Narrow-mindedness of the American Right

A good friend of mine sent this email to me a couple of months back. The author's assertion rankled me no end, so I wrote my agitated response. As I was browsing through my email folder today for a 'lost' customer email, I chanced upon this. As I re-read the email, it triggered the same emotion in me as it did the first time around. I thought I should share this exchange and seek your views.

Obituary-Very Interesting read on till the end.....

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;From dependence back into bondage."

  

The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2McCain: 2.1 

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
(this will cheer quite a few people)

And here was my response to the author's treatise, if I may call it that.

This obviously has been written by some conservative hawk who sees the world thru the filter he chooses to wear. So it is patently and blatantly incorrect. Of course, it is old trash recycled four years after another "conning-conservative" lost to Obama.

Obama has a lot of flaws, but to say that he only won in tenements and shanty towns is clear misrepresentation. Among the many tax paying counties O won are 

Los Angeles & San Diego - home to hollywood, aerospace manufacturing, tourism - has its ghettos, but has some very very large tax payers as well

San Fran Bay Area - home to high tech, agriculture, wineries in the bay, finance up in the SFO city area

New York, Boston - financial capital, banks, brokerages

Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis - home to whatever is left of manufacturing in USA, all middle income tax payers

Las Vegas - $$$$$

Other counties that are clearly large-city which voted O are Austin in republican TX, Raleigh Durham in NC, Washington DC area, Miami in FL...all economic engines, with predominantly poor or middle class people. There are many more like these.

Basically, Obama won in a heckuva lot of metro areas, which is the home of American small enterprise..the ones the conservatives tout as the backbone of American economy. Rural America which McCain reportedly won is largely agrarian, with the likes of Cargill, ADM, Monsanto owning tracts of land as big as some small sized states, and populated by poor and middle class people whose love for god, guns, and game is folklore. The big guys get tax breaks, and the small guys are not much different from their city brethren living in "shanties" paying taxes as per law.

That America is at a crossroad is not in question...but who is responsible for this state is debatable. For a party that espouses small government, government grew in size the most during Jr Bush's era, public debt grew at its fastest during his eight-year tenure, and defense spending grew ridiculously on the back of at least one reckless war. In comparison, the previous guy Bill Clinton had no wars, balanced the budget, and cut back defense spending.

The problem in my view with America is the decline of the 2-party system with each party unwilling to budge from its egotistical and amoral stances on almost every issue of national importance. One party stands for the rich and is bull-headed, another stands confused and spineless. These to me are indicators of where the country is headed.

I am for true economic conservative principles, not the kind that the republican party stands for. And I don't care for the republican party's religious conservatism...that is clear bigotry. Bush famously told that he will bomb Afghanistan back to the stone ages. His religious conservative friends are trying to do ithat to America thru their policies.

So much for a thursday afternoon rankler of an email forward from you!!