Liberals And Conservatives

It has struck me as odd that we continue to use terms like Liberal and Conservative for the political spectrum because they don’t mean what you think any more.  It used to be that if you were for the right to privacy for example that you were a conservative.  If you believed in a “conservative” use of Eminent Domain you were a conservative.  It used to be that if you interoperated the constitution the way the founding fathers meant it, you believed that a President had the right to nominate a supreme court justice during all four years if your term of elected power and not just three of them.  If you saw the term of “congress shall enact no laws prohibiting the right to freedom of practicing religion- - - it didn’t mean that women would be denied contraceptives as part of their health care plan at work.  This to me is a far from clear issue for the Founding Fathers that this is what they meant.  For that matter, do Corporations such as Hobby Lobby even have the right to deny women’s rights in the name of religion since corporations are not people?  No founding father regarded corporations as persons.  One could boil it down simply to say that liberals favor faster progress and conservatives favor slower progress.  So for instance I might be a moderate on pot legalization because I believe we ought to proceed carefully on granting rights to light up.  And I believe we have proceded carefully in this regard.  But here’s a graphic example of what I’m talking about.  Conservatives might be regarded as fearful of losing what we have where as liberals are optimist looking to the future for bigger and better things.  But what about Windows 10.  You may back away from that because you fear losing Media Player.  All of the photographic stuff I have on my computer now I might lose if I get windows 10 and some of that stuff is not compatable and I lose many photo options I have right now.  Why should the mere passage of time bar me from continuing to use software I already own?  In like manner one would be a conservative if one believed in going back eighty years and preserving the regulations on Stock trading instituted by FDR.  For instance back then we had Gless Stiegel, and we had margin requirements of sixty percent or something.  We also had a quarter percent stock trading tax instated on all trades to slow things down.  I’d like to bring that one back.  In fact I wouldn’t mind if it were raised to a half a percent.  This would put computer traders in their place and make the market a whole lot safer.  But often times we hear absurd things such as “Let’s go back to the nineteen fifties”.  Do these people mean that they want to return to a time of 91% income taxes and corporations paid one third of the Federal Tax revenue?  What about airline regulations?  The last time I flew commercially was in 1975.  I think a lot of us would love to roll the clock back forty years and not have all of this “deregulation” where flyers pay a heavy price in terms of loss of services.  This is to say nothing about all of the security regulations they have now.  So I as a “liberal” believe we have a lot to lose from the conservatives coming to power.  Labor Unions were a whole lot stronger sixty years ago.  Even this so called golden era where women stayed home and didn’t work and nobody got divorced.  Upon even inspection even these things weren’t true.  Women had jobs and people did get divorced.  So in general you could say conservatives are good at spinning myths such as Ronald Reagan was the greatest president we ever had.  This would have to be an awfully air-brushed, sanitized version of the Ronald Reagan presidency.  Not the actual one.  There was a “Reagan revolution” to be sure, and it wasn’t good, for a lot of ordinary people. 

Here’s another good reason for not voting for Trump.  Trump wants Apple and other electronics companies to open up a “back door” for encrypted software so the government can read your private communacations.  I am with Gene Scott on this one.  I believe that the average citizen has the right to hide- - even if it’s nothing.  It’s none of the government’s business short of probable cause and even then I’d say “It’s still a secret”.   If I meet in private behind locked doors with an associate my conversation will not be revealed.  It’s just that simple.  I believe Americans have the right to private conversations.  Likewise I don’t think employers should probe your facebook accounts any more than then it would be right to send agents of a company into your medicine cabinet to see what medications you may be taking.  Capish? 

Franklin Roosevelt had the balls to call for higher taxes for rich people in October 1936 two weeks before the Presidential election.  He even mocks the notion that because of higher taxes these rich people would think about moving to another country.  You will remember that the Great Depression began in October of 1929 is not before.  And for three years and more the Great Depression got worse and worse till in 1933 people were crying out for change.  It’s been said that people sent mountains of letters to their congressmen saying to give the new president whatever powers he wants to for his new programs.  What if President Obama had gotten that kind of support in March of 2009?   There is a “Republican light” ad circulating around now saying that if Bernie Sanders gets elected as President he will raise taxes and institute the sort of socialistic programs that have been discredited.  Perhaps this is a pro Hillary outfit putting out this video, but if I were Hillary Clinton I wouldn’t feel too easy about this video being out. 

WASHINGTON — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders fares a bit better than rival Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups against Republican presidential contenders, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Pollfinds, and he has pulled within 10 percentage points of her for the Democratic nomination.  The nationwide survey, taken Thursday through Monday, underscores how formidable an opponent the 74-year-old democratic socialist has become against one of the Democratic Party's most established figures.  Clinton — a former first lady, two-term New York senator and secretary of State — is backed by 50% of likely Democratic primary and caucus voters, down 6 points from December. Over that time, Sanders' standing has surged 11 points, to 40%.  While Clinton argues that she would be more electable in November, Sanders shows somewhat more strength against four possible Republican opponents, although almost all of the matchups fall within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.  Meanwhile, the Republican race has become a three-man contest. Real-estate mogul Donald Trump has widened his lead nationwide to 35% of likely Republican voters, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 20% and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 17%.  The other three Republican contenders — Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson — trail in distant single digits.

I was able to locate that “casting out of nines” number magic thing.  It’s in Psychic Balance from late November of 2009.  I need to identify my stuff so people can find it.  I think the semaphore flag formations are from October of 2011.  It’s October 19^th 2011 in the “Escape from Egypt” blog.  I need to “flag” things so that people can find them.  I've done various listings of my "Seven Deadly Sins".  For four of them I am in agreement with Dante and the Catholic Church.  These are Wrathful Anger (Huberous), Lust, Averice, and Sloth.  I believe in three kinds of anger.  One is rightious anger.  For instance someone on a construction job misusing a big crane and almost offing a bunch of bystanders by hitting them in the head.  This would be a case where a boss would be rightious in his anger.  Then there is what you'd call "human anger" such as if you lend your new car out to a friend and it comes back with dents all in it.   It's normal to react.  But then there is the type of pure anger spawned by pure "wrathful pride" and this is the sort of anger I am referring to.  Pure hatred.   Then there are three vices (sins) on my list that the Church does not even seem to recognize.  This is Dishonesty - - Treachery - - and Cowardess.  I'm really surprised the Church does not take a dim view of cowardess since fighting and "honor" were go big in the Middle Ages.