It’s Free Forum Friday. I started it a few hours early because I notice that most of you are morning people, which I am not. Whilst surfing my usual social media sites, I came across this video which shows changes in Presidential vote share 
over the last 100 years.
It’s Black Friday and Free Forum Friday, all at the same time. You know what to do.
538 Refugees 
Wow that was a really interesting video. It mirrors the Presidential and Congress shifts I outlined. All Blue in FDR and JFK. All red post war. Wonder what causes the shift in the mindset? It doesn’t appear to be a generational shift. Or is it?
cool clip
1960’s razor thin Kennedy win has a blue nation but the 1984 Reagan 49 state landslide shows a 50/50 nation? Artistic license?
Hey Bart… did you notice the “Quote of the Week?”
For some reason it made me think of you 🙂
Fili:
Only the left believes that freedom = selfishness. Rather than a bitter progressive quote of the week, allow me to offer instead hopeful and funny quotes for the ages from the greatest president of our lifetimes. When you read them, think of me.
Putting people first has always been America’s secret weapon. It’s the way we’ve kept the spirit of our revolutions alive—a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good.
Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.
There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
Man is not free unless government is limited.
The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.
Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
Bart,
Only a truly delusional person could truly believe “There are no constraints on the human mind” — but when I read your fact-free and logic-deprived comments, I see how you could believe that.
Putting people first has always been America’s secret weapon. It’s the way we’ve kept the spirit of our revolutions alive—a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good.
Bart, that’s so true. It’s quite wonderful. And how do we “put people first?”
*We make sure they have decent healthcare.
*We let them marry those they love and form loving families.
*We pay them a fair and decent wage for the work they do.
*We don’t exploit them to benefit the rich.
*We don’t send them off to fight and die in meaningless wars that enrich the military industrial complex.
*We level the playing field so they have as much chance to succeed as their neighbors do.
*We allow women control over their own bodies and medical decisions.
THAT’S how we “put people first,” Bart.
filistro:
You put people first by protecting their liberty to make their own decisions and live their own lives. Allow me to rewrite your list so that it is factually correct. You do not put people first by:
*Forcing them to buy health insurance he government chooses for them.
*Rewriting the definition of marriage the people enacted.
*Condemning low skill folks to unemployment by prohibiting them from working for wages that the government does not approve. (see the 50% unemployment of young people today).
*Robbing Peter to pay the Pauls preferred by the government.
*Betraying the troops in the field by surrendering a war they are winning. Troops are people too.
*Holding the ants back so the grasshoppers may feel good about themselves.
*Killing off generations of unborn children at a rate of over 1 million per year.
When you get past the spin, progressivism and socialism are about putting people second below the government.
If Sarah Palin were to become president, would the exodus of intellectuals begin in earnest?
Bart, the government IS “the people.”
What do you think “government” is? Some alien cabal imported from Alpha Centauri to wield evil dominion over human beings? It is THE PEOPLE… just as your Founding Fathers intended it to be.
A statement like this *”Holding the ants back so the grasshoppers may feel good about themselves..” shows such contempt for your fellow man that I can only shake my head. They aren’t even PEOPLE to you, are they Bart? They are inconsequential creatures to be used and punished at the whim of the powerful. What an odious world view.
Galbraith was so right in the “quote of the week.” Because the worst thing of all is that you can’t even be upfront and honest about your selfishness… you must also search out and proclaim moral justification for it.
Does this relentless selfishness perhaps… trouble your conscience a wee bit, Bart?
@fopsie… If Sarah Palin were to become president, would the exodus of intellectuals begin in earnest?
It looks like it would. Nate Silver finds that fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans with college degrees would support Sarah Palin.
Which raises the obvious question: Did Bart get his law degree out of a Froot Loops box? 🙂
Seriously, if Palin is the nominee, defecting horrified Republicans will greatly swell the ranks of Dem voters in 2012.
Nice, Fili (8:15am)!
Fili:
The only condition in which the people are the government is anarchy. There is no government where the people direct all state actions. All governments have leaders who are empowered to direct government power over the people and thus all governments stand apart and distinct from the people.
To a man, the Founders all knew this. Our Republic was founded on the notion that the government is the servant of the people and, when it no longer served the people, the government could be removed by the people.
The Founders and I agreed that the government was a necessary evil which would perpetrate evil on the people if its powers were not limited. Thus, the Constitution.
BTW, as you well know, the grasshopper and ant parable is meant as a metaphor.
@Bart,
I don’t think Filistro lacks in her perception of, or appreciation for, metaphor.
What troubles me about your comment is that you reduce people to easily-described stereotypes (“ants” vs “grasshoppers”; “Peters” vs “Pauls”) as if there are only two kinds of people in the country.
People’s motivations are much more complex than that, as you well know — or should know. You can’t fit people into little boxes.
So Bart wants to “protecting their liberty to make their own decisions and live their own lives. ” by prohibiting them from marrying.
Contradict yourself much?
@Treme.. What troubles me about your comment is that you reduce people to easily-described stereotypes (“ants” vs “grasshoppers”; “Peters” vs “Pauls”) as if there are only two kinds of people in the country.
Once again Monotreme places his prickly paw on the very essence of the issue. “Conservatism” (as espoused by Bart and decried by John Philip Galbraith) is an exceedingly simplistic and shallow “either-or” ethos. It is always “US v. THEM”… “white hats and black hats,” “workers and leeches,” “ants and grasshoppers.”
There is no room in their world view for nuance, complexity or depth of thought. Responses are not tailored to the situation.. the situation is instead wrestled into a format that can somehow elicit the only acceptable response. I don’t think I’ve ever, in all these months and years, seen Bart actually THINK about a problem. No matter what the issue he just slaps on the appropriate right-wing bromide, which is always some variation of “more cowbell.”
Bart has never apparently never encountered a problem that can’t be solved with less government, lower taxes, stricter marriage and abortion laws, laxer regulation or a harsher military response.
This is why Republicans are so dangerous to the national good whenever they get into power… (and why they could even for a second consider Sarah Palin as president.) They are not serious thinkers. They believe in government by aphorism and cliche, which is genuinely terrifying.
Au contraire, filistro, Bart was, just yesterday, suggesting that the solution to the Korean issue is to bring the weight of the federal government down on the companies that import Chinese goods (which is pretty much all companies these days), so as to force the Chinese to take the USA’s side. Apparently that’s a problem that can only be solved by more government.
It’s interesting how you scratch some libertarians and uncover raving authoritarians, isn’t it?
Barted:
1960′s razor thin Kennedy win has a blue nation but the 1984 Reagan 49 state landslide shows a 50/50 nation? Artistic license?
I noticed that too, although I wouldn’t call 1984 “50:50”. It’s county-level data, so it really doesn’t show the votes well in population centers that often dominate electoral college totals.
I think some of this (such as 1960) is an artifact of the method, where he’s interpolating from an even national split (ergo mostly white in 1960) to a Johnson landslide in 1964, so to get from white to blue between those two dates, things look blue-ish. I noticed the dates seem a little off, jumping from 1956.95 to 1960.55 to 1964.15 in three successive frames. He’s made some esthetic decisions (like obviously blurring county lines) that I think detract from the overall presentation, but it’s an interesting first pass at the data. Gallup Presidential Approval would be a cool thing to map as well.
Simplistic politics is bad, its like calling people who are skeptical of the Warming movement deniers or railing against “fat cats” or “neo-cons” or whatever the enemy of the day happens to be. Of course when in doubt just accuse whole swaths of the population racist or “bitter clingers”, that the sign of a nuanced and subtle grasp of society.
GROG was asking the other day for evidence that conservatives don’t want the government to do stuff. Suggested quotes from Bart:
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
With an attitude like this, is it any wonder that a government run by conservatives doesn’t work? They don’t want to to work, so they intentionally break it, then point to the broken government they create as proof that government doesn’t work.
Meanwhile, as we’ve seen, millions of people are forced to go without health care, the rights of minorities and women are mindlessly trampled, the gap between the ever-more-impoverished middle class and the obscenely rich continues to grow, and the nation is driven into hock to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy.
That’s “putting people first” in the same way that the “Patriot Act” was patriotic. The same way slavery is freedom and war is peace. Wingers have a knack for using a word or phrase to mean its opposite.
@shortchain… It’s interesting how you scratch some libertarians and uncover raving authoritarians, isn’t it?
Bart is not in any way a libertarian. He’s the quintessential, archetypical “shy Tory” 😉
But yes, he is certainly authoritarian. After all, if you look on the populace as “ants and grasshoppers” it’s not much of a leap to force things on them rather than asking for their input since YOU in all your wonderfulness know… so much better than these little critters do.. what’s best for them.
Wait a sec… there’s a word for that kind of government…
ARRGGGH.. it’s right on the tip of my tongue….
@Robert:
I’m going to ignore the tu quoque nature of your argument for now. It didn’t work for Palin, and I think you’re better than that.
When you look at the entire context of Candidate (now President) Obama’s remarks, it seems a lot more nuanced to me. It’s not “us vs them” at all.
But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing. [Emphasis mine.]
@filistro,
Well, Bart did write, just the other day, “I know what’s best for you rabble.”
@Dc… Well, Bart did write, just the other day, “I know what’s best for you rabble.”
Yes, that was really telling, wasn’t it? Especially when he had a “condescending sneer” on his face as he said it 😉
I think Bart and Fidel are brothers under the military fatigues…
Bart,
Have you decided you no longer want health care for everyone? You noted a couple of weeks ago that the only ways this could reasonably be achieved is either through government-owned insurance or through the compromise in PPACA, to require everyone to be insured in order to prevent the free riders. What changed since then?
So you are now in favor of people enacting restrictions on other people’s freedom? After all, you put this item in your counterlist of “freedoms.”
As opposed to condemning low-skill folks to employment that still leaves them unable to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves? I guess they’re free to live on the streets and starve, right?
There’s a big difference between offering equal opportunity based on one’s abilities and effort, and taking away opportunity from same. Should a marginally qualified person get a job because of who that person’s parents know, when the highly-qualified person cannot get that same job? Does it not trouble you at all that we are squandering vast amounts of human talent in this way?
*Rewriting the definition of marriage the people enacted.
This is one of my favorites.
Bart insists that “the government” is something other than “the people” — except when government enacts a restriction that Bart likes. Then it is “the people” who enact it.
Bart thinks we should have the freedom to act as we choose — except when he wants to restrict someone else’s freedom. Then it is proper to enact authoritarian laws.
Bart says “the people” should rule, and since a majority (he claims) opposes same-sex marriage, we should not allow it. Except when the majority wants something Bart doesn’t want (like a public option for healthcare). Then it becomes socialism.
Bart claims the only true role of government is to prevent people from harming each other. Yet he approves of a law that has nothing to do with preventing harm.
All of these are self-negating arguments, reducing his positions to random nonsense, There is no coherent philosophy behind these positions — at least, any philosophy that may underlie them is not the philosophy Bart pretends to put forth.
Fili:
Without government choosing winners and losers or turning folks into revenue sources and government dependents, there is no “us versus them” in politics. Class warfare is the mother’s milk of progressivism/socialism, not of limited government and individual liberty.
You progressives equate government with “problem solving.” My championing of individual liberty is not to “solve problems” for other people, but rather to allow folks to work out their own problems.
For the other folks addressing posts to me, I will be back posting later. I am taking a break from insulating my attic. Gotta love holidays!
Without government choosing winners and losers or turning folks into revenue sources and government dependents, there is no “us versus them” in politics.
He’s right. If we simply allowed authoritarian elitists like Bart tell us what to do, there would be no conflict. In slavery, there is freedom.
If we want to get rid of all “us versus them” in politics, we merely have to let Bart tell us rabble what’s best for us.
Bart,
If this were to come to bear, we wouldn’t need civil lawyers. Yet I know you are quite the champion of civil lawyers, too.
The intent of most law is to keep things fair, which solves a lot of problems for a lot of people. The hard part is agreeing on what constitutes “fair,” for fairness often differs based on perspective.
At their core, most arguments over abortion, taxes, and other facets of government policy have to do with fairness.
A new heartwarming holiday tradition?
At 1:49: “This is from someone named Ann Coulter…”
@Monotreme,
It’s remarkable how people can simultaneously hold the belief of a “loving God” and a hating Jesus. Makes no sense to me at all. Yet I personally know people who would have been the sort to write those emails.
@Bart… You progressives equate government with “problem solving.” My championing of individual liberty is not to “solve problems” for other people, but rather to allow folks to work out their own problems.
When I muse over the relative effectiveness of various styles of government, I often think of the “plane crash” scenario where a group of people survive a disaster and find themselves on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean where they must develop a way to survive. Because on a tiny tropical island or in a vast modern nation, the entire goal of mankind is the same… to survive, prosper, and ensure continuation of the species.
So… back to the island and our intellectual exercise. Let’s say 100 people have survived, all different ages, skill levels and abilities. I don’t believe their choice would be “every man for himself…” because nobody would survive. One of their first actions would be to establish a rudimentary government, and it would involve collective effort.. a pooling of individual talent and ideas for the benefit of the whole group. Lots of things would be strongly resisted… would-be authoritarian dictators, agitators, exploiters, those who would try to benefit without pulling their weight, those who tried to sow division… all would be sanctioned and shunned because they would interfere with efficiency and survival. Everyone would be allowed a voice, and nobody’s voice would drown out another’s without the permission of the group.
Writ large, this (admittedly VERY simplistic) scenario is really how all governing should be structured. And I think my collective progressivism comes much closer to the Platonic working model than your (oddly inconsistent) authoritarian individualism.
Why Boehner will never be invited to participate in the White House basketball game again:
President Obama gets 12 stitches after being elbowed in lip during basketball game, White House says. (via CNN)
LOL… once again, FOX is punk’d by The Onion.
Last time it was a jet packs for the LAPD spoof that they fell for hook, line and sinker.
These people are just pathetic. In their eagerness to make the President and his administration look bad, this “serious media outlet” will run with anything. And apparently their newsroom is a “research-free” zone.
What FOX really needs is somebody like Michael Weiss handling quality control and editing 😛
A pitty about those jet packs, I would have paid good money to see any number of folks test drive one…….Now the mega E-mail is funny in a different sort of way or disturbing in a different sort of way. At least there were some jet packs or hover type craft around to take pictures of but we now know for Fake not so news complete fabrication is ok too. I read down through the article and wonder if the lady that commented on how she had seen the not in existance E-tome might be the same one that John McCain tried to sort out during the campaign. You know folks we could do the same thing here with a little effort. You know get cited on FOX for some totaly made up BS………….hmmmmmmm wonder how Bart would look on TV? Hey it would hype his book to the only people that would be interested.
I think the presidents basketball injury could explain the need for better and clearer directions in the WH scheduling office if it involved Boehner. “But I thought you said to get a slammed drunk for the pickup game with the boss, not the boss wanted to do a slam dunk.”
Mono/Realist, we have more and more people in this country that wear their Christianness like a badge and yet spend their lives in direct contradiction to all they espouse to believe.
Hey Bart is insulating his attic. That little bit of green in him is coming out……nah more likely he wants to collect on some government tax credit program…..you know that tyranical government he is so worried about. Hmmmmm now isn’t most of the money for these home energy efficency programs to be found in “P O R K A L U S!!!”?
I forgot to mention that Mainer is one of the things I’m really thankful for 🙂
My post at 14:07 doesn’t show up. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really not wanted here. ):
GROG… of course we want you here. The place wouldn’t be the same without you. And if anybody ever tried to ban or censor you they would have to deal with me, since you are a favorite of mine 🙂
I went and checked and your 14:07 post isn’t in the spam filter or the trash, so it must have just failed to post for some reason… which is really odd.
Grog I have had a couple do that as well. Just a techno glitch. It seems if I get side tracked and have the reply screen in process for loooooooonger than usual that it takes longer and I run a greater risk of having stuff disapear. I thought it was most likely just my old clunker of a computer.
drfunguy says: “So Bart wants to “protecting their liberty to make their own decisions and live their own lives. ” by prohibiting them from marrying.
Contradict yourself much?”
The only crime involving marriage is bigamy. No one is going to arrest you for undergoing a marriage ceremony with another funguy, exchanging rings, kissing and proclaiming you and the other funguy are “married.” The fact that the government does not recognize your pretend “marriage” does not mean that it is prohibiting the same.
dcpetterson says: “Bart insists that “the government” is something other than “the people” — except when government enacts a restriction that Bart likes. Then it is “the people” who enact it.”
I never said anything of the kind. If the people support a piece of legislation, then the government is enacting the will of the people if the legislation is enacted as law. Marriage falls under that category.
filistro says: “@Dc… Well, Bart did write, just the other day, “I know what’s best for you rabble.””
It is a pity someone of your grace and charm has to resort to misrepresenting my posts. Typical progressive.
So, Mr. U, what do you think the Ducks’ chances are in tonight’s game?
🙂
Bart,
Except that, because so many laws of the United States are dependent upon marital status, the recognition is relevant. To not recognize it would seem to be in violation of the following:
(emphasis mine)
It’s worth noting that your justification didn’t work with Loving v. Virginia, despite the majority of voters supporting miscegenation laws.
BD: *Forcing them to buy health insurance he government chooses for them.
Michael Weiss says: “Have you decided you no longer want health care for everyone? You noted a couple of weeks ago that the only ways this could reasonably be achieved is either through government-owned insurance or through the compromise in PPACA, to require everyone to be insured in order to prevent the free riders.”
No, I posted that the government can constitutionally make health insurance a public good by collecting a tax from everyone and then providing everyone with a voucher to purchase their own insurance on the free market. Government have shown themselves utterly unable to run an insurance service. The results have been massive fraud (Medicare and Medicaid) and runaway costs unless the government rations the care.
BD: *Condemning low skill folks to unemployment by prohibiting them from working for wages that the government does not approve. (see the 50% unemployment of young people today).
As opposed to condemning low-skill folks to employment that still leaves them unable to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves?
Earning something is better than earning nothing or being forced into the black market. Young folks do not need much money and advance rapidly once they gain skills.
BD: *Holding the ants back so the grasshoppers may feel good about themselves.
Michael Weiss says: “Should a marginally qualified person get a job because of who that person’s parents know, when the highly-qualified person cannot get that same job? Does it not trouble you at all that we are squandering vast amounts of human talent in this way?”
Not at all. On average, the talented will find work before the marginally talented because no business in the free market will last long hiring the marginally qualified.
BD: My championing of individual liberty is not to “solve problems” for other people, but rather to allow folks to work out their own problems.
Michael Weiss: “If this were to come to bear, we wouldn’t need civil lawyers.”
People engaging attorneys to assist them in solving their problems is not the government imposing a solution on them.
Michael Weiss: “The intent of most law is to keep things fair, which solves a lot of problems for a lot of people.”
Only to the extent that laws prohibit one person from harming another person. Otherwise, we are on our own.
Michael Weiss: “The hard part is agreeing on what constitutes “fair,” for fairness often differs based on perspective.”
Not if you limit laws to prohibiting harm. Then the task becomes much easier.
@Bart… It is a pity someone of your grace and charm has to resort to misrepresenting my posts. Typical progressive.
For a smart guy who expresses himself with such stunning clarity, you can be really DENSE at times, Bart. I think it comes from having no discernible sense of humor, so you can’t recognize when you are being teased… or why… or how.
Thank Nancy Pelosi and the HCR bill, Bart. Think of how you took Pelosi out of context in your accusation that she said people would “have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it,” when what she really meant was……
Oh never mind. You’re right, I DID quote you as saying, “I know what’s best for you rabble.”
Bart… in what way does two gay people getting married harm anybody else?
BD: You progressives equate government with “problem solving.” My championing of individual liberty is not to “solve problems” for other people, but rather to allow folks to work out their own problems.
filistro says: When I muse over the relative effectiveness of various styles of government, I often think of the “plane crash” scenario where a group of people survive a disaster and find themselves on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean where they must develop a way to survive…. Let’s say 100 people have survived, all different ages, skill levels and abilities. I don’t believe their choice would be “every man for himself…” because nobody would survive. One of their first actions would be to establish a rudimentary government, and it would involve collective effort.. a pooling of individual talent and ideas for the benefit of the whole group.
In an emergency situation, you may be compelled to collect and then ration resources to survive until things stabilize so you can return to a free market. The Pilgrims may have been desperate in their first few years clinging to life, but that did not require the continuation of emergency controls when the population and economy grew into a colony.
@Bart.. but that did not require the continuation of emergency controls when the population and economy grew into a colony.
So were the Founding Fathers wrong, in your opinion, to create and delineate the duties of a “government”?
BD: “The fact that the government does not recognize your pretend “marriage” does not mean that it is prohibiting the same.”
Michael Weiss says: “Except that, because so many laws of the United States are dependent upon marital status, the recognition is relevant.”
You can make a very good libertarian market that government has no business recognizing and subsidizing marriage above other human relationships like homosexual unions. I have no problem with abolishing civil marriage.
Michael Weiss says: To not recognize it would seem to be in violation of the following: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Same sex marriage is not a privilege or immunity of a citizen, the state is not denying homosexuals life, liberty or property by declining to recognize homosexual unions as marriages and equal protection only applies to similarly situated persons. The combinations of MW, MM and WW are not similarly situated.
Michael Weiss says: It’s worth noting that your justification didn’t work with Loving v. Virginia, despite the majority of voters supporting miscegenation laws.
Miscegenation law applied to similarly situated couples: MW. Miscegenation law did not attempt to redefine marriage, it attempted to criminalize marriage between similarly situated couples of different skin melanin content.
Bart,
Ahh, so we’d have attorneys but no judges. Got it.
Not really. In zero-sum multivariable scenarios involving many parties, “harm” is exceptionally difficult to quantify for all relevant parties. The only time where it’s easy is with few variables.
That’s mighty close to what PPACA has. The minimum requirements for insurance are intended to prevent having to fall back on taxpayer-covered medical care. And Medicare’s “massive” fraud has been repeatedly shown to you to be a tiny fraction of all of Medicare’s medical expenses.
Earning something is not always better than earning nothing. In many cases, earning something creates the opportunity cost of not being able to earn more, due to insufficient time resources. Sure, teenagers are one thing, but that’s a small fraction of the people who are currently earning minimum wage.
It’s statements like these that make clear that you’ve never worked in a larger company.
filistro says: “So were the Founding Fathers wrong, in your opinion, to create and delineate the duties of a “government”?”
If you mean limiting the scope and kinds of government power, I applaud their efforts. If the Founders could have foreseen progressivism and socialism, they might have done a more thorough job binding the leviathan.
I’m trying to avoid the marriage argument here in FFF.
( I hear there might be a new post tomorrow that allows us to explore the issue in depth. 😉
So help me out here, Bart… I don’t always fully understand you rugged Americans. When I read this..
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…
I just don’t get the “every man for himself” part. I do see “more prefect union” and “justice” and “domestic tranquility” and “promote the general welfare”… (phrases that would be completely at home up here in pinko commie Canada…)
But I don’t see your rather brutal vision of America anywhere in this document. I just don’t.
Bart has obviously never worked for a company large enough to employ a HR department, because half their job is making sure any new hire is no more qualified (and therefore expensive) than the job requires.
The other half of their job, of course, is laying the marginally qualified off when the job finishes…
Seriously, his understanding of the relationship between company and employee is straight out of the 1950’s (if even that modern).
So Bart has clearly stated his inclination to discriminate based on sexual orientation, at least for the purpose of marriage. I notice he never addresses the discrimination in the workplace (except for the military where he supports it) or in housing.
Conservatives always want to weasel around this by trying to say what they are doing is not discrimination by various contorted logics. E.g. “The fact that the government does not recognize your pretend “marriage” does not mean that it is prohibiting the same.” If it is prohibiting your realization of the legal benefits of marriage, it is clearly discriminating.
Bart has repeatedly said that progressives are trying to redefine marriage. I will for once agree with him. Just as we redefined property to exclude human beings when we banned slavery, we are now expanding the definition of marriage in order to end discrimination.
The fact that the government does not recognize your pretend “health care savings account” does not mean that it is prohibiting the same.
drfunguy said:
So Bart has clearly stated his inclination to discriminate based on sexual orientation, at least for the purpose of marriage.
Conservatives always want to weasel around this by trying to say what they are doing is not discrimination by various contorted logics.
Why is it that the left always conveniently leaves out President Obama’s “inclination to discriminate based on sexual orientation”?
You rail against Bart for it but not the President? And if you have railed against the President for it, you’re free to point that out for me.
GROG:
For the record, I disagree with the President’s stated position on same-sex marriage.
GROG,
I, too, disagree with Obama on that one.
GROG… on that specific issue the president is very disappointing. He’s as wrong as Bart is… and that’s saying a lot!
Grog,
As I said the last time you brought this up, was it yesterday? or the day before?
Thank you for pointing out that Obama is not a liberal.
Not on gay rights, not on health care reform (he should have advocated single payer), not on marijuana legalization, abortion rights, nor any number of other issues.
For many progressives, like me, he was the lesser evil.
For many others he was the only alternative to the unthinkable Vice-President Palin.
BD: People engaging attorneys to assist them in solving their problems is not the government imposing a solution on them.
Michael Weiss says: Ahh, so we’d have attorneys but no judges. Got it.
Judges are supposed to be neutral arbiters applying the facts to the law. They are not supposed to impose their solution to your problem.
***
Michael Weiss: “The hard part is agreeing on what constitutes “fair,” for fairness often differs based on perspective.”
BD: Not if you limit laws to prohibiting harm. Then the task becomes much easier.
Michael Weiss says: Not really. In zero-sum multivariable scenarios involving many parties, “harm” is exceptionally difficult to quantify for all relevant parties.
If you cannot identify a harm, it does not exist. The civil law has had no problem identifying harm.
***
BD: I posted that the government can constitutionally make health insurance a public good by collecting a tax from everyone and then providing everyone with a voucher to purchase their own insurance on the free market.
Michael Weiss says: That’s mighty close to what PPACA has.
Forcing someone to buy government approved health insurance is fundamentally different from providing a voucher to buy the insurance of my choice. The first is an abridgment of liberty, the second is a funding mechanism.
Michael Weiss says: And Medicare’s “massive” fraud has been repeatedly shown to you to be a tiny fraction of all of Medicare’s medical expenses.
Fourteen percent is massive. Most private health limits fraud to a fee percent.
***
BD: Earning something is better than earning nothing or being forced into the black market. Young folks do not need much money and advance rapidly once they gain skills.
Michael Weiss says: Earning something is not always better than earning nothing. In many cases, earning something creates the opportunity cost of not being able to earn more, due to insufficient time resources.
An alternative job with higher wages is not earning nothing because you cannot find anyone willing to pay you a government mandated wage for which you do not possess the skills to earn.
***
BD: On average, the talented will find work before the marginally talented because no business in the free market will last long hiring the marginally qualified.
Michael Weiss says: It’s statements like these that make clear that you’ve never worked in a larger company.
It is responses like this which make clear you have never seen a company go under because it hires incompetents.
@Monotreme
The only game that really matters is the Civil War next week with Oregon State. They will play their guts out to win. It’s a foregone conclusion that we have a berth in the BCS championship. My guess is, we are the champions. This will be an interesting match-up, particularly if we end up facing Auburn. Half my family are Auburn fans/graduates (I’m glad it won’t be Bama; I’m a long time Tide Fan).
GO DUCKS!
Bart,
Do tell us which large company you’ve seen go under because it hires only marginally qualified people. (Your rather pathetic attempt to move the goalposts is noted with amusement.)
For everyone: the paper that all the global warming deniers reference, by Wegman, et al, has been exposed as a scientific fraud.
@Mr. U.
As an Oregon State alumni, I gotta say Go Beavers!
p.s. I no longer seem able to stay logged on and have to add my name and email on every post…
Bart,
They don’t impose their solution, but the absolutely impose the government’s solution, as defined by the law. That’s the whole point of those laws.
It’s not that it can’t be identified. It’s that it can’t be adequately quantified. Civil law has tremendous difficulty quantifying harm when large numbers of parties have competing claims.
So you’d be happy if your taxes went up by a certain amount, but then you got it back in the form of a voucher? Seems like a waste of time to me.
And 14% was the number that HHS showed for 1996. That number has been cut by more than half since then. It’s not massive anymore. Not to say that there isn’t always room for improvement, but at some point it costs more to root out the fraud than to let it happen.
I wasn’t talking about you getting the higher-paying job. I was talking about you being unable to get the higher-paying job because of the opportunity cost caused by taking the lower-paying job.
I most certainly have. I’ve watched it from the inside, and the outside. I’ve watched it happen quickly in small companies, and slowly in large ones. When it comes to hiring incompetents, large companies get away with it for years because the damage doesn’t happen quickly enough for defense mechanisms to catch them. This is why I say you haven’t worked for a large company. You can’t understand it until you’ve been there.
drfunguy,
That’s a cookie issue. You might have gotten a corrupted WordPress cookie in your cache.
A little gift for my buddy Monotreme 😉
DUCKS WERE ROBBED!!!