What is it with Republicans and any kind of new technology?

[hedgehog]

The Republican run county legislature here in Oswego Co, NY turned down a wind farm that would have brought in much needed jobs. The republican governor of Ohio has turned down any development of high speed rail. Now, they've taken a stand against compact fluorescent bulbs:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x606348

[SpiralHawk]

1. As they have so often said, Republicons want America to FAIL

The chief overpaid RepubliCon SpokesWanker -- Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh -- has said it often...

[BrklynLiberal]

2. and theywill find a way to blame the Democrats.

[hedgehog]

3. It's almost like they are determined to be against anything that Democrats

support.....I'm tempted for all of us to take a stand against single payer just to see what would happen...

[BrklynLiberal]

6. even if it means destroying the entire country

[Avant Guardian]

7. That is the sad part

The good part is, once they do collapse the world economy they are sooo over.

[Courtesy Flush]

8. Relevant link...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/republicans-vote-to-repeal-obamabacked-bill-that-w,19025/

[BrklynLiberal]

18. If it did happen, they WOULD vote against it...

[jpak]

4. GOP = job killers - that wind farm would have produced tax revenue

and that tax revenue would have reduced property tax burdens for Oswego county residents.

Can't have that

nope

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Luddites?

1. A Luddite is a person who dislikes technology, especially technological devices that threaten existing jobs or interfere with personal privacy.

2. A Luddite is someone who is incompetent when using new technology.

The word Luddite has an interesting origin in pop culture of the early 1800's. Legend has it that a young man name Ned Ludd broke an expensive knitting machine in Nottingham, England. Because Ned was considered to be "feeble-minded" by his boss, he wasn't held financially responsible for the broken equipment. Afterwards, when factory equipment broke, the damage was always blamed on Ned Ludd.

During the Industrial Revolution, when factory workers organized to express their dissatisfaction with work conditions, the legend of Ned Ludd was politicized. One well-known method of protest was for workers to dress up in disguise and visit a factory owner late at night. The workers, claiming they had been sent by General Ned Ludd, demanded changes in the workplace. The invocation of Ned Ludd's name made it clear to the factory owner that if the demands weren't met, the owner's expensive machinery would be destroyed. The Luddites enjoyed a kind of Robin Hood reputation and the movement was generally supported by the public until a protest at a Lancashire mill went terribly wrong and several people were killed.

[napi21]

9. Conservative means NO CHANGE. They all hate the idea that

ANYTHING changes from the status quo.

[Bonhomme Richard]

11. +1 n/t

[provis99]

17. actually, conservative means slowly change.

But modern day Republicans aren't conservative anyways: they are reactionaries.

[napi21]

20. Today's Pubs appear to be retractionists (if that's a word) because they seem

to want to go back to the 40's & 50'. Some want to go even farther back than that...to the days before all those nasty SCOTUS decisions like Brown, Roe, & all that pushy gay stuff.

[Newest Reality]

10. Well, not any kind, it seems:

Automation is still a issue when it comes to the loss of jobs here. Are any Republicans scoffing at or trying to stop that?

Oddly, you don't hear much about that. Outsourcing, (and insourcing via prison labor for corporations) is usually in the limelight. Yet, did anyone imagine that, what was once a big issue publicly, stopped, diminished or just went away? Replacing jobs with automation continues and the technology continues to improve. The current economic debacle, brought to you via the Corporate Occupation of America, also provides more incentive to replace employees with high-tech machines.

When that trend begins to leak over more into the service sector, (where are large portion of our employment is now) we could potentially see even less work available here, though it tends to be low-pay with no benefits, etc. Self-checkouts isles that you see at some retail and food chains are an obvious indicator of this trend.

Progress in robotics continues, so there may be a whole new wave of replacements on the horizon. When it becomes viable to replace humans with technology and as it becomes more cost effective, the holy pursuit of profit could innovate many people out of jobs. Without some serious rethinking of our work paradigm, the profits of machinery without an equitable distribution plan could spell a long, dismal future for the workforce and assure a significant and permanent Underclass in America.

[The Wizard]

12. The only new technology

Republicans like is weaponry, kind of like Islamic fundamentalists.

[DCKit]

15. And electronic voting machines.

Gotta have a Democracy killer to balance the people killers.

[IDemo]

13. With one big exception-

[Initech]

14. It's all about the money.

If a publicly traded firm says we should do these things, they'd jump on it faster than you could blink. If the government says they should do these things, they'll roll their eyes in the back of their head and scream about excessive government spending. :eyes:

[ChoppinBroccoli]

16. As An Ohio Resident, I Can Tell You That Kasich Has One Goal...........

...........and that is to line his pockets and the pockets of his friends as much as possible, all at the expense of MY State, so that when he is voted out in 4 years (and he WILL be........emphatically), he'll gladly leave and spend the rest of his days figuring out how to spend all his newfound wealth.

I said it a year ago, and I'll say it again: this A-hole Kasich will make Ohioans wistful for the halcyon days of Bob Taft (yes, Bob Taft, the most-hated Governor in the country, possibly ever, who left office with an approval rating of 19%).

[Marr]

19. They're lobbyists for established industries that would lose money to such changes.

They're the same sort of people who disassembled our trolley line here in Los Angeles, purely because the auto and oil industries wanted it removed.

Personally, I think destroying or even preventing the construction of good infrastructure in exchange for money is right next door to treason.