DU wonders when it all began

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Peregrine Took (3,870 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

Anybody know exactly when did it all get so ugly - the hatred for government and public employees?

I recall when going to work for the government was considered a good thing to do - an honorable thing, in fact. The pay was modest and the benefits were comparable to the private sector. Teachers were respected - highly respected. As a child, I used to live next door to two single brothers who were postal employees and they were considered to be very upstanding members of the community.

Today, while listening to a local financial program on the radio, I heard the host all of a sudden take a sharp right turn in his rhetoric and begin lambasting of all people - librarians, then teachers, active and retired, for being over paid and "greedily sopping up huge dough in their salaries and retirement" while the state "goes bankrupt."

When did it all turn around and the actual hatred for librarians, teachers, even for police and firemen (due to THEIR "fatcat" benefits) begin?

Was it with Reagan ("the government is not your friend" attitude) in the '80's? The Bush's? I'm trying to pin it down - at least to the era.

My own opinion is that maybe if the state wasn't so busy giving big tax breaks to businesses there would now be adequate money in the state coffers, that in addition to the legislature contributing the proper amount, by law, to fund the retirement programs which it did not do.

Thanks

I'm guessing the distrust of government started sometime before July b4th, 1776.

sinkingfeeling (23,683 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

1. First, Raygun, then talk-radio, and as times get tough, people get envious of

others. Therefore, the Tea Baggers ideology. Hate the 'public' anything, glorify the 'private' and starve the governments by demanding low, low taxes.

The party of "Eat the Rich" is accusing the party of "Leave me the **** alone" of being envious.

The Purges are to continue.

First, the crime against the state:

kctim (3,303 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

4. When taxes to pay for such things

got high enough to affect the desire for people to pay for them.

And questioning or disagreeing what your tax dollars are used for is not hatred.

Then come the public denouncements:

CreekDog (31,212 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

11. taxes have decreased for decades

you're assertion is made up.

arbusto_baboso (6,945 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

18. kctim makes up a lot of assertions.

In fact, I have yet to see ONE of his posts that actually support Democratic Party principles.

And yet, somehow, he's flown beneath the radar well enough to not be tombstoned.

Go figure.

devilgrrl (19,404 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

21. Yeah really. He and dkf should get a room.

Invite Dreamer Tatum to join you.

They can have a right wing troll party.

BlueCaliDem (2,960 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

5. It started with Raygun and then the movie execs

making movies that put the U.S. government in a terrible light. Think E.T., the Alien series, Commando, First Blood, Rambo, the fake Welfare Queens meme, terrifying people about the IRS audits (it made it appear as if everyone was going to be audited - at leas, that's what I got). The message was there at every level: Big Government is BAD!

Lions to Lambs, Stop Loss, Rendition, The Jason Bourne series, and piece of crap by Oliver Stone...

HereSince1628 (22,501 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

6. I have noticed that public employees carrying military grade weapons do not suffer this problem.

Is that a clue or a symptom?

The Magistrate (77,511 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

14. Set In In '64, Sir, Blossomed Out In '80, Went Toxic around 2000

Vilification of 'big government' necessarily bleeds onto its workers. Beginning with the Civil Rights laws, 'big government' came to stand in many minds for 'giving my tax dollars to shiftless Negroes', and this drove things like the Wallace and Nixon campaigns, and continued as a basic Republican and rightist theme. In the early sixties, Wallace would tout 'big government', boasting of all the things he saw to government helping Alabama citizens with ( white citizens, of course ), and portrayed the hostility of 'race-mixers' and 'communists' to him as really being motivated by anger at all benefits his government gave to the poor ( white ) people of his state.

Reagan blended this with anti-unionism, and did so in a period of severe recession. People tend to forget unemployment went up to ten percent during Reagan's first two years in office. Unionized workers, particularly unionized government workers, withstood these ravages a bit better than most. But there is a 'dog in the manger' spirit that animates many people, a feeling of 'If I have it bad, why shoudl you have it better?' and this Reagan appealed to skillfully in breaking the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

BY 2000 or so, secure employment had become so rare, and wages had been stagnant so long for most people that the spectacle of government workers with job security and good insurance and pension benefits, that this dog in the manger spirit gained wider and deeper footing. People do feel a drive towards equality, and if they feel there is no way to level up, will express it in angry desire to see a leveling down. Since government employees are paid from tax revenues, people readily feel they are paying for people to enjoy things they cannot have, or even may have lost not too long ago, and it rankles.

George Wallace, sir--like Robert Byrd--was a Democrat.

mazzarro (2,497 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

15. When Will Liberals Start To Push Back On 'Government Is Bad' Falacy of The rePIGs?

Last edited Tue Apr 24, 2012, 01:42 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

I thinks part of the problem here is that rePIGs have never been forced to acknowledge that the 'government is bad' fallacy of Reagan is the most stupid and most destructive bs there is. IMO it takes for the appropriate sized government and a good and efficient government that can enforce the laws fairly to allow both government and private sectors to serve the country. Both are required and no one or the other can do a good job of running a democratic country without the other.

I am always appalled when democrats do not push back hard when the impression is given that government is bad along with the bs about business having free reign to do as it pleases. Liberals need to start pushing back on this and make the case for appropriately sized, efficient and fair minded government to coexist with a robust but decently regulated private sector.

Feel free to list all the great jobs the government handles competently and efficiently and without a taint of corruption or power-mongering.

We'll wait.

Tierra_y_Libertad (33,558 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

17. Except for the glorified military..of course.

just1voice (341 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

19. Radio is propaganda designed to create an emotional response

Just replace the word "Propaganda" with radio in this definition of propaganda and see how well it fits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

-----Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes.

As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare.-----

Whoa_Nelly (20,934 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

22. It would not surprise me if this all began with ALEC

Last edited Tue Apr 24, 2012, 01:57 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

writing the memes as revival of anti-union rhetoric for their politicos and wannabe politicians, as just another RW tactic of theirs to further splinter political groups for greater corporate control.

NewJeffCT (34,092 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

23. it started in the 1950s with Eisenhower

Ike ran against the "egghead" Adlai Stevenson, who some considered too smart & too elite for the average American - that started the country down the path of denigrating smart people.

Reagan took it to another level with his attacks on unions and his famous saying that the most feared words in the English language were "I'm from the government, I'm here to help"

And, then Bush took it even further, and many of the Republics of 2012 make Bush look like an intellectual.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002605038

So, it all boils down to you, the average person, taking your cues from another; which is really just code-speak for you being easily-led sheep; which is code-speak for you aren't smart enough to follow them; which is code-speak for they're just better than you.

[JohnnyReb]

We buy'em books and buy'em books and all they do is eat the covers and lick the binder glue.

[DefiantSix]

I'm guessing the distrust of government started sometime before July b4th, 1776.

Boston Massacre - March 5th, 1770.

Boston Tea Party - December 16th, 1773.

Battle of Lexington/Concord  - April 19th, 1775.

Yeah, by the time July 4th, 1776 rolled around, I'd venture to guess that distrust of big government was damned near genetic.

[Airwolf]

It started in the 60s when a bunch of American hating asshats started to dodge the draft and riot at every oppertunity. Sound familiar yet? You goons couldn;t wait to lay waste to anything associated with the Government and yet you sit behind your keyboards and ask when did it happnen? How about the fact a Democraqtic President sent troops into Vietnam befor the Gulf of Tonkin incident and his successor sent in even more and then you all threw a hissy fit because of it?

[Freeper]

I'm guessing the distrust of government started sometime before July b4th, 1776.

The party of "Eat the Rich" is accusing the party of "Leave me the **** alone" of being envious.

The Purges are to continue.

First, the crime against the state:

Then come the public denouncements:

Lions to Lambs, Stop Loss, Rendition, The Jason Bourne series, and piece of crap by Oliver Stone...

George Wallace, sir--like Robert Byrd--was a Democrat.

Feel free to list all the great jobs the government handles competently and efficiently and without a taint of corruption or power-mongering.

We'll wait.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002605038

So, it all boils down to you, the average person, taking your cues from another; which is really just code-speak for you being easily-led sheep; which is code-speak for you aren't smart enough to follow them; which is code-speak for they're just better than you.

You nailed it Mr Bunny.

[shoes off the couch]

I dunno, I didn't hold much hatred for teachers. Sure, I felt they constantly whined about how bad they had it when there are far more difficult jobs with fewer perks and whatnot. I just figured their unions were convincing them they needed to be perpetually miserable. Then, when faced with paying some measly small portion of their heath and pension benefits they came out of their shells, and their "It's about the children" bullshit lost all credibility-

This hate-filled thug was identified as a screwl teacher in the Lake Country area:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0dJM3h-tE[/youtube]

It's all about the kids, until the union bosses say otherwise. Schools are shut down for days:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_AsmzQF6eU[/youtube]

And, this one is just perfect. Socialist scumbag teacher decided indoctrination in the classroom wasn't enough. Drags their kids to see the mob:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cufj2d8Co5A&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

Such endearing creatures, aren't they?

My regard for teachers and unionized public sector employees had been slowly trending downward since the late 90's. They hit rock bottom on or around Feb 18th, 2011.

[Carl]

In the 70s when organized labor and corrupt politicians became comrades in arms to get rich off the taxpayer and consolidate power to ensure the gravy train didn`t end.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Boston Massacre - March 5th, 1770.

Boston Tea Party - December 16th, 1773.

Battle of Lexington/Concord  - April 19th, 1775.

Yeah, by the time July 4th, 1776 rolled around, I'd venture to guess that distrust of big government was damned near genetic.

I try to keep things simple for the lurkers.

[obumazombie]

I never heard the outcome of the senators hiding out of state, anyone ?

[franksolich]

I try to keep things simple for the lurkers.

In my own lifetime, I recall that the Great Divide happened in November 1980.

Up until that time, among friends, political differences were of less consequence than the color of one's eyes or the tip of one's nose.

But after the Incompetent One lost in a massive landslide (and this was before the even larger one of 1984, remember), it seemed those friends who were Democrats took his loss badly, and went into a long snit.

We got rid of a loser of a president, and they were in a decades'-long seething about it.  They still haven't gotten over it.

And then all that followed--Vast Teddy wanting the Soviet Union (a foreign power, remember) to help overthrow Reagan, the rabid Hate and partisanship of Tipsy O'Neill and Vast Teddy during the Reagan years, the dictatorial rule of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the taunts about the 80s being the "decade of greed" despite that William Clinton named more millionaires to his first cabinet than any other president had ever done (who became millionaires during the "decade of greed"), &c., &c., &c.

I won't even start on what's happened since November 2008.

There's a problem with division in this country, and the blame lies solely at the feet of sore-loser Democrats, no one else.

[shoes off the couch]

Boy, is it getting bad. There have been rumblings from the primitives the past few days imploring $kimmer et al to round up cleanse the DUmp from "undesirables". Me thinks a lot of friendlies(their side) are, or are on the way, to getting whacked. Both high and low post counters-

Star Member CreekDog

View profile
 
does this belong in GD or the Creative Writing group? [View all]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002597179

Help and Meta tread discussing this OP and moans about jury letting it stand. Bouncy included.

Sun Apr 22, 2012, 05:56 PM

karnac (541 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

View profile
 
I stalked/followed a black kid!

Last edited Sun Apr 22, 2012, 06:03 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
I am curious and want a sampling of your collective wisdom.

Basically,

Where was I right?
Where were my actions legal or illegal?
when where my actions moral or immoral?
Where was I just plain stupid?
Did I deserve the consequences?

Feel free to condone or condemn.
For many years I have lived in the suburbs. The neighborhood is working class and mixed. Pacific Asians, Hispanics with a smattering of whites and blacks. Crime is minimal except for an occasional wave of either burglaries or car thefts(usually the stereo). We all knew each other though not as well as I would have liked. Houses are two storied with the bottom part serving mostly as second units(rentals) with windows directly exposed to the streets. Bottom windows are never barred because of fire safety codes.

I lived in the bottom half.

Anyway one weekday afternoon I was working in my home office when my GF stated someone was trying to open up the frosted window to our bedroom. She has always been a bit paranoid but i did go outside to check just to keep her quiet.

I saw a black kid probably 15-18(not good with ages) moseying past my window. He turned around and saw each other briefly as I opened up my door. he then turned back and kept on walking away slowly.

"Can I Help You?" I stated.

"NO!"

I went back inside. It *did* bother me that my girlfriend was probably right and there was nothing I could do about it. Afterall, I didn't actually see him try to break in.

About 5 minutes later I stepped out for a smoke. About 200 yards away the same kid was still walking away slowly while peering through each lower window as he passed. Not all windows were frosted like ours. a couple times he came close enough to touch his nose to the glass. Not once did I see him try to open a window like my GF claimed.

I started to follow him. about 100 yards away he noticed I was following him though he didn't change his pace.

I thought to myself this was ridiculous. I had work to do and I didn't have time for this. Calling the police was out of the question,more of *MY* time wasted explaining. Maybe needlessly making things hard for a kid that might not actually be doing anything wrong.

At the same time I didn't want to be responsible for a burglary minutes later right after i had noticed suspicious behavior and left him alone. And there HAD been burglaries around my neighborhood fairly recently.

My solution:

I walked back and got into my pickup. slowly drove by the kid and took a picture. The kid noticed and pulled his hood over his head. He needn't have bothered. Stupid me just took a picture of my thumb.

When I got back I was real proud of myself. Only killed 10 minutes and scared the kid from committing a burglary! He would think twice about doing that in OUR neighborhood. All without having to call 911. Back to work!

Next day my tires were slashed. Never happened before or since.

Back to Meta, where the NYC primitive dares to not toe the line

)

Mon Apr 23, 2012, 02:12 AM

Star Member NYC_SKP (40,430 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
10. As constructed, GD is fine. And, I recommended it.

View profile
Case closed.


"NEXT"!!!

Creekdog, who apparently thinks it's the neighborhood block watch captain, drops a not-so-subtle clue as to it's desired response

Mon Apr 23, 2012, 03:28 AM

Star Member CreekDog
12. well nobody else did, except the probably soon-to-be PPR'd OP

View profile

Last edited Mon Apr 23, 2012, 08:00 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
no accounting for taste is there? or maybe there's another explanation.

Another OP, one that was brought over earlier-

Star Member Peregrine Took

View profile
 
Anybody know exactly when did it all get so ugly - the hatred for government and public employees? [View all]
I recall when going to work for the government was considered a good thing to do - an honorable thing, in fact. The pay was modest and the benefits were comparable to the private sector. Teachers were respected - highly respected. As a child, I used to live next door to two single brothers who were postal employees and they were considered to be very upstanding members of the community.

Today, while listening to a local financial program on the radio, I heard the host all of a sudden take a sharp right turn in his rhetoric and begin lambasting of all people - librarians, then teachers, active and retired, for being over paid and "greedily sopping up huge dough in their salaries and retirement" while the state "goes bankrupt."

When did it all turn around and the actual hatred for librarians, teachers, even for police and firemen (due to THEIR "fatcat" benefits) begin?

Was it with Reagan ("the government is not your friend" attitude) in the '80's? The Bush's? I'm trying to pin it down - at least to the era.

My own opinion is that maybe if the state wasn't so busy giving big tax breaks to businesses there would now be adequate money in the state coffers, that in addition to the legislature contributing the proper amount, by law, to fund the retirement programs which it did not do.

Thanks

This poor sap, among other things, mentions that the citizenry might resent continually paying high taxes for insulated gov't workers and bureaucratic waste. Poor DUmmie

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 02:31 PM

kctim (3,313 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
4. When taxes to pay for such things

View profile
got high enough to affect the desire for people to pay for them.

And questioning or disagreeing what your tax dollars are used for is not hatred.

1% er

Here comes the pile-on

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 02:45 PM

Star Member devilgrrl (19,417 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
21. Yeah really. He and dkf should get a room.

View profile
Invite Dreamer Tatum to join you.

They can have a right wing troll party.

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 03:31 PM

Star Member devilgrrl (19,417 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
40. You've been FACT FREE your entire time at DU

View profile
No one runs from your not meant to be factual statements. If anything, they're easily shot down like fish in a barrel.

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 03:29 PM

Star Member devilgrrl (19,417 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
38. You mean Dixiecrat principles.

View profile
Come now kctim, there's absolutely nothing liberal/progressive about you period. You're not fooling anyone.

The kctim attempts to fend off the hoarde, but alas doesn't realize yet non-group-think is a bannable offense  --

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 03:21 PM

kctim (3,313 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
28. We still pay more than people did

View profile
back in the time the OP mentions.


And if your city and state taxes are also lower than what they paid, you are one lucky person.

1% er

But, female heathen, creekdog, and polite primitives squelch the discussion of differing perspectives

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 03:26 PM

Star Member devilgrrl (19,417 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
34. Freedom isn't free.

View profile
Have a nice day.

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 04:09 PM

Star Member CreekDog (31,218 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
56. So "1% er" means that you are part of the 99%?

View profile

Last edited Tue Apr 24, 2012, 04:13 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
Makes about as much sense ad the usual.

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 05:20 PM

Star Member The Magistrate
73. Not Anymore, Fella: Now It Is Just A Niche Market....

View profile
And a pretty up-scale one at that.

Too much to carry it all over, but it's worth a look-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=605038

If left up to some primitives, any left or left centre voices would be promptly exterminated. Not that there are many left anyways.

It just begs the question, one that low post-count newbs must be asking themselves, how far to the fringe left must one act to gain acceptance at DemocraticUndergound? How many posts/time/stars till one feels safe enough from the ban hammer to introduce an independent thought? It's not like they registered to post on SocialistUnderground.

I almost feel bad for some of them.

[Evil_Conservative]

DUmmies don't trust people with low post counts because DUmmies don't work.  That would give DUmmies from 12pm-3am to post ALL DAY LONG and get their post count up to 3,000 in less than week.

[obumazombie]

DUmmies don't trust people with low post counts because DUmmies don't work.  That would give DUmmies from 12pm-3am to post ALL DAY LONG and get their post count up to 3,000 in less than week.

I slightly resemble that remark.

[wasp69]

Tue Apr 24, 2012, 03:26 PM

Star Member devilgrrl (19,417 posts)
34. Freedom isn't free.

Like you have any clue about what that truly means, you wet-mouthed DUmmie ****.

[Freeper]

Like you have any clue about what that truly means, you wet-mouthed DUmmie ****.

To them that means that freedom should cost 50% of your income in taxes.

[Doubleplusungood]

Peregrine Took (3,870 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

Anybody know exactly when did it all get so ugly - the hatred for government and public employees?

Yeah I do. It was the moment liberals allowed government workers to form a union. Only private sector workers should have the right to unionize. Government workers unionizing is a conflict of interest because it is the very taxpayers themselves that the government employee unions are bargaining against. This has lead to ever more bloated and corrupt government threatening now to destroy the nation with debt. The ride has to come to an end whether it be at the ballot box, or eventually with the ammo box if it has to. Make no mistake about that DUmb shits.

Oh, and one more thing. Government employees pay no taxes at all. They do not generate wealth in the private sector. Instead, taxes are confiscated under penalty of incarceration from real tax payers to pay for the leviathan of government employees. A government employee is nothing more than a surrogate for the real tax payers from the private sector.

[AllosaursRus]

To them that means that freedom should cost 50% of your income in taxes.

It already does when you include gas tax, utility tax, license plates, property tax, cigarette tax, liquor tax, excise tax, sales tax, there's more! Feel free to ad to the list.

Then, even after your gone, there's a ****in' death tax!!

[FlaGator]

Big government is bad and can't be trusted. Our Founding Fathers knew this and so they set up the three branches of government so that, among other things, they could keep an eye on each other. No single branch can be trusted... not executives, not legislative and not judicial. When alliances start forming between the branches and they start supporting each other for the sake of some preconceived agenda then there will be trouble.

[Karin]

Look, he's not dead yet!  At the very end of the thread

Response to Peregrine Took (Original post)
Wed Apr 25, 2012, 01:36 PM
 Taverner (48,756 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

126. Ronnie Reagan saying "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem"

Is it my imagination, or is every thread like that one, (if you rowed over).  Accusations, paranoia, ganging-up.  It's terrible.  They can't even discuss anything calmly anymore.  The DUmp is just a mess. 

[miskie]

Boy, is it getting bad. There have been rumblings from the primitives the past few days imploring $kimmer et al to round up cleanse the DUmp from "undesirables". Me thinks a lot of friendlies(their side) are, or are on the way, to getting whacked. Both high and low post counters-

Won't be the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. The most recent mass-tombstoning was the 'Big Gay Purge' - where Skins & Co. summarily executed one side of a big gay fight & that side's not quite as gay supporters. Many long-time primitives were engulfed in flames brighter & more colorful than Gay Freedom Day at The Castro.

In a word, it was FABULOUS !

[GOBUCKS]

Won't be the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. The most recent mass-tombstoning was the 'Big Gay Purge' - where Skins & Co. summarily executed one side of a big gay fight & that side's not quite as gay supporters. Many long-time primitives were engulfed in flames brighter & more colorful than Gay Freedom Day at The Castro.

In a word, it was FABULOUS !

And Old Elm Tree was born.

[obumazombie]

Doubleplusungood, you make a good point about taxes taken out of government paychecks, all it accomplishes is another layer of bureaucracy, and the accompanying inefficiency and additional expense.

[Doubleplusungood]

Doubleplusungood, you make a good point about taxes taken out of government paychecks, all it accomplishes is another layer of bureaucracy, and the accompanying inefficiency and additional expense.

One of the things that grinds my gears is when a government employee goon at a protest somewhere makes the claim of being a taxpayer, and thus his/her stupid protest has more credibility because of that. Its insulting to the intelligence.

[Doubleplusungood]

Doubleplusungood, you make a good point about taxes taken out of government paychecks, all it accomplishes is another layer of bureaucracy, and the accompanying inefficiency and additional expense.

Oh, and also, you can simply refer to me as "DPUG" to save some typing on my username. Other CCers already do. 

[obumazombie]

Oh, and also, you can simply refer to me as "DPUG" to save some typing on my username. Other CCers already do. 

If my copy function breaks, I'll take your advice.