01-16-2019, 08:58 PM
(01-15-2019, 08:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Remember: The House and Senate or Legislative Branch controls the budget and Nancy Pelosi is involved just for show at this point and is only along for the ride at this point. It really boils down to Chuck or Trump and their toughness and their willingness to see this through regardless of the outcome and who prefers who as far as who the American MALE voters are more likely to identify with and support at this point or show up in mass to support support in 2020. I can't stand liberal wimps who bow down to lesser/ weaker women regardless of whether they're right or wrong, lying or seriously lacking legitimate proof, whether they're chosen or hand picked and advanced because they happen to be a woman instead of a man and so forth.
Speaker of the House is arguably the second-most powerful person in America. If not on specific functions, it is for legislation and oversight of the conduct of the Executive Branch. It is no mere ceremonial role; Nancy Pelosi is responsible as the highest-ranking Democrat and head of a House of Congress when in opposition to the President.
Unless she has changed since 2011, I have never thought of her as a weak figure in American government. She impresses me as a chilly rationalist, which does not define one as a strong leader, but chilly rationality seems to be a hallmark of every strong and benign leader that I have ever known of in political leadership. If you see her as weak, then you stand to be burned. Besides, some of us liberals are tougher characters than you might think. Many liberals did the manly thing against the gangster regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.
Quote:I mean, are illegal blue citizens really worth all the sacrifices that American workers are being expected to make for them these days.
Illegal citizens? I think you misspoke. You probably mean 'illegal aliens'. if an illegal alien does real work, obeys the law on matters other than citizenship status, and speaks passable English, then he may never be detected. Even a commonplace conviction for DUI or minor drug violations as good for deportation. An American-born citizen who commits plenty of crimes has no fear of being sent back to some other country.
Illegal aliens have children, and many of those children are citizens by birth. We never know which one has promise and which one doesn't. Which kid has a better chance in America -- some kid whose parents are illegal aliens who shower affection on their children and strongly promote learning among their kids -- or white children born to parents heavily involved in meth, who inspire contempt for the legal system and defend their children's inadequate performance in school? I'm talking about parents who let their kids stay up until half-past Letterman and console their kids who say "that mean English teacher has us doing homework again!"
Sure, I have no children, but in view of how unforgiving our economic system can be, I am going to tell a child that that teacher has a good reason for assigning that homework, and that I insist that it be done with meticulous effort as I did as a child. If the work is difficult -- well, nobody ever achieves much by doing something easy. It is far easier to get ahead in America by using one's mind than by doing raw labor, although the latter may be necessary at times.
Quote:I agree with Trumps view as well. I thinks it's probably best to get the elitist blue (queen Nancy) out of the way early so the next two years aren't a complete loss as far as getting things down for the American people for a change vs doing nothing done like the politicians of old who are now working for CCN and MSNBC were doing with their time and our money less than a decade ago. I mean, if you ain't a mover and shaker politician these days, what good are you these days. I'm there's got to be some reddish minded blues who understand the value of making progress and being associated with actual accomplishments vs being viewed as a liberal only who is only interested in voting liberal and going along with liberals.
Except for his crass vulgarity (he acts much like someone who won the Super-Duper Megabucks Lottery) he is as blatant an elitist as there is. He is the sort of person who stays ahead by making sure that others fail -- which is pathological leadership in business or government.
No, one does not need to be a mover-and-shaker in politics, business, or academia to be of value. Honest work should be adequate, and that applies to the people who pick our crops, sweep cow droppings in a dairy, change bedpans, clean toilets, or do other work that nobody does when he has a viable alternative. People who do such things cannot hide any inadequacies of their performance of their jobs, unlike the worthless (and often lavishly-paid) poseurs that seduce their ways into highly-respected positions.
As it is the current GOP seems to have sold its soul to get power; it either can't yet see that Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster or it is unwilling to recognize him as such (with few exceptions, most notably when Mitt Romney called Donald Trump the dishonest, corrupt, cruel, intolerant, and bigoted figure that he is. How bad is Donald Trump? He makes me regret supporting Obama in 2012 because I would rather be going into the seventh year of a Romney Presidency instead of into the third of a Trump Presidency.
You underestimate my subtlety as a thinker, I may see absolute right and wrong, and extreme disparities between truth and falsehood at times -- but I also recognize the desirability of human virtue, part of which is overall competence (that Trump lacks), integrity (that Trump lacks), self-control (that Trump lacks), ability to learn from errors (that Trump lacks), and decency toward people in bad situations (that Trump lacks). It may be easy to see those in Obama.. but I look at the record of some conservatives such as Ford and Eisenhower, and I see in Donald Trump someone that falls far short of either.
Let's think again of formal education. It has a classical purpose in improving a youth who endures it. So there is more to life than "sex and drugs and rock-and-roll"? Yup! There is also more to life than material indulgence, bureaucratic power, pleasure-seeking, and getting onto the executive fast track. If someone goes to a four-year college and decides to take a low-paying profession such as fish-and-wildlife officer, clergy in a depressed area, social worker, or librarian -- then that is not failure. Maybe one has found a calling, which is far better than drifting along in life or living as a thrall of consumerism. Someone fortunately educated does not need a penthouse with a glorious view, a Mercedes, a stable of fine riding horses, fine silver, and other accoutrements of class privilege. It is best that one recognize their emptiness. I would always have been satisfied with the means of a garage mechanic. I might not make the same consumer choices as a blue-collar worker, as I would have a house full of books -- and a collection of classical music and great old movies. Maybe I would buy some art to go along. I just wouldn't buy into the mass low culture which is as empty as the vulgarity of Donald Trump.
Quote:I mean, she looks good until she opens her mouth and the mind of a clueless blue comes out.
I have known smart liberals and smart conservatives. The difference is not in their mental abilities; it is in their core values. But I know how to appeal to the core values of conservatives on some issues that I consider pressing. I was all for homosexual rights once I was gay-bashed... and I told one arch-conservative that the fault with the gay-bashing was a gross disrespect for the conservative value of law and order that give human rights, including property rights that people staunchly favor, their validity. I told another arch-conservative, a religious fundamentalist, that nobody is ever going to lead a homosexual to Jesus through a beating.
Quote: If blue brains worked properly, the blue would be able to see that there are larger problems like illegal immigration ( an issue that costs America a hell of a lot more money and causes a lot more issues for American citizens than the idea of building a wall) and healthcare costs which Obamacare wasn't ever really intended to address or fix.
On the other hand, certain people make money off greater competition for real estate (higher rents and property valuations), more costly infrastructure (more people using highways that must often be widened expensively), and fuel consumption (more demand means higher prices for us all). Meanwhile, more population by any means (and a birth rate high enough to get the same population would have the same effect) implies that more people compete for such jobs as there are, especially in declining industries.
When it comes to the cost of living, including the unspoken costs of traffic jams, resource depletion, pollution, and the ugliness of suburban sprawl, 350 million people, 50 million of which might be illegal aliens, and 350 million people of whom nobody is an illegal alien, would be much the same. Life really was easier when there were fewer Americans. Real estate alone was far more affordable. Fuel was incredibly cheap. To be sure, some things have gotten better due to regulation and taxation -- we no longer use leaded gasoline (which probably explains why crime rates are far lower now than in the 1960s*), people don't smoke and drink (and especially don't drive drunk) as much, highway deaths are down -- way down -- because the roads that people now use most heavily are far safer as are the cars that people now use, we have better medical technology to save our lives, and better technology of entertainment. But whether such would have been possible with a population of 180 million as in 1960 or the 350 million that we now have is not so obvious.
As for the cost of building a wall -- I can think of plenty of alternative uses for the funds on infrastructure, like building rural freeways that will give much of America access to first-rate highways that it does not now have. I can think of some routes on a mental map -- like extending Interstate 27 to Midland-Odessa from Lubbock and in turn to Interstate 10 or to the southeast through Abilene along US 84 and then south along US 83 to Interstate 10. Hastening the building of Interstate 11 connecting Las Vegas and Phoenix would connect the two largest cities at such distance that do not have an Interstate connection would be more popular in Arizona than a wall at the Mexican border. Connecting Calexico and the Mexican border to Interstate 10 would serve California far better than would building a border wall. Or maybe if you want a real interstate solution to traffic, then connect Amarillo to El Paso (Interstate 28?) with a new freeway. New expressway in underdeveloped rural areas does far more economic good than will building a white elephant of a border wall that the next Democratic President will cut off funding for. 310, 11, 28, and 27 all make more sense than a wall which will never get any goods to market, will never foster local development, will never cut traffic fatalities -- but will be full of cost over-runs, will bring environmental degradation, and will disrupt local economies.
As little as I trust President Trump, I would not be surprised to find that the Russian Mafia has already gotten its hooks into the President for graft in the greatest boondoggle that any pol has ever thought up.
By the way -- I do not live in the American Southwest. I am simply suggesting alternative infrastructure of a type whose costs and benefits are already well known. Improved mass transit might be more desirable than highways from an ecological standpoint.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.