(10-05-2018, 11:10 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:(10-05-2018, 09:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Amicable divorce? In view of the sadistic tendencies in one part of American culture, I expect it to be as nasty as the dissolution of Yugoslavia. There are some very Red areas in some Blue states and very Blue areas in some Red states.
The obsession which you reds, Classic Xer, have, is entirely due to brainwashing. Taxes were not a big concern until Reagan, Prop 13, etc., the sleepening that happened near the end of the last Awakening 2T. That's ALL it is. It's neo-liberalism, libertarian economics, supply side, whatever you call it; it is nothing but BULLSHIT. YOu are brainwashed into thinking you should not have to pay taxes, because government is the problem, taxes are theft, taxes are coercion, job creaters create jobs, yadda yadda yadda, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. And it's is the main cause of all our problems today in the USA. And you Gen Xers grew up knowing nothing better than what the charming actor and his successors and followers have told you.
Many of us Xers remember Nixon, Ford and Carter in addition to the stagflation of the seventies which is a legacy of the Vietnam War and the War on poverty which were both very expensive. These two things were paid for by monetizing the debt. Which is another name for printing a bunch of currency and then buying financial assets. The better informed will recognize this as basically the same process as QE.
Taxes became a concern in the late seventies because of the loss of purchasing power due to inflation and what was known as bracket creep. One of the things Eric the Obtuse and the Keynesian types will never admit is that inflation tends to harm those with lower income simply because the purchasing power of currency decreases while financial and tangible assets increase in nominal terms. This increase in asset prices tends to benefit the wealthy since they are more likely to own such assets rather than simply hold cash which those with lower incomes tend to do.
In many ways voting for Reagan was a rejection of the usual suspects from the political class as much as voting for Trump was in 2016. One thing that is not commonly recognized is that the GOP establishment has been at war with its own base for decades. Trump was not campaigning on a neocon platform which all of his GOP competitors and Hillary were. Even Rand Paul was sounding far more neocon than he usually does which was no doubt due to his campaign advisors. Given that red states provide so many soldiers it is hardly surprising that so many in the GOP want the wars to end and no one other than Trump in 2016 gave them the slightest hope of that happening.
I went to school with someone that died in the Iraq War. He was not the sharpest knife in the drawer which is why he ended up the the army to begin with. He managed to get a silver star which means that he did not go down easily and is something I would expect from an Xer. Xers tend to be survivors and one characteristic of survivors is to not give up until someone plants you into the ground. Having lived around the people that so many Dims despise and yet have never met gives me a better feel for why they support Trump than Eric the Obtuse and his ilk ever will.
Consider for a moment why evangelicals would continue to support Trump even in spite of Stormy Daniels. There is an easily accessible reason for this that the Dims such as Eric the Obtuse will never admit to.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises