Fair warning – Don’t click through if you don’t want to read something political in nature.
I’m sensitive to those that don’t want to read that sort of thing, hence the fair warning. Nothing bad here, just a curiosity and I’m wondering if other people in the USA are doing the same thing, so testing it on WUWT’s wide readership will likely help answer it.
I have seen upside down US flags twice now in my town. The first time I just thought it was self commentary, now seeing it a second time in a different part of town, I stopped along E. 5th Avenue to get this shot. I wonder, how many people across the United States are doing the same thing after November 6th? In case you don’t know, flying the flag upside down is a sign of distress or emergency. Flying at half staff is respect for the fallen in service of our country. Combined it makes quite a commentary on the Benghazi incident, the fallen soldiers and ambassador, and the election. Checking the Internet I find there are others doing the same thing now, such as this fellow in South Bend, Indiana. Then there’s the story about an upside down half-staff flag at McDonald’s which has angered a lot of veterans even though it was claimed to be a mistake.
The U.S. Flag code says in section 8:
The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
Some people consider it flag desecration such as is on par with burning it as political commentary.
I wonder though, if this sort of visual political commentary I’ve seen in my town is being quietly repeated elsewhere since many people now see the USA as being in distress?
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C. Takacs says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Excellent post. Says it all.
joeldshore says:
November 10, 2012 at 7:59 pm
dmacleo says:
we crossed the tipping point of takers vs makers and will never come back.
…
proved to this disabled vet what the mindset of the populace is now sad.
You do realize, don’t you, that if your disability prevents you from working enough to pay federal income tax then you count as one of the 47% who are “takers” in the statistic quoted by Romney and nearly everyone else who uses that term?
=================================================================
Our vets already “gave at the office”. Our disabled vets already have given more than their “fair share”. They are not “taking”. They are being repaid. (And it will never be enough.)
george e. smith says:
November 10, 2012 at 9:56 pm
While I’m supportive of their Republican form of Government; in no way do I align myself with the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, which is no more democratic, than the Republican party is republican.
i’m a permanent resident alien, so I don’t intrude myself into the US political process; but I would be happy if they simply had a Government, which followed their Constitution, which was such a recipe for success.
=====================================
The problem with any man-made system is that there are people in it.
Character does matter in our elected officials. Not that they have to be perfect but they need to at least be honest and honerable, no matter what party, for the system itself not be infected by the vices we all carry to one degree or another.
Gunga Din says:
Well, I am glad that you feel that way but that is not compatible with the very unambiguous definition that D Boehm gave above of what constitutes a “taker”, nor particularly well with what Romney said in that fundraiser. Personally, I think the whole notion of defining a class of people called “takers”, especially on the basis of who pays federal income tax is misguided.
Code monkey wrench says:
Indeed it is. Mitt Romney said ( http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video ):
(bolding added)
george.e.smith,
Technically Congress voted for war, but that really is a technicality. Everyone knows that Bush and Cheney rooted for that war, and to some extent biassed the information about weapons of mass destruction. What you fail to realise, is that by meddling in the Middle East in the ways I mentioned, and others, and then attacking a country because it was run by the guy the US had kept in office for so many years, you have made a lot of unnecessary enemies – people who would blow themselves up to get back at the US. Perhaps if several members of your family had dies at the hands of a foreign power, you might feel the same way. Aggression leads to more aggression.
You seem to imply that non-US citizens, should stay out of your affairs, but a lot of things are international nowadays. The UK ended up sending troops to Iraq, and that surely gives me the right to comment – just as I would not object in the slightest to any criticism you might have of the European climate policies. Those policies probably affect the US, just as the corrupt scientific practices at the UAE have contributed to the fiction that we need to ‘fix’ the climate. We live in a very interconnected world!
D Boehm says:
I think this comment perhaps best encapsulates the mindset of you and many fellow conservatives. For the sake of argument, let’s grant you the dubious claim that Nate Silver’s 538 blog is “far-Left”. The fact is that he correctly predicted the Presidential election outcome in all 50 states (including that Florida was basically a toss-up but with a very slight edge for Obama). He also correctly predicted all the Senate races with the exception of North Dakota (where he incorrectly predicted that the Republican would win when in fact the Democrat won by a bit less than 1%).
So, clearly, those people whom you consider to be “far-Left” (and I would call part of the reality-based community) have a much better grasp on reality than those on your side of the political spectrum. I guess reality just has a “far-Left” bias?
Agree w/Gunga Din, C. Takacs and David Ball:
C. Takacs says:
“Excellent post. Says it all.”
Self-serving scumbags presume to lecture veterans, when said scumkbags tucked tail and ran instead of serving. Typical of the Left.
joeldshore says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:01 am
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.”
How one can read that and not see that Romney was talking about people who actively vote D because it gets them free stuff and because they don’t want to see their effective income tax rate go above 0% is a total mystery.
The President has been criticized on the left for not forcefully implementing the green agenda. Let’s hope in the wake of Climategate and the failure of cosmetic government green energy projects, he has come to realize that the science was not as settled as he had earlier believed.
Reliance on natural green energy will, I believe, eventually force a return to pre-industrial population levels, once easy to obtain, essential resources required for high-tech green energy (like copper) are exhausted to the point that they become too expensive to use for that purpose.
(The only way to avoid that fate that I see would be the development of a safe, much more efficient, nuclear reactor technology, which would be capable of supplying the power required to recover depleted resources at reasonable cost.)
Code monkey wrench,
Some folks live in their own blinkered world, and only see what they want to see.
Now the layoffs begin, even as the number on food stamps skyrockets…
And yes, it is entirely the Obama Administration’s fault. Four years of blaming Bush, who had below a 5% unemployment rate for 8 years, is old and busted partisan nonsense. Obama’s policies are the reason for our current malaise. Blaming anyone else is a coward’s excuse.
Code monkey wrench: As Romney correctly notes, 47% is in fact precisely the percentage of people who don’t pay federal income tax (although they pay plenty of other taxes). Romney was claiming that all of these people are in the bag for the Democrats using the basic argument that you mentioned.
Of course, the actual facts are much different from Romney’s imaginings: That 47% includes lots of people who don’t pay income tax because they are retired, disabled veterans, or what have you. (And, furthermore, most of those who don’t pay federal income tax tend to pay other taxes, such as payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, at higher percentages of their income than wealthier people do.) And, the Democrats get plenty of support from the 53% who do pay federal income tax.
Basically, nothing that Romney says is anything more than a nice fantasy that rich folks with a sense of entitlement like himself (who think the are entitled to pay taxes at the lower rate they do than working folks like you and me pay if we have a decent middle-to-upper-middle-class income) in order to make themselves feel all self-important and superior.
However, that doesn’t stop the Romney apologists like D Boehm from running with his argument and separating the populous into two groups: the “takers” and the “makers” with the first group being, by D Boehm’s own definition (which he repeated for emphasis), exactly and precisely those who do not pay federal income tax. As I pointed out to him, said group certainly includes, among others, a number of disabled veterans.
Your point about retired, service people and others that are part of the 47% that pay no federal taxes. You are also correct that the 47% pay many other taxes. The largest tax they pay (if employed) is FICA taxes which are contributions to Social Security and Medicare. Obama has cut contributions to SS and Medicare in half. These actions have dramatically shortened the life of Medicare and Social Security trust funds and brought bankruptcy far closer. Obama is destroying both. By cutting FICA payments into SS and Medicare Obama has given tax cuts to those who pay no federal taxes and forces those who pay federal taxes to repay the money or worse sees these programs disappear.
He has also taken 4&16 billion out of Medicare trust funds and put it into Obamacare. He says the eldery will get more in serfvices; this is a lie as the CBO says only 10% of the $716 billion will be returned in services to the elderly.
Obama also keeps stating that Ryan’s plan made the ‘same’ cuts. Ryan’s plan (not Romney’s) did have cuts, but every penny went back into Medicare; not one cent was diverted to any other plan.
He also says that the $716 billion was ‘saved’. In actuality it was done by cutting doctor’s pay for services and this will keep a large number of doctors and hospitals from taking Medicare patients. Once again the CBO estimates this wwill shut down 15% of current hospitals.
I’m sure that there are many people who are glad that Obama has guaranteed free birth control pills and taxpayer financed abortions, however he has done nothing about the fiscal disasters, chaos in the Mideast, the nuclear armed terrorist staes we face and he has no plans to address them either. He will also continue his war on fossil fuels which has double gasoline costs and he will obvilously continue his mad ideology into his second term.
….and $6 trillion in new debt with another $4 trillion facing the country for the next four years. …and adding huge taxes which have already caused the stock market to drop precipitously.
We are plunging headlong into another deep recession.
D Boehm says:
You can say that again.
And, just in case it wasn’t obvious to everyone, you then go and prove it! Let me help you out with a little bit of recent economic history:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
http://www.blogforarizona.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef0168eb201fe4970c-500wi
I note that joelshore confirms exactly what I wrote. Unemployment was extremely low prior to Obama’s election. Then it skyrocketed, specifically due to Obama’s failed policies.
If joelshore lived in the real world instead of coasting on tenure, he would see things very differently.He would be forced to acknowledge reality.
joeldshore says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:01 am
Gunga Din says:
“Our vets already “gave at the office”. Our disabled vets already have given more than their “fair share”. They are not “taking”. They are being repaid. (And it will never be enough.)”
Well, I am glad that you feel that way but that is not compatible with the very unambiguous definition that D Boehm gave above of what constitutes a “taker”, nor particularly well with what Romney said in that fundraiser. Personally, I think the whole notion of defining a class of people called “takers”, especially on the basis of who pays federal income tax is misguided.
======================================================================
Sure it’s compatible. They paid with more than any tax. I doubt if D Boehm would disagree.
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
Back in the ’80s I was a bagger at a grocery store. A lady paid for about $100 dollars worth of groceries with food stamps. I put those groceries in the trunk of a brand new cadilac. She didn’t leave a tip. Who do you think she voted for?
I worked with a guy who started part way through the year. Good job. Lots of overtime available. He’d take it all. But the last few months he’d take it as comp time. (He’d get time off instead of money.) Why? He told one of my coworkers that if he took money, he’d make to much to quallify for government handouts. The following years he’d be off under FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) every year. He always qualified for the handouts. He told me once that he chose what church he went to based which one would give his family stuff. Who do you think he voted for?
A few quotes:
“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
“People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.”
Thomas Sowell
D Boehm says:
Wow…I really have to spell everything out for you, don’t I? When Obama took office, the unemployment was shooting through 8% on the steepest part of the curve that I showed, with the economy in a complete free-fall, shedding 800,000 jobs per month. Do you really think you can rewrite history that is only 4 years old? People around here are not that naive.
Gunga Din,
I see that joelshore has tucked tail and run from the ‘takers’ argument, which he decisively lost. Now he cherry-picks a couple months out of 8 years of extremely low unemployment. The cherry-picking conniver just lost another argument. ☺
D Boehm says:
You realize that if you took any of this nonsense outside of the epistomological bubble of this website dominated by your ideological breathren, everybody would be laughing their butts off at you at this moment. I will save this thread to link to when I have to convince people in the reality-based world that people like you really exist!
I can just imagine D Boehm as a teenager after he totaled his parents car (and was then angry when his parents didn’t have the car in good condition for him to drive it to school the next day). “You’re just cherrypicking yesterday to look at the condition of the car. It has been in extremely good shape for most of the last two years that I was driving it.”
dahun says:
There is really no reason to fact-check the rest of your post after this nonsense! Do you really have no clue why gas prices were so low when Obama took office? They were low because they had dropped from record highs earlier in 2008 that have still not been surpassed to this day…And that drop occurred coincident with the bottom falling out of the U.S. (and, with it, much of the world) economy and causing a precipitous drop in demand and they have recovered as the economy has recovered: http://backseat.blogs.starnewsonline.com/files/2012/02/gas-prices.gif (See http://zfacts.com/sites/all/files/image/energy/Gas-Price-History.png for a longer view.)
joeldshore says:
“There is really no reason to fact-check the rest of your post after this nonsense! Do you really have no clue why gas prices were so low when Obama took office? They were low because they had dropped from record highs earlier in 2008 that have still not been surpassed to this day…And that drop occurred coincident with the bottom falling out of the U.S. (and, with it, much of the world) economy and causing a precipitous drop in demand and they have recovered as the economy has recovered:”
The facts are that the speculative and temporary hike in oil prices were very quickly ended when Bush lifted the executive order which prevented drilling in the Eastern Gulf. This was before the recession hit. Your excuse of Obama’s war on energy neglects the fact that while private oil and natural gas have increased energy development, this was in spite of Obama’s decision to cut oil permits on government land in half and decrease production by 40% on these same government lands.
The Green River Formation in Wyoming alone has a proven reserve of over a trillion barrels of oil and Obama’s response to this resource which is almost four times that of Saudi Arabia was to place this one trillion barrles off limits.
Today we await Lisa Jackson’s new EPA regulations which promise to curtail natural gas development by as much as one half. This will force the US to import natural gas as opposed to exporting as it does today. The United States could be well on the way to energy independence. Along with other countries we could make the Middle East oil irellevant. We could break Russia’s energy grip on Europe by developing shale gas in European countries.
Obama’s active attempt to shut down coal which provides 40% of our power should be obvious even to the most uninformed ideolog.
Obama is causing the loss of millions of jobs and placing the cruelest tax of all on the least fortunate and the middle class of this country because of his radical anti-fossil fuel policies.
joeldshore, you hold a remarkably ill-informed fantasy of this president’s energy policies and history.
Gasoline prices under President Bush averaged $2.14 a gallon over 8 years. joelshore is cherry-picking a very short time frame to support his falsified argument, as usual.
Yes, speculators drove the price up, temporarily. But there is no comparison between gas prices under President Bush vs 0bama — who specifically promised that energy prices will “skyrocket”. And that is exactly what is happening.
The defining traits shared by those on the Left are their serial lying and their psychological projection.
“””””……David Bailey says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:08 am
george.e.smith,
>>>Technically Congress voted for war, but that really is a technicality.<<< Do you have a problem with a simple statement of fact being "technically" correct. Facts are either correct or not; particularly when it comes to legalities… And I would like a dollar for every person who has described "Bush's wars" as those illegal wars. In this case, all that matters is whether it was legal under US laws; which it was. And no I don't mind others outside the US voicing their opinion, as to the advisability of those actions, as they see it; but don'tinsult Americans by asserting that THEIR laws are only of "technical interest"
And as everyone knows, Saddam Hussein, did in fact have weapons of mass destruction illegal under Geneva conventions; he even used them on his own people. So which of the World's major intelligence organisations have asserted prior to the Iraq war, that he had no such weapons; he said he did. The report of the commission on the 9/11/2001 attack on the United States, gives explicit details of early al Qaeda organisationsstarted in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's protection.
Criticism of the conduct of US and allied operations in that war are certainly of interest to many.
Well historians still debate the appropriateness of actions in earlier wars. NZers and our Aussie cousins, are still a bit ticked at the British conduct of the Galipoli campaign in Turkey on WW-i.
But stuff happens, and as they say military planning works well, up until the time you first make contact with the enemy……
Everyone knows that Bush and Cheney rooted for that war, and to some extent biassed the information about weapons of mass destruction. What you fail to realise, is that by meddling in the Middle East in the ways I mentioned, and others, and then attacking a country because it was run by the guy the US had kept in office for so many years, you have made a lot of unnecessary enemies – people who would blow themselves up to get back at the US. Perhaps if several members of your family had dies at the hands of a foreign power, you might feel the same way. Aggression leads to more aggression.
You seem to imply that non-US citizens, should stay out of your affairs, but a lot of things are international nowadays. …..
No David; I implied no such thing; YOU inferred that.
I did say that """….I…."""" prefer to not meddle in such affairs which are the domain of US citizens; that is simply a quirk of mine. I am concerned about such things, since all of my children are native born US citizens, and I worry about the future they will inherit; but it is simply my choice during election seasons, to bite my tongue. I did once many elections ago, donate few dollars to the campaign of one candidate (who didn't need it) but that was before I learned that that was not appropriate, or legal. The amount was a trifle, but would at least buy a first class Starbucks beverage. Well probably not after the next four years.
As to another matter that got a lot of attention here; the question of Gov. Romney's 47%; well now 51%
Would somebody who knows, please post a list of the known REPUBLICAN political candidates, or prominant spokespersons who have made public statements asserting that Military persons whether currently serving or not, whether disabled or not, are included in the category which some have described as "takers".
Military persons are the very first persons for which the US Constitution provides for the explicit laying of taxes to fund. Yes they are US Government employees. And citizens have always chosen to fund and support those people, who defend our right to enjoy the privileges of living in America, and it is scurrilous to even imply that they are in any way takers. We can never repay them for their sacrifices on our behalf.
But it is quite clear that the salaries and wages of every single Federal Government employee, come from the Federal Treasury; which is exactly the same place that all Federal taxes are deposited, from whatever taxation law enables that.
So If I pick up three apples in a store, and put them in a bag, and then put one back before going to the cash register, did I get two apples or three.
Clearly, it would be more efficient, to make ALL Federal employees exempt from Federal income taxes. Just put two apples in the bag, instead of three, so they don't have to go through the charade, of imagining that they are taxpayers (of Federal income taxes).
I don't know very many taxpayers, who begrudge paying taxes to provide for the Federal Government managede services, that we all need, such as a working road system, and of course a well trained and armed military. None of that can be considered "takers".
And at the State level their are other services that States manage, such as Schools, Police, and fire protection. The States are not allowed a military, so State taxpayers contibute to the US military.
The US people have always had safety nets to provide for those who for no fault of their own are unable to provide for all their own needs. Charity has always been a part of US culture.
Nobody considers Social Security recipients to be "takers". The mostly were forced to contribute to the system, which has been fiscally mismanaged since its inception, and when they come to receive what they were promised from that program, they have a right to expect it to be forthcoming. Some will get out much more than they put in, some will get less; that is the nature of shared risk programs, just like insurance.
The difference is that insurance companies, invest their intake funds, so that they grow, and they base their system on sound statistics. The SS administration on the other hand, has been run like a classic Ponzi scheme, with the funds invested in NOTHING. Well the Government stole all the funds, and substituted worthless IOUs in their place. Well they call them "treasuries", or bonds, which are backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States.
What they really mean is they are backed by the confiscation powers of the IRS. Do you think that US taxpayers care one iota, whether the money removed from their pay check comes from a line calles Social Security tax or FICA; or whether it is on a line called Federal Income tax, to pay back the worthless IOUs.
uinny thing is that everybody's insurance programs, and much of the wealth of the one percenters, and the retirement funds of Trade Unions or Public Employee Unions, all depend to a large extent, on the Stock and bond markest, which politicians, have always described as a crap shoot, and too risky for the Social Security non -existent "Trust Fund".
Something does not compute in that picture.
But the real takers are those who could work, but would rather not; so long as their vote can be bought by politicians, who will offer to give them free stuff.
That’s not what I said, jill colby, and my name’s not Dan.
D Böehm wrote, “Unemployment was extremely low prior to Obama’s election. Then it skyrocketed, specifically due to Obama’s failed policies.”
It wasn’t low when Obama took office. It was almost as high as it is now. (It was low, however, two years earlier, when the Democrats took over Congress.)
However, the current 7.9% unemployment rate would be about 10.8% if the Labor Participation Rate hadn’t dropped. The number of Americans age 16+ is up by 9 million since 1/2008, but the number employed is up less than 1 million (and might actually be down, when the final figures come in).
So why isn’t thee unemployment rate much higher now than it was when Obama took office? Because “discouraged workers,” who have given up looking for work, aren’t counted.
Yet Obama brags of his record of job creation. That’s just plain dishonest..
Thanks to Reagan’s supply-side reforms, America saw 20 million new jobs. Thanks to Obama’s neo-Keynesian spending binge, America has approximately zero new jobs. After that, it boggles the mind that, on Nov. 6, Americans renewed Obama’s lease on the White House.
I would like to ask those who claim that the begining of the recession caused the drop in drop in oil prices; Why have oil prices gone up during Obama’s administration when unemployment is higher now than when he took office?
One take-away I’m getting from this entire thread is: ideology trumps reason. Doesn’t matter whether it’s politics or climate change, or much of anything else, really.
TonyG; there are some undeniable facts:
-The natural gas usage increase over the last ten years has cleaned the air more effectively than the trillions wasted on wind solar and ethanol and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by far more than is even possible with these archaic and failed green technologies..
-The 6 million green jobs promised by Obama have not materaialized and the $90 billion in Stimulus for green jobs was spent mostly on failed projects that made tens of millions for Obama supporters and left the American taxpayer with teh debt.
-Obama has cut oil and natural gas development on government land by 40% and if not for this we would have been well on our way to energy independence and eliminating the $400 billion in trade deficit that oil imports create each year.
-Obama’s radical ideology has even prevented the oil pipeline from Canada
-Obama inexplicably supports offshore drilling off Brazil and states he is anxious to be their customer for this oil and he continues a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf, in the Pacigic, inthe Atlantic and in onshore and offshore Alaskan energy fields.
-Re-electing Obama was truly disasterous.
Funny, I don’t remember calling out anyone in particular.