The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(04-11-2020, 12:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-11-2020, 09:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: A few year's ago, there was a huge bruhaha in Denmark over the abuse of their welfare system by one exceptionally devious person.  The sums involved were not huge, but they were substantial enough to merit the charge.  The response from the public: she should be punished, but the system should remain as-is.  Their justification?  The system did good for the recipients and the nation as a whole.  Making it less generous and more onerous to use would defeat that, so leave it alone.  That's what happened.  Abuse didn't skyrocket; in fact, it may have declined.  The Danes are happy.

Try that here.

Reasonable for the Danes.  They are not trying to be the world’s policeman.  They can afford to be helpful to their own people.

But I was more interested in getting something from Classic other than reporting on his own ignorance and bias.  Stopping welfare abuse is not one of my big issues.  It is just rather than announcing what is wrong, how would he go about fixing it?  After decades of trying to cut domestic spending, I would have thought that angle would have been pursued by the reds about as far as it could go.

If there are ten options on the table, and two or three of them consist of ideological memes particular to a group, that group will be hard pressed to pull away, even in the face of continuous failure.  That tends to change when the cost of ideological obedience becomes personally threatening.  So here we are with a situation that can addressed in several ways, at least for now.  Will that still be true in a few weeks? I suspect not, if the memes get traction and the President takes action.  The President's basic instinct favors the market over people.  Most people, on the other hand, favor life over wealth, and that may be the breaking point.

There is a diabolical sidebar issue though.  Apparently, some old cold-war crisis powers are still on the books, and here is where the diabolical part emerges, they apply without oversight and are classified at the highest level. In other words, Trump may be able to do some really nasty stuff, and do it in secret. That includes martial law and exercising his sole authority to spend funds, appropriated or not.