The Politico round table on the fate of the public option: three Republicans, three non-partisan observers. This, from one of the Republicans, was especially classy:
The public option was like a cheap tattoo on the bride in an arranged marriage, betraying a questionable past (Medicare cost history) and an ominous future (budget-driven service constraints) for what was supposed to be love at first sight.
When hippies talk this way, it’s called shrill.
beltane
Hippies don’t talk that way. No matter the subject under discussion, a Republican can’t refrain from saying something icky regarding women and sex.
Kyle
By comparison, the Repig plan is a skanky hooker hired by insurance companies.
gbear
Via the Plum Line, Nancy Pelosi comes out pretty strong in favor of the public option:
“As the President stated in March, ‘The thinking on the public option has been that it gives consumers more choices and it helps keep the private sector honest, because there’s some competition out there.’
“We agree with the President that a public option will keep insurance companies honest and increase competition.
“There is strong support in the House for a public option. In the House, all three of our bills contain a public option as does the bill from the Senate HELP Committee.
“A public option is the best option to lower costs, improve the quality of health care, ensure choice and expand coverage.
“The public option brings real reform to lower costs over the 10 year period of the bill.”
Thanks Nancy. I’ll wear a flower in my hair in your honor.
Violet
@beltane:
So true. They are completely caught up in women and sex, especially the controlling thereof.
freelancer
Jesus, is today some kind of BJ Blog-off?
Notorious P.A.T.
What the hell does that analogy mean, anyway? Morons!
Sputnik_Sweetheart
I’m so depressed that the political discourse in this country has come to this. Why can’t we discuss the merits and drawbacks of a policy like calm, rational adults without resorting to essentially yelling “oh yeah, well, your mom’s a whore!”
Headdesk.
KG
@3: you know, if the Dems were smart, they’d take that “keeping the insurers honest through competition” line and beat every fucking Republican over the head with it.
It’s basic economics, when a handful of companies control an industry, that is not a free market, that is an oligarchy, controlled by monopolies or trusts. Some honest competition might actually make them responsive to their customers.
Of course, the flaw with this whole idea is right there in the first line of my comment, “if the Dems were smart”.
Silver Owl
Republicans are so freaking off the cliff bizzarre. LOL!
I can see why love at first sight is impossible.
The tramp stamped slut is not marrying the antiquated mentally dulled Lord of super manly elephant sized penis from the estate of all that is pure and virginal.
The Grand Panjandrum
@freelancer:
I just want to know if its DougJ or Cole wearing the blue dress … oops! My bad. I misunderstood …
JK
OT
White House disables e-tip box
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26188.html
When is Obama going to stop governing with his tail between his legs? He’s growing more cowardly with each passing day.
If Obama keeps this up, the Democratic Party will have to change its logo from a donkey to a baby curled up in a fetal position.
Midnight Marauder
The public option was like a cheap tattoo on the bride in an arranged marriage, betraying a questionable past (Medicare cost history) and an ominous future (budget-driven service constraints) for what was supposed to be love at first sight.
No, but seriously, what the fuck does that even mean?
BDeevDad
It’s obvious to me that anyone that brings up costs and Medicare in the same sentence doesn’t know shit about how insurance works.
Roger Moore
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I think that the groom is supposed to be the public, and the parents are Congress. IOW, the public option is a skanky ho being pawned off on the public in place of a nice tractable Philippina mail order bride.
freelancer
@Roger Moore:
But is she a Christian Filipina?
Brick Oven Bill
The public option is more like an oozing, puss-filled cyst, located deep within a fold of fat hanging down from the inner thigh of a grossly obese circus performer, who is unable to shave or wash her festering groin due to the fact that she can no longer reach it because of lipid accumulation and geometry.
KG
@15: so that makes the current system the grossly obese circus performer’s hemorrhoid?
Awesom0
Why the hell do we keep supporting the two parties which keep this eternal crap-fest going?
I don’t give a damn if Politico didn’t feature any party-registered Dems; do you think they would have changed this narrative?
1) Failed to check greed which has lead us to financial Armageddon? Check!
2) Given trillions to asshats in point #1 with no strings attached and EVERY incentive to repeat? Check!
3) Continuation of same expansionist US foreign policy which sucks trillions from our coffers? Check!
4) Failure (so far) to meet one of the biggest social issues of our time? Check!
5) —-> Insert grievance here <—-
KG
shit, my comment was directed at BOB, but something got put in that mixed the numbers up.
mcc
@gbear: Obama’s still in favor of the public option, and all signs are that the house progressive caucus’s promise to vote against the bill unless a strong public option is included is still standing.
Oddly, Grover Norquist basically has the right of it here:
Notorious P.A.T.
@Brick Oven Bill:
They say “write about what you know” but come on!
Sentient Puddle
@Midnight Marauder: I just tried to parse it myself, and that only made it worse. “Arranged marriage” and “love at first sight.” Those kind of don’t jive, y’know?
I guess if nothing else, it shows once again that Republicans are a few generations behind the rest of us, what with them still referencing things like arranged marriages.
mcc
The last three paragraphs in that last post were intended to be part of a single blockquote.
KG
@Awesom0:
because, if you vote for a third party candidate you’re throwing your vote away. And you have to believe that because the Republicans and the Democrats have been telling us that for about 100 years (right around the time that the House of Representatives stopped growing in size).
MBSS
@Awesom0:
why do people support dems, or at least corporate dems? seems like you should know what to expect when they get elected.
bernie sanders, kucinich or nader is not pres. if they were, and then we wound up with co-ops, then i would be surprised.
MBSS
@KG:
but what if millions of us “threw our vote away” on someone who is not a corporate whore, what then?
doesn’t the “the throw your vote away” concept keep us forever indentured servants to whatever progressive crumbs dems throw at us? then progressives whine because they have no leverage. no shit. we don’t have money like corporations, but we do have the leverage of our vote. why not use our power to vote for someone who represents us. obama obviously represents goldman sachs.
mcc
@MBSS: Confused. If you actually had enough millions of people to “throw their vote away” on a third party candidate at the same time for that candidate to win, doesn’t that imply that candidate also has enough support to win a primary election, thus avoiding the “throw your vote away” problem altogether?
Benny Lava
@B.O.B
The public option is more likeI have an oozing, puss-filled cyst, located deep within a fold of fat hanging down from the inner thighChad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Interesting misspelling there. I hope your appointments with Dr. Freud are covered by your insurance.
Benny Lava
@B.O.B
The public option is more likeI have an oozing, puss-filled cyst, located deep within a fold of fat hanging down from the inner thighFixed.
Notorious P.A.T.
I understand and sympathize with people who are sick with both parties. But look, there are obviously good Democrats and bad Democrats. Let’s get rid of the bad ones and see how that goes before we give up on the party. Supporting a primary challenger against a Democratic office holder is a lot like a third party.
MBSS
@mcc:
the primary concept means that the candidate would have to work within the structure which is in place for the democratic party. the system is rotten and not savable at this point. it’s a party where the leader of the house says “impeachment is off the table.” it is a party where our “progressive leader” is for war expansion and not reduction. it is a party where civil liberties means exactly the same thing as it means to the republicans. it is a party that is flush with corporate cash. there is no restructuring, there is only demolition.
Chad N Freude
@Notorious P.A.T.:
BO Bill is the guy who
stalksfollows girls in T-shirts in supermarkets.MBSS
the only reason why i bring my arguments to you guys is because it’s obvious that most of you are good people and want equality and justice for our country. you argue in good faith, and have blood, sweat and tears invested in your party and your country. it just seems so obvious to me that there is need for fundamental change. not obama’s type of fundamental change, but real change.
Chad N Freude
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Without moving in large numbers to their states? How do you persuade the constituents who keep returning these guys to Congress to vote for more liberal candidates? The Congresspersons and Senators who take these Neanderthal positions do so because it will keep their constituents voting for them. The idea of Democrats/Progressives/Socialifascists changing the political views of their constituents is right up there with Brick Oven Bill’s sexual fantasies.
Roger Moore
@MBSS:
You shouldn’t be surprised. For all that people talk about the President’s power, he’s not the problem here. The President can’t pass legislation himself. He can only sign the bills passed by Congress, and Congress couldn’t pass a good bill without about a billion dollars in
bribescampaign contributions. President Ralph Nader couldn’t get anything done without a favorable Congress and, given his relative political inexperience, would probably accomplish far less than President Obama will.linda
and the press meme is developing as we sit here: susan page paraphrased on hardball: ‘when you’ve got a majority in the senate and house and you can’t pass the signature legislation, that doesn’t speak well of the democrats’. and that will be the ongoing critique from now until 2012.
WereBear
Constituents can only vote for who the party runs. And for a long time, the Democrats had bailed on many districts.
With Howard Dean’s 50 state initiative, and Republicans competing for the Crazy Crown, there is a new bunch of math to consider.
After all, the House is showing both spine and responsiveness. It’s the Dinosaurs of the Senate that are causing so much of the trouble, and they are Bush legacies to a great extent.
ironranger
The republican true believers are incredibly trusting. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that R legislators would throw them under the Medicare in a nano second & orchestrate it while convincing seniors they had nothing to do with it. Medicare Part D prescription bamboozle comes to mind.
Armey straight out says & others reluctantly admit (O’Donnell/Rep Cumberbund interview) they don’t want americans to have Medicare. Ross Douthat writes that somebody will have to defend the younger generation’s pocketbooks & will need to say no to retirees.
Blind faith.
ironranger
@ironranger:
under the Medicare bus, that is.
KG
@MBSS – if you couldn’t tell from my comment, I was being a bit snarky on the “throwing your vote away” stuff. I hear that all the time from my friends who are more devoted to parties than I am. My response is always the same, “it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.” As long as a lot of people believe that the two major parties are the only choice, they will remain the only choices. What is most annoying is that we have some recent examples of third party/independent candidates makes a difference (Perot before going crazy in 1992, Ventura in Minnesota), and still the myth of the two party system lives on.
Believe me, I would love to have a realist-libertarian party that I could vote for.
Seanly
I get MBSS’s point. If enough of us threw away our vote, then we might get actually elect 3rd party candidates.
However, I’d like to see Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy taken to 435 districts. Run good candidates in every district, for every governor, for every state house/senate.
As far as Politico, who cares? It’s an inside the Beltway circle jerk.
i’m resigned to us getting hosed by the screaming republicans and cowardly democrats. Nothing will change except that the already obscenely wealthy will continue to suck the marrow out of the middle and lower classes. They’ve hosed us for years on falling income, increased insurance and pharmaceticul costs. They fleeced us just recently to cash out all our home equity – at least that one was so bad that it even screwed them a bit as all those NYT “pity the once-rich” stories show.
Let’s just admit that the USA is a third world country in once-fancy clothes. We all suck and we deserve the misery we’ll get when the economy finally tanks once & for all.
MBSS
@Roger Moore:
i do understand the limits of the executive branch. but it is a bully pulpit, and with a good presentation, and game plan, you can do quite a bit with it. you’ve seen other presidents do that. (iraq war)
i understand that nader would have some problems adjusting to that type of job. but the main thing is that i trust his heart, and even if he lost, he would fight for what is right, and he would fight like a pitbull. that is what is so disconcerting to me about the current administration.
Violet
It’s been a rough day. I think I need Lily and Tunch photos.
p.a.
The majority of Congressional assclowns never seem to legislate beyond tax favors for major contributors and declarations announcing ‘National Holstein Week’ or whatever unless an issue affects them personally. So let the Progressive Caucus file a bill eliminating Congressional medical coverage and throw them to the tender mercies of the free market like so many of their fellow citizens. This probably won’t cause much stir in the millionaires club that is the US Senate, but it might help focus some minds in the House.
I don’t like that kind of ‘street theater’ politics, but it seems that’s all we get now anyway. Where do these fuckers go for service? Walter Reed? Picket it.
GReynoldsCT00
@Violet:
there’s an idea… we didn’t get any all weekend… John?!
Meg
Seriously, when are we going to have our march for the public option?
Leelee for Obama
I left a question for ethylester in the original PO RIP thread. She said the Swiss don’t allow the insurance cos to make a profit on the sale of insurance. My question is, is that true? If it is, why are the companies in the business w/o a profit motive? Or is it that our insurance cos are on the stock exchange? Anyone know? I’m confuzzled!
MBSS
i am dead serious when i say that the only salve for our broken hearts is a pic of tunch and lily.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but it sounds as if the book Democracy Incorporated should be on the top of the reading list for many of the commentators here.
Chad N Freude
@WereBear:
I respectfully disagree. I’ll keep voting for Senator Whatayutz as long as he keeps bringing in bridges to nowhere that make me and my neighbors prosper and protects me from whatever Sean Hannity tells me is threatening. I will not respond favorably to anyone who proposes to stop either one.
MBSS
@ leelee
i found this from a quick search. it may help. boston globe.
The Swiss example on health insurance reform
By Béatrice Schaad Noble | June 18, 2007
MASSACHUSETTS isn’t the first place to mandate that everyone buy insurance as a way to achieve universal health coverage, and it isn’t the first to get queasy about seeing through that solution.
Like Americans, the Swiss were not eager to accept the double principles of universal coverage and a mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance. It took almost a century and political debates as contentious as those in the Massachusetts Legislature before these two elements were added to the Swiss system in 1996.
What made a very reluctant Swiss population finally accept (by a small majority of 52 percent) such a fundamental change? Prior to the individual mandate, insurers were largely unregulated and could reject older people or those in poor health or charge them very high premiums. As a result, lifetime coverage was uncertain and health insurance was increasingly unaffordable for people with low incomes.
The goals of the Swiss reforms sound familiar to Massachusetts: Cover everyone, make insurance more affordable for low and moderate income people, and control health care costs. The individual mandate was combined with insurance market reforms that require Swiss insurers to offer a standardized, comprehensive benefit package defined by the federal government. Individuals can choose from products that have different deductibles (ranging from $240 to $2,050), and they have the right to change health insurers every year. Federal subsidies are available to low and moderate income people to make coverage more affordable.
Eleven years later, Switzerland has achieved its goal of universal coverage: Everyone has access to the same comprehensive health insurance coverage, at the same premiums, and to the same quality of medical care.
So, why did a coalition of stakeholders — mainly the Socialist Party and the Popular Group of Families — propose in March to vote on a radical restructuring of the system: the adoption of a single payer system?
First, affordability of health coverage has become a major issue, particularly for middle income people who do not qualify for government subsidies. Some Swiss families are paying as much as 16 percent of household income for health coverage.
Second, the availability of high-deductible health plans, promoted as a panacea to the problem of affordability for middle income people by the right wing of the Swiss parliament, has brought no relief from rising health insurance premiums. Premium rates for all types of health insurance, including high-deductible plans, have continued to rise at rates that far exceed general inflation. There is growing concern that people enrolled in these plans are more likely to avoid, skip, or delay needed care because of costs.
Finally, there is growing public concern and distrust of private non profit health insurers. Swiss citizens believe that insurers have profited unduly from the individual mandate, in part by adopting a range of pernicious practices to hunt for good insurance risks and avoid people in poorer health, in violation of Swiss law.
In the March vote on the initiative, voters in only two Swiss states out of 26 approved the single payer initiative. Even states with the highest premiums, like Geneva, defeated it. Polls show that voters were concerned about what the measure would mean for their individual health insurance premiums, and they were not persuaded that a single payer system would be more effective at controlling rising costs. So, even if there was strong opposition to the individual mandate 11 years ago, today few Swiss want to be relieved of this obligation.
What have we learned in Switzerland from our decade long experience with an individual mandate that is instructive for Massachusetts?
First, the queasiness felt in Massachusetts is natural, but is certainly not a reason to waver. Despite the fact that 97 percent of the population already had insurance in Switzerland, the introduction of the individual mandate induced deep modifications in Swiss culture: the obligation to be insured throughout one’s life, the freedom to change insurance every year, the relief to no longer be subject to discrimination by insurance companies according to age or gender, and the guarantee to have access to a wide range of benefits determined at the federal level.
Second, there is growing scrutiny of insurance companies and heightened demands for accountability in a system in which everyone must purchase coverage. Specific concerns about insurers have focused on the opacity of their business practices and finances, the lack of competition among insurers, and their illegal attempts to identify and enroll healthy people and avoid people in poorer health.
Third, affordability of health insurance has become a huge public issue. With rising health care costs, more than one-third of Swiss families now qualify for public subsidies. Even though federal spending for subsidies for health insurance has more than doubled since 1996, an increasing number of middle-class families cannot afford their premiums.
Finally, the mandate and the affordability issue are focusing attention on the problem of health care costs and have sharpened attention on the relative responsibility of major players. Physicians, hospitals, consumers, and insurers cannot escape being involved in the debate about health expenditures which, thanks to the mandate, has reached a national level.
Although last month’s vote demonstrated that the Swiss prefer incremental change to revolution, it was far from an all-out endorsement of the current system. The parliament is now debating a number of new modifications to the law from all sides.
Switzerland has led the way for Massachusetts on the adoption of a mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance. Perhaps the diverse, broad-based coalition of stakeholders that supported health reform in Massachusetts can develop some lessons to share with the Swiss in the areas of affordability and health care cost control. The Swiss experience suggests that these issues will certainly be your next policy challenges, and critical to the ultimate success of your health reform law.
MBSS
@ leelee
i posted the entire article but it is in moderation.
here is the link to a boston globe article that covers swiss insurance:
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/other/articles/2007/06/18/the_swiss_example_on_health_insurance_reform/?page=1
Josh E.
The analogy doesn’t even make sense. Why would the bride in an arranged marriage be a tattooed skank with a slutty past?
tc125231
Why do you publicize Politico? Do you write the URLs for Murdoch properies an bathroom walls, also?
Just call them dishonest liars and move on.
Leelee for Obama
@MBSS:Thanksfor that artcile but it’s from 2007, mbss; have the Swiss changed anything since that makes Krugman like it better?
Anyone else have info-maybe ethylester? I’m confused by the idea of insurers prohibited from turning a profit, and wonder if that’s how they figure they’ll get single-payer eventually?
Krugman seemed really impressed today, so I just want to know what I talking about.
Thanks.
Makewi
Switzerland has a rate of home ownership at just under a third of the population, compared to almost 70% in the US. Interestingly, they are also in the largest grouping of suicide rates of those countries with a rate of greater than 13 per 100,000 (17.6 to be exact) compared to the US rate of 11.1 per 100,000. Mexico is in the lowest grouping of suicide rates, as is Portugal, while Spain is in the same grouping with the US.
Has Switzerland ever been successfully invaded? I’m pretty sure they haven’t, but can’t say definitively.
Joey Maloney
@MBSS:
but what if millions of us “threw our vote away” on someone who is not a corporate whore, what then?
But what if I could fart lavender-scented rainbows that would feed the hungry and repel sharks, what then?
Sorry for the sarcasm but the fact is millions of us won’t do that. So until you can present some kind of strategy to get from here to there that can be operationally tested and validated, it’s just a counterfactual and not useful to the discussion. Except to point out that all elected Republicans and more than half of the Democrats kinda suck.
Quaker in a Basement
Sound metaphors never require parenthetical exposition.
Leelee for Obama
@Makewi: Interesting, but it has what to do with the Swiss health care program-not being snotty, I’m just not seeing the correlation.
kth
So the Republican is saying that he and his constituents feel like they’re getting the Levi Johnston end of the deal?
Roger Moore
@MBSS:
I definitely agree that Obama made a big tactical mistake by turning too much over to Congress, which may be a problem you get by electing a legislator rather than an executive. He missed a big opportunity by failing to present his own concrete proposal, which would have let him frame the debate better. I think it also would have flushed the crazies out of the woodwork earlier in the process, which would have given the Democrats more time to fight their madness.
My objection is that I don’t see much in pure outsider idealists like Nader. Nader wouldn’t just have a problem adapting to the way things are done in Washington; he would be incapable of even trying. Yes, he’d fight like a pitbull for what he believed in, but that’s just another way of saying that he’s allergic to compromise. He’d wind up sacrificing the imperfect but achievable in the vain hope of getting the perfect but politically impossible.
MBSS
@ joey maloney
if you could fart lavender scented rainbows then you would be the ultimate air freshener husband, or you could come over to my house on burrito night. it would be much appreciated.
Calouste
@Makewi:
Napoleon invaded them in 1798 and made them a vassal state until 1813.
Demo Woman
@Leelee for Obama: I’m with you. I found his/her comments confusing.
Leelee for Obama
@Roger Moore: I think Obama was fairly clear about what kind of plan he wanted-knowing full-well that the sausage makers would cock it up as they wrote it. Having a basic outline gave us HR 3200, which isn’t a bad bill at all. Having been a Senator, Obama knows what a shit pile the various committees would produce and reconciliation would be the key. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is what I think.
Calouste
@KG:
Considering that libertarianism consists of denying the reality (as in that they think that people will have to common good in mind when there are no regulations, as opposed to the reality that people will try to abuse others as much as they can for their own profit if they are not held in check), don’t hold your breath.
MBSS
@ roger moore
i really am cognizant of your concerns about efficacy. and sometimes people think i’m just spouting out “lavender rainbows” while riding my unicorn through a pipe dream. but i can’t sacrifice my ideals on your altar of pragmatism. the perfect may be the enemy of the good in some respects. on the other hand sometimes the good just isn’t any good. sometimes it’s the same old bullshit we’ve seen forever and a day. and we need the idealists and pipe dreamers to move us beyond our self imposed ideas of what we think is possible. someone earlier mentioned self fulfilling prophecies. im afraid that when people say things like “war always was, and always will be. i’m just being practical.” they condemn us to a future of war, that was never necessary.
Roger Moore
@Josh E.:
Because her parents lied to the matchmaker. I think the idea is that the groom (i.e. the public) is showing up on the wedding day expecting the beautiful bride (i.e. bill) that the matchmaker (i.e. the Democrats) promised, only to discover on his wedding night that he’s been tricked. The tattoo is proof that his new bride is a dirty tramp (i.e. tainted by wicked old Medicare) and not the virgin he thought he was getting. I guess he’d be better staying with his abusive, straying girlfriend (i.e. the insurance companies).
Makewi
@Leelee for Obama:
Comparisons of systems in different countries are not always as straightforward as one might like. Often times it amounts to comparing apples to oranges. For example the Swiss have the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, and yet have a lower rate of homicide than the US.
@Calouste
Many thanks.
Who makes better chocolate the Swiss or the Belgians? My money is on the Belgians, but many would say the Swiss.
MBSS
I guess he’d be better staying with his abusive, straying girlfriend (i.e. the insurance companies).
she’s an extortionist too.
Steeplejack
@KG:
Use the reply arrow at the right of the time stamp! It’s one freakin’ click.
Leelee for Obama
@Makewi: Perhaps because they have mental health coverage. Not sure, but entirely possible.
Belgian chocolate is wonderful, so unless I get a chance to do a direct comparison some time , I’d go with Belgium. If it was cocoa, I’d say Swiss.
Josh E.
@Roger Moore:
That makes sense. I associate “skanky” tattoos with US culture and I don’t associate arranged marriages with US culture so it still doesn’t work but that must be what he’s trying to say.
Roger Moore
@MBSS:
Definitely. But I see the most valuable role for idealists and pipe dreamers as outside pressure groups rather than political insiders. Politics is an inherently messy business that idealists are going to find inherently problematic. They do much more good by applying pressure- media exposure, money, and votes- to keep their side on (or at least closer to) the straight and narrow. The Democrats need something like a saner, left wing version of the teabaggers: a group that will scare them away from giving everything away in an attempt to appease the Republicans.
Leelee for Obama
@Roger Moore: They have those groups-Netroots, FDL, Code Pink, etc. The problem is the Liberal Dems are there-it’s the Conservative Blue Dogs that need prodding and the lefty groups mentioned have no effect on them, really. What’s needed is for Blue Dogs to talk to their constituents like Democrats, not like Republicans. There nothing wrong with being conservative, but you need to make sense. Ask any old time conservative ans they’ll tell you the Republicans aren’t their party either.
MBSS
@ roger moore
Politics is an inherently messy business
that’s the thing. i foresee a future where our political system doesn’t necessitate including only the “barracudas,” and sharks. it doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s the reality today. it’s for gladiators and the soulless, narcissistic climbers.
btw, i respect your opinions, and understand your POV.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Gotta disagree with you there. The Clinton administration presented a full, concrete proposal that went down to defeat because the Republicans’ lies about it got better traction the press (especially when a New Republic editor named Andrew Sullivan published Betsy McCaughey’s “No Exit,” which was filled with lies and which no one in the media ever bothered to fact check). McCaughey is, of course, one of the lying liars who’s boosting the “death boards” lie.
I think it was a strategic decision and, frankly, I don’t think we can say for sure yet that it was a mistake. We still have another, what, two weeks before Congress is back in session? A lot can happen in two weeks.
John S.
Because they have no real standing military. As thus, citizens are issued weapons in accordance with serving in the Swiss militia (which is pretty much what our founding fathers had in mind with the second amendment).
Link
It doesn’t surprise me that a fucking imbecile like you is unable to connect those dots.
Makewi
@John S.:
Wow, you’re quite the angry one aren’t you. Some people are like that when they come across someone who won’t bow to their bullshit. I do find your assertion about the founding fathers, the 2nd and militias to be sweet in a “have never actually read the words of the founders” sort of way.
I am sort of curious what you think you have debunked though? Did I say how they came to be armed? Does having a military background make one less homicidal? Are you suggesting we should have compulsary military service as a means to reduce homicide by gun?
Just what argument are you making genius? Because it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I was saying. Idiot.
Anne Laurie
@Josh E.: Worked for Laura Lane Welch… I mean, Jenna Bush. (Don’t think Jenna’s mom has any tattoos.)
John S.
Nah, I just have no patience for dimwits like you that throw around a lot of words and have absolutely no idea what the fuck they are talking about.
The point you, fucking idiot, is that in Switzerland:
1) The rate of gun ownership is higher than here because they HAVE A STATE MILITIA. That means every conscript has to keep a weapon at home, which you know, means that the rate of gun ownership is very high.
2) The homicide rate in Switzerland is much lower directly as a result of the REASON why people own guns (refer to point #1). That means that even though they have a lot of guns, those guns are not owned by just your average “private citizen” who feels the need to protect himself from a deer wearing a bulletproof vest. The guns are owned primarily by MILITARY CONSCRIPTS.
I bring these more than obvious points to your attention because your comment, much like your other comments, only seeks to frame things from the standard wingnut point of view. That is to say, you like to fix the facts around your idiotic notions.
When you get done being a giant fucking moron, get back to me.
Makewi
@John S.:
I believe you have no patience, in addition to having no class and no clue. Hope that works out for you fuckwit.
The only thing you are interested in is ferreting out the wingnut. The actual points being made mean nothing to you, because you are a good party member, so you don’t bother to even figure out the underlying points being made.
Congratulations on your purity.
Anne Laurie
@KG:
Then go run for your local school board, or find a similarly-minded Realist-Libertarian you can support to do so. Srsly. The “Permanent Republican Majority”, such as it was/is, came about because the Republican true believers spent 30-plus years finding & supporting anti-science school board candidates and anti-choice city council candidates and anti-government state drainage commission auditor candidates. These tiny community nuisance larvae, nurtured by wingnut welfare and protected by low-information-voter apathy, eventually pupated in state legislatures, before emerging as full-blown leeches, ticks, and lampreys battening on our misfortunate nation’s lifeblood during the anti-Clinton congressional “Class of 1994” and the Bush/Cheney Kleptocracy. (It also tied the sane conservatives into a death pact with the Insane Klowns Posse, but that’s their problem to solve, or not.)
The Realist-Libertarians — and their counterparts on the other axis, like the Greens — believe they can find a magical all-purpose Savior Candidate, like Ralph Nader, whose enormous logical appeal and sheer personal charisma will make all us disaffected voters smack our foreheads and change our party registration. And also possibly bring in a whole! new! wave! of former non-voters enchanted by the MESSAGE, which has never before been so brilliantly embodied. This is like trying to change the Titanic’s direction by tying Leonardo DiCaprio to the bowsprit — no matter how much media attention it may attract, the laws of political physics will not work in your favor.
Of course Green and Libertarian candidates do sometimes run for one of those humble bottom-level civic offices, and even win. But all too often, prospective third-party Political Leaders leave the field, if not the party, after their first loss. The voters are too stupid, apathetic, or abused to appreciate one’s political genius, so they don’t deserve a second chance. Or the Entrenched Interests are too evil and/or powerful to understand that immediately surrendering their picayune personal fiefdoms to the New Perfect Goal is the only logical choice if they are not to be swept into the dustbin of history. Compromising, horse-trading, persuading other individuals (many of them self-involved greedy hacks and nutbags of dubious intellect and no obvious achievements) to vote in favor of the New Paradigm is tedious and soul-soiling.
It’s much easier to stomp off the field and then sit on the sidelines bitching, but Rush Limbaugh only achieved his current status because thousands of other Republicans were willing to expend their efforts in the actual political game. Even President Obama’s “overnight” success came as the culmination of many years of not-obvious-to-the-mainstream-media work and planning on his part and that of hundreds of other Democratic professionals and committed amateurs.
disinterested observer
“When hippies talk this way, it’s called shrill.”
No. when hippies talk this way its called drug -induced mania
disinterested observer
Which given that these people don’t take drugs (!???!) its jusr naturally induced mania