Not New Mexico. Most of the higher income households are in the northern part of the state around Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas, which makes up most of the 2 million people population and tax base. Southern New Mexico did not vote for Obama. Not that it made a difference. There are plenty of counties in other blue states with larger income and population than the entire state of New Mexico. The median income for New Mexico is misleading. There is a wide gap between people in the poverty level and even the median income. And from the median income to the folks working at places like Sandia Labs, Los Alamos, and so forth. New Mexico is actually as bad off as Mississippi in every aspect of government.

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There is a wide gap between people in the poverty level and even the median income.

This is the kind of social problem that worries me. It can lead to resentment (gosh, I wonder why that might be?), hate, instability, etc. I dare say it DOES, rather than it "can", in fact.

This is why I CONCLUDE that helping others pull themselves up is in my own selfish long-term interest. Now, I grew up on the wrong side of this equation, I remember being poor, hungry, and without enough money to go to the sock hop or the basketball game (except that I got a job running the PA system, who woulda thunk??? ) and you know, it sucked. A date? Forget it, that takes cash. For those in the same situation, it sucks now. It will always suck, and I am very sympathetic to people who want to work their way out, or those who just want to survive.

One of the very disturbing things I watched in my high school is that of the 7 smartest people I knew, only one made it past early adulthood in good shape. One other survived. (not counting me there, please) 5 are dead. Dead.
What a (*&(* waste.

"Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed than one in adversity."

- - - - -

"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

- - - -

"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. "*

Plutarch

This quote is sometimes stated as:"When the imbalance between the rich and the poor is at it's greatest, the fall of the Republic is not far behind."

FYI, the imbalance between the rich and the poor, today, is greater than the greatest ever known in the western world, and that is the record of the time of Feudal 13th Century Europe.

The Holy Grail, to paraphrase-

Mud/shit digger #1:'Ow 'd you know 'e's The King?"

Mud/shit diggger#2:'Cos 'e doesn't got shit on 'em."

Buddha...You missed two things...any correlation between education spending and results (Washington DC is the highest per pupil spending and lowest results and the idea that the folk receiving the good wages in the blue state might be largely the red minority...

Overlay the smoking and obesity rates on those counties and it gets even sadder. To paraphrase Sarah Palin "The dumber, poorer, and less educated you are, the more you're my kinda peoples!"

I personally know four people, all consistent Republican voters, and high income earners, who voted for Obama after Palin got attached to McCain. All those sore losers out there can thank her personally for making sure the GOP lost the election.

And now the GOP seems to think that bringing out the worst in those who have the least is a good way to reinforce democracy. Huh? Name one time in history that inciting the masses to call for blood ever was actually good for anyone but the guys up top? That's not free speech nor democracy. It's how we had lynchings, witch hunts, the McCarthy red scare, and the Oklahoma city bombing. On the Left all through the 60's-70's you had radicals bombing cities in Europe, riots all over the world. That sure didn't get us anywhere either...

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I personally know four people, all consistent Republican voters, and high income earners, who voted for Obama after Palin got attached to McCain.

I was vacillating until Palin showed up and started to poison the well. That pretty much made the decision for me. I fear that John McCain will not last 4 years, and "President Palin" just doesn't carry the same sort of feeling as "President Whitman" or (formerly) "President Fenwick". There are several obvious good republican women candidates, Christie Whitman stands out among them. So. Where in the name of creation did they dig up Palin? I mean, she's on the same level as Marty Palin when she talks, and she doesn't do it on purpose.

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There is a wide gap between people in the poverty level and even the median income.

This is the kind of social problem that worries me. It can lead to resentment (gosh, I wonder why that might be?), hate, instability, etc. I dare say it DOES, rather than it "can", in fact.

This is why I CONCLUDE that helping others pull themselves up is in my own selfish long-term interest. Now, I grew up on the wrong side of this equation, I remember being poor, hungry, and without enough money to go to the sock hop or the basketball game (except that I got a job running the PA system, who woulda thunk??? ) and you know, it sucked. A date? Forget it, that takes cash. For those in the same situation, it sucks now. It will always suck, and I am very sympathetic to people who want to work their way out, or those who just want to survive.

One of the very disturbing things I watched in my high school is that of the 7 smartest people I knew, only one made it past early adulthood in good shape. One other survived. (not counting me there, please) 5 are dead. Dead.
What a (*&(* waste.

We have to play with the cards we're dealt in life. I didn't have an easy upbringing myself. Nevertheless, I live better than my parents did as well as Mrs. Sanford's. That was their goal. We don't have any children so as you can imagine we pay a butt-load of state and federal income tax each year. Not complaining. We also donate to local organizations nearly twice as much. If I ever get to where I'm still productive in life and forget about people that are down-and-out than I have become as useless as Clifton. Except for single-mothers, of course. The government can take care of them.

Somebody had an interesting story about a life altering epiphany based on a record he heard. That was a good story. I starting working my way out of the city the first time I heard, "In The City" by The Eagles. It played a small part in changing my life forever in a sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_anJN-MRig8&feature=related

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I was vacillating until Palin showed up and started to poison the well.

She didn't poison the well and does her share of helping people on her own free-will. I suspect you don't like her because she is a Christian. Those Christians. Fucking assholes are helping people and not asking for anything in return and then they show up in politics and poison the well.

Don't get me wound up, Buddha....

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Buddha...You missed two things...any correlation between education spending and results (Washington DC is the highest per pupil spending and lowest results and the idea that the folk receiving the good wages in the blue state might be largely the red minority...

I don't think anything we look at will give 100% correlation. Exceptions proving the rule, and all.

If the blue states are so undesirable, un-American, and at odds with red party values, then why would they have so damn red citizens with high incomes?

Plus, all those red states...you'd think they'd be full of red party high wage earners hanging with their homies!

Good thing those tolerant red people like blue cities and states so much!

Unrelated note: Reading the last issue of the Economist - they estimate that Medicare in underfunded to the tune of 36 trillion bucks over the next 25 years. Imagine how that number will look with expanding that kind of entitlement to everyone.

Maybe instead of talking about expanding health care, we should be talking about how to get rid of it as an entitlement altogether and letting free market forces come to bear.

A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money!

Exceptions! There is no correlation between money spent and educated students. In fact the results seem to be a direct opposite...the more money wasted on the union the worse the result...

Perhaps they have the red voters to keep the blue voters from starving to death...

"This is the kind of social problem that worries (you)." Because it can lead to resentment... hate, instability, etc."

What kind of "social problem" doesn't lead to the above? You pretend to be some kind of social empath, based on abstract statistical maps that sanitize the sloppy particulars that characterize reality.

Okay. Your "helping others pull themselves up" is certainly laudable. What, pray tell, are you doing to tangibly throw all of these unfortunates a rope?

You remember "...being poor, hungry, and without enough money to go to the sock hop..."

You may have lucked out. Think about it.

How did you know they were the "7 smartest people..."? What, pray tell, is "good shape"?

Since I don't know you, all of this to me reads like gratuitous hand-wringing. You know nothing about the poverty level or what causes it. You read "maps" and infer "social problems."

The only sad thing about death is the publicly displayed guilt of those who have to live on and agonize over it.

I think you need a job. A REAL job. I am sure there is a high-paying one available somewhere in the current political administration. You could be the Secretary of Social Conscience. I am sure Timmy and Ben could print you up a few trillion just to get started...

There is no cure for Nature. Under the dominion of Nature, people suffer and die for myriad reasons. Maps merely make the statistics of the process visually neat.

My experiences have been the opposite of yours. All of the "smartest people" I knew in high school went on to lead successful lives, with little or no help from the "Government." Missing the Sock Hop wasn't a deterrent against their respective drives toward success. The dumb ones did dumb things, and Nature punished them -- after, of course, they and their spokesmen decried the injustice of it all.

You ran the PA system. My suggestion? President Obama is getting some bad press. He needs a new PA system operator. I am sure the job pays well. Go for it.

"Life is a bitch," so says the T-shirt, "and then you die." I happen to think life is wonderful. And then you die. Eh. Big deal.

I'd rather die than get bailed out of anything. And I had it just as tough as you did. I didn't go to any Sock Hops, either. Poor me.

If you are poor, you just get a job. They are out there. Of course, they don't all pay $50,000 a year (with "benefits"...), but you take what you can get and move on. Undignified work pays for your subsistence, and you get to survive and move up later. Progress or die.

If you were "smart," you beat the game. That is what "smart" means. If you scored well on tests and couldn't handle the emotional obstacles Nature throws at EVERYBODY, then Nature picked you off, along with the rest of the stragglers.

Money wouldn't have helped your doomed friends. It might have prolonged the process of deterioration, but who likes to see the doomed suffer?

And what is so bad about death? Hey. We all do it...

Just live while you are alive. Whining won't help. Nature puts whiners out of their misery, and Nature is merciful, in this respect.

Happy tunes. Dirges and all.

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Happy tunes. Dirges and all.

Figures, your position can be summed up in a narcissistic "I've got mine, to heck with everyone else".

It's clear you fail completely to understand how that works against your own long-term selifish interests.

Finally, it appears that you couldn't tell the difference between ad-argumentum and ad-hominem if your life depended on it.

You, and people like you, were the downfall of Rome, the Moorish civilization, and a lot of other civilizations around the world of lesser note.

And yet you fail to learn from history, and care not a bit that you are teaching everyone everywhere to hate you. You hold is a stupid, self-defeating, ignorant position.

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I was vacillating until Palin showed up and started to poison the well.

She didn't poison the well

Simply arguing against heaps of evidence does nothing for your case. Yes, she poisoned the well (in the campaign) well and truly and thoroughly, making all sorts of lunatic-fringe accusations, whacko claims that are one step short of some kind of nutjob conspiracy theory, and more. So, your denial is just, well, sad. When she stood up there, calling for Republican Jihad, pumping her fist in the air, it looked like the 1930's all over again.

Since everyone who bothered to look could see this well-poisoning, and WIN AT ALL COSTS behavior, your initial assertion is refuted, and the rest of your insane, gabbling speculation is shown to be the work of a delusional crank.

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If you are poor, you just get a job. They are out there.

This statement alone shows that you are completely, totally, and utterly insane.

Actually, I happen to agree with Clifton's dissertation for a change. It was quite lucid.

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...making all sorts of lunatic-fringe accusations, whacko claims that are one step short of some kind of nutjob conspiracy theory, and more.

Not calling you a liar making all sorts of lunatic-fringe accusations, wacko claims that are one step short of some kind of nut-job conspiracy theories, and more, but a few nice examples would be helpful.

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Actually, I happen to agree with Clifton's dissertation for a change. It was quite lucid.

Lucid? All you have to do is "get a job", all you have to do is throw away the long-term for the short-term? All you have to do is "get a job" in late 1970's Northeast Ohio, where 50,000 first-earner jobs disappeared between 1970 and 1990?

His rant is anything BUT lucid. It fails to understand the basics of the time, it fails to understand the lessons of history, and it breaks up comments into selective quoting that is then exploiting for nothing more than ad-hominem attacks.

In short, it is childish, delusional, and counter to both historical evidence and modern-day fact.

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Not calling you a liar making all sorts of lunatic-fringe accusations, wacko claims that are one step short of some kind of nut-job conspiracy theories, and more, but a few nice examples would be helpful.

You ARE in the USA? Yes? You DID watch the presidental campaign? Yes? You DID see her fanning the hate-flames? YES?

Helloooooo?????????

If you can't see what the person said and did, I can't help you.

Hey, calm down. Watch Dragnet. Listen to some Allman Bros. You've eaten the brown acid, man.

Lamont: [holding a clear glass of water with Alka-Seltzer] Hey JJ?

JJ: [tripping on brown acid and sweating profusely] Yeah, whatcha want now?

Lamont: Look what I got here.

JJ: [looking at the glass of water] Yeah, what is it?

Lamont: It's battery acid.

JJ: Whatch goin ta do wit it?

Lamont: [throws glass of water in JJ's face]

JJ: [covering his face screaming and rolling on the floor] AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! MOTHERRRRRRRRRFUCKEEEEEER AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Yeah, they need a song called, "Battery Acid".

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Hey, calm down. Watch Dragnet. Listen to some Allman Bros. You've eaten the brown acid, man.

I think you're drawing way too heavily on your own experiences there, buddy.

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Yeah, they need a song called, "Battery Acid".

Sanford was a chemist
Sanford is no more
What he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4.

Burma Shave