The border is never going to be controlled well enough for whatever further options anyone in any party wants. Placing a sealed border as a precondition for immigration reform is a disingenuous way of saying you don’t want immigration reform.
Going negative never works. Never. It only encourages people to find new ways around the law; I don’t care if we are talking teenagers or immigrants or soldiers or employees.
The only way to get compliance is to provide incentives for proper action. Republicans will never agree with me on this because, in essence (metaphorically), they believe in spanking. Spanking gets instant conformity and long term rebellion. It is the reason why American foreign policy has created more problems than it has solved in the last 100 years. Just for example, our CIA actions laid the groundwork for the Iranian revolution. Our war laid the groundwork for the communist takeover in Vietnam. This last was started by Democrats, so both parties are guilty there, but I think Republicans hold onto this ideology more than Dems.
And it is part of a whole cloth. It is related to religion and a patriarchal God. It is related to an attitude towards women that doesn’t take them quite as seriously as men, because of the attitude about what a strong person is. A strong person takes no prisoners. Always knows what they want (right or wrong). Never changes or wavers, unlike “flip-flopping” Democrats. A Republican does not believe in nuance, at least officially. Everything is black and white. Especially race relations, although they make nice about that. Still, Herman Cain’s race isn’t seen by anyone, at least not officially, which makes him an honorary white.
Business is tricky. I know Republicans are more concerned with freedom to make money and create jobs than they are with protecting consumers and ordinary people. If it comes to sacrificing environment or profits, they move away from the environment and towards profits. Of course, they can’t go too far, because people do start complaining when their drinking water catches fire. That tends to radicalize people in Republican strongholds.
In any case, the balance between environment and consumer protection and worker protection vs business and profits moves back and forth within a certain range depending on which party is ascendant. The president, however, has enormous power to do things on his own with executive orders, so, to some extent, Congress is window dressing.
But money is a real limit. And the battle between Keynsians and whatever the other camp is is a tough one. Do we spend our way to prosperity or do we… well, I don’t understand how cutting the federal budge helps. I guess in theory we put more money in the hands of some people when we reduce taxes, but we put it in the hands of people who spend the least portion of their income: the rich. Poor people have to spend nearly all their money. That pumps the economy. Rich people spend only a small portion of their money, even if they buy 20 mansions all over the world and 20 yachts, too. That’s only a small portion of their income. The rest sits and waits for a moment for investment. But if no one is buying, there is no point in investing.
I don’t understand why Republicans are such fans of the rich. I don’t know why they believe in supply side economics. The only reason I can think of is they are rich, themselves, so they are just being selfish, and have no understanding of their long term selfish best interests. If they would let the poor have more money, they will be twice as rich as if they keep it themselves. Makes no sense to me.
Plus the reduction in regulations allows for more corruption, which reduces public confidence and slows the economy even further. What good is freedom to make money when no one is buying because no one trusts them? Look at the “Occupy” everything movement. They may be a small number of people, but they must represent many others. They don’t have jobs and they don’t feel they have a role in the economy. Can’t business people see this is a serious indictment of the way they have not been policing themselves very well? And the honest business people are being tarred with the same brush.
I think I understand why Republicans say what they say, but I think they don’t understand the long term consequences of what they do. In fact, I think they are ideologically opposed to understanding the long term consequences because it just doesn’t fit their view of the world, data be damned.
And that’s another problem. Perhaps the most important one. They rely on common sense, not science. They make fun of science. They make these Golden Fleece awards and pick on projects that sound ridiculous (because scientists are bad at marketing), and don’t even try to understand the reason for the research.
Republicans have a different way of looking at the world. It’s really different, I think. We may have common goals, but our understanding of the problems are worlds apart. Because of that, we can’t agree on policy. And because of that, government does very little, and what they do, is done in semi-private, using executive orders.
Composing members:
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Composing members:
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