U.S. politics isolation tank

[Netzach]

What's a little nazi reenactment between friends?

Btw, I'm sure that guy's a douche because, well, it's just a safe bet, but am I the only one who thinks the reenactment stuff is kinda funny? I kind of feel like it's akin to being a trekkie. But maybe I'm wrong and they're all neo-nazis.

Oh that's another issue.

Wermacht or something, you're just a douche with a history fetish. No one dresses up like Waffen SS without a bit more behind it. Unless you're an extra in a film.

Genocide aside, you're serious - dressing up as one of the worst enemies the US has ever had in a fun frolicsome way is fine, but putting on tights and a tutu and your political career is over?

 

[intothewoods]

Oh that's another issue.

I know, I couldn't resist bringing it up. The Daily Show writers must have peed themselves when that first came out.

Wermacht or something, you're just a douche with a history fetish. No one dresses up like Waffen SS without a bit more behind it. Unless you're an extra in a film.

Genocide aside, you're serious - dressing up as one of the worst enemies the US has ever had in a fun frolicsome way is fine, but putting on tights and a tutu and your political career is over?

Heh heh. When I first heard the story I immediately thought it was a sexual fetish thing. I have a friend who is obsessed with all things Nazi, but he's Jewish so I guess that's ok. Actually, it's pretty fucking weird, but so far as I know he isn't in a reenactment group. This reminds me of the race play thread. So it's race play without the sex and self-awareness. If you're playing a high level SS guy, what exactly does that role play entail? These weren't foot soldiers.

 

[WriterDom]

I tried to warn you after the 2009 elections and you all screamed "Local Candidates!"

Swimming in the river of De Nile.

Name one democrat running on the 870 billion stimulus bill?

*Crickets*

Name one democrat running on ObamaCare?

*Crickets*

The administration has thrown in the towel months ago and is settling on trying to motivate the far left wing to come out. Making Rush, and Boehner, and Sean, and a TV station, talk radio, and whatever the enemy of the week is, isn't going win any independent voters. All they see is rising unemployment and rising debt and yeah, some jobs created but not enough even for people entering the job market to fill.

The poor blue dog democrats are running around talking like radical republicans who are against not only Obama and Nancy and Reid, but all of the "progress" of the last 20 months.

Unless you have some grossly biased polling saying otherwise?

Look on the bright side though. Clinton did ok after democrats got their ass spanked in 1994. It might even mean another six years of Obama if he has something legitimate to cry about. When a republican no means no.

Rant over. Back to your witches and Nazis!

 

[JMohegan]

Unless you have some grossly biased polling saying otherwise?

Nope.

I still look to Silver for reliable numbers. Here you go:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...ted-republican-gains-approach-50-house-seats/

I know, I couldn't resist bringing it up. The Daily Show writers must have peed themselves when that first came out.



Heh heh. When I first heard the story I immediately thought it was a sexual fetish thing. I have a friend who is obsessed with all things Nazi, but he's Jewish so I guess that's ok. Actually, it's pretty fucking weird, but so far as I know he isn't in a reenactment group. This reminds me of the race play thread. So it's race play without the sex and self-awareness. If you're playing a high level SS guy, what exactly does that role play entail? These weren't foot soldiers.

When we were kids, no one ever wanted to be the bad guy, because the bad guy always loses. So we used to make the short kids and the little brothers play the nazis or the confederates or the brits.

This colors the way I perceive Rich Lott, no question. But not in the oohhh he must be anti-semitic sense. I just assume he's lower down on the hierarchy of whatever social group he's hangin' out with.

 

[intothewoods]

Nope.

I still look to Silver for reliable numbers. Here you go:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...ted-republican-gains-approach-50-house-seats/


When we were kids, no one ever wanted to be the bad guy, because the bad guy always loses. So we used to make the short kids and the little brothers play the nazis or the confederates or the brits.

This colors the way I perceive Rich Lott, no question. But not in the oohhh he must be anti-semitic sense. I just assume he's lower down on the hierarchy of whatever social group he's hangin' out with.

That is fucking funny. I believe he did it for the father-son bonding experience.

 

[WriterDom]

Nope.

]


When we were kids, no one ever wanted to be the bad guy, because the bad guy always loses. So we used to make the short kids and the little brothers play the nazis or the confederates or the brits.

.

We didn't play a lot of army and when we did it was US vs Germany.

Later, we got a little older, we'd chose up sides and have bottle rocket wars in the street from about 25 yards apart. You had to hold it in your hand and watch the fuse burn down then just a second or two before it launched, you'd toss it a few feet in the air and if you had the angle right, it would go right at the target. Good way to lose an eyeball but no one told us not to do it. And yes they do explode. Rocket-propelled grenades on a small scale.

Illegal in Georgia even then , but you can still get fireworks in South Carolina. I'm 100 percent in favor of doing away with all that stuff. Even the "safe" stuff they started letting Georgia sell can set fires.

Check this out:

In 2006, fireworks caused an estimated 32,600 reported fires, including 1,700 total structure fires, 600 vehicle fires, and 30,300 outside and other fires. These fires resulted in an estimated 6 civilian deaths, 70 civilian injuries and $34 million in direct property damage.

In 2007, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,800 people for fireworks related injuries; 56% of 2007 emergency room fireworks-related injuries were to the extremities and 36% were to the head.

The risk of fireworks injury was two-and-a-half times as high for children ages 5-9 or 10-14 as for the general population.

On Independence Day in a typical year, more U.S. fires are reported than on any other day, and fireworks account for half of those fires, more than any other cause of fires."

 

[rosco rathbone]

Good Matt Taibbi today...

You see, when a nice white lawyer with a GI Joe beard uses state aid to help him through tough times and get over the hump – so that he can go from having three little future Medicare-collecting Republican children to eight little future Medicare-collecting Republican children – that’s a good solid use of government aid, because what we’re doing is helping someone “transition” from dependency to economic independence.

This of course is different from the way other, less GI-Joe-looking people use government aid, i.e. as a permanent crutch that helps genetically lazy and ambitionless parasites mooch off of rich white taxpayers instead of getting real jobs.

I can’t even tell you how many people I interviewed at Tea Party events who came up with one version or another of the Joe Miller defense. Yes, I’m on Medicare, but… I needed it! It’s those other people who don’t need it who are the problem!

Or: Yes, it’s true, I retired from the police/military/DPW at 54 and am on a fat government pension that you and your kids are going to be paying for for the next forty years, while I sit in my plywood-paneled living room in Florida watching Fox News, gobbling Medicare-funded prescription medications, and railing against welfare queens. But I worked hard for those bennies! Not like those other people!

This whole concept of “good welfare” and “bad welfare” is at the heart of the Tea Party ideology, and it’s something that is believed implicitly across the line. It’s why so many of their political champions, like Miller, and sniveling Kentucky rich kid Rand Paul (a doctor whose patient base is 50% state insured), and Nevada “crazy juice” Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who’s covered by husband Ted’s Federal Employee Health Plan insurance), are so completely unapologetic about taking state aid with one hand and jacking off angry pseudo-libertarian mobs with the other.

 

[Netzach]

Good Matt Taibbi today...

Hell yeah.

 

[midwestyankee]

Good Matt Taibbi today...

On the money!

"We need a smaller government, but don't touch my Medicare!" Ought to be the official Tea Party Slogan.

 

[WriterDom]

On the money!

"We need a smaller government, but don't touch my Medicare!" Ought to be the official Tea Party Slogan.

Fucking right! Tell all those old fuckers to take an aspirin if they need a hip replacement. Heart surgery? Fuck em. Worthless bastards! Dementia? Hook them up some with some potassium chloride. Tell them it's B-12. They won't remember. Most old bastards vote republican anyway. There wouldn't be a tea party if they didn't have all that time on their hands. Damn Tea party making Obama look bad.

 

[midwestyankee]

Fucking right! Tell all those old fuckers to take an aspirin if they need a hip replacement. Heart surgery? Fuck em. Worthless bastards! Dementia? Hook them up some with some potassium chloride. Tell them it's B-12. They won't remember. Most old bastards vote republican anyway. There wouldn't be a tea party if they didn't have all that time on their hands. Damn Tea party making Obama look bad.

You really don't do irony well, do you?

 

[ImOnIt]

Fucking right! Tell all those old fuckers to take an aspirin if they need a hip replacement. Heart surgery? Fuck em. Worthless bastards! Dementia? Hook them up some with some potassium chloride. Tell them it's B-12. They won't remember. Most old bastards vote republican anyway. There wouldn't be a tea party if they didn't have all that time on their hands. Damn Tea party making Obama look bad.

Looks like you completely misunderstood what was written.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

Name one democrat running on the 870 billion stimulus bill?

*Crickets*

Name one democrat running on ObamaCare?

*Crickets*

Okay.

 

[JMohegan]

We didn't play a lot of army and when we did it was US vs Germany.

Later, we got a little older, we'd chose up sides and have bottle rocket wars in the street from about 25 yards apart. You had to hold it in your hand and watch the fuse burn down then just a second or two before it launched, you'd toss it a few feet in the air and if you had the angle right, it would go right at the target. Good way to lose an eyeball but no one told us not to do it. And yes they do explode. Rocket-propelled grenades on a small scale.

Jesus, WD. I get the appeal, but damn.

Fucking right! Tell all those old fuckers to take an aspirin if they need a hip replacement. Heart surgery? Fuck em. Worthless bastards! Dementia? Hook them up some with some potassium chloride. Tell them it's B-12. They won't remember. Most old bastards vote republican anyway. There wouldn't be a tea party if they didn't have all that time on their hands. Damn Tea party making Obama look bad.

Your outrage does you credit, and I mean that most sincerely.

But I'm fairly certain that the point of MWY's post was to highlight the contrast between the tea partiers' support for Medicare, and the tea partiers' opposition to the health care bill - a bill that attempts to extend health insurance coverage to those younger Americans who don't currently have it.

I don't think MWY wants to take away anybody's Medicare. But I suspect that he supports the government effort to help younger folks, who are struggling, to get coverage too - which is why he's not a bagger.

You don't have to be 70 to need heart surgery. In a nutshell, that's the point that the tea partiers seem to be missing.

 

[JMohegan]

Okay.

A politician with brains and balls. Incredible.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Good Brad DeLong on the TP

OK, I said. How about having the federal government aid the states. We want to keep our police and our fire and our road maintenance and our schools running at their efficient levels, don't we? It's stupid to cut back on the long-term foundations of our economy and its growth because of recession, isn't it. How about a large program of federal aid to the states so that teachers, sewer workers, police officers, and firefighters can keep their jobs, keep protecting us—and keep spending and so provide employment for the rest of us?

ARE YOU KIDDING? THEY HAVE KEPT THEIR UNIONS. WE HAVE LOST OUR UNIONS. WE HAVE LOST OUR JOBS. THEY HAVE GONE TO CHINA. THEY HAVE VANISHED. WE ARE UNEMPLOYED. IF WE ARE EMPLOYED WE HAVE NO BARGAINING POWER WITH OUR BOSSES. IT IS NOT FAIR FOR STATE WORKERS TO NOT ONLY HAVE UNIONS, BARGAINING POWER, AND PENSIONS, BUT FOR THEM TO HAVE THEIR JOBS TOO. SINCE WE ARE LOSING OUR JOBS THEY SHOULD LOSE THEIR JOBS TOO. IT IS NOT FAIR.

Oh.

EVERYTHING YOU PROPOSE TAKES OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY, TAXES IT AWAY FROM US, AND GIVES IT TO SOMEBODY ELSE.

Oh.

BERKELEY SOCIALIST.

So what do you think we should do?

GET US JOBS!

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/...d-read-more-nietszche-when-i-was-younger.html

 

[JMohegan]

Good Brad DeLong on the TP

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/...d-read-more-nietszche-when-i-was-younger.html

The pic at your link, plus the ending, say it all.

"But you have just rejected every idea I have for boosting employment—short of nationalizing the means of production and employing everybody by the government, that is. What are your ideas?

CUT TAXES. ABOLISH THE EPA. REPEAL HEALTH CARE REFORM. KEEP GOVERNMENT'S HANDS OFF OF MEDICARE. RAISE SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS. CUT THE DEFICIT."




In case anyone's wondering why people like me don't respect the "fiscal policy" urged by the baggers, that's it right there. A wish list rooted in fundamental contradictions, and plausible only to those who are blinded by self interest.

 

[rosco rathbone]

The pic at your link, plus the ending, say it all.

"But you have just rejected every idea I have for boosting employment—short of nationalizing the means of production and employing everybody by the government, that is. What are your ideas?

CUT TAXES. ABOLISH THE EPA. REPEAL HEALTH CARE REFORM. KEEP GOVERNMENT'S HANDS OFF OF MEDICARE. RAISE SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS. CUT THE DEFICIT."




In case anyone's wondering why people like me don't respect the "fiscal policy" urged by the baggers, that's it right there. A wish list rooted in fundamental contradictions, and plausible only to those who are blinded by self interest.

If you think about it, there's sort of an internal consistency to the stuff Delong is talking about. Not so much straightforward principled small-government libertarianism---although those people are definitely hitchiking this movement---but a sense that government has abandoned the non-rich, non-technocrat/professional/yuppie/managerial elite and non-underclass. They aren't wrong about that, either.

 

[midwestyankee]

Jesus, WD. I get the appeal, but damn.


Your outrage does you credit, and I mean that most sincerely.

But I'm fairly certain that the point of MWY's post was to highlight the contrast between the tea partiers' support for Medicare, and the tea partiers' opposition to the health care bill - a bill that attempts to extend health insurance coverage to those younger Americans who don't currently have it.

I don't think MWY wants to take away anybody's Medicare. But I suspect that he supports the government effort to help younger folks, who are struggling, to get coverage too - which is why he's not a bagger.

You don't have to be 70 to need heart surgery. In a nutshell, that's the point that the tea partiers seem to be missing.

This is all true. However, my post had a much simpler point: that the Tea Party members are only against government spending when the money goes to someone else. They make a lot of noise about fiscal responsibility but in the end they're full of shit.

 

[midwestyankee]

I think we've all heard and/or used the expression, "You're entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts." I came across an article this morning in The American Prospect site that explores the problem we have in our politics when people of opposing views argue about the facts so much they can't even begin to argue about the merits of any policies or ideas.

The essence of the article is that there are numerous misconceptions about our government floating around, and that all of them tend to support the conservative message. As a result, there are a lot of people who simply don't know the truth about the government.

Example: we hear over and over that if the government could just trim down the waste in welfare spending that all would be right with the world. Well, I suppose there might be some waste in that program, but since the entire program amounts to about 1% of the federal budget, that little bit of fat cutting isn't going to do much to reduce the deficit.

There's also an odd tendency for people to define their own government benefits differently than benefits for other people. Key quote:

People are very good at defining the benefits they get as not really "government." In one study, 43 percent of Pell grant recipients and 40 percent of Medicare recipients told researchers they had never used a government social program. So you can drink from government's cup until your belly is full, all while proclaiming with a deluded sincerity that you want government to get out of your way.​

This problem of facts has bothered the heck out of me for the last several years. And I don't see a way out of it.

Article

 

[WriterDom]

People generally play by the rules. For 45 years medicare has been the primary care system for older Americans. Why should a 65 year old feel guilty about a program he has paid into his whole life? It almost seems to me that democrats have developed "medicare" jealously over the last two years. Which is interesting because democrat careers have been made in scaring old people over republicans stealing their social security checks every election.

Now you are wanting to cut 500 billion from medicare but the double speak is not to worry about it because it's only cuts in future pay outs? Then you jump on republicans when the "rate" of increase of anything is cut.

Transparency? Are you fucking kidding? This was what was promised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMf6kW_1Nw

What did we get? Who the fuck knows, it was all done by democrats in some smokey back room and from what I gather no one on either side is happy about it.

Then there was the stimulus bill that had to be passed in two days to keep the unemployment rate from hitting 8%. How about this? We don't raise anyone's tax rate until the unemployment rate goes back down to 8%? Fair enough?

 

[midwestyankee]

People generally play by the rules. For 45 years medicare has been the primary care system for older Americans. Why should a 65 year old feel guilty about a program he has paid into his whole life? It almost seems to me that democrats have developed "medicare" jealously over the last two years. Which is interesting because democrat careers have been made in scaring old people over republicans stealing their social security checks every election.

Now you are wanting to cut 500 billion from medicare but the double speak is not to worry about it because it's only cuts in future pay outs? Then you jump on republicans when the "rate" of increase of anything is cut.

Transparency? Are you fucking kidding? This was what was promised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMf6kW_1Nw

What did we get? Who the fuck knows, it was all done by democrats in some smokey back room and from what I gather no one on either side is happy about it.

Then there was the stimulus bill that had to be passed in two days to keep the unemployment rate from hitting 8%. How about this? We don't raise anyone's tax rate until the unemployment rate goes back down to 8%? Fair enough?

You're confusing Medicare with the way that Social Security works. Yes, all working adults pay some payroll tax to support the Medicare program but the benefits are not meted out according to your total lifetime payments. Your Medicare benefits are not affected by if or how much you contributed to the system. That's why the 65 year old coal miner and the 65 year old former Wall Street broker get the same coverage. Otherwise the coal miner would be covered for cuts and scratches but not much else. To suggest that it works any other way is disingenuous at best and Limbaugh-sheepleish at worst.

The cuts to Medicare that you mentioned, I presume, are the reductions in growth that were built into the ACA. Of course, when a Republican talks about trying to reduce the cost of government it's holy writ but when a Democrat offers the same idea it's heresy. Give me a fucking break.

On transparency: I get your point. We on the reality-based side of the aisle were disappointed in how the Obama administration went about getting the ACA passed. Actually, you could know what's in the act if you would actually look at it instead of listening to Rush or Glenn or Sister Sarah.

The stimulus bill had a lot more motivation behind it than reducing unemployment. You might wonder what shape the country would have been in if the government hadn't helped the major banks maintain their liquidity. Consider the problem of thousands of employers, large and small, being unable to meet their payrolls because they couldn't move money around in a banking system that was belly up. But you don't want to hear about that. You probably also don't want to hear that the TARP funds have already been mostly paid back and that the banking-system investments as a whole will turn a small profit. That sure is some funky government waste, isn't it?

And who's talking about raising taxes? Is there a bill in the legislature to raise taxes? I thought the "problem" you guys were talking about was that a tax law initiated by your favorite Texas rich boy (that helped create the deficit you so love to bitch about now that there's a Democrat in office) was about to expire. It was your guy's idea to make it expire this year (after he was safely back in Texas) so what's the big deal? I thought you were in favor of the Shrub's policies.

 

[rosco rathbone]

"We never asked for this socialist program that old LBJ rammed down our throats, but since we were forced into it, why should we feel guilty about using it?"

That's what that comes down to.

aka, don't cut our medicare--we have libertarian principles but we'd rather the next generation set things right.

 

[midwestyankee]

"We never asked for this socialist program that old LBJ rammed down our throats, but since we were forced into it, why should we feel guilty about using it?"

That's what that comes down to.

aka, don't cut our medicare--we have libertarian principles but we'd rather the next generation set things right.

WD wants proposes that we should forgo any tax hikes until unemployment drops to 8%.

I think it would save a helluva lot more money if anyone who ever used the term "socialist" to describe Medicare, Social Security, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid was cut off from receiving Medicare, Social Security, their home mortgage interest deduction, or profits or dividends from holdings in corporations that get tax breaks.

 

[rosco rathbone]

WD wants proposes that we should forgo any tax hikes until unemployment drops to 8%.

I think it would save a helluva lot more money if anyone who ever used the term "socialist" to describe Medicare, Social Security, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid was cut off from receiving Medicare, Social Security, their home mortgage interest deduction, or profits or dividends from holdings in corporations that get tax breaks.

We just need to get our terms straight.

When the baggers use the word, "socialist" means "welfare".

They don't have a problem with social insurance, as long as it isn't going to the unproductive underclass in exchange for votes. Basic human psychology--keep it in the tribe.