Feb 23 2011
Basic Difference Between Liberals & Conservatives
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh briefly the other day and he was ranting on about the liberal nonsense of ‘shared sacrifice’, when it struck me how close he was to defining the basic difference between left and right.
After liberals screw things royally (the very example of F.U.B.A.R.) they go on and on about “shared sacrifice”. When the 2008 recession hit – due to their risky socialist schemes about home ownership and loading the nation down in bad home mortgage debt (which led to a near collapse of our economic structure and the wiping out of millions of people’s life’s work) – the answer was not justice and identifying those responsible. It was ‘shared sacrifice’ – as if the liberals who lined their pockets on that huge, unstable pile of bad loans where actually sacrificing squat.
The conservative model is success – the private sector and the entrepreneurs. The motto is ‘shared success’ – what liberals lamely refer to as ‘trickle down’. But the founding members of Microsoft and Apple understand they were swept up in the success of individuals like Jobs, Wosniak and Gates – and became millionaires in the process.
Liberals want shared sacrifice for their failures, but conservatives promote shared success in the American dream – based on American determination and ingenuity.
Gee, I wonder which one is the better long term investment??? Let me think on this a moment ….
re: Boeing – we would have been much better off to have just mandated that the contract be given to Boeing at the beginning of this mess. Instead, we wasted 10 years and turned the process into a farce that infuriated everyone on all sides.
If you’re going to cheat, at least cheat in a competent fashion. Not this.
Well, WWS the problem, according to the interview on the show, is that the first time around, Boeing was busted with some conflict of interest problems. The second time around, the Airbus scheme won based ONLY on cost, not actual ability to perform the mission. As mentioned in the interview, the Airbus solution was too big and too slow. We wouldn’t be able to use it in Afghanistan, for example. It would have been relegated to a trans-oceanic strategic tanker only and we would have had to let another contract for a combat zone tanker. The Boeing solution serves both roles.
The Lockheed/Airbus solution won the second time based solely on cost per aircraft, not including the fact that it would cost more to keep them flying (burns more fuel per hour aloft) and that they could not fill all of the missions that the KC-135 fills today.
the version of the Tanker BidWar that I recall from reports at various times during the process: From the start, everyone with a lick of sense knew that there was no way a major US Government contract was going to go to the European Consortium and leave the only surviving American manufacturer out in the cold, with all those jobs lost a political nightmare for any administration that allowed such a thing to happen.
The only reason we have bids for contracts like this is because it plays better politically to pretend to the public that these things are competitive, ordinary voters like to believe that. Of course, with only 2 major manufacturers to choose from, one American and one European, that idea is nonsense. The winner will always be selected by political pull.
The point is, that’s no secret – never was, never will be. That’s how these things Always work Always have worked, Always will work. That’s the way of this world, big whoop. Of COURSE there were conflicts of interest when, in the US military aircraft business there is only 1 domestic purchaser and 1 domestic supplier, and the 2 trade personnel and information constantly. That also has always and will ALWAYS be the case.
This wasn’t just a military bid, this was a jobs program for high paid American workers disguised as a military contract with kickbacks to all the appropriate players. S.O.P.
So what went wrong? Why the 10 year farce? Boeing won the first round, as everyone knew they would. Suddenly an ex-military pol with an axe to grind realized he could hugely embarrass the young Bush administration by pointing out all the self-dealing and conflicts of interest inherent in the contract. Well of course they were there, that was always the point of the contract, just like any big military contract. And that was John McCain, of course, still smarting about being beaten out for the 2000 nomination. He personally used his influence to kick the whole thing back to the drawing board.
Then what? The EADS consortium responded brilliantly – they never had thought they would have a chance, and here McCain dropped it in their lap. They spent 5 years lining up manufacturers across the country and buying (sorry, “Donating”) to local Congresscritters in order to build up a base of support equal to Boeings. Boeing, meanwhile, acted petulantly and in shock that they could actually lose. Then they foolishly tried to make a better bid without realizing that EADS was now beating them at the political gamesmanship.
Years pass, support is solidified – Surprise! EADS buys enough support and wins the second bid!!!! Of course, now everyone in government was confronted with the reality that This was the Absolutely Unacceptable Situation, that *No* administration could ever politically allow the Euro-consortium to beat out the last American manufacturer even if they were going to give the planes away for free. Didn’t matter if they were going to build it here, the optics were just too awful.
So rewind, reload, 4 more years of farce – Surprise! Back to plan A, minus only 10 years of wheel spinning and who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted work and opportunity cost. Of course, now we’ve tied ourselves in so many knots trying to pretend this wasn’t a fraud from the start that even a blind man has to see the fraud at every level – and yes, EADS bribed entire communities to win their bid, just like Boeing and it’s supporters did. Everyone involved in this is dirty, hence my point – if you’re going to cheat, at least cheat competently! Realize that Respectability demands that at LEAST the Appearance of Propriety be maintained!!!
Our government has become so inept that we can’t even cheat ourselves believably any more. We’ve forgotten how to even pretend to be honest, and we’ve put our incompetence on display for the entire world to see.
This article hits it exactly right:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20110227/OPINION03/102270310/1008/AWOL-Dems-defy-ballot-box