I know this is serious, and I don’t want to make light of these threats, but this made me LOL:

On the inside, police say there was a picture of Obama, a loaded gun, a bullet-proof vest and tips on how to build bombs.

A picture of Obama? Was he afraid he was going to forget what the President looks like? Or can he just not tell black people apart?

With Beck, the unspoken but ever-present anti-Semitic themes of his fear-mongering are probably a result of expedience. Beck has never been one to reinvent the wheel.

Beck, with his Mormon testimony act, is a cynical showman who understands perfectly well his audience: the kind of suckers who think numismatic gold will have greater value than bullion in post-apocalyptic America. Drawing out the “socialism of fools” (per Bebel) makes perfect sense in that context.

And come to think of it, in the howling wasteland of a collapsed America, there might be people who appreciate numismatic gold: outposts of crafty Jew moneychangers like Soros who (as any reader of the Protocols knows) value gold above almost all else.*

Speaking of Soros, I read this article this morning:

George Soros, the billionaire financier who was an energetic Democratic donor in the last several election cycles but is sitting this one out, is not feeling optimistic about Democratic prospects.

[...]

Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche.”

At first I found this disheartening. But then I thought, not a bad way to spend his money, given the Dems’ craven and incompetent behaviour since achieving their majority. If we’re gonna be stuck with Tea Party clowns and GOP kleptocrats and fantasists in positions of power, better to strengthen liberal and progressive NGOs and lobbying groups.

—-

* the exceptions being the blood of Christian children and Christian girls to ravish.

“Obviously, most people who eat Glenn Beck’s shit all the time aren’t going to commit acts of violence.”

Most Romans didn’t execute the former carpenter who became the leader of a Jewish cult in Palestine.

Most famous Southern actors didn’t shoot the President of the United States.

Most Serbs seeking independence didn’t shoot the Arch-Duke of Austria.

Most ex-Marines didn’t assassinate a president in Dallas.

Most Southern bigots didn’t shoot an important Black leader during the Civil Rights era.

Most ex-Gulf War vets didn’t make a bomb from fertilizer and diesel fuel and blow up a day-care center in a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Most rabid anti-choicers haven’t entered a church during services and shot a doctor providing late-term abortions.

But all it takes is one…

There’s an article on Greg Laden’s Blog on scienceblogs.com about David Mabus showing up to a convention where PZ Myers (one of his favorite spam targets, long since killfiled) was speaking. Not necessarily related to the President (Mabus is Canadian) but relevant in terms of potential terrorists who bear watching…

“A picture of Obama? Was he afraid he was going to forget what the President looks like? Or can he just not tell black people apart?”

If you’re going to get down on your knees, face Washington DC, and get your 2-Minutes Hate for The Kenyan Usurper on 5-times a day, you need a little inspiration to fully identify the object of your hatred…

As soon as the entire right went mad after Obama was elected, I know that someone, somewhere was going to do something moronic and try to hurt or kill somebody. Why are we plagued by morons with guns every time a Democratic President is in the White House. A large proportion of the American population has gone mad with rage every time a Democratic President is in office since FDR. FDR had the Liberty League. Truman, the Dixiecrats. JFK and LBJ, the Birchers. Clinton, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and Obama, the Tea Party. It just never ends.

  Gracchus at 2: I’m with Chait’s take on Soros.

  http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/78296/soros-loser

I don’t think that the Democratic Party acted incompetently considering what they were dealing with.

I’m afraid this subject will not be properly addressed until it is too late… most of the media seems pretty gun-shy (no pun intended) about calling out the extremist Teahadi rhetoric for what it is.  The silly fear behind much of their reticence is that they’ll get branded as “the liberal media” if they discusss what most rational people know, that Tea Klux Klan icons like Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck work to agitate the violent attitudes held by many of their loyalists.

I’m not generally a fan of Tweety, but I thought his MSNBC special a few months ago, “The Rise of th New Right”, cast an important light on the frightening side of what people like Dick Armey, the Koch brothers, and Sarah Palin are building.  Rachel Maddow has her own MSNBC documentary airing on October 25th, “The Assassination of Dr. Tiller”, which I’m sure will present an accounting of that tragedy that implicates many more people than the sick and disturbed gunman Scott Roeder.

I’m pretty worried about the upcoming midterm elections. That the Democrats will very likely lose the House and that their Senate lead is probably going to be shaved down to a single-digit advantage isn’t precisely what bothers me the most, it’s the fact that so many Democratic politicians are going to misread the results as a public call for Congress to lurch very far to the right. The message they should (but won’t) take away from this November is that when they refuse to use the mandate they have been given, they’ll quickly see it taken away when so many of their formerly enthusiastic supporters don’t bother voting out of disgust.

The reality that Robin Carnahan will probably not be elected to take the seat of retiring U.S. Senator Kit Bond becoming painfully clear earlier when I saw a map of the states where the Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton are going to be campaigning in the next 21 days. Missouri wasn’t on the list for any of them, and I imagine that’s because Roy Blunt is maintaining a double digit lead here. The DNC is all but throwing in the towel and conceding to Blunt in Missouri, and the irony is that as the former GOP Whip under Tom Delay, Blunt epitomizes everything the Teahadis claim is broken with Congress. Which provides only further evidence that the TP is not an independent populist uprising but merely the grating shrieks of the most racist, misogynist, homophobic, and hateful members of the GOP base.

I’m afraid things are going to get worse before they get better.

Are there any statistics about a recent increase in rightwing terrorists? It certainly seems like there has been an uptick, but it would be nice to see the uptick quantified.

Whats happening now sort of seems like what the early 90s were like, only not (yet) nearly as bad. I could be mistaken however, as I was a very small child at the time.

alysia:

I’m not sure how much is public, but the Secret Service has been *extremely* busy since the election.

Murrow Fan, is there any indication that things are going to get better? Things have been getting worse for a long time and nothing is changing the dynamic. No amount of evidence seems to win the liberal cause. No amount of disasters seem to deter the rightists from their beliefs. Do we really just have to wait for the demographics to change and endure all the damage that they not only inflict on the United States but the rest of the world in the meantime? It will take several elections cycles to reverse all the damages and the “good guys” will have to maintain power for the entirety of the time period. Since most people want instant reversal of the effects of decades of bad policy, this is unlikely.

Oh I am sure, Brian.

Lee—not to thread jack, but I don’t think what Soros is doing seems that fool-hearty. I am normally in agreement with you over hating on elected Democrats, and I think that liberals should definitely all vote for Democrats, even if they have to hold their noses. Murrow Fan is completely correct that the harder the dems lose, the more that the party and especially the media will scream “center right country” and everyone will take a big step to the right. But from what I understand from the article you linked, Soros is putting his money into liberal causes which should work to 1) create more Dem votes and 2) make the Republicans afraid to go against popular liberal parties and maybe take a turn at spinelessness for once.

Of course, the Soros-method may prove to be disastrous in the short term, and conservatives can do a hell of a lot of damage and overton window-shifting in the short-term.

I typed 11 while you were typing 10, so it wasn’t meant as a response to 10.

But the Republicans seem to be so good at maintaining loyalty and basing their loyalty on identity more than results. Liberals get so discouraged when decades of bad policy aren’t reversed overnight, but Republicans seem to have absolutely no need for results. They don’t have to actually decrease the number of abortions or reduce government spending or do any of the shit they claim to be about in order to win loyalty. They just have to other the right people and they have absolute support. It is one of the things that make liberals better people, but it also makes us frustrating as fuck to organize.

Murrow Fan, is there any indication that things are going to get better? Things have been getting worse for a long time and nothing is changing the dynamic. No amount of evidence seems to win the liberal cause.

I just don’t know. I was disappointed when Blanche Lincoln won her primary over Bill Halter, but I wasn’t terribly upset when polls immediately indicated the Democrats would be losing that seat. Pragmatically, having a bad Democrat in a seat is usually better than having any Republican in that seat, but of all the Democratic U.S. Senators that could lose their seats, she is the one whose loss will cause me the least amount of grief.

But now I’m seeing polling showing Russ Feingold’s seat in danger, and that concerns me greatly… Feingold is one of the most progressive U.S. Senators in the Democratic Caucus, and if he loses, we’ll be losing a tremendously principled liberal fighter.

I don’t see the Republicans taking the U.S. Senate, but there are several seats in danger. Arkansas, Indiana, and North Dakota are all gone. Two months ago, Delaware was gone as well, but the Teahadis unintentionally threw the Democrats a breath of life when they nominated the anti-mastubation non-witch. Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and Illinois are very much in jeopardy. Wisconsin and Washington may be in danger as well.

The only possible pickups the Democrats have are New Hampshire and Kentucky, but I’m not holding my breath on either of those. I think by the end of the night on November 2nd, the U.S. Senate will be roughly a 53-47 Democratic majority. AR, IN, ND, PA and two others go red, and the GOP holds all 18 seats they have in play. I have no idea what the hell happened with Joe Sestak after he beat Arlen Specter in the primary, but he’s gotting clobbered by Club for Growth wingnut Pat Toomey in the polls now.

Murrow Fan, is there any indication that things are going to get better?

No.  Your basic problem is that your elites are running the country for their own benefit, rather than for a generalised “common good”.  It’s a terminal illness for empires, but not necessarily one that leads to complete catastrophe.

It’s not going to get better - your entire political system is geared towards those with the wealth getting and wielding power.

I fully expect to see parts of the US break off within my lifetime.

Alysia at 12: There is always Will Roger’s famous quoute, “I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.” People on the Left, from liberals to anarcho-syndicalists like to imagine themselves as free-thinkers. This makes them better people but a bit immune to the tools party officials use to keep everybody together. The most disciplined leftists are those that are focused on their being a one true solution like Marxists and even there the tendency is towards splinter unless orthodoxy is enforced.

  Jonathan Chait at the New Republic again, and its actually more than a little relevant since it deals with the differences between liberals and conservatives and the approach to the news:

  http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/78223/why-msnbc-isnt-and-cant-beat-fox-news

When conservatives watch the news, they want more than just the facts because the operate on the assumption that most news reporters are fundamentally untrustworthy and biased. To get an accurate view of what happens, you need to get through a conservative filter. They do not separate the fact reporting from the opinion generating. This is why people like Glenn Beck are powerful on the right. Liberals just want the facts so they could form their own opinions. Maddow and Olberman do some opinion generating but are more likely just to let the facts speak for themselves. Both rarely give conclusions at the end of segment in the sense of telling their viewers what this all means but Beck routinely does.

  Another reason why conservatives are better at maintaining group loyalty is that they are constantly pessimistic about their being a plot or plan to destroy everything they love. The tendency towards conspiracy belief creates a tendency towards group loyalty because they believe that they are beleaguered by a vast leftist conspiracy and they are the last line of defense against it. Liberals don’t think this way.

PIOTR at 14: This is a very cartoony way of looking at the American Constitution. The writers were not of one mind about the Constitution and there was a lot of disagreement. Alexander Hamilton famously wanted the President to be elected for life and the states reduced to administrative districts in terms of power. This would have really created oligarchy. The Constitution emerged as a compromise between a series of widely different beliefs about the nature of the United States government. Thats why there is an Amendment process, so the Constitution can change to meet present needs if necessary or desired.

I fully expect to see parts of the US break off within my lifetime.

I can’t say that I expect that to happen, but I do think such a thing is in the realm of possibility. Part of the problem with present tense analysis of the status quo is that I think people have a tendency to think they are living in the most extreme times imagineable. There’s an emotional connection to the present which leads most people to say “George W. Bush was the worst American president in history” without even acknowledging the possibility that perhaps James Buchanan was actually even worse. My opinion on that matter is that Dubya certainly qualifies as one of the worst five presidents we’ve ever had, but it’s too soon to predict precisely where he will rank once a few decades have passed and the emotional disdain for him has waned.

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency less than six months before I was born, and while I understand what a lousy president he was and how much he was so disliked by so many after that departure, I never personally experienced the emotional vitriol for Nixon that most liberals during his tenure felt for him. It’s not that I have any sort of affection for him, just that I only see him through the less emotionally-charged lens of historical analysis.

Back to your original point… yes, I do think it is possible that I could live to see some portion(s) of the United States attain sovereignty, but no, I do not expect to see such a thing in my lifetime. If it happens, it happens, and regardless of when such things might happen, I’m 99.99% certain that just like every other nation-state in human history, America also has a finite temporal existence, an expiration date. I just have no idea when that will be.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map

That’s for alysia & anyone else wondering if anyone’s quantified the uptick in right-wing extremism - it’s the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Map from earlier this year.

PIOTR at 14: This is a very cartoony way of looking at the American Constitution.

Who said anything about the Constitution?

The system is that, to get any national presence, a party must court money and continue to court money.  All political power in your system is tied to maintaining a constant income stream to a political grouping, and said income stream is tied to the wealthy expecting a return on their investment.

The US, as a nation, fails because governance is made so very very complicated.  It doesn’t have to be that complicated.  What makes it complicated is that, at every chance, some group or groups is attempting to twistthe law to give themselves an advantage or guarantee a rentier position.

Liberals and the ACLU have been terrorizing unborn babies since 1973, to the tune of 50,000,000 dead.

It’s only terror if they complain.  How many unborn babies have complained about abortion, conrad?

I’m operating on the theory that conrad loves the idea of dead babies.

Lee at 15: “People on the Left, from liberals to anarcho-syndicalists like to imagine themselves as free-thinkers. This makes them better people but a bit immune to the tools party officials use to keep everybody together. The most disciplined leftists are those that are focused on their being a one true solution like Marxists and even there the tendency is towards splinter unless orthodoxy is enforced.”

I’m not sure this is really true.  Democrats used to out-organize Republicans constantly during the post-war years, when unions were still strong.  I think it’s self-defeating to praise disorganization as a virtue.  The fall of union power and the rise of large business-funded political groups is what got us into a lot of the messes we’re in.

“Democrats used to out-organize Republicans constantly during the post-war years, when unions were still strong.”

...which is one of the biggest reasons why unions are not so powerful anymore.  They have been a target of Reichwing/Conservative/Republican ire for many decades…

Mr Ess wrote:

Most Romans didn’t execute the former carpenter who became the leader of a Jewish cult in Palestine.

Most famous Southern actors didn’t shoot the President of the United States.

Most Serbs seeking independence didn’t shoot the Arch-Duke of Austria.

Most ex-Marines didn’t assassinate a president in Dallas.

Most Southern bigots didn’t shoot an important Black leader during the Civil Rights era.

Most ex-Gulf War vets didn’t make a bomb from fertilizer and diesel fuel and blow up a day-care center in a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Most rabid anti-choicers haven’t entered a church during services and shot a doctor providing late-term abortions.

But all it takes is one…

Oooh, good game; can I play, too?

Most Muslims didn’t hijack four airliners and use them to attack targets in the United States.

Most Muslims don’t join the Army, and then shoot a bunch of soldiers to keep from being deployed to Iraq.

Most ecologically-minded people don’t spike trees.

Most black preachers don’t preach “God damn America!”

Of course, as you said, “all it takes is one.”

@18

Yeah, the US would really be a much better place with 50,000,000 more children born to parents who were unwilling or unable to care for them. I mean, at least social spending would decline if there were 50,000,000 more people who needed assistance from the state to feed, clothe, and house their children!

About Toomey in PA - I’m pretty convinced that what happened there is that Toomey benefitted greatly from National bugfuck nuts republicans getting so much media.  At one time Toomey was considered a right wing nut but now we’ve got witches, people talking about paying your doctor with live chickens, anti-masturbation rhetoric, anti-civil rights bill candidates, pro-rape candidates, and so on and so on and so on.  I think that Toomey started looking like a fucking centrist after all of these “ohhh, the batshit is strong in this one” freaks we have seen on our tvs.

And of course, PA is still the state that sent Rick “IT’S JUST LIKE HAVING SEX WITH YOUR DOG!” Santorum to the Senate twice.  I always forget that because I have been to PA a lot and it seems so normal.  Of course I only go to Shawnee for skiing and Philadelphia when there is something I want to see at the Museum.  Obviously, there’s a lot more to PA than that.

Back to your original point… yes, I do think it is possible that I could live to see some portion(s) of the United States attain sovereignty, but no, I do not expect to see such a thing in my lifetime.

Ten years ago, I would not have dreamed of actually debating mainstream right-wing Americans on line about whether torture was a bad thing or whether the government had the right to throw anyone they liked in jail for as long as they saw fit.  Nor did I expect a continuing series of cascading financial crises set up by blatant criminal greed among your elites (cf the recent revelations about mortgage fraud).  Nor did I expect that the impeachment scandal invovling Clinton would ever be considered anything but an abherrent one-off episode.

My prediction - the Republicans take back enough power this year to tie the US up in impeachment and investigation scandals for the next two years.  Obama is a one-term President, and a right-wing Republican takes over - if not an actual wingnut.  The country goes to hell for the next eight years, while said President stokes war and paranoia as a means of garnering political support in the face of this decline.  Bush redux, if you like - but from a far worse state than Clinton left the country in.  Towards the end of those eight years, around 2020, the country starts running up against problems which are literally unsolvable.

Murrow Fan wrote:

I have no idea what the hell happened with Joe Sestak after he beat Arlen Specter in the primary, but he’s gotting clobbered by Club for Growth wingnut Pat Toomey in the polls now.

It’s not just Rep Sestak who’s behind in the Keystone State: if the polls are right, the Republicans are going to win the gubernatorial seat, and a few Democratic congressmen, including 13-term Representative Paul Kanjorski, could lose.

LOL @ PIATR @ 21.

Oh man…but I couldn’t help laughing out loud at that one.

easy for you to say Phoenician, you’ve already been born..

that’s right, conrad - I have been born.  I have a brain, a human identity and am a sentient human being.  Therefore, I object to the idea of my own death.

Why do you not mourn all the little sperms, cruelly killed off in their millions?

Liberals and the ACLU have been terrorizing unborn babies since 1973, to the tune of 50,000,000 dead.

Damn, if only we were this efficient at everything else we do! This country would be a bastion of progressive paradise and/or conservative hell.

@29. 

You are way ahead of yourself.  I admit that is one nightmare scenerio that is possible, but at this point I see Obama as a two-term President, and further even if the R’s do get the house this year (they may not you know), I believe Dems take it back in 012 with Obama at the top of the ticket.

“A lot of the time, these extremists consider folks like talk radio show hosts to be weak sauce, not extreme enough.  (Though interestingly, this seems to be less so when it comes to Glenn Beck.  Scary.)”

In the interviews with Byron Williams on Media Matters, Williams said several times that Glenn Beck laid out all the “facts” but didn’t go quite far enough.  So he thinks Beck is not extreme enough.

And why aren’t we calling these people Christian terrorists?

I’m with Chait’s take on Soros.

I don’t think that the Democratic Party acted incompetently considering what they were dealing with.</blockquote>

GOP bullies and meatheads, you mean? Like the ones the Dems caved to with HCR or blank-cheque bailouts, or strove for “comity” with, or thought they could oppose in by-elections by coasting? Or perhaps you mean the Blue Dogs who undermine the party’s progressive initiatives from within. Maybe it’s the MSM, with whom the Dems are seemingly incapable of putting a positive spin on even mild liberal and progressive initiatives.

Chait is correct that Soros doesn’t want to associate with losers. But what he doesn’t understand is that Soros isn’t one of his fellow Villagers, and sees the purpose of elections and policy debates as more than just a horse race between the NeoLiberal Party and the Crazy Party (no other horses need apply). Soros has no obligation to support a party that’s unwilling or unable to use its majority to get liberal and progressive results, so he’s taking his funds where they might be more effectively applied (his vote, rest assured, will be with the Dems).

In other words, when the Kochs and Scaifes and Murdochs donate money to get the GOP in power, they expect results and get them: wars of choice, corporate welfare, crony capitalist policies, underfunding of social programmes and education. Why should Soros give similar sums to the Dems when they don’t deliver on their supposed core values? I acknowledge that we’re in a two-party political system, but the parties aren’t the only players in effecting good policy or blunting bad policy.

No.  Your basic problem is that your elites are running the country for their own benefit, rather than for a generalised “common good”.  It’s a terminal illness for empires, but not necessarily one that leads to complete catastrophe.

It does if your elites suck. These are the people who brought us the financial crisis, the invasion of Iraq and the non-response to Katrina. They’re a bunch of shortsighted incompetent fsckwits. Even bleeping Otto von Bismarck and Henry Ford understood that if you’re going to maximize your longterm extraction from the flock of sheep you have to keep them healthy and well fed. But this (with, e.g. financial industry compensation of $140B a year) is just a bustout, by people who haven’t clued in to the notion that you have to have somewhere to bust out to.

There’s an article on Greg Laden’s Blog on scienceblogs.com about David Mabus showing up to a convention where PZ Myers (one of his favorite spam targets, long since killfiled) was speaking. Not necessarily related to the President (Mabus is Canadian) but relevant in terms of potential terrorists who bear watching…

Markuze is clearly mentally ill and off his meds. Such people are more patsies than terrorists. And when confronted with the objects of his obsessive rage and hatred and threats at the hotel, all he did was pull a “Brave Sir Robin” and bravely run away.

Oooh, good game; can I play, too?

As usual you’re playing a different game, moron. None of the people you mentioned were inspired by well-funded mainstream American pundits and panel show guests. Or were Olbermann and Maddow egging all those people you mention on?

Look lady all kidding aside you really need to get out more often.

Quite a devastating insult, calling a guy a “lady” ... reminds me of someone who’d use the same lame line on me and others here.

You’re not clever enough to fool anyone, stickie, and with that lazy-minded “tell” I think you’ve just lost yet another account on this site.

...they have all of the DNA a born human has. Boy, you liberals are so dumb when it comes to science.

Hate to break it to you, bunky, but every cell of your body has all the DNA a born human has. Learn a little biology, then maybe you can call us dumb.

Yeah, dumb enough to know that the majority of your 50m count are pregnancies reports which would never have resulted in a child, and even include some that did result in a child - just the parent(s) moved to a different area.

Because sperm are not human beings, embryos and fetuses are, they have all of the DNA a born human has.

Just to be clear, you’re claiming that a sperm cell does not contain a full sample of its producer’s DNA?

On a separate but related note, would you kindly explain to us “dumb liberals” how plants reproduce?

@Lee @#10: We don’t want instant reversal of the effects decades of bad policy. We want bad policy to stop being made. Unfortunately that’s far too much to ask, from a group of people that somehow manage to find the time to combine being utterly corrupt with craven cowardice.

Frankly I’ll trust the Democrats again when they have the guts to impeach their own president for war crimes. You know, the rule of law thing we were promised.

Hate to break it to you, bunky, but every cell of your body has all the DNA a born human has.

I can only imagine the effect this startling revelation will have on an anti-choice wanker.

PAUL:

Of course, the Right has never abused the odd scandal or attacked unions as “socialist” so rank-and-file workers wouldn’t figure out that pooling their bargaining power would give them leverage against corporate abuse.

But I’m sure you know that already; you just don’t care.

Because sperm are not human beings, embryos and fetuses are, they have all of the DNA a born human has.

So an eyelash, a blood sample, or a scab isa “human being” by your logic - after all, they contain all teh DNA an embryo, fetus or born human has.

Myself, I like to base humanity on, I dunno, sentience rather than DNA.

Just as a question - the DNA of humans and chimps differs by only about 2%.  Can you spell out for us precisely which chromosome contains that essential code for “humanity” that separates us?

But I’m sure you know that already; you just don’t care.

It’s easier for him to blame the woes of blue collar workers (at least the white ones) on people of colour who supposedly get all sorts of preferential treatment. Give him a few more posts and he’ll be doing that.

Paul:

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” The problem does not go away just because it’s been brought under control. I bet you think we’re a post-racial country too.

But you either have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, or you’re lying through your teeth. I don’t think it matters which.

Gracchus—John McKay was the clever fellow who called the men on here ladies. He has tried to insult some of the ladies here by calling them ladies as well as trying to insult gay commenters by calling them gay. This is a troll who really knows how to lay down insults!

Shorter PAULSALATA: I miss the days when children worked in coal mines for pennies a day!

Ben F FTW.

Alternative shorter PAULSALATA: We’ve given the serfs enough leeway already. We don’t have to be forced to care anymore.

John McKay was the clever fellow who called the men on here ladies.

Stickie definitely used it, too. So I may be mistaken, and it’s just the lame insult that all the cool wingnut trolls are using these days.

Ha! The latest in troll fashion. So cutting edge!

Glenn Beck has to make some disclaimer at least once a week about how if you’re listening to/watching his show, that you should never EVER resort to violence.

The next time some idiot pundit or “independent minded” voter tries to make right wing and left wing commentary morally equivalent, ask them when was the last time Ketih Olbermann or Rachel Maddow had to remind their audiences to be non-violent? Hell, when was the last time an out-and-out truly far left ideologue like Noam Chomsky have to do that?

”...God love the unions for the changes they brought about from wages to safety.”

...that’s an interesting statement. 

Coming from the land of Wingnuttia, aren’t you more likely to hear someone say, “God damn the unions!”, and then pretend that any advancement in working conditions over the last 100-years is exclusively due to the magnanimity of our top-hat wearing and cigar-smoking capitalist overlords providing these improvements for their workers out the goodness of their (3-sizes too small) hearts?...

@alysia

Speaking of troll fashion, I have to admit that I am fascinated by Mr. Football’s evolving capitalization.  He went from all lowercase (knuterockne) to somewhat correctly capitalized (JohnMckay) to all caps (PAULSALATA).  Since we all know it is only a matter of time before he gets banned again, I am really curious what the next incarnation will be.  Do you think spaces might be his next big discovery or am I giving him too much credit?

AnglScarlett wrote:

At one time Toomey was considered a right wing nut but now we’ve got witches, people talking about paying your doctor with live chickens, anti-masturbation rhetoric, anti-civil rights bill candidates, pro-rape candidates, and so on and so on and so on.  I think that Toomey started looking like a fucking centrist after all of these “ohhh, the batshit is strong in this one” freaks we have seen on our tvs.

Sorry, but you are way off base.  Pat Toomey served three terms in the House of Representatives and was hardly considered a “right wing nut.”  He is more conservative than Arlen Specter, and in 2004, well before there was such a thing as the TEA Party or running against Barack Obama, he captured 49% of the vote in the Republican primary against Arlen Specter.  President Bush and Senator Santorum supported Senator Specter’s re-election, because they were afraid that if Mr Toomey won, he might be beaten by Joe Hoeffel, a liberal congressman and the Democratic nominee.

Mr Toomey represented the Allentown/Lehigh County area in Congress; that region is hardly a hotbed of strong conservatism.

Hey, Conrad! I’m still waiting to hear about the 50,000,000 adoptive parents for all those sacred sperm.

(And yes, I saw above that his numbers are probably wrong. I assumed as much, but it’s really irrelevant to the point that massively increasing birthrates by forcing women to give birth to unwanted children would be a policy nightmare for the US.)

I don’t get the general pessimism though. The teabaggers are the last gasp of a dying demographic. In 10-15 years the GOP as we know it won’t exist, and this will happen rather quickly just as it did to the Federalist Party.

I see a lot of parallels with the Federalists in their dying days and the GOP of today, actually. They, too, had some final temper tantrums (culminating in a plot to take New England out of the Union) before dying off due to demographics. The Federalists died because they couldn’t adjust to universal white male suffrage and the growth of western states, just like the GOP can’t adjust to growing numbers of hispanic, asian, and college educated, and young white voters.

conrad:

And the argument for allowing it is just as compelling: a woman has the right to control her own body. Period. No “Unless she’s pregnant”. No “unless she’s a slut”. No miscellaneous excuses for disapproval.

I fully expect to see parts of the US break off within my lifetime.

If Belgium and Canada, which have actual national and linguistic* differences that the U.S. does not, have stayed unified this long the US will, too.

*No, Spanish is never going to be like French in Canada or Flemish in Belgium for many reasons that I don’t feel I have to go into here.

And this is one of the moments I get whiplash from how differently everything is framed in Brazil. I remember from my early teens some generalized panic about Soros because a (then) recently nominated president of the Central Bank had worked with Soros in the past and that was taken as proof that the (then) current administration was secretly right wing* and going to deliver the whole country to big business and international bankers and we’d become an USian colony.

*because since the end of the dictatorship being right wing was seen as heresy; you have to be either center, or left, and everybody calls themselves center-left

You guys are being a bit unfair to stickie/McKay/knute/generic-lame-troll. He’s fine with unions, as long as they’re selective about whom they admit as members. Those immigrants ruin everything!

A human being has 46 chromosomes (sometimes 47 chromosomes). Sperm and egg have 23 chromosomes.

Chromosomes != DNA, Mr. Science, they contain DNA. Worse, it seems you have difficulty with basic concepts of arithmetic.

Exactly, BrianX. The law can’t compel me to donate use of my bodily organs to a coma patient or even a fully sentient patient suffering kidney failure, even if they’ll die without a transplant. There is no reason the use of my body and organs during pregnancy should be any different - unless you think a woman loses her right to bodily autonomy merely by having sex. No human being has the right to commandeer another’s body to keep themselves alive, except apparently in the case of the fetus. A fetus’s right to live requires giving it special rights to use another human being’s body without her consent. Those special rights should not trump women’s basic rights to our own bodies.

Gracchus:

Heh. The thing is, he seems to be convinced that unions serve no purpose but to advance a political agenda that no one supports. The idea that a union is an actual functioning business whose job is to represent the interest of actual working people seems over his head.

And the comment about public sector unions is too silly to respond to, but I will anyway: the reason public sector unions are more powerful than private sector unions is because the private sector has repeatedly and incrementally tried to neutralize the unions’ power. But then that would require PAUL to realize he’s thinking upside down. I don’t expect him to be smart enough to notice that.

PAUL:

Bullshit. Only if you view the school system as an authoritarian framework does that make sense. It’s just a canard made up by sanctimonious right-wing shitbags like you to treat teachers the same way Walmart treats its workers; in fact, it’s not very different from denying a woman’s right to control her own body in the abortion debate.

The states with the best public school systems are the heavily unionized ones.

It’s not just because non-union states on average are poorer, either. Even West Virginia, which has high levels of poverty, gets its school system ranked quite highly thanks in large part to its strong unions.

This bullshit about “the children” is a rouse.

Also it doesn’t get pointed out enough that most of our public schools are not failing. The problem is one of inequality more than general effectiveness.

This bullshit about “the children” is a rouse.

It’s not just a ruse. It’s a guilt trip.

Also, the only reason politicians, even liberal ones, have to frame it as “ALL OUR SCHOOLS ARE FAILING!!!” is sadly because if they said “we do a very good job of educating white children but not black and hispanic ones” nobody would listen.

“Who cares about them? We don’t need more money for Al Sharpton!!! Welfare Queens!” etc.

“Myself, I like to base humanity on, I dunno, sentience”

Oh, I see, so a person in a coma is not human?  good logic there.

Oh, I am liking this logic. Apparently sleeping people aren’t sentinent.

CRyan at 23: Oh, without a doubt the Democratic Party used to be kings at organizing, from the late 19th century to well into the post-War years. Unions were an important part of it because they kind of fulfilled the same role that churches do for conservatives, except that unions somewhat lacked the multi-generational characteristic of churches. The fact that people lived in cities was also part of the Democratic Party’s organizing power because its easier to organize urbanites than suburbanites, especially without something like a base organization like a church. Unfortunately, the role of the Solid South in Democratic strength shouldn’t be denied either. The failure of Operation Dixie, the CLO’s attempt to organize the entire South was something that really hurt liberal in the long run. Race had a large part in the failure but the South was always hard to unionize for other reasons as well.

  Organizations like Tammany Hall and and the other Democratic machines really helped to. The politicians might have been less slick and more vulgar but they were better.

  Gracchus at 36: Dennis Kucinich has written some very lovely bills over the years, none of which ever passed or even gotten far out of committee. The 111th Congress has actually been one of the more productive ones. It passed the largest spending bill in United States history, historic if moderate healthcare legislation, financial reform, and a host of other small put progressive bills. This in the fact of a GOP using every procedural trick in the book and a bunch of Blue Dog prima donnas. Three large bills is a lot by Congressional standards.

PIOTR, no part of the United States is going to break away. The last time parts of the country tried to break away, we had a very big war. If states try to leave the Union again, we will have another big war. The current nation-states are actually rather durable by historical standards because the common remedy for failed states, being taken over by another state, is no longer seen as good manners.

  Also, the United States government is complicated because it was designed in order to give the losers of elections some role in governing rather than excluding them completely from the administration of the country. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The advantage is that Congress actually legislates rather acting as a rubber stamp for the executive. Congress writes its own legislation rather than letting the Presidency write it usually. The disadvantage is that a minority can easily decide to go obstruction and gum up the works or that broad-sweeping legislation is somewhat rarer and that bills tend to be products of compromise rather as good as they can be.

Well people often forget that the political system we have here is meant to move slowly be design, so political factions in such a large and diverse country like the one we have are forced to compromise. That was the intent when the federal government was set up.

It can be frustrating sometimes but also good. If we had a Parliamentary system, Prime Minister Cheney would have successfully privatized Social Security in 2005 for example.

Ben D at 67: The pessimism is that a lot of us do not want to wait ten to fifteen years before the change because we feel that we have waited long enough, hesitation at the amount of damage that could be done in the time period, and uncertainty about what happens next. Even if the GOP falls, it does not mean that liberals and progressives raise in power.

Ben D.: Yeah, thats a more succinct form of what I was trying to say. The real disadvantage to the American system is that it is harder to find non-military solutions to complex problems. See slavery, had to be abolished through a big freaking war rather than through relatively peaceful legislation and/or executive abolition a la the Latin American countries or the British Caribbean colonies.

#66 - An acorn is not an oak tree.

PIOTR, no part of the United States is going to break away. The last time parts of the country tried to break away, we had a very big war. If states try to leave the Union again, we will have another big war.

You think.

Consider general chaos and disorder as the country becomes (more) ungovernable.  Now consider a painfully peaceful secessionist movement in one of more States, with growing political support.

What precisely would the Federal government do if a political group was fairly elected to power in a State with the explicit platform of holding a referendum on secession?

PIOTR, no part of the United States is going to break away

PIATOR doesn’t quite “get” that there’s a genuine national feeling in the US that was very much absent in Yugoslavia, and that is still absent in a place like Belgium.

What precisely would the Federal government do if a political group was fairly elected to power in a State with the explicit platform of holding a referendum on secession?

The proper question in this extremely unlikely scenario is what could the state government do besides make very loud noises?

Oh, I see, so a person in a coma is not human?  good logic there.

A person in a coma has a human identity established, and their sentience is only in temporary abeyance. 

You don’t lose your right to home ownership once you have bought a house just because you’re out of the house, nor do you lose your right to be considered human once you have established yourself as a sentient being just because you are temporarily unconscious.  To extend the analogy, you’re claiming that there is no difference between being able to sign your name on a purchase contract and actually being a home owner - the potential is not the same as the actuality.

Ben D at 89, and also that the federal government ain’t going to willingly let any state leave. It didn’t the first time it was attempted and it won’t the second time. Succession is not a right in the United States.

  PIOTR at 88: Same thing it did last time it was attempted, send in the tropes. At the time the Civil War broke out, Ameirca had largely become ungovernable because of the divide over slavery. Succession was relatively peaceful until the Confederate morons decided to attack Fort Sumter. Still caused a war and it will cause a war.

Shit, once the feds got serious about it, states couldn’t stop them from racially integrating their schools, regardless of whatever popular support segregation had in their states!

PIATOR doesn’t quite “get” that there’s a genuine national feeling in the US that was very much absent in Yugoslavia, and that is still absent in a place like Belgium.

Remind me again - does Belgium have Walloon Rebellion Reenactors talking about the War of Flemish Aggression?

PIOTR at 88: Same thing it did last time it was attempted, send in the tropes. At the time the Civil War broke out, Ameirca had largely become ungovernable because of the divide over slavery. Succession was relatively peaceful until the Confederate morons decided to attack Fort Sumter. Still caused a war and it will cause a war.

Would the US have just let the CSA go if the CSA had nukes?

PIOTR: Now you are just being silly. Also would you want a government like the CSA to have nukes?

Specifically, you are being silly because the nukes are under the control of the federal government. When the CSA succeeded, the federal government was able to keep a large part of the military installments in at least the border South.

We shall see.  We are discussing “what ifs?”, and I refer you again to what has happened to your country over teh last decade.

Remind me again - does Belgium have Walloon Rebellion Reenactors talking about the War of Flemish Aggression?

Dude, they have a political party at the national level with seats in Parliament that is explicitly secessionist! So does Canada.

Also, what on earth makes you think Civil War reenactors are secessionists? They’re pretty much harmless geeks and their political opinions are all over the map.

The proper question in this extremely unlikely scenario is what could the state government do besides make very loud noises?

i, Hold said referendum.

@94 - Meh - my cousin - a liberal (socialist in fact) New Yorker - is a Civil War Re-enactor - a Reb even. If he wants to sleep in a field and eat hard tack for three days, who cares? He’s not a racist; he just thinks he looks better in gray. I’m not kidding. This may seem odd for a non-American to understand, but some of us are just that tacky/weird. He doesn’t fly the Confederate flag, he doesn’t worship the Old South or their Peculiar Institution. People who go to Ren Faires don’t long for feudalism or life pre-electricity. It’s playacting. Most re-enactors are actor-types w/ a love of history. They are not advocating overthrowing the government.

Also, our nukes are mostly in places like remote areas of Wyoming under layers and layers of security manned and guarded by people that took an oath to the federal government, or at sea in some undisclosed location under the command of the same type of people. This isn’t fucking Pakistan or 1990s Russia.

i, Hold said referendum.

They can do that until they’re blue in the face. IIRC Alabama had racially segregated schools enshrined in their constitution until the mid-2000s, and it didn’t mean jack shit in the real world because the Supreme Court said it violates they federal constitution. They’ve already said the same thing about secession, in 1869:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_vs._White

PIOTR

Make up your fucking mind, are you talking peaceful elections, or a coup that includes taking over nuclear weapons?

The former just ain’t gonna happen.

The latter is not completely impossible, but seeing as how it’s an illegal coup and an act of domestic terrorism whose purpose is to, among other things, control US citizens within the borders of their newly created State, such an act is hardly going to do anything other than prompt the people of that state to beg the federal government for help.  And there is no fucking way the US is going to not respond to such pleas.  For several reasons that are too obvious to mention, but the first one that comes to my mind is that there is, statistically, a 1 in 5 chance that a close blood relative of mine lives in that state and I will - and the very fucking least - park myself at the door of the White House until they DO do something.  And I’m hardly a statistical anomaly.

I also really would like to know how they’re going to use nuclear weapons when you need the launch codes from the President to even activiate the damn warheads, let alone launch them!

“Also, our nukes are mostly in places like remote areas of Wyoming “

Well, I’m fairly certain there are still some in New Mexico somewhere, and I can see some crazy AZ person trying real hard to get a hold of them.  But I can’t see them being sucessful.  Or it ending well for them if they even got far enough for it to make the news.

Ben D. - seriously.  Talk about taking the path of most resistance.  Making your own dirty bombs would be soooo much easier.

A secessionist state would not have nuclear weapons. Rick Perry couldn’t get his hands on them if he tried. The people actually in charge of the nuclear weapons arsenal in the US are required to have very high levels of security clearance, and consequently are extremely well-controlled by the US military. There is a strict command structure in place, and numerous technical safeguards like Permissive Action Links that prevent unauthorized detonation by rogue officers. Positing a nuclear civil war in the US is preposterous.

Honestly, the idea of the union breaking up again is preposterous in itself. I would be much more afraid of the US becoming a genuine police state or blowing up the rest of the world because we elect some lunatic like Sarah Palin who is almost guaranteed to miscalculate relations between the US and other major nuclear powers. Even if there was some secessionist uprising, it would have to be preceded by long-term liberal control of government, which is seeming less and less likely - it’s only the conservative states like Texas where secession is even considered by the reactionary fringe - and even then it would be quickly put down by the extremely well-armed US military.

BTW, didn’t some nuts try setting up a “Republic of Texas” in the ‘90s and was subsequently crushed by federal law enforcement?

This is totally off topic, but the wild path this thread took is what I enjoy most about liberals. Seriously, I love you guys.

PiaToR, along with your fucking annoying nickname, your pig-ignorance amount America and its people rivals Billy in FL’s.

To be fair I’ve had foreigners say much, much dumber things to me about the United States than PIATOR, and if I were a New Zealander I can only imagine the the sheer ignorance people would have about my country. “Aren’t you part of Australia”? etc.

PAUL:

Yes, political causes are part of their job. You’re still an idiot.

I don’t think secession is likely; wingnuts win too often.

I would be very much in favor of a limited autonomy region kinda deal for the Deep South.  Too many conservatives don’t want to live in America, and I’m not actually thrilled about making them live someplace they don’t want to live.

You know, the fun part about you people, Paul, is that you’re completely unable to recognize your essential Dunning-Krugerness. Even more interesting is how so many of you can’t seem to understand how left-wing organizations sincerely want to make the world better—it’s all Machiavellian to you. I mean, I once sent a neo-Nazi into a sputtering rage pointing out that the average member of the US Communist Party was way more patriotic than he was. Wrong, yes, but the proper response is to go analyze what happened and fix the problem. That’s what liberalism does. (That’s probably also why so many scientists lean left politically.)

It’s not my fault you’re too stupid and blinkered to comprehend. You’ve obviously made yourself that way.

(Also, I’ve noticed that there’s damn near nothing in the conservative canon that doesn’t require some aspect of denialist thinking to defend it. Most of what you believe is so transparently bullshit that it’s mindboggling how no one can talk you out of it.)

Liberals get so discouraged when decades of bad policy aren’t reversed overnight, but Republicans seem to have absolutely no need for results. They don’t have to actually decrease the number of abortions or reduce government spending or do any of the shit they claim to be about in order to win loyalty. They just have to other the right people and they have absolute support.

This is the profoundest truth I’ve read in a long time. It explains so much—especially the rise of Rush and his spiritual brethren playing “Ain’t It Awful.” Brava Alysia

Because sperm are not human beings, embryos and fetuses are, they have all of the DNA a born human has. Boy, you liberals are so dumb when it comes to science.

Hair follicles also have all of the DNA that human beings have. The next time I get a haircut, should I mourn the holocaust of millions of human DNA-containing hair clippings that will be cruelly swept up and dumped in the garbage?

Nimrod.

More to the point, sperm only have half a genome. The egg provides the other half.

@chareth cutestory #114

all the talk of a new civil war kinda reminds me of that one thread that evolved into zombie invasion talk.

I think we can all agree (no matter where we live) that those of us not zombified after the invasion will certainly try our hardest to form our own country away from the brain-eating monsters.

And, if the mail system is still functioning, PIATOR can send each and every non-Zombie American an “I told you so” card.

Aw shucks, Hector. :$

@Comment #83: Lee on 10/12 at 09:48 PM

PIOTR, no part of the United States is going to break away. The last time parts of the country tried to break away, we had a very big war. If states try to leave the Union again, we will have another big war. The current nation-states are actually rather durable by historical standards because the common remedy for failed states, being taken over by another state, is no longer seen as good manners.

Lee, I think you’re being too sure here. There’s a big difference between “unlikely” and “impossible”, and I think you’re confusing the two. PIATOR’s point-of-view from outside of the USA will certainly miss some on-the-ground realities, but he has the advantage of a certain level of detatchment that we lack.

As much as it pains me to say this, Biden and Obama were not wrong to yell at Progressives for dithering and threatening to stay home. If the Teabaggers win big this election, we’re going to be in for many more very rough years. We’re going to have impeachments and inquiries into how Obama stole the ‘08 election, we’re going to have fucking Palin/O’Donnel in 2012, and the meager, moderate reforms Dems were able to push through are going to be repealed in a heartbeat. What we need is election results so overwhelmingly and surprisingly Dem that it tells these assholes “and stay down.”

Ben D wrote:

I also really would like to know how they’re going to use nuclear weapons when you need the launch codes from the President to even activiate the damn warheads, let alone launch them!

There are several storage facilities for Naval nuclear weapons, including some in the South; I’ve been in Yorktown Naval Weapons Station in Virginia.  The whole base is heavily guarded, and the “Q Area” even more so.  When I sent a concrete mixer into the Q Area, there was an armed Marine guard in the truck with the driver, and if anyone is there who is not supposed to be there, the Marine guards are authorized to use deadly force.

If someone could get his hands on the weapons themselves, someone who had the knowledge and skill could, with a great deal of work, take care of getting it to detonate without presidential authorization codes, but it ain’t exactly child’s play.

Phoenician is wrong, but only slightly.

The US won’t break into several parts because the people inclined to do so will end up winning in the end.  They will create their fascist theocracy — The Christian States of America, or Homeland of America, or Gilead, or Beckistan — and drive any of us with an eduction, an IQ above 80, and an understanding that Jesus didn’t designate America as an island of Pure Christian Faith in a World of False Religions and Satan-Worshipping Atheists out of this place.

All the mice-with-human-brains, touch-your-pee-pee-and-god-gets-irate, Jesus-rode-into-Jerusalem-on-a-dinosaur, there-is-no-separation-between-church-and-state-in-the-Constitution, guns-for-all-except-negroes-and-messicans, we’re-“pro-life”-until-birth-after-that-screw-you, vaccines-are-evil, condoms-are-evil, education-is-evil, unions-are-evil, liberals-are-so-evil-they’re-worse-than-Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Pol_Pot/etc., keep-guvmint-outa-my-Medicare, kill-all-the-fags people will all just have a grand ol’ time without anybody to the left of Rand Paul around. 

Then they can get down to the serious business of purging all those Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Quakers, and so forth and so on, etc., etc., etc., from the rolls of Real True Christians.

One thing’s for sure:  Every wall on the continent will have blood-stains and bullet holes on it…

“If someone could get his hands on the weapons themselves, someone who had the knowledge and skill could, with a great deal of work, take care of getting it to detonate without presidential authorization codes, but it ain’t exactly child’s play.”

I see Dana has spent a great deal of time working out the details of the whole thing.  Should I be laughing or crying?...

The idea that the US could split up, based on our current internal differences, might not be impossible, but the chances of it happening are vanishingly small.  For all of the anger at the current Administration’s policies, the terribly violent action, the horrible revolution, is occurring at the ballot box.  If the opinion polls are accurate, the only polls that actually counts will give the Republicans several more seats, probably enough to take control of the House of Representatives and come close in the Senate.  Barack Obama will still be our President, and no one is going to secede.  People emigrating is about as realistic as was the talk of people moving to Canada following the 2004 elections.

If the GOP wins control of one or both Houses o Congress, you’ll see all of the President’s initiatives die, and the federal government will run in the status quo mode: budgets will be passed—perhaps with some rancor—and appropriations made, but there will be no big policy changes in either direction, left or right.  ObaminableCare won’t be repealed, because it would never get through the Senate, and even if it did, the President would veto it.  The President would still control foreign policy.

We’ve lived through divided government before.

As much as it pains me to say this, Biden and Obama were not wrong to yell at Progressives for dithering and threatening to stay home.

Your point is taken, but if it is so damn important for the president’s base to get out an vote, then maybe he should have made it more of a priority to cultivate the base and govern in a way that lent them more support. If he doesn’t care that much, then it’s logical to ask whether everyone else should.

We’ve lived through divided government before.

It resulted in a freakout of almost catastrophic proportions, culminating in the impeachment of Clinton, along with people like you whipped into a crazed frenzy about how the president was a murderer, an obsession with made up scandals, and a repudiation of one if the best candidates for president in recent memory - Al Gore - in favor if a destructive ignoramus. Not only was it bad for the country, it was bad for your own moral development and bad for the intellectual growth and maturation of the republican base. It would be outright dangerous to allow that to happen again and put the crazed malefactors who went wild in Congress from 94 to 06 back in charge. These are deeply damaged people we are talking about. I hear them on the radio and listen to them rail about Obama and heard them flip out into rages about rather benign figures like Gore and Kerry. They are spiritually and morally unwell and they were destructive before and I don’t want them to be around to do that again.

Lee @92: “Send in the tropes.”

You, sir, have just entitled my next academic conference paper. I will credit you.

The USA will never break up barring some kind of worldwide cataclysm. The two warring groups are both too widely distributed.

Whoa, this thread blew up.  Are there trolls that need banning, or is everyone good?

MikeEss at 130, the United States becomes a Christian theocracy is another liberal/progressive paranoid nightmare that pisses me off. There are tens of millions of people in America, maybe even hundreds of millions, who would not take lightly to an imposted Protestant theocracy. People of color, the LBGT community, non-Christians, Catholics, and others would be against it full stop. Do you think that these tens of millions of people would just late the rightists run over them?

Tyro wrote:

It would be outright dangerous to allow that to happen again and put the crazed malefactors who went wild in Congress from 94 to 06 back in charge.

To allow it to happen?  So, what are you going to do if those “crazed malefactors” do something really radical like win elections?

it was bad for your own moral development and bad for the intellectual growth and maturation of the republican base.

Translation: the Republican base didn’t “grow and mature” into Democrats, or at least Democrats Lite.

Dana, I dot see you actually disputing the problem involved with having the still-not-yet-competent-to-govern republicans back in charge, so I see you still haven’t learned anything of your poor moral chives over the past 10 years. These people acted crazed and destructive, and here you go saying that it will be a good idea to have them back in charge. It is, as I said, not just bad for the country, but also bad for you, as a person. You haven’t learned your lesson and haven’t grown up and are still willing to pit the architects of a national mental meltdown in Washington back in charge.

Well, Tyro, some of happen to have a different definition of what is bad for the country.  Some people—including myself—see the idea that government should compel people to buy health insurance, or that government is ultimately responsible for seeing that you get health care as bad for the country.  Some people believe that having ever-increasing government regulations on business as being bad for the country.

But it’s real simple: you have one vote and I have one vote.  In the end, the majority of the voters will decide things, and one of us, either you or me, is going to see the voters having taken the wrong choice, but whichever one of us that is, we’ll still have to live with it.

Dana, you don’t believe that at all, and, quite frankly, neither to the republicans. Given their incompetence and destructiveness while they were in office, your desire to put them back just goes to show how little development you’ve gone through ni guess if yo want a repeat of the impeachment meltdown of the late 90s and more full throated support of torture, go ahead, if that’s what gratified your ego, but it is the sort of thing that reminds us why people who support republicans are really sort of embarrassing characters. And you don’t actually dispute my facts on the matter regarding the danger of putting those ignoramuses and moral malefactors back into control: it’s all about trying to refight a losing battle—one that showed definitively that republicans are morally and intld tually incompetent to govern, something you refuse to accept even AFTER you embarrassed yourself by acting as a mindless republo-bot for Gingrich and Bush.

“PIATOR doesn’t quite “get” that there’s a genuine national feeling in the US that was very much absent in Yugoslavia, and that is still absent in a place like Belgium.”

Is there? It’s hard to tell with all the talk about ‘real Americans’ going on—-and most definitely not being one of them.  The people who say ‘real American’ have sweaty fantasies about getting rid of all the non Americans, don’t kid yourself.

I see Conrad has decamped to see if any of his desperately-untruthful anti-choice websites can answer any of the questions he’s been avoiding on this thread.

“There are tens of millions of people in America, maybe even hundreds of millions, who would not take lightly to an imposted Protestant theocracy. People of color, the LBGT community, non-Christians, Catholics, and others would be against it full stop. Do you think that these tens of millions of people would just late the rightists run over them?”

Take a look at the Ken Buck thread.  There are millions of people in Colorado who hate what he stands for.  But apparently there are more millions who like what he stands for.  He’s currently on track to win the Colorado US Senate race there.

Larger groups of voters thwart the wishes of smaller groups of voters all the time.  If enough wingnuts and teabaggers get into office, things will shift in their direction.  Good, bad, or otherwise…

(Small analogy here:  When I was growing up - I was born 1960 - I could never imagine a scenario where the US would be systematically torturing prisoners who we declined to even call prisoners.  I would never have believed that the US government, cheered on by too many Americans, would systematically read our email, listen to our phone calls, track our internet usage.  In my wildest nightmares I would never have thought it was even possible that we’d allow a whole US city to simply drown to rid it of poor Black folks.  But all those things happened, whether I believed they could or not…)

Translation: the Republican base didn’t “grow and mature” into Democrats, or at least Democrats Lite.

Dana:

Go read what I wrote in comment #119.

Cleanup on aisle #143…

Now they apply the same tired dead end solutions. 

You mean like tax cuts and deregulation?  Projection alert.

Lets throw some more money at it till it gets better.  And if it doesn’t work well we keep at it

Like Abstinence-only sex education?

Some role model ya got there brianna.

YOU’RE A GIRL! HUR HUR HUR!

Geez, somebody open a window…

Sour Kraut:

I knew I was wasting my breath, but playing the Pol Pot card was just too silly for words.

BrianX:

To be fair, consulting academics for their expertise *is* exactly like shooting people and shoving them into mass graves.

Tell me, sober, that the union wasn’t advancing a political cause.

If looking for a political solution to stagnating wages, off-shoring of jobs, destruction of the manufacturing base, and socio-pathic CEOs flouting already-weak regulations in order to destroy the environment and people’s lives is a “political cause” then, yes.

Seriously, not sure what you don’t get about unions. A union is made up of people elected by their coworkers to bargain for better conditions, including pay. You’re just pissed because unions stand against your feudal overlords, the CEOs. And, they stand for all workers, not just straight white men. Unions made the middle class in this country, and we won’t have a viable middle class again until unions are again made strong.

Tyro wrote:

Dana, you don’t believe that at all, and, quite frankly, neither to the republicans.

I don’t?  Why would you think that someone who has ventured into a mostly hostile to conservatives forum and expressed a conservative position would lie about it?

It seems to me that some of the Pandagonistae simply can’t believe that people with whom they disagree actually think differently, that somehow our arguments must all be a ruse, that we’re somehow putting you on.  (Amanda’s next article, in which she expressed disbelief that some people might be opposed to abortion because they believe an unborn child to be a living human being, but must really be motivated by a desire to oppress women is a good example.)

I understand that you think that I’m wrong; that’s fair enough, since I believe you to be wrong on a lot of things, too.  But even though I think you’re wrong, I am completely persuaded that you actually believe what you write.  As for me, if I write something here, I am telling you exactly how I see an issue.

it is the sort of thing that reminds us why people who support republicans are really sort of embarrassing characters.

That’s another part you don’t seem to understand.  Perhaps you find conservative supporters to be “embarrassing characters,” but somehow, they don’t see themselves that way at all.

one that showed definitively that republicans are morally and intld tually incompetent to govern, something you refuse to accept even AFTER you embarrassed yourself by acting as a mindless republo-bot for Gingrich and Bush.

Well, somehow, some way, it seems as though the public—assuming that the opinion polls accurately reflect the way the vote will go—disagree with you.

A friend of mine said a couple of months ago that he was voting straight Republican this year; he said, “I voted for change, but not this fornicating change!”  He didn’t like what President Bush had done over his two terms, and voted for Barack Obama, but wound up liking how President Obama has governed far less than he disliked things under the Republicans.  I think that you’ll find a lot of people who are looking at it like that.

BrianX:  I read your comment #119, and I can’t say that it surprises me in the least.  But perhaps you might consider that those people you are unable to persuade to change their beliefs happen to see the bovine feces more in your positions than in theirs. 

I always thought that liberals claimed to be open minded, yet y’all don’t seem open minded enough to believe or comprehend that other people can hold positions different from your own.

Dana, you willfully avoid the topic for the purporting self-justification and fail to take moral responsibility for your moral failures of the past that led to the destructive outcomes of republican control of congress during the Clinton and Bush administrations. It’s why you can’t be taken seriously even though you believe you should be. Until you answer for your failures and relent if the destructiveness of what you fanatically threw yourself behind, you’re going to be regarded as malign and not worth our engagement. Your fervent belief that you deserve a “place at the table” when to statements simply reflect a simple unseriousness if not outright ignorance demonstrates a sort of emptiness of being.

The republican Party has functioned as a hate group for many years, particularly during the Clinton administration. That you want to go back to that and that you were too much of a moral coward to repudiate it means that we have to actively ensure that this group of hate filled ignoramuses is defeated at the polls. That you want a repeat of this destructiveness just shows that you haven’t morally matured—in part because your republican culture encourages that kind of behavior. If we are handing over the keys to the people who had a mental meltdown over the Clinton Administration and scream about ovama’s birth certificate and were torture loving bush cultists, then we ate going to have to get out to the polls to make sure they stay out of power—because people like you cheer on the destructiveness of the past.

I think the “breakup” of the US may be more of a defacto phenomenon. I live in California where people do pretty much as they please on so many levels of society, that if the federal entities were to be weakened through lack of funding, we would end up pretty much our own nation.

Nobody ever talks about the incredible brain drain that has been going on since WWII from the flyover states. Every year, a good number of the best and the brightest head to NY, LA, Chicago, etc. I don’t mean just the academically gifted, I mean all those who want a more liberal, diverse life, who want to take risks that they can’t in say, the Bible Belt.

I think the coastal states would benefit tremendously from federal neglect.

“But perhaps you might consider that those people you are unable to persuade to change their beliefs happen to see the bovine feces more in your positions than in theirs.
I always thought that liberals claimed to be open minded, yet y’all don’t seem open minded enough to believe or comprehend that other people can hold positions different from your own.”

Shorter Dana: Shape of Earth?  Views differ...

A friend of mine said a couple of months ago that he was voting straight Republican this year; he said, “I voted for change, but not this fornicating change!” He didn’t like what President Bush had done over his two terms, and voted for Barack Obama, but wound up liking how President Obama has governed far less than he disliked things under the Republicans.  I think that you’ll find a lot of people who are looking at it like that.

I don’t.

I am well aware that the Republicans will almost crtainly emerge with net gains at the end of the night on November 2nd, including a very strong possibility that they’ll take the House. I don’t think those gains will be driven by a mass conversion of people who voted for Obama in 2008 and now plan to vote straight Republican. I think the gains will be driven by a super amped-up wingnut base who will show up to the polls in droves, while a large number of 2008 Obama voters skip out on voting this year because of frustration over present conditions.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics U3 unemployment rate is just barely under 10%... that number is devastating to the party in power on the eve of an election. Given the fact that times are tough and the future still seems bleak, I can see why a lot of low information voters will either be voting for the GOP or not voting at all. I predicted a year and a half ago here that the U3 number would have a pretty direct impact on this year’s elections, and that if the Democrats could get it below 7% before the midterms, they would do well. I also predicted that if the number was still hanging around 10% right before the midterms, the Democrats would get squashed at the polls. Not only has that number not been reached, the U3 has barely budged during Obama’s first two years. I will vote, as will most of my friends, and I will grudgingly vote for Democrats, despite my frustration with the party. But it isn’t my vote or the votes of other politically tuned in progressives that Democrats have to worry about. It’s the hordes of first-time voters who came out in force in 2008 only to find themselves today wondering if voting is even worth it anymore.

No matter how much the Tea Klux Klan wishes to present itself as a new grassroots populist uprising not beholden to any political party, it just ain’t so. You could poll everybody who has ever been to one of these troglodyte hatefest rallies, and you would probably find that less than 0.1% of self-described TP supporters voted for President Obama in 2008, assuming they are telling the truth. These folks aren’t mad about Obama’s policies or his approach to fiscal matters, they are mad about the fact that he exists at all. They hated him when he announced his candidacy in 2007, they hated him while he was on the campaign trail in 2008, they hated him when he took office in 2009, and they still hate him in 2010, largely because he is guilty of presiding while black.

The deficit talk is bullshit, because these folks never once objected to Bush’s unfunded wars and deficit skyrocketing policies. The “taxed enough already” talk is also bullshit, since taxes today are lower than they were in 2008 under the last guy, due to a massive middle-class tax cut that was part of ARRA. Describing the sunset of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as if the country will cease to exist should our richest citizens have to suffer under the oppressive weight of Clinton-era tax rates is offensive and absurd. Personally, I think we should move closer to the tax rates we had during Eisenhower’s presidency - 91% on the top marginal rate. Even half that (45% on top marginal rate) would do much to alleviate our annual budget deficit.

No, there aren’t a lot of 2008 Obama voters who are going to be casting their votes for the red party this year. Unfortunately, there will be more than a handful of those voters who won’t be voting at all this year, and that is what will ultimately decide how big GOP gains will be. The lower the voter turnout 20 days from now, the more successful that Republicans will be. It’s kind of disturbing that one of our two political parties’ chances of victory are virtually always increased when fewer people in the electorate exercise their voting rights.

Populist movement my ass.

LC, but most of the high-growth cities in this country since the ‘70s are in places like Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, Houston, Phoenix, Austin, Fairfax Virginia and the like—not the industrial midwest or northeast. 

It also makes the states these cities are in gradually “bluer” though, that’s how North Carolina went from Jesse Helms country to narrowly voting for a black President in 2008 in the space of little over a decade.

The idea that the US could split up, based on our current internal differences, might not be impossible, but the chances of it happening are vanishingly small.

There you go - Dana disagrees with me.  That should give the rest of you some pause for thought, based on his track record.

I stand by my original comment - I fully expect to see parts of the US break off within my lifetime.  This covers 30 or 40 years or so.

y’all don’t seem open minded enough to believe or comprehend that other people can hold positions different from your own.

If I thought your beliefs and behavioral manifestations of your beliefs were good ones and better than mine, I would hold those beliefs, rather than the ones I do hold. That you can’t even defend your beliefs or take moral responsibility for the damage they caused, but rather feel entitled to public respect, is very telling. We gave you irresponsible teenagers the car keys, and you totaled the car. You don’t even acknowledge you had trouble driving, and now you want the keys again—and you want to be respected among other drivers. No, Dana.

There you go - Dana disagrees with me.  That should give the rest of you some pause for thought, based on his track record.

Touché.

And any gains will almost certainly be reversed in 2012. Once again, just like the old Federalist Party, the GOP base is getting smaller and smaller and the party refuses to adjust to the future demographics of this country.

Also, I don’t think it has been pointed out enough how high Obama’s approval has remained given the awful state of the economy! He’s higher than Reagan was at this point with a similar economy in 1982. His approval rating is 49% on a good day and 44% on a bad day with nearly double-digit unemployment!

People like generally like Obama as a person (his personal approval is still very high) and if the Republicans go after him like they did Clinton I think they’ll be hoisted on their own petard, just like in the late ‘90s.

Dana do you realize that you have no leg to stand on when it comes to your anti-choice position? Amanda posits the anti-choice position the way she does because there is no foundation in reality otherwise for your anti-choice motivations.

Considering a blastocyst to be a full human being is just not reality—it has no basis in biological fact. You may wish it were so, but that’s just a fantasy that religious nuts try to use to control other people’s bodies and sex lives.

Tell you what, after you clean up that degenerate, child-molesting, woman-hating entity that pretends to be a spiritual haven for women and children, maybe you can be taken seriously.

Don’t come around here with your degenerate mess and expect me to not see you as anything but a controlling troll and woman-hater. Walk your talk or shut the fuck up.

stand by my original comment - I fully expect to see parts of the US break off within my lifetime.  This covers 30 or 40 years or so.

Can you at least admit that the odds of another western democracy like Canada or Belgium breaking up are probably greater? Since they actually have at the current moment real, explicitly secessionist parties active in Parliament and everything?

Also, PIATOR, the current GOP base will be dead in 40 years. The average teabagger is in their 60s and the Republican Party is about as popular as terminal cancer among people under 35.

Can you at least admit that the odds of another western democracy like Canada or Belgium breaking up are probably greater?

Que?

Probably - but so what?  Are there any Belgians (Belge?  Belgioux? Whatever the heck they’re called) posting here?  Are there Canadians shouting down the very idea?  More to the point, are there any Belgistanianis or Canadioux ignoring incredible changes in their country over the last decade?

I always thought that liberals claimed to be open minded, yet y’all don’t seem open minded enough to believe or comprehend that other people can hold positions different from your own.   Oh, checks off the anti-choice, whiner conservative bingo card. Shorter Dana: How dare you refuse to tolerate my intolerance!

I like how he believes that fetii are human but women…..Oh, hey, he’s got a wife! And daughters! Right up there with “Some of my best friends are black!”

Dana:

We get very tired of the same bullshit—and I do mean literally the same—being used to defend position after position. It usually boils down to some combination of courtier’s reply, overgeneralizing your own experience, inappropriate argument from authority, and just plain cussedness. That you happen to be rather less trollish than people like PAUL doesn’t make your position any more reasonable; you’re just not an asshole.

Funny, BrianX, as a woman, I find Dana’s positions to be pure assholishness!

Cleanup on aisle #152…

LCforevah:

I stand corrected. But he’s still slightly less of an asshole than PAUL. Dana is a doofus; PAUL is a troll.

Agreed.

PAUL wants to be a CEO. I suspect only the Repubs tell him he’s got the capability, but that’s only as long as he keeps pumping cash their way.

Why do they insist on card check legislation if not to imtimidate workers who choose not to join?  Why can’t a union simply tell its members what it offers and let the worker decide for themselves? Why?  Why can’t they attract more workers if they have so much to offer?

little paully salata,
You don’t think ballot box-stuffing goes on, numbnuts? You don’t think the inner-office/factory politics of a place where workers are struggling to unionize will bring out the worst of management’s tactics to lean on and manipulate workers in every way they can to defeat unionization, to defeat measures that will reduce the big bucks they’ll take home? Do have any fucking idea how power plays out in those situations?

#173:

Dammit, I wasn’t going to bother to explain it to him… all my ridicule wasted by your fucking sensible explanation… shame on you.

#174
yes, my earnestness has ruined many an opportunity for humor. My apologies.

Heh. Honestly, I’m pretty sure there are readers who don’t actually know what the point of card check is in the first place, nor how hard it is to get employees the chance to make an informed decision in the face of anti-union propaganda.

Because sperm are not human beings, embryos and fetuses are, they have all of the DNA a born human has.

Oh my mother’s poor removed ovarian tumor, cruelly scraped out with no anesthesia and disposed of as medical waste!

OH THE HUMANITY

WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE DNA

pumped…horseshit…fuck-o…spelling “you’re” as “your”. . . you remind me so much of the jackass runt with both head and thumbs up his ass I used to be, Paulsalata . . . where do you hail from?

PAUL:

Remember that you are troll and to troll you shall return. (i.e. Who gives a fuck what you say happens at your workplace? We have no reason to believe you in the first place.)

Also, PIATOR, the current GOP base will be dead in 40 years.

And today’s radical progressives will be the whining selfish “get the gov’ment outta my Medicare” crod in 40 years.

The GOP base is built up from those (i) scared of change who (ii) are lied to for the purposes of the elites.  Point (ii) isn’t going to go away, and point (i) will include us all as we age.

Piator:

T’aint necessarily so. A lot of the yuppies of the 80s were conservatives in the 60s and 70s too, and a lot of the old hippies still are all these years later. I know a few.

(Which is not to say that never happened—it’s how we wound up stuck with the neocons. But it’s become increasingly clear that a large part of the Tea Party movement are people who want to refight the culture wars of the 60s because they were actually there and on the losing side.)

Generally, political voting habits change very little with age once the pattern is set. FDR ensured that the “Greatest Generation” became lifetime Democrats. The silent generation is more conservative and republican leaning, as are GenXers.

GenY will always associate republicans with GW Bush and Sarah Palin. I am sad that they will be long forgotten while my hypothetical kids grow up, leaving them at risk of going republican, but what can you do?

BrianX: Honestly, I’m pretty sure there are readers who don’t actually know what the point of card check is in the first place.

PAULSALATA: We understand card check perfectly.

Me: Aww…how cute, he thinks he’s a reader.

So PIOTR, what is your solution to America’s problems?

Cleanup on Aisle 188…

Tyro wrote:

y’all don’t seem open minded enough to believe or comprehend that other people can hold positions different from your own. (me)

If I thought your beliefs and behavioral manifestations of your beliefs were good ones and better than mine, I would hold those beliefs, rather than the ones I do hold.

That wasn’t the point; the point is that you seem incapable of even understanding that other people hold different beliefs than you do.

That you can’t even defend your beliefs or take moral responsibility for the damage they caused, but rather feel entitled to public respect, is very telling.

What damage?  People liberated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Islamists pushed far back, though not yet defeated; that sounds pretty good to me!  Yeah, we did spend too much, on ridiculous things like Medicare Part D and other cockamamie social programs, so we weren’t perfect.

As for public respect, I don’t expect that here; this isn’t a forum where the opposition gets much respect.  But I hope to at least make you think, even just a little bit, about the fact that maybe, just maybe, some people, some voters, think differently than you do.

We gave you irresponsible teenagers the car keys, and you totaled the car. You don’t even acknowledge you had trouble driving, and now you want the keys again—and you want to be respected among other drivers. No, Dana.

Straight Obama demagoguery, though I’ll admit it’s a good line.  Trouble is, while we bent the fenders by overspending, compared to Republican overspending President Obama and the Democrats rolled the car, flipping it over several times, and having it land upside down in a ditch.

But hey, this is, in the end, a democratic representative republic, and the only poll which counts will tell us how the public really feel.  Who knows: perhaps the car analogy will lead the voters to leave the Democrats completely in charge!

Trouble is, while we bent the fenders by overspending, compared to Republican overspending President Obama and the Democrats rolled the car, flipping it over several times, and having it land upside down in a ditch.

Shorter Dana: IOKIYAR

Dana: The proper analogy is cleaning out the garage. If you take all the junk out of the garage you’ve been using as a warehouse to reorganize it and throw parts of it out, you’re probably going to use most of the driveway to do it. Not a single fucking one of you is willing to admit that’s what Obama is trying to do.

Mr X wrote:

Honestly, I’m pretty sure there are readers who don’t actually know what the point of card check is in the first place, nor how hard it is to get employees the chance to make an informed decision in the face of anti-union propaganda.

Are you telling us that union organizers don’t know how to speak or write, and cannot communicate their knowledge and opinions to the employees? 

How is it that employees don’t seem to have “the chance to make an informed decision?”

Dana:

Now there is an incredibly fucking stupid question. You’ve been reading Pandagon long enough that you shouldn’t need to have that explained to you.

Mr X wrote:

Dana: The proper analogy is cleaning out the garage. If you take all the junk out of the garage you’ve been using as a warehouse to reorganize it and throw parts of it out, you’re probably going to use most of the driveway to do it. Not a single fucking one of you is willing to admit that’s what Obama is trying to do.

Using that analogy, to many of us it seems like President Obama has pulled out everything from the garage, but is throwing out the working parts and trying to build something from the junk he has left.  Regardless of what the President is trying to do, trying doesn’t always equal succeeding, and having a plan does not always mean that it’s a good plan or a workable plan.

Dana:

If you think our health care, financial, and labor sectors were “working parts”, you’re too dumb to live.

Mr X wrote, in what I assume is a response to my comment # 195:

Now there is an incredibly fucking stupid question. You’ve been reading Pandagon long enough that you shouldn’t need to have that explained to you.

Go ahead and try anyway.  Tell me: how is it that union organizers cannot communicate what you obviously see as well-thought-out and logical positions to the rank-and-file?  Are unions incapable of printing things?  Can they not use the telephone or the internet or personal, face-to-face meetings?  If companies put out what you called “anti-union propaganda,” are unions incapable to refuting it?

Once again, Dana. You should know this already. If you’ve paid any attention at all in all the time you’ve been posting here, you should know. If you don’t, that’s not my problem.

This is not the first blog I’ve participated in where a late middle-aged conservative makes an appearance in an effort to preach the gospel message of disingenuous right wing talking points in an effort to preach to the unreached youth. What always makes it clear is the faux-folksiness to show us how “conservatives can be friendly!” and the absolute refusal to actually engage with the issues raised.

Mr X wrote:

If you think our health care, financial, and labor sectors were “working parts”, you’re too dumb to live.

Our health care sector is the best in the world; we have people from socialized medicine countries coming here to pay for treatment, because they were not willing to wait month and months for lesser care in their home countries.  Heck, the Premier of Labrador, a Canadian province, came to the US for medical care! 

Our financial sector?  They took a government bailout, said thank you very much, and now they’re pretty much right where they were before.  Actually, they’re getting even wealthier, doing almost the same things they were before. 

Labor?  The problem isn’t labor, but business: demand has dropped and businesses can’t sell as much.  But President Obama’s prescriptions haven’t been things which would make it easier for businesses to operate, but ones which add greater costs to doing business.

The Democrats are combitching that business is trying to kick them out and put the Republicans back into office, and that’s true enough.  Businesses care about one thing, in the end, and that’s making money; they think that they can make more under Republican regulations than Democratic ones.  You might think that’s a horrible thing but there’s one fact that you should never forget: four out of five Americans who are employed are employed by private businesses.  Business is the greatest friend that there can be for the American worker, because business is what provides them with jobs!  What helps business eventually helps the worker; what hurts business costs some workers their jobs.

Our health care services are the best in the world. Our health care system would be a laughing stock if it wasn’t an international horror. The two are not the same.

The financial sector, like it or not, needed a bailout. There should have been a lot more regulation in the package Bush passed, but that was the best we were going to get.

As far as the business world goes, guess what: the “businessmen” complaining about tax hikes are a bunch of whiny parasites. The most prosperous times in our country have regularly seen high marginal tax rates, which just happened to coincide with the infrastructure businesses need to make money being better taken care of. Now taxes are too low, infrastructure is crumbling, and any time someone tries to do something about it, especially since putting money into infrastructure development and repair is a great way to create jobs, they get flamed for “excess spending” by the very same people that thought nothing of letting Dubya shit money out the window by the billion for a war we didn’t need.

But, once again, you should know this already.

Trouble is, while we bent the fenders by overspending,

See Dana, you’re a liar: you don’t actually care about overspending. That’s just a lie you told yourself to justify your irrational opposition to Obama. If you cared about fiscal issues you would have supported Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. What you don’t like is to be proven wrong, and you’d have to admit that you wasted your life on a failed belief system if you finally abandoned the immorality and failure if the republicans. You followed bush off a cliff and now dont get to be taken seriously any more because when important issues arose, you folded like a cheap suit in your social desperation to slavishly follow the republicans.

Business is the greatest friend that there can be for the American worker, because business is what provides them with jobs!

People said the same about slavery and “civilization” and Christianity. Most of us have no desire for corporate feudalism; Tennessee Ernie Ford was dead on about the company store, and it’s appalling that anything like it could exist or come back because of people who put “business” on a pedestal. Business is important, but it’s not the only important part of the economy.

Our financial sector?  They took a government bailout, said thank you very much, and now they’re pretty much right where they were before.  Actually, they’re getting even wealthier, doing almost the same things they were before. 

The fact that you want lower taxes and fewer regulations on them pretty much exposes you as a toady and a liar: the fact that you full throatily supported torture and engaged in a campaign of hatred against those who questioned the failures of judgment by bush on the war exposes you as a man who decided to serve Mammon.

But you know what I actually think? That being from a small town and not having an independent set of skills of your own, being a republican is the best way to socially ingratiate yourself with the local small town elites and give you a reason to think you’re a class step above the average working people in your town and maybe get you a coveted position on the rotary club board.

And you decide to share what you think is your accumulated wisdom with who you think are naive and ignorant youth, when in fact it is you who are the provincial ignoramus whose preaching about the value of education, hard work, and being a moral person were thrown away the instant someone promised you tax cuts and social esteem. You were too much of a coward to oppose the Iraq war, too much of a coward to speak out against incompetence, too much of a coward to speak out against torture, and too much of a coward to take the republicans to task formwasting their lives doing nothing to reform health care. Why should we take you seriously now? You have a track record of judgmental failure and cowardice when t counted—and if this is what being a republican is all about, then I don’t want it.

Another thing I’ve noticed in conservatives is a marked tendency to try to isolate interlinked systems, apparently as a rhetorical device. For example, refusal to admit that the 2008 financial crisis came from policies enacted in Ronald Reagan’s first term? It’s easy enough to trace, and there were plenty of people acquainted with Wall Street who knew the crash would come eventually. (Fans of Austrian economics tend to claim they were the only ones who noticed it, but Austrian economists are full of shit in general.) Yes, conservative, Republican policies (not unlike the ones that allowed Pinochet to drive Chile into the ground after the relative affluence of Allende’s government), maintained by Bush I and Clinton (one of Clinton’s major mistakes as President, IMHO) and turned up to eleven by Bush II.

Instead, what do we get? Ignorant racist screeds against the Community Reinvestment Act, blaming the Democrats (including the female Nancy Pelosi and the gay Barney Frank—don’t tell me sexism and homophobia weren’t major factors in the attacks on them), anything to avoid admitting that Reagan had saddled the country with a financial time bomb.

The Republican Party: The party of (someone else’s) personal responsibility.

So PIOTR, what is your solution to America’s problems?

Ain’t got none.  I suspect it’s too large to govern well, given that the oligarchial rule is entrenched.  Then again, I ain’t got answers for a couple of NZ’s more intractable problems either.

Develop a process for letting states or groups of states split off, complete with Constitutional conventions for those States.

Our health care sector is the best in the world; we have people from socialized medicine countries coming here to pay for treatment, because they were not willing to wait month and months for lesser care in their home countries.

You also have Americans going outside the country to get medical care they can afford, Dana.

A country which works very very well for the rich, and poorly for the rest of society is a country that works poorly.

Piator:

Yes, but it’s beyond disturbing how thoroughly ingrained Calvinism is in our culture, even in people who possess no belief in religion, even people who have never even heard of John Calvin. Among other things, it’s a very efficient enabler of victim-blaming. Down on your luck? Well, it’s your own damn fault for not trying harder. Got a swimming pool filled with Krugerrands? Well, you earned all that, so don’t let anyone take it from you. The whole idea of the Elect (along with a generous dose of the older Divine Right of Kings, frequently transferred to a nebulous entity known as “small business”) is so pervasive in American culture that it pretty much defines right wing politics in this country, and arguably was responsible for slavery dragging on here for decades after the British abolished it.

The sad part is that because of the fucked-up approach we have to teaching history in this country, the majority of kids will never have heard of John Calvin at any time during their educational career and therefore will have no idea what kind of sociopathic asshole he was…

Cleanup on aisle 211…

Cleanup on aisle 213…

the Premier of Labrador, a Canadian province, came to the US for medical care! 

And Steve Jobs, a resident of California, flew to Tennessee for medical care!

Consider that Americans are always traveling to specialist medical centers for treatment not available at home—the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, St. Lukes/Cooley. Consider further that the most successful hospitals at a given procedure are the ones with the highest volume. Finally, consider that Canada has one-tenth the population of the US. It is no wonder, then, that Canadians needing extremely specialized treatment would go to hospitals with the best projected outcomes, even if they were in the US.

the Premier of Labrador, a Canadian province, came to the US for medical care!

No, he went to the US for a specific procedure: his medical care has been taken care of in Canada for all of his life. If he had a hernia, he would have stayed in Canada and gone to Shouldice. Statistically speaking, hardly any Canadians go to the US for treatment, whereas 750,000 Americans in 2007 chose some other country than the US for medical care. Only 17,500 Canadians came to the US for treatment.

Look, fool, are you just cribbing off talking points, or what? Spewing forth with a string of cliches and talking points that someone told you to regurgitate might fly with the dumbass right-wing douches you hang out with—it might even get you a promotion!—but they don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re just repeating what they’re fed, because that is what Republican culture approves of, be we don’t put up with that stuff here, and it doesn’t get you respect.

The bottom line is that the Republican party had a mental meltdown over a Democrat being president in 1994, and they abused their position and were shown to be unable to govern, unable to reason, and unable to function as competent human beings. A Republican presidency brought into office one of the most incompetent and mismanaged administrations in modern history. These people do not belong in government, and the fact that Dana wants to relieve the governmental catastrophes of the late 90s with their impeachment freakouts and demagoguery and the fact that the rabid birtherism, crazed conspiracy theories, screams of “socialism,” and endorsement of an out-of-control deregulated financial sector are all things that Dana approves of just shows that Republicans should not take power for the near future:  their control acts as a harbinger of disaster from out-of-control children. The fact that this is what people like Dana celebrate just shows that their views are not to be taken in any away seriously. Disingenuously claiming that their concern is all about budget deficits is just dishonesty on their part to cover for the irrational rage and hatred that has infected their hearts at the prospect of Democrats taking control of the government in the wake of governing failures on the part of Republicans.

Until you grow up Dana, expect to be regarded as the political ignoramus and moral failure that you are: all of your ideas have been shown to be wrong, and the leaders you support left a legacy of destruction gave themselves over to crazed irrationality when they had to deal with a Democratic president. These are not the people who should be in control, and your approval of their behavior and failure to learn from the past just marks you as a fool. The fact that you’re too much of a coward to actually address the reasons we’re opposed to Republican misgovernance is a tacit admission that you know there’s little justification besides a sense of personal entitlement you seem to have that you be taken seriously.

It don’t matter the fact that you managed to get old, convince someone to marry you, and/or become a parent: dumb is dumb, my friend, and unworthy of respect. We have standards here: you gotta be informed, have a sense of honesty, and be morally stable. Since you don’t have that, you don’t get respect and have to serve as our object of derision. Yeah, Amanda’s young, living a good life, and get’s attention with her writing, and I understand you might reflect on your wasted life trying to hope that being a “good Republican” would get you nice things in life and social respect, but don’t act out your pathologies here and don’t expect to come in here like every other single right-wing ignoramus that all of us have encountered all our lives and expect to be taken seriously. Many of us turned left because we heard it, understood it, and realized that it was the biggest pile of bullshit we’d ever heard and was being dishonestly taken up by the biggest bunch of douchenozzles we’d ever encountered.

Our financial sector?  They took a government bailout, said thank you very much, and now they’re pretty much right where they were before.  Actually, they’re getting even wealthier, doing almost the same things they were before.

Do you pay attention to anything?

They committed mass fraud, which is going to result in another meltdown in the next 3-6 months.

They not only failed to underwrite loans properly, they took these loans and bundled them up into non-profit trusts (so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes) and then chopped them up.  Problem being, when they put the loans into the trust, they tended to destroy the original note.

This is a problem b/c they didn’t properly and legally transfer the loan.  Legally, they sold nothing to be chopped up.

Now they want to foreclose, but they not only don’t have the proper paperwork, they destroyed the proper paperwork.  On top of that, they forged paperwork to cover it up.

Yes, they took billions of tax dollars to pay themselves bonuses, but currently 40 AG are circling to prosecute.  Timmy Geithner is the only thing protecting them from the Feds, which is yet another reason why he should go.

Being “right where they were before” and “doing almost the same things they did before” is NOT a symptom of health.  It’s raiding.

This is the key reason why Republicans (as they currently define themselves) shouldn’t be elected to political office:  They think keeping the War Department running at full steam and continual enlargement of the police state are the only legitimate functions of government.  In every other area they cry “government is the problem and not the solution!”

From the beginning of history any time there has been a group of more than 10 humans living together there has been some form of government, even if it is as simple as choosing one person to be their leader/decision maker.

Without some form of leadership and centralized decision making there is chaos.  All forms of government — monarchy, oligarchy, republic, democracy, etc. — are aimed at keeping a society working together and reducing the endemic chaos.  Some forms may work better in certain situations than others.  But ultimately the existence of government is as natural a part of being human as eating, sleeping, and having children.

When a political party announces to the world that you should elect them to government offices specifically because they will not govern, that should be a big, red, warning sign.  Anybody with the sense god gave seafood should be able to recognize the simple truth of that.

There is one 100% certain fact:  There will be a government.  That government can be effective and efficient, or it can be an organized crime syndicate.  The choice, in a democratic republic like the USA, is ours to make.  Choose wisely…

BTW, Mr. Dana Pico, how does your daughter (the one I know is in the US Army) like her evil, government controlled healthcare?

If she doesn’t like it, then you’re criticizing the US Military, which in your eyes is the Greatest Triumph of Human Organization and Protector of Freedom and Liberty Evah!  But of she does like it, then does that show the government really can do some things well?...

Tyro @ 216, thanks for that great explanation of Dana and all his bots. One thing that never gets spoken about is how bizarre the Republican party started to become after Nixon’s resignation. That fact that our branches of government worked and a debacle was averted really chaps the oligarchy.

The Republican machine doubled down and got more duplicitous not less after Nixon got caught. To think that there are whole swaths of people from all walks of life that think the right wing stands for some kind of morality really fries my brain. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The US, as a nation, fails because governance is made so very very complicated.  It doesn’t have to be that complicated.
Comment 20—PiaToR

How would you simplify it? Westminister? But that ties the executive and the legislator a little too closely for my taste, and a lot of Americans are less enthused about the government having power than I am.

As usual you’re playing a different game, moron. None of the people you mentioned were inspired by well-funded mainstream American pundits and panel show guests.
Comment 39—Gracchus

Nor was Pontius Pilate.

political factions in such a large and diverse country like the one we have are forced to compromise
Comment 84—Ben D.

Only they don’t do so. There are two parties, a result of FPTP elections and the belief that political opinion can be nailed down to points on a lline, rather than the diversity of platforms that would require actual compromising and cooperation.

I knew I was wasting my breath, but playing the Pol Pot card was just too silly for words.
Comment 147—BrianX

Yeah, weren’t all the smart people kicked out of Cambodia?

Hershele:

Nah… mostly murdered. Which kind of violates every possible principle the Left has when it comes to intellectualism.

How would you simplify it? Westminister?

No.  Essentially change the processes for passing legislation to make them more transparent, reduce the opportunity for lobbyists to insert their favourite bits, and require concurrent justification for the provisions.

It’s not going to happen, of course.  The whole point of keeping the processes opaque is to allow rentiers to influence the legislation.

The fact that this is what people like Dana celebrate just shows that their views are not to be taken in any away seriously. Disingenuously claiming that their concern is all about budget deficits is just dishonesty on their part to cover for the irrational rage and hatred that has infected their hearts at the prospect of Democrats taking control of the government in the wake of governing failures on the part of Republicans.

Dana regularly postures about “spending cuts” over at his blog.

I repeatedly point him at this site and suggest he put actual numbers on his posturing.

Repeatedly he refuses to do so, and goes back to preening himself in front of his fellow idiot wingnuts.

Notice how our trolly trolls resort to blatant sexism when they get nailed. So Paul probably believes that a quota at whatever place unlikely enough to hire him denied him a promotion he ‘deserved’—-being white, male, and conservative—-and the other guy…..Huh.  He knows me. I have no fuckin’ clue who he is.

ginmar:

If he’s telling the truth about anything. Being as he is a troll, I wouldn’t believe him if he said bread was made of flour.

He wouldn’t say bread was made of flour, of course. That is just a dastardly Democrat slander.  In fact, flour was a Democrat plant!

ginmar:

Did you notice how neither the troll nor the doofus went anywhere near my post at #207?

Hm… does that make wheat a Democratic plant? Or even a socialist one, given how important it is to the world?

Well, Brian, if they did they’d have to answer it,  and that requires intellectual honesty they don’t have.

conrad:

I must say, this is a very, very comfortable handbasket. Everyone knows Hell has better parties anyway (even if you have to put the couch out a bit more often).

PAULSALATA has apparently never had the joyous experience of copulating in a handbasket.  Way better than a room.

NO PAUL I WILL NOT HAVE SEX WITH YOU. I mean, it’s sooooo cute how you’re all jealous 4th grade tsundere for me, but I just don’t dig the Biff Tannen type, you know what I’m saying?

DAmmit, Brian, now what’s he going to do with that Trapper Keeper with “PAUL + Brian” plus “Mr. BrianX” written all over it?!

@ginmar

PAULSALATA is nowhere cool enough to own a Trapper Keeper.

Besides, using your eraser to make the words on the front of a spiral notebook is much more noticeable, and affordable. PAULSALATA is in the know about the cool kids.

If Dana had an honest bone in his body, it would be the loneliest bone in his body as well.

Ever notice, Dana, how people from outside the USA come here for the health care because they can afford it, but they don’t want to get involved in the US insurance/medical system itself?

Of course, answering that question truthfully is beyond Dana’s capacity, but I put it out there anyway.

#229, really? What are you, five years old? Wishful thinking is not a retort. In the twelve thousand years that human beings have been ritually observing deities in thousands of religions across the world, no one, but one, has been able to prove the existence of the supernatural.

Try being an adult with a real, demonstrable argument.

I attended a parochial grade school run by the Daughters of Mary and Joseph, a teaching order of nuns with Masters and Phd’s. I knew by sixth grade that there is no hell. You see they taught critical thinking skills in a formal manner, and came right up against the law of unintended consequences. Since I could think for myself, I threw out any need for the existence of anything supernatural.

Grow up.