So they do the next best thing (ha!) and either lie or talk around Will's points.

Given their mindset, you cannot expect them to play fair or deal with the facts.



It's a shame...

They can't. They daren't.

Some of them are starting to get better.

This guy is also one of my best friends, and also went to school with OP I originally spoke of. He still lives in Florida, while I'm in New England, but we talk on Skype or phone regularly...we see each other a few times a year. He's a "first responder," a gun guy, but he is very open. I have never been able to peg him as GOP, because he genuinely seems to be able to consider all sides of a discussion. But he SEEMS so GOP!

Oh, wait...he's also an ENGINEER. IOW, a scientist. He has to consider all sides of a problem in order to come up with the appropriate solution!

So, anyway, I just received this response from him on my FB thread...

The GOP running on the "you didn't build it" gaffe, is hypocriticallly stupid. My first reaction was "they didn't help me start my business",then i rememebred my SBA loan. Not to mention (as noted in the article) the Soc Sec money (my Dad died young) that put me thru a State College, etc.And all those fat cats have paved a million roads and built a million governement funded buildings. They need a new theme.

Bingo.

She: The Tea Partyy folks are freaking nuts.


Me: But, Ilean, those "Tea Party Folks" rule the GOP today. That is why the rest of us are freaked out! Paul Ryan is steeped in tea bags. He is as Tea Bagger as they get. And he is on the ballot this November.

You are not only a female, which I assume you realize, but you are also my age. So, you are willing to vote for someone who would not only rule your vagina, but also take away your medical benefits at the same time?

I am fascinated. WHY would you support these people?

a country -- the railroads.

While individual entrepreneurs took credit for building the railroads, they could not have done it had they not been supported by the government. They received land grants and influenced lawmakers to pass legislation that permitted them to link rail lines together. The role of the government, legislative and bureaucratic favors, often made the difference between success and failure. It was really a joint effort by government and private entrepreneurs.

Even the development of the Erie Canal, way back then, required cooperation between business and government.

Republicans are trying to impose the Ayn Rand myth on the history of the US. It just does not work. Our titans of industry including even Rockefeller did not build it all by themselves. They relied not only on their employees, but on government -- over and over.

That Republicans believe that businessmen build it by themselves, that the US was built by businessmen/adventurers just demonstrates their ignorance about the history of the development of the US.

My post is based on information from The Age of the Moguls by Stewart Hall Holbrook.

Here is an excerpt from a readers' review of the book:

First, some brief background information about Stewart Hall Holbrook (1893-1964). Throughout his adult years, he was at first a lumberjack and then a writer, journalist, and (his descriptive) "lowbrow historian." The Age of the Moguls (1953) is probably his best-known work but it should be noted that, for more than thirty years, he wrote for The Oregonian, the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the western United States (founded in 1850) and also authored or co-authored dozens of other books whose titles correctly indicate the scope and variety of his interests. For example, Little Annie Oakley & Other Rugged People (1948), Wild Bill Hickok Tames the West (1952) with Ernest Richardson, Davey Crockett (1955), Wyatt Earp: U.S. Marshall (1956), The Golden Age of Quackery (1959), The Golden Age of Railroads (1960), and Wildmen, Wobblies & Whistle Punks: Stewart Holbrook's Lowbrow Northwest (1992), an anthology. Holbrook's style of writing is as lively as his selection of subjects but it would be a mistake to question the authenticity of his historical material. One source (whose name I do not recall) has correctly described him as a "feisty David McCullough."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Age-Moguls-Railroads-Series/dp/0405137893

Unfortunately I lost my copy of this book -- before I finished it. But just the first chapters dispel the myths the Republicans try to sell us about who built America and how it was built. Individualistic entrepreneurs were an important part of the story, but government support, regulation and organization was just as important. In many cases, the entrepreneurs bought influence in legislatures and "built it" through graft and corruption.

This "I built it" theme is dishonest. It is a half-truth at best.