From George Will (who, for irony’s sake, let me point out spent a month or so sniffing at the only remotely conservative nominee on either major party ticket):
Conservatism’s current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket’s end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government — verily, “socialism” — would impend were Democrats elected. John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo plumber that he would “spread the wealth around.”
America can’t have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans — whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; and a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm — and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called “the private sector” has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be “spread around.”
The seepage of government into everywhere is, we are assured, to be temporary and nonpolitical. Well.
Probably as temporary as New York City’s rent controls, which were born as emergency responses to the Second World War and are still distorting the city’s housing market. The Depression, which FDR failed to end but which Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor did end, was the excuse for agriculture subsidies that have lived past three score years and 10.
The distribution of a trillion dollars by a political institution — the federal government — will be nonpolitical? How could it be? Either markets allocate resources, or government — meaning politics — allocates them. Now that distrust of markets is high, Americans are supposed to believe that the institution they trust least — Congress — will pony up $1 trillion and then passively recede, never putting its 10 thumbs, like a manic Jack Horner, into the pie? Surely Congress will direct the executive branch to show compassion for this, that and the other industry. And it will mandate “socially responsible” spending — an infinitely elastic term — by the favored companies.
McCain and Palin, plucky foes of spreading the wealth, must have known that such spreading is most of what Washington does. Here, the Constitution is an afterthought; the supreme law of the land is the principle of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. Sugar import quotas cost the American people approximately $2 billion a year, but that sum is siphoned from 300 million consumers in small, hidden increments that are not noticed. The few thousand sugar producers on whom billions are thereby conferred do notice and are grateful to the government that bilks the many for the enrichment of the few.
Conservatives rightly think, or once did, that much, indeed most, government spreading of wealth is economically destructive and morally dubious — destructive because, by directing capital to suboptimum uses, it slows wealth creation; morally dubious because the wealth being spread belongs to those who created it, not government. But if conservatives call all such spreading by government “socialism,” that becomes a classification that no longer classifies: It includes almost everything, including the refundable tax credit on which McCain’s health-care plan depended.
Hyperbole is not harmless; careless language bewitches the speaker’s intelligence. And falsely shouting “socialism!” in a crowded theater such as Washington causes an epidemic of yawning. This is the only major industrial society that has never had a large socialist party ideologically, meaning candidly, committed to redistribution of wealth. This is partly because Americans are an aspirational, not an envious, people. It is also because the socialism we do have is the surreptitious socialism of the strong, e.g., sugar producers represented by their Washington hirelings.
In America, socialism is un-American. Instead, Americans merely do rent-seeking — bending government for the benefit of private factions. The difference is in degree, including the degree of candor. The rehabilitation of conservatism cannot begin until conservatives are candid about their complicity in what government has become.
Presumably, Will is talking about those non-candid conservatives who cheered the credit bailout, the prescription drug entitlement, the farm subsidy, the auto bailouts, the airline bailouts, or the sops to steel producers and tariffs on Canadian lumber.
None of whom are easily locatable, outside the strawman warehouse Will often counts on to stock his recriminating columns — though, in fairness to Will, there are certainly plenty of GOP party cheerleaders who fit that description, many of whom are now suggesting that they took such an electoral beating because they were outpromised by the Democrats. But I’d hardly call them conservatives.
Instead, they are the GOP’s version of party pragmatists — their one salient difference from Democratic pragmatists being that, after a brief period of (empty) electoral success, they’ve proven they really do suck at it.
McCain, who is a nearly perfect barometer on how NOT to act, is responding to his embarrassing loss by making overtures about “reaching across the aisle” — the same gesture that gave us the gang of 14, campaign finance “reform,” and a soft middling GOP contingent that has either been swept from office, or will remain to frustrate conservatives and classical liberals even more in the years to come (when “good will” gestures will include a virtual rubber stamp on most of Obama’s judicial nominees).
I’m with Will, though: yes, we need to get back to core principles. But as the subtext of his article suggests, the way to do that is to stop worrying about electoral defeats and pragmatic politics, and begin a campaign in which we simultaneously sell classical liberal / legal conservative and liberatarian ideas, and purge Congress of those with R’s next to their names who govern out of desire to go along and get along, rather than from the principles they purport to represent when they are vying for your votes.
And the only way that can happen is if we refuse to take short term gains in Republican numbers in the House and Senate that in effect give us an overspending GOP Congress quickly whisked out of office as colossal failures, and instead invest in a longer-term project of pointing out just where it is that classical liberalism and conservatism differs from today’s progressivism that is disguising itself in the garb of “liberalism”.
Make clear the distinctions. Take back the terms (why call progressives “liberals,” even derisively? Call them what they are, progressives, and tie them to their historical predecessors, including the New Left of Ayers and SDS).
And most importantly, stop worrying about the final tallies until you first concern yourselves with nominating the proper candidates — not based on demographic gamesmanship, but based on your belief in the ideals s/he espousals.
Like the ShamWow, I’m of the opinion that classical liberalism, properly articulated and set against progressivism, sells itself.
But we need the proper pitchmen.
But we need the proper pitchmen.
Dudes who yell with British accents seem all the rage.
The rehabilitation of conservatism cannot begin until conservatives are candid about their complicity in what government has become.
What a drama queen and master of the obvious at the same time. Conservatives aren’t bemoaning McCain’s loss they just think it sucks that playtime for Baracky is going to be so very damaging and tragic. None of this rehashy crap is worth a flip without a candid acknowledgment that the media was complicit in delivering McCain unto the Republican nomination and in delivering a twisted marxist freak unto the White House. There’s no rehabilitation of conservatism not now not ever if it’s not reported. George Will needs to get his prissy head out of his ass and open up a can of at least semi-useful I think.
Rent seeking appears to be akin to heroin use, once begun an easily acquired habitual practice. So in the first instance we start with ourselves. Then move on to our representatives, asking “what is he/she up to? Is this a rent-seeking behavior, does it promote further such behavior, etc.” And if we find our answers to be in the affirmative, seek to unseat them, whether they are of our preferred party or no. Take Sen. Stevens of Alaska. Losing his seat brings the Democrats one seat closer to filibuster proof majority. But in my opinion, he must go and have hoped Alaskan’s can see him that way too.
Ted Stevens must go and go in disgrace because he is a disgusting and corrupt piece of shit and when he does people should celebrate.
Charles Grassley and his ethanol fetishism needs to go too.
The current bailout proposals for “the auto industry” (which is a bullshit term, as there are quite a few auto corporations which are thriving and do not need bailout) is rent-seeking behavior in the extreme. Short term salve without hope or pretense of cure on a near moribund body, a long term waste of otherwise scarce capital to be poured down the proverbial rat-hole.
JeffG
Your post on Valerie Jarrett is really a footnote to this one. It is government interference that makes slums possible, not “greedy” capitalists.
Indeed, the fastest way to rehabilitate slum areas is to get government out of the way.
The auto companies and their greasy union thug parasites are already tools so I don’t really see how Baracky’s plan can be expected to accomplish much.
I don’t know how much of a role it actually plays, but someone pointed out to me the other day that if an auto company files bankruptcy everything must be restructured, including union contracts. It would be much worse for the unions than ownership if the companies weren’t bailed out.
B Moe
Bankruptcy is the perfect venue for the auto companies because the union contracts is what is keeping them from being able to compete with foreign imports in the compact and subcompact markets.
“They took our jobs!” episode of South Park illustrates another example of rent-seeking behavior, one more frequently seen in ordinary, not terribly politically active folk. The proper answer to “they took our jobs” is “good!”. But it is hard to explain why when emotions run the way they do, clouding thinking, blotting out the future benefits of Ricardian comparative advantage.
B Moe is right. Chapter 11 is the absolute best course and it’s what the greasy union thugs are crying like little girls to keep from happening.
But watch the media help the unions paint it as corporate welfare.
George Will and Sarah Won’t? Ayers do and Klonsky don’t? You spell “potatoe”, I’m lost in cerrado…let’s call the whole thing off.
Screaming socialism in a crowded gulag, causes an epidemic of disappearing bodies. Rampant leftism is a disease. It spread from the trenches of do-gooderism gone bad. Social theoriticians breaking down the golf swing into four hundred thousand pieces and explaining that THEIR way, is the ONLY way to produce the “perfect” shot every time.
Except it doesn’t work that way. You don’t swing a golf club in four thousand separate pieces. Socialism is the art of trying to exact “maximal” results from breaking down life into a billion pieces and trying to manage each piece individually. It’s like trying to get sand fleas to pole dance to Zamfir.
What George Will doesn’t understand apparently, is the difference between throwing money at a problem…which is laziness and lack of ingenuity…and intentionally REDISTRIBUTING money, which is theft by any other name.
Note how Will uses “socially responsible” to illustrate the fogginess of the “social” “society” I was trying to get at last night in “McCain betrayed”. “An Infinitely elastic term” as Will puts it. That’s kind of what I had in mind. An easy, but ultimately dangerous flick of the mental wrist.
George Will needs to get his prissy head out of his ass and open up a can of cfbleachers I think.
According to what I heard on the Sunday monrning talk shows, the meme regarding chapter 11 for the auto inudstries was that it would take too long to sort things out in bankruptcy court, effectively destroying the companies anyway.
Obama will be able to demagogue the issue due to resigning his Senate seat, and not have to vote on any difficult legislation. I may not watch television for 4 years.
Socialism is here? Hmm.
Gotta work on an FDR FAIL wall with these…
I had good friends in DC who hated G. Will because (they said, I didn’t really know) he dumped his first wife and took up a younger better looking new one. Yet these same people defended Pres. Clinton in the Lewinsky debacle on the grounds that that is just what virile men do. I never could get my head around that.
Will Tim Robbins be re-releasing “The Cradle Will Rock” do you think urthshu? Wanna start a pool?
George Will at the end of the day works in service of a corrupt institution. He needs to be candid about that I think.
#19 I think it’s plain he lacked the excuse of virility.
20 –
that movie sucked ass! anyway, no, but I’m sure he won’t STFU. Probly do some anti-gun thing or a celebration of Wilson
“Comment by B Moe on 11/16 @ 11:04 am #
I don’t know how much of a role it actually plays, but someone pointed out to me the other day that if an auto company files bankruptcy everything must be restructured, including union contracts. It would be much worse for the unions than ownership if the companies weren’t bailed out.”
Which is why in reality it is a UAW bailout.
Maybe, Sarah, though I just dismissed it as some sort of amorphous predisposition on their part and didn’t dig much deeper. Could have been that they were Catholics and Will was a Catholic (I think) and they held him to some higher ecumenical/sacramental standard than they held Clinton, but who the heck knows. I don’t.
I guess it’s true Bill Clinton never set himself up as a freaking monument to marital fidelity. Or general integrity. Whereas Will set himself up as having some scruples.
But I still think if Will was dead sexxy they’d have forgived him.
Imagine all the sand fleas, dancing to Zamfir
You may say I’m a dreamerrrrr
Will was a Catholic (I think)
maybe he’s lapsed now, because Will is quoted as saying he’s agnostic (which sent delicious shivers through the rabid anti-religious Left and helps explain Will’s barely disguised distaste with Evangelicals).
Heh, urthshu, I went to the wrap-party and the near deified reverence of Will Geer on display was a (hilarious) thing to behold.
According to what I heard on the Sunday monrning talk shows, the meme regarding chapter 11 for the auto inudstries was that it would take too long to sort things out in bankruptcy court, effectively destroying the companies anyway.
And by “sorting things out” they mean “renegotiate the union contracts”.
instead invest in a longer-term project of pointing out just where it is that classical liberalism and conservatism differs from today’s progressivism that is disguising itself in the garb of “liberalismâ€Â.
Make clear the distinctions. Take back the terms (why call progressives “liberals,†even derisively? Call them what they are, progressives, and tie them to their historical predecessors, including the New Left of Ayers and SDS).
Truer words never uttered. STOP calling leftists “liberals”. Traditional liberals act nothing like the leftists. Where I separate slightly from Jeff…I don’t think calling them “progressive” works for me either. I won’t use THEIR language to frame the issues. “Regressives” would work. Guevarians is fine with me. Sandfleanistas is ok too.
Utolitarians has a nice ring…utopialitarians is too clumsy. Nirvanistas is a little too nice.
I also steadfastly refuse to use the term “mainstream” media. If that’s the main stream, I don’t want to drink from it. Entrenched media works for me. Verily Forged is ok. Deadwood Media is fine. Die Press has a ring.
George Will, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker et al, seem to have forgotten history and the manner in which creeping socialism works in the Alinsky model. It doesn’t appear in camera frame centered on a sneer, with rolling thunder in the background. It comes disguised as sweetness and light, with lilting riffs of soft melody.
But evil is as evil does. And life is a box of chalk lines.
You are either the one drawing the outlines, or being measured for them. George Will has been weighed and measured…and found wanting. Too bad. He had good hair.
I’ll second this motion.
Palin raised taxes on the oil companies operating in Alaska and used the proceeds to give every Alaskan a nice welfare check, so she can’t have been the “the only remotely conservative nominee on either major party ticket”.
So who was “the only remotely conservative nominee on either major party ticket?”
Ron Paul?
The suspense is killing me.
It comes disguised as sweetness and light, with lilting riffs of soft melody.
The gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel.
Palin raised taxes on the oil companies operating in Alaska and used the proceeds to give every Alaskan a nice welfare check
Don’t you ever tire of peddling that mendacity, sniffy?
Wrong. Try rent payment.
They’re not taxes, fool. What she raised is the price of Alaska’s oil and what she did it give the people who own it a dividend. But then you’re a mendoucheous twatwaffle and such distortion is par for your putt-putt course.
Palin collected royalties from state owned land and distributed them to the citizens. People too stupid to understand the difference between taxes and royalties should stick to coloring books and stay off mommies computer.
Snuffles links to someone even stupider than himself in 3… 2… 1…
And by “sorting things out†they mean “renegotiate the union contractsâ€Â.
That’s the best part of making ambiguous statements on Sunday morning television, it sounds critical, but without details, it’s meaningless.
BTW, alphie
sniffy engages in the usual Leftcult tactic of trying to control the narrative; in this instance of equating royalities with taxes and payment to the property owners as welfare.
Just as other leftcult trolls demand that any person employed by the government has no right to a free market opinion because their wage/salary is “welfare”.
You write well: Why don’t you do it?
Jeff has advocated for clarification of the definitive principles of classical liberalism, libertarianism, progessivism, liberalism, etc.., as a preferred methodology to take back I-don’t-know-what.
A glaring problem: up to now none here of the Order have shown an ounce of proper articulation nor respect for clarity when in combat mode. All is fair in war, baby! And Jeff is better than some here, just read the harpies in the comments section above. “Scream socialism in a gulag!” Show me a gulag within a merely socialistic society or, like Sister Palin’s pretty red shoes, take back your word-crappage to the rag peddler who sold it to you.
You’re philosophical failures, lingua Benedict Arnolds. Jeff might as well call for a Hellenistic return to the extant writings of Philo versus this indescribable self-giving self-serving death match for word definitions; you bumpy rumblers can’t even stab one word to it’s proper definition, much less adhere to any fuzzy literary credo.
Crack a window, I think somebody farted.
I’m of the opinion that classical liberalism, properly articulated and set against progressivism, sells itself.
Me too. And presuming any particular person will not respond to it – or is not already there – is a big mistake. Two nights ago I had a 20 min. conversation at Home Depot with an employee there which demonstrated this exact point – along with the failure of the McCain campaign to enunciate a Classical Liberal position. Of course, breaking it down on an individual level is not the same thing as getting it into the National discourse. But Progressivism [Regressivism] itself is running from Classical Liberalism so dedicatedly and fearfully that it knows individual rationality – and Liberty – is hot on its tail, and that the votes against Progressivisms’s sub-rational destructiveness need only be elicited by the proper enunciation of Classical Liberalism on a large enough political scope for Progressivism to be in deep doo doo.
i”m so stupid I didn’t even understand Thor.
Admitting your problem is the first step, some say, anyway.
“…I-don’t-know-what.”
There was no need to read beyond this point!
One this entire blog exists in order to enjoy. Because surely it must.
Don’t you ever tire of peddling that mendacity, sniffy
“Repeat, repeat, repeat. Always stay as far behind the curve as possible.” As a cynical controllist propaganda tactic, or a hard-wired or deranged mentality, that’s the kind of impotent “thinking” which builds Progressivism’s subrational sand castle/landfill. It’s really not very appealing.
Hey now, look at the a href=”http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/dads/boystomen.html”>dulcet tones of kind and just parentage espoused by Mr. Ayers. Childhood is a dreary pierce of the ears and twist of the nads into proper thinking on “fairness” and enforcing that fairness in others. Careful indoctrination dressed up in a sequined boy tutu.
How gentle, how loving. Get thy toddler to a porn rally and free his mind from heteronormative phallocentric hegemoniacal whiteyhood.
And hundreds of thousands in therapy fees for the one that bangs his head into the walls.
Ps. Date rape? Don’t tell the parents. Or your kids about this deal: memory is date-raper.
FIrst link
That clarity of meaning from the asshole what’s made a name for itself being banned for having no pertinence, reason, purpose, or vision.
And I resent that remark. I do so adhere to fuzzy literary credos. I also stick like flypaper to ill-defined prosaic ethics too, you chimp. And I am plastered into the very fabric of linguistic architectures made of algebraic nomenclatures.
Speak for yourself, Hammer Boi. You can spout all sorts of (in your mind) fancy verbiage, but the fact remains that in all the time you’ve been here, you have yet to make a cogent point on any subject.
The only thing we really know is that you lurv swallowing Obambi’s milky loads and washing ’em down with KozKid Kool Aid, and could not think your way out of a New Orleans whorehouse (or would that be a Moscow whorehouse; whatever).
Pardon me if I remain underwhelmed and unimpressed.
Is Barack Obama a Marxist, JHo?
Are you, thor?
You intellectual redistributionist, you.
Celine.
!
If I shook Ayers’ hand would I be?
Steven Pinker pointed out (in his conversation on C-Span a week or so back) that going into his deposition (the meaning of “is” depos), Bill Clinton said he “set out to be truthful, but not helpful”, to which Pinker remarked that in order to have a successful conversation, we must want to be both, truthful and helpful, else we will inevitably fail to be successful, will fail to communicate, will get nowhere, will waste time spelling out all the myriad detail that language in conversation is built to assume. So it often seems with folks like snuffles, semanticleo, sashal, etc. the good faith of simultaneous “truthful” and “helpful” is lacking. Hence the waste of time.
I’m Celiniac, and obtuse!
More like Celeriac, if you ask me.
If any rubbed off, thor, probably.
Good point, Sdferr, one behind the asymmetry of political relations.
Further, while various trolls wage their little respective arts of noise — Celeriac obtuseness even — the tactic simply exposes a lack of principle definable principles. A lack which when exposed, slows it not in the least.
Witness all the Russian whoremongering, repackaged as wit by association.
If you let Ayers write your posts, and you helped him queer up the schools with ridiculous indoctrination programs, I might wonder.
How many schools did you, Larry Craig and Mark Foley queer up?
As Jeff advocates delineation through proper articulation, I do the opposite.
I break down walls and stomp improper articulations through mine leonine roars. Catatonic prejudices are what I seek to delineate from proper articulation. I don’t care what you do after I shit on you, frankly.
I’m a homeschooler. So, just the one.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/16 @ 11:22 am #
“According to what I heard on the Sunday monrning talk shows, the meme regarding chapter 11 for the auto inudstries was that it would take too long to sort things out in bankruptcy court, effectively destroying the companies anyway.”
Surprise, Surprise!, That’s the same meme being pushed by the Democrats..!
You don’t think that it could anything to do with the, oh, gazillion dollars that the UAW gave to Democrats during this election cycle and in the past-do ya?
Now there are arguably many factors that have led to the big 3’s financial troubles as well as their lack of ability to compete with the foreign owned car companies. But, one of the largest factors is the economic gun held to their heads by the UAW
As this economist shows in his graph, the big 3 suffer from a labor cost per employee-hour that is nearly 50% higher than their nearest foreign owned competitor. I’d also add that these foreign owned competitors don’t have the same UAW deals imposed on their business models…
So it seems that the urgency behind the auto industry bailout proposition may have more to do with the prospect of a bankruptcy judge ordering the UAW contracts to be restructured…
Several players in the airline industry have emerged from bankruptcy operations with much better, and more profitable, business models. I venture to speculate that the same would be true for the automakers; after shedding the extorsionist UAW contratct terms they may actually be able to both compete better with the foreign awned companies as well as be able to afford for more manufacturing to take place here at home.
I say no auto industry bailout, the Republicans should have the guts to vote against a bad deal…
If the Democrats want it, then let them own it, and please let Boooosh! stop worrying about his legact and veto it…
Let O! repay the unions himself for their campaign largesse and supply of zealous Brownshirt thugs for campaign workers…
Don’t let him use the congressional Republicans as a proxy…
P.E. Obam-example:
Rebuilt. Is there any sense in which this is truthful? Chicagoans? Can you tell?
There weren’t a lot of tutus or earrings or porn rallies. So I’m sure it was some kind of failure.
Darleen,
Nothing would make me happier than seeing Palin as the 2012 Republican nominee.
But, let’s be honest.
Classic conservatism is anchored by a certain level of intelligence (i.e.:Wm. Buckley) that attracts America’s “thinking” class to the Republicans.
Palin repulses these folks.
Better for her to dump conservatism and run a pure Bubba campaign.
While Bubba’s is butt still sore, better not talk of 2012.
“How many schools did you, Larry Craig and Mark Foley queer up?”
Probably the same number of schoolchildren you molested.
New and improved: While Bubba’s butt is still sore, better not talk of 2012.
My fingers are still phat and happy.
Ace (http://ace.mu.nu/archives/278174.php)had briefly mentioned six at sixty, six issues that can pull 60% support. Can we articulate six principles/proposals of classical liberalism that can go up against progressivism next time around?
I think the word thor’s searching for is inarticulation.
That was witty. Here’s my problem with certain homeschooled.
sniffy
Palin repulses the DC “get alongers” … the ones that profess a certain type of hot-house Rockefeller conservatism.
It is interesting to note that some look down on a person who attended more than one college because they were the offspring of school teachers and expected to pay their own way through college but exault those who had their parents pay their way through college or got through it with taxpayer subsidized loans and affirmative action.
accused of grooming young and vulnerable women for bomb attacks
Ayers’ style is international.
Sarah Palin was the beneficiary of a beauty pageant scholarship, which she probably lost due to poor grades and/or basic lack of interest in intellectual pursuits. Get your story correct, and then realize you can’t even distinguish one who lives by force of personality and assertive ignorance versus the antithesis. Even worse is that you reek of being the beneficiary of a taxpayer subsidized livelihood and affirmative action all while extolling a pure capitalist virtue like a deranged hypocrite drunk on philosophical distortions. For all your wreathing and bellowing like an animal with a dagger in its eye, you, by any logical rationale, should have voted twice for Obama.
The baying of drowning goats is soothing music.
Palin repulses the DC “get alongers†… the ones that profess a certain type of hot-house Rockefeller conservatism.
That’s true, Darleen.
She repulses smart people all across America, too.
Though it would be kind of fascinating to see what kind of train wreck she’d be as President, in a sick sort of way.
Goats do not “bay”. They bleat.
“Assertive ignorance”, indeed.
Sarah Palin was the beneficiary of a beauty pageant scholarship, which she probably lost due to poor grades and/or basic lack of interest in intellectual pursuits.
Hell, her name probably isn’t really Sarah Palin, it is probably more like Palinovski but she changed it when she crawled ashore from the bowels of that Russian whaler she stowed away on while sneaking out of Siberia. And she probably financed her way through school giving back alley abortions to eskimos, which she probably also sold crack to, while she was probably whoring herself out to diseased gold miners who probably were on the lam from the IRS, which was probably paying Palin to snitch them out and she was probably gambling the money away on illegal crap games with probable felons who had probably just escaped from prison and probably weren’t very nice people or even very smart. Probably.
If you are going to write fiction thor, at least make it interesting. You shit is lame, dude.
She repulses smart people all across America, too.
Says the author of the Balloon Fence, the Mile High Anti-Missile Berm, and the dreaded Chinese Attack Container Ships.
Figured out the difference between taxes and royalties yet, Einstein?
Nice, B Moe.
Jeff was just talking about Republicans who “often presume to frame issues in ways that heavily favor their own point of view.”
“Royalty” instead of “tax.”
Perfect example.
The winking Wasillian idiot admitted she received a D in macro economics, did she not? And to listen to her speak English you’d think Igbo was her first language, not that there’s anything wrong with that, Africa is just another country after all, so “what’s the big darn deal?”
thor,
I give you all due respect in your right to hold a poor opinion of Palin. After all, everyone can’t be everything to everybody…
But as far as any of her college grades go, admitted or otherwise deduced, remember that for all of his celebrated intellect, O! has mysteriously chosen not to release his college grades…
Admittedly, this reticence was a non-issue during the election; one that I hope will be rectified ASAP now that he is the President-elect…
By the way, how was your visit to Jamaica..?
Best Wishes
Here is a article on trolls I found last night. I found it very enlightening, and pretty creepy.
Make sure you get at least to this part:
Now I don’t think that is ever going to happen, trolls will always get those suckers they need to have their fun. I think what’s important is to understand there are those wanting honest debate of the given subject, and those with a totally different agenda. We need to be smart enough to divine the the difference, and act accordingly.
That doesn’t mean you always ignore the troll, just use their ill will when it fits your purposes, not theirs. If a troll comment is a good opportunity to make/contrast a point (or be funny/amuse yourself at the trolls expense), by all means, let’em have it. But too often a thread gets mired down in the trolls game. Be willing to dis-engage at any time, there is no honor in trying to educate a troll.
The blinkered Ft. Lauderdale idiot went to town, linked to a piece on a Palestinian suicide bomber and called it homeschooling in a nutshell. Stuck a feather in his hat and called it breaking down walls.
I’m reconsidering my world view as I write.
“Certain,” if I may quote myself, ya nutshell.
It was a stretch, I’ll give you that.
Sorry, to disturb your re-write.
Iraqi, by the way, not Palestinian.
“Though it would be kind of fascinating to see what kind of train wreck she’d be as President, in a sick sort of way.”
You’re gonna get your wish, right after O!bama is sworn in.
I just realized something.
thor is the Glen Gould of retards.
Please do not expect thor to make sense. thor is not about making sense.
More to the point: thor is about not making sense.
Let’s leave Glenn Gould out of it, may we? In a “which one of these things is not like the others” way. Thanks.
The Princess ixnayed Jamaica. The plan was to indulge her in a mountain spa retreat. I figured with cucumbers over her eyes and basting in a steaming mud wrap that she’d be cool with letting me do my thing. And my thing was renting a 125cc enduro with knobby tires and straight-piping through the Blue Mountains, alone. She thought it too rude of me to leave her with the natives while I smoked cabbage-sized buds from hand-carved water bongs with the local Rastafari. Where better way to celebrate Obama as Jah than with those mystic head freaks.
I suspect she was suspicious of my natural inclination to local untamed mountain pussy. That’s what you get for sharing your fantasies. I’ve always wanted to have a village to a all night drum dance while I spear a virgin in a thatched hut, like every deserving White God gets to do.
Now it’s Bogota in the re-plan.
to = do
HA! thor thinks putting do instead of to might create confusion in understanding his “point”.
That’s very funny.
Comment by thor on 11/16 @ 4:20 pm #
A regular Toccata of retardation, thor.
Well done, well done.
Trolls have their own culture, complete with online communities, objectives, and hero’s. They compare notes, get ideas and plan strategy’s with each other. They have their own legends and doctrine.
You may want to believe you are discussing ideas to further understanding, but the troll is trying to abort any ideas before they reach term, to confuse understanding.
Don’t believe me, thor explained it in comment #66.
He had a point?
Glad some are so easily amused.
Other than shitting on Jeff’s rug, I mean.
It’s the artistry of your retarded comments, thot.
It takes careful crafting and an IQ of about 60 to reach such levels.
And diarhea.
Do do?
lucky,
Now that Obama’s won, you guys are the trolls.
thor,
Perhaps there are probably some things you should keep secret from Princess; you know, for the mystery…
Bogata is veeerrry cool. I understand from my co-worker that the mountains around Cali are also exciting, the local maids lovely and comely, and the nightlife-electrifying…
Wherever you go, brush up on your salsa; the Colombianos love to drink and dance all night…
Que tengan buenas vacaciones!
Now that Obama’s won, you guys are the trolls.
OUTLAW!!
Seriously, wasn’t it you that was banned? What are you still doing here?
“Comment by snuffles on 11/16 @ 4:49 pm #
lucky,
Now that Obama’s won, you guys are the trolls.”
Sorry, alpo, you are now, and shall remain forever, a retarded marmoset, a fucking talking telephone pole.
Even worse is that you reek of being the beneficiary of a taxpayer subsidized livelihood and affirmative action all while extolling a pure capitalist virtue like a deranged hypocrite drunk on philosophical distortions.
As I stated earlier, this is the Leftcult’s fave tactic in obfuscation – demanding that any employee of the government (from soldier to police officer to firefighter to judge to teachers) do not earn their wages or salary … such earnings are really “welfare” and thus government employees, regardless of the legitimacy of their position, are verbotten from holding any opinion on capitalism.
basement fuckwits are such Leftcult trolls.
Jeff was just talking about Republicans who “often presume to frame issues in ways that heavily favor their own point of view.â€Â
“Royalty†instead of “tax.â€Â
Perfect example.
Jeff is just trolling, Alphus, he doesn’t really mean it.
Fucking idiot.
“Scream socialism in a gulag!†Show me a gulag within a merely socialistic society or, like Sister Palin’s pretty red shoes, take back your word-crappage to the rag peddler who sold it to you.
Darleen, I’m not familiar with this thing, thor. What are the rules of engagement? I’ve not been called one of the “harpies” before, so I’m not sure what group I’ve joined or if there is an initiation fee.
Before I administer this cretin the verbal beating of his life, I would at least want to know what species of poor creature has been rendered road kill. It would be fun, only if he is not an otherwise unarmed and rather toothless toady of leftism.
Darleen, I ask you because I know you and your writings…however, others may respond who are familiar with mine. I will stay silent and not feed this one, if that is to be the rule of engagement. I read Jeff often, but comment here not as much. More lurker, but willing to do my part to take out the trash.
“demanding that any employee of the government (from soldier to police officer to firefighter to judge to teachers) do not earn their wages or salary … such earnings are really “welfare†and thus government employees, regardless of the legitimacy of their position,”
Of course, retards like alpo and thog are too cowardly to actually volunteer to serve their country.
“Dissent is a luxury of those protected by better men than they.”
“Darleen, I’m not familiar with this thing, thor. What are the rules of engagement?”
See my #93.
Comment by Sdferr on 11/16 @ 4:08 pm #
Sorry, ferr, I mean it in a malicious way, in that thog is an artist, a veritable font of idiocy, an artiste of fucktardidness.
What are the rules of engagement?
There are none, show no mercy. He seems to enjoy being beaten.
cfbleachers
thor is a basement-dweller as puffed up with his own imagined importance as Pam Anderson practicing her Oscar acceptance speech infront of a mirror.
He is also an admitted obscene poltroon who revels in slander, delights in his own bigotry and misogyny and is perversely pleasured by performing perfidious patter.
He lives on attention. Ignoring is optimal, merciless mocking of his obvious deficiencies is a second choice.
Choose as is comfortable for you.
N.O’Brain, I knew how you meant it. I just prefer to see my pianistic heroes left to the side of such doings rather than to be taken up as cudgels at whim. That’s all.
Funny, that’s what he thinks.
He lives on attention. Ignoring is optimal, merciless mocking of his obvious deficiencies is a second choice.
Thanks, Darleen…(now you have to go to Pat’s as we ping pong our conversation between sites).
I would send the poor sap a primer, like Animal Farm for children or some such thing, on how socialism morphs into totalitarianism…but I’m afraid it would be lost in the brambles clogging all his neuronal resources.
cfbleachers , you were wise in seeking from whom you trust for advice when seeking advice. There is no more sound counsel than Darleen gave.
If you do choose option two, for your own reasons, B Moe is another one can trust:
Protein Wisdom is the BOMB!
Where did that “you” go?
Of course, I would add to BMoe’s advice- once you stop having fun beating on thor, look up how to troll hammer. It’s fun and all until it’s not.
Here is one groups writeup about that. They talk about a whole lot of organizing going on.
“I met with Barack on a regular basis as he incorporated the Developing Communities Project, as he moved the organization into action and as he developed the leadership structure for the organization. He would write beautiful and brilliant weekly reports about his work and the people he was engaging. “
Not anything about tangible results.
I wanted blockquote not bold. Oh well.
i used to like sitting in the bleachers
getting all excited anticapating the time between innings
when they’d shoot the t-shirts into the crowd
but they chopped my writey hand off and i don’t think about catching t-shirts shot out of a gun anymore
i think alot about if they choppy-ed my other hand off
what a bitch it would be to wipe my ass!
sphinter exercises are so gay!
but since the obama ushers ushered in the new mandatory
2nd inning bendover/ third inning facial
the 5th inning wallet lift
the 8th inning squat for justice
to go along with the 7th inning strech…
i’m just tired!
where did i park that car?
do NOT say extra innings!
unless followed by the words extra grinnings
I think you mean cat.
steeee-retch!
strike-u a bad rumdummy dum republican!
strike- u whitey tighty oppressor
ball-we’re having a time/ at sharon tates house! [3 pronged]
ball-a paupers ball
golf ball!- u augusta georgia masters!
3 and two
full count!
let’s hug!
everybot gets a trophy!
Right again, Jeff.
It comes down to “marketing the brand” (for lack of a better phrase, although the grotty details of ads and mottos is not really what I have in mind, per se). My concern is this: how do you make the case to people who are clearly not listening to reason. It seems there was a significant cadre that voted for O! based on little more than faith, and not any rational weighing of interests or outcomes. How do we get through to those people, because I fear principles, even well articulated, may fall short.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to be wrong about the above. But in my deep dark moments that’s what I fear.
The flying Duuuuh Squadron is in formation, nose firmly into the forward ass.
Buzzzzzz! Ohnoes, here they come, Flying Lemming Squadron One with their snark bombs and dumb guns engaged!
I should post a fee-scale for my inspiration.
…cue thor, right on time to illustrate my point…
fee-scale
fee-scale!
do want u want
in the land of respond-a lot
but don’t say
pee-pail!
[my buckets got a hole in it!
my buckets got a hole in it!]
pay pal
pee pail
i’d rather be a hammer
than a nail
yes we..[tappety-tap]
can!
You’re way out there, buttons. I dig your Outlaw! vibe.
Groovy.
groovy’s just the thing i call my couch pad
as my big [size ass size] get’s up
and i bend over to look for the missing potato chips[sticks-potato sticks!]
which may be lost
in my big ass indention
then i munchily crunchily return
to read another Seth billy burn
tanks!
i’m knitting some big ass mittens
to cuddle the williams sisters asses
they are called my wimbeldon gloves
and they are full of strawberry cream love!
love 15
or thirty
can u shoot a .45?
lets get dirty!
# 4?
Our shenanigans are cheeky and fun.
His shenanigans are cruel and mean, which makes them not shenanigans at all really. Woo hoo shenanigans!
(I stole that from a random youtube thread just cause it made me smile.)
come back shane!
I once had a egg scramble with a side order of strawberry cream love at a hotel in Bangkok. Cost me 500 baht.
Wasn’t as good as you’d think.
oh. Bobby Orr, yes?
thank happyfeet
yes
robert gordon orr!
tanks
come back shane I have no idea what Mr. Hubris is on about with that. I think he likes me.
oh. Hubris has said that a couple times now is all. Probably that didn’t make sense if you hadn’t seen where he that.
’tis a line in a movie
i once had two sisters steal my wallet twice
and i kept chasing ’em around the asphalt
that they deemed a tennis court!
it wouldn’t of been so bad if i kept my pie-hole shut
but then i started yammering about tatum oneal/john mcenroe/bjorn bjork and her swan dress
then..things started to get ugly…!
where he *said* that I meant
#143
i killed a man in dennys
just to eat his fry
and that bus-boy keeps a whistling…
Slam of the head against the floor.
Slam of the order going out the door.
Poetry slam.
Wham bham, Lumberjack Slam®.
yes, i ate your last piece of bacon.
grand slam!
yes, we have no bacon
or bananas
though I don’t know what anas did
to get banned
if buttons don’t get on the stick
howe will take orr to the boards
or is it
howe will orr take [gordie] to the boards?
i don’t know whats going on
is it icing?
it’s not breakfast
if you put fruit on it
whatever doesn’t kill my date
will make me stronger!
oh snap
i left my wallet in a car
i’ll be right back
love the half-black hash browns!
mmmmm
morning food!
if buckley was one who listened
would he say such stupid shit?
Moderates, independents, mercenaries all
hicks are so base, they will hang around
it’s the undecided who hold the power
pander to them and ignorance rules
principals are for losers
t-shirts buttons commercials and ads
let the marketing begin
’tis not breakfast
if there is a gourd involveld
’tis a gruel gruel world
when little bobby orr
asks kindly
more food please
[u peeps are so funny!]
tater tots
and high chairs
tiffanys at breakfast!
and later on
in hobo town
we pick and grin
“twasnt us!’
leonard berstein skynyrd!
free fowl!
breakfast is the most important meal of the day!
that’s what mom said
trying to get me out of bed
here’s my first meal of the day ‘cuz of the importance
coffee and a good smoke
vitamins? don’t joke
in 1814
we took a little trip
seeking morning food
on the mighty missisip
we fired our waitstaff
but the muffins kept a coming
i wasn’t as hungry as an hour ago
but thats pw- y’all
keeps ya wanting more!
u peeps are cwazy
thanks 4not banning me[yet]
[cuddles!]
Do over!-stupid bobby orr![just kidding buttons-sheesh!]
if buckley was one who listened
would he say such stupid shit?
Moderates, independents, mercenaries all
hicks are so base, they will hang around
it’s the undecided who hold the power
pander to them and ignorance rules is bliss
principals are for losers
t-shirts buttons commercials and ads
let the marketing begin commence!
oh noes. my brand new firefox toolbar doesn’t do strike though very good.
Strike “rules” and “begin”.
shut up, it’s not my fault.
i’m a lumberjack and i’m ok
i sleep at work and i prepare for the day
for a solstice -when we’ll all make hay!
febuary is blackety black month
but thats ok!
cuz pbs will remind me
day after day after day after…
hey!
a new tote bag!…
i be styln’
jealous?
cuz i’ll stuff ur republican meanie dreams
in my big tote bag!
change…he wrote
Now you’re just showing off.
I’m embarrassed.
what came first?
the new chicken mc sandwich or the egg burrito?
wtf do i care?
i just want a coffee
i bow 2 ur wit
waffle dreams
i hope a rooty tooty breakfast awaits u!
what a country!
thanks vets
parents of vets
gramp-parents of vets!
btw
i’m a 20% tipper
even if ur an asshole sucky waitron
u gt 20
nite y’all!
if a egg ain’t a chicken
unless a cock crows
is that why breakfast is
after morning wood grows?
cock a doddle do!
mama mia’s good too
menudo in the morning
in case of hangover
strange but true
OK, I’m tired of “lucky” lee. Now I’m paying tribute to the greatest outlaw ever, William Wallace.
FREEDOM!!!!
shut up da bruce
i am not raging
fight with me
first learn to use this
then you will know when to use this
that’s a big assed sword!
longshanks hussein obama
the problem with america is
it’s full of americans
kiss my pearly white and blue
and, well, kinda brown ass
i’m fine, but I’m pretty sure you are fucked
I won’t submit, except’en you’re a hot princess
oh noes, not midgets, why’d it hafta be midgets?!
FREEDOM!!!!
finis
My scroll-wheel finger is getting tired. Please stop with high-volume doggerel or I’ll file suit against you all for RSI.
/Not serious
‘Hammer ’em, slart. It’s the best way to increase the signal-to-noise ration on PW.
Whenever I hear about the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, I cringe.
People bash it, but I am satisfied with my Health Savings Account. I would also encourage all of you young single people to sign up. Young single women can call me and I will fill them in on the details.
I think that the only way that we can get any market-based reforms by “the children” (democrats) is to throw a lot of entitlements on top of them.
If you look beyond the huge dollar amount, there are a lot of items that actually preserve liberty. In addition to HSAs it also, for example, prevents the government from establishing formularies.
There is a lot here to be proud of if you go beyond the surface.
OK Rob, I’ll quit switching up names and make it easy for you.
lee braveheart (bh)!
I still say my #169 was funny though. The best most relevant scene was part two, where the base is addressing John “don’t use my opponents middle name” McCain. George Will and the rest of the Republican bloodbloods are doing everything to avoid looking partisan, but attack the only bright spot for Republicans in the whole election cycle. They don’t know when to use the sword, or when they need to help us fight.
Oh, and the last part is about our mental midget trolls. Come on! That’s some funny shit, I don’t care who you are…