Sadly, the Citizens United SCOTUS decision and other gutting of campaign finance regulations and superPAC guidelines have kept today’s GOP in the ball game, despite being on the wrong side of most issues.
They are not conservative, they are #CORPservative, in servitude to their billionaire and corporate donors.
Sadly, the Citizens United SCOTUS decision and other gutting of campaign finance regulations and superPAC guidelines have kept today’s GOP in the ball game, despite being on the wrong side of most issues.
They are not conservative, they are #CORPservative, in servitude to their billionaire and corporate donors.
Conservative without the political baggage means "cautious"' such as a "conservative estimate". There is an implication of humility in it as you tend to hedge your bet. Certainly that is true of a "conservative" investment. It seems to me that a "conservative" would agree with the Oracle at Delphi to avoid excess.
But it's today's "Republican's" that assault balance, promoting monopolies of money and power, attacking checks and balances in government and bipartisanship, sweeping away regulation of business on principle rather than performance, making fantastic claims that lack any basis for verification. It seems to me that beneficially reconciling both conservation and innovation of what proves to be useful is a pillar of wisdom. Plutocracy wants nothing of the sort; the compulsive "love of money" and power overwhelming every other consideration.
The way I like to frame it is that Republicans lie, cheat, and misrepresent because integrity is too restricting. Essentially, they need their basket to be 2 inches wider than the one they have to defend.
Exactly. I recently heard Sheralyn Ifill make the same point in a slightly different way. Paraphrasing, she said something like, “Republicans give their base permission to stop trying to be decent.”
That reflects what I hear from my former work cadre. "We don't have to be politically correct any more. We can say how things really are." I admit, they sometimes squirm when I ask what "politically incorrect" term do they use to refer to me.
Yes. Not being PC or “woke” is easy and, thanks to Donald Trump, popular right now. But, imagining “that’s how things really are” is, I think, definitely not true. Thanks for your good post!
Decent in ways that Joe McCarthy was shown to be devoid of. Modern
"Republicans" have picked up much of his playbook. Entropy, the tendency of energy to dissipate, likely propels time, and it appears that it ultimately will devour the Universe; yet energy eddies and knocks on in very complicated ways. Destruction and intimidation is soo much easier that building and persuasion; it has the propensity for decay on it's side. Negotiating and building rather than threatening, and extorting, takes work; your work; not just those you can exploit. Democracy is herding cats and despotism so much easier:
" I got to go to the Olympic Games in China. It's pretty impressive over there how quickly they can build things, how productive they are as a society. You should see their airport compared to our airports, their highways, their train systems. They're moving quickly in part because the regulators see their job as encouraging private people. It's amazing. " Mitt Romney
Yes. That example is spot on. It does take effort to be human. Patient, reasoned cooperation to build a better future takes self discipline, rational thought, and forbearance. Sometimes, in our better moments, those things come easily, but most often it takes effort. On the other hand, snap judgments, self promotion, anger, intimidation, and threats, all impulses originating largely from our brain stems, are easy and often successful in the short term. Modern Republicans and especially Donald Trump, if they still have higher thoughts arising from their cerebral cortex, haven’t noticed them for years. Thanks for your post!
The narcissistic delusion of inherent entitlement means the rules don't apply to you; just to the "inferior" beings, who you tell yourself you ave the God-given right to command. Monarchical aristocracy was just full of it in the days of absolute monarchy, or rule of any hereditary autocrat. It is ironic that some of those who eloquently opposed it retained slave estates. And who was it who benefited from slavery?
There you have it JL; those twin evils have been root and cause of most our ills. Those underlie the deceits intentionally inherent in all those post war treaties - the revealed and those not that we've discussed here: WW1 is a case in point. The dividing powers only gave back with one hand, knowing there was more they eventually planned to exploit; if not the politicians themselves, certainly the puppet masters pulling their strings 'knew' there was far more to exploit.
In how many jobs, public sector and private, would you be summarily fired for engaging in a patent conflict of interests with your employer? The corporation my father worked for fired high-placed people who accepted substantial gifts from vendors to the company. No quid pro quo needed; just the inappropriate relationship was enough. No intent of bias is needed. Why do scientific researchers use randomization and double blind testing (where neither the subjects nor the researcher knows who is and is not in the control group) not only to demonstrate safeguards against bias, but to reduce opportunities for bias that are not even intentional.
Who is ultimately the boss. and who the employee, in a democratic republic?
Sadly, the Citizens United SCOTUS decision and other gutting of campaign finance regulations and superPAC guidelines have kept today’s GOP in the ball game, despite being on the wrong side of most issues.
They are not conservative, they are #CORPservative, in servitude to their billionaire and corporate donors.
Conservative without the political baggage means "cautious"' such as a "conservative estimate". There is an implication of humility in it as you tend to hedge your bet. Certainly that is true of a "conservative" investment. It seems to me that a "conservative" would agree with the Oracle at Delphi to avoid excess.
But it's today's "Republican's" that assault balance, promoting monopolies of money and power, attacking checks and balances in government and bipartisanship, sweeping away regulation of business on principle rather than performance, making fantastic claims that lack any basis for verification. It seems to me that beneficially reconciling both conservation and innovation of what proves to be useful is a pillar of wisdom. Plutocracy wants nothing of the sort; the compulsive "love of money" and power overwhelming every other consideration.
The way I like to frame it is that Republicans lie, cheat, and misrepresent because integrity is too restricting. Essentially, they need their basket to be 2 inches wider than the one they have to defend.
Exactly. I recently heard Sheralyn Ifill make the same point in a slightly different way. Paraphrasing, she said something like, “Republicans give their base permission to stop trying to be decent.”
That reflects what I hear from my former work cadre. "We don't have to be politically correct any more. We can say how things really are." I admit, they sometimes squirm when I ask what "politically incorrect" term do they use to refer to me.
Yes. Not being PC or “woke” is easy and, thanks to Donald Trump, popular right now. But, imagining “that’s how things really are” is, I think, definitely not true. Thanks for your good post!
Decent in ways that Joe McCarthy was shown to be devoid of. Modern
"Republicans" have picked up much of his playbook. Entropy, the tendency of energy to dissipate, likely propels time, and it appears that it ultimately will devour the Universe; yet energy eddies and knocks on in very complicated ways. Destruction and intimidation is soo much easier that building and persuasion; it has the propensity for decay on it's side. Negotiating and building rather than threatening, and extorting, takes work; your work; not just those you can exploit. Democracy is herding cats and despotism so much easier:
" I got to go to the Olympic Games in China. It's pretty impressive over there how quickly they can build things, how productive they are as a society. You should see their airport compared to our airports, their highways, their train systems. They're moving quickly in part because the regulators see their job as encouraging private people. It's amazing. " Mitt Romney
But is China currently a "free society"?
Yes, remember China's "Women hold up half the sky"? Last week the government told women to go back home and take care of their families.
Yes. That example is spot on. It does take effort to be human. Patient, reasoned cooperation to build a better future takes self discipline, rational thought, and forbearance. Sometimes, in our better moments, those things come easily, but most often it takes effort. On the other hand, snap judgments, self promotion, anger, intimidation, and threats, all impulses originating largely from our brain stems, are easy and often successful in the short term. Modern Republicans and especially Donald Trump, if they still have higher thoughts arising from their cerebral cortex, haven’t noticed them for years. Thanks for your post!
The narcissistic delusion of inherent entitlement means the rules don't apply to you; just to the "inferior" beings, who you tell yourself you ave the God-given right to command. Monarchical aristocracy was just full of it in the days of absolute monarchy, or rule of any hereditary autocrat. It is ironic that some of those who eloquently opposed it retained slave estates. And who was it who benefited from slavery?
There you have it JL; those twin evils have been root and cause of most our ills. Those underlie the deceits intentionally inherent in all those post war treaties - the revealed and those not that we've discussed here: WW1 is a case in point. The dividing powers only gave back with one hand, knowing there was more they eventually planned to exploit; if not the politicians themselves, certainly the puppet masters pulling their strings 'knew' there was far more to exploit.
The press is complicit in using fig leaves to designate what the parties ... and esp the rabid factions ... are really about.
Would that mean no more jet rides and expensive vacations or Thomas?
In how many jobs, public sector and private, would you be summarily fired for engaging in a patent conflict of interests with your employer? The corporation my father worked for fired high-placed people who accepted substantial gifts from vendors to the company. No quid pro quo needed; just the inappropriate relationship was enough. No intent of bias is needed. Why do scientific researchers use randomization and double blind testing (where neither the subjects nor the researcher knows who is and is not in the control group) not only to demonstrate safeguards against bias, but to reduce opportunities for bias that are not even intentional.
Who is ultimately the boss. and who the employee, in a democratic republic?
I like that turn of phrase.