It’s interesting to consider how one comes about their views. I figured you for an old time union fella. While I think unions were at one time valuable, in today’s globally competitive market where companies are free to locate where they want, the unions are self-destructive. They actually drive business away, and therefore, their own jobs. They kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. I’ve always found the notion of a union confounding. Think about it. Unionized workers are adversaries of the company. How successful can a company be over time when it’s at odds with itself internally? It can’t. This is why GM has 202,000 employees, 167,000 of them are overseas, and they proudly proclaim that 6 out of every 7 cars they make next year will be foreign made. GM is only 1 example.

Meanwhile foreign car companies are building factories in states that allow them to do so non-union. Honda, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes. There’s a reason they don’t want to go to MI, IL, or any of the other states that are not right to work states. Because, when given a choice, they know the unions’ extra costs make them uncompetitive. It’s just a fact of life.

Regarding your assessment of Republicans, you’re actually wrong on this one. I’ll tell you why. Because the longing for the “old Republicans” is actually a misinterpretation of what they were. With the exception of Barry Goldwater, every Republican from Hoover up until Reagan, were progressives. Coolidge was the last conservative. Hoover was a big government progressive. In fact, did you know that during the campaign between he and FDR that one of FDR’s attacks of Hoover was that he was “spending out of control”? It is 100% true. Hoover’s response to the stock market crash was huge government spending programs. Of course it did not work. It never does. The Republicans of today that you guys like are the McCains and Grahams and Snows. They are big government progressives. The newer Republicans like DeMint, Bachmann, West, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, etc., they are the true conservatives who are devoted to Republican principles of constitutionally limited government. That’s why they are HATED by the left, and why the left likes the McCain progressive types. The true conservatives ARE the threat to the left. It’s why they falsely attempt to paint the Tea Party as “racists” or whatever other derogatory name they can give. The reality is that, it’s not the Tea Party or constitutional conservatives that the left is afraid of… it’s The Constitution they are afraid of. So they attack, with Saul Alinsky tactics, that which they fear the most and the people who support the exact opposite of what they want.

This is what constitutional conservatives really want:

1) Constitutionally limited Federal Government
2) Fiscal responsibiltiy with the public treasury
3) Free market economics
4) Strong national defense

What exactly is wrong with that? I fail to see how this is wrong. These are American values. In fact, if we had to label them today, they are libertarian values. And I believe most Americans in their own lives are actually mostly libertarian. Even you, Metro.

I have to run, my friend. Work is calling……

Have a nice day!

Yes, I suppose your view of me as a liberal more than a leftist is correct. I did forego the invitation of the Socialist Worker’s Party to join up. But not because I found them to be reprehensible people. I just found their ideas to be unworkable. But I came to understand where they were coming from. I personally knew some of the old Teamsters from the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike. What happened to them at the hands of the Citizens Alliance and their armed guards (against unarmed Teamsters) is what turned at least three of them to the Socialist Workers Party. Two of them were shot in the back as they ran for cover from an attack by the “Citizens Patrol” (aka armed thugs). And for joining the Socialist Party, they went to prison for several years. It seems that was against the law at the time. But the irony of the story actually plays into your scenario. In the 80s, the SWP had moved so far left that these old-timers were kicked out of the party for being too mainstream. I was involved in only one strike in my union days. Well, actually two, I suppose. We went out on a wildcat strike first, got ordered back to work by the International (to avoid an unfair labor practices lawsuit), went back to work for week, got strike sanction, and walked out. There were a couple of attempts at bring in what I will refer to by the PC name, replacement workers, but, being enlightened, modern-type craft union types did not resort to violence, we just discussed the situation with them and persuaded them to look for work elsewhere. But, just like in the rest of society, members of the unions decided they weren’t getting enough out of the union (failing to recognize what the word union meant) and quit attending union meetings or participating in the union process. Then complained about those who did participate and run the day-to-day operations of the union. I was elected to several contract negotiating committees and I got so tired of guys coming up to me at work and asking the status of the contract that I began refusing to tell them. “Show up at the meetings, and you’ll get a full report! Right now we are here to work, not talk union business.” was my reply. One would think that attitude would get me voted off the committee, but hell no, they kept re-electing me. Until I got tired of listening to the whining and refused to run.

I think my transition to Democrat started back in high school. I went to high school in the early to mid-50s. If you look at the history of the two parties, the Democrats were considered the conservatives up to the late 40s. That’s why Ronald Reagan was a Democrat then. As one biographer said of Reagan, “He didn’t change, the party did.” Today’s Republican party is not the party of Abraham Lincoln. My father and his father before him and my great-grandfather were Republicans. My maternal grandfather was an Irish Democrat, as was his father and grandfather and probably way back. My father’s father was much more liberal that my mother’s father. I, in fact, acquired much of my life view from my father and grandfather. And I became a Democrat. Now, I’m still harboring liberal leanings, but I don’t identify fully with either major party nor any third, fourth, or fifth party. So I guess I just kind of make it up as I go along. The Metrognome party. Unlike so many on this website, however, I don’t really attribute any evil intentions to either candidate. I believe they are simply following what they believe is the right path. I emphasize the word “simply.” But I am very suspicious of some of their backers.

Well, you kick back and enjoy your Sunday. And I heartily endorse Starbuck’s. It’s my first stop every morning about 4:45 a.m. on my way to the dog park with Bailey, the Schnauzer.

WOW! One of seven? So was I, except 4 boys, 3 girls. We were not raised very political at all. In fact, I cannot really remember politics being a component of our family dinners or get togethers. In later years, none of us, thankfully, have any longer given up reason, and turned looney left. Well, the ones that are left. Both of the older brothers are dead, 9 and 11 years now. They were products of the 60′s – 70′s and were heavily into drugs and later years alcohol. One got so bad that he lost his home, job, wife, and family. He was homeless in the last 10 years of his life, except when he lived with my parents until they couldn’t take him anymore. Later in his life, he had no politics. He had no life. I was first to the hospital immediately following his death. I had to tell my parents. Toughest thing I ever had to do in my life. My mom and dad’s faces at that moment are etched in my mind like carvings in granite. The other brother was about the same, but never homeless.

I went to college in the 80′s and came out much more liberal, of course. After all, what would one expect having spent 4 years in a leftist seminary? In fact, I even voted for Dukakis over Bush 1. I am embarrased by that one. Over time, as I grew up and started a family, I realized that my personal living habits and belief systems were at odds with my politics. That the very nature of how I made decisions in my life was very much the same nature that all humans make decisions out of. Then my eyes opened up. Leftism is incompatible with human nature. That’s why it will never work. It takes too much coercion and force to institute.

Interestingly, Metro, I don’t actually see you as a leftist. Rather, I read you as a typical 20th century Democrat that came of age believing in American principles and values, working hard in a, what many refer to, “blue collar” career. You became Dem because it was “the working man’s party”. You are what I would refer to as a “liberal”, but not a leftist. I believe I am correct on this one. Tell me if I am wrong. As a liberal, you continue to defend and support the DemocRATic party because you believe it is “compassionate”. Those of us who have grown up and left liberalism, we know otherwise.

The problem with today’s DemocRAT party is that it no longer is the party of the working man. Rather, it is the party of the NON-working man. Right under your noses, the party was infiltrated and taken over by the leftist radicals of the 60s and those who grew in their religious belief of socialism out of the FDR days. Slowly but surely, the party rhetoric and platform has devolved into one of class envy and an engine toward the growth of the entitlement class. Despite the abundance of evidence plainly visible attesting to the collassal failure of social programs, the Dems continue to sell those very same ideas, and more of them, to a populace that appears to be growing in it’s ignorance and declining in it’s desire for self sufficiency. These policies and programs have corrupted our culture. And our corrupted culture is reflected back on us with the election of an incompetent community organizer and Manchurian candidate who views America with disdain. So sad!

Maybe one day there will be hope for you.

Have a great Sunday, my friend!

Hehehehe!

Have a nice day.

Talk to you soon!

Talk to you soon, my friend!

PS> Wish I could be in AZ with you drinking a few cold ones. Dont think it’s as hot there as it is here in PA.

I’ll be looking forward to your caustic and snide remarks once again.

Have a great day yourself!

You know, I was thinking exactly that… retired and vacation? Hmmmm?!?!?!?!?!

God bless your mom! 95??? WOW!!! God willing, she’ll see 100 and get a birthday card from President Romney. You have good genes, Metro. Exploit them!!

Have a great day!

“How does someone who is retired take a vacation?” you mght ask. And I’m not sure how to answer that.

But, now that you are refreshed and restored, get that work caught up. But have a nice day, too!

Re: your post: My nic is perfectly appropriate for this site. It is a political site, not a freak sexual fetish site. If I were to go to a web site touting such anomalies in the human experience, I would expect to see Marlene proudly proclaiming his/her/its identity. 2 different forums. Fair enough?

Have a nice day!