Are Democrats Ignorant of Facts or Just Too Arrogant to Care?
From tax increases to gun control to environmentalism, Dems keep pushing policies that adversely affect Americans.
Through various policies and legislative acts from the Progressive Era to our own day, Democrats have been inextricably linked to burdensome taxation, government expansion, limitations on individual liberties like gun ownership, and most recently environmentalism. In all these things, the Democratic Party goes against the history of free people and travels instead down the path to serfdom and despotism.
Do the Democrats do this incidentally, ignorant of the facts? Or are they so arrogant that they pursue their beloved agenda knowing the costs, yet simultaneously turn a blind eye to them?
Consider President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. Although his fiscal policies were detrimental to prosperity, Democrats praise them.
From the moment FDR was sworn into the presidency in 1933, his solution for the Great Depression was characterized by high taxation. And while many of these taxes were on personal income, in a clear attempt to “soak the rich,” all were not. In fact, his tax hikes were so broad and varied that he actually “tripled taxes during the Great Depression, from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940.”
Tax increases at such astronomic levels were largely the result of various excise taxes, which FDR “levied on alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, matches, candy, chewing gum, margarine, fruit juice, soft drinks, cars, tires (including tires on wheelchairs), telephone calls, movie tickets, playing cards, electricity, and radios, [among other things].” We don’t have to be economists (or senators and congressmen) to understand that while taxes like these may have indeed soaked the rich, they did so at the expense of drenching the middle and lower classes as well.
Such tax policies dried up the coffers of many employers and forced them to forgo adding personnel to payrolls, as demonstrated by the fact that unemployment “averaged 17%” throughout the 1930s. This detrimental effect aside, President Obama and the Democrat leadership cannot wait to implement similar tax policies during the current economic downturn. Just months ago, in July 2009, Obama talked about his openness to “sin taxes,” which would include taxes on soft drinks and many of the other things FDR placed excise taxes upon.
Historically speaking, higher taxes lead to larger governments, which in turn tend toward larger deficits. So with Obama’s tax proposals in mind, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 2008’s national deficit of just over 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) will grow to 11.4% of GDP by the end of 2009. This means part of Obama’s solution to our current economic downturn includes driving us deeper and deeper into debt nationally. It’s like FDR all over again.
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AWR Hawkins is a conservative writer who holds a Ph.D. in military history from Texas Tech University.
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47 Comments
1. Delia:“If ignorant, their liberalism is lamentable but it can be overlooked. If arrogant, their liberalism is unforgivable, for it is practiced to the peril of their own countrymen.”
I think it’s a little of both. Arrogance at the top and ignorance from the middle to the bottom.
It’s cringe inducing when someone from the left says, “What? We already have socialism. What’s a little more?”
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Sep 22, 2009 - 12:17 am 2. Zaza:Liberals suffer from cognitive dissonance…in their world
-the rich white males are oppressing everyone else
-the rich are rich because they steal from the poor
-entrepeneurs and corporations always have a lot of money
-business people are motivated by greed and
-criminals commit their deeds because society doesnt give them enough chances or because they are poor
Facts and reasonal arguments contrary to this worldview will be ignored or explained in a way that fits this ideology.
Try explaining evolution theory to a creationist, you will get the same experience as explaining basic economics to a liberal
Sep 22, 2009 - 1:16 am 3. Matthew:ROFL. I don’t quite know where to start with this one. It’s barely even wrong.
Republicans sure like low taxes – but they don’t mind increasing their spending regardless. In real terms (%GDP), obama’s current “massive” spending is merely comparable to reagan’s – the difference being that obama inherited a financial crisis that warranted it as a one-off emergency (and bush started that ball rolling himself, just in case you disagree) whereas reagan just liked spending. Bush also demonstrated that reps are not at all worried about massively expanding government and impinging on personal freedoms. The biggest expansions of arbitrary surveillance and retractions in public oversight since WWII have been in the last 8 years under bush. There’s no WAY obama can top that.
Have a look at levels of US federal and public debt since WWII (we call these “facts”). As a share of GDP, Rooosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Carter and Clinton all reduced your federal debt during their terms. The only republican presidents who managed it were ike and nixon – and nixon only _very_ slightly (ford ran it up again). The other (republican) presidents are responsible for the US’ current, massive public debt. The REAL fiscal conservatives are the democrats – if you consider what they actually do when elected, rather than the campaign speeches.
“Historically speaking, higher taxes lead to larger governments, which in turn tend toward larger deficits”
If republicans balanced their books that might be the case. In practice, higher taxes should be used to pay down debt.
As for guns, well – you guys sure are showing the world the way forward there. When you get your domestic gun toll down to the levels of a medium-sized external war, then the rest of the world will be fascinated to hear about your policies. Until then we have to assume that whatever you’re doing is wrong, and what we’re doing is probably right.
Sep 22, 2009 - 2:12 am 4. patmanshardt.blogspot.com:Democrats can be divided into three (not necessarily exclusive) groups: A) the arrogant,those who think they know better than us how to run our lives (e.g., Ted Kennedy); B) the stupid, those who actually believe liberal dogma (e.g., Jimmy Carter and maybe Barrack Obama); and C) the cynics, those who don’t believe any of that crap but say it because they know that such appeals to the intellectually lazy will get them elected (e.g., Bill Clinton).
Sep 22, 2009 - 2:16 am 5. Czar of Defenestration:I second Delia’s comment #1.
Leftists have only the “throw the baby out with the bathwatewr” argument to further their nonsense.
No need to split hairs:
Willful ignorance = Arrogance.
Sep 22, 2009 - 3:43 am 6. Tomp:A lust for power and wealth.
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:10 am 7. HLH:Nothing means more to a Democrat office-holder than furthering their own agenda; regardless of cost to the people or the country. Pure arrogance drives them.
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:27 am 8. biblio44:“Consider President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. Although his fiscal policies were detrimental to prosperity, Democrats praise them.”
As should every senior now collecting Social Security, especially those many millions living on it.
Sep 22, 2009 - 7:20 am 9. Old Soldier:Matthew – You confuse Republicans with conservatives so the answer in your case is “Ignorant.”
biblio44 – Social Security is a rip-off and an upside down pyramid scheme that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. I’m subsidizing geezers and will never see my confiscated wealth again.
Sep 22, 2009 - 7:36 am 10. Rashputin:The arrogant at the top are sure they deserve the power and control that totalitarian regimes always enjoy while those at the bottom are ignorant enough to believe that they, too, will be among the elite.
Regards
Sep 22, 2009 - 7:38 am 11. William:Only one problem here Hawkins: your choice of words is not strong enough. The word is conceited, not arrogant.
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:05 am 12. NCBob:When are you guys going to accept that Obama and his neocommunists have only ONE objective, the destruction of the middle class in America?
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:08 am 13. Jason:Ignorance and arrogance are incidental variables that mean nothing to Obama. His objective is to obey his masters (Ayers? Soros? Who?) and destroy the American middle class and transfer theeir wealth to those who deserve it!
Hawkins, excellent take on the Democrats here. Right on as usual. They plod along although all evidence PROVES there policies are harmful. Arrogant to say the least.
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:12 am 14. Chuck Pelto:TO: AWR Hawkins, et al.
RE: Hmmmmm…..
…how about BOTH!
Case in point….
Attending a local public forum discussion of Obama’s proposed heath’care’, I engaged a young woman in a side discussion on a certain point.
During the discussion, I asked her if she had even READ the legislation (HR 3200). To which she replied, “I don’t care.”
So she is both (1) ignorant of the facts and (2) too arrogant to care.
Typical…..
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:55 am 15. elvis:[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and 'too arrogant', i.e., proud of it.]
They are ignorant, unstable, arrogant and bitter.They are a detriment to this country!
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:16 am 16. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: biblio44 as Prima Facea Evidence….
….of the title of this thread.
Maybe biblio44 missed THIS.
According to the article, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is not projecting that the Social Security system will be out of money, i.e., running deficits, in 2010. That’s NEXT YEAR. So in the foreseeable future, nobody will be ‘living’ on Social Security, per se. They’ll be living on ‘deficit spending’ instead.
All the more reason, in the eyes of so-called ‘progressives’ for Obama Care, so they can start killing of grandma and reduce the expected deficit.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:18 am 17. Chuck Pelto:[There's a price for too much arrogance, a price for too much greed, and in complacent ignorance we've sown the whirlwind seed. -- Don Simpson]
TO: All
RE: ERRATA
That comment should read….
According to the article, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is NOW projecting that the Social Security system will be out of money….
My error. Not enough coffee…..YET….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:21 am 18. Robert:[To have no errors. Would be life without meaning. No struggle, no joy. - Haiku Error Msg]
To “Elvis” – Well put. Hawkins only shortcoming in this piece is that he didn’t have room to provide every appropriate label for Democrats. They are a disgrace to national politics and to our Founding convictions.
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:28 am 19. Sebastian Shaw:The Democrats are arrogant enough to believe they are doing the right thing when the opposite is true; it’s a combination of arrogance, ignorance, & flat out stupidity on their part. Many Republicans fall into this category as well.
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:47 am 20. Edagr:Your last sentence ingores the obvious. These people do not recognize countrymen as most would appreciate. Their definition of a countryman is someone who is idealogically identical. Anyone expressing dissent in any form or to any degree is excluded. You may want to consider the profound nature of that very simple distinction, as it stabs directly at the heart of why America was founded. It should also be a clear warning that we are engaged in a one way dialogue between two alien cultures. It further means that countrymen is no longer defined by those who share a country.
Sep 22, 2009 - 10:07 am 21. Christopher:To “Sebastian Shaw” – I disagree with your post in one way: I do not believe the Democrat’s really believe their ideas are better (or right). I believe that want us to think that only so they’re provided cover for destroying the country. I concur wholeheartedly with both AWR and yourself that the Dems are arrogant beyond belief.
Sep 22, 2009 - 11:06 am 22. Poor Citizen:And if you think the democrats were bad, you should have taken some notes when the neo-cons took over in 2000 for eight miserable years. Their legacy culminated in the biggest tax and spend, national discgrace coupled with the hugest financial meltdown disaster in American history. The author should have had access to the news papers for the past few years. Old AWR would have been shocked !!
Sep 22, 2009 - 11:33 am 23. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: Is ‘Poor Citizen’ ‘for Real’?
Or are they just another prime example of how ‘ignorant’ and ‘arrogant’ these Democrats, i.e., ‘progressives’ are?
I suspect it is, again, a matter of BOTH. Or rather, all three. They are ‘real’ and they are both ‘ignorant’ and ‘arrogant’. Just like that 20-something girl I was talking to as described in item #14 (above).
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 22, 2009 - 11:42 am 24. Danee Garone:P.S. I guess PC never noticed that Obama has tripled-to-quadrupled the deficit as well as the Democrats who controlled Congress when we could have averted the fiscal meltdown….in 2005….when McCain pointed out the impending disaster…..
I can’t help but wonder when Americans are going to come together and demand that the government lowers taxes across the board. Not just on the wealthy or poor but for everyone.
What makes us think that incompetent government systems who are trillions of dollars in debt can make better decisions with our money than us? And even if we Americans are not good with our money, it is our constitutional right to spend the fruits of our labor as we see fit- not the government’s.
Sep 22, 2009 - 11:42 am 25. ic:“policies that adversely affect Americans”
It’s a feature, not a bug. It’s the only way to take the Americans down a few pegs that they are no different from everybody else.
Sep 22, 2009 - 12:00 pm 26. Old Soldier:Poor Citizen: Here’s a news flash you may have missed: The Democrats have controlled Congress since 2006.
You obviously fall into the “ignorant” category.
Sep 22, 2009 - 12:19 pm 27. Scott:Why are we so poor in our use of language? They are not “Liberals” nor are their policies “liberal”, nothing about them has anything to do with freedom. Please stop letting them dictate the language, they are Leftists, Marxists, or Socialists.
Sep 22, 2009 - 12:53 pm 28. Listen up:Does anyone else see how much the photo of O used on this story looks like a photo of Mussolini? The arrogant pose is the same!
Sep 22, 2009 - 1:56 pm 29. Talnik:#3 Matthew: “obama’s current “massive” spending is merely comparable to reagan’s – the difference being that obama inherited a financial crisis that warranted it as a one-off emergency (and bush started that ball rolling himself, just in case you disagree) whereas reagan just liked spending”.
Sep 22, 2009 - 3:29 pm 30. Steve Smith:Were you even alive in 1980? When Carter left office, the country was experiencing high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates, and stagflation. The country was a freaking mess! Additionally, Reagan attempted to cut or at least limit spending continually but Ted Kennedy declared each budget he presented as “dead in the water”, an unfortunate term for Teddy to say the least, but one he repeated year after year.
The President makes suggestions but Congress spends the money.
Yes lefties are arrogant and (often) ignorant. An yet … I think there is another reason for their relentless pursuit of self sabotage.
Not to ruffle any religious sensitivities, but; isn’t a fundamental part of Judeo-Christian religion one giant bust-up between God and mankind (in the garden of Eden) causing huge guilt followed by eternal striving of mankind to get back on good terms with God?
Even in godless socialists wouldn’t this traditional Judeo-Christian teaching produce self loathing and guilt? If so that might explain religious environmentalism, apologising for all the great things in America, supporting policies that are counter to America’s interest etc etc.
I notice that in other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism,there never was a big bust-up with God, so they don’t seem to feel guilty about being human.
Their environmentalism is either learned from lefty westerners, or as they get richer is based on the common sense idea that it’s stupid to wreck ones living space.
It’s just a thought, but the relentless nature of Democratic self-sabotage seems to be inspired by more than mere arrogance and ignorance.
Is this idea of religion-based guilt, which inspires Democrats to self damaging behaviour, a nonsense idea?
Sep 22, 2009 - 4:44 pm 31. ConservativeWanderer:Interesting that you point out Congress’ power over the purse, Talnik, but still attempt to lay the blame for the spending on Reagan. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
Care to look up what party controlled the House, where revenue (i.e. spending and tax) bills must–by law–originate for all 8 years of Reagan’s two terms? I’ll even make it easier for you… the Reagan years were 1981-1989, and one party had controlled the House continually from 1952 to 1994.
Remember, “The President makes suggestions but Congress spends the money.” Therefore, Reagan cannot be held responsible for the spending during his Presidency, we must hold Congress, specifically the House (where, I say again, “revenue” bills must originate) accountable.
Sep 22, 2009 - 4:49 pm 32. B. Johnson:The real problem with government is not the corrupt Democrats running the federal government, IMO. The real problem is the people who voted the Democratic crooks into office in the first place.
More specifically, constitutionally ignorant voters have been keeping the seats of state legislatures and the federal senate filled with “leaders” who are as constitutionally ignorant as the voters are, particularly where state sovereignty is concerned. Consequently, nobody, inside or outside the governments, is protecting citizens from the power-hungry, tax-hungry, Constitution-ignoring federal government.
The following link should help people to understand how the voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government as a consequence of the ill-conceived, anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792
Sep 22, 2009 - 5:23 pm 33. myth buster:The Christian view of the state of mankind is justified prima facie. One need only look at the world and one’s own heart to realize that, far from being basically good, people left to their own devices are scum.
Sep 22, 2009 - 5:45 pm 34. Joyce C Watkins:#8…Those millions who are now living on Social Security were also forced to pay into it, in my case for 30 years. I, too, am astounded at the sheer ignorance of leftists and many independents who will go along with anything as long as they don’t have to put forth effort to see what is in legislation before, during and after it passes. I am appalled at the number of elderly people who have told me that conservatives are lying about the language in HR3200 but admit that they haven’t attempted to read it. Obama told us what he was going to do to this nation and even so he was elected.
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:08 pm 35. steveg:The citizenry are mad as hell, and their not going to take it anymore. If you think the town hall and DC march was an angry fest, just wait until the american public gets ear of the amnesty bill just released from the House. If they even try to pass this monstrosity in current form there will be a second revolution in this country.
The Dems are out of control, and they will pay severely in 2010.
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:22 pm 36. Eric:Easy question – they don’t care. They have an agenda and they won’t let facts, law, public opinion, or the Constitution stand in their way.
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:37 pm 37. Exactly!:Brain shrinkage from vegetarianism.
Brain cell death from drug use.
Emotional cripple from rejection by father/mother.
Self hatred from being made fun of for unattractive physical characteristics in grade school.
COMBINATION OF THE ABOVE.
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:15 pm 38. Richard:How much is too much? When do we fight back? This is starting to become like a bad zombie movie.
Sep 22, 2009 - 8:41 pm 39. Doug S.:Arrogant! And insidious. The government is now taking control of business, finance, and media. Couple this with the attemps at controlling speach and firearms and a proposed civilian police force equal in streangth to our military, what could this possibly mean? To assume ignorance is dangerous. This is a systematic attack on the Constitution and our way of life.
I, for one, am trying to educate anyone and every one who will listen to me.
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:22 pm 40. Sharpshooter:#3 Matthew:
Do you know what “Off Budget” items are? Look it up.
Do you know what an “unfunded liability” is? Look that one up too.
That way you won’t be “ignorant”.
Also, do you realize that about 90% of our homicides occur within less than 1% of our geographic area?
Do yo also realize that Mexico, to our south, has a murder rate four times our? Or that Canada to our north has a much higher violent crime rate?
Do you realize that the majority of our homicides occur in cites that have some of the most stringent gun control in the country?
Do you know it would take 5,000 years for Americans to commit as many murders as Europe committed in the 20th century?
Sep 23, 2009 - 4:17 am 41. clint smith:More republican sewage,
Sep 23, 2009 - 7:25 pm 42. Chuck Pelto:Where all of you guardians of the tax payers dollars during Bush’s spending spree.
Your deregulation ideologues provided the KY for the economic rape perpetuated on the American People by wall street and the investment industry and none of you have the guts to own up to it as long as you can point the finger anywhere except where it belongs.
Republicans have been in power non stop except for Clintons two stalemated terms for nearly 30 years.
If you dont like where this country is at in 2009 take a look at your flawed belief system.
TO: All
RE: clint smith
Apparently clint loves the way Obama has outpaced the way Bush spent by a factor of FOUR. In other words, clint is another hypocrite when he whines about Bush while ignoring Obama.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 24, 2009 - 1:26 am 43. Chuck Pelto:[Where there is no religion, hypocrisy becomes good taste.]
TO: All
RE: clint smith….
….idiot, ignorant, or just asleep the last two years?
I guess he missed the fact that the Democrats controlled Congress since 2006.
Perhaps he’s all three.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and proud of it.]
P.S. clint’s performance correlates well with this topical thread’s title…..
Sep 24, 2009 - 6:02 am 44. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: [OT] Why the Obama Administration….
….is so upset about what is happening in Honduras.
They’re doing everything they can to stifle what happened there because….
….they’re afraid it can happen HERE too.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 24, 2009 - 6:07 am 45. Poor Citizen:[The Truth will out.....]
I would say too arrogant to care. After all, unlike 2000, the dems really did win (almost a landslide) and have over seven years left in power while running and ruling about 2 thirds of the government. Who wouldnt be?
Sep 24, 2009 - 10:53 am 46. ray_g:Steve Smith:
You are talking about the doctrine of “Original Sin” and expulsion from paradise, and yes, it is interesting that similar ideas crop up in seemingly secular beliefs. It is not clear to me whether that came from religion, or is something in the human psyche that was incorporated into religion.
Sep 24, 2009 - 11:00 am 47. Chuck Pelto:TO: Poor Citizen
RE: Thanks….
….for confirming our suspicions about that matter. You’ll be seeing it again….and again….ad infinitum….
RE: Don’t….
….place any bets on that one.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A week is a long time in politics.]
P.S. So is 14 months…..
Sep 24, 2009 - 11:36 am