What is the ideal Liberal world?

[Charles_Main]

I like you. You can tell when someone is being intellectually honest, and you are!!!

Great points all, Clearly if we were off of oil we would care very little about what goes on the the middle east, Short of allowing a nuclear war between Israel and the Arabs, I think we would ignore it all together just as we have Africa. Which I think is a horrible black mark on our America soul.

 

[Charles_Main]

Great points all, Clearly if we were off of oil we would care very little about what goes on the the middle east, Short of allowing a nuclear war between Israel and the Arabs, I think we would ignore it all together just as we have Africa. Which I think is a horrible black mark on our America soul.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Are you suggesting Corporations pay the middle class well because they are kind?

You know as well as anyone that Corporations have one goal, maximize profits for stakeholders.

And you know that free markets have to follow laws made by our government, so they really aren't free to do whatever they want. Thank God.

You are falling into the familiar trap of over-simplifying what it takes to maintain a corporation. No, corporations do not do much because they are kind although many have pretty good social responsibility records. Many corporate boards believe that being a good citizen of the communities they exist in is good corporate strategy and just the right thing to do. I can post many examples if you insist.

On the wages point, it has happened on more than one occasion in my lifetime that you could not hire anyone at the minimum wage. The market for people (even to work at McDonalds) dictated that you had to pay at least $1 /hr over the minimum just to get someone to work for you. The corporation didn't pay more than the minimum because they were nice, they needed workers and that's the price they had to pay to get them. A better example exists with more skilled employees. We employ network engineers. If you think we can pay $65,000 and get a decent network engineer, you're nuts. We have to pay considerable amounts of money to get skill levels high enough to satisfy our clients. Why is that? Scarcity of network engineers with the skill sets we demand.

If corporations aren't paying you enough, maybe you picked the wrong line of work.

 

[Tech_Esq]

I like you. You can tell when someone is being intellectually honest, and you are!!!

Thanks. You'll find I'm not an apologist for the Bush Administration, I tend to call them like I see them and I fully understand that there is no country in this world that has clean hands in its international relations.

I also don't have a problem with that.

 

[sealybobo]

You are falling into the familiar trap of over-simplifying what it takes to maintain a corporation. No, corporations do not do much because they are kind although many have pretty good social responsibility records. Many corporate boards believe that being a good citizen of the communities they exist in is good corporate strategy and just the right thing to do. I can post many examples if you insist.

On the wages point, it has happened on more than one occasion in my lifetime that you could not hire anyone at the minimum wage. The market for people (even to work at McDonalds) dictated that you had to pay at least $1 /hr over the minimum just to get someone to work for you. The corporation didn't pay more than the minimum because they were nice, they needed workers and that's the price they had to pay to get them. A better example exists with more skilled employees. We employ network engineers. If you think we can pay $65,000 and get a decent network engineer, you're nuts. We have to pay considerable amounts of money to get skill levels high enough to satisfy our clients. Why is that? Scarcity of network engineers with the skill sets we demand.

If corporations aren't paying you enough, maybe you picked the wrong line of work.

I'm in sales. i work for the largest corporation in my industry. There are only two key players. I was thrilled to get a job at such a large global company. One thing that's good is that they don't fire you like mom and pop shops do. Small business' can be more ruthless to their employers than large corporations. But the people I work with all see that the company is making more and paying less. They just up the quota's every year, regardless of a recession. Regardless of if companies are buying or cutting back. At least up my salary to keep up with inflation. But when NO companies are doing that, why should they?

I work with young guys who don't care because they just came out of college and don't realize that we made more money the years before. They are happy with what they are getting. Now they might not be happy with gas prices and their stocks taking a dump, but they are buying houses cheap at least.

I hate the "maybe you picked the wrong field" argument, because then everyone picked the wrong field. Everyone that went into manufacturing was dumb?

When the economy is bad and the market is flooded with people needing jobs, companies can start paying less, and they are. Even when they show record profits. It's supply and demand, right?

But what about this?

IBM raised its earnings outlook for 2008. One reason it may make more money: IBM is cutting salaries for 7,600 employees by 15%.

These are IT jobs. How can they get away with it when Bill Gates just went to Congress and said:

Gates, testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology, said that the USA faces "a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers."

Wouldn't all of IBM's IT employees have left if there is such a shortage?

I think Bill Gates just wants to bring in foreigners so they can lower AMERICAN workers value.

Just like they keep the borders open and that is lowering the value of our poorest workers.

It's not all their fault. The Government is fucking us.

Just my observation.

Say, if I was all over the place, I got distracted with work. Sorry.

 

[sealybobo]

You are falling into the familiar trap of over-simplifying what it takes to maintain a corporation. No, corporations do not do much because they are kind although many have pretty good social responsibility records. Many corporate boards believe that being a good citizen of the communities they exist in is good corporate strategy and just the right thing to do. I can post many examples if you insist.

On the wages point, it has happened on more than one occasion in my lifetime that you could not hire anyone at the minimum wage. The market for people (even to work at McDonalds) dictated that you had to pay at least $1 /hr over the minimum just to get someone to work for you. The corporation didn't pay more than the minimum because they were nice, they needed workers and that's the price they had to pay to get them. A better example exists with more skilled employees. We employ network engineers. If you think we can pay $65,000 and get a decent network engineer, you're nuts. We have to pay considerable amounts of money to get skill levels high enough to satisfy our clients. Why is that? Scarcity of network engineers with the skill sets we demand.

If corporations aren't paying you enough, maybe you picked the wrong line of work.

What about Tyson Chicken. They were raided and all their illegal alien workers were deported. The next day, there was a line up around the block of Americans that wanted a job.

They lied when they said, "jobs Americans won't do"

And I believe a lot of companies have acted unethically to their communities in the past few years.

Or, just up and left for cheaper labor in Mexico and China.

But I agree that some companies try to be good. For example, my job could be outsourced, or moved down south where labor is cheaper, but it hasn't. At least not yet. But they are starting to outsource customer service to India. People at my work crapped when they saw the announcement. It went from a small office to 200 employees in India.

 

[sealybobo]

I don't want to give away who I work for, but here is the tag line on one of my co-workers emails.

This is who uses our products:

100 of the Top 100 U.S. CPA Firms

· 96 of the Fortune 100 Companies

· 95 of the Top 100 U.S. Law Firms

 

[Tech_Esq]

I'm in sales. i work for the largest corporation in my industry. There are only two key players. I was thrilled to get a job at such a large global company. One thing that's good is that they don't fire you like mom and pop shops do. Small business' can be more ruthless to their employers than large corporations. But the people I work with all see that the company is making more and paying less. They just up the quota's every year, regardless of a recession. Regardless of if companies are buying or cutting back. At least up my salary to keep up with inflation. But when NO companies are doing that, why should they?

I work with young guys who don't care because they just came out of college and don't realize that we made more money the years before. They are happy with what they are getting. Now they might not be happy with gas prices and their stocks taking a dump, but they are buying houses cheap at least.

I hate the "maybe you picked the wrong field" argument, because then everyone picked the wrong field. Everyone that went into manufacturing was dumb?

When the economy is bad and the market is flooded with people needing jobs, companies can start paying less, and they are. Even when they show record profits. It's supply and demand, right?

But what about this?

IBM raised its earnings outlook for 2008. One reason it may make more money: IBM is cutting salaries for 7,600 employees by 15%.

These are IT jobs. How can they get away with it when Bill Gates just went to Congress and said:

Gates, testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology, said that the USA faces "a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers."

Wouldn't all of IBM's IT employees have left if there is such a shortage?

I think Bill Gates just wants to bring in foreigners so they can lower AMERICAN workers value.

Just like they keep the borders open and that is lowering the value of our poorest workers.

It's not all their fault. The Government is fucking us.

Just my observation.

Say, if I was all over the place, I got distracted with work. Sorry.

Not every job is a good job for life. Some jobs start out good, then the market or world changes and that same job sucks or goes away. The days of getting out of college and going to as a whatever and thinking that all you have to do is go to work every day and bust your ass are over. It ain't like that anymore. If it still is for some people, that's I haven't seen it. You have to stay on your toes and read the writing on the wall before it's too late. Re-educate yourself if you have to and move jobs or business sectors to keep ahead of the market.

Look, I've had 3 careers. First in the Army, then law and now in the high-tech area. You're in sales, you're lucky you can bounce around from one sector to the next. Selling is pretty much all the same. I'm not sure about what jobs IBM is reducing salaries on. When you are that big, you could have 7,800 secretaries or janitors or limo drivers...lol. I'll tell you that I've been treated better by mom & pop shops than by the 140,000 person employer I recently worked for. YMMV

 

[Tech_Esq]

What about Tyson Chicken. They were raided and all their illegal alien workers were deported. The next day, there was a line up around the block of Americans that wanted a job.

They lied when they said, "jobs Americans won't do"

And I believe a lot of companies have acted unethically to their communities in the past few years.

Or, just up and left for cheaper labor in Mexico and China.

But I agree that some companies try to be good. For example, my job could be outsourced, or moved down south where labor is cheaper, but it hasn't. At least not yet. But they are starting to outsource customer service to India. People at my work crapped when they saw the announcement. It went from a small office to 200 employees in India.

Illegality should be punished period. The government is shirking its responsibility by not enforcing the border. Tyson's et al. is committing a crime and should be punished for doing it.

 

[sealybobo]

Illegality should be punished period. The government is shirking its responsibility by not enforcing the border. Tyson's et al. is committing a crime and should be punished for doing it.

Encouraging a rapid increase in the workforce by encouraging companies to hire non-citizens is one of the three most potent tools conservatives since Ronald Reagan have used to convert the American middle class into the American working poor. (The other two are destroying the governmental protections that keep labor unions viable, and ending tariffs while promoting trade deals like NAFTA/WTO/GATT that export manufacturing jobs.)

As David Ricardo pointed out with his "Iron Law of Labor" (published in his 1814 treatise "On Labor") when labor markets are tight, wages go up. When labor markets are awash in workers willing to work at the bottom of the pay scale, unskilled and semi-skilled wages overall will decrease to what Ricardo referred to as "subsistence" levels.

Two years later, in 1816, Ricardo pointed out in his "On Profits" that when the cost of labor goes down, the result usually isn't a decrease in product prices, but, instead, an increase in corporate and CEO profits. (This is because the marketplace sets prices, but the cost of labor helps set profits. For example, when Nike began manufacturing shoes in Third World countries with labor costs below US labor costs, it didn't lead to $15 Nikes - their price held, and even increased, because the market would bear it. Instead, that reduction in labor costs led to Nike CEO Phil Knight becoming a multi-billionaire.)

Republicans understand this very, very well, although they never talk about it. Democrats seem not to have read Ricardo, although the average American gets it at a gut level.

Thus, Americans are concerned that a "flood of illegal immigrants" coming primarily across our southern border is, to paraphrase Lou Dobbs, "wiping out the American middle class." And there is considerable truth to it, as part of the three-part campaign mentioned earlier.

But Dobbs and his fellow Republicans say the solution is to "secure our border" with a fence like that used by East Germany, but that stretches a distance about the same as that from Washington, DC to Chicago. It'll be a multi-billion-dollar boon to Halliburton and Bechtel, who will undoubtedly get the construction and maintenance contracts, but it won't stop illegal immigration. (Instead, people will legally come in on tourist and other visas, and not leave when their visas expire.)

The fact is that we had an open border with Mexico for several centuries, and "illegal immigration" was never a serious problem. Before Reagan's presidency, an estimated million or so people a year came into the US from Mexico - and the same number, more or less, left the US for Mexico at the end of the agricultural harvest season. Very few stayed, because there weren't jobs for them.

Non-citizens didn't have access to the non-agricultural US job market, in large part because of the power of US labor unions (before Reagan 25% of the workforce was unionized; today the private workforce is about 7% unionized), and because companies were unwilling to risk having non-tax-deductible labor expenses on their books by hiring undocumented workers without valid Social Security numbers.

But Reagan put an end to that. His 1986 amnesty program, combined with his aggressive war on organized labor (begun in 1981), in effect told both employers and non-citizens that there would be few penalties and many rewards to increasing the US labor pool (and thus driving down wages) with undocumented immigrants. A million people a year continued to come across our southern border, but they stopped returning to Latin America every fall because instead of seasonal work they were able to find permanent jobs.

The magnet drawing them? Illegal Employers.

Yet in the American media, Illegal Employers are almost never mentioned.

Lou Dobbs, the most visible media champion of this issue, always starts his discussion of the issue with a basic syllogism - 1. Our border is porous. 2. People are coming across our porous border and diluting our labor markets, driving down US wages. 3. Therefore we must make the border less porous.

Lou's syllogism, however, ignores the real problem, the magnet drawing people to risk life and limb to illegally enter this country - Illegal Employers. Our borders have always been porous (and even with a "fence" will still allow through "tourists" by the millions), but we've never had a problem like this before.

And it's not just because poverty has increased in Mexico - today, about half of Mexico lives on less than $2 a day, but 50 years ago half of Mexico also lived on the equivalent of $2 today. Our trade and agricultural policies are harmful to Mexican farmers (and must be changed!), but we were nearly as predatory fifty years ago (remember the rubber and fruit companies, particularly in Central America?).

Yet fifty years ago we didn't have an "illegal immigration" problem, because back then we didn't have a conservative "Illegal Employer" problem.

As the Washington Post noted in an article by Hsu and Lydersen on June 19, 2006:

"Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.
"In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three."

The hiring crimes of Illegal Employers are being ignored by the law, and rewarded by the economic systems of the nation.

Proof that this simple reality is ignored in our media (much to the delight of Republicans) is everywhere you look. For example, check out a series of national polls on illegal immigration done over the past year at Immigration. A typical poll question is like this one from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in June, 2006:

"When it comes to the immigration bill, the Senate and the House of Representatives disagree with one another about what should be done on the issue of illegal immigration.
"Many in the House of Representatives favor strengthening security at the borders, including building a seven-hundred-mile fence along the border with Mexico to help keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, and they favor deporting immigrants who are already in the United States illegally.

"Many in the Senate favor strengthening security at the borders, including building a three-hundred-and-seventy-mile fence along the border with Mexico to help keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, and they favor a guest worker program to allow illegal immigrants who have jobs and who have been here for more than two years to remain in the United States.

"Which of these approaches would you prefer?"

The question: "Or would you prefer companies that employ undocumented workers be severely fined or put out of business?" wasn't even asked. The word "employer" appears nowhere in any of the questions in that poll. Nor is it in the CBS News immigration poll. Or in the Associated Press immigration poll. Or in the Fox News immigration poll.

Only the CNN poll asked the question: "Would you favor increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants?" Two-thirds of Americans, of all party affiliations, said, "Yes," but it went virtually unreported in mainstream media coverage.

"Illegal Immigration" is really about "Illegal Employers." As long as Democrats argue it on the basis of "illegal immigration" they'll lose, even when they're right. Instead, they need to be talking about "Illegal Employers."

Politically, it's not a civil rights issue, it's a jobs issue, as working Americans keep telling pollsters over and over again.

"Mass deportations" and "Fences" are hysterics and false choices. Start penalizing "Illegal Employers" and non-citizens without a Social Security number will leave the country on their own. And they won't have to confront death trying to cross the desert back into Mexico - Mexican citizens can simply walk back into Mexico across the border at any legal border crossing (as about a million did every year for over a century).

Tax law requires that an employer must verify the Social Security number of their employees in order to document, and thus deduct, the expense of their labor. This is a simple task, and some companies, like AMC Theatres, are already doing it.

For example, Cameron Barr wrote in The Washington Post on April 30, 2006, that: "At one area multiplex owned by AMC, the Rio 18 in Gaithersburg, 11 employees 'decided to resign' this month after they could not rectify discrepancies that arose during the screening, said Melanie Bell, a spokeswoman for AMC Entertainment Inc., which is based in Kansas City, Mo. She said such screening is a routine procedure that the company conducts across the United States."

Not wanting to be an Illegal Employer, the Post noted that AMC "has long submitted lists of its employees' Social Security numbers to the Social Security Administration for review. If discrepancies arise, she [company spokeswoman Bell] said in an e-mailed response to questions, 'we require the worker to provide their original Social Security card within 3 days or to immediately contact the local SSA office.' She said the process is part of payroll tax verification and occurs after hiring."

Easy, simple, cheap, painless. No fence required. No mass deportations necessary. No need for Homeland Security to get involved. When jobs are not available, most undocumented workers will simply leave the country (as they always did before), or begin the normal process to obtain citizenship that millions (including my own sister-in-law - this hits many of us close to home) go through each year.

Republicans, however, are not going to allow a discussion of "Illegal Employers." Instead, they will continue to hammer the issue of "Illegal Immigrants," and tie that political albatross around the necks of Democrats (who seem all too willing to accept it).

 

[sealybobo]

Not every job is a good job for life. Some jobs start out good, then the market or world changes and that same job sucks or goes away. The days of getting out of college and going to as a whatever and thinking that all you have to do is go to work every day and bust your ass are over. It ain't like that anymore. If it still is for some people, that's I haven't seen it. You have to stay on your toes and read the writing on the wall before it's too late. Re-educate yourself if you have to and move jobs or business sectors to keep ahead of the market.

Look, I've had 3 careers. First in the Army, then law and now in the high-tech area. You're in sales, you're lucky you can bounce around from one sector to the next. Selling is pretty much all the same. I'm not sure about what jobs IBM is reducing salaries on. When you are that big, you could have 7,800 secretaries or janitors or limo drivers...lol. I'll tell you that I've been treated better by mom & pop shops than by the 140,000 person employer I recently worked for. YMMV

The transition, slated to occur on February 6, will move 7,600 of Armonk, New York-based IBM’s IT specialists from the classification of “exempt” to “nonexempt” professionals in order to make them eligible for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company is making the move in response to the overtime suit Rosenberg v. IBM that it settled for $65 million in 2006.

They did it to punish the employees for a lawsuit. If there were really a high demand for IT people, wages would be through the roof and jobs would be plentiful. It's not a bad gig I'm sure, but companies would rather hire from India than pay you $100K. So they only use supply and demand when it favors them, not us.

 

[Tech_Esq]

The transition, slated to occur on February 6, will move 7,600 of Armonk, New York-based IBM’s IT specialists from the classification of “exempt” to “nonexempt” professionals in order to make them eligible for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company is making the move in response to the overtime suit Rosenberg v. IBM that it settled for $65 million in 2006.

They did it to punish the employees for a lawsuit. If there were really a high demand for IT people, wages would be through the roof and jobs would be plentiful. It's not a bad gig I'm sure, but companies would rather hire from India than pay you $100K. So they only use supply and demand when it favors them, not us.

They can't always do that. Dell tried to outsource its help desk for corporate accounts. But there was such a backlash that they have since brought support back to the US. Consumer support is still in India though.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Sealy:

Concerning your article, there is no doubt that far from only doing jobs US citizens won't illegals are doing every type of job and driving down wages. The question raised in the article is who should bare the cost of enforcing the immigration laws. The article looks favorably on employers paying that cost.

My contention would be that it is the job of the Executive branch of the Federal government to ensure that the laws of the United States are enforced. They are best placed to deal with illegals.

I have a hard time believing that the same number of illegals would be able to obtain tourist visas and over stay them. So, I'm not buying that the fence would not work. It may not be the whole answer, but it's a damned good start. And to his snide little "like East Germany" remark, I have two things to say: Theirs was to keep people in, not out. And, ours won't have a mine field in front of it.

I do think that employers should be fined severely for knowingly employing illegals, but the government needs to make it easy for employers to know when they have an illegal in front of them. Employers can't waste all day trying to figure out if the person is illegal or not. It needs to be a 5 minute check.

 

[Ravi]

Why should employers enforce immigration law?

 

[BrianH]

It shouldn't be hard to pin-poiny an illegal, or know you're hiring one. When they lack a SS and don't have any legal identification, then it's likely they're illegal.... And sometimes, a lack of ability to speak any English will "hint" that you need to check their identity....

 

[sealybobo]

Sealy:

Concerning your article, there is no doubt that far from only doing jobs US citizens won't illegals are doing every type of job and driving down wages. The question raised in the article is who should bare the cost of enforcing the immigration laws. The article looks favorably on employers paying that cost.

My contention would be that it is the job of the Executive branch of the Federal government to ensure that the laws of the United States are enforced. They are best placed to deal with illegals.

I have a hard time believing that the same number of illegals would be able to obtain tourist visas and over stay them. So, I'm not buying that the fence would not work. It may not be the whole answer, but it's a damned good start. And to his snide little "like East Germany" remark, I have two things to say: Theirs was to keep people in, not out. And, ours won't have a mine field in front of it.

I do think that employers should be fined severely for knowingly employing illegals, but the government needs to make it easy for employers to know when they have an illegal in front of them. Employers can't waste all day trying to figure out if the person is illegal or not. It needs to be a 5 minute check.

You remind me of a 90's conservative. I didn't agree with them on some things, but at least they made good points and were sincere. I don't like left wing liberals either. They go too far too. I wish modern day neo cons would go back to following leaders that talk like you.

I call modern Republicans Tom Delayocrats. lol. sinister, greedy, dishonest.

I don't believe Obama is a left wing liberal. What do you think?

 

[Charles_Main]

Sealy:

Concerning your article, there is no doubt that far from only doing jobs US citizens won't illegals are doing every type of job and driving down wages. The question raised in the article is who should bare the cost of enforcing the immigration laws. The article looks favorably on employers paying that cost.

My contention would be that it is the job of the Executive branch of the Federal government to ensure that the laws of the United States are enforced. They are best placed to deal with illegals.

I have a hard time believing that the same number of illegals would be able to obtain tourist visas and over stay them. So, I'm not buying that the fence would not work. It may not be the whole answer, but it's a damned good start. And to his snide little "like East Germany" remark, I have two things to say: Theirs was to keep people in, not out. And, ours won't have a mine field in front of it.

I do think that employers should be fined severely for knowingly employing illegals, but the government needs to make it easy for employers to know when they have an illegal in front of them. Employers can't waste all day trying to figure out if the person is illegal or not. It needs to be a 5 minute check.

Great post bud. we need more people like you in DC.

 

[Ravi]

You remind me of a 90's conservative. I didn't agree with them on some things, but at least they made good points and were sincere. I don't like left wing liberals either. They go too far too. I wish modern day neo cons would go back to following leaders that talk like you.

I call modern Republicans Tom Delayocrats. lol. sinister, greedy, dishonest.

I don't believe Obama is a left wing liberal. What do you think?

That's funny, Bobo. I haven't read many of your posts, but, IMO, you actually do come off as a left wing liberal (and I hesitate at throwing together left wing and liberal). So does Obama. Or he did before he clinched the nomination.

 

[sealybobo]

That's funny, Bobo. I haven't read many of your posts, but, IMO, you actually do come off as a left wing liberal (and I hesitate at throwing together left wing and liberal). So does Obama. Or he did before he clinched the nomination.

that's because rove made it so anyone who disagrees with the gop a left wing wacko.

what positions put me far left?

i'm pro guns, for fiscal responsibility, etc.

because I disagree with privatizing the military?

because I think the gop lied us into iraq?

because I think bush should be in jail with chaney?

because I don't think there is any such thing as free markets?

I liked welfare reform.

Because I know the federal reserve, irs and income tax are unconstitutional? this would make me libertarian.

no, not a lefty, just liberal.

I hate delay, rove, chaney, bush, boehner.

because i'm pro gay and pro abortion?

maybe in some ways I am, but you can't paint me with one brush.

 

[Ravi]

that's because rove made it so anyone who disagrees with the gop a left wing wacko.

what positions put me far left?

i'm pro guns, for fiscal responsibility, etc.

because I disagree with privatizing the military?

because I think the gop lied us into iraq?

because I think bush should be in jail with chaney?

because I don't think there is any such thing as free markets?

I liked welfare reform.

Because I know the federal reserve, irs and income tax are unconstitutional? this would make me libertarian.

no, not a lefty, just liberal.

I hate delay, rove, chaney, bush, boehner.

because i'm pro gay and pro abortion?

maybe in some ways I am, but you can't paint me with one brush.

Maybe because you're wordy...lol, just joking. I'll read more of your posts, it's quite possible that I am wrong and it wouldn't be the first time. If I see anything that confirms my suspicion I'll say something. Though your list seem more liberal than lefty and I agree with most of what you just posted.

I have to disagree with you on income tax being unconstitutional. That would make an interesting thread.