Were those references on signs posted in Obama (2008), Kerry (2004) or Gore (2000) campaign offices (I answer my own question: no)? Swing and a miss, but you’re free to try again.

Obama already stated he disliked the conservative 1% of the media when he addressed FOX News.

Before you get too excited, let me add that Althouse updated the post to ask her readers’ pity because she was stuck in a liberal town that had led her to the heresy of saying that not everyone on the left advocates socialism.

Apparently Republicans now believe that not only homosexuality, but also liberalism, is catching.

Exactly. It’s still supposed to be “redistribution of wealth”, just on a voluntary basis by the haves and the want-mores to the have-not-so-much.

Kind of like big banks policing themselves.

Wait, whoa…what? Althouse said what?

Wow. Everything’s upside-down now. Dogs and cats living together! Althouse making sense!

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Sorry, it’s just that between my informed, intelligent Republican relatives and the intelligent, informed folks in Federalist Society chapters, my expectation for dialogue with conservatives/ libertarians has gotten too high to be entertained by the kind of folks who throw out the word “socialist” like its a synonym for “dickhead.”

It’s the disconnect between real life and the internet: in real life, in a majority-liberal environment, the conservatives have to get good at defending their positions in order to survive. Someone who gets through Brown University and is still a Republican, like Bobby Jindal, probably can make an intellectual case for Republican policies that I have to concede is plausible even if I disagree with its premises. Online, conservatives can show up to comment on a liberal blog without cracking open a dictionary, much less Das Kapital.

If someone finds redistributivist tax policy to be immoral or merely bad policy, he ought to be able to criticize it without reaching for a “bad word” that doesn’t actually fit. I suppose I get aggravated when I start thinking, “I can defend this position better than you guys who actually believe in it — what’s wrong with you?”

But as I’ve said, I’m pretending that the remnants of the old GOP are still setting the standards for the party. They’re not. Under the proudly Know-Nothing regime exemplified by Palin, intellectual is a dirty word, our envy-of-the-world universities are just bastions of leftist political correctness, and socialism isn’t an economic theory to study but a four-letter-word to scare children and the ignorant. It makes me nostalgic for the first generation of neocons; at least Irving Kristol knew the difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism.

No, Jay. “Trickle Down” economics is based on the idea that if the rich get more than they already are some of that will trickle down to the less wealthy. And those who support it are as interested in using the government to impose their ideas of what is fair as anyone else.

(“Fairness” is, of course, a term that can be used equally legitimately by either side (“It isn’t fair that you take more of my money just because I make more.” “It isn’t fair that I pay a larger portion of my income in taxes than the wealthy because I feel the burden more.”) so really provides little support for making a case.)

Not sure what you were going for here, Mr. Tea, but I don’t think “ingenuous” is what you intended.

1obsolete : noble , honorable
2 a: showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness b: lacking craft or subtlety

m-w.com is your friend!

So you’re saying Mr. McCain is a “socialist” too?

Please, please get the McCain campaign to say that they are going to raise federal income taxes on the bottom 50% in the name of having those folks pay their “fair share.” Please.

I love the fact that despite conservatives’ supposed fondness for federalism, the only taxes that they recognize being paid are federal corporate income taxes, federal household income taxes, federal capital gains and dividend taxes and the federal “death tax.” People in the bottom 50% are paying taxes on everything they buy (it’s called a sales tax) and any real property they own (it’s called a property tax and it pays for schools). I know folks who live in trailers in East Texas on land they own, and they pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than a first year associate at a BigLaw firm in Delaware.

OW really needs to get a better class of Republican commenter on this blog.

Please do not say that I am making the same point that you and Joe are making. I am saying that Obama advocates a redistributivist tax policy, which actually began under a Republican administration. Now, point to the passage in Marx-Engels about redistributivist tax policy. I’m sorry, but “socialism” is a concept with a history and a meaning, and that meaning is not “any policy that Republicans consider too left-wing.” I had this same discussion with the folks at Althouse after they all screamed at her for daring to say that Obama is not actually a socialist, and none of them could explain how any part of Obama’s platform fits the definition of socialism.

State ownership of major businesses is socialist. The earned income tax credit is redistributivist tax policy. Welfare is a redistributivist government program. Please try to employ that beautiful creature, the English language, with some accuracy instead of plucking whatever word sounds appropriately negative to you.

Prove it.

People do not act with “enlightened self interest”. When left to their own devices people will tend to act out of a very narrow view of what is best for them. They don’t step back and ask what is best for all and realize that they then derive some benefit for it.

You’ve got $100. You can spend it on yourself, or you can give to the effort to build a new road. That you would derive a less-tangible benefit from the road (access to goods, support services have easier access to my house should you have an emergency, etc) which would have a worth of over $100. What would you do?

When it actually comes down to it, most people will want to keep they money for themselves.

When is the bottom 50% going to pay their “fair share”?

If they don’t make enough to be taxed, what is their “fair share”, Oh great compassionate conservative?

And yet you continue to rail against them. And defend the Uber-wealthy.

I’m no expert on economics (obviously). Talking about economics works better than Lunestra for me. But even I can see that Obama’s tax plan is not a “Socialist agenda.”

They both are, when 50% of the population pay no taxes.

When is the bottom 50% going to pay their “fair share”?