Conservatives hate government until they fall down- then they need us bandage their boo-boos

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

It's all about bootstraps and and making wise decisions and personal accountability - if you're poor or middle class that is.

But, if you're a giant hedge fund like Long Term Capitol Management or an investment bank like Bear Stearns - if you screw up of course the rest of us have to rush in and rescue you. But, plenty of ill-gotten booty was "earned" in the meantime.

Conservatives just hate a hand out for anyone but themselves. Corporate welfare is the only welfare necessary. The rest of us can pound sand. What a bunch of frigging hypocrites! Where are your Ayn Rand devotees when this shit goes down?

[patrice]

1. Let's list all of the ways that "Conservatives" hate Big Government, except for:

One of our Kansas state representatives just attached a rider - at the very last second, so almost no other legislators know about it - to an otherwise healthy Education bill, to wit: County AGs, such as Phil Kline in Johnson County (ever hear of him?), can prosecute schools/teachers for whatever any parent deems is obscene in district curriculum. One book that they went after recently was John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

So, Conservatives are against Big Government, except when it comes to forcing their ignorance of genuine moral development and their stunted opinions of literature on others, then they want government to be the MORAL ARBITER OF EVERYTHING, even over the authority of parents who think they are the ones who are responsible for helping young adults to develop their own moral reasoning skills.

[Demobrat]

2. Yep they all hate socialism

until it's time to go collect unemployment, or disability, or social security, or medicare. Then they're first in line, bitching that it's not enough.

[patrice]

9. until it's time to:

- build a sports complex
- pave roads and build improvements into rural property they've purchased for private "development"
- create a market for a new drug
- seize control of any and all natural resources on Earth
- punish people for having sex outside of marriage
- create a market for a product, such as high fructose corn syrup, that their robots produce
- change the nature of the middle-class jobs base from production to service
- develop new service jobs for the middle class in the field of DEATH and DESTRUCTION for hire
- develop new service jobs in private prisons
- destroy public education with public vouchers that subsidize church schools
- ...

You know, some of us would listen to and value their concerns about "big government" if they weren't such LYING HYPOCRITS.

[bluestateguy]

3. When it comes to foreign policy, they are big government all the way

At least the neo-cons are, not true conservatives like Ron Paul.

What some conservatives don't understand is that you cannot have a small government at home if you have a bloated military establishment and and a meddling foreign policy all over the world.

[dkf]

4. Bailing out Bear Stearns saves us all.

Sad but true.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. Perhaps if the Glass-Steagall act had not been repealed and if there had existed

some government oversight and regulation, then Bear Styearns would not have been able to exercise the phenominally crappy judgement that they did.

I'm just saying that they hate the oversight and they hate the regulation, but when they succeed in totally bankrupting themselves, then it's all about government intervention for "the common good."

Did Bear Stearns offer to share their profits? No. So it's heads they win, tails you lose.

We are just all played for suckers all the time.

[dkf]

10. Wasn't that Clinton?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. Could have been. There's a lot of things that happened

in the Clinton years, that I was not up on or as well informed as I am now, thanks to the "inter-tubes".

In retrospect, Ross Perot was viewed as pretty much of a loon, but he was completely accurate saying the giant sucking sound of Nafta would be the loss of high-paying American manufacturing jobs. He just didn't see the all out loss of concern about America and its economy that would cause American corporations to just flat out desert us for the sake of CEO profits and windfalls - the aptly described "Benedict Arnold CEOs" of John Kerry.

[dkf]

12. Yup, Clinton...

On November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal is it allowed commercial & investment banks to consolidate. Economist Robert Kuttner has criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis <1>.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act

[magellan]

15. Glass-Steagall was shredded by then anyway

The Republicans undermined it for decades, such that by the mid-90s financial institutions were merging in outright defiance of the prohibitions in Glass-Steagall.

Congress's response? The Bank Modernization Act, aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which Clinton signed into law in '99, putting the final nail in the coffin of Glass-Steagall.

A corporatist wet dream come true.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

6. as i saw on another blog

risk is socialized

profit is privatized

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. I get the point, but that's not completely accurate.

Risk for corporations is socialized.

If risk for individuals was socialized, then we would have universal health care.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

13. of course you are correct

thanks!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

16. My pleasure. I see you are putting your brand new laptop to its highest and best use

by joining in here.

[MadMaddie]

7. This is exactly what the Democratic party is missing out on with

all of the in-house catfighting going on.

We should be pummeling the Republicans at this time with

No welfare or help for citizens then ABSOLUTELY NO CORPORATE WELFARE BAILOUT !!!

Isn't it the Republicans who say well it's an individuals fault for making poor decisions...

Folks it's obvious that our politicians are not going to fight the Republicans while they are beating the shit out of each other..

So how do we take this and run with it...(and all of the other ammo that's been handed to us)?

We have talented people here why can't we take our focus off of beating the shit out of each other on this and start projecting our anger and our advertisement against the people that have destroyed our country....the Republicans?

[gatorboy]

14. Yes they despise universal healthcare...But don't you DARE touch their Medicare!