Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Via atrios http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...03/acd.01.html
FALWELL: Well, nobody believes John Kerry on that because his voting record, pro choice, his voting record on the family issues, does -- belies his statement. And the fact that he would not support a federal marriage amendment, it equates in our minds as someone 150 years ago saying I'm personally opposed to slavery, but if my neighbor wants to own one or two that's OK. We don't buy that.

God damnit, does that asshole even hear himself?

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
God damnit, does that asshole even hear himself?

Yeah, he does, but he thinks that's "God" talking to him...

[SlaveNoMore]

Santorum
Maybe that's the issue. I don't see a lot of difference between a true civil union (tax and Social Security benefits, etc.), and a "civil marriage." If it's just the "m" word, I'm personally torn. If I get everything my married brother does, I'm a little insulted that I don't get the "m" word -- it smacks of second class status. OTOH, if he just doesn't like seeing tuxedoed bulldykes lining up on the steps of city hall, well, I'm with him there. (Ditto the men in wedding dresses. Sure it's a white wedding.) OTOH, it's probably just his instincts and maybe the discomfort will fade with time.

Can we collectively come up with a "strategery" to get the government out of the Marriage game entirely?

Rather than expand the right, the anachronism should go. Period.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Can we collectively come up with a "strategery" to get the government out of the Marriage game entirely?

Rather than expand the right, the anachronism should go. Period.

You libertarians are cute. We'll have to find the right wedge issues so that you can vote with us instead of cultural conservatives.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Can we collectively come up with a "strategery" to get the government out of the Marriage game entirely?

Rather than expand the right, the anachronism should go. Period.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Everyone files their own taxes as an individual. The boost in revenues from high-paid people with stay-at-home spouses could allow a rate decrease across the board. Of course, the welfare for all the (mainly women) who have no income after their spouses die (no survivor annuity from social security) might offset the tax increase. Or we could just let the old women starve.

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Arafat still isn't dead yet. Why can't they just strap some explosives to his chest, put him in a desolated area, and just blow his ass up?

If this is to be believed, it's because his wife is keeping him alive because he's the only one with the access to the money...

Link

And anybody who thinks it's wrong for us not to be dealing with this criminal terrorist bastard on peace talks, would you care to explain where the mangy fuck got $2-3 BILLION dollars in Swiss Bank Accounts from?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Maybe this sort of thing will do it:

• In decades past, increasing Republican dominance of the House and Senate would have meant more fiscal discipline. But Republicans increasingly dominate the states that are net drains on Federal taxes—the Southern and Great Plains states—while fading in the coastal states that produce a disproportionate share of federal revenue. (It's Republicans, not Democrats, who are sucking on the federal teat.) What Amity Shlaes quaintly identified in today's Financial Times as the "southern culture of tax cutting" has been married to the southern culture of failing to generate wealth and the southern culture of depending on federal largesse. [Hi Burger!] The offspring is an unsightly deficit monster.
  
  Establishmentarians have long wondered when the grown-ups will asserts themselves in the Republican party. The stark truth today is that there are no grown-ups. The day before the election, I saw my congressman, Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut, greeting potential voters on Platform 19 at Grand Central Station, the launching point for the 5:01 to New Haven, the Bushenfreude express. When I thanked him for cutting my taxes, Shays smiled broadly. But when I suggested that he had raised taxes on my children, he looked at me quizzically. "You have to know all these tax cuts aren't really tax cuts. They're just tax shifts," I said. "All this debt has to be paid back."
  
  Shays acknowledged that there had been a massive increase in debt. "But 40 percent of that is due to spending." That was the moment I realized my sober, moderate representative may have slipped the surly bonds of reality. Like virtually every other Republican in Congress, Shays had voted for each of Bush's revenue-reducing tax cuts and every spending-increasing budget. And yet he seemed blissfully, willfully unaware of the role he—and his party—played in controlling, originating, and approving all that spending. "And did you vote for the Medicare bill?" I asked. "I did," he smiled. As I scurried off to get a seat before the doors closed, I heard a plaintive cry from one of the last remaining Republican moderates in Congress: "But I voted against the farm bill!"
  
  If this is what passes for a deficit hawk, we're in big trouble. The Republicans have suffered no political consequences for destroying the nation's balance sheet, after all. Why should they take the painful efforts needed to fix the mess they created? No one is holding them accountable. It leaves those yearning for some return to fiscal sanity in the perverse position of hoping for a crisis in the bond or currency markets to shock the faith-based crowd back into reality. And when that adjustment comes, I can't wait to see how conservatives try to find a way to blame it on Clinton.

Daniel Gross in Slate

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
God damnit, does that asshole even hear himself?

He must, sometimes, like when he has to apologize for making statements like this one about 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/Falwell.apology/

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Aloha Mr. Learned Hand
If this is to be believed, it's because his wife is keeping him alive because he's the only one with the access to the money...

Link

And anybody who thinks it's wrong for us not to be dealing with this criminal terrorist bastard on peace talks, would you care to explain where the mangy fuck got $2-3 BILLION dollars in Swiss Bank Accounts from?

I've always wondered about that myself. Arms dealing, maybe?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Is it lonely up there in your superior little world?

A little. I would ask you the same, but it seems you have plenty of small-minded jackasses charged up to keep fags from marrying inhabiting yours.

TM

[robustpuppy]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
He must, sometimes, like when he has to apologize for making statements like this one about 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/Falwell.apology/

I try to put this out of my mind, but it still really stings that after all these years of progress, we pagans keep getting lumped in with those goddamned feminists.

[SlaveNoMore]

ltl/fb
Of course, the welfare for all the (mainly women) who have no income after their spouses die (no survivor annuity from social security) might offset the tax increase.

Why aren't the old bats receiving their own?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Along the lines of what RT posted.

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I've always wondered about that myself. Arms dealing, maybe?

Sounds like he skimmed it from money donated to Palestinian charities... that's nice. The story mentions one audit in which 43% PERCENT of the Palestinian Authority's budget was missing.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I agree, that's what you do if you are arguing with Hello, but you forgot to mention also calling him names, refusing to say anything substantive (e.g., answer questions that you requested he pose), making juvenille sexual references, or posturing as if you are a spokesman for a group.

Get back to humming.

TM