Andrea Mitchell, ostensibly a “NBC correspondent” was allegedly wearing her reporter hat while covering the Ryan speech In the video at the link she starts with standard reporting – Ryan’s “youth & vigor” and the crowds reaction. But then she can’t help herself from revealing her panic and contempt (at 58 sec mark)
I think you’re going to see that they are decided that this is a base election. This is not a pick for suburban moms, this is not a pick for women.
Say what?
It Andrea projecting? Or just plain stupid?
Here’s a video of Ryan’s obvious #waronwomen speech …
**************************************
Let’s revisit two years ago when the Dems were hysterical about Paul Ryan’s “radical social darwinist” proposals on Social Security & Medicare.
There’s going to be some comedy gold during the Veep debates.
I think you’re going to see that they are decided that this is a base election
I think this is true, but not in the way Ms. Skeletor means it. I want my country back.
I don’t know what to make of this guy. Did he not support national ID, the PATRIOT Act, and warrantless wiretaps?
As far as the socialist bint Mitchell’s allegations, did he not support auto bailouts, housing subsidies, unemployment extension, No Child Left Behind, TARP, and both stimuli?
I love that he can dissemble everyone from said bint to Obama, but who is he?
Don’t bet on it, leigh. Is my friendly advice.
I have a question.
Who the hell takes that partisan, syphilitic bovine seriously on anything?
Meanwhile the utter dishonesty of the regime campaign and the base strengthening lawlessness of Obama walks on by this meandering meat sack.
Heh heh, well, if my Facebook feed–full of my fellow suburban moms–is any indication, she’s as full of nonsense as always.
I’d normally be irritated that she presumes to speak to for me, but I’m too cheerful this morning.
Already ordered the Romney/Ryan sticker for the minivan. It’ll replace my current Moms for Mitt.
geez, JH, I listened to Ryan’s grasp of how this country is fiscally swirling the drain and somehow his voting for the Patriot Act (which I supported, too) is supposed to make him a no-starter?
Watching MSNBC was priceless
Paul Ryan isn’t running for president. There is a lot of information about him out and about on the interwebz. His job is to keep the other guys off balance and he’s very good at that. He’s also a workhorse and there is a lot of work to be done.
I’ve become convinced that it is very important to rid ourselves of the Wonce. Y’all can inch your chairs away from me and wait for the perfect candidate.
The fact that they can portray his budget, which explicitly accepts the permanence of the welfare state, as some sort of red in tooth and claw conservative doctrine is one of the most phantasmagorical use of spin any one in politics has ever spun on either side.
The ends have been agreed upon. Now they are just quibbling over who can manage it better.
JD, what did they say? Rending of garments? Gnashing of teeth?
Ryan: How To Defeat Obama
FX Phillips
Put down your thesaurus and go slit your throat, you optimist. What is it you want that is obtainable under the circumstances and with the candidates that we have?
I am confused. Does this mean that Joe Biden is the first female Vice President?
Suburban moms aren’t women?
Ignore the last comment. Thanks.
Leigh – Maddow was OFFENDED that they used a decommissioned military ship as a prop since they were trying to claim service that they did not do.
Really? I never heard anything about that from anyone who spoke. Bob MacDonnell did say they were the biggest USN yard in the country.
– JD….and we know exactly why Maddow was offended don’t we.
– Anything, ANYTHING, that directly or indirectly calls attention to Jug ears total lack of military experiemce/understanding sends them into fits, particulrly right now when they’re trying to get early military voting tossed out.
[…] is the full speech, via Darleen) who links to this video of Andrea Mitchell saying: I think you’re going to see that they are […]
Creative Minority makes an excellent point: “Mitt Romney keeps the social conservatives on board and perhaps even enthuses them a bit by selecting about as solid a social conservative as he could possibly have picked and that naturally turns the media discussion to the ECONOMY!
He selected a 100% pro-life pro-family veep and all anyone can talk about is the economy. That, my friends, is called WINNING!”
Both babies and brooks babble, which is often endearing in each.
Democrats and their mouthpieces tend rather to gibber, which is always off-putting when encountered.
geoff, “Democracy, Whisky, Sexy” indeed.
Missed it by just that [“h”] much.
This one time…at Band Camp…I saw a man verbally beat another man to death.
Poor, poor Joe.
You almost have to feel sorry for him.
Almost.
If he can’t have it all, he doesn’t want ANY of it.
Acht. I’ll get it right one day, sdferr.
Lamont! Where ya been?
The “Morning Joe” Mika Brzezinski interview is gonna be the funny one.
I’m waiting for Brooks and Frum to announce they can no longer support a party so racist it won’t select tokens.
Hi’ya leigh. Just lurking.
Which makes me sound weird and creepy.
Let me try again.
Just reading all y’all smart people saying stuff.
Well chime in!
I think I saw a poll that said that Ryan’s popularity is particularly low among anyone who has been “Eiffel Towered.”
“….and from the Obama handbook, “Dreams from my Alinsky”, chapter 12: ‘When you can’t run on your own failed policies’ – find a way to drive a wedge between prominent members of the opposition, part one…. ‘ Lies, damn lies, and the Democratic narrative ‘ – part one…..
Ok leigh. My 2 cents.
This Ryan fellow…
Super genius? Check.
Calm, cool, collected, laid back? Check.
Liberal progressives foaming at the mouth, rabid, bat shit crazy? Check.
Well, well…
I do believe I’m gonna have to step aboard this particular train, and help knock a “new & improved” Jimmy Carter the fuck out of office.
Romney better get his Reagan on or there’s gonna be Hell to pay.
He made his pick, and now it’s his to loose.
Romney better get his Reagan on…
He is. He even used “shining city on a hill” in his speech in Ashland, VA. He got at least three standing ovations and the people chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
It’s morning in America, baby.
Yet another Ryan vid outclassing GoodDemocratBitch Little Debbie
I hear ya leigh.
Since the announcement, the libs on Twitter have gone full ass over tea kettle and I’ve been giggling like a monkey in a tree. Plouffe & Axlerod don’t know whether to shit or go blind.
There is definite panic in the disco.
This is fun.
Darleen, there is some spokesweasel on teevee now claiming that Ryan is too young and inexperienced.
Yeah, right.
Lamont, I figure Obama is chain smoking and kicking the dog.
Heh.
haven’t seen anyone link this yet. it’s shown up in my fb feed a few times. yeah, suburban moms are gonna hate him. ;p
The Patriot Act is at best a mixed bag for classical liberals, Darleen. And Ryan’s apt grasp of how this country is fiscally swirling the drain — which as you must know I’ve been hitting on for as long as you’ve seen me here — has little to do with his voting for all that other socialist stuff, no?
Back to you.
Well, no, Crawford, but you know that. What I can’t have is my vote attached to losing more slowly.
Kindly stop wasting my time.
….and eating the dog. (FTFY)
Nah leigh, he’s toking with the “Choom Gang”…and when they get the munchies…they eat the dog.
Or haven’t you read?
Take your pick.
Tasty, tasty dog BBH.
Damnit BBH…
Beat me to it fare and square.
– JH, no one knows if thats the case, or even what’s going to happen, if we can even reverse this decline at all.
– I understand your point, losing is still losing, but not voting against a real and present danger buys you nothing if not more misery ‘for your time’.
– Wide eyed optimism isn’t going to save the day or change anything, but neither is defeatism.
Meant “fair” and square.
Jesus.
This is why I shut up & just lurk.
[snicker guffaw] Ah the lefty concern trolling on CNN — Ryan is the ticket death wish and Ryan is a “polarizing figure”
JH, with all due respect, if you believe Ryan is such a squish, then explain the sheer volume of Lefty emo-ing when all we’ve heard from that is that “extremist” Romney just absolutely was REQUIRED to pick a “sensible moderate” to get those golden independents.
– Damn Lamont….and here I thouhjt you were referring to my good looks,
and kicking the dog.
Well, y’ gotta tenderize it first ‘fore you grill it up. Everyone knows that.
Paul Ryan voted yes on TARP (2008), Economic Stimulus HR 5140 (2008), the $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008), $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009), limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. (Nov 2003), providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers. (Jun 2006), extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008), the Head Start Act (2007), the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists. (Feb 2005), making the PATRIOT Act permanent (Dec 2005), and on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006).
Paul Ryan on Paul Ryan (2010):
So…we’ll see.
Are you suggesting the left is informed, Darleen?
Yes, we will.
Lefties on twitter hoping Ryan dies and other lovely sentiments
Sensible moderate being defined as anyone to the left of Joe Leiberman.
BBH, I believe we’re past that point. Well past it.
I also believe that the establishment dishes us an entire menu of beliefs and options and that this pairing is just another of them.
The notion it’s going to change anything substantionally in favor of classical liberalism is, as you suggest, very likely nothing more than simply refusing to be a rhetorical defeatist.
We’re already defeated and I challenge any classical liberal to enumerate their ideology’s formative and essential principles and project a return to even 5% of them one, two, three, or four years into a Romney/Ryan Administration.
Let me remind us that a year ago we were all decrying The Presumptive Nominee as the product of the machine that killed all true classical liberals available to this nation’s presidency. Nothing’s changed except, I venture, our collective voice, which now accedes to losing more slowly.
How long until the Race Card reappears?
at the very least an R&R administration will give us the breathing room to work locally.
Unless you think 4 more years of Obama & his admin equating TEA Party people with the Sikh neo-Nazi shooting and having the DOJ/IRS/EPA doing scorched earth audits of business owners who dare to express dissent openly is the way to go.
leigh
it’s already being played by the Obamabots — Ryan is not a “diversity” pick, ya know.
“screw ’em” markos tweeted that the Ryan pick was a sop to “old white people”
I think we can look forward to that no matter the outcome.
Frankly I am wondering how much of that Romney could curtail.
“I venture, our collective voice, which now accedes to losing more slowly.”
– And as a practical matter there is no real way that can be argued against. However, also as a practical matter, taking the view ‘it’s too late’ is something like telling the gunny Sargent he shouldn’t even try to rally his shot up platoon and brave transversing that mine feild to safety because some may lose a leg or even their lives.
– The choice is to keep fighting, oe just sit it out and bleed to death. I choose to go down swinging, which doesn’t make me anything special, or my hopes have any real chance, but at least we can say we tried, did our best.
Darleen, I just heard some Dem on Faux News say that the Ryan pick would alienate old white people. You can’t have it both ways, dems.
What we need is a good fight song, BBH.
Of course, and such has been perhaps the single saving grace of the last four years. This is a very, critically important point.
The rest of your comment is a false dichotomy in the extreme. Kindly do not channel Crawford as s/he kindly reconsiders his/her faulty characterization of classically liberal concern with the Republican ticket.
B Moe
I don’t think its a coincidence that Obama’s views about race and his thinskin in regards to any criticism directed his way seems to have found its way into how bureaucracies within the executive purview are conducting their business.
From the Black Panther “not intimidation” to Nidal Hasan’s “workplace violence” to the sudden audits & investigations launched against VanderSloot and Adelson, I do think Romney will have a good deal to say about tone & direction in these departments.
Not at all — in fact what exactly have we risked? See, Gunny hasn’t a third option. We have. Or had. Actually we still have it: write in the classical liberal.
Look, Ron Paul, who is roundly vilified by all well and true conservatives, has struck a huge chord among millions and millions (don’t blame me for that reality; I’m making a point here).
The reason is his unflinching rejection of The Machine. Because of that one feature the more I look over there the more I like what I see.
Will I pencil Paul in? I doubt it. And I know none of you will. But the point remains that rejecting that machinery is ALWAYS an option. Gunny has no such option.
Just will up and do it and stop playing to the wishful, hopeful notion that the Presumptive Nominee has potential to provide any of us beneficent care of our classically liberal nation.
I am sure he will try, and will probably curtail the worst of it, but history has shown that this shit gets entrenched, bureaucracies are naturally leftist, and they have a lot of momentum behind them.
It is going to take a meaner motherfucker than Romney to do any real good.
JHo, Paul Ryan says his early readings of Ayn Rand were what helped him choose a career in politics.
Ron Paul is ? ed by a lot of true jingoists and anti-semites for a reason.
The man is an embarrassment, regardless of his mouthing of economic sensibility. He’s in the Pat Buchanan category.
Rand Paul is certainly a much better future choice.
don’t know much dept.
Mitt Romney Introduced Paul Ryan In Front of a Battleship for Some Reason
B Moe
well, here’s to hoping that Ryan gets the nod to pick some mean SOBs to go in and clean both clocks and houses in those playpens.
nw
oh good lord … the stupidity, it burns
Darleen, I raised R Paul to show what the grass roots is capable of. I made that point.
WHI: Obama just sh*t himself. They are picking diamonds out his ass about now. Great choice. Absolutely great choice. Critics said M.R. was going to run from the fiscal conservatism message behind the Ryan Plan. Not so. He is embracing it. That is undeniable proof M.R. gets it. Country’s fiscal situation is in full on crisis. Big boys know it. Remember when the Old Man warned about the muni bonds going down and out? That was months ago right? Now it’s happening. There is so much happening behind the scenes on that stuff. I get bits and pieces from the Old Man and a couple others on it but they are all saying the same thing HOLD ON and be ready for disaster because if it comes it is going to hit very fast. Got a lot of real powerful people trying to avoid that disaster but the real players around Obama are purposely pushing us off that cliff. I am absolutely 100% convinced now that everything they have done is on purpose. It’s not just incompetence, laziness, or stupidity. They want American chopped the f-ck down. Period.
Back to the Ryan pick. I am loving it. And don’t buy into all the BS about how the Romney campaign is having a bad week or how it needs to fight back against Obama. These guys are playing this just about right. Except for Saul. That lady should go. She is certainly done with speaking on behalf of the campaign. But other than that little hiccup, the Romney team is hitting its stride. And now with Ryan on board, we got the Tea Party momentum at our sails also. And that is a good thing because Romney needs the Tea Party. Absolutely needs their enthusiasm, energy, support. The emotion behind that Tea Party stuff can sink Obama. And they know that.
One more thing on that. The Ryan pick just increased the race card roll out about 100% now. That will be Obama’s play against the Tea Party. Media is already preparing for that too. Some of them. Maybe it’s the Zimmerman situation. They got that whole thing on standbye. Maybe it’s something new we haven’t seen yet. But the Ryan pick now pushes that scenario to the top of the agenda at this point so watch for it. I’m praying it don’t get as bad as it could but my gut says it will.
And how you like that FnF news? More to come. There is some scandal scenarios circling this election big time.
UM: You said, “WE got the Tea Party momentum at our sails” Does that indicate your are working directly with the Romney campaign now?
(No response was given to that last question)
leigh
The left now shrieking about pics of Ryan hunting. He’s a bow-hunter too.
Amazing to watch the howling reaction and understand, yet again, how Leftism is an absolute religion to these people.
JH
I truly understand the limitations of Romney. I just want the breathing room and a chance to keep electing more TEA Party people at local levels.
NOT going to happen under a second Obama admin. They have shown they will go to any lengths to suppress dissenting voices & votes.
I’ll bet he takes his boys hunting, too. What a blood-thirsty beast!
Leftism is absolutely a religion. I’ve lost a number of friends over the years when I started talking back to their fascist bs beginning with the hate-fests when Reagan was president.
leigh
I hear you … I’ve had a couple old high school friends I’ve reconnected with on Facebook block me when I asked some pointed questions about their worshipping of Obama.
Going to make for an interesting reunion tonight! (my 40th)
I hope you have fun. I haven’t been to any of mine since I’ve always been hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Two of my SILs are insufferable with their lefty views on the world. One of them refused to talk to me for a couple of years. I can’t say that I missed her.
“Not at all — in fact what exactly have we risked? “
– Maybe I’m missing something here JH, but I quite litterily can’t believe you mean that.
– I guess if you don’t believe theres any hope, and therefore a 2nd Obama term wouldn’t mean much then you could conclude what you said.
– Possibly I’m delusional from fighting the cult of the deranged for so long, but my gut tells me that’s simply what they want me to believe, and when I say that I’m including ‘the machine’ as well.
– A plyable, passive electorate is a defeated electorate.
It is too facile, I think, to unqualifiedly speak of the political left — in its various ideological incarnations — as simply a religion. That soft ease, in turn, harms our own grasp of what it is we’re up against. Rather, I think we ought to be careful to distinguish religion(s) from politics, unless — for some other reason I miss — it is our aim to blur them into unintelligibility (this, after all, may be the very aim of leftist political thought!).
The political left may indeed share this or that fuzzy human manifestation with religions we know, but when we look to those religions to teach us what they are, I believe they speak far more seriously of themselves, guarding their traditions and pieties, far more honestly, far more carefully than anything we see emanating from leftist politics says about itself. Leftism generally, at least today, treats itself quite shabbily.
Sure, there are many unquestioned assumptions or habitual, unexamined practices flitting here and there in both human pursuits. But sharing a few token human characteristics is not enough to create an identity between the two.
I was using religion as a shorthand for the devotees of the Left. Naturally, it is not truly a religion although many make it a habit or a way of life when it suits them.
I’m trying to keep my attentin on a couple of different tasks here at home as well as chatting, so forgive my sloppy pronouncement upthread that leftism is a religion.
– sdferr, by any metric, when you look at the extreme narrcicism and zealosnous of the cult of personality, the characteristics are a distinction without a difference.
– I don’t think people in general intend to villify religion perse’ in making that comparison.
he political left may indeed share this or that fuzzy human manifestation with religions we know, but when we look to those religions to teach us what they are, I believe they speak far more seriously of themselves, guarding their traditions and pieties, far more honestly, far more carefully than anything we see emanating from leftist politics says about itself. Leftism generally, at least today, treats itself quite shabbily.
The only similarity I see is a blind devotion to something they cannot really explain. While the mysteries of God should be left to faith – many of the beliefs leftests hold CAN be disproven. They just refuse to do the work. So they cling- desperately – by faith.
When confronted with facts, they almost always change the subject.
They simply do not want the illusion of how they perceive life ruined.
One consequence of Romney’s choice: The Vice-Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Scott Garrett (R – NJ 5), will presumably rise to Chairmanship.
Anybody know him? Or more particularly, is he closer to or farther from Speaker Boehner than Paul Ryan?
sdferr
The Left treats its dogma & politics like a religion. It has substituted it for God.
Even the nuttiest cultist can tell me I’m going to rot in hell for “X” and it doesn’t bother me because s/he is expressing an opinion I can take or leave.
Left-political-jihadists want control of The State and make everyone kowtow to it. They just know how better to run my life and damnittohell they will make sure I obey. No opinion allowed.
I don’t think I’m unaware of any of that Darleen.
It’s just that I think it’s incumbent on the religious as such to maintain those cosmic differences, and hence identities, they take to be the basis of their worship.
If, on the other hand, I’m wrong, and the religious wish to accede to the leftists’ proposition, I’d ask they say why that is (that is, I’m not maintaining now that there is no possibility of an identity betwixt the two, just that I haven’t seen any such case made, and rather doubt making that case would be the aim of the religious themselves, at least so far as I’ve had experience of the case they do make for themselves and their religions).
Hitler Finds Out it’s Ryan
Or to put this in very different terms, “The State” [modern nation-state] was invented right along somewhere in the neighborhood of the 16th-17th centuries, whereas God and worship was invented somewhat closer to the time our human ancestors climbed down from trees to seek sustenance on the plains, adapted themselves to walking upright on the ground, living in ever larger communities, communicating verbally, creating a store of tools, learning to trade from tribe to tribe, learning to make war on one another, cultivating the ground, navigating the shores, building cities and so on and so forth.
– All evidence suggests that some of us are still swinging from tree branches.
How do you get to “not losing” from “losing quickly” without going through “losing more slowly”?
Right back atcha.
Huh?
– I’m pretty sure the adherants of Jim Jones ‘Peoples Temple’ or Koresches flock in Waco were at that point of ‘the race is over’ so why bother putting on your running shoes.
– Right up until they were force fed the Koolaide, or consummed in the fire.
– One battle does not a war make, and while you may feel ‘that its over’, there is always much more to lose in any war.
Oh, God. Really? You think Ron Paul isn’t a fully-paid member of “The Machine”?
Last time Paul faced a primary challenge:
Does that sound like someone who’s against “The Machine”? Sounds to me like the same BS “The Machine” candidates push. He’s been in office a total of 23 years, despite mouthing support for term limits. He’s a career pol, no different than the rest of them.
I’m frankly surprised that you’ve fallen for his shtick.
JH,
Don’t waste your time. Crawford does not appreciate your pointing out that Paul Ryan has not exactly cut any spending in his life, but rather, has talked extensively about it. Ryan, in other word, is excellent at proposing cutting budgets on paper; in the real world, well, it’s more complex and nuanced.
Crawford senses possible victory and everything PW has been, or stands for, matters for absolute shit.
Outlaw, as someone once said.
How do you get to “not losing” from “losing quickly” without going through “losing more slowly”?
It’s a fucking simple question. How do you get from 1 to 3 without going through 2?
Well, since apparently the game today is “ignore what Crawford says and shit in his mouth”, I’m outta here.
If you treat the spectrum of “losing” to “winning” as a continuous function, then I get it. But I don’t think it works that way.
Ron Paul? No, we have only two choices on the ballot. Voting for Paul votes for Obama, because there’s not near the groundswell it’d take to get Paul even one single electoral vote.
Or, we can sit at home Nov. 6 and stew.
I think I’ll vote Nov. 6 against Obama, again. Then, if #RR2012 fails, we can stoke #AbandonTheGOP.
An electorate that chose Obama is a failed electorate.
That they are even considering doing it again is an epic failure.
– Look, I understand perfrctly your position JH. I simply don’t believe we’re ‘captured’, nor that we’ve hit bottom.
– Both of which you need to accept to just throw up your hands in surrender.
– As far as demographics, the Lsft aggragate is probably something around 15% of the general population, and I would guess the same of Classic Liberals. For my money its really been a fight between the two groups since the mid 30’s. The rest of the electorate just do not care as long as they feel ‘safe’ and more or less satisifed.
– To the extent I share most of the values and ideas of the Classic Liberal political worldview I consider myself one of you, but I also understand American voter apithy, so in that way I don’t see ‘the race is over’ at all.
– The colleges can be regained, so can the press. The Tea party can become an even greater force. All things are possible, but only if we’re all willing to give of our time.
I’d like to take Ron Paul seriously, and could better if he’d just avoided certain conversations and hadn’t embraced certain outlier groups. You know what I’m saying.
I think I’ll vote Nov. 6 against Obama, again. Then, if #RR2012 fails, we can stoke #AbandonTheGOP.
Subscribes to serr8d’s newsletter
Heh. The bastards are worried…
It’s not a three-step process of necessity.
Here’s how I’d do it.
1) Losing quickly
2) Winning.
3) Profit!
Yep. They are. Despite the fact that they are arguing that the Ryan pick is going to excite the liberal base, and turn off moderate folks nearing retirement age.
Not that it matters, but I think Messina is one of the grossest looking people in politics.
– Matter of fact, should Romney win, for me its just the beginning of a long perilous fight.
– Whereas, if Obama repeats, and that sets the stage for a continued march toward statism, then you might well be right.
Incidentally, that sequence of events I offered is not truly available to us with Romney at the helm. But then, that’s by design. The GOP wants control, they don’t want radical “extremist” change.
It’s probably worth mentioning that Rand Paul’s budget takes five years before it balances the budget. It would shrink the EPA in half, not eliminate it.* I mention this specifically because it’s the most aggressive plan on the table at the moment.
I’d support that plan in a second but then I also wouldn’t characterize steps in the right direction as something other than steps in the right direction.
The GOP wants control, they don’t want radical “extremist” change.
– Thus my comment about the fight just beginning. But I’m not surprised. Before 2010 I don’t remember a sible writer that gave the Tea party much more than a passing glance.
Oh, Romney is not palatable, not at all, even with Paul Ryan as a sugar cube. Romney’s always been somewhat anti-gun; the low-down bastiche signed the ‘Assault’ Weapons ban. He’s not much at all, not my first choice, not the best choice. He’s still likely to lose.
Play it like this: support the hell out of him, fire up people, get a massive RR2012 movement on. Then, if/when he loses, point out that the GOP is chock-full of losing-slowly-fail, and it’s time to put it out of it’s misery. The succeeding TEA Party platform is almost already in place; we don’t need to create a new one.
And given that BHO is expert at collecting moochers to his camp with the promise of Other People’s Money, and this nation is full of moochers nowadays, it’s a very long shot for a RR2012 victory.
Can you imagine the anger that will be directed towards the Establishment GOP after yet another bitter loss? I can. It’ll be sweet!
If you don’t buy this candidate, we’ll kill this country.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GmAG-JlHT4M/TGw5d0D9FNI/AAAAAAAAA5Q/zvbqLKu5R9w/s1600/lampoon-dog-big%5B1%5D.jpg
For myself, I don’t think VPs matter much in terms of policy. Either the President agrees and would do it anyway or disagrees and will do as he pleases. There’s nothing unique about Ryan (or really any other possible option) that would change this basic hierarchy.
People can vote for Romney if they want or decline if they want. Either way that’s not where I plan on devoting my efforts. Whatever the outcome in that election we’ll need the maximum amount of pressure applied to the winner.
Heh. B Moe, is that OFA or the GOP with the gun?
“….Damn it, where the hell did that come from?
….Get that shithead Reid on the phone!….”
Policy is never the reason for a VP selection. Sarah Palin gave numbnuts more votes than he deserved; the same game’s being played here. LeftLibProgg hatred for Ryan was already at 11, so they’ve no surprises going forward, unless he’s got a newly-pregnant daughter. Wisconsin lefties threw everything they had at him during the #WiUnion fights; he survived that vetting process very well.
If I didn’t live in a swing state that is a toss-up, per RCP, I would 100% vote for Gary Johnson. But this is an inflection point in US history, where we can complete the job of Europeanization or begin, however haltingly, to walk it back.
My distaste for Romney and Ryan is immense; the disgust and alarm that Obama/Biden warrant is enough to put away beliefs and, well, hope that it works out.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/nc/north_carolina_romney_vs_obama-1784.html
JH, Ron Paul has a real bad habit of talking the talk, then manipulating legislation, them larding up his district.
Ayn ain’t walking through that door matter how hard we wish.
Just sayin man.
By the way, for any Atlanta folks, I saw Dagmar Midcap doing the weather out here in San Diego yesterday doing the weather. She is awesome.
I also sat next to Roger Clemens yesterday and talked baseball with him for 2 hours. He is unbelievably cool and told me that I had umpired a game that he had coached in a month ago.
I hear what you’re saying, serr8d. Ryan might be a good pick politically. Looking around the internet I’m getting the impression that a number of conservatives view this as a real signal that Romney himself might be a better guy than they thought.
Not sure I really care one way or the other about the horse race aspects of the pick though because I sorta feel that Romney might have neutered one of the stronger voices for entitlement reform in the legislature and put him into an underling position in the executive.
I had the vapors.
I should say, for the record, that I think Obama wipes the floor with Romney and we take the final steps to becoming a very different place.
“. . . Obama wipes the floor with Romney . . . ”
Better, I think, the American people wipe Obama with Romney. It’s a question of who is doing what to whom.
iPhone’s, martinis and garbled posts. Coincidence? I think not.
That’s awesome, man.
But as I’ve said twice, I’m not promoting Paul I’m promoting the views of a huge disenfranchised American base fed completely up with politics as usual and I’m promoting the power of the grass roots.
I no more do than I fall for the various fallacies you lob out there.
‘Course, I keep saying that.
Serr8d,
I’m not lying though, to you or anyone else. I wrote it direct, using my real name, and I work in a profession where my views are not de rigeur.
Maybe it’ll be different and R/R will close all the gaps in Va. and Fla. and 3-4 other places. Maybe Biden gets wiped in the debates and maybe Obama does too. But in quite a few former Red strongholds like Va. and Fla. Biden and Obama are winning–outside of NC–and Romney hasn’t made inroads into Blue states.
I’m a dick, though, for pointing out the “maybe’s” all have to trend to R/R.
Electoral math is not a friend to the GOP when they wake up down 115 electoral votes before they take a leak.
So we’re voting for the lesser of two evils again. Understood, but tell me how that voting for evil is working out for us.
Electoral math is not a friend to the GOP when they wake up down 115 electoral votes before they take a leak.
we’ve had alot “hope and change” since ’08. all the major elections since have pointed to another direction.
Whatever he is JH Mitt Romney ain’t evil.
BH, I have lived and breathed baseball all my life. I know Hank Aaron on a first name basis (though I know he doesnt know my last name). Ryne Sandberg was there also, and over the last 2 days they never spoke to each other. I found that kinda funny. Also Craig Biggios kid is here, though no Craig. I can’t wait till tomorrow!
Oh, Clemens wife is here.
Talk about bodacious!
Roddy has an excellent point about the electoral college. There’s a reason why Democrats only won the White House once between ’68 and ’92. Despite controlling both chambers of Congress for all but 6 of those years.
(And I’m guessing serr8d was implying that Obama, unfettered by the need to run for reelection, would be free to get all Little Bill on our asses.)
And Rick Behenna was one of my best friends. He is my favorite baseball player of all time.
and Romney hasn’t made inroads into Blue states.
they call pa, with repub gov.,senate and house, a “blue” state. a moderate repub like romney sells in this state. ax teresa heinz.
Look, this is an American election, which means people on either side who know anything about policies or philosophies or will understand what the fuck is going on during the “debates” aren’t enough to matter. At all.
Its about PR. Optics. Buzz words. Bullshit.
Okay then. Who is the better set of bullshitters?
The State is evil. Mitt Romney is a statist.
Ditto. Upthread somone rightly observed that Ron Paul himself hauls back pork.
Of course he does. We insist on it, even as we damn the practice. And so we’re reduced to these meaningless, endless political wars.
Paul Ryan Turns Electoral Map Redder
The State is evil.
Oh, come now.
The State is benign. It attracts evil, by virtue of the power those who’ve been running it have grabbed. That power must be diminished.
No. It’s either a nailbiter or a Romney romp. This is not what a straight-up asskicking is made of.
Exactly. The State isn’t a sentient entity.
Oh please.
I’m pure dee fucking objectivist JH. I can scorn well meaning, but clueless hacks as well as the next guy. But don’t give me or anybody else that crap.
Hack? Sure. Evil? Grow up dude.
James Madison didn’t think so.
The State only has the power that we allow it. It is not powerful in its own right.
you’re in “good hands” with allstate
I’ll be happy to read that cite, Ernst.
I am insured by Allstate. How did you know that, Kreskin?
And what Pablo said, Ernst.
– When JHo starts anthropomophising lawn mowers, you know he’s having a little fun.
Six Hundred years of modern political philosophy say otherwise.
The state is power, regardless of where it’s power is derived.
I’ve been misunderstood! That ‘Unforgiven’ quote was intended to amplify what you wrote, not to disparage it in any way, and certainly not intended to call you a liar. Read it again. If BHO gets another turn at the helm, he will hurt us bad, not gentle like before.
See Shit Madison said, passim.
If the state is benign (i.e. harmless), then why constrain it?
The State is not evil? Do tell.
Evil is “lack of direction.”
– Martin Buber
Jewish theologian Martin Buber considered the nature of evil in his classic work, Good and Evil. Buber argued that evil is not, as it is commonly understood, the opposite of good: “It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another…We must begin by doing away with this convention.” Buber argued that whereas good comes from a dedication to walking the moral path, one falls into evil through an absence of attention. One must work to be good, but one happens to be evil.
There is “a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil.”
– Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt, in her often-quoted account of the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, wrote: “The deeds were monstrous, but the doer was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic or monstrous.” Arendt concluded that Eichmann, far from having the desire to prove a villain, sent thousands to their deaths merely because of “a lack of imagination.” His only motive was personal advancement: “he never realized what he was doing.” Arendt wondered whether “the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come to pass, regardless of the specific content and quite independent of results…could ‘condition’ men against evildoing.”
Evil results from “the indifference to the human consequences of decisions.”
-Richard Posner
Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is recognized as the leading intellectual of the judicial branch. Posner wrote on the subject of evil in an essay (reviewing Ingo Muller’s book, Hitler’s Justice) entitled “Courting Evil” in The New Republic. Posner agreed that the German judiciary did evil because it “was so immersed in a professional culture as to be oblivious to the human consequences of their decisions.”
“If the state is benign (i.e. harmless), then why constrain it?
– There is almost nothing you can name, if made large enough, would remain benign (see: Stapuff Marshmello Man)
The State has no ability to do good except by belief, assertion, or by a temporary measure based on one or the other of them. It does this in an unnatural construct where by being State, it is not beholden to its subject-victims — it is fundamentally incapable of doing good when it’s prime directive is its own enhancement. It cannot but operate in some significant-to-total degree of apathy to the individual.
As a services provider, the producing free market competitor provides good. The State is his antithesis.
The State is equipped by its inherent makup to break things and kill people. This is exactly what it’s doing to one degree or another. This is what it’s always done to one degree or another.
benign cancer is still cancer
If the state is evil, then why create one as Madison did?
Madison said a lotta shit. Could you narrow it down?
JHo, the nature of good and evil is applied to man in those works. We are instructed to resist the glamour of evil. The State in and of itself is not evil as it is not a sentient entity. Neither is the State good as some would have us believe. It is a thing, a tool to be used by man for governance.
– I would use a different word for what Buber abd the others are describing there when they conclude thst ‘the acts were evil but the people quite ordinary’.
– That word would be corruption. A corrupted spirit, or mind, take your pick, would probably more dorrectly applied to state evil, but not always.
– There exists a clear type of premeditated evil, evil intent, that springs from another sort of corruption, again of mind and/or spirit, which cannot be simply attributed to corruption alone, and which can arise in the state as well. Melevalence is its name.
– Ted Bundy could probably explain it better than I.
If the state is evil, then why create one as Madison did?
Madison was evil, that’s why. /s
But we’re America. We we’re meant to be different, though I recognize those determined to change that.
I need not constrain it. The Founders did that very nicely. Correcting and containing those who have expanded it is the mission. Restoration is in order.
If it’s benign, it isn’t cancer, by definition.
There exists a clear type of premeditated evil
yea the choomster from chi town be that
“If it’s benign, it isn’t cancer, by definition.”
wiki
certain “benign” tumors may later give rise to malignant cancers,
the benign cancer of the state is a malignant cancer when we are on the “choom gang”
The enhancement you refer to cannot be found here. The pollution comes from the human factor, which certainly can be and has been evil.
– But in either case of corruption or manevalence, those are human traits, not applicable to an inanimate object/entity/construct. Governance is a tool for sociatal service which man can use for good or bad, in the same manner of any tool.
– A chainsaw can be rather problimatical in the hands of the wrong person, but hanging on the garage wall for decades is seldom guilty of acts of violence.
Sort of like guns, BBH. You never know when they’re going to go bad on you. One day they’re in the gun cabinet, chillin’. The next thing you know, someone’s head is blowed off.
Evil, evil guns.
Sure. But it isn’t cancer until it is, and then it isn’t benign. Lots of stuff can turn into cancer. That possibility does not makes them all cancer. Otherwise, you’re cancer, pretty much from head to toe.
The State is like a gun? Yeah, that works.
If someone wanted to edit that 8:39 into coherence, that would be awesome.
Its about PR. Optics. Buzz words. Bullshit.
It’s about telling a story. How’s this one B Moe?
This recession was caused by bad debt. Obama’s solution to the recession was more debt.
When you have a problem caused by too much debt, the solution is not more debt. That’s something just about any American could tell you. They say it takes the most educated people to believe the most ridiculous things, but that is what Barack Obama believes. It’s his ideology, and his actions. President Obama said, ‘We tried our plan, and it worked”. That two year government employee nearly $1T spending spree was their plan, and this is the result they are trying to defend.
This recession was made worse by Obama’s response, and our economy is not going to significantly improve until the business community sees that we are coming back to be a land of liberty, of free markets and free minds, and not a land of crony capitalism.
The solution to our economic problems is to get our fiscal house in order, deal realistically with our deficit and debt issues. As confidence and certainty is restored, the economy will come roaring back.
I’ve corrected a lot of essays. It’s fine, Pablo.
[Took away an unnecessary “doesn’t”, Pablo.]
– But then if we have chainsaws laying all over the place, clutering the landscape, then its pretty much a good bet accidents would escalate, maybe even non-accoidents when anything that can be turned to a weapon becomes “too” handy.
– Loaded guns would be an even more obvious example. Largish, unconstrained government, again in the wrong hands, quickly morphs from a benign tumor into a dangerous cancer.
Page 1
Page 2 [hover your cursor just to the right of each citation — the source page will pop up on the farther right for reading]
Results: Feds’t 6, 8, 15, 16, 21, 26, 37, 41, 46, 51, 59, 62, 68, 70, 83, 84
Thanks, bh! That was grating on me.
Thanks sdferr.
So, unless I am reading Madison incorrectly, and that is always possible, the evil(s) he speaks of in the citations are due to the perfidy of elected officials, not the documents or the entity of State itself.
And here are the cites for “good government”.
All of the Federalist Papers were, by their nature, selling The State. But what State? Not an evil one, by my estimation.
Sure. But it isn’t cancer until it is, and then it isn’t benign.
it is a benign tumor until the choom gang goes all cloward piven and makes it malignant. it depends on who’s hands in allstate land.
I’m really quite jealous at this point, Donald. Wow.
That’s exactly right. They understood man’s basic nature so they weren’t under any illusions but they still thought that founding a state dedicated to preserving man’s natural rights (by pitting endless factions against one another) was a good thing. A boon to mankind the likes of which hadn’t yet been seen on this earth.
What we see now is that some factions have grown unchecked. The Federal government. Public employee unions. So, let’s check them.
Yes. What bh said.
Also, divine inspiration. To quote a former governor, we’ve got a fucking golden thing here, and I for one am not about to give it away cheap.
????? ????
Well, that didn’t work. But it was this.
– I was a lad during the ’48 Indians. Bat boy on a number of occasions through my boy scout troop.
– People like Bob Feller, Larry Dobie, Dale Mitchel, Hank Garcia, Lou Boudreau, Bill Veck. even Satchel Paige, were great guys, every one, and ordinary joes up close and personal.
– a Decade+ later I repeated my game ball ways with Jim Brown/Otto Graham and the Cleveland browns, but in that case I was a young engineering entrepenuer, designing and outfitting the QB’s helmet with the leagues first radio link from the bench.
– Paul Brown was just to paranoid that the opposing teams might be intercepting the conversations.
* Jim Garcia *
Jim Brown and Otto Graham? Sweet Jeebus, that’s fantastic, BBH.
:) bh
I forgot Steve Bedrosian who lives down the street.
He was the pitching coach for East Coweta while his boys were going through high school.
I usually get them in the early rounds of the state playoffs. He was not shy about letting me know that my strike zone was too big.
There was a time that he and Rick were both on that staff. Rick thought he had no interest in developing pitchers and there came a time that the feckless head coach had to choose.
Well Steve was the Cy Young award winning multi millionaire so…
Steve’s end of the road is a massive horse ranch. Mine ain’t.
Bob Feller!
I heard him interviewed on the radio once bbh.
He wasn’t too interested in talking baseball. He wanted to talk about his Navy career. He was master chief. An was he gruff!
Rapid Robert.
Gee Mr JHoward, please to let us know-nothings know what GATA has to say about Mr. Romney’s pick of Mr. Ryan. We await with bated breath.
Gold short or long? Please do tell.
That’s really cool, Donald. I’d get such a kick out of nodding at him in the normal “hey, neighbor” manner.
– Yeh it really was bh. Of course the reality of it all doesn’t hit you til many years later. Fantastic stories to tell the grand kids.
We who are not idiots in Philadelphia, a small population I grant you, hold Bedrock in high esteem.
– One of the jobs of the bat boy was to take care of the ‘bucket’ for Satchel so he could use it quickly and get back in the game without having to call time out.
– As you can imagine when Jeff named his boy it brought all the memories flooding back.
That’s awesome bbh!
on the choom gang
Huge crowds line Manassas streets for Romney-Ryan
Serr8d
Accept my apologies for misunderstanding.
Evil isn’t the opposite of good, it is the absence of good. Dicentra can explain it much better than me.
And Madison and the Federalist Papers weren’t selling The State. The were explaining how and why it needs to be constrained. They were selling individual sovereignty.
– As I dimly recall, haven’t read the papers in years, the paramont concern of the major three expressed was……
* wait for it *
“proffered attendence” (the words of the time for lobbying)
– As to the evils of government, the focus was on the triple threats of too much centralized powers, too many assumed powers, with unretrained growth somewhere in the mix.
– Early political thinkers had a panchet for doing almost everything in three’s.
– One final thought
– Wonder how the Ryan thing will effect donations. My guess is that Wafflw head and his gang are going to need a bigger crying towel.
Whereas, if Obama repeats, and that sets the stage for a continued march toward statism, then you might well be right.
Huh. If Obama wins, I predict the economy continues to crater and I start looking for a highway underpass big enough for a family of 8.
They were selling This State, or at least the one it used to be.
Back on topic, the NYT is not happy and they offer us a peek into their withered soul:
ZOMG! That’s hella scary! But when, pray tell, do we need the federal government the most?
Mr Ryan has a plan for a neglectful parent.
Yeah, nutjob stuff, isn’t it? But you know the cool thing about nutjob conspiracies? When the entire national press buys in over a period of eighty years.
The solution to our economic problems is to get our monetary house in order, and deal realistically with our national sovereignty and personal rights issues.
The NYT 538 blog places Ryan…
…farther right than even Dick Cheney.
That piece is awash in Lefty dog whistles; the loudest being a comparison of Ryan to Michele Bachmann.
I left a comment there. It won’t see the light of day, of course, but for kicks and giggles here ’tis…
Apologies to Pablo and leigh for leaving the Madison thing hanging. My thanks to sdferr for the citations and to Pablo for pointing out my tumor/cancer error. I was saying that the state is not benign, not that the state is evil (even though it is harmful, injurious and given to mischief, and therefore evil—albeit a neccessary one).
I submit that the first paver on the road to, well, —here— is laid when we forget that.
I would say they are not mutually exclusive. My comment was intended for the propaganda realm rather than the policy realm, it is the key meme battle in 2012.
As soon as Ryan was announced, the WH came out with 5 key facts about Paul Ryan
Since Romney is not explaining the economic collapse any other way, that is all the low info voters hear, that must be what caused it.
I was going to wait until Monday, and let Rush Limbaugh tell me what I think, but that Times endorsement is good enough for me. Good pick!
I think if we’re to describe the plan of government laid out in our Constitution as evil (even in terms of a necessary evil) then evil has very little meaning. It’s been stretched beyond repair.
Likewise if we use evil to mean the absence of good. Are we to behold the vast expanse of space and declare it evil? Light years and lights years of evil?
This certainly isn’t what most people mean when they speak of evil.
Leigh says from yesterday:
Puts down thesuarus and looks over towards leigh over his glasses
Thank you for your kind and temperate response. However citing that Ryan’s Hope …er Budget is not a particularly conservative or fiscally effective document as to growth or deficit reduction I thought it was hardly a controversial position. Maybe he’s your cousin? The fact that he is probably the best we can hope out of the Party of Stupid speaks volumes.
Now maybe he is more conservative than his votes and policy positions but if he has to water them down to get them passed that makes him functionally a moderate. He is a good speaker and appears to be pretty bright and has proven to be brighter(head to head) than the dim bulb in the oval office and the even dimmer bulb ensconced at the Naval Observatory.
But it does us no good to just hold our position. We need to yank the debate back to our side of the mud pit and put the debate on a ground that puts what their position outside the pale of legitimate discussion. Will Ryan, assuming he is more conservative than his actions suggest, be able to move the debate to more amenable ground or will he be choke chained by what has been up until now a reticent Romney campaign.
As for being an optimist I am CPA by profession so that automatically puts me on the cynical side of town. That being said I am reasonably sanguine with Romney’s chances as he is neck and neck with the Prevaricator in Chief even after the recent slanderous onslaught(although we probably ain’t seen nothing yet) engaged in by slimy partisans in the obviously rigged polls being taken by media allied sycophants(oh sorry mindless lemmings). The MSM can’t hide the lawlessness, contempt and mendacity of this regime anymore. It has become blatant for all to see and is there to be exploited by the Romney campaign. His reluctance so far is disturbing.
Ryan can help if he is allowed to articulate an unambiguously conservative agenda and be allowed to openly discredit the intellectually corrupt Obama campaign by whatever means he needs to use. The effectiveness will be in how the campaign can avoid the media filters which will do Obama’s dirty work for him.
motionview quotes:
That’s OK. Obama believes in the same top down economic plan that caused the Soviet Union to dissolve.
No one’s done that, bh. The plan of government laid out in our Constitution was clearly a strategy specifically designed to experiment with self-governance in a planet continually beset by evil, continually by States that in light of the evil of apathy to the rights, liberties, properties and lives of its subjects were to be prevented doing so this time.
It’s a matter of philosophy or perhaps only semantics, but the answer isn’t no: Although it’ll kill you dead or perfectly try to kill you dead for an eternity, vacuum isn’t exactly sentient. Nor is the ocean evil, or the land, although all present challenges to sentient survival.
Of course evil is the absence of good. Good is, like air, light, and life, an exception to the rule of entropy or void, whether physical or in the mind and spirit. Good is in the human dynamic what any number of phenomenon are in the material dynamic.
This is true.
I will ask, by the way, to see citations of Madison referring to the state he was actively promoting as evil as compared to referring to the failings of the state as it was (Arts of Confed) or to states they’d wish to avoid in the future (unchecked majorities, etc).
I believe I recall one where he refers to accepting a lesser evil but that’s been in colloquial usage as shorthand for dealing with non-utopias for quite awhile.
That. Thank you.
Somehow I don’t see Ryan’s VP role reforming the top three or five corruptions of classically liberal liberty that are the Welfare State and a litany of crony capitalist corruptions of the free market.
Finance, real estate, and insurance (FIRE) together with Big Pharma and all the other contaminants of your favorite government and mine are Ryan’s unfortunate but necessary friends.
And all of them are redistributive by nature rather than productive. If Ryan’s top contributors were building, farming, manufacturing, textile, and the like I’d think we were still living in America.
I hope the guy guts the Beltway with a machette the size of Manhattan operated at light speed. I’m just not counting on it.
Don’t count on it, bh. But did he describe an American State proscribed from as much evil — as much apathy toward its subjects and their private interests — as he and his brothers could render it?
If by The State we exclude our model and by evil we exclude it’s common usage then anything is possible. I’m sure the statements made and many more beside can be offered.
If by “the State” we include our model and if by “evil” we include it’s common usage, then our very 2012 reality is entirely consistent with both definitions: We have by now an unresponsive State whose influence on our lives is deeply destructive.
This State is evil. All States are evil. The trick is limiting that evil.
All states are evil? Even ones whose entire purpose is to protect our natural rights?
To describe our state as founded as evil means we either have very different opinions or we simply are not referring to the same things with our terms.
That’s the third time you’ve gone back to evil-by-design rather than what we clearly are, which is ostensibly limiting inevitable evil by formative, contractual design.
Evil, being an absence, is as tenacious and present and inevitable as vacuum, or absolute zero or death. Light, energy, truth, care, and love are exceptions to the rules of both the natural, physical zero state and the ever present apathy of human behavior.
The State is neither inherently or exceptionally able to further those properties. It’s very best efforts only partly ensure those of us possessing those features and attrributes may do so to some degree unencumbered by the State’s inherent apathy toward us, its subjects.
FX Phillips, I apologize for suggesting that you go commit suicide over the current state of affairs. That was harsh and I don’t mean that, of course.
I understand your cynicism and I share it, in part but not in whole. My frustration with many Classical Liberals, although I count myself as one, is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. No the Romney-Ryan ticket isn’t a dream team that will bring us a perfect union. I do think the ticket will do less damage to our country than the reelection of Obama-Biden. The latter two will continue to run a wrecking ball through our way of life with impunity if reelected as they will have nothing to lose.
I do see an RR ticket and its effect on the down ticket as being a positive. More TEA party candidates will be elected and we can begin to right the ship of (evil) State. We didn’t get where we are overnight and we aren’t going to repair the damages in one election cycle. Or likely, even four or five. It took a long time to get here and it will take a long time and a lot of work to get back to First Principles.
If we can.
I see little chance of our getting anywhere here.
Have a good Sunday. Think I’m going to grill some chicken for lunch.
leigh, that’s as good a summary as I could envision. Well done!
Thank you serr8d.
Leigh
Apology accepted.
I may be a cynic but I do understand what needs to be done. But hold no illusions as to our choices. As VDH often says we don’t always have a choice between good and bad but bad and worse. R & R are the political equivalent of a tourniquet. Apply to stop the bleeding in order to get the patient to the OR for meaningful surgery. They are useful as far as they go but only if we can subsequently build on the pause in the leftist assault.
– Great summary Leigh, Albeit the working phrase isn’t ‘if we can’, but rather ‘if we will’.
– There is no enherent reason why a reversal of fortunes need be in doubt or long winded in process.
– Those choices are enherent in we the people, or as Brutus put it:
– “….Lament not for us my dear Anthony, and cast not your pity to the stars, for the fault of it lies not with the heavens, but within ourselves…”
FX Phillips
The first rule of emergency care is: stop the bleeding.
Just to look at the election tactically, the Left is making a mistake of epic proportion by presuming that people vote as monolithic blocks. Youth vote, Senior vote, skin color vote, &c. When we scrape away the paint most people think of themselves as Americans and individuals, not as blocks of voters or “Bricks in the wall” so to speak. It pisses them off that they aren’t important as individuals, only as voter blocks.
The irony here is that the Left has spent decades cultivating the Cult of Individuality. For a time the US Army even had the slogan “An Army of One”. Businesses can tell you how difficult team building has become and how disorderly offices can be with an attitude like this.
People are demoralized. They are broke and unemployed or under-employed. They don’t feel important. Their future isn’t bright. They feel cheated and somebody needs to pay for hurting their feelings and pissing on their dreams. The anger in these voters is almost palpable. (I’m a psychologist and see a lot of angry people.) These voters are going to punish Team Obama for telling them “Yes we can!” and turning that inside out to “You didn’t build that!”
This election is unlike any other in many people’s lifetimes. It is their Reagan-Carter moment.
Ah, BBH. That’s why I love ya; you’re an optimist like me. It must be our filthy Papist upbringings.
This is what 2012 looks like — lines around the block at Romney-Ryan rally in High Point, NC
– Which, putting it less flowery than thou Leigh, I would suggest simply means the Left has fucked with the sleeping Dragons chain once too often.
I tend to think of something else leigh, namely, Eastern 401. There is always a bigger picture to keep in mind, and about which we must question ourselves. Do we have it? Or are we distracted by emerging exigencies?
Romney/Ryan haul: $3.5 million in 24 hours
#RomneyRyan2012 rally in NC: On-scene reports, photos show overflow crowd fired up, ready to go
No the Romney-Ryan ticket isn’t a dream team that will bring us a perfect union. I do think the ticket will do less damage to our country than the reelection of Obama-Biden. T
Listening to Blabbermouth-Shultz on Foxnews this morning is enough to make me KNOW that i need to vote for whomever is in the other party.
At least for now. This November.
– Sdferr, America and Americans, at least from 60,000 feet, still look the same.
– Just because its desperately important for a small segment of our populace to deny our exceptionalism puts us under no obligation what so ever to believe them.
Nevertheless, it’s one definition of evil. I’m not ascribing malign moral agency to the state. The founders, however, understood the perniciousness inherent to human nature. That’s the “ghost in the machine,” so to speak. Consequently they sought to limit the damage people could do to each other through the power of the state. I very much doubt the founders looked upon what they wrought and pronounced it “Good,” in the sense you and other seem to be using it.
That, in turn, is very much in counter-distinction to the Progressives and New Dealers and New Frontiersmen and all the other busy-bodies attempting to impose an incremental re-Founding upon us. They look upon their work and find it Good.
And if it isn’t, they’ll fix it.
Quis Custodes custodiet? bh?
I would suggest a different emphasis than upon a state whose purpose is to protect natural rights. Rather, I would say that it was set up recognizing natural rights and allowing for those rights to be exercised in a realistic manner (“realistic manner” being my shortcut to avoid sidetracking into everyone’s rights buming up against everyone elses).
Just as a general observation, the bad habit we as a people collectively fallen into is thinking of government as an agent to do things for us, instead of as a means by which we can do things collectively (e.g. keep the Canucks at bay) that we can do less well by ourselves. The whole “when there’s a problem, the government must move” mentality is what I’m talking about.
Then it’s a goddamned shame we nominated Howard fucking BAKER!
(shouting intended)
Where “bum[m]ing up” is merely friendly dancing, cheek to cheek, we might say.
States are created to protect natural rights from what?
There is always a bigger picture to keep in mind, and about which we must question ourselves. Do we have it? Or are we distracted by emerging exigencies?
Well, as we are not the Almighty, keeping our eye on the sparrow and all, we can perform triage on our various problems. The first of which is getting our fiscal house in order.
I need to think about this some more to give a better answer.
Ernst, Howard Baker? Are you thinking Romney is a ditherer like Baker?
“States are created to protect natural rights from what?”
I don’t know exactly how far you intend to assert the definition B Moe, but in general terms, states [meaning modern nation states] aren’t created to protect natural rights, if we only look around. Our nation, uniquely I think, on the other hand, was founded on this notion of natural right.
Yet the progressive program simply denies the existence of any such thing. And therein the difficulty putting such professors into power in America. We’re [or our political founding is] thus undermined from the jump.
Each time we’ve had professors in charge, it has proved disasterous for our country.
– Speaking of Howards they had Dean baby on WSJ/Cpan the other day, talking about the economy. His main points: “Too much government and too much entitlement.
– Somehow I was able to keep from spitting coffee all over my monitor.
– On a different note: If this is the end game the leaders of the Left have in mind, judging from the reactions in the comments section, they might be well advised to think about going to plan B.
Debbie Washerwoman-Schultz is on FNS. The woman is a dolt.
No. I’m saying he’s a big government Republican like Baker.
Romney’s seeking to conserve the social welfare state.
Just like Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush before him.
That is what I was responding to, sdferr, bh’s question that “All states are evil? Even ones whose entire purpose is to protect our natural rights?”
The paradox being that our natural rights are primarily being protected by the state from the state itself.
Theoretically.
You don’t think the leash on your dog is evil. The dog would disagree.
Romney’s seeking to conserve the social welfare state.
Probably so. Is he seeking to expand it and let its tentacles into all facets of our lives? Not that I’ve heard or read. You’re a big SoCon guy, Ernst. How much is too much? I’m more of a libertarian and don’t want anyone telling me how to live or taking my monies.
If, in the metaphor B Moe, the dog is the state, so the state takes the leash to be evil . . .
ach, I just can’t make it work. I’m not sure dogs have concepts, to start, though they mayn’t be comfortable with leashes at times. As to States, even less am I sure they have concepts, or brains with which to manipulate concepts.
So ignorant am I that even the first steps are beyond my powers.
– Leashes on government, like leashes on dogs, are right, proper, and neccessary.
– A leashed dog makes a lot of noise, but seldom bites anyone, as long as they’re smart enough to keep their distance.
– Like a dog, if governnebt does its sole job of protecting the home then you keep it and feed it enough to leep it strong, healthy and effective. If it fails that prinary function then you replace it, as you would with any broken tool.
– It’s not rocket surgery.
The zombie-eyed granny killer was a bold choice.
Honestly, where would the GOP be without Karl Rove?
Dogs do not reason. Recently, one of my dogs decided that she was going to eat the better part of a peach pie that was cooling on the countertop. She knows she is not allowed to eat food that isn’t given to her and that food stealing is verboten. She smelled tasty pie and decided to eat it. Is my dog evil? I would say no. She likes pie.
“She likes pie.”
– The Metaphore is fine. Gov doesn’t like or dislike pie. Gov doesn’t know pie exists. Its the politicians that are busy looking for pies to eat.
– So once again, it isn’t the tool, its the people weilding it.
Pretty much where we were when we left this last night.
– Pretty much where we’ve always been, and probably always will be.
– God, in his perfection and perfect wisdom, gave life the one thing it needed most, imperfection, to give it a goal to strive for, a reason to exist.
– Our Constitution is not a perfrct tool of liberty, but its the best we’ve seen so far. At its best it’s only as good as the fidelity we keep in its tenents. Any failures at that level, is in ourselves, not in the tool, or our stars.
Yup. This is the fatal flaw of Progressives in their quest to perfect man through government. The Founders’ saying in the Declaration of Independance “in order to form a more perfect union” weren’t shooting for perfection.
Actually you all got the metaphor backwards. Government is the leash. Government constrains and restricts by definition. It is rationalized as being for your own good, and sometimes it is, but it is still a constraint.
– Well Moe it comes down to whether you see yourself as the master of the tool, and insist on that relationship, or you accept the premise that the tool rules you.
– When we accept things that are not right through complacency or inattention, thats not the fault of the tool, and the same holds even when its people misusing the tool.
– No matter how you look at it, the responsibility comes bak to us. The buck stops here.
– If we find we’ve raised generations of dependents, people who do not understand or value liberty, that too is ours. We own that, much as it may make us feel badly we can’y excape that honor.
Good, B Moe, that helps I think.
So the distinctions we’re equilibrating are 1) Dog owner – the people or sovereign, 2) the leash – the government or regime, and 3) the dog – the (more or less permanent) state or nation (dare we say commonweal?).
But do I have this right?
It is a decent thing to distinguish the formal unity, call it the nation, from the regime which rules in the nation, call it the government (or the constitution in a constitutional arrangement), in turn from the people who make up the polity, call them the sovereign power in the nation. Still, you say how you intend it.
You guys are making this way more complicated than it is. The leash, and the hand holding it, is the government. The people are the dogs.
I don’t remember what the rest of my point was.
I would be interested in the rest of your point, B Moe. I think sdferr has the formulation right, using your dog/master/leash metaphor.
I would think we are the people holding the leash, not those being held by it.
Actually B Moe I want the government to constrain that guy over there from criminally interfering with my rights. He tries to rob, defraud or murder me & mine, I want him in jail or dead.
If government does that, it’s legit. It leaves me alone while I rise or fall on my skills talents & choices and it only constraints me if I start to forget my responsibilities and decide to force other people to support me.
That’s square one – the basic difference between my POV (and the Founders) v the equality-based (and with superior rulers to decide the scales) Leftism
BTW just got in. My 40th reunion was a blast.
At Obama fundraiser in Chicago. Admission only $51, but room is half full.
– Hey there D, how did it go with the “friends” you mentioned.
– And now for something completely different: “Liars, Lying Democrats, and the lies they tell” , part 61….
– Jug ears and hair plugs both look like someone kicked their dogs.
Someone has to tenderize the dogs, BBH.
Apologies B Moe, as that would be the last thing I wanted to do (making something simple in itself more complex than necessary). Again, evidently, my ignorance has befuddled the matter. Think I’ll keep a respectful silence for a time and see how things unfold.
– nr, tean R/R pulled in 3.5 million in just 24 hours after the Veep anouncement.
BBH
Actually, I think everyone decided to completely skip politics of any sort last night. Drink, dance, and share family successes & tragedies, seem to be the overriding themes of the night.
The two gals that blocked me didn’t make the reunion. And I have so many other friends that good times were had by all.
– That’s great, glad you had a fab time. The book on Proggs is they don’t generally work and play well with others, and that promises to become more common in the future.
– If/when they find themselves shunned enough just maybe they’ll start thinking for themselves a bit, but its doubtful. Once you step onto pleasure island and you grow the tail and donkey ears it’s hard to go back.
Didn’t mean to be a dick sdferr, just really tired and burnt out from work, shouldn’t even be trying to form coherent thoughts.
“Didn’t mean to be a dick. . .”
You weren’t. And aren’t. The thought never entered my mind.
With apologies for the lateness of the reply and all (real life™ keeps getting in the way), I respectfully suggest you go back and reread what you just wrote. Because it seems to me then that you should be even closer to our friend Mr. Howard than I am.
Unless you’re one of those pitiable fiscal conservative/social liberal types.
[snicker]
Unless you’re one of those pitiable fiscal conservative/social liberal types.
[snicker]
That’s probably me. We’ve had our disagreements in the past about social issues and that probably won’t change.
Safe from the Bushes.
Huge Romney-Ryan rally in Waukesha, WI (photos)
Social liberalism is a real drag on the public purse.
So long as you try to spare people from bearing the full cost of the decisions a liberal society allows them to make, that is.
Fiscal conservatives need social conseratives. If only to keep social liberalism affordable by offering an alternative.
That rally looked great on the teevee. It was sweet to see how happy all the cheeseheads were for Ryan. He and Romney were both wiping away tears.
Whenever I’ve taken those online tests about where you fall in a test of politics, I always come up classical liberal/conservative.
There’s hope for me yet.
Romney is what he is. Know it before you decide to vote for him (if you decide to vote for him).
Buyer’s remorse ahead of the 2014 midterms is just foolish.
Oh, he’s a spender, alrighty. He doesn’t spend like a drunken sailor like our current prez, but he spends it up.
Buyer’s remorse is a fool’s errand. I want to see some more specifics about what Romney plans to do in office. I have to say that I like that he and Ryan have grabbed the third rail, entitlements, and are forcing a debate about spending. The last time we heard talk about reform to entitlements was the first time Dubya ran. And look what happened there.
Tick…tick…BOOM.
Tick…tick…BOOM.
the proggtard response is stuck on stupid
– Wow Pablo….the Lefturds are really pooping their diapers over that.
Sarah Palin won’t be speaking at this year’s Republican convention. Well, that’s it. As of today, I am no longer a Republican.
Great news, Pablo!
Sarah Palin won’t be speaking at this year’s Republican convention.
thank mccain and his team
She was never scheduled to speak. Maybe she wasn’t invited?
As of today, I am no longer a Republican.
well you’re not alone
I suppose the real story will come out in the days to come, Leigh. And newrouter, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if McCain and company were behind this.
miss sarah would have been a distraction. paul ryan has her stuff covered.
That’s good to know.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if McCain and company were behind this.
nah she’s got the energy portfolio in mitten’s administration. don’t give the proggtards anything.
No she wouldn’t’ve been. No he doesn’t have.
Comma, comma.
It’s bad enough that McCain is going to be there. I think Team Romney is trying to turn a page and having the previous (losing) team both at the convention would cause a giant distraction from what they are trying to bring forward. I’m unclear about why McCain is invited. Is it custom? Did he threaten someone?
Anyway, there would be endless press coverage of the wrong people if they were both there.
No she wouldn’t’ve been.
oh sure abccbsnbcmsnbcnytwapo wouldn’t have a field day making the election about the moose hunter. dream on bro.
I’m unclear about why McCain is invited.
if rr wins rr has to deal with the stupid bastard
I’m hoping RR turns him out to pasture. They are both too polite to tell him to go fuck himself, so maybe they could suggest that he spend more time with the family.
Very well then, we let the Fifth Estate silence the most significant consistent conservative voice in recent memory.
Me?
I’m Walking the Dog
Palin is divisive because of the narrative the progressive media, both news and entertainment, have created around her. That’s her fault, of course, so she should stay home and shut up.
/pragmatist
we let the Fifth Estate silence the most significant consistent conservative voice in recent memory.
sorry don’t want to debate miss sarah 85 days before the election. stick the economy down the choom gang’s throat.
It’s not her fault. It is a fact, however.
so she should stay home and shut up.
maybe miss sarah has role in mitten’s bag of tricks and this ain’t it(convention).
i’ll give this to mittens: he knows how to reorganize an entity and make money doing it. he’ll have fun in the “not for profit” sector.
i wonder if glenn beck was involved with the ryan pick?
Yes. She’s doing fine doing what she’s doing. The last etam, that lost, isn’t needed at the convention. So what the hell is McCain doing speaking?
I thought Party Conventions were where those sorts of laundries were supposed to be aired?
So what the hell is McCain doing speaking?
No kidding. What can the old bastard possibly have to add? Maybe he’ll get mad and leave if he doesn’t get a featured spot. I hope so, anyway.
There’s Republicans in here? Who knew?
– McOldFart is too the Reps as Cahtah is to the Leftards. They would die begore they said it out loud but they just wish he would die already.
– The right isn’t that rapacious, but they do wish the fuck he’d retired years ago. Old politicians are like the bad penny. You never get rid of them til you do.
So what the hell is McCain doing speaking?
giving the senile idiot some face time so he shuts the eff up. mccain is a rino schumer.
and when was the last time you ever heard him shut up?
Yes, this. Big work, lowish profile. Sister Sarah has it right. Well, the Romney thing grates. But yes, Congress. She seems to do that very well.
“….proving, once again that the Lefts mantra is exactly one talking point lie deep, and then the wheels come off the narrative bus, Rich turns the Mad cow into a sputtering sock puppet….
– Rachel, you ignorant slut….why don’t you just answer the question?
– w-wait…wait…I want to know…..I want to know the logic…..
– You can’t answer it can you……
When the mute button on my TV remote still worked.
I may have worn it out trying to shut him up.