Odd Man Out

Last night I went back and read a ViCad thread that started as a letter about Sarah Palin way back in 2008, and ended 256 posts later as anything but Sarah Palin; it convinced me that we just talk past each other when it comes to politics. Everyone is entrenched in their beliefs (some more than others) and at the end of the day it's just another stalemate. I realize this but being the usual “odd man out” in our conservative county, I just want to add my opinion to the discussion.

I just finished reading Alton's blog where he was describing "critical thinking" but he blew it in his first example. His attempt to exonerate President George W. Bush for his role in the 2008 financial crisis is baseless. He attempted to blame the Democrats because he said that they controlled the last two years of the Bush administration. The Democrats did win the 2006 elections but they didn't take office until January of 2007 and Bush always had the veto pen. The two wars, the Bush tax cuts and the seven trillion dollar prescription drug bill had already been passed and both parties were in reelection mode by June of 2008. It's another attempt of I'm trying to be the reasonable one if just those guys on the other side would do the same. I'm doing the same thing with the link I providing to prove it's the other sides’ fault for the gridlock. I do agree with his example on racism.

Bob Munoz's blog caused a stir but instead of the accuser coming forward and apologizing; the blog became a place to settle old scores about Obama, Palin, and other posters. I was surprised it didn't turn into another Trayvon Martin blog. For the record, I’m a little surprised how some posters are dismissive of Palin’s obvious negatives and would actually trust her to run to this country.Really, some posters compared her voluntarily quitting her job as governor to Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevic, who wound up in prison for trying to sell a political position. I don't recall one Democrat coming to his side nor to New York's Congressman Anthony Weiner either.

I left the work place several years before President Obama was elected, so I don't know what the scuttlebutt is is about having to defend oneself from being called a racist if someone doesn't agree with the president's policy. I know that that is a minor belief held by the right on the national front because I hear the pundits talking about it. It is my opinion that if you're not a racist, you shouldn't have to prove it because it's like that age old question" when was the last time you beat your wife?" I don't care if a person likes President Obama or his policies and of course they have a right to post their opinions but I also have a right to rebut. I'm not a salesman or a recruiter and I prefer for those persons who don't like the president to stay in their respective parties. I know metaphorically people will always blame the current president for all the ills; that's human nature but myths can be debunked. For instance, the right likes to compare President Obama with President Carter because of the latter's failed presidency. Mitt Romney is starting to do that and Obama is comparing Romney to President Bush. President Carter is very different from President Obama because Carter was a southern conservative Democrat; he was what we call today a blue dog democrat and that's probably why the former president said that he would not be frighten by a Romney presidency.

I was just a teenager when the Republican Party last took a far right turn. It was not surprising to read that a study by distinguished political science professor Keith Poole proved that with his analysis, that Republicans are to blame for the gridlock.

"Poole assessed all of the Republican and Democratic votes in the House and Senate from 1879 to 2011, and plotted both parties on a liberal to conservative axis. Poole’s study shows that beginning right around 1980, House Republicans began to vote in strict partisan lines considerably more than Democrats."

http://tinyurl.com/8456l8z

I know that republicans who are reading this are saying "that's bunk" because they hold Democrats just as responsible for our polarization but that's not the case. The conservative democrats are usually republicans who can't win their party's nomination in a conservative district. For the most part Democrats are Keynesians and republicans of today are for austerity measures to obtain their new goal of smaller government and no taxes increases. The republicans of today know that they have to cut the legs out underneath the government at all levels. They will use words like welfare, nanny state, food stamps and government programs in the pejorative because if government policies were ever considered a solution, it would be easier to tax the wealthy and cut spending on their favorite expenditures.

I was listening to a Senator Marco Rubio's speech the other day where he said that his parents never wanted the government to redistribute the wealth and give it to them. I thought about that for a minute and said to myself" hey, my parents didn't either." Mr. Rubio conveniently leaves out the fact that Cubans that reached our shore received an automatic path to citizenship. It's like Supreme Court Justice Thomas, who is a product of affirmative action, but has always ruled against it. It's one of those" do as I say do not as I do."

I was watching a "Frontline" special about the power big oil has. For example, when a Nigerian diplomat asked President George W. Bush as to why he didn't call up the old giant executives and demand that they quickly clean up their spill off the coast of his country and compensate those involved, the president said" I can't do that , those guys are too powerful."

Allow me to reiterate, I'm usually speaking about the national party and if I'm speaking about individual posters, it's usually about their ideology because I realize they don't have any control over the national party.

In closing,  last night Rachel Maddow showed a New York Times chart showing that government has always grown under a Republican president and has always shrunk under a democratic president. I’ll have to double check that article before I post it on the VA,  and it has to leave a message  I want to convey...:-) Those carts are tricky sometimes.