John Hawkins takes a closer look at what serial al-Frankenhumper, Atrios (“OPEN THREAD! BUSH IS A WANKER! IBID!”), has described as the “fairly clear consensus” among the “liberal netroots” of what needs to be done to save this country from itself—a litany of policy ideas and initiatives that, as Hawkins notes, includes nothing “about illegal immigration, deficit spending, the Kyoto Protocol, or the International Criminal Court.” Similarly, Hawkins notes that “Atrios skips all the tough foreign policy issues”—though I believe that’s a bit misleading, as Atrios does allow that
* Torture is bad,
* Imprisoning citizens without charges is bad
* Playing Calvinball with the Geneva Conventions and treaties generally is bad
* Imprisoning anyone indefinitely without charges is bad
* Stating that the president can break any law he wants any time “just because” is bad
—all of which do speak to foreign policy, albeit in the squeaky little baby lisp of a six-year old Cindy Brady caught up in her tattling stage.
Not surprisingly, Atrios (“DID I MENTION THAT I SHARED A WINE COOLER WITH JANEANE GAROFALO? OPEN THREAD!”) wants the feds to control our medical choices and collect more of our money in taxes (after all, who better to decide how our money should be dispersed than our betters), while he is all for allowing the courts to issue judicial fiats that circumvent the wishes of voters, so long as they have the happy effect of reaching the “proper” conclusions— “proper” here being synonymous with “what progressives have decided is just, regardless of what the knuckledragging, racist, homophobic, misogynist cousin-fuckers in flyover country think. Because let’s face it, if those paste-eating morons didn’t have the franchise, this representative democracy of ours would run a whole lot better, I can tell you that much.”
Fortunately, Atrios (“RUMSFELD TOUCHES HIMSELF! OPEN THREAD!”) did manage to find room on his list for the important things, one of which—“* Imprison Jeff Goldstein for crimes against humanity for his neverending stupidity”—is of particular interest to me.
And let it not be said that I am not grateful. After all, given the power, you’d think he’d order me shot.
But I suppose Atrios (“BUSH SNORTED COKE, THE COKE-SNORTING COKEHEAD! OPEN THREAD!”) is one of those benevolent despots—which is hardly surprising, I suppose, given the progressive left’s commitment to “tolerance” and “nuance.” Plus, they are, like, so totally against violence and stuff.
OPEN THREAD!
One of these days, Alice… er, Jeff. Someday, someone really shall have to explain to me why BECAUSE OF THE NEEDLESS CAPITAL LETTERS! is funny, and, say, Stephen Colbert is not.
Until then, heh, indeed, chucklesnort.
Colbert might have been funnier if he had spoken with capital letters. But I doubt it.
BUSH IS THE SUXOR.
See how funny that was? Or, was it insightful commentary? It’s so hard to tell.
I find that it helps to capture the OUTRAGE AND RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION, Jack Roy. YMMV.
And I think Colbert is funny. Just not in that venue on that particular night. To be honest, I was never particularly fond of roasts. Watching Chevy Chase in near tears put me off them.
Sure, the Prez is a big boy and can take it. But I just didn’t find it to be anything more than an attempt to show how “brave” he was—while ironically he was probaby more frightened about NOT doing that material.
Look at what Atrios (“I LUNCHED WITH RANDY FUCKING RHODES, BABY!) did to Wonkette for not thinking Colbert funny: he savaged her and her novel.
He’s just a prick. Must have tenure.
OPEN THREAD!
Jeff
Have you seen a transcript of Ahmadinejad’s letter to GW?. As I said here, scrape away the call to convert to Islam and the rest of the screed could easily be mistaken for Atrios or dKos. Ahmadinejad hits every ANSWER/Soros/Duncan/Markos/Carter talking point.
Maybe Duncan is ghost writing for Ahmadinejad?
Duncan can try to hide it all he wants but it’s clear that when he says he would imprison you, he meant IN HIS HEART.
“Imprison Jeff Goldstein for crimes against humanity for his neverending stupidityâ€Â
I think we have a suspect and motive for the disappearance of the armadillo. What did he ever do to you Atrios? HUH!? He just wanted to dance!
I’m glad I’m on your side, Jeff.
Even Stratfor (an intelligence company) remarked on one of its daily podcasts that while the Democrats whine about Bush and Republicans, they have yet to offer an alternative. The Lefts doesn’t know what constructive criticism is, it seems.
When he’s not spreading the santorum.
Thanks Jeff. I look like Ashura from banging my head.
Actus, you’re my hero. Your rapier wit cuts to the core of each issue, exposing the substance to which we should all clearly be pointing our ephebic little brains. It was breathtaking, in the least, to read your terse circumlocution of the suggestion that there is rhetorical isomorphism between the “progressives†and the sworn enemies of the West. Savage Love is teh R0X0R!
Those who are thinking about delivering some kindly admonition unto me regarding the feeding of trolls can just save it. I’m happy to entertain a discussion of troll-feeding in theory, but for my part, I’d rather we leave the business of scolding those who depart from the fold to the Atrios crowd.
You know what’s funny? The first commenter announcing his intention and then faceplanting the prow of the speeding humor train. That’s funny.
tw: cold
We must have TOLERANCE, people…..
Imprison…yada yada yada
Obviously Atrios (“I AM REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT IMPRISONING JEFF GOLDSTEIN! OPEN THREAD!”) isn’t really serious about imprisoning you, but to be able to blithely make such a joke while expressing outrage over the Bush administration “Imprisoning citizens without charges” displays a level of cognitive dissonance that is frankly disturbing.
I remember seeing on a history channel show about how during the 1971 Attica prison riots John Lennon spoke out against maltreatment of the prisoners. All they needed was love, said Mr. Imagine. The notion that even the hearts of brutal criminals can be changed if we just show enough compassion is certainly a nice (if naive) sentiment, but that bottomless wellspring of human kindness that Lennon showed towards the inmates was absent in regards to the police and the courts. It was they who deserved to be in Attica instead of the criminals they helped send there.
Come on, which is it lefties? Are you for compassion or vengence? Will you apply your philosophy of self examination and good-faith efforts to understand others not only to terrorists but also to (*gasp*) conservatives and other thugs and wreckers who get in the way of the progressive cause?
Orwell, oops, I mean “Or will” you seek to drive us before you, crush us utterly and hear the lamentation of our reactionary hausfraus?
“TWO MINUTES HATE! OPEN THREAD!”
Malaclypse, maybe you could use your influence with A@#$! to convince him to post his comments in all caps.
BECAUSE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE!
And let it not be said that I am not grateful. After all, given the power, you’d think he’d order me shot.
No, no, no. Leftist oppressors don’t shoot people; they’re far too enlightened for that. They merely demand gov’t control of all resources, then misallocate them so you and every other insufficently loyal person are given the opportunity to valiantly starve to death for the good of the proletariat. That’s how the great ones handled unprincipled riffraff like yourself.
And the netroots are Karl Rove’s best friend. Nothing would make the GOP happier than to see Kos’ krowd ascendant in Dem circles.
Hate on Duncan if you like (he sure hates on y’all), but you have to admit that what he listed there is a pretty sane – and, in political parlance, “actionable” – list of domestic policy initiatives.
To hear it from some quarters, the Democratic agenda involves subverting America. But Duncan’s list—which I take as a solid assessment of the average liberal’s policy agenda—suggests that the Evil Left has much more prosaic goals: maintain a progressive tax structure; regulate industry to protect the environment; improve and universalize the health care system; maintain the separation of church and state; support family planning; etc.
(I know that Jeff reinterprets all these goals as draconian assaults on liberty, but all of them, with the exception of universal health care, are already practiced. We tax; we regulate; government provides health care; etc.)
And as for his foreign policy stuff, it’s worth noting that he does not call for a dramatic departure from the Bush principles of expanding democracy and policing/thwarting terrorism. He calls for a strong set of moral guidelines and an internationalist approach, but he does not call for, say, “isolationism.”
None of this fits the common metanarrative in which liberals and the left hate America and want to see it fail. That he hates Bush is obvious. But how radical is the agenda he lays out? Based on the existing political norms of this country (we tax, we regulate, government provides services, we recognize international law, we pursue foreign policy goals in collaboration with other nations), it’s not radical at all.
So maybe you just need a good beating, Jeff
None of this fits the common metanarrative in which liberals and the left hate America and want to see it fail.
Well, not per se. They just don’t love America enough to want it to succeed if it means Bush is perceived as succeeding too. And if Bush failing means America failing… well, America deserves to be taken down a peg. Then maybe they’ll learn to respect the authority of the UN instead of being cowboy unilateralists.
Also, they want Americans to stop their damned idiotic flag-waving. That kind of jingoistic patriotism is beyond passe; it’s downright offensive.
Beeter
That Duncan aggitates for nationalized healthcare when even the NYTimes runs articles on its abject failures wherever it is in force shows, quite simply, that “progressives” are NOT sane.
and why isn’t the Administrator of the EPA a caribou?
Skills? Life experience? Duh.
And yes
Let’s go back to confiscating property from bereaved families, punishing others for being successful, and pour even MORE money down the blackhole of SocSec.
Yep…let’s make US citizens even MORE dependent on Nannystate while leading them to a utopia free of any responsibilities (except working for their progressive
mastersrepresentatives) and outlawing that icky religion stuff. Jews? Christians? Hate groups. Each and every one of ‘em.Randy Rhodes? From Sabbath? Sweet.
Better someone from mining or energy interests. Thats the sort of life experiences some people like.
I recommend you find your own inner brevity. But I did fall for “isomorphism,” though. Reminded me of the good old days of algebra.
Its about time they learned the power of cheese.
Ozzy. And dead.
No, I think a caribou is your man. He knows what he needs up in ANWR: A nice warm pipe to snuggle up to on those cold arctic nights.
That, and a little nasty caribou “junk in the trunk” every once in a while. Aaaawwwww Yeeeeah!!!
But Duncan’s listâ€â€which I take as a solid assessment of the average liberal’s policy agendaâ€â€suggests that the Evil Left has much more prosaic goals: maintain a progressive tax structure; regulate industry to protect the environment; improve and universalize the health care system; maintain the separation of church and state; support family planning
Shudder. I think you’ve outlined why I’m a Republican.
Well met! To think, I’ve been struggling all along to use language thoughtfully and with some craft and artifice in an effort to address issues of substance when I could have just been making coded, infantile scatological references.
By “fall for,†I can only assume you’re making a pass at me and while I’m flattered, I don’t swing that way. I chose the word carefully. The assertion that the West has failings does not redound to the g factor of the asserterâ€â€I mean, y’know, congratulations Captain Obvious. What strikes many as contemptible is the elevation of polemics against the West to the level of sacrament. This was a path blazed by westerners and has now been adopted wholesale by our enemies (without any real insight into what predicates the Western weltanschauungâ€â€or do you figure Ahmadinejad to be an Aristotelian scholar?)
Actually, Darleen, there’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that universal health care systems can be run effectively. Britain gives us a good example of what to avoid. I think most progressives would like to see some kind of hybrid: a national system that guarantees a baseline of care, and private insurance for those who can afford it. (Remember: we already have this kind of system for old people and children.)You should visit Ezra Klein’s site; he’s got some interesting things to share.
Hey, if you’re ideologically opposed to progressive taxation, government regulation, the separation of church and state, and government provision of services, you’re well on your way to hating America! Those policies have helped build the incredibly prosperous and dynamic society we have today.
If you don’t like taxes, don’t use government services: roads, water, schools, defense, etc.
Social Security is both incredibly popular and incredibly successful. America used to be full of poor old people. Now it isn’t. If people didn’t like it, they would’ve backed Bush’s proposal to change it, but they didn’t.
Who said anything about that? You’re so extreme, Darleen!
And who said anything about that? Who said anything—anything at all—about outlawing religion?
Nobody but you, that’s who, Darleen. You’re making my point for me: Duncan says, maintain the separation of church and state. And you come back with, “Duncan wants to outlaw religion!”
<i>Duncan said nothing of the sort. </i>Furthermore, Duncan’s proposed policy is one that has helped make America an incredibly dynamic religious community. Keeping the government out has allowed the marketplace of religious ideas to thrive. Meanwhile, find me a nation with state-sponsored religion where that religion is not sapped of its energy or hopelessly corrupted.
So if you find Duncan’s ideas radical or offensive, you should find another country to live in, because we practice all the things he’s proposed.
Hey, if you’re ideologically opposed to progressive taxation, government regulation, the separation of church and state, and government provision of services, you’re well on your way to hating America! Those policies have helped build the incredibly prosperous and dynamic society we have today.
Or you could argue that we have the prosperous and dynamic society despite these things. At the very least, I doubt progressive taxation and government regulation have made us more prosperous on the whole. And separation of church and state is largely irrelevant to prosperity. Government services, to some extent, might help, but that depends on how efficiently and effectively they function. Roads might be a success, but I’m not convinced public schools are, at least not relative to the sheer amount of money we pour into them.
Also:
So if you find Duncan’s ideas radical or offensive, you should find another country to live in, because we practice all the things he’s proposed.
I guess there’s no need to elect Democrats then.
Ric, WTF? What does that even mean? How do you see value in that? To the extent that actus doesn’t even have the stones to make a goddamn point, he is innocuous enough not to get stomped on by Jeff. T
here isn’t some gnostic value that Jeff derives from the moron’s rantings; he is door mat where we all wipe our Keds on and get to the serious business of wanton fucktaration.
beet
Death taxes are confiscatory of property that has already been taxed, repeatedly, over the life of the property owner. To demand that the state has a right to charge heirs a fee to keep their own property is to support the idea that there IS no private property rights and that all property is “on lease” from the state. The raison d’etre of anarcho-syndicalism.
Duncan advocates not JUST progressive taxes but MORE and HIGHER ones. We are all equal before the law, but some of us are more equal than others. Again, a decidedly illiberal view.
Nationalized healthcare eventually collapses. No where is it “working effectively”. Those systems that continue to limp along only do so because they 1) turn a blind eye to private care 2) ration it by allowing the old and infirm to die while waiting, or euthanizing them. Even Medicare in this country has huge problems as many doctors cannot practice when they are reimbursed about half the cost of the same procedure done on a patient with private insurance. So they either restrict the number of Medicare patients they see, or patients are longer and longer times to wait for appointments as these patients are “spread out”.
SocSec is a ponzi scheme. While people are getting benefits from the scheme, certainly THEY will be happy and find it popular. It doesn’t make it any less of a blackhole. SocSec is a transfer TAX, with no property value, no rights of inheritance, etc. As a public employee, I don’t pay into SocSec… I have a fully refundable retirement program. Same as the elected Congresscritters who beat the table and lie about how there’s not a damned thing wrong with SocSec.
“Maintain the seperation of church/state” on the heels of yanking all government ‘funding’ of faithbased charities makes me cynical about what Duncan really means.
Duncan is proposing, not American values, but European ones. If you wish more and greater such “progressive” policies based on a watered down version of from each according to their ability, to each according to their need…please book a oneway ticket to the EU.
Here’s the one thing I have yet to understand:
I’m sure that seems like a good idea to them now but what about when the Red State knucledraggers out vote them and get the keys to the T-bird with all those new powers… Kinda like we have now-ish?
They hate the flavor of the koolaid right now so why try to enable the government to be able to make more of it when you might not be the ones picking the flavors?
Just curious.
beetroot says:
“Hey, if you’re ideologically opposed to progressive taxation, government regulation, the separation of church and state, and government provision of services, you’re well on your way to hating America! Those policies have helped build the incredibly prosperous and dynamic society we have today. “
I am certainly pleased that you recognize that we have an incredibly prosperous and dynamic society today. Few progressives are prepared to admit as much and I congratulate you for your perceptiveness.
The issues with progressive taxation, government regulation, the separation of church and state, and government provision of services are one of degree rather than one of kind.
The differences we have are over how progressive the tax code should be, when does government regulation start to do more harm than good, and which services should the government be providing and for whom. This is why Duncan’s list is so trivial. It outlines broad principles on which there is no real disagreement as a way of obscuring the very important details.
Regards,
Neil
Shorter DB:
From each according to their ability; to each according to their needs.
ALL taxes are confiscatory. “Progressive” tax policy is just a nice< PC way of saying that those that have achieved get the privelage of paying a higher percentage of their income than those that “just get by”. Let’s punish achievement!!! The only reason that I am selling my business is taxes, and the onerous, time consuming filing requirements.
As an employer, rather than an employee, I get the privelage of matching my employee’s Social Security and Medicare contributions, I am required to pay a minimum of 13.2% of my net income as a Self Employment tax (no one matches my contributions),I get the privelage of paying for their insurance for “on the job” injuries, often incurred from their carelessness or negligence(roughly a 9-10 percent tax on their gross pay) I get the privelage of paying their Federal and State Unemployment Insurance (they pay nothing). I get to file over 30 tax filing (returns) per year, providing employment basically for one person.
Instead of just “closing down” and selling the assets, I have instead held on for over a year, looking for the right buyer, so my employees could continue in their jobs.
I can tell you from experience that regulation and taxation is ruining the small business environment and that environment is what is pushing economic growth.
When it no longer becomes profitable for “achiever” to profit – the world will be bereft of “achievers”.
Hey, where can I get whatever beetroot is smoking, ‘cause that’s some fine hallucinations going on there!
Another bit of Leftist utopianism: universal healthcare? Just hire some smart Americans that won’t make the mistakes of the Brits. (And the Canadians, and the French, and the Germans, and yeah, well, anyone else that has attempted to offer free health care.)
Wow! Powerful insight.
Right after that, the Leftists can move onto a state-directed economy. You know, those 5-year plans, and all.
But here’s the key. You hire a bunch of smart Americans to run it. You know, the ones that know better than to repeat all those dumb mistakes made by the East Germans.
Leftists: the only ones so clueless as not to recognize that communism failed, and its bretheren socialism is treading close on its heels. But then for Leftists to recognize such, they’d have to actually look at what’s happened in the world over the last 30 years–instead of reformulating their vision of utopia.
But ya gotta admire their stick-to-it-ness with the retort, “hey, we got taxes, we got regs, if you don’t like it, move somewhere else.”
Really open minded of you, beetguy, diversity of skin color–OK, diversity of opinion–go fuck yourself.
Cool, I’m with it. When are all you Lefties moving away after your threats from the last two elections?
Try winning an election before you lecture on policy.
Cheers.
First, they came for the armadillos. And I did not speak out, because I was not an armadillo…
Then they came for the Amarilloans, and I did not speak out, because I lived in Lubbock.
but, really, they’re probably better off anywhere but amarillo, except maybe el paso.
The only solution to ignorance like this is for progressives to get out of the coastal states and learn about people in flyover states first hand.
I mean, if progressives could just see our cousins they wouldn’t be so quick to judge.
Sacrament was hoped to be avoided by referencing the spreading of santorum. But some audiences have just so much they already are ready to believe, that its hard to say anything besides what they expect to hear.
Actually, beetroot, your confidence in the negative (and an unspoken endorsement of a visionary, futuristic, Hillaryesque utopia) notwithstanding, the onus is likely on those who, like you, wish socialism the best despite its record of failure. In the real world that’s projecting simplicity and emotion where reason and history already serve as adequate benchmarks.
Should you want to somehow demonstrate socialism’s myriad successes by the evidence, the floor is yours.
Concerning healthcare, if you convert from private to public management, you’ve gained maybe a couple fiscal margin points to work with, at least to start. To merely assume those few points will revolutionize healthcare and affirm a regulated collectivist medical regime by it’s shiny new success and durable reliability is an ambitious task; one only a wide-eyed liberal would accept.
Hmmm. Progressive taxation is (1) but a recent plague upon the land. I tend to doubt you could ascribe it such magnificence by way of it’s being an essential component of originalist thought – and then to detractors “hating America”, presumably by rejecting the lofty, heavily principled ideals implied by your unique political evangelism.
(2) Taxation has repeatedly been shown to respond terribly favorably to, say, Republican cuts. How’s that fit your dogma? Has that policy built “incredible†prosperity?
About regulation, ditto. Mere assertion isn’t quite making it for me, friend. How’s regulation build prosperity? How’s the heavy hand of government guided the principle of avoiding the wreckage of that same heavy hand of government?
Church/state separation? Care to cite references, origins, outcomes? I’ll push-start you: There is no such thing, neither as constitutional precept or mandate. It’s a recent fiction, abused to the nines by fearmongering secularists who conveniently discard 150 or 200 years of reasonable coexistence between the morality of the private sector and the responsive responsibility of the public sector to that morality, the latter depending on the former just to survive.
How predictably convenient. What happens when folks opt out of the involuntary, force-of-law architecture of our little life-molding centrist income taxation system, my disengenuious friend? How’s that work, exactly?
Rubbish. American used to be full of polio, TB, slaves, wooden wagons, coal-burning pollution, dirt roads, tailfins and polished aluminum camper trailers too. You’ll be as hard pressed to associate fewer “poor old people” with the implied victory of Socialized Security as any of your other irresponsible assertions that attempt to somehow associate improving standards of living with the inherent tyranny of collectivism.
That our collective standard of living isn’t higher is a testament to the failures of entitlement policy, not its imagined successes.
Certainly not you. Doing so would admit the oppression of a State that’s made free speech all but illegal on public property, favoring erecting secular humanism as, if not the religion, at least the philosophy of State, and at the clear expense of the non-secularist.
Naturally, Darleen’s right: Such “separation†is indeed limiting not to the statist ideal, naturally, but to the private expression or any dissenting faith.
That you choose to ignore that basic phenomenon speaks to your other misconceptions about what makes and leeps a free people free.
That you cannot grasp the transition of personal freedom into tyranny in any of these fields is concerning. That you cloak such neocollectivism in the patriotic language of a small government advocate is simply absurd.
I think beetroot is right, and we should use the same philosophy with gasoline, considering it is rapidly becoming unfairly expensive. Consolidate all the oil companies into one system like the AMA, then let everyone have all the gas they want for free, we can pay for it with tax dollars. And since this is probably going to drive up the price of food, we should be prepared to even that up too. All you can eat, everyday! It’s on the House(and Senate!
If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.
[and I’ll be darned if I can remember the attribution]
IIRC, we already have hte same amount of taxpayer support for health care that EU countries with national care do. And for that, we get to then pay privately too.
Now there’s a ringing endorsement of the efficiency of guvmint healthcare if I’ve ever seen one…
I read Atrios fairly regularly, but I never really noticed the namedropping. I’ll keep an eye out for it, though.
there’s no way like the american way.
Consider it an intellectual exercise, Vercingetorix. Assume (large assumption, but do it anyway) that what actus posts makes sense to him. What are the laws of physics like in a Universe where that’s valid? True, there’s no actual content, and barely a container; the post, like most of them, is, from our point of view, as pointless as hymns in Hell. Try to imagine a continuum in which they’re actually meaningful. Riemann and Hilbert managed something very similar…
The exercise seems a waste of time until you go over to tbogg’s, Atrios, or ::shudder:: Kos. If you can’t figure out what actus is on about, you have no hope of fathoming what’s going on there.
As preparation I would respectfully suggest that you hunt down a rather old science fiction short story entitled The Men Return, by Jack Vance. It will give you a leg up, at least.
Regards,
Ric
tw: society. The AI gets off track once in a while, but when it’s working it’s deadly, isn’t it?
I live in Quebec, Canada. I can tell you from the POV of someone who lives with nationalized health-care that no one likes it. All you hear about is people complaining that the government doesn’t pay enough, even though per capita we are paying more than you are. Where is the money going, who the F knows.
My father who has never voted for anyone but a liberal recently paid $300 for a medical test rather than wait 6 months for a prostate exam. Paying for medicine is grey-market here and if he weren’t really worried about the result, I would make a political point about his choices. Keep your system, the alternative is worse.
TW: once upon a time the left had a clue, now they will only lead to doom. Of course, once upon a time the left were liberals, now they are just socialists.
I’ve been reading for a while without posting – until recently. I’ve always been rather forgiving of Actus. He’s been around for a while and has always been polite. I figure that as a lawyer in training he has to practise defending POVs that he disagrees with. If I was a liberal, I’d try to confront KOS-kids and as a conservative, I’d confront conservatives. IE, force yourself to think outside your box. It seems to me that the one consistent fact about actus’ arguments is that they are against the prevailing mood here. This applies to cases that would argue against positions that he has previously promoted. My guess is that he is just trying to get some experience.
Of course this could be my practical mind making excuses for an idiot, but as a Canadian I tend to be forgiving.
TW: It is a lawyer’s job to be stupid. Actus is just another example
A CENTURY OF FAILURES PROVES NOTHING!
(even if you do live in amarillo)
EricP,
No, no, no.
That’s absolutely wrong. The Left have always been socialists. They have never been liberals, at least not since the ascendency of Lenin and Trotsky, and there is nothing liberal about their programs or proposals today. But they have grabbed the word, appropriated it, and trumpeted it, thus distorting it all out of any real meaning.
A liberal believes in free speech; a Leftist believes in regulated speech. Which more correctly characterizes the current level of discourse?
A liberal believes in freedom of opportunity. A Leftist believes in equality of result. Which more correctly describes present-day policies advocated by those who describe themselves as “liberal”?
A liberal supports individuality and individual achievement. A Leftist supports communitarianism and considers that high achievers are thieves. Which comes closer to what your “Liberal Party” and our Democrats consider basic?
We’re more or less forced to accept vernacular usage, but we should avoid letting ourselves be confused. Thanks to decades of propaganda the word “liberal” is generally used to describe Leftists. It’s a lie. If the few liberals remaining in North America belong to a political party it’s the Republicans or Conservatives, but most of them either call themselves “libertarians” or don’t accept a label. Calling actus or beetroot “liberal” is stretching the language out of any rational recognition.
Regards,
Ric
For real? I’ve heard the US spends a greater percentage of our gdp on health care than most other countries.
Jeff,
Thank you for reading Atrios, so I don’t have to.
We do. But this is another example of the fact that figures don’t lie but liars can figure.
The Government share of health care costs in the United States is a great deal less than that of almost any of the developed countries. Most Canadians (for which read, those of my experience) have consciously or unconsciously accepted the notion that that’s what’s significant, so that’s what they quote.
If you look up the figures (sorry, I don’t cite; look it up yourself, that way you know I’m not bamboozling you) the amounts paid out for actual patient care, total of public and private, are about equal to or somewhat less than the median. Where we spend a lot of cash is on two bits most other countries don’t: administration and research. If you add those in as “health care costs” our numbers are around one and a half times those of the next most expensive, which IIRC is England.
It’s fashionable on the left to decry the administrative costs—“health care companies are robbing the public!” and similar mild allegations. But note: nowhere in the United States are there waiting lists for health care unless they are temporary, in cases like hurricanes and other disasters. That’s a sign of a pretty good set of administrators, and good administrators deserve to be paid. And the United States is the only country in the world with decent health care where that’s so. The BHS ran very well for a couple of decades, and still today England is a good place to be if you have the sniffles or get broken to bits in a car smash—but for anything in between, count on a long wait before they get around to you, and above all don’t get old before you need help. You’re gonna die anyway, eventually; why prolong the inevitable when it’s so expensive?
Our research costs are actually hard to break out, since due to things like FDA regulation and drug patenting much of the cost is hidden in the patient care column, but to the extent it’s possible the numbers are gigantic. It’s fashionable among the Left to imagine that if compensation for (e.g.) drugs were reduced—“eliminate drug profiteering!”—that somehow the research would continue, presumably out of the goodheartedness of the same people now being denounced as robber barons. Personally I’m not so sanguine.
There are other considerations. English has a word: sophomoric. It is not a compliment. It refers to the attitude that once general principles have been established solutions are easy. If you want to genuinely be considered “reality-based” with the base closer than Vega Five, you need to learn what is meant by “the Devil is in the details.”
Regards,
Ric
Is that administration, or market pricing? It would seem like if there is a waiting list, you’re charging too little. It doesn’t take much of an administrator to figure that out.
Then again, there is imperfect entry, and probably quite different reservation prices for consumers—not all of us have the same amount of money, and we will all pay most of what we have for health. Which leaves a lot of room for an administrator to capture consumer surplus with clever discriminatory pricing schemes.
But that can’t be several percentage points worth of GDP.
Hey, look, actus addressed a point! And it isn’t even a trivial, peripheral one!
Unfortunately it is. Leftists have correctly identified a problem: we are paying much more for administration than we should. (You can find rightists who disagree with that statement, but I think most of us can at least agree to discuss it as a proposition.)
Where we disagree is the Leftists’ decree of the Only Possible Solution. Monopoly, even if euphemised as “a single-payer system”, is not a general solution to anything; the list of things to which it is a solution is very short, and even there it is, at best, a stopgap that has to be considered a necessary evil. The efficiency of central control is a chimaera, a theoretical construct that doesn’t exist in the real world. A single-payer system will make the problem worse, not better.
Regards,
Ric
you forgot….
JEFF GOLDSTEIN EATS PASTE!! OPEN THREAD!!
Interesting. This thread is yet another microcosm of leftist versus reality:
1. Leftist makes fanciful assertion, utterly unbacked by reality;
2. Realist takes the time to politely correct said assertion;
3. Leftist revises assertion and tacitly begs advice;
4. Realist politely corrects new assertion, offers advice;
5. Leftist either deflects discussion into another channel or goes silent, having learned nothing, least of all respect for reality or his peers.
The point I’d like such a discourse get to is (6) the heaping of scorn on a fool arrogant enough to actually repost up his/her errors at the very next political whistle stop. As if owed—that entitlement mentality?—yet another polite explanation of how his dysfunction conflicts not only reality, but this constitutional republic’s foundational principles.
It’s akin to my demanding—in all seriousness—that a policy of exporting all leftists from the land be adopted immediately by 50 statehouses and Washington, and then expecting say, the Kos idiots take me seriously. Day after day, week after week, month after month.
Leftism is a disease. It learns nothing. It expects civility when it’s uniquely uncivil, reason when it’s unreasonable, and honesty when it’s dishonest. And it appreciates none, pouncing all over again the moment its intellectual full Nelson is relaxed, typically devoid of fact, rich on rhetoric.
Leftism is a disease. Socialism is theft, social equalization is intolerance, social law is a conflict of its own interest, leftist anti-reality is The Lie. And the inherently incorrigible leftist is simply pathological. Evidently clinical cases need a political home too, as do the mentally slothful.
Leftism is a disease. That it’s tolerated when the onus continues to be on it, not on the rest of civilization, mystifies me.
At least until I remember that it’s a disease and to debate it on its own terms is a complete waste of time. You’ll never reason a man out of something he wasn’t reasoned into.
tw: “Right, Chief!” –Maxwell Smart
Quick question: Does that include “Just Because I didn’t want my wife to find out?”
“Progressive taxation” does sound nicer than “disproportionately seizing the wealth of the productive by force because we’re not only jealous of their success but too lazy to put in the work to attain it ourselves.”
But the GOP isn’t exactly proposing everyone in the country pay the same dollar amount of taxes (which would require every taxpayer to fork over about $7,000 – 10,000/yr instead of the richest 5% paying half of all taxes), so it’s a bit of a strawman.
Thank you, Neil. You, at least, recognize that what separates the “left” from the “right” in this country is not some unbridgeable gulf between Stalinesque freedom-hating socialists and rugged pioneers. We all enjoy the benefits of a system that works pretty well, and we differ, for the most part, on questions of degree. Which makes the demonization of the Evil Left seem silly sometimes.
6Gun, on the other hand, has a dramatically different view. Whether it’s an “objectively true” view I’m not sure, but regardless of whether socialism is a “disease,” the American people consistently vote for it, albeit in a highly (and wisely, in my opinion) diluted form. Yes, we redistrubute income; yes, we provide a safety net; yes, we regulate industry for safety and other things; yes, we adjust all of these policies according to the will of the electorate.
And it’s worth noting that even with the conservative movement in complete control of the federal government, relatively little has been done to break down this “socialist” infrastructure. It’s true that we regulate less, but we still regulate; and as everyone here surely knows, some social entitlements have grown under Bush.
Why? People like these policies. By and large, they support the limited version of the “nanny state” that has some so incensed. So whether it’s “evil” in 6Gun’s opinion is irrelevant in the face of overwhelming electoral support.
Actually, I’d just leave it in the hands of a bunch of American voters. They won’t support some draconian 5-year plan, and it won’t happen. It’s our democratic system that has protected us from the extreme manifestations of socialism or any other -ism.
And as for you, B Moe, you want me to:
It wasn’t me that imposed a separation of church and state, it was those pesky founding fathers. And frankly you sound a little paranoid to me. What great threat chokes your freedom of speech in the public square? Is it ‘cuz you can’t plant a giant Ten Commandments rock in front of a courthouse? Where is religion suffering in this country?
You speak of tyranny, Moe, but remember that these confiscatory taxes and horrific public policies represent the will of the American people as expressed in the law.
They go to jail. If the people choose to change the law, they won’t. But for now that’s the law, my little collectivist-hating-even-though-most-Americans-support-a-policy-of-limited-collectivism friend.
beetroot throws bread. Stands, faces the grinning socialist ampitheatre, pumps a tiny fist, and completely misses the irony:
Evil? No, insane. Evil willfully inflicts harm on others as a matter of course. (I’d attribute that to many of the 535 pathological liars in Washington, plus various members of any number of Administrations and the drive-by press. Willful victimizing for personal gain is their stock and trade.)
On the other hand, insanity acts out the same lunacy, expecting different results. As, evidently, do you.
The Mob, finding the public trough, has indeed spoken. And I fall back on my previous statements concerning your myopia, more or less in order:
You’re outta time, beetroot. You proudly blew your load against reality and it failed, quite miserably. All you have left is the foolishness of countrymen destined to prove out Franklin’s warning.
And this actually emboldens you. And still you come on. Leftism is a disease.
Mob? we prefer the term “great unwashed ignoramuses of flyover country.”
beetroot said:
“Thank you, Neil. You, at least, recognize that what separates the “left†from the “right†in this country is not some unbridgeable gulf between Stalinesque freedom-hating socialists and rugged pioneers. We all enjoy the benefits of a system that works pretty well, and we differ, for the most part, on questions of degree.”
Please do not confuse my position with yours. The devil is in the details. The gulf is near-unbridgeable. You and I wish to move in opposite directions. While there is a continuum, I would have us move in the direction of dramatically less government, less regulation, and lower levels of taxation.
The point I was attempting to make is that fuzzy platitudes (most of Atrios’ points) are content free. The arguments come when some detail is added.
Further, beetroot, you misattribute these words. I’ll take responsibility for them:
…admit the oppression of a State that’s made free speech all but illegal on public property, favoring erecting secular humanism as, if not the religion, at least the philosophy of State, and at the clear expense of the non-secularist.
Show me “separation of church and state” as constitutional mandate, beetroot. (We can go around and around about this all week long and I’m afraid you won’t fare well.)
From there, tell me how it came to pass that religious speech on state property became illegal while humanism, as a defining philosophy of a new sphere of social policy, became the single tolerable and erected psuedoreligion. Or is it that “public property”, and hence, policy, came to overtake and consume social welfare, medicine, education, the family, psychology, and even behavioral law without conscious regard to the philosophical implications of that theocracy, thus exempting if from constitutional law?
In your view, how close to religion is secular humanism, beetroot?
Remember, most Americans support a policy of limited collectivism…
And before you sit back secure in the belief that you are relaxed enough promote what amounts to collectivism by proxy while calling others paranoid for asking where you derive your constitutional authority, it’s your chore to extract such principles—reliably and responsibly, mind you—from the original, intended, constitutional structure of this Republic. And from American history.
It’s your job to define your slippery slope, a slide you yourself describe as merely populist.
tw: forms
Because humanism isn’t a religion. Duh. Its just that some religious folks need to feel like they insult others by calling these others’ views a religion
You’re only baiting again, actard, obtusely. What’s it like to have zero self-respect?
With zero ability?
Hey 6Gun, I’ve got aaaaallll the time in the world, baby. My paymasters here at Leftard Central make sure of that. I can shake my little fist all day.
So let’s talk a little more. You’re suggesting that our experiment in limited collectivism – – one which could be said to go back all the way to the Pilgrims, who landed here to conduct an experiment in collective living—is a product of insanity.
What, pray tell, as you look back on the last century of America’s unparalleled cultural, commercial, and ideological success, is the terrible “result” that should be avoided?
As you look back on The American Century, what went so terribly wrong? What horror am I overlooking in my embrace of limited collectivism?
There’s been mistakes and corrections and more mistakes, but what imperfection rises to such a level of injustice that only the “insane” would support it?
(And don’t tell me about Stalin or long lines for English doctors. Let’s talk about the American version.)
Ahhh, but Neil, you still have to admit that what Atrios proposes as a liberal policy agenda is not radically different from what many Americans, including many conservatives, support. That is, he does not proposes the nationalization of property, a dramatic escalation of taxes, large-scale increases in government power to regulate or enforce this or that, etc.
I’m not trying to say that lefties and righties are the same. I just wanted to point out that Atrios’ list suggests that liberal policy goals do not represent dramatic departures from widely-supported practices, which in turn undercuts the common belief that the American leftists is radical. An individual like Darleen may think their policies radical, but as measured against current policy, what Atrios lays out is not a radical agenda.
Show me “separation of church and state†as constitutional mandate, beetroot. (We can go around and around about this all week long and I’m afraid you won’t fare well.)
If it’s not enough for you that the Constitution contains an explicit command that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and that this command has been interpreted by generations of judicial rulings as prohibiting government from funding and/or favoring religious institutions in most cases, then you’re right, I’ll never convince you otherwise.
I grasp it quite well, thank yew very much, but as I said above I trust the American voter to set limits, which, as our century of prosperity and freedom proves, the American voter does quite ably.
I think you’re trying to insult me but I’m not quite sure what the insult is! Aren’t I entitled to a clear explanation?
Completely and utterly different, for this reason:
Religion vests authority and respobsibility in, for lack of a better word, supernatural forces.
“Secular humanism,” meanwhile, vests authority and responsibility in humans.
PS pardon the misattributions.
Not playing that game, beetroot. I think you mean to be misunderstood, a fundamental component in reframing the debate. You’ve already abandoned elegant originalist theory for a contemporary status quo based on majority opportunism; now you somehow expect me to prove the historical failures of mob collectivism while you define the context in which I may do so?
Your intellectual slippery slope already resembles that of your evident preference in government. Your debating style is likewise fraudulent.
I’m not going to sell you on originalism; you need to sell the country you claim is already a simple democracy on its next logical step: Socialism. So have at it.
Nothing you ask hasn’t already been answered and you know it. Well, except where you get your notion that centralizing democratic socialism was intended by the same folks that built a decentralized constitutional republic. Naturally, I’m not going to bother to ask again.
I’m not trying to yank your chain, Gun – – I’m really not clear on what you’re asking.
All I said is that Atrios’ list represents a fairly straighforward and un-radical set of policy priorities, whose fundamental underpinnings (progressive taxation, environmental and other regulation, church-state separation) are widely supported by the electorate .
Furthermore, I asserted that the widespread implementation of these policies – many of which can be called “collectivist” and which I think of as socialism-lite – occurred during a time when America became the most powerful nation in the world, spreading its culture and ideology around the globe. At the same time, our religious culture has thrived, making ours the most dynamically spiritual society in history.
Finally I pointed out that the so-called liberal policies (not those promoted by Atrios’ list, but the more general underpinnings, e.g. progressive taxation, income redistribution, and church-state separation) have remained widely supported by Americans to the point where even a conservative-dominated federal government chose not to roll most of them back.
You suggest that this is the “mob” at the “trough” and that this mob-socialism was for the “insane.”
I’m asking you what, when you look back at America’s incredibly successful, dominant political and cultural performance, is so “insane”?
I mean, is that a crazy question?
… where you get your notion that centralizing democratic socialism was intended by the same folks that built a decentralized constitutional republic.
I’m under the impression that government-by-the-people means that if the people vote for it, they get it, unless the courts rule that it’s unconstitutional. They can vote for racism, but the Constitution says, nay. They can vote for social security, income redistribution, progressive taxation, and the Constitution—as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court—says, okay.
Maybe you have a Constitutional theory under which what you call “democratic socialism” is unconstitutional?
And hey, Ric, how about a little money-mouth connection:
I’ll pay you fifty bucks if you can find any quote from me here at PW or anywhere else in the blogosphere that proves I’m a “leftist” by your definition.
I’d ask you to find evidence that demonstrates my support for regulated speech, “equality of result,” “communatarianism” (as opposed to the mild forms of collectivism represented by Social Security and other common American policies), or the criminal or near-criminal nature of “high achievers.”
Got that? Fifty bucks. For you, or PW, or whatever. You don’t even need to pay me if you lose. I’m not going to try to prove the negative. I just challenge you to prove your own assertion.
Whaddaya say?
Not at all; just pick up the Iliad and the Odyssey and find out how often Men and the Gods competed. But that was still religion, yes no? (Hint: look at Poseidon, Odysseus) We can go pretty far afield; Confucianism, it is a religion, Shintoism, religion, Janism, religion. Not all of them believe in God-Gods-spirits as you would know them, all of them are religions.
Even by your definition, you assign ‘authority’ and ‘responsibility’ to something that does not inherently have it. This is no different than saying we are not a religion because we entrust Gaia, that rock over there, and faeries with moral ‘authority/responsibility’. That distinction without a difference just sucks. Try again.
Jesus, beetroot;
Do you agree with Campus speech codes? Yes or no.
Do you agree that Campus speech codes are a popular leftist issue?
Do you agree with Campaign finance reform? Yes or no. Do you agree that regulating campaigns are a popular leftist issue?
Do you agree with a ”progressive” tax system? Are you for a more ”progressive” tax system? Are you for increased corporate taxes, windfall profits taxes, and for campaign finance reform again, and for lobbyist reform? Each of those offers convenient salients to the heart of the issue; anti-capitalism which DOES treat capitalists, “achievers”, as criminals. Do you disagree that anticapitalism and ideologies inherent thereof are motivating forces on the left.
Do you support unions? Do you know the history of the strike and the General strike? Do you oppose “outsourcing”, in which case you assert the communitarian good of the nation? Are you for urban-renewal, or asserting the communitarian good of the city? Do you disagree that the USSR and Mao’s China were leftist? Do you disagree that the USSR and China, and North Vietnam, among others, had prominent left-wing backers?
Do you disagree that Che Guevara is an icon of the left today? (He doesn’t show up at many pro-life rallies from what I guess.) Do you disagree that he helped usher in communist dictatorship in Cuba, and several Central, SOuth, and African nations? (the proper answer is no, sir.)
Answer those questions. Send the check to Jeff.
Ver, I’ll hold to my definition, but let me clarify what I’m thinking: most systems that we call religious presume the existence of supernatural forces and/or beings. In most of our modern religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) and in most ancient ones that I know of (Aztec, Greek, Native American) those forces are said to have wills and set agendas for good and bad behavior. Gods judge earthly behavior and reward/punish according to their own agenda. In Christianity/Islam, God literally serves as the final judge. His Word defines what is moral, good, bad, etc. So humans may have the day-to-day responsibility of spreading the Word, but the Word itself is God’s domain.
Confucianism aside, most religions that I can think of are similar: there’s a god or gods who define what is good or bad.
That’s what I meant by “responsibility and authority” being vested in the supernatural. An example in practice: Joe Schmoe goes to Iraq to spread the Word. “You’re nuts,” says his neighbor. “I’m just obeying God’s word,” says Joe. “He wants it this way, I’m just the servant.”
Secular humanism is basically the absence of this higher authority setting the agenda; it means that an individual says, “I’m going to Iraq to do X because I think it’s the right thing to do.” Secular law vests authority in other human beings; the highest court in the land is the Supreme Court, not church. There’s no moment in American law where somebody says, “Okay, you did X, and God says Y, so you go to jail.” It’s always, “You did X, and other humans say Y, so you go to jail.”
(Religious belief may influence those other humans, as in, “God tells me to support laws against slavery or kiddie porn,” but in the eyes of secular law, it is human acceptance of God’s law, not divine command, that gives them their power. God, put another way, is free to serve in an advisory capacity, but not to take command.)
That’s what I meant. Put another way, in a religious system, if I have a problem with the rules, who do I appeal to? God, or the gods.
If I have a problem in a secular system, who do I appeal to? Human beings – – and not humans who are interpreting God’s will, but humans who are interpreting other people’s wills.
On another topic, do you think that Ric will take me up on my bet?
Do you believe its legal to should “fire” in a crowded movie theater? Look, my bet with Ric is really simple: he laid out three elements of “leftism” and then suggested that I agree with all three. I’m asking him to prove it based on what he’s already read of my opinions.
I don’t want to muddy the waters about my beliefs until I hear from Ric, because presumably he already knows what I believe.
Let me make something perfectly clear: we’re not talking about the Left. We’re talking about Beetroot. Ric asserted that Beetroot is more of a Leftist than a Liberal, and I’m asking him to prove it.
All he needs to do is show that I demonstrably support:
– Regulating speech
– “communitarianism” (I should clarify that we need a definition here. I’m already allowing that I support some forms of collectivism, but “communitarianism” sounds more dramatic)
– treating high achievement as criminal
That’s all. Fifty bucks. Simple!
I’m not going to dig through the archives to assist; even I, a lavish waster of time, am not that filpant. On the other hand, those points are salient. If you agree with them, you have established your bone fides with regard to advocating restrictions on speech (speech codes restrain political speech, which is protected speech, sacred speech to an American, or should be).
As far as communitarianism goes, nationalism has certain communitarian qualities as do all civics. On the other hand, the particular mode beloved by the left has many advocates and has a taxonomy that is well described: collectivism. Social Security is an example; instead of allowing some people to opt out or have personal savings accounts, Social Security advocates want to make the system mandatory on all as a part of making the entire nation share the burden, stakes, financially and psychologically.
As far as describing you as someone that thinks corporations are criminal, that might be hyperbole. Or it might not. Constant Gardner anyone? And then there are the communist and allied student groups which are vocal supporters of the Left, trial lawyers (Left, Democrat) that punish corporations for everything from Asbetos to being fat, and politicians voting against the market economy (windfall taxes). The Communist party does not, for instance, exist in America in any force, but that does not make lighter hued comrades any less repugnant. Of course, not everyone is even ‘light-skinned’ pinko either.
Or no one at all. Buddhism is more like that, with its epic cycles of karma and Confucianism has no gods but the ancestors who are, ahem, human. Even Christianity does not quite fit the appeal to God sort of thing for a stay on the rules; besides the Ten commandments, the Church (and there are many of them) rules change quite drastically over the centuries; ex. Catholic priests could once marry, now they cannot. That has to do with Church law, sometimes Church doctrine, but is not necessarily fixed.
But Confucianism really hammers your example; ancestor worship respects the precedent of your ancestors, sort of a Chinese stare decis. And it is a religion. At the same time, even the Catholic Church possesses far more flexibility when it comes to doctrine than Confucians who are nearly immutable.
I didn’t say you were, beetroot (and I’ll mellow enough to offer what follows.)
I led my series of comments with the assertion that those who argue a shift from historic, decentralized, representative rule and principled self-sufficiency to the soft tyranny of a pure centralized democracy have the simple responsibility to base that whim on something.
The alternative is, as I suspected, your deciding the issue purely by how popular collectivism has become all these decades later. That’s not a debate, it’s a gun in the ribs.
(Yes, your comment on the courts was noteworthy, but I’d follow that with the question just who owns the courts in the market of today’s public opinion. Or, how would the SCOTUS find, for example, when faced with the question of the exclusionary philosophy of virtual moral nihilism as taught by virtual force in a statist school system. Just for starters. My point is that defending all constitutional theory requires a myriad of highly principled suits from a land you already admit is socialized. So who’s going to sue to invalidate statist schooling? Federalized medicine? Entire welfare societies? And so on.)
Which more or less leads to Vercingtorix’s thread of thought; that all philosophy is philosophy, and that nearly all power is above the individual, excepting that of, as I understand and promote it, the absolute minimalism of the originalist framework of law that recognized the sovereignty of the individual as perhaps the single most fundamental component of freedom.
Short version: Choose either freedom or tyranny, and then debate what that choice was 230 years ago and how that choice was reflected in the standards and practices of the time.
I’m not suggesting you’re yanking my chain. I’m suggesting what you and those like you do is far more serious. You mistakenly avoid the responsibility to observe and respect the very underpinnings of an American way of life once rooted in a people with a philosophy nearly completely opposed to what it’s fast becoming today. I insist you begin there, and that you do not deny that responsibility in favor of an offensive might-makes-right denial.
The first rule of irresponsible debate is to reframe or reduce the discussion to your own terms. Originalist American principles deserve better. To argue the degrees, velocity, or trajectory of such a slide is insulting. To refuse to recognize it’s occuring and then to claim it’s acceptable on the basis of a simple majority is indeed insanity.
Majorities are routinely wrong. If you’re right about it, ours is also.
LOL. I thought this thread was dead, and I was right.
No, beetroot, I’m not going to spend the evening combing through Jeff’s archives. When payday comes he’ll be getting a bit from me, even though the formal pledge week will be over. You do as you will. My comment stands.
Regards,
Ric
6Gun, lemme get this straight – are you suggesting that America has been sliding away from its original founding principle, towards something more tyrannical? Is that the basic framework of your thinking?
That’s kind of what I’m getting from the above.
And if I understand you correctly, what you’re saying is that the electoral majority’s support for the limited collectivism we practice violates original principles of the Constitution. Am I getting you right?
And as for you, Ric:
Okay, no problem. But just so we’re clear on what happened here, you made some statements about me which indicate that I hold allegiance to un-American principles; I asked you to back those statements up; you backed down.
I hope that the next time you choose to characterize someone’s political beliefs that you make sure there’s evidence that confirms your assertions.
Regards,
beet
What I’m saying beetroot, is that wasting time debating where on the slope to socialist tyranny we’re trying to stand with someone as simultaneously obtuse and demanding as you does indeed ridicule reason.
For perhaps the fifth time, the onus is on you to defend replacing a system that began with near-zero social government and nearly perfect personal freedom with the opposite. And also for perhaps the fifth time, that you cannot even comprehend that slide—much less the careful original design put together specifically to hold off that inevitability for as long as possible—is a problem.
Hell yes.
This thread is indeed dead. When you develop the perspective to pursue a broader scale, open it back up. Meanwhile I’ll take you at your word: My freedom is dependent on your mob’s best intentions. Something about the road to hell comes to mind…or was it boiling frogs?
First of all, 6Gun, I don’t insult you – – at least not intentionally – – so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t insult me.
But it’s not a dealbreaker or anything. It’s a free country, after all.
Second of all,
I don’t see where you got that. There are several assumptions wrapped up in your statement that honest debate demands you defend:
– You assume that our nation began with “nearly perfect personal freedom,” meaning ….?
– You assert that we now live with “the opposite,” and the evidence is ….?
You’re the one bringing some major assumptions to the table, not me. Remember, all I said was that the majority electorate supports the basic policies that Atrios lists, (progressive taxation, government regulation to protect the environment, etc), suggesting that the Left’s agenda is not as radical as some would presume.
That’s got nothing to do with my personal opinion about these policies. It’s a fact that we’ve practiced them during the same era that our nation gained its greatest power and success.
It’s you that has introduced the notion that these policies somehow represent a radical departure from Constitutional law—a notion that is not supported by the Supreme Court at this time. It is you that introduced the notion that the electorate is misguided and mob-minded, and that we are on a slippery slope to tyranny.
That may be conventional wisdom around here, but it’s not an assumption that I happen to share.
And since you introduced the idea to the discussion, I’d say it’s certainly not my obligation as a debater to accept it as fact.
The thread is dead! Long live the thread!