The Donald Trumps of this world are not the Mother Theresas.
Many people think this is a great shame. But which group are really more valuable?
It is the Donald Trumps that provide the tax receipts on which universities survive.
Some think we should seize the assets of the Donald Trumps and let the Mother Theresas redistribute them. But if this were done there would shortly be nothing left to redistribute. North Korea, for instance, has nothing left to redistribute. Meanwhile, the redistributors are rarely Mother Theresas even when there is something to redistribute.
The best possible economic situation is to encourage the Donald Trumps of this world to do the best they can. We need a roaring capitalism if the rest of us are to survive off its tax receipts.
94 comments:
Is this post Kirby's way of slowly building up an argument for voting for Trump?
That'd be interesting - between Palin and the T-man, the Republican party's going to be full of reality TV stars.
I guess it's the natural progression from Reagan and Arnie...
You guys going to support Kim Kardashian next?
Actually, more like we need some Fred Trumps.
America needs a better business climate is all I'm saying. Not sure if Trump himself is the man or woman to arrange that. We have to get rid of the ambiance of fear and loathing that Obama has created among businessmen, and get the country back to business. Business is the business of America, as Coolidge wisely stated. Which of the current contenders is the most like Coolidge? That's the question. Is Trump?
I wouldn't also mind getting someone with the capacity to make memorable sharp sentences, as Coolidge did, in the bargain.
I was just getting my car registration done. While sitting in the waiting room I saw three women all reading Palin's book, Going Rogue.
Palin's no Mother Theresa, and that's a good thing in a president. Not sure she's just precisely what we need, either.
GM, ok, you've trumped me with your Trump. Your Trump is better than my Trump. But I think we have the same idea in mind: we need more Trumps.
A better business environment, yes, and not the crony capitalism practised by the Obama administration, such as the selective favouritism shown to GM, GE, and unprofitable "green" energy companies that kick some of that taxpayer money back into campaign contributions for the Ds.
Sorry Kirby, I didn't notice one of Emmy's blogging names still signed in--JADL
it would seem to me that the business climate in USA would be better if all the inflated princes of capitalistic opportunism would take one day a week to go out and lick the wounds of lepers...adn then offer ridiculous amounts of their unjustified wealth to the mother theresas of the world.
in the bridge game of life it's good know who trumps who what suit trumps what suit
why al these unbelievable yeahoos in the republican party it's like they did a nationwide survey and discovered that the zaniest oddballs make the best leaders
and they thus try to act in accordance...if life is a tv show then i think the republicans deserve to run the country if life is about people living with and treating one another justly i guess the dems have some work to do
...this will only be a successful administration if they get the national railroad project going
i'm all for turning the big box stores into poverty shelters...so hard to argue dollars and cents
give me liberty of give me cash
corporate capitalism is gambling with impunity...event the great losses are written off
the further the notion of economy gets from the home from the local variety of needs and services the less it is an economy and more a form of mind control and commercial enslavement
we are not expected to know anything about worth or truth anymore
there will be named in honor of mother theresa there will only be some real estate in the air in new york named for donald trump and when he dies he will be largely forgotten
the rockefellers learned to invest in towers
out of the ashes an into the urine soaked bedsheets
christopher hitchens loathed mother theresa
what a guy he was
hey it's spring in montana
jh
We're getting three to five inches of snow tomorrow, and the same the next day. Winter in the Catskills is far from over, it seems, though we have had one or two very nice days.
April 15th is more or less the beginning of our spring.
I think we should have a lot more respect for our leaders of industry, our captains of merchandizing. There is way too much weight given to saints of the giveaway (scrooges who then release all their worth are highly prized too like the desperate attempts of Bill Gates to redeem himself after trying to monopolize the computer industry, or the same with Carnegie back in the day -- hey, we do remember him, thanks to all his giveaway libraries!).
Mother Theresa would never trump Trump in a poker game.
The guy's motto is "you're fired!" People with families to support or who want to have families clearly have other priorities than humoring a boss. He should fire them first.
jh for once sounds nearly authentic.
Salesmen for finance capitalism-- ie Trumps... that's what we don't need.
We need demolition crews to take down the Towers of Babylon. A Kinder gentler lebensraum.
That and Thorazine for the masses.
Entertainers should stay out of politics.
Performance and governance should be kept discretely separate.
The great communicator, unfortunately, knew nothing about politics or diplomacy or economics. He was a force-fed cardboard dummy. His second term, when he was "feeling" the Alzheimer's, was a joke.
With Bush II, we had a dummy who WAS a dummy. No communicator, he.
We're reaping the seeds planted during Bush II's terms. Good morning, America!
Trump. What a jerk. Palin--pathetic. Obama, a rehash of Carter.
Love vs. Money
Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
Romans 13:8-10 "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness," "You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
I think it is fine to be nice to other people, and to play at the Good Samaritan, on an individual basis. But you can't ask the government to do this. It's not the government's job.
Nor can we ask entrepreneurs to do it.
There is also the parable of the talents, which says that we ought to double and triple our investments through careful strategic planning.
I'm not very good at this, I admit. But Jesus wasn't that good at it, either.
He didn't plan well. He'd have a huge get-together, and realize he didn't set up toilets or get food going. He did make up for this with some miracles, but we are not privy to miracles.
Like Joseph in Egypt we have to think cleverly, and do planning for the years ahead.
Otherwise, we will starve.
Fundamentalists often use the Parable of the Talents as a justification of interest and capitalism,more or less but that is a naive if not erroneous view.
In other passages of the New Testament, JC condemns usury--evident in his driving the moneylenders aka usurers from the Temple, for one.
jh could I imagine quote Aquinas on the evils of usury as well--the traditional catholic view was opposed to usury except as a basic fee, not interest. Dante places usurers ...the Madoffs and Blankfeins of the day...in a not very copacetic section of inferno does he not. And IIRC Luther ranted against usury at some point.
Ergo, there is no support for robber baron capitalism in the NT or Christian tradition, until like the Billy Sundays arrive (most of 'em carpetbaggers ripping off the destitute of the post-bellum South) .
If "The business of America is business" we need a good businessman in the Oval Office. We don't need another Mother Theresa like we have now, who just wants to redistribute American wealth all over the world. Trump at least understands that China is eating our lunch. The country desperately needs to return to a solid business rating, to improve the standard of life on the macro-scale. Trump is the financial man. A lot of the other Republicans have too many side-issues, and aren't proven in the business realm. Bush was a mediocre businessman. Obama is a disaster area. Obama is a weird combo of Mother Theresa and Macchiavelli.
I see Faville's still on stage harping and moaning out the dirge that all our ills are due to Bush II, as listeners edge towards the door to escape this tedious cacophony, since The Great Calumniator of RR can't carry a tune. Had enough of the "Berkeley Moan," CF.
Some politicians should stay out of politics, and especially when, like the Big O, they issue from a political cloaca like Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.
Roger Keats, former Democrat state party leader and senator, recently owned defeat in fighting Chicago corruption as a member of the Cook County Board:
"We live in the most corrupt big city, in the most corrupt big county in the most corrupt state in America. I am sick and tired of subsidizing crooks. A day rarely passes without an article about the corruption and incompetence. Chicago even got caught rigging the tests to hire police and fire! Our Crook County CORPORATE property tax system is intentionally corrupt. The Democrat State Chairman who is also the Speaker of the Illinois House and the most senior alderman in Chicago each make well over a million dollars a year putting the fix in for their client's tax assessments."
But there's more:
"Illinois just sold still more bonds and our credit rating is so bad we pay higher interest rates than junk bonds! Junk Bonds! Illinois is ranked 50th for fiscal policy; 47th in job creation; 1st in unfunded pension liabilities; 2nd largest budget deficit; 1st in failing schools; 1st in bonded indebtedness; highest sales tax in the nation; most judges indicted (Operations Greylord and Gambat); and 5 of our last 9 elected governors have been indicted. That is more than the other 49 states added together! Then add 32 Chicago Aldermen and (according to the Chicago Tribune) over 1000 state and municipal employees indicted. The corruption tax is a real cost of doing business. We are the butt of jokes for stand up comics."
He and his family are fleeing . . . to Texas:
"We are moving to Texas where there is no income tax while Illinois' just went up 67%. Texas' sales tax is 1/2 of ours, which is the highest in the nation. Southern states are supportive of job producers, taxpayers and folks who offer opportunities to their residents. Illinois shakes them down for every penny that can be extorted from them."
Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/2011/03/former-state-senator-quits-illinois-moves-to-texas.html#ixzz1IOrAoNgW
Nevertheless, I'm afraid he won't be able to escape "The Chicago Way" altogether, now that it's got its feet up on the Oval Office desk.
There are many horrible things within our own country, and Chicago and its politicians are one of these, but it's China that we need to focus all of our hatred against.
Not only are they destroying us in the mercantile sphere, but they alone are really responsible for N. Korea, Myanmar, Tibet, and many other tragedies including Zimbabwe and the Southern Sudan. They profit from those situations.
Of course they are on the Security Council so going into those places isn't possible.
Libya is on its own, so the UN can go in there.
The Donald has one big thing going for him: he keeps his eye on the bottom line.
That's good business. We desperately need a president who can think like that.
Had enough of the "Berkeley Moan," CF.
Instead, we get the Uni. of Chi-town whine from JDL and KO. Or is it shofar medley.
BO has hardly deviated from the BushCo doctrine. He actually increased DoD spending--a point lost on many demopublicans. And the de-reg policies of Clinton/Gingrich, continued by Bush were a key factor in the economic crisis of 2008 (not the predictable Foxbot villains Pelosi, Frank et al). Trump's in that supply side tradition, which is to say--usury.
The "romance" of business is a relatively new hybrid just emerged from the closet of boredom. Having seemingly exhausted all the other prototypical "reality" personae in the deck, all that's left for commercial affiliates are these brutally selfish real estate tycoons and corrupt PTA "petroleum" moms. This must be the groundswell of populist sentiment presaged by the tea party-goers. There's one born every minute.
Didn't get enough business-friendly legislation with Bush? How 'bout Newt? 'bout time for another Contract on America. Who'll be the hit man this time? Who'll be the driver?
Repubs know they don't have a viable candidate in the wings for the White House, so they're thrashing about trying to "take a stand" against school lunches, in-home care for the disabled, and smokestack pollution.
If we could only get rid of those trial lawyers! If only we could re-write the Bill of Rights to make it more "business friendly"!
How about we outlaw unions?
It's the right to work! Every damn deadbeat American honkie who crawled out of his stinkin' hovel who never put in a days work! Talk about privileges!
Man, we got to get out the vote. Clean house. Sweep out the rascals and install some responsible leadership (like Tom DeLay). Texas is a darn straight-shootin' country, and they like business better'n a good moon pie, or a professional BJ.
Capital gains and dividends, baby, capital gains and dividends. I earn more from mutual funds in a month than I ever earned in a year on a W-2.
It's a great system for me, but totally inhumane if it fails to provide full employment for anyone who wants a job. Government's job is to keep the work force willing and able to work. Cripple the working class and the system will collapse.
Typical Faville; like so many anti-business artsy types, on their knees begging for more public money while shaking their fists at those who create jobs and wealth.
Just the kind of "fist-cal" thinking that's brought California shambling down the low dirt road to becoming New Zimbabwe. And when all the pro-business philistines have been driven away and their idolatrous merchant temple destroyed, as I remember it, the very first line spoken in the old B-rate flick "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by a California Indian girl emerges as the inevitable result: "Let's go dig some roots." Maybe there's a truffle or two hidden down there. . . .
"'[T]aking a stand' against school lunches," translated from the Berkeleyian left patois, means to suggest parents might bear some slight responsibility for feeding their own children from time to time--surely as outrageous a suggestion as to make the very stars flinch.
I don't think Faville meant to say what he did say about Repubs being "against [. . .] smokestack pollution," but there are a number of decent choices among them as alternatives to the ever-shape-shifting chief junket- and vacationeer in nominal charge at present. They won't have the crony-capitalist, big union, and laudered foreign dough heavily bankrolling the Dems, but the current "Chicago Way" regime just doesn't seem these days to be cutting it.
Faville's finish? Have a banjo-pluckin' hee-haw at poster-board caricatures of supposed hee-hawers. Do bray tell it--it's the "Berkeley Way"!
There has to be some balancing of interests. I'm not too interested in going back to the days of Dickens with poorhouse for those who can't pay their debts, or Tiny Tim dying (what disease did he have exactly?), or further back to the children who went up and down chimneys in Blake's poems, and died of black lung at 8. I don't think businessmen should want to press every last dime out of workers, as Carnegie did, while not allowing for the health of the workers, working them to death like slaves, as they actually did to slaves in Haiti under the French.
But I don't think employers should be stripped of all rights, and constantly stand in danger of industry-ending lawsuits, and so on, either. This just makes the business climate impossible to work within. Obama has a 3000 page bill that has never been tested, and he's never been a businessman, and he just wants to yank every dime out of employers. Why should anybody want in the water when there are so many lurking dangers that haven't been tested yet?
The system has to be fair and sane on both sides for the coupling to take place: employers wanting to hire, employees wanting to work there.
It's a bit like the situation afforded between men and women. If you date a feminist, you are dating an army of women, and if you decide to get out, you have to face the whole army. Only a nut would date a feminist.
But if men are going to go behind a woman's back and act like an idiot and not honor the arrangement, women have a right to be angry about it, and to check into a man's background.
In the current climate since the 1960s everything is war between businessmen and employees, between men and women, between parents and children. No one has the roles clear, and as a result the whole situation is dicey.
Roles have to be clarified again. The church can do this to an extent.
Except many of the churches are busy in the groundwar, when they should be acting as referees, and trying to get everybody to settle down, and function, or so I think.
But even outside the nation we have extreme competition. The Chinese are eating our lunch.
We need to settle our internal divisions so we can begin to get functioning again.
If it's the "law of love" that we have to follow, as per Mother Theresa, that's not functional. No businessman can work under those guidelines.
We have to work under Caesar's guidelines. First, we have to make sure the company's making a profit, and the businessperson's family is afloat.
Secondly, the employees are taken care of.
THEN we can think of charity, but it has to be optional. It can't be the law itself.
Checks and balances probably work out fairly smoothly when there's competition. That is, when employers have stiff competition for the best workers, and when workers have stiff competition for the best jobs.
This used to work better in cities, rather than in company towns.
The worst nightmares probably took place in company towns where there was a monopoly.
But unions, once they get a monopoly, can be equally tyrannous.
Competition, generally speaking, is a good thing.
But we've decided against it in certain areas: tenure, for instance, and marriage. Marriage is a kind of tenure. Tenure is a kind of marriage.
In those situations, you have to look VERY carefully at candidates, and think it through wisely since you're more or less stuck with one another.
In marriage, we said in sickness and in health, til death do you part.
This seems fair to me, but since the 60s that's been under constant attack, and now Nussbaum wants polygamy.
Tenure is a pretty good system, since it means you can go off on your own intellectually. But some just choose to do nothing, or repeat the same thing over and over, instead of doing any real thinking.
Kirby, I don't think the spectre of imprisonment for debt is something to fear; it still exists in a couple of Arab principalities and in Hong Kong, but it's pretty unlikely to reappear in the West. By the way, France abolished imprisonment for debt in 1867, beating out Germany, England, and Sweden by several years.
Another way dogmatic "green" thinking stifles business is through pollution agency intimidation and retribution against whistleblowers. If you've the time, check out this story of the persecution of an environmental cancer epidemiologist in California, Dr James Enstrom, here:
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/02/ca-legislators-threaten-hearings-if-ucla-fires-carb-whistleblower/
Once more, FIRE to the rescue!
I don't know how Trump made his money. Craig says his grandfather got things cracking.
J implies it's usury, a nasty term for Jewish banking that has been used by notorious anti-Semites like Pound, but I don't think Trump's money is in banking.
Was his money earned in legitimate businesses? I'm superbusy, but if anybody has that info, fill it in, please. Probably Wikipedia could give us some of the essences.
I know less than nothing about him. He had the argument with Rosie O'Donnell, but I don't even know what they said to one another, or what it was about.
I watched about two minutes of his show You're Fired, I think it's called. Now that he's thrown his hat in the ring, I suppose we should actually look through his entrepreneurial records. Has he made money in a fair and up and up way, paid taxes, does he have old friends who still love him?
What is his history with women?
What kind of shoes does he wear?
For now, I'm taking a back seat here. I believe that JH's criticism that we've gotten stuck in ruts is entirely sound, and I'm chosing to honor his insight by avoiding comments that are trivial to predict given my commitments.
With that said, what I find surprising about this comment stream is how little engagement there is with Mother Teresa, and especially, how little understanding there is of the obstacles she overcame to accomplish what she did. Of these, the financial obstacles are far from the greatest.
Theresa took a vow of chastity and obedience at a young age, and lived her life in faithfulness to that vow. She chose to minister to people who were among the most despised in the world (India's untouchables), and she devoted her life to them, despite spirtual doubts (all too common among contemplatives) based on the silence of God.
The opposite of faith isn't doubt, it is certainty. Mother Theresa lived her life in faith, absent certainty. But she healed the sick, and cared for the dying. We've heard this story before (cf., Matt 11:2-6). The question is, can we recognize it when someone tells it anew?
DeLater and Kirby should stop wasting their time arguing with the monkeys at the bottom of the social ladder, and "get cracking" making some dough.
Capitalism is for those who can make the best use of it. Obviously arguing over details (ethical issues) is for preachers and street people. What kind of cred do you lower-middle-class dupes have? Not much. I'm convinced by success, not by excuses and toadying.
Come on, guys, show a little initiative. Show me the money!!!
Both parties have offered to name the White House after Trump in return for an agreement not to run. Trump wants them to sweeten the deal with a 30% share in proceeds from rental of the Lincoln Bedroom and a contract for his people to manage it as a bed and breakfast resort and casino. He has an option to convert the White House lawn into a putting green if he wants, as long as no metal spikes are allowed inside. Guests get to choose which one of the ex-wives will serve as the official hostess for their visit. It'll cost extra if they want it televised on pay-per-view.
Robin Leach and Shari Bellafonte have already been signed for play by play and color commentary. Both political parties get a 20% share and the remaining revenue goes to the general fund to write down the interest on the national debt. Personal appearances by the President or the First Lady are available for a 50% surcharge.
One of the prevailing trends in the neo-conservatism revolution which we've seen unfold over the last 40 years is a determined aggressive rudeness. You can see it in the behavior of people who carry placards on the street, and it's more than available on the airwaves these days.
DeLater still parrots the fake discredited wisdom about how capital "creates jobs"--he's 50 years late and several billion dollars short. America's been exporting jobs faster than a dog can trot, but we still "owe" the corporations tax breaks and a free ride on environmental protection and worker safety and social benefits--after all, if we don't grant them these hand-outs, they'll take their trust funds and move to Switzerland!
With respect to California, I think it was the assumption that the largesse created by the dot-com, and real estate bubbles would continue for ever, that led BOTH parties (sweet-heart) to go slurping at the public trough.
No, DeLater, that tired old "pro-business" rant won't work any more. The people who need to make sacrifices in this economy of scarcity are the poor, by god. They're the one's who're responsible for the mess we've gotten ourselves into. They're the ones who sent us into two undeclared wars, who set up the brokerage crisis by creating credit default swaps and empty mortgage based securities. They're the ones who've brought the rich to their knees, after 10 years of "tax holidays" and unbridled welfare and "entitlement" spending.
DeLater, you need to get over this geographical anxiety. Are you in New Orleans? We love the food, but the oysters I hear have gotten a little oily around their valves. Still, I like your laid-back white hat and distinguished goatee. Does authority inhere in this outfit? Do the ladies twitter to the sound of your harangues against those nasty white Northerners? Does the memory of Sherman still dismay the princesses of Atlanta? "Oh, my, Esmeralda, I do declare that Mr. DeLater cuts a find figure on the dance floor! Do introduce me, before I faint in anticipation!!"
isn't there a story about a guy who has this idea in business and it is to run the business into the ground but he can't he does everything he can to fail but the idea is so good people just won't let it go and he makes katrillions but is so damn upset by the failure of his orignal principle that he jumps off the golden gate bridge and lands on a floating mattress and lives anyway
from november 1 to april fools
nobody should have to work more than 2 or 3 hours a day everyone should stay home
men need time to write poems and do impressionistic paintings of clouds
women should stay home more and take care of things
business has made our lives frantic
business should mind its own
leisure...the only reason for any business to be in business is to be philanthropic
generosity is nobler than greed
at least i think it used to be
trump is a new jersey greaser they're a dime a dozen even in the new jersey church they're there give me a break
he's a thug in a trench coat
hea makes his money gambling
safe bets
but gambling nonethelesssssss
nuns can't run for president
so i think the comparison here
is fatuous at best
although i think i know a few
who could handle the job
mother theresa believed that god was in control of all the money and he'd give her what she needed
she took - in god we trust- rather literally i don't think trump believes that
trump will never get a nobel peace prize
jerry brown worked with mother theresa for awhile
i think he should be president
kim kardashian
in a bikini
now that's a candidate
here cometh the armenians
anybody got a dollar
j thinks i'm finally authentic or almost
i sense and odd catholic tumult in his words
god of the alley rats
come save my soul
jh
stu and jh are right of course about the tributes owed to Blessed Mother Theresa, a truly amazing person who performed countless acts of charity in her life. I haven't remembered her recently in my prayers, but I'll thank stu and jh for the reminder.
Faville, for aggressive political rudeness and lunacy it's hard to beat the loud left stuff that goes round in your own Bay City milieu of the "LGBT," pro-illegal alien, and "Code Pink" varieties. When I was a kid living in California the lunacy there was pretty much benign and confined to nudist clubs, flying saucer groups, and clatches of old ladies who couldn't abide the indecency of unclothed pets, but now. . . .
World trade's not going away; foreign companies build plants and hire workers here, just as our companies relocate some sites overseas. I'd be willing to support a higher capital gains tax rate in exchange for lowering our much too high corporate tax rates in order to encourage businesses to stay here. But I'll leave the "capital and businesses don't create jobs" nonsense for the nonce. Awk!
Faville, don't know where you picked up the idea I'm from the South. Sure, I've taught in Virginia for a few years, but I'm originally a midwesterner (like you, I think--was it Iowa?). I've lived in a number of states (and in Canada and Europe), from California, Oregon, Montana, and Washington to Massachusetts, Indiana, and now, Michigan (Ann Arbor). I have moved round a bit; in answer to impertinent queries about why, I'd sometimes say it was because of gambling debts or angry husbands. Still, if you like hee-haw funnin' with Southerners, be my jest. . . .
craig states something we're liable to miss here
it would be in the best interest of the wealthy of this country to dedicate time and care to the working class again...to recognize that a healthy class of cheerful workers is good for everyone...and they don't need to be stressed out about where their healthcare is coming from....and i think it it equally important for chrisitians to give recognition to the nobility of hard manual work to motherhood to the well tended home to the crafters to the farmers to the roadbuilders...and with that recognize that their health is vital to our shared life here
time for north americans to address our spiritual depravity
time for us to look with a bit of abhorrence at the filthy rich
-unless of course they give their money away
then maybe just maybe they can have a cup of tea with me
but my door is the eye of a needle- beware
i love the serious lines of thought being worked out on this blog
i miss the ludic
the lunic
the goofballs in the attic
the very words lutheran surrealism suggest a form of standup or sit down or roll over comedy
but nonetheless
you guys rock for
i think the blogworld would be devoid of substance without you
there's a few others too
but this is a great blog
here here
it rained the other day
spring is offering slight kisses
amen
jh
i'm always taken aback just slightly by the big orange words on beneathe the comment box that say ---
choose an identity
is this an invitation to the truth of western culture ??
lady gaga beware
Trump's a developer and has massive real estate holdings and casinos. He makes his shekels the old-fashioned way--he's a slumlord and casino pimp (and his father was a millionaire was he not).
Not only Marxy Marx took on the "rentiers" --Ricardo did so, as did Smith. Why work when you can just inherit a bunch of property and money, and simply grow rich from poor tenants, or deadbeat gamblers? Old school GOP tradition.
At times KO alludes to Locke, not quite understanding that even the old whigs opposed estates and familial dynasties (as did that old perp Jefferson)--ie estate taxes were in place in the US from the very beginning (and actually higher than now, per capita ). Reaganites have for 30 years been attempting to overturn what's left of the Founders' ideals and New Deal.
We probably always see the other side as rude and unlettered. Why do we do that? Perhaps we want to dismiss the legitimacy of their beef, so tend to put them into a rubric of the colossal bore.
Many on the left were very eager to see Jared Loughner as a product of the Tea Party, for instance, and to see the Fox News people as degenerates specializing in mayhem, the kind of person who would piss off a yacht, just to show that they could.
It's just the way it goes.
The people in Madison this last round looked like they could have used a few etiquette lessons.
San Francisco in general just strikes me as a rude, loud, boorish place. I'd hate to go anywhere inside the city limits.
Non sequitur, as per usual in KO's Lit-land. Not to say ad hom, etc
you were discussing Trump. Perhaps then, like, discuss Trump. And Trumponomics. Even Jeeebuss opposed slumlords. Woe unto ye, slumlords n shysters! Something like dat.
I can't handle movies with supernatural evil in them. Pure unadulterated evil freaks me out. As if the force is so radicalized you cannot make sense with the entity. I hate that. When I saw the film Carrie I had to go to the hospital. I hated the way the mother treated her daughter. It terrified me, because there was no possibility of discussion. the mother was just plain evil, as if she was possessed by a force beyond discussion. I don't like (can't stand) political radicals who see things all their own way, and feel that they don't have to obey rules or laws or even have any discussion with their victims. This drives me nuts.
Bin Laden, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, Obama, Bush 2, Mother Theresa, Donald Trump, and many others strike me as terrible simplifiers who operate out of sheer certainty, and that seems to me to be much like terrorism.
I can imagine having a discussion with Huckabee, but not with anyone else. I often operate on charm, and need it to be able to finesse certain situations. You cannot charm a terrorist.
Many people have a grid that is so entirely locked into place that they seem robotic.
Obama is not the worst, but he's way up there. He's tricky because he pretends to listen. But his agenda comes first, and he never lets go of it. Who programmed his agenda?
I think it's the communist international.
Bush 2 was programmed by the business community but also by the evangelicals. He'd swing first one way and then the other.
You never knew when the other program would kick in.
Gaddafi has very strong programming. You could never discuss anything with him. He is his own man, as they say.
Nothing worse.
Donald and Mother Theresa are alike in being locked into their own agenda. It strikes those outside that agenda as terroristical.
Ginsberg was like that, too. He had such a strong agenda, and was hellbent in seeing its passage.
Absolute goodness is a lot like absolute evil. You can't deal with it. It's too pure. I can't imagine having a discussion of any kind with Mother T.
I prefer it when people see the world as mostly gray area.
The people that are certain are pretty much like terrorists.
Bin Laden, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, Obama, Bush 2, Mother Theresa, Donald Trump, and many others strike me as terrible simplifiers who operate out of sheer certainty, and that seems to me to be much like terrorism.
In Mother Teresa's case, this is a terrible misunderstanding. You owe yourself some reading on the topic.
This is an interesting comment coming from you, Kirby Olson, because from what I've been following you exhibit little flexibility in your blog and give the impression of viewing the world -- and your political positions in particular -- in what appear to be pretty entrenched black and white positions. You strike a note and stick with it regardless of any well presented and thought out points of view that differ from your own. While part of me admires your convictions -- wrongheaded though I think some of them are -- the other part of me says, "Where can one go with this type of attitude? It leaves no room for open-minded, substantive discussion."
Kirby:
You're worrying about the wrong stuff:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
and
‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
1) It doesn't sound like he's talking about any "kingdom" but this present world.
2) We need neither Trump nor Mother Theresa but love for God and for each other.
Kirby's pretty good at not following his own advice.
Oh, my I've defamed DeLater!
So glad now to have the lowdown on the down low.
"Faville, for aggressive political rudeness and lunacy it's hard to beat the loud left stuff that goes round in your own Bay City milieu of the "LGBT," pro-illegal alien, and "Code Pink" varieties."
I'm mostly with you there, JD, but I'd be careful dissing the ladies--they can be very persuasive when the spirit moves them. As you know, most Californians are against illegal immigration. It's the politicos who seem bent on currying favor with the new voting bloc they will soon represent. If you've been paying attention, I'm firmly against unbridled immigration, particularly the illegal variety. I was for Prop 8, primarily because I don't like entitling life-styles, specifically those which embrace perversion. Toleration is one thing, but enshrinement is another. Certainly the fact that I live in California is not in itself either a sin or a crime, or a de facto indication of my sentiments, one way or the other. You may recall that is was historically Orange County that was the original hotbed of radical libertarianism, and the birthplace of the Reagan dream. Please pay attention. It's us curmudgeons in the Northern half of the state who conjured the idea of splitting off from the nutty Souther half.
"When I was a kid living in California the lunacy there was pretty much benign and confined to nudist clubs, flying saucer groups, and clatches of old ladies who couldn't abide the indecency of unclothed pets, but now. . . ."
I don't know who you used to hobnob with in your younger days, but the neighborhoods I grew up in were mostly peopled by displaced Midwesterners and Southerners who' come looking for work and opportunity. That was a demographic not limited to the West, as you know. My forbears were Scandanavians (in Wisconsin), and New England before that. My great great great great (well, you get the idea) Grandfather wrote and published a pamphlet against the persecution of witches in the 17th Century. Maybe that puts me on the wrong side of the sexual fence with respect to the witches who would spurn heterosexual marriage. During the Sixties folks tried cohabitation, but the argument over who's going to do the dishes still persists, after 15 centuries.
"World trade's not going away; foreign companies build plants and hire workers here, just as our companies relocate some sites overseas. I'd be willing to support a higher capital gains tax rate in exchange for lowering our much too high corporate tax rates in order to encourage businesses to stay here."
Surprised at your ignorance, here, JA. Corporate tax rates have been steadily falling since about 1960, while the tax rates for ordinary citizens haven't been "adjusted" to account for the inflation that makes everyone poorer today than they were in 1970, no matter how hard they work. During the 1990's, American business told Americans "work harder, work smart, and be competitive!" But when they did, their bosses assigned them the task of training their foreign replacements. That's not calculated to make the folks very business-friendly.
Part I End
Part II
My favorite example is the Hersey Company sending their factory in Oakdale, California and sending the whole operation to Mexico--turning a thriving American factory town into a welfare roll in a single month. I'm never going to eat another Hersey candy-bar as long as I live.
"Faville, don't know where you picked up the idea I'm from the South. Sure, I've taught in Virginia for a few years, but I'm originally a midwesterner (like you, I think--was it Iowa?). I've lived in a number of states (and in Canada and Europe), from California, Oregon, Montana, and Washington to Massachusetts, Indiana, and now, Michigan (Ann Arbor). I have moved round a bit; in answer to impertinent queries about why, I'd sometimes say it was because of gambling debts or angry husbands. Still, if you like hee-haw funnin' with Southerners, be my jest. . . ."
Not sure how I got that idea. There are tea partiers in all the rust belt states, no reason why you shouldn't thrive there. I find it so ironic that the fertile soil of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan--which once were the backbone of American prosperity, before corporate America abandoned them in favor of slave labor abroad, should be so susceptible to proselytization. It's always easier to get mad about fags and tramps and tree-huggers than it is to look the CEO's in the eye. Who was that fat guy who almost got Gore elected? Didn't he come from Detroit?
Not interested in joining. Just looking for an old friend, Jim DeLater. Jim you can contact me at emcneil@peacehealth.org
Ed
Curtis--don't forget that a major reason Corporations abandoned the rust belt was the stranglehold that unions had on their ability to make a profit.
Corporations exist for no other reason than to deliver profit to their shareholders. We cannot expect them to do otherwise--that is like expecting a tiger to be a vegan.
When the requirements of union workers became more important than the ability of the corporation to create profit, the corporation had to find more profitable labor.
Now, you can debate all day long whether or not we should allow corporations to exist--but the fact is that they do and that in this existence their purpose is to make a profit.
So don't blame corporations for "abandoning the rust belt"--it was what they were going to do in light of the restrictions placed on them by the legalities of the work environment (imposed by unions and union-fed political force).
Faville, thanks for your response, though I shouldn't consider it defamation to think I'm from the South, just incorrect. And I do know your views on illegal immigration and have here on LS commented approvingly upon them.
Thanks too for some background on your roots; it's interesting to know who people's people are. As a kid-youth I lived in the southern half of California (San Diego and Oxnard), but had military training in Monterey (Ft Ord) and lived there off-base until shipping off overseas.
On the reasons for California's current malaise, I've followed the articles of Victor Davis Hanson (a classicist and former farmer in the Central Valley, much of which seems now to have become an unproductive Third World shambles). Sure, I've barbed Berkeley a bit. An Old English prof of mine decades ago used to say that Berkeley was a pretty good place to live until the late 60s and craziness became the preferred way of life there. She and her likewise academic husband weren't too keen on sporting then-de rigueur Che-berets and the neighbours and their own students started to whisper about them, but they later found welcome refuge in Portland, Oregon, where I knew them. From Portland, I later found refuge in accepting a fellowship at UBC in Vancouver, my favourite West coast city.
On lowering the corporate tax rate to encourage multinationals to stay, I found the WaPo article of Robert Samuelson (no conservative he) instructive, here:
http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/26074177-47/tax-percent-taxes-rate-capital.html.csp
I'm not sure on what you base your assertion that our material standard of living has fallen since 1970.
Yeah, the millionaire Marxist propagandist Michael Moore's from Flint MI, near Detroit, which is a showplace now for decades of liberal, culturally-enriched governance.
Moore is a Catholic who believes in abortion and same-sex marriage. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan. He is worth ten figures.
All from Wikipedia.
The whole problem of Marxism is that it creates a new monopoly in trying to get rid of the old one based on ownership. It posits a saintly government capable of elegantly redistributing capital such that everyone can "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize poetry affter dinner, just as we have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic" (The German Ideology, 254).
The problem is that only the very few at the top of the party ever got to do that (Kim Jong-Il can do that, although it would be more like rape some peasant in the morning, kill her father in the afternoon, and watch a James Bond flick in the evening).
Adam Smith assumed that if everyone minded their business there would be enough to go around, and everyone would do their job. Once the government starts tweaking, and asserting itself, we get a kind of monopoly in the making.
It's hard to know how to get this right. Hayek is the best I've read on economics, and planning, but perhaps there's someone with a more nuanced plan.
Still, if given the forced choice between Donald Trump and Mother Theresa for president, I'd go with the Donald.
It's us curmudgeons in the Northern half of the state who conjured the idea of splitting off from the nutty Souther half.
Au contraire. The chi chi bay area demos whined the loudest about prop. 8 for one--I can hear Feinstein's crackle right now...arghhh
That said.......8 should have been opposed merely because it allowed the fundamentalists to dictate morality--it wasn't about entitlement (though that's not the ugliest word in the lexicon, CF)--it was about like, defeating mormon and baptist biblethumpers (and not a few papists and muslims). The authentic libertarian would allow no laws and no perqs regarding marriage, str8, or not, on the books.
Indeed it's the Feinsteins who ruined the Bay Area--not really "democrats", or the hippies, but sort of liberal Torys and financiers (like Feinstein's man Blum). They jacked up the real estate market, they brought in the silicon IT hucksters, created the SF/penisula dystopia. Then supported the BushCo war, FISA and the rest.
Re the Immigration issue you sound rightist, CF, and hardly different than JDL or KO. The border should be patrolled, and illegals returned, humanely. But the McCain/GOP/hick/mormon approach, as with the AZ shakedown, approaches totalitarianism. Merely pulling people over because they look like illegals, and arresting them if they don't have Zeee Papers? Perhaps even you can see the problems with that CF.
Obama wants to win a war in Libya without hurting people, he wants to police the border with Mexico while never hurting anyone's feelings, he wants to maintain industry while making sure no one has to work, he wants to keep marriage sacred while letting just anyone get married and anyone divorced, he wants to decrease the debt while wanting to giving everyone access to free healthcare, he wants to make sure everyone has free healthcare, and no one is denied, while bringing down the cost of doing business for insurance companies.
Jesus could do things like this, perhaps, if he felt like it.
But Obama isn't Jesus.
J:
Illegal immigration has created a number of problems in this country. It isn't just the Central and South Americans, it's also Asians. It's also the many "student" and "worker" groups who never intend to leave.
The point has never been about blaming any of these people for "wanting to be here". The point is that stealing or occupying what you don't own or where you don't belong is illegal. Regulation of Immigration is the province of each nationality--its right and necessary obligation. The first priority of any nation is to its own citizens--their welfare and opportunities--not to those of other nations. If I'm an American, I don't expect special privileges in any other country in the world.
The perceived "tolerance" of our national character can't be stretched to include anyone who games the system and simply takes matters into their own hands. Our immigration quotas are based on rational estimates of how many bodies we can fairly accommodate. Absorbing large excess numbers of "illegals" severely taxes any society. You can call them "newly arrived" or you can call them refugees, which is basically what they are. Historical developments aside, our neighbor to the south, Mexico, has been and continues to be an outlaw state, riddled with poverty and corruption. It takes little or no responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. The consequences for America are devastating. To make matters worse, the contingent sympathizers and the growing mass of arrivistes themselves have grown into a political force, which now challenges our right to manage our borders, the great mass of illegals already here, and the huge social problems which they've created. None of this is good. Americans as a people are sentimental and generous by nature. We'll help and hire and care for people in need. But there are limits, and those limits have been exceeded several-fold already. And still we're expected to accommodate more, and still more. Everyone knows this can't go on indefinitely, but almost no one has the political "will" to support the kind of admittedly draconian measures needed to address it.
Our border needs to be closed. It looks and feels wrong, somehow, to have walls at our borders, but this has been forced upon us by Mexico, which outrageously and contemptuously refuses to cooperate in controlling its side. Mexico believes, correctly of course, that the more of its citizens it can fob off on us, the better. The whole notion of "open borders" only serves the side which stands to gain; the loser despises it and wants them closed.
End Part I
For those already here, stern measures need to be instituted. Americans shouldn't be required to provide free health care, free schooling and housing to foreign nationals. Doing so creates an enormous temptation which we can't afford to reward. The reason people come here isn't simply because "they want to work" but if that were the only reason, it still wouldn't pass muster. Cheap, illegal labor encourages several kinds of corruption, and hurts our domestic workforce. It's intolerable that we have 9% unemployment, and yet allow hundreds of thousands of illegals to work here under the radar. Having Mexican sweatshops in Los Angeles is the same as having "border factories"--except that in Mexico the exploitation is "legal" whereas here it's illegal (but "tolerated"). Ask yourself what the balance sheet looks like for a Mexican family which sneaks across the border into California, and migrates northward. The father works illegally for 60% of minimum wage. Their children are taught in our schools (in Spanish!). They get free health care, free legal advice, and maintain shadow identities, which means they pay no taxes. Since they live in a "ghetto" they don't learn to speak English, and have little or no incentive to "assimilate"--in any case, since they're criminals in hiding, they stay underground. They drive illegally, and don't pay insurance. Because of their poverty, among other things, they have high crime rates. The culture of gangs and violence and disrespect for authority are hallmarks of their inheritance as well. What such people "give" to our society and economy pales in comparison to what they "take." The "benefits" of illegal occupation are far greater than the risks, which is why they keep on coming. No one can fault them for being tempted. We need to tip that balance back to jeopardy, so the incentive is gone.
But all this is in its way, irrelevant. We aren't in the business of "choosing" which illegals we'd prefer to entertain. You deal with problems as they present themselves. Mexican children now compose over 50% of the total school population in California. If that isn't a wake-up call, I don't know what it. As a taxpayer and home-owner, I resent being asked to pay for the education of the children of Mexican illegals, or to pay for health care for illegals who walk into our hospital emergency rooms. It's simply wrong.
The point is that stealing or occupying what you don't own or where you don't belong is illegal.
That's what Californios--ie the spanish and mexicans of early California--said about ..whitey, did they not? And still do. As do natives. Stealing was fine for WASPs. And if you think the WASP take over of Cal from mexico was legal and just read some of the fine print of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and other broken promises.
I understand your nationalist point, especially in regard to asians. But this land was the hispanics' really, and the natives. We are the invaders and imperialists--at least be honest nationalists and imperialists then--Curtis "Breckinridge" Faville (don't laugh--Breckinridge, later a confederate general, nearly defeated Lincoln in CA in 1860, and CA was on the brink of seceding).
Very well stated, Mr. Faville, although I'm a bit challenged in determining exactly when you're being ironic, as so many of your words are in quotation marks.
As a native southern Californian who's livin' the dream not far from the Mexican border, I knock elbows regularly with people who are siphoning my hard-earned tax dollars as my state struggles to balance its budget, in part by finding more ways to raise every tax they possibly can or by creating new fees for formerly free services. I'm a registered Democrat, but -- dichotomy though it is -- I am not a Marxist nor especially liberal. I do, however, selectively feel a grudging support for some illegals I interact with, but I am also resentful and frustrated at the gigantic mess that's been dumped in our front yard. Why isn't there more national outrage -- organized marches, peaceful protests, with placards and slogans and mariachis? But I do think most people are deluding themselves if they don't admit that there is bigotry in whom they target as those who need to be booted back to where they came. Are we as equally irate about the illegal Mexicans (or Muslims) as we are about the illegal Canadians? If not, why?
Illegal Canadians? Are they a problem?
I'd think we are more of a problem for them.
How many French speakers are there still up in northern Maine and those parts? I know they have whole towns but aren't the towns tiny?
I used to listen to CBC in Canadian French, which sounded to my ear like Americans unapologetically speaking French without even trying to get the Parisian accent. I laughed and laughed.
I think the border is kinda sketchy all along the Canadian line. There are dirt roads that go right through.
You're supposed to write your name in a book as you go by. There's no other border policing in many places. But since things are computerized, I think it's hard to get work. Abbie Hoffman lived on some of the border islands when he was on the lam. He pretended to be French and got away with it.
We should probably attack the Canadians in order to save the polar bears. They're getting mixed in to the general population of bears.
That's quite cold!
Well, I'm not serious.
What other motivation might we have to attack the Canadians?
For some reason no one ever thinks about it. We probably shouldn't think about it.
Maybe Obama should appoint one of his Czars to think about what it would take to attack and seize Canada. This would be an unexpected development for Obama. Most American presidents have added to our land mass.
To be a good president, you have to do that.
Canada is a place no one ever thinks about attacking. I have a plan.
Obama could still save his lackluster presidency by doubling our landmass by taking Canada. It's not fair anyway that we're not connected to Alaska.
Plus, they have universal healthcare up there so we could just use theirs, and we could drop having to have it here.
What kind of an army have they even got? Mounted police?
It would be like taking Poland in 1939.
Frankie:
People always misinterpret what you say about nationals. Why is it that if you have a problem with the immigrants of a certain country, or even the immigrants of a whole region, this must be "evidence" that one is racist, and bigoted, blah blah blah, etc., etc., etc.
It's very tiresome to have to answer this charge over and over and over again, when the point has nothing whatever to do with race. Central Americans are a fine people. I just wish they'd stay in their country, and build nirvana, or paradise, or elysium there, and not try to keep coming here and ruining what little advantage we still have from our prosperous past, and our terrific democratic institutions. We can't have everyone who wants to come here come here. We just can't. It isn't racist, it isn't selfish, it isn't bullying, it isn't wrong. It's sensible and enlightened self-interest, which should be practiced everywhere in the world. But isn't. Don't like your country? Come to the promised land. Anyway you can, by any means legal or illegal. Push your agenda. Get yourself a foothold. Great.
Enough already!
Kirby:
What would we call it? The Hudson Bay Purchase!
Or, "take back the land of our forefathers" which was "stolen by the French"!!
Maybe Canada could adopt America. Canada seems to do everything right, including national health insurance. If I weren't such a jingo, I'd emigrate to Canada tomorrow. Clean, squeaky clean. And very few people of color. Away!!
The cons for entering America illegally should outweigh the pros.
The cons for hiring those who enter this country illegally should outweigh the pros.
That is all..
Curtis:
Yo he comprendido perfectamente lo que tu quieres decir.
I regret that you felt you needed to repeat your position, as that is tiresome. Since I agreed with all you said, there was no argument. Apparently, though, my response failed in clarity, because I certainly was not implying that you are bigoted. The key word was “most” when I wrote, “I do think most people are deluding themselves . . .”, which I’ll admit is a generalization for which I have done no formal research.
It was obvious I was citing two extremes (Mexicans and Canadians) to make a more dramatic point, which is that illegals are illegals, regardless of their country of origin, race or ethnicity, and that collectively they are all a drain on our resources and services. Illegal Canadians may assimilate less offensively than some, but they’re still illegal. I’m quite certain there are more illegal Mexicans in California than there are illegal Canadians or Hmongs, which could give the false impression that they’re being singled out if the U.S. is to ever move past its inertia and rise off its paralyzed duff to implement effective measures for dealing with our illegal (and legal) immigrant quagmire. However, whatever is done should be fairly applied to all illegals, and my point is that I fear the general masses do not have the ability to make the appropriate distinctions and will form a gang mentality toward a specific ethnic group or race of people from a place of prejudice and/or bigotry.
Kirby has a splendid idea. Our invasion would certainly catch the Canadians by surprise, so we could probably swoop in and be done in a day, with little or no bloodshed, although a little bombing here and there would let them know we mean business. In all fairness, Mexico should then invade us and reclaim the lands we finagled from them. They would thus reclaim their citizens, and all former Americans (now Mexican citizens) could illegally immigrate back into America.
And Brett, I agree wholeheartedly with your last comments, too.
I have unfortunately had second thoughts on my brilliant idea of invading Canada. While it would probably be easy, it would hard on the ears to hear so often the word "about" mispronounced "aboot" as it is in Canada. One of the terrible things about invasion is that the invaders are counter-invaded by phonemes and other small details of those we have invaded. I think Canadians are probably better off left alone as a result.
As for the Mexicans, and returning their stolen land: the problem with this is that then the Mexicans will just have to go that much further to get out of Mexico. And, there will be less territory for them to get out to, which will just make their lives doomed by sombreros that much more vexing.
So, I think we should invade Mexico instead of Canada, so that they do not have to leave Mexico in order to be part of the United States.
Plus, we get Dos Equis!
Far better than Molson.
Does everybody agree that Dos Equis is far better than Molson? If so, what are the exact qualities of the two beverages that lead us to believe this?
I have never drank either beer, as I am a teetotaler, but when I go to a Mexican restaurant, it seems that my friends grin from ear to ear over a Dos Equis, while a Molson seems like a rather somber undertaking by comparison.
The lure of invading Canada was that we'd inherit their universal healthcare system and we could discard our own messy overhaul. Taxes would go up, though. If we were successful in claiming Mexico, we'd inherit Tijuana and its shanties and all the other doggy border towns, an even more corrupt system than our own, and the brutal drug wars. Of course, we would have the tequilla distilleries, taco carts, donkeys painted to look like zebras, and brightly painted front doors.
Dos Equis is good -- Negra Modelo might be better.
Brett -- you appear to be a beer drinker. Do you have an opinion?
I was just thinking we could milk their system. If we had a problem, we could fly to Canada for a weekend. Meanwhile, we could scrap our own plans.
I forgot about the larger issues and became focused on beer, which I don't even drink. I was thinking about the cool refreshing lagers of summer.
It's not like we have to take over their whole countries though. With NAFTA, imports are readily available.
Not sure what I was thinking!
The drug wars weirdly enough are all about who gets to supply US with drugs. Their own population has such a small economy that they have to figure out what we want, and supply it.
The entire economy of the USSR in its heyday in the 50s was about 4% of ours. The problem with national supply systems is that individual imagination is at a minimum as everything is locked into the gray, institutional sweat of the bureaucracy, which can kill you as soon as look at you.
So everyone hunkered down and just tried not to starve or get sent to prison.
Our economy grew at an astronomical rate during the Robber Baron era. Set everything loose and the economy grows and grows and grows, as new ideas pop up all over. During the robber baron era there was no federal tax. The federal tax system on the other hand led to a series of depressions. The only thing more depression is the government printing too much money (as it is doing in Zimbabwe).
Mexico has been a quasi-socialist state for so long the last ounce of individual initiative has been taxed out of it. I wonder how they ever came up with Dos Equis? It's supposedly a pretty good beer.
That, and jumping beans, and emigres, are all that Mexico is known for so thoroughly have they been pushed down by the govnerment there and their federales.
I don't know why people here want to take drugs. Who's taking them? I don't know anybody who takes drugs.
Dos Equis was first brewed by a German man in Mexico, according to the Wikipedia page:
"Dos Equis is a lager that was originally brewed by the German-born Mexican brewer Wilhelm Hasse in 1897. The brand was named "Siglo XX" ("20th century") to commemorate the arrival of the new century, and the bottles were marked with the Roman numerals "XX", or "Dos Equis" (two Xs).
The main brand Dos Equis XX Special Lager is a 4.45% abv pale lager sold in green bottles.[5] Dos Equis XX Ambar is a 4.7% Vienna-style amber lager sold in brown bottles,[6] and was first exported to the United States in 1973.[7]
"The Most Interesting Man in the World" advertising campaign for Dos Equis features actors and Jonathan Goldsmith as the spokesman, with Frontline narrator Will Lyman conducting voiceovers."
Now I have to check jumping beans.
Molson has already merged with the American company, Coors:
"After the Molson Inc. merger with the American Coors company, on 14 March 2005, the Molson Coors Brewing Company announced that it was retiring its "I Am Canadian" advertising slogan for the new tagline "It Starts Here".[4] Shortly after, a Molson TV advertising campaign started, with Canadian actor Jason Jones portraying an American spokesperson who played upon the stereotypes of American ignorance of Canadian culture. Molson Canadian went through a significant re-staging during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic games where Molson Canadian Hockey House became "the" venue outside of competition venues. The new "made from Canada" advertising caught the hearts, minds and stomachs of Canadians and the brand saw share growth in early 2010. Molson Canadian remains a core strategic brand in the portfolio in Canada."
I guess it's still sort of Canadian, as, it seems, are Canadians themselves.
If we took over, we would have to get them to drink Bud light.
Now, I'll look up Bud Light and find out it's made in India.
Budweiser is a German word for a Czech:
"Budweiser is a German adjective describing something or someone from the city of České Budějovice (German: Budweis) in Southern Bohemia, Czech Republic.
Beer brewing in České Budějovice (or Budweis) dates back to the 13th century.[2] A few hundred years later, two breweries were founded in the city that made beer which they called "Budweiser," both being beers from the city of České Budějovice (Budweis), Czech Republic. In 1876, the US brewer Anheuser-Busch began making a beer which it also called "Budweiser." This led in 1907 to the "Budweiser trademark dispute" between beer companies claiming trademarks rights[3] to the name "Budweiser."
The three companies are:
Budweiser Bier Bürgerbräu, founded 1795 by German-speaking citizens of České Budějovice, which began exporting Budweiser Bier to the US in 1875. The company was expropriated by the state in 1945, when they changed the name of the company. However, the company reacquired the old naming rights in the 1990s after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia.
Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch), made by Anheuser-Busch in the United States, was first marketed in 1876 as "Budweiser" in the United States and Canada
Budweiser Budvar, a brewery founded in 1895 mainly by Czech-speaking citizens of České Budějovice
"
I believe this preoccupation with beer is a distraction from your unconscious desire to give in and have a tall cool one.
If you don't know anyone who takes drugs -- or, more than likely, aren't aware of anyone in your circle who does -- you live in a rarefied world. Drugs are insidious; they convince people that they need them; they convince people that they possess qualities they do not. I once asked someone I know, who was then a heroin addict, what taking the drug was like. The rhapsodic way she described the effects was chilling -- she was glowing and almost orgasmic in the telling. But a few weeks later, when she had to give up the drug baby she gave birth to, she sobered up. It was devastating. With the help of a methadone program, she got off drugs altogether (including, finally, the methadone). And now, ironically, she's married to a man from Acapulco who has had countless innocent family members and friends killed in the crossfire of the drug cartels. Her husband has been so traumatized he can't even speak. These are the very people she used to support -- she helped cut their weekly paychecks.
And she comes from an excellent family. No one is guaranteed immunity.
Drugs -- Alcohol. Same thing. Altered states -- simply choose your form of alteration. Except one is legal and one is not.
I don't understand the lure of drugs. I wonder if the very illegality of some of them is part of their allure. Sometimes I watch the show Addicted and just laugh and laugh: the people seem so thoroughly demented. Smokers are similar. Some people eat like crazy, in a similar way.
Of course a chemist would tell us that all of life is chemical. Going for a walk on a sunny day is a chemical event, to some degree, as is having a beer, or shooting heroin in your eyeball, I suppose (Corso told me once he used a vein in his eye when all his other veins had collapsed, but I didn't believe him -- he just liked to have a shocking effect).
America uses a lot of drugs, I suppose. We are keeping the Mexican cartels going. We keep the poppy fields of Afghanistan flowing with opium, while our soldiers also try to cut down their fields, and take out the narco-communists of Venezuela and Columbia and Mexico.
It's weird.
There has of course been a long strange addiction-centered literature since at least Thomas de Quincy. Coleridge was an opium addict, as was EA Poe. Ginsberg was constantly hopping about on methedrine. Charles Olson was a drunk. As was Jack Spicer.
John Berryman, etc.
Perhaps it changes the chemicals in your mind to something more productive of poetry.
It's probably rare to have stone cold sober-minded poets. I do have a couple of sips of beer like every other summer or something when it's all that's being served in a summer party, for instance.
I remember I tasted beer at a neighbor girl's house in Oregon once. Her family had a party, and a pitcher of beer was in the fridge. A little girl there named Shelley Ray Cannon said drink some. I did, and it made me really wonder about the adult world.
I was probably about four. It was the single worst taste I've ever had: a world of evil and sour grapes and mixed emotions. I didn't swallow. (This might be the equivalent of I didn't inhale.)
Exercise is also a chemical thing, as is NOT eating too much, as is getting fresh air, and taking the bicycle, and taking the steps, and eating as a vegetarian (the esophagus, the stomach, the duodenum, the large intestine, the small intestine, the enzymes, the glands, all have a chemical factory sort of deal going on, right).
Drugs just obliterate all that. But way back to Homer the druggies are mentioned. After Troy, it was Odysseus' first stop in the land of the lotus eaters.
A lot of people want to dispense with pain. They think we can get rid of pain! I believe in pain. It is part of our lot since we fell from Eden. Pain IS knowledge, or rather knowledge IS pain. That's common sense, even if I didn't mean THOMAS Paine, exactly.
Coleridge was an opium addict, as was EA Poe.
Coleridge was but you obviously haven't read much of EA Poe's bio apart from the libellous comments from his enemies (Griswold, IIRC). Poe supposedly took laudanum at times--it was over-the-counter those days --but it's highly unlikely he was "addicted to opium" (morphine the medical form anyway). Poe's death was not due to alcohol or opium primarily but from being shanghai'ed by Baltimore thugs, more or less.
And what sort of beat (or student of beats) has never even smoked pot, or swilled some beer? Paraphrasing Zappa, you coulda made more money as a butcher--or accountant, salesman, or preacher, etc
pain pilfers logical cognition of it's sense
i know
i bruised up my shoulder somoething fierce in a ski accident
i am no longer young
i'm lucky to be sitting here typing
stupid words on a laptop
i coulda been killed
and had it not been for a pain reliever
or two or three
i think i could have died
i am a believer in applicable use of drugs
and i guess mother theresa got high on all the odors of calcutta
i mean just walking in the street there
phew
the idea that jazz players you know one two three
but they don't want to be trumps or saints and by the way she is saint mother theresa of calcutta
spirits make the time more dramatic
man has been loathe to face it all with stoic resolve
i like dinner parties
where people sip wine slurp a beer and talk loud and then eat and go home
i suspect mother theresa would sip a beer on a hot calcutta afternoon
donald trump wants to trump obama and make him out to be a nonamerican no birth certificate
what a prick
what a dolt
in the long run it doesn't matter
obama is so large america can't contain him he is the high chieftain of the warrior class the highly advanced evolutionary modified super intellectual humanoid hybrid specimens these are the mutations we've been waitng for
mother theresa pray for us
it would be good to shut down the govt for a year
just close the doors
everyone go do something else
i can't believe you got 70 comments on this kirbster
why don't you do one on hitchens vs mother theresa
i think christopher hitchens would look nice in one of those scarves she wore
amen
jh
I don't have too much of a say on the molson/dos equis comparison - I rarely drink dos, and even more rarely drink Molson.
It's probably just a matter of Dos Equis having a better advertising campaign and more appealing graphic design on the label.
Frankie sad something about 'drugs, alcohol, altered states, all the same.' They are similar in that they are altered states - but the kind of altered state, the delivery method, the addictiveness, the damage done to the body, the psychological effect, etc., are all incredibly different from drug to drug, and especially between alcohol and a drug like heroin.
Fact of the matter is that people who drink in steady moderation are the healthiest people on the planet...
You can't really say that about heroin or meth or crack, or even weed.
But alcohol is actually good for you. Too much is, by definition, bad for you - but that goes for everything on this planet.
(though not everything has a healthy golden mean...some things need to be totally avoided...there's not a healthy amount of crack you can do, for instance)
People do drugs because it makes you feel good. One of the main problem with drugs is that when someone feels bad, it's often for a reason - they're not taking care of themselves physically, psychologically, or socially, and if they rely on drugs to take away that 'pain,' then they're avoiding solving any problems... Though there can be a balance, where, say, if a situation has you so tense that you can't solve the problem or see it with perspective, and some drinky drink or weed or something helps break down that anxiety, it can be a not-so-bad thing... And drinking socially can lower inhibitions to help create positive communal and personal experiences.
Alcohol is like faith in a higher power - Almost every culture in the history of the world has had some sort of alcohol as part of its culture...if a culture doesn't, I find it suspect... Same goes for persons, often...it indicates a sort of dogmatism that imposes a black and white morality when that black and white morality doesn't actually apply...
My parents didn't drink and thought it was a scandal that they used wine at our communion. I tinct, but delight in the strange taste of wine. I like the taste of non-alcoholic beer.
Once I had morphine, or some kind of morphine derivative. I had a kidney stone and they shot me up with the stuff. Best stuff ever, I floated on a cloud for seven hours. I can imagine wanting to disappear into that cloud for sure.
It's common sense.
I remember reading years ago about Poe. He took on most of NYC intellectual class and wrote a virulent funny book about them, and they hounded him to his death, some say.
As for Hitchens and Mom Theresa, maybe we'll get around to that. I don't know much about either. Hitchens has a brother who is a devout Christian conservative. Christopher H. is dying or almost dead. I feel sorry for the guy so won't go after him right now. I think he was a secular humanist along the lines of Orwell. Had the same tough exterior and chewy bizarre interior. Orwell smoked himself to death, I think.
What was important to think about in this thread was the seemingly almost impossible conundrum of choosing one for the president: Trump or Mother T. I don't think anybody did this. It's enough to drive you to drink.
I think in this forced pairing,, we would have to choose the Donald.
If for no other reason than that Mother T. doesn't have, or didn't have, an American birth certificate. Obama may or may not. If he does, it probably says Muslim on it. So he doesn't want that out.
At least that's what someone named Fen over at Althouse's blog speculated yesterday. And it's probably true?
I'm sure the Big O has lots of strange secrets. He was apparently a very good poker player among the pols of Chicago. He often took the pot. He's very capable of hiding things. I don't think anybody knows who or what he is. Maybe not even him.
I'm curious who JADL likes among the Republicans for the next round. I assume it will be the Big O for the Dems.
if there were going to be a world dictator who would you want to rule the world donald trumpet or holy holy mother theresa of calcutta??
That places a slightly different focus on things. When it's all separate countries, competing, we need to think about competing successfully.
World dictators really frighten me. Maybe Mother Theresa would be better for that role.
While Hitchens's criticism of Mama Theresa may have been a bit crass or philistinish, the intelligent catholic should at least read his essay and respond to his specific points, especially in regard to how the RCC authori-tays accept the reports of miracles, and the "beatification" process, etc.
You know Im against reductionists, jh--whether Hitchens, Favillean, or WASPish--yet in this day and age (ie, after the Great Scandal) we shouldn't be expected to just accept the old-fashioned "beatification" ritual, or miracles (the Fatima claims, for one). Mama T. did some good. But the Church itself sort of...capitalized on her success (and that often happens in 3rd world countries). I suspect some of Mama T's "miracles" were...bogus.
I wouldn't presume to defend HitchensSpeak but at times he sounds a bit.... Jeffersonian (whereas originally he was Trotskyite). He's not a supporter of tinhorn preachers at least. I doubt even CH approves of Trumpocracy.
i left a comment it went nowhere
i hope someone in the land of nowhere reads it
anyway
i said to j
i read the essay
hitchens planned a book on the matter maybe he wrote it
but he claimed the roman catholic church is nothing short of presumptuous to think they can interrupt something so old and noble as the caste system of the hindi - for mother theresa it is horrific in his mind for her to think she can do some good
i gotta give him credit
he does have balls
but his arrogance betrays the limits of his paltry intellect
there never was a scandal
at least i've never been scandalized
it's just one more stinging whip across the back
whats' that to me or any christian
a cause for laughter
hitchens perpetuated the media blitz
and he was angry as a trapped mouse by it all
but he gave the whole thing plenty of hay to take fire
and he was proud of himself
he felt he was doing the world a service
well good for him
mother theresa would be proud of such courage
when he dies i guess
atheistic humanism will have another patron saint
hume freud sartre camus rorty
and the host of blithering blathering vapid speakers who so wittily fall into the tradition
like hay on a fire
it is ironic
i mean donald trump seems like such a much bigger and better target
for rhetorical vituperation
someone to criticize
i mean the hair alone is enough
but no we have to go and criticize a humble foolish little albanian un
with big stains of sweat beneathe her armpits smelling of the streets of calcutta
i woudl trust mother theresas odor before i would go near donald trump
he reeks of newjersey siltpumps
go figah
we only have 5 minutes left
what's it going to be
jesus or the american agenda
it comes down to that let's play poker
texas holdem
pahh
jh
I feel your pain JH sometimes your comments ride above and no one wants to engage them because they float above, like lovers in a painting by Chagall, if you know what I mean.
You have to get down in the trenches with us, and remember the whole idea here is its WWI and there is barbed wire and trenches, and we have nerve gas, and bayonets, and there are occasional mindless charges, by goodness, and some comraderie and stuff.
No floating above or nobody knows how to respond.
You're supposed to make other people feel bad with the force of your arguments. You make everybody feel good with the force of loveliness. Why are you doing this? It's wrong.
a cowboy must ride where the wind sings
i can't write any other way
i've tried
god knows i've tried
thanks for accepting me the way i am
carbuncles and all
i'm like those railcar artists who mark up the sides of railcars with their flowering language of odd names and words
watch the train go by
jh
Where is the difference between Mother Theresa and Joseph Stalin?
If Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the people," what could we say about Marxism?
"Marxism is the opiate of the intellectual classes." ?
Why doesn't Catholicism work as well as Lutheranism does?
I think it's because of sainthood. The elevation of folks like MT to adoration status puts her in a bubble and keeps her from being realistic. The other side where someone like DT gets to thinking he is some kind of God because he's rich is equally self-idolatrous.
It would be nice to have some folks with their feet on the ground in charge.
Do such people still exist? Who is this Herman Cain?
The problem of functionality in Catholicism comes from too much reverence for ritualistic experience and (as you said wrt Mother T.) individual humans...and from having too much of a focus on divine intercession...
The more of a mystic you are, the less connected to reality, the less functional - which is why the new agey yahoos always end up with such distraught lives. Catholics slide more in that direction (though of course are not nearly as dysfunctional as the I-have-100-angels-on-my-shoulder-and-if-I-use-a-neti-pot-they-go-away nitwits).
Catholics have all sorts of specific saints they can go to for help them with protection or problems...
The Lutheran answer is more often to be prepared and work hard (which simply works better in real life).
Seems that in Lutheranism there is a more direct reverence for principle alone.
(Which makes it more functional, but less fun).
Lutherans place more of a focus on receiving guiding principles from God, and then practicing those principles in a practical daily-life kinda way.
Catholics more often look to for mystical divine intercession to answer their needs.
If you're going to travel safe, Catholics will pray to St. Christopher.
Lutherans will drive slowly and make sure they've had enough rest and will figure out the best route to stay away from the intersections that have the highest percentage of car crashes.
And why I threw the word 'for' in there I've no idea - apologies for the realdernbad grammaticalmistakees.
catholics acknowledge spirituallife but by and large we are not too hung up on it
o there's the rosary ladies and a sacred heart and various charismatic strains and then there's the severe doctrinal crew too and then there's the huge libraries and people who spend exgtraordianary amounts of time reading books and poets ( no such thing as a lutheran poet per se) and catholics were always at home with drinking i meana it's practically synonymous with irish catholic....lutherans behave because they've developed this kantian heritage of duty....catholics depend on the confessional
and that has worked wonders i don't care what anyone says
humans are by definition ritual creatures
it's funny isn't it
i mean the secular humanist world emphasizes the centrality of humanity the human puts human reason at the highest level of self righteous activity and idolizes humanity to the point where hollywood doesn't even need ot betray some intuition of creativity and imagination in order to survive...and the world appears to disparage the history of brilliant hhumanaity that is the roman catlik kirke...nobody even wants to research it anymore oh well hilaire belloc and chesterton are laughing uproariously in heaven
the idea of confession was that the person in the confessional was(is) presented with the reality of consciousness -- be conscious of the wrong you do be conscious of the detrimental activity in your life etc etc and it has served as a invaluable corrective to hubris and stupidity...and of course you're going to say well what the hell happened to you jh you proud arrogant moron...well ok i'll admit i am not a good example of the figs of christian heroism...i hang with the sinners...what was i saying...the gist of most directives that i hear from the catholic pulpits is that we are obliged to take our understanding of the gospels and the leadership of jesus and engage the world from this point of view...so someone like fr greg boyle in L A speaks to me of the importance of taking it to the streets...jesuit prayer is fairly mundane and practical...it begins with kissing the floor each morning....the benedictines don't belabour the religious imagination all that much...we recite and chant the psalms day in day out...i suppose you could call it mystical however it is realized in the monasteries as practical ordinary everyday life...what might be referred to as mystical is indeed part of our raison d'etre but it is held in check by the tension between faith and reason
now travelers are more likely to beseeche "our lady of the wayfarers" or St Rock
the iconoclasm of protestantism has been the trashing of the religious imagination....i can't forgive that one...no way...there will have to be terrible justice...the only way to resolve this is for all you dang protestants to start painting wall pictures and doing ornate glass and lots and lots of statues and perhaps start some illuminated manuscript projects...it's not enough that the bibles are in peoples hands the pictures need to be vivid....you folks need your st sebastians...here,,, let me help
;-)
jh
jh,
Nice to see your posts. A few remarks...
lutherans behave because they've developed this kantian heritage of duty....catholics depend on the confessional
I think this is not quite right w.r.t. Lutherans, although there are important differences between Catholic and Lutheran confessional use. In the early confessional writings, confession was viewed as a third sacrament (together with Baptism and Communion), and in some Lutheran circles IT still is. But mainstream Lutheranism ultimately accepted a definition of sacrament that required a physical component, and confession lost out because of it.
The standard Lutheran Sunday service begins an order for public confession, a derivative of the Confiteor. Private confession, though, is not a part of routine Lutheran ritual life. There is an order for private confession, but it is rarely used, and only in circumstances that are so extreme that the person making confession feels that the corporate absolution would be ineffective, and a more specific confession and absolution is needed.
the idea of confession was that the person in the confessional was(is) presented with the reality of consciousness -- be conscious of the wrong you do be conscious of the detrimental activity in your life etc etc and it has served as a invaluable corrective to hubris and stupidity.
I believe that Luther (and Lutheranism) would affirm this view. Luther himself argued that confession and absolution were essential, because otherwise terror at the consequence of our inate sinfulness would be debilitating. But at the same time, he recognized a danger in ritualized confession, and especially ritualized corporate confession, is that it can lead to "cheap grace," i.e., the view that our sins aren't as offensive to God as they actually are, and therefore that God's grace isn't essential to our salvation as it actually is. But I want to emphasize in the present discussion that Luther wasn't arguing with the RCC here -- he was arguing that the pendulum had swung too far in the Protestant churches, even those that viewed themselves as specifically Lutheran.
At a practical level, I suspect that Luther felt that the RCC's practice of private confession gave too much power to the priest, and by extension, to the Church, and that this power had been abused. But the Lutheran "solution" can suffer from the opposite problem of "cheap grace," and even an overemphasis on individual over community.
lutherans behave because they've developed this kantian heritage of duty....catholics depend on the confessional
and that has worked wonders i don't care what anyone says
does that mean catholics can be Lucky Luciano during the week, and then with some... corazon a corazon con Paddy.... magically be forgiven, whether by church, or state ? (ie, Paddy looks the other way).
IMHE the confession/Mass does often work that way--LaSordid catholics-- whatever the official RCC line is--ergo, in the long run it's hardly different than the boneheaded protestants anyway, and their dispensation .
Kant suggests...yll he held accountable, regardless of how many masses, or sunday schools youve taken
J,
does that mean catholics can be Lucky Luciano during the week, and then with some... corazon a corazon con Paddy.... magically be forgiven, whether by church, or state ? (ie, Paddy looks the other way).
All sacraments, all ritual can be abused. Absolution is an opportunity for reconciliation. Without contrition, without amendment, without a turning back towards God, it is an opportunity lost. We can be given soap and water, but unless we actually use it, it does not make us clean.
Unfortunately, as the Lucky Luciano's of the world illustrate, a person can put themselves in the position of having that opportunity opened to them every week for their entire lives, and yet never understand it as such, nor avail themselves of it.
Stu, my point was not so much about the sacraments or rituals but about citizenship if you will--the judeo-christian ritual, whether that of the Mass, or attending sunday school regularly does not produce good Americans, but often produces Lucky Lucianos in the case of the RC, or...via bapticks/mormons/protestants, white boy thugs and the obedient zombie women (at least out west--).
Furthermore, much as I respect some catholic writers--say Walker Percy--I don't think they automatically take precedence over , well, Jefferson, Madison, etc. Or even Abe Lincoln, however rustic (Abe was a poet..actually) .
These days kids are indoctrinated--whether via RC, or the protestant warehouses, and in urban areas, the jews/muslims/hindus,etc. Religious eclecticism is not a prima facie good. Better they get some US Constitution, and history along with the Bible, vulgate, Book of Mormon, Koran, jehovah witness pamphlets, etc. It's quite unbelievable that someone (ie Romney) who takes Joe Smith's deceptions seriously would be in the running for POTUS.
J,
Stu, my point was not so much about the sacraments or rituals but about citizenship if you will...
Fair enough.
I take the position that we need to be formed both as citizens of the kingdom of God, and citizens of our nation. Moreover, I see these as distinct citizenships, requiring distinct formations, and with obligations that sometimes conflict. So, I'm inclined to agree with you that religious education/ritual does not of itself form good citizens of the US; but I'd take the complementary argument too, i.e., that good civics instruction does not of itself form good citizens of the kingdom of God. We need a lot both, and a bit of Bonhoeffer as well to help us recognize and work through the conflicts.
--the judeo-christian ritual, whether that of the Mass, or attending sunday school regularly does not produce good Americans, but often produces Lucky Lucianos in the case of the RC, or...via bapticks/mormons/protestants, white boy thugs and the obedient zombie women (at least out west--).
I think it is unfair to judge any educational establishment by the performance of its least adept students. Schools (be they religious or civic) take in humans as input and try to effect improvement. But humans have tremendous variation, so it's clear that the most reliable way to produce highly qualified graduates is to only admit high capable matriculants, and that's the strategy of highly selective schools. But general religious instruction, and general civics instruction, don't have the luxury of selectivity—they're supposed to try to teach everyone. And so you have the occasional (or indeed, more than occasional) Lucky Lu. But this would be the case even if you had Jefferson and Madison co-teaching civics, and Jesus and Buddha co-teaching religion. So I don't believe your argument suffices.
As for "obedient zombie women out west," it's clear that you haven't met my daughter.
It's quite unbelievable that someone (ie Romney) who takes Joe Smith's deceptions seriously would be in the running for POTUS.
Yeah. I'm no great fan of the Mormons, but unless Huckabee runs, Romney wins the electability argument going away. Very much as Mickey Rooney would be a giant in the land of dwarves, but I digress ;-). Winning the electability argument means that he's the automatic winner in the Republican primaries, but does give him a decent chance. Most of the other pragmatists will clear the field (to give one of their own the best shot), whereas their are so many flavors of “pure” Republican ideology that there's always room for one more.
I'm actually somewhat sanguine about this. Yeah, Romney will lean right, just as Obama leans left, but both are instinctively centrist and coalition builders. Not that coalition building is an easy game these days. As long as the legislative houses are split, they'll run fairly similar policy games. And I don't see Romney's religious commitments as having much of an impact on the policy positions he might take as President. He's not built that way. Unlike, say, GWB.
But the scenario that seems most plausible to me is that if Romney is nominated as the Republican candidate (a 50/50 chance at present), the Tea Party (a.k.a., Republican base) will put all of its energy into winning the Senate and retaining the House, trying to set up a partisan split between the legislative and executive branches that it will hope to exploit in 2016. After all, the Tea Party doesn't give a damn about governance, it only cares about winning.
The Tea Party cares about one thing: the debt.
Danke for comments stu, and I don't disagree much, but I hardly note any differences between fundamentalists, whether they're baptisst/presbyterians, opus dei cat.s, or the mormons (at least mormon zombies are sober).
I humbly suggest the popular vote itself counts as one of the errors of the Reformation, or at least of WASPness--that's not to suggest catholic monarchy or communism as alternatives but voting's part of the absurdity of American existence. We are given a choice between fundamentalists and mormons on the right (Hucklebee or Palin's no better than the Mittster--probably worse), or the corporate liberals, who are not really even FDR democrats.
In principle Im for the Demos, but with a compromiser--and hawk-- such as Obama in charge ....another false dichotomy presents itself. Vox Populi does not produce rational politics (as that scoundrel Mencken knew)
The TP may use the debt as a selling point, for vote pandering purposes. But behind all the Foxnews populism, it's the same old GOP conservative BS--cut taxes on wealthy, help business at any cost, rah rah for US military, protect whitey protestants, etc.
J,
First, I'll note an egregious typo in my note, which I believe you read as intended anyway... “Winning the electability argument doesn't mean that he's the automatic winner in the Republican primaries, but does give him a decent chance.”
I hardly note any differences between fundamentalists, whether they're baptisst/presbyterians, opus dei cat.s, or the mormons (at least mormon zombies are sober).
I'd make some minor distinctions, but I think the biggest difference here is that I see alternatives. Not all Christians are fundamentalist. Indeed, it's about a 50/50 split in the US, at least if you noses noses rather than decibels.
I humbly suggest the popular vote itself counts as one of the errors of the Reformation, or at least of WASPness--that's not to suggest catholic monarchy or communism as alternatives but voting's part of the absurdity of American existence. We are given a choice between fundamentalists and mormons on the right (Hucklebee or Palin's no better than the Mittster--probably worse), or the corporate liberals, who are not really even FDR democrats.
Hmm. The problem here isn't with the popular vote per se, as it is with self-organizing behavior at a higher level that has led to the more-or-less permanent establishment of two corporatist parties, one tending in the present to social engineering, and the other to insanity. A secondary problem is with the way we're organized as a republic. This structure tends to amplify divisions in the population, as well as electoral noise. And we've paid a terrible price for the amplification of noise.
In principle Im for the Demos, but with a compromiser--and hawk-- such as Obama in charge ....another false dichotomy presents itself.
I agree that Obama's a compromiser, and indeed I'd argue that that much was clear going in. His first agenda item was to try restore civility to the political debate in Washington. And it's not going well, because his political allies are looking to him for leadership rather than growing their own balls (which would help him considerably), and because his opponents (at least, an important subset thereof) have not compromising as a major objective of their own.
Hillary wouldn't have given her allies or opponents as much respect. She'd have followed the Nixon strategy—if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow—modulated by triangulating based on the poll-of-the-day. Whether we'd have been better served or worse is hard to say: it's mining vs. farming, with the usual tradeoffs thereof.
I'm not so sure I buy the "hawk" categorization. He's had tough choices, unlike, say, GWB, who had easy choices, but blew them with a singleminded consistency.
The TP may use the debt as a selling point, for vote pandering purposes. But behind all the Foxnews populism, it's the same old GOP conservative BS
Yup.
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