AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I clicked on your link and perused it, pom, and most of it seems to be not far off the mark, certainly infinitely better than Daily KOS or some goofy liberal source like that.

Hey pom, I suggest you go read again the article on the thread I started, written by one of the greatest of all Americans: Dwight D. Eisenhower, titled "Why I am a Republican." It is inspiring, and would maybe stimulate any honest bone in your body to find the courage to embrace conservatism over your failed liberal philosphies that you so tenaciously and wrongly believe in.

Plainoldme, you appear to be an Odem. Bob Lichter accurately characterized Odem (i.e., Obamademocrat) liberal pathology.

Here we go again.

Professor of Public Administration Nancy Meyer-Emerick, using a scale developed by Professor of Psychology Robert Altemeyer, found Republicans, now mainly Conservatives, clustered at the high end of scales which show they are


They are

John T. Jost of Stanford University et al., writing in the Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association found

Psychologically speaking, pretty unsavory folks, these conservatives.

Odem (i.e., Obamademocrats), while calling themselves moderates, are:

(1) cognitively rigid, aggressive, and intolerant. They are characterized by steadfast conformity to group norms, submission to higher status individuals, and aggression toward out-groups and unconventional group members;

(2) more submissive to government authority and indifferent to human rights. They also tend to be more hostile and more highly punitive toward criminals who are not Odems, and more racially and ethnically prejudiced;

(3) psychological factors linked to political Odemism include: fear and aggression, dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty avoidance, need for cognitive closure, and terror management that causes Odems to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of their cherished world views;

(4) psychologically speaking, they are pretty unsavory folks, these Odems because they follow Saul Alinsky's principles:

In summary, the Odem accuse those with whom they disagree of exhibiting unscrupulus behavior exactly like the unscrupulus behavior Odems themselves exhibit, while at the same time pretending otherwise. Odem would be funny if they weren't so damn distructive.

I answered this on another thread. Your source for this, ann coulter, seems to have everything wrong. The man's name is S. Robert Lichter and he is not a professor at Smith College and he did not write that sentence.

What else can one expect from ann coulter?

How can I be something that you made up? There is no such thing as an Odem, other than as the opening words of the chorus of a traditional spiritual.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich made these observations:

According to a new CBS News poll 70 percent of Americans disapprove of how BP has handled the oil gush, compared with 45 percent who disapprove of how Obama has handled it. This could change in the days or weeks ahead if the spill continues to worsen and the White House looks and acts powerless.

The poll also points out a danger for Obama: Only 35 percent approve of his words and deeds so far during the crisis. He seems too willing to defer to BP executives, even as Bad Petroleum Ltd. tries to shift blame to Transocean Ltd., the rig operator, which is trying to put blame on Halliburton, which made the cement casings.

But it's not just the oil gush. Most Americans continue to be livid at Wall Street executives and traders -- for which they blame an economic crisis that's cost many their jobs, savings, and homes -- a crisis that's still costing taxpayers a bundle even as the bankers are back to collecting huge compensation packages. Yet the President continues to consult and socialize with many of them. Inexplicably, the White House won't go along with proposals by several Democratic senators to cap the size of the biggest banks (the only way to ensure they'll never be too big to fail and their political power is contained), to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act (

Either A2K or my computer or both were wonky last night when I tried to cut and paste the above. Here is the rest of it:


Yet the President continues to consult and socialize with many of them. Inexplicably, the White House won't go along with proposals by several Democratic senators to cap the size of the biggest banks (the only way to ensure they'll never be too big to fail and their political power is contained), to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act (except in its weaker "Volcker rule" form), or to force the biggest banks to do their derivative trading without the artificial support of tax-payer insured commercial deposits.

Most people are also furious that executives at Massey Energy failed to use mandated safety equipment and procedures that might have saved the lives of 29 miners. Where were the regulators? What does the Administration plan to do to the company or its executives?

Most Americans upset that the top guns at Anthem, WellPoint, and other health insurers are still hiking insurance rates. Why are these health insurers still immune from the antitrust laws? How can the Administration not blow the whistle on their current attempts blunt regulations that would cap their premiums?

Many are angry that the executives of credit card companies still charging outlandish rates on overcharges that are still hard to compute. What happened to the new rules that were supposed to stop this?

Most Americans who know about it are bothered that the managers of hedge funds and private-equity funds (the 25 richest of whom took $1 billion each last year) are taxed at only 15 percent because of a loophole in the tax laws that the Senate continues to protect.

You get my drift.

Yet the President is treating these corporate and financial executives the way he treats Senate Republicans. At most, he respectfully disagrees.

Respectful disagreement is virtuous in a democratic society, but so is appropriate indignation. Indignation signals to the public that social responsibilities have been breached, and thereby lends credence and authority to all those who are working toward them. Franklin D. Roosevelt had no hesitancy blaming the "economic royalists" -- the rich bankers and executives who stood in the way of the New Deal.

Moreover, without indignation, the President opens himself up to libertarian critics such as Rand Paul, who oppose almost all government regulation ("What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP"), as well as right-wing opportunists who claim the President is pulling his punches because he receives campaign donations from oil companies.

Here's Sarah Palin, of all people: "The oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now -- I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration [and] President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

It's also important for the President to connect the dots -- providing Americans a clear narrative for why government is so critically important. Corporations are organized to maximize profits, not to achieve public goals such as environmental protection, financial trust, safety, and so on.

Since Ronald Reagan first opined that government was the problem rather than the solution, right-wing Republicans have blasted all forms of regulation. Now we see the consequences of years of regulatory neglect.

The President has an opportunity now to express appropriate indignation and to assert the importance of reasonable regulation. He should waste no time doing so.

This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org

Odem = Obamademocrats.

Obamademocrats are people who support Obama's policies and program.

Obamademocrats actually exist.

If you, plainoldme, support Obama's policies and program, and you actually exist, then you are an Odem.

No one uses it but you. I googled the coinage odem and found a town in Texas and a settlement in Israel. That was it!

You made it up!

Now, back to those faulty quotes of yours . . .

Excellent, plainoldme. Yes, I made up the term Odem = Obamademocrats = liars, thieves, and gangsters.

My use of the term Odem to label all that saves me typing.

TO RESCUE AND SECURE OUR CORE VALUES,
WE SHOULD VOTE FOR ONLY THOSE CANDIDATES WHO AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING:

1. Our first necessary objective is to elect people to Congress and the presidency who want to stop “excessive government spending and taxation.” Their mission must be to “secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Constitutionally Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Markets.”

2. However, this first objective cannot be achieved without a president who will support and not veto it.

The solution is to first impeach President Obama, or initiate his removal from the presidency some other lawful way. He is unlawfully leading the transfer of private property from those persons and from those organizations who have lawfully earned it to those persons and those organizations who have not lawfully earned it.

Nowhere in the Constitution has the President, the Congress, or the Judiciary been granted the power to transfer private property from those who lawfully earned it to those who have not lawfully earned it. Any branch of the federal government that makes such private property transfers violates the "supreme law of the land," and their "oath or affirmation required by Article VI to support this Constitution".

When any branch of the federal government makes such property transfers, it is exercising powers not granted by the Constitution to the federal government. According to Amendment X, the exercise of such non-granted powers by the federal government violates the Constitution. Therefore, making such property transfers is unlawful.

Because President Obama is committing these unlawful acts, we have to elect members to the House of Representatives, who will advocate, make, second, and debate a motion to impeach President Obama.

3. However, these first two objectives, while necessary, are not sufficient. Our next necessary objective is to convince these candidates to replace the current federal tax system with one that is necessary for achieving a government that actually shuns excessive government spending and taxation.

4. The tax system required is one which makes it difficult for Congress and the President to buy their future elections with government tax collections from particular groups of their constituencies. A tax system which is necessary to achieve that is a tax system that taxes a particular kind of a thing the same regardless of the quantity of those things taxed, and the quantity of those things owned by individuals. Specifically, we must tax each and every dollar of an individual’s annual gross income at the same rate (i.e., “uniform” rate) regardless of the size of that gross income.

If that uniform tax rate on individual incomes were for example 10%, a gross income of $10,000 would be taxed $1,000, a gross income of $100,000 would be taxed $10,000, a gross income of $10 million would be taxed $1 million, and a gross income of $10 billion would be taxed $1 billion. There would be zero pay backs, zero deductions, zero exemptions, and zero double taxations (e.g., corporate and inheritance income taxes must be zero).

Not only would such a tax system make it difficult to buy votes with tax deductions and exemptions, it would comply with the original meaning of the Constitution of the USA, Article I, Section 8, 1st paragraph, which says:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

The word imposts means taxes, and the word uniform means the same for all things of a particular kind (e.g., dollars). Uniform does not mean, uniform non-uniformity.

Such a tax system would also comply with the 16th Amendment to the Constitution:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration.”

Fine! At least you admitted that you made it up. Now, about that man who is not a Smith professor whose name you have incorrectly represented and who never wrote the sentence as you quoted it here . . .

So, it sounds like you will stand shoulder to shoulder with the majority to overturn the recent SC decision that increases the personhood of corporations.

Who dat?

[quote="plainoldme]So, it sounds like you will stand shoulder to shoulder with the majority to overturn the recent SC decision that increases the personhood of corporations. [/quote]
What majority?
What recent Supreme Court decision?
What is it I wrote that sounds to you like I want to overturn that decision?

Fellow conservatives, have no fear...republicans are on the rebound....big time.

Gallup Poll shows Republicans with a six point lead over Democrats in their latest polls. This is the largest lead Republicans have ever enjoyed. While perhaps an aberration for a really bad week for Obama, there appears to be very little on Obama's "to-do" list that will turn this around. Even "plugging the d*mn hole" is unlikely to help...too many oily shorelines and dead sealife already. We'll be seeing these pictures pretty much every day from now until the election and beyond.

Frankly I don't think its any fairer to blame Obama for this disaster then it was to blame Bush for the housing market crash. But rightly or wrongly Obama will be held responsible and Republicans will be beneficiaries.



source

We need a massive electoral landslide to begin to right the ship.


I would agree with that, it wasn't Obama's fault that the oil blowout occurred, but what it has amply demonstrated is Obama's complete lack of leadership and management ability. It is still a mystery to me how the press was able to sell Obama as a great orator or leader, and a decent prospect to manage the office of the presidency, as he has never managed anything of import. And when he talks, about all he says is "uh, uhh, oh, ah, uh," thats about it, and thats all its ever been. I still remember the speeches and the debates, and wondered if the pundits were watching the same guy I did. If anything, it only shows the power of the press, and the gullibility of a public that wants to be trendy and go along with what they believe the fad may be, and Obama became a fad.

Do any of yall conservatives or Republicans have an opinion of the situation in Alaska? Sarah Palin today endorsed Joe Miller (R) in his race with the incumbent Lisa Murkowski (R) for Senate. Palin describes Miller as the "Commonsense Constitutional Conservative."
The Repub primary is August 10th.
If Miller loses in Palin's home state, will that be seen as a set back for her in terms of influence nationally?

Do you have a handle on how Alaskans feel about her resignation?