Cynical Nation

Barry,
Your post above has self-contradicting statements. On the one hand you argue that Obama will be defeated easily in the general, on the other hand you are afraid that he may win :-) And in my opinion, you are right to be afraid. Because he WILL win. The reality Barry is that you are afraid of change. You dont want change. I believe though that the country is tired of the status quo and wants change.

I also agree with you that Hillary would be very tough to beat. In contrast to you, I think that either Obama or Hillary will win over McCain in November for a simple reason. McCain is not electable. He will be 72 years old and, just his appearance alone, is reminiscent of the past. Not to mention his statements about staying 100 years in Iraq that have already killed any chance he might have had.

I believe that Obama will be the nominee and will be elected president of the United States. Because he is simply what the times call for. A new beginning for the country. We need to move on.

I'm a democrat form Florida.
obama does not want to count the delegates from Florida or Michigan. Clinton has tried to get them seated, even offered to pay half the cost of a second primary if obama would match it. obama of coarse declined,and he objects to a mail-in primary in June. What a poor American, poor leader, and most of all poor presidential candidate.
There is no excuse for his fact of leadership in the democratic party, who could think that a man should be president who would not recognize two state primaries. Give me a break, I'm a little smarter then that.
If obama is the democratic candidate, I'll be voting for McCain.

I'm a democrat form Florida.
obama does not want to count the delegates from Florida or Michigan. Clinton has tried to get them seated, even offered to pay half the cost of a second primary if obama would match it. obama of coarse declined,and he objects to a mail-in primary in June. What a poor American, poor leader, and most of all poor presidential candidate.
There is no excuse for his fact of leadership in the democratic party, who could think that a man should be president who would not recognize two state primaries. Give me a break, I'm a little smarter then that.
If obama is the democratic candidate, I'll be voting for McCain.

Bluewind if obama win president, he'll do it without the vote of a lot of democrats. You better rethink that buddy, he's a loser through and through.
Prove me wrong.
Oh, try telling me something intelligent that he's said. Bet you can't other "yes i can" and "change".
By the way change what?

You're all forgetting the dead voters, illegals, and felons. They will all be voting for the big O, most of them several times.

What BW doesn't realize is that Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko and Abongo ("Roy") Obama are just the top layer on a swamp of slime.

BW sees McCain as "unelectale" because he wants to see him as unelectable.

In truth this will almost certainly be a very close election, UNLESS someone on either side screws up royally....like a McCain appealing to race or gender (he won't, he's too much a politician to directly appeal to race or gender) or if a Democrat appealed to McCain's age. BOTH those things could/would alienate enough voters to throw the election.

I understand very well how BW feels, I guess I'm just not as unrealistic as he is.

I reviled Eliot Spitzer for a long time. I peronally know a number of people whom he's hurt...good people, people who on their worst days are a lot better then him on his best.

Spitzer once said, "The Constitution is a dead piece of paper, it can be reinterpreted by us to do anything it takes to make this a better country."

For those sentiments alone, he desrved to die.

I mean that - HE deserved to die.

That's why I'm fervently hoping that some time during this long, excruciatingly humiliating ordeal, one day he wakes up and does the right thing...

His family would be better off.

His political ambitions are already dead.

In fact, it's the only way he could improve his current standing and salvage a shred of his personal reputation.

I mean, while people revile flawed, hypocrits while they're alive, when they're dead, they're often seen as "Flawed crusaders, overcome by the pressures and the burdens of doing good."

Of course, I KNOW what Eliot really is. He's not merely a hypocrit, he's a self-centered coward, who COULDN'T possibly, under any circumstances, do that right thing...and that's too bad, actually, for all involved.

The problem America faces right now, is how many more scumbags like Eliot Spitzer are out there....on BOTH sides.

And NOT mere whoremongers....not by a longshot. Whoremongers, even hypocritical ones (especially hypocritical ones) are a dime a dozen, I mean people who believe "the Constitution is a dead piece of paper."

THOSE are the enemies of America.

We DO need change in America.

We NEED more individualism and LESS government...and that's almost impossible to do without eradicating the scourge of our current political system - the Lawyer/Legislator. There is and always has been an innate conflict of interest with the lawyer/legislator.

Unfortunately, no one on either side is talking about THAT kind of meaningful change.

There are already too many Spitzers and far too few decent people in politics. We don't need great people in government, if we merely had decent people, rather than the sub-human, indecents like the Spitzers, Craigs and all the unknown pols who quietly believe "The Constitution is just a dead piece of paper."

Yikes! It seems I got caught up in my personal animus for a specific villain and I didn't finish my point about being unrealistic about political races.

As much as I reviled Eliot Spitzer, I never saw him as "unelectable," in fact I was almost certain that he'd win over Nick Spano in November 2005.

What's happened recently is more than I could've hoped for....it's as they say, just "too good."

What makes this great is that Spitzer had a special fervor for "sex crimes," so for him to get caught in such a sordid escapade is really, too good to be true. It's a win for those who believe in Liberty and America's Founding Design and a terrible black eye for those who believe that "America's Founders were far from perfect, so their documents were also far from perfect, THEIR view of 'Freedom,' as Liberty, is good for those with great educations, solid connections and money & property, it's not so good for everyone else."

Still, the point is, just because you disagree with a candidate (or in rare instances, even hate that candidate) that doesn't make that person "unelectable." Not at all.

I think that Obama having a racist, tinfoil-hatted, government hating, America hating spiritual advisor is NOT something that he can overcome.

Surely he knew what he pastor of 20 years preached. If Air America is any indication, the problem was that most Liberals do not really disagree with the guy. He was just stating what liberals believe to be true.

That is why you still don't understand that Obama is finished. To independents and moderates, there is no possible excuse that Obama can make to get out of this one. Bill Clinton could not have survived his pastor shouting GOD DAMN AMERICA to thunderous applause.

Obama is a dead man walking.

BH,
I could not disagree more with you. In fact, I believe that the selective targeting of Obama is some sort of (at least subconscious) racism. McCain has said that he is honored to accept the support of a man (Haggee) that has said that the Catholic Church is the great whore and the Antichrist and has also made antisemitic comments. What makes Wright worse than Haggee? Why the selective targeting of Obama? I can not find any reasonable explanation other than racism.

Even if you can't see the difference between a 20-year relationship with a spiritual advisor who performed your marraige and baptised your children, and accepting the cash and votes from some wingnut preacher ... well, like I said, moderates and independents can.

If that was what Obama had done, and then he claimed to disagree with some of the things the guy said, that would be accepted. After twenty years, I think he knew Wright was a racist. A lot of blacks think that black racism is acceptable and justified.

For example, if JMK decided to accept my endorsement of him to run for head of his union, and then found out that often make racist statements and anti-semitic remarks, he could strongly condemn those remarks after he was made aware of them. If I were the leader of a congregation with a million voters, he probably wouldn't reject the endorsement and my congregation.

Now, then again, if JMK came to me and out of all the churches in the world chose to join my congregation, and was aware of my racist and anti-semitic views, and had me perform his marraige, baptise his kids, and called me his spiritual advisor ... see the difference?

Everyone else does.

Oh, and this morning settled the question. Ten callers in a row, and the host on Air America, all agreed that what Rev. Wright said was basically true, you know, if you really think about it.

White America really is responsible for most of the suffering and oppression in the world. White people caused 911. White people created AIDS as a genocidal tool against blacks. White people are stopping black people from getting ahead. White people are making black people take drugs, and then putting these innocent victims in prison.

Yep, I remember hearing all of that in college, from a privileged white college professor. Ah, now I remember, that is why I registered Republican and voted for Chimp.

If Obama wins the nomination, I will vote for McCain.

"If Obama wins the nomination, I will vote for McCain."

Congrats. You will be voting for 4 more years of the Bush presidency and 100 more years for war in Iraq. In my opinion McCain is worse and more dangerous than Bush. He is a semi-demented nasty old neocon who would love to start WW III

Better the devil I know.

Neat-o! JMK says:
"I reviled Eliot Spitzer for a long time. I peronally know a number of people whom he's hurt...good people, people who on their worst days are a lot better then him on his best.

"Spitzer once said, "The Constitution is a dead piece of paper, it can be reinterpreted by us to do anything it takes to make this a better country."

"For those sentiments alone, he desrved to die.

"I mean that - HE deserved to die.

"That's why I'm fervently hoping that some time during this long, excruciatingly humiliating ordeal, one day he wakes up and does the right thing...

"His family would be better off."

Classy. Wishing someone would die and/or commit suicide. I think we've reached a new low here.

Actually, I wished for Chimp & Darth to be hanged for treason quite a few times here, with Rove swinging right beside them.

I did get one of my wishes when Kenneth Lay died. Of course, it kind of worked to his family's favor, helping them keep some of his stolen fortune which would have been rightfully distributed to the people he robbed.

By the way, the people Spitzer took down were pretty much Kennth Lays. JMK has just learned to adore the evil people who control his life, steal his money, and take away his liberties.

It's some kind of syndrome, I don't remember the name of it ... you know, it happened to Patty Hurst.

So what you are saying is that it will be a national tragedy if the candidate that PE prefers actually wins this time.

Fred, it seems you didn't read my post.

I said INCREASED DEMAND (mainly from CHINA & INDIA) amidst an INCREASING (but not fast enough) SUPPLY is MOST responsible for the rise in the price of oil over tha past few years.

My exact quote on that was, "Oil prices have risen DESPITE the FACT that MORE oil/MORE supply has hit the market, but that rising supply has been swamped by even higher/rising demand - mostly from India and China."

I've many times mentioned the impact of commodity speculators....oil futures speculators are key in pegging the price of oil.

BUT, and I believe you CANNOT possibly disagree, that the so-called environmentalists have played a major part in the shrinking of the world's supply of oil by lobbying againt drilling in oil-rich ANWAR, the Gulf of Mexico and now lobby against even cataloging our oil shale and oil sands inventories.

THAT agenda is certainly a "radical" one, and it's one that virtually guarantees a higher price for oil, which is very, VERY GOOD for the huge energy conglomerates.

In my view, in the absence of evidence (I can't find any) to the contrary, I don't see any reason to worry about any negative "environmental impact," or more importantly, any real adverse human health effects from more domestic oil drilling and refining.

It's for that very reason, that I believe that most of the contemporary environmentalists are actually corporate stooges, whose lobbying efforts are designed to raise the price of oil, but cutting the available supply.

The idea that the invasion of iraq cut world oil supplies, by keeping Iraq's oil from the market is wrong! As the BBC article above attests; "Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)."

I've never insinuated that incredibly INCREASED DEMAND (mainly from India and China) that swamped an INCREASED world SUPPLY was NOT the primary reason for the major spike in oil prices....in fact, I've long noted that was the primary cause.

I've also noted, on many occasions, the critical role that commodity investors and speculators play in the rising price of oil.

Ironically enough, and not to make too much of this, but in EVERY case, BH has vehemently disagreed that those WERE the primary causes behind the rising price of oil....and (amazingly enough) you never had my back.

Now that I mention the insidious role that environmentalists (wittingly or not) also play in the rising price of oil, you respond as though I've never mentioned (I DID right HERE) the role of India's and China's huge demand AND the role commodity (oil) investors & speculators play in that rise.

Sorry, but that just seems like very selective outrage, perhaps even rigged outrage, given that I have often mentioned the role increased global demand, the role of commodity investors/speculators and the ironic result of the lobbying efforts of so-called "environmentalists," have all played in the rising price of oil.

"By the way, the people Spitzer took down were pretty much Kennth Lays. JMK has just learned to adore the evil people who control his life, steal his money, and take away his liberties..." (BH)

Let me answer as politely as I possibly can;

Hey STUPID!!! Spitzer attacked the PEOPLE of Wall Street, NOT merely the titans like Langone and Grasso (not that either of them did anything wrong either....as there's no such crime as "making too much money"). Spitser attacked American business...the FOUNDER of our feast. The employer of over 70% of American workers!

I'll keep saying this until or UNLESS someone here can come up with a logical opposition to it - We DO NOT have a fixed economic pie. We have a dynamic economy, in which wealth expands and contracts via human action. IF we DID have a fixed economic pie, then those who earn too much money could be considered "taking more than their fair share and denying others their fair share," but we don't have a fixed economic pie.

A friend of mine is laughing right now, because he has actually made an argument against that....in fact he's made a fairly sound argument in favor of at least a "partially fixed economic pie," one that we don't agree on, and one that I am right on (YES I AM) and he is, at least, more wrong then right.

But please BH (and others) just take my word for it....We DON'T have a fixed economic pie, so it CANNOT be a crime to "make too much money," as Spitzer basically charged Grasso with.

The vast majority of the people Eliot Spitzer hurt were regular, work-a-day Wall Street traders, the very people who comprise "the engine of this economy."

Suffice to say, the most charitable term I can use to describe Eliot Spitzer is "scumbag."

Her's a slimey POS who's said, "The Consititution is a dead piece of paper," and proved that by ALLEGEDLY (at this point) used taxpayer paid for hotel rooms for illicit activities and involved NY State Troopers (duly sworn law enforcement officials) in criminal actions, as their protecting him during these trysts, involved them, no matter how peripherally, in his own criminal behaviors.

Spitzer tried his best to extort money and crony jobs out of respectable American businesses and sent some incredibly good people (as I said, "far better on their worst days then Spitzer was on his best") to prison.

And that's exactly where I WANT...and expect Spitser to wind up! Anything less would be a grave injustice.

"JMK has just learned to adore the evil people who control his life, steal his money, and take away his liberties.

That is undoubtedly true. No question about it. However, I hate to say it, but you are not much better than JMK in that respect. You wrote that you will vote for McCain if Obama is the candidate. That is JMK-like thinking.

BW, you are, in fact, a viscious ideological bigot.

And though it can be fairly said that America's Founders were also ALL ideological bigots AGAINST centralized authority and AGAINST those opposed to individualism and "freedom" defined as "self-ownership/responsibility) BUT they were, unlike yourself, studious men who came honestly to the RIGHT belief system after much serious consideration and debate.

Hitler was also an ideological bigot, but he was not a man led by any noble guiding principles, like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, or Adam Smith (a mentor all of America's Founders) were, he was, like yourself, someone who came forward with his own half-baked, ill-conceived, narrow-minded, tribalist POVs, views that he also, couldn't make any affirmative arguments for.

The ideological bigotry of America's Founders that dismissed out of hand and even barred those views that sought a more interventionist and more purely democratic form of government than Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, et all proposed was an inspired ideological bigotry - well thought out, pleasant to the ear and powerful to the spirit.

I think (more aptly, I profoundly HOPE) you'd agree that none of us really have any right to hold views we cannot defend.

So in that regard, YOU don't have the right to be anti-business because you cannot defend that viewpoint.

You don't have the right to hold the view that a pure democracy COULD work, because, once again, you cannot make an affirmative argument for that.

Don't fret BW, niether could Hitler...and despite his madness, he had an incredible amount of personal charisma and he WAS, much like Mussolini and Eliot Spitzer as well, both an educated and intelligent man. Even intelligent and educated people can lack common sense and become vile ideological bigots.

Spitzer's anti-business, anti-American persecutions of so many good Americans working on Wall Street, is very personal to me and so I do have more emotionally invested in this than most other issues. Hell, I was so emotionally off the cuff in that rant that I mistook Nick Spano for John Faso, who was the man who lost to Spitzer in the last Gubernatorial race.

The good news, for those of us who revile Spitzer, is that he's "fresh out of friends" up in Albany, and it seems few up there are going to be motivated to "assist the Spitz."

Hell, both Joe Bruno AND Shelly Silver wouldn't mind seeing "the Steamroller" in a federal pen....I've already stated where I'd prefer to see him, that doesn't need rehashing. In fact, I'm even ashamed that I gave vent to those thoughts, but in his case, I cannot say that his actions don't warrant such sentiments....and NOT the whoremongering, BUT the persecution so many good and decent work-a-day Wall Street traders AND his toxic, even corrosive view that "the Constitution is a dead piece of paper."

Come to think of it, Spitzer could never explain the rationale behind his pro-socialist, anti-private industry views either, so in reality HE had no logical right to those views.

Like yourself, he was a viscious ideological bigot. Only he had more access to power and was, in that regard, a lot more dangerous than you are.

I DON'T intend this to inspire you to make any affirmative arguments for your misanthropic, anti-Capitalist/anti-Liberty viewpoints, not at all. There are no such affirmative arguments.

I'm merely stating a truth and hoping that at some point, it may inspire you to look more closely at yourself.

"The vast majority of the people Eliot Spitzer hurt were regular, work-a-day Wall Street traders, the very people who comprise "the engine of this economy."

LOL! Several people very close to me, including my wife, have worked with stock traders, and to a person, found them to be the most immoral, unethical, vicious, greedy, sub-human scum of the earth. "They have no souls" is a common observation. Many have put them far BELOW used car salesmen.

These are 100% parasites, who thrive from cheating others, provide nothing of benefit to society, and usually end up amazingly wealthy. They cackle behind the scenes as they fuck over investors over and over for their own personal gain (often illegal). My wife was right there. She heard it all, for months on end, before she quit (even though her job had nothing to do with them) just because they made her that sick.

If Eliot Spitzer tortured those assholes, then he was truly a man of God.

"Several people very close to me, including my wife, have worked with stock traders, and to a person, found them to be the most immoral, unethical, vicious, greedy, sub-human scum of the earth." (BH)

Much as I don't want to cast dispersions against your long-suffering wife, ANYONE who comes away with that perception of people who routinely work 16 to 18 hour days is, to be as charitable as possible, a "useless eater" - a person, in every way deserving of being comingled with a delusional, envious, bigoted, enemy of freedom/free markets, sub-human such as yourself.

"Birds of a feather," no doubt.

If living well is the best revenge, the coming prosecution of Eliot Spitzer on various Treasury charges....it was the IRS that got the wiretap on the Spooze," along with malfeasance (using taxpayer paid-for hotel rooms for illicit trysts), involving law enforcement officers (at least peripherally) in his illicit activities and perhaps even the Mann Act...will be icing on the cake.

Whenever a person lauds someone who opposes freedom (economic Liberty - self-ownership/responsibility) they say EVERYTHING about who they are, and your admiring a scumbag who's said "The Constitution is just a dead piece of paper," says it all about you.

Obama gave a great speech. I think I will give him another chance and vote for him after all.

Haha, fuck you, hater.

"Obama gave a great speech. I think I will give him another chance and vote for him after all. "

His speech was truly remarkable. He is the only sincere guy running who speaks honestly.

Amazing foreign policy gaffe of McCain while speaking in Iraq. Link below. What he said is the equivalent of total illiteracy in foreign affairs. That alone disqualifies him from the presidency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6GBdyws5YU

It is WAAAAAAAY too early to declare McCain the frontrunner for the November election.

This next election will be won on the economy and McCain is the weakest of the 3 remaining candidates on that subject, IMO.

McCain should be using his free time to read up on macroeconomics rather than touring the world.

"McCain should be using his free time to read up on macroeconomics rather than touring the world."

In my opinion he should be using his time to find a nice retirement house. Maybe somewhere in Florida. He is far too old to be running for president. There are also clear signs that he not capable to do that job, like his recent huge foreign policy gaffe in Iraq.

Didn't Bush swiftboat McCain eight years ago by suggesting that he was a traitor because he talked after being tortured?

I think that kind of Repug rationale needs to be revisited. I mean, he did give information to the enemy. He admitted it.

McCain is a traitor. I know Repugs are really just so very, very patriotic (they wear lapel pins to prove it), so surely they won't vote for a traitor.

Yes, better to vote for Obama, even if he is a militant black than a known traitor.

Even Rev. Wright served more honorably as a United States Marine than McCain, who betrayed his country to the enemy.

Rev. Wright is more patriotic than draft dodgers like Chimp & Vader, and Rove of course, and Rush, Hannity, and O'Reilly ... ALL COWARDS.

All I know is that Barry keeps insisting on eating at Denny's and I'm tired of it.

Must we always end up at Denny's?

Per usual, I shot you another link and analyzed your post: http://www.drumwaster.com/index.php/weblog/mccain_v_obama_v_clinton_part_ii/

Viva La Barry!

If ONLY the McCain campaign would put a microphone in front of Barely ("the white Jeremiah Wright") Hanging and BW "the Kos-Kid," this election would wind up the largest landslide since Nixon's 1972 romp over McGovern!

What's that old expression, "Sexism = racism = homophobia?"

Yeah, I think that was the old rallying cry of some of the NOW carpet-munchers ("not that there's anything wrong with that")...

So, why not update that a little, to, "Ageism = racism = sexism, etc?"

It's handy and easy to remember, even for our overloy medicated Left-wingers.

A montage of that stuff would probably be pretty effective.

JMK,
Take it easy. Let me inform you a couple of things so you know where you stand:

1. You are against your own interests and you vote against your own interests.

2. Without realizing it, you are a democracy hater. You hate against democracy is inadvertent.

3. Your level of understanding of political issues is not that far from a group that I would classify as politically illiterate.

4. Political illiteracy is the reason that a rogue president (as Lincoln Chaffee called him recently) was elected and re-elected and started the catastrophic Iraq war.

5. If you are not sure what I am trying to say, draw your own conclusions.

6. Cheers.

"You are against your own interests and you vote against your own interests." (BW)


OK genius, tell me how I or any other working person votes against their best interests by voting consistently in favor of the more Conservative candidate.

I correctly perceive that I am directly harmed EVERY TIME that the government spends money on social programs. We working people are harmed because (1) working people neither GET, nor NEED any such programs and (2) because it's working people who pay the bulk of the taxes around here.

WE are directly harmed EVERY TIME tax rates rise.

We are directly harmed by race/gender preferences.

We are directly harmed by illegal immigration. Cheap ILLEGAL immigrant labor puts a persistent downward pressure on ALL wage-rates and costs EVERY American over $19,000 in healthcare, incarceration and other ancillary social costs (at current levels) over tha course of their lives.

We are directly harmed by policies that view violent criminal as "victims of society," and offer "therapy" instead of punishment.

Moreover, America HAS NEVER BEEN and WILL NEVER BE a "democracy" in any pure sense of that word.

It's not ME, it's America's Founders who reviled "democracy." It is THEY who righteously instituted the Electoral College system, and set up the Senate so that small States with tiny populations would be on an equal footing with the larger, more populous states in at least one chamber of Congress. In a sense "amplifying the voices" of those smaller, less populous states - EXTREMELY "undemocratic."

It was Ben Franklin who said "A democracy is four wolves and a sheep, deciding on what's for dinner." I merely agree with that statement, as it is self-evidently true.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the Democratic Party has taken precautions EVEN in its own Primaries to avoid "too much democracy."

The unelected and unbeholden "Super-delegates" are almost certainly going to side this Primary and it's looking more and more likely that they WILL NOT merely vote in the candidate with the most "earned delegates."

Let me be as honest and as diplomatic as I can be under the circumstances; You are a simpleton and worst of all, you fancy yourself intelligent. In truth, you are an ignoramous when it comes to economics, you have absolutely no understanding of history and you are woefully politically naive.

The FACT is, I'm but one American among the overwhelming majority, who wouldn't live peacefully within a "share-and-share alike" type of communal culture. It runs counter to our very human natures.

I don't consider you either a decent or a particularly caring individual (I am both), for that reason among others, I don't consider you to be "my kind," In fact, I believe I correctly consider you an enemy of freedom - that's "freedom" defined as the grinding burden of self ownership and the full weight of the self-resposnibility that comes with that.

Now, I'm not only banking on the fact that you're too insipid to make a counter-argument, I am positive that you cannot.

I OPPOSE ILLEGAL immigration because that is clearly in my best interests.

I SUPPORT large-scale income tax rates cuts, the elimination of the Capital Gains tax, the Inheritance tax and taxes on dividends, because THAT is clearly in my own best interests.

I OPPOSE race/gender preferences because they are (1) against my own best interests AND (2) dull the competitive abilities of those they're set up to help.

I SUPPORT massive cuts in government (ESPECIALLY social) spending because that is clearly in my best interests.

I SUPPORT PUNISHMENT and NOT therapy for violent felons, because THAT TOO is in my best interests.

And I am positive that you have neither the ability, nor the life experience, nor the understanding to refute ANY of those views.

I don't believe I'm being overly harsh here (though I am quite tired and hardly in the mood for a lecture from a consistently flippant and thoughtless person), I believe I'm just being brutally honest.

I know, brutal honesty is not often appreciated, but you kind of opened the dialogue to that, with that silly challenege you posted above.

Salud!

Chimp hasn't spend a DIME on social programs, and you have been hurt, badly.

Chimp poured far more into the Halliburton/Big Oil coffers and the military industrial complex than all social programs combined -- and for what?

We know you are all for the $500 trillion war. That money damn sure isn't going to the soldiers, is it?

You vote against your own interests, because you can't see that a $500 trillion war, a economic depression, inflation, higher food, sky high fuel, and a new HUGE addition to the government in Homeland Security, and an absolutely traitorous and unconstitional repeal of your rights ... well, for some reason you don't see this as being as bad as some inner city kid getting a free breakfast.

In reality, you are the one shouting GOD DAMN AMERICA! You and the rest of the war profiteers.

Only, for god's sake, you don't get a dime!

The only thing you can tell yourself is that without a war in Iraq the terrorists would invade our country and kill us all. That is why we gave up everything. Our prosperity and our freedom.

The conservatives did all this in a mere SIX YEARS of absolute power.

All you can say to that is that they weren't "real" conservative.

Sorry, they were. It was all a sham. You got fooled, and so did I ... but at least I woke up.

Well tweedle dumber, I'll give you credit for tying, except, as usual, you have the facts wrong...AGAIN.

Actually, THIS administration DID indeed spend recklessly socially - with the NCLB Act and the prescription drug boondoggle.

The ONLY thing ratinal people can say about either such debacle is that, YES, like on ILLEGAL immigration, "the Dems would've been even worse."

BUT, the war costs?

$500 TRILLION???

You seem to have misplaced a zero somewhere - it's $500 BILLION, to date on Iraq. That includes the 1 month "war against Saddam's Iraq," and a nearly five years long year re-building effort, including training Iraqi the military and police and fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.

Kind of par for the course for a guy who boldly claimed that "The Iraq war increased the price of oil, by keeping all that Iraqi oil off the world market," when IN FACT, Iraqi oil production is ABOVE pre-invasion output!

Again, the kind of logic of a fellow who'd call people who haven't profited from the war, "war profiteers."

This is a part of the reason most people here refuse to even engage you Barely, even the likes of batshit crazy BW, whom you agree with far more often than not.

I posted the proof of what precipated the invasion of Iraq....and yes, as I noted, it turned out to be LIES, but not either G W Bush's nor Tony Blair's (turns out neither of THEM lied), but Saddam's LIES. His strategy of "detterance by doubt," a strategy that had his own Generals believing that they had stockpiles of WMDs...that deceptive strategy was what made the invasion of Iraq a necessity. A rational person can disagree over whether we should've embarked on re-building Iraq, but the necessity of toppling Saddam Hussein cannot really be debated.

Morover, it's the overall WoT that is costing us the most....in Military efforts around the globe and in a massive homeland security build-up at home.

Do we have any choice in engaging in this WoT?

Absolutely NOT, as there was never, at ANY time, ANY way for us to negotiate our way out of this.

In sum, a valiant but logically impaired and organizationally inept attempt Barely, as you've failed to address how lower tax rates, opposition to race/gender preferences, tough on crime policies, etc., are "against the best interests" of working Americans.

Still, it is better than anything I'd expect from the likes of BW.



To BW, I do think I was a little harsh in my reply last evening, as I'm less tired right now, though I stand by all of it, UNTIL or UNLESS you're able to prove me wrong by making a logical argument on how those things I mentioned are "against my own best interests."

I'm, as always, very willing to listen.

And YOU should be happy to have such an opportunity. IF you COULD offer such an argument, you'd go a long way toward bringing me around to the view that, "Perhaps Liberty, individualism, private property rights and freer markets are not best for most working people. Maybe more socialism (more government programs) IS a better way to go."

While I'd welcome your trying to do that, I must be honest and admit that I don't think you're up to the task. I base that on the bulk of your previous "work."

JMK,

Since no one else here can, or, at least will take up your challenge, I’ll answer your question on why you and other conservatives consistently vote against your own interests.

I think some of the others here seem to fear challenging some of America’s very flawed “Founding Design,” and being labeled “anti-American” by folks such as yourself, merely for doing so.

You admitted it yourself, that America was Founded by wealthy white men of land and privilege. It then stands to reason, that the system they built would favor those with wealth and privilege.

For instance, this “individualism” you support, is great for wealthy, privileged people who don’t need to struggle for their daily bread, but it’s not that forgiving, let alone beneficial to people who do.

Same with private property rights, even if you own a home, or even two, even if you own some stocks, you certainly don’t own anything near what those of true wealth and privilege do, so again, why would any “workingclass conservative” support something that so little benefits working people and so greatly benefits the wealthy, privileged exploiters of the rest of us?

If you had a truly open mind, perhaps you’d come to consider that a more communalist, yes, even socialistic society might be better for poor and working people. At least they’d get “a share,” even if it wouldn’t be a “fair share,” it’d be a damned sight better than what they have now!

Is this “liberty” you espouse (which actually is self-ownership and the grinding burden of self-responsibility that comes with it) so valuable to a poor, or even a working-class citizen? Certainly it’s bliss for those born to wealth and privilege, but, as you correctly note, it’s indeed a grinding burden to everyone else.

So why support that?

The question really is, “Why do you support principles that benefit the wealthy and privileged and disproportionately burden poor and working-class people everywhere?

If you’re a homeowner, why support a subsidy for home-ownership (the mortgage interest deduction) while renters (mostly other poor and working people) get no such a subsidy or support?

In other words, even if you perceive that a small part of America’s “Founding Design” benefits you, why don’t you see that the community’s concerns most often trump those of the individual? For a small benefit to yourself, you’d sell out the interests of the rest of the working and poor Americans around you?

You don’t see that as short-sighted, not to mention morally wrong?

Prepare yourself for a full-throated rebuttal, with lots and lots of bold-faced and all-caps type. Maybe even a personal insult hurled your way as well. And at least a handful of dubious FACTS culled from impregnable sources.

J D Davis,
Dont take JMK seriously. His responses will be filled with deliberately misleading statements and arguments that only stand in planet Mars. Anyway, good luck.

WoW!

A Liberal who actually argues affirmatively for that position. I commend you for your courage (it DOES indeed take some guts to make a real argument in favor of Liberalism), but I very well COULD ask, where is your sense of shame, J D?

I wonder if you’re now going to become the Patron Saint of the hopeless and forlorn Liberals around here, the Bluewind’s, the Barely Hanging’s and the DBK’s?

God knows they certainly could use one!

(Well, I see it didn’t take long to answer that one, though I left out the “non-Liberal” Fred, whom I’ve actually engaged in some, what I thought were civil, productive exchanges, though perhaps my calling him on a rather blatant double standard of his, apparently didn’t sit well with him. That MUST be the reason, as it’s the only “non-Liberal” one I can think of.)

Still, you’ve chosen to slime America’s Founders as merely “rich, white men of land and privilege,” and of course, BW and Fred agree...without agreeing. This all has the feel of that flick 1776 with you cast in the role of the articulate and charismatic John Rutledge (of SC), BW as the North Carolina delegation ("North Carolina yields to South Carolina") and Fred as the New York delegation (always abstaining...“Courteously”), leaving myself in the role of the irascible, confrontational and widely disliked John Adams...and that is all certainly very amusing.

Of course, you are mistaken about America’s Founders JD, they were, in fact, visionaries, who, among other things, eradicated chattel slavery hundreds of years before most of the rest of the world, or did you not know that chattel slavery still exists in “most of the world” - in Africa, the Mid-East and huge swaths of Asia?

Well, at least you didn’t extol “the virtues of pure democracy” like so many Liberal dolts do now-a-days. No, I sense you are far too clever to go down that road.

America’s Founders would’ve MOST BENEFITTED by installing an oligarchy comprised of themselves. They DID NOT do that. Instead, they embraced Biblical principles (“He who will not work, will not eat,” etc) and the economic teachings of Adam Smith.

Socialism is THE economic system that MOST benefits the wealthy and privileged. For one thing, it freezes the free-for-all of the market in place, thereby cementing in place the gains made by the “established order” of that moment. For another it grants via government, monopoly status to established businesses and industries and regulates new start-ups and new ideas out of the marketplace.

The more free the market, the more risk and uncertainty there is for those at the top. To remain on top in a free or open market, you have to serve the consumer better than the competition and use your resources (materials and labor as expeditiously as is possible).

The ONLY “equality” under socialism is the “equality” that comes under a “universal slavery to the state.”

America’s Founders wisely rejected the inane notion that “government owned its citizens,” and bestowed upon them what rights it felt they needed, in favor of a system that accepted that man is born free/self-owning and thus our LIBERTY and our individual rights were “endowed to us by our Creator.”

What individualism, private property rights and Liberty do is to allow each of us, as self-owning individuals, to succeed or to fail based upon our own talents, ambitions and focus. It ACKNOWLEDGES that we are self-owning individuals and NOT mere members of a hive-like community.

Socialism is, in reality PRIMITIVISM. It’s tribalism, the very same tribalism that existed as feudalism, as recently as a few hundred years ago.


So what is the basis of Liberty, individualism and private property rights?

Well, what is the origin of life?

Can man create life from mere chemicals without using bacteria and actual “living” DNA, without, in effect, cloning life from other life?

Not at this point and yet despite the fact that we neither know, nor understand the force that animates living things we do KNOW that all living things have finite life-spans, at the end of which, their vehicles/bodies return to inanimate matter and breakdown further through the process of decay, a form of entropy.

If man doesn’t create life, then it’s difficult to believe that life is “an accident of nature,” at any rate, we KNOW that mere governments do not create life, so it stands to reason that each of us is born a SELF-OWNING and therefore self-responsible being.

And YES, that responsibility of self-ownership IS indeed a “grinding burden” for most of us. It would seem to be mere quibbling to argue that it is even more a burden for the unattractive than it is for the beautiful, for the dull-witted, rather than the intelligent, than it is for the poor (the unambitious and those of meager talents), than it is for the more accomplished. Suffice to say, it is a burden for us all. In fact, those of the highest accomplishments, tend to carry the highest degree of risk. Fortunes are made and wiped out as markets rise and fall and new ideas supplant older ones.

And more vitally, it is a burden that belongs to each and every one of us, whether we want it, or not, whether we feel we can bear it, or not. We OWN ourselves, thus we are responsible FOR ourselves and for forging the best life we can for ourselves and our families.

In every case where socialism as the eradication of private ownership (especially of industry) and universal slavery to the centralized state has been instituted, mass murder has accompanied it, from Hitler’s Germany (Hitler targeted the Jews, primarily because they were the entrepreneurial class), to Stalin, to Mao, to Pol Pot.

Even in places that have relented on private ownership, relying instead on the highly regulated economy of Corporatism, coupled with a massive welfare state, there have been major economic dislocations (Sweden had a massive one beginning in 1995, while France and Germany are in the midst of one today) and retrenchment on the part of government.

In fact, the lesson we MUST take from France and Germany today is that “America itself is, even now, too highly regulated, too heavily taxed and too much a welfare state and too little an open economy.”

It was not that long ago that we HAD something very close to the current French system, that Sarkozy is trying to dismantle. From the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, the Democrats controlled BOTH Houses of Congress and advanced the failed Keynesian or the mis-named “Euro-socialist system here in the USA and it imploded in the late 1970s under the drearily inept and dourly ineffectual Jimmy Carter.

What Supply Side policies have done is to allow America to maintain as much of its “safety net” or welfare system, while cutting tax rates ACROSS THE BOARD and providing the most prosperity for the most people!

In fact, according to the May 2006 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics this article by Xavier Sala-i-Martin, The world distribution of income: Falling Poverty and...Convergence, Period states that world poverty rates have fallen during the period of Supply Side ascendence;

“We estimate the World Distribution of Income by integrating individual income distributions for 138 countries between 1970 and 2000. Country distributions are constructed by combining national accounts GDP per capita to anchor the mean with survey data to pin down the dispersion. Poverty rates and head counts are reported for four specific poverty lines. Rates in 2000 were between one-third and one-half of what they were in 1970 for all four lines. There were between 250 and 500 million fewer poor in 2000 than in 1970. We estimate eight indexes of income inequality implied by our world distribution of income. All of them show reductions in global inequality during the 1980s and 1990s.”

Most of that decline in POVERTY came during the height of Supply Side policies and Free Trade! America hasn’t had a Keynesian in the White House since Jimmy Carter! During that time, Ireland has raised itself from economic basketcase to one of the most vibrant economies of Europe, first by cutting its Corporate tax from 38.5% down to 12% and slashing income taxes across the board, by embracing a flat tax!

You ask how I can support such things, well, I see myself as an individual FIRST and a member of any group SECOND. I don’t presume, I KNOW that I am fully responsible for MYSELF and accepting that, I believe everyone else is responsible for themselves as well.

It is for that reason that I see LOWER tax rates, LESS government intervention and far LESS government regulation and spending as being in my own best interests.

I don’t need to have as much as, say, Donald Trump or Mike Bloomberg, to be motivated to protect what I have, what I’ve built.

Neither should you.

Now there was nothing insulting or deliberately misleading in any of that, was there?

JMK,

No, there was nothing misleading or insulting about any of that, and I do appreciate the detailed response. It is, in many parts, food for thought, though in others, it doesn’t seem fully thought-out (like America’s Founders “ending chattel slavery,” – I understand the abolitionist movement had its origins in that generation, and that Jefferson, Adams and Franklin especially opposed slavery, BUT, ironically enough, Rutledge ultimately won out, didn’t he?). And that’s not an insult, as that is a surprisingly detailed response for such a relatively quick reply.

I’m ashamed that so many so-called Liberals today are so doctrinaire. Some are as close-minded as clams themselves and yet demand that others “open their minds,”....to their way of thinking, of course.

I am interested in this debate precisely because I believe that if liberals refuse to make clear and convincing arguments for their views, we will lose the battle for idea and then, shortly after, the battle for America's hearts and minds.

I am not dogmatic, though I sense I am, much like yourself, a true believer ideologically.

I don’t mean any slight here, but I have to note that you don’t argue, or come across like a fireman or a cop, and I’m not saying that to put down firemen or cops or any such group, only that you come across...as something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

Perhaps “JMK” is a collective, a group of relatively like-minded people? I don’t know, but fireman or cop (and I’ve known a fair number of both) isn’t how you come across.

As an example, I give your own familiarity with the writings of Henry George (I’ve seen you allude to them on your blog and elsewhere), again untypical for a fireman or a cop, perhaps far more typical of a lawyer or some other such not-so-highly regarded profession?

At any rate, YOU yourself have expressed admiration for Henry George’s thought and for his writings. You correctly note that he heavily influenced Tolstoy and yet you adhere to what would seem a rigid kind of social Darwinism that Henry George would almost without question, reject out of hand.

How do you reconcile that?

Henry George proposed that, if one man, or even one company can’t be allowed to “OWN” the air, then how can we allow a man or group of men to own our other natural resources (gold, timber, oil, etc)? Under his “Single Tax” plan, everyone would get a stake in all the natural resources of the country they reside. Something in George’s viewpoint appealed to you. That is what I noticed about you. Henry George is a man who, even in his day was reviled by both Right and Left. Today, while relatively obscure, he is still an influential thinker (his works influenced Ghandi and Martin L King) and you were open-minded enough to acknowledge some agreement with and affinity for Georgist thought on your part.

I don’t accept the authoritarian state that you see as the nexus of Liberalism/socialism, any more than you do, nor than did Henry George and yet, we all accept some degree of intrusion and control by the state in our daily lives, don’t we?

I believe the question is, “Given that we BOTH want ‘the most prosperity for the most people,’ how do we best ascertain that?”

Truth be told, I laud America’s Founders. They were the visionaries you claim they were, BUT can we not also argue that at least some of their vision was flawed, that some of it could be improved upon?

I also tend to agree with you that our rights are not derived from government, but are inborn or innate, whether “God-given” or not. I should acknowledge that I am more inclined in that way right now. I was not always so inclined.

But I believe it’s also self-evident that talents and other blessings are not distributed close to equally and like it or not, it’s something that many people feel must be addressed and yet isn’t/wasn’t addressed neither by America’s Founders, nor by contemporary Conservatism.

I can’t deny the prosperity that Supply Side policies have brought about. Admittedly, I am not that well versed in economics. I will acknowledge that your viewpoint in that matter is largely accurate. I lived through the Carter years, as a young adult and I’ve seen the growing prosperity over the past quarter century and can only attribute, at least much of that to Supply Side policies.

That said, once again, we’re confronted with the gross inequality between individuals, an inequality that you seem more than willing to ignore, or at least side-step, in claiming that Liberty trumps such basic inequities.

That can only be so blithely said by the winners...a struggling worker, not nearly as much.

Shouldn’t those inequities be addressed?

And isn’t government the natural vehicle by which they should be addressed.

I suppose, what I’m saying is, haven’t you ever looked around and upon seeing the extremely unequal distribution of wealth, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, haven't you ever had even a moments doubt about Capitalism, or whether greed’s a worthy construct on which to base an ideology?

“...did you ever have a moment of doubt about Capitalism, or whether greed’s a worthy construct on which to base an ideology.” (JDD)


A fair enough question, J D.

Well, first of all, do you know of ANY society that hasn’t/doesn’t run on what so many today call greed? Do you think the former Soviet Union didn’t run on greed? Do you think Mao’s China didn’t run on greed?

First, I think we need to define what "greed" is?

After all, if you ask any of us, NONE of us are greedy...it’s always the other guy who’s greedy. It’s always the other guy who has “too much.”

Is “greed” merely pursuing our own self-interests, or is it, as I believe, “wanting what we haven’t earned” (for instance a portion of my neighbor’s earnings)?

You see, I believe that individuals pursuing their own self-interests is nearly ALWAYS benign and what’s more, far more often than not, turns out to be the best and most efficient way to move a society forward and provide “the MOST prosperity for the MOST people.”

Certainly socialists can't say that.

Look, for better, or for worse, the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests and that’s simply not legislatable. We CANNOT overcome human nature with mere legislation.

The great achievements of civilizations have NOT come from government bureaucracies. Einstein didn’t construct his theory of relativity under orders from a bureaucrat. Gates, Balmer and Allen didn’t build Microsoft on orders from the government, nor did Jobs and Wozniak develop Apple Computers that way, nor did Henry Ford revolutionize the automobile industry on any such directive.

In the only cases in which the great masses of people have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history that people have improved their plight, are those where they’ve had Capitalism and, for the most part, free trade.

If you really want to know exactly where the people are the worst off, it’s in exactly the kind of society’s that depart from that. So history’s record is absolutely clear, that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, for improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities unleashed by free enterprise Capitalism.

It seems to me that liberals seem to embrace a naive and misguided faith that the human mind can find a way to utopia on this earth, while negating the laws of Supply and Demand that are the economic equivalent of gravity. Some of that seems based in the view that most Liberals seem to take on faith - that political self-interest is somehow nobler than economic self-interest, but where do they get that idea from?

You’d think that even a cursory look at some of the more recent government scandals – the Spitzer disgrace in New York, his successor (David Patterson) himself embroiled in illegally using campaign funds for clothing and hotel stays, Detroit’s Mayor embroiled in a perjury case that stemmed from his improperly firing some Detroit cops – would make clear that political action is rarely, if ever, more noble than private, entrepreneurial action.

Some people fear that such scandals may cause many Americans to "lose faith in their government." I hope more Americans DO lose that faith. America wasn't formed on faith in government, in fact, it was formed by great men who had a visceral fear of government and its innate abuses!

Conservatives, such as myself, seem to have considered all that and have come away convinced that utopia cannot be found or forged on this finite planet, so the best alternative is to merely let the free-for-all of the open market provide the most prosperity for the most people, as unequal as it might be in terms of distribution. The record of history is clear that market-based economies work and command (government-directed) ones don’t. In short, we have faith in people, Liberals seem not to.

As far as Henry George goes, yes, I find his writing riveting and his ideas are still interesting to this day. His appeal to the Single Tax on land (a very low tax on developed, either residential or commercial real estate and a higher tax on undeveloped land) appealed to me very much and his faith-based approach to the spiritual misery of poverty seemed in keeping with America’s Founder’s religious principles.

I confess to even liking his idea that all a nation’s citizens should have some stake in its natural resources, but how much and how such a stake would be vetted out and come to be distributed and in what form, especially now, in an age where corporations that take those resources out of the ground are already far more heavily taxed than George would ever have considered fair.

In fact, that’s the problem with Corporate Taxes in general. Corporations DON’T pay them, they simply PASS THEM ON to their consumers (as they must) as a “cost of doing business.”

So the Corporate Tax, is in effect, a hidden, or indirect sales tax and it does two things, (1) it makes goods and services more expensive for that nation’s consumers and (2) it makes outside investment in that nation by private producers (enterprises) less profitable and thus less likely.

That’s why Ireland’s economy exploded when it reduced its income tax with an overall Flat tax and slashed its Corporate tax from 38.5% down to 12%!

Colombia is right now looking to do the very same thing.

The fact is that there’s really very little positive that a government can do for the economy. It CANNOT produce jobs, it CANNOT generate prosperity. It CAN print more currency (inflate the money supply) generally to very bad result. It CAN cut tax rates and down to a certain level that will generate more tax revenues and enable more investment, as people keep more of their own hard-earned money, BUT it's the people who invest who are actually "creating all those jobs and generating all that prosperity. In such cases, the government's merely "getting out of the way" can hardly be described as productive or even an affirmative act.

I’ve NEVER advocated “no government,” nor even “ineffective government,” merely a greatly reduced, streamlined and focused government – a government streamlined and focused on its primary purposes, the “Common Defense” (our Military), securing “Domestic Tranquility” (our courts, prison system, First Responders, etc), and controlling and regulating our money supply, while regulating inter-state commerce and negotiating international trade agreements. For that reason, I don’t think it’s fair to categorize my views as “social Darwinism,” not that many aspects of social Darwinism itself aren’t laudable. The idea of enforcing a basic social contract with those on public assistance (ie. “you can have no additional children while on welfare,” etc) is a good one, in that it helps those who are poor, focus exclusively on getting out of poverty.

I don’t think it can be denied that a natural momentum always pushes toward more government expansion and meddling and that must always be guarded against, in my view. That momentum springs from the fact that all those engaged in government ALWAYS see a NEED for their own actions and are always looking for additional reasons for them to act.

Some Liberals argue that “A more complex world mandates a greater role for government,” but when asked to prove that out, I’ve found that none can.

I postulate that a more complex world may very well mandate LESS government action, and MORE individual responsibility/accountability, as free people, acting in their own best interests is more often than not the best way to forge peace through commerce and trade.

I WANT our government to do what it was created to do, by this nation’s Founders. I want it do those things as efficiently and cost-effectively as is humanly possible. That should not be all that much to ask.

While I don’t hold any faith in any organized religion and very little faith in the honesty and decency of any government, I DO have a very deep and abiding faith in individuals and believe that even those who are down-and-out right now, can by the impetus of their own deprivation, be motivated to turn their own lives around.

Too many Liberals seem to believe that we all need “government’s help” to make it in life.

I simply see no evidence for that view and see plenty of evidence that often, government “help” merely inculcates a crippling dependency in the recipient.


P.S. Yes, I should’ve noted that America’s Founders fought against chattel slavery and laid the groundwork for its eradication, though it took a very bloody war, nearly seven decades later to completely end it.

America’s Founders, the bulk of them, were men far ahead of their times, far ahead of the hollow men we now have “serving” (mostly themselves) today.

I appreciate your taking the time to actually discuss things, no matter how much we may ultimately disagree.

Um, J.D. Davis, none of us take JMK serious. Soon, you won't either.

After you've beaten JMK like a circus monkey on the facts, he will simple resort to lies, distortions, and the ensuing straw man arguments.

He will wordsmith around his obvious ignorance on most matters, and capitalize on any small and obvious misstatement you make, forever repeating it like a child. For instance, if McCain were a Democrat, JMK would just go on and on about how he said "it's common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran".

McCain is either a liar, or senile. He thinks that al-Qaeda is operating from Iran!

He repeated, "As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."

Sorry McCain, you can't take it back. You didn't misspeak in JMK World. You are either a liar trying to start another war, or senile.

McCain thinks Al Qaeda is operating from Iran. He has no clue what is going on in the world. He is either dangerously stupid, or a manipulative liar like our current president.

McCain thinks Al Qaeda is from Iran. McCain thinks Al Qaeda originates from Iran.

Hey, remember when McCain said that Al Qaeda came from Iran?

Are you getting tired of me repeating this yet? Ha! JMK repeats this kind of shit for ten years.

Oh, then there are his uber-long cut and paste posts, sometimes two or three back to back. He has the wingnut talking points down pat: repeat, diluge, overwhelm, repeat, repeat, repeat!

If you look at what he says, he never actually addresses your points, he just cuts and pastes a lot of tangential nonsense. All of his bunk about the Founding Fathers was factually destroyed ages ago, but he just keeps repeating it.

For instance, JMK knows that the Founding Fathers would have been horrified by the Patriot Act, which undercuts exactly the liberties (oh yeah, JMK defines liberty as strictly the right to private property ... huh?) they truly did cherish; but because he is a Corporatist, he dishonestly portrays the founding fathers as being most concerned with Corporate rights ... even though they didn't really exist back then.

When JMK has been completely destroyed by the facts, he moves on to new inventions, like saying that George Washington was was a Corporatist because he surveyed land for Lord Fairfax. George Washington is one of JMK's favorite people to lie about, saying that he did everything for private property and corporate profit. This is a summary of George Washington's farewell address:

Washington's Farewell Address (issued as a public letter in 1796) was one of the most influential statements of American political values.[35] Drafted primarily by Washington himself, with help from Hamilton, it gives advice on the necessity and importance of national union, the value of the Constitution and the rule of law, the evils of political parties, and the proper virtues of a republican people. In the address, he called morality "a necessary spring of popular government." He said, "reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle" – making the point that the value of religion is for the benefit of society as a whole.[36]

[b]Washington's public political address warned against foreign influence in domestic affairs and American meddling in European affairs. He warned against bitter partisanship in domestic politics and called for men to move beyond partisanship and serve the common good. He called for an America wholly free of foreign attachments, saying the United States must concentrate primarily on American interests. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but warned against involvement in European wars and entering into long-term "entangling" alliances. The address quickly set American values regarding religion and foreign affairs.[/b]

At this point, JMK will start to gibber and squeak that I have just proven his point. He will focus on something, perhaps a comma, that he believes to be vindication of all of the lies he has told about George Washington.

It would seem that George Washington forgot to really hammer home the importance of private property, corporate freedom from any government regulation, and the Greed is Good! philosophy of Corporatists like JMK.

This won't slow JMK down a bit.

Oh, is this post running a little long? Is it becomeing tedious and boring? This is the only way to respond to JMK. Or you can just cut and paste unrelated material.

JMK,

I’m going to have to read up on the Irish model and check that out for myself. I don’t share your absolute faith in Capitalism, nor do I have your violently and familial anti-Leftist roots.

As I’ve told you in other places, I’ve been struggling with the question of ideology for a few years now. While some of what you say about Supply Side policies seems obvious just looking at how those policies reversed, as you call it, “the failures of the Great Society” (the large-scale American welfare state that collapsed in the late 1970s) and brought about a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity, but I don’t think Supply Side policies and the market-based economy have to be divorced from a liberal social outlook, at least not from my own perspective.

Yes, I agree that it would’ve been different IF Bill Clinton had been a Keynesian and instituted Keynesian policies during his eight years, but he was a Supply-Sider who re-appointed Supply Side guru Alan Greenspan, who kept the feds Supply Side policies in place.

I still think there is far more of a role for government in people’s lives than you seem to, although you seem to see a pervasive role in government from a criminal justice standpoint, based on that “ensuring domestic tranquility” or as you interpret it, the “police powers” clause. Again, I tend to disagree to this extent – if we’re going to accept more police intrusion over crime and terrorism, which seems to make sense in this increasingly dangerous world, I also think we should be willing to accept some increased intrusions (smoking bans, trans fat bans, seat belt and helmet laws, which you oppose on your blog) over public health and safety concerns, as the government seeks to protect the public in that regard, as well.

I believe I am being consistent on that issue and I do disagree strongly with those who support more social and health intrusions but not more police and anti-terror intrusions, as that seems ridiculously inconsistent.

To be clear, I don’t believe “we all need some government help to get by,” but I do believe that there are some, perhaps many who do and we should be willing and able to provide that for them, whether that “inculcates dependency” or not. So, while I’d agree that the massive social welfare outlays of the Great Society were, largely failures, I do think that there is a greater role for government than you and many other Conservatives seem willing to acknowledge.

I have many disagreements with you, but you have been gracious, in responding to my emails from your site, as you are here. You are a passionate advocate for your positions, but to embrace them, for me, would to be giving up my hope and belief in society’s ability to do good – to help others through a communal or governmental means. I will have to think about some of the things you posted here, before responding.

To Anonymous:

I’ve seen some of your most recent posts and most of them seem filled with a pugnacious anger and an inability to communicate civilly with others. Ironically enough, you claim that, “If you look at what he (JMK) says, he never actually addresses your points, he just cuts and pastes a lot of tangential nonsense,” but that’s exactly what you did in that very same post – focusing on tangential issues! That would be funny, if it weren’t so bizarrely ironic and dishonest.

Your exchanges with Bluewind over Barack Obama’s links to Jeremiah Wright were like that, and your initial response here to Barry (this site’s owner) was like that as well, so it’s not just you and JMK, it seems to be you and everyone.

In fact, in the comments section below this one, you get heatedly nasty, while JMK rationally tried to explain how supply and demand work to raise the world price of oil. Almost every comment I’ve seen of yours is petty, personal and negative.

It’s the behavior of people like you who’ve made me question the liberal ideology I’ve held for most of my adult life.

About ten years ago, I began noticing that a lot of liberals couldn’t seem to explain or defend their viewpoints, so they treated those who disagreed with them as heretics, rather than others who have a right to their own views and to the free expression thereof. I noticed a lot more vitriol and distortion coming from my liberal cohorts (for instance, the embarrassing attempt by some Democrats to link Republicans to the burning of black churches, back in 2000). At first I ignored this and rationalized some of it as “righteous anger” directed at conservatives who’d demonized liberals for nearly two decades, but deep down, it bothered me.

Now I see it more and more and I don’t know how to rationalize it. The Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for nearly two years and, yet liberal rage has not abated one bit.

There are those who say “the hate comes from both sides,” but that’s not true. Where is the Democratic leader who’s been as demonized the way that Condoleeza Rice has? Could you imagine liberal Democrats standing for Republicans smearing a black liberal Secretary of State, with much of the rancor being overtly racist and sexist? I can’t. And what Democratic operative has been demonized to the extent that Karl Rove has been?

To be fair, Karl Rove is merely a Republican version of James Carville. Where are the Republican sites that wish liberals in the news media death from cancer, the way the DU and the Huffington Post have done with Tony Snow? Not the Free Republic! I’ve looked for it and came up empty. I’m sure there are plenty of conservative kooks out there, but they’re not embarrassingly front and center, on display in major venues the way liberal kooks are!

That’s why I took up JMK’s challenge here. I did that because no other liberal here seemed either willing or able to engage him.

As I’ve noted, I disagree with JMK very much, but I don’t dislike him for his views and he doesn’t seem to dislike me. I’m convinced that if liberals don’t do a much better job of explaining and defending their positions, they’re going to lose the battle of ideas and once they lose that, they’ll lose the war for America’s hearts and minds.

Lately, on that score, it sure looks like we’re losing that battle of ideas and given all the grief over the past seven years, that just shouldn’t be possible.

Other than saying she's been a fairly ineffective Sec of State, I haven't heard any widespread racial and sexist invective tossed Condi Rice's way.
And as for right-wing sites wishing ill on the other side, I saw some entries on the FoxNews message boards recently (a site supposedly monitored for good taste, etc) that in effect, told the N*ggers to go back to Africa if they didn't like it here. Check out the Hannity board, too--there're some forward-thinking folks there as well.

Harry Belafonte (calling her a “house nigger”), Ted Rall (overtly racist cartoons) and Pat Oliphant and Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon referring to rice as “Dr. brown sugar,” are all pretty “mainstream” figures, Fred.

There was also John "Sly" Sylvester, a white radio talk show host from Madison, Wisconsin, who actually defended calling Rice an "Aunt Jemima," claiming he did it to indicate her subservient role in the Bush administration.

None of that had anything to do with the “critics” perception of Rice’s abilities.

On the websites I mentioned, I wasn’t referring to mere comments, I was talking about featured articles in places like the Huffington Post and the D-Kos.

Well J D, this “faith in Capitalism” you claim to disagree with is merely a faith in free people, to engage in commerce and forge prosperity by human (individual) action, rather than on “government decree. I would bet that THAT’S the real source of your ideological struggle.

You already realize that the Great Society over-reached and you can clearly see that the last Keynesian (Great Society) Democrat (Jimmy Carter) presided over a failure, while the last Democrat in the WH (Bill Clinton) succeeded primarily because of his adherence to Supply Side policies and his cooperation with the Gingrich Congress.

In short, you’re on the right track and almost all the way there.

If, as you seem to acknowledge, Supply Side (more business oriented, market-based) policies result in MORE prosperity for MORE people, then it would seem to stand to reason that aside from controlling crime, running a court system that allows us to redress our grievances and providing for the national defense, the best thing government can do for the vast majority of people would be to “get out of their way,” and “out of their lives,” to as great a degree as possible.

Anonymous is BH, who I call “Barely Hanging,” because he always has such a poor grasp of the facts and an even poorer communication style.

Barely seems to be one of those people some folks call “socially retarded.” I don’t think he means any offense and is actually trying, as best as he can to get people to like and respect him.

When I do respond to Barely Hanging, it’s always to correct some gross mis-statement of fact, like “H-1B Visas exploded under G W Bush,” (in fact, H-1Bs went from under 50,000 to about 1,000,000 by 2001) and when G W Bush took office the limits were actually REDUCED and TWICE no less...and “RICO statutes allow the government to confiscate assets prior to conviction,” when in fact, an individual must be convicted under RICO to have any ill-gotten assets confiscated. The list goes on, including as you note, his inane view that “G W Bush and his Saudi friends have raised the price of oil to make more money for their already rich friends.”

I DO try to be kind to polite to Barely, but I have on a number of occasions responded in kind, which has on occasion led me to wonder whether ignoring him (as most others do) is not the best strategy. I’ve chosen not to do that, as I believe that just because someone hasn’t gotten the facts right and is somewhat “socially retarded,” is no reason to shun that person.

People see the light and mature at different rates. For that reason alone, I think it’s worth correcting some of BH’s most egregious mis-statements. It’s also the reason I always try to engage Liberals like Bluewind. Not in hopes of “converting” them, as it’s NEVER a matter of “winning” or “converting,” another individual will only come to embrace new ideas or change their ideology based on their own internal discoveries.

David Mamet, who recently announced his conversion to Conservatism, saying, among other things that, “I’m no longer a brain-dead Liberal,” was almost certainly not “converted” by the writings of Thomas Sowell (a great writer) whom Mamet calls, “The best philosopher of our current day.” No, Mamet’s “conversion” happened gradually over a number of years and was ultimately due to his own internal discovery that Conservative ideology rung more true within himself.

So, in that regard, I believe there’s always hope for just about anyone.

"Well J D, this “faith in Capitalism” you claim to disagree with is merely a faith in free people, to engage in commerce and forge prosperity by human (individual) action, rather than on “government decree." (JMK)

That kind of freedom, what you call "liberty" (self-ownership and full responsibility for ourselves) is great for people who are well-educated, intelligent, well-connected, talented and ambitious, but it's not only "more of a burden", but it's an albatross around the necks of those who do not have those traits.

Yes, you certainly do embrace America's "Founding Design", as you call it, and you seem to embrace every bit of their elitism as well.

There was a scene in a movie in which Bill Murray played Hunter Thompson, ("Where the Buffalo Roam"), where he meets Nixon in an airport bathroom and asks him, "What about the lost, the displaced, the screw-heads...the Italians? What about the doomed, sir?"

To which Nixon (at least in this flick) responded, "Fuck the doomed."

I'm sorry, and maybe this is overly irreverent, but that's what I feel America's "Founding Design" says to the poor, the uneducated, the less skilled and the displaced. It's a design that, in effect, takes real good care of the rich and the predatory class (by enshrining private property rights and this "liberty" you laud) but basically dooms everyone else, at least in my opinion.

And just because I don't laud Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the wealthy land and slave-owning hypocrites that decreed America's "Founding Design," doesn't mean I don't love America.

I LOVE America's people, I just don't love an economic system that leaves so many, so woefully behind.

As for David Mamet, did you ever consider that his change of heart may be due to his aging - senility or something like it?

Wow, J.D., you would make so much sense if only I were a liberal, or even a Democrat, and not a registered Republican and a true conservative.

I can see you fancy yourself quite the erudite poindexter, but unfortunately you babble along aimlessly in the middle of the road with the other roadkill.

If you paid a little more attention you would notice that JMK is nothing more than another unwitting corporatist stooge.

Look where "supply side" has landed us, as always, squarely in a recession due to rampant theft and treason.

JMK used to love to say that Clinton caused the bad economy that coincided with Bush taking office because he changed the rules on Wall Street to allow rampant fraud. If he were truly a well-reasoned individual, he would agree that Bush caused the recession we are in by changing the rules for banks, allowing, oddly enough, the same kind of rampant theft that made his brother Neal wealthy at our taxpayer expense.

But he won't, because he loves corporatist Bush.

Anyway, thanks for your astounding little observations there, dumbo.

THANKS Barely!

For proving what J D and others have said about you.

No need for me to pile on, at least concerning your....distemper.


I can't do the same concerning your routine vommiting of more mis-information.

Sorry Barely, but you don't get to define what a "Conservative" is.

I'll do that.

Actually, lucky for both of us, it's already been long established and precisely defined.

No Conseravtive ("true," "hardcore," or "rock-ribbed") is a Conservative if they DON'T believe in smaller, streamlined and less intrusive government, especially in the economic sector.

The Courts and Criminal Justice system are indeed Constitutionally mandated to intrude in our lives over crime, public safety and civil tort actions, but Conservatives ALWAYS support LESS government, LESS regulation, LESS government spending and action and, of course, LOWER taxes.

Liberals believe that "The deck is stacked against the little guy and that government must be strong and not merely independent of the major finanical interests of the country (the Corporations) but adversarial to them, so that they don't take advantage of poor, hapless, working folk."

THAT view is a decidedly anti-human, anti-FREEDOM viewpoint that supposes that regular working people, obsessed as they are with "making a living," and "taking care of family," with little time left over to get invovled politically, are at such a massive disadvantage to a veritable army of special interests, that they NEED a government to lookout for them."

That is the view that YOU espouse and it is a view that to paraphrase Dick Cheney, "Hates working people because it hates their freedoms."

Oh and for the record, as usual, you're wrong about changes in banking regulations post 2001.

I heard Bush's "There's a new Sheriff in town" speech to Wall Street just before this administration enacted Sarbanes-Oxley, which fixed the problems that had allowed the Enrons, Worldcoms, Tycos, etc., to run wild, as they had in the late 1990s.

I believe Sarb-Ox went too far, and has put a ponderous drag on the economy, but in light of the scandals that broke during the first few months of the Bush administration - scandals that had gone unchecked for over half a decade, it's hard to argue against Sarb-Ox.

Something like it had to be instituted, even though "rogue CEOs" are about as rare as "rogue cops" - both comprising about 1% of their respective communities.

Bush is again expanding governmental powers in putting the (government expansion based) Federal Reserve in charge of banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, mortgage brokers, etc ...

Just like he hugely expanded the government with the new Department of Homeland Security, which you are all for.

So let's see ... Bush-lovin' little old you is the Conservative???

JMK, since when does a coddled little union boy like you get to decide what is Conservative?

Why don't you act like a real man and go out and start up a couple of businesses like I did. Then you can watch our government work to destroy your small businesses because that is what their Corporate Masters want.

Come on JMK, you and your little buddy JDK explain this wonderful economy we have!

You are both a joke.

A former Vietnam veteran with top secret clearance says he has personally spoken to numerous POW’s who dispute John McCain’s claim that he refused to provide information after he was captured and tortured in Hanoi, saying that in fact McCain’s code-name was “Songbird” because of his willingness to tell all to avoid torture.

Jack McLamb served nine years in secret operations in Cambodia and other nations before going on to become one of the most highly decorated police officer’s in Phoenix history, winning police officer of the year twice before taking a role as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.

“I know a lot of Vietnam veterans and a few POW’s and all the POW’s that I’ve talked to over the years say that John McCain is a lying skunk,” McLamb told the Alex Jones Show.

“He never was tortured - they were there in the camp with him and then when he came in….he immediately started spilling his guts about everything because he didn’t want to get tortured,” said McLamb, contradicting the official story that McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.

“The Vietnamese Communists called him the Songbird, that’s his code name, Songbird McCain, because he just came into the camp singing and telling them everything they wanted to know,” said McLamb.

McLamb said the POW’s told him that McCain had sustained two broken arms and a leg injury from not pulling his arms in when he bailed out of his A-4 Skyhawk that was shot down over the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.

The POW’s said that McCain made 32 propaganda videos for the communist North Vietnamese in which he denounced America for what they were doing in Vietnam.

“They have these sealed now…”

"So let's see ... Bush-lovin' little old you is the Conservative???

"JMK, since when does a coddled little union boy like you get to decide what is Conservative?" (Barely Hanging)


Apparently I haven't dumbed things down enough for you to understand.

That's my error. I overrated you, as a normal functioning person. Sorry about that.

I've annuciated a number of issues where G W Bush has been terrible - the border issue, NCLB, the prescription drug boondoggle, not increasing H-1Bs (it turns out that studies show that every H-1B creates four new jobs for Americans here at home) and not properly defining the enemy in the Wot (ALL adherants of strict Sharia-based Islam).

The facts are that America's Democratic Party is EVEN WORSE on the borders, would increase wasteful social spending even MORE (they wanted an even BIGGER prescription drug boondoggle) and want to scale down, or even seek a "negotiated peace" with radicalized or anti-Western Islam.

So, Bush has been demonstrably the best of two bad choices....being better than AlGore and John Kerry doesn't take much of a Conservative and Bush wasn't one....he was merely demonstrably better than the two choices that were put up against him.

As I said NEITHER YOU nor I get to define Conservatism. It's already long been established by the likes of William F Buckley - No self-proclaimed Conseravtive ("true," "hardcore," or "rock-ribbed") is really a Conservative if they DON'T believe in smaller, streamlined and less intrusive government, especially in the economic sector.

As I've stated and shown (elsewhere with tax returns), I started and ran a deck building business with my brother (we also installed above-ground swimming pools) and as I've shown, no one can run a business withpout understanding that human labor is merely anothe commodity to be bought as cheaply as possible.

That's a fact, and if I were to believe you started a few failed businesses (which I DON'T), then THAT would probably reasonably explain why a person would fail at running a business.

But Barely, come on!!!

Ypu appear neither together enough nor motivated enough to even fill out the required DBA forms to register a business.

I'll keep this as SIMPLE as possible for you Barely.

OK, let's play a game.

It's going to be a fun game called, Just How STUPID is Barely Hanging?

As you might expect, it's not a very long game, as it doesn't take very long to demonstrate the woeful and very hard to plum depths of Barely Hanging's morbid stupidity.

This time, all it took was looking up Jack McLamb, who Barely lauded as some great lawman and authority on John McCain.

Ooooops! Turns out that Jack McLamb is a member of the virally anti-government "Patriot Movement." A movement that opposes what it calls "America's Zionist Occupational Government or ZOG."

I guess you just plum forgot that part, right Barely?

I know, that kind of shit just shoots a guy's credibility all to hell and back.

Anyhooo, here's the REAL scoop on Jack McLamb, and it says a lot about the kind of demented creep you really are BH.


"Of the sprinkling of law enforcement professionals who supported the Patriot movement, retired Phoenix, Ariz., cop Jack McLamb became by far best known, speaking at Patriot events around the country.

"Describing himself as the most highly decorated officer in the history of his police department, McLamb ran an outfit called Police Against the New World Order that he claimed had a highly unlikely 6,300 members.

"He produced a periodical called Aid & Abet Police Newsletter and, most famously, a 75-page conspiracist document entitled Operation Vampire Killer 2000: American Police Action Plan for Stopping World Government Rule.

"McLamb embraced a panoply of conspiracy theories. He told a 1996 rally that government officials were smuggling drugs into the country in a bid to incite racial hatred.

"In 1999, he asserted that Vice President Gore intended to reduce world population by 90% through some kind of end-of-the-millennium Y2K plot. He suggested that Communist-led Latinos planned to take over the Southwest.

"Along with his friend, Green Beret-turned-Patriot James "Bo" Gritz, he sold plots of land in Idaho as the perfect place to survive the coming troubles.

"But when the much ballyhooed "Y2K" collapse failed to materialize, McLamb began to peddle his ideas on the tax protest circuit, instructing students last fall that "Taxes are Voluntary!"

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=364

Barely, when you mix stupididy with a bunch of half-baked conspiracy theories, you tend to get a lot of potentially dangerous people.

As they say around my parts, "Not for nuthin," you appear to be one of them.

Wadda marone!

So in other words what he said is true, and you have to resort to attacking his character because McCain DENOUNCED THE UNITED STATES repeatedly.

Smear the source when you can't avoid those pesky facts, right Karl?

Well, to be precise about it, there's no indication that "his words are true."

The fact that you admire the likes of such folks associated with a neo-nazi group ("The Patriot Movement") and THAT'S what that movement really IS, says it all about who YOU really are.

At least now, your utter contempt for the facts and complete ignorance of all things economic and political makes a little more sense, at least in that particular sub-context.

Every nazi, like every communist...in fact ANY kind of totalitarian imagines himself (sad to say, they're usually "HE'S") to be a victim of various and nefarious Corporate or governmental forces.

Yeah, keep on imagining that, but the truth is your main problem is looking back at you from the mirror.