the story of growing up Scroggins

Monday, May 11, 2009

No Spin Zone!

I am a fairly quasi-conservative bloke, probably cut from the same cloth as my grandparents who came out of the Great Depression...I guess I am what is commonly referred to as a Yellow Dog Democrats. But I do have somewhat of a bleeding heart that stears me towards the left on a lot of social issues. I say this so that you understand, when it comes to business I am fairly conservative (probably more so than the average Fox News viewer). I think the market is probably one of the most efficient machines out there. You let the market work on our economy without government involvment and the problems would be fixed in the blink of an eye. Yes, many companies would fail, times would be tough, but it would give rise to another generation of entrepreneurs taking a crack at the "American Dream". Now for the point of this post. I get a email from CPA Daily everyday. It keeps me up to date on the business world, but note I am in the minority in my profession in many of my idealogies. Not what you would typically call the target audience. It is so slanted in its blurbs at times it drives me crazy. I hate it when news is spun to a certain point of view. That is probably why I don't like CNN or FOX News. They both are dripping with so much spin it is not even funny! The email I got today (see "Obama" below) drives me crazy. Since when is laissez-faire "increasing involvment". I guess we always need a reason to bag on a guy, not matter who is in office. President would definitely not fall in the box of "Best Job in the World".

P.S. This not to say that our government is not involved, I believe we have had so much government in the past 9 years that we don't know what its like to not have it. Not even a Republican could keep that from happening.

I am stepping off now.

Obama administration puts tighter grip on business JPMorgan Chase's decision to back off of a threat to make Chrysler repay all of the $6.9 billion it owed lenders illustrates the government's increasing involvement in the private sector, according to this article. JPMorgan backed off the threat after President Barack Obama signaled he would let Chrysler go bankrupt, in which case JPMorgan would have received little of the money it was owed.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a little history lesson from your dad. I think you may be confusing Yellow-dog Democrats and Blue-dog Democrats. You seem to fit the definition of a Blue-dog which is comprised of those Democratic Senators and House members in Washington who are more conservative in their views than most other Democrats and often have voted with the Republicans on some economic and social issues.

A true Yellow-dog Democrat is someone who would rather vote for a Yellow dog than vote for a Republican. I consider myself to lean in that direction as did the vast majority of people in Texas until the national Democratic party began to move toward supporting Civil Rights legislation in the late 1940's that culminated with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1948, in opposition to the party's pro civil rights stance, a number of racially motivated Southern Democrats opposed to the end of segregation and equality for Blacks, broke away from their party and created the Dixiecrat Party and ran Democratic Senator, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, for President in 1948 where he won the electoral votes of several States in the deep South. They never ran a candidate for President after that, but many of those who voted for Thurmond began to migrate to the Republican Party which courted them by opposing Civil Rights legislation. Kind of ironical when you remember that the Republican Party was founded by Northerners in 1854 primarily as an anti-slavery party, and it was the Democratic Party of the Southern States which supported Slavery and whose states tried to Secede when Republican, Abe Lincoln was elected President in 1860. It was, however, the actual passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in '64 and '65 that led Texas and the other Southern staes to begin to swing towards the Republican Party. From 1876, when Post-Civil War Reconstruction ended, until 1960
( 74 years) there was not a single Republican office holder at the national, state and most local levels in Texas. That year, Republican,John Tower was elected to the U.S. Senate special election to take the place of Lyndon Johnson who was elected Vice President that year on the Democratic ticket with John Kennedy, who was a strong advocate of Civil Rights.

Dad

Bean Counter said...

Maybe I was just confusing in my statement because that is basically the way I tend to vote. I tend to be swayed more by my bleeding heart side than my conservative business stances, but never the less they are there. If you read the link on Yellow Dog Democrats it would have taken you to the definition that I placed in the post for those that do not know along with historical reference points, etc. So in short I still believe I am a yeller dog!

Bean Counter said...

I almost forgot...thank you for the history lesson! I am certain some that read this blog if anyone does will find that little rant amusing and may if they are lucky take them back to a day they were probably 17 sitting in your class listening to your lecture. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if very many of my U.S. history students really listened to my lectures or, if they did, were influenced by them. but I still remember vividly the mid-1950s when I was a boy of around nine or ten and going to Fort Worth with my parents to shop and seeing the "Whites Only" water fountains, rest rooms and elevators in the stores and wondering why, and then, as a Junior in high school in the Spring of 1964, almost being flunked by my speech class teacher after participating in a class debate in which I and another student argued in the affirmative for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and my teacher, who was one of the most beautiful women teachers I ever had, but also an unadulterated unapologetic racist, got angry because we not only won the debate but let her know after the debate that we actually believed what we were arguing for, and last but not least, I remember my Senior year riding to Bridgeport from Denton every Monday morning with my dad so I could spend the week living with another family so I could graduate with my class and participate in athletics. On those Monday morning trips, we always met a school bus coming from Decatur headed to Denton to take the Black students from Decatur to Denton Fred Moore School, the all-Black jr. high and high school in the Denton district, because they were not allowed to attend school at Decatur Jr. High or High School. Those experiences from that period in my life have always guided me in my defense of minority groups from those who would deprive them of their basic rights of freedom and right to live their lives as they see fit.

Dad

Anonymous said...

I am a former student of "Dad's". I think I am more appreciative of his viewpoints now :-). However, he did teach me to drive a vehicle, which I must say has served me well in the course of life...