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Here’s the Family Research Council’s Imam Tony Perkins, writing a piece about what social conservatives are looking for in the GOP’s 2012 nominee.
The right candidate will understand that big government doesn’t just happen. Big government and budget deficits are in part the natural outcome of government policies that foster a deficit of character.
Big government is what happens when family life fractures, when mothers avoid marriage, and fathers flee responsibility. The right candidate will understand that when the family decreases, government increases. Simply put, this candidate will recognize the fact that when the natural family is looked down upon — we will be forced to look up to big government.
Where to begin with this nonsense?
Let’s start with budget deficits. Ronald Reagan tripled the debt and George W. Bush doubled it. So by Perkins’ standards, these two heroes of the Republican Party have contributed more to our moral decline than any other presidents.
As far as “big government” fostering a deficit of character — ever hear of the Greatest Generation, Tony?
A good chunk of the Greatest Generation grew up the New Deal 1930s. Some of their fathers (like Ronald Reagan’s) worked WPA jobs. If they served in World War II, they were recipients of one of the biggest social welfare projects in US history — the GI Bill, which provided them with college educations and a piece of the American Dream in the form of small business loans and housing.
…there were 13 million homes built in the 50′s, 11 million outside of there with GI loans. I mean, it just – it did transform the country.
This big government welfare program created the largest expansion of the middle class in human history. And now, the Greatest Generation has retired in dignity with Social Security and Medicare, both of which were passed in the big government 1930s and 1960s.
So no, big government and budget deficits don’t lead to moral decline. Moral decline is what happens when there’s no sense of the common good, when there’s no social safety net — when the oldest and the poorest among us go hungry and live out their last years in squalor.
Or as Tony would put it, the good old days.
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Shorter Tony Perkins: If you’re not one of the rich, “Die Quickly” (hat tip Alan Grayson).
Not only is Perkins’s analysis complete hogwash, but Perkins is not an opponent of big government. He’s willing to spend big to micromanage the sex lives of Americans, women in particular.
Tony Perkins and his ilk epitomize “deficit of character.” Assholes would let half the country starve while shouting hosannas to Jesus.
What’s CNN’s excuse for putting the excretions of a Hate Group leader on its website, anyway? “Imam” is right, BT.
Here’s something to put all of this deficit-mongering into perspective. It also goes a long way to understanding why the Fed will not be audited any time in the near future unless an angry mob breaks in and steals the files.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/exclusive-feds-600-billion-stealth-bailout-foreign-banks-continues-expense-domestic-economy-
Pound for pound, government was much heftier in the 1936-1966 era when the population was half what it is now.
The worst and stupidest actions came after the scary 1970′s when government regulations and regulators were reduced so much that society has been all but destroyed. The governments and administrations of Reagan and after have been the most immoral of our brief history.
Gee, I prefer the Carl Perkins of Blue Suede Shoes fame in the 1950s…
USA national character? We’re still the world’s biggest imperialists. We are still the world’s biggest terrorists. Republicans, if the were not blinded by their vile white racist attitudes, should love Pres. Obama: he is a bigger terrorist than Bush, he is more corporate than Bush and he is more tyrannical than Bush. Obama is murdering poor Muslims in six or so countries now… Obama is our remote robotic drone murder King.
If you want to cut federal deficits, get out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan, start taxing billion dollar profits of corporations.
I think the moral decline referred to, is more along the lines of borrowing money one has no intention of repaying.
Blue Texan’s article is right on. James Michener who was 85-years-old when he wrote his memoir published in 1992, The World is My Home, had this to say:
“A charge that can be lodged against me is that I am a knee-jerk liberal, for I confess to that sin. When I find that a widow has been left penniless and alone with three children, my knee jerks.
When I learn that funds for a library have been diminished almost to the vanishing point, my knee jerks.
When I find that a playground for children is being closed down while a bowling alley for grown men is being opened, my knee jerks.
When men of ill intent cut back on teachers’ salaries and lunches for children, my knee jerks.
When the free flow of ideas is restricted, when health services are denied whole segments of the population, when universities double their fees, my knee jerks, and when I learn that all the universities in Texas combined graduated two future teachers qualified to teach calculus but more than five hundred trained to teach football, my knee jerks, and I hope never to grow so old or indifferent that I can listen to wrong and immoral choices being made without my knee flashing a warning.”
Um, is that what you are calling this?
I sent this link to Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism and got back a reply that ZH is wrong about almost everything and the article is a misunderstanding of the Fed.
I like nakedcapitalism and Smith’s work in particular a lot, she calls ‘em as she sees ‘em, but in this matter, I’m not nearly knowledgeable enough to have a worthwhile opinion. I’d be interested to read anyone who is and does. Yves Smith did not explicate beyond the above quotation, so I’m at a loss for details.
The moral decline I can live with…did you hear the Romans complaining on the way back from the regurgatorium?
It’s the economic and scientific decline of the United States that is painful to watch.
The sense of common good relies on everyone pitching in and making sacrifices. It does not mean always saying ” give me more and make the other guy pay – he can afford it”.
TODAY’S PERVERTED REPUBLICANISM IS ANTI-CHRISTIAN – IT IS THE VICTORY OF THE “ID” OVER THE “SUPEREGO”
Today’s Republicans don’t believe they are their brothers keepers. They don’t believe in humanity, morality or the teachings of Jesus Christ. They don’t believe in logic, fairness or compassion; nor do they have an appreciation for the hardships of Americans less fortunate than themselves.
They think “free trade” means they are free to ship American jobs overseas....and free to claim that denying jobs to American workers is “good” for America. Driving jobs out of America and Americans out of their homes is “just business” to them; nothing “personal”.
Corporations must be given the same first amendment free speech rights as individual citizens so they can “buy” political candidates and elections, despite the fact that works against the best interests of working class Americans and diminishes their political influence.
Pollution, global warming and deforestation are all improvable “myths” of egghead/tree hugger scientists who are “socialist” enemies of “over-regulated” capitalism. The earth, which right wing fundamentalist claim is less than 6,000 years old, will miraculously heal itself! All we have to do is “pray”.
For today’s self-focused/consumed Republicans, it’s not about right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, rational or irrational. They want what they want for no other reason than they WANT it, regardless of the consequences to themselves and everyone else! Somehow, that makes “them” feel good about themselves….makes them “feel” safe.
The U.S. is only a country that once had pretensions of grandeur. It will be followed by others. It’s of no consequence which one it is.
My sympathies are with the real people who pay the true cost of the decline.
What the Fed was trying to do with QE was to separate more dollars from the people to syphon off to the banks which were already reporting record profits. Tyler Durden and other people at ZH understand the Fed and how it fronts as an official institution while acting as banker to the other banksters around the world, all the while allowing the US economy to exist in the toilet.
Webster Tarpley wrote a book back in 2000 called “Surviving the Cataclysm.” While some of the political things in it need to be ignored, his understanding of the Fed and the banking system in general, from the Bank of England to the DeutscheBank, is very good. It’s well worth a read, as are Nomi Prins’ books, and Louis Brandeis’s “Other People’s Money.” (Yes, that Brandeis.)
“Big government is what happens when” we commit to unending wholesale murder of others.
Because we accept the Magnificent Mindless ‘Merican Murder Machine, that eats humans daily, that is the only cause of our jettisoning anything moral . Kill daily to survive and that god blesses our slaughter is laughable at best.
Has tony said anything about the pile of dead bodies over in the corner we slaughtered ? If not he’s a charlatan lacking any morals.
Amen!
Yves said that? Also, that’s a pretty broad statement. Note that masaccio posted on flash crashes/quote-stuffing/HFTs (Oct. 6, 2010) then Cynthia Kouril wrote on dark pools (Oct. 16, 2009). I watch ZeroHedge like watching a needle on a strip chart in parallel as I use them to spot trends. In particular, I was picking up on HFTs and computer-based manipulation of the financial systems. That’s also where I saw an article on private optical network between the Chicago and New York for stock traders (ZeroHedge.Com, Sept. 21, 2010).
A government-supplied safety net augments or replaces some of the traditional functions of the extended family, fraternal organizations, and (when they worked) religious institutions. Thus it facilitates non-traditional lifestyles – singles, single parents, atheists/agnostics/non-churchgoers, gay/lesbian couples, childless couples, etc.
In other words, it makes society a better place, and represents progress.
And they just hate that.
Yves Smith emailed that, yes. She’s very good about responding to inquiries. Personally and promptly. She has little regard for ZH. If you email her that you disagree with her assessment, you’ll probably get a reply. I read ZH but not for investment stuff, just the political and macro. However, I’m not in Smith’s league and I wouldn’t attempt to argue with her.
This view must be the new credo; I heard Dennis Miller saying something very similar about liberals….Not quoting, but close to saying liberals never grow up, not reality based, believe in the tooth fairy, not prepared for life….all paraphrased, to be sure. But you get the very similar idea as presented here.
Hmmm … Anyone can have an opinion. The art of decision making brings together what I call “context,” requirements for outcomes, facts, logic and allows for hypotheses and models to be probed, tested and cross-examined. I relish my personal responsibility to weigh and discern the dross from the gold. :-)
Yes, anyone can. I don’t have enough years in my life, let alone hours in the day, to take in everyone’s opinions. So I pick and choose, and Yves Smith is one of my choices. I welcome any rejoinders that are well argued. If you disagree with Smith, make your argument.
There’s a wide difference between having an opinion and being genuinely expert. I know a few things about cancer treatments and I have, from both personal experience and research, strongly held opinions about some of the options, but I’d never offer myself as a cancer doc–or any doc, for that matter.
So, when will the uber-rich be pitching in and making some sacrifices?
Not.
“big government” is the new “liberal”. Anyone with half a wit knows it’s all make believe bullshit designed to confuse and manipulate the serfs into voting against their interests.
Yup, that’s how I have it figured.
You know I wish I were an economist so I could argue this more forcibly but I do not blieve that deficits or our debt is any cause for alarm at all,at least not yet. Call me really thick but, we can print money you know, that’s something that Greece can’t do. Still O seems to think debt is numero uno just like the thugs.
Umm, yes, and millions of Americans fully agree with them, including many democrats.
Yes, and that’s just the start. This should curl your hair…
http://pragcap.com/time-to-get-outraged
Try this: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/steve-keen-dude-where%E2%80%99s-my-recovery.html
I don’t understand the half of it, and didn’t try very hard to parse every little word, but his macro thesis, the Ponzi scheme economy, and conclusion seem reasonable to me. Keen is not optimistic and I notice his use of the D word. This sure looks like a depression from my precarious perch. And yes, the dimwits in charge are horribly, disastrously, sinfully out of their depth.
Tony Perkins has wasted his life and misled his flock. The Republican Church is at best a religious cul-de-sac. This mass of little white pretend Christians has only contributed to the decline of our politics and our culture.
Now let us pray that the debt will come down when America stops sinning,,do I hear a Amen? Let us pray that those bombs we are droping on those heathens in other non God fearing counties will have massive debts! Amen!
Is it any wonder why this country is a laughing stock? Did I hear an Amen from brother Obama? Was that you Johnny B?
Indeed. Tony Perkins and his kind miss the days when people had to listen to sanctimonious prosletyzing in order to get a few measly handmedowns and a meal,as well as the days when men got to ride roughshod over their wives and children.
Exactly. I’d like to personally smash a big fat cream pie into Tony’s smug snout. He’s a f*cking PIG!
And her I thought it was all of the sanctimonious televangelist preachers who got caught using Rent-a-Boy to get vacation companions that will carry luggage and provide more personal services. And the other preachers that end up doing speed with their happy ending Masseuse. Once Bush doubled the debt, everyone forgot right from wrong.
When the 50% of the country who pay no taxes start contributing.
Everybody contributes one way or another; via sales tax, payroll taxes, etc.
But somehow it’s up to the other guy to pony up when the masses demand more and more spending beyond our means?
If you’re in the Rentier class, by all means, I want to claw back the loans we made to you via tax breaks in prior years.
But I highly doubt that you are in such a class, you know $Million and above in income.
Well, look who has been reading krugman lately. Too many flaws in that piece to ciunt, Kel.
Not in the $1M class yet, but it only takes $250k these days to earn the enmity of the prigs anyway. And yes, I AM in that class.
And since when does paying a lower tax rate represent a “loan”? I guess that’s the case when people believe that they have a right to someone else’s money, huh?
Well, if you’re a deficit hawk, Spidey, we used to not have deficits; in ’99 – ’00 cycle.
So if you don’t want deficits now, paying what one used to pay is what’s required to not have a deficit. Anything different, to not have a deficit, is a “loan.”
You used to not have to pay it back, now you do.
If you’re not a deficit hawk, well, no problem.
Hawk I am. What I am not is a person who believes that money the government does not confiscate from me is somehow a loan or money I am “allowed” to retain.
Using your line of thinking, the people who are paying no taxes are perhaps the most indebted of all.
I’ll never sway you to my way of thinking, so I am not sure why I try. I’ll just bid you a good night and hope someday you realize that unless everyone (not just the other guy) does more, we’re all in for one world of hurt.
Well, at your pre-Bush rates, the deficit would be a lot smaller, since we have all these wars and such.
You can pay it as you go, or you can pay it later. Paying it later = loan as far as I know. You hawkish on the deficit means you gotta pay. It’s a matter of when. Regardless of what your earning status is. It’s been 10 years and nobody likes the bill.
You still a deficit hawk?