The Grand Illusion
Below are a few terms consistently thrown out as Republican talking points or values. Beneath each term is the actual meaning.
Smaller Government
Up to a 30% cut in virtually all programs benefitting lower income Americans; less federal funding for infrastructure and the environment; maintaining subsidies and tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations; cuts in foreign aid and military aid to countries such as Ukraine and nations bordering Russia and China, except for Taiwan, because we need their computer chips.
Balanced Budget
A budget balanced on the backs of the poorest Americans, with more tax cuts for the affluent and corporations.
Reducing Federal Regulations
Only reducing those regulations that cost corporations money or require them to protect the environment.
Traditional/Family Values
Emphasis on traditional two-parent family; opposition to equal pay and equal rights for women; banning books and media that depict anything other than “traditional” values; opposition to educational courses that teach unpleasant but proven facts about American society and history; opposition to anything depicting other than heterosexual relationships or life styles; opposition to a woman’s right to choose in the matter of abortion, often even when a pregnancy could kill the mother.
Immigration/Secure Borders
No more immigrants are welcome, unless they’re multi-millionaires or billionaires.
Unconstitutional
Anything proposed by Democrats.
You forgot immigrant models. They may wind up as the First Lady, so they are allowed.
I’m sure it all contributes to the mass hugs-and-kisses that have been going around.
Legal immigrants should be (and to IMO most reasonable Republicans are) welcome not on how rich they are, but on how able to support themselves and bring a skill in short supply they are. One of my parents was an immigrant, the other was a number of generations away from the immigrant, but that person certainly arrived far more recently than the Mayflower. Both were (one deceased) or are Republicans.
We do NOT need immigrants competing with existing citizens in jobs the existing citizens couuld do if they were willing, nor more people that require public assistance or may, and we do NOT need as much public assistance as we give to citizens. The poor can be supported more by private charity (and it’s NOT about how much taxes it costs, it’s about the crazy idea that everyone’s needs should be met by government if they can’t meet them themselves) or left to the dubious mercies of Darwin getting rid of the weak. I say that as someone who without taking deductions for it has in quite a number of years given to charity enough to keep some people (not relatives or anyone I had a legal obligation to) off of public assistance, more than my taxes. If people want generosity they should take personal responsibility to exercise it, otherwise they should just admit they don’t care who dies as long as it’s not them. To expect others to pay for their “generosity” is the lazy way out.
It’s not anti-immigrant to be anti-parasite; not fond of existing citizen parasites either, but we don’t need more like that, we need immigrants (like some from former eastern Europe) that know what the lack of liberty is, what the difference should continue to be, and are willing to do their part to be both productive and support the continuance of liberty. Too many people from elsewhere never had a context of what liberty is in the first place (even Europeans other than the Swiss acquired that rather recently and too many still have a do what they’re told and credential rather than accomplishment respecting mindset; I still hear enough 2nd hand to be aware of that); and that makes those a potential problem.
Legal immigrants that don’t become a public burden, and assimilate, and within a generation are reasonably split between Democrats and Republicans are fine; but illegals should all be deported, the border sealed and armed against them (although anyone can leave if Mexico allows it; the other border so far hasn’t been nearly the problem, it’s not about skin tone or European-ness at all, but about people that aren’t prepared for the responsibilities of liberty), but Democrats flooding the country in hopes of obtaining permanent one-party rule for themselves are enemies of liberty. Legal immigrants have always transformed us to some degree, and that can even be good; but they should bear most of the load of conforming to existing society here rather than attempting to remake it in the form of the clearly defective (since they left it) society they came from.
Liberty does require some degree of personal responsibility by enough people. But even if they don’t exercise it and therefore millions die, redistribution is not to be found in the Constitution. See also 10th Amendment.
I also don’t think Republicans are anywhere near unified about Ukraine. Anyone Russia or China attacks should be assisted…but Ukraine had been struggling even before that with corruption. So assistance should be tied to accountability. Hopefully they kick the Russians out, reclaim Crimea, and join NATO; and Putin is a psycho with dreams of restoring empire with his name attached to the restoration, and the world will be better when he dies, except given the culture, a successor might be little different. But whether we should spend half a trillion for that is another story.
“opposition to equal pay and equal rights for women” not if it is the same job at the same skill level and the same years of availability. If they take even two years off for each child, even as much as we need existing middle class citizens to reproduce, paying them as if they hadn’t taken those years off is NOT equality, it’s a subsidy; and so is “comparable” but not the same job, because some authority would be involved in determining what’s comparable, and it would be biased in favor of big government socialism by its very nature.
Traditional is the basis of the continuation of life. Nobody should be assaulted, threatened, intimidated, or denied access to jobs where their differences are not significant (necessarily they are in a few categories of jobs), nor forced to hide (which makes them vulnerable to blackmail etc), but it’s courtesy to keep most of one’s freaky private and not act campy or transvestite in public (seen a lot of that recently, not that it impeded their performance, so I won’t name the airline, not into boycotts) except at events of freedom of assembly for those specifically of those inclinations; it’s not as if it makes allies to alienate those that will never approve. Nor should those who are different think they can demand to be mainstream whey they simply are not. I don’t want to overhear public discussions of straight couple’s intimate relationships, either, although I have. TMI either way.
Some environmental and other regulations are needed, and whether they hurt big corporations or others should be beside the point. But the present push to ban anything that emits CO2 ASAP (with the P being barely possible rather than practical) is going faster than would be supported by the economics of replacing it.
I recently drove a Tesla rental car and liked it, because my next vehicle will probably be a Cybertruck (with 500 mile range, expensive but I can afford it thanks to an unexpected inheritance from an aunt, and probably the last vehicle I’ll ever need given the durability of vastly reduced moving parts count and maintenance, together with a stainless steel body – should be good for as long as I’ll need a vehicle and by the time I’d rather just tell it where to take me, the self-driving might even be at that level; so needing a rental car was an opportunity for familiarization with the different controls, something I didn’t do for last year’s visit because the EV cost way more, but this year it was about the same as a low-end fossil fuel rental; one of the things that will make people more willing to try them), but I’m not doing it for the ideology of climate change, but because I think it would be the most capable, least hassle thing I could afford. For those situations where an EV is practical, I welcome considering it and encourage others to do so; but they aren’t for everyone, and until majority-adequate base model prices come down (there is talk of a new low-end Tesla model under development), they can’t be, and for a few uses, they may never be.
HOWEVER real, anthropogenic (the part I suspect is overstated for political power), and possibly catastrophic it may be, ideology has outrun common sense. The real problem is countries like India and China, the former still not willing to deal with the expense because they’re still developing, the latter trying to outsource much of their expense because they want to weaken us. With just natural gas replacing coal (which isn’t needed for much more than maybe steel smelting anymore), we could be not perfectly clean but way cleaner than most other countries (keeping in mind that wind and solar have their limits needing storage too and also having an impact of their own, and environmentalists don’t love hydropower because it alters the environment, and nobody likes a nuclear power station, even though new designs like pebble bed reactors could be far safer, and more small ones would suffer less delays than fewer larger ones). Until electricity generation is all clean(er) and chargers are as common as gas stations, making all new vehicles EVs will not be ready for prime time. (the switch to the more compact Tesla interface as the standard in the US driven by Tesla opening its chargers to other manufacturers which was their initiative rather than government’s, will help but won’t get us there; there’s only one supercharger in Alaska, and maybe none in Hawaii; and electrics are less practical in extreme climates, either the coldest or the hottest, although the Tesla Model 3 in Phoenix in autumn wasn’t bad at all; but I was staying in or near the city, and the range would have been poorer in summer or winter, but due to battery behavior and due to the air conditioning or heating being electric too). There are some not too long range not too heavy load semis that can be electric, but the best most can presently be is hybrid, and although more efficient, a hybrid has more complexity and more to go wrong than a nasty stinky polluting diesel (which could unmodified run biofuel derived from reprocessed used cooking oil, which generates less ash, and smells more like popcorn than like the usual diesel fuel; the problem being that biofuel is less carbon neutral than supposed, and that the facilities to produce it in a carbon neutral fashion in quantity comparable to fossil fuels do not yet exist either).
I have no problem with trying to move in the direction of no longer using fossil fuels as fuels (petroleum in much smaller quantities in much smaller quantities will remain chemical feedstock) as other PRACTICAL alternatives become mature enough; but we’re not there yet, and regulations aren’t the answer. The Cybertruck doesn’t need outside mirrors, it could simulate them with existing cameras (even the Model 3 shows a similar view on its big display when changing lanes) and have better efficiency due to decreased wind resistance, but that regulatory REDUCTION has as yet not been made. So there are regulations that are ideological or political, some regulations that are practical, and some regulations that need to be updated to be less onerous for circumstances where alternatives exist.
“Anything proposed by Democrats.” Given the 10th Amendment, not quite anything, but at the federal level (states can be socialist, although it doesn’t work out well, see also California), more often than not, Democrats are trying to stretch the Constitution out of all relationship to its plain language. The federal government was never supposed to have the power to meet every need, save every life, right every wrong, etc. No human or human institution should have that much power.
Wow, your comment is longer than Mr. Modesitt’s original post, yet, you completely missed the point.
The original post was about the use of language, the “talking points”, of Republican legislators and Party officials. Mr. Modesitt is pointing out that the language used is at odds with the legislation proposed by Republican legislators.
Your reply was about your personal philosophy and beliefs. Heartfelt, but it didn’t address the point.
Most politicians of both parties are either outright liars, or speak in a language of sound bites and insider terminology that is more akin to campaigning than to results produced.
This has sadly become normal, but it does not deal with reality. I try to.
The problem is that voters (both parties again) are insufficiently interested in reality.
It’s sad when you have to claim that “everyone is evil” to justify your beliefs.
So aside from being sexist, racist, judgemental of anyone earning less than yourself, hating any kind of authority over your actions other than your whims, and socially conservative to a fault … do you actually understand that you’ve literally reinforced Mr Modesitt’s arguments?
The Republican talking points are consistently easily disproved blatant lies, the bigger the lie, the faster it spreads. I’m not a fan of the Democratic Party either, which is largely the party of big business, but at least they’re largely only actively misleading a third of the time, the rest of the time they seem to make a minimal effort to be vaguely accurate.
Geez, take a chill pill. Give that inheritance money to someone who actually earned it. Then contemplate why the native Americans shouldn’t view you/us the same way you view current or potential immigrants. I hadn’t seen enything from you on this discussion board for a while, I guess the buildup in that time broke the dam. Try to smile every once in a while. I’ve heard it helps.
I have given plenty away already, thanks. This turned out to be a deal so that either my cousin or I would get it. He never claimed the trust fund in the time following his mother’s death prior to his own (he was brilliant in selected areas but had assorted mental issues, and both circulatory genetics from his father and excessive self-medication reduced his survivability; you can’t change people if they don’t want to change), so I ended up with it. I had mixed feelings about that, profiting from anyone’s death. But the intentions of those who planned were clear. And while I’ll doubtless give away more, I have ZERO obligation to give until it impairs my options. Using at least half for something that helps my future (by potentially solving most future transportation problems) seems to match the intent.
At least I’m not blowing the whole wad on a Tesla Roadster. Partly because it’s less durable or less broadly capable, partly because even with experience with far more modest sports cars, I don’t know that I’d trust myself with something that will do 0-60MPH in less than 1.9 seconds and has a 250+ MPH top speed. My nerves are no longer happy above about 120-140, and that not for long. The only place you can really open up a Roadster is on a track, and I don’t have the specific skills for the highly banked curves. Even the Model 3’s (or reported Cybertruck’s) acceleration can be quite decent if not so dramatic, although the top speeds are more normal. Driving such EVs is a different technique; taking your foot off the accelerator is akin to downshifting and taking it off in a gas car, except the EV will eventually come to a full stop. Good efficiency and minimal physical brake wear would require some attention to do well, but would be worth it.
I have some sympathy for Native peoples, being perhaps 1/32 that myself. But not a lot. They lost (or had no means to prevent themselves from being cheated and abused and their cultures nearly taken away from them). If I buy something they make, I try to buy it directly or at least from one of them, so those more directly involved get more of the $ (they get more, and I spend less, because the usual tourist stores are mostly very overpriced, especially since a lot of them consolidated). And I pay cash if possible. But it would be absurd to suggest all post-Columbus go back where they came from after generations. Anyone can now (wasn’t always) preserve their culture in private association, but making a big public to-do about it is not likely to be to their advantage. Not every relic (I don’t mean human remains) is sacred, that’s not plausible.
Legal immigrants are ENTIRELY different from illegals. Doubtless 90% or more of the latter are decent and even hard-working, but there is still a vast difference. We cannot handle everyone in need here, let alone everyone everywhere. We should not have to. So some limits have to exist, not by race, ethnicity, religion, etc, but by sufficient lawfulness, productivity, adaptability, etc. And laws should be enforced or changed, not simply ignored when no longer fashionable in certain circles.
I think you’ve summed up your beliefs accurately in one phrase — ” I have ZERO obligation.” The problem with this is that no functioning society can exist without agreed upon shared obligations, and you’ve decided that those shared obligations should be far less than the majority of Americans believe they should be.
My take.
The Republicans stated Axioms and their related Deviant Actions are at best the result of the effect of Reality upon Desirability: and as such true are for most people at on one occasion or other.
Mr Hamilton is correct that solo sovereigns and even the most powerful sovereign nations cannot solve emigration/immigration and other human population problems alone; it will require a coalescence and cooperativeness of all humans as the world population reaches various milestones.
All of our human problems, particularly as those created by us increase in number, will require the recognition of individual obligations to the group. We should still remember that “..I have ZERO obligation to give until it impairs my options …” is a truism: if you cease to exist you cannot help, nor cooperate with, others.
Hamilton only appears to approve of laws that suit his world view. Illegals are illegal but all other laws are fanciful because I have no obligation. Meanwhile bragging about driving 100+ miles per hour (really?). Not to mention whom paid for those roads… no obligation there. What a brave new world.