Oh, good I have a side! Go team!
You can make a list of whatever you want, but it remains the case that so-called liberals and other non-conservatives don't tune in to cable-news and talk radio to be scared all day. It's unfortunate that philosophical conservatives get lumped in with frightened reactionaries that need constant info-fixes, but that's what happens when everyone decides there are only two sides.
And by the way, going around calling people "statists" is pretty wackadoo. FYI.
"Statist" isn't a pejorative, it's a descriptor. If you believe in a European/Canadian/Australian style social democracy, are a general issue socialist or communist, or a fascist (four different forms of government) you are, by definition, a statist. All it means is relying on the state to provide things beyond the basics (infrastructure, military, law enforcement). Universal health care, welfare, social security, environmental oversight, heavy private industry regulation and all the way to collective farms and state owned capital are statist policies.
It is what is is, don't be offended by it if you do fit one of the categories above.
Categories... labels... they're obfuscations designed to polarise debate by making easy labels of those who disagree with you. My opinions on one subject do not by themselves automatically declare my opinions on others. I might agree with President Obama or William F. Buckley on one issue and strongly disagree on others. I respond to what other people say, not to views that they have not expressed.
The latter by the way I respected strongly as an articulate man who was someone who would point out the weaknesses in your arguments if you did not do your homework. I disagreed mightly with W.F. Buckley's premises and positions on political issues, but I enjoyed hearing what was obviously a very intelligent man speak. He fit my definition of a worthy opponent who embetters those who strive against him, as oppose to more...
I don't necessarily think that labels are always caricatures although they can be turned into that. I think the best most concise label for me is minarchist. Minarchist can be turned into an anarchist caricature as easily as statist can be turned into a fascist caricature, but I still think that labels can be useful and legitimate expedients. I find state versus individual terms to be more accurate and useful at times than liberal and conservative labels. There are plenty of statist or big government proclivities in both major parties, so the liberal versus conservative labeling often holds little meaning in that regard. While I generally oppose statism I use the term for accuracy rather than as a pejorative.
I also lament the loss of intellectual honesty and gravity in the current debate. Intelligence and analysis have been all but entirely replaced by propaganda, hyperbole and distortion in the current political and media environment.
When have I ever argued that there are only two sides? I don't think the left versus right binary political model is valid. You are the one arguing that conservatives are driven by fear of everything except guns and liberals are only afraid of conservatives, and you seem to be sticking to that absurdly simplistic caricature. I haven't made this a binary left versus right debate. I have pointed out a few of the big government tendencies of both parties. The binary view I am most likely to be guilty of is state power versus individual liberty, and I concede that government is a necessary evil that I would like to see minimized.
I think there is plenty of statism in both major parties, and I think this is largely why a two party system fails us so badly.
You are free to try to marginalize the position of individual liberty over state power as "wackadoo", and that is the standard it seems, but I don't think it makes the argument for ever expanding state power any more valid.
Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I was selling anxiety, which is what corporate news does, then I would make much more money selling it to reactionary conservatives than I would so-called liberals. That's not to say that all conservatives live in fear or that liberals aren't afraid of anything. It's just what the ratings and the marketplace seem to be telling us.
And I don't have an issue with people wanting minimal government; most people want that, I think. But I take issue with people demonizing government, and saying things like "statist" I find odd.
If someone came up to me on the street and asked if I was a Statist, I would probably look at him the same way I would if he asked me if I was a witch.
That seems significantly different than what you posted at the top of the page. Can we agree that both sides (Republican and Democrat) engage in rampant fear mongering and distortion?
I don't think I agree that most people want minimal government. Democrats and Republicans both pay lip service to smaller government, but both parties relentlessly make government larger, more intrusive, and less transparent and accessible. Democrats say they want the government out of our bedrooms and bodies, but they still want the government to decide what a family is and what medical and moral choices we can make with our own health and bodies. Republicans say they are the party of smaller government and fiscal responsibility, but they don't balance the budget or shrink the government. Even the Tea Party is hard pressed to specify what they would cut to balance the budget.
I suppose I am guilty of demonizing the government, but I would like see where I have made an argument about the failure of government that is false. If I'm factually wrong feel free to point it out to me. This may be difficult because I'm guilty of using very broad generalizations.
The fact that I believe that government does many things very badly does not mean that I think we should be ruled by giant corporations with no laws governing them whatsoever. This seems to be a common misconception of people who prefer more individual liberty and less state power. I reject the argument that smaller government automatically means more corporate control. I would point out that we have massive amounts of regulation, but it seems to me that corporations become more powerful and less accountable in spite of (or perhaps because of) this. IIRC some 80,000 pages of government regulation were add in 2010, but I don't see corporations being less corrupt as a result. I think a big part of this is the fact that the most powerful corporate interests (banking and finance, pharma and insurance, real estate, private prisons, and military contractors to name a few) are largely driving the new regulations. The result seems to be the worst of all worlds. The government takes more of our money and freedom and the government empowers huge private corporate powers to be less responsible and more exploitative. If this makes me guilty of demonizing the government than so be it.
I think a big part of this is the fact that the most powerful corporate interests (banking and finance, pharma and insurance, real estate, private prisons, and military contractors to name a few) are largely driving the new regulations. The result seems to be the worst of all worlds. The government takes more of our money and freedom and the government empowers huge private corporate powers to be less responsible and more exploitative. If this makes me guilty of demonizing the government than so be it.
It makes you anti-fascist, almost by definition. Someone once wrote that fascism is what results when corporations and government are so intertwined that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the next begins... which makes it the exact opposite of Communism philosophically, yet nearly identical to it for all intents and purposes. Chicken, egg. Neither form of government is very good for the people under it, as the 20th century amply demonstrated -- the only thing worse is some form of cruel absolutism or mindless theocracy -- which explains why, when Palin and Beck claim to know the mind of God, I run in the opposite direction.
There's only one way to solve this travesty. And it won't be done by winning the Internet.
There's only one way to solve this travesty. And it won't be done by winning the Internet.
Yeah, we should totally go kill Alec Baldwin and Kim Jong Il, all the while making it look like a horrible Jell-O factory tour gone wrong. That's what you were thinking, right?
There's only one way to solve this travesty. And it won't be done by winning the Internet.Yeah, we should totally go kill Alec Baldwin and Kim Jong Il, all the while making it look like a horrible Jell-O factory tour gone wrong. That's what you were thinking, right?
If you locked Alec Baldwin in the factory, he'd eat Jell-O into he puffed up like Veruca Salt. Then, load him in a bomber and drop him on Jong Il.
I think a big part of this is the fact that the most powerful corporate interests (banking and finance, pharma and insurance, real estate, private prisons, and military contractors to name a few) are largely driving the new regulations. The result seems to be the worst of all worlds. The government takes more of our money and freedom and the government empowers huge private corporate powers to be less responsible and more exploitative. If this makes me guilty of demonizing the government than so be it.It makes you anti-fascist, almost by definition. Someone once wrote that fascism is what results when corporations and government are so intertwined that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the next begins... which makes it the exact opposite of Communism philosophically, yet nearly identical to it for all intents and purposes. Chicken, egg. Neither form of government is very good for the people under it, as the 20th century amply demonstrated -- the only thing worse is some form of cruel absolutism or mindless theocracy -- which explains why, when Palin and Beck claim to know the mind of God, I run in the opposite direction.
I would agree, but it's funny after a fashion that when I call our current system fascist for the reasons I've spelled out many times a lot of my fellow Republicans call me an anarchist yet a lot of progressives call me a corporatist.
One of my most common frustrations from folks of many different stripes is when they make the leap that somehow because I want less government that I want no government.
Another is the assumption that less a corrupt and invasive state seems to automatically means surrendering more power to massive corporate interests, and I've already stated why I find that assumption faulty.
I suppose I'm guilty of the opposite. When people say they want more government oversight I just don't see any real way to give our government more and more power without further eroding what few human rights the state has allowed us to retain. At the same time I fail to see the how the massive expansions of power that Republicans and Democrats have secured for the federal government over the decades (and recently in particular) have even accomplished what they are supposed to be for. Did OIF and the GWoT really make us safer? Are we more or less safe as a result of the patriot acts and DHS? I don't see compelling evidence that the benefits are worth the cost to the American people in money and freedom. We have spent trillions of dollars on education and the war on poverty, but have we made any meaningful headway? I'm not seeing that we are. IIRC, We are tied for the highest per capita education spending, but we have completely unacceptable education outcomes IMO. In spite of all of the trillions of dollars we have spent on the war on poverty since, say, LBJ the middle class seems to be shrinking and the lower class seems to keep growing, yet we still keep spending. In spite of the hundreds of billions we have spent on the Department of Energy we are more dependent on oil imports than when we started that department.
You've known me long enough on these boards to know I could go on ad nauseum, but I guess my point is that I fail to understand why anyone in the US still has any confidence in the governments ability to fix anything. I just don't understand this misplaced confidence at all.
I suppose I'm rambling at this point.
There's only one way to solve this travesty. And it won't be done by winning the Internet.Yeah, we should totally go kill Alec Baldwin and Kim Jong Il, all the while making it look like a horrible Jell-O factory tour gone wrong. That's what you were thinking, right?
What did I ever do you you, American brain dog?
What, this thread has not been locked yet!
The really interesting question is, if Fox has proven that conservative "News" pays the big bucks, why haven't other stations taken that approach? Surely, the companies running these are ... well ... companies. That inherently means they are greedy money-grubbers that only care about getting as much dough as they can. So why haven't they tried to pull some of that "triple-share" away from Fox?
Not sure why they have not done this in America. Presumably because no one really thinks that they can out Fox Fox.
That said this is seen as a potentially effective brand. The Quebecor media empire, has decided to try and move this brand north. After discussions with Fox founder Rupert Murdoch they brought on board Kory Teneycke, former top aid in the Conservative Party of Canada to head the operation.
Here's its website - Sun TV News.
Now for you Americans programs called things like "Hard News" and "Straight Talk" probably seems very much par for the course but this is not the case within Canada that models itself pretty much after the British in this regards. So we have things like "CBC news at 6" and runs along the lines of "today something happened, we found two people with different opinions on it and interviewed them".
What we have here is a news station designed to deliver, to a specific segment of the population, news meant to cater to their views and values. In particular check out the video at the top - important part of the formula 'Canada is the best' is the message here and that will be driven home constantly be the anchors - the news, through the prism that 'Canada is #1'.
Interestingly their CTRC application shows no budget for actually gathering news - they'll actually get their news from other sources (presumably Quebecor's media empire). What they are really going to do here is talk about the news. Hard News promises "Trusted journalists like David Akin and Brian Lilley will break news and drive the agenda. Minute by minute. Hour by hour". While Straight Talk comments "Canadians are tired of the same talking heads saying the same things on the same networks. Sun News will cut through the clutter. New voices with new insights – not just an echo chamber – will be announced soon".
The reason that most of them drift towards the conservative access is because the pay tends to be better.
I think you missed the point of my question. Why doesn't another company give another "conservative access"? If you could pull off 1/3 of Fox's viewers, you would be pretty successful. You don't have to beat Fox, just pull enough of their customers to stay effective.
This whole thread becomes a million times more hilarious when you realize that America as a whole is so laughably right swinging that our "radical liberalism" is what most other countries call "a bit to the right, but overall close to the center"No joke.
Obama made the mistake of thinking he won because everyone believed in his "vision". Nope, everyone was just pissed at the Republicans for inflicting Bush on the country. 2010 was the public letting Obama know they didn't give him a mandate.
I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
Fair enough, my conservative friend. Fair enough.
O'Reilly? He's your funny but kind of assholish drunk uncle on the couch at Thanksgiving. Yeah, he's a bit boisterous, but he always get's a laugh. Uncle Bill wouldn't hurt a fly, he's just like that. And, he actually let's the other side have a voice on his show. He shoots them down, but it's in a funny, wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way. And he'll throw in the occasional red herring where he appears to agree with the other side once in a while, cause uncle bill is "fair 'n balanced" dontcha know?
Funny. I feel the same way about Sharpton and Jackson.
What was that again ... oh yeah, false dilemma blah blah blah ;DHey, I'm prepared to be corrected. It seems fishy that she left to save the state money. YMMV.
I think she's hot, though. :)
I'm with the bug on this one. Like the fist of an angry god.
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Funny. I feel the same way about Sharpton and Jackson.
O'Reilly? He's your funny but kind of assholish drunk uncle on the couch at Thanksgiving. Yeah, he's a bit boisterous, but he always get's a laugh. Uncle Bill wouldn't hurt a fly, he's just like that. And, he actually let's the other side have a voice on his show. He shoots them down, but it's in a funny, wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way. And he'll throw in the occasional red herring where he appears to agree with the other side once in a while, cause uncle bill is "fair 'n balanced" dontcha know?
I'll give you Jackson (I can almost even forgive him for "Hymietown"). but Sharpton, after Tawanda Brawley and Crown Heights, should still be in an orange jumpsuit.
...Oh, good I have a side! Go team!
You can make a list of whatever you want, but it remains the case that so-called liberals and other non-conservatives don't tune in to cable-news and talk radio to be scared all day. It's unfortunate that philosophical conservatives get lumped in with frightened reactionaries that need constant info-fixes, but that's what happens when everyone decides there are only two sides.
And by the way, going around calling people "statists" is pretty wackadoo. FYI.
"Statist" isn't a pejorative, it's a descriptor. If you believe in a European/Canadian/Australian style social democracy, are a general issue socialist or communist, or a fascist (four different forms of government) you are, by definition, a statist. All it means is relying on the state to provide things beyond the basics (infrastructure, military, law enforcement). Universal health care, welfare, social security, environmental oversight, heavy private industry regulation and all the way to collective farms and state owned capital are statist policies.
It is what is is, don't be offended by it if you do fit one of the categories above.
Categories... labels... they're obfuscations designed to polarise debate by making easy labels of those who disagree with you. My opinions on one subject do not by themselves automatically declare my opinions on others. I might agree with President Obama or William F. Buckley on one issue and strongly disagree on others. I respond to what other people say, not to views that they have not expressed.
The latter by the way I respected strongly as an articulate man who was someone who would point out the weaknesses in your arguments if you did not do your homework. I disagreed mightly with W.F. Buckley's premises and positions on political issues, but I enjoyed hearing what was obviously a very intelligent man speak. He fit my definition of a worthy opponent who embetters those who strive against him,
Agreed. Labels are part of the problem and help to make us all intellectually lazy.
I think a big part of this is the fact that the most powerful corporate interests (banking and finance, pharma and insurance, real estate, private prisons, and military contractors to name a few) are largely driving the new regulations. The result seems to be the worst of all worlds. The government takes more of our money and freedom and the government empowers huge private corporate powers to be less responsible and more exploitative. If this makes me guilty of demonizing the government than so be it.It makes you anti-fascist, almost by definition. Someone once wrote that fascism is what results when corporations and government are so intertwined that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the next begins... which makes it the exact opposite of Communism philosophically, yet nearly identical to it for all intents and purposes. Chicken, egg. Neither form of government is very good for the people under it, as the 20th century amply demonstrated -- the only thing worse is some form of cruel absolutism or mindless theocracy -- which explains why, when Palin and Beck claim to know the mind of God, I run in the opposite direction.
That said...I'd prefer to refer to BT as a anti-fascist as opposed to a minarchist. Or perhaps a neo-feudalist.
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Fair enough, my conservative friend. Fair enough.This whole thread becomes a million times more hilarious when you realize that America as a whole is so laughably right swinging that our "radical liberalism" is what most other countries call "a bit to the right, but overall close to the center"No joke.
Obama made the mistake of thinking he won because everyone believed in his "vision". Nope, everyone was just pissed at the Republicans for inflicting Bush on the country. 2010 was the public letting Obama know they didn't give him a mandate.
I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
Just out of curiosity, why do I get labeled conservative (to carry on LazarX's "label" thing)?
I'm to the left of even Obama on gay marriage, drug prohibition, both wars, religion, a lot of environmental issues (I just think climate change "science" is more politics than science - when it comes to science, I'm all "Just the facts, ma'am"), immigration (guest worker NOW), and a host of other issues.
I'm only conservative on the budget (I have a daughter, I'd rather the country not be a subsidiary of Beijing when she grows up), guns (and I'd even argue I'm liberal there, it's a personal freedom issue in my eyes), and some state's rights issues.
One of my most common frustrations from folks of many different stripes is when they make the leap that somehow because I want less government that I want no government.
When it comes to the way the american government has grown over the years, one looks very much like the other in theory. Not sure about practice.
Another is the assumption that less a corrupt and invasive state seems to automatically means surrendering more power to massive corporate interests, and I've already stated why I find that assumption faulty.
Hit me again? Unless you mean that it couldn't happen because corporations need help from government in order to abuse power, which is something I've heard you say before. If it is this, then we're probably going to have to agree to disagree- corporations/companies don't need help to abuse anyone in their employ.
I suppose I'm guilty of the opposite. When people say they want more government oversight I just don't see any real way to give our government more and more power without further eroding what few human rights the state has allowed us to retain. At the same time I fail to see the how the massive expansions of power that Republicans and Democrats have secured for the federal government over the decades (and recently in particular) have even accomplished what they are supposed to be for. Did OIF and the GWoT really make us safer? Are we more or less safe as a result of the patriot acts and DHS? I don't see compelling evidence that the benefits are worth the cost to the American people in money and freedom. We have spent trillions of dollars on education and the war on poverty, but have we made any meaningful headway? I'm not seeing that we are. IIRC, We are tied for the highest per capita education spending, but we have completely unacceptable education outcomes IMO. In spite of all of the trillions of dollars we have spent on the war on poverty since, say, LBJ the middle class seems to be shrinking and the lower class seems to keep growing, yet we still keep spending. In spite of the hundreds of billions we have spent on the Department of Energy we are more dependent on oil imports than when we started that department.
You've known me long enough on these boards to know I could go on ad nauseum, but I guess my point is that I fail to understand why anyone in the US still has any confidence in the governments ability to fix anything. I just don't understand this misplaced confidence at all.
I suppose I'm rambling at this point.
You are, but you have the right to your well-stated and reasoned opinion. The biggest counter I have to your overall viewpoint on government is that smaller does not necessarily mean better, especially if the same overall problems(spending, bad politicians/acts in general) remain in place.
I'm going to have to agree with pres here. I don't want her anywhere near the White House, but they made it impossible for the woman to do her job, and it was costing the state millions to fight all of the lawsuits (all of which were found to be completely without merit).
I see where you are coming from, but I think she painted herself into that particular corner.
Houstonderek wrote:
Actually, DeToqueville was very much in the vein of Rousseau. So that's two. And Voltaire just got the ball rolling; the first of anything is usually a dog.
Oh, I think Voltaire was pretty awesome. Candide was one of the books that ruined my life and all the other stories I've read have been pretty enjoyable.
There's a pretty great book him called Voltaire's Politics by Peter Gay. His campaign for freedom of speech against the Catholic Church (Ecrasez l'infame!) should be an inspiration to all militant atheists.
Anyway, the guys we are discussing cover almost two hundred years (Locke, 1680s, Voltaire & Rousseau 1740s, De Tocqueville 1830s roughly) and some pretty dramatic ones at that. The beginnings of liberal political theory drawn up in constitutional monarchist Britain wouldn't have made any sense in ancien regime France.
Re: Chomsky, well, I haven't read too much of his theorizing, mostly his archival work. But my point wasn't necessarily that he is or isn't descended from the Enlightenment, but that the Enlightenment produced a wider range of political philosophies than that of just Lockean liberalism and that a portion of that body of thought, particularly French, went on to inspire many of the pre-Marxian socialist thinkers of the early 19th century. Is Bakunin in that group? I don't know, I never read much about him, but I know that it inspired a lot of the early French socialists (Saint-Simon, Fourier, probably Proudhon).
Now, about what "liberal" means. See, I always thought it came out of what used to be called American exceptionalism. Whereas in Europe, Conservative meant monarchist and Liberal meant democratic capitalist, in America, we drove all the monarchists into Canada. Therefore, our definitions of liberal and conservative differ markedly from our European brethren.
As for myself, being a lapsed revolutionary socialist, "liberal" is just code for "sell-out" or "collaborator", but that's just me.
I'll give you Jackson (I can almost even forgive him for "Hymietown"). but Sharpton, after Tawanda Brawley and Crown Heights, should still be in an orange jumpsuit.Funny. I feel the same way about Sharpton and Jackson.
O'Reilly? He's your funny but kind of assholish drunk uncle on the couch at Thanksgiving. Yeah, he's a bit boisterous, but he always get's a laugh. Uncle Bill wouldn't hurt a fly, he's just like that. And, he actually let's the other side have a voice on his show. He shoots them down, but it's in a funny, wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way. And he'll throw in the occasional red herring where he appears to agree with the other side once in a while, cause uncle bill is "fair 'n balanced" dontcha know?
I can't forgive Jackson that, provided what he actually said it. I was a kid at the time so I don't know if he actually said it or not or if it was something attributed to him. Hell, I didn't even KNOW what hymie was until relatively recently. That kind of stuff doesn't fly with me. Tawana Brawley was one of the biggest and most nauseating tragedies I have seen in my lifetime, there is no pit deep enough for him in my eyes, provided he knew she was lying(always a chance he didn't know).
Crown Heights is something noone was right on. Were you living here at the time, or had you already moved? If so, I'd like to know what it was like for you at that time. I was young- maybe 13 or 14 at best- and it polarized me with my new white friends I had made in high school. My father's wife(not mom) was seriously injured during that riot on a bus, her back has never been the same since. She does not like discussing the incident.
No, your question was why hadn't someone pulled off a "Fox" which isn't the same. All of the major networks are pretty much conservatively biased. They just don't have the star performers that FOX has, or Fox like the Yankees is better at luring them away. With Comcast taking ownership of MSNBC, I think the remaining "liberal" commentators are being put on notice.The reason that most of them drift towards the conservative access is because the pay tends to be better.I think you missed the point of my question. Why doesn't another company give another "conservative access"? If you could pull off 1/3 of Fox's viewers, you would be pretty successful. You don't have to beat Fox, just pull enough of their customers to stay effective.
I seriously doubt that. Comcast will be getting a brand, "Left Version of Fox", they aren't going to mess with that brand. Olbermann left because he doesn't work well with others (with comments like his boss "thinks he's actually my boss"). From what I've read and heard, MSNBC if going to get trouble from anything is from the NBC news organization, as they get tired of being smeared with the wackos on MSNBC.
But I seriously doubt Comcast is going to get rid of popular commentators or even seriously rein them in. Just sounds too much lefty conspiracy theory to me.
I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
I'd prefer to think that the President is intelligent enough to remember the following.
1. He's not Bill Clinton.
2. This isn't 1994.. not by a long shot.
I thought he already did this when he extended the Bush tax-cuts.
Being from the UK I've only seen that O'Reilly nutter, I'm assuming Keith Olbermann is the left wing version? Whats with all the mentalists on US TV? I nearly died laughing when I saw that camp looking blonde one (Glenn Beck?) crying about how much he loves the USA and hates liberals ruining everything.
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I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
I'd prefer to think that the President is intelligent enough to remember the following.
1. He's not Bill Clinton.
2. This isn't 1994.. not by a long shot.
The "Clinton Moment" is realizing he is the leader of a Center-Right (by American standards, not European) nation, and not, say, Canada.
I'm not suggesting a 1:1 type situation.
And I'm only discussing reelection possibilities; the Republicans are in a pretty sweet situation as they only run 1/3 of the thing right now, but can still frame the debate. Obama can make East and West coast liberals happy, or he can get reelected. There isn't a whole lot of middle ground.
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Being from the UK I've only seen that O'Reilly nutter, I'm assuming Keith Olbermann is the left wing version? Whats with all the mentalists on US TV? I nearly died laughing when I saw that camp looking blonde one (Glenn Beck?) crying about how much he loves the USA and hates liberals ruining everything.
I'd say Olbermann is more like a left wing Hannity. O'Reilly can be charming sometimes; both Hannity and Olbermann are just serious a!!*$**s.
I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
I'd prefer to think that the President is intelligent enough to remember the following.
1. He's not Bill Clinton.
2. This isn't 1994.. not by a long shot.
The "Clinton Moment" is realizing he is the leader of a Center-Right (by American standards, not European) nation, and not, say, Canada.
I'm not suggesting a 1:1 type situation.
And I'm only discussing reelection possibilities; the Republicans are in a pretty sweet situation as they only run 1/3 of the thing right now, but can still frame the debate. Obama can make East and West coast liberals happy, or he can get reelected. There isn't a whole lot of middle ground.
Hnn. An good and ugly point.
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I thought he already did this when he extended the Bush tax-cuts.I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
I'd prefer to think that the President is intelligent enough to remember the following.
1. He's not Bill Clinton.
2. This isn't 1994.. not by a long shot.
Not really. It was a step, but Clinton practically stole all of the wind out of Republican sails, especially after making Gingrich look petty in the budget battle of '96.
Another is the assumption that less a corrupt and invasive state seems to automatically means surrendering more power to massive corporate
Right -- there are two other options:
(a) the states pick up the power vacuum individually, which means you've traded one too-powerful country for fifty lesser ones. This is sort of what Jess Door seems to lean towards, the rationale being that if one of those fifty states does things poorly, you have 49 other choices to pick from.
(b) The individual citizens -- all of us -- step up and fill that vacuum ourselves. This means abandoning party loyalty and thinking independently (which most people either cannot or will not do); it means constantly battling corporate interests, and helping others to do so even when it's against your short-term economic interest (and most people value security too highly to do so); and it means considering the needs of the other 300 million people in the U.S., not just those of your neighbor (which most people don't have a broad enough view to accomplish); and finally it still means roughly 150 million times as much bickering and arguing as we currently have (300M people, instead of just 2 parties). People like you and I, BT, would be willing to step up and take that on, with some measure of confidence. Others? Maybe not so much.
Notice that either way, though, the total level of power and control are nearly identical; we've just diffused it by a factor of 25 (in the case of Option A) or by a factor of 150 million (Option B). Because history has shown that if you reduce the net amount below a certain threshold, rather than forcing each person to step up and take on their share, it encourages people to cede control to a dictator. This is, with minor variations, what happened after the French Revolution, and in the Weimar Republic, and so on.
Not really. It was a step, but Clinton practically stole all of the wind out of Republican sails, especially after making Gingrich look petty in the budget battle of '96.I thought he already did this when he extended the Bush tax-cuts.I suspect he's going to have a "Clinton Moment" tomorrow. He'll co-opt a bunch of the right's less distasteful (to Obama), obviously popular with the masses platforms and make them his, like Billy did after the 94 elections. If he can pull it off, he might get another four years. If not, one an done.
I'd prefer to think that the President is intelligent enough to remember the following.
1. He's not Bill Clinton.
2. This isn't 1994.. not by a long shot.
Speaking of Newt ... he's got a big pair of brasses if he really thinks he's going to launch his campaign for the 2012 Presidency. The media will have no trouble linking his extra-marital affairs mirror that of John Edwards given that their wives were in similar predicaments.
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I'm going to have to agree with pres here. I don't want her anywhere near the White House, but they made it impossible for the woman to do her job, and it was costing the state millions to fight all of the lawsuits (all of which were found to be completely without merit).I see where you are coming from, but I think she painted herself into that particular corner.
All she did was be very distasteful to the left, and be a bit too "anti-intellectual".
Frankly, the only way to explain the volume of bile from the Left is to assume she scares the hell pout of them (quirky populists can be very dangerous, politically, to people who don't communicate with "sixpack Joe" well, and, in fact, look down their noses at him).
Frankly, the only way to explain the volume of bile from the Left is to assume she scares the hell pout of them
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Frankly, the only way to explain the volume of bile from the Left is to assume she scares the hell pout of themTHIS explains the fear and bile pretty well, in my opinion.
Too bad everything he says about the Gibson interview was false. He wasn't interviewing Tina Fey (who was the originator of the "from my window" statement, not Palin).
So, yeah, you're right. The bile is completely unwarranted. Thanks for making my point with a typical partisan b~@!#+*+ article.
I now expect you to cite Beck as an example of why the right is correct in a lie about the left. You can do it, I have faith!
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I'll give you Jackson (I can almost even forgive him for "Hymietown"). but Sharpton, after Tawanda Brawley and Crown Heights, should still be in an orange jumpsuit.Funny. I feel the same way about Sharpton and Jackson.
O'Reilly? He's your funny but kind of assholish drunk uncle on the couch at Thanksgiving. Yeah, he's a bit boisterous, but he always get's a laugh. Uncle Bill wouldn't hurt a fly, he's just like that. And, he actually let's the other side have a voice on his show. He shoots them down, but it's in a funny, wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way. And he'll throw in the occasional red herring where he appears to agree with the other side once in a while, cause uncle bill is "fair 'n balanced" dontcha know?
I can't forgive Jackson that, provided what he actually said it. I was a kid at the time so I don't know if he actually said it or not or if it was something attributed to him. Hell, I didn't even KNOW what hymie was until relatively recently. That kind of stuff doesn't fly with me. Tawana Brawley was one of the biggest and most nauseating tragedies I have seen in my lifetime, there is no pit deep enough for him in my eyes, provided he knew she was lying(always a chance he didn't know).
Crown Heights is something noone was right on. Were you living here at the time, or had you already moved? If so, I'd like to know what it was like for you at that time. I was young- maybe 13 or 14 at best- and it polarized me with my new white friends I had made in high school. My father's wife(not mom) was seriously injured during that riot on a bus, her back has never been the same since. She does not like discussing the incident.
I agree that Crown Heights was a total clusterf@#$.
My beef with Sharpton is he threw gas all over that situation.
And, yeah, I forgot, not graduating from an Ivy League college automatically disqualifies people from being human. That was the ONLY point in that article, btw.
And yours is that anyone with a functional IQ over 60 is likewise disqualified? That doesn't leave us much room to work with!
The point is that, when you need a plumber, you don't call a taxidermist. Being a "down-home hockey mom" doesn't automatically make one a statesman (or stateswoman).
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And, yeah, I forgot, not graduating from an Ivy League college automatically disqualifies people from being human. That was the ONLY point in that article, btw.And yours is that anyone with a functional IQ over 60 is likewise disqualified? That doesn't leave us much room to work with!
The point is that, when you need a plumber, you don't call a taxidermist. Being a "down-home hockey mom" doesn't automatically make one a statesman (or stateswoman).
Funny, being a "black dude full of "hope and change" doesn't either. Or did you forget Obama had less actual "qualification" for the office than Palin? If you're arguing that point, then we haven't had a "qualified" candidate since '96, when Clinton ran last.
Funny, being a "black dude full of "hope and change" doesn't either. Or did you forget Obama had less actual "qualification" for the office than Palin? If you're arguing that point, then we haven't had a "qualified" candidate since '96, when Clinton ran last.
You know I don't disagree with any of that!
Never mind. I forgot I was talking to the guy who specifically called me a failure in life on these boards and thought it was hypocritical for me to not push for a welfare state as a result.
Now who's badly misinterpreting things as a result of prior bias? Never mind that -- are you hung over this morning? Or just bored?
And, yeah, I forgot, not graduating from an Ivy League college automatically disqualifies people from being human. That was the ONLY point in that article, btw.And yours is that anyone with a functional IQ over 60 is likewise disqualified? That doesn't leave us much room to work with!
The point is that, when you need a plumber, you don't call a taxidermist. Being a "down-home hockey mom" doesn't automatically make one a statesman (or stateswoman).
You know what really bothers me as an american? People saying Palin isn't "qualified" to be president. I have no problem with people thinking she is an extremely poor choice for president, but not "qualified". The qualifications for president are in the Constitution, if she meets them then she is by definition "qualified". Being a good choice is a totally different issue.
As Rahm Emanuel and Wyclef Jean found out, just because you might be a good choice for a position doesn't mean you are necessarily "qualified" for that position.
As a person that was raised in america and told as a child that anyone ... anyone can grow up and be president, this whole not "qualified" comments are disgusting to me.
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As a person that was raised in america and told as a child that anyone ... anyone can grow up and be president, this whole not "qualified" comments are disgusting to me.
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Understood. You've got to realize that I'm a guy raised in America, paying the President's salary and other Americans' social security taxes (although I'll never see a dime of it), and yet I've known my whole life that I myself can never be president because I had the misfortune to spend the first few weeks of my life overseas.