Eric, in his first article on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL, raised a bit of a firestorm by asking, “Is the Left Evil?” He certainly thought so, much to the chagrin of our leftist from Lewes, but I’d like to address the question from the other perspective: Are the Left Good?
I start with the assumption that they certainly believe that they are good, defining good as doing good things, being charitably disposed, and wishing only the best for other people. Which brings me to this article from The New York Times:
Obesity Ills That Won’t Budge Fuel Soda Battle by Bloomberg
By WINNIE HU
Published: June 11, 2012
A hospital offers Zumba and cooking classes. Farmers markets dole out $2 coupons for cantaloupe and broccoli. An adopt-a-bodega program nudges store owners to stock low-fat milk. And one apartment building even slowed down its elevator, and lined its stairwells with artwork, to entice occupants into some daily exercise.
In the Bronx, where more than two-thirds of adults are overweight, the message has been unmistakably clear for a long time: Slim down now.
But, if anything, this battery of efforts points to how intractable the obesity problem has become in New York’s poorest borough. The number of the overweight and obese continue to grow faster in the Bronx than anywhere else in the city — nearly one in three Bronx adults is obese — leading the city’s health commissioner to call it “ground zero for the obesity epidemic problem.”
So it was to the weight-burdened Bronx that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg went last week to make the case for his controversial proposal to ban supersized sodas and sugary drinks. Standing in the lobby of Montefiore Medical Center, the borough’s largest hospital, he was flanked by doctors who spoke of treating more patients than ever with diabetes, hypertension and other obesity-related diseases.
Critics have described the proposed soda rule as interfering with a matter of personal choice, calling instead for less intrusive means to address the obesity problem, through education and access to healthy foods. But the Bronx experience helps explain why Mr. Bloomberg and city health officials embraced the aggressive new regulatory tact after years of trying, and failing, to curb obesity through those types of measures.
Much more at the link.
Now, many of our friends on the left would say that Mayor Bloomberg’s action was a good thing, government intervening to help people. And the people who only want to do good are redefining obesity as a public health issue. Mayor Bloomberg said:
We are absolutely committed to doing everything in our power to help you get on track and stay on track to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Because this isn’t your crisis alone — it is a crisis for our city and our entire country.
In other words, if you are fat, it is our business. From The New England Journal of Medicine:
Obesity — The New Frontier of Public Health Law
Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., David M. Studdert, LL.B., Sc.D., M.P.H., and Troyen A. Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H.
N Engl J Med 2006; 354:2601-2610 June 15, 2006The law is now firmly established as a powerful instrument of public health. Some of the most important public health victories in the United States in the past century — declining lead exposure, reduced rates of smoking, improvements in workplace and motor vehicle safety, and increased vaccination rates — are the result of new legislation, heightened regulatory enforcement, litigation, or a combination of the three. With each victory, confidence mounts in the capacity of legal tools to be used in combating serious health threats.
One of the newest targets of public health law is obesity. The past few years have brought a flurry of legislative initiatives aimed at improving nutrition and physical activity among children and adults, highly publicized personal-injury lawsuits against food and beverage companies, and new activities on the part of federal regulators. Related initiatives in other countries and at the World Health Organization signal growing international interest.
This new frontier of public health law is welcomed by many health activists, but it has also provoked criticism. A backlash from the food industry is already evident, and rights-oriented consumer groups have decried some measures because they impinge on civil liberties. Tensions exist between these interventions and the freedoms of choice, speech, and contract. In this article, we review the rationale for regulatory action to combat obesity, examine legal issues raised by initiatives to date, and comment on the prospects for public health law in this area.
Time for Legal Action? The public health law approach posits that the law can be used to create conditions that allow people to lead healthier lives and that the government has both the power and the duty to regulate private behavior in order to promote public health. The constitutional source of this authority is the police power, which encompasses both directly coercive interventions and policies such as taxes and subsidies that shape behavior by altering the costs of certain choices. States also enjoy broad powers with respect to taxation of goods and services.
Several factors have led to a reexamination of the historical view that food consumption and physical activity are inappropriate subjects for government regulation. Among the “triggers to action” that have catalyzed government intervention in other areas of private behavior, such as alcohol and tobacco use, are the development of a scientific base and social disapproval. Both these triggers are now in play with regard to obesity.
Emphasis mine; internal links deleted. Much more at the link.
Public health concerns used to exist to protect the public from outside harm: from communicable diseases, and from toxins in the environment. But if a fat person walks by, you cannot catch fat from that person, and if an obese person lives in your neighborhood, he is not some sort of environmental toxin from which you must be protected. Even the restrictions on smoking in public are justified on the basis that the smoker puts toxins into the atmosphere that other people breathe.
But obesity? In this, our good-hearted friends on the left are not trying to protect you from the harmful actions of others, but are deciding that they need to protect you from yourself.
When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto,1 one of their operating assumptions was that the proletariat would all be of the same mind; the state would supposedly wither away, because there would be no need for government authority to control people. Prior to that, the revolutionary state would be using its power only to rein in the recalcitrant bourgeois, who would, themselves, be eliminated through the elimination of capitalism. By this logic, if logic it can be called, Messrs Marx and Engels managed to avoid the uncomfortable question of the rights of people who disagree; all would comply, for the good of socialist society, because all would want to comply.
Unfortunately for Messrs Marx and Engels’ “logic,” not everybody did comply, because not everybody believed the same thing, because, human nature being what it is, people had their own better interests, which they held to be more important than the interests of others, or of the state. And thus, where Communism did triumph, we saw wonderful institutions like the ГУЛаг,2 to insure that the public did comply, whether they wished to or otherwise, because the interests of the state outweighed the rights of the individual.
Mayor Bloomberg is not a Communist dictator,3 and he can’t just establish concentration camps in Central Park. First Lady Michelle Obama, who has her own anti-obesity efforts going on, is not a Communist dictator,4 and can’t get you arrested for stuffing three Big Macs in your mouth. What they are, are busybodies, people who think that your life is somehow their business, and that they know better than you and can tell you how you should behave.
And it’s all so ridiculous. Let’s be real: there is no one of normal intelligence in the United States who is fat who does not know he is fat. If there is one thing our culture is great at doing, it’s sending out all sorts of cultural images which tell you, in no uncertain terms, if you are fat, you just aren’t quite as good as other people, aren’t as attractive as other people, and that you need to shape up. The weight-loss industry in the United States was estimated to be worth $60.9 billion in 2011, plenty of evidence that the cultural messages have taken hold. Your Editor supposes that, for Mayor Bloomberg, the efforts of people to try to lose weight voluntarily just aren’t good enough, and that he has the right to try to step in to help you.
Your Editor firmly believes that, as he began this article, our friends on the left believe that they are good people, defining good as doing good things, being charitably disposed, and wishing only the best for other people. But, as our friends on the left try to do what they think is good, try to help you help yourself, try to do what is for your own good, they become evil. It’s certainly nothing that they see themselves as being, but when our friends on the left try to use the police power of the state to impose their beliefs on what is best for you, on you, because you were too stupid or weak-willed or whatever to comply with their obviously-superior judgement, they have become evil, they have tried to trample on your individual rights, they have tried to act in loco parentis.
In that, the final two paragraphs from the Times original show the fallacy of that:
Arla Lucien, 27, a post office clerk trying to lose 40 pounds, said a ban would no more help her stick to her diet than the calorie counts posted on menus, another anti-obesity measure that city leaders hoped would lead consumers to make healthier decisions. She still orders her Big Macs.
“Really, you’re going to tell me how to eat and drink?” she said. “That’s not going to work. It’s hard to do with kids; you think it’s going to work with adults?”
_________________________________
- The Communist Manifesto, at the link given, is free in the Kindle edition. ↩
- Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й и коло́ний, the Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies. ↩
- Though your Editor suspects that he would like to have that kind of authority. ↩
- Though your Editor suspects that she would really like to have that kind of authority. ↩
The Left excels at works of good intentions – as long as the taxpayer foots the bill.
Here’s what Joy Behar wants to see. It fosters Employment which is a good intention, almost:
Joy Behar Wants to See Romney’s House Burn Down: ‘It Would Be Kind of Cool – the Mormon Fire Patrol’
By Noel Sheppard | June 12, 2012 | 20:25
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/06/12/joy-behar-wants-see-romneys-house-burn-down-it-would-be-kind-cool-mor#ixzz1xd4dcDHr
The Left gave us Welfare, Social Security and Medicare, and if not struck down by SCOTUS, OBumbler Care. All great ideas. And these “wonderful” programs grew two ways: one was the number of beneficiaries’s ratio shrank from tens of people to one, to Four to one; the next was the addition of more goodies paid out by these programs. It was if a Christmas tree started with two ornaments, and now has thousands and can barely support them. But the ZEAL of providing more money, was never matched by gathering more funds. The selfish image of the politician was to make dependents, and give them more for votes. So everyone won in the end, except the taxpayer and our nation monetary soverienty.
Yorkshire, while you do not hesitate to criticize social security and medicare, mark my words, you will be the first to utilize and appreciate these safety nets when you need them. And should you be so unfortunate as to lose your pension, or have your IRA diminish in value, or have your wife or another close relative be in an accident or suddenly develop a severely debilitating disorder, you will be most appreciative and grateful that you have been forced during your healthy working years to contribute to what is now your safety net. This is what a civilized society of people do for their fellow citizens in need now or in the future.
I simply don’t understand why this basic lesson needs to be explained in detail to Conservatives. Is it that they have no vision of what may be in store for them in their futures, events for which they alone do not have the wherewithall to manage without literally ending up on the streets if there is no relative or friend willing to step up for them?
I extend this message to our Editor, who, having been raised without the authority of a father figure, as he has told us, has developed a knee jerk reaction against authority, when he is being asked, or even required to abide by something in his own best interests, like wearing seat belts, or like not being able to buy a 16 oz container of Mountain Dew in NYC, or not being able to buy incandescent light bulbs in the US, or to suggest that if you think taxes should be raised, that you do so voluntarily.
Some Conservatives seem to forget that any unpopular statute can be overturned by exercising our democratic powers to vote out or into power representatives who will strive to change the laws that we do not like. This process of changing things is the American Way; filibustering and obstruction is not the American Way!
One final point which I cannot resist making here, that being that we should not stop our government from functioning simply because we do not like the person elected or a law passed. The ballot box is the proper resource to correct whatever it is about government which we do not like. Or one can protest in the streets, in the press, or on the internet. But to stop a duly elected government from functioning runs counter to the Constitution and to our national principles, yet this is exactly what Republicans have been doing, a renegade bunch who think they can dictate what we can or cannot do.
The bottom line is that Conservatives like big and dysfunctional governments when they like what government is or is not doing, but hate big government when they dislike what government is or is not doing. In this sense, Conservatives won’t admit it, but they are just like Liberals in this regard! The difference is that Conservatives are willing to shut government down and even push their own country toward default, in order to get their way, and they even resort to dirty tricks like character assassination and voter suppression. Liberals do not do this, and they accept the electoral mandates of the voters, fighting for their positions in the normal legislative processes and through the courts, according to the American Way!
Instead of the American Way, Conservatives constantly strive for instant gratification and without a future vision. Have they not learned from experience that maximum gratification results when a more gradual process is followed, responding to signals/messages transmitted back and forth in a manner which produces continual gratification each step of the way leading to the climax?
Passive-Aggressive Perry, who again yesterday abhorred the “getting personal,” just did what we all KNEW he’d do: He got personal yet again, this time with the Editor:
Perhaps Passive-Aggressive Perry was dumped by a past girlfriend and hence this led to his smacking his wife around? But I could be wrong.
Koolo, stop twisting! First of all, I have spoken out against your incessant personal attacks, but not about “getting personal”, as you put it. How can one have a conversation or a debate without getting personal? I am amazed that you do not comprehend the distinction. What I said about our Editor is nothing more that what he has already mentioned on here, so there is nothing untoward revealed.
Moreover, apparently you think that our Editor is not capable of coming forward with a complaint, or even a deletion, if he disapproves. Why is it that you must assign yourself to be his spokesman? Could it be that you are a control freak?
Finally, I have asked you to leave my wife out of your nasty comments, and you have not honored that request. You know nothing about which you speak, but you persist anyway in a most obnoxious manner; moreover, it is untrue.
I now ask our Editor that he impose upon koolo to cease these statements about my wife and marriage, even to the point of suspending him if this does not stop immediately and completely.
Passive-Aggressive Perry: You whined about me making comments about smacking your wife around yesterday, just like you did here.
Editor may have offered the information about his father in good faith some time in the past; however, you then pervert it by extrapolating that into being some sort of rebellious self-hater. This is how you operate — scummy, underhanded comments like this, and then you have the balls to say the Editor can delete if he deems it necessary. How convenient.
And then you also have the balls to cry again about my own personal comments directed at you. Why? You make remarks about me and my profession all the time. Why is that acceptable, but my comments are not? I dare you to answer that question in a fair manner, if you’re capable of such — meaning, without being a prodigious hypocrite.
Wagonwheel states: “Yorkshire, while you do not hesitate to criticize social security and medicare, mark my words, you will be the first to utilize and appreciate these safety nets when you need them.”
Fair enough. While I don’t speak for anyone else I do have my own reasons for criticizing both SS and medicare for different reasons. As Walter Williams put it in his article dated 6/13/12:
“The Social Security pamphlet of 1936 read, “Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account for you. … The checks will come to you as a right.” (http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssb36.html). Americans were led to believe that Social Security was like a retirement account and that money placed in it was, in fact, their property. Shortly after the Social Security Act’s passage, it was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, in Helvering v. Davis (1937). The court held that Social Security was not an insurance program, saying, “The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way.” In a 1960 case, Flemming v. Nestor, the Supreme Court said, “To engraft upon Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands.”
Decades after Americans were duped into thinking that the money taken from them was theirs, the Social Security Administration belatedly and quietly tried to clean up its history of deception. Its website (http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html) explains, “Entitlement to Social Security benefits is not (a) contractual right.” It adds: “There has been a temptation throughout the program’s history for some people to suppose that their FICA payroll taxes entitle them to a benefit in a legal, contractual sense. … Congress clearly had no such limitation in mind when crafting the law.” The Social Security Administration’s explanation fails to mention that it was the SSA itself that created the lie that “the checks will come to you as a right.”
IOW, Social Security was sold as a right; you pay in, you recieve payment at a future time. SS was created by politicians and administered by bureaucrats, neither of which have any expertise in finance nor banking. What we ended up with was a sort of Ponzi scheme which sooner or later will collapse on itself. At this point in time, SS as a right has become so entrenched in the American payche that any attemp to modify or modernize it is met with total opposition. However failure to address SS will lead to financial failure, in my opinion.
Now on medicare. I am not against medicare as part of a safety net per se, I’m against making it pay for the little things and having it be structured so as to relieve the individual beneficiaries of most if not all of the financial and medical decisions encompassed by the program. Medicare should address catastrophic events, not pills and regular doctor visits, nor mamograms or proctologic exams. Medicare Part D is an abomination.
Contrary to your belief that only liberals have compassion, we too don’t want to see undue suffering. However, huge spending on entitlement programs have shown to be financially and economicaly devistating here and in other countries. Actually, they’ve proven unsustainable. We need to move away from the idea that everyone, everywhere will always be covered for everthing on someone elses dime. There comes a point where we all must assume the responsibility for ourselves and our own actions and decisions.
Programs like Social Security and medicare should be there to assist, not replace peoples own financial and medical planning.
[Released from moderation 13Jun2012 @1411 EDT)
Again, the editor can speak for himself very well, and does not need you to speak for him. Why do you feel compelled to inject yourself like this, and now repeating yourself with this injection?
But now koolo is trying to defend his obnoxious/atrocious behavior on here by making a false equivalence, hoping that he will not be chastised in some way by our Editor. You are transparent, koolo, probably unintentionally. I’ve been around long enough to detect these things.
There is a vast distinction between my saying that your behavior is not that expected of a school teacher, that your administration would likely be concerned if they knew, and your saying something to the effect that I beat my wife.
If you do not see that distinction, that goes to your moral shortcomings and dysfunction, koolo, and you ought to think about that and make an appropriate change.
Moreover, I point out that regardless of what I post, you invariably respond with a personal attack on me. You do, and you should not. Step up to the debate: that’s what we are allegedly here for, or at least should be.
If I respond to a personal attack in response to yours, you are free to point that out, as right now I am pointing yours out.
The trigger for you seems to be political ideological differences. For that, should a personal attack on my wife and marriage be justified? I don’t think so.
Feel free to call me an extremist leftie, or the like, as I feel free to use the term extremist rightie, or the like, as I think this characterizes some of the policies that you and your fellow righties propose on here. That’s fair!
And one more thing: You seem to use a term like “we think” when you are about to call me down. What do you mean by “we”? Are you assigning yourself the right to speak for others on here? Or do you conspire with the others on here, by private e-mail? I would appreciate an honest answer from you on this!
Shorter Passive-Aggressive Perry: I should be allowed to make offensive personally-oriented statements, but others shouldn’t be allowed to return the favor.
That’s all it boils down to, ultimately. All your “justifications” are what you always do around here: Never applying your stated standards to your very own self.
No, there’s not. You’ve stated that I must constantly “bully” my students, among other things, based on what I post here. There is no “vast distinction” between that and my opinion about your behavior about you and your wife for, after all, why couldn’t I make a similar extrapolation towards you? I know it seems far-=fetched to you; I feel similarly about your offensive comments about me.
BTW, you notice I keep adding “But I might be wrong,” merely emulating your own weak efforts at justifying your atrocious comments towards me.
More personal attacks, merely because I don’t accept your sorry excuses for your dirty comments … because I want you to apply your own standards to yourself.
I am sorry, but I do not, and will not, accept your ridiculous double standard. Everyone recognizes this childishness of yours. You keep engaging in it, I will call you out on it. In your own parlance, I will “push back.” Oh, and don’t think you score any “points” bhy saying stuff like my supposed administration would be “upset” at my wife-beating comments. For someone who is supposed to be about “context” and “nuance,” you sure don’t want such here. And for good reason: Seeing my comments in their full context doesn’t make them very offensive at all when seen in comparison to your own.
Wagonwheel says:
June 13, 2012 at 08:29
Yorkshire, while you do not hesitate to criticize social security and medicare, mark my words, you will be the first to utilize and appreciate these safety nets when you need them. And should you be so unfortunate as to lose your pension, or have your IRA diminish in value, or have your wife or another close relative be in an accident or suddenly develop a severely debilitating disorder, you will be most appreciative and grateful that you have been forced during your healthy working years to contribute to what is now your safety net. This is what a civilized society of people do for their fellow citizens in need now or in the future.
I simply don’t understand why this basic lesson needs to be explained in detail to Conservatives. Is it that they have no vision of what may be in store for them in their futures, events for which they alone do not have the wherewithall to manage without literally ending up on the streets if there is no relative or friend willing to step up for them?
49.5% of voters pay NO TAXES. Many get what taxes they paid back with additional money. What too many lawmakers do is keep piling on more goodies to get more votes. This is the problem.
In addition to what I already said, Yorkshire, your problem also is, like most Conservatives on here, that when you talk taxes, you stop at the Federal income tax level, and say nothing about the huge burden which the state and local taxes impose on the 49.5% you are talking about. And add to that social security and medicare taxes, I am sure you would agree that the tax burden on the 49.5 percenters, which is undoubtably greater than the burden on someone like Mitt Romney.
Sorry, koolo, but I am not going to let you get away with your false equivalencies, your spinning, your lying, and your obnoxious/atrocious behavior toward me on here without further comment.
I tell you again this was untrue, totally. I asked you to stop, but you persist. That is obnoxious/atrocious behavior on your part, koolo. There simply is no other way to describe it.
Moreover, there is absolutely nothing I have said to you which is even remotely equivalent to this. If you think there is, give me a citation of a quote of mine, to attempt to prove your point. Citation please!
That means nothing, because you have not stopped that which I asked you to stop. And again there is no emulation, otherwise attempt to prove it with a quote which you claim is emulation.
No dirty comments, koolo, just a characterization of your behavior, which you would prefer that I tolerate without protest. That’s not going to happen, unless your behavior changes. As much as I criticize John Hitchcock, he has never ever stooped as low as you have, and he stoops pretty low sometimes, without citation, just like you are doing here.
Where is your criticism of others on here who use the personal attack approach? The fact that you choose to criticize only me is a test of your credibility which produces a grade of “F”. In fact, and this is an example, you are guilty of using a double standard just as you criticize me. That does not even get you to first base safely, koolo!
Nothing you have said here in your feeble defense does in any way enables you to obviate your behavior as other than obnoxious.
Now I request again, please leave my wife and my marriage out of your commentary. It does not belong and I don’t want it. A person with only a modicum of honor would accede to this request.
enables==> enableAs I said, I gladly will — if you cease making ridiculous comparisons about my career. Fair enough? If not, you can stuff your requests and invocations of “honor.” I doubt you’ll agree, or if you do, won’t be able to hold to it. Becaue, after all, you go to the gutter again with this:
Yet another reference/threat to my livelihood.
You wouldn’t be making such threats were you not now a feeble geriatric, living off the labor of others’ work. You’d worry that such threats could be turned against you.
Here’s something else to consider: When I first began commenting here, I was very cordial in my refutations of your leftist talking points. But even that set you off! You then complained that I was “stalking you,” and that I didn’t apply my refutations to others. (Like, why would I — when I share the vast majority of the views of others?) I only began to “up the ante,” so to speak, when it was apparent (as it always was) you never, ever apply the standards which you demand from others to yourself. Then, of course, I became evil incarnate. I suppose that may be accurate — because I simply copied you. Your tactics. I made (and make) you look in the mirror. And you don’t like it.
To make quite simple for you, PAP, I’ll state unequivocally in your own terms: Now I request again, please leave comparisons to my job and how I do it out of your commentary. It does not belong and I don’t want it. A person with only a modicum of honor would accede to this request.
No, the left are not good. There are of course desires which those drifting bags of appetite we term “the left” wish to have satisfied.
And although they cannot themselves affirm that these desires of theirs are good in themselves or derive from, or are in aid of, some greater or deeper objective goods, the liberal-thing nonetheless habitually lays claims for its satisfactions against others. It’s their kind’s [insofar as we may while using the rules of liberal nominalist grammar speak intelligibly of a "kind"] reproductive strategy, I am increasingly convinced.
That then, which is in aid of effecting these sought for satisfactions, which are per liberal definition and worldview neither good nor bad but just are, are what the liberal labels “good” as part of it’s wheedling operation.
The liberal word “good” is more like a satisfied belch than what we traditionally tend to think of as an ethical evaluation. Or throwing the liberal-kind something of a bone, we might go so far as to say that we could extend the word “good” in liberal-speak to cover that which they find useful in some instrumental sense, in bringing about an end which is neither good nor bad in itself, but pleases the progressive/liberal in whatever state of being they [if you can call such a process a "they"] find themselves.
Find this reduction offensive? Well test its validity by assuming the liberal’s own worldview and stance as you gaze upon the liberal himself.
What do you see before you? A human, a “man”? But what is a man according to progressive doctrine? There is in fact no “essential” humanness according to the modern liberal.
A moral being? Morals or any evaluative ethical statements are declared relative to social or environmental conditions. Then a conscious being at least? Consciousness is according to most progressive/liberal anthropological doctrines an epiphenomenon that merely rides upon a material process that goes its own way while occasionally reporting up the ladder to the brain “level” wherein the conscious mind produces post hoc rationalizations as “reasons for”. A soul to be respected? The progressive denies all metaphysical mumbo-jumbo and denies that men have souls that constitute something more enduring than the physical processes of digestion and the like that otherwise make them up. If then, liberals are members of the class of men [insofar as men are granted to be in any way definable], then it follows that progressive/liberals have no souls either.
What’s left? What’s left are loci of, congeries of appetites, having no real person-hood nor any enduring identity as center. Appetites which are engaged in rhetoric, or better wheedling, not reason, as a means of fulfilling desires which – are ultimately pointless anyway.
Are liberals good? The question doesn’t even make any sense.
Is the Left Evil as compared to Are the Left Good: anyone else see a problem with the rather queer construction?
Perry promised he would never comment on one of my articles.
Perry broke that promise because it was inconvenient for him to keep it.
Thus, Perry is wholly untrustworthy, period.
What Perry did not expect was that I would delete his comments and the Editor would be four-square in my corner on those deletions.
So Perry cried like a 10-year-old girl that he couldn’t get his way, that his promise wasn’t worth anything because he was too stupid to know what a promise meant, that it was too hard, and besides, I violated his right to poop on my living room floor.
Left wingers want only one thing – POWER. That is why Bloomberg is getting involved in this soda ban. As a counter to this sort of Big Brotherism, many states have repealed their helmet laws because motorcyclists demanded it. Now, personally, I almost always wore my helmet when riding a motorcycle, but there are some who claim they restrict your hearing (thus compromising safety) or else they just liked the feeling of having the wind in their hair. In this case, freedom won out over the Nanny State.
I’m afraid Koolo has you nailed. He is just taking your own bad behavior and throwing it back in your face. You don’t like being called a wife beater? Then stop calling us unpatriotic, terrorists, and traitors. When you start to behave in a civil fashion, people will start treating you the same.
Oh? And imagine how much larger a safety net we could have put aside if we weren’t forced to pay into Social Security?
Eric said:
I don’t really have anything to add at this time. I just QFTed it.
Depends on whether you see the Left as an ideology (me) or a collection of people (Dana).
Hoagie wrote a comment around 9am today. I just released it around
1pm2pm (I keep forgetting, sometimes mid-sentence, I live in Central Time now.) today. It’s very much worth reading, as opposed to Perry’s comments, which barely qualify for tittle (self-abasing) humor.Bingo! Eric, it sets the stage for people talking past each other and we have way too much of that already. Clarity is its own reward if you prefer accurate repartee to the cacophony of barking dogs.
Wagonwheel says:
June 13, 2012 at 11:44
“49.5% of voters pay NO TAXES. Many get what taxes they paid back with additional money. What too many lawmakers do is keep piling on more goodies to get more votes. This is the problem.”
In addition to what I already said, Yorkshire, your problem also is, like most Conservatives on here, that when you talk taxes, you stop at the Federal income tax level, and say nothing about the huge burden which the state and local taxes impose on the 49.5% you are talking about.
There is nothing you can do about the Fed Tax, but you sure can do a lot about state and local taxes. That’s why I moved to PA from the Peoples Republic of MD.
Your Editor is amused. Wagonwheel wrote:
Yet, to Wagonwheel, your Editor is also an absolutist, and wrote:
Your Editor is finding it difficult to determine: am I an absolutist and dictatorial/doctrinal, or am I an anarchist, rejecting all authority?
But, in determining that I “having been raised without the authority of a father figure, as he has told us, has developed a knee jerk reaction against authority, when he is being asked, or even required to abide by something in his own best interests,” it seems that our Democrat from Delaware has just confirmed what I wrote in the original, that our friends on the left “have tried to act in loco parentis.”
Perhaps our friends on the left really do think that this is die Vaterland.
Wagonwheel wrote:
I take it then, that if Mitt Romney wins the presidential election, and the Republicans take control of the Senate, the minority Democrats will not use the filibuster and you, personally, will suggest that the Democrats “accept the electoral mandates of the voters,” and not try to stop or delay or otherwise obstruct the legislative agenda of the Republican majority.
And their image of a father figure is Jerry Sandusky.
Yes, well had your little troll contributor from down under (the world bridge) made more of a lasting impression, you might have noticed that he was furiously repeating a meme that was floating around in progressive circles a couple of years ago. Apparently a few progressive authors discovered a satisfying formula which allowed them to declare that principles heretofore conceived of as antitheses were in fact examples of the very same psychological phenomenon.
Thus, anarchism and radical individualism – to say nothing of constitutionalism – were actually fascism and authoritarianism! This is because – it all now becomes so clear – in failing to pledge fealty to the wisdom of the collective and to its directives – appropriately understood and interpreted by bureaucratically anointed mouthpieces – the individualist in his selfishness becomes an authoritarian power worshiper! Thus, he is a reactionary throwback to atavistic appetites, one who is subject to unreasoning fears of change and violation … belligerent in his refusal to accept community values emphasizing inclusiveness, self-sacrifice, social interpenetration, and vulnerability; unwilling to embrace compensatory equality and the redemption that comes with an unconditional commitment to being a useful stepping stone in a socially emergent process of evolutionary progress.
The natural world is unfair. This unfairness is the result of natural inequality. Obviously the purpose of community is to compensate for these inequalities by establishing a universal and unconditional state of submission which enables the inauguration of an era of justice, that is to say, the compensatory redirection of the products of unequal life efforts more uniformly.
Self direction and self-interest then, must be cruelly predicated on an internal commitment to personal strength and competency. Personal strength and competency are elitist and narrow. Elitism based on these traits is invariably authoritarian, and when politically viewed, fascist: as it unites the competent as self-regarding peers while excluding the incompetent as unfit to participate in the enjoyment of the product of the life efforts of the privileged competent and “lucky”.
No Fuhrer principle you say? Individualists make each man his own little Fuhrer, who in turn slavishly follows the pronouncements of earlier deceased objectivity worshiping fascists, instead of surrendering himself to the evolving consensus of the community.
Therefore freedom is actually authoritarianism, and anarchism with voluntary association predicates is fascism.
Only within a system of progressivist totalitarianism and expert life direction, can there be the realization of universal freedom. Properly understood, that is the freedom to know and experience your place as a useful social element.
Know thyself? No! Know your place!
Thanks be to Gaia, and amen.
Eric demonstrates that he attended school in England:
You definitely have part of it. However, Americans tend to mistake words which are plural for singular, if the plural isn’t obvious, such as “the data indicates” rather than “the data indicate.” The voters and the electorate refer to pretty much the same thing, but Americans say “the voters are” and “the electorate is;” the latter is just as much a plural as the former.
As for an ideology vis a vis a group of people, an ideology requires adherents to be an ideology. Further, the left are not a monolith, all believing the same thing or possessed of the same motives, though we sometimes tend to speak of them that way; that is an error of convenience, and I have been as guilty of that as others.
I understand, Eric, that koolo wants his partisan cohorts to think that I made a threat to have him fired, which I did not. If you think so, Eric, produce the quote. You cannot, because there is not one to produce. Moreover, I do not have the wherewithall to carry out such a threat, even if I made one, and koolo knows that very well, but will probably never admit it. He simply wishes to carry forward this fiction, and have people like you, Eric, promulgate said fiction. You should be the one feeling ashamed, being the dupe who is willing to carry this fiction forward.
I’ve come to learn since the beginning of this new blog, being the only Liberal/Progressive on here, that I am going to have to put up with this kind of crap on a daily basis, as many of the rest of you gang up as if you were in a schoolyard, because this is exactly how some children behave.
And btw koolo, lastly, I asked you several times if there were a conspiracy among some of you to coordinate your attacks on me. Due to your failure to answer, I take that the answer as a “yes”, to which I say continue to bring it on, because I will continue to push back, with the sole purpose of exposing your extremism whenever it appears, motivated by the search for truth as it applies to the issues we discuss.
PS to koolo, who wrote:
This is not a threat, koolo, it is a question. Moreover, if it were a threat, which there never has been from me, you know that I could not carry out such a threat even if I wanted to. So you should not fear your own self-generated apparition. If you continue with your nasty/obnoxious personal attacks, I will continue to ask this very logical question, or the statements I have made on this issue, because frankly they are also a concern to me regarding the treatment of children by their teacher. Fair enough? It is one thing to debate the issues, and quite another thing to obsess in making the personal attacks. You attack, I may respond; I simply can’t let an untrue allegation stand unchallenged!
Moreover, I am sincere in suggesting that you take a rest. I know well how wrung out I felt with the arrival of the last days of a school year. You have a very challenging and difficult job, I know that well! Now you can reward yourself with some rest.
Absolutely. Case in point: Baraka Obama, the most radical Leftist and first (or second or third {FDR and Wilson}) Socialist to have ever been elected President. He is severely fracturing the Democrat Party, sending some elected Democrats into the Republican fold, and making other Democrats — elected and unelected — very clearly speak out against him.
But there is at least one point where the Left are, indeed, monolithic: Their fascist, totalitarian aims.
No, Perry, you did threaten Koolo’s livelihood, and on multiple occasions. You did accuse Hoagie of felonious activity, and on multiple occasions. And you were suspended for those actions.
The Editor’s link:
Perry, it would behoove you to turn over a new leaf and start being Honorable for a change.
“Shut up!” Passive-Aggressive Perry retorted.
You can lie about your sins all you want, Perry. All it will do is heap more sins on your head for which you will have to face Justice. No reasonable person, upon learning anything about you and your online history, would ever trust what you have to say to be anything remotely resembling the Truth.
“That’s a fact, Jack!”
Correction: “This is not a threat, koolo, it is a question.” ==>
This is not a threat, koolo, it is a rhetorical question.
Let me correct John H.: “But there is at least one point where the
LeftRight are, indeed, monolithic: Their fascist, totalitarian aims.”The American Right is:
* Conducting a war on women, to the point of invading their vagina’s, depriving them of free health services, denying them of contraceptive services, and depriving them of their right of choice!
* Conducting a massive voter suppression effort in order to deprive minorities, the young and the elderly of their right to exercise the privilege to vote!
* Conducting a war on labor unions, depriving workers of their right to organize and negotiate with their employers on wage, benefit, and worker safety issues!
* Conducting a war on states and communities by supporting cuts in firefighters, police, and teachers in their zest to cut spending!
* Conducting a war on health care services, by fighting to continue to deprive millions of Americans from even basic healthcare!
* Conducting a war on the middle class and the poor by killing their jobs and lowering their wages in their zeal to support the unprecedented vagaries in the behaviors of their Wall Street and Corporate benefactors!
* Conducting a war on the legitimacy of our political campaigns by declaring that a Corporation and a Union have the same free speech rights as an individual person: Corporation/Union = Person!
Now do you understand, John H, why you had to be corrected and set straight? Your (and Hoagie’s, and ropelight’s, and Eric’s, and DNW’s, and koolo’s) constant denigration of those whom you label as “leftists” is dead on arrival and dead wrong!!!
This is a War on Americans being waged by the very powerful Right Wing GOPers who have brought too many of their fellow countrymen to the edge of a cliff with no way for them to avoid the plunge!
*Sigh* No, it’s not fair enough. As I clearly noted above, it doesn’t matter what I do. When I began here and was always cordial in my refutations of your nonsense, you got upset that I was “stalking” you. Now, it’s “personal attacks.” So, let’s see:
– I “stalk” you by refuting (nicely) you on a daily basis, yet your constant claims of “pushing back” in here somehow cannot be similarly considered “stalking” …
– I engage in “personal attacks,” yet your own constant barrage of such is … “accurate” based on “your own opinion/interpretation.” Check.
– My personal attacks make you worry about those in my charge hence you’ll keep bringing such up; I, however, must cease bringing up the welfare of your wife even though your own behavior makes me worry about her.
Conclusion: Passive-Aggressive Perry wants his cake and to eat it too. But, it ain’t gonna happen. He wants me to cease bringing up his wife? Cease the comments about my career. Want to stop the personal attacks? You stop ‘em yourself, PAP. It’s very simple. But we know you won’t do it. You’re inherently unable due to your perverted sense of self-righteousness.
Neither you, koolo, or Eric have yet to produce the quote which would demonstrate your point, so case closed.
Moreover, being the blog owner, our Editor certainly has the right to do what he did, act as judge, jury, and punisher, as he sees fit. However, that does not make him right, just as his political judgments and pontifications are not necessarily the truth because he says they are the truth. Same with my judgments and pontifications. I understand these politically based nuances.
I do not believe I was guilty as charged, re the Hoagie situation or koolo’s. Nevertheless, if I wish to continue to participate on this blog, I must abide by our Editor’s judgment. I fully understand that!
To the Editor’s credit, he does not ban people from posting with whom he disagrees, although he did put PiaToR into automatic moderation on his new blog here. And he does permit John H in doing the banning on his particular topics.
Our Editor also withdrew my administrative privileges when he created this new blog, with no explanation. But again, that is his privilege. He did decide to share his bandwidth with me, for “Bridging the Gap”, for which I am grateful. On the latter, I note that the wingnut regulars on here have conducted a continual “nudge” campaign to express their objection to the Editor’s kindness to me, because they, in his shoes, would never ever do such a kindness. The kindness is on our Editor, which distinguishes him from the crowd, the nastiness, paranoia and obsession to control, are on the koolo’s et al.
And finally, I will point out that John H is so much against having his views countered by me, that he has banned me from commenting on his topics, with one recent exception. John H, just what is it that you fear??? You are a big boy now, aren’t you?
Because the Editor [rightfully] deleted them, you dope. So stop your child-like games already.
I can, if you wish, repost your last overt threat against me — the one I saved.
OK, koolo, your perception of your behavior is not my perception, but the reverse is probably true as well. For a one-dimensional communication device which blogs are, these misperceptions are more likely to appear. Let us both go forward with a focus on our positions on the issues, debating those as we see fit, rather than being diverted by the personal stuff. I’m for that!
Hoagie, your post outlines some of the problems with social security and medicare.
On social security, the ultimate solution will be to means test in order to determine benefit eligibility, subject to change if the individual’s financial situation changes. There is no sense providing a safety net in retirement to those who don’t need it, even though they have contributed to it. Let their contribution be a gift to their fellow citizens in need of the safety net.
On medicare, I suspect that you have yet not understood that so-called ObamaCare is designed to address some of the problems you mentioned. For example, streamlining medical record keeping to avoid duplication, and to aid in more accurate diagnoses. Including preventative care coverage is another example, which cuts down on later medical problems and costs. Another is cutting back on the costs of medical procedures and fees. And then we have the so-called death panels, which is a politically originated misnomer. The truth is that medicare under ObamaCare would pay for sessions with practitioners, family members, and the patient to decide an appropriate course of future action to be taken for patients who have severe chronic illnesses which have significantly altered the quality of life of the patient. For example, I have already decided that I do not want my wife to go broke prolonging my life when the quality of my life (pain, movement, vision, hearing, etc) have deteriorated beyond affordable repair and improvement. Thus, a meeting such as described above, along with my living will, will enable her to make the right decision for her without suffering from extreme guilt. When my time comes, I want to go fast, with the least financial impact on my loved ones. ObamaCare has provisions for this process to occur more smoothly and with guidance when needed.
Perry, you big, fat, LIAR, Koolo posted the threat here just a few days ago. We all saw it. What kind of a twisted mind do you have to deny what was right in front of all of our faces? Or do you think this is 1984 and you are Big Brother and you can simply make incriminating evidence against you disappear down the Memory Hole?
So the Death Panels will provide your doctor with a gun to shoot you when you “Want to go fast”. How nice.