Comments Posted By Patrick
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 26 Comments
'V' FOR VILLIFICATION: LIBERAL PARADISE, OBAMA NIGHTMARE?
I don't think it is remotely in line with reality to say that an individual constantly imbued with nearly mythical powers by many (if not most) of those who "support" him is not the subject of a cult of personality. That does not necessarily mean that you have engaged in such activity - only that it does, in fact, exist.
Your comparison of public roads to universal health care is inaccurate. One does NOT limit peoples' choices, nor does it demand compliance with a particular activity for the sake of their own good. Paying taxes to pay for public roads does NOT, in any way, compare for fines/imprisonment for failure to get a state mandated minimum regarding health insurance. Not even car insurance requirements (which are state, not federal requirements, may I add) are not even that brutal.
In addition, one does not HAVE to get car insurance, you don't have to own a car! This is not true of health care - your mere existence is enough to demand your compliance. Again, your comparison is weak and ineffectual.
Drunk driving laws also address immediate harm and danger - health care does not. Again, your choice of comparisons are wrong. And sex-offender registration laws? Really? Do you *honestly* think they're comparable? Really, they aren't. Breaking a law and being punished for harming others (or putting others in harm's way) are hardly the same as doing nothing more than putting yourself, possibly, at risk of being unable to afford health care.
Your comparisons are non-starters. Please, try again.
the sinner,
Patrick
Comment Posted By Patrick On 9.11.2009 @ 17:40
michael reynolds -
Your snarky, and completely unearned, hubris aside, yeah, universal health care can very reasonably be called fascistic. It is an attempt to control people and their choices. When the controlling entity is rabidly secular and promotes a cult of personality, it is even easier to make said argument.
We aren't stupid, we simply don't drink the cool-aid that you appear to be drowining in.
the sinner,
Patrick
Comment Posted By Patrick On 7.11.2009 @ 16:59
busboy-
Yes, it is left wing. Read any of the actual fascist pamphlets/writings prior to taking power - they all talk about the fact that Marxism would only work on a *national* scale. The Nazis were the National Socialist German Workers' Party for nothin'. I know that you were probably "raised" believing that extreme right-wing was totalitarianism and fascism, but that is a false teaching.
Mr. Goldberg, in "Liberal Fascism," adeptly traces the ideological roots of fascism within "progressivism." Of course, both collectivism and radical individualism are just different sides of the same coin. Mr. Goldberg also illustrates how Moscow didn't have a problem with the fascists, who claimed loyalty to Marx, until the fascists in both Italy and Germany refused to bow down to Muscovite rule. Then the word went out to both operatives and useful idiots, concentrated in academia, to declare fascism "right-wing." Thus, we've had decades of misinformation spread by often ignorant (as in innocent) individuals and, just as often, by those who are knowingly participating in an historical lie.
One thing Goldberg didn't talk about, from what I remember, was the fact that the fascists had no problem slipping into power for a couple of reasons. First, the people in both Italy and Germany had, for several years, languished under socialists and communists in their respective governments. What the fascists were offering wasn't much of a difference, economically speaking. Second, and related to the first, the fascists simply pointed out the truth - that the so-called Marxists were actually fat-cats who were hardly living the "proletarian" life. In fact, the fascists were, mostly made up of the lowest elements, economically speaking, in both Germany an Italy. They were living the lives of hardships their fellow countrymen were suffering and could project of feeling of empathy.
So, yeah, you were taught wrong, as are the vast majority of people in the West. Even more in Europe.
the sinner,
Patrick
Comment Posted By Patrick On 7.11.2009 @ 16:56
See, that's what happens when there's no edit button an you're trying to take care of your 4 1/2 month old at the same time! Working from home is great, but trying to write a coherent thought while constantly dividing your attention between multiple obligations results in that poorly written excuse above. Thus, I edit here.
The first paragraph should read as follows: Actually, Chait and others are reacting instinctively to the fact that "V" is "talking" about fascism. It's just that fascism is a left-wing ideology. I seriously doubt the writer had Obama in mind when developing this story. When you consider how long these kind of projects take to even get greenlit, let alone to complete production, I don't think it is reasonable to conclude that this new "V" actually *is* an attack on Obama.
Sorry for that.
the sinner,
Patrick
Comment Posted By Patrick On 5.11.2009 @ 12:35
Actually, Chait, and others, are reacting instinctively to the fact that "V" is, in fact, "talking" about fascism. It's just that fascism is a left-wing ideology. I seriously doubt the writer had Obama in mind when developing this story. Knowing how long it takes for these projects to even get greenlit, let alone complete production, I don't think any conclusion that the new "V" actually *is* an attack on Obama is unreasonable.
However, why should one be so shocked that a show that attacks fascism should hit so close to home for those who share so much of the same ideology, both in political/economic goals and in underlying origin?
the sinner
Patrick
Comment Posted By Patrick On 5.11.2009 @ 12:31
Congrads Rick... Thanks for sticking it out. :)
-Pat
Comment Posted By Patrick On 25.09.2009 @ 05:38
IS CAPITALISM AND THE CONSERVATIVE RATIONALE FOR IT DEAD?
"At a point where a Bear Stearns is simply too big for us to allow it to go under, and has to be rescued by government, we taxpayers have earned a say in how it handles its business."
Bear Stearns has been 'rescued' by getting bought out for 1/40th of shareholder value of last monday. No taxpayer cost involved. And yes, that is far better than if it went out of business. the business can continue even if the shareholders were cleaned out.
A bloodless rearrangement of financial resources.
Comment Posted By Patrick On 18.03.2008 @ 00:42
"If I may summarize your summary of Mr. DeLong, we’re having a crisis of bullshit. A bunch of people convinced us they knew what they were doing, and they didn’t."
And if I may add this: The biggest BS art form is when the *Government* creates a problem and then blames the 'market failure' when market participants, led down the primrose path by a credit bubble created by Fed pumping money in, encouraged by govt rules in the Community Reinvestment Act,
and further encouraged by the repeated 'moral hazard' of a govt that steps in and uses taxpayer money to make good on losses.In other words, by socializing losses in the past, we encourage the creation of more speculative losses in the future. The moral hazard factor adds to the systematic risk of the financial system. so why do we do it? It juices up the credit flows, and can no more resist that than we can resist deficit spending.
"Low regulation, open and free markets, individual and corporate responsibility – this is the conservative mantra when defending and promoting capitalism. I subscribe to this view of economics because it works as any resident of a capitalist country could tell you.
But now we are faced with the largest bailout in history and must question those comfortable assumptions. "No we don't. You see, our actions to do what is needed to save us short-term does not in any way change the justifiable view that free markets can sort these things out over time better. We have to understand that the cold-turkey path of getting away from Govt safety nets and bailouts is better for us long-term, because it would erase the moral hazard and Govt buble-creation factor (without which, the players would have been more responsible), but long-term we are dead and our children will forgive us for another short-term fix that will keep the economy a bit more stable now but set us up for another credit bubble/bust 10 years down the road.
Comment Posted By Patrick On 18.03.2008 @ 00:39
TIME FOR McCAIN TO LANCE THE HAGEE BOIL
Everyone knows the Catholic church was hostile to Jews in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, many Reformation-era Protestants were just as anti-Jewish; neither Luther nor Calvin were known for philo-Semitism. (Luther in fact wrote a tract encouraging pogroms against Jews.) It is foolish to judge modern-day Christian churches by the anti-Semitic beliefs most Christians held five centuries ago.
Comment Posted By Patrick On 4.03.2008 @ 17:20
Hagee's concern about historical anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church would seem more credible if his support for Israel were predicated on genuine sympathy for the Jewish people and/or their beliefs. However, it appears to be predicated instead on his apocalyptic beliefs (a theology known as "dispensationalism" which holds that modern-day Israel will be the scene of the last battle between the forces of good and evil.)
As for Islam, one need not share the views of a "Christian" extremist like John Hagee to be concerned about Islamic extremism of the variety that has caused so much bloodshed in the Middle East and seems to be seeping into Western Europe. Many Catholics and Orthodox Christians share this concern, though they rarely show the sort of hysteria over it that Hagee always seems to demonstrate.
ENOUGH WITH ALL OF THIS "OBAMA IS A MOOSLIM" CRAP
Obama is not a closet Muslim. He has Muslim heritage and upbringing, but his mother was an agnostic/atheist 60s radical/liberal and his Dad was a Harvard-educated economist for a socialist Kenyan govt. The common thread in Obama's multi-culturalist life history is leftism more than anything else.
Obama is an semi-out-of-closet left-liberal extremist. he hides his record with more moderate rhetoric when is suits him, but his record is clear, even if thin - the National Journal judged him the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate.
http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/
His record:1. In Illinois, his most singular accomplishment was the extremist position of opposing the born-alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). Victims of abortion who were "accidently" born alive were allowed to die in Illinois clinics, and a nurse and others brought evidence. obama fought against it in hearings and voted against it when it came up.
Comment Posted By Patrick On 2.03.2008 @ 18:34
2. Obama has courted homosexual activists by advocating their agenda.Obama is pledging to advance gay marriage by overturning DOMA and pledges to advance the gay agenda by forcing the military to allow gays to serve openly.
3. Profoundly anti-Israeli advisors on ME foreign policy, wants talks with Hamas terrorists.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961345/posts
4. For drivers licenses for illegal aliens, and for everything that will make the illegal immigration crisis worse and not better. Voted agains the Seecure border fence in 2006 (pulled a Kerry, voted against it and against cloture and then voted for it to protect his political viability on the issue).
5. He is for expanding the welfare state with close to a trillion in various giveaways, albeit calling his welfare payments "tax credits" and couching his college giveaways in 'service' terms (it funds leftist community activist groups at taxpayer expense).
6. Has voted already repeatedly for higher taxes and opposed tax reductions.
7. His unrealistic and unachievable withdraw them pronto position is a 2006 position on Iraq, already outdated by the success of the surge. Now the choice is whether we choose to win the peace after we've won the war or throw it away in 2009. Obama's throwaway position is out of touch with reality.
8. His failure to distance himself from Farrakhan, the lapel pin flap, Michelle's words about not being proud to be American until now, his associations with 60s radicals who were bombmakers, by themselves they dont amount to much, but together they amount to a picture of a man more comfortable running with the alienated radicals than with patriotic "Duty, Honor, Country" Americans.
