Political Party and the Deficit.

The GOP and the DNC have competing claims about the deficit.  Let's take a look at the actual results.
(Source of most of my data)


Keep in mind that due to inflation, each succeeding President having a higher Deficit is not that bad.  But also keep in mind that we can totally eliminate the deficit, even getting a surplus.  It's called a Balanced Budget when the deficit is at (or near enough) zero.


Lets start with President Kennedy (D).  He had a deficit of $7 billion in his first year, $5 in his last.

Next came President Johnston, (D).  In his term, the deficit started at $6 billion, ballooned up to $25 billion in one year, but then he got it under control and dropped managed to eke out a $3 Billion SURPLUS.  Note that term, surplus.  You won't see it again till the word's President Clinton appear.

Then Nixon (R) manages to get elected.  It immediately becomes a $3 Billion deficit again.  He brings that Deficit up to $23 Billion two years in a row, before it drops back down to $6 Billion.


Gerald Ford (R) keeps up Nixon's record, boosting that deficit above $50 billion for all three of his terms, hitting $74 billion in his middle year.

Carter (D) gets it back down to $41 Billion, but ends it at $79 Billion.

Reagan (R) takes a page from Ford and immediately tries to doubles the budget deficit.  He starts at $128, gets it all the way up to $221 billion.  He manages to get it back down to $153 Billion.

George H Bush sees it reach $290 billion, but get's it back down to $255 Billion.

Finally Bill Clinton (D) gets into power, In his first year he has a $203 Billion dollar deficit.  It is also his worst year.  During his first 4 years, he slowly manages to bring it down to a $22 billion deficit.  The last time it was that low was back in 1974, under Nixon. 

But that's nothing.   In his next term he maintains a SURPLUS for all 4 years. In fact the surplus hits a high of $236 Billion dollars.  He ends his term with a $128 billion surplus.

Boom, we get hit with the disaster know as George W Bush (R).   George W Bush immediately creates a $158 Billion deficit.  He ends his term with a Deficit of of $1.16 TRILLION dollars - note that number does NOT include the Obama Stimulus act money which we are assigning to Obama)

Finally we get another Democrat.  Under Obama, the deficit immediately went up to $1.56 Trillion dollars  (Actually only $1.294 trillion, but we needed to also add in the money we spent in the last year of George Bush's presidency as part of the Stimulus Act).   But in 2013 he starts to eliminate it.  By 2012, he has it down to $901 Billion.  Yes, that billion with a "B".  As in lower than George W Bush's  best year.

A couple of obvious points.

1. Of the past ten presidents, five Republicans and five Democrats, the only two that had a surplus are Democrats.  Note if you go back before Kennedy, every single president - Republican or Democrat had at least one year with a balanced budget.  Basically, the Deficit thing is a modern invention.
2. Note, it's not that hard to balance the budget.   You look at how much you are spending, you ask the accountants how much your taxes should take in. Oh, you might be off by a small amount, but next year you just adjust the taxes up or the budget down. It won't work every year, but any year the economy grow more than you predicted, you have a surplus.  You should get at least one every 4 years.
3. President's don't really have that much control over the Deficit.   Obama had to pay for Bush's economic disaster and also his wars, and to be honest, the war against Afghanistan is not Bush's fault.  Not to mention the fact that Congress controls the Budget.

Most interesting is the Modern invention of the Budget Deficit.   It is a direct creation of the Republican Party.  I know, you are saying "That's just liberal propaganda."

Nope, it's a fact admitted by the Republican Party.   They  deliberately increased the deficit as part of a plan to reduce spending.  The Democrats had a good plan called "PayGo" which required you to raise taxes every time you increased spending.  The Republicans tried to replace it with "CutGo" which refused to ever increase spending, instead cutting old spending whenever you introduced new spending.  Apparently it doesn't take inflation into account, or the concept of emergency funding (i.e. war/disaster).

But this plan is not new, it's old.   The entire concept is decades old.  Raise deficits than use them as an excuse to cut spending.

It started under Ronald Reagan with "Voodoo Economics"  the professed claim was that lower taxes on the wealthy would stimulate the wealthy to spend more money.  It failed of course, actually increasing the deficit.  

They realized they could use the deficit as a propaganda weapon to cut spending.  Which they actively pursued for quite a time.


The problem is that it didn't work.  Instead of saying "We need to cut spending", people said "We can live with the deficit".  Which they have done.

Honestly, right now the higher deficit is not a problem - for one major reasons:  Interest rates are low.

Frankly, given treasuries rates of of 2.83% per year for a thirty year bond (source)  we would be crazy NOT to borrow tons of money.

If someone offered me a loan at 2.83%, I would max out my credit rating and invest the money.  For me, that means mutual fund.

But for a country, investing means spending money on:

• Education
• Infrastructure
• Scientific Research
• International Aid 
• Environmental Clean up
• Healthcare for the working poor

The last one is key - by keeping the working poor healthy, we get healthier employees that stay working and paying taxes, rather than moving them to Medicaid/Medicare

Note that most of these things are the very things the idiot GOP wants to cut.  In effect, they are saying they don't want to invest, instead they want to spend our cheap money on pleasures:  tax-cuts (which Reagan proved do not increase tax income) and military spending (which often we don't need - see here.)

What does Religious Freedom Let you Do?

In America, the Radical Right has tried to expand the concept of Religious Freedom to mean anything any preacher has ever said. 

They love to use he words "sincerely held religious beliefs" as a get out of following the law card.  The problem is you can make up your own religion, putting in any crap you want - like the right to kill people portray your god in a photo/video - or even just cut your off in traffic.   They try to fix this obvious flaw by putting in limitations to prevent the most obvious abuses.  Obviously this leaves the less obvious abuses in place, and they think we are too stupid to notice.

At a lower scale, it would be possible to claim "my religion says it is a sin to pay taxes", or just "my religion says it is a sin to have any business relations with black people".   Don't like gays?  Have a preacher somewhere say that homosexuality is evil, then use it as an excuse to violate their rights.   Same for abortion, or healthcare in general.

Freedom of Religion definitely has limitations.  Obviously Freedom of Religion does not let you kill people that cut you off in traffic.   In addition it is NOT just the most obvious abuses that are limited.  We have a reasonable test for what is really a sincerely held religious belief and what is just made up bull.

So lets talk about what Religious Freedom actually means, starting with some definitions.

1. Reasonable Accommodations.   This is a key legal concept not limited just to religion.  For example, the same concept is used in the Americans with Disabilities Act.   With regards to religion, it means that you force people to ignore their religion when a simple and obvious solution exists.  You can't make them work Saturday, taking Sunday off if their religion says they need to take Saturday off.   In effect, this rule says no to silly technicalities.
2.  Religiously Required activities.  Here are things your religion requires you to do - take one day off a week, Confess your sins, observe the Sabbath, have a Seder on passover (including drinking alcohol and eating matzoh.).  These are extra important and need more protections
3. Religiously Forbidden activities. These are things the religion expressly forbids you from from doing.  They may be sins, they may be a dietary restriction - such as kosher or Halal, or they may simply be rules - such as the Catholic Church's rules on condoms.  Again, these are extra important.
4. Religious attitudes.  These are things that are not expressly forbidden, but are frowned upon.  For example, most churches frowns on excess nudity, but don't have actual rules forbidding it.   The Catholic Church may dislike strippers, but nudity itself not a sin, instead it is claimed the profession thrives on and creates the sin of lust.  As per the Catholic Church, if it is done without lust, it is not a sin - which is why parents may remove the clothing of their infants to bathe them.   By itself it is not a sin, even if it is RELATED to sinning.   Attitudes are not important - not to the law, and honestly not to the church.

Religious Attitudes are not sincerely held religious beliefs.   They look a lot like them, but are something far less important.   Compare them to the Required and Forbidden things.

• Things that are truly required and forbidden are OFFICIALLY WRITTEN DOWN.   They are distributed to all churches/clergy as dogma, not merely discussed on the pulpit.  If it is that important, then we want to get it right, and leave nothing to chance.  We don't simply talk about it, the holy people get together and write down exactly what is forbidden or required.  More importantly, they are sure to put down exceptions (such as Orthodox Jews being forbidden from start fires on the Sabbath - unless the fire is needed by a sick person/someone freezing to death).
• It is also written down BEFORE any laws about it were even discussed, let alone created.   While some 'religious' people play fast and loose with dogma, churches are not trying to game the legal system.   They are truly concerned about the spirituality of their flock and need to clarify things ASAP.  Long before someone writes a law, they write down the religious rules. 
• Religious attitude are heavily argued and people that belong to the exact same religion/church will have different opinions on it.  If some want to make it forbidden/required rather than merely a religious attitude, a schism happens and a new church breaks off, with one group retaining an attitude, while the other WRITES DOWN the new differences and declare themselves a new religion.  Why do they write it down?  To show the world how they are different from the other one.  (See the multiple Episcopalian pro-gay rights right Conventions.)
• What may only be a Religious Attitude in what religion may be a a Religiously Forbidden/Required act in another (obviously from the above statement).

Religious Attitudes are clearly not sincerely held religious beliefs.  If someone else in your church believes disagrees with you and you don't yell out APOSTATE and kick them out (or leave), then you have personally demonstrated that it is not a sincerely held religious belief. Instead it is a a religious idea that you are thinking about turning into a sincerely held religious belief.   Catholic priests may say anything they want, but only the Pope is infallible.

More importantly, it makes for a very easy test to pass.  If you sincerely and honestly believe it, then you are free to start your own church.   Nothing stops you from doing that - except social pressure, which should already be applied if you are trying to use your religious beliefs to break a law.

OK, now for the meat of the argument.

Reasonable Accommodation does not mean anything you want you get. If your religion requires you to spend 5 minutes praying every time you kill an animal, don't try to get a job at a slaughterhouse (at least not one that does not cater to your religion).

That also means if you religion does not let you fund abortions, then don't try to go into the insurance business - unless you expressly only insure people that believe in your religion.   Guess what - that includes self-insurance.  If your religion expressly forbids you from funding abortion, fine, you don't have to do so - your insurance company does.  That means you may have to give up the monetary savings of being self insured.  That is part of the price you pay for having your particular religious beliefs.   Religions have a long history of requiring their members to sacrifice freedoms.

What you expect OTHER people to pay the price for YOUR religious beliefs?  No.  You pay for your own religious beliefs.  You can't make me (or anyone else) pay for your beliefs.

If it isn't written down then it is NOT forbidden/required by your religion.   By not writing things down you are intentionally keeping it vague to prevent reasonable accommodations.  For example, orthodox Jewish rules expressly state that you can hire non-Jewish people to light fires.  This makes it quite clear what a reasonable accommodation would be for a Jewish business that was required to light fires every night for testing purposes.

So guess what - refusals to due business with gay weddings is not a religious right, it is just a prejudiced person attempting to use the false claim of religious freedom to over-ride other people's civil rights.  If was actually a religious belief you would have it written down someone.  That is not a very hard test to pass - write it down or shut up about it.

More importantly, once you write it down it gives actual evidence to the court.   They can examine it for loopholes (such as hiring other people to have contact with gay people.). More importantly, they can also examine it for consistency.    That is - if it lets you hire a gay man that is married to watch your kids but won't let you pay someone else to cater their wedding, the court can rule your beliefs are clearly designed to negate the law and are not sincerely held personal beliefs.

Why Abortion won't be solved, but other issues will be.

Note that this is a big one, so wait for abortion stuff down below.

One of the differences between the GOP and the DNC is that GOP routinely uses false arguments and abandon them left and right, while the DNC routinely sticks to it's real arguments unless an immense amount of proof shows them wrong.     Conservatives are loyal to the program, changing arguments at will, while liberals are loyal to the argument, changing programs at will.

This is why conservatives prefer money saving light bulbs that use less energy but do NOT save the environment over money saving blights that use less energy and do save the environment.  (source)

You see, unlike conservatives, liberals actually put forth their real arguments to support themselves. If they are proven wrong, they change their mind.  But it takes a LOT of evidence to do so.   Liberals come from a science background and science takes solid, thorough evidence.   Conservatives on the other hand are quite willing to suddenly change their arguments but keep their mind, even when faced with relatively weak counter-claims.

This leads to some confusion.  Conservatives think Liberals are far more hidebound than they really are, because the liberals keep sticking to their original arguments even after the conservatives think they disproved them.   The problem is conservatives often have no idea how much evidence it takes to actually disprove an argument.  Liberals think Conservatives are far more hidebound than they really are because they abandon their old arguments that they never truly believed in.  Note this is not a 100% thing, more like a 55%/45% thing.  There are exceptions - it is a generality, not a rule.

A prime example of this is the violent video game debate.  Conservatives want them banned because they don't like them and think they are immoral.   They put forth badly crafted theories that claim they cause violence.  Liberals look at their studies and laugh at how poorly done they are.  The conservatives sit in wonder thinking 'what will it take to convince the liberals', without having any idea of how ridiculous their studies are (outright confusing correlation with causation).

Simultaneously liberals try to tax sugar drinks, so the conservatives get all upset about 'excess taxes'.  But that's a fake issue - they really care about personal freedom.  So when the liberals switch from taxing sugary drinks to outlawing them, the liberals are so confused about why the conservatives don't like the new idea to outlaw them as opposed to tax them.


This dichotomy is mainly caused by the nature of the political parties.  The word liberal originally meant in favor of progress, while the word conservative originally meant in favor of the tradition.   As such, Liberals can easily abandon bad ideas and move on to new good ones.  But Conservatives can't do that, because the new traditions are the old liberal ideas.   Conservatives have a choice - either stick to your old ideas with new arguments, or accept the liberal ideas of the previous generation.   Eventually they do make the switch to the liberal ideas of the previous generation - but it takes a generation.  The old conservatives die out/retire and new conservatives that have adopted old liberal ideas move in (i.e. race-blind admission to universities is a prime example.)

Another reason why this happens is the core support systems.

Conservatism/traditionalism all have strong support among religious people.  Religion is about faith and loyalty, so this core value has become central to conservatism.  In a loyalty and faith based system, you keep your truth hidden and put forth many arguments that you may not care about.  

The problem with a faith based political system is that it tends toward sudden dramatic shifts.  There is no middle ground, to quote a conservative "You are either with us or against us."  Hence the concept of the "Republican In Name Only."   If you disagree just a little bit, you don't belong and are 'other'.

Liberalism is however founded on a more scientific thought process.   It is about making things better, not accepting things as they are.  As such, it needs discovery and tests, and sometimes negative results.  At the heart of liberalism is a scientific method, not faith.  It also requires a lot of significant evidence, thoroughly backed by science to disprove.  This makes it a little bit more accepting of moderation, changes become gradual, not sudden shifts. 

This is something conservatives never understood - they put together a tiny amount of evidence, build it into a mountain and are shocked that the liberals laugh at their molehill.   Simultaneously liberals stand in dis-belief as conservatives bring up new arguments for clearly dis-proven political ideas.

This has certain implications about how progress happens.  

First of all, again there are certain exceptions.   The Abortion argument will never truly be won by either side.  It will continue to be an issue for the foreseeable future.  As I have said before, Abortion is different - it is not a scientific issue.  Most of the other issues are.  It is theoretically possible to scientifically determine if gay marriage hurts regular marriage.   A massive double blind experiment could prove it either way.  Not so for abortion. 

I am NOT saying that the pro-life or the pro-choice's reasons are religious.  I am saying that the question itself comes down to when an embryo becomes a person and THAT is at best a philosophical question, totally unanswerable by science.   No amount of studies will ever prove the answer either way.  As such, pro choice can never be proven wrong, and the pro-life people will never abandon their core belief.

Only God can tell us who is right or wrong about abortion.   No studies can ever tell that.  Instead we are stuck arguing about what should we do when we don't know.

One way to summarize their arguments is:

Liberals say "We don't know if it is a person and the only claims for it are religious, so that makes it a freedom of religion issue and you can't force me to believe your religion.  QED abortion is legal."

Conservatives say "We don't know it's not a person, and no reasonable person can take the chance that our beliefs (religious or otherwise) are wrong.  Thus any sane government forbids abortion."

Abortion is an example of what to do when we can't know the right answer. 


But this differs from 99% of the other political arguments out there.  

Most other political arguments can be proven.   Unlike abortion, eventually we will find out the truth, it just may take a long time.   Battles about drugs (Marijuana legality), Marriage, economics, etc. can all be proven with decades of studies. When they are proven, one side wins.  When Conservatives are right, they need to painstakingly prove with impeccable science.  When they do this, liberals cave in. It might take 2 years, it might take 40.

But when Liberals are right it takes a very different path.  It needs to build up in a crescendo, slowly building strength among liberals, being repeatedly demonstrated to conservatives till a large majority laugh at the ridiculously, patently false ideas held by the old guard.  It usually takes at least 20 years to get the laws passed.  They need to wait for the old conservative guard to retire and the new ones to take over.

 It's what happened with a federal banking system (from the early 19th century), the gold standard, social security.  We pushed it through legislation, tested it for decades then watched the conservative opposition die out.   That's what is happening now with marijuana and gay marriage.  Give it another 10/20 years and these will cease to be issues.  Not because the liberals will convince the conservatives, but because the older conservatives will retire/die off.

Of course, this means that before that happens, their will be more ridiculous scenes of conservatives believing obviously false ideas.  Slowly they will realize that no one else agrees with them.  It happened with racism, rape, and Social Security.  Now it is happening with gay rights and marijuana.


Note this is not a 100% thing.  There are liberals that still believe in Communism - but none of them hold a national elected office. (Despite the lies spread about Obama). 

Also certain issues will not die, but simply slowly weaken.  Take Black/White Racism.  In the United States it was created in order to justify slavery.  It started back in the 17th century, but was strengthen by slavery until the mid 19th century.  When the good guys won the civil war, the real war against Black/White Racism began.  It took almost 150 years to get a black president, and Black/White Prejudice still struggles on, half-dead but still surviving.

That battle had to be won repeatedly.  Voting rights, educational rights, marriage rights, fought slowly.  But real progress was made.  Not like abortion where things swing back and forth.


Other wars were much shorter.  You don't hear people claiming that the irish aren't 'white' anymore, but they used to be considered a separate race, with racist laws hurting them.

"This Time It's Different"

Every generation think it is special.  Their parents couldn't possibly have gone through what they did.

Yes, it is true that this country is slightly more divided now then it has been in the past, but the issues are not that different.  Here is a rough list of important issues by decade (give or take 5 years).

• 1780s and 1790s: Tax issues (Whiskey Rebellion), creating the nation, Supreme Court 
• 1800s  Louisiana Purchase, Slavery,  staying out of English/French war
• 1810's  War of 1812 (see English/french war above), Federal bank?, slavery, Keeping Europe out of Americas
• 1820's:  Taxes, Banking, Indian removal
• 1930s':  Financial crisis, Indian Removal
• 1840s:  Fighting with Mexico about Texas
• 1850:  Slavery, civil war coming
• 1860 Civil War/Slavery ends, Constitutional changes
• 1870s: Reconstruction, civil rights, Female suffrage
• 1880s:  Corruption in government, gold standard, monopoly/labor strikes, Female suffrage
• 1890's Spanish American war, Hawaii, Gold Standard, Female suffrage
• 1900's:  Trust busting, Female suffrage
• 1910's  Trust-busting, federal income tax, corruption fighting, World War I  (keep away from Europe), Female suffrage, prohibition
• 1920 's: economic issues - low taxes, then stock market crash,  prohibition
• 1930:  Depression, World War, prohibition (repeal)
• 1940's  World War II,beginning of desegregation
• 1950's  Korea, Cold War  racism/civil rights
• 1960's Cold War, Civil Rights, Space program,  Medicare and Medicaid, Vietnam, Abortion
• 1970s  Nixon scandal, good buy Vietnam, goodby gold standard, Environmentalism, Salt I (nuclear proliferation), Abortion
• 1980's  Anti-government, anti-=taxes, Abortion
• 1990's  Gay rights become a real issue, Abortion
• 2000s  Terrorism, attempts to cut entitlements  Healthcare bill, gay rights, Abortion,  Legalize Marijuana
• 2010 Gay rights, abortion,  Legalize Marijuana

So at heart the four main issues have always been:

1. Economics
2. Prejudice/discrimination
3. Wars
4. Public Safety

There is one more issues that don't fit these four neat categories - specifically abortion.  While on the surface it is a public safety issue with a dash of discrimination, it is dramatically different from all other issues.

Abortion is a relatively new issue  that people feel strongly about and does not fit into those categories.   It might end up being a new, re-occurring theme.  Why is it so different?  The other issues are all at heart answerable by science, but abortion can not be 'solved' by science.

The true heart of the abortion issue is what counts as a person.  If you consider a just fertilized egg to be one, then abortion is killing babies.  If you don't, then abortion is a simple surgical procedure similar to getting a vasectomy in that it prevents you from having unwanted children.   But the question of person-hood is at best a philosophical one, or more likely a religious one.  Science can not tell us the answer.


But lets get back to the big four long term issues government fights over

In general the economic battles tend to get settled.   Eventually either people realize the new idea is garbage without trying it out, or they do try it out and it either works or fails.  If it works they keep it,  fails it gets over-turned.  Then someone comes up with a new idea and the process starts all over again. 

Prejudice appears to be the same battle fought repeatedly, slowly having the prejudiced people lose, then the anti-prejudice people move on to the next group that is being picked on.  There is real progress being made consistently on that issue, from the original compromises allowing slavery all the way to the current fight about gay marriage.

War on the other hand seems to be a constant issue - staying out of them, or getting into them, there is no real progress made on the general issue, we just keep changing the name and location of the war.

Finally, Public Safety is a rather interesting question.  This includes gun issues, drugs, alcohol, pollution, and healthcare in general.  In general, this gets treated like economics.   Slowly ideas get tested and then either accepted if it works or over-turned if it fails.  Strangely enough, liberals and democrats fight over this a lot.   If it is portrayed on moral grounds, the conservatives will spend money, otherwise the safety measures are considered 'too expensive'.  Unless of course they think the safety measure itself is considered unsavory in some way (HPV vaccine), then they complain on moral grounds rather than economic grounds.

But it takes a lot longer to solve Public Safety issues and people keep bringing up failed ones (assualt weapons), while simultaneously people keep killing successful ones as well (background checks on guns).

The heart of the matter is that we really only have 4 main issues in American Politics, (plus abortion).  Things are not all that different now than they 100 years ago when it comes to what we argue about.

Are the Boston Marathon Bombers Terrorists?

People have talked about them as terrorists.

Frankly, I am not sure.    Merely using a bomb to kill people as opposed to using bullets does not make you a terrorist (or every combat pilot would be a terrorist).  What makes these bombers different from the criminals that shoot up schools?

Terrorists kill non-combatants for political reasons.   Soldiers kill combatants for political reasons, criminals kill all for money or hate and crazy people kill for non-sane reasons.   Idiots do it by accident.

They definitely targeted non-combatants, which means they are not soldiers.

It was not negligence, they did it on purpose.

They did not do it for money.

They appear to be sane, but that has not been determined.   They very well could count as psychotic.  Some kill for the fame, others kill just to kill (anarchists).  An argument could be made that they are anarchists.

If their only reason was hatred for Americans (as opposed to hatred of America), that makes them criminals.  This is a rather subtle point and quite frankly no one cares.

(You see, there is no real difference between a terrorist and a criminal when it comes to the law.   It only matters to our government if you committed your deed outside of the country.  We don't like to arrest criminals outside of the country, but we do hunt down and kill terrorists outside of the country).


To truly be a terrorist they need to have some kind of political agenda.

They have not made that clear.  Yes, there is some indication of political agenda - letting a non-american car-jack victim live, talking about politics, etc.  Talking about 'radicalization'  But that is rather indistinct evidence.


To me, I want a lot more.  I want an explicit admission of political motivation.

What, you are are thinking - you want an admission - don't I know criminals lie?

Yes I do know that criminals lie - but you are claiming he is NOT a criminal.  Terroirsts are not criminals, that's why they go to Guantanamo not jail.

Terrorist organizations don't lie about being terrorists.  They proudly proclaim it.  Why?  Because that is the whole point of terrorism.  Oh sometimes they claim to be "freedom fighters", but they don't deny their goal is political.   Terrorists want people to know who they are and what they did.  That is why they do the crime - to get in the news and make trouble.

If you don't proclaim your cause, then no one knows what you want them to be in terror of.

Real terrorists proclaim their terrorism, and he is the only one left to proclaim.

I don't know yet if the bombers were terrorists.  We won't know that fact till the survivor speaks on the subject

But honestly, it doesn't really matter.  It won't really affect his punishment anyway.

Ridiculous Claims of the Boston Bomber - and also by Republicans.

One of the Boston Marathon Bombers, is reported to have made the outright ridiculous claim that most of the deaths in Afghanistan came from Americans killing innocent civilian (a.k.a. collateral damage)

Now, lets just ignore the incredibly unlikeliness of this claim.   Most deaths in the area are caused by guns, despite the higher profile bomb deaths.   But let's assume it is actually true, despite the shear stupidity and lunacy of the argument. 

I will illustrate his simple error using a simple story.

There once was a little boy, let's call him Steven.   He was not particularly malicious, but he definitely qualified as a prankster.  The kind of kid that Bart Simpson was based on.  Like Bart Simpson, he had a younger sister that he teased. 

One day, while at a pool party, the kids had water guns.   Steve came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea.  He shot his sister, than ran over to a bunch of toddlers, younger than his sister.

His sister followed him and shot him, getting a few of the toddlers, who immediately began to cry.  Of course his sister got punished.  But don't feel too bad, little Steven was also punished.

Because the parents knew exactly who had planned the collateral damage.  Some idiots may think that hiding behind innocents means you are not responsible for the collateral damage.  But any parent of a conniving little Bart Simpson wanna-be can easily see through this rather lame artifice.

When you intentionally put innocents at risk to trap your opponent, you are just as responsible as your opponent, if not more so.

So why do people pull this kind of crap?   It's not just terrorists.  American politicians use similar techniques by putting force amendments to bills to add 'collateral damage'.  The hope is to prevent the bill from being passed.     Then of course there is the reverse tactic - stealing credit for good bills.

Here, whiny little republican idiots in the state senate (not all republicans are whiny little idiots, but the people doing this are) refuse to vote in favor of any Democrat bills.  They want to lie and pretend that the Democrats are always wrong.   So whenever a Democrat authors a bull they like, they vote it down, then reintroduce the same bill , sometimes without changing a single word.  Then they lie and claim they authored the bill.  Apparently, Michigan Republicans think their constituents are morons.

I wonder, did they copy test answers back in school as well, or is it just legislation?

(Note, some Democrats do the same thing, but the tactic is much more common among Republicans, in part because so few state houses are controlled by Democrats and don't need any Republican votes.  But quite a few state houses are controlled by Republicans and don't need any Democrat votes due to partisan gerrymandering.)

They expect people to stupidly blame/credit the men that pull the trigger, rather than the evil sons of bitches that planned the operation.  This applies to both the ridiculously lame theory by the Boston Marathon Bomber, and the slimy,cheating, liars pretending to author Democrat bills.

They think we are fools.  They think we can't understand what happens.

They are wrong.   We know exactly who to blame - the idiots that plan, not the men that make the hard choices.

"I'm From The Government and I'm Here To Help."

Ronald Reagan once said:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"  He said it 1986. Not content to say it once, he repeated it  in 1988 adding "Hi" and declaring them the ten most terrifying words.


It became an article of faith among the Republicans.

The reason is simple - not that the government doesn't help, but because when the government does help, it doesn't have time to introduce it self - or tell you what they are here to do.  Usually government does it's job very far from the people they are helping.  The EPA helps the millions around them, while pissing off the people they regulate.   They don't even talk to the people they help, they talk to the people that might be hurting the people they help.

• When the firemen come, they don't stop to introduce themselves, they just jump right in and help.   But they are still from the government and are here to help you.
• When the police officers come, they identify themselves as police, not 'from the government'. nor do they say they are here to help - even though most of the time they are there to help.
• Neither do teachers whose sole job is to help your students learn (anyone who has ever seen a child learn knows teachers help the process, they don't force it.  
• Nor do librarians when they help you find things you want.

Why do I bring this up?  Because it clarifies the basic problem with Republican thought.

• They think of 'the government' in the abstract sense rather than getting to the specifics.  They say government spending is bad, but won't say what they want to cut.  Their argument only appears to work if you stick to generalities. 
• They pay attention to the people being directly controlled/punished (often the wealthy and corporate) without even looking at the many more people being indirectly helped (often the poor individuals).
• They like to pretend people are private citizens even when they are government workers.   Those firemen?  They are volunteers, not 'from the government'.   Despite the fact that their equipment is bought by the government.   Libraries - they are charities, not government employees.

How to destroy this joke and take it back as an accurate statement?

Simple - when the government ever helps you, require the people to say: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

When policemen, prosecutors, and judges talk to victims of crime, they should be required to say it.
When firemen, talk to victims of a crime, they should say it.
When doctors are paid by Medicaid, they should say it.
When you apply for Social Security, Medicare and Medicare, they should say it (and print it on the forms.)
When parents meet teachers, the teachers should say it.
When garbage-men see you when they are picking up your trash, they should say it.
When road-workers fix roads, they should say it.
etc. etc. etc.
Print it on your IRS refund check.  Also your social security check and foodstamps, etc.


If all the government employees and sub-contractors said it, then just maybe no one would have laughed at Reagan's joke.

Because it just represented a rather ignorant political ideology, not reality.