Since identification with Christianity is mandatory in modern day America to avoid being branded as a “terrorist,” it might be advantageous to updated the Christian Field Manual to prevent it from becoming obsolete, like the old Microsoft operating systems. For example, Jeezus of Windows 95 says “Turn the other cheek.” XP Jeezus would say, “CIA man, I regret that I have but one Senator Sphincter for you to rape me with that broom handle. If I had a second, you could rape me in that one too! And Saddam and Bin Laden play chess together in a Baghdad WMD warehouse! Also.”

Editor’s note: not to be confused with Senator Singleshot Sphincter, accessory to the murder of once prominent citizen.

Great catch on the Megan McArdle stupidity. I presume you’ve bookmarked it to use when one of those guns goes off? Gosh, I just glanced at the article, but I don’t think she mentioned the Plaxico scenario…

The comments are just as loony as the post itself. The Atlantic used to be worth reading, but then along came Ross Don’t Douthat and Megan McCurdle…

Glad I didn’t venture into those. There’s only so much stupidity I can take in the morning.

If one switches to the magazine link there’s a piece on our shitty health care system. Atlantic has gone schizophrenic, I suppose.

Are Guns at Protests Really Dangerous?

Well, let’s have a few progressives show up at protests packing heat and wearing their Single-Payer Now tee shirts and then we can ask Megan McArdle to revisit this column. Methinks she might have a little different opinion on the issue.

During the Bush administration, bumper stickers, tee shirts, campaign stickers, and independent opinions were considered dangerous.

independent opinions

The one thing that scares Rethugs more than anything else except brown people. Nothin’ scares ‘em more than non-white people.

In the previous thread someone noted that we live in a sea of corruption. Our democracy has been corrupted, or economy has been corrupted and the world we inhabit has little to do with what the constitution describes.

But those IN POWER do not see it as corruption. They see what it is that they do as NORMAL, as expected as how the system is supposed to work, how it has evolved to work, because they found all the beliefs and views on “American Exceptionalism” and this bizarre concept basically in one fell swoop makes everything American “correct” and unquestionable, the facts be damned.

This is a really big problem. It’s similar to trying to have an intelligent conversation with a drunk person, even an intelligent drunk person. It’s impossible. You can’t get a word in edgewise and that are incapable of normal critical thinking and so you can’t change their views.

This is where we are at. Sane, rational people with their hair on fire are screaming and no one will listen. And those that do, tell them they are crazy and shuddup and have another drink and enjoy the party.

I am with you. But it seems that your ability to see past these liars is too radical for those who want to fix the system. There comes a time when the system is so corrupted and broken that it needs to be replaced.

The present one has a way of putting one liar/scammer in for another.

the system is so corrupted and broken that it needs to be replaced.

Replaced with what?

You’re not the first person here who has said the system needs to be replaced. I’ve asked this simple question a number of times but have yet to see a response, radical or otherwise.

It would be nice if high officials weren’t corrupt, like a prez who plays golf with the CEO of a company who has an elaborate scheme for rich people to cheat on their U.S. taxes.

I watched a northern VA townhall on CSpan late last night. The Dem Congressman was Gerald Connolly, accompanied by other speakers including a rep of AARP. The interesting thing about this townhall is it occurred in an upscale elderly residential living center. Many of the seniors were retired federal employees, with obviously a higher education accompanied by a modest degree of “elderly affluence”.

Rep Connolly conducted himself well. When accused by a woman of “Bush bashing” because he reminded a gentleman that the bank takeover was done in 09/08 & therefore the man’s accusation of Obama taking over the financial industry was in fact not true. But there was no histrionics and it seemed most in the crowd were in favor of reform.

Unfortunately, this townhall will never be shown on cable news. Like probably the majority of towhnalls going on across this nation.

I would guess Rep Connolly is a Blue Dog, but he did support the public option & insisted it would be paid for unlike Bush’s Medicare Part D. If he can sell northern VA elderly, there may still be hope.

That would be great to get up as a post here and on YouTube.

$500 on McMegan to get shot fired by the end of the year.

/s (If there was any doubt)

The system can be replaced with ITSELF if it is “forced” to follow the constitution AND rescind some of the bizarre decisions of the supreme court such as conflating money with free speech or giving corporations the right of citizens and so forth.

Essentially what appears to have “happened” to this country is that the few very wealth, who own the means of production, the corporations have taken over the government to serve their needs and not the needs of the people.

Voting has been perverted and corrupted so we don’t get the person who won the election, The supreme court even nullified one election.

The election process has made only the rich or the richest electable and with the over arching influence of money there are no effective challenges to the status quo.

The media has become a monopoly propaganda arm of capital and dumbed down the people.

Democracy has become a toy of capitalism.

So I would get rid of monoply capitalism which is incompatible with democracy.

A highly regulated form might work, or some form of socialism where the people own the means of production to use a over used phrase.

There will always be the problems of cheats and PITA bureacracies – which exist in any large organization. At least the mission of a government one is not to enrich the shareholders.

There’s a fundamental conflict between capitalism, where ever dollar gets a vote, versus democracy, where every person gets a vote.

So we’re stuck with a mixed system, but one over the past several decades the dollars got the upper hand from the voters.

Wouldn’t campaign finance reform be the way to deal with most of these issues. The Blue Dogs are awash with health industry money as are most of the influential repubs. The influence of this corporate money is what has gamed the “system”.

So how do we get from “money is god” to “people are god?” How do we go from a system that exists primarily to protect the wealth of a few to a system that enhances the lives of all? We know that a strictly state controlled economy like the USSR is unworkable and we’ve seen, more than once, what unfettered capitalism begets. What’s the answer?

I am still not sure why this is

The stupidest fucking post of all time.

, but hey, I’ll let all of you get worked up about it. Then again, this grabbed my curiosity, so I did some searching and found this:

The FBI estimates that there are over 200 million privately-owned firearms in the US. If you add those owned by the military, law enforcement agencies and museums, there is probably about 1 gun per person in the country.

If you want to get a rough idea of how many guns there are out there just look at how many people you see out there then multiply by a factor of estimated ownership. The last best guess was about 350,000,000 Total. That would be 1 weapon for every man woman and child. The average gun enthusiast owns several firearms which includes pistols, shotguns, and rifles of all makes and models. It is often estimated that about 1 in 4 people own any firearms and on average firearms owners own 4 guns each.

So we roughly have an estimated 350 million guns in the US held by the average citizen. So this questions…when was the last time you have heard of a private citizen actually using these guns to commit crimes? It happens no doubt, but even combining this stat with the number of accidental discharges, the overall stat would be a fraction of a fraction of a percent. Using this flawed logic to take guns out of the hands of citizens, there would be many other objects to take out of society that are far more lethal.

So this opens the question about why do liberals want gun control? Please don’t say it is because some nut job wears a gun to a rally. Do any of you really care about that? The funny thing about these guys at the rally’s is even though they were doing something stupid (trust me, even member of the NRA don’t like seeing things like that), they were still being responsible with their weapons around people. Not one of them was waving it around, firing it, or doing anything that was endangering the life of anyone around them.

“Replaced with what?”

Before we get to “what” let us examine an aspect of “how” (process).

“How” demands, insists upon, rational and reasoned discourse, among thoughtful, civil, and informed “stakeholders”.

Where do we find the encouragement for such a thing?

At the moment both ignorance and arrogance abound.

Indeed, we have massive amounts of arrogant ignorance AND ignorant arrogance.

We have greed, banal selfishness masquerading as gravitas and a national unwillingness to behave like adults.

Nonetheless, either we will come to some rational grip with health care, quality of life issues and a reasonable acceptance that death is inevitable for each of us as individuals or we won’t.

If we don’t, then the “problem” of our own unwillingness to progress, to evolve our thinking and understanding, will continue to plague us …

It is possible that the hubris, (a fine combination of ignorance and arrogance) will do in the species.

Health “care” not being the only um… “difficulty” we face.

However, since it has the attention of many, here and now, it would be a good place to start.

Have we got there yet?

Speaking as a shareholder in this government, I wouldn’t mind being enriched right about now. But seriously, I do believe the large corps have wiggled out of the boardrooms and into the halls of justice and our congress. And I do believe a little socialism isn’t a bad thing, you just have to watch a few episodes of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” to come to the conclusion that some peoples wealth would be better spent by the government. I am a cynic by nature, but I have no doubt that there are more people in congress that have our backs, than the backs of large corps. They are just a lot more low profile than the well financed hot shots that make it on cable news.

Don’t know.

Founders tried to have checks & balances in the system, but that’s been corrupted by now.

Suspect it’s just the usual slow mo death of an empire, with nothing much to be done about it. I’m reading a book about the Ottoman empire, which lasted a couple of hundred years in its declining stage. And with leaders that were far worse than the ones we’ve had. (W looks like amateur hour compared to some of the sultans.) And the U.S. empire is still expanding. So if that history is instructive it would seem that the U.S. empire has a long life left, and one that we won’t much like.

Christy is upstairs…

And 16 as well. I agree that the Electoral College has long outlived its usefulness, as if it ever were “useful.”

One has to be careful with the “owners of the means of production” concept. The phrase scares the hell out of most people, who think it means everything is owned by the government, ie, the people. In manufacturing profit is derived exclusively from labour. How do we ensure that the workers become part owners of the commodities they produce?

On edit: The finance industry has taken control of the economy and is a totally different breed of cat to deal with.

Ecahn and DWBartoo show great wisdom.

What seems to be part of the problem is the conflict between capital (wealth, greed money, consumerism) and the basic needs of the people, a decent life, access to heath care, decent housing, education, leisure time (happiness) etc. Capital has told you to work to BUY these things in the free (not so) market. Anyone can make it in a “free system” so those who don’t, don’t deserve a thing and certainly not a share in what those who make lots and have way more than they could ever need.

A democracy is supposed to represent the interests of the people THROUGH their representatives (in the case of a this one). Money and greed and insinuated into the process and perverted it so that it does NOT respond to the needs and desires of the people.

In some, perhaps most cases, consent of the people is manufactured by media propaganda, a failed education system and the influence of the perverted church where too many people go for guidance. There is little chance for wisdom and rational thinking to prevail in the system as it now is.

Something has to give.

I think you are naive here Diane. Most critters are red blooded capitalist loving small d democrats.

I understand that this is the short hand of Marx and it is a poisoned phrase.

How this can change is the $64,000 question.

Some steps to get there might be:

Term limits
Bust up of media and make more educational public service on the air waves
Bust up monopolies – ALL of them
Bust up cartels and holding companies
preogress tax and close all loop holes
Forbid offshoring of jobs
forbid offshoring of wealth
Public finance of elections
rational curricula in all schools
abolition of the electoral college
abolition of the senate (it’s not democratic)
reigning in of “states rights” which is a crazy quilt of laws

there are a million things to add to this list

I’d agree on most of your list but at the top of my disagreements would be term limits. We instituted term limits in FL and it’s an unmitigated disaster here. The county commissions and the state legislature are so corrupt it’s laughable. Lobbyists have become the “old hands” at both levels, write most of the legislation and usually have more influence than commissioners or legislators themselves.

SanderO, we are not a democracy, we are a republic, there is a big difference between the two. But regardless, I do semi-agree with with first paragraph of your entry. Regardless of which route you go (republic/democracy), you are always going to have people that do not want to participate in society whether it is some pot smoker, or some anarchist nut. So what do you do with these people? Do you actually let them live off the backs of people that are participating in society? If you do allow this, the result will be very negative from the people doing the work.

Another big point: Nothing is guaranteed in life, and nothing is fair. It doesn’t matter which political party is in control at the time, or what system of government we have that will always be true. The great thing about Capitalism is the smallest person in the world can make it big with a unique idea, or just through shear hard work.

It’s too bad that we as Americans have lost that belief, when others in the world are struggling to get here to take advantage of it. All we seem to be concerned about is if something is fair or not.

Diane, you contradict yourself. First you state a little socialism is ok, then you state that more Reps have your back than don’t. So which one is it?

Is this the result of term limits or the “function” of a society which has permitted the rightful obligation of the people to take upon themselves the responsibility for their own being to be usurped by the “convention” that “experts” know better, allowing the calculatingly clever to manipulate public consciousness and awareness and the damnable mythologies of “exceptional-ism” and a grueling “work ethic” that precludes the time for THINKING (if encouraged and “educated” toward) on the part of the people?

I would suggest it is a complex mix .

I would also suggest that those who desire power, for its own sake, are ALWAYS a threat to the rest of us.

Public service should not be a lifetime sinecure.

(I suspect you agree with all this SD, just wanted to put it “out there”)

DW

Well said! Although I did have to read it twice :]