C'mon Dave, you can do better than that. You've been around here long enough to know that I expect anyone who calls someone a Nazi or a fascist has to be able to explain why the subject is a Nazi or a fascist.
Former President Bush was neither. He possibly is a war criminal, depending on the role he played in authorizing torture at Gitmo and/or your theories of chain-of-command (i.e. one can reasonably argue the Executive is responsible for the actions of underlings undertaken on his behalf even if he's unaware of those actions or has attempted to screen himself from responsibility--hence the penance of Henry II after he idly happened to mention that it would be nice if Thomas a Beckett fell on someone's sword several times).
So let's dispense with talk of fashion--you've also been around long enough to know I'm a nerd and therefore fairly impervious to fashion. (I recently read in Playboy that button-down collars are now "dress casual." Meaning I either have to replace nearly all my work shirts or consign myself to being unsightly. Guess which one I'm picking?) So, if you'd like to call Mr. Obama a Nazi, please: explain how, with appropriate historical references to National Socialism and contemporary ultra-right-wing white sumpremacy movements in the United States. And please don't rely on a historically semi-literate revisionist cretin like Jonah Goldberg, please; you couldn't penetrate that man's thick skull with a historical fact if you toppled a tall shelf of encyclopedias over and buried him with it.
If you'd like, feel free to show off by proving Bush was a Nazi just to show off your Jesuitical ability to argue both sides of any position--that's the kind of thing we were expected to do at the drop of a prof's hat back in law school, and it's good practice. Trust me, it's fun. And if you succeed, I'll be impressed, not that that's worth anything.
Leanright said…
I have no intent on calling Obama a Nazi...I find citizens or otherwise, who call our president a Nazi are morons. Regardless of party affiliation.
I DO though, find his policies not working well for the nation in the long run. And, I do feel that his astronomical ability to bail out companies just continuing to worst part of the Bush administration, in my opinion. I found the final four months of his tenure in office to be a travesty.
So, no, you won't find me calling presidents "Nazi's". I will call them "Wrong", but that's about it.
I never called W a Nazi. Incompetent, yes. An idiot, yes. But I'm a strong believer in Godwin's Law--pulling out Hitler and the Nazi's is just plain lazy.
Leanright said…
I believe we are currently viewing an incompetent administration AND congress ALL at the same time.
How the hell do you NOT pass your mandate with a super-majority in the house AND the senate?
Obama has been trying to accomplish some bipartisan agreement. He basically said today, that if he can't get that, he will get a health care bill...with or without the Republicans.
If all they want to do is scream about fictional Death Panels, then fuck 'em.
No incompetence in the Administration...just a failed attempt at being reasonable with a bunch of fucking jackals.
Leanright said…
I'm quite please with the health care my family and I have...I really don't want it fucked-up by the government. Unless of course its as successful as say, the US Postal Service?
I'm not behind. He SHOULD be able to get what he wants, WITHOUT Republican support. Pretending to be bipartisan isn't working. Hasn't REGARDLESS of who's in office.
Nathan's right: the incompetence of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress has been the direct result of treating Congressional Republicans like reasonable adults instead of riding roughshod over our governmental traditions as the previous administration did.
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I think treating the Republican leadership like adults was a foreseeable disaster, and I wish the President and majority leaders had just said, "Fuck you, we have a majority, suck it." At the same time, there was a time when there was a "loyal opposition" (of either party at any particular time) that could be worked with no matter how hard their rhetoric was. Even that's a tough call--while one might appreciate the Republicans' consistency in matching their present rhetoric to their present actions, the fact that you can't take them to lunch and work out a reasonable exchange (the kind of thing LBJ had a gift for when he was in Congress) is derailing the government.
The Republicans are acting like petulant children and the Dems are indulging them. The Dems are also screwing up by inadequately responding to bullshit--it took weeks of asstards yakking for someone to finally say, "What planet are you living on?"
The previous administration was far more effective in advancing its agenda. Of course they did it through lies, intimidation and unconstitutional (and sometimes criminal) conduct. Even Tom Ridge is 'fessing up these days. I guess we should be glad that the Obama Administration isn't sinking (thus far) to that level of ruthless, Machiavellian competence.
Anyway, moving along: the cheap shot at the USPO actually is an example of how far to the wrong conservatives are. Setting aside that the USPO is now a kind of weird quasi-governmental-semi-corporate hybrid, let's just consider how much mail the USPO moves on any given day, to how many addresses, etc. It's a little weird to be defending the Post Office, but the real wonder isn't that they lose mail, it's that the whole thing functions as well as it does, and has done so for more than two centuries.
Now, first of all, comparing what the USPO does to healthcare is actually a pretty lousy comparison. Second, even if you grant the comparison for the sake of an argument, the argument still loses because the USPO actually functions pretty damn well, all things considered. Perfectly? No. But reliably enough that businesses, governments and individuals continue to routinely use the mail to send everything from tax documents to birthday gifts to pizza coupons to literally hundreds of millions of people six days out of the week fifty-two weeks a year? Yeah. Of course, you might be referring to the fact the USPO is currently in financial trouble; the problem with an argument based on that is that the real problem is we expect the USPO to do its monstrously huge job on the cheap--get rid of the USPO, and you're talking about FedEx-ing and UPS-ing magazines, Amazon.com orders, Christmas cards, tax refunds, water bills, vacation postcards--a bit more expensive to the end users than the penny increases to postage stamps we all (myself included) like to piss and moan over.
Yeah, actually Dave, I'd be happy if every government program worked as well as the Post Office.
You assume that the government would fuck up healthcare. Much, I guess, as they fuck up national defense and law enforcement. You assume it'll end up being the disaster the interstate highway system or medicare or the national park system is. Perhaps I'm a starry-eyed optimist, but I see government as having the potential to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (I think I read that somewhere--I know, naive twaddle). I also think that with a government of and by the People, to complain about government is to complain about the Self--you're the government, so if there's a problem you need to fix it.
I'm quite please with the health care my family and I have...I really don't want it fucked-up by the government.
I usually try to be nice -- ok, well, if not nice, at least civil. I find myself failing miserably at the moment. That's the most self-serving, douchey statement I've heard in a while. At least, you're willing to just come out and say, "I've got mine, fuck you." (Note: I've heard the sentiment often enough, but it was couched in much more euphemistic language.) Congratulations. Maybe you can teach some of the others on your side of the aisle some honesty. Here are some suggestions:
-Tell the Birthers and those who spout shit about "that usurping man in the White House" to just fess up that black people scare the shit out of them.
-Tell Sarah Palin (and others) to drop her bullshit spiel about "Death Panels" and just say, "You're too fucking stupid to actually understand this bill, just vote the way I tell you to because I'm cute". (Hell, 40% of these ignorant assholes are worried about "government getting their hands on Medicare". (I sincerely pray that you know why that's such a moronic sentiment.)
I could go on (of course, there's no danger whatsoever that you might find yourself between a rock and a hard place someday. No, that could never happen!), but I find myself getting really frothy about the whole thing and I don't like being around myself all that much when I start thinking that way.
One thing before I close, though: Can you explain to me why the most "holier-than-thou, I love America and I have the bumper sticker to prove it" rabid nationalists are the ones who always take the default position that the government exists solely to fuck them over? Maybe they should try living in Spain where I hear there's a fairly active Anarchists Confederation. Oh, sorry! I forgot; they can't live there because it's full of illegal Mexicans and they eat funny food.
Leanright, I've heard some arguments worthy of consideration. Yours isn't one of them.
I was going to point out Leanright's utter hypocrisy and lack of concern for the common good IRT his commentary on his own health care situation, but Nathan beat me to it.
Nathan, try to save some for the rest of us next time, won't you?
I'm quite please with the health care my family and I have...I really don't want it fucked-up by the government.
Ah yes, I'm one of the lucky and fuck anyone who can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
I graduated from college in the mid 90s. It took me almost 3 years to find a "real" job. During that time I had no health insurance. I was working mind you--working 40+ hours a week usually, but not at a job that would provide health insurance.
Or a living wage for that matter, but that's neither here nor there in this argument.
The right-wing bullshit that people who don't have health insurance are just too lazy to find jobs enrages me. Absolutely enrages me. The problem is those who have jobs, but who do not have health insurance through their jobs.
I worked with many of those people during my post college years, and let me tell you, these people are NOT lazy. Undereducated certainly, but lazy, no. One man I worked with was in his 40s, but looked much older. He worked in the kitchen, because his teeth were all rotting, but he couldn't afford to get them fixed. You know what? You can't get a better job with rotting teeth. They're gross. No one wants to put you in a position where you have to deal with people. Those doing the hiring assume that your rotting teeth are a personal failure rather than a medical issue. So you're stuck.
I have good health insurance, and I am thankful for it. However, I've watched my premiums and co-pays climb and climb--even in years when we haven't gotten a raise.
Additionally, I have mental health issues (this is not a surprise to anyone here). Luckily, my health insurance has mental health coverage, but let me tell you, I have a LOT of out of pocket costs. I pay them, because I need to remain stable and employed (and I like being a functional adult) but I know there are many out there who are NOT as lucky as I am.
I have a friend who has been underemployed as long as I've known him. He and his wife have two wonderful kids, and the kids are well provided for. Unfortunately, they don't always have the money for their own health care, so my friends pre-diabetes went untreated, and now that he has full diabetes, it remains under-treated, because their money goes to the kids.
Right now he's lucky that his diabetes is mostly okay, but at some point it's going to cause problems, and if he does not get decent health care, he's going to start losing work due to health problems. When that happens, the monetary situation in his family will only become more strained, and if he ends up in the hospital, the family will probably have to declare bankruptcy.
And you know what the worst part is? That possible scenario is entirely avoidable if he has access to health care.
Republicans bitch and moan about the lazy poor, yet stonewall changes that would allow those who are working and struggling to try and get ahead.
So yeah, enjoy your health care while you have it.
Just hope you never lose your job, because if that happens you can kiss your health goodbye.
Considering how many hardworking people are losing their jobs nowadays through no fault of their own (I'm one of the lucky few in my profession who went "only" six months without a job), there will be a lot more unattended health issues because of lack of heath care.
I squeaked by without health care myself because a) I'm young and relatively healthy and b) because it got my budget down closer to the unemployment money I was getting. I have friends who are now breaking into their long term savings / retirement money in order to make it through what will probably be a year without work and they can't do without insurance.
Comments
Hope & Change & stuff!
Former President Bush was neither. He possibly is a war criminal, depending on the role he played in authorizing torture at Gitmo and/or your theories of chain-of-command (i.e. one can reasonably argue the Executive is responsible for the actions of underlings undertaken on his behalf even if he's unaware of those actions or has attempted to screen himself from responsibility--hence the penance of Henry II after he idly happened to mention that it would be nice if Thomas a Beckett fell on someone's sword several times).
So let's dispense with talk of fashion--you've also been around long enough to know I'm a nerd and therefore fairly impervious to fashion. (I recently read in Playboy that button-down collars are now "dress casual." Meaning I either have to replace nearly all my work shirts or consign myself to being unsightly. Guess which one I'm picking?) So, if you'd like to call Mr. Obama a Nazi, please: explain how, with appropriate historical references to National Socialism and contemporary ultra-right-wing white sumpremacy movements in the United States. And please don't rely on a historically semi-literate revisionist cretin like Jonah Goldberg, please; you couldn't penetrate that man's thick skull with a historical fact if you toppled a tall shelf of encyclopedias over and buried him with it.
If you'd like, feel free to show off by proving Bush was a Nazi just to show off your Jesuitical ability to argue both sides of any position--that's the kind of thing we were expected to do at the drop of a prof's hat back in law school, and it's good practice. Trust me, it's fun. And if you succeed, I'll be impressed, not that that's worth anything.
I DO though, find his policies not working well for the nation in the long run. And, I do feel that his astronomical ability to bail out companies just continuing to worst part of the Bush administration, in my opinion. I found the final four months of his tenure in office to be a travesty.
So, no, you won't find me calling presidents "Nazi's". I will call them "Wrong", but that's about it.
How the hell do you NOT pass your mandate with a super-majority in the house AND the senate?
(come on, Eric, something SNAPPY!)
Obama has been trying to accomplish some bipartisan agreement. He basically said today, that if he can't get that, he will get a health care bill...with or without the Republicans.
If all they want to do is scream about fictional Death Panels, then fuck 'em.
No incompetence in the Administration...just a failed attempt at being reasonable with a bunch of fucking jackals.
I'm not behind. He SHOULD be able to get what he wants, WITHOUT Republican support. Pretending to be bipartisan isn't working. Hasn't REGARDLESS of who's in office.
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I think treating the Republican leadership like adults was a foreseeable disaster, and I wish the President and majority leaders had just said, "Fuck you, we have a majority, suck it." At the same time, there was a time when there was a "loyal opposition" (of either party at any particular time) that could be worked with no matter how hard their rhetoric was. Even that's a tough call--while one might appreciate the Republicans' consistency in matching their present rhetoric to their present actions, the fact that you can't take them to lunch and work out a reasonable exchange (the kind of thing LBJ had a gift for when he was in Congress) is derailing the government.
The Republicans are acting like petulant children and the Dems are indulging them. The Dems are also screwing up by inadequately responding to bullshit--it took weeks of asstards yakking for someone to finally say, "What planet are you living on?"
The previous administration was far more effective in advancing its agenda. Of course they did it through lies, intimidation and unconstitutional (and sometimes criminal) conduct. Even Tom Ridge is 'fessing up these days. I guess we should be glad that the Obama Administration isn't sinking (thus far) to that level of ruthless, Machiavellian competence.
Anyway, moving along: the cheap shot at the USPO actually is an example of how far to the wrong conservatives are. Setting aside that the USPO is now a kind of weird quasi-governmental-semi-corporate hybrid, let's just consider how much mail the USPO moves on any given day, to how many addresses, etc. It's a little weird to be defending the Post Office, but the real wonder isn't that they lose mail, it's that the whole thing functions as well as it does, and has done so for more than two centuries.
Now, first of all, comparing what the USPO does to healthcare is actually a pretty lousy comparison. Second, even if you grant the comparison for the sake of an argument, the argument still loses because the USPO actually functions pretty damn well, all things considered. Perfectly? No. But reliably enough that businesses, governments and individuals continue to routinely use the mail to send everything from tax documents to birthday gifts to pizza coupons to literally hundreds of millions of people six days out of the week fifty-two weeks a year? Yeah. Of course, you might be referring to the fact the USPO is currently in financial trouble; the problem with an argument based on that is that the real problem is we expect the USPO to do its monstrously huge job on the cheap--get rid of the USPO, and you're talking about FedEx-ing and UPS-ing magazines, Amazon.com orders, Christmas cards, tax refunds, water bills, vacation postcards--a bit more expensive to the end users than the penny increases to postage stamps we all (myself included) like to piss and moan over.
Yeah, actually Dave, I'd be happy if every government program worked as well as the Post Office.
You assume that the government would fuck up healthcare. Much, I guess, as they fuck up national defense and law enforcement. You assume it'll end up being the disaster the interstate highway system or medicare or the national park system is. Perhaps I'm a starry-eyed optimist, but I see government as having the potential to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (I think I read that somewhere--I know, naive twaddle). I also think that with a government of and by the People, to complain about government is to complain about the Self--you're the government, so if there's a problem you need to fix it.
I'm quite please with the health care my family and I have...I really don't want it fucked-up by the government.
I usually try to be nice -- ok, well, if not nice, at least civil. I find myself failing miserably at the moment. That's the most self-serving, douchey statement I've heard in a while. At least, you're willing to just come out and say, "I've got mine, fuck you."
(Note: I've heard the sentiment often enough, but it was couched in much more euphemistic language.) Congratulations. Maybe you can teach some of the others on your side of the aisle some honesty. Here are some suggestions:
-Tell the Birthers and those who spout shit about "that usurping man in the White House" to just fess up that black people scare the shit out of them.
-Tell Sarah Palin (and others) to drop her bullshit spiel about "Death Panels" and just say, "You're too fucking stupid to actually understand this bill, just vote the way I tell you to because I'm cute". (Hell, 40% of these ignorant assholes are worried about "government getting their hands on Medicare". (I sincerely pray that you know why that's such a moronic sentiment.)
I could go on (of course, there's no danger whatsoever that you might find yourself between a rock and a hard place someday. No, that could never happen!), but I find myself getting really frothy about the whole thing and I don't like being around myself all that much when I start thinking that way.
One thing before I close, though: Can you explain to me why the most "holier-than-thou, I love America and I have the bumper sticker to prove it" rabid nationalists are the ones who always take the default position that the government exists solely to fuck them over? Maybe they should try living in Spain where I hear there's a fairly active Anarchists Confederation. Oh, sorry! I forgot; they can't live there because it's full of illegal Mexicans and they eat funny food.
Leanright, I've heard some arguments worthy of consideration. Yours isn't one of them.
Nathan, try to save some for the rest of us next time, won't you?
::snort::
"I'm quite please with the health care my family and I have...I really don't want it fucked-up by the government."
Nathan -- you beat me to it. Faugh!
Ah yes, I'm one of the lucky and fuck anyone who can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
I graduated from college in the mid 90s. It took me almost 3 years to find a "real" job. During that time I had no health insurance. I was working mind you--working 40+ hours a week usually, but not at a job that would provide health insurance.
Or a living wage for that matter, but that's neither here nor there in this argument.
The right-wing bullshit that people who don't have health insurance are just too lazy to find jobs enrages me. Absolutely enrages me. The problem is those who have jobs, but who do not have health insurance through their jobs.
I worked with many of those people during my post college years, and let me tell you, these people are NOT lazy. Undereducated certainly, but lazy, no. One man I worked with was in his 40s, but looked much older. He worked in the kitchen, because his teeth were all rotting, but he couldn't afford to get them fixed. You know what? You can't get a better job with rotting teeth. They're gross. No one wants to put you in a position where you have to deal with people. Those doing the hiring assume that your rotting teeth are a personal failure rather than a medical issue. So you're stuck.
I have good health insurance, and I am thankful for it. However, I've watched my premiums and co-pays climb and climb--even in years when we haven't gotten a raise.
Additionally, I have mental health issues (this is not a surprise to anyone here). Luckily, my health insurance has mental health coverage, but let me tell you, I have a LOT of out of pocket costs. I pay them, because I need to remain stable and employed (and I like being a functional adult) but I know there are many out there who are NOT as lucky as I am.
I have a friend who has been underemployed as long as I've known him. He and his wife have two wonderful kids, and the kids are well provided for. Unfortunately, they don't always have the money for their own health care, so my friends pre-diabetes went untreated, and now that he has full diabetes, it remains under-treated, because their money goes to the kids.
Right now he's lucky that his diabetes is mostly okay, but at some point it's going to cause problems, and if he does not get decent health care, he's going to start losing work due to health problems. When that happens, the monetary situation in his family will only become more strained, and if he ends up in the hospital, the family will probably have to declare bankruptcy.
And you know what the worst part is? That possible scenario is entirely avoidable if he has access to health care.
Republicans bitch and moan about the lazy poor, yet stonewall changes that would allow those who are working and struggling to try and get ahead.
So yeah, enjoy your health care while you have it.
Just hope you never lose your job, because if that happens you can kiss your health goodbye.
"Fuck you, I got mine" should be the GOP Slogan for 2012. Well, that and "I'm with Stupid" for the Palin supporters.
Your wish is my command.
I squeaked by without health care myself because a) I'm young and relatively healthy and b) because it got my budget down closer to the unemployment money I was getting. I have friends who are now breaking into their long term savings / retirement money in order to make it through what will probably be a year without work and they can't do without insurance.