Atrios has a post up with respect to Pat Tillman, the football player who left the NFL to enlist in the U.S. Army in 2002 and was later killed. His story has remained in the news because he was originally said to have been killed by our enemies in Afghanistan. Later investigations revealed this to be false; that he had in fact been killed by friendly fire. This is a war, accidents happen, so Tillman’s death by friendly fire was regrettable but not hugely remarkable in the scheme of things except that the erroneous initial reporting seems to be of a piece with other misinformation that has come out of the executive branch at one time or another.
That’s the short version, and that’s why, when I see that a story is about Pat Tillman, I expect the story to have something to do with either the sacrifice he made as a well-paid NFL player to enlist and fight for his country or with how the Bush administration and/or the military got his story wrong in service of their propoganda efforts. But the Atrios story linked above is not about that.
Rather, it links to and quotes an ESPN story where Pat’s mother, Mary Tillman, is interviewed as is Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich. Kauzlarich apparently made some of the decisions concerning Tillman’s death and its aftermath and was also the person who conducted the first investigation into his death. Kauzlarich says that other soldiers have been killed by friendly fire and their parents just accept it. Asked why the Tillmans are different, he suggested they have the money and the political connections to keep it going. Oh yeah, and they’re not Christians. – — Buh?
“But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, ‘OK, it was an unfortunate accident.’ And they let it go. So this is — I don’t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs.”
In a transcript of his interview with Brig. Gen. Gary Jones during a November 2004 investigation, Kauzlarich said he’d learned Kevin Tillman, Pat’s brother and fellow Army Ranger who was a part of the battle the night Pat Tillman died, objected to the presence of a chaplain and the saying of prayers during a repatriation ceremony in Germany before his brother’s body was returned to the United States.
Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.
In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”
Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans’ religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, “I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know.”
Asked what might finally placate the family, Kauzlarich said, “You know what? I don’t think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don’t know. Maybe they want to see somebody’s head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can’t bring their son back.”
. . .
“Well, this guy makes disparaging remarks about the fact that we’re not Christians, and the reason that we can’t put Pat to rest is because we’re not Christians,” Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother, said in an interview with ESPN.com. Mary Tillman casts the family as spiritual, though she said it does not believe in many of the fundamental aspects of organized religion.
“Oh, it has nothing to do with the fact that this whole thing is shady,” she said sarcastically, “But it is because we are not Christians.”
After a pause, her voice full with emotion, she added, “Pat may not have been what you call a Christian. He was about the best person I ever knew. I mean, he was just a good guy. He didn’t lie. He was very honest. He was very generous. He was very humble. I mean, he had an ego, but it was a healthy ego. It is like, everything those [people] are, he wasn’t.”
This is quite a twist. I never expected Pat Tillman’s story to get dragged into the culture wars. Tillman was killed, apparently because there were some leadership mistakes made in the operation he was in. Unfortunate, and someone probably deserved a reprimand, but it’s war, and mistakes happen and people get killed. A plain old cover-up where an enlisted man gets scapegoated so the officers could walk probably would have sufficed. But, no. They got greedy. They wanted to use Tillman as a heroic symbol — the All-American boy who walked away from riches to fight for his country until he died heroically chasing enemy Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. Superiors who knew that no such battle occurred nonetheless approved his Purple Heart, Silver Star, and posthumous promotion.
But, it’s not all that causing the Tillman’s to want more information about their son. Nope, it’s because they’re dirty atheists. If they’d only accept Jesus, they wouldn’t be so uptight about getting lied to about their son’s cause of death.
Good lord.
It reminds me of the argument Christians often make that belief in God is the basis for morality, and without people wouldn’t have the ability to act and do right. Yet Tillman, an atheist, sacrificed himself for his country. And a whole host of Christians, from Bush on down, lied about the circumstances of his death in order to deceive the public. This isn’t the exception to the rule. My observation is that usually atheists feel a responsibility to be accountable for our own actions. We don’t have the thought that at the end of the day we can reaffirm our belief, ask for forgiveness, and have the slate wiped clean. For so many, Christianity is a convenient club to be in. Being told they’re fallible right off the bat, and being given the rituals to reset the scoreboard to zero, are nice benefits of membership. Everybody gets a participation ribbon, no matter how dastardly their conduct.
I must be the only one who gets the joke here. A liberal using facts and logic (at least his version of them) to make a point. The same people who defy logic at every turn, suddenly using them when it’s convenient.
I can only assume that if you *had* a point to make, you would get around to making it.
For example, liberals tend to believe government=good, private sector=bad. That’s not a conclusion born of logic, but typically of emotion.
Liberal-“Since people are stupid and can’t invest on their own, let’s take 13% of their income, spend it on other things (but tell them it’s in a ‘lock box’), then give them a 1.5% return on it much later, but only under our conditions. And by no means should this money ever be an asset of theirs, after all, all resources belong to the government to do with as we choose anyway.”
Logic-Even a money market account pays 4-5%, and the person owns that asset to do with as they choose.
Liberal-“People are too stupid. We need to build large buildings, staff them with people who, on the average, scored the lowest on their SAT’s than any other major as a group. We’ll decide what’s best to teach them, things like ‘always be passive, fighting back is bad’ and ‘your country is evil, we are responsible for all bad in this world’. Then, we’ll force them to attend the building that we choose, according to where they live, and no parent should be able to choose which one of these buildings their child should go to, because as we all know, competition is a bad thing.”
Logic-Nine times out of ten, private schools are far more successful than government schools are, spending two thirds less per pupil at the same time. Why shouldn’t parents get to choose which school their child attends?
Liberal-“OOOH, those gun things are so scary. They just up and kill people all by themselves. Since people are stupid, we need to pass laws that ensure that only the bad guys can have guns, even though cops aren’t around 24 hours a day. In fact, guns are so evil, we should sue companies that make them, even though it’s perfectly legal to manufacture them.”
Logic-Since the bad guys always will have guns, I have the God-given right to defend myself and my family.
But suddenly, a liberal is converted to the side of logic, but alas it’s only temporary:
Liberal-“This whole silly ‘God’ thing really cramps my style. I mean, it’ perfectly clear that all life began with some ginormous explosion 50 trillion years ago, and obviously humans descended from monkeys. Who needs rules passed along from some being who lives in the sky? These crystals I have tell me all I need to know.”
Temporary logic for a liberal is such a curious thing.
OMFG.
Scribe – please tell me that your comments are facetious. Please tell me that you DID NOT JUST CALL – ME – A – MORON!
As a liberal AND A TEACHER and the wife of the person who owns this blog, I have to tell you that you are WAY OFF THE MARK.
I have to wonder why you come here?
I wonder what poor Scribe will do when he wakes up one morning and realizes all his preconcieved notions of what “liberals” and “conservatives” are turn out to be complete bunk. That Limbaugh doens’t hold the answers, that shades of grey reside in the plain of existance. What a cold day that will be.
That was well worth waiting for. But you forgot to say, “IF YOU AGREE, PASS THIS EMAIL ALONG TO TEN OF YOUR FRIENDS!!!!”
I would say this much about how liberals view government. I’m an expert of sorts in that I’ve been both liberal and conservative politically in my life. I became very anti-government in the Vietnam War era, and Im very anti-government again now with the Bush administration calling the shots as they lie their way through 8 yrs of government incompetency.So maybe it depends on how government is made up and who government serves and doesn’t serve and if common folk like me are included. I’m becoming more and more anti-government again as I see huge government encouraging outsourcing and public money going unaccounted for to the private sector. Public money does need to serve everyone,since that’s where it came from, and that does not include by ‘trickle down’ economics.
In my conservative days( pre Vietnam War) I was trusting of government,as I saw government as fair and honest and protective.My most anti-big government outrages have occurred during my liberalism.
Wow! I just stumbled onto this site coming after having googled what others were saying about Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich. I’m hoping that Waxman does follow up on is “conduct unbecoming an officer” charge.
Looks like you’ve got your own share of wingnuts here too. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. They’re fighting for their relevance these days. If you read Rahm Emannual’s speech today http://tinyurl.com/2a2dls the stuff that this administration is doing is just breathtaking.
As far as schools go, I was a teacher for 24 years both public and private. My guess is that the main reason for the big bldgs. is something that a lot of wingnuts (while they have kids in schools) agree with – sports. The small schools of the 60’s disappeared in this state (IN) because of consolidations. Just look at Carmel. They have a high school that is humongous but the parents refuse to allow a split. I just have to believe that those precious swim-team championships have something to do with it. HSE made a much better decision when planned a long time ago that it was going to have multiple high schools when they reached a certain number of students.
I also laugh when people say “look at private schools, they spend so much money less per student and get such better results.” My kids currently go to a private school because I taught there for 18 years. It was just easier for us schedule wise even though we were paying a boatload of money. The school doesn’t take kids that are “below average.” They don’t have to take kids that have “special needs.”The school can decide to not take a kid if they believe that the parents are going to be a “pain in the ass.” 13% of the students in my childrens’ class have parents who are divorced and only a couple of those kids actually live in a single-parent home. None have parents that aren’t able to work. It’s just such an artificial environment when attempting to compare test scores.
The best kids academically that I ever taught were in the years that I taught public school kids in the gifted and talented track.
I won’t even touch the slam against teachers’ “smarts.” Look where the touted CFO president and his lackey’s have gotten us. It’s Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest” all over again.
I’ll be back…..
I usually enjoy reading this blog but I must say that Scribe’s post is probably the worst I have EVER read on the blogosphere – and that’s saying something.
The generalizations were outrageous and way off the mark. I just wonder how somebody that types such gibberish doesn’t have second thoughts before hitting the submit button.
The only thing left to say is:
“Mr. Scribe, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone at this blog is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Doug: Is there an “ignore this poster” button here?
Not specifically. But the space bar usually works on most browsers to move rapidly down a page.
I will note that non-specific stereotype assertions about the qualities of liberals (or any other amorphous group, for that matter) are designed to inflame rather than inform and, to that extent, The Scribe’s post at #4 has done its job wonderfully.
Nice to know that as well as being great fans of logic, liberals have great senses of humor as well.
I also notice that in the usual manner, everyone, without apparant exception, showered me with personal attacks. Lovely way to raise the level of debate.
Specifically for Mrs. Masson, considering I had no idea you even existed (not specifically, of course) and the fact that the word “moron” was never used in my post, your feigned outrage was interesting to read. You’re a liberal and a teacher, and you stooped to the level you did. Was there an attempt not to prove my point regarding emotional vs. logical thinking?
As far as why I come here, I enjoy the banter and reading some of the drivel the few other posters put out here. I don’t care that no one else agrees with me, what else would one expect from a community of liberals. You guys aren’t exactly known for being real open or welcoming.
Was your question rhetorical, or were you making it known that anyone with an opposing point of view isn’t welcomed here?
Are you trying to tell me that, in reality, liberals aren’t really all that open minded or welcoming? Surely you weren’t doing a better job of making my point than I ever could?
The gist of your “point” was that all teachers are stupid. That’s what you were saying, whether you used the word moron or not. Bottom of the class under-achievers. (I can’t think of a single person in a high executive office in this country who fits into that mold… except in my case, it’s not true.)
The idea that someone might go into the noble field of education because that’s what they want to do with their life, because they love it, because they want to make a difference – that is just incomprehensible to you. Someone choosing a career where they are not rewarded with money, glory, or even appreciation? Someone MUST be stupid to choose that, right?
Perhaps I’d be more open-minded and welcoming toward you if I didn’t feel like I just got clubbed in the face. If you don’t call that a personal attack, then I don’t know what is.
Keep telling yourself whatever you want, the reason you come here is because you are a blog troll. You want to rile everyone up and feel like a martyr when you get attacked.
Your entire comment was a nasty attack on every person who is considered to be a liberal. Just because you didn’t use names, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a personal attack. It was.
I can refute every single silly notion in your comment, just say the word and I’ll address them one by one.
But, “You gotta ask me nicely.”
Don’t you ever get tired of preaching to the choir? Ever wonder why there doesn’t seem to be much actual discussion around here, just “witty” responses congratulating each other, and the normal, stale, fringe-left jokes one can hear on Air America (well, if anyone actually listened to Air America).
Pointing out that liberals tend to be emotional thinkers vs. logical thinkers is a nasty personal attack from me towards you and your friends? If you really do believe that (and I don’t think you actually do, but you’re doing a great job of playing the victim card, again another frequent trait of liberals) then I don’t recall anyone getting too worked up about other, really nasty, and really personal attacks I’ve seen here. Funny how that works.
Watch your assumptions Amy, as you have no clue what I do for a living, my background, my family history etc. Just keep posting those tired assumptions that Conservatives (even though I’m not one, not that it occurred to you) are rich and are only out for money. If that’s what makes you feel safe, hanging out here with a bunch of people who always agree with you, far be it for me to change that mindset. Don’t challenge yourself or your viewpoints (the teaching profession being well known for primarily being made up of conservatives, right?). I mean you work with liberals, are married to one, hang out with them, post on sites frequented by them. Way to stretch yourself, expose your thinking.
Feel like a martyr? As if I really care? Yeah, being the only one willing to inject a different viewpoint into the discussion is really some badge of honor I care about. You haven’t seen me whining or complaining (not that we can say the same for you, now can we?). I’m a big boy and the day I can’t handle some emotional rants from people is the day I go find something else to do.
If this is your sad attempt to enforce idealogical purity here, it won’t work on me.
I notice you didn’t ask me to refute your comments. Typical.
I suppose I could say the same thing, but who really cares? You make no effort to respond to any of my points, just attack instead.
Feel free to educate me as you see fit. I’m very interested in open discussions and a free exchange of ideas. That works much better with me than emotional outbursts.
Wanna know why I come around here? That’s why, not to read how Bush is a moron (uh, he went to Harvard and had a higher undergrad GPA than your boy Kerry), how Limbaugh is a moron (I agree), how I’m illiterate (possible), how God doesn’t exist, how I’m a blog troll (whatever that is), how everyone is dumber for reading my post (there’s a classy response, really raises the debate level. I suppose it takes a great deal of intelligence to write such a witty response, and not address the issues raised).
So, I’m curious if such a thing is possible around here, or if this is a typical liberal site where everyone shares Bush jokes and passes the Kool-Aid around.
It was a movie quote.
And the reality is you raised no issues or made any relavent points. You simply posted a collection of illogical generalizations and then seemed to be shocked when no one took you seriously.
Please take your feaux outrage somewhere else because it tires fast and you’ve certainly bored this audience…
Let’s try it this way, since humor seems lost on this crowd.
Logical point #1: To believe in liberalism in general typically requires a mind that thinks in emotional terms instead of logical terms. In my many years of political activism, that’s the one concrete thing that I can point to as a clear difference. Why do you think young people tend to be liberal, then begin to trend more conservatively as they mature and develop more rational thought processes?
Logical point #2: I find it ironic that the liberal mindset, again not usually based on logic, suddenly uses rational thought to “prove” that God doesn’t exist. Again interesting to me that logic is rarely used to prove a liberal point (and this thread is the best example I could ever have, all of the emotional outbursts in response to my posts, not a shred of logic to be found).
O.K., so we’ve proven I’m not very funny. Oh well, I’ll certainly get over it. But we’ve certainly proven that liberals anymore aren’t real big on open debate, diversity of opinion (and that’s really ironic) or rational thought.
Not to mention the fact that no one bothered to refute my arguments that government schools are a pit (on average, there are of course exceptions), gun control only makes things worse, and social security is nothing but a vote buying scheme for politicians. Quite a few emotional outbursts, some personal attacks (a few quite funny, I’ll admit). But no rational discussions.
I couldn’t have proven my point any better.
Okay, here goes.
So yes, if people are smart, they will go out and do their own retirement investing. That works for the professionals and the people who have the means. But that’s a small percentage of the country. What about the people living right at the poverty line? How are they supposed to fund this investment – with their good looks? So we do away with the social security, tell people to set up their own funds, and then in 30 years when all these people who can’t afford to set up their own investments get too old and too sick to work and support themselves, who is going to pay for them to live? Who is going to pay for their food and rent and utilities? Those expenses are just going to keep going up and with no income, we’ll wind up with armies of homeless senior citizens.
So when we do away with social security, and the rich people are fine because they have financial planners and the resources to retire, and all the poor people (and there are A LOT of people living in poverty or right above it – or even people considered to be middle class and can’t seem to save anything) are left with nothing. What will we do? Just let them rot on the streets?
In my opinion, it will cost FAR MORE to subsidize the people who haven’t planned for retirement than the current cost of social security.
What’s your solution?
I didn’t see your latest post when I wrote mine, but go ahead and respond to mine and I’ll ignore yours. I’ll get to your other points from your original post later.
Oh, and go watch Bowling for Columbine to learn more about gun control.
Amy: why bother? The very things the Scribe accuses everyone else of–making personal attacks, not having a sense of humor, being unable and/or unwilling to engage in discussion, assigning political labels without knowing people, dishing out the same old tired commentary–he’s done himself. Newsflash to the Scribe: Doug and several other people who post commments here are NOT liberal.
You’re right, Pila. Doug keeps telling me to stop responding too.
Oh, and Doug is liberal… :)
O.K. Amy, that’s a good start.
Here’s my point: You are already taking 13% of their income away from them, in order to give it to someone else. The person who is loosing 13% of their income has no claim to that asset, no rights of survivorship or anything else. They are forced to play the lottery, the game of “will I live long enough to get a decent return on the money that was taken from me”.
Listen, I’m not advocating a pure “let em all fend for themselves” type approach. I’m not entirely sure I have a big issue with forced contributions, just the way it’s handled.
I’m simply saying that if you’re going to take 13% of someone’s money from them, why shouldn’t they have more control over it? Why shouldn’t they be able to own that asset, I mean it’s their money? Why shouldn’t they be able to get any real return off of that money, even a measly money market fund doubles the most aggressive return estimates I’ve seen for social security funds.
See, you take the approach of class warfare, the “they’re going to starve without the ‘help’ of the government” approach. I take the “if you’re going to take their money, shouldn’t they have something to show for it” approach.
Nice to know that Doug is a big fan of open discussion himself. That’s too bad, as I’d gotten a different impression entirely before this thread.
Pila: Priceless.
Just a humble request. Let’s not make things about “The Scribe.” Respond to his assertions or not, that’s fine. At the moment, I think he’s burning down strawmen he labels “liberals” which don’t correspond very closely to actual liberals.
In any case, I’ve seen this story before. It goes something like this:
1. Person with contrary viewpoint comes into forum made up largely of differing viewpoint(s). Person either intentionally or inadvertently neglects social skills and shits in the punch bowl (see, e.g. “Democrat Party”)
2. Person receives advice on how to get along.
3. Person takes said advice as an attempt at censorship or enforcement of groupthink.
4. Person hurls invective, dancing around the line of unacceptable for the forum and merely annoying.
5. Discussion devolves from discussion of ideas into discussion of the person, hand-wringing about the effect on the forum and what the forum can do to get back on track.
6. Attempts to engage person on points raised consistently degenerates into flame war. Negative enforcement mechanisms used on person results in self-righteous howls of indignation about censorship and/or unequal treatment.
7. Person either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that others with minority viewpoint manage to conduct civil discussions in the forum. Rather, takes all negativity resulting from person’s conduct as confirmation of righteousness and as evidence of the inferiority of The Other.
That’s the path we’re on here. I’ll just let it be known that I have a relatively high tolerance for letting people thrash it out and get in the mud if that’s their preference. I don’t like it, but I tolerate it. But, at the end of the day, this is my house. I like having guests. In fact, I love having guests — they are what make this place worthwhile. But, if things get out of hand to where I’m no longer enjoying the process, I’ll use my ban and delete powers and not feel bad about it. It’s my libertarian, property rights side, I guess.
Those are my two cents on the developing thrash.
Ah, well done Doug. We actually get some sort of reasoned discussion developing and Big Brother comes along with a witty and intelligent attack intending to give official sanction to shutting down any further discussion.
I’ll note for the record a few key points:
1) At no time have I launched any direct personal attacks towards anyone on this site.
2) Never took any rebukes towards me regarding “Democrat__ Party” episode as “enforcement of groupthink” as you eloquently stated. Nor is there any evidence in my posts that I have done such a thing.
3) Regarding your point number four, no such thing occurred, I refer to my first point.
4) Regarding your #6, no evidence that anyone actually made any effort to engage my points on any level, except emotional personal attacks. Did you actually read this thread?
5) Never once stated that anyone was inferior to me or anyone else. Nice way to spin it, but it simply doesn’t match the facts here.
The threshold for being called liberal is very low currently.It seems to involve nothing more than social issues and not taking Scripture literally.Being called ‘liberal’ in our current political atmosphere is not very revealing of one’s views.Arguing the point that ‘liberals are emotional’ is pure sophism a la Anne Coulter.
Lou, I think I’ve made pretty clear a few major thresholds for fitting into the liberal category. You are obviously free to agree or not according to your own beliefs, but there haven’t been any efforts to refute my point as of yet.
Also, for the record I don’t care for Ann Coulter, but surely you aren’t engaging in a stereotype, the very thing I’m being accused of?
P.S. I’ll let you in on a little secret, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else. I’m not a Republican, don’t care for Limbaugh or Coulter any more than I do Al Franken. Did I just shatter your pre-conceived view of me?
How would you describe your views? Not liberal, not Republican, obviously. Though, I guess Republican is a party name and doesn’t really describe a philosophy — the Republicans in power today are quite different from, say, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. (In my mind, Bush is more like a a combination of an unsuccessful Polk combined with Herbert Hoover, absent Hoover’s impressive pre-Presidential resume.)
Hmmm…I think I’m having a political identity crisis at the moment.
Began life as a Democrat, the son of hippies (my dad was arrested at Woodstock). Grew up believing that Jimmy Carter received a raw deal and Grandpa Ronnie (as he was called in my house) was Satan incarnate.
My first political experience was volunteering for local Dem candidates when I was in high school, typical gofer stuff.
First paid job was with Indiana Dem Party while still in high school, more intern type stuff.
Became an adult and developed more libertarian ideals, but still identifying myself officially as a Democrat. That has since changed for a variety of reasons.
I’d consider myself more of a Ron Paul Republican if I had to choose some sort of category. However, as the GOP is just as corrupt as the Dems (just more subtle), and since the sellout to the Religious Right (and I say that as a Christian who doesn’t believe in a theocracy) I refuse to support that party.
Which leaves me homeless I guess?
I believe in individuality and free markets. I served in the Marine Corps and believe in a strong national defense. I believe we were justified in going into Iraq, but that adventure has been criminally mishandled.
I believe that I have more of a right than the government to make decisions regarding my life or my family. I believe it takes a family to raise a child (as you and Amy appear to be proving so well), not a village of bureaucrats.
I’m fiercely anti-union and anti-government schooling. I’m also fiercely pro-child and family (pro-life, if that matters).
I believe that though somewhat incompetent and way too prone to crony ism, Bush is a good man at heart (and intelligent enough to have earned a degree from one of the world’s top business schools) who was elected legitimately, despite the weak claims of a weak man.
I care enough about the “downtrodden” to contribute significant portions of our family budget to various charities, from the United Way, Noble Indiana and several crisis pregnancy centers, as well as devoting 10-12 hours weekly to volunteer work myself. I care enough about people to want the government out of the way.
So that’s my manifesto, I guess. I don’t fit a particular label (though I think I’m a rational/logical thinker, if it matters) but I suppose one could call me a libertarian (though I have no connections to the group of clowns otherwise known as the Libertarian Party).
A few random thought…
The yield of money market accounts would go down if the Social Security money was dumped into them. Simple supply and demand. But I would love to have the funds in money market accounts, which would ironically be a type of “lock box”. Because the funds would actually be set aside in investments, rather than diverted for general expenditures.
I actually own quite a few guns. I also own a car. I think sensible laws should govern the operation of both.
Free enterprise is a great thing. I don’t agree with the government subsidizing the wealthy such as oil companies. I don’t agree with corporations passing their messes along to the taxpayers to clean up. I’m frequently at the intersection of government and free enterprise as I provide services at deep discount to government-insured patients (medicare and medicaid)–a reverse-subsidy, if you will. I try to suppress my griping because I have health, financial security, and job security. No reason not to be content, just because life could be better than it is.
Belief in a god requires faith, which is belief in the absence of objective evidence. Either you have it or you don’t. I don’t. Not much more to say about that.
Emotion vs. logic? Seems like we emotionally started a war in Iraq after all evidence (a key ingredient of logic) pointed to them not being a threat. With inspectors on the ground at all of the suspected weapons sites saying there was not even trace evidence of anything going on, the logical thing to do would have been to believe them. Maybe do more testing. Keep digging. Whatever. The emotional thing to do was wave the bloody shirt of 9/11 (which is an action the administration continues to this day) and just invade. I think when that happened, “conservatives” were still claiming Bush and Cheney as their own. Certainly they wouldn’t have been considered “liberal”. And yet the biggest governmental decision of the last couple of decades, and the worst foreign policy blunder in a century (if not ever) amounted to an emotion-based temper-tantrum more befitting a ten year old than a “conservative” (and therefore logical rather than emotional) president.
All the “conservative” pants-pissing over terrorism has been pretty emotional, too. No attention is paid to whether what we are doing in the “war on terror” is actually reducing terror. Instead, the “leading lights” of conservatism talk about the Iraqis “following us home” if we disengage there. Talk about a lack of logic! They don’t have a navy, do they? Are they going to use a flotilla of canoes? An air force they don’t have? Or is the implication that the Iraqis, who didn’t attack us on 9/11, are going to hijack planes and kill us? Well then… do something about it! Like maybe make the planes, cargo ships, trucks coming in unregulated from Mexico, etc., SAFER! Inspect. Devise a friggin’ national defense of some kind. How’s that for logic? No, instead, we decided to target a country that didn’t attack us, with the idea that we have to kill the entire subset of people who might at some point in the future contemplate attacking us–and we’ve targetted those supposed potential aggressors without evidence. It’s been a big, steaming, feculent pile of emotion from start to finish.
Doug-
I would never have thought to compare Bush II to Herbert Hoover. One of the few things Bush II had going for him was his ability to forge a connection with what once might have been called the “common man”. Bush was undone by his other shortcomings on policy and especially on execution. Hoover knew how to get things done, and did them well for the most part. However, while a brilliant engineer and businessman and ever the rationalist, Hoover seemed totally to misunderstand the importance of the image of the president. I would guess Hoover would have been horrified by playing such a role.
Looking back at the 1930’s FDR’s policies weren’t so much different than Hoover’s, as was FDR’s projecting a hand’s on image and concern, in part through the fireside chats. Our curious republic has evolved into a sort of elected monarchy, and Presidents, as head of state as well as head of government, must act in times of crises as the people expect their king to act, that is, as an unassuming saviour. Bush II, once he got over letting the Secret Service direct Air Force 1 all over the country back in 2001, more or less got that much of the job right. Bush’s great failing is as Head of Government. In a parliamentry system he would (rightly) have out as Prime Minister after the 2006 elections.
My daughter is dipping her Sun Chips in ketchup. Discuss.
You have my deepest sympathy.
Ketchup is widely known as a “gateway condiment”, often leading to the ‘hard stuff’:
Grey Poupon and wasabi. Together.
Get help, before it’s too late!
Kids like ketchup because it’s sweet. It’s a taste we gradually grow out of once we discover mustard.
Mmm, mustard.
As long as we have a food section ..in France everyone learns young to eat fries with mayonnaise amd that’s the only thing the French would even consider serving with French fries. In England they serve vinegar,which MUST be an acquired taste,since its so awful… But once you try mayonnaise with fries you’ll never go back to anything else!
Lou, we will never agree. A good malt vinegar is the best way to eat “chips”/fries.
In Minnesota they like their fries with sour cream, which I also found very tasty.
I think we now have something we all can agree on:
This thread has gone so far off track a to be unsalvageable, though the Sun Chips in ketchup bit was pretty funny.
Lou: I don’t eat mayonnaise on anything! :D
Amy: Sorry. I thought that Doug was libertarian with liberal leanings–whatever that means. :D
Doug: excellent summation in post #26. That’s pretty much what happened here. Not the first time, either. Perhaps it would be a good idea for newbies to get a feel for the various views here before making assumptions that this is a liberal blog. I’m not saying to make that a rule, just that people need to realize that their initial take on this blog and the people who post here may be wrong.
The Scribe: Well, I see that you’ve toned things down, but I hope you realize why your initial posts did nothing to win positive responses or reasoned debate. Whether you want to believe it or not, there are plenty of people who post here who are not liberal. Frankly, I’m always a little concerned by people–liberal or conservative–who claim to “fiercely believe” this or that with little or no allowance for complexity and little if any ability to understand experiences different from their own. Being a Christian doesn’t require that the world always be viewed in black/white, left/right, right/wrong.
Ahhh…should’ve expected the condescending lecture at some point. Silly me, I thought we’d moved on.
I wasn’t trying to be condescending to you, The Scribe. Sorry if you took my comment that way. In the beginning you seemed quick to take offense and also quick to dole out nasty comments.
By the way, I’ve known plenty of liberals who readily work themselves into a lather over some issue even before knowing all of the facts or considering nuance. Your initial posts here were really no different than the “emotional” liberalism that you lambasted. Furthermore, plenty of people (maybe Doug, I dunno) go from conservative views to more liberal views as they mature.
Doug,
I don’t know if you have heard, but soldiers in Iraq are now being subjected to Christian recruitment by their officers.
I correspond with four different servicemen, and have been told the same thing by two of them. And of course how do you feel free to tell a commanding officer, to stay out of your spiritual life. One soldier told me that their CO gave a speech in which he stated that “he expected all his men, to be right with God”.
As for Mrs. Tillman, she and her family have the right to know just how her son was killed.
The statement of Col.Kauzlarich is self serving to say the least. The religion or lack of religion of the Tillmans has nothing to do with money. It has to do with truth. It does not matter just who is is power. The truth is the truth.
Using Tillman for propoganda purposes is what this administration and this military, does now. It an increasingly nasty and deadly debacle, they have nothing to recommend this OCCUPATION. It is not a war anymore.It is an occupation in the midst of a civil war.
I am a registered Independent. And as the latest book by former Bush appointees periodically come out, Tenet I refer to, it is as many of us have thought from the beginning. Based on lies and PNAC. None of this is a surprise. Just download PNAC, and it is all written there.
As for the Tillmans. I wish them luck in shining the light on lies and liars. Goodness knows, there are enough of those in this administration. It should be no surprise that it has filtered from the top to the military.