pacino wrote:half the point of these things is to dress up and/or raise your crazy sign.

I liked one guy at a rally I once saw (I believe it was during the protests over Augusta National not permitting women on the course to play 10 years ago) came to protest in a tuxedo with a sign that said, "Formal Protest." I liked that guy.

mozartpc27 wrote:Nobody really wants to live in a society where everyone is left to fend for themselves as much as possible.

Sez you. A "road warrior" society would be awesome...

drsmooth wrote:

azrider wrote:something to think about....

who would have thought the decision to appoint janet napolitano as secretary of homeland security may very well become one of the biggest "political" blunders of the past 30 years?

do tell

because as of right now, who else but you thinks so?

i'm probably one of the only ones, but i'm a risk taker and like to always think a little bit ahead of the game.

right now, if mr. napolitano were not the secretary of homeland securtiy, she would be still governor of arizona. with her leaving, a little known secretary of state with a degree in radiology from a community college was thrust into the governor's office. this should've been no big deal, as most political pundits had her not only losing in the primary but coming in forth. in a short span of sixteen months things have changed greatly for her career.

currently, the 2012 republican field is lackluster to say the least. there is also no face or leader to republican party and they are splintered. however, the obama administration has created a monster. the obama administration could have chose to let the fire of one of the three biggest issues in american politics kind of just burn out in arizona. but, instead of they are choosing to throw a few gallons of gasoline in the form of law suits and condemnation from the federal government. add in all those other states, cities, companies, countries and musicians that choose to boycott arizona and suddenly you have now have galvanized support for the opposition.

i don't know what mrs. brewer's future political ambitions are, but she is in a perfect situation right now. she is now becoming the republican face for opposition in washington. donations to the arizona legal defense fund which she created a few months ago is over three million with about 2/3 of that coming from 49 other states. right now, are there any other republican candidates that can get enough support from the far right to win the primary, yet be palatable enough to win in the general election? the republicans don't need another sharron angle losing to a vulnerable and unpopular harry reid and that's a scenario i figured that had a good chance of playing out until the past few months.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

drsmooth wrote:More thought-provoking than the blah title suggests, and not all that long: Why Conservatives Should Read Marx

a snip:

This [Burkean] strand of conservatism, which would deny citizens the freedom to make their own decisions regarding pornography (or drugs or prostitution), obviously runs counter to libertarianism, the doctrine that the government should keep out of as much as it possibly can. In theory it is possible to be an economic libertarian and a social conservative; in practice the two are irreconcilable. To take a simple example, imagine a social conservative who thinks women should dress modestly in order to encourage men to treat them with dignity, endorsing the ancient adage that “with the laying-aside of her clothes, a woman lays aside the respect that is hers.” Can he really believe that the way we dress is unaffected by marketing?....Companies like the bikini manufacturer Sinful Clothing, whose ads recently graced New York taxis, are only taking matters to their logical conclusion: sin is good. Just as an industry based on the creation of desires is essentially hostile to restraint, so economic libertarianism is naturally opposed to social conservatism....So why are there libertarian conservatives? This is a fairly recent phenomenon....

The thing is, most people calling for smaller government are not libertarians--they don't want porn shops everywhere, or legalized prostitution and gambling everywhere. Most of most definitely don't want to open the borders to all comers, and most I suspect aren't wildly enthusiastic about free trade. They probably don't even want things like less spending on education or other programs that benefit lots of people.

They want lower taxes. They may say they want fewer regulations on business, and some of the more sophisticated might be troubled by the growth of unaccountable power of the government bureaucracy (and it's important to note here that often, that power serves the special interests it's supposed to regulation not the people--otherwise, why is food safety often under the purview of the Department of Agriculture rather than the FDA--part of the Department of Health and Human Services?).

If you want a pretty solid historical answer regarding the formation of the conservative coalition in the US, you could do a lot worse than read The Conservative Ascendancy by Donald T. Critchlow a book I'm sure I've recommended here before. The other book to read that offers a possible explanation of the roots of all this is Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America.

This is my essential problem with the libertarian philosophy: it's a fine idea, until you think about its real ramifications when taken to its logical ends. Then it's a horrible, horrible idea.

Nobody really wants to live in a society where everyone is left to fend for themselves as much as possible. The ones born to privilege might think that they do, and the ones who are the most self-activated go-getters definitely think that they do. But they are wrong, and it wouldn't take very long of living in a system where libertarianism is allowed to function to its natural ends before they would discover how wrong they are.

The simplest examples I can think of: should the government really just let every person who gets a home foreclosed on them go homeless if they can afford nothing else, or let every person who gets laid off a job go incomeless if they can find no other work? Pure libertarianism says yes.

Even a smidgeon of common sense should tell you why either of those are disastrous ideas, from a purely "preservation of society" standpoint, certainly if your standpoint is "well-to-do person," but even more particularly if you are person who is just working hard to preserve a modest lifestyle. If you are of the latter group, and of course, in a libertarian society, the great majority of people would indeed be in that group, you have enough resources to make a living, perhaps a comfortable living, for you and yours, but you almost certainly don't have the resources to protect what you do have the way a truly rich person can hire a private security team, and, to further complicate matters, your margin for loss is much smaller than the extremely rich person's.

In short, if you are someone with a lot to lose, but not so much that you can afford the finest in protection for it, and not so much that you can lose a bunch and still be OK, you really, really, really don't want the streets flooded with desperate people with nothing to lose.

kopphanatic wrote:On libertarianism, Mozart is right. Like him or not, you are your brother's keeper. We are all connected to each other. And to think that society could function without any form of government is pure idiocy.

What is "pure libertarianism?" Then could you also define "pure liberalism?" Because it seems like you're defining pure libertarianism as anarchy, where I could just as ignorantly dismiss liberalism because pure liberalism is 100% tax rates, common ownership, and a planned economy.

You've demonstrated one of the largest hurdles to libertarianism taking hold in this country; the branding of libertarianism as anarchy-lite. Supporters of anarchy want government out of every area of life... private courts, no regulations, no government mandated professional licenses, no taxes, complete voluntarism. There a lot of stuff out there on creating such a society, but that's not what 99% of libertarians advocate. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that favors the primacy of individual rights, economic freedom, equality, and constrained government involvement. This doesn't mean overthrowing the government and privatizing everything.

Libertarians need to do a better job of highlighting the aspects of libertarianism that are already popular... highlight their successes. There are a number of libertarian principles that are popular in different circles that people don't automatically associate with the libertarian agenda, like free trade, restrained government spending, non-interventionist foreign policy, primacy of individual liberties, school voucher programs, separation of church and state, etc. Libertarians will point out that the most economically free economies tend to be the fastest growing economies. Libertarians will support things like free business licenses (You are currently required to register with the City of Philadelphia and pay $300 if you partake in any activity where money changes hands), balanced government budgets, immigration reform in support of more open border, freedom of expression, opposition to anti-homosexuality laws, opposition to racist policies, opposition to the neo-conservative position of the US as the world's police, support of theenvironment. This is stuff that liberals and/or conservatives tend to support.

People tend to focus on the controversial stuff that libertarians sometimes support, even when it's not necessarily a consensus among other libertarians. For example, a lib might argue that hate crimes are essentially real crimes plus a thought crime, so the additional penalty is too arbitrary of a penalty to be fair. Or a libertarian might push for the legalization of not only marijuana but all street drugs and prescription drugs, decrying the empowering of the underground economy that such restrictions cause. Or a libertarian might argue that the Dept of Education is useless and a complete utter waste of money. Not every libertarian wants to abolish the income tax and completely privatize social security, just like not every liberal wants to double tax rates, nationalize all banks, and expand the CRA and Fannie and Freddie.

Mozart, are you asserting that countries with socialist infrastuctures have lower crime rates? Because this sounds like one of your biggest beefs with libertarianism, the belief that policies like unemployment insurance and other social welfare programs reduce crime and make us safer.

azrider wrote:i don't know what mrs. brewer's future political ambitions are, but she is in a perfect situation right now. she is now becoming the republican face for opposition in washington.

she has a face made for radio



sarah palin she ain't, AZ - maybe her grandmaw

Brewer is a classic right-place, right-time candidate. Given both her past deviations from orthodoxy and some flat-out falsehoods (Mexican illegals are beheading people zOMG!!!1), I don't think she's got any more shot at higher office than I do.

But sometimes those folks hang around awhile; George Pataki got three terms out of good political circumstances. All it necessarily takes is to ride a wave into office, then enjoy a good economy once you're there.

drsmooth wrote:

azrider wrote:i don't know what mrs. brewer's future political ambitions are, but she is in a perfect situation right now. she is now becoming the republican face for opposition in washington.

she has a face made for radio



sarah palin she ain't, AZ - maybe her grandmaw

so can i enter her in your beauty contest or is she from the wrong party?

dajafi wrote:Brewer is a classic right-place, right-time candidate.

you got it.... and they should've minimized her like they did with jindal during the spill and not get into a fight. i think they are trying to do that a little bit right now with brewer. the republican party is so splintered and it's stupid for the obama administration to go after anyone other than "entertainers" in the media like limbaugh, beck, hannity....

Someone should make it against the law to include a picture of JFK on any general US history or government book. All he did was get in the way of a bullet. So why is his mug everywhere?

Because he was handsome and boned Marilyn Monroe on the reg

azrider wrote:

dajafi wrote:Brewer is a classic right-place, right-time candidate.

you got it.... and they should've minimized her like they did with jindal during the spill and not get into a fight. i think they are trying to do that a little bit right now with brewer. the republican party is so splintered and it's stupid for the obama administration to go after anyone other than "entertainers" in the media like limbaugh, beck, hannity....

I hear what you're saying, but not sure the distinction is valid. Jindal's actually talented--someone it's not worth mixing it up with unless there's clear advantage to doing so. Bashing Brewer (if they're doing that; you're a lot closer to it than I am, so I take your word) has little long-term political cost, and probably wins them some love from Latino constituencies they desperately need.

azrider wrote:
so can i enter her in your beauty contest or is she from the wrong party?

you called your babe "the face of the republican" somethingorother, so I showed her face. Funny!!

no one as far as I know - other than maybe some loon republicans - has called Pelosi "the face of the democrat" whatever (while she might wish it, it ain't so)

New over/under on House GOP pickups this fall: 54.5

Under means equal to 1994 or worse

I'll take the over

mozartpc27 wrote:This is my essential problem with the libertarian philosophy: it's a fine idea, until you think about its real ramifications when taken to its logical ends. Then it's a horrible, horrible idea.

Nobody really wants to live in a society where everyone is left to fend for themselves as much as possible. The ones born to privilege might think that they do, and the ones who are the most self-activated go-getters definitely think that they do. But they are wrong, and it wouldn't take very long of living in a system where libertarianism is allowed to function to its natural ends before they would discover how wrong they are.

The simplest examples I can think of: should the government really just let every person who gets a home foreclosed on them go homeless if they can afford nothing else, or let every person who gets laid off a job go incomeless if they can find no other work? Pure libertarianism says yes.

Even a smidgeon of common sense should tell you why either of those are disastrous ideas, from a purely "preservation of society" standpoint, certainly if your standpoint is "well-to-do person," but even more particularly if you are person who is just working hard to preserve a modest lifestyle. If you are of the latter group, and of course, in a libertarian society, the great majority of people would indeed be in that group, you have enough resources to make a living, perhaps a comfortable living, for you and yours, but you almost certainly don't have the resources to protect what you do have the way a truly rich person can hire a private security team, and, to further complicate matters, your margin for loss is much smaller than the extremely rich person's.

In short, if you are someone with a lot to lose, but not so much that you can afford the finest in protection for it, and not so much that you can lose a bunch and still be OK, you really, really, really don't want the streets flooded with desperate people with nothing to lose.

kopphanatic wrote:On libertarianism, Mozart is right. Like him or not, you are your brother's keeper. We are all connected to each other. And to think that society could function without any form of government is pure idiocy.

Why will charity only exist if it's provided by the government? Communist countries use this argument all the time: "people need food, therefore the government has to provide food, therefore the government needs to be in charge of producing food, therefore the government needs to take over all the farmland." Like food, or any other essential, charity can be provided without the government doing it. Because charities can use compassion and common sense, and not be burdened by regulations and entitlements, they can do a better job of providing a safety net for those who need it. In a libertarian society people will have more money because of lower taxes, and people will know that it is up to individuals, not the government, to take care of those who need help. It is precisely because people like you feel that "we are our brother's keeper" that the Mad Max society that mozart describes wouldn't happen.

we had no safety net in our country for quite some time. that went well.

Seriously.

So who were all those people then

Glenn Beck is a saint. A true hero. You go fuck yourself.

WilliamC, I'll fight you