Oppression is for Cool Kids
Here we see the latest victim in the eeeeeevil fascist Bush’s war against dissent in his never-ending quest to implement a fascist state.
It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung’s ‘’Little Red Book” for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.
The story, first reported in last Saturday’s New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.
Wow, that’s pretty bad, huh? I mean, I have a copy of the Little Red Book, and even a statue of Chairman Mao, on display on a bookshelf in my apartment. This concerns me greatly. Are Bush’s fascist stormtroopers going to be kicking down my front door soon?
But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.
The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student’s house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.
‘’I made it up,” the professor recalled him saying. ‘’I’m sorry. . . . I’m so relieved that it’s over.”
What? A left-winger lying about being oppressed? What… what… what the hell is the world coming to?
Williams said the student gave no explanation. But Williams, who praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.
‘’I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why,” said Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history. He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ‘’disturbed me tremendously.”
I’ll tell you exactly why he did it, because this is a point I have made repeatedly for years. The left views the world in terms of two groups, oppressors and the oppressed. There is no middle ground, you are one or the other. If you’re a middle class working Joe, you’re still an oppressor, because you buy products at Wal-Mart and other stores, and they’re made in Guatemalan sweatshops, where peasant labor is used. Thus, by being a middle class consumer, you are unwittingly an oppressor. The only people who aren’t viewed as oppressors are the very people who make this accusation, the radical lefties.
So, if you are not an oppressor, you are therefore oppressed. And who does the oppressing? The powerful, the elite, the capitalists, the fascists, the government. If your self-image and self-esteem depend on your identity as a member of the oppressed class, especially if you’re a radical lefty fighting against these classes, then the more oppressed you are the more important you inherently appear. In other words, the more the powerful elites try to silence you, the more righteous your cause seems, because after all, why would the powerful elite try to silence someone unless they were speaking the truth?
This is a technique Michael Moore has turned into an art form, and his followers lap it up like cream. (Well, organically-grown soy cream. Anyone who drinks real cream is an oppressor of our animal equals.) Note the manufactured controversy when Disney refused to distribute his film. Mikey claimed that the corporate elites at Disney were trying to “silence” his message in an election year, when the truth of the matter was that they had told him a year prior that they weren’t going to distribute it. But the plan worked, and the false controversy made the front page of the New York Times, thus drumming up immeasurable levels of publicity.
So why did this student lie? Because, by doing so, he immediately elevated his status in the eyes of his professor and his peers. In previous generations this student might have lied about the number of girls he slept with or how fast his car went or how high his GPA was or some other generally accepted measure of status. But today, in the halls of left wing academia, it’s all about oppression. The more you’re oppressed the more important you are. Remember that black college professor who spray-painted racial slurs all over her own car, then claimed victim status? Same dynamic at work. When you’re a victim you’re oppressed, and when you’re oppressed you’re important and righteous.
The problem is that, despite the rhetoric we hear so often from the left, America is one of the least oppressive places in the world. Without this actual oppression the left begins to collectively wonder what’s going on. Aren’t we important? Isn’t our message threatening to the fascist elite? So they manufacture it, because the truth should always be subjugated to the higher moral purpose of increasing the status of the message and its messengers.
It’s worthwhile to note that this subjugation of the truth has been the hallmark of every totalitarian dictatorship in the history of mankind. But somehow I doubt the lefties will be intellectually honest enough to admit that.
Comments
I’d like to point out something that is probably being missed.
When did the student report the “Little Red Book” oppression? Mid-terms. Probably when he headed to the library the night before to check out the “Little Red Book” and discovered it had already been checked out. So he needed something his moonbat professor would buy so he could get an extension. “Hey, it wasn’t my fault it’s late. DHS came by and harassed me about checking out the little red book!”
Notice the timing of his confession? After his semester is over and the grades have been submitted. So he thinks he’s in the clear. (Of course, if some moron tried this on me, I’d print out a “change of grade” form and ruin his Christmas, er, “Seasonal Holiday”.)
When you’re a victim you’re oppressed, and when you’re oppressed you’re important and righteous.
More importantly, being oppressed equates to Not Being Wrong, at least in the mind of the Left. Some of them seem to have gotten the strange idea in their heads that no idea is important UNLESS it is unpopular with large groups of people and faces fierce opposition. Being pro-choice? Nah, not a big deal anymore; the Right has learned to tolerate it. But opposing the war in Iraq? Wow, that’s gonna piss off LOTS of people! Cool!
So one idiot (not proven to be democrat) lies and the left is proven to be a bunch of hypocrits and dishonest people ?? how does that work out ?
The left is about freehealth care for everyone,having a decent income, helping people while they are unemployed, more money for schools than for tanks, the abolition of the death penalty and so on and so on....
Hate it all if you must. But don’t start spreading lies or making ridiculus analyzes like some kind of political shrink !
Left and right are two very differant, sometimes opposed sets of ideas. None is better than the other ! It’s about how YOU want the country to look, to function.
Acusing an entire party of being lunatics clearly is lunacy.
So one idiot (not proven to be democrat) lies and the left is proven to be a bunch of hypocrits and dishonest people ?? how does that work out ?
Swissboy
From the article
That didn’t stop it from buzzing around the Internet and even being picked up by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who cited it as the latest example of the Bush administration’s intrusion on civil liberties.
‘’Incredibly, we are now in an era where reading a controversial book may be evidence of a link to terrorist,” he wrote in an op-ed piece in Thursday’s Globe.
Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ‘’public reports” in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy’s broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.
Worked it out yet?
Here is a clue.
The infomation we had was wrong.
From the Right - We’re sorry about that.
From the Left - But We are still right.
Rather than working from a position of strength by apologising. They will defend a position of weakness based on a lie. The exact thing they accuse the right of doing.
That is what make them
.hypocrits and dishonest
And they keep doing it time and time and time again.
I’ll conceid this:
I would be good for the democratic party to devote a tiny bit of the enormous energy they put into Bush bashing to actually do something.
Then people would have a reason to elect their candidates other than defeating the OTHER candidate.
A bit OT but relevant.
In the UK it took 17 years for Labour to become electable as a government after their defeat by Margaret Thatcher.
How did they do it? They basicly took hold of their “moonbats” and brought them under control or marginalised them so far that they became impotent. They then set about taking the policy grounds that the Conservatives thought were their own. They brought their own version of Labour conservatism (note the small c). They were farther right than the UK’s centre Liberal Democrats. It worked. They got elected.
This is what the Democrats need to do. Stop hyping the talking points like this one. Then develop a small c conservative agenda that will appeal to more people.
Then maybe there will be a rational debate not an irrational one.
I just hope that when this happens they manage to maintain their control of their “moonbats” a lot better than Labour have done.
This is what the Democrats need to do. Stop hyping the talking points like this one. Then develop a small c conservative agenda that will appeal to more people.
Not gonna happen, at least for some time. Too many mainstream Democrats have become caught in a loop of “Us Versus Them” mentality. Many of them have gotten to the point where they will simply refuse to work with the opposition even on issues they agree with, or will work with them while backhanding them with their speech the entire time.
The opposition has become The Opposition in their minds. Many of them probably don’t even know why they’re tangling with these people anymore, outside of the idea of “We’re Democrats, they’re Republicans, we must fight.”
I think a lot of the ultraconservatism we’re seeing in Bush’s second term that’s pissing a LOT of people off on both sides of the aisle is a backlash to this. In his first term, Bush attempted to make compromises on things like stem cell research, as a way to start things going. But what he received was a slap in the face from the Veruca Salt crowd on the left who had decided that they wanted what they wanted exactly the way they wanted it and it had to be NOW. (Nevermind that they’d had the eight years previous to work on it.)
So I think he eventually said “Screw it, I’m getting reamed by both sides for trying to be Mr. Bridge The Gap, I may as well appeal to my core base and go with my own beliefs at the same time.” I’m pissed about it, but I hold the Veruca Salt Democrats almost as much at fault as I hold him.
And, again, that’s the problem. 98% of the mainstream Democrat party looks at any hand held out to them by the other side, for whatever reason or on whatever issue, and visciously slaps it away, if they don’t sink their teeth into it. There is no compromise, there will be no middle ground, there is no accord.
I’ve been hearing good things about Obama, though. He might actually be the person to yank the Democrat party out of the pit it’s in by the shoestrings, if they don’t drive him off first.
If Obama is the new “Tony Blair” for the democrats. Hope that he does not have the same delusions of granduer that Tony has.
His “legacy”, as I see it at the moment, will leave the Labour party unelectable for 20 or 30 years. Which, even though I am not a labour supporter (the 70’s left a lasting impression on me as a teenager), I find disturbing. To keep a government honest you need a good combative opposition. Not just an opposite position party.
The left is about free healthcare for everyone, having a decent income, helping people while they are unemployed, more money for schools than for tanks, the abolition of the death penalty and so on and so on....
Sorry Swissboy, but the left in American is mostly about Bush bashing. Look at what happened here.
There are literally hundreds of Universities all across America, each with thousands and thousands of students. How many of these schools have reported that government agents are monitoring the reading preferences of their students since the Dept. of Homeland Security was created? Where is the list of reading material deemed inappropriate by the DHS? Why is this material allowed to be sold on Amazon.com or in bookstores all over America, yet not allowed to be borrowed from University libraries? How many “agents” does the DHS have on their payroll?
Better yet, who in hell believed this crap? It simply reeked of BS.
Well, one associate professor, one newspaper reporter, his editor, various other news organizations, and one U.S. Senator with over 42 years of experience in the U.S. Senate never bothered to question the story. Neither did all the left wing blogs that ran with the story. Neither did all the moonbats who read those blogs relishing in the idea that they had proved Bush and his Brown Shirts will soon be burning books.
Apparently, it didn’t matter whether it was true or not. It was all too convenient too let go. It served a purpose. And more importantly, it fulfilled a need. The story confirmed what their belief system dictates must be true.
Meanwhile, you have confirmed you have a similar affliction. No doubt, it never occurred to you that over 90% of all funding for primary and secondary education in America comes from state and local government and private sources. That virtually every University in this country is funded solely with either state and/or private funds never crossed your mind. I live in Virginia. Maybe you should call Mark Warner and ask him how many tanks the State of Virginia bought during his 4 years as Governor.
In other words you just bought into the mootbat fantasy that it’s Bush’s responsibility to see that the Federal government funds my local county school system and the University of Virginia. It doesn’t matter what’s true. All that matters is that we can bash Bush. Isn’t that right? (And by the way, that isn’t the only fantasy you bought into either.)
Hate it all if you must. But don’t start spreading lies or making ridiculus analyzes like some kind of political shrink !
Maybe those that post didactic rants on the Internet (namely you) should live by their own words. Or perhaps you should contact a certain Senator and preach to him about spreading lies. His address can be found at his website:
The truth is Swissboy, left wing America is in a mode of perpetual dissent. They aren’t about solving problems. They are all about creating illusions so they can blame conservatives for every imagined wrong on the planet. Meanwhile, they live by the creed that they are being patriotic.
Go to Barbra Streisand’s website. There you will find a quote dated 8/01/05 which reads:
“Dissent is the essential aspect of patriotism”
--Thomas Jefferson
This is the code of the moonbat. It has taken on various forms with various wordings in recent years but the intent remains intact. It doesn’t matter to moonbats that Jefferson never uttered those words. It doesn’t matter that as a fact some of his documented writings show he believed quite the contrary. All that matters is this quote validates their belief that they are patriots because they constantly dissent against imagined oppression.
It never occurs to moonbats to quote the source. Hell, it never occurs to them the quote doesn’t even make sense. Hey, Babs posted it, and after all, she’s an authority on famous quotations particularly those of Jefferson and William “Dogs of War” Shakespeare. So the code they live by is largely a lie.
What Lee is telling you is that the modern American left lives in a constant state of fabricated oppression. Real or not, they need it. Without being constantly oppressed moonbats can’t justify the perpetual bitching they label dissent. And if they have to fabricate examples of that oppression to make it “real”, so be it.
Now, do you suppose Ted Kennedy really believed that BS story? Or do you really believe the American left?
Kennedy lied and a student had to run and hide…
I wonder if lefty has tried this thing before…
-Tawana Brawley
-Ohio election tampering (they still believe that one)
-Florida election tampering (also still believing it)
-The racist hurricane Katrina and the Murderdome
-The racist Death Row
-The NRA invaded Columbine just days after the Trenchcoats shot the place up
-Tipper Gore set up the PMRC yet it was the evil Moral Majority that wanted to take away your movie and music choices
-Fundamentalists want teens to be banned from certain Xbox, PS2 and PC games yet it’s Hillary KKKlinton that has brought bills to the Senate to do the same
And so on and so on…
There’s a point of this story that hasn’t been addressed yet, which I think will turn out to be very important.
That is, what happens now to this student?
He has been busted lying, and has brought this story down upon the head of the school.
Does he get expelled? suspended? reprimanded, even?
Anything?
Or does he instead get extra credit for making such a salient, (if completely bogus) point against the eeeeeeeevil Bush “dictatorship”?
I wouldn’t be at all surprised, frankly.
And for anyone who was curious about the follow-up on the case at the NJ community college where a female student was harassed and threatened by a professor for supporting the troops, you’ll be happy to know that the professor in question resigned in shame, as he sincerely needed to do.
TheBoxer
Democrats aren’t reigning in their moonbats though. They are naming them chairman of the party, and they also claim to own the party(MoveOn)
It doesn’t matter to moonbats that Jefferson never uttered those words. It doesn’t matter that as a fact some of his documented writings show he believed quite the contrary.
Case in point:
“Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism, but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence, if possible, from social life.”
--Thomas Jefferson, 1797
Democrats aren’t reigning in their moonbats though. They are naming them chairman of the party, and they also claim to own the party(MoveOn)
Buzzion
My point exactly. Upto the 70’s in particular and almost to the early 90’s the Labour Party was dictated to by the unions. It was only the intervention of Margaret Thatcher that allowed them to mostly shake free the unions choke hold.
Once they were able to do that they could change their policy stances and became electable again. The fact that the Conservative party self destructed helped, but not as much as the reduction of union power.
Unfortunately the unions are gaining back the power that they lost and it looks like we are headed for another 70’s power struggle again.
Artmonkey,
You raise an interesting question. Here’s a quote from the University regarding student discipline:
As to any possible repercussions against the student, Mr. Hoey said, “We consider this to be an issue to be handled faculty member to student. We wouldn’t discuss publicly any other action. Student discipline is a private matter.”
I suppose giving him a failing grade might mean he’d be back in your class next semester. I’d give him a D and make him write 500 sentences to get it. Actually I don’t know what I’d really do. Maybe an F is the only just punishment.
But what about the professors who were involved? (As it turns out there were actually two.) After all, they were the ones who went running to the local newpaper with their pants on fire to tell a tale that most rational people would dismiss in 30 seconds. Did the student understand his professors irrational concerns before he fabricated his tale? Was he pandering to their foolishness? And what about the reporter and his editor who bought into this crap as if they were on top of the next Watergate scandal?
It was only after bloggers started questioning the story that the two professors found it necessary to girt their loins and go forth to seek the truth because, after all, “that’s all they really wanted from the start.”
Oh, sure it was. The problem with folks like this (the student included) is that they think we’re as dumb as they are. Those professors are simply covering their asses after getting duped because they had foolish notions about their own government. The student’s story had no credibility from the get go, and they acted irresponsibly as did Ted Kennedy. (I don’t think you can dicipline professors for being dumbasses though.)
All this aside, there is the lighter side of the story. It unfolds in three parts. Read the first two articles, then read the 3rd link which is comical to say the least.
From the 3rd article:
In Thursday’s retelling of the story, the student added several new twists, ones that the professors and journalist had not heard before. The biggest new piece of information was an alleged second visit of Homeland Security agents the previous night, where two agents waited in his living room for two hours with his parents and brother while he drove back from a retreat in western Massachusetts. He said he, the agents, his parents and his uncle all signed confidentiality agreements that the story would never be told.
He revealed the agents’ names: one was Nicolai Brushaev or Broshaev, and the other was simply Agent Roberts. He said they were dressed in black suits with thin black ties, “just like the guys in Men in Black.”
Moonbats live in a fantasy world of oppression as Lee points out with his article. The student’s uncle was once a FBI attorney, or so he says. When asked for copies of the agreement, he said his uncle took them back home to Puerto Rico. And still, they continue to ask him questions as if they don’t have enough proof the student has cosmic connections somewhere in the ether.
Next comes this gem:
The student’s motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse.
“When I came back, like wow, there’s this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls,” he said. “Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that’s about it, and I usually pick them up.”
Like wow, man, like I just like made Lee’s point, didn’t I?
As Lee said:
So why did this student lie? Because, by doing so, he immediately elevated his status in the eyes of his professor and his peers.
If your self-image and self-esteem depend on your identity as a member of the oppressed class, especially if you’re a radical lefty fighting against these classes, then the more oppressed you are the more important you inherently appear.
So, when you read the whole story, not only is it somewhat comical, but you also understand the dynamics between the parties involved. Perhaps the guilt really belongs collectively to the left, and the only way to punish them is on election day.
Nevertheless, if you decide to buy a copy of Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” you can get it from Amazon.com for a mere $9.94. Of course that doesn’t include shipping and handling, but you do get a free up-close-and-personal visit to your home from Agent Roberts of the DHS.
What Lee is telling you is that the modern American left lives in a constant state of fabricated oppression. Real or not, they need it. Without being constantly oppressed moonbats can’t justify the perpetual bitching they label dissent. And if they have to fabricate examples of that oppression to make it “real”, so be it.
And what i’m telling you is that the left, as a whole, is about much more than that.
It’s about real ideas which you can agree or disaggree with but which you cannot label as “moonbats”.
They are people on the left, namely me, that cannot stand these ridiculus tree-huggers-bush-is-an-alien-that-came-to-exterminate-us-all idiots.
They hurt us, make us seem weaker than we really are, less intelligent than we really are and more importently they don’t do politics, they do drama… just look at holywood !
OT:
answering sckeptic (not sure about the spelling) and MPT,
1). Your quote is from Jeannette Rankin
sorry, got messed up i guess
And what i’m telling you is that the left, as a whole, is about much more than that.
And what I’m telling you is that this discussion is about the American left, not the left as whole on some world-wide scale. Lee is referring to an American University, two professors who teach there, a journalist and his editor who are both employed by an American newspaper, a moonbat student from the ether, and a U.S. Senator who, for almost 4 decades, has been one of the Democrat Party leaders. The party you refer to in the quote below I assume was the American Democrat Party.
Acusing an entire party of being lunatics clearly is lunacy.
With the likes of Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Robert “Sheets” Byrd, etc. as leaders of that party, why should I think they aren’t a party of misfits?
Tell me, Swissboy, did Ted Kennedy write his article in the Boston Globe knowing this student’s story just had to be a complete fabrication? How could he not know? In other words, Kennedy’s article was intended to be nothing but propaganda. And that’s exactly what has polarized this country in recent years . . . propaganda that feeds constant dissent.
That’s what the American Democrats are about. Ted Kennedy proves it.
I had allways wondered about the “Nigerian mail scams” and who actually fell for them. For those not familiar with them one goes like this. “ I am contacting you as a discreet person to do business with. I represent the estate of the late Yasser Arafat but due to legal problems need to use outside accounts for moving the money in hidden accounts. If you set up a joint account and deposit $10,000 for legal fees you will be given $100,000 for your troubles in 2 weeks.”
I am now guessing its democrat party chairmen and university proffesors.
Speaking of oppression, here’s some footage you wont see on the news:
http://www.filecabi.net/video/door2door.html
The zealots on the left like to think the ends justify the means. That the world revolves around their philosophy, wether the world knows it or now.
Any means, by all means is their call to arms. Even if that is lies, thuggery, racism, delusions or shouting down.
And what i’m telling you is that the left, as a whole, is about much more than that.
It’s about real ideas which you can agree or disaggree with but which you cannot label as “moonbats”.
Here’s the thing, though, Swissboy, most liberal ideas are not ideas, just platitudes. The Party of “Clean Air”, “Jobs”, “Schools”, “Health Care”, “Freedom”, “Equality”, it reads like a mission statement for George Costanza’s “Human Fund”. Well, no shit! Who in the blue FUCK wouldn’t be “for” those things?!? The issue is how much the government should be invested in various issues based on these notions.
Providence breeds dependency; dependency breeds control; control is antithetical to the very notion of freedom. So anything the government PROVIDES is something the government CONTROLS, and anything it controls is a liberty you have surrendered for security. This leads to all the rhetoric from the left about the government “taking away Big Bird and school lunches”. That’s right, because if the government does not fund educational programming, no one will ever produce it, and if the government does not feed your children, they are going to starve to death. Just a couple years ago, the government was producing ads to “raise awareness” of the food stamp program. Apparently NOT ENOUGH people are using food stamps! TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE BUYING FOOD WITH THEIR OWN MONEY, and the government cannot abide this American tragedy!
Why is it bad to want people “kicked” off welfare? Why is it bad to have fewer people relying on the government for their survival? If people are EMPOWERED to stand on their own, they won’t NEED the government to prop them up, which allows them to ease the burden on federal spending, even CONTRIUBTE to revenue through their shiny new payroll taxes, and most importantly, they are free from government dependency! How is that worse than a world where the government controls whether or not your children eat, what kind of education your children get, what kind of a living you are able to make, etc.?
People go on about tinfoil notions of Bush turning America into the Oceania of 1984. The way I see it, it’s no less oppressive if the government were to turn America into the land of Harrison Bergeron, where everybody is equal…
...ly mediocre.
In short, it’s not about whether conservatives support these platitudes (and that’s all they are, platitudes, just like supporting the troops), it’s about just how much control we’re willing to surrender to a centralized government to provide them.
yngcelt - went to the website and saw the footage of our troops...very interesting indeed.
Regarding oppression, you mean this student makes false claims about being oppressed and doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist? Maybe I should join the Lefties since they seem to be very nice on a person’s first offense?!
OT, the Lefties are bashing Bush so much because the ‘06 elections are coming up and they need to get the first shots in. To me, this is going to backfire since that means the Rights will fire back just before the election and people will have long forgotten what the Lefts said a year before the elections. Also, if the Lefts keep striking-down legislation, they are going to have to answer to the voters and saying “It was full of Right propoganda” is just NOT going to cut it.
I cant wait to hear how the liberals spin this one:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179819,00.html
A mass grave found in Karbala believed to be the bodies of people murdered by Saddam after the uprising during/after the first Gulf War.
Or do you think the libtards will simply ignore it?
w0rf, do you mean you consider yourself one of the people that disagree ? ;)
seriously though,
basicaly you are saying that people left to themself do better than when they are helped (controlled if you must name it that way) by the government.
That’s plain bullshit, in my oppinion, if government doesnt protect the environment then companies are gonna dump toxic shit all over your head.
If government doest set standarts for school lunches then kids are gonna eat junk. Simply cauz it tastes better and therefore gets more demand.
without welfare some people are gonna starve, so are their kids and you’ll get third world like neighbourhoods in every major city. Some would argue you already do in places like Detroi… means more criminality, means spending money to solve the problem.
I’d rather give them money to buy food than spend money to jail them once they steal it.
As for equality, America is a great contry in that way, it has so much diversity. In europe we can’t get along with a few muslims.
In the US you have that famous “melting pot” all to the US’s honnor. It is not a partisan issue to me.
Now you ask who would NOT be for things such as environment and Health care and public health policies and such.
A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF PEOPLE, everyone that would loose a penny over it.
I worked a long time for a major Tobacco company, the biggest one actually, PMI.
A company, a large one, is like a living organism, it has self preservation instincts.
It will lobby and lie and cheat in order to prevent any monetary loss.
The “Corporate responsability” concept is relatevly new, now only we start to really calculate with regard to it in the business field. BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN FORCED BY THE GOVERMENT !
However some companies like, for instance, oil companies are above such petty things. they would happily smear toxic waste all over alaka and every ocean if it meant more money cashed in. They can, without them we’re simply fucked. They know that, makes them REALLY arogant.
Thats why we NEED goverment to regulate such things as were they can drill or, what standarts their boats need to meet. Even if it hurts the shareholders.
Sorry to take so long just to say that, without goverment taking care of you, I DO NOT trust you (nor anyone not you specificaly) to do what is right in order to acheive the greatest amount of wellbeing for everyone.
Because it has been proven REPEATIDLY that most humans beings do not give a fuck about what is right and consitently fail to realize that actions can have grave consequences.
Most people only care about themself. If you do not “control” them, it’s back to the law of the Jungle !
People go on about tinfoil notions of Bush turning America into the Oceania of 1984. The way I see it, it’s no less oppressive if the government were to turn America into the land of Harrison Bergeron, where everybody is equal…
...ly mediocre
And trust me, stop with this riduculus worry that everybody will be equaly mediocre.
America is the most individualist country in the world, yet even in places and times like the USSR. Eveybody was not equal. Nor mediocre.
It will never happen, they will always be the cute kid and the ugly one, the athlete and the asmatic, the smart and the dumb.
We are not born equal, nothing society does can change that.
fairplay wrote: But remember it is the right who are the facists.
I will assume that is sarcasm.:) But it is more than a little ironic that the far-left uses facist tactics… more so when they call anyone right leaning person a facist to begin with… this whole story reeks of that sort of issue…
We are not born equal, nothing society does can change that.
I agree,… but no where does anyone ever say that the government has to make sure everyone ‘becomes’ equal…
No extra handouts, no special privilages where not needed, no padding outcomes or lowering bars…
basicaly you are saying that people left to themself do better than when they are helped (controlled if you must name it that way) by the government.
I think promoting dependency is antithetical to free choice, yes.
That’s plain bullshit, in my oppinion, if government doesnt protect the environment then companies are gonna dump toxic shit all over your head.
There’s a difference between regulating companies who are toxifying the earth, and placing overly prohibitive restrictions on people and companies. Kyoto is costing countries way more than anyone anticipated, and all to save the earth from 1/20th of a single degree of predicted increase over the next century. National forests are not even allowed to have inroads built so they can be thinned, and instead wildfires destroy more acres of trees than we can begin to count. Moreover, companies cannot just conjure up new ways to provide the same products to the customer. New regulations require new research, which costs money and again, you’re left balancing the benefits of new technology which might, for example, get you 5 extra miles to the gallon versus laying off 10,000 workers who may actually need their job in order to pay bills.
If government doest set standarts for school lunches then kids are gonna eat junk.
I didn’t say anything about their own standards for their own lunches. I was talking about PROVIDING food for the kids, and threatening that if the “wrong person” is in office, then school lunches will vanish forever and your child will go hungry or something stupid like that. The point, which you seem to be missing, is that something originally intended to help those who need it turns into an ENTITLEMENT which no person is any longer allowed to be reasonably denied, regardless of the logistics or the cost. That’s not an effective way to run a country.
without welfare some people are gonna starve, so are their kids and you’ll get third world like neighbourhoods in every major city. Some would argue you already do in places like Detroi… means more criminality, means spending money to solve the problem.
This is an other prime example of EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Nobody is talking about removing a safety net for people who would starve or die otherwise. I just want somebody to tell me what’s bad about not allowing people to abuse a system designed to help the needy, or what’s bad about empowering someone to feed their own family without the NEED for government assistance. Which is better, a country that has a large welfare roll, or a country that doesn’t NEED a large roll because it’s people are able to do well on their own?
Sorry to take so long just to say that, without goverment taking care of you, I DO NOT trust you (nor anyone not you specificaly) to do what is right in order to acheive the greatest amount of wellbeing for everyone.
So you don’t trust me to look out for your well-being if I’m just Joe Average (which I should note is a highly cynical view of humanity), or if I’m Joe Corporate Executive, but if I tell you I’m running for office, you’re going to trust me to look out for your well-being? I’m still the same guy, why do you trust me in a position of power more than you trust me as just a guy on the street?
ONe could argue that allowing the governemnt to do everything for you creates an apathetic behavior that only goes against what your trying to say.
Hell, why put forth the effort if the governemt is going to do it all for you anyway…
Name one socialist or communist government that has stood the test of time. Name one that is a perfect nirvanna for all its people. The problem is the left and the euros view to those socialist gardens of eden with rose colored glasses. There comes a point when there are so many people taking a slice of the collective (eg entitlements) pie that it negates what social programs should be(help for those less fortunate or the general populous) or simply collapses the government.
I am not saying the US is perfect. It isn’t. There are too many entitlements and too many breaks for the rich. If going by numbers were what the government (ala our representatives) REALLY wanted to do it would do everything it can to ensure the middle class stays happy, then take care of the rich and poor. If that philosophy were in place the rich would do well because a healthy middle class busy stuff and uses services. The poor would benefit because the government was trying to push them up and out of welfare and entitlements.
But that is not how it is. But the basis for our culture is still there (e.g. bootstrap yourself, work hard, get an education, etc.). The American dream is alive, otherwise why would countless Mexicans and latinos flee to this country?
Posted by Swissboy on 12/27 at 12:39 PM
So your pretty much assuming you’re the smart guy and you’ll protect the dumb guys from things like eating junk. Rather elitist don’t you think? The smart government guys here were pushing people to eat a lot of carbs for decades… they’ve pushed price supports for sugar keeping it expensive (so people use corn sweater instead). Now people are fat. Perfect example of unintended results. That’s one problem with ‘smart guys’ pushing social engineering.
Also, as to corporations, you’re forgetting two points. In our society, at least, you can sue when you or your property is harmed. The other is the socialism / corporatism issue. If the state regulates it often ends up ‘controlling’ but the problem is what comes next… One the state has a particular level of control (re: high) industry and the state consider themselves on the same team and this survival instinct acts in tandem… Pollution was the worst in socialist countries. In free market countries highly regulated industries are often the worst polluters.. Often when the state regulates it provides exemptions for responsibility if the state targets are met… also at the highest levels of regulation the state sets prices at levels to guarantee the ‘regulated utility’ a profit…
Posted by Swissboy on 12/27 at 12:39 PM
A couple last points…
“The left is about freehealth care for everyone, having a decent income, helping people while they are unemployed, more money for schools than for tanks, the abolition of the death penalty and so on and so on....”
and
“They hurt us, make us seem weaker than we really are, less intelligent than we really are and more importently they don’t do politics, they do drama… just look at holywood !”
First off, about ‘less intelligent’. You can’t talk about things like healthcare with ‘free’ in the same sentance and expect anyone to think you’re intelligent. Nothing is free… ever. Someone somewhere needs to pay for everything… usually many people in many variety of ways. Your ‘free’ healthcare is paid for by many groups. Often with various taxes but also the doctors by being paid less than their fair market value. The public (or consumers) also pay because the level of service proviced is lower than in a free market. Our US state of Washington has more MRI machines (or at it did last time I looked) than all of socialist Canada. Why? When the public needs to pay for equipment it skimps. When YOU need an MRI and you have private insurance, you demand the insurance company pays because you have a contract that they pay for your medical needs… ergo, the US has much more modern equipment than countries with socialized medicine… the same pattern is repeated in other areas. Americans with certain types of rare caner will get British anti cancer drugs that Brits were often denied due to a lack of funding in their ‘free’ ‘public’ healthcare ‘system’ for the expensive drugs… et cetera…
I’m glad ‘the left’ is now against the death penalty considering over a 100 million were murdered by the left in the last 100 years.. Good news indeed.
Last of all, ‘the left’ behaves just like corporations. It is an insular group with its own selfish survival instincts. Just like you don’t want to sell out your individuality to be part of a corporate culture, you should not sign on to being part of the left collectivist culture. There is nothing to gain, only your free thought and integrity to loose.
I’m glad ‘the left’ is now against the death penalty considering over a 100 million were murdered by the left in the last 100 years.. Good news indeed.
Whu?
Posted by w0rf on 12/27 at 11:45 PM (Link to this comment)
Whu?
Dood, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even lightweights like comrade Che threw a couple thousand corpses in the pile. Added up to about 100 million.
Go to Amazon and look up ‘the black book of communism’.
The left can carp all day about their not being the same.... but they always seemed to be on hand to make excuses and carry water for the commies when they were still a threat… now, just like post WWII Germany, no one here ever ever supported the NAZIs… Nope, not us… Same response from me to them as to the left… ‘sure’.
Here’s a nice little compilation I put together of footage you’re not likely to see on any of the mainstream liberal media:
http://www.filecabi.net/video/iraqbootycall.html
Another miserable soldier in Iraq
http://www.filecabi.net/video/sticksandstones.html
Some of the shit our guys have to put up with in Iraq
http://www.filecabi.net/video/Iraqipropaganda.html
Iraq Propaganda: Moore’s Minutemen!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/Iraqipropaganda.html
And the libs bitch about how WE execute prisoners. Maybe we should be more like Saddam’s police!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/troopsfun.html
Low troop morale
http://www.filecabi.net/video/apacheiraqis.html
Our boys kicking some insurgent ass!!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/afghanisnipers.html
Our boys kicking ass in Afghanistan!!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/securitycamerairaq.html
More of Moore’s Minutemen in action!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/rooffireiraq.html
This is why you DO NOT FUCK WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEEYOTCH!!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/sadamsregime.html
But, but I thought Michael Moore said everyone was so HAPPY and SAFE under Saddam Hussein!
http://www.filecabi.net/video/footageiraq.html
Our brave soldiers hard at work!
In europe we can’t get along with a few muslims.
We won’t hold that against you.
As for equality, America is a great contry in that way, it has so much diversity.
Diversity is great. It means I can eat in a Cuban sandwich shop for lunch and an Italian restaurant for dinner that night. But contrary to what I hear liberals say, diversity is not what made America great.
Dood, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even lightweights like comrade Che threw a couple thousand corpses in the pile. Added up to about 100 million.
All right. I thought you were talking about the American left.
Though I’m sure all those dead people are somehow our fault as well.
First off, about ‘less intelligent’. You can’t talk about things like healthcare with ‘free’ in the same sentance and expect anyone to think you’re intelligent. Nothing is free… ever. Someone somewhere needs to pay for everything…
As I said before on Moorewatch, I am fully aware it ain’t free for everyone.
Simply because I pay 470.- SFR a month for mine… (adding up private and state).
It is howerver free for my cleaning lady. She had problems after her pregnancy, she isn’t even Swiss, and she got the same care I would get. (not that I plan on being pregnant any time soon ;)
Basicaly I paid for her, and I don’t mind. That’s what makes me a lefty.
Unfair ?
maybe one day i’ll be the one without means for expensive healthcare.
Dood, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even lightweights like comrade Che threw a couple thousand corpses in the pile. Added up to about 100 million.
Are we talking politics or history ???
England and France were at war for hundreds of years and now they are part of the same union....
Russia is closer to the US than to China....
Get my point ?
Basicaly I paid for her, and I don’t mind. That’s what makes me a lefty
what makes you a lefty is that you dont mind that I would pay for her if i were over there.
I dont mind helping someone, but I do mind not knowing who im helping. That makes me a righty :)
In America, its a common that leftys want everyone else to pay for someone who wants money (but doesnt necessarily deserve it).
Its the right that wants to make sure that person who’s receiveing money deserves it. Is that so bad? I dont wnat my money going to help some crack addict, or better yet (true example) I dont want my money going into the pocket of alcoholic who spends money on their habit instead of on their kids.
Swissboy you have not understood the point.
This
I’m glad ‘the left’ is now against the death penalty considering over a 100 million were murdered by the left in the last 100 years.. Good news indeed.
Preceeded this
Dood, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even lightweights like comrade Che threw a couple thousand corpses in the pile. Added up to about 100 million.
Which you quoted.
I also pointed to this the black book of communism
It’s not about war between countries.
It’s about war on the citizens of your own country for holding a dissenting opinion to the government. If the government is from the left.
This is the duplicity. The left can dissent, the right can not.
As I said before on Moorewatch, I am fully aware it ain’t free for everyone.
It’s not free for ANYone. Everyone who pays taxes is a compulsory contributor. And the more social programs in place, the more control the government has over what you pay for, how much you pay for it, and what you get for the money appropriated from your check. In nearly every case of which I’m aware, private charities far outpace our government in proportional distributions of the monies they take in. I don’t see why it’s a good thing to submit myself to having money forcibly removed from my paycheck and tossed into a black hole with no practical accountability.
You keep bringing it back to emotional arguments: “This poor woman has no health insurance, why do you want her to have no insurance? Why are you against pregnant people?” The desire to see the woman get help is not the issue. The issue is whether the federal government is the best avenue to provide that assistance. There are some cases, non-emergency health care being one of them, where I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to do it.
If the government is our first and only choice for how to solve every problem, then we are no more democratic, no more free than any totalitarian nation on the map. That is only the illusion of freedom whereby we still submit ourselves to the full authority of the government. In a free country, the government should not be our only answer, and if you saw some of the yahoos that got themselves elected here, you’d understand why I don’t always want them to be the first answer either. But don’t try to make this about whether or not people “care”, rather than how much liberty people are willing to surrender for security.
Posted by iggy21 on 12/28 at 10:31 AM (Link to this comment)
“I dont mind helping someone, but I do mind not knowing who im helping. That makes me a righty”
I’m not so sure. In Europe being a right winger means something really different than here (where people often use it to just mean different than the left).
A lot of Euro righties are just as in to big government, ‘free’ healthcare, and collectivism as the left (and they’re just as mootbat crazy too). They (Europe) made up the terms right and left so they get to have the final say on what they mean IMO. So, wouldn’t call myself that… especially to Europeans…
Hayek wrote about this in the Road to Serfdom. You may want to check it out…
I was talking about the America right
Guys you are right,in sweden we had a commie riot whos name was “reclaim the city” and my first question was...reclaim to who?
They smashed windows and stole things.
Is that reclaiming the city?
And being oppressed?
Posted by iggy21 on 12/29 at 07:19 AM (Link to this comment)
“I was talking about the America right”
Yeah, to European.
Posted by iggy21 on 12/29 at 07:19 AM (Link to this comment)
“I was talking about the America right”
Yeah, to a European.... where being on the right means something totally different (re: they’re wack jobs just like the left).
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Well here’s a bit of irony. Right before I read this posting, I was trying to post on alternet.com and found that I have been banned yet again. Apparently it’s OK to make personal attacks against the President and any other Republicans, make false accusations against Christians and call anyone who isn’t a liberal dirty and profane names. But criticize and question the motives of one liberal “journalist” (in this case, Molly Ivins) and you are immediately OPPRESSED!!
Now, here’s the really funny thing. I had reported on several other postings on that site due to the content of the postings (profanities, violence, etc.) and those postings were never removed and the people who posted them remain on that site.
I however hit some nerve and am now an enemy of alternet.com.
Strange, isn’t it, how it’s OK for the lefties to oppress anyone they want to but it’s not OK for right wingers to exercise their first amendment rights!