Let Them Secede
The Petitions are rolling in from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina,
Tennessee and Texas - all calling for secession. Good. Let them secede.
I say this to you as someone with generations of southern roots that lie underneath the soil at the foot of my family tree. I am a direct descendant of Lord Baltimore, founder of the state of Maryland. I am also descended from a southerner who signed the Declaration of Independence (Charles Carroll) and I have relatives whom I love dearly that live in the south - particularly Texas, Georgia and Louisiana. When it comes to Dixieland, my family's historical credentials are on pretty solid ground. That being said, I must confess to you that I'm sick and tired of the south. I'm sick of southern accents. I'm sick of southern values and culture. I'm sick of southern music. And, God almighty, I'm sick-to-death of southern politicians.
I've got a really grand idea. LET 'EM SECEDE! Throughout our history, presidents of every political persuasion have been forced to twist themselves into knots, bend over backwards, walk on cracked eggshells - just to avoid offending the sensibilities of the reactionary halfwits in dear ol' Dixie. For over two long centuries it's been like dealing with an ocean of one-hundred million, mentally ill eight-year-old children. Let's just throw in the towel here and now and finally admit it: They weren't worth the trouble. Let them go and be done with them.
One-hundred and fifty years ago, their ancestors waged a war against the government of the United States. Close to three-quarters of a million people perished in that war. That's genocide. A century and a half later, most of the descendants of that confederacy of dunces are proud of this fact. In some places they still fly the rebel flag at courthouses and state capitals. Some have it flying over their homes. Why keep these fools in the union if they obviously don't appreciate what it means to be a citizen of this country?
Their insane reaction to the reelection of the first African American president in history should tell us that - not only do they not want to be here - they don't belong here. If they really are so intent on leaving, let them leave. Don't fight another civil war over the matter. They have proven that they're not worth the trouble.
Let them start the deregulated, right wing paradise of their weird and twisted fantasies. Give them their Confederate States of America. And then watch in utter glee as they sink into an unlivable, ungovernable cesspool. No other region of the nation has been more dependent on federal cash than the south. Let's see how long they last when the rest of us are no longer around to sustain them. Watch them as they implode into an inferno of political, social and economic chaos. Sweet schadenfreude. Good bye and good riddance.
But before they leave, let's build a sturdy wall of steel and concrete and razor wire. What better way to stem the tide of political and economic refugees who will surely flood our border after less than six months?
For two-hundred and thirty-six years they've been dragging the rest of America down into the dirt. For two-hundred and thirty-six years we've had to make excuses for their idiocy to the rest of the planet. For two-hundred and thirty-six years they've been a national embarrassment, an economic and sociological albatross.
Let them go. Just let them go.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
POST SCRIPT:
My apologies to friends and family south of the Mason Dixon line. I understand full well that the overwhelming majority of southerners do not wish to secede from the union. Truth be told, I don't want them to leave either. It's just that I'm in a cranky mood this morning. The extremists among you have put me in this condition. Blame them.
Oh, and I really do love southern accents, southern hospitality and southern food. And although he's almost sixty years in the grave, Hank Williams never ceases to astound.
Southern politicians do suck, though. Thoroughly.
SUGGESTED READING:
With Malice Toward None
by Stephen B. Oates.
The best one volume biography of Abraham Lincoln ever written. It's still in print and well worth the read.
Oh, and I really do love southern accents, southern hospitality and southern food. And although he's almost sixty years in the grave, Hank Williams never ceases to astound.
Southern politicians do suck, though. Thoroughly.
SUGGESTED READING:With Malice Toward None
by Stephen B. Oates.
The best one volume biography of Abraham Lincoln ever written. It's still in print and well worth the read.
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg
November 20, 1863
SUGGESTED LISTENING:
Here's Hank Williams on the Mountaintop doing what Hank Williams did best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDHo47WYcjY
Lone Gone Lonesome Blues.
For more recent postings on this dung heap of commie propaganda, kindly go to the link below:
"The Rant" by Tom Degan
Shameful! POSITIVELY SHAMEFUL!
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg
November 20, 1863
SUGGESTED LISTENING:
Here's Hank Williams on the Mountaintop doing what Hank Williams did best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDHo47WYcjY
Lone Gone Lonesome Blues.
For more recent postings on this dung heap of commie propaganda, kindly go to the link below:
"The Rant" by Tom Degan
Shameful! POSITIVELY SHAMEFUL!
posted by Tom Degan @ 6:29 AM
115 comments
115 Comments:
Tom, it's not all of the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line, as I'm sure you'll attest, but rather the buffoons in what would be classified as the Deep South. I'd definitely add Oklahoma to the short-list, for good measure, along with Arkansas and Tennessee.
I agree -- let 'em go...
Diversity, that's all this s dear liberals, diversity of political ideas. And has been stated before, liberals are all for diversity in race, sexual preference, religion, but NOT political ideas.
Anonymous: "...liberals are all for diversity in race, sexual preference, religion, but NOT political ideas."
Yes, especially when the "diversity of political ideas" explicitly demands no diversity in race, no diversity in sexual preference and no diversity in religion.
That's where our quest for diversity ends.
It's a good thing we had the South during the Second World War. They might have sided with Hitler against FDR's America.
German POW's in the South were amazed to have access to theaters and restaurants etc. that excluded Blacks.
I love Southern food.
According to what I read there were some in every state in the union-- which means that includes mine. They are obviously not the majority but why don't they just leave? If they don't like it here, don't respect our nation, there's an easy solution-- move out. I am not sure where they could go that doesn't have health care for its citizens but they should do some research. I'm sure they'd like the rest of what they'd find.
And liberals like JG claim any polical view that is different from their own is racist, or sexist. Thats how he avoids any potical diversity. Nice trick,that liberals ave mastered
Anonymous: "And liberals like JG claim any polical view that is different from their own is racist, or sexist."
Cite your evidence, please. Back your accusation with facts.
Tom, one of your best yet, and as an ex-southerner, I agree with you 100%. Let's see, how much money did the federal government pour into Texas to help with their wild fires last summer? I guess that without us liberal blue states, they would just have to put on their big boy pants and take care of things like that themselves.
JG,
Just listen to the rev al sharpton for examples of critics of liberal policy being called racists. Or you can get off your lazy butt and find them yourself.
Hello from sanity in Texas. Yes it exists. The people who are signing cessation petitions are what we call the ignorant and proud of it, boy howdy, are they PROUD of it. In their parlance, "America, love it or leave it." Unfortunately they will have trouble finding somewhere else to go. Those nice white english speaking countries they would like have stringent immigration requirements. So I guess we are stuck with these jackasses and if you think they are irritating at a distance, be thankful you don't have to live with them.
Just so you know, I'm no import. I have family on both sides who have been here since it WAS the Republic of Texas.
JG,
You and I know we’ll be waiting a long time for a retraction or evidence.
However, I sat on my lazy butt and found a lot of evidence supporting this...
“any polical view that is different from their own is racist, or sexist.”
Sorry, none of it is from a liberal.
Rush Limbaugh said on May 29, 2009: “How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people or even saying you do or that they‘re not good or put down ‘em, whatever. Make white people the new oppressed minority and they‘re going right along with it because they‘re shutting up. They‘re moving to the back of the bus. They‘re saying, “I can‘t use that drinking fountain.” OK. “I can‘t use that restroom.” OK.”
And just so the race card propaganda is clear, the Oxy-Moron also said:
"Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.”
“You know what we call people obsessed with race? Racists,” said Limbaugh attacking MSNBC. “Really what we have here is blatant bigotry and racism on this network of holier-than-thou liberals.”
"So, David Paterson will become the massa who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa's place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson's gonna be a massa."
Wow. Could there be even more?
July 20, 2010 "...the NAACP is as racist an organization as there has been and is in this country."
“Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. I mean, you put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety. But in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering ‘Yay! Right on, right on, right on, right on’."
“You've got Colin Powell! This is the whole point: you've got him, and you didn't even have to do any "outreach." All you had to do was nominate an African-American and you got Colin Powell.
The Powell endorsement is totally about race.”
“The Democrat Party: racist and sexist. I mean, that's what you take away from listening to Obama and Hillary.”
“Now, just imagine the hue and cry had a Republican president ordered the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas.”
This is how the leader of the radical Right indoctrinates the cult. And we have our proof above showing it is swallowed hook, line and sinker.
JG,
Not on your hook,
You have called conservatives racists in many posts here as well as on your own blog. When you have hear or read where member of the gop or a conservative has been labeled a racist because they have used a word that Sharpton said makes them a racist, when have you stood up for them and demanded proof that the accused were if fact racist? Or did you just go along to get along and not say anything? Be it by omission or commission, you have called or have allowed people or groups to be called racist falsely.
Do you agree with Clayborn that calling Ambassador Rice incompetent racist? Do you believe the only reason prope have talked about succession, is for reasons of race? Do you agree with Chris Mathews everytime he labels some one racist, that they are? When you disagree do stand up for them, demanding sources to support the accusations? Or by remaining mute, to you give your silent approval of the claim?
Would you be silent if the KKK attempted to open a branch in your city? Would you support those they were trying to oppress? Or would you look te other way?
Well JG, are you going to support Ken Burns broad paint brush of racism or are you going to ask Mr. Burns for specific proof of his claim that all supporters of secession are driven by racist motives?
"Documentarian Ken Burns appeared as a panelist on Meet the Press this morning to discuss Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. As the conversation veered to contemporary politics, Burns argued, in essence, that the secession movement we’re seeing in the wake of the election is spurred by racism. The basis for this claim, I believe, is the same as for the claims that opposition to a potential Susan Rice nomination is an indication of racism.
James Carville, Democrat political consultant extraordinaire – and former Bill Clinton campaign manager, has astonishingly come out and said what all good Republicans have known for decades: Not only are most Democrats politically clueless; they’re easily manipulated by the puppet masters of their party as well. Wow. James Freaking Carville. Of all people. Here’s an excerpt, as quoted on Amazon.com:
“Ideologies aren’t all that important. What’s important is psychology.
The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.
***** Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats don’t have a clue as to political reality.****
***** What amazes me is that you could take a group of people who are hard workers and convince them that they should support social programs that were the exact opposite of their own personal convictions. Put a little fear here and there and you can get people to vote any way you want.*****
The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic operative instead of a Republican was because there were more Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans.
Truth is relative. Truth is what you can make the voter believe is the truth. If you’re smart enough, truth is what you make the voter think it is. That’s why I’m a Democrat. I can make the Democratic voters think whatever I want them to.”
I bet James is a freaking racist, Secessionist.
Baaa, baaaa, how does it feel to be a sheepeople, democrats?
I tend to believe Carville's statement but it is even more true of Conservatives. They vote for any idiot that mentions the bible, God, or abortion, even if they are the biggest snake oil salesman around.
Fucking yankee asshole,you are the type I practice for.Keep your ass in that hell hole you try to live in you are not welcome down here by me or the so called family that live here.i'll put your name on a bullet and keep it till I get my chance to use it.Die fuck wad.
We should just go ahead with an experiment and let them have Texas. Just to see how it all ends.
To the writer who didn't have the courage to sign his own name: Don't beat around the bush, tell me how you really feel.
Did you happen to notice how this jackass proposes to resolve a political disagreement? Violence. A bullet with my name on it. Nice! He inadvertently becomes an invisible poster boy personifying the idiocy I was writing about.
Job well done, chum!
I would suspect the "Carville quote" can be traced back to the Reich Wing propaganda machine. In fact I would bet on it being BS.
Look who posted it. Any source given? I rest my case.
Tom,
How do we know that the person who wrote the post stating they have a bullet with your name on it isn't a liberal? Easy enough to do in order to draw the conversation away from the questions asked of JG in an earlier post. "In fact I would bet on it." DD .
Tom, I think it is time to update the signing in procedure. The last option to sign in, Anonymous should be changed to Asshole. This will more factually correct and facilitate the goal of truth in journalism.
JG,
What, still no evidence of the accusation against you? That figures.
We won't see any either. I'd bet on it.
All they can do is make false accusations, and throw out false quotes.
It must take a lot of hate, igmorance, and fear to spew what they spew.
"Liberals are racist commies" sums up all of the above traits.
Tom,
Where was your outrage when James threaten this?
" When we finish spending every body's money, we will kick your ass and take your money."
Good to see FD is there to rescue not lazy butt JD again. Cant answer a question so you ask one.
Classic
DD,
As you speak for JG, maybe you can answer his question.
Be it by omission or commission, you have called or have allowed people or groups to be called racist falsely.
Do you agree with Clayborn that calling Ambassador Rice incompetent racist? Do you believe the only reason people have talked about succession, is for reasons of race? Do you agree with Chris Mathews every time he labels some one racist, that they are? When you disagree do stand up for them, demanding sources to support the accusations? Or by remaining mute, to you give your silent approval of the claim?
Thomas said,
and posting as "James" should be changed to jerk.
JG,
As you know, you don't need me to speak for you.
After all, no evidence was produced to back the hateful accusation.
But I will speak against false accusations and baseless "Carville quotes" from radical Right Wingers.
Who would want to stay in the Union after this election? This is what is coming, and you who hate and fear and threaten conservatives for their beliefs have no one to blame but yourselves. Your belief system has leveled the playing field alright, now every one is equally bad off.
You now own it and you can't blame Bush.
The next terrorist attack you own it.
Can't get a job after graduation, you own it.
Sky rocketing energy prices due to Obama's EPA shutting down the energy producing states, you own it.
A nuclear Iran, you own it.
Bowing to Russia, you own it.
Another severe recession, you own it.
A volatile border with Mexico, you own it.
Trouble getting good health care, you own it.
Higher health insurance costs and health care costs, you own it.
No budget, you own it.
Our allies mistrust, you own it.
Another trillion of debt, you own it.
More Benghazi situations, you own it.
No one willing to join the military, you own it.
Trouble getting a loan to buy a home, you own it.
More dependency on food stamps, you own it.
Trouble finding good employment, you own it.
Several part time jobs instead of a good job, you own it.
A World Government, you own it.
The UN governing the United States instead of ourselves, you own it.
A Senate that will not bring any legislation to the table even if it is "Dead on Arrival", you own it.
China controlling our world trade trampling all over us, you own it.
Loss of our freedoms as we have known it in the past, you own it.
A dictatorship instead of a democracy that follows the Constitution, you own it.
Less take home pay and higher living costs, you own it.
Driving a car that looks like a toy, you own it.
More government corruption and lies, you own it.
More toleration of extreme and fanatical Islamists, you own it.
Terrorist attacks called work place incidents, you own it.
Your revenge instead of love of country, you own it.
ENJOY! you own it!
DD, but you will not speak out against baseless hateful attacks from liberals?
Figures.
Anonymous: "Or by remaining mute, to you give your silent approval of the claim?"
Still defecting and projecting, I see. Every time I corner your weaselly and devious ass in a corner, which is every time I call you out on some absurdity, you do that.
Again, and I'll ask you one last time, please back-up with cited proof your earlier statement (time-stamp: 5:02PM):
"And liberals like JG claim any polical [sic] view that is different from their own is racist, or sexist."
JG,
He's cornered like a rat. "But, but, but, I don't have to show evidence for my accusations. That's beneath me. I'm a conservative. I get to make things up or copy and paste. Now answer my questions."
The next terrorist attack you own it.
Like the Right owns 9-11 and thousands of dead Americans in Iraq?
Ok.
Liberals aren't against political ideas, rather against politics of exclusion, politics void of any moral content, the rhetoric of racism, unreasonable stands, the weathiest refusing to give their fair share. The Bush tax cuts had an expiration date for a reason, and since the expiration is now fast approaching it's end, the GOP has dug in its heels trying to extend it into infinity. Talk about entitlements! This time around, since that disgusting party obviously is low on the learning curve in terms of the clear message the American people sent them, they won't be able to repair the incredible damage that they have done to themselves by not taking a stand away from the crazies who they continue to allow to speak for them, rarely moving away from the childish, extreme, tantrum-throwing morons all across the land. They are continuing feverishly to pass voter ID laws aimed at voter suppression. It just doesn't work. The more they attempt to suppress, the more the more we turn out the vote. In Washington, the same ship of fools are acting as if the election never happened. They are just too dense to put their talking points to bed. Several republican governors are so obsessed they're saying they're going to refuse federal funds to set up health exchanges for their states (I live in one of those states), thereby hurting their own people. I don't see any lights being turned on by any these dim-wits in the forseeable future, as they don't auto-correct the dimest of them all, the Shawn Hannitys, the Glenn Beeks, the Rush Limpbrains, the Donal Trumps, and the whole train of idiots ad nauseum and the clown car they're driving off the cliff. I don't think most Americans will put up with the GOP gridlock this time around. I think all they have left is empty posturing, with a president ready to put his boot up their gridlocked asses, with the American people right behind him. I agree with Tom, allow the many good and decent people a chance to get out, then seal the borders of all the states "that din't work and play well with others." We shoulda' let them go a long time ago. Some of us who are more reasonable are sick and tired of them holding up the class!
ANON...This post was for you. I forgot to address you. The only way my droid will let me post is by choosing "anonymous." Tom knows me as Sal. So the tag is the only thing we have in common.
Typo: Let the states go that "don't work and play well with others." As a kid, this was always checked on my report cards. Unlike the GOP, I was forced to grow up.
Anon, Your sources could easily be matched point-by-point by any democrat attempting to describe tatters of a GOP who many of us have simply outgrown. Talking IQ points are you? Your guys haven't even had enough sense to get out of the water a majority of the voting block blew them into. They're too stupid to get the message. Many of us are trying to contain our delight as they twist in the wind, too stupid to figure out there's a hurricaine comin'.
Tom, I'm surprised the author of that post can read, probably signs his name with an "X."
Sal
I'm surprised you can read! Do you sign your name with an "X?" Fabulous display of hateful ignorance.
Now I know for sure you can't read! Most likely had to have some sucker type for you. Dim-wit!
Phil said,
Tom.
Where was your outrage when James threaten this?
" When we finish spending every body's money, we will kick your ass and take your money." on your blog?
JG and DD,
Have you ever spoke out against baseless hateful attacks from liberals on conservatives or members of the GOP? If not, that makes you both racists. Just give us an example where you have done so, and you're off the hook.
Looks like you liberals own it now.
Limbaugh: "Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.”
Limbaugh: “Really what we have here is blatant bigotry and racism on this network of holier-than-thou liberals.”
Dittohead: "That makes you both racist."
Ditto Glug, glug, glug.
Anon posted "what will liberals spend when they run out of other peoples money? And he feels threatened by my humorous reply! What a flaming sissy.
We will enjoy it; you can bet on that! Don't bother writing from wherever you secede to, as your 15 minutes of fame will be over and you will go xoan in The Hall of Shame you so rightfully belong.
Phil said,
Tom.
Where was your outrage when James threaten this? " When we finish spending every body's money, we will kick your ass and take your money." on your blog? Good to see Jerk has learned his name
JG and DD,
Have you ever spoke out against baseless hateful attacks from liberals on conservatives or members of the GOP? If not, that makes you both racists. Just give us an example where you have done so, and you're off the hook.
Must be a tough question.
Or maybe they believe a conservative has never been called a racist in falsely.
Talk about diversity Talk about inbreed. Talk about closed minds.
I too wish the Union to Succeed.
Who gives a crap about Ben Gazi?
Why don't we cease "Foreign Aid" and use the money for debt reduction at home?
Every Boomer that retires creates a job opening.
If "the people" are responsible for 70% of GNP by the stuff we purchase why don't we target that spending to effect social, governmental and economic change? Oh, I forgot, sheep are stupid.
All hale the United Snakes.
Morning Dew
Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,
Walk me out in the morning dew today.
I can't walk you out in the morning dew my honey,
I can't walk you out in the morning dew today.
I thought I heard a baby cry this morning,
I thought I heard a baby cry this today.
You didn't hear no baby cry this morning,
You didn't hear no baby cry today.
Where have all the people gone my honey,
Where have all the people gone today.
There's no need for you to be worrying about all those people,
You never see those people anyway.
I thought I heard a young man morn this morning,
I thought I heard a young man morn today.
I thought I heard a young man morn this morning,
I can't walk you out in the morning dew today.
Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,
Walk me out in the morning dew today.
I'll walk you out in the morning dew my honey,
I guess it doesn't really matter anyway,
I guess it doesn't matter anyway,
I guess it doesn't matter anyway,
Guess it doesn't matter anyway.
Chris Matthews on Monday disgustingly connected conservatives unhappy with the 2012 election to Hitler and the 1936 Olympics. After Huffington Post journalist Howard Fineman mocked the GOP for supposedly considering the African American and Hispanic vote to be “extraterrestrial,” Matthews spewed, “The last guy to refer to the black auxiliary was Hitler.”
And where is the outrage for such a false comment from liberals?
Or do liberals believe that all of the GOP is equal to Hitler/Nazis?
crickets?
Something I wrote on July 9:
Is it fair to compare the Republican party of today to the Nazi party of yore? That all depends on the historical context. If you're referring to the Nazis of 1938 - the year of the Night of Broken Glass (Khristallnacht) or the opening of the first concentration camps - then, yes, the comparison is grossly unfair and I'll be the first to stand up and say so.....
But if you're referring to the Nazi party of a decade earlier - 1928 for instance - not only is the comparison fair, IT'S UNAVOIDABLE.
When the Nazis were founded in 1922 by Hitler, Hess, Goebbels, Goering - and the the rest of those assholes - they weren't at the starting gate in full-tilt, let's-conquer-Europe-and-kill-all-the-Jews mode. Although the Nazi ideology was bad enough at their founding, it would get a lot worse. It was a gradual evolution between 1922 and 1938.
In case you haven't noticed, the "grand old party" has been "evolving" into something perfectly hideous and dreadful these last thirty years. Show me a person who doesn't agree with that statement and I'll show you someone who hasn't been paying attention. It gives me the dry heaves to even contemplate where they'll be a decade from now.
Have a lovely day, kiddies!
I don't think that Chris Matthews was comparing the GOP to the Nazis. The problem is that we're not terribly far from the day when that will be a more-than-valid comparison.
Cheers!
GB said: "Why don't we cease "Foreign Aid" and use the money for debt reduction at home?"
GB, we cannot reduce our debt. It is mathematically impossible. We do not have "money" we have only US currency which has been debased over the past 40 years. It is currently being propped up by "QE" - issuing more debt via the printing press which is proving a weaker stimulus each time and is ending up on bank balance sheets and in the DJIA rather than stimulating growth. So now, we have determined that indefinite QE is a good idea. This will continue to work until no one lines up to buy up the debt issuance - which will happen if history has taught us anything. Then, it gets very interesting. Having said all that, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be prudent with our spending. But a big correction must come and the sooner we get it over with the better. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it will create the fear necessary to usher in more socialist policy, which I'm gathering would make you happy.
"Every Boomer that retires creates a job opening."
...and worsens the increasing social insurance imbalance.
There are no easy answers and our country suffers because the talking heads on both sides promise a panacea of easy answers. They do this (I think) to avoid their responsibility of getting together to make hard and unpopular decisions that could keep a bad situation from becoming disastrous. The primary reason being (I'm afraid) they are unqualified and in over their heads. We elect empty suits on both sides.
And you are correct, sheep are stupid.
Well I am glad you aren't close minded or anything? For fuck's sake not everyone down here in the South that is wanting to secede is a cousin fucker or likes country music. I live in Texas and would love to see if secede purely because it can and it would provide a new opportunity for us. Kinda like what our Founding Fathers did, you know when they didn't like how they lived in England. Well I don't like how shit is being ran now. Religion and politics are killing off humanity. So I think it's time for man to grow the hell up and get rid of our imaginary friends in the sky and push forward.
If Texas succeeded in it's secession then we have the possibility to thrive. We could legalize hemp for all it's purposes, we have oil already, though we should switch and try to go to cold fusion. We have the port of Houston which brings in a TON of money for the US. We have some core computer companies down here.
So before you sell your allegiance with your so called "heritage", why don't you take a little bit and see that not all of us from the South, are backwards. I personally didn't want Obama or Romney to win. I believe in Anarchy and Atheism... so you won't see me going of to Iraq in the name of "God" or blowing myself up for "Allah"
Harley A said: ...and worsens the increasing social insurance imbalance.
I paid for SSI. The politicians "borrowed" from the surplus and never repaid the loan. Repay the loan with interest then evaluate the solvency.
We boomers are croaking at an alarming rate. Time will work its magic and the "problem" will go away.
GB - no argument that you paid in and deserve to get the bargain that was promised you. And, how would you suggest a bankrupt government repay the loan?
Problem is that the boom was followed by decades of bust. Our birthrates are near replacement rate. So time is not our friend - it is our enemy. As time goes on, your (and my) benefits will be cut - I have no doubt it will happen.
And, you're wrong - the money was not borrowed. It was stolen from under our noses and "funded" like they fund everything - debt issuance. So, they took your SS money and borrowed more money from you to fund what they took from you. Cool, huh... That's THE underlying probelem with giving the government carte blanche with taxation - they most often abuse the power.
If the average American knew what our government was doing, we'd vote out EVERY incumbent on principle alone. Instead, two "sides" insult each other for equally simplistic solutions that can't pull us out of the mess. Few understand the real causes of our problems - or aren't willing to go there...
Of course, there's always atheistic anarchy. I hate it when folks just propose ideas that sound warm & fuzzy on the surface...
So, Mr. Carville knows what he is doing is manipulation and control. He joins the other crooks that use the poor, ignorant sheep to steal from those who work hard and believe in freedom. He knows this is wrong and yet he follows the ideology that has done more to harm America than all of our outside enemies.
When he stands before God, I hope he is forgiven.
Ronald Reagan once asked the American people to ask “whether a little intellectual elite in a far distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves”. In doing so he summed up the modern Democrat platform in a single sentence.
To believe that yes, this mythical elite can plan our lives better than we can, you must either be so dumb and enslaved as to believe yourself to be a perpetual victim who cannot run their own life or be so arrogant as to believe that you yourself ARE the elite who should be in charge, and everyone else is part of the “mindless masses” who must be herded like cattle because they are too dumb to live.
Time for a reality check.
Let’s see evidence of the alleged Carville quote, please. Otherwise you are spouting gibberish from the position of ignorance. AKA Right Wing koolade.
“There you go again.’ Deification of Reagan is funny when you know the facts.
Reagan was stumping for Goldwater when he said, “whether a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves”
That is pure partisan BS. Nobody other than Right Wingers think like that. No liberal person wants someone else to “plan our lives”.
Reagan was a reactionary, like those before him who insisted Social Security and minimum wage would “Sovietize” America.
Reagan chimed in with the same song and dance about Medicare.
Reagan said, "[I]f you don't [stop Medicare] and I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."
Well, boo hoo. I still have yet to see one conservative leave the country for loss of freedom over Medicare.
That means Reagan was wrong.
Deal with it.
Tom,
The Nazis in the 1920's were a workers party, a socialist workers party, right? How can you compare the pro business GOP to them?
Peter said, "I believe in Anarchy and Atheism... so you won't see me going of to Iraq in the name of "God" or blowing myself up for "Allah"
Thanks for sharing.
When Medicare went into effect in the early 70's, I recall Senator Kennedy saying the fund would never run out of money.
What happened is what Harley happened to SS. Big Govt cant stand having large amount of money around and to not spend it.
"Reagan chimed in with the same song and dance about Medicare." Gee, wonder if Reagan was correct and Kennedy was wrong.
How will liberals run their govt once they have spent all of our money? The current tax increases on the rich and the possible doing away with the mortgage interest deduction, will not produce enough rev to run the govt for more that a month. So what happens then?
It appears the same idiots who believe Reagan was an infallable savior also don't know the difference between fascism communism and socialism.
Hitler was so pro-business he gave Krupps, Mercedes-Benz, Siemans, etc, free slave labor.
It was a Republican wet dream of no unions, no minimum wage and no worker rights.
And Reagan was wrong. We have freedom and Medicare, but American fascists want to change that.
From Mediaite:
On the heels of Ambassador Susan Rice‘s meeting with the John McCain posse this morning, MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner opened Tuesday’s show by assessing the Arizona Senator’s vendetta against President Obama‘s likely pick to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. To hear Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) tell it, things didn’t go well, but MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe reiterated that what’s going on here is really part of “a witch hunt for every prominent person of color that has ever served alongside this president,” and that Ambassador Rice is “a proxy for this president.”
Do you agree with MSNBC position are do you feel they are just being good left wing media who supports the President? Is it a witch hunt to question a person of color about their actions?
From Fritz Stern in “The Politics of Cultural Despair,” his book on the rise of fascism in Germany:
“They attacked liberalism because it seemed to them the principal premise of modern society; everything they dreaded seemed to spring from it; the bourgeois life, Manchesterism, materialism, parliament and the parties, the lack of political leadership.
Even more, they sense in liberalism the source of all their inner sufferings. Theirs was a resentment of loneliness; their one desire was for a new faith, a new community of believers, a world with fixed standards and no doubts, a new national religion that would bind all Germans together. All this, liberalism denied. Hence, they hated liberalism, blamed it for making outcasts of them, for uprooting them from their imaginary past, and from their faith.”
Sounds a lot like our Guardians Of Plutocracy.
We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak … and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system.
Gregor Strasser - German politician and prominent figure in the NAZI Party
"The rise of National Socialism is the protest of a people against a State that denies the right to work. If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered. The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people."
At the Reichstag (May 1934). Quoted in "The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany" - Page 165 - by Nagendranath Gangulee - National socialism - 1942
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yes, poor Gregor Strasser
was a German politician and early Nazi idealist who dared to rival Hitler.
And look where that anti-capitalist talk got him.
He resigned from his political offices in late 1932, and was murdered in 1934, during the "Night of the Long Knives".
Remember, “First they came for”....trade unionists, and outspoken liberals like educators, and “decadent” artists; many would meet similar fates.
"But if you're referring to the Nazi party of a decade earlier - 1928 for instance - not only is the comparison fair, IT'S UNAVOIDABLE."
What if I'm referring to the Nazi precursor German Worker's Party of 1919? Ever read through the 25 points? Who would you compare that to?
Gregor Strasser - German politician and prominent figure in the NAZI Party said:
"We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak … and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system."
If "We National Socialists" was replaced by "We The OWS Crowd", it would sum up today's progressive/socialist/marxist economically challenged view on the distribution of wealth.
Nazis were about as "socialist" as the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea is a democratic republic.
Why do people still believe their propaganda?
Lincoln (R) was a precursor of Cheney(R).
The German Worker's Party of 1919 was nothing like an established political party; about 25 people. Hitler was sent to spy on the alleged communist cell. Hitler became the 55th member.
This was Hitler's chance to enter politics and impose his agenda:
"This absurd little organization with its few members seemed to me to possess the one advantage that it had not frozen into an 'organization,' but left the individual opportunity for real personal activity. Here it was still possible to work, and the smaller the movement, the more readily it could be put into the proper form. Here, the content, the goal, and the road could still be determined..."
And that's how you start a Right Wing party bent on starting wars and invasions based on lies.
Cheney already had his party in place for his war based on lies.
There he goes again...today's progressive/socialist/marxist...showing how correct I was.
"It appears the same idiots who believe Reagan was an infallable savior also don't know the difference between fascism communism and socialism."
I'm aware of the history of the party. By the end of 1920, there were over 3,000 in the party. And, of course, this was his entre into politics. And, yes, I understand he was using them. He was an opportunist and very deceptive.
However, he never claimed a left or right leaning - he claimed a purity of ideology free from party politics when pressed on it. Historians like to call his movement a right-wing movement, which is an arbitrary label devoid of much real meaning (as most labels are). And, as typical, an over-simplification.
To invoke his name in comparison to modern American movements is a weak and inflammatory rhetorical device - for either side. The backgrounds and contexts are very different.
Nobody here is saying Republicans are Nazis, despite their shared contempt for democracy, the middle class, unions, teachers, liberals, and the tendency to start wars of aggression based on lies.
Yes, labels and words can be arbitrary, but they are also assigned meanings by both context and definition. By context and definition, fascists are on the extreme Right as Communists are the extreme Left. Both are antithetical to democracy.
Emphasis on strong nationalism and militarism, along with an exclusive cultural/racial centric sense of belonging are the hallmarks of the Right. Note the American Right’s obsession with “American exceptionalism”, white cultural heritage, and Christian “values” they claim as their own.
Hitler demonstrated the same Right leaning pandering. He was no liberal:
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."- Adolph Hitler "My New World Order," - Proclamation to the German Nation, Berlin, February 1, 1933
And:
“Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together—a State where 80 per cent of the revenue is drained away for the public purse—a country where everything is built on the dollar? From this point of view, I consider the British State very much superior.” – Adolph Hitler January 7, 1942
And:
“The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense and war between Christ and Marx.” - Joseph Goebbels
There’s your radical Right at work. These guys sound like the Tea Party and FOX(R). Today’s radical Right is begging to be compared to fascists of the past.
To believe there are no fascistic elements on the American Right is a delusion. We’ve had fascists since the days of pro-Nazi sympathies in White America back in the 30’s.
We see anti-democracy voter suppression by the radical Right Republican Party still.
One man eloquently explained:
The really dangerous American fascist,… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power…..
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection. - Vice President Wallace, The New York Times 4/9/44.
Here is the genesis of why the right wing are now saying that the Nazis were nothing more than a bunch of weepy-eyed, bleeding heart LIBERALS. These folks will believe anything they hear on Fox Noise. Really, it's quite funny when you think about it. I wrote this piece almost three years ago:
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/02/adolf-hitler-fightin-liberal.html
Cheerio! Pip! Pip!
HA. Herr Beck and FOX(R) doth protest too much, methinks.
Totalitarism is when the power of a govt determines the price of health care, who gets it, regulates those it is supposed to serve to the point of controlling the human freedoms to where there are none . It doesn't matter if it is right or left wing, the results are the same. A loss of liberty through loss of wealth due to the promotion of class warfare by govt, higher taxes until there is no reason to work for income in exchange for your labor, removes your freedom of purchasing choice and forces the population to settle for what the gov deems is available. By leveling the playing field to were all have the same misery index, except those who work for the govt, the govt will gained control over every aspect of its citizens lives.
Left or right, the effect is the same. I reject it and the loss of liberty our federal govt is trying to force us into excepting, all in the name of fairness and class warfare.
Well, to be clear, I do not believe Nazism was liberal or socialist. And, I consider all national news and partisan radio to be entertainment.
I also know that Nazism was not Christian, though Hitler often used Christianity as much as he had to to garner support from the luke-warm and theologically liberal (psuedo-Christian) state church. The true Christians, like one of my personal heros Bonhoeffer, did not fare so well under him.
With nutjobs like Hitler, typical labels don't do justice. There are right-wing nuts and left-wing nuts, I still believe there are no Hitlers in the wings at this point.
Anyway, nuff said.
Anonymous "Totalitarism is when the power of a govt determines the price of health care, who gets it, regulates those it is supposed to serve to the point of controlling the human freedoms to where there are none ."
Heathcare for poor people is tyranny!
You once again miss the point, (surprise, surprise) there is already health care for poor people. No one gets turned down at an ER for not having insurance or a way to pay for care. No one.
The point is the govt has forced a plan on people that they did not want, do not want to pay for and will be less effective for them.
When are you going to start dealing with the fact that free to all from the govt means a loss of freedom for all?
I guess when all suffer equally, all have the same misery, share in the same level of care, you will be happy with the level playing field.
Ok, your side won, so do what you want. But have the spine to admit when it fails instead of blaming some one else. Like the War on Poverty, when the heck is our withdrawal date from that war?
No one gets turned down at an ER for not having insurance or a way to pay for care. No one.
FOX(R) koolade chugging again.
"No one". Except...
Pick a city, any city...
3 Massachusetts ERs cited for denial of care
One patient died
Damned rich white republicans!
For the leaders of a minority trade organization with some extra office space in downtown D.C., it seemed like the Rev. Al Sharpton was the perfect tenant.
But a year and a half after the activist/MSNBC host signed a lease for his National Action Network to sublet from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, the two groups are feuding over past-due rent.
Julie Cunningham, COMTO’s president and chief executive, told us that with the lease about to expire Friday, NAN was seven months behind in its payments, a total debt of more than $28,000.
Anybody who thinks an ER is an adequate substitute for regular, ongoing healthcare is utterly clueless.
Just as an example, regular visits and maintenance of diabetes over a period of years is much less costly than trip to the ER for an emergency amputation, and the subsequent hospitalization and rehabilitation that it could have prevented.
And by the way, the government has already been involved in determining the cost of health care for years, long before Obamacare was even a possibility.
The people had a clear choice to either repeal Obamacare or guarantee its survival, and obviously, more people wanted to keep it than wanted it repealed.
Like I usually wind up saying to some of my relatives in Southern Virginia at the end of a family barbecue, YOU LOST, GET OVER IT.
Chris Matthews speaks for many of us on his show. He has a huge following for a good reason. He asks the right questions and makes comparisons that are fitting. Conservatives don't like what he has to say, which by the way, is for the most part right on the money.
Harley A.: "With nutjobs like Hitler, typical labels don't do justice. There are right-wing nuts and left-wing nuts, I still believe there are no Hitlers in the wings at this point."
No, it's not exactly the same, and nor will it be in the future. Sheldon Wolin pegged it correctly with his description of "Inverted Totalitarianism" to suggest similarities between the current United States governmental system, and totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union.
There need not be a solitary figure manning the levers of power, as with Hitler and Stalin. Now it's different. As he postulates, it's "inverted":
"While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, Superpower represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, 'inverted totalitarianism.' While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a 'master race' (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the 'ideal.'"
It is exactly what we are experiencing now, it's just that the levers are being handled by more than one.
This comment has been removed by the author.
JG,
Thanks for the Wolin perspective.
Before “Inverted totalitarianism” was coined by Wolin, we would, and still do, refer to our political and governing system as a corporatocracy. This has been cemented into place by court-sanctioned artificial corporate personhood with its greater “money is free speech” rights than living breathing citizens.
While the less-than-alert sheeple fret about the “liberal media” with its trumped up “liberal bias”, and while the less-than-informed gullible sheeple praise the “fair and balanced” propaganda arm of the Republican Party, the reality is as simple as this. Corporate media has a corporate bias.
Simple, yet amazingly incomprehensible to the public. The corporate media, in seeming partnership with the radical Right, has done its job.
Along with corporate media dominance of political discourse, we have the “managed democracy” of our elections, deciding which corporatist politician has his turn at the wheel.
And here it is in a nutshell:
Wolin believes that the democracy of the United States is sanitized of political participation and refers to it as managed democracy. Managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control".
Wolin believes that the United States resembles Nazi Germany in one major way without an inversion: the essential role that propaganda plays in the system. According to Wolin, whereas the production of propaganda was crudely centralized in Nazi Germany, in the United States it is left to highly concentrated media corporations, thus maintaining the illusion of a "free press".
The corporate “Ministry of Truth” is guiding us to a world where: Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery. War is peace.
In the immortal words of the Decider, “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”
Dave Dubya, when I initially started reading your comment, I kept thinking, "Dave, keep reading...keep reading." Your quotations from Wolin's work assured me that you did.
Yes, the "illusion of a free press". That's a major obstacle that people are going to need to come to terms with. It's crucial to neutralizing the power of the corporate-state.
Dave Dubya said...
"HA. Herr Beck and FOX(R) doth protest too much, methinks"
methinks you should keep your highly intellectually elite prison guard job.
No need for a job. Woo hoo!
Obama gave me a car, house, and a million bucks for voting for him.
And now I have all the skills for dealing with the far more numerous sociopathic assholes that are on the outside. ;-)
Like the ones who don't get what they're trying to imitate.
No De_Bill, we have all lost. As you will soon see.
In Communist Cuba, the Tax Man Cometh (CNBC)
Most Cubans have not paid taxes for half a century, but that will change under a new code starting January 1.
The landmark regulations will change the relations of Cubans with their government and are a signal that market-oriented reforms, launched since President Raul Castro succeeded his brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008, are here to stay.
The recently published code constitutes the first comprehensive taxation in Cuba since the 1959 revolution abolished just about all taxes.
In the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country's main benefactor, the Cuban government imposed a few scattered taxes, but mostly preferred to maintain low wages so it could fund free social services.
The new code covers 19 taxes, including such things as inheritance, environment, sales, transportation and farm land, various license fees and three contributions, including social security.
A sliding scale income tax - from 15 percent for earnings of more than 10,000 pesos (about $400) annually, to 50 percent for earnings of over 50,000 pesos, (about $2,000) - adopted in 1994, remains in the new code for the self-employed, small businesses and farms, but it also includes a series of new deductions to stimulate their work.
Eventually all workers will pay income taxes as well as a new 2 percent property tax, but both measures are suspended until "conditions permit" them to go into effect.
The government admits, with an average pay of about 450 pesos per month, or $19, many workers do not earn enough to make ends meet.
"They collect taxes for all these things around the world, it's normal," said Havana economist Isabel Fernandez.
"But here we face two problems. On the one hand we are not used to paying for anything and on the other our wages are so low we can't spare a single peso," she said.
Under the old system, large and small state-run companies, which accounted for more than 90 percent of economic activity, simply handed over all their revenues to the government, which then allocated resources to them.
Another failure of socialism. And we in America based on the last election are hell bent to go there.
Maybe Canada Can Adopt All the States That Want To Secede.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to pick up the slack left by an absent American president who has abandoned freedom across the world.
Nothing makes Obama look so small as a real leader.
“[W]hen Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand,” Harper said last year.
The Canadian prime minister further affirmed that “as long as I am prime minister… Canada will take not that stand, whatever the cost.”
“Canadian PM Personally Intervened to Stop PA Statehood Bid at UN” INN, November 27, 2012
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally intervened to pressure PA Chairman Abbas to drop his bid for upgraded status at the UN.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally intervened to pressure Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to drop his bid for upgraded status at the United Nations.
Harper, who had been in New York to accept an award and attend the opening of a new session of the United Nations at the end of September, had “a short, brusque meeting with [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas,” the Globe and Mail newspaper reported.
“In a little room at the United Nations, Mr. Harper skipped most of the pleasantries in a 15-minute meeting, according to sources briefed on the session, and told Mr. Abbas he had come to deliver a message: If you keep doing what you’re doing, he said – referring to the Palestinian bid for upgraded status – ‘there will be consequences,’” the newspaper reported.
“It was just one part of the bare-knuckle approach Canada has taken toward the U.N. bid, though largely out of public view,” according to the newspaper.
So now Anonymous is comparing the US to Cuba? can you say 'desperate'?
Also, I hate to break it to you, but socialism has ALWAYS been part of the American economy.
Bill -
Helpful social policy is part of any healthy civil society.
Adding the "ism" presents a whole other concept. Social"ism" entails an extreme and misguided economic theory and a fundamental misunderstanding of humanity. It should not be a part of our fabric, even though helpful and reasonable social policy should. Not to pick nits, but I think we need to be careful to distinguish between the two.
D_Bill,
Such ignorance can be astounding.
Imagine an ideology so ignorant that it sees socialism as uglier than fascism.
Imagine seeing the poor people in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, and Canada, not knowing how terrible, worse than under the Nazis, life is under socialism.
Such fools they must seem in the eyes of our indoctrinated, ignorant, and heartless troll. Never mind they are the top 5 countries in terms of happiness, based on Gallup polls taken from 2005-2011.
And imagine his hateful ideology that is utterly blind to our own Constitution's socialist provisions for the general welfare and regulation of commerce.
The poor wretch has nowhere to go. Not only is the Constitution wrong, but the entire world is wrong. And only he and his cult of fellow true believers know the truth.
Harley,
Helpful social policies are an integral part of socialism. You do understand democracy and regulated capitalism can thrive with socialism, unlike under communism and fascism.
De-regulated capitalism fails, and has done so twice in our past hundred years.
Socialism is the most moderate of communism, fascism and de-regulated capitalism, and is most compatible with democracy and with the regulation of commerce and general welfare of the people.
You seem to see no difference between socialism and communism.
The Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans, while having "Socialist" and "democratic" and "republic" in their names, were not. They were and are communist, not socialist in the Western sense.
Harley,
Not to presume I know your definition or understaning of socialism, I acknowlege the meaning of "isms" can be quite fluid.
Adding to the mix is the present and expanding corporatism.
We may agree communism and fascism are the extremes and are a bit easier to define.
I would also say we can find extreme and misguided economic theory and a fundamental misunderstanding of humanity under all "isms", including capitalism and corporatism.
Neither capitalism nor socialism on its own can grow prosperity for a nation. We need a balance of the two, with a viable core of democracy.
The crucial factor is the strengh and resilience of the democracy within such systems.
Without democracy, freedom cannot exist.
Bill,
Adding "ism" to a word often dramatically changes the meaning.
The use of free markets, private property, private capital, etc. are good and useful things. Capital"ism", if unregulated, as you point out can cause problems.
I merely point out that social"ism" is a very different animal than the use of reasonable social policies. The countries you name, while pretty far to the socialist side of the spectrum, still employ capitalist ideas as well. Even Marx knew capitalism was the only way to grow an industrial-based economy.
We can debate where on that spectrum we should be, but I still stand by my statement that full bore socialism is not healthy. And, yes, I have studied the difference and I think the differences between socialism and communism are far subtler than you think they are based on your statements.
It's not an either/or argument. We don't have to choose among socialism, capitalism, fascism, communism. We can think more critically than that.
Anonymous "You once again miss the point, (surprise, surprise) there is already health care for poor people. No one gets turned down at an ER for not having insurance or a way to pay for care. No one."
Hurray for the most expensive and least effective method of care?
Dave Dubya "Never mind they are the top 5 countries in terms of happiness, based on Gallup polls taken from 2005-2011."
That's only because the State in those so-called "countries" force their citizens to say they're happy. In Canada, for instance, the Department of Socialism (the only department in the government) will send you to do hard labor (or "labour") in the hockey puck mines if you don't pretend to be happy. And after you're done they take your paycheck and give it to someone who "needs" it "more"!
They aren't really happy. Why do you think the foreign word for "happy" is "ennui"?
Bill, reading your last post, sounds like we are in pretty close agreement.
MO,
And here I thought the words for happiness in Canada were "Molson" and "Labatts". At least that was how I learned it in the old days when I had to go to Canada for good beer. Now, thanks, to microbreweries, we have more and better happiness in the USA.
One step forward, two steps back, is how we do things here.
Taxes are going up in Cuba and in the US, reason, both govt can not perform the promises to their people with the current revenue stream.
Did you read the part about the wages under socialist controlled Cuba?
Tom,
Would your support Rep Johnson's position?
(CNSNews.com) — Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) says, “corporations control the patterns of thinking” and that the Bill of Rights to the Constitution should be amended so that the government is given the power to control speech.
“We need a constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to control the so-called free speech rights of corporations,” said Johnson.
Blame Bush?
CNSNews.com) - The metropolitan areas of Yuma, Ariz., and El Centro, Calif., have the two highest unemployment rates in the country, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the El Centro metropolitan area, the unemployment rate for October was 28.1 percent, said BLS. In the Yuma metropolitan area, it was 29.8 percent.
The national unemployment rate in October was 7.9 percent. So, unemployment in El Centro and Yuma was more than 3 and a half times the national rate.
The most conspicuous factor the El Centro and Yuma metropolitan areas have in common is geography. El Centro is in Imperial County, Calif., and Yuma is in Yuma County, Ariz. Imperial and Yuma counties are contiguous to one another and to the Mexican border.
The unemployment rate has almost doubled in the Yuma metropolitan area during Barack Obama’s presidency. In January 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate in Yuma was 15.4 percent, according to BLS.
The unemployment rate has also increased in the El Centro metropolitan area during Barack Obama’s presidency. In January 2009, the unemployment rate was 24.2 percent there.
After Yuma and El Centro, the Merced, Calif., metropolitan area had the third highest unemployment rate in October. Unemployment was 14.7 percent there.
The Bismarck, North Dakota metropolitan area had the nation’s lowest unemployment rate of 2.2 percent.
The road to socialism is full of high unemployment. cant wait till we get there.
Anonymous: "Tom, Would your support Rep Johnson's position [concerning a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate personhood]?"
Absolutely! I would!
Amazing JG, simply amazing!
You would limit free speech in America? Would you limit the speech of any other organizations? IE: Unions, political groups, Community Action Groups, Sierra Club, and religious organizations?
If no, why not?
What other countries limit free speech, including the speech of corporations: Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Vietnam, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China to name a few.
It sounds to me JG, that you have already seceded from the UNION.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:
“[W]hen Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand,” Harper said last year.
If Obama and the progressives hate Israel they must be anti-semitic. Hitler was anti-semitic. Therefore the progressives must be fascist NAZIs.
I'm applying some Dave Dubya style logic here.
Dave Dubya,
"And imagine his hateful ideology that is utterly blind to our own Constitution's socialist provisions for the general welfare and regulation of commerce."
The founders of this country would never have forced its citizens to buy a good or service (or face a "tax penalty" if they didn't).
You live in a Utopian fantasy world where money grows on trees and everyone "gets his fair share" according to the General Welfare clause. Uncle Sam just keeps kicking the can down the road by constantly raising the credit limit on his credit card. When a teenager does this a responsible parent soon cuts up the credit card. Only in Government can an entity get away continually applying Enron style accounting with such crappy results for the tax money spent.
Tell us Dave how much the War on Poverty cost and its results. The results are just like America's biggest monopoly the public teachers union, where no matter how much money is pumped in, the results never show improvement.
Tell us your thoughts Dave.
My thoughts?
You're still a dittohead incapable of an original thought, no matter what name you post under.
You resent the poor and revere wealth and the wealthy like a servant of Mammon. You have no clue what a monopoly is, and your hatred for teachers and the poor reveal your lack the compassion, wisdom and understanding to even guess what the founders would do today under entirely different circumstance.
As one educated person wrote:
Somebody better lecture John Adams on the Constitution. Apparently he and other Founders were some of those socialists for government mandated health care. Yes, the disturbing news is out. In 1798 the 5th Congress passed, and Adams signed, "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seaman" into law. Thomas Jefferson was the President of the Senate during the 5th Congress while Jonathan Dayton, the youngest man to sign the United States Constitution, was the Speaker of the House.
The act provided for the Federal Government to build and run hospitals for sick and injured seamen. It was paid for by taxing the sailors. Let this sink in. Adams and other Founders instituted tax funded government run health care.
It survives to this day as the Public Health Service under the Surgeon General.
This shoots down the Right’s argument that government has no business mandating health care. The Founders were very open to the idea of government managed health care after all. Real socialism has been validated from the beginning of our Republic. What would you bet the Tea Cult would call Obama if this was his idea?
"Uncle Sam just keeps kicking the can down the road by constantly raising the credit limit on his credit card. When a teenager does this a responsible parent soon cuts up the credit card. "
This is the stupid misconception the Tea Party morons in Congress used to sabotage the USA's credit rating for the first time in its history.
Raising the debt ceiling is how the government pays for money it has already spent. I understand the difference between that and 'raising the credit limit on his credit card' is too subtle (apparently) for you to understand.
What NOT raising the debt ceiling actually equates to is spending money on a credit card, then calling the bank and saying, 'You know all that money I spent last month? I've decided not to pay you for it."
If you want to talk about reducing the deficit and/or not passing bills that require money to be spent, that's a valid argument. To threaten to not pay debts that have already been created just to prove a point when you know eventually you're going to pay those debts anyway, and the ONLY effect the threat has is to make paying future debts more expensive is pure unadulterated stupidity.
Look at the assumptions DD makes about some one who doesn't agree with his politics. None of the below is supported by proof.
They are a ditto head
They can not come up with an idea on their own.
They resent the poor
They love the rich
They have no idea what a monopoly is
They hate teachers
They hate the poor
They have no wisdom
They have no compassion
They lack understanding.
Sounds like somebody has gotten into the left wing talking points again!!
Those are, of course, neither assumptions nor talking points. They are all based on Right Wing hate comments in this thread.
How does it feel to be wrong all the time? No idea? The cult is never wrong?
Say, sport, where's your evidence of your accusation against JG?
Same place as your source for the "Carville quote"?
Yes, so it would seem. Right up there where the sun doesn't shine.
DD, show us where anyone has said they hate the poor on this blog, as you claim they have, Sport.
Sure, Sport*,
Right after you show that evidence for your accusation against JG, and source for the "Carville quote".
*They can not come up with an idea on their own.
Thanks for showing that one for us.
Hey Dave, to find out where any copy and paste comes from just copy a section and paste it into Google and it will find the source. The Carville quote is real.
"James",
You offer nothing. Source, please.
Prove it's real. You can't quote Right Wing Blogs for truth, you know.
You and Anonymous and Frankie and Johnnie and all your identities have yet to show it is real. The same is still true for the un-retracted accusation.
Isn't it kind of crowded in that bubble?
"James said...
Hey Dave, to find out where any copy and paste comes from just copy a section and paste it into Google and it will find the source. The Carville quote is real."
It's rightwingnut wishful thinking: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/carville.asp
I guess I should have spent more than 15 seconds going through the links, I am pretty cynical of most politicians and do not put them on pedestals.
The quote is everywhere on Conservative websites and I assume they think Snopes is Liberal so they will not change their minds on this or anything else that comes up.
James,
Sorry I took you to be one of the troll's other "disguises".
I agree with your cynicism for politicians, but they are bastions of truth and honesty compared to our little Rightie McWrong's comments.
"We'll never have the elite smart people on our side." Rick Santorum
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/17/republican-rick-santorum-values-voter-summit-smart-people-will-never-be-on-our-side_n_1889620.html
"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." -Karl Rove
Mr. Tom Degan, you are an inspiration, keep up the good work
So a bunch of former Confederate states want to play that game again...
Goodbye. Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you in the you-know-what.
Before you go...
We want reimbursement for every federal tax dollar spent in your states since 1865, including and not limited to: land grant universities; flood control; electrification; the Interstate and U.S. highway systems; ship channels and ports; disease eradication; agricultural subsidies; railroad extensions, research projects and facilities; military installations (including NASA); airports; hurricane, tornado, flood and storm relief; national parks, monuments, historical sites, et al; shipbuilding facilities; tax breaks given to individuals to invest there and to businesses to relocate for the purpose of flipping jobs formerly held by Northerners to Southerners, etc., etc.
Every last freakin' penny. Up front. Due in full *before* you go. Cash only. No credit or checks accepted.
Don't even think of deluding yourselves into thinking you're getting those military bases, federal research (like Oak Ridge) and NASA
facilities in turnkey mode. Not happening. We're taking everything that isn't bolted down.
Because the rest of us built that.
For decades, y'all received federal largesse in terms of tax redistribution. In other words, for every dollar your states paid to Uncle Sam in taxes, you received much more than a dollar back. For example, IIRC, Texas in 1990 received roughly $1.25 for every dollar following redistribution. Minnesota, OTOH, received 80 cents.
Your run as America's biggest welfare queen is over.
Don't think either of holding out your little tin cup asking for aid after the next supercell drops a bunch of tornadoes across your states or the next catastrophic hurricane hits. Just like you left the people of New York and New Jersey, you're on your own.
Have a nice life.
Post a Comment
<< Home