How was firing these jerks any form of deception? He gave them notice, they didn’t return after violating federal law, so he did what any responsible CEO should do with insubordination. He canned them. What is your beef with that and what negative precedent could that possibly set?

It gave businesses a way out of being the responsible and profitable community steward. Less of that and more of the Jack Welch variety that depersonalized business save for the legal definition.

The deception is that it was going to help the nation – but it came at the cost of reducing human lives to mere statistics.

sethstorm on January 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM

Even if I were to accept your premise (which I don’t), you think that damns someone to hell?

anuts on January 29, 2009 at 10:14 PM

In the lib mindset, that’s being lenient.

sethstorm on January 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM

Even if I were to accept your premise (which I don’t), you think that damns someone to hell?

• PATCO and the precedent it has set, reaching far beyond mere unions.

How was firing these jerks any form of deception? He gave them notice, they didn’t return after violating federal law, so he did what any responsible CEO should do with insubordination. He canned them. What is your beef with that and what negative precedent could that possibly set?

For:

• PATCO and the precedent it has set, reaching far beyond mere unions.
• For allowing an open-season on the manufacturing belt without thinking of the consequences.

sethstorm on January 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM

It’s Reagan’s fault that US manufacturing lost the competitive edge? Have you examined what was going on in the 70s?

In what way? Please explain. Thanks.

anuts on January 29, 2009 at 9:48 PM

For:

• PATCO and the precedent it has set, reaching far beyond mere unions.
• For allowing an open-season on the manufacturing belt without thinking of the consequences.

bullseye on January 29, 2009 at 10:38 AM

Like lemmings off to a crevasse in Alaska.

sethstorm on January 29, 2009 at 7:44 PM

Meanwhile, this fat pig of a so-called stimulus bill is sinking in public estimation as we speak. Who’s the lemmings here?

Most likely, Reagan’s already there.

sethstorm on January 29, 2009 at 9:30 PM

In what way? Please explain. Thanks.

If I am right about his character, their only consolation will be that there is a very special place reserved in Hell for those people who so treacherously deceive their own….

pomerpants on January 29, 2009 at 8:04 PM

Most likely, Reagan’s already there.

Real working-class folks, [Orwell] says, might be drawn toward a socialist future centered around family life, the pub, football, and local politics. But those who speak in its name, he says, have a snobbish condescension toward such quotidian pleasures—even condemning coffee and tea. “Reformers” urged the poor to eat healthier food—less sugar, more brown bread. And their audience balked.

“Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like organs and wholemeal bread, or [raw carrots]?” Orwell asks. “Yes it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would rather starve than live on brown bread and more carrots … a millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits. An unemployed man doesn’t.”

The perennial struggle of Democratic contenders to appeal to ordinary Americans seems very much of a piece with Orwell’s sharp descriptions. Election after election, Democrats argue that once Joe and Jane Sixpack fully grasp the wisdom of the latest six-point college-loan program, or of an 800-page health-care scheme, they will come to wave the Democratic banner. And, sometimes, these voters do just that—provided that the candidate in question has demonstrated a sense that he or she is not treating them as the subject of an anthropological study.

But before the illusion vanishes, he has one more grift to play them for — the economy. And now they are convinced that his is the only way, and the only reason for opposition is pure evil, and they are willing to sacrifice the welfare of their grandchildren for their own personal short-term gain, such as it is (i.e. total ennervation and dimminution of their own personalities).

If I am right about his character, their only consolation will be that there is a very special place reserved in Hell for those people who so treacherously deceive their own….

He’s not shocked by a shake down — he’s pulling one right now. His lieutenant reveals the true purpose of the bill is to stoke the fears of “the masses” (in the words of Saul Alinsky), and use their fear to institute a socialist state. Ahh, the sheeple….Ah, those worms…!

Such cynicism from Emanual is totally at odds with the message of hope and change from Obama. And right now the feeling they’re encouraging isn’t hope and change, anyway — its “fear and obey!”

I need to re-read my Orwell and Swift. Didn’t Orwell say something about liberals being in the vanguard of socialism? Didn’t Swift depict a boondoggle similar to the attempt to recreate the climate?

bullseye on January 29, 2009 at 10:38 AM

Like lemmings off to a crevasse in Alaska.

So, now your party is the party of no led by rush.

That is rich.

getalife on January 29, 2009 at 10:23 AM

It was in ’93 as well. How’d the Democrats do in ’94?

So what about my challenge? I am still waiting to learn just how the government can create jobs. Help me out.

Thanks.

Have a great day.

getalife on January 29, 2009 at 12:40 PM

You’re welcome. have a nice day.

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm

The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

Conclusion

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is di sproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm

http://www.house.gov

Maybe Obama should be reading his own governments website???
This is what those Republicans voting against the bill already know.
Quick – copy this page before Obama sees it!!!

Thanks.

Have a great day.

The founding fathers were right.

getalife on January 29, 2009 at 12:06 PM

Yes they were. The common bond they shared was their love of liberty. I a love so strong within them that they risked all for libery. In the end, reluctantly they fought a war with Great Britan to obtain liberty. Then they established our country to preserve liberty. It is not love of country it is love of liberty that made us free and keeps us free.
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America gave us a republic…in the words of ben franklin “if they can keep it”.

From George Washintons farewell address to the nation. His view of political parties. He was after all a republican but not a Republican.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

The founding fathers were right.

Think of it as “real Americans” thinking “country first”.

getalife on January 29, 2009 at 11:58 AM

Wrong. Think of it as founding fathers thinking how a corrupt politial party might influence some politicians. It actually goes against your point when you investigate it to any depth.

kanda on January 29, 2009 at 11:44 AM

Think of it as “real Americans” thinking “country first”.