Comments Posted By Tano
Displaying 51 To 60 Of 92 Comments
Yes Rick, you are just so damn fair and reasonable. Lets not dare say a word about all of this until every last detail is uncovered, and the testimony of those charged (once they are charged) is given full consideration.
Looking forward to you applying this standard as a general rule when any sort of charge is leveled against anyone.
Aint holding my breath though.
Comment Posted By Tano On 29.05.2006 @ 11:34
A RUSH TO JUDGMENT ON HADITHA?
"And we’re going to go into national convulsions over this incident without a little more proof?"
No, we are relying on the results of the Penatgon investigation.
Duh...
Comment Posted By Tano On 27.05.2006 @ 13:03
TURNING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS
Your habit of inserting two or three rather crude insults into every sentence that you write renders your text almost unreadable, and conveys a very obvious message that your thesis is a mindless, emotional rant - almost guaranteed to be deeply unfair to the intentions and the meaning of the original text, and utterly useless to anyone seeking understanding of the issues.
Comment Posted By Tano On 25.05.2006 @ 12:04
THE MIND BLOGGLING CONSEQUENCES OF BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME
Rick,
I do think you protest too much. We have also seen polls that show some very large number of Americans beleived that Saddam was behind 9/11, and that was shamelessly exploited and perpetuated by your boys.
And of course, BDS is only the mirror image of what your side invented in the 90's, and most assuredly will continue in the coming Dem. administration.
Your style of rhetorical overkill and misrepresentation does not make you very convincing. Everyone knows that Kos is not "mainstream", and - BTW, I have never seen anything there that pushes the 9/11 conspiracy theories. And DU? Who the hell even reads DU? Its a left-wing nut house, as irrelevant as any such institution on the far right.
"And if the left were to win back power, would we on the right descend to that level of rage and stupidity?"
Descend? My poor boy, do you not read any right-wing blogs? Are you not on Regnery's mailing list? Does your radio not have an AM dial? Do you not ever step back and read some of the nonsense on your own blog?
"Is it ever going to be possible to find our way back to sanity in our politics and political discourse?"
Well now, Rick. Here is a brilliant idea! Why dont YOU abandon your mission to feed the nutjobs and take this up as a personal mission? There is no use complaining about the state of political discourse unless you are willing to do your part to improve it.
Comment Posted By Tano On 24.05.2006 @ 10:01
LEAPIN' LEOPOLD! JASON KEEPS SLASHING AWAY
Instead of beating up on Leopold, whose main sin seems to be to be way overenthusiatic about what he hopes may happen, and what may still happen, why not focus your righteous indignation on a really important issue - the wholly madeup story by Amir Tehari about the yellow stars in Iran. And how the NY Post has continued to push the story, in the most lurid and scare-mongering manner even AFTER the story has been debunked.
That is a case of pure fabrication, far more evil than Leopolds overenthusiasm, with a rather obvious motivation of ginning up a war, not just getting a scoop.
Leopold is already discredited, because the people who most wanted to believe his story are the people most disappointed by its falsity. But Taheri's story is pure propaganda - its falseness will be downplayed by those who wish it true, because ultimately they dont care if its true or not - they want the effect that the story has, to become part of the assumed background of everyones thinking.
If ever there was an issue on which to criticize the MSM, I dont see how you can top this one.
Comment Posted By Tano On 22.05.2006 @ 12:30
LOOKING FOR MIDDLE GROUND IN THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
I admire your efforts Rick, but I don't think you will make much progress with your knuckledragging comrades.
I kinda like Richard Vigurie's take on this:
"[Bush] may get his way, but he won't get it this year. He may get it next year because the conservatives will be so angry at the Republican leadership - starting with the president, but the congressional Republicans also - that I'd be surprised if many, many don't stay home, turning the congress over to the Democrats. And, of course, the Democrats, next year, would give the president what he wants because then they'll be able to govern America for the rest of the 21st Century [with the support of former illegal aliens who had become newly-legalized voters]."
Stock up on those canned goods, my RW friends.
Comment Posted By Tano On 17.05.2006 @ 13:19
"Have we conservatives been in the political wilderness so long that we really have no idea what it means to govern a nation of 300 million diverse citizens, the majority of whom have different ideas on this issue than our own?"
I think that over the past five years, y'all have proven the answer to this question, on most all issues, not just immigration, in spades.
Comment Posted By Tano On 17.05.2006 @ 13:13
MY OBLIGATORY RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT'S IMMIGRATION SPEECH
Beth,
I certainly never assumed that nativism drives the entire right, but the more I look for rationality, the less I find,,,so I begin to wonder.
Even you, who seems to want to disassociate yourself from the nastiness, turns around and starts ranting about the coming apocalypse if Obrador wins the election - and I really gotta start wondering whats going on here.
If anything, having a Mexican leader that is more focussed on uplifting the poor, rather than trickling down to them, may well help to lessen the economic disparity between our countries, and thus lessen the incentive to migrate (probably marginal lessening, granted). Fox is completely tapped into the RW corporate mentality that sees Mexican workers as part of the Greater American Economic Structure. Obrador would probably be more inclined to build a Mexican based economy, rather than see Mexico as appendage to the US. For immigration issues, that may be more to your liking.
Comment Posted By Tano On 16.05.2006 @ 17:27
Rick,
Why is that those who make a daily habit of ascribing evil motives to their adversaries (that be you, and seemingly everyone on the right) takes such offense when the same is offered back to you?
You conclude your response to me with an assertion that "its about doing what is possible and in accordance with the law". My whole point was to point out that the legality issue is NOT primary - the opposition from the right is to a proposal that would allow LEGAL immigration - in fact the opposition is even more heated to that proposal than it is to the notion of doing nothing (i.e. leaving the illegals illegal).
As to what is possible to assimilate, I find your attitude, and the attitude of the right in general to be completely disingenuous. You guys are the ones who are usually the loudest defenders of the notion of free markets. So, what happens to your belief in the magic of markets?
The REAL underlying issue that has led to the current situation is one of government regulation vs. the workings of the labor market. The economy needs labor. There is market for labor. Sometimes there is a big need, sometimes less of a need. Any rational immigration policy would enact some mechanism by which legal immigration quotas would be sensitive to the needs of the economy for labor - not just labor in general, but the different types of labor. But we dont have that. We have a dynamic economy, and we have a political process, not a rational process, for determining immigration quotas. There is rarely any incenctive, at the district level, for a politician to advocate for raising quotas. And so, in classic form, the market finds ways around the irrationalities imposed upon it. The economy needs workers - no legal path exists for the need to be fulfilled - paths will be found outside the law.
People come here for work. We should WANT them to come, to the extent that work is available. Unemployment is at 4.7% - only slightly above "effective full employment". If you care about the health of the economy, the prosperity of the country, then the only rational conclusion to make is that the level of immigration that has happened to date is just about the perfect level that should have happened. If these illegals had not come, or even if some significant percentage had not come, the country would be poorer, and display less economic vitality than it does. There simply are not enough unemployed Americans that could have filled in any gap.
Hence, the market for labor has worked, depite the irrationalites of government imposed, absurdly low quotas. To the extent that the Senate bill allows legal immigration, that immigration will take at a level that approximates the needs of the economy (at least it will do so to an infinitly more sensitve extent than the current system). If workers come here some day in the future, and find no work, then they will not bother leaving their families. They will not be able to simply collect welfare here - you know perfectly well that that is not how welfare works in this country.
Anyway, bottom line. The rational, conservative approach to immigration would be to put our own self-interest, the needs of our economy as the primary criterion by which to set immigration levels. I see NONE of that on the right today - only appeals to nativism, and the existential fear of the brown wave. I'm sorry if you find that harsh, but you havent given me any reason to believe that this is not the driving, if unacknowledged, concern.
Comment Posted By Tano On 16.05.2006 @ 15:16
What I find interesting is the reference to the Senate bill allowing 100m new legal immigrants in the coming decades, and how this is viewed as the ultimate "bad thing", that will lead to (dammit) revolution.
I think this gives lie to the claim that the core problem is with the lack of control over the border, or the underclass of people living outside the law, or rewarding those who have come illegally etc. It seems that the ultimate outrage, for most on the right, will be stoked by a system that might well control the border, eliminate the outside-the-law underclass, and punish past law-breaking. Because the ultimate outrage is that there will be new immigrants of any kind (well, of the brown kind), even if legal.
There is a very deep and dark well of nativism that is open to exploitation in the soul of most people. The xenophoibic instincts of many on the right, stoked by the constant use of fear as a motivator for support of foreign adventures, seem ripe for futher exploitation on the immigration issue.
Overnight polls show the American people viewing Bush's speech favorably - 79%, and their view of his handling of immigration jumping up 25%. That gives me the comfort to take pleasure in the self-immolation of the hard right that is on display these days, without much fear that their ugliness will find traction with the general public.
Comment Posted By Tano On 16.05.2006 @ 13:17
