With all due respect, Rebecca, you've mentioned this "proposed legislation" several times on these boards, and your posts are the only mention I've ever seen of it. I did spend a good bit of time searching for confirmation of it awhile back, including searching HSDLA's archives, and couldn't find anything. I don't mean to doubt your memory on this, but I also would hate to see people repeat as fact one person's undocumented recollection about legislation as proof that Obama is or was anti-homeschooling, especially without even looking at the legislation in question. I know in my state I've seen homeschoolers start letter writing campaigns against legislation that I have no objection to myself.

I've always been a purist about voting on election day....but this year, with 3 small boys and, I'm guessing, LONG lines, I just can't face it. If I just had one kid, I'd make him suck it up for the sake of the lesson in democracy, but as it is I'm far too outnumbered :D

They kinda bother me. I am very hesitant to criticize other people's name choices, though (at least in public :D) since my kids have pretty funky names themselves. But, for me, I like standard spellings and names that are unusual but still have a solid history as names.

Well, okay then. I suspect this might be one of those areas in which a search for common ground would be an exercise in frustration ;).

I'm not talking about FDR, I'm talking about Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who was an early proponent of such socialist policies as the estate tax and the progressive income tax. http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php It's certainly true that the highest marginal rate made a big leap under FDR (to levels much higher than what we have today or would have under Obama's proposal (which would return us to 2001 levels)), but it had been just as high in the teens and early twenties.

Have you read the factcheck entry about his birth certificate? http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

I am not upset that anyone is calling Obama a socialist for supporting a progressive tax structure (which is what this thread is about) as long as they are also willing to go on record calling Teddy Roosevelt, every president since Teddy Roosevelt, 85% of American economists, and nearly every country in the world socialist. Are you willing to do that? If not, you're kidding yourself. Or at least completely misunderstanding economic theory and political history. Which parts of the Constitution do you feel Democratic economic positions are at odds with?

Although to make this claim effectively, she would first need to point to any instance where Judy had actually done so.

edited because I must do something else instead.

certainly it's simplistic. I just thought it was interesting, not a replacement for more rigorous scholarship on the subject. Bartels' Unequal Democracy gives a much more thorough analysis of why the economy has historically fared much better under Democrats, I understand.

I like this op-ed as a counterpoint: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opinion/20081014_OPCHART.html

Again, it is fine to argue that this is socialism, as long as one is willing to call Teddy Roosevelt the granddaddy of socialism in America and say that the US has been a socialist country for a century and that virtually every country in the world is socialist and say that 85% of American economists favor socialism. If you want to say that every president since Teddy Roosevelt has been a socialist, then go ahead (as far as I know. The highest marginal tax rate was much, much higher than it is now throughout the 40's, 50's, and didn't start to come down until the 60's. I am not aware of any president, of any party, who has attempted to get rid of progressive taxation, but I could be missing someone). But recognize that THIS is the view that represents a radical departure from US economic history. Not to say there's anything wrong with proposing a radical departure, but that's what it is.

I don't know to what extent I buy into the nutrition argument, but I've found the price to be at least comparable to buying whole wheat flour at the store, if not somewhat better. And to me it's a lot more convenient, because I can store so much of it at a time and not have to keep going to the store. Wheat berries stay good indefinitely. Also, it just makes me feel kind of cool :)

thanks--yeah, I have looked at the sample, and I like what I see....I was just wondering if anyone had used it for the whole year and how it worked out for them. I'm mainly drawn to it not for the dictation, but because it looks like it starts teaching close reading to kids, and that's certainly the kind of mindset I'd like to get them into for later, more advanced literature studies in high school. And at the same time, I like that it seems relatively low key. I want to start introducing DS to literary terms and concepts and reading critically, but I don't want something super formal or time consuming. thanks for the responses! anyone else?

Incidentally, take a look at the news about what the Bush administration is doing today if you want to see the government doing something that's actually socialist. Nationalizing the banks=socialist. Progressive tax structure=not.

I remain perplexed by how many people insist on redefining socialism so that virtually the entire modern world is socialist and the US has been so for upwards of a century.

I think John McCain is going to kill all the puppies if he becomes president. Hide your puppies!

Or maybe you're saying that people in Congress always vote in their economic self interest, because they're a special breed? :tongue_smilie:

You've said this before, and it doesn't make sense to me. People vote to give themselves tax increases all the time. Are you saying that no one making more than $250,000 a year is voting for Obama unless they're planning to cheat on their taxes? My "average people" in-laws are stalwart Democrats and are safely in that range. People vote on a lot of things aside from economic self interest--Republicans and Democrats.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/obama-clarifies.html Was Reagan a socialist?

It would be interesting, actually, to see a study showing how/whether worker productivity is affected by tax rates. I searched right quick and found something indicating that US workers are most productive, but only if you don't factor in hours worked. I.e., they're more productive because they work longer hours (I don't consider the sacrifice of family to the marketplace to be a good thing). When you look at productivity per hour, the US falls behind. Overall, the study didn't seem to look at taxation as a factor. http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200709/labor.html

An interesting chart on the history of socialism in America: http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php At least Obama's not as socialist as Eisenhower.

If it's socialism, then nearly every country in the world is socialist, and the US has a long and proud history of socialism. A progressive tax structure is not a radical idea. It's a system favored by the vast majority of US economists. He's talking about weighting tax cuts more heavily to the middle classes than to the wealthy. You can argue that that's socialism, but to do so is to call Teddy Roosevelt a socialist.