Seriously, this bunch of debunked crap is the best you could come up with? Surely you are aware, aren't you, that if you take the total paid in taxes by the good people of West Virginia, versus the total of federal expenditures in West Virginia, you'll find that they are subsidized by the rest of the country to the tune of over $2 to every $1 they contribute. For Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi it's over $3! That's total taxes paid, which includes the impact of the now mostly gone deduction in federal tax for local and property tax. If you made the tax system "fair" so that on a per capita basis people in West Virginia were paying the same as those in CA and NY you would absolutely decimate WV! Their taxes would double, triple in the South!
You've referred to me in negative terms and claimed I am being disingenuous too many times for me to continue this conversation with you, but I will address this one point and write a final bit to you after that then you can carry on as you see fit.
This, what you have posted above, is the "Red states should be thankful for the blue states" argument that was created during the Kerry Presidential run to shame conservatives, and it's one of the worst examples of victim blaming there is, at once forcing people who don't want "help" to take it, and then shaming them for accepting the money they're forced to accept.
Example, do you REALLY think that western states want the federal government to own such large amounts of the real estate in their states ? There are ranchers in those areas who literally started an insurrection a few years ago to stop that practice, that's how passionate (and wrong headed in my opinion) they are about this issue. Yet not only would you support taking MORE of their land to protect this species or that, or to make a new national park, or for whatever reasons .. but you'd then turn right around and claim that the money you were sending to maintain those parks was proof positive that they were actually babes sucking on the teat, that they couldn't get along if it weren't for your generous policies.
Do you think that the federal government builds interstate highways, etc, because rural people just couldn't get around without them ? No, it's so the people who exploit the resources out in those red states can get their goods and materials back to the cities. Most of the money being spent in rural areas for water projects, forestry, highway construction, the list goes on and on, is ultimately for your own benefit. Do you really think all those pipelines you're so proud of spending money on are helping the people who own the land the pipelines are going across ? Do you think all the people who live down range of the runways you build when you subsidize airports are excited to hear jets flying overhead ever day ? None of this is really there to help rural people .. it's there to help YOU, to put food and water on YOUR table, to make sure YOU can easily fly from where you live to whatever other city you want to fly to, to make sure that gravel, lumber, etc, is delivered so YOU can have a home to live in, ... do you see forests and lumberjacks making lumber in your suburb anywhere ? Do you see strip mines outside your window ? You are the recipient of these things, and yes, the federal government does spend money to see that you have them, and it spends a lot of that money in red states.
You're so closed minded, so SURE that you're a hero, that I know I can't even have a discussion about stuff like this with you without you insulting me every few minutes like you've already been doing. You'd look me right in the eye and claim that I should have gratitude to you because you pay taxes and vote to send that money out to Nevada and completely neglect to mention that it's because you're funding a nuclear waste disposal site called Yucca Mountain, a project that the residents of that state are ferociously opposed to. Their vote AGAINST things like this IS the proof they don't want your "help". President Obama pushed that project (you don't believe you go read about it ..) and it was the new administration who stopped the project cold, stopped the boring machine, etc ... but I bet that isn't even on your radar, you'd rather sit around and talk about how racists, misogynistic, and hateful people who don't agree with you are.
The reason I'm not going to debate with you anymore is that there's no point to it, it's a waste of time. You aren't receptive to actually talking about anything, you're just waiting for your next chance to lecture and explain ... so go ahead and do that with me.
I'll end on one final note, the same as before .. if you ever get truly curious, I mean REALLY curious and objectively want to know why the country has devolved into rural people vs. urban people, why there are now "red states" and "blue states" (which only happened in my lifetime), and if you ever want to actually understand why rural people are voting against you, sit down and with an open heart and mind listen to what they are saying. Not what you think they're saying, not waiting until they say one little catch word that sends you into your programmed responses, not holding your ears until they stop talking so you have the chance to tell them they're wrong, etc .. but actually listening to what they're saying.
Rural people aren't stupid, evil, insane, or being misled when they vote the way they do. You have to start with basic respect to understand why that is happening, and that respect starts with accepting 1 basic premise ... that rural people have considered the information around them, made thoughtful decisions about it, and are now voting against you because it is actually IN THEIR BEST INTERESTS to vote against you. If you can't accept that basic premise, that they are truly acting in their own best interests, then you can never understand their reasons, nor can you understand how to win them over.
And that includes winning me over ...
