One of the most fascinating aspects of the republican loss is their complete inability to see why or even to see themselves. The republicans felt - more than felt - entitled to the presidency. They could never figure out their loss to Clinton and thus spent millions and much time trying to defeat him. Investigation after investigation was their tool, impeachment their hope. When you think that you are entitled to rule, not because of what you have accomplished, but just entitled to governmental power, democracies have a way of defeating your assumptions. Plutocracies are only nice for the entitled and privileged. But in 2008 it happened again, 2010 lead them to believe all was not lost and 12 would put them back where they rightfully belonged.
For republican voters the conservative entitlement state is turned on its head. It isn't the rich who exploit our capitalistic system but the poor, sick, and aged who do so. It's Christianity in reverse. I've often provided links on how money and corporations have managed this mythical mental feat so I'll leave most of that out of this post. Republicans don't read anything that challenges the bubble they live in anyway. People see the world through a filter that often requires some major tragedy or experience before the view changes. But since I try to back up my words with words and evidence from others I leave you embittered and entitled souls, should I be mean and say losers, with these pieces of reality. Merry Christmas.
"The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer...Economist Dean Baker debunks the myth that conservatives favor the market over government intervention. In fact, conservatives rely on a range of nanny state policies that ensure the rich get richer while leaving most Americans worse off. Its time for the rules to change. Sound economic policy should harness the market in ways that produce desirable social outcomes decent wages, good jobs and affordable health care."
The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer
This is where the policies of entitlement have lead us.
"Wealth inequality. This is now at levels unprecedented in modern history, the greatest gap between rich and poor since the Great Depression. The Occupy movement's "one-percent" rhetoric is easy to deride, and their lack of concrete policy easy to dismiss, but there is no arguing with the numbers, Taking the extreme but leading example of the United States, one finds that the richest fifth of the population controls 85% of the country's wealth, while the poorest fifth controls an amount so much lower than one percent that it registers statistically as zero. Despite these facts, people remain confused about the realities of wealth distribution: in surveys a majority of Americans regularly report their belief that the top quintile controls only 60%, and further reported that the fair figure would be closer to 35%-that is, fully 50 points below the actual distribution, and against a background of commitment to free enterprise, individual effort, and success." Mark Kingwell 'Unruly Voices: Essays on Democracy, Civility and the Human Imagination'
"The GOP dreams of a world in which the very rich arrogate to themselves the vast wealth a capitalist economy produces, an outcome made possible by rules, regulations, and practices they devise; given the force of law thanks to representatives they usher into office courtesy of a political system they have bought; and sanctified by an activist Supreme Court they have installed. Its a vicious economic-political noose that threatens to tighten the grip on democracy and make it yield to the slightest pressure from its masters. Republicans must rule the country they profit from, even pillage, while the rest are to be marginalized and dismissed, essentially foreigners in their own land. Those who think Romney and the GOP live in the 1950s may need to reset their calendars. Theyre not nearly so modern." Steven Johnston
The Contemporary Condition: The Republican Imperium
"This is when the Republican Party set its trap. Meeting in closed sessions at the beginning of the Obama regime, the party of tax cuts for the rich, unfunded wars, and the largest deficit in the history of the country redefined itself. It suddenly became the party of deficit reduction through lean government joined to supreme confidence in unregulated financial and corporate markets. It even opposed the bail out of General Motors and Chrysler, though these actions stopped unemployment from reaching a dangerous tipping point, allowed the two companies time to reconstruct themselves, and enabled them to pay back the loans within two years-creating one of the most successful bailouts in the history of Euro-American economic life."
The Contemporary Condition: The Republican Pincer Machine
Good one. "The culture of entitlement among republicans is hopefully over"
