And the winner is...

Toyman01 wrote: I was worried when I started this thread that it would dissolve into a bashing, name calling thread. I appreciate that it didn't. This has to be the most intelligent group of people I have ever associated with. The ability to have a discussion is a valuable resource for all of us. Being able to see another persons point of view is the first step to compromise. Maybe one day our elected officials will be as enlightened. Unfortunately I have my doubts. They are more like a bunch of two year old kids fighting over a piece of candy. One can dream.

When all is said and done, each side needs the other. You have the visionaries who come up with the ideas. The Democrats. You have the realists who pick apart the ideas that are too expensive or too complicated to work in real world in order to ground the process, The Republicans.

Kind of like in a car company where engineers design a gas turbine Miata and the accountants and the attorneys then come in to kill the design because the engine compartment gets way too hot to be safe when somebody opens the hood, nobody is going to pay $100,000 for a freakin Miata, and if the company actually built such a thing they would go broke. Then the engineers go back to the drawing board and come up with a cheaper more conventional engine that will result in a safe car that people can actually afford that the company would make a profit on.

Toyman01 wrote: I was worried when I started this thread that it would dissolve into a bashing, name calling thread. I appreciate that it didn't. This has to be the most intelligent group of people I have ever associated with. The ability to have a discussion is a valuable resource for all of us. Being able to see another persons point of view is the first step to compromise. Maybe one day our elected officials will be as enlightened. Unfortunately I have my doubts. They are more like a bunch of two year old kids fighting over a piece of candy. One can dream.

You mean I didn't tell you that you were a lowlife sleazeball and your momma dresses you funny?

I look at some of the absolute idiocy which happens at the local level (like the city manager who, with his son, embezzled a bunch of money), the state level (Gov. Sanford, need I say more?), the Fed level (Obama's dismal performance) and I am continually reminded of the Peter Principle:

The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.