Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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thefncrow: Mar 14, 2001

Bruce Leroy posted:

How many times do tax cuts have to fail at providing economic growth until they understand that tax cuts don't work and are just handouts to the wealthy and corporations?

Who said that tax cuts have failed in their objective? As you said, they're handouts to the wealthy and corporations, that sounds like mission accomplished to me.

The folly is in believing that Republicans actually want to stimulate economic growth.

# ? Aug 9, 2011 03:49

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 23:23

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

thefncrow posted:

Who said that tax cuts have failed in their objective? As you said, they're handouts to the wealthy and corporations, that sounds like mission accomplished to me.

The folly is in believing that Republicans actually want to stimulate economic growth.

I understand that, but their widely publicized, expressed goal of providing economic growth and opportunity has spectacularly failed many times over.

I guess I'm more perplexed as to why the average conservative voter who isn't a politician or part of the capitalist economic elite still thinks tax cuts are a good thing and are even some kind of panacea that will create new jobs and bring back all the outsourced ones.

How much evidence is necessary for the average person to actually understand economics and reality, rather than simply believing a bunch of conservative platitudes?

# ? Aug 9, 2011 09:49

FAUXTON: Jun 2, 2005; spero che tu stia bene

Charles Fuckhammer posted:

cutting marginal tax rates (thereby spurring growth)

This bit is what always bugs me, every time I hear someone say it. Lowering tax rates does not loving create growth. If anything it discourages growth as it presents incentive to hoard post-tax wealth. Since the decision would be as follows:

"If I start cashing bigger checks from my business"

a) It won't go into my pockets
b) It won't go to my business
c) I'm better off letting that wealth reside within the company and leverage it into expanding so that my company retains longevity and lasting value as opposed to being a short-term flash in the pan after which I get no more checks.

Instead, cutting those taxes generates the incentive to take the money out of the company instead of leaving it in the company as the tax rates are conducive to money not being in the company.

# ? Aug 9, 2011 11:05

Walter: Jul 3, 2003; We think they're great. In a grand, mystical, neopolitical sense, these guys have a real message in their music. They don't, however, have neat names like me and Bono.

Bruce Leroy posted:

It always seems like the people who believe those things about the "professional poor" or "welfare queens" are people who have never been poor and don't personally know anyone who is poor. They just hear these apocryphal anecdotes about poor people with iphones, new SUVs, etc. and think that these stories are not only true but represent how the typical poor person lives.

It doesn't help that the phrase "poor people" seems to evoke in these idiots some kind of Depression-era image of dirty people huddled in a squalid tin shack with a dirt floor and six children wearing diapers.

Or something.

# ? Aug 9, 2011 22:23

Dr. Tough: Oct 22, 2007

Bruce Leroy posted:

For some new content, here's a crazy and loving stupid editorial from Charles Krauthammer.

A Letter To The Arizona Republic posted:

Let Krauthammer Fix Fiscal Mess
Charles Krauthammer suggests a three stage approach for the yet-to-be-named congressional super-committee to tackle the debt crisis ("Debt super-committee can succeed in 3 stages," Monday)

I would like to add one stipulation: Put Krauthammer in charge!

John Cassidy Jr., Scottsdale

He's got a fan already!

# ? Aug 9, 2011 22:59

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Dr. Tough posted:

A Letter To The Arizona Republic posted:
John Cassidy Jr., Scottsdale

That explains a lot.

# ? Aug 11, 2011 10:31

Saint Sputnik: Apr 1, 2007; Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!

Oh Cal, I hope you get your head bashed in.

Cal Thomas posted:

PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland � Some have compared the riots in the UK to the London Blitz. It�s a flawed comparison. The strategic bombing of London in 1940 came from an external enemy, Nazi Germany. Enemies from within are carrying out the free-for-all that began in Tottenham, England, on Saturday � quickly spreading to London and other parts of the UK � following the shooting death of suspected gang member Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police.

Theresa May, the British home secretary, rejected calls for water cannons and more forceful methods to help overwhelmed police quell the chaos. Interviewed on Sky News May said, �The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.� If that sounds completely feckless, that�s because it is.

Businesses have been wiped out. Untold numbers of jobs have been lost. Did the community �consent� to that? If even a few shop owners had been armed, perhaps these products of the British welfare, entitlement and envy state might have thought twice about their thuggish behavior. Unfortunately, gun laws in Britain are strict, owners must be licensed and self-defense can be difficult to prove. Northern Ireland, while also part of the UK, has more liberal gun ownership laws and the bar to prove self-defense is much lower, perhaps because of the history of violence in the country before the peace agreement. There has been no rioting in Ireland, Scotland or Wales.

Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament from its summer session to discuss the situation and to present a �united� front. But that, along with condemnations �in the strongest terms� won�t address the real problem, which many Britons may not wish to confront.

The problem in Britain, and increasingly in America, is moral and spiritual, not economic and political. British history and values are no longer being adequately taught in the UK for fear a sense of super-nationalism might be conveyed. This at a time when no nation is to be considered superior to any other, a view expressed by President Obama.

According to a 2007 research report on church attendance in the UK from Tearfund, a UK Christian relief and development agency, just �fifteen percent of UK adults go to church at least once a month.� BBC News reports that according to a 2001 Census survey, �a fifth of children are in lone-parent families ... 91 percent of these families headed by mother� and there is �a minority of married couples for the first time � 45 percent of the population versus 64 percent in 1981.� So when the government calls on parents to be more vigilant about the whereabouts of their teenagers, the likelihood there are enough stable two-parent households who care enough to do so is not encouraging.

If civility, right and wrong, personal responsibility and accountability and the right to life, liberty and personal property are not values worthy of being passed on to the next generation, then their opposites will be taught by default. Children don�t �catch� goodness and right behavior as they do a cold. Their natural tendency is to do wrong. The goal of discipline is to teach them to do right. The London riots are the extreme outcome when �right� is no longer defined.

When a society refuses to impose a moral code in its schools, homes and culture, pandemonium is the result � think Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. Multiply that several times and you have the lawlessness that has swept Britain with greater force than its mad cow disease scare.

�This was not an angry crowd; this was a greedy crowd,� said Chris Sims, chief constable of West Midlands police. One could see that from the TV shots of women trying on clothes and shoes before stealing them and men ripping flat-screen TVs off walls and smashing windows and jewelry cases.

There�s a TV program called �Sons of Anarchy.� It is fiction. These rioters are the real sons (and daughters) of anarchy and it will take more than political condemnations to repair the damage they�ve caused. Seventy years ago, the London Blitz forged a national unity in Britain. Where�s that unity today?

# ? Aug 12, 2011 02:27

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Saint Sputnik posted:

Oh Cal, I hope you get your head bashed in.

Wow, I didn't think anyone could make "Sons of Anarchy" uncool. I stand corrected.

# ? Aug 12, 2011 03:21

Saint Sputnik: Apr 1, 2007; Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!

"There's a TV program called 'Full House.' It is fiction. The real White House is full of socialists who want to outlaw guns and Bibles. Aw, nuts. Have mercy! You got it, dude."

# ? Aug 12, 2011 04:46

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Saint Sputnik posted:

"There's a TV program called 'Full House.' It is fiction. The real White House is full of socialists who want to outlaw guns and Bibles. Aw, nuts. Have mercy! You got it, dude."

I don't know if he'd reference Full House because it was three grown men living together and raising kids without a mother involved.

It's basically what it's like in the homes of all those married/committed gay couples with children in America.

# ? Aug 12, 2011 10:16

Ned: May 23, 2002; by Hand Knit

Like Cal Thomas has actually watched an episode of Sons of Anarchy.

# ? Aug 12, 2011 14:09

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

Saint Sputnik posted:

When a society refuses to impose a moral code in its schools, homes and culture, pandemonium is the result � think Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.

Well thats not a very subtle implication right there.

# ? Aug 12, 2011 14:40

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

"In the beginning america was white, but liberals, hating god's creation of white people, and unable to create them selves, instead decided to corrupt and destroy. Blacks were created by liberals taking white people, but raising them without government mandated christian morals. Detroit, LA, Washington DC have all fallen to this pandemonium! If we don't institute strong imposed christian morals on the nation I predict we will all be black within 20 years."

# ? Aug 12, 2011 17:37

Tubba Blubba: Jul 14, 2011

Bruce Leroy posted:

But even if it's a not lie (it is a lie), the assholes who parrot it don't understand it.

The whole reason those people wouldn't be paying taxes, especially federal income taxes, is because they are quite poor and barely make enough money to survive, let alone pay income taxes.

Ere go, the assholes spouting that tripe have presented an invalid argument.(big shock there!)

# ? Aug 13, 2011 05:51

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Disgruntled Medic posted:

Ere go, the assholes spouting that tripe have presented an invalid argument.(big shock there!)

I'm less concerned that it's an invalid argument and more worried by their absurd idea that somehow the poor are freeloaders and the wealthy are being unfairly picked on. The idea that we should tax the poor and middle class more to alleviate the slight burden upon the richest people who control the majority of the wealth is pretty good evidence that conservative propaganda is working and people are stupidly falling for it.

# ? Aug 13, 2011 06:43

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

Well thats not a very subtle implication right there.

It's actually quite clever. It gives him plausible deniability to claim that he isn't racist because he's simply referring to the relatively high crime rates in those cities, while his actual intent is to dogwhistle to his readers that all those cities are bad because of brown people and the effete, urban liberals who tolerate them.

Regardless, I've always wondered whether those major cities with supposedly high crime rates are actually more crime-ridden than other places, especially more rural and suburban areas. Basically, if we adjust for population and density, are there really more crimes in cities like Chicago, DC, and Detroit than Palin's Wasilla per capita or is it just that there are so many people in those densely packed metro areas that it just seems like they have worse problems with crime. So, if you multiplied the crime rate of Wasilla by the factor necessary for it's population to equal that of Detroit, would you get approximately the same level of crime in both places, but Detroit seems worse because all those crimes are labeled as happening in one city?

# ? Aug 13, 2011 10:43

Strudel Man: May 19, 2003; ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Bruce Leroy posted:

Regardless, I've always wondered whether those major cities with supposedly high crime rates are actually more crime-ridden than other places, especially more rural and suburban areas. Basically, if we adjust for population and density, are there really more crimes in cities like Chicago, DC, and Detroit than Palin's Wasilla per capita or is it just that there are so many people in those densely packed metro areas that it just seems like they have worse problems with crime. So, if you multiplied the crime rate of Wasilla by the factor necessary for it's population to equal that of Detroit, would you get approximately the same level of crime in both places, but Detroit seems worse because all those crimes are labeled as happening in one city?

Crime rates are generally measured as a fraction of population for this reason. And yes, it is indeed higher. For example, Detroit in 2009 had 365 homicides with a population of 908,000, for a rate of 40 per hundred thousand. while Wasilla had...um, zero.

Well, murder's probably not the best one to look at - since Wasilla only has about 11,000 people, even a similar murder rate to Detroit would only predict about four murders. Wasilla had 49 burglaries, for a rate of 446 per hundred thousand; Detroit had 18,993, for a rate of 2091 per hundred thousand, so the burglary rate is indeed about 4.7 times higher.

# ? Aug 13, 2011 10:55

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Strudel Man posted:

Crime rates are generally measured as a fraction of population for this reason. And yes, it is indeed higher. For example, Detroit in 2009 had 365 homicides with a population of 908,000, for a rate of 40 per hundred thousand. while Wasilla had...um, zero.

Well, murder's probably not the best one to look at - since Wasilla only has about 11,000 people, even a similar murder rate to Detroit would only predict about four murders. Wasilla had 49 burglaries, for a rate of 446 per hundred thousand; Detroit had 18,993, for a rate of 2091 per hundred thousand, so the burglary rate is indeed about 4.7 times higher.

Interesting.

It seems like it may depend on the type of crime and would interesting to study in more depth, especially as to why certain crimes are more prevalent in certain areas than others.

# ? Aug 13, 2011 12:14

OatBoy: Nov 18, 2004; What can I say, it's my nature

What do you all think if this insightful and nuanced op-ed:

Norman Podhoretz posted:

It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.

Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance�the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech."

Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy."

In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast�a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon�has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.

Hence the question on every lip is�as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it� "What Happened to Obama?" Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.

Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as "a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election." On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama's goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

his statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the '60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.

But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.

Despite Mr. McGovern's defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party's left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the '60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.

I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to "the best interests of the United States" (Thomas Sowell) and is "purposely" out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.

But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576502093021646166.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

I know which way WSJ leans, but I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream publication would publish this.

# ? Aug 14, 2011 01:02

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

OatBoy posted:

What do you all think if this insightful and nuanced op-ed:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576502093021646166.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

I know which way WSJ leans, but I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream publication would publish this.

Aaand I continue to be amazed by the amount of words the right wing keeps managing to come up with in search of an explanation for *why* Obama is such a radical left-wing extremist, without being able to supply even one example of anything he's ever actually *done* that could be considered even slightly leftist.

# ? Aug 14, 2011 01:32

Tubba Blubba: Jul 14, 2011

Bruce Leroy posted:

I'm less concerned that it's an invalid argument and more worried by their absurd idea that somehow the poor are freeloaders and the wealthy are being unfairly picked on. The idea that we should tax the poor and middle class more to alleviate the slight burden upon the richest people who control the majority of the wealth is pretty good evidence that conservative propaganda is working and people are stupidly falling for it.

I'm sorry.
I oversimplified the issue in a zealous attempt at being succinct.
I agree with you; regressive taxes do not work,and such a fool notion should warrant a good shaking.
As for conservative propaganda, the conservatives won the U.S. with the election of Reagan, and anyone who tells you his term was a golden time for the U.S is delusional, lying, or both.
While I'm not saying his policies were evil as some like to say, I will reiterate my previous statement and say that trickle down economics is bunk.

# ? Aug 14, 2011 03:24

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Disgruntled Medic posted:

I'm sorry.
I oversimplified the issue in a zealous attempt at being succinct.
I agree with you; regressive taxes do not work,and such a fool notion should warrant a good shaking.
As for conservative propaganda, the conservatives won the U.S. with the election of Reagan, and anyone who tells you his term was a golden time for the U.S is delusional, lying, or both.
While I'm not saying his policies were evil as some like to say, I will reiterate my previous statement and say that trickle down economics is bunk.

What's funny is that there was a recent biographical documentary about Reagan that aired on HBO and it was hilarious how so many of the historians and Reagan biographers kept noting how the Reagan that is cited by modern conservatives is often demonstrably false when compared to the things Reagan actually did.

PrBacterio posted:

Aaand I continue to be amazed by the amount of words the right wing keeps managing to come up with in search of an explanation for *why* Obama is such a radical left-wing extremist, without being able to supply even one example of anything he's ever actually *done* that could be considered even slightly leftist.

It's really just because they don't even know what a "leftist" or "left-winger" is, let alone what a "communist," "socialist," or "fascist" is. The GOP has skewed so far to the right compared just to where they were 20 years ago that positions their party previous had look like something from Marx himself. E.g. the individual mandates of "Obamacare" were originally proposed by conservatives in the 1990s when Hilary Clinton was trying to get healthcare reform done, but all the current right-wing pundits act like it's some evil communist, socialist, fascistic thing Obama invented while doing cocaine off of Bill Ayers' penis.

Bruce Leroy fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Aug 14, 2011

# ? Aug 14, 2011 04:31

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

I'm a big fan of Right Wing Watch, mostly because they post direct quotes from crazy conservative opinion pieces/editorials that are perfect for this thread.

The emphasis is mine.

Rick Perry, Alice Patterson, And The Demons Who Control Our Politics

Alice Patterson posted:

Passivity caused the court cases that removed prayer from our public schools to remain, causing the protective wall around the United States, our schools and our government to crumble. The very next year President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The country mourned but the protective walls were not restored.

...

Although the Republican Party Platform is full of virtue, many individual Republicans tolerate what the platform does not. Take former evangelical President George W. Bush. Here are just a few of his actions that align with King Ahab�s tolerance of Jezebel.

� He was the first Republican President to appoint an open homosexual to high office� Scott Evertz to the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

� After the Islamic terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001, President Bush invited 50 ambassadors from Muslim countries for a traditional meal and prayer at the White House in November 2001 to mark the start of Ramadan. A Republican President was the first to invite Muslims to pray in the White House. President Barack Obama continued the celebration of Ramadan in the White House, but it was started by a Republican President.

� President and Mrs. Bush bowed before the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.

� President Bush �removed his shoes, entered a mosque and praised Islam for inspiring �countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity and morality.� For the second time since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president yesterday visited Washington�s oldest mosque, the Islamic Center, where Muslims from 75 nations gather to worship. Bush marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by praising Islam as a hopeful religion of mercy and tolerance.�

� President Bush outraged evangelicals by stating that he believes that Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

� In 2004 President Bush campaigned in favor of a Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that says that marriage is between one man and one woman. However, when he was elected, he said no more about it. If he had put as much importance on it as he did in reforming Social Security, the Marriage Amendment would have passed through Congress. He even said on several occasions that he supported civil unions, which give the same rights as marriage to same-sex couples.

� President Bush proved over and over again that he was an Ahab.

Barton On Spanking: "We Do The Same Thing With Horses"

David Barton posted:

Always in the Bible, discipline is with a rod, it�s not with a hand. �Cause the hand is supposed to reach out in love, you don�t want kids flinching from your hand. We do the same thing with horses. When I reach my hand to the face of a horse, I don�t want to flinch him from my hand. So if I have to beat a horse, and occasionally I do, you take something like a switch or a little crop or something else. And you can�t hurt a horse, I mean you can, but you have to convince a 1,200 lbs horse that me at 150 lbs is tougher than you and you do that by training. But when I extend my hand to my horse he doesn�t run from my hand, now he may not like that crop if he sees it, but after he�s had it a few time he�ll do exactly what I want, we have no difficulty, that�s why you also use spurs at times.

So the deal with spanking with hands, that�s why you really don�t want to do that you want to use something else so your hand is always associated with love and tenderness and reaching out to kids, there�s nothing to flinch, so people use belts or hairbrushes, or they can use a paddle or whatever it is.

�

When you say something �your yea�s should be yeas, your nay�s nays,� say something, if they don�t follow through, no anger needed, there�s just a penalty to pay for it. A consequence.

So, you get this thing where we have now moved into applying evolution to parenting. Now we�ve already applied evolution to the Constitution, we�ve applied evolution to science, we�ve applied evolution to history, that�s why we don�t teach history, we teach culture. Not any of the of the fifty major universities in America, elite universities require any course in history, they all teach culture, not history. So we�ve applied evolution. Now we�re applying evolution to parenting, and �you don�t spank.�

Wait a minute, the Bible says I do. You mean we evolved past the Bible? That�s what you getting. As you can tell I�m exercised over this one.

I really hope David Barton doesn't have any kids and I want the ASPCA or some other organization to take away his horses.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 07:07

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

Bruce Leroy posted:

In 2004 President Bush campaigned in favor of a Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that says that marriage is between one man and one woman. However, when he was elected, he said no more about it. If he had put as much importance on it as he did in reforming Social Security, the Marriage Amendment would have passed through Congress.

Because we all know how easily Bush's social security reform passed through congress.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 14:27

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

Because we all know how easily Bush's social security reform passed through congress.

More importantly, they think that a new amendment to the US Constitution would pass through Congress as easily as any regular legislation.

Also, it's not exactly clear if she understands what it takes to amend the Constitution, because the states would have to vote on any amendment, not just Congress.

# ? Aug 16, 2011 00:15

Sock on a Fish: Jul 17, 2004; What if that thing I said?

Bruce Leroy posted:

I'm a big fan of Right Wing Watch, mostly because they post direct quotes from crazy conservative opinion pieces/editorials that are perfect for this thread.

The emphasis is mine.

Rick Perry, Alice Patterson, And The Demons Who Control Our Politics

Barton On Spanking: "We Do The Same Thing With Horses"

I really hope David Barton doesn't have any kids and I want the ASPCA or some other organization to take away his horses.

I think I've read that the first president to invite Muslims to the White House for an end of Ramadan feast was Jefferson.

# ? Aug 20, 2011 19:09

Nathilus: Apr 4, 2002; I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.

OatBoy posted:

I know which way WSJ leans, but I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream publication would publish this.

WSJ is no longer mainstream. This is exactly the kind of bullshit I was afraid of when Murdoch bought the drat thing. Anything he buys quickly becomes a mouthpiece for his private interests. He's still riding out the publication's previous reputation but that won't last forever.

# ? Aug 20, 2011 23:46

Stanos: Sep 22, 2009; The best 57 in hockey.

OatBoy posted:

What do you all think if this insightful and nuanced op-ed:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576502093021646166.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

I know which way WSJ leans, but I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream publication would publish this.

As Mark Adomanis said, it's the intellectual equivalent of fart noises.

# ? Aug 20, 2011 23:58

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

Sock on a Fish posted:

I think I've read that the first president to invite Muslims to the White House for an end of Ramadan feast was Jefferson.

Yep
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/inbrief/2011/07/20110729153019kram0.3508199.html#ixzz1U4EHpDrE

In addition right wing pundits like to portray Jefferson as some kind of noble warrior fighting the Muslim hordes. The great irony being this is the opposite of the truth. He fought the Barbary pirates(who were Muslim) but held firm to the belief in protecting the rights of all religions.

quote:

In his autobiography, Jefferson recounted with satisfaction that in the struggle to pass his landmark Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), the Virginia legislature "rejected by a great majority" an effort to limit the bill's scope "in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan."

# ? Aug 21, 2011 03:06

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

Yep
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/inbrief/2011/07/20110729153019kram0.3508199.html#ixzz1U4EHpDrE

In addition right wing pundits like to portray Jefferson as some kind of noble warrior fighting the Muslim hordes. The great irony being this is the opposite of the truth. He fought the Barbary pirates(who were Muslim) but held firm to the belief in protecting the rights of all religions.

Even more awesome was when Keith Ellison was sworn into Congress, he asked that he be sworn in on a Quran and he got to use Jefferson's Quran for the ceremony.

Just imagine the cognitive dissonance from all the Islamophobes watching/hearing about that.

Nathilus posted:

WSJ is no longer mainstream. This is exactly the kind of bullshit I was afraid of when Murdoch bought the drat thing. Anything he buys quickly becomes a mouthpiece for his private interests. He's still riding out the publication's previous reputation but that won't last forever.

The funny thing is that Murdoch really isn't as much of a right-wing ideologues as Fox News and the current Wall Street journal seem to make him out.

He's really just a brazen, selfish corporatist that generally only seems to care about himself and his money.

Most people cite the regular Fox Channel content (e.g. Temptation Island) when noting this phenomenon, but I think the recent News of the World scandal also highlights this. Murdoch and his top cronies really don't give a gently caress about all the conservative jingoism and family values poo poo, they just care about readership/ratings and money, which is why they were willing to hack the phones and voicemails of terrorism victims and British soldiers.

As a contrast, look at American conservative ideologues like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin that fetishize the 9/11 victims and American soldiers. Obviously they exploit these people for their own benefit (e.g. establishing their conservative bona fides by expressing jinogism and militarism and harping on 9/11), but I believe that they genuinely care about these people they fetishize, whereas a guy like Murdoch really only sees them as a means to the end of profits.

# ? Aug 22, 2011 08:26

Saint Sputnik: Apr 1, 2007; Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!

Thanks for reminding me what a piece of poo poo you are Jay Ambrose.

quote:

The misinformation was so great in a recent guest op-ed n the Denver Post that it could not have been manufactured by one person alone. It took a consumer group organizer, a member of the Sierra Club and a trouper from George Soros�s MoveOn.org to misrepresent a salvational technology known as fracking as a weapon of mass destruction.

You better have a cardiologist standing by, for what this committee said was that fracking has �caused livestock and crops to die from tainted water, people in small towns to black out and develop headaches from foul air, and flames to explode from kitchen taps.�

My apologies to those of you already reeling in terror, but there is more. The chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer and heart disease.

Or maybe not. Maybe, by now, you have grown accustomed to the evangelical, fundamentalist faith of radical environmentalism. Maybe you would like to visit with science and actual experience before you go into 911 mode, screaming into the phone that the cops had better, by heavens, get to those fracking sites with guns drawn.

Let�s set the record straight by first talking about what fracking is, namely, hydraulic fracturing, a means of forcing fissures in hard rock to let oil or natural gas seep its way to a well. The 64-year-old vertical technique using mostly water and sand under high pressure has been employed in about a million wells with no hullabaloo.

Something just a decade old has been added � similarly safe horizontal fracking. It allows vast reaching out in a bunch of different directions while taking up hardly any space above ground. What we get is the inexpensive, environmentally sound snatching of enough energy from deep-down solid stone to make us free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.

It�s hard to overstate what�s happened. Especially with the new access to U.S. mother lodes of natural gas that is now a cheaper source of energy than anything else, we have taken a giant step toward energy independence. By itself, one fracking area in the East is said to have as much energy as Saudi Arabia._{citation needed} Tons more jobs are being created nationally. A truly significant reduction in greenhouse gases should result,_{citation needed} along with a significant reduction in what it costs to make this industrialized, motorized nation go.

So does fracking murder cows? Bogus claim. For that to happen, you can learn from several articles, much diluted chemicals used in tiny amounts would have to rise thousands of feet and pass through solid rock without benefit of fracking to reach aquifers above. And if you say that sounds easy, listen to an EPA administrator quoted as saying fracking has never been shown to poison water. The EPA also concluded in a study that the chemicals pose no threat to human health._{citation needed}

And even before fracking was a fact, kitchen taps have exploded from methane gas tucked in spots close to homes by nature herself, no help needed. Fracking has never been shown to be responsible.

The Denver Post op-ed is a tiny part of the campaign now being waged nationally by large numbers of other eco religionists and those they�ve influenced, but then there is actual research refuting the shock-and-awe assault on the civic psyche.

Review activist assertions, but then if you have time, do what I did � chat with an experienced geologist, check with a couple of other experts, find out through reading a dozen and more articles what the data truly reveal and tune in on some sane comment, such as a Denver Post staff columnist citing hard evidence of alert regulation in Colorado.

From varied written testimony, it appears alert in the rest of the nation, too, and should be because experts do agree such matters as well coverings can be and have been an issue. Care is obviously needed, but don�t feel you need to call the cops.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 01:45

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

Saint Sputnik posted:

What we get is the inexpensive, environmentally sound snatching of enough energy from deep-down solid stone to make us free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.

Are you loving kidding me? Is he seriously drawing a direct comparison between injecting benzene (and a bunch of chemicals you aren't allowed to know about) into the ground with MLK and civil rights?

Is he insane? I can't even comprehend how he thought this was a smart thing to say.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 01:57

Dr. Tough: Oct 22, 2007

quote:

Let My People Work
Everyone agrees that one of most urgent needs in this economic crisis is to produce more jobs. President Obama�s method, along with all the liberals in government, is to use stimulus. The problems with that idea are that it does not work and that we have no money left to use as a stimulus.

But the federal government can do something; it can stop throwing road blocks like minimum wage laws and workplace restrictions in the path of job creation. And, even more immediately, the states do not need to wait for the federal government to act because all 50 states have their own road blocks to employment that could be lifted.

The most damaging of these state road blocks is occupational licensing. The mere idea that anyone should be required to ask government�s permission to practice a profession should be offensive to anyone who cares about liberty and productivity. In Arizona there are scores of such laws and most of these government prohibitions also involve a regulatory board or commission to enforce the rules.

Does anyone seriously believe that we should have to ask government�s permission to be a barber or a cosmetologist or, for that matter, to practice any profession? The applicable regulatory bodies claim to be protecting the public but they actually exist to keep the competition out and keep the prices up. These licensing laws also require a lot of up-front education and continuing education so, naturally, there is another whole group of people in the education arena who support these economically harmful laws.

Thoreau said �Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way." Let�s get this economy moving by ending government restraints on people who want to work.

Some employee terminations help the economy

There is a myth going around that, even if government employees are inefficient or unneeded, we should not terminate them in this economic crisis because it would dampen the economy. The opposite is actually the truth. Because most government employees do not produce wealth (they tax and regulate the ones who do produce wealth), it would be better to for them to seek employment in the private sector, in jobs that produce wealth and that, therefore, add to the economy. And, there is actually a double benefit because we would then not have to tax productive private sector employees as much to pay the salaries of those former government employees. Let the axe fall.

Roy Miller | Phoenix

The local far-right paper gets the best letters.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 03:40

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

Are you loving kidding me? Is he seriously drawing a direct comparison between injecting benzene (and a bunch of chemicals you aren't allowed to know about) into the ground with MLK and civil rights?

Is he insane? I can't even comprehend how he thought this was a smart thing to say.

Better yet, check out the level of stupidity and ignorance required to call switching to another finite source of fossil fuel energy as "free."

It's basically like switching from heroin to crack because there's more available and it's cheaper.

Dr. Tough posted:

The local far-right paper gets the best letters.

Excellent find.

Idiot posted:

But the federal government can do something; it can stop throwing road blocks like minimum wage laws and workplace restrictions in the path of job creation. And, even more immediately, the states do not need to wait for the federal government to act because all 50 states have their own road blocks to employment that could be lifted.

Right, it's that pesky minimum wage that's getting in the way of bringing all those nice slave-wage jobs from China that cause people to literally kill themselves out of despair. Also, who needs OSHA, the FDA, SEC, or any other regulatory body, it's not like corporations and businesses would ever do something greedy and irresponsible if there was a profit motive in it.

Idiot posted:

The most damaging of these state road blocks is occupational licensing. The mere idea that anyone should be required to ask government�s permission to practice a profession should be offensive to anyone who cares about liberty and productivity. In Arizona there are scores of such laws and most of these government prohibitions also involve a regulatory board or commission to enforce the rules.

Does anyone seriously believe that we should have to ask government�s permission to be a barber or a cosmetologist or, for that matter, to practice any profession? The applicable regulatory bodies claim to be protecting the public but they actually exist to keep the competition out and keep the prices up. These licensing laws also require a lot of up-front education and continuing education so, naturally, there is another whole group of people in the education arena who support these economically harmful laws.

Because we all know the best doctors are the ones that haven't given into those med school cartels and licensing boards. I for one look forward to having home repairs done by a plumber who is not licensed or regulated.

Who is the government to tell me that I'm not qualified to run a clinical psychology practice? It's not like there's anything bad that could come from it.

Idiot posted:

Thoreau said �Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way." Let�s get this economy moving by ending government restraints on people who want to work.

Yeah, because, as great a philosopher and writer as he was, it's a great idea to take economic advice from the guy who lived as a forest hobo.

Idiot posted:

Some employee terminations help the economy

There is a myth going around that, even if government employees are inefficient or unneeded, we should not terminate them in this economic crisis because it would dampen the economy. The opposite is actually the truth. Because most government employees do not produce wealth (they tax and regulate the ones who do produce wealth), it would be better to for them to seek employment in the private sector, in jobs that produce wealth and that, therefore, add to the economy. And, there is actually a double benefit because we would then not have to tax productive private sector employees as much to pay the salaries of those former government employees. Let the axe fall.

Yeah, those newly-unemployed former-government employees can just get all of those private sector jobs that are currently available. Also, what are "demand," "consumption," and the "New Deal"?

# ? Aug 23, 2011 06:37

Cool Web Paige: Nov 19, 2006

Dr. Tough posted:

The local far-right paper gets the best letters.

Oh yes how wonderful it would be to be able to take my car to a dangerously incompetent mechanic, or have my house rewired by a guy who's never installed a light switch before.

Then head on over to the guy who says he's a dentist because he read 1 book on the subject for a root canal before purchasing a poorly constructed and improperly installed natural gas water heater.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 07:15

constantIllusion: Feb 16, 2010

quote:

it can stop throwing road blocks like minimum wage laws and workplace restrictions in the path of job creation

You guys are losers. I dream of the day when I can have a job that pays $1.50/hr that involves working 14 hr shifts without breaks, or stifling regulations that stop me from going deaf or blind, being hurt, maimed, or killed just by working at my workstation.

quote:

Does anyone seriously believe that we should have to ask government�s permission to be a barber or a cosmetologist or, for that matter, to practice any profession?...These licensing laws also require a lot of up-front education and continuing education so, naturally, there is another whole group of people in the education arena who support these economically harmful laws.

Because my hair dresser should be so uneducated that she doesn't know how to use tools and chemicals that if used incorrectly, can cause me to lose my hair, develop traction alopecia, suffer chemical or hot iron burns, or contract disease. Also my surgeon doesn't need to go through over a decade worth of education and job training, the free market will tell him the difference between my liver and my spleen.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 07:19

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

constantIllusion posted:

You guys are losers. I dream of the day when I can have a job that pays $1.50/hr that involves working 14 hr shifts without breaks, or stifling regulations that stop me from going deaf or blind, being hurt, maimed, or killed just by working at my workstation.

Because my hair dresser should be so uneducated that she doesn't know how to use tools and chemicals that if used incorrectly, can cause me to lose my hair, develop traction alopecia, suffer chemical or hot iron burns, or contract disease. Also my surgeon doesn't need to go through over a decade worth of education and job training, the free market will tell him the difference between my liver and my spleen.

The free market will decide who the best doctors are.

Once all the consumers hear how many patients a surgeon has killed, they'll shift demand to a doctor who has killed fewer people.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 10:07

Cool Web Paige: Nov 19, 2006

Bruce Leroy posted:

The free market will decide who the best doctors are.

Once all the consumers hear how many patients a surgeon has killed, they'll shift demand to a doctor who has killed fewer people.

The crappy surgeons will have to lower their prices to stay competitive, 50 dollar heart surgery ahoy!

Who needs Obamacare? Affordable healthcare is here!

# ? Aug 23, 2011 10:25

Bruce Leroy: Jun 10, 2010

vxskud posted:

The crappy surgeons will have to lower their prices to stay competitive, 50 dollar heart surgery ahoy!

Who needs Obamacare? Affordable healthcare is here!

Don't forget haggling.

You could probably negotiate a discount if you buy x-rays and MRIs in bulk.

And remember US Senate candidate Sharron Angle's advice to barter for medical services with livestock.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 10:34

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 23:23

sub supau: Aug 28, 2007

Bruce Leroy posted:

And remember US Senate candidate Sharron Angle's advice to barter for medical services with livestock.

That wasn't Angle, that was Sue Lowden, who Angle beat for the nomination.

# ? Aug 23, 2011 13:02

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