Here’s my most candid admission: I don’t care if Constitutionalists / classical liberals / fiscal conservatives lose the next 10 elections — provided they stick to their principles. The media and the reality on the ground can only fool the electorate for so long — and a break in the action where conservatives are out of power takes away the left’s ability to lay blame at the feet of the right for every ill it creates and perpetuates.
The GOP establishment has been playing that game too long: they are depicted as far right extremists — and take the heat for being so — when in fact they are more of the same, statists / big government adepts who happen to be a bit more prudish (and less concerned with current trends in hair styling).
It serves our long-term interests as a country to make the choice very clear between the competing ideologies. We have the Constitution and the ideas this country was founded upon on our side. The left has nothing but promises countered by a world history littered with failed states, poverty, tyranny, and violence to point to as the end game of their “Utopia”.
Own who you are. And make them own who they are.
Mach II, baybee!
Or is that Mach 2?
Time to go to the gym.
This sort of ownership is the sort Jesus was getting at in the Matthew 10:21, as well as the sort that we might thing ought to prompt a Sarah Palin to disassociate with a John McCain. Loyalty, she’d ask? Loyalty to what, to whom?
even as he diligently sets about making America less free and prosperous
I own who I am, but trying to get leftists to own who they are is tricky. They’re a slippery lot who like what they can squeeze out of other people and preen for undeserved accolades about their virtue, but they can’t do that when they’re looking in a mirror.
I don’t think it will take ten election cycles, politicans being the craven creatures they are. All that’s needed is a firm and consistent reminder that they are our leaders, and thus they must follow us.
I imagine Palin’s debt to McCain has been paid sdferr. In full. With interest.
We’ll see if Palin feels the same.
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Yet the tug of loyalty and with it, the distinctions between “to what and to whom” were unknown as she paid her “debt” off in the past? Please.
I try my best to be fair in my internal evaluation of Palin as to her negatives and positives for the movement. Regardless, campaigning for McCain effectively destroyed any chance she had of ever winning my vote.
If she paid a debt to McCain, she paid it with the loss of future support amongst certain voters.
If you want to fault her for choosing the frying pan of endorsing her party’s most recent Presidental candidate, the man who plucked her out of obscurity and thrust her onto the national stage she now occupies, instead of choosing the fire that would have followed for not doing so, I guess that’s your call to make (I mean that with all due respect).
Me, I’ll take the good (O’Donnell, whassis name in AK?) as well as the bad (McCain) and the suboptimal (Fiorina), as long as the good outweighs the other.
This is a prudential thing, and different people will draw the line of demarcation at different places.
I did say the debt was paid with interest bh.
Indeed, it strikes me as imprudent to deny one’s stark political philosophical differences when one presumes to be a major political figure committing a major political deed. Smudging for the sake of smudging doesn’t sit well on such conditions. In fact, such dissimulation has more than a little to do with the nation’s political state coming to this pass.
Oh, I’ll readily grant that those are positives and I’d be happy to add a few more things she’s done that I like, Ernst.
Just can’t support her for the top job after the McCain campaigning.
if the flames what you get for sticking to your professed principles are too burny than maybe you should get your ass in the kitchen and make me a tasty cupcakes I don’t care what kind you can surprise me
get crazy with it have some fun just don’t put raisins in it or something stupid like that it’s not a goddamn muffin
*then* maybe I mean
I hear what you’re saying, Ernst.
Her enthusiasm was definitely more focused on the Tea Party rally afterward, then the payback, generally speaking she follows the Buckley rule, however when the other choice is a Lindsay (John nor Graham) you have to go rogue on occassion
And by the way, you can’t really criticize RINOs/establishment types for not supporting conservative Republicans if you’re not prepared to support the occassional RINO yourself. At least so long as we don’t control the party, or reduced the party to an elitist rump by forming a third party capable of supplanting it.
Just my humble opinion.
you can’t really criticize RINOs/establishment types for not supporting conservative Republicans if you’re not prepared to support the occasional RINO yourself
yes you can
“…you can’t really criticize RINOs/establishment types for not supporting conservative Republicans if you’re not prepared to support the occassional RINO yourself.”
In a primary contest? Surely not. Fine if the Rino (Brown R-Mass) comes away with the nomination. Holding one’s nose with McCain. Not at all for Castle.
Only if you don’t mind the fact that nobody takes you seriously.
Hey, don’t take me seriously Ernst. Seriously.
A lot of the staunchiest ones are gonna be lifeydoodles feets, can you live with that?
I said the occassional RINO sdferr. I understand why Palin endorsed McCain. And had I been living in AZ I would have gone ahead and voted for wassis name (damn I’m having a bad day name-wise –starts w/ an H?) instead of McCain and not thought any less of her for her endorsement.
Some of this comes down to policing free-riders on the coalition.
If there are three legs to the stool (fiscal, social, national security) then I require a RINO/moderate to fully support at least two of them.* It’s the only way to keep a coalition together. One out of three fails. We’re seeing it happen right now.
Hey, I’m less socially conservative than anyone I’ve ever voted for. So, why do I still pull the lever for them? Because I’m willing to trade 1 for 2.
Some of these RINOs bring little to the party. They have nothing to offer me but caucusing if the margin is razor thin and back-stabbing. They’re asking me to trade 2 or 3 for 1 or 0. That’s against my interests and it can’t be papered over.
*geoff’s paradigm
What had Palin simply acknowledge the conflict within herself publicly, even as she explained why she decided to pay off McCain’s confidence in her standing with the VP nomination (thus demonstrating that she was thinking about it, if nothing else) by supporting his Senate candidacy? Would this have made her suffer? Would articulating the stark differences between herself and McCain have been an imprudence, vis a vis his re-nomination? Or would it have given persons like myself, or possibly bh, cause to rethink our view of her probity, synoptic capacity, and long run view of the political enterprise?
22. wasn’t directed towads you specifically sdferr.
Again. There has to be some degree of give and take and prudential judgement in coalitional politics. As long as the trend is heading in the right direction, we can tolerate some degree of establishmentarian pragmatism. Let me put is this way: I prefer my conservatives to be rock solid, but I can live with a certain amount of friability.
Mr. Makewi I’ve already a lot made it clear I can live with lifeydoodles in office like Mr. Bush and Mr. Ryan and Mr. Daniels… there’s lifeydoodle and then there’s ok that’s just gay. Sometimes it’s a fine line to walk. But sometimes when your failshit little country is bleeding out like a field-dressed moose it’s not a very fine line at all.
A non-endorsement endorsement sdferr? So, she pisses of the purity über alles crowd by making a half-hearted endorsement, and the party über alles crowd by not meaning it, and that benefits her how, exactly?
bh/geoff’s 2 out of 3 ain’t bad standard seems about right.
I voted for the McCain-Palin ticket in the last Presidential contest, so it seems to me that my own stance in that regard (living with a certain amount of friability, as you put it) is settled. Whether I’d support Palin in a thrust for additional higher office is now a question, though one I haven’t determined due to the question’s dependence on contingencies I cannot now foresee. Still, Palin hasn’t done herself any favors with me on the question of her support for McCain’s primary bid.
Is she being helpful in getting more fiscally conservative people nominated and/or elected? If so then isn’t the rest just a bunch of noise?
What the fuck is a non-endorsement endorsement? I didn’t suggest any such thing. I suggested that she endorse the man with a full explication of her own reasons why she was endorsing him, with an acknowledgment that she has a fundamental unavoidable conflict on political principle, and that political principle is something important on its own terms (if and only if, she happens to believe that, I mean).
The only RINO I can live with is one whose “failing” is being socially liberal (as long as they don’t advocate us paying for others’ bad decisions). I will not accept any candidate who isn’t a fiscal conservative, pro-defence, pro small government type. No more.
I suppose I rank the three legs similarly, cranky. Yeah, thinking about it this way, I can’t accept compromise on fiscal or national defense issues either.
Normally think of it predominantly in terms of statism vs liberty but the three legs easily avails itself to quantifying (like 2 for 1 vs 1 for 2) intraparty compromise.
Thanks.
There is something to be said for politics as usual, if it can result in short term deadlock to curtail the Obama statist train. But if the GOP establishment can be woken out of its slumber and it take a few 40 year old Irish-American flannel nightgown virgins to do it–so be it.
I’m with sdferr here, in regards to Palin. The continuing endorsement of McCain causes me to give serious, if not irreperable, pause to supporting her for anything. Though the reality of the situation is that right now she is nothing but a talking head (spit) and a Mom (hurray).
I don’t know whether Lincoln’s House Divided speech applies to our situation today at all in regard of substantive prescriptions, but still, it is a great speech; too, it may be that the manner of Lincoln’s thought in his approach to what he saw (correctly) as the coming impasse, the manner, I say, might have something to teach us with regard to what we see today as a struggle over ends and not means. However that may be, it’s still a good and short read.
33. Then I misunderstood you, and I regret the error.
Look, I had a long reply to your 31 and I lost it to the ether when my lame-ass dial-up connection dropped. Sucks to be me.
The short and incomplete point is that if we’re going to have to divide before we come together, I prefer that the establishment make that decision for us. That means putting up with a certain amount of RINOishness, and pointing out when they don’t reciprocate (Rove, Castle).
[…] Goldstein hits the proverbial nail on the head. Here’s my most candid admission: I don’t care if […]
No worries on 33 Ernst. I’m not sure I follow you where you speak of the establishment making that decision for us? I take it this way, with as I say, some uncertainty: That the establishment be given the opportunity to initiate any scism, rather than the first move that way being taken up by the insurgents?
On the question whether the insurgents would support Castle, I confess to some uncertainty myself (though I know for myself, that I would not, but I speak here of others). So, for instance:
h
Re: Palin/McCain.
I see this as saying more to me about the character/person of John McCain than that of Sarah Palin. The dilemma placed before her was one he could have chose to avoid placing. That he didn’t, to me, was an early shot by the establishment RINO Republicans to take down the Tea Party.
Dilemmas by their nature bring nothing but bad choices and it is not always possible to either jump between the horns or sing the bull to sleep.
“The dilemma placed before her was one he could have chose to avoid placing.”
Hear, hear. Or maybe he really does see himself as staunch.
Bad choices are hard, sure geoffb, but isn’t a confident and self-reliant imaginative response acknowledging the dilemma out-loud, drawing the problem to the attention of the auditing public with clarity and courage and explaining the drivers of one’s ultimate choice an acceptable means of procedure, as opposed to pretending it nothing, smudging it over or mumbling inaudibly I mean?
I view Palin/McCain similiarly geoffb. She showed a lot of grace in endorsing him after the way his “insiders” sought to put their failings on her and he said nothing. I also see his resort to her endorsing and campaigning for him as elevating her stature (whether he really needed it or not) and diminishing his.
You captured the gist of what I meant sdferr. If we need to have a civil war in our political party before we have a civil war in our body politic, I prefer that our opponents fire the first shot. So to speak.
I don’t know how Palin could have done that sdferr, in any way that would have satisfied anybody, except perhaps to withdraw from the political arena altogether (which, come to think of it, may have been what McCain wanted to accomplish).
Of course, I should say that such a suggestion, when coupled with Ernst’s explanation of the behavior of those denying a problem I wondered about in the other thread must mean that one’s own logic may lead to another choice outcome than the choice outcome with which one may have begun the enterprise of analysis. As Ernst puts it:
“…in any way that would have satisfied anybody…”
And here I was under the impression that the public harbors a general desire for truth-tellers in their politicians? Something is askew here then, most probably my estimation of the public’s harborings.
sdferr,
I can’t argue with that. I guess it comes down, as many things do in extremis, to faith and trust. I can pass this by even as others I like can’t and I accept that in them as I accept this in her.
Would it have been better had said “satisfied the partisans” instead?
Partisans would change a great deal indeed, since I don’t think partisans ‘specially desirous of truth-telling worthy the name. So, yeah, if they’re who you meant, I can’t help but agree to the better description of those certain to be disappointed.
But ya know, suppose it meant withdrawing from politics, as you put it? Then, I might say, that would be — by far — the more honorable course. Such judgments, however, are today not a little out of bounds I’m told.
But despite the loss of Mrs Palin’s clear talents at politicking, it is still a nation of some 330 million or so, which nation’s fate surely isn’t pendant on her direct participation tomorrow.
– by far — the more honorable course.
Is your respect for Mrs. Palin’s honor worth Sens. Mikulski (sp?) and Castle (?) in the Senate with McCain.
Trade-Offs and Shitty Compromises is all I’m saying.
punctuation. hard (*sigh*)
I’m just curious. Among those here, what do you think about the authenticity of Reagan? Or the more contemporary Chris Christie? Do they count as legitimate conservatives?
After all, they were both establishment fellows, and both have been known to back RINOs.
I know that at the national level there are several infamous squishes and RINOs that call themselves both conservatives and Rethugs, and as Jeff noted not only give the left cover but also betray the professed ideology and goals of the Republican coalition bh detailed. Like Castle, those people need to go.
But, I’m just not seeing any overarching statist cabal amongst the Republicans nor the equivalence between the parties that guys like Glenn Beck keep stating.
Maybe y’all can help me out with some of this. Perhaps I’m just as sharp as a bowling ball lately…
Reagan was part of the establishment, by virtue of his offices, Governor of California, and President, but he was never ofthe establishment. Neither was he created by the establishment, nor was his purpose in office to serve for the establishment. The establishment, the Rockefeller wing of the party, as it was called back then loathed him as much as they loathed Goldwater. Maybe more, because he actually won.
For my part, I think they are certainly legitimate, as is Sarah Palin. I really am not understanding the disdain directed toward Palin because of her endorsement of McCain. But then, I have never been into purity tests. However, I have no problem seeing petty clowns like Castle (and Cornyn) get their comeuppance, as they’ve shown very little (if any) loyalty to or appreciation for the conservatives who comprise the GOP’s core of support.
Shove it, meya.
@41, sdferr…
Read the first page of the article and it looks like Christine O’Donnell is pretty sharp.
She flat out said she didn’t want to discuss hypothetical situations because she didn’t think she was going to lose the primary.
O’Donnell made the right call with that statement.
Thanks Ernst,
FWIW I agree that the Rockefeller Rethugs masqerade as conservatives bit are statists at their core, as I said, I too will shed no tears over their modern counterparts; they need to go.
But do you think those types control the entire contemporary Republican party? For my part, I don’t see it. And that’s why I don’t get the equivalence between the parties that Glenn Beck keeps repeating.
Unless it’s about them trying to engineer a congressional majority in order to gain the ability to control the legislative agenda; which is why that backed Castle. Which, as many have mentioned, was a complete mistake since, like the Maine sisters, he could not really be counted on to vote against Obama’s agenda.
Yeah, that’s right. The Reagan Revolution would get tea-partied out of office.
What are you? twenty? twenty-five? If you don’t understand what politics was like in the age before blow-jobs in the oval office were nobody’s business because a blow-job isn’t sex sex, try reading a book.
Mike, I’m inclined to agree with you regarding absolute purity tests. As bh mentioned upthread, as long as they’re on board with most of the ideology, and stand for constitutional principles, then the choice of the voters is fine with me.
Which is why, were I from Delaware, I would be supporting O’Donnell completely.
I think the heirs of the Rockefellers were the Bushes, so yeah, I think for the most part they control the party these days. Beck overstates the case, probably (I don’t know, I haven’t heard him make it) But the “not a dime’s worth of difference” complaint is an old one.
The best version of it I’ve heard is from the Frank Capra film State of the Union the political boss campaign manager/guru says “there’s every difference in the world [i.e between the parties]. They’re in and we’re out!”
And that addresses your third point, doesn’t it?
Sure after raising taxes and selling missiles to iran and cutting and runing from lebanon someoen else would come along with more purity[emph. add.].
Too bad that isn’t what happened, isn’t it? Sure would make it easier to sell you tea-party out of touch extremist bullshit, if you could, you know, point to any real examples. Huh?
I just don’t see holding the McCain campaigning in the negative category as a purity test. A purity test implies that you’ll reject someone who’s 80% or 90% on your side because you’re an absolutist.
This simply isn’t the case with McCain, there is much to disagree with: McCain/Feingold, his thoughts on taxes during the 2000 election, his constant nanny state micromanaging, his demagoguing on enhanced interrogation, his support for amnesty, his lack of support for true entitlement reform, his soft support for global warming nonsense, his constant aisle crossing undercut conservatives, his mentoring of Graham, etc.
The Maverick isn’t 10% off. He’s everything that’s wrong with the establishment GOP wrapped up into one politician.
It’s fairly clear that she respects him for his military service and his time as a POW, half of her speech in Minneapolis, was a better account of McCain than he was ever to describe himself. Now shehas considerable policy disagreements with him, on offshore drilling, on treatment of detainees, etc, and she must realize that in the end he called the shots, on Schmidt and Wallace’s lack of strategy in the fall, and the anonymous shivs driven into her, and after the campaign, However, I think the former overrides the latter. In the end, her reluctance to indicate whether she’ll run or not, will be indicated if there is someone out there who focuses
on those issues she pointed out, last July 3rd to her satisfaction
takes away the left’s ability to lay blame at the feet of the right for every ill it creates and perpetuates.
Nothing takes away the Left’s ability to lay blame. Remember what they did to Emmanuel Goldstein, Snowball, and Trotsky.
I agree with you regarding the Bushes carrying on the mantle of the Rockefeller wing of the party; that’s what the Republican primary race of 1980 was all about. Obviously Ronnie chose G.H.W. Bush as veep in order to unify the coalition and achieve the objective of defeating the Carter junta.
Doesn’t that fall under paradigm of the Capra film quote you cited? And, viewed through today’s lens, wouldn’t some think that, as well as Ronnie’s support for RINOs like Alphonse D’Amato and the infamous Maverick, a “sellout” to the “establishment” in order to gain a working parlaimentary majority.
I’ve long said that for all his good qualities, G.W. Bush was a Rockefeller Rethug! in disguise as a southern conservative. It explains how he so easily went along with the Democrats legislative demands in trade for funding hs foreign policy initiatives.
And I really can’t say what to think regarding Rethug! congressional types who knuckled under and got behind the “sketchier” Bush legislative initiatives, such as expanding the Dept of Ed and medicare part D; I’d have to judge each individually on the sum of their records before deciding they were establishment sellouts who needed replacing.
moneyman, you need to bone up on the Constitution: Presidents don’t raise taxes; Congress does. Two words: Tip O’Neill. Cutting and running from Lebanon and selling missiles to Iran were bad decisions on Reagan’s part. Amnesty: again, the Copperhead Congress was supposed to spend more money on border security and reneged like the snakes they are.
If Reagan (or GWB) had had a filibuster proof majority of actual conservatives to work with, my judgment would be way more harsh. And, of course, the Reagan-era press was still in the position of being able to propagandize for Copperheads without challenge. Can’t get away with that anymore.
“Is your respect for Mrs. Palin’s honor worth Sens. Mikulski (sp?) and Castle (?) in the Senate with McCain.”
I don’t know what this means nor how to work with it. I truly don’t understand what the premise is intended to be.
I have to agree with you bh, on both points.
Mav’s overall record seems to be less conservative and more statist than he would prefer to be thought of-regardless of his demostrated dedication to fiscal austerity and fighting pork.
I personally don’t see any “taint by association” transferring to Palin though, but that’s just my opinion.
I wouldn’t say it’s taint by association, Bob, it’s taint by actively supporting him. It was her choice.
Hey, I’m not going to bust anyone’s balls who feel this was a necessary bit of real world compromise. But, personally, I don’t feel at all unfair by taking this into account and then considering whether or not I’d now actively support her.
bh,
On this point, as with many, I tend to agree with sdferr. I can’t definitively say what my level of support for her might be at thios point, owing to possible contingencies that we can’t forsee; unless, you know, one is like Ms Cleo or Kreskin :)
I admit I admire her for several reasons, but don’t know who else may be running-or even if she will be.
True, Bob.
re: 73,
sdferr, I took you to be saying that the most honorable course of action for Palin was to withdraw from politics rather than compromise herself by endorsing (or failing to endorse) McCain. I was trying to point out that had she chosen to withdraw instead of picking her poison, as it were, we’d be fielding a weaker slate of candidates that the slate we have.
Too oblique, I guess. You were responding to my hypothetical with a hypothetical. Now I know how it feels to be scholastic.
Anyway, I find her to be a net asset rather than a wash or a detriment. And I know you find her rather less so.
No Ernst, I don’t think the most honorable course of action for Palin would be to withdraw. Rather I was only inquiring what would be the upshot if she found herself in that position, at the end of her own reasoning processes on the matter. It was merely a “so?” sort of question I was asking. And my sense is, thinking it over, it’s not so bad a thing on the whole, if that is where she arrives. Certainly not an execrable place to be anyhow.
I think that up til now Palin has been far more an asset to conservatives than a detriment, all things taken in all. I even trust that she can remain so; I don’t expect her to do positive injury, say. On the other hand, I don’t expect her to advance conservative thought as such with original thinkings of her own, nor to be a Publicola to America.
In the clubby atmosphere of Delaware political cirles, it now appears that Castle had agreed to be a placeholder for Beau Biden when he decided to ascend to the throne his father had vacated in two years.
The race was supposed to be a cakewalk for Castle, and the Communist Coons was set up as his patsy by a compliant Delaware Democrat Party. His chief resume appeal was that he would be easy to trounce, so the hyper-connected Castle would not break a nail or soemthing in the effort.
When Coon’s much-cherished Trotskyite belief structure is exposed he will simply dry up and blow away, never to be heard from again.
This is not the year to be running on the joys of generational theft and gulags.
she can take ideas and make them happen politically.
coons big tax and spender at county level
she can take ideas and make them happen politically.
Which is what Reagan was especially adept at, taking ideas like Hayek’s and making them seem like folksy common sense to people for whom it was a point of honor to have never read a serious book.
Hush, meya. You are an idiot.
You don’t care if Republicans lose the next 10 elections and Obamacare (and other destructions) get passed?
You, my friend, are a socialist!
Mitch, that whooshing sound you heard?
That was the point flying over your head.
Obamacare is aptly named because he was dumb enough to propose it. It took Congress to make it reality. And I find it fascinating that the Constitutional separation of powers is an excuse.
“The left has nothing but promises countered by a world history littered with failed states, poverty, tyranny, and violence to point to as the end game of their “Utopia”.
This is a pretty broad and highly inaccurate statement and one that I could counter by saying the world conservatives want to build is the medieval feudal system we fought centuries to overcome. Are you saying that Germany, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Sweden, etc. are failed states? If so I would suggest that you renew your passport and do a bit of traveling. They seem a lot less failed than the USA right now even in today’s rough economy. Even while they try to dig themselves out of the current depression they have an eye to their future. Germany’s public transportation system is second-to-none and this is a country that relies heavily on automobile production. What are we doing to prepare for our future besides bickering over the bullshit outrage du jour? Point to an example of the kind of society you would like to be. We seem headed towards Latin American-style income disparities and the rule of the richest few.
Keep it in your pants, needle-dick!
You know shit-all about what you’re talking about.
:points and laughs:
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Are you saying that Germany, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Sweden, etc. are failed states?
They fail a little more every day.
#87
No. The quote is quite accurate.
The taxpayers of the United States have been bolstering European economies by the simple fact we subsidize their armed forces.
You obviously know little about South American vs North American business practices, but I will grant you this; Once we have a permanent political overclass regulating all aspects of our lives, then we will be like feudal south american countries.
We seem headed towards Latin American-style income disparities and the rule of the richest few.
You mean where the rich and powerful political class and it’s government workers run a tyranny over the private sector?
Yes, I fear that too.
Germany’s public transportation system is second-to-none and this is a country that relies heavily on automobile production.
Yea! Why can’t we have a public transportation system like Germany?
[ponder]
WR
Congrats! You’ve written a paragraph totally devoid of original thought and densely packed with Leftist canards, shibboleths and unstated assumptions … and all in less than 200 words!
You get a cookie!
Trolls WR, banned under many names, and meya, also banned under many names are in search of the perfect Moronic Convergence.
THE TRAINS RUN ON TIME!!
Why is it that leftist trolls are always yammering on about feudal systems?
If William Yelverton, known plagiarist and serially dishonest sockpuppeteer, and nishit the krazy would join in, they could achieve the SINGULARITY!
This article is a target rich environment.
I don’t know what I like best? But this one is good:
It ISN”T BROKEN. If only we can make THE RICH PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE all will be fixed.
Also – the infustructure. It’s falling apart. children are getting SICK in their old schools.
ponder 5.5% less land area than Montana with 82 times the population of Montana
Heh:
I thought Obama solved that health care cost dealo? I’m confused.
Darleen
You write like a brown-shirted Ma Kettle. Congrats, you win a corn dog. Not one of your moronic responses is worthy of a reply; just insults and ad hominems. And as far as the troll thing goes, it’s seem like about the only thing that makes this comment section even remotely interesting.
P.S. I have never been banned. Say the word and you won’t hear from me again.
Grow our way out of the hole by taxing THE WEALTHY.
“like a brown-shirted Ma Kettle”
“just insults and ad hominems”
heh
ponder 5.5% less land area than Montana with 82 times the population of Montana
No, that can’t be it. WHERE’S THAT AMERICAN CAN-DO SPIRIT?
WR, if Darleen’s responses are no good, hows about you respond to the rest of us?
Or, do I win a corndog too?
Social Security, on the other hand, isn’t broken. It hasn’t contributed to the deficits — in fact it has amassed trillions in surpluses to prepay for the boomers retirement.
I don’t know whether to laugh maniacally or weep hysterically.
WHERE’S THAT AMERICAN CAN-DO SPIRIT?
Where’s my flying car?
Where’s my flying car?
No corn-dog for you.
WR
:::sigh:::: You assume no one here has traveled, you asset Holland, et al, are “better” than America (but never say how you’re measuring), you traffic in the “conservatives are Totalitarians” meme with not a shred of evidence, you label any contemporary worries of the non-left as “bullshit d’jour” …
and you say “we” as opposed to the commenters here and non-leftists in general — as if that “we” doesn’t know what’s good for us; i.e. the usual Left dismissal that non-leftists are stoooopid.
Canards, assumptions and shibboleths. Own it, troll.
It’s obvious we haven’t travelled. Or we’d be liberals. Duh. Life is so simply when you simply stick with assumptions.
Social Security, on the other hand, isn’t broken. It hasn’t contributed to the deficits — in fact it has amassed trillions in surpluses to prepay for the boomers retirement
Good lord, I thought the Left had retired that lie after they beat GW about the head and shoulders with it a few years back.
I bet Carin knows where Darleen’s flying car is.
It’s in the same garage as that engine that gets like 150-200 miles to the gallon, isn’t it Carin? You know the place! Where the big three keep all the magic-like stuff that would destroy the greedy capitalist pig business model they and their BIG OIL partners have created; that place!
Tell the truth Carin! Darleen wants her flying car!
“Trillons in SS surplusses?”
That’s one big futhamutha of a lockbox!
It’s obvious. The Big Corporations all are keeping the flying cars hidden, because they are powered by unicorn farts and it would destroy the oil industry and cheney/bush halliburton cabal wars for oil social justice patriarchy!!!111!
And don’t forget the pre-pay nonsense. Social Security is not now and never has been a retirement plan.
If only al Gore hadn’t been cheated out of his presidency. LOCKBOX!
Shorter WR: “We’re hungry now, let’s eat the seed corn.”
Hey, I have a plan. Let’s confiscate the entire wealth of the top two percent of income earners in the country. That will solve the problem.
There is no cause and effect in WR’s world. People don’t change their behavior in the face of adversity, or in the face of plenty. If you promise one can of cat food every day, for every cat, you don’t get kittens.
We’re going to have to repeal the child labor laws, outlaw abortion and start forcing people to have babies, (lot’s and lot’s of babies!) If we’re going to collect enough social security withholdings to keep the boomers in the style to which they have become accustomed.
The downside to flying cars is fairly simple: would you want most drivers flying instead of driving? Yikes.
I still want one, though, and it better look bitchin’.
Of course before we can do that, we’ve got to get this administration to stop aborting the economy.
I did my part, Ernst. Some of you slackers need to get busy.
The Huffpo writer is overlooking the fact that all the “lockbox” would contain is I.O.U.s from the government; that’s the problem. And the reason that Gore droned on about the “lockbox” during the 2000 campaign; to counter the correct assertion that Billy Jeff had achieved their “surplus” by cooking the books with FICA revenues.
“This was especially pronounced under Clinton when the Social Security surpluses were what allowed Clinton to claim a surplus when there was really a deficit. During the Clinton administration, all those Social Security surpluses were transferred to the Federal Government; and the Federal Government proceeded to use them to, among other things, pay down its debt held by the public.”
http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Stories/Opinion/Politics/Story~856057.aspx
And don’t forget the pre-pay nonsense. Social Security is not now and never has been a retirement plan
It’s worse than that, E. It’s been sold from the beginning as a guaranteed pension based on that the government is “saving” 15% of your wages to supplement your retirement. People have always figured that into every financial decision they make. They expect, minimally, to get out what they’ve put in … just like making medicare payments every month for 40-50 years of work should mean you get healthcare when you retire.
Wonder what would happen if we all of a sudden had to repay just all of the intra-governmental debt.
WR – how many names have you posted under. Don’t lie. If you are capable of not doing so, that is.
I did my part
Good for you, BREEDER!
Well JD, since Social Security purposts to have a 2.5 trillion dollar reserve, it sounds to me like the national debt would jump 2.5 trillion overnight.
But that’s all a numbers game anyway, becuase that reserve is supposed to be able to fund untold trillions in unfunded liabilities.
I mean, the effin’ Treasury believes the US government has 44 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and you know that they’re lowballin’ it!
Bob Reed – that leftist canard about surpluses without acknowledging that it was based on borrowing money from the SS trust fund has always been one of their more brazen memes.
People have always figured [a S.S. “pension”] into every financial decision they make.
That must be a generational thing, Carin. I’m a Gen-Xer, and I figured out waaaaay back in the Bush 41 era that Social Security wasn’t going to be around by the time I could retire.
A lot of good ideas got lost when the Republicans forfeited the “ownership society” fight.
Anti-masturbationist!
Yeah, same here, Ernst. Never thought there was a chance I’d pull in a Social Security check. I’ve always counted on paying for it however and they haven’t let me down yet.
“people who know”? Fuck you and your pompous faux-superior attitude. I wouldn’t trust you with my daughter’s allowance.
Or just have some sane immigration policies.
You mean like all those European social-welfare Leftist utopias WR was talking about?
Yeah Ernst,
Like the EU where there’s a lot of hair-pulling going on these days about the Roma migrant camps; and how the French are effectively running them out of France.
Roma used to be known by the less PC term of “Gypsys”.
How trans-national of the multi-culti social welfare utopias. Who got that way, in large part, by spending next to nothing on their own defense for, oh, say, 50 years or so during the cold war. And who are on the brink of economic collapse because of their spending on that same utopian vision, and dhimmitude due to their immigration policies; that were in part necessarily driven by the depleteion of entire generations during two world wars.
People who know about social security don’t consider the “pre-pay” to be about individual accounts, but about preparing it for a generational shock.
People who understand know better than “people who know” that at some point Social Security will honored in the same way the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851 was. I doubt that’s what you meant by generational shock however.
The real, ugly, truth is that Social Security was, in many ways, a cynical progressive populist creation of Roosevelt’s brain trust. But those visionary, “wizards of smart”, never banked on the life expectencies of today, and could never forsee a time when the birth rate would decline from it’s historic levels for a sustained period of time. Of course, even in their wildest demagougic dreams thay couldn’t have envisioned a connivance like “the population bomb”, where enviro-nazis would advocate reducing the population.
Must’ve all been the smartest guys in the room. You know, like Barack Obama…
All compounded by the Rocket surgeons in the 60’s who decided to add on the great society programs.
That must be a generational thing, Carin. I’m a Gen-Xer, and I figured out waaaaay back in the Bush 41 era that Social Security wasn’t going to be around by the time I could retire.
That was Darleen up there with that one. I’m Gen-X too and I’ve never figured SS was going to be there when I needed it.
My mistake Carin. It’s funny though. How come all of us x-ers here figured it out for the ponzi scheme it was and that yob over at the Puffington Host reads like my kids sound when they talk about Santa Claus?
We do have the best generational name with Gen X.
Greatest Generation? Too flashy.
Baby Boomers? Sounds like a particularly nasty terrorist group.
Gen X? Mysterious. Understated.
Gen Y? Derivative much?
Millennials? Sounds like a cult.
Bob, given that, if I remember correctly, the average life expectancy at the time was 63, and you weren’t even eligible to collect until age 65, I’d say it was in all ways a cynical progressive populist ploy.
And before our trolls freak out. Yes I understand averages. The point is, for the program to work, some of those paying in were going to have to die before ever recieving a pay-out if the program was to remain solvent.
Kind of like Obama care and death-panels.
bh, given what the boomers did to this country, “particularly nasty terrorist group” strikes me as apropos for the responsible faction.
[…] Elections have consequences. And, when handled right, they are also potentially both clarifying and illuminating. […]
Yeah moneyman/meya/RD/whatevz
A bunch of the smartest guys in the room bet the farm on the birth rate never declining from the mean…
Contraception, population bomb faux-science, and enviro-nazi demagoguery were never part of their “vision”…
Brilliant.Progressives.Like.Barack Obama…
The past 10-20 elections are a testament to the advance of liberalism and the destruction of the rule of law as stated in the Constitution.
The next are probably going to be the same, given the attitude from those that throw in the towel ~45 days before an election. Most of you so-called conservative people who most likely don’t vote in your local elections need to do a gut-check.
All of you guys/gals who sit on the sidelines and criticize the winners of primaries and state that they cannot win are bogus visionaries.
Or there would have to be someone younger than them paying in, so that it’s a constant flow from younger to older. Or from able to disabled. Shockingly socialist, and amazingly popular.
Or people who have to work long/later in life.
As for it’s popularity; I don’t know about that. Sure, back when peps had paid in for two or five years, and then collected a check for the rest of their life (like my husband’s grandma) -hells ya that was popular. They basically got something for nothing.
Your arm must tire from using such a broad brush.
How much money have you raised for conservative candidates this cycle? If I’ve beat that by a factor of 10 or 100 would you give me some sort of prize?
If Jeff has spent a decade publicly advocating for meaningful political change would you hit his tip jar?
Meya is not competent enough to manage the change in my cup holder.
fgmorely,
Try close reading. Like mitch, you’ve missed the point.
it’s a constant flow from
youngernewer [investors] to older [ones]Just so we’re clear on what we’re talking about here. And were you to try to sell this financial “product,” you’d go to jail.
“149.Comment by bh on 9/17 @ 9:59 am #
How much money have you raised for conservative candidates this cycle? If I’ve beat that by a factor of 10 or 100 would you give me some sort of prize?”
I have donated what I can afford, but you and most others equate money with winning elections.
On that I disagree. Winnig elections is about explaining the vast differences that exist between statism and the law of the land to people. It’s the message. Are you a teacher who actually explains these ideas? That ended 40-50 years ago. Are you telling anyone who listens about the founding principles of the country? It’s the message that is the difference.
You can have all the money or not very much money, If your message is only that you will give more from gov’t then your message is bankrupt as the country will soon become. If you have little money but a message that coincides with the Constitution then you have done a duty to yourself and those who listen.
Look at O’Donnell’s campaign. Last day and a half she just raised ~$500,000. Reason? Good message. Message precedes money.
You want to get into a pissing contest about who raised money? Maybe you win in $$$. I win in messages.
“I win in messages.”
I doubt it. But hey, keep on keepin’ on.
Really? Then what is that annual statement they send me about?
If it’s so popular, why is participation mandatory?
It’s clear you don’t know where you are, fgmorley.
As to raising money, it was a clear retort to the following nonsense. That’s why I blockquoted it. I’ll do so again:
I’ve not thrown in the towel (nor was this post about throwing in the towel) and I do much more than just vote (or raise money). That you’d wander onto a site with many, many politically actively people and throw out misdirected insults is just silly.
Try responding to your objections, point by point.
Yes, Ernst, respond to your objections.
What?
Since you’d rather pretend you haven’t been responded to substantively and act the put-upon victim speaking Truth to wingnut power, I’m going to get you started with a little cut and paste.
Some responses you need to address:
and:
and:
and:
[hint: place that in the context of super efficient German public transportation systems. And Mussolini’s triumph about the trains running on time.
Full disclosure: I’ve been to Germany (I prefer the Bavarian region); I have been to most of the Euro-union states; and in fact, I lived in heavily socialist Bologna.
Have you ever lived in a leftist municipality?
Bologna is steeped in history, and the outdoor markets are great. But everything shuts down (well, except the discos) by 7 or 8, the cops will shake you down for money, and the only way to get around affordably is either by being crammed into a bus or on a Vespa.
The phones system was horrible. The internet and access were truly unreliable (and difficult to procure — I was able to get in through the university, making me part of the upper crust, I guess). And of course, most people lived with their parents well into their 30s.
I will, and keep on doubting it. That makes sense. NOT. What is really keeping you from advancing a message that states the Constitution was written to protect us from what is now happening via the Obama administration? I guess we are giving up and then we deserve what we are getting.
Seriously, do you have any idea where you are, fgmorley? Do you have any idea on what Jeff’s main themes are?
“What is really keeping you from advancing a message that states the Constitution was written to protect us from what is now happening via the Obama administration? I guess we are giving up and then we deserve what we are getting.”
Hey, I was trying to be nice man. I’d suggest you read a little back into the archives before you start tossing out assertion-monkey balderdash you haven’t got a clue about. Or, in the alternative, you can keep on keeping on with the simpleton act.
Who here are you tilting at, Senor Quixote?
If you don’t understand the post, don’t comment on it. I’ve been advocating for principled classical liberalism / legal conservatism over party politics and GOP boosterism for a good 9 years here. Almost daily.
Go find a site that’ll feed you big chunks of red meat. And when you get smarter, come back here.
JeffG.
I’m surprised at your intellectual elistism. I have been reading your blog for about a year, and don’t consider you to be that much above me in smarts, if at all. When you consider the fact that you state that you are for classical liberalism and legal conservatism, and out of the other side of your keyboard you slam people that do not actually spout your line– get it? Yet? BIOYA
Teh stoopid, teh morley, it burns.
Meya has a new pet. How cute.
BOHICA, morley. Without lube.
Stupid people seldom realize how stupid they are.
In fact, it’s one of the pitfalls of being stupid.
Well, no, I don’t. But then, I don’t speak stupid.
OI812
Yeah, yeah Morley, we get it.
We’re all candy-assed RINOs and you’re the only real conservative here…
The staunchest…
Beat it, moby.
I’m at a loss here. Can anyone interpret and explain this guy’s argument to me?
No.
bh,
He’s staunch. We’re all to the left of AllahPundit. He’s doing the real heavy lifting…
or
He’s an effin’ concern-troll fomenting discontent.
Either possibility works.
Since when do assertion-monkeys make arguments?
I think Morley might be saying that everybody has a right to his/her opinion, and that because I claim to be a classical liberal — and yet still criticize (or “slam” out of the other side of my keyboard) the opinions of others — I’m some sort of hypocrite. And no real classical liberal / conservative.
— Mostly because Morley doesn’t understand that having a right to an opinion is different from having a right to have your opinion carry equal standing in the realm of intellectual discourse by virtue of simply holding it. Not everybody gets a ribbon.
Or, to put it another way, Morley doesn’t really know shit.
Morley is too stupid to insult.
Another view that might help ol’ fg along a little:
“Mostly because Morley doesn’t understand that having a right to an opinion is different from having a right to have your opinion carry equal standing in the realm of intellectual discourse by virtue of simply holding it. Not everybody gets a ribbon.”
Excellent point JeffG,
Something we should all remember when dealing with idiots that think their emotionally driven reations, or talking point recitations, are equally as valid as the most contemplative commentary.
WHO CARES IF THE SKY IS ACTUALLY BLUE: I SAY IT”S GREEN, SO IT IS. THAT’S MY OPINION MAN!1!!11
Try responding to your objections, point by point.
What am I? Cliff Notes? Oh alright. Lets start here:
No. shit. Despite the Reagan interlude, “the advance of liberalism” as you say, has continued apace. This is why Jeff wrote:
The goal, and here I’ll invoke Goldwater, is a choice, not an echo; clarity about what works, and what doesn’t, and whose responsible for which; clarity that we the people can’t get because it’s advantageous to the sinecure holders in both parties to muddy the waters so that they can continue to reap the benefits of patronage and spoils.
Or, as Jeff says:
Given all of that, and also given that this is an addendum, a follow-up to an earlier post, a post celebrating O’Donnell’s win in DE:
When you write this:
you sound like one of our pathetic resident trolls. Hence, my polite, if cryptic “why don’t you go back and, you know, try reading the whole thing before you spout off and make an ass of yourself.”
If we’re on the same page, great. I apologize for my rudeness. Please do have a look around Jeff’s sight. He’s a bright guy, for a peyote addled, armadillo-lovin’ OUTLAW! tricycler. And his posse of OUTLAW! tricyclists isn’t bad either.
And if we’re not, and your one of those “damn your principles, support your party” types, at least do me the courtesy of contributing to Jeff’s tip jar for wasting my time.
okay. That was formatting hell. I apologize to everybody who had to suffer through that. I’m the typhoid mary of html fail.
Pete Wehner, taking a momentary break from defending K. Rove today, got off a fine post on Constitution Day, including an extended quote of B. Franklin:
I’m surprised at your intellectual elistism. I have been reading your blog for about a year, and don’t consider you to be that much above me in smarts, if at all.
Wow. Cool. We can always use more intellectual elites around here.
…
When are you going to start demonstrating these smarts?
I’m surprised at [Jeff G’s] intellectual elistism. I have been reading your blog for about a year, and don’t consider you to be that much above me in smarts, if at all. When you consider the fact that you state that you are for classical liberalism and legal conservatism, and out of the other side of your keyboard you slam people that do not actually spout your line– get it? Yet? BIOYA
Somebody’s learned how to moby! Congrats, you got me to waste a good half-hour and show off my html ineptitude! But hey, I got to keep my Chicago Style (more or less) sharp.
Harvey 5, on Soft Despotism
Comment 155:
I would hardly call these valid responses to what I have written and most of the responses to my comment were either insults or claims that I don’t know what I am talking about. To say that European countries are a failure is just a flat out lie. I’ve lived in several European countries over the course of my life and I would say that they are tremendous success stories. Take Spain as an example. In my lifetime it has gone from third world status to where it is today. Spain’s middle class is doing very well. Ditto this for most other countries in the EU.
I will ask again, where do you want to take America? Back to the days before income taxes? Back before trade unions? Before social security. No thanks. I have also lived in Latin America and that is sort of what America looked like 100 years ago. It’s pretty ugly down there, at least the class system and the income disparity (I’m pretty familiar with Mexico, Peru, and Colombia).
I suppose that where we differ is how we see the growing income disparity in the USA. I see it as our greatest weakness and our greatest failure are a society. I have a simple idea that all people should be forced to clean their own toilette. Articulating this idea in a comment is like writing the lord’s prayer on a postage stamp but I think it’s a bit difficult to hold to that “all men are created equal” when some men have an army of servants hovering around them. Where I now live in Europe I don’t know anyone with a servant, let alone the plural of that hateful word. I just don’t understand why people like all of you are such champions of the hyper-rich in America.
I suppose that where we differ is how we see the growing income disparity in the US
Negative. The difference is that you think when a man earns a dollar, some poor person loses a dollar. The difference is that you have never heard of someone coming from nothing and becoming wealthy on his/her own. And the biggest difference is you don’t know what causes income disparity. Because 99 weeks of unemployment as a safety net to Obama’s European mindset is exactly what causes the rich to get richer and the poor to get numerous.
“Give a man a fish, and he’ll quit trying to fish and he’ll come back with 10 of his friends who also would rather be given fish and they’ll become a huge coalition of lazy, loser non-fishers and then they’ll use violence to get your fish. Then no fish at all.”
I have a simple idea that all people should be forced to clean their own toilette.
Try to force me to do anything and I’ll rip off your arms and club you to death with the soggy ends, you Stalinesque wannabe.
And the biggest difference is you don’t know what causes income disparity.
And of course you do. I would suggest you start with Kevin Phillips’ Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. To put it simply, if CEOs who make something like 400 times the salary of a worker seems like a good idea to you then we have nothing to discuss. This is how things work in many Latin American countries which is at least one reason why they are shit holes.
The difference is that you have never heard of someone coming from nothing and becoming wealthy on his/her own.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m wealthy but I live very well and I came from pretty close to nothing. Did I do it on my own? No, of course not. I had the benefit of a great public school and later a great public university that was affordable.
Your fish story is moronic as well but keep doing what you’re doing if it makes you happy.
I’ve lived in several European countries over the course of my life and I would say that they are tremendous success stories. Take Spain as an example. In my lifetime it has gone from third world status to where it is today. Spain’s middle class is doing very well.
Apparently you went around with bacalhau over your eyes and Manchego stuffed in your ears. Spain is broke, failed, collapsed, and the arse hanging out of its pantaloons. The unemployment rate is 20%, Standard & Poor says it’s T-bills are toilet paper, and its deficit is over 11% of GDP. Spain made it all the way from third world to second world, and found out the hard way what spending more than you earn gets you.
Sounds like my fish story hit a nerve with you there WR. How do you find yourself living well? Do you get government loans that you don’t have to pay back. Do you work for a company? Does it have anything to do with capitalism.
Never mind, I don’t believe you even finished high school with your world view.
Or I could read Karl Marx’s Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism
Oh wait…
“. . . it’s a bit difficult to hold to that ‘all men are created equal’ when some men have an army of servants hovering around them.”
And yet when the theory of modern natural right was conceived that [“some men have an army of servants”] was precisely the condition of all political states then in existence. You’re going to have to account for the world you seem to deny. Either men are in a universal state of equality or they are not.
Kevin Phillips? He’s been shit since he left Sunderland.
Maybe this is what has WR all worked up about income inequality SW? Ya think? Nah, me neither.
Noemie Emery: Lifestyles of the Rich and Liberal
Heh, sdferr. Poor dear thinks we ought to be grateful Kaptain Kickass is trying his best to get the US to join Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Greece & Italy in the Legion of the Damned. How dast we! Europe is so, well, European! And don’t you just love the quaint plumbing! And the trains run on time! What else could a drone desire?
Just because you’re in the bottom quintile of income earners when your 23 doesn’t mean you’ll be there still when you’re 53. And just because you’re in the top quintile of income earners at 39, doesn’t mean you’ll still be there at 49. As Thomas Sowell likes to say, statistical categories aren’t people.
That’ll teach me to get clever with sockpoppet jokes
And a fluent Austrian speaker such as you Ernst should know the difference between Fraktion and Faction.
Sweet, free fish!
Hey, where’s my lemon wedge?
And no tartar sauce, neither?
Pikers.
Eine Fraktion ist “a faction” auf Englisch, nicht wahr?
I’ll have to sic Oliver Kamm on you, Ernst – Faction implies splinter group, whereas the fruits and nuts responsible were most insistent that Fraktion better emphasised the groupuscules that comprised these anti-semitic leftists.
If you want a lemon wedge and tartar sauce, you’re going to have to call a general strike.
Tell Kamm to take it up with Langenscheidt, Silver Whistle. I’m just an unsophisticated bitter clinger deep in the heart of Jesusland.
Aren’t you from Minnesota
Oh, the Funk & Wagnall defense. Well played, sir.
I’m an exile from Lower Canuckistan, yes. I haven’t resided there in sixteen years.
general strike
Very well, then.
Freeze, people!
Oh, and some chips would be good, too.
Freeze people? What the heck for? . . . like revival years down the road? No thanks, not even Ted Williams is worth that trouble.
As has been noted in the past there is a difference between those called “rich” which is, in the new-speak of the progressive left, those with high annual income but is used to leave the impression that they are talking about the “wealthy”, those who have large fortunes, when they are not doing so. They have an excellent reason to confuse and conflate the two, power. The progressive left wields also the passionate, community organized mob as their irrational weapon of choice.
This is the way the progressive left brokers a deal.
To the wealthy they say “support us and we shall keep those mobs from your door and you may continue to have your lifestyle”. “We will buy the mob off and use, to do so, money extracted from the middle and upper middle class which will also have the effect of hindering them from rising up into your ranks”. Cool huh?
To the poor they say, “Vote for us and we can get you free money and we will take it from those rich guys who are screwing you.” Free money! Hell yeah!
Win-win until the suckers in the middle finally get tired of being suckers.
…like revival years down the road?
I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to comment while on strike.
Oops.
Supposedly there’s this quote from Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston’s father) that epitomizes what geoffb describes. I can’t find it, but it’s something about the rich and the poor should embrace each other in their contempt for the middle class.
I guess that makes the Democrats our Tory party then.
They’ve long been the Tories, Ernst.
And the Jeffersonians and Van Burenites only advocated expanding the electorate in their time as convenient demagoguery; much like the modern
CommunistsDemocrats and amnesty. Just as in the past, their sudden devotion to the underlying principle seems transparently driven by the need for a fresh crop of suckers to horn-swaggle; most of the rest of voters being hip to their swindles and connivances.I’d love to find that quote, ‘cuz I’m sure it’s a winner.
And geoffb,
Your succinct analysis is right on target, encapsulating the grifters technique perfectly.
e forced to clean their own toilette. Articulating this idea in a comment is like writing the lord’s prayer on a postage stamp but I think it’s a bit difficult to hold to that “all men are created equal” when some men have an army of servants hovering around them. Where I now live in Europe I don’t know anyone with a servant, let alone the plural of that hateful word. I just don’t understand why people like all of you are such champions of the hyper-rich in America.
Like George Soros or Al Gore or Ted Kennedy or Nancy Pelosi?
That big champions of socialism? Of social justice? I don’t see those folks giving away their $$. And I dare say they each have a “plural” of the word servant.
Of course, I don’t understand what’s wrong with having a job you get paid to do. Is being “a servant” worse than cleaning out sewer lines or the multiple of noxious jobs there are in the world?
Honestly, your marxist slip is showing if you are bothered by people employing others to help them in their personal life.
Yes, Bob Reed, and the only way our Founders could deal with Tories is to declare them “no longer our countrymen”. WR (and the other Copperheads) simply can’t and won’t stop trying to lie in the hopes that he can assemble enough warm bodies to continue the con.
Too true SDN,
Because once out of power, they fear the exposure of their connivance, and what price they and their failed ideology will be forced to pay.
It’s an ideologcal ponzi scheme that keeps needing new bodies to keep the con in play.
It’s an ideologcal ponzi scheme that keeps needing new bodies to keep the con in play.
Hence the publik screwall system.
I have an essay up that I’d like some critique on, particularly Silver Whistle’s but really from everyone.
Please address what’s wrong rather than what’s incomplete. It’s a 2K word blog post, not a book with appendices.
http://warlocketx.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/learning-process/
Regards,
Ric
I’m still waiting for someone to point to a model of the sort of society you want to create. Even with Spain’s current economic crisis life there is pretty good for most of the people in the country. They aren’t about to change the cooperative nature of their society. There is no talk of dismantling their excellent health care system, or retreating on their mass transit plans. About the only problem I have with Spain is that they seem to be abandoning public education in favor of private schools. For Americans to criticize European societies seems a bit much when you consider how we have failed such a large portion of our citizens.
Does travel make you liberal or does being liberal make you want to travel? I don’t know but I think Jeff needs to go back to Europe and spend a few months looking at the societies there. I would also suggest that trying to build a just society completely on capitalism is naive at best. We already went through a period in the USA with almost completely uncontrolled capitalism and we didn’t like it.
Does being a cat-masturbating racist plagiarizing hilljack skinflute player make Willie a retard, or does being a retard make Willie a cat-masturbating racist plagiarizing hilljack skinflute player?
Fucking moron.
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