As you wish; would that I could persuade you otherwise. To be honest, however, I don't see nearly as much black-and-white as you do. Conservatives have their own pet oxen and they squeal just as loudly when those oxen are gored as do the moderates and the dems/libs/progs. Case in point: Ryan's changes to the retirement benefits for the military. Just about everyone cheered loudly when Ryan proposed exactly the same sorts of changes to social security back in 2012 and before, but when it comes to the military ox, the shrieking is as loud as were the cheers. The fact of the matter is, Ryan's cuts are sensible and should be implemented, and since everything has to start somewhere, and since the democrat/lib/prog resistance to those changes is least where the military is concerned, that was the best place to start. Not only that, it presented a very nice political optic: a true leader is one who is willing, when necessary, to gore his own ox first in order to convince everyone else that their oxen should be gored as well. But that opportunity was chucked, and Ryan villified, because conservatives don't want their oxen gored any more than do moderates or democrats/libs/progs.
I'm not so sure if it is really about either of us (or anyone else here) persuading each other of anything. I think that it is more of watching to see how things play out. I only state my opinions on what I see happening around me, and of course, my own personal thoughts. I just happen to believe that there is a much larger (and substantive) chasm across what we call the GOPe and "Tea Party" camps. I could certainly be proven wrong about that.
Regarding your Ryan "military cuts" point, I have three comments:
1. I understand your reasoning, it certainly makes sense in a rational world. I just don't see it working in our current environment, as what you describe would require a good faith bargaining effort from the other side. I simply don't see them being willing to make any substantive cuts on anything, regardless of how Paul Ryan or anyone else on the GOP side is willing to step forward first. They'll gladly agree to his cuts knowing that it will just enrage his constituency, and offer none of their own. That's how these folks play it. And if the GOP insists on taking this "I'll go first" attitude, especially in offering up retired military personnel and their families as the initial offering, it is just going to further alienate the base at a time that it can least afford to do so.
2. I agree that there are simply too many "scared cows" from both sides. It does disappoint me when I am in a TP crowd and all of the cries for cutting spending and making gubmint live within its means suddenly go silent when something near and dear to their hearts is brought onto the table. We will get nowhere fast with this prevailing attitude.
3. The amounts of these "cuts" are barely above the level of rounding errors when we consider the trillions being spent and the tens (some measures already put the unfunded liabilities in the $1nn Trillions level) of Trillions that have been racked up as "debt" (we can bicker on the nature of its classification but it is certainly there, the "promises" have been made, the payouts expected, and each year we add to it at an ever increasing rate). So I personally can't get all worked up about whether or not any of these tiny gestures ever take hold, or not.
So, we can all talk back and forth on these topics, and soon enough we will see how the cards are going to be played; I think that November 2014 will be illuminating. I think that we can agree that we certainly "fundamentally want the same thing," it is just a matter of seeing how the players on the field in DC go about deciding if the majority of them do as well.
