Yes, I'll agree that Clod has a point. But I would also suggest that family dysfunction has a way of being handed down through the generations. It may change forms, but its hard to get rid of completely.

Racism is a great example. Even today the US continues to experience societal problems that stem from the legacy of slavery, and people's attitudes continue to be shaped by this unpleasant and immoral part of our history.

My family is from the South and everyone else in the family except black sheep me continues to live in the Southern States. When I return there for visits I get to have wierd insider/outsider experiences. None in my family history that I am aware of were slave owners. We were small farmers in the Kentucky mountains who sometimes made a little moonshine for extra cash and yet -

When I walk down the streets of Richmond, Kentucky with one of my cousins and encounter an African American walking in the opposite direction, that person will step down into the gutter and let us have the sidewalk to ourselves. I don't think my cousin even notices such incidents, but I do and I feel ashamed. When I go to Huntsville, Alabama so great is the segregation that the only African Americans I'll see the entire time are the ones getting off and on the plane with me. My late Aunt would refer to them as "those people" and refuse to go to certain stores and certain parts of town and never felt the need to give me a reason for this.

An African American friend of mine who grew up in South Carolina has raised her sons to have impecable manners because "you never know when a town is looking for a good hanging" and "you don't want to give them a reason to pick your sons out."

So just how far have really come?

I didn't claim that you blamed anyone. To get voters, politicians need to create the perception that they are good or the other person/party is bad.

If women highly represent public sector jobs and Republicans have been calling out for smaller government (on all levels), therefore cutting public sector jobs, Democrats have a easy argument to create the perception that Republican policies are bad for women.

http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/si...cWorkforce.pdf

I answer rightly, and the two of you, Sam (old enough to know better) and Ibbie (not) belong under the dunce cap for answering wrongly. History vindicates me, not you. It doesn't matter what the two of you believe if the reality is different from your beliefs, does it?

Let the record state that the only one mentioning "fear" was Sam. I do not fear Obama, I mistrust Obama. I was intelligent and well informed enough to vote against Obama the first chance I got, and I shall be similarly gifted the second chance, and the history of Obama's Administration shows how right I was and am. We have Obamacare, voted in by a Congress that believes government-issue health care is health care -- or purports to; I don't bother. We have Stimulus et Sequelae: are we not still down two million jobs? Has not the entire national debt been quadrupled until somebody can get in to repudiate it before it gets spent? That's how you get inflation, you know: doesn't the debtor entity also print the money? If that is done, will not a larger number of dollars be pursuing an unchanged or even declining amount of goods and services? Isn't Best Buy closing a bunch of stores as we speak? Those are jobs gone a-glimmering. Foreign policy? Aheh-heh. We are lucky, these years: nobody who can attack us and accomplish more than a pinprick or a bit of sabotage really wants to.

Half the electorate wasn't as intelligent as I am. For one reason or another, it never is anyway. Saw some guy with a moron sticker on his back bumper the other day: Obama campaign logo and "I Still Believe." That yokel's out on the public roads...

Urbane, I just love pulling your tail. And however old you may be, you're old enough to worry about your pension as your sig line ever reminds us, so you're old enough to know better yourself.

The twists and turns of your logic ever confounds me. You seem incapable of grasping the simplest laws of cause and effect or learning the lessons from even the most recent history. You are as ephemeral as a mayfly and your pronouncements have about as much weight.

If government sponsored health care is as worthless as you would have us believe, the people of Canada, the UK, etc., etc, as well as those here on medicare/medicaid should be dying off like flies. They are not. The ones who die or who suffer needlessly due to lack of medical care are the uninsured who have no access to medical care of any kind. Infant mortality rates in the United States are shameful. We rank something like 34th among nations - below even countries like Cuba and Croatia. This is what happens when you deny prenatal care to women who lack health insurance.

We have a government that refuses to take any action what-so-ever in regard to job creation or moving us out of recession. At least Obama gave us the stimulus bills. The Republican dominated House refused to act on ANYTHING. Their response to the current economic situation was to "just say no" - placing tea party idealogy over the good of the people of this nation. The Republicans refused to work with Obama - not the other way around.

The national debt has climbed in large part due to the tax breaks given to the wealthy in the Bush era. They used this money to buy themselves yachts and send new jobs off to China, not here - one more reason that job creation here in the US has been lagging. Cause and effect, UG. Cause and effect. What makes you think that another round of tax cuts for the wealthy won't have the very same outcome?

Two hundred of the wealthiest people in the US paid nothing in taxes in 2010, yet the richest among us still demand ever more concessions. Soon the government will be using tax dollars to PAY them instead of the other way around. In some cases this is already happening. So just who is it really who demands government "handouts"? On what grounds do you support the unashamed greed of billionaires?

Half the electorate has become an uninformed rabble. They blindly follow leaders who care only for their own advancement and the country be damned. You may call that "intelligence." I call it a tragedy for our Republic which is rapidly degenerating into a plutocracy.

And when that happens, where will your pension be then?

I'll ask again. Are social issues utterly meaningless? Why should the public care more about Best Buy and the debt than the right to privacy, the right to equality under the law, the right to marry, the right to not have others' religious laws forced upon you?

Why do you claim to support freedom and libertarianism, and still manage to rationalize or justify your support of the party of Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann and Bob McDonnell and Jan Brewer?

Right now to me, many of them are tertiary at best. They are nowhere near the most important thing.
I certainly will not be basing my decision upon whom to vote on social issues.
I am far more concerned about feeding and supporting my kids.
I'm aware that my perspective is FAR different than yours Ibs and thats OK with me.
I think I can understand where you are coming from, can you mine?
I'm not so sure based upon your age, but I do realize that you are much more intelligent and traveled than than most your age.

Social issues are MAJOR for me. But then I've had the experience of falling through the looking glass and having my understanding of life in the US go through a major paradigm shift.

Classic, if you're concerned about your kids, aren't you concerned about education which falls under the catagory of "social issues"? And doesn't your one son have a disability? :confused:

classic, I was mostly asking UG, because of his relentlessly "libertarian" views. I can definitely see where you're coming from, even if i disagree with you on what would be best for the country economically. I can understand why you would find economic issues important. But I can't understand how someone like UG can call themselves libertarian, and then support a party with a platform like the Republican party.

I know Ibs, just thought I'd give you a more rational answer before the poetic insanity. :)

Education costs money which I don't have any of without a job = economics.
I am very close to them not going to school next year for economic reasons.
Worrying about whether gays can marry (I don't care) or abortion (against it myself),
Who can or can't own a gun ... immigration (they haven't done shit in decades - what makes you think they will now?),
ageism, gambling, smoking, bullying...
I'm not saying they aren't issues of importance, but they are not even on my radar at this point.

out of curiosity Classic, you're 'against abortion', does that mean you don't believe women should have the right to abortion, or just that you personally are against abortion?

Wait, what? Classic and UG are WOMEN? Who knew? :lol:

Only my personal belief. Not political.

Completely false. Cite. Some things never change...:rolleyes:

Gotcha :)