There is no middle ground in politics I guess
I friended a guy here on LJ because he is one of the damn funniest gamer types I know. I have legitimate respect for him and some of his thoughts are close to the truth, but sometimes he is way off!
Today under a statement that the Clintons were playing their perpetual victim card, a sentiment that I agree with, he shifted to Democrats and there policies:
"The Dems doing victim politics? Perish the thought. Seriously, kill it. They've been doing it for 60 years. Keeping poor people poor so they'd feel only the government can help. Dem policies have kept inner cities hell holes across this country. Because everybody's a victim."
I thought WTF? A lot of these people are victims. Victims of Republican led cuts in Education and public assistance. The inner cities have always had problems, the biggest problem appears to be that affluent whites do not want to be around minorities, so they move and take their businesses, and their resources with them. Leaving the poorest of inner city folk of all colors to wallow in their leavings. Hell here in Indy, they are reducing bus routes throughout the city to save money due to one of our Republican Governor's privatization deals!
It runs deeper and broader than urban sprawl.
Rich people's choices are generally not constrained by lack of income (boy, that sounds really obvious). I now must factor the cost before making a long-distance phone call.
Move up the "choices chain" and you get the picture. Middle class people tend not to think twice about a phone call, but a baby sitter, dinner, and a movie, is not a slam dunk right now, what with prices up and incomes down. And with the price of transportation, vacations don't become "stay-cations" for rich people. Their choice set isn't constrained that way.
These examples are trivial, but of course, there are real life-changing opportunities at stake here. One of least favorite factoids to make this point has to do with access to higher education. Once you control for cognitive ability, high-testing, low-income kids have the same (low) college completion rates as low-testing high-income kids. We do not, live in a meritocracy!
If government helps rich people, the mythology goes, they'll unleash a torrent of economic activity that they're sitting on now because tax rates are too high. Cut the regulations that bind them, the taxes that squelch their incentives, and they'll not just lift their own economic fates, but those of the least advantaged as well.
The evidence, of course, points precisely in the opposite direction, but, and here's the kicker, these folks are impenetrable to that evidence.
I know that our ruling class is wealthy, I have no issues with their wealth. After all, FDR was rich, and his empathy and energy devoted to helping the have-nots was boundless. Lots of politicians who came from meager backgrounds but ended up rich, like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, or for that matter, Barack Obama, also built a policy agenda to offset the status quo regarding inequality and opportunity. Is it simply that rich Democrats get this in a way rich Republicans don't? Or for that matter ANY Republicans?
Perhaps so, though I'm sure there are lots of exceptions. It's just hard to get people to realize this when Limbaugh, Fox News, and even the MSM denigrate and label the less fortunate into lazy, drug using, good for nothing leeches, every day.
Today under a statement that the Clintons were playing their perpetual victim card, a sentiment that I agree with, he shifted to Democrats and there policies:
"The Dems doing victim politics? Perish the thought. Seriously, kill it. They've been doing it for 60 years. Keeping poor people poor so they'd feel only the government can help. Dem policies have kept inner cities hell holes across this country. Because everybody's a victim."
I thought WTF? A lot of these people are victims. Victims of Republican led cuts in Education and public assistance. The inner cities have always had problems, the biggest problem appears to be that affluent whites do not want to be around minorities, so they move and take their businesses, and their resources with them. Leaving the poorest of inner city folk of all colors to wallow in their leavings. Hell here in Indy, they are reducing bus routes throughout the city to save money due to one of our Republican Governor's privatization deals!
It runs deeper and broader than urban sprawl.
Rich people's choices are generally not constrained by lack of income (boy, that sounds really obvious). I now must factor the cost before making a long-distance phone call.
Move up the "choices chain" and you get the picture. Middle class people tend not to think twice about a phone call, but a baby sitter, dinner, and a movie, is not a slam dunk right now, what with prices up and incomes down. And with the price of transportation, vacations don't become "stay-cations" for rich people. Their choice set isn't constrained that way.
These examples are trivial, but of course, there are real life-changing opportunities at stake here. One of least favorite factoids to make this point has to do with access to higher education. Once you control for cognitive ability, high-testing, low-income kids have the same (low) college completion rates as low-testing high-income kids. We do not, live in a meritocracy!
If government helps rich people, the mythology goes, they'll unleash a torrent of economic activity that they're sitting on now because tax rates are too high. Cut the regulations that bind them, the taxes that squelch their incentives, and they'll not just lift their own economic fates, but those of the least advantaged as well.
The evidence, of course, points precisely in the opposite direction, but, and here's the kicker, these folks are impenetrable to that evidence.
I know that our ruling class is wealthy, I have no issues with their wealth. After all, FDR was rich, and his empathy and energy devoted to helping the have-nots was boundless. Lots of politicians who came from meager backgrounds but ended up rich, like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, or for that matter, Barack Obama, also built a policy agenda to offset the status quo regarding inequality and opportunity. Is it simply that rich Democrats get this in a way rich Republicans don't? Or for that matter ANY Republicans?
Perhaps so, though I'm sure there are lots of exceptions. It's just hard to get people to realize this when Limbaugh, Fox News, and even the MSM denigrate and label the less fortunate into lazy, drug using, good for nothing leeches, every day.