🙂 E. Murphy, one of my favorite commenters, engages the discussion that stemmed from a post of a couple of days ago. Says E.:
Okay, you can cherry pick some looniness within the Republican party. But you can also cherry pick some looniness within the Democrats also.
For godssakes women, the world is NOT black and white.
In the wee hours of this morning I was mulling over the issue: what are the roots of our present calamity? I do not see the basis of the irrecoverable disaster toward which we’re sliding on a skateboard as stemming from “looniness,” in the sense of isolated incidents of irrationality or stupidity. I see it as rooted in a deep, intransigent ideology that brooks no dissent from its dogma.
Here’s a little table showing the big missteps we’ve taken since the Reagan era. Let’s remember, too, that today Reagan would be considered “moderate” and Barry Goldwater, regarded as a right-wing loon in his day, would be trending to the left.
I submit that one does not “cherry-pick” right-wing lunacy. The crop of cherries is so thick and so ripe that all one has to do is stand under the tree, hold out a basket, and watch it fill.
Happy Labor Day, for those of you who still have a job. As for those who don’t and those who are marginally employed at a fraction of what you earned when you had a real job: go fish!
I’ve really enjoyed your site – so many parallels, job, finances, family. I’ll miss you but your politics are delusional. I’m truly embarrassed for you. Have you read The Real Lincoln?
LOL! No, but I’m spending my “holiday” reading a paper from a student who believes Marilyn Monroe was a pop icon of the 1920s, having just finished one from a student who cannot write a coherent paragraph. I might have time for pleasure reading if it didn’t take so many hours to plow through the unfortunate ramblings of the products of our public schools.
Sorry you feel you can’t be bothered with opinions that don’t agree with yours. We need more open minds if our nation is to survive, not more closed ones. 😉
Having looked at that chart, such as it is, I do disagree with it.
Looking at both political parties, except for a few members the majority are liars and political whores who would do anything for a vote.
That is the major reason nothing is being done to close the borders and why the DOJ is blocking states rights to close their own borders and make their own laws regarding the illegal mob that is sweeping over our southern borders.
As for the student that thought Marylin Monroe was a 20’s pop icon, totally belivable as the NEA has destroyed our education system over the decades.
The NEA is a Union and while unions were usefull at one time but now they are creating a time bomb with pension problems.
Where did Obama go today? Detroit to speak to UAW workers.
Who elase was there? Jimmy Hoffa Jr.
What did he say?
“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” Hoffa added.
The progressives and the unions are of this mindset.
The Tea Party is just saying we have this document here called the Constitution and you people in government are not paying any attention to it.
The defense rests
Come on dude! SERIOUSLY?! I don’t think I have ever cursed on your blog (plenty on mine) but what the fuck are you smoking out there? How could you even put that garbage shitty ass spreadsheet on your blog?
Any war time categories go ahead and just put Libya in there and check Dems. Also I guess you could also check Dems under the guise that they have been running congress until recently and now the White House.
Ignoring the disagreeing nature of almost every category the author had the audacity to write “Amoral leadership” and then use a Republican AS THE EXAMPLE?!
I am worried that people might actually vote for a president that has literally done shit since being elected:
– Still in 2 wars (3 if you want to count providing bombs for Libya)
– Still have Gitmo Open
– What even happened to Gay Rights?
– 9.1% Unemployment
– His ridiculously unconstitutional healthcare plan is being dismantled by the Courts
Just tell me what he has done?
Okay, funny, but still coming here to read, even if we butt heads politically.
@ Evan: I haven’t said Obama is great. I’ve said he’s no worse than the Republicans, and in fact that the Republicans seem to be responsible for a great deal of our pain.
Personally, I think Obama is a disappointment in all the ways you describe. On the other hand, he’s only been in office three years; where the economy is concerned, it took a lot longer to get us here than that. How long do you think it should take to undo a mess like this?
Do you really think we can just turn around and walk out of countries we’ve bombed back to the Middle Ages? (Granted, in some areas that wasn’t a long trip.) Do we not have some responsibility to stay in the theater until the job is more or less finished, if for no reason than to prevent further disorder and bloodshed?
Gitmo is inexcusable, IMHO.
As for the unemployment rate: do you think the Republican party is going to sit still for another New Deal? What’s needed is not a rollback of the government but more engagement of the government in job creation, even if it means the government borrows (yes: it’s not a household — it’s a government, which is a different animal) to renovate and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure for the specific purpose of creating work.
The requirement that everyone buy health insurance is no more unconstitutional than the requirement that everyone buy car insurance. In my state, insurance companies report individuals who let an auto policy lapse to the state, which will then cancel their (very expensive) auto registration. If you can require that everyone buy car insurance, you certainly can require that everyone buy health insurance. We might point out, too, that Medicare is not an option. You are automatically enrolled when you hit 65, and the $110/month premium is automatically withheld from your Social Security (http://www.elderlawanswers.com/Resources/Article.asp?ID=9017). If universal health insurance premiums are unconstitutional, so is Medicare.
My objection to the Obama healthcare plan is the broad involvement of insurance companies, which helped a great deal to get us where we are. As long as we are in the thrall of private industries whose sole purpose is to milk money from us in exchange for as little care as possible, we will never improve our lagging healthcare system.
Have you read Mr. Cheney’s latest book? If that doesn’t reflect amorality, I’d like to know what does. Remember, it wasn’t a Democrat who took us into Iraq on the strength of a lie. Possibly “immoral” is the correct word?
oh don’t forget to check the box for Removal of Tax Revenues for Dems
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-06/tax-cuts-exceeding-republican-plans-said-considered-by-obama.html
As long as we can agree that both suck I think we can at least have a conversation. It is when one believes one party doesn’t just completely suck that makes the convo near impossible.
“The requirement that everyone buy health insurance is no more unconstitutional than the requirement that everyone buy car insurance. In my state, insurance companies report individuals who let an auto policy lapse to the state, which will then cancel their (very expensive) auto registration”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. The federal government is a government of LIMITED powers, your state is not. Your State is allowed to make everyone buy health insurance NOT the Federal government.
http://www.myjourneytomillions.com/articles/health-care-bill-constitutional/
I get it Obama has been in office 3 years – but when does it eventually become his fault? Just give me a number would 5 be enough? so if in the 5th year (if he gets reelected) will the Bush bashing stop?
The reason the infrastructure plan will fail, and IT WILL FAIL, is because it will be taken over by unions and/or contracts to cronies who will do a shitty ass job in 4 times the speed. It took 9 months to complete the Empire State building – NINE MONTHS! and that was a head of schedule. How long would that take in modern day NYC? Despite the advancement in technology.
I have not read Cheney’s book nor do I plan to, but my point is how biased is some spreadsheet that uses the answer as an example.
@ George– Sorry! I didn’t see you’d commented here yesterday!
Great Hoffa Jr. quote! Assuming he did say that (as a former journalist, I don’t believe any quote that appears in print — if the person actually said it, chances are it’s taken out of context), how is “let’s take them out” any worse than putting elected representatives in target crosshairs and applying Wild West shoot-em-up rhetoric? “Let’s take them out” could mean simply “let’s get them out of office.”
Should we really reneg on pension promises to elderly retirees who have no way of getting jobs (even in the best of times) even if they were physically up to going back to work? How is this a good thing?
As for the evil that is the union, I live in a right-to-work state. Salaries here kept low largely because of it. People in management, who are generally not unionized, are astonished when they move here from other states and learn how little they will earn here. The cost of living is no lower than that in any other noncoastal city (except insofar as today you can buy a $150,000 house now for about $80,000).
Were it not for the Masters Mates and Pilots, I would never have entered the middle class. I certainly would never have earned a doctorate and taught on the university level. My father would not have earned enough to put me through college, to support my mother and me, and to fund his own retirement. There certainly were criminals in the union that took over the shipping industry near the end of his working lifetime — they stole his and other seamen’s pensions and threatened to harm the families of those who protested. Because of those criminal elements, my father did not have a pension. He had Social Security and the money he’d saved all his life toward his retirement.
That criminals were allowed to infiltrate and take over unions does not make unionization in itself a bad thing. It does not make unionized employees some sort of demons. And I challenge anyone to prove that crooks dominate the teacher’s union.
The hatred of the professionals to whom we turn over our children mystifies me. The expectation that a person should earn a master’s degree and then take on the care and education of armies of American children for a $24,000 salary: that floors me. Whence the idea that teachers should have no bargaining power, no representation, and almost no pay? And then that they’re going to produce legions of little geniuses who can compete with Chinese schoolchildren, who live in a culture where teachers are highly respected?
I’d like to know where people get the idea that the average teacher pay in this country is something like 90 grand, a figure I’ve seen thrown around. When I was teaching at ASU (where I started, with a Ph.D. and years of real-world as well as teaching experience, at $32,500), I looked in to getting a teaching certificate, because I wanted to move to a quieter, smaller city that didn’t have opportunities in higher education. After sitting through a three-hour informational session, I learned that starting pay for high-school teachers in the state’s largest city was $24,000; it would be lower in the smaller cities and towns. At the time, the top salary a high-school science teacher could earn here was $50,000. Why shouldn’t teachers be able to negotiate pay equivalent to what someone with comparable training and experience can earn in industry? If it takes a union to accomplish that, then so be it.
The low salaries may have something to do with high-school graduates who think Wisconsin is a Rocky Mountain state, Arizona is a “Great Plans” state, and Marilyn Monroe starred in silent films.
Wait…wasn’t it Mr. Perry who said he would have nothing of a border fence? BTW, the economy is improving in Mexico (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-21/mexico-economy-expanded-5-5-in-2010-most-in-10-years.html), and so many fewer Mexicans are dodging bullets, risking death by dehydration, and facing bigotry and harassment to come here and do slave labor for subminimum wages. No one leaves their home and their families to dig ditches and haul gravel out of ambition–they do it out of desperation.
Drat, Evan — my computer hung while I was writing that response to George, and so I didn’t see your awesome response!
And now I’ve GOTTA get up and go to work.
Meanwhile, don’t waste your ammunition, my friend. I’ll be back later this afternoon. 😀
@funny
Have you seen the Hoffa quote video?
Pensions are a problem. All I have is my SS which I contributed to since I was 16.
It would be nice to have a pension where when I retire I get 70% of my salary but after a couple decades the pension fund is broke. It’s not sustainable.
Here in our county in Nevada that is what we are looking at. Employees that get longevity bonuses in the last few years to inflate their salaries as their retirement is based on the 5 highest years of earnings and it just comes out of our tax base.
Funny- in my heart of hearts I agree with you (actually I think Obama has been a great president, I wasn’t expecting miracles, he’s not an ass, we didn’t invade Iran…I blame the rest on congress). But I’m impressed you’d even put this up, even bother fighting or caring anymore. I don’t talk politics with anyone. For each person who believes we need to bring back post-depression financial regulation or implement a new New Deal there is someone else who thinks by further deregulating or further cutting taxes jobs will magically appear. These are good, honest, and otherwise intelligent people. I’d like to see dems and repubs raise taxes back to Clinton rates and cut social security benefits for those that don’t need it (which I hope to be one of) and raise the age for youngins like me to accommodate for longer lifespan. But it’ll never happen. Somehow taxes and unions are to blame for everything. You know we’d all be rich if we just paid no taxes.
I want all these anti-tax freaks to get off my public highways and eat non FDA inspected food. The difference is I think if you are a eighty or lefty is your level of empathy. I am ok with not receiving my social security benefits so that seniors who need it can get it. I am ok with paying higher taxes in exchange for returning our education system to the best in the world even though I don’t plan to have kids. I am ok with paying higher taxes to get acces to a national healthcare system so that those who lose their jobs or lose benefits prior to medicare can get the treatment they need. I am even ok with paying higher taxes to preserve a strong defense: American arms are one of the few things keeping jobs here these days.
I think righties convince themselves poor people deserve it. That there is an “us” and a “them”. And poor, minorities, old people, sick people, teachers, unions etc are all “them”. And I don’t see it getting any better. We’ll keep cutting taxes for the rich, keep cutting programs for the power, it will always be the fault of unions, taxes and big government. We are screwed. I don’t know how you can even spare the energy to talk about it or try to prove anything to them.
@evan
Forcing me to buy health care or pay a fine has nothing to do with car insurance.
Congress has abused the commerce clause that was only put there to ensure there were no tarrifs between the states and there would be free trade. Congress being the power grabbers that they are think that they can control everything that has to do with commerce.
When buying a car your lender is the one that is mandating that you get insurance to cover their loss should you get into an accident.
Now if you paid cash you can drop your collision and comprehensive but the state will still make you maintain liability insurance.
I still have to pay that darned uninsured motorist fee that I think should be covered by the state.
@funny
I have been in 2 unions.
A machinists union in 1967 where I lost my job when the Boss’s kid got out of school for the summer.
I worked for Western Electric for 3 weeks in 1980. It was a company union.
Later I worked as a Field Engineer for a Cad/Cam company.
In the mid 80’s we went to a convention in Anaheim CA.
Unions did our set up, laid the carpet for our large 100’x100′ venue, electricians dropped power from the overheads 50′ from the floor.
We could not run cables between our computers, electricians had to do that.
We could set up our computer equipment and connect the cables.
Union says we can only have 2 of our company employees on our venue at a time during the installation.
A team mate that was assembling one of the graphics consoles needed a 7/16 nut driver.
I was the third person on the venue and by the time my foot hit the carpet all the union workers got up and left.
I had nothing to do with the carpet, nothing to do with running wires/cables and nothing to do with the electric or assembling the stage for the venue.
All I had to do was cross their union line on the floor with that 7/16 nut driver.
I have no use for unions that behave like this.
I also have no use for this AFL-CIO idiot Jimmy Hoffa Jr. who says they need to take us out.
@FrauTech
Obama went on a world apology tour once he got elected.
Great president?
He met with Putin and I’m sure he peed his pants when he looked into Putin’s eyes.
We have the fake birth certificate and a trail of nothing from where he was born until he surfaced in Illinois politics.
This guy has no friends that he grew up with that can say anything about him.
Why are all his records sealed?
Why does he not have a clue?
Kinda makes you wonder.
@funny, your blog tell me if I am off track.
she’s b-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k! {what a day!!!}
Okay, @ Evan:
Welp, between you and me and the lamppost, I’d be surprised if Mr. Obama sees a fifth year in office. Unless the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot by splitting the vote somehow, it really looks bad for the current president.
gr! I’m getting an internal server error on your link, Evan. To put the frosting on the cupcake, it also sez “Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.”
Not knowing exactly what your post said on this issue — but gathering that you argue the feds don’t have the authority to institute a law requiring people to buy x or y insurance policy — I’m left with mumbling that the federal gummint has been doing exactly that for nigh unto 50 years. You can’t opt out of Medicare A. You can decline to buy Medicare B or Medigap policies, but you’re required to take Medicare A when you turn 65. And you fail to purchase Medicare D at your peril: if you don’t sign up promptly upon turning 65, you face the equivalent of a fine — a permanently repeating fine — in that the premium increases exponentially if you delay enrolling past a certain period.
Your Medicare A premiums are prepaid through payroll taxes during your working life.
So, unconstitutional or not, the federal government has been requiring people to buy insurance through several Republican administrations. The GOP must be a little slow on the uptake if leadership is only just now noticing this. Indeed, Medicare Part D was enacted in January 2006 — during George W’s regime.
The Empire State Building took one year and 45 days to construct. The Iron Workers Union claims to have had a part in its construction, but I can’t confirm that offhand.
heh heh heh heh…. Biased my little list may be. But it sure got a lot of lively comments going. Which of course was exactly the point. 😉
Jeez, George… D’you ever feel like the longer we live the weirder the world gets?
@funny
Medicare is an opt in, so you need to do some research on that plus you have been contributing to it on each pay check.
I won’t because I have the VA (such as it is) so I will probably die at home anyway.
Yep the Empire State building was done without union labor and under budget.
@funny
‘Jeez, George… D’you ever feel like the longer we live the weirder the world gets?’
Of course.
Things change slowly until all the hamburger meat is 95/5 and that is like chewing on rubber.
70/30 makes the best burger but can I find it?
No.
I need to get it on the black market.
Remember those plump burgers that were cooked on the grill when you were a kid?
They shrink now to 1/3 their size.
George- I find it ironic the people who tell me to get my healthcare on the “free market” because they don’t want the gubmint telling ’em what to do are often on government provided healthcare themselves.
I think this whole conversation proves we’ll never get anywhere. If citizens can’t have a decent conversation I’m not sure why we expect the bozos in congress to do any better. I’m sorry you buy into the whole birther propaganda and feel such vitriol for Obama. I hated Bush but I never doubted his legitimacy to the office. I didn’t feel the need to make up lies and personalize my bitterness (peed his pants? Really?) so we are clearly screwed as a nation. I’m practicing my self defense skills so I’ll be ready for Thunderdome.
@FrauTech
I can see your points and it’s good you are practicing your self defense skills and I hope you have a bit more than a weeks worth of food and water stored.
We have about 6 months of everything stored and I mean everything.
{I think this whole conversation proves we’ll never get anywhere.} Your view, not mine.
You can search all my comments here but I doubt I ever said I hate Obama.
Saying you hated Bush reveals a lot about your character.
I have stated that the entire congress should be voted out. Even my own.
Sweep it clean with a big broom and get rid of the career politicians. Make congress like those shows on the food channel. Give them a time limit and hold their feet to the fire. Let them be in session 3 months on and 3 months off. The less time they are in session the safer our pocketbooks are.
I read one of you earlier posts about paying higher taxes to get access to national health care. The Mrs. goes to a clinic in Shoshone CA and the Dr. there told her last year that when Obama care kicks in he’s going to close the clinic and retire.
Obama care is a killer and our knucklehead congress people never read the bill before they voted for it.
Now it’s law.
Have a nice evening, I’m going to go make dinner.
@Funny
Medicare is so complicated and I often wonder why.
Congress doesn’t write the bills, the lobbyists do.
Also I don’t believe everything I read in the AARP magazine.
What FrauTech probably meant when stating ‘I hated Bush’ was that the policies and ideology that he and his cronies were ramming down our throats came completely out of ‘right’ field.
No time to make sure going to war was the right decision — let’s just bomb now and talk about it later.
Like the spreadsheet, funny!
@ FrauTech: I’m not sure that’s what this conversation proves. Unlike similar threads on other sites, which often devolve into flame-throwing contests, writers here have expressed their opinions with passion and verve but not really slid into the slough of incivility. Only one person’s mind is so firmly shut that she can’t bring herself ever again to consider a different point of view. Evan and Frau Tech are passionate about their respective visions; George is flamboyant (as ever); Holly is trying to maintain a grip on common sense; and the spreadsheet was deliberately provocative. 😉
@Holly – define the meaning of ‘probably’. (I know you have good intentions)
@funny
My dad (1911-2009) was a Democrat and a union member in a machine shop.
Jones&Lamson as I recall.
He was an inspector. With his micrometer and little blocks of metal he’d pass or fail the work the machinist did.
He didn’t like going on strike as he claimed the raise they bargained for never made up for the lost wages.
He had enough seniority that he didn’t have to walk the picket line when I was old enough to remember him out of work when the union went on strike.
I do recall him telling a story about the union guys taking a ‘scabs’ car (it was a Fiat about the size of a golf cart) loading it on a flat bed truck and taking to a boat launch ramp on the Connecticut river and letting it just slip away into the current.
I do know this happened today: http://news.yahoo.com/longshoremen-storm-wash-state-port-damage-rr-144921214.html
Now getting back to my dad, he was a Democrat until the day he died.
I was one also (ran in the family) but that changed about the time I got out of the NAVY. After reflecting on what I did when I was doing what I was doing for 7 1/2 years, I became a conservative.
My dad never changed. After he retired he got his union pension along with his social security and he was comfortable.
Now growing up with an inspector as a dad meant that you learned very early to measure twice and cut once when you were building something. I learned a lot from my dad and I have built a lot of things with the knowledge I accepted from him. (you can’t learn nuthin’ if ya don’t want to)
Life is learning from womb to tomb.
I was going to comment on the Republican Debate and the Obama speech but neither is relevant.
It wasn’t a debate like Nixon and Kennedy. Run by MSNBS it was a dog and pony show.
It wasn’t a speech, it was just another campaign event with congress held hostage.
Dinner calls.
@George yes I meant hated his policies, his decisions, his preservation of a rich elite at the cost of a middle class, like Holly suggested. But I think it’s cute you turned one word into a judgment on my character!
@funny yes we can have a civilized conversation. I think that is pretty far from moving towards a reasonable compromise. We can talk about it but each side has radically different views as to what will help.
I guess we can just kiss and make up?
I dunno, George. How does Mrs. George feel about that? 😉
It sounded better than bury the hatchet!
I’m sure no DNA will be exchanged, just a few microcoulombs of electrons.