The Divide

One view of the political divide facing us. The Divide

THE DIVIDE

Truly, as Anne notes, there is such a divide. The world according to Fox (“the wealthy are job creators”; “by far the vast majority” of Bush’s tax cuts went to “people at the bottom end of the economic ladder”) versus the world according to facts (after Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, 23 million jobs were created; since Bush lowered them, few jobs have been created; by far the vast majority of Bush’s tax cuts went to people at the top of the economic ladder).

Here’s how many on the other side see it: a comment on a post that criticized the President for compromising too much. It shows – not that we didn’t already know – how sharply divided the country is.

Steve a 44-y-o from Carmichael, CA: “Typical liberal/socialist nonsense. However, [the post is] right in one aspect...Obama is looking more like Carter every day. But it’s not because he won’t stand up to Republicans, it’s because he is a LIBERAL/SOCIALIST. LIBERAL/SOCIALISTs are always weak because they are always wrong. I have never met a liberal that could objectively defend one of their political positions using reason or logic. You guys still are stuck in broken record mode chanting over and over how the rich don’t pay their fair share. Define rich. Obama would have you think that anyone who has more money than you is rich. Funny how the richest 1% pay about 30-40% of the taxes and the poorest 40% pay about 3% of the taxes. The rich are already paying a lot more than they should be. Big shocker here...it’s their money, they should get to keep it. Funny how you want the people who actually work to just give their hard earned money to people who refuse to work. Do you have any facts at all in that liberal brain of yours? You do realize that half of the people in the country pay ALL of the taxes and half of the people pay none! Guess which half vote for socialist/democrats? That’s right..socialist welfare slugs vote for democrats and hard working patriots vote for conservatives. You are always wrong. When are you gonna figure it out. Liberals think act and reason like little children.”

☞ To many of us, this seems profoundly wrongheaded. Where Steve sees lazy people refusing to work and hedge fund managers sweating to earn every penny of their $100 million – by creating tremendous value – we liberals tend to see the lawn guy working all day for eight bucks an hour while his wife cleans hotel rooms for another eight, struggling to make a good life for their kids. Or we see people desperate for work, lining up in jackets and ties for a five-hour wait in the Atlanta sun for an interview. And we see Wal-Mart heirs on yachts who never worked a single hour for their fortunes. We do NOT begrudge them those fortunes; we just think it would be better if we went back to the kind of taxes on wealth that prevailed under Ronald Reagan (second greatest man ever to walk the Earth). And we agree with Warren Buffett (whose reasoning ability may be beyond that of “little children”) that it’s nuts for him to be in a lower tax bracket than his receptionist

A shorter version might be "You can't argue with stupid"

tnb