I was disputing the notion that liberals and pet liberal victims care about anything other than the D next to the candidate's name. If someone is a pet liberal victim, they're voting for the Democrat. They aren't voting for Romney.

#196 And just yesterday his VP was remonstrating with the media about misleading the public as to how serious Chavez's health problems were.

It's not all that often that it goes from, "He doing much better than you're reporting" to "He's dead" inside 24 hours.

It's not all that often that it goes from, "He doing much better than you're reporting" to "He's dead" inside 24 hours.

The idea of a "pet liberal victim" is simple, intellectually dishonest, and more or less something conservatives tell themselves is true in order to avoid looking at the hard facts of the world and practically managing the edges of their ideologies to fit with reality, choosing rather to demand reality bend to their wills, and whinging incoherently about how stupid and evil the "takers" are when it doesn't.

I disagree. While the group is not nearly so large as the right would have us believe, the idea that there isn't a segment of the population that that feels entitled to nearly everything from the government and have abdicated virtually all personal responsibility is ridculous.

It's not all that often that it goes from, "He doing much better than you're reporting" to "He's dead" inside 24 hours.

That's probably true, but just how many are there "out there"? Is this group anywhere close to being large or influential enough to justify the right's fixation on "takers"?

I can tour you around the rural south and introduce you to thousands of people who are as entitled as anyone to government support, who vote R in every cycle.

A distinction without a difference. For this fixation to be rational, there still must be enough of these "takers" in action that they constitute a serious national problem. So the correct question remains: "just how many are there 'out there'? Is this group anywhere close to being large or influential enough to justify the right's fixation?"

Also, this isn't something for which we lack data. Quantitative political science shows that the major determinant of national electoral outcomes is the state of the economy. The second major determinant is incumbency. 2012 fits this model very well, as do 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2004, and 2008. The only recent election which doesn't comport to this model is 2000.

You'd better share this data with Steve; if I recall correctly he (and several others here, such as Andy) insists that a major reason why Obama won is because of how Romney/Republicans treated minority groups such as Latinos. I forget what your position on the matter was.

Of course, what we have seen with regard to the issue of race is that liberal policies have done great harm to the black community

If Democrats win by promising free stuff, how do Republicans ever win? Democrats "promise free stuff" in every election, as you well know.

In our view, Ray, honest consumers of Obamacare are not "takers" by that definition. Not at all.

Getting back to Ray, don't they promise free stuff too? For instance, weren't they the ones who argued if you lower taxes, then more taxes would come back through added investment? And they actually followed through on the in the early 2000's, with the Bush tax cut. And look what happened. The deficit ballooned and the Republicans disavowed ownership of that failed policy, and tried to blame it on the Democrats.

I thought Obama was supposed to be swimming against the tide of that model, with the slow recovery and persistently high unemployment rate.

That's all Obamacare is: a wealth redistribution, dressed up and packaged as health care. I believe even MCOA begrudgingly agreed with this statement a few months ago, but I don't want to put words in his mouth so he is free to correct me if I'm wrong. That is my honest recollection, though.

That's all Obamacare is: a wealth redistribution, dressed up and packaged as health care.

Er, tax cuts are not "free stuff." They result in the government not giving something to anyone, but taking less from them.

That it has to be done indirectly through the government rather than through an enlightened management class does not speak well about American-style capitalism, BTW.

We need redistribution. The rich have been taking a larger and larger slice of the income while not providing a larger and larger slice of the goods and services produced. So it's less a case of redistribution than it is a more balanced system of compensation.

But the Republicans didn't make any compensatory cuts in government spending, so they WERE offering "free stuff".

So something must be going right.

your unique usage of the word "takers"

It isn't my usage, I'm quoting the definition provided by Smitty in # 205.

That's all Obamacare is: a wealth redistribution, dressed up and packaged as health care.

First of all, no, it isn't.

Still no. Tax cuts are simply not free stuff.

Disagree with what I wrote? They're not my words. They're Matt's words, in post 227. You can take it up with him while I watch.

The Australian Federal Police is considering an investigation into Redflex, the country’s biggest maker of speed cameras, over allegations an executive bribed government officials in the United States.
. . .
Redflex’s problems stem from major contracts with the City of Chicago, worth 13 per cent of company earnings in the 2012 financial year. The company on Tuesday released the findings of a four-month internal investigation by law firm Sidley Austin, which said a Redflex consultant in Chicago was paid $2.03 million from 2003 to 2012. Most of the money was in turn paid to the city official who managed red light contracts, John Bills.
. . .
“The arrangement between the city program manager, the consultant and Redflex will likely be considered bribery by the authorities,” the report said. “Redflex officials paid for vacation-related expenses for the city program manager for at least 17 different trips from 2003 to 2010.

Well, your unique usage of the word "takers" is all well and good, but I think we'd all just as soon stick with common usages.

I don't know that that's true, but it's intuitive that it should be. Competition is healthy, and sunlight is the best disinfectant

I don't deny that such a cohort exists. I deny that it's notably aligned to a particular political party. I can tour you around the rural south and introduce you to thousands of people who are as entitled as anyone to government support, who vote R in every cycle.