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Originally Posted by GenuineRisk
Rupert, Bush and his Republican Congress wanted to slash taxes on capital gains (as it is, they cut them to 15 percent, I believe). The people who benefit most from a cut in capital gains tax are wealthy people who live off investments. The majority of stock in the country is held by a relatively small number of people. Trickle-down economics is a Republican creation (and if you ask me, anyone who has ever worked for gratuities could have told you it was a crock because they tell me the rich tend to be the crummiest tippers). Right now, the rich pay considerably less in taxes as a percentage of their total income that the middle-class due to the cuts in the capital gains tax and assorted other breaks the Republicans have given them. You think that's not a big difference? That 35 vs. 39 percent stat is on earned income from a job, not stocks or other things you don't actually have to do any work for.
The drive to outlaw abortion is in the Republican party plank; it's not a fringe belief of a few members. (Of course, there's no plank pushing for increased availability of daycare or easy access to contraceptives for women). In addition, it's Republicans who have fought against Plan B being available over the counter, and opposed making the HPV vaccine available. "Sodomy" was a crime in Texas (Republican controlled) until just a few years ago, when the Supreme Court struck it down, much to the fury of the dissenting conservative justices on the court. What party do you think they vote? And Terri Schiavo, of course. (You are aware the video tape oft cited was cut together from hours and hours of material, and the sections of Terri staring off blankly while her mom pleaded with her to look at her were not shown to the public?) How abut the one-and-a-half BILLION dollar initiative to pressure single Americans to get married and for married Americans in bad marriages to stay married. You remember that one, don't you? Is that a good start for you? 
Oh, and the abstinence-only education in public schools. Withholding factual information is also interfering in private lives.
Look, I'll actually give you that Rumsfeld in a different time and with a different President was decent at his job. But when the people in charge were, even before the invasion, saying pretty blatantly that there was no plan for afterwards because we'd be "greeted as liberators" (right, Cheney. You keep smoking that particular weed), I think it was obvious that they had no clue what they were doing. And a President with any level of competance would have fired them once it was obvious things were going badly. But he preferred a bunch of patsies who would tell him what he wanted to hear and they didn't love their country and their soldiers enough to be honest with him.
Notice how Cheney is trying to distance himself from Iraq now? What's the old saying, success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan? I think he's hopeful America will remember this one as Bush's orphan, and not his. |
I agree with you about some of those things. I absolutely think that Plan B should be legal.
I only partially agree with you about Iraq. I think we were in fact greeted as liberators. The vast majority of Iraqis saw us as liberators. All the polls in Iraq showed that. The problem has been that there is a very strong, well-armed insurgency. They may only make up 3% of the population, but that is enough to wreak havoc. The Bush Administration obviously made a huge mistake in totally underestimating the insurgency.
With regard to taxes, it is true what you are saying about the capital gains tax. But I think there are plenty of Democrats who wanted to lower the capital gains tax too. My main point about taxes is that the differences between the two parties are very subtle when you compare us to other countries. I'm not sure how hig taxes are right now in England, but at one time I think the people in the highest tax brackets were paying around 90% in taxes. Now that would be an extreme difference if one of our parties wanted taxes to be 80-90% and the other party only wanted taxes to be around 30%. Now that would be a huge difference.
If you look at the views of the 15% of our country that is furthest to the right and then you look at the views of the 15% of our country that is furthest to the left, you may see some fairly significant differences. But those people aren't really the mainstream of our country. The maistream of our country is the other 70%. That 70% majority are really the ones who are making most of the decisions.
Even though I am right of center and you are left of center, I still think that we are both in that 70% that I am referring to. If you and I were in charge of the country starting tomorrow, we'd probably disagree on plenty of stuff, but I don't think there would be anything that we would be all that far apart on. We could probably compromise on most things. I don't have any really extreme views and I don't think that you do either. Even though you are left of center, I don't think you would want to cut military spending by 90% or anything like that. Even though I am right of center, I wouldn't want to outlaw abortion or anything like that.