LINK A sobering article on the future of the U.S. I'm no cheerleader of the Democrats but I have been guilty of blind hate of most Republicans (and Tea Partiers). I think our country is starving for real leadership, something we haven't had in over a decade.
The median household income in 2007 was $50,233. That means half the households made more than that, half made less. That was an increase from 2006. The top 20% make at least $91,705. The middle 20% make between $36,000 and $57,657. All this as of 2007.
That is because the real weakness of democracy is education. If you don't have voters smart enough to make good decisions and see through the political bullshit, the process fails. Just look at how many people in polls say they don't understand issues. One of the reasons they don't understand is because of failed comprehension of the subject. These examples go all the way to national security laws to health care. How often have you heard "I don't understand the surveillance laws passed after 9/11. Or that folks don't understand the health law recently passed? Then to top it off we have a media that doesn't discuss the issues in depth, but is more than willing to report on a politician having an affair or some tit for tat snarky political remarks rather than covering the actual meaning of the legislation. Politician screwing his secretary? Top headline story. The Meat of a bill going through congress? Talked about in generalities at best. There are a lot of people who all they care about is that they make a ton of money and that their daily life is uninterrupted. Their problem is they just don't care until something fucks with them and their way of life. Then they care long enough to get it back to normal. IMO what the nation really needs, is a cross between the Republicans in the pre-1980's and the Democrats from the 60's. We need a government that is physcally conservative but protects the people's rights. For some reason, I don't know what it is, these things seem to be mutually exclusive when it comes to political parties, and I have no idea why. If I vote democratic, they are far more open and far closer to protecting most peoples rights. But they also tend to be for a lot of social programs which I think are useless. The republican lost their physcal convservative when Reagan took office, and turned into the social conservative party. I haven't voted republican since, because they don't represent anything that I remember the Republican party being about. They preach hate. They are no longer physcally conservative. I can't vote for that. The T party makes me sick. The lack of intelligence in that group is offensive at best.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. But this part was interesting. IMO, the two issues have become mutually exclusive because people have started converting privileges in to "rights". People feel they have the "right" to many things that ends up costing a LOT of money. When in reality, there is a small set of actual rights granted to citizens by the Constitution. Sorry, but this made me laugh. You typed "physcally" over and over to mean "fiscally", and then attack another group for having a lack of intelligence.
Not as much as we did before the current administration. And, to me, this was the inherent danger of Obama's redistribution of wealth plan. The wealthy will always be with us. They simply place their money elsewhere. The poor remain poor. But it's the middle class that bear the true brunt of millions of layoffs, downsizing, foreclosures... That's how the plan works- shift the middle class to the poor and further their reliance and dependence on the federal government. It even affects the states and that again furthers the reliance on a larger and more powerful bloated federal government. When the middle class can spend money and make choices, the economy becomes alive and that benefits the poor and the individual states. But this is he Regan plan and not the Obama plan.
There is a vehicle at my work that has a custom made sticker on the back window. I will spell what is written exactly as it is spelled on the vehicle. Here goes........Everyone has the right to be stupid, You're abusing that privilage. Take away the basic spelling error and you still have someone confusing a right and a privilege. I wonder if anyone has pointed this out to the car's owner. I also wonder if he knows the real reason people point at him and laugh as they drive by.
