Cynical Nation

Wow.

Insanity sucks.

Wow also,
I have to say that I am stunned that Jill would propose something like that. A military coup? Give me a break. I hope Jill realizes how inappropriate what she wrote is and she retracts her post. It is unacceptable.

On the hand, some on the right should not be hypocritical. There are several that have praised military regimes. Want an example? Read some posts of JMK praising the "economic miracle" of murderous dictator Pincohet in Chile and emphasizing how great Milton Freedman was. No, Milton Freedman and Kissinger etc, were not great. They supported one way or another a criminal fascist military regime in Chile that killed thousands of innocent defenders of democracy. You believe in freedom? You never support a fascist regime no matter how many "economic miracles" it can create. Economic growth on the expense of freedom and democracy means nothing. So, lets be fair and not try to have it both ways.

If there was a military coup, we could end up with George Bush as President for Life.

Luckily, there won't be a coup. The Iraq War was unwise but the nation will survive.

Bush has about 16 months left in his tenure.

It's as futile for folks to waste energy seeking to try and "get rid of him" (through impeachment or worse) at this late date, as it will be for those who'll try and run against G W Bush in 2008.

Moreover, the Military has few....very few Liberals, let alone hard Leftists, so a "military coup" here would almost certainly install a far more Conservative (that's "Right-wing" to those logically challenged Leftists) group in power.

And YES, BW Friedman remains an economic genius and an American treasure.

There's no way to discredit his ideas nor Capitalism through its affiliation with the likes of Pinochet or Sukarno....as that comparison would STILL make Capitalism far more humane than socialism with its affiliation with the likes of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.

Think about that, if Capitalism were to be tainted by Sukarno and Pinochet embracing it, then socialism is far more tainted by Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other brutal tyrants embracing it!

As I correctly noted many times before, while socialist dictators inflict misery on the entire populations of those countries through the grinding poverty that socialism naturally delivers, Friedman saved Chileans from that fate.

Capitalism ALWAYS has delivered the MOST prosperity to the MOST people....and Friedman proved that it can even take root in the absence of political freedoms.

And what is the point of political freedom other than to protect our property rights and other "economic freedoms?"

"As I correctly noted many times before, while socialist dictators inflict misery on the entire populations of those countries through the grinding poverty that socialism naturally delivers, Friedman saved Chileans from that fate.

You are entitled to believe that supporting fascism, is the way to go. Pinochet killed thousands and destroyed democracy. But for you that's ok as far as there was an "economic miracle" in that country. By supporting Pinochet, Friedman supported fascism and I do not care about the economic outcome.

To me people like Hitler, Pinochet and others on the far right; and Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot on the far left are all the same. For you they are not. You apparently think that fascism is ok.

" By supporting Pinochet, Friedman supported fascism and I do not care about the economic outcome." (BW)


Allende, by inflicting universal poverty on Chile, killed far more Chileans than Pinochet did.

Your sick, demented view is predicated on the view that "democracy" = the majority being able to vote for anything they want, such as the confiscation of the property of those they deem "have too much."

OK, that IS indeed "pure democracy, but those who espouse that kind of pure democracy despise America's Founders most of all.

America was founded by a group of enlightened men who feared the excesses of government power and enshrined protections FROM government as our "Bill of Rights."

They went even further to AVOID any semblence of "pure democracy" by eliminating direct elections - the Electoral College was established and Senators were initially elected by representatives from each state. Then they restricted "the franchise" (the vote) to those who owned property...a standard I, as an ideological descendant of Jefferson's, support to this day.

Anyone who believes "the people" should be able to vote to restrict what others can earn, or to simply take from those who produce the most to give to those who produce the least, are anti-American scum.

So, please stop smearing Dr. Friedman by assailing Pinochet's brutality. Friedman never supported that and his policies enabled the productive Chileans (the educated, the ambitious, etc - appx 80% of that population) to live very well, while Allende's socialism had reduced the Chilean economy to a basketcase.

Since you "do not care about the economic outcomes," then please stop supporting socialist (redistributionist) policies and pure democracy - those things GUARANTEE a grinding poverty for all, while Capitalism assures prosperity for all but about 20% of the population.

It's better to "write that 20% off," institutionalize them, if we must, but there's no way, nor any good reason to seek to "equalize them" with their more productive neighbors.

"...Your sick, demented view is predicated on the view..."

Ok JMK,
I had enough of your bizzare comments. I will not respond to you any longer. Dont bother trying to engage me in any conversation with you, because I will not respond.

"Brilliant" definitely isn't the 1st thing that comes to mind reading Jill's post. Or supporting comments here.

One word: Moonbats

"Brilliant" definitely isn't the 1st thing that comes to mind reading Jill's post. Or supporting comments here. One word: Moonbats

Who supported her? I did not notice anyone doing so. Unless you are supporting her on that and you forgot to include it in your post. Maybe you know something that we dont.

"Who supported her?..." (BW)


You rationalized it BW, that's probably why DanO saw you as supporting her view.

Your response went right to assailing Milton Friedman's involvement with Pinochet, decrying, in effect, Friedman's Capitalist policies saving millions of Chilean lives and ming countless others better. A lame attempt by you to bash Supply-Side or market-based economics.

Then you lauded "pure democracy," where "the people," if so inclined, could vote to take wealth from the most productive and give it to those who are the least productive (the "less fortunate" as it were), which is antithetical to everything America's Founders held dear.

There's little doubt that Jill's view would be very well received by the Kos Kids, the MoveOn Maoists and the HuffPoos....birds of a feather, all of them.

JMK,
I asked you not to try to engage into a conversation with me. You consistently distort the truth and make things up, as you just did above. For this reason, I do not want to want to engage in any discussion with you.

The fact that you mix DKos and MoveOn with maoism says a lot about your understanding of politics. It shows that you have no idea of the basics and you are totally confused. It is also not surprising in view of your open support of fascism and your distaste for democracy. In any case, that was really the last time I would ever respond to you. Ciao, arriverdecci, good bye.

Jill's post was outrageous and very wrong.

It is also wrong to say that there have been any supporting comments of her post here, because there haven't been.

PE,
Thank you. I completely agree. What I wrote about Jill's post is that I was stunned! She sounds like she is completely out of her mind and she should retract that bizzare posting. Military coups are only for people who hate democracy.

"What I wrote about Jill's post is that I was stunned! She sounds like she is completely out of her mind and she should retract that bizzare posting." (BW)


I'm glad to hear you say that, but once again, her views are NOT at all inconsistent with the many of those you'd find posted on sewers like the Daily Kos, MoveOn.org and HuffPo, places where Hillary Clinton is often innanely derided as a "rabid Right-winger."

Your comparing Jill's position to the life-saving efforts of Professor Friedman in Chile muddied the waters and appeared to rationalize Jill's position, which is why Dan O probably took that as support for that viewpoint.

Marcos Moulitsas is a radical Leftist (yeah, Maoist is close enough, Stalinist would be applicable as well)....the folks at MoveOn and HuffPo, pretty much the same.

The fact that you don't see such people as the anti-American radicals that they are, says a lot about your perspective.

BW did not muddy the waters, whatsoever. What he said was that Jill's comments were wrong, then he went on to explain how he felt support of brutal dictators was also wrong.

Dan O may have innocently misread BW's position, but it wasn't BW's fault that he did. BW did not rationalize Jill's position and to say that he appeared to do so is deliberately twisting what he wrote.

No, that's not quite right, PE.

BW did NOT claim that supporting brutal dictators "was also wrong," what he did was to imply that the great Milton Friedman was somehow pernicious for getting Pinochet (and Sukarno, as well) to adopt a more free market economy and respect private property rights, policies that saved millions of lives and made untold others better.

What BW implied was that Friedman's policies and Capitalism, by extension, were somehow tainted by the fact that the great man was able to get two rogue dictators to try his policies out - in Chile those policies reversed the disastrous Allende economy almost overnight.

THAT erroneous and invidious comparison could only be made to rationalize Jill's view, and to muddy the waters by innanely squealing, something akin to "Well, Conservatives can be extreme, at times, too."

Milton Friedman's "extremism" imporved the living conditions of millions of Chileans....something that socialist policies have never done anywhere.

BW did not try to make Jill's post appear reasonable, not did he assign credible reasons for why she might be unreasonable. He did not try to excuse Jill's post. He did not rationalize Jill's post.

When you've sunk to the point that you say that BW was "innanely (sic) squealing".. then you've sunk to debate by insult. You can do better.

That's right, BW did NOT try to make Jill's post appear reasonable, he did NOT assign credible reasons for her post and he did NOT excuse Jill's post...and of course, that's NOT what I took him to task for.

I rightly took him to task for what he DID DO, which was to imply that the great Milton Friedman was somehow pernicious for getting Pinochet (and Sukarno, as well) to adopt a more free market economy and respect private property rights, policies that saved millions of lives and made untold others better.

That was an outrageous attempt to try and make Jill's extremism look "no worse" than some Conservative "extremism."

Again, what Milton Friedman's "extremism" did in Chile was almost certainly to have saved millions of lives from death by poverty/starvation and made countless others better via the economic liberty he won for that country from the Pinochet regime.

I thank God America produced a Milton Friedman....and many Chileans have him to thank for their very lives and for Chile's economy becoming "the Jewel of South America" under the policies Friedman helped forge.

If anyone's going to try and take Milton Friedman to task....they'll have to do a lot better.

It won't go unchallenged.

The fact that BW can't make a credible argument against a single Friedman policy or belief shows that he probably shouldn't have even made that initial attempt. It was just plain wrong to do that.

Nobody from either side had anything to say which indicated support for Jill's comment so I do not understand the fuss.

As for Jill, those of us who have known her posts could have predicted this.

Jill has been obsessed by her hatred of Bush in particular and Republicans in general since I first read her musings in 2003 as "Hackwriter" on the Bey Board.

She is convinced that Bush was directly responsible for the tragic death of Paul Wellstone, for example.

She also was firmly convinced that the Bush admin had targeted her during 2004's Dean campaign and that she would be arrested.

I don't make this stuff up, friends.

She is not representative of the good (if misguided!) folks on the left who post here.

She is becoming a truly sad personality and I take no pleasure in saying that.

You're right about the Wellstone stuff, as well Mal.

Here's the thing, I don't see Jill's view as being at all out of step with a lot of the stuff you see on the HuffPo and the D-Kos all the time. In fact, there's even more lunacy on those sites.

The fuss here wasn't about "support for" or "excusing" or even "making Jill's views sound reasonable," it was about one poster (BW) comparing Jill's call for a military coup to another poster's (myself) admiration and respect for one of the three greatest economists (along with Hayek & von Mises) of the 20th Century - Milton Friedman.

That wasn't "excusing," "defending," or "making Jill's view sound reasonable," but it was rationalizing it by implying that admiration & support for Dr Friedman is similar to Jill's apparent support for a Military coup against Bush Jr.

Since my comment got as much attention as what this post was about let me jump in again. The second part of my comment maybe was preemptive and uncalled for and I apologize for not clarifying it better.

It's hilarious reading BW go on an unprovoked defense, though. Even though he didn't support Jill, he felt the need to point that out in case I did mean
him.
Of course everyone knows BW 's gonna rant about anything I comment anyway. Kinda like Turret's with him, he can't stop himself.

And the way he doesn't respond to JMK by responding that he won't respond as he said in his earlier response, priceless!

and I apologize for not clarifying it better.

Of course everyone knows BW 's gonna rant about anything I comment anyway. Kinda like Turret's with him, he can't stop himself."

LOL. Wrong interpretation. I had never noticed you. So, I dont think I "would rant" about everything your write, because you have not been much noticed here. Have you posted here before? Anyway your apology is accepted. Cheers.

"And the way he doesn't respond to JMK by responding that he won't respond as he said in his earlier response, priceless!" (Dan O)


Yes, that IS pretty amusing Dan O, but it's also pretty wise on BW's part given that, since his beliefs are all grounded in emotion not logic, he's generally unable to make a logical argument for his views.

If I were him, I'd do the same thing.....only I never would've gotten into discussions with those I disagree with, because you can't (as BW demonstrates) make an argument based solely on emotion - this way "sounds nice," or it "seems fair," etc.

The sad thing is that I believe his inability to make such an argument chased at least one Liberal away from here (Susan Escher) who wanted a (rational, logical) reason to believe in BW's viewpoint, as Conservative and even Libertarian ideology often sounds so hard, or tough.

Personally, I'm glad BW doesn't seek to convince or convert, in fact I'm ecstatic that most of today's Liberals are "religious extremists," adhering to "Church dogma" on things like Global Warming" and anti-poverty strategies.

I believe the reason Liberalism has become just another religious cult, is that there is really no way to make a logical argument for that viewpoint.

"I had never noticed you...Have you posted here before?" (BW)


Dan O's been a fairly regular poster BW, perhaps you just never noticed him before.

Might be a perceptual problem on your part.