Ultra-conservatives and American Political Culture

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by mrmitchell

You know what poor people did before the modern era? They starved and ended up either stealing food, begging on the street, or dead.

But they were bad poor, and they deserved it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Why do you say that?

There are economies that have full employment rates.

Because full employment rate /= full employment

[Dracon II]

Governments change the definition of unemployment to make the rate lower than it actually is...

[Ben Kenobi]

I would like to see an example of a leftwing nutbar calling for the death of rightwing opponents

Be careful what you wish for...

[Dr Strangelove]

Here's an interesting new tidbit: At any one time one quarter of the American population suffers from some sort of mental illness. This is a larger figure than any I've seen before. I wonder if it is a trend, and if so is it due to conditions in the US of A?

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Be careful what you wish for...

Why? Someone already provided one example, though wasn't really what I was looking for. We've already had a number of the reverse, but I want to see examples cited (not from FAUX News, not from Rush Limbaugh) of "Liberal bloodlust."

[Lawrence of Arabia]

heres another interesting figure - ancient greence, who handed out no government assitance to the poor, had less inequality then today: the richest athenians made only 2.5 times more then the poorest.

[DRoseDARs]

Speaking of which, apparently there's even a widdening gap between the richest USAmericans and the uber-richest USAmericans. Pretty vulgar.

[Sikander]

None of those characters has much of an impact on policy makers, they are more a symptom of just how many Americans are disengaged from real politics and living in an imaginary political world where their side is never forced to actually debate and the other side is demonized.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
heres another interesting figure - ancient greence, who handed out no government assitance to the poor, had less inequality then today: the richest athenians made only 2.5 times more then the poorest.

Where did the slaves come into that?

[DRoseDARs]

In many slave-owning societies, slaves were simply a measure of wealth, not actually part of the society in question.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Here's an interesting new tidbit: At any one time one quarter of the American population suffers from some sort of mental illness. This is a larger figure than any I've seen before. I wonder if it is a trend, and if so is it due to conditions in the US of A?

I suspect an ever-widening definition of mental illness is at least partly to blame.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Where did the slaves come into that?

They didn't- like women and foreigners they weren't 'people'.

[Patroklos]

ancient greence, who handed out no government assitance to the poor, had less inequality then today: the richest athenians made only 2.5 times more then the poorest.

Speaking of which, apparently there's even a widdening gap between the richest USAmericans and the uber-richest USAmericans. Pretty vulgar.

I am sure when increasing the population examined from 10,000 to 300,000,000 you should compensate for scale. And again, the 2.5 figure is only for citizens.

Your problem with the analysis that conservatives hate the poor is that a very large portion of conservatives are poor.

I do see this hate in the pundits however, but I find the notion that all poor people are so because the deserve it no more repulsive that the opposite left notion that that all poor people are that way out of fate.

My conservitive knee jerk reation to the left is normally triggered when they try to strip the poor American of personal responsibility of the consequences of their freedom regardless of the circumstances of their poverty. The Crack addict down the street who dropped out of highschool and has never tried to get a job in his life is the same as the mine worker who got laid off and had his pension canceled to the left. And I am sure the later is the majority of the poor, but the left again sabotages themselves.

That and their definition of poverty is ridiculous. It makes it every harder to help the people who need it the most.

[Last Conformist]

I'll register some doubt as to the reliability of data on the income spread of Classical Athenian citizens.