due to the economy, but what economic bills have the republicans stopped? I don't recall any economic initiative that the republicans have blocked like health care. Maybe they did, but they kept it quiet. But again it comes down to the election, if the democrats had a good economic recovery plan and it was blocked by the republicans the democrats ought to be able to wipe the floor with them. If the democrats cannot clearly articulate to the american people why they deserve more seats, and how the republicans have prevented the senate from giving the people what you say they want, then they will fail. But if it is as clear as you think it is, I wouldn't give the republicans a snowballs chance in hell.

What you;'re missing is, obstructionism is working for them. It can backfire, but it isn't.

I've previously posted a study showing the Republicans are blocking a record 70% of major legislation, an all time high up from 8% in the 60's. That should give you an idea it's not just healthcare.

Many things aren't getting even proposed becase they knwo they can't pass them. I think that's a mistake - you're right, put them up and get the Republicans on record - but it's not what they're doing.

Seems to be part of this whole misguided 'bi-partisan thing' that they either don't want to be seen havingf Republicansa vote all no, or give Republicans more for their case to vote no and attack the bills.

I also seem to remember the clinton years as being considered very good from an economic standpoint, and very good for this country in general. If they do the same thing they did during those good years, is that a bad thing?

That's a more complicated question. The shutdown of the federal government was not a 'good thing' determined simply by saying 'times were good so so was that topic'.

Many things were a mess. Republicans were busy setting some PREVOUS obstructionist records. For example, many many federal seats were going unfilled in a judicial 'crisis' over their obstructing.

And Clinton's arm was twisted - if it was needed - and he backed some bad things. Not all the evidence was quickly available; his economy was buoyed by some lucky gambles and a tech bubble in part.

You seem to be trying to broaden my point from answering errors I claim in some of your post, to claiming that 'Republicans are doing good if the Clinton period was also good', which is just not good logic.

I'm not broadening these points to a discussion of whether healthcare is a good idea. Just correcting the role Republicans are playing in blocking it.

 

[rudder]

Actually, there is. It's not the whole story, but it's the biggest part, and the part you don't get.

The Dems could pass this easily with a 50 vote normal process. The pressure to get 60 has led to all kinds of compromises.

Having industry opposition is a big one. Maybe they coud pass it over the industry with 50 votes, but needing 60, it sure elps to have thendustry campaigning FOR the bill.

I don't know Obama's motive, but you just tick your headin the sand on what I posted.

Sorry my bad. I thought the majority of Americans were opposed to obamacare. I must have misread all the polling data for the last 12 months. I mean do you even read what you post? The senate cannot even come up with a constitutionally sound bill.

 

[Craig234]

Did you see that Louisianna and Nebraska senators got bought off?

Did you see repeatedly posted here that Nebraska withdrew its request? (haven't seen abot Louisiana)

Areyou living the Limosine Liberal or the entitlement-drunk Dem life listen to what is told to you then repeat?

<---- no not a republican

How ironic for you to ask.

 

[Craig234]

Sorry my bad. I thought the majority of Americans were opposed to obamacare. I must have misread all the polling data for the last 12 months. I mean do you even read what you post? The senate cannot even come up with a constitutionally sound bill.

Drop the sarcasm. If you have read so much polling data, you would have seen the public supporting healthcare reform - but not every type. As for the rest you don't seem to be paying attention to my posts.

 

[EagleKeeper]

The Republicans at present are a counter weight to the ability of the Democrats to run roughshod over the country.

The Dems may state that they are doing what is best for the country; but when they have to hide what they are doing for fear of exposure, it raises flags.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as recently shown by both Bush and Obama.
Without a counterbalance; bad legislation gets rubber stamped and there is minimal/no accountability.

Some here feel that the Dems walk on water and can easily point out all the bad that the Republicans stand for and all the good the Dems do. Because those people want the Dem (government control) way; such is obvious.

The Republicans have lost their way at present. The core of their values was (and can still be) is that get the government out of people lives and provide people with the opportunity to increase their status. Economy grows because of business, not taxation and handouts.

 

[Craig234]

The Republicans at present are a counter weight to the ability of the Democrats to run roughshod over the country.

The Dems may state that they are doing what is best for the country; but when they have to hide what they are doing for fear of exposure, it raises flags.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as recently shown by both Bush and Obama.
Without a counterbalance; bad legislation gets rubber stamped and there is minimal/no accountability.

Ah, 'counter weight', 'counterbalance', nice variations and new euphamisis for 'check'.

As I said - since when does 'counter weight' mean losing an election so badly you have so few Senators the other party hasn't been this low since 1923, but you can veto everything by the majority?

THe rest is a lot of rhetoric - the maqjority passing anything is now "roughshod", says your hyperbole.

Some here feel that the Dems walk on water and can easily point out all the bad that the Republicans stand for and all the good the Dems do. Because those people want the Dem (government control) way; such is obvious.

The Republicans have lost their way at present. The core of their values was (and can still be) is that get the government out of people lives and provide people with the opportunity to increase their status. Economy grows because of business, not taxation and handouts.

And more hyperbole making dishonest attacks. Seems true to you though - siding with one party over the other means you think they 'walk on water', at least for one side.

Yet you say, without any suggestion you're the one with bias, that the Republicans aren't all about the rich - they're really about the much nicer agenda of 'opportunity', they just aren't doing it at the moment.

Some might call that an inaccurate description of them that's heabily weighted in their favor - or they might put it much more strongly if they matched your hyperbole.

But yes, you get credit for saying anything about a problem - with one side, at least.

You might remember Democrats are happy for government not to intrude too much on people, too. But you can't say that, right?

 

[daishi5]

No, they're not, and no they won't.

Republicans are sellng themselves as "we'd love to vote for ll the things you want, but the meanie radical Democrats won't talk to us, and they're all communists who want crazy things so we protected you."

The voters of the 40 most Republican states - well, rememeber, *Sarah Palin*, the most unqualified national nominee if not candidate I've ever seen, got over 45% of the vote.

These are not mainstream Americans wanting healthcare ready to punish Republicans if they don't vote for it. These are people at odds with the majority of American who LOVE their Republicans' obstructionism.

That's why 40% are not supposed ot have a veto. But they do and this is what we get. But don't tell the falsehood that Democrats can get this passed just by it being a good bill. They can't.



What you;'re missing is, obstructionism is working for them. It can backfire, but it isn't.

I've previously posted a study showing the Republicans are blocking a record 70% of major legislation, an all time high up from 8% in the 60's. That should give you an idea it's not just healthcare.

Many things aren't getting even proposed becase they knwo they can't pass them. I think that's a mistake - you're right, put them up and get the Republicans on record - but it's not what they're doing.

Seems to be part of this whole misguided 'bi-partisan thing' that they either don't want to be seen havingf Republicansa vote all no, or give Republicans more for their case to vote no and attack the bills.



That's a more complicated question. The shutdown of the federal government was not a 'good thing' determined simply by saying 'times were good so so was that topic'.

Many things were a mess. Republicans were busy setting some PREVOUS obstructionist records. For example, many many federal seats were going unfilled in a judicial 'crisis' over their obstructing.

And Clinton's arm was twisted - if it was needed - and he backed some bad things. Not all the evidence was quickly available; his economy was buoyed by some lucky gambles and a tech bubble in part.

You seem to be trying to broaden my point from answering errors I claim in some of your post, to claiming that 'Republicans are doing good if the Clinton period was also good', which is just not good logic.

I'm not broadening these points to a discussion of whether healthcare is a good idea. Just correcting the role Republicans are playing in blocking it.

You have points, but you are approaching it from the wrong angle. The republicans have supporters, their supporters want them to block some legislation and advance other legislation. Let's just assume the republicans are evil corporate whores, because I know you will agree with that. If they serve the corporations, then they are doing the best they can to serve them, by doing whatever they legally can to get more power to pass or block the legislation their corporate owners want. If it is true that the republicans are not serving the public interest, then you can't hope that they suddenly have a change of heart, the other parties in government need to be the ones to expose them and the voters need to remove them.

I don't think they are evil though, they have a core group of constituents who really do want them to obstruct the bills. Your problem is not with the republicans, but with the power of the 40. To me these republicans are doing their job, and their voters seem to agree or are being manipulated.

Back to the clinton era. It seems strange to me that when we talk about republican congress, the clinton era was all pure luck of a tech bubble and gambles. When we talk about democratic presidents the clinton era is held up as one of the examples of good democrats. But it also gets at the very core of why I am conservative, in the real definition of the word. I cannot identify why the clinton era was good, I don't know if the republicans helped or hurt, I don't know if clinton deserves the credit, I don't know if it was all tech bubble, or how much was real. There are so many variables that it is hard to identify what causes what and you can make a case for so many view points and back them up that it is almost impossible to really know. However, in the grand scheme of things, the US is very successful. We can do better in a lot of areas, but in most of them we are already a large success. For example poverty, there are a lot of things that effect the economy, I cannot be sure which ones are really responsible for helping drive down poverty in the U.S.. Therefore, I am very reluctant to change any of them, because I am very well aware of how much progress we have already made, and I don't want to lose it. I don't trust many of the democratic efforts to solve problems, to me they seem too grand, too much of an attempt to fix everything in one go.

And just to jump back to your original post. The republicans don't need to tell us the Democrats want to take our guns. We have democratic senators telling the media that .50 cal weapons are heat seeking armor piercing weapons of cop killing destruction. We have the attorney general on record stating that he and the president want to re-instate the assault weapons ban. We have democrats campaigning to completely ban hand guns and styles of weapons. They have already used loopholes with registries to ban new class 3 firearms, which I believe is a horrible travesty.

 

[dphantom]

No, they're trying to get healthcare reform the people want, and are being blocked by 40 Republican Seenators abusing the rules to need 60 votes, forcing them to all kinds of bad comrromises to get 60.

wow, those 40 senators are powerful. First, they stop the march of the MMGW religionists like you and now they stop healthcare reform. Whew, pretty powerful those 40 people.

 

[dphantom]

You might remember Democrats are happy for government not to intrude too much on people, too. But you can't say that, right?

Not to intrude "too much". Now there is a nice euphemism for "we'll do what is best for you regardless of what you think".

There is no such thing as not to intrude too much. Any government intervention into private affairs is unwarranted. When you get to teh attitude ou express, there is no stopping how far you will go. Too much then becomes defined in the eye of the beholder rather than from a firm philosphical grounding that guides one's actions.

The best government is one you never hear from.

 

[BoberFett]

Less taxes, less government, less unions.

Lower taxes is admirable, but the Republicans screwed it up. They simply shifted the tax burden to the future by not reducing spending and borrowing to cover the shortfall. Tax cuts aren't real unless there are matching spending cuts.

Republicans created more government, not less.

And what do unions have to do with anything? If capitalists are free to associate and pool their money into a corporation, why can't labor freely associate with whomever they choose and pool their efforts into a union?


Edit: Craig, as usual, is a drooling moron.

 

[GTKeeper]

I don't really know what the GOP stands for these days.

What we lack in this country today is balance. I think that Democrats feel that unions, and social programs can do no harm, while Republicans think that corporations and de-regulation can do no harm either.

The problem is that moderation is just not in the language these days. Sensible approaches to problems are looked upon as 'weak'.

As an independent swing voter to me the government should be an entity that sets up the framework that everything plays out in. You can't have all government and you can't have no government. Both extremes are bad. The gov't SHOULD be the policeman in the room that breaks up fights and puts criminals in jail.

I think whichever party can get to that type of principle will win a whole lot of elections. I mean honestly, what do we all want from life? I would HOPE that we all want an equal opportunity to succeeded in whatever we chose to do without having to worry about being cheated out of our life and liberty by people who want to play unfairly.

 

[Craig234]

Not to intrude "too much". Now there is a nice euphemism for "we'll do what is best for you regardless of what you think".

Now there's a nice straw man.

There is no such thing as not to intrude too much. Any government intervention into private affairs is unwarranted. When you get to teh attitude ou express, there is no stopping how far you will go. Too much then becomes defined in the eye of the beholder rather than from a firm philosphical grounding that guides one's actions.

The best government is one you never hear from.

You make clear here you are a (nutty) extremist. But extremists usually have another opinion.

 

[Craig234]

wow, those 40 senators are powerful. First, they stop the march of the MMGW religionists like you and now they stop healthcare reform. Whew, pretty powerful those 40 people.

Yes, they are, by abusing the rules, turning their pathetically small number of 40 into a veto of anything.

You don't seem to udnerstand that after it's been explained repeatedly to you.

 

[nick1985]

Yes, they are, by abusing the rules, turning their pathetically small number of 40 into a veto of anything.

You don't seem to udnerstand that after it's been explained repeatedly to you.

haha

 

[Hacp]

Lower taxes is admirable, but the Republicans screwed it up. They simply shifted the tax burden to the future by not reducing spending and borrowing to cover the shortfall. Tax cuts aren't real unless there are matching spending cuts.

Republicans created more government, not less.

And what do unions have to do with anything? If capitalists are free to associate and pool their money into a corporation, why can't labor freely associate with whomever they choose and pool their efforts into a union?


Edit: Craig, as usual, is a drooling moron.

The issue I have with unions is that there are regulations in place where if you want to hire a non-union worker, you can't. You need to hire union for x job. You're right in that there is nothing wrong with the idea of unions. Its just that in today's world, they have too much government protection and abuse it to hell.

 

[BoberFett]

I won't argue there. Laws that benefit unions beyond their inherent benefit of power in numbers seem as unfair as laws that benefit corporations. I'd like to see both of them go.

 

[Hacp]

I won't argue there. Laws that benefit unions beyond their inherent benefit of power in numbers seem as unfair as laws that benefit corporations. I'd like to see both of them go.

Corporations shouldn't be allowed to exist, or their protections should be limited. A government sanctioned get out of jail card if you fail is not free market. People need to be personally responsible if their business fails. If the head of Lehman Brothers were personally responsible to the bondholders when Lehman failed, it wouldn't have failed. He wouldn't have taken all that risk.

 

[woolfe9999]

Back to the clinton era. It seems strange to me that when we talk about republican congress, the clinton era was all pure luck of a tech bubble and gambles. When we talk about democratic presidents the clinton era is held up as one of the examples of good democrats. But it also gets at the very core of why I am conservative, in the real definition of the word. I cannot identify why the clinton era was good, I don't know if the republicans helped or hurt, I don't know if clinton deserves the credit, I don't know if it was all tech bubble, or how much was real. There are so many variables that it is hard to identify what causes what and you can make a case for so many view points and back them up that it is almost impossible to really know. However, in the grand scheme of things, the US is very successful. We can do better in a lot of areas, but in most of them we are already a large success. For example poverty, there are a lot of things that effect the economy, I cannot be sure which ones are really responsible for helping drive down poverty in the U.S.. Therefore, I am very reluctant to change any of them, because I am very well aware of how much progress we have already made, and I don't want to lose it. I don't trust many of the democratic efforts to solve problems, to me they seem too grand, too much of an attempt to fix everything in one go.

I think you have encapsulated right here the core of conservatism: it is fear of change, a desire to protect a fragile status quo. The dilemma of the conservative, however, can be seen when you look at this in a broad historical context. Conservatives, regardless of which party they happened to affiliate with at a given point in history, have opposed many of things that we now consider progress. Conservatives opposed social security; now no one wants to get rid of social security. Conservatives opposed Medicare. Now you can witness the spectacle of conservatives criticizing the health bill because it would cut Medicare. Bear in mind that as recently as the 1980's, conservatives were *still* complaining about Medicare as a bad "entitlement" (entitlement having been made into a pejorative the way "liberal" was made into a pejorative). Give it another 20 years, and Medicare is now part of the status quo that conservatives want to protect.

History is a struggle between those who want change and those who want to protect the status quo or, in the extreme case, turn back the clock. Neither of these factions are inherently good or bad. They are more of a yin and a yang. Society needs changes because it can always be made better. Yet not all changes are good. Some can even be catastrophic. To that extent, I tend to agree with you that conservatives act as a check. They may stop some bad changes, slow things down and give us more time to consider changes. In the longrun, they will not stop good changes, but they may slow them down. This, however, is problematic when the consequences of waiting can be catastrophic.

This situation with healthcare and its cost curve outpacing inflation by more than 6 points for 10 years now is IMO one of them. In 10-20 years, no one will care whether the republican opposition gained them seats in November 2010 or not. People will only care that their employer has dropped their coverage because they cannot afford it anymore, or is charging them a $500 a month premium co-pay. We can stop change now, but change later will be done with an even greater sense of urgency, with huge populist backing, and it won't be the change that conservatives want - it will be worse from a conservative perspective that what has been kicked around Congress of late.

Conservatives being for small government is really a misnomer. That is libertarianism, not conservatism. Conservatives are for small government as a rhetorical matter only. Some have noticed the contradiction between the small government concept and Christian right social agenda, but they don't see the commonality. The commonality is what conservatism is about: protection of the status quo. Conservatives oppose big government on paper because liberals use government to effect change. From a populist standpoint, this marries very well with cultural conservatives who oppose things like gay marriage because they want to maintain culture in its traditional form. The fact that there is an inconsistency is irrelevant to voters who just want to keep things the way they are.

- wolf

 

[cubby1223]

*sigh*

Two pages full of the same crap and no one has yet hit upon "the right's" general solution to health care reform.

"The left" believes government control creates the best solution, with distrust of the free market
"The right" believes free market entrepreneurs create the best solution, with distrust of government control

 

[GTKeeper]

I think you have encapsulated right here the core of conservatism: it is fear of change, a desire to protect a fragile status quo. The dilemma of the conservative, however, can be seen when you look at this in a broad historical context. Conservatives, regardless of which party they happened to affiliate with at a given point in history, have opposed many of things that we now consider progress. Conservatives opposed social security; now no one wants to get rid of social security. Conservatives opposed Medicare. Now you can witness the spectacle of conservatives criticizing the health bill because it would cut Medicare. Bear in mind that as recently as the 1980's, conservatives were *still* complaining about Medicare as a bad "entitlement" (entitlement having been made into a pejorative the way "liberal" was made into a pejorative). Give it another 20 years, and Medicare is now part of the status quo that conservatives want to protect.

History is a struggle between those who want change and those who want to protect the status quo or, in the extreme case, turn back the clock. Neither of these factions are inherently good or bad. They are more of a yin and a yang. Society needs changes because it can always be made better. Yet not all changes are good. Some can even be catastrophic. To that extent, I tend to agree with you that conservatives act as a check. They may stop some bad changes, slow things down and give us more time to consider changes. In the longrun, they will not stop good changes, but they may slow them down. This, however, is problematic when the consequences of waiting can be catastrophic.

This situation with healthcare and its cost curve outpacing inflation by more than 6 points for 10 years now is IMO one of them. In 10-20 years, no one will care whether the republican opposition gained them seats in November 2010 or not. People will only care that their employer has dropped their coverage because they cannot afford it anymore, or is charging them a $500 a month premium co-pay. We can stop change now, but change later will be done with an even greater sense of urgency, with huge populist backing, and it won't be the change that conservatives want - it will be worse from a conservative perspective that what has been kicked around Congress of late.

Conservatives being for small government is really a misnomer. That is libertarianism, not conservatism. Conservatives are for small government as a rhetorical matter only. Some have noticed the contradiction between the small government concept and Christian right social agenda, but they don't see the commonality. The commonality is what conservatism is about: protection of the status quo. Conservatives oppose big government on paper because liberals use government to effect change. From a populist standpoint, this marries very well with cultural conservatives who oppose things like gay marriage because they want to maintain culture in its traditional form. The fact that there is an inconsistency is irrelevant to voters who just want to keep things the way they are.

- wolf

Very well said, I like these points. As an 'independent' I think I agree with you. And I would characterize independents as more of the pragmatists that take both conservative and progressive views and try to find some kind of middle ground.

I think what independents want more of that neither conservatives nor progressives want is transparency. We are kept in the dark on purpose and I think thats one major point of frustration. It seems its VERY hard to have an honest debate and actually have someone say 'oh, you might be right' instead of each party picking their side and stopping at nothing until they get what THEY deem as the right thing.

From an Independent point of view there are some simple things that COULD be done with very little money to address health care, but somehow no one talks about them.

1) Have a single format for medical records and make it universal and electronic that you can carry on you like a credit card.

2) Mandate that all insurers post their prices for treatments so people can look up 'how much does this insurer charge for an MRI or a medication I need' REALLY simple but I feel like its above the heads of both Conservatives and Progressives.

3) Create a national standard for insurance, meaning all insurers can insure people across all states without 50 different regulatory requirements.

4) Stop the pooling and sub pooling of workers and make all prices uniform for everyone. If a Goldman Sachs employee pays a total of 100 bucks a month to insure his family, I should pay that much too. (meaning just because you have a job at a large company doesn't give you the right to cheaper health care) I work for a company of 50 and our costs are MUCH higher than a GS or a Microsoft will ever pay. That needs to be addressed.

Anyway, going off a tangent. Just some 'Independent' thoughts.

 

[PJABBER]

*sigh*

Two pages full of the same crap and no one has yet hit upon "the right's" general solution to health care reform.

"The left" believes government control creates the best solution, with distrust of the free market
"The right" believes free market entrepreneurs create the best solution, with distrust of government control

I'll go with Door #2.

 

[daishi5]

I think you have encapsulated right here the core of conservatism: it is fear of change, a desire to protect a fragile status quo. The dilemma of the conservative, however, can be seen when you look at this in a broad historical context. Conservatives, regardless of which party they happened to affiliate with at a given point in history, have opposed many of things that we now consider progress. Conservatives opposed social security; now no one wants to get rid of social security. Conservatives opposed Medicare. Now you can witness the spectacle of conservatives criticizing the health bill because it would cut Medicare. Bear in mind that as recently as the 1980's, conservatives were *still* complaining about Medicare as a bad "entitlement" (entitlement having been made into a pejorative the way "liberal" was made into a pejorative). Give it another 20 years, and Medicare is now part of the status quo that conservatives want to protect.

History is a struggle between those who want change and those who want to protect the status quo or, in the extreme case, turn back the clock. Neither of these factions are inherently good or bad. They are more of a yin and a yang. Society needs changes because it can always be made better. Yet not all changes are good. Some can even be catastrophic. To that extent, I tend to agree with you that conservatives act as a check. They may stop some bad changes, slow things down and give us more time to consider changes. In the longrun, they will not stop good changes, but they may slow them down. This, however, is problematic when the consequences of waiting can be catastrophic.

This situation with healthcare and its cost curve outpacing inflation by more than 6 points for 10 years now is IMO one of them. In 10-20 years, no one will care whether the republican opposition gained them seats in November 2010 or not. People will only care that their employer has dropped their coverage because they cannot afford it anymore, or is charging them a $500 a month premium co-pay. We can stop change now, but change later will be done with an even greater sense of urgency, with huge populist backing, and it won't be the change that conservatives want - it will be worse from a conservative perspective that what has been kicked around Congress of late.

Conservatives being for small government is really a misnomer. That is libertarianism, not conservatism. Conservatives are for small government as a rhetorical matter only. Some have noticed the contradiction between the small government concept and Christian right social agenda, but they don't see the commonality. The commonality is what conservatism is about: protection of the status quo. Conservatives oppose big government on paper because liberals use government to effect change. From a populist standpoint, this marries very well with cultural conservatives who oppose things like gay marriage because they want to maintain culture in its traditional form. The fact that there is an inconsistency is irrelevant to voters who just want to keep things the way they are.

- wolf

I think it is the best reason for being conservative in the true sense of the word. Part of me has learned to really distrust people who think they can fix something who just go for it. I believe part of it is my job, one of the systems I manage is our medication delivery system, from the robot that chooses and packages doses, the cabinets on the floors that track the medicine, and the in room devices that confirm the medicine. I don't trust any change without very thorough testing and good confirmed roll back procedure. I have had several previous co-workers who just assumed they knew the best way to do something so they just did it, and very often they were wrong because they did not know everything.

The other problem is that I often see what I consider a "college solution" in politics. I have started to notice a similarity between short college papers and political solutions. I first noticed it when I had a course on business in developing countries. The course stands out to me as one of the worst courses I have taken. One of the assignments was to write a short paper on what could be done to "fix" a country. As I prepared for the assignment I realized, I could not even come close to addressing the problems of my country in less then 5 pages. Almost everyones paper could be summarized as a bullet point list of 3 items that would "fix" their country. I honestly think they believed that these destitute countries just need a few small tweaks and they would suddenly be ok. Most of these countries were really broken, their entire system of government was not working. But, because their paper had to be less then 5 pages they found the best options that they could fit in 5 pages, and truely began to believe they had found the solution. On the other end of the spectrum, a few people wanted to just toss everything and build from scratch. I agree that what was there before probably needed to go, but they then thought they knew enough to build a whole new government and social structure (yes at least one wanted to dictate a new social structure).

Honestly, I think the right answer for the whole thing was "I cannot fix this country, I cannot even begin to identify everything wrong with this country." No person can even begin to know enough about a country to fix all of its problems. The only way to do it is to build a basic framework and then allow the citizens of the country to fix it. It requires feedback and participation from all of the citizens and it takes a lot of time because each little fix won't be perfect, and will needs its own fix. All too often government is recruited to fix more than it is capable of, and government is expected to have a solution to any problem, and no one is willing to accept a truthful answer of "we can't fix that." Even for things that can be fixed, I believe it is better to approach them in an incremental manner, because every issue that you try to address will be addressed imperfectly. Bigger issues are also more complex, and will quickly become to complex for a normal person to fully comprehend. People won't admit it, but then they make decision with only a partial understanding of the whole. Small issues are easier. Find a small fixable part of the overall issue and fix that small part. Then find what part of the fix did not work as planned, and fix that. Make the function recursive and exit when it reaches "good enough."

To summarize, I really think people are too confident in their own abilities, and they refuse to admit they don't know enough about the situations they want to fix. I think a good strong conservative resistance to change will kill the worst changes, hamper the bad ones, and the good changes will filter through more often then others.

 

[woolfe9999]

Very well explained Daisha. I agree with your description of the function of conservatism in society. Liberals like to point out that many very positive progressive changes have inured to the benefit of society, and that those changes were opposed by conservatives. They are correct. However, without conservatives to put the breaks on, who knows what sort of disaster could have been caused by unrestrained changes. We function reasonably well because of the way the two interact in the long sweep, and we'd be a lot worse off if society were totally dominated by only one side of the equation.

- wolf

 

[PJABBER]

I think it is the best reason for being conservative in the true sense of the word. Part of me has learned to really distrust people who think they can fix something who just go for it. I believe part of it is my job, one of the systems I manage is our medication delivery system, from the robot that chooses and packages doses, the cabinets on the floors that track the medicine, and the in room devices that confirm the medicine. I don't trust any change without very thorough testing and good confirmed roll back procedure. I have had several previous co-workers who just assumed they knew the best way to do something so they just did it, and very often they were wrong because they did not know everything.

The other problem is that I often see what I consider a "college solution" in politics. I have started to notice a similarity between short college papers and political solutions. I first noticed it when I had a course on business in developing countries. The course stands out to me as one of the worst courses I have taken. One of the assignments was to write a short paper on what could be done to "fix" a country. As I prepared for the assignment I realized, I could not even come close to addressing the problems of my country in less then 5 pages. Almost everyones paper could be summarized as a bullet point list of 3 items that would "fix" their country. I honestly think they believed that these destitute countries just need a few small tweaks and they would suddenly be ok. Most of these countries were really broken, their entire system of government was not working. But, because their paper had to be less then 5 pages they found the best options that they could fit in 5 pages, and truely began to believe they had found the solution. On the other end of the spectrum, a few people wanted to just toss everything and build from scratch. I agree that what was there before probably needed to go, but they then thought they knew enough to build a whole new government and social structure (yes at least one wanted to dictate a new social structure).

Honestly, I think the right answer for the whole thing was "I cannot fix this country, I cannot even begin to identify everything wrong with this country." No person can even begin to know enough about a country to fix all of its problems. The only way to do it is to build a basic framework and then allow the citizens of the country to fix it. It requires feedback and participation from all of the citizens and it takes a lot of time because each little fix won't be perfect, and will needs its own fix. All too often government is recruited to fix more than it is capable of, and government is expected to have a solution to any problem, and no one is willing to accept a truthful answer of "we can't fix that." Even for things that can be fixed, I believe it is better to approach them in an incremental manner, because every issue that you try to address will be addressed imperfectly. Bigger issues are also more complex, and will quickly become to complex for a normal person to fully comprehend. People won't admit it, but then they make decision with only a partial understanding of the whole. Small issues are easier. Find a small fixable part of the overall issue and fix that small part. Then find what part of the fix did not work as planned, and fix that. Make the function recursive and exit when it reaches "good enough."

To summarize, I really think people are too confident in their own abilities, and they refuse to admit they don't know enough about the situations they want to fix. I think a good strong conservative resistance to change will kill the worst changes, hamper the bad ones, and the good changes will filter through more often then others.

Really an excellent and well reasoned post.

Complex problems have no easy fixes due to both known and unknown interdependecies. The easier the apparent fix, the more likely it will result in extreme unintended consequences.

One of the reasons I am so much in favor of private sector approaches is that businesses survive and prosper or fail by their ability to deal with the specific complexities of their target industries and customer bases in competition with other businesses trying to do the same. They are rewarded with deserved profit if they do well, loss and bankruptcy if they don't. The approaches and compromises they choose may not be perfect but they are highly likely to be better than the known alternatives.

Government, on the other hand, is not expert in much. Certainly not in the complexities of whatever private sector they are targeting with "simple" or, God forbid, complex solutions. Almost all of their solutions are "college" solutions as they don't have the experience to understand all of the issues at both macro and micro levels. Whatever knowledge they do have is likely coming from lobbyists, who actually do their best to teach and inform, but with tailored agendas.

Of necessity, government, subject to no competition, is best limited to those tasks which are not the purview of private industry - national defense comes most quickly to mind. We pay taxes for them to do the essentials, the rest is likely to be done less efficiently and with much greater likelihood of screwing the pooch than the private sector.

 

[JS80]

Lower taxes is admirable, but the Republicans screwed it up. They simply shifted the tax burden to the future by not reducing spending and borrowing to cover the shortfall. Tax cuts aren't real unless there are matching spending cuts.

Republicans created more government, not less.

And what do unions have to do with anything? If capitalists are free to associate and pool their money into a corporation, why can't labor freely associate with whomever they choose and pool their efforts into a union?


Edit: Craig, as usual, is a drooling moron.

Because corporations don't have the freedom to not use unions once they weasel themselves in.