Your statement "southern dixiecrats entered the repub party" is false: http://www.black-and-right.com/2010/03/19/the-dixiecrat-myth/ Also, a wonderful video exists which goes over each and every legislator who voted against the Civil Rights Act, and shows that all but one stayed IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Essentially NONE changed parties. What is more, their constituencies continued to VOTE DEM. This only changed once an entire generation (those in their sixties roughly speaking in 1964) had long retired, had left office, and an entire new generation of people populated even the most hidebound areas of the deep south by that time (e.g. Alabama).

@Steve of CA; Goldwater supported all the portions of the Civil Rights Act OTHER than those having control of use of private property. Being a relatively Libertarian oriented GOP, he objected strictly upon that basis, and therefore voted against. Perhaps Reagan viewed this the same way? GOP support (and support of Northern Dems) was profound. Illinois GOP Senator Dirksen even drafted the language of the Act. Those Dixiecrats who filibustered and/or voted against by and large did not convert to GOP later, as has been stated by those attempting to rewrite the history of Civil Rights. The reason the south is now more GOP has to do with the Dixiecrat generation having retired and died out. The new south is populist, state/local gov.

Good work. Sound statements. Sounds mostly supportive of the notion that the Defined Benefit is not likely to survive too long, given the current facts. As you rightly point out the PBGC is a taxpayer supported entity. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of our voting public really even realize such an agency exists. Maybe we are lucky and ten percent of all voters are aware it exists. How many of those same people have a good handle on the extent of inadequate funding of actuarially sound pension obligations? Lots of scams here, and a hideous financial debacle to mound on top of other ASSET BUBBLES. Since, lets face it.....most of what the last thirty to forty years of government has left us with are asset bubbles of one...

Well. Some of what you say is totally spot on. There really should be no such things as subsidies for farming, and ethanol, and sugar and lots of foreign aid is simply waste. But you do not suggest an alternative strategy to solving the problem of all these promises that have NO WAY of being kept. Lots of people think simply being critical of something is a sign of being smart. I'd say making a decent suggestion, based upon sound thinking is probably even better.

I have been thinking some of these thoughts since first encountering Defined Benefit vs. Defined Contribution plans in auditing in the mid 1980's. Cudos to you for extrapolating the model to Medicare and Social Security. SS is the obvious government defined benefit model, but you hit the nail on the head in seeing the close similarity in medical insurance based upon the Medicare model. In fact, I'd emphasize even more than you, the utter failing, and thoroughgoing inadequacy of statutes, and action of government in keeping up with the quickly developing economic disasters looming as math comes in to destroy the best laid plans of man. Our government is only now, in the twelfth hour realizing that they have a MONSTER on their hands. ...

@Snerdly; So, you support "means-testing the giant Social Security and Medicare programs", which is Stockman's lead meme? Just let's get this straight, you would not simply be firing SCUD missiles using some old guy budget director (who is entitled to his own opinion, of course, but that does not make him somehow phenomenally right...). Or, perhaps you are saying that the Reagan administrations was really the "Best of the Best", in fiscal administration, and that is why Stockman is the nonpareil of Budget Directors? I think there is some value in Stockman's piece, but it is a difficult RX to comprehend, and titanically difficult to implement. Stockman says that the Fed needs to discourage asset bubbles by tightening its loose...

Wilson's attitudes toward Bolshevism are to be commended. That having been said, he had thoroughly developed opinions regarding how government should be run, here in the US, which deftly fall under "progressivism". And he had many other flaws. He was, as mentioned in the article, a segregationalist, and likely rascist. Wilson believed that the system of government designed by the founders was inherently inneffective and that, in order to produce much greater legislative product, a system more like that of Great Britain would be superior. During WWI the Wilson administration jailed some 175,000 US citizens for little more than speaking out against US involvement in war effort. Ultimately, it fell to Republican successors to...

There have been some comments on the economics of oil prices. If the USA substantially increases domestic crude oil production, then that can definitely affect the price of oil. This represents an increase in "supply". Increases in supply tend to reduce the "market clearing price". It is true that crude oil is essentially fungible (there are just a few types), and is part of an international "spot market". Nonetheless, any significant increase in production of crude oil tends to have the effect of lowering the prices paid for petroleum products (e.g. gallon of gasoline at local gas station). What is even more important to point out is that very high prices do not result in some innovation in terms of a "renewable energy"...

Interesting comment, and the point is worthwhile to point that Republicans have done much less than they should to REDUCE government. Heck, Republicans Nixon and Ford, initiated new, vast programs.

You are wasting time exhorting the nation to RAISE TAXES, or to let the "Bush Tax cuts" expire. That avoids the obvious and direct way of dealing with an out of control, cancerous growth of government.

CUT GOVERNMENT. The department of Education would be an ideal start. ELIMINATE IT! There is no serious benefit derived from this multi-billion dollar boondoggle. Department of Agriculture should be examined, to determine what the heck they actually do, that has any darn use, and then curtail most of its operations. Yes, also...

Incidentally, the word "pedophile" is spelled:

PEDOPHILE

it is based upon other parts derived from root words within languages like Greek and Latin....


Pay attention to stuff like this....we conservatives are judged by our INFORMATION!