George Bush narrowly defeated a dastardly plot by Democrat thugs to steal the 2000 election. And the 2004 election was not even in the same ballpark; Bush legitimately thrashed Kerry. I like to think that the spectacle of Dan Rather and his minions trying to throw the election with forged documents may have made up the margin of victory.
I also think that the right to bear arms is critically important on a symbolic level. A man who owns a gun is a man who can at least speculate about blowing the head off an oppressive policeman, soldier, politician, or bureaucrat. In general, this is a good thing, breeding outspoken, fearless, marginally governable citizens who are exceedingly jealous of their liberties. Having a gun behind every blade of grass makes it much more unlikely that we would ever have to resort to arms to keep our liberty. I carry a handgun wherever I go, not because I am looking for an excuse to shoot someone, nor because I am particularly fearful of crime in my neighborhood, but primarily because it is a constant reminder that I am a citizen and not a subject. This is the reason that the Swiss for centuries required men to bring their swords to public meetings. All men should go armed at all times and in all places.
Now the populace is armed with, at best, assault rifles, and the government is armed with tanks.
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Tank crews have to eat, drink, and piss. That's when they get popped by the militias. Or haven't you been paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan ?
In a general insurrection, there are enough guns in the USA to supply one to everyone physically capable of using it. Stealth bombers and tanks are useless against those kind of numbers, especially when a significant fraction of them are inclined to join the rebels.
Nothing new. USA does the same - remember 2000, and 2004?
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I remember no such thing. I do remember that a thuggish Democratic plot to steal the 2000 election was foiled by the narrowest margin, and that all of the Florida newspapers investigated it and agreed that Bush won. Only the lunatic fringe think 2004 was anything but free and fair.
Hillary Clinton and the rest of the State Department has concluded that the removal of Manuel Zelaya was legal and that he is a menace to democracy. However, Barack Hussein Obama disagreed. Naturally, since Clinton works for Obama, she agreed to support Zelaya.
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Well then, it's clear that she's nearly as big a heap of dung as he is. The proper thing would be for her to resign and tell the nation why.
If you really work for State, the same choice may present itself to you someday.
That wasn't all that happened on party-boy Clinton's watch. Bill Clinton and Ken Lay were golfing buddies. Any big corporate scandal you can name, from Enron to Global Crossing to Worldcom to Tyco to Adelphia, the vast majority of the crimes took place under Clinton and were prosecuted under Bush. All these fat cats were heavy contributors to Democrats and Republicans alike, but only the Bush Justice Department put them in jail.
For the first two years, yes.
After the Contract with America brought Gingrich and the Republicans into power in 1994, the budget was balanced for the first time in decades.
A dozen years of prosperity ensued, to the benefit of both Clinton and Bush.
Don't you know? Speaking truth to power only matters when the power is on the Right.
It's like the "brave, transgressive" artists who never insult any faith but Christianity.
It's cheap and easy to call for the assassination or war crimes trial of the rhinoceros-skinned George Bush, or call Sarah Palin a fucking fascist cunt, or carry a sign encouraging our soldiers to mutiny, or to dunk a crucifix in urine and call it art. Some people become rich and famous in the left wing echo chamber that way, and the rest (at worst) are ignored.
It's quite another matter to insult Barack Obama or question affirmative action in a university faculty meeting, or to draw a cartoon derogatory of Mohammed, piss be upon him. That can put an end to your career, or even your life.
It's the thing that got Socrates killed, really: people who really shouldn't have opinions on something, having opinions on that something. Uninformed, easily manipulated opinions. And they feel like they're experts, at the top of the world.
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Oh, so the hoi polloi should just shut up and pay their taxes, because the "experts" have such a good track record in running the show, is that it? Pooh. Experts be damned.
I'm with Bill Buckley; I'd rather be governed by 100 names picked from the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
The Reichstag fire was done by a handful of people, maybe even just one, with a few gallons of gas and a match.
For 9/11 to have been a government conspiracy, about 4000 people from the janitors to the President would have had to have been in on the secret and kept it, even though several hundred of them would have been planning for their own deaths.
If you read that quote in context, it seems to me that she was speaking rhetorically, and intimating that she would want to know specifically how long a leash she'd get and how big a set of responsibilities she'd be assigned by her running mate.
She's perfectly aware of the minimum Constitutional responsibilities of the job, but the trend lately is for more engagement and involvement by the VP, and she would want to know her expected role before agreeing to take the job.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she will be at the tip of the spear for energy policy in a McCain administration, for example.
Howzabout we let the Africans decide for themselves what they want and don't want to import? Westerners in the grip of green mania are imposing their prejudices on the poor and powerless in other countries. It's not King Leopold in the Belgian Congo, but it's a form of imperialism nonetheless.
Let's teach them that the only thing that really matters is money and power, and that one should do anything possible to surround themselves with such things.
.
So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
Number one, I don't consider any government service a real job. There is no penalty for failure. The same goes for "community organizing" and other non-profit work; in fact, the more failure the better for the poverty pimps. Only private enterprise counts for anything in my book. Someone who has never held a private sector job is a shirking, un-American piece of shit who is not to be trusted with power.
Number two, Obama is one of the shittiest, laziest, least-accomplished Senators on the Hill. Even as an Illinois state senator he got nothing meaningful accomplished, never mind as a US senator, and voted "Present" something like 150 times. If he were white, his candidacy would be a joke and he wouldn't have received 1% of the primary vote.
I predict that there are not enough guilty white liberals to get Obama over the top, no matter what the polls say. People tell pollsters what they want to hear out of politeness and a fear of being perceived as a racist. I am blunt and will cheerfully admit to despising Obama's political views regardless of his race, but that is not true of the great majority of moderate and independent voters. They will smile and tell the exit pollster that "of course" they voted for the black man, when in fact they did no such thing. McCain is going to win by 10 percentage points.
Ironically, the USA claims that Al Qaeda is guilty of war crimes even though Al Qaeda never ratified any of the Geneva Conventions.
Applying the Geneva Conventions to the likes of Al-Qaeda is an expansion, not a limitation, of their rights. Under international law, irregular combatants captured out of uniform are subject to summary on-the-spot execution without trial, the same as pirates on the high seas.
Slashdot Mirror
George Bush narrowly defeated a dastardly plot by Democrat thugs to steal the 2000 election. And the 2004 election was not even in the same ballpark; Bush legitimately thrashed Kerry. I like to think that the spectacle of Dan Rather and his minions trying to throw the election with forged documents may have made up the margin of victory.
Fuck you, Hugo. Death to all collectivists.
Zelaya deserves a bullet between the eyes. Death to all collectivists.
I also think that the right to bear arms is critically important on a symbolic level. A man who owns a gun is a man who can at least speculate about blowing the head off an oppressive policeman, soldier, politician, or bureaucrat. In general, this is a good thing, breeding outspoken, fearless, marginally governable citizens who are exceedingly jealous of their liberties. Having a gun behind every blade of grass makes it much more unlikely that we would ever have to resort to arms to keep our liberty. I carry a handgun wherever I go, not because I am looking for an excuse to shoot someone, nor because I am particularly fearful of crime in my neighborhood, but primarily because it is a constant reminder that I am a citizen and not a subject. This is the reason that the Swiss for centuries required men to bring their swords to public meetings. All men should go armed at all times and in all places.
Now the populace is armed with, at best, assault rifles, and the government is armed with tanks. ---
Tank crews have to eat, drink, and piss. That's when they get popped by the militias. Or haven't you been paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan ?
In a general insurrection, there are enough guns in the USA to supply one to everyone physically capable of using it. Stealth bombers and tanks are useless against those kind of numbers, especially when a significant fraction of them are inclined to join the rebels.
Criminal law is not the same thing as political process. What a ridiculous argument.
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I remember no such thing. I do remember that a thuggish Democratic plot to steal the 2000 election was foiled by the narrowest margin, and that all of the Florida newspapers investigated it and agreed that Bush won. Only the lunatic fringe think 2004 was anything but free and fair.
-ccm
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Well then, it's clear that she's nearly as big a heap of dung as he is. The proper thing would be for her to resign and tell the nation why.
If you really work for State, the same choice may present itself to you someday.
-ccm
Of course it won't work. Any nitwit with a hammer and a flat rock can disable an RFID chip.
Thanks to Gingrich and the Republican Congress.
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That wasn't all that happened on party-boy Clinton's watch. Bill Clinton and Ken Lay were golfing buddies. Any big corporate scandal you can name, from Enron to Global Crossing to Worldcom to Tyco to Adelphia, the vast majority of the crimes took place under Clinton and were prosecuted under Bush. All these fat cats were heavy contributors to Democrats and Republicans alike, but only the Bush Justice Department put them in jail.
For the first two years, yes. After the Contract with America brought Gingrich and the Republicans into power in 1994, the budget was balanced for the first time in decades. A dozen years of prosperity ensued, to the benefit of both Clinton and Bush.
What is "Overthrow the damn government" code for?
Don't you know? Speaking truth to power only matters when the power is on the Right. It's like the "brave, transgressive" artists who never insult any faith but Christianity. It's cheap and easy to call for the assassination or war crimes trial of the rhinoceros-skinned George Bush, or call Sarah Palin a fucking fascist cunt, or carry a sign encouraging our soldiers to mutiny, or to dunk a crucifix in urine and call it art. Some people become rich and famous in the left wing echo chamber that way, and the rest (at worst) are ignored. It's quite another matter to insult Barack Obama or question affirmative action in a university faculty meeting, or to draw a cartoon derogatory of Mohammed, piss be upon him. That can put an end to your career, or even your life.
-----
Oh, so the hoi polloi should just shut up and pay their taxes, because the "experts" have such a good track record in running the show, is that it? Pooh. Experts be damned.
I'm with Bill Buckley; I'd rather be governed by 100 names picked from the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
-ccm
I'm just glad I don't have to hear "maverick" anymore. And I say that as someone who voted for Sarah and her grandpa...
I didn't know Rod Blagojevich was a Republican! The things you learn here...
The Reichstag fire was done by a handful of people, maybe even just one, with a few gallons of gas and a match.
For 9/11 to have been a government conspiracy, about 4000 people from the janitors to the President would have had to have been in on the secret and kept it, even though several hundred of them would have been planning for their own deaths.
Occam's razor, pal.
-ccm
If you read that quote in context, it seems to me that she was speaking rhetorically, and intimating that she would want to know specifically how long a leash she'd get and how big a set of responsibilities she'd be assigned by her running mate. She's perfectly aware of the minimum Constitutional responsibilities of the job, but the trend lately is for more engagement and involvement by the VP, and she would want to know her expected role before agreeing to take the job. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she will be at the tip of the spear for energy policy in a McCain administration, for example.
Howzabout we let the Africans decide for themselves what they want and don't want to import? Westerners in the grip of green mania are imposing their prejudices on the poor and powerless in other countries. It's not King Leopold in the Belgian Congo, but it's a form of imperialism nonetheless.
.
So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
Number one, I don't consider any government service a real job. There is no penalty for failure. The same goes for "community organizing" and other non-profit work; in fact, the more failure the better for the poverty pimps. Only private enterprise counts for anything in my book. Someone who has never held a private sector job is a shirking, un-American piece of shit who is not to be trusted with power. Number two, Obama is one of the shittiest, laziest, least-accomplished Senators on the Hill. Even as an Illinois state senator he got nothing meaningful accomplished, never mind as a US senator, and voted "Present" something like 150 times. If he were white, his candidacy would be a joke and he wouldn't have received 1% of the primary vote. I predict that there are not enough guilty white liberals to get Obama over the top, no matter what the polls say. People tell pollsters what they want to hear out of politeness and a fear of being perceived as a racist. I am blunt and will cheerfully admit to despising Obama's political views regardless of his race, but that is not true of the great majority of moderate and independent voters. They will smile and tell the exit pollster that "of course" they voted for the black man, when in fact they did no such thing. McCain is going to win by 10 percentage points.
I hate Obama because he's a crypto-Marxist who never held a real job.
Applying the Geneva Conventions to the likes of Al-Qaeda is an expansion, not a limitation, of their rights. Under international law, irregular combatants captured out of uniform are subject to summary on-the-spot execution without trial, the same as pirates on the high seas.
-ccm
There was something about Natalie Portman, and grits, and bases, too. It has all become so confusing. Oh well. Carry on.