MERGED: The Politics Thread

[DruulEmpire]

You add Dick Armey and James Mountain (as in Mountin') Inhofe and you have to wonder ...

Speaking of macho names, is it just me or is Michael Steele beginning to sound ever so slightly intelligent now that he no longer has to work for them?

[Q_BE]

Inre the Wisconsin labor protests:

We've been asking ourselves lately "Will the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt?" Now, in America, we're asking "Will the Education Brotherhood take over Wisconsin?" What Republicans are fighting is paying 99.8% of teachers' pensions to the tune of 3x the average non-government worker versus the proposed 95%, and likewise fighting paying 95% of their healthcare benefits versus the proposed 88%. Check the news, folks—the Education Brotherhood is taking over Wisconsin, and they'd like to take it elsewhere. The Education Brotherhood, which is merely a branch of the Government Unions' Brotherhood, has already shut down public schools for several days now, with no end in sight, and yet they claim only to care about how well "the chi1dren" are doing.


Think about this: by shutting down the schools, they are robbing Madison inner-city chi1dren of precious school days that would help make America more competitive. They're robbing these young skulls-full-of-mush of their opportunity to be exposed to their patented leftist propaganda. On top of that, look what they are doing to working mothers who can't afford to pay for somebody to watch their kids! Did you ever think of that?


In many cases, schools exist to get the kids out of the house during the day, and even to feed them 3 meals a day! This is what the current system of liberalism in public schools has done in the name of "the chi1dren". So what about these moms (and dads)? What are they supposed to do while all this upheaval goes on? You've got parents deciding between earning money at their minimum wage jobs for food or the safety of their inner-city children, and that's just the start of the effects of the "Gang of 14" Wisconsin senators scared to death of the Education Brotherhood who are derelicting their responsibilities by protesting the moderate changes in the system by the Republicans.


The Education Brotherhood has got these Democrat state senators cowed. They hightailed it for the border at the first sign of trouble! Need I remind you of those two times that Texas state Democrats fled the scene—and those Democrats lost both times. What we're facing here is an actual government shutdown, and the State-Controlled Media is forced to report this shutdown—and they're blaming Republicans (just like they want to blame Congressional Republicans in March). Contrary to liberal popular belief, it is not Republicans grinding government to a halt, but Democrats who refuse to let the machine of government operate.


Here's the dirty little secret the Democrats and their teachers' union buddies don't want you to know. From the September 22, 2004 edition of the Washington Times comes a report on Madison, Wisconsin teachers: nearly 1/3 of public-school teachers in that city had their own kids in private schools, and it's likely increased in the six years since. The Washington Times also reported then that nationwide, public-school teachers were nearly twice as likely as other parents to have their kids in private schools. Of course, private schools aren't exactly CHEAP. It blows the myth out of the water of underpaid, underprivileged teachers (don't forget their vaunted tenure), and it puts the light of truth on the quality of education they themselves believe they provide, and beyond that, it shows how specious their arguments really are against paying a (more)-fair share of what they receive in pensions and healthcare.


"So what?" you say. "Why is this a national issue? If you're not paying for it in Wisconsin, why should you care?"


From the Cybercast News Service:

"The federal government gave $669.6 million to the public schools in Wisconsin in fiscal 2008, according to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). That is more than 20 times as much as the $30 million that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is trying to save in the current fiscal year by asking state employees, including teachers, to pay for a fraction of the cost of their own pension packages and health-insurance premiums."  

So, in essence, we're ALL subsidizing the Wisconsin teachers' unions and their salaries and benefits. This is national taxpayer money we're discussing here. Everybody in America is getting socked to the tune of $2 per man, woman, and chi1d per year to pay for these pensions and benefits. All that Scott Walker is trying to do is to get these people to pay a fraction more in the costs, to return collective bargaining only to wages, and to prevent wages from rising more than the rate of inflation unless a state referendum approves it!


$30 million against $669.6 million. This isn't even barely a dent in public education funding for this fiscal year, and yet there is caterwauling all across the left over the extreme "sacrifices" they're having to make. Consider this: people in Wisconsin who are OUT OF WORK are paying taxes on their unemployment checks to fund salaries and benefits totaling an average of $90,000 per teacher. Benefits for these people are three times the private-sector average, and yet it is the private-sector employees that pay the taxes that fund the teachers who are the ones called greedy SOBs. Taken another way, these unions are demanding that taxpayers pay 99.8% of their pensions in perpetuity, and 95% of their healthcare packages in perpetuity. This is unsustainable as is, and these figures would only go down to 95% and 88% funding for pensions and healthcare, respectively, if this Wisconsin bill were enacted. We are not asking these people to chop off an arm and a leg.


Oh, and just as a note to those people who think a quorum of 20 is required for all bills in the Wisconsin legislature? That's only for spending bills. A simple majority is all that's needed for non-spending legislation. What the unions don't know is that the Republicans could simply take the union restructuring language OUT of the spending bill and just pass that all by itself. Done. Finis. Fait accompli. The spending would come later when the Democrats are dragged back by their teeth and nails to prevent a fiscal government shutdown that automatically furloughs all those protesting teachers—without pay—which is a sight worse than the FAKE DOCTOR'S NOTES THAT GIVE THEM PAID LEAVE OF ABSENCES TO PROTEST.


But I digress! This is going to get done, with or without Democrats, with or without spending measures required. Public-sector unions ARE DONE as they have been constituted in Wisconsin, ironically (or not) the state with the longest-tenured collective bargaining laws. This will spread to other states as well. Elections have consequences. We won, you lost.


Q-"Q-BE for Congress 2012"-BE

[DruulEmpire]

If you're going to copypasta, cite your source.  At least you picked up after Limbaugh talked about someone named "Snerdley."

Are you planning to lip-sync Limbaugh when you run for Congress?

[Q_BE]

If you're going to copypasta, cite your source.  At least you picked up after Limbaugh talked about someone named "Snerdley."

Are you planning to lip-sync Limbaugh when you run for Congress?

Ha! I got a good laugh out of that one. Sigged.

I didn't copy-pasta. I paraphrased and added my own ideas to smooth out the transitions. I also digressed towards the end, and that was my own ideation.

Q-"Good ideas are good ideas"-BE

[MrsPacman1]

We won, you lost.

Q - the only thing you, personally, have won is ridicule from your fellow BEA members. It's glaringly apparent in almost every thread you post in. Dude, take a chill pill...really.

Elections have consequences.

This might be the only thing I can agree with in your entire post.

Mrs*not that I really read it*Pacman

 

[SamV]

I love how you and Gov Weller can with a straight face try to paint the protesters with a broad brush that they are in some way doing something criminal. Or demonize them for just trying to protect what was a hard won right they fought for long ago, and in doing so they are being unpatriotic in some way. (By the by, don't Weller's pronouncements regarding the protests sound a lot like what we've been hearing coming out of the mouths of old Muammar and his "We will fight to our last bullet" of a kid. I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.   ) 

And you bring in this crap that somehow a defined benefit pension is in someway flawed and simply can't work. But until the advent of 401k retirement funds it was the primary financial vehicle for a comfortable retirement in both the private and public sectors. Defined benefit pensions are not all that complicated to either set up or finance. Essentially they little else but an annuity.

No, the problem came when corporate owners and state and municipal politicians saw all that money sitting there not doing a thing except earning interest and dividends while waiting to be dispersed to a retiring employee. Much better to raid the pension fund and use the money for something more useful  - like fill in a funding gap in a state or municipal budget. And on the corporate side of things the money usually ended up in some high-risk investment scheme, that might pay off, but more often tanked. And both the corporate owners and the politicians rigged the system so they could do just that so long as they promised the money, along with whatever earnings that should be there would be put back before the retiree, or his beneficiaries began to collect his pension. Unfortunately in way too many cases these greed so-and-soes took the money out and then never even bothered to put it back like they promised.

And one otherr thing Q it isn't just teachers who are protesting in WI. All the unionized public workers are in the protest ranks, along with family, friends, students, and most telling, the police and the firemen too, even thought Gov. Weller's union-busting bill exempts them. I guess the good Gov did that so not to piss off the cops and firemen, since he might need them to protect his life and property when some card carrying NRA member gets totally pissed off over what the Gov's policies did to him and decides to try and take Weller out.       

[TheZookie007]

Alas, the state of WI voted this college dropout in. Again, I DIDN'T. I have loved living in WI - brutal winters and all - since 2002. I don't want to see this place end up like my home state of Florida. And I fear this will happen .

That is just the worst part of this whole affair. It's not as if anyone held a gun to their heads or as if the vote was rigged. They did it to themselves.

The only positive thing to say about this is, it will not last forever. There's gonna be an election in four years or so, and things can change. But in the meantime...

[pedonbio]

That is just the worst part of this whole affair. It's not as if anyone held a gun to their heads or as if the vote was rigged. They did it to themselves.

The only positive thing to say about this is, it will not last forever. There's gonna be an election in four years or so, and things can change. But in the meantime...

Actually, recall petitions are being circulated for 8 Republican state senators, and one will start for Walker as soon as he is eligible. Wisconsin has a silly law that requires that politicians be given a minimum portion of their terms before they can be recalled.

Also, the exemption for police unions, firefighter unions, and the state patrol union wasn't to assure Walker protection--It was a direct payoff for the support of those three groups in his election. <Sure, Teabaggers, he isn't like those others is he?> Two of the unions have already apologized and joined the demonstrations.

And if we're going to talk about honesty, which Q_BE never will, Walker and his ilk didn't say a word about this, even though his owners, the Koch brothers, had prepared the anti-union legislation before the election. This was a stealth project by a bunch of lying assholes. 

[Q_BE]

I love how you and Gov Weller can with a straight face try to paint the protesters with a broad brush that they are in some way doing something criminal. Or demonize them for just trying to protect what was a hard won right they fought for long ago, and in doing so they are being unpatriotic in some way. (By the by, don't Weller's pronouncements regarding the protests sound a lot like what we've been hearing coming out of the mouths of old Muammar and his "We will fight to our last bullet" of a kid. I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.  )  

Emphasis added

One of them is in the White House, in fact. Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!

And you bring in this crap that somehow a defined benefit pension is in someway flawed and simply can't work. But until the advent of 401k retirement funds it was the primary financial vehicle for a comfortable retirement in both the private and public sectors. Defined benefit pensions are not all that complicated to either set up or finance. Essentially they little else but an annuity.

Nobody here is saying "Ditch the system entirely." We're saying, "Pay your fair share." Even if these changes to pension and benefit levels were enacted, Wisconsin public-sector employees would only be paying roughly 66% of what the average private sector employee pays for his/her benefits.

No, the problem came when corporate owners and state and municipal politicians saw all that money sitting there not doing a thing except earning interest and dividends while waiting to be dispersed to a retiring employee. Much better to raid the pension fund and use the money for something more useful  - like fill in a funding gap in a state or municipal budget. And on the corporate side of things the money usually ended up in some high-risk investment scheme, that might pay off, but more often tanked. And both the corporate owners and the politicians rigged the system so they could do just that so long as they promised the money, along with whatever earnings that should be there would be put back before the retiree, or his beneficiaries began to collect his pension. Unfortunately in way too many cases these greed so-and-soes took the money out and then never even bothered to put it back like they promised.

Thank the policies of the past for that, SamV, and the Democrats who enacted them. This is Republicans trying to fix the mess with the least pain to the least people.

And one otherr thing Q it isn't just teachers who are protesting in WI. All the unionized public workers are in the protest ranks, along with family, friends, students, and most telling, the police and the firemen too, even thought Gov. Weller's union-busting bill exempts them. I guess the good Gov did that so not to piss off the cops and firemen, since he might need them to protect his life and property when some card carrying AFSCME/ACORN/AFL-CIO member gets totally pissed off over what the Gov's policies did to him and decides to try and take Weller out.  

Fixed.

Q-"Who's violent? Certainly not the Right…"-BE

[Q_BE]

Actually, recall petitions are being circulated for 8 Republican state senators, and one will start for Walker as soon as he is eligible. Wisconsin has a silly law that requires that politicians be given a minimum portion of their terms before they can be recalled.

I'm way ahead of you, Pedonbio. There ought to be some recalls going on around here…

Time to Recall AWOL Lawmakers

Also, the exemption for police unions, firefighter unions, and the state patrol union wasn't to assure Walker protection--It was a direct payoff for the support of those three groups in his election. <Sure, Teabaggers, he isn't like those others is he?> Two of the unions have already apologized and joined the demonstrations.

This is what Scott Walker gets for trying to be nice to unions? Fine then…

Walker may have wasted political capital by sparing Wisconsin's policemen and firemen.

And if we're going to talk about honesty, which Q_BE never will, Walker and his ilk didn't say a word about this, even though his owners, the Koch brothers, had prepared the anti-union legislation before the election. This was a stealth project by a bunch of lying assholes.

Didn't say a word?

June 6, 2010: Walker wants state employees to pay pensions

Q-"Try again, Pedonbio"-BE

[3deroticer]

This isn't about money, because the teacher union agreed to the cut, the only thing they did not agreed to is to ban the union. Now they see the budget was artificially broke and that the Koch brothers have paid for Governor Walker campaign and the Tea party support to fly in to protest, is why more people are siding up for the middle class worker. Oil company have OPEC nation, and congress have a union, while all banker and wall street are a unionize, then why shouldn't the working middle class people have their union?

This myth that teachers are greedy and bottom feeder really perplex me coming from Millionaires, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for whom both have little education. The worse debate I have heard is that teacher's middle class pay is higher than the private sector for those in their fields. The private schools don't require a college education in the fields of education in order to be a teacher, plus they don't also required to go to school in the summer to be re-certified every year in order to teach and have to pay for their own classes in order to re-certified.

The debate that teachers should make less than teachers of the private sector, is wrong and not good for the economy, when you try to reduce the middle-class. They build the economy, because they spend it while those who have too much money can bank it. Giving a larger tax break for millionaires to create a deficit in the state funding to ban the working people rights to protect their job from abuse is greedy.

Education brotherhood taking over a state a bad thing? Oh no we can't have our people become educated, those pesky teachers always trying to improve our critical thinking! I swear Q_BE You have taken pride in ignorance to a whole new level!

[TheZookie007]

Sam V: I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.

Q_BE: One of them is in the White House, in fact. Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!

Courtesy mw.com:

au·thor·i·tar·i·an adj \ȯ-ˌthär-ə-ˈter-ē-ən, ə-, -ˌthȯr-\
Definition of AUTHORITARIAN
1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

des·pot noun \ˈdes-pət, -ˌpät\
Definition of DESPOT
1a: a Byzantine emperor or prince
1b: a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church
1c: an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance

2a: a ruler with absolute power and authority
2b: a person exercising power tyrannically

President Barack Obama was voted into power, fair and square, in a democratic election. He didn't seize power in a coup, palace or otherwise. He hasn't favored "a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people". Therefore, he is not authoritarian. He is neither "a Byzantine emperor or prince", nor is he "a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church", nor is he "an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance", nor is he "a ruler with absolute power and authority", and nor is he "a person exercising power tyrannically". Therefore, he is not a despot.

However, by your willful misuse of these terms to describe a democratically-elected president of your own country, Q_BE, you have proven yourself once again to be at best a semi-illiterate chauvinist, and at worst to be a dimwitted, borderline racist fool of gargantuan proportions.

Q_BE, you have proven yourself to be incapable of critical independent thought. Unless and until you learn that words have actual, verifiable, commonly-agreed-upon meanings, and that misuse of words have consequences, I shall no longer attempt to exchange ideas with you. You are an embarrassment. It's because of people like you that the following sayings were invented:

"Never bring a knife to a gunfight."
"Never engage in a battle of wits, when your opponent is obviously unarmed."

Go back and read the Constitution. Don't cheat by listening to Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's or Glenn Beck's misinterpretation of it, and don't go get the Cliff's Notes. Go back and read the actual document. And while you're at it, go back and read the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Once you have a thorough grounding on what democracy is, and how it works, then you can try reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital, so that you learn what Marxism is, and after that you can tackle The Communist Manifesto, so that you can learn what communism is, and then Freidrich Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, so that you can learn what socialism is. They are all available to read for free in any public library, or on the Internet. While you are reading of all this, make sure that you have an unabridged dictionary available, so that you can find out the true meanings of any words that you come across. I'm sure that you will run across many such words. The fact that you continuously misuse the words "liberal" and "conservative" as nouns instead of using them as adjectives, is proof of that.

All of this reading will achieve two aims. One, you will finally be able to intelligently discuss current affairs, instead of regurgitating biased opinions proffered to you by the fellow intellectual midgets of the Faux News brigade. And two, you will be out of our hair here, as intelligent adults try and discuss current affairs.

Good luck.

[pedonbio]

You're welcome to try, Zookie, but I suggested the same thing a couple of years ago. He'd rather wallow in ignorance; most trolls do. He keeps using the same one-liners because he seriously lacks any research skills. It's really sad, except with him it's willful.

[TheZookie007]

Maybe later I will edit my post to include links to all the books I mentioned, to save him time.

I'm not saying you have to agree with every thing I say, but at least if you are going to argue your corner, make sure that it IS your corner, and not a corner that Rush Limbaugh (a centi-millionaire who continues to claim that the propaganda that he broadcasts to gullible people will improve their lives, when it obviously only does one thing, and that is to make him yet more money) has already warmed with his obese gluteus maximus.

[DruulEmpire]

I somehow don't feel that deeply shamed that Q only broke from the Limbaugh transcript as late as "'So what?' you say" and I'm in no mood to track down whether or not he copied the remainder.  That's still a huge chunk of Limbaugh to quote and not cite -- in which case I don't even see how staggeringly funny (or prophetic) his making a siggy of my question is supposed to be, because I think it still stands.

In any event, the dollars-and-cents end of this is long moot -- though I guess conveniently ignored when you live in a bunker of white noise.  The deal is good to go, has been for days, it's the "Oh, and by the way, we need to erase an eighty-year-old institution" part that's impelling the reaction.

One old joke I've heard against liberals is "The liberal is the one with no stake in the argument."  Conservatives would do well not to make this apply to themselves.  Like Frankenstein reacting to fire, ideologues can insist "Unions bad!" as their next scapegoat, their next hobby, the latest reanimated superstition.  But for the teachers and policemen and firefighters themselves, it's not theory, it's not merely an umbrage du jour.  It's life, and they will fight for life.


I've heard Walker's "chat," and it sounds like petty personal payback, he basically didn't know how to work with unions earlier in his careeer so that's why he says they must be abolished now.  Someone get a "Collective Bargaining for Dummies" book to him stat, it could solve everything.  Heck, I saw this resolved in a "Patty Duke Show" rerun this morning.  What does William Schallert know that the Governor of Wisconsin doesn't?

[SamV]

...Nobody here is saying "Ditch the system entirely." We're saying, "Pay your fair share."

And who is to say what is fair? You? The talking dunderheads at Fox? Gov. Weller - well, unlike you and any others, he might, depending on what a judge might think.

In this case, the various workers negotiated though their union leaders with the managers to hammer out a contract both sides could agreed to. So they had a legal contract - A CONTRACT - and you do know what a contract is, don't you Q? Here let me see if I can explain it to you.

When two or more parties wish to conduct business of some sort they usually do so by means of a document called a contract. First a proposal is drafted which all parties get to look over and voice their objections and suggest changes they want to it. Regardless of whatever terms are in any proposal when in the end both sides agreed to it and sign it it is thus turned in to a binding legal contract. And so long as both sides hold up the terms of that contract it remains in effect until either the terms of the contract are fulfilled, or it expires. Then a new contract can be negotiated. And should any issues arise one party can seek redress by suing for any perceived infraction of the contract. This is the basis of all contract law, whether between individuals, or corporations, or a union and a governmental body. This is why courts love contracts because it spells out in writing what is expected by all parties in their business dealings.

Now you say that the contract the teachers union has been operating under is in someway unfair. But then most courts could not care what you, or any other outside party has to say. WHY - because unless you are in someway a named party in the contract you lack standing in the eyes of the court. That means despite whatever you say is fair or unfair in a signed contract, all you can do about it is pound sand. So you see in the end when a contract is involved the only one who has a say in determining what is fair is the court.

And should one party be unhappy with something in that contract they have a few choices; wait until the present contract expires then make the desired change(s) during the negotiation of the new contract; ask the other parties to re-open the current contract for negotiating the change they want; or break the contract and take the chance the courts will let you get away with it by voiding the contract.

It's unfortunate in the path taken by Gov. Weller and other state governors they decided to do something even worst than the last method, by not merely breaking the contract, but by breaking the union. In attempting this Gov. Weller and the others are all acting like a bunch of wanna be Ronnie Reagans. (BTW I always thought how ironic it was that Ronnie who got his start in politics by being elected the president of SAG, would one day turn around and become a union buster.)       

... This is Republicans trying to fix the mess with the least pain to the least people.

Yeah, I truly love how the Republicans usually go about fixing things.

It seems whenever they do "fix" some mess, in the end it doesn't seem to do much to minimize the pain for the greatest number of people, but it certainly does seem to provide benefits for the moneyed interests in this country.

I imagine once the moneyed interests and their lap dogs are done fixing things I guess American workers everywhere can sing a song in celebration for their new economic paradise. And look how efficient they will be, because that song already exists. 

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
 

[3deroticer]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948732/-Busted:-Scott-Walker-fell-for-Prankster-posing-as-David-Koch-

This transcript shows just how bad he is and who he'll listen to!

[pedonbio]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948732/-Busted:-Scott-Walker-fell-for-Prankster-posing-as-David-Koch-

This transcript shows just how bad he is and who he'll listen to!

Walker loves to suck Koch.

[DruulEmpire]

I recommend hearing for yourself the Youtube version, available in two ten-minute sections under the heading Koch Whore.  The cynicism of the content is almost secondary.  Walker can't spill enough of his political strategic guts to his contributor, and Ian Murphy's "impression" is laughably transparent, he's fairly begging Walker to say "Wait ... this is David, right?" and it, just, never, happens.

[pedonbio]

.

[SamV]

No, that's not what poor people eat cause it looks like there's raisins in that bread.

Unless ... those raisins are really maggots, then it is. 

Sam "What? It's not disgusting. It's how the poor get protein in their diet." 

[3deroticer]

I recommend hearing for yourself the Youtube version, available in two ten-minute sections under the heading Koch Whore.  The cynicism of the content is almost secondary.  Walker can't spill enough of his political strategic guts to his contributor, and Ian Murphy's "impression" is laughably transparent, he's fairly begging Walker to say "Wait ... this is David, right?" and it, just, never, happens.

Most of the time Murphy just use short reply like, "beautiful" or "he our man", "yeah" and Walker giving out a lot of information. But what got me is that even to the end he thanks Koch for a million and his support.

[MrsPacman1]

Tomorrow - the fun really begins! Ethics violations, anyone?

I love how Mr. Walker likes to use Ronald Reagan as an example in his melodramatic speeches to his cabinet, yet he forgets one of the most important phrases Reagan used.

Trust...but verify


Mrs*can't say I'm surprised...at all*Pacman

 

[pedonbio]

Tomorrow - the fun really begins! Ethics violations, anyone?

I love how Mr. Walker likes to use Ronald Reagan as an example in his melodramatic speeches to his cabinet, yet he forgets one of the most important phrases Reagan used.

Trust...but verify


Mrs*can't say I'm surprised...at all*Pacman

 

There was another Reaganism that he forgot: "The right to form unions and bargain collectively is a basic human right." Old Ron was talking about Poland, but it's a good quote.

[MrsPacman1]

It's an excellent quote, Mr. PB 

Say what you will, but I'm so pumped about this latest Walker snafu I can hardly sleep! It's been a good day, IMO.

Mrs*Welcome to WI, Mr Walker...come smell our dairy-air*Pacman

[Q_BE]

Courtesy mw.com:

au·thor·i·tar·i·an adj \ȯ-ˌthär-ə-ˈter-ē-ən, ə-, -ˌthȯr-\
Definition of AUTHORITARIAN
1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

des·pot noun \ˈdes-pət, -ˌpät\
Definition of DESPOT
1a: a Byzantine emperor or prince
1b: a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church
1c: an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance

2a: a ruler with absolute power and authority
2b: a person exercising power tyrannically

President Barack Obama was voted into power, fair and square, in a democratic election. He didn't seize power in a coup, palace or otherwise. He hasn't favored "a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people". Therefore, he is not authoritarian. He is neither "a Byzantine emperor or prince", nor is he "a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church", nor is he "an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance", nor is he "a ruler with absolute power and authority", and nor is he "a person exercising power tyrannically". Therefore, he is not a despot.

I honestly cannot believe how vociferously you are coming out to defend this President against the term "authoritarian despot", when by far President Bush was called many worse things (Satan, Hitler, et. al.) and who was also openly threatened in books and films about his (hypothetical) assassination. Methinks you doth protest too much, and given that, let me show you precisely how despotic Barack Obama is.

Sure, he was elected President—we're one of the few nations in the world to have such peaceful, democratic transfers of power between our political leaders. But, there are still such obvious cases of election fraud such in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (hello New Black Panthers) and the unilateral decision by the Justice Department in that case and all cases similar to it (i.e., black-on-white discrimination) not to prosecute black defendants, such as when the New Black Panther case was dropped and literally snatched from the jaws of victory (i.e., a summary judgment against defendants who didn't even bother to show up to court). Those bad men got off scot-free from documented election fraud. I find it curious that you don't seem to think that lays any blame at the feet of the man for whom they were illegally electioneering.

(By the way, if the unions call the democratically elected governor of Wisconsin a despot the likes of Hitler, does that mean they consider Obama a despot as well? You can't have your cake and eat it too.)


As to the statement that Barack Obama "hasn't favored a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people", I simply point you to the massive federal governmental bureaucracy that he has expanded by over 200,000 employees SINCE his "immaculation", and to the myriad of unelected CZARS for every little task he sets up. Here's just a choice few as of 2009, all positions newly-created in the Obama regime:


Afghanistan Czar — Richard Holbrooke
Auto Recovery Czar — Ed Montgomery
California Water Czar — David J. Hayes
Car Czar — Ron Bloom
Central Region (Middle East) Czar — Dennis Ross
Climate Czar — Todd Stern
Domestic Violence Czar — Lynn Rosenthal
Energy and Environment Czar — Carol Browner
Government Performance Czar — Jeffrey Zients
Great Lakes Czar — Cameron Davis
Green Jobs Czar — Van Jones (now former Green Jobs Czar)
Guantanamo Closure Czar — Daniel Fried (how's that working out for you? )
Information Czar — Vivek Kundra
Mideast Peace Czar — George Mitchell
Pay Czar — Kenneth R. Feinberg


Beyond that, I only need to look to the various regulatory agencies, like the FCC, EPA, FDA, et. al., who have all passed or wish to pass sweeping new regulations on industries that were previously outside their purview, such as the FCC deciding to REGULATE THE INTERNET. You can't tell me that were the President against all these regulations, he would allow his agencies to go forward with all these new restrictions on the personal liberties of average Americans!


Need I even start down the road of discussing how literally UNCONSTITUTIONAL that Obamacare is? I will! Briefly, Federal District Judge Roger Vinson of Florida struck down the entirety of "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" because of its individual mandate, which is not severable from the entire law. Does the President order the implementation of the law to stop? NO! He orders that states continue implementing a law which should currently be on complete HOLD during appeals, and files a motion clarifying the (clear) ruling from Judge Vinson that he did indeed issue an implicit injunction in the order declaring the law unconstitutional!


Additionally, during the BP oil crisis last year, Obama issued a moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which was struck down by District Court Judge Martin Feldman. Did Obama comply with the order rescinding the ban? No! He simply issued another ban on top of the old one, in direct defiance of a judicial branch, co-equal government, court order!


To top all that off, today we hear that the President simply is ordering his Justice Department no longer to enforce the "Defense of Marriage Act" that was enacted during the Clinton presidency. The "Messiah" declared it "unconstitutional" purely by fiat. There were no court rulings nullifying the law; Congress hadn't passed anything that changed that law. The president simply doesn't want to enforce it. Now, if he's sworn to uphold the laws of the land, he doesn't have a say in which laws he "chooses" to enforce—otherwise, abortion-on-demand as a result of Roe v. Wade would have been nullified by several previous presidents.


Barack Hussein Obama defines precisely the concept of a man who wishes "[to favor] a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people"—he himself believes himself to be and wishes that he were above the Constitution and the courts that interpret its meaning and requirements. He ignores constitutional law; he inserts himself into state and local politics whenever it suits his political agenda; he enacts unconstitutional legislation, and defies court orders.


Barack Hussein Obama is LAWLESS. He is an ABOMINATION. He is an EVIL MAN. Words mean things, and I mean it when I say he is the most DESPOTIC leader this country has ever faced, and his Administration is rightly called the Obama REGIME. He rules callously in direct contravention of his sworn duties to defend and uphold the Constitution and the laws and institutions which spring from it, and in deliberate opposition to the will of the American people in specific example of his Obamacare.

However, by your willful misuse of these terms to describe a democratically-elected president of your own country, Q_BE, you have proven yourself once again to be at best a semi-illiterate chauvinist, and at worst to be a dimwitted, borderline racist fool of gargantuan proportions.

Q_BE, you have proven yourself to be incapable of critical independent thought. Unless and until you learn that words have actual, verifiable, commonly-agreed-upon meanings, and that misuse of words have consequences, I shall no longer attempt to exchange ideas with you. You are an embarrassment. It's because of people like you that the following sayings were invented:

"Never bring a knife to a gunfight."
"Never engage in a battle of wits, when your opponent is obviously unarmed."

Go back and read the Constitution. Don't cheat by listening to Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's or Glenn Beck's misinterpretation of it, and don't go get the Cliff's Notes. Go back and read the actual document. And while you're at it, go back and read the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Once you have a thorough grounding on what democracy is, and how it works, then you can try reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital, so that you learn what Marxism is, and after that you can tackle The Communist Manifesto, so that you can learn what communism is, and then Freidrich Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, so that you can learn what socialism is. They are all available to read for free in any public library, or on the Internet. While you are reading of all this, make sure that you have an unabridged dictionary available, so that you can find out the true meanings of any words that you come across. I'm sure that you will run across many such words. The fact that you continuously misuse the words "liberal" and "conservative" as nouns instead of using them as adjectives, is proof of that.

All of this reading will achieve two aims. One, you will finally be able to intelligently discuss current affairs, instead of regurgitating biased opinions proffered to you by the fellow intellectual midgets of the Faux News brigade. And two, you will be out of our hair here, as intelligent adults try and discuss current affairs.

Good luck.

You say I know not of which I speak. I respond that you and all the leftists on this forum are the ones who are willfully ignorant and willfully disingenuous liars—you're willfully ignorant of the realities staring you in the face about the utter totalitarian that this current president is, and you're willfully disingenuous in refusing to admit that you choose not to see the truth. Your arrogance, and the condescension with which you treat all who espouse conservatism and other right-wing ideologies, is abhorrent, evil, and morally corrupt. You resort to vituperatively viscious ad hominem attacks in pathetic, puerile attempts to discredit those who defeat you in the arena of ideas. I am literally running out of words to describe just how egregiously invidious you are.


Were you to admit it of yourselves, you live in a world built on HATE. You hate the Constitution. You hate the restrictions on government it provides. You hate those who dare puncture your tiny worldview built on lies and the propagation of falsehoods. You lack compassion for the American individual. You reject the basic human natural yearnings for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You are contemptuous of anybody who doesn't fall in line with your abhorrent identity politics based on race, sex, gender orientation, and anything else into which you can cut, divide, and define groups of victims in America.


In short, sir, you and your kind reject reality and substitute it with your world of lies based on fealty to atheism, socialism, evolution, environmentalism, and the general worship of the government as your god. There is no place for you in civil discourse because you are not capable of civil discourse. You are not capable of governing yourselves or anyone else, and you ought to be ashamed that your president is wreaking chaos and havoc across the world and in this country thanks to his narcissistic sociopathy. I know that no words of mine can ever hope to reach across the great divide that separates your world from mine, but I stand upon truth, justice, and the American way of life, which is the basis of the freest, greatest, strongest country this world has ever known, and long after you are swept onto the ash heap of history, lovers of freedom will look back on this day as the sad final chapter in human history of an ideology that was long ago discredited and discarded for the rubbish it is.


Q-"Give me liberty, or give me death"-BE

EDIT: I call upon all fellow conservatives in this forum to join me in defending these words condemning the liberals on this forum for their egregious ad hominem attacks on their fellow conservative members such as myself. I call upon them to have the courage of conviction and character to add their voice to mine in rejection of the false premises upon which they base their specious attacks on conservatives' character.

Yes, that means you people such as JJ, solvegas, PregNut, and others. Yes, you!

[Galidan]

Were you to admit it of yourselves, you live in a world built on HATE. You hate the Constitution. You hate the restrictions on government it provides. You hate those who dare puncture your tiny worldview built on lies and the propagation of falsehoods. You lack compassion for the American individual. You reject the basic human natural yearnings for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You are contemptuous of anybody who doesn't fall in line with your abhorrent identity politics based on race, sex, gender orientation, and anything else into which you can cut, divide, and define groups of victims in America.


In short, sir, you and your kind reject reality and substitute it with your world of lies based on fealty to atheism, socialism, evolution, environmentalism, and the general worship of the government as your god. There is no place for you in civil discourse because you are not capable of civil discourse. You are not capable of governing yourselves or anyone else, and you ought to be ashamed that your president is wreaking chaos and havoc across the world and in this country thanks to his narcissistic sociopathy. I know that no words of mine can ever hope to reach across the great divide that separates your world from mine, but I stand upon truth, justice, and the American way of life, which is the basis of the freest, greatest, strongest country this world has ever known, and long after you are swept onto the ash heap of history, lovers of freedom will look back on this day as the sad final chapter in human history of an ideology that was long ago discredited and discarded for the rubbish it is.

I've been watching this thread for sometime now, but I figured I'd chime in. This isn't an attack on you Q_BE because I've seen plenty of other people employ this kind of vitriol in the thread, but is it any wonder that communication difficulties that arise when arguments are framed in this kind of language? It just makes the people in this thread come across as violent children who just happen to have a dictionary on hand. Absolute certainty has no place in discussion.

“When truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to rise. There never has been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon.” – Voltaire

[TheZookie007]

Were you to admit it of yourselves, you live in a world built on HATE. You hate the Constitution.

Yup, I hate the Constitution so much, that I asked you to read it before you make another ignorant comment about it.

You are describing yourself, not me. It's a common psychological condition, wherein you ascribe to others the dysfunction that dominates  your own life. An example of this manifestation, is when a man spends his career inveighing against homosexuals, yet is finally outed as a homosexual himself.

And I've told you before that I'm not a leftie, a leftist, a liberal, or whatever else you think I am. A person who has not read Marx or Engels, has no concept of what it means to be on the left-wing of the political spectrum. That's why I told you to study. Right now, you wouldn't know a leftist if she sat on your face and made sweet love to you thereafter.

Go and get yourself the professional help you so desperately need, go back and read those seminal documents of the founding of this system of American democracy as you were instructed, and let the grownups talk. Mmmm-kay?

[TheZookie007]

Meanwhile, until I read the last line of this report, I could hardly believe that they would get away with this:

Washington Monthly: "WHEN THE RIGHT'S RHETORIC TURNS VIOLENT...."

"In the wake of last month's shootings in Tucson, it was common for folks on the left to suggest the right relied too often on violent rhetoric. Conservatives, invariably, were outraged.

There is, however, a rationale behind the assumptions. For example, incidents like these come up from time to time.

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building--something that didn't end up happening--one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

If there's a compelling defense for a state deputy attorney general to recommend use of "live ammunition" and "deadly force" against pro-labor protestors, I can't think of it.

On a related note, Jay Bookman reports this morning that the Service Employees International Union will hold a rally in Atlanta today, at Georgia's state capitol. Conservative activists have been encouraged to attend -- with firearms.

Update: The Indiana deputy A.G. has reportedly been fired."

[Q_BE]

Yup, I hate the Constitution so much, that I asked you to read it before you make another ignorant comment about it.

You are describing yourself, not me. It's a common psychological condition, wherein you ascribe to others the dysfunction that dominates  your own life. An example of this manifestation, is when a man spends his career inveighing against homosexuals, yet is finally outed as a homosexual himself.

And I've told you before that I'm not a leftie, a leftist, a liberal, or whatever else you think I am. A person who has not read Marx or Engels, has no concept of what it means to be on the left-wing of the political spectrum. That's why I told you to study. Right now, you wouldn't know a leftist if she sat on your face and made sweet love to you thereafter.

Go and get yourself the professional help you so desperately need, go back and read those seminal documents of the founding of this system of American democracy as you were instructed, and let the grownups talk. Mmmm-kay?

Cut the "It's not me, it's you" crap. Don't talk to me about understanding the Constitution. I am not a homophobe, and I'm not sputtering invective against my opponents in Congress lambasting them for actually being homosexuals but choosing to exercise their political career in a different manner than the "standard" homosexual. You are the one being homophobic here.

I don't need to read Marx's teachings to understand what leftist ideology is. I simply have to know that whatever is the reasonable, common-sense, limited-government, free-market solution to a problem will also be the thing that leftists oppose. Communism praises the social welfare over the individual, and it believes that when the proletariat rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the resulting state will be a classless society in the sense that there will be no more economic inequality. In practice, the overthrow of the capitalist state leads to a totalitarian government that enforces equal misery on everyone. Every time it's been tried since Marx invented it, the state has failed and millions have been killed as a result. I could go on about other leftist governments, but I don't want to embarass you and your leftist buddies any further concerning the murders of millions.

(Oh, and before you get on me about the National Socialist Worker's Party aka the Nazis being "right-wing", I'd say that the very etymology of that party's name is pretty well damning to the Left, not the Right.)

Professional help is not required of me, and it is not possible for you. You don't understand the American republic, and you never will. The grown-ups had their say in 2010, and they will have it again in 2012: we don't want you or your liberal political beliefs. Now stop destroying my country!

Q-"S–T-O–P means STOP!"-BE

[TheZookie007]

Cut the "It's not me, it's you" crap. Don't talk to me about understanding the Constitution. I am not a homophobe, and I'm not sputtering invective against my opponents in Congress lambasting them for actually being homosexuals but choosing to exercise their political career in a different manner than the "standard" homosexual. You are the one being homophobic here.

Do you see what I mean? I used the "in the closet but against homosexuals" as an EXAMPLE of your psychosis. I didn't say or imply that you are a closeted homosexual, or that you are a homophobe, or that I am a homophobe. (Do you even know what that word means? Reading is fundamental. Try it sometime.)

I don't need to read Marx's teachings to understand what leftist ideology is.

Um...yes, you do. Otherwise, you will be talking about something of which you have no understanding. Sort of what you usually do anyway. In order to talk intelligently for or against a political ideology, you should read about it, from the source or from the originator of that ideology, unfiltered. Otherwise, you will be talking about something of which you have no understanding. Again, something you do with annoying regularity around here.

Professional help is not required of me

Um...yes, it is.

You don't understand the American republic

Um...yes, I do. Because, unlike you, I'm not afraid of a little reading. You would be better served by going through that reading list I earlier prescribed. Then you will be able to talk on these subjects with a bit of maturity and intelligence. Plugging your ears and going "lalalalala I can't hear you!" won't cut it, youngster. Because the point of my earlier post wasn't about MY understanding of the American republic -- it was, and is, about YOUR refusal to want to learn about the concepts of "democracy", "American democracy", "socialism", "communism", etc. so that you can intelligently express yourself about them, and so that we can engage in informed debate, rather than have to continue to suffer from your regurgitation of talk radio/Faux News copypasta. Emphasis on the words "informed" and "debate". I don't want a shouting match. Especially since what you are shouting are words and catchphrases the meanings of which you don't even begin to understand.

As proof of your uninformed obstinacy, you continue to call me a liberal. I repeat: you wouldn't know a liberal (whether Democrat or Republican), or a leftist, or whatever, if she were to sit on your face, call you "darling!" and make sweet sweet love to you all night long, without a condom.

Let the adults around here talk. Come back when you've got some hair on your chest, and some sense in your head.

[DruulEmpire]

Q_BE, one teensy question about 2012: who are you going to run?  Because it's not going to be Sarah, and Romney has no spark of appeal to him, and you guys just don't seem to appreciate Pawlenty.  Meanwhile possible contenders ranging from Christie to Thune are keeping out.  Because you're right, 2012 is around the corner, 'tis the season -- and no one is stepping up.

PS: can't help but notice that the subject of this thread was Governor Walker but then for your past two posts you completely forgot about him.  Hmmm.

Druul "aw gee, there I go gratuitously lying" Empire

[pedonbio]

Q_BE, one teensy question about 2012: who are you going to run?  
                                                                  * * *
PS: can't help but notice that the subject of this thread was Governor Walker but then for your past two posts you completely forgot about him.  Hmmm.

That's why I don't respond to him any more--He has no positive ideas, and will never admit error. People like that are worthless; i.e., G.W. Bush.

[SamV]

Little intellectual effort is required when a problem presents itself and the solutions tried are the old "tried and true" ones; regardless that such solutions may not be the most effective; or even applicable when the problem is something entirely new. Yet this is the way most conservative minded people will usually approach any problem. It takes someone more open to consider ideas outside the box when attempting to solve a novel problem.

-----
BTW somewhere along the way in my previous posts I started referring to Gov. Scott Walker as Gov. Weller. Why, I can't really say, but I do apologize for causing anyone confusion over it. 

Perhaps I should paraphrase old Bill Shakespeare here over my Weller goof by saying, "A dunderhead by any other name will still be a dunderhead."

Sam "I wanted to say dick in my quote but that would be way too much of an insult to all those who like me possess one" V

[3deroticer]

Q_BE, one teensy question about 2012: who are you going to run?  Because it's not going to be Sarah, and Romney has no spark of appeal to him, and you guys just don't seem to appreciate Pawlenty.  Meanwhile possible contenders ranging from Christie to Thune are keeping out.  Because you're right, 2012 is around the corner, 'tis the season -- and no one is stepping up.

PS: can't help but notice that the subject of this thread was Governor Walker but then for your past two posts you completely forgot about him.  Hmmm.

Druul "aw gee, there I go gratuitously lying" Empire

Are you kidding after that Prank call transcript, the sooner they can get back to hate fill rhetoric of the right versus the left, they can pray that we'll be shock by the Right wing outrage of the Left, that the Walker prank call incident will be long forgotten.