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RedditRichard Viguerie, the legendary hard-right activist who spent much of the past decade arguing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were too liberal, now declares that the days of even the most minimal moderation are now over in the Republican Party.
"Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP," says Viguerie.
There is little reason to argue with the man whose direct-mail campaigning funded the rise of the Republican right in the late 1970s and who grumbled loudly when Newt Gingrich, Bush, Cheney and Republican leaders tried to soften the party's roughest edges.
He's celebrating. And rightly so.
Moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava, the party's nominee in Tuesday's special election for an open New York congressional seat, has suspended her campaign. And with that move, the new "new right" -- which Viguerie describes as "Tea Party activists, town hall protesters, and conservatives across the country" -- can claim a clear victory in its struggle to define the GOP as a far more extreme party than anything envisioned by Bush, Cheney or Gingrich.
Scozzafava, a state legislator, had the Republican ballot line and support from the party apparatus in Washington. But Tea Party and Town Hall activists -- and their mentors and funders such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and the powerful Club for Growth -- threw their support behind Doug Hoffman, a more right-wing contender running on the New York Conservative Party line.
Scozzafava took a beating for her support for gay rights and abortion rights, her alliances with organized labor and her sympathy for the plight of the unemployed.
The attacks were brutal and they dried up financial support for the GOP nominee's campaign -- even though she began as a presumed frontrunner in New York's historically Republican 23rd district, where the seat went vacant after President Obama nominated moderate Republican Congressman John McHugh to serve as Secretary of the Army.
Reactionary Republicans, led by 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, threw their support to Hoffman.
With her poll numbers tanking, Scozzafava finally gave up with just three days to go before Tuesday's election.
Now that the GOP nominee is out of the running, Hoffman is well positioned to compete with Democratic newcomer Bill Owens in a race to fill a seat that has not elected a Democrat in more than a century.
Scozzafava said she would vote in Tuesday's special election for Democrat Owens, issuing a statement that read:
You know me, and throughout my career, I have been always been an independent voice for the people I represent. I have stood for our honest principles, and a truthful discussion of the issues, even when it cost me personally and politically.It is in this spirit that I am writing to let you know I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," Scozzafava added. "It's not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh's lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress.
No matter what its contours, the Hoffman-Owens result will be a footnote to the Scozzafava-Hoffman saga.
As GOP strategist Paul Erickson told The Washington Post with regard to the latter struggle: "This is entirely a battle over the definition and winning formula for Republican candidates going into the midterm elections of 2010 and beyond."
Erickson's point is well taken.
Republicans who have tried to move party back toward the political mainstream, after a three-year losing streak that has cost the GOP control of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the White House, are frustrated -- and a little bit scared. As Gingrich, who backed the decision of local Republican leaders to nominate Scozzafava, explained: "I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices."
Republican strategist John Weaver, a veteran aide to 2008 presidential nominee John McCain, echoed that theme.
"Because of what's happened, we're going to have some mischief-making, which is not positive for a party that needs to really focus on other fundamentals in order to make a comeback," explains Weaver.
But Gingrich, Weaver and other advocates for mainstreaming the GOP have been beaten. Badly.
And Viguerie and his crew get the bragging rights.
Calling the developments in the New York race "an earthquake in American politics," the right-wing strategist predicted that it would be "the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond."
Viguerie is right.
And it is not just the party of Lincoln or the old "Rockefeller Republicans" that is being broken.
Gingrich and those conservatives who argued for broadening the party's base have suffered a serious blow.
The GOP is now, as Richard Viguerie says, the party of "the Tea Parties and their candidates."
The question, of course, is whether a GOP defined by "the Tea Parties and their candidates" can compete not just in New York's 23rd district -- where the party has always won -- but across the great expanse of a country where the party has in recent years been losing.
If Viguerie and his compatriots are correct, it is not just the Republican Party but America that is about to take the most rightwing turn in its history.
If Viguerie and his compatriots are wrong, the Grand Old Party could be turning toward a permanent minority status that only the most enthusiastic Democrats dared imagine.
Gingrich, ever the wise analyst, is anticipating -- or perhaps the proper word is "dreading" -- the latter result.
Said the former speaker of the GOP: "This makes life more complicated from the standpoint of this: If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we'll make Pelosi speaker for life and guarantee Obama's re-election."
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John Nichols
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One wonders if they've ever read Faust.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 09:46am
this is a great victory for conservativism. Americans deserve a debate on competing ideas and vision, not merely two similar parties with the Republicans of the last 8 years being a lighter shade of the Democratic party.
What's the matter Nichols? I know as a socialist you hate the idea of liberty, individual freedom, personal responsibility, and a constitutional govt of limited and enumerated powers, but it appears you also disagree with debate.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 09:51am
No matter how hard you try the Obama controlled press will not and cannot convince moderate Americans that the tea party protesters represent the new Republican party. The tea party groups were attended by all parties, moderates, and conservative values. They represents a revolt by those moderate and conservative americans who always have been the majority . The left wing radical socialists recently voted in during a Bush hate campaign will not succedd in hyjacking our nation, its constituition and its values.
Keep trying but starting next Tuesday we are taking our country back...Republicans, Democrats and moderates.
It will be interesting to see the left wing extremist left only with a radical administartion to support them. Oh I forgot and the back door funded ACORN lunnies that you love to support.
Posted by Obamunut at 11/01/2009 @ 10:22am
NICHOLS: ".....moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava, the party's nominee in New York state special election....took a beating for overher support for gay rights and abortion rights and her sympathy woth organized labor."
Use spell check and at least read your own column ONCE before posting, Johny Nichols!
I can't claim to know the `standard' of Republicanism in New York state, but I'm certain, Ms. Scozzafava is NOT a "moderate Republican" based on national GOP standard, and far, far from "moderate" when compared the the southern wing, the dominant wing, of the GOP!
You failed to mention that another dagger bursting her bubble of falying the GOP balloon, is that she endorsed Magic's Pork Bill.......now, ask your interns to track down how many "moderate" Repubs did that!
Dede is a very liberal candidate who is probably a right-leaning Dem and not even a conservative Dem!!
You political writers need to do better than the Legacy Media!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:27am
Is it possible even the LA Times is upping its tolerance for the SMALL-Gubber goal of "Tea Party Activists"?
THE CALIFORNIA FIX
The Golden State isn't worth it
Our high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works, especially compared with low-tax states like Texas.
By William Voegeli
November 1, 2009
In America's federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a "package deal" that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right.
It's not surprising, then, that there's an intense debate over which model is more admirable and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit/low-tax package not only succeeds on its own terms but also according to the criteria used to defend its opposite. In other words, the superior public goods that supposedly justify the high taxes just aren't being delivered.
California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau's latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas....Only three states and the District of Columbia saw higher per capita government outlays than Californi....Texas were lower than in all but seven states. California ranked 10th in overall taxes levied by state and local governments....Texas, one of only seven states with no individual income tax, was 38th.....
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:34am
Remember the Viguerie-Moyers interview a few years back? Viguerie claimed opposition to tax & spend big govt & claimed that as a conservative, empowerment of the individual was at the crux of the movement.
Seems that while involved with the Rev. Moon's Children's Relief Fund, he ended up personally with nearly a million of the million & a half dollars raised. The charity got 6%+.
He got the money, his tea-baggers get strep throat.
Posted by Sorelish at 11/01/2009 @ 10:41am
LA Times con't:
In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006.....9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers....increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.
None of this happens by accident. California's interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.
.....Given its powerful systemic bias against efficient and effective public services, however, the question is whether the state will ever get well. California's public sector has pinned its hopes for avoiding fundamental reform on increased federal aid to replace dollars the state's fed-up taxpayers refuse to surrender....
.....For the sake of both California and their own political ideals, its advocates ought to be leading the charge against every excess and inefficiency that deprives taxpayers of good value for their dollars. That won't happen until they stand up to their coalition partners by breaking their Faustian political bargain with California's self-serving governmental-industrial complex.
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
We are all happy the Tea Party and Conservative Party are now the "heart and soul" of the Republican party. As long as these fringe groups are front and center, Republicans have ZERO chance of becoming a national party or winning national elections!
Now if we can just get the Republicans to nominate Sarah Palin in 2012, their permanent minority status will be official.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 09:51am |
"What's the matter Nichols? I know as a socialist you...hate the idea of liberty"
-- as much as you hate habeus corpus?
"individual freedom"
-- to be spied on by your government.
"personal responsibility"
-- like Sanford, Foley, Cunningham, Stevens, Craig, Ensign,...shall we go on?
"...a constitutional govt of limited and enumerated powers"
-- which you consistently deny have been enumerated , if they're contrary to your belief system.
"...but it appears you also disagree with debate."
-- please point out one sentence where Mr. Nichols has advocated censorship of any kind (as if we'd deny you loons the right to self-destruct).
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 10:48am
BTW, Nichols, as an attendee at a Tea Party on April 15th, I can tell you that we don't aim to the the "New GOP"....rather, we stand for the Reagan GOP and conservatives in general.
Many of us, including me, will vote for conservatives like Hoffman rather than have "moderate" Repubs like Dede constitute YOUR GOP!
Unlike Progressives, we have always had a higher threshold for upholding principles.....remember Perot? Watching the Far Left & the Dems this past two years, have more than convinced me that voting for the lesser-evil is to continue "evil".
Let me put it bluntly, I would rather a Dem win than someone like Dede wins! America needs a principled opposition party, maybe even two!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:52am
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
I feel sorry for you!
You knew all along that Magic was a pretender (of a left-moderate while campaigning) and harbored such high hopes.
I know you know that, regardless of who opposes HusseinO in `12, Your Messiah will be running on the weakest Re-election platform since.......well, Jimminy Peanut!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:56am
THE NATION has run several articles about how the two parties use their power to freeze out third-party candidates like Nader, and to make a real alternative third party impossible to establish. If the magazine is right, and these parties share immense political control, this rightward movement of Republicans must be scary for liberals no matter what its temporary effects may be. Goldwater lost in a landslide, and twenty years later Reagan won. Reagan was a liberal compared with present-day tea-partiers, and the Republicans are still one of America's two major political parties. Neither Nichols nor anyone else has suggested that a third party has any practical chance of ousting Republicans from their power position. They have to win a national election eventually.
Posted by posterboy at 11/01/2009 @ 11:01am
all this is moot if UNEMPLOYMENT is high
[i.e. the 20% it currently is at -- or higher]
in 2010 and 2012.
and it will be.
the republican wing of THE PARTY will then take their turn on the not-so-merry-go-round.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:04am
Posted by posterboy at 11/01/2009 @ 11:01am |
"Reagan was a liberal compared with present-day tea-partiers, and the Republicans are still one of America's two major political parties." -- Posterboy
"BTW, Nichols, as an attendee at a Tea Party on April 15th, I can tell you that we don't aim to the the "New GOP"....rather, we stand for the Reagan GOP and conservatives in general." -- Happy
Already having problems sticking to a story guys?
This should be fun!
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 11:07am
coke...
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:16am
pepsi..
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:16am
coke.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:16am
pepsi!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:16am
COKE!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
PEPSI$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
PEPSI!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
COKE!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
PEPSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
COKE$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
PEPSI$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:18am
PEPSI$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:17am
oops, out of order.
where's the unsubmit button?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:21am
One wonders if they've ever read.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:24am
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:21am |
No fry. Chip!
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 11:28am
this is a great victory for conservativism.
•• as if you knew what that meant.
Americans deserve a debate on competing ideas and vision,
•• damn straight.
not merely two similar parties
•• you mean two branches of THE PARTY.
with the Republicans of the last 8 years being a lighter shade of the Democratic party.
•• literally.
What's the matter Nichols?
•• usually typos.
I know as a socialist you hate the idea of liberty, individual freedom, personal responsibility, and a constitutional govt of limited and enumerated powers,
•• generated by CLICHES'R'US.
but it appears you also disagree with debate.
•• then why does he let you post on his threads?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 09:51am
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:30am
It will be interesting to see the left wing extremist left only with a radical administartion to support them.
Posted by Obamunut at 11/01/2009 @ 10:22am
timmy, benny, and larry are leftists?
lost, you are.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:32am
Our high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works, especially compared with low-tax states like Texas.
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:34am
"Enclosed is our partial analysis of the very serious financial situation at the City of Houston. We would be derelict if we failed to share this financial analysis with you. This financial heads up will assist you in meeting your fiduciary responsibilities to Houston voters, taxpayers, readers, viewers or investors---as the case may be.
••••••
IT APPEARS TO US THAT THERE MAY BE NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS AND THEREBY POSITIONING THE CITY TO REGAIN CONTROL OVER ITS OVERSPENDING, THROUGH ADDRESSING STRUCTURAL SPENDING PROBLEMS SUCH AS OVERSTAFFING AND OVERLY GENEROUS EMPLOYEE BENEFITS.
••••••
i'm sure you'll say it's all the democrat's fault. so why is AMERICA in the same boat? after all the republicans have had power for most of the last 35 years.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:50am
Republicans have ZERO chance of becoming a national party or winning national elections!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
unemployment.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:52am
•• then why does he let you post on his threads?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 09:51am
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:30am
He doesn't. It's the Nation magazine that does, and I've expressed repeated thanks to Katrina for allowing the debate
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 11:53am
>>>unemployment.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:52am<<<
In 2012, this will be a NON-issue! Too much stimulus to keep economy in the tank, but this is a 2-year project and the results will be clear to everyone in 2012.
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 11:56am
I know you know that, regardless of who opposes HusseinO in `12, Your Messiah will be running on the weakest Re-election platform since.......well, Jimminy Peanut!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:56am
and all sarah will have to do is promise the iranians she'll sell them a few F-22s.
mr. carter reduced the federal bureaucracy, lowered federal debt, had visionary energy policies and, with mr. volcker's guidance, saved america's economy during one of the most difficult moments in u.s. history.
you should be so lucky -- show some respect.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:57am
In 2012, this [unemployment] will be a NON-issue!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 11:56am
you are dreaming in technicolour.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:58am
....rather, we stand for the Reagan GOP and conservatives in general." --
Happy
so, you favour doubling federal debt, increasing the federal bureaucracy and selling weapons to islamic fundamentalists?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 12:01pm
There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that exposes once and for all the true nature of the teabagging partiers.
Posted by winyahn at 11/01/2009 @ 12:03pm
coke!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 12:04pm
pepsi!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 12:04pm
They have to win a national election eventually. Posted by posterboy at 11/01/2009 @ 11:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
notachance. you have to crawl before you can walk. it took the greens twenty years in Germany to get representation, and that in a liberal country. how long will it take in a right wing country such as ours?
Posted by emile duBois at 11/01/2009 @ 12:10pm
GODOT/HARVEY '12 A New Path
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 12:32pm
mr. carter reduced the federal bureaucracy, lowered federal debt, had visionary energy policies and, with mr. volcker's guidance, saved america's economy during one of the most difficult moments in u.s. history.
you should be so lucky -- show some respect.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:57am
That is perhaps the most revisionist statement of Carters horrendous presidency I have ever seen.
I still consider that it is only be the grace of G-d that my family survived Jimmy Carter's presidency.
You call saving America's economy, double digit interest rates, double digit inflation, a stagnant economy, high unemployment, a lack of respect for American will by the world, Billy Beer?
Carter was an embarrassment to the office of the presidency. I wish he would have either gone back to peanut farming or emigrated to join his jihadist friends.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 12:39pm
Howard Jarvis (Prop 13) convinced Californians in 1978 that they could get something for nothing. Then Ronald Reagan sold the same message to the entire country. No 'conservative' majority in D.C. ever took the steps their radical fringes proposed to pay for their ruinous tax cuts for the wealthy: eliminating the entire HHS Dept., shutting down entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, privatizing public highways etc. Why not?
Maybe it was due to the overwhelming desire of the 'conservative' politicians to stay in power - to continue doling out welfare to their corporate donors in return for 'investment opportunities', 'speaking fees' and other left-handed bribes.
Sure, the rank and file actually believe in smaller government, an end to corruption, even eliminating Social Security welfare and Medicare welfare. But those rank and file are duped again and again by corporate welfare pimps like Reagan, Gingrich & Bush Jr. No wonder the extremists are back in the saddle, now that their 'leaders' are out of power!
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 12:47pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 12:39pm |
"...double digit interest rates, double digit inflation, a stagnant economy, high unemployment, a lack of respect for American will by the world, Billy Beer?"
No, I call it Republican fallout.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 12:51pm
larry,
welcome to the reagan depression.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 12:54pm
I wish Carter would have emigrated to join his jihadist friends.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 12:39pm
reagan beat him to it.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:05pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:05pm
With each week, you increasingly show that you are an enemy of free people.
You come on here and try and make light of freedom while you promote massive govt to enslave people.
You are a farce and a hypocrite. Anyone who loves socialism like you do actually hates people.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 1:08pm
crazy, larry, crazy.
one more time:
mr. reagan expanded the bureaucracy, doubled federal debt, made deals with death squads, dictators and mullahs, AND banned off-shore drilling.
your hero.
••
massive government? me? hardly.
you're the one drinking stimulus water.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:18pm
coke!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:55pm
PEPSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:55pm
Seems like the extreme right is out ahead of the game. The fascists have infiltrated and taken over the Republican Party.
Too bad the left isn't doing the same thing. It's way past time that the left takes over the Democratic Party in the same way. Why are these right wing folks always two steps ahead of the left? It's time to polarize both parties in the extreme. Otherwise the right will gain a commanding lead in the race to transform this country.
It might get nasty, but I see no other way to resolve the direction of our country and in the process wake up all the sheeple.
Time to pick sides and duke it out. Failure to do so will guarantee that the ignorant will rule the day..
Posted by chaoszen at 11/01/2009 @ 2:08pm
crazy, larry, crazy.
one more time:
mr. reagan expanded the bureaucracy, doubled federal debt, made deals with death squads, dictators and mullahs, AND banned off-shore drilling.
your hero.
••
massive government? me? hardly.
you're the one drinking stimulus water.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 1:18pm
The leftist Democratic Congress doubled the debt.
Without Reagan, the Russians and Cuba would have taken over Central America. My wife had to flee El Salvador and the communist FMLN who were kidnapping other teenagers and making them serve with the commies as slave soldiers.
You'r not against massive Fed Govt?
So you're against Universal Healthcare?
You're now against Federal involvement in education?
You're now against Social Security and Medicare?
You're now against the EPA, OSHA, FDA, FCC?
You're now against Obama's massive Federal spending that totals more debt than all previousl president's combined?
When did this transformation take place?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 2:37pm
Posted by chaoszen at 11/01/2009 @ 2:08pm
pepsi!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 2:38pm
Time to pick sides and duke it out. Failure to do so will guarantee that the ignorant will rule the day..
Posted by chaoszen at 11/01/2009 @ 2:08pm
We already have that with the Democrats in charge
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 2:59pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 1:08pm
What, exactly, is your role here? There are forums for your type of ignorance. Why not talk amongst your fellow believers? Why come here and play the troll in a forum that does not believe what you believe and where your contribution tends to be some variation of "you are an enemy of free people".
You are the enemy, Larry. You cannot argue for small, limited government and a global military power fighting against Muslims on the side of Israel. And since you come down on the global military power side, it is you who is putting this country is jeopardy and killing off small, limited and local governments.
So, do us all a favor and wander off to join the other wingnuts in whatever forum you like. You have no business being here.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:00pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 11:53am
Debate! Ha! Is that what "you are an enemy of free people" constitutes for you Larry? Fuckin' hypocrite.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:01pm
"Higher threshold for upholding principles"? Conservatives??!!??
Don't make me laugh, Happy!! Your clay-footed, Alzheimer's-ridden hero, Ronald Reagan, not only violated his own law and dealt with terrorists (after committing treason and dealing with them as a candidate), he then signed off on bombing Libya over it's supposed complicity in a terrorist incident which his own Secretary of State later admitted---in the NY Times, no less---was a complete fabrication. You, LvLiberty and antisocialist wouldn't know principle if one pissed on your Brooks Brothers shoes. Now, don't you have a segment of "My Name is Earl" to finish?
Posted by DP in TC at 11/01/2009 @ 3:08pm
Posted by Obamunut at 11/01/2009 @ 10:22am
Thanks for the note from crazy land. "Tea baggers aren't the face of the Republican party and they are just normal Americans like you and me..." I suggest that, next time you look in the mirror, you try to look for another adjective than "normal".
Normal America doesn't even understand the knee jerk backlash of ignorant, white America wondering where there country went - because in their country, a black man is a "boy", not President. Time to wake up, Rip Van Winkle is discover we don't live in 1950s America anymore. Whites are going to be a minority, which isn't a bad thing.
Posted by posterboy at 11/01/2009 @ 11:01am
More likely, they will take the Republican party into irrelevance. See the Whig party for an example.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:08pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:00pm
That's laughable. I've been blogging here far longer than you. Furthermore and precisely to the point, debate is conducted between those holding opposing positions.
Your post makes it clear that you despise debate.
I come here to oppose the marxist totalitarian thought that dominates todays form of liberalism. I do so in the time honored American forum of debate. The fact that that concept infuriates you, speaks to your view of open debate and the right of people in a free nation to hold opposing views.
And you can hold to limited government and still defend national security. It is your narrow construct that prefers enslavement or death to defense of liberty.
Furthermore, my defense of Israel is only connected to our own liberty in a small way. My primary cause of fighting Islamist expansion is the defense of our liberty and all peoples from the tyranny and death that Islam promises to all who do not accept Islam.
If there is no defense of the nation, there is no local or national govt.
Your bigotry is hardly authority to force me off of these pages. If you dislike my debate, then ignore me. But don't threaten my freedom of speech.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 3:19pm
The leftist Democratic Congress doubled the debt.
•• coke!
Without Reagan, the Russians and Cuba would have taken over Central America.
•• against united fruit? hardly.
My wife had to flee El Salvador and the communist FMLN who were kidnapping other teenagers and making them serve with the commies as slave soldiers.
•• BEGINNING WITH THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION [oh, lord -- first afghanistan and now <i>this</i>??!?!?]
and continued by the Reagan and Bush administrations, the U.S. sent seven billion dollars of foreign and military aid to El Salvador in ten years. The silent-partner-role of the United States in the Salvadoran Civil War became public when a National Guard death squad raped and murdered four American nuns and a laywoman on December 2, 1980; Maryknoll missionary nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Ursuline nun Dorothy Kazel, and laywoman Jean Donovan were on a Catholic relief mission providing food, shelter, transport, medical care, and burial to death squad victims. After the murders of the churchwomen, President Carter suspended all aid to El Salvador, but domestic U.S. right-wing political pressure forced him to reinstate it. PEPSI!
You'r not against massive Fed Govt?
•• well, i do think syntax is important.
So you're against Universal Healthcare?
•• i'm for universal health insurance.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 3:20pm
You're now against Federal involvement in education?
•• taxation for schools should be federally administered. actually, globally; you make a kid -- he's gonna get this much for school. administration should be very local.
You're now against Social Security and Medicare?
•• in their current form?!? are you nuts?
•• i'm for caring for our elders. of course the family is the place to start -- i find myself distressed by the lack of togetherness of money neoeuropean families -- but a mechanism for providing for the less fortunate is something tax revenue should be used for.
•• i'm for universal health insurance.
•• as to welfare etc.,: if you can move, workfare [planting trees] from which you can be fired.
You're now against the EPA, OSHA, FDA, FCC?
•• in their current form? are you nuts? washington is like super corrupt. i'd move the capital to iowa or someplace. out in a field.
•• the environment must be protected from the greedy or/and uninformed.
•• workers must be protected from the greedy or/and uninformed.
You're now against Obama's massive Federal spending that totals more debt than all previousl president's combined?
•• well, with real money and real financial policing we wouldn't have gotten into the mess were in.
•• you're the one whose drinking stimulus water. to whit:
$92 MILLION IN STIMULUS MONEY TO AID INLAND WATER RECYCLING PROJECTS
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Press-Enterprise
The largest local award -- a 1 percent loan for $38.4 million -- is expected to go to Eastern Municipal Water District in Perris
•• gonna cut that contract?
When did this transformation take place?
•• the day you actually listened to me.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 2:37pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 3:20pm
We already have that with the Democrats in charge
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 2:59pm
PEPSI!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 3:21pm
The profane and ad hominem nature of many comments on The Nation's blogs is an indication of how low public discourse has sunk in our society. One would think that comments by citizens capable of reading and writing would be more informed or better expressed than the truisms that pass for discourse on talk radio. Not that talk radio commentators (or 'conservative' politicians) are ignorant - they just think that we are!
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 3:23pm
The Left is falling apart.......while it clings bitterly to some figments of Hopey and Changey.....and pretend to be proud of `saving/creating' a million jobs (I'm feeling generous) at a cost of $200k per `job' saved/created, based on some $200 BILLION of Pork spending.
Folks, there are real people w/out real jobs.....real people dropping out of the work force......businesses NOT started.....more businesses closing in every major shopping center and office complex that you see......That, my friends, is DESPAIR, or the Magic version of Change to Believe In!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 3:42pm
Whites are going to be a minority, which isn't a bad thing.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:08pm
i'm kinda pinkish these days.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 3:42pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 3:00pm |
you know, the fructose guy said that the body basically deals with fructose the same way as it does with ethanol.
we've got millions and millions of fructosaholics....
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 4:28pm
ah, the magic niggrah....
happy, you dolt -- mr. obama is the key to your financial success.
ride the wave of the final milking of america.
don't look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it's a dark horse.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 4:35pm
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 3:42pm |
"Folks, there are real people w/out real jobs.....real people dropping out of the work force."
And you pretend that you care? Amusing!
Where were you from 2000-2008?
What happened to "if you're unemployed it's because you aren't trying hard enough", Ms. Rand?
".....businesses NOT started.....more businesses closing in every major shopping center and office complex that you see."
Maybe they should take on some debt...oh, they can't because the banks are so far underwater that they won't even think about reducing their reserve levels for the likes of you, commoner.
Save the commercial real estate tycoons!
"That, my friends, is DESPAIR, or the Magic version of Change to Believe In!"
That, my friends, is the result of 28 years of Republican/DINO 'rule'.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 4:36pm
That, my friends, is the result of 28 years of Republican/DINO 'rule'.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 4:36pm
PEPSI!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 4:43pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 3:21pm | Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 4:43pm |
Make up your mind...are the Dems Pepsi or the Pugs?
PEPSI!
COKE!
WEED!
BEER!
CORN!
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 5:03pm
OK, what is conservatism anyway?
Is it cutting the deficit as Jerry Ford did? Or inflating the deficit as Reagan and Bush Jr did?
And do conservatives believe in doing anything about bank failures, shuttered businesses or unemployed workers?
And tax cuts - how about lower income taxes for the workers, or lower sales taxes to get government out of the way of families buying the necessities of life?
If Obama's public works are pork, does that mean that he should balance the budget? By doing so, he would at least be restoring our nation's credit.
And if 'limited government' includes a $500B-per-year military-industrial complex, what isn't included?
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:07pm
And what alternative are you proposing to 28 years of Republican/Democrat governing?
Seems to be a recurring theme with your posts. A third party of some sort? And what would your ideal model of that third party be? Green Naderites? Libertarians? The CPUSA? Natural Law? Constitution Party?
Those are all "extreme" in one way or another. I'm amenable to probably 70% of what libertarians believe. It's that remaining 30% that makes me grateful their candidates never get anywhere.
The reality is that about 80% of the voting body is going to vote the same way their parents did. It's a function of socialization.
Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 11/01/2009 @ 5:15pm
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 1850
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 5:29pm
The `heart' of Victor Davis Hanson's "A Very Interesting Next Three Years".....He's been fairly gentle w/The Annointed One but, let's say, he's now `concerned'!
FDR did it!
The more the talk of togetherness, hope and change, and healing, the more the daggers come out: it has been ten months and still Bush is blamed daily by the President for all his assorted ills. Imagine had a Harry Truman every day lamented, "Damn that FDR--he left me with WWII, the bomb decision, a traitorous Stalin, a Europe to be rebuilt, a Korean powder keg, a worldwide communist ascendancy, Greece and Turkey about lost, and colossal debts -- and I've got to hit the reset button on him every day."
What is there about dissent that drives the Obamians crazy? He goes after Fox. He whines about Rush Limbaugh. The town hallers are the mob. He provides Sean Hannity with his pre-show sound bites. His team ponders handing out NEA grants on the basis of being a toady. School girls sing his praises. What is next? Green "yes, we can" scarves and tiny little Audacity of Hope books to wave at rallies?
We've only just begun
Remember, all these are just the preliminaries. The Bush tax cuts have not yet expired, but will soon. Inheritance taxes will soon skyrocket. The promised end to the FICA caps on the "wealthy" is coming -- along with surcharges on energy and health care. For some, that could easily mean a combined 20% hike in FICA and income taxes, tacked onto state tax hikes, not to mention more property, sales, and local taxes. Given that Obama got 56% of the vote of those who make over $200,000 it should, well, be interesting. (e.g., "Surely, Buffy, Barack didn't mean us, did he?) Then there is the 2,000 page health care bill that your family doctor will have to sort out....
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:31pm
...giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys....
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores, 1992, pp. xviii-xix
The government, with its Income Tax, treats you, supposedly a free citizen, like a child. You must hand your earnings over to "daddy" and then wait patiently for your allowance!
That's why it doesn't matter how low the rate, or how "flat" or "simple" the tax!
Any Income Tax gives the government first claim on your income! And that requires you be treated like a child!
If we as a people accept this, we are no longer a country of self-governing adults, with a government that depends on our consent to do the limited things we tell it to do. Instead, we've become a country of children hoping our "parents" will be generous to us.
Alan Keyes, Republican Presidental Candidate, 1999
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 5:32pm
A third party? What we need is a second party . . .
Or Dems who aren't corrupted by 'investment opportunities' and 'speaking fees' proffered by big business interests to whoever is in office.
Or Repubs who believe in sound fiscal policy instead of voodoo and corporate welfare pimping.
Of the 28 years to which you refer, the Clinton years were by far the most prosperous, precisely because Billy Clinton embraced the common sense policies abandoned by Repubs: a balanced budget and tax relief for the workers. We kept more of what we earned and we had low interest rates and n0n-inflationary growth. The measure of Clinton's success is how derided he is by both the extreme left and extreme right, and how little credit he receives from intelligent folks in the middle.
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
Make up your mind...are the Dems Pepsi or the Pugs?
PEPSI!
COKE!
WEED!
BEER!
CORN!
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 5:03pm
aren't pepsi and coke one and the same?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
VDH: ".....Given that Obama got 56% of the vote of those who make over $200,000 it should, well, be interesting. (e.g., "Surely, Buffy, Barack didn't mean us, did he?)"
Very, very few people in Texas, or other Red States, "make over $200,000".....so, we can assume the SRJs and maybe the snowballs, are lining up to fork over their easily-earned money in pursuit of the Magic Dream.....Good Luck and pony up!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
A third party? What we need is a second party . . .
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
finally......
carrot juice!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:38pm
Of the 28 years to which you refer, the Clinton years were by far the most prosperous,....
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
You know not what you speak! The stock market is roughly back to where Clinton started his second term and his first term's `success' was mostly the Peace Dividends left by Reagan/Bush 41, plus Gingrich's 1994 Tsunami that cuffed the Dems' spending DNAs!
Not to knock Clinton, he was pragmatic enough to go with what the Defense (ie, opposition) allowed him.....something your brilliant (snickers & very heavy sarcasm) Messiah is incapable of due to his Chicago DNAs.
I had called Unemployment to hit 11~12%......now, given his "one million" jobs saved/created, I'm officially dialing that back to 10~11%, no thanks necessary!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:44pm
The measure of Clinton's success is how derided he is by both the extreme left and extreme right, and how little credit he receives from intelligent folks in the middle.
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
i thought it was measured in otc derivatives.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:45pm
And tax cuts - how about lower income taxes for the workers.....
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:07pm
Almost 50% of taxpayers don't pay ANY income taxes. Now, you think they are the "workers" or those `rich, greedy' employers & the managerial/professional classes?
Reality.......An Inconvenient Truth!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:47pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 5:32pm
isn't your stimulus water funded with tax revenue?
[well, your grandkids']
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:48pm
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:44pm
pure gibberish.
as to unemployment -- it is at 20% right now.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:50pm
"This was the very moment of Obama's failure, when he allowed Summers, Geithner and Beranke to establish the principle of "Too Big To Fail" and set up a financial oligarchy at the expense of taxpayers. We would have expected this out of the Treasury under Hank Paulson, but to see this kind of policy error favoring Wall Street over the US taxpayers from a government elected on the promise of reform is inexcusable, a disgrace."
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.c om/2009/11/obamas-economic- policy-has-doomed-us-to.html
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:58pm
as to unemployment -- it is at 20% right now.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:50pm
I don't care about Detroit or Windsor! And I don't need to change the `rules'.....Bush wasn't hammered for inflated unemployment numbers that included part-timers wanting full-time jobs....
Fair and Balanced, huh?
I'm pretty sure 10~11% of `tradittional' Unemployment is ENOUGH to do a number on Magic! That's a lot of folks....this ain't my father's Recession with less than 100 million jobs......today, that translate into ~15 million w/out jobs and perhaps ~40 million family members w/lots of time to `worship' at the altar of Magic!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:58pm
If Obama's public works are pork, does that mean that he should balance the budget? By doing so, he would at least be restoring our nation's credit.
this is just about the worst you can do in times of severe recession. our credit is fine, it's our economy that sucks.
we need a big, I mean BIG public works program, on the scale of the Marshall plan or WW2.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/01/2009 @ 6:00pm
HAPPY,
don't bite the hand that feeds you:
WASHINGTON -- In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:03pm
I don't care about Detroit or Windsor!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:58pm
well, that's obvious.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:04pm
our credit is fine, it's our economy that sucks.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/01/2009 @ 6:00pm
this statement is oxymoronic.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:05pm
Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 11/01/2009 @ 5:15pm |
"And what alternative are you proposing to 28 years of Republican/Democrat governing? Seems to be a recurring theme with your posts. A third party of some sort?"
This is the fundamental problem with a republic...you only get to choose one candidate to represent your opinions across a vast swath of policy issues...so you compromise...often.
Those 'one man smarter than many men' are in short supply, of late.
"And what would your ideal model of that third party be?"
Whatever 3rd party best matches my principles:
- Personal liberty (e.g. legalize drug use, allow opt-out of SS/Medicare, and repeal the Patriot Act)
- Fiscal responsibility (e.g. slash the defense budget, means-test entitlements, put the Fed Reserve under Congressional oversight, and balance the budget)
- Free markets (e.g. end corporate bailouts / taxbreaks / farm subsidies, regulate derivatives / dark pools / etc, and enforce real transparency for investors)
- Non-Empire FP (e.g. give up the idea that gun-barrel democracy is effective or that we are the world's police)
If I had been alive during the constitutional convention, I'd have recommended that different facets of government would each have different elected representatives.
I shouldn't have to choose between having a rep on the Financial Services OR Foreign Relations committee.
"The reality is that about 80% of the voting body is going to vote the same way their parents did."
Part socialization, part status quo freeze-out...when was the last time you saw Nader in a televised debate? Maybe more of us would break the mold if we were aware of our other potential choices.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:11pm
aren't pepsi and coke one and the same? Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm |
Not according to the DEA.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:13pm
I pay income taxes - and I'm certainly not rich. So who are these 50% who don't pay income taxes? Children?
To be fair, I'll give Gingrich credit for not restoring Reagan's tax cuts for the rich - just the corporate loopholes eliminated by the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 6:14pm
I don't care about Detroit or Windsor!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 5:58pm
well, that's obvious.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:04pm
But....I hope you ?continue? to get enough gigs to stay, HAPPY!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:19pm
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm |
"Of the 28 years to which you refer, the Clinton years were by far the most prosperous, precisely because Billy Clinton embraced the common sense policies abandoned by Repubs: a balanced budget and tax relief for the workers."
He got lucky and rode the productivity gains from high-tech while Rubin performed the same bubble inflation as Greenspan and Bernanke.
I'll give him credit for achieving the budget surplus that Dubya then squandered.
"We kept more of what we earned and we had low interest rates and n0n-inflationary growth."
Sorry...the tech bubble was quite inflationary and was likely the kernel from which the housing asset bubble was born.
"The measure of Clinton's success is how derided he is by both the extreme left and extreme right, and how little credit he receives from intelligent folks in the middle."
He signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, failed to regulate the very derivatives at the heart of our current meltdown, and slashed the social safety net.
Sometimes a Bubba is just a Bubba.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:20pm
our credit is fine, it's our economy that sucks.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/01/2009 @ 6:00pm
this statement is oxymoronic.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:05pm
Technically, JR is correct if judged by the extraordinary low rates required by lenders of all that "credit" extended to our magical Gubbers!
He's also correct that "our economy" sucks! You know the Legacy Media is bending over backward to report to us the `enlightened' version of our economy....something they did exactly the opposite under Bush 43!
How can anyone forget that Nobel winner, P. Krugman's having predicted 10 of the last one Recessions and the prominence his `predictions' received in that wonder-of-wonder media known as Dead-Press-Walking-NYT!
A Panera Bread near my house shut down....just noticed it last night coming back from a restaurant that ran a Buy-One-Get-One-Free Halloween special. Its business was overflowing.....good deals, under $40 for steak-n-lobster for her and 12-oz prime rib for me, plus one cocktail....hmmmmm, now I'm getting hungry again!
Another nearly-new shopping center near us had struggle along w/3 tenants, now, ALL 3 went dark!
Reporting from Houston.......this is HAPPY...hehehehe!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:30pm
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 6:14pm |
"I pay income taxes - and I'm certainly not rich. So who are these 50% who don't pay income taxes?"
From http://www.irs.gov/pub/ irs-soi/09winbulinincome.pdf
<Taxpayers filed 138.4 million individual income tax returns for Tax Year 2006, of which 92.7 million (or 67.0 percent) were classified as taxable returns. A taxable return is a one that has total income tax greater than $0.>
So maybe it's more like 33% and cons are exaggerating or they mean that the 50% of those filing returns who make < $32k/yr only had an average tax rate of 2.99% and they're exaggerating that number instead.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:33pm
HAPPY,
don't bite the hand that feeds you:
WASHINGTON -- In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group......
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:03pm
I've never owned Goldman stocks directly but it's in some funds I/we own, that I am almost sure.
I read that article on GS playing both sides of the mortgage-backed securities and I don't have a problem with it as long as the people peddling the securities aren't the same group shorting them (via derivatives).
GS is a big inv. bank and it's totally common for such entities to play both sides of the same deal....that's what they do, arbitrage and try to make money irregardless of which way a market for any given `product' goes.
Bet they hold long positions in oil as well as short positions....just another example!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:37pm
Hey, another BIG one bites the dust.....if temporarily, from the WSJ:
BUSINESS
NOVEMBER 2, 2009
CIT Files Its Bankruptcy Plan
Customers Gird for Snags; Usually No Chapter 12 for Banks
BY MIKE SPECTOR, VANESSA O'CONNELL AND KATE HAYWOOD
CIT Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday, in a final attempt to restructure and keep the doors open at the century-old commercial lender.
Now, the lender to nearly a million small and midsize businesses must maintain its customer base as it tries to rehabilitate under Chapter 11 protection. Most financial firms sell off assets or liquidate in bankruptcy amid fears that customers will draw down credit lines and spark a run on the bank.
But CIT garnered support from about 90% of voting debt holders for a prepackaged reorganization plan that could allow the lender to speed through Chapter 11...
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:44pm
Whatever 3rd party best matches my principles:
•• uh, you mean SECOND party. carrot juice!
- Personal liberty (e.g. legalize drug use, allow opt-out of SS/Medicare, and repeal the Patriot Act)
•• exactly.
- Fiscal responsibility (e.g. slash the defense budget, means-test entitlements, put the Fed Reserve under Congressional oversight, and balance the budget)
•• not bad. scrap the fed is a better idea.
- Free markets (e.g. end corporate bailouts / taxbreaks / farm subsidies, regulate derivatives / dark pools / etc, and enforce real transparency for investors)
•• freedom is great if you remove the dumb.
- Non-Empire FP (e.g. give up the idea that gun-barrel democracy is effective or that we are the world's police)
•• plus, it would be way cheaper.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:11pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:47pm
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:30pm
no, your (i.e. national) credit is terrible.
the daze of the fiatsco is coming to an end.
if the economy sucks, how can you have good credit?
••
the banks are being given tons and tons of rubber in exchange for their dioxin.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:52pm
I've never owned Goldman stocks directly but it's in some funds I/we own, that I am almost sure.
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009
you've never paid taxes?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:54pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 3:19pm
"I've been blogging here far longer than you."
I believe the word is calling "trolling".
"Your post makes it clear that you despise debate."
I despise you, not "debate". If you had any integrity and actually defended your positions, perhaps there'd be "debate". But, that's not what you are here for...
"I come here to oppose the marxist totalitarian thought that dominates todays form of liberalism."
It would be more correct to say that you come here to be an asshole troll.
"And you can hold to limited government and still defend national security. It is your narrow construct that prefers enslavement or death to defense of liberty."
If American football used your terms, offense would be called "defense" and defense would be called "losing". These words have meaning, meaning you are distorting because you're a jackass.
"My primary cause of fighting Islamist expansion is the defense of our liberty and all peoples from the tyranny and death that Islam promises to all who do not accept Islam."
Which ain't in the Constitution, but let's not expect you to be held to any kind of consistency or display any integrity - because you don't have any.
"If there is no defense of the nation, there is no local or national govt."
Defense ain't offense.
"Your bigotry is hardly authority to force me off of these pages. If you dislike my debate, then ignore me. But don't threaten my freedom of speech."
I dislike you. You're an asshole. I'm going to exercise my free speech and call you an asshole, every chance I get. You should shut your fuckin' mouth and go somewhere where your asshole ideas can be appreciated - somewhere where people are stupid.
And stop whining about your freedom of speech. You don't have any rights here.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 7:41pm
you've never paid taxes?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:54pm
What kind of med are you on?
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 7:42pm
Neither do I for that matter. Katrina can decide to do what she will, and there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it - and that's exactly correct. But you are definitely poisoning the forum. I might be too...perhaps she should ban us both...or continue to let me call you an asshole, cause that's what I'm going to do.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 7:43pm
Yup, the Left is falling apart!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 7:43pm
Posted by samcrossett at 11/01/2009 @ 5:07pm
"OK, what is conservatism anyway?
Is it cutting the deficit as Jerry Ford did? Or inflating the deficit as Reagan and Bush Jr did?"
That's the thing. No President is either wholly conservative or wholly liberal. Reagan signed amnesty for illegals. Clinton eagerly signed welfare reform and the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act.
"And do conservatives believe in doing anything about bank failures, shuttered businesses or unemployed workers?"
Yes, but just because their solutions tend to be based on supply-side economics, rather than Obama's keynesian demand-side "take a bucket of water from one end of the pool, carry it to the other end of the pool, dump it in, and then wonder why the water level didn't go up" style of economics, you cannot say they believe in doing "nothing". Letting the market correct itself without economic meddling (cash for clunkers) IS DOING SOMETHING.
"And if 'limited government' includes a $500B-per-year military-industrial complex, what isn't included?"
This is selective interpretation of what conservatives mean when they say "limited government". Conservatives are not generally opposed to military spending. When we say "limited government", we mean a government that isn't telling us what to think or eat. One that is responsive to what we direct it to do. Not one that uses a carrot and stick approach to social engineering to mold us into politically correct patterns of behavior.
Such as "hate crimes". Hey, I murder somebody, then put me on trial for the crime of murder and either execute me or put me away for a long time. Period. Don't try to punish me based on what you believe I was thinking while I pulled the trigger. That's the thought police.
Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 11/01/2009 @ 7:44pm
I have never been prouder of my fellow conservatives as I am now.
Posted by KansasGirl at 11/01/2009 @ 7:48pm
Posted by KansasGirl at 11/01/2009 @ 7:48pm
Wasn't there a dying town in your state that recently offered free bldg. lots to the general public?
Just a note to let you know that I'd turn down the lot even with a pile of cash thrown in.
Enjoy your fellow conservatives.
Posted by Sorelish at 11/01/2009 @ 8:15pm
What kind of med are you on? Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 7:42pm |
The kind that let's him know that Goldman Sachs was bailed out with your tax dollars, Dippy.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 8:16pm
I thought KansasGirl was being facetious, oh well, Pepsi!
Posted by Denise29 at 11/01/2009 @ 8:21pm
I thought KansasGirl was being facetious, oh well, Pepsi! Posted by Denise29 at 11/01/2009 @ 8:21pm
She's watching 'Red Dawn' and cleaning her weapon.
.....
Truly an ideological slugfest here today. I'm content to just watch.
Posted by ficheye at 11/01/2009 @ 8:39pm
COKE$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 8:40pm
Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 11/01/2009 @ 7:44pm |
"That's the thing. No President is either wholly conservative or wholly liberal. Reagan signed amnesty for illegals. Clinton eagerly signed welfare reform and the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act."
But you can sum their actions and end up tilted completely to one side.
"Yes, but just because their solutions tend to be based on supply-side economics,...Letting the market correct itself without economic meddling (cash for clunkers) IS DOING SOMETHING."
Yeah, that worked *great* for Hoover. What you believe is worse than nothing.
"This is selective interpretation of what conservatives mean when they say 'limited government'. Conservatives are not generally opposed to military spending."
Perhaps conservatives merely haven't a clue what 'limited' means.
"When we say 'limited government', we mean a government that isn't telling us what to think or eat."
How about telling us what plants we can and can't grow or what we're allowed to see on TV?
"One that is responsive to what we direct it to do."
Incredibly naive.
"Not one that uses a carrot and stick approach to social engineering to mold us into politically correct patterns of behavior."
- Mortgage interest and dependent deductions?
- Gutting funding for family planning?
- Prayer in schools?
- Censorship of porn?
- The "War on Drugs"?
- Opposition to gay marriage / soldiers?
Uh huh, right.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 8:41pm
Truly an ideological slugfest here today. I'm content to just watch.
Posted by ficheye at 11/01/2009 @ 8:39pm
coke versus pepsi.
what america really needs is some fibre.
hey, méxico, look out below!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 8:42pm
i'm sure you'll say it's all the democrat's fault. so why is AMERICA in the same boat? after all the republicans have had power for most of the last 35 years.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:50am
Mayor Bill White IS a democrat and he DID collude w/the fire and police dept. & larded up their contracts with much-enhanced formulas for computing retirement pay.....there was a big scandal when it was discovered the benefit consultants used some Magical assumptions......sound familiar? He's been on much better (spending) behavior since! And, Houston is not bankrupt, not even close!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 8:47pm
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 6:37pm |
No, they're a 'bank holding company'...ya heard?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 8:51pm
That's the thing. No President is either wholly conservative or wholly liberal. Reagan signed amnesty for illegals. Clinton eagerly signed welfare reform and the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ well, they all have worked for the oligarchs.
Letting the market correct itself without economic meddling (cash for clunkers) IS DOING SOMETHING.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ and exactly who can be trusted to leave the market alone?
This is selective interpretation of what conservatives mean when they say "limited government". Conservatives are not generally opposed to military spending.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ nope. it's like having the ultimate pickup truck.
When we say "limited government", we mean a government that isn't telling us what to think or eat.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ nope. save that for the brown folks in some far away land.
One that is responsive to what we direct it to do.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ DO YOU WORK AT GOLDMAN SACHS? if not, you are dreaming in technicolour.
Not one that uses a carrot and stick approach to social engineering to mold us into politically correct patterns of behavior.
☭☭☭☭☭☭ i take it you're not one of those "social" conservatives...
Such as "hate crimes".
☭☭☭☭☭☭ i hate crime.
Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 11/01/2009 @ 7:44pm
COKE!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 8:51pm
And, Houston is not bankrupt, not even close!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 8:47pm
"The City of Houston is financially broke and it appears that the mayor who takes office in January 2010 may have to captain the City through bankruptcy procedures.
The City's unrestricted assets were $1.2 billion short of the already recorded corresponding liabilities these assets were needed to pay as of fiscal year end June 30, 2008,according to the City's latest publicly available audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). The $1.2 billion shortfall was a result of operating losses totaling $1.5 billion for fiscal years 2004-2008, applying the full accrual basis of accounting used in the private sector."
sounds pretty bad to me.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 8:53pm
Yeah Denise & ficheye, the ideological lines are blurred now. Look at all the local elections with the candidates not divulging their political affiliations.
The tip off only comes with details like, "Candidate addressing issues at forthcoming tea party" or "free ammo at the rally."
Posted by Sorelish at 11/01/2009 @ 9:00pm
THE ORDER BY WHICH PEOPLE ARE ADMITTED TO HEAVEN
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/12213
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 9:06pm
super extra cool.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 9:09pm
A hearty thanks to John Hinderraker at Power Line....who had this to say:
California vs. Texas: The Verdict Is In
November 1, 2009 Posted by John at 8:32 PM
Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas.
Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times:
.....
No doubt similar studies in other high tax states, like my home state of Minnesota, would show the same thing: taxpayers aren't getting anything in particular for their money, likely less than citizens in other states, but public employees are doing very well indeed. This explains why public employees' unions have become the Democratic Party's most loyal supporters, while those who are not on the public employee gravy train increasingly are packing up their belongings and moving to lower-tax states like Texas.
The debate, really, is over. High-tax states don't deliver a better lifestyle--not for taxpayers, anyway. One of these days, voters will figure out that the same thing holds true at the national level. Higher taxes may be OK if you're a public employee; otherwise, they're a dead loss.
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 9:13pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 9:06pm |
Rock bassists are 'no review'?
(even Sid Vicious?)
Cellists are no / cursory review?
(listed twice)
And flautists have to wait for hell to freeze over with Mao and Stalin?
(glad I played the french horn)
---
How do you know the stage is level?
(drool comes out of both sides of the bass player's mouth)
How do you know a band really sucks?
(even the singer knows it)
Did you hear about the bassist who locked his keys in his car?
(it took him half an hour to get the drummer out)
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 9:19pm
The $1.2 billion shortfall was a result of operating losses totaling $1.5 billion for fiscal years 2004-2008, applying the full accrual basis of accounting used in the private sector."
sounds pretty bad to me.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 8:53pm
Interesting that there is nothing being said locally....though I am not following the rhetorics!
IF you read what you posted, and consider what I posted wrt Democratic Mayor Bill White (finishing his second, and final term), you'll note that he turned a surplus (of $300 million) into a deficit of $1.2 billion...if those numbers are accurate! He was Mayor during "fiscal years 2004-2008"!
Note also, in your post on the accounting basis: ACCRUAL.....that very likely mean those fat (future) pension goodies given the cops and fire fighters! It's the same old, same old....politicians promising future benefits for today's votes and support....they just don't want to pay for them on a cash basis. That, in a nutshell, is why Gubber is generally BAD!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 9:20pm
NICHOLS' Re-Write/Update: "The question, of course, is whether a GOP defined by "the Tea Parties and their candidates" can compete not just in New York's 23rd district -- where the party has always won -- but across the great expanse of a country where the party has in recent years been losing."
me: Can't say conservatives lack the balls to try something different, huh? We are not like MASK and just so scared to wonder off the plantation! As you said, Nichols, the Repub "party has in recent years been losing", so, there is NO downside, agree?
NICHOLS: "If Viguerie and his compatriots are correct, it is not just the Republican Party but America that is about to take the most rightwing turn in its history."
me: Let's not get hyperbolic here....."the most right" turn? You might not have experienced (politically) the Carter-to-Reagan "rightwing" turn, we'll settle for something near that, but not likely make history. We have far too many Kool-aid satisfied drinkers today, including 84% of blacks who "strongly approve" of Magic and I'll bet, they never fall below 75%!
NICHOLS: "If Viguerie and his compatriots are wrong, the Grand Old Party could be turning toward a permanent minority status that only the most enthusiastic Democrats dared imagine."
me: The GOP has been mostly in the "minority status" and can be effective.....see Jan. `09 thru Oct. `09.....again, what's the downside?
Gingrich's days are numbered.......he and McCain can retire together into the sunset, with my respect.....but most of us conservatives, don't do as we're are told.....we've got principals......BIG surprise to Magic, aint' that a bitch? LOL!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:11pm
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 9:19pm
How do you know a band really sucks? (even the singer knows it)
**Hey! I highly resemble that remark...
Why, I oughta....
Here's one for Big Pasture...
If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him? ...........
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 9:06pm
Appendix D is of special interest.
The cool stuff you learn here besides learning that someone is really pissing you off. Ya gotta make time for fun or life would really suck.
Posted by ficheye at 11/01/2009 @ 11:27pm
Ya gotta make time for fun or life would really suck.
Posted by ficheye at 11/01/2009 @ 11:27pm
i feel ya gotta make time fun.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:49pm
"We are all happy the Tea Party and Conservative Party are now the "heart and soul" of the Republican party. As long as these fringe groups are front and center, Republicans have ZERO chance of becoming a national party or winning national elections! "
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
Mettey as long as you and your wacked out progressive friends believe what you posted conservatives and moderates everywhere will be discharging the Democrats from every office througout the land.Both state and local elections. Progressives are in the minority in this country and only got their wacked out socialist candidate in with the help of moderates who apparently had some guilt issues to purge. That's behind them and they won't make that mistake again. Affirmative action for our empty suit chief executive and Commander and Thief is one and done. This was tried in NY and MA and both states are running muti billion $$ defecits with their version of mini-me Obama's, Patrick and Patterson.
Even if Obama can continue to smile and lie his way to another term he will have zero power by the time he leaves. He will be able to pardon however all of his friends that committed crimes during his administration. Clinton pardoned about 125 criminals I predict Obama will double that the way he and his administration are going.
Posted by Obamunut at 11/02/2009 @ 05:27am
This all about liberals using race to discredit and suppress opposition. straight up!
Posted by abell12ct at 11/02/2009 @ 07:00am
Gingrich won them one of their greatest victorys...1994 mid-term elections.
But none of our right-wing friends seem concerned that an obvious politically astute guy like Newt...
is scared.
Good. If Tea Partyers with their "Keep your Gov't hands off my Medicare" signs and Sarah Palin are the new "brain trust" of the American Right....can't think of anything more advantageous to the Democrats or Obama.
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 07:44am
PEPSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 08:12am
I heard this morning on NPR that Scozzafava has endorsed the Democratic candidate.
Posted by smmerino at 11/02/2009 @ 08:52am
Now if we can just get the Republicans to nominate Sarah Palin in 2012, their permanent minority status will be official.
Posted by Metteyya at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
Back in 1980 I recall a number of Democrats saying, "If we can just trick them into nominating that doddering old fool, Ronald Reagan, their permanent minority status will be offical."
Palin is my choice for publishing a swimsuit calendar, not Presdential nominee. But my advice to you is to be careful what you wish for.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:10am
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:42am
That is brilliant.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:10am
It is funny to see the 2o percenters disparage the 40 percent Conservatives. The 36% independents get to really see just how perverse, and hate filled leftist marxist views riddled with anti-americanism are and what they have done to lower not only the discourse but the standards of America.
Keep up the good work leftist!
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:11am
Let me put it bluntly, I would rather a Dem win than someone like Dede wins! America needs a principled opposition party, maybe even two!
Posted by Happy at 11/01/2009 @ 10:52am
I agree with this. I said so last week. Nichols is correct. It doesn't matter if Hoffman or Owens wins. So long as Dede loses, it is 100% certain that NY-23 will go Republican in 2010 when there is an honest Republican primary.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:14am
I'm not going to make it through all the comments to see if this point has been brought up yet, but what about Liberman?
When Lieberman was challenged by a decidely un-mainstream pacifist candidate and the party's fringe swung the primary to Ned, Nichol's didn't seem to worry about his party's apeal to the American mainstream. Leiberman's independent win was a very public rebuke to his party's fringe.
The NY-23 saga seems to be a very public rebuke to back-room deals that short-circuit democracy. By giving the party faithful a say to overrule backroom deals, this seems like a tremendous vicotry for mainstream America.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:20am
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:11am
Uh, RIO, if 20% are liberals and 36% are moderates...
Doesn't that mean the MAJORITY of Americans DON'T support conservatism?
Granted it plays the same way to liberals, but essentially means any ideologues, yourself included, are in the minority, doesn't it?
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 09:21am
i'm sure you'll say it's all the democrat's fault. so why is AMERICA in the same boat? after all the republicans have had power for most of the last 35 years.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:50am
Dems control all the big cities including Houston. Dems control states with huge cities (NY, CA, IL, PA). Rep control the rural areas, and the Presidency two-thirds of the time.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:24am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:24am
Interesting that the Right is now using the Left's old excuses-
"We didn't have REAL control for long enough!"
and "The voters are ignorant!"
More proof they may be heading into the "wilderness" politically for some time to come.
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 09:27am
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 7:41pm
I shall wear your hate like a badge of honor.
Your responses only make me laugh.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
Hoffman leads Owens 51-34 with Scozzafava's share going down to 12%. After Scozzafava announced she was endorsing Owens the remaining Sunday respondents were informed of that and the race showed a little tightening with Hoffman up 52-38 on Owens and Scozzafava's share dropping to 7%.
The bottom line though is that Hoffman led by double digits during every segment of the poll, an indication that he may have been headed for a definitive victory regardless of Scozzafava's actions over the course of the weekend.
Silly mAsK playing games just doesn't get it, just being independent DOES NOT mean you are "moderate" when you are Christian Conservative and don't agree with either party!
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
you are Christian Conservative and don't agree with either party! Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
Leave that little girl alone...
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 10:04am
Posted by srjenkins at 11/01/2009 @ 7:41pm
I shall wear your hate like a badge of honor.
Your responses only make me laugh.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
** Actually, they seem to make you type.
It's a poor substitute for actual combat, but the ammunition is cheaper. As for me, it's a free fireworks display. Don't even have to get out of the car!!
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 10:11am
I shall wear your hate like a badge of honor.
with all the other hate he wears as a badge of honor, I don't think there's room on his chest for more.
fish, you're not texting while you're driving are you?
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 10:18am
The bottom line though is that Hoffman led by double digits during every segment of the poll, an indication that he may have been headed for a definitive victory regardless of Scozzafava's actions over the course of the weekend.
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
If it pans out tomorrow, as the "bottom line" you indicate, Ms. Scozzafava will have helped the conservatives immensely....and secondarily, the Repub Party.
It's time to clean out the LIBERALs within the GOP and force them back on either the truly Moderate path or get the fuck out!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 10:33am
you are Christian Conservative and don't agree with either party! Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
Leave that little girl alone...
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 10:04am | ignore this person | warn this person
An apropos posting from a dead soul which is demonstrative of the anonomous moniker!
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 10:35am
How do you know a band really sucks? (even the singer knows it) **Hey! I highly resemble that remark... Posted by ficheye at 11/01/2009 @ 11:27pm |
Think of it as testimonial to how difficult it is to find a talented vocalist, Fich.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 10:43am
"Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP" just like Communists are the new Democrats.
Posted by abell12ct at 11/02/2009 @ 10:45am
David Corn posted a commentary that is almost, almost, the exact verbatim as Nichols:
Eexcerpts:
"So here it is: a blood-fight between conservative purists and Republican pragmatists. With the wingers winning this round, GOP moderates -- the few remaining -- will think long and hard before venturing forth, realizing that they will be in the crosshairs of the conservatives. Who wants to be pounded by Beck, Palin and their comrades just for being an in-the-middle GOPer?
The NY-23 GOP-on-GOP violence might be a one-off.....Then again, is it possible this intra-party insurgency could mark a turnaround for the GOP, with Republicans returning to Reaganesque roots that lead to a right-wing revival that returns the party to power?...
==============================
I want to note the exact same dishonest approach Corn used, as did Nichols and all of Legacy Media, to label Scozzafava as "moderate" Repub.
Hmmm....who then, are the "Liberal" Repubs?
This tactic by Nichols/Corn/LM is intended to of course, confuse the indies and true moderates and it will be somewhat effective if conservatives don't counter that.....this is where Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Styn, FNC, etc. are needed.
Conservatives, go forth and clear the air of the BULLSHIT being fed! Scozzafava, sir, is NO MODERATE!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 10:51am
Posted by BigPasture at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
You didn't say anything about Parties, RIO....we were talking ideology.
40% are conservatives, 20% liberal, 40% moderate (roughly).
So...I'm sure you can list a thousand reasons the 40% moderate don't want to be called "liberal"....care to name a few reasons why they don't want to be called "conservative" either???
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:51am
"It's time to clean out the LIBERALs within the GOP and force them back on either the truly Moderate path or get the fuck out!"-----Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 10:33am
Including Newt Gingrich????
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:53am
Including Newt Gingrich????
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:53am
Did I say Gingrich is a liberal Repub at anytime? You're not much of a challenge nowadays.
SRJ has completely lost it....but I hope you hang on!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 11:04am
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:53am
Repubs have forgotten that politics is a game of ADDITION, not subtraction!
The 23% Tea Party/Conservative Party/Sarah Palin base has ZERO chance of winning national elections, and it is completely dumbfounding that they want to kick moderates out of the Republican party.
At least Gingrich understands the danger of becoming a fringe political party, but it is no longer "his" party. Palin, Limbaugh, and Hannity have taken over the Republican party to the great delight of the progressive cause!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/02/2009 @ 11:09am
So maybe it's more like 33% and cons are exaggerating or they mean that the 50% of those filing returns who make < $32k/yr only had an average tax rate of 2.99% and they're exaggerating that number instead.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:33pm
No, they are including the effects of the earned income tax credit (EITC).
My figures are a little dated, but the top 1% of filers earn 17% of income and pay 34% of income taxes (does not include OASDI taxes: income only).
I'll look the actual figures up in a minute, but the bottom 50% of filers earn 10% of income and pay zero percent of total income taxes when you include the EITC. So some have positive and some have negative so it is not technically true the 50% of filers do not pay net income tax. The bottom 50% pay no net tax as a group.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 11:14am
"I come here to oppose the marxist totalitarian thought that dominates todays form of liberalism"
this from someone who can't define either marxism, totalitarianism or liberalism.
only in the mind of today's modern conservative is "today's form of liberalism" actually 'marxism'.
aside from predicting capitalism's demise, marx wouldn't even recognize his theories as they have been applied by today's "liberal" american politicians.
reagan, bush 1, and bush 2, pushed the acceptable defintion of "liberalism" so far to right, that any attempts to undo the ravages of conservativism (such as repealing the most egregious tax cuts this nation has ever seen), are considered "marxist."
but, all of this aside, it's abundantly clear that antisocialist first needs an EDUCATION before he goes spewing completely incorrect definitions of either marxism of liberalism.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:16am
abell12ct
pssst, the cold war ended twenty years ago. you are like those Japanese soldiers who were found hiding years after hostilities ceased.
grow up.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 11:18am
"My figures are a little dated, but the top 1% of filers earn 17% of income and pay 34% of income taxes (does not include OASDI taxes: income only)."
oh your numbers are only like 40 years "dated".....
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:19am
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:53am
Repubs have forgotten that politics is a game of ADDITION, not subtraction!
The 23% Tea Party/Conservative Party/Sarah Palin base has ZERO chance of winning national elections, and it is completely dumbfounding that they want to kick moderates out of the Republican party.
At least Gingrich understands the danger of becoming a fringe political party, but it is no longer "his" party. Palin, Limbaugh, and Hannity have taken over the Republican party to the great delight of the progressive cause!
Posted by Metteyya at 11/02/2009 @ 11:09am
My, how history repeats itself. these are the same mocking tones the left used after Goldwater's defeat, after Nixon (which was ironic given how liberal Nixon was), and after Bush 1.
Just continue in your little leftist fantasy world.
As shown in the latest Gallup data, conservativism is on the rise in the US
Next post
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:22am
"and it is completely dumbfounding that they want to kick moderates out of the Republican party"
that's the polite analysis
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:25am
"As shown in the latest Gallup data, conservativism is on the rise in the US"
that's like saying, "brittney spears may totally suck, but she's still selling lots of records!"
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:27am
Gallup poll October 2009
"Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
Americans are more likely to consider themselves conservative this year than they were in 2008, resulting in conservatives -- now 40% of the American public -- outnumbering moderates for the first time since 2004. While Gallup first documented this trend in June, the finding has been sustained through the third quarter.
Conservatism is most prevalent among Republicans. However, the overall increase in this ideological stance since 2008 comes largely from political independents, among whom 35% say they are conservatives thus far in 2009 -- compared with 29% last year. Independents have also become more conservative on a number of specific policy issues, including government and union power, the role of government relative to promoting values, gun laws, immigration, global warming, and abortion.
Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.
The percentage of Americans saying they would like to see labor unions have less influence in the country rose from 32% in August 2008 to a record-high 42% in August 2009."
http://tinyurl.com/yfkbe7w
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:28am
but, all of this aside, it's abundantly clear that antisocialist first needs an EDUCATION before he goes spewing completely incorrect definitions of either marxism of liberalism.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:16am
Hmm, let's see what the Communist Manifesto says and how US govt now compares to it.
1.Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. (Kelo v New London)
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (See Democratic Party)
3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance. (Estate Tax)
4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. (Federal Reserve)
6.Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state. (FCC)
7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (TARP, Obama seizure of GM, AIG, Obama's green legislation)
8.Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (Unions)
9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. (Urbanization of America)
10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. (NEA, Fed funding of Education)
http://www.constitution.org/tyr/com_mani.htm
But these leftists here say they are not marxists?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:31am
- Personal liberty (e.g. legalize drug use, allow opt-out of SS/Medicare, and repeal the Patriot Act)
Posted by snowball777 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:11pm
•• exactly.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 6:47pm
Allow opt-out of SS/Medicare?!?!?!?
In a perfect world, maybe, but in a perfect world you would answer your wife honestly when she asks if this particular piece of clother makes her butt look fat. We obviously don't live in a perfect world.
In a perfect world there would be no SS/Medicare/Medicaid: there would only be welfare programs for the needy (means testing).
But in this imperfect world there is negative social stigma attached to welfare programs which hurts the effectiveness of these programs (which hurts children more than adults). Futhermore, in this imperfect world, popular support for welfare programs is cyclical with the economy meaning popular support for welfare programs drops precipitously during recessions, which is precisely the time when welfare programs are needed the most.
Because SS deals pragmatically with these issues (rather than theoretically), it is the most wildly successful anti-poverty program in the history of the universe.
Someone asked about "conservatism" above. Republicans are the party of conservatives, but it is also the party of the libertarians. Conservatives and libertarians disagree on SS. Libertarians want SS dismantled as an intolerable infringement of personal liberty. Conservatives recognize that you don't mess with success. Pragmatically speaking, there is a segment of society that would be forced to live on handouts if it weren't for SS. So we continue to state the public truths that government must do everything it can to foster indepences (knowing privately perfection isn't achieveable.)
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 11:31am
So we continue to state the public truths that government must do everything it can to foster indepences (knowing privately perfection isn't achieveable.)
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 11:31am
if the govt really wanted to foster independence, it would stop programs like SS and Medicare which created the govt dependency mentality. People quit bearing personal responsibility because of those programs.
50% of Americans have no retirement plan other than SS. That is not something to be proud of. Rather it is a statistic of condemnation upon the socialist dependency that SS created.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:38am
to bolster his argument that today's democratic party is marxist, antisocialist actually posted this doozy:
"Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form"
and also this:
"Abolition of all rights of inheritance. (Estate Tax)"
only in the mind of antisocialist is the estate tax the equivalent of "abolition of ALL rights of inheritance"
antisocialist: still proving my point that he needs an EDUCATION.
and there's even more:
"10.Free education for all children in public schools"
how marxist can you possibly get?!
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:41am
"50% of Americans have no retirement plan other than SS"
gee, i wonder why?
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:44am
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:28am
OK, ANTI - push as many moderates into the Democratic party as you can and I will actually help you, deal?
Posted by Metteyya at 11/02/2009 @ 11:44am
conservatives are basically uninterested in the growing inequality between rich and poor......and are yet shocked that americans aren't saving for retirement.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:45am
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:28am
OK, ANTI - push as many moderates into the Democratic party as you can and I will actually help you, deal?
Posted by Metteyya at 11/02/2009 @ 11:44am
Gladly. A moderate is simply a person unwilling to take a stand on issues.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:50am
More from Darla's hero, Karl Marx
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among proletarians, and in public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not intended the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed correlation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor."
Seems pretty accurate to the current goals of the feminists and the homosexuals
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 12:00pm
"Conservatives recognize that you don't mess with success. "----Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 11:31am
Congratulations, Darin.
According to Larry...you're now a "socialist".
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 12:04pm
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 11:04am
Happy, did Gingrich endorse Scozzafava?
If so...why?
Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 12:05pm
i'm sure you'll say it's all the democrat's fault. so why is AMERICA in the same boat? after all the republicans have had power for most of the last 35 years.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 11:50am
Dems control all the big cities including Houston. Dems control states with huge cities (NY, CA, IL, PA). Rep control the rural areas, and the Presidency two-thirds of the time.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 09:24am
exactly.
you guys are drowning in high fructose malted battery acid.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 12:09pm
"Seems pretty accurate to the current goals of the feminists and the homosexuals"
what are the current goals of the feminists, anti? and just who are the feminists, btw?
and that homosexuals want......marriage....they are thus communistic?
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 12:09pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:38am
I don't disagree with any of your statements, but I disagree with what I assume are you presumptions.
I no longer subscribe to the platitudes I was indoctrinated with in elementary school. We are not blank slates shaped by our environmnets. I bleive we are born hard-wired with the majority of our personality. The idea that one can be anything he sets his mind to is poppycock.
Some are born with the capacity to defer gratification and some are not. Some are born with the intellectual capacity to understand science or communications or human nature and some are not. Some are born with the capacity for selfless altruism and some are born selfish to the core.
So irrespective of what the government policies are, there is a segment of humanity constitutionally incapable of providing for themselves. It is a better model if the church provides for them, but practically speaking, it is better for the government to provide for them than to force them to live hand-to-mouth or turn to crime to live.
There are also some people who are constitutionaly incapable of accepting dependence. Government policies will not cause them to become dependent either.
The people hurt by SS are the one who are marginal. They could provide for themselves, but don't mind being dependent. It is my impression that this is a small group and potentially a small price to pay for a more orderly society.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 12:11pm
conservatives are basically uninterested in the growing inequality between rich and poor......and are yet shocked that americans aren't saving for retirement.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 11:45am
It's not that I don't care; it is that I am resigned to accept this as an unchangeable fact of life. It's kind of like healthy lions eating old and weak zebras. I feel bad for the zebra that it's going to hurt like hell, but, ultimately, this is the way that life is supposed to work. Who am I to question the order of the universe?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 12:15pm
"this is the way that life is supposed to work"
yeah, for lions and zebras.
we have brains, darin. huge f*ck off brains.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 12:18pm
Gladly. A moderate is simply a person unwilling to take a stand on issues.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 11:50am
Anti, this is your biggest blind spot. You think that those without radical views are undecided.
You are not mainstream. The way you think, the way you live, and what you believe are all extreme.
If Republicans/Coke go to their extreme they risk alienating the middle. This isn't complex, it is pretty basic.
Frosty, when arguing ideology, reality takes a break.
PEPSI?
Posted by !immutable at 11/02/2009 @ 12:32pm
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! Timothy McVey
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 12:37pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 12:11pm
"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."
President Grover Cleveland vetoing a bill for charity relief (18 Congressional Record 1875 [1877]
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 12:49pm
again, even more evidence that antisocialist is anything but a christian.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 12:55pm
Posted by the troll
Your heart must look like a condom inflated with ice water. Your life insurance premiums must be astronomical.
Posted by Sorelish at 11/02/2009 @ 1:02pm
A free cup of tea to the first socialist that can tell me the difference between a libertarian and a conservative.
Posted by reason at 11/02/2009 @ 1:12pm
The Tea Partiers are a long way from the Conservative viewpoint, they are muxch more like Reactionaries in the technical sense.
This puts them several stripes away from the Mainstream Repuiblicans (like Dubya) or the cConservative movement. Also, many of the Tea people have no history as Republicans, but were from the Independents and Democrats.
John D. Froelich
Posted by balataf at 11/02/2009 @ 1:17pm
again, even more evidence that antisocialist is anything but a christian.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 12:55pm
Once more Darla for your education. There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 1:30pm
we have brains, darin. huge f*ck off brains.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 12:18pm
Lions and zebras have brains too. What's your point?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:41pm
"There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY."
again, the evidence just keeps piling up.
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 1:46pm
"Lions and zebras have brains too. What's your point?"
we can radically change the way we think/act/function......to include new ideas, etc. to adapt to competely different circumstances....
lions and zebras can't do that...
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 1:48pm
Once more Darla for your education. There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 1:30pm
Darla read wad Larry posted here:
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 5:29pm
Just because we don't want the government to raise grain doesn't mean we are against eating.
Pricate charities took care of the poor long before governments got involved in the process. They did a better job of it, too.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:52pm
why worry about these tea partiers and other so called republican hard core when ,unfortunatley and sadly,obama,s policies resemble that of ex prez george bush?the spineless democrats are blaming everything and anything on the right but at the same time can not even pass a law offering a basic health care program to americans.
well the republican party is taken over by the ultra right.so what?how about the so called democrat party?what happened to health care,ending of occupation of other people,s homelands and the so called new beginning in foriegn policy?looks like nothing has changed and actually some things are getting even worse than before.
these so called democrats are busy passing resolutions condenming the goldstone report on behalf of the most vile criminal regime in the world and yet blame their miserable failures on a bunch of loud mouth red necks.
what bunch of hypocrites.
Posted by excalibur999 at 11/02/2009 @ 1:54pm
we can radically change the way we think/act/function......to include new ideas, etc. to adapt to competely different circumstances....
lions and zebras can't do that...
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 1:48pm
Can you teach someone with Down's Syndrome to operate a nuclear reactor?
Can you "teach" someone who has spent his first 30 years on this earth steeped in anti-American Jihadi culture that suicide bombing is immoral?
Can you ever force a man to understand something that his livelihood depends upon him not understanding?
Our brains give us the ability to alter probabilities. But what governs the desires and values that guide our reason to attempt to change those probabilities in the first place? Are we really that different from the lions and zebras?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:59pm
John D. Froelich
any proof for this absurd assertion?
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 1:59pm
"Pricate charities took care of the poor long before governments got involved in the process. They did a better job of it, too"
and how are private charities doing now?
and btw, unemployment benefits don't constitute as "charity."
Posted by darladoon at 11/02/2009 @ 2:05pm
Anti, why do you always bring up people like Ben Franklin or people from 200 years ago, we are dealing with the here and now, I realize they had good arguments, but it may not be relevent today.
Posted by Denise29 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:06pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:59pm
can a fructosaholic ever be reformed?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 2:21pm
PEPCOKESI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 2:25pm
Anti, why do you always bring up people like Ben Franklin or people from 200 years ago, we are dealing with the here and now, I realize they had good arguments, but it may not be relevent today.
Posted by Denise29 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:06pm
Conservatism has always maintained a healthy respect for tradition. The fact that a quote survives for several hundred years is an indication of its capital "T" Truth.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 2:40pm
Rush thanked Scozzafava profusely today.....and attacked RINOs pretty mercilessly. My 10~15 minutes of Rushed allowance!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 2:40pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:59pm |
"Can you teach someone with Down's Syndrome to operate a nuclear reactor?"
Sure. They're good with rote learning and it isn't like nuke reactors require one to do particle physics to operate them....Homer Simpson can do it!
"Can you 'teach' someone who has spent his first 30 years on this earth steeped in anti-American Jihadi culture that suicide bombing is immoral?"
Sure...chances are they already know it, but are blinded by hatred. Remove the hatred and...voila!
"Can you ever force a man to understand something that his livelihood depends upon him not understanding?"
I'm here trying with you, aren't I?
"Our brains give us the ability to alter probabilities."
Not sure what you mean by that one, Kreskin.
"But what governs the desires and values that guide our reason to attempt to change those probabilities in the first place?"
Pleasure centers, peer pressure,...how long have you got?
"Are we really that different from the lions and zebras?"
What you mean 'we', paleface?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:42pm
The fact that a quote survives for several hundred years is an indication of its capital "T" Truth. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 2:40pm |
What about all that jihadi stuff that Anti quotes?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:43pm
A free cup of tea to the first socialist that can tell me the difference between a libertarian and a conservative. Posted by reason at 11/02/2009 @ 1:12pm |
I don't consider myself a 'socialist'...some folks just aren't swift enough to be trusted with the means of production, but I'm called one daily here so...
Libertarians don't want anyone to tell them what to do.
Conservatives often feel the need to tell everyone what to do.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:47pm
The realization of the power of the Tea Baggers again hastens memories of Pre-War Germany.
Posted by sickoftheright at 11/02/2009 @ 3:00pm
Libertarians don't want anyone to tell them what to do.
Conservatives often feel the need to tell everyone what to do.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:47pm
Not bad.
I guess Liberals don't trust people to do what they are told, so Liberals want the government to empower them to just do what needs to be done for everyone.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 3:01pm
I wish, I dream, I pray the Tea Partiers had/will take over the GOP. It means conservatism has returned to the Republican Party. This moderate RINO installment does nothing for the party and certainly nothing for the country. It's only purpose is to get Democrats elected.
But here is a "teaching moment". Conservatism cannot by definnition be extreme. According to the dictionary, conservatism is:
1.The inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order.
2.A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism
Liberalism by definition is disrespect for traditional values, mores and institutions. Therefore it is extreme and destructive.
Posted by Truzak at 11/02/2009 @ 3:13pm
Our brains give us the ability to alter probabilities."
Not sure what you mean by that one, Kreskin.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:42pm
A rumination on the probabalistic nature of life. A "desire" may cause me to alter the wave function of my car to drive it to Dairy Queen, but there is a proability that it will be struck by a bus on the way there.
Ultimately, the desire is proabalistic as well. Within my brain is a chemical process that causes decisions, like deciding between Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins. I'm not sure this qualifies as free will.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 3:15pm
I don't consider myself a 'socialist'...some folks just aren't swift enough to be trusted with the means of production, but I'm called one daily here so...
Libertarians don't want anyone to tell them what to do.
Conservatives often feel the need to tell everyone what to do. Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 2:47pm
Two free bonus sugar cubes if you can tell me whether the tea parties are predominantly frequented by the former or the latter and a double bonus dash of organic cream if you can relate this to the factuality of this article.
Posted by reason at 11/02/2009 @ 3:17pm
SSDD
And it begins again...
http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748703932904574511612622116146.html
By JOHN FUND The race for governor in New Jersey is so close in final polls that it may well end up in a recount -- the 1981 election did and was decided by less than 1,800 votes. If there is a recount, you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department -- which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year.
Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow's Garden State contests. Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state. An independent candidate for mayor in Camden has already leveled charges that voter fraud is occurring in his city. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is taking advantage of a new loosely written vote-by-mail law to pressure county clerks not to vigorously use signature checks to evaluate the authenticity of absentee ballots, the only verification procedure allowed.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 3:21pm
Boy, are you missing the message! The Conservative Wave cresting across America has less to do with Tea Bags, and more to do with an actual uprising against the Obama Big Government Movement. In seedy little Diners, to Executive Offices, to Senior Military Leadership, there is an orgasmic revolution happening out there. It's really simple: LIBERTY vs. TYRANNY.
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:26pm
"Scozzafava took a beating for her support for gay rights and abortion rights, her alliances with organized labor and her sympathy for the plight of the unemployed."
I am so sick of the "Tea-Party" movement being consistently misrepresented. Every single tea party member I have talked to just wants the out of control spending to stop. We all know it is going to lead to higher taxes for everyone (that pay taxes) and at some point, out of control inflation. We don't care about the persons race, gender, sexual preference. Hell, I'd vote for a damn space alien if they were a fiscal conservative (and it was constitutionally permissible). She supported the porkulus bill and shes gone. I don't need to know anything more than that.
Posted by KSchmidt at 11/02/2009 @ 3:30pm
Re, The Acorn People Mobilizing. Last year the Republicans weren't prepared. The New Conservatives, on the other hand, have got a new stradegy. Trust me....There's people ready in NJ who are Professionals at this, and its not working tomorrow. Today, the defensive mission began in ernest.
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:33pm
I don't know anything. Posted by KSchmidt at 11/02/2009 @ 3:30pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 3:33pm
The Conservative Wave cresting across America
hahahahahaha.
anti war march in Washington, hundreds of thousands. tea bag march, ten thousand tops.
the world has passed you by. no one is buying your tripe.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 3:36pm
To duBois...Sounds like you're trying to convince, well you. P.S. See 11.3.09 Election Results as a Starter. Remember: Keith Olbermann proclaimed in 11.08 "Virginia has become permanently BLUE!"
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:41pm
One Man's Tea Bags are another man's weapons!
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:43pm
hey Sarge, you lost the white house, you lost control of both houses. that's not a wave cresting on your side, it's a baby's tinkle.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 3:46pm
dubois sure cracks himself up...I didn't realize they allowed computers in the padded rooms.
Posted by KSchmidt at 11/02/2009 @ 3:48pm
Isn't everyone reading way too much into this? Yes, as it turns out, a district that hasn't voted Democratic in over 100 years isn't going to be thrilled with a candidate who supports the Democrats on a number of cause celebre. Why does that mean there is some existential crisis for the GOP? As it turns out, the same thing would happen to a pro-life Democrat who supported prop 8 in a district like Nancy Pelosi's. That is the way safe seats work. The price of safety is ideological purity. It wouldn't mean that the Democratic party is coming apart at the seams. The take home lesson here is that safe seats discourage moderation on the left and the right. Drawing the conclusion that this is somehow symbolic for the entire GOP seems a stretch - and maybe a bit of wishful thinking on Mr. Nichol's part.
Posted by centre at 11/02/2009 @ 3:51pm
Here is something I have never understood. How is it bad to represent a group of people who wield signifcant electoral power and want limited government and fiscal accountability? Moreover why is it wrong for a group of voters in NY, conservatives in fact to be upset about the fact that their state party leaders chose a candidate they did not like? Commentators and liberals love to scream the GOP is "right wing" and in "civil war" the problem is they believe this at their own peril. While the GOP has schisms it is not nationally as large as it is between the GOP and its base in the NE. Throughout the rest of the country the GOP actually has a good medium with their base voters but get into the NE and oh no.
NY-23 represents the base getting pissed off about a moderate candidate with a (R) next to her name being selected to be the GOP standardbearer and candidate. Everything that has resulted has stemmed from this, not from angry teapartiers in NY or nationwide.
To believe this is so is to ignore the fact that the GOP is running a successful conservative moderate candidate in Virginia (winning big) and in NJ (close call). Screams of the GOP being doomed to appeal to a smaller base and alienating independent voters are wishful thinking on the part of liberals and Democrats. Both the GOP and Democartic establishment ignore this fact at their own peril. This author and his analysis fall into the category of the GOP is doomed and is dead wrong.
Posted by McCain08 at 11/02/2009 @ 3:51pm
A Sarge is a large bottom-dwelling fish. I'm an USA Airborne First Sergeant.
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:52pm
Liberalism from Merriam-Webster. A political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties; specifically : such a philosophy that considers government as a crucial instrument for amelioration of social inequities (as those involving race, gender, or class).
Conservatism from Merriam-Webster. A political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change; specifically : such a philosophy calling for lower taxes, limited government regulation of business and investing, a strong national defense, and individual financial responsibility for personal needs (as retirement income or health-care coverage).
Posted by !immutable at 11/02/2009 @ 3:58pm
NY23...A warning shot over both Liberals and Republicans.
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 4:04pm
1st sgt, and KSchmidt, stay hopey, but things could changey!
Posted by Denise29 at 11/02/2009 @ 4:04pm
Denise29...I Just Don't Feel the Winds Blowing That Way...
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 4:06pm
It's hard to know where to start with this article The GOP will be a minority party if they keep following this strategy? They are a minority party now because they have had liberal leaders in George Bush and Senator McCain. What kind of Rebublican is Dede? She endorsed the Democrat and was more of a Democrat anyway. How does she represent the Republican party? The author is opining that the Goop is led now by the "tea partiers" I hope so these are real Americans with real problems of a country getting away completely from it's roots of freedom and capitalism
Posted by waldob at 11/02/2009 @ 4:14pm
So why are the Democrats so upset that the Republican candidate got beat? I thought that all Republicans were evil shills of Corporate America? That's what I've been told by loyal Democrats who are only looking out for my best intersts!
So why all the crocodile tears for Scozzafava? Why would Democrats care who the "Evil Republicans" ran or voted for?
Why is Newt Gingrich suddenly the wise old sage of the Republican Party? I thought that he was the "Gingrich That Stole Christmas?", according to my Democrat friends.
Could it be that the Democrats see that one of their most effective weapons is being rendered ineffective, by the likes of Sarah Palin and Co., no less?
Yes, the Dems and their friends in the MSM have convinced the Republican Party Leadership and prominent Reps like John McCain, and Lindsey Graham, that they must move to the middle to me liked or even tolerated by the public and the MSM. You can read this as, move to the Left, because according to the Dems the Reps are way, way, way, over to the right. So far to the right that they make Anarchists look too liberal.
The Dems have been saying this stuff since before the Reagan Revolution, and wouldn't you know that eventually the Republican Establishment bought into it. As soon as they did, they started to lose elections. Because, no Republican can out Democrat, the Democrats. Anyone who is inclined to vote for Democrat "principles" is just going to vote Democrat.
Of course the Democrats and the MSM knew this all along. It was afterall their plan to, "Build a bridge to the 21st Century", a bridge to unlimited power for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately for the Dems, the real Reps will not follow a Democrat Light Party for long. We will not trade our Elephant for a RINO.
Posted by edlarson at 11/02/2009 @ 4:15pm
The are so missing the point, and it is not just about the GOP, the Dems better take notice as well. Republicans can still be elected but RINO's can not except in the most liberal areas! The GOP can get back on its feet if it will get back to the concervative principals on spending and big government. The GOP in recent years has look like a moderate democrate, which leave no distinction, until now when the extreme left took over.
Posted by maverickIII at 11/02/2009 @ 4:22pm
http://www.anewwayforward.org/
Posted by !immutable at 11/02/2009 @ 4:28pm
Happy if you suggest someone use spell check, you do the same.
Posted by esd2000 at 11/02/2009 @ 4:44pm
Posted by waldob at 11/02/2009 @ 4:14pm
Liberal leaders like Bush and McCain? What the hell kind of hallucinogens are you doing, waldo? They're conservatives. They're your guys. And tea partiers are hardly "real Americans". Real Americans don't insist that any election that they lose is illegitimate. Real Americans don't hope against hope that the country fails. Real Americans don't whine. All tea baggers do is whine. Real Americans aren't racists and homophobes. A lot of tea baggers are. Real Americans? tea baggers? Like hell.
Posted by jmusolino at 11/02/2009 @ 4:49pm
Happy if you suggest someone use spell check, you do the same.
Posted by esd2000 at 11/02/2009 @ 4:44pm
When my picture and actual birth name is up, trust me, I will....I want a Nobel Prize too!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 4:56pm
Carter was an embarrassment to the office of the presidency. I wish he would have either gone back to peanut farming or emigrated to join his jihadist friends.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/01/2009 @ 12:39pm
Which one, Sadat or Begin? I mean, those ARE the jihadist friends of which you speak right, Larry?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/02/2009 @ 5:17pm
srjenkins,
You say that defending ourselves against and fighting back against Islamic extremism is not in the Constitution.
Which version? Are you referring to Algore's Living Breathing Constitution, perhaps?
It IS in the U.S. Constitution.
The preamble
"..We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.."
Article 2, Section 1 (the Presidential Oath of Office):
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article 2 says the President is to defend the Constitution, and the Preamble says one of the purposes of the Constitution is to provide for the common defense.
Common defense does not include fighting back against Islamic extremists who want to kill us if we don't convert to Islam?
If that doesn't count, then what does count?
I suppose now you will instruct me to leave these blogs, also......but not until you get done telling me how ignorant you believe me to be, etc. etc. etc.
I guess you do that because your arguments fail, so you have to come up with something.
Posted by sjchermak at 11/02/2009 @ 5:23pm
we need a big, I mean BIG public works program, on the scale of the Marshall plan or WW2.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/01/2009 @ 6:00pm
Agreed!...and I hope we get it in the upcoming Energy policy debates....
If we become THE nation for green technology for the world (which will be difficult because we're already behind most of Europe), our economic problems will be solved.
We have to become a nation of producing again, and if we can produce green tech, then the rest of the world will come buying....
But to the Republicans who think global warming is just something on Al Gore's resume....
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/02/2009 @ 5:34pm
...There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 1:30pm
(Since many of the lower class were citizens, the ancient Romans had a program to help them, somewhat like a welfare program. The welfare program was called the 'annona.') But that was Rome. As for the bible....
But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind - Luke 14:13
Blessed is he that considerth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. - Psalm 41:1, 2
As for the rich in the present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. - 1 Timothy 6:17, 18
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves. for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. I Peter (ch. IV, v. 8)
It is more blessed to give than to receive. Acts, 20:35
And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. Corinthians 13:13 (later translations of this verse substitute the word 'love' for 'charity', although they are only marginally interchangeable. I wager that this had to do with an ever growing population).
I'd say this proves you wrong. Now what you'll do is go into the Old Testament and dredge up a bunch of conflicting statements - which is what makes the Bible so lame in the first place - as a literal reference anyway. Go for it! Let's see how mean the Bible can be!
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 5:42pm
Which one, Sadat or Begin? I mean, those ARE the jihadist friends of which you speak right, Larry?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/02/2009 @ 5:17pm
Hamas, the PLO, Fatah to name a few.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 5:47pm
And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. Corinthians 13:13 (later translations of this verse substitute the word 'love' for 'charity', although they are only marginally interchangeable. I wager that this had to do with an ever growing population).
I'd say this proves you wrong. Now what you'll do is go into the Old Testament and dredge up a bunch of conflicting statements - which is what makes the Bible so lame in the first place - as a literal reference anyway. Go for it! Let's see how mean the Bible can be!
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 5:42pm
How did you ever misconstrue my previous statements that Christian charity is a commandment of Jesus for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven? All of the NT is about PERSONAL GIVING, PERSONAL CHARITY, NOT GOVT.
I've repeatedly said that we are measured as truly being in Christ by the manifestation of His love working through us to those in need. That is a personal responsibility, not a transfer of responsibility to govt.
You've seen my posts long enough to know about our work feeding the homeless, feeding illegals working in the fields, providing shelter, medicine, and clothing to the needy.
I have taken in many people to live in my home who were in need.
I have no idea where you suddenly developed this idea that I am against helping those in need.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 5:52pm
Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 12:49pm
and do you honestly believe that our nation of over 300 million people is in any way, comparable to the nation of thirteen states that Franklin inhabited?
I like Franklin's words. Good words. But in a country in which manufacturing jobs, i.e. the core of any stable economy, have all been shipped elsewhere and we have gone from an industrial based economy to a financially based economy, that Franklin's words can find some fertile ground here?
If there are no jobs, how can people not be poor? And should we, as a so-called Christian society, simply allow them all to starve?
Your vision of a righteous America is truly scary to behold.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/02/2009 @ 6:01pm
Since there are more people who call themselves "Conservative" than "Democrat," and more who call themselves "Democrat" than "Republican," it would seem to me that Republicans in NY23 are getting closer back to the mainstream. And Tea Party people are pretty close to the mainstream too. They're still furious over the irresponsible government of W and the Repubs, and don't like more of the same under BO and the Dems. The Tea Partiers, who are decidedly not Republicans, are leading that party by the nose back to economic issues and Libertarianism which they eschewed under W. I would hope that NY23 is a sign of things to come. Sick to death of social crap issues.
Posted by Steve851 at 11/02/2009 @ 6:37pm
There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY. Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 1:30pm
Seemed pretty clear to me. You were responding to Darla, but my response was directly to that statement that you made. I was more directly responding to the 'No teaching in christianity for charity'. I didn't miss a damn thing. You said it. Then seemed to deny that you said it. Time for your painkillers, Dr House.
I didn't say YOU were against helping those in need. I was addressing that statement above which made it seem like you were. Forget the 'entrance into heaven' part and all the other obfuscatory crapola. You are just stepping on the tails of your dogma and creating confusion. All I did was quote some bible passages. So it seems like you made a mistake with all that typing and refuting. Calm down dude.
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 6:54pm
Posted by reason at 11/02/2009 @ 3:17pm |
"Two free bonus sugar cubes if you can tell me whether the tea parties are predominantly frequented by the former or the latter and a double bonus dash of organic cream if you can relate this to the factuality of this article."
Hmmm...tea-partiers aren't all 'fungible' as Palin would say.
I have a feeling that opposition to the scuzzy fava bean has more to do with her opinions about gays and abortion than fiscal discipline...so I'd lean to conservatives by a large margin despite the libertarian 'signs' of life ("Taxed Enough Already...").
You can define them by what they do and don't agree on...they'll all complain about taxes, but only one cares if you show breasts on TV, and the other would cut defense spending in the name of a balanced budget.
You can keep your evil refined sugar and unpasteurized dairy...just plain tea is fine, thanks.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 6:57pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 6:54pm
I don't know what you're talking about? I had no typo, there is no teaching in Christianity about govt welfare or charity. All Christian charity is supposed to be personal and there is no suggestion that our helping others should come from govt.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 6:58pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 3:15pm |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VxQuPBX1_U
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 7:08pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 6:58pm |
Does your freedom to help as you see fit not also double as a means to exclude whomever you see fit from assistance?
And, if that's the case, how can we trust you more than 'the government' to be charitable to those who are in need, rather than those you merely prefer?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 7:13pm
Does your freedom to help as you see fit not also double as a means to exclude whomever you see fit from assistance?
And, if that's the case, how can we trust you more than 'the government' to be charitable to those who are in need, rather than those you merely prefer?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 7:13pm
We've never excluded anyone who needed help. We don't screen for religious belief, race, ethnicity, or even for behavior (like homosexuals).
Anyone in need receives our help.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 7:24pm
Often times I do not agree with Rush Limmbaugh, one of the things I was skeptical about his statements is about his beliefs that you just stand firm on conservative principles and articulate it correctly and you will win! Well, I think I have to agree with him now! But looks like the so-called "main stream media," which actually is liberal left leaning media, can not see that. Rush made a statement that they (the "state run media" as he calls them) think INDEPENDENTS are more liberal leaning, he wanted to bet that that are many independents that are actually conservative. I always thought independents were liberals, though, I myself am a conservative and I have registered independent and in the last election I voted against Obama.
Posted by FanDaElis at 11/02/2009 @ 7:34pm
Often times I do not agree with Rush Limmbaugh, one of the things I was skeptical about his statements is about his beliefs that you just stand firm on conservative principles and articulate it correctly and you will win! Well, I think I have to agree with him now! But looks like the so-called "main stream media," which actually is liberal left leaning media, can not see that. Rush made a statement that they (the "state run media" as he calls them) think INDEPENDENTS are more liberal leaning, he wanted to bet that that are many independents that are actually conservative. I always thought independents were liberals, though, I myself am a conservative and I have registered independent and in the last election I voted against Obama.
Posted by FanDaElis at 11/02/2009 @ 7:34pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 6:54pm I don't know what you're talking about? I had no typo, there is no teaching in Christianity about govt welfare or charity. All Christian charity is supposed to be personal and there is no suggestion that our helping others should come from govt.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 6:58pm
Let's try again.
I'm not addressing the entire institution of christianity.
Just your own original statement.
There is NO TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY FOR GOVT WELFARE OR CHARITY.
You wrote a sentence that could EASILY be misconstrued to mean something else. It's ambiguous. It could mean two separate things.
You're the preacher. It's up to you be NOT be ambiguous in any way. The fault lies in the word 'FOR'. The word 'about' would clarify that statement completely.
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 7:47pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 7:47pm
Did you take a Mask class on parsing today?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 7:49pm
....in a country in which manufacturing jobs, i.e. the core of any stable economy....
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/02/2009 @ 6:01pm
Is that so? Well, Monaco, Finland, Iceland, Mongolia, Switzerland (Swiss watches not withstanding),....don't have much of a core and must be unstable, huh?
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 8:13pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 09:53am
That's because you're a no integrity troll. Your sole goal here is to be a jackass, and when someone breaks the taboo and calls you an asshole, not because of your ideas but because of who you are, it's a "badge of honor".
Posted by sjchermak at 11/02/2009 @ 5:23pm
Aren't you the guy that believes everything is opinion? And now your talking about "arguments" and cannot see the problem in antisocialist's trolling?
I despise antosocialist's lack of integrity, but you, you are slightly better because you are merely stupid - the perfect audience for people like antisocialist's "arguments".
Oh, btw, since you have such a poor understanding of the Constitution, I'll give you a little hint: Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/02/2009 @ 8:33pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/02/2009 @ 8:33pm
Ah, showed up this evening to give us a display of your pacificist nature.
But you're a little late. I've already had my dose of humor for today.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 8:38pm
Ahhhh.......the greens of the environmentalists and their Gore God:
Gore's Dual Role in Spotlight: Advocate and Investor
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: November 3, 2009
Policies that would direct federal money to Al Gore's investments in green technology have drawn accusations of profiteering.
===============================
While I despise Al Gore, I affirm his right to make as much money as he can regardless of whether he actually believes in the horseshit he spreads around for his world-wide disciples. Like Rev. Moon or any other cults, hey, if folks want to fork over their money to their God, they have my blessings.
Just don't force me to worship at your altar!
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 8:44pm
Just don't force me to worship at your altar! Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 8:44pm |
Or me to worship at yours, Mammon.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/02/2009 @ 9:08pm
al gore is an asshole.
i, however, am made from this planet.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 9:08pm
First_Sargent, I guess I should have said "Sarcasm off".
Posted by Denise29 at 11/02/2009 @ 9:12pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 8:38pm
Pacificism is a belief, not someone's nature, and in my case, I only subscribe to pacificism when it comes to fighting for states - after having made that mistake once.
Strange for someone that believes in original sin to make arguments about "pacificism" as someone's nature. But then, you're just a little troll without any interest in the truth - or even offering up a coherent position.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/02/2009 @ 9:17pm
al gore is an asshole.
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/02/2009 @ 9:08pm
Music to my ears, so to type! Can you articulate that for us?
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 10:41pm
The tea party fold were average hard working Americans. Some were old, some were handicapped, and all were concerned about what Obama is doing to our country. If these good salt of the earth people are gaining in influence in the Republican party that is a good thing. The Democrats are welcome to become the party of the Elite, The Hollywood Crowd, the hateful moveon.org folks, the former domestic terrorists, ACORN, The Chicago Way, The billionaire Global Government George Soros crowd, The Apologize for America Crowd, and the plunge the country another couple of trillion in debt crazies! The Republican party should be happy to be the party of the old, the handicapped, those who still believe in the American flag, those who believe they can gather and exercise their 1st amendment rights with their elected representatives, those who think trillions of dollars in corrupt spending and debt are not the American way, People who do indeed honor the Tea Party founding of our nation!!!!!
Posted by valwayne at 11/02/2009 @ 10:51pm
Did you take a Mask class on parsing today?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 7:49pm
Ahhh, the masked one!
Sorry. Your statement was ambiguous. I respect you on some levels. Enough to say that if your statement had been clear I would have said nothing about the post. Your point would have been made.
Semantics are of the utmost importance in political discussions, and especially important at that very delicate point where we drift into theology, which is belief, and belief in something unprovable and therefore just a matter of opinion which can't be substantiated.
Who's it gonna be? Will the Phillies take it? Do they have a chance?
Posted by ficheye at 11/02/2009 @ 10:52pm
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:52pm | ignore this person | warn this person
am I supposed to be impressed with that, Sarge?
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 11:32pm
NY23...A warning shot over both Liberals and Republicans. Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 4:04pm | ignore this person | warn this person
c'mon now. an economically depressed area of New York, where the biggest employer is the giant army base, which hasn't voted for a dem in I don't know how long? meaningless.
Posted by emile duBois at 11/02/2009 @ 11:36pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/02/2009 @ 9:17pm
srj, I find anti a hell of a lot more coherent you, and a lot more civil to boot.
Posted by pontificus at 11/03/2009 @ 12:07am
srj, I find anti a hell of a lot more coherent you, and a lot more civil to boot. Posted by pontificus at 11/03/2009 @ 12:07am
Don't forget to call tonight and make a substantial donation to the Jack and Rexella Van Impe ministry, and if you call in the next 15 minutes we will send you a 'get out of hell free' coupon.
Civil? You are the poster boy for uncivil postings. One can only learn things by example. You are the headmaster - and by your own admission.
You are just sticking up for the grandfather of the conservative resistance. Touching, but ineffectual. He does pretty well on his own.
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 02:04am
Jack and Rexella Van Impe ministry
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 02:04a
Dr. Jack Van Impe is the only televangelist to be sampled on a record by Michigan rocker Bob Seger. "Heavy Music part 2" features the accordion and ACCORGAN, (a ramped up accordion) playing minister criticizing rock and roll. (the B-side to his 1967 single) Van Impe claims to be a "walking bible" as he has memorized so much of the book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNxFcJyz9Jg&feature=related
(seems like this is heavy music part 1 which is a great track de todas formas)
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/03/2009 @ 02:20am
"Some were old, some were handicapped, and all were concerned about what Obama is doing to our country"
but, oddly, those same people weren't at all concerned with bush's spending, or his two trillion dollar wars.
and even more oddly, these same people aren't intellectually capable of connecting the dots between bush's spending and obama's spending.
and that, my friends, is all we really need to know about the tea party crowd.
Posted by darladoon at 11/03/2009 @ 10:07am
"Scozzafava took a beating for her... sympathy for the plight of the unemployed."
Grrrrr. Goddamn unemployed sympathizer!
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 11:26am
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 02:04am
Revelations 11:24 warns that "the one-eyed fish of scaly denigration shall puffeth up its gills with contempt for the midnight prophet."
Look both ways when you cross the street fish! The Rapture might leave my Chevy absent of an operator.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 11:46am
Pricate charities took care of the poor long before governments got involved in the process. They did a better job of it, too.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 11/02/2009 @ 1:52pm
Ah, Darin and Larry bring out the "Let them eat Cake" defense.
Keep it up guys. Keep showing that compassionate conservatism. (That voodoo that you do so well.)
Private charities depend upon the good will of the rich (primarily) to keep them going. In this recession, the first thing hit was private charities. Why? Because the rich are holding onto their money, instead of spending it, which would help get the economy flowing again and bring more jobs to the nation. Why are the rich holding onto their money right now? Because they have been taught, over the last 30-40 years, based on Ronald Reagan's fiscal policies (that have now been proven to be disastrous in the long run) that greed is good and holding onto your money in hard times is what you should do, certainly not give it away to charities and the poor.
Why was W's first idea after 9/11 to tell the American people to "go shopping?" Right now, the rich SHOULD be giving to the charities, which are all hurting, yet the rich...all those people who benefited from 30 years of disastrous policies...are hoarding their money instead of providing for the poor...of which there are more and more every day.
Let them Eat Cake indeed. In your rush to be ideologically pure, you forget that we're talking about living and breathing human beings. So, go ahead and take government services away from the poor and let the dead millions lay at your ideologically clean, yet bloody feet.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:50am
ren't pepsi and coke one and the same?
Posted by frosty zoom at 11/01/2009 @ 5:36pm
Nope, Pepsi tastes like flat coke. They both suck and are bad for you. You're right Frostmeister. The political joke we call our "two party" system is a one party system. The proof is in the pudding so to speak.
The dems could have and should have already passed health care reform if they were a party of principle. But, we get to see a lot of show boating, phony discussions etc. and in the end, nothing will pass and if something does pass, it will be so lame that it won't make any difference. Does anybody really think the majority of the fools on the hill will actually take the $$ away from the same insurance companies that donate $$ to their campaigns?
The big corporations donate money to both sides and put their boys into the game in doing so. It doesn't really matter who wins the elections, they still have their boys in there either way. It's kind of like the option we had for the democratic nomination. H Clinton or Obama. There was barely a shred of daylights difference between the too and both of them are conservative democrats to say the least. The real democrats were made to look like fools or insignificant candidates.
When I looked at the right wing candidates, it was pretty much the same thing. All of them said the same thing with a slightly different twist. The common theme on both sides is strong national defense, defeat terrorism, pretend to Christian whether you are are aren't, protect Israel at all costs and the free market system is grand.
So, Frosty is right, coke or pepsi?
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:52am
Boy, are you missing the message! The Conservative Wave cresting across America has less to do with Tea Bags, and more to do with an actual uprising against the Obama Big Government Movement. In seedy little Diners, to Executive Offices, to Senior Military Leadership, there is an orgasmic revolution happening out there. It's really simple: LIBERTY vs. TYRANNY.
Posted by First_Sergeant at 11/02/2009 @ 3:26pm
First Sergeant, I think you need more training, or perhaps one had best take off the night vision goggles; you'll see the world in it's true colors...and they include more then red, white and blue.
And the wave you're talking about wouldn't even interest a California surfer; it's too small.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:57am
All Christian charity is supposed to be personal and there is no suggestion that our helping others should come from govt.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 6:58pm
Not even if we call ourselves a "Christian nation," Larry?
If all Christian charity is personal, then why do churches sponsor charity drives?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:00pm
between the too ...whoops, should be two
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:00pm
Is that so? Well, Monaco, Finland, Iceland, Mongolia, Switzerland (Swiss watches not withstanding),....don't have much of a core and must be unstable, huh?
Posted by Happy at 11/02/2009 @ 8:13pm
Hmmmmm...I don't know much about Mongolia and Monaco's economies or politics, but the others you mention are all "liberal" states. Perhaps your point is that a strong liberal states can have a stable economy?
Happy, you've made me happy today! I think you're starting to shrug off the Rushboy's propaganda!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:10pm
Posted by valwayne at 11/02/2009 @ 10:51pm
Was it the old people or the crippled people at the Tea Parties who made and were waving the "Obama=Hitler" signs?
Was it the crippled "salt of the earth" folks who didn't know that Ronald Reagan (their god) was the first President to appoint a "czar" while they were complaining about Obama's "czars?"
Perhaps it was the racists and neo-nazis of the Tea Partiers who created the former and the idiots and know nothings who foamed at the mouth about the latter.
Jeez valwayne, if you're going to do a marketing campaign for the Tea Partiers, PLEASE know your facts first, otherwise you just look like a cheap perfume salesman, trying to cover up the stink of a so-called movement.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:18pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:50am
Stating that Christians have an obligation to Christ to help the needy is translated by Stephen into "let them eat cake". How do you even debate with someone who so twists others words into a meaning that is polar opposite of what they said?
And compounds his fallacious argument by stating that charities depend on the rich.
<Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous.
The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.
In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives -- from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services -- make conservatives more generous than liberals.>
"Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism" by Arthur C Brooks
http://tinyurl.com/dm8egr
additional source to follow
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:24pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:50am
<The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (sccbs) was undertaken in 2000 by researchers at universities throughout the United States and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. The data consist of nearly 30,000 observations drawn from 50 communities across the United States and ask individuals about their "civic behavior," including their giving and volunteering during the year preceding the survey.
The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.
Charity differences between religious and secular people persist if we look at the actual amounts of donations and volunteering. Indeed, measures of the dollars given and occasions volunteered per year produce a yawning gap between the groups. The average annual giving among the religious is $2,210, whereas it is $642 among the secular. Similarly, religious people volunteer an average of 12 times per year, while secular people volunteer an average of 5.8 times.>
continued
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:26pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 11:50am
continued rebuttal to Stephen's "let them eat cake" fallacy
<Some people might object to my conflation here of religious and nonreligious charity. One might argue, for example, that religious charity is more likely to take place for non-altruistic reasons than is nonreligious giving and volunteering: Religious people might give because of social pressure, for personal gain (such as stashing away rewards in Heaven), or to finance the services that they themselves consume, such as sacramental activities. Therefore, disparities in charity might disappear when we only consider explicitly nonreligious giving and volunteering. The sccbs data do not support this hypothesis, however:
Religious people are more generous than secular people with nonreligious causes as well as with religious ones. While 68 percent of the total population gives (and 51 percent volunteers) to nonreligious causes each year, religious people are 10 points more likely to give to these causes than secularists (71 percent to 61 percent) and 21 points more likely to volunteer (60 percent to 39 percent). For example, religious people are 7 points more likely than secularists to volunteer for neighborhood and civic groups, 20 points more likely to volunteer to help the poor or elderly, and 26 points more likely to volunteer for school or youth programs. It seems fair to say that religion engenders charity in general -- including nonreligious charity.>
http://tinyurl.com/2g5gsj
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:29pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:24pm
I don't deny that religious conservatives donate more than secular leftists. They're SECULAR, you fool.
(And I couldn't care less about Arthur C Brooks, who was raised in a liberal home. I was raised in a conservative home, so what's your point?)
Secular leftists believe (at least I do) that government SHOULD care for the poor and needy before paying for national defense, because that is what I hope my tax dollars are used for.
Religious conservatives tend to prefer their tax dollars go to defense and the huge military-industrial complex in this country before going to the poor and needy.
So I ask you, which one of us is actually putting the lord's work first?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:33pm
All Christian charity is supposed to be personal and there is no suggestion that our helping others should come from govt.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/02/2009 @ 6:58pm
Not even if we call ourselves a "Christian nation," Larry?
If all Christian charity is personal, then why do churches sponsor charity drives?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:00pm
1. I've said repeatedly, we are not a Christian nation and I state that to Pastors who try and make that claim.
2. I've never held a charity drive in any church or ministry I've been involved with. We've never had to as a means of supporting our charity work.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:36pm
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:24pm
I don't deny that religious conservatives donate more than secular leftists. They're SECULAR, you fool.
(And I couldn't care less about Arthur C Brooks, who was raised in a liberal home. I was raised in a conservative home, so what's your point?)
Secular leftists believe (at least I do) that government SHOULD care for the poor and needy before paying for national defense, because that is what I hope my tax dollars are used for.
Religious conservatives tend to prefer their tax dollars go to defense and the huge military-industrial complex in this country before going to the poor and needy.
So I ask you, which one of us is actually putting the lord's work first?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:33pm
That is a dumb question. They are separate issues. One is about country and maintaining the security of the nation, the other is about our obligation to help others. I thought you understood separation of church and state?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:38pm
I don't deny that religious conservatives donate more than secular leftists. They're SECULAR, you fool.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:33pm
You should have taken a moment to read thoroughly before responding.
The data shows that relgious conservatives donate more to non-religious charities than secular people do.
What it really indicates is that either secular people worship govt over people, or they are stingy.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:40pm
Stephen,
When I've asked for volunteers to go to 3rd world countries to help the needy, I never lack for volunteers. And they have to pay their own way.
We have built homes, schools, and churches. I've set up youth soccer teams (I take balls, pumps, and inflation needles) in areas in South Africa where most kids don't even have shoes. But we send over 1000's of shoes.
We had a very successful food program for the homeless in Las Vegas for years until Oscar Goodman became mayor. He stopped us because it made the homeless too visible and he thought it was bad for tourism. There's a good Democrat for you.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:45pm
So I ask you, which one of us is actually putting the lord's work first?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:33pm
Stephen, You just walked into Liver's domain of stupidity. He figures we are a Christian nation and the right hand of G_d...Sorry, couldn't resist his not wanting to offend people by typing out the word God. You see, he really is a card. He's worried about offending those who think you can't say the word God, but he could give a rip less about offending those who don't think we should go around the world blowing shit up left and right in the name of God, democracy,Israel, the American way and yadda yadda yadda.
So not only is it our job to take out the infidel believers of Islam, but also our duty to protect this country from them thare terrorists. It's amazing how killing them over there so they don't come over here is winning us sooo many friends in that part of the world.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:53pm
So I ask you, which one of us is actually putting the lord's work first?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:33pm
Stephen, You just walked into Liver's domain of stupidity. He figures we are a Christian nation and the right hand of G_d...
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 12:53pm
Another one who cannot read.
<1. I've said repeatedly, we are not a Christian nation and I state that to Pastors who try and make that claim.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:36pm>
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:56pm
GOP ignorants always come to the fore, and suppress the one or two voices willing to negotiate with opposition viewpoints. It's a boon for Progressives...
example; U.S. Rep James Sensenbrenner (R, WI) started a round-them-up immigration bill in early 2006, that the GOP backed and resulted in millions of Hispanic-Americans voting Democratic in the '06 and '08 election cycles -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; awesome satellite view of earth
Posted by reg373 at 11/03/2009 @ 1:00pm
Sigh. What is behind you guys' intense hatred of Middle America? Is it just about coolness? Does their existence threaten your sense of cool?
Is it really so hard to understand the whole Jesus was not a theocrat thing? Are the contradictions so hard for you to wrap your huge enlightened brains around? Yes, the townies tolerate the Republicans corporate welfare, despite the fact that they have NOTHING in common with Wall Streeters. Why? Because they fear government more than capitalists. With good reason.
Greed hit its murder peak with WWI and since then has not been a serious competitor with statist ideology for body counts. Case in point: we just witnessed the biggest robbery in the history of the world with not a drop of blood shed, unless you count Bernie's prison scuffles.
So, the uncomfortable alliance between God, family, country townies and cut throat, me-first, money-over-bitches scumbags will continue.
It's not that complicated I promise. Socially conservative blacks tolerate hyper-liberal Dems. Ultra-lefties reluctantly tolerate pragmatism.
Trust me dudes, you don't have to see Nazis where there are none. Look in the mirror. Sure, you have the wrong skin tone, but you're still cool. For Christ's sake you voted for a Black guy! Your goatee and your record collection make you cool. You don't need the hatred. You're cool dudes.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:07pm
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:07pm
Who are you directing your comments towards?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:24pm
carver and wolfgang
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:27pm
1. I've said repeatedly, we are not a Christian nation and I state that to Pastors who try and make that claim.
2. I've never held a charity drive in any church or ministry I've been involved with. We've never had to as a means of supporting our charity work.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:36pm
1. But Larry, it's NOT all about you. I didn't ask what YOU do or don't do. You profess to an opinion that you think others should adhere to: that we should all be Christians (or we're going to hell), and thus BECOME a Christian nation (regardless of whether we are a Christian nation at the moment, and regardless of what you state to other Pastors).
2. I'm glad that your charity is all personal. Congratulations. However, generally speaking, religious conservatives do TONS of communal charity work through their churches, wouldn't you agree? So, are THEY now all bad Christians, too because they DON'T make it all personal?
Do you even SEE where the logic in your arguments falls apart?
My point is this: I want the government to spend my money on its people first, not on finding new and exciting ways of destroying other people in far away lands. I think that is a good use of my tax dollars, which I am happy to pay as part of the greater society's good. Can you, or any Tea Partier, say the same?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 1:44pm
That is a dumb question. They are separate issues. One is about country and maintaining the security of the nation, the other is about our obligation to help others. I thought you understood separation of church and state?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:38pm
So, are you stating that the government should have NO INTEREST in the actual physical welfare of its citizens and that it should all be left to the church and charities? Man, do YOU have a whacked sense of the purpose of government. Evidently, the only purpose you see government having is to attack other nations.
They are not separate issues because they both concern the powers of the government. I don't want churches anywhere near my government. But if I am forced to pay tax dollars (which right now I am), I want them to go to the people first, the military second. You want tax dollars to go to the military first and let the people starve (unless they get lucky and some charity helps them).
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 2:15pm
carver and wolfgang
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:27pm
If you knew me, you wouldn't be surprised at how much I have laughed at your post.
Me? Cool?
Truly funny.
Believe me, that is the last possible reason I ever do anything.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 2:21pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 2:21pm |
Dude, that's so cool!
Posted by snowball777 at 11/03/2009 @ 2:32pm
That is a dumb question. They are separate issues. One is about country and maintaining the security of the nation, the other is about our obligation to help others. I thought you understood separation of church and state?
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 12:38pm
Here is where Liver's logic goes to hell rapidly. The separation of church and state was that people had the free choice of religion and that there would be no national religion. Nothing anywhere says that churches are to see to the welfare of the people of this nation, the constitution of the United States, on the hand, does say ....We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Nothing in there about churches providing anything at all.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 2:55pm
Hey gangpapist, thats kewl to you.
Posted by Denise29 at 11/03/2009 @ 3:03pm
2. I'm glad that your charity is all personal. Congratulations. However, generally speaking, religious conservatives do TONS of communal charity work through their churches, wouldn't you agree? So, are THEY now all bad Christians, too because they DON'T make it all personal?
Do you even SEE where the logic in your arguments falls apart?
My point is this: I want the government to spend my money on its people first, not on finding new and exciting ways of destroying other people in far away lands. I think that is a good use of my tax dollars, which I am happy to pay as part of the greater society's good. Can you, or any Tea Partier, say the same?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 1:44pm
1. The studies show that people of faith, whether liberal or conservative give more to non religious charities than do secular people. It's not just about religion.
2. Christians who are not engaged in helping people in need are in danger of being rejected by Jesus (see Matthew 25).
3. The purpose of govt is not to "help" people. The purpose of our govt according to the constitution is to ensure that govt doesn't impede or prohibit our inalienable rights given to us by our Creator. That means national security, a justice system that is for everyone, the ability to move ourselves, goods, and services across the various states and in trade with other nations, to be secure in our persons (robbery, rape, assault), to be able to petition the govt without threat, to speak openly without threat or intimidation, to utilize the power of the press for information and against tyranny, to be able to defend ourselves (right to keep and bear arms). This is the purpose of govt under our constitutional republic.
it is not to be the US dept of charity.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 3:04pm
Trust me dudes, you don't have to see Nazis where there are none. Look in the mirror. Sure, you have the wrong skin tone, but you're still cool. For Christ's sake you voted for a Black guy! Your goatee and your record collection make you cool. You don't need the hatred. You're cool dudes.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 1:07pm
What in God's name are you rambling on about? goatee?! Are you for real pal? Records? I don't own a turntable anymore. I'm a dad. Dad's are the farthest thing from cool.
My points of view have more to do with a philosophical approach and not some knee jerk reaction to what some radical fruit basket like Rush Lamepuke has to say or the right wing religious fanatical bigots.
I don't think middle America is the moronic fools you are defending. It's the 28% bury your head in the sand idiots who would gladly turn the clock back to the day of witch burnings and feudalism. That's free market laissez faire capitalism for you. No rules, no regulations or government to get in the way because the king and his pals control everything and oh, yes, the military is the kings first and foremost favorite toy. The peasants are kept in their place in if they have the audacity to speak up, to the dungeon they go and off with their head.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 3:13pm
I don't think middle America is the moronic fools you are defending. ....what I meant to say was this.....
I don't think middle America is/are the morons or fools. It's the 28% bury your head in the sand.....
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/03/2009 @ 3:24pm
Honestly, I haven't heard anybody promoting a return to witch burnings. I think the events you are referring to were pre-Constitution and you know how big a hardon the 28 percenters have for the Big C.
I have heard a couple cabinet members praising Mao, pretty major witch burner, but haven't seen a single Cotton Mather t-shirt at the tea parties.
If the Maine thing goes the way Cali did today you guys will proclaim a "war on gays" by the "the American Taliban." You guys know that you would find a much more robust group of fag-haters at a Buju Banton concert in Queens, but I don't expect you to picket that one. Why? Could it be that style does trump substance once in awhile? Help me to understand. If it's not about the cool, what is it?
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 4:00pm
Actually, regarding their show trials, the Puritans were a bunch of self-reflective guilty libs compared to statist utopians.
The backlash, reflection, apologies, and reparations following the Salem madness was pretty much immediate. The victims were exonerated while their memories were still fresh, and of course, we still remember them today.
Contrast that to the nameless corpses piled high by the statist genocidaires.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 4:21pm
Look both ways when you cross the street fish! The Rapture might leave my Chevy absent of an operator.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 11:46am
I've about had my fill of Jesus talk on a blog about the Tea partiers.
But have you ever seen Jack and Rexella Van Impe? I'm talking surrealism, dude. I think Rexella actually has a female comb over. I watch with a sick fascination. The end is gonna come! And even sooner if you donate to the Lords hair restoration formula!
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 5:52pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 5:52pm
Yes, I've seen them. They are very surreal. They seem strangely disembodied in a way with the talking head against that lucid blue background. Like the Kerouac of Desolation Angels had holed up in a cabin for 12 months with Pat Robertson.
This is just me, but a hologram of Al Gore talking up the End Times as an opener for Phil Collins is equally disturbing.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 6:06pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 5:52pm
What do you want? they're Canadian.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 6:09pm
it is not to be the US dept of charity.
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 3:04pm
So, I guess the phrase "General Welfare" truly means nothing for you. We know you already think it doesn't cover healthcare (along with the Commerce clause).
Generally speaking, I don't disagree with your list of what the government is, except that one, all-inclusive phrase: General Welfare.
I'd be curious Larry to have you actually define that phrase.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 4:00pm
As for you gangpapist, I wonder if you've ever been part of a minority group that has been oppressed for thousands of years by a majority? Then if you somehow found yourself in a country in which the rights of the minority are supposed to be equal to those of the majority; and then found out they weren't upheld by the law, thus making a mockery of the documents that country was based on and the liberties subscribed therein...how would YOU feel?
And it's all because of one religion-tainted word: marriage.
It sure as hell ain't about the cool.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 6:26pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 6:26pm
I do not, personally, oppose gay marriage, though I can understand the argument against it because marriage is a religious/legal institution. Civil unions for all would be the technically fair solution.
If there was not a clique within the campus Left that truly does wish to see the dissolution of all of the "bourgeois" social structures, then I believe the social cons would soften on gay marriage, but for now there is some reason for them to see it as a trojan horse.
The portrayal of these people as animated by hatred is false and reaffirms their belief (with which I agree) that the Left despises them the way the Nazis despised the parochial Jews. I think anyone who has been around this big country of ours a bit knows that hardcore homophobia is most prevalent among working class and lumpen males, the salt-of-the-earth types beloved by the Left (well not the white rednecks), but who are not generally politically active.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 6:46pm
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 6:46pm
Homophobia in this country is based on fear of the unknown, combined with ignorance and fanned into the white hot flames of bigotry by people who call themselves Christians, based upon a couple of Bible verses. Yet I am sure that these same people don't follow all of Leviticus themselves, do they? That's what makes them hypocrites.
Most people who actually know gay people, don't have a problem with it. Then there's always the old "but some of my best friends are [insert minority group here] think." That's just ignorance and stupidity masking as good will.
Gay people don't want special rights...but the same rights as straights would probably do nicely, I think. After all, we are all created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights....aren't we?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 7:00pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 7:00pm
Yes.
Do you honestly believe that the majority of anti-gay bigotry comes from Christians?
Aside from some fringe lunatic groups, most traditional Christians are like my mother. They believe that gays are "living in sin" and hope that they will see the error of their ways. They do not hate them.
Most of the fag-haters I have met did not believe in sexual morality, but rather were selfish hedonists whose cartoonish machismo facilitated their misogyny and homophobia. Think frat boys who always refer to women as "bitches."
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 7:11pm
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 5:52pm
What do you want? they're Canadian . Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 6:09pm
Well, there you have it. It must be all that maple syrup. They've got this guy who must have been announcer for the Art Bell show with this REALLY deep voice, hawking their products. It IS entertaining I must admit, but they get not one thin dime from me.
Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 7:58pm
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 7:11pm
Not talking about the "fag-haters" as you so eloquently put it. Frat boys who drink too much are usually the first to drop their drawers for another guy.
Your mother is the people I'm talking about. The ones who vote against gays each and every time because of one or two verses in a Bible written by men, for men. Not because they hate gays, but because they think there is something "wrong" with being gay and it's all natural. It exists in other species just like it exists in ours. It is no more deviant than you having sex with your wife or girlfriend. Yet because St. Peter was probably raped by some Roman as a little boy, 2000 years later we are still dealing with HIS homophobia because of people like your lovely (I am not being facetious here) mother.
Perhaps even you could change her mind on the subject, since you have nothing against it personally. I would consider that a big step in the right direction if you could do that.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 9:49pm
And even sooner if you donate to the Lords hair restoration formula! Posted by ficheye at 11/03/2009 @ 5:52pm |
If you're gonna heal lepers and blind people...is it too much to ask that you also heal the follicle-y challenged, Oh Lord?
And, if so, where *would* Jesus draw the line?
The clap?
A persistent rash?
A hangnail?
Posted by snowball777 at 11/03/2009 @ 9:52pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009
You're right. I think we can both convince Mama if we stop treating her like a hater, which she is not, and if , this a big IF, we convince her that we are not going to replace the old morality with a new nihilism.
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 10:09pm
Posted by gangpapist at 11/03/2009 @ 10:09pm |
Perhaps you can introduce granny to some 'nice boys'...let her see that they have morals too...and then spring the fact that they're a couple on her later.
Agreed that the "whether you like it or not" approach adopted by Mayor (No Gubernatorial Seat for You) Newsom is counterproductive at best.
Old habits die hard...but then so do we all, in time.
Posted by snowball777 at 11/03/2009 @ 10:33pm
So, I guess the phrase "General Welfare" truly means nothing for you. We know you already think it doesn't cover healthcare (along with the Commerce clause).
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 11/03/2009 @ 6:26pm
I take the founders at their word. It was carried over from the Articles of Confederation and relates to the general welfare of the Republic-the nation, not the people themselves. It is about the general stability and functionality of the govt itself.
<III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.>
http://patriotpost.us/historic/documents/35/
Franklins draft proposal for the Articles of Confederation
<The Congress shall also make such general Ordinances as thought necessary to the General Welfare, particular Assemblies cannot be competent to; viz. those that may relate to our general Commerce; or general Currency; to the Establishment of Posts; and the Regulation of our common Forces. The Congress shall also have the Appointment of all General Officers, civil and military, appertaining to the general Confederacy, such as General Treasurer, Secretary, &c.>
http://www.usconstitution.net/franklinart.html
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 11:23pm
It's not over but it looks like common sense was returned to the state of Maine by the citizenry tonite
<PORTLAND, Maine - Gay marriage is losing by a slim margin in a closely watched referendum in Maine.
With 417 of 608 precincts reporting, 52 percent were opposed to same-sex marriage and 48 percent were in favor.
The voters are deciding whether to repeal or affirm a state law that would allow gay couples to wed. The law was passed by the Maine Legislature in May but never took effect because of a petition drive by conservatives.>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33609492
Posted by antisocialist at 11/03/2009 @ 11:37pm
But in Washington state referendum 71 is winning by a small but respectable margin confirming the 'Everything but marriage' protection for domestic partners.
Posted by ficheye at 11/04/2009 @ 01:17am