…but Spock is not impressed.
via the Internet’s own Wil Wheaton.
It hardly needs to be pointed out, but here’s yet more proof that the budget and debt debate is, for conservatives, nothing but political grandstanding to score points. The economic fate of the nation is nothing to them but a tool for the betterment of the Republican party.
Here’s William Kristol – the “serious” conservative – advocating destroying government financing to gain position for Republicans in the 2012 election:
To govern is to choose. To vote is to choose. To vote against John Boehner on the House floor this week in the biggest showdown of the current Congress is to choose to vote with Nancy Pelosi. To vote against Boehner is to choose to support Barack Obama. It is to choose to increase the chances that worse legislation than Boehner’s passes. And it is to choose to increase the chances that Obama emerges from this showdown politically stronger. So when the Heritage Action Fund and the Club for Growth, and Senators Vitter, Paul, et al., choose to urge House Republicans to join the Democrats to defeat Boehner, they’re choosing to side with Barack Obama. . . .
Can the pro-Obama right explain how defeat for Boehner on the House floor would redound to conservatives’ benefit, to their ability to do more and to go further? . . .
Now, Heritage Action and the Club for Growth are siding with and strengthening Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They’re working to produce a policy and political defeat for John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan and the Republican majority in the House. This isn’t principled conservatism. . . .
The Boehner bill isn’t great. But it does check Obama’s spending for the remainder of his first term. And it lays the groundwork for denying him a second. Success for Boehner now—whatever mistakes he and others have made in recent weeks and months—makes more likely the defeat of Obama in 2012. This in turn will make possible the repeal of Obamacare and fundamental conservative budget and policy reforms with a new president in 2013.
When wavering House Republicans think the current situation through, they won’t choose to join the pro-Obama right. They’ll choose to stand with John Boehner against Barack Obama. Because victory over Obama is no vice. And losing to Obama is no virtue.
I especially like how he gets in a shout-out to Goldwater’s explicit defense of McCarthyite “extremism” at the end. Because red-baiting is always a good idea, no matter how idiotic it makes you.
Nowhere in that entire piece is there any actual discussion of the content of the various debt bills or proposals, or even any reference to what the issue is about. Other than brief, vague endorsements of “conservatism” and opposition to “spending” and “Obamacare” – itself more political hackery – he has no goal at all other than politically harming Obama. He explicitly positions the debt debate as “us vs. them”; “principled conservatism” for him means promoting Republicans and opposing Democrats. “Victory” means defeating Obama; “losing” means voting for a policy Obama also endorses.
The sheer stupid amorality of it is surprising only for its openness. Politics is – by declaration – nothing to conservatives other than the successful quest for power of people like them; political issues are nothing but set pieces to be played out for political influence, no matter what the outcome for people actually affected; “principle” is political advantage – openly described as such. And again, this is a “thought leader” – such as they are – among movement conservatives.
These assholes make me physically sick. I used to think conservatives were just wrong about everything. Now I think they’re active enemies of decency, and even basic common sense. It takes a palpable effort to hate them enough.
Posted in Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, Economics, General, News & Current Events, Politics, Things That Suck | 1 Comment »
Thomas Friedman goes full-stupid again in today’s column.
He starts by pointing out, rightly, that the Republican party is captive to idiotic extremists and has abandoned any notion of responsible exercise of power:
DID I mention that I’ve signed a pledge — just like those Republican congressmen who have signed written promises to different political enforcers not to raise taxes or permit same-sex marriage? My pledge is to never vote for anyone stupid enough to sign a pledge — thereby abdicating their governing responsibilities in a period of incredibly rapid change and financial stress.
Posted in Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, General, Libertarian Problem Solving, News & Current Events, Politics | 5 Comments »
Bowing to religious extremists who demand special exemptions from ordinary rules – such as providing clear identification photos on drivers’ licenses – Austria allows religious believers, only, the right to wear headcoverings in their ID photos. An Austrian Pastafarian has demanded that he be allowed to take his ID photo wearing headgear appropriate to his religion: a spaghetti strainer.
After three years of hassle, he won his case:
Of course, the authorities first made him submit to a psychological evaluation – a burden they do not impose on anyone who sincerely holds religious beliefs in unprovable supernatural events and mysterious magical beings, but for some reason felt they had to demand from someone who apparently thinks such things are silly. As in most religion-dominated countries, in Austria, not being crazy makes you crazy. But at least you get to wear the hat of your choice.
Posted in Church & State, Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, General, Humor, News & Current Events, Religion, Satire | 2 Comments »
OK, so Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit the other day, with a sweet home run that just made it all the better.
A fan caught the ball and donated it back to Jeter, though many people speculated it could have been auctioned for as much as a quarter-million dollars. In return, the Yankees gave the fan gifts like regular-season and playoff seats for the rest of the year, and other stuff, which in themselves were valued at $30 – 40,000. (!!!!!) And so today, there’s an article on NBC’s Website pointing out that, like anyone who receives in-kind merchandise of value (like game-show contestants, or Oprah fans, for instance), the IRS treats such goods as income, and the fan will owe taxes on their market value – possibly more than $10,000.
The fan has been extremely cool about all of this. He said in an interview that he wasn’t interested in profiting off the ball, and he was grateful for the gifts from the club; he said today that he would pay the taxes rather than refuse the gifts, because he preferred it that way. He also commented that “the IRS has a job to do, so I’m not going to hold it against them, but it would be cool if they helped me out a little on this”, which is more than reasonable – and far more reasonable than anyone else seems to have been.
Posted in Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, Economics, General, News & Current Events, Politics, Sports, Taxes | 4 Comments »
Say what you want about Doug Melvin, but he’s clearly not fucking around.
Posted in MLB/MiLB, Sports | 1 Comment »
Stephen Marche has a lovely thing in Esquire, so heartfelt and so crazed it’s a work of art:
How Can We Not Love Obama?
can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones . . . . Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a “world-historical soul,” an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.
Yeah, I get pissed at him, too. There’s too much reason to be. But . . . you gotta love Obama.
Posted in Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, General, News & Current Events, Politics | Leave a Comment »
[Adapted from a Facebook note I wrote]
I’ve noticed lately that a lot of my Facebook friends have been praising the recently-passed Florida law that requires people seeking welfare to first submit to a drug test. I think they’re wrong, and I wanted to summarize just why, using some points made (by me and a few others) on various discussion threads on the topic.
First and foremost, there’s the privacy/rights issue. The constitution prohibits the government from engaging in “unreasonable” searches. If unconditionally requiring an entire class of people to subject themselves to a test doesn’t constitute an unreasonable search, I’m not sure I know what does.
In this country, we’re supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The Florida law presumes that everyone in need of assistance is guilty, and requires them to prove their innocence. I’m frankly stunned that so many people are okay with that. What would the reaction be if Florida had required drug testing as a condition of renewing your driver’s license? I suspect it would be outrage, and rightly so. But since there are public safety issues involved with driving on public roads, you could actually make a better case for the state’s interest in making sure drug users are barred from getting driver’s licenses than you can for barring them from receiving public assistance.
The way I see it, if you want to deny assistance to people caught with drugs, fine. If you want to require people with a documented history of drug abuse to take drug tests as a condition of their receiving assistance, that’s fine too. But requiring it unconditionally, irrespective of past history? Sorry, that’s a bridge too far. Being poor and in need of assistance is not a crime, nor should it be. Treating all of the poor like criminals as a condition of giving them assistance is simply not acceptable.
The other concern here is the practical one. What exactly is this law supposed to accomplish? It certainly can’t be about saving money, as the agencies responsible for enforcing the rules estimate that the cost of testing and enforcement will outweigh any savings that might be gained from denying assistance to those who would otherwise get it in the absence of the law. And if you think cutting drug users off from public assistance will stop them from being drug users, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. So what, then, is its purpose? What’s the greater good that it’s going to serve? To borrow an expression from SayUncle, it’s what Florida is doing instead of something.
Here’s where the cynic in me comes out. I think what drives a lot of people’s support for this is the sense that there’s something wrong with being on or needing welfare. I mean, they perceive it as morally and ethically wrong, rather than just being unfortunate and less-than-ideal. And because it’s “wrong,” it’s okay to treat the people who are doing it like minor criminals. In fact, I bet a lot of Florida law supporters who read this had an immediate reaction along the lines of “that’s different!” when I brought up the driver’s license example. Why is it different? Because there’s nothing wrong with getting a driver’s license! The implication, of course, is that there is something wrong with being on welfare.
Discuss.
Posted in Legal Issues, Politics, Privacy | 26 Comments »
An observation: I was startled to notice how often I qualify factual statements with the word “literally” (see my previous post). I don’t use it the mindless way many people do (my recent favorite: a co-worker who arrived at the office complaining about being delayed by a subway slowdown that “literally took forever!” – but . . . you got here . . .?). But I find I keep needing to make it clear that the things I’m saying are actually true.
I finally realized what prompts this: public discourse today is so poisoned with both ignorance and simple deliberate bullshit that merely asserting something as fact is not taken to be an endorsement of its truth. You have to go further to declare which of your statements are to be taken at face value, if you care whether the audience will believe you are not lying when you say them.
In a world of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, where every single major Republican openly touts creationism and dismisses global warming, where endorsing noxious and proven-false religious, patriotic, and cultural nonsense is an actual requirement of office for candidates from both parties, simply saying things is completely outmoded as a means of asserting their truth. Nobody is expected to believe the things they say anymore; nobody does believe that others believe the things they say. And of course it is then impossible to accept the things other say as things that should be believed, even if those others are regarded as generally honest by the standards of the day (which is to say: consistently amoral liars). Public discourse in the United States has become an exercise of witless yammering between people who do not know the difference between truth and falsehood and people who do not care – a moronic flailing in which knowing the truth and holding to standards of honest discussion not only provide no advantage, but may be a weakness.
I am not a creationist, a science-denialist, or a progenitor of idiotic mythologies about magical beings, economics, or race. But I still can’t just say what I know, or even believe I know, in a simple declarative way, because today most conversation about science, health, religion, economics, race, culture, or politics consists largely of patently false posturing from lying ideologues; it’s assumed that anyone saying anything about any topic of contention is doing so ideologically, and without regard to truth. And in fact, truth is considered irrelevant to promoting one’s position on factual issues: the range of repeatedly-disproven falsehoods that constitute the entire substance of the right-wing position on almost any issue – abortion, climate, gay marriage, evolution, education, immigration, penology, economics . . . – is too vast to overcome, and is well-documented in every case, and that documentation has absolutely no impact on their willingness to keep saying false things, or their followers’ willingness to accept them. Even those who know better, and care about the truth, are forced into conducting the debate on that ground, because so many people have been led to believe that that is the ground of conversation.
It is to the point now that you have to declare when you are saying something you really believe before you can ask that it be taken as a factual assertion. Literally. And that sucks. Figuratively.
* Go ahead; look it up.
Posted in Bloggin, Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, General, News & Current Events, Politics, Science, Things That Suck, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
I’ve been reading an interesting book lately: On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work, by Scott Huler. It’s an extensive examination of every aspect of urban infrastructure in an ordinary US metropolitan area – where the water comes from, how it’s treated, how the supply is managed, where the sewage goes, how it’s treated, how the water and sewer lines are installed and maintained, how garbage is handled, how recycling and landfills work, how electricity is generated and distributed, how the lines are maintained, how local utilities tie into the national electric grid, how cable TV and broadcast services are set up, how landline and wireless telephone systems are set up and managed, how streets are paved and repaired, how traffic flow is managed, how local transit systems and airports operate, and on and on. Necessarily, it’s just an overview of each system, but it contains a surprising amount of detail; it has some flaws but it’s invaluable for anyone who is thinking about energy and resource issues (as we had all better be) and isn’t yet an expert (as most of us are not).
Posted in Conservative Bullshit Debunked, Culture, General, Health, How Capitalism Will Ruin You, Libertarian Problem Solving, Politics, Technology, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Search
-
Authors
Archives
Categories
-
Recent Comments
-
Blog Stats
- 74,535 hits
leanleft
Kevin
tgirsch
Kevin T. Keith
Judd
