Just More Liberal Talk
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This letter is concerning Rick Gagliardo’s column titled “Is the Tea Party Nothing But a Front for the Corporate GOP?” (June 18).
After reading his article, I wonder if Gagliardo is a front for the left-wing liberals of the Obama administration. He starts off talking about corporations as though they are evil. He reminds me of the liberal politicians on TV that try to demonize oil and other large corporations. Corporations sell to us, the public, what we need in life to make it better; corporations get rich, we get what we need. They pay taxes, they give to charity, they create thousands of jobs.
You talk about regulations on business as though there aren’t any. And like a true liberal, it is mostly Bush’s fault. Where was OSHA and other government agencies during these latest two disasters you talked about?
It is also obvious that, like the Obama administration, you have a love affair with the unions. But unions I know of are bad for business. If you ever had a business of your own you would realize this. Unions are workers who tell their owners what they are going to get paid or else.
You go on to talk about how good Obama is because of his big government policies. Our president talked down the economy so hard to get elected. And most people believed him. What he didn’t realize is it went down so low under him, he couldn’t even buy his way out with our trillions of tax money.
Tea partiers are everyday people who realize they want to do something before it’s too late. Most of us have eyes to see with, and most of us have ears to hear with.
Lloyd Barnes
West End
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Comments
TheNeedle 2 years, 10 months ago
"Liberal Liberal Liberal"--is this intended to be an argument? If so, it fails pretty miserably.
"Tea partiers are everyday people who realize they want to do something before it’s too late."
The problem is, they have no clear idea what that is, or even what the real problem is--the ones screaming loudest about high taxes most likely got tax cuts for example.
So the "something" they do consists of yelling, wearing funny costumes, and waving badly spelled signs.
OldSpook 2 years, 10 months ago
Maybe the Tea Party is just looking for Change We Really Can Believe In.
bigD 2 years, 10 months ago
Drazil-
"They pay taxes, they give to charity, they create thousands of jobs."
You are absolutely correct about this, they give to charity for one reason only, to get the big tax deduction BEFORE they pay their taxes!
The tax break corporations receive is not as much as the lay person might think. Corporations are able to deduct only fifty percent of the amount gifted. For example if $1,000 is gifted then the corporation is able to deduct $500. Assuming a tax rate of 25% the corporation saves $125 in taxes to make the $1,ooo gift. Therefore, the after tax cost of this gift is $875.
GoldenDreams 2 years, 10 months ago
Lloyd, you say that the unions tell the businesses what to pay their employees, or else. If that were true, the businesses would be broke due to everyone getting exorbitant salaries. I worked for a telephone company in the Northeast and here's how it really works: the company and the union sit down and negotiate a contract for salaries and benefits. Both sides have to agree and for a specified amount of time. That's the real deal. It's called compromise.
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
Corporations outsource jobs, in a big part, because of the unions. The unions have caused companies to pay employees more than they can afford. (Goldendreams, do a little research into how much the big 3 car companies have to pay employees and then wonder why our government had to bail these corporations out) The Unions also protect 'bad' workers so that companies are not allowed to fire employees due to poor job performance...I've worked union jobs. You end up with a whole lot of sub par employees that have no desire to do a good job because their jobs are protected. The most corrupt are the ones running the unions. Most of the Reps earn 6 digit salaries and do very little except ignite and create a chaotic and hostile communication path between management and employees.
Drazil, I am astonished to hear anyone refer to the military as the biggest welfare system! If they did nothing and were given these things then you would be correct; however, they put their lives in danger, sacrifice their time, energy and familial relationships. I have a very dear friend who is the mother of 3 beautiful children. Her husband was killed in Afghanistan fighting for this country. She gave her husband so that you may be free. Those children gave their father so you could spout off about things you know nothing about. But I guess they are just a burden to our taxpayers in your eyes. I hope that you speak only from ignorance and will one day realize your error in judgement.
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
Lloyd Barnes, West End Stated: "Unions are workers who tell their owners what they are going to get paid or else."
Thanks. You FINALLY, admitted what we already knew all along. "workers who tell their OWNERS" - OWNERS means you still believe, encourage and promote SLAVERY (to own a worker is slavery). So there you go people, the Republicans will fight like H__L to keep the illegal’s working at a slave labor wage. Oh, did I relay their message that they call themselves "Conservative Christians".. Christian means Christ Like....I don't believe Christ would ever enslave anyone and Christ certainly would share all with the poor, children and the elderly, "The Helpless among us".
TheNeedle 2 years, 10 months ago
Conservatives sure do hate autoworkers, don't they? And teachers, and truck drivers, and coal miners, and pretty much everyone unionized.
How DARE these people pool their resources to demand better wages and safer working conditions! What we need are some good old fashioned sweatshops and a return to child labor and the seven day workweek! That way mega-companies won't have to outsource to the Third World...we can make our own third world right here!
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
Want to reduce the Deficit; try these:
Reduce the deficit……
1. STOP FOREIGN AID : Why are our taxes being given to foreign countries while our Nation is crumbling and our citizens are losing their jobs?
Reduce the deficit……
2. Increase the retirement age for STATE & Federal Government workers to 65 instead of what it is now (55). THEY GET PAID WELL FROM OUR TAXES AND CAN ENJOY THEIR FREE TIME WHILE WE HAVE TO SLAVE TO 65 TO GET OUR SOCIAL SECURITY WHICH IS A LOT LOWER THAN THEIR RETIREMENT CHECK.
Reduce the deficit……
3. Stop being the world’s police. Bring our troops home and let them secure our borders. America has been securing Korea’s border for 40 to 50 years - does it take that long to teach them how to secure their own borders? America has been rebuilding Europe since WW11 (over 60 years) - when will America start rebuilding America? The other countries can secure and rebuild their own nation.
TheNeedle 2 years, 10 months ago
"- A compromise is just a nice way of saying "Or else"."
And that attitude, my friends, summarizes in a nutshell why America is so polarized and why it's in the mess it's in.
The historian Shelby Foote said the base cause of the American Civil War was that “we failed to do the thing we have a true genius for, compromise. Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising but it’s the basis of our democracy, our government is founded on it; it failed.”
But talking about compromise doesn't play to the Yahoos.
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
OldSpook, The TEA PARTY is just another name for the KKK, different name - same group.
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
"The historian Shelby Foote said the base cause of the American Civil War was that “we failed to do the thing we have a true genius for, compromise".
The base cause for the Civil War was the FACT that the Republicans wanted Slaves to do their Labor - they bought and sold them like they were farm animals. It's sad but they still have the same mentality.
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
lachm...Lincoln was a Republican. Here's a link so that you may see for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)
and an excerpt: Founded in northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party. It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency and oversaw the American Civil War and Reconstruction.[2]
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
so how does them signing up for it make it a welfare system?
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
Amazed, Yes I know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican; however the Republican Party is not the same today as it was back then. The Republican Party then was for ALL people in America. Today it's for only the wealthy. Thanks anyway. What I'm trying to say is that I believe we must stop separating our people into groups. We must ALL come together, as one nation and help each other. If we don't we will not survive as a nation. We must stop seeing the poor as inferior.
Aren’t we all strong enough to reach out and help lift each other ?
Politics won't feed our children, our elderly and our veterans. 1% unemployment in any state is 1% to much. We are one Nation and its past time we started caring for each other as one family. Politics will destroy our nation. "A Nation Divided, can not stand". Why don't we put aside our childish games of "You hit me first", and come together and do what's right for ALL our people: our children, our elderly and our veterans.
"Poverty is the worst form of violence." - Mohandas Gandhi.
Many say other nations have commented genocide, my question to them is: What would you call a slow, terrifying and degrading death of millions of our poor, children, seniors and veterans that live in poverty? What would you call a nation that allows the suffering of millions of our people that live everyday with hungrier to the edge of starvation, no medical help or no place to call home.
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
lachm apparently you didn't know because you said this: "The base cause for the Civil War was the FACT that the Republicans wanted Slaves to do their Labor - they bought and sold them like they were farm animals. It's sad but they still have the same mentality."
our poor can not compare to the poverty in which Ghandi was referring...try again. Our country's biggest childhood issue?? Obesity.
dustyrhoades 2 years, 10 months ago
It's true that up until the 1960's Democrats in the South were the party of segregation and white supremacy. But since then we've had the Republican race-baiting "Southern Strategy" so eloquently summed up by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips in 1970:
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."
lachm 2 years, 10 months ago
Bassman, your statement: "Get a clue and join the program"
Thanks but NO Thanks. Your program sounds like it's akin to Hitler's program.
.............Don't drink- the Koolaid...............
dustyrhoades 2 years, 10 months ago
Then there's another famous statement by Regan and Bush strategist Lee Atwater:
So when wingnuts talk about how the 1960s' Democratic party proves that "liberals are the real racists" remember what their own strategists say about their race-baiting strategy.
GoldenDreams 2 years, 10 months ago
Bassman, you said in response to my post, "A compromise is just a nice way of saying 'or else." Not really. A compromise means two parties work together to get a satisfying solution. You go on to mention a unionized business where the truckers didn't like their pay and went on strike. The next day the company fired them. You wrote, "Now that was great. Wish it could be done elsewhere." Why is that so great? Do you know what the pay was for those drivers? Maybe their working conditions were poor. It's been my experience workers don't strike easily. They usually have a good reason, and it's not called greed as I see for most of these big business people. Try to consider the little guy a little more, and their families.
nothingspecial 2 years, 10 months ago
Thanks Lloyd, appreciate how the Pilot lets some wisdom in now and then.
OBXNC 2 years, 10 months ago
OBXNC - How many poor people, or weak companies have hired or paid a wage to anyone? Wake up! Taxing a persons earnings above what they can afford is our biggest problem we have in this country. The more money I have makes it possible to spend more (helping the economy) and giving to others as I see fit (oppossed to the goverment) makes this country MUCH stronger than the " don't work, take care of me, I'm so disadvantaged" system we have going on now.
irkim13 2 years, 10 months ago
Compromise is good in certain situations but what about things like slavery, civil rights, women voting and abortion?
Corporations outsource: Why is that? Maybe to avoid excessively high taxes and regulations
Why do women and children die needslessly in Iraq and Afganistan? Maybe because terrorists and the like set up bases and weapons near schools and hospitals and use them as shields or weapons themselves.
O no that's not PC heaven forbid the truth is mentioned.
lachm Where does the Hitler reference come from? Can you explain?
How about a Government that promotes its people to get off their butt and take responsibility for their actions, pull your self up by your bootstraps, strive to succeed and work with pride whatever you do. Instead of this one that punishes success by taking more of YOUR earned money, will take care of you even if you make terrible choices and just sit back and wait for the check.
haileysdad08 2 years, 10 months ago
Instead of giving the money to the car companies and the banks, the Stimulus should have been given to the US Taxpayer. That way, the economy could be stimulated from WITHIN, instead of dumped on top....why would you give a car company money to save a worker's job, which is to build a car I CAN'T AFFORD because my TAX MONEY is being given to the Big Corporations for a bail out? Where's my Bailout? I have worked a job since I was 16 years old, and have paid taxes for 31 years, just like everyone else has, BUT, I don't see any Bailout coming my way....at least Bush did give us $600 plus.........
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
Dusty, I do realize that the parties of yesteryear no longer exist. I was merely correcting the misinformation that lachm had posted...lets not get our liberal panties in a wad. BTW, I thought you were going to stop the name calling...
Amazed 2 years, 10 months ago
I do know that Dusty is...don't know Rick from a ham sandwich.
dustyrhoades 2 years, 10 months ago
".lets not get our liberal panties in a wad. BTW, I thought you were going to stop the name calling..."
Actually, all I agreed to do was stop using the word "teabagger" at Geoff Cutler's request.
"Tiresome predictable ignoramus" is still open, and it's perfect for you.
sgmartin 2 years, 10 months ago
Well let's see I work, pay taxes, go to church, give to charity and oh yeah VOTE! I consider myself in most things a liberal. Sorry but as most liberals will tell you, Obama is a moderate and a realist. We have a long way to go for a liberal agenda. Just as the 60s were a time of painfully slow change so too will this administration make small, incremental steps toward a better, healthier country. As for the Tea Party billboard threatening to "come after liberals and progressives", well I vote too and guess who I won't be voting for? I may loose the battle in Moore County but fortunately their is a bigger world out there.