This ongoing expirement is so conclusive..

Journalism is dead and they want to shut conservatives up?? Big govt is the prob.

You are the one who thinks that conservatives must have such a poor message that they can’t have a working majority. Then in the same breath you relate it to the fact that McDonalds can attract billions. So I played your game with humor.

Yes, Obama won. But what was the message that had him winning when it IS TRUE that those who voted for him KNOW SO LITTLE.

No, that does not relate to how I think about America. While I do wish the Obama voters would educate themselves and not expect so much cradle to grave government nanny statism, I know so many very good Americans who understand PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and who GIVE just like me.

This Christmas, I am thankful. I have given and I’ve involved my daughters as I do every year so they can learn the tradition of giving.

Bogey wrote, “What I’d really love to here, though, is where your conservative utopia exists. ”

There is data all over the place that show the differences between states in America. Comparisons between economic policies and the growth over the last couple decades. It is an overwhelming trend that states with lower tax burdens have a much better off population. Less misery. Better economic conditions. More self-reliant people displaying lots of personal responsibility. I can give you links or you can prove that you aren’t negligent and lazy for once. kidding. love to rib you because I was you before 1991.

We have a perfect labaratory and your question HAS AN ANSWER.

Conservatism is the solution if you look at state budgets, economic conditions, schools, public services health, etc. No matter how you slice or dice you see the overwhelming trend proves that a more lean government that is less burdensome IS THE ANSWER.

And Bogey, guess what is the problem?

You guessed it!!! Big government.

Here in CA where I am – guess what the problem is?

Big government.

You can continue with the wife beating, strawmen, identity politics and be proud of yourself. Your last paragraph I can tell you really are soooo proud of yourself. But you keep missing the points that everyone is making here and keep failing to comprehend what we are writing.

It’s about the policies, solutions, ideas. Who cares about the personalities? So many people have their hope in one man right now. So many people will learn the lesson I learned long ago. It’s about the ideas, solutions and policies. It’s about what is best for America.

I hope Obama CHOOSES good economic policy. Policies that states around this nation have shown for decades works !

If we know so little about economics, why is New York still the biggest financial market in the world and still the functioning capital of the global economy?

What I’d really love to here, though, is where your conservative utopia exists. You say Americans are too dumb to vote for conservatives, but surely, somewhere on the face of the earth at some time there were people smart enough to do so?

I’m just curious as to what country you believe has actually implemented what you consider conservative policies. Singapore? Baluchistan?

And if no country has implemented the policies that you insist define conservatism, isn’t that case-closing evidence that the philosophy must contain a fatal flaw where democracies are concerned?

It is obvious about what you wrote.

FEMA’s website clearly states they do not respond to catastrophe’s within the first 72 hours and that isn’t their charge.

Journalism is dead and journalists couldn’t take the time to read.

It is to me a digression to have to play Bogey’s identity politics game. He marks conservatism as a failure because of Katrina and Iraq, yet in both instances their have been historic and monumental leaps forward.

As Popular Mechanics pointed out with Katrina there was the largest rescue operation mounted in U.S. history. Yet it was a failure. What was the failure? Looting. Who were the looters Bogey? Was it those despised God fearing Christian moral men and women who give more to charity than the secularists?

We have seen an unprecedented amount of spewing in this information age which I have taken part in myself. But the left simply makes up things and makes strawmen wife beating arguments with no particular interest in real statistics, data or facts.

In Bogey’s last post, the post before that and the post before that there are no references to statistics, numbers, issues or solutions. Only spewing.

We continue to pummel our keyboards showing detail, facts, and statistics to which little due dligence is given by Bogey.

Most Americans do not pay attention to economics 101, issues or ideas.

As Bogey continues with the identity politics, he does make one clear point and that is that conservatives have not won in large enough numbers to be a majority in Congress during our lifetimes.

There are so many factors for this:
1) America wants crap and thus is the reason for a billion hamburgers sold by McD’s
2) America’s believe crap and thus is the reason for journalism being dead and yet so many people believe journalists – Neo had the evidence post showing how many Obama voters knew anything about anything
3) Bogey knows almost nothing himself and is a reflection on many people’s take on politics however valid his points are or aren’t.

You want the reasons? There!

Take them with the humorous grain of salt that I intend them. But it is no reflection on whether conservative ideas are BETTER or not just because we haven’t had a working majority in our lifetimes.

Take this for instance…

Women a lot of times like the bad boy. To go for the dedicated, loyal, hard working, good man would not be her inclination.

My woman bucks that trend! She found a man with a good heart. I found that she has such a good heart. It is possible to go against conventional wisdom and actually wise…

When everybody kept purchasing houses no matter what the price was – did that reflect on skeptics as a failure? No. Their opinion was better and based on the fact that prices WERE too high.

So… Bogey… as you keep avoiding the REAL problem, it is liberalism and big government and more and more government spending and action and regulation that caused these messes we are in now.

You will avoid that point. You will continue with identity politics and keep failing. I’m sorry that you will.

I am stating that, whatever other failures there were in FEMA’s early response to the post-Katrina flood in New Orleans, the agency unquestionably suffered a PR debacle, and this debacle had political implications for Bush. Furthermore, I suppose the political impact of bad publicity, a leadership crisis, and the air of hysteria in the weeks after Katrina contributed to more failures.

I AM arguing that Wolfe’s case is still unproven. I believe that whether FEMA deserved its reputation for failure based on its immediate response to the flooding in New Orleans is open for debate until we get the kind of analysis I outlined above.

Occam’s Beard does a good job of showing how FEMA has been blamed for problems that were not its responsibility. OB is right to point to the logistical difficulties inherent in getting materials staged and delivered to New Orleans and the breakdown of local government as contributing difficulties.

OB is probably right to suggest a process of transference or projection in the way the narrative was created and is sustained to this day.

how relevant is that to the New Orleans resident who’s home was looted because there was no one available to patrol his deserted neighborhood after the deluge?

Let’s examine that interesting thought a bit further. Why was no one available to patrol? (Patrolling the streets is a local civic responsibility, not a Federal one. Or did you expect Bush to pound a beat? Surely the chief of the NOPD had some small responsibility for that, or was his job also concerned with dog poop and the Ten Commandments and such?)

Reason: the NOPD, notoriously corrupt, had in response to Democratic pressure hired a lot of unqualified people and indeed, ex-criminals. One-third of the NOPD left, never to be seen again.

That’s why no one was patrolling.

And let’s look further at looting. Who was looting, exactly? Any reports of looting from where Katrina actually hit full on, as opposed to where Katrina grazed (N.O.)?

No. Those areas were white, and Republican. New Orleans was Democratic, and black, and so looting was very much on the agenda.

And to pursue this thought still further, why did many residents refuse to evacuate? Because they knew looting was going to take place as soon as order broke down.

So we see the fruits of Democratic philosophy come to blossom. The sense of entitlement, the abrogation of personal and civic responsiblity, the reflexive defense of minorities, regardless of their conduct.

In all, a good day’s work for the left.

But the point is, they were not appointed to manage emergencies. They were elected to represent the public on a wide range of issues from who picks up dog poop on the sidewalk to who pays for the 10 Commandments urinal screens at the courthouse and whether to let Home Depot or Sears name the taxpayer subsidized football stadium.

I disagree entirely with this. Their job is to look out for the best interests of the electorate. Cutting ribbons is nice, but there is no higher function than taking steps to mitigate the impact of an emergency. Saying “feets do yo’ stuff,” and leaving buses underwater while citizens cannot find transportation out of the city, as Nagin did, was criminal neglect.

FEMA expects localities to take care of themselves for the first four days after a disaster. They’re not the first responders. It takes time to mobilize resources on the requisite scale and transport them to wherever they’re needed. In addition to which, transportation infrastructure was adversely affected as well.

I hold no brief for FEMA, but I think that at least to some extent it’s been demonized by the left to cover for their own bungling, incompetence, and corruption, aka New Orleans and Louisiana Democratic politics as usual.

What is it about conservative ideas that are so unappealing to American voters that they have consistently failed to win enough support to be effective? Why haven’t conservatives been smart enough to market their policies in a way that’s attractive? McDonald’s sells BILLIONS of half-crappy burgers, so it’s a bit hard to believe that an effective, moral ideology cannot be sold to the average American voter. Yet that, Baklava is exactly what you are suggesting.

If, as you suggest, conservatives have consistently failed throughout our lifetimes to get elected in sufficient quantities to achieve their goals, why should we believe that they will anytime soon?

Oblio’s argument about FEMA overlaps some of that territory as well.

He seems to be saying that Bush’s failure in Katrina was essentially in the realm of politics and public relations.

But again, how relevant is that to the New Orleans resident who’s home was looted because there was no one available to patrol his deserted neighborhood after the deluge?

We elect presidents to get it done. If they don’t, there needs to be consequences. Blaming it on ”poor PR” may make the blow to the president’s ideology less direct, but it really does nothing to diminish the reality of the failure itself.