Comments Posted By Robert
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 46 Comments
THE ETHICS OF 'WALKING AWAY' FROM YOUR MORTGAGE
I am in a situation where my mortgage exceeds my home value. It is my fault. I refinanced when the property value was higher. I signed a contract agreeing to pay that debt. I am morally obligated to do so. I will do so. The idea of abandoning debt with impunity flies in the face of traditional values. My payments are the same as they were before the crash and my income is the same. I have no justifiable excuse to default on my obligation. I just don't understand how people can do such a thing.
Comment Posted By Robert On 4.02.2010 @ 12:38
WHERE IS CLIMATE SCIENCE TODAY?
Your assessment is both fair and reasonable given the information currently available. If nor for politics and money I think the debate that now rages would also be fair and reasonable. What has corrupted the science and sapped it of its credibility is nothing more complicated than agenda.
Comment Posted By Robert On 2.02.2010 @ 22:37
WAR ON FOX OR BUSINESS AS USUAL?
Attacking Fox is about pleasing the left wing base of the Democrat Party. The downside will far outweigh any short term benefit. Keeping Daily KOS, Democrat Underground and Olbermann satisfied may keep them behind the sagging Obama agenda but they diminish the Obama White House and make it appear that they would rather picks fights with news outlets than discuss the merits of their failing ideas. It is Nixonian, making you appear thin skinned and paranoid. And that is something that is a critical chink in Presidential armor.
Comment Posted By Robert On 23.10.2009 @ 20:00
Seems like a pretty shallow attack to demean the work of individuals without examining their individual characters.
"Think Coulter. Or Limbaugh. Or Olbermann? Or any of the pop conservatives, or jelly bean liberals who spout exactly what their audience expects - exactly what they want to hear. No deviation is possible without a fall from grace. No independent thinking allowed lest it contaminate the masses they reach and threaten their very livelihood."
Really? You think that none of these individuals ever mulls over their ideas? That they are all driven by money and power and thus would never deviate from their initial conclusions? That they never confer with others that have a different take on events or ideas? This author must have psychic powers that rival Cleo mon.
The fact remains that certain ideas become paramount in our existance. They are formed early in our development (from conciousness to our early 20s perhaps, later for some people) and change little. I'm sure psychologists have a term for it but it escapes me. Core values perhaps. Whatever the term they are the general values that we gather around. Values such as the importance of life. For ourselves, human life in particular. And perhaps human life can be defined even further along racial, ethnic, class or religious lines (see National Socialism and Soviet Stalinism). After that we make intellectual constructs in order to maintain these values. Is life further affirmed by a collectivist or individualist approach? Is life further affirmed by mysticism or rationalism? Are certain races higher forms of life and more deserving? Here is where it gets difficult because now we must confer and interact with others. Others that may not share the core values and may rise in opposition.
Life is not always a debate club. I wish it was. The Nazis weren't interested in debate. The free West couldn't sit down at a debate table and mull over the intellectual aspects of Nazism with their counterparts. Why? Because the Nazis held core values that were so far removed from our own that compromise was impossible. What happens when an unstoppable force meets and unmovable object. Conflict of the non intellectual sort.
The important truth is that at a certain point nothing really new is being injected into the debate. The intellectual points have been mulled over and conclusions drawn regarding policy. The only thing that remains is to react to events and seek to position our own values in the best possible position. Many involved retain the responsiblity to modify their positions through the introduction of new data but this process will be slow and tedious. The intellectual base of our world did not evolve into its current form overnight and it won't be altered overnight. Individuals that care about ideas will continue to bring in new sources of information which will either confirm or deny their current conclusions or perhaps take them in an entirely new direction.
Because Rush champions rugged individualism on a daily basis and doesn't convert to a Paul Krugman outlook doesn't mean that Rush has rejected the arena of ideas. It means that he believes that the battle at this point is over in terms of ideas until a new combatant enters the fray with something new to modify his outlook. Such a combatant may not alter Rush's outlook dramatically. But Rush, Hannity, Coulter and even the editorial board of the NYT's won't shut out opposition. They will battle hard and perhaps be slowly pressed into a corner where they will find themselves in need of idea adjustment. The change won't be radical or sudden. Don't expect such a thing. But neither should one assume that no intellectual discourse is taking place.
Some people are as this article describes though. Anti-intellectual cynics that have in fact sold out genuine debate for the pursuit of money and power. Evaluate the large voices in our society as individuals and not simply because they seem to be larger and louder than others.
Comment Posted By Robert On 23.10.2009 @ 18:32
BUCHANAN AND HIS 'WHITE MAN'S LAMENT'
"Earl Graves Jr. publisher of Black Enterprise has been a Republican as far back as I can remember. I’ve even heard his name so much as floated as a possibility. Ever."
Does he want to run? Does it matter to him that he will be ripped to shreds by white liberals on TV as selling his soul for money and power and as a race traitor by messers Jackson, Sharpton and Farrakan? What are his policy positions? Would he appeal to a broad swath of the electorate on the basis of his ideas?
These are questions that have to be asked because they make the difference between defeat and victory.
Comment Posted By Robert On 23.10.2009 @ 19:50
"The GOP has done nothing but earn out disgust and our loathing since the beginning of the Southern Strategy and nothing much at all has changed. I’ll listen to their lectures on equality and conservatism when they find a way to have more than zero blacks in the party in Congress."
What happens to blacks that enter the Republican Party Richard? What happens when they have to gather together with their families that vote 95% of the time for a Democrat? What names do they get called by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Perhaps things such as:
"Get back on the porch boy"
"Uncle Tom""Oreo"
"Race sellout"Blacks that join the Republican Party and embrace its ideals are demonized. When the Republican Party nominates blacks it they are characterized as Uncle Toms and the Republican Party is said to be promoting tolken blacks that white Republicans will actually control. The very basis on conservative ideology is race neutrality. The Republican Party should push every candidate that wants to run and who is qualified for the position regardless of race. Where does the Republican Party find such blacks when 95% of the population votes Democrat, believes in Democrat ideas on government and responsibilty and the remaining 5% is demonized? Can you understand the dilemma?
Comment Posted By Robert On 23.10.2009 @ 19:32
MICHAEL JACKSON, WORLD FAMOUS PEDOPHILE, DEAD AT 50
So I guess OJ's innocent too?
Comment Posted By Robert On 3.07.2009 @ 14:36
'THINK I AM GONE AND WAIT FOR THEE, FOR WE SHALL MEET AGAIN...'
It is the thing that seems to be lacking in our modern society. That selfless dedication to a cause that will benefit others but at the expense of our own happiness and fullfilment in this world. To lay asside everything you hold dear to ensure that others may be free to pursue their life and find pleasure is the greatest gift any person can give another.
Comment Posted By Robert On 25.05.2009 @ 00:13
THis report is porrly written, and will probably be used to by the left to defend some policy or another from Obama that others find objectionable. Now, having said that, this line from Malkin:
"By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives"
is horse manure. Unless of course she means to imply that all conservatives are now Rightwing Extremists. Which if course they are not. Again, this is why the report is poorly written. The report clearly only pertains to far right extremist groups, like the Klan or people such as McVeigh, and has nothing to do with moderate conservatives. However, the report was writtn in such a poor fashion that it allows people like Malkin to bend it to her agenda in such an easy fasion.
Comment Posted By Robert On 14.04.2009 @ 13:18
GLENN BECK AND THE RADICAL RIGHT
I'm still trying to figure out why I read this post. You told us you didn't know what you wanted to say and then you proved it. I suggest you still don't know what it is about Beck that upsets you, because you don't want to admit to yourself that whether you're "elite" or not, you are a snob.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. Me, I look down on people who walk around with toothpicks in their mouth. Same thing. But hardly worth the amount of verbiage you've expended here.
imho, you can do better than this. If you're feeling cranky, put it to good use on a topic you actually some thoughts about. Then we'll be happy to give you the applause you want.
One of your commenters asked a good question: Who DO you think speaks credibly for Republicans or conservatives? Why?
That would be worth a read.
Comment Posted By Robert On 8.04.2009 @ 11:46
