President Obama & A State Of Dis-Union

That seemed like a bit of an overreaction.

Heh. Yeah. It sure was.

Related:

Cute bit.

Well, whatever you do, don't wag your finger at him.

What's funny about that particular sentiment, on the right, is that yeah--a lot of us do regret voting for Obama. But our alternate choice wouldn't, as the right expects, have been McCain. We should have fucking voted for Lenin.

I don't think "regret" is the right word. Regret indicates an error, and an error can only occur if there is another viable option to an action. I really doubt too many Obama voters saw McCain/Palin as a viable option.

McCain/Palin didn't even qualify as a bad joke;...what were they thinking?!
So now the GOP has become completely radicalized, they decided that the moderates had to go;...again, what are they thinking?!

Obama says nobody envies rich people. Uh, actually, I kinda do, and I don't think I'm alone. I do want to see some class warfare stirred up--or, rather, I want the have-nots to start fighting back in the continuing war being prosecuted against them by the haves. When the tanks are rolling over the unresisting masses it's "the American way", but when the masses start complaining about it it's "the bitter politics of envy". Eat a jackboot, Mittens.

I think envy implies those complaining are basically saying "hey, you have a private jet, why can't I have a private jet." I don't think that's really what we're dealing with. To me it's much akin to "hey, you have a private jet, why can't I scrape together enough to buy a '96 Honda Civic?"

Even in Clinton's second term when we saw things like anti-globalization and anti-WTO movements, there wasn't much in the way of popular support for them, because employment was high, labor force participation was high, and people had income and access to easy credit. It clearly wasn't sustainable, but I think if you can easily go out over the weekend and buy a brand-new television for your living room in your McMansion without really sweating paying for it (or, more accurately, thinking about the APR on the finance because rates are being artificially held down) you're a lot less likely to be pissy if the first time you turn your teevee on you see MTV Cribs showing a 52' flatscreen in Snoop Dogg's house. If you just sold your teevee to pay your rent, and read about Mitt made $62M last year, you're probably (rightly) going to be pissed. I don't know that I'd call that envy in that you feel like "why can't I make $62M". Like I said, it's much more like "why can't I make this month's rent?"

Full quote

Yeah, "envy" isn't the right word; when the tank is driving over you, you don't really envy the driver (I mean you might if you thought about it, because he's not being run over right now and you are, but it's not the first thing that would probably come to mind). But Obama's conciliatory tone irks me. To say that "everybody understands that you have to work hard to be successful" implies that hard work can move you from being poor to being rich. And while that should be the case, it currently isn't the case for a lot of people. To say that we--the left, Obama's base--aren't and shouldn't be engaging in class warfare ignores the reality that most of the country is a victim of the class warfare being waged by the top few wealthiest percent.

This is, of course, not surprising, because Obama has never really been much for financial populism. But being reminded of that fact results in frustration flareups.

This is turning into another case of Republicans controlling the language. Envy. Regret. Jealousy. None of those apply. But, various GOP talking heads keep using those terms until they become part of the discussion.

For me it's pretty simple. That Romney comparison calculator said he takes about 14.5 hours to make what I make in a year. So yes, I kind of think that he should bear a substantially greater proportion of the tax burden than I do. And the same goes for the other people like him. It's not a question of envy or jealousy or punishing him for doing well. I'm fine with people making millions as long as they're doing so in legitimate, moral ways. It's a question of fairness. You cannot tell me that he needs the umpteenth million as badly as I need the 30-some thousand I make a year. You just can't. It doesn't wash.

Precisely, I may have my disappointments, but definitely not regrets. I'm a big boy, I can usually forgive with other's misgivings so long as they aren't horrifically insulting to their office and trample the rights of others. Given the GOP crazy train (Palin/McCain) that was barreling down the tracks, I don't even think of it as a choice anymore, it was just the right thing to do!

For me, debating about the viability of the Republican ticket doesn't even register. Rather, I wonder whether or not Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice, and in all honestly, I'm not sure. She'd be having to grapple with many of the same issues and I think it's likely that many of her decisions would fall in line with Obama's (though I suspect she'd be a bit more hawkish about national defense).

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't really care that he is in office so much as I care that others are not. Considering the underwhelming range of options that will be available this Fall, I think I'd pretty much be OK with him remaining in the White House instead of anyone else.

More than that, it's a question of usage. There is no such thing as a self-made millionaire. The roughest, toughest, do-it-yourselfest rich mensch in the US has gained materially from the society he is a part of. They've gained in less direct ways, such as benefiting from participating in the financial system that this country has built and the society of consumers that it has cultivated; and in more direct ways, like driving on roads. And the more you make, the more you depend on those benefits: the owner of a large business benefits directly from being able to drive on state- and federally-funded roads, and his employees do as well--without which, the business owner's business would not be able to function.

Yeah, I don't envy that Romney earns more in a few short hours then I made in my best year (working my tail off, overtime, etc), I find it disgusting. But then I'm not really a materialistic person, so any envy I have tends not to hinge on things like wealth but on characteristics like intelligence, physicality, luck, charm, confidence, etc. In other words, attributes that you could roll up with some fancy looking die.

Distilling this down for posterity, and also because I love you for saying this.

I'm more or less taking a break from this board, but I just read the bold part, and thought it was a poor choice of metaphor, considering:

1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia:


And of course, TiananmenSquare, 1989:

Yes, those were the images I had in mind when I said that, along with an incident in Egypt and another in Eritrea. The privileged few crushing the populace is something that is wrong whether it involves communism and actual tanks or capitalism and financial WMDs.

^This.