O'Reilly said that if he were President, he would deliver this message to San Francisco (which voted against military recruitment in public schools):
"Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."Actually, Californians would be better off doing just that.
As I never tire of reminding people: The United States has producer states and leech states. Producer states, such as California, contribute more to the federal government than they receive in goods and services. Leech states, such as Texas, mooch more federal money than they give.
Most producer states are blue. Most leech states are red. In the past, I have exercised my right to call red staters hillbillies, hicks and superstitious morons. Arguably, funders have a duty to insult chronic freeloaders. If the freeloaders feel sufficiently insulted, maybe they will stop being feeloaders.
Y'see, Bill, those debauched, espresso-swilling San Franciscans are forced to pay for a war they hate. The red states don't pay for it, yet they keep voting for pols devoted to empire and addicted to pork. After all, it's not their money.
O'Reilly, in full Grand Guignol mode, adds:
And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.So Bush and his hillbilly hordes should feel free to steal California's money yet ignore our needs?
People like Bill O'Reilly make me wish Californians could sever themselves from Bush's wretched misgovernment. If my state were a sovereign nation, we would stop paying for a mad foreign policy and devote our resources to genuine anti-terror measures, such as protection of our vulnerable harbors. We would force our leaders to focus on the task of obliterating Osama Bin Laden and his network. We would not tolerate a leader who says, as Bush said, that he no longer cares or "thinks very much" about the boss of Al Qaeda.
Rebuild Coit Tower? Sure, we can do that. Piece of cake. We wouldn't need Bush's help, and we wouldn't need help from any state that voted for Bush.
But Louisiana and Texas and the other leech states hit hard by natural disasters (disasters exacerbated by global warming) -- they sure as hell ain't snubbing that long green from the Golden State, are they?
As for Pat Robertson: He predicts the worst for the citizens of Dover, PA, because the voters there don't want primitive myths replacing science.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."Oooh. Scary. Boogeyman's gonna get us!
One question, Pat: Europe is largely post-Christian. Why don't we see any major natural disasters destroying large chunks of London, Paris, Geneva, Brussels, Stockholm....?
5 comments:
I don't see that Coit Tower would be that great a loss. Designed as a representation of a firehose nozzle by a rich socialite who adored firemen (or so the story goes!), it's really an hysterical monument to the immortal phallus.
Now, if terrorists destroyed the TransAmerica pyramid, which in my humble opinion is the most elegant building erected in the USA in, oh, a hundred years, then I would be annoyed.
As I never tire of reminding people: The United States has producer states and leech states. Producer states, such as California, contribute more to the federal government than they receive in goods and services. Leech states, such as Texas, mooch more federal money than they give.
Most producer states are blue. Most leech states are red. In the past, I have exercised my right to call red staters hillbillies, hicks and superstitious morons. Arguably, funders have a duty to insult chronic freeloaders. If the freeloaders feel sufficiently insulted, maybe they will stop being feeloaders.
And as I never tire of reminding you Joseph, the per capita income of producer states is higher than in the red states. You favor progressive taxation. The consequence of progressive taxation is that people with high income pay more in income taxes than people with low income. If wealth transfer from rich to poor is good enough at an individual level, why not at a state level? Are you willing to call the 40% of U.S. workers who draw an income but pay no Federal income tax freeloaders?
But WHY is per capita income higher in California?
"Right to work" states, and states which favor insane giveaways to corporations, keep average earnings low. Low wage earners have greater reliance on government hand-outs and contribute little or nothing to the federal till, as any of the exposes of Wal-Mart's practices will demonstrate.
That's but one reason why allegedly "business friendly" states become leech states. Another reason is, of course, pork pork pork.
Californian wages would be even higher if not for competition from leech states. Southern Jesusmaniacs are dragging us down to their third-world level.
Texans are notoriously proud, yet they have no reason for their pride. That state is rich in resources, yet their quality of life is miserable. Texas should be a producer state, not a leech state.
Nobody FORCES Texans and other red-staters to vote for pork-addicted pols. And nobody should ever excuse this voting pattern. Pork has risen to unprecedented levels. Yes, Republicans really are FAR worse offenders.
Um, no. Several years ago, Massachusetts provided tax breaks to Fidelity to dissuade the company from moving to Rhode Island. After 9/11, Wall Street firms were given tax breaks so that they wouldn't move their data backup centers across the Hudson. Recently, Goldman Sachs was given incentives to stay in lower Manhattan rather than moving to mid-town to where the rest of their competitors relocated years ago. Having never lived on the West Coast, I can't speak from observation, but I'd assume that Silicon Valley is similar to Manhattan in the disproportionate income it generates for its locals relative to national or statewide averages.
The average (and median) compensation of employees at all of these firms is significantly above any benchmark available and that has nothing to do with liberal/progressive policies. They employ a huge share of the local tax base in their relative locations, and employ a lot of people on top of that.
The state-level difference in per capita income is not as a result of the janitors at Whole Foods being paid a more in San Mateo than the janitors at the Piggly Wiggly in Birmingham. It's that Google, Cisco, Charles Schwab and Yahoo, are based in California, and Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup are based in New York, (plus the large law firms, etc). Red states don't have nearly the same proportion of companies or firms like those.
Californian wages would be even higher if not for competition from leech states. Yes, and U.S. wages would be even higher if the U.S. completely closed its borders to all trade and became a self-sufficient economy. Of course, cost-of-living would skyrocket also, but hey, at least you could feel good about the high wages people were earning.
Low wage earners have greater reliance on government hand-outs and contribute little or nothing to the federal till. Yes, that's my point. Isn't progressive taxation for the benefit of the low wage earners? Or did you have something else in mind when you complained of tax cuts for the rich? Since low wage earners contribute little or nothing to the federal till, any cut in tax rates will by definition benefit those who actually do contribute to the federal till and will not benefit those who don't.
I like your post, Joseph. I'm not sure why this debate about California is going on though. The point is, Bill O'Reilly is totally insane. And irresponsible. And a Traitor.
To call for Al Qaeda to wage an attack on American Soil in and American City, is treasonous, because it is aiding and abetting the enemy, motivating and inciting them to attack us. Bill O'Reilly is essentially the same as Bin Laden. And even if Al Qaeda never hears his insane rantings, there are plenty of White Supremicists and Racists in the country who are loyal followers.
Bill O'Reilly should be fired, if not "disappeared" to Gitmo. He's encouraging a terrorist attack on American soil BECAUSE HE DOESN"T LIKE THE WAY THOSE CITIZENS OF THAT CITY VOTED. How undemocratic can one get?
I don't care if Coit looks like a phallus or not. The Washington Monument looks like one too, it's the giant penis of DC, but that doesn't mean I would advocate Al Qaeda blowing it up, even though I hate this administration and what it's doing to our country! There is no justification for O'Reilly advocating this, other than the fact that he hates America.
Go to Saudi Arabia Bill, you will fit right in.
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