G2A Life is Hard !!! So Work and Be Rewarded !!!
I am going to keep this short since I have taken the week off and am spending it at the lake with my Family, Parents, Sisters, their husbands, my nieces and nephew. (yes 8 girls & 1 boy, ages 1 yr to 17 yrs)
The above is one of my favorite posts, and the 5 C's are one of my favorite concepts. They consist of criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing and contending, and I believe they are very debilitating and addictive.
It seems that many start down the road of the 5 C's and find themselves in a pit that they can not escape. They start to see others as stereotypes instead of people, and off they go. (ie dehumanizing) And this applies to all people, not just the Liberals or Conservatives.
Thoughts?
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16 comments:
Great. The person in charge of your happiness is you. I get it, and have lived my life that way. That doesn't mean I don't complain and contend and compete, it's just that I'm the eternal optimist assuming that what I'm doing might just change things.
As for stereotyping, these short missives almost require it. We have to assume that liberals generate liberal ideas, and when we label something as a liberal idea, we attach a whole host of other qualities to it that would take too long to type out or read, and are good or bad depending on your natural mindset. I will point out, though, that in general conservatives are happier than liberals because of your 5C's. Conservatives see the world the way it is and contend it's pretty good. Liberals see the world the way they want it to be and contend against the way it really is.
J. Ewing
A. We don't have to assume anything, we choose to assume. Sometimes without being aware that we are doing it.
B. I know both Liberals and Conservatives that are Optimistic or Pessimistic. It looks like you are stereotyping again. Lord knows you spend enough effort concerned that the US Gov't is failing us terribly.
If we want brevity, yes we DO "have to" assume that liberals are liberals and that they do liberal things. Again, whether that is good or bad depends on your perspective.
And yes, I'm stereotyping by saying that liberals live in the constant fear that somewhere, somebody is having a good time.
As for how I spend my time, that is my affair but then, somebody has to do it. Between those not paying attention and those who actually think government intrusion into every aspect of your life is a good thing, there aren't enough of us yelling "enough"!
Just as Conservatives apparently live in constant fear that "they" are paying too much for this incredible society we have the privelage to live in... The one that enables them to gather the wealth that they are reluctant to reinvest via the society's will. (ie taxes, spending)
I agree, I want the Gov't out of the abortion decision. Yet the Conservatives keep insisting that they should be involved. They apparently know better than the Woman and her Doctor. (ie pot calling kettle black)
I would be curious to understand how you can support having the government "out" of the abortion decision when government is now demanding that we all pay for it, whether we approve of it or not.
I'm also curious how you can say that we are NOT paying too much for this great country, when the essential functions of the federal government are less than 25% of total federal spending. Even though 42% of that spending is borrowed from our children and grandchildren-- a sum they will NEVER be able to repay, by the way-- it's still a lousy deal.
You want me to "invest" in things that benefit society? Fine, happy to do it. Just let ME decide what that is, OK?
J. Ewing
Government demands that we pay for military actions whether we agree with them or not. And real live viable people are certainly killed during those expenditures. We live in a society where those are the rules.
Thus "essential" functions will be whatever "the people" decide and the Supreme Court lets stand. Thus we may have to pay more... Something the Conservatives seem to fear.
My point was that Conservatives throw stones at Liberals, even though they have a lot of behaviors in common. They typically involve criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing and contending.
If it was "the people" deciding what to fund and not fund I wouldn't object. But do you really mean to tell me that Obamacare, opposed by 2/3 of us, is the will of the people and that we're going to have to pony up the $2.5 Trillion in the next 10 years to pay for it? Why is it essential that the nation go bankrupt?
I suppose that in November, we will really find out how many people are for and against Obamacare... The survey results seem to vary depending on who is asked and what they are asked.
And of course the people decided, we elected our the politicians that passed it. The joys of a representative democracy.
I am pretty sure that many would say that LOTS of money was spent unwisely and LOTS of Revenue was bypassed during the Bush years. Seemingly well beyond your noted $2.5 Trillion estimate, by looking at the National Debt growth during that period. And it seems the Conservatives still haven't learned based on the Ryan plan.
National Debt
The individual provisions of Obamacare are quite popular. What's less popular is the paying for it. It's unclear to me whether Obamacare will be an issue in the November election. There is really no difference between Obama's position, and what we all know Mitt Romney's real position is on health care. And for various reasons, it isn't in the interests of either to talk about it much.
--Hiram
What your marvelous chart proves, John, is that it all depends on how you look at things and, going by election results, whether the voters look at anything at all. In the end (November, one way or another), I would like to think that there is still enough common sense left in the electorate that the people who claim that it's not reasonable to spend more than you take in, and that it isn't reasonable to take in so much that the private economy from which you're taking it goes in the pooper. Freedom still beats government control, most days, especially when it comes to economic matters. I can still spend my money more wisely than government can, and I suspect the same is true of you, and even of hiram. I just don't want to hear how we can tax and spend our way to prosperity, or tax our way out of these debts and deficits. TANSTAAFL.
J. Ewing
Wiki TANSTAAFL
Personally, I hope we stop ordering so much food and put some more money in the wallet.
Continued spending and cutting taxes certainly has not helped us with this National Debt problem...
Let me reiterate: we cannot tax our way out of a spending problem.
J.
If my paycheck gets cut... Is that a spending or revenue problem? (aka Bush tax cuts)
Seems like a revenue problem to me.
If our paycheck gets cut and you do not cut spending likewise, it is a spending problem. If you get a raise in pay but your wife spends twice that raise (an old and unfair stereotype), you have a spending problem. If you decide to give 10% of your income to the church and don't cut back on spending, you have a spending problem. If you lose your job entirely and don't have any savings to fall back on, THEN you have a revenue problem unless, as government can, you can just threaten your neighbors with jail time if they don't pay you more than you could ever make working for a living. Government cannot, by definition, have a revenue problem; they can and do have spending problems, because it's a lot easier to get elected by spending Somebody Else's Money buying votes and a lot tougher trying to keep spending within your means.
J. Ewing
I think you are rationalizing pretty hard... The National Debt was heading the right way under Clinton, then Bush voluntarily decided to cut revenues. (oops)
The deficit was heading the right way under Bush, and then Obama drove it to stratospheric levels. That wasn't a revenue problem, it was a massive spending problem. If we had the last Bush budget right now, we could eliminate a Trillion dollars of new debt this year alone.
J.
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