Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
In other words, a great big discount.

No. Not every moral question translates into one of legal rights. I doubt that I would choose to go forward with an abortion, but that's a different question than the one of rights.

I would posit that it they are not true libertarians.

Who is a libertarian, then? There are always competing rights on each side. When the police frisk someone, they are trying to protect our right to be free of crime, and so on.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
If you're coaching your son's baseball team, and he's the best player and everybody knows it, do you give him the All-Around Award, the Spirit Award and "Most Improved"?

Somehow, I missed this one. Let me respond.

This is why you're not on the Committee. The Nobel is what we give people to make them feel better about getting their ass kicked by Team America, and it ceases to work its magic if we give it to Reagan. Carter, not so much.

If you readily admit that the prize is an Anti-American joke, why would you expect for us Torys/Anti-Communists to come up with 5 worthy candidates?

Fine, playing by these rules, lets name Arafat (again), Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Zarqairwa [sic], and Cat Stevens.

I'm sick to death of having to explain realpolitik to you.

Sorry, the closest I get to Ivory Tower groupthink these days are the Alumni mailings to Darcy.

[Atticus Grinch]

The irresistible force wins, that's what. The GOP cuts taxes on contingency fee awards.

[Atticus Grinch]

Dahlia Lithwick on the GOP's new form of waving the bloody shirt: shitting on the third branch. The only problem is the shirt isn't bloody, and it isn't really a shirt.

• Among all the soaring weirdness on display during the presidential and vice presidential debates, most of us completely missed the fact that neither the president nor his vice president has a clue as to how courts really work. That's because at this moment in history, you needn't really understand courts to despise them.

Sorry for the LAT link --- requires registration. Try bugmenot.com, but I think the LAT has some voodoo that disables those logins every once in a while. Bilmore assures me he reads the liberal press, and Club is always carping about the LAT --- maybe they'll share their p-words.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
The irresistible force wins, that's what. The GOP cuts taxes on contingency fee awards.

John 11:35:

"Edwards wept."

[Atticus Grinch]

Ooops.

Field poll: Voters across party lines reject the idea of changing the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become president.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I'm not sure why people don't adopt from Africa. Asia/South Amercia seems to rule out racism.

Hank, can I get a ruling on what we can deduce about Club's ethnicity from this post? I've got a theory, but you invented this so I give you dibs.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
Ooops.

Field poll: Voters across party lines reject the idea of changing the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become president.

This has less to do with American opinion on foreigners and more to do with that fact that most Americans think Californians are assholes*


*Not me, of course**

**No, I mean me, not Not Me, who is a dude in DC that love tanks.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Well, for one thing, a newborn is a life in being, which is where I advocate drawing the line. As for you second disjointed fragment, it expresses no clear thought. Please rephrase it in English and I'll try to respond.

At least one of us is pretty dumb. I do believe the issue is drawn, and am ready to put it to the vote.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
He watches SNL, and steals from it, then has the nerve to call me poorly read? I take it back. He is a bigger schmuck than I thought. SNL hasn't been worth watching in years.

umm, that was me, not bilmore. You may also be illiterate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I had hoped two things would happen by asking the cons for five Nobel nominations.

One, I hoped to show that they could not name five ideologically pure living individuals whom they would admire for advancing the cause of peace. I accomplished this by Bilmore and Club expressly admitting they couldn't come up with five, and Slave tacitly admitting so by including Bono.

Two, I hoped against hope that the con side would tacitly admit that the Nobel has more moral authority than their Coulteresque constant repetition of the Carter/Arafat awards would indicate --- as if these two were the only ones ever to have won the award (in Arafat's case, he wasn't even the only recipient that year). I had hoped merely that they would name people who as a categorical matter leant credence to the Nobel committee's equanimity and fundamental even-handedness in awarding the Peace Prize. They surpassed my wildest dreams by repeatedly naming people WHOM THEY HAD FORGOTTEN HAD PREVIOUSLY WON THE AWARD. All in all, it looks like calling the Nobel Committee a bunch of dupes and internationalist assholes is thoroughly debunked. What, we're going to shit on them now for not naming Reagan before he died?

I'm batting 1.000. If I can think of other goals accomplished by this exercise, I'll add them.

And I showed that whether or not some award was won for some reason at some past time, no matter how hard to win, the winner could still be a shit today. Thus, rendering Atticus' "points" moot.

Take a note people, you don't beat Atticus on the substance, he knows too much crap or will make a reference that implies he does. Atticus you have to beat on procedure.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me

I'm sure you and others disagree on this, but its seems pretty clear where this ends up. Your pro-Lifers are going to end up in Indiana, Michigan and Missouri. But Illinois will get lots of 20-something women in return. Not sure how the tax distribution plays out, but I think Indiana comes out ahead.

Hello

Are you saying that pro-lifers tend to be more economically well off than pro-choicers? If you are, well, you're wrong. The biggest problem with this country is that the people least able to afford their issue breed more than those who are better off and could afford more kids. I don't know any poor people who had abortions (and yes, before you throw some classist gibe, I know plenty of poor people - I grew up near an econimically depressed area). The kids I recall getting abortions were all daughters of lawyers, doctors and developers. For reasons i think are tied to familial adherence to Church teachings, the poor who got knocked up tended to have the kids. I saw a few at my 10th year reunion. Their lives are pretty sad.

Of course, you probably see this as a symptom of the selfishness of the nimby crowd, who, like me, will have only one or two kids so as not to interfere too dramatically with my quality of life (and possibly lessen the quality of my offspring's life).

The biggest problem this ex-republican sees is that the GOP talks out of both sides of its mouth on abortion. We should be funding borth control and abortions for those who can't afford them. I would gladly pay increased taxes for such a program. The GOP bitches about welfare and taxes the Dems cry about lack of jobs and too many mouths to feed, but its taboo for anyone to suggest that irresponsible procreation lies at the heart of the issue, even though its an irrefutable fact. Less people, less need for govt services, welfare, unemployment, etc... Why can't we have an honest debate in this country? Why must everyone shy away from topics like the problem with irresponsible procreation? Its a valid point.

The GOP is like the Catholic Church. They're all about the sanctity of the unborn, but once you're born, fuck you.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Hank, can I get a ruling on what we can deduce about Club's ethnicity from this post? I've got a theory, but you invented this so I give you dibs.

How Orwellian of you Atticus....

One day a curious thing happened. Somebody chanced to see a poem
of Gordon's in a magazine, and put it about that they 'had a poet
in the office'. Of course Gordon was laughed at, not ill-
naturedly, by the other clerks. They nicknamed him 'the bard' from
that day forth. But though amused, they were also faintly
contemptuous. It confirmed all their ideas about Gordon. A fellow
who wrote poetry wasn't exactly the type to Make Good. But the
thing had an unexpected sequel. About the time when the clerks
grew tired of chaffing Gordon, Mr Erskine, the managing director,
who had hitherto taken only the minimum notice of him, sent for him and interviewed him.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying
--George Orwell.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by sgtclub
In other words, a great big discount.

I would posit that it they are not true libertarians.

eft

The phony libertarians are the ones who argue states' rights as individual's rights. True libertarians want both the Fed Govt AND the state govt off the individual's back.

True libertarians also don't buy the intellectual dishonesty of of the anti-Roe crowd. All Roe really does is tell the states what they CAN"T do. Therefore, its totally in line with liberatarian thinking (indeed, how could any policy which by design dictates that the individual have CHOICE ever be anti-libertarian?). Now, these bullshit libertarians on this board argue "Its an infirngement of states' rights!!!" Their argument, boiled down, is "It is an infringement on my rights for you to tell the state that it cannot regulate what I do to my own body!"

The emporer never had any clothes. You're all full of shit. Just come out and say you morally object to abortion, and stop polluting my political affiliation by claiming your stance is somehow aligned with people who REALLY believe in individual rights.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Remind me what your Israel policy is, again?

"See this fence? Stay the fuck out."