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The purpose of this website

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 22:17
in

This is getting a bit frustrating.  I was initially attracted to this site because I thought it could be a place to discuss conservative strategy and ideas in a more-or-less safe environment - where I could discuss, e.g., how we could advance the cause of limited government without the shrill calls from the left about wanting to throw grandma out on the street.  But lately it seems this place has been overtaken by a bunch of leftists who, while they aren't exactly trolls, don't seem to have quite the same motives.  I mean, we have In Between who thinks that "tax cuts drained our economy", we have Jim Dandy who thinks Republicans want to "bulldoze public schools" and we have people like NextRightNando and RisingTide who appear to spend extraordinary amounts of time defending every government program, especially the welfare state itself.  It is frankly tiring all the time having to continually repeat "no, tax cuts don't need to be 'paid for', they actually generate more tax revenue for government" and "no, conservatives don't want to throw grandma out onto the street".  If I had wanted these same tired left-right battles I would go to a Usenet discussion forum, not a place labeled "The Next Right".  So I have to ask:

To our liberal interlopers: what is your reasoning for coming here?  Do you wish to instruct us wayward conservatives on the error of our ways?  Because, really, don't bother.  We don't want that kind of 'help'.  Do you want to help forge a new center-right consensus in this country?  Because I think we'd all appreciate the help.  But you have to understand that the consensus that we want to form is center-right, and repeating liberal myths about conservatism isn't going to help in that aspect either.

To my conservative colleagues: Am I just totally off-base here?  Is this place nothing more than a left-right battleground?  Or should we be talking more about advancing the cause itself?  Despite how dispiriting the last election was, I feel like I have more energy now to put towards seeing the conservative cause grow and prosper, but that energy is as yet unchanneled.

Thoughts?

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Comments

Don't feed them...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 22:56.

...and they will go away, 

 just like cockroaches.

ex animo

davidfarrar

 

Couldn't Agree More....

Submitted by Cahnman on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 23:03.

You're not even mildly off base.  chemjeff wrote:

Despite how dispiriting the last election was, I feel like I have more energy now to put towards seeing the conservative cause grow and prosper, but that energy is as yet unchanneled.

I feel exactly the same way and that's why I'm here.

 

Sorry for going all Katie Couric on you

Submitted by NextRightNando on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 23:22.

Well I'm sorry for going all Katie Couric on you, but if an idea doesn't stand up to a bit of scrutiny it is not much of an idea, is it?

Here's a site where you will be very happy: www.redstate.com

I'm sure...

Submitted by Cahnman on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 23:48.

...you understand the difference between scrutiny and being a jerk.

I like Redstate.

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 03:41.

I like Redstate.  In fact Redstate was my first introduction to the right-blogosphere so they have a special plce in my heart.  I appreciate what the folks over there like Erick Erickson are doing.  But I don't think they are activist enough for my taste, which is why I sought out other places such as here.

And do you see it as your role here to subject conservative ideas to scrutiny?  Fine, I have absolutely no problem with that.  My only beef is that this site seems to be degenerating into the typical left-vs-right ideological standoff, and I didn't think this place should be just another generic politics blog.  I was under the impression that this place should be for renewal of the conservative movement, and as such we should be on the same page in a broad sense.  Not to have ideological conformity, but to help shape our vision.  For example, when it comes to a complex subject like health care, we can have knock-down drag-out fights over lots of different conservative options for dealing with health care issues in this country.  But something like single-payer health insurance?  No way.  Absolutely not.  It is completely at odds with everything that conservatism stands for.  So I think it is a complete distraction, on a place like this blog, to constantly point out how much single-payer sucks.  And that's what I see these comment sections turning in to. 

But maybe I am the one that is completely out of line.  If that's the case then I'll happily move on to somewhere else.

RedState.com sucks

Submitted by Chance_Haywood on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 16:51.

RedState is a joke. If you disagree with thier core group they call you a troll and you get banned. (looks like we are headed that way here) A perfect example of that was the heavy handed nature they dealt with the Ron Paul supporters. Heck the only reason I'm here is because I was banned from RedState because I wouldn't bow at the alter of Israel. I'm no fan of how that country gets unwavering support for thier actions. I'm also no fan of Hamas. However that state isn't about having a discussion it is about promoting thier agenda.

 

 

I am for advancing our

Submitted by In between on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 00:07.

I am for advancing our country to prosperity. In any way, shape or form you want to spin it, the fact remains, Bush came in with a surplus and he threw it all away.

You say the tax cuts "don't have to be paid for." The money has to derive from somewhere. If he gives me a tax cut, where is that money coming from? You have not answered that. It doesn't come from thin air. You are still talking of hocus pocus. Heck, even Bush 41 called supply side economics as "voodoo economics." And he had to deal with the Reagan deficits.

The fact remains, he borrowed the money to give us tax cuts. And Bush borrowed the money for the war. Any economist will tell you that you cannot have tax cuts, a war, and not cut spending. It is impossible. Therefore you have deficits and debt. 

If you despise the left, then certainly you represent the far right which is also the road to tyranny.

All I ask is for good management. Now is that so hard to do? 

We know we have to cut spending. We know the infrastructure has been neglected. We know that we should be energy independent. We know that our jobs are going overseas and that we need to do something about that, we know we need science, research and development to move our country forward. And this is not socialism. It is management. CEO's manage, managers manage, coaches manage. Since when does a president not manage? What is so great with laissez-faire. Why let things fall apart?

 

That is sound

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 03:33.

The Laffer curve, where tax cuts generate revenue, has been discredited.  Even before it was discredited with concrete data, it was controversial.

Look at the numbers.  Ok, say decreasing taxes generates revenue.  What happens when we reduce taxes to zero?  Maybe we could get even more revenue by just giving away money-- send everyone a check.

Not a sound practice.

As Peter G Peterson said, "There is no such thing as a tax cut without a cut in spending.  Otherwise, it's a tax deferment plan."

 

Here's the other fallacy: treating all taxes as if they were the same.  I see that one a lot in this talk of 'Keynesian mnultipliers.'

So maybe the next election cycle we can hear GOP candidates say, "To hell with targeted tax cuts!  We really can't tell the difference one from the other!"

Amazingly enough, a lot of people advocate this position.

I think they perceive differentiation as a threat, mainly because they are trapped in 'all or nothing' false dichotomies that are eroded by nuance rather than enhanced by it.

 

Supply side is something different.

The fact is that every capitalist economy runs on a surplus of goods.

Supply side is unsound as a long-term policy, but is useful for short-term economic stimulus.

What is known now that was not known in Reagan's time is that supply side stimulus is subject to the same shortcomings as Keynesian stimulus; namely, that the economy loses its elasticity if the same technique is used over and over again too close together.  It makes more sense seeing a chart of it, but what happens is that expectations begin to be priced into the system.

The irony here is that using both types of stimulus in alternating cycles is likely to be more effective than the over-dependence on either one alone.  But that would emphasize effectiveness as a criterion rather than reliance on ideology (in those cases where ideology does not emphasize effectiveness).

 

Paul Craig Roberts wrote that true conservatives were the first victims of Bush's neocon team.  That's how I feel, and I know of others that do the same.

The GOP has been locked into being Bush apologists for way too long.

It's time to take off the blinders and sort out our differences. 

Give it up.

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:01.

Really, what do you hope to accomplish here by trying to claim that "the Laffer Curve has been discredited"?  It hasn't.  That is just complete bunkum.  In fact you don't even know what the Laffer Curve is if you think its proponents advocate lowering taxes to zero.  Sheesh.

Just pointing out how ridiculous it is

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:05.

It's not even mathematically sound.

And yes it has.  In fact, I believe it was sometime in the mid-90's when the data was compiled. 

See, this is the problem.

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:13.

I'm sure you could get complete agreement on any lefty blog with your statements.  But what do you hope to accomplish, really, by coming here and making demonstrably false claims about the Laffer Curve?

Two issues there

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:38.

1) The Laffer curve has been discredited.  It was never accepted theory, but some theoretical construct that reasoned out but never tested.  When it was tested, it was found lacking.

Claims can be made by ignoring relevant facts that it does exist; but that, too, is bs.

 

2) I seriously doubt that I would receive much welcome at left-wing blogs by saying such things.

In fact, I have been banned from a few of them.

Those people are trapped in a fantasy world, and they do not wish for reality to impose upon them.

I was thinking about this yesterday, particularly in the area of those new age notions of child rearing, of what might possibly be the underlying motivation for such a thing.  I came to the conclusion that self-loathing is its very base.  As a principle, this can be applied to other areas as well.

You see, the Left is not happy, not happy at all.  They do not approve of where they came from, how they grew up, what their parents did, etc.  The Left is basically a vast rejection of past experience.  They want a different self, a different society, a different world, because everything to date is lacking their approval.

Sure, some things can be improved upon, and it would be foolish not to do so.  But denial of self should never be the motivating factor.

 

Now, apply that last sentence to point #1. 

On #2, you are on to something

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:48.

But on #1, you aren't.  The idea behind the Laffer Curve is elegant and simple and easily proved.  If tax rates are 0% then tax revenue is 0 (obviously).  But if tax rates are 100% then tax revenue will be near zero, because there will be almost no incentive for people to do any additional work if they don't receive any compensation for it.  So at some tax rate between 0% and 100%, there is a maximum in tax revenue.  And if you are on the high-rate end of the curve, lowering rates will increase revenue.  That's it.  As far as I know mathematics hasn't been discredited, so neither has the Laffer Curve.

But on your second point, I think you are on to something.  I have been struck with the number of conversations I have had with liberals who claim that the reason why they are liberal is because they seek "justice", "fairness", "equality" or some other vague concept.  And many of them will go to great pains to tell you that they grew up in a conservative household, implying that they came to their liberal views through reflection and study.  But, if you dig a little deeper, you'll learn that their childhood experiences cast conservatism in a negative light.  So they might have had an abusive father who happened to be a conservative.  Or they were forced to go to a very strict church (which is, according to them, conservative).  Or their parents were embarrassingly plain, simple, unsophisticated people, which is the liberal stereotype of the conservative country bumpkins.  So yeah their liberalism really didn't come from thoughtful study, but because their past didn't meet their approval.

It seems to me...

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 05:04.

... like you're talking about some sort of 'sweet spot' for taxation, and not the Laffer curve.

The Laffer curve does not recognize a sweet spot, but instead maintains that this is effective in all cases; again, failing to differentiate in various forms of taxation.

 

I can agree in theory to the sweet spot idea, but I have no idea what it might possibly be.  I suspect that it would move a bit from time to time.

 

Regardless, we have discovered a point of agreement with # 2.

Theoretically speaking, Liberalism (and mind you, American conservatism is a liberal political ideology) is based on the concept of "Justice as Fairness."  That's the real disagreement between the Right & the Left is that the Left has some whacked-out views on what constitutes fairness.

In my experience, anyone that asks you to forego common sense usually does so because they're trying to pull a fast one. 

Flat out untrue

Submitted by WoodbridgeVa on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 17:46.

I remember going to Laffer curve lectures hosted by Jack Kemp and conducted by Lafer and he damn well did postulate a revenue curve that started at zero with revenue increasing as tax rates increased but with the ever higher rate increases required to produce a coresponding increase in revune as disincentives grew until the revenue curve turned back on itself and revenues began to decline as rates increased until revenues approached zero again as rates reached (or in the case on 1970s Great Britain - exceeded) 100 percent.

From wikipedia --

In economics, the Laffer curve is used to illustrate the idea that increases in the rate of taxation do not necessarily increase tax revenue. (For instance, a 100 percent income tax will generate no revenue, as citizens will have no incentive to work). Increasing taxes beyond the peak of the curve point will decrease tax revenue. The Laffer curve was popularized by Arthur Laffer (b. 1940) in the 1980s. However, the idea is not new to him. In his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes described how past a certain point, increasing taxation would lower revenue and vice versa.[1]

Lafer never claimed that reducing rates to zero would some how magically increase revenue.  He, and many of the econimists who studied this have speculated the "sweet spot" would be between 28 and 33 percent depending on conditions, culture, underlying economy etc.

Right now we manage to have the worst of both worlds.  The top effective tax rate in the U.S. (net taxes after deductions) is about 24 percent, well below the sweet spot.  The nominal top rate is 35 percent, just above the sweet spot and likely to go to 39.  So we have a top nominal rate just above the level where dicincentives cause the revenue curve to begin to turn back on itself and a top effective rate below that point.  Good case for tax simplification to bring the nominal and effective rates into allignment.

That's interesting

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 06:21.

However, my understanding is that the Laffer curve does not represent a level of taxation, but rather a range of revenue gained through taxation.

The greatest myth of all about Reaganomics is that the administration made a "Laffer-curve" forecast that the tax rate reductions would pay for themselves.

---Paul Craig Roberts

`Dynamic' Scoring Finally Ends Debate On Taxes, Revenue

Neither of those links goes into the research that I referred to earlier. 

buffoonery

Submitted by absentee on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:12.

Interesting? You're debating the finer points of laffer and you find the fact that you were baldly unaware of one of the core features to be "interesting?"

Why do you think it's called a curve if it's a straight line as you keep asserting? Moronic. And the nonsense about zero taxatation is a straw man if ever there was one. It's absurd on its face to conclude that reducing tax rates can't possibly increase revenue. As anyone who has the slightest amount of common sense can understand or deduce, if lowering taxes spurs economic growth, and taxes are a percent of earnings, it's perfectly logical to imagine a reduction in taxes increasing revenue as earnings grow at a rate faster than the tax reduction. It couldn't be a simpler concept.

Talk about mathematically unsound. All you've done is expose yourself as an uninformed dolt spewing typical leftie propaganda under pretense of wanting to help the right.

Standard moby/concern troll antics. Go back to kos you fraud.

No lefty propaganda

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 05:49.

You stupid piece of shit.

Talk about a buffoon?

How about some dumbass that ASSUMES that I'm a lefty because of some user name that I've had for over three years.  Who would have thought that while I was posting on those MUSIC sites that, three years later, Republican idiots too stupid to read beyond a label would be classifying me as a lefty.  Eat my shit, you dumbass.

Unsound?

Care to hear it from an economics professor?

http://dark-wraith.com/index.php?itemid=49

 

We know no such thing

Submitted by Cahnman on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 00:11.

We know that our jobs are going overseas and that we need to do something about that

No we don't.

 

Okay, give me a reason why? 

Submitted by In between on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 00:38.

Okay, give me a reason why? 

Then you need to acquire some background in the subject

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 03:52.

GDP = C I G ( X - M )

One of the consequences of that formula is that the US economy continually runs at excess of 100% of GDP.  That excess is creating foreign jobs at the expense of American jobs.

 

I'm not opposed to globalism; but globalism starts with a set of assumptions as pre-conditions, and to undermine that foundation is to invite disaster.

Needless to say, but we have invited disaster.

 

Again, events have not refuted globalism, but rather the execution of it.

Stop praising incompetence.

 

Here's a primer for anyone interested in economic policy. 

 Actually, in my original

Submitted by In between on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 07:51.

 Actually, in my original post, I said we should be doing something about globalization. And I think that was taken as being protectionist. And I think (Cahnman) may have taken it that way also.

My point is that Bush has not recognized the problem when he talks of free trade. And as he talks of it, the factories close. And the answer I have given before on other posts is that you need mandatory vocational training, and the most research and development to come up with new industries to replace those jobs. You also need to create jobs that will stay in this country and not subject to going overseas. And finally, energy independence that would create jobs.

In the meantime and for the last 8 years all I have seen is our jobs going overseas, our money going to Iraq, cities and states going broke, and the neglect of our infrastructure.

 

They have

Submitted by Warner Todd Huston on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 01:35.

They have no reason other than to feel as if they are "defeating" the right. They have nothing constructive to add even on their own side but Parroting the party line.

You got what you asked for

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:00.

So stop bitching.

Do you really believe the purpose of this site is so everyone can get together and agree with one another?

No.

This is a forum to air our disagreements, to engage the other.

This is where the socons get to hear a bit from libertarians, where libertarians hear a bit from paleocons (who are mostly disgusted with the GOP anyway), and be exposed to differing ideas of conservativism than within their own peer group. (which, btw, is another reason that it's necessary to overcome the over-reliance on false dichotomies as an incubator of policy)

It's not how you deal with those that agree with you, but with those that disagree with you, that will determine the success of the project.

 

So knock it off with the paranoia. 

agreement with one another

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:06.

Do you really believe the purpose of this site is so everyone can get together and agree with one another?

To agree with one another down to the last detail?  No.

To agree with one another that liberal ideas, generally, are bad?  Yes.

I see no value in that

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:11.

What is the point in sitting around talking about how terrible Kennedy-style liberalism (restyled as 'progressive' in contemporary usage) is?

I see no reason a farmer should take into account how bad of winter is coming on when determining how many acres to plant.

It is for the harvest that we labor. 

That's not what I'm suggesting

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:18.

I don't think this blog should be a gigantic bitch session against liberalism.  Quite the contrary, the reason I came here was because I had hoped this place would be a fount of conservative ideas.

Same here

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:31.

 

I knew that this last election cycle was more of a contest for intraparty dominance (of both parties).  The neocons are out.  Good riddance.

These are the beginning stages of the new Reformation.

I'm pulling for the paleocons.  Admittedly, a small minority, but a very vigorous one nevertheless (when we get enough nap time... ;) ) 

 

 

Amusing

Submitted by Warner Todd Huston on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 05:36.

Fist of all, the so-called paleo-cons are but simple-minded isolationists. Secondly, the so-called neo-cons were far more just a boogie man than they ever were a real force in the GOP.

The GOP's problem is that we are caught in a fight between the country-clubbers (the old-line, old-money Republican establishment that supported Ford and his ilk) and the Reagan Republicans. The Reaganites must win this battle. But, thus far they have not.

Amusing indeed

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 06:23.

... that you would refer to the people that opened up China to the West as being isolationists.

The rest of that is just about as accurate as well. 

n/t 

Submitted by Paleo-Skeptic on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 04:32.

n/t 

As a "liberal" interloper...

Submitted by opendna on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 05:31.

(lurker, really.)

 

To our liberal interlopers: what is your reasoning for coming here?

(1) I'm looking for evidence the GOP will take a libertarian turn, and (2) I like 300-word comments arguing about economic theory.

Do you wish to instruct us wayward conservatives on the error of our ways?

I wasn't planning on it. Would you like me to?

Do you want to help forge a new center-right consensus in this country? 

I'd rather a Left/Right balance of power instead. The hegemony of the center hasn't worked out too well and my reading of the literature is that the country is polarizing.

[Y]ou have to understand that the consensus that we want to form is center-right, and repeating liberal myths about conservatism isn't going to help in that aspect either.

We don't agree on what "conservative" means so it's best if I just ignore the word ("liberal" too). This is your turf and I'll try to be respectful of that.

Well, my username is In

Submitted by In between on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 10:34.

Well, my username is In Between. So that puts me in the middle. About every 30 years a political party will go off the deep end. We saw it in the 70's with welfare and the democrats. And we see it today with the republicans.

I would like a healthy debate. People view things differently and may have different ideologies.

I have seen the different ideologies and missteps in economics throughout the years. There may be something to it when a person goes to Washington and he gets caught up with that environment.

Anyway, as I have said in previous posts, I just look at management. We have seen LBJ have the money printed up for his "guns and butter", causing inflation for 20 years. We have seen Nixon deal with inflation with "wage and price controls" and Ford with "WIN" buttons and all that failed along with Carter who did not know what to do. Reagan with supply side economics, which we saw deficits and Bush 41 raising taxes because of that. Clinton was mediocre and his first 2 years were a disaster. The combination of Clinton and Gingrich gave us a yearly surplus. Bush has come in with a repeat of a "guns and butter." That is tax cuts and the Iraq war. And we know this leads to deficits and/or inflation or higher taxes.

I have watched for 8 years ignorance, arrogance, lies, deceit, blunders, and incompetence. Putting Bush away from any parties, I see him totally delusional. He should have never been president. I don't know what his problem is, whether it is a damaged brain from drinking (and I have seen that before) or his religion. In any case, it has been a wasted 8 years and we have gone backwards in so many ways.

I see our country failing with too much spending and that has to be cut back. I see our country sending our jobs overseas, our money to Iraq, incapable of getting anything done. I see a country struggling with failed ideologies.

And all I care about is to run the country in the middle and manage the country.

The republicans have proven that government does not work because they don't want it to work. In any case, many people are getting hurt in the process and our country is failing.

So I am here to point out the missteps of the last 8 years.

Bush comes in and says he will cut government spending and did not do that. Many people on this forum will agree to that. As I said before, Bush pulled a "guns and butter" by having tax cuts and a war at the same time. 5 years ago we saw the deficits and debt piling up. And all throughout, I kept wondering if he was going to do something about that and he never did.

We have seen an ideology for an economic recovery in which the democrats, republicans, and Alan Greenspan targeted the housing industry for growth. A huge mistake. In reality it is globalization that we need to be concerned with. 

We have seen the arrogance of a republican congress for six years with Tom Delay.

We have seen supply side economics. The first thing Bush had to do is find the money, so he borrowed the money from other countries to keep our country going, at the same time we send our jobs overseas, and our money to Iraq. Bush and the neocons decided to go to Iraq and brainwashed (and there is plenty of books and videos to watch) the Americans for a war. They lowballed the amount of troops needed and the amount of money needed. It was as low as 50 billion dollars for the war and we are approaching 1 trillion dollars now.

But anyway, to cut this short, I will just talk about the issues we need to deal with.

Deficits and debt ignored.

A costly war.

The arrogance of evangelicals of wanting to put religion in government.

Using religion to stop embryonic stem cell research.

Ignorance, arrogance, lies, deceit, blunders, and incompetence throughout 8 years.

We need to fix the problems at hand, as they occur, and see potential problems of the future.

We need to be energy independent. I am for drilling to nuclear. I am for an energy council and an energy plan. 

Along with the energy plan, you need as much research and development as needed in energy and all other areas. We need to make a car battery for our auto industry that will get us 100+ miles to a charge. We need to be competitive in the world. The other countries are doing that and we are not. We need a Manhattan project. 

Infrastructural spending. While we don't want white elephants and we know there will be shady deals on contracts, we are behind in our infrastructure. When you see a rich country, you see a good infrastructure. We need a new air traffic control system, replacing the water pipe infrastructure alone will cost 277 billion dollars. This just shows how far behind we are.

We need mandatory vocational training as our middle class goes overseas. Cities and states are going broke and we have to deal with it. If one side says we need free trade, then you have to compensate with education on the other side. Bush talks of free trade and then ignores the factories are closing.

Embryonic stem cell research. We need the best science to compete. All sciences are important. Singapore is moving ahead and subsidizing this science and taking away our scientists.

And again we need all the research and development we can do to replace the jobs that we are losing. This takes time, 10 years or more. 

We are so far behind in everything and it will take a miracle after 8 years of neglect.

The left and the right needs to be constrained in their failed ideologies. I only look at management. I want to see things get done. We need to fix the programs, we need to fix the problems of the day, and we need to look into the future. For those who think that government can only take away from the private economy, the government gave us the internet. It has created jobs and commerce around the world. And we need more research to move us forward. So government can be a partner with the private economy. 

There is not an industry out there that can replace the lost jobs. And even if there was, we have to consider whatever product that can be made can be made overseas. We have to recognize globalization for what it is. That a lot of our jobs are vulnerable. And we have act on it.

So what we have to do is get away from false ideologies. You can take a little away from them all, but don't embrace them as the bible. It all comes down to management. You need to cut spending (which is very hard to do) and you need to find new sources of revenue for the cities, the states, and federal government. Meaning good middle class jobs.

Dissent free zone?

Submitted by artigiano on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 11:00.

I am a liberal. And I come here to engage in a marketplace of ideas. Hopefully we can all keep it civil and respectful. Places like Redstate purge anyone who challenges the accepted orthodoxy. I don't think that is healthy for the growth of any political perspective, left or right.

I recently read a quote from fivethirtyeight.com founder Nate Silver. It was something like "Conservatives have not only forgotten how to construct a pursuasive argument, they have forgotten that a pursuasive argument is even neccessary." In politics you must convince me to get my vote.

If I already agree with you then talking points and buzzword phrases are fine shorthand. But if I don't agree with you then you have to explain in a very detailed and thoughtful way what your ideas really mean. I find my liberalism gets even more well reasoned and pursuasive when I have to justify every point to a conservative. Even if they don't agree with me in the end, the exercise of debate makes me a better liberal and increases my understanding of conservative views (even if I don't agree).

Lastly, I believe two vibrant and strong political parties make each party better. I don't want the Democrats to crush the GOP, just to remain a bit ahead with the dogs of war nipping at their heels. I honestly believe that the current ideological purge of all but conservative views will lead to the death of the GOP within my lifetime. If one political party is drawing voters of only a single pursuasion and the other happily makes room for liberals, moderates and conservatives it is only a matter of time and attrition.

My dream would be to remain a liberal and one day vote the Republican ticket. I'm only a Democrat because there seems to be no welcome mat for liberals in the GOP. That was not the case pre-Goldwater/Reagan. Plus if my arguments pull the GOP to the left-center that means the Democrats can stake out territory on the far left where my true sentiments lie. Currently the Democrats control much of the center because the GOP has chosen to abandon that part of the battlefield and take up a defensive position on the far right. I'm alone out here on the far left.

Competition of Ideas

Submitted by rcovington on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 00:02.

Chemjeff,

Take heart.  The infighting that you speak of is, to some extent the normal competition of ideas and, like evolution, the good ones strengthen with time.  There is also a fair amount of organized, left wing agitation going on all over the blogosphere, not just here.

I am convinced that the Ron Paul gang, many of whom are very reasonable, all are very passionate, are too blinded by ideology that they are easy targets to be manipulated into agitating.   The campaign to divide us started long before the election and for the left, that was only end of the battle, the war continues for them.  Do not be diswayed, keep participating if for no other reason that to piss them off.  Standyour ground when you need to defend a principle, just do not be drawn into their game.