Comments Posted By michael reynolds
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THE SANTELLI RANT: A RED BULL RUSH
What gives you the impression you will “pay a hell of a lot more of the bill than most of” us?
Statistics. I know how my year looks, I know the average household income, and I know tax rates. It's not snobbery, it's odds.
Of course I have the right to tell you what I think you should do. It's a free country, I have the gift of free speech, this is a political blog. What do you think all these people including Rick are doing here? They're telling each other what they think they ought to do.
As for what I believe in, it's this: follow the constitution and beyond that get the job done, make things work. The economy is in serious danger. I think we need to get it out of serious danger. I ask myself, "Which is worse for me? Paying a few thousand bucks extra to bail out nitwits who fell for easy mortgage come-ons, or having a boarded-up house next door to me?"
In simple economic and security terms the answer is obvious. I want and need my dumb ass neighbors to stay in their homes. And don't give the "I punish my kids" line. I'm a parent, I know better. We apply gentle and non-damaging punishments, just enough pain to teach a lesson. We don't throw our kids out of the house.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 22:17
Lily:
The point -- which I thought was obvious -- was that one of the reasons to soften the blow of economic hard times is to dampen political extremism.
Pushing a "screw the losers!" ideology in a country where the losers are perfectly capable of voting themselves an ever larger portion of my income in taxes seems like a stupid idea to me.
A practical person -- as opposed to a half-bright ideologue -- might think it better to keep the house next door occupied as opposed to boarded up with a repo sign on the lawn. A practical person might think it's better to have a struggling working class family feeling a sense of identity with the middle class rather than feeling themselves a member of an impoverished class.
See, I don't really give a rat's ass about ideology or purity or some ill-formed mythology, what I care about is s stable society where I can go merrily on making a nice living. And since the odds are pretty good that I'll be paying a hell of a lot more of the bill than most of you, I'm kind of wondering why you're so determined to punish some dumb ass who got into an underwater mortgage because he wanted to get his kids into a decent school system.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 18:57
Germany had a depression the 30's, too, just like us. We had the New Deal, they had Nazis.
It's short-sighted to put adherence to ideology ahead of survival. All things considered, I think we did better with FDR than the Germans did following their path. And FDR was in time followed by Reagan, and the pendulum swung back. The job of intelligent government is to soften the blows so we can moderate the wild swings and stay in the sweet spot somewhere between Crazy Right and Crazy Left.
I'll echo what some others have said: if your party hadn't been so staggeringly incompetent we wouldn't now have to dedicate our party to cleaning up the mess. Next time try not screwing the pooch quite so spectacularly.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 15:12
Aoibhneas:
I nominate you as the new spokesman of the GOP.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 12:47
Bill:
Let's not pretend the banks just suddenly figured out that income won't cover payments. They've known this all along. The Ponzi scheme was theirs. They made paper billions off this scam and they were aided and abetted by everyone from the Fed to the White House to Congress, all in the thrall of an ideology of "marketplace magic."
Most of the people underwater weren't speculators. They were just dumb asses trying to get a nice home in a nice neighborhood so their kids could go to good schools. The problem is that these dumb asses and the really big time, criminal idiots running the banks have made a mess so big that it bleeds all over the rest of us regardless of whether we were smart and pure of heart.
So, as we frequently do, we are bailing out the dumb asses so their dumb assery won't end up further destroying the economy as a whole. And we're bailing out the criminals at the top for the same reason. I don't know about you, but I don't want six boarded up houses on my street. I have to think that might not help my property value or my quality of life.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 11:09
And a little anchorman shall lead them . . .
This is totally going to work for you guys. The new Republican Holy Trinity of Rush Limbaugh, Joe the Plumber and Rick the Ranter will conquer the Dread President Obama.
And soon neighborhoods will be filled with boarded up, repo'd homes and all will be Right with the world.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 21.02.2009 @ 09:43
WHEN REALITY, INTENT, AND WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY DON'T MATTER
lionheart:
I actually think most people associated it with Obama, at least indirectly, and sometimes directly.
No, ordinary people shouldn't have to worry too much about offending this, that or the other person so long as they didn't intend to. But this was a professional, not an ordinary person. Two professionals counting the editor. Different standards apply.
No one should hold it against us if we can't catch a pass in the end zone: we're not football players. We apply a different standard to a receiver making a million bucks a season. These two guys get paid to communicate, which means they need to know what they're communicating.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.02.2009 @ 21:42
Michael Reynolds, it seems to me that if the intent was NOT racist, then there should be nothing to “think through”. By doing that (giving consideration to how it is perceived), then you are perpetuating political correctness and enabling phony outrage.
Intent is not the only factor to consider. If your wife asks you if a dress makes her butt look big and you say, "It kinda does," it was not your intention to insult her, your intention was to provide her with a valuable insight. Disconnect between intent and effect resulting in many hours of desperate backpedaling and apologies.
I make 100% of my income writing. I always have to think about effect, I can't just think about my intent. No professional would or should think that way. After all, our job is to communicate an idea effectively, not just to spout off and end up conveying things we didn't mean to convey.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.02.2009 @ 13:08
No, I don't think it was racist in intent. Not that I read minds, but I can't imagine even a very dim cartoonist thinking, "I'll draw a racist cartoon! That'll be great for my career!"
And like you I'm sick of the phony outrage business, whether it's liberals hallucinating racist attacks or conservatives hallucinating attacks on patriotism or Jesus. We have enough real problems without looking for excuses to freak out over nothing.
The appropriate response to this cartoon should have been a letter from the NAACP to the cartoonist and editor saying, "Dude: uncool given the realities out there. We don't think it was intended, but still, think it through next time."
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.02.2009 @ 11:38
A long time ago my wife and I wrote a kid's book series that involved kids turning into animals. We had a black character turn into a gorilla. Our editor said "hold up, there, geniuses, given the particular stereotypes out there, this may be seen as offensive." So we changed the story.
Point being: a competent editor should have seen this coming.
Michael Wolff the author of the book on Murdoch (The Man Who Owns The News) was on Olbermann last night saying that his sources indicate that Murdoch is furious about this. He should be. He took a hit here because his editor was an idiot.
There's another problem with this cartoon: it wasn't funny. A chimp who chewed a woman's face off is meant to symbolize who? Pelosi? Reid? Obama? All three? It was a mistake at this level as well, stupid and creepy and unfunny.
Yes, but was it racist in intent? In reality?
Or was the reaction to it deliberately political not because of any stereotype but because those decrying the "slur" were using it as a political club?
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 20.02.2009 @ 10:41
