Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

[duper]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

Different definitions lead to different results. Your definition does not appear to be supported by history; even totalitarian governments have limits to their authority because totalitarian regimes are tossed from power from time to time.

Again, I suggested at the outset that we need a different term. Why would you ignore that suggestion?

Here is the OED definition.

"Of or pertaining to a system of government which tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated, and which usu. demands the complete subservience of the individual to the State."

Tea Party rhetoric about subserviance to the state notwithstanding, none of these things fit any political party that has ever existed in this country.

Now, if you want to argue that the OED is wrong or incomplete,I submit that you are mistaken.

That said, again your points are fairly reasonable all things considered.

(And I promise to stop beating this dead horse now. I get carried away. )

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

I think New York mag had that article about the GOP's demographic doom. As the saying goes, the country isn't making any new crabby old white guys.

 

[duper]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

the country isn't making any new crabby old white guys.

Lying liar!!!!! In about 20 years I will become a crabby old white guy!!!!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

That said, again your points are fairly reasonable all things considered.

thank you. v 2.0 will be significantly improved thanks to the useful feedback.

for one thing, the vertical axis will be 'liberal' at the bottom and 'centralized command and control' at the top. for another, each of the four half-axes will get their own equal time treatment, because each of the four has a strong philosophical underpinning and many valid insights to recommend it. A term such as 'radical' has a clinical meaning and apparently it also has a pejorative meaning, it's a bit tricky to keep the good parts while side-stepping the negatives.



btw, as an aside, check out eugene v debs....you meant no 'major' party i assume

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

Again, I suggested at the outset that we need a different term. Why would you ignore that suggestion?

Your faux search for dialogue is almost believable, but if one pays attention you come across like a scientist with a preconceived outcome looking for the data to support it.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

You obviously have no clue what almost happened in Virginia.

Anyone else find it funny that Virginians care about the vaginas of the non-virgins?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

Speaking of Reagan. Conservatives like to talk about how they are a "Reagan conservative" -- the guy is basically their patron saint, yet today he would be too liberal for them.

um, let's not get too carried away. Even though he knew how to invoke the best that liberalism has to offer when he needed to, Reagan was a hard-core conservative as well.

For example, Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, all at the same time, because they went on strike. That's pretty extreme!

From Wikipedia:

In summer 1981 PATCO, the union of federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a federal law prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, Reagan stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated." They did not return and on August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order, and used supervisors and military controllers to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained.

He also escalated the 'war on drugs' a very misguided yet fully conservative waste of time money talent and lives.

He also had a perfect conservative principle for foreign policy: "Trust yet verify."

He also was open to changing his mind when the circumstances warranted. When the AIDs epidemic first came to national attention in the mid-'80s, most of the people infected were gay men and introvenous drug users. As you might expect, Reagan did not care very much what happened to them. However, it came to his attention that a teenage boy, Ryan White, had contracted AIDs through a blood tranfusion. Reagan appeared on national TV with White and basically apologized for his heartlessness. He said something like "I am ashamed to admit that before I heard Ryan's story, I thought that AIDs was primarily a disease of promiscuity and drug abuse. Ryan contracted AIDs through a blood tranfusion. I came to realize that anyone who contracted AIDs from any source was somebody's Ryan White."

Things to like, things to respect, things to abhor, you can find it all if you want. He was not limited to the conservative playbook, and he very much was a conservative.

 

[bronconick]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

This talk that the Republicans will simply implode due to demographics ignores that people still move to the right as they get older, and old people always vote.

Not far enough to the right to save the Santorums or even Gingrich's, but it's still there. Their bigger issue is to get more of the hispanic vote without enraging their white base with amnesty talk.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

This talk that the Republicans will simply implode due to demographics ignores that people still move to the right as they get older, and old people always vote.

This. My dad was a registered Democrat for years during and after college. Then got older, forgot the Ann Arbor years, and has been a moderate conservative ever since.

 

[duper]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

This. My dad was a registered Democrat for years during and after college. Then got older, forgot the Ann Arbor years, and has been a moderate conservative ever since.

I was only half joking when I said that in 20 years I will b e a crabby old white guy. Of course, my dad is one now (I suspect that he's both older and crabbier than Old Pio. Probably not whiter. I'm not even sure what that would mean.) and he seems to get more liberal by the year, so with luck I will as well.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

The point is, it's a moving target.

What counts as a crabby old guy will be different in 2030 than it is today, than it was in 1980, than it was in 1950, etc.

It's the long term trend that counts.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

To be honest, I don't see a lot of difference between today's crabby old guy, and the crabby old guy of 1950. Maybe crabby old guy of 1950 is more likely to use racial slurs.

At the end of the day though, both generations of crabby old guy think that the current generation is dumber, lazier, and more morally corrupt than theirs.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

um, let's not get too carried away. Even though he knew how to invoke the best that liberalism has to offer when he needed to, Reagan was a hard-core conservative as well.

For example, Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, all at the same time, because they went on strike. That's pretty extreme!

From Wikipedia:

He also escalated the 'war on drugs' a very misguided yet fully conservative waste of time money talent and lives.

He also had a perfect conservative principle for foreign policy: "Trust yet verify."

He also was open to changing his mind when the circumstances warranted. When the AIDs epidemic first came to national attention in the mid-'80s, most of the people infected were gay men and introvenous drug users. As you might expect, Reagan did not care very much what happened to them. However, it came to his attention that a teenage boy, Ryan White, had contracted AIDs through a blood tranfusion. Reagan appeared on national TV with White and basically apologized for his heartlessness. He said something like "I am ashamed to admit that before I heard Ryan's story, I thought that AIDs was primarily a disease of promiscuity and drug abuse. Ryan contracted AIDs through a blood tranfusion. I came to realize that anyone who contracted AIDs from any source was somebody's Ryan White."

Things to like, things to respect, things to abhor, you can find it all if you want. He was not limited to the conservative playbook, and he very much was a conservative.

He did not fire "all" the air traffic controllers. He fired all the members of PATCO, the most extreme of the several unions representing controllers. Like all controllers, they had taken an oath not to strike. They figured they could steam roll the new president. They were wrong. Reagan was "extreme" enough to believe an oath is an oath and that the law should be enforced.

Most of the new AIDS cases reported are STILL gay men or IV drug users. We've gotten a much better handle on transfusions. In the very early days of the outbreak (when it was known as GRID), it was thought Haitians were a fourth category of potential AIDS victims. Turns out the the infected Haitians were either gay, IV drug users or recipients of transfusions.

The gay rights crowd dumped on Reagan for years about his alleged insensitivity to the issue. Yet many of them were outraged at suggestions the bath houses in San Francisco be shut down, at least temporarily, until more was known about the disease. I mean, you've gotta have your priorities, right? Reagan did NOT appear on TV with Ryan White and did NOT "apologize for his heartlessness." Reagan did write a tribute to White that appeared in the WaPo and IIRC was read at the young man's funeral, which occurred after Reagan left office.

"Sadly, Ryan's is not the only life to have been cut short by AIDS," Reagan said. "In a most poignant way, he told us of a health crisis in our country that has claimed too many victims. There have been too many funerals like his. There are too many patches in the quilt. We owe it to Ryan to make sure that the fear and ignorance that chased him from his home and his school will be eliminated. We owe it to Ryan to open our hearts and our minds to those with AIDS. We owe it to Ryan to be compassionate, caring and tolerant toward those with AIDS, their families and friends. It's the disease that's frightening, not the people who have it."

 

[TimP]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

This talk that the Republicans will simply implode due to demographics ignores that people still move to the right as they get older, and old people always vote.

Lol, so people get more conservative as they grow senile. That sounds right.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

To be honest, I don't see a lot of difference between today's crabby old guy, and the crabby old guy of 1950.

Really? Today's old fart b*tches on Facebook. 1950 old fart b*tches on his porch step.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

Really? Today's old fart b*tches on Facebook. 1950 old fart b*tches on his porch step.

A fair point - the social medium has changed. Today's old fart has a wider audience.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

As the saying goes, the country isn't making any new crabby old white guys.

Jack Parker comes to mind

 

[BassAle]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

This talk that the Republicans will simply implode due to demographics ignores that people still move to the right as they get older, and old people always vote.

It's not that people move to the right or to the center, its that the extremes of both parties move further from the middle. The anti-gay stance of the GOP is a losing proposition long term -- people that support same-sex marriage aren't going to suddenly start hating gays when they get old.

 

[geezer]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

I wonder if Barry sees the connection yet - The more he grovels and scrapes on his knees, the harder he sucks on the Taliban's ****, the more courage they take to launch new terrorism against us.
Obviously it would be more effective to treat them like the dirt they are. But nobody told our "perfect" president.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: Obama XXIII: The Muslin Anti-Christ Wages War on the forces of Christianity!

I wonder if Barry sees the connection yet - The more he grovels and scrapes on his knees, the harder he sucks on the Taliban's ****, the more courage they take to launch new terrorism against us.
Obviously it would be more effective to treat them like the dirt they are. But nobody told our "perfect" president.

I always love this point. Straight from the mouth of Rush and Hannity.

So it's because of a perceived weakness that terrorists are emboldened? Otherwise they'd just sit in their caves? Have no problem with us?

At the height of the "war on terror," they were still trying to get at us. We were in a position of power, which I certainly supported after 9-11, but the bad guys weren't deterred.

I know it's hard, but at some point people need to listen to what these talking heads are actually saying and then think, does that really make sense?

Or, are they just saying that to rally people (sheep) who have a hard time critically thinking for themselves to a cause that they want to push?

Even Bush apologized for the Abu Ghraib mess. Do you really believe that "Barry" shouldn't have apologized for the Koran burnings? I have to assume that is the butt-kissing that you're talking about?

The bigger question for me when something like this happens is, how in the world could anyone on the ground be dumb enough to say "Yes, go ahead and burn those old books?"

I mean, I think it's utterly ludicrous that those morons over there are rioting for a week and that 40+ people (including 4 of our soldiers ) have been killed over some books, but it was completely and obviously predictable. You burned some Korans? Of course they're going to freak the f out. These people don't think like we do. They're nuts and have nothing else to do.