Comments Posted By michael reynolds
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CONSERVATIVE REALITY CHECK: WE STILL AREN'T VERY POPULAR AND ARE LOSING THE NEXT GENERATION
Yeah, that's the problem with youth: they lack the calm, clear, older, wiser ability to bankrupt the government, load them down with an eternity of debt, make cross-generational promises without so much as ten seconds' thought about how they'll make good, and reduce politics to idiotic gotcha squabbling between cranky old farts who wished they had been at Woodstock and dyspeptic old fools who wish they'd gone to Vietnam.
Steve: The Greatest Generation and the Boomers conspired to screw this country into the mess it's now in. Two generations of whiny, needy, greedy, heedless, entitled, self-centered egotists. Very, very much including the execrable Mr. Cheney. And you're going with that older, wiser bullshit? Really?
Go take a good, long look at the national debt. See all those zeroes? Now you tell me how many of them came from the apolitical kids who just want to watch MTV and Tweet all day. And how many of them came from self-important, narcissistic gasbags like you, me, and Rick.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.02.2010 @ 17:39
After what the Boomers and the Greatest Generation -- liberals and conservatives alike -- have done to the Millenials I'd be surprised if they were much interested in any sort of political guidance from us or membership in our parties. Frankly it's a miracle they don't hunt us down in the streets.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.02.2010 @ 11:57
Busboy:
I think the problem the Tea Party people have is a complete disconnect between what they say they want and what they really want. They claim to want lower taxes while most just got a tax cut and have not yet had taxes raised. A large number of them don't pay taxes at all or pay taxes at low rates.
At the same time I've yet to hear that these folks are demanding cuts in their own entitlements or in defense. Are they yelling for Medicare cuts? No. How about Social Security? Not so much. Do they want their local base closed? No. Do they have a list of wars and military commitments they'd like to end? No.
It's a Free Lunch movement: cut our taxes, don't cut our benefits. So it's not fundamentally different from the larger conservative movement which calls for less government except as it relates to them and to their constituencies.
The things that got them riled up to begin with are in the past -- the various massive bailouts begun by the Republicans and carried forward by the Democrats. Well, that money is spent. Now we're discussing the future. So what's their plan for the future? Tax cuts and Medicare. Tax cuts and Social Security. Tax cuts and all the defense spending the Pentagon could ever want.
These people are Baby Boomers for the most part and they want exactly what my generation has always wanted, left, right or center: a free lunch.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2010 @ 17:44
Russell:
Well said, sir.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2010 @ 12:37
You consider the Bible a joke, while most of 300 million people don’t, something like: “look at our boy there in the parade! He is the only one marching in step!” That statement alone marks you for what you are: a hater of Christians for your own reasons…
No, it marks me as someone who occasionally reads history, and who understands something about human nature.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 22.02.2010 @ 11:10
Some conservatives are driven by their understanding of the Bible and their religious leaders, which condemns homosexuality in several books—notably Leviticus and Romans.
The Bible is every Christian's b-tch. They find there whatever they go looking for.
The Bible gave support to slavery, to stoning for adulters, for the right of parents to kill their children for disrespect. Telling me you found something in the Bible is a bad joke. Christians have never given a damn what was in the Bible, they've just used the book to validate their own pre-existing desires and prejudices.
It's not about Christian morality, it's bigotry, prejudice, and a sadistic desire to harm the "other." You're trying to dress homophobia up in the exact same outfit Christians used to justify genocide and race hatred.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2010 @ 14:53
Jimmy:
So, let me see if I have this straight (heh): you want to harken to the history of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Japan, ancient Aztecs, etc as support for your anti gay marriage position?
Each of your cited authorities practiced slavery. They would have made your exact argument -- in favor of slavery -- by pointing to preceding governments as authority. They would have done the same for democracy more generally. Or for any of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. They'd have said, "Did Ur have freedom of speech? No!"
So you see the problem there? It's the core problem of conservatism. You assume that the past is good and the future is frightening. When of course the past has been a long stream of horrors and the cases you cite their futures were quite an improvement. In western civilization we have moved by fits and starts, often involuntarily, usually inefficiently and stupidly, from less freedom to more.
To take some of your cited civilizations: in ancient Greece (and Rome) pedophilia was an open and accepted practice, as was infanticide. Nowadays? Not so much pedophilia and not so much infanticide.
Ancient Rome? Slavery. Mutilation. Political change by assassination. Imperialism. Public entertainments of appalling bloodthirstiness. Nowadays? Well, modern Italy has its problems, but they don't set starved lions on Christians.
But it's particularly funny that you would cite the Greeks and the Romans both of whom -- particularly in their armies -- openly practised the sort of man-boy relationships that are today condemned by gays as pederasty.
As for the Aztecs, good lord. Really? You're going to cite the Aztecs as moral authorities? Why not Genghis or the Nazis while you're at it?
If you want to appeal to history then understand history.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2010 @ 11:11
CBS poll from April 09:
Gay marriage: Dems: 46% Reps: 6%
Civil unions: Dems: 23 Reps: 34%
No recognition: Dems: 26% Reps: 59%That would support your contention that Democrats have some bigots, too. Just over half as many as the GOP.
Stick with the "No legal recognition" number but by Liberal and Conservative you have: Liberals: 14% Conservatives: 52%
So liberals have roughly one quarter the bigot quotient of conservatives. Now what's odd is the gap between 52% of conservatives and 59% of Republicans. I don't have an explanation for that.
The frustration I have and many have with conservatives is not that they don't eventually get it right, but that it takes them so goddamned long, they're so determined to stay wrong, and then such liars when it's time to finally admit they were wrong.
You'd think after being wrong, wrong, wrong on every human rights issue from women's right to vote, to ending Jim Crow, to opening universities and clubs to Jews, to the right to organize unions, to equal pay for women, to the protection of workers, to non-discrimination in housing, to access for the disabled, to gay rights, to torture, the Right might learn just enough to pause occasionally and think, "You know, every time some human rights issue comes up we act like f---ing a--holes and crap all over a bunch of innocent people, so how about this time, on this issue, we don't do that?"
I mean, wrong every now and then? That's inevitable. But always wrong? Always? And always loudly, abusively, self-righteously and just plain stupidly wrong? It's not that hard: next time a human rights issue comes up, just grab the nearest liberal and ask him what to do. You'll save us all a lot of agita.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.02.2010 @ 19:04
A SHORT NOTE ON ADDUCING THE POLITICS OF ANYONE BY PERUSING THEIR BOOKSHELF
Still Liberal:
Shel Silverstein? Not The Giving Tree, I hope. I hate that book.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 18.02.2010 @ 15:32
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW: CPAC 2010
Maybe a Blue RINO party is in the making just to escape the loonies.
Let me know where the convention is, I'll show up.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 18.02.2010 @ 20:46
