Switching Places

The other day Senator Ted Cruz (TX- Awesome) absolutely demolished Rep AOC (NY-knucklehead), the not so bright bulb from NY. She made the mistake of stating on Twitter that at some point, the democrat party and the Republican party switched places when it came to racism. As the linked Twichy article points out this has been so thoroughly debunked, that serious people don't even attempt to bring it up any more. Every once in a while though, someone drags this out in an attempt to discredit. Just like all the other times, someone has to do some educating. This time it was Sen Cruz. 

Click here to view the comment string on Sen. Cruz's tweets.

If you can't get directly to Twitter from the above link, click here to view the awesomeness on Twichy. Once there, click on any the comments and it should take you to the Twitter page.

While I certainly do know that "back in the day" neither party was completely virtuous when it came to race relations, history and common sense show the Republican party has a far superior track record. I won't rehash them here, Sen. Cruz did a bang up job.

While reading through the responses to Sen. Cruz it was truly amazing to see just how silly progressives can be.

Since I am not currently on Twitter I can't respond to some of the silliness, so I'll do that here. I'm not going to link to the individual responses nor am I going to provide the individual Twitter handles. Mostly I will paraphrase. 

Several people tried to say there was no economic boom during the Trump presidency. (Twitter threads can go off on a tangent) Do these people live under a rock? Actually, I think most of the people who discount the Trump economy were probably already doing quite well, regardless of who was president. What they fail to see is how well people on the lower socio-economic scale were doing while Trump was president. Wage growth was a very real thing. Jobs were so plentiful that companies that hired skilled and unskilled labor were forced to increase wages. This is how you grow the middle class. All subsections of Americans saw economic improvement. Unemployment rates for all saw record lows.

These same people would say jobs are plentiful now. Not really. Yes, it is true there many vacancies. However, these vacancies exist mostly in the service industry, which traditionally had a lower rate of pay. These vacancies are not occurring in areas of skilled labor, not to the extent they were available during the Trump administration. 

I can't help but feel sorry for those who believe the Trump tax cuts ONLY benefited "the rich." Yes, the rich (otherwise known as job creators) did benefit from the tax cuts. What they fail to acknowledge is that all levels saw their effective tax rates rates drop. And those of us on the lower end of the the pay scale saw a larger decrease than those at the top of the scale. This was by a wide margin. Again, I think this thought process comes from people who just have no idea what it is like down on the lower-middle class farm. Before you progressives get you panties in a wad, know this, there were some points about the Trump tax cuts that I am NOT a fan of. A lot of us in the lower economic status saw some of the write offs eliminated. We are not happy this happened. But I will say that at a personal level, my take home pay saw an increase after the tax cuts were implemented. Interestingly, the increased take home pay for most and the economic boom occurred nearly simultaneously. Coincidence?

Another issue that was mentioned several times was how private schools were the only benefactors of school choice. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ability to send your children to private school is only part of most school choice programs. Most programs want the parents to have the ability to use the money to send their kids to better performing schools, whether those schools are private, charter, or a better public school in the district. 

Oh yeah, one dude said that Christian schools should not be a part of a school choice program. He feels that sending kids to a Christian school is a form of child abuse. I wonder if he supports the surgical removal of particular items.

In my state of birth, a very progressive state, a school choice program was proposed a few years back. Within this program, parents would have the option to send their kids to schools of their choice. This choice didn't have to be within the district. It could be in another bordering district. In other words, a parent could remove their kid from the failing inter-city school and send them to a better performing school in the suburbs. These lilly white progressive communities rejected this plan by a wide margin. So tell me again how progressives support the marginalized. 

Another trend throughout the comments was how evil white people were (and apparently still are) for owning slaves nearly 175 years ago. Never mind Africans owned, purchased, and sold slaves in far greater numbers than white people did. Does not excuse the adborant practice of slavery, just noting that slavery was not exclusive to white Europeans. As nearly everyone knows, white Europeans were the first to eliminate slavery, a practice that still exists in parts of the world that aren't traditionally white. What bothers me most about this fact is that it is common knowledge. It is there for all to see and know. But progressives don't want to acknowledge this fact. It doesn't fit the narrative.

Lastly, so many comments were made about Republicans and Sen. Cruz that were not supported with facts or tidbits of any sort. I realize that Twitter has limited characters, but stating "Today’s Republican Party is the most racist party in the history of the country" without providing something, anything, to support that contention is lazy.

There are several more examples of progressives not knowing what they are talking about. Click the links above and read them. It'll make you chuckle and be sad at the same time.