Here is an honest picture of the election. results broken down by county instead of by Electorial State.
My reading of that fiasco, is that a piece of well meaning legislation was hijacked by the mob on Wall St, and exploited to suit their own greedy ends. But I’m probably wrong about that too.
So it would appear, by your reckoning, that everyone who goes out to work, but isn’t paid enough to live one, is a parasite. If the employers who pay them below subsistence wages, actually paid them a living wage, they wouldn’t need tax credits. Or am I missing something?
Vic
So let’s map population density onto that map. There are an awful lot of those counties that are mostly empty space.
There’s been some misleading characterization about that 47% number.
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That 47% is the number of Americans who didn’t pay income tax. They’re still paying other taxes. So to claim that 47% of Americans are paying no taxes at all is incorrect.
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There is a desire to paint a picture of the 47%: welfare queen freeloading Obama supporters. The majority of that 47% (again, keeping in mind this is only income tax) are actually retirees. Senior citizens are certainly not a homogenous voting block for Obama. The next two demographics within that 47% are students (who are again not a solid voting block for Obama) and adults who are working, but earned less than $20k (keep in mind, this latter group is still paying payroll taxes). Finally, a tiny, tiny sliver off that 47% make up the poor that Wock hates so much. Less than 1% actually.
Even so, 47% may be a little high, but we are still pulling out of a major recession. That’s what happens when so many lose their jobs and homes. It’s not some evil scheme hatched by Dems to put everyone on welfare. I want people to move off welfare, get jobs, and get on with rebuilding their lives. But alas, I’ve learned you’ll never persuade somebody so fixed in their ideology.
Which reminds me, suggesting George Lucas, a self-declared anti-capitalist and liberal supporter of Obama, sold off his shares of LucasArts because he fears Obama Nation coming made me laugh really hard. Thank you.
Edit: I just read where you are insisting the 47% do not include the people I’ve mentioned above. You are wrong, Wock. http://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/dependency-and-romneys-47-percenters/
That’s exactly what I thought, when I clocked that map, on my way to bed.
A very well presented argument Young’n’. Uncle vic’s proud of y 
’
The other major winner was mathematics - or more precisely, Nate Silver and his algorithms. I’ve followed US elections since 1976, and I’ve never seen the results forecast so accurately. When others said the margins were too tight to predict, and he was just a Democrat stooge, he stuck to his guns. He called not only the presidential race right, but also all the senatorial races. Now some people suggest he just got lucky. I don’t think so. But it is humbling, and perhaps dismaying, that complex psychological interactions can be so successfully reduced to a few formulae on a laptop.
Mathematically-based forecasts have had a very bad recession, but in Silver’s case they had an excellent Presidential election.
I wonder how long it will be before we get to Issac Asimov’s Franchise?
Not wishing to appear to be offtopicking…but…thats how I feel when I talk to folk about the weird and utterly bizarre, so-called coincidences, I’ve encountered as I’ve gone through life, hinting at the hand of some indefinable otherworldly entity at work They regurgitate some mathematical formula they’ve read about, that proves the inevitability or probability factor for this…or…that, etc., etc., etc! Really pisses me off 
Vic
My 75 year old mother, retired from being a house-wife/stay-at-home-mom to me and my deceased (but previously retired) father, an hourly-wage-earner and National Guard veteran of the first Gulf War are or were part of that 47%.
Tread lightly when you start suggesting that either one of them was lazy and should have gotten off their asses to go back to work after a lifetime of doing so. If you want to convince me that my politics are misguided, you are doing a piss-poor job of it.
Also, how did the Democrats get the bulk of the blame for creating Mortgage Backed Securities and the Toxic Assets that they begot? That was enabled by the loosening of regulations and scaling back of government oversight on the banking industry… hardly the stereotypical Democratic way of governing.
Theoretically not long I guess. Presumably though in practice we’d face the electoral equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat*.
*Fluff, don’t read.
Already have Mr Hugh. That’s second cousin, thrice removed (in an arse-wards direction), Jóhannes. Bit of an airhead, actually. Got the family a bad name at the time.
Take care
Fluff
And here is a map of the USA representing population, not land area, of the red/blue voting states.
ONe thing we can all agree upon? No more attack ads, mailings, and robocalls for another 4 years!
Finally a rational conversation on the election results. 
As an anecdote my sister-in-law is a high school teacher in Broward County – yes I live in Florida but I was born in the UK so maybe it balances out 
– Her students on Wednesday were all smiles and when asked why explained they would now get more food stamps! On the difference between the candidates – Obama gives us free stuff – Romney wants to take it away!
Which inexorably leads to Robert Heinlein – TANSTAAFL. And Margaret Thatcher – Sooner or later socialism runs out of other people’s money.
So let me know when we’re going to run all those freeloaders out of Washington and I’ll be with you because as George Orwell ended up – as they looked through the windows of the farmhouse there was no difference between the men and the animals
I love the idea that the author of Down and Out in Paris and London and the Road to Wigan Pier would have voted for Mitt Romney…
WOT?!! WHERE?!!
“Welcome to the Monkey House”, Mr freeborn.
Take care
Fluff
Are we to take this anecdote as proof that 1) Obama gives us free stuff and 2) all the people that voted for Obama want free stuff?
'Cause I can quote you people that did not vote for Obama because of the color of his skin, but I’m not going to claim that’s the only reason people voted for Romney.
This is some of the base political propaganda we buy into. People must’ve voted for Obama because they want free stuff. People must’ve voted for Romney because they are racist. I suppose it’s good that we can openly have these kinds of debates. I just wish we would anchor ourselves to reality more often and quit looking for the bogeyman.
I know. Naive.