‘Question Authority’? Dude, That’s sooo 2008
Now that things have changed, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Discussing the threat posed by militant Islam and its innumerable anti-American manifestations, based on a long record of attacks: fear-mongering designed to make us accept a police state, and opportunism of the most despicable sort.
2. Discussing the threat posed by citizens who dispute budgetary and legislative initiatives: temperate analysis. Remember, Timothy McVeigh had an AM radio in the vehicle he drove to carry out his attack, and Rush Limbaugh was on AM radio. You have to deny science to say that’s not true.
3. All efforts to roll back any initiatives of the Obama administration are RACIST. Example: say they’re opposed to increasing the penalty on late-reporting of data relating to a Medicaid billing that may have been due to an interpretation on the wording about whether an in-patient procedure required an examination or a consultation. But it’s really about the melanin content of the guy who signed the bill, although he probably has no idea which provision you’re talking about.
4. Bringing up the way some investors in GM got the drive-shaft in the take-over is a subtle threat to violence, because history shows most cross-burners drove to the scene of the crime.
5. Saying you want to “defeat” President Obama is eliminationist rhetoric, a code word that recalls WW2, when everyone knew that “defeating” Germany meant putting Hitler on trial and hanging him.
6. Anyone who describes himself as a “Christian” and a “Patriot” is probably a “Christian Patriot,” which means they probably stay up nights discussing fertilizer bombs via ham radio with Aryan Nation cells in Idaho. Or, writing lesson plans for Sunday school about how marriage should really be about a man and a woman. Six of one, half dozen, etc.
In other words: Protest is fine, as long as the cast of characters and the content of their chants reminds people of the ’60s. This is why protests against Clinton’s Balkan war weren’t lovingly covered: that was a just war, fought for just reasons, by a serious man. Gulf War 1 was for oil, duh, and Gulf War 2 was for oil, daddy, and because Fox News told George Bush that Saddam ran the planes into the WTC via remote control. If President Obama ordered a strike on Iran tomorrow, the protesters would be marginalized, and CNN would find tea partiers who supported the move. Anderson Cooper would be amazed to find that the Teepers had overcome their hatred of the president to support him, but it would be up to Joe Klein to say they just wanted to see brown people dead.
Ohhh, I so love pajamasmedia columns. This is great work and gave me a much needed morning laugh. good stuff.
James, I’m just wondering. Is there any truth that Ejfjallajokull is Icelandic for, “So much for my Prius.” Ejfjallajokull. That would make a great bumper sticker on the back of my Bonneville.
We don’t attend tea parties but we are clear thinkers and we can see that government is the problem and not the solution.
We don’t talk about insurrection or harm to anyone but we are clear thinkers and we know the government cannot sustain this wanton spending and $1 trillion/year debt interest payment.
We have never thought of this as an ethnicity issue but we are clear thinkers that know our government plays alienation for the end game.
We have never thought that just thought that one group or another led to our current sad situation but we are clear thinkers that know the government had a roll in all of it.
We don’t talk about fear openly but we are clear thinkers and our actions like spending are reserved and restricted as we follow the daily demonizations of every group except the government that created the mess.
Could be. It appears they cannot stop Ejfjallajokull either.
Mr. Lileks has perfectly captured nearly all of the rhetorical devices now in play to discredit conservatives in general and Tea Party activits in particuloar. (Wait – Can I say “activist” in this context? MSNBC would probably tell me with exhausted patience that activists can only be card-carrying Democrats.) I work on a large college campus in a hard-butt pro-union town. It was absolutely amazing the way all the “Question Authority” and “Dissent in the Highest Form of Patriotism” propoganda vanished virtually overnight. Guys like Joe Klein are suddenly demanding that we exhibit the same sort of lock-step obedience to the leadership principle generally seen in your average Nuremburg rally participant. Oh Well – I keep forgetting the basic rules of modern media-driven discourse. Opposition to a Republican President is “Dissent.” Opposition to a Democrat is “Hatred.”
Then there is the illegal war that for some strange reason we continue to fund and fight. The one that Bush lied about, that one.
Oh, and the shear horror of the Bush deficits, will my psyche ever recover.
The importance of the “Grassroots”, the pure democracy of it, the authenticity, all forgotten. Now the very same people who were forever singing the praises of said grassroots can look at a crowd of ten thousand and see nothing but racism and hate, mind you, that’s for all ten thousand. They’re not too nuts and vicious.
And we have a serial sex assaulter, former president, warning us about possible violence, even worse then raping a woman in a Arkansas hotel. That bad.
I am appalled by the shocking lack of Nazi references in this otherwise well crafted column.
Get your application in for “Worst Person In The World” (hmmm, no “” hashtag available…
The difference is simple: now the Great Leader of the Proletarian Revolution is in power and any and every criticism of the Great leader amounts to “counter-revolutionary activity”: the “enemies of the peole” protest instead of working hard to build the new great Socialist Motherland.
The best example of this new breed of the “homo sovieticus” are our trolls, unable to find enough bad names for any and every dissent from the Great Administration.
And the so called moderates are a good example too: O’Reilly calls “nuts” those who say that Obama is a marxist leader of a muslimarxist administration…
On the horizon, the mushroom cloud of an iranian nuke…(allowing such a thing is not “nuts” of course, it’s just a little mistake).
Another colossal failure of the ideologies of the nihilists, that will be paid by untold millions.
But for now, we are daily invited to shut up and obey. And the trolls clap their hands…
Sedition?…where do I go to sign up?
Spot on!
Now, if you’d like to read the best summary of what Dear Leader is up to, follow the link:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/what-kind-of-socialist-is-barack-obama–15421?page=1
Did the press misrepresent the composition of the crowds at Tea Party rallies? I don’t know since I didn’t attend any of these events. I did watch CSPAN coverage of several townhall meetings, however, and witnessed hour after hour of thuggish behavior on the part of people who were as ignorant as they were impolite. The goofy premises of the movement were all on display.
You need to come up with a better defense for your side. You pulled off the brown-shirt bit in public and on TV. Too late now to claim you’re really just a bunch of misunderstood political philosophers.
Those were the SEIU representatives that you were watching at the townhalls.
“I did watch CSPAN coverage of several townhall meetings, however, and witnessed hour after hour of thuggish behavior on the part of people who were as ignorant as they were impolite.”
But enough about the members of Congress…
witnessed hour after hour of thuggish behavior
“Thuggish” behavior? Define “thuggish” please, because it seems that, for the current convenience of Tea Party detractors, “thuggishness” has been defined down to mean just plain boisterousness and moderate rudeness. Thank you, Jim, for helping to make Lileks’ point.
Let me ask you what you “saw” on C-Span: did these “thugs” rush the stage and tear down banners? No? Well, that’s a common practice of the left. Did they rush on stage to hit their Congressperson with pies? No? Well, that’s a common practice of the left. Did they throw trashcans through Starbucks windows? No? Well, that’s a common practice of the left. How about duking it out with cops? No? Well, that’s a common practice of the left.
Unless You’ve observed any of the behavior I enumerated in the previous paragraph, you witnessed no thuggishness. Period.
dont forget setting off bombs at police stations
The only thuggish behavior on display at Town Halls was that of the for hire Union goons the Democrat politicians brought in to unsure only the “correct” voices were heard. This reminds me of Tom Brokaw complaining about the Hrupiblican Hmobs in Florida during the 2000 election recount.
Jim Harrison – “I did watch CSPAN coverage of several townhall meetings, however, and witnessed hour after hour of thuggish behavior on the part of people who were as ignorant as they were impolite. The goofy premises of the movement were all on display.” You’ll need to clarify. Were these the members of Congress or were the citizens in the audience thuggish, ignorant, and impolite? The ignorant ones could have been Congress since they hadn’t passed the bill yet and according to Speaker Pelosi it to be passed to find out what was in it.
I like the brown-shirt comment. For the ignorant masses out there Nazis wore brown-shirts. The Nazis shouted down, assaulted, and intimidated those that dared to speak out against them. They also excelled in ad hominem attacks by calling people stupid and uninformed.
Godwin’s Law – but nowhere near a speed record. Just sad.
what are you, the Godwin’s Law enforcer?
It was Harrison who invoked Godwins Law, and no one else.
Hey Jimmy, A more appropriate name for your blog would be “vacuous.blogspot.com
Jim, it only appears “thuggish” because Progressives are not used to being challenged in public discourse … and that is because, in the past, we have been civil.
Too civil, given the intellectual dishonesty of the Progressive movement.
Civility in the face of intellectual dishonesty is counterproductive to the defense of liberty, for it grants the dishonesty the false appearance of legitimacy.
Or, in simpler terms …
WE’LL STOP THE YELLIN’ … WHEN OUR LEADERS STOP THE LYIN’!
Hey Jimmy boy, take a look at this video. It’s the leftist amnesty crowd “protesting” the bill just passed in Arizona. Notice how desperate they are to swarm around the police who are protecting the SINGLE RIGHT WINGER so that they can get to him. Notice the verbal abuse and the hurled stones.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0b4_1272102352
Care to find me a video of Tea Partiers chasing a single communist who is protected by police, while they throw rocks and engage in other violent behaviour?
Joe Klein isn’t well.
I dunno, James. Change the pov around a bit and it’s a column from HuffPo about the right…
If both sides don’t chill, there’ll only be one outcome, and no one’s gonna like the results. But wth dos Igor Panarin, Gerald Celente or Thomas Chittum know, eh?
Google:
‘News Kontent: A reader’s resources on systemic collapse.’
‘an astute and disturbing analysis.’
People can say whatever they want about their opponents, all that matters is the truth. Which is the accurate and truthful perspective? That’s what matters, not the fact that “both sides do it” or “both sides accuse the other of wrongdoing.” There is no middle ground to truth or right and wrong.
Only difference is Liberal Huffpo censors everything not polishing Obama’s knob. The Libs hate the Constitution- especially the parts about free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble and especially that vile Second Amendment ! The laws should only protect the Left ! It is scarey how the Left is so utterly blind to their own hypocrisy !
Count me as a member of the uncivilized opposition. How dare I (and millions like me) criticize the Onescum skankho Obama. Ooops, I just called him a name. How dare me. Send the SEIU thugs to beat me up (go ahead-I have a lot in common with one Dirty Harry Callahan). The lamestink media? Joe Klien still hasnt gotten over his failed book gloryfying Bubba. Kieth the Uberdumb and Rachel the Madcow are mentally unhinged. Brian (brainless) Williams cant kiss a demonrats butt enough times. And by the way Joe-who was the last person charged with sedition -By WOODROW WILSON-one ROGER BALDWIN-later founder of the ACLU(American commies living undercover). Joe, ive heard Americorps needs “volunteers” to serve the same function as Hitlers brownshirts. Since you and the rest of your “media” slime already volunteer to kiss Obamas ass, Im sure youd volunteer to destroy yours and everyones life for the cause of hating Western civilization. Before you do, check out the likes of Yuri Andropov and Joshua Nkomo to see how commies deal with there “failures”. Cancer seems to appear out of nowhere with these pukes.
You expressed my sentiments for me, Knot, so I’ll just say, “YUP!” and chuckle.
I happen to think “Question Authority” is a fine slogan, as long as it’s spelled the same way it is on this shirt, which I happen to wear proudly.
Which goofy premises are those?
Government has gotten too big and is out of control? WACKY!
Government spending is out of control and needs to slow? HILARITY ENSUES!
We’d sure like it if you’d balance the budget and adhere to the Constitution? COMEDY GOLD!
If you cared about balancing the budget, you’d be on the other side. In the last 40 years, it has been the Democrats who actually took steps to balance the budget: the Republican administrations have relentlessly run up the national debt through runaway spending on defense and irresponsible tax cuts on the highest earners. Where was all the hand wringing about deficits when Bush destroyed the Clinton surpluses?
I’d be more impressed by talk about the constitution if your side had not remained silent as the Bush administration violated the Bill of Rights and promoted the theory of the unitary executive. Remained silent? Heck, you cheered this bunch on. Recently Congress passed an obvious bill of attainder against ACORN. Why didn’t this obvious violation of the Constitution bother you? Is it because you treat the Constitution as a symbol of your version of ethnic nationalism rather than a charter that one can actually read and perhaps follow? The cash value of your claims that some policy is unconstitutional is simply that you don’t like it.
Man, are you ever delusional.
I know that the Democrats have talked on and on again about wanting to balance the budget, but when given the chance, the only thing they have EVER done, is raise taxes, followed immediately by and even bigger spending increase.
Democrats have never, not once, done anything that could be characterized as trying to balance the budget.
Not of their own free will, anyway.
Your opinion (crappy as it is) has been noted! Have a great day with your horrid political ideals. Oh please do not vote in the upcoming elections which this year will be the third Tuesday in November!
> Where was all the hand wringing about deficits when Bush destroyed the Clinton surpluses?
Actually, the right was incensed when Bush tried to do Dem-lite with the prescription drug monstrosity and so on.
However, the last Bush deficit with a Repub congress was $100B per year, which is just a bit over Obama’s monthly deficit.
Even if folks weren’t upset about $100B/year deficit, there’s nothing inconsistent with being upset about a $1.5T/year deficit.
The inconsistency is Harrison’s being mad about $100B/year deficit and not saying a thing about $1.5T/year.
“Is it because you treat the Constitution as a symbol of your version of ethnic nationalism rather than a charter that one can actually read and perhaps follow?”
Of course, it all comes down to the classic leftist trope: the race card. That really all you got, Jimbo? Never mind that a shitload of right wingers were pissed at Bush, but of course you don’t actually know anything about right wingers, so it’s not like you would ever be able to tell the difference between the average GOP voter and hardcore Ron Paul libertarians, between actual conservatism and “compassionate” conservatism.
What was the debt under Bush? I don’t remember off the top of my head but it was less than 10 trill. Now it’s something like 20 trill. So Obama doubled the national debt, yet he’s balancing the budget? HA
Has Obama repealed the Patriot Act? Oh that’s right, he backs indefinite detention of “domestic terrorists”. Has he ended the wars? Oh that’s right, he extended the WoT to Pakistan and Yemen. Has he closed Gitmo?
But of course I’m sure that can all be blamed on Bush, the GOP and the Tea Partiers
Funny you should bring up ACORN. And you support funding by the American tax payer for ACORN?? You support corruption at the highest levels? You support voter fraud? You support ACORN extorting local banks and mortgage companies into giving home loans to people who had no visible means to make the payments, thereby exacerbating the housing bubble? You support all that?
Well now that we know where you’re coming from, it’s alright, you betcha.
Screed! Lileks is always at his best when in his screeds.
Sedition ?
You’ve got a president of the United States who finds the document he swore to uphold (on 2 separate occasions) to be frustratingly limiting as to the extent of power and influence it can legally exercise over you.
Barack Obama calls the Constitution a “charter of negative liberties”, a structure of government which doesn’t provide for intrusion into areas like “redistribution of wealth” and “political & economic justice” (at least Obama’s definition of those), that doesn’t venture far enough into “community organizing”.
This President holds a view of the role of the United States federal government that was everything the Founders were trying to prevent, since they had intimate knowledge of and experience with the horrors of the overarching state in Europe.
Sounds pretty seditious to me
Neither is Jim Harrison.
It’s funny that you say that you don’t know if the press misreprented the Tea Parties, because you weren’t there, but only saw them on C-SPAN, and then blandly accept what you saw. Your Reducto ad Hitlerium is also showing.
CSPAN showed several townhall meetings in their entirety. That was my point. You can’t hide behind the “goddamn liberal media” excuse.
Did you see all of the town hall, or just the portion that was on camera?
If you weren’t there, you can’t claim you saw everything, and only a total moron would even try.
Did you see every town hall, or just the ones CSPAN thought worthy of showing?
If you haven’t then only a moron would try to characterize all of them via the one or two shown.
If you want to complain about brown shirt behavior, I suggest you talk to the members of your ideological sect. To date, all of the actual violence at both townhalls and tea parties has been conducted by Democrats and liberals.
O I see. You’re so paranoid, you think CSPAN is in on the fix even though they just turn on the cameras and show the whole event.
Man oh man, this guy really does believe everything he’s told to believe.
Not that there has ever been any doubt. Just look to has past postings.
Never heard of James Lileks before, but damn he’s hilarious. LOLing hard.
Not heard of Lileks? Here he is, Vintage 2002, eviscerating a contumelious British reporter:
http://blogrecord.blogspot.com/2002_02_24_archive.html
He’s been doing this stuff for quite a while, but lately less screedly than his early days. He’s starting to screedify again on PJM.
Check out http://www.lileks.com/ You think this column was funny? Wait until you read the stuff on his page. Sometimes I laugh so hard I get stomach cramps. He also does a Thursday evening segment on the Hugh Hewitt show on the Salem network.
Can there be any “journalist” who has less influence on the great mass of American voters than Joe Klein?
To claim that urging that an administration be defeated in an election is “Sedition” is to reveal yourself as stupid. To take the bait and go into a frenzy of of contemptuous comment is being suckered. The ignorant are best ignored.
According to Klien himself, just moments before the show did research on the internet and looked up the word sedition and wrote it on a napkin. Amazing research and analysis that any six year can do. At least a six year old would use construction paper.
Love Lileks, but I wish he’d do more of this kind of biting, funny political savagery and less of the matchbooks from the Rumpus Club, Edinah, 1947, stuff. Come on, Lileks: fight these bastards harder. We NEED your wit and toughness.
The problem is not with the harsh critique of Obama for the past 15 months, its just that the right/gop/t-bag folks started the critique almost the day that Obama was elected/sworn into office. He had not even done anything last january and their looney fringe wing began screaming. He has only been in a bit over a year !..That was the problem. Now, however, they might really have something to complain about due to the fact that Obama has argueably done more in a year than most presidents have done in two terms but the steam may have already escaped the t-pot (no pun intended). That is what many on the right fail to comprehend sometimes. Remember, timing ..really can be everything. Funny article, thanks.
COme on PC, you can’t claim that Obama hid what he intended to do until after innauguration.
“He had not even done anything last january and their looney fringe wing began screaming.”
Don’t forget, Obama had been in office only eight days and he earned a Nobel Peace Prize according to a bunch of Norwegian experts. If they thought he was worthy of such a prestigious award that soon, how can you say that the tea partiers got a little ahead of themselves by protesting his regime about two months into his term?
(Yeah, I used the word regime. Thought I’d try some sedition and see if I liked it….)
I try to avoid reading you, PC, as I know I’ll get dyspepsia.
(dyspepsia, in case you didn’t know is a form of indigestion. Adolph Hitler was dyspeptic, which put him in a permanently rotten mood and made him want to exterminate whole ethnic groups, own all of Europe, and the like)
Barack Obama had more than enough chances during this first 15 months to be a good President. He didn’t, however, get much traction on the world Apology Tours of the first year (some European leaders concluded he is downright unbalanced) and even his beloved fellows in Izz-lam didn’t warm to his overtures. Arachnid-jihad these days goes out of his was to be openly contemptuous of Obama.
So, having failed to charm “the world”, Barack Obama & cronies are on a domestic offensive to jam through as much crapola as possible before (keep your fingers crossed) losing their majorities in November. After the current push to, literally, insert federal government control even more deeply into private business, it’s on to immigration and cap ‘n trade.
Quoting Barack Obama, cap ‘n trade will cause our individual home energy costs to “necessarily skyrocket”. (that would be your mom’s energy costs since you live in her basement) This from a guy who took 2 gigantic jets the 250 miles from DC to NYC yesterday, Earth Day, whose Vice President took a separate gigantic jet to NYC yesterday.
The rules are for you (and your mom), not for self-anointed élites.
Dear PC,
Please tell me what Obama has done. He funded stem cell research and got unwanted legislation passed by a reconcilliation vote. For all of the promises he made as a candidate, he is surely on the deficit end of all his promises. Let me suggest to you PC that dissent of policy, which leads us to 20% unemployment isn’t what I consider a successful tracking record. Moreover, since being unemployed for the past 14 months, I have written and published 1 books across 5 genres. It is now coming to attention that Obama didn’t even write his own books. You have the audacity to make a claim based upon what my latest read called Hypocronance suggests as living in the Folly of Hypocronance. I consider you dangerous to my constitutional rights. And Tea Party Dissent was only a handful of folks just last year. We will see you and yor end come Novemeber midterms. That is a promise! Oh yes, have a nice day!
That would be 10 books my apologies for the typo.
Had not done anything… ??? Huh?
In one sense, since he was a useless empty suit ab initio, spot on comment. In another, more accurate sense- he was already a hard committed marxist, a staunch friend of the PLO and enemy of Israel, an affirmative action easy rider from his early teens, a citizen of Indonesia, a drug dealer, a liar, a cheat, a closeted homosexual- if its your orientation- own it, Barry- , a prolapsed liberal political animal with no record of legislation… and so on, and so on.
It’s all well and good to experience the comfort of surrendering your ability to think to a fictional narrative maintained by the leftist media, but come on! Not everyone drinks the Kool Aid.
…Yet.
Jonathan… because a fictional narrative is what is believed, I would suggest that you type into your google browser Hypocronance. That is no fiction, but rather a summation of the nitwittery.
Thanks
I think someone needs to get out of his parent’s basement and get a real job to help support them. Degrees in Sociology, Philosophy and Vietnamese History should be enough education to land a good job at HuffPo. Unless, of course you are under 26 years old and able suck some health insurance out of the taxpayers for awhile longer. You Lib’s are so amusing when taking handouts.
Fine, fine piece!
“OBAMANAZI KENYAN = SOCIALIZED GROCERIES, and there’s nothing you can do about that. Politicians get up and say things designed to cause mass facepalming among the faithful, like when someone says the president should go back to Africa.”
So you too believe he’s the POTUS? Would you please provide the evidence that he is CONSTITUTUIONALLY qualified!!
Can’t do it huh?!!!!!!!
We need a Will Rogers to gently but sharply refute the 1000 lies Obama has told since his trial run for National office combined with Hillary Clinton’s hubris and John McCain’s “mavrick-ness” combined to throw the most shallow President ever into office. Lileks could do this but now seems to concentrate on writing about hearth and home. The screechers from both sides only appeal to their choirs. I just saw video of George Carlin poking fun at the “Save the Earth” movement and he did it well. We need more like him.
Many of us saw Obama for what he was BEFORE he was elected, thus if you really want to be precise, the critique started before he took office, and with good reason. The old-school media did nothing to really investigate just who Obama is/was and just fell for his style. He telegraphed most of what he was about, being a far left progressive liberal with a socialist bent. It was and is obvious. There was no shortage of opposition to Bush II or Reagan or any “right winger”. And that’s okay. Now, Jim Harrison and Poor Citizen, is it still okay to “oppose” if we honestly believe he is harming the country? If I didn’t oppose W. in all ways does it mean I am not allowed to oppose Obama in any way at all? How is that hypocritical? Please be logical if you attempt a refutation. I’ll make it simple: Big Federal Government is bad (just like any big monopoly is bad). I oppose Big Federal Government because it places too much POWER with too few people and virtually ensures corruption through graft and bribes. You on the left complained bitterly about “special interests” and lobbyists having too much power. Well, the more money there is in Washington to “redistribute” the more power lobbyists and special interests will have. Hope your happy with the monster being constructed.
Is Obama really “a far left progressive liberal with a socialist bent?” You left out communist/fascist/Nazi/Muslim. I’m reminded of a conversation I once had with my Dad. My Dad said, “You know that guy Timothy Leary was literally a bastard.” In my innocence (though I’m sure my Dad thought I was being sarcastic) I asked him where he heard that Leary’s mom and dad were never married. “Damn it. Don’t you know when I’m using the word literally figuratively?” Isn’t the fact here simply that you call everybody you don’t agree with a “far left progressive liberal with a socialist bent” and there is, as far as one can deduce from your nonstop hyperbole, no such thing as a moderately left progressive liberal or a liberal without a socialist bent? By any reasonable standard, of course, Obama is more like a moderate conservative than anything else. His health care reform measures, for example, aren’t a great deal different than what was passed in Massachusetts under Romney.
What passes for political analysis on this site is often more like Turrett’s syndrome than rational speech.
ONe of these days you will present a rational defense of yourself or Barry. Today, once again, is not that day.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia
Wonder what would happen if I set up my own local “Sedition HQ” here in Houston?…might have to get a couple extra phone lines.
This piece is a great bit of writing and describes the inconvenience of how 53% of American voters are gravitating towards. Let those from the left call it what they wat to call it. The only vote that counts is elections day later this year.
This type of comment is inane and can just as easily be turned around. 2008, opposition to the president=terrorist, America hater. Now, opposition to the president= greatest American.
It’s all lies and spin.
Please provide an example of where anti-war protesters were labeled as terrorists.
Then=Questioning President who is at war is treason. Now+ it is patriotic duty of all republicans. Apparently the Author succumbs to the same short term memory of the liberals. I agree that liberals seem to have a short term memory, but the right is just as guilty. People who are excited about having a republican majority in congress seem to have an especially short term memory.
It’s not that the left has short memories, it’s more their habit of remembering things that never happened.
Nobody ever said that merely questioning the President was unpatriotic. Not even once.
The complaints were over things like declaring the entire war illegal, when it wasn’t.
Declaring that the president had lied, when he hadn’t.
Declaring that the war was already lost, when it wasn’t.
I’m pretty sure that this won’t make a difference to our friends on the left, they have a country to destroy and are running out of time.
“If you cared about balancing the budget, you’d be on the other side. In the last 40 years, it has been the Democrats who actually took steps to balance the budget: the Republican administrations have relentlessly run up the national debt through runaway spending on defense and irresponsible tax cuts on the highest earners. Where was all the hand wringing about deficits when Bush destroyed the Clinton surpluses?”
The managled logic and outright falsehoods of this paragraph almost take my breath away. Anybody who was a functioning adult in the 1970′s and ’80′s know the Democrats were NOT fiscally responsible; the “runaway spending on defense” was after Democratic presidents (cough Jimmy Carter cough) almost wrecked the military; and the Clinton “surpluses” only existed on paper from an imaginary “peace dividend”. And Bush, after inheriting a recession from Clinton and weathering the 9/11 attacks, had a growing economy until the Democratic Congress took over in 2007–and we are about to find out just how many tax breaks went to the middle class when those breaks are not renewed in 2010, because Obama and company are about to raise those taxes again.
There’s nothing mysterious about the greater fiscal responsibility of the Democrats. Since the Dems believe that the Federal government has a significant role to play, they have a built-in interest in keeping it solvent. Very conservative Republicans, in contrast, would be perfectly happy to bankrupt the Federal government as a way of destroying the entitlement programs and the less thoughtful Republicans went along with the game because it was politically profitable. Mostly it was just a question of “slopping the hogs” as Reagan’s budget director put it. Gutting social programs would have been political suicide for Reagan or BushII so the administration cheerfully combined huge tax cuts for the very richest people with enormous increases in the defense budget and put off the reckoning by running up the debt.
I don’t give full credit to Clinton for the prosperity of the 90s or full blame to the lesser Bush for the mediocre economic performance of the Oughts. Lots of other factors play into how the economy performs. During the Clinton years, for example, computer technology finally turned out to be a huge economic plus; and real growth (as opposed to the series of bubbles we’ve experienced since the 70s) has been hard to come by in part because of the inexorable rise of petroleum prices. Bad policy can certainly make things worse, though; and no matter how much you try to argue it away, the Bush tax cuts did put a hole in the budget long before Obama came along to pick up the pieces of an incompetent administration.
I’m still waiting for you to come up with an instance of the Democrats actually, even once, doing something fiscally responsible.
The above argument is so utterly ridiculous that only a liberal could have come up with it.
The Democrats must be fiscally responsible because it’s in their interests. That has to be the funniest thing a liberal has ever written.
Clinton balancing the budget would be one example of Democrats doing something “fiscally responsible.”
I well remember how Clinton worked so tirelessly to sell that and welfare reform to his foot-dragging and skeptical congress.
Clinton gets none of the credit for the economic recovery that started long before he took office. As for his balancing the budget, that was the result of the Republicans taking over congress.
Not that you are interested in reality.
A key part of Clinton’s budget balancing program was his tax bill, a bill that was passed without a single Republican vote. If you’ll recall, the Republicans predicted that raising the topmost tax rate would lead to a depression when what actually followed was the longest sustained period of prosperity in American history.
And this explains why you and right wingers are on a whole different level, and the differences are irreconcilable.
Rather than balancing the budget by slashing bloated, wasteful, harmful and useless government programs, Clinton raises taxes, and you think this is laudible.
Instead of lowering government spending (the unjust expropriaton and spending of other people’s money), Clinton just increased the amount of wealth the federal government could steal from Americans.
game. set. match.
The taste of power is so addicting, especially when it comes to the deformed souls, reprobates, scoundrels, scalawags, trolls, and similar ilk who are the disciples of Alinsky & Gramsci, that they will do, or try, anything to hold onto
it.
http://guidoromero.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/unusual-troop-movements/
It is not surprising that this blog post relies almost entirely upon circular logic and straw-men in order to prove its point.
Comparing dissent against an unjust war (that will cost thousands of American lives and billions of American tax dollars) is not comparable to protesting a health care bill aimed at SAVING THE LIVES OF INDIVIDUALS WITHIN OUR OWN COUNTRY.
I’m not thrilled about a circular-logic war where people of Islamic catastrophe mentality will continue their own ruination and believe ‘westernization (i.e. modernization) is evil’.
But, to say this ‘healthcare’ bill will ‘save’ lives is the biggest lie ever.
Did ‘welfare’ save lives? We have obese poor people (obesity KILLS).
I eat right, keep fit and stay active and I’m going to be taxed for some asshole who is a drug-addict/alcoholic/drunk-driver/food-junkie/sex-freak to be first in line for medical expenses?
Then, add in amnesty and more medical care for illegals?
Hospitals will close shop. Doctors will close doors.
Is THAT crap sandwich saving LIVES?
REALLY? REALLY?
I’m not thrilled about a circular-logic war where people of Islamic catastrophe mentality will continue their own ruination and believe ‘westernization (i.e. modernization) is evil’.
But, to say this ‘healthcare’ bill will ‘save’ lives is the biggest lie ever.
Did ‘welfare’ save lives? We have obese poor people (obesity KILLS).
I eat right, keep fit and stay active and I’m going to be taxed for some azzhole who is a drug-addict/alcoholic/drunk-driver/food-junkie/sex-freak to be first in line for medical expenses?
Then, add in amnesty and more medical care for illegals?
Hospitals will close shop. Doctors will close doors.
Is THAT crap sandwich saving LIVES?
REALLY? REALLY?
Rob – LOL. Yes I actually laughed out loud, spluttering my coffee, at your stupidity. I don’t think you know what the terms “circular logic” or “straw man” mean. I guess you’ve heard Smart People you know say such things with great gravitas. And incidentally, people are either allowed to protest against government actions, whether they be war or wrecking the economy. This falls into the latter (in the opinion of the protesters). It’s all quite simple. I think you can understand it, Rob, if you sit and think hard enough.
“There’s nothing mysterious about the greater fiscal responsibility of the Democrats. Since the Dems believe that the Federal government has a significant role to play, they have a built-in interest in keeping it solvent.”
There’s only one problem with this statement–there’s not a smidgen of truth to it. Democrats never made one effort to “Keep government solvent”. When Reagan through his tax cuts made the engine of the economy roar and doubled the amount of tax revenue the government took in, the Democratic majority in Congress massively increased governemtn spending to go right with it.
As for military spending, there was the minor matter of an aggressive and expansionist Soviet Empire to deal with; leftists like to create the image of Reagan the war-monger–those of us who were grown-ups then know differently.
“Very conservative Republicans, in contrast, would be perfectly happy to bankrupt the Federal government as a way of destroying the entitlement programs and the less thoughtful Republicans went along with the game because it was politically profitable.”
This is just painfully ridiculous. After the “stagflation” of the Carter Years, “very conservative Republicans” wanted (and still want) to keep the country afloat, and stop crippling private industry, and wanted able-bodied people to work instead of being paid not to work. The welfare state was and is a destructive failure–we want to release the power of the individual, not collect it all under the reins of the Nanny State.
Oddly, the right has been in charge for most of the last 40 years, not only here but in many other countries. You’ve got a great scam going. You screw things up and yet blame the other side as if the liberals were running anything.
Not that historical fact has any currency in these parts, but the rebuilding of the American military after Vietnam began under Carter who was a former naval officer. The Reagan buildup was a huge boondoggle predicated on a vast overestimation of Soviet strength and, anyhow, American military spending continued to rise despite the long absence of a major enemy. We spend more than the rest of the planet put together. Modest question: is there any conceivable situation when you heroes would feel safe enough to actual reduce military expenditures? I understand why the military industry loves all this waste: it makes money off it. What’s in it for the rest of us? The U.S. debt would be very much less if we hadn’t squandered billions on a recreational excursion to Iraq, yet it’s pretty clear that blowing another trillion on a war with Iran would be popular in these parts. Your claims to worry about the budget are simply not credible if you don’t factor in the huge expense of your proposed foreign policy.
OH THE PROJECTION!
“You screw things up and yet blame the other side as if the liberals were running anything. ”
Explain, exactly, how the right has been in charge for “most of the last 40 years”? I guess you forgot about all of the dem majority congresses and dem presidents.
Oh good grief…no body is taking anybody out of Iraq. We’ll be there for years to come. A waste of valuable lives. A complete waste. We have accomplished nothing!, and we won’t any time soon.
The health bill is a bunch of garbage. What the hell is a student loan bill doing inside a health care bill?????? hello wake up!!! No one knows exactly what they have voted in, that should be enough to get everyone out of office!! stupid politicians, stupid Americans for letting them stay in office. You get what you deserve and we sure got a load of garbage
We didn’t get this much ‘stupid’ overnight.
VOTE and encourage everyone and anyone you can REACH and TEACH to vote. We are only a lost cause when we accept defeat.
I, for one, am not a defeatist.
Let’s ROLL, my fellow American!
“Oddly, the right has been in charge for most of the last 40 years, not only here but in many other countries. You’ve got a great scam going. You screw things up and yet blame the other side as if the liberals were running anything.”
Right. Socialist Europe was run by the “right”. That’s why they’re drowning in the bankruptcy that socialism creates. And of the last 40 years, Democrats were in control of Congress for more than half that time, and in case you haven’t noticed, Congress is the branch that actually passes legislation; and to say that ” but the rebuilding of the American military after Vietnam began under Carter who was a former naval officer” is ridiculous. Carter did nothing to rebuild the military, and his response to Soviet expansionism was to forbid American atheletes from going to the Moscow Olympics–oh, the horror! American imperialism at its very worse!
The next thing Jim Harrison will try to sell the unwary is how great the economy was under Carter, how bad it was under Reagan, and how the Democrats tried and tried not to spend more tax money in the 80′s, but gosh darn it, that amiable dunce Reagan just outfoxed them every time.
” Carter rebuilt the military “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was in the military when that whiney wimp GUTTED the military to spend on social programs !!! Like Obama, Americans threw his rear end out after one term ! This is why President Pantsload is beibg called ” Jimmy Carter part 2″ . The only difference being that Carter wasn’t a Marxist.
“President Carter and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown have repeatedly argued for steady, sustained growth with the rate of military spending pegged to the gross national product, which is the sum of the nation’s goods and services. In March, however, they revised their earlier projection and raised the military spending target from slightly over 5 percent of G.N.P. this year to 5.7 percent by 1985.” New York Times, 1980.
they say one thing, do another.
another striking similarity between then and now.
Sigh… People have such polarizing and inaccurate views about this country. If this guy (and the tea party extremist) want to fight against government, they should rail against the large corporation who slowly eroding our freedom. Example: thanks to the recent supreme court ruling, unions and corporations can tap their general funds for political causes, allowing them to spend much more. We no longer have a voice because we no longer have leverage to affect policy. Special Interests now control this country. It was like this during the Bush era and it continues under Obama. In reality, the republicans and Dems are opposite sides of the same coin: they’re both in bed with special interest. Mark my works, there will be no major change to the Health Care bill. You know why? The bills gives the insurance companies an increased stream of revenue. The Republican are making a fuss about this bill because it is good politics during an election year. The argument between the sides was a smoke screen to distract us from the fact that the average person is getting the shaft.
I’d also like to mention that the “Then: opposition to Bush=principled and civilized. Now: opposition to Obama=opposition” statement is such revisionist history. There was a good two year period after 9/11 where anyone that opposed Bush was essentially black listed (See Susan Surandin/Tim Robbins.) There may be incredulity on the liberal side these days but at least it isn’t the McCarthyist environment that subsisted after 9/11.
The tea party rhetoric is sooo Orwellian. Much of their statements are based on the lies: lies they believe and parrot. The reason I am suspect of this moments is: where was it during the Bush administration? Bush pushed the conservative, extremely business-biased, radical-christian agenda to a greater extreme than Obama pushes the liberal, multi-cultural agenda. Bush also engaged in a butt-load of deficit spending during his tenure. Obama’s spending is just an extension of that. Besides, the most of the business deregulation that cause our current recession occurred during the Bush era.
I am not saying that Obama is any better. He is not. Look at his lip service he keeps paying about business/wall-street regulation. Companies like Bear Sterns are huge contributors to the Democratic coffers, so the regulation will never happen. I do think that some of his social reform is long overdue, though… for instance “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He is also trying to equal opportunities between the socio-economic classes, which will help improve our economy and reduce crime.
Look, I think it is important for people to gather info from both side of the issues and then form an opinion. I try to be objective and form my opinions based on my conscience and intellect- not on religious ‘morality,’ racism, emotion and/or greed.
If you ask me.. there are solutions to many of our problems: reduce defense spending, re-establish a healthy middle/small business economy, regulate business finance, eliminate religion-base government intrusion on personal freedoms, and make campaign contributions illegal.
Well met, my friend.
It’s very simple: hidden,not too deeply, under the liberals blandly”normal” exterior ,complete with the perpetual “concerned” look of feigned compassion,lies a mass-murdering, STALINIST THUG,willing to destroy anything and anyone who challenges his sick utopian fantasies.Liberals have excused Mao, Pol Pot, Castro,and Stalin, because they secretly admire their power to destroy their critics.The sooner the patriot movement recognizes that liberals are all crypto-stalinists(and reacts accordingly)the sooner we will liberate our nation.SCRATCH A LIBERAL;FIND A STALINIST!
#42 TRAVIST(TY);Thanks so much for incarnating my previous point;only a Stalinist could lie as blandly,and as insistently as you did above ;Sarandon blcklisted:give us a break! Obama trying to bring about equal opportunity? Another cretinism; how Travesty? Through reverse racist quotas directed at impoverishing white males? You really gave the game away with your attack on the SCOTUS decision to restore free speech. Freedom’s a bitch,ain’t it TRAVIS? scratch a TRAVIS;find a TRAVISTY!