calimary
calimary's JournalYeah no shit!
And when they'd sound off together, or we had a Cub Scout meeting at our house, our home became an absolute Symphony Hall...
Same thing happened with nixon. After Watergate and his resignation, you couldn't pay people
to admit they voted for him.
Well how'd he get in, then?
WONDERFUL!!!
Good news is so hard to come by, these days, DonRedwood. Thank you for sharing yours! It's a lift we can all use.
Totally! I like to quote something Rachel Maddow once said on this topic.
She was arguing that it is NOT fair or reasonable or sensible just to mindlessly and automatically presume that "both sides" of EVERY dispute simply MUST be given air time, and equal attention - and likened it to a need to make room for the Flat Earth Society to weigh in, every time we do a report about NASA. Some viewpoints are NOT WORTH IT. Both sides do not always carry or merit equal weight or equal treatment, and certainly not equal validation. And certainly not deserving of being reinforced by giving it face time on TV! It's irritating for me as a retired journalist to see the ridiculous extremes that too many reporters and editors and interviewers pursue in the name of supposed "impartiality." Just bring both sides in, let 'em say their piece, and then, VOILA! You've "covered" the issue adequately. And that's all that's required. You say tomato and I say tomah-to and let's call the whole thing off. It's freakin' LAZY. Note that it also does NOT involve any checking or questioning or challenging of opinions that are just flat-out bullshit, as those which most of what the teabaggers and republi-CONS present these days. You let 'em spout and you've done your job - they've had their say and that's that.
And you have thus served your listenership/viewership/readership NOT AT ALL.
No wonder we have a good case of stupid running rampant through the US. I wonder about that poll that shows what a majority of Louisiana republi-CONS believe about where to lay the blame for the Hurricane Katrina response - and so many of them actually blamed Obama - who wasn't in office til 2009, almost four years after Katrina struck. I wonder if ANY of the pollsters taking that input bothered to stop anybody and do a reality check with them. 
Yeah, didn't think so.
Dayum! Quote of the CENTURY!
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
— Isaac Asimov (via invisiblelad)
Good post, MrScorpio!!! Sad, infuriating, and disgraceful as hell. But one of the best quotes I've ever read. That's as good as one I found that was attributed to Adolf Hitler - "what luck for the leaders that men do not think."
They're so stupid they don't even know how stupid they are.
Even their own governor was the guy who said republi-CONS should stop being the "Stupid Party." Too late, jindal... They're too stupid to realize how stupid they are.
I tell ya - this just makes it. Just MAKES it. There's all the proof you'll ever need.
Sigh...
Absolutely! This, too, is Homeland Security.
Consider: just how secure do YOU feel with the knowledge that you could lose the very roof over your head because of ONE illness or injury. How secure would YOU feel, knowing that everything you've worked for could be so easily wiped out - especially as you age and cycle out of the work force? (That's of course, assuming that you have a decent job to begin with - which a LOT of people don't have!) To me, that's a LOT more terrifying than any terrorist attack. A TRULY safe and secure population is one where the most essential needs for survival are taken care of. It has nothing to do with your freedom-freedoms - to gouge others in the marketplace, to act like an asshole, to be rude, to be greedy, to insist on your right to be a pig. Around our house, we sneer at the CONs and teabagger types who insist on a blanket freedom that basically boils down to their freedom to be a pig (of course, with apologies to the four-legged kind everywhere). We derisively call it their "freedom-freedoms." I think it came from a video clip from "The Newsroom" where the smug, pompous, doltish, wrong-winger ass seated onstage who's asked what the two best things about America are (or something like that) - and he says "freedom. And freedom (yuck-yuck-yuck)!"
Health care should be a public utility - a NOT-FOR-PROFIT essential. The damn profit motive should be taken out COMPLETELY. Seems just completely wrong, to me, to look at another person's suffering or illness as simply another way to make money.
Welcome to DU, yeoman6987!
Glad you're here! I can understand your point. But there are exceptionally valid points going the other way.
First of all, some here have already posted about how failing to prosecute, or send 'em to the Hague for a war crimes tribunal (which is what SHOULD happen since these were INTERNATIONAL crimes), would send a message that this behavior was okay and that the next guy or gal in charge could just dance along down that path with impunity - and worse, knowing nobody's gonna do anything about it and blah-blah-blah. It'd be open season for any future President to be as thuggish as he or she wanted to, citing the cover of national security, and nobody'd do a thing. There would be no checks, no balances, no restraints keeping them from stepping as far out of line as they felt like doing.
It also reinforces apathy, non-vigilance, and the notion that we as citizens - the people the President SERVES (let's not forget - the President is a PUBLIC SERVANT) have no voice and no recourse. No accountability. Move along + nothing to see here + no corrective action + no penalties or consequences for bad behavior = dictatorship, a silenced public, nobody gives a damn anymore, and among other things, they stop voting.
Further, I'm old enough to remember when President Ford pardoned nixon. That left an oozing wound behind that we still haven't gotten over, as a nation. Granted, that's true mainly for history buffs and those of us old enough to remember when President Ford pardoned nixon - and for all the things he was pardoned for. Younger folks don't care that much 'cause they didn't live it, and didn't see the outrage and the skulduggery and criminality, and abuse of power at the highest levels. At least SOME of those bastards went to prison! Gerry Ford always said he remained convinced he did the correct thing because it did allow America to move on from Watergate and not obsess. But it dealt a mortal wound to the character of this nation and to our system of justice, compromised our honor, and only reinforced the idea that the really powerful can and in some cases should be allowed to get away with it. And he did finally concede that it was the prime reason why he only got two years in the White House - whatever was left of nixon's second term - and failed to win the Presidency on his own. When he was appointed Vice President after nixon's then-veep, spiro agnew, resigned in disgrace, Ford stated that he was keenly aware that he had not arrived there by the vote of the people. So when the rest of nixon's second term ran out, Ford ran for his own term, and had his ass handed to him.
Welcome to DU, VADem1980!
Glad you're here! Ordinarily I can sympathize with those who advocate against a one-party system.
HOWEVER... when you have only two really viable parties, and one of them seems to exist only to shit on everything, then dammit, that party's GOT TO GO. It's one thing to be "the loyal opposition" or offer a competing view. But it's another thing entirely when all they want to do is block everything, impede progress, deny and defy, not just fail to get anything done, but ACTIVELY AND RESOLUTELY REFUSE to get anything done, on some sort of cockamamie "principle" or some such. That party's simply got to GO. PERIOD.
And for those who believe strongly in having an opposing voice because leaving the Dems in total command is somehow bad, I'd say - we probably do need to set it up just exactly that way, FOR AWHILE. And that's because we have an astounding amount of old business to clear through, and issues to deal with, and problems to solve, and fuck-ups to fix. And as a proud liberal Democrat, seems to me, those things have to be accomplished - by people who hold the same general world view at least as Democrats, if not outright liberals ones.
Consider: republi-CONS tend to be anti-science, anti-civil rights, anti-separation of church and state, anti-safety net, anti-taxes (even when they're needed), anti-regulation (even when it's needed), just generally anti-government of any kind. Which is not us, and while it may be good for a tiny sliver of greedy money-hoarders and exploiters and other opportunistic infections, is NOT good for promoting the general welfare - which our founding documents actually specify. Conversely, it's just as bad. What republi-CONS are for - includes a theocracy, a narrow Puritanical-Protestant view governing all aspects of existence, meddling in people's personal lives, butting into our bedrooms and doctor's offices, dictating behavior, support and aid and comfort for those who already have too much of it at the expense of those who have little or nothing, unilateral aggression internationally, empire-building by force, letting the foxes guard the hen-houses, NO competition - just lots of monopolies, refusal to acknowledge changing times, needs, demographics, belief systems, and modernity in general, rigging the game, and "starving the beast."
Theirs is an ideology which is utterly unrealistic and untenable, and altogether hostile and even downright toxic to the 99% in this country, and in fact also to the safety, security, and survival of our whole fucking PLANET.
THAT is why the GOP should be locked out of power for at least a generation - or two. Until we have a chance to fix what they've broken, set upright what they've knocked down, solve the problems they've caused and/or neglected and made worse, and help our fellow citizens. OUR way is better. That's the simple truth. OUR way is better for the largest majorities of people everywhere. OUR way is lightyears better than theirs.
Awfully hard supporting something that john yoo and dick cheney are for...
I find that sometimes that helps when trying to figure out where I stand on various ballot propositions that I don't know much about or haven't had a lot of time to study. I look at who's pushing it, who's funding the campaign, who's endorsing. If I don't like THEM, then it's a pretty safe bet I won't like the proposition, either.
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