"Vote Conservative"? - one of the best lib vs. con pushbacks I've ever seen.

[quiet.american]

You gotta love "sunspark," who posted this magnificent rant over at Daily Kos (seriously -- it's a thing of beauty and worth a visit to read the whole thing):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/865605/-vote-conservative-my-response-to-a-right-wing-brother


From "sunspark" over at Kos:

"vote conservative"? my response to a right wing brother

I have a very, very conservative brother. (Actually--full disclosure--I have two. And a father. I don't know what is wrong with the men in my family.) :-) The brother in question owns his own business down in Florida, and my son, in his mid-twenties, has been having difficulties finding a job (like everyone). I had never asked before, but I decided to impose upon my brother to see if he might be able to help, though I doubted if, in today's economy, he would.

In his response (negative, of course), he took the opportunity to make some pretty blunt statements about "the mess that your president has made of the country’s economics." He went on to say,

"I only wish that someone in the administration at sometime had enrolled in a college course of Economics 101… Apparently, they all studied “Greek Economics” instead…"

He closed by inviting me to "vote conservative please" in the midterms. I do not usually engage any of these men in political discussions because it is usually the verbal equivalent of repeatedly hitting my head into a granite wall, but this time I just couldn't help it. Follow me below the fold to see my response.

<snip>

When I look at the sorry state of the Republican Party right now, I just feel sad. It has been taken over by its worst elements. You ask me to "vote conservative"? I don't think I could if I even wanted to. True conservatives are hard to come by in this charade of "tea party" extremists.

When Bob Bennett gets kicked out of the Senate by his constituents in Utah for not being "conservative" enough, the world is out of whack.

When Charlie Crist and Arlen Spector can't find a place any longer within the GOP, something is seriously wrong with the party of Lincoln.

When John McCain has to stoop to picking Sarah Freaking Palin as a running mate to appease the ultra right wing knuckle-draggers in his own party and then agree to allow her to foment vitriol in rally after rally to the extent that things got so out of control that even he had to step in at one rally and set his voters straight, someone has lost all sense of propriety.

When the party becomes the home of bigots and birthers and men who show up to Presidential rallies wearing weapons, sanity has left the building.

When the State of Maine, which usually remains somewhat above the lunacy and which has (to its credit) the only two moderate Republicans still allowed to roam free, loses its collective mind and issues a political platform that is so utterly (as one writer put it) "batshit crazy" that at one point it actually demands that the State of Maine officially oppose any attempt to create a one-world government, the whole party has officially come unhinged. Talk about giving in to the conspiracy theorists. Why don't they just mandate tin-foil hats?

<snip>

This GOP has earned its "Party of No" moniker.

John Boehner's office actually began circulating templates opposing Obama's SCOTUS nominee with "INSERT NAME" on them, the templates proclaiming (basically) the downfall of civilization as we know it if this nominee (whoever it happened to be apparently was unimportant) gets through.

Despite the fact--the fact--that Obama has, from the outset, reached out to them time after time after time, angering his own constituents in the process by (in the opinion of many on the left) giving away the store before negotiations even start just to show his good faith, the GOP insists on maintaining the lie that he refuses to include them in anything.

The health care bill is chock full of Republican ideas, but all you heard from them was "he's shoving it down our throats." The first thing Obama did in the Recovery bill was to agree to tax cuts despite the fact that Keynesian economics tells us that they are utterly counterproductive because it would, he thought, bring the GOP to the table.

In the final Stim Bill, there were I think almost $200B in cuts. My taxes were lower this year; were yours? A study just today says that we are being taxed at the lowest rate since Truman. Good Lord! What does anyone have to complain about the job the government is doing with the little we are still giving them?

More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/865605/-vote-conservative-my-response-to-a-right-wing-brother

edited for formatting

[paparush]

1. Point Your Brother to this Newsweek Article

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237737

Share with him these simple facts (from the article):

Nixon:
Nixon repeatedly set wage and price controls, prompting economic adviser Herbert Stein to later declare that his boss had imposed "more new regulation ... on the economy" than "any other administration." The top tax rate went up during Nixon's first three years in office. He even increased spending on federal employees. Worst of all, Nixon was the guy who detached the dollar from the gold standard—a move that would've done little to endear him to the gold bugs who now dominate the Glenn Beck wing of the GOP.

Reagan:
During the Reagan years, federal employment grew by more than 60,000 (in contrast, government payrolls shrunk by 373,000 during Bill Clinton's presidency). The gap between the amount of money the federal government took in and the amount it spent nearly tripled. The national debt soared from $700 billion to $3 trillion, and the U.S. transformed from the world's largest international creditor to its largest debtor. After 1981, Reagan raised taxes nearly every year: 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1986. The 1983 payroll tax hike even helped fund Medicare and Social Security—or, in terms today's Tea Partiers might recognize, "government-run health care" and "socialism."

George H. W. Bush:
..he'd once called Reagan's supply-side proposals "voodoo economics"—Bush agreed in 1990 to break a campaign promise ("Read my lips: no new taxes") and accept some tax increases to accompany his preferred spending cuts. The plan would've slashed the deficit by $500 billion over the next five years, but the GOP wasn't in a cooperative mood, and it was defeated in Congress. Nonetheless, Bush's final budget increased the marginal tax rate, phased out exemptions for high-income taxpayers, and kept the capital-gains tax in place—moves that angered conservatives then and would still anger them today. What's more, Bush also wound up bailing out the savings-and-loan industry with $126 billion in taxpayer money, which directly contradicts the " oppose bills like Obama's stimulus" section of the RNC's purity test. Strike one, strike two.

George W. Bush:
During his first term, Bush Jr. was widely seen as the most conservative president in U.S. history. After all, his tax cuts were even larger than Reagan's. The problem, of course, was that his government and his deficits were larger as well. During his eight years in office, Bush transformed surpluses equal to 2.5 percent of GDP into deficits equal to 3 percent of GDP—a $4 trillion hit on the country's balance sheet. All told, by the end of Bush's term, the national debt stood at $11.3 trillion—more than double what it was when he took office. It's tough to see how a party that now professes to support "smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits" could possibly back him if he were running for office today.

Then ask your brother to explain how it is that Obama messed up the economy?

[Sherman A1]

5. +1, Agreed & Well Said!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. Nicely done!!! n/t

[Jennicut]

2. Teabaggers are out protesting the lowest tax rates since Harry Truman!

Oh, the irony. When Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, you know they have entered psycho land. I have conservative parents. I wonder how long they will ride the crazy train.

[dalaigh lllama]

3. Absolutely spot on!

K&R

[NJmaverick]

4. K & R!

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[foerschie]

7. Henry Paulson

was GW boy. Tim Geither is our current U.S. Secretary of the Treasury nominated by Obama.

[wiggs]

8. Original full KOS post is awesome. Not one thing I disagree with. I would send it

to a RW friend of mine, but based on a history of long letters sent back and forth I know it would make no difference. It's not about facts and reason, it's about identity and group mentality.