Libertarians? No, thank you. I’m full.
Uh-oh. Here I go again with all my blackity black talk. I will endeavor to keep a cool head. I do not want to offend anyone’s sensibilities, nor would I like to be seen as one of “those people” who takes the bait when “scooby snacks” are dangled in front of them by “the white wing.”
::ahem::
What I have just relayed is true information, as evidenced by the sources cited below.
During a Senate hearing, Rand Paul had this to say:
PAUL: With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.
Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.
I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.
As a person with a somewhat brown tinge to her skin, I am disturbed that Rand Paul would compare paid doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals to slaves, who, if you are unaware, are people also with a brown tinge to their skin, who were forcibly removed from their homelands, shipped to these United States, and forced to work for free, under less than hospitable conditions.
That Mr. Paul would employ such a comparison is distasteful, and demonstrates that he may not entirely and sufficiently understand the history of our country.
Moreover, such distasteful positions with respect to social issues and entitlements are held by myriad libertarians, such as Rand Paul’s father Ron Paul (who will be discussed further below), and, potentially, other individuals who may or may not be affiliated with the Cato Institute.
It is for these reasons that I do not support libertarians or libertarianism in any form, and I would hope that those on the left who elevate certain principles they hold dear over those held dear by others might reflect on whether a libertarian or libertarian-leaning administration would be beneficial to the country.
For your viewing pleasure, I am including a video of Lawrence “Ol’ Blue Eyes” O’Donnell’s “Rewrite” from today’s broadcast. I hope you enjoy it:
Also for your viewing pleasure, I have included a video of Ron Paul explaining to Chris “Tweety” Matthews that he would not have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Acts because he believes that property owners should have the right to discriminate if they choose to do so.
The positions espoused in these videos alarm me. I hope they alarm you, too.
And with that, I thank you for reading this post. I hope I have supplied useful information in an unemotional and non-divisive fashion.
Additionally, I trust that I have not single-handedly alienated those who would otherwise consider voting for Obama again if not for this or any other post that I have authored during my tenure here.
Please do feel free to share your comments with one another in the space provided below.
[via Think Progress]
JC
Ah, ABL, you truly have me chuckling now. Still picking a fight, but doing it in quite the clever, funny way. :)
And, I agree with you on the idiot Libertarians, as I’m sure most of the people here will.
Silver
My family doctor is black. Looking at what medical care costs, I bet I would come out ahead if I could actually buy her like in the good ole’ days.
She’s not self-accredited though, so I imagine she’ll be expensive.
Alison
The Pauls are such amazing shitheads. And it’s SO INTERESTING that it’s (as far as I’ve seen) always people who would never be targets of said peachy-keen private-business racism – white, middle-to-upper class, hetero Christian dudez – who think this could not possibly be a problem at all, because FREE MARKETS or some fucking shit.
Yeah? And what if you ARE someone who would be a potential victim of that government-okayed discrimination? What about the right of those people to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? How does one live a life that includes liberty and happiness when one is the target of legal ostracizing and hatred? Can these crusty white fuckfaces even contemplate how it might feel to not just be discriminated against, but for your own fucking government to sit back and “aw shucks” it?
Silly me. of course they can’t contemplate it, nor do they fucking care to. Their lives are fine, and fuck the rest of us.
PeakVT
A clip of Bernie Sanders humiliating Small Paul.
Also, too: in before the WATBs show up.
Lolis
Libertarians are even worse than Republicans in my mind, they treat the private sector with more reverence than most people worship their gods.
Jewish Steel
I work as a janitor in medical buildings/hospitals.
If my free labor is all it takes to get universal healthcare, I’ll take one for the team.
You’re welcome.
General Stuck
Tea and Crumpets anyone? A mild toddy for your nerves? If not, then buckle up and say yer prayers, it’s roller derby blogging here at The Hot Air Dome.
Let the tears and bile flow like rivers of troll sludge
Anton Sirius
Rand Paul’s so-called “right” to oxygen is enslaving anybody who plants trees and tries to save forests. I demand that he stop being such a hypocrite, abide by his own principles and cease breathing forthwith.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
If I enslaved Rand Paul, i think that rather than forcing him to work as an opthamologist, I’d keep him in my decadent Tiberian grotto where he’d be forced to act out scenes from the life of the Aqua-Buddha. But that’s just me, I guess…
mr. whipple
Where’s the anger?
I count on ABL to bring it. This is so…so…..whitebread.
Halteclere
As an optometrist who gets 50% of his income from Medicaid patients I assume he is not a dummy. So this idiotic statement about universal healthcare forcing doctors, nurses, hospital support staff etc. to work against their wills is simply BS playing to the ignoramuses in his base (which are probably his entire base).
Anton Sirius
@PeakVT:
I imagine there will be some ultra-classy gloating go on, seeing as how they forced John to force ABL to re-instate comments through the sheer force of their forcey forcefulness.
Shade Tail
Keep in mind, Paul (older and younger) is a disciple of Ayn Rand. And the biggest common factor about those folks, those rejects from reality, is that they each consider themselves the living incarnation of John Galt. That is to say, they seriously believe that they are indispensable supermen and everyone else are parasites and moochers.
So of course Paul the Self-Accredited would say, with a straight face, that guaranteeing the lesser folks health care would be slavery for him. They’re the parasites, and he’s Atlas just waiting for an excuse to shrug.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mr. whipple:
A big, fat, sweaty and ignorant loaf of whitebread.
calling all toasters
Why is this idiot still posting on this site?
fasteddie9318
Ron Paul is a nasty shithead and I wouldn’t in a brazillion years vote for him, but I can’t really work up a good hate for him if only because, on a select few issues, he was the last man standing in the Republican Party for most of this past decade who wasn’t outright batshit insane. Sure, he’s outright batshit insane on a lot of stuff, but not everything, and for the GOP that’s a big deal.
But his mutant freak offspring Rand? Fuck that dude. Wrap his hair hat around a barbed-wire covered 2×4 and Fuck. That. Dude.
parsimon
Um, yes. I read about Rand Paul’s remarks drawing an analogy between universal health care and slavery earlier today. Yes, it draws on a certain kind of libertarian thinking. It also draws on extraordinarily brain-dead thinking. I noticed.
fasteddie9318
@calling all toasters: And, here we go.
sukabi
Slavery to Rand Paul is having to actually be “means tested” as a requirement of your occupation… ie, he
couldn’tdidn’t pass his recertification boards for his profession, so he set up his own recert. organization…he’s just afraid he’d actually have to be tested by an accredited, licensing agency if universal healthcare goes through…
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Alison: As I said in the thread about why the libertarians associate with racists, sexists, and homophobes: they get the policies they want and as straight white men don’t find compromising with those groups to be all that onerous.
Nutella
I put this up in the open thread, but it goes well here:
McArdle, another libertarian who loves to talk about free commercial availability of medical care untainted by any government interference, when she encounters a commercial offer for discounts on Lasik surgery what happens? She’s squicked out by the idea of capitalistic price competition.
Which reminds me that this same ‘Dr’ Paul also whined about his right to receive high Medicare payments.
Bob Loblaw
@Anton Sirius:
You’ve got your metaphor backwards, genius. The government sanctioned “right” to oxygen is a threat to the deforestation free market. Arboretums are slavery. Get it straight, hippie.
Baby, I can be as alarmed as you want me to be.
eemom
thank Gawd yer back, ABL. Friends and foes alike have been climbing the walls for the last 6 hours feeming for a shitfest fix.
We’re addicted to ya, baby.
lacp
ABL,
You say ‘those people,’
I say ‘you people,’
Let’s call the whole thing off…
Apparently the good alleged-doctor Paul never heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “Volunteer Slavery.” And in addition to no sense of history, he doesn’t appear to have much of one of irony, either. As the line at the end of The Bridge at Toko-Ri has it, “Where do we get such men?”
Southern Beale
Rand Paul is a nutwagon. I read the transcript, and what he was really saying was: if you think you have a RIGHT to healthcare, that means you will FORCE ME TO TREAT YOU. You will HUNT ME DOWN and force me to be your monkey and give you glasses.
And trust me, I would not go near that guy with a 10-ft pole, not if he were the last optometrist or ophthalmologist or whatever the fuck brand of medicine it is he practices because swear to god the guy is batshit insane.
Seriously, he thinks having a “right” means he personally has to treat everyone. I mean, who thinks this way?
Jebediah
@calling all toasters:
If you are referring to ABL, screw off.
Warren Terra
@calling all toasters:
I always support the sort of introspection your comment demonstrates. It’s not necessary to ask it aloud, as it were, but still: introspection, definitely a good thing.
Citizen_X
@calling all toasters: Because we so savor your sweet, sweet tears.
Love the alt-text up there, ABL.
Jebediah
@sukabi:
And he’s happy to let the rest of us suffer to spare him the reality-slap of failing said testing. He and Donald Trump each need a hearty punch in the neck.
opal
@Bob Loblaw:
What the fuck does that even mean?
Bob Loblaw
@mr. whipple:
It’s God’s will that white bread be made superior to his multigrain brothers forever and ever more. And don’t even get me started on dark rye.
Jebediah
@Warren Terra: Ah, you did it better than I.
mr. whipple
It’s a Wonder.
fasteddie9318
@Southern Beale:
On top of which he’s self-accredited, which FFS I could probably do too, so then I could start giving people corrective lens prescriptions because I said so and nobody better try to make sure I know what the hell I’m doing. I’d just as soon have my 3 year old niece give me an eye exam.
Short Bus Bully
@fasteddie9318:
So well said. Made my day.
Jeffro
Am I getting it right that the Pauls have a problem with anyone, anywhere, making anyone else, anywhere, do something that society in general has decided would be a good idea?
I mean, can you imagine Rand as a traffic cop where someone in a Camaro has run a red light and t-boned a family of four in their mini-van?
“You’re under arrest…no not you in the Camaro…you in the mini-van…you had no right to expect the Camaro driver would automatically stop…that would be slavery”
I know I’m in the ballpark here…
Dennis G.
Hey ABL
I enjoy what you do immensely. Do keep it coming.
The Pauls are all throwbacks to Southern Politicians who believed in the Redemption movement that ended Reconstruction. They wear a libertarian fig leaf, but under their clothes it is all Red Shirt all the time.
Cheers
opal
@mr. whipple:
I want a Loblaw boloney sandwich, with extra mayonnaise on the side.
jl
Is not ABL obviously trolling her own post by having open comments, and is therefore bad?
/intrablog snark
Edit: Am I not a slave to the insurance companies by having to pay premiums over a competitive rate?
Edit edit: probably not. Paul would tell me to start my own health insurance company to cover myself. OK, I give up, his strict geometrical logic is airtight.
Joel
I have to say, I felt a little bad for Ron Paul when he was being (depending on your interpretation) sexually assaulted by Sasha Baron Cohen during the Bruno movie. But no longer. Fucker had it coming.
kevin
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed libertarians whistle past the graveyard: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105130380
Indiana Supreme Court: No right to resist unlawful police entry
mclaren
Why doesn’t he just give us the Full Monty and describe health care reform as “Obama’s Holocaust”? He could talk about jackbooted Democrats lining up sick people in front of slit trenches and shooting ’em in the head! He could yell about liberals shoving grannies into gas ovens! He could howl that the ACA is the Zyklon B of modern politics!
I shouldn’t say these things because, you know…next week some Republican will say exactly that. Probably Newt. And he will be acclaimed by the Washington Post as a “Very Serious Person” offering a “courageous discussion of health care in America.”
catperson
@Southern Beale: John Galt?
Mark S.
My biggest problem with ABL is that I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes trying to click the first line. I know it’s a link to something.
As for Paul, I guess that means lawyers are slaves, since you do have a right to an attorney, even if you can’t afford one.
different church-lady
Apparently the only right I have in this country and society is the right to call Rand Paul a raving nincompoop. That one is actually in the constitution.
Allan
If children have a right to public education, then I can drag my neighbor the teacher out of bed and force her at gunpoint to educate Rand Paul about how the constitution works.
Jebediah
@mclaren:
Fucking Newt – fucking NPR had fucking tool Ron Christie on this afternoon, talking about what a brilliant idea man Newt is. EJ Dionne sounded like he was getting ready to tee off on that, and whoops – host hurriedly blurts out “time to move on” to something else. Serves me right for having a radio.
opal
@Bob Loblaw:
Tell us again about your conspiracy theory.
Just the basics.
RossInDetroit
My doctor is female and has more melanin than my last 4 doctors put together. She’s a princess and I’ll man the barricades against her enslavement. Luckily, that defensive action would only be necessary in Dr. Paul’s fervid imagination.
Lojasmo
Libtards suck. This registered nurse says “fuck you, rand”
I lurv you, ABL.
Bob Loblaw
@opal:
You seem to not understand the concept of “satire.” Opal, dear, I don’t mean to upset your delicate balance, but there’s a chance people online aren’t being 100% genuine all the time.
Discerning this requires something known as “situational awareness” or “a fucking brain that operates above a second grade level,” but I don’t want to throw too much at you too fast. Baby steps.
opal
@Bob Loblaw:
“Sometimes sidestepping IS the answer”
Guess who said that?
Ash Can
I think it’s very disturbing that this shit-for-brains has, or had, actual patients. I genuinely do not want to even think of him “treating” anyone at all. Yikes.
Bob Loblaw
@opal:
Jesus? Bob Hope? The Geico Gecko? Emily Bronte? It was Emily Bronte, wasn’t it? Cheeky harlot.
Ecks
If we give the poor people in this country food stamps, are we enslaving grocery store owners?
This Rand guy is one deep thinking mofo.
opal
@Bob Loblaw:
You don’t know shit about satire.
You’re a garden variety under-achiever with a chip on his narcissistic disorder shoulder.
hhex65
KMBA is getting to be my favorite radio station
catperson
@Bob Loblaw: FWIW, you made me laugh
Dustin
@calling all toasters: Screw you toaster, she has a right to post for exactly as long as Cole says she does. Don’t like it? Don’t read it. Though to be fair ABL I will go right back to questioning your judgment should you chose to lock this thread. We’re a mature audience, let us deal with the trolls if you need to walk away.
As for Paul and his spawn? They’re scum, plain and simple. They pander to the prejudiced, feed off of the fearful, and just plain make shit up because their audience is too propagandized and ignorant to know better. Though to be honest I’m not entirely certain he’s not also dumb enough to believe his UHC=slavery analogy.
Ecks
The American Government guarantees all of America’s citizens protection from foreign invasion. American soldiers are all slaves that can be dragged out of bed by any American who feels like they need defending!
Rand Paul, sign the petition you are afraid of… the one to disband America’s armed forces, and liberate its brave fighting men and women from the yoke of tyranny!
garage mahal
Didn’t this low watt douchebag get a cracker jack medical license? Then got hundreds of thousands in Medicare payments from the government, has now a fat salary with the best health care in the country from the givernment, and he’s already fucking whining about health care for someone else? Something tells me Rand Paul has never truly been bitch slapped
MattMinus
I make the local fire department my slaves through arson.
burnspbesq
@fasteddie9318:
“On top of which he’s self-accredited”
What does that mean? I would have thought that In Kentucky, as in every other state, the state has a monopoly on granting licenses to practice medicine, and that “self-accredited” is the same thing as “unlicensed.” and that would make Sen. Paul a criminal if sees patients.
What am I missing?
pattonbt
I truly hate this dickbag (and libertarians) and it galls me that he is a united states senator and in office for six more years (and probably longer). All libertarians are soulless pricks of some sort of privileged class where they would not have to face the repercussions of their Somalia fantasy land until all “the others” “got what’s coming to them”. Thats not to say that some of them are not self made, but they still suck.
Whenever I run across them I simply ask “do you want to live in Somalia or do you believe we need to have a social safety net and common infrastructure?”. If they say they want the latter and then continue to spout Libertarian BS I know it’s all about “I’ve got mine fuck you, other”. Because if you want a safety net and infrastructure then we can start talking about where to draw the line and drop the whole “government is the root of all evil’ BS. Until Libertarians accept that government has an important role in performing imperfect tasks to create a more utilitarian society, then they can just fuck right off and die.
I’m always willing to argue on where the line should be drawn and I accept it will never be drawn exactly where I want it, but if you arent going to honestly engage on the discussion then eat shit.
And for me, the line should be drawn so that all those who really need help get it and I accept that means some people can take advantage of the system. I believe that is better than trying to make sure no one takes advantage of the system while needy people get screwed.
different church-lady
@Bob Loblaw: I dunno, I’m getting a kind of Edna Ferber vibe off of that.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@burnspbesq:
The necessary fistular thinking that characterizes true Galtian genius.
kth
Does Rand Paul think that teachers are forced at gunpoint to teach in public schools, or that farmers have their crops confiscated to provide food for poor people? Never mind how offensive and heartless his worldview is, at a more basic level he is a very stupid man and as such an exemplary libertarian.
Ecks
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Fistular? I’m not used to being stumped on words by the internet… but even after looking this one up I’m still not quite sure what you mean by it.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
You have to have a medical license to practice medicine, but you don’t have to have a board certification. Paul couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology, so he made up his own certification board.
General Stuck
Teehee, every time I scroll past that dude strutting along whistling haters gonna hate, I smile a little inside. clever touch ABL! thank you!!
Ecks
@kth: Seriously, don’t we have standards in this country anymore? Is it too much to ask that we can get racist and demeaning comparisons, trivializing enormous suffering of long-victimized groups for petty political gain, that make SENSE! I mean, holy shit, this is a country with centuries of highly concentrated experience at being assholes, and now we can’t even pull off even basic ethnic insensitivity without tripping over logic 101? Sometimes you despair, you really do.
different church-lady
@kth: We have the right to a free press but my local newspaper still tries to charge me a dollar! But does Dr. Paul care? No, Dr. Paul does not care.
Gian
wow
comments were open and most were on topic.
I’m flaber… err shocked.
but in the tradtion of getting page views, hits, and all that, I think a link to a story about BO talkng about AA should really throw gas on the fire…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080810/pl_politico/12421
– from same quote:
On the other hand, Obama’s said that his two daughters should not be given preferential treatment, owing to their relatively privileged upbringing, and has called for government to “craft” a policy “in such a way where some of our children who are advantaged aren’t getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who has struggled more.”
peace, out, and all that… final ep of smallville is on Oh, and ron and rand (despite BS claims that spawn was named for the murderer fan-girl) are bigots.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Hey burnsy — happy birthday!!
anna missed
I heard the same hogwash about 5 years ago from a (self styled, totally individualistic) wingnut ( brainiac theorist) acquaintance, except it was how taxes were like slavery. Like yesterdays post, they do this in part because once you put the bar for what’s normal aka. EXPECTED so far in the stratosphere – it opens a panorama of endless ways that you can be victimized by the phantoms of collectivism.
In reality they are simply inventing fears to justify their vile and despicable anti-social behavior.
Dazedandconfused
@Different church lady,
Rand Paul doesn’t give a shit. Rand Paul just takes what it wants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
different church-lady
@Dazedandconfused: Man, This American Life just keeps getting worse and worse…
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
And what’s with these jack-booted government thugs with guns forcing me to drive only on the right side of the road? I suppose you socialist sheeple are fine with this restriction on your God-given FREEEEEEEDOM, but true patriots recognize tyranny when they see it.
Limiting my driving to half the road? I thought “separate but equal” was outlawed! Not that it should have been outlawed, mind you. It’s the sacred right of any business to decide who can use their water fountains.
Where was I? Oh, yes. These tyrannical restrictions to my driving FREEEEEEEDOM cannot be tolerated in a decent society. Unless of course the roads are privately owned, as they should be. If that’s the case the owner would naturally have the just right to set his own rules. So you see, there is no more consistent philosophy than libertarianism.
EDIT: Moderation?! Yet more tyranny of the shiftless masses.
ruemara
@kevin:
I can’t wait for Greenwald to land on this ruling like a metric ton of bricks.
Gracie
I will refuse to believe Rand Paul is a slave until I see a RED ball gag in his mouth and his no-doubt supple rear nestled by assless chaps.
I just made you picture that, right? Good morning and you’re welcome.
different church-lady
@Gracie: Oh hell, who hasn’t seen that Photoshop already.
Dustin
@Gracie: I hate you so much right now, I’m going to bed and now I’ve got that monstrosity to look forward to in my dreams. If I gag myself to death in my sleep because of that image I’m haunting your ass.
Caoimhe Snow
Rand Paul thinks that he’s being “forced” to provide medical care (doesn’t his oath do that?) and that’s slavery, but he has no problem with the state forcing women to give birth against their will.
Slavery is only slavery if it happens to rich doctors like him.
Anonne
@anna missed:
No, Anna, the meme is that taxes are confiscatory in nature. The gubmint is stealing from you!
fasteddie9318
Well, according to Delong Ron Paul not only came out against the Civil Rights Act, but also against the fucking Emancipation Proclamation, which, holy shit, and fuck him.
Jebediah
@Gracie:
Lovely image, yes… but if you will allow me to pick a nit, aren’t all chaps assless? If they weren’t, wouldn’t they just be pants?
My chaps were certainly assless, anyway.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
so rand paul has black friends, adrian peterson and rashard mendenhall, who knew?
thanks for posting this, i am gonna post this elsewhere on the tubez, for reaction sake.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Gracie:
that is what they refer to as the “aqua buddha ++” in some of kentucky’s finer whorehouses.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Bob Loblaw:
it doesn’t matter, because the jewish ryes control everything.
RandyH
I think he’s worried, as an optometrist, that Those People – you know who – will come to his door in the middle of the night and demand that their cataracts be removed immediately and that if he does not comply with their order, they might rape his wife and daughters.
Yeah, that’s it.
anna missed
@Anonne:
Well I dunno, this guy said that the oppressed (yeah he used that too) rich were taxed so much by the shiftless masses that it amounted slavery because they were in effect subjected to working for free.
I’d never heard this nonsense until then, and although he claimed he wrote a “published WHITE paper” on the subject, I can see now it’s just conventional herd mentality wingnutopia.
I’ll sure be glad when all those libertarian types give up on all these crazy big city social ideas and return to their mythical life of a free roaming individual stumbling around in the dark out on some lonely and distant savanna somewhere.
Because, it’s where they belong.
Yutsano
@Jebediah:
There’s a story here…I’m patient, I got all night.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Ron Paul is a disingenuous racist, through and through. Tweety was having fun with him today about his “property rights” bullshit, pointing out that if Ron had his way that businesses would be free to slap the “No Blacks Allowed” signs right back up. Ron was all ‘nobody today would do such a thing because it would be bad for business’, thus he argues that they should be allowed to do it if they want to.
Anyone who backs him and his son are embracing the same kind of bullshit. Both Pauls, and their supporters, can go fuck themselves with the rustiest farm and gardening implements available. Repeatedly.
ABL, let the haters hate, just keep being you. I enjoy reading your posts and I consider you an asset to this place. You have never offended my pasty white ass, I get where you are coming from.
Keep bringing it. :)
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
So sorry – it’s very boring. When I lived in New England, I had leather chaps to help extend the motorcycle season. And it worked – a friend and I took a motorcycle camping trip into Maine one Thanksgiving weekend. Turns out Maine is frequently sort of cold that time of year…
Turns out the fringe is functional, too. Helps disperse rainwater, rather than letting it run down your leg into your boot. Still, made me feel a little self-conscious.
Jewish Steel
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: And don’t you forget it my little goyishe kop.
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Horse. Shit. I can think of a few old bastards right here in my northern town who would gladly forgo a drop in sales to be able to hang up a Whites Only sign in their window.
goblue72
As a white straight dude, I am seriously offended by this heavily neutered (or medicated) ABL. Please bring Pre pod people ABL back. Screw them crackers with the uptight panties.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Yutsano
@Jebediah: FWIW I didn’t say the story had to be salacious. :) Pretty cute though.
dollared
@Ecks: You have hit it on the head. Let’s reinstate the draft and make Dr. Paul Eye Doctor to the Enlisted Man.
It truly is a tragedy that men and women died to preserve his freedom to be an idiot.
Ed Marshall
Hey now, it’s time for you people to shut up. I’m getting tired of everyone with an actual legal education, being mean to Glenn Greenwald.
He’s the only person with a legal education (cause that means you are honest and know what the hell you are talking about), scratch all that….ah fuck it….
Yutsano
BTW this post made me really hungry for lamb. I may have to do something about that in the near future.
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
True, you didn’t. Then I remembered there was a sort of salacious chaps story, and chickened out of sharing it.
God, that was a long time ago… I think I still have the chaps, too. Nice heavy black leather. Here in SoCal, not so much use for them on the bike. Off the bike… the Los Angeles area is so straight-laced, I am sure nobody around here would have any other use for them…
Triassic Sands
Oh, yawn. Republicans frequently base their opposition to something on the basis of a threat that doesn’t exist. In reality, no one is going to break down Rand Paul’s door and force him to give another person medical treatment (putting aside the question of whether or not Paul is competent to give medical treatment — his rantings make that seem doubtful). It isn’t a realistic threat. So, there is no reason to pretend that this is a genuine problem that might exist if we have universal health care.
serena1313
ABL,
Although I rarely comment, I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts … Thru your sarcasm & dry wit, each message comes across loud & clear. Likewise they are clever, insightful and moreover appreciated.
It is equally important to note that there are times when you’ve expressed something that had never occurred to me would be perceived by African-Americans as a slight, demeaning or insensitive. Thank you.
The path to enlightenment, individually & collectively, is thru tolerance, understanding and unconditional love. Communication is only the first step.
doofus
ABL,
I like your posts too. Just wanted to say it.
Bobby Thomson
@fasteddie9318: Amazing that people who should know better continue to argue the losing point that Ron Paul wasn’t responsible for his racist newsletters.
gelfling545
@Jeffro: You seem to have summed up succinctly the libertarian philosophy, at least as I have heard it expressed by the, thankfully, few libertarians I’m acquainted with.
Mike Furlan
Paul’s “slave fantasy” is clearly nonsense, as no version of National Health Care involves compelling doctors to work. But his statement and the response to it do exhibit a lot of confusion on the topic of slavery.
It has been my experience that the vast majority of Americans can’t even define slavery much less explain what was so uniquely evil about it. And that includes many scholars who have devoted lifetimes to studying the topic.
The best definition I’ve found (and starting point for understanding the horror of slavery) is Orlando Patterson’s “the permanent, violent domination of a natally alienated and . . . dishonored people.” Slavery and Social Death
Permanent; slavery lasted centuries and was followed by another 100 years of brutal discrimination.
Violent, as money is the motive force in a market economy, the lash and the fear it generated drove the slave system. And the slaveowner was perfectly free to escalate the level of violence to what ever level he saw fit to regulate his plantation.
Natal alienation, a concept in great need of a poet for it to be fully explained. Specifically it means that a slave is legally, and often actually cut off from parent, child, spouse, and family (and largely from his original culture.)
Dishonored, whole books have been written on the subject of “Southern Honor”. Take a contemporary white person at their word, and you’d have to believe that slavery was the antithesis of everything that made life worth living. Slavery was a fate worse than death.
The standard treatment of slavery emphasizes the hard work, bad food, poor clothing etc, the physical dimensions of slavery. But this gets tossed aside with the “well my great-great-grandmama had thing pretty rough too, quit your complaining” retort.
Many of the things that made slavery hell on earth had nothing to do with having a “poor standard of living.”
And of course, the mythical citizen Paul, taking government money in exchange for work as a physician is not a slave. (As has been pointed out, he does that now.)
Tim I
@Warren Terra: Well played, sir…very well played!
Ghanima Atreides
ABL Corrollary of the Unified Field Theory of Libertarianism.
Libertarians believe that social justice == soc1al1sm and all liberals are crypto-slavers.
TNC Corrollary of the Unified Field Theory of Libertarianism.
Libertarians uniformly believe that liberals are the “real” racists and that fetuses are slaves.
Nutella
@fasteddie9318:
Of course he did. Sometimes he talks about ‘freedom’ but all he really cares about is property rights, no matter what or who the property may be.
coloradoblue
Hey, ABL. Didn’t get to yesterday’s post until comments were closed.
Just wanted to tell that some of us old, white, raised mid-western US, fat MEN really appreciate your posts.
As my grandfather used to say “Don’t let the bastards get you down”.
Best…
Kathy in St. Louis
And people who DON’T believe in universal health care have no souls. Now, how’s that for a matching masterpiece of overstatement?
Ghanima Atreides
@Kathy in St. Louis:
No, people who dont believe in universal healthcare are STUPID cudlips gettin’ scammed by the libertarians and the bankstahs and the oligarchs and the christofascists and the rest of the Wingnut Power Hour Hitparade.
Kathy in St. Louis
The problem with Paul is that he is a libertarian, through and through. The entire world revolves around his rights. He has a right to receive government, Rolls-Royce quality, health care, while others have no right to any health care at all. He has the right, as a doctor, to accept government payment for his retired patients, perhaps even the accursed Medicaid patients, but they have no right to receive these monies.
I’d have some respect for this guy if he were a man of principle who paid for his own insurance and accepted no patients unless they could totally pay for their own. That would not be so lucrative, though.
Libertarians….all about their “rights”.
dj spellchecka
@mr. whipple:
even moreso with miracle whip on top…doesn’t get much whiter than that!
Bruce S
Paul is being a bit wishy washy in his point of view here – for true manly libertarians who revere the one-true-Rand rather than soggy imposters like the Pauls, the way down the slippery slope toward a Stalinist gulag of total slavery obviously begins with those oppressive fire and police departments providing tax-funded services to social grifters, moochers and state-sponsored thieves as some imagined “right.”
John Weiss
@Southern Beale: No, no. He’s just another moron in a suit, that’s all. They’re a common breed.
John Weiss
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: You make me laugh! Fistular thinking, indeed.
My Truth Hurts
ABL, I love you. If I ever run into you out here in la la land drinks are on me.
Ella in New Mexico
Libertarian whiners will manage to construct some relationship between anything they don’t like and either slavery or the Holocaust.
Or both. I just wish people would wake the hell up and stop listening to anything they have to say as soon as they see who’s talking.
kimalanus
You know what I like most about Angry Black Lady? That she is Angry. Angry Snark works pretty good when it’s pretty good snark…and she writes pretty good snark, which is why I follow Balloon Juice. I did not read the comments. I rarely comment, myself. I did read the front page articles and I just wanted to inject into the current conversation, apropos of nothing: You go, Angry Black Lady. Never stop.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: He’s in Kentucky ;-)
crack
I like ABL. I don’t read all of her posts because I don’t have the attention span for them. The content is good. The only other problem I have reading her posts is that I get too worked up about the subject and just have to move on to stay sane. I’m glad she’s around to document the atrocities. Stay strong sister!