I was very pleased to see Hillary Clinton’s call for party unity today — that gives me some hope that we’ll all pull together and win this important election in November. So…do you need another reason to despise John McCain?
« Hi, Mom
Crush McCain!
« Hi, Mom
That’s enough for me.
I have plenty of reasons to despise McCain. This just adds to it.
Doesn’t matter WHO the Republicans choose to put forth– I’m voting against.
For the past 8 years.
They need a sharp slap in the face for that, and the message: NEVER AGAIN.
For the past 8 years.
Simply an extension of Reagan.
Oh man. This is scary. See – everyone I vote for – looses. And there is no WAY I could vote for this idiot, even though if I did, he would surely loose.
Wait……
I need to move to the Netherlands. Sigh.
JC
Well he certainly made up for the gaff where he admitted that he “believed in” evolution. Do you suppose that’s what this is about? I’d like to think he’s just pandering to idiots.
What an idiotic thing to say.
Have you seen the speech Obama made about religion? http://youtube.com/watch?v=vPBxl53ZNxQ Very Awesome!
Government is about PEOPLE. Not gods. People. You listening, politicians? PEOPLE. Repeat after me: PEEEEEEEPLE.
Is this his way of coming to terms with his past?
He flew one of the B-52s in a group of three, with each plane carrying 54,000 pounds of high explosives. Flying at high altitudes, the bombers released their deadly payload of napalm upon the unsuspecting people on the ground. “Rolling Thunder” killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.
If he wins, our Christian president (soon to bombard our senses with hero ads)will lead us into another war.
Dear PZ,
For one who has given up gods of the ectoplasmic type, you sure seem dumb to be cheering on one or the other camp of the fleshy type.
More mollusc porn, more atheism, less politics please.
Fuck that! No way do I want 4 more years of a dipshit in office. Christian Nation? Fuck that guy and his efforts to suck up to the right wing christian fucktards.
marcia, John McCain was in the Navy and flew the A-4E Skyhawk, a single-seat, carrier-based strike fighter. His plane could barely struggle to the altitude B-52s operated at.
The man has many faults, but let’s be sure to use correct information in talking about them.
Mike,
It’s not merely politics. Not even close.
I think you were trying to be cute.
It fell flat.
Telling him what he should or should not post to his own blog is childish.
We can’t have a man in office who seems to think the Constitution established America as a Christian nation, despite it being a secular document and never making any sort of religious reference.
My bad, didn’t mean to repost the link.
I was willing to assume McCain was a decent human up until the point he had his lips sewn to Hagee’s posterior. Now I’m having trouble finding something to compare him to that wouldn’t expose me to libel liability. I hear that pond scum and steaming piles of feces had gotten good representation after being compared to Falwell. This video is clearly a compilation of the worst things he said on that show (single interview?) so I wonder if there is an unedited version floating out there. I wonder how these comments fit in to what else was being said, mainly to see exactly how he managed to feed himself enough rope to dangle from.
This weekend my e-mail in-box contained a message explaining the 2008 Victory Plan that will sweep John McCain into the White House. All he needs, you see, is to win 25% of the black vote. And I think they’re serious. No kidding!
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12676
“Now that I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam.”
I particularly liked this bit:
Take that, you filthy heathen immigrants!
Zeno,
Love the post. Also love the “MLK was a Republican” theme. I think Al Sharpton answered that fairly well at the last Democratic National Convention:
“We didn’t get that thirty acres. We didn’t get the mule. So we decided to ride this donkey as far as it would take us!”
Well, that and the Southern Strategy and “law and order” and “welfare queens” and … well, it’s gonna get much uglier this year. Much. Uglier. I fear many of the thin veneers covering American racism will be stripped away even further.
I remember the late and truly great Utah Phillips’ definition of “politics.” “Poly” is Greek for “many” and ticks are blood-sucking insects. Polyticks!
That said, I gave it up for Obama when he called bullshit on that idiot “gas-tax holiday” proposal that I believe McCain first came up with, and then at about the same time he got several ice water enemas from those preachers. I very much doubt that after that experience there would be many prayer breakfasts in the Obama White House.
Besides, I can’t think of a much better way to say “I’m sorry” to the rest of the world than to elect as the next President a person of color whose middle name is Hussein. But uff da, what a mess he’ll have to deal with. He’s gonna have to be “a better man than I am. . .”
I’m concerned about McCain’s ability to effectively read for comprehension, since I’d like to think that he’s read the constitution at least once.
Additionally, using Obama’s mixed racial heritage and name as a reason to vote for him is every bit as ridiculous as using it as a reason to vote against him. How’s about we all try voting for a candidate based on their merit and stances on issues? Sound good? Yeah, I think so too.
Obama, Tuesday night, in Minnesota:
“What you won’t hear you hear from this campaign is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon.”
I can’t wait until January.
Thanks, MAJeff. Back when I was a legislative staffer in Sacramento, one of my coworkers was an African American who did district services for our boss. He had a big campaign button on his desk that said “Still waiting for my 30 acres and mule.”
So where does the christian bible talk about things like freedom of religion, democracy, equal rights, equal protection under the law, no blank check to break the law, etc? I’ve read the bible and that book is AGAINST these American values, not FOR them.
Zeno,
This is one of those areas that gets personal for this white boy. I’ve been teaching courses on race at the collegiate level for nearly a decade now. It’s not my primary research area, but I’ve gotten really good at it, and developed a reputation on campus. I’m also sick and tired of still hearing stories about students going to a movie and being pulled over for driving while black; about their mothers being followed around in stores because they were speaking Spanish; about being told an apartment was available on the phone, but being told it wasn’t a half hour later when showing up in person…and on and on….
…It’s going to be an interesting fall semester.
Re: Hillary; I didn’t expect her to call it quits until some girl from Kansas threw a bucket of water at her.
As for McCain, his candidacy gives me tremendous hope for a major shakeup of the Republican party. The last opportunity of this kind was Ford’s loss to Carter.
As for Obama, eh. He’s a garden-variety big-government advocate with a gift of gab. He *might* end the war, but I’m not holding my breath.
-jcr
GAH!
UNCLEAN UNCLEAN!
I know this has been said many times before, but people like him (and those who will vote for him because of this) scare me. If there is a reason to vote, it is to counteract the votes of people like that.
In California, MAJeff, we have a long and festering problem with folks who fear and resent the large Hispanic minority (many of whom had families here long before this became U.S. territory). These resentful people blame every problem on illegal immigration, they suspect every Hispanic of being a law breaker, and a few of them act as vigilante immigration enforcers, demanding to see residence visas when they encounter Spanish-speaking workers. I guess it’s the self-assigned divine right of certain white people. One of my Mexican-born students who’s lived as a permanent resident in the U.S. since infancy was pulled aside and challenged as to his right to be here, just because of his appearance. (His English is excellent.) That kind of police state behavior creeps me out, but it exists and could easily get worse unless we refuse to put up with it.
McCain’s seeming a little past it. I can hardly wait for the debates. Of course, Kerry savaged Bush in that second “town hall” format debate and Bush still won.
We have to remember that this election depends on turnout. We need to register as many likely Obama voters as possible. And we need to encourage them to vote early to avoid the oncoming election day trickery. I personally treatened a neighbor with physical violence if he and his wife didn’t register. And I plan to drive some of my neighbors to early voting locations in Republican strongholds where there will be less election tampering.
Mike writes:
For one who has given up gods of the ectoplasmic type, you sure seem dumb to be cheering on one or the other camp of the fleshy type.
More mollusc porn, more atheism, less politics please.
Translation: PZ, please stop talking about things I don’t agree with you 100% on. The cognitive dissonance hurts my brain and ruins my sense of hero-worship.
Personally I think some of PZ’s opinions on some topics are pretty ridiculous, but he’s a smart guy who’s got nuanced views because he thinks for himself and establishes his opinions based on his understanding of how things are. You can’t expect a person like that to agree with you 100% down the line; it just never happens. My advice to you is to ignore the political stuff if you don’t like it – or go to the trouble of trying to change his mind – which I’m guessing would be difficult given we’re talking about some well-established views that he’s clearly invested in.
bacopa writes:
I personally treatened a neighbor with physical violence if he and his wife didn’t register. And I plan to drive some of my neighbors to early voting locations in Republican strongholds where there will be less election tampering.
I assume you’re really just kidding about threatening someone with violence but … dude, that’s election tampering.
At least with Bush we could just assume that he simply has never read the Constitution, and thus has made himself into a little dictator. With McCain, I can only assume that he has made an informed choice to not only support the dictator who has presently usurped the powers of the other two branches, but has done so in an effort to become the next dictator.
In all seriousness, we are not very far removed from conditions that the Declaration of Independence called “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing, invariably, the same Object”.
I’m just sayin’.
@#8 Kristen —
I’m glad Obama has sensible views about religion in the public sphere, but he paints a false picture when he talks about those on the left who want any mention of religion utterly out of the public sphere. I’ve never heard a politician (Dem or Repub) suggest the laicite-like laws he seems to be imagining when he describes all the religious references taken out of Dr. King’s public speeches. In fact, the Democratic party (Obama included) spends an embarrassing amount of their time pandering to the religious segment of the public.
It seems to me that he’s setting up a false polarity in the debate in order to frame himself as a reasonable, compromising guy. And while he’s still certainly the lesser of two evils, I don’t really see this as “awesome.”
I wish these historical revisionists would look around and realize how PAGAN the roots of the country are (obviously a conscious stylistic choice, I am not suggesting that the founders burned hekatombs). Hell, think of the number of goddesses depicted in our monuments- e.g. Columbia. The founders hearkened back to the Greek polis, and adopted elements of the Iroquois federation’s governance, when they formed our government. It’s Enlightenment values, not Judeo-Christian ones, that form the basis of our society.
The country was founded shortly after the religious wars that engulfed Europe after the Reformation- no way the founders would have had a repeat of that nonsense.
Feh, this ain’t the McCain of 2000, the one who stood up to the “agents of intolerance”. What happened to this guy, what explains his devolutionary course?
#8: Excellent link. Well said, Obama.
By the way, people, it’s FORTY acres and a mule, not thirty acres.
Voting for McCain was never in the future for me. About the only distinction McCain himself has been able to draw between he and Bush as that McCain says he’ll treat detainees better. Never mind 1 million+ dead Iraqis, 2 million+ Iraqi civillians, and a war that looks like it will never end that never should have started in the first place.
We also need to dedicate ourselves to getting rid of these, excuse me, God Damn Stupid ethanol goals. Here’s how it works: We use 120,000 BTUs of petrolium products to produce 100,000 BTUs of ethanol. It’s driving the cost of all kinds of food and all kinds of energy upward, and if we strive to meet Bush’s goals, it will only get worse. Sadly, it’s better to just burn the damned gasoline in the damned car.
Pimintel is right.
I really hope that Obama is able to hit both of these issues head-on.
Sorry for my rant. I’m just so sad because I didn’t think one man could run this country down this far in just 8 years. I sincerely believe McCain would basically just be Bush’s third term. This recording doesn’t seal the deal for me; it’s already sealed. It only makes it worse.
I wonder how many of my neighbors, in my fairly blue ‘hood, are saying, “Right on, McCain!”. Probably more than I suspect.
That would be “…2 million+ Iraqi refugees…”. Sorry.
John C. Randolph, the sexism in your reference to Hillary Clinton as the Wicked Witch was totally gratuitous. It’s personally insulting to me and plenty of women readers- this whole campaign season has been a deluge of misogynist slurs from supposedly liberal men (and conservatives, too, of course) and the sexism has really gotten old. If you want to be snarky about her campaign, be snarky, but don’t be a Chris Matthews-style woman-hater.
There’s certainly no shortage of reasons to vote Obama this year, but I’m doing it mostly just to see Pat Buchanan’s head explode on live television.
I don’t think McCain has a chance now, mostly because he’s so old and Obama is so shiny. These aren’t my personal reasons, mind you, but I’m enough of a cynic that I think this is going to be like American Idol.
I’ve got to echo Longtime Lurker in his observation of how much McCain has changed since 2000. I would’ve been happy to vote for that McCain then or now, but the current one is insufferable. Obama could still ruin it for me by picking up a twit like Bill Richardson for VP, so I’ll just have to wait and see.
whats the difference democrat christian moron or a republican christian moron? At least mccain`s got cohones glad i don`t have to vote for either of them.I`ve got enough political cretins in my own neck of the woods.
@#36 Longtime Lurker —
He’s coming to terms with his mortality, and the fact that this is probably the last shot he has at running for president. And he knew if he wanted a shot in hell at getting the nomination, he’d have to toe the party line.
Dear mike,
please read the last word in this blog’s subtitle, and if you don’t like the political content, feel free to shut the fuck up.
love, syn.
Oh?
“He’s coming to terms with his mortality, and the fact that this is probably the last shot he has at running for president.”
You’re onto something, Etha, but I don’t want the bastard to take me down with him!
Plus, what kind of sentient being would so completely prostitute itself to garner this prize? Better he should have left the party, and truly taken on the role of “maverick”. He was always a Republican Party Reptile, since the days of the Keating Five.
Jess @ #39
Would I be equally guilty of sexism if I were to compare McCain to Nosferatu? They are both male, after all..
I can’t guess at JCR’s motives, and you may be right, but must we go chasing after offense when it’s possible that none was meant?
Jess, your accusation of sexism on my part is what’s gratuitous. I was speaking about an individual, who has certainly earned my disdain through her insatiable lust for power. I do not extrapolate from her sordid example and assume that any other woman shares her character flaws.
If you feel insulted by what I say about a politician, then try to work it out in therapy.
Incidentally, feminists everywhere should rejoice at Clinton’s defeat. If she’d managed to arm-twist, blackmail, and snivel her way into being the first woman nominated by a major party, it could be half a century before there was another one.
-jcr
pcarini,
Thanks for defending me, but it was my intention to offend anyone who might have supported Hillary. Jess’ attempt to paint me as a sexist for doing so, is precisely the kind of crap that Hillary tried and failed to get away with in her campaign.
-jcr
I tracked the associated article down at http://www.jedreport.com/2008/03/the-medias-doub.html (March 08) and it shows the intent of creating the video compilation was to make a comparison to the criticism directed at Rev. Wright (and indirectly at Sen. Obama). The full interview is at http://www.beliefnet.com/story/220/story_22001_1.html and seems to have been posted in September 07.
Mike M I hear what you are saying about the biofuel situation in the US at the moment based on corn. It is seriously borked and predicated entirely on pork for the farmers with an added figleaf. The problem is that not all biofuels are created equal and President Lula down in Sao Paolo is right about their sugar cane to ethanol program. The way to turn corn into ethanol is not to burn the ears, but the stalks. You need to plug into the cellulose to ethanol technologies coming on stream using wastes like corn stalks and some of these fast growing foliage plants. Allied to that are increasingly promising technologies to grow algae on sewerage and other waste streams which yields biodiesel and the residue from that can be a feedstock in the ethanol cycle. I hear there is a company in California that has some transgenic algae that produce crude oil from sewerage.
So yes, a great amount of the rush to biofuels is bogus, no argument. But we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The danger is that black’n’white is the only way they see things politicians will kill or refuse to fund/license anything that smacks of it. So be careful of what you say and how you say it, be specific. And be ready, buy a diesel.
I’m with you Jeff. American politics is an ugly beast, but this season is bound to be a particularly heinous one. I am hoping that we come out of it clean, but I have a feeling that we are all going to be covered in the putrescence of overt racism (as opposed to the coded, but not any less disgusting, kind) that hasn’t been seen in civilized discourse in quite awhile.
BTW, did anyone else notice how McCain displayed the same sort of smug half-laugh and then pause that Bush has made infamous? They both seem to do it after making a particularly arrogant comment as if daring someone to call them on it. It’s sickening.
I will add that anyone with an interest in basic scientific research has an interest in keeping John McCain out of office. See his record on ridiculing and calling out research he doesn’t think is worth funding with taxpayer money (despite the fact that the research has passed peer review for funding and he has absolutely no training in science).
Pimientita,
When it comes to biofuels, I’d have to say that the current ethanol fetish is primarily a corporate welfare scheme, bought and paid for by ADM and Cargil. If ethanol made sense economically, it wouldn’t take taxpayers’ money to get it into our gas tanks.
What I’m quite enthusiastic about though, are the biotech start-ups that are getting bacteria and algae to basically secrete sulphur-free gasoline.
-jcr
@John C. Randolph
See my above post about the ugliness of politics.
I had a hard time deciding which would be uglier – the race issue or the sex/”Hillary is the antichrist” issue.
I think either way the election season was going to be brutal because of people like you who cannot separate the person from their politics.
That said, at least the anti-Clinton train has been chugging along for awhile and it was nothing new…we all about the twisted fantasies of most conservatives with regard to her. Obama is fresh meat for you and, like MAJeff said, the polite veneer of American civility when it comes to racial issues is going to be stripped away. Hopefully, we won’t be set back half a century in discourse because of it.
@37 MikeM By the way, people, it’s FORTY acres and a mule, not thirty acres.
I think they meant Euro-acres, though the value of the acre has fallen a bit more than that.
Did you catch that bit at the end?
“We are a nation that is uniquely designated in many respects.”
Is he saying that the U.S. is the new Chosen People?
@Etha #35
While I agree with you that no politician that I have heard of has advocated for a complete removal of religious references in public speeches, I think you misheard him. Obama was referencing the power that religious overtones had in King’s and Lincoln’s speeches to sway the public. That cannot be denied. They are powerful speeches and, while it is possible that a more secular speech could have conveyed the same emotion, they had the ability to reach across faith/non-faith lines in a way that secular speeches might not have been able to given the religious climate then (and now, for that matter).
I also didn’t hear Obama mention any politician advocating for the abolishment of religion from the public sphere. He was simply using extremes to make the point that extreme positions are not the way to bring people together. Of course, there are many, many more people calling for more intrusion of religion into public life and laws than the opposite, but I don’t think that he believes that the two extremes are equal in power. They were just used to illustrate a point.
I think, from that speech, among others, that he is on the right page with regard to the separation of church and state. There was a video linked to the one above in which he posed the question of “if we were a 100% Christian nation, which type of Christianity would it be?” To much applause.
That makes me like him even more because I have encountered so many Christians who don’t even think about that question. They want a “Christian Nation” but don’t think about the consequences of a particular kind of Christianity taking the reins to the exclusion of even themselves.
I think either way the election season was going to be brutal because of people like you who cannot separate the person from their politics.
Oh, please. I wasn’t the one who made Hillary lie about coming under sniper fire, or spread rumors that Obama was muslim, or try to stir up racial animosity towards her opponent. She ran not just a dirty campaign, but a vicious one as well.
Putting her on the ticket is probably the only way Obama could lose. I hope he has the strength to resist that pressure.
As for her being the antichrist, of course she isn’t the antichrist. The antichrist would be competent.
-jcr
John McCain might have been a candidate I would have voted for…hen he was six or seven years old and had attended the same elementary school as my father, whose judgement of character I largely trust.
I do hope Obama and the Democratic Party will remember that the nation’s healing from the nightmare of Bu–sh– and Dick “Call me Darth” Cheney first requires the uncovering of the Lovecraftianly unspeakable truths that have been buried, entombed, cast in that Hans Solo carbonite stuff, buried on the frozen planet of Zuggoth, etc.
Shut up about God, too, Barack! You are going to win without these suckups!
While I was over at the link in PZed’s post, I clicked on their Sex Crimes and the Vatican video from the BBC.
It is a powerful indictment of the Vatican and the actions of this Pope to protect the reputation of the church without any consideration for the victims. It exposes a secret document, CRIMEN SOLLICITATIONIS that instructs Bishops around the world in the procedures for hiding sex scandals until the Church has completed its investigation. Typically the abuser is moved to a new parish, even after multiple previous moves have resulted in fresh victims.
Victims are to never speak to anyone about the abuse, ever, under threat of excommunication.
I fail to understand the lack of empathy that would be required to do this to another human being, priests and bishops, alike.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3335354490744010763
Given the American tendency to do the opposite of what everyone else wants, I couldn’t help but groan when I saw this article.
The cat is out of the bag, the rest are in awe of the idea of an Obama presidency. Americans electing a liberal black man, who cares about universal health care and education, who wants America to stop blowing people up and calling it “assistance”, is a kind of absolution.
I’d also like to see republicans politically vaporised for what they’ve done over the course of the last 7 years, but thats just a bonus, I’d settle for seeing Obama in the Whitehouse:-)
For atheists/humanists/secularists, universal health care should be a big deal not just because its the ethical way ti run an ostensibly equitable society, but because states that support their most vulnerable citizens, tend to be less religious. A push for UHC and education in the US, will almost certainly suck some of the toxic religious sludge out of your political discourse. Please, please, please elect Obama.
I don’t think you were responding to me because I hadn’t yet talked about biofuels, but I am also very enthusiastic about potential for algae for oil (haven’t read up as much on bacteria…thanks for mentioning it). I read about it years ago, but I came across the subject again recently and I can’t shut up about it.
My mother works as a water resource manager in So.Fla. and we’ve been discussing the impact of corn and sugar (BIG business in FL) ethanol on the water supply. I am perplexed as to why algae for oil hasn’t been more extensively funded (well…not as perplexed when you take the corn lobby into consideration – they have high fructose corn syrup in supposedly healthy whole wheat bread for fracks sake!) but I suspect that it will be soon. It grows in dirty water (and many species in salt water!) and doesn’t require irrigation or the use of arable crop land that could be used for food. The barrel yields are hundreds of times higher and potentially thousands of times higher.
I am thinking that if the oil prices don’t light a fire under the gov’t policies, the looming water and, therefore, food crises will.
No, you’re absolutely right about her dirty politics in the primary campaign and I am not about to forgive her for that now that it is over. What I meant to convey (but didn’t) was that even if she ran a relatively clean primary campaign and won the nomination, the animosity towards her would have made the race between her and McCain very ugly indeed. My point was that in the beginning of the primary season, I had a hard time deciding which would be uglier in the long run (not that that would affect who I voted for in the primary) – the unveiling of the still deep seated racism in America or the viciousness that had been previously displayed against Clinton magnified 100 times over.
I think he does. There is a line between “friendly” rivalry within a party and outright attack and I think that line was (way) crossed in the primary season.
And don’t forget likable!
Incidentally, any Obama supporter would be remiss if they fail to thank Bill Clinton for all the work he did to sink his wife’s campaign. He really pulled out all the stops, and sacrificed all of the residual good will he enjoyed among the electorate, and damn near made Obama look saintly in comparison.
-jcr
Obama showed more of the fabled female sensibility than H. Clinton did during their campaigning. H. Clinton’s mental gender seems to be of a bruising male.
@JCR, Obama has a gift of gab? Don’t most politicians have that? However, with Obama, permeating that gift of gab through and through is reasoned-out thought and cutting through spin.
@Brian, damg Obama, this election is going to make me get off my long-time, expat, non-voting arse and vote for Obama.
Regarding the fears that this election campaigning will make the simmering covert sexism and racism rear their ulgy heads in a pronounced manner, good, get that mess out in the open, where it can be challenged.
I believe it’s quite possible for a Obama/Hillary ticket. There might have even been a discussion about it at their meeting a couple of days ago.
So far the only time I seen PZ Meyers give praises to those who believe in God is when they are liberal and running for office…lol
Don’t most politicians have that?
Nope. Most of them just blather the same things (“we want change”, “I’m a patriot”, etc.), but Obama has a talent.
He’s the Deepak Chopra of this campaign season. Listening to him makes you feel good, even when you know better.
-jcr
JCR, If Chopra has any talent it is for expressing gibberish to make it sound like it isn’t. Sorry, I just don’t see Chopra and Obama having matching talents. Obama’s talent is using the highly charged campaign arena as an opportunity to cut through spin and present reasoned-out perspectives. He has a few fuck-ups from time to time, but his general presentation is consistent with a logical, reasoned perspective.
I do enjoy the presentation of reason in the zoo that is American political campaigning, so with my best NYC attitude, sue me!
Every one of the candidates who ran or are still in the running has espoused a religious viewpoint whether elicited or merely expressed. This is a scary example how religion is so embedded in the national fabric of thought and action. Let’s face it: we will forever be under the insane influence of religion no matter how strident atheism attempts to bring people to their logical senses. I suppose those rational thinkers of the Enlightenment can sympathize with us in this analagous period of insanity.
I’ll just pick on two favourite themes of McCain :
“Judeo-Christian” + “Greatest”
Judeo ? There were many more atheists, agnostics, unitarians than Jews amongst the founding fathers, McCain you know it, so why keep lying to the American people ? Did Diderot or Maimonides have more influence on the American constitution ?
If you listen to McCain’s recent speeches, he systematically uses the theme of flattering the American people with a variation of “the greatest nation on earth”.
With the triple whammy that is hitting goldilocks, the worst housing recession in decades, a severe credit crunch and financial crisis, and sharply rising oil prices, and is leading this country into the worst recession it will have known since 1929, the shit is going to hit the fan mid August onwards, right in the middle of the general election.
I wonder how well flattering people who are deeply hurt will do at that moment…
McCain can’t help it. He’s as blind as the incombing president. He’s living on a cloud where he’s in good company, together with Ben Bernanke and George W.Bush.
We need a realist for President. Obama is the best we’ve had for a long long time.
Good lord. Yes, referring to a woman as a witch is sexist. It’s one of the oldest, most cliched sexist tropes out there. Ooo, a woman knows her own mind, takes charge of her own life, and won’t back down under pressure. She’s a witch! Burn her! Surely, JCR, you know that for a couple of hundred years the best way to get rid of an uppity woman who had the nerve to have her own property or even her own ideas was to declare her a witch? Surely you realize there’s a reason that so, so many people call Hillary a witch but nobody’s called McCain a vampire? It’s because strong woman = witch is such a well-known combination. You yourself said she has an “insatiable lust for power”. She wanted to be president and refused to give up except under her own terms. Usually we call that a “candidate”. Does anyone who gets to the finals as a presidential candidate not want to be President, not have a lot of drive? But no, when it’s a woman, suddenly she’s insatiably lusting after power, not just a strong, stubborn contender. Just because you don’t think you’re sexist doesn’t make you immune from saying sexist things.
My 2 cents and a cynical thought that I had in common with friends when we recently talked about it at work(in Australia,never been to the US and happy about it) :
I was sceptical about Obama because of all this Rev Wright stuff and what I heard him say in speeches,but I really liked what he said after the last primaries when it was clear he had the nomination,that was really a good speech,and I liked it how he talked about Hillary.
We were talking about the VP ticket at work,and 3 people pretty much at the same time said they wanted Hillary to run with Obama,because : We all thought your country will find some deluded supremacist that will shoot him,wont take long….Bit sad really…
Carlie wrote: Surely you realize there’s a reason that so, so many people call Hillary a witch but nobody’s called McCain a vampire?
_______
But some are calling Obama a wimp because of what I regard as his feminine mental gender.
Sexism is alive and sick all over the world and some expressions of it come from counter-intuitive directions as from some women saying explicitly that they would not vote for H. Clinton because the Presidency is a man’s job.
I would not vote for H. Clinton because she makes no logical, reasoned approach in her campaigning and refuses to admit to mistakes. Would a man get hauled over the coals for that? Yup, he would. In my book, H. Clinton is not a strong woman, just a mealy-mouthed candidate who happens to be a woman.
Perfect example – what Logicel did is an entirely appropriate way to criticize HRC. And yes, calling Obama girly (or any verison thereof) is just as sexist. Complain about her policies and actions all you want, but when you veer into insinuating that she’s not “ladylike” enough, which includes tough=castrating bitch and calling out shit=witch and all of the other old canards about women who don’t sit down and shut up, there’s the sexism.
@Carlie, And not only do I regard jcr’s comment to be sexist but for it to be sneaky, underhanded sexism, as he did not come right out and call H. Clinton a WITCH. In fact, the witch allusion went over my head until Jess brought it out from its subterfuge.
Obama has a gift of gab? Don’t most politicians have that?
Did you see McCain on Tuesday? He was obviously passed over when making that gift list.
And that smile? *shudder* “Come here Billy. I have some candy for you…”
If Obama chooses Clinton (or someone like a transgender disabled African American lesbian) it would certainly lessen the chances of Klan-types assassinating him. They would just have to never be in the same place together.
Not sure why I said thirty acres when I knew forty. It could have been the couple of Hoegaardens, but I think I just fucked up. Oops.
We were talking about the VP ticket at work,and 3 people pretty much at the same time said they wanted Hillary to run with Obama,because : We all thought your country will find some deluded supremacist that will shoot him,wont take long. – clinteas
So was the thought that anyone wanting to stop Obama would be even more appalled at the thought of Hillary becoming President? Reminds me of when Nixon reconfimed Agnew as his running mate in 1972, and the British satirical mag Private Eye had a cover with a photo of Nixon with a huge grin on his face, and the caption “No-one’s gonna shoot me with Spiro T. Agnew next in line!” He was right, too – they didn’t dare start to move to impeacn Nixon until they’d forced Agnew out.
So either he has read the constitution and is a liar
Or he has not and is a fool.
Can you imagine how much it must suck to be a smaller government conservative in america today?
Nick Gotts and MAJeff:
Thanks guys,I hadnt actually looked at it from that angle,as I said,not intricately familiar with US politics,I was just relaying what some random folks here thought,I felt it was at least interesting,if cynical…..
I’m not saying it’s likely someone will attempt an assassination, just that it’s more likely than it has been with the past few presidents.
How is this “another” reason to despise him? It seems like the same old reason, he’s an unprincipled, pandering halfwit.
Yeah thats true,and there does not seem to be a shortage of nutjobs or weapons either unfortunately….
Dear Mike.
Change your first name. You are an embarrassment to the rest of us Mikes with your concern trolling. It’s simple. Skip pasts the posts you don’t want to read.
D’uh.
Sincerely,
A real Mike
less politics ?
Well, I think PZ has the right dose of politics on his blog, I found it particularly interesting to note that people who don’t take for granted the moral code of mesopotamian goatherders but use reason to try to think about what is really needed in 2008 tend to converge in their political choices.
Would that be because mythical vampires are supposed to be charismatic, smart, and even sexy? I can certainly see how looking at and listening to McCain would not conjure up the word “vampire”.
“Ghoul” maybe, but not “vampire”
We can all hate McCain all we want but:
A) he’s white
B) he’s not muslim (yes, I KNOW that Obama isn’t either)
C) he served in the military, his kids serve in the military
D) he’s more experienced (older than dirt)
Obama doesn’t have a chance. Can’t you even feel how the wind shifted since Clinton quit? It was Obama, Obama, Obama, now it’s nothing but McCain 24/7.
Oh, I’m sure he is.
The problem is: what makes you think he’d stop that behavior once he’d be in office?
It ain’t cheering. It’s the opposite. Did you… like… read the post?
The comments are surprisingly intelligent.
Great article.
That election consisted mostly of “irregularities”. I have yet to see evidence that anyone won it.
Well said.
Threats of violence are, um, problematic for other reasons, but making someone register isn’t election tampering. It doesn’t even compel them to vote at all, let alone vote validly (as opposed to writing in Mickey Mouse), let alone vote for a particular candidate — that would be election tampering.
JAIL
TO THE
THIEF
ROTFL!!!
What for?
to K,no 88:
Yup,very true mate,however : This is evolution at work,and if the US choose to vote for McCain,the he will be President,the US will regress to before the enlightenment,if not kill us all in some nuclear shootout,and the fittest will survive,which at that point will probably be cockroaches and bacteria….
Your point? Its not that nature cares…..
And your claim that it was Hillary who fanned the Muslim rumors is based on what, exactly? You have no evidence for that except the wild speculation of the media talking heads (who didn’t have any evidence for it either). The babbling about “Hussein” and “madrassas” came from right-wing wackos like Coulter and Malkin.
And calling a woman a witch is sexist, jcr. Deal with your inner bigotry.
Obama doesn’t have a chance. Can’t you even feel how the wind shifted since Clinton quit? It was Obama, Obama, Obama, now it’s nothing but McCain 24/7
To the convention!
Right?
The babbling about “Hussein” and “madrassas” came from right-wing wackos like Coulter and Malkin.
And that paragon of journalistic accuracy and integrity, Fox and Friends’s Steve Doocey.
McCain is quite clearly a better qualified candidate.
Obama has next to no experience. I know he tries to spin this in his favour by calling himself a “Washington outsider”, and that’s fair enough (he’s not the first presidential candidate to try that). But the fact remains, he has never been in a position where he has to make tough decisions on the spot. He’s never held an executive government post of any kind. Neither has McCain, admittedly; but due to McCain’s 20 years of service as a Navy officer, we know that he can lead people and make the right decisions under pressure. Obama doesn’t have that experience. Before being a legislator, he was a lawyer, legal academic and “community organiser”. IMO there are too many lawyers in politics anyway; and Obama simply does not have a track record of decision-making. So we simply don’t know whether he’s up to the job.
His foreign policy views are naive. Besides promising to pull out of Iraq (which we’re discussing on another thread, so I won’t go into it here), Obama is also pledging to talk to Iran and other enemy countries without preconditions. Talking to enemy countries, in the right circumstances, is no bad thing; he’s correct to point out that both Kennedy and Reagan did this. But they didn’t go naked into the conference chamber. In Reagan’s case, he out-spent the Soviets on defence, putting him in a stronger position when he started negotiating.
And let’s not forget that in 1961, JFK – a young and inexperienced president in much the same position as Obama – agreed to meet with Khrushchev. Khrushchev gained so much confidence from the meeting that he thought he could manipulate Kennedy, and so in 1962 decided to risk putting Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba – and we all know what followed. (And it was sheer luck that it didn’t result in nuclear war). Obama will repeat the same kind of mistakes. The likes of Ahmadinejad will walk all over him. And I think it’s telling that he’s actually been endorsed by Hamas.
McCain isn’t perfect. He’s too old for the job, really; it would be better if he’d defeated Bush in the 2000 primaries and served as President for the past 8 years. But bear in mind that this is a man who survived a hell of a lot in Vietnam without faltering, so I think he can handle four years as President. Plus, his 96-year-old mother is completely lucid, in good health and has given campaign speeches for him, so clearly longevity runs in the family.
So this is why I support McCain over Obama. I’m not using stupid arguments like “Obama’s a far-left liberal” (he isn’t) or “he’s a secret Muslim” (he isn’t). I’m not even bringing up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers (I can forgive him being friends with them, as long as he doesn’t share their ideas – there’s no evidence that he does). But for the reasons outlined above, Obama is unsuited to the presidency at this time.
McCain is quite clearly a better qualified candidate.
Nonsense. The man is clueless with regard to economic policy, and his foreign policy is simply more warmongering. Note, he’s never said the invasion of Iraq was wrong, just that it was poorly done. Worthless judgment, and corrupt as the day is long.
And I think it’s telling that he’s actually been endorsed by Hamas.
Wow, you are a worthless Coulterite fuckwit.
Bumper sticker: Impeach Cheney first.
Have a good long look at the rest of the First World, and become a big-government conservative :-)
MAJeff at #96: I’ll ignore the insult. But to clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that he sympathises with Hamas. I don’t subscribe to all this “OMG he’s a secret Muslim!” nonsense. But I think it tells us a lot – about the probable weakness of his foreign policy, and his willingness to negotiate and compromise with terrorists and evildoers (i.e. appeasement) – that Hamas would like to see him in the White House.
But I think it tells us a lot – about the probable weakness of his foreign policy, and his willingness to negotiate and compromise with terrorists and evildoers (i.e. appeasement) – that Hamas would like to see him in the White House.
Truly a bushtard and a fool.
I read somewhere, I think at Bad Astronomy, about how ridiculously superstitions McCain is. That alone was enough for me to dislike him, but he’s a history revisionist as well? Ugh.
Oh,Walton,FGS,get a grip mate…..Spare us this Hamas BS ,what is it with this blog,weve been infiltrated by the weak-minded this month,i cant stand it anymore…..PZ,give us an iggy button please…
OK, forget the Hamas comment. But none of you have even sought to address my comments about Obama’s woeful lack of experience or the weaknesses in his foreign policy. Please refer to the remainder of my post at #94.
OK, forget the Hamas comment.
No, you little punk. That’s exactly the point, one of the bigger points we’ve been trying to make. You’re a drone. You simply repeat talking points. Thus, Hamas. And appeasement of evildoers. You’re not worth taking seriously because you’re not serious. You say now, oh the war was a bad idea, but 7 years ago, had you been the person you are now, you would have been on your knees, sucking Shrub’s cock and screaming, “Yeah bring out the nukes” after he came.
Pathetic.
What evidence is there that McCain has the first clue what is going on in the Middle East?
If you don’t talk with your enemies what exactly is there to do?
Not many options left on the table at that point.
What evidence is there that McCain has the first clue what is going on
in the Middle East?Fixed that for ya.
Well,Walton,no,sorry mate,we wont be cherry-picking and talking about your half-sane comments only,you just talk crap,and we’ll call you on it….This whole,”oh sorry that was a lil stupid,but the rest of my comment was really cool” bullshit is just not flying,im sick and tired of it….
I call for the Seed overlords to implement an iggy button,like IRC has had for 20 years….Or for PZ to expand the Dungeon,since there is no proper discussion to be had from those zombies,its just futile….Cant be bothered to waste my life time on The Brenda,Kenny,Walton….
Thanks Jeff.
You may have seen McCain change his mind. If no, on YouTube: McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare.
http://TheRealMcCain.com/
We’re supposed to vote for John McCain because he’s “tougher” on Iran than Barak Obama?
What good is McCain’s tough talk when the military is already near the breaking point dealing with the McCain-approved debacle in Iraq? Do we really think that the Iranians don’t know how bogged down we are in Iraq? Sure, we can bomb them all we want to. But getting rid of Iran’s nuclear development facilities would require a land invasion – and we don’t have the troops. Unless McCain were to institute a draft – and my oh my, all the problems that would cause.
No good threatening the stick when you don’t really HAVE one.
And when did it become fashionable to disdain any kind of dialog with people we disagree with? Soft diplomacy, after all, while it takes longer to produce results, usually results in fewer deaths and a lot less hatred of America. Why is that a bad thing?
But do you deny that, if they have talks without preconditions, Ahmadinejad (a much more experienced leader) will walk all over Obama? Since Obama has no track record of tough decision-making, and has never held any executive office or served in the military, how do we know we can trust him to deal with high-pressure situations?
Ahmadinejad is rapidly losing the confidence of not only the people, but more importantly, of the mullahs. By approaching him aggressively you boost his popularity in his own country. The surest way for a dictator to remain popular with the people is to insult him or to threaten his country with invasion. History is a good teacher – in World War II, the Russians didn’t fight for Communism, didn’t fight for Stalin; they fought for their home. Gotta learn those lessons…
How do we know McCain won’t blow his famous temper and make a situation worse? Additionally, when he pushes bad policies to begin with, we’re already starting at a disadvantage. McCain may have more experience, but with his bad judgment and poor policy decisions, it really doesn’t matter all that much.
What a silly parrot.
Walton babbled:
//But do you deny that, if they have talks without preconditions, Ahmadinejad (a much more experienced leader) will walk all over Obama?//
Walton,to take you seriously one last time,do you really believe policy decisions are made in a vacuum,late at night in the West Wing of the White House,by President X and his wife,instead of by a circle of advisors,secretaries,military people and the like? And what makes you think that Hillary/McCain or whoever, would be less of a walkover for the “evil Islamist fundies” than Obama,who you seem to mistrust just because of his race and middle name alone??
Ahmadinejad is not Iran’s leader. Ayatollah Khamanei is. McCain can’t even get that right.
“But do you deny that, if they have talks without preconditions, Ahmadinejad (a much more experienced leader) will walk all over Obama?”
I deny it. All you do is make baseless assertions that Parrot the idiocy I see on Fox news every day.
Clinteas at #112 said “…who you seem to mistrust just because of his race and middle name alone?? [concerning Obama]
This is a totally false, and highly offensive, accusation, and shows that Clinteas hasn’t actually bothered to read my posts. Neither his race nor his middle name is an issue for me, or for any sensible person. And I don’t subscribe to all this “he’s a secret Muslim” nonsense. I’m perfectly aware that he is not a Muslim, and FWIW I don’t question his patriotism.
Instead, I was merely arguing that he isn’t experienced enough to be President and that his background doesn’t qualify him for the job; as stated, I also disagree with his foreign policy. I said nothing about race or about his middle name, and I find the implication of Clinteas’ statement extremely offensive. He’s basically ignored what I actually said, and attempted to put words in my mouth.
I would be perfectly happy supporting an ethnic minority president. If Condoleeza Rice, say, or Bobby Jindal were to run in 2012 or 2016, they would have my full support. But I’m not going to support someone who is inexperienced and whose views I disagree with. That doesn’t make me a racist.
Ups, should have pressed Preview not Post.
No-one got confused over Iran’s leadership when Khomeini was Supreme Leader. It’s almost as if the talking heads focus on the person who makes it easiest to demonise Iran.
Demanding preconditions before talks is a policy doomed to failure – indeed it has always failed. Accepting preconditions would be humiliating both for a leader and his country, and no leader can afford to allow that to happen. All parties must be allowed to save face, or there will be no agreement.
Walton,
Ahmedinejad is a posturing ninny who has little power (the President in Iran is number 2 to the “Supreme Leader”, Khamenei) and has been largely abandoned by his political allies. He has comprehensively failed in his economic policies and is most unlikely to be in office after June 2009. It’s true Obama (of whom I’m not a great fan) has no executive experience, but nor does McCain have any that’s relevant: being a mid-ranking naval officer is not remotely comparable to running a country. The likelihood of McCain dying or (much more dangerous) gradually becoming mentally incapable during his term in office is high, due to his age.
Ok,Walton,heres a gift to you mate,call it a reconciliation attempt….
http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard_archive.html
Yeah, sure, Walton, McCain has more experience, so maybe he’d be better at getting done what he wants to get done. But I really don’t support McCain’s vision of America. He’s making up excuses to invade Iran, fiscally irresponsible, weak on civil rights, supports a dictatorial view of the Presidency, pro-torture-as-long-as-we-don’t-call-it-torture, and so on…It doesn’t matter that he might be more effectual if that’s what he hopes to get done. And that’s what he says he wants to get done.
And if you think that outspending the USSR on defense was a sufficient precondition for engaging in diplomacy with them, then, uh, well, we outspend China on defense by about 10×, and we outspend EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD COMBINED on defense (and offense), so there, we’re all set to engage in diplomacy with Iran (outspent about 150×), N. Korea (about 120×), Cuba (about 1000×), and so on…So perhaps Obama’s foreign policy position isn’t so naive as some uninformed twits might think..
Walton, the depth of your ignorance, your overt bias and your chilling incapacity to think critically about this important global event (the US election) are quite terrifying.
Thank goodness the others are here to set you straight, yet I can’t help but wonder; is any of it sinking in? For example, do you now accept, as noted above, that Ahmadinejad is not Iran’s leader. Ayatollah Khamanei is.
Does this major gaffe on your (and mccains) part, the equivalent of considering the Queen of England the “leader” of the UK, give you pause for thought? Does this incontrovertible evidence of your own ignorance worry you?
If you’re willing to support Condoleezza Rice for higher office, at least you’re not insisting on things like competence. She was National Security Advisor when 9/11 occurred (shortly after she ignored the memo about Osama wanting to fly planes into buildings) and she’s been Secretary of State while our country has lost the respect of the world. Yeah, she’s qualified.
#121: I do understand the political structure of Iran. However, it is the President, not the Supreme Leader, who would likely be responsible for negotiations, and is responsible for the conduct of Iran’s foreign policy. So it is not a “major gaffe”. Yes, it’s inaccurate to talk about him as if he were the sole leader of Iran. But it’s not inaccurate to say that it is with Ahmadinejad that the next President will be negotiating, if he opts to do so.
Does this incontrovertible evidence of your own ignorance worry you? – No, because all you’ve done is picked out one little detail and distorted what I said in an attempt to make me look stupid, rather than bothering to address my main arguments.
The fact is, Obama has no experience of making tough decisions under pressure. He just doesn’t. And however much you try to dodge the question, you can’t deny that we simply have no idea whether or not Obama is fit for the presidency. Being a great speaker and a likeable guy, and being able to raise campaign funds, is not evidence that he has what it takes to be Commander-in-Chief.
Walton,
What evidence do we have McCain is fit for the Presidency? Having been a mid-ranking naval officer nearly thirty years ago is really not that impressive.
K (#88)
Oh, right. The tried-and-true John Kerry method. Never fails.
Walton: Experience? I think if nothing else, the last eight years have shown what a crock “experience” is. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Ashcroft were all very experienced, and look where that got us.
You’ve got to be kidding. Pressure? The man just ran a campaign that beat the Clinton political machine. And he was right about the war, before it started.
So that’s experience, and most importantly judgement enough for me to vote for him. We don’t need a geriatric fool trying to give the Bush administration another 4 years.
Fer th’ love of everthing. I can’t believe I’m about to respond to a politics thread on Pharyngula. But . . .
Walton,
You state the qualification problem thusly: Sen. Obama has no executive experience (besides running his extraordinarily canny primary campaign) while Sen. McCain’s does (with the caveat that his experience was military experience, not governmental). Correct?
To me, this comparison is a wash. If anything, I prefer a candidate whose executive experience was not exclusively in the Navy Captain at sea . . . an environment that is, shall we say, undemocratic and somewhat incompatible with civilian administration. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is: Sen. McCain does not have any more civilian, administrative experience than Sen. Obama.
And, of course, the pithy response is: Sen. Obama has more executive and legislative experience than Abraham Lincoln did when he ran for President.
(Plus: why did you put community organizer in scare quotes? Telling.)
(Sigh. Above post should read: . . . exclusively in the Navy, as a Captain at sea . . .)
Walton, please reread Obama’s speech about invading Iraq before the invasion began. He had a firmer grasp on the issue than Bush, Rumsfeld, or McCain. He was able to look at the big picture and pretty well predict what would happen. That’s called judgment and why I support Obama over McCain – I want someone who will look long term and use his judgment. Same way with Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis – he was able to look at the big picture and refuse the knee jerk reaction of fools like Gen LeMay Curtis who wanted to bomb Cuba. Besides, I want someone who understands the Constitution in office. And I want a Dept of Justice that will look at the criminality of the past 8 years and make them accountable. And I want the war profiteers to be punished.
No, because all you’ve done is picked out one little detail and distorted what I said in an attempt to make me look stupid, rather than bothering to address my main arguments.
This is not a minor detail, and McCain did not make this gaffe, and then clarify it (as you have at least had a stab at) he simply put the head down and stubbornly insisted that Ahmadinejad was the leader. Details matter Walton. It is this dismissive attitude towards reality which has the US in the hideous mess we see today. Lets try someone who is clearly intelligent, capable of absorbing and assessing multiple points of view and then making a reasoned decision, even if it’s a flip flop based on new evidence.
Walton,
Obama might not have the kind of international political experience you value, the kind that is discussed in the neo-conservative think tanks that view the rest of the world as an outside territory where America needs to accomplish its mission to spread freedom and democracy.
But Obama has much more in depth knowledge, through his personal experience, of what the real world outside of the USA looks like, he has real experience of foreign cultures which McCain has never had.
Plus by saying that he would meet with leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Obama has demonstrated that he understands what is needed today. Where did he say that he would start negotiating ? He has already explained that meeting with these leaders would achieve two very important things : first it would signal to the international community that the USA is now ready to change its stubborn blind politics of ignorance, which is dearly needed if we want our allies to join us. Second, how best can he get an idea of who these people really are and what they really mean but meeting them directly. Doesn’t seem that the fabulous intelligence of the CIA has helped much so far in estimating the threats of foreign nations, has it ?
Also, please stop bringing up Reagan, as if he had any effect in negotiating the collapse of the USSR. How can you pervert history so much. Your point about out-spending the soviets before “negotiating” with them is so ridiculous it hurts… By the way, did you ask yourself how many times the USA outspends Iran today ? Or Syria ? Or Cuba ?
Your point about Hamas. Obama didn’t endorse Hamas. Obama repeated that he is a friend of Israel, not Hamas. Hamas endorsed Obama not because they think the USA under Obama is going to become friends with Hamas, do you think they’re that stupid, or he’s that stupid ? They did that because they trust this guy will really force the creation of a Palestinian state. Not like the current president who only started thinking about it in the last year of his presidency. What a joke.
Hamas endorsing Obama, I don’t see why this is bad, on the contrary. Whether you like it or not, Hamas is still a key player in this middle east crisis. The fact that they for ounce start trusting a US president might help very much in resolving it.
You see, Obama has not only the kind of experience I value the most for international politics, an understanding of the dynamics of the real world, but also, he has a brain, a big one. All things McCain deeply misses.
so… as long as they’re a republican, right?
Partisan hack with the same old tired talking points. Nothing to see here people, move along.
Then full stop, Don’t say a damn thing until you DO know the political structure of Iran. This is something easily remedied, you know.
That you say something in spite of that, that you don’t even care to remedy this rather obvious weakness shows a lack of intellectual honesty, is quite stupid and shows you’re a lazy, intellectual lightweight.
@negentropyeater – I must disagree with this statement of yours:
Yes, actually, I do deny that, child (and I use “child” because your comments are so childish, including that inappropriate use of “we” again…) The question is, where would you come up with such childish claims? Oh, yes… Coulter and Limbaugh, of course. How could we forget?
It is funny to watch this little fella simply parroting right wing talking points word for word (“Obama has no experience! Squawk! He’s never made any tough decisions! Bawk! Bawk!”) thinking no one has heard this nonsense before. Does this fool really think Obama did nothing but lie around the house before he was elected to the US Senate?
Frankly, Walton’s entertainment value is slipping away quickly, which leaves only the annoyance vector, as others have begun to complain about on this thread.
Jindal has experience at the only thing that matters, being a republican? I’m not seeing any foreign policy experience in his resume, and he’s not been governer of Louisianna for a full year, but you’re all ready to endorse him for President.
To me both mccain and obama have their own views of the constitution that deviate from the reality of the document. I don’t believe I can in good conscience vote for either of them.
Or to put it more eqloquently, giant douch or turd sandwich? No thanks.
Gwangung at #133: What the hell are you talking about? As I clearly stated in the post you quoted, I DO understand the political structure of Iran, and did understand it perfectly well before I ever began posting on this site. So I don’t have a clue what you’re trying to say, or how you reach the conclusion that I’m a “lazy, intellectual lightweight”. I tentatively suggest that you may have misread “I do understand the political structure of Iran” for “I don’t understand the political structure of Iran” in my post – which, if anything, may indicate that you’re the one being lazy. (If that isn’t the explanation for the confusing nature of your post, I’d like to hear the real explanation.)
Fergy at #135: Does this fool really think Obama did nothing but lie around the house before he was elected to the US Senate? – No. He was a constitutional lawyer, legal academic, “community organiser” and Illinois state legislator. All worthy professions, no doubt, but none of them involve leading men and making tough decisions under pressure. I’m not saying that Obama is an idiot; he clearly isn’t. Nor am I even suggesting that he’s unqualified to be a senator. He’s a perfectly good senator. I am arguing that he does not have the experience for the very demanding role of Commander-in-Chief. I am further arguing that, while he may well be able to make good decisions under pressure, we have no evidence of this, because he doesn’t have a track record of command under pressure.
Is the experience BS all you have Walton?
That is a pretty thin excuse to elect another Republican.
Re #137 Paulista alert! Paulista alert! Prepare to be bombarded with ludicrous drivel!
I really must apologise on behalf of my nation for Walton.
I would like to think hubris and arrogance is a preserve of Americans, but Walton proves me wrong. That someone so young, who knows so little, can be so opinionated is nothing new, but sadly the intertubes does seem to allow such people more opportunities to spout their nonsense. In the “olden” days the only people he would have irritated with his nonsense were his friends and family.
Has something changed of late ? I know PZ has always attracted more than his fair share of idiots, but in the last few weeks we have had Kenny, J, Brenda and Walton. That is more than anyone deserves.
On the subject of Coulter, if you do as I do she no longer comes across as a threat. Just think of her as a bloke in a dress with two fried eggs stuffed down the front.
Re #141. I am hurt by being called an idiot.
In the “olden” days the only people he would have irritated with his nonsense were his friends and family. – You’re closer to the truth than you may realise; most of my friends and family do get irritated by me discussing politics incessantly. :-) I have never understood why.
In seriousness, though, I don’t understand on what basis you are attacking me, rather than responding to my argument. It’s easy to call me an idiot; anyone can abandon reasoned discussion and . (Thus far, I have refrained from insulting other people on this forum, a courtesy I wish they would extend to me.)
I think it’s unfortunate that some people here – not all, but some – come into a discussion making the assumption that because someone is a political conservative and a theist, they must ipso facto be either a) deluded and brainwashed, b) an ill-informed idiot, or c) lying and manipulative. I do not make such an assumption about liberals or about atheists. I recognise the intelligence and integrity of many people whose views are different from mine. I don’t know why the respect and courtesy is so often one-sided.
Other people have made serious responses to my substantive points about Obama’s unsuitability to be president, and many of them make good points which I will take into account. You, on the other hand, are simply set on insulting me and using irrelevant ad hominem factors, such as my age, to attack me.
Sorry about the numerous typographical errors in my post above; it’s been a tiring weekend.
Posted by: Walton | June 8, 2008 12:23 PM
First of all, the position of President is not a troop-leading position, as you have so naively – and quite incorrectly – portrayed it. It is, and always will be, the governmental equivalent to a CEO of a company – charged with the administration of the nation, while the military affairs are left, as they should be, to the military. That is something that both Nixon and Bush Jr. completely ignored. The extent of the Commander-in-Chief’s intended purview over military operations is the hiring and firing of generals. (It wasn’t until the War Powers Act, a patently unconstitutional piece of legislation, following the Tonkin Gulf incident that got us into Vietnam, that the chief executive of this nation had the power to move armies into foreign territory without a declaration of war.) It is in no way a military position, and the founders never intended it to be – the fact that you perceive it as such betrays both your youth and your fundamental misunderstanding of our governmental structure.
And in light of your serious deficiencies in understanding the demands of the highest office in our nation, you are hardly on solid ground in your critique of Obama. I seriously doubt that you have a firm grasp on exactly what he does and does not have the experience for, but rather you’re making claims that have come directly out of the mouths of the Fox News gang again. I had begun to gain a little respect for your seemingly genuine attempts to listen to reason, but you’re making the same mistake over and over again – taking talking points and offering them as if they were your own educated opinion. The problem with that is that such talking points are shoved down our throats so often that they are painfully and immediately recognizable to most of us. Either seriously look at the situation and come up with your own evaluation, or you’ll continue to betray your ignorance about subjects such as this and draw the criticism you’ve received as a result.
Logicel,
You seem to have taken my comparison of Obama with Chopra as compliment to Obama. That was certainly not my intention.
-jcr
And calling a woman a witch is sexist, jcr.
Who died and made you the vocabulary police? Sexism is a form of collectivism, and I hold individuals responsible for their own actions. I’ll call Hillary a witch if I feel like it. If she were male, I’d call her a prick.
-jcr
In fact, the witch allusion went over my head
What, did your parents keep you from watching the Wizard of Oz as a child because it might instill prejudice against flying monkeys?
-jcr
Walton,
You age is a not an ad hominem factor.
Age does correlate to understanding of how the world works, although not very well. There is a reason why very few 19 year olds are entrusted with great responsibility, and that is because at 19 you think you know it all, but you do not.
There is a great quote, I forget by whom, to the effect that 18 he thought his father the most foolish man in the world. By the age of 21 it was amazing how much is father had learnt.
Matt,
keep your apologies for the (unlikely) case you guys elect the wrong president a third time in a row, despite this most lengthy and propaganda-maximizing process.
I might be misreading things, but I think a majority of Americans have finally woken up. Walton hasn’t yet. He’s still living in this fantasy world fabricated by neo-conservative talking points. If he’s young and intelligent, he just needs to open his eyes, travel, read different sources of information, sooner or later he’ll realise how mislead he has been.
Not only am I convinced Obama is going to win, but he will win with a big margin, minimum 8 points.
To brokenSoldier at #144.
I will admit that I am a Fox News fan. They aren’t by any means my sole or even primary source of information about US politics, but I will concede that the likes of O’Reilly, Hannity and Coulter have helped to mould my political thinking. So it’s unsurprising that much of what I think happens to coincide with their stance; however, that doesn’t mean I haven’t listened to other viewpoints or thought about the issues for myself. I didn’t mean to give that impression, and I am, of course, listening to and considering everything you’re saying – especially since I have the utmost respect for your opinion (as a veteran) in particular.
It [the presidency] is, and always will be, the governmental equivalent to a CEO of a company – charged with the administration of the nation, while the military affairs are left, as they should be, to the military. – Yes, I don’t dispute that. However, would you concede that there are certain situations in which the President may have to make tough decisions in a limited timeframe – e.g. deciding whether to deploy troops in response to a threat? And would you not agree that the ability to make decisions under pressure is, in those circumstances, critical?
I apologise if I gave the impression (through my use of the term Commander-in-Chief) that I was arguing that the President must be a military man. This is, of course, not true, and I would be perfectly prepared to support a candidate who had extensive civilian experience of making decisions under pressure. But Obama has been a lawyer, academic and legislator; he hasn’t been a state governor, the CEO of a company, or held any other office where (as I understand it) he was responsible for leading others.
As regards the War Powers Act, I have no opinion as to whether or not it’s constitutional, but unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise, it is in force – and, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue, it is a fact that presidents can, and do, deploy troops into foreign territory on their own authority (seeing as there hasn’t been an actual Congressionally-declared war since 1943). So surely, given that the President does have massive power in the foreign policy and defence arena, it’s necessary to have a president who has a proven track-record in that kind of decision-making? I could, of course, be entirely wrong, not having any personal experience of this kind of decision-making myself – but this is what one would intuitively assume.
If you are of the opinion that service as a military officer does not necessarily make one more qualified for the presidency, then I will defer to your view on that (since you, as a veteran, have a much better understanding than I yet do of the role of an officer). However, while that’s an argument against automatic support for McCain, I don’t see how it’s an argument in favour of Obama – and, the GOP primaries being over, there are no other options on the table.
negentropyeater
Neither Walton nor I are American, although I think Walton would like to be. We are in fact both British.
That said the Americans had better not fuck up time in choosing who to elect otherwise the rest of the world will be seriously pissed off.
brokenSoldier,
The matter of declaring war is something that I consider the #1 example of congress shirking their duty. The constitution assigns the war power to the congress for a reason; it’s not supposed to be easy to go to war. That’s why it’s the people, through their elected representatives, who have that power.
I used to admire Harry Truman, but I have very mixed feelings towards him now. I’ve been reading what Robert Taft had to say back when Truman put our troops in Korea and claimed that the UN resolutions were all the authority he needed to do so, and I’ve become convinced that the modern idea that foreign policy and war are the sole prerogative of the president is not only extremely dangerous, it’s something that the founders were careful to try to prevent.
Every war we’ve wasted lives in since World War Two has been not only illegal, but unconstitutional.
-jcr
Walton,
You think Fox is a source of news ?
The person who called you an idiot was right. You are.
Fox is to TV news reporting like The Sun is to newspaper reporting.
Re: #140
I guess I’d prefer paul over mccain or obama, but thats not a difficult race to win. I’m just generally disappointed with the current political process being largely nothing more two very similar candidates being paraded around in front of people who know who they like but can’t articulate a single substantial reason why. Its like rooting for high school sports teams. I find it difficult to get excited about my choices. I’d love to bash one candidate for his views of the constitution but then I have to bash both. The 3rd party choice is irrelevant, I’m going to lose no matter who is elected. It’s not much better on the state level. During my state’s last election for governor I got to choose between a corrupt guy and a nutty evangelical. Wow.
I wish I could get excited by someone like ron paul but I’m focused more on the reality of the situation. Of the two candidates that could realistically win the election, both have what I think is a warped view of the constitution and ultimately I’ll have to decide not if I want to be screwed, but how. Back to your regularly scheduled “my candidate is amazing, he’s different, he’ll change everything” propaganda.
Strangely in the UK the right to go to war has been a crown power, which these days is devolved to the PM rather than the monarch. However, since the Iraq debacle, there is now a growing call for the power to be given to parliament instead. Even Gordon Brown seems to be keen on the idea.
I would have thought it quite obvious that the instinct to make snap decisions, inculcated in combat pilots through extensive training, is very undesirable indeed for a President. The President should make cool-headed objective judgments, taking time to gather the best available evidence and advice, and resolve never to make any decision under pressure.
If anything, I think Walton gives us another reason to doubt McCain’s suitability as President — his combat pilot’s instinct to make snap decisions is a liability.
To Matt Penfold (both posts).
I see what you mean. And I would be the first to admit that I should not, at my present age, be trusted with governmental responsibility (there’s a good reason why the US Constitution mandates minimum ages for legislators and for the President, after all).
But as a voter (18 being the legal voting age in both countries, and rightly so) I have both an entitlement and a duty to have an opinion about political issues. I try to make that opinion as informed as possible. I do not claim to have wisdom beyond my years, or indeed any special qualifications. But I do claim to be reasonably bright, and I am learning all the time.
I have chosen to be a conservative because I believe that conservatism is the political doctrine most in accord with human nature and with my fundamental moral values. My views on specific issues change all the time. A year ago I was against gun control, and in favour of widespread civilian gun ownership; following a few debates with friends, I’ve revised my perspective on that issue. So yes, as I grow older, my views on issues will of course change, as I learn more and as new information comes to light (I would be a fool if they did not). I once again apologise for any point at which I come over as arrogant or unwilling to learn; that is not my intention and it does not reflect the reality.
Neither Walton nor I are American, although I think Walton would like to be. – No, I love Her Majesty the Queen too much. :-) But if I had to become a citizen of any foreign nation, it would of course be the United States. (Bear in mind also that I’m discussing US, rather than British, politics here because the vast majority of participants here are American.)
Walton:
If you truly did understand the political structure of Iran, you’d know that the President has no leeway in establishing national policy. That responsibility lies solely with the Supreme Leader. That goes for foreign policy, their policies on nuclear proliferation, domestic policy, etc… Their president is chiefly an executive administrator – the Ayatollah is the one in charge.
Then don’t make idiotic comments. It’s as easy as that.
It is also curious that fighting a war should, by some, be seen as a good thing. Surely war comes about as the result of failure, and can hardly be considered a success. Even the second world war came about as the result of the failure of France and the UK to call Hitler’s bluff.
I will concede that the likes of O’Reilly, Hannity and Coulter have helped to mould my political thinking.
Oops! So much for engaging this chap. Moving on now.
(I’m terribly sorry, Walton, but O’Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter, are indisputably liars. They are an unending source of demonstrably false, factually incorrect statements. If you are a Pharyngula/ScienceBlogs reader, I hope that you have the sense to enquire into the misinformation that regularly find its way into your “sources.” Cheers.)
Walton:
This just puts on display the fact that you have a serious misconception of human nature.
I have identified a seemingly immutable rule of this forum: the number of people calling me an idiot, on any given thread, increases in direct proportion to the number of times I mention (with anything resembling approval) Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Fox News.
Will it make everyone happier if I voluntarily ban myself from citing, quoting or mentioning any of the above in any post, or repeating anything I’ve heard or read from any of them? (Merely refraining from mentioning them doesn’t work; I get called an idiot whenever I say anything which coincides with any of their opinions.) I ask only because, in my experience, discussions are a lot more productive and enjoyable when one isn’t being labelled as an idiot.
McCain’s track record is that he supported the Iraq war in the beginning, he still supports it, and he wouldn’t mind if we occupied that country (granting even the “not being shot at” form of occupation) for another 100 years. That’s his record.
Whether the voters will consider that a desirable, “proven track record” will be decided next November. Have you seen the polls lately, on how the majority of Americans feel about this war?
Walton:
I don’t know about making anyone any happier, but it sure would make your posts a lot more credible.
Walton,
You cannot deny you have spoken with approval of Coulter. That you do not like the approbation that goes with that is your problem. The rest of us have no time for a stupid racist women who calls Arabs ragheads and thinks invading Muslims countries and killing a whole load of people is a good idea. It is, I suppose, possible, that she might sometimes spout some sense, but so what ? She has removed herself from having serious consideration paid to her views because of her track record of racism and xenophobia. If you do not want to be associated with her views stop admiring her.
I truly hope you folks know how much of a fight you’re going to have on your hands come November…
Let’s face it, your track record of equal rights has made huge strides in the last 20 years, but is it enough?
Every election previous to this has always come down to two white guys. Now it’s one white guy against either a woman or a black man with a Muslim background. If you believe that this has no bearing in November, you’re sadly mistaken. I wish it didn’t, but it will. This election will be won or lost depending on what joe and jane public think of women and blacks.
If you consider this from the Republican perspective, you must imagine that they were cheering in the aisles of their headquarters when the news reached their ears of Obama’s win. I mean the choice between battling a woman with combat (political) experience or an untested black man is their dream come true. And if that sounds condescending, it’s supposed to, because you can bet that’s how they see it. Their job of appealing to the masses just got a whole lot easier because that is where this election will be fought. The working class may have accepted a white woman, but a black man? Can you hear the storage room/factory floor/workshop conversations yet? Can you hear the derogatory comments or the outright racist remarks yet? Because if you can’t, you need too.
What I am trying to say is that for the first time in your history, you have a chance to show the rest of the world that the United States is in fact, the land of freedom and anyone, from any background, can grow up to be President. Are you ready for that?
In order for you to be ready, you’re going to have to unite the left like they have never been united before. You’re going to have to show joe and jane public why they should vote for Obama and you’re going to have to convince every single person you possibly can that they need to vote in November. Every single eligible voting person from the Democratic side is going to have to come out in November. Every single one. Complacency and apathy will doom you to a loss. Pointless bickering amongst yourselves will doom you to a loss. Any show of division of the left will doom you to a loss. It’s that simple.
Perhaps for the first time since your formation into a Nation, this vote carries an enormous weight and consequences for your future. This election is about more than just the issues that your country faces, this is about what your country is and what it represents.
So focus people, focus. Put your differences aside and work together because truly, I don’t think the rest of the world can face another 4 years from a Bush clone.
Too late: you jumped the shark with the admission that your political thinking is moulded by TV gasbags.
When the UK passed laws allowing same sex couples to form civil partnerships the issue of why they could not be granted the same rights of marriage as heterosexual couples came up. In fairness to the Government at the time, I think they would have liked to extend the right of marriage but they foresaw no end of problems if they tried to do so. Of course the opposition to civil partnerships came from the religious, and they would have been even more opposed to the extension of marriage. In fact it is unlikely the Government could have got a law extending marriage through the House of Lords. As it was it had a tough time with the bigots, all basing their opposition on religious grounds of course, getting the civil partnership legislation through. It really is nice to see how much many of the religious groups in the UK value human rights. If ever there was an example of how bigoted the religious can be, this was it.
I would point out that there were exceptions, and some Anglicans did speak out in support of the bill.
Walton,
there’s no doubt your opinions have been moulded by the likes of O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter.
But now is the time you need to ask yourself, if you are still young and intelligent, is this a fantasy, or is this reality ? Are you satisfied with your opinions being moulded by a group of propagandists ? Wouldn’t you like to be able to form your own opinions ?
I too enjoy watching them. It’s my masochist side. I love it. I listen to them and each argument they make, I demolish it. I do it with my boyfriend, we have a lot of fun with it. When you practice a bit, do your research, you come to realize how almost everything they say is either biased at best, a lie, or simply no argument at all, pure propaganda. Believe me, it’s a lot of fun, but what is less funny is that they manage to brainwash generations of Americans with these programmes. And nobody can touch them because they have the high viewership.
Here’s the beauty of the perversion that are free-markets when applied to broadcasting; there is no limit to the propaganda that can be achieved with this system. Absolutely none.
Dagger, I don’t think most of the commenters here need telling how important this election is. However, the polls put Obama somewhat ahead (OK, there could be some “shy racists” saying they’ll vote for Obama when they actually wouldn’t), and I think reality is going to be showing “joe and jane public” why voting Republican would be a bad idea. In the immortal words of Bill Clinton “It’s the economy, stupid.” By early autumn, the bodily waste is really going to have impacted on the air-conditioning device as prices, repossessions and layoffs all continue to rise.
To negentropyeater:
When you practice a bit, do your research, you come to realize how almost everything they say is either biased at best, a lie, or simply no argument at all, pure propaganda.
OK then, a challenge. Go to Anncoulter.com and read this week’s column. Then tell me which of her facts – in this specific column – are incorrect, twisted or pure propaganda.
Posted by: Walton | June 8, 2008 1:41 PM
We don’t need to. Most of us have already taken the time in the past to consider the worth of her perspective, and have already found it quite wanting – for reasons already posted numerous times on this one thread. Concern-trolling like this won’t get you anywhere.
That’s because most of their opinions are idiotic. It’s the opinions that everyone is disagreeing with, the personalities are just a conveniant shorthand (“that was stunningly Coulteresque reasoning.”).
Walton, baby, you’re nineteen-old enough to buy a proper spank-mag, put down that well-thumbed copy of “Slander”.
Sorry, Wally, I couldn’t resist an attack, and please don’t characterize it as ad hominem, as you’re no man. As you are a boy, this attack is better considered ad puerum.
Walton,
Well I found one straight off.
“Liberal” does not mean the same thing as “Democratic”. When referring to Democrats as “liberals” she is wilfully misusing the language.
Also given the nature of primaries it is not at all clear there is such a thing as “the popular vote”.
The first sentance from said column:
Gee, that was easy.
Walton I would love to meet Coulter bleeding in the street, on the verge of death, and have her implore to me to hurry, get an ambulance. Oh no I would say; let’s wait for your god. Do you think she would have a chance? Seems heartless, but what better way to test this moron’s faith?
Here is some of her dishonesty.
While talking about popular vote Vs. electoral votes she accuses Democrats of hypocrisy with this quote
“After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was “selected, not elected,” this is a shocking about-face.”
When people say this they meant that the SCOTUS put him in office not the voters.
It has nothing to do with electoral votes Vs. popular votes.
She is a liar.
sexism
False.
Rate of homicide in the USA 5.7/100’000. Over a hundred countries have a lower rate.
Gross domestic product per capita. USA is on place 8-11, depending on source.
Prison population in the USA is about 700/100’000. The highest in the world.
(Source, Wikipedia and CIA world fact book.)
———-
And I only read the first fifth of her text.
Now, Walton. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but you’re an ignorant slut.
But don’t worry, ignorance is curable. Just start to use your own brain. And go into some courses on history about the US. You’ve got quite some misconceptions.
OT But…OK guys, I’ve gotta ask. What’s the ‘OM’ after your pseudonyms? I was under the impression it stood for “Order of Merit” given by the Queen for her subjects. What is it referencing here?
Walton,
I’d say the use of “B. Hussein Obama” was a pretty contemptible appeal to prejudice, and hence pure propaganda, wouldn’t you? In fact, the whole piece is just one long sneer, with very few “facts” included.
@Barklikeadog
It’s Order of Molly.
It’s in remembrance to Molly Irvins.
Click on commenters in the top of the site to see an explanation.
Nick,
be very careful with the polls. These polls all use participation models that could be completely off the mark. All pollsters admit that, if there is one election where participation per various categories could be completely modified, it’s this one.
Barklikeadog,
It stands for the “Order of the Molly”, which an award make monthly (in theory anyway, PZ does not always get around to it exactly on time). The readers here get to nominate the person who has most impressed them (in a good way, else Brenda could win by impressing all with her stupidity and sluttishness) that month.
The term Molly is a tribute I believe to Molly Ivins.
It’s been amusing to scan through these comments and see people accusing others of “parroting” or recycling talking points, as if THEIR opinions are unique and have never ever been expressed before this moment.
It usually goes along with a claim that the other is not “thinking critically”. How can we tell if someone isn’t thinking critically? Why, if their opinions aren’t the same as ours, of course!
Also the types of nasty insults and berating language that gets heaped on the head of anyone with an unpopular opinion are pretty revealing. Why are you so afraid of an opinion? And lets say it IS a recycled talking point… Who gives a shit? Shouldn’t that make it even easier to refute without resorting to name-calling?
What an enlightened bunch. Thanks for the laugh, all of you.
Sexism is a form of collectivism, and I hold individuals responsible for their own actions.
Then why use a slur whose intent is to say that she’s a certain type of a member of a collective? Witch is a term that is shorthand for a member of a collective, that of women who don’t conform to societal requirements of meekness and sumbission. Again, it becomes sexist when you use a collective slur for a person.
I’ll call Hillary a witch if I feel like it.
You’re perfectly free to do that, and anyone is perfectly free to rightly call you a sexist when you do.
If she were male, I’d call her a prick..
Which would also be sexist. For someone who claims not to be sexist, you sure do use a lot of sexist terms.
Posted by: info_dump | June 8, 2008 2:16 PM
Wrong – that claim is made when someone puts forth ideas that are clearly in contradiction to either known fact or common sense, as many of Coulter’s, Hannity’s, and O’Reilly’s statements definitely are. If someone doesn’t even take the time to put such opinions in their own words, it’s painfully obvious that they are just passing said opinions along without critically thinking about the content of the ideas at all.
Only people who value such things as original thought and sincerely intellectual discourse… You might want to start putting some salt on your shoe – that way the foot tastes better when it goes into your mouth like that.
negentropyeater@183. Good point – thanks.
You’re welcome. :=)
——————
Who here is afraid of an opinion? Nobody. If we were, we would demand a preventive strike against other opinions. After all, it’s quite sure that they a researching an opinion of mass stupidity.
(Though I’m not sure if they haven’t already used it…)
It’s just tiring. Almost nobody here would berate anyone who has honest questions and innocent ignorance. Lots of questions get answered here and misconceptions debunked all the time. But if somebody just continues to bring the same questions, the same misconceptions over and over again, people here get a little bit angry.
And if those tiresome arguers then approve such horrible things as war, torture etc. We get a little more angry.
And if they then list known and proven liars and extremists like Ann Coulter and O’Reilly as their source, or profess to like them… well, there are just opinions which are not worth arguing anymore.
Opinions over political matters don’t happen in a context-free surrounding. There was an illegal war with over a million dead. There was and is the erosion of individual liberty. There is just a gigantic clusterfuck of stupidity which had happened.
And yes, people are responsible for their opinions. Especially when those opinions lead to such catastrophes as war, death and torture.
So, if someone argues similar to those who made this mess in the first place, how can one not be angry at them?
Ignorance, after all, is not an excuse.
/End of rant
Posted by: student_b | June 8, 2008 2:35 PM
That’s about the long and short of it – nice post, student_b.
You guys keep using the word “appeasement.” I think you should look up the definition. Really. You make yourselves look silly.
Aside from that, whoever mentioned the Hoegaardens is really not doing me any favors. Right now, I’m nursing a brain-shredding, post-birthday hangover, and I would kill for a Grand Cru. Just mentioning it is enough to make me drool.
Man… I love that beer.
student_b #182, Thanks.. I’m a little thick today w/ a migraine and all. I wish headaches like this were preceded by fun, but such is my life.
OK, I am going to concede defeat on the Ann Coulter article.
FWIW, I didn’t issue that challenge as some sort of rhetorical device or pointscoring attempt; I was genuinely interested in seeing what people would come up with. I think Spurge at #178 made an insightful point – which I can’t argue with – as did student_b at #179 and Nick Gotts at #181.
I am not an unequivocal supporter of everything Ann says. She does say a lot of things merely to shock, and I also think she’s often guilty of simplistic thinking, and reducing complex issues down to witty punchlines. As I’ve said, when her writing dips into the political history of the Cold War and earlier it becomes simplistic – she regularly makes assertions such as “liberals didn’t stand up to Communism”, which is demonstrably and empirically incorrect in the case of Kennedy and Johnson – and I’m certainly not impressed by her remarks about evolution either. So there are a huge number of areas in which I profoundly disagree with her; and you shouldn’t judge my opinion by hers, except where I’ve expressly stated that I agree with her.
But I do think she’s a witty and entertaining writer, and she sometimes – sometimes, not necessarily often – makes insightful points that no one else is willing to make.
but I will concede that the likes of O’Reilly, Hannity and Coulter have helped to mould my political thinking.
Sad. And. Pathetic.
David Marjanović asks: The problem is: what makes you think he’d stop that behavior [pandering to religious fools] once he’d be in office?
What makes you think that was what I was implying? I’m just hoping he doesn’t believe that rot. It would be even worse if he did.
If he’s pandering, odds are his heart won’t be in it. The Republicans have been pandering to these people for a long time, and while it’s certainly made things worse, the religious right haven’t gotten anywhere near everything they’ve wanted. It’s not the outcome I want, at least it’s not as bad as some possible outcomes.
Funny, I seem to recall seeing requests for an “ignore” button on this page.
It’s strange to me because YES, this is a forum where people are usually free to share ideas, and proper discussion takes place. But certain ideas are taboo. Particularly, ideas that are the same as those expressed by certain people on TV are met with immediate anger. Why not address the opinions like any other? And again, shouldn’t the “talking point” ideas be easy to address? It also seems so obviously false to me when people cry “parrot”. It’s not because you “value original thought and sincerely intellectual discourse” — not one political opinion here is original, I guarantee you, so stop fooling yourselves. And the people who claim they value intellectual discourse are often the same ones who resort to name calling and berating language.
I’d also like to add, if someone IS parroting another person’s opinion it doesn’t mean that opinion is wrong. So why doesn’t it deserve the same “intellectual discourse” that is so highly valued here?
Excuse for what? An opinion? Sure it is. If someone’s ignorance of all the facts brings them to a false conclusion that’s fine, as long as they’re still open to learning more, and possibly changing their opinion in light of new information. You could help them by presenting the facts they’re missing, or you could berate them for holding the opinion they currently have. Which is more productive?
Because not everything is an opinion some things are lies.
Parroting lies is tedious and unproductive. Quoting liars instead of fact checking is lazy and reveals a preference for what feels good instead of facing the truth.
Hey, this is not Mr. Roger’s neighborhood where every idea is special in it’s own way. There are such things as truth and fallacy. We prefer opinions that have factual backing and that is not likely to come from rehashed Faux News whores.
We might succeed in persuading them of certain things in the short term, but I doubt it would do the tiniest bit of good if their brains are really so permeable to bullshit that they allow TV pundits to influence their political opinions one way or the other.
There. Fixed.
“But I do think she’s a witty and entertaining writer, and she sometimes – sometimes, not necessarily often – makes insightful points that no one else is willing to make.”
Yeah, such insightful points that muslims should be forcibly converted, and moderate Republicans like Lincoln Chafee should be shot… there’s a reason no one else is willing to make these points, dink.
But I do think she’s a witty and entertaining writer, and she sometimes – sometimes, not necessarily often – makes insightful points that no one else is willing to make.
Could you give an example? I’m being completely serious – I’ve never read a single thing from her that didn’t raise my blood pressure and leave me sputtering in indignant rage, so if she’s ever made a good point, I’d like to see it.
Bug off, Walton, you don’t have a dog in this fight. If you are not American, not eligible to vote in this election, lay off telling those of us who are how to vote.
Far be it from me to defend the Waltroll, but everyone has a dog in this fight whether they’re American or not. The US is not some inoffensive little country whose political affairs affect only their own citizens: the US is by far the most militarily powerful country on Earth, and has taken a direction in foreign policy that endangers and scares the shit out of the rest of us. So, we’ll shut up about your election when you stop invading and interfering in other countries.
In large part because you are a troll.
Let me be more specific. You fit the classic definition of an Internet troll in several ways:
(1) By constantly trying to hijack the discussion. This thread is a perfect example. Although the thread concerns John McCain, you didn’t comment once on the specific issue, which is McCain’s outrageous statement that he believes the constitution established America as a Christian nation. Instead, you used it as yet another excuse to push your personal opinions about conservative politics, as you have done in pretty much every thread you’ve posted in. Frankly, no one really gives a shit what you think about McCain and Obama. That isn’t why we read Pharyngula. This isn’t “Walton’s Personal Blog” here. By not sticking to the subject, you insult the owner of the forum and his readers.
(2) By repeatedly threatening to leave, then return, then threaten to leave again, etc. etc. etc. This is classic troll psychology, a plea for attention, which after all is what every troll craves. It is immature egotism, no different than a child interrupting an adult conversation by crying and making a scene.
By disrupting the forum in these ways you invite personal attacks, which you’ve seen numerous times. These sorts of attacks are the only mechanism available when people cannot meet face to face to regulate the social order of an online community. People are TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, WALTON. Can you hear it? Do you understand why people are attacking you? Do you understand that you are causing it? Are you mature enough to get the message and change your behavior so that you aren’t attacked every time you open your mouth here?
Those outside the system can often see more clearly what is good and wrong than those enmeshed within it. That’s not to say Walton’s points are either valid or sensible, but sensible outside observators, commentators, and critics are worth listening to.
In the specific case of the USA, the selection of a USAian president et al. has a major impact on the rest of the world. Cheney and Bush II, e.g., have instigated multiple wars (none of which has achieved anything useful), repeatedly undermined rationality, and advanced the concept that Rule of Law is a stupid notion, favouring rule by whim and stupidity. The world is a much worse place because the people who can vote made the worse mistake ever in the history of USA, twice. Neither time did outside observers suggest doing so, and both times pointed out Cheney and Bush II’s many flaws.
None of that says outside observers are always correct, or even mostly correct. But they often see things with a clarity that those closer to the rubbish easily miss, ignore, or dismiss.
If noöne’s called McCain a vampire yet, it’s probably time to call Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
Any chance Kerry could be dusted off for the veep?
I’d love to see him step up to the plate and then bow out after one term to make room for Clinton after a successful Obama first term. Clinton could serve in the cabinet till then (Health? Presiding over the warcrimes tribunal?).
Once more into the breach…
Walton, people know you by your friends and by your influences. When many of your influences are contemptible you will be treated with contempt. Try to think on your own, thinking is so important Take a Coultergasm and replace/switch the words conservative and liberal, demo and repub, Obama or Clinton with McCain and see if you still like her words and her style. Her work is not repeat not legitimate political writing, she is just Andrew Dice Clay in a black sheath. I remain convinced she would be a liberal if there was more money in it. Rush probably would be as well.
Think dammit!!!! Be independent, be bold, live some. Stop viewing conservatism as an ideal and see how it is actually practiced in the US and then you might get an idea, a glimmer, of why people respond to you as they have/do. Communism sounds pretty good the first time you read it too, it just does not hold up in reality. Do not cherry pick and show that a small “conservative idea” works well, it is the overall effect that is important. Hell, Mussolini claims he made the trains run on time. SO what?
I keep allowing myself to be drawn into dealing with you because I think you are intelligent and I hate seeing intelligence used to parrot nonsense, lies, and foolishness.
Good luck. Luckily I will not have the the chance to read this debacle much longer and will stop being irritated by seeing lost potential.
Ciao
#125 (Tom Foss)
I can’t tell. Either you somehow believe that I’m supporting McCain or that…people voted for Kerry because he was white, non-muslim, old, and was once in the military?
Uh, I’m pretty sure everyone voted for Kerry because he wasn’t Bush.
Actually, I have no idea what your point is. If anyone was curious, mine was that WE HAVE NO CHOICE.
imagine my stunned surprise to find professor myers secretly organizing ball gowns!
http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/2008/06/pz-breezes-by-bay.html
#88 says, above, “C) … his kids serve in the military”
when i saw this comment i thought “megan? she’s in the military?” but before ignorantly posting a sneer, i googled and discovered that mccain has three sons from one of his previous marriages. it turns out that in fact those three sons have all served in the military, the youngest is currently in the marines.
so far so good, right?
not so much.
turns out the apple does not fall far from the tree, in spite of the fact that the kid “rejected” the navy and joined the marines as a private at the age of 17 (after having spent his high school years bouncing from military boarding school to military boarding school).
“When a cluster of marines asked how they could help his father’s campaign, Lance Corporal McCain pretended to call him and then passed on a message: they could carry out the contracts the senator had taken out on his rivals’ lives.”
nice, huh?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/06/america/06mccain.php?page=2
“[mccain’s son’s] company had not lost any men, though three from the battalion had died.”
from that same article — i thought this line was remarkable in its ability to concisely illustrate the bizarre disconnect from the reality of war. “three from the battalion had died” but none were “lost.”
think about that. let it settle onto your brain.
what do you suppose was the cause of death?
could it have ANYTHING to do with military service in iraq?
the 4000+ number that we keep hearing about is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg with respect to the ACTUAL number of american troops who have died as a direct result of being posted to iraq. i read elsewhere recently that the number is over 65,000 but unfortunately i was so stunned that i closed the window without noting the web address and could not find it again through google.
I don’t understand why republicans are suddenly so concerned about experience. They put Bush in office twice. The only business experience had was experience in failing. Then he was the governor of that great liberal, progressive state…Oh wait, no, it was Texas. No legislative experience. Bad business experience. Bad executive experience.
karen marie,
Three from the battalion died (were lost), but none in the company. The company is a subdivision of the battalion. Is that the source of the disconnect?
And off the top of my head the 65k figure sounds about right for the total number of dead and injured, not just dead, including those injured as a result of combat and those injured, ill, or otherwise incapacitated outside of combat, such as due to the heat or accidents. And 4000 or so is the correct figure for dead Americans in Iraq, counting (most of them) military and (a small fraction) non-military.
Even at Presidential inaugurations, the President of the USA is routinely described as the “Leader of the Free World”. One conservative (I forget whom) described the position as “Commander-in-Chief of the Free World”.
What wonderful euphemisms for Empire.
The President isn’t even Commander-in-Chief of the United States: the constitution only makes him C-in-C of the military (“army and navy of the United States”).
When you Americans stop your government trying to rule the world we non-Americans will stop opining about it.
McCain would be a disaster. No-one who sings jolly songs to Beach Boys tunes about bombing a country should be in a position of power.
I said that I threatened a neighbor with physical violence if he and his wife did not register to vote. Please note that I live in the quasi-hood of near NW Houston. I gave holmes a smoke and a swig as we talked politics. So when I told him “If yall not registered in time, Ahm gunna kick yer ass past the dumpster” I was simply using the local idiom where threats of physical violence are merely a way of showing emphasis.
I hate to feed Walton but – Bobby Jindal!!?? You’re gravely concerned about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience and yet would trust a two term representative and the one year govenor of Lousiana with the heavy burden of foreign policy decisions? Do you not see some disconnect? Or does Jindal’s affiliation with the GOP mean he has bigger balls with which to pummel the opponents? Please.
You’re gravely concerned about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience and yet would trust a two term representative and the one year govenor of Lousiana with the heavy burden of foreign policy decisions?
Of course. He’s pro-forced-birth.
Right.. Sure Walton. Someone like McCain, with a track record of “theoretically” being able to work under pressure is better why? Mind you, I mean theoretically, in the sense that one aspect of working on making tough decisions under pressure is ***getting it more or less @$@#$#@ right***.
No one gives a guy medals in the military for having absolute certainty under pressure and making badly chosen, horribly flawed, and disastrously stupid command decisions, based on a complete refusal to accept advice and a totally delusional perception of what the current state of the battlefield is. McCain has shown a tendency to listen *only* to people that have apparently no clue what country they are *in*, or what values it actually holds, never mind what battles are being fought, and which ones are faints, deception, meaningless squabbles, or full blown crisis. He either believes in, or is willing to pander to, a delusional view of how to solve this nations problems, and, just to be clear, if this *was* a military campaign, I would be scared to death that he would order his units to fire on mine, thinking that *we* where the enemy, not the guy shooting at both of us.
In other words. Being able to commit yourself to decisions and act decisively to stressful and pressure filled situations is **only** worth something if you have some damn clue what you are doing in the first place. If you don’t, you bloody better be listening to people that have the “nations” best interest in mind, not their personal factions and pocketbooks.
We need the social equivalent of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, not fracking George Armstrong Custer, leading us out of this mess. Lacking the former, the later is **still** a damn stupid alternative, regardless of their “experience”.
Response to Fergy at #203.
I am not a troll. I am an experienced administrator on Wikipedia and an experienced participant in many other websites. I have rarely, if ever, been labelled a troll. I know what a troll is; I’ve seen them. And I’ve also seen hundreds of innocent people unjustly labelled trolls merely because of their opinions.
On point (1), I did not hijack the thread. The thread was about McCain. And the conversation was broader than the original blog post, and was turning to why many people on this forum support Obama over McCain. I was responding to that.
On point (2), I once stated that I would leave, because I was angry with people calling me an “ignorant child” and words to that effect.
I still think that the behaviour of yourself, MAJeff and a few others towards me has been disgraceful and indefensible. I have not attacked or insulted you or anyone else, while you have repeatedly flung unfounded insults at me. But I’m not going to give you the pleasure of driving me away. I am going to ignore your abuse, and continue discussing issues constructively and civilly – which is all I’m interested in doing – with those who wish to discuss issues constructively.
Really, is there any dissent or disagreement around here which is treated with respect and civility? Because I haven’t seen any. Most threads seem to consist of people patting each other on the back and saying “aren’t we intellectually superior; ha ha, look at those stupid conservatives! Aren’t they deluded!” Where a dissenting voice enters any thread – even dissent from other liberal atheists – the dissenter has to endure vicious attacks on their character and credibility.
So why the hell am I still here? Because the average intellectual level on this forum is the highest I’ve seen on any political discussion site; because my ideas are challenged in a way that they simply aren’t elsewhere; because there are a few people (Nick Gotts, brokenSoldier, JeffreyD, Kseniya, Bill Dauphin, among others) from whom I’ve learnt a great deal, and been challenged to think about things differently. Because I learn something new every time I come here.
It’s just a shame that, for some of you, it’s so hard to separate the political from the personal, and discuss political issues in a detached manner without attacking your opponents. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your arguments. As I said, they’ve been consistently interesting and thought-provoking. But I don’t know why they have to be mixed with insults and attacks.
I’ll try and address the substantive issues tomorrow morning (it’s 0135 here, I’m tired – yes, I’ve been out drinking with my university’s Conservative Association, you will be overjoyed to know – and I don’t have the mental energy). But thanks to those (a minority) who have been civil.
Apologies for the tone of my post immediately above. I should have pressed Preview rather than Post; it wasn’t meant to come over as harsh as it did. I do understand why I’ve provoked angry reactions in some people, though I certainly didn’t intend to.
it’s so hard to separate the political from the personal,
idiot
#56, you’re absolutely right, but those are future technologies. Corn-based ethanol is a failed prototype, other technologies might work.
Right now, the materials used to create cellulosic ethanol cost more than the ethanol is worth. So we’re not there yet…
If Walton is a troll, then he’s about the most polite, considerate, articulate troll I’ve ever seen here. Seriously, people.
Walton you gabbling limpet!
Please don’t judge this place on the few threads that your stupidity has infected; Polite and reasoned differences of opinions or objections are met with politeness. Take Scott Hatfield for instance, a christian who not only won an ‘Order of the Molly’ but, if I recall correctly, was the first one to do so. When someone comes in acting like a complete moron praising racists and making a total ass out of themselves spouting ignorant talking points like you have done people seem to get a bit upset.
I wonder why.
Really, some may disagree but I don’t think you’re an idiot. You are just ignorant about many things and act like one (an idiot, that is) from time to time.
Hmm. Ok. I may have misread things a bit before posting my comment. I don’t have infinite time to sit and read through all this stuff any more, so sometimes skim, and I think I may have skimmed over bits I shouldn’t have. :( I certainly don’t class you as a troll Walton, and I am not sure my post even addressed anything you said, instead of just what I imagined you “might” say, due to skimming over things and seeing the general trend of statements. I will try to avoid that mistake in the future.
That said, my statement *does* stand for anyone else that may show up and try to argue that experience in managing stressful situations automatically means competence in either running a country, recognizing sane advice, or doing what is best of the nation, especially when the person that wants to do so has never done #1, has shown a serious failure to do #2, and its ***highly*** questionable if they even have a concept of what #3 actually means. ;)
To Nanu Nanu at #223.
“Polite and reasoned differences of opinions” is what I have been presenting, or at least I hope so. Show me where I have insulted or attacked anyone. I am confident that I have not done so, and if I have then I apologise.
Maybe I just lack social graces, and if so, I can’t help that. But I genuinely don’t understand what you say I’ve been doing wrong. I don’t see how I could be any more civil in my presentation of arguments. Rather, it seems to be the arguments themselves which offend people.
@#171 Walton —
AC claims:
This is a claim Clinton herself is fond of making, but it’s a very big stretch at best.
If you followed the debacle of the Michigan primary, you’ll know that because of improper scheduling, the DNC stripped Michigan of all its delegates before the election occurred. Also, in response to the state’s breach of DNC rules, Obama (along with most of the rest of the candidates) removed his name from the ballot. Thus, Hilary got the vast majority of votes in that election, and Obama none (though 30% were uncommitted). However, in an exit poll, 35% of voters said that they would have voted for Obama had his name been on the ballot.
For a good explanation of the stats, see here.
Hmmm. That was almost too easy…..
Granted. He is indeed articulate and polite, but much of what he posts appears to be inflammatory wingnut talking points and lionisation of the Hindenburg Trinity. I agree that he’s not in the Kenny league, but it is frankly hard to tell whether or not he’s just a somewhat more sophisticated troll: he’s certainly pushing the right buttons. Strip away the transparent flattery and the obsequiousness and what’s left?
To Kagehi at #223: Rest assured, you’re not one of the people whose impoliteness I was criticising. And you raise good points which do, indeed, address my argument directly.
To Emmet Caulfield at #227:
…it is frankly hard to tell whether or not he’s just a somewhat more sophisticated troll: he’s certainly pushing the right buttons. – I ask you to assume good faith, as we say on Wikipedia.
I’m no troll, at least as I understand the term (and with my experience elsewhere on the internet, I think I have a fairly good understanding of it). As I said in my earlier post, I’m here to argue and to learn. And I have.
I also wasn’t aware that I’d deployed any “transparent flattery and obsequiousness”. I genuinely think the intellectual level on this forum is very high; but I also think the level of civility is remarkably low, and that some people (by no means all) are needlessly arrogant and dismissive. I have said all of this. So I’m not trying to flatter anyone, any more than I’m trying to attack them.
I am frustrated by the fact that I’ve had to spend the last few posts explaining myself and addressing concerns about my character and motivations, rather than addressing substantive issues. This thread isn’t meant to be about me, and I’d like to get back to discussing McCain v. Obama. I will do so tomorrow, however, since I need to get off the computer now.
Well, this thread has gotten quite long and I dont have the patience to read every post. It is a bit amazing that after reading the first 50 and the last 20 it appears that little changed.
I too am a fairly doctrinaire liberal Democrat, in fact I first encountered PZ in the early 80s at the campus Democratic organization. As I found out many years later, we had both been supporters of John Anderson, a Republican and a man of religion, who was running against Carter and Reagan. Had Anderson beat Reagan, the Republican partly might have avoided its descent into darkness for the last 2 decades.
We are down to two choices of TEAMS to become the executive branch of the US government. Obama or McCain will assemble a group of people to guide this country for the next 4 to 8 years. It would be hard to create a worse group than Team Bush, so I am optimistic about the future, even if McCain wins. However, McCain is likely to retain some of the scum from Team Bush, appoint more judges sympathetic to the religio-fascist wing of the party, and he has an attraction to war that is truly disturbing.
I agree with Walton and others that there is a bit too much reflexive bashing of opponents going on here, but using Ann Coulter (one column only, I note) was obviously an attempt to invoke emotional responses. There is no doubt that looking at the body of her work is not a strategy that Walton wants us to use … as it would not cast a favorable light on his position.
Team Obama/Democrats has strong odds of running the country in a much better way than Team McCain/Republicans, especially when the preachers in the Republican camp have noplace near the class of John Anderson. Imagine if we followed the ideal of the constitution and kept religion separate from politics; the progress we could make.
Personally voting McCain, he is slightly more agreeable to me then Obama on various issues important to me. Guess we will all know in November who wins.
Does anyone have a date and venue for the McCain interview? It isn’t included in the Youtube clip. I’d like to correctly reference it.
“Polite and reasoned differences of opinions” is what I have been presenting, or at least I hope so.
I’ve just read the entire thread. Your comments are polite. I congratulate you on remaining polite even with strong provocation to abandon your politeness.
Reasoned I’m not so sure about. Your opinions come straight from Fox News. You have implied that Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter are major influences in your political thinking. Please forgive me if I’m less than impressed by your sources. The three people can be described as organs of the Conservative Propaganda Ministry. Coulter wrote a book, Treason, in which she flat out accused every Democrat alive since 1945 as being traitors. No, I am not making that up. Hannity wrote Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism which one reviewer described as “full of name-calling trumped up as intellectual debate, one-sided history lessons designed to deceive the ill-informed, and good old-fashioned war-mongering.” O’Reilly is a demonstrated liar.
You have presented your opinions in a polite and reasonable manner. Your opinions have been rejected for what I consider adequate reasons.
re: McCain. I’m embarrassed I used to think I liked the guy..at least compared to the rest of his party. * sigh * A good overview of what our founders actually believed: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050221/allen/3
T. Jefferson was pretty rad. Assembled his own “new testament ” by cutting out all the supernatural parts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
Walton,
I think that you are truly posting in good faith (no pun intended), but I think that you lack a certain ability to relalise what the folks who have been posting here for many years (I am not one of them, but I’ve read some of the archives, and lurked for a good while) have dealt with in nearly every political thread.
Yes, the readership of this blog is largely of the liberal variety, but not everyone here is a liberal atheist, and plenty of these “outsiders” are welcomed with open arms as equals in all discussions, whatever the disagreements might be. The casual dismissal of your views has been linked to your mention of some rather bad sources as molding your thinking.
Imagine for a moment that I travelled to some blog based on Rush’s ideas, and mentioned that I disagreed because of ideas I had picked up from Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. I would be disregarded, probably quite rightly, because I had given credence to absurd ideas which had been shown by reality to be incorrect.
In my opinion, your argument for McCain has been refuted well on a point-by-point basis.
McCain was a military officer, this has so little to do with running a country that the Constitution mandates that a person resign any commision in the military before taking the Oath of Office.
I also see that “community organizer” is disregarded by you as a post requiring the leading of people.
I can not imagine any other position which would teach one the diplomatic skills neccessary to lead a nation.
Try to get any neighborhood anywhere to agree on anything; the ability to communicate across lines like these are exactly the qualities I want in a president.
But I respectfully allow your disagreement.
Autumn
I’m from Europe, so please excuse my ignorance, but who the hell is this McCain nutter, and What does he have to do with the presidential elections?
To Vidar at #236: He is the Republican nominee (well, not officially so until the convention, but he has the required number of delegates and all the other candidates have dropped out). He will be running against Barack Obama for President in November.
And while he doesn’t seem popular around here, he’s certainly not a nutter; he’s one of the most moderate Republicans, and has generally been hated by the likes of Ann Coulter (because of his sponsorship of campaign finance reform, his fairly liberal views on immigration, etc.) However, he’s moved more to the right in order to unite the Republican base (which is hardly unexpected, and I don’t think one can blame him for that).
To Autumn at #235: Yes, fair enough, and thank you for your civility.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about McCain v. Obama. Neither of them is perfect, but I remain unconvinced that Obama has enough experience of the right kind. I could be proved entirely wrong, of course; he might end up being a fantastic president. I’m not arguing that there is any evidence that he’ll make poor decisions, just that there isn’t enough evidence that he’ll make good ones. FWIW, I think he’s a decent guy, and he was by far not the worst out of the original Democratic candidates. But until he has to face experienced foreign statesmen in the conference chamber, or decide how to respond to a crisis, we simply can’t know what will happen. But as I say, I could be entirely wrong in my predictions.
Probably best if I bow out of this particular thread now, since it’s going round in circles. But thank you for your reasoned and polite disagreement, which did, indeed, directly address my points.
Posted by: Walton | June 9, 2008 5:17 AM
While it may not be unexpected, your suggestion that ‘no one can blame him’ for changing his policies, ideas, and convictions in order to pander to the base of his party for the sole purpose of gaining the office of President is ludicrous. Just because it is not uncommon does not mean that it is intellectual dishonesty in ambitious pursuit of a position of power. Maybe you don’t fault him for that, but I certainly do.
It would be an entirely different animal altogether if his changes in perspective were due to him genuinely revising his viewpoint due to rational analysis, but it is painfully obvious that this is not the case with him.
Imagine for a moment that I travelled to some blog based on Rush’s ideas, and mentioned that I disagreed because of ideas I had picked up from Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. – Autumn
I’m a non-Marxist and anti-Leninist, but this really isn’t an apt comparison: Marx, and even Lenin, were serious thinkers with important insights. To get appropriate comparable leftists for Coulter and her ilk, you’d have to trawl among the loopier Trotskyist or Maoist sects, whose leaflets I used to collect at demos. My favourite was a Maoist group who, shortly after the death of the old monster himself, when the abandonment of his policies had begun, argued that this was all a cunning plan to put the capitalist running dogs off guard! Or the 9/11 “there weren’t any planes” conspiracists, now I think of them.
I think McCain is desperate to be POTUS, feels mortality knocking, and would do anything at this point to win the election, up to and including blowing a walrus in the middle of a mall.
This is going to be a nasty election, probably the worst in my living memory. The “Willie Horton” ads will look pale and friendly by what I expect to see and yes, I think McCain will directly authorize such ads. Anyone want to take bets that either Coulter or Limbaugh will slip up and actually use “nigger” in a live venue? Or take bets they will do it on purpose so MickeyC can “chastise” them, thus reassuring voters he is not racist? Wow, it is easy to make up this conspiracy stuff.
I kinda liked McC once, might have voted for him in another election if the Democrat was truly odious. Thankfully I never had the chance to waste my vote as I now see what he is, just another power grubbing Republican who believes in the DESTINY OF AMERICA to run (rule?) the world under xtian guidelines.
Well, already set up to do my absentee ballot if needed and if in country, I plan to vote “early and often” for Obama.
Ciao
Walton @#229,
It’s extraordinarily rare to come across someone who is as articulate as you are, on the one hand, and simultaneously supportive of, and influenced by, bigots and liars like Limbaugh and Coulter. Trying to “figure you out” causes massive difficulty because of the inherent contradictions: you display signs of being highly intelligent, contemptibly gullible, and weapons-grade stupid at the same time.
On the other hand, trolling for fun, in the tradition of adequacy.org, is not the least bit inconsistent with being intelligent. If one wanted to troll in a community of “godless liberals”, then supporting Faux News, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc., being unsupportive of equal rights for gays, and denying the historical importance of civil protest are exactly the kinds of positions such a troll would adopt. Flattery and obsequiousness would be excellent cover strategies.
I can more easily imagine you sitting there laughing your ass off, tickled pink at your own cleverness at getting so much attention and subtly winding so many people up, than the alternative: that you are an “idiot savant” of sorts, having the ability to write well, but being a drooling imbecile in every other respect.
So, as a troll, you’re really quite brilliant, while, as a real person, you’re not credible. If you were indeed a real person, the cognitive dissonance would cause your head to explode with a blast radius sufficient to level a small city. It’s clearly the minority opinion, but I think you’re a troll. Time will tell.
I think McCain is desperate to be POTUS, feels mortality knocking, and would do anything at this point to win the election, up to and including blowing a walrus in the middle of a mall. – JeffreyD
Is this something that is generally expected of Presidential candidates? Do either McCain or Obama have any relevant experience? Come to think of it, competitive walrus-blowing might on average produce better results than the electoral college.
I’ve taken this from the comments on the link PZ gives above.
If a student of mine had handed this in I would have failed him. It is illiterate, grammatically garbled and just wrong in places.
This man comes across as either an uneducated dolt or someone who is having to change his real opinion to fit the party line using limited mental resources.
Though I have no vote in your elections, if I did, this would be enough evidence of incompetence to make me vote for Donald Duck if he was standing against McCain.
I think McCain is desperate to be POTUS, feels mortality knocking, and would do anything at this point to win the election, up to and including blowing a walrus in the middle of a mall
Name the Walrus “Reagan,” and you’d have a whole hell of a lot of R’s sucking away.
Just to drive in the point for Walton (whom I, personally, would not describe as a “troll”: he has actually responded to questions, and has admitted errors) regarding Ann Coulter and her ilk.
Ann Coulter is an avowed Intelligent Design advocate! Read the Amazon blurb on her book “Godless,” and weep.
And you wonder why people on Pharyngula dismiss her “opinions” as worthless drivel?
Howdy, Walton.
First, Ann Coulter. This is a woman who passionately believes that the theory of evolution, one of the best-confirmed, longest-standing scientific theories in existence, has been foisted on the world as part of an atheist conspiracy. Someone whose reality distortion field extends past any zone of what is arguably opinion to denial of confirmed scientific fact has shown herself not to be worth reading for anything except pure outrageous entertainment value.
She also believes that Christians are “perfected” Jews, and therefore doesn’t see why anyone should wish to be Jewish. (Oh, and she doesn’t see why anyone should be offended at this position, it being self-evidently true and all.) That ought to give you some notion of how reliable her evaluation might be of anyone who doesn’t share her religious beliefs.
Second, and on the same topic of evolution, Bill O’Reilly. I watched his show the night after the Dover judgment. He and a guest “legal expert” lambasted the judge for unnecessarily reaching to decide the issue of whether it was permissible to teach ID in schools. Coincidentally, this happened to be exactly what the defendants’ lawyers had said earlier after the judge rendered his decision. Oddly, before the judgment, those same lawyers had been touting the case as a test of whether it was permissible to teach ID in schools – in fact, they’d gone searching for a school district willing to be sued and act as the test case. So what they’d asked the judge to do, and set up the case to make it unavoidable for him to rule on, was precisely what they criticized him for “unnecessarily” doing when the decision went against them, and Bill-O was right there to back them up on “fair and balanced” Fox. So much for Bill as a reliable source, eh?
With regard to McCain being a moderate Republican: The notion that McCain is a moderate owes more to recent history than to the reality of the man’s long legislative career. He has always been a quite doctrinaire conservative on what are referred to as “moral issues.” (I use quotes because things like war, nuclear arms, etc., are commonly excluded, while I think that those are indeed subjects with which morality has a great deal to do.) He got a reputation as a “maverick” or “moderate” chiefly by (1) running in opposition to George W. Bush in 2000, which had far more to do with ego than with political differences (while the Obama campaign slightly exaggerates McCain’s support for Bush’s legislative agenda – it’s more like 90% of the time rather than 95% – there really isn’t much to choose between them in general policy terms); and (2) refusing in 2000 to do what Bush was happy to do then and McCain is happy to do now, come out publicly in support of racists like Bob Jones in South Carolina. (Bob Jones’ eponymous University in South Carolina, until March 2000, had a policy supposedly based on religious precepts that forbade interracial dating. McCain criticized Bush for making a speaking appearance at BJU in 2000, then not only made a point in his current campaign of doing the very same, but heaped praise on Jones in his remarks.)
Re: the “who has a better grasp of foreign policy” question.
Well, let’s look at some of the most recent activities. A couple of weeks ago, in a speech to the Israeli group AIPAC (I think that is the acronym), McCain started by criticizing Obama’s proposal to have talks with Iranian leaders, calling them tried and failed approaches (really, we’ve talked to Iranian leaders? But I digress…). His bold new approach? Divestment. It’s time to divest from Iran, he says. That will show them.
And, to be honest, it’s not a bad idea. Israel or no, I don’t think American financial institutions should be investing in Iranian interests. You know who also thinks it’s a good idea? Barack Obama. Yes, that guy who has no new ideas for dealing with the middle east supports the same approach as McCain.
But that’s only the half of it. Not only does Obama support it, last yeat he actually introduced legislation to to the Senate to make it easier for financial companies to divest from Iran. The legislative branch had already approved the measure with 400 supporting votes. However, in the senate, it got stuck in committee by Bush-friendly senators, and so never made it up for a vote. It would have passed easily, with more than enough votes for an override, even. John McCain opposed it.
That’s right. The “I have a great idea for Iran, it’s time to divest” actually opposed legislation, introduced by Barack Obama, that would have promoted divestment.
Talk about chutzpah. He has the nerve to criticize Obama for having no new ideas for dealing with the Middle East, and then his solution is a flip-flop of a previous stand against one of Obama’s projects!!!!
So, who has the great foreign policy insight? The one who has had a good position, and tried to do something about it? Or the one who copied the idea because he had to say something to woo the vote of the Israeli lobby?
Let me summarize: Obama was pushing for divestment from Iran in 2007, McCain opposed it. Now McCain supports it, and pretends that it is a great inspiration and that Obama is mired in failed policy.
McCain doesn’t have squat for foreign policy. Outside of singing, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iran” (to the tune of Barbara Ann), he has no policy.
I see Walton may have bowed out of this thread (although I know from my own experience that such a promise is hard to keep), but I wanted to express a few moments of teeth grinding over this comment:
Certainly not unique to Walton (or even to the Republican opposition generally), this “Obama is inexperienced” meme has been driving me crazy.
Let’s start out by admitting that nobody really has any experience that’s directly relevant to being the President of the United States. No other job combines the same mix of politics, policy, executive leadership, statecraft, and overwhelming global power that comes together in the Oval Office. It’s incumbent on us to admit that every new president is in for a great deal of OJT, regardless of what he or she has done before… and in that context, we ought to recognize (as we evidently did not in 2000 or 2004) that having a quick mind and being willing and able to learn is far more important in a POTUS than any specific prior job experience. (Note that among recent presidents, the most glitteringly complete resume is that of Bush 41, who turned out to be a lackluster [at best] one-termer.)
Next, to the extent that experience is important, experience in the U.S. Senate is probably not the best kind of experience. Historically, we have not elected long-serving senators as president: In my lifetime, the only person who came to the Oval Office with a substantial Senate career on his resume was LBJ, and he came to office through tragic nonelectoral means after having failed to win the 1960 nomination. Kennedy and Nixon also served in the Senate, but Nixon was only there for 2 years before becoming Ike’s VP, and Kennedy, like Obama, was already on the presidential radar before he began his brief (1 1/3 terms) Senate career. The other presidents of my lifetime have been governors (Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan, Carter); Congressmen (Ford); military men (Ike); and damn near everything but senators (Bush 41, who was a congressman, ambassador [to the UN and China], national party chair, CIA director, corporate officer, and vice president, but who lost his only run for the Senate to Lloyd Bentsen). The Senate is famously collegial, and senators end up horsetrading for votes over the minutiae of legislation. That’s not a criticism — that’s how laws must get made in a politically diverse democracy — but it’s a different skill set from the executive leadership the POTUS must exercise. It’s also true that long service in the Senate creates a record of arcane votes on details and procedural nits that’s inherently vulnerable to being spun as flip-flopping (witness Kerry’s “I voted for the funding before I voted against the funding” dilemma last time ’round). For a presidential candidate, at least, and probably for a POTUS as well, seniority in the Senate is a Bug, Not a Feature™.
Military experience is (IMHO) not only not a requirement for POTUS, it’s actively problemmatic: Civilian control of the military is one of the most important bulwarks of our freedom. Yes, the president is Commander in Chief, and must have some understanding of military issues. But he doesn’t need to be a War College grad (he’s got plenty of those working for him), and it’s not clear to me that having been a fighter pilot or tank commander really has much to do with making decisions about how to appropriately wield the global military power possessed by the U.S. While some degree of military service (e.g., Gore and Kerry) is clearly advantageous politically and might be a small advantage to a POTUS in terms of garnering the respect of the career military establishment, McCain’s background — not only his years as a POW, but also the fact that he’s the son and grandson of high-ranking military commanders — is more likely to influence his approach to the presidency in ways that most non-hawks would find disadvantageous rather than otherwise.
So I don’t view McCain’s “greater” military and government experience as in any way likely to make him a better president than Obama. Obama, on the other hand, is a constitutional scholar (which we need now more desperately than at any time in recent memory!), and as someone upthread pointed out, his experience as a community organizer is arguably much more applicable to issues of poverty and social justice (areas where individual leadership from the top really can make a difference) than anything on McCain’s (or Clinton’s) resume. Heck, the mere fact that he’s survived Chicago politics with his reputation intact is a big deal.
Sorry to ramble on like this, esp. in response to someone who might not even still be listening… but I’ve been wanting to get this rant off my chest for a while. I hope you’ll all support Obama, both because I think he’ll be a good president and because I fear the alternative like death itself… but if you must argue for McCain, please don’t do so on the basis of this “experience” guano!
Apparently you don’t if you think that being an “experienced administrator on Wikipedia” is evidence that you aren’t. Moreover, you’ve been labelled a troll by numerous posters just here on Pharnygula, so your claim about “rarely, if ever” is patently false.
I never said it was about your opinions, I said it was about your proclivity for turning every discussion into a purely political debate with little or no connection to the topic at hand. That is unwelcome behavior, as has been pointed out by many responders.
No, the thread was about remarks made by McCain regarding whether the constitution established America as a Christian nation. The things he said are truly astounding, and should be of interest to all American voters, and to readers of Pharyngula in particular. But not a single comment of yours gave any indication you even watched the video of McCain’s remarks. Instead, you plowed straight into yet another repetition of your reasons for supporting McCain over Obama. That’s troll behavior.
In fact, since you raised the issue of opinions, most of your comments were just bashing Obama, so your pathetic little plead that “the thread was about McCain” rings hollow as well.
Because this ISN’T A POLITICAL FORUM, THAT’S WHY. But you keep trying to make it one despite it clearly not being an appropriate place for what you want to discuss. There are countless political forums on the web, you should find one where you won’t have to troll for attention.
With that said, I’m done with you, child. You will either heed the criticisms you’ve received from myself and others, or you won’t. That’s up to you and speaks to your character as a person.
Emmett,
He’s 19, and part of his University’s Conservative Association.
I suspect what is happening here is that he grew up in a Tory family, with Tory friends, reading Tory friendly newspapers. Apparently also some GOP connection. He has very limited exposure to opinions that diverge from his own.
If that is true, then his appearance here is a good sign. He has repeatedly had his arse (yes, I’m British too) handed to him. He may have taken this on board.
In the interest of clarity:
I didn’t read Walton’s reference to his Wikipedia experience as proving he wasn’t a troll; only indicated that he knew what the term meant… which isn’t always the case for folks accused of trolling.
What you’re describing sound to me more like thread drift than hijacking, in that we almost never stick as strictly to the precise subject of the OP as you suggest. If everyone who took a Pharyngula thread off on a tangent were labeled a hijacking troll, we’d all be guilty.
Whatever gave you that notion? What part of “godless liberal” strikes you as apolitical?
Walton @ #162:
You want to know why people call you an idiot when you mention those frauds? Because they’re lying propagandists, and if you bothered to think for yourself you’d know that.
Walton @ #193:
Coulter is a liar, a fraud, a bigot, a hycoprite, out of touch with reality, and just a disgustingly hateful person. She routinely says things that are demonstrably false, as even you admit. Yet you allow such a despicable creature to shape your opinions. Why? This woman called for the poisoning of a Supreme Court Justice, the assassination of a sitting President, a holy war of bloody conquest against the Middle East. She said women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, while she herself not only voted but did so in two separate districts in violation of law. She accused 9/1 widows of celebrating their husbands’ deaths. She has advocated the execution of liberals simply for being liberals. She accused much of the population of the United States of treason, a false accusation of a crime punishable by death. She rejects the facts of science and history, and substitutes politically advantageous lies. She is either insane, or her entire persona is a fraud to bilk the gullible. Are there no sane conservatives out there? Is conservatism so morally and intellectually bankrupt that this kind of madness is the only thing left?
While the Republican party here in the US has been sinking for some time, it’s not yet so far gone that nothing is left outside the lunatic fringe. The influences you cite are clearly frauds, some of the worst extremist elements of a decaying party. So why do you let them tell you what to think? Do you have no better options?
You challenged people to find one lie in Coulter’s column, and they found several, easily. Why were you not able to find these yourself?
This is why people treat you like an idiot for citing Coulter. She is clearly, obviously, monumentally wrong in damn near everything she says. The only way someone could fail to notice this is if he were either an idiot or so incredibly lazy that he never bothered to check the facts. So which is it? Or are you fully aware that she’s lying, and just like passing on lies when they agree with your ideology? Are you stupid, lazy, or a liar? Because anyone who claims to believe Coulter has to be at least one.
Cujo359 @ #195:
That’s exactly why I voted for McCain in the Georgia primary. I expect the state to end up blood-red due to the influence of the Republican cultists around here, so my only chance to have any effect is in the primary (my vote in the general will probably be so drowned out by the GOP insanity as to be meaningless).
I reasoned that McCain would gladly destroy the Constitution, undermine freedom, and lead us back to the Dark Ages if doing so stood the slightest chance of gaining him power.
But Huckabee would do those things because he WANTS to go back to the Dark Ages. Because he WANTS to sacrifice this country to his imaginary friend.
The choice between an unprincipled, power-hungry pandering traitor and an insane unprincipled, power-hungry traitor is regrettable, but not difficult.
Of course, any Republican candidate would happily send our troops to die in pointless wars for as long as they could get away with it. Which is why the GOP needs to be crushed in this election, they can’t be trusted with power.
Maybe in a few decades the tattered remains of the GOP will be able to muster up a candidate who is actually qualified. But I won’t be holding by breath.
amk @#251,
Yep, I do know that he has said all of that. He appeared pretty recently and I’ve read most of what has been posted by/to him in several threads. It’s either true or an extremely good cover story, lifted from the profile of a genuine Wikipedia admin, and then embellished with personal details. What makes me suspicious is the “oversharing”, which would be pretty untypical of the Tory type, but pretty typical of some cruel jokester trying to embarrass him by impersonation. How many 19 year old males do you know who’d admit to virginity in a public forum? In addition, a few stunningly brilliant masterstrokes of trolling came with perfect timing. It’s pretty hard to swallow that it’s pure coincidence. I admit to having been gullible, naïve, ignorant, and over-opinionated (my friends would probably say I still am!), but he seems more like a parody than what he claims to be.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that this was all a mean cruel joke played by a disgruntled Wikipedian aggrieved by some perceived mistreatment by the real Walton.
McCain is lost to us. The mindworms got him.
And to think I once admired him.
It’s time to move on.
President Obama. It has a ring to it.
Emmet, if you’re right, then that certain someone is putting a very unhealthy amount of time into his little project.
:-|
Wow, I missed that.
It could be plausible for an abstinence advocating godbot…
I’ve just noticed I spelt Emmet’s name wrong. I blame the spell checker. Don’t hurt me!
This seems to be the only Tory Boy video on Youtube. Not particularly relevant to Walton though.
Walton: “The fact is, Obama has no experience of making tough decisions under pressure. He just doesn’t.”
I don’t know, he’s seem to have quite a bit of grace under pressure during a very gruelling primary campaign. No, he hasn’t been put in the decision of dropping a nuke on someone or something like that, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t do it. And he appears to me to be the kind of person to surround himself with advisors to shore up in areas where he himself lacks experience. Unlike Bush who picked people based on their loyalty — even my Dad, who voted for Bush, thought Rumsfield was a moron.
Why is this not giving me the warm-fuzzies? O_o
Clearly, and with the unintentional irony of all conservatives whose voting practices so often conflict with their stated goals and principles, Walton prefers what most Republicans prefer: An authoritarian leader, as opposed to a consensus-builder.
Let us now review the last eight years… *cough*
*gag*
*wretch*
You have to admit, though, Walton – the “Reagan out-spent the Soviets” point was pretty amusing. By that logic, Jessica Simpson could be President, and have any representative of any foreign country soiling his suit before even sitting down.
Me, I’d really like to know what Walton eats for breakfast. And what’s his favorite dentifrice? I just can’t learn enough about Walton!!!
Sven, then be sure not to miss the next issue of Parade magazine in your Sunday paper supplement section this weekend!
Kseniya @#257, Absolutely, but spite can be a powerful motivator! Bizarre as it might sound, both scenarios (“Real Walton” or “Cruel Joke”) seem pretty far-fetched to me.
amk @#258, #259,
Sure, but I didn’t get much sense of rabid godbottery from him. In any case, it’s the kind of thing that your average 19 y/o on this side of the pond doesn’t advertise, much less such a conservative type. The whole thing is very strange.
:o) No worries. The two-t version is a perfectly legitimate alternative spelling… transcription error is at worst a minor irritation when it appears on something official (passport, voting register) that I have to then have corrected.
Hey, Walton, if Obama was “an experienced administrator on Wikipedia and an experienced participant in many other websites”, would he have enough experience to be POTUSA?
Walton, you want to see what conservatism in the States is like, go to “free republic” and poke around. You think we’re full of scorn and derision, act like a moderate conservative there, and see what you get. THOSE are the people you hitch your wagon to when you label yourself a conservative.
To Emmet Caulfield at #255.
I can actually disprove part of your hypothesis. Go to the following URL (removing the spaces, which I’ve added so that the comment doesn’t go into moderation).
http:// en.wikipedia.org / w / index.php?title=User:Walton_One&diff=218268535&oldid=217408067
This diff provides confirmation that I am, indeed, Walton One on the English Wikipedia. Obviously, that doesn’t prove the truth of my RL identity; but since I have made no extraordinary claims (I haven’t claimed to hold a higher academic degree, be a war hero, or be an exceptionally qualified person in any other respect) I don’t see why you can’t assume good faith. (The last known person to invent an entirely fake Wikipedia persona for themselves was Essjay, and he pretended to be a professor of religion with several higher degrees. I have made no such claim.)
If I were claiming to be a professor of philosophy or a decorated senior Army officer, I wouldn’t blame you for demanding evidence. But I’m not. I’m a first-year undergraduate student, with no special qualifications beyond those of the ordinary man on the street.
To amk at #251: You’re wrong in almost all of your guesses. I didn’t grow up in a Tory family; my parents are well to the left of me politically (although practising Christians). Nor do I exclusively read Tory newspapers (though I will admit that I prefer the Telegraph). I get my information from a variety of sources.
I am sure Sven and others are now going to accuse me of being a narcissist. Believe me, I have no desire to bring up all this information about myself, since it’s not particularly interesting and isn’t at all relevant to the thread. But my identity has been questioned, and I feel I have to defend my integrity. You may think I’m an idiot or a lunatic – that’s your privilege – but I’m not a liar.
Hey, Walton, if Obama was “an experienced administrator on Wikipedia and an experienced participant in many other websites”, would he have enough experience to be POTUSA? – Of course not. Believe me, I would not trust myself to lead the government of any nation. Nor am I confident that I could necessarily do so in 28 years’ time, when I will be Obama’s age. Which is exactly my point.
@ #48
I’m sorry if I’m backtracking but I’m confused about something. “I was speaking about an individual, who has certainly earned my disdain through her insatiable lust for power.”
There were three people in the race for POTUS but only one of them has an ‘insatiable lust for power’ and that one just happens to be a woman?
Walton @#267,
I accept that you are who you say you are vis-a-vis your Wikipedia identity, that I was wrong about you being a troll or a malicious imposter, and I accept that you are operating in good faith.
I agree that your RL identity is irrelevant: I choose to use my RL identity online for my own reasons, but I understand why others choose not to.
Honestly, it casts a couple of threads in something of a different light. I’m sorry if anything I said was hurtful. I’m a cynical bastard, but not a callous one.
I’m nearly twice your age and I’d be proud of one tenth of your Wikipedia contribution.
None of this nonsense about Walton’s character or identity speaks to the fact that many people here have offered very good reasons why Obama is more qualified to be the Chief Executive of the United States than McCain is while Walton continues to rebut by saying he doesn’t think Obama is qualified enough. I’m not much interested in Walton’s thoughts or feelings about Obama’s qualifications particularly given the fact that he readily admits his opinion is informed (even in the slightest bit) by the likes of Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly.
Quoth Walton: “The fact is, Obama has no experience of making tough decisions under pressure. He just doesn’t.”
No, that’s not a fact. It is a virtually unevidenced assertion Walton continues to trumpet without acknowledging arguments to the contrary.
A) Why do these asshats insist on blaming their fairies for the fuckups of the last two centuries?
B) Don’t any of these folks have the least historical sense? It’s clear that the second US Constitution (the ’89 one) was intended to move the US government towards a Roman model, with the Prez as a 4-year early Roman Emperor (modernized appropriately). I’ve seen drawing of GW from the 1790’s dressed up in togas with laurals looking like a Neo-Julius!
The US of the 1798 wasn’t just non-Christian — it was implicitly anti-Christian, a rejection of Christianity and a return to the “ancient virtues”.
He sounds like he wants to be George Bush III
Oh, any nerd ( = with enough Asperger symptoms) can do that. Look, I’m almost 26, and I hereby admit to virginity, too. :-| You won’t exactly be surprised to learn that girlfriends for nerds who don’t have a social life in the first place (other than the blogosphere) don’t exactly grow on trees.
For a nerd, however, Walton is surprisingly uninformed.
And Stalin knew this beforehand, so he changed his treatment of the Orthodox church and declared the Great War For The Fatherland. That’s how WWII is still called in Russia.
It’s clear you have thought about them.
But politology is a science, not a branch of philosophy. Thinking is not enough. You must observe the facts in the world outside your head, and modify your ideas according to them.
As a digression (hey, it’s half past one at night, I should be in bed anyway), remember the paradox of Achilles and the turtle? Philosophers wracked their heads about it for 2500 years. Then came the quantum physicists and made it disappear. Just merely thinking about issues that are within the purview of science does usually not work, “for many times greater than the subtlety of argument is the subtlety of nature” (Francis Bacon).
Logic — ur doin it rong.
Being a veteran gives great value to brokenSoldier’s opinions about what a war is like from the inside. It does not make him a politologist. It just so happens that he knows what he’s talking about when he talks about politics, but it wasn’t the war that gave him that knowledge.
Will be interesting to see if anyone reads this a week after the next older comment.
You won’t exactly be surprised to learn that girlfriends for nerds who don’t have a social life in the first place (other than the blogosphere)
What about girlfriends among nerds who don’t have a social life? I’m sure there are a few hanging out here…….
I read it. Walton’s the guy who needs to, though.
By the way, I was wrong and you right about croc lungs. Still think you’re wrong about birds though–see the thread about E. coli.
It just so happens that he knows what he’s talking about when he talks about politics, but it wasn’t the war that gave him that knowledge.
I’d disagree, in part. The experience gave brokenSoldier an insight into the relationship between state and military, in addition to the inside of war, that many of us will not have. (Well, reflection on the experience gave insight…) A complete view? No. A necessary one? Definitely.
Yeah, here. Cyber-here. But in meatspace?
I’ll try to get to it.
It certainly helped, but what I forgot to mention is how many Vietnam veterans there seem to be who still believe that that war was winnable and still vote Reptilian at every opportunity. I’m told there are even Iraq veterans with this mindset. “You can lead people to evidence, but you can’t make them think.”