Zach F Wrote: Welcome to the boards, I look forward to your posts.

Listening Wrote:

Thank you.

My biggest problem is staying active on to many threads and not digging deaper on just one or two where we can share facts and analysis.

As I said, the other board I was on was just a big flamefest. I have to not fall into that habit. I give the left as much credit for anyone and think we all have a place in the public arena.

However, arriving at compromise without verbal bloodshed seems to be a lost art in our political world.

Lori Wrote: Let me just say I agree.    Please keep this site respectful  of each other's viewpoints.

I joined this website - also a moderate republican.   I have always been republican and do believe in their basic priciples - although I am beginning to question some of their methods.  I joined this website to try to understand the "other side."     I don't pretend to be knowledgeable enough to add very many in-depth viewpoints.  But I am watching and "mulling over" the posts.  

I have, thus far, enjoyed the to-the-point and un-sensationalized postings here.   

Thanks - and keep 'em coming.

My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.

This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing--in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against "communists and their fellow travelers." The word "McCarthyism" became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right's fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a "communist" or "socialist" who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.

I came to believe that we liberals couldn't possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years--with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage--I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.

Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony.

Lori Wrote: Well, let me begin by saying I am probably in over my head on this website and do not plan on making a lot of posts.  But here goes...

I am not proud of Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh.  While I agree with some of their points, their emotional sensationalism is almost an embarrasment.   They should just present the facts (as they seem them) and leave the emotion aside.  Now I understand that they are not the republican party - but they do present the views of the party.  If I were a democrat trying to understand the views of the "other side" I would only become more cemented in my democratic views.

I do like the idea of the tea parties.  As long as they stay peaceful, then more power to them.  I even attended one gathering.

I do not like the push to intertwine church and state.  I am a Christian.  However, I believe in the separation of church and state.  That is one thing that makes this country great.  (Let me say, however, that I firmly support "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and do not want "God" removed from public buildings.)

I do not support Sarah Palin or her current PR escapades.  I do like Mike Huckaby - very much.

I do not agree with the whole phone-tapping (etc.) spy techniques to weed out terroists.  Now - I know  the world is now a more dangerous place and that takes more drastic measures to stay safe.  And I don't even have any suggestions to replace those methods.  But one of our basic freedoms as Americans is being taken away when we begin to allow that.  Once we cross that line,  who is to say where the invasion of privacy ends and keeping us safe begins.  Who is in charge of that line that can't be crossed?   

Just my current views...

I grew up in a mining town with my parents and four siblings.  My Dad was a miner and my Mom stayed home to look after our welfare. Sometimes the miners were on strike and we had to skimp.  But despite the occasional setbacks, life was relatively good and happy. 

I am now retired and when I look back at life in the 50's and 60's, I ask myself what was different then from now.  How could a miner support his wife and family then, but today it so much more difficult? At that time people had no credit cards, and we only bought what we could afford and pay for. The cost of health care was not an issue.  Clothes and food were not issues. Jobs were not an issue. The cost of higher education at most state colleges was not as big of an issue as it is now...it was affordable to us and every mining family in our city. We didn't live beyond what we could afford, but at the same time we didn't suffer from "want."

Despite the fact that the Federal government was burdened from the debt of World War II, and the costs of the Korean War and eventually the Vietnam War, the middle class of America thrived.  During the 50s and 60s Americans built the interstate highway system, and we planned and put a man on the moon.   Public utilities in the late 50s to early 70s started the construction of the 104 nuclear power plants that are operating today. It was a time in which we built things and shared in the wealth of the country.  By "we" I mean Americans, with little class distinction between rich, middle class and poor.

Today our society can hardly afford to fix our declining infrastructure as bridges are corroding and collapsing.  And despite all the advances in technology, we cannot even afford to go back to the moon. And we haven't started the construction of one new nuclear plant since the 1970s.

So what was different? Well for one taxes. In the 1950's up until 1961, the top marginal tax rate for individuals was 91 percent.  In 1964 it was lowered to 77 percent and 70 percent in 1964, where it remained until Ronald Reagan lowered it to 50 percent in 1984 and then 28 percent in 1988. It was subsequently raised in increments back to 39.6 percent during the Clinton years, but back to 35 percent in the Bush years. There were also cuts to the corporate tax rates.

What we have had since the Reagan years is a systematic redistribution of the wealth upwards.  The rich have become richer every year, while the middle class has suffered losses in real income after adjusting for inflation...this despite advances in technology. Today the income inequality between the top one percent and the bottom 99 percent is the highest since 1928.

The plutocrats have brain washed everyone into thinking Reaganomics or trickle-down economics creates jobs...that low taxes for the rich and corporations drives the economy and everyone shares in that wealth.  I challenge that view. Reagan tripled the national debt with his tax cuts, and Bush II doubled it. The Center on Budget Policy and Analyses, has provided an analysis of some of the myths and realities of the effect of tax cuts on the economy and deficits.  It's an article well worth reading and it would take me a while to summarize it, so I'll just leave interested readers to read it at the above link.

But I will add my own comment.  The Tea Partiers that at the same time argue for lower taxes and lower deficits to reduce the debt are not in touch with reality.  In the long term to get our deficit under control we'll have to increase taxes, cut military expenditures and cut benefits on entitlement programs...social security and Medicare.  However, there is not a single politician, Democrat or Republican, that would dare campaign on these issues.  That's a solution that cannot be achieved in our divided political environment of today.