Despite my nearly hour-long commute to work and then again back home, cars with “Obama 2012” sticker are extremely rare… even in my part of the blue state of New York. They are rare, but they do exist. And each time I see one, I am tempted to follow the car, wait for them to park somewhere, and ask them, “Really? You are so motivated to not only vote for this moron, but to put a fresh bumper sticker on your car, despite his record?”
I can almost excuse the people who have stickers from 2008, they are just too lazy to put a new one on their car, and that is merely an extension of them being too lazy to think about who they are voting for. But, how people in the past few months or the past year, can look at Obama’s record, and not only say “Hell yeah, I want four more years of this!” but also want to show the whole world their ignorance. Really, I just don’t get it.
Of course there are people who will vote for Obama. They’re liberals who find it easier to blame everyone but Obama for his policy failures. I get that. But really, Obama’s popularity has become worse than Carter’s and it’s actually quite rare to find someone who genuinely believes Obama has done a good job. Why promote incompetence with an Obama 2012 sticker on your car. In 2008 you could just say you were fooled by his empty promises. This year, there is no excuse.
Blogs For Victory 
Why would anyone put an Obama bumper sticker on a perfectly good car?
Perfectly good car?
The OBAMA stickers I’ve seen are the only thing holding the bumper on the car.
The rolling wrecks do have nice wheels, though. Spinners usually.
I am guessing you voted for G.W, Bush – twice. And I have to ask, what on earth were you thinking after the mess he made the first four years? And now we know why President Obama inherited such a horrendous mess in 2009. Because of people like you that supported Bush for eight years. I still see old Bush bumper stickers on cars and wonder how they can drive around with the bumper sticker for the the worst president in the entire history of the United States.
So … Putting OBAMA 2012 Stickers on your car is Bush’s Fault
It figures that would be your response.
Obama ran for the job of the President. He chose to do so. Obama’s whining about the mess he was left is amusing. He isn’t the only President who was left a mess. But at least those Presidents tried to do something about those messes. Obama went right on and spent worse than Bush. He then escalated a no win war and started a 3rd war. Obama murdered thousands of innocent Libyans. Obama is a cold blooded murderer and an assassin. He chose to overlook the Constitution.
Sunny, you believe what you want to. I will look at the policies of the Obama admin and weep for the USA.
Maybe your bumper sticker should read, “Lawn Jockey for Obama”
velma: “I still see old Bush bumper stickers on cars and wonder how they can drive around with the bumper sticker for the the worst president in the entire history of the United States.”
Really? Maybe they are proud of their vote. But I see you still regurgitate the dumbed down talking points of the left designed for the ignorant masses.
You don’t see that many Obama bumper stickers on cars these days. They were removed by their owners due the massive embarrassment they feel for imposing this nitwit on our country. But, obAMATEUR has taken the prize of the “worst President in history” and Jimmy Carter is doing cartwheels over it!!!
You won’t see any “four more years” stickers that is for sure. I am sure you will see “Fairness and change” or “workers unite”. He really can’t run on anything all his policies have been disasters.
Regurgitate talking points drone talking points regurgitate regurgitate drones. Dumbed down regurgitate talking points drones regurgitate useful idiot dumbed down regurgitate talking points. obAMATEUR drones regurgigtate talking points regurgitate regurgitate.
Gee thanks, cory, that saved a lot of time,
in the future you can just type “RTP” and we’ll know you just want to belch out another sunny diatribe.
And once again Cory chooses silly inane nonsense over anything that might demand addressing actual, specific, points or policies.
I guess this is supposed to be a preemptive strike against the expectation, which is by the way fully justified, that Velma’s constant spewing of Bush Hatred and tired old RRL dupe talking points is going to be accurately identified as such. But all it really says is that this spewing is so apparent even to a fellow traveler such as Cory that he knows it will be ridiculed for what it is.
Nice to see you catching on, Cory.
BTW, Cory, if the word “regurgitate” bothers you so, you might set an example for other Pseudo Lefty lemmings and veer away from merely swallowing Lefty talking points and then expelling them in one of two forms—neither of which is very pleasant. Choose your orifice of expulsion, it still stinks.
Perhaps if you and your kind were to actually THINK for a change, and open yourselves up to rational thought instead of merely recycling what your minders tell you you think, the word “regurgitate” would become less apt in descriptions of what you produce for this blog.
For example, my comment on the very real fact that there are only two opposing political philosophies vying for control of the governance of this country really struck a nerve with you. You chose to object to it instead of thinking it over and engaging in actual discourse on the topic, but it did get your attention. The thing is, in your mind it never went beyond a knee-jerk “huh-UH!!!!” and the claim that there are really many many political philosophies out there. You are still stuck in the rut of PL emotionalism but for a moment you did show a glimmer of desire to actually go beyond that.
Till then, though, you and your fellow travelers are pretty much stuck with accurate descriptions of what you post, much of which is best addressed by the term “regurgitation” in its various forms.
“For example, my comment on the very real fact that there are only two opposing political philosophies vying for control of the governance of this country really struck a nerve with you.”
It did, but then I realized that you use it as an escape hatch whenever somebody wants to get into specifics, so I’m done pressing the point. There’s only so many times I can point out your cowardice before it grows tedious.
It did, but then I realized that you use it as an escape hatch whenever somebody wants to get into specifics
That’s funny, Cory. The rest of us see your inability to distinguish between principles and “specifics” as a shortcoming on your part. I do, however, understand your reluctance to discuss Leftist principles.
Amy said, “And once again Cory chooses silly inane nonsense over anything that might demand addressing actual, specific, points or policies.”
And a thread about bumper stickers is rich in actual, specific, points or policies?
Wow, It appears as though watty actually read the headline of the thread this time. He still failed to read the paragraphs that followed, but … it’s a start.
“That’s funny, Cory. The rest of us see your inability to distinguish between principles and “specifics” as a shortcoming on your part. I do, however, understand your reluctance to discuss Leftist principles.”
Yes, don’t worry, I didn’t forget that you dive through a very similar escape hatch. Although yours is a little less ridiculous, as at least you have the decency to try to get me to talk about the platforms of current political parties rather than made up fairyland general categories of political philosophy that have no attachment to anything.
“Wow, It appears as though watty actually read the headline of the thread this time. He still failed to read the paragraphs that followed, but … it’s a start.”
Please quote the portion of the blog post that talks about actual, specific points or policies.
Sorry cora-watty, if you didn’t read it the first time I’ve no reason to believe you’d read it this time.
But, take heart, more paragraphs are being added all the time, but just to aim you in the right direction … don’t bother reading anything that starts with sunny, watsonredoux, cory or caveat, those never have specifics, just RTP.
Cave man said, “Wow, It appears as though watty actually read the headline of the thread this time. He still failed to read the paragraphs that followed, but … it’s a start.”
So, um, what “actual, specific, points or policies” did Matt address in his post? I guess you think calling people lazy for not removing a 2008 bumper sticker passes for political analysis. You’re a sharp one, cave.
Which is your way of saying that there was absolutely nothing that fit Amazona’s criteria in the initial blog post to which we are replying, but you think what you just said is so clever that we won’t notice.
“But, take heart, more paragraphs are being added all the time, but just to aim you in the right direction … don’t bother reading anything that starts with sunny, watsonredoux, cory or caveat, those never have specifics, just RTP.”
Huh? Matt is adding to his post? I think not. Let’s just remember Matt’s post is from a man who decries the hyper-partisan atmosphere in the country today, but has too little self-awareness to realize that he is a part of the problem. Instead, he has told us on this blog that the solution to hyper-partisanship is to take the election of senators away from the citizens. Yeah, that’s solve the problem.
Amy and caveman, why don’t you address Matt’s suggestion about electing senators? Explain to us the constitutional underpinnings behind it and how the founding fathers viewed it. We’re all breathlessly awaiting another thousand word screed from you, Amy.
Let’s see, They can find no discussion of specifics in the “ thread about bumper stickers so they pretend they said ”in the part Matt wrote on the thread, not the thread itself. Then they find that Matt wrote about electing senators that seems to have disappeared from the page.
Nope, I see no problem in discussing facts with these two; Brilliant analysts that they are.
And since you’re both so well educated, it’s pronounced KAH-vay KAHN-nay” so making Kah-vay Man references doesn’t really work, does it?
“Let’s see, They can find no discussion of specifics in the “ thread about bumper stickers so they pretend they said ”in the part Matt wrote on the thread, not the thread itself. Then they find that Matt wrote about electing senators that seems to have disappeared from the page.”
Fine, copy and paste some of the salient points being made about policy in the entire thread. We’ll just have to remember that posting inanities when you are a random commenter on a blog is criminal, but when you are one of the actual bloggers, it is totally cool.
“And since you’re both so well educated, it’s pronounced KAH-vay KAHN-nay” so making Kah-vay Man references doesn’t really work, does it?”
It’s awesome that you lump me in even though I don’t believe I’ve ever tried to use somebody’s name as an insult on this blog, but I’ll bite anyway. You want to explain to tired a few posts up that the last three letters of “Obama” are not pronounced the same as the first three in “amateur”? I mean, are you really trying to look smart by analyzing how clever people are being when they bastardize people’s names as a personal insult? You’ve got a whole lot of conservatives on this blog to criticize, in that case. Get to it!
I have a counter proposal; answer Amazona’s enquiry which she substantively framed in a paragraph on this thread which you were unable or unwilling to answer. Hop to little fella – you’re wasting our time.
Let me see if I can simplify my original two-choice comment to a level at which Cory might be able to process the information.
Let’s say we have a two party system in our school. One has a core ideology of making everyone wear suits and ties, or dresses and high heels, to class every day. One has a core ideology of saying everyone must wear track suits and athletic shoes. Following so far?
OK, the suit-and-tie party is the Suits, and the casual dress party is the Sweats.
The Sweats really want control so they say they will change Pizza Monday to Pizza Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Now, according to Cory’s previous statements, he would vote for all that pizza, but deny that he was voting for a sloppy dress code—because after all, he cast his votes for the Sweats because of the pizza, not the attire.
He would deny that the choice was between formal and casual dress, because what got HIS attention was all that pepperoni. (And he would be baffled and upset if he was denied the right to wear a nice shirt and slacks to school one day, clueless about how that power got awarded to who is in charge.)
Cory seems to be oblivious to the very simple fact that if you vote for the Left because you like one or two of the things they promise, you are actually voting for an entire political philosophy and its dogma. He will insist that no no no, he is not voting for large central government and control, he is voting for the “right” of gay people to call their relationships “marriage”.
He skims the surface of political thought, determined to never look below that surface, and either unwilling or unable to grasp the fact that there ARE only two political choices in this county, once you get past what we can call the Pepperoni Tier of political awareness.
And who can blame him? Real awareness, real understanding, making decisions based on reality instead of seeking warm fuzzy feel-good shortcuts, all require effort. You have to think, you have to study, you have to learn, you have to think some more—-and you may have to give up some cherished fantasies, such as the bizarre invented “conservative” he and his ilk despise with such fervor.
It won’t happen. The Corys of the nation will continue to skim the surface, get sucked in by the shiny distractions of this superficial policy or that glittery promise, and remain ignorant and uncaring of the actual political philosophy which they have placed in power.
Amazona,
Puh-leeeeze!
cory thinks Socialism has something to do with Facebook, and Capitalism has something to do with Washington, DC.
He just knows he’s not a Socialist because he sticks pretty much to himself at parties.
And now I say that wait a minute, if you voted for any of the Republican presidents for the last 30 years, you also were voting for a larger government, and then Amazona blathers on about the difference between philosophy and identity, and then I’ll continue scratching my head at Amazona’s complete inability to keep a grasp of even her own points from one post to the next. I’ve had this conversation before, and it is getting really boring.
And by the way, screw both parties in your example. I want to wear khaki pants and a t-shirt. When the time comes, I might vote for wearing a track suit because I sure as hell don’t want to wear a tie to school every day, but that doesn’t mean I have to like either policy. And since everything you are talking about is equally inane, yes I’ll take the pizza, too.
“I have a counter proposal; answer Amazona’s enquiry which she substantively framed in a paragraph on this thread which you were unable or unwilling to answer. Hop to little fella – you’re wasting our time.”
You mean the post where Amazona made yet another (lame) attempt to get me to spend time defending the Democratic Party and not any of my own opinions? Yeah, no thanks. I’m still waiting on somebody to copy and paste an interesting discussion of policy in this thread.
He doesn’t want to wear a tie to school????? You mean you don’t have a real job, or a real life, or anything approaching an adult personality?
Well no wonder he can’t defend his positions, he’s a sophomore.
“He doesn’t want to wear a tie to school????? You mean you don’t have a real job, or a real life, or anything approaching an adult personality?
Well no wonder he can’t defend his positions, he’s a sophomore.”
I’m actually currently employed full time as a systems administrator at an IT consulting firm, I was just working within the framework of the stupid analogy. I’m also white, straight, and really not part of any marginalized group that benefits directly from having the Democrats in power.
Good try, though.
Uh … you didn’t address Amazona’s allegory.
“ I’m also white, straight, and really not part of any marginalized group”
You say that like it’s a good thing. Why are you afraid that someone will take you for a gay immigrant person of color? You need to lose your prejudices; you’ll be much freer without all that hate for people not like you.
You mean the post where Amazona made yet another (lame) attempt to get me to spend time defending the Democratic Party and not any of my own opinions?
I don’t really have a dog in this hunt, but I can’t recall Amazona EVER asking you to defend the Democratic Party. And I really think she’s wrong when she says there are only two governing philosophies. Clearly there’s a third — one of ambivalence, where you don’t really give a rat’s ass how the country is run. And from every comment of yours I’ve seen, I’d say you reside behind door #3.
And the award for the most clueless goes to….cory, of course, whose last several posts were so unrelated to anything said that they have created a whole new category of oblivious ignorance.
What stands out most is his ongoing inability to discern any difference between identity and philosophy. I have never asked him to defend Democrats but to explain and defend the political philosophy of the Left. The fact that the two, radical leftism and the Democrat Party, are now pretty much one and the same, is irrelevant to the question. Just as the party has veered to the Left in recent years, it could possibly correct itself in the future, and still be the Democrat Party but not be representative of the radical Left. cory simply cannot grasp the difference.
Just as he cannot grasp the difference between philosophy and events. If I vote for the Suits because high heels make my legs look absolutely spectacular, and they win and then change from the stated philosophy and adopt a track suit policy, that does not mean I voted for sloppiness. He just has it all so muddled up in his muddled up perception of politics and identity, he simply cannot sort it out.
I love the way the resident trolls insist on making our points for us—that they are both ignorant and indifferent to actual politics, that they exist only on the most superficial level of pop political pretense and prefer to keep it that way, that they are tone deaf to inanity and silliness so don’t realize that these traits pretty much define everything they have to say, and that their posts are devoid of any actual content other than illustrations of their own negative pathologies.
And of course there is cory’s pathetic effort to excuse his inability to respond to what is said—-“I could, I really could, if I wanted to, but i have chosen to define what you say as an “escape hatch” so I don’t have to, but I could if I wanted to…”
Yeah, right.
“What stands out most is his ongoing inability to discern any difference between identity and philosophy.”
I so totally called it. You are predictable as you are uninteresting.
“If I vote for the Suits because high heels make my legs look absolutely spectacular, and they win and then change from the stated philosophy and adopt a track suit policy, that does not mean I voted for sloppiness.”
Ah, I make an informed vote for somebody I don’t really like because he is the least bad option, and it means I’m doing it because somebody dangled single issues in front of me to make me ignore the larger issues, but when you vote for a political candidate that you are too stupid to tell is lying to you about making the government smaller, even though it happens over and over again (Reagan included, no matter how many candles you guys put at his altar), it is because you are making informed philosophical decisions.
Do you know how I knew George W. Bush was completely uninterested in shrinking the government? Because he never gave a single specific while he was campaigning as to how he was going to do it, he just spoke about his “general philosophy” that you droning on and on about. How many of your current options are doing the same thing? If any of them make it, you’re going to be right back in the same boat, and you’ll keep whining that it isn’t what you voted for.
So you go ahead and worry about big useless general statements about philosophy, and I’ll keep worrying about specifics. I’ll see that I’m voting people into office purely because they are the least bad option, and you’ll keep being surprised that people don’t stick to their grand empty words because you never worried about the details.
So you go ahead and worry about big useless general statements about philosophy, and I’ll keep worrying about specifics.
OK, so could you give us some specifics about those “specifics”? What “specifically” are you going to keep worrying about?
Obama 2012 Bumpersticker:
Well said…I wonder if the irony will be lost on those who want to know where to order one to show their knee pad allegiance to The One We Thought We Were Waiting For But Now Have To Defend Because The Alternative Is A Conservative
OBAMA, Vote Early and Vote Often
they did and they will again……
HOW can you not love Ann Coulter?
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-12-07.html
The day after the Republicans’ historic takeover of the House of Representatives in the 1994 election, Newt was off and running, giving a series of Fidel Castro-style speeches about “the Third Wave information revolution.” It had the unmistakable ring of lingo from his new-age gurus, Alvin and Heidi Toffler.
Soon, Gingrich was writing a foreword to a Toffler book — the same one on the Republicans’ reading list –- and spending Christmas with the pro-choice, anti-school prayer, Christian Coalition-hating Tofflers. Yes, there’s nothing like having an old-fashioned Christmas with a doddering couple who hate prayer and Christians, love abortion and are afraid of their microwave.
Gingrich has spent his years since then having an affair, divorcing his second wife and making money by being the consummate Washington insider — trading on access, taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and palling around with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Al Sharpton.
Even Chuck Schumer wouldn’t be seen doing a joint event with Al Sharpton! But Newt seeks approval from strange places.
Newt Gingrich is the “anti-Establishment” candidate only if “the Establishment” is defined as “anyone who remembers what happened the day before yesterday.”
Loving Ann Coulter does not mean a slavish devotion to the idea that she is never wrong.
We leave that kind of uber-emotional worship to the Left.
Ann is an equal opportunity observer. I remember her comment that George W. Bush was so touched by the warm reception he received in Albania that he offered citizenship to any Albanian who wanted to come to the United States—-all they had to do was learn Spanish.
The uber-emotional self worship of fanatics on the Right is not that others like Ann Coulter can’t be wrong. It is that they themselves can’t be wrong.
When Amy takes her correctness as axiomatic there is not need for further discussion. She can give her tut-tuts to the masses without any self doubt. She once thought she was wrong, but she was mistaken. Of course to maximize the certainty of her opinions it is best to have a harrowing past when she was ignorant of the true aims of the enemy until a revelation from on high told her the GOP was the party of the constitution.
A case study in self-delusion.
“they themselves”
As opposed to “they someone else”.
Self-worship is, by definition the belief that the worshipped self cannot be wrong, which is exactly what Amazona stated is not a construct of her beliefs. Specifically stated as an assignation of the Left. So your straw man fails on the first paragraph.
Amazona has, on many occasions stated and defended her positions, having done so her “correctness” does become self-evident since her argumentation has not been defeated nor challenged significantly. So your straw man fails in the second paragraph.
The “thought she was wrong” joke never gets old, but since the trolls won’t understand the reference and the Conservatives know better your straw man fails on the first joke.
Her “harrowing past” was always presented as a journey to self-actualization not an Ephiny replete with “revelations” so your straw man fails in finality.
Posting that boloney with self-satisfaction is the definition of delusional.
cant-verb- to cause (something) to be in a slanting or oblique position; tilt: “he canted his head to look at the screen”.
The Count of Cant is another self-delusional I’m never wrong fellow. Of course the Count Cant can’t be held to know lower class Western culture-
Ephiny is a fictional character from the hit television series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules
Epiphany comes from (Koine Greek: ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, “manifestation”, “striking appearance”). It’s also a Christian holiday on the 6th of January commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; (giving the 12 days of Christmas its meaning).
Like the Count, Amy defends her positions with modern day astrological notions like “the market knows best” and the constitution is a mathematically rigorous document. The only way to prove them wrong is to ask them to apply their ad hoc wisdom to novel situations and make educated guesses about what WILL happen in the near future. The rejoinder to this is “nobody has a crystal ball” so they continue to predict the past.
Epiphany, thank you – spelling Nazi. I had no idea I had dropped the letters, I assume that makes me wrong. But you should have checked in a dictionary instead of Wikipedia for a more pedestrian usage of the word; epiphany is a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
“Like the Count, Amy defends her positions with modern day astrological notions like “the market knows best” and the constitution is a mathematically rigorous document.”
Now ‘dolf, that’s simply a lie. I have never correlated the Constitution with a mathematic algorithm, nor have I ever claimed the document has rigidity. I have repeatedly referred to it as a legal document (which it is) and have made reference to the Founder’s Intent and English common Law as tools for interpretation. So your continued search for a straw man fails yet again.
I apply my situational logic to make educated guesses all day, every day, so your straw man … aw hell you know where this is going.
I most certainly do understand low class Western culture; I am talking to you aren’t I?
Give up, Count. dolf is locked in the attic and his evil twin Skippy is on the loose again, babbling his nonsense and spraying his venom.
The thing is, Skippy/dolf’s venom is like dolf himself—-feeble, impotent and innocuous.
Remember, dolf just makes stuff up (what we call “lying”) so facts are not only irrelevant to his rants, they are inconvenient as well.
This is the guy who pronounced, in all seriousness, that if you change the words in a book it will mean something different—-and then tried to pretend this ridiculous pronouncement meant something.
This is the guy who went into a tizzy when I said I had gone to one school for “nearly eight years” and pretzeled himself into bizarre mental and emotional contortions to try to make my comment appear stupid or irrational or whatever odd little definition was rattling around in his mind—–and then proceeded to invent a detailed and bizarre scenario in which I was kicked out of that school by nuns who had come to hate me, and victimized by a father who proved his bad parenting by taking a better job in another city. (You may have missed this—he went on for several posts, outlining his strange theories and digging himself deeper and deeper into WackyLand.)
And so on. In other words, while Sklppy is just plain freakin’ nuts, dolf hissownself is no prize, being an effete metrosexual with wildly exaggerated delusions of superiority and wit.
Though it is fun to watch him twist around in his identities, trying to make sense of his nonsense and defend his goofiness.
Some day I will fill you in on what I learned about dolf and his career as an associate professor in a mid-to-low-level southwestern school. Suffice it to say, for the nonce, that at least some of his students find him “condescending”.
Gee. Who woulda thunk it?
Thank you for the advice Amazona. I note he does have difficulties using the language and relies on singular definitions; he addresses me as “cant” which, we all know is an adjective for LUSTY!
I think I better lay off him for a while; he’s getting too close to my flame.
One thing that is so funny about dolf/Skippy’s most recent meltdown is that he completely missed the point of what I said.
I said that admiration of Ann Coulter is not based on a belief that Ann Coulter is always correct. (I rephrased that, to see if it would be easier for dolf to understand.)
His convoluted sentence structure and double negatives make it hard to figure out just what he is trying to say, but whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with what was posted.
I do notice that to a whichever-way-the-wind-is-blowing vague and directionless dolf, any degree of certainty is now defined by him as “fanaticism”. How convenient for him.
And BTW, my past as an Unexamined Liberal was anything BUT “harrowing”. On the contrary, it was lovely. It required no thought, no examination of fact or history, no pondering of the rightness of my path. It was mindless, thoughtless, and undemanding, with the added benefit of the Short Cut To The Higher Moral Ground associated with being “for” Good Things like food and niceness, and “against” Bad Things like hunger and poverty and mean people, but with no responsibility for figuring out what to do about any of it. In other words, it was exactly what being a Pseudo Lefty is like today.
The hardest part was getting past the realization that what I thought I knew, I didn’t know, and admitting that I had been a dupe. But I made it, and here I am, confident (what dolf sneers at as “fanatical”) in my newfound commitment to the Constitutional model of governance.
I think it is right, I think the Leftist model is wrong, I can and do back up my opinions with historical fact and examples, and the effete simpering of such as dolf is nothing but, as I have said, noise.
That’s how you maximize your certitude in your opinions.
Oh, wait, that’s how you don’t not maximize the certainty of your opinions, isn’t it not?
Caveat, you are wonderful.
And BTW, I knew how to pronounce your name. Guess I didn’t tick those nuns off before I picked up a little Latin, eh?
dolf, please tell us how a belief in the economic system of the free market is tied into astrology.
Or where I ever mentioned astrology.
You’re not just making stuff up again, are you?
Or just listening to those voices in your head?
According to Sister Mary Assunta, the generally understood and commonly used Caveat Canum is grammatically incorrect. Caveat is third person where Cave or cavete is the specific second person warning and cane is singular as opposed to canum or canis which is again multiple and non-specific. As in You beware of that. Simply writing cave cane would give the trolls ajada.
At least that’s the way I remember the lesson.
“dolf, please tell us how a belief in the economic system of the free market is tied into astrology.”
The fact that you just used the words “belief in” the same way that people use it when they are talking about ghosts, Santa Claus, or astrology.
Wrong cory.
I believe, therefore I don’t know for sure and for certain. Amazona has a belief in a Supreme Being but ‘dolf (nor you) compared her belief in free market principles to the infallibility of the Heavenly Father because that wouldn’t fit the meme of an unsubstantiated fear or superstition.
Let ‘dolf answer why he accuses Amazona of using divination as a predicted instead of logic. You are not on the right path here.
So what you are saying is that free market capitalism is a religion. I’m not sure how that helps your case.
You really have a problem with simple English don’t you? Are you really this stupid or is this an act? ‘Cuz you’re really convincing as the pseudo-intellectual idiot, a real Moe Howard.
It’s not just that cory is stupid. It’s that he has no sense of personal dignity. He blurts out the most utterly stupid, inane, irrelevant nonsense with no concern that his comments depict him as a moron and a clown and a liar.
Cave man said, “Let’s see, They can find no discussion of specifics in the ‘ thread about bumper stickers so they pretend they said ‘in the part Matt wrote on the thread, not the thread itself. Then they find that Matt wrote about electing senators that seems to have disappeared from the page.”
Matt wrote a post completely devoid of “actual, specific, points or policies.” This is typical of Matt; in fact, he studiously avoids “actual, specific, points or policies.” You seem to think that the rich commentary that followed actually did include “actual, specific, points or policies.” I’d love for you to recount them, because I sure don’t see a learned discussion of such. Or maybe you think Amy’s charming story about school dress codes qualifies? Your comments, especially, are devoid of polices. Oh well.
You say, “Then they find that Matt wrote about electing senators that seems to have disappeared from the page.” Um, no, reading comprehension isn’t your speciality. I said, Matt “has told us on this blog that the solution to hyper-partisanship is to take the election of senators away from the citizens.” This blog consists of more than this one post and its comments. Go back and read the archives.
You’re giving NeoClown a run for his money, Cave man. I didn’t think that was possible.
Really? The wattle still thinks your name has anything to do with a cave?
Really?
Yeah, watty ~ bring me that dead horse!
Do you think neocon1 thinks my name is Corky or that Sunny is actually Scummy, etc? Why don’t you ever lecture him about his inability to get names right?
Did you want crackers with that whine?
cory reminds me of those people who, when you point at something, don’t look to where you are pointing but just at your hand. So of course the allegory of the school elections meant nothing more to him than what he might want to wear. You state that no matter which party won, you would just do whatever you wanted to do, which is a silly way to duck the actual message of the allegory—that when you vote for an issue you are really voting for the ideology of the party presenting the issue.
Yes, cory, you HAVE indicated that you look at single issues when you vote, instead of at the underlying dogma of the party your vote supports. You admit it again when you say “So you go ahead and worry about big useless general statements about philosophy, and I’ll keep worrying about specifics. I’ll see that I’m voting people into office purely because they are the least bad option…
Yes, you keep focusing on the PEOPLE, and ignoring the ideology they represent. It’s so much less demanding than actually understanding the core beliefs and agendas of the two political models from which you can reasonably choose, and it lets you focus on what matters to YOU, which is identity and personality and whatever superficial distraction the person dangles in front of you.
And while it obviously meets your emotional needs to call someone stupid for voting for a party which has at least the possibility of following the Constitution, it also leaves the question of what to call someone who votes for a party which represents a political model which has resulted in economic misery, loss of liberty and often even mass murder every time it has been in power, just because it has dangled an attractive-sounding piece of bait.
Modern conservatives look at the current Republican Party as the lesser of two evils, and commit ourselves to reforming it and rebuilding it in a Constitutional model. Modern Pseudo-Leftists don’t even know what the Left represents. Or care. They are not motivated by moving TOWARD a goal outlined in their party of choice’s ideology, but just by the chance to hurl invective and insult at those who represent the opposition.
Which they also don’t bother to understand.
But to them/you, it’s just a game of gotchas and personal attacks, and you stick to the snotty and spiteful because that is really all you have to bring to the table.
You insist that there are more than two political choices available to voters in this country. Please tell us what they are, and the underlying ideology of each.
You scramble away from that question no matter how it is phrased.
This is how cory writes off and dismisses core beliefs and ideology, both of which are expressed in political agendas and policies: “…big useless general statements about philosophy…”
Yep, folks, cory has declared that the platform of a party or movement, the declaration of that party or movement of what it seeks to accomplish, is nothing more than “big USELESS general statements…”
And what’s more, he brags about his cluelessness, brags about ignoring the ideology and goals of a party while he votes for the personality he likes best, regardless of the agendas that person’s political affiliation represent.
Sadly, cory represents the majority of those who vote for Leftist candidates. They like the people, and they are distracted by the
promisesbait they offer up to lure suckers like cory in. The reality of the system they help put in place is of no interest to them—-too complicated, too hard to follow, and besides how could it affect them anyway?“So of course the allegory of the school elections meant nothing more to him than what he might want to wear.”
Not my fault that your clever allegory was just a rephrasing of the same stupid, useless claims you’ve been making all along. You can rephrase it no matter how many times you want, and I’ll still have the same objections to it.
“You state that no matter which party won, you would just do whatever you wanted to do, which is a silly way to duck the actual message of the allegory—that when you vote for an issue you are really voting for the ideology of the party presenting the issue.”
Nope, I just stated that I didn’t like either party’s platform, not that I wouldn’t be stuck with whichever guy I voted for. The message of the allegory seems to be that if you simplify the situation down to clothing in a school, you can assert as an axiom the point I’ve disagreed with all along and hope nobody notices that you are begging the question.
“Yes, cory, you HAVE indicated that you look at single issues when you vote, instead of at the underlying dogma of the party your vote supports. You admit it again when you say “So you go ahead and worry about big useless general statements about philosophy, and I’ll keep worrying about specifics. I’ll see that I’m voting people into office purely because they are the least bad option…”
Apparently language is not one of your strong points. The word “specifics” is plural. I am interested in a whole lot of issues, I just am unwilling to engage in the intellectual laziness required to group them up so that I can make decisions on them in broad strokes.
“Yes, you keep focusing on the PEOPLE, and ignoring the ideology they represent. It’s so much less demanding than actually understanding the core beliefs and agendas of the two political models from which you can reasonably choose, and it lets you focus on what matters to YOU, which is identity and personality and whatever superficial distraction the person dangles in front of you.”
And now we’ve entered into magical fairyland where Obama is the same as Dennis Kucinich is the same as Russ Feingold is the same as Bill Clinton is the same as Al Franken is the same as Harry Reid is the same as Ted Kennedy. By the way, this also makes Reagan the same as Mitt Romney the same as George W. Bush the same as Richard Nixon.
Every election gives you ballot options for each individual race because you are always voting for people. When you ignore this, you let candidates get away with whatever they want as long as they are more conservative than the other guy. And this is why you keep ending up with “fiscal conservatives” that keep expanding the federal budget. And why you’ll keep boohooing when that happens about how it isn’t your fault and you didn’t vote for it because you vote for Conservatism(tm) when you put the check mark next to George W. Bush, not the man himself.
“And while it obviously meets your emotional needs to call someone stupid for voting for a party which has at least the possibility of following the Constitution, it also leaves the question of what to call someone who votes for a party which represents a political model which has resulted in economic misery, loss of liberty and often even mass murder every time it has been in power, just because it has dangled an attractive-sounding piece of bait.”
I love how I’m the guy that is being accused of voting for superficialities but you can’t even figure out that your ballot said “George W. Bush” and not “Conservatism” on it.
“Modern Pseudo-Leftists don’t even know what the Left represents. Or care. They are not motivated by moving TOWARD a goal outlined in their party of choice’s ideology, but just by the chance to hurl invective and insult at those who represent the opposition.”
The “Left” represents innumerable different things by way of thousands of different candidates.
“You insist that there are more than two political choices available to voters in this country. Please tell us what they are, and the underlying ideology of each.”
There aren’t without substantial change to our political system. So let’s change our political system. A grassroots demand for instant runoff voting should do the trick.
Meanwhile, I am not in a voting booth right now, so I don’t have to vote for anyone. Your have a desperate need to get me to talk about the Liberal Monster that you have in your head, because you already have all your ammunition locked and loaded for those positions. But the same logic that you use to try to get me to defend the actions of the Liberal Monster can be used to demand that you defend the conservatives that keep making it into power. Not your idea of what conservatism is; the conservatism that gets us expanding government spending, increasing deficits, and the Patriot Act.
Unfortunately for you, I am not interested in having either conversation. If I suggest that we invest in technology to generate non-petroleum based energy so that we can simultaneously work towards generating less pollution and decrease dependency on finite fossil fuel, I want to hear why you think that is a bad idea, not hear you blather on endlessly about how vote for the party of Stalin. If I make the claim that a flatter income curve benefits the overall economy, I want you to explain to me why that isn’t true, not have you call me Marx and think you’ve made a salient point. If you are incapable of that, you are incapable of having a reasoned debate, and I have no use for you.
“Yep, folks, cory has declared that the platform of a party or movement, the declaration of that party or movement of what it seeks to accomplish, is nothing more than “big USELESS general statements…””
If broad, general statements were useful, government spending would have been cut while George W. Bush was president.
“And what’s more, he brags about his cluelessness, brags about ignoring the ideology and goals of a party while he votes for the personality he likes best, regardless of the agendas that person’s political affiliation represent.”
Yeah, the fact that I refuse to base my voting choices on cheap, broad promises must mean that I do it based on personality. You are brilliant! Have a gold star!
Sadly, Amazona represents the majority of those who vote for both parties in this country. They like the people, and they are distracted by the overly broad promises they offer up to lure suckers like Amazona in. The reality of the system they help put in place is of no interest to them—-too complicated, too hard to follow, and besides, who could possibly blame them for the people in office when they vote for parties and not people?
How many words does it really take for you to convince us all you have no idea what you’re talking about?
You could have stopped with “Not my fault”
…or “not a freakin’ clue…
“I make an informed vote for somebody I don’t really like because he is the least bad option, and it means I’m doing it because somebody dangled single issues in front of me to make me ignore the larger issues,”
Like JR, I don’t have a piece of this fight … anyway,
Cory, this statement goes to the heart of the issue. Candidates often do dangle single issues in order to get the single issue voters, even when now read carefully here even when those issues are inconsistent with the broader philosophy espoused by the candidate. We knew Obama was lying to get votes when he promised to secure the border because that is inconsistent with the liberal philosophy of an open-borders society. We knew he was serious about his promise to cause energy prices to “necessarily go up” because that is very consistent with a liberal agenda.
George W. Bush did pledge to “make government more responsive” and reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Point of fact, both Al Gore and George W. Bush promised to make the federal government “smaller, smarter” during the debates. Guess which one I believed based on their overreaching philosophy?
You will see in this blog many examples of conservatives
discussingarguing a candidates bone fides based on what we view as the conservative model and whether or not we believe a candidates statements are in line with that model. Some are willing to give a pass while others are rigid in their interpretation. All of this is based on a core belief in conservative principles which each of us have espoused many many times.This confuses liberals and the ambivalent (thanks J.R.).
What Amazona is trying to get you to do is lay down your yardstick, examine what it is you believe the role of government should be what to this end you want your ideal candidate to accomplish; big intrusive government that will solve all my problems or small government that stays out of my way.
In this exercise reductio ad absurdum is allowable; the biggest government runs everything I do from the food I eat to the place I work; smallest possible government helps isn’t going to bail me out ever!
Then decide how close to this yardstick the current occupant of the Whitehouse is, and how close to this yardstick is the political party you have aligned yourself with. If a particular issue is important to you, then you must ask yourself is this issue on my yardstick? Or, and here’s the real challenge if it is not because it doesn’t fit the philosophy, then do I change my stand on this issue, or adopt the alternative political philosophy? How far from my core principles am I willing to stray?
Green Mountain sets a rigid standard; Cluster, Spook and I are more flexible allowing for a broader interpretation. Spook and I are ambivalent regarding Newt, Amazona is more certain his approach is acceptable.
Since you have never clarified to yourself what the goal is, you cannot ever know if you’re moving toward it or away. Amazona must believe you have the mental acumen to respond to this challenge or she wouldn’t have expended so much effort to get you to do it.
Amazona must believe you have the mental acumen to respond to this challenge or she wouldn’t have expended so much effort to get you to do it.
She clearly sees something in Cory that I fail to see. I’ve never seen anyone dodge and weave and dance around defining and defending one’s core beliefs as much as he does. IMO, Cory is either afraid to say what he believes or doesn’t really know. Either way, I’d say it’s time to cut him loose.
Mitt Romney changed his position on abortion; to the liberals that make him a flip-flopper (aside from the fact that one change makes someone a flipper not a flip-flopper).
I believe that truth and reason got to him and he grew.
I think only the most partisan troll is beyond growing in reason; cory doesn’t know where his center is; once he finds it he will be better qualified to express his beliefs. He may grow into a good liberal in the traditional sense or join us on the bright side; either way he will be better informed about his choices and make more mature decisions.
And less frustrating to talk to.
“George W. Bush did pledge to “make government more responsive” and reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Point of fact, both Al Gore and George W. Bush promised to make the federal government “smaller, smarter” during the debates. Guess which one I believed based on their overreaching philosophy?”
The one that got elected and then expanded the federal government? That’s my whole point.
“What Amazona is trying to get you to do is lay down your yardstick, examine what it is you believe the role of government should be what to this end you want your ideal candidate to accomplish; big intrusive government that will solve all my problems or small government that stays out of my way.”
There isn’t one yardstick, and to try to reduce the whole argument down to that simplicity eliminates so much vitally important information that you can’t make a reasonable decision.
“In this exercise reductio ad absurdum is allowable; the biggest government runs everything I do from the food I eat to the place I work; smallest possible government helps isn’t going to bail me out ever!
Then decide how close to this yardstick the current occupant of the Whitehouse is, and how close to this yardstick is the political party you have aligned yourself with. If a particular issue is important to you, then you must ask yourself is this issue on my yardstick?”
I am actually pretty close to on board with this, although a yardstick still implies movement that is a too unidirectional. To make your analogy make sense to me, it would have to be dozens of yardsticks I am comparing to a particular candidate, and I would have to decide how to weight the various yardsticks, as well.
This is the crux of my point. Your reductio ad absurdum implies that infinite government and zero government are both not the right answer, but it doesn’t clarify how I move to the left or right on your yardstick. The reality is that we all move left or right because of beliefs we have regarding individual issues. Most people think the government should keep us from killing each other, so clearly almost everybody thinks government intervention is good in some cases. Bigger or smaller government then is reduced to a question of whether it is appropriate to involve the government in a bunch of particular situations, with no overall rule of “bigness” or “smallness” that can reasonably guide our decisions. A facist dictatorship that does not prevent me from stabbing you to death is a government that still needs more government intervention on at least one issue.
“Or, and here’s the real challenge if it is not because it doesn’t fit the philosophy, then do I change my stand on this issue, or adopt the alternative political philosophy? How far from my core principles am I willing to stray?”
Sort of. There really any core philosophies that inform every political decision you make, and none of the political decisions you make require the interaction of all of your core philosophies. There is some overlap, but on abortion, for instance, the argument about the core value and the issue are one and the same. Everybody agrees that we shouldn’t kill babies, they just disagree on their core value of what point during the process a baby comes into being. There aren’t really other core values being discussed, and the core value at hand interacts with very few other policy choices. I can move back and forth on the issue all day without having to make any drastic changes to the rest of my political beliefs.
There are other issues and values that have broader interactions, but none that I believe are broad enough to be used as a litmus test for predicting a politician’s future behavior.
“Since you have never clarified to yourself what the goal is, you cannot ever know if you’re moving toward it or away. Amazona must believe you have the mental acumen to respond to this challenge or she wouldn’t have expended so much effort to get you to do it.”
You’ll find that if you go broad enough, all of our goals start to sound the same. We all want a fair system, but we disagree on what makes a system fair. We all want a system that isn’t going to collapse under financial stress, but we disagree on what will keep it from collapsing. We all want to give away as little freedom as possible to let our system work, but we disagree on what freedoms we do have to give away to make it happen.
If you get to the next layer of complexity, you are already at the point where you are argument a broad spectrum of issues, and the only reasonable way to talk about them is by actually examining the issues themselves.
Cory,
It sounds to me like you are purposely making the whole debate so complex that you don’t really have to stand for anything. That’s fine; but instead of posting long comments, the main gist of which is to avoid taking a stand on anything, why don’t you just say you really don’t have any core principles, and we can avoid a lot of wasted time in the future.
I think he is Amazona in the 60s; unwilling to take a critical look at himself. If he has to decide that feeling good about something means you’ve abandoned what you though you stood for he’d rather stand for nothing.
The whole debate is complex with or without my input. Speaking in vague, generic terms doesn’t make it less complex, it just lets you try to hide from any issues you don’t want to address. You’ll never have to doubt yourself if you can always rationalize everything away because the guy arguing with you is on the other side of the Magical Yardstick of Politics.
Spook,
Nope, I was wrong; he stands for incivility in place of debate. He stands for proudly demonstrating his ignorance at every opportunity, and he stands for nothing of value ~ certainly not one more second of my time. I’ll not answer the drooling asshole again, you can do as you please.
I like that you and accuse me of incivility and call me a “drooling asshole” during the course of 3 sentences.
I have to agree, drooling a$$hole is more discriptive and a lot more on target.Since you’re the one branding people liar when they were only being civil.
Good luck with that strategy.
What we have here is failure to c’mun’cate!
Cory,
You have still not defined in broad terms what is at your political core. This refusal to define yourself is the hallmark of the liberal mind.
We each have a basic political tenant toward which we judge all things political; I personally am a fiscal conservative that believes that taxation should be used as a method to raise funds for those things which the government is meant to do and authorized to do. There is my yardstick.
Along the way I have to ask myself, if I want the government to spend money (it doesn’t have) on worthwhile endeavors like finding a cure for cancer, does that match up with the broader goal of only raising what the government needs to fulfill their function or is finding a cure for cancer within my understanding of the government’s Constitutional role? I either have to choose that it is not a function of government and therefore I must change my position, or it is an acceptable cause in which case I have to redefine my belief that the government should only spend on what is constitutionally allowed. Either I’m a fiscal conservative or I’m not.
Once I’ve chosen where I am, I can then judge whether or not a candidate who has demonstrated himself to be a fiscal conservative is likely to make the same choice or not. Bush was decidedly the more conservative of the candidates and he expanded government, I cannot know with certitude that that is the outcome I can only judge beforehand and take my shot.
But, regarding those two (Bush & Gore) that election had only two choices, if you don’t like this one chances are you’re gonna hate that other one.
“We all want a fair system, but we disagree on what makes a system fair.”
Speak for yourself; I want a system that’s free, life ain’t fair, get used to it.
And here’s the lesson; Obama was asked about taxes and inequitable taxation (taxing the rich more than the middle) . He claimed the federal coffers would increase if we raise taxes on the richest, the questioner offered, “what if raising taxes on the rich results in less taxes collected, what will you do then?” Obama said he would still raise taxes on the richest because it was “the fair thing to do.”
Is this consistant with your view of government’s role? Where on the yardstick does this little gem go?
Stupid = fair?
The government’s role is not to decide fairness. Our legal system is set up to give everyone equal rights and equal treatment, often that’s not fair, often the bad guys win and the good guys lose. Taxes are to run the government not to decide who wins and who loses.
If you think government’s role is to decide fairness you are well on your way toward a totalitarian form of government, that whole “decide what I eat and where I work”, what products are sold and what industries must fail for the common good.
Life stinks, ours is the worst form of government except for all the other ones.
Lay the broader direction down and see where everything else lands. Pick a side.
“You have still not defined in broad terms what is at your political core. ”
Great, I’ll just go on for paragraphs describing why this is a completely asinine request, and you’ll ignore it all and ask me the same question again. Keep at it, champ.
“We each have a basic political tenant toward which we judge all things political; I personally am a fiscal conservative that believes that taxation should be used as a method to raise funds for those things which the government is meant to do and authorized to do. There is my yardstick.”
And what about being a “fiscal conservative” have to say about marajuana use? About abortions? About gun control? About foreign policy? About gay marriage? About the distribution of tax burden? You are outright lying when you claim that you use your fiscal conservatism as a metric for all things political. You don’t even use it as a metric for most things political, despite the fact that “fiscal conservative” itself is an overly broad term that gives me very little information about your beliefs on spending polices (e.g. most “fiscal conservatives” are totally fine with allowing the military budget to balloon).
“Along the way I have to ask myself, if I want the government to spend money (it doesn’t have) on worthwhile endeavors like finding a cure for cancer, does that match up with the broader goal of only raising what the government needs to fulfill their function or is finding a cure for cancer within my understanding of the government’s Constitutional role? I either have to choose that it is not a function of government and therefore I must change my position, or it is an acceptable cause in which case I have to redefine my belief that the government should only spend on hat is constitutionally allowed. Either I’m a fiscal conservative or I’m not.”
Or you could be a fiscal conservative that just happens to think that spending money on medical research is within the scope of the constitution. Or you could just be a big joke that thinks spewing generic platitudes counts as engaging in political debate.
“Once I’ve chosen where I am, I can then judge whether or not a candidate who has demonstrated himself to be a fiscal conservative is likely to make the same choice or not. Bush was decidedly the more conservative of the candidates and he expanded government, I cannot know with certitude that that is the outcome I can only judge beforehand and take my shot.”
I find myself wanting to argue about whether Bush had “demonstrated himself to be a fiscal conservative”, but I can’t reasonably, because it is too nebulous a term. I will say that if you thought there was any indication besides broad, empty promises that Bush was going to make the government smaller, I have a bridge to sell you.
And yes, you picked the least bad option in your eyes in the election. The difference here is that I don’t try to make the claim that the fact that you voted for Bush means that you endorse making the government larger, but Amazona does constantly try to make similar claims about me and the Democratic Party at large, even though I’ve never voted a straight ticket and I am not a constituent of most Democrats in office.
“Speak for yourself; I want a system that’s free, life ain’t fair, get used to it.”
That sounds pretty, but it is a bunch of crap. Implicit in every sob story about rich people being taxed too much is the basic assumption that it isn’t fair to have a progressive income tax. So we’ll come up with a new tax and call it… wait for it.. a “Fair Tax“.
JR, I’m willing to admit I was wrong about this idiot.
I tried to have a conversation with this troll, but he has proven incapable of it.
Just too damn stupid / A pathetically stupid asshole.
Yup.
Cory,
Are you saying you’re FOR the Fair Tax or just making fun of it>
I’m saying that “fiscal conservatives” are against making things “fair” is ridiculous and citing the “Fair Tax” as a shining example of how outrageous the claim is.
“JR, I’m willing to admit I was wrong about this idiot.
I tried to have a conversation with this troll, but he has proven incapable of it.
Just too damn stupid / A pathetically stupid asshole.”
Aaand waiting for the mods to do the fair thing and delete the post containing nothing but personal insults and profanity, even though the Count is conservative.
“I’m saying that “fiscal conservatives” are against making things “fair” is ridiculous and citing the “Fair Tax” as a shining example of how outrageous the claim is.”
You lost me, sport. I’ll take one more stab, and then, like Count, I’m done. What’s ridiculous, the fact that Conservatives are against making things fair, or that you’re saying it. Maybe you just didn’t word it right. Do you like the Fair Tax or not? Want to try again?
“You lost me, sport. I’ll take one more stab, and then, like Count, I’m done. What’s ridiculous, the fact that Conservatives are against making things fair, or that you’re saying it. Maybe you just didn’t word it right. Do you like the Fair Tax or not? Want to try again?”
Let’s trace the conversation back.
I said that everyone wants the government to be fair and just had differing opinions on what it meant to have it be fair.
The Count complained that he (and by extension, if I take this whole “two political philosophies” nonsense at face value, fiscal conservatives) didn’t care about fairness.
I pointed out that this was clearly not true, as fiscal conservatives named one of their more popular tax reforms the “Fair Tax”.
That was my entire point in bringing it up. If you care, I think the Fair Tax and all other popular consumption taxes are a bad idea as they are provably regressive taxes.
I assume, then, that you believe the government should be the arbiter of what’s fair. End of discussion. I would fight you to the death to avoid that. But it does clarify why we are having, as Count put it, a failure to communicate.
I think the Fair Tax and all other popular consumption taxes are a bad idea as they are provably regressive taxes.
You’ve obviously never seen or read the complete rational for the Fair Tax.
“I assume, then, that you believe the government should be the arbiter of what’s fair. End of discussion. I would fight you to the death to avoid that.”
The government necessarily has to make decisions about fairness to function. You can’t have an army without determining a fair way to get and keep soldiers. You can’t tax people without deciding which way to tax them is fair. The fact that you cover your ears and hum doesn’t make it any less true.
“You’ve obviously never seen or read the complete rational for the Fair Tax.”
You’ve obviously been fooled by their poor rationale as to why the tax isn’t regressive. An unmodified sales tax is regressive because poor people spend a larger percentage of their money than rich people. It mathematically impossible to “fix” a regressive tax curve by adding any flat rebate, you just move the point at which the tax is more regressive to the right along the curve. If you make the rebate high enough, you can spare the bottom quintile, but then the next quintile up just gets it worse.
The government necessarily has to make decisions about fairness to function. You can’t have an army without determining a fair way to get and keep soldiers. You can’t tax people without deciding which way to tax them is fair. The fact that you cover your ears and hum doesn’t make it any less true.
No, I think the fact is that you don’t know the difference between “fair” and “equitable”. I’d like to say that it’s been nice, but you really are a total waste of time.
“No, I think the fact is that you don’t know the difference between “fair” and “equitable”. I’d like to say that it’s been nice, but you really are a total waste of time.”
No, the fact is that you guys try to make up broad core differences so that you can talk about how you’d fight people to the death for what amounts to a bunch of hot air. It’s a bunch of intellectual masturbation, and I find it incredibly dull.
Equitable:
adjective
1. characterized by equity or fairness; just and right; fair; reasonable
Who wound cory up and set him loose? He’s even more wild-eyed than usual here, and that’s saying a lot.
First he shows off his ignorance of conservatism and real politics when he starts his whining about marijuana use, etc. How many times do we have to tell him that we are talking about a Constitutional form of governing this nation which severely limits the scope and power OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ?
Check out the 10th Amendment, sport. Apply it to every law passed or considered by Congress, and conservatives will be pretty darned happy.
He, and his kind, have so much trouble with this.
BTW, gun control is a Constitutional issue.
Then he slopes off into the weeds trying to make some kind of point (I guess—it’s always so hard to tell..) about the Fair Tax.
He said all we need to see when he sniveled about “…(A)n unmodified sales tax (being) regressive….” when the Fair Tax IS a modified sales tax. As anyone who bothered to look into it, even on the superficial level upon which cory operates, could tell within a few lines of its description.
This is the guy who votes for PEOPLE but not for the ideology they represent, who votes on ISSUES without even looking into the political model which will be put in power thanks to votes on this issue, and who brushes off the consequences of his simple-minded and thoughtless actions with the comment that the ideology doesn’t matter, he’ll just do what he wants anyway.
He is an excellent example of a political and intellectual lightweight who for some reason thinks he has a handle on politics without having a clue.
This is cory.
“You have still not defined in broad terms what is at your political core. ”
Great, I’ll just go on for paragraphs describing why this is a completely asinine request, and you’ll ignore it all and ask me the same question again. Keep at it, champ.
You see, to a lightweight like cory it IS “asinine” to know what you believe and be able to explain and defend it.
But he can tell you how he FEELS……..
“”First he shows off his ignorance of conservatism and real politics when he starts his whining about marijuana use, etc. How many times do we have to tell him that we are talking about a Constitutional form of governing this nation which severely limits the scope and power OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ?””
Look, if you are incapable of following the conversation, let the big boys talk. I was talking within the scope of being a “fiscal conservative”, which the Count wants me to believe is his core value that informs all of his decisions. Not a “constitutionalist” or “constitutional conservative”, but a “fiscal conservative”. You can be one and not the other. Not all conservatives are the same, there is not one tiny overriding set of core values for everything. This is the same point I’ve been making in like a dozen posts in a row.
“BTW, gun control is a Constitutional issue.”
That’s such crap. There is exactly one Constitutional decision to be made about gun control: either I have the right to bear the arms that the Framers had available (or their rough equivalents), or I have the right to bear anything and everything, including a suitcase full of weaponized Anthrax or a nuclear weapon. The one sentence in the Constitution doesn’t leave any room for any interpretations in between, so which is it? You can’t make the Constitution give you the right to a concealed handgun without giving criminals the Constitutional right to weapons of mass destruction, and I have this funny feeling that if you survey the American public, almost zero of them would want that.
“Then he slopes off into the weeds trying to make some kind of point (I guess—it’s always so hard to tell..) about the Fair Tax.”
I’m sorry I speak so far above your head, but it is hard not to. I merely brought up the Fair Tax to indicate that it is a complete lie that the conservative ideology wants the government to not touch fairness. I specifically didn’t express an opinion on it until pressed repeatedly.
“He said all we need to see when he sniveled about “…(A)n unmodified sales tax (being) regressive….” when the Fair Tax IS a modified sales tax. As anyone who bothered to look into it, even on the superficial level upon which cory operates, could tell within a few lines of its description.”
That’s funny. I talked about the one and only “modification” in the next sentence (the tax prebate). Maybe if you had the intellectual wherewithal to read and understand two sentences in a row you could avoid looking like such a moron. Or did you think there are some other modifications? If so, I suggest you “look into it, even on a superficial level”.
“This is the guy who votes for PEOPLE but not for the ideology they represent, who votes on ISSUES without even looking into the political model which will be put in power thanks to votes on this issue, and who brushes off the consequences of his simple-minded and thoughtless actions with the comment that the ideology doesn’t matter, he’ll just do what he wants anyway.”
And now you just lie about what I’ve done, even though I’ve corrected you specifically on some of these claims before.
“You see, to a lightweight like cory it IS “asinine” to know what you believe and be able to explain and defend it.
But he can tell you how he FEELS……..”
And more gross mischaracterization of the things I’ve said. As long as we’re lying about each other, Amazona was a Nazi sympathizer in Singapore during the Battle of Hastings.
In Fla we have NO income tax……..only a SALES TAX….ALL PAY, ALL pay the SAME RATE.
guess what? works just fine.
“regressive” ?
BS and MORE BS!!
“That sounds pretty, but it is a bunch of crap. Implicit in every sob story about rich people being taxed too much is the basic assumption that it isn’t fair to have a progressive income tax. So we’ll come up with a new tax and call it… wait for it.. a “Fair Tax“.”
Well, they were going to call it the Republicans want dirty air and dirty water Tax, but it didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Madison Avenue thinking, you know.
“There is exactly one Constitutional decision to be made about gun control: either I have the right to bear the arms that the Framers had available (or their rough equivalents), or I have the right to bear anything and everything, including a suitcase full of weaponized Anthrax or a nuclear weapon.”
This tells you everything you need to know about cory, stuck on stupid.
cory Do you feed yourself or change your shorts when they get dirty? I’m just curious if someone has to follow you around and apologize to decent people for your slobbering lunacy.
“This tells you everything you need to know about cory, stuck on stupid.
cory Do you feed yourself or change your shorts when they get dirty? I’m just curious if someone has to follow you around and apologize to decent people for your slobbering lunacy.”
Don’t worry, lots of people resort to shouting personal insults at people when they don’t have any reasoned responses.
Please tell us how a suitcase full of Anthrax or a flame thrower or a nuclear device would be considered necessary to the security of a free state. Please enlighten us how a criminal with concealed weapons support the concept of suppressing insurrection or preventing undemocratic government intrusion or facilitates the inherent right of self-defense. Show us you understand the Constitution, precedence, English Common Law, the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights of 1989. Dazzle us all with the brilliance of your interpretation of a Militia in the understanding of the founders and why the Court would ignore everything that Marbury v. Madison established with respect to Judicial review and declare that either all citizens may own every conceivable weapon or no one may own anything that can be used as a weapon.
Fact is, you can’t and you won’t; you’ve already made such an ass of yourself by proving again and again you have no capacity for “reasoned response” you have no capacity for logic or objectivity, only silly outbursts fueled by emotion and a desire to appear as though you can keep up. Every pathetic diatribe you’ve posted is another example of convoluted contrarianism. That ridiculous statement about the Second Amendment is ample evidence of your sophomoric thinking. You didn’t read the Second Amendment but you pontificate as though you understand it, like everything else you’ve written; no substance, no logic, just whiney empty-headed little-girl posturing.
But go ahead, defend the absurd statement you’ve made asshole.
“Please tell us how a suitcase full of Anthrax or a flame thrower or a nuclear device would be considered necessary to the security of a free state”
Please tell me why any other particular weapon is. Can you not have a well regulated militia using rifles and shotguns? And while I’m at it, what militia are you part of, anyway? Keep in mind that colonial militias weren’t just a bunch of dudes sitting around with guns in their closets, they were “well regulated”.
We actually do have a well regulated militia, too, by the way. It’s called the National Guard. Join up and you can use an automatic rifle.
” Show us you understand the Constitution, precedence, English Common Law, the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights of 1989. Dazzle us all with the brilliance of your interpretation of a Militia in the understanding of the founders and why the Court would ignore everything that Marbury v. Madison established with respect to Judicial review and declare that either all citizens may own every conceivable weapon or no one may own anything that can be used as a weapon.”
You list a lot of sweet documents and sources, but trying to cite the context of the 2nd Amendment is silly, because the 2nd Amendment was written when people were still firing muskets at each other. I want you to explain to me what possible context you could use to justify the idea that one weapon (a concealable semi-automatic pistol) was intended to be protected and another (a suitcase full of Anthrax) was not when neither existed when the amendment was written. How could you possibly make a decision without inserting your own values into the answer? Do you have a letter hidden away someplace where Jefferson wrote to Adams “Someday they are going to make weapons that are like our flintlocks, only they can fire 20 rounds without reloading and fit in your purse, I sure hope they know we meant those, too! But not any sort of microscopic organisms that kill people (even though we haven’t discovered microbiology at all)”?
I’m just going to skip your entire second paragraph aside from pointing out that it is incredibly ironic.
cory’s quite a mess, isn’t he?
I love the new spin that the 2nd Amendment refers only to the weaponry of the late 18th Century. It reminds me of an anti-alcohol religious fundamentalist assuring me that when Jesus changed water to wine, it was nonalcoholic wine. But those who find the Constitution too inconvenient do scramble to find ways to dismiss it.
And I’ve noticed that when they do so, they have to recast the Framers as guys who simply could not put a coherent sentence together or be specific. I think they were pretty darned specific, so I think if they meant “muskets and flintlocks” the 2nd Amendment would have designated exactly WHICH arms citizens are entitled to bear. They could easily have authorized knives but banned hatchets, but they didn’t get into that, either, being quite confident that the word “arms” covered everything they thought we should have the right to own, carry and use.
They also would have specified that the right to bear arms was LIMITED to militias. But they didn’t.
(To those who like to pretend that the Framers were vague and unspecific in their wording in the Constitution, I refer them to the 10th Amendment, a perfect example of absolute specificity.)
cory gets quite overheated when he squeals that he DID mention “the only modification” to the Fair Tax. “The only modification”????
Here’s what he said, complete with snot and snideness: I talked about the one and only “modification” in the next sentence (the tax prebate). Maybe if you had the intellectual wherewithal to read and understand two sentences in a row you could avoid looking like such a moron. Or did you think there are some other modifications? If so, I suggest you “look into it, even on a superficial level”.
I’m sure he will try to shift the debate into the much beloved area of semantics when I point out other modifications to the Fair Tax, such as the fact that some essential items are not taxed at all (including food and medicine) and that it does not apply to used goods.
Vintage cory, all noise and nonsense but with absolute certitude regarding his emotion-based opinions.
One of the really funny things about cory (if by “funny” you mean weird and inexplicable) is how when he is quoted he still shrilly denies that he said what he said.
Example:
cory stated, right here in this thread, “So you go ahead and worry about big useless general statements about philosophy, and I’ll keep worrying about specifics. I’ll see that I’m voting people into office purely because they are the least bad option…
Here he quite clearly states that he is not interested in what he dismisses as “big useless general statements about philosophy” but votes on SPECIFICS and then goes on to clarify, that he votes for the PEOPLE.
When I point this out, he has another hissy fit and squeals that nonononono, he does NOT do this, he keeps telling me he does not do this, blah blah blah. Yet he repeatedly states in other posts that this is precisely what he does do. He denies or ignores the underlying dogma of a political model, dismissing it as irrelevant, and makes his decisions based on individual (or as he likes to call them “specific”) policies he happens to like.
He just spins around and around, getting himself more and more worked up but digging himself in deeper and deeper. If he can’t even keep track of what HE says, how can he keep track of anything else?
He can’t. And he doesn’t.
I think this statement of cory’s accurately sums up his political position: I said to him: “You have still not defined in broad terms what is at your political core. ” And his response was:
Great, I’ll just go on for paragraphs describing why this is a completely asinine request, and you’ll ignore it all and ask me the same question again.
In his own words, being expected to have or be able to explain a political core is “asinine”. Someone WITH a political core would know what it is, and be able to explain it and how it forms the basis of his political decisions.
Cory not only admits in so many words that he has none, he also admits in other posts and on other threads that he finds such a political core to be “…big useless statements about philosophy…” and that he defines political models by the individual (what he calls “specific”) policies they promote and promises they make, heedless of the underlying dogma and agenda of the model making the promises.
What’s funny is that he turns right around and denies saying these things, or believing them.
But he sure can be a bitch while doing it, can’t he? Snotty little thing…….
I love the new spin that the 2nd Amendment refers only to the weaponry of the late 18th Century.
Amazona,
Cory displays a trait that’s all to common with Progressives. He knows just enough about the Constitution to be dangerous. As you say, where the Constitution lacks specifics, it makes up for it in the 10th Amendment, a brilliant concept that limited the Constitution to just a few concise pages instead of the hundreds or even thousands of pages that modern-day lawmakers stuff into bills.
What the Left almost always fails to do is read the volumes of opinions and thought by the Founders that led to the formulation of the Constitution. Much was written about the right to bear arms, and arms at the time was considered personal weapons, as opposed to, for example, ordnance such as cannons.
I think cory is a valuable addition to the blog, because his absolute certitude leads him to make statements that clearly identify and define the Unexamined Left.
Cory is not a bad person. He wants everything to be FAIR and NICE, he wants poor people to not be so poor and hungry people to have plenty to eat. He yearns for a warm fuzzy world free of injustice and consequences for bad decisions. And so on, just like most who vote for the Left without a clue as to what they are really placing in power.
Most of those who vote for Dems don’t do so out of love for the writings and philosophies of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, et al. As a matter of fact they become quite indignant when these names are mentioned, because these are very bad men and they don’t have anything to do with the warm and gentle wishes of the voters to make the world comfy. Like cory, they tread water and backstroke on the glittery surface of what they are told is the Left, without ever peering into the murk that lies below to see the harsh reality of the system when it actually gains power.
This superficial involvement lets them feel morally superior as well, a tactic reinforced by the minders at the top who keep filling them with propaganda about the inherent evils of the Opposition, using catchphrases like GREED to stir up moral indignation and shore up commitment to the fantasy of Leftism as kind and gentle and soooooo much more moral.
Try to nudge any of these political zombies into examining the reality of their chosen model and they flip out, a la cory and his shrill protestations.
cory—you will want to shut your eyes and put your hands over your ears and shout LALALALALA for a while, as I am going to expound upon yet another of those pesky philosophies you find so distasteful.
It is about choice. My philosophy is that choice, TRUE choice, is based upon a decision, and a decision has to be based upon fact. If a choice is made based on emotion, or guesswork, or even upon a mistaken belief, it is not really a choice, it is a guess.
There. It’s over now, cory. It was a short detour, and you probably didn’t even have time to hyperventilate.
I believe that most of the Unexamined Left have not made a true choice of political systems, but have guessed about which to support, as they have not made the investment of time and energy and intellectual capital necessary to dig into the facts behind the facade and learn what they are really enabling.
Some are too stupid, some are too lazy, some are too gulled and complacent to comprehend that there is anything there to look into, but some—like cory—-are so deeply emotionally invested that they will fervently and passionately try to defend their positions.
We notice that cory, however, is less FOR anything than simply AGAINST what he has been told is the Right. This, too, is typical. You can’t be FOR something if you can’t even define it and defend it, so all that remains is to be fervently AGAINST what you have told is Bad.
And this is valuable, as it offers us a look into the mentality of well-meaning but wildly misled people.
(The bad guys are the few who actually understand the system, believe in it, and hope to gain when it takes over. But there aren’t very many of these.)
“cory’s quite a mess, isn’t he?
I love the new spin that the 2nd Amendment refers only to the weaponry of the late 18th Century. It reminds me of an anti-alcohol religious fundamentalist assuring me that when Jesus changed water to wine, it was nonalcoholic wine. But those who find the Constitution too inconvenient do scramble to find ways to dismiss it.
And I’ve noticed that when they do so, they have to recast the Framers as guys who simply could not put a coherent sentence together or be specific. I think they were pretty darned specific, so I think if they meant “muskets and flintlocks” the 2nd Amendment would have designated exactly WHICH arms citizens are entitled to bear. They could easily have authorized knives but banned hatchets, but they didn’t get into that, either, being quite confident that the word “arms” covered everything they thought we should have the right to own, carry and use.
They also would have specified that the right to bear arms was LIMITED to militias. But they didn’t.
(To those who like to pretend that the Framers were vague and unspecific in their wording in the Constitution, I refer them to the 10th Amendment, a perfect example of absolute specificity.)”
Absolutely none of this contradicts anything I’ve said on the issue, you retard. One of the interpretations of the 2nd Amendment that I’ve repeatedly said is internally consistent is one where you have a personal right to bear arms not limited to flintlocks or muskets. It just also means you can’t draw the line at suitcase bombs or biological weapons. If that’s your interpretation, that’s fine, but you can’t have semi automatic pistols without suitcases full of Anthrax.
I believe the Framers were smart men, but they did not, as you frequently like to say, have crystal balls, and so any assumption of intent with regard to technology they were hundreds of years from achieving is pure fantasy.
“I’m sure he will try to shift the debate into the much beloved area of semantics when I point out other modifications to the Fair Tax, such as the fact that some essential items are not taxed at all (including food and medicine) and that it does not apply to used goods.”
You’re right, I misspoke. There are other modifications. They are even less capable of making the tax anything but regressive (so much so that Americans for Fair Taxation doesn’t even cite them in their FAQ response to the tax being regressive), but they are there and I was wrong.
“When I point this out, he has another hissy fit and squeals that nonononono, he does NOT do this, he keeps telling me he does not do this, blah blah blah. Yet he repeatedly states in other posts that this is precisely what he does do.”
See, this is what we call lying. I do vote for people. I just started objecting when you started claiming that this meant I was voting purely on personality or any other such nonsense. But hey, any time one of you lies about what I’ve said, the rest of you seem to take it as gospel, so I’ll admit it looks like this is a viable tactic if you are looking for some ass slapping from all of your friends on this blog.
“political models by the individual (what he calls “specific”) policies they promote and promises they make, heedless of the underlying dogma and agenda of the model making the promises.”
A model is not making promises. A model has never run for any office in our country. A person makes promises. You didn’t vote for conservatism in 2000 or 2004, you voted for George W. Bush. If you had voted for conservatism, your government would have gotten smaller. It didn’t. You didn’t.
So yes, your broad statements about “liberals” and “conservatives” are completely useless.
“Much was written about the right to bear arms, and arms at the time was considered personal weapons, as opposed to, for example, ordnance such as cannons.”
Aaand you’re wrong. I’ll use Tench Coxe as my citation (a delegate to the continental congress)
“Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” -Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
“Cannon are constantly manufactured, when demanded, to a very considerable extent, in the public armories of the nation, and of the States, and on contracts, and for sale to associations of citizens, and to individual purchasers, for use at home, or for exportation.” Tench Coxe, Dec, 8, 1812, Report of Acting Secretary of the Treasury; Digest of Manufacturers
Note that the second is even more telling, because it isn’t an examination of what should be done, but it is an observation made that cannons were currently being sold to individual citizens. Clearly we aren’t just talking about one man’s ideas.
Here’s the problem with conservatives these days. They think they have a monopoly on knowledge of the Constitution and its context just because they spend so much time wrapping themselves up in it. The problem is, you have to actually spend the time to read about it to gain knowledge, not just spend all day calling yourself a “Constitutionalist”.
Cory,
OK, cannons was probably a bad example, as, in colonial times, they were small enough to pull behind a farm wagon. IIRC, there were not a lot of Constitutional advocates that agreed with Coxe’s broad interpretation of what constituted “arms”, but he was clearly an important part of the discussion leading up to the Constitutional Convention. Also, at the time, much of the debate was centered around maintaining militias as opposed to a standing army, so it wasn’t like they had National Guard armories where they kept all their field pieces and other ordnance that was too heavy to carry on their person.
That said, your mention of Anthrax as “arms” is still idiotic, and I think you know it. Keep digging if you want. You’ve so severely violated the “First Rule of Holes” that nothing you say can be taken seriously at this point.
“Also, at the time, much of the debate was centered around maintaining militias as opposed to a standing army, so it wasn’t like they had National Guard armories where they kept all their field pieces and other ordnance that was too heavy to carry on their person.”
It depends on what time in history you are citing exactly, but Tench Coxe spent a great deal of time arguing (successfully) to set up military caches exactly like you are talking about, even going so far as to be one of the main proponents of building up a standing navy because he didn’t think that such caches would be effective enough at preventing naval incursions:
“It is submitted, therefore, whether if the 10 or 1,200,000 men, able to bear arms in the United States, were provided with depots of every useful and necessary species of arms from large cannon and heavy mortars to musquets, pistols, and swords, at and around our sea ports, they would not prove a more effectual bar to any considerable mischief in our ports, than the limited navy, which is so ardently desired.”
“That said, your mention of Anthrax as “arms” is still idiotic, and I think you know it. Keep digging if you want. You’ve so severely violated the “First Rule of Holes” that nothing you say can be taken seriously at this point.”
Yeah, you’re like the 5th person on this blog to point at what I’ve said and claim that it was obviously wrong when they’ve run out of reasoned arguments to dispute my logic. Welcome to the club.
It depends on what time in history you are citing exactly, but Tench Coxe spent a great deal of time arguing (successfully) to set up military caches exactly like you are talking about,
So he didn’t really advocate for individuals to own every conceivable weapon available, only for individuals, as members of an organized militia to purchase larger weapons (such as canons and morters) and store them in “caches” available to the militia in time of conflict. We still have those caches today, except they’re now owned and controlled by the U.S. Military (Army, Navy, Airforce and Marine Reserve components) or by state national guard organizations.
“So he didn’t really advocate for individuals to own every conceivable weapon available, only for individuals, as members of an organized militia to purchase larger weapons (such as canons and morters) and store them in “caches” available to the militia in time of conflict. We still have those caches today, except they’re now owned and controlled by the U.S. Military (Army, Navy, Airforce and Marine Reserve components) or by state national guard organizations.”
He advocated for both. Read the first quotation I cited from him. He says very specifically that every soldier’s weapon belongs in the hands of the people and not either just the federal or state government. How can you defend yourself against a future oppressive government or a foreign invader if they have heavy artillery and you don’t?
here is my choice
OR
love this one……
Cory,
Why do you bother to come here? Seriously — you don’t engage in debate. All you do is criticize what others say, often after creating straw men out of your own imagination. Even on the rare occasions that you actually address an issue (ie. gun control) you don’t offer any suggestions or ideas as to how, in your opinion, it should actually work or to what extent it should be implemented. You keep talking about how you make decisions based on individual issues instead of letting basic principles guide your thinking, but you appear to be a master (well, maybe “master” isn’t the right word) at circular logic. All you ever succeed in doing is alienating everyone here. You write a lot of words, but don’t ever seem to be able to make any points other than to argue that everyone else is wrong. I confess, I don’t see any point in even responding to you any more.
JR, as I said, cory as an individual isn’t worth much time or effort, but as an example of the uneducated, clueless, masses that make up Obama’s base he is worth looking at.
Distill cory’s blather down to its basics and all you have is a list of Leftist talking points, so deeply imbedded in his psyche that he probably thinks they are his own ideas. This is an example of the success of good propaganda, and we have to understand it to fight it.
In the next election cycle, when you see what you think are Lefties carrying on as only they can do, think of cory and his clueless passion. But not all of them are as deeply mired as cory seems to be, and every now and then one of them will take a minute to consider the fact that he or she is not voting for a single appealing issue but for the underlying ideology of the party dangling that shiny issue as bait.
Every now and then someone will catch on to the fact that he or she has accepted a lie. Example: The recent legislation did NOT just “reverse” the DADT decree of Clinton, which was, after all, not even a law. It was presented as such, and therefore was more palatable (sounded so FAIR) but it was in fact a total legislation which overturned an earlier law (NOT DADT) and imposed a new one. While someone might be sympathetic to the idea of gays being allowed to serve in the military, every now and then someone is going to say “Why did they LIE about the bill, and what other lies have they been telling me?”
It’s a process.
Amazona,
As I see it, the main problem we’re face with is that the current two-party systems doesn’t represent a clear-cut, good guys vs. bad guys dynamic. That’s the main reason the Tea Party arose, and, with the advent of the Tea Party, we really have a defacto 3 parties: Progressives (Democrats) Moderate Progressives (Republican establishment) and Libertarian Conservatives (Tea Party). The only way we survive and thrive as a nation, IMO, is for one of the first two to be marginalized. I’d like to think that we’ll solve this problem through the political process, but almost everything I hear and read and see tells me otherwise. The referees and the educational process are almost completely controlled by one side. The playing field is simply not level.
If we had the luxury of being able to take a half century to swing the pendulum back the other way, as the Left has done, I might feel differently, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think we’re running out of time, plus now we’re increasingly at the mercy of outside forces (global economic depression) beyond our control.
Just my two cents.
“every now and then one of them will take a minute to consider the fact that he or she is not voting for a single appealing issue but for the underlying ideology of the party dangling that shiny issue as bait.”
Please cite for me what “shiny issue” they are using to bait me. Pretty please. If you are so sure that’s what is happening, it should be really easy to cite the one or two issues that are the only things I’ve apparently indicated interest in when posting here.
“Every now and then someone will catch on to the fact that he or she has accepted a lie. Example: The recent legislation did NOT just “reverse” the DADT decree of Clinton, which was, after all, not even a law. It was presented as such, and therefore was more palatable (sounded so FAIR) but it was in fact a total legislation which overturned an earlier law (NOT DADT) and imposed a new one. While someone might be sympathetic to the idea of gays being allowed to serve in the military, every now and then someone is going to say “Why did they LIE about the bill, and what other lies have they been telling me?””
I’m not sure what the actual complaint is here. Technically, yes, the legislation overturned Section 654, Title 10, a piece of legislation which outright barred homosexuals from serving in the military, but Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was always just a partial circumvention of that particular piece of the U.S. Code. It’s an interesting piece of history (and may reflect differently on the people who were involved when we went through the debate the first time) but I can’t find the great harm in the debate for the current bill, as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had been used colloquially as shorthand for the combined package of Section 654, Title 10 and the executive policy for some time. I’m probably going to just get shouted at for this, but I’m actually curious if there’s some net harm with the way the recent legislation was passed that I have just overlooked.
“Why do you bother to come here? Seriously — you don’t engage in debate. All you do is criticize what others say, often after creating straw men out of your own imagination. Even on the rare occasions that you actually address an issue (ie. gun control) you don’t offer any suggestions or ideas as to how, in your opinion, it should actually work or to what extent it should be implemented.”
I only brought up gun control in passing. Amazona was the one that latched onto it like a rabid dog. I actually don’t have a strong opinion on gun control, I just get sick and tired of hearing people debate about the interpretation of a now useless Constitutional amendment instead of having a discussion about what weapon restrictions make the most sense. Does having concealed handguns decrease crime rates? Does restricting them reduce gun and/or violence related deaths? I’ve seen conflicted studies on the actual, relevant parts of the issue and haven’t done enough serious looking into it to form a solid opinion. It would probably be easier to stumble into reliable information if every gun rights debate didn’t degenerate into a screaming match about Constitutionality.
“All you ever succeed in doing is alienating everyone here. You write a lot of words, but don’t ever seem to be able to make any points other than to argue that everyone else is wrong. I confess, I don’t see any point in even responding to you any more.”
I don’t spend a lot of time expressing my opinions on individual subjects because every time I try to open up a conversation on specific issue, people start making broad statements about how liberals just don’t get it, and we end up back here.
I only brought up gun control in passing. Amazona was the one that latched onto it like a rabid dog.
That’s just simply not true. You were the first to bring it up, and Amazona made a casual one-line response about gun control being a Constitutional issue. Then you went off on it like a “rabid dog”. Amazona is absolutely right — you can’t keep your thoughts straight from one comment to the next.
Yeah, when I listed it on a long list of issues that I can’t guess at stances on based on identification as a “fiscal conservative”, I totally should have expected Amazona to start an unrelated conversation about it being a Constitutional issue. My bad.
“As I see it, the main problem we’re face with is that the current two-party systems doesn’t represent a clear-cut, good guys vs. bad guys dynamic.”
Sweet, so somebody else disagrees with Amazona when she says that there are only two philosophies in this country.
No, there are still only two basic governing philosophies: large, unrestricted central government and small, restricted central government. The Democrat Party and the establishment wing of the Republican Party subscribe to the former, albeit, to different degrees. The Tea Party subscribes to the latter. I’m not sure why you find that so difficult to comprehend.
Oh okay, so when Amazona makes broad statements that area always true about “progessives” they are equally true for non-Tea Party members of the Republican Party and Soviet Russia. Got it.
they are equally true for non-Tea Party members of the Republican Party and Soviet Russia. Got it.
Now you’re just being a smart-ass.
No, just succinctly pointing out the insanity of trying to claim that my political philosophy is in any way related to Stalin’s. If mine is, by your own words, so is John Boehner’s.
JR, when you say “Now you’re just being a smart-ass” you are only half right. And we know which half….
There are only two fundamental political philosophies at play in 21st Century American politics. What has poor befuddled cory so, well, befuddled is that he can’t discern between ideology and execution.
The reasons for the GOP’s slipping away from true commitment to one of these political models are myriad and complex, and would take up several other long threads to discuss. But because the GOP has become tepid on some core conservative values does not mean those core principles cease to exist. It just means the party has become sloppy in its execution of these values in government.
Just as Dems fall short of full execution of Leftist ideology, Republicans have been falling short of actual Constitutional government. What we are seeing now is a movement by the true ideologues of the Left to push, pull or drag the Democratic Party into a stronger commitment to full-fledged Leftist goals and agendas, and efforts by Constitutional ideologues to do the same with the Republican Party, but in the opposite direction, back to Constitutional principles.
Neither party is making its ideologues happy, but the ideologies are still there, and are still only the two opposing political models of government.
When there are only two choices in an election, you have to go with the one that at least has a shot at getting something right, which is why we vote for Republicans instead of Democrats. With the Dems, there is no chance at all.
What I am seeing is a growing anger at the Republican Party for its failures in governing according to the principles it is supposed to represent. Only a fool (cory) would leap to the stupid conclusion that if a party fails to meet the standards of its ideology this means the ideology doesn’t exist.
He truly does not get it—-that when he votes for a Dem he is voting for a Leftist ideology. After the vote, there is always going to be the question of how committed to that ideology the candidate, or the party, will be, and how close to that ideology their governing will be.
When we vote for a Republican, we are voting for a hope that the party will govern according to its ideology. Lately it has not, and this is why we are looking for candidates who will. This does not mean the ideology is dead, just that we need to be more astute in our choices of who we send to government to enact it.
We realize that we may have to leave the Republican Party if we can’t reform it, and that’s OK with us—because we are motivated by our ideology and not by the identity of GOP.
cory has now dug in his heels and will never acknowledge that he is wrong in his proclamations. There was a chance that he might have the character and intellect to examine his preconceived notions, but there was also the chance that challenging them would just spur his obduracy.
Now we know which way he has snapped, and we can dismiss and ignore him, as it is clear that from now on we will only get more of his anger, snottiness and confusion.
“No, just succinctly pointing out the insanity of trying to claim that my political philosophy is in any way related to Stalin’s. If mine is, by your own words, so is John Boehner’s.”
See what I mean by stupid? As we have no clue as to his “political philosophy”, since he has refused to explain it, all we can go on is what he seems to defend, which is by the way the Leftist model, which is that of Stalin—like it or not.
No one has said that Boehner’s political philosophy is Leftist, only that his execution of what he claims to be his political philosophy is less than stellar.
But what matters here is that cory truly does not see the difference, and that he is now wholly dedicated to making stupider and stupider comments to try to make a point.
“No one has said that Boehner’s political philosophy is Leftist, only that his execution of what he claims to be his political philosophy is less than stellar.”
JR called mainstream Republicans progessives a few posts ago. Really, I’m done bothering even reading your posts. You post the same drivel over and over, it’s like talking to a wall. Have a nice life.
No, just succinctly pointing out the insanity of trying to claim that my political philosophy is in any way related to Stalin’s.
I’m not sure who you think has claimed that your political philosophy “is in any way related to Stalin’s”. I did a word search in this thread, and you were the first to mention Stalin’s name at 3:44 on December 9th. No one else mentioned Stalin until Amazona today at 11:20 when she said:
So, again, you’re just inventing things as you go along. You’ve never admitted to a political philosophy, so I’m not sure how anyone could compare you to Stalin or anyone else.
This will be the last time I post on (or read) blogs4victory. I’m sure some of you are already jumping for joy, because you are thinking you have “won”. I’m not really sure what you’ll think you’ve won, as you surely have not drastically changed my mind on anything, but congratulations to you, anyway. I do, however, want to leave the more reasonable portion of you one last thing to think about before I leave.
I’m leaving because I’ve come to realize fully that I’m wasting my time here. There is absolutely nothing I can say to cause almost any of you to seriously re-examine your beliefs. I’ve actually been pretty sure of this for a while, but I’m pretty hard headed, so I still came back to give it a try.
My problem all along is that I’ve made the basic assumption that a political blog would be populated by people interested in a reasoned political discussion. But there’s only so many times I can watch some of you spend time posting long, verbose comments that are literally identical in content to other comments you made just hours or days before. I got to wondering, though, why you guys would congregate at a political blog if it wasn’t to discuss the reasoning behind your political beliefs.
At first I started likening it to team sports and the need to win in a game of us versus them, but that’s not quite right. A sports team isn’t so dedicated to any core value, nor would it install such vile condescension towards the other team. But rather than identify what’s really going on, I’ll let Count d’Haricots say it for me:
“I believe, therefore I don’t know for sure and for certain. Amazona has a belief in a Supreme Being but ‘dolf (nor you) compared her belief in free market principles to the infallibility of the Heavenly Father because that wouldn’t fit the meme of an unsubstantiated fear or superstition.”
If I interpret your actions as those of a person defending his or her religion, everything swings into sudden clarity. You are so invested in the idea of two philosophies, because in your eyes, there are: either you are a Believer, or you are a Heathen. John Boehner or George W. Bush can make liberal mistakes, but they are Believers, and they can be forgiven the same way that a Christian who errs can, as long as they still believe (as can neocon1 be a friend even if a majority of his thoughts on this blog are insults in 8 words or less). It’s also why you speak condescendingly to me about my beliefs as if they are not real, in the same tone of a voice that a Christian lectures to an Atheist about how it is impossible for him to have morals. I was never engaging in a discussion about policy, I was sitting around letting a half dozen people try to convert me and get me to accept Free Market Capitalism as my lord and savior.
And your interactions with each other while talking to me are possibly the most telling. Sometimes, I glimpses of rational people willing to talk about real issues. This can sometimes goes on for several posts until one of the high priests here jumps in and makes sure to revert the conversation to one about how I just couldn’t understand because I’m not part of their flock. Because what I have to say isn’t important, the fact that I’m not a Believer means everything.
Now, I have no hope at all that I’m going to get through to any of the high priesthood here. Their core religious-political values are so firmly entwined with their world view that they are really their own sect of Christianity. I’ve been a skeptic my whole life, and each of my beliefs, political or otherwise, has been examined, weighed, and accepted on its own merit, but the high priesthood accepts conservative religious doctrine wholesale as if it were the Bible.
But for those of you who actually do have any interest in discussing politics as political choices rather than religion, I want you to think long and hard about the people you are trying so hard to fit in with. Are you really okay with faith as the core of economic policy?
cory December 12, 2011 at 12:34 am #
This will be the last time I post on (or read) blogs4victory.
AMF Moron!
My problem all along is that I’ve made the basic assumption that a political blog would be populated by people interested in a reasoned political discussion. But there’s only so many times I can watch some of you spend time posting long, verbose comments that are literally identical in content to other comments you made just hours or days before. I got to wondering, though, why you guys would congregate at a political blog if it wasn’t to discuss the reasoning behind your political beliefs.
That’s rich, Cory. I NEVER, EVER got the impression that you were here for a political discussion. Maybe your comments were in code, and I just couldn’t understand what you were trying to say.
spook
Maybe your comments were in code, and I just couldn’t understand what you were trying to say.
obviously you dont posses one of corkys double super secret alinsky/marx decoder rings.
oh well he will be a valued contributor at the huff and puff post.
corky darkness and light are mutually exclusive, we wont miss the darkness you bring.
Count d’Haricots December 9, 2011 at 6:57 pm #
JR, I’m willing to admit I was wrong about this idiot.
I tried to have a conversation with this troll, but he has proven incapable of it.
Just too damn stupid / A pathetically stupid asshole.
BINGO……..
Wally has created a new alias!
“TheTruth” is his new nomme de plume!
But immediately he melts down into his usual rantings and drops the f-bomb.
Wow, wally, the pressure to save your dainty little ego is really overwhelming. Perhaps, you should start with ACTUAL truthful statements and posts of substance rather than your usual lies and mental poop flinging.
Hysterical!!!!
I’m really going to miss Cory. He’s done such an excellent job of explaining what drives his thinking, and how he stands on the issues. Oh, and there really does need to be an easily useable sarcasm font.
The fact of the matter is, the majority of the American public is not well educated about foreign policy, how corporate America and tax laws work, and basic US history, among other issues. I see myself not necessarily as affiliated with any particular political party; rather, I research and come to a candidate I feel is best suited for the position of President. Both in 2008 and 2012, it is Obama. I have a Masters degree in International Relations and focus on Security Policy, particularly in the Middle East. I am also an attorney who does all types of law, including a lot of pro bono work, and I serve as a Fellow at a Terrorism Law Center in a very Republican state. A little understanding of politics, law, economics, history, foreign policy, and sociology will go a long way. One can only hope our voter base will ever reach the level where they can make truly educated decisions.