Comments Posted By busboy33
Displaying 141 To 150 Of 657 Comments
WILL WE MAKE HEZBALLAH ANOTHER 'PARTNER FOR PEACE?'
"Does that make it right to bow before the Muslims today?"
I don't that means what you think it means.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 25.10.2009 @ 15:36
"or virtually ignoring events like the Iranian uprising"
Odd . . . I could have sworn you ran a post saying you thought Obama handled the election crisis with a deft touch. Must have just been my silly imagination.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 25.10.2009 @ 14:22
OBAMA'S RENEWABLE ENERGY POLICY IS THE RIGHT APPROACH
@Doug:
"Unfortunately, I feel that the Democrats’ energy policies have been cribbed straight from interest groups such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and the NRDC, regardless of how realistic they may be."
So it doesn't matter if the policy or ideas are good or not . . . the prime issue is the source? A good idea from a "bad" source is worse than a bad idea from a "good" source?
Interesting. Utterly terrifying, but interesting.
@MikeReynolds:
He's setting up for another "Obama Is Teh Stoopid" post. I'm betting Monday.Not hard to predict since I disagree with about 90% of what this president has done and what he has proposed.
You people have the intellectual subtlety of a brass band.
ed.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 24.10.2009 @ 18:03
WAR ON FOX OR BUSINESS AS USUAL?
@Moose:
"Incompetent: he got rid of a bad man,won the war in Iraq when he left office, restored our militaries reputation (funny the brits are not so vocal on how to run military tatics after Basara -quagmire?), left office with America safer than when he started his presidency,and got us back from the brink of financial collapse with TARP."
That sounds pretty amazing.
In what galaxy did this occur?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 25.10.2009 @ 00:42
As a left-leaning Independent . . .
Why exactly is Harry Reid majority leader?
I suppose that its possible he chooses to maintain a public facade of complete incompetence, while out of the public eye he transforms into a Terminator-like brutally efficient legislative warrior.
If that's the case . . . he's the greatest actor I have ever witnessed, and the first politician that actively shuns any public display of ability and competence since forever.I ain't betting my chips on that, though.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 23.10.2009 @ 11:31
In my logic and debate class last year I had a student who was passionate on some issues. One of their assignemnts was to sell me on any topic they chose, but to assume that they actually had to sell me.
He delivered a blistering defense of a topic he felt strongly about. It was as good as anything you'd read in the (then) current discourse from that camp, but presented from the "anybody that doesn't agree with what I say is either intentionally bigoted or a god-dammed idiot" perspective.
I had to explain to him that while his actual argument was solid, he failed utterly in his assigned goal. I told him that when trying to pursuade an audience, always assume that your listeners can be divided into three camps.
The first are already so deep in your camp that they will agree with whatever you say, no matter how wrong, as long as the ultimate conclusion is the one they already hold.
The second are so far in the opposition camp that if the Messiah himself (or herself) came down from the Heavens to endorse you they still wouldn't listen.
The third are undecided.
To affect the discourse, you have to speak to the middle . . . and calling them evil and/or stupid isn't the way to do it. If all you want is reinforcement you are right, then just talk to your reflection in the mirror. Convincing people that already agree with you is irrevelant to the outcome. Explaining your position to people that don't agree is how debate has moved society forward for thousands of years. Preaching to the choir is fun but a waste of oxygen.
If current public discourse is any indication, in addition to being fun but pointless it is also apparently extremely profitable. When true debate and discourse stops, so does the society.
I hope America will get back on track.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 22.10.2009 @ 23:39
BUCHANAN AND HIS 'WHITE MAN'S LAMENT'
@KenGirard:
"I have a co-worker whose desk is a shrine to his Irish heritage, and he can’t stand ‘foreigners’ coming to this country and taking jobs from hard working Americans…"
That's totally different. He's talking about THEM, and as anybody knows, THEM and US have different rules. US is okay. Hell, I like US. THEM? Fu@k THEM.
**as it may be difficult to absorb in text form, please read the above with sarcasam filters set to "maximum"**
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 21.10.2009 @ 16:52
@foobaristia:
"The quotes in Rick’s article would only be interpreted as racist if you assume a whole bunch of context that isn’t present in the text."
Selective quoting will do that. Buchanan makes pretty clear in the body of the article Rick linked to that "traditional" America and "white" America are, for him, interchangeable. Here are the two paragraphs immediately preceeding Rick's quotation:
"Moreover, the alienation and radicalization of white America began long before Obama arrived. He acknowledged as much when he explained Middle Pennsylvanians to puzzled progressives in that closed-door meeting in San Francisco.
Referring to the white working-class voters in the industrial towns decimated by job losses, Obama said: 'They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'"
When the part Rick quoted starts up, all we see is "they" referring to the subject under discussion. These two paragraphs make it pretty clear that "they" isn't just Conservative, but white conservative. Whites (they) are losing their country, which means that it was their (whites) country "before".
And that's a hell of a lot less ambiguous.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 21.10.2009 @ 14:10
"Stop. Think. Go back."
No.
You're a little late Rick -- the "let's just stall and healthcare reform will lose its momentum" was getting old two months ago.
Just to satisfy my curiosity, how much "think" will make you comfortable with the outcome? How long has this been going through the "thinking" phase? How much longer will it be before anything is ready to make into law (if at all)?
Sounds like "Stop. Think. Go Back." translates to "Stop. Think. Go Back And Do It The Way I Want."
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 21.10.2009 @ 01:48
THE DIFFERENT REALITY INHABITED BY THE CONSERVATIVE BASE
@TMLutas:
"Proposing an ethic of rating the government, hammering out a consensus of what’s on bottom and committing to cutting the bottom 5% every year would be a new way of approaching the Washington, DC beast. Programs would have to be well run and improve or they would be cut out."
a) "preposing an ethic" -- can you define that?
b) cutting the "bottom" 5% -- again, define bottom. Ecconomically efficient? Then I'm guessing you're proposing slashing most of the military, since they can't seem to breathe without "wasting" money. Is "bottom" being defined as "results"? You're walking into a huge definitional minefield. The Afgan War could be defined as a "failure" in that we haven't achieved our goals after 8 years and billions of dollars, but it could also be defined as a "success" by using the popular "well, it would have been worse if we didn't" argument. Since we don't know what whould have happened in an alternate relaity, we'll never be able to answer objectively if it was a "success" or "failure".
Example: the "War on Drugs". Huge sums of money and effort are spent on it year after year -- and we still have drugs. Sounds like a "failure". Or, without the war on drugs everybody in America would be addicted to heroin . . . so its a "success" and nobody can prove otherwise.
Your ideas are admirable . . . but impractical. Why not advocate for the government to do "good" things? Or "what's right"? Nobody (and I mean nobody) is advocating wasting money, or ineffeciency, or advancing programs that "don't work". The trouble is, we all don't agree with what is a waste, or a failure.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 19.10.2009 @ 05:54
