Lots of ink has been spilled outlining the increasingly dire condition of the Republican Party. Levels of public affiliation with the party have set new record lows over the past couple of years in a predictable response to the party’s growing extremism. However, much of the commentary about this situation has overlooked a critical factor.
While Republican affiliation is setting new lows, Democratic affiliation, while still much higher than the Republicans, is beginning to approach their own historic lows. Neither of our major political parties are generally trusted or respected. Democrats are gaining ground politically, but only as a default.
This has not always been the case. The Democratic Party was able to generate a wave of optimistic enthusiasm from the late fifties until about 1968. Republicans enjoyed tremendous respect from the late seventies until the train wreck of the second Bush Administration. In our time, Democrats are steadily gaining momentum almost everywhere outside the Deep South and the sparsely populated regions of the Mountain West, but this political shift is very different from similar epochal shifts in the past.
Growing Democratic power is not coming from a more popular governing agenda, a vision for the future that sparks enthusiasm, or even a set of charismatic leadership figures. The only force driving the Democratic Party’s expansion is growing hatred of the GOP.
Failure to appreciate this dynamic is the story of the Obama years for both Democrats and Republicans. Emerging from the unprecedented catastrophe of the Bush Era, Americans gave a pair of massive electoral victories to the Democrats in ’06 and ’08 out of pure, desperate exhaustion. If the Democrats had recognized the meaning of those victories, people today might be sizing Obama up for a new spot on Mount Rushmore.
Instead, Democrats interpreted the results to mean that Americans loved them and supported their outdated plan to extend 20th Century hyper-bureaucratic government into our time. With a nation reeling from a long series of bleeding disasters, they diverted all of the energy the country had given them into fulfilling Ted Kennedy’s dream of national health care.
They failed to do this. They then re-packaged their failure to deliver national health care as some awkward form of success, and lost big in 2010.
When the Republicans swept into office in 2010 turned out to be batshit crazy, the electorate recoiled again in 2012. Now we’re all stuck. Government has effectively closed down. Any public function that cannot be carried out by the executive branch or the courts is indefinitely deferred.
On the one side we have a Democratic Party which is moderately reasonable, but trapped in the past and incapable of forming a governing vision that can address the needs of a Post-Cold War world. On the other side we have a Republican Party gripped by a terrifying paranoia that threatens to ruin the country and the planet.
Put Democrats in power and they’ll assume we like their ridiculous ideas and work hard to implement them against our actual wishes. They’ll cost us money for projects we don’t want or need while creating headaches that have to be dealt with in the future.
Put Republicans in power and they’ll obey the voices in their heads. The party is more or less controlled by the kind of idiots who would threaten to bring the global political and financial order to its knees in order to solve problems that only exist in their delusions.
American voters are trapped between crazy and inept. Almost every election is a cost-benefit analysis between the marginal cost of putting a Democrat in office and the terror of unleashing a Republican lunatic. Increasingly we are voting for the relative safety of Democratic ineptitude and Democrats are misinterpreting it as love.
Opportunity hides in this grim scenario for an organization with the insight and dexterity to exploit it. The country is aching for an Eisenhower; dull, relentlessly competent leadership. America does not need an Apollo Project. We need to fix our highways, update our tax structure, and tame our fiscal mess. We’ve had three charismatic young Presidents in a row and they have all sucked.
The party or leader who can offer us eight years of bare, gray competence and uneventful leadership may win lasting admiration. Recognizing that neither party is poised to inspire us, or being asked to inspire us, might lead to a major political victory for whoever is ready to seize it.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
A proposal to address Obama’s mess on the border. Democrats and liberal repubs are for amnesty. A good measure of this support can be found in the make-up of the senate. Let’s move all of the incoming illegals to the states that vote for the senators that support amnesty. No federal dollars other than the cost to move them will be expended. All aid will be from the state budgets at whatever level of largesse each state wants to provide.
Perhaps allow the senate to vote. Both Arizona repubs voted for the Gang of Eight deal. Let them vote to bring their share in. All of the illegals must be issued identification that allows them residence in the states they end up in and must remain in those states for at least five years. Each participating state may allow the transfer (swap) of an equal number of new immigrants at their discretion.
Going forward we should address the current impasse on reform and it can follow the same pattern. Secure the border. Allow 90 days for every illegal already here to register and be counted. Create legislation to deal with the immigrants with a quantifiable ability to determine the scope of the situation and sort them out based on the make-up of the senate. If they will cast a vote, allow the senators to vote. Our problem is congress is not acting and the people must force the issue.
Once we know the number and have the situation stabilized those on the registry will have to go to the end of the line if they want citizenship and all of them must reside in the states they are assigned to for at least 5 years (or move to another participating state as arrangements allow).
This plan will not shake up the political make-up of the US in the short term and will allow those states that have a majority of citizens in favor of granting status the opportunity to prosper as their senators predict will happen when we replenish our reportedly shrinking labor force with these new workers. What do y’all think about it?
Some of those same states don’t have hurricanes, so maybe they should insist that the coastal states bear those costs in exchange for us not providing any money for blizzards (let’s add earthquakes to this formulation–Texas doesn’t have any serious ones).
Funny, it seems we tried this method and then ended up with a Constitution and a sense of community between States, rather than another form of government.
But other than this odd view of federalism there is something to be said for actually proposing real ideas of paths for citizenship and it would seem that those immigrants here may actually support the political party which found a way to assimilate them into the citizenship, even if the political party were Republican.
this is an immediate crisis for the folks in the camps and could be solved by the politics that wrought it, why the hurricane distraction? NY took a hurricane in 2012 and got $60 billion for it. They’d love the prosperity their new citizens would bring wouldn’t they?
The silly bird always comments about posting links to back up assertions. I long ago found that a waste of time as Tracy is now discovering. The silly bird will just dismiss such links as irrelevant and ‘dumb’. My advise would be to ignore the silly bird. It goes towards a much freer dialogue.
Rucas, get a handle on your temper. You seem desperate.
One of Obama’s greatest accomplishments, Iraq, is cratering. And of course the pants suit is tied to that also. I am beginning to think Hillary hasn’t a chance to get nominated by her party. She is dragging way too many suitcases and a couple of them have dead bodies in them.
Obama is warehousing kids and the diseases are spreading rampant. Our great leader caused this. You on the left should be proud.
Homer asked me to post a link about the border crisis with children. He couldn’t find it. I did post a link but what you lefties should ask is why your news organizations did not cover this crisis.
Obama is President of Iraq too?
So you are offering your home to these kids? Is your church asking for larger donations this Sunday to help them? And actually I did find a news organization reporting on this surge of children, but it didn’t have enough cynicism, blame or hyperbole for typical conservative consumption.
Of course under my policies energy costs will necessarily skyrocket – yer boy Barack
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101752227
“The final decision was Secretary Chuck Hagel’s to release the detainees for Prisoner of War, Bowe Bergdahl” President Barack Hussein Obama June 9 2014. Does Anyone BELIEVE that? Does anyone really wonder why his popularity now matches Bush 43’s?
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/209167-poll-obama-just-as-unpopular-as-bush-43#ixzz34S1EKhmB
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2653672/Now-White-House-says-Hagel-final-call-Bergdahl-criticism-Obama-prisoner-swap-mounts.html
to the sound of coconuts clapping together
brave brave sir Obama
He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge…
Sectarian violence in Iraq sent the price of oil skyrocketing on Thursday OR crazy right wingers can’t read anything without blaming Obama, propelling both Brent and West Texas Intermediate up more than two percent amid growing concerns about a threat to global supply.
don’t be mad bro
Not angry, just spent some time reading your link and when I used the “Find” feature somehow the word “Obama” didn’t appear anywhere in it. Where did you get the app which adds the context no one else finds-will it work on Android devices?
you know maybe it should occur to you that all thought is not derived from the internet and what Andrew Sullivan writes. Obama campaigned on withdrawing from Iraq. Gave the date even. Heck he likely armed the rebels busting out of Syria with the lead from behind weapons that were shipped out of Benghazi.
These are his policies too. They are impacting energy prices. Poor Crogged. Locked out of creative thought processes by his indoctrination.
Yes, you are right, we are out of Iraq, but we have to blame somebody for Iraq being shitty, ergo, Obama. And for some reason I do find Sullivan to be a better source for writing and analysis of political issues than you, must be his fault.
how about passing my immigration proposal to Mr Sullivan so he can tell you what you think about it?
His website accepts comments, fire away.
Lots of convoluted and hard-to-navigate threads below. Please forgive me if I pop a few responses back up to surface-level here.
fiftyohm posits, “It is unquestionably true that some public assemblies turn into riots. People can be likked [sic — an amusing and very Texan transposition!] or injured, and property destroyed. A roster of all present at the event would surely be an aid to law enforcement in apprehending the perps, wouldn’t you say?”
Oh, fifty, that’s a straw man. Sure, it would be an aid. It’s also grossly impractical. If the organizers of demonstrators were forced to track each and every participant coming and going, then we’d have no demonstrations. It’s what has come to be popularly known, from forced-birther efforts to create similarly onerous obstacles designed to drive out abortions while providing the appearance of innocent regulation, as an “undue burden”.
Now, mind you, the ever-increasing monitoring of public space, coupled with improvements in facial-recognition software, may create such a situation without the need for formal list-making. That, of course, creates an entirely different issue for discussion, further proving the rather stramineal nature (had to look that one up) of your argument.
On the other hand, simply attaching personal information and a database submission to the *existing* collection of information (and, for most forms of payment, also a database submission) associated with the purchase of a firearm is no great burden at all. Arguments against it seem merely the paranoid fears of those who think that, somehow, after 225 of successful constitutional government in which we’ve resolved our internal, national problems with ballots rather than bullets, THEY will get to play the noble Wolverines who gallop in to save the day.
TThor sighs mightily about the Assault Weapons Ban, “two of my rifles became illegal to purchase ex post facto as a result.”
Why, you poor thing! Out of how many? And, really, how many rifles can you carry, firing all the way, while you’re dodging house to house ahead of the goose-stepping U.S. Army troops who have somehow, against all likelihood, been turned against their very own fellow citizens?
Forgive me if I’m singularly unimpressed with your supposedly tragic circumstances. In the whole lifetime of the Assault Weapons Ban, an entire DECADE from 1994 to 2004, did anyone attempt to take away those two rifles? Why, no! You merely couldn’t sell them. Are you going to claim, with tongue nowhere near cheek, that you’d bought them as investment properties?
“Gun registration serves no valid anti-crime purpose.”
Employing a term I usually reserve for Sternn’s dumps, bullshit. The history of modern policing demonstrates that data helps fight crime. Tracing the flow of guns to criminals, or forcing those who would supply them to take greater measures to conceal themselves and face greater, more likely penalties when caught, is very much a valid anti-crime purpose, no matter how much it might be convenient and comfortable to you to deny it.
“*EVERYWHERE* gun confiscation has occurred, it has been preceded by registration.”
While I’m not going to exhaustively scour for resources, I’m pretty darn sure that history contains examples of a Japanese-style “sword hunt” (in which the Shogun’s army went house-to-house searching for swords to prevent peasant uprisings, without any registration system to consult), but for firearms, sometime between, say, the Hundred Years’ War and today. If you’re really concerned about government overreach into abject tyranny, rather than simply whining about imaginary events which might justify your adolescent fantasies, that would seem a far more dangerous prospect, and just as likely in the vanishingly small event of such an out-of-control, dangerous state.
“Invariably, each one of these incidents end when a good guy with a gun shows up. In fact, the sooner that person shows up, the faster it ends, with a concomitant reduction in mortality.”
And here’s where the deep-set irrationality of the ammosexuals comes again to the fore. As citizens, we choose and authorize “good guys” with guns; they’re called the police. We do not appoint any random yahoo, convinced as he might be that he is “good”, to wade in and start firing at people he believe are “bad” in the middle of a mob of screaming schoolchildren, or the darkness of a movie theater. The belief that a “good guy with a gun” is the solution to all such problems is just further proof of adolescent marination in far too many Hollywood movies in which logic and statistics are cast by the wayside in favor of dramatic plot-development.
I’m reminded of that poor sap, deluded by just such right-wing whinging, who tried to take out the Las Vegas shooters after they’d killed two policemen and were annexing a Walmart. He was shot in the back. Some “good guy with a gun”. Maybe you should revise your requirement to TWO good guys with guns. Or three. Or, hell, just require everyone everywhere to carry at least six loaded firearms, and blaze away anytime they feel mildly discomfited, lest someone else get the drop on them.
It’s deeply stupid, tragic, and ridiculous. Like all too much gun-fetishist rhetoric.
Doing a bit of research, I find that Canada has required handgun registration since 1934, and since 1977 required purchasers to pass a criminal background check. And, guess what? Our northern neighbor seems in no danger of falling under an autocratic tyranny which will crush Canucks beneath its heel and establish invasions of personal liberty like requiring certain pronunciations of vowels.
The main problem with their system? Importation of illegal firearms from the United States.
And, of course, Mexico, though far more different from us in culture and government than is Canada, also requires citizens to register firearms… and also, as news articles regularly detail, has trouble with illegal weapons flooding across the border from the United States.
Really, it’s almost enough to make you wish someone would invade us to stop this weak-willed government inattention that supports criminal activity and chaos in our neighbors. The U.S. as “rogue state”? Who’d have thought.
Canada is very rural with a low popualtion that has to ask permission from the Queen of England to hold elections. No thanks, very bad example there, Owl.
In reality, of course, as opposed to Sternn’s delusions, approximately 80 percent of Canadians live in urban areas concentrated in the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, the British Columbia Lower Mainland, and the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor in Alberta. That’s quite comparable with the United States’ 82% of its inhabitants residing in cities and suburbs as of 2011.
In a further rebuke to Sternn’s fantasy-driven view of the world, since 1947, Canada’s governor general has exercised almost all of the sovereign’s Royal Prerogative, including summoning and dismissing parliament, calling elections, and appointing governments. Moreover, some might claim that they have the *power* to hold elections when convenient or necessary, rather than being tied to an artificial timetable like our own.
Moreover, Canada’s House of Commons has 308 seats representing Canada’s 35,344,962 citizens, for a citizens-to-legislator ratio of 114,756. The United States’ House of Representatives has 435 seats, representing 318,201,000, for a ratio of 731,497. By such a measure, Canada is thus over six times as representative a democracy as our own.
I’m not Canadian, one reason being that I hate cold weather. But I strongly suspect they’d all be laughing at Sternn’s rural American idiocy.
Owl, a cautionary tale for you: http://www.examiner.com/article/dangers-of-gun-registration-the-belgian-corporal
Tell you what, if a registration law passes in TX, or nationally, feel free to comply. In fact, I urge you to do so. Comply, Owl.
I will not. Nor will I lift a finger in your defense when the government (probably under a GOP administration) comes for what is yours. I will simply follow the example of countless New Yorkers, and remain anonymous. And I’ll stand idly by whilst you are fitted for your yellow star. Enjoy it.
Oh, and BTW, Owl, if you prefer facts and figures, please see: http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/cprc-research/
For a brief history of gun registration, confiscation and genocide, see: http://jpfo.org/pdf02/genocide-chart.pdf
and
http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm
And BTW, Canada’s gun registration saw has been routinely and systematically used for confiscation:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/01/29/fiorito_the_cops_came_and_took_my_gun.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-gun-confiscations-prompt-legal-fight-1.958226
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2832975/posts
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gun-debate-reignites-with-rumoured-ban-of-classic-green-rifle-1.2554372
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Canada
Particularly egregious is C-68’s “grandfather” clause, which not unlike the Assault Weapons Ban and the NY SAFE act, makes it impossible to sell or even pass along your arms to your children via inheritance. Think of it as ‘delayed’ confiscation. I’m afraid you’ll have to come up with a better example than Canada, Owl.
TThor, you can post all the links and proof you want to the Owl, but it will do no good. You may convince others, but what you are showing as wrong is what the bird wants to happen.
It is like Obama saying publicly that he wants to destroy the private health care system, then hiding such statements. His followers know that he wants it, and they want it. Owl is a self avowed socialist. But they deny it while supporting things that move it in that direction. “You can keep your doctor, your health insurance plan if you like them, period.” Only that was never true.
We can argue until we are blue in the face, and they will keep the lies going. “Oh no, we don;t want you to register your rights or take your weapons, just register your rights and we will take them later”. That is their idea of “compromise”.
Perhaps this will come as a shock to you, TThor, but we don’t live in Belgium.
We don’t even live in Europe.
Who the hell is going to invade us and take away your beloved metal penis substitutes?
Canada? Mexico? Hardly. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rather eliminate any other contenders.
So, again you come across as a ridiculous paranoiac. It’s disappointing.
TTHOR – Collecting guns that are left out in the open in evacuated areas make sense to most people. If these people would have used some sense and secured their weapons then no one would have taken then away. In other woulds only firearms from irresponsible gun owners were removed.
Once again Tracy brings the goods. Excellent job sir.
And, of course, Sternn, standing somewhere between the fluffy dessert custard of the argument, easy to chew, requiring no attention or effort, and providing such pleasure in its definition… and the shit sandwich, a ridiculous and offensive interjection of waste products set in the midst of what should be wholesome and useful.
“Parades and some rallies need permits because they will take place on public roads as well.”
So, perhaps your gun should be registered if you want to carry it within public areas as well, rather than on your private property while you’re tooling around on your unregistered motor vehicle and whimsically denying service to any African-Americans who might wander onto your property. Of course, the gun has to be carried *through* public areas to make it from the point of purchase back to your house, and it’s far easier to get that gun, unnoticed and unremarked, back *out* of your private fiefdom and into public space than it is to do so for your car.
I’ll tell you what; you are happy to keep, bear, fire, and fondle all you like any gun that you make for yourself out on your blissfully bucolic rural property. Anything else, I see no problem with you completing a simple registry. Not so that the agents of the state can decide, on a lark, to head from the coffee shop over to your Taj-Mahal-like cow palace to disarm you — but so that, if said Golden Barn is ever robbed, we have a complete record of what was supposedly there, even if you’re senile and don’t remember, or so that if you ever decide to beat Tuttabella, say, into a bloody heap, or some other (just as unlikely!) but equally horrific act, we know what should be confiscated after you’ve been placed into a category banned from firearm ownership through a completely open, above-board, and legal process of review.
But, no. Ammosexuals seems to demand that guns automatically pass into this black-market netherworld where they can pass to and from our valiantly vigilant (and often mysteriously overweight) freedom fighters, regardless of any future behavior.
“And there is no reason my doctor should be asking if I own or drive a car, or what kind of car.”
Of course there is. Don’t be an idiot (whoops; too late). People get too old to be safe as drivers, due to visual or mental changes, illness, or other factors. Are you arguing that the senile, incompetent, or insane should have unrestricted driving privileges, along with the right to bear arms?
the fowl owl is losing it
And I just want to clap loudly at Crogged’s contribution to the discussion: “Sometimes it seems the Second Amendment is more about the extent one can be an asshole in civil society.”
Ha! Yea, I didn’t see that comment but YES. Great way of putting it, Crogged.
Like Mr. Guccione of Penthouse Magazine, who said, “The first amendment gives me the right to be offensive.”
I don’t recall any news stories about someone dropping a copy of *Penthouse* magazine and accidentally killing someone.
I would rather be wrong than offensive. I think Sarah Antoinette said it………..
Words can kill.
Although I guess Penthouse is not known for its words, but the concept is the same — freedom of expression.
If you want to freely express yourself by carrying around dummy firearms, that might be fine.
If you want to carry around live firearms in public spaces, then you yourself are the dummy.
Cool! So stay hidden in your cubicle completing IT tickets then and let the people who are actually putting their lives on the line handle it. You f***ing cowardly goon.
Quite an imagination, Owl. FYI, I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, issued by the state. And I also record serial numbers, not just of firearms. It is called being responsible. You should try it some time, but you would have to leave your fantasy world first.
And if, in your senility, you’ve used your record of serial numbers as a buttwipe after confusing it with your collected forum posts? Or if the thieves make off your your convenient inventory along with all the guns?
Registration seems such a small effort for such potential public good. But, like all allegedly autonomous, eternally adolescent, obviously asinine avatars of Ayn-Randian assholery, you don’t really care about the commonweal, just about your own puffed-up, over-rated fantasy depiction of yourself.
Registration of rights serves no public good, only public harm. You are really making my point about the hatred and anger, though.
No-one wants you to register your *rights*, Sternn; just your firearms.
Oh, I know what you meant; I just wanted to point out your idiocy. Again.
Of course Sternn, who dislikes and distrusts the police and views them as ineffective for his own wants and needs, also views data as a totally unimportant part of modern policing.
Silly bird, I work very closely with police officers, and they want nothing to do with your registration either.
Sternn, you’ve regularly whined, in harmony with normal ammosexual talking points, that the police have no duty to protect you and aren’t worth relying upon. I’m sure you would teabag any one of them, personally, if you thought it would gain you some advantage. But as for your regard of them an institution? I see nothing from you but the typical anti-social libertarian nihilism.
And I know some, Sternn, that do.
They have no duty to protect individuals, Owl. And even they will tell you that when seconds count, police are minutes away. They will try to come running when called, if they are not already running to another emergency. It is the officers that I work with that convinced me to get a CHL in the first place.
GG, police officers are some of the biggest hoarders of weapons and ammunition that I have ever known, and that is with their private collections that has nothing to do with their jobs as officers.
“Sorry GG but my word trumps yours because….” – Sternn
Funny because the 30+ year retired officer who taught my CHL class would totally disagree with Sternn and would probably tell someone like him who thinks they know all about cops because he “works closely with them” (like WTF does that even mean!?) to STFU and stick to things that he does know about – internet speed and defunct blogs.
I know but that doesn’t change what I said.
It means I keep their computers running, in the offices and in the cars.
Oooooooh. Surely being a low-end technical savant entitles Sternn to know everything important about the entirety of the police forces, nationwide.
Or he might just be a puffed-up, abject idiot.
Again, second amendment makes it a right for me to have firearms. End of story. You can parse it all you want but the SCOTUS will see it the way it is.
You have a right to speak, publish, practice religion, and assemble… under certain limited restrictions for public safety and the smooth rule of law.
And you have a right to have firearms… under certain limited restrictions for public safety and the smooth rule of law.
If you don’t want to live in society, go dwell atop a pillar in the middle of the desert, Oh Kabuzz Stylites….
Cool! So stay hidden in your cubicle completing IT tickets then and let the people who are actually putting their lives on the line handle it. You f***ing cowardly goon.
Poor Rucas. You and Owl are not having a good day.
Sternn, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but I doubt your multifaceted impotency and stiff-necked determination would allow such an act, no matter how much your reflexive self-adoration might demand it.
No, you’re right Capt. As your intended purpose, you do piss me off at times…up until I remember how much of a sad person you are.
I just don’t have patience for people who have the audacity to imply that cops are useless while not having the actual fortitude to say so.
The SillyBird and perpetual angry man Rucas seem to be in a desperate mode. Not going well for their home team. They are on the wrong side of just about every issue and it is driving them loony. Maybe they should take a break from it for awhile. I don’t think they can handle it.
The way you “take a break” by cowardly skedaddling from nearly every request for justification or evidence, Kabuzz? What utter tripe; your pattern of bull-headed but unsupported prevarication followed by tail-drooping retreat is legendary. You’d be amusing if you weren’t so pitiful.
Rucas, I know you find satisfaction in upsetting or pissing people off, I do not. Don’t project your own ways onto me.
Police are not useless, they investigate the crime scenes after the fact. When they get a call I make sure to get out of their way, they go running to the recue, lightbar on, sirene screaming. Sometimes that make it in time, sometimes they don’t. They have no duty to do so, but they will anyway because that is the kind of people most of them are. By most I mean the overwhelming vast majority.
It takes a special type of person to be an officer, fire fighter or EMS. I am not that kind of person. Not that I won’t help somebody out, but I couldn’t be an officer. I couldn’t even be a dispatcher, talking to people in life and death situations, be it medical emergency or criminal emergency.
I’m sorry but when you’re constantly saying…”when seconds count, police are minutes away”, that implies that there is NO USE in calling the proper authorities. And what does that imply to people in need who don’t have a gun? You see, you want to say things but you don’t want to be held responsible for the things you say. I shouldn’t have to explain this to an adult.
“They have no duty to do so, but they will anyway because that is the kind of people most of them are.” Then, please, tell me, what are they paid to do? What duty have they sworn by? Are they volunteers?For someone who “works closely with police officers”, you honestly and truthfully don’t know shit about them. So, as I’ve stated before, why don’t you just stick to the things that you do know about.
Rucas, is it possible to have an intelligent and calm conversation with you at all? Police can have a response time of two minutes up to 20 minutes or more, if there are officers available and not on other emergency calls. If somebody is kicking down your door or robbing your store, that is immediate.
It is not just me saying that police have no duty to protect individuals, there have been several court cases and rulings on the matter. It is impossible for the police to offer protecting for all individuals. Their job is to keep the general peace and oreder, to investigate crimes, track people down and arrest them.
Again, if you call in an emergency situation, they will drop everything and run or drive as fast as they can to your aid. You ask most patrol officers and they will say the same thing, when seconds count, police are minutes away. It doesn’t make them useless, it doesn’t mean you should not call them for help. It just means that you are the primary person responsible for the safety of you, your family and your property.
Many I know encourage people to get a CHL, or to carry in their vehicles (which is legal in Texas now) and even encourage convenience store owners and clerks to arm themselves. There was a situation here a couple of months ago on my side of town where an armed man tried to rob a convenience store/gas station, and the two clerks grabbed their handguns and defended themselves and the store … successfully.
Do 100% of police officers feel that way? Of course not. As GG pointed out, she knows some that do not have those opinions. Not all active duty military people are conservatives or even republicans.
Rucas, do you really believe that the police will respond in seconds when they are called? Really?
The silly bird is projecting its behavior onto others. Tsk! Tsk!
Owl- I missed this, rummaging as I was towards the bottom of the page. Yeah – I noticed the ‘likked’ typo, but had no way to edit it, so I hoped no one would notice. Thanks a lot, Dub.
As I wrote to JG below, gun registration is a ploy in all respects identical in its disingenuous intent to the anti-choicer’s maneuvers, all the while bleating about how concerned they are about women’s health. I was going to bring it up in fact, until I noticed you had beaten me to the punch – albeit from a decidedly different point of view.
You and I have discussed this issue for years. In all of that time, I have tried to keep an open mind regarding the efficacy of gun registration. Needless to say, I’ve come up with nothing that would begin to change my mind.
So – would banning firearm ownership reduce firearm deaths? Yup. (Except for criminals.) Would banning abortions reduce the incidence of terminated pregnancies? Yup. (Except for the back-alley factor.) I just wish people say what they mean and just cut the crap. It strikes me as more than ironic that our pal Sternn here, a guy who believes abortion is “killing babies”, but pretends to have a more “libertarian” view of it all, also supports the Perryistas end-around assault on abortion rights – whilst ignoring the fact he opposes gun registration as an obvious assault on gun ownership.
Fifty — Let me hasten to say that I have no intention or desire to ban gun ownership. I’ve been speaking rather strongly on the issue here, in part as counterweight to the rather dogged insistence on an absolutely libertarian, hard-right position which suggests, for example, and end to “gun-free zones” as a panacea for gun violence.
I’ve no problem with people owning guns for hunting, or sport, or defending their homes. I find the argument that guns are necessary for overthrowing the government more than a little ridiculous, and have lampooned it many a time. With the vanishingly rare exception of things like the Athens, Tennessee conflagration in 1946, we’ve done quite well in this country solving our political problems peacefully. (I wonder whether Sternn thinks the Bonus Army should have violently overthrown President Hoover?)
But, again, I fail to see how gun registration poses any obstacle to gun ownership; certainly nothing like the obstacles that waiting periods, hospital privileges, and unnecessary “surgical center” standards pose to the availability and accessibility of abortion. Most Americans support running background checks on gun purchasers; most gun purchasers are going to use checks or credit cards, anyway; where’s the burden?
Whatever “burden” there is comes only from the paranoid fears that our government will suddenly mutate into something it’s never been. And I continue to find that not only deeply silly, but also troubling in the deep distrust it demonstrates, and the setting of self over country.
Owl- My opposition to gun registration is derived not from fantasies of fighting government troops, but rather to its uselessness in addressing the public safety issue. Furthermore, not everyone is as relaxed regarding the general concept of private gun ownership as you seem to be. Additionally, while federal-level confiscation using registration records is not likely, rogue municipalities, (not so unlike Athens, TN), are in fact a reality.
“Additionally, while federal-level confiscation using registration records is not likely, rogue municipalities, (not so unlike Athens, TN), are in fact a reality.”
You can include states in that statement, Fifty. First requiring registration, then outlawing and confiscating the registered firearms.
The right to keep and bear arms is important for three points, defense against an invading army, defense against tyrannical domestic government, and defense against the common criminals. Hunting, competition shooting or simply plinking at tin cans are fringe benefits.
The right to keep and bear arms is important for a single reason, same reason as trial by jury, the people of this nation are the soveriegn, government exists at our sufferance. The government is the servant, politicans are public servants, not lords and masters. If either side should face registration and/or disarming, it would be the government entities and representatives.
Some of the less informed people think people like myself and others fantasize of overthrowing government by force of arms, which is … we.. less informed and even deliberately ignorant. Or it is understood and known by the more informed that believe the government should be the soveriegn and the people the servants, the serfs, accountable to government instead of government being accountable to the people.
There are at least five levels that keep the people the soveriegn and the government accountable to the people, to keep the government in check;
1) Free speech
2) Right to vote
3) Run for office
4) Trial by jury
5) Right to keep and bear arms.
The only time legitimate use of force would be justified is when the first four are lost. There is the catch, as long as we do have the option of number five, the first four are protected simply because we have the fifth option and will not be lost. Infringed, unduely restricted in places or times, it happens. But not lost. Now if number five is removed, the other four cannot be protected and we end up with tyranny.
It would be nice and productive if the other side would either be honest, or be calm. But I don’t think that can or will happen. They have an agenda to advance while denying the agenda they are advancing, and that is really aggrivating and frustrating. They are either being used or they are using others through emotional strings.
An interesting take an Cantor’s defeat, that fits in with the original theme:
http://news.yahoo.com/cantor-didn-t-need-to-move-right–he-needed-to-get-real-092136587.html;_ylt=AwrSbmr7w5lT_FIA2uVx.9w4
If true, pretty much everyone in DC should be worried.
You know, I really wonder when the left will stop with the lies about republicans and the tea party movement? Anti-immigrant? No, not at all. maybe it is just that the left doesn’t comprehend the concept of legal vs illegal? It is much like calling us anti-government when we are not anti-government at all, we are pro-constitutional government. Maybe that’s why Cantor lost, he was playing those same type of cards and people are just getting sick of it.
Sternn, your mealy-mouthed prevarications are tedious.
When you embrace a feckless, fringe view of the Constitution which insists that nearly every government policy for the past century is illegitimate, you can justifiably be described as “anti-government”.
The shizz in the link I posted is on the television in every business office in this state, on televisions in just about every restaurant or public place in Texas. An endless, droning, hypocritical, desperately conspiratorial and wrong view of the world. But the female newscasters are all attractive. I don’t watch MSNBC in case you wonder, because beliefs aren’t wrong until you walk away from these screens.
“Just because I believe in all false generalizations of democrats doesn’t mean you guys need to do the same for republicans.” – Sternn
I’ll tell you one reason why that label sticks-it’s a subject I broached below. So much of the heat is directed at the people here illegally looking for work and very little towards the illegal employers. Now you and Buzzy have said you are for punishing those people and that’s good. But if you go look at any online discussion about illegal immigration, the bulk of the comments are about punishing the migrants. If you take the words of the right-wing politicians, they aren’t all that eager to rage against people who are some of their big donors. Ever wonder about the 180 Rick Perry did on the issue in 2012? We’ve had both the “help wanted” & “no trespassing signs” hanging out next to each other for a long time now.
I am not Hispanic, but I can do a little mental exercise and imagine that if I were, and I observed all these conservative white people vilifying people who looked like me, all while enjoying the benefits (directly or indirectly) of the low cost labor those people provided, I just might be a bit put off by that attitude.
@fly
Hear, hear!
In other words, Fly, you don’t grasp the difference between legal and illegal. What message do you think you are sending to people that have taken the time, effort and money to get here legally, work towards and earn their citizenship when you turn right around and want to exccuse those that come here illegally and reward them?
No, it has nothing at all to do with immigration, we are very much in favor of immigration done legally. We could even discuss making it easier to do so, but not to reward people that have no respect for our nation or our laws.
“In other words, Fly, you don’t grasp the difference between legal and illegal. ”
Wrong again Sternn. I understand that very well. In addition I also grasp the difference between words and actions, as well as the concept of talking out of both sides of one’s mouth. Until that “help wanted” sign comes down, all this “legal vs illegal” narrative is nothing but a bunch of hypocritical cheap talk that anyone with more than 5 brain cells will see right through.
Fly, this reminds me of the blog entry on which a good many people here who claim to be so concerned about income inequality and exploitation of immigrants bragged about how they could get cheap household help and live like royalty by moving to a third-world country (you were not one of them).
Cantor was saying different things to different audiences. Conservative don’t appreciate the contempt their elected reps display when they do that. Marco Rubio learned that lesson too. That the rucas posse can’t see the obvious and need Matt Bai, Andrew Sullivan and other journolisters to fluff them as to the reasons is more confirmation that you folks don’t recognize reality and accept lies.
Perhaps I should dial it back and call it no consequences for broken promises or you forgive the results because you actually believed the intentions but the results of all the vaunted legislation that dems have forwarded since Nancy Pelosi started her ‘PayGo’ charade in 2006 has been the same. Failure. Higher taxes. Higher debt. Higher unemployment. More regulations. There is nothing new here other than a new generation of young people have to learn old lessons.
Enjoy the set back.
I heared about that Rucas posse’, seems they’ve been spreadin’ poorly executed legislative policy since bout the time Woodrow Wilson was speakin’ German in the White House…..
That was me Tutt and I wasn’t bragging merely stating a fact. The point you also miss is that while it’s dirt cheap for us, it’s a living wage for them. Middle class over there is someone earning $20 a week. Indonesia is also considered a developing nation, not third world.
fly, while I agree that illegal immigrants shouldn’t be demonized, I feel that the rhetoric from both sides gets in the way of finding logical solutions.
Currently, as we have been discussing, our country has the crisis of children and teens coming from Central America, These kids and their parents hear that children will not be deported once they get here and if they claim they are fleeing drug violence – so, gee, is it at all surprising that”s what they all say when they cross the border and turn themselves in to border patrol? With an estimated 90,000 kids under 18 expected to come here this year alone, our system simply cant’ handle the numbers.
What to do? The best way to change a behavior is to cease rewarding it. The government has to stop letting the kids remain here in limbo and they need to return them to their countries of origin as soon as possible. Even if the US has to set up holding centers in Central America and assist parents in flying back to be reunited with their kids, this would be less costly in the long run. I may sound heartless, but there is no intent to “punish” the parents or their children.
Actions have consequences. As long as we continue reward the behavior of illegal entry into the US, we will never be able to completely seal the border. And, yes, we do need to crack down on employers who exploit cheap immigrant labor. That’s also a behavior with much reward and no repercussions.
Welcome back, GG. We missed your presence.
Objv, what makes you think this is not happening for reasons other than the numbers involved? There is a process which works for what would seem to be an unusual circumstance-a minor reaches a border more than a thousand miles away. This is kind of a Ghandi moment, because this immigration is a form of ‘civil disobedience’. When children show up at our border looking for opportunity and safety in numbers which overwhelm the principle of secure borders should we summarily fly them back to where we think they came? I’m not asking because I think the answer is ‘no’, I don’t know.
Is that sarcasm? 🙂 I have been very, very busy. I bought a 1903 bungalow in Galveston that I am upgrading. Been dealing with unpacking and painters, etc. Lots of fun.
Obama is encouraging a Cloward-Piven assault on the nation he leads. We have been told ever since Napalitano stepped down that the border is more secure than it has ever been. Period. Women and children are not running from border patrol. They are running for them. I wonder what gave them that idea/
Because Obama put the news out he won’t deport anyone under 18 he brought this on us. Look at Crogged trying to play the pity card. Y’all have no shame and are not to be believed.
And Obama? claims he’s surprised at the development he created.
Look at Iraq. The situation everybody not on the left predicted is occurring. And again Obama claims his administration was caught off guard.
Obamacare? He didn’t know the problems with the roll-out until it was rolled out.
Fast & Furious? He doesn’t know any details but has protected his AG from further questioning just in case.
Like I said before, Obama will get his goods. What do you think he’ll give you?
Hi objv, Most definitely people game the system and I do not think that we are obligated to take in everyone who wants to come here. But we brought this mess on ourselves, collectively. As a society, we have been major hypocrites on this issue for decades. Our society doesn’t want to do the critical self-examination that’s needed to take down that “help wanted” sign and enforce ALL the laws on ALL the people who break them.
I agree, the children will need to be sent back to their home countries, and we taxpayers will have to eat the costs. That’s what we brought on ourselves for refusing to deal with this problem.
No, GG, I’m not being sarcastic. You and I go way back, since we were on the Chron and your initials were KR. 🙂
Good ol Danman, quick to drag five more issues into every screed. So I guess you were in favor of 100,000 men in Iraq until…perpetuity? However, the democratic form of government set up in Iraq VOTED FOR US TO LEAVE, so I guess we should have ignored that. And Iraq devolving into an ungovernable mess, nobody saw that coming, particularly in the Bush administration.
While you’re at it, check out the deportation levels of Obama vs Bush and save some bile for one of your own. But, facts, meh……
Fly, there is a reason conservatives want the borders secured before talking about doing anything else. I believe it was Reagan that made the deal of amnesty for securing the borders, they got amnesty then turned their backs on the border issue. Even now, we started building a fence to help secure the border, but it was stopped as soon as democrats gained control. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
BS fly. Sure we had a problem and dems have exploited it for years. Obama could have opened the borders without any repub votes for two years but needed the issue he has created to keep his charade up. The current condition is all Obama and his sycophants. Like you.
BS to you too Crogged. The deportation numbers are completely different. Obama now counts turnbacks at the border as deportations. That had never been done before. And now he’s even doing that because the BP is babysitting invading women and kids who won’t be turned back. Take it to Kos lightweight.
Yes, the Rucas Posse© master plan is working, and before you know it, the only apple pie you will be able to buy will be SUGAR FREE and with a whole wheat crust. You and your puny semi automatic rifles and Christian, only 83 percent of US population infidels don’t scare us, but if you unleash the fury of your chain emails and radio talk show hosts, we will be slaughtered
Of course it is Danman, all statistics are always different and never not in favor of whatever crackpot point of view you want to have that day. Funny how that works.
Here you go, and you are right, only one political party tries to make facts appear in its favor………..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/21/lies-damned-lies-and-obamas-deportation-statistics/
“Fly, there is a reason conservatives want the borders secured before talking about doing anything else.”
And there is a reason that won’t work-you’re insisting on applying just one patch to a problem that required several. Unless you want to build a couple thousand miles of Berlin-Wall style barriers (which aren’t going to instantly spring into being) just securing the border without tending to things like really making an example of illegal employers and fixing the legal immigration system, won’t do jack. This problem requires multi-tasking, not the single task you fixate on. Do it ALL, together, or expect more of the same.
I am not arguing against doing it all. Problem is democrats don’t want to do half of it. We are now nominating people that do support doing it all, people like Brat.
[taps microphone, strums a few guitar chords, assumes Irish accent]
“Oh, Danny Boy, the lies, the lies are calling:
Blogs and FOX News, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
Republicans throughout the polls are falling;
It’s you, it’s you must rave, and hem, and haw.
“So you come back for Cloward-Piven fantasies,
And when Sternn’s shit and Buzzy’s cowardice
Have offered logic fragrant as a buttocks-breeze;
Oh, Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, you’re such a ditz!”
uh-oh, The Perv of Bellaire is back…
“Problem is democrats don’t want to do half of it. ”
And the GOP doesn’t want to deal with the other half. Elements in both parties have different self-serving reasons for maintaining the status quo.
If Brat has a reform plan that addresses the multiple aspects of the problem in a non-hypocritical manner, more power to him.
Fly, you are being very dense on this issue. I don’t think you grasp this. You haven’t been alive long enough. This is the second dance around immigration. We citizens got screwed the first time. You want it to happen again? Pathetic. Simply pathetic.
Wrong as usual buzzy. I remember 1986 and I don’t want a repeat. There was a failure to address aspects of the problem like border security and like punishing illegal employers. So it failed, just as focusing on only one aspect of the current mess will fail. Nobody here is advocating for a 1986 style amnesty. NOBODY. So go put that strawman away.
What terrible things would happen if we made it far easier to come to the US and be a citizen?
why the border is being over run today
http://immigrationequality.org/issues/immigration-basics/daca/
Fly, illegal immigration is not the focus or purpose of the tea party movement, but many tea party activists and backed politicians do want it dealt with. And dealt with as you are suggesting, cover it all.
I think you are beating the dead horse because we are looking at the issue that has been overlooked and the democrats don’t want to address. Conservatives have tried to get laws passed dealing not only with border security, but employers as well. You have already stated that you disagree with the democrats, the far leftists, in attacking Arizona over laws that would do just that and a lot of other things.
So I really have no issue with what you are advocating, if you are really advocating doing all to enforce laws against illegal immigration, illegal aliens and people that employ them. I have no argument against what you are saying because I agree with what you are saying about this matter.
I do think you are missing part of the point that many conservatives are being focused on one aspect, but not understanding or admitting that is the issue that democrats betrayed conservatives on (or neo-conservatives, as was the case with Reagan).
(Added to Chris’ post on internet privacy.)
NPR has an interesting series this week about internet privacy.
Here’s a link to one of the stories, in which they created a table that indicates how well — or not so well — major internet companies protect personal data.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/06/12/320997037/how-well-do-tech-companies-protect-your-data-from-snooping
In another story, a reporter let his home office be bugged. It didn’t take long for the bugger to find out what the reporter was working on and who he had contacted as he worked on the story.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/06/10/320347267/project-eavesdrop-an-experiment-at-monitoring-my-home-office
Transcripts are up.
A point I find interesting, and nothing to do with the topic. Your last entry got very few comments, except for political comments that were off topic. Over the course of five days it only got 92 comments, and (a person from the left that shall not be named) said it was because people had to work and could not take the time to post comments.
But here we are two days into a political entry and well over 300 comments. The political entry before that got over 300 comments in just a couple of days.
I started posting on your blog at Chron.com when I finally read one of your entries. I didn’t bother before that because I saw the title, “GOPLifer” and figured there was no reason to come in and agree with you. Once I read an entry, I saw you were no conservative or what I would consider a conservative or republican, or as some would put it, Republican with a capital “R”.
There was a time when CNN.com had a message forum, or rather several. They had specific topics, one was on constitutional law. Don’t stray and don’t get too political or the posts would be deleted, and if carried on the person would be banned. But CNN got rid of it, sadly. I learned a lot there.
I found your entry about the most important issue you don’t understand very interesting, but a serious lack of discussion. I am a political animal and will get down in the trenches with everybody else, no denying that. But I do find it disappointing that such is the only way we have discussion. That a serious issue that is not put in political terms is ignored.
I will look in from time to time to see how stupid you fucks are….. For someone who says they are Christian you are anything but kabuzz and Sternn . Sad couple delusional people you are . You will be going to your fictional hell you keep talking about, me not so .
I do not fear god there for I am free, you will never be free. You fear a fairy tail, that is sad . Get religion out of politics otherwise you are no better than the Taliban
Blah, blah, blah…you are…blah, blah, you never can…blah, blah..
So much anger and hatred. You curse God, so I really don’t believe you understand Christianity. As with Owl, you also have my pity.
Strange your equate not fearing God to cursing her. Why should a Christian fear God if they are living by the example of Jesus Christ. Is it because the reality is that other than to use him to validate your extreme positions you have no real use for his teachings.
Turtle, you are behind the curve on this one. Not worth catching you up.
Turtles: Texan has cursed God outright on at least one occasion, saying “F– K God,” so it’s not simply about not fearing God as he says in his post above.
Yes that is true but as an atheist how can he curse something he does not believe exists. I do not believe in the tooth fairy so how can I realistically curse it out.
True, Turtles, but he is cursing a being others believe in and hold in the utmost regard — you, me, HT. Not everyone here is a fellow atheist of his. In his personal quest to get back at Cap and Kabuzz he offends some innocent bystanders.
Tutts, you are much to savvy to allow a frustrated little failure to offend you.
Turtleds, that is an interesting and telling observation. By cursing God, they are admitting that they know God is real, but they reject Him, even hate Him.
Here is another observation, have you noticed the most hate filled and angry people here are the people that reject and curse God? You and I strongly disagree with each other, but I detect no anger or hatred coming from you, and I don’t believe I project those traits either.
Turtles, that is. Spelling your name wrong was a typo.
“…. but as an atheist how can he curse something he does not believe exists. ”
Trolling
Fly, you and I usually disagree as to whether it’s a good idea to call people out when they say something offensive (you say yes, and I say ignore it), but on this one we seem to be doing the reverse. I am calling him out on it, and you are dismissing him as a mere troll.
Tutta, I was offering an opinion on how/why an atheist would curse God. Some of them do indeed troll believers. I do understand why they are angry and bitter, because until recently atheists pretty much had to be “in the closet” or face social sanctions from the Christian majority. Even today if you tried running for public office as openly atheist it would be a deal breakers on many places. The mature thing to do would be to take your freedom to not believe and live your life and let others live theirs, but around here things like trolling are part of the process of societal change. Growing pains- both individuals and societies have them.
I went to Catholic school where I had several religion classes that involved Bible study. I went into it highly skeptical and came out highly disillusioned. There are all these Christians in this country that have, to my reading, no idea what the Bible says, particularly the NT. Certainly few make much of an attempt to live under NT precepts, such as those expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. I have seen nothing on these pages to suggest Kabuzz and Sternn are exceptions to this.
John, then I would suggest you don’t exactly know us or much about the Bible, especially the New Testament.
Fly: Trolling for social good — trolling as a necessary evil, then? 🙂
John Galt: I also attended Catholic schools, from seventh to twelfth grade, and took the requisite religion and theology classes, plus a philosophy elective, and it was during my high school years in Catholic school that I became an agnostic, because the teachers there were pretty open-minded and encouraged us students to engage in thoughtful discussion about the nature of God. It is this same form of thinking that has brought me back full circle to being a believer again, albeit a more informed one, but I don’t denigrate atheists or agnostics. It just bothers me to see the F word being thrown out with regards to God.
Sternn puffs himself in toadlike proportions to rotundly orate, “I would suggest you don’t exactly know us or much about the Bible, especially the New Testament.”
I know a great deal about the Bible, including the New Testament. I’ve read them through, and studied them both independently and as part of a scholastic program. I’ve had decades of regular church experiences in which I heard the Lessons and the Gospels read and dissected, and compared them to the attitudes and the actions of those around me.
The Bible is a fine piece of literature. It contains beautiful stories, amusing tribal myths, fascinating depictions of past historical times with different circumstances and mores, and thought-provoking calls to moral action.
But if it’s the Word of God, then God is one Insane Mother-Fucker. (Literally, in His case, I suppose, ’cause, you know, that Virgin Birth thing along with the doctrine of the Trinity….)
I also know a great deal about you, Sternn, from the repeated rhetorical dumps you’ve taken on these discussion pages and on the larger *Chronicle* forums. And you regularly prove to be a spectacularly ignorant, invariably self-serving, childishly self-deluded asshat, bearing little or no resemblance in your thoughts, actions, attitudes, or even basic knowledge to the doctrines contained in a book with which you seem to claim association and belief. If you are really a Christian, you are a stunning piece of negative advertising against the breed, and an example of its utter lack of efficacy in developing anything resembling a decent human being.
every now and then I take the time to scan one of Ms Owl’s amusing posts. I think she puts a subject into her comment generator, selects an opening set-up insult and lets the thing regurgitate another long winded rant full of disjointed adjectives and further insults.
Amusing watching her attempts at making a point.
One thing I’ve noticed is that people who piously proclaim themselves to be “good Christians” are often times the most un-Christ like. I have a friend who is a Christian and actually walks the walk. She spends many, many hours volunteering in soup kitchens and homeless shelters. She has never said a judgmental word towards anyone nor told anyone they were going to hell for their beliefs or unbelief. Her best friend is a Muslim and she has many atheist friends she loves dearly. That is a Christian, not someone who merely proclaims themselves to be one. The nastiest woman I ever worked with was a self-proclaimed “good” believer (I can still here that nasally, E Texas twang in my head) saying “I’m a good Christian” all the while plotting to spread vile gossip and stab someone in the back.
I know what you post here.
Tracy, it got rather buried below, but I’m genuinely interested to hear your answer. Are you really reading the same Democratic Party platform I’m reading?
“Firearms. We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation. We understand the terrible consequences of gun violence; it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, and our time here is limited and precious. We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms. We can focus on effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system, and we can work together to enact commonsense improvements—like reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole—so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.”
So your “conniptions” revolve around what text there, exactly?
Meanwhile, regarding the Republican platform’s call for a metallic basis rather than fiat currency, you stated that “I find that language innocuous”, when yesterday morning you said, “I certainly don’t [support fringe ideas such as a return to the gold standard], nor do I support any monetary standard based on any other commodity or basket of commodities.” So are you being inconsistent or hypocritical?
Owl- Not to speak for Tracy, but specifically, the phrase “assault weapons”, absent any cogent definition of same, is a purely political ploy that is nonspecific enough to include about anything. Further, there is no “gun show loop-hole”. What is effectively meant by this is private transfers. Selling a gun to your neighbor in the driveway is absolutely the same as selling a gun to your neighbor at a gun show. Or receiving as a gift. Unless these activities are regulated, it is impossible to close the so-called “gun show loophole”. I am sure there are many in the Democratic party that would like to see that happen.
Fact is the entire plank is a bunch of misleading nonsense written by people who either have an agenda, or are just plain ignorant.
Since the language specifically calls for “reinstating the assault weapons ban”, I suspect it’s referring to the Clinton-era Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which expired in 2004. So there’s some source for specificity there.
By the way, in May 1994, former Republican presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan wrote to the U.S. House of Representatives in support of banning “semi-automatic assault guns.” However, it would appear that modern-day ammosexuals continue to drag the Republican Party rightwards on that issue, to match with so many ridiculous excesses.
There very much is a “gun-show loophole”. Guns are dangerous objects in the wrong hands. We track automobile purchases and sales, even between private individuals. Why shouldn’t we do something similar with firearms? Anyone genuinely fearful of some mass governmental effort to come and take away all their precious guns simply doesn’t understand our slow-moving, conservative political processes, or trust the American people. (And if that really IS the case, then why are you still here?)
About the only time the sell or purchase of an automobile is required to be registered is if the auto is to be driven on public roads. No such requirements exist if it is to be kept and used only on private property.
As for taking them away, seems California has already done so and New York (I think that is the state) is currently doing it.
“About the only time the sell or purchase of an automobile is required to be registered is if the auto is to be driven on public roads. No such requirements exist if it is to be kept and used only on private property.”
And how many people buy a car to use exclusively on their private property? Pretty damn few. The point of owning a car is to have mobility, which means driving it in public for almost all car owners.
I’ve got no problem with responsible adults owning guns. I also have no problem with registering guns in a manner similar to cars.
“And how many people buy a car to use exclusively on their private property?”
I would imagine a whole lot of people do. Not everybody lives in a city, there are a lot of places where [eople have big ranches and farms that use vehicles that never leave their properties.
Registration of firearms defeats the very reason we have and value the right to keep and bear arms, whch is why the left pushes so hard for it. Here the people are soveriegn and the government serves, the left wants to reverse that. Registration moves in that direction since it almost always leads to confiscation.
In other words a very small minority of car owners.
And no, I don’t buy into the premise that registration must inevitably lead to confiscation.
How many examples of registration leading to confiscation do you need?
How many lessons in reading comprehension do you need?
Well, guns are protected, end of story. Car’s are not. I would encourage Owly to make sure all the democrats running this fall to openly state they want to make new gun laws. We will see if it is just a conservative right.
Fly, I do seriously wonder if public sentiment over a string of particularly violent episodes involving firearms could very well lead to gradual and then eventual confiscation.
America Magazine, the Jesuit publication, has called for the outright repeal of the second amendment, and I I have heard people lament that “we will never be a gun-free society,” which tells me that if they could disarm everyone they would if given the opportunity.
Buzzy wrote: Well, guns are protected, end of story. Car’s are not.
Registration does nothing to curb your right to own those guns you cling to at night with your bible. All rights carry restrictions and responsibilities. Concepts the right wing seems incapable of comprehending.
Owl- While I’d make no defense here of Ford or Reagan, the Clinton-era gun ban was allowed to expire not due to Republican extremism, but rather that is was a foolish and ineffective law.
To the “gun show loophole”, if the intent is to regulate private transfers, that should be so stated, rather than continue the obfuscation that there is anything particularly unique about private transfers that happen to occur at gun shows.
Tutta, I do not favor confiscation of guns. First of all, there are legit reason for responsible adults to have them. Second, I think the recent SCOTUS rulings have settled the matter of is private gun ownership Constitutional? (it is). Lastly, even if I didn’t agree with points 1 & 2, as a basically pragmatic person, I realize that confiscation is one of those things very likely to cause more problems than it solves. Guns are entrenched in the culture, many people want them, so how do we balance the right to have a gun against a reasonable expectation of safety out in public?
I don’t have an expectation of being 100% safe. That is not realistic. But I am now living in a culture where “going postal” has become a common and morbid cliche. That is not acceptable. The possibility of more people pushing for confiscation is very real if these mass shootings (especially at schools) continue, and the people on the NRA side keep giving the impression that they don’t care (or care all that much) and there’s nothing that can be done about it (Joe the plumber chose his words very, very poorly). As I’ve said, I am not in favor of confiscation. I would much rather see people attack this problem from both sides. The gun by itself harms no one. The crazy person alone can do harm, but there are limits. It’s the combination of the two that’s the issue.
Turtles, the restrictions on firearms should be limited to making it illegal to commit crimes with them, The responsibility is to punish people that misuse them, intentionally or not.
I don’t think it’s controversial that if we had fewer guns, fewer people would be shot accidentally or purposefully. But the reality is we have so many guns (for hunting, target shooting, protection, or sitting naked on a rock blasting into the sky a la Hunter S Thompson) that it will remain an individual choice. Many gun owners think this will protect democracy and our republic better than finding ways for all citizens to participate via the vote (and strangely find it appealing for local authorities to have more control on voting than their guns) but lots of people think Taylor Swift is country too.
Turtles – In all fairness, we have a right to public assembly too. How would you feel were that to require registration?
It is unquestionably true that some public assemblies turn into riots. People can be likked or injured, and property destroyed. A roster of all present at the event would surely be an aid to law enforcement in apprehending the perps, wouldn’t you say?
Under many circumstances, the right to assemble a large crowd requires a permit of some sort. Parades, rallies, all sorts of things, usually require registration. Perhaps if you want to go to Sternn’s farm, where he keeps his collection of unregistered autos, then you don’t need anything, but in urban areas, public safety concerns are sufficient reason to require permits.
Since the Sandy Hook massacre, which is just about as horrible thing as could happen in a civilized nation, there have been 74 – that is seventy-four – school shootings in the United States. That is roughly one per week. Courage is recognizing that the toll in innocent life demands a change. We are the only civilized country on earth where this happens so regularly, the only country so lost in our paranoid fantasies of defending ourselves against a tyrannical government that we are perfectly OK with children being gunned down virtually daily.
http://mashable.com/2014/06/10/school-shootings-since-sandy-hook/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link
Fifty, you beat me to it. How about regulating speech to make sure the words are appropriate so no one gets hurt. That would stop spontaneous speeches but it will save some people from having the feelings hurt. How about registering for a blog to make sure it isn’t a ‘hate’ blog.
I know the liberals like to say “Well you can’t shout fire in a theater”, but you can, if there is a fire.
I won’t shoot my guns unless I need them. My right. Just like the other nine. It is my protection from the government. That is the true intent.
I have only one unregistered automobile, John. Maybe if you were to count all of my gasoline motorized vehicles you could come up with a collection, but as with any unregistered vehicle, they are not legal to be driven on public roads.
Parades and some rallies need permits because they will take place on public roads as well. Do you think Cindy Casey got a permit to camp outside Bush43’s Crawford racnch, even when the crowdsd grew?
JG- Public assemblies sometimes require registration of the *organizers* – not the individuals in attendance. Huge and completely germane difference in the context of this discussion.
You are well aware, and I need not cite statistics, regarding the likelihood of children being killed in school. All risks, no matter how horrific and headline-grabbing have to be considered in the context ofall risks from all sources. Furthermore, the 74 number is pretty misleading. You spoke of Sandy Hook – an elementary school with “children”, and then followed up with an amalgam of incidents involving colleges, universities, and a bunch of gang-related violence that had not much to do with “children”, per se.
But this is not the point. I was addressing the simple fact that ‘rights’ are not legitimately to be associated with ‘registration’. I wasn’t talking about school shootings, or even gun violence in general. Nor did I suggest that registration or closing “loop holes’ would have made a damn bit of difference in any of these cases you cite. Because they wouldn’t have. Do we have a gun violence problem? Yes we do. We have a shitload of other problems too. Do I think we can make them all go away by banning things, registering people, and parsing liberty? I’m not so naive.
And a final thought on this, JG. This discussion is not unlike one a couple of weeks back concerning CO2 regulation in the US. I think we should resist the temptation to wield the hammer of law simply to show “we’re doing something”. We should avoid legislation that has little or no likelihood of actually solving a problem, simply to show concern. We have way too many laws, and way too little common sense.
Cindy Sheehan. The mentally disturbed mother the dem’s used then threw away.
Thans Kabuzz. I had forgotten her last name and got it wrong. D’oh!
Fly, you note that you “would much rather see people attack this problem from both sides.”
FYI, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (www.nssf.org) sponsors a program designed to ensure that existing law to prevent firearms purchases by those who are legally prohibited from doing so actually serves it purpose. This program is called “FixNICS.” (http://fixnics.org/factinfo.cfm) You may wish to consider supporting this program; I do.
Additionally, the NSSF promotes a variety of programs that encourage gun owners to securely store their firearms, to make them inaccessible to children and to thieves. One such program is called “Project ChildSafe” (www.projectchildsafe.org) You may wish to support this program, too. The NRA has long sponsored the “Eddie Eagle GunSafe” program (eddieeagle.nra.org); this program is also worthy of support.
Fifty – All our rights come with limitations. Why are gun rights any different? The gun show loophole allows anyone with a fist full of dollars to purchase firearms without background checks. Is the right to bear arms so fragile that it cannot withstand background checks and registrations to help keep these weapons out of the wrong hands? Even worse people can go online to purchase firearms without background checks. I am sorry but that is crazy and while I admit these laws would not prevent massacres from happening it will help to reduce the number of firearms in the hand of people that do not need them in their possession.
There must be a balance struck between the protection of gun rights and the public safety.
http://www.armslist.com/
Turtles – I posed a question directly to you regarding the concepts of rights and registration. You did not answer that, and countered with a call for more of the same, even admitting new laws would do no good. C’mon, pal – answer the question.
Fifty – i felt John Galt gave a good answer and did not feel the need to expand on it. But if you insist.
The right to assemble is also limited as stated by JG and though one is free to attend or not attand without registration I find the activity much different than the ownership of a firearm.
I do not pose a potential danger to the public by my attending an assembly. But a firearm can be used to hurt others. Also, felons are still allowed to assemble without special permission but they are not allowed to own weapons because the two actions are different in scope.
But lets look at other rights such as free speech or pleading the 5th. Laws have always governed our speech in the name of public safety so why not gun rights. Even the 5th amendment has limitations according to recent SCOTUS opinions. I do not believe in gun bans because I do not believe they do much good, though the evidence may prove my statement incorrect, but background checks and registration seem like reasonable actions. None of this denies firearms from those legally entitled to own them and just may help keep them out of the hands of a few crazies.
50, with all due respect, what you say sounds an awful lot like a series of excuses to accept the status quo. In 2010 there were over 16,000 homicides in the US, of which 11,000 (~69%) were gun-related. The homicide rate per capita of 4.8/100,000 sandwiches the U.S. between Yemen and Albania. This compares to homicide rates of 1.6 in your second home (Canada), 1.0 in the UK, 1.1 in Australia, and 0.3 in Japan. I dare say there is not a single country with a murder rate higher than ours that you’d care to live in.
So let’s dispense with some canards. This is all drug crime in poor neighborhoods. We are not the only country with drug problems. More importantly, this is an excuse, that it doesn’t happen often in my neighborhood so why worry? People can kill with knives and hammers. So they can, except that they don’t do that very often in countries in which guns are less available. My home is safer when I can protect it with a gun. No, it is not. You are several-fold more likely to die in violent crime or accidents in a home with a gun, and something like 11 times more likely to die of suicide. Statistically, one of the most dangerous things you can do is bring a gun into your house.
Hunting is a tradition. Fine – hunt the traditional way, with simple long guns rather than military-grade hardware. Guns protect us from a tyrannical government. Yes, they did, in 1776, as part of well-regulated militias. Do you hear about any “militias” today that make you feel safer?
Americans are not giving up their guns, but let’s stop with the bullshit that regulations cannot make a difference. Australia made the difficult decision in 1996, following a decade that saw a dozen mass shootings, to make a change. There have been zero mass shootings since. Ever been there? It’s a place that reminds me a lot of Texas. Except that their firearm homicide rate is 1/16th that of the US.
As usual, the Onion hits home.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/
John Galt – I would also like to add if keeping a firearm makes you and your family safer then why do you not get a discount on home insurance. Instead more likely you will have to pay higher rates because of the added risks they must now insure.
Then there are the attempts to prevent doctors from asking if patients own a firearm. Because firearms accidents are one of the leading causes of death for children the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that doctors include questions about the presence of firearms in the home so they can offer safety tips.
It is this gut emotional reaction towards firearms that makes it difficult to actually try to curb gun violence in this nation. We are willing to allow needless deaths occur on a daily basis because of misplaced priorities concerning the safety of people within our society.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/gun-ownership_n_2623980.html
Turtles, one can buy firearms over the internet, but legally they must be shipped to a licensed dealer and the buyer must then pass a background check. And there is no reason my doctor should be asking if I own or drive a car, or what kind of car, or if I have smoke detectors in my home.
John, you hit a major point, the violence isn;t caused by firearms, it is caused by prohibition. Did you know that violent crime and murder dropped by 65% when the prohibition of alcohol was repealed? It would drop by at least 50% if moder prohibition were repealed. Most mass shooting happen in gun free zones, so let us do away with those free kill zones.
Seems many on the left, the gun control crowd, have no real desire to address the problems, they only want to use those problems to introduce more restriction and more limitations on our liberty and rights.
And John, our firearms have protected us from a tyranical government since 1776, not just in 1776. Hunting has nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms, it is a fringe benefit. As for militias, all ablebodied males between the age of 18 and 45 are automaticall part of the U.S. militia. That is U.S. Code.
Right on El Capitano!
The Bill of Rights were put into effect to protect us from our government. A history student in high school knows this. It has nothing to do with hunting.
Again, to some it up. Firearm ownership is my right period. You don’t have to like it but you have to respect it.
And JG, take out Los Angels, NYC and Chicago murders and see what you have left over. It will surprise you.
Sternn, missing the point again.
We are not the only country in which drugs are illegal. Even marijuana is illegal in most of W. Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, though enforcement varies. We are the only civilized country with a murder rate this high. Prohibition cannot explain most of this discrepancy.
The gun-free zones are a smokescreen. The idea that we’d be safer with a whole posse of wanna-be heroes is a dangerous fantasy. More likely we’d have a lot more incidents like all the road rage incidents in which CHL holders claim “self-defense” after minor incidents and decide to shoot the other driver. Hey, in one in Michigan last year, both drivers were CHL holders and they both died. At least they were crack shots!
When it comes to guns, the right seems to have a far higher opinion of the abilities and motivations of the average person than they do about most anything else.
One incident, John, and not even a link to back it up? One incident in how many years, how many states and how many people legally carrying concealed handguns?
Of course we can come up with a whole lot of examples where mass killings have taken place in gun free zones.
JG brought up how Australia dealt with the issue, but the entire population of Australia is 23 million (as of 2012), which is probably less than the total of gun owners in the US. As a Texas male I’m in the extremely horrible liberal left side of the general population in that I don’t own a gun or like the Dallas Cowboys, but passing more laws regarding specific types of weaponry just won’t work here. The technology is too good and the loopholes will be too large for meaningful change in the weaponry available to the public. I’m certain another big database of serial numbers needing tens of thousands of bureaucrats to administer won’t have a measurable benefit except to those bureaucrats receiving a paycheck. Strip away the romanticizing and demonizing, until more people realize guns offer an illusion of safety and the fleeting pleasure of blasting holes in shit there will be no change. And if you get to bring a gun in a bar I should have the goddamn right to get me a pack of American Spirit cigarettes and smoke you out of there. Sometimes it seems the Second Amendment is more about the extent one can be an asshole in civil society.
Crogged, it is illegal in Texas to carry a firearm into any establishment that makes more than 50% of its revenue from serving alcohol. We speak often of legal and legitimate signs barring a person with a CHL from carrying on private (not public, note that) property, usually the 30.06 sign. But there is another, the 51% sign posted outside of bars.
And yes, if the owner of a private (not public, note that) establishment wants to allow people to smoke in their establishment, that should be their business.
Turtles said, “firearms accidents are one of the leading causes of death for children”
No, they are not. What makes a “leading cause”? Such tragedies happen about 120 times per year, on average. Compared to disease, car crashes, drowning, suffocation, and pedestrian/vehicle accidents they don’t even register. Ya gotta check the data by digging down, Turtles. One-liners from groups like the AAP are about as reliable as Fox News.
JG- I’ve only been to Oz five times in my life, (less than 2 months, total), so I really can’t comment much on the culture. I can say that it is a monocultural place with aboriginals thrown in. Want to see racism? Whoa! Is it like Texas? Well – the Queenslanders sorta want to be. Melbourne? Not at all.
But as I said, rights are not rightly subject to registration. You make arguments for gun control. That’s fine – but try to avoid balderdash statistics. John Lott has debunked most of this in papers written years ago.
You made these arguments for additional gun control legislation, but never even suggested any of them would solve substantially the problem. This is *exactly* what I was talking about when I suggested that legislation, without any clear expectation of actual results, was a bad thing. I never advocated the status quo. There are many ways to address this issue other than legislation, and Tracy has enumerated several. It is completely inaccurate to maintain that a.) I think nothing should be done, or b.) passing laws is the only way to do anything.
Darryl Royal (RIP) famously said, “Three things can happen when you pass and two of them are bad.” and the NRA never addresses the ‘bad’ things about owning guns. I understand that AAA would never point out that not owning a car saves you money and makes you safer too…………
Yes, Sternn, one of many. I could post more, but those will also go zooming over your head.
50, you still seem to be diminishing the cost of gun violence. According to the CDC, just shy of 3,000 kids (under 19) died from firearm violence in 2010, a combination of homicide, suicide and accidents. Many of these are preventable.
Perhaps I was not more clear: regulations can make a difference, as Australia’s example makes clear (and the examples of other Western democracies). Americans have neither the will nor political courage to make changes like this and the milquetoast regulations that we might on a cold night in hell actually pass will be insufficient to change anything. But I think it is worth acknowledging that this country’s gun culture, which increasingly seems more like a fetish for long, powerful things than something grounded in any sort of reality, has real, tangible consequences. As a society, we have arrived at a point where the supposed benefits outweigh these costs. I am far from convinced that this is a rational conclusion.
JG- Sticking to my topic of registration specifically: There is no reason to believe accidental deaths would be affected at all. There is no reason to believe registration would affect kids committing suicide. (Hell, hanging seems to be the ‘preferred method’ at this point.) And homicide? First, children are prohibited firearms now, so child – child murder would likely not be affected one whit. Adult – child murder? Well, if you discard the incidents that are ‘crimes of passion’, (again a group not likely to be affected), we’re left with a very small subset that is itself not likely to be much affected as criminals tend not to register their guns.
You mentioned Canada, (a place near and dear to my heart!). Canada scrapped their long gun registry after years and billions of dollars of bureaucratic and futile waste. Best anyone can tell, not a single crime was solved nor prevented by it.
Now, would dramatically reducing the availability and number of firearms in America possibly make a difference? Sure. Look – that’s really what you’re talking about anyway, isn’t it? This whole ‘registration’ thing is a smokescreen. It’s blatant incrementalism. It’s a load of feel-good crap. If people want to get rid our society guns, or some subset thereof, they need to have the courage to stand up and say so, and stuff this great dodge.
Fifty, I think this issue of many Americans having guns will resolve itself. It will cease to be cool. There is a little thread I read from browsing links about a conservative who took it upon himself to ‘debunk’ statistics about shootings in school and he decided a student committing suicide in front of classmates couldn’t be a ‘school shooting’. Exactly what positive information regarding gun ownership is out there? I know we have participants with endless statistics about gun registrations and its ineffectiveness and their firm belief regarding their personal safety secured with semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. They are right about one issue and completely wrong about the other. I have a right to smoke and a right to be a dumb ass, at least with smoking it looks like more Americans are choosing to not be a dumb ass. I will never own a gun, no one who prefers gun ownership here has proven anything other than in a consumer market you can pretty much buy whatever pretty thing you want for pretty much any dumb ass reason.
Owl, I already replied to you below, and yes, we are reading the same text. The GOP platform language on a metallic monetary standard is a sop to Ron Paul supporters; I don’t expect anything to ever come of it. And should the GOP take serious steps in that direction, I’ll lobby my elected reps against it. That’s how politics works.
Just as you read more into the paragraph on a “metallic monetary standard” in the GOP platform than I, I most certainly read more into the Firearms section of the Dem platform than you. For gun owners and shooters like myself, the so-called assault weapons ban was an unmitigated disaster. (I don’t hold a Class III firearms license, and therefore don’t own any firearm that legitimately qualifies as an “assault weapon,” yet two of my rifles became illegal to purchase ex post facto as a result.) The Assault Weapons Ban served no purpose other than to unduly harass law abiding citizens. As for the so-called “gun show loophole,” there will be a gun show at Reliant Center on Aug. 14-15, and another at the GRB on Aug. 30-31. I would be delighted to take you, and you can see for yourself how guns are actually bought and sold at gun shows.
As I pointed out below, the platform language of the Democratic Party and it’s actual conduct in office are two very different things. Exhibit ‘A’ is the NY SAFE act, passed in the dead of night by Democrats who weren’t exactly keen on “open… conversation about firearms.” Apparently, to these people “strengthening our background check system” amounts to gun registration. Gun registration serves no valid anti-crime purpose. Historically, gun registration has served one purpose, and one purpose only – to facilitate subsequent confiscation. *EVERYWHERE* gun confiscation has occurred, it has been preceded by registration. Far from making sure “that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few,” the NY SAFE act has merely served to turn hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding gun owners into un-apprehended felons overnight.
I am being neither inconsistent, nor hypocritical. At the least, the Democrats are guilty of the latter; at worst their conduct has been positively nefarious. A small minority of Republicans favor a return to the gold standard; the GOP platform proposes, at most, an inquiry into the matter. Dems, on the other hand, have publicly demonstrated via actual legislation a terrible animus towards my 2nd Amendment right, i.e. my *natural* right to keep and bear arms. Sadly, the Democrats are simply too dishonest to come right out and say it, instead hiding behind a steaming pile of verbal manure. At least until they get into office, that is.
I’ve addressed this above, TThor, after deciding the sprawl of threads was getting difficult to peer through.
JG, you note that the “toll in innocent life demands a change.” You will also note that the *VAST* majority of mass shootings occur in settings where guns are prohibited by law (including all of your 74 school shootings). Invariably, each one of these incidents end when a good guy with a gun shows up. In fact, the sooner that person shows up, the faster it ends, with a concomitant reduction in mortality.
So if we are going to demand change, how about providing an armed presence at every school in America? Are you game for that kind of change? You know, for the children. Just askin’.
Are you game to pay the taxes that will require, Tracy. Because you need fully trained law enforcement officers or military personnel to do that. I don’t trust for an instant the average “gun enthusiast” to make the kind of split second decisions required when confronted by a shooter and surrounded by screaming children. We hear lots about the supposed “good guy with a gun” who stops the mass shooting in public. But in truth, nearly all of these cases (that weren’t stopped by uniformed police) were stopped by off-duty cops or military personnel. There are a few in which the hero was non-police and non-military, but not many.
So, are you willing to pony up for this extra security to protect unrestricted gun ownership rights? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
It is always about money with liberals Tracy. Throw money at a problem and it will magically go away.
John, police get no more or not much more training in firearms than the average person with a CHL, and CHL holders tend to be much better shots. The excpetion would be SWAT teams. It would not cost anything to allow adults with a CHL to carry on school grounds. Not even just school grounds, but in theaters as well. There was a case where a person legally carrying in a theater shot another under questionable circumstances, but that doesn;t compare to the mass shooting where it was not legal to carry.
The issue would also be local government and independent school districts, so any increase in taxes and spending would be local decisions. I oopose any tax increases at the federal level, but a few years ago I did vote in favor of a tax increase for the local school district, and did so without having any children.
Cappy – BS, you claim to have a CHL and I wouldn’t trust you with a pencil eraser much less firearms in the presence of children.
JG, I’d be happy to pay the extra cost. Most of our Texas school districts, for instance, already have an armed presence of some sort. Some Texas school districts actually have their own police forces, e.g. Cy-Fair ISD (http://www.cfisd.net/en/parents-students/safety/cfisd-police/).
Unfortunately these resources are a bit stretched, as officers are typically “shared” across multiple campuses. The incremental cost of providing a an armed presence at *every* school is one I’d gladly see added to my property taxes. After all, additional officers don’t cost all that much more than additional teachers. It’s a paltry sum for the kind of insurance it affords.
With respect to “good guys with guns” and shooting skills, I’ll note (as a person with LEOs in the family) that there’s a *heck* of a lot more to being a law officer than just being able to shoot. For this particular task we *really* want fully trained law enforcement officers, or at least school staff with a great deal of specific training (training that would be significantly in excess of that which accompanies a CHL). Yes, while this does cost money, in my view it would be money well spent.
One last note on this topic. Mass shootings are crimes of opportunity; these sick murderers choose gun-free venues *precisely* because they know they are soft targets. Harden the target, and the crimes will cease. To this end we probably don’t need an uninterrupted armed presence at every campus. Simply having an armed presence more often than not would likely be sufficient. If the bad actor knows there’s a better than 50/50 chance they will face armed opposition, they’ll like look for a softer target.
TTHOR – the problem with your claim about gun free zones is that it has been disproven on many occasions. Mass shooting occur in areas generally where the shooter has a connection to that place. The good guy with a gun is just a myth and the idea of putting armed untrained civilians in an area with children so they can start a gun fight is insane.
There is no difference between the tea party and the Taliban.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/11/ok-gop-candidate-let-cities-decide-whether-gays-should-be-stoned-to-death/
“Scott Esk, a Tea Party Republican and John Birch Society member”
Gosh! And here I was happy you decided to quit us. Time for a drink? Your comparison of the Taliban to the TEA Party demonstrates you have already dived in.
he makes it hard to miss him when he won’t leave doesn’t he?
Agreed. The Taliban poses less danger to this nation.
Turtles, I would say shame on you but you have none. Are you a Texan drinking buddy?
I would not mind drinking a Coke with Texan someday. We can laugh at you while we are sipping some nice cold ones.
Come on now, Tex. Never forget the wisdom of Tina Fey (playing Sarah Palin), viz. regarding same sex marriage: “Well, the Bible says it’s gross… Marriage is meant for people who wear different swim suits.” 😉
Lots of men wear only bikini bottoms and I don’t need the Bible to tell me it’s gross…….
Purposely off topic to calm the room. Funny IRS joke with the Joker.
Good one, Turtles.
Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers are falling. Especially since she said she was dead broke but bought two houses and her not accepting any responsibility for Benghazi. Tsk!
Now illegal Mexican children are being warehoused because Obama purposely backed off enforcing the borders in anticipation of immigration reform including amnesty. Well, Cantor losing re-election stopped that in it’s tracks.
It is a shame children have to suffer for political purposes but that is how the game is played on the left. Tsk!
Eric Cantor losing is awesome. Watch the GOP marginalize Dave Brat.
I think the main question is whether this victory will further erode the Republican’s standing with minority groups; especially Latinos. It is already being framed as blowback against Cantor’s immigration reform position.
according to you guys repubs don’t have any minority votes, how does something that doesn’t exist erode?
“You guys?” It’s always “me against the world” for you isn’t it?
Anyway, I am not a Democrat although I have voted for some from time to time. Also have voted for Republicans I agree with or I agree with more than the Democrat they are running against.
Of course Republicans have minority supporters. I know some. But they are a small group and a group that has been shrinking in terms of percentage. The question is, will this shrink it even more?
And, for the record, I would note that I don’t know if the actual reason for Cantor’s loss was immigration. That is just what I heard while watching the initial reports last night running on the tredmill. Don’t know enough about the race frankly at this point.
I think it is just as likely that Cantor lost for the very reason GOPLifer stated above – both parties are extremely unpopular. Cantor was a member of the leadership team of a Congress that has horrifically low ratings. Maybe he lost just because he had an (I) after his name.
You asked the question 75, am I supposed to use first names to respond? do you support the lack of border enforcement policies 75? do you support the changes Obama made to expand the allowances for Dreamers like the ones pouring across the border?
I would like to see more enforcement of the border along with a rational policy to deal with the millions of people here who have been here for years, are working and contributing to society. We are not going to be able to deport all those people. It’s silly and a pointless proposal. It’s like proposing to send them to the moon. Waste of time even debating such a point.
I also think we should be welcoming to immigrants we need. I don’t want to see this country turn into an anti-immigrant society (which has happened in the past in the US) and shut itself to immigrants we need. That includes skilled and in some cases non-skilled immigrants. That also means encouraging people who come to this country and study to stay here and work. How stupid is it to have someone gain a PHD in engineering from an American university and then force him/her to go back to India. We should encourage that person to stay here!
your honor the witness is non responsive
should the immigrants pouring across the border be allowed to stay? if possible start with a yes or no and blather on from there
Issues this complicated do not have “yes” or “no” answers. Anyone expecting such on an issue like this is either ignorant or a simpleton.
Recent illegal migrants? No.
Ones that have been here for a period of time, have no committed a crime and are productive members of society? Yes.
And you?
No.
Any immigration reform has to start with total enforcement at the border and within the interior.
Next would be registration to see how many are actually here and even want to be citizens.
If any kind of rights to remain status is granted it has to start with determining the scope.
Weed out the criminals. Get a handle on the problem and offer solutions and accomodations on our terms, not the illegal’s, democrat politicians and chamber of commerce’s.
I hope Chris’ head didn’t explode… 😉
Are you willing to spend the money required to accomplish such a massive task? It’s an important point because both sides sometimes refuse to accept the fact that government action actually costs money.
75 Took the strawman approach stating we can’t be against immigration as if that is the topic.
I say the ones that are here already be given a work permit but they can’t become citizens due to their illegal activities such as false SS and DL felonies.
The influx now happening goes back. There are no resources in the border states to take care of them.
75, immigration isn’t complicated. We have been immigrating since the start. Man up. Are you for illegal entry or are you against it?
My primary motivation is the fiscal impacts of open borders and the assault on our sovereignty. Dems primary motivation is buying votes to remain in power. I have no idea what motivates the GOP to align with dems on open borders.
Ignoring kabuzz for the moment.
Dan.
I agree with you on the sovereignty. I think we have every right to control who comes in and out of our country. I also share the fiscal concerns for border states. I know that border states have been fielding much of the burden on this. Although, to be fair, states like Texas have also benefited from lower construction costs.
I just think we need to face the fact that any attempt to register and/or deport large numbers of people will cost money. A lot of money. It may also lead to unintended consequences which may damage our standing in the world. That could include poor sanitation, disease and even deaths when holding millions or even hundreds of thousands of people in detention centers awaiting deportation. Don’t be surprised if we get accused of operating concentration camps.
And don’t discount the damage that can be done to our trade, our economy and our ability to use diplomatic and soft power due to global opinion. As our power comparably decreases internationally, this will only become more of an issue.
You offer no solutions, only reservations and reasons to maintain the status quo. I don’t care what our standing in the world unless you tell me who is doing the judging. I bet that doesn’t move my needle much either.
Kabuzz is right. You don’t give answers but it appears you have no problem with accommodating illegal immigration.
You are such a flaming hypocrite. The GOP/right-wing is equally guilty in creating the immigration mess and refusing any reasonable fixes. How many big GOP backers made $ off cheap off the books labor?
Obama is solely to blame for the crisis he created along the border. This shows how vulnerable we are doesn’t it? Completely unarmed pregnant women and kids are over running the border and Obama is doing nothing about it. He encouraged it by changing immigration policy in 2012 to allow Dreamers (a very wide swath of illegals btw) to stay.
I’m curious as to how low incomers feel about having this invasion of laborers pour across the border and drive down wages. Is the safety net so good it doesn’t matter? It sure won’t the stay the way it is.
Straight up question to the rucas posse. How do y’all like your party’s wide open border policy?
“Obama is solely to blame for the crisis he created along the border.”
Absolutist statements like this are part of what brand Tea Party mouth-breathers like Dan as the deeply silly swill-brains that they are.
What wide open door policy? Just because we do not support turning our borders into a modern version of the Berlin Wall does not mean anyone supports open borders. Ask a serious question and you will get a serious answer.
Wrong fly. I have never waivered from very strong border enforcement. Never. If the government shows me they can stop the hemorrhaging I will discuss reform. But I fell for ‘take the whole package’ in 86 and I won’t be suckered again.
“Wrong fly. I have never waivered from very strong border enforcement. ”
Well whoop-de-do buzzy. If you think that “very strong border enforcement” is enough to solve the problem, I’ve got some beachfront property in the TX Panhandle that would be perfect for you. The people who come here illegally run a horrid gauntlet because they are desperate and they know that there are people here who will employ them. Unless you want to turn the border into a modern version of the Berlin Wall, your “very strong border enforcement”, without any real sanctions on illegal employers, is just going to be one additional bump in a long road for people who are already willing to risk being betrayed by gangsters and getting lost in the wilderness to find a job here.
I also wonder if you’ve given any serious thought to just how much in taxes “very strong border enforcement” is going to end up costing.
Buzzy, like most Tea Party slopeheads, doesn’t actually *think*. He just *reacts*.
Fly, read my comment. I am very much for fining and putting out of business if need be companies that hire illegals. I am for issuing working permits to those that are here but they can’t become citizens unless they leave and apply like the thousands of others do. Everyone from all over the world wants to come here which is great but even a five year old, or even Owly knows it is not sustainable. Face it, you just want votes for your party and really don’t give a crap. It’s all political to you while the grown ups are trying to figure out a real problem that has gotten worse because of the empty suit.
” Face it, you just want votes for your party and really don’t give a crap. ”
You are consistent in your cluelessness, I’ll give you that. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said this, but here it is again. I don’t have a party. I’ve been an Indy all my political-involvement life. I’ve bashed the Dems on multiple occasions over obstructing any solutions to this problem because some of them are anticipating so many new voters. But that’s far too nuanced for the partisan-hack, black & white, if you’re not 100% with me then you’re against me mindset.
I give far more than a crap about this. I loathe the underground economy that exploits desperate people and feeds low life scumbags. I want to choke off that food supply, and I want to choke it off by fixing the immigration system, which is going to take a whole lot more than just increasing border security. Complex problem require an attack from multiple angles. Partisan hacks just fixate on their favorite angle on the expense of the others.
“Obama is solely to blame for the crisis he created along the border.”
Fly, fly, fly, you may have voiced opposition to dem policies, but it wasn’t done here. You embrace the dem’s and particularly the left constantly. Nice try. Not falling for it.
I am not a registered republican which means NOTHING. Your bona fides are in your comments. Your party wants illegal immigrants for votes only. No plan on taking care of them, just get the votes. Now that my friend is exploitation.
Actually I have Buzzy, but you are either too forgetful or dishonest to admit it. You want to pigeonhole everyone into GOP or Dem, but that’s not reality.
Hey Buzz…you have mentioned a couple of times that we are facing a horde of children overrunning our borders from the south, and we have evidently started warehousing these kids in an Air Force hanger somewhere.
I’m sincerely curious here, what are you talking about?
The google machine is not coming up with anything. I’m assuming the lame stream media is hiding this from us. Can you point me in the right direction?
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/10/White-House-admits-Humanitarian-Crisis-on-Border-is-Larger-than-We-Anticipated
How could you not find it???
I could not find it because “immigrant children air force hanger” did not come up with anything, and I don’t generally browse Breitbart as part of my normal day.
I guess I’m curious, what are we supposed to do with these folks? Seems like we are handling it about as well as we could be handling it.
First off, tell our President and Congress that there probably will not be amnesty as advertised. Then tell the President to enforce the borders as he has eased up over the past months. Thirdly, work with the Mexican consulate to return the children.
The WH has finally said they didn’t expect this and it is now a crisis. One of Obama’s making.
They are sucking the resources out of an already burdened state. It is much more compassionate to return these children to their parents then to warehouse them.
The children generally are not Mexican, so the Mexican folks aren’t going to take them. I think you’ll find a few different interpretations than this being of Obama’s making. You might also want to tone down the “air force hanger” description once you take a look at how it is set up.
A lot of those children aren’t from Mexico; they’re from further to the south.
I’m not surprised that you omit the part about putting some real teeth into sanctions against those who would hire off the books. Very, very easy to rage against the desperate poor people, but all those sainted “job creators” are sacrosanct.
Guess you missed that part of the Texas GOP platform fly.
Remember when Clinton and Reno used military tactics to ‘capture’ Elian Gonzales to return him to Cuba? Ah fun times.
Buzzy – You do realize that everyone that crosses the border is not Mexican? Just because a person has brown skin it does not automatically mean they are mess-i-cuns.
idiot
Arizona passed a law that put some real teeth in dealing with people that hire or aid illegal aliens, Fly. The left, especially the Obama administration, went into a coniption fit and sued the state. Some of us don’t have such short memories.
I also didn’t mention I am against drunk driving Fly. Just because I don’t write it means nothing. The point was Homer didn’t know that this is a problem. I do know that they all aren’t Mexican but they all came through Mexico. Tomato, tomato but you guys pick out the gnat shit in the pepper. The main point being the borders are being overrun with this hypothetical amnesty the Obama administration put out.
For the record, I think companies that hire illegals should be fined aggressively and have a tax audit for 5 years. And if done again, they lose their tax number and charter. In other words, they have to sell.
Homer, first check out San Antonio’s Air Force hanger that is being used. The military is livid. They do not have the medical resources to take care of these kids and disease is breaking out. As you know, the medical personnel handles mostly specific burn injuries of combat soldiers.
Last thing, this is what conservatives mean by a MSM problem. They want immigration reform so their editors and news chiefs are spiking the story. Tsk!
Here’s some more regarding the story.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2014/06/09/immigrant-children-arizona-border-answers/10246771/
So Obama caused teenage gangs to run rampant in Central American nations? It’s his fault that the United States is a preferred destination, particularly because of the generous welfare benefits offered in Texas and Arizona.
Try to change the subject from Obama’s massive screw ups. You post a link, unrelated then comment on it. Priceless.
I notice the rucas posse will not answer the questions about the lack of border enforcement. Telling.
If there were ‘no border enforcement’ then how in the hell would be know how many are in custody? How is a ‘lack of enforcement’ straining our resources? Can you guys just ever look at an issue for the merits, rather than more witless propagandizing of an issue involving actual flesh and blood people?
are you for open borders Crogged?
I’m for treating the issues of ‘borders’ as involving people, not abstractions you feverishly dream up from constantly reading propaganda from the safety of your desk. You have sixteen year olds who have walked over a thousand miles on their own because of the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor. Why don’t you run down there to the border and tell them to their face, “Never mind that, it’s for Canada.”
And Catinahood, my link was only ‘unrelated’ to your conspiratorial slant, not to the issues at hand.
So you are for open borders. We disagree, I have the law on my side and you have renegade president on yours. Right now your side is winning the battle but we’re working on it.
Do you have a limit on how many you’ll let in because they walked a thousand miles to get here?
“Arizona passed a law that put some real teeth in dealing with people that hire or aid illegal aliens, Fly. The left, especially the Obama administration, went into a coniption fit and sued the state. ”
Here’s a news flash for you, Sternn: I don’t agree with “the left” on this one. I’m all for making it hurt really bad to get caught employing people under the table. But that’s also in conjunction with bringing our outdated legal immigration process into the 21st Century.
fly hides behind comprehensive reform like Obama does
“I also didn’t mention I am against drunk driving Fly. Just because I don’t write it means nothing.”
Yet drunk driving is not germane to the immigration problem, but no realistic look at that issue should exclude the demand for cheap labor end. But you righties have to be prodded hard on that part; you seldom bring it up of your own.
” do know that they all aren’t Mexican but they all came through Mexico. Tomato, tomato but you guys pick out the gnat shit in the pepper. The main point being the borders are being overrun with this hypothetical amnesty the Obama administration put out.”
What amnesty. If people south of the border think that there is amnesty going on it is because the right-wing has lied about what to call comprehensive immigration reform./ No sensible person calls having to go through background checks, paying fines, and waiting at the end of the immigration line for at least 13 years amnesty. But “sensible” is not in your limited vocabulary is it.
“No sensible person calls having to go through background checks, paying fines, and waiting at the end of the immigration line for at least 13 years amnesty. ”
Right you are TR; you just hit upon one of the main obstacles. I would define amnesty as you get instant citizenship, no strings, no waiting, no questions asked. There may be a few LWNJs who would want that, but they’d be a small minority. What you spelled out sounds like a fair and pragmatic way of dealing with those people who proven themselves to be willing to work. It’s not the only thing we need to do to fix the system, but it’s absolutely necessary.
Only one problem in your stupid program fly and crogged. What do you tell the immigrants that came here and the ones waiting that you can come into our country illegally, commit felonious acts and still get preferential treatment.
Fly, run to the border and explain that to someone waiting to get in. You have no humanitarian point, you just want your party to thrive. We hear it from you liberals all the time. “We got the Hispanic vote”, etc. But at what cost? You don’t care. Unprincipled and no core beliefs equals a liberal.
there is no framework for the background checks, there is no fee I am aware of being mentioned to buy citizenship, we all know before the ink dries on any law of this type the dems will promote lawsuits to declare the process unfair and unconstitutional and on and on and on.
Both parties allowed this to happen. A segment of one of the parties wants it dealt with it according to law and the left wants new voters to lock into welfare for votes.
We want to solve problems, y’all want to exploit them.
Ok Catinahood and DanMan, tell the world “No amnesty ever” and they will quit coming. A premise which isn’t magical thinking because it’s neither.
Fly, I thought you said you couldn’t deport them all. If you make illegals who have used stolen I.D.’s , that is a huge, huge number of illegals. See, that’s the problem, you don’t see it through. Are we a society of laws or not. Do we all get a pass on some laws when we choose? There is a reason the system is set up the way it is so all the immigrants from all the countries that want to come here have a chance. The Hispanic’s are saying ‘screw them, I want mine’. This is what you want?
Some hispanics, Kabuzz. Many do follow the laws, immigrate and work to become citizens.
Looks like I was in the wrong sub thread, but Buzzy, what part of anyone with a felony conviction fails a background check are you not understanding here?
Still a very large number Captain. Add up all the housekeeping, landscaping, kitchen, and other labor intensive jobs, and you got yourself a whole lot of felonies. I know it isn’t their wish to break the law, but I know they know they are doing it.
“Only one problem in your stupid program fly and crogged. What do you tell the immigrants that came here and the ones waiting that you can come into our country illegally, commit felonious acts and still get preferential treatment.”
Anyone who had been convicted of a felonious act by definition would FAIL a background check, so no unfairness there. The people who snuck in, but passed the background check would have to get in line BEHIND the people who used the open and legal channels, so no unfairness or preferential treatment there either. I’d be quite happy to tell them all that, and unlike you, I bet that they would actually understand it.
Here’s some surprisingly good news.
Click to access Tenative-Decision.pdf
A judge in California has ruled granting tenure to lousy teachers is unconstitutional. There may be hope for education. Si se puede!
Old Owly was feeling sorry for self about how mean the GOP is to democrat’s like Dukakis and Ann Richards.
How about we remind them what mean and vile is.: http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/aug/06/pelosis-visions-swastikas/
Oh, waaaaaaaah. Y’know what? Those people are wrong. Of course, they’re also private individuals with no particular power or political platform.
Are any of them RedState.com Editor-in-Chief, like Erick Erickson, coiner of the “Abortion Barbie” moniker?
Why, no, they aren’t. So you’re making a false equivalency. Apparently you’re as mentally and morally deficient as Erickson.
Keep on changing the goal posts. It is what you do. So well.
What goal posts? If you think that “no-one, even the most remote volunteer or partisan supporter, ever saying anything nasty, ever” would ever be a reasonable goal post, and that anyone, anywhere, saying anything nasty, is automatically and unequivocally on par with, say, Erickson’s vile pathology, then you’re even more of an idiot than your other postings would suggest.
Cunt is a bit strong. Dumb beyotch is more apt.
She flew cross country, delivered speeches, arrived in Alaska and then drove another hour or so, all while in labor with a child known to have issues. I doubt this superhuman female was hurt by the words delivered by various unknown bloggers.
Just keep in mind how you are quantifying behavior now. Because we have a super rich target coming up in 2016. Hillary. The one who just said yesterday that Lincoln won his senate seat when Seward did his in NY only Lincoln never one that seat. A genius in her own mind.
I am sure she will be able to take it. But I bet you all will be whining and crying “war on women” ” leave her alone”, etc.
Remember she knows her husband abused and raped some women. This is the dem’s candidate.
Hil can take care of herself Buzz.
dems like liars
On an entirely tangential note, I heard a marvelous story on public radio the other day about RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s a cap-and-trade program used by states and provinces in the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada.
Yep, here it is: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=14-P13-00023&segmentID=2
In brief, it’s the sort of market-oriented solution that Republicans used to favor before they went institutionally insane: an attempt to introduce real quantities for formerly ignored externalities, and then let innovation and the market decide how to best deal with the situation.
Carbon emissions have gone down under RGGI — in fact, the cap was 165 million tons in 2013, but actual 2012 emissions were only 91 million tons.
And electrical prices in the region? They’ve gone DOWN.
But I’m sure it’s all some grand U.N. conspiracy involving black helicopters and communists.
owl hasn’t shopped for ‘electrical’ rates lately. Our rates are up about 20% since last summer. Those 9.4 cent rates are gone.
I realize context is difficult for Dan, but I was talking, obviously, about rates in the area governed by RGGI.
In Texas, of course, we have deregulated electrical providers — Republicans swore up and down that this much-beloved policy solution would reduce rates. We now see that’s as truthful as many of their other propagandistic statements.
Locally TXU went bankrupt for not believing Obama was going to shut down coal plants. That impact has yet to hit.
I hope you got a scholarship for your Rice degree, I’d hate to think you blew your dad’s dollars on what you’re left with.
Actually, they went bankrupt because they didn’t anticipate the move toward cheap natural gas.
But I’m sure lying to yourself makes your partisan heart feel better.
“Tea Party….what Tea Party?” – Lindsey Graham
y’all ever notice this guys stare is focused only to the left?
He looks to me to be concentrating solely on the extreme right.
Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective.
of course he is, just like you
“Ohhhhh…..the Tea Party….” – Eric Cantor
But no worries Dan, I always look both ways before crossing the street. I appreciate the concern.
Recently Wendy Davis said, “And we know what they [Republicans] really believe and think about people who don’t look like them.”
Odd thing is that I look much like Wendy Davis. In the political world, she’d be my Doppelganger, but I find her politics abhorrent. I’d never vote for her.
I look absolutely nothing like Ted Cruz … but he and I are much more of a match on issues.
What’s up with that? Why would a Hispanic immigrant win election for senate while a pale, white blond flounders in a race for governor? If looks were truly that important, Wendy would be getting more Republican votes. She’s not.
Statements like the one Davis made only further the rift separating the parties. Sad to say demonizing the other side often works.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/9/wendy-davis-republicans-dislike-people-who-dont-lo/
Totally agree. If we’re going on looks (which I’m not sure who would?), then you could say that I look more like Ted than Wendy. I am Hispanic. I have dark features, tan skin and a Hispanic sounding last name. Yet, I find Ted disgusting, hypocritical and pathetic. I’m not saying that I agree with everything Wendy has said/done, it’s just that it’s going to take a LONG time to scrub the stupidity that Ted has brought to Texas (a state that already has a bad rep). There are A LOT of people who look like both Ted and I that won’t be voting for him.
So, you see, it’s a two way road that you’re traveling. Not sure why you’re traveling it but stay safe, stranger.
Wow! A very fine educated, credentialed man against a pro baby killing flavor of the month dunderhead and rucas chooses the dunderhead. Simply wow!
During Obama’s running, we heard from you lefties about how much more educated Obama is than McCain and Palin, and then Romney. You guys have absolutely no core at all. None. Wandering generalities. Trend followers. Cliquish.
What babies?
Obama is playing eight level tiddely winks and keeping the rucas posse enthralled with his display of superior intellect on the world stage
He gave away the gains made in Iraq. Announced the date to end the war in Afghanistan so that’s a done deal. Swapped a traitor for 5 high level detainees. Toppled Libya and Egypt from within and left them in shambles. Is negotiating with the mullahs in Iran.
Over here he has pissed off Canada and opened our borders to all comers. Blown through as much debt as every president before him combined. Disregards laws, uses the IRS to suppress dissent, ships guns to Mexican cartels.
and the rucas posse still cheers him on like he’s so awesome. Like I said, Obama is much smarter than his fans, that’s for sure. He has gained millions. Y’all covet millions. Losers.
Oh Dan, I’m sure you mean well to someone, somewhere at sometime. Yet, I can’t help but think of this whenever I read your, buzz and Sternn’s comments.
Thanks for the good-hearted reply, Rucasdad. Yes, looks like you and I are traveling on different sides of the road going in opposite directions, but I’m wishing a safe journey, stranger, as well. 🙂
Good exchange of words there….I like that!
I see far more Republicans grinning maniacally and slobbering about “Abortion Barbie” than I see Democrats making any kind of beef out of Greg Abbott’s wheelchair, or Dan Patrick’s past mental-health issues.
Which is a surprise Owl since repubs are known for their empathy and respect for others. Especially those who tend to disagree with them.
Yes, I well recall the genteel way in which they conducted their campaign against Ann Richards, the totally fact-based ads run against Michael Dukakis, their even-handed policy analyses of the Clinton administration, and their dogged insistence on avoiding the personal and concentrating on the political where President Obama is concerned.
Alternate universes. That has to be the explanation of the fantastical belief of my mentally disadvantaged liberals. My, my. How vile you people are yet you see nothing wrong with it. Again, no core. Wandering generalities.
It does seem conservatives are growing in Texas while you like minded liberals are shrinking. Guess we’re all wrong in your ego motivated mind.
Members of both parties make nasty comments. I often find that those in the majority often belittle those in the minority; perhaps because the views of the minority are so foreign to them.
I remember when I lived back east (and I generally supported Republicans then for various reasons), I often heard Democrats (who were in the majority), making rather nasty statements about Republicans. Very personal statements actually. Now that I am in the solid red of Texas, I see the opposite happening
johnofgaunt, I totally agree. Being born and raised in Texas and now living in Chicago is very similar. I hear from time to time people making false generalizations and stereotyping southerners, Texans, conservatives and Republicans. Then, I come here to this blog and other political sites and see some comments from the people I stated above and lose all faith in them again (just kidding, I know not all are like that obviously).
I wonder what “Whiny” Davis says to explain the push for Ben Carson to run? Obviously in her slightly damaged reasoning, it’s all old black guys, right?
I blame the constant, never-ending campaign cycle, of which the media is a big part. So much of what generates outrage among the populace is really not that big a deal. Our politicians don’t have the luxury of distinguishing between campaign rhetoric and what is necessary to perform the job once they get to Washington, and the result is “compromise” is now a dirty word. But you can’t ever stop campaigning because two years isn’t that long, and even if you are a senator in your first or second year in office, you’ve got other senators running and you’ve got the increasingly insane House of Representatives, which is more or less in permanent crazy mode now.
People need to get a grip. If there is one benefit to being a Democrat in Texas, it’s how you learn to deal with the other side winning all the time. The new Texas Republican Party platform is so insane it’s hard to put it in any reasonable perspective, but I can’t let myself get too worked up over it. Most Republicans don’t even care about half the crap in that platform anyway. They’ve become a party of trolls. Pissing off liberals counts as a legitimate political goal for these nuts.
The point is, the intensity of the American political system is so high now that people are forgetting that if you just turn off your damned television for a few hours every evening and go read a book or hang out in the backyard or have a few beers at the pub–whatever it takes–you can come back to reality and realize how easy it is to be happy and be positive. The sky is not falling, the Orwellian Nightmare is not upon us…as Walter Sobcek puts it, “Nothing is f—ed here, Dude.”
so Anse you like our precedent inviting illegal immigration to mushroom? got it.
So Anse, are you like inviting the illegal immigrunts to take mushrooms?
http://www.rightistscrazyassstuff.com/stories/2014/06/09/president sharing hallucinogens with islamistfacists details at 11 /
So, Anse, if constant campaigning is at fault, why is it that most congressional districts are virtually unassailable? Seriously, incumbents in both parties in this state need hardly campaign to assure themselves reelection in most cases. If anything, incumbents are more concerned over being “primaried” by more extreme members of their own party. I’m not sure what the driver is, but I don’t think your theory is correct. Something else is in play.
the intensity is so high because the media outside of Fox is an arm of the dem party. All of that media is in overdrive losing credibility as they cover for the administration.
They don’t need to campaign because they’re always campaigning. They do it on the Sunday morning talk shows, they do it in other media interviews, and now they’re doing it in Washington. What it takes to get things done is messy and brutal and inevitably compromising for both sides, and that doesn’t fly in this Tea Party era where people are too attracted to the all-out warrior mentality of dopes like Ted Cruz. It doesn’t matter if he can actually accomplish anything; it only matters that he keeps up the fight. In the end is gridlock because the other side has to take an equally intransigant position because they have no way of negotiating a fair deal on whatever issue is at hand.
There are things that were once absurd that are now becoming normal. We’ve got gun activists walking around brandishing military-grade weapons. They’re trying to normalize the militarization of society. It is absolutely unnecessary for most people to carry any kind of gun, concealed or not, but this takes the crazy to a new level. Quietly try to point out that violent crime is actually in decline in America and has been for a number of years, and they’ll shout you down.
It is escalating, and in that escalation, we have primary voters–the real-deal activists who are perverting our political system–who are demanding ever-extreme positions, and for what? I think John Stewart is right. I think 80% or more of the American population agrees at least broadly on a majority of issues, even if we differ on details and how to achieve those goals. But moderation doesn’t attract viewers. The only reason MSNBC exists is because some liberals realized that Fox’s power lies in the crazy, and so they feel compelled to match the crazy. And on and on it goes, until nobody has any faith in the system anymore, even while a vast majority of us are perfectly sane, reasonable, friendly people.
Sorry for being so longwinded, but I’ll put it this way: I have an uncle who loves to rant and rave about the liberals, and how the “tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots”, and “freedom isn’t free”, etc and so forth. So finally I confronted him. I said, you always talk about revolution. I’m a liberal. Does that mean you want me to die? You want to kill me, and people like me? We’re psyching ourselves into doing crazy stuff that doesn’t need to be done. The system works, but we’re not letting it work, because the networks have convinced us that it won’t work.
Anse you are being alarmed by the media as is their job. My wife and I cut off all news on TV three months before the last presidential election and we do not miss it. We tuned it in recently for something major and sure enough, they all were in perpetual hype.
Constant campaigning is at fault largely because of our broken campaign-finance system.
Most congressional districts are virtually unassailable (at least, on a partisan basis) because of our broken redistricting and balloting systems.
All those components could use some fixing, if we’re to come back toward being a healthy democratic republic.
Well, Anse, my kids make fun of my 27″ Sony Trinatron TV, and likely will for at least a couple more decades, because it sees so little use. The morning and evenings on our patio overlooking the lake have been just lovely this spring. (If this is global warming, bring it on!). If I could just convince my beloved to read a beer label, and not bring home any GD IPAs, life would be just about perfect. So if I’m BSC, it ain’t the fault of the media.
BTW Anse, violent crime is decreasing in this country, while at the same time gun ownership has reached record levels, and concealed carry laws have become common place. All this despite a few Call-of-Duty addicts who can’t seem to figure out that public carry is disconcerting to many, if not outright rude. Hmm.
As an aside, I listened to Tom Gresham of GunTalk interview CJ Grisham, founder of Open Carry Texas, via podcast this morning. Gresham thinks Open Carry Texas’ PR strategy is idiotic, and I tend to agree with him. However, Mr. Grisham did point out that his group has never entered any establishment while carrying openly without *prior permission and consent.* The photos bandied about by Moms Demand Action and other anti-gun groups are apparently used out of context. Now, who would ever have predicted an anti-gun group would stoop to such a thing? 😉 I mean, a picture is worth a thousand words. Like I said, sheer idiocy on Open Carry Texas’ part from a PR standpoint.
I believe Open Carry Texas’ intent is to demonstrate that open carry of long arms in Texas is entirely legal, and that normal people are entitled to openly carry what are distinctly *not* “military-grade” firearms, and should be allowed to openly carry sidearms, too, if they so desire. While I agree in principle with their sentiments, their message strategy is unsound precisely because it can be so easily hijacked by their political opponents.
Some years ago I had an unpleasantly intimate social encounter with an egregiously offended boar hog of unusual size (BHOUS) out at the ranch. Armed inappropriately for such a close range encounter with a scoped deer rifle, I was very fortunate to emerge from that situation unscathed. (Sadly, the same cannot be said for Mr. Hog. He turned out to be rather tasty.) At any rate, since that time I unfailingly carry a sidearm whilst romping afoot about the S. Texas brush. However, I can’t imagine a situation where I’d prefer to carry openly, as opposed to concealed, during normal activities about town.
Carrying a gun on your ranch is an entirely different thing than carrying a gun into a Chili’s restaurant. I’m pretty sure you know that. When I was a kid, we left our guns in the truck when we went into the Dairy Queen for a post-hunt Hunger Buster.
I don’t give a rat’s behind what the law says, there is absolutely nothing reasonable about what those guys are doing. They are trying to provoke a reaction. That’s it. And you are correct about the political fallout. If there is anything that can derail the seemingly bottomless power of the NRA, it’s idiots pulling stunts like that.
But that gets us off the topic, and I apologize for that. It’s a part of the larger problem, though. People think, incorrectly, that we have intractable problems in this country that cannot be solved by going through the normal channels of our republican democracy. I’ll never get over these people. We can get rid of our politicians and get rid of the government we’ve got, but we can’t get rid of the voters who have allowed the government to become what it has become. We’ll always have the same electorate.
Harry Reid has blocked every jobs bill from the house since January 2011. Harry Reid does not debate appropriations. You mad about nothing getting done? Look at who you support Anse.
“So finally I confronted him. I said, you always talk about revolution. I’m a liberal. Does that mean you want me to die? You want to kill me, and people like me?”
That’s an interesting question to ask. There is a person that posts on this blog that said as much, that they want everybody they disagree with to just die, even their own family. And it wasn’t a person from the conservative side of the aisle.
“I don’t give a rat’s behind what the law says…” LOL. Obama agrees with you, Anse!
And no, I don’t bring my MSR into Chili’s either. Or more aptly, Ofelia’s Mexican Restaurant in Uvalde. (Best huevos rancheros this side of the Pecos!)
Anse wrote “if you just turn off . . . you can come back to reality and realize how easy it is to be happy and be positive”
*************************************
I am guessing, hoping that this is what most people here do when they get offline. A lot of what happens on this blog is just an act.
“A lot of what happens on this blog is just an act.”
BINGO!
We’d get a lot further if we dropped the acts and looked for common ground. What the hell purpose does it serve for one to pretend to be far more partisan than one is?
I see lots of “liberals” who openly admit to former Republican leanings, and express reasonable points of view poised between the ultra-partisans on either wing of the ideological spectrum.
The conservatives, even the ones who are able to pretend to sanity, like Tracy, almost invariably turn up their lips and sneer at the mere mention of “compromise”.
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our left, but in our right, that we are partisan.
JG, Owly demonstrates the problem. You liberals are just too good for everyone.
Sanity is overrated, Owl. And always heed the bard. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”
Tell us all about your openness to compromise, kabuzz.
Or run away, like the cowardly nitwit that you are.
Tracy, you’re welcome to be as lunatic in your personal life as you’d like, as long as you don’t hurt anybody else.
However, politics is about all of us. So insanity is generally to be discouraged, whether or not it has method to it. Republicans supposedly care about the ability of businesses to predict future policies and financial requirements, and insanity would seem a singular hindrance to building such confidence.
Openess for compromise? Let us make abortion on demand illegal, but compromise that it would still be legal to save the life of the mother. Let us make it legal for law abiding citizens to buy assault rifles, but we can compromise by keeping the background checks for purchases from licensed dealers. Let us make it legal for a person with a CHL to carry anywhere an officer can carry, but we will compromise that it only applies to people that have a concealed handgun license.
Are you open to compromise, Owl?
“Let us make abortion on demand illegal, but compromise that it would still be legal to save the life of the mother.”
Okay, sort of. We can have a European-style system in which the woman requires the agreement of two doctors that bearing the child would pose her physical or psychological danger. Perhaps we should include fiscal disaster on the list as well; after all, Republicans want to be fiscally responsible, right? And it would be a shame to add more people to the welfare rolls when it’s easy to avoid it.
“Let us make it legal for law abiding citizens to buy assault rifles, but we can compromise by keeping the background checks for purchases from licensed dealers.”
What’s your definition of “assault rifles”? Depending on that answer, I’m willing to consider it.
“Let us make it legal for a person with a CHL to carry anywhere an officer can carry, but we will compromise that it only applies to people that have a concealed handgun license.”
Not quite. I’m open to CHLs, but also to the right of property owners to bar visitors / customers from bearing weapons onto that property. Police officers, as agents of the state, can be armed just about anywhere. But private citizens? I’m surprised at you, Sternn, for your cavalier dismissal of private property.
Now, see? That wasn’t so hard. Now, how about we reduce funding for the military and homeland-security apparatus by a similar ratio to whatever we choose for reductions in “welfare”, and raise taxes by a percentage amount equal to, say, half those cuts?
No, Owl, no abortions for simple convenience.
Assault Rifles are defined by the military, select fire weapons. I don;t go around making up definitions.
Police generally need a warrant to enter private property without consent. Not suprised you wouldn;t understand that.
What kind of arrogant fuck are you to define “simple convenience” for people you don’t even know, in a situation you will never experience?
Apparently you never intended any compromise. Fine. Dumbshits like you are losing steadily, anyway. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. Liberals win in the long run, every time.
I think it is the constant campaigning and the fact that the vast majority of races are uncompetitive. Both parties have a gentlemen’s agreement to not rock the boat and create compeitive districts. As a result, elections are becoming increasingly irrelevant. The only difference is the presidential election but even here, outside of a few swing states, your vote is largely irrelevant.
Not sure if anyone listens to the Freakanomics podcast on here but they had an interesting show on once about how irrelevant each individual’s vote really is and that, from an economic standpoint, it is basically irrational to vote in a national election. Not sure if I agree with this 100% (look at the 2000 election for example), but it was interesting.
Hmm. “hyper-bureaucratic government” combined with political parties driven by “growing hatred” and “paranoia.” Gee, sounds eerily reminiscent of the Weimar Republic, circa 1933. The only thing missing is disillusioned corporal returning home from war. Oops. Methinks we got plenty of those. Well, the only other thing missing is rampant inflation. Guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one: http://online.wsj.com/articles/martin-feldstein-warning-inflation-is-running-above-2-1402356356
This guy has been talking ‘inflation’ since 2009 (and given his POV, probably since the 80s).
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/04/feldstein-inflation-is-looming.html
If this were your doctor would you still pay him?
We are just like Weimar Germany after WWI……because there’s still a planet with humans and an ideological axe to grind.
Yes. Modern conservatives seem to have an odd Nazi fetish in their political rhetoric.
I mean, it’s only been three days since outgoing Indiana Treasurer (and unsuccessful Tea Party Senate candidate) Richard Mourdock compared the nation’s direction to Hitler’s Nazi Germany at the Indiana Republican Convention.
It’s a fast, simplistic, espresso-shot of red-meat political rhetoric perfectly suited to the merchants of fear that the Republican Party has become.
Like Nancy Pelosi call people of the tea party movement a bunch of Nazis, Owl?
Sternn, you’ve come unhinged from reality again.
When has Nancy Pelosi called a protester a Nazi, compared protesters to Nazis, or anything of the sort?
She once expressed concern that Tea Party protestors were showing up bearing signs with swastikas.
And they were. There’s photographic evidence.
But she still didn’t call them Nazis.
I’m no great fan of Pelosi, but I do think it’s important to be truthful about her. Apparently you don’t.
Owly the Pelosi lover and idiotic commenter. Here is your link:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/aug/06/pelosis-visions-swastikas/
Kabuzz, I realize you’ve got all the grace and mental capacity of a baboon, but even you should be able to do better than that.
Where, pray tell, is the actual quote in which Pelosi accuses Tea Party members of being Nazis?
It isn’t there. You’re lying. All you’ve got is a bunch of whining about anti-Israel protestors using swastikas and folks comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. And, y’know what? Those people are wrong.
But as anyone with an intellect more formidable than a flatworm’s should be able to tell, they also aren’t Nancy Pelosi.
Quit being such a sad-sack liar.
TTHOR – The Weimar Republic suffered through hyperinflation that at its highest peak reached in 1923 was 29,525%. One of the problems we face now is a lack of inflation that would signal a growing economy if at a healthy rate in a demand pull scenario. Our traditional inflation rate is approx 3% so going over 2% is not really a big deal.
For 5 years the right wing has predicted doom and gloom concerning inflation in this country and they have always been wrong. All these predictions just demonstrates the lack of knowledge concerning economics on their part.
some deny deleterious man made gorebull worming impacts and others deny fiscal reality, let’s see which one has any real consequences and to whom. I like my odds.
where you getting your numbers? from the same folks that sold you Obamacare? We don’t leave our soldiers behind. Period. Full stop.
And despite much effort and words, some people don’t make any f____g sense whatsoever.
another angry liberal, it must make them think they’re smarter than dirt
The last time our debt was as high as today was in the post-WWII years. We went through a decade or so of low interest rates and moderate inflation – negative real interest rates, in other words – and we inflated our way out of the debt problem. Not the best way to do it because it erodes savings, but it is relatively pain-free from a politician’s point of view (no short term tax increases or austerity). Given that current interest rates are lower than they have been at any point since the 1950s, it is almost certainly this is what will happen this time too.
The chances of us hitting 5% inflation, much less 25,000%, are slim to none. We certainly have some demagogues, but a comparison with the rise of Nazism is far-fetched, to say the least.
Always fun to see who rises to the bait. 😉
I actually don’t think we’re in too much danger of massive inflation. That said, the danger never manifests when the economy is still in the doldrums. Rather, inflation gets out of hand when loose monetary policy isn’t tightened fast enough as the economy heats up.
We are perhaps in somewhat greater danger of stagflation; all that is lacking is a good supply shock. If Obama’s new EPA carbon rules go into effect as proposed, that will certainly constitute an energy supply shock. It remains to seen whether the shock will be of sufficient magnitude to trigger a stagflation event.
Hyperinflation is a whole ‘nuther deal. The Weimar Republic’s hyperinflation resulted from debt service issues run completely amok. Of course, the Weimar Republic’s debt crisis was imposed externally by the Treaty of Versailles. When our debt situation goes asymptotic, it will have been the result of our own stupidity.
So actually we have only two of the three necessary ingredients for the totalitarian pie. And really, as acrimonious as our politics are, they don’t compare to the 1933 Weimar Republic. Neither major party sports its own paramilitary arm, at least not yet. We have, however, implemented a “hyper-bureaucratic” government along much the same lines as the Weimar Republic – a massive, unresponsive, corrupt bureaucratic Leviathan answerable to none. The next ingredient in the recipe is a charismatic, demagogic pol equipped with an Enabling Act. You know, somebody with a pen and a phone. Sounds like fun, eh?
When I think of the problem of inflation, I usually think of price increases. As an average joe American citizen, that’s how inflation hits me directly: the cost of living goes up. But some of the solutions proposed by America’s nuts (that would be the rightwingers) are focused on easy money and the need, as they see it, for a return to the gold standard, but look at the history of that movement, and look at our nation’s economic history going back a couple hundred years, and explain to me how the gold standard can keep prices under control. Even that Austrian school of economists Ron Paul loves to talk about openly acknowledge that the gold standard will not prevent price instability.
Anse, do you actually believe the average conservative supports fringe ideas such as a return to the gold standard? I certainly don’t, nor do I support any monetary standard based on any other commodity or basket of commodities – any such scheme would be just too darn subject to unforeseen commodity fluxes.
I would like to see a Fed that is more transparent, but that also implies a Fed more subject to transient political pressures, so it would come with a cost. I’d settle for seeing M3 values published again. I’d also like to see a Fed with non-conflicting directives, i.e. that their mandate be restricted to assuring only currency stability.
Fiat money isn’t inherently evil; evil monetary policy is evil.
Well, gosh, Tracy, a demand for a return to the gold standard (or, at least, “a metallic basis”) was in the 2012 Republican Party platform.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/the-gold-standard-is-not-ready-for-prime-time/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
But if we’re not to hold all Republican voters accountable for that “fringe idea”, then maybe some of the asinine yahoos around here shouldn’t be quite so huffed up about the presence or absence of God in the Democratic platform. Uninformed hypocrisy, thy name is Sternn.
I think a national bank should have the interests of each of debtors and creditors. Stable prices don’t help the jobless.
Well, Owl, I think you’vr just amply demonstrated what planks go into a platform (or don’t) in order to bring all elements of a party under the tent.
Interesting point there TT, about inserting planks – even bat shit crazy ones – into platforms to bring in everyone from the party. I wonder how many potential voters this drives away? I’m not ever going to the GOP state convention, and I’m not going to waste my time debating its platform. I can, however, read it. I get that a lot of it is simple red meat, but it betrays a thought process that lacks in seriousness, that lacks in sophisticated consideration of what might happen if you actually got your way. To wit:
A lot of gays are fiscally conservative, for a lot of reasons. Given the choice between fiscal conservatism or a party that accepts you as a human, most find it not too hard a choice.
A lot of Hispanics are socially conservative. That runs smack into the short-memory nativism on display in the GOP.
A lot of women may be both fiscally and socially conservative, but the patronizing assaults on women’s health and the propensity of some less evolved candidates to make utterances on violent crime against women are just too much.
These are three demographics in which the GOP lags far behind. Showing some restraint in the party ideology – in other words, not tolerating the craziest wing – might actually net them a bigger tent than what they’re doing now.
Cuffy if gays are more swayed by perceived intolerance of their lifestyles which will have no impacts on them more than their own financial interests there is no point in pandering to them.
Same with Hispanics. Same with wimmin. Same with blacks too. In all cases you are assuming people with less regard for their financial solidarity are going to be ripe for repubs if only the repubs will lie and pander as well as democrats do. Meanwhile we have gays in our families that we get along with and we marry between races. OMG.
Are you fucking kidding, Danny? Intolerance that has no impact on them? I’d say marriage rights have impacts on them. I’d say an atmosphere that tolerates bullying, gay-bashing, and discrimination impacts them. Would you hang out with people who share a hobby of yours while thinking you’re beneath contempt?
How about an atmosphere in which you’re routinely pulled over and asked for your papers, to prove you belong in the country in which you were born. Does that have an impact?
You’ve missed your time and place, Danny. The 1840s would have been perfect for you.
Tracy, why does the Republican Party need the goldbugs?
As John Galt has very sensibly asked, wouldn’t they be better off by jettisoning the nuts and welcoming the moderates?
But, alas, they seem to have no interest in being rational.
JG, it is an interesting political calculus, no? The points you make are exactly the same being made by the establishment GOP. The trouble is, of course, that such arguments fail to sway in most primary contests. The conservative gay/Hispanic/female unicorn is likely not going to be voting in a GOP primary. Come the general election, the party plank rhetoric gets played down, and the more radical planks are quietly ignored in polite conversation – and it happens with both parties.
The problem for the GOP in the last two presidential elections has been that the milquetoast candidates advanced by the GOP did not sway the conservative gay/Hispanic/female unicorns; they voted for Obama anyway. But these same milquetoast candidates did manage to really piss off the base, who stayed home in droves. C’est la vie – we get the DOJ, IRS, HHS and VA we deserve.
Open primaries and non-gerrymandered district boundaries, on the other hand, might make for some very interesting results.
“…it happens with both parties.”
Would you care to offer any equally nutty tidbits from the Democratic Party’s 2012 platform? Because I don’t think you can.
Owl, if you’ll consult the Firearms section on p. 18 of the Dem platform, you find some language you will no doubt consider innocuous, but which people like myself view as extremely dangerous. I invite you to compare that language to the dreaded “gold bug” section on p. 4 of the GOP platform. I find that language innocuous; it seems to be giving you conniptions. See what I mean?
Now consider actual outcomes. Reagan, the most successful conservative president of modern times, did not take us back to a gold standard. Do you think the Paul-istas will have any chance of success tilting at that particular windmill? Dems, on the other hand, have brought us gems like the NY un-SAFE act. Were I a resident of the dreary People’s Republik of NY, you can safely assume I’d be among the hundreds of thousands non-compliant with the MSR registration requirements of the law (http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/despite-deadline-protesters-8216will-not-comply8217-with-safe-act-20140415). When it comes time to sew that yellow star on my sleeve, Gov. Cuomo would first have to find me. I’m not going to volunteer that information, any more than the majority of semi-auto owning New Yorkers.
No Cuffy, I’m not kidding. I tolerate gays but I don’t have to accept them. You’re exactly the same too. You tolerate those of us you disagree with politically but you’ll never accept us. You tolerate Christians but won’t accept their issues as legitimate. So? Somewhere about the age of 5 or so most people begin to realize the world doesn’t revolve around them. For some reason most liberals never seem to grasp that.
I have never pulled anyone over and demanded papers. What was that about? Are you saying all Hispanics are illegals now?
Get a clue big boy, nobody cares about you more than you. Most people don’t care about you at all.
I don’t give a shit whether you tolerate gays or hate them, Danny. We are talking about the political platform for a party that hopes to be elected to legislate portions of their platform. And if one party is seeking to legislate discrimination based on their particular interpretation of their fairy tales, then it is entire right to call them out on it and if I were the target, that would certainly trump any other issues.
Hispanics in Arizona and elsewhere have found that police officers have “probable cause” to think they might be illegals based primarily on the color of their skin.
What possible issues do American Christians have? You are the dominant majority of the public, virtually all elected officials are (or at least claim to be) Christians. Our school and work schedules revolve around Christian holidays. But you do not get to legislate your discriminatory beliefs into our secular government – we are finally coming around to that and people like you are losing their minds at the thought that you aren’t the chosen ones any more. Get over it.
Now, if you were an American Christian being accused of apostasy and threatened with being stoned to death in the Sudan because your father was Muslim and you married a Christian, then you’d have a point. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth.
Tracy, are you reading the same platform I’m reading?
“Firearms. We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation. We understand the terrible consequences of gun violence; it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, and our time here is limited and precious. We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms. We can focus on effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system, and we can work together to enact commonsense improvements—like reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole—so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.”
And your “conniptions” revolve around what text there, exactly?
Meanwhile, regarding the Republican platform’s call for a metallic basis rather than fiat currency, you state that “I find that language innocuous”, when this morning you said, “I certainly don’t [support fringe ideas such as a return to the gold standard], nor do I support any monetary standard based on any other commodity or basket of commodities.” So are you being inconsistent or hypocritical?
man I thought this was a dead zone down here. Cuffy you have anger issues. Chosen ones? Who talks like that? Somebody with a very large chip on his shoulder. Now that makes me smile to know that. Trudge on pitiful one.
I note the envious are continuing to bleat for more free stuff. Titty babies are cute up to about 2. Then they get fussy as displayed here.
How, pray tell, is asking for higher taxes — not just on me and my family, but on others at my level and above — “bleating for more free stuff”?
You’re as incoherent, incompetent, and asinine as your shit-kicking comrades.
that was easy
Ms Owl, give as much as you want, and convince as many of your fellow liberals to do the same. And then continue to allow your liberal bosses to dictate how it will be spent. Spend it on yourselves, all of it. Make yourself as happy as you can by pooling your resources and letting others tell you how it will benefit you.
I like the anger. It humors me.
See, the inane argument that conservative propagandists like to present is that those in favor of higher taxes have to “donate” extra money to the government to be credible, or that environmentalists must, individually, engage in extreme acts of sacrifice to “prove” their beliefs before expecting any legislative compulsion at all upon others.
Like most items of regular conservative cant, this one is ridiculous.
We don’t expect those who advocate military action against foreign powers to forsake their work and families and go join up with mercenary groups and security firms.
We don’t expect those who oppose abortion to head down to the adoption clinic and come back with a six-pack of infants (though, certainly, there are some who believe we should).
We don’t expect those who advocate a higher minimum wage to immediately start paying all their employees more, or those who advocate industrial pollution controls to immediately install expensive remediation equipment, when such actions would also put them at an immediate competitive disadvantage and drive them out of business. (At least, if we’re intelligent, logical citizens with a grasp of economic reality we don’t.)
Apparently many conservatives have retreated to their own fantasy world, since reality has a liberal bias. It’s an adolescent sort of libertarian swagger, full of bluster but empty of sense.
keep us posted on your worthless musings ms owl.
Many of us that have supported military action in foriegn nations have served. Should we be the only ones with a voice on the matter? Seems many think so, unless active duty or veterans actually support foriegn action.
Only people that adopt or have been adopted have a voice on the abortion issue? Guess that gives me and my parents a whole lot more credibility on that matter.
As for your example of more pollution controls hurting competition and driving companies out of business, that is exactly what the AGW advocates want for all companies in leading economies, but don’t touch China or India, and make those leading economies give poor nations loads of cash.
“As for your example of more pollution controls hurting competition and driving companies out of business, that is exactly what the AGW advocates want for all companies in leading economies, but don’t touch China or India….”
Bullshit. Apparently you disdain the capacity of your own country to prosper through innovation. One might ponder whether that’s a result of your own intellectual limitations.
China came out and applauded President Obama’s greenhouse-gas proposal, then mentioned plans of their own. We can’t very well be a world leader if we don’t lead, can we? It’s similar to the way we had to get our own civil-rights house in order when we wanted to have status to challenge the Soviet Union on the treatment of their own citizens, back in the 1950s and 60s. But apparently you are as ignorant of history as you are of science.
Dan, I can assure you there is absolutely nothing you possess that I desire.
except my dollars oh envious one
Nonsense.
Dan, better hide your money, oh rich one. 🙂
no worries Tutts, DanMa’am already gets it
How about the liberals:
Traded five top Taliban terrorist for one deserter.
Warehousing illegal immigrant children in an air force hanger.
Again, spokesman out in force lying about both.
The continuation of waivers and delays in Obamacare.
The influx of illegal border crossings since the liberals talked amnesty.
Real weighty issues provided by the empty suit community organizer.
Now we have the princess in a pants suit saying they were completely broke when they bought two houses. How does that work? She is already starting with the lies.
And of course she will have to drag around the dead bodies of the Ambassador from Benghazi and the other three American’s while she is free to travel the country.
Obama, the parents of the soldiers that died looking for the deserter wants to know why?
Go ahead, base the 2016 campaign on that. I double dog dare ya!
I triple dog dare you. It will be fun watching you get your tongue stuck to the pole.
Let’s see….
Blinding incompetence at English plurals: “five top Taliban terrorist”, “spokesman out in force”; “the other three American’s”, “the parents… wants to know why”;
Ignorance of capitalization and/or spelling: “air force hanger”;
Feckless personalization of larger political issues: “the empty suit community organizer”, “the princess in a pants suit”.
Yes, this is the level of intellect, education, and careful thought which the Tea Party promises in all its positions and policies.
Which is why they’re such amusing, though also dangerous, idiots.
Hit a nerve huh? That all you got? (have?) Face it, it is going to be a very grim 2014 and 2016 as you liberal loons will be hyper focused on the TEA Party which is all you really have. NO record and I mean NO record of accomplishment and there is a strong dose of Obama fatigue out there which is directly tied to Hillary, the one who purchases two houses while broke. That is how the 1% operate I guess.
So go ahead and ‘correct’ my comments like a third grade teacher but leave the heavy issues to the grown ups.
You live in a state that is overwhelmingly conservative yet you act like your opinion is mainstream. Far from it. Very far from it. All you liberals have is trying to put down conservatives because you have no record of accomplishment or core of belief. Just “I hate you guys”, so as turtles says, “you guys run on that.”
Kabuzz, I’m glad you’re at least honest and self-aware enough to admit that you write at a third-grade level.
a casing is due at any moment
Buzzy – Come on I do not hate you. I nothing you.
turtlehead is so deep today
DanMan, the liberals here put all their marbles on The One and it is crashing and burning around them. They are grasping I tell you. Desperate. They thought they had a genius in office and it turned out he is close to a close minded idiot.
I’ve never thought Obama is a genius. He’s smarter than George W. Bush, sure, but that’s practically damning with faint praise.
In any case, Obama was a clearly superior choice to Romney, just as he was to McCain. I’m no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I suspect I’ll find her a preferable choice to whatever nincompoop prostitutes his or her way out of the Republican primary process.
Maybe instead of posting hopeful propaganda here, kabuzz, you should go and actually answer some of the requests made elsewhere of you for documentation. Oh, but, right: that would require knowledge and courage, both of which you appear to lack. In spades.
what’s your favorite thing about Obama owl?
DanMan, it doesn’t matter. Owly basically said he is The One without even knowing it. Also, Hillary has Owly’s vote no matter what.
I think it is genetic in their party. They accuse others of what they themselves actually do.
yep, we were having dinner with some couples last week and one of them are die hard liberals. They were grousing about Obama and how stupid he is being about the VA and Bergdahl. They can’t wait to vote for Hillary though. The one he vanquished 6 years ago is somehow better than he is I guess. Obama is a real stemwinder of a failure in my estimation but he is way smarter than the people that voted for him.
If the Republicans were to run someone who didn’t kowtow to the religious right on social issues (as the Tea Party continues to insist that they don’t), and who proposed a “soft landing” on fiscal responsibility, reining in government spending in both defense and social programs while also increasing taxes to accommodate Americans’ desired level of spending, then I would happily vote for him or her.
But the modern G.O.P. wouldn’t think of such a thing. Nor would most of the conservative gum-flappers who plague these forums.
Because you really *do* care about social issues, despite frequently squalling otherwise, and insist on inflicting your own medieval mores on everyone else. And you don’t actually care about *responsible* changes in government finances so much as the sheer glee of insisting that radical change happen immediately, so that you can bitch and moan and play the martyr when it doesn’t, since we still, thank goodness, have at least some responsible people in the legislative part of government.
Ms Owl reveals her inner demons. Strawmen. Notice the phrase “Americans desired level of spending”, child when there is no restrictions there are no levels to set. Liberals equate deficit spending consequences like I treat gorebull worming concerns. Wonder what the weather’s like in Greece today?
Then in the end, Owl, you support those that kowtow to atheists, those that reject God outright as you do. You support those that want to raise taxes and raise spending in order to advance your socialist or ccommunist desires, to control and micromanage everybody else.
You want radical change to happen immediately, as with the PPACA (though Obama keeps delaying that) or a completely socialist system like “single payer”.
You are the extremist.
And, again, Sternn, bullshit.
“you support those that kowtow to atheists”
Really? How? I merely don’t support kowtowing to Christians. Your shock at that reversal of centuries of practice may explain your own bitter neediness and crabby mendacity.
“You support those that want to raise taxes and raise spending in order to advance your socialist or ccommunist desires, to control and micromanage everybody else.”
What a fucking moron you are. No, I have no desire to “control and micromanage” everybody else; that’s your own delusions talking. Yes, I think we should raise taxes somewhat. As for spending, I think we *could* productively raise federal expenditures, but we could also have a rational, fact-based conversation about what kind of government American citizens want to experience *and* pay for, and decide to limit spending to something like current levels. So, again, you’re talking through your hat. Or is it your ass?
“You want radical change to happen immediately, as with the PPACA (though Obama keeps delaying that) or a completely socialist system like ‘single payer’.”
And, again, bullshit. Changing instantaneously to a single-payer system would have caused chaos — much like the Tea Party’s bone-headed insistence that we immediately and without warning limit government spending by cutting off borrowing power. The ship of state, like any large vessel, needs to make wide, slow turns to avoid capsizing. You’ll note that I elsewhere talked of a “soft landing” for fiscal responsibility, consisting of slow, well-marked, changes in taxes and spending, announced far in advance. Much, in fact, like our slow and continuing shift into the paradigm of the ACA.
“You are the extremist.”
And, again, you’re a delusionary piker.
When polled, a majority of Americans have supported the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (particularly when they’re quizzed about it without it being named); the only part for which they express disapproval is the independent mandate… which is, of course, the part crafted by Republicans, back before they went collectively insane and were still reliable as voices of fiscal responsibility.
Democrats didn’t shut down the government. That was Ted Cruz and his ilk, remember, rambling on about *Green Eggs and Ham* and blithely (or idiotically) indifferent to the fact that their own children’s text undercut their own panicked rejection of change. It’s not Democrats who demand instant and disruptive change, but the fatuous forces of the Tea Party in their collective hebephrenia.
You have a childish, fringe view of constitutional interpretation, rejected by decades if not centuries of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and by clear majorities of the American public, who want a government more in line with the requirements of an urbanized, 21st-century, industrial state rather than a bucolic, 18th-century, agricultural one. That requires some regulation — but not utter control or micromanagement, despite your own extremist and misleading rants.
You call *me* the “extremist”? No, Sternn; that’s you. You’re a voice in the wilderness, howling to the shadows of what was. Why don’t you just go ahead and choke on your own impotent rage while you’re at it?
Out of the politcal morass will slouch a boring, gray (but competent) figure who will immediately inspire all of us to elect it to the highest position in The American Plan? Zounds! I had better order another case of barf bags and bone up on re-runs of The Waltons…
Talk about derpapalooza. Has anyone read the funny carp the Texas GOTP is pushing out it backside.
under 1-4 Return the appointment of U.S. Senators by the State
Legislatures.
but in the very next item they complain about the appointment of unelected bureaucrats
1-5 We decry the appointment of unelected bureaucrats, and we urge
Congress to use their constitutional authority to defund and
abolish these positions and return authority to duly elected
officials, accountable to the electorate
Make up your minds guys either you want to elect representatives or you do not want them elected by the people
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/5-craziest-planks-draft-texas-gop-platform-ban-morning-after-pill-ending-direct-election-sen
The science and education section is weapons-grade derp.
But it fits with an anti-vax plank and the fact that they still erroneously call the morning after pill an abortifacient.
The anti-vax position really puzzles me. On one hand you constantly read how these clowns claim that undocumented workers are bringing in all these diseases but at the same time think their kids will be fine without being vaccinated.
Of course it would not be a Republican platform without mentioning Agenda 21 and withdrawing from the UN.
DERP
As recently as during my father’s childhood, the thought of polio struck fear in millions of parents. Talk about failure to learn from history. Here’s a deal for them, no vax, then you go live in quarantine.
…in Somalia.
There are a very small number of children who should not be vaccinated for health reasons – a very, very small number. For the rest, a parental decision to not vaccinate is child abuse, pure and simple. You are exposing your children to potentially deadly diseases based on fraudulent science popularized by empty headed celebrities. You rely on the responsibility of others vaccinating their children to provide a modicum of protection, yet that protection can easily break down, as seen in a number of whooping cough and measles outbreaks recently. The decision not to vaccinate is simply one of the most ignorant and damaging decisions that otherwise devoted parents could make.
The anti-vaxers always remind me of a line delivered by the Merlin character in the movie “Excalibur”- The trouble with men is that they are doomed to forget. Our vaccination programs have been so successful that people forget what a scourge smallpox was. They forget about children in iron lungs and ending up paralyzed when polio swept through communities. It’s always ironic to be a victim of your own success.
Ok, Turtles, which is it? Do you support the repeal of the 17th amendment, thereby supporting presidential power to appoint a self-avowed communist as a czar? Or do you support the 17th amendment and oppose presidential power t appoint a self-avowed communist as a czar? According to you, it has to be one or the other.
Never been a fan of Commies, but I’m missing the part of the Constitution that bans them from elected or appointed office.
And I’m perfectly fine with the 17th Amendment.
Sternn, you’ve become not only incompetent, but also incoherent.
The two of you just heard that “whooshing” sound go over your heads. I wonder if you iknew what it was?
Stern, we totally get your point. We also consider it to be out of touch with reality.
Well, Fly, you should explain that to Turtles since he obviously doesn’t get the point, or he would have posted his comment.
TR is more than capable of speaking for himself. The whole 17th Amendment issue is a worthless distraction. It’s an issue that has already been settled for the best, and returning to it is a poor excuse for neglecting more difficult and relevant decisions that need to be made.
That “whooshing sound”?
Sure, Sternn. It was the sound of air rushing to try to fill the utter vacuum that has replaced your brain.
Cappy – I am perfectly happy with the direct election of Senators to congress to represent the people of their state. I also do no give two squirts of you know what for the ideology of a person appointed by the President as long as they are competent.
So, Turtles, now you are trashing your own comment. Maybe you should give some thought before posting next time?
Sternn, quit fucking around and try to make some sense.
Assuming you’re even capable of such — which, apparently, you’re not.
Owl – DITTO
Your comment pretty much summed up my feeling towards Cappy’s comment.
Well, at least Fly is intelligent enough to see the inconsistency of the comment by Turtles.
flypusher did no such thing.
But lying wouldn’t be unusual for you, Sternn.
Sternn, kindly keep your words out of my posts. Owl is exactly right. You’re throwing up a major ink cloud, which fools no one. If you don’t want to comment on the TX GOP platform, just say so rather than attack people.
Again Turtles demonstrates his lack of knowledge of history and the constitution.
Would you care to specify how, kabuzz?
Or will you just do that drive-by and then run away, like the cowardly partisan shill that you are?
Please school us. But give me 5 minutes to pop some popcorn because this should be good.
It looks like Kowardly Kabuzz has done the expected.
Exactly, I do predict that soon he and his buddies will start patting each other on the back and declare they have somehow won the arguments. Like this is some sort of contest.
believe me when I suggest it is no contest lightweights
Too much of one for kabuzz, apparently.
And for you.
Wow, such incompetence and impotence on display.
Example of batshit crazy.
Because they just can’t stop doing goofy things, we have the Tea Party dominated Texas convention that endorsed conversion therapy to convert gays to straights (discredited as damaging by every thinking person) and other rambling about bad gay people.
So, inept folks who do not actively do things to harm gay people or highly effective folks doing active harm to gay folks?
The Tea Party folks touted how much influence they had on the Texas GOP platform, so be sure to remind us how the TP is only focused on fiscal issues.
I guess you are still a single issue voter, HT. And no matter how many times it is explained to you, you are simply incapable of grasping reality. Then again, you follow the party that rejected God in their national convention. Your “leaders” had to ignore the will of their own people to avoid having it be part of their platform. They knew how bad that would be. So worry about the beam in your own eye.
I’m moderately sure that “rejecting god” did little to hurt god’s feelings or cause psychological trauma leading god to contemplate suicide. So, no harm was done to god.
Plenty of harm in reparative therapy.
Certainly not a single issue voter, but a host of social issues is well worth a 3% increase in my top marginal tax rate.
Let’s explore your comment a bit more regarding removing a reference to god in a political party platform.
You could ask they question, “why are we referencing god at all in a political party platform?”, but hey, to you, that seems somehow important.
So, the Democrats briefly removed reference to god in a political platform (evidently, this fits a Biblical definition of blasphemy and/or heresy) in an attempt to be more inclusive since many people in the US do not believe in god. Incidentally, the Democrats, like always, caved and re-inserted the language.
Removing reference to god does not adversely affect god-believing people since mentioning god in a political party’s platform likely does little to sway god’s to allow you into heaven if you vote for candidates whose political party mentions god in their platform.
So, increases inclusiveness while not hurting anyone…and that is bad?
Condemning gay folks and endorsing reparative conversion therapy for gays…seems to not be all that inclusive and seems like just going out of your way to be mean to gay people…and you think that is good?
You mock the Democrats leadership for going against the will of the folks at the convention. Sometimes, it is important for leaders to lead. Doing the right, and sometimes unpopular thing in order to be more inclusive to a relatively small group of people in the country that do not believe in god.
Meanwhile, the GOP/TP happily plant a flag in the ground of condemning gay folks. That folks, is true leadership (and sadly reflects the thinking of too many of their members).
“You could ask they question, “why are we referencing god at all in a political party platform?”, but hey, to you, that seems somehow important.”
To paraphrase Cpt Kirk – “Why does god need to be referenced in the platform of a major American political party?”
Or more to the point, if it’s all about the fiscal issues, and the Christian Right has zilch to do with the Tea Party, why was this subject even broached?
Twist and squirm and make excuses, HT. I have not read the latest platform, but if what you say is true, it only shows that the libertarian leaning tea party movement doesn’t have as much pull with the Texas GOP as you claim. You destroyed your own argument.
No true Scotsmen anywhere.
Stern…I do not understand your definitions of “twist and squirm” in reference to what I wrote.
It all seems pretty clear, and I’m awfully comfortable in my interpretation, so I’m kinda curious about what I’m twisting and squirming.
You (and Buzz) often bring up “squirming” or “spinning” in reference to comments, and I’ve never understood what you are referencing.
Saying it is stupid to reference god in a party platform is not squirming or twisting. It is doubly stupid to be arguing over referencing god in a party platform.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that the GOP platform generally includes some mighty unpleasant things about gay folks.
Someone above suggested that the GOP shouldn’t pander to gays, and if they are conservatives and concerned about fiscal issues, they should vote for the GOP. I have a hunch it is a bit difficult to vote for a political party that states as a formal position that your existence “tears at the fabric of society”.
Regarding your other statement about clearly the TP does not have influence if the party platform has this type of crap and how that somehow “destroys” my argument. That is a very interesting interpretation. Aside from the really obvious No True Scotsman mindset, my argument is that at least here in Texas, the TP and the social conservatives are the same people.
Some of the tea party movement will be social conservatives, some will not. But that is outside the movement itself.
Sternn claims there is a movement, then that there is *no* movement, at least not one that you can actually point a finger at when there’s blame to be assessed.
Like most of conservative pseudo-reality, his world of fantasy appears to be malleable to however he feels at the moment, and whatever is necessary to fit his current whimsy.
It’s a deeply childish way of conducting politics, let alone of looking at the world.
Captain, not to worry. Homer’s usual hyperbole. There is no TEA Party dominated convention. I only wish. And Homer can’t seem to understand that there are plenty of dem’s that oppose homosexual marriage. Again, beam/eye.
There do seem to be lots of TP groups congratulating themselves on their big influence at the convention…yet folks just cannot help but going out of their way to slam some gay folks for absolutely no reason.
No worries, I’m sure this will help draw young people to your party.
Ah! Condemning them. You are on an all out tangent on making shit up as you go along. Care to share a link to the condemnation? And your answer to the Captain was just pitiful. Talking about spinning. Man, I am sure you are a dem working in their machine.
Buzz…you know…you are right.
For the first time in memory, the Texas GOP/TP took the extremely progressive stand to remove language that “homosexuality tears at the fabric of society”. This progressive stand upset a fair chunk of folks.
Rather, they simply endorsed reparative conversion therapy to turn gays straight.
Let us follow this line of thinking. In a document focusing on fiscal issues, governance, immigration, and, of course, freedom, the GOP/TP took time to add some lines about converting gays to straights.
Hard to figure out the motivation for something like that. Well, it actually isn’t hard to figure out the motivation, it is just sad.
Homer, it is a waste of my time to school you on how conventions work, how things come up for vote, how they funnel down at the national convention. All this is beyond you. Save it for the heavy lifters,
Buzz…I’d probably be willing to pay you cash money to be schooled by you.
Let me summarize…you heavy hitters don’t like gay people?
Or maybe it is just you really active people in the GOP, who really have an influence…don’t like gay people?
And all democrats love all gay people, HT?
Certainly no Stern, yet somehow the Democrats manage to put together an entire party platform without saying homosexuality tears at the fabric of society.
The Democrats, some of whom dislike gay folks, managed to avoid the need to go out of there way to discuss reparative conversion therapy in a party platform.
Odd that the GOP seems to really, really need to put in something bad about homosexuals.
Fuck God.
And fuck you, Sternn.
You’re blathering and raving again.
You have my pity, Owl. But it does explain why you are so filled with hate and rage.
I don’t need *your* pity. But you certainly have mine.
And so does Tutt.
Thanks, but no thanks.
must of been a real bender last night for the scowl, have some menudo buddy
Owl Casing
List of Ingredients:
Bitter bile secretions
Little substance
Liberal sprinkling of insults and common swear words
Free grammar check (Always welcome on my part)
I see Owl is putting that Rice education to good use.
“American voters are trapped between crazy and inept.”
While most things that can be put into a nutshell ought to stay there, that’s a wonderfully concise summation of the thoughtful voters’ dilemma.
As much as I hate inept, I hate crazy even more.
Yes, Democrats frequently big the hell out of me.
But Republicans are consistently worse.
Why, oh why can’t we have a multi-party system, to allow different camps to stake out their own political turf rather than distort everything into a bipolar struggle that bundles together completely unrelated issues?
Were it within my power, I would gleefully dismantle all the rules that entrench the two-party duopoly.
Those damn, damn, damn them all! Damn it! Politics can be addition by subtraction and multiplication by division. I do not believe. I’ve been considering going down to the street to the local GOP office, or maybe the Democrats, or maybe both. Guess that makes me bi-political. I could probably lie effectively to either sort. I’m good at it.
I think the real objective is to bring your idiots to the polls and make the rest of us are so disgusted, or perhaps de-motivated, that your party wins the election in a landslide in their carefully crafted isolation zone-er, district.
So when do I get the Al Franken vs. Dan Patrick cage match? They are probably sane when you talk to them one on one, but when you get them in front of the audience they become “batshit crazy.”
If hardly anyone gets involved in the primary process, you get what you deserve. At least that is how I see it.
That explains the bat-shit crazy careening into the ditch of the Republican Party as least as much, if not far more than, the ineffectual floundering of the Democrats.
“…Democrats interpreted the results to mean that Americans loved them…”
As has been the case with most victorious political parties. Sometimes, when you win, it just means that the voters hated you less than your opponent. Successful political careers could begin with this realization.
This entry really shows the disconnect from relaity that the left suffers from. The nation was war weary by 2006, which is sad because this war will carry on for a generation or more. The nation has already fogotten what happened in September of 2001. We have abandoned Iraq and will soon abandon Afghanistan, but that doesn’t end things. Iraq has been turned over to al Qaeda after they were defeated there and on the run in the rest of the world. The Taliban and al Qaeda will rise again in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration has forwarded this by freeing five of the Taliban leaders.
But that is not the disconnect you are showing. Democrats are reasonable? Seriously? They won big in 2008 and gave us $1.5 trillion deficits and the PPACA. Republicans won the house in 2010 and decided that they should actually pass a budget and address those deficits, and you call that “batshit crazy”. Democrats are reasonable, in your words, because they refuse to pass budgets and bring us those deficits, but blame republicans.
The economy is stagnant, unemployment and under employment are extremely high, house republicans pass bills to allow the economy to recover and create jobs and you call that “batshit crazy”. Senate democrats will not even discuss those bills, they stamp their feet, close their eyes, cover their ears and shout, “I can’t hear you” and you call that reasonable.
Republicans pass budgets and funding bills for the federal government, and you call that “batshit crazy”. Democrats, like spoiled, petulant children, shut down the federal government and went out of their way to hurt people as much and as publicly as possible, and you call that reasonable and blame republicans.
We need adults in the government, adults that will respect and treat the people as adults. Taht is what the tea party movement is trying to do, but the children call us “batshit crazy” and want nothing to do with being treated as adults. Maybe because that would include taking responsibility as adults?
History shows that democrats have held control over the federal government for decades on end. That started changing back in 1994 and things were improving. But then Bush43 won in 2000 and the republicans lost their way on spending and domestic issues. But it was the wars that people were weary of, and that is why democrats won in 2006 and 2008. People saw how bad that was and went with republicans in 2010. Both sides held the status quo in 2012. Then again, a government that can do nothing is far, far better than what it was doing while democrats held absolute power.
A screed proving that, if not batshit crazy, there is a long, long gap between the world as it exists in your head and the real one.
Bravo Captain. What democrat’s fear is real history even if it is recent. They prefer the rewrite as JG just proved. Now the left is coming out with a movie that shows the Koch brothers started the TEA Party movement. Take a minute to digest that. Two liberals have spent time, money and production costs to tell the liberals what they already parrot. Now that is batshit crazy.
Now a major network is planning an hour ‘conversation’ with Hillary even though she hasn’t declared herself a candidate for president. Now why would the left do that? They think the American people are batshit crazy and can’t figure out the network news is trying again to rig the game.
Overall it is sad. Since the 60’s the GOP has gotten hammered by the left and the MSM but continued to grow strong non the less. I am encouraged by the upcoming elections and more than encourage in 2016 since Obama’s baggage is now Hillary’s and there certainly is an Obama fatigue that has set in.
In chimes Kabuzz to reinforce the separation from reality.
Private sector employment is up by 5 million jobs since Obama took office (according to the BLS). From the employment trough in January 2010, 12 months after he took office (107.2 million) it’s now 116.6 million. Public sector employment, in contrast, is down significantly, by about 700,000 jobs in the last 6 years. So the private sector is growing and the number of government employees is dropping. Corporate after-tax profits are at record levels
The budget deficit in FY2009, which includes 5 months in which your demon was not in office, was $1.4 trillion. It has dropped every year since, to $680 million. At 4.1% GDP, this is exactly the average deficit of the Reagan years. Federal spending was 20.8% GDP in 2013, a lower number than all but one Reagan years. The average over the last 50 years is 20.3%. Keep in mind this is all after the worst recession in 80 years and one that was precipitated by a fiscal crisis, which four centuries of economic history tells us take longer from which to recover than other kinds of crashes.
Things are actually getting better, in most ways outside the paranoid mind of the right-winger. This is seen in your delusional assignment of blame. The government shut down was precipitated by democrats? That’s asinine. It wasn’t Dems reading Dr. Seuss books on TV. Even GOPers place blame squarely on Sen. Cruz. Dems have not passed 40+ bills to repeal the ACA. The GOP passes budgets – awesome, and Obama submits budgets. They’re both bits of naked political posturing without basis in reality. The Senate refuses to debate them, because what’s the point. The real work of budgeting is done in conference committees.
Delusional. The sad thing is that if the GOP looked like adults, rather that electing self-aggrandizing blowhards like Cruz, you’d have a real shot of winning in 2014 an 2016. As it stands, the GOP will make incremental gains in 2014 that will doom them two years later.
I will certainly make a note to look you up in 2014. Even though you are saying the opposite of what all experts are saying including the job numbers and the economy, at best stagnate.
I will give you kudo’s for being a loyal follower of Obama, your demon.
Um, Kabuzz, it’s 2014 *now*.
Apparently you are, as usual, just an incompetent idiot.
John, the last republican deficit was a whopping $161 billion. Obama labeled that as unpatriotic. Guess he thought it was much too low.
Yes, things are getting a little better for some, and very slowly. But nowhere near as good as things were when democrats gained control of the federal government.
By the way, you do understand that Bush43 never signed the 2009 budget, right?
The last Budget for Bush was 2009. No matter how many times you want to ignore that fact it still does not change it. If the 2009 budget was not his then why would he need to sign it in the first place.
All you have done is proven GOPlifer’s article correct. Both sides do suck but I will take inept over bat-shait crazy any any day of the week.
Congress writes and passes the budget, Turtles. The democrats did that for the fiscal year 2009, Bush43 refused to sign it. Obama signed it when he took office.
Created under Bush’s watch and enacted under his watch. The final spending bills were signed by Obama. Why? because some items like the wars were kept off the original budget submitted to make it appear the deficit is lower. After revenues and outlays are accounted for the final Bush budget was $1.4T in the red.
Whether he signed the budget or not he submitted it and the Congress wrote the final resolution for 2009. No credible economist claims the 2009 budget was not part of the Bush years.
Sorry Charley
Again, Turtles, congress writes and passes the budgets. Bush43 would not sign it. Though the wars were not on the budget, congress voted to fund them and they were counted as part of the deficit. You really should take some basic civics classes. Sure, it was the last few months of Bush43’s second term, but democrats own it, the deficit, the stimulus, and over $7 trillion in new debt.
Bush argued for and signed a $152 billion handout early in 2008. He then pushed for (and signed) a $700 billion bailout bill in October of 2008 that counted towards the record deficit of FY2009, which began on Oct. 1, 2008.
Bush may not have signed the final FY09 budget, but he did sign numerous CRs that funded the government at roughly FY08 levels. These accounted for the first third of the fiscal year.
This idea that deficits are solely the responsibility of Democrats is simply wrong, or should we trot out the numbers from the Reagan and Bush administrations again, comparing them to Bill Clinton?
John, you seem to keep forgetting one very important fact, I and many other conservatves were no fans of Bush43 or TARP. Yes, under Bush43, republicans were spending too much and making domestic policy mistakes. That is why the tea party movement started while Bush43 was in office.
But what the republicans did pales in comparison to what democrats have done since the beginning of 2007. Democrats didn’t even have to write and pass TARP, so you can’t pawn that one off either.
But the left is consistent, trying to blame everything from the deficits to Obamacare on Bush43 and republicans in general. It is really telling that none of you want to own it, but own it you and democrats do.
Own what? Responsible economic stewardship? The tea party is based entirely on economic ignorance. Let’s see, the economy is tanking and the budget deficit is $1.4 trillion. So let’s remove another 10% of the economy and see what happens? Maintaining federal government spending (which is largely salary or transfer payments to recipients) was essential to maintain some sense of consumer spending. Bailing out the banks, particularly AIG, was the least awful decision.
“But the left is consistent, trying to blame everything from the deficits to Obamacare on Bush43 and republicans in general.”
It takes a lot of chutzpah to claim this, given that you blame everything from deficits to droughts on Obama and democrats.
JG, I don’t know if your ignorance is feigned or real. Do you even know how government works?
On the TEA Party, where is removing 10% of the economy on the TEA Party agenda? This is the kind of batshit crazy stuff you liberals spew that just makes sane people shake their heads in wonder.
If GW Bush didn’t sign the budget that the democrat congress passed it is a special veto. Do you know what it is called? But Obama gladly signed it.
For four years democrats had control of the purse strings, oversight and regulation. From 06 to 10. They did a bang up job didn’t they? The economy collapsed.
What the democrats have done and continue to do is not responsible economic stewardship. It is a disaster and has been since January 2007. That’s back when unemployment was below 5% and the economy was growing at about 4%.
Then exactly what did they do in 2007 that caused the economic meltdown. Because the last time I asked you you claimed the 2010 ACA caused the meltdown. So what specific legislation did the Democrats pass over the Republican is Congress and President Bush that cause such economic calamity.
Please be very specific.
John Galt
When Reagan was office Congress passed budgets $4.7 billion lower than the budgets Reagan requested. So even the patron saint of the GOTP was incapable of living up to the fiscal standards demanded by the tea party types.
Of course Cappy will claim he was not a fan of Reagan and Bush II and I am going to bet Bush I as well. For a person that faults Democrats for everything from economic malaise to Miley Cyrus it is hard to phantom how none of these Republicans had a hand in the economic mess we are in now.
1982
Reagan proposed a budget of $508 billion
Congress passed a budget of $515 billion, a $7.1 billion increase.
1983: Congress passed a budget $8.7 billion higher than Reagan requested.
1984: Congress passed a budget $17.1 billion lower than Reagan requested.
1985, $5.3 billion lower than Reagan requested.
1986, $13.1 billion lower than Reagan requested.
1987, $3.7 billion lower than Reagan requested.
1988, $4.7 billion higher than Reagan requested.
1989, $14.1 billion higher than Reagan requested.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/02/07/fact-checking-palin-on-budget/
Raising the minimum wage caused a bit of damage, cost jobs and hindered a quicker recovery. And no, I never claimed the 2010 legislation caused the crash. That is just another one of your fantasies you substitute for reality.
The TP seemed to want to balance the budget immediately, using the threat of the debt ceiling (if not raised, this effectively means the government can spend no more than its tax revenues in that year). In FY09 the budget deficit was ~10% of GDP ($1.4 trillion and change out of about $15 trillion in GDP). Typing slowly, I remind you that the majority of government spending goes to salaries, transfer payments to beneficiaries, or contracts for goods and services with U.S. companies and so is returned to the economy in the form of consumer spending, mortgage payments, and the like. So this would have effectively evaporated ~10% of GDP while increasing poverty amongst beneficiaries and increasing unemployment in both the public and private sectors. Today, this would reduce GDP by 4%.
I find it incredible that even the simplest-minded moron would look at the ’08 crash and conclude that it happened because Congress had been controlled by the Democratic party for for a year or so.
A bit of damage? What specifically did the Democrats do that caused the downturn? Actual legislation that was passed without support from the GOP or President Bush?
The Fair Minimum Wage Increase of 2007 did not fully go into effect till 2009 and was offset by tax cut to businesses. It also had bi-partisan support and was signed by President Bush. Are you now claiming the GOTP is equally responsible?
Most of the federal spending is for entitlement programs, John.
There is enough revenue to pay for all the entitlement programs, defense, veterans’ benefits, interest on the debt with some left over for those salaries and things.
Now you are suggesting Bush43 was part of the tea party movement. Oh man, Turtles, you mwill have me rolling on the floor laughing with claims like that.
Feel free to put words in my mouth but the tea party was not born till after President Obama was elected. The fact that you have yet to provide proof of any official tea party groups or meeting prior to his election only demonstrates your inability to speak the truth.
JohnG, when you start your sentence of proof with “it seemed” you lost it. I thought you had no idea about the TEA Party. That is what is so entertaining about you liberals. You hate the TEA Party yet have no idea what they stand for. It’s like a sitcom except sad. I know Turtles believes talking points regardless of proof, but I didn’t think you did.
There is no official tea party, Turtles. Again, that is something followers can’t wrap their heads around. You are incapable of grasping the concept of independent and individual thought. You can choose to remain deliberately ignorant of reality and substitute your own fantasy world, that is your business.
The reality is that the tea party movement s made up of people like me, many of us either held noses and voted for republicans to avoid the damage democrats would and have now caused, or people that voted for a third party, or people that just stayed home because of the way republicans were behaving after Bush43 was elected.
I think what it really comes to is that you can’t see past the color of a person’s skin.
So Sternn, it is your position that as long as we pay for defense, entitlement programs for the elderly, and the VA, that is all the government needs to do? The economy would be utterly unaffected if hundreds of thousands of government employees were suddenly laid off, Highway Transportation Administration construction ends, the FAA ceases to exist, federally sponsored research disappears, and anti-poverty programs were left to the generosity of compassionate states like Texas and Mississippi? I definitely want some of whatever you’re smoking.
“You hate the TEA Party yet have no idea what they stand for.”
Given that you hold yourself up as a TEA Party person, and we can read your bat shit crazy, out of touch with reality posts on a daily basis, I dare say we’re getting a very good idea of what you people stand for. Which is way we say not “no”, but “HEY-ALL NO!!!!!”
“I think what it really comes to is that you can’t see past the color of a person’s skin.”
Dude that is some good shait you are smoking. Funny how you three stooges here love to throw out that Democrats use the race card constantly and yet here you are using it to further your disconnect from reality.
I see you still have no cited specific legislation passed solely by Democrats that tanked the economy like you claimed. Do not worry about it I know you are full of stuff.
Sternn has publicly stated, in this very forum, that the last president he regards as “conservative” was Hoover or Coolidge, at the latest.
The Tea Party really *does* want to build a bridge back to the nineteenth century, or at least most of the way there.
I have stated no such thing, Owl. Leave it to people like you to make up lies of the fly. After all, you make up new definitions for words on the fly as well.
News flash to all the civic illiterates like Sternn: presidents do not have to sign a bill for it to become law.
Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution (that document in which Sternn is supposedly expert and infallible — but actually infantile) states: “If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a Law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a Law.”
Now, if Bush had *really* disagreed with the spending levels set in any authorization / appropriation bill or continuing resolution, well, instead of being a spineless wanker, he could have actually vetoed them. Reagan frequently showed the same lack of political principle. But that’s the kind of shill these Tea Party types revere: weak-willed slackers who can be mis-represented as martyrs. It fits their voting demographic, too.
So, Sternn, now you’re running away from your own past statements? And over *Coolidge*, rather than, say, Confederate idolatry? You poor bastard.
Fine. Who *was* the last “conservative” U.S. president, in your own redoubtable opinion?
Or you could run away, and be a coward like kabuzz.
Oh look, Owl went and visited civics 101. News flash, owl, I already knew that. Glad you are starting to catch up. I will do all I can to continue your education.
Or I do as I have always done and refuse to answer your question. And you will do as you tend to do and lie about it again in the future.
Then why are you mis-representing “failure to sign” as some grand gesture of disagreement and disassociation rather than as sullen acquiescence, Sternn you political piss-pot?
I swear, as devoted as you are to grand displays of political martyrdom, you’d think we long since would have ceased to be bothered around here by your fatuous fecklessness. Would it were so.
Right: Sternn the coward, except when he wants to play at being the martyr, so long as the two roles aren’t incompatible.
You pitiful sad sack.
I too suffer from a disconnect from relaity. No more relays for me – ever!
“This entry really shows the disconnect from relaity that the left suffers from.”
I know it’s just Sternn’s gap-toothed, self-satisfied inadequacy at spelling, but I was struck by this latest lapse of English as a surprising truth. Out of the mouths of babes — or should it be bastards?
Yes, the Democratic Party *is* disconnected from “relaity”; they refuse to backslide from centuries of humanistic and political history by regarding themselves as laity who should be governed in their conduct and morality by an elect priesthood.
Asinine, thoughtless Republicans, on the other hand, seem bound and determined to relaicize the American public right back into the kind of hidebound theocracy that the United States was founded to escape — one of any number of ways in which their attitudes are dangerous, if not outright unconstitutionally treasonous.
I blame the 24/7 media, which misplaces too much of its focus on the crazies on both sides, and has gotten the American public addicted to the thrill of outrage and indignation, and social media, which just feeds on and perpetuates that outrage. We need to step back, take a deep breath, and take some time to read and think deeply before allowing ourselves to get carried away by public sentiment, before verbalizing before we know what the heck we’re talking about.
Efficient and boring just don’t cut it in today’s media-saturated environment.
Tutt, it is Chris that focuses on the crazies and applies the brush to all.
Tutt, I think you’re on the right track there.
Sternn and kabuzz aptly and repeatedly demonstrate what happens when you hand your brain over to the wholesale merchants of manufactured fear and outrage.
You don’t need to be “brushed”, kabuzz. Hell, we keep brushing you off, and you keep slithering back. You paint yourself into corners regularly, and then run away like the coward that you are. Craziness is your color through and through.
Well, Owl, you seem to enjoy adding fuel to the fire.
Idiots deserve to be (rhetorically) burned with the only fire they understand.
I mostly agree with this Tutt. Being outrageous is a good way to get a lot of airtime, and it generates ratings.
John Galt,
Then our Texas man Louie Gohlmert is the king of the airways and certainly can generate ratings.
I interpret your post as an advanced excuse of why the dem’s will lose big in a few months. You can use all the name calling your childish mind comes up with, but the elephant in the room is Obama and the dem leadership. When you have Obama (no explanation necessary) Pelosi and Reid constantly dripping out banal, useless lies regardless of what the people know, well, the ship sinks.
Eisenhower? I thought your party was for evolving? Not so much huh?
Except in NYC and LA, your party is suffering unless you’re from Minnesota where they elect wrestlers and comedians.
I love when Buzzy complains about lies from others but totally excuses his own lies.
Turtles, you are so smart and admired.
Derp Derp Derp
Shouldn’t “the elephant in the room” be the Republicans?
Kabuzz,
The last time you said the Dem’s would lose big was back in 2012 when Mr. Obama won pretty big over Mr. Romney. Your prediction priviliges have been revoked!