Also? He’s racist.
If this video from Think Progress doesn’t have you laughing at the end, then there’s something wrong with your brainspace:
INORITE?!
And with that said, brace for Ronulan impact. I can hear them coming now.
While you wait, read this post over at The Atlantic — “Ron Paul’s Shaggy Defense” — by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and don’t miss the comments. Especially this one. Looks like “I have a black friend” has been tossed out as an I’m Not Racist Defense Shield because it takes too much work to actually find a black friend (or to claim one has a black friend.) Much better to simply say “I took a photo with a black person once.”
That’s a winner — every time.
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
4tehlulz
inb4 paultard trolls
Davis X. Machina
Legal dope, though. And isn’t that what really matters?
Warren Terra
The Paultards aren’t Ronulans, they’re desperate cling-ons. Now, if only they’d cling on to some semblance of sanity …
Jay in Oregon
Yes, because everyone knows that real racists burst into flames upon touching an inferior breed.
(One would hope, at any rate…)
Jay in Oregon
@Warren Terra:
I once heard “Paultroon” once; I thought that was clever.
Maxwel
I predict that during the next debate worms will start coming out of Paul’s eyes ears and nose and he’ll fall over dead.
schrodinger's cat
@Warren Terra: I think they are more like the Ferengi. Klingons are warriors, and have honor.
rea
If I found a picture of Nathan Beford Forrest shaking hands with a black lady, would that make everything he did okay? (He probably shook hands with one sometime in his life)
lacp
I’m getting bald from scratching my head over why otherwise reasonable people can’t see the stopped-clock phenomenon with Paul. Yes, he’s anti-war and holds a couple of other positions that I can agree with. But he also holds a variety of positions that I can’t stomach. He’s right where he needs to be….one of 435 congress-critters.
PeakVT
He’s very and very obviously wrong about 5 (taxes) and 7 (money).
Idiot.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
I’m with David Michael Green:
“I’ll be delighted to see Obama humiliated and destroyed, for one thing. My antipathy toward him (and Bill Clinton) in many ways surpasses that for the GOP line-up of thugs and bugs. All of the above have the same fundamental commitments to the same cadre of ruling plutocrats, but Obama and Clinton have also managed to destroy the New Deal Democratic Party and the reputation of progressivism in the bargain. And their deceits have been all the more treasonous because of the millions of progressives (including loads of young people, politically mobilized for the first and possibly last time in 2008) whose idealism, compassion and genuine love of country they’ve so callously trampled upon.
On the other hand, now that Obama is ramping up the Big Lie machine once again, many of those people will get just what they deserve. What was that line Bush mumbled about fooling me twice? I’m astonished to see progressives gearing up to be abused a second time by Obama – who is all of a sudden sounding like a progressive again – like they’ve walked right out of a Stockholm Syndrome field manual or something. Are we talking about the same guy here? The one who put the actual bandits who wrecked the economy in his cabinet? The one who has not prosecuted a single Wall Street bankster? The one who bailed those thieves out, but has done nothing remotely serious for the unemployed and homeowners? The one who pretends to fold in every negotiation with Republicans? The one whose staff regularly disses progressives?
That guy? Hey, liberal idiots. I have a question for you. Do you really think this bastard is going to become FDR in his second term? Do you really think he’s going to seriously slash military funding in order to save Medicare? Do you really think he’s going to rescind his deal with the insurance industry in order to provide genuine public health care access? Do you really think he’s going to replace Timothy Geithner with Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz? I mean, this is a guy so beholden to Wall Street that he pretended not to have the courage to nominate Elizabeth Warren to the new consumer affairs position she invented. Are you really going to be wooed by him again? If so, if you’re so easily abused by your political class, you might as well line up to be Newt’s fourth wife for all the street smarts you’re displaying.
This country – and likely this global economy – are going to have to go through a shit storm over the next two or three years, and in many ways I’d much rather have some GOP jerk in the White House to make things worse and get the blame than another four years of Half-a-Bama, carrying water for Wall Street while dissipating the anger of stupid liberals who cannot recognize their own enemy just because he puts ‘D’ after his name, and especially if he does so while being black. We have to get to the point of utter rejection of kleptocratic politics in this country, and the way I see it, a second Obama term drowns that process in molasses, while the sure to be utterly egregious Gingrich could instead be the perfect lightening rod to fully energize the street. The guy is a disaster in every way imaginable, and is a plague I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (that would probably be Gingrich, anyhow), but right now he might be just the chemotherapy needed for a very, very sick country.
Yes, we’ll lose our hair and vomit continuously.
But perhaps we’ll finally destroy the cancer of greed which has metastasized in the American body politic.”
Warren Terra
@Jay in Oregon:
I like that one. I’d also accept “Pauly-anna”, because of their willfully naive faith in his goodness.
Davis X. Machina
Those contradictions don’t heighten themselves, people.
Warren Terra
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
You’ve convinced me, Mr. Nader.
So, do you recommend that we vote instead for Mr. Perry, or for Mr. Gingrich?
BO_Bill
Um, all of that stuff is unConstitutional. The reason all of that stuff is unConstitutional is because the Founding Fathers recognized that a central government powerful enough to control all of those aspects of our lives would become very unpopular and soon claim the power to arrest dissenting Citizens without trial and detain them indefinitely at a place like Guantanamo Bay.
Everything is pre-Ordained.
Roger Moore
Most of the stuff he’s claiming as unconstitutional can at least be defended with some kind of originalist argument; they aren’t enumerated as specific powers in the Constitution. But claiming that the Commerce Department and income tax are unconstitutional is ridiculous. Those are either doing things specifically enumerated (regulating international and interstate commerce) or clearly permitted by Amendment. It just proves he’s not making his constitutionality arguments in bad faith, calling anything he doesn’t like unconstitutional and finding some twisted argument to support why.
TheF79
Do you really think this bastard is going to become FDR in his second term?
Well, Obama hasn’t interned US Citizens of Japanese ancestry yet, but some have said he’s working on it.
lacp
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Who’s “we?” If there really is a mass movement ready to explode out there, I sure haven’t heard about it. And if there were, it’s highly unlikely you’d get the result you think you will. This, after all, is the country about which Jay Gould commented that he could hire half the working class to kill the other half. Americans like their corporate masters a little too well to go for that soshulizm crapola…now, a taste of vintage Mussolini, perhaps….
Dave L
The income tax is the one that really drives me up a wall. What, is he arguing that the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution is unconstitutional?!
Really, it’s just a synonym for “stuff I don’t like”.
cokane
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: that is the dumbest thing i’ve read in a long time.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Warren Terra: @Warren Terra:
Either one is fine. Also need to make sure the GOP has a filibuster-proof majority on the Senate and a big advantage in the House. Currently, we have a right wing agenda, with Obama getting the blame. Give them all the power and when they flush what remains of the country into the toilet, perhaps then “conservatism” will finally be rejected and a real progressive movement can gain a foothold. Otherwise, the slow-motion destruction will continue well into the future before hitting the eventual bottom. I say get it over with.
Ben Cisco
I’m Ben Cisco, and I approve of this phrasing. SHIELDS!!
slag
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
HAHAHAHAHA. Rapture by Republican is rarely so clearly spelled out. Nicely done.
Dr. Squid
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Because that really worked the last three times you tried it.
Conservatism would never have taken power if the crybaby left weren’t such crybabies
Ben Cisco
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Wow.
__
You got to the pie filter before I got to the end of your first paragraph. That has GOT to be a record.
Chad
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: So the Bush years weren’t enough because …?
Krankor
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: At least there’s some nice grease on those rails to Hell.
Guster
@cokane: At least it comes with a really really easy quiz.
eyelessgame
It’s worth noting that “liberal” paultards exist. They admire the fact that he’s against war and torture, without realizing that his sole reason for opposing them is that they’re done by governments. Private enterprise wanting to wage war and commit torture? He’d not only be wholeheartedly in favor, he’d assert it was unconstitutional for the government to oppose it.
I was hoping the soundtrack would be Groucho Marx singing “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” – that should be Paul’s campaign song.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: You have to burn it down to build it up? How very Pol Pot of you.
Ben Cisco
ABL, I commend you on your monitoring of the sensors – most timely.
eyelessgame
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: It’s been tried. Google “the worse the better germany”.
freelancer
@Guster: I’d prefer Hugo Stiglitz.
patroclus
It’s not just SS, Medicare and Medicaid that Paul thinks is unconstitutional, it’s also the Fed, the FDIC, the OCC, the SEC, the FTC and every other agency that regulates interstate commerce. And, of course, it’s also ALL the civil rights laws, which as most know, rest on the Commerce Clause for purposes of constitutionality. And all the environmental laws and worker safety laws too. Presumably, Paul would appoint judges that believe this stuff too.
Quite a trade-off; even if he may be right on military interventionism and smoking grass.
Cermet
Funny? No, tragic since so many think this buffoon is correct.
Richard
The Ron Paul crowd reminds me a lot of Evangelical Christians, witnessing for their savior.
If you read the comments to news stories posted about Paul on the web, you’ll often see squadrons of them pop up to preach the Gospel of St. Paul or, should I say Dr. Paul (they always want to get that doctor detail in there), all pushing exactly the same memorized talking points.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Chad:
The Bush years were dominated by post 9/11 paranoia. The nation was confused and shell-shocked. We also needed the nation to see the utter pointlessness of believing massive Democratic majorities could actually lead to real “change.” The 2008 elections were the most exciting in my lifetime and yet a short three years later we see little has changed and the country is finally waking up to the fact that the American Dream is dead. Yet they still share the blame between “liberals” (no- they actually dont yet know we have forsaken liberalism in our government) and conservatism. The media lives by false equivalence. If liberals are going to share the blame for the crushing damage of conservative economics dominating our country, I say take away that weapon. Rip back the curtain and let the people finally see what conservatives want to do and how damaging it is. Stop the charade already. Give them what they want and give it to them without the ability to share the blame.
Guster
@freelancer: Ha! But do you really think this inglourious basterd is going to become FDR in his second term?
(And was that movie any good? Keep wondering if I should see it.)
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Dave:
Pol Pot? Germany? Yeah, that’s what I am talking about *sigh*
Amir Khalid
Well, if President Paul were to eliminate all those Cabinet departments, he’d have far fewer Senate confirmation hearings to worry about. And meetings with his cabinet Secretaries would take up so much less of his time, thus freeing up his work day for um, something else he could do. So from a management standpoint, I can see how it makes sense.
carpeduum
I just know John Cole is chomping at the bit to admit he likes some of Ron Paul’s ideas.
Or as he put it with Christopher Hitchens….”he’s in interesting person”
Come on John, come out of the closet.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: If you think the solution to our ills is to let the GOP burn the country to ground in some cleansing fire, then yeah, you’re on the same wavelength as Pol Pot. When the Glorious Progressive Movement picks up the pieces, shall we call it Year Zero?
Woodrowfan
@Jay in Oregon:
Not bad. Since “Paultard” fails the non-offensive test I think “Paultroon” is pretty good..
freelancer
@Guster:
If you enjoy any Tarantino movie, you will love it. It’s fantastic and confounds every expectation you might have about it.
Chad
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: You’re ignoring the fact that conservatives have worked very hard to leave that impression and will continue to do so in the future. There will never be a “total victory” for liberalism or conservatism unless one side takes it’s toys and goes home. As you are advocating. Heck in your scenario a “return to liberalism” would be rebuilding the nation to fix everything the conservatives did while “liberals” conceded the field.
Anonne
All the Ron Paul ads here associated with this post are disturbing.
4tehlulz
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Destroying the country in order to save it worked wonders with Vietnam.
badpoetry
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: you know, your arguments have a sort of fatalistic, or maybe nihilistic, appeal. Let’s surrender completely, THEN everyone will see how horrible the crazy conservatives really are!
Of course, I would say we did that from 2001-2006. It did kind of work- the elections of 2006 and 2008 did indeed give use a Democratic house and a (sort of) 60 seat advantage in the Senate… but it obviously wasn’t actually worth it.
Here’s another idea: how about we follow your strategy in reverse? Maybe we should convince the right wingers that THEY should surrender completely, just to prove how terrible liberals are! THEN everyone will see how good conservatives were, and how much America will miss them, and I bet you’re sorry now that you dumped me for the captain of the football team, AREN’T YOU???
Chris
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
“Nach Hitler, uns?”
The election of George W. Bush didn’t push the country into Nader’s arms – it simply guaranteed eight years of unfettered rule by the hard right, with all the disastrous economic and foreign policy consequences that had for us.
ETA: my bad, should’ve kept reading and seen that point was already made.
Villago Delenda Est
@Richard:
There is a very serious cult of personality around Paul that Joe Stalin would feel right at home in.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Chad:
“Hell in your scenario a “return to liberalism” would be rebuilding the nation to fix everything the conservatives did while conceded the field.”
We’re going to have to do that eventually. You realize 2008 saw a wave of voter enthusiasm of the kind you are lucky to see once in a generation. The GOP was tossed aside. Problem is, they still had enough power to obstruct and destroy everything, which led to 2010. Now, we have that same GOP back with even more power, but with a Democratic President, who gets to share the blame for the damage the conservatives are continuing to cause. The country isn’t moving in the right direction. At best, the enormous cry for change was met with a bandaid and not a reversal of the trend into the abyss. I’m basically saying we are headed to complete ruin right now, only it’s in slow motion. Like a glacier making it’s way down the mountain, it continues to move, but isn’t stopping anytime soon. If we are headed for conservative-created destruction by a death of a thousand cuts, over generations, would it not be better to acknowledge it and get to the bottom NOW, so the rebuilding can start sooner?
That’s the idea, anyway.
dmsilev
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Wow, it really *is* Ralph Nader. Can’t you go off and try to take over the Green Party again?
pete
@badpoetry:
Your ideas are intriguing to me …
JGabriel
Is it really fair to bring up these mistakes from Ron Paul’s youth? Ron Paul was only in his late 50’s – early 60’s when most of those newsletters were published.
Surely we can work up some forgiveness for the callowness of early adulthood? The poor man wasn’t even a septuagenarian yet, as he would later become!
.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@4tehlulz:
Guys, can we stop with the Vietnam/Pol Pot/Hitler comparisons???? Please? If you don’t know the differences in what I am proposing with those circumstances, then you need a refresher course in world history. Fuck.
Scott P.
Shorter FUIB:
Giving Republicans total absolute control of everything is the path to liberal power.
CarolDuhart2
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Easy for you to say, Brooklyn. You live in the last place red-state values would take over. A Governor Walker would never be able to get a majority of New Yorkers to vote for him. So you feel safe and secure telling others that Obama would be a sellout and that it’s okay to slide down to the bottom rather than have someone make the necessary moves to help those who need help.
But all the folks who are unemployed losing their unemployment, the old folks medicare, the folks that will be dropped from the most stable employment ever, the Federal Government will thank folks like you when they starve to death or are forced to work for 50 cents an hour.BTW, where will the leadership to overthrow the Republican madness come from if they are all summarily jailed for questioning the Republican ideas and majority come from?
The truth is that we have done something like this repeatedly since 1968, and it hasn’t happened. 1968, and we got Nixon. 1980, we got Ronald Reagan and the slow slide from a broad-based prosperity to what we have now. Some of you folks were mad at the fact that nobody would primary Clinton, and you berated Gore. Now you want to give Romney or the other crazies the gavel
dmsilev
@JGabriel: I’m trying to remember which GOPper offered the excuse of “youthful indiscretions” for an affair that he had at age 50 or so. Henry Hyde?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@dmsilev:
This has nothing to do with Ralph Nadar. Is it possible to have a serious discussion about an alternate theory without resorting to bumper-stickers?
pete
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Mao Zedong!
dmsilev
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: No, you’re right. You’re much closer to classic Marx-Leninism than to Hitler. Throw in a couple of references to the historical dialectic and you’ll be solid.
4tehlulz
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: You’re right. We are being unfair. To Hitler and Pol Pot. They did the job themselves, while you want the Right to destroy the country while you keep your hands clean.
dmsilev
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Propose a serious alternate theory and you’ll have a chance at a serious discussion. Claiming that Progressive Nirvana will inevitably rise from the ashes of the Old Order puts you solidly in the company of several rather unsuccessful ideologies. And by ‘unsuccessful’ I mean ‘lead to large piles of dead bodies’.
Emma
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I know what you’re proposing. You’re proposing that my parents, who depend on Social Security and Medicare, die in the streets if I can no longer take care of them. You’re proposing my best friend and her husband lose the home where they raised their children. You’re proposing that my (male, gay) friend be pushed back into second-class citizenship again. You’re proposing that millions of Americans go through that in order to satisfy your nihilistic desire for liberal purity.
Why is it that people like you, left and right, are always offering other people as sacrifices in your altars?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@CarolDuhart2:
No, we have never done what I am proposing. And NOW is different from THEN in a multitude of ways.
Also, the idea that it’s “easy” for me to suggest this because others will suffer more completely ignores the main thrust of my position. Right now, I see an irreversible slide into the abyss. Tens of millions of Americans are getting hurt and will continue to get hurt over GENERATIONS before the myth of conservative goodness finally falls apart. I would rather rip back that curtain NOW so we don’t have to see generations suffer. Continuing to pretend that our votes are changing the downward trend is a recipe for long-term suffering. It’s like enabling an alcoholic instead of letting him hit bottom. Eventually, he’s going to hit bottom. Your enabling just delays it.
Brachiator
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Yawn. There are few things as predictably dumbass than dopes, most of whom live comfortable lives, who imagine that if only things get worse, then magically the masses will rise up and make things better. More often, when things get worse things go all to hades, and societies fall apart into total chaos or tyranny, and millions of lives are crushed along the way.
The Republicans are just burning to get back into full power, and promise stupidity, bigotry, marginalization of women, nonwhites and Muslims, and ignorant anti-science Real American Christian Exceptionalism(tm). And you want to bring this on, what, to punish people you don’t think have been sufficiently faithful to your interpretation to liberal principles?
You got a better slate of candidates? Bring ’em on and make your best case. You want to play pseudo-revolutionary games? Sorry, you got nothing.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Emma:
You haven’t bothered to comprehend a single thing I’ve written, but thanks for the dramatic accusations.
Chad
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: In summation, “we don’t believe you, you need more people”
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Then stop suggesting idiotic bullshit like letting the Republicans trash the country.
dead existentialist
I’m with Fed Up. My life sucks somewhat because I have to work for a living, so I think I’ll kill myself. That’ll make it better.
Schlemizel
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
That was one of Naders arguments when he tried to explain why he wanted Boy Blunder to win in 99 – the damage would be so great America would turn to the progressives to save them
That worked out reeeeeeal well.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Brachiator:
Another one who hasn’t comprehended a single thing I’ve written….
Emma
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I understood. The problem is that if we did as you propose, those are the results. Don’t like them? Tough. Reality is a bitch and she doesn’t much respond to children’s revenge fantasies.
slag
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Don’t worry. It’s not them; it’s you…
Oh wait.
Jay in Oregon
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Translation: “Do whatever you please,” said Brer Rabbit. “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
God save us all from Very Serious People who don’t give a fuck if people get hurt or killed by their Very Serious Proposals.
Admiral_Komack
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
BULLSHIT!
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Schlemizel:
You realize the nation rose up in 2008 in once-in-a-generation numbers to reject what Boy Blunder wrought? What has that gotten us? A band-aid. If the 2008 elections couldn’t fundamentally change the direction of the country, then what will? Something more radical. Either a full-on revolution, or a more nuanced approach.
Zifnab
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Really? Nothing? Three years after Bush, you haven’t noticed more than a tiny degree of difference?
The last troops are exiting Iraq. We’ve got some of the most progressive health reform since LBJ’s Medicare getting put on the books. Our vice president is no longer scheming to invade Iran. Gas prices are dropping and our Energy Department is seriously discussing green energy alternatives again. Jack Abramoff is on a post-jail book tour rather than passing out checks on the floor of the Congress.
Nothing? You haven’t noticed any of this?
Schlemizel
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
No, please enlighten us so that we may apologize for misunderstanding you.
Seriously dood – if we read you wrong help us understand.
.
Because, in my deepest darkness, when I know there is no reason to go on I often think that same thought “may it would be better if we let the bastards burn the place to the ground”. But then I think about what it is I am saying & get past it.
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Fuck that guy. Anybody who would seriously think electing Newt Gingrich would improve this country is — at best — completely out of touch with reality. I’d rather listen to political analysis from my four-year-old. At least she’s smart enough not to fall for “you have to ruin people’s lives to save them.”
Phylllis
@Guster: Hysterical. Every time Brad Pitt said anything I about fell out.
pete
I’m enjoying this thread immensely. There is nothing funnier than a principled idealistic pessimist with no plan, historical sense or concept of consequences.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
More power than 12/2002-12/2006?
poco
Goddurnit–Fed Up is not just an idiot and a moran for suggesting what he does, he also seriously doesn’t understand what it is that he is suggesting. So much fail–rolled into one. Mind boggles!
lacp
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I don’t think it’s that nobobdy understands you, it’s that nobody believes you. Why in the world do you think it is likely that a total economic collapse coupled with ultra-paranoid homeland security would lead to the American people standing up and demanding that we turn into Denmark? Frankly, the most likely scenario in my mind is the country turning to President-for-life David Petraeus for salvation, with the second most likely scenario of degeneration into a high-tech Somalia.
And BTW I think we’re headed for the total-collapse thingie regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are running the circus. There are some differences between the parties, but they’re both completely owned by the banksters, which means the rest of us are screwed.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Emma:
What I don’t understand is the response that asserts I “want” people to suffer. It ignores the pillar of my argument, which is people ARE suffering and WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER FOR GENERATIONS if we continue our present trend. The entire point of my concept is to avoid long-term suffering. Yes, this means more suffering short term, I get it. But it’s a choice between generations suffering as we slide into the toilet, or a short term dive into the toilet, allowing for the cancer known as conservatism to be revealed for what it is SOONER, so we can reverse the trend of suffering.
I don’t want anyone to suffer, but I didn’t create the current trend or circumstances. I’m suggesting a course of action which saves generations from suffering.
The idea that I “want” people to suffer is an ad hom and it’s ridiculous.
Look, this is more of a thought experiment, obviously, because it has no chance of happening…. I get that.
4tehlulz
Successful hijack is successful.
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
It means certain short term suffering now, traded for highly, highly uncertain (in fact wildly improbable) gains (that would most likely be enjoyed by other people than the ones doing the short term suffering) later. Do you really not get why people think that’s a shitty and immoral trade?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@lacp:
Your scenario is quite possible, granted. But I’d counter that that will be the eventual result generations down the road regardless. That’s what happens when a country hits bottom in many case. If it could happen now, based on my suggested course of action, it also could just as easily happen then.
Shalimar
@TheF79: That was FDR’s 3rd term. Give Obama more time and he will get to it.
TooManyJens
Is comment editing suddenly broken for anyone else?
pete
@4tehlulz: Where are the Poultards of yesteryear?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@TooManyJens:
It’s a shitty trade if you reject the idea that we are trending downward and will continue to do so. I think it’s foolish to think we haven’t crossed the tipping point where hitting bottom is the inevitable outcome.
TooManyJens
@pete: What’s all this talk about David Coulthard? /Emily Litella
catclub
@cokane: Ha, I’m ahead of you.
I only read one paragraph and it was enough.
Shalimar
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: What if life isn’t a Star Trek episode and everything gets worse after you let Edith Keeler die?
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I certainly reject the idea that we are trending downward and will inevitably continue to do so. That’s one possibility, but not the only one, and not certain enough to trade people’s lives for.
Call me foolish, I don’t care. My Congressman called me foolish when I wrote to him and said Iraq had no WMDs. (They called me mad! Mad, I say! Mwahahahaha!)
@Shalimar: FTW.
Brachiator
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
I really needed a good chuckle. Thanks.
I understand you all too well. But thanks for trying.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Yes, more power. Conservatism keeps its credibility because it always has the ability to blame liberalism for its failures. Right now? Conservatives are forcing a right wing agenda on the country, but too many people see Obama as President and a Dem controlled Senate and share the blame between them. So, they get the results they want, but not the blame for the destruction. If the trend wasn’t headed downward, I wouldn’t be suggesting something so radical. But it is my belief that we are past the tipping point, where we will eventually have to hit bottom, only it will happen slowly, over a longer time. Generations will suffer. I believe if it is inevitable, then we should get the “revolution” started now, instead of later.
catclub
come on, people, DNFTT
BDeevDad
Ron Paul supporters are the same as the 20 somethings that read Ayn Rand after college, have never faced hardship and believe they are all John Galt and going to change the world if only government got out of their way and didn’t help all those other folks who are “taking advantage of past wrongs that no longer actually exist, like racism and sexism”
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/12/20/good-poll-for-obama/
pete
@catclub: Well, this thread is now nothing but, so we might as well. After all, that will inevitably lead to a mass uprising of logic and politeness, no?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@TooManyJens:
I hope you are right, but I don’t see how we reverse the trend at the moment. The media is getting worse. Money controls more of Washington than ever. Wall Street actually owns the country. What’s going to turn it around?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@TooManyJens:
I never said Obama isn’t more popular than the GOP. He is, and should be, even with all his flaws. But we still have way too many who share blame between “liberals” (even though actual liberals have no power) and conservatives. Enough believe this which means we will continue to have enough GOP reps elected, who will then continue to obsruct and force the country further right…
Ben Cisco
@catclub: At the rate he’s eating pie, I’m expecting a Mr. Creosote moment any second now…
Morbo
And in case you forgot. (from my new favorite site).
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
What’s going to magically make a progressive society rise from the ashes if you let this one burn down? That’s a hell of a lot harder and more precarious, and yet you’re willing* to gamble lives on the chance that it will happen.
[*] At least, rhetorically willing.
Davis X. Machina
Karl Popper died for your sins.
pete
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Mass organizing. It’s slow, it’s hard, it’s work. It’s what’s happening in Wisconsin and Ohio. It involves commitment, and understanding that what took 30 years to undermine and destroy will require 30 years to rebuild, stronger and better. But I can assure you that 30 years of organizing and working and building is intrinsically more rewarding than sitting back and kvetching.
Now back to my regularly scheduled snark.
Chyron HR
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Obviously President Romney will.
Richard
The Nader philosophy gave us eight disastrous years of George Bush, which culminated in the 2008 meltdown.
If the PUMAs had gotten their way in 2008, and McCain had been elected, I think that the unemployment rate right now would be 20%.
Quite frankly, under the current fragile circumstances, if Naderism/PUMAism won out in 2012 and we got one of those the demented circus clowns as President, I think that we might be looking at the end of democracy in this country.
freelancer
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
It may be a bumper sticker, but I don’t know how you’re not advocating the psychopathic desires of Travis Fucking Bickle.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@TooManyJens:
The theory relies on ripping back the curtain on the conservative myth. Conservatism survives by fooling people. That’s it. A large part of that is the ability of conservatives to deflect blame for the horrific results of conservative policies. I’m not saying this WOULD work. No action can guarantee any specific results. I just personally believe we are heading to that end eventually regardless, so why delay?
I don’t see anything changing the trend. What do you see that I don’t?
r€nato
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Oh, poor you. So misunderstood, just like a hormonal teenager. Just like all the conspiracy theory nuts on Facebook who end up throwing tantrums and calling me ‘stupid’ because I point out how silly are their hysterical fits over whatever bit of nonsense some UN subcommittee voted on lately.
I understood you perfectly well. You sound exactly like the people who say we should have just let the automakers and the economy in general just crash and burn in 2008/2009.
And in a way, they were right. After all, there will always be *some* sort of economy. It might be based on barter, but hey it’s an economy. We might all have been reduced to living in cardboard shacks and raising our own food, but hey we’d have food and shelter. The Chinese would have come in and bought out our bankrupt auto industry and the aftermarket auto parts industry for pennies on the dollar, but hey you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.
In fact, your argument differs little from those who excused (and some still do excuse) the experiment in Middle Eastern democracy called the Iraq war. “Hey, we got rid of a dictator, and they have the seeds of a democracy!” Yeah, who cares that we did it in about the worst way possible short of nuking the entire country, and we spent $1 trillion, and we greatly strengthened the position of Iran, and we squandered our prestige abroad, and we weakened the military, and we allowed the Taliban to re-emerge from the ashes in Afghanistan which is why we’re still there, and oh yeah, thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died… but WE TOOK OUT SADDAM SO THERE!
Your argument is understood perfectly well. That’s why it’s being rejected. When I was young, the problems of life looked fairly simple. But then I grew up and realized that often they are not that simple. Sometimes we have to live with imperfect conditions and continually work to improve things. You don’t create a socialist democracy overnight, in one election. We don’t have a parliamentary system where the victorious party or coalition runs everything. Taking your ball and going home only guarantees not only that you lose, but that you don’t even have any say in how the game is played.
Don’t you think it’s time you grew up?
Ben Cisco
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Here.
__
(psst – it’s not a unicorn, but you can totally ride him, because HE ACTUALLY EXISTS!!)
The Moar You Know
Shorter Fed Up In Brooklyn: Hey guys, I found an awesome cliff over here! Let’s all jump off it!
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Richard:
You still think we live in a Democracy?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Yes, but you offer a solution that’s less liberal than it is ideologically leftist. It’s the Bolsheviks polarizing the situation by going after the Mensheviks before going after the Tsarists. This might seem okay when viewing from a higher plane, but the murder and starvation, when viewed at ground level, is a bit less tolerable.
Suffern ACE
Yep. Pretty much. It’s not just unconstituional for the federal government – left to the states – what have you. It will be found to be unconstitional at pretty much all levels in Paul land.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@r€nato:
An army of false equivalencies there. Thanks for the input…
gwangung
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
You should look to veterans of the civil rights movement.
It’s a long hard slog, and there’s still a lot of crap out there, out things are infinitely better for minorities now then they were fifty years ago.
It takes the stomach to grab onto and hold incremental gains and then to turn around and press onward for more gains…bit by hard won bit.
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
History. This may be another robber baron era, but we’ve had one before and it didn’t last forever.
Also, what Pete and gwangung said.
badpoetry
Okay, I suggest we all go over to Redstate, and post something like this:
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Guys, you keep ignoring the main premise my entire argument is based upon:
My thesis relies on the belief that we are headed to bottom eventually in any case. It’s a debate about hitting it sooner or later. That’s it. If you reject that pillar, then we have nothing to discuss. If you accept it, then you can’t argue that I am choosing to make people suffer, because the premise means people will suffer either way.
TooManyJens
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: “Look, either I’m right or I’m right. What don’t you get?”
gwangung
Has a progressive society risen from the ashes? I thought that sort of thing absolutely needed a fairly industrialized, liberal society already; destroy a society and you get feudalism or an authoritarianism, and you’ve put yourselves TWO steps removed….
Letting it “all burn down and rebuilding from the ashes” presupposes that the progressives are the ones going to be in charge afterwards. Um, come again? They’re not prepared to organize NOW…what makes them think they can do it in the infinitely harder situation of anarchy?
gwangung
No. We’re. Not.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@TooManyJens:
History? That’s nice, but it’s a one-sided view of history, and it ignores the key differences in the current state of our nation compared with past eras. It’s hope, in other words. You hope it’ll change, because it’s happened before. But that doesn’t answer the question. What, specifically, do you see happening which will change this trend?
Montysano
I’m certainly no fan of Ron Paul, but a person can’t help but be shocked at the degree to which Roger Ailes feels entitled to pick the GOP nominee. Roger ponied up good money; now these pesky Iowa voters may monkeywrench the whole thing.
Brachiator
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
No, I think you mean a “thoughtless experiment.”
But here is the easy question. When, in the history of life here on earth, has giving in to ignorance and bigotry soon resulted in a flowering of progressivism?
@Shalimar: Bingo!
Richard
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
If you truly think that democracy is dead, why are you even here telling us to vote GOP in the hopes of ultimately “advancing” progressive causes?
Let’s all give up and shoot ourselves, or maybe move to Canada.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@gwangung:
Studies have shown that a majority of Americans have liberal leanings, but unfortunately are fooled by propaganda into believing in conservative policies. I think the U.S. Constitution and strong suppressed liberalism of the majority will lead to a rejection of conservatism, once they are able to see it for what it really is, absent the propaganda which allows the blame to be unfairly shared by liberalism.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Richard:
I didn’t say Democracy is dead, I said we are not living in one right now. I think we will either need an actual revolution, or hopefully the self destruction of conservatism, which brings in a new era of democratic and liberal reform, without an actual revolution.
gwangung
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: This, of course, has nothing to do with what I wrote.
You really should actually grapple with what people wrote. You’re like Republicans…always projecting your own faults onto others.
Lojasmo
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Some time you may realize, because it’s universal, that your premise is bullshit.
Of course the most inept among us are too stupid to realize it, so…perhaps we’re not so lucky.
Chad
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: How’s this for an idea. In order to build a society you’d like to see how about you actually … work for it. By you know persuading Americans instead of insisting that they “know not what they do” when they use their agency to vote for the politicians that work to convince them to vote for them.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Brachiator:
Um, never? Because, like I already said, it has no chance of actually happening. Thus the words “thought experiment”. Which is why I actually believe we are headed to a long term fall before hitting bottom, followed by time at the bottom, followed by a revolution. History has seen that particular trend time and again.
Sly
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Do the world a favor and shoot yourself in the fucking head rather than insist that your countrymen be plummeted into a dystopian clusterfuck just so you can finally, at long last, vote for someone without holding your nose.
Stupid prick.
The Moar You Know
Fed Up In Brooklyn: Living proof of the validity of the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Chad:
Golly, I didn’t realize you knew that I didn’t actually already “work for it.” Thanks for the advice. My point, lost on you, is that I see us losing this battle at the moment. Does it mean I am not fighting? No. Does it mean I haven’t been fighting all along? No. It simply means I don’t see us winning this fight. We’ve been trending in the wrong direction for decades. It’s an acknowledgement that we are headed for a revolution at some point in my lifetime. And when that happens, I’ll fight then too.
Richard
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Nihilistic Naderism. Hand the keys off to the GOP and allow them to destroy the country in the hopes that, maybe, just maybe, something other than an authoritarian regime will rise from the destitute ashes. Sounds like a great plan.
r€nato
@The Moar You Know: in short, some people are too stupid to realize how stupid they are.
r€nato
@Richard: It works great for creationists; all they have to do is poke holes in evolutionary theory; that means creationism wins by default!
dead existentialist
@freelancer: Ha ha. There’s a Ron Paul ad next to that clip.
Arm The Homeless
Damn ABL, you sure do have a knack for bringing out the self-important idiots. Unfortunately, I did read the entire thread before I pie’d him, but I sure did enjoy the part where he claimed that no one understands him. Poor, poor twat-waffle
On a happier note, this Brooklyn pie-fucker sure does love his pies.
EDIT: Cleek, you silly bastage, that pie-ism about “Bye, bye Miss American Pie” still cracks me up.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Richard:
For the fifth time, at least. The premise of this idea is based on the presumption that we will eventually hit bottom in the future, regardless. You have two responses to this. One, you reject the idea that we are on an unstoppable downward trend, at which point we have nothing left to discuss, or two, you agree, in which case you cannot reject my plan based on the dangers of GOP power.
Brachiator
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
I thought about it and answered “No.”
Yes, you believe this. Not much more to say about it.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
Okay… time to make dinner. Cheers…
The Moar You Know
@Sly: Seconded. That is the proper response to all this horseshit. Wish I’d had the presence of mind to post it first.
r€nato
Fed-
Life in the DPRK is about as shitty as it gets on this planet, and the people there are nowhere near having a revolution or even any hope whatsoever that their lives or those of their children will ever change for the better.
The tyranny of the Catholic Church lasted for many centuries, and little changed until the 16th century when Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door.
Europe lived under a tyranny of ignorance between the end of the western Roman empire and the Renaissance, about 1000 years.
Slavery endured as an institution for millenia. If it weren’t for a heroic stand by Joshua Chamberlain and his men on a hill called Little Round Top at Gettysburg, we might still have legal slavery in a substantial portion of this continent.
Things don’t automatically get better just because they (are allowed to) become really, really bad. The idea that if we allow the right to run this country into the ground, then the American people will of course embrace true progressivism, is daft. It is hope as a plan. The same hope you scorned earlier in this thread.
rikyrah
this is why I love you, ABL.
just tell it.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
My god, who knew if was so damn difficult to understand the basic premise of this thought experiment? The premise starts with a dystopian nightmare happening REGARDLESS. Fucking imbeciles. Seriously, how difficult is this???? The concept presumes a dystopian nightmare world in the future and debates whether it’s better to bring it about sooner rather than have it happen slowly over decades. Fucking imbeciles. This shouldn’t be that difficult. Fuck.
freelancer
1) “No matter what, things will get suckier, if you disagree, I can’t talk to you because you’re delusional.”
2) My idea to make things less sucky is to make things suckier. No way you could disagree with the logic there. I mean when hasn’t the collapse of a society reaped wondrous benefits for it’s citizens?
Fed Up In Brooklyn aka Ra’s al Ghul:
Brachiator
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Dude. Your thought experiment has been considered and rejected. Move on.
@freelancer:
By the way, the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises looks awesome. And already, some are over-analyzing it and looking for potential political allegory, The Dark Knight Rises trailer gives us Occupy Gotham
The pearl clutchers at Reason and The Wall Street Journal are particularly fretful that Christopher Nolan might be spiking a summer entertainment with something a little radical.
B W Smith
I can’t believe we have actually discovered a poster that makes m_c seem normal and McLauren seem lucid.
To the original post: Ron Paul is a racist old crank that will never be president. He may win Iowa though I doubt it.
ImJohnGalt
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
History: a valid predictor of future events.
History: completely irrelevant in predicting the future.
Got it.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@freelancer:
Yeah, you really understand my points… clearly. Nailed it.
Richard
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
What a complete waste of time.
Arm The Homeless
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Pie you say? Dystopic pies? Phoenix-pies? Robes(pie)rre? You’re making me hungry, twat-waffle.
boss bitch
I really hate it when an entire thread is sucked up by comments addressed to commenters like Fed Up Brooklyn. His ideas and comments are stupid and not worth a response.
pete
@boss bitch: It’s a cunning plot to keep the irrelevance all in the one thread.
Emma
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: “It means suffering in the short term.” I am always suspicious of people who speak of suffering in the passive voice.
Suffering? For whom? Unless you’re willing to throw yourself and your loved ones in the way of bulldozers, kiddo, don’t come preening your principles in our faces. And I doubt that you are.
ShadeTail
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Didn’t you just say you were leaving, kiddo? We understand your premise just fine, you’ve just laughably convinced yourself that your premise is reality and sneered when folks (correctly) pointed out that you were a clueless pile of Santorum.
Here’s something your elders and betters apparently neglected to point out to you earlier: When everyone else is the problem, that means *you* are the problem.
slightly_peeved
You don’t know shit about history.
Every progressive government today was built through long, hard work by union movements and other bodies of progressive voters who came out and voted. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany; these didn’t have revolutions. Universal health care was not won on the barricades, it was won at the ballot box.
One of the main things that drew me to US political blogs was Americans discussing problems of government in total ignorance of the solutions to those problems in other countries. At first, it was gun control. Recently, it was healthcare, though PPACA gets most of the groundwork done. Now, it’s building of a progressive movement.
The rest of the world’s done this. The US is lagging behind. And people like you, just like the gun nuts and the free-market health people on the right, look at a problem the rest of the world’s solved and go ‘but America is SPECIAL! We have to do it… the exact opposite way!’
The way to get progressive policies is to get more people into politics, not to have more people leave it. People giving up on the system is how the US got in this situation in the first place, not how they’ll leave it.
slightly_peeved
<a href="#comment-2944687">Fed Up In Brooklyn:
That’s not a ‘thought experiment’. That’s a textbook example of begging the question.
Rejecting your logical fallacy is the sensible response. If you’re looking for the imbecile here, I suggest you go into a hall of mirrors.
Sly
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Your thought experiment entails the intentional infliction of untold misery on millions of people who have done nothing to you, for the sole purpose of making you feel better about the person you vote for.
Here’s a thought experiment; if you believe that your preferred policy proposals are rejected to such an extent that it would necessitate the collapse of society as we know it in order to get said policies effectively implemented, maybe there is something wrong with you and not everyone else.
And maybe the something wrong with you is the fact that you’re a self-absorbed, solipsistic, pseudo-tragic shithead.
Bill Arnold
@boss bitch:
The curious aspect to this is that the argument is broadly like the belief by many fundies that this is the endtime and that it is the will of god that we help make the end happen sooner.
Fed, try this line of thought:
Capitalism has been one very long running consensual Ponzi scheme, doomed to collapse at every point in time. In the U.S. it has largely worked regardless since the early 1900s, excepting two dalliances with unfettering it in the 1920s and the 2000s. This is because there are many highly motivated people who madly patch and spackle and otherwise repair the holes and gaps and breaks and flaws that continuously appear. Because even if they are liberals, in the long run they are dead, and they don’t want to subscribe to some long-run utilitarian project with uncertain outcome. (I understand that this is a small-c conservative viewpoint.)
freelancer
@Sly:
Our thick-headed rebuttals to his intriguing and prescient notions about reality is just further proof why the political system being broken leading to conditions like The Road is that much more likely and preferable to make things “actually” progressive than further involvement in the process.
Drive By Wisdom
@Sly:
I am sure the millions suffering under Obama understand that real sacrifice is always voting for the broken record.
You should look up that definition for instanity some time.
ruemara
I admit it. I find the snark and smack downs in this thread endlessly amusing. Carry on, I have an interface to design and I need the distraction.
freelancer
@Drive By Wisdom:
It looks like you’re trying to type a “word”. Would you like some help with that?
Bill
@Schlemizel:
Actually America did kind of turn to the progressives to save them. Problem is the Progressive they turned to didn’t turn out to be all that progressive.
S. cerevisiae
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: The difference this time is that due to peak oil and climate chaos there will be no rising from this collapse. All we can do is try to keep bailing and to keep the lifeboat afloat a little longer. If not for Obama stopping the free-fall we would be well on the way to Mad Max already but we may now have bought another decade. You want to see the future? read Kunstler’s The Long Emergency. I don’t agree with everything he says but the book is looking more and more prescient.
Emma
@Drive By Wisdom: You are joking, right? I mean, you couldn’t be so stupid as to believe… no, never mind. NEVER feed the troll and I’ve already broken that particular rule today way too often.
Allan
But enough about Fed Up In Brooklyn. Really. How about them Ronulans?
Sly
@Drive By Wisdom:
Except the misery felt by having Obama as President is confined to dumbshits like you, who deserve it. My only regret is that there are not millions more who can wallow with you.
path
I can’t help but feel that if I came up with an idea, presented it, got nothing but reasons back why it wouldn’t work, my thought process might go something like:
“Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink the pillars of my assumptions.”
Instead of:
“If you don’t accept one of the pillars of my theory then you clearly are wrong.”
But that’s just me. And for the record, I voted Nader in 2000 for many of the same reasons you propose. I was very very wrong.
Brachiator
@S. cerevisiae:
Two words. Dilithium crystals.
Predicting the Apocalypse is never easy. Besides, according to the Mayan Calendar obsessed, we are not going to make it past 2012.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I don’t know. I read La Peste and I tend to think that, even if we lose – even if losing is inevitable, we don’t give in. Also too, I want to be able to look the next generation in the eye and say that I tried and failed rather than that I just curled up in a ball.
pixelpusher
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
England led by Churchill was the last island of democracy when Hitler overran Europe. By your lights, the Brits should have dumped him — he wasn’t very progressive, let’s face it — and accepted Hitler. Then, when the Nazis had burned everything to the ground (that’s your “pillar”, right?), true progressive revolution would return and take the human race to the next level.
Whatever. You’re either an idiot, or a troll, or both. People, stop feeding him! I’m outta here.
Mack Lyons
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
I’m vomiting right now, just for another reason.
Jennifer
I have some share of sympathy for Fed Up In Brooklyn’s POV, because I have a tendency for nihilism and also, just once, would like to see the chickens come home to roost for those who have voted in favor of the destruction of this country for the past 30 years.
The obvious problem there is that they won’t be the only ones hurt, and it won’t even correct their thinking. Rush and Fox will concoct some crazy stories about how it was all the liberals’ fault and if things are bad enough, instead of just whining piteously about how fucking oppressed they are like they do now, they’d open up a season on liberals.
So what’s the answer? I don’t think there is one. We’re already in a hole so deep that just the ongoing obstructionism of the moron-Americans and the people they vote for will prohibit anyone from turning the tide. At least any single elected official or even party. This bitch isn’t going to get fixed without some personal sacrifice on the part of millions of Americans, such as general strikes or strategic defualt on personal debt or some combination of other painful personal actions. And of course, millions of Americans aren’t going to willingly sacrifice anything unless things are worse. Which they will be. It’s just a question of time. But even then there’s no guarantee that things will get fixed in a way that will work for most of us. On balance though, I think we stand a lot better chance of turning things around if we aren’t starting from a point where we’ve been rendered completely irrelevant economically and have had the right to free speech and etc. completely revoked by whoever the Republicans FUIB suggests we surrender to have appointed to the Supreme Court.
NR
@pixelpusher:
Congratulations. This is officially the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on this blog, and believe me, that is really saying something.
Everyone in these comments is now dumber for having read that. Congratulations.
Ruckus
@boss bitch:
His ideas and comments are stupid and not worth a response.
First part true. Second part not so much. Sly gave him the perfect response. He should put himself out of our misery. In his case WC Fields was correct, Children should be neither seen nor heard.
Woodrowfan
1917: Ah let the Bolsheviks take over. They’ll make things so awful the people will want the Czars back!
1933: Let Hitler take power. he’ll make things so awful they vote the Socialists in!
1939: Spain & Franco
1968: Nixon
1973: Chile and Pinochet
2000: Bush v. Gore
letting things get worse doesn’t always work well….
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@gwangung:
If it projects faults onto others like a Republican, acts like a me-first WATB like a Republican, and advocates voting for Republicans…
slightly_peeved
@path:
That’s my problem with this ‘pox on both your houses’ reasoning. People treat jaded cynicism as if it were a new thing in U.S. electoral politics, when it seems to me that it’s been ever-present. And it’s been making your country worse – 2000 as a big-ass example.
Here’s a genuine thought experiment. What would the U.S. political landscape look like if everybody eligible to vote did so? How would the policies pushed by each party change, after a number of terms where everybody voted?
Comrade Mary
Bollocks to dilithium crystals. Beryllium spheres are the fuel of the future. They’re a lot of fun to collect, too. (Also.)
Darnell From LA
“Legal pot trumps all other concerns!”
— Sincerely,
Every single Ron Paul Supporter
P.S. (cough) Here…it’s good…(cough)
chopper
@TheF79:
obama hasn’t turned away boatloads of jews fleeing the gas chambers either, sending them back to certain death. fuckin’ obama.
Darnell From LA
@Woodrowfan: Good points.
I find the late 60’s very interesting, in that the left decided there was little or no difference between the Dems and Nixon in 1968. We were rewarded with a wider, deadlier war in Vietnam than anyone had imagined.
In 1972 the left decided to nominate a ‘true believer’, someone who had true fealty to the cause, come hell or high water. So we nominated McGovern, who went on to lose 49 states to Nixon. We were rewarded with Watergate.
And 2000 gave us Bush who nearly destroyed America for good. Letting the GOP win NEVER helps.
Darnell From LA
@chopper: Yeah, and unlike FDR’s Social Security Act, Obamacare DOESN’T exclude the majority of black and brown Americans and 99% of African-American orphans! Damn you Obama! Don’t you want to be like FDR?
(see wikipedia under “Initial Opposition”. Turns out SS, in its original form, makes Obamacare look like a miracle)
Dr. Squid
@slag: All I’ve seen him write was about pie.
Pie, pie, wonderful pie.
pete
@Darnell From LA: Minor correction: Watergate was 5 months before the election — that was the whole point. It was in the papers and everything. It’s just that most people literally could not believe the President would do such a thing.
Admiral_Komack
Darnell From LA:
December 20th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
“Legal pot trumps all other concerns!”
—Sincerely,
Every single Ron Paul Supporter
P.S. (cough) Here…it’s good…(cough)
“Your papers, please?”
“I only have a pipe, man.”
“Then you’d better come with me!”
“Child’s Garden Of Grass”
pete
@slightly_peeved: Compulsory voting would, on balance, improve things a lot, I believe. That’s why the Republicans have been putting so much effort into voter suppression (what they call voter fraud). My personal recommendation (speaking as a Y-chromosomal ‘Mercan) is to remove the franchise from men for a while. If only women voted, and all women voted, this country would be on the road to recovery pretty quick.
Darnell From LA
@pete
Yes, the Watergate break in itself happened 5 months before the election, and was completely ignored as something that could possibly have anything to do with the White House, as you say.
My point is accurate; if Nixon is defeated and leaves office in January 1973 the nation is spared most of the coverup, the special prosecutor, the Saturday Night Massacre, The United States v. Richard Nixon at the SCOTUS, constitutional crisis, obstruction of justice, the list goes on and on…
The damage from the Watergate affair described (only partially) above, not the break in itself, is what did the national damage that that we still grapple with today.
TL;DR – Nixon LOSING in 72′ = Good thing
NR
@Darnell From LA:
Remind me, who started the war in Vietnam, and what party did he belong to?
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: Ike, GOP.
pete
@Darnell From LA: I certainly agree we’d have been better off if Nixon had lost, but I think your analysis of McGovern’s nomination is a bit simplistic (for instance, he picked up a lot of Wallace supporters en route to the nomination). I’d also suggest that the national damage goes back a lot further and deeper than the Watergate scandal itself. Look at the previous 20 years of Nixon’s career, for a start.
When talking about “the left” in 68, it’s also worth remembering that Humphrey and Daley ruled the Dem convention at Chicago, with Bobby Kennedy killed, which traumatized a lot of people. I’m probably not radically disagreeing with you, just complicating things somewhat.
NR
@Omnes Omnibus: Not really. Ike put troops in Vietnam, but he didn’t start what we know today as the Vietnam War.
pete
@NR: Oh yes he did. Ike sabotaged the peace agreement that was available in 1956, and effectively set up the puppet government in South Vietnam, without which no advisers, no troops, no war. The question was, who started, not who escalated.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: Opinions differ. If no troops were there, LBJ couldn’t have escalated.
NR
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually, no, opinions don’t differ. Read up on your history.
Woodrowfan
eh, so Nixon dragged out the war in Vietnam and invaded Cambodia costing many thousands and thousands more lives. The uber-pure left in 68 got to stick it to Humphrey so that’s all that matters!
And in 2000 they got to repeat their performance and stick it to Al Gore (who wanted ratings labels on record albums, horrors!). So what if Bush killed 4,500 Americans and 100,000-1,000,000 Iraqis in a war Gore would not have started, and started the ball rolling on gutting Social Security and Medicare which will put a few million more Americans into poverty. The uber-pure left couldn’t vote for Gore without their sensitive fee-fees being hurt.
Screw the purists. I’d rather vote for 1/4 of a Democrat who can get into office and feed some of the hungry and cloth some of the poor than vote for someone who promises to feed and cloth everybody but can’t get elected to anything… voting Green or whatever 3d party on the left doesn’t drive the Democrats back to the left. They only thing that drives them to the left is getting in the party, organizing, working, yelling into their ears. You can’t fix the system from outside. it’s set up to ignore most of the noise from outside. You have to get into the system and yell where they can hear you.
No one hears the voice crying in the wilderness but the squirrels.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: Okay, Truman then?
ETA: But you were still being a douchebag about the escalation under Nixon.
dance around in your bones
The funniest thing about this ‘thought experiment’ is that it is being presented as if it’s something new that no one has ever expressed on this blog before.
Hell, if I had a nickel for every time someone said the ‘let it all burn down’…..I’d be quite wealthy, old chum.
pete
@Omnes Omnibus: No, Ike. Truman (like FDR and Wilson) was helping the French colonial forces. The reunification elections of 1956 were an absolutely crucial turning point. Feel free to look at the wikipedia link he provided, though that merely says blandly “National unification elections do not occur.” Fact is, Ike sabotaged them.
Now, I’ll accept that there was no technical declaration of war, but there never was, right? There was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Omnes Omnibus
@pete: I think the important point was that NR was being a douchebag.
pete
@Omnes Omnibus: Kumbaya
pattonbt
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Ahh. The “Phoenix rising from the ashes” wish.
By the way, the Republicans want the same thing and think, just like you do, that a total meltdown is what is needed for sheeple to wake up and be R forever (they just don’t care if that meltdown is led by the left or right, because they will still blame the left even if they cause the fail).
Nothing will play out as you see it in a true disaster scenario. But, go ahead, wish in one hand and shit in another and see which one fills up first.
El Cid
@pattonbt: Maybe a lot of people want the ash, but not the Phoenix.
pattonbt
@El Cid: In that, I think you may be right.
Sly
@NR:
The Vietnam War began before a single U.S. soldier or military adviser so much as set foot in Saigon. It started when Diem refused to comply with the 1954 Geneva Accords and prevented the reunification elections scheduled for 1956 from taking place. He was able to do this because the Eisenhower administration gave him political cover.
If you want to make the argument that Johnson escalated the war or is primarily responsible for getting the United States “in over its head in Southeast Asia,” fine. Do that. But no American President started the war. It was always a civil war among the Vietnamese, and Eisenhower decided to play favorites because the forerunners of the modern Beltway Village were wetting their undies over the prospect of communists hiding under their beds.
Samara Morgan
@S. cerevisiae: well….the broad intellectual consensus is that America will either fall into fascism or bloom as a B-list economic power in the shadow of China.
@Sly: actually what screwed us in Nam is the same thing that screwed us in Iraq.
missionariism.
American presence in Nam was never anything more than a tent pole designed to hold up just long enough for the French to gtfo.
Alas, as usual, America got seduced into the idea of terraforming an entire culture into a crude replicant culture of America.
it cant be done.
;)
Death Panel Truck
This. The Domino Theory enthralled the men at the top who should have known better. If we don’t stop the commies in countries halfway around the globe, next thing you know, they’ll be marching up Main Street U.S. of A.
Samara Morgan
@S. cerevisiae:
another decade? hmm…..only if O wins in 2012.
GOTV
i do agree that a lot of stuff O holds his nose and executes on is designed to slow non-linear system collapse.
Have you read any Galtung?
Samara Morgan
@Death Panel Truck:
exactly like Peaceful Democracy Theory, Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” and COIN/the Bush Doctrine.
Slow learners, these americans.
Samara Morgan
@Death Panel Truck:
just like creeping shariah and radical islam, right?
Paranoia reflex is killing America.
nastybrutishntall
@The Moar You Know: even shorter: “when I´m dead you´ll all be sorry!”
Samara Morgan
as usual, Joss says it best.
the tender missionaries from the underworld USA
its missionariism.
pure and simple.
Samara Morgan
i better kite, b4 Hall Monitor Allan descends on me.
;)
harlana
Andrew Sullivan said this?:
HA! hahahahahaha!
Paul in KY
@dmsilev: Don’t forget ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’!
Paul in KY
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: They will ALWAYS blame us, no matter the facts.
That’s a core marketing principle with them.
Paul in KY
@r€nato: Nice post :-)
Paul in KY
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I think we voted for hit the bottom later, rather than sooner.
Paul in KY
@freelancer: That means a form of insanity that happens very quickly.
Samara Morgan
@harlana: sullivan has organic brain disease. there is no other explanation.
Paul wants to strike down the 14th amendment and is ferociously anti-amnesty.
what the party “desperately needs” is an outreach to blacks and browns.
Ron Paul, anti-immigrant and racist, is not going to save Andrews party.
BrianM
Although I don’t agree that an “after them, us” long shot is the only hope, keep in mind that 2002-2006 was a time of unified R government, they did overreach big time, and the voters did toss them out.
It hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped, and I think it hasn’t worked out as well as it could have.
For example, the Democrats were nowhere near as good at messaging and opposition as the Republicans are. I think there are structural reasons for that. That suggests that someone else has to do it (in addition to whatever the Democrats can muster up) so that Democrats can take advantage of it. So I think Occupy is a good thing for the Democrats: certainly it redounds to their advantage more than to the Republicans. And I think attempts to co-opt Occupy into the Democratic tent are mistaken: we don’t only need more people to vote and donate D. We also need people applying pressure from outside the institution (in the way that FDR described).
And I think the Democrats, perhaps especially including the President, failed to keep up the momentum. For example, one of the galling things about Obama is that he persists in describing each hard-fought, reasonable-but-far-from-ideal compromise as the best thing since sliced bread. That means, for example, that the continued suckitude of the economy becomes his problem.
When they had the chance to say “Yes, we’re in power, but it’s going to take lots of hard, yard-by-yard fighting to roll back the disastrous policies of the last 30 years and their disastrous effects” the Democrats as a unified bloc didn’t. That I think contributed to getting dinged by the electorate after only two years. (Yes, I know the MSM is hardwired to keep that kind of message down. Still: it was just as intent at obfuscating the Occupy message, and it still got out. I have to think that somehow the Democrats could have done better at keeping up some momentum for Hope and Change.)
Again: I don’t see the evidence that just more and better Democrats will fix this problem next time round. We need to both throw our support behind the Democrats and also behind more uncompromising alternatives (Occupy, the more rambunctious unions, whatever).