Not that I ever would be and I do recognize that I'd have to be a serious one and that would involve being extinct, BUT..., I do have an interest in politics. Despite some horseshit opinions, the 2010 election results were not about the Left staying home and were about the "middle" swapping Parties. As a GOPer that re-alignment after the BushCo disaster (he who is never named) would have been extremely heartening - especially in the face of the '08 election.
If I'd been a GOPer I'd have seen that as my moment to feed that economic dis-satisfaction that got us into a position of power. I would have gone out of my way by considerable distance to work on economic issues and paint Democratic resistance as ideological sabotage. Think tanks would've been churning out policy proposals and the media could have played stenographer to my economic arguments. Not how that was done.
In a position where unemployment officially stands at 8.3% and really stands a hell of a lot higher it would have been nearly impossible to knock me off that message. The sitting President has problems, real ones and some that can be massaged into something. Discontent with ACA is real, though its crummy polling happens from both sides, but turning ACA into a position to slam women from isn't where I'd go. Talking about small government works with quite a few people - right up until they see themselves getting caught in that drain, so you re-assure them. The number of illegal immigrants in this country strikes a nerve, but stupidity on the issue alienates Hispanics who have a constituency that would align, broadly speaking, with GOPer stances. I would want that part of the group to be my friends, not horrified because they know Jan Brewer junk will mean they'll get pulled over and harassed.
I would pay attention to national demographics and especially the part that says my cadre is dying off and not being replaced. I'm real sure I'd pay attention to the largest voting bloc in the US, women, and make sure I'm not actively trying to piss them off. I'd make sure that Party leaders paid attention to State legislative actions and pushed really hard to keep them from being stupid and offensive.
If I wrote about GOP politics from a real platform as a GOPer I sure wouldn't have waited 40 years to complain about the train going off the track. I'd have spent that time dissuading stupidity and warning about the lunatic fringe rather than encouraging it. You can't play at being David Brooks or George Will for decades and then do a big turnabout and suddenly call the situation stupid. People who read you will just ask,"WTF?"
Since I'm well left of Democratic policies my prescriptions wouldn't work, but one thing is sure - I would not be going out of my way to alienate large voting blocs. A stupid person might think a Blount Amendment is a clever way to gut "Obamacare," but because it is a gutting mechanism it is open to mockery. Instead of being half-clever they could have put themselves firmly in the corner of the godbotherers by sticking to religious institutions without facing absolute mockery. Culture is a tricky thing, the backlash from the 60s continues this half century later - just witness the "Hippies" term still in currency. But culture does shift, people lose homophobia, people of another color become normative, people get tired of war and those trends aren't stopped by standing athwart the ideological fence and screaming, "STOP!!@*^*^%!!" You find a way to deal with it and still appeal to your... damn... whatever they are and still include the non-crazed. For over half a century nobody on that side seemed to mind the whispers of "nigger" or "wet-back" or "fag" since they were short-term winners - there is a cost to be paid.
I'm also real glad I don't have to stand there with my furry face hanging out and tell my wife and 'theoretical' daughter that they're "sluts." I like my skin where it is.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Monday, March 05, 2012
Pantie Sniffers
Mormonism isn't supposed to be an issue and neither is Catholicism or any other Christian-ism. (careful about the other -isms) It might not be minus all the pantie sniffing the GOP has gotten up to. Now I'm not under-emphasizing the "Evangelic" distaste for the Mormons but that is only a slice of the electorate. The problem the candidates for President have is that the GOP has ignored the economy other than to plump for the 0.1% I know the current theme is the one percenters but the GOP is really about that one tenth. What the GOP in States and in the Congress have concentrated on is cultural warfare which in the end boils down to GOD.
Santorum is, of course, way out ahead of the rest of his pack on the god thing and strident religiosity, ie Catholicism. Our favorite salamander, Newt, isn't far behind. But you have to leave it to Multiple Mitt to decide that Rush Limbaugh used the wrong words to slime most women in the US over sex. He stands on stage with his wife and his multiple Mitt clones glorying in his wealthy ability to provide all those kids with millions of dollars while ordinary folks sweat car insurance for one kid. He can afford to ignore birth control (I have no idea if his wife has enjoyed all that birthing) and stick to some cult like bullshit and decide Rush used the "wrong words."
Mitt may not be real comfortable in the cultural warrior armor but that sure isn't because he's some closeted liberal. Oh, he is those guys - he just doesn't enjoy trying to force it on the folks who've given Mormonism a miss (well, deceased baptisms to the side). Don't misunderstand, Mittens is all for the junk Rick and the rest are gleeful about, it is just beneath him to grin while shoving it down the rube's throats but he'd sign such bills in a heartbeat.
If you're thinking the President is in a walk away or that the down-ticket is assured, there was a character known as Pollyanna. You may already be real tired of this crap, I know I am - but it is just warming up. The GOP is not going away and they're not heading toward increased sanity. There is a difference between being disappointed by Democrats and being horrified by GOPers. Lesser of two evils doesn't exactly do that justice.
Santorum is, of course, way out ahead of the rest of his pack on the god thing and strident religiosity, ie Catholicism. Our favorite salamander, Newt, isn't far behind. But you have to leave it to Multiple Mitt to decide that Rush Limbaugh used the wrong words to slime most women in the US over sex. He stands on stage with his wife and his multiple Mitt clones glorying in his wealthy ability to provide all those kids with millions of dollars while ordinary folks sweat car insurance for one kid. He can afford to ignore birth control (I have no idea if his wife has enjoyed all that birthing) and stick to some cult like bullshit and decide Rush used the "wrong words."
Mitt may not be real comfortable in the cultural warrior armor but that sure isn't because he's some closeted liberal. Oh, he is those guys - he just doesn't enjoy trying to force it on the folks who've given Mormonism a miss (well, deceased baptisms to the side). Don't misunderstand, Mittens is all for the junk Rick and the rest are gleeful about, it is just beneath him to grin while shoving it down the rube's throats but he'd sign such bills in a heartbeat.
If you're thinking the President is in a walk away or that the down-ticket is assured, there was a character known as Pollyanna. You may already be real tired of this crap, I know I am - but it is just warming up. The GOP is not going away and they're not heading toward increased sanity. There is a difference between being disappointed by Democrats and being horrified by GOPers. Lesser of two evils doesn't exactly do that justice.
Who Apologizes?
There has been a lot of talk about the Non-Apology - the one about "two words." Other than the fact that it took a lot more than two words to demand sex tapes, to make references to frequency of sex, and to lie completely about Ms Fluke referring to her sex life at all, you might take it as complete horse manure, anyhow. But...
Since we seem to be talking about apologies, I'd like to remind everybody just exactly who it is that does the apologizing when it comes to Rush, and it ain't Rush. If you've got memory cells in operation, some anyhow, it will be stuck in there somewhere that it is Republicans who apologize to Rush. Repeatedly. Just in case you were wondering what the GOP is all about...
Update Edit:
A couple things occurred to me, one of which is that thinking Rush is going away soon is, well, an error. This won't have hurt him with his audience and radio advertising is a competitive advertising method. There will be those who will measure loss against gain by talking to that audience, but the audience will be there, anyhow.
This isn't about the audience at all. Forget the audience - they agree. Mitt Romney "wouldn't have chosen those words," is potent with people who haven't gone crazy and have daughters, wives, girlfriends, hell - in general see women as something other than chattel. Make it clear, Mitt agrees but he just doesn't like the "words." Mitt agrees she's a slut, just another word would be better. Mitt agrees she should make sex tapes for Rush and his ilk. Mitt agrees that Ms Fluke was all up in Congress' face about her sex life. That would make Mittens a softer spoken Rush... So somebody will ask Mitt about this?
These people (GOPers/candidates) and their apologists are pigs (sorry porcine mammals). No pissed off father is going to get up and slap Mittens silly but keep in mind that he just did "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."
Since we seem to be talking about apologies, I'd like to remind everybody just exactly who it is that does the apologizing when it comes to Rush, and it ain't Rush. If you've got memory cells in operation, some anyhow, it will be stuck in there somewhere that it is Republicans who apologize to Rush. Repeatedly. Just in case you were wondering what the GOP is all about...
Update Edit:
A couple things occurred to me, one of which is that thinking Rush is going away soon is, well, an error. This won't have hurt him with his audience and radio advertising is a competitive advertising method. There will be those who will measure loss against gain by talking to that audience, but the audience will be there, anyhow.
This isn't about the audience at all. Forget the audience - they agree. Mitt Romney "wouldn't have chosen those words," is potent with people who haven't gone crazy and have daughters, wives, girlfriends, hell - in general see women as something other than chattel. Make it clear, Mitt agrees but he just doesn't like the "words." Mitt agrees she's a slut, just another word would be better. Mitt agrees she should make sex tapes for Rush and his ilk. Mitt agrees that Ms Fluke was all up in Congress' face about her sex life. That would make Mittens a softer spoken Rush... So somebody will ask Mitt about this?
These people (GOPers/candidates) and their apologists are pigs (sorry porcine mammals). No pissed off father is going to get up and slap Mittens silly but keep in mind that he just did "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Slut Solidarity
I guess it's time for me to out myself as a slut. I admit it, I've had sex for something other than procreation. There. I said it. I'm willing to cast myself into the pool of co-eds and all the others who've had sex for some reason other than procreation.
Now, never mind that what Ms Fluke was testifying to was medical remediation use of contraceptives as opposed to sex at the drop of a hat use. You see, I don't give a damn - women's health issues are women's health issues, whether it involves medical prevention of disorders or simply prevention of pregnancy. It is not the employers' business exactly why a woman proposes to use contraceptives, not in the least. It is not for a couple of reasons. It is not their body. The insurance is a part of compensation for work. The employer is in business, regardless of their ideas of sex, not in the business of religion. If Catholics and others want to have a say about what their people do, they have a pulpit and the alternative of getting the hell out of business. A hospital may have the adjective Catholic appended to it, but that doesn't mean it isn't in the business of being a hospital.
As for the MORAL STANDING of Catholic Bishops - let's just talk a bit about cover-ups of child sex abuse in just about the same breath as other employees.
Now, never mind that what Ms Fluke was testifying to was medical remediation use of contraceptives as opposed to sex at the drop of a hat use. You see, I don't give a damn - women's health issues are women's health issues, whether it involves medical prevention of disorders or simply prevention of pregnancy. It is not the employers' business exactly why a woman proposes to use contraceptives, not in the least. It is not for a couple of reasons. It is not their body. The insurance is a part of compensation for work. The employer is in business, regardless of their ideas of sex, not in the business of religion. If Catholics and others want to have a say about what their people do, they have a pulpit and the alternative of getting the hell out of business. A hospital may have the adjective Catholic appended to it, but that doesn't mean it isn't in the business of being a hospital.
As for the MORAL STANDING of Catholic Bishops - let's just talk a bit about cover-ups of child sex abuse in just about the same breath as other employees.
Friday, March 02, 2012
Rush Goes Where The GOP Is
It has been kind of funny to watch GOPers tripping over nasty impediments like the truth to get some distance from good ole boy Rush Limbaugh. The GOP has made not a single statement regarding male erection drugs and freedom of religion. This in the face of a hell of a lot of religious doctrine regarding adultery where there seems to be no requirements that those "ED" drugs be dispensed to only married faithful men. You might even get to an WTF sort of moment where there's no heterosexual requirement...
They really do mean "sluts" and yes, Rep "Bo(eh)ner" it really is about a War On Women. The "Ultrasound Bills" are part and parcel with that attitude. C'mon, what mentally capable woman has some kind of doubt what an abortion is about removing? There really exists some doubt as to whether a woman knows an abortion involves a baby and that baby means child? She's a slut and must be shamed.
What the GOPers are objecting to right now is that Rush has said exactly what they mean and getting people upset by the saying of it. Beat them and their fellow travelers over the head with this - repeatedly and forcefully.
Have I mentioned that "oh there's a middle way liberals" make me want to puke?
They really do mean "sluts" and yes, Rep "Bo(eh)ner" it really is about a War On Women. The "Ultrasound Bills" are part and parcel with that attitude. C'mon, what mentally capable woman has some kind of doubt what an abortion is about removing? There really exists some doubt as to whether a woman knows an abortion involves a baby and that baby means child? She's a slut and must be shamed.
What the GOPers are objecting to right now is that Rush has said exactly what they mean and getting people upset by the saying of it. Beat them and their fellow travelers over the head with this - repeatedly and forcefully.
Have I mentioned that "oh there's a middle way liberals" make me want to puke?
WaPo Both Sides Do It, cough, gag, choke
You'd have to read this entire piece of junk by the WaPo Editorial Board to understand how far that paper has fallen.
No shit, they actually published something containing this line. Drowning these idiots in their own sea of mediocrity and false equivalence would be doing the journalist world a giant favor. They can't go bust too quickly for me.
Do me a favor and don't add to their clicks, find abstracts elsewhere.
BalloonJuice will do.
Incivility is not a one-way street in America. Far from it: Mr. Limbaugh’s left-wing equivalents have trashed any number of conservatives over the years. Conservatives have a point when they protest that the “mainstream media” don’t always heed their legitimate grievances.
No shit, they actually published something containing this line. Drowning these idiots in their own sea of mediocrity and false equivalence would be doing the journalist world a giant favor. They can't go bust too quickly for me.
Do me a favor and don't add to their clicks, find abstracts elsewhere.
BalloonJuice will do.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Breitbart Is Dead...
I suppose this is an oportunity to be gracious. I guess I can try.
Good people also died today and I'm sorry for everyone's families.
Good people also died today and I'm sorry for everyone's families.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The GOP's Difficult Primary
I just got done listening to Dana Milbanks essentially apologizing for the GOP by blaming its Primary, paraphrasing, he said this primary has made things difficult for the GOP and blaming a handful of extremists for hijacking it. This almost in the same breath as saying David Brooks has spent decades as a "reasonable Republican." David goddamn Brooks, who has spent those decades justifying and rationalizing each step the GOPers have taken into lunacy. Up until right now, Our Mister Brooks hasn't found a damn thing to complain about. Rather than actually complain, he's blurred the lines and blunted the edges of craziness with sociological crap drooled into his column.
The Primary is the problem? This is the breeding program of the GOP finally maturing. They've played at this for decades upon decades and just now the "reasonable" people are saying, "Huh?" This is supposed to make anyone whose paid attention think that maybe Goldwater, Nixon, and St Ronnie were just kidding? Dana Milbanks is credited with being an astute observer of politics and he comes up with blaming the goddam Primary? Nobody was watching Sarah Palin's campaign in '08? Apparently not Milbanks.
I'd be seriously remiss if I didn't call out the Democrats who kept finding a middle way and being all "collegial" and not using plain language to call stupid and crazy, "stupid and crazy." "My esteemed colleague is making a mistake" scarcely covers the ground of being a lying batshit crazy fuckhead. When Sen Kyl stood on the Senate floor and made his "not intended as a factual statement" nobody stood up and said, "That, sir, is a flat out lie." 95% vs 3% is not a mistake and "not a factual statement" is a fucking lie.
I would surely be just as remiss for not assigning blame to the nasty equivocators who wear (D) labels as they shifted politically farther and farther right and sabotaged everything marginally liberal. That is liberal, not goddam LEFT. Sure, the media has played stenographer and the voters just paid no attention, but that sure is easy to do if the elected officials just suck the corporate tit and say not spit that might serve the interest of the public.
Oh hell, just put the President back in and elect whatever (D) happens to be running and we won't go into the toilet quite as quickly. Some of you might actually have the pleasure of voting for someone that IS a Democrat and DOES give a damn about the public. Most of you, oh well... Dana is on your side.
The Primary is the problem? This is the breeding program of the GOP finally maturing. They've played at this for decades upon decades and just now the "reasonable" people are saying, "Huh?" This is supposed to make anyone whose paid attention think that maybe Goldwater, Nixon, and St Ronnie were just kidding? Dana Milbanks is credited with being an astute observer of politics and he comes up with blaming the goddam Primary? Nobody was watching Sarah Palin's campaign in '08? Apparently not Milbanks.
I'd be seriously remiss if I didn't call out the Democrats who kept finding a middle way and being all "collegial" and not using plain language to call stupid and crazy, "stupid and crazy." "My esteemed colleague is making a mistake" scarcely covers the ground of being a lying batshit crazy fuckhead. When Sen Kyl stood on the Senate floor and made his "not intended as a factual statement" nobody stood up and said, "That, sir, is a flat out lie." 95% vs 3% is not a mistake and "not a factual statement" is a fucking lie.
I would surely be just as remiss for not assigning blame to the nasty equivocators who wear (D) labels as they shifted politically farther and farther right and sabotaged everything marginally liberal. That is liberal, not goddam LEFT. Sure, the media has played stenographer and the voters just paid no attention, but that sure is easy to do if the elected officials just suck the corporate tit and say not spit that might serve the interest of the public.
Oh hell, just put the President back in and elect whatever (D) happens to be running and we won't go into the toilet quite as quickly. Some of you might actually have the pleasure of voting for someone that IS a Democrat and DOES give a damn about the public. Most of you, oh well... Dana is on your side.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Law, Morality, and Relgion
It is frequently asserted that laws are moral and that religion has a hand in that. Sometimes this gets mixed up in the concept that without religion there is no morality. This idea is understandable, no religion will last that creates social conditions that end in disorder and chaos, which means that any lasting religion will set out codes of behavior that result in some sort of social comity.
Governments that aren't a religion have a similar goal, social comity and lack of disorder and chaos. Having common goals often results in similar restrictions and requirements. A religion that teaches that murder is against the teachings and rules of the deity is certainly increasing social comity and decreasing disorder and chaos and it calls that stricture morality (god-given morality). A government concerned with social comity and lack of disorder and chaos will also place restrictions on murder, it requires no deity to do so, nor even morality - it is simple self-interest and survival for it to do so.
Governments have a couple tools at hand to achieve the ends of order and comity, punishment and reward, generally monetary or physical. Because a government deals with the temporal and worldly it really can't count on a deity to take immediate care of those rewards and punishments. It will deal with malefactors in a temporal manner, taking their money, their freedom, or their lives and do so with force. The tools the government has are abjectly amoral, it will force you rather than appeal to your "better nature." Once a law is established you are not asked about it, you are told and that telling is backed up by force. Compelling is not about morality, it is not an appeal to morality, it is not backed by morality, it is plainly unconcerned with the entire concept.
You can certainly build a government around damn near any document the populace will bear, holy books or other concepts of order and comity but once that is done the whole affair becomes at best amoral. It is popular to call Nazi Germany evil and immoral and the behavior of individuals involved does offend most of us at a moral level. That government wasn't destroyed because it was amoral or immoral, it was destroyed because it failed the basic goals of order and comity. It failed them internally and more importantly, internationally. The wholesale slaughter of a citizenry is not order, it is force at ferocious levels and it has nothing to do with comity.
There certainly is a moral component to the idea of slavery, it offends a basic empathy. As a feature of government it fails on another level, it certainly has nothing to do with comity for the subjected group and fails as order in the face of the resistance of that group to subjugation and the need for extreme force to maintain it. It is easy to forget that order requires very broad agreement or extreme force and extreme force is in itself disorder if applied at all broadly. It is certainly extreme force when a police officer shoots an armed robber, but that level of force is applied individually and rarely.
Drug laws are frequently put forward as a moral issue dealt with by law. It is pretty easy to track the success of those laws. Drugs certainly do have effects on comity and order, getting run over by a truck driven by an incapacitated driver is real in terms of order as are deaths from overdoses or psychological consequences. These outcomes are entirely separate from the morality of drug usage and because drugs are treated differently than the issue demands for comity and order the laws fail. Tremendous amounts of enforcement result in huge incarceration figures and huge profits for avoiding the laws leading to disorder and enmity afflicting entire communities.
It is entirely reasonable to have a moral code that aligns with laws and to wish to conduct a life in accordance with or in excess of law, it another thing to think that those laws are moral or religious. Through out history there have been governments that operated under cover of morality or religion, enforcing dogma as law. In the shorter term when their populations are homogenous they tend to be pretty efficient at keeping themselves in power. Over time they become increasingly forceful with their populations which fails the goals of comity and order and finally results in failure. The time scales of failure have accelerated through out history progressing through millenia to centuries to decades. Minus the intervention of outside interests, Iran should prove an interesting test case.
Hell, the US may prove interesting in that regard.
Governments that aren't a religion have a similar goal, social comity and lack of disorder and chaos. Having common goals often results in similar restrictions and requirements. A religion that teaches that murder is against the teachings and rules of the deity is certainly increasing social comity and decreasing disorder and chaos and it calls that stricture morality (god-given morality). A government concerned with social comity and lack of disorder and chaos will also place restrictions on murder, it requires no deity to do so, nor even morality - it is simple self-interest and survival for it to do so.
Governments have a couple tools at hand to achieve the ends of order and comity, punishment and reward, generally monetary or physical. Because a government deals with the temporal and worldly it really can't count on a deity to take immediate care of those rewards and punishments. It will deal with malefactors in a temporal manner, taking their money, their freedom, or their lives and do so with force. The tools the government has are abjectly amoral, it will force you rather than appeal to your "better nature." Once a law is established you are not asked about it, you are told and that telling is backed up by force. Compelling is not about morality, it is not an appeal to morality, it is not backed by morality, it is plainly unconcerned with the entire concept.
You can certainly build a government around damn near any document the populace will bear, holy books or other concepts of order and comity but once that is done the whole affair becomes at best amoral. It is popular to call Nazi Germany evil and immoral and the behavior of individuals involved does offend most of us at a moral level. That government wasn't destroyed because it was amoral or immoral, it was destroyed because it failed the basic goals of order and comity. It failed them internally and more importantly, internationally. The wholesale slaughter of a citizenry is not order, it is force at ferocious levels and it has nothing to do with comity.
There certainly is a moral component to the idea of slavery, it offends a basic empathy. As a feature of government it fails on another level, it certainly has nothing to do with comity for the subjected group and fails as order in the face of the resistance of that group to subjugation and the need for extreme force to maintain it. It is easy to forget that order requires very broad agreement or extreme force and extreme force is in itself disorder if applied at all broadly. It is certainly extreme force when a police officer shoots an armed robber, but that level of force is applied individually and rarely.
Drug laws are frequently put forward as a moral issue dealt with by law. It is pretty easy to track the success of those laws. Drugs certainly do have effects on comity and order, getting run over by a truck driven by an incapacitated driver is real in terms of order as are deaths from overdoses or psychological consequences. These outcomes are entirely separate from the morality of drug usage and because drugs are treated differently than the issue demands for comity and order the laws fail. Tremendous amounts of enforcement result in huge incarceration figures and huge profits for avoiding the laws leading to disorder and enmity afflicting entire communities.
It is entirely reasonable to have a moral code that aligns with laws and to wish to conduct a life in accordance with or in excess of law, it another thing to think that those laws are moral or religious. Through out history there have been governments that operated under cover of morality or religion, enforcing dogma as law. In the shorter term when their populations are homogenous they tend to be pretty efficient at keeping themselves in power. Over time they become increasingly forceful with their populations which fails the goals of comity and order and finally results in failure. The time scales of failure have accelerated through out history progressing through millenia to centuries to decades. Minus the intervention of outside interests, Iran should prove an interesting test case.
Hell, the US may prove interesting in that regard.
Satanic Influences
You'd need a pretty large ruler to measure my incredulity that as a part of political dialogue in this country I'd be addressing this as any more than a remote historical reference. There are a couple things in religious mythos that I find real offensive and at the risk of offending sensitive sensibilities I'm going to name them.
Santa God - the granter of wishes with a list
The Exclusive Club God - gotta say the right words right omnipotent creator of universes
Satan
The King of Lies, Deceiver of Kings, the ultimate evil, that guy - Satan is my target... because that's the title.(I learned with "Harley Porn" not to kid with titles) It would seem that the US of A is being targeted by this character, really, somebody semi-important said so.(in front of god and everybody) This Satan personage is the flip cover of Santa God. He is an active malevolent actor in the world with a list. He has his favorites and those he'd destroy and he can be brought to play by wishes. If certain people are to be believed he's pretty good at his job.
Sorry, I just don't buy into this blame game, this personification of a concept like evil. If God is good he must have an opposite, like light and dark because... well because. Some of this follows from the "Exclusive Club God" concept because you cannot be good without the right God and the right Words, it just doesn't matter what you do or try - you're wrong if you do it otherwise. This puts an onus on God, he can't be the source of evil since he's the good so somebody else has to bear the burden. Never mind that means that either God created or tolerates (because of an oops) EVIL in person of Satan. I know there are all kinds of stories about how this came to be - that's the short version.
I get along with the idea of a Creator because it works for me, nothing fancy to be found there, just that. I don't mind metaphors about evil, about the impulses of us to be small, to be greedy, to be murderous, to be... Folks, if I talk about my "bad side" I assure you that I am nowhere schizophrenic to think that there's other little rat bastard residing in my consciousness. I'm talking about a desire to not do things the hard way, to not have to put myself out not some cartoon horned guy standing on my left shoulder whispering in my ear. Whatever I do requires some time, energy, and some kind of thought and I don't just want to increase that. After all, I started out as the ultimately selfish and self-concerned being there is - a baby. From that start I began to learn and that's the part, right there, that counts.
I learned that I wasn't the only one that was hungry and I already knew I didn't like being hungry - I had discovered that those other shapes were not there simply for my benefit, that they existed as separate humans - and they might not like being hungry either. That learning process applied across the board creates a moral set which is based most firmly on the recognition that I am not the center, that I share reality with others who are similarly constructed. That learning can get broken or shorted or a lot of things that result in behaviors that reflect something entirely different. What I'm doing is using a lot of words for one, empathy.
A society cannot allow a mental defect that results in bad outcomes to remain unchecked. A society won't work if indiscriminate killing is allowed, it simply won't hang together. That is an entirely different question than the one of a moral set that proposes killing is wrong and prohibited by that empathy thing. We teach soldiers to suspend that empathy in warfare where its degree interferes with the mission. There are consequences to this suspension, we seem to agree it is worth it.
Jesus (and others) put it pretty clearly, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." More words meaning empathy. God and rituals are not required for empathy, it is a natural understanding of humans existing, but it does require work to keep it in effect and in actions. Because effort is tightly bound to survival we do not lightly increase it any more than a mountain lion goes looking for a fight to get dinner. Because we're not mountain lions we're capable of placing an abstract above some considerations and that varies wildly. It doesn't require a Satan to place empathy behind other considerations, all it takes is a lack of willingness or a mental defect.
Sometimes people are broken in ways we really don't understand and even when we understand something like a brain injury, we don't quite know how they get there. We know that brains can have their wiring scrambled or chemicals missing resulting in undesirable behaviors. Before we knew some of those things about outwardly human people it was assumed some spiritual, some invisible influence must be at work.
Religions would cease to exist without followers, Greek mythology is practically speaking extinct. The connection between the followers and hierarchy was broken, for a lot of reasons, but it was broken. Religions are hierarchical, there are the deities, then there are the books/words, then there are the interpreters, and then there are the faithful. The structure collapses if that hierarchy isn't maintained and there are methods for ensuring that it does. Fear is the most common because it is easiest. One of the first things we learned was that pain was to be avoided and the assertion that disobedience will lead to pain is real effective. Most of us learned that absences of pain didn't mean happiness, but not being happy beat the heck out of pain so the absence of "glory" won't quite do to keep the troops in line. The something more involves stuff like lakes of fire presided over by the natural deity of disobedience - evil personified, our guy Satan. It was a stroke of genius or maybe necessity to make the disciplinarian and source of disobedience or lack the same guy. Keep in mind that maintaining that hierarchy requires exclusivity, if something outside that club works, all those pieces are unnecessary. A whip hand is required and Satan wields it. My choices are join the right club or be whipped.
So it is that a nation's government that concerns itself with the worldly and temporal order of its citizens without religious strictures is in violation. It is under the sway of the guy with the whip.
Santa God - the granter of wishes with a list
The Exclusive Club God - gotta say the right words right omnipotent creator of universes
Satan
The King of Lies, Deceiver of Kings, the ultimate evil, that guy - Satan is my target... because that's the title.(I learned with "Harley Porn" not to kid with titles) It would seem that the US of A is being targeted by this character, really, somebody semi-important said so.(in front of god and everybody) This Satan personage is the flip cover of Santa God. He is an active malevolent actor in the world with a list. He has his favorites and those he'd destroy and he can be brought to play by wishes. If certain people are to be believed he's pretty good at his job.
Sorry, I just don't buy into this blame game, this personification of a concept like evil. If God is good he must have an opposite, like light and dark because... well because. Some of this follows from the "Exclusive Club God" concept because you cannot be good without the right God and the right Words, it just doesn't matter what you do or try - you're wrong if you do it otherwise. This puts an onus on God, he can't be the source of evil since he's the good so somebody else has to bear the burden. Never mind that means that either God created or tolerates (because of an oops) EVIL in person of Satan. I know there are all kinds of stories about how this came to be - that's the short version.
I get along with the idea of a Creator because it works for me, nothing fancy to be found there, just that. I don't mind metaphors about evil, about the impulses of us to be small, to be greedy, to be murderous, to be... Folks, if I talk about my "bad side" I assure you that I am nowhere schizophrenic to think that there's other little rat bastard residing in my consciousness. I'm talking about a desire to not do things the hard way, to not have to put myself out not some cartoon horned guy standing on my left shoulder whispering in my ear. Whatever I do requires some time, energy, and some kind of thought and I don't just want to increase that. After all, I started out as the ultimately selfish and self-concerned being there is - a baby. From that start I began to learn and that's the part, right there, that counts.
I learned that I wasn't the only one that was hungry and I already knew I didn't like being hungry - I had discovered that those other shapes were not there simply for my benefit, that they existed as separate humans - and they might not like being hungry either. That learning process applied across the board creates a moral set which is based most firmly on the recognition that I am not the center, that I share reality with others who are similarly constructed. That learning can get broken or shorted or a lot of things that result in behaviors that reflect something entirely different. What I'm doing is using a lot of words for one, empathy.
A society cannot allow a mental defect that results in bad outcomes to remain unchecked. A society won't work if indiscriminate killing is allowed, it simply won't hang together. That is an entirely different question than the one of a moral set that proposes killing is wrong and prohibited by that empathy thing. We teach soldiers to suspend that empathy in warfare where its degree interferes with the mission. There are consequences to this suspension, we seem to agree it is worth it.
Jesus (and others) put it pretty clearly, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." More words meaning empathy. God and rituals are not required for empathy, it is a natural understanding of humans existing, but it does require work to keep it in effect and in actions. Because effort is tightly bound to survival we do not lightly increase it any more than a mountain lion goes looking for a fight to get dinner. Because we're not mountain lions we're capable of placing an abstract above some considerations and that varies wildly. It doesn't require a Satan to place empathy behind other considerations, all it takes is a lack of willingness or a mental defect.
Sometimes people are broken in ways we really don't understand and even when we understand something like a brain injury, we don't quite know how they get there. We know that brains can have their wiring scrambled or chemicals missing resulting in undesirable behaviors. Before we knew some of those things about outwardly human people it was assumed some spiritual, some invisible influence must be at work.
Religions would cease to exist without followers, Greek mythology is practically speaking extinct. The connection between the followers and hierarchy was broken, for a lot of reasons, but it was broken. Religions are hierarchical, there are the deities, then there are the books/words, then there are the interpreters, and then there are the faithful. The structure collapses if that hierarchy isn't maintained and there are methods for ensuring that it does. Fear is the most common because it is easiest. One of the first things we learned was that pain was to be avoided and the assertion that disobedience will lead to pain is real effective. Most of us learned that absences of pain didn't mean happiness, but not being happy beat the heck out of pain so the absence of "glory" won't quite do to keep the troops in line. The something more involves stuff like lakes of fire presided over by the natural deity of disobedience - evil personified, our guy Satan. It was a stroke of genius or maybe necessity to make the disciplinarian and source of disobedience or lack the same guy. Keep in mind that maintaining that hierarchy requires exclusivity, if something outside that club works, all those pieces are unnecessary. A whip hand is required and Satan wields it. My choices are join the right club or be whipped.
So it is that a nation's government that concerns itself with the worldly and temporal order of its citizens without religious strictures is in violation. It is under the sway of the guy with the whip.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ron Paul's Latest Panty-sniffing
Let's set this stage a bit with Ron Paul's Campaign site and the "official" statement regarding abortion.
I don't know about your understanding of abortion but I will state that Libertarianism and the above two statements don't exactly line up - like at all.
In regard to that Paultard baiting headline, from the CNN "debate" Rep Paul:
Maybe you folks thinking no Federal War on Drugs means you get to smoke pot (hint - not a f***ing chance) ought to also give up on the idea that sexy-time without children as an outcome is on the Paul approved list. As for you married folks, pot or otherwise, you do that stuff and not have kids for it - well, you're immoral and a part of the decline of the US.
The guy tells you up front that he's not about your personal liberties, he's about the Fed not being involved. He's all for Government telling you what to do but just his Last Confederate Standing version. He tells you and you don't listen - your imagination just runs wild with your ideas and not what he means. Words for that run from "delusional" to "really damned stupid." Libertarian my ass - just another bigoted panty-sniffer.
Excuse the rest of us for pointing and laughing.
And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:
* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”
* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”
I don't know about your understanding of abortion but I will state that Libertarianism and the above two statements don't exactly line up - like at all.
In regard to that Paultard baiting headline, from the CNN "debate" Rep Paul:
“But sort of along the line of the [contraception] pills creating immorality, I don’t see it that way. I think the immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. So you don’t blame the pills.”
Maybe you folks thinking no Federal War on Drugs means you get to smoke pot (hint - not a f***ing chance) ought to also give up on the idea that sexy-time without children as an outcome is on the Paul approved list. As for you married folks, pot or otherwise, you do that stuff and not have kids for it - well, you're immoral and a part of the decline of the US.
The guy tells you up front that he's not about your personal liberties, he's about the Fed not being involved. He's all for Government telling you what to do but just his Last Confederate Standing version. He tells you and you don't listen - your imagination just runs wild with your ideas and not what he means. Words for that run from "delusional" to "really damned stupid." Libertarian my ass - just another bigoted panty-sniffer.
Excuse the rest of us for pointing and laughing.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
...No Religious Test...
According to the Constitution there is not supposed to be a qualification for office that depends on religion. Now, to be quite accurate, that is a matter of law rather than whatever stupidity appeals to voters. Today we seem to think that the fact that a Mormon actually thinks he has a shot at the Presidency means something.
Ahem.
So what? Let's fire up that Way Back Machine for just a damn second. Thomas Jefferson was a deist. These Christian voters wouldn't recognize that "faith" as anything in the least similar to what they ingest as Christianity.
The GOP and enough others have ginned up a new religion out of whole cloth. They call it Secular Humanism. I don't know what the hell that is as far as doctrines and something to kneel to or pray to. I do know what secular means and I can even get to a definition:
1
a: of or relating to the worldly or temporal
A relationship to a god is completely missing in this definition and seems to abrogate the idea of a religion. Now maybe "humanism" is some sort of qualifier that makes it work. The American Humanist Association has this to say:
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity
I don't get it. No god and no rituals and nothing having to do with worship and this is a religion? For pete's sake, Communism at least bothered to replace god with something, the State. Atheists have a belief or faith that there is "no god." I'd guess that what these "Secular Humanist" brayers are going on about is that somebody doesn't think their books and rituals are the be all and end all.
No, that really isn't what it's about. What it is about is that when their religion doesn't define legislation it must have been replaced by another. Somehow the idea that the Government's concerns really are "worldly or temporal" seems to have escaped them. Government is supposed to be somehow "right" with god which means that if the government concerns itself exclusively with "worldly and temporal" matters it must be using another religion in place of theirs. Humans being fallible and all, something must inform them.
That is the place where it all falls apart. I don't really have any idea how many religions there are or how many fractured pieces any one of them has; but it really ought to be pretty clear that there are a whole lot of opinions on that matter and that must mean that some pretty damned fallible humans are involved. That means that the fact that a government depending on fallible humans is an irretrievable proposition even if we go with their theocracy.
I really don't give a rat's patoot about your religion or lack of one, I do very much give a damn about being left alone in that regard. I don't want your religion. I also do not want my government doing the power seeking of getting "right" with god, nor do I want it messing about with you getting there.
Ahem.
So what? Let's fire up that Way Back Machine for just a damn second. Thomas Jefferson was a deist. These Christian voters wouldn't recognize that "faith" as anything in the least similar to what they ingest as Christianity.
The GOP and enough others have ginned up a new religion out of whole cloth. They call it Secular Humanism. I don't know what the hell that is as far as doctrines and something to kneel to or pray to. I do know what secular means and I can even get to a definition:
1
a: of or relating to the worldly or temporal
A relationship to a god is completely missing in this definition and seems to abrogate the idea of a religion. Now maybe "humanism" is some sort of qualifier that makes it work. The American Humanist Association has this to say:
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity
I don't get it. No god and no rituals and nothing having to do with worship and this is a religion? For pete's sake, Communism at least bothered to replace god with something, the State. Atheists have a belief or faith that there is "no god." I'd guess that what these "Secular Humanist" brayers are going on about is that somebody doesn't think their books and rituals are the be all and end all.
No, that really isn't what it's about. What it is about is that when their religion doesn't define legislation it must have been replaced by another. Somehow the idea that the Government's concerns really are "worldly or temporal" seems to have escaped them. Government is supposed to be somehow "right" with god which means that if the government concerns itself exclusively with "worldly and temporal" matters it must be using another religion in place of theirs. Humans being fallible and all, something must inform them.
That is the place where it all falls apart. I don't really have any idea how many religions there are or how many fractured pieces any one of them has; but it really ought to be pretty clear that there are a whole lot of opinions on that matter and that must mean that some pretty damned fallible humans are involved. That means that the fact that a government depending on fallible humans is an irretrievable proposition even if we go with their theocracy.
I really don't give a rat's patoot about your religion or lack of one, I do very much give a damn about being left alone in that regard. I don't want your religion. I also do not want my government doing the power seeking of getting "right" with god, nor do I want it messing about with you getting there.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Government Waste Fighting GOP... oh...
The GOP tells us repeatedly how they're the enemies of waste in government programs. There is waste and fraud in government programs, there's a lot of money going in a lot of directions. It seems that somebody is doing something. Be very surprised, it ain't the GOP.
That would span more than a couple GOP Administrations...
*h/t to amk at BJ
Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the federal government recovered $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars from individuals and corporations attempting to steal Medicare and Medicaid payments to which they were not entitled.
What's $4.1 billion? It is the largest amount of money ever recovered, by far, in the history of the programs since they were established in 1965
That would span more than a couple GOP Administrations...
*h/t to amk at BJ
Friday, February 17, 2012
GOPers And Small Government
Do you suppose that it has penetrated the consciousness of Americans that the GOP does not mean anything by the term "smaller government" unless it involves some restriction on unmitigated greed? Every GOP policy means either taking something away from the general populace or restrictions on their ablilities. Despite their rhetorical devices every policy they promote results in a loss of something for the American people. Ron Paul, of course, wants states to do the removing unless it is abortion...
Over A Cliff and liberals...?
There are Democrats and "liberals" who are managing to act surprised by what is going on in States and in the GOP Primary. Yes, they're astonished that Right To Work For Less passes in Indiana, that Walker, Kaisich, Scott, Mcdonnell exist and sign bills, that goddam birth control is a GOP issue. The really disgusting apologists try on the Dems stayed home in '10 bullshit. Another bunch blame the left for criticizing Obama and Congress. Some others want to blame Democratic over-reach in legislation.
If you look at who got clobbered in '10 it wasn't the progressive (it's a stupid label but I have to use something) folks ... it was the Blue Dogs. Try to get this, the people who lost ran on "we're just barely Democrats" and "I'm not as bad as." The thought process of those who stayed home and those who switched their voting isn't real available so one is left with trying to see what correlates with what.
The first thing is disgust and discouragement with the current ('10) environment. ACA polled badly - a GOP health insurance plan - polled badly and then those losers ran away from it. First Democrats passed a GOP national health care plan and then ran away from it because it was toooooo - much. They went along with the GOPers about deficits, only half-heartedly. They went along with the social warfare of plutocrats versus the rest and especially against the losers in that equation.
They did not stand up as Democrats and they did not stand up for the good of the general populace - no, they tried to spit the difference. They tried to muddy the waters by being almost GOPers. Within the Party and the "liberal" coterie there is the stupid lack of awareness that the GOPer policies of today are a direct result of the opposition to their views consistently shifting in their direction - and trying to muddy the waters.
Curiously you'd get the idea the this is some kind of purity test, a desire to ape the GOPers. Let's get down to a case, if you are not to the left of St Ronnie it is pure pretence to claim a (D) label. That is not a goddam purity test unless you propose that the Parties are all the same. The process of muddying the waters has allowed the GOP to define the terms of the argument, right down to things like "liberal." Media reporting facts and digging for facts becomes "liberal media." In point of fact, the Beatification of St Ronnie is a natural outcome of that muddying and defining.
I'm about sick and tired of my Party forcing me into taking a the label far-Left because they've become the GOP of yester-year. Not giving the voters a clear choice invites this kind of disaster. Right now the GOP is making it very easy to make clear differences, how would you like to make bets on how that one works out?
You "liberals" can kiss my butt, you're happy with a label that means you were just barely sane enough to run away from, almost, the GOP. Please, either pick your authoritarian plutocrats or pick the people or just go away and let that "liberal" tag actually mean something again - along with Democrat have actual meaning. Democrats? Run campaigns that put meaning back into the damn word so those "liberals" have to chose.
Liberal is a word so debased by the GOP and the Blue Dogs that polling Americans puts it around used car salesman. It does not belong there - but you've asked for and gotten it.
If you look at who got clobbered in '10 it wasn't the progressive (it's a stupid label but I have to use something) folks ... it was the Blue Dogs. Try to get this, the people who lost ran on "we're just barely Democrats" and "I'm not as bad as." The thought process of those who stayed home and those who switched their voting isn't real available so one is left with trying to see what correlates with what.
The first thing is disgust and discouragement with the current ('10) environment. ACA polled badly - a GOP health insurance plan - polled badly and then those losers ran away from it. First Democrats passed a GOP national health care plan and then ran away from it because it was toooooo - much. They went along with the GOPers about deficits, only half-heartedly. They went along with the social warfare of plutocrats versus the rest and especially against the losers in that equation.
They did not stand up as Democrats and they did not stand up for the good of the general populace - no, they tried to spit the difference. They tried to muddy the waters by being almost GOPers. Within the Party and the "liberal" coterie there is the stupid lack of awareness that the GOPer policies of today are a direct result of the opposition to their views consistently shifting in their direction - and trying to muddy the waters.
Curiously you'd get the idea the this is some kind of purity test, a desire to ape the GOPers. Let's get down to a case, if you are not to the left of St Ronnie it is pure pretence to claim a (D) label. That is not a goddam purity test unless you propose that the Parties are all the same. The process of muddying the waters has allowed the GOP to define the terms of the argument, right down to things like "liberal." Media reporting facts and digging for facts becomes "liberal media." In point of fact, the Beatification of St Ronnie is a natural outcome of that muddying and defining.
I'm about sick and tired of my Party forcing me into taking a the label far-Left because they've become the GOP of yester-year. Not giving the voters a clear choice invites this kind of disaster. Right now the GOP is making it very easy to make clear differences, how would you like to make bets on how that one works out?
You "liberals" can kiss my butt, you're happy with a label that means you were just barely sane enough to run away from, almost, the GOP. Please, either pick your authoritarian plutocrats or pick the people or just go away and let that "liberal" tag actually mean something again - along with Democrat have actual meaning. Democrats? Run campaigns that put meaning back into the damn word so those "liberals" have to chose.
Liberal is a word so debased by the GOP and the Blue Dogs that polling Americans puts it around used car salesman. It does not belong there - but you've asked for and gotten it.
Yes Santa, There Is A Virginia
I've stolen the title from someone and I'll not try to out do
something this good. I will say that the insertion of objects into an unwilling participant is rape. The GOP would have you think their health insurance plan is government theft of freedom so it is obvious to me that all GOPers need to be asked about the process of the State requiring something be stuck into a woman's icky parts despite the entire lack of any medical necessity. This is an election after all.
This is all about the government shaming and otherwise making as unavailable as it can a medical procedure. This is somehow more acceptable to GOPers than Obamacare? Why aren't I hearing our liberal media asking questions about this?
The GOP is not now and has not been about smaller less intrusive government - unless one is talking about greed enabling - any more than it is about states as a legislative laboratory unless that involves taking things away from the general populace. They'd certainly like you to forget Oregon's assisted suicide law and what they tried there or how they'd like to deal with gay marriage.
Try to understand the abject stupidity of their stances - they are never against a state taking away or prohibiting something and they are all about stopping any state from giving or recognizing an ability. There is no core consistency for the simple reason that there is no core other than hate and resentment - and plutocracy.
These people hate you and resent you and there is absolutely no sense in playing patty-cake with them. If your candidate doesn't seem to recognize that maybe you need to ask them about it. Liberals...?
I've pretty much stopped auggesting policies because there is no point in it when the first issue of being hated and destroyed by the GOP is ignored. Why the hell can't Democrats wrap their little minds around the fact that Kaisich, Walker, Scott, the US House and the GOP Primary are all a piece of their politicking? All kinds of blame shifting going on - rather than the simple equation that "Not As Bad As" is not a goddam political party.
something this good. I will say that the insertion of objects into an unwilling participant is rape. The GOP would have you think their health insurance plan is government theft of freedom so it is obvious to me that all GOPers need to be asked about the process of the State requiring something be stuck into a woman's icky parts despite the entire lack of any medical necessity. This is an election after all.
This is all about the government shaming and otherwise making as unavailable as it can a medical procedure. This is somehow more acceptable to GOPers than Obamacare? Why aren't I hearing our liberal media asking questions about this?
The GOP is not now and has not been about smaller less intrusive government - unless one is talking about greed enabling - any more than it is about states as a legislative laboratory unless that involves taking things away from the general populace. They'd certainly like you to forget Oregon's assisted suicide law and what they tried there or how they'd like to deal with gay marriage.
Try to understand the abject stupidity of their stances - they are never against a state taking away or prohibiting something and they are all about stopping any state from giving or recognizing an ability. There is no core consistency for the simple reason that there is no core other than hate and resentment - and plutocracy.
These people hate you and resent you and there is absolutely no sense in playing patty-cake with them. If your candidate doesn't seem to recognize that maybe you need to ask them about it. Liberals...?
I've pretty much stopped auggesting policies because there is no point in it when the first issue of being hated and destroyed by the GOP is ignored. Why the hell can't Democrats wrap their little minds around the fact that Kaisich, Walker, Scott, the US House and the GOP Primary are all a piece of their politicking? All kinds of blame shifting going on - rather than the simple equation that "Not As Bad As" is not a goddam political party.
Bye-bye Paddy...
...I wish we'd scarcely known ye. Yup, Pat Buchanan is out at MSNBC and oddly enough he's unhappy about it. He's been blacklisted.
It is entirely possible that this cretin doesn't know what the term "blacklisted" refers to. It may have missed him that it refers to an industry wide blanket non-employment of a class of people - in particular the "villains" of McCarthyism. Now since he can say this:
it is pretty hard to see how he's been subjected to a blacklisting - even if he does list a bunch of cretins as references. Cretinism seems to be alive and well in the industry and with friends like these it is hard to see that Pat will be lacking a forum to spout his inanities.
Pat's been a big one for the Free Market horseshit and it would seem a bit odd for him to be all BLACKLISTED about a corporate decision on product. You see, this was the product:
It would seem that MSNBC didn't want to pay for what Pat calls political analysis. It isn't shown that his voice has been silenced or that MSNBC has made any effort at all to do more than not pay him for what they had been paying him for.
It should be noted that MSNBC can get Pat's crap free from elected GOPers and wannabe elected GOPers. Further, on a couple shows they get to do their act without fear of contradiction.
In the 10 years I have been at MSNBC, the network has taken heat for what I have written, and faithfully honored our contract. Yet my four-months’ absence from MSNBC and now my departure represent an undeniable victory for the blacklisters.
It is entirely possible that this cretin doesn't know what the term "blacklisted" refers to. It may have missed him that it refers to an industry wide blanket non-employment of a class of people - in particular the "villains" of McCarthyism. Now since he can say this:
If my book is racist and anti-Semitic, how did Sean Hannity, Erin Burnett, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Lou Dobbs, and Ralph Nader miss that? How did Charles Payne, African-American host on Fox radio, who has interviewed me three times, fail to detect its racism? How did Michael Medved miss its anti-Semitism?
it is pretty hard to see how he's been subjected to a blacklisting - even if he does list a bunch of cretins as references. Cretinism seems to be alive and well in the industry and with friends like these it is hard to see that Pat will be lacking a forum to spout his inanities.
Pat's been a big one for the Free Market horseshit and it would seem a bit odd for him to be all BLACKLISTED about a corporate decision on product. You see, this was the product:
My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.
It would seem that MSNBC didn't want to pay for what Pat calls political analysis. It isn't shown that his voice has been silenced or that MSNBC has made any effort at all to do more than not pay him for what they had been paying him for.
It should be noted that MSNBC can get Pat's crap free from elected GOPers and wannabe elected GOPers. Further, on a couple shows they get to do their act without fear of contradiction.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thursday's Rambling Discourse On...
I've watched as a Democratic President has tried to operate the Executive Branch as a Center or Center Right organization run into massive difficulties with the GOP bunch for using their policies - granted a decade or so later. The mocked Stimulus was larded with GOP policies goodies that garnered nothing from the GOP and probably did poorly thanks to the amount devoted to their policies. The crazy inspiring "Obamacare" is was warmed up decade and change old GOP program that is now socialized medicine infringing on religious something or the others. The guy whose policies the left can barely keep its contempt for at less than a dull roar is a socialist - a position well left of most of what passes for the left today. These sentiments are played by the so-called moderate Republican Mitt Romney. (I forgot - severe conservative Mitt)
A hell of a lot of ... liberals (chokes me to use the word in this context) gleefully blame the "left" for not turning out in the 2010 mid-terms and sinking Democrats. Never mind that Democrats turned out in ordinary numbers and that the depressed turnout was Independents and it was their turn in voting that sank Democtrats - it was the left. The left, the bogeyman of not only the Reichwingers but also of the "liberals." I'll explain the " marks. Their liberalism comes down to being accepting of anything that isn't looney-toons right. It doesn't matter a bit if things are poisoned by GOP positions or actually crafted on decade old GOP policies, they'll do and criticism is left wing cut our throats bullshit designed to ... who the hell knows. A ways back they'd have been called Reagan Democrats except they're to the right of them. It comes down to them holding up the crazy of the GOP and stating that their opposition to that amounts to liberalism.
Mention tax rates that are higher for wealth than those under Clinton (less than Reagan) and they'll lose their minds about leftism. Honest to Pete, proposing tax rates of Reaganism levels is somehow ultra-stupid looney leftism. OWS is composed of dirty inconveniences who aren't sufficiently attached to Obama and their proposition that Reagan was too left on economics. Glass-Steagal was the law under Reagan and not Clinton? The decline of the middle class and particularly the blue collar economic situation began with Reagan and he's too goddam liberal?
I'm a gun owning construction guy leftist and I claim the label because I am left of St Ronnie Ray Gun. I want the government out of things that do not have real effects on the general good. Most of us (by huge margin) who own guns do nothing bad with them and want to be left the hell alone about it and the people who do bad things concentrated on. I want tax codes that do what the hell they're supposed to do, a mortgage deduction for a goddam mansion or second homes or vacation homes does not encourage home ownership - it rewards wealth. The industry's benefit from those is immaterial compared to the difference in having REAL wages paid. There is no discernable benefit to society at large in having a smaller tax rate on investment income than on ordinary income that is gotten in some actually productive manner. I don't have a big problem with encouraging investment in public bonds and such because they do serve the common good. I don't mind being reluctant to go to war and for more than an emergency reaction forcing Congress to approve and fund such a war. I cannot for the life of me see why some electoral financial behavior is not treated as bribery when in fact it is. i have no idea why things like big oil are subsidized. I have no idea why derivative trading is still allowed and in fact - why the hell a bunch of banksters aren't under indictment for fraud when they knew they were selling and insuring junk. Consider that the S&L mess almost sunk McPOW and did sink others. huh.
I am sick and tired of religion and government getting mixed up with each other. You certainly cannot take the church out of the candidate but you can sure the hell take the church out of the law and the government out of financing in any fashion the church. If a hospistal insists that it provide religion based treatment protocols that is certainly their busines, but the government should not give them a damned cent. What? You don't think the Catholic hospitals are government subsidized? What exactly would you call Medicare and Medicaid payments? They sure the hell ain't coming out of their collection plates.
How in the hell is it that in 2012 a major political party is making an issue of contraception? How in the hell is it that a New Jersey Governor would advocate putting the 60s Civil Rights business to a referendum? And then not be laughed off the stage as he tried to walk that back with more utter nonsense. Do you really want an answer?
You can thank those "liberals." You can thank them for their timidity and fear that the Right might make an issue of something. You can thank them for the idea that anything left of goddam St Ronnie consists of lunacy and is worthy of mockery and fear. You can thank them for the idea that any (D) will do, rather than putting a (D) up against the pretenders or when it actually happens voting for the pretender. That's not about a purity test, it is simply about what fits in any sort of Democratic Party that is something other than "not the Republicans."
I've just wasted a bunch of bytes preaching to the choir, the people who are the problem are so stuck in the lies that define their politics that this is pointless. I've pretty much quit promoting anything for that reason - they are the Democratic Party despite the rest of us and a wall is more persuadable.
A hell of a lot of ... liberals (chokes me to use the word in this context) gleefully blame the "left" for not turning out in the 2010 mid-terms and sinking Democrats. Never mind that Democrats turned out in ordinary numbers and that the depressed turnout was Independents and it was their turn in voting that sank Democtrats - it was the left. The left, the bogeyman of not only the Reichwingers but also of the "liberals." I'll explain the " marks. Their liberalism comes down to being accepting of anything that isn't looney-toons right. It doesn't matter a bit if things are poisoned by GOP positions or actually crafted on decade old GOP policies, they'll do and criticism is left wing cut our throats bullshit designed to ... who the hell knows. A ways back they'd have been called Reagan Democrats except they're to the right of them. It comes down to them holding up the crazy of the GOP and stating that their opposition to that amounts to liberalism.
Mention tax rates that are higher for wealth than those under Clinton (less than Reagan) and they'll lose their minds about leftism. Honest to Pete, proposing tax rates of Reaganism levels is somehow ultra-stupid looney leftism. OWS is composed of dirty inconveniences who aren't sufficiently attached to Obama and their proposition that Reagan was too left on economics. Glass-Steagal was the law under Reagan and not Clinton? The decline of the middle class and particularly the blue collar economic situation began with Reagan and he's too goddam liberal?
I'm a gun owning construction guy leftist and I claim the label because I am left of St Ronnie Ray Gun. I want the government out of things that do not have real effects on the general good. Most of us (by huge margin) who own guns do nothing bad with them and want to be left the hell alone about it and the people who do bad things concentrated on. I want tax codes that do what the hell they're supposed to do, a mortgage deduction for a goddam mansion or second homes or vacation homes does not encourage home ownership - it rewards wealth. The industry's benefit from those is immaterial compared to the difference in having REAL wages paid. There is no discernable benefit to society at large in having a smaller tax rate on investment income than on ordinary income that is gotten in some actually productive manner. I don't have a big problem with encouraging investment in public bonds and such because they do serve the common good. I don't mind being reluctant to go to war and for more than an emergency reaction forcing Congress to approve and fund such a war. I cannot for the life of me see why some electoral financial behavior is not treated as bribery when in fact it is. i have no idea why things like big oil are subsidized. I have no idea why derivative trading is still allowed and in fact - why the hell a bunch of banksters aren't under indictment for fraud when they knew they were selling and insuring junk. Consider that the S&L mess almost sunk McPOW and did sink others. huh.
I am sick and tired of religion and government getting mixed up with each other. You certainly cannot take the church out of the candidate but you can sure the hell take the church out of the law and the government out of financing in any fashion the church. If a hospistal insists that it provide religion based treatment protocols that is certainly their busines, but the government should not give them a damned cent. What? You don't think the Catholic hospitals are government subsidized? What exactly would you call Medicare and Medicaid payments? They sure the hell ain't coming out of their collection plates.
How in the hell is it that in 2012 a major political party is making an issue of contraception? How in the hell is it that a New Jersey Governor would advocate putting the 60s Civil Rights business to a referendum? And then not be laughed off the stage as he tried to walk that back with more utter nonsense. Do you really want an answer?
You can thank those "liberals." You can thank them for their timidity and fear that the Right might make an issue of something. You can thank them for the idea that anything left of goddam St Ronnie consists of lunacy and is worthy of mockery and fear. You can thank them for the idea that any (D) will do, rather than putting a (D) up against the pretenders or when it actually happens voting for the pretender. That's not about a purity test, it is simply about what fits in any sort of Democratic Party that is something other than "not the Republicans."
I've just wasted a bunch of bytes preaching to the choir, the people who are the problem are so stuck in the lies that define their politics that this is pointless. I've pretty much quit promoting anything for that reason - they are the Democratic Party despite the rest of us and a wall is more persuadable.
GOP Birth Control Is These People's Control
Here ya go ladies, and men who have sex with ladies - the folks the GOP thinks should tell you about birth control and insurance. I suppose it is fortunate for a goodly segment that alter boys don't get pregnant...
It is probably worth noting that this isn't just about not having babies, it is also about not having a national health insurance standard at all. You may have not noticed but the local Church of Dumbassery believes as a matter of conscience and moral conviction that you only get sick because God wants you to. The Church of Dumbassery looks forward to large donations from corporate employers as members of this now burgeoning congregation who are unwilling to pay for anything contrary to the designs of the God of the Church of Dumbassery.
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