The Republican Party, a party of arrogant adolescents.

I've finally begun to recognize what the current Republican party reminds me of: spoiled adolescents.  Especially the adolescents I remember from my junior high years (are there still jr. high schools left?), and I guess I would include myself in that group. 

About 8th grade we began to get pretty impressed with ourselves and began to bully the teachers and our parents, and adults in general.  We knew just enough about the world to be dangerous.  If we were lucky, the adults we tried to bully pushed back hard and put us in our place.  Woe to those kids who got away with their bullying, because they just got more and more impressed with their stupid ideas and became insufferable to all.  By high school these spoiled brats were more than just annoying, they were getting into trouble and causing people real grief.

I see the same thing in the Republican Party/Tea Party.  They are semi-ignorant people certain they have all the answers.  They are smarter than the experts and the better educated.  What arrogance! They know very little about economics, or how government works, or the role the government plays in the prosperity and stability of a society.  Because they are too dim to recognize what the government does for them behind their curtain of awareness, they not only assume government and taxes are unnecessary, they are also too arrogant to stop and ask themselves why others believe otherwise.  They have never advanced past adolescence and thus are intent on bullying the rest of us to reduce government and taxes to fit their fairy tale freedom and prosperity.

Adolescents can be excused for their arrogance and beligerence, it's a phase we all go through, and most of us get smarter and more humble over the years.  However, the Republican Party is comprised of adults, so they have no excuse for their childish, adolescent behavior, like demanding that the country reduce the deficit entirely by cutting spending while insisting that tax increases must be kept entirely off the table!  That's why it's important for the Democrats to push back hard and put these bullies in their place.  They are so shallow that they can't fathom that they could possibly be wrong about anything.  You cannot find a middle ground with people who don't acknowledge any ground but theirs. 

As long as the press, the President, and the Democratic party treat these adolescents as rational adults, this country is in trouble.

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

Adolescents are the market

As long as the press, the President, and the Democratic party treat these adolescents as rational adults, this country is in trouble.

Corporate ownership of the press broke the feedback loop.

When the press loses readers, as it is because it's no longer muckraking, a formula of sweetness and light 'don't rock the boat' that suits its corporate masters, the corporations will shed newspapers like dandruff because they no longer make money. An independent press will reestablish itself, a press that lacks the corporate overhead. We can begin the democratic process again.

[Trakker]

An independent press will reestablish itself, a press that lacks the corporate overhead. We can begin the democratic process again.

Quite right, but I worry that the corporations will buy out any new independent press that looks successful. How do we prevent that? I don't know.

[horsec]

Has AOL made you an offer you can't refuse?

When the baby-boomers retire we will be getting a huge influx of people used to working, many of them college-educated. Retirement is nice but most of us, at least for the first ten years when we're still healthy and active, want to be involved in the world. Some devote themselves to hobbies, and help young people new to the hobby, others see a need in society and volunteer to fill it. Some start new businesses and eventually hire new workers.

Independence comes with retirement and a secure income. Selling out is long way from enticing someone with a following, running an independent press.

[Trakker]

I made AOL an offer, but they refused. I thought Huffington Gods was a catchy title.

[horsec]

Newspapers are/were filters

Newspapers' editing function added value for which readers were willing to pay. Rarely was a reporter 'on scene' to report the truly new. Newspapers get their 'news' where everyone else gets it, When Someone Tells Them. This latter function, being Told, now comes from friends in the form of emails and tweets tailored to your interest. Your friends know what you want to know.

Why the future of newspapers is online

Newspapers are now using algorithms to tailor content for you, based on your online reading on their site. To the extent they can profile you as a 'friend,' they're adding value for which you might be willing to pay. They're not there yet, nor will they be until they know your needs as well as your friends.

To be informed, one needs an enlightened circle of friends. 'Friends' [newspapers] who ask for payment in currency other than a mutual exchange of news?

[Trakker]

Newspapers get their 'news' where everyone else gets it, When Someone Tells Them.

I've noticed an interesting trend in news blogs: the neighborhood blog written by residents of the neighborhood. These in turn are read by regional bloggers who pass on the interesting and newsworthy articles to their readers, and this filtering continues right up to the metropolitan level where metro-wide blogs do what the city sections of large newspapers used to do, but does it better because of the feedback of information allowed in Comments section and emails to the editor.