Filed under: Republican Nihilism

Oh my, you mean regulations don't kill businesses?

I would say that the lack of regulations kills workers and citizens.   

Money quote:

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statisticsshow that very few layoffs are caused principally by tougher rules.

Whenever a firm lays off workers, the bureau asks executives the biggest reason for the job cuts.

In 2010, 0.3 percent of the people who lost their jobs in layoffs were let go because of “government regulations/intervention.” By comparison, 25 percent were laid off because of a drop in business demand.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/does-government-regulation-really-kill-jobs-economists-say-overall-effect-minimal/2011/10/19/gIQALRF5IN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most

Hoffa was blasted because he called for voting?

Breitbart says "They can only win a rhetorical war". Isn't that the only type of war this is? Why threaten those who you disagree with with violence? What difference does it make that you have"all the guns"? You make a stronger case for repealing the Second Amendment than any lefty. Violent paranoids shouldn't have any guns... Or any elected offices either.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/18/1018104/-Andrew-Breitbart-says-Fire-...

It's about damn time #p2 #connecttheleft

Let's make it an issue in the election, no...THE issue. Give the voters a choice, not a Republican lite option. God help us if the Plutocrats win this round. Of course the elections 4 years later might usher in a real radical, not just a Fox News created one.


From The New York Times:

Obama Vows Veto if Deficit Plan Has No Tax Increases

President Obama called for Congress to adopt his plan to reduce the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next decade, calling for tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.

http://nyti.ms/qKVd1R

Across the land, Republicans weep

Romney in particular, as he mourns the wealth that was not created. Quoting

It is the first new labor pact for any of the Detroit carmakers since G.M. and Chrysler received government bailouts and went through bankruptcy in 2009. The deal will help G.M.’s 48,500 union workers share in the company’s turnaround and should give them more job security, two top priorities for the U.A.W., though the tenuous nature of the economic recovery will continue to inject some uncertainty.

G.M. said the deal would cover four years. The union declined to give details but said the agreement included improved profit-sharing and “significant improvements to health care benefits.” The deal was also expected to include so-called signing bonuses worth at least several thousand dollars. And the U.A.W. had been seeking a wage increase for entry-level workers, who earn about half as much as other workers.

The union said in a statement that it had successfully fought G.M.’s proposals to weaken retirement benefits and obtain major concessions to health benefits.

“In both pensions and health care, the U.A.W. was able to convince G.M. that far greater success could be achieved working together than by cutting pensions or health care,” it said.

From The New York Times:

U.A.W. Reaches Tentative Agreement With General Motors

http://nyti.ms/on66Mm

David Brooks sees a problem, but misses THE problem. It's Ayn Rand

In today's New York Times, David Brooks has an overall thoughtful piece, and he correctly assesses a problem in society today where too many are embracing moral relativism, leaving all ethical frameworks up to individuals; therefore standing for nothing as relative morality becomes no morality. Quoting Mr. Brooks:

“Not many of them have previously given much or any thought to many of the kinds of questions about morality that we asked,” Smith and his co-authors write. When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner. “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often,” is how one interviewee put it.

The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?”

Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”

Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.


This condition does exist, and it manifests itself with a lack of community and responsibility towards our fellow man, particularly those who struggle.  Ironically, Ayn Rand and her disciples, which include the conservative movement and the Republican Party, have accelerated this moral relativism.

It's ironic, because Ayn Rand insisted that she hated moral relativism, she said only the objective was real, which meant only the physical world and that derived from reason, and her cult/religion/philosophy Objectivism was based upon this. From this, she produced the axiom that the self was the highest form of life, as it was objective and real, and that serving the self was the highest good.  End of story.

This gospel of self serving, or selfishness, leads to individualism of the extreme kind and therefore society suffers.  The whole theme of her fifty pound novel 'Atlas Shrugged' is of the individuals shunning society and leaving to be a collection of individuals.

But individualism has as many faces as there are people, and if the self is the ultimate good, then everyone has the incentive to take care of their own self.   Which destroys communities.

Reason is based on premises, and Ayn would have had us to believe that her premises were truth, therefore there had to be no other outcome but hers.  But with 300 million individuals in America acting on self interest, you are bound to get 300 million "truths", and none of them would call for sacrifice, community and cohesion necessary to strengthen society.

So if you serve yourself, your moral code just gets simpler.  Why care about any actions you take to pursue self interest that might affect your less fortunate neighbor?  It becomes a system of moral relativism disguised as objective truth.  In reality it isn't anything more than objective truths tailored for whatever whims that might motivate each individual.

In our society where consumerism and status determined by wealth are deemed the governing values, the conditions that David Brooks describes are the only expected outcome.

I'd say a majority of Americans haven't heard of Ayn Rand, and if they have, they don't know what her vision entails.  But the leaders of industry, fundamentalist Christianity, and conservative politics are fulfilling her vision one deregulation and tax cut at a time. Pretty soon, there will be no one who would serve in the military, and frankly, no good reason to ask anyone to, if this is the world they are protecting.

Brook's column linked here

Only one logical conclusion, that Dick Morris is a dumbass

From the Political Animal blog, a post that would be amusing save for the fact people listen to the jackass Dick Morris. Quote:

That's right, Dick Morris wrote an entire column based on the belief that the health care industry lost 30,000 jobs in August. The report he relied on actually said the health care industry gained 30,000 jobs in August. Morris' case isn't just lazy and unserious; it's backward

Koch Brothers attempt to destroy public schools. Its George Wallace all over again

If you are familiar with the Koch Brothers, it will be more of the same for you. If you aren't, you ought to be. By far most dangerous force in America that you haven't heard of. If Ayn Rand had two sons, trained them to spread her filthy worldview & made them them one of the richest families in the world, they couldn't be any more destructive than the Kochs.


These people would return to the 19th century and enslave us all who aren't silver spoon trust fund babies or CEOs. Www.KochBrothersExposed.com/education