tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post1148448423015779754..comments2024-03-28T12:29:39.157-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Under the mossy rock...FDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-51137485730098638512013-10-15T17:37:44.090-07:002013-10-15T17:37:44.090-07:00"The GOP is utterly, completely batshit crazy...<i>"The GOP is utterly, completely batshit crazy.'</i><br /><br />Chief, this is too facile a dismissal for an entire contingent. How can we arrive at function when we turn our backs in such futility.<br /><br />If I saw a robust Democratic counter I would be animated. I do not see it. Where is the Dem's Karl Rove? There is no mastermind, no brilliance or inspiration.<br /><br />The Republicans win by default. But "batshit crazy"? Then you must tar the majority of your fellow humans with that brush, too. (Not that I'm ready to dismiss that possibility.)Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-49905216118766494612013-10-08T13:42:29.575-07:002013-10-08T13:42:29.575-07:00I hate to go here again, Lisa, but in this case it...I hate to go here again, Lisa, but in this case it's simpler than that.<br /><br />The Democrats, spineless and chaotic as they are, represent some sort of reason, and "politics as usual".<br /><br />The GOP is utterly, completely batshit crazy.<br /><br />In effect, about 20% of the U.S. public - call them the "Cheney Fifth", the people who were still giving Deadeye Dick the thumbs up in 2008, the people who believe that we don't have ENOUGH torture and war, or enough spying, or too much coddling of those fat-cat widows and orphans, the people who long for a new dawn of 1895 in America, THOSE people - are holding the rest of the country hostage until they get what they want.<br /><br />And Rossy Boy is talking to them here.<br /><br />I'll be the first to say that the D's have their problems. But THIS is NOT one of them. This is the fruit of a long, long shove to develop a domestic Falange in the United States. Well, it's here, and it's doing exactly what it did in Italy in 1922; it's tearing down the structure of republican government.<br /><br />The U.S. Constitution was not designed, and cannot withstand, such an assault. Jon Chait has a pretty good breakdown of the immense problem this means here: http://nymag.com/news/politics/nationalinterest/government-shutdown-2013-10/<br /><br />Here's his frightening conclusion:<br /><br /><i>“There is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved, and the mechanisms the Constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate.” This is a fight with no rules. The power struggle will be resolved as a pure contest of willpower.<br /><br />In our Founders’ defense, it’s hard to design any political system strong enough to withstand a party as ideologically radical and epistemically closed as the contemporary GOP. (Its proximate casus belli—forestalling the onset of universal health insurance—is alien to every other major conservative party in the industrialized world.) The tea-party insurgents turn out to be right that the Obama era has seen a fundamental challenge to the constitutional order of American government. They were wrong about who was waging it."</i>FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-55636196610202984812013-10-06T15:46:03.975-07:002013-10-06T15:46:03.975-07:00I completely agree on Douthat -- "entitled an...I completely agree on Douthat -- "entitled and clueless". <br /><br />So few editorial writers speak the truth, clearly (understanding they are editorialists.) It's way disappointing. It would be so nice to read incisive & creative thought from either side in a national paper. Everything is hard partisan because of the fear ...Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-88850553152232535932013-10-03T15:15:30.996-07:002013-10-03T15:15:30.996-07:00No; I think they are despicable.
I understand tha...No; I think they are despicable.<br /><br />I understand that they see their goals as profitable for themselves. It's just the vast mountain of hypocrisy of pretending to be about "small government" and worrying about the Leviathan and then making it all about food stamps and old-age pensions and completely ignoring corporate capitalism and the intelligence and defense budgets.<br /><br />But perhaps "crazy" works in the sense that I get that they are so buried inside their own logic that they can't "get" that most people don't WANT things to go back to how they were in 1880 or 1905. FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-16491361484067510212013-10-03T12:50:30.436-07:002013-10-03T12:50:30.436-07:00They think they will be the new gentry of the new ...They think they will be the new gentry of the new Dark Ages. Who gives a shit what the serfs think? <br /><br />Some scientific studies of late have shown that the better off people are, the less empathy they have for anyone else. I'd say that asshat was walking proof of the premise.Syrbal/Labryshttp://www.herlanderwalking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-65310665931511278232013-10-03T12:00:56.988-07:002013-10-03T12:00:56.988-07:00You think those people are crazy.
I rather suspect...You think those people are crazy.<br />I rather suspect that they find their attitudes profitable and hence rational.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.com