Re: Is ANYONE dumber than conservatives?

From: Gary Gerrard (tseneca_at_alltel.net)
Date: 08/30/04 

Date: 30 Aug 2004 11:15:16 -0700

AJFeeney48@yahoo.com (JohnAndrew) wrote in message news:<2fcaf67c.0408291537.2444ce33@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > > jdtaylor952@hotmail.com wrote in message news:<2bf233f0.0408232350.4c476323@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > > >
> The Republicans are looking for "informed" voters. That is
> > > > > > voters that are into current events and aware of the shifting
> > > > > > political waters. If anyone is aware of what's happening, well
> > > > > > educated, aprised to current events, has a real job, (this rules
> > > > > > out those liberal college professors) and votes, usually
> > > > > > votes Republican
> > > > > > of their own free will.
> > > > >
> > > > > LOL!
> > > > >
> > > > > You GOPers are so brilliant you can see Iraqi
> > > > > weapons of mass destruction even when they're invsibible
> > > > > to us ordinary people, right?
> > > > >
>
> > > > >
> > > > > You conservatives are so AWESOMELY intelligent that
> > > > > in the mid-1980s, you thought it was great that
> > > > > the US government with Don Rumsfeld doing the diplomacy
> > > > > was extending diplomatic, financial and military help to Saddam
> > > > > Hussein.
> > > > >
> > > > > You're so smart that just a year ago, you could
> > > > > detect conspiratorial ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda
> > > > > that even the 9-11 Commission was unable to detect.
> > > > >
> > > > > You and your leaders are so intellectually savvy
> > > > > that you've actually captured Osama Bin Laden the way
> > > > > that President Bush promised to do in 2001 .... or wait
> > > > > a minute; have you, actually? No, I guess not.
> > > > >
> > > > > You Republican conservatives are well-informed, you can tell us
> > > > > why rising federal deficits are actually GOOD things. Well,
> > > > > uh, at least so long as the money is used on productive
> > > > > things - like war -- and not foolishly squandered on frivolities
> > > > > like Social Security, or Medicare, or environmental protection.
> > > > >
> > > > > You have the keen prophetic foresight to see why launching
> > > > > a program to explore Mars will cure all the nasty little
> > > > > things that are wrong on earth - unemployment, outsourcing
> > > > > of corporate jobs to the Third World, rising anti-Americanism
> > > > > throughout the Arab world, and of course, global warming.
> > > > >
> > > > > All hail the superior wisdom of GOP conservatives!
> > > > >
> > > > > Because you see the emperor's wonderful new clothes, don't you?
> > > >
> > > > You understand what's going on...
> >
> >
> > > > > You're so smart that you applauded Ronald Reagan when
> > > > > he made US economic and military aid available to
> > > > > brave, religiously inspired "freedom fighters" in
> > > > > Afghanistan who - ta-da! -- have since magically
> > > > > transformed themselves into Al Qaeda.
> >
> > Actually, the Russians invaded Afghanistan during Carter's Presidency.
> > Remember the Olympic boycott? It was Zbignew B, Carter's Nat. Sec.
> > Advisor, who delighted in creating Russia's Viet Nam and began the
> > funding and military aid to the Mujhadin, now Taliban/al Quaeda.
> > Reagan "merely" continued it. But what difference does it make whether
> > it was Carter or Reagan, unless the whole point is just to fire barbs
> > back and forth?
>
> I didn't start the back-and-forth in terms of insults.
>
> Some rightwinger, in a post mischaracterizing a recent academic study
> on the way SOME liberal and SOME conservative subjects process facts
> emotions, started this whole exchange by asking whether liberals are
> "dumber" than conservatives -- because the liberals in the study
> seemed to be more empathetic, it looks like.
>
> I'm an aging 60s radical, not a "liberal," and I do know some
> intelligent conservatives. A few. But anyone who puts out propaganda
> about how the GOP is not seeking the votes of the uninformed, but is
> just looking for the backing
> of philosopher kings -- this, at a time when the party is purportedly
> led
> by Geo. W. and makes use of the rantings of Rush Limbaugh -- is
> talking
> hogwash.
>
> You folks, who spent way too much time in the 90s demonizing Clinton
> over his excessively active libido, and worked to impeach him for
> lying about Monica, and who now don't care whether George W. lied his
> fool head off over the
> basis for going to war in Iraq - YOU'RE going to tell the LIBERALS
> that
> they're illogical?
>
> Don't make us laugh.
>
> I agree that Brezhienski (Sp?) got the US aid to the Muhaheddin
> started; I disagree that Reagan "merely" continued it.
>
> Reagan and his people loved giving aid to Bin Laden and other Islamist
> radicals fighting in Afghanistan; it was supporting good, God-fearing
> Muslim fighters against those nasty atheistic commies, and the fact
> that the nasty atheistic commies were practically the only people in
> Afghanistan who believed in educating women was kind of beside the
> point.
>
> It also was Reagan's administration that really initiated contacts
> with Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a counterweight to the revolutionary
> Shiite
> government of Iran, and Reagan's Commerce Department, again, that
> approved sales
> of Hughes helicopters and US-produced germ warfare agents, like
> anthrax,
> to Saddam's atomic energy agency.
>
> It was Reagan again who claimed that revolutionary Nicaragua under the
> Sandinistas, with a population of 3 million people and a tiny GNP and
> miniscule
> air force, somehow represented a potential military threat to the
> United
> States, since the pathetically small Nicaraguan military was only 600
> miles from Harlingen, Texas ...
>
> It was also Reagan who claimed that
> most air pollution was caused by trees, and who campaigned in 1980 on
> the
> promise that he would eliminate the budget deficit while cutting taxes
> for corporations and boosting spending on the Pentagon - a promise
> that
> George HW Bush, in 1980 election debates, rightly called "voodoo
> economics."
>
> It was Reagan who then quadrupled the US national debt after making
> all kinds of rosy promises to the voters about "supply side"
> economics.
>
> And it was largely American conservatives who supported the Reagan
> program, either because you all actually thought it would work, or
> because you thought it was a tricky way of destroying the financial
> basis for liberal social programs, forever.
>
> So much for the brilliance of the conservative movement, I think.
> If most of you folks are half as smart as you claim to be, then you're
> not honest; and if you're honest, then you're not very smart.
>
>
> But I'm willing to admit that liberals, or people calling themselves
> liberals,
> have made really some dumb moves, too. Such as approving the Gulf of
> Tonkin
> resolution in 1965 that gave Lyndon Johnson carte blanche to do
> whatever
> he wanted in Vietnam, with minimal congressional oversight, on the
> basis
> of a North Vietnamese "attack" on a US destroyer that was probably as
> mythological as Saddam's involvement in 9-11.

I came in after the first ad hoc stink bomb was thrown so I don't know
who "started it." What I do know is that once started, it takes a
self-secure ego, especially a cyber-ego, to not respond in kind and
allow a "discussion" to degenerate into an e-catfight. I always hope
these groups will help me understand issues better, other than the
issues of psychology and how people react to being insulted.

That said, "merely" was meant not to minimize or justify what Reagan
did, but rather to point out that he carried on with an existing
policy. Of course, that is what Kennedy did with the Bay of Pigs
fiasco which made him look weak on communism and pushed him into
"helping" VN. (One of the great ironies of VN was that Ho asked
Truman for support against the French before going to the Russians.
Adopting the disguise of communism was apparently Russian price of
support for VNese nationalism.)

As for who the GOP is seeking: anyone who will vote for them. I
recall meeting Marilyn Quayle at a fundraiser when I was running for
the state legislature in 1990. She told the story about her "get out
the vote" program when Dan ran for Congress and how when she picked up
a woman who need a ride to the polls assuming she was voting for Dan
and she asked to make sure, the woman said she was voting for the
opponent. Ms. Quayle then decided she could not go to the polls--with
this woman, anyway--afterall. This story is from personal experience,
but it is by no means party specific.

As for Regan and Saddam, I think you have the time frame off.
Rumsfeld was SEc. of Def. to Ford, and it was he who first went there
to support Saddam, I think. Certainly Reagan, with broad support
domestically, helped Saddam against Iran who held 100+ Americans
hostage, many with diplomatic immunity, for over 400 days. That was
surely an act of war, as traditionally understood, and acts to oppose
such an enemy was not inappropriate. I think it was a wise Greek who
said, My enemy's enemy is my friend.

There is much ground to cover on Reagan's fiscal policies and their
effects. I beleive one effect was the sooner rather than later (no
Clinton pun intended) collapse of the USSR. I reach this conclusion
more from comments by Russians, who ought to know, than from
Americans, especially GOP partisans, who have a vested interest in
believing so. Was it worth the price of eliminating Mutually Assured
Destruction and Nuclear Holocaust from the psyche of the world? I
think so. Many business people, not all Rs, believe that the Reagan
tax cuts were largely responsible for the eventual economic expansion
of the 90s. I tend to agree although attributing a single cause to
such a complex event is like saying if you eat too much saturated fat
you will die early from heart disease.

I do, however, beleive that Reagan and the Ds made a bargain that is
haunting us now. The Ds basically agreed to spend as much as the Rs
wanted as long as the Rs would reciprocate. We are paying the price
now, and when there was a budget surplus, I, like Greenspan, was
convinced the best thing to do with it was pay down the National Debt,
but even Greenspan knew politics would not allow that to happen, so he
advocated a tax cut rather than more spending. Given the choice and
the reality, I would have made the same choice. The ultimate
consequence of the last 40 years of fiscal policy is still unfolding.
(Tax cuts began with Kennedy when the tax rates were as follows:

        Income Surtax Tax
over $16,000 $4,336 plus 50% of the excess
over $26,000 $8,696 plus 63% of the excess
over $50,000 $23,096 plus 72% of the excess
over $80,000 $42,516 plus 80% of the excess
over $200,000 $154,716 plus 89% of the excess.

US Statutes at Large 65 (1951): 459. There was a "Normal Tax" of 3%
on ALL income in addition to the surtax.) I would not, however, have
tried to one up the Ds by enacting a $400 BnDrug benefit in the face
of a $500 Bn annual deficit, not matter what percentage of the GDP the
deficit was. It does, however, seem ironic that the Ds are now
talking about balancing the budget. I interpret this as evidence that
both Ds and Rs care more about power than about policy and they will
say or do whatever they think will get or keep them in power. This,
and mere human error, I think, is largely responsible for the glaring
inconsistencies between the rhetoric and the actions of both the Ds
and Rs.

(posted without proofreading.)

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