Clay Bennett for September 05, 2008

I feel ya.

Where can I get these. Do I have to go to Mexico?

Yeah, especially if you plan to listen to any of Obama/Biden speeches…

I know, Mach - Grumpy Grampy sure knocked his right off the picnic table last night.

“Where can I get these. Do I have to go to Mexico?”

You’ll certainly have to if we get Universal health care.

Hey, 38 million viewers is not bad for Grampy, that’s one Million more than the Messiah himself, add another 36 million for Sarah Palin, and I think Hurricane Obama was just knocked down to Tropical storm status…

Guys, You Reps will definitely need anti-depressants because you were living all last 8 years in a state of denial.

Now you are starting to open your eyes and facing reality, for first time in almost a decade… That’s enough shock and trauma to justify such medication…

Au contraire, we normal people were living deep inmersed in reality, facing daily problems and looking how a world superpower was turned into a lame imitation of a failed empire thanks to an awful administration, based on stupid policies and lies and political blindness. We normal people do not need Anti-depressants, we need HOPE AND CHANGE!!!

Alas, viewer numbers don’t necessarily indicate support, dontcha know.

Acutally a NYU study found that Conservatives are much happier than Liberals.

Take a look:

http://media.www.tanandcardinal.org/media/storage/paper1286/news/2008/06/05/Opinion/Conservatives.Happier.Than.Liberals-3378848.shtml

The writer of the article goes on blathering about why he thinks conservatives are happier (how could he know since he’s liberal?) But the results were clear. Conservatives are a happier people…at least according to NYU.

Of course! “Ignorance is bliss” as they say.

Or maybe the Conservatives aren’t gloom and doom about everything in the world because they know if they work hard enough and don’t expect the government to do everything for them they’ll be just fine?

No, I have that article, ConservativeBob, because I am a research psychologist by training and get that journal. Here’s the abstract: “Specifically, in three studies using nationally representative data from the United States and nine additional countries, researchers found that right-wing (vs. left-wing) orientation is indeed associated with greater subjective well-being and that the relation between political orientation and subjective well-being is mediated by the rationalization of inequality. In a third study, they found that increasing economic inequality… from 1974 to 2004 has exacerbated the happiness gap between liberals and conservatives, apparently because conservatives (more than liberals) possess an ideological buffer against the negative hedonic effects of economic inequality.” Translation: conservative ideology protects them from being unhappy about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (which is fact, incidentally). As I recall, part of the ideology is to blame the poor for their problems regardless of evidence. They identified political stance through questionnaires asking people.

It runs in the same category as ‘Too dumb to be scared.’, Bob. Another study a couple of years ago showed that the smarter people were, the more likely they were to be liberal and the less likely they were to be reactive and hypervigilant. In other words, if you can figure out real causal relationships, you’re less like to impose imaginary ones and feel threatened when they’re challenged. ‘De’Nile ain’t jus a river in Egypt’

-movtivemagus

I doubt we’ll ever agree about the rationalization of why the poor are poor and the rich are rich so I’ll give you a personal example of why I feel the way most Republicans do about the subject. I grew up poor. I mean really poor, in fact there were nights I went to bed without food. There is a reason that this happened to my family but I’d rather not say since I don’t know you but regardless of what it was, it was my fathers fault of a poor lifestyle choice. Instead of receiving government help I got a job as soon as I was legally able and made more than minimum wage before I turned 18. I have since got higher paying jobs due to my work ethnic…again instead of asking the government to step in. It wasn’t easy…but it certainly wasn’t hard and I’m not white I’m actually the son of a Cuban immigrant so it wasn’t based on race. The poor (with the exception of the disabled) simply don’t have the work ethic to be more than they are. There are generations of people on welfare with no intent to get off of it. We need to stop enabling these people and teach them some values of hard work.

Like the saying goes “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.”

-acellist

A Nazi reference? Really?

-Farwestgirl

“the more likely they were to be liberal and the less likely they were to be reactive and hypervigilant”

Does that go for the Liberal war protestors that were buring garbage cans, breaking windows, and fighting the police in St. Paul? Also, I have found absolutely no studies proving that point of yours so if you do please link it.

There are smart people in both camps and to insinuate anything else is ludicrous.

Four decades ago, on average CEOs made about 31 times more money than their lowest paid employees. Now they make about 350 times more. Not everyone is slipping economically because of their work “ethnic”!

There has actually been studies that show that workers get paid more when they work for powerful CEOs.

Here’s a couple of links but there are more out there:

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/ceowage.htm

http://www.physorg.com/news67270006.html

You have to keep in mind as well that these CEOs that are making so much more than their workers are the heads of the top 500 companies in the world.

ConservativeBob– I was quoting the article, not my own views. As it happens, I grew up poor as well. My mother left my alcoholic father when I was fifteen, the oldest of five kids. We didn’t know it at the time, but our car was repo’d, and we got an eviction notice, but Mom (who at the time was working part-time) pulled us out of that and was a vice-president in seven years. I am a management consultant working entirely with executives, and I do think executives get a raw deal, though there are also clearly excesses. But that doesn’t mean all of welfare is enabling. In some cases it is the difference between starvation and survival; in others between living on welfare and going back to school to get off welfare. Obama’s mother used food stamps for a while, and I think we can safely say they’ve pulled themselves up since. I have observed two reactions to being brought up poor: Reagan and Kennedy. Reagan worked his way up and assumed everyone else could, too, even if they grew up with more obstacles than he did (like being African-American). Kennedy grew up rich and was shocked at how little some people had, and was determined to help people find their way up, so they could join him. Growing up rich has many advantages, from connections to simply being able to buy your way into school (like Dubya). Or the presidency. Leveling that playing field through things like good public schools makes us a true meritocracy.

There has been some contention to Obama’s mother receiving food stamps but that’s not important in this discussion. Of course there are some CEOs that are abusing their companies but there is corruption in everything so that’s unavoidable. I see all of this CEO pay scandal nonsense as a way to wage class warfare. To pit the poor against the rich in a vie for votes (since there are more poor than rich people).

Welfare is being highly abused in this country and sometimes it’s not even by our citizens. It’s true that we do need to help our people that are down but that’s just what we should be doing…helping…not supporting them for decades. It needs reform. I sense we agree which is good because there is common ground for every issue…we just have to look.

Take it east John…with all your other meds you’ll probably need 3 naps a day now