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  • From: "Don Rua" <rua AT mindspring.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [internetworkers] Rant - Counter to theory of Repub-Dem summary -
  • Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 13:57:56 -0400

Here's something of a rant. Reading is a choice, not an expectation.
Absolutely no offense or ill will meant to anyone...

I suppose perspective is everything, as I disagree with the brunt of
what B said, but still respect the sharing of opinions. For the record, I
believe votes for a third party make a tangible difference in many ways big
and small, and I do not plan to vote Rep or Dem this year. Or, to look at it
in a two-choice format: you are either voting for the current two-party
system to Continue, or voting to Change/Improve the current system.

However, third party wishes aside, I just want to state as someone who
has in the past voted Republican how I differ with the characterization that
"Republican rule tends to benefit big business and the wealthy while
Democrats tend to empower the working stiff and the poor".

"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants,
and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a
good conscience" -- Albert Camus

Perspective background: -My family is only three generations removed
from Spain-Cuba-Miami immigration. My grandmother worked as a bar waitress,
and my father lived on his own from the age of 15, eventually being the
first to attend college. We are not old money, new money, or high society.
We are hungry people of humble beginnings, with an undefeatable sense of
ability and optimism, wishing for an opportunity to grow as our desires
dictate. Likewise, we are not fundamentalists, having grown up in an athiest
home and being agnostic most of my life. Yet have voted republican. I wonder
if the average Dem has any understanding of republican perspective, or are
they deceived by simplified headlines from the political machine they
support?

I believe more often the Dem policies tend to "enslave" the working
stiff and the poor, by what is promoted and/or discouraged. Get a union job,
get a tenured teaching position, grab a nice city job, and then hold on to
your livelihood based on the governments' support of those institutions, not
on your skill level, market needs, etc. Become just good enough to hold a
job without forcing us to transfer you, and we'll look after your wages,
increases, perks, etc. Don't think you could ever be more son, because you
are just a working stiff, and you need the government help to protect you
against all those evil business owners who are not much better than thieves.
Curses on WalMart, MS, Coke GSK, and Nike. So just work a normal job, vote
Dem, and we'll take care of the rest.

Don't try to start a business or succeed in any major way, because if
you do, you will be a 'bad guy', and we will have to take much more of your
earned income so we can fund institutions that reward mediocrity and career
coasting. In fact, don't even get too attached to that term, "earned"
income, because the government knows you really didn't earn or deserve it.

Perspective on the phrase "Republican rule tends to benefit big business and
the wealthy":
-----Money is made by providing products and services that are in
demand. The higher the demand, the more competent the operation, the more
profit can be made. In general, people make the most money by providing the
most desired products and services to society, (absent corruption and
government interference)
When people are encouraged and rewarded for making money, and illegal
paths are closed off, then they are guided into providing "products and
services" which benefit society. Society's standard of living increases as
part of the equation. So, those 'rules' are not created to benefit the
wealthy, but to benefit society. The republican platform was not developed
over the ages as a way to slip a few bucks into rich owners hands. That is
so short sighted and simplistic. It is the carrot that spurs people to
achieve when they have nothing. It is the carrot that spurs a family of
immigrants to start one restaurant, be able to keep the profits, and start a
second restaurant for the sons and daughters, etc. It encourages not just
millions of individuals, but generations of families to provide 'maximum'
benefit to society.
It is why I've hired numerous employees making 3, 4, 5 times my salary
as the owner, on the chance that I can create something of value long term,
and be allowed to keep it. If there were no voice in government for
rewarding productivity, I would not start a business, and then would never
have hired employees who are feeding their families better than I.
Additionally, my business customers would not have as many software products
to choose from, so perhaps they produce less efficiently for their
customers, and on & on through the economic ecosystem.
It always feels insulting when people think a republican votes to reward
the wealthy, when I and others feel it is to reward and encourage an entire
society and avoid stagnation/complacency. I could care less what any of the
wealthy people make over the next four years. It is for us poor slobs who
dream of options, freedom, and independence that the incentives are in
place. It promotes growth, it promotes initiative.

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of
belief in freedom itself. " -- Milton Friedman

I'm not saying that Democrats are mediocre as individuals, not at all.
But that it feels as if the Dem platform is always attacking financial
success. Therefore, if I was to build a big business, provide jobs for
hundreds or thousands of employees of all policitical beliefs, then my
reward would be that now I'm attacked by the very society I contributed to.
As long as the Dems act as the opposition to big business, then they provide
no incentive to create something which employs many, produces much, and
benefits millions through services, public stock participation, charities,
etc. At some point in my journey from poor working stiff, to creator of a
big business, Dems would have me cast as a bad guy. What that says to me and
my children is: don't grow, don't lead, don't build, just work for a union,
or the government, or someone else. If you do start a biz, for heaven's sake
don't be very successful. Stay small, perhaps mediocre or just lazy would
do. And when you have to lay off staff and close your doors, we'll take care
of you. You will be assimilated into us.

I know others differ on the Dem position. I'm unhappy with both parties
at this point, but have grown weary of people thinking republicans are
either wealthy or fundamentalist. I've never been either, and yet I've voted
Republican. It just strikes me as so "off the mark" when I hear that dogma,
that I have to voice opposing opinion.

Don

If I was to sum up a major difference in two lines as B did, I would rather
put it as: Big biz gives dollars to Repubs to *reduce burdens* (taxes,
bureaucracy). Unions and special interests give to Dems to *get stuff*
(assistance, guarantees, benefits, added bureaucracy). The Dems position
just seems so conservative and status quo, so stagnant and bound.


----- Original Message -----
From: B
To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 4:41 PM
Subject: RE: [internetworkers] Great Mike Badnarik quote...


Hamburger joints, death penalty.... Bah.

Your vote is neither ground meat nor a prison sentence. It is your vote.
Each election you only have one that you get to spend for each office on the
ballot. Regardless of what ol' Ralph, Ross, or any "third-party" candidate
or detractors of our two-party system say, we will have only two viable
candidates for president come this November, one of whom will take office in
January - the Republican or the Democrat.

If you have problems seeing a difference between the Republican and the
Democrat philosophies, you're carrying relativism a bit too far. You could
begin by looking at who tends to reap the benefits from each party.
* Republican rule tends to benefit big business and the wealthy while
Democrats tend to empower the working stiff and the poor (e.g., Reagan and
unions, the Democratic congress and minimum wage).
* Republicans (in the past two or three decades) have become more and more
moralistic after the Christian fundamentalist formula and tend to show less
tolerance for deviance from this formula while Democrats have become more
inclusive and tend to show more tolerance. (If you need examples of this,
you haven't been paying attention.)

Think on it for a few minutes and you probably can come up with differences
of your own.

~B







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