Why are Republicans determined to be spoilers?

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I have this impression that the Republicans want the attempts to improve the economy to fail, to prove that stimulating the economy fails by slashing spending wholesale in states under their control and thus undermining any effects stimulus may have. California in particular is an example of this, and it's large enough to have a significant impact.

That said, I think that Obama and his people disproportionately favour the banksters - but that the Shock Doctrine policies of the Republicans are scary in comparison. It appears that the economic poison that the U.S. forced upon Third World countries is now being administered to Americans themselves by the Republicans... a Frankenstein monster is turning on its creator.

So, why do the Republicans want economic failure?

Political agenda, Obama fails, and they can make their candidate for midterms look more desirable. -.-

I hear people saying that a lot, sometimes I read about things that make me think it is true, but let me take a devil's advocate position.

Republicans have a very different world view than the Dems. And they are much more absolutist and less inclined to compromise. They want to block proposals in a Democratic Congress, or if unable to block, at least be able to say they were not part of it. This is not from a sense of wanting America to fail, but from a sense that their policies are good for the country, while Democratic proposals would be bad.

At the start of the Great Depression, Hoover was opposed to some of the proposed programs because he thought it subsidized 'poor judgment' by people who had made economic mistakes. So ideas about helping people stay in their homes, or helping businesses stay open were blocked. The same is true today - Repub people around me want an economic purging of any business that took on too much debt, or is otherwise struggling ... the idea is that these businesses are (or should be) responsible for not planning for a 50% drop in demand for cars and other big ticket items.

Starting with Reagan, there was an unwinding of many New Deal policies and philosophies. Government was held up as the most evil of institutions. Repubs don't want to go back to a new deal mentality, they want to continue with their 'Privatize it!" program. The fact that they cannot see the failure of the medical insurance system or the bad behavior of wall street calls into question their judgement, but not their honesty. They truly believe that failures in these areas are caused by the government and a lack of a free market, and if we just gave insurance companies more freedom, they would stop dumping people who developed serious, expensive conditions.

Additionally, there are many Repubs who have been stunned by their loss of power (they were supposed to have a permanent majority, according to what they told themselves), and they feel further helplessness due to the the drop in the economy. After listening to decades of escalating paranoia on talk radio and certain cable outlets, they are legitimately concerned that Obama and his comrades really want to kill grandmothers across the country, and that his health insurance plans are part of that sinister conspiracy. So it is only reasonable to behave like they do - do you want to kill Grandma? I didn't think so!

Well, unless Grandma starts working, she's a liability! >=P Thankfully it seems baby boomers should change the way people view the elders, since they seem to be in better health, have more social ties to keep them active in politics and the like, and probably can work a bit longer past their retirement if need be. =/

The Republicans' plans appear to me to include a general lowering of the standard of living and a more dangerous existence in general for most people. This strikes me as hardly desirable.

They hope to privately benefit from the changes they propose...

The state of a country is a reflexion of its elites. It appears to me that these particular elites look to those of Latin America as inspiration... and would seem to want their own country to amount to less... what good is it to have a bit more money if the country is something to be ashamed of.

I mean, their plans are not unlike what Boris Yeltsin forced upon Russia! The enemies of America must be funnelling them money!

They use crises in a bid to implement their policies as they know that people would never agree to them under normal conditions. New Orleans is an infamous disaster as one of their laboratories. They even knocked down the perfectly alright public housing despite the housing shortage there in order to make an ideological point!

In New Orleans they have privatised the schools and most things and it's a total disaster. The whole approach to New Orleans has made it clear that they propose disaster, and hope to personally profit from that.

Xenon, if you think they're truly evil or at least wrong on everything - how would any of this surprise you?

Actually I think that some of the people who vote Republican genuinely believe in the policies put forward by the Republican party. For instance, I know that some stimulus skeptics exist in academic economics. In any case, the doctrines put onto the 3rd world were done so that they would be effective, as even well meaning economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, whose current ideal is to end poverty in 20 years, were instrumental in implementing these massive changes. Republicans have also generally ideologically sided with the more free market aspects of economics as well, which means that they would be more compelled to side with such ideas unless it was political suicide. Ron Paul is an example of a Republican who sides with the free market ideas significantly to the point of openly embracing the rather extreme Austrian school.

Because of that, I don't think that your idea that the "republicans are malicious" really holds weight.

There are certain people who are driving this ideology who personally profit when it is implemented. This is the motive. Personal profit and nothing else. These are elites who don't care if the country is a Mad Max hellhole, so long as they are protected on their hills with their armed guards. These people have no concern whatsoever about what kind of a country they are running. They are not unlike the people who run places like Haiti...

So I guess I have an answer to my question, but really only having to do with those who personally profit. What about those who don't profit but simply go along with it? Don't they realise how destructive it all is? Don't they know that Ayn Rand is ridiculous? This is the worst delusion.

Many Republicans seem driven by ideology and principle - some say that to tax is to steal, thus, this is a moral imperative, that one must slash all government spending and reduce the government so it is so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub, as of of them once put it, because otherwise it's stealing. Others say cut everyone off welfare because it's wrong for people to be paid for nothing - again, a question of principle, not practicality. They are not happy that they work hard and others do not... it's a rigid point of view.

These radical points of view are not accepted by the majority so their leaders think it's just all right to exploit crises to implement their schemes... a most evil activity, if you ask me, and incredibly anti-democratic. They even speak of manufacturing crises to implement their plans. This is actually known by quite a few people and may explain why quite a few believe that 911 was an inside job - it's their M.O.

The issue is then saying what people you refer to. I mean, to be honest, I know of a few academic names of people who would ultimately belong to the "economic right" so to speak. So, is there some huge conspiracy where a few rich people are pushing an ideology along? If so, then what rich people or groups should we accuse? It doesn't seem to be uber-rich people Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as far as I can tell from their actions.

As for delusion, as I will quickly rebut, there are some very intelligent people out there who are economically conservative, and who are fans of Ayn Rand. As such, calling it a "delusion" seems questionable, as you basically have to claim that people who have more knowledge on the issue than you do are just crazy, which is a rather questionable hypothesis.

Well, some republicans do. However, Milton Friedman is relatively notable for his utilitarian standpoint(although it could be argued that his utilitarianism wasn't the end of his implicit ethics), as is Ludwig von Mises, and both of them are figures that wanted a radical reduction in the size of government, and because of that, I wouldn't say it is just the rigidness of Republican ideology, although that could be a possibility.

Well, to be honest, the majority of people are severely lacking in knowledge but still biased on these matters. As such, saying that the ideas aren't supported by a majority does not say anything about the quality of these ideas. Not only that, but democracy is usually not considered inherently valuable, and I doubt that any party acts just for the sake of democracy. In any case, economist Bryan Caplan is actually noted for taking the lack of knowledge of the voting public and turning this into a mild argument against a populist democratic form, and this is because he thinks that proper expert opinion would favor more pro-market policies.

In any case, just for a bit of personal information, have you recently read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine or something? Just curious.

Isn't Atlas Shrugged based on this strange idea that the 'better' class can separate itself from the so-called riffraff and somehow survive? That is a delusion.

I bring this subject up now because of the machinations in California, and also after watching yet another depressing thing about New Orleans and "the people from that part of the world", as George W. Bush put it. The so-called Governator thinks he can force though radical change using this economic crisis to hold the people hostage.

It's a fact that the hurricane was used to turn New Orleans into a laboratory and that the war was used to turn Iraq into a laboratory, that the Third World was made into a laboratory with structural adjustment and that Sept 11th was ruthlessly exploited. It's fundamentally indecent to do this. It's also unbecoming for people who call themselves conservatives.

As for Ms. Klein and her book, she provided quotes from the principals confirming this m.o. That the rabble need to be discombobulated with a crisis to force though so-called necessary changes that they are too stupid to realise is necessary. It's known that a lot of these people are adherents of Leo Strauss's elitist beliefs also...

I have to continue to ask what kind of world these people have in mind. If it's anything like Iraq or New Orleans, then that's a disaster. That book mentioned a world where people are rescued from disaster only if they are loaded with money and can pay for private rescue. In Arnie's California, such a thing is proposed. If there are other wildfires, only those with cash will be rescued... simple. That's proposed. I see he also proposes to condemn people to death - AIDS patients in particular whose drug regimes will be terminated.

The elites in question are only those who propose these things... some others at times may support certain measures that may benefit them but probably not the package, particularly not at home... they are not those driving it intellectually. The ones who do drive it intellectually do personally benefit. I remember Richard Perle declared that Seymour Hersh was a "terrorist" for disclosing that he was profiting from the wars he was promoting... and threatened to sue him for libel in a British court, with its more favourable standard for a plaintiff in a libel case.

You kinda need to review your definition of terrorism <.< 1) terrorist factions are not easily identified, they use the rest of the population to blend in and strike from the shadows in order to 2) create an event which will create mass psychological trauma to witnesses.

No, Atlas Shrugged proposes that people who think they are gold-bricks should withdraw from society and allow it to collapse to teach the rest of us a lesson - cut taxes on the wealthy to near zero!

Ann Coulter once complained that if taxes for the wealthiest increased from 35% to 39%, she would 'Go Galt' and stop writing. Which is a very good reason to raise the highest incremental tax rate.

Great lessons that we should all follow. Cut the tax rate to zero on the wealthy, but increase the tax rate to 110% on Ann Coulter.

The Laffer Curve that they cite applies to marginal tax rates over 50% like existed in pre-Reagan, pre-Thatcher days... it does not justify cutting them like the latest rounds of cuts.

It's nonsense that people can live in total isolation from wider society... people who are successful could not have been successful in a vacuum. Those who claim so are in delusion or they are demagogues.

I was in a bar once and overheard someone go on about how the world is made up of "leeches" and those who produce and claimed that those with good ideas don't need anyone to produce them, and this caused me to laugh and laugh and laugh... someone has to pony up the dough to implement the idea, someone has to sign off on it, it can't just appear out of thin air... there will be middlemen and people who help execute things...

Now, it might be nice not to have middlemen but it's not realistic to not have them... and about that, why does the Right oppose single payer health care... the insurance industry in this case is the ultimate in being parasitic middlemen...

I read this interesting article about a woman who worked in organising things for a professor, and she put herself down saying that she is there because of the professor, that she doesn't deserve to be treated fairly and so on, and was asked what happened when she was away, and she said that the office fell apart and this interfered with the professor... so it appears that she is very necessary to the completion of the professor's work, and should be appreciated as such and not looked upon as a "leech".

It is not scientifically totally determined but it is quite evident that Republican politicians seem somewhat over endowed with testosterone which leads not only to psychological delusions about the functions of government and how inefficient they are compared to the magnificent performances of the financial community in rewarding its leaders and inserting subservient politicians into high administration places but also to the many obvious sexual scandals which keep coming to light amongst its leaders. It may be due, of course, to the popularity of Viagra with the current set of Republican politicians but this is an undisclosed statistic. The automobile and armaments industries seem to be doing particularly well under Republican motivations as evidenced by the financial successes of GM and Chrysler and the burgeoning fatalities in the USA with the use of handguns.

Not so. They desire economic success for the people intimately wired into the world of large corporations and finance. If the big corporations are doing very well they do not mind some of the crumbs falling off the table into the hands of Lesser Folks. It is what is called Trickle Down Economics. As long as the super rich and connected are doing extremely well they do not begrudge moderate gains for the Little People.

The Republicans loved the years between the end of the Truman Administration and the time of Jimmuh Carter (who they despised). They even thought JFK was Good For Business. Keep in mind the Corporate Republic Creed - What is Good for G.M. is Good for America (Charlie Wilson).

ruveyn