The Children's Table Of American Politics

Bless the children. But for God's sake, don't over-trust them with real responsibility. Kristol makes the case that House Democrats didn't make the transition from opposition to governing party very well. For all of Bill Clinton's faults, during his tenure, he and the DNC actually did represent the adult wing of today's Democrat Party. And that was bad enough.

Browsing through a used-book store Friday — in the Milwaukee airport, of all places — I came across a 1981 paperback collection of George Orwell’s essays. That’s how I happened to reread his 1942 essay on Rudyard Kipling. Given Orwell’s perpetual ability to elucidate, one shouldn’t be surprised that its argument would shed light— or so it seems to me — on contemporary American politics.

I'm not sure what's more frightening: the potential for naivete inside an Obama, or the fact that skilled political operators like the Clintons haven't been able to expose his inexperience because of the childlike nature of Democrat politics. Let's hope that doesn't hold up across the electorate should Obama gain the Democrat nomination.

Carter seemed to be an innocent enough daydream of a President when he happened along and just look how much damage he managed to do in four short years.

Comments

[JEC]

Back in '76, I voted for Jimmy Carter because of his phony "Change" campaign (also, I was getting back at Ford for pardoning Nixon). My vote for Carter was the worst political decision of my life. Carter's Presidency resulted in double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and the Soviet Union running wild around the world. We were glad to be rid of him after one term.
Obama is another Jimmy Carter, The idea of Obama meetng with dictators and terrorists would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.
Our contry's problems won't be solved by pretty speeches.
I don't intend to be fooled again!

[Fred Beloit]

"Ladies and gentlemen, this country can no longer get by without change. A great man once said, "I love change". Well I do too, and when I'm President of this nation, which since my campaign began, has hope, I will change everything except hope.

But, Obama, you may say, what is hope? Well I'll tell you one thing, hope ain't ambition. See ambition implies action and hope, well hope is sitting on the front porch in a rocker and wishing or day dreaming you might say. I hope somebody will come by the house today and offer me a high-paying job with good benefits, like...well like Senator. You hope you could be a Senator.

But now change is different. Hope implies inaction and pretty thoughts. But change, though I do love it so, scares the living crap out of some people. For example, my many friends in the Senate are mighty scared you might change them from Senators to citizens. What a bad change that is. That is why McCain and Feingold wrote a law to stifle criticism of office holders, to help those in office stay in office. See Feingold likes Senate gold fine. But me, I want to change from Senator to President, a good change.

But since these concepts of change and hope are too complicated for you folks out there to deal with, what with your hopes and dreams and all, I have switched my campaign theme from hope and change to u and i. Please understand me clearly. You and I are not u and i; let's get that straight right now."

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

I HOPE to CHANGE from paying $300.00 a month for health insurance to $300.00 year to help give out FREE medical care. I HOPE in the new Utopia, I will have enough spare CHANGE to buy a new boat which I will name HOPE. Further, I HOPE that the new FREE health care will be a CHANGE from what I've seen the government PROVIDE at military and VA hospitals.

[Fred Beloit]

"Now wait a minute, Barack, you may interject. What do u and i stand for if not you and I, you may query. There's an answer for that. Take a good look at u. Notice it is like a little graph. The horizontal axis is time and the vertical axis hope. Now see when George bush was elected on the left side hope started going right down the drain until that magical moment at the bottom of the u when I published my magical book "The Audacity of Hope". Then hope skyrocketed to the high point we have today. Are you still with me now?

The other letter of my platform, i, is like a little stick figure with a tiny halo over it. This signifies that my campaign is a saintly struggle to keep hope alive by implementing that change for which we all "lust in our hearts", as another great man once said.

But as I said before, this material is far too difficult for the average middle class person to comprehend. So just keep in mind these two little symbols of my greatness when you go to the polls come November.

Thank you."

[syn]

I HOPE America doesn't CHANGE from Freedom to Serfdom.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

"CHANGE from Freedom to Serfdom."

syn I was wondering about that very thing. When the utopia comes, will the government divy up land and people's homes as well as their wealth? See, serf's (and Soviets) were given a patch of land to farm and a big percentage went to the king/government. So since there is absolutely no way JR Edwards deserves or could use 28000 square feet of living space....will it be turned into government housing?

[templar knight]

"CHANGE from Freedom to Serfdom."

You can bet the Democratics(to borrow a phrase) see themselves as royalty and the rest of us as serfs. However, the "Right to keep and bear Arms" is standing in their way. It's a surety that gun registration and confiscation is in the future if the Democratics stay in power long enough.

[syn]

In Utopia there won't be land to divy up since the Greenie people will have it all plowed under to grow fuel for Greenie people's Priuses.

[joeb]

Wow! What a co-incidence. I have been re reading Orwell essays all last week and even now. I even have that used paperback you mention. I found on line a place where you can read more Orwell. Here is his really good essay on SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT.
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/english/e_eleph
And at the top of that page is a link to many more of his essays. More than are in the paperback. Enjoy.
I listened on tv to Obama do his stump speech. My impression is he is a very good speaker. Witty and easy to listen to. But what comes out of his mouth are nice sounding cliches. No thanks. I dont want to drink the Kool Aide. He is certainly easier to listen to than Hillary. She is like an elementary school teacher or even worse an elementary school principal or nagging librarian. No offence to all the good teachers and librarians out there. But she reminds me so much of my kindergarten teachers.And all those other elementary school women who used to smack the unruly boys on their hands with a ruler. No thanks. ABH. Anybody but Hillary!!!!

[IslamoLlama]

"--When the utopia comes, will the government divy up land and people's homes as well as their wealth?--"

It all makes perfect sense. Allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to expire is exactly the same as nationalization of all American business.

"--In Utopia there won't be land to divy up since the Greenie people will have it all plowed under to grow fuel for Greenie people's Priuses.--"

And if you're not allowed to dump a bucket of mercury in someone's drinking water, what is freedom, really? I always get a kick out of people who throw hissy fits over environmental policies. I can only imagine what sort of slovenly living conditions you occupy. God only knows what's on your lawn, what with every Tom, Dick, and Harry having the right to dump his rubbish bin there.

[Fred Beloit]

What is this ape, excuse me, alpaca, blabbering about?

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

Aha Lama is back from shearing goats and alpacas...a bit early I think. Well Llama, not all of us are new comers to this greenie/enviro/tree hugger movement. See I was there on the FIRST earth day and have seen it all come and go and come again. It was someone else, earlier than you newbies that have done a bunch of cleaning up before you even got to elementary school. You're too smart to have cut my statement about divvying land and somehow turning it into an enviromental rant because it had NOTHING to do with the environment. Someone else mentioned growing grass to make fuel, not me.......nor did I mention Bush's "tax cuts". Had you paid attention all along you would know that I'm not much in favor of cutting corporate taxes. I have, a zillion times, asked who the "evil rich" really are but none of you seems able to answer. Now if you want to do something besides "talk" about MY yard and what gets dumped there, how about doing something about the dumping in the north east that washes up on MY beaches.

[IslamoLlama]

I'm sorry, I was comparing actual policy positions as stated by Democratic Presidential Candidates to your attacks on "evil liberal utopia worldviews". I just assumed that you were drawing from policy platforms and not an invisible super-double secret George Soros world conquest plan only a handful of the true believers were aware of.

Ergo, I assumed that the horrors of wealth redistribution were merely complaints about tax policy.

Nothing says "wealth redistribution" like paying down the socialist national debt or funding free education communes or covering the ultra-liberal "costs" generated by the patriotic War on Terror. If we start taking your income in this brutal and unfair "income tax" system, what's to stop the government from seizing your property in order to pay off its largess so that prissy little bureaucratic accountants can balance their budget bills and piddly little army hospitals can receive more of their VA socialized medicine? Pretty soon, people will be talking about building roads that everyone can use. Or supporting special interest groups like hurricane survivors and flood refugees. My god, where will such "wealth redistribution" end?

And the bemoaning of eco-communist land-distribution policies must have been directed at enforcement of EPA waste-management policies.

After all, you can't grow greenie people's Prius gasoline in tainted soil. So by stopping DOW Chemical from dumping mercury into riverbeds or censoring BP from pumping tons of sulfur into the air, we were contributing to the scourge of environmentalism that would ravage corporate profits in the future as such extreme policies did under Nixon (the guy who created the EPA) and Clinton (the last President interested in using it). After all, if DOW wants to buy a parcel of land and dump a giant glob of mercury on it, who is anyone else to stop them? And if it leaks through the soil into adjacent properties, perhaps people should learn to build better fences rather than sweeping in and taking control of DOW's privately own property because they are creating an "environmental hazard" for "local citizens" who "are suffering horrible medical conditions". What ridiculousness.

[joeb]

Mr. Obama what kind of change do you have? Do you have any spare change? I don't want any chump change.

[templar knight]

After being alerted to the dangers of mercury by IslamoAlpaca, I googled recent mercury spills and I was shocked....shocked...to learn that almost all the recent spills were caused by EVIL STUDENTS in high schools. They either dropped a thermometer, broke one on purpose, or obtained mercury in science labs on high school campuses. I tells you, Llama, I don't know what we shall do. Woe is me! Woe is me! You obviously haven't done your homework, Llama; therefore, you receive an F.

[IslamoLlama]

Gee, thanks. All this time I thought it was Power Plants.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1030mercury1030.html

"Electric-power plants were responsible for about 90 percent of Arizona's mercury air emissions, an analysis of federal pollution data shows. Electric plants contributed about two-thirds of mercury air emissions nationwide."

But all this time it was dropped thermometers. I guess those nine states suing over lack EPA enforcement better find a new target of their lawsuits.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-31-03.asp

Your ignorance, TK, once again remains staggering.

[Philip McDaniel]

So tell us, Islam O, Where is the Dow Chemical Company in all this. References?

[templar knight]

"...and if you're not allowed to dump a bucket of mercury into someone's drinking water..."

Uh-huh, and we all know that air pollution is measured in buckets poured onto people's yards. And Dow Chemical is dumping giant globs of mercury onto land. No, your stupidity has no bounds, Lameness.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

"I just assumed."

Yes my darling LLama you did just that. You ASSumed that you had some sort of idea what I was writing about, just as you frequently ASSume you know anything about what I think. You presume to hold a monopoly on smart ass remarks but you're incorrect and need to learn to spot a crack. I reserve the right to make fun of people who think that one party or the other is a panacea for all of our ills and frankly the government tit lovers are the funniest. Sorry. I know you read all about mercury in the air, and this or that but you cannot imagine such things as a nuclear power plant "accidently" dumping 1 million gals of radioactive iodine into it's effluent canal. How about chemial plants loading their waste onto tanker trucks and pouring it along some lonely highway...or into a creek. I would be more than happy to research the "position" papers of the candidates but ask you to respect my time by not passing on the typical BS from typical BS websites. As I said before, while you were reading or being lectured about pollution I've been doing something about it. So please don't sit there with all of the lights on and that computer sucking energy and who knows what else and presume to lecture me with BDS......You'er smarter for one thing.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

This from the EPA but I guess it's a "lie"

http://www.epa.gov/air/clearskies/fact2003.html
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/control_emissions/index.htm

[Scrapiron]

Ilamolama must support IslamoObama. You know 50% white and 43.5% Arab Obama. Only 6.5% African Negro but he has a line of BS a mile long and we all know how liberals like to eat BS.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

Scrap: DaLLama went off on DOW chemical which just happens to be one of the biggest producers of Bio-Fuels around but I guess you can't be a hero if you're a villian. These new comers to "enviromentalism" are so cute. I watched one of those flip this dump shows where this young couple bought a 50 year old house and wanted to make it "green" friendly. Of course it had to be gutted, I did say it was over 50, right? I sat there rolling my eyes as lead paint, very likely asbestos and all sorts of other chemicals were loaded into a dumpster headed for the landfill. They ripped up heart pine floors so they could be replaced with sustainable bamboo. Yeah, let's cut the bamboo and replace the already used old growth lumber....without "recycling". They tore up the ugly concrete and used earth friendly river rock.....coulda used the concrete to replace the fish habitat they took out of the river but it went to the dump as well. At least they didn't cut down 4-5 acres of trees to build a new one I guess.

[IslamoLlama]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_Disaster

Union Carbide India, Limited (UCIL) now owned by DOW Chemical, did a bad, bad thing in India. We have laws to prevent this sort of travesty. Such laws are the "eco-friendly" laws that Bush Co. is constantly complaining hurts their business.

In this case it was methyl isocyanate, which is - admittedly - not mercury. So I guess that's a bully point for you guys. I do love how you all keep harping on Biofuels, though, as that is in any way germane to the conversation.

But, as usual, this has been fact heavy on my side and random linkless "I googled and couldn't find anything!" smears on your end. So I guess shear brute ignorance is another point in your favor.

I just can't seem to win this argument.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

LLama Bhopal was cyanide and it was decades ago in another country

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

LLama you've got dial up huh?

How about a LINK where the BUSH admin complained about ECO-laws....no not Rush or some other dope.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

OK LameLLama I feel guilty for messing with you and come to apologize... a little, but only because I was about to let it get personal. It does aggrivate the hell outta me, these little environmental lover newbies who are usually only into the headline making crap. I actually despise the ones who send checks and blog but think nature is better kept outside but especialy those who have no idea what they're talking about. We have some near here now protesting "clear cutting".....on a tree farm. At the other end of the same road, thousands of acres were clear cut and drained to make room for 12500 homes. See what I want is someone to help protest that crap, stuff that has a more immediate effect than too many PPM of mercury in the air. Shall I list teh effects? Let's start with loss of habitat and endangered species. Draining low lands has mutiple effects: Together with the others is ruining recharge areas. Wetlands are where they are to access water tables, doesn't work from retention ponds correctly. It re-routes natural drainage which makes flooding worse and finally adds to pollution in fish breeding areas. You already read about fertilizers and other garbage from golf courses and housing. We have a city near by who did not bother revamping for the onslaught of newcomers into the area and the too small city sewage system has had several breaks dumping raw sewage into marine estuaries. I could go on and on but you will concern yourself with headlines, etc and never join me tooling the river as a volunteer river keeper....or be on your nearest river either. So I'm sorry I messed with you til you got all frustrated but I prefer "acting locally" to "thinking globally"

[seekeronos]

And while yer at it Islamobama... mind telling us exactly how deep-sixing our food supply to grow corn only for ethanol which requires an EROEI (energy returned for energy invested) which is sufficiently greater than simply extracting oil from the ground?

Granted, this doesn't address the greater problem of Peak Oil (which TK may know more about) looming in our future.

But w/o consideration of other political concerns hot-button issues such as AGW or even basic environmental stewardship - it doesn't make sense to spend oil to create an energy source that is litre-for-litre less efficient than oil.

Take a look at this article at EROEI.com (itself taken from a Rolling Stone from July of 2007)

http://www.eroei.com/articles/2007-articles/ethanol-hurts-the-environment-and-is-one-of-americas-biggest-political-boondoggles/

[Yoda]

Yearn for the Carter "malaise" we will.

[LOL]

I swear this website is starting to make me believe in wingnut George Soros conspiracies. I think some of the commenters on this website and maybe even Dan himself are leftist plants to make the right look incredibly ignorant and paranoid.

[docweasel]

Yeah, McCain's starting to look pretty good about now ;)

By the time Fall rolls around, a bellyful of Obama and Clinton should just about wrap up the last of the whinging about how McCain isn't pure enough a "conservative" to make any difference between him and the Democrats.

[seekeronos]

"--- a bellyful of Obama and Clinton should just about wrap up the last of the whinging about how McCain isn't pure enough a "conservative" ---"

Perhaps so... but as I've said before, voting for McCain at this point is voting for the lesser of three leftist paths. J-Mac is a slide to the center-left (socialism-lite) as contrasted to the hard core, far-left socialism of either HRC or BHO.

[syn]

Llamallama

I don't have a lawn but the sidewalks are piled high with dog crap because dog owners are too lazy to clean up after their animals.

My 20 x 20 apartment is quite clean due to the necessity of having little space; further I don't own a car.

However, I will whine about the environmental policy of being forced to dump mercury directly in my 20 x 20 space when I am dicated by the government to buy new-agey mercury-filled bulbs.

That said; when the eco-imperialists stop buying petroleum-based CD/DVD's, driving automobiles and flying to exotic lands for vacation then I just might take the eco-imperialist cause seriously.

Having grown up in rural America I can honestly say that nature is an unrepenting force which exhibits absolutely no compassion when it goes about its business of survival; human beings are of little consequence to nature's wrath. Eco-imperialists would not survive a week of living without the 'carbon footprint'.

[templar knight]

"Eco-imperialists would not survive a week of living without the 'carbon footprint'."

And that is the reason I can't take these people seriously. They are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites who think all one has to do is push a button, and wham, we can all have solar and wind power. They haven't given a thought to the pollution generated by the production of batteries, the pollution caused by the manufacture of wind and solar infrastructure, or whether infrastructure even exists where wind and solar energy are plentiful, which it doesn't.

And when you try to explain these things, all you get is, "You must be some kind of George Soros plant intended to make right wingers look stupid." Or whatever the hell these people say when you don't agree with their nutroot schemes.

[seekeronos]

"--- Eco-imperialists would not survive a week of living without the 'carbon footprint'. ---"

So very true.

The past 150 years of harnessing carbon to do our bidding have seen a near seven-fold increase in our numbers, as well as a great standard of living for the select few hundred millions of us fortunate and so blessed by Our Creator to have been born in certain industrialized nations.

Although, to give some credit to our ancestors who somehow managed to eke out a wretched existence on this sin-ravaged world before us:

They did manage - at subsistence levels - to function at a slightly greater than replacement level for the first 5,700 or so years of our documented existence (and longer, if you must abide by the Darwinists' demands that we evolved from sea slime "billions and billions of years ago"...)

I suppose that if Peak Oil and the supposed Malthusian Catastrophe which is postulated to follow the collapse of the petroleum economy (sans any widespread deployment of *viable* alternative energy technologies - which seem to be quite lacking given a projected global oil peak production by 2012) ... a few of us will manage as we begin to move toward a much smaller population that may in the centuries to come, find a group of citizen-farmer-soldiers pausing to reflect back upon our momentary obsession with big-box stores, instant gratification, abundant electricity, 24/7 availability of pre-packaged microwaveable food, and generally living well beyond our energy means.

If such a collapse is our future (and I am not saying that it *will* be, but rather that it remains a distinct possibility)... I think the eco-greenies who could not see themselves *actually* living without a carbon footprint (they are so loathe to part with their mass-consumer culture produced mochaccinos and Senseo pod-coffee makers) will be just as much a historic curiosity, as stolid conservative men and women of that time will more likely have a much greater connectedness to their hearts, hearths, and homes, and thusly treat whatever resources they have then with far greater respect and with a view toward sustainable stewardship.

In short: even when things get real ugly, we conservative folk generally have a way of sticking around to clean up the liberals' messes.

[Worst President Ever]

What the hell is an eco-imperialist? Blaming liberals for Peak Oil is a bit of a stretch. And the belief that conservatives are less wedded to modern creature comforts than liberals is total BS.

[seekeronos]

"--- What the hell is an eco-imperialist? ---"

I'd venture to guess that it would primarily include most Greens and liberals who want to impose a top-down "solution" upon Americans and force upon us mandates for things like CFL bulbs, hybrid or plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and exorbitant taxes for using paper or plastic bags, and of course, trebling or quadrupling existing gasoline taxes to make sure that we, the newly-designated American serf class, don't have the ability to leave the Socialist plantation any time soon.

But that's just my take on it; Syn would be the one to give you her definition since s/he used it first in this thread.

"--- Blaming liberals for Peak Oil is a bit of a stretch. And the belief that conservatives are less wedded to modern creature comforts than liberals is total BS. ---"

But it is fun, though. And, yes, we conservatives do like our SUVs and TV sets and cruise ships just like you libs do... but I think that in a catastrophic (or rather hopefully, a more gradual) decline in the quality of life afforded by modern conveniences, conservatives will tend to adjust, adapt, and to overcome these new and perhaps unpleasant circumstances more so than today's liberals - particularly that caricature of the "San Francisco Liberal" with the goatee, funky tattoos and piercings, Birkenstock-clad feet, $6-coffee inspired drink, and vitriolic hatred for anything connected to God and His Word.

For the rest of the many liberals with any inclination to survive in those hard times... they might very well find themselves becoming much more conservative than they might have otherwise thought.

I believe that conservatives (especially the more "paleo-" on the spectrum as you go) tend to be linked with America's original agrarian roots; that is, they are literally more "down to earth". Liberalism, and in particular, the modern strain of big-government that paternalistically manages every whip stitch and detail of its citizens' lives along the model of European modes of socialism is the unsightly by-products of the industrial revolution and the elitism that was common to most of Europe by the noble classes that fell largely into political irrelevance in the mid 20th century.

Peak Oil is everyone's fault; governments and corporations may only bear a greater share proportionate to their shortsightedness in failing to deploy alternatives that actually have a workable, recoverable EROEI.

Besides, we will never be completely free of petroleum dependence, as most plastics and fertilizers and other things necessary for our continued existence at our current standard of living require an ongoing infusion of black gold into our society.

The goal should be on reducing our transportation costs (doing business locally instead of globally, moving closer to the sources of our employment or telecommuting), reducing our food-miles (or calorie-kilometers) from its current 10 calories of input for every calorie of food produced - a horrible EROEI if there ever was - by growing our own food in its proper locale and season, and in sufficient quantities to overwinter for northern climes, and perhaps re-instituting community granges and locally owned farming co-operatives (a neighborhood or community pitching in to buy and depreciate heavy equipment and canning facilities and storage on the macro-scale, and private family gardening and animal husbandry on the micro-scale).

[seekeronos]

...oh and before I forget, take note that the formation of such cooperatives should ideally happen and be driven by action on a LOCAL scale, so that change comes about from the bottom up.

In short, responsibility and a sense of stewardship for one's resources growing up from the individual and the family, to the neighborhood, to the community, and perhaps up regionally from there.

[Wahoo Willie]

"What the hell is an eco-imperialist?"

It's only a guess WPE but I would guess it's someone like Al Gore who demands that you live a life of comfort denied while he lives in luxury.: "Gore's 10,000-square-foot home uses 20 times as much electricity as the average American home." Of course there is teh whole hypocrisy of "buying carbon credits" which only a fool would fall for.

[docweasel]

seek, you are so full of shit you are barely worth paying attention to. McCain's ADA rating is about 20%. Clinton's is 96% and Obama's is 99%. Obama is rated the most liberal Senator in Congress. Both Dems have stated they will immediately begin removing troops from Iraq if they are elected. McCain states forcefully he sees a long-time US presence in Iraq ala Germany, Japan, Korea etc. McCain has stated he will name judges in the mold of Alito and Roberts. Obama and Clinton will name Ginsbergs and Stevens' - there is speculation one of them could name JOHN FUCKING EDWARDS in some kind of tradeoff, after he plays around at Attorney Gen. for a couple years. Both Dems support restricting the right to bear arms, McCain has a 100% rating from the NRA. Both Dems vow to veto any legislation that in any way curtails absolutely unrestricted abortion "rights"- McCain is on record as being for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and has voted on every abortion restriction that's come before the Senate. Both Dems support gay marriage (Clinton fudges on the issue, depending on who she's talking to), McCain supports the Defense of Marriage act, a constitutional amendment making marriage between a man and a woman only, and vows to veto any pro-gay marriage bill that comes before him. Obama talks about kowtowing to Chavez, Castro, Iran's leaders, Kim Il Jong, etc. McCain will be a tough negotiator and will not coddle any of these tyrants, as shown by MANY votes in the Senate supporting action against America's enemies. Clinton MIGHT be tough or knuckle under, depending on focus group and poll results. Obama would be Jimmy Carter II, without the personal integrity and good intentions. Obama would just do it to kiss the ass of the far left.

Calling McCain a leftist is nonsense, and anyone making ignorant statements like that is a political moron. "Conservatives" disagree with him on 2-3 litmus test issues and so they make risible statements like "McCain is the lesser of 3 leftists".

God, I'm going to get a kick out of McCain winning without any of you fake conservative's support, and then he won't owe you a thing, and will be able to safely disregard the opinions of the Limbaugh/Hannity/Malkin/Coulter lockstep far right sheep who bleat according to what Rush tells you.

Anyone brain dead enough to listen to that fat bloviator pontificate 4 hours a day 5 days a week has no grasp of political reality and is probably too damn dumb to weigh facts and make rational assessments themselves. Its easier just to ditto what Rush tells you, day in and day out.

I've come to the conclusion only morons listen to any of the talk radio heads. Its an echo chamber of the worst sort, and gives dittoheads a warped view of what is really going on in politics. They get up on their self-righteous high horse because some Vicodin junkie tells them McCain isn't a "pure" Reagan Republican and that gives them the right to take any number of bigotted, racist and intolerant stands. I applaud McCain for refusing to pander to Big Pharma and his ilk. I am part of the a growing group of Republicans who think we should jettison the entire lot, just like W.F. Buckley did when he denounced the John Birchers and the party discarded those paranoiacs, maniacs and far right radical racists and nut-cases.

Rush Limbaugh has out-lived his usefulness and is now a destructive force and a source of disinformation and idiot opinion, and morons who get all their info from him are dangerous and bad for the party. McCain should have a "Sister Souljah" moment and announce the party doesn't need their support, doesn't respect their reactionary and sometimes fascist opinions, and disown the entire lot, including Hannity, Ingraham, Malkin, Coulter and especially Limbaugh, and anyone who mindlessly parrots their talking points, such as calling McCain a 'leftist'.

[Worst President Ever]

I don't really care what Al Gore's monthly electrical bills are. Even if what Wahoo writes is true, it's pretty low on my list of hypocrisies to worry about.

Mainly though, it's simply a red herring to distract people from having an honest discussion about our energy use, global warming, conservation, etc.

As for conservatives having some inherent superiority to exist in Seek's post-technology apocalypse, that too is BS. I grew up on a farm, trust me, I can fend for myself. And Seek writing about community granges and farming coops carries a whiff of - OH, MY GOD - socialism to it.

[joeb]

docweasel I agree with what you wrote above 100 per cent. Talk radio ruined radio. They used to play good music on the radio back in the 1950s and early 1960s. Now it is all blabbermouths like Rush the limburger cheese and his ilk. He actually ends up hurting the Republican Party by turning off independents. I really like the way McCain is ignoring Limbaugh. That in and of itself is a good sign of intelligence.

[Wahoo Willie]

"I don't really care what Al Gore's monthly electrical bills are."
Of course you don't, but by god if it was GW's house (which is very earth friendly btw) WPE would be shouting IMPEACH HIM!! from the highest mountain

"a red herring to distract people from having an honest discussion about our energy use, global warming, conservation, etc."
Actually it is EXACTLY the kind of thing that gets in the way of an honest discussion.

"As for conservatives having some inherent superiority to exist in Seek's post-technology apocalypse."
I couldn't find that. Mind cutting it for me? Because what I saw did NOT say conservatives. It said personal responsibilty. I dont think it qualifies as teh same thing.

"writing about community granges and farming coops carries a whiff of - OH, MY GOD - socialism to it."
See WPE, it's ignorance that causes us to run to one party or another, to voice opinions without seeking knowledge. These things have NADA to do with socialism (look the word up son) It could be stretched out to be like communism which is a form of communalism.

Now to the bottom of the whole discussion. You asked a question, you got an anwer and you went off on another tyrade.

[seekeronos]

Whoa, there Doc... sounds like you ought to prescribe yourself a chill-pill. Or ask Rush for a vicodin... (sorry to let you down there, but I don't get any reception to Rush from the depths of my hardened concrete bunker).

By no means did I say that J-Mac is to the left of Obama or Hillary, nor even approaching their respective positions on the left. Frankly, however, I do not care neither a jot nor a tittle for either Hillary or Obama's ADA rating. In the eyes of such a far-left group, J-Mac bears little difference to Bush or Rush or even Ron Paul.

But I do stand by my statement that comparatively speaking, he rides somewhat to the left (hence my use of the term "center-left") of recent GOP nominees, and certainly left of most of the 2008 crop of GOP candidates. I'd rather have Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, or even Ron Paul ahead of J-Mac, but I just won't be getting my way this year.

Then I had to pick between Huckabuck (Christian Democrat/Populist) and Mitt Romney (perhaps no more or less ideologically stable than J-Mac, but at least I knew what I wasn't likely to get from Mitt that I woud get from J-Mac in the form of 150 million newly-minted Mexican-American formerly illegal citizens, most of whom would go right to the front of the welfare line after picking up their SS cards).

I had my little hissy fit a week or two ago when it became clear that no amount of posturing or hemming or hawing would undo the inevitability of a McCain nomination (Mitt dropping out, and Huckabee being marginally less desirable than J-Mac), and reluctantly took my third-class seat at the back of the "Straight Talk Express".

Because... that train may not go where I'd like it to, but it sure beats riding along on the "Rocketsled to Socialism" that the Dems are driving.

I'll probably vote for J-Mac in November (actually, it won't matter how I'll vote, since my one GOP vote in NY is washed away by three or four votes for whoever the Dems ultimately put up... so I could probably get away with protest-voting for the Constitution Party candidate without my 1/120,000,000th bit of franchise preventing J-Mac from getting his goal) as the lesser of three folks who are to the left of my particular roost on the political spectrum.

To tell you the truth, I do not trust J-Mac to keep any of the soft words he has tried to woo the conservative base with. I have no reason to think that he would not promptly go back on his words acknowledging that he has heard the American people regarding "amnesty", and that he'd promptly open the Mexican border even more widely to drive an Iowa class battleship through sidewise.

I don't trust him when he says that he will not raise taxes or not let the Bush tax cuts lapse.

I don't trust him when he says that he will name judges in the mold of Alito and Roberts. If we are lucky, he might be able to push through a significant Democratic majority Senate a center-right/moderate in the mold of Stevens (the Ford appointee)... to replace Stevens who is likely to be called home to Jesus within the next four years.

J-Mac has waffled on abortion, on Roe v. Wade, and on gun control issues (earning an F- rating from Gun Owners of America).

I'm sorry, Doc... but I simply do not have the "fanboi"-ish, almost salivating love for your idol John McCain as you do, and I do not see watered down faux-conservatism ... nay, let us call it properly as "moderatism" and "reaching across the aisle" to liberals and socialists as the new anchor point for the GOP to be moored to.

The GOP that you advocate - a GOP that roundly rejects social conservatives and confounds financial conservatives runs the risk of finding itself embarrassed in November. I daresay that if J-Mac fails to listen to and as you put it, "pander" a little bit to us "wingers" (I'm waiting for you to unload that spicy little moonbatism upon us), we will all be regretting it when BHO or HRC gets sworn in by RBG on 1/29/09.

- - - - - - - -

For WPE:

"--- As for conservatives having some inherent superiority to exist in Seek's post-technology apocalypse, that too is BS. I grew up on a farm, trust me, I can fend for myself. And Seek writing about community granges and farming coops carries a whiff of - OH, MY GOD - socialism to it. ---"

No, not socialism. That is imposed from the top down, and usually involves collectivism and all other sorts of unpleasant things that deprive people of their property and liberty.

The model I am discussing is about willingly adapting to a new living situation and pooling individual talents and resources - which effectively is a scaling down of the free market to a community level: because if the results of Peak oil in terms of the blow it could deal to global civilization are anywhere near the epic scope of horrors portrayed by the gloom-and-doom poster community over at the major Peak Oil web sites... it will definitely put a major kink in any serious attempt by the federal, and many state governments to impose some sort of "socialist new order" for any length of time.

Big State socialism needs a lot of oil to run properly run its gears (pun intended).

Going back to a more "community driven society" ... that is, with INDIVIDUALS with liberty willfully choosing to market and contribute their skillsets to the betterment of the local community is a practice as old as human civilization, and certainly something that most Americans of 150 years ago, and certainly most rural/small-town Americans of no less than 50 years ago could easily wrap their minds around.

The coming change will not be wrought by any one political ideology, but through the devices of Malthusian economics, a depletion of a particular resource we have come to be utterly dependent upon, and a healthy heap of normal, sinful human greed and gluttony.

It is getting back to that sustainable, community driven America - that "small America" that Thoreau once wrote about - that will be a time of significant pain for most folks.

It will make guys like you, WPE, re-think your love of socialism in the statist sense, and it may make staunch capitalists and free-marketeers see the necessity of being once again accountable to the communties from which they derive their living.

[templar knight]

"I grew up on a farm, trust me, I can fend for myself."

Yep, maybe you did, but what percentage of people now living in urban areas did? I live on a ranch now, do a little gardening, or my wife does, and raise a few head of cattle. But I doubt whether 1% of people under age 50 who call themselves liberals have a clue how to raise livestock, or crops, for that matter. Most of my neighbors who ranch are, surprise.....CONSERVATIVES, and I can't think of any farmers or ranchers in this county who consider themselves liberals. So seek's point holds up here in W. Texas. I can't say about other parts of the country.

[Wahoo Willie]

"raise livestock, or crops"

Well maybe LEGAL crops....LOLOLOOLOLOLL

[Worst President Ever]

"I don't really care what Al Gore's monthly electrical bills are."
Of course you don't, but by god if it was GW's house (which is very earth friendly btw) WPE would be shouting IMPEACH HIM!! from the highest mountain

No - I think he should be impeached for being incompetent, getting us into a war that should have never been, and shredding the constitution at every opportunity.

I really, really, really don't care about his house.

"a red herring to distract people from having an honest discussion about our energy use, global warming, conservation, etc."
Actually it is EXACTLY the kind of thing that gets in the way of an honest discussion.

Then ignore it and deal with the REAL issues. Because obsession about Al's electric bill doesn't do a thing for moving the country forward and away from our petroleum addiction.

"As for conservatives having some inherent superiority to exist in Seek's post-technology apocalypse."
I couldn't find that. Mind cutting it for me? Because what I saw did NOT say conservatives. It said personal responsibilty. I dont think it qualifies as teh same thing.

Seek says that.

[templar knight]

ROTFLMAO! Thanks for the correction, Willie. When I was in college, I worked maintenance for the apartment complex I lived in, and we had to clean an apartment one time that had those illegal crops growing in the bathtub. The goofs had filled the bathtub with dirt, and had themselves a built-in irrigation system. I gave them props for originality.

[Wahoo Willie]

"getting us into a war that should have never been,"
I had/have my own reasons for being against that war. Amazingly, so far I'm batting 1000. The rest will come six months after we leave. It isn't impeachable though.

"and shredding the constitution at every opportunity."

I look forward to agreeing with you when the new prez takes over. I wonder if he will do something about t abuse of emminent domain?

"moving the country forward and away from our petroleum addiction."
Unfortunately it will be an actual crisis before we do that and we're going too far in the wrong direction now.

[Wahoo Willie]

"The goofs had filled the bathtub with dirt."

LOL, guess they never heard of hydroponics

[templar knight]

"...a red herring to distract people from having an honest discussion about our energy use, global warming, conservation, etc."

I'm still trying to figure out when any liberal has ever come here with the intention of having an honest discussion about energy, conservation or global warming. Anytime I've put forth not only positions, but positions I happen to have personal and professional knowledge of, I'm either ignored or called a wingnut. So I don't buy your attempt to sanctify yourself, Worst. As a matter of fact, you are one of the 'worst' liberal offenders, if I might borrow an expression.