Ah, a thing of beauty. Very well done by the questioner.
The legislator sounded awfully familiar.
"That's not what I said, and I apologised for it, anyway, and that's not how that's defined, and I didn't SAY indoctrinated, I just said we were going to instill and install the CORRECT beliefs..."
For all of Herbert's talk that only female, trained Bene Gesserit can achieve The Voice, just about all Marines have the functionality buried somewhere, and I have to give David credit for using it quite appropriately in this circumstance.
In other words, talk about the mother of all ass-handings!
For all of Herbert's talk that only female, trained Bene Gesserit can achieve The Voice, just about all Marines have the functionality buried somewhere, and I have to give David credit for using it quite appropriately in this circumstance.
That there is what we like to call "The NCO Voice", and I can guarantee that there are quite a few folks out there who know how to use it.
We need more of that, and we need to get it out there. There is no debating or waffling, the answers are self evident, and it is time. Not just on this issue, but on every issue. We face utter desolation if people do not do this and other people do not hear this.
"We need more of that, and we need to get it out there."
I agree. I think the more America sees paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better. People need to see how sad it is when someone spends too much time drinking the Koolberg Aid.
>>I'm waiting for a retraction on Obama being a gun grabber.
Keep waiting, failADelphia.
Do you *really* think that set of circumstances is redemptive?
Do your *really* think that we haven't forgotten that those in favor of assault weapons bans are in fact gun banners, not matter what non Euclidian geometry you try to invoke?
speaking of paranoid delusions of state power, I'm waiting for a retraction on Obama being a gun grabber.
And you've yet to admit that when he calls for, advocates, and puts on his official web page that he wants to ban guns, that it means he wants to ban guns.
Now all of told me that he was going to make the move towards restricting gun rights. This...really is not anything like that at all.
That's not what we said, but given your sub-6th grade reading comprehension, I suppose this counts as "close enough".
You said you would give him credit if he passed gun rights legislation. Well?
Yep, good on him not to force people to be disarmed. As I said, I've got no problem giving him that credit. As much as it's due...
HOWEVER; I also can credit the Republicans for attaching that rider to a bill that Obama wanted.
See, it wasn't just a single bill that Obama championed and fought for - it was a provision attached to a bill he wanted.
Now, let's look at what that article says (is that your "life" I hear calling?)
The Democratic-controlled Congress passed the less restrictive measure with bipartisan support after Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., inserted it into Obama-backed legislation imposing new restrictions on credit card companies. Democratic leaders decided not to challenge Coburn, and Obama signed the gun measure without comment.
New restrictions! And they don't own the company! Wait, wasn't that your claim the other day? That the government had to OWN it to control it?
Damn, Mark, but one day you've got to learn how to make a argument that can last more than 1 comment/day.
"Now all of told me that he was going to make the move towards restricting gun rights."
Okay, TEACHER boy, can you spot the missing word in that sentence of yours? I'll give you a hint: the word that is missing should be between the third and fourth words, and the missing word is "you". Can you spot it now?
Do you ever proofread this crap before you hit the "OK" button, or do you get diarrhea of the keyboard and just splatter whatever exits the orifice? No, it's not a pet peeve, it is rather an observation that this is one instance of many that you've moved lately, and it appears to show even more splatterbrained thinking than your usual. Have you given up even the pretense of thinking?
I agree. I think the more America sees paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better.
How typical for the resident troll... He will not address the underlying causes that precipitated the Marine saying what he did (or is physically/mentally incapable of doing so, which is more my guess), so instead, he launches on a full-out attack on the Marine himself. When the message is just too hard to deal with, go straight for the messenger's throat, right?
I have been seeing this tactic crop up more and more recently from individuals with his particular totalitarian/authoritarian bent... but, then again, marginalizing the opposition has been a long-standing tradition with those kinds of people.
Here's a thing we should be considering: why, in the view of people like failadelphia, would the marine's position seem like unreasonable, paranoid rage based on lies & hysteria?
Central to the answer to this question is that such folks have a fundamentally different world view. They seek power and sanction from outside themselves, and position such authority as coming from on high. They gladly accept the ruler's right to rule, and the governments right to govern, without limit, so long as the ends seem benevolent to them.
We, on the other hand, rightly reject that premise, and are supported in this by unalterable facts of ethics, history, the law, the nature of our Founding and the structure of our polity that failadelphia's fellow travelers wish fervently to flush down the memory hole.
This conflict of worldviews, between those who would rule, and those who would not be ruled is not resolvable.
A "compromise" consisting of "rule a little, be ruled a little" is satisfactory to neither party.
Structurally, the Founders had the right idea: that all humans should have their place to drink from the infinite stream of Liberty, bound only by the righteous limits that each man should visit no harm upon another, and such limited powers as have been granted to government for the purpose of upholding and enhancing that freedom.
It was the right idea, but it failed to contain the greed for power of those who would govern, buoyed by the pusillanimity of those who would be governed.
Thus, we find ourselves distressingly close to a state of nature, erecting defenses against both the trespass of our neighbor, and the government that is little help to us in that matter, and great help to our neighbor.
Those with a worldview in which infinite government power is acceptable so long as the ends are benevolent measure government only with the single pale dimension of the benevolence or malevolence of the intentions. (Some of the less intellectually slothful sometimes try to reach as far as assessing the outcomes of the intentions. While necessary, it's just an extension of the same yardstick, and therefore insufficient.)
They simply don't have the background, premises, or tools to assess or comprehend the marine's objections, and so in order to "understand" them, they file them neatly into the category of "paranoid, ignorant racist right wing nutbag flat earth Christian fundamentalist civil war reenactor" provided for them, which provides them with the comfortable illusion that they understand the world, and are the superior member of it.
Why of course they would, geek. Lust for money by their subjects is wrong, y'see, but their lust for power so they can satisfy their lust for other people's money is just perfectly fine.
While I'm always loath to argue with you, I think I must at least offer a theory here.
Those with a worldview in which infinite government power is acceptable so long as the ends are benevolent measure government only
...
Also might be explained that those who file them neatly into the category of "paranoid, ignorant racist right wing nutbag flat earth Christian fundamentalist civil war reenactor" simply don't have the intelligence and foresight to see the possibilities that we who are "paranoid ... nutbags" do. (Especially considering the history of such efforts, this seems to be almost amazing to us, but we have a history of people on this site making historically illiterate comments quite often.)
It might not even be that they "trust" their chosen one - they just don't have the ABILITY to foresee what might happen, much less what's LIKELY to happen.
President Obama signaled today that he will not push for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban in the United States even though he still believes that the ban "made sense."
Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to reinstate the ban, which expired in 2004, but today said doing so would mean facing difficult political challenges.
"None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy," Obama said at a press conference after his meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City. "What we've focused on is how we can improve our enforcement under existing laws."
Perhaps rather than spending the political capital to fight for the weapons ban and other major legislation like stimulus programs simultaneously, the Obama administration plans to block the flow of illegal guns to Mexico through stricter enforcement of existing laws.
I'm down in the right front corner of this video. Sadly, I didn't win the lottery to speak, and I actually left a few minutes early, both because of the traffic getting out of there, and because I was literally shaking with rage and couldn't make myself sist still and be civil any longer.
The Chancellor of WSU Vancouver started me off by claiming that his visits to Sweden and Cuba had demonstrated to him the shamefulness of our private system with our "high infant mortality rate." I was the first to shout "not true" but that statement had the whole ampitheater standing and booing for the filthy lie it is. He was chided with shouts of "Moderate, don't advocate!"
You'd think the chancellor of a university would have the basic statistical knowledge to know when tricksy accounting measures are being used to hide the truth. Just because you don't record the babies you let die, doesn't mean you have a better survival rate than us.
Unix-Jedi:
>>
While I'm always loath to argue with you...
Offering a compatible, alternative hypothesis isn't so much of a dispute that you need to butter it. ;)
--==|==--
As for Obama the gun grabber:
Our indictment of Obama's nature as a gun grabber rests on his record both as a member of the board of the viciously anti-gun Joyce foundation, as well as his record and comments regarding the carriage of arms and civilian possession of militarily credible armaments, which is voluminously documented elsewhere, and readily available to the inquisitive critical mind.
It is obvious to most that he has soft pedaled the issue, understanding it to be a political third rail, and is unwilling to expend his diminishing political capital when there are greater acts of power consolidation to lust after.
This indictment merits reconsideration if, and only if, Obama thoroughly and unambiguously repudiates such views, enthusiastically embracing the honorable citizen's right to publicly carry militarily potent arms, and takes such action that positively remedies the matter through tangible legislative and executive leadership.
No reconsideration is merited by
passively letting the status quo stand without comment other than hiding behind the "What works here doesn't necessarily work there" Federalism flag of convenience, or in swallowing a legislative culmination of an act begun in the previous administration, as such acts have no redemptive payload whatsoever.
Geek: Y'know, maybe we should play Agents Provocateurs on this. Get the left riled up and demanding a "solution" to the gun problem, and thereby make President Zero expend his political capital against that third rail, rather than against this health care crap that might actually pass.
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept : for I had longed to see him hanged.
--Hillarie Belloc
Epitaph
Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh
Stop traveller, and piss.
Geek, then I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
"Okay, TEACHER boy, can you spot the missing word in that sentence of yours?
Ah, DJ. Are you telling me that you have NEVER committed a typo in your life? Sounds to me like someone is a little miffed that he was wrong. His first legislation regarding guns and Obama...lifts restrictions? Time to put away the Hitler moustache for all those Obama posters...wow...that's really gotta stink for you, dude.
"Why is it 'paranoid rage' when conservatives do it, but 'speaking truth to power' when liberals do it?"
Oh, there's paranoid rage on the left just not in as great numbers, as organized, or with any real power. Also, they aren't armed as well. Any liberals with guns at Bush rallies?
"What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?"
This is an interesting question. In my opinion, the strict constructionists of our country somehow have it in their head(much like the evangelicals who are God's official spokespeople) that they know more about the Constitution then anyone else. Now, most of you are engineers, right? Is anyone here a constitutional lawyer/scholar? If you are, great! Go debate our president because he is one as well.
The fact is that we really don't know what our founding fathers would do with our culture today. I think we can all agree that it has changed since the 18th century. They made
the Constitution for an agrarian society. Given the growth of this country into such massive industrialization, Jefferson's thoughts on this change might be clear with this quote.
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government"
So what would Jefferson have thought of government run health care? And how would he have felt about corporations of this country? Would he have thought it was OK to "take another's means for your ends?" A good point for discussion and, unlike yourselves, I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
"He will not address the underlying causes that precipitated the Marine saying what he did"
The underlying cause is largely a manufactured one by a group of people who understand all too well how to play to people's fear and ignorance in order to further their agenda. I know all of you think that liberals do this but ask yourselves this...if they did, why do they continually fail at it as they have with health care? Or, as Bill Maher put it recently, let themselves get bullied by a chick on Facebook. Honestly, their track record for being "all powerful" statists is pretty lousy.
"unalterable facts of ethics, history, the law, the nature of our Founding and the structure of our polity...
...in your opinion of history from your perspective based on your belief system. See my comment above regarding Jefferson. Geek, I hope you realize how much you sound like someone who believes that everything in the Bible should be taken literally. And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools.
Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be happy and claim victory? Or will you continue to find enemies where there are none and prove my point about hysteria?
One other thought I had regarding this video...the real hero of it is Brian Baird. He has the courage to stand up and listen to people yell at him for a few hours. Do any of you?
In fact, I would love to see any one of you attain office, promptly return us to the late 18th century in repealing programs like Medicare and Social Security, and watch the consequences.
Something tells me that your utopia wouldn't come to pass. And then what?
"'What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?'
This is an interesting question."
And one you completely and utterly missed. Probably intentionally. I've met very few people who move goalposts as much as you. Your goalposts are on wheels and probably motorized.
Are going to go address those other subjects and posts, or did life come up again?
I wish whenever I had things that required urgent attention and drew me away from obligations (intellectual or otherwise) they were quite so convenient and well-timed. I'll bet if you were ever pulled over for speeding, RIGHT THEN someone would call with a family emergency for you.
>>Geek, then I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
I laid out the basis of our indictment, and the conditions under which it will be rescinded. These are all reasonable, fact based criteria that are easy to evaluate.I'm not going to lose any sleep either waiting for their fulfillment or for you to deal with them.
>>
---------------
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government"
So what would Jefferson have thought of government run health care?
..
I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
---------------
You've never demonstrated any grasp of where Jefferson's head started at, (Hint: Locke) and so the validity of your wishful guesses as to where he would have ended up is unlikely to be anywhere near the mark.
The Federalist Papers spend a sizeable proportion of their 600+ pages talking about how "free shit at other people's expense", a tempting option even to simple agrarians, is NOT on the menu.
>>Geek, I hope you realize how much you sound like someone who believes that everything in the Bible should be taken literally.
Laughs out loud. Perhaps, only in that I insist that words have tangible meanings that can't be elevated to such levels of abstraction that your special brand of symbolic equivalence and substitution artistry is valid. Other than that, you're out of your mind.
>>And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools.
LOOK! A PONY! LET'S ALL JOIN AGAINST A COMMON ENEMY, THE EVIL CORPORATE PEOPLE!
geek: Perhaps, only in that I insist that words have tangible meanings that can't be elevated to such levels of abstraction that your special brand of symbolic equivalence and substitution artistry is valid. Other than that, you're out of your mind.
*snorfle*
Thank $DEITY I have learned to put down beverages before reading anything from you. Can't afford new keyboards that often.
"I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
So Marky cannot hazard a guess as to what one of our most outspoken Founders would have thought about basic property rights? Despite a ton of writing from old Red, and his contemporaries?
And yet, and yet he knows so much about the intentions of the Republicans, conservatives and liberty minded folks.
"Ah, DJ. Are you telling me that you have NEVER committed a typo in your life? "
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #6, the "deliberately missing the point" response. As I stated quite clearly, my comment was not that you made a typo or such, it is that, in the past couple of weeks, you have posted many comments with missing words, thus giving clear evidence that you just splatter this blather up without proofreading it.
If you want to be taken seriously, then try to be serious, and stop the drive-by shit slinging.
"Sounds to me like someone is a little miffed that he was wrong."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "Hey, look! A pony!" response. I wasn't wrong. Go read Russell's last comment again. Consider that with your statement ...
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen."
... which is why he conceded something minor (the amendment sponsored by Senator Coburn) to gain something he not only wanted, but actively backed, namely new restrictions on credit card companies. That's how the Legislative and Executive branches of the feddle gubmint work. The President doesn't get the bills he wants, he gets the bills that Congress passes and sends him. If he waited to get and sign only what he wants, he would never sign anything. This does not mean, nor should you or anyone infer, that he has changed his mind as to what he would do if he had the votes to do as he wants.
To put it in terms on your level, the fact that he ordered chicken for lunch today does not mean that he no longer wants steak for dinner someday.
Yet again, you have done what is utterly typical of you. You pick one fact and, in effect, tell us no other relevant facts exist. Like a little boy, you have shown Mommy that you folded your napkin after lunch, which means you are very neat, despite the spagetti splattered all over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and Mommy.
Now, let's try your whole statement:
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be happy and claim victory? Or will you continue to find enemies where there are none and prove my point about hysteria?"
I'll fix it for you:
"Teacher boy, he doesn't have the votes. It probably won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be truthful and admit that such victories are not necessarily permanent, or are all that will come down the pike? Or will you continue to claim that Obama has changed his spots and prove our point that evidence means nothing to you?"
""What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?""
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "I'm drowning in stupidity" response. You slathered on 126 words, no part of which was even slightly related to the question you were asked. Same old shit, different day.
"One other thought I had regarding this video...the real hero of it is Brian Baird. He has the courage to stand up and listen to people yell at him for a few hours. Do any of you?"
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #8, the "Humpty Dumpty" response. That word, "hero", doesn't mean what you think it means.
Baird is an elected representative. We are not. He volunteered to serve his constituents. We didn't volunteer to serve him. He is paid to serve his constituents. We are not. Standing up in public and taking the heat is part of what he is paid to do, and doing it does not make him a hero.
"And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "How 'bout that anthrax, eh?" response.
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what?"
We wait. Alert. Ready to act politically to counter his stated intentions to bring back the ban.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson
Obama has by his words and works aligned himself with the enemies of the 2nd Amendment. Letting one's guard down around a known enemy is foolhardy.
Of course, this is all mass hysteria flat civil war reich wing nonsense. Just believe the soothing words of the teleprompter. It's so good, it's like opium!
I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
And as DJ noticed, you dodged all the other points brought up.
And most telling in your utter hypocrisy is when you say no matter what definable actions he takes- ... you will still continue to believe. despite the fact you've yet come to grips with all the definable actions we've detailed time and again, you - YOU - still "continue to believe".
* Obama was on the Board of the Joyce Foundation when they started their lawfare against the 2nd Amendment.
* Obama has repeatedly promised, spoken on, claimed, and called for banning guns. (Which you also "continue to believe" isn't a ban.)
* This act - which we'll give the appropriate credit for - was fine, but it wasn't anything Obama championed. It was attached to a bill that Obama did want. This is more a success of the compromise methods of Congress than of any change in heart of Obama. (And you've yet to admit that he'd need to change his heart.
You demonstrate your hypocrisy as you attempt to lecture us - without even realizing how much you're damaging your own credibility.
You really don't think about these things before you say them, do you?
I had to put this in a separate comment to ridicule it, Ralph:
Honestly, their track record for being "all powerful" statists is pretty lousy.
Then what kind of specious fool would insist, demand, and urge those with a poor track record that they're admitting and conceding to to have more power?
"Even the idea of facts, logic, reason, and history are under attack, which is why Rachaal Maddow will do thirty minutes making fourth grade jokes about teabaggers because that infantile snark is all she has against common American citizens who are quoting Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams chapter and verse."
Oh, there's paranoid rage on the left just not in as great numbers, as organized, or with any real power. Also, they aren't armed as well. Any liberals with guns at Bush rallies?
Ewkay.... David Axelrod giving marching orders to the SEIU isn't as well organized as people individually deciding they're fed up and going to a tea party or town hall.
The "paranoid rage" of the President of the Unites States, the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House "doesn't have any real power".
Not as well armed? Well okay, I'll at least halfway concede that point. It's been clear for decades that the American political left is, by and large, cowardly. They want changes, in many cases they are even open about the changes they want effectively enslaving people or criminalizing particular ethnicities or religions, but they want to elect someone who'll do it by governmental fiat. Being unarmed both in weaponry and courage, they try to force the cops to do the ugly parts for them. Bloody hands at arms length, just like always.
And you consider that a way in which the left is less dangerous than the right?
Mark, you should certainly hope the right is "more numerous, better organized, and better armed" than the left. After all, the right believes in changing the rules if they are unacceptable, while the left believes in ignoring the rules and doing whatever the hell you want, regardless.
Not as well armed? What about the Zombie cadres that the Left has? The Million Zombie March? ACORN? They specialize in Human Wave attacks - with the difference being they lack the humanity while expecting the other side to respond humanely, only now we recognize it doesn't matter, they're Zombies after all.
In your opinion...I got where he was going with it. I chose to answer with width of vision.
"Are going to go address those other subjects and posts, or did life come up again?"
Are you going to be my secretary and spend hours each day helping me to organize everything? Nice try, btw, but please continue to make yourself feel better about ignoring the simple truths that I bring up on here all the time.
"These are all reasonable, fact based criteria that are easy to evaluate."
Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?
"You've never demonstrated any grasp of where Jefferson's head started at, (Hint: Locke)"
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
Your grasp of Jefferson extends only to the limits of your belief system and not beyond that. I make no bones about knowing exactly what Jefferson thought (as you do) but I do have some ideas:)
"Letting one's guard down around a known enemy is foolhardy."
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners. The more I think about this, the more I see how this really sucks for you guys. Keep hope, alive, though. Maybe someday your hysterical dreams will come true.
GOF, I'll take the test and post the answers in a different comment.
DJ, nice video. So I take it that you believe its narrative completely? Or are you able to think critically about it? If not, I guess you buy into victimology now as well.
"Mark, you should certainly hope the right is "more numerous, better organized, and better armed" than the left."
I don't have to hope...it's a fact. If the left is as powerful as you say they are, wouldn't they be forcing you to pull the plug on grandma right now? Or grinding their jack boots into your ear? Instead, they are floundering and we are probably going to see a very watered down version of health care. What's ironic about this is that all of the things the right delusionally predict will happen under government run health care will actually happen but with private industry (rationing, death panels etc.) In fact, it already is.
Odd that all these people waited in line for hours...didn't complain a wit...and yet those with health care at the town halls (most of whom have health care) are screaming about fascism. 8,000 people given care by a group of people that normally do their jobs in Third World countries. And you're telling me that your ideology isn't flawed?
You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept.
"Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?"
So far as I am aware, the only effect he has had on the exercise of gun rights is to sign a bill which removed a federal prohibition on concealed carry in national parks. If that is the case, then that is a net expansion of gun rights, and on a national scale.
He did so because it was attached to a bill which he championed on a different subject, and, as I explained before, he compromised; he gave up something of lower value to gain something of higher value.
Now the return question for you: Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him? Justify your answer, teacher boy; don't just tell us you can read his mind, because we all know that you can't. Show us why you believe your answer to be correct.
"DJ, nice video. So I take it that you believe its narrative completely? Or are you able to think critically about it? If not, I guess you buy into victimology now as well."
You are still jumping to conclusions, but that is your specialty. Yet again, your logic is faulty; one can think critically about a narrative and accept it completely; the two are not mutually exclusive. The fact that I cited this video tells you nothing about what I think of it.
"You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept."
We do indeed refuse to accept the reasons for it, and are trying to do something about them. You disagree with us as to what those reasons are, but that is your failure, not ours.
In the English everybody else speaks: you ignored it.
Are you going to be my secretary and spend hours each day helping me to organize everything?
I'm going to continue to insist that you play by the same rules everybody else does.
Nice try, btw, but please continue to make yourself feel better about ignoring the simple truths that I bring up on here all the time.
They're simple, all right, they're just not truths.
What truth? That you're incapable of defending your ideals logically and in English without telling us to shutup shutup shutup? (Hell, in the last few days you've continued to contradict yourself continually.)
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners. The more I think about this, the more I see how this really sucks for you guys. Keep hope, alive, though. Maybe someday your hysterical dreams will come true.
By signing a rider to a bill.
Do you seriously want to set the bar there? Really? Do you want us to go through and start detailing all the riders Bush signed over the last 6 years?
Of course not. By your insistance that this destroys all the evidence of his aims, desires, and history it weakens what it is, a fine step that he was gracious enough to not oppose or demagouge
The hysterical dreams are yours - you've refused to admit that Obama has a past history as a gun-grabber, he's actively fought gun rights. Your prior attempt to insist that he wasn't anti-gun was to point to 2! votes, one for retired cops, and the other an amendment that passed with no opposition - and ignored everything else.
It's a nice first step, Mark, but considering you claimed he wasn't antigun (as he proposed banning the most popular guns currently being sold), you have an issue here, not us.
To call us hysterical is Markadelphia-ish, Ralph. Oh. Wait.
If he's had a change of heart, that would be great. But demanding that we accept that he has based on a rider? That's hysterical. By definition. (Verbatim!)
What's ironic about this is that all of the things the right delusionally predict will happen under government run health care will actually happen but with private industry (rationing, death panels etc.) In fact, it already is.
I bolded the two parts of your statement there that contradict.
You know, maybe you should go deal with your life, because your debating skills and "truth" can't survive your own follow-on sentences.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
It's pretty bad. It's written in a passive tone, it chops up Jefferson's words out of context to pick and choose sentences to quote.
It's everything I'd expect you to assign.
Why don't you just assign The Works of Thomas Jefferson?
It's what *I* read in high school. Oh, wait, NM, I see your problem. (They're almost all available for free on the internet now.)
Odd that all these people waited in line for hours...didn't complain a wit...and yet those with health care at the town halls (most of whom have health care) are screaming about fascism. 8,000 people given care by a group of people that normally do their jobs in Third World countries. And you're telling me that your ideology isn't flawed?
Yes, Mark, that's exactly what we're saying. By the way, you forgot to rail on the evil corporations who sponsored all of that. And that they "rationed care".
Hell, you can't even explain what my ideology is. You're just certain it's WRONG.
"You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept."
Would it have something to do with expanding the national debt into areas of government control not sanctioned by the Constitution? The result of decades long attacks against the foundations of Western Civilization?
Nah... That's just silly!
We're going down the toilet because of the racism! And the flat war reactors! And The Won simply can't get enough legislation through fast enough to socialize everything!
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners.
Incidental side effects that run against publicly made statements aren't the basis of policy. But then again, the stupid just rolls off of your comments in waves, so expecting you to understand first order effects
is far beyond your ken, much less second order, and let's not even broach third order, or the differences between correlation and causation.
Maybe I'll take a shot, if I type real slow, perhaps... Whom am I kidding? No real thought will breach that teacher's tower!
Obama isn't the cause of the expending gun rights, his words, works and allies indicate he wants to constrict gun rights.
The fact that under one bill, a bill that had a clause that expanded gun rights, a clause that wasn't supported by Obama or any of the Democrats, a clause that pertains to a very small aspect of daily activities of US Citizens, that because Obama wanted the bill passed more than he wanted to remove that clause, doesn't in any way, shape or form construe support from Obama for gun rights.
I have never seen someone that can consistently make so many logical fallacies per comment. And when said fallacies are pointed out, continue to make them.
You, sir, aren't arguing in good faith. Indeed, your actions bespeak of a scurrilous knave, and only further cements your position as a useful idiot.
It does amuse me to see you flounder with such gusto, please continue. A foundation such as yours produces such a shaky edifice that the merest breeze has you swinging wildly.
When government was small and had little authority, newsgathering required actual footwork. Reporters had to remain continuously in contact with what we might call "general sources:"... A "heads-up" from such a source would cause the reporter to hit the street and start digging for details enough to flesh out a story ... stories about them had to be composed and published quickly; they couldn't be canned and brought out to fill up a slow news day. The daily press was oriented nearly completely toward speed and localism.
When Leviathan came to Washington, the journalism dynamic changed radically. Favorable treatment from sources inside the corridors of power mushroomed in value. In particular, it no longer took a war or an application for statehood to get headlines for the federal government; just about everything that transpired in Washington had large implications for all Americans everywhere. ... The local orientation of the daily paper dissolved; the Era of Access Journalism had begun.
Access journalism requires access. Reporters seek access by currying the favor of selected politicians and appointed officials. That favor is most easily gained by providing favorable coverage of the target's doings and proposals. Combine with that the obvious desire among access journalists that the government do as much as possible, and we arrive in circumstances in which journalists wiilling to report favorably on expansions of the State, and who have access to left-liberal officials willing to exploit them, can reliably command the overwhelmingly greater part of the daily news.
...
... That might not have been predictable from Obama's arrogance -- his political savvy might have been enough to countervail his distaste at taking the ink-stained peons of the Fourth Estate into his confidence -- but it's certainly consistent with it. ...
... So can a rising tide of popular disaffection with the "moderate" now straining to impose Leninist socialism on the United States. And many a reporter who feels he's been jilted by the Obamunists will take an unholy pleasure in doing so.
Amazing how smoothly the fabric blends into the Democrats' ever more obvious convictions of moral and intellectual superiority, isn't it?
This post is so good, it deserves to be put in more than 1 thread. There I concentrated on the education aspect.
But this also speaks to an almost perfect analog of the current discussion on gun rights and restrictions:
http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/single/false_witness_a_screed_rumination_twofer/
Do you imagine that Obama, who has openly stated his desire for a "single-payer" health insurance system in the United States, who becomes enraged at challenges to his statements, and who has dispatched union goons to suppress protests against the Democrats' health-care ambitions, can be trusted on this or any lesser subject?
(links in the original left out due to Haloscan limits)
This is exactly the same as the gun control debate that Mark is attempting to lie about. Mark wants to demand that we ignore anything he doesn't want us to see - and he'll ignore it in his insistence that we're delusional. He overstates the case - massively, just as he did during the campaign, and now that Obama was the recipient of a normal-sort-of-rider attached by the other party, he's transformative and lets ignore everything and pretend!
While I'm not a Christian, and so I disagree with some of Porretto's thrust religiously in this post, he is dead nuts accurate with this, be it made from a secular or non-secular perspective.
When a man spouts nonsense about something you know he's easily capable of understanding, you cannot withhold judgment. You must accept that he's lying to you, and moreover that he's doing so with malice aforethought, for reasons of his own. He is bearing false witness against his neighbor, for a neighbor is one who is sufficiently near, by some measure, for his lies to degrade your well-being.
U-J: You have no chance to survive make your time.
I believe this to be germane to the Ubercare:
A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions. A certain amount of public works — of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments—is necessary to supply essential public services. With such public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned. I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of “providing employment” or of adding wealth to the community that it would not otherwise have had.
A bridge is built. Ifit is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection. But a bridge built primarily “to provide employment” is a different kind of bridge. When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration. “Projects” have to be invented. Instead of thinking only of where bridges must be built the government spenders begin to ask themselves where bridges can be built. Can they think of plausible reasons why an additional bridge should connect Easton and Weston? It soon becomes absolutely essential. Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries.
"You, sir, aren't arguing in good faith. Indeed, your actions bespeak of a scurrilous knave, and only further cements your position as a useful idiot."
A bridge is built. If it is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection.
But how can anyone know that it's "more necessary" to the taxpayers than what they'd have spent the money on themselves?
It's precisely the sort of arrogance that the Left indulges in, taxing us to provide welfare, or save rainforests, or whatever, because "we're not doing it right".
"Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him? "
In some areas, yes. In other no. He is a reasoned enough person to examine each situation as unique. He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president. Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far. After all, DJ, you have chided me many times for judging actual, definable actions and not just "what I think he will do." And now you are asking me a hypothetical? Hmmm...
Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban. He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns. That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed. Of course, this is all conjecture. You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind. I would say that he has other things on it right now like being called Hitler by a large group of lunatics who think think he is going to pull the plug on grandma, shoot disabled people, and reshape this country into the Soviet Union circa the Cold War era. (side comment: why can't you people admit that we beat them and that era is over?)
"We do indeed refuse to accept the reasons for it, and are trying to do something about them."
What exactly are you doing? Other than scream at me on this blog?
Unix, quoting Porretto...hmm...does that mean I can start quoting The Daily Kos, Moveon.org, and the Democratic Underground now as support for my arguments?
The Gods of the Copybook Headings will outlast it all.
"In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more."
"The case against government-guaranteed loans and mortgages to private businesses and persons is almost as strong as, though less obvious than, the case against direct government loans and mortgages. The advocates of government-guaranteed mortgages also forget that what is being lent is ultimately real capital, which is limited in supply, and that they are helping identified B at the expense of some unidentified A. Government-guaranteed home mortgages, especially when a negligible down payment or no down payment whatever is required, inevitably mean more bad loans than otherwise. They force the general taxpayer to subsidize the bad risks and to defray the losses. They encourage people to “buy” houses that they cannot really afford. They tend eventually to bring about an oversupply of houses as compared with other things. They temporarily overstimulate building, raise the cost of building for everybody (including the buyers of the homes with the guaranteed mortgages), and may mislead the building industry into an eventually costly overexpansion. In brief in the long run they do not increase overall national production but encourage malinvestment."
>>Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?
Failadelphia, I am going to give you a simple answer. You cannot point to an elephant's tail and call it a rope.
Yes, it is long, yes, you can tie things with it, and yes, it answers the description of rope in nearly all respects. If you keep standing under it, though, sooner or later, you're going to get a head full of elephant shit.
Me:""Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him?""
Markadoofus:In some areas, yes. In other no."
Just can't give a straight answer to a straight question, can you?
"He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president."
Teacher boy, you are as dense as lead. You have no business teaching anyone anything, because you simply refuse to think in anything resembling a rational manner. I'm gonna explain really carefully what two things are wrong with that bolded item in that last statement of yours that I quoted.
First thing wrong:
THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT VOTE ON BILLS IN CONGRESS.
President Obamateur HAS NO VOTE IN CONGRESS. He DID NOT VOTE on the amendment offered by Senator Coburn concerning concealed carry in national parks. SENATORS voted on that amendment, and it was accepted by the REPRESENTATIVES in the House during the reconciliation of the Senate's version of the bill with the House's version. CONGRESS voted on the final version and sent it to the President. ALL THAT PRESIDENT OBAMATEUR DID WAS SIGN IT INTO LAW. HE HAD NO VOTE WHATEVER IN THE MATTER.
Goddamn, boy, you prattle on about what happens in gubmint when you really don't have fucking clue how it works. What the hell is the matter with you?
Second thing wrong:
THE NEW LAW DOES NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO "OPENLY CARRY A GUN IN FEDERAL PARKS".
The new law REMOVES THE FEDERAL RESTRICTION on possessing guns in National Parks, such that state and local laws apply. Anyone who can legally carry a gun in a particular state is no longer prohibited by federal law from carrying a gun in a National Park within that state. Whether or not such carrying is allowed, and whether or not, if allowed, it is "open carry" or "concealed carry", are up to the laws of that state.
Goddamn, boy, but your understanding of this subject, on which you would have us believe you are right and we are wrong, approaches zero. What the hell is the matter with you?
Now, let's look at your quote again:
"He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president. Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far. After all, DJ, you have chided me many times for judging actual, definable actions and not just "what I think he will do.""
Yes, I have. Definable actions include votes and public statements, particularly public statements made by him when he wasn't campaigning for votes. HIS HISTORY IS RELEVANT. IT MATTERS. Remember, you have told us repeatedly that his statements to the effect that the Second Amendment is fine, by golly, which he made while he was campaigning for votes, matter. Thus, you have no grounds for asserting that his statements to the opposite, which he made while he was not campaigning for votes, don't matter. So, tell us why you think that judgement of what Obamateur would do regarding gun rights, if he could do what he wanted to do, should be based on that one action, and that one action alone, and not on his entire history of the subject, particularly when he was least likely to be lying?
"Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban."
But you would have us believe he favors expansion of gun rights. You can't even agree with yourself, can you?
"He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns."
And you would have us believe that ban is sensible?
"Of course, this is all conjecture. You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind."
You have been telling us what he thinks, and what he wants, for more than a fucking year. What I've been trying to get across to you, anyway that might work, is that you can't read his mind.
... You've claimed to do exactly that to come to your analysis. I'll find the link after dinner.
He is a reasoned enough person to examine each situation as unique.
How about to humor me, you address his time on the Joyce Foundation Board?
He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks.
You say these in a mantra format, but you ignore that we keep pointing out it's not proof of much.
Vitter - passed 84 to 16. Not controversial. Never been used. Symbolic at best anyway since there's no enforcement mechanism.
Carry by LEO's - which we had to point out to you was only for LEOs, and not for "concealed carry", which for months you insisted - isn't "expanding the right to keep and bear arms" - it's protecting the state. That's right, after you've retired from the arm of the Government that exerts force on citizens - you can keep carrying your gun. Not the citizens you were "serving and protecting".
And the latest amendment, which did not give the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. It did remove a restriction, but more importantly, it was attached to a bill increasing restrictions on corporations, the sort you say doesn't exist.
So in other words, your proof proves nothing that you've claimed it does.
These have been explained, painfully and obviously many times to us.
Which means you can only be bearing false witness against us.
These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights
Except they weren't.
only one of which was as president.
Thanks, DJ, saved me some typing.
Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far.
What of his past history? His past actions? The past VOTES YOU ADMIT TO?
Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban.
So he isn't in favor of gun rights.
He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws
Funny thing, there's never an "end" to "sensible gun laws". The last time "assault weapons" were outlawed, the gun control movement didn't pack up and go home.
and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns.
Which would make him a ?
Oh, wait, no point waiting on you. That makes him a GUN BANNER. He would outlaw - according to you - my deer rifle.
That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed.
Clinton signed it. He didn't pass it.
And you just said that everything you've said in the past about his "Support" for gun rights is bullshit.
According to you. You just admitted that you knew we were right, and you still tried to call us paranoid, hysterical, lying, ...
Thank you at least for his admission. It will be handy in the future when you make claims.
Mark complains: You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind.
Not the exact thread I was thinking out - still looking where, as I recall, he specifically claimed to get into other people's head - but this is close:
"How is it that you are able to read these people's minds such that you know these things?"
I don't have to read their minds. Their words speak for themselves. So do their actions. Of course, you have to be open to hearing and seeing these things and I guess I'm not sure that you are or you want to, DJ.
It's not "some dude." It's me. I examine daily events in the world and usually begin by asking myself: what is the motivation behind this action? Why are they doing this? Once you know the right questions, the answers become obvious.
oh my god, OhMyGod, OHMYGOD!! Quick! Hide the wymn an' chillen! It's pure evil! This baaaad man called the police ahead of time to make sure he wouldn't get a police assisted face plant for having an rifle outside of a rally! Have you ever heard of anything so horrible?!? Can't you just feel the waves of terror running down your leg? (Oh, wait. That's just piss. Nevermind.)
And then he was so evil that he planned to give an interview too! My God! Who in their right mind could ever plan an interview ahead of time! That's just so frikkin' evil that he makes Ghegis Khan look like a guy that loves kittens and wears fuzzy bunny slippers all day! He probably tortures babies for fun! omg, OMG, OMG!!! That fear running down my leg is getting stronger! (Oh, wait. That's just fecal matter. Nevermind.)
Actually, I'm really surprised that you walked straight into my trap, especially since DJ put bright neon lights around it by linking to Bill Wittle's video. There was huge propaganda going on in relation to that incident, but it wasn't by conservatives. It was MSNBC claiming that opposition to ObamaCare is due to racism. But lo and behold, the man carrying the rifle IS BLACK. Boy, oh boy, he must really hate black men!!!
But hey, who are you going to believe? Marky? Or the lying camera?
Unix, quoting Porretto...hmm...does that mean I can start quoting The Daily Kos, Moveon.org, and the Democratic Underground now as support for my arguments?
Start?
When did you stop? You just linked tpmmuckraker as a form of proof before that - where someone claims that Waco was a "setup".
You don't support your arguments, you paste in something someone else says with little/no understanding of what they're saying. Hell, you contradict yourself on a regular basis, I guess you don't even understand your own points.
Yet again, you fail to understand what "linking" is for, and how it works.
There's some good stuff at DU, for example. Not most of it - they run off most good people and people who actually are factually based.
The issue is how good is the info you're LINKING TO. That you're this oblivious even now comes as no surprise to most of us and reinforces what we've been saying.
So what did you disagree with from Porretto? Be specific with your disagreements, and factual in your rebuttals.
"In my opinion, the strict constructionists of our country somehow have it in their head(much like the evangelicals who are God's official spokespeople) that they know more about the Constitution then anyone else."
AT LAST! Marky, thanks for finally admitting that Obama really does want to take our guns away, that government healthcare will lead to unnecessary deaths due to rationing, and that Obama really is a socialist!
There you go again.
Don't you know definitions and agreeing on words and agenda's is so .. anti "width of vision"?
Even if your vision has no width, can't you at least understand other people do, and cannot be bound to mere definitions and explanations?
Their cause is Holy, after all, and you're evil. (And Christian! Which means double-plus-ungood!)
They have morality on their side, and cannot be bothered with mere trifles!
Whenever someone in the military says something Mark agress with, he always points out that they served or are serving in the military. When someone who served in the military says something he disagrees with, that argument about military service is all of a sudden dropped and he conveniently switches over into insult mode and says things like "paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better. People need to see how sad it is when someone spends too much time drinking the Koolberg Aid".
"[W]e could lose [the health care debate] because I don't think [Obama] he has been tough enough. ... He should get mad, stop [expletive] around. ... He just needs to drag [Americans] to it. Like I just said, they're stupid. Just drag them to this." --HBO's Bill Maher
Now, I wouldn't call this an indictment of the British National Health Service, but doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy about an American National Health Service?
But I will call this an indictment of the British National Health Service.
The money quote:
"... Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas."
Oh, not to worry. It's just an arithmetic error. A dropped minus sign, y'see. Shoulda been more beds, not less. Another two or three hunnerd billion'll fix it. Oughta have it done by 2035 at the latest. Maybe.
"Just to humor you, I think he (Barry - Ed.) would favor an assault weapons ban. He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns. That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed."
Get this straight, this "Assault Weapons Ban," that you towering morons are always harping about, wasn't anything of the sort, and I CAN PROVE IT!
That god-damned stupid fucking law, which was part of the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, did NOTHING MORE than restrict THE NEW MANUFACTURE of certain types of features on semi-automatic rifles, either imported or of domestic manufacture, provided that they had a detachable magazine. EXISTING RIFLES WERE NOT EFFECTED BY AT ALL BY THIS LAW. There were no genies popping out of bottles that made all the "nasty, evil assault weapons," go poof!
The other rub of that same, god-damned stupid fucking law, was the restriction of sale of new, commercially available magazines to a maximum of 10 rounds. Again, EXISTING MAGAZINES WERE EXEMPT, AND NO FUCKING GENIE POPPED OUT OF A FUCKING BOTTLE AND MADE THE EXISTING ONES GO AWAY!!!
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU STUPID FUCK?!?!?
Didn't think so.
In short, your vaunted "Assault Weapons Ban" is a complete misnomer. It has survived, in name only, by way of a lie about what it was; perpetuated by the unwashed on the subject, including almost all media, including the usual suspects. Look in the mirror if you need to know what the garden variety one of those mush-mouths might look like.
You want to know something else, Teacherboy? I purchased a NEW rifle, in the spring of '98, that was a imported rifle, from a former ComBloc country (an AK, no less), that was specifically put together to COMPLETELY COMPLY WITH ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED STUPID FUCKING LAW! And guess what, I was still able to put a previously produced, and completely LEGAL, 30-round capacity magazine straight into the magazine well and use it the way it was intended. I still have the FFL holder's receipt who sold it to me.
(Kevin, et al., please chime in with anything further you'd care to add, here.)
Lastly, what the fuck is this, "he is for sensible gun laws," HORSESHIT? What is sensible about denying someone the purchase of a gun, any gun, if all it does is merely offend a fucking politician, by its mere existence, shitstain?
Answer; Nothing, since any attempt to deny someone the ability to purchase such an item is nothing more than establishing a capricious and arbitrary rule for its own sake.
I get that way sometimes, especially when there's a very apparent gap in knowledge, yet the person in question is still proffering an "opinion" on the subject.
Our common reactive target just insists he's right about it all (seriously, fill in the blank on the subject), of course, without a thought about whether he really knows the subject matter he's blathering on about, at all.
"Just can't give a straight answer to a straight question, can you?"
Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates. See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world.
As far as the whole voting things, I think you know what I meant. Nice try, though.
"But he's not a banner! Not not not!"
Well, he's not. In your mind, if he supports an assault weapons ban, he wants to ban all guns. That is not the case. See my comment above regarding grey areas (aka: things that make my head explode). And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill. At least all the buying helped the economy a little.
"After all, leftists are Totally Peaceful. Right?!?"
Of course they aren't. But I think if you and I took a look at the data the DHS has on domestic terrorism, I would hope that you see which group is more dangerous. Or maybe you thought David Koresh was a freedom fighter?
GOF, where exactly are Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancey Pelosi, and Tim Kaine talking about re-education camps and pulling the plug on grandma? Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage.
"Crawl into a hole and die, you fucking VERMIN!"
I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?:)
Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates.
It's comforting for you to believe that, I know.
But you're wrong.
See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me:
Again, wrong.
In your mind, if he supports an assault weapons ban, he wants to ban all guns.
And his his own words, as well. You keep skipping that part for some reason.
But even that point aside, you claimed he wasn't going to ban guns, then you weaseled to "all guns", and now you're whining about "sensible gun laws." We've seen this before from the banners, and from you.
If you don't believe in "assault weapons", you don't believe in "Sniper-rifles that can shoot people a mile away", you don't believe in "Street sweeper" shotguns developed for trench warfare (pump shotguns)...
But still, if you insist on banning a gun, this makes you a gun banner. Your inability to seize that definition demonstrates quite clearly how you're unable to actually think simply, much less "Critically."
And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill.
The hilarious part is after it was detailed that it didn't EXPAND anything, that you still are sticking to your original belief. Though at least you're admitting it's a rider now.
It also demonstrates your utter hypocrisy - when Bush was in office, nothing he did pleased you, even when it was what you claimed you wanted. He vetoed the S-CHIP expansion, and you raged. He said at the time he'd sign the renewal, just not the expansion. And when presented with the straight renewal, he signed it. But your venom was unchanged.
You've been telling us Obama isn't anti-gun, despite all the proof, his actions, his words, and then he does something that's minor pro-gun (ignoring that's how all sorts of bills and riders are done - or the implications for other presidents and other bills) - and you scream it completely overrides everything...
That's not "how the world works". People you don't agree with do things you would all the time - yet you don't insist on supporting them and trusting them. Quite the opposite.
What this demonstrates is that you're a kneejerk reactionary - calling us the Taliban is ironic.
I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?
Arabic? I think you just exposed a major area of ignorance.
That aside, there isn't one. Your Taliban bugaboo don't hurl VERBAL INSULTS and wish people dead. They behead them.
"...Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates..."
Because of a clear inability at moving from any sort of clear philosophical directive. To you, it's all gray, all the time, so redifining, well, EVERYTHING, when it's convenient for you to do so, is entirely within the unlimited dimensions of what you'd term "thinking."
Undeniably, that is clear to all who've been paying the slightest bit of attention to your contrived rants, bitch.
You have a serious deficiency to use ANY form of rational thought, and are incapable of establishing this concept within your mind, and it can be defined by one word, descrimination. I'm sure you'll pull out the usual canard of "RASCISM!," in response to that word, but that ISN'T the context of the issue at hand, and any attempt to avoid it is sophistry on your part.
You have no clear philosophy by which you are willing to define yourself, nor your ideas and it's obvious to all here.
And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill.
See, the first part, the "I still think" part, is all wrong and the rest of the sentence just gets worse from there.
The amount of stupid packed into a sentence like that is almost breathtaking.
"And why? Because that's not how the world operates."
No, that's how YOU operate. Yet again, you simply make excuses for your own dishonesty and self-delusion.
Now, go read this for precisely the opposite, which is where I answered your question, then asked you the question that you evaded.
"See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world."
Why I have a problem with people like you is that you sqirm and wriggle anyway you can to avoid admitting that reality is what it is, and all just to avoid admitting error. Grey areas? You can't even explore the black and white areas of the world without deluding yourself and lying to us.
"Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #9, the "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response. You simply assert that the other side is what you don't like your side being accused of. So, how was recess this morning?
And with this whole post, you exhibit your Standard Response #10, the "Brave Sir Robin" response. When the monsters get too close, you disappear for a few days, only to reappear and treat everyone as if they didn't see the monsters.
Here they are again, now at Rev. 6:
#1 The "I can't hear you" response. He behaves as if a request to respond or to answer a question was not made, or that he never read it. This seems to be his favorite.
#2 The "What's the point" response. He complains that it is pointless to respond because he won't be believed anyway. One often finds this on a playground during third grade recess.
#3 The "I'm not alone" response. He states his opinion, and then he points to the writings of other people who share his opinion, as if the request were about votes instead of verifiable facts, logic, and reasoned thought.
#4 The "How 'bout that anthrax, eh?" response. He simply tries to change the subject. This is also known as the "Hey, look! A pony!" response.
#5 The "I'm drowning in stupidity" response. He simply lays on the blather, slathering on one turgid catch-phrase, slogan, and cliché after another, and then declares, later, "I answered your question."
#6 The "How 'bout a little fire, Scarecrow?" response. He deliberately misses the point, laying on one straw man after another.
#7 The "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' camera?" response. Nothing is valid, no matter what the evidence for it is, unless it squares with the conclusions he's already jumped to.
#8 The "Humpty Dumpty" response. He simply asserts that your words mean what he says they mean. Thus, no matter what you write, it means that he is correct. This is also known as the "We don't need no stinking dictionary!" response.
#9 The "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response. He simply asserts that the other side is what he doesn't like his side being accused of. As with #2, one often finds this on a playground during third grade recess.
#10 The "Brave Sir Robin" response. When the monsters get too close, he disappears for a few days, only to reappear and treat everyone as if they didn't see the monsters.
"See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world."
Here, too, a big glass of stupid is offered up like it has any real meaning or relevance. Or like a point is scored against the stupid Taliban wingers.
Egads! The mindless one has accused us of being single minded! It cuts to the quick, that does!
Like I said, a poor foundation means the entire edifice starts to swing wildly with the merest push.
Aristotle proposed three fundamental laws of logic which have been repeated proven to be accurate for the past 2,300+ years. Your post denied at least two of them:
"The oldest statement of the law is that contradictory statements cannot both at the same time be true, e.g. the two propositions A is B and A is not B are mutually exclusive."
"Aristotle wrote that ambiguity can arise from the use of ambiguous names, but cannot exist in the "facts" themselves."
Without these, you cannot have logic. You cannot have critical thinking.
This is why we have so little respect for you.
Put another way. Baby food is "all grey" because its pureed to be that way. There are no distinctions. Adults can't stand baby food because we've learned that the distinctions between the various foods is actually better than grey mush. We've matured enough to recognize that distinctions matter. The same is true of our ability to reason.
Thanks for explaining that to him. I've tried, less succinctly.
Mark:
By the way, you've never remarked on the comments on your previous request: I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
http://www.socialconscience.com/...1/ jefferson.htm
Your grasp of Jefferson extends only to the limits of your belief system and not beyond that. I make no bones about knowing exactly what Jefferson thought (as you do) but I do have some ideas
Another pony, eh? (And you're going to FORCE students to read it? Sounds like Markovian SLAVERY to me!)
"A Christian homeschool girl in New Hampshire has been ordered into government-run public school for having "sincerely held" religious beliefs."
… "According to ADF allied attorney John Anthony Simmons, the court acknowledges that the girl in question is doing well socially and academically, but he adds that the court went too far when they determined that the girl's Christian faith was a "bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews.""
"According to a report at FOX News, the United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education which would teach them about topics such as gender violence and masturbation.
""The U.N.'s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a 98-page report in June offering a universal lesson plan for kids ranging in age from 5-18, an "informed approach to effective sex, relationships" and HIV education that they say is essential for "all young people."""
The Report is entitled "International Guidelines for Sexuality Education" and separates children into four age groups: 5-to-8-year-olds, 9-to-12-year olds, 12-to-15-year-olds and 15-to-18-year-olds. Children in the 5-to-8-year-old group will be told that "touching and rubbing one's genitals is called masturbation" and that private parts "can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself."
Upon reaching 9 years of age, the children will learn about homophobia, transphobia, the abuse of power, and the positive and negative effects of aphrodisiacs. They will also learn that abortion is safe. At age 12, the children will learn the "reasons for abortion" and by age 15 will be exposed to direct "advocacy to promote the right to and access to safe abortion."
"As part of parental custody hearings, a court-appointed guardian stated that the child reflected her mother's "rigidity" on questions of faith and added that girl's best interest would be served by exposure to a public school setting."
In plain English, what the girl believes about religion is not what the gubmint, as expressed via the court, think she oughta believe, so the gubmint, again via the court, requires that she receive an eduction to counter that "rigidity" of belief. This is ripe for an appeal to the SC as a violation of her, and her parent's, rights under the First Amendment.
And where are those stalwart defends of the First Amendment? Those that decry the merest whiff of the State not being separated from the the Church? The ACLU? Anyone?
Ah, yes, it's not statist overreach when their side is doing it, is it?
Now for the $64 question. This is not the gubmint requiring education with respect to a particular religion, rather it is the gubmint requiring education in opposition to a particular set of religious beliefs. So, which end of the political spectrum is doing this?
Markadaffya wonders I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?
I believe the answer is "insha'Allah".
You're welcome.
Oh, and M, when someone wants to BAN a gun, any type of gun, that makes that person a gun BANNER. Period. That really is so simple even you should be able to understand it.
GOF, where exactly are Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancey Pelosi, and Tim Kaine talking about re-education camps and pulling the plug on grandma? Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage.
Oh, I see. The deliberate lies about tonsil vultures and foot rustlers don't count.
The labels of "Un-American", "terrorist" and "evil-monger" don't count.
"The idea of a single payer system scares me too" from a supporter of single payer doesn't count.
Sarah Palin's "lying paranoid rage" concerning her "death panels" comment... It was put in scare quotes when first written, indicating to anyone with a basic knowledge of English that it was not intended to be taken literally.
What was its purpose? Well, you can argue that its purpose was to scare people into demanding the bill be dropped without thinking, sure. But at least the incentivized "end of life counseling" she highlighted with that remark actually existed. Considering how much a bill can change between introduction and passage, it's at least as rational to assume that she said it to point up something actually in the bill that she felt needed to be addressed.
Okay, on the other side, we have POTUS Barack Obama. His remarks that doctors are doing amputations and tonsillectomies and intentionally avoiding preventive care because they're too greedy, they want the money, is a direct lie, not in scare quotes, not an exaggeration to make a point, but a FLAT OUT, DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD.
It's purpose, when said on Aug. 18th? To get people to support his healthcare legislation. Note that at the current time, ten days later, the bill still hasn't been completely read and discussed, on the 18th it'd barely been touched. He has been harping on the urgency of the need to pass this ever since all this began, so it's hard not to think his priority is to make sure it passes before it is read and debated. Yes, I know he said he wanted an "open and honest debate". Since he said that even as his chief advisor was sending out the union goons to beat opponents into silence, you'll forgive me if I doubt his sincerity.
So... on the one hand, we have a former governor "telling a stretcher" to highlight something in the bill they think needs to be changed or removed. And yes, in the process, calling into question the judgment, honesty and competence of those who produced it.
On the other, we have the President of the United States himself claiming as truth something that has no existence at all outside his head, in order to make people demand the bill become law before anyone even looks to see if there are flaws in it. In other words, to keep "open and honest debate" from happening at all until after it's the law of the land and a fait accompli.
And you're telling me that the President, who is making shit up out of whole cloth to frighten people into making decisions in fear, haste and ignorance, is using the system the way it should be used and protecting people's choices. And the civilian former governor, who exaggerates a point to highlight something actually in the bill with which she disagrees so that people will pay attention to what laws will be governing their healthcare before they actually become law, is unacceptably abusing the system and trying to take away people's choices.
The President's unabashed lies for the purpose of promoting decision making based on fear and ignorance is not in fact promoting fear and ignorance, but an exaggeration of something that actually exists, highlighted to make people take a second look at what is being proposed, somehow is promoting fear and ignorance.
You keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
Speaking of lying, I would think that the smartest, most competent person we've had in the white house wouldn't have to stoop to that but I was wrong and I admit it.
About a month ago at a townhall meeting (could have been the primetime gig, not sure), Obama said that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation. The company I work for manufactures prosthetic legs and we work directly with prosthetists who do the fiollow up care. Fact - Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. Private insurers pay that same surgeon some close variation of that amount for that service.
The really smart guy, who wants to run our health care, was off by a factor of 100 on cost.
Ya know, this is where the whole licensure/guild membership/regulation thing gets in the way.
In a *totally* free market, *I* could compete, *today* with doctors on price for amputation services, in a manner fully compliant with 1860 medical standards, as long as the patient was willing to accept 1860 medical risks. (Which include, but are not limited to screaming, fainting, experience of intense pain, and death from shock, blood loss, numerous consequences of any of a number of infections, seizures, and other miscellaneous damage self inflicted from writhing in the restraints. )
Hell, I would even lay aside and periodically sterilize a set of power tools for the purpose, which is mroe than the doc of 1860 had going.
;)
Of course, anyone who'd take me up on that hypothetical offer would be a damned fool, but it does speak to the fascinating question of informed buyers volunteering to buy substandard goods. When there is a regulatory mandate for minimum standards, that also mandates minimum price, and some people are going to be priced out of that market.
--==|==--
Laying the jest aside, I wonder if the reality is opposite Obama's assertion, that in socialized medicine countries, preventative drugs are much less prevalent than in America, and therefore the need for subsequent surgeries are increased. (Note that I did not assume such surgeries were actually performed, or performed in a timely enough manner to make a difference...scheduling a mammary lumpectomy for 12 months from now isn't helpful.)
I'm sure a close look at the numbers, say for example, concerning the use of cholesterol management drugs, some measure that reflects the need for cardiac surgeries, and the actual performance of such surgeries across medical systems would be *fascinating*.
Similarly, in the oncology department, it would be fascinating to see how many rounds of chemo are expended trying to save limbs, rather than reaching for the chainsaw. After all, firing up the bonesaw only costs $800-$1500, I'll bet a single round of chemo costs that much or more.
My friend and neighbor down the street had a tumor in his leg about 10 years back.
2 rounds of chemo and a much more complicated than amputation surgery later, he still has his leg, albeit less some muscle mass and a nerve.
"It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them. For they are solved by a system under which each consumer makes his own demand and casts a fresh vote, or a dozen fresh votes, every day; whereas bureaucrats would try to solve it by having made for the consumers, not what the consumers themselves wanted, but what the bureaucrats decided was good for them. Yet though the bureaucrats do not understand the quasi-automatic system of the market, they are always disturbed by it. They are always trying to improve it or correct it, usually in the interests of some wailing pressure group." (http://jim.com/econ/chap15p2.html) (Seriously simple to understand primer into economics, thanks again to Ken, I believe.)
The chemo solution has come about because of the price system, not in spite of it.
>>The chemo solution has come about because of the price system, not in spite of it.
In other words, when the choice is available, people generally decide that it's worth trying to keep their originally issued limbs, even at the cost of dollars, pain, length and complexity of treatment, and at slight increases of the risk to their life and consequences to their loved ones.
That's not a choice I'm ever willing to delegate to a bureaucrat who neither knows me or gives a shit about me.
That's not a choice I'm ever willing to delegate to a bureaucrat who neither knows me or gives a shit about me.
Well now there's a point I think should be addressed.
Over the years I've heard much wailing about whether or not the government "cares", and whether or not the private sector "cares".
I submit that not only is it impossible for the government to care about you, if it was accomplished it would instantly destroy that government's entire purpose.
Consider:
1) No two people are identical. Therefore,
2) It is not possible for anyone to care about two different people in an identical fashion. Moreover,
3) Qualitative differences aside, "caring" is something that is arguably impossible to assess quantitatively, either.
Now, what is the root purpose of government? Any government, under any system? Its purpose is to adjudicate disagreements between members of the population it serves/rules, is it not? Whether it's issuing a marriage license, catching a thief, regulating a company, whatever, the root purpose is to have a predictable set of rules so people can plan for things, right?
How is that possible if one of the primary factors in weighing the merits of a point of view simply CANNOT be assessed either qualitatively or quantitatively? Moreover, who would respect or give credence to a set of rules, knowing in advance that no two people will be given equal weight for who they are, so superiority of your point of argument may mean nothing?
Sure seems like we can safely say RIP Obamacare, at least the versions of it that are out there. Oh there's no doubt they'll get something passed sometime down the road as long as they drop some key things from the current bill. Couldn't even get it passed with a veto-proof majority. Owned.
Sorry, I hate to keep copy and pasting from this, but the author has it down cold:
"When prices are arbitrarily held down by government compulsion, demand is chronically in excess of supply. We have seen that if the government attempts to prevent a shortage of a commodity by reducing also the prices of the labor, raw materials and other factors that go into its cost of production, it creates a shortage of these in turn. But not only will the government, if it pursues this course, find it necessary to extend price control more and more downwards, or “vertically”; it will find it no less necessary to extend price control “horizontally.” If we ration one commodity, and the public cannot get enough of it, though it still has excess purchasing power, it will turn to some substitute. The rationing of each commodity as it grows scarce, in other words, must put more and more pressure on the unrationed commodities that remain. If we assume that the government is successful in its efforts to prevent black markets (or at least prevents them from developing on a sufficient scale to nullify its legal prices), continued price control must drive it to the rationing of more and more commodities. This rationing cannot stop with consumers. In World War II it did not stop with consumers. It was applied first of all, in fact, in the allocation of raw materials to producers.
The natural consequence of a thoroughgoing over-all price control which seeks to perpetuate a given historic price level, in brief, must ultimately be a completely regimented economy. Wages would have to be held down as rigidly as prices. Labor would have to be rationed as ruthlessly as raw materials. The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor. Competitive bidding for workers could no more be tolerated than competitive bidding for materials. The result would be a petrified totalitarian economy, with every business firm and every worker at the mercy of the government, and with a final abandonment of all the traditional liberties we have known. For as Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers nearly two centuries ago, “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”"
Note this bit: "The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor."
That's precisely in the bill right now.
It's a naked run at power.
I hope Last in Line is right, that this bill is dead.
Presented here in a less argumentative format is something we've dealt with, and explained to Markadelphia multiple times:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/7232.html
Leftists claim that every economic crisis shows the failure of the free market, and assume that they would never have economic crises. Leftists have a wildly exaggerated sense of their own understanding of the economy and everything else.
The left doesn’t actually have a developed system of thought regarding the economy. They can’t actually explain why the real world political process will make better decisions than the free-market. Instead, they point to any reversals in the real economy, regardless of cause, and assert that in their imaginations leftist politicians could have done better.
Leftists create elaborate fantasies. Then everyone else must argue for reality against the fantasies. The real-world system always comes out worse.
Alternative-energy advocates feel entitled to paper over any shortcomings of their favored technology by evoking future technological breakthroughs. But, they won’t let you postulate future technological breakthroughs that would make current energy sources even more attractive.
If you point out that wind and solar power is unreliable to the point of near uselessness, proponents will breezily respond that future technological breakthroughs in power storage or distribution will overcome the problem.
However, if you point out that developments in nuclear technology could create power systems that would completely recycle their waste, they respond that we should not plan for nuclear power unless we have absolutely proven that the technology works. And, let’s cut funding for the research that would prove it works.
"Different Rules", as Markadelphia would define it (implying that he's somehow discomfitted by being able to not invoke reality.)
Back to the issue of Kevin's post, we find this, in which Representative (Congressweasel) Keith Ellison (D-MN), who is a co-sponsor of HR676, admits he is gung-ho for a feddle gubmint single payer health care system:
"You know, the President said he preferred a public option; I'm just trying to help the President get what he prefers."
The gumdrop during the interview is:
WURZER:"Politics is the art of compromise."
REP. ELLISON:"It is."
WURZER:"So how are you all gonna compromise?"
REP. ELLISON:"Most of us are co-authors of HR676, which is a single-payer bill so we feel like we’ve already compromised. I think that the reality is the public option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving $150 billion, so this actually helps deal with the fiscal responsibility issues…It offers choice, which is a good thing ..."
ESKOLA:"Isn’t the public option really just a step towards the single payer that you want so much?"
REP. ELLISON:"Yes but the reality is that for many people that’s not what it is."
That last statement is an admission that a single payer system is the goal and his party is trying to get there via a smoke screen.
And they're not even worried about concealing their duplicity anymore. We're too stupid, in their eyes, to even worry about anymore.
That's why it's their job to take care of us.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2009/08/quote-of-week.html (130 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
Ah, a thing of beauty. Very well done by the questioner.
The legislator sounded awfully familiar.
"That's not what I said, and I apologised for it, anyway, and that's not how that's defined, and I didn't SAY indoctrinated, I just said we were going to instill and install the CORRECT beliefs..."
Just a minor nit-pick from a local... it's Camas, not Camus.
For all of Herbert's talk that only female, trained Bene Gesserit can achieve The Voice, just about all Marines have the functionality buried somewhere, and I have to give David credit for using it quite appropriately in this circumstance.
In other words, talk about the mother of all ass-handings!
That was very well done!
For all of Herbert's talk that only female, trained Bene Gesserit can achieve The Voice, just about all Marines have the functionality buried somewhere, and I have to give David credit for using it quite appropriately in this circumstance.
That there is what we like to call "The NCO Voice", and I can guarantee that there are quite a few folks out there who know how to use it.
Dude. That was some high-grade win there. Mother of all ass-handings, indeed!
Hope somebody bought him a beer after that; I would have if I'd been there.
We need more of that, and we need to get it out there. There is no debating or waffling, the answers are self evident, and it is time. Not just on this issue, but on every issue. We face utter desolation if people do not do this and other people do not hear this.
A: Typo in the vid titles, it's Brian, not Brain..yeah, I know it's not Kevin's vid.
Favorite moment:
"Stay *away* from my kids!"
My *piss*me*off* moment: Camas' reply to the Marine's oath question: "Yes I do."
Riiiigggghhhht. When does he intend to start?
Ed:
When "Uphold" and "Defend" as well as "enemy" can mean what you want it to mean... you can make that straight-faced.
"We need more of that, and we need to get it out there."
I agree. I think the more America sees paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better. People need to see how sad it is when someone spends too much time drinking the Koolberg Aid.
Oh, and speaking of paranoid delusions of state power, I'm waiting for a retraction on Obama being a gun grabber.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/obama_chided_for_allowing_guns.html
Now all of told me that he was going to make the move towards restricting gun rights. This...really is not anything like that at all.
You said you would give him credit if he passed gun rights legislation. Well?
>>I'm waiting for a retraction on Obama being a gun grabber.
Keep waiting, failADelphia.
Do you *really* think that set of circumstances is redemptive?
Do your *really* think that we haven't forgotten that those in favor of assault weapons bans are in fact gun banners, not matter what non Euclidian geometry you try to invoke?
.
speaking of paranoid delusions of state power, I'm waiting for a retraction on Obama being a gun grabber.
And you've yet to admit that when he calls for, advocates, and puts on his official web page that he wants to ban guns, that it means he wants to ban guns.
Now all of told me that he was going to make the move towards restricting gun rights. This...really is not anything like that at all.
That's not what we said, but given your sub-6th grade reading comprehension, I suppose this counts as "close enough".
You said you would give him credit if he passed gun rights legislation. Well?
Yep, good on him not to force people to be disarmed. As I said, I've got no problem giving him that credit. As much as it's due...
HOWEVER; I also can credit the Republicans for attaching that rider to a bill that Obama wanted.
See, it wasn't just a single bill that Obama championed and fought for - it was a provision attached to a bill he wanted.
Now, let's look at what that article says (is that your "life" I hear calling?)
The Democratic-controlled Congress passed the less restrictive measure with bipartisan support after Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., inserted it into Obama-backed legislation imposing new restrictions on credit card companies. Democratic leaders decided not to challenge Coburn, and Obama signed the gun measure without comment.
New restrictions! And they don't own the company! Wait, wasn't that your claim the other day? That the government had to OWN it to control it?
Damn, Mark, but one day you've got to learn how to make a argument that can last more than 1 comment/day.
"Now all of told me that he was going to make the move towards restricting gun rights."
Okay, TEACHER boy, can you spot the missing word in that sentence of yours? I'll give you a hint: the word that is missing should be between the third and fourth words, and the missing word is "you". Can you spot it now?
Do you ever proofread this crap before you hit the "OK" button, or do you get diarrhea of the keyboard and just splatter whatever exits the orifice? No, it's not a pet peeve, it is rather an observation that this is one instance of many that you've moved lately, and it appears to show even more splatterbrained thinking than your usual. Have you given up even the pretense of thinking?
By the way, I 'stole' the video and put it up. I did not bother to comment, I think he did all the talking necessary.
I think the more America sees paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better.
I agree. But somehow I suspect you and I aren't talking about the same people.
Mark, when you've swept your ego up with a dustpan (again) and glued it back together...
Why is it 'paranoid rage' when conservatives do it, but 'speaking truth to power' when liberals do it?
Just curious.
--Toast
Toastrider:
I'd say more important, why are all these issues "paranoid" to Mark yet it's easily factually sourced and backed in reality.
But his conspiracy theories that require "peering into their souls" to understand the inner workings of people are "critical thinkings".
I have been enjoying that vid all day. This is at least the third place I have come across it.
That marine didn't even need to open a large economy sized can of whup-ass. He supplied his own.
I knew this would attract Markadelphia.
I will make this simple.
What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?
Remember, the government cannot give what is has not first taken.
This is just another redistribution scheme, as were The Stimulus and Cash for Clunkers and as Tax and Trade will be if it clears the Senate.
Theft is no less theft because you get the government to do it for you.
What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?
That is The Question.
How typical for the resident troll... He will not address the underlying causes that precipitated the Marine saying what he did (or is physically/mentally incapable of doing so, which is more my guess), so instead, he launches on a full-out attack on the Marine himself. When the message is just too hard to deal with, go straight for the messenger's throat, right?
I have been seeing this tactic crop up more and more recently from individuals with his particular totalitarian/authoritarian bent... but, then again, marginalizing the opposition has been a long-standing tradition with those kinds of people.
Here's a thing we should be considering: why, in the view of people like failadelphia, would the marine's position seem like unreasonable, paranoid rage based on lies & hysteria?
Central to the answer to this question is that such folks have a fundamentally different world view. They seek power and sanction from outside themselves, and position such authority as coming from on high. They gladly accept the ruler's right to rule, and the governments right to govern, without limit, so long as the ends seem benevolent to them.
We, on the other hand, rightly reject that premise, and are supported in this by unalterable facts of ethics, history, the law, the nature of our Founding and the structure of our polity that failadelphia's fellow travelers wish fervently to flush down the memory hole.
This conflict of worldviews, between those who would rule, and those who would not be ruled is not resolvable.
A "compromise" consisting of "rule a little, be ruled a little" is satisfactory to neither party.
Structurally, the Founders had the right idea: that all humans should have their place to drink from the infinite stream of Liberty, bound only by the righteous limits that each man should visit no harm upon another, and such limited powers as have been granted to government for the purpose of upholding and enhancing that freedom.
It was the right idea, but it failed to contain the greed for power of those who would govern, buoyed by the pusillanimity of those who would be governed.
Thus, we find ourselves distressingly close to a state of nature, erecting defenses against both the trespass of our neighbor, and the government that is little help to us in that matter, and great help to our neighbor.
Those with a worldview in which infinite government power is acceptable so long as the ends are benevolent measure government only with the single pale dimension of the benevolence or malevolence of the intentions. (Some of the less intellectually slothful sometimes try to reach as far as assessing the outcomes of the intentions. While necessary, it's just an extension of the same yardstick, and therefore insufficient.)
They simply don't have the background, premises, or tools to assess or comprehend the marine's objections, and so in order to "understand" them, they file them neatly into the category of "paranoid, ignorant racist right wing nutbag flat earth Christian fundamentalist civil war reenactor" provided for them, which provides them with the comfortable illusion that they understand the world, and are the superior member of it.
And yet, these fools would rule.
"And yet, these fools would rule."
Why of course they would, geek. Lust for money by their subjects is wrong, y'see, but their lust for power so they can satisfy their lust for other people's money is just perfectly fine.
geek:
While I'm always loath to argue with you, I think I must at least offer a theory here.
Those with a worldview in which infinite government power is acceptable so long as the ends are benevolent measure government only
...
Also might be explained that those who file them neatly into the category of "paranoid, ignorant racist right wing nutbag flat earth Christian fundamentalist civil war reenactor" simply don't have the intelligence and foresight to see the possibilities that we who are "paranoid ... nutbags" do. (Especially considering the history of such efforts, this seems to be almost amazing to us, but we have a history of people on this site making historically illiterate comments quite often.)
It might not even be that they "trust" their chosen one - they just don't have the ABILITY to foresee what might happen, much less what's LIKELY to happen.
Re: Obama's gun banning.
President Obama signaled today that he will not push for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban in the United States even though he still believes that the ban "made sense."
Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to reinstate the ban, which expired in 2004, but today said doing so would mean facing difficult political challenges.
"None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy," Obama said at a press conference after his meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City. "What we've focused on is how we can improve our enforcement under existing laws."
Perhaps rather than spending the political capital to fight for the weapons ban and other major legislation like stimulus programs simultaneously, the Obama administration plans to block the flow of illegal guns to Mexico through stricter enforcement of existing laws.
Source : http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7346120&page=1
In other words, for the dense or liberal, but I repeat myself, he'd ban guns if he had the votes.
I'm down in the right front corner of this video. Sadly, I didn't win the lottery to speak, and I actually left a few minutes early, both because of the traffic getting out of there, and because I was literally shaking with rage and couldn't make myself sist still and be civil any longer.
The Chancellor of WSU Vancouver started me off by claiming that his visits to Sweden and Cuba had demonstrated to him the shamefulness of our private system with our "high infant mortality rate." I was the first to shout "not true" but that statement had the whole ampitheater standing and booing for the filthy lie it is. He was chided with shouts of "Moderate, don't advocate!"
You'd think the chancellor of a university would have the basic statistical knowledge to know when tricksy accounting measures are being used to hide the truth. Just because you don't record the babies you let die, doesn't mean you have a better survival rate than us.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=6219&type=0
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/84/5/850.pdf
Unix-Jedi:
>>
While I'm always loath to argue with you...
Offering a compatible, alternative hypothesis isn't so much of a dispute that you need to butter it. ;)
--==|==--
As for Obama the gun grabber:
Our indictment of Obama's nature as a gun grabber rests on his record both as a member of the board of the viciously anti-gun Joyce foundation, as well as his record and comments regarding the carriage of arms and civilian possession of militarily credible armaments, which is voluminously documented elsewhere, and readily available to the inquisitive critical mind.
It is obvious to most that he has soft pedaled the issue, understanding it to be a political third rail, and is unwilling to expend his diminishing political capital when there are greater acts of power consolidation to lust after.
This indictment merits reconsideration if, and only if, Obama thoroughly and unambiguously repudiates such views, enthusiastically embracing the honorable citizen's right to publicly carry militarily potent arms, and takes such action that positively remedies the matter through tangible legislative and executive leadership.
No reconsideration is merited by
passively letting the status quo stand without comment other than hiding behind the "What works here doesn't necessarily work there" Federalism flag of convenience, or in swallowing a legislative culmination of an act begun in the previous administration, as such acts have no redemptive payload whatsoever.
Geek: Y'know, maybe we should play Agents Provocateurs on this. Get the left riled up and demanding a "solution" to the gun problem, and thereby make President Zero expend his political capital against that third rail, rather than against this health care crap that might actually pass.
Apropos politicians, a couple of quotes to amuse:
Epitaph on the Politician Himself
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept : for I had longed to see him hanged.
--Hillarie Belloc
Epitaph
Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh
Stop traveller, and piss.
--Lord Byron
"Keep waiting, failADelphia."
Geek, then I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
"Okay, TEACHER boy, can you spot the missing word in that sentence of yours?
Ah, DJ. Are you telling me that you have NEVER committed a typo in your life? Sounds to me like someone is a little miffed that he was wrong. His first legislation regarding guns and Obama...lifts restrictions? Time to put away the Hitler moustache for all those Obama posters...wow...that's really gotta stink for you, dude.
"Why is it 'paranoid rage' when conservatives do it, but 'speaking truth to power' when liberals do it?"
Oh, there's paranoid rage on the left just not in as great numbers, as organized, or with any real power. Also, they aren't armed as well. Any liberals with guns at Bush rallies?
"What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?"
This is an interesting question. In my opinion, the strict constructionists of our country somehow have it in their head(much like the evangelicals who are God's official spokespeople) that they know more about the Constitution then anyone else. Now, most of you are engineers, right? Is anyone here a constitutional lawyer/scholar? If you are, great! Go debate our president because he is one as well.
The fact is that we really don't know what our founding fathers would do with our culture today. I think we can all agree that it has changed since the 18th century. They made
the Constitution for an agrarian society. Given the growth of this country into such massive industrialization, Jefferson's thoughts on this change might be clear with this quote.
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government"
So what would Jefferson have thought of government run health care? And how would he have felt about corporations of this country? Would he have thought it was OK to "take another's means for your ends?" A good point for discussion and, unlike yourselves, I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
"He will not address the underlying causes that precipitated the Marine saying what he did"
The underlying cause is largely a manufactured one by a group of people who understand all too well how to play to people's fear and ignorance in order to further their agenda. I know all of you think that liberals do this but ask yourselves this...if they did, why do they continually fail at it as they have with health care? Or, as Bill Maher put it recently, let themselves get bullied by a chick on Facebook. Honestly, their track record for being "all powerful" statists is pretty lousy.
"unalterable facts of ethics, history, the law, the nature of our Founding and the structure of our polity...
...in your opinion of history from your perspective based on your belief system. See my comment above regarding Jefferson. Geek, I hope you realize how much you sound like someone who believes that everything in the Bible should be taken literally. And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools.
Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be happy and claim victory? Or will you continue to find enemies where there are none and prove my point about hysteria?
One other thought I had regarding this video...the real hero of it is Brian Baird. He has the courage to stand up and listen to people yell at him for a few hours. Do any of you?
In fact, I would love to see any one of you attain office, promptly return us to the late 18th century in repealing programs like Medicare and Social Security, and watch the consequences.
Something tells me that your utopia wouldn't come to pass. And then what?
"'What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?'
This is an interesting question."
And one you completely and utterly missed. Probably intentionally. I've met very few people who move goalposts as much as you. Your goalposts are on wheels and probably motorized.
Ah, yes. I forgot.
Are going to go address those other subjects and posts, or did life come up again?
I wish whenever I had things that required urgent attention and drew me away from obligations (intellectual or otherwise) they were quite so convenient and well-timed. I'll bet if you were ever pulled over for speeding, RIGHT THEN someone would call with a family emergency for you.
>>Geek, then I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
I laid out the basis of our indictment, and the conditions under which it will be rescinded. These are all reasonable, fact based criteria that are easy to evaluate.I'm not going to lose any sleep either waiting for their fulfillment or for you to deal with them.
>>
---------------
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government"
So what would Jefferson have thought of government run health care?
..
I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
---------------
You've never demonstrated any grasp of where Jefferson's head started at, (Hint: Locke) and so the validity of your wishful guesses as to where he would have ended up is unlikely to be anywhere near the mark.
The Federalist Papers spend a sizeable proportion of their 600+ pages talking about how "free shit at other people's expense", a tempting option even to simple agrarians, is NOT on the menu.
>>Geek, I hope you realize how much you sound like someone who believes that everything in the Bible should be taken literally.
Laughs out loud. Perhaps, only in that I insist that words have tangible meanings that can't be elevated to such levels of abstraction that your special brand of symbolic equivalence and substitution artistry is valid. Other than that, you're out of your mind.
>>And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools.
LOOK! A PONY! LET'S ALL JOIN AGAINST A COMMON ENEMY, THE EVIL CORPORATE PEOPLE!
Puhlease.
geek: Perhaps, only in that I insist that words have tangible meanings that can't be elevated to such levels of abstraction that your special brand of symbolic equivalence and substitution artistry is valid. Other than that, you're out of your mind.
*snorfle*
Thank $DEITY I have learned to put down beverages before reading anything from you. Can't afford new keyboards that often.
"I don't have the answer nor am I locked in rock granite certainty about what Jefferson would have thought.
So Marky cannot hazard a guess as to what one of our most outspoken Founders would have thought about basic property rights? Despite a ton of writing from old Red, and his contemporaries?
And yet, and yet he knows so much about the intentions of the Republicans, conservatives and liberty minded folks.
Hmm.
"Ah, DJ. Are you telling me that you have NEVER committed a typo in your life? "
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #6, the "deliberately missing the point" response. As I stated quite clearly, my comment was not that you made a typo or such, it is that, in the past couple of weeks, you have posted many comments with missing words, thus giving clear evidence that you just splatter this blather up without proofreading it.
If you want to be taken seriously, then try to be serious, and stop the drive-by shit slinging.
"Sounds to me like someone is a little miffed that he was wrong."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "Hey, look! A pony!" response. I wasn't wrong. Go read Russell's last comment again. Consider that with your statement ...
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen."
... which is why he conceded something minor (the amendment sponsored by Senator Coburn) to gain something he not only wanted, but actively backed, namely new restrictions on credit card companies. That's how the Legislative and Executive branches of the feddle gubmint work. The President doesn't get the bills he wants, he gets the bills that Congress passes and sends him. If he waited to get and sign only what he wants, he would never sign anything. This does not mean, nor should you or anyone infer, that he has changed his mind as to what he would do if he had the votes to do as he wants.
To put it in terms on your level, the fact that he ordered chicken for lunch today does not mean that he no longer wants steak for dinner someday.
Yet again, you have done what is utterly typical of you. You pick one fact and, in effect, tell us no other relevant facts exist. Like a little boy, you have shown Mommy that you folded your napkin after lunch, which means you are very neat, despite the spagetti splattered all over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and Mommy.
Now, let's try your whole statement:
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be happy and claim victory? Or will you continue to find enemies where there are none and prove my point about hysteria?"
I'll fix it for you:
"Teacher boy, he doesn't have the votes. It probably won't happen. So now what? Can you at least be truthful and admit that such victories are not necessarily permanent, or are all that will come down the pike? Or will you continue to claim that Obama has changed his spots and prove our point that evidence means nothing to you?"
""What makes it moral for you to take another's means for your ends?""
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "I'm drowning in stupidity" response. You slathered on 126 words, no part of which was even slightly related to the question you were asked. Same old shit, different day.
"One other thought I had regarding this video...the real hero of it is Brian Baird. He has the courage to stand up and listen to people yell at him for a few hours. Do any of you?"
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #8, the "Humpty Dumpty" response. That word, "hero", doesn't mean what you think it means.
Baird is an elected representative. We are not. He volunteered to serve his constituents. We didn't volunteer to serve him. He is paid to serve his constituents. We are not. Standing up in public and taking the heat is part of what he is paid to do, and doing it does not make him a hero.
"And what's ironic here is that fools do rule this country--corporate fools."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #5, the "How 'bout that anthrax, eh?" response.
Damn, boy, but you are as predictable as sunrise.
"Russell, he doesn't have the votes. It won't happen. So now what?"
We wait. Alert. Ready to act politically to counter his stated intentions to bring back the ban.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson
Obama has by his words and works aligned himself with the enemies of the 2nd Amendment. Letting one's guard down around a known enemy is foolhardy.
Of course, this is all mass hysteria flat civil war reich wing nonsense. Just believe the soothing words of the teleprompter. It's so good, it's like opium!
"Something tells me that your utopia wouldn't come to pass. And then what?"
Again, your lack of understanding shines forth.
We aren't aiming for a utopia. No Lotophagi here, we want a Constitutional Republic.
I guess it just proves my point that no matter what definable actions he takes--even one that lifts a restriction on guns--you will still continue to believe...
And as DJ noticed, you dodged all the other points brought up.
And most telling in your utter hypocrisy is when you say no matter what definable actions he takes- ... you will still continue to believe. despite the fact you've yet come to grips with all the definable actions we've detailed time and again, you - YOU - still "continue to believe".
* Obama was on the Board of the Joyce Foundation when they started their lawfare against the 2nd Amendment.
* Obama has repeatedly promised, spoken on, claimed, and called for banning guns. (Which you also "continue to believe" isn't a ban.)
* This act - which we'll give the appropriate credit for - was fine, but it wasn't anything Obama championed. It was attached to a bill that Obama did want. This is more a success of the compromise methods of Congress than of any change in heart of Obama. (And you've yet to admit that he'd need to change his heart.
You demonstrate your hypocrisy as you attempt to lecture us - without even realizing how much you're damaging your own credibility.
You really don't think about these things before you say them, do you?
I had to put this in a separate comment to ridicule it, Ralph:
Honestly, their track record for being "all powerful" statists is pretty lousy.
Then what kind of specious fool would insist, demand, and urge those with a poor track record that they're admitting and conceding to to have more power?
Here's a good response to the "Where are you politically?" test Mark posted a while back:
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/08/24/what_is_the_foundation_of_your_economic_beliefs_97371.html
Personally I think this one helps you define your politics much more clearly than the other one did.
Go see this, and pay attention.
Some gumdrops:
"Why should mere fact trump ideology?"
"Even the idea of facts, logic, reason, and history are under attack, which is why Rachaal Maddow will do thirty minutes making fourth grade jokes about teabaggers because that infantile snark is all she has against common American citizens who are quoting Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams chapter and verse."
Now, do you recognize anyone?
"Any liberals with guns at Bush rallies?"
Any conservatives with guns at Obama rallies?
Or how about this: Any conservatives shooting at leftist Presidents?
Oh, there's paranoid rage on the left just not in as great numbers, as organized, or with any real power. Also, they aren't armed as well. Any liberals with guns at Bush rallies?
Ewkay.... David Axelrod giving marching orders to the SEIU isn't as well organized as people individually deciding they're fed up and going to a tea party or town hall.
The "paranoid rage" of the President of the Unites States, the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House "doesn't have any real power".
Not as well armed? Well okay, I'll at least halfway concede that point. It's been clear for decades that the American political left is, by and large, cowardly. They want changes, in many cases they are even open about the changes they want effectively enslaving people or criminalizing particular ethnicities or religions, but they want to elect someone who'll do it by governmental fiat. Being unarmed both in weaponry and courage, they try to force the cops to do the ugly parts for them. Bloody hands at arms length, just like always.
And you consider that a way in which the left is less dangerous than the right?
Mark, you should certainly hope the right is "more numerous, better organized, and better armed" than the left. After all, the right believes in changing the rules if they are unacceptable, while the left believes in ignoring the rules and doing whatever the hell you want, regardless.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370301468452872.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Not as well armed? What about the Zombie cadres that the Left has? The Million Zombie March? ACORN? They specialize in Human Wave attacks - with the difference being they lack the humanity while expecting the other side to respond humanely, only now we recognize it doesn't matter, they're Zombies after all.
"And one you completely and utterly missed."
In your opinion...I got where he was going with it. I chose to answer with width of vision.
"Are going to go address those other subjects and posts, or did life come up again?"
Are you going to be my secretary and spend hours each day helping me to organize everything? Nice try, btw, but please continue to make yourself feel better about ignoring the simple truths that I bring up on here all the time.
"These are all reasonable, fact based criteria that are easy to evaluate."
Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?
"You've never demonstrated any grasp of where Jefferson's head started at, (Hint: Locke)"
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
http://www.socialconscience.com/articles/2001/jefferson.htm
Your grasp of Jefferson extends only to the limits of your belief system and not beyond that. I make no bones about knowing exactly what Jefferson thought (as you do) but I do have some ideas:)
"Letting one's guard down around a known enemy is foolhardy."
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners. The more I think about this, the more I see how this really sucks for you guys. Keep hope, alive, though. Maybe someday your hysterical dreams will come true.
GOF, I'll take the test and post the answers in a different comment.
DJ, nice video. So I take it that you believe its narrative completely? Or are you able to think critically about it? If not, I guess you buy into victimology now as well.
"Any conservatives with guns at Obama rallies?"
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/ernest_hancock_viper_militia_gun_obama_event.php
"Mark, you should certainly hope the right is "more numerous, better organized, and better armed" than the left."
I don't have to hope...it's a fact. If the left is as powerful as you say they are, wouldn't they be forcing you to pull the plug on grandma right now? Or grinding their jack boots into your ear? Instead, they are floundering and we are probably going to see a very watered down version of health care. What's ironic about this is that all of the things the right delusionally predict will happen under government run health care will actually happen but with private industry (rationing, death panels etc.) In fact, it already is.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6965160
Odd that all these people waited in line for hours...didn't complain a wit...and yet those with health care at the town halls (most of whom have health care) are screaming about fascism. 8,000 people given care by a group of people that normally do their jobs in Third World countries. And you're telling me that your ideology isn't flawed?
You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept.
Why are they floundering?
"Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?"
So far as I am aware, the only effect he has had on the exercise of gun rights is to sign a bill which removed a federal prohibition on concealed carry in national parks. If that is the case, then that is a net expansion of gun rights, and on a national scale.
He did so because it was attached to a bill which he championed on a different subject, and, as I explained before, he compromised; he gave up something of lower value to gain something of higher value.
Now the return question for you: Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him? Justify your answer, teacher boy; don't just tell us you can read his mind, because we all know that you can't. Show us why you believe your answer to be correct.
"DJ, nice video. So I take it that you believe its narrative completely? Or are you able to think critically about it? If not, I guess you buy into victimology now as well."
You are still jumping to conclusions, but that is your specialty. Yet again, your logic is faulty; one can think critically about a narrative and accept it completely; the two are not mutually exclusive. The fact that I cited this video tells you nothing about what I think of it.
"You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept."
We do indeed refuse to accept the reasons for it, and are trying to do something about them. You disagree with us as to what those reasons are, but that is your failure, not ours.
I chose to answer with width of vision.
In the English everybody else speaks: you ignored it.
Are you going to be my secretary and spend hours each day helping me to organize everything?
I'm going to continue to insist that you play by the same rules everybody else does.
Nice try, btw, but please continue to make yourself feel better about ignoring the simple truths that I bring up on here all the time.
They're simple, all right, they're just not truths.
What truth? That you're incapable of defending your ideals logically and in English without telling us to shutup shutup shutup? (Hell, in the last few days you've continued to contradict yourself continually.)
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners. The more I think about this, the more I see how this really sucks for you guys. Keep hope, alive, though. Maybe someday your hysterical dreams will come true.
By signing a rider to a bill.
Do you seriously want to set the bar there? Really? Do you want us to go through and start detailing all the riders Bush signed over the last 6 years?
Of course not. By your insistance that this destroys all the evidence of his aims, desires, and history it weakens what it is, a fine step that he was gracious enough to not oppose or demagouge
The hysterical dreams are yours - you've refused to admit that Obama has a past history as a gun-grabber, he's actively fought gun rights. Your prior attempt to insist that he wasn't anti-gun was to point to 2! votes, one for retired cops, and the other an amendment that passed with no opposition - and ignored everything else.
It's a nice first step, Mark, but considering you claimed he wasn't antigun (as he proposed banning the most popular guns currently being sold), you have an issue here, not us.
To call us hysterical is Markadelphia-ish, Ralph. Oh. Wait.
If he's had a change of heart, that would be great. But demanding that we accept that he has based on a rider? That's hysterical. By definition. (Verbatim!)
What's ironic about this is that all of the things the right delusionally predict will happen under government run health care will actually happen but with private industry (rationing, death panels etc.) In fact, it already is.
I bolded the two parts of your statement there that contradict.
You know, maybe you should go deal with your life, because your debating skills and "truth" can't survive your own follow-on sentences.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
It's pretty bad. It's written in a passive tone, it chops up Jefferson's words out of context to pick and choose sentences to quote.
It's everything I'd expect you to assign.
Why don't you just assign The Works of Thomas Jefferson?
It's what *I* read in high school. Oh, wait, NM, I see your problem. (They're almost all available for free on the internet now.)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1734
I weep for your students, I really do.
abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6965160
Odd that all these people waited in line for hours...didn't complain a wit...and yet those with health care at the town halls (most of whom have health care) are screaming about fascism. 8,000 people given care by a group of people that normally do their jobs in Third World countries. And you're telling me that your ideology isn't flawed?
Yes, Mark, that's exactly what we're saying. By the way, you forgot to rail on the evil corporations who sponsored all of that. And that they "rationed care".
Hell, you can't even explain what my ideology is. You're just certain it's WRONG.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/ernest_hancock_viper_militia_gun_obama_event.php
And the best for last.
Really.
Staged the event? Did it not happen?
"Manufactured Waco". Oh, yes, that's a lovely source, one I would link to quite often.
Perhaps you need to reflect on your own ideology and figure out what in the hell it actually is before you go insisting ours is all wrong.
"You are correct about our country going down the toilet, though. It's just for reasons that you refuse to accept."
Would it have something to do with expanding the national debt into areas of government control not sanctioned by the Constitution? The result of decades long attacks against the foundations of Western Civilization?
Nah... That's just silly!
We're going down the toilet because of the racism! And the flat war reactors! And The Won simply can't get enough legislation through fast enough to socialize everything!
A "known enemy" who has expanded the rights of gun owners.
Incidental side effects that run against publicly made statements aren't the basis of policy. But then again, the stupid just rolls off of your comments in waves, so expecting you to understand first order effects
is far beyond your ken, much less second order, and let's not even broach third order, or the differences between correlation and causation.
Maybe I'll take a shot, if I type real slow, perhaps... Whom am I kidding? No real thought will breach that teacher's tower!
Obama isn't the cause of the expending gun rights, his words, works and allies indicate he wants to constrict gun rights.
The fact that under one bill, a bill that had a clause that expanded gun rights, a clause that wasn't supported by Obama or any of the Democrats, a clause that pertains to a very small aspect of daily activities of US Citizens, that because Obama wanted the bill passed more than he wanted to remove that clause, doesn't in any way, shape or form construe support from Obama for gun rights.
I have never seen someone that can consistently make so many logical fallacies per comment. And when said fallacies are pointed out, continue to make them.
You, sir, aren't arguing in good faith. Indeed, your actions bespeak of a scurrilous knave, and only further cements your position as a useful idiot.
It does amuse me to see you flounder with such gusto, please continue. A foundation such as yours produces such a shaky edifice that the merest breeze has you swinging wildly.
http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/single/jiltings_are_always_tough_to_get_over/
"For Jefferson, democracy was power of the peoples."
Take off every Zig! For great justice!
This post is so good, it deserves to be put in more than 1 thread. There I concentrated on the education aspect.
But this also speaks to an almost perfect analog of the current discussion on gun rights and restrictions:
http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/single/false_witness_a_screed_rumination_twofer/
Do you imagine that Obama, who has openly stated his desire for a "single-payer" health insurance system in the United States, who becomes enraged at challenges to his statements, and who has dispatched union goons to suppress protests against the Democrats' health-care ambitions, can be trusted on this or any lesser subject?
(links in the original left out due to Haloscan limits)
This is exactly the same as the gun control debate that Mark is attempting to lie about. Mark wants to demand that we ignore anything he doesn't want us to see - and he'll ignore it in his insistence that we're delusional. He overstates the case - massively, just as he did during the campaign, and now that Obama was the recipient of a normal-sort-of-rider attached by the other party, he's transformative and lets ignore everything and pretend!
While I'm not a Christian, and so I disagree with some of Porretto's thrust religiously in this post, he is dead nuts accurate with this, be it made from a secular or non-secular perspective.
When a man spouts nonsense about something you know he's easily capable of understanding, you cannot withhold judgment. You must accept that he's lying to you, and moreover that he's doing so with malice aforethought, for reasons of his own. He is bearing false witness against his neighbor, for a neighbor is one who is sufficiently near, by some measure, for his lies to degrade your well-being.
Russell:
Someone set us up the bomb!
U-J: You have no chance to survive make your time.
I believe this to be germane to the Ubercare:
A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions. A certain amount of public works — of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments—is necessary to supply essential public services. With such public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned. I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of “providing employment” or of adding wealth to the community that it would not otherwise have had.
A bridge is built. Ifit is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection. But a bridge built primarily “to provide employment” is a different kind of bridge. When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration. “Projects” have to be invented. Instead of thinking only of where bridges must be built the government spenders begin to ask themselves where bridges can be built. Can they think of plausible reasons why an additional bridge should connect Easton and Weston? It soon becomes absolutely essential. Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries.
Indeed, obstructionists and reactionaries!
The quote is from this excellent read that Ken, I believe, supplied in an earlier thread.
"You, sir, aren't arguing in good faith. Indeed, your actions bespeak of a scurrilous knave, and only further cements your position as a useful idiot."
He cannot admit error. That is what drives him.
"Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries."
To which I quote:
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." -- Nikita Kruschchev
Russell:
A bridge is built. If it is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary to the taxpayers collectively than the things for which they would have individually spent their money had it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection.
But how can anyone know that it's "more necessary" to the taxpayers than what they'd have spent the money on themselves?
It's precisely the sort of arrogance that the Left indulges in, taxing us to provide welfare, or save rainforests, or whatever, because "we're not doing it right".
All your base are belong to us.
perlhaqr :
"we're not doing it right". Yup.
To paraphrase the Bard, Damn'd as thou art, thou hast free will!
"Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him? "
In some areas, yes. In other no. He is a reasoned enough person to examine each situation as unique. He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president. Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far. After all, DJ, you have chided me many times for judging actual, definable actions and not just "what I think he will do." And now you are asking me a hypothetical? Hmmm...
Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban. He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns. That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed. Of course, this is all conjecture. You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind. I would say that he has other things on it right now like being called Hitler by a large group of lunatics who think think he is going to pull the plug on grandma, shoot disabled people, and reshape this country into the Soviet Union circa the Cold War era. (side comment: why can't you people admit that we beat them and that era is over?)
"We do indeed refuse to accept the reasons for it, and are trying to do something about them."
What exactly are you doing? Other than scream at me on this blog?
Unix, quoting Porretto...hmm...does that mean I can start quoting The Daily Kos, Moveon.org, and the Democratic Underground now as support for my arguments?
Holy crow, this fellow nailed the current housing market woes Credit Diverts Production
Remember folks, this was written in 1946.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings will outlast it all.
"In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more."
Ye gads, more from the aforementioned source!
"The case against government-guaranteed loans and mortgages to private businesses and persons is almost as strong as, though less obvious than, the case against direct government loans and mortgages. The advocates of government-guaranteed mortgages also forget that what is being lent is ultimately real capital, which is limited in supply, and that they are helping identified B at the expense of some unidentified A. Government-guaranteed home mortgages, especially when a negligible down payment or no down payment whatever is required, inevitably mean more bad loans than otherwise. They force the general taxpayer to subsidize the bad risks and to defray the losses. They encourage people to “buy” houses that they cannot really afford. They tend eventually to bring about an oversupply of houses as compared with other things. They temporarily overstimulate building, raise the cost of building for everybody (including the buyers of the homes with the guaranteed mortgages), and may mislead the building industry into an eventually costly overexpansion. In brief in the long run they do not increase overall national production but encourage malinvestment."
1946.
>>Geek, I am going to ask you a simple question. And DJ, as well. Based on the facts, thus far in his presidency, has Barack Obama expanded or rescinded gun rights?
Failadelphia, I am going to give you a simple answer. You cannot point to an elephant's tail and call it a rope.
Yes, it is long, yes, you can tie things with it, and yes, it answers the description of rope in nearly all respects. If you keep standing under it, though, sooner or later, you're going to get a head full of elephant shit.
Me: ""Do you think expansion of gun rights in this country is what Obamateur would do if he could do what he wanted to do on that subject, i.e. if it were solely up to him?""
Markadoofus: In some areas, yes. In other no."
Just can't give a straight answer to a straight question, can you?
"He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president."
Teacher boy, you are as dense as lead. You have no business teaching anyone anything, because you simply refuse to think in anything resembling a rational manner. I'm gonna explain really carefully what two things are wrong with that bolded item in that last statement of yours that I quoted.
First thing wrong:
THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT VOTE ON BILLS IN CONGRESS.
President Obamateur HAS NO VOTE IN CONGRESS. He DID NOT VOTE on the amendment offered by Senator Coburn concerning concealed carry in national parks. SENATORS voted on that amendment, and it was accepted by the REPRESENTATIVES in the House during the reconciliation of the Senate's version of the bill with the House's version. CONGRESS voted on the final version and sent it to the President. ALL THAT PRESIDENT OBAMATEUR DID WAS SIGN IT INTO LAW. HE HAD NO VOTE WHATEVER IN THE MATTER.
Goddamn, boy, you prattle on about what happens in gubmint when you really don't have fucking clue how it works. What the hell is the matter with you?
Second thing wrong:
THE NEW LAW DOES NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO "OPENLY CARRY A GUN IN FEDERAL PARKS".
The new law REMOVES THE FEDERAL RESTRICTION on possessing guns in National Parks, such that state and local laws apply. Anyone who can legally carry a gun in a particular state is no longer prohibited by federal law from carrying a gun in a National Park within that state. Whether or not such carrying is allowed, and whether or not, if allowed, it is "open carry" or "concealed carry", are up to the laws of that state.
Goddamn, boy, but your understanding of this subject, on which you would have us believe you are right and we are wrong, approaches zero. What the hell is the matter with you?
Now, let's look at your quote again:
"He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights....only one of which was as president. Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far. After all, DJ, you have chided me many times for judging actual, definable actions and not just "what I think he will do.""
Yes, I have. Definable actions include votes and public statements, particularly public statements made by him when he wasn't campaigning for votes. HIS HISTORY IS RELEVANT. IT MATTERS. Remember, you have told us repeatedly that his statements to the effect that the Second Amendment is fine, by golly, which he made while he was campaigning for votes, matter. Thus, you have no grounds for asserting that his statements to the opposite, which he made while he was not campaigning for votes, don't matter. So, tell us why you think that judgement of what Obamateur would do regarding gun rights, if he could do what he wanted to do, should be based on that one action, and that one action alone, and not on his entire history of the subject, particularly when he was least likely to be lying?
"Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban."
But you would have us believe he favors expansion of gun rights. You can't even agree with yourself, can you?
"He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns."
And you would have us believe that ban is sensible?
"Of course, this is all conjecture. You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind."
You have been telling us what he thinks, and what he wants, for more than a fucking year. What I've been trying to get across to you, anyway that might work, is that you can't read his mind.
Goddamn, boy, are you really this fucking DENSE?
"Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban."
But he's not a banner! Not not not!
" You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind."
*Urgle* Isn't that what Marky has been doing to the double plus ungood people for roughly 2 years now?
I had more, but DJ beat me to the punch and did a better job anyways.
You know, Marky treats words like they are some sort of incantation. Just rearrange them enough, and suddenly magic will happen!
You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind.
... You've claimed to do exactly that to come to your analysis. I'll find the link after dinner.
He is a reasoned enough person to examine each situation as unique.
How about to humor me, you address his time on the Joyce Foundation Board?
He has voted for the Vitter amendment, conceal and carry by police officers in Chicago, and now the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks.
You say these in a mantra format, but you ignore that we keep pointing out it's not proof of much.
Vitter - passed 84 to 16. Not controversial. Never been used. Symbolic at best anyway since there's no enforcement mechanism.
Carry by LEO's - which we had to point out to you was only for LEOs, and not for "concealed carry", which for months you insisted - isn't "expanding the right to keep and bear arms" - it's protecting the state. That's right, after you've retired from the arm of the Government that exerts force on citizens - you can keep carrying your gun. Not the citizens you were "serving and protecting".
And the latest amendment, which did not give the ability to openly carry a gun in federal parks. It did remove a restriction, but more importantly, it was attached to a bill increasing restrictions on corporations, the sort you say doesn't exist.
So in other words, your proof proves nothing that you've claimed it does.
These have been explained, painfully and obviously many times to us.
Which means you can only be bearing false witness against us.
These are things that he has voted on in support of gun rights
Except they weren't.
only one of which was as president.
Thanks, DJ, saved me some typing.
Really that last one is all that you should judge him on thus far.
What of his past history? His past actions? The past VOTES YOU ADMIT TO?
Just to humor you, I think he would favor an assault weapons ban.
So he isn't in favor of gun rights.
He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws
Funny thing, there's never an "end" to "sensible gun laws". The last time "assault weapons" were outlawed, the gun control movement didn't pack up and go home.
and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns.
Which would make him a ?
Oh, wait, no point waiting on you. That makes him a GUN BANNER. He would outlaw - according to you - my deer rifle.
That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed.
Clinton signed it. He didn't pass it.
And you just said that everything you've said in the past about his "Support" for gun rights is bullshit.
According to you. You just admitted that you knew we were right, and you still tried to call us paranoid, hysterical, lying, ...
Thank you at least for his admission. It will be handy in the future when you make claims.
Damn, all y'all been busy while I was away.
See why I won't ban him? Stereotypical example of the form. And comment magnet!
"And comment magnet!"
Kevin, you write that as if keeping a dead possum on the front porch is a good thing because it attracts flies.
Mark complains: You are, in fact, asking me to read his mind.
Not the exact thread I was thinking out - still looking where, as I recall, he specifically claimed to get into other people's head - but this is close:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/khbaker/4504295673427610819/#584376
"How is it that you are able to read these people's minds such that you know these things?"
I don't have to read their minds. Their words speak for themselves. So do their actions. Of course, you have to be open to hearing and seeing these things and I guess I'm not sure that you are or you want to, DJ.
It's not "some dude." It's me. I examine daily events in the world and usually begin by asking myself: what is the motivation behind this action? Why are they doing this? Once you know the right questions, the answers become obvious.
"Any conservatives with guns at Obama rallies?"
"http:// tpmmuckraker.talkingpoint...obama_event.php"
oh my god, OhMyGod, OHMYGOD!! Quick! Hide the wymn an' chillen! It's pure evil! This baaaad man called the police ahead of time to make sure he wouldn't get a police assisted face plant for having an rifle outside of a rally! Have you ever heard of anything so horrible?!? Can't you just feel the waves of terror running down your leg? (Oh, wait. That's just piss. Nevermind.)
And then he was so evil that he planned to give an interview too! My God! Who in their right mind could ever plan an interview ahead of time! That's just so frikkin' evil that he makes Ghegis Khan look like a guy that loves kittens and wears fuzzy bunny slippers all day! He probably tortures babies for fun! omg, OMG, OMG!!! That fear running down my leg is getting stronger! (Oh, wait. That's just fecal matter. Nevermind.)
Actually, I'm really surprised that you walked straight into my trap, especially since DJ put bright neon lights around it by linking to Bill Wittle's video. There was huge propaganda going on in relation to that incident, but it wasn't by conservatives. It was MSNBC claiming that opposition to ObamaCare is due to racism. But lo and behold, the man carrying the rifle IS BLACK. Boy, oh boy, he must really hate black men!!!
But hey, who are you going to believe? Marky? Or the lying camera?
After all, leftists are Totally Peaceful. Right?!?
"'And comment magnet!'
Kevin, you write that as if keeping a dead possum on the front porch is a good thing because it attracts flies."
I feel like we are Sisyphus at times.
Unix, quoting Porretto...hmm...does that mean I can start quoting The Daily Kos, Moveon.org, and the Democratic Underground now as support for my arguments?
Start?
When did you stop? You just linked tpmmuckraker as a form of proof before that - where someone claims that Waco was a "setup".
You don't support your arguments, you paste in something someone else says with little/no understanding of what they're saying. Hell, you contradict yourself on a regular basis, I guess you don't even understand your own points.
Yet again, you fail to understand what "linking" is for, and how it works.
There's some good stuff at DU, for example. Not most of it - they run off most good people and people who actually are factually based.
The issue is how good is the info you're LINKING TO. That you're this oblivious even now comes as no surprise to most of us and reinforces what we've been saying.
So what did you disagree with from Porretto? Be specific with your disagreements, and factual in your rebuttals.
Be specific with your disagreements, and factual in your rebuttals.
Ah man, that's just mean!
From NOLA link...
"But it certainly didn't set well with some of Obama's core Democratic constituencies, environmentalists and gun-control backers."
Hey, isn't that what Markadaffya calls [cue Cartman voice] "teh base"?
I feel like we are Sisyphus at times.
Are you kidding me, he's kicked back with a cold one laughing at our fool's errand.
It is indeed a fool's errand. I've said it over and over gain; he's doing a great job for our side.
Doctor Zero nailed it again:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/25/the-ethics-of-ferocity/
Mark, considering that you're at least comfortable, if not outright in denial, about the paranoia, the rage, and the deliberate lies of:
The Democrat President
The Democrat Senate Majority Leader
The Democrat Speaker of the House
The DNC Chairman
...for you to sneer at the "lying, paranoid rage" of the opposition paints you as hypocritical and disingenuous at best.
I suspect that Mark won't be answering for a while - his life is calling again.
... Probably has to go light some candles in honor of The Swimmer.
"In my opinion, the strict constructionists of our country somehow have it in their head(much like the evangelicals who are God's official spokespeople) that they know more about the Constitution then anyone else."
AT LAST! Marky, thanks for finally admitting that Obama really does want to take our guns away, that government healthcare will lead to unnecessary deaths due to rationing, and that Obama really is a socialist!
Ed:
There you go again.
Don't you know definitions and agreeing on words and agenda's is so .. anti "width of vision"?
Even if your vision has no width, can't you at least understand other people do, and cannot be bound to mere definitions and explanations?
Their cause is Holy, after all, and you're evil. (And Christian! Which means double-plus-ungood!)
They have morality on their side, and cannot be bothered with mere trifles!
Whenever someone in the military says something Mark agress with, he always points out that they served or are serving in the military. When someone who served in the military says something he disagrees with, that argument about military service is all of a sudden dropped and he conveniently switches over into insult mode and says things like "paranoid rage based on lies and hysteria the better. People need to see how sad it is when someone spends too much time drinking the Koolberg Aid".
"[W]e could lose [the health care debate] because I don't think [Obama] he has been tough enough. ... He should get mad, stop [expletive] around. ... He just needs to drag [Americans] to it. Like I just said, they're stupid. Just drag them to this." --HBO's Bill Maher
Whew, glad to know that!
Now, I wouldn't call this an indictment of the British National Health Service, but doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy about an American National Health Service?
"Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.'"
I bet.
'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.'"
Ah, I love that droll British humor! Er, humour.
But I will call this an indictment of the British National Health Service.
The money quote:
"... Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas."
Oh, not to worry. It's just an arithmetic error. A dropped minus sign, y'see. Shoulda been more beds, not less. Another two or three hunnerd billion'll fix it. Oughta have it done by 2035 at the latest. Maybe.
No, no, DJ, the beds increased to 2,340!
Minitruth tells me all that I need to know!
Whipping Boy,
You sez;
"Just to humor you, I think he (Barry - Ed.) would favor an assault weapons ban. He has stated repeatedly that he is for sensible gun laws and voted, in the past, to outlaw these types of guns. That would mean he would probably go back and re-instate the ban that Clinton passed."
Get this straight, this "Assault Weapons Ban," that you towering morons are always harping about, wasn't anything of the sort, and I CAN PROVE IT!
That god-damned stupid fucking law, which was part of the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, did NOTHING MORE than restrict THE NEW MANUFACTURE of certain types of features on semi-automatic rifles, either imported or of domestic manufacture, provided that they had a detachable magazine. EXISTING RIFLES WERE NOT EFFECTED BY AT ALL BY THIS LAW. There were no genies popping out of bottles that made all the "nasty, evil assault weapons," go poof!
The other rub of that same, god-damned stupid fucking law, was the restriction of sale of new, commercially available magazines to a maximum of 10 rounds. Again, EXISTING MAGAZINES WERE EXEMPT, AND NO FUCKING GENIE POPPED OUT OF A FUCKING BOTTLE AND MADE THE EXISTING ONES GO AWAY!!!
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU STUPID FUCK?!?!?
Didn't think so.
In short, your vaunted "Assault Weapons Ban" is a complete misnomer. It has survived, in name only, by way of a lie about what it was; perpetuated by the unwashed on the subject, including almost all media, including the usual suspects. Look in the mirror if you need to know what the garden variety one of those mush-mouths might look like.
You want to know something else, Teacherboy? I purchased a NEW rifle, in the spring of '98, that was a imported rifle, from a former ComBloc country (an AK, no less), that was specifically put together to COMPLETELY COMPLY WITH ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED STUPID FUCKING LAW! And guess what, I was still able to put a previously produced, and completely LEGAL, 30-round capacity magazine straight into the magazine well and use it the way it was intended. I still have the FFL holder's receipt who sold it to me.
(Kevin, et al., please chime in with anything further you'd care to add, here.)
Lastly, what the fuck is this, "he is for sensible gun laws," HORSESHIT? What is sensible about denying someone the purchase of a gun, any gun, if all it does is merely offend a fucking politician, by its mere existence, shitstain?
Answer; Nothing, since any attempt to deny someone the ability to purchase such an item is nothing more than establishing a capricious and arbitrary rule for its own sake.
Crawl into a hole and die, you fucking VERMIN!
Wow. You're especially irritable tonight irritable. Did something nasty happen today?
Remind me not to make you mad at me. :)
Ed,
I get that way sometimes, especially when there's a very apparent gap in knowledge, yet the person in question is still proffering an "opinion" on the subject.
Our common reactive target just insists he's right about it all (seriously, fill in the blank on the subject), of course, without a thought about whether he really knows the subject matter he's blathering on about, at all.
tia:
I've pointed him to this before:
... according to his research, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.
Obiviously, it made a great impression.
"Just can't give a straight answer to a straight question, can you?"
Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates. See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world.
As far as the whole voting things, I think you know what I meant. Nice try, though.
"But he's not a banner! Not not not!"
Well, he's not. In your mind, if he supports an assault weapons ban, he wants to ban all guns. That is not the case. See my comment above regarding grey areas (aka: things that make my head explode). And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill. At least all the buying helped the economy a little.
"After all, leftists are Totally Peaceful. Right?!?"
Of course they aren't. But I think if you and I took a look at the data the DHS has on domestic terrorism, I would hope that you see which group is more dangerous. Or maybe you thought David Koresh was a freedom fighter?
GOF, where exactly are Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancey Pelosi, and Tim Kaine talking about re-education camps and pulling the plug on grandma? Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage.
"Crawl into a hole and die, you fucking VERMIN!"
I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?:)
Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates.
It's comforting for you to believe that, I know.
But you're wrong.
See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me:
Again, wrong.
In your mind, if he supports an assault weapons ban, he wants to ban all guns.
And his his own words, as well. You keep skipping that part for some reason.
But even that point aside, you claimed he wasn't going to ban guns, then you weaseled to "all guns", and now you're whining about "sensible gun laws." We've seen this before from the banners, and from you.
If you don't believe in "assault weapons", you don't believe in "Sniper-rifles that can shoot people a mile away", you don't believe in "Street sweeper" shotguns developed for trench warfare (pump shotguns)...
But still, if you insist on banning a gun, this makes you a gun banner. Your inability to seize that definition demonstrates quite clearly how you're unable to actually think simply, much less "Critically."
And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill.
The hilarious part is after it was detailed that it didn't EXPAND anything, that you still are sticking to your original belief. Though at least you're admitting it's a rider now.
It also demonstrates your utter hypocrisy - when Bush was in office, nothing he did pleased you, even when it was what you claimed you wanted. He vetoed the S-CHIP expansion, and you raged. He said at the time he'd sign the renewal, just not the expansion. And when presented with the straight renewal, he signed it. But your venom was unchanged.
You've been telling us Obama isn't anti-gun, despite all the proof, his actions, his words, and then he does something that's minor pro-gun (ignoring that's how all sorts of bills and riders are done - or the implications for other presidents and other bills) - and you scream it completely overrides everything...
That's not "how the world works". People you don't agree with do things you would all the time - yet you don't insist on supporting them and trusting them. Quite the opposite.
What this demonstrates is that you're a kneejerk reactionary - calling us the Taliban is ironic.
I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?
Arabic? I think you just exposed a major area of ignorance.
That aside, there isn't one. Your Taliban bugaboo don't hurl VERBAL INSULTS and wish people dead. They behead them.
"...Most of the time, I never will, DJ. And why? Because that's not how the world operates..."
Because of a clear inability at moving from any sort of clear philosophical directive. To you, it's all gray, all the time, so redifining, well, EVERYTHING, when it's convenient for you to do so, is entirely within the unlimited dimensions of what you'd term "thinking."
Undeniably, that is clear to all who've been paying the slightest bit of attention to your contrived rants, bitch.
You have a serious deficiency to use ANY form of rational thought, and are incapable of establishing this concept within your mind, and it can be defined by one word, descrimination. I'm sure you'll pull out the usual canard of "RASCISM!," in response to that word, but that ISN'T the context of the issue at hand, and any attempt to avoid it is sophistry on your part.
You have no clear philosophy by which you are willing to define yourself, nor your ideas and it's obvious to all here.
And I still think it's hilarious that droves of people loaded up on guns because they thought President Obama would take away their right to bear arms and yet he expanded those rights by signing the credit card bill.
See, the first part, the "I still think" part, is all wrong and the rest of the sentence just gets worse from there.
The amount of stupid packed into a sentence like that is almost breathtaking.
Carry on, oh reactive target!
"Most of the time, I never will, DJ."
GODDAMN! AN ADMISSION!
"And why? Because that's not how the world operates."
No, that's how YOU operate. Yet again, you simply make excuses for your own dishonesty and self-delusion.
Now, go read this for precisely the opposite, which is where I answered your question, then asked you the question that you evaded.
"See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world."
Why I have a problem with people like you is that you sqirm and wriggle anyway you can to avoid admitting that reality is what it is, and all just to avoid admitting error. Grey areas? You can't even explore the black and white areas of the world without deluding yourself and lying to us.
"Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage."
There you go again, little boy, with your Standard Response #9, the "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response. You simply assert that the other side is what you don't like your side being accused of. So, how was recess this morning?
And with this whole post, you exhibit your Standard Response #10, the "Brave Sir Robin" response. When the monsters get too close, you disappear for a few days, only to reappear and treat everyone as if they didn't see the monsters.
Here they are again, now at Rev. 6:
#1 The "I can't hear you" response. He behaves as if a request to respond or to answer a question was not made, or that he never read it. This seems to be his favorite.
#2 The "What's the point" response. He complains that it is pointless to respond because he won't be believed anyway. One often finds this on a playground during third grade recess.
#3 The "I'm not alone" response. He states his opinion, and then he points to the writings of other people who share his opinion, as if the request were about votes instead of verifiable facts, logic, and reasoned thought.
#4 The "How 'bout that anthrax, eh?" response. He simply tries to change the subject. This is also known as the "Hey, look! A pony!" response.
#5 The "I'm drowning in stupidity" response. He simply lays on the blather, slathering on one turgid catch-phrase, slogan, and cliché after another, and then declares, later, "I answered your question."
#6 The "How 'bout a little fire, Scarecrow?" response. He deliberately misses the point, laying on one straw man after another.
#7 The "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' camera?" response. Nothing is valid, no matter what the evidence for it is, unless it squares with the conclusions he's already jumped to.
#8 The "Humpty Dumpty" response. He simply asserts that your words mean what he says they mean. Thus, no matter what you write, it means that he is correct. This is also known as the "We don't need no stinking dictionary!" response.
#9 The "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response. He simply asserts that the other side is what he doesn't like his side being accused of. As with #2, one often finds this on a playground during third grade recess.
#10 The "Brave Sir Robin" response. When the monsters get too close, he disappears for a few days, only to reappear and treat everyone as if they didn't see the monsters.
"See, this is why you have such a problem with people like me: we aren't single minded and actually (gasp!) explore they grey areas of the world."
Here, too, a big glass of stupid is offered up like it has any real meaning or relevance. Or like a point is scored against the stupid Taliban wingers.
Egads! The mindless one has accused us of being single minded! It cuts to the quick, that does!
Like I said, a poor foundation means the entire edifice starts to swing wildly with the merest push.
#4, #7 and #9 are my favorites.
Marky,
Aristotle proposed three fundamental laws of logic which have been repeated proven to be accurate for the past 2,300+ years. Your post denied at least two of them:
The Law of Noncontradiction
"The oldest statement of the law is that contradictory statements cannot both at the same time be true, e.g. the two propositions A is B and A is not B are mutually exclusive."
The Law of the Excluded Middle
"Aristotle wrote that ambiguity can arise from the use of ambiguous names, but cannot exist in the "facts" themselves."
Without these, you cannot have logic. You cannot have critical thinking.
This is why we have so little respect for you.
Put another way. Baby food is "all grey" because its pureed to be that way. There are no distinctions. Adults can't stand baby food because we've learned that the distinctions between the various foods is actually better than grey mush. We've matured enough to recognize that distinctions matter. The same is true of our ability to reason.
Ed:
Thanks for explaining that to him. I've tried, less succinctly.
Mark:
By the way, you've never remarked on the comments on your previous request:
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this essay which I plan on using in class.
http://www.socialconscience.com/...1/ jefferson.htm
Your grasp of Jefferson extends only to the limits of your belief system and not beyond that. I make no bones about knowing exactly what Jefferson thought (as you do) but I do have some ideas
Another pony, eh? (And you're going to FORCE students to read it? Sounds like Markovian SLAVERY to me!)
Speaking of Markovian Slavery:
"A Christian homeschool girl in New Hampshire has been ordered into government-run public school for having "sincerely held" religious beliefs."
…
"According to ADF allied attorney John Anthony Simmons, the court acknowledges that the girl in question is doing well socially and academically, but he adds that the court went too far when they determined that the girl's Christian faith was a "bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews.""
Then there's this:
"According to a report at FOX News, the United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education which would teach them about topics such as gender violence and masturbation.
""The U.N.'s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a 98-page report in June offering a universal lesson plan for kids ranging in age from 5-18, an "informed approach to effective sex, relationships" and HIV education that they say is essential for "all young people."""
The Report is entitled "International Guidelines for Sexuality Education" and separates children into four age groups: 5-to-8-year-olds, 9-to-12-year olds, 12-to-15-year-olds and 15-to-18-year-olds. Children in the 5-to-8-year-old group will be told that "touching and rubbing one's genitals is called masturbation" and that private parts "can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself."
Upon reaching 9 years of age, the children will learn about homophobia, transphobia, the abuse of power, and the positive and negative effects of aphrodisiacs. They will also learn that abortion is safe. At age 12, the children will learn the "reasons for abortion" and by age 15 will be exposed to direct "advocacy to promote the right to and access to safe abortion."
A copy of the report can be found here
No wonder the Marine was adamant that the government "stay away from my kids!"
Look further into that New Hampshire case, Ed:
"As part of parental custody hearings, a court-appointed guardian stated that the child reflected her mother's "rigidity" on questions of faith and added that girl's best interest would be served by exposure to a public school setting."
In plain English, what the girl believes about religion is not what the gubmint, as expressed via the court, think she oughta believe, so the gubmint, again via the court, requires that she receive an eduction to counter that "rigidity" of belief. This is ripe for an appeal to the SC as a violation of her, and her parent's, rights under the First Amendment.
DJ, 'xactly.
And where are those stalwart defends of the First Amendment? Those that decry the merest whiff of the State not being separated from the the Church? The ACLU? Anyone?
Ah, yes, it's not statist overreach when their side is doing it, is it?
Now for the $64 question. This is not the gubmint requiring education with respect to a particular religion, rather it is the gubmint requiring education in opposition to a particular set of religious beliefs. So, which end of the political spectrum is doing this?
The statist's end?
Or the horse's end, I get those confused...
Markadaffya wonders I wonder how what the Arabic translation is for this phrase?
I believe the answer is "insha'Allah".
You're welcome.
Oh, and M, when someone wants to BAN a gun, any type of gun, that makes that person a gun BANNER. Period. That really is so simple even you should be able to understand it.
"In your mind, if he supports an assault weapons ban, he wants to ban all guns."
Which means ...
... if a person supports eating, he wants to eat everything.
... if a person supports drinking he wants to drink everything.
... if a person supports painting, he wants to paint everything.
... if a person supports singing he wants to sing everything.
And you would have us believe that our minds work this way?
You just cannot admit error, can you, little boy?
GOF, where exactly are Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancey Pelosi, and Tim Kaine talking about re-education camps and pulling the plug on grandma? Sorry, dude, the right has the market on lying paranoid rage.
Oh, I see. The deliberate lies about tonsil vultures and foot rustlers don't count.
The labels of "Un-American", "terrorist" and "evil-monger" don't count.
"The idea of a single payer system scares me too" from a supporter of single payer doesn't count.
I understand now. 'Nuff said.
Compare and contrast, Mark.
Sarah Palin's "lying paranoid rage" concerning her "death panels" comment... It was put in scare quotes when first written, indicating to anyone with a basic knowledge of English that it was not intended to be taken literally.
What was its purpose? Well, you can argue that its purpose was to scare people into demanding the bill be dropped without thinking, sure. But at least the incentivized "end of life counseling" she highlighted with that remark actually existed. Considering how much a bill can change between introduction and passage, it's at least as rational to assume that she said it to point up something actually in the bill that she felt needed to be addressed.
Okay, on the other side, we have POTUS Barack Obama. His remarks that doctors are doing amputations and tonsillectomies and intentionally avoiding preventive care because they're too greedy, they want the money, is a direct lie, not in scare quotes, not an exaggeration to make a point, but a FLAT OUT, DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD.
It's purpose, when said on Aug. 18th? To get people to support his healthcare legislation. Note that at the current time, ten days later, the bill still hasn't been completely read and discussed, on the 18th it'd barely been touched. He has been harping on the urgency of the need to pass this ever since all this began, so it's hard not to think his priority is to make sure it passes before it is read and debated. Yes, I know he said he wanted an "open and honest debate". Since he said that even as his chief advisor was sending out the union goons to beat opponents into silence, you'll forgive me if I doubt his sincerity.
So... on the one hand, we have a former governor "telling a stretcher" to highlight something in the bill they think needs to be changed or removed. And yes, in the process, calling into question the judgment, honesty and competence of those who produced it.
On the other, we have the President of the United States himself claiming as truth something that has no existence at all outside his head, in order to make people demand the bill become law before anyone even looks to see if there are flaws in it. In other words, to keep "open and honest debate" from happening at all until after it's the law of the land and a fait accompli.
And you're telling me that the President, who is making shit up out of whole cloth to frighten people into making decisions in fear, haste and ignorance, is using the system the way it should be used and protecting people's choices. And the civilian former governor, who exaggerates a point to highlight something actually in the bill with which she disagrees so that people will pay attention to what laws will be governing their healthcare before they actually become law, is unacceptably abusing the system and trying to take away people's choices.
The President's unabashed lies for the purpose of promoting decision making based on fear and ignorance is not in fact promoting fear and ignorance, but an exaggeration of something that actually exists, highlighted to make people take a second look at what is being proposed, somehow is promoting fear and ignorance.
You keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
Speaking of lying, I would think that the smartest, most competent person we've had in the white house wouldn't have to stoop to that but I was wrong and I admit it.
About a month ago at a townhall meeting (could have been the primetime gig, not sure), Obama said that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation. The company I work for manufactures prosthetic legs and we work directly with prosthetists who do the fiollow up care. Fact - Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. Private insurers pay that same surgeon some close variation of that amount for that service.
The really smart guy, who wants to run our health care, was off by a factor of 100 on cost.
Response #7 and #9 apply here.
Sidebar:
Ya know, this is where the whole licensure/guild membership/regulation thing gets in the way.
In a *totally* free market, *I* could compete, *today* with doctors on price for amputation services, in a manner fully compliant with 1860 medical standards, as long as the patient was willing to accept 1860 medical risks. (Which include, but are not limited to screaming, fainting, experience of intense pain, and death from shock, blood loss, numerous consequences of any of a number of infections, seizures, and other miscellaneous damage self inflicted from writhing in the restraints. )
Hell, I would even lay aside and periodically sterilize a set of power tools for the purpose, which is mroe than the doc of 1860 had going.
;)
Of course, anyone who'd take me up on that hypothetical offer would be a damned fool, but it does speak to the fascinating question of informed buyers volunteering to buy substandard goods. When there is a regulatory mandate for minimum standards, that also mandates minimum price, and some people are going to be priced out of that market.
--==|==--
Laying the jest aside, I wonder if the reality is opposite Obama's assertion, that in socialized medicine countries, preventative drugs are much less prevalent than in America, and therefore the need for subsequent surgeries are increased. (Note that I did not assume such surgeries were actually performed, or performed in a timely enough manner to make a difference...scheduling a mammary lumpectomy for 12 months from now isn't helpful.)
I'm sure a close look at the numbers, say for example, concerning the use of cholesterol management drugs, some measure that reflects the need for cardiac surgeries, and the actual performance of such surgeries across medical systems would be *fascinating*.
Similarly, in the oncology department, it would be fascinating to see how many rounds of chemo are expended trying to save limbs, rather than reaching for the chainsaw. After all, firing up the bonesaw only costs $800-$1500, I'll bet a single round of chemo costs that much or more.
My friend and neighbor down the street had a tumor in his leg about 10 years back.
2 rounds of chemo and a much more complicated than amputation surgery later, he still has his leg, albeit less some muscle mass and a nerve.
Related to what you are saying, geek:
"It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them. For they are solved by a system under which each consumer makes his own demand and casts a fresh vote, or a dozen fresh votes, every day; whereas bureaucrats would try to solve it by having made for the consumers, not what the consumers themselves wanted, but what the bureaucrats decided was good for them. Yet though the bureaucrats do not understand the quasi-automatic system of the market, they are always disturbed by it. They are always trying to improve it or correct it, usually in the interests of some wailing pressure group." (http://jim.com/econ/chap15p2.html) (Seriously simple to understand primer into economics, thanks again to Ken, I believe.)
The chemo solution has come about because of the price system, not in spite of it.
>>The chemo solution has come about because of the price system, not in spite of it.
In other words, when the choice is available, people generally decide that it's worth trying to keep their originally issued limbs, even at the cost of dollars, pain, length and complexity of treatment, and at slight increases of the risk to their life and consequences to their loved ones.
That's not a choice I'm ever willing to delegate to a bureaucrat who neither knows me or gives a shit about me.
edit: nor, I believe, not or. ;)
That's not a choice I'm ever willing to delegate to a bureaucrat who neither knows me or gives a shit about me.
Well now there's a point I think should be addressed.
Over the years I've heard much wailing about whether or not the government "cares", and whether or not the private sector "cares".
I submit that not only is it impossible for the government to care about you, if it was accomplished it would instantly destroy that government's entire purpose.
Consider:
1) No two people are identical. Therefore,
2) It is not possible for anyone to care about two different people in an identical fashion. Moreover,
3) Qualitative differences aside, "caring" is something that is arguably impossible to assess quantitatively, either.
Now, what is the root purpose of government? Any government, under any system? Its purpose is to adjudicate disagreements between members of the population it serves/rules, is it not? Whether it's issuing a marriage license, catching a thief, regulating a company, whatever, the root purpose is to have a predictable set of rules so people can plan for things, right?
How is that possible if one of the primary factors in weighing the merits of a point of view simply CANNOT be assessed either qualitatively or quantitatively? Moreover, who would respect or give credence to a set of rules, knowing in advance that no two people will be given equal weight for who they are, so superiority of your point of argument may mean nothing?
It's easy, Grumpy.
You don't matter, y'see, only the group you belong to matters.
Sure seems like we can safely say RIP Obamacare, at least the versions of it that are out there. Oh there's no doubt they'll get something passed sometime down the road as long as they drop some key things from the current bill. Couldn't even get it passed with a veto-proof majority. Owned.
Sorry, I hate to keep copy and pasting from this, but the author has it down cold:
"When prices are arbitrarily held down by government compulsion, demand is chronically in excess of supply. We have seen that if the government attempts to prevent a shortage of a commodity by reducing also the prices of the labor, raw materials and other factors that go into its cost of production, it creates a shortage of these in turn. But not only will the government, if it pursues this course, find it necessary to extend price control more and more downwards, or “vertically”; it will find it no less necessary to extend price control “horizontally.” If we ration one commodity, and the public cannot get enough of it, though it still has excess purchasing power, it will turn to some substitute. The rationing of each commodity as it grows scarce, in other words, must put more and more pressure on the unrationed commodities that remain. If we assume that the government is successful in its efforts to prevent black markets (or at least prevents them from developing on a sufficient scale to nullify its legal prices), continued price control must drive it to the rationing of more and more commodities. This rationing cannot stop with consumers. In World War II it did not stop with consumers. It was applied first of all, in fact, in the allocation of raw materials to producers.
The natural consequence of a thoroughgoing over-all price control which seeks to perpetuate a given historic price level, in brief, must ultimately be a completely regimented economy. Wages would have to be held down as rigidly as prices. Labor would have to be rationed as ruthlessly as raw materials. The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor. Competitive bidding for workers could no more be tolerated than competitive bidding for materials. The result would be a petrified totalitarian economy, with every business firm and every worker at the mercy of the government, and with a final abandonment of all the traditional liberties we have known. For as Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers nearly two centuries ago, “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”"
Note this bit: "The end result would be that the government would not only tell each consumer precisely how much of each commodity he could have; it would tell each manufacturer precisely what quantity of each raw material he could have and what quantity of labor."
That's precisely in the bill right now.
It's a naked run at power.
I hope Last in Line is right, that this bill is dead.
Oops! Forgot the URL : http://jim.com/econ/chap17p3.html
Hazlitt was really something, wasn't he? That's the most important book I read this decade.
Presented here in a less argumentative format is something we've dealt with, and explained to Markadelphia multiple times:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/7232.html
Leftists claim that every economic crisis shows the failure of the free market, and assume that they would never have economic crises. Leftists have a wildly exaggerated sense of their own understanding of the economy and everything else.
The left doesn’t actually have a developed system of thought regarding the economy. They can’t actually explain why the real world political process will make better decisions than the free-market. Instead, they point to any reversals in the real economy, regardless of cause, and assert that in their imaginations leftist politicians could have done better.
Leftists create elaborate fantasies. Then everyone else must argue for reality against the fantasies. The real-world system always comes out worse.
Alternative-energy advocates feel entitled to paper over any shortcomings of their favored technology by evoking future technological breakthroughs. But, they won’t let you postulate future technological breakthroughs that would make current energy sources even more attractive.
If you point out that wind and solar power is unreliable to the point of near uselessness, proponents will breezily respond that future technological breakthroughs in power storage or distribution will overcome the problem.
However, if you point out that developments in nuclear technology could create power systems that would completely recycle their waste, they respond that we should not plan for nuclear power unless we have absolutely proven that the technology works. And, let’s cut funding for the research that would prove it works.
"Different Rules", as Markadelphia would define it (implying that he's somehow discomfitted by being able to not invoke reality.)
The real-world system always comes out worse.
Of course, the real-world system is, well, real. And working. So there is that.
Back to the issue of Kevin's post, we find this, in which Representative (Congressweasel) Keith Ellison (D-MN), who is a co-sponsor of HR676, admits he is gung-ho for a feddle gubmint single payer health care system:
"You know, the President said he preferred a public option; I'm just trying to help the President get what he prefers."
The gumdrop during the interview is:
WURZER: "Politics is the art of compromise."
REP. ELLISON: "It is."
WURZER: "So how are you all gonna compromise?"
REP. ELLISON: "Most of us are co-authors of HR676, which is a single-payer bill so we feel like we’ve already compromised. I think that the reality is the public option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving $150 billion, so this actually helps deal with the fiscal responsibility issues…It offers choice, which is a good thing ..."
ESKOLA: "Isn’t the public option really just a step towards the single payer that you want so much?"
REP. ELLISON: "Yes but the reality is that for many people that’s not what it is."
That last statement is an admission that a single payer system is the goal and his party is trying to get there via a smoke screen.
And finally:
"For now, it's about choice."
Later, there'll be no choice.
Priceless.
And they're not even worried about concealing their duplicity anymore. We're too stupid, in their eyes, to even worry about anymore.
That's why it's their job to take care of us.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>