Why are Americans so negative...

[Bonnie]

Im astounded at the recent polls showing a large majority of Americans believe we are headed in the wrong direction.

Thank God we have had no terror attacks here, the economy is doing great, consumer confidence is up so high that people are not even saving money but are instead spending it like crazy.

So what direction are we supposed to be heading in if this isn't the right one?

 

[GotZoom]

Im astounded at the recent polls showing a large majority of Americans believe we are headed in the wrong direction.

Thank God we have had no terror attacks here, the economy is doing great, consumer confidence is up so high that people are not even saving money but are instead spending it like crazy.

So what direction are we supposed to be heading in if this isn't the right one?

The MSM emphasizes the negative. The Dems emphasize the negative.

Everything is bad...things suck...terrible...War is bad...people dying...blah blah blah..

Bush is evil...things are bad ... blah blah blah.

Imagine if the MSM talked about all the good things we are doing in Iraq. The freedoms, etc. If they talked about consumer confidence, the economy rising, etc.

Polls would be higher than ever.

Many people don't have the brains or the courage to decide for themselves what is good or bad. They are just followers.

 

[5stringJeff]

The MSM emphasizes the negative. The Dems emphasize the negative.

Everything is bad...things suck...terrible...War is bad...people dying...blah blah blah..

Bush is evil...things are bad ... blah blah blah.

Nothing new... see my sig.

 

[archangel]

being that I have a IC before my name rather than a big 'D' or 'R' I will be honest...the war on terror is going reasonably well...however the economy sucks big time...we have a trade deficit of some 2B...most if not all high tech and production jobs have been outsourced to Asia or South America...major auto plants are cutting back and laying off thousands...health care costs are through the roof...gasoline is through the roof... utility costs are through the roof...Illegal Immigration is out of control...service jobs have been created but the middle class... layed off workers... must compete with (illegal alien)cheap labor! I could go on and on...but why...? who is really admitting to reality anymore?

 

[The ClayTaurus]

And the Right goes on and on about the decline of our morals and how our country is in a cultural gutter. I have to listen every day to how this war is the worst thing in the world, and the music I'm listening to will be the downfall of society. People don't like to hear good news; people like to hear bad news they can rally around and argue with people about.

 

[Bonnie]

being that I have a IC before my name rather than a big 'D' or 'R' I will be honest...the war on terror is going reasonably well...however the economy sucks big time...we have a trade deficit of some 2B...most if not all high tech and production jobs have been outsourced to Asia or South America...major auto plants are cutting back and laying off thousands...health care costs are through the roof...gasoline is through the roof... utility costs are through the roof...Illegal Immigration is out of control...service jobs have been created but the middle class... layed off workers... must compete with (illegal alien)cheap labor! I could go on and on...but why...? who is really admitting to reality anymore?

Im inclined to agree that outsourcing and our very unsecured borders are troubling and should be, however the economy is still doing very well, unemployment is very low, and if Greenspan would just leave office already and stop raising interest rates the market would have rallied heavily today.

 

[opewon]

It's all about accountability. Dems or Reps has no signifigance anymore. The American people feel like they have been sold out to not only greed by the republicans but also by the social and moral erosion from the dems. It is obvious we need a third party to right the wrongs but I for one have no answers right now. Hopefully someone will step up and actually tell the truth for once.

 

[Abbey Normal]

It's all about accountability. Dems or Reps has no signifigance anymore. The American people feel like they have been sold out to not only greed by the republicans but also by the social and moral erosion from the dems. It is obvious we need a third party to right the wrongs but I for one have no answers right now. Hopefully someone will step up and actually tell the truth for once.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, what if we can't handle the truth?

 

[Bonnie]

It's all about accountability. Dems or Reps has no signifigance anymore. The American people feel like they have been sold out to not only greed by the republicans but also by the social and moral erosion from the dems. It is obvious we need a third party to right the wrongs but I for one have no answers right now. Hopefully someone will step up and actually tell the truth for once.

That sounds great and I like the idea of a true Conservative Independant, but so far there have been no great candidates to fill the bill, nor do I see one coming any time soon as the campaign purse strings are controlled by party loyalists.

 

[dilloduck]

That sounds great and I like the idea of a true Conservative Independant, but so far there have been no great candidates to fill the bill, nor do I see one coming any time soon as the campaign purse strings are controlled by party loyalists.

Party loyalist aren't stupid either---they control the government no matter who sits in Washington.

My impression of the "negative thing" that you speak of is that many in America want certain things different and are not exactly proud of how they would like to see things (and would be unable to defend them too). For them to get thier way they have to just say everything sucks until someone inadvertantly does what they want to happen.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Im astounded at the recent polls showing a large majority of Americans believe we are headed in the wrong direction.

Thank God we have had no terror attacks here, the economy is doing great, consumer confidence is up so high that people are not even saving money but are instead spending it like crazy.

So what direction are we supposed to be heading in if this isn't the right one?

This gives a pretty good start:

The REAL State of the Union, Mr. President
By Michael J. Gaynor
January 30, 2006

Mr. President, you have served very well, much better than your current poll ratings suggest. You have taken the war to the terrorists effectively; acted decisively to avert attacks on the American homeland; liberated Afghanistan and Iraq and began the difficult process of democratizing them; convinced Libya to discontinue its nuclear weapons program; pursued a peaceful solution to the Palestinian situation; presided over a great economic recovery necessitated by the attacks on September 11, 2001 and then an economic expansion that is continuing nicely; pursued a wise tax policy that brought a general prosperity and millions more jobs; tried to protect Social Security and to provide choice (which your pro-abortion opponents praise as a good thing) to younger workers, despite Democrat obstructionism); and appointed strict constructionists instead of judicial activisits to all levels of America's federal courts.
Why aren't your current poll ratings much higher?

Because you are a gentleman, many of your political opponents are neither gentlemen nor ladies and you have treated your disgruntled political enemies as misguided friends instead of mean-spirited miscreants. (Yes, Mr. President, not all of your political opponents are mean-spirited miscreants, but plenty of them are!)

Mr. President, that's a big problem, both for you and for America.

You need to solve it, and you can, by defending yourself vigorously against frivolous and scurrilous charges instead of assuming that their frivolousness and baselessnes are obvious and being frank about your opponents instead of unduly courteous toward them.

The Democrats were embarrassed that one of theirs, Bill Clinton, was impeached. They pretend that the real crime was the impeachment itself, not the conduct that caused the impeachment, that his perjury and obstruction of justice somehow were permissible or at least excusable under some sort of implicit sex lies exception (a nutty legal notion that has no more basis in the legislative history of the federal perjury and obstruction of justice statutes than the baseless claim that the Fourteenth Amendment was written and ratified to revoke the states' authority to regulate abortion).

So, fanatical Democrats want to impeach you. To even the score. They pretend that you lied to the American people because you wanted to invade Iraq. Or that you have been abusing your power to intrude upon the sanctity of private conversations. They have said such nonsense so often that many people believe it. Much like many Germans were brainwashed into believing Nazi lies about the Jews. Joseph Goebbels committed suicide, but his Big Lie strategy lives on, and still works: "If you tell a lie big enough, and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Mr. President, your crazed critics have beencalling you a warmonger, a deceiver, a tool of the special interests, etc., while you have ignored them or said that they are mistaken.

Mr. President, respectfully, your poll ratings dropped substantially because Big Lies were relentlessly repeated and you focused on other things--like governing--while your fanatical opponents focused on defaming you and undermining public confidence in you.

Being gentle with your enemies only emboldens them, Mr. President. To defeat them, you must be forceful and frank.

Thanks be to God, you stopped ignoring the Big Lies and made a series of important and impressive addresses than sent your poll rating on an upward trajectory. But, having waited so long, you still have more work to do to undo the damage done.

And please stop courting the Clintons!

On January 29, 2006, Reuters put out an article titled "Is there a new member of the Bush Family?," subtitled "Ex-Presidents Clinton and Bush have a Solid Friendship" and beginning this way:

"President George W. Bush says Bill Clinton has become so close to his father that the Democratic former president is like a member of the family.

"Former President George Bush has worked with Clinton to raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami and the hurricane disaster along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"Asked about his father and Clinton, Bush quipped, 'Yes, he and my new brother.'"

"'That's a good relationship. It's a fun relationship to watch,' Bush said in an interview with CBS News broadcast on Sunday."

Mr. President, Bill Clinton is a consummate politician whose brotherly affection for you is one step above that of Cain for Able. He and Hillary intend to move back into the White House, and to take full advantage of your gentlemanliness. They will undo all the good you do, if given the chance.

Your Supreme Court nominees--now Chief Justice John Roberts and soon to be Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.--are in the tradition of your Supreme Court favorites, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, not Bill Clinton's picks, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg of the ACLU and Stephen Breyer of the Ted Kennedy wing of the Democrat Party.

The difference is critical to America. As Ms. Long wrote in an op ed published in The Washington Times on April 15, 2005: "A liberal minority needs federal judges to advance their agenda — allowing child pornography as free speech, mandating same-sex marriage, removing 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, banning school prayer and preventing the death penalty for murderers and terrorists — because they can't win these issues at the ballot box.

America needs justices and judges who will join with Justices Scalia and Thomas to undo the damage done by secular extremists who purported to interpret the Constitution, but actually imposed their extremist agenda by judicial fiat, and to stop them from doing further damage.

So, Mr. President, you need to vindicate yourself, to excoriate your contemptible critics and to lead the Republican Party to electoral successes this year that will result in increased majorities in both the Senate and the House. So that more faithful justices and judges can be appointed, Social Security can be reformed, Anwar can be utilized, energy dependence can be reduced, beneficial temporary tax provisions can be made permanent, and government generally can be made more efficient, more responsive to the general welfare and less responsive to special interests.

Mr. President, you appreciate that gentlemanly behavior sometimes can endanger the Republic. You rightly authorized warrantless surveillance for national security purposes as part of the War on Terror: America's retaliation for the series of terrorist attacks that culminated in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in America's premier city (New York) and America's military headquarters (the Pentagon) and, but for the courage and skill of the Americans aboard a hijacked plane, perhaps the White House or the Capitol, and has continued around the world (but not in America).

Your shameless enemies charge that you, not the terrorists, are the gravest threat to the Republic, because you dared to authorize warrantless surveillance! That charge is so utterly ridiculous that it should thoroughly discredit those who make it. But, don't assume the major media will discredit them for you.

The major media have been out to discredit YOU since before you were elected President in 2000. CBS's Dan Rather made Florida much closer than it would have been in 2000, by falsely calling the state for Gore while the polls were still open in the Florida Panhandle, one of your strongholds. And, frustrated that he had failed to stop you in 2000, Rather tried again in 2004, with a phony story about your National Guard service based on forged documents. Your enemies did not fail for lack of effort.

Mr. President, your scurrilous enemies did not defeat you at the polls on Election Day in 2000, 2002 or 2004, but they have tried mightily and they have undermined your effectiveness since you were reelected by repeating lie after lie while you have reached out in an effort to wprk with them.

Mr. President, reaching out only works if the other is willing to work together. Your political enemies think bipartisan means you do what they want, you appoint their candidates, you support their causes, as though their candidates had won instead of lost.

Mr. President, you don't need that kind of bipartisanship, so stop treating your irredeemable enemies as respectable.

Remember the lesson of the gentlemanly Henry Stimson, a Republican who was President Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of War. In 1929, as Secretary of State, Stimson stupidly shut down MI-8, the State Department's crytanalytic office, saying, "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail."

Stimson learned and reversed this naive (and dangerous) attitude, thereby helping America to prevail in World War II.

Mr. President, please recognize that many of your political opponents are not gentleman and ladies and should not be treated as such. By treating them as such, you not only undercut yourself, but also enhance their credibility.

All you have accomplished by putting Bill Clinton on the same level as your father is to aid Bill Clinton's effort to rehabilitate himself and to increase the odds that Hillary will succeed you as President.

Not good, Mr. President.

Is Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D. Mass) a gentleman?

Of course not.

Please don't treat him as one.

On January 19, 2006, Wendy E. Long, counsel to The Judicial Confirmation Network, issued the following statement regarding Senator Kennedy's official announcement opposing Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court:

"It is always a welcome day when the American people are presented with clear choices. Senator Kennedy's announcement today demonstrates once again the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the opposition to Judge Alito. The character assassins of the Left have the perfect spokesman in Senator Kennedy. Not content with his embarrassing display of intemperance, ignorance and generally boorish behavior during hearing week, Senator Kennedy summarized his opposition to Judge Alito by claiming Judge Alito was not 'committed to equal justice under law.'

"This is a despicable charge to level at a sitting federal judge. But that is what America has come to expect from Senator Kennedy. That is why we welcome his announced opposition. The choice is clear.

"The ABA - no conservative organization - and his fellow judges and former law clerks, including many Democrats, all sing the highest praises for this good man and his decision making as a judge. Most major newspapers around the country, even liberal ones, have endorsed Judge Alito. It is only the Ted Kennedy-ACLU wing of the Democratic Party that persists in opposing him. Senator Kennedy's Democrat colleagues now need to make their choice."

The perpetually pleasant Ms. Long did not shy away from the challenge of the opposition or accord it undeserved respectability. Instead she wrote of "the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the opposition to Judge Alito" and "[t]he character assassins of the Left," calling Senator Kennedy their "perfect spokesman," cited his "embarrassing display of intemperance, ignorance and generally boorish behavior during hearing week" and characterizing his charge that Judge Alito was not "committed to equal justice under law" exactly what it is: "despicable" and "what America has come to expect from Senator Kennedy."

A week earlier. Ms. Long took the hypocritical Senator Kennedy to task over his membership in an elitist, sexist club (the Owls):

"Let me get this straight: Sam Alito, who worked hard in New Jersey public schools, got into Princeton on his own merits, took his meals in the coed dining hall and had nothing to do with the all-male Princeton eating clubs, is getting guff from Ted Kennedy, Boston elitist who got into (and stayed into) Harvard on, um, other people's merits, and who just a few months ago reconfirmed his membership in the Owl Club, which according to the Washington Times <http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060112-042556-7237r.htm> has 'long been reviled on campus as sexist and elitist, and in 1984, was booted from the university for violating federal anti-discrimination laws.'&#8221;

THAT is the way to deal with Senator Kennedy. Not to thank him politely for showing up for a bill signing for which he shows up because he figures it is in his interest to do so.

On January 30, 2006, Ms. Long issued this statement on the U. S. Senate vote to break the filibuster of Judge Alito&#8217;s nomination to the United States Supreme Court:

&#8220;This Ted Kennedy-John Kerry filibuster is the first partisan minority filibuster of a Supreme Court Justice in U. S. history. It is not something for liberal Democrats to be proud of. Last week, liberals twisted the arm of Minority Leader Harry Reid so far that he cried 'uncle' and agreed to a leadership-led filibuster of an extremely well-qualified judge who is supported by Americans two-to-one and by a bipartisan majority of Senators. This was not a smart move.

&#8220;Moreover, Senators who vote for cloture today but will vote against Judge Alito tomorrow are silly to think the cloture vote will be a fig leaf for them to hide from their constituents. John Kerry&#8217;s ploy of &#8216;I-voted- for-him-before-I-voted-against-him&#8217; will not fly.&#8221;

Mr. President, THESE are the kind of remarks that you should use your bully pulpit to share with the American people.

Judge Alito is your nominee. An excellent one. Like now Chief Judge Roberts.

Much of the opposition to Judge Alito is contemptible. Please say it, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the Democrats' concept of "civil liberties" is perverse:

(1) freedom from religion instead of freedom of religion;

(2) a woman's "right" to be legally terminated by a faithless husband who wants to move on with his life instead of saved by her loving parents and siblings;

(3) preborn babies with no right to life;

(4) husbands with no right to notification that their preborn babies are about to be aborted;

(5) parents with no right to notification that their adolescent daughters are contemplating abortion;

(6) children not to be searched by police but to be used by drug dealers; and

(7) individual Americans being able to communicate privately with terrorists abroad instead of having that "right" trumped by America's right to protect itself from terrorist attack.

Mr. President, please promote your fundamentally American values forthrightly and frankly instead of playing into the hands of your virulent political enemies by being excessively polite with and to them.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/11972.html

 

[Mariner]

as dumb as all of you here think, and are feeling pessimistic for good reasons:

1. The economy is not doing all that well. Despite massive federal deficits, which should stimulate it, a war, which often kick-starts an economy, and trickle-down-voodoo theory, almost all of the gains in the economy have accrued to corporations, the wealthiest of the leisure/investor class, and the very top management of corporations. (I finally saw a theory for why CEO salaries have gone through the roof--small investors can't apply the same pressure to boards of directors as the large investors of old could. So the chummy boards give their CEO's golden packages.) The average American, however, has stagnating wages over the past thirty years, even as his/her productivity has nearly doubled (all that extra productivity was siphoned off by the company). In 2005 alone 1,000,000 more people lost health insurance, up to 46 million now--which has risen continuously under Bush. Poverty has increased, the number of children in poverty have increased, and the minimum wage is now at its lowest effective buying power in 50 years. There are 600,000 American children homeless. "Compassionate conservatives" could apparently care less.

2. The war in Iraq, which the president was starry-eyed enough to think was over nearly 3 years ago, has now killed 2242 U.S. soldiers and injured 16,000. And over time, despite the White House's fanatical attempts to avoid investigations, spending $8 billion a year to classify every scrap of paper in sight, every bit of information that has leaked out about how the war was promoted has gone in only one direction: Bush & Co. distorted the evidence to make us feel more at risk than we were. We don't have to pretend he lied--he admitted it, when he spoke 16 words about uranium from Niger in that State of the Union address. WMD's? Didn't exist. Aluminum tubes for centrifuges? Known wrong. Powell's address to the U.N.? A "blot," he says, on his career. People aren't stupid--as the info has come out, their support of the war has gone down proportionally. A group of Iraq veterans, led by one who lost both legs, protested Bush's speech tonight.

3. Morally speaking, many Americans--including many Republicans, though not the PC crowd here who love all Bush does--have been horrified by the Bush approach to human rights, which includes Abu Ghraib (why were no high officials blamed?), Guantanamo, renditions, and our very own gulag. I believe most Americans are not comfortable handing gov't the power to starve, freeze, "waterboard," etc. prisoners--many of whom turn out to be innocent, and a couple of whom have embarrassingly turned out to be European citizens of good standing. A couple of dozen have died in our captivity. Republicans, who want small non-intrusive gov't, should be the first to call for limiting gov't power to abuse humans--whether citizens or not. Holding people for years without legal representation goes against the most basic American instincts of freedom.

4. Bush's disregard for government (the famous Norquist dictum that it should be "drowned in a bathtub") has shown its ugly side, in the botched response to Katrina and the mine disasters in W. Va. The second disaster, in particular, would obviously have been prevented if the company in question had been forced to follow the already-written rules--but a lax, "business-friendly" Bush administration handed out miniature fines rather than interfering with profit-making. Exxon announced the biggest profits in its history this week--27% larger than last year's record profit. So who got a tax break from Bush? Oil companies. Enron, Tyco, and other scandals have taken some of the luster from the electorate's view of unbridled capitalism.

5. The view of the rest of the world of the U.S. is at a modern low. In a recent poll of people around the world, we no longer rank as the ideal place to live--Australia gets that one. Our standing among Muslim countries is particularly troubling, since it is disgruntled Muslims who are most likely to join our most serious real enemy here--Al Qaeda.

This has been the worst year of Bush's presidency. It's not the mainstream media's doing (though I admit they're not always fair): it's his.

Mariner.

 

[manu1959]

Im astounded at the recent polls showing a large majority of Americans believe we are headed in the wrong direction.

Thank God we have had no terror attacks here, the economy is doing great, consumer confidence is up so high that people are not even saving money but are instead spending it like crazy.

So what direction are we supposed to be heading in if this isn't the right one?

who the hell are they polling?

 

[Bonnie]

This gives a pretty good start:

That really cuts to the meat!! Great post!

 

[Avatar4321]

They probably polled Democrats like usual.

Honestly I have a very positive view of the future, even with my feeling that we will have a civil war soon. This is because I know that I will be alright if I trust God and that even if we have to go through trying times things will work out.

It always gets darker right before the dawn. We live in interesting times and we will see many prophecies fulfilled before our eyes. I wonder how many people will recognize them.

 

[Adam's Apple]

This gives a pretty good start:

Excellent article, Screaming Eagle. I just hope the kindness and friendship extended to Bill Clinton by the Bush family does not end up with a knife in the back, but given the history........

 

[rtwngAvngr]

as dumb as all of you here think, and are feeling pessimistic for good reasons:

1. The economy is not doing all that well. Despite massive federal deficits, which should stimulate it, a war, which often kick-starts an economy, and trickle-down-voodoo theory, almost all of the gains in the economy have accrued to corporations, the wealthiest of the leisure/investor class, and the very top management of corporations. (I finally saw a theory for why CEO salaries have gone through the roof--small investors can't apply the same pressure to boards of directors as the large investors of old could. So the chummy boards give their CEO's golden packages.) The average American, however, has stagnating wages over the past thirty years, even as his/her productivity has nearly doubled (all that extra productivity was siphoned off by the company). In 2005 alone 1,000,000 more people lost health insurance, up to 46 million now--which has risen continuously under Bush. Poverty has increased, the number of children in poverty have increased, and the minimum wage is now at its lowest effective buying power in 50 years. There are 600,000 American children homeless. "Compassionate conservatives" could apparently care less.

By any standard measure, the economy is doing well. Rich people getting richer? Imagine that. That can't be right.

2. The war in Iraq, which the president was starry-eyed enough to think was over nearly 3 years ago, has now killed 2242 U.S. soldiers and injured 16,000. And over time, despite the White House's fanatical attempts to avoid investigations, spending $8 billion a year to classify every scrap of paper in sight, every bit of information that has leaked out about how the war was promoted has gone in only one direction: Bush & Co. distorted the evidence to make us feel more at risk than we were. We don't have to pretend he lied--he admitted it, when he spoke 16 words about uranium from Niger in that State of the Union address. WMD's? Didn't exist. Aluminum tubes for centrifuges? Known wrong. Powell's address to the U.N.? A "blot," he says, on his career. People aren't stupid--as the info has come out, their support of the war has gone down proportionally. A group of Iraq veterans, led by one who lost both legs, protested Bush's speech tonight.

Clinton thought he had em. So did kerry. And he might have. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

3. Morally speaking, many Americans--including many Republicans, though not the PC crowd here who love all Bush does--have been horrified by the Bush approach to human rights, which includes Abu Ghraib (why were no high officials blamed?), Guantanamo, renditions, and our very own gulag. I believe most Americans are not comfortable handing gov't the power to starve, freeze, "waterboard," etc. prisoners--many of whom turn out to be innocent, and a couple of whom have embarrassingly turned out to be European citizens of good standing. A couple of dozen have died in our captivity. Republicans, who want small non-intrusive gov't, should be the first to call for limiting gov't power to abuse humans--whether citizens or not. Holding people for years without legal representation goes against the most basic American instincts of freedom.

The bush approach to human rights? What's at question is the democratic approach to war.

4. Bush's disregard for government (the famous Norquist dictum that it should be "drowned in a bathtub") has shown its ugly side, in the botched response to Katrina and the mine disasters in W. Va. The second disaster, in particular, would obviously have been prevented if the company in question had been forced to follow the already-written rules--but a lax, "business-friendly" Bush administration handed out miniature fines rather than interfering with profit-making. Exxon announced the biggest profits in its history this week--27% larger than last year's record profit. So who got a tax break from Bush? Oil companies. Enron, Tyco, and other scandals have taken some of the luster from the electorate's view of unbridled capitalism.

Corporate taxes are embedded in the price and passed to consumers, everytime.

5. The view of the rest of the world of the U.S. is at a modern low. In a recent poll of people around the world, we no longer rank as the ideal place to live--Australia gets that one. Our standing among Muslim countries is particularly troubling, since it is disgruntled Muslims who are most likely to join our most serious real enemy here--Al Qaeda.

This has been the worst year of Bush's presidency. It's not the mainstream media's doing (though I admit they're not always fair): it's his.

Mariner.

Bush is sitting pretty. Your side looks like ridiculous fools at every turn.

And I don't care how people from theocracies where the bible is illegal judge us.

 

[Hobbit]

By any standard measure, the economy is doing well. Rich people getting richer? Imagine that. That can't be right.

Clinton thought he had em. So did kerry. And he might have. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The bush approach to human rights? What's at question is the democratic approach to war.

Corporate taxes are embedded in the price and passed to consumers, everytime.


Bush is sitting pretty. Your side looks like ridiculous fools at every turn.

And I don't care how people from theocracies where the bible is illegal judge us.

I'd like to address the two bolded portions.

First, Georges Sadas, who used to be the Iraqi military's top dog, knows for a fact that those weapons went to Syria and who recieved them, just not where they went from there. The U.S. is currently trying to pick up the trail, and if we find them, I think you're going to see the worst Democratic meltdown since Bush unquestionably won a second term.

Second, corporations do not pay taxes...ever...seriously. Corporations are incapable of accumulating wealth, so they cannot pay taxes, only collect them, which means they have to collect them from the shareholders, the employees, or the customer. It's almost always the customer. Corporate taxes are the biggest sham in a tax code rife with them. What corporate taxes accomplish is that they allow politicians, usually Democrats, to tax the people up to their eyeballs and get thanked for the favor.

 

[archangel]

Im inclined to agree that outsourcing and our very unsecured borders are troubling and should be, however the economy is still doing very well, unemployment is very low, and if Greenspan would just leave office already and stop raising interest rates the market would have rallied heavily today.

this has absolutely nothing to do with interest rates...it boils down to corporate greed...pure and simple and both major parties are guilty...the 2B trade deficit I used earlier was a monthly average...the 2005 trade deficit with China for 2005 was 45.8 B...service jobs created to fill the gap for production job loss is some 40% lower then the wages factory workers earned and do not include benifits such as health care...you hun are living in a bubble!

 

[Bonnie]

this has absolutely nothing to do with interest rates...it boils down to corporate greed...pure and simple and both major parties are guilty...the 2B trade deficit I used earlier was a monthly average...the 2005 trade deficit with China for 2005 was 45.8 B...service jobs created to fill the gap for production job loss is some 40% lower then the wages factory workers earned and do not include benifits such as health care...you hun are living in a bubble!

Well Arch not every economist thinks the trade and budget deficits are a horrible thing. The ones who do usually recommend decreased military spending and the federal government raising taxes to balance the demestic budget which is exaclty what Clinton did. If your suggesting that diminished corporate profits are driving companies to other countries maybe our government should offer incentives via tax breaks to keep companies here employing our citizens. Im not entirely convinced it's all corporate greed, Im sure some of it is. I don't buy the nation in declinist theory completely as we still are very competetive in the technology market and I think we will remain so without having to become isolationists in fact it probably will make us more competetive with countries like Japan who spend about half of what we do in technolgy research and China. I think we are in a transition and not heading for a crash. You can think me naive if you want.