[jeffkrol]

Reid said about Boehner: “I don't understand his brain.”

Boehner downbeat, 'disappointed' over tax talks - latimes.com

[boriscleto]

Daily Kos: Rice's Republican critics won't let up. But they will get sillier

[jeffkrol]

Conservatism is a character/personality defect... and Liberalism is a mental health disorder.
Niether one has anything to do with applying intelligence to solve problems...... when it comes to solving problems even a little intelligence applied with a healthy dose of MORALITY could solve a lot of problems.

I agree w/ you.. unfortunately even the basic facts are apparently not visible to either side........

[Ratmagiclady]

The problem is, sometimes the individual person IS to blame while sometimes there are exterior factors involved. The oversimplification described in the article misses that dynamic. Sometimes a simple fix will work, sometimes it wont.

On this, I think we hit upon one of the 'challenges' of conservative personalities in the ideology called 'conservative:' that tendency to *judge* (with implied punishment/reward) ...rather than necessarily deal with the complexities of problems.

As if blame or justification are actually somehow the *point* of the universe. (Or our little world here.)

Kind of like for example, regarding our ecological and resource problems: the 'conservative mindset' seems sometimes completely incapable of realizing that even *if* it weren't 'our fault,' it would *still* be *our problem.*

Sure, people do make mistakes, regardless of where the systems and circumstances place them, for instance. Some people can screw up to the tune of *billions* and still walk away with billion dollar bonuses: George Bush was never handed a multimillion dollar company he didn't *crash* and he becomes President somehow. ...Meanwhile, I could make a mistake with a hundred dollar scanner and be dead in the water for months. Meanwhile, the conservative 'logic' claims that somehow the 'winners' shouldn't have to play fair or take accountability or do something for their vast wealth or pay a proportionate share compared to the benefits they make off us, claim they're 'afraid to be job creators without stacking the game even *more* in their favor and getting money for free,'

...then apply the exact opposite logic to poor and disabled and elderly and minority people they want to both 'conservatively' inveigh against with 'blame' and 'incentivize' somehow by impoverishing people to the extent they can't even function as *consumers* or *farmers,* never mind 'enterpreneurs.


'Conservative' is really a misnomer about the radical redistribution of wealth and power *upward* that's been going on since the 'Reagan Revolution.' And then the same people claim to pronounce "Moralism" upon anyone not-them.

It's not really even *about* what's 'old' or 'tried and true.' It's about certain forms of *dominance games,* really. Fear of outsiders, lust for control, etc.

This radical Right ideology they now call 'conservative' is actually about some pretty radical changes that failed. And they're still trying to blame anyone else they can for it.


And, you know, there's ways in which competition can be good, but this oligopolist corporatism is just not one of them. We can play capitalism, but it stops being that when the *people* don't have access to the *capital,* never mind needing to be over their heads in debt just to live.

I mean, if you want to *have* some good competition, raising the *stakes* and the costs of a mistake, (especially for some more than others,) then it pretty quickly becomes not much of a game.

Andfrom this we get anything *but* 'traditional values' when it comes wto what people do and how we live. I mean, they've made 'traditional values' synonymous with *what,* ...oppressing minorities and women, and they may have never *seen* a small downtown business that wasn't a gentrified boutique in over a decade. Never mind a family farm. (That's really why we have a 'Farmer's Market' these days, cause there ain't a *neighborhood market* anymore. Everyone's priced out. Of their own towns. )

So, how many 'mistakes' can a small farmer make? Or how many mishaps can they absorb?