…just as Social Security was rammed down people’s throats. And Medicare was rammed down people’s throats. And, for that matter, so were Civil Rights…which may come as a surprise to the people yelling racial epithets at politicians who apparently were unaware that that happened.
Fascinating that the Right, led by Fox, is howling what a douche bag Obama is for ignoring the will of the people, considering that, just a couple of years ago, those selfsame individuals declared that criticizing a president during times of war was unpatriotic and, furthermore, praised Bush for his refusal to be swayed by polls and protestors.
The Democrats got something done and the GOP is furious, because it removes the ability to campaign on the idea that the Democrats are getting nothing done. So now their plan is going to be campaigning on the basis of undoing it…so that they can return to the status quo of doing nothing about health care. It’ll be interesting to see if it works.
PAD
• 
This is quite the lengthy thtread. What a surprise.
.
For the moment, I’ll put aside that how this thing was passed stinks to high heaven, that it’s passage is the perfect encapsulation of a nation where an alarmingly high number of people feel they’re entitled to something without earning it and that the spending on this will likely have catastrophic consequences down the road for this nation.
.
As of today, I just want to say it looks like – if the current mood holds – Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are toast if they run in 2012.
.
Those now feverishly against Obamacare are not suddenly going to embrace Huckabee, who said last night about a repeal “I don’t know if we could or even should.”
.
And Romney’s straddles – since Obamacare is very similar to Romneycare – will reach a critical mass that will outweigh his other advantages.
As of today, I just want to say it looks like – if the current mood holds – Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are toast if they run in 2012.
.
Who does that leave? Paul Ryan? Seems a bity inexperienced…though I guess by 2012 he’ll have had 2 or 3 times the elected experience Obama had at he time of his election.
.
Then again, they say there are only two platforms people run on–“Time for a change” and “back to basics”. If the economy is still terrible by 2012 and the only country we seem to be willing to get tough with is Israel and none of the big spending is showing much bang for the buck, I think it’s the latter argument that will have traction. So maybe a governor? Who? Assuming that Obama’s charisma does not prove to have the short shelf life of Jimmy Carter’s (hard to believe but once he was seen as a smiley happy get us out of the doldrums of Watergate kind of guy) it might be hard to win with just a policy wonk.
.
And Palin will just be too much blood in the water. If she says in one week half the dumb things Biden does in one day, she’s toast. Fair or not, that’s reality.
You said: “it’s passage is the perfect encapsulation of a nation where an alarmingly high number of people feel they’re entitled to something without earning it…”
You got it DEAD WRONG. This bill was passed because people who HAVE believe others should have too–and that we’re willing now include healthcare in the same category of Essential Services as education, police, courts, and roads. It’s not in the national interest that EVERYTHING be run on the capitalistic “everything is a commodity” model.
As for the future, the people who foresee doomsday because of cost curiously enough said NOTHING when Bush gave tax cuts to the rich and started two wars (one on a personal whim) on Uncle Sam’s CREDIT CARD. One plan leads to life, the other leads to death. Interesting to see which side people take…
.
Huckabee was toast some time ago and Romney never even had a chance. I may sound like a broken record, but the only strong chance the Republicans have is a fresher face than these guys and the in-your-face-every-night crew we see now.
Huckabee might have stood a chance – voters’ memories can be short, after all – until a couple of months ago, when one of the felons he granted clemency to as governor of Arkansas is alleged to have raped a nine-year-old girl in Washington state, tried to fight off officers when arrested, and, while awaiting trial, entered a coffee shop in Lakewood, WA, and shot four sheriff’s deputies in cold blood. He was apparently trying to sneak up on a Seattle PD officer a few days later, but was ultimately unsuccessful, and died as a result.
.
When contacted regarding the departed Mr. Clemmons, Huckabee claimed not to have read the files of people he granted clemency to, which for my money is even more dámņìņg than admitting to a mistake in this case. Huckabee then declined to apologize for the error.
.
If he ever tried to run for, well, pretty much anything, he’d be Willie Horton’d from now until election day.
Craig,
Undermining the Constitution
.
‘So, where were you during the signing of the Patriot Act?
.
I keep asking this of those on the Right, but I never seem to get an answer. I wonder why…”
.
Because the idea that the Patriot Act was unconstitutional and sooo undermined our civil liberties was one of the most outrageously dishonest arguments the Left has ever come up with and was told over and over again with the sole purpose of injecting hysteria, instead of reasoned arguments, into the debate.
.
Because Obama and a Democratic Congress just proved it was all a Big Lie by extending the major provisions of the Patriot Act for yet another year – yet all of all a sudden, miraculously, the ACLU has sent out token press releases about that and people like Howard Dean are largely silent. Now why is that? Deep down you should know the answer.
.
Because the patriot Act is not only weaker than similar laws in Europe – which the press and extreme Left seem to want us to be more like when it comes to health care and entitlement programs – and because, in the end, no libraries were searched, terrorists were caught and while there were some inconveniences and mistakes there was no assault on privacy or civil liberties on any sort of grand scale – which is why it was extended.
.
Because while liberals opposed the Patriot Act on slippery-slope grounds, I don’t remember any conservatives who said the Patriot Act was just a “first step” or a “down payment” on an even more aggressive police state – and many went on the record as saying they hoped it would be a temporary measure. By contrast, many liberals are loudly proclaiming that they made history, that this bill is forever and are even assuring their more progressive supporters that this health-care law merely begins the process of a single-payer system and full government control of health care.
.
Those are a few reasons why. Always happy to be of service.
Jerome Maida wrote, “because, in the end, no libraries were searched.”
.
Jerome,
.
Are you sure about that? According to chapter five of Marilyn Johnson’s recently published book This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, George Christian, the director of a library consortium in Connecticut, received a “national security letter” from the FBI. It wanted to know who’d used one of the member library’s computers on a particular day. He was warned never to reveal the letter’s contents or even that he’d received it, and told it was a matter of national security. But no judge had signed off on it. (Pages 71-72).
.
Because it hadn’t come through a court order, Christian and three other library directors challenged the constitutionality of the letter and the request for access to the library’s records.
.
When FBI agents actually showed up, it was months after the letter had been written, and they sought five month old information (page 72). And a few weeks after the four were finally allowed to speak, the government claimed it had obtained the requested information by other means (page 81).
.
Christian related that someone had used a computer at one of the consortium’s libraries to inform the FBI of an alleged terrorist plot, and the FBI wanted to talk to that individual.
.
“If it is now FBI policy that, if they get an anonymous tip, they’ll move heaven and earth to find out who that person is, how many anonymous tips do you think they’ll get?” Christian asked (Page 81).
.
And here we come to a few ironic points: First, Johnson writes that USA Today reported that the original tip had been a hoax; and 2) according to Librarian Janet Nocek, one of Christian’s fellow challengers of the letter, members of the library consortium don’t verify names of patrons who use their computers, and don’t keep sign up sheets for more than a few weeks. What’s more, they used a program that randomly assigned each machine a different Internet address each time it was turned on. In short, the information the FBI sought didn’t exist. Page 82.
.
More information can be found here:
.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/222/george-christian-interview.html
.
and here:
.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?civilliberties_privacy=civilliberties_freedom_of_speech&timeline=civilliberties
.
and here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/politics/26patriot.html
.
“But wait,” I hear you say. “I said no libraries were searched. Sounds like no actual search took place in Connecticut.” Maybe not, but as Johnson wrote (page 82), the Connecticut letter was the only one so far to become public. There could well be other such letters out there. And it might well turn out that at some other library there wasn’t a procedure in place that such requests would be referred to the director, resulting in some other staff member providing information.
.
It may indeed turn out that no libraries were actually searched, but given that at least one consortium of 27 libraries was approached with a demand to provide certain information, can we be absolutely certain of that?
.
Rick
At the library I go to there used to be a sign that said ‘The FBI has not been to this library– Watch for the removal of this sign’, and then it went on in smaller print to explain how the USAPATRIOT Act forbids them from telling anybody if the FBI demands any information from libraries.
.
The sign is no longer there
“Dishonest argument?” Can you READ? Because any fool can read (a) the 4th amendment and compare it to (b) the Patriot Act. The PA allows warrentless searches and that is a CLEAR violation of the fourth amendment.
Whether the gov’t has successfully used it or not is IRRELEVANT. The PA itself contradicts the Constitution and the Republicans support it wholeheartedly.
And the president and Democrat controlled Senate and Congress are going to eliminate it…when?
“And the president and Democrat controlled Senate and Congress are going to eliminate it…when?”
NEVER (probably). Because the Dems are COWARDS when it comes to challenging rightwing expansion of police state policies. They CRINGE when accused of being “weak,” rather than come back with a counter-argument. Tail-tuckers, the lot of them.
That’s why I am not a Democrat. They let the GOP and the media push them around. They should have repealed the Patriot Act, ended the war in Iraq, and passed a Public Option for healthcare. But they’re afraid the GOP will call them names…
Let me add that I don’t think the president and congress run this country. The CIA and military do.
I have no doubt that when Obama got elected, he had a private meeting where those two told him precisely what his policies would be regarding such things as Iraq and the Patriot Act.
So the CIA and the military are for health Care reform? Man, are the Tea Party members in trouble…
.
“So the CIA and the military are for health Care reform? Man, are the Tea Party members in trouble…”
.
Ha!
.
🙂
Dude, considering how incompetent the CIA has proven to be, again and again, I can’t believe there are still left-wingers out there paranoid enough to believe they’re the omnipotent bogeymen that secretly run the country (or maybe the world?)
I have an easier time believing in UFOs.
But wait! Maybe the CIA only pretends to be completely incompetent? Of course, it’s their cover! How devious of them.
Mary Warner,
.
“Thank you to everybody who supported me above. I know my views are very unpopular here, and I know I don’t really have a coherent idea for a workable alternative.
It really hurts when so many people assume that anyone in opposition to the Health-Care bill, or other welfare-type programs must be cruel and heartless, or at least unmidnfull of other’s suffering. Because that’s not necessarily true. I’m so glad that many of you can understand that someone can see the need for reform without necessarily supporting the reform plan in question.”
.
A belated thank you to you, Mary. Your statements were very well said and you, in no way, deserve the bile directed at you by huge dìçkš like Brian.
Oh, come now, Jerome, that’s really not fair. Somehow I doubt the term “big dìçk” could ever be justly applied to Brian… 😉
Bill,
“As of today, I just want to say it looks like – if the current mood holds – Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are toast if they run in 2012.”
.
“Who does that leave? Paul Ryan? Seems a bity inexperienced…though I guess by 2012 he’ll have had 2 or 3 times the elected experience Obama had at he time of his election.”
.
Very true, Bill. But Ryan is hardly a star, like Obama instantly became in the aftermath of his 2004 convention speech, BEFORE he had even been elected to the Senate.
.
So let’s see the others, from least likely to most likely, in my opinion:
HUCKABEE is dead. Gone. Finito. If health care continues to be the big issue two years from now, no way is the base going to embrace someone who is not foursquare against it. No way are the Tea Partiers going to embrace someone who has pushed a national ban on smoking. If foreign affairs dominate, he has no experience with that either. Toss in the Clemmons thing and, well, he should be thankful if he still has his TV gig two years from now.
.
BOBBY JINDAL does not impress me at all. He strikes me as an example of a politician we’re told is a star by the media, but I have yet to hear one person I know take him seriously as a contender.
.
RICK SANTORUM definitely looks like he’s running – and I think he’s past his sell-by date. The plus is PA could be ready to turn red for the first time since 1988 in a Presidential contest. How Toomey does against Specter will be a very good sign of that. If Toomey beats Specter, I think Santorum definitely runs, thinking conservatism is back in vogue and that he would be able to win PA, a “swing” state.
.
Problem is, he has to present himself as a fresh candidate. He has to make people forget the end of his Senate career. His unwillingness to campaign with Bush in 2006 struck many as politically expedient and cowardly here. His inability to even help get Social Security Reform voted on damaged his reputation.
.
Then there were the desperate, embarrassing and offensive ploys. When some old nerve gas was found in Iraq he went on “Hannity” and said (I’m paraphrasing) “See. There were Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam lied.” Hannity and him were the only two who were preposterous enough to think that was a big deal and that we had found Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nobody – from pundits like O’Reilly to Ðìçk Cheney – else tried to push this garbage as fact. It’s like one of the columnists here in Scranton wrote, “If there was one shred of truth to the assertion that these were indeed WMDS that we had invaded Iraq to find, don’t you think Bush, Cheney and Rove would be having a party and having a press conference to end all press conferences?” It really made him look like a fool.
.
Then, there were the ads. One had an old lady telling him to “Move it or lose it” at a Senior Dance after he spent the entire ad talking about all he had “done” for seniors. Uh, talking about bringing home the bacon isn’t that smart when you’re running as a CONSERVATIVE, especially since many seniors were suspicious of him anyway for being the face of SS Reform.
.
But the most offensive ad, in my view, was one in which he was addressing high gas prices. Instead of just talking about how the issue was hurting American families, he had an ad in which a bunch of Arab men burning the American flag and looking crazed was in the background, and basically said we need to do something so we’re not as dependent on “THEM”. Now, anybody who reads this board knows I’m not exactly Al Sharpton when it comes to these matters, but I really feel the ad tried to appeal to the worst in people.
.
But he does have time to reinvent himself, is still relatively young, appears frequently on Fox, and has his own conservative PAC set up. Plus, he can possibly deliver PA’s electoral votes. We’ll see, but I doubt it right now.
.
TIM PAWLENTY seems likable enough. But is he conservative enough? Does he have the fire in the belly? Can he inspire? Can he possibly do what it takes to beat Barack Obama? Still unsure on all counts.
.
MITT ROMNEY has to have the biggest authenticity problem of any politician I’ve ever seen. More than Rudy or McCain or the Clintons or anyone else.
.
Really, saying IF Romneycare is flawed it’s because of the Democratic legislature is a weaselly move. This way, he can take credit if health care becomes popular and blame the Democrats if it doesn’t? Sorry, the GOP is looking for someone with a spine this time around.
.
Which is a shame. Because everything else: experience, business acumen, his looks, ability to give speeches, willingness to debate sharply and with bare knuckles, his impeccable family life and education would seem to make him the perfect candidate to take down Obama. But you have to stand firm and be consistent on SOMETHING.
.
NEWT GINGRICH – Can say he led the GOP out of the wilderness before is very educated and an excellent speaker. Still remembered as a polarizing figure, though. Has miscalculated and overreached badly before. Plus, I don’t think the Republicans are any more eager to refight the battles of the ’90s any more than Democrats were two years ago.
.
Does have a broad base of support. And Clinton did get 18 million votes. But I see him just falling short.
.
RON PAUL – Next.
.
HALEY BARBOUR – Yes! He’s Fred Thompson only with executive experience, actual accomplishments and fire in the belly! Can talk about how he handles Katrina. The only question is if he’s charismatic enough.
.
SARAH PALIN – The one to beat, right now. Stil VERY popular with the base. Is slowly preparing and educating herself. Has two more years to present the image SHEwants to the public. And every time she’s attacked, she’s like Sebastian Shaw – it makes her stronger and rallies people to her side.
.
So, PALIN/GINGRICH or PALIN/BARBOUR are my picks right now, unless JEB BUSH decides it’s time to get back in the family business.
Ugh. Nobody there really flips my switch. (Excellent analysis though!).
.
Barbour is a smart guy but not much in the charisma department, which counts for a lot when you are running against someone who has it. and since Barbour looks like he came from central casting for a “doughy white guy with a southern accent to play a klan sheriff is a civil rights drama” he will have a tough row to hoe.
.
Bush. No. Too soon. Too bad. His son has a better shot, in another decade or so.
.
Santorum? Uh, no. You don’t go from being crushed in a re-election bid to being the President. and as you’ve pointed out, he may be a smart guy but he says and does dumb things. We don’t need a conservative Joe Biden.
.
Politics, like life, is often unfair. jeff Flake does a good job of opposing pork spending but he looks like Owen Wilson and his last name is “Flake”.
.
Mike Pence? John Thune? Thoughts?
.
Jim DeMint could be a good VP candidate to anyone who needs to shore up the base. Probably too far to the right to make a good run for the top spot though. On the other side of the coin…how wild would it be if Luis Fortuño got the VP spot?
.
“BOBBY JINDAL does not impress me at all. He strikes me as an example of a politician we’re told is a star by the media, but I have yet to hear one person I know take him seriously as a contender.”
.
I actually think that it was the party trying to make him a star rather than the media. It was after all the party and not the media that had Jindal deliver the official Republican response to President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress. As I recall, even conservative voices in the media said that he did a poor job with it. Actually, I seem to remember the word “disaster” being voiced by more than one conservative pundit.
.
I think that to some degree the party unwisely (and this is going to read a lot worse than it’s meant to be so I apologize in advance for the seeming Alan Coilness in it) decided that it had to prove that, hey, they liked minorities too right after Obama won so they grabbed anybody in their ranks who fit that bill and shoved them out there whether they were ready for prime time or not. Michael Steele as Chairman of the RNC looked, rightly or wrongly, like a desperation move. That appearance wasn’t helped by the fact that the RNC and GOP both seemed to make a bigger deal of just his appointment to the position in the wake of Obama winning the presidency than they did over Mel Martinez’s entire time in the role. Granted, he didn’t do much to warrant it…
.
It’s an interesting no win situation for them. Right now if they promote the minorities in their party, ready for prime time or not, they get tagged as just trying to show that they’re not the Grand Old White Party. If they Don’t do that, they’re tagged as the Grand Old White Party.
Yeah, Jindal is merely OK. Actually, by the horrible standards of Louisiana politics, he is practically the Second Coming but by almost anyone else, he’s just meh.
You just skip over Ron Paul entirely without even bothering to criticise him, huh?
I don’t know. To me he seems like the best choice by far. Bring all the troops home, legalise drugs, slash Federal spending– sounds good to me. Plus, he has a very dedicated following, including a great many non-Conservatives.
I admit he does have a few looney ideas (a gold standard wouldn’t really work for an economy of modern size, for instance– there just isn’t enough available gold), but every politician I’m aware of has some nutty ideas, many of which are far worse than what Paul promotes.
But he is getting really old.
.
But who else is there? His son is an unknown quality, and the last decade has surely shown that you shouldn’t vote for someone because you admire (or at least tolerate) his father.
.
I have heard a few good words about a former governor of New Mexico, whose name escapes me at the moment, but I still don’t know a lot about him.
Forgive me if, beign foreign and all, I am mistaken. This Ron Paul you talk about is the same guy that had regular meetings with white supremacists of the Birch society? The same who said “Our country’s founders cherished liberty, not democracy”? You want that guy? The one who said 95% of all black males in D.C. are criminals?
I understand why many american liberals felt drawn to him when in the context of Bush’s conservative statalism and foreign policy fiasco he voiced opposition to the War on drugs, the patrioct act and the war on Irak. Earlier and much more vocally than most democrats I must add. But He is beyond loony. He is a sociopath.
.
Unless, of course, you are a libertarian or a minarquist.
.
And, frankly, debating against libertarian arguments is as boring as reading history books aloud. Which isnt that boring if you think of it.
I think Ron Paul has the Dennis Kucenich role for the Republicans. Even if you agree with 9/10 of his ideas you REALLY disagree with the other 1 and anyway, it’s just not going to happen.
.
But people like that CAN serve a valuable purpose, keep the others on their toes, remind them of the principles they supposedly stand for.
If I haven’t been horribly misinformed, it was the editor of Paul’s newsletter who said all the racist stuff commonly attributed to Paul. It is true, though, that Ron Paul did wait a horribly long time before distancing himself from those remarks.
I do agree that Ron Paul has some bad qualities, and some bad ideas. (I really hate his views on immigration for instance.)
But he has fewer bad ideas than any other politician I’m familiar with.
Claims that Democrats intend to ‘ram health care reform down our throats’ even though ‘the American people don’t want it.’ are just wrong. First of all, when there is a landslide triumph for a party as there was in November, 2008, for the victor to actually govern and legislate according to the promises that they made on the campaign trail is not ‘ramming’ anything down anyone’s ‘throat.’ It is doing what the people asked you to do. President Obama campaigned on this issue, and presumably that fact did not escape the electorate’s notice before they cast their votes.
Eighty percent of Americans in a recent ABC/Post poll want to prohibit limits on pre-existing conditions, and 72 % want to impose an employer mandate. Some 63 % favor some form of public health care reform. The same proportion, 63%, want President Obama to keep trying to pass a reform. A majority, 56%, want everyone to be covered. The allegation that the ‘public doesn’t want it is an artificial creation of millions of dollars in disinformation money spent by the pharmaceutical companies through the US Chamber of Commerce and their bought-and-paid-for congressmen and senators. If a pollster explains to a member of the public what is actually in the bill, a majority Americans say they like most of the provisions. Democrats are not “jamming” health care reform through Congress. They are attempting to follow through on a campaign promise. They want to finally take a vote this week. Taking a vote is the way things are decided in a democracy.
Writer George R. R. Martin said something interesting in his blog. Regardless of the pros and cons of Health Care reform in the US, almost no one in countries with single player national health (he mentions Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, Italy, and Spain) wants to trade it for a “free market” system.
Whereas in the US about half the population would prefer a single-payer system.
It seems like American conservatives are alone in the pool of “civilized” countries in their preference for the free market to handle health care? But I’m not sure THAT would deter American conservatives, seeing as exceptionalism is a powerful idea in their arsenal.
I’d also curious to know something – seeing as the US has the highest infant mortality rate from any First World country, and most of the other such countries have the government paying a much biger percentage of health costs than in the US, it seems like the Liberal idea that the more the government pays, the less children die, isn’t far off the mark. But, if you guys reject “socialized” medicine, then what is the solution? I’m curious to know what conservatives propose to reduce infant mortality and boost life expectancy and coverage.
“I’m curious to know what conservatives propose to reduce infant mortality and boost life expectancy and coverage.”
.
On the philosophical level I think conservatives assume that it’s not the job of the government to take care of these issues. This is combined with certain beliefs:
.
(a) that for the government to do so constitutes oppression (i.e. socialism).
.
(b) that governments are inherently bad at it in a disastrous way.
.
(c) that countries that have socialized health care are actually damaged but are not aware of it (i.e. exceptionalism).
.
(d) that historical events that are considered positive are in fact negative (especially the New Deal and social security). While historical events that are considered negative by some — Reagonomics, Thacherism — were in fact positive.
It’s a phantom argument.
The “conservative” argument always boils down to this… if it involves money, the gov’t is too corrupt and incompetent to be involved. But if it doesn’t involve money (morals, marriage, etc) then the gov’t is the fully capable of regulating it!
It’s real simple. The current capitalist system overwhelmingly rewards the rich, and the conservatives want to keep it that way. No matter how many people suffer.
A large proportion of those infant mortalities are minorities, so that is enough reason right there for the conservatives to oppose universal health care. American conservatives only care about white people.
I’ll admit to not being up to speed on infant mortality, but on other general issues I can propose some solutions.
.
Tort reform is a big one, and conservatives have lobbied for it for decades. Sadly, being that a good many of congressmen and senators from both sides of the aisle are former trial lawyers, it has never gone beyond the talking stage.
.
One idea I particularly like is allowing people to get the health insurance from out of state. For example, I have sleep apnea which is a pre-existing condition. I wasn’t diagnosed with it until after I moved here to Oregon. By allowing me to get out of state coverage, I could retain my current healthcare coverage when I move to another part of the country in a couple months. Allowing out-of-state coverage opens up the market and allows more competition which always lowers price.
.
While I’m on this subject. The reason I’ve never bought into the thought of government taking control of healthcare reducing deficits is simple economics. The current plan demands the all insurance companies take you without regard to pre-existing conditions when you buy coverage. This means that everyone’s premiums will go up rather than just those who with special needs. Furthermore, buying your own insurance is now mandatory. This is as it stands now. Basic economics tells you that with increased demand, the price of a good or service rises.
.
When our premiums rise, this will be held as evidence that the system is failing. However, rather than say it was government involvement that did it, we’ll be told the problem was that the government isn’t involved enough. Wage and price controls will instituted, which will cause shortages which ill once again be held as evidence that free markets fail and we’ll then see full-on socialized medicine worse shortages. Then we will see the death panels that everyone poo-pooed as extreme.
.
Obama even admitted it. A woman told him of her grandmother who just had a pacemaker when she 99 and now was 105. She asked if his system would take into account her grandmother’s zest for life and asked if she would have gotten the pacemaker. After a bit of dithering, he replied that maybe she should have gotten a pain pill instead. If you don’t believe me, look up Jane Sturm and Obama on You Tube. Look at the long version of it as that even puts him in a slightly better light. In the full version he says that they’ll give doctors incentives to consider pain pills before finally saying that the choice will be left to a doctor in and his patient. I’m sorry if that seems like fear-mongering, but he said it.
.
Sorry for the huge digression. I try to leave those to the Digressor-In-Chief.
.
Another thing is how we view health coverage. We insist our insurance cover routine doctor visits, medicine and everything else. I think we should take a serious look at returning at only buying for catastrophic coverage. I know that on my end of things, even counting post-natal care after the birth of my son and numerous sleep studies, it would have been cheaper to go that route.
.
I think the system for FDA approval of drugs needs a huge overhaul. It takes approximately 10-12 years and millions of dollars for a drug to reach market from it’s creation. The company then needs to recoup costs in the short time left before the patent expires. These costs include not only the r&d for the drug, but also r&d for drugs that did not make the grade. Pharmaceutical companies really have it tough because people reasonably expect safe drugs to be delivered, however they expect them at unreasonably low prices if not for free.
.
Last, I’d like to hit a philosophical note. People treat health care like it’s a right. A right is not something that can be given to you. It is something you are born with. If it is something given to you it can be taken away. We are born with the right to free speech. We are born with the right to to free exercise of religion. We are born with the right to defend ourselves. The founders viewed these rights, whether they are given to us by God or by social contract, as inherited by anyone who is an American.
.
When we start demanding the government give us things as a right, we define the government as the one to give us rights, replacing God or the social contract with a messianic state. And that is the road to totalitarianism.
We can easily improve our scores on infant mortality; start using the counting methods used by other countries, where infants born under a certain time are counted as stillbirths, not infant deaths. Instant improvement.
.
What?!? You want everyone to be fair and compile their data the same way? Yeah, sure… And the next thing you’ll be doing is insisting that I stop dealing from the bottom of the deck next weekend.
Heck, I’d be happy if you dealt to us from the same deck that you deal to yerself…
I’ll be happy if they aren’t Pokemon cards. I mean, jeeze, he’s a grown man…
.
How many times do I have to tell you… They were Ian’s. I swear, they were Ian’s and not mine. And I certainly didn’t know that he had marked the cards before the game.
“Tort reform” is CODE for “the rich shall NEVER be held accountable by the poor.”
“This bill was difficult to pull off because in the Senate, any one Senator can stop a bill from passing unless the opposition can muster 60 votes to overcome that one Senator.
.
The Senate filibuster has got to go. It’s killing our country.”
.
Exaggerate much? Sheesh.
.
Seriously, something this huge SHOULD have a supermajority of support.
.
Yes, it is truly tragic that Democrats were unable to easily pass something opposed by the majority of the American people.
.
Filibusters are devices for registering the INTENSITY of support a bill has, rather than going by sheer numbers.
.
Liberals have been claiming that filibusters are
confusing and frustrating. However, many of the ideas our legislators come up with and that could pass on a simple majority in the heat of the moment – flag-burning legislation would be an example of something that would easily pass a GOP controlled Congress, for example – are usually terrible ideas and therefore saying “No!” to them
IS actually serving the public good.
.
The idea that government is “broken” by this is absurd. Reagan reached across party lines in 1986 to get an overwhelming vote for tax reform; Clinton was able to muster up bipartisan, deep support for welfare reform and Bush 43 reached across the aisle – despite ignorant claims he never did so – to garner overwhelming passage of No Child Left Behind.
.
In any case, be careful what you wish for. Since we have had 50 states, Republicans have NEVER had 60 Senators (that could change soon, but is a longshot). On the other hand, Democrats have had 60 or more Senators after SEVEN elections. In 1960, they had 64; in 1962, they had 66; in 1964, they had 68(!!!); in 1966, they had 64; in 1974, they had 61; in 1976, they had 62 and after 2008 – counting Specter’s switch and Franken finally being seated, they had 60.
.
So, eliminating the filibuster could come back to haunt the Democrats when the Republicans can muster a slim 51-vote majority again.
Kanye West, is that you? And here I didn’t even know you were a Peter David fan…
Jerome, have you never watched the movie Gremlins? Ok, technically they are gremlins not trolls, but the principal is the same. Or you could watch Trolls, but I would not wish that on anyone. Troll 2, on the other hand…where was I?
.
“…where was I?”
.
In your living room with a big tub of popcorn and a copy of Black Dynamite in the DVD player?
Actually, I spent a good part of the with a guy who knows about 10 different martial arts, planning stunts for an upcoming shoot you may be aware of! Interesting fact–my spine is considerably less flexible than it once was and could now be classified as “stale pretzel” quality.
.
Well… Duh! You’re not supposed to hit people with your spine. Say, does he know the trick with the rope being attached to the foot of the guy who gets hit with a leg sweep? Don’t see it much in American films, but the Hong Kong martial arts film do it and it really makes the sweep look impressive. Well, that and the baby powder.
The problem is that we were practicing falls and all but the people who were there are actually not the ones falling but the ones making others fall…so…
.
But the guy was great, so hopefully it won’t end up looking like Sissy Boy Slap Party 2.
.
Well, if you need a zombie to go splat in a really big way next weekend I am in better shape than I look (although the last couple of months of 12 hour days is taking its toll) and I’m a lot more agile than I look. Seriously. Just ask the guys I’ve messed up during Hëll week during officer survival training.
.
🙂
.
Gotta figure out how to make a devil smiley here…
Bill,
Actually, I never HAVE seen “Gremlins”, but I do recognize a troll when I see one! I didn’t watch the films you mentioned – but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
.
Yes, but have you seen Black Dynamite yet?!?
Bill,
“Ugh. Nobody there really flips my switch. (Excellent analysis though!).”
.
Thanks.
.
“Barbour is a smart guy but not much in the charisma department, which counts for a lot when you are running against someone who has it. and since Barbour looks like he came from central casting for a “doughy white guy with a southern accent to play a klan sheriff is a civil rights drama” he will have a tough row to hoe.”
.
True. But I feel he can get the hang of it. Bush, Sr. was able to show some charisma in speeches and debates after enough experience and training. I feel Barbour can do the same.
.
“Bush. No. Too soon. Too bad. His son has a better shot, in another decade or so.”
.
Probably true. Since many believe he would make a much better President and is far more conservative than either his father or brother. Plus, he has the ability to connect with Hispanics and women, two demos the Republicans don’t usually get.
.
“Santorum? Uh, no. You don’t go from being crushed in a re-election bid to being the President. and as you’ve pointed out, he may be a smart guy but he says and does dumb things. We don’t need a conservative Joe Biden.”
.
Agreed. But he still has a shot.
.
“Politics, like life, is often unfair. jeff Flake does a good job of opposing pork spending but he looks like Owen Wilson and his last name is “Flake”.”
.
Very true.
.
“Mike Pence? John Thune? Thoughts?”
Haven’t formed a solid opinion of either at this point, though Pence being one of the ones leading the charge against health care really helped him.
.
“Jim DeMint could be a good VP candidate to anyone who needs to shore up the base. Probably too far to the right to make a good run for the top spot though.”
.
The way Obama, Pelosi and Reid are going, the American voters may be willing to consider a Limbaugh/Coulter ticket – so I don’t think that’ll be a problem.
.
” On the other side of the coin…how wild would it be if Luis Fortuño got the VP spot?”
.
Sounds intriguing, but I’m really not that familiar with him.
.
My money’s still on Palin at this point
.
I don’t think that Palin has the longevity in the support department that others attribute to her. She’s already rubbing some of the Tea Party people the wrong way with her comments of late and she’s likely going to start looking less and less serious to many when her reality TV show hits the airwaves.
.
Besides, I don’t think she wants to do it.
.
She got the national spotlight shined on her in the ’08 election and it opened a lot of doors and offered a lot of potential opportunities to her and most of them don’t involve actually holding an elected office. She quit as governor, went on a book tour, started doing the lecture circuit, got a job with Fox News and is now working hard at getting her reality TV show sold and on the air while her star is still bright enough to command the money she likely wants. It can’t even be argued that she’s using the lecture circuit to polish her act for a possible 2012 run since she’s gone back to throwing out the debunked statements that she made in ’08 to show her qualifications, such as touting her energy experience by claiming that Alaska produces almost 20% of the US’s energy, that was corrected on and told to correct in speeches by the McCain campaign.
.
She’s not going to have the support in 2012 for a run and, honestly, I don’t think she wants it. She’s going to cash in big while she has the chance to and then settle in as a spokeswoman for the cause for as long as there’s a market for her to do so.
Frank Rich had this to say about the health care bill:
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html
.
“But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.”
.
“…the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse.”
.
“The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman…”
.
.
Rich seems to be indicating that it is oppressed white men who are angry about the health care bill. Oppressed white men make up the majority of those in control of the Grand Obstructionist Party.
Thanks for pointing out that article, Alan. Very informative. I think it’s fascinating that key points of the bill were co-opted GOP ideas that suddenly they oppose. And I didn’t know about the whole business with Palin drawing crosshairs on key Democrats. I swear, if someone actually shoots one of those people and cites Palin as their inspiration, Palin should be arrested for inciting.
.
PAD
I swear, if someone actually shoots one of those people and cites Palin as their inspiration, Palin should be arrested for inciting.
.
I think this ties in to your response to me a couple of days ago, PAD, where you said you don’t think the GOP is necessarily racist, but merely using a tactic.
.
I mean, Palin probably doesn’t actually want violence against the Dems (or at least I hope not), but it’s a tactic that may incite actual violence. Just as she incited people to use actual racism during the presidential campaign, among other things.
.
So, in the end, simply calling it a tactic isn’t really any better, is it? It doesn’t make it any more defensible, or any less reprehensible. And, in some instances, such tactics may outright make you responsible for the consequences.
So, in the end, simply calling it a tactic isn’t really any better, is it? It doesn’t make it any more defensible, or any less reprehensible.
.
I didn’t say it was any better. In fact, it might be argued that it’s even more insidious. See, someone who is a racist is typically that way because that’s what they were brought up. They were born and raised into a racist way of thinking and had it drilled into them. As the song says, “You’ve got to be taught, before it’s too late, before you are six, or seven, or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate.” Which is not to excuse racist behavior, but really, it’s all they know.
.
As opposed to someone who isn’t a racist per se, but simply sees racist actions as a tool for stirring up fears and inflaming hostility and violence. We’re talking ingrained racism as opposed to callous manipulation. Pick your poison.
.
PAD
I swear, if someone actually shoots one of those people and cites Palin as their inspiration, Palin should be arrested for inciting.
.
Seriously? Don’t you think that would open yourself up to potential liability if some criminal nut claims you inspired him? Doesn’t have to be rational (note the “nut” part). How does that differ from those who would censor the guy who draws anime style pørņ, fearing that it might inspire child molesters. (Granted, you are not advocating censoring speech, just making one potentially liable for the actions of criminal lunatics. Which would almost certainly result in speech being self censored out of fear.)
.
If she openly advocated killing people, that’s one thing. But “targeting” politicians is too common a cliche to put her in any serious liability and I think anyone who was inspired to actually kill someone would have to be so crazy that they could just as easily get inspiration from the Beatles White Album or an issue of Hulk.
.
by that logic, if someone shoots a republican and claims, as his inspiration, Obama’s admonishment during the campaign “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” we have reason to arrest the president??? Or arrest NH State Rep. Nick Levasseur for the inspiration provided by his facebook page (“Interests…the hunting of neo-conservative Reaganites (a shooting sport brought to you by the republican party in more ways than one!))?
.
Should the Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy be nervously contacting lawyers in case someone is inspired by his desire to “knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.”?
.
I’m seriously asking.
I think there is a difference, Bill, between passing comments made by columnists or a politician and a concerted campaign that appeals to the worst instincts of people already displaying a proclivity for violence. At a time when you’ve got rabid conservatives targeting politicians with everything from epithets to blunt objects, a prominent individual such as Palin putting up a map filled with rifle crosshairs is nothing short of scandalous.
.
PAD
I’m aware of the accusation of epithets being thrown at politicians but I would note that A-the worst examples given, of the n word being hurled at congressmen, is looking more dubious considering the lack of evidence for it and B-if we aren’t talking about that incident, if it’s just people on blogs and such saying terrible things about other people, it will have to be pretty terrible indeed to be much worse than what has been said long before Obama got into office.
.
I’m not aware of the congressmen being targeted with blunt objects. I know somebody threw bricks through the windows of a VA GOP headquarters and there have been similar incidents involving Democrat offices as well. But these have also been happening for a while–there is certainly a lot more attention being paid to this but can anyone show that there is actually more real violence? If you added up all the violence on both sides I doubt it would equal on day of far left violence in Seattle during WTO protests but I don’t recall anyone having the gall to compare it to Kristallnacht as some idiots are trying to do now.
.
Incidentally, just to show how nuts this whole thing has gotten, the Associated Press actually has no problem saying “Conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart disputed accounts that tea party activists in Washington shouted racial epithets at black members of Congress amid the health care debate, although he didn’t provide any evidence.”
.
Wha-huh? This is the new standard–if someone accused you of having done something it is up to you to “prove” you did not? How, exactly? What is the evidence of a negative? Breitbart has offered some big money to be donated to charity if anyone can provide evidence FOR the epithets being hurled. If nobody takes him up on it…
if it’s just people on blogs and such saying terrible things about other people, it will have to be pretty terrible indeed to be much worse than what has been said long before Obama got into office.
.
Bill, if you don’t think it’s gotten worse, you are honest to God kidding yourself. Not only does Palin have crosshairs on maps, but this was on her Twitter account: “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: Don’t Retreat. Instead–RELOAD!” In other words, Get ready to shoot people who disagree with you because they don’t love this country.
.
How much gun-related rhetoric does this woman have to spout before someone gets the idea to start opening fire on politicians whose votes they don’t like?
.
I truly think that between the 24 hour news cycles of such lopsidedly biased avenues as Fox News and the overheatedness spurred on by the Internet, what we are seeing now is a fervency for divisiveness that is unprecedented in this country during the modern age. And should the worst happen, then Palin and her associates should be called to accounts.
.
As for comparing it to Kristallnacht, what’s being observed is that the far right has routinely been comparing Obama to Hitler and yet in a burst of irony is now using Nazi tactics. And you’re going to say that just one brick through a window doesn’t equate with Kristallnacht. That’s true enough. On the other hand, Bill, my paternal grandfather who was a shoe maker in Berlin got a brick through his window in 1935, three years before Kristallnacht, with the perpetrator shouting, “Dirty Jew!” before he fled. Whereupon my grandfather packed up his son and wife and got the hëll out of Germany.
.
Kristalnacht didn’t come about out of nowhere, Bill. It starts with one brick. If people draw parallels, you have the luxury of being able to dismiss it as idiotic. From my side of the family, we call it prescience.
.
PAD
The by what possible standard can we ridicule someone who, with equal evidence, claims that Obama’s policies are jyust the first step toward (insert historical disaster of your choice here). Maybe the first step toward communist totalitarianism looks like this. Who can say? Me, I’ll just roll my eyes but if you’re willing to take one extreme (brick through window = possible Kristalnacht) seriously you have to at least consider taking the other extreme seriously as well.
.
And I think on principle, one needs to be very careful about throwing around Holocaust parallels lest it become as toothless a charge as racism threatens to become. I’ve heard some folks who are not thrilled with the way Israel has been treated lately, saying similar things. I’m sympathetic to the overall concern but such comparisons are unfair and unhelpful.
.
Bill, if you don’t think it’s gotten worse, you are honest to God kidding yourself.
.
Could be. But this seems to me to be something actually quantifiable. I suppose one could do a study using google to see if insults to the president have gotten worse. They may well have, I’ll give you that. What has undoubtedly happened is that some of the very same people who were cavalier about such bashing a few short years ago are disgusted by it now. (And no doubt, some who were disgusted by it before are gleefully adding to it now, so there’s hypocrisy to go around.)>
.
But then again, I’m not all that concerned about people insulting the president and would not wish to do anything that would “correct” that problem.
.
Assuming we are talking about criminal activity toward politicians, again, this is easily measured. My hunch is that this is just another “year of the shark”–what would have hardly reached the local news before is now national news. And it is at least in part being pushed to match a desired narration.
.
Some of this is clumsy. Sarah Palin attracts a crowd of thousands and CNN reports “Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people – we haven’t gotten a count of how many people turned out there.” while they are showing video of the crowd! Ok, I’ll grant it, thousands of people CAN be counted as “at least dozens”. It’s an odd way of counting but I could say that dozens of people went to see Avatar and be accurate. Kind of stupid, but accurate.
.
The narrative is this–these “tea partiers” are small in number, angry in tone, white of skin, racist of mind, violent by nature. The “angry white men” of 1994 are back! Hide the children!
.
Whoa–just as I was typing this up I see that a donor to the Democratic Party has just been arrested for threatening to kill Eric Cantor and his wife. Of course, he’s innocent until proven guilty (though they say he posted the threat on a youtube video…wow, criminals really ARE a stupid cowardly lot). He seems to have been fueled at least in part by anti-semitism, so I guess the folks I mentioned above will see a nice link between Obama’s treatment of the Israeli Prime minister and threats against Jews. Sigh.
.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35152.html
.
You know, I’ll bet I could probably find, without looking too hard, lots of very harsh things said about Cantor on the web. Do you think anyone who has said those things deserves some condemnation for how things have turned out (again with the caveat that we don’t have all the facts)?
The by what possible standard can we ridicule someone who, with equal evidence, claims that Obama’s policies are jyust the first step toward (insert historical disaster of your choice here).
.
I think the ironic standard of people using Nazi-esque tactics of racial epithets and brick throwing while spending the last year painting Hitler mustaches on Obama will do nicely.
.
PAD
That assumes that the person drawing the Hitler mustache is the same one hurling racial epithets. If it isn’t, what then?
BTW, Andrew Breitbart is now offering $100,000 donated to the United Negro College Fund for evidence that members of the congressional black caucus had the n-word hurled at them at the Capital Hill health care protest. What are people waiting for?
Whoa–just as I was typing this up I see that a donor to the Democratic Party has just been arrested for threatening to kill Eric Cantor and his wife.
.
I call your left-wing nut, and raise you a group of 9 right-wing ones:
.
AP story on Yahoo right now: Christian militia accused of plotting to kill cops
.
Your story, Bill, is still on the front of Yahoo as well. But, at least it goes to show that the police are not ignoring this, regardless of which side they come from.
.
As for the ‘challenge’ about the racial slurs, yes, we live in an age where much is caught on film, but not everything.
.
But said ‘challenge’ is somebody supposedly up $100k against the word of a member of Congress who was quoted as saying he hadn’t heard comments like that since he was savagely beaten in the 60’s. That’s a pretty dámņ harsh indictment for the congressman to say that, don’t you think? It’s well beyond the “yeah, I heard the same kind of crap I hear with every protest I walk by”.
AP story on Yahoo right now: Christian militia accused of plotting to kill cops
.
Actually, Craig, the irony of that is even more delicious than the right wingers who are describing Obama as Hitler while advocating racial epithets and glass breaking. The would-be cop killers firmly believe that government is evil and their cop-killing plan was part of that mindset. But…guess what? They insist on being represented by public defenders because they have no money.
.
PAD
I’m all for the arrests. Keep it coming. But to me these people seem to have as much to do with the tea party folks as The Unibomber has to do with a member of the Sierra Club.
.
I also have not seen any evidence that these militia nuts were motivated by the health care debate so their activities are unrelated to any attacks on politicians from a climate of rhetoric, which was what this was about.
.
I think it’s a very risky thing to stand on, blaming people for the actions of kooks who may happen to agree with them on certain issues but use criminal and homicidal means to achieve them. Let’s take a hypothetical–suppose this loser who threatened Cantor claims to have been inspired by some Democrat who said that Republicans were going to be responsible for thousands of deaths to the uninsured if the bill did not pass. In that hypothetical–and I’ll say right now I think it unlikely, this guy seems like too much a nutter to have had even THAT coherent a philosophy–what responsibility does our congressman have?
.
I say none. Now if he or she is on record of being one of those blaming others for how THEIR words are inspiring others, well, they take their lumps. But legally liable? Preposterous.
.
And if that’s not the case then Alan Grayson must sleep very uneasy at night, worried about how his future hangs by the slender thread of the actions of the insane.
.
As for the ‘challenge’ about the racial slurs, yes, we live in an age where much is caught on film, but not everything.
.
Craig, let’s be logical here. Some of the very people who were walking across the protest and claim they heard the slurs chanted at them had people with them holding camera. The walk itself is on tape. Nobody can here those chants. No news person has claimed to have heard it. It beggars belief that anyone has a tape of this and is not releasing it.
.
We have had protests in this country that have involved smashing windows, burning buildings, violence against the police and civilians, hundreds of arrests. NONE of that happened at that protest…but we are suddenly all in a dangerously volatile time in America because someone claims they heard words that nobody else can verify. Please.
.
This macks of desperation. The bill passed, you would think people who supported it would be singing its praises. Instead we are getting a drip drip drip of bad news about the details (somehow they left a loophole that allows the insurance companies to deny kids with pre-existing conditions???) and as the poll numbers fail to rise or even drop from a very brief bounce, the subject suddenly becomes how dangerous the opponents are. Not a winning strategy. Can’t stop those folks from voting. All this does it make them even more determined and in the ballot box nobody is there to call you a racist when you make your choice.
.
One more thing–this Kristallnacht analogy gets more ridiculous the more I think on it. Around 100 Jews were murdered during Kristallnacht, tens of thousands were arrested and sent to the camps (where 2000 more died), around 200 synagogues destroyed. About a third of the Jewish population of Germany fled the country.
.
To even suggest a parallel with what is happening here…words fail. Whatever small gain is obtained from linking one’s opponents to the actions of the nazis is completely undone by the insult it gives to the memory of those who suffered and died in November 1938.
.
Seems to me it also opens one up to the possibility that some nut will take it seriously enough to take it upon themselves to try to stop the fascist takeover and put a bullet into the brain of a few tea party folk. Which, by the rational some are espousing, would open them up to legal risk.
.
It just seems to me that if one is vehemently against inflammatory language, one should avoid comparing protesters to the SA. But maybe that’s just me.
meh, my reply from yesterday is lost in the aether. I still don’t know what it is that causes that. I tried to resend it and I got a friendly bit about “Hey, you already sent that!” Oh well.
.
On the subject of left/right and Kristalnacht, here’s the blogger “zombie” (gotta love the handle) with a tale of two protests: a tea party in nevada and an anti-war rally in LA. Which group looks like they are more likely to go smashing the windows of Jewish owned homes and businesses?
.
http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/03/29/searchlight-vs-l-a-rival-rallies-reveal-stark-rightleft-divide/?singlepage=true
.
The only reason the LA gang didn’t explicitly call for Kristalnacht is probably an ignorance of history and the complete inability to spell “Kristalnacht”. Granted, antisemitism is not limited to either side of the political spectrum but the far right Jew haters are mostly marginal losers while one can be a leftist anti-Semite and still be a college professor or congressman from Illinois. (that is NOT a reference to the president, btw, for those with short memories. Look up Gus Savage)
Not arrested. SUED. The best way to hurt a rich/Republican is their wallet.
Jerry,
“She’s not going to have the support in 2012 for a run and, honestly, I don’t think she wants it. She’s going to cash in big while she has the chance to and then settle in as a spokeswoman for the cause for as long as there’s a market for her to do so.”
.
You may very well be right. I simply disagree right now. If you look at “Game Change” an excellent book and an absolute must for any political junkie, a lot of Palin’s problems were the result of the sudden upheaval in her life. her unwillingness or inability to prepare for the Couric interview is thought by some to have been he result of everything from responsibility to Alaska and feeling like she was abandoning it; being unprepared for suddenly being one of the most well-known people in the world; postpartum depression and thwarted maternal need (she talked about missing Trig a lot). Add in a pregnany, hormonal daughter and the searing presss he received and at one point, she is reported to have said, “If I know everything O know now, I would not have done this.
.
Thing is, her situation will be different. If she chooses to run, she will know exactly what she is getting into. Her family situation will be different. Her familiarity with the press and the country will be different. And it is a lot different and morefreeing to run on what you believe and be in charge of your own schedule and message than being No. 2.
.
Does she have doubts about running? Probably. But if you look “Game Change”, Obama and McCain – even Hillary, who is supposed to have wanted this all her life and more than anyone alive – all expressed doubts and concerns about running before declaring.
.
If people she respects encourage her, if the polls look good, the crowds are cheering and her family situation has settled down, I say she goes for it. Deep down, I feel she will discover she has the ego to run and wants to break the glass ceiling she claimed was still there two years ago.
My own opinion is that for the situation to be bad enough for Palin to have a real shot at beating Obama, the situation would be so bad that Obama would probably not run. And for that to happen the situation would have to be incredibly bad indeed…think double dip recession, collapse of housing market version 2.0, Iran bombs Israel, Israel erases Iran from future maps of the world, gas hits $7 a gallon, the last episode of LOST is preempted for a presidential speech…dogs and cats living together, real end of the world stuff.
.
Maybe, maybe not. I just think that in a way she’s the Right’s version of Al Gore right now. There was a big push out there for him to run again and he didn’t because he’d found a better racket where the headaches and stress were less while the reward$ were far greater. I have no doubt that he would have made the effort to run again had the fates not dropped his particular golden goose in his lap.
.
Palin looks somewhat the same to me right now. I think that she’ll find that the reward$ out of office are better than in and that she can say anything she wants without fear of failure hurting her future. I said this here about Gore back in 2007 when he won the prize and people here were talking about his great shot at winning the presidency if he wanted it.
.
“1) Lets say that Gore really is a passionate environmentalist who’s decided that his calling is finally being fulfilled. He has his crusade and he’s just been elevated to a level that, for his mission, the presidency can’t touch. If he were to become president, he inherits so many distractions and issues that would divert his time and attention from his goal that it would be worthless to him. He would be taken away from his passion for four to eight years to do “mundane” things that really wouldn’t help his cause in the least. Yeah, you can say that he’d try to use the office to effect change, but he might see greater himself having effectiveness as the leader of of a movement rather then being part of a government system that, more often then not, eats its own to the point of getting nothing done.
.
2) Lets say that Gore is just a failed politician and an egotist. He’s just been given a massive ego stroke. Now he gets to decide how best to polish his new and improved ego. He could set himself up pretty nice as the elder spokesman of the cause. He gets to advise world leaders and criticize those he disapproves of from his own pulpit without actually having to debate anyone or being forced into entering into any damaging public confrontations. If he becomes president, every failure will be magnified a thousand fold. He’ll inherit the war, he’ll inherit the blame for whatever happens for the next four to eight years because of this war, he’ll lose fights with congress, he’ll be blamed, likely both rightly and wrongly, whatever ails the nation in 2012, etc. He becomes an average man who was an average president rather then being the new messiah of the environmental movement. He takes a step down to become a, likely, twice failed politician. And that’s only if he wins. He’s even more screwed if he becomes a two time (depending on who’s counting) loser.
.
Even if you take the middle ground between the two, I think that Gore would end up weighing the options and keep his hat far away from this race.”
.
To a degree I see Palin seeing those options in her situation as well. If she runs for the presidency and fails she’s a failed politician who is revealed to be more hype than actual support. If she actually wins in 2012 she”s be inheriting a mess almost as bad as Obama inherited in 2008. Much of what would make things better in the country would be out of her control at that point and, even if she managed to do the right things, she would still be presiding over a bad four years in the country. The risks of being a one termer would be high and, if she was, she gets the tag of failed politician who proved her critics right about her. She’ll still find life after politics welcoming on the pundit circuit, just ask Newt, but the reward$ won’t be as great.
.
If she follows her present course she’ll have the best of both worlds. She’ll have the ego stroke, she’ll be called upon to comment on the failures and wrong actions of other politicians and she’ll never get hit as hard for being completely wrong and off base as a pundit as she would be as an active office holder. Hëll, Rush should be proof of that. He’s been wrong in his “expert” predictions about people and events far more often than he’s been right and he’s still treated seriously by conservatives and paid a contract that’s almost breaking the bank of the company that syndicates him right now.
.
I just don’t see what she’s doing as a great strategy for running in less than two years time. I especially don’t see it with the reality show possibly getting picked up. Its scheduling would conflict with the primary and campaign seasons which are really only a little more than a year and a half away. It is a great set up for a career as a pundit though.
You certainly called Gore right. You should be a pundit, since that is at least 1 more prediction called correctly than many of them have.
Mary,
“You just skip over Ron Paul entirely without even bothering to criticise him, huh?”
.
Yeah. sorry. I was running short on time and I really feel, out of everyone I mentioned he has NO chance. Plus, out of everyone I mentioned, I don’t want him to. It’s not that I just feel he is so extreme he would lose to Obama, but that, out of everyone I mentioned, I really wouldn’t WANT him to win.
.
I have very libertarian leanings. Have actually voted for a few when I was not happy with the Republican on the ballot and thought the Democrat would be worse.
.
But I feel a lot of their philosophy that I have a problem with is that they seem to truly have simple solutions to complex problems – and i feel Paul definitely exemplifies this.
.
Hey, I’m actually libertarian enough that I actually feel a large part of the New Deal should be tweaked or repealed. Yes, I would be willing to change or revoke stuff that has become ingrained in our culture since the 1930s, which strikes some as extreme.
.
But Paul’s views are so extreme, it seems he wants to take us back to not just 1930, but 1830. That’s a bit much for me.
.
“I don’t know. To me he seems like the best choice by far.”
.
Well, the attendees at the Conservative confab about a month ago seemed to agree with you. I just hope you -n and they – learn more about other candidates to change your mind. I feel if he were to miraculously get o the ballot, it would be disastrous.
.
“Bring all the troops home,”
.
I can’t support isolationism. His moral relativism is regards to the Mideast – especially painting the U.S. and Israel as the bad guys – really hits me the wrong way. And what about the repercussions of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan? Should we leave Europe and Asia as well? I might be for that. But is the money we save worth the instability in those regions that could happen as a result? like I said, these things are complicated.
.
“legalise drugs,”
.
I have actually thought this would be a good idea at times, but there is no way that the majority of the the GOP primary electorate – let alone the general public – will support that now.
.
“slash Federal spending– sounds good to me.”
.
Sounds good to me, too. But where? Both sides make it sound like “waste, fraud and abuse” and self-righteous jáçkáššëš like McCain talk about earmarks, but the bulk of our spending is on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and interest on the debt. Which of these does he plan to cut substantially? he likely needs to find a way to trim all the entitlements. And if you think he is the man to make Americans receptive to that, well, good luck.
.
“Plus, he has a very dedicated following, including a great many non-Conservatives.”
.
This is true. Scary to me. But true.
.
“I admit he does have a few looney ideas (a gold standard wouldn’t really work for an economy of modern size, for instance– there just isn’t enough available gold), but every politician I’m aware of has some nutty ideas, many of which are far worse than what Paul promotes.”
.
All of this is also true. he thing is, Mary for someone to push the drastic changes he would be doing, he would need to have the speaking ability and charisma of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin combined! Even if the time is right for people to be open to such a libertarian message, he is simply not the right messenger to get them to do it.
.
“But he is getting really old.”
.
True. But that’s one of the things I feel work against him the least.
.
“But who else is there? His son is an unknown quality, and the last decade has surely shown that you shouldn’t vote for someone because you admire (or at least tolerate) his father.”
.
Whoever could you be referring to?
.
“I have heard a few good words about a former governor of New Mexico, whose name escapes me at the moment, but I still don’t know a lot about him.”
.
Haven’t heard about that, but it could be interesting
I can understand skipping over something because of lack of time. I’ve skipped over a lot of the arguments on this thread simply because I was tired and didn’t want to respond to every issue that came up, even when I had a strong opinion on some of them.
.
Actually, I think the US and Israel ARE the bad guys in the Middle East. But not the only bad guys. In fact, as far as I can tell, every government and quasi-government in the Middle East is a bad guy. And neither the US nor Israel are the worst bad guys.
But supporting a lesser evil is not always the right decision. Sometimes it only leads to greater evils, which I believe is what has been happening in the Palestine region since the end of World War II.
Supporting Israel unconditionally (or with token criticism, but no loss of aid), simply turns more and more people against us, and leads to more terrorism. I thinkthe best thing to do would be to push for a brand-new country, which would be neither Israel nor Palestine and would feature equal rights for everybody. But if that can’t be done (and I know it would be a hard sale), it might just be best to stay out of the mess entirely.
.
Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan would cause a lot of problems for the governments there, but I think staying causes even more. People hate occupation, even when it’s relatively benign, which ours has been only intermittantly. I think Iraq is now stable enough that we could pull out immediately without causing civil war. I’m not sure about Afghanistan, but we really should pull out within a couple of years. Even if it’s not stable by then, a longer occupation would be unlikely to help.
.
And I do support pulling out of Europe and Asia. Military bases in foreign countries should only be temporary and mission-specific. And it’s not as though Europe and Japan can’t afford their own defence. Staying in Korea may be justified, since the enemy is still there and still quite dangerous, but I know of no reason to remain anywhere else.
Having an empire may sound good to many people, but it really does accomplish much other than stroking the national ego.
.
You’re right that the bulk of the Federal budget consists of Social Security, Medicare, and Defence. But I think Social Security spending is going to have to be cut; it’s not sustainable long-term. I think the best thing to do would be convert it into an honest welfare programme. Full benefits should be restricted to the poor (we could put the upper boundary of poverty much higher than with current welfare programmes), and the lower rungs of middle class could get by with partial benefits. But there is no good reason why rich people should continue getting monthly cheques from the Federal Government.
And I think defence spending could be cut a great deal, partly through the things mentioned above. We have the biggest and best-equipped army in the world, by a huge margin. We could cut back quite a bit and still be the biggest world power. People talk a lot about the US being the sole remaining Superpower, but nobody ever mentions why being a Superpower is a good thing. As far as I can tell, it’s not. Being the biggest and baddest tempts us into ill-conceived military adventures we can’t afford, it causes resentment around the world, and feeds the conspiracy theories that help to recruit terrorists.
Supposedly, we became a Superpower to fight against the Axis, and then to stand up against the Soviet Superpower. Now that that enemy is gone, what reason is there for arming ourselves to the teeth?
We don’t have to become Costa Rica. Simply shrinking the military down to a level in line with China, Britain, and France is reasonable. Let’s go back to just being a regular world power.
The New Mexico Governor I was thinking of is Gary Johnson. I’ve only heard his views on a few issues, so I can’t be sure how good a candidate he might be, but the stuff I’ve heard is all good.
“Thanks for pointing out that article, Alan. Very informative. I think it’s fascinating that key points of the bill were co-opted GOP ideas that suddenly they oppose. And I didn’t know about the whole business with Palin drawing crosshairs on key Democrats. I swear, if someone actually shoots one of those people and cites Palin as their inspiration, Palin should be arrested for inciting.”
.
Oh, for God’s sake. She didn’t “draw crosshairs on key Democrats”, she had a flyer that had targets placed on their districts, which is a key difference. “Targeted districts” is a phrase that’s been around politics forever. Now we’re going to make a big deal about it because some are determined to demonize any and all opponents of health care? Especially because her last name is Palin? Ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as that huge gavel Pelosi walked into the vote with, right past people who were vigorously opposed, like a queen past her lowly subjects. Yeah, those crazy tea-baggers were sooo dangerous Pelosi felt free to mock their fears and concerns and rub their noses in it. Real classy and above the fray.
No Jerome, that is untrue. It wasn’t a flier, or at least not simply a flier. She put it up on her face book page where it still remains. And it wasn’t targets; it was crosshairs. A target would have been marginally more acceptable, but a crosshairs is specific reference to a tool used in a gun sight. She is putting out to millions of on-line people the notion of crosshairs on key Democrats. Yes, it’s on a map of the U.S. rather than the people, but if one of those people actually gets shot by a Palin supporter who says he got the idea from her map and Palin says, “Gee, shucks, I wasn’t encouraging that!”–which is the typical dodge Palin and her ilk use to avoid taking responsibility for their hate mongering–I think the courts should decide her culpability in the matter.
.
PAD
This is just pure hoplophobia. If she had the faces of the representatives in the cross-hairs, you MIGHT have a point. Are you telling me that are rednecks looking at those districts and saying, “Hoo-doggie, it’s time fer me to go a shooting people cuz Sarah Palin says these people need to die.”
.
Let’s go over recent violence on the national scene.
.
A moron crashes his plane into an IRS building. When the man’s suicide note proved to be an anti-Bush rant the drive-by-media loses interest in the story.
.
At the University of Huntsville-Alabama, a left-wing nut with a history violent threats and even a killing goes on a shooting spree.
.
Ft. Hood, Texas. A man with a history of anti-war sentiment and anti-Bush statements goes on a killing spree.
.
In my lifetime, I’ve yet to see a conservative riot.
.
I won’t go so far as to stake my reputation on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out the majority (not all, but the majority) of these racist threats turned out to be hoaxes perpetuated by the supposed victim. In fact, so far the only arrests we’ve seen were when the FBI collared the people who shot up Republican Eric Cantor’s office.
I made a factual error. The man collared did not shoot up Cantor’s office. That was a separate incident.
This is just pure hoplophobia.
.
No, Malcolm, it’s not, although thanks for introducing me to a new word. I have a fear of neither guns nor gun wielders. I do, however, have a fear of them being spurred to do something stupid.
.
If she had the faces of the representatives in the cross-hairs, you MIGHT have a point.
.
And that may well be next. Between crosshairs on states and Conservatives being urged to “reload,” that’s already enough to concern me.
.
Are you telling me that are rednecks looking at those districts and saying, “Hoo-doggie, it’s time fer me to go a shooting people cuz Sarah Palin says these people need to die.”
.
I don’t know, Malcolm. I guess we’ll find out. I mean, I don’t recall anything in “Catcher in the Rye” specifically encouraging someone to blow away John Lennon, so certainly we have people in this country capable of reading gun-related urgings into material where it would seem to have no grounding at all. So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to be concerned that in a nation of several hundred million people, there might well be some folks looking at maps with crosshairs and messages telling them to “reload” and deciding it’s time to pull Ol’ Betsy out of the gun rack and make America safe for Americans.
.
PAD
Here’s the thing Peter,
.
Reload, as I and most others took it, meant now is the time to get discouraged. It’s the time to recharge and keep the pressure up. If reload had the meaning you assign to it, it would mean that we had already fired off some rounds. If she was truly inciting violence, she would have said it’s time to load up, or even time to “lock-n-load.”
.
Conservatives being told to reload concerns you? Why do you think we’re inherently more violent than liberals? Liberals write books advocating the assassination of W. I see bumper-stickers saying “Bush=Hitler.” Think about it. If there really was no moral difference, then moral justification for assassinating W is not far behind.
.
But after narrowly losing a vote through questionable parliamentary tactics, Sarah Palin says, “Now’s the time to reload” and suddenly she’s advocating mass murder. If any actual rounds were discharged at a congressman supporting the bill, I’m not aware of it.
.
You use “A Catcher in the Rye” as an example of a man needing no particular reason to carry out a murder. Was Salinger responsible for killing Lennon? Hëll, I’m a Reaganite and I’m not going to accuse Jodi Foster, Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, or screenwriter Paul Schraeder as being responsible for the attempt on Ronaldus Magnus.
.
“So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to be concerned that in a nation of several hundred million people, there might well be some folks looking at maps with crosshairs and messages telling them to “reload” and deciding it’s time to pull Ol’ Betsy out of the gun rack and make America safe for Americans.”
.
Do you really see American gun owners as a bunch of barely contained murderers just waiting for a justification?
Malcolm said: “…vote through questionable parliamentary tactics…”
.
Oh, come on. Reconciliation has been used 23 times now, 16 of those by the Republicans. Calling it “questionable” when your side loses an argument is downright silly, especially when your side has been more successful at using it.
.
This kind of hypocrisy shows blind faith in one side, and is a total rejection of reality. And that is why it is so hard to have reasonable discussion these days.
Reload, as I and most others took it, meant now is the time to get discouraged. It’s the time to recharge and keep the pressure up.
.
It amazes me, the excuses people are willing to make for this woman.
.
Word selection means something. Word choice is a choice. She could have said “renew.” Or “restart.” Or “recharge,” as you yourself said. No. She used the one word that has gun associations: “reload.” And she did it in conjunction with a map filled with rifle crosshairs. And then she has the temerity to try and ascribe gun-related, violent interpretations of her rhetoric to that darned old liberal media trying to make her look bad? Just how much slack are Palin’s supporters willing to cut her? It seems limitless. Just how low are people willing to set the bar of credulity for her?
.
Do you really see American gun owners as a bunch of barely contained murderers just waiting for a justification?
.
You already asked me this question in different form above, Malcolm, and I already answered it, so I’m not entirely sure why you feel the need to ask it again…although if I had to take a guess, I’d surmise you’re a gun owner and thus keep fixating on the notion. But I’ll answer it again and in more detail since apparently it didn’t take the first time: No. That is not how I see American gun owners. I know this because I know a number of gun owners and none of them would I consider to be barely contained murderers. I do, however, think that stupid people with guns are inherently more dangerous than stupid people without guns. And I think that Sarah Palin’s core base has a very large percentage of stupid people. So I can’t say I’m thrilled with the math, and violence stemming from her rhetoric–which she will of course deny after the fact–seems a real concern to me. And if violence DOES result and is directly traceable to her, and she tries to “Aw shucks” her way out of it, I think she should still be held accountable. That is what I have been saying, your repeated assertions that I’m smearing all gun owners notwithstanding.
.
PAD
The issue isn’t whether all gun owners are crazy. That’s a straw-man argument. We could talk all day about whether or not 100% of gun owners are crazy and it would be just as irrelevant as when we started.
.
The issue isn’t even what Sarah Palin meant when she said “reload”. Clearly she was using language that mattered to the crowd she was speaking to in an effort to fire them up on an issue.
.
The issue is that there *are* crazy, violent people who will react to the kind of rhetoric coming from Republicans lately. Even if Michele Bachmann is just talking about getting people out to vote when she talks about it being time for a revolution and how everyone needs to wait until they see the whites of the Democrats eyes, it’s still careless. It’s like someone ignoring every gun safety rule while hunting and then saying, “I didn’t mean to shoot my buddy.” Yes, we know he didn’t *mean* to shoot him, but he’s still responsible for his carelessness with his gun.
.
The militia arrests show that these people are out there and they are dangerous. They’re not the only militia, there are at least 10 in Michigan alone and they’re currently growing and getting more paranoid. There are also people proudly throwing rocks through windows of Congressmen and leaving notes saying that if the Congressman don’t do what they want, the violence will get worse.
.
What do all these groups attribute their violent behavior to? They attribute it to what’s going on now. Some directly and others by saying that they’re more and more sure that a war with the government is coming. How could someone listen to the things being said by Palin, Bachmann, and many of these others and *not* see how they’re contributing to that belief?
.
No, everybody with a gun is not crazy. Obviously. However, it’s just as obvious that there are crazy people out there and their ranks are growing at the same time that certain politicians have started telling them that all their fears are true.
.
“It amazes me, the excuses people are willing to make for this woman.”
.
Okay, you’ve gotta know by now that I think the woman is an idiot, but this is being overblown. Her using the term “reload” is just her playing into her image as the rugged, outdoorsy, Alaskan maverick who wades into the muck to pull fish nets up and hunts big game with the best of them. She’s been playing up her gun ownership and hunting credentials since day one and this is no different.
.
Seriously, while some of the criticisms of the rhetoric out there is warranted; this is utterly ridiculous.
.
A few years ago the news was covering the release of an independent film called Death of a President that was about the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago and featured as it’s prime ad the images of Bush being shot. No where that I’m seeing the seething outrage about “reload” did I see the least bit of condemnation about that film. Checkpoint, the novel by Nicholson Baker, came out in 2004 to condemnation by the Right and a great deal of silence by the same people wigging out now.
.
Well, either silence or they were actually defending the “art” of the film and book by citing freedom of speech.
.
There’s certainly some truth to the fact that cacophony of stupidity can incite the mind numbingly stupid to act in a mind numbingly stupid way. However, the level to which critics of Palin are decrying her “specific” usage of words that are designed to incite is getting well past stupid territory.
.
“Yes, it’s on a map of the U.S. rather than the people, but if one of those people actually gets shot by a Palin supporter who says he got the idea from her map and Palin says, “Gee, shucks, I wasn’t encouraging that!”–which is the typical dodge Palin and her ilk use to avoid taking responsibility for their hate mongering–I think the courts should decide her culpability in the matter.”
.
Be careful. Your hypocrisy is showing.
First of all, Jerry, I resent the hëll out your insinuation. Any number of times I have come down on Democrats saying dûmbášš things, so you can’t claim that I only castigate the GOP. Nor have I ever said that people should not be held accountable for when they voice their opinions. What I have said is that economic sanctions is an inappropriate response in a free society, and the answer to free speech is more free speech, and I stand by it. But bricks and threats of violence is not free speech, nor is incitement to riot covered under the First Amendment, and you know that. There are criminal penalties for that.
.
You’re absolutely right about one thing though: Palin has been pulling this kind of šhìŧ since Day One. Appealing to the worst and most violent aspects of people and then trying to Aw-Shucks her way out of it. And things are getting worse and worse, and if it leads to violence and deaths that can be laid at her doorstep, then I’m hoping that the justice system comes knocking.
.
PAD
.
“First of all, Jerry, I resent the hëll out your insinuation. Any number of times I have come down on Democrats saying dûmbášš things, so you can’t claim that I only castigate the GOP.”
.
Your reading more into that than was there. I know you’ve come down on Democrats for saying dûmbášš things before because I’ve agreed with you on some of them. And do note that I was talking about more places than just here.
.
However, some of what I’m seeing here and elsewhere is a reaction to things like Palin’s remarks that far exceed the level of reaction like comments have received when expressed by others when discussing the GOP or Bush. There’s also a noticeable shift in people are promoting the responsibility of the speaker in a matter when compared to other matters they support.
.
As I said, there were things that were far more open in their interpretation as a threat to Bush that got little or no play in many places where people are losing their minds over Palin’s comments or other comments that in reality amount to little or nothing.
.
To a degree the left’s actions here reminds me of how Sharpton reacts to “racial slurs” in public discourse. It’s absolutely fine by him for someone, even a white cartoonist, to call Condi Rice Bush’s “House Nìggá” while other things that are no where nearly that clearly a racial slur are the greatest outrage ever seen by man… because they were said by the right target about the right victim.
.
I’ve also seen things that look like a double standard in how words and acts are judged. Specifically here…
.
Not long ago you took 30 Rock to task for their episode where the one dim bulb character got upset that her stalker stopped stalker her. Certainly this subject hit home with as you have personal experience in this through, at the very least, friends and co-workers. You stated that the execution of the concept wasn’t funny or smart and discussed how you wouldn’t have done it yourself. But you and others supported the rights of the writers to do the show and very few people in that thread that I can recall stated that if someone stalked and hurt an actress in the near future it would be the fault of the 30 Rock writing staff. It was also pointed out by many of those here jumping on Palin that the nutjobs in our society shouldn’t be the reason we muzzle, condemn or control the free expression of the sane and normal.
.
A year or so ago you had a thread where you were discussing (I believe it was)a CBLDF case where the comics in question involved anime style illustrations that depicted what looked like underage sex. In that discussion, again, it was the argument of many here jumping on Palin now that the artist was not responsible for the actions of a real pedophile even if that pedophile had such materials in his possession. It was the opinion of many that those sick bášŧárdš that target little children don’t need the book as motivation for their actions. They might like the book and seek it out, but their actions would be what they are even without such works being made.
.
Kinda the same here. Palin’s rhetoric was stupid and mindless, but all of it in full context is not something that reaches the level of stupidity some are reacting to it with. Yeah, she says that rather than retreating it’s time to reload. Of course, the vast majority of the rhetoric she uses around that in speeches is about voting and beating the Democrats at the ballot box in the upcoming election year. Yeah, she has a twitter page with targeted districts that are marked with target scope crosshairs, but every speech she’s given about those districts has been about being enough energized to get out and vote. She’s not out there holding up rifles and telling people to storm the offices of the democrats and kill them.
.
Words have power. I know that. But words only have great power when strung together with other powerful words designed to push the same idea. The totality of her words do not support the criticism against her here. The majority of what she is saying is clearly outlining peaceful actions and voting.
.
Plus, beyond being a gun owner who is playing into that for her public political persona, don’t forget that she’s a jock. I don’t know about everyone else here, but I’ve played lots of team sports over the years and the “rally the troops” rhetoric of jocks tends to be pretty over the top. I’ve been a part of events where the pregame pep talk involved describing our actions towards the other team as “crushing them,” “destroying them,” “ripping them to shreds” and “killing them” by the end of the game and amazingly we never actually did those literal things. For her it’s pandering to the gun crowd and rallying the team sports style. Given her past with sports I doubt she’s thinking about her words beyond those two things. Moreover, I doubt that 99.9% of the people on her side are taking them as anything beyond that.
.
That .1% though?
.
The things she’s saying aren’t to the level of a Mike Vanderboegh. Here’s a guy who is advocating violent acts against property and has been making comments since the passage of the health care bill about people all over the real America getting there guns out and getting them ready for use. This is a guy who is calling for an open Carry march in Virginia on April 19th to march on/into DC. For the less news active amongst you, April 19th was the final day of the siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas and it was the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.
.
That guy is talking dangerous crap meant to incite violence, not Palin. And, believe it or not, just because you don’t really know who he is and he’s not getting the mainstream coverage of a Palin doesn’t mean he isn’t well known amongst exactly the fringe element that will be the types to do something stupid.
.
The guy who finally snaps may well be a Palin fan and supporter, but it’ll be the writings and words of a Mike Vanderboegh that is his gospel, not the mindlessly phrased pandering of Palin and other like her.
.
trust me on this. We’re doing more investigations these days on fringe groups with followers making threats like his than you could possibly imagine. Most of these áššhølëš have been loony long before Palin came on the scene and most of them think that any politician not with them (often being none) is a s big of a problem as Obama. Yeah, some of these groups like Palin and other like her, but they’ve been talking, and in some cases acting, crazy for a long, long time. Just as many here said about the stalkers and the pedophiles, the crazies like that stuff and will gravitate to it because it reinforces what they already believe and think is right, but they’re doing and saying crazy stuff already will do the really crazy stuff eventually even without the presence of the comic book, TV show, cartoon or politician getting blamed.
.
Can a case be made for talk like that spurring someone on to do something or pushing an unstable person over the edge? Yes, but it takes a hëll of a lot more than what Palin is saying and doing to be a convincing case.
.
But then, hey, you can’t demonize a devil like a Mike Vanderboegh or the nuts from the Hutaree group can you? No point in trying to demonize someone who is unquestionably the fringe. It’s much easier and much more politically convenient and useful to demonize other people for the words and actions of a Mike Vanderboegh and his followers or a Hutaree militia group.
The militia arrests: I’ll lay you dollars to doughnuts that these people hate Palin like they do all other Republicans. These are the same people who believe William F. Buckley was a red because he tossed the John Birchers out of the conservative movement.
.
“I’d surmise you’re a gun owner and thus keep fixating on the notion.”
.
Yes, I’ve stated before that I’m a gun owner with a concealed carry license. I also did not realize I asked you such a thing earlier.
.
“And I think that Sarah Palin’s core base has a very large percentage of stupid people. So I can’t say I’m thrilled with the math, and violence stemming from her rhetoric–which she will of course deny after the fact–seems a real concern to me.”
.
What’s your standard for her supporters being stupid? It seems a pitfall on all sides of the political argument that disagreement means stupidity. I’ve also seen numerous medical professionals trying to do studies proving liberals have less education/a lower IQ than their liberal counterparts.
.
She didn’t do well in a couple of interviews with a hostile press, and that’s what sets the bar for intelligence? At least since Eisenhower, the press has characterized the Republican as being intellectually lacking for the job. Ike was not as smart Stevenson either time they faced off. Nixon was an idiot (he was many uncomplimentary things, but an idiot was not one of them). Goldwater didn’t have the experience of LBJ and he was a warmonger. Ford was bumbling fool who couldn’t walk. Reagan was an amicable dunce (in the words of Clark Clifford). Bush 41 picked Dan Quayle whose favorite book was coloring. (Quayle, btw, was Stephen Hawking compared to Biden.)Dole wasn’t stupid, but he was mean spirited. Bush 43 was a drooling idiot who was the puppet of Rove and Cheney. (Q: Why did W speak Spanish so much on the campaign trail? A: Because he felt it’s useful to be fluent in at least one language.)McCain is a Bush retread and his VP is a moron.
.
I don’t know if Palin is “stupid” or not, but I do know that she’s played everything perfectly for a ’12 run. She’s been on the right side of any issues since the campaign as far as the conservative base is concerned and has maintained a profile that keeps her in the public consciousness. To sum up, her conduct since the election tells me she’s not dumb.
.
That said, when I looked at the Facebook page in question and when I heard her say “reload”, violence never crossed my mind. Hëll, I felt more of an urge to violence when the Seahawks passed over Sanchez in last years draft.
.
As I said before, I’m inclined to believe that these broken windows are the results of people in cahoots with the victims. There aren’t that many racists in the conservative movement.
.
Peter, You bring up Kristallnacht. One thing I have never understood is how Jews still support the Dems. Since Carter, every Dem president has expressed distaste for Israel and sought to weaken her in the name of peace. Obama is currently decrying the plans for 1,600 new houses in an uncontested area of Jerusalem as being detrimental to the peace process. It’s the conservatives that have been fairly steadfast in it’s support for Israel.
It’s a mistake to call Palin dumb. And W wasn’t either. The word I’d use to define them both is “cunning.” I also think they’re both dangerously narrow-minded and lacking in intellectual capacity for such an important position.
But they’re not dumb.
Malcolm said: “She didn’t do well in a couple of interviews with a hostile press…”
.
No, she didn’t do well in ANY interview. And her first few interviews were not with ‘hostile’ press, but with a press that was throwing any question at her that they could think of in an attempt to get her to answer ANYTHING with a coherent sentence.
.
As with Bush the Lesser, she only sounds good when she has studied a speech or when she is repeating the same things she has said numerous times before.
.
That’s pretty much an indication of stupidity.
“Peter, You bring up Kristallnacht. One thing I have never understood is how Jews still support the Dems. Since Carter, every Dem president has expressed distaste for Israel and sought to weaken her in the name of peace. Obama is currently decrying the plans for 1,600 new houses in an uncontested area of Jerusalem as being detrimental to the peace process. It’s the conservatives that have been fairly steadfast in it’s support for Israel.”
That’s not true on all counts.
Some conservatives, usually evangelicals have become very pro-Israeli to the point where they support the positions held by the Israeli right concerning withdrawal from territories (i.e. opposing it). but that’s all.
It is not true that democratic presidents have been more hostile than Republicans to Israel. Carter’s apparent hostility toward Israel, if it actually exists (I haven’t followed closely), seems to be personal. Or it’s possible that he is subscribing to simplistic thinking concerning the problems here, which is a sin pretty much everyone is guilty of.
It is not true that they seek to weaken Israel. Both democratic and republican president tended to support Israeli withdrawal from territories in the context of a peace process, and pressured Israel to some extent when they believed it served the foreign interests of the US in the context of promoting the peace process or in other contexts. Some feel they haven’t pressured enough or that they pressured too much, just as some think withdrawal is good for Israel and some think it’s bad, but there is no significant difference between the parties in that regard.
The area of Jerusalem that Obama is complaining about is in fact contested, and both parties tend to oppose Israeli building in such contested areas, including Jerusalem, because it is perceived as detrimental to peace efforts. (Many Israelis tend to view Jerusalem as an exceptional case, but this view is not shared outside Israel).
In general it is preferable that Israel be kept out of this game. People already find enough reasons to dislike Israel without it being associated with one party or another in American politics.
Oh, and Israel is not arid. Israel’s climate is similar to southern California’s (but much smaller). Some parts are desert, some are not.
Sorry, forgot to put dots between paragraphs.
.
and I assume Jews in the US vote mostly based on whether they are liberal or conservative, rather than how nice a president is to Israel.
.
Malcolm Robertson: “She didn’t do well in a couple of interviews with a hostile press, and that’s what sets the bar for intelligence? “
.
Malcolm, don’t try and completely rewrite history that recent and certainly don’t try to do it with people who were there and watching. She didn’t do well with softball questions in two fairly neutral interviews and she didn’t look much better in her Fox News interview with Hannity doing everything but getting down on one knee and proposing to her. Even now, when she’s not being interviewed, she can’t make a speech that doesn’t make her look clueless about major aspects of things she’s promoting as her strengths and her points of expertise.
.
She is a lightweight who makes the fiction Eccles look like a towering political genius.
.
Micha: “Some conservatives, usually evangelicals have become very pro-Israeli to the point where they support the positions held by the Israeli right concerning withdrawal from territories (i.e. opposing it). but that’s all.”
.
True, however if you dig a little deeper with some of them you find that their “support” is based on their belief that Israel has to be there for God to smite it from the face of the Earth at the End times. Not as many like that in this last decade, but they’re out there and use to be a fair chunk of the Religious Right.
What’s your standard for her supporters being stupid?
.
Waving signs that describe Obama as a “moran” is certainly a reasonable indicator…
.
PAD
Okay, using the hysterical, absurd “logic” Palin haters are using, several media outlets should be fearful of the justice system coming knocking on their door also:
.
“Biden puts McCain, not Palin, in cross hairs – CNN.com
Oct 2, 2008 … Biden puts McCain, not Palin, in cross hairs … Barack Obama’s proposed tax breaks for the middle class and his goal of providing more …
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/biden…/index.html – Cached – Similar ”
.
“Goldman Sachs, in cross hairs, mulls options | Reuters
Jan 26, 2010 … Goldman Sachs, in cross hairs, mulls options …. President Barack Obama speaks about healthcare reform, as medical professionals look on, …
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60P0JW20100126 – Cached”
.
“Democrats put insurers in cross hairs – Patrick O’Connor …
Feb 23, 2010 … President Barack Obama’s health care plan would give the government authority to ….. Dems put insurers in cross hairs. Message is Required …
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33299.html – Cached”
.
“Kucinich in Obama’s crosshairs
Mar 15, 2010 … Author, Topic: Kucinich in Obama’s crosshairs (Read 124 times) …. ***President Barack Obama and the Global Objective*** …
forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=163503.0 – Cached”
.
So I guess, using the foaming-in-the-mouth, absurd logic used to denigrate Palin, the cuffs should come out for news organizations for using a commonly-used phrase if anything happens to John McCain, Goldman Sachs execs, Insurers, and Dennis Kucinich. Biden and Obama should be afraid as well, seeing as how they were characterized as putting their opponents in crosshairs. In fact, I heard it said many times that Obama was “targeting” those in swing-states for the health care bill that he thought might flip, like Kucinich and Stupak and Carney. So if anything happens to them, using the illiogic here he should be VERY afraid.
What foolishness.
Obama just got done wiping his ášš with Netanyahu – our only reliable partner in the Mideast – which many feel will prod them to go it alone against Iran since they can no longer count on us – and we have people more obsessed with giving the words of someone they don’t just disagree with, but HATE, the worst possible connotation – forusing a phrase many others do.
Unbelievable.
I guess several news organizations should be fearful of law enforcement tapping on their door, using the loopy logic here:
.
Watch Obama Put Insurance Companies in the Cross Hairs: Barack …
July 22: Dr. Nancy Synderman tells Hardball’s Chris Matthews that President Barack Obama indicted insurance companies during his prime time news conference …
http://www.fancast.com/tv/Barack-Obama/101845/…/Obama…Cross-Hairs/videos
.
Sanchez in cross-hairs of health end game | sanchez, vote, bill …
Mar 21, 2010 … Home: Sanchez in cross-hairs of health end game | sanchez, vote, bill, … for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama to get …
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/sanchez-240322-vote-bill.html – Cached
.
Kucinich in Obama’s crosshairs
Mar 15, 2010 … Author, Topic: Kucinich in Obama’s crosshairs (Read 124 times) …. ***President Barack Obama and the Global Objective*** …
forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=163503.0 – Cached
.
Democrats put insurers in cross hairs – Patrick O’Connor …
Feb 23, 2010 … President Barack Obama’s health care plan would give the government authority to ….. Dems put insurers in cross hairs. Message is Required …
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33299.html – Cached
.
Goldman Sachs, in cross hairs, mulls options | Reuters
Jan 26, 2010 … Goldman Sachs, in cross hairs, mulls options …. President Barack Obama speaks about healthcare reform, as medical professionals look on, …
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60P0JW20100126 – Cached
.
Biden puts McCain, not Palin, in cross hairs – CNN.com
Oct 2, 2008 … Biden puts McCain, not Palin, in cross hairs … Barack Obama’s proposed tax breaks for the middle class and his goal of providing more …
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/biden…/index.html – Cached – Similar
.
So I guess all those who are foaming-at-the-mouth about Palin’s comments want these media outlets treated the same way, right?
Words have power. I know that. But words only have great power when strung together with other powerful words designed to push the same idea.
.
No, Jerry, that’s not true. Nor are the events in a manga or even “30 Rock” “the same thing,” as you put it. Nor is it a matter of (sigh) rights, and I wish you hadn’t fallen victim to THAT old canard that I, or anyone, is disputing her “right” to be a total jerk.
.
The reason that Palin’s gun-related urgings are not the same as fictional depictions of violence is best illustrated in the recent documentary, “The Game of Death.” That film depicted an audience of people who believed that they were auditioning for a game show that involved the audience deciding whether a fellow contestant, strapped to a chair, should receive increasing jolts of electricity. They were urged to inflict more voltage by the host/producers, and eighty one percent of the audience shouted, “Punishment” at that urging.
.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it was based upon similar experiments conducted in the 1960s. In that case, white-coated scientists urged test subjects to up the voltage on fellow subjects in electric chairs. In both cases, the goal was not to inflict pain; both people in chairs were in fact not harmed. It was to see how willing people were to submit to authority, in an effort to understand how guards in WW II Nazi death camps could have inflicted such inhuman tortures (funny how it always comes back to Nazis.)
.
In both cases, it was discovered that it’s more or less hard wired into humans to obey authority figures.
.
That’s how Palin’s followers regard her, which makes what she says and what she instructs far more dangerous than acts of violence depicted in a story. People in a position of massive influence have a responsibility to realize what their words and suggestions can do. Palin utterly abrogates that responsibility, saying inflammatory things and then claiming that it’s that darned liberal media distorting her meaning.
.
You can dismiss Palin’s influence all you wish, or say that it’s not as bad as what others say and do. And it may not be…yet. All I’ve been saying, and all I’ve ever said, is that if something happens and it can directly be connected to Palin’s influence, she should be held accountable. Pretty much everything else you’ve said is beside that point.
.
PAD
How can it be her right to speak as she does if such speech is also making her liable for criminal charges? Criminal speech is not a right.
.
When I gave examples of other politicians, including the president, saying lines that, to me, were at least as violent if not more so, you dismissed it as “passing comments made by columnists or a politician”, while palin’s words were described in contrast as “a concerted campaign that appeals to the worst instincts of people already displaying a proclivity for violence”.
.
Since there is virtually no evidence that the tea Party people that Palin speaks to are violent–where are the reports of smashed buildings during a tea party protest? As far as I know the two worst incidents of violence during such protests were targeted at protesters–it will be hard to prove that Palin was making violent appeals to violent people. This would be a loser of a case, though its effects on truly free speech could be chilling. It might be a hassle for her. Small gain indeed for the price.
.
And if it succeeded…prepare for the day when anyone talking anti-corporate speech to folks who march against the WTO–groups which, unlike the tea party people have a proven track record of violence during their demonstrations–is brought up on like charges. Or maybe the next time idiots attack delegates at the republican convention, as happened in 2008, any Democratic Politician who used intemperate language (which, during the campaign, is most of them at one point or another. Same for the GOP) will find him or herself in trouble.
.
Even as we speak, I’m sure people are scouring the intertubes for examples of other politicians who have used the crosshairs cliche without being attacked as leaders of a brownshirt revolution. The list of left wing nutters who have attempted to kill presidents is a long one (in a couple of cases they succeeded.) so it can’t be argued that “violent” talk from the left can’t have the same potential consequences as that from the right. Do we really want to set this precedent, especially on such flimsy grounds?
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
.
When the murders start happening, they will be on Sarah Palin’s head…and maybe yours, too, for dismissing her words as the soundless passing of air.
.
“When the murders start happening…”
.
And, again, Alan, I am in, and have been in for some time now, a position to tell you that if/when something happens the people who do it will never have needed Palin to open her yap so much as one time and may even see her and her pandering to the party in the same negative light that they see the Democrats in right now.
.
They don’t need justification and the fuel for their actions come from places like http://republicbroadcasting.org/ and from loons like Sam Kennedy. The fringe idiots aren’t going to act based on what Palin says and the blood will be on their hands and their hands alone if/when they do act.
How can it be her right to speak as she does if such speech is also making her liable for criminal charges? Criminal speech is not a right.
.
And that’s what the courts would decide, isn’t it. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. She has the right to say what she wants because in this country we do not advocate prior restraint. But the question to be then settled by the courts is if she has abused those rights. Whether it falls into the category, as O.W. Holmes said, of the right to swing her arm ending at the other man’s nose. Palin would not have been doing the swinging, but the courts would then decide whether she was an instigator.
.
PAD
.
Not quite in order…
.
“Pretty much everything else you’ve said is beside that point.”
.
Maybe to you and maybe even for some of your points, but not everything I posted was specifically directed at you and your points. Some of it is just part of the overall thread conversation and related to things I’ve seen said on CNN, MSNBC and other blogs that will no doubt make their way here.
.
“No, Jerry, that’s not true.”
.
Um… Yes it is.
.
“Murder him in his sleep.”
.
Very strong statement? Powerful statement? Nonsense. Means nothing. Five impotent words strung together. It’s the context that’s important.
.
If I were to speak five minutes to a large group of people that hated a local politician for about how easy and great it would be if only someone could get past their security, sneak into the home and murder them in their sleep while laying out a lot of detailed tricks to do just that then, yeah, I’m uttering some pretty powerful words of hate that might push more than a few of the wrong buttons in some of the wrong people. However, if I spend that five minutes talking about how we need to get organized, get energized and get people to vote the guy out of office, discuss every peaceful but hard work based trick we could do and then, at the end of it, jokingly mention that there’s so much hard work ahead of us that maybe it would just be easier to murder him in his sleep… I could easily be accused of having a bad sense of humor and little class, but only the most partisan idiot would believe that I was seriously advocating violence. And, frankly, the ones out there who would size on that as a call to action are already moving towards their actions with or without my speech.
.
Palin’s “reload” comment has been surrounded in her actual speeches by calls to organize and vote. There’s been nothing violent in those speeches or in their context.
.
She’s said some heinously stupid things before. There’s no question about that. Certainly pushing the bûllšhìŧ about “death panels” and telling crowd after crowd that the Democrats want to pass a bill so that they can kill grandma or kill children like hers was vile and deserving of condemnation, but the reaction to her “reload” comments has gotten to be just nuts.
.
“Nor is it a matter of (sigh) rights, and I wish you hadn’t fallen victim to THAT old canard that I, or anyone, is disputing her “right” to be a total jerk.”
.
I didn’t “fall for” anything. I also didn’t say that you specifically were doing that or that, thankfully, anyone here has yet to do it. Again, I’m discussing this as the entire deal and not just what you said or just what’s here. There have been voices elsewhere, including in the media, questioning her right to say things. It’s out there and it’s part of the discussion.
.
“Nor are the events in a manga or even “30 Rock” “the same thing,” as you put it.”
“The reason that Palin’s gun-related urgings are not the same as fictional depictions of violence is best illustrated in the recent documentary, “The Game of Death.””
.
Yeah, except that you and I both know that a whole lot of people, even usually smart people, out there believe the dumbest things that they read or see just because it comes along with a “this is true” tag. I’m still running into people who believe the “meticulously researched facts” of The Davinci Code are all something other than 10 pounds of manure in a five pound bag because first Dan Brown and then people connected with the film hyped them as factual, I know adults who still believe that there’s a dinosaur swimming around Loch Ness and I know people who think that the descriptions of historical events as shown in Band of Brothers, U-571 and Braveheart are factually accurate. Hëll, for that matter I know members of the clergy who, despite the differences from scripture to screen, think Mel didn’t take liberties with the story when making The Passion of the Christ.
.
God help me but I’ve even met cadets at academy who think that CSI is realistic.
.
And you and I and everyone else here knows how many times someone or another brought up 24 or “the ticking time bomb” scenario on this blog when discussing how the Bush administration “interrogated” prisoners.
.
There are really dumb people out there, even smart dumb people, who look at fiction and build there real world POV around it. You don’t take the people who create the fiction to task for the dûmbáššëš in society. You also can’t hang a public figure who isn’t advocating violence over the possibility of someone else proving that they’re a dûmbášš. And, as I noted above, this, out of all the things she’s said in the health care debate, is the most ridiculous molehill to be making a mountain out of.
.
“All I’ve been saying, and all I’ve ever said, is that if something happens and it can directly be connected to Palin’s influence, she should be held accountable.”
.
Never going to happen. certainly not over something as innocuous as “reload” no matter how batshit crazy (and, again, I point out that I’m talking in general here and not directing this at your posts or saying that you specifically have gone batshit crazy) some on the left want to get over it or how much they want to foam at the mouth over it.
Oh, yeah… This should have sounded familiar to some degree.
.
“Very strong statement? Powerful statement? Nonsense. Means nothing. Five impotent words strung together. It’s the context that’s important.”
.
Other than one word in it, it’s a direct copy and post from here.
.
http://www.peterdavid.net/index.php/2004/10/25/words/
.
Different topic, but it’s where you also say that words, “in and of themselves, mean absolutely nothing. They have no power. Period. What matters is who says them, how they’re said, and who they’re said to.”
…
“So you see, how can anything as erratic and unreliable as words have any power? They can’t. Unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to hit the right audience in the right way, and get their minds thinking along the right track to lead to something…well…right. Then words can have power.
.
So you can have it both ways.”
.
Your multitudeyness is showing again.
I could easily be accused of having a bad sense of humor and little class, but only the most partisan idiot would believe that I was seriously advocating violence.
.
And if he were then murdered in his sleep and his survivors sued your ášš, I’m sure you’d explain it in just that way to the sobbing widow and children and the stone faced jury. So, y’know…good luck with that.
She’s said some heinously stupid things before. There’s no question about that. Certainly pushing the bûllšhìŧ about “death panels” and telling crowd after crowd that the Democrats want to pass a bill so that they can kill grandma or kill children like hers was vile and deserving of condemnation, but the reaction to her “reload” comments has gotten to be just nuts.
.
Which, by startling coincidence, is exactly what my grandfather’s neighbors said to him when he was preparing to flee Germany. They told he was nuts, he was crazy, it would all pass. And best of all, they said, and I quote: “Don’t worry about what they say. They’re just Nazis.” The disconnect, Jerry, is that we’re coming at this from two different angles: You believing there’s no reason for concern, and my believing there’s every reason for concern. My concern is rooted in personal history.
.
PAD
Oh, yeah… This should have sounded familiar to some degree.
.
“Very strong statement? Powerful statement? Nonsense. Means nothing. Five impotent words strung together. It’s the context that’s important.”
.
Other than one word in it, it’s a direct copy and post from here.
.
Jerry, you have completely lost me. You’ve just proven that I’m being entirely consistent and representing it as being contradictory? What the hëll? I did an entire post about how the danger is that people regard Palin as an authority figure, and thus are more inclined to act upon her words, which fits entirely with my talking about the context and the speaker being all important, and you’re making more snide insinuations that I’m being inconsistent. I don’t know where you’re coming from on this.
.
PAD
.
“The disconnect, Jerry, is that we’re coming at this from two different angles: You believing there’s no reason for concern, and my believing there’s every reason for concern. My concern is rooted in personal history.”
.
Don’t be too sure of yourself. I’m coming at this from professional history, training and experience. I know many on the left would like to cast the Tea Party, idiotic as some of their groups can be, as the new Nazi Party and Palin and other Republicans as the new Hitlers, but, hate to break it to some of you out there, they ain’t.
.
I can tell you for a point blank fact that the violent nutballs out there, both organized and individual, are not going to get worked up because dear little Sarah said that they shouldn’t retreat but rather reload and then put crosshairs on a map on her twitter account. I can tell you for a point blank fact that the violent nutballs out there, both organized and individual, are getting their fires fueled by people a whole lot more insane than Palin every will be.
.
Personal history is a good thing and can certainly help one make informed decisions. On the other hand I use to work with an officer that hated dogs because he grew up next door to a man who abused the dogs he owned and, when he was a very young child, the dogs got loose and attacked him. For him, decades later as an adult, any movement by a dog that was sudden or unexpected meant that the dog was planning to attack you.
.
Or… Sometimes a brick is just a brick. Of course it can be more and sometimes is, but that doesn’t mean that its source is the one you want it to be from.
.
But at this point it’s not worth going in circle over anymore. I fully agree that Palin has in the past said some outrageous things and certainly said things meant to provoke strong reactions without giving the first thought to what her incendiary rhetoric could bring about. I can certainly agree with anyone that the air headed “death panel” remarks and her decelerations that the Democrats want to control health care so that they can terminate grandma’s life and let special needs children die were guaranteed to fuel the wrong fires in the nutjobs around the country.
.
But this? This is starting to become bad comedy. Lets all freak out because Palin said “reload” and that’s a call to incite violence despite the fact that anything and everything she’s said around that statement has been about anything and everything but violence and all about energizing the vote and getting to voting booth when election day comes.
.
There are fights worth getting into and having, and then there are fights that you start and you just make your side look silly to outside observers. Right now the left is looking foolish to the moderates and the independents by having hysterical conniption fits over something not worth the news coverage or the “outrage” being expressed in that coverage.
.
Right now the left looks ridiculous because it’s taking any and every thing that’s said by the opposition and trying to portray it as incitement to riot, incitement to violence and death threats. Right now the left is starting to look like the small child who stands on the sea shore and runs back to the village to declare that every minor wave is the precursor to a tsunami wave and every mild rain the beginnings of a deadly hurricane. Hey, just by law of averages he’s going to be right at least once on some future day to come, but by then the village will have written his credibility due to thousands of false warnings and shrieking hysteria in the face of every rain drop.
.
But, hey, at least he can stand there and smugly proclaim that he was right this time. Won’t do anyone else any good and it won’t mean that he’ll be right again any time in the near future. And when he is finally right again no one will take heed of the warnings because it’s just that nutty kid who cries at every little thing.
.
You don’t win fights, particularly fights in politics, by fighting a stupid fight. Making this particular Palin moment, and other things going on like it, out to be bigger than it is is a stupid fight and it only serves to make the other side look better than it really is by comparison.
.
You disagree. I’ll agree to disagree.
.
“Jerry, you have completely lost me. You’ve just proven that I’m being entirely consistent and representing it as being contradictory? What the hëll? I did an entire post about how the danger is that people regard Palin as an authority figure, and thus are more inclined to act upon her words, which fits entirely with my talking about the context and the speaker being all important, and you’re making more snide insinuations that I’m being inconsistent. I don’t know where you’re coming from on this.”
.
All I was pointing to was the fact that we both agree that sometimes words don’t have the power that they can have at other times. You and I simply disagree with how that plays out here. And I wasn’t being snide. You’re reading into it what you want to read into it here.
.
The line “Your multitudeyness is showing again” was meant to be lighter in tone and agreeing that we each can see things here in several different ways without either of us being completely in the right.
.
I knew I should’a put a *&@#$% 🙂 after that line.
Peter, I have no doubt that your concerns are rooted in personal history. During the couple weeks I had the honor to spend in Israel, I got to see the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem on Holocaust Memorial Day when the whole nation shuts down for a moment of silence. I cannot fathom what it’s like to have an atrocity like that in my ethnic background. The closest I have is being descended from Poles, but that does influence me in this debate.
.
I think we’ve lost the focus of the debate. This is about security versus liberty. I don’t want to add another government bureaucracy because it will eventually end up limiting my liberty, and I also know the totalitarian temptation is strong in men. When we come to rely on the government for health care, what’s next? This administration has a “Pay Czar” whose business it is to make sure that TARP receiving corporations don’t pay too much to their execs.* Should I rely on the government to guarantee I make a certain salary next? That I have a home and car?
.
His takeover of the auto-industry and subsequent handing it over to the unions was straight out of Karl Marx’s vision for America’s future. Marx believed American industries would eventually become union-owned as a step towards total Marxist communism. Dust off a copy of Das Kapital if you don’t believe me.
.
From the beginning of his campaign when he gave a speech in Selma, Barry has painted himself in messianic terms. Men and women fainted in his presence on the campaign trail. Now, we’re treated to an impromptu spate of songs from public school children praising Obama. We have vidoes of teens in black t-shirts and camo pants marching in formation and telling us in cadence of how Obama inspired them. Our e-mails are spammed with ads claiming Obama wants to give you money for school or buying a house.
.
Obama may have good intentions, but I distrust any man who portrays himself as a messiah. I distrust any man portrayed by others as a messiah. Furthermore, the plans he proposes for America I believe destine us for the ant-heap of totalitarianism.**
.
Furthermore, if you combine health care with other trends like people wishing to ban trans-fat, we’re headed for a big-time Nanny state. If I wish to shop at the “Big and Tall” store, it is my business. However, once the government starts to calculate costs of different activities as related to health care, it’s their business.
.
And that’s the problem with government run health care, which those who’ve passed it have promised is only the first step. If you look at how the “necessary and proper” clause has been abused through history in the expansion of Federal power, imagine when health care expenses are totaled. At that point there will be nothing they can’t justify regulating.
.
Think of how much junk science we’ve accepted as fact only to learn it to be lies later – crack babies, breast implants, cell phones, how much water we need to drink in a day, etc. Wait until science fads are factored into our daily lives.
.
When they passed the amendment allowing for nonuniform tax rates, some opposed it because they thought there was a possibility that income tax rates might hit 10% someday. Such people were dismissed as alarmists. We didn’t reach a tax burden where the average family works until April 9th to pay their taxes overnight. It happened gradually. It will be the same with health care, only our freedoms will be decreased as the amount we pay goes up.
.
These things only illustrate my basic thought. If they happen in two weeks, a hundred years, or never is actually beside the point. The point is I’m not willing to risk liberty or freedom (the two are not the same) for promises of security.
.
.
.
*I understand that they receive public funds, but at least one of those corporations was forced to take the money. Our President told these corporations who objected to some of his strong-arming, “I’m the only one standing between you and the pitchforks.”
.
**As I said earlier, I’m a Pole and proud of it. For better part of the past 200 years, my people have lived under one totalitarian regime or another. Those two centuries were capped off by the Nazis and the Soviets, (The difference being that the latter believed in equal opportunity genocide.) two of the most evil regimes in history.
.
And for the record, we have the last name of Robertson because others had difficulty saying “Proschowski.”
Don’t be too sure of yourself. I’m coming at this from professional history, training and experience. I know many on the left would like to cast the Tea Party, idiotic as some of their groups can be, as the new Nazi Party and Palin and other Republicans as the new Hitlers, but, hate to break it to some of you out there, they ain’t.
.
Not to sound Reaganesque, but…there you go again. I’m not speaking for “many on the left” but since I’m the one you’re talking to, I’m going to say again–because it doesn’t seem to have clicked the first few times–that I haven’t said anything like that. The fact is that it is the Tea Baggers who have been linking Obama to Hitler and his politics to Nazis. (By startling lack of coincidence, decades ago FDR explore nationalized health care, and critics managed to derail it by pointing out that Germans had health care, and that made it automatically suspect.) And the irony that is being pointed out is that the same side that has been declaring Obama to be Hitler are now using Naziesque tactics without realizing the irony.
.
PAD
I think we’ve lost the focus of the debate. This is about security versus liberty. I don’t want to add another government bureaucracy because it will eventually end up limiting my liberty, and I also know the totalitarian temptation is strong in men. When we come to rely on the government for health care, what’s next?
.
What’s next? Well, at a guess, next would be that we’d stop leading industrialized countries in infant mortalities. Countries that, for the most part, have government run or socialized health care and somehow have managed to remain basically free.
.
Oh, but those same countries also have stricter gun laws. That’s right. So let’s cut to the chase, Malcolm. Are you concerned they’ll come for your guns next? Just curious.
.
PAD
We have vidoes of teens in black t-shirts and camo pants marching in formation and telling us in cadence of how Obama inspired them.
.
For the record, I see nothing wrong with that at all. Nice to see them inspired by someone who got where he was by the strength of his intellect and ambition and education. (as opposed to some of the other people those kids might cite as heroes.) If Obama goes down as the worst president ever–he won’t but even if he did–he’d still be a better role model than 90% of the people I see on T-shirts.
.
Would our liberal friends perhaps have burst blood vessels in horror if kids had done that for GW Bush? Well, some might have, but that’s no reason to do the same. And, keep in mind, that this is a double edged sword. When someone comes in with wildly realistic expectations the reality is all the worse when they come crashing to earth. Especially when they have the habit of reversing themselves: “when I’m president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts. That’s how we can protect our coastline and still make the investments that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down gas prices for good.”
.
Cue the Fred Flintstone coronet music: Wha wha whaaaaaaaa…..
.
“I’m the one you’re talking to, I’m going to say again–because it doesn’t seem to have clicked the first few times–that I haven’t said anything like that.”
.
Peter, I’m going to say again-because it doesn’t seem to have clicked the first few times-I’ve made clear that while I am addressing your points I am also addressing other comments made here and elsewhere in the media around the general discussion and controversy about Palin’s “reload” comment. I’ve flat out said that three two or three times. I don’t know how I can make that clearer than actually saying-
.
“Maybe to you and maybe even for some of your points, but not everything I posted was specifically directed at you and your points. Some of it is just part of the overall thread conversation and related to things I’ve seen said on CNN, MSNBC and other blogs that will no doubt make their way here.”
.
-as I did just a few posts above. And that was just after pointing out to you that-
.
“And do note that I was talking about more places than just here.”
.
I know I’m not the professional writer here, but I did think that I put together a string of words making my point clear enough to be understood. However, as I said before, I’m done with this one. I’ll agree to disagree.
Gee, Jerry, does that mean that when someone posts something that agrees with one of your statements, then comes up with something out of left field later on, I can take the left-field quote out of context and place it so that it looks like I’m attributing the sentiment to you? After all, that person agreed with you on something, and I’ll just be quoting “different people’s words”.
.
Turn-about and all that…
.
“Gee, Jerry, does that mean that when someone posts something that agrees with one of your statements, then comes up with something out of left field later on, I can take the left-field quote out of context and place it so that it looks like I’m attributing the sentiment to you? After all, that person agreed with you on something, and I’ll just be quoting “different people’s words”.
.
Turn-about and all that…”
.
Gee, Jonathan, I don’t know. Given that the first time Peter wrote something that made it clear he didn’t get that I was responding to him but also that I was then discussing how the matter is being reacted to elsewhere as well I responded and made clear what I had said; I just don’t see where I just went attributed things to Peter as if he said them or tried to make it look like I had. I don’t know, maybe my mentioning the discussions of the matter on MSNBC and CNN as well as here was just too subtle a hint for you to get that maybe, just maybe, I was also discussing how this is being played up outside of the electronic confines of PeterDavid.net. And given the fact that I tried to make that clear more than once, I think I did my fair share to clear up any confusion.
.
But you go and do whatever you want to do.
You summed up some of my concerns very well, Malcolm. I’m always afraid of any increase in Government power, as they never want to let go of it once they have it. They just continue to want more.
I think I’m a bit less concerned about Obama’s cult of personality than you are. It doesn’t seem as prevalent as you make it sound, and in any event it’s not likely to last long. Remember how quickly Clinton’s personality cult faded? I am bothered by politicians being as venerated as they are, but the Obama-worship doesn’t appear that more extreme than normal to me. (But this may simply be because I live in such a red state.)
If Palin saying “reload” is an incitement to gun violence, then Obama saying he’s “fired up and ready to go” MUST mean he’s encouraging arson.
“Obama saying he’s “fired up and ready to go” MUST mean he’s encouraging arson.”
.
No, he is encouraging employers to start laying off workers 🙂
.
More seriously, I think Public Speaking 101 is know thy audience. Things are so polaraized right now that it sometimes feels as if everybody was on edge. All politicians (and commentators in the media) should take a few extra minutes to review their comments before they make them to at least decrease the posibility that some part of their audience will take their words as a call for violence. It is not an easy task.
.
Instead of target say goal. Instead of reload say refocus. Instead of fired up say energized. Granted, somebody somewhere will always take offense or take it the wrong way but just try to minimized it.
.
I guess with politicias repeating the same message over and over again they feel they need to paraphrase to not sound like a broken record and then come colorful metaphors with intended or unintended violent undertones.
“Instead of target say goal. Instead of reload say refocus. Instead of fired up say energized.”
That’s the point, Tony. These speeches were not speeches made off the cuff. They were written beforehand, and the code words carefully chosen to get the attention of the loonies.
If Palin saying “reload” is an incitement to gun violence, then Obama saying he’s “fired up and ready to go” MUST mean he’s encouraging arson.
.
Pointing out the obvious: Obama hasn’t coupled such a comment with an image of arson against GOP Congressmen. Palin, meanwhile, with having targets on a map…
.
And this is now the point where I must go and bang my head against a wall for bothering to respond to you again. More so since I had to point out the obvious on why your comparison utterly fails in light of what Palin has said along with the images she has presented on her Facebook page.
“What’s your standard for her supporters being stupid?
.
Waving signs that describe Obama as a “moran” is certainly a reasonable indicator…”
I found an entire site full of protest signs missspellings. Most of them are anti-Bush/anti-war protestors. I guess that entire group is made up of “morans” too…
OR – you can’t judge any group by it’s lowest denominator. It’s a tactic that both sides enjoy though.
“Oh, but those same countries also have stricter gun laws. That’s right. So let’s cut to the chase, Malcolm. Are you concerned they’ll come for your guns next? Just curious.”
.
Certainly health care costs can be used to justify gun bans. I’m sure we’ve all heard the statistic that if you own a gun, you’re more likely to shoot yourself or a loved one than a criminal.* However, I’ve only been a gun owner since 2005. I’ve been a limited government conservative my whole life. The famous coiled snake of the Gadsden Flag and its words, “Don’t Tread on Me” resonates with me at my most basic level.
.
It’ll take some Supreme Court justices retiring or dying before they can use health care as a justification so in the short term, I’m not overly worried about losing my firearms. I’m more worried about them taking away my Oreos right now.
.
P.J. O’Rourke said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” Nothing in my experience leads me to believe that analogy is flawed. This bill liquors up government and traps us in the back seat for the joyride.
.
.
.
*The problem with that statistic is that it only counts the amount of times someone is actually shot and not the amount of times a gun is displayed and the would-be criminal flees. According to FSU sociologist Gary Kleck, 13 out of 14 times, the mere display of a firearm by a law-abiding citizen results in this with the fourteenth occasion ending in gunfire. The statistic also fails to subtract the times a firearm is used in self-defense against an abusive spouse intent on killing.
I would have zero worries about anyone taking my guns away. Actually, I DO have zero worries about that as I have no guns. I do have a katana, which has been shown to be capable of actually slicing a bullet in half if it is hit squarely in the center. This would, of course, only result in my being hit by 2 half-bullets instead of 1 whole one but is still, you have to admit, pretty cool.
.
Where was I? Oh right. Gun control = game over. Not gonna happen. Obama may be the first presidential candidate in recent memory NOT to be photographed attempting to blast something with feathers out of the sky but still, many many politicians go out of their way to show off their mad street cred with firearms. You’re right, it’s the oreos you should be worried about.
.
Or alcohol. Next to tobacco, is there a greater health hazard in this country? And at least with tobacco it’s usually the perp who takes the carcinoma fall, whereas victims of alcohol use are often just innocent bystanders or the abused spouses and kids of the drinker. Not to mention the many alcohol related health issues. High fat food is a leading killer but I’d rather share a bus trip with Joe Manboobs as he finishes off 3 packages of nutter butters than Joe Sixpack as he polishes off his third bottle of Thunderbird.
.
Ripe for banning, says I. What could possibly go wrong?
Just speaking for myself, if Palin had come out and said anything along the lines of, “I’m sorry. When I said ‘reload’ I did not mean to go shooting at the offices of your government officials,” I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.
.
But, when she instead blames “that gosh darned liberal media” for painting her the bad guy, it tells me that she knew exactly what she was saying, exactly what she was encouraging, and exactly what would happen.
.
Maybe bricks and bullets would have been thrown and shot through windows anyway. Maybe she didn’t encourage anyone, but the people who did what they did were acting out of purely their own craziness. Maybe.
.
But, she did say what she said. And, what happened did happen. And, she could at least pretend to be surprised and apologetic about it, if she actually was.
.
Theno
Theno, when were offices shot at? Not doubting you, just have not seen that report.
.
“Just speaking for myself, if Palin had come out and said anything along the lines of, “I’m sorry. When I said ‘reload’ I did not mean to go shooting at the offices of your government officials,” I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.”
.
Well, if you mean the second she wrote it and the first time she said it; why should she? The only reason that you would have to make a follow up comment seconds after saying “reload” is if you’re thinking of that word in the literal sense and actually referencing reloading a gun rather than using it as a metaphor.
.
And are you going to hold everyone to that ridiculous standard? Are you going to insist, using my example from earlier, that a football coach rallying his team who are down at halftime stop the guys right before they hit the field and calmly explain that he was sorry and that he did not mean that they should actually destroy, cripple or kill the other team in the second half of the game?
.
Or how about just keeping it in the realm of politics. When a strategist for the DNC says on air in a news interview that the Democrats are going to “crush” the Republicans at the ballot box in the next election… Well, that can really be seen as advocating violence. I mean, physically crushing someone is a pretty nasty thing to do and, gosh darn it, you could even kill someone depending on what you choose to crush them with. Are you going to write an email to that network and request that they get an on air clarification from the guy where he states that he didn’t actually mean that he wanted Democratic voters to go and attack Republican voters at the various places of voting? You’d have to if you want to be consistent.
.
And if you mean she should have said it after the fact when it got pointed out to her; she did. She’s stated several times now that she in no way meant that as a violent statement or a call for gun violence. There yah go. You have no problems with her or the statement now.
.
“But, when she instead blames “that gosh darned liberal media” for painting her the bad guy, it tells me that she knew exactly what she was saying, exactly what she was encouraging, and exactly what would happen.”
.
Really? So, by your standards here, if some voices in the media say something that’s either (A) untrue or (B) a biased distortion about someone and they react by saying that it is either (A) or (B) that automatically means that they really know for a fact that the accusation is true even if it’s not. We’ll keep that in mind when you’re defending a politician you like who has stated that the things said about them by some in the media aren’t true and point out that you’ve fall for that obvious lie they’re telling because, duh, it must be true since they’re claiming that it’s just some people in the media making stuff up or distorting things.
.
”
Jerry: I have no clue what you are trying to say.”
.
On this point I thought I was fairly clear. You said this-
.
“But, when she instead blames “that gosh darned liberal media” for painting her the bad guy, it tells me that she knew exactly what she was saying, exactly what she was encouraging, and exactly what would happen.”
.
-and I basically said that the reasoning in that statement is laughable. Your point basically boils down to you declaring that her claiming that the media is misquoting or distorting her just must mean in fact that the media got it right and she knew what she was saying and doing (what her critics claimed she was doing) from the very beginning. You’re saying that she’s guilty of the accusation basically because she says that she’s not and she’s stating that it’s the left wing voices in the media doing their usual thing.
.
And for our next trick we’ll have the jury determine that the accused is in fact guilty because they claimed in court that they were not guilty.
.
Thenodrin, if I accused you of having written something you didn’t or accused you having written something with the intent of inciting trouble when you feel that you didn’t do anything of the kind; how insanely stupid would you find someone telling you that the fact that you were saying my accusation was baseless was in fact proof that you knew that you were trying to incite trouble all along? Well, that’s what you’re saying here about her.
.
And I doubt that you or others here would apply the standards of “truth” that you’re applying to her to politicians you’re more in favor of. The right made great hey out of Obama’s comment that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” and some still reference it. It was, they said, all about stealing the hard earned money from the rich and giving it to the undeserving who never lifted a finger to earn it. It was Obama accidentally letting the truth slip through about his communist, socialist agenda.
.
Obama responded to that at the time by calling their distortion of what he said ridiculous. And their assertions as to what “spread the wealth around” meant were ridiculous if one actually listened to everything else he said in that conversation. Context means a lot.
.
But if we were being fair and applying your standards to Obama you would have to condemn Obama for what the Right was saying. Obama said something that could be taken several different ways, the Right Wing in the media took it and ran with it and Obama responded by saying that it was just so much typical Right Wing nonsense and typical politics. In other words, Thenodrin, he blamed “that gosh darned conservative media” for painting him the bad guy, so it must tell you that he knew exactly what he was saying and that he really did want to destroy business, take the money that the rich earned away from them and redistribute it through various programs designed to give it to those who didn’t earn it.
.
It’s the exact same thing in both cases. A politician says something, some in the media seize on it and claim it means whatever they want it to mean to condemn the politician in question and the politician responds by dismissing the left wing/right wing media’s stupidity. Hëll, that’s the same scenario that plays out in a lot of cases. So do you hold every politician to the standards of “he/she denied/dismissed it so it must be true” that you’re holding Palin to here? Is every Fox News/conservative media distortion true just because a politician dismisses it?
.
You either have to say yes or you’re showing that you’re being a hypocrite with the standards that you’re judging politicians you like VS those you dislike.
.
“I don’t know if this issue has driven you to a fever pitch and you are just lashing out at everyone around you or what.”
.
Actually I was initially laughing at the stupidity I was seeing in the media. Now I’m just shaking my head at the desperate need the left apparently has to look ridiculous lately.
.
There’s a lot of things out there that can reasonably be seen as a threat or as words and actions meant to incite violence. But “reload” in the manner that she has been using it hardly fits that bill and the hysterics of the left over it are only making her look better than she deserves to look in comparison. It’s also making many in the media, along with some other blow ups they’ve had in the last year and a half, look like the media who cried wolf. After a while, you become a joke to the moderate and sane observers and by then you’ll get little or no attention even when you are saying something that turns out to be accurate.
.
“So, to clarify my position, I believe that Palin knew exactly what she was saying, who she was saying it to, and what would happen. And, that she had this whole plausible denial ready for when the violence began.”
.
Right, Because denying something means it must be true. Gotcha.
.
“I do not understand why you are making such excuses for her. I cannot believe that someone who is as intelligent as most of your posts indicate you to be honestly thinks that, “this is not the time to retreat, this is the time to reload,” and, “we should crush them in the primaries,” are even close to the same thing.”
.
Maybe because, like I’ve said for what feels like about a dozen times in this thread now, that the truly crazy and violent out there who will act on something don’t need Palin’s “reload” comment to spur them to action. Sometimes nothing that anyone says triggers it, they just act. Sometimes anything someone says, not matter how benign, triggers them to act. And I can tell you as a point blank fact that a number of the nutballs we’re with here making threats to our Democratic and Republican officials, the type of nutballs that are more likely to act than not, don’t see parties. They see government as one big, nasty, evil and tyrannical machine where everyone involved in it is a part of its oppressive actions.
.
Something as innocuous as “reload” isn’t worth the hysteria from the some on left that I’ve seen.
.
“And, when you tell an audience of millions to “reload” and even just one of them actually puts a bullet in a gun, the responsible thing to do is to recant what you said. The irresponsible thing to do is to blame the media for reporting what you said and linking it to the violence.”
.
She can’t do both?
.
And exactly what part of Palin actually saying to crowds, repeatedly, that she was not and is not making a call to violence with that comment in pretty much every speech since the flap started not qualify as Palin being responsible about it?
.
And, of course, I do have to wonder where the plantations by the left were when not long ago one politician described the political landscape by saying, “If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun.”
.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/06/14/obama-if-they-bring-a-knife-to-the-fight-we-bring-a-gun/tab/print/
.
Hey, it was violent language that referenced guns and more overtly referenced using the guns than anything Palin said. But, hey, I guess it’s only bad if a conservative says it.
Jerry, you seem to be missing two key components in my criticism. One, her words were not taken out of context, and two the violence actually happened.
.
The first one is minor. She said, “X.” The media reported that she said, “X.” Word for word, same statement. Played her sound byte. And, she accused them of putting words in her mouth. I don’t accept that.
.
You use the example of accusing me of saying something that I didn’t. But, the fact is that she said what she said. It isn’t something that she didn’t say. It isn’t even out of context (that context being: placing crosshairs on districts and advising people to reload.) The media didn’t put words into her mouth. They reported what she said.
.
Second, it actually happened. These politicians have received threats and acts of violence. It isn’t a case of what might happen, it is a case of what did happen.
.
If Obama said that he was going to “spread the wealth” and then someone actually stole money from the rich to give to the poor, then, yes, I would expect him to retract that statement or else would expect that to be exactly what he meant.
.
To go back to your sports analogy, if a coach tells his team, “We need to take out their quarterback, he is killing us out there,” and then one of his players drops a chop block, blowing out the other guy’s knee, you better believe that both of them are going to face an inquiry and fines. The coach saying, “I meant that figuratively,” isn’t going to absolve him.
.
(I am realizing that this is a very apt metaphor considering that the republicans have been telling their base that the democrats are destroying America. Very much like a coach telling his team that the other team is “killing” them on the field.)
.
If a politican says, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” and then someone actually brings a knife, and someone else actually brings a gun to the next political rally, then, yes, I would expect that politican to issue a statement of apology and retraction. And, if he didn’t, but instead blamed the media for reporting his words, I would assume that he meant for knives and guns to show up at the rally.
.
Now, I will grant you that I’m no fan of Palin. If she has apologized, I missed it. I heard her blame the media for her statements. And, everything else I’ve heard from her recently has been talking up McCain (of whom I am a fan.) So, if she did do both, then I apologize for being unaware.
.
Theno
.
“Jerry, you seem to be missing two key components in my criticism. One, her words were not taken out of context…”
&
“The first one is minor. She said, “X.” The media reported that she said, “X.” Word for word, same statement. Played her sound byte. And, she accused them of putting words in her mouth. I don’t accept that.”
.
Theno, you do realize that saying someone’s words weren’t taken out of context, that they were in fact not quoted out of context, just because the media quoted them “word for word” is a completely nonsensical argument. Seriously, you do know that there is a difference between being misquoted and quoted out of context, don’t you?
.
I could quote something you said in another thread and claim that you meant (A) when you in fact meant (B) and I’ve quoted you out of context. If you then got upset that I twisted what you said into something other than what it was meant to mean I really doubt you would say that everything was fine and dandy with what I did just because I could point out the fact that I quoted you word for word. I mean, The-Troll-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named spent years on this blog quoting people word for word while taking those words out of context to put his own Planet M spin on them. You’re going to now claim that he was in fact right all those times because, context or no, he clearly quoted everyone here word for word?
.
There is a difference between being misquoted and and having your words taken out of context. She was not misquoted here. If we were arguing that you would be right. However, what was done, what we were discussing, was that her words were taken out of context. And they were.
.
“Second, it actually happened. These politicians have received threats and acts of violence. It isn’t a case of what might happen, it is a case of what did happen.”
.
Really? Acts of violence have happened? Where?
.
I’m curious as to what you’re referring to since the only recent reports of “violence” by little nutjobs here and there have all been things that were planned, and had various law enforcement following those plans, since well before Palin made her comment. What, they used their crystal balls to hear her remarks months and years before she made them and started the work to get ready for her permission to go crazy?
.
And you’re pinning threats on her doorstep? Really? Well, yeah, I can see that one at least since there have never been politicians who got threats of violence made against them and their families before Palin said something and we certainly have no reason to believe that lots of them have gotten them every single day for the entirety of their career since as far back as the start of politics.
.
Dude, I’ve been in a particular law enforcement position for over a decade now that has put me in a position to see a lot of threats made against Democrats, Republicans and Independents and I’ve seen new ones almost every single day that I’ve been here. And I can tell you for a first hand experience fact that every law enforcement officer in every single state in the nation who works a position like mine will tell you the same thing.
.
Gonna lay all that on Palin now?
.
As for everything else you said… Wow…
.
I’m sorry, but that’s just too PCerrific to argue with you over.
Bill: Over the weekend. USA Today reported gunfire directed toward a VA Republican office. I see now that there are updates that say that the shooting might not be related to the other violence. I do know that at the time it was suspected otherwise.
.
Jerry: I have no clue what you are trying to say. I don’t know if this issue has driven you to a fever pitch and you are just lashing out at everyone around you or what. You are usually more articulate.
.
“So, by your standards here, if some voices in the media say something that’s either (A) untrue or (B) a biased distortion about someone and they react by saying that it is either (A) or (B) that automatically means that they really know for a fact that the accusation is true even if it’s not.”
.
I have no clue what that is supposed to mean. My standards are that if you tell your audience to perform a violent act, even in exageration, and someone in that audience does as you suggest, you take responsibility for it. You address your audience again and say, “no, that is not what I meant. Stop that.” You do not address your audience again and say, “I don’t understand why our opponents think we are to blame for the violence.”
.
So, to clarify my position, I believe that Palin knew exactly what she was saying, who she was saying it to, and what would happen. And, that she had this whole plausible denial ready for when the violence began.
.
Yes, she has said that she did not mean to actually reload and start shooting at the enemy. But, she did not, so far as I know, say that she was sorry that anyone took it that way. Instead, she has tried to portray herself as the victim of reporters intentionally twisting her words (by not changing them, interestingly) so as to blame her.
.
She is not the victim. She is the instigator.
.
I do not understand why you are making such excuses for her. I cannot believe that someone who is as intelligent as most of your posts indicate you to be honestly thinks that, “this is not the time to retreat, this is the time to reload,” and, “we should crush them in the primaries,” are even close to the same thing.
.
And, when you tell an audience of millions to “reload” and even just one of them actually puts a bullet in a gun, the responsible thing to do is to recant what you said. The irresponsible thing to do is to blame the media for reporting what you said and linking it to the violence.
.
Theno
.
See above your post. I hit the wrong *%#*#*%*^* reply button.
“Pointing out the obvious: Obama hasn’t coupled such a comment with an image of arson against GOP Congressmen. Palin, meanwhile, with having targets on a map…
.
And this is now the point where I must go and bang my head against a wall for bothering to respond to you again. More so since I had to point out the obvious on why your comparison utterly fails in light of what Palin has said along with the images she has presented on her Facebook page.”
.
All that banging your head against a wall is really unhealthy for you, especially since I was trying to point out how absurd both are/would be. It was FACETIOUS.
.
But you are so determined to interpret the most hysterical meanings from a phrase that is used in many contexts – “reload” – especially sports and fail to acknowledge that “targeted districts” have been used forever.
.
But when even Jerry and other reasonable people are trying to point out how unreasonable you are and you can’t ever, ever say “Gee, maybe I’m overreacting” then it’s clear you’re more than happy to bang your head off the wall – while frothing at the mouth – no matter how ridiculous it makes you look to people with common sense and normal intelligence, to the point where you really come off as maniacal. have fun, now.
It was FACETIOUS.
.
With you, one can never tell.
.
to the point where you really come off as maniacal.
.
Well, then at least I’m in good company with our host.
Yeah, I guess I called it right about people looking for example of Democrats targeting Republicans: http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647
.
A map with bulls-eyes drawn on them to show places where vulnerable republican can be found…and described as “Behind enemy lines” (italics mine). Pretty savage and warlike, if you ask me. Thank God nobody got killed.
.
Further down we have another map with bulls-eyes for “Targeted Republican” candidates. It’s on the webpage of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose leader, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, had just condemned Palin a few days ago.
.
there’s probably more like this to come.
Yeaaaaaah, and I already said that if it had been targets rather than crosshairs it would have been more acceptable. So you would suggest now…what? That I condemn Democrats for that which I said I would have found acceptable if it was from the GOP? Makes mucho sense.
.
PAD
Well, FWIW, the AP has obtained an FBI intelligence note regarding another anti-government group. And while the FBI doesn’t see any outright or specific threats from this group (they’ve mailed at least 30 governors demanding that they all leave office or be removed), they fear that somebody else will follow up with violence.
Actually you said that “A target would have been marginally more acceptable”. So perhaps you should be marginally less condemning of Rep. Van Hollen. Or maybe he gains the condemnation points for the “Behind enemy lines” shtick, I don’t know. Your opinion, your rules.
.
Me, I don’t see either as heralding anything of any importance. A lot of this seems like attempts to get people to shut up. According to one poster hear, not only is Palin liable for any violence that erupts, potentially so am I for dismissing that possibility. I don’t know if I should be afraid that my future is in the hands of some unknown loon or proud that I have attained so great an influence just tappity tapping away in my pajamas.
Bill, Malcolm, one big reason why people get worried when Conservatives make threats and angry noises, while shrugging when Liberals do the same is because all the propaganda the Republicans have done in the past decade must have worked somewhat. 🙂
Don’t ya know? Liberals are all cowards, with no stomach for confrontation. They want to be liked by everybody, and even apologize to the terrorists. Even if some Liberals talk about killing Bush, you know it’s all talk, right? After all, Liberals can get nothing done. The idea that a Liberal would ever commit an act of violence in defense of their beliefs is laughable, since they want peace so bad, they’re capable of even surrendering their country to terrorists.
Now, Conservatives are brave warriors, correct? They’re always ready to do whatever needs to be done to protect their country. And they’re organized and loyal to their own and effective. So when THESE guys make threats, people should worry, don’t you think?
Ah, but there is a big difference between a liberal and a radical. I mean, somebody</i< has been smashing windows during WTO protests, somebody has been attacking convention goers to the GOP convention, somebody is willing to follow demagogues like Al Sharpton when they call for riots…you can listen to all the propaganda you want but you gonna believe that or your lying eyes?
“That’s the point, Tony. These speeches were not speeches made off the cuff. They were written beforehand, and the code words carefully chosen to get the attention of the loonies.”
.
Well, they sure got your attention, so in that respect I guess you can say she succeeded.
.
The only saving grace with all this is the next time Palin is bashed for something – which will inevitably happen, judging from this non-issue getting so much play – those without a dog in the fight will shrug their shoulders after the hysterical conniption fits that have been on display because of this ridiculousness and determination of flaying someone and attributing criminal intent to them for words, that in context, no reasonable person with average intelligence would find objectionable.
.
Fred Phelps’ sick followers just had their sick actions upheld by a court of law. Let’s focus more on the truly sick hatemongers, why don’t we?
Bill, (and whoever else wants to respond of course)
I have been hearing increasing rumblings about someone else entering the GOP field. Any thoughts on a possible…President Petraeus?
Not a big fan of people using the presidency as an entry level political position. Ok, ok, Ike did it, I know…and Petraeus has proven leadership qualities and competence in the face of situations that our actual political leaders deemed unfixable.
.
But he’s having a tough time in Afghanistan right now. If he announces his candidacy he will become “General Betrayus” all over again and every death of a US soldier will be laid at his feet.
.
I’m not sure Petraeus is the right guy for the role. He may have the basic leadership qualities needed, but I’m not sure that he has the overall package to successfully run. If nothing else, he has never struck me as particularly engaging or charismatic. Those qualities may not have meant as much in some presidents of the past, but the television and the age of celebrity has almost made that requirement #1.
It depends. Running against someone as charismatic as Obama is difficult enough, much less when you yourself don’t exactly light up the room. Unless…if the overall mood of the country is pessimistic, if things are bad and getting worse, it’s quite possible to make that work for you. “Yeah, I’m not flashy, nobody faints when I speak, I’m no rock star. I just get the job done. Which do you really want in a leader?”
.
That’s the danger of nominating Palin. Why replace one moderately experienced charismatic polarizing figure with another? (and of course, in 2012 the “inexperienced” charge will no longer apply to Obama). Why take the chance they might be the same only worse? If it’s time for a change, vote for a change.
.
I’m not saying that he would not be, on paper, ideal or that he might not do well. But the sad truth is that we gravitate towards the flashy and the big shiny things.
.
He could be 50X the leader that many others might be, but I just don’t think that he’d get elected. No harm in trying it, I just think that it’ll end up being a failed bid for office.
Military leaders have been a pretty mixed bag as presidents. Washington served with restraint and set the precedents for keeping the White House fairly transparent and honest. Andrew Jackson was a vicious ethnic cleanser who encouraged patronage and proudly defied the Supreme Court. Most of the others have been pretty mediocre.
But if you look at the history of the rest of the world, military officers are almost invariably the worst presidents imaginable. So even though our record hasn’t been too bad, I get really nervous at the idea of another general in the White House.
Jerry,
“I’m not saying that he would not be, on paper, ideal or that he might not do well. But the sad truth is that we gravitate towards the flashy and the big shiny things.
.
He could be 50X the leader that many others might be, but I just don’t think that he’d get elected. No harm in trying it, I just think that it’ll end up being a failed bid for office.”
.
Possibly – and I seriously doubt he’s running. Butwe could do a lot worse. And you never know. Wesley Clark, despite a late entry into the race, low name recognition compared to Petraeus and an average, to be kind, campaign still managed to win Oklahoma, meaning he won more states than others with far more impressive political resumes, from Al Haig to Joe Biden to Rudy Giuliani.
.
Eisenhower was a very underrated President. he presided over a healthy – some would say very prosperous time and he made the National Highway System a reality, something I think is pretty darn significant and impacts all of our lives, yet we take for granted. That made us a truly “United” States – and I can hop in my car if I have enough gas money and drive to see my fiance in Florida, relatives in Oklahoma and friends in California, Arizona and Colorado. heck, I’m within six hours right now from New York City; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Boston and Baltimore.
.
It truly is an enormous accomplishment when one thinks about it – and put a lot of people to work (and, of course, continues to do so). Not sexy like a mission to the Moon, but something we all benefit from.
PAD,
“I think there is a difference, Bill, between passing comments made by columnists or a politician and a concerted campaign that appeals to the worst instincts of people already displaying a proclivity for violence.”
.
It’s been a week now. Where is the proof that these people you’re talking about have engaged in widespread violence. because Lord knows, if you cold even point to one or two documented cases, which you can’t – but there was that black guy beaten up by union workers a few months back for having the audacity to be publicly support the health care bill but I guess he doesn’t count or is newsworthy. Of course, we all know Katie, Diane and everyone else from the View to MSNBC would be making sure we heard about an incident that involved a black SUPPORTER of health care eform getting beaten by four white Tea partiers.
.
But then, some things fit the narrative most of the media wants to tell and some don’t/ Sucks for that guy, though.
.
“At a time when you’ve got rabid conservatives”
otherwise known as moms, grandparents, veterans and other concerned citizens
.
targeting politicians with everything from epithets to blunt objects,”
.
Again, where is the audio or video of this? heck, there were a to of camera phones around. It was a big day. And it’s been over a week. So I think those who have made those accusations should provide it – or be accused of slander.
” a prominent individual such as Palin putting up a map filled with rifle crosshairs is nothing short of scandalous.”
.
Again, been done a thousand times before, the people really trying to stir up animosity are racists like Maxine Waters who are trying to sell the narrative about Tea Partiers being violent, racist redenecks and inflame tensions and what’s really scandalous is that we have a member of Congress just today saying “I don’t really worry about the Constitution – which he is sworn to uphold – when he was asked and then didn’t realize that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a phrase that is found in the Declaration of Independence and when he was corrected said he didn’t care.
.
Talk about arrogance. Talk about a scandal.
I had a link to a story where the congressman who was allegedly spat upon now…is not exactly denying it, just refuses to say one way or another and denies he ever said anything about being spat on. Which is a lie. But there we are on that.
.
Anyway, the post got eaten somehow, maybe because of the link.
Just reread. The man who was beat up was opposed to health care reform. My bad.
I know, I know, more of that ‘dámņëd liberal media’ (and the hope that this time the filter doesn’t eat my post), but the AP has an analysis of the tea party movement this morning:
.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100405/ap_on_an/us_tea_party_revolution_analysis
.
Lots of interesting stuff in this article.
My favorite quote was this one:
.
“We know who we are against,” says Justin Holland, organizer for the North Alabama Patriot Tea Party. “We don’t quite know who we are for yet.”
.
It reminded me of a line from “Snow White” in which Grumpy is opposed to Snow White’s presence because she’s full of “wicked wiles.” When one of the other dwarfs asks precisely what wicked wiles might be exactly, Grumpy growls, “I don’t know…but I’m against ’em!”
.
PAD
PAD, there’s another AP article right now about how the tea party is affecting some possible 2012 hopefuls.
.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100408/ap_on_el_pr/us_republicans_tea_party_purity
.
Yet, contrast this with the previous article, on how many do not see the tea party affecting this year’s elections and you end up with a lot of people making a lot of guesses.
Hot off the Associated Press, the latest attempt of those on the Left who are pushing for a lockstep, groupthink mentality:
.
“They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president.
“I’ve been told I hate myself. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom. I’ve been told I’m a spook at the door,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.
“Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks,” he said.”
.
Obviously a lot of Democrats aren’t aware the Civil Rights Act was passed either, which granted blacks and other minorities the right to do – and believe – the same things, in the same places, as white people – and to oppose a President’s policies even though he’s the same race as them – content of their character being more important and all that.
.
Instead, blacks are expected by many in the community to think and act like Maxine Waters – and I can tell you from experience this pressure to conform is very real and very destructive in the black community.
Hey, it’s worth a try–if you have no compunctions about the inappropriateness of such bullying…which some obviously do not. Anyway, who needs someone so wishy washy that they will, to paraphrase Lillian Hellman, cut their conscience to fit this year’s fashions? Conversely, there is nobody better to have in the trenches than someone who has the guts to live by their own sense of integrity, peer pressure be dámņëd.
.
Hey, it’s worth a try–if you have no compunctions about the inappropriateness of such bullying…which some obviously do not.
.
See: Republican Party
The left can be patronizing in a very disgusting manner, I agree.
Still, it’s a fact that there are very few black Libertarians out there. I don’t think that indicates racism of any kind. I just think that Libertarianism is mostly a middle-class ideology. If blacks have statiscally lower income than whites, then it’s logical that there are fewer black Libertarians. And I suppose blacks that are wealthier are pressured to care about other blacks who aren’t so well-off.
I think it’s more a class issue than a race issue.
In fact, many ethnic minorities are the opposite of a Libertarian. They’re left-wing in economical issues and conservative in personal freedoms issues. Californians supporting Proposition 8 while simultaneously voting Democrat is a clear sign of that.
Good call, Rene.
What does “by many in the community” mean precisely, Jerome? The majority? Fifty percent? Ten percent? Twenty guys in a Winnebago? The article seems to say that some black conservatives are getting blowback by some people for a stupid reason. And that proves what, exactly? That there are stupid people in the Democratic party? Gee. Stop the presses.
.
But there’s nothing in what you quote that conveys the notion that this is a party-wide. majority point of view. Perhaps the article does say that, but since you provide no link as other posters do when they’re quoting articles, I’m just supposed to take your word for it. Well…no.
.
PAD
How many members of the tea party protests doing something wrong…or at least, being accused of doing something wrong–does it take to get the protesters as a whole labeled as racist brick throwers…despite the fact that evidence for same is pretty thin?
And Bill, I agree that the left can be as violent as the right. Dude, as a foreigner, I am well aware of that fact.
But propaganda is about perception. 🙂
I do think the general perception when a left-wing nutso commits violence is that he is some pathetic lone crazy person, a real fringe guy, because the left as a whole has been so emasculated in the US.
While the right has gained a reputation for agression and passion, thanks in no small part to their own propaganda. I find it a bit ironic that NOW they complain about being seem as dangerous.
“See: Republican Party”
.
Bzzt! Sorry, it’s not the Republicans who are calling blacks Oreos and Uncle Toms for having the audacity to think for themselves – and to actually think of themselves as individuals and not a monolith. That would be Democrats. Thank you for playing.
Thank you for playing.
.
Funny, I could’ve swore my response was to Bill’s comment.
.
And when you talk about those having no compunctions about bullying people into being goose-steppers and how inappropriate it should be, but they simply do not care, you have to look no further than the Republican Party.
.
So, as usual, thanks for the fail.
Tony,
“Things are so polaraized right now that it sometimes feels as if everybody was on edge. All politicians (and commentators in the media) should take a few extra minutes to review their comments before they make them to at least decrease the posibility that some part of their audience will take their words as a call for violence. It is not an easy task.”
.
Funny, seems many people who are saying this now – including many of those in the MSM – are the same people who when Ari Fleischer said “People have to watch what they say” in the wake of 9/11 was roundly criticized.
.
But he worked for a President the media largely hated, so when he said he was calling for commonsense and civility, he was villified for trying to shut people up.
.
Now these are the people making fools of themselves trying to make a big deal out of Palin’s words..because they WANT to shut people up.
Outrage is very often correlated to just whose ox is being gored. Nothing new there.
.
What is great about now is that it’s become so easy to show the double standard. Chris Mathews huff and puffs about Rush Limbaugh using the word “regime” when talking about the Obama presidency, how that’s a word that should never be used…and as sure as the sun rises some bloggers dig up many instances where liberals used the word without a peep from Chris. Sometimes on his own show. At least once from his own lips.
Hey Bill,
That just proves that even Chris Matthews doesn’t watch his own show (like the rest of America).
Support for Repeal of Health Care Plan Up To 58%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/health_care_law
I don’t believe I’m revisiting this thread, but since the Tea Party and its alleged racist roots came up, I figured I should post this little gem.
.
http://www.crashtheteaparty.org/
.
Remember when I said that I was willing to bet that racists at these events were more likely to be progressives trying to discredit the movement? This guy is being open about it. They think the Tea Parties are racist homophobes so they’re going to attend the demonstrations and act like them.
.
To be fair, the guy running the site now claims he’s the one the one getting death threats. I don’t know how reliable the guy’s claims are considering he’s admittedly out to discredit the movement.
Obviously they don’t think the tea party people are racist homophobes; if they did why would they feel the need to manufacture evidence?
.
But this demonstrates what i have long believed–if you go to a demonstration or any other news event bring your own recording device!!! Do not depend on others to report reality. Anyone going to these demonstrations should take lots of pictures of anyone disrupting them, acting like a hateful bigot, or otherwise disgracing themselves and post the pictures for all to see. If they are genuine racists, well, let the world know it. If they are “fake” racists, all the better–you can score a twofer. Use their dishonesty to paint all opponents as dishonest (essentially do to them what they tried to do to you) AND, for extra added benefit, have some people who treat them as though their displays of racism are genuine expressions of their opinions. From that point on, if that person gives you any guff just trot out that photo and ask if this is the sort of person that anyone wants to associate with.
.
In fact, the sheer stupidity of openly trying to dirty trick the Tea Parties and the clumsy inability to cover their tracks makes me wonder if this wasn’t a deliberate attempt by tea party people themselves to inoculate them from any wackadoos that might show up. There have certainly been genuine dopes and cranks with signs at previous demonstrations but any that show up now will be under the suspicion of not being genuine and more easily dismissed.
In fact, the sheer stupidity of openly trying to dirty trick the Tea Parties
.
Is there a limit to the number of wheels within wheels one is allowed to have? 🙂
.
There was an AP article last night about that ‘challenge’ to provide evidence of the racial slurs. Apparently the only thing so far is a video up on YouTube that was recorded *after* the slurs were thrown. Which, to some, automatically means there is in fact no evidence. (Insert line about how this is a failure of logic here.)
.
But then, at this point, the expectation is that for every tea party event, somebody who doesn’t like the group is there to record it. Obviously that’s not happening, even in the YouTube world we live in. In reality, the notion of “pics or it didn’t happen” is rather absurd.
.
And I certainly wouldn’t expect a Tea Party supporter to release such evidence, if it exists. Why undermine your own cause?
I could swear that the video of the Congressmen walking past the tea party people included shots of some of the congressional staffers themselves using phones to tape it. Certainly, someone taped the incident that was first characterized as “spitting” at a congressman and then sort of kind of denied by the same congressman.
.
Maybe it happened. maybe it didn’t. there is no evidence, so far, other than people who have an interest in claiming it did happen saying it did and those with an interest in denying it denying it. Too tenuous a thing to convince me to sully an entire group but your mileage may very.
.
“In fact, the sheer stupidity of openly trying to dirty trick the Tea Parties and the clumsy inability to cover their tracks makes me wonder if this wasn’t a deliberate attempt by tea party people themselves to inoculate them from any wackadoos that might show up.”
.
That was my thought when looking at the website as well. I certainly believe that there are a massive amount of stupid people out there, but just how brick stupid do you have to be to dislike the Tea Party people for the reasons stated on the site and then create a website declaring that you’re going to have people infiltrate the rallies and act in way to exaggerate those traits? I mean, you’ve just given every group who knowingly has people like that in their group a free pass because they can now just point to your website and blame you for the actions of the worst amongst your group.
The more that comes out about the guy who made the website–one Jason Levin– the more likely it seems that he is just not terribly bright. he’s been a Bush hating crank for a while so it’s unlikely he is a genuine Tea Party operative trying to make the opposition look bad. And you’re correct that his inability to cover his tracks makes his idea completely counterproductive. he teaches middle school. I see this coming to a poor end for Mr. Levin. (for one thing, he just suggested to Talking Points Memo that some of his members may show up wearing nazi Uniforms. yeah…I don’t know man, maybe you have tenure but that’s really pushing things. Dope.)
.
And it gets worse–it would not surprise me if some people thought that he had a pretty clever idea and actually tried it. If they get caught (and it won’t be herd to do so–it’s not as easy to be anonymous as it once was) it will forever be part of the narrative. Levin may be the best thing to happen to the tea party since twitter.
.
.
What a dûmbášš…
.
He talked to TPM about his plans? He talked to someone that both the MSM and the Conservative pundits reference and cite more and more of late and he thinks he’s going to make the Tea Party people look bad?
.
Really, you couldn’t write a character this stupid in anything but a total farce. If you tried to write a character this slow witted in a serious political story the critics would have a field day proclaiming that no one is really that stupid in real life.
And he’s a teacher. Sometimes I weep for my profession…
.
Or maybe we are looking at it from the perspective of, you know, normal people who would not have sex with a sheep in Macy’s windows if it would get us attention and possibly even on TV. People like this assclown and Fred Phelps, it doesn’t matter if they are hated and despised as long as people notice. I guess we will see–if he’s one of those he will have no choice but to keep on ramping it up.
“Funny, I could’ve swore my response was to Bill’s comment.
.
And when you talk about those having no compunctions about bullying people into being goose-steppers and how inappropriate it should be, but they simply do not care, you have to look no further than the Republican Party.
.
So, as usual, thanks for the fail.”
.
Seeing as how he was agreeing with a point I raised, I thought it appropriate to respond, especially since your “response” was your typical one-lined phrase or talking point which had nothing to do with the issue being discussed. As usual.
.
The only two incidents of violence during the health care debate were perpetrated by those in FAVOR of health care. The most vicious was the beating of a black man in Missouri with the audacity to be against it. He was beaten by at least four SEIU members.
.
So this happens, which would have been replayed as much as Rodney King if it was four Tea Party-ers beating a black man who was FOR health care and you can hear the crickets chirping.
.
But mere accusations of racial slurs hit and the media narrative is that those in the Tea Party Movement are alleged racists and those who want to pretend we’re still in 1965 Mississippi want to accuse the opponents of health care of not realizing that the Civil rights Act was passed.
.
Yet these nuanced voices of reason have nothing to say or don’t realize it was their side’s advocates who beat up a black man for having the audacity to be uppity enough to oppose health care.
.
And they’ll say, “Well, you can’t judge everyone that’s FOR health care as violent or racist because of the actions of four people.” Which is true. Yet they have no qualms with painting the side they disagree with, with the same broad brush they would never want used on themselves.
Congrats, Jerome. It only took you six days to respond, and only after somebody else ‘revived’ the thread.
.
Say, while we’re on the subject of responses, did you ever respond to the health insurance thread a couple of weeks back, when you said you would, about somebody who can’t get health insurance now due to pre-existing conditions?
.
I don’t think you did. You might want to revisit it and ‘revive’ that thread.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Which, to some, automatically means there is in fact no evidence. (Insert line about how this is a failure of logic here.)”
.
The failure of logic is yours. The event in question, at the signing of the bill that has been dominating news for a year, had a ton of mainstream media, bloggers, etc. in attendance. Combine that with the fact that Lewis, etc. have either retracted, denied or played down the initial accusations with the fact that there have been no other credible witnesses coming forward and combine THAT with the fact that with all that media and all those mikes and cameras there is no proof, well the only people who believe these accusations are people so blinded by ideology and what they believe to be true – naturally, the worst possible character flaws – of their opponents no matter if there’s proof or not. Or morons. Or both.
.
“But then, at this point, the expectation is that for every tea party event, somebody who doesn’t like the group is there to record it. Obviously that’s not happening, even in the YouTube world we live in. In reality, the notion of “pics or it didn’t happen” is rather absurd.”
.
If you’re going to smear a group of people with a charge as serious as racism, it’s be nice if there were SOME proof. If they were celebrities, they could sue for slander at this point.
.
“And I certainly wouldn’t expect a Tea Party supporter to release such evidence, if it exists. Why undermine your own cause?”
.
Or, if you’re the ones doing the smearing, why let proof or facts get in the way of perfectly slanderous accusations?
You lie!
.
Just because nobody has it on tape DOES NOT mean it did not happen.
.
But don’t let possible truth interfere with your fantasies.
Its true that just because there is a lack of evidence doesn’t prove it didn’t happen. Still, that doesn’t make the inverse true.
.
The point of highlighting a lack of evidence is simple. We’re being told racists comprise a significant portion of the movement. However, there lack of evidence would seem to indicate that element is not dominant. The fact that some opponents are planning on pretending to be racists and going to these rallies to “exaggerate the influence” of those elements seems to only confirm this.
“Congrats, Jerome. It only took you six days to respond, and only after somebody else ‘revived’ the thread.”
.
Who gives a dámņ? I’ve been working about 19 hours a day for the past week to get projects done. That’s my priority. This is fun – or at least it is when somebody and I can get a good discussion going – usually Bill and Jerry provide that, but others do as well. But work and a couple other personal matters have taken priority, to the point that when I have posted here in the past week, it’s been on “Aladdin” or something fun.
“I’ve been working about 19 hours a day for the past week to get projects done.”
.
Who gives a dámņ?
At this point, I’m not sure that the tea party people or those who are sympathetic toward them should even WANT the attacks to stop–evidence suggests that the attacks have had no negative effect on public perception of their cause and may even be helping them. Meanwhile, support for the democrats is falling, which is unfair to the vast majority of democrats who are not engaging in ad hominem attacks against people who are only becoming more determined to vote out those they perceive as attacking them. I’ve thought for some time that smart Democrats would try to get the tea party people on their side–God knows one could argue that republicans do not automatically equal fiscal responsibility–but too much bile has been thrown to make that an easy task.
.
I’m not totally convinced that the Republicans haven’t peaked too early and that the Democrats can’t still pull out a come from behind victory in November but that does not seem to be the way things are going. And I’m amazed at how some are not just in denial but actually seeing the exact opposite of what common sense tells you. people show up with handmade misspelled signs and the pundits laugh. If i were an incumbent I’d be terrified at the sight of handmade signs. Those are people who went through the trouble. One handmade sign is worth 10 people who display whatever slick pre-made poster you hand out, even if the e comes before the i. the person who makes a sign isn’t just a likely voter they are a no doubt about it and I’m gonna drag others to the polling place with me voter. And the response is too further piss them off? Yeah, good luck with that.
Long after I’ve lost interest in this thread and moved on to other things, this thread is approaching 500 postings. Meantime my threads about stuff that’s actually, y’know, related to my career gets less than a dozen comments. So remember that next time people bìŧçh asking why I put up stuff about politics. If I didn’t, traffic around here would slow to a crawl.
.
PAD
.
Eh. We’ve been having discussions on the old BID columns. If you’re talking about the Coheed & Cambria posts though…
.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my lack of comments was based on not knowing who the band was, not being able to make the reading and working the night of the live stream.
And the reason why Obama and the Dems don’t strike the Patriot Act from the books? Pure pragmatism. It would be a huge gamble. If there is even a minor terrorist incident targeting America AFTER Obama gets rid of the Patriot Act, the Dems would be politically destroyed.
And if there is no attack, then what would be the pay off for Obama? Probably null. People who already support him would say he did just what was expected of him. Particularly when there were no major civil rights violations on account of the Act.
Well, there’s one way to test that–if the only reason Obama keeps the Act is political pragmatism he is still under no obligation to actually USE it.
.
If, instead, he keeps it and uses it then we can safely say he has no problem with it and any statements to the contrary were just a case of playing the rubes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18rich.htm
.
“It’s kind of like that legendary stunt on the prime-time soap “Dallas,” where we learned that nothing bad had really happened because the previous season’s episodes were all a dream. We now know that the wave of anger that crashed on the Capitol as the health care bill passed last month — the death threats and epithets hurled at members of Congress — was also a mirage.”
.
“True, there is video evidence of the homophobic venom directed at Barney Frank — but, hey, Frank is white, so no racism there!”
.
“But the story of race and the right did not, alas, end with the health care bill.”
This would have been more appropo for the “It’s Always The Anti-Gay politicians thread, but I just had to comment on the latest attempt to Se. Lindsay Graham and get him to “admit” he’s gay.
I diagree with this bûllšhìŧ completely. Graham does not OWE anyone an answer And what if he isn’t/ Then he’s being smeared for no good reason.
Also, those on the Left who seem to find a “greater good” from gay politicians being outed because they’re “undermining their people”, and/or have a “responsibility to” do so because it might make gay marriage more palatable, for example – well, what do you think of right-wingers who are claiming Graham’s staying in the closet is causing him to be “weak on immigration? I think it’s pretty disgusting, no matter which side does it. Oh, and I found plenty of links, but thought the one promoted by a site associated with Ron Paul, http://www.dailypaul.com/node/93463, was the most relevant to me, since it means I have lost all respect for Ron Paul for identifying himself with such garbage.
In fairness, I don’t know how much control Paul has over that site, so I don’t know if he should be pilloried for the rantings of one blogger.
.
I’d also disagree that he is being “smeared” by the accusation…though there is something to the idea that “the truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent”.
.
Jerome, always check the bottom of the page or the “About Us” section. In this case the bottom of the page works.
.
.
.
“Created and paid for by Michael A. Nystrom, a concerned citizen. Not paid for by, nor officially affiliated in any way with Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED”
Politicians lose the right to their privacy once they start to promote laws that have an impact on MY privacy.
Additionaly, nothing is more disgusting than an hypocrite.
But even so, I do not believe gay actors, for instance (and there are LOTS and LOTS of them), should be outed against their will. But the very second one of these closeted gay actors starts campaigning against gays, then they become fair game.
I don’t believe in being gentlemanly with people that want to f*** up with my life.
Then you DO believe gay actors should be outed against their will. So long as it is for the correct political reasons.
.
Which does not make it an invalid position to take but it does mitigate any outrage one can legitimately when others poke around into the private life of people because they don’t like THEIR politics either.
Then you DO believe gay actors should be outed against their will. So long as it is for the correct political reasons.
.
I think Rene is saying that hypocrisy is fair game across the board regardless of sexual persuasion.
.
PAD
I don’t necessarily see a gay (or possibly gay) politician who votes against gay interests as being de facto hypocritical. And even if they are, I’m much more upset at their positions than over any possible interpretation on my part of their hypocrisy.
.
For example, hate crime laws is an issue that one can oppose while still supporting gay rights, since I personally consider those laws to be problematical even if they potentially benefit people I like. Even if they benefit me. So no hypocrisy there.
.
I have often stated my support for gay marriage but I do not consider everyone who does not support it to be a bigot.
.
I strongly disagree with those who would deny gays the right to adopt kids but if a gay person strongly felt that kids should only be adopted by a married couple I would not consider him or her especially wrong because of their sexuality, only because I think their position is the wrong one.
.
If the politician was openly demonizing gays–which is way different from opposing laws that are deemed by some to be pro-gay–I would have less problem with the outing, most because I would be happy to do just about anything legal to dump the guy (and I could probably rationalize it as doing them a favor, since anyone who suffers from that kind of pathology probably needs help. In fact, you almost have to wonder if they WANT to be caught.) Don’t know a whole lot about Lindsey Graham, is he some kind of Fred Phelps type or just a guy whose opinions you don’t like?
.
At any rate, i think outing is a weapon that should be used with careful consideration. If at all.
Dan,
“Dishonest argument?” Can you READ?”
.
Yeah, I write for a living and have actually read quite a few legal books and took Constititional Law courses. So yeah, I can read. Like right now, on your forehead I see the letters F-U-C-K-I-N-G M-O-R-O-N
.
“Because any fool can read (a) the 4th amendment”
Yeah. That’s true. Even you were able to.
.
” and compare it to (b) the Patriot Act. The PA allows warrentless searches and that is a CLEAR violation of the fourth amendment.”
.
No. It’s not. You don’t know what you’re talking about. First, the Supreme Court has never rules it unconstitutional. Second, many judges give police discretion regarding warrants as long as their is a “reasonable window’ or “exigent circumstance” – i.e. someone is ODing and the cops find something in trying to help the criminal – and that’s just a few examples. The law doesn’t mean just what you want it to mean. It’s interpreted by human beings.
.
Whether the gov’t has successfully used it or not is IRRELEVANT. The PA itself contradicts the Constitution and the Republicans support it wholeheartedly.
.
I mean are you really THAT defecient?
.
“Let me add that I don’t think the president and congress run this country. The CIA and military do.”
There’s my answer.
.
“I have no doubt that when Obama got elected, he had a private meeting where those two told him precisely what his policies would be regarding such things as Iraq and the Patriot Act.”
.
Wow, man. Obama as bootlicker. You give him far less credit than I do.
Maida, stop being abusive. It’s uncalled for.
Jerry,
Thank you for the clarification re: Paul. Still, he should denounce it, if he hasn’t already and knows of it’s existence.