The “gay agenda” today is fundamentally conservative

[Kulindahr]

My understanding is that the threat of the banking system collapsing was largely prevented by TARP the program passed by Bush before Obama even came in office.

TARP hadn't been fully implemented. Something over $100 billion, IIRC, was still getting dished out during Obama's first year.

 

[Stardreamer]

You don't have to 'feel' it, it's been traced out by economists: Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, Bush the lesser....

And getting it to 'final form' was bipartisan.

The housing collapse and the recession was truly a bipartisan effort as you say. Every economist I've heard talk about it without paritisan blinders say the same thing, "this was too big a mess for just one party or president to lay claim to, there is enough blame to go around for all of Washington and both parties."

Its always been interesting to me how much power the American People think the President has over the economy when he really doesn't have that much, if he did we wouldn't have recessions.

 

[Stardreamer]

TARP hadn't been fully implemented. Something over $100 billion, IIRC, was still getting dished out during Obama's first year.

Truth but none the less Bush implemented it and Obama used it so at best you can say it was a bipartisan effort.

 

[T-Rexx]

The housing collapse and the recession was truly a bipartisan effort as you say. Every economist I've heard talk about it without paritisan blinders say the same thing, "this was too big a mess for just one party or president to lay claim to, there is enough blame to go around for all of Washington and both parties."

The collapse happened because too much of the wealth of the nation has been transferred from the middle class to the wealthy. The top 5% of American income earners now hold 40% of the nation's wealth. That extent of income maldistribution has only previously been seen once in American history - that was the Fall of 1929. The outcome in both cases has been the same.

"Reaganomics" - the shifting of wealth to the wealthy in the belief that it will "trickle down" simply does not work. That pattern of wealth distribution is very characteristic of banana republics, which have a very wealthy upper class, small middle class, and large number of poor people. That is not an efficient model for capitalism. Such economies operate under permanent states of recession/depression.

Reaganomics has not been a platform of the Democratic Party. Democrats are at fault for not opposing this policy more aggressively, and for failing to point out why this approach to "capitalism" is so dangerous.

It took America 10 years to restore the middle class after the crash of 1929. I expect it is going to take another 10 yrs to correct the current problem. But nothing is currently being done by the administration to address this fundamental problem in the American economy. Yes, I know Obama wants to allow the tax cuts on the wealthy to expire but not those of the middle class. That would help considerably, of course. But he is about to yield on this point to the Republican congress, so no plan is currently under way to fix this fundamental underlying problem holding back the American economy. In trying so hard to be bipartisan, the president is not addressing the needs of the nation. This is a failure of leadership on the part of the president.

Unless we address this issue, these problems are going to persist indefinitely. America risks operating under permanent conditions of recession.

 

[JB3]

Perhaps you forget - the current deficit is a result of a conservative's unbelievably bad mismanagement of the economy.

Our current president is trying to correct even that conservative disaster by balancing the budget within the next six years. But the conservative element of our congress is trying to stop him from doing that, even as we speak. Obviously, conservatives believe fervently in deficit spending.

Only liberals can balance the budget, because only liberals value fiscal responsibility.

Are you really stupid enough to believe Obama has any intention of balancing the budget? Need I remind you that the debt commission has recommended the most conservative restructuring of american spending since the New Deal? Cuts that have been attacked by liberals and applauded by conservatives. YOU need to face up to the reality; Obama has every intention of continuing the deficit spending of his predecessor and more. The liberals in congress are intent on continuing it as well. All you need to do is take a look at Obama's budget, a budget HIS WHITE HOUSE WROTE, to understand this. Liberals don't value fiscal responsibility. They value spending more money than ever on programs we can't afford, and refusing to make cuts to programs we already have to bring those costs down.

That's not my opinion. It's the opinion of the most nonpartisan, authoritative source we have: the Congressional Budget Office. If you won't accept their numbers, then I presume you won't accept any numbers.

Which means you are unable to discuss the matter.

So don't.

All the firms on Wall Street's numbers added up too. Their accountants, and their outside accountants swore everything was hunky dory. But it wasn't. As Kuli said, no president since Kennedy has actually balanced the budget, because they're manipulating the numbers to make it look like they are. You cite the CBO; in case you didn't know, the CBO crunches those numbers according to the accounting rules set up by the government. If the government says a number is supposed to be counted one way, even if its dishonest and deceiving, that's how the CBO counts it. Or to put it another way, the government can make the numbers say anything they want even if they don't.

 

[Stardreamer]

Sounds very well reasoned but it also sounds like class warfare translated into economic theory. There are several economic theories floating about now and all feel they explain the Great Depression. But I heard one economist admit the dirty little secret of them all once. They have all been developed only in the last few decades AFTER the Great Depression. In other words, they are all theories that haven't truly been proven in the laboratory of the real world. Nor will any really be honestly given that the only place to prove them is the laboratory of real life and politics get in the way.

I think like the various political theories, one version doesn't have the unvarnished truth of it. Economics are too complex, have too many variables and influences. The truth probably lies in between the many theories.

 

[JB3]

Yes, gay ideals have shifted since the 70s, but the shift has been more gradual than you seem to be saying. The shift may have started in the mid-70s with the implosion of the Gay Liberation Front, but it really wasn't complete until less than ten years ago. The 30-year mark you suggest would mark the beginning of the AIDS crisis. At that point, Larry Kramer gained a prominence in the gay community that he had not previously held, but Kramer was always a conservative. See his book Faggots for example. Despite his involvement at the beginning of ACT-UP, he was still ideologically out of step with the majority of the high-profile gay activists. He was, for example, calling for the closing of the bathhouses when most gay activists viewed this as a repressive measure of the anti-sex crowd.

AIDS was the catalyst for breaking the closet doors for many gay men. It also created an ideal that hadn't previously been articulated, i.e. "chosen" families--groups of friends who functioned as quasi-families in lieu of the families who had thrown them out.

Even the Hawaii and Alaska marriage cases in the mid-90s were viewed by many in the gay community as a distraction from more fundamental issues like basic civil rights legislation--employment, housing, and public accommodations. Funding for AIDS education and prevention was also taking up a lot of energy. If gay life was becoming normalized, it was because of the "great shower debate" (precipitated by Bill Clinton and presided over by Sam Nunn), Will and Grace, and Ellen Degeneres. Even in 2000 we were still embroiled in a philosophical debate about whether we wanted a state-sponsored marriage, whether civil unions were adequate, or whether the state should get out of the marriage business altogether.

I would date the shift from the mid-90s because almost no one (except Larry Kramer) was even talking about mimicking the pattern of heterosexual marriage until then. And all this was was merely a shift in a social model that added a couple of points onto the gay political agenda that was already in place.

None of this has anything to do with national economic policy. At most it would affect individual tax status and entitlements. Thus, I see no serious connection between the gay agenda and the agenda driving the Republican Party (tax cuts and religious oppression).

We're not discussing any connection with the agenda of the republican party. That's a mistake that you and others in this thread continue to make. What's being discussed is that the LGBT agenda has become more conservative, which is easily provable by looking at the priorities of the movement in the 70s and the priorities of the movement now. You need to separate the POLITICAL from the philosophical, because they're too separate things.

 

[herewego]

There are racist and segregationists on both the left and the right, they do not define the main parties simply because they associate themselves with them.

As for Gay Republicans going to GOP meetings and how they are greeted, GOPride co-sponsored this years CPAC conference despite a walk out and protest by the Religious Right. When a speaker at the conference gave the usual religious right mantra, he was booed off the stage.

Gay conservatives have mommy and daddy issues. The GOProud crappers invited Ann Coulter to speak, who got up and insulted them.

 

[herewego]

Balancing the budget is a liberal political view? On what planet?

And like Kuli, I think you're looking at this completely wrong. Your bias is affecting how you read it, and you're reading into it what you WANT it to say.

I think the LGBT equality movement has gotten much more conservative over the last 30 years. NOT politically, but certainly philosophically. It is no longer about free love and people being who they are (though that is still certainly an element), but is instead about seeking the things that straight couples have had for generations. Marriage, children, everything that signifies the transition to a full adult life. I mean, how many guys on here want kids, want a husband or wife, want the house in the burbs or the apartment in the city, two cars, and so on and so on? Those ARE conservative things. The fact that gays want to join those institutions, and take part in those things, is in fact a very conservative turn for a movement that was actually quite radical when it first came about.

Anyone that cannot acknowledge that the LGBT movement HAS become more conservative since the 70s can't see the forest for the trees.

Keep living in your dream world. All you gay conservatives live there.

Liberals HAVE balanced the budget! Every Republican administration in the last century has raked up debt beyond belief. Deal with reality.

 

[herewego]

Are you really stupid enough to believe Obama has any intention of balancing the budget? Need I remind you that the debt commission has recommended the most conservative restructuring of american spending since the New Deal? Cuts that have been attacked by liberals and applauded by conservatives. YOU need to face up to the reality; Obama has every intention of continuing the deficit spending of his predecessor and more. The liberals in congress are intent on continuing it as well. All you need to do is take a look at Obama's budget, a budget HIS WHITE HOUSE WROTE, to understand this. Liberals don't value fiscal responsibility. They value spending more money than ever on programs we can't afford, and refusing to make cuts to programs we already have to bring those costs down.



All the firms on Wall Street's numbers added up too. Their accountants, and their outside accountants swore everything was hunky dory. But it wasn't. As Kuli said, no president since Kennedy has actually balanced the budget, because they're manipulating the numbers to make it look like they are. You cite the CBO; in case you didn't know, the CBO crunches those numbers according to the accounting rules set up by the government. If the government says a number is supposed to be counted one way, even if its dishonest and deceiving, that's how the CBO counts it. Or to put it another way, the government can make the numbers say anything they want even if they don't.

Blah, blah, blah... you've gone to the same schooling as all Republican/CONservative shills have gone. Re-write the facts as you see fit. Reality has ALWAYS had a Liberal bias.

 

[JB3]

Keep living in your dream world. All you gay conservatives live there.

Liberals HAVE balanced the budget! Every Republican administration in the last century has raked up debt beyond belief. Deal with reality.

I am dealing with reality. I'm looking at a trillion dollar budget deficit proposed by a liberal. I'm looking at a liberal congress that was just ripped to shreds by voters because of its spending.

The fact that the one president since John F. Kennedy that has balanced the budget happened to be a liberal doesn't mean that liberals care at all about balanced budgets. (and that's ignoring the fact that Clinton was FORCED to balance the budget by a republican congress, and even then the budget wasn't actually balanced because of shady accounting practices)

So yeah, I'm happy to be firmly planted on this earth. You, on the other hand, need to join the rest of us back on terra firma.

 

[JB3]

Blah, blah, blah... you've gone to the same schooling as all Republican/CONservative shills have gone. Re-write the facts as you see fit. Reality has ALWAYS had a Liberal bias.

Oh I see you have nothing to refute what I posted, just the same tired old attacks to be expected from the partisan shills on here.

 

[Stardreamer]

Gay conservatives have mommy and daddy issues. The GOProud crappers invited Ann Coulter to speak, who got up and insulted them.

(Sighs) Here We Go again. No one expects that just because there are gay conservatives who are stepping up and making themselves heard that Republicans are going to fall all over themselves overnight to realize the error of their ways. Change from the inside is not a fast or easy process but we need those voices inside the ranks of the conservative movements if we are going to have true permanent change in obtaining equality. Joining forces with Anne Coulter against those voices does little to help make the situation better unless you just really approve of Anne and support her position against gays.

 

[Kulindahr]

Sounds very well reasoned but it also sounds like class warfare translated into economic theory. There are several economic theories floating about now and all feel they explain the Great Depression. But I heard one economist admit the dirty little secret of them all once. They have all been developed only in the last few decades AFTER the Great Depression. In other words, they are all theories that haven't truly been proven in the laboratory of the real world. Nor will any really be honestly given that the only place to prove them is the laboratory of real life and politics get in the way.

Of course they were developed after the Great Depression -- all models attempting to explain an event no one expected necessarily follow the event.

And if a model developed before the event had happened to predict it, it would have been dismissed as being theories that hadn't been tested.

 

[CowboyBob]

You don't fucking understand the point of this story. It isn't saying that gays are moving towards conservative POLITICS. It is saying that the LGBT agenda has become more conservative since the 70s and 80s. (which is has) The very fact that gays wish the right to marry is conservative.

We're discussing your nasty replies to most everyone in this forum. Do you have the ability to be pleasant to other people?

 

[Stardreamer]

Of course they were developed after the Great Depression -- all models attempting to explain an event no one expected necessarily follow the event.

And if a model developed before the event had happened to predict it, it would have been dismissed as being theories that hadn't been tested.

The point is NONE of them have been put to the test to prevent or reverse a Great Depression. We know how some of them affect the economy on a short term narrow focus but the grand scale we don't know how right or wrong any of them are. This recession is really the first chance to look at some of the models but as the critics of Obama and Bush are pointing out the theories that were applied either didn't work right or were not applied correctly. Which is the problem, the politics involved are never going to let someone apply their pet economic theory cleanly.

 

[Kulindahr]

Keep living in your dream world. All you gay conservatives live there.

Liberals HAVE balanced the budget! Every Republican administration in the last century has raked up debt beyond belief. Deal with reality.

Applying honest accounting rules required of every small to medium company in the country, the U.S. has not had a balanced budget since Kennedy. BOTH sides rack (not "rake") up debt. Bush broke all previous records -- not just in deficit spending, but in lying about it to the public (even Johnson wouldn't have been that bald).

But that's not relevant to the issue -- until gays are a significant force in D.C., the behavior of the budget has nothing to do with the thread's topic.

 

[JayHawk]

It is interesting that they resort to insult when they have nothing more of consequence to say.

Yes Bush initiated the TARP. However it does not even begin to compare with Obama's spending.

I posted the only recent attempt at correcting the economic collapse prior to it occurring and it was blocked by democrats for partisan reasons.

It is amusing that NONE of the liberal posters here are defending that EVERY democrat liberal or moderate laid silent while preventing reform in 2005 for Fannie and Freddie to whom this derivative mess can be squarely placed on.

The lax rules that allowed the disadvantaged to receive subprime mortgages started with Jimmy Carter and had regulation removed from the program to increase home sales by EVERY admin since because it really looked snazzy in your numbers to increase home ownership for the people. The democrats refused to regulate F and F because it 'they believe' attacked a solid constituency of theirs, the extremely poor. So they destroyed the economy for their ideology versus keeping the whole ship floating for everyone.

ALL OF THAT ASIDE.

I truly believe the ever so loathed conservative homosexual will have a greater and greater voice in the American right. Are their absolute idealogue lunatics on both sides? Absolutely.

Will they ever enjoy equality amongst even their gay counterparts across the aisle in liberal land? I doubt it. As evidenced by the complete lack of comprehension about what this article was trying to indicate.

I will say it again as a real time example of what the article indicates. If the Military was filled only with bigot idiots who had only one dissenting voice against gay rights and gays in general do you then think the report on 'what is the impact' would have come out positively?

Open a door instead of picking up a rock and see what you get in neighbors.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm looking at a trillion dollar budget deficit proposed by a liberal.

Was it a gay liberal?

(and that's ignoring the fact that Clinton was FORCED to balance the budget by a republican congress, and even then the budget wasn't actually balanced because of shady accounting practices)

Was it a gay Congress?

Gay conservatives have mommy and daddy issues. The GOProud crappers invited Ann Coulter to speak, who got up and insulted them.

LOL

You're not getting it -- the OP isn't diving gays into liberal and conservative and saying one is good and the other is bad; the point is that gays as a whole are now conservative with respect to what was the case a few decades ago.

So first, none of the antics on non-gays are relevant, as my rhetorical questions above are meant to indicate.

And second, anything of "gay v gay" is irrelevant, unless it's demonstrating that the majority of gays do not in fact desire the things noted -- and if you can make a case that the majority of gays are opposed to gay marriage or ENDA, or repealing DA/DT or DOMA, I'd be fascinated to see them.

 

[Kulindahr]

The point is NONE of them have been put to the test to prevent or reverse a Great Depression. We know how some of them affect the economy on a short term narrow focus but the grand scale we don't know how right or wrong any of them are. This recession is really the first chance to look at some of the models but as the critics of Obama and Bush are pointing out the theories that were applied either didn't work right or were not applied correctly. Which is the problem, the politics involved are never going to let someone apply their pet economic theory cleanly.

Of course none of them have been put to the test -- every time there's a major change in economic behavior, politicians change all the rules.

The only way to actually gather enough data to really get some economic rules understood would be to go ten or twenty years with no changes in laws or regulation that impinge on things economic.

Or somehow split our timeline in two, and use one reality as a laboratory.....