Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby dajafi » Fri Apr 04, 2014 18:09:21

With the possibly huge exception of the IRS (which I know is open to partisan parsing, but if they're truly being used for Nixonian ends that is grounds for major scandal), that all sounds like politics as usual to me. Sarah Palin put a crosshairs over Gabby Giffords' district; she didn't pull the trigger for Loughner, or influence him at all... she was trying to get people to donate money against Giffords.

And if the Koch brothers don't want people saying things that hurt their feelings, they could always stop trying to buy elections by demonizing Democrats. Frankly, Reid is doing exactly what he should be doing; I hope he makes those mother fuckers the Paris Hiltons of the eight-figure donor class.

Probably needless to say, I think "personal revenge" is way, way too strong, and that your overgeneralizations about "liberals" are silly and unworthy of your usual caliber of argument. But again, I get that you're committed to this narrative.

Werthless wrote:I think Sullivan is mad at the means that his political allies are taking. There is a growing consensus among liberals that the ends justify the means, and it is perfectly acceptable to exact personal revenge on your political opponents.

Let's see, we have:

Occupy Wall Street marching to homes of rich people.
IRS treatment of conservative political groups
IRS leaking donor lists to conservative causes
Obama's "punish my enemies" remark
Harry Reid's constant bashing of Koch et al to raise money
The Obama site posting the profiles of Romney donors on their website... followed 2 weeks later by audits by the IRS and Dept of Labor for at least one of these donors.

How do we even know that Eich was a donor to this cause?? Oh, right, it was an IRS list of donors leaked to a gay-right advocacy organization.

When we talk about the PC Police, we don't usually expect them to actually have any influence! :)

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby drsmooth » Fri Apr 04, 2014 19:07:43

Werthless wrote:I think Sullivan is mad at the means that his political allies are taking. There is a growing consensus among liberals that the ends justify the means, and it is perfectly acceptable to exact personal revenge on your political opponents.

Let's see, we have:

Occupy Wall Street marching to homes of rich people.
IRS treatment of conservative political groups
IRS leaking donor lists to conservative causes
Obama's "punish my enemies" remark
Harry Reid's constant bashing of Koch et al to raise money
The Obama site posting the profiles of Romney donors on their website... followed 2 weeks later by audits by the IRS and Dept of Labor for at least one of these donors.

How do we even know that Eich was a donor to this cause?? Oh, right, it was an IRS list of donors leaked to a gay-right advocacy organization.

When we talk about the PC Police, we don't usually expect them to actually have any influence! :)



you have a weird and unattractive devotion to comforting the comfortable
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Monkeyboy » Fri Apr 04, 2014 21:35:14

I support the guy's right to support any stupid cause he wants. Too bad his cause isn't popular in the circles in which he works.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby td11 » Fri Apr 04, 2014 21:52:43

Can't wait til a CEO gets fired for supporting liberal causes like allowing gays to marry or not destroying the environment or letting women choose what to do with their bodies
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby pacino » Fri Apr 04, 2014 21:52:55

I agree w monkeyboy
thephan wrote:pacino's posting is one of the more important things revealed in weeks.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby jerseyhoya » Fri Apr 04, 2014 22:19:11

Feel like if someone was hounded out of their job in Alabama for donating to Planned Parenthood folks here would have serious issues with that

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Werthless » Fri Apr 04, 2014 22:59:25

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424 ... 2667817472

I like this opinion piece, which makes a few different points.

My favorite observation is that this was all made possible by Citizens United! :) The political speech by okcupid is protected.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Werthless » Fri Apr 04, 2014 23:02:03

jerseyhoya wrote:Feel like if someone was hounded out of their job in Alabama for donating to Planned Parenthood folks here would have serious issues with that

Naw man, just because speech is free doesn't mean you won't be held responsible for unpopular political positions.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Werthless » Fri Apr 04, 2014 23:04:46

drsmooth wrote:
Werthless wrote:I think Sullivan is mad at the means that his political allies are taking. There is a growing consensus among liberals that the ends justify the means, and it is perfectly acceptable to exact personal revenge on your political opponents.

Let's see, we have:

Occupy Wall Street marching to homes of rich people.
IRS treatment of conservative political groups
IRS leaking donor lists to conservative causes
Obama's "punish my enemies" remark
Harry Reid's constant bashing of Koch et al to raise money
The Obama site posting the profiles of Romney donors on their website... followed 2 weeks later by audits by the IRS and Dept of Labor for at least one of these donors.

How do we even know that Eich was a donor to this cause?? Oh, right, it was an IRS list of donors leaked to a gay-right advocacy organization.

When we talk about the PC Police, we don't usually expect them to actually have any influence! :)



you have a weird and unattractive devotion to comforting the comfortable

I have an unhealthy obsession with government overstepping their bounds. That's what makes me the fun loving libertarian I am. I'm great at parties.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Werthless » Fri Apr 04, 2014 23:07:30

td11 wrote:Can't wait til a CEO gets fired for supporting liberal causes like allowing gays to marry or not destroying the environment or letting women choose what to do with their bodies
Pro choice causes are ripe for this type of political retaliation. I'm surprised you view this as unlikely are not worth considering. Religious organizations in the us are quite organized, and I would hate to see them focused on individual liberals in this way.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Werthless » Fri Apr 04, 2014 23:20:00

dajafi wrote:With the possibly huge exception of the IRS (which I know is open to partisan parsing, but if they're truly being used for Nixonian ends that is grounds for major scandal), that all sounds like politics as usual to me. Sarah Palin put a crosshairs over Gabby Giffords' district; she didn't pull the trigger for Loughner, or influence him at all... she was trying to get people to donate money against Giffords.

And if the Koch brothers don't want people saying things that hurt their feelings, they could always stop trying to buy elections by demonizing Democrats. Frankly, Reid is doing exactly what he should be doing; I hope he makes those mother fuckers the Paris Hiltons of the eight-figure donor class.

Probably needless to say, I think "personal revenge" is way, way too strong, and that your overgeneralizations about "liberals" are silly and unworthy of your usual caliber of argument. But again, I get that you're committed to this narrative.

Werthless wrote:I think Sullivan is mad at the means that his political allies are taking. There is a growing consensus among liberals that the ends justify the means, and it is perfectly acceptable to exact personal revenge on your political opponents.

Let's see, we have:

Occupy Wall Street marching to homes of rich people.
IRS treatment of conservative political groups
IRS leaking donor lists to conservative causes
Obama's "punish my enemies" remark
Harry Reid's constant bashing of Koch et al to raise money
The Obama site posting the profiles of Romney donors on their website... followed 2 weeks later by audits by the IRS and Dept of Labor for at least one of these donors.

How do we even know that Eich was a donor to this cause?? Oh, right, it was an IRS list of donors leaked to a gay-right advocacy organization.

When we talk about the PC Police, we don't usually expect them to actually have any influence! :)

I don't ever read anything written or said by Koch brothers, so I don't have a strong opinion about whether they are worthy of scorn. My perception of liberal dislike of them, and maybe this is wrong, is that they give a shitload of money to GOP causes. And they made their money in energy. Maybe they are bad people, I don't know.

The next time you see me defend Sarah Palin will be the first.

My main issue, and it doesn't come across in my posts, is not really that liberals are bullies. :) That's only part of it. It's frustration with the reality that one's private political contributions can get one fired. Really, this should bother all of us, and it bothers me that no one cares. I don't want our country to be one in which half the people can get employed by conservative organizations, and half can get employed by liberal ones. That's not going to solve our country's economic problems.

It would probably be beneficial for the us if something like this did happen in Alabama, so people would wake up.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby dajafi » Sat Apr 05, 2014 00:04:30

I don't actually have a strong opinion about the goodness or badness of the Koch brothers, though I do think it's risible and a little pathetic that they're equating people criticizing them to nazis and such. But they've also given a lot of money to support of the arts, cancer research, and so on. (And on some level I find it hilarious that a big chunk of Lincoln Center--on the Upper West Side!--is named after David Koch.)

What I think they are, are extremely rich guys who mostly inherited their wealth, investing a bit of it in politics to get back vastly more than that as a result of the policy choices of their preferred candidates. That this is possible for anyone (any "Hollywood liberal" whose giving is motivated in part by wanting to extend copyrights, say, though the negative externalities in terms of global warming etc are likely more severe with the Koch boys) seems to me a much bigger threat to the legitimacy of our democracy than the issue you're concerned about.

The republican line on campaign finance for years was "no limits, full disclosure." The idea was that so long as voters knew who was spending how much on what, they could make informed decisions without the courts having to limit "speech." Now that this is exactly what's happening, they're pitching a fit and you're making references to "personal revenge."

I'd be happy to solve this problem by going to full public financing of campaigns (and making them really fucking short--like 6-10 weeks). But I'm guessing that doesn't really appeal either...

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby swishnicholson » Sat Apr 05, 2014 00:22:58

jerseyhoya wrote:Feel like if someone was hounded out of their job in Alabama for donating to Planned Parenthood folks here would have serious issues with that


You'd have to have an analogous situation where the corporation was associated with particular conservative social values. If the CEO of Chick-fil-a or Walmart were disclosed to have supported Planned Parenthood I think you'd a similar shitstorm on the right (though I agree the left would be largely silent or in support). But they'd never pass that first vetting in order to reach that position anyway.

I had a second point, but I also had a second martini, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to remember it.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby SK790 » Sat Apr 05, 2014 05:49:09

i'm glad the libertarian point of view has now become "who cares if that guy donated money to oppress a massive group of American, he doesn't deserve to lose his job". i guess that's a cool world view if you value the manmade concept of currency over actual human rights.

the fact that werthless and jh can't see the difference between abortion and gay marriage is just stellar.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby SK790 » Sat Apr 05, 2014 05:50:27

jerseyhoya wrote:Feel like if someone was hounded out of their job in Alabama for donating to Planned Parenthood folks here would have serious issues with that

i'd be okay with it because abortion is a very gray issue involving a debate over when a life is considered a life, but thanks for assuming how i'd feel anyways.

the very best part of the exchange is that werthless is playing the "liberals on this board only point out when conservatives do stupid/bad/inhuman things" card while playing right into the conservative counterpart. but, hey, that's only because we're all such liberals on this board and value dumb things like gay rights and wealth equality over some rich dude being able to keep his job. #ronpaul2016
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Monkeyboy » Sat Apr 05, 2014 06:52:27

and that's assuming Planned parenthood's main mission was abortion, which it clearly is not.

One rich guy gets hounded out of his job for expressing his views and it's a travesty. Something tells me he'll land on his feet. It's probably bad that he did, but I have trouble generating much sympathy when the right has been hounding people for far less for years who don't have millions and a cast of rich friends to bail them out. It's a right to work state, you know.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Luzinski's Gut » Sat Apr 05, 2014 06:57:23

I for one welcome our oligarch bureaucratic overlords.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby Monkeyboy » Sat Apr 05, 2014 07:32:41

I just think it's funny that they wonder where our outrage is when they ahven't been showing outrage for average people losing their jobs for stupid reasons for years. And as Dajafi pointed out, they won't even let people get confirmed for jobs for which they've never done anything wrong.

But thank goodness this guy has someone to stand up for him. I mean, good thing he isn't poor.
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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby pacino » Sat Apr 05, 2014 07:52:18

money in politics is the original sin where all this starts
thephan wrote:pacino's posting is one of the more important things revealed in weeks.

Calvinball wrote:Pacino was right.

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Re: Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

Postby pacino » Sat Apr 05, 2014 08:30:50

Mississippi passes Mozilla freedom act:
The bill, called the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, formally states that the government cannot interfere with a person’s exercise of religion, absent a compelling reason. The law also adds “In God We Trust” to the state seal.

While supporters cite the bill as a step to defend religious freedom, it has come under fire for its similarity to bills proposed in Kansas and Arizona that many allege are simply covert ways of allowing businesses to refuse service to LGBT Americans.

Under Title 1, Chapter 3, Section 39 of the Mississippi state code, a “person” is legally defined to include both human beings and “all public and private corporations.” This effectively extends the unimpeded right to practice religion to all businesses in the state, as well as state agencies, theoretically allowing them to refuse service to customers based on religious objections. Mississippi has no law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.
thephan wrote:pacino's posting is one of the more important things revealed in weeks.

Calvinball wrote:Pacino was right.

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