peaceful to rage in under 60 seconds.

It terrifies me that, to a large chunk of our country, intelligence and competence is seen as a bad thing.

That said, politics these days have the uncanny capability of making me go from peaceful to boiling rage in under 10 seconds. I'm sure anyone who's talked politics with me in the last few days can verify this.

I just. can't. even.

When did 'conservative' go from meaning 'conserve the government's cash flow so we can have a healthy economy' to 'conserve my own big heap of money which NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE NAH NAH NAH POOR PEOPLE SCREW ALL YOU GUYS GO GET A JOB YOU LAZY BUMS (also I would like a christian nation where no one is educated so they will believe whatever I tell them and I can also hate on whomever I want without any repercussions)'???????

huh?? When?? These are the times when I curse the two-party system and its ability to cause semi-sane politicians to vote against their own beliefs and interests just to court a certain fringe population. (ahem Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and countless others ahem)

There are just endless things I could name that can send me into a spiral of rage - but nothing makes me steam out the ears more than the current political clusterfuck over TAXES.

I'm a democrat, for the most part, so I'm a little biased when I speak about this. But I'm trying to come from a logical standpoint, here.

This is how I see it: Capitalism is a system that in order to be fair and/or functional depends on people not being greedy and -at least marginally- sharing their wealth with others or redistributing it back into the economy some way. However, as of now it is seen merely as a tool to manipulate to one's advantage so one can accumulate mass amounts of individual wealth. The whole "individualism" thing is basically an out for people so they have an excuse not to have to worry about or have any regard for others (if you don't have any money, you just must not be motivated enough, right?). The whole 'sharing' or 'redistributing' thing is kind of cast aside as unimportant because it doesn't concern or benefit the "individual"(except in emotional ways but of course, those do not count as 'important' in the capitalist system). And it has been proven time and time again that people ARE greedy and will always BE greedy. It's also been proven that stimulus funding doesn't 100 percent work, either, for this very same reason. Therefore, the system has a major flaw and needs to be reworked. Right?

so apparently, according to 'conservative' republicans, that means we should keep taxing the poor people and giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy people and businesses, in hope that they will feel generous and flow that money back into the economy with jobs. However, presented with the evidence I think we can safely say that doesn't work, because those wealthy individuals and businesses hoard the wealth rather than redistribute it in the economy. So, our rich get richer and our poor get poorer until there's such a massive class divide that the economy just falls apart completely.

The problem is that taxes are getting higher and higher and incomes are getting lower and lower. Why is there less income? Because there are no jobs. Why are there no jobs? Because businesses and people are so much poorer that they cannot afford to pay more than the bare minimum of workers. Why are taxes getting higher? Because the government is piss-poor. Why is everyone so poor? because the top 1% or something of the population is literally hoarding all the money in this country.



Try to tell me that sounds like a well-oiled, functional economic system.

And why in the world do people ferociously defend a system that, while sometimes has them riding high, mostly just ends up kicking them into the proverbial shitter? (sub-prime loan scams, inflation, great depression of the 30s, great depression of the 2000s, housing and stock market crashes, foreclosures, all other depressions in between, massive widespread poverty)

Here's why: the people making the rules aren't the ones really being affected by all this. They're all about 'limiting government spending' and whatnot, but the hidden fine print on that statement is 'limiting government spending...... on things we don't need personally.' If limiting government spending meant investigating and limiting the salaries and personal spending of government officials and corporate C.E.O.s instead of cutting important things like medicare and healthcare, I'll bet my ass they wouldn't be railing so hard for it. It just makes my logic hurt to think that the ones calling the shots in this country about social and financial issues are not the ones who would face the consequences of those decisions (abortion, gay marriage, medicare, etc.) In addition to that, we are taught from the earliest age possible that capitalism is the ONLY system and everything else is bad bad bad bad. We're taught to rely on it and become completely immersed in it - it's kind of similar to an abusive relationship. The system mistreats us but we rely on it and can't see past it.

It just makes me so sad that the system we try to function in will never work because it's based solely on self-interest and greed. I watched a video recently where republican lobbyist Edwina Rogers literally buys sheets of uncut money from the treasury to use as wrapping paper for gifts (ahem, bribes) for senators. It made me want to vomit and cry at the same time.

I shall continue this rant later.