Eeyore Nation
By Mitch Berg
They don’t call it “Blue” America for nothing:
In a new YouGov poll, 53 percent of Democrats say that the American dream is no longer achievable. By comparison, 55 percent of Republicans say the dream is still achievable. By the same percentage, 27 percent, Republicans think the dream is not achievable and Democrats do think it is.
But when combined in a single question about the American Dream, the poll finds that the dream is slipping away in the minds of most Americans.
Republicans have faith in the idea of America; Democrats – according to this poll, and no, I don’t know the methodology, and just like all those “Democrats are teh smrt!” polls that leftybloggers like to gurgle and coo about like toddlers that just made nice pantses, it’s nothing you necessarily want to bank your retirement on.
But it doesn’t flunk the sniff test, now, does it?
August 9th, 2013 at 8:22 am
Mitch:
I see an opening. The liberals (okay democrats) like to vote on emotion. What a better way to run for emotion then by going for restoring the American dream. The better thing is if you get voters from this it will come from the democrat side and in states which are suppose to be hopelessly blue.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
August 9th, 2013 at 9:14 am
Democracy does not mean that one person’s idiocy is just as valid as another persons intelligence. Actually, in a one-man one-vote system, each man’s belief (or idiocy) has pretty much equal validity, particularly if he is not alone in believing it. A weakness of democracy is that it relies on a reasonably well-informed electorate, which is not always the case.
My favorite solution to our political civility problems is to re-emphasize federalism, as our ideological differences become smaller as we gather in smaller groups. Part of the genius of the American system is to make the states 50 laboratories of democracy, and we lose that, for instance, when we write a 2000 page bill with one specific solution to our health care system that is supposed to fit 300 million people. But federalism will not solve all of our problems, and people like big government, so it’s not going to go away. We will continue to debate how to reconcile personal liberty and a powerful government that delivers the security and protections that people want. Pragmatic centrists split those differences best, but pragmatic centrists don’t win elections in a nation of strongly held personal ideologies. I think I understand the problem, but I don’t have a complete answer, because the problem lies within each of us, and our conflicting desires for freedom and security.
August 9th, 2013 at 9:47 am
My favorite solution to our political civility problems is to re-emphasize federalism
This is all anyone needs to know to make a conclusion you ARE an ignorant Constitution and USA hating piece of scum!
Still working on that ONE example of Soci@list Utopia?
August 9th, 2013 at 9:47 am
tag closed. sorry.
August 9th, 2013 at 10:14 am
Now a pair of senators wants to make it a federal law that they can take your guns away if you have a TRO against you.
They did this in Hawaii. They found out that many women would use the threat of a TRO & gun loss as leverage in a divorce (TRO’s aren’t hard to get). They also had to quickly amend the law to allow cops who had TRO’s against them from estranged wives to carry their pistols.
Unanswered was the question why these law enforcement officers were considered less prone to violence than civilian permit holders.
August 9th, 2013 at 10:36 am
EmeryTheUSAHater, I appologize for my previous comment. Federalism means a different thing in Canada and I had to re-read your post to get back into the US-frame of mind. However, based on content of 99.9% of your previous posts you are still a Soci@list degenerate. And I will wait with baited breath for your one example of working Soci@list Utopia.
August 9th, 2013 at 10:38 am
Emory, Democracy is two Wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch.
Which is why the founders did not establish a Democracy.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:12 am
America would be smart to adopt a policy of subsidiarity, allowing each state to create the social safety net it wants, with the federal government merely facilitating with block grants. Let Texas be Texas, and Massachusetts be Massachusetts.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:18 am
Yeah, block grants are the answer. *shakes head*
August 9th, 2013 at 11:59 am
So what is “the American dream”? Perhaps the democrats rely on a preconceived definition of what it’s “supposed” to be, even thought it may not take into account their actual needs, talents, and probability of it actually being achieved.
Conversely, perhaps republicans, or even non-democrats, develop their own personal American dream based on what they want, based in turn, on what they can likely achieve. That is, needs vs wants.
The “American dream” seems to be quite doable to the millions of non-Americans who flock here, legally or not, by the millions, and take drastic measures to stay here. I suggest that people who rely on a scripted set pf expectationd will never be satisfied.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:59 am
Block grants are a terrible idea, because they provide money with few strings attached. It furthers the decay in liberal utopias like Chicago, DC, Detroit, Gary, New Orleans, and such by covering up the consequences of foolish policy. What is needed is real federalism with a commitment to letting local and state governments go bankrupt from their policies if necessary.
August 9th, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Block grants are also a bad idea because they provide more “shells” for the Big Government Money Shell Game. You can more easily skim the top off of something if it flows through your fingers.
August 9th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
A better idea than block grants is not to send that money to DC in the first place.
August 9th, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Some form of revenue sharing between the sates is simply a fact of being in the Union. It becomes problematic when combined, to a certain extent, with an income tax, but more so with the federal governments unlimited spending power. Federalism is joke when the feds can use bribes to influence what should be state politics — such as gun control laws.
We should also remember that the federal government is the least democratic level of American policy making. I think that exposes a contradiction in Emery’s 09:14 comment.
August 9th, 2013 at 4:17 pm
The principle of subsidiarity is a generally accepted opinion, shared by many, rather like the theory of evolution. Arrayed against subsidiarity are Stalin, Mao, and various other despots, together with the post-WWII governments of Britain which oversaw her fall from world leadership. Even the EU at least claims to believe in subsidiarity. They’d look foolish if they didn’t.
August 9th, 2013 at 4:21 pm
@PM
Alabama and Mississippi have reasonably fair and workable electoral systems (now). They get the politicians they deserve. Alabamians and Mississipians put up with them because they matter relatively little. If those federal dollars upon which those states are so dependent were channeled through state run social programs, the state government would matter a great deal more, and the people of those states would make change happen. Or possibly not. But if not, then those citizens are still getting what they deserve.
My guess is that you don’t live in Alabama or Mississippi. Why are people in New York, Massachusetts and California so prepared to sacrifice the chance to create their own marvelous social programs on the altar of the necessity of universal federal programs? If the red states are so clueless and the blue states so clever, why not let them discover that fact for themselves?
August 9th, 2013 at 4:37 pm
@bubbasan
The United States was built with an explicitly federal system where the federal government was given very limited responsibilities, with far greater rights and responsibilities falling on the states, localities and individuals.
This Country is too big and diverse, in demographics, geography, and economy, for any detailed federal program to work well. The federal system works best when the federal government preserves negative rights of the citizenry and the states, while states and localities focus on positive legislation like social programs and economic management. is too big and diverse, in demographics, geography, and economy, for any detailed federal program to work well. The federal system works best when the federal government preserves negative rights of the citizenry and the states, while states and localities focus on positive legislation like social programs and economic management.
But management of social programs in detail, most infrastructure spending, and all positive economic management is best handled by the states and cities. First, because the states can tailor their programs much more specifically to a much less diverse population and economy. Second, because of the overall freedoms of commerce and movement guaranteed by the federal government, and because of the need to balance budgets, states are eventually forced to back away from inefficient and impractical policies, or face the loss of investment dollars and their best and brightest citizens to other states. And eventually we would settle on sensible solutions that fit each state’s desires, because in the end the states are all forced to be relatively sensible.
The federal government can throw money at a problem, but it cannot create and reform efficient social and economic programs. It is constitutionally incapable. The US needs to re-learn that lesson.
August 9th, 2013 at 8:04 pm
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/08/09/hud-proposes-plan-to-racially-economically-integrate-neighborhoods
My emphasis. “[t]he agency had hoped for”, not “Americans had hoped for”. There is no demand for this aside from social activists, community organizers, and bureaucrats, but this kind of thing is their life’s blood.
Why is this happening at the federal level? This is entirely within the the perview of the states and local communities. I believe it is because of the less democratic nature of the federal government. Who could you vote out office to stop this?
August 9th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
PM, this is a degrees of separation ploy: the Feds say we aren’t dictating anything other than that we provide more money to “fully” integrated neighborhoods – they leave it to the State to tell their counties and municipalities to effect some sort of equalizing standards/ordinances to bring the count up to par on a voting precinct by precinct basis.
The desired end result will be the cities of Mpls or Grosse Point telling home owners you have to sell your house to (name your favorite subculture) or pay a 28% “monoculture tax” on your sale. Likewise if you’re white and you want to buy a house in Kenwood or Grosse Point you will have to get on a waiting list until the proper number of units are sold to multicultural buyers. Not fiction or paranoia, an acquaintance of mine is getting her PhD from the UoM/Humphrey with exactly this notion as her thesis.
August 9th, 2013 at 9:32 pm
Kel, from the way you describe it, this would make for an excellent civil rights suit based on freedom of association. While there is no specific bill of rights reference to the freedom of association, there is case law that says you must be allowed to join with politically like-minded others to protect common interests. Ironically this goes back to segregation-era efforts to ban the NAACP.
August 9th, 2013 at 10:05 pm
PM, thats why the 28% “monoculture tax” enacted at the lowest possible level of govt (i.e. as a school district funding referendum) – no big lawsuits, just little ones with limited applicability – this is the thrust of her thesis – you are not depriving anyone of free association, just taxing them for what she labels “culturally unproductive” associations – she’s using as a foundation for her premise the SCOTUS judgement that Obamacare is a tax.
August 10th, 2013 at 12:28 am
That doesn’t sound like an argument a lawyer would make, kel. Too loopy. Who is levying the tax? What is their authority to do so? How does it pass equal protection?
August 12th, 2013 at 11:46 am
Emery, that was a sparkling non-answer to my comment. My point is that, as Troy wonderfully noted as well, that block grants are an awful idea because “money is fungible” and corrupt areas tend to expropriate block grant dollars to enable the kind of spending that puts those areas into the hole.
You’ve got to let them go bankrupt, you’ve got to let their employees lose a good chunk of their pensions and their investors a good portion of their dollars, or else the lesson is going to be lost. In cities and states that have lost touch with reality, you need an unavoidable reminder.
August 12th, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Bubbasan, would you rather the federal government (top-down) dictate to the states how the monies should be spent? Or would you prefer each state decide what works best for their own-unique-circumstances?