I just read back over some old threads and noticed something.
Early defeats in the South Pacific in WW2 were the fault of isolationist Republicans who did not properly man the Phillipines.
And modern day Republicans are not isolationist enough.
Cunning.
Is it possible to even decide on the facts anymore? I am not talking about opinions, but facts.
And is everything about money and partisan politics? Is this all that human history is?
It seems to me there is strain of extremist in the world today who is not satisfied unless everyone else is unsatisfied.
They assume that human history and all that compels it, can be boiled down to a D or an R behind the name.
These people are dangerous. Extremes meet in an ugly little circle of hate and mutual distrust.
So I think it might be a good idea when looking at history and subjects like WW2 to remember the enemies were: Tojo, Hitler and Mussolini...not the Republicans or the Democrats.
And considering the fact that there are people in the world today who would gladly wipe us off the face of the earth, if they could, no matter which party won the White House would it not be wise to remember who the enemy really is today?
Islamic fascism and the suicidal terrorism it glorifies is the enemy. And no I am not saying all Muslims are fascists. In fact I would say Muslims are targets themselves.
BTW, Adolph Hitler could not make it across the English Channel much less the Atlantic Ocean. FDR responded to his declaration of war because he felt that sooner or later the Nazis would have to be confronted.
In the 90's Saddam Hussein tried to kill an American president, broke a cease fire and gave refuge to one of the attackers in the first World Trade Center attack. Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1997.
What is the difference?
104 comments:
"Early defeats in the South Pacific in WW2 were the fault of isolationist Republicans who did not properly man the Phillipines."
I'm not sure what your source is for this. But given that FDR had been in power for a decade when the Japanese attacked, it's factually incorrect.
As for your larger point about extremes meeting, I'm not convinced. It's true that David Duke and Cindy Sheehan are arm in arm these days. But it's also true that Duke was always repudiated by the GOP, while the Democrats openly embrace their fringe elements. Hell, they even make them their senators and congressmen and presidential nominees.
flenser:
My source is the just the usual ravings of the lunatic left. I have heard this several times, even here from a certain visitor from the fringe.
And yes do extremes meet. There are a lot of Democrats out there who would not want to be identified with Cindy Sheehan anymore than you would want to be identified with Duke.
In fact I consider Pat Buchanan to be extreme, but there are people on the right who do not.
The interesting thing about extremists, is that they rarely think of themselves that way.
In fact I would say that anyone who is willing to write off tens of millions of his fellow Americans as the enemy because they voted for the other guy is an extremist.
david:
My point is that placing blame on anyone other than the enemy is pointless. It is like saying the US is responsible for the Jews killed by Hitler because our country restricted immigration.
The point is we too often get sidetracked in placing blame on the wrong people.
No doubt the isolationists should have seen a lot of things, they did not...but WW1 was not a popular war and there were a lot of people then [as now] who think we can just hide behind our oceans.
knucklehead:
Yes, the more people demonize each other, the easier it is to justify actually hurting other people.
Knucklehead
I did the research. The Democrats had majorities in Congress. Very large majorities in some cases. In 1932 the Democrats had something like 78% of all House seats.
And bear in mind that not all Republicans of the time were isolationists. They were a subgroup within a minority. The exaggerated attention the isolationists are given by history is something of a mystery.
Yes, remember who the real enemy is.
I suppose that would be Bush, right? Oddly enough, I don't count you as one of the comrades in the fight against terrorism and the promotion of liberty in the Middle East. Quite the opposite, I tend to see you as a partisan hack with no deep principles to speak of. Ever wonder why you don't get no respect here?
terrye
The enemy are the left, both foreign and domestic. That includes the bulk of the Democratic party today. The Middle East theater of operations is only one front in a much larger war, much as Italy was just one of the counties we were up against in WWII.
From the standpoint of Kerry, Dean, Galloway, and their ilk, the jihadis are useful cannon-fodder.
The fact that the jihadis themselves regard the Western left as useful idiots does not change that. If/when the Western right is defeated, the left and Islam will have to fight it out between themselves as to who is top dog. But for now they are united against their common enemy.
All this is plain to anyone who follows the commentary coming from the left, includng the nutcase we covered yesterday calling for the volent overthrow of the Bush "regime".
terrye
"In fact I would say that anyone who is willing to write off tens of millions of his fellow Americans as the enemy because they voted for the other guy is an extremist."
Any definition of "extremist" which includes the majority of the people in the country is not a very useful one, IMO. Whether you like it or not, the majority of people who support the Democrats would rather see us lose the shooting war in Iraq then see the GOP get credit for a victory. What would you call such people?
Whether such people are labled extremists or the enemy is not important. It is important to notice that they exist, and not to keep pretending, as many do, that the leadership of the Democratic party is not represenatative of its supporters.
You know you have gone astray when mark is giving you dittos.
"Some of you folks really do yourselves a disservice by claiming we on the other side of the aisle are Leninsts bent on installing a command economy meant to enslave the masses to the state. "
Oops, another logic fallacy, Mark.
How 'bout "Most democrats are not left-wing jerks, but most left-wing jerks are democrats."
Is that a little clearer, for ya?
Buddy
""Most democrats are not left-wing jerks, but most left-wing jerks are democrats."
I think you are mistaken in this. It may be true in Texas or Indiana, but it's not true at all in the Democrat bastions on the coasts. Your typical New York Democrat is at least a socialist, and large numbers are outspoken communists(Viva Chavez!). I meet them every day.
As I pointed out to terrye, somebody is electing the current crop of Democratic leadership. Unless we want to follow marks thinking and blame it all on a Rovian plot, the only logical course is to recognize that they are fairly representative of the typical Democratic voter.
That thought is so unsettling to some people that they will come up with elaborate theories as to why it s not true. Has the Mississipi been renamed de nial?
Flenser, Terrye, if I may barge in, Peter UK, some months ago, opined elsewhere that the White House, at the head of this huge economy and its vast treasure treasure, is such a "glittering prize" (Peter's memorable phrase) that throwing away the rest of the world is not a problem for this era's incarnation of the 'out' party. Ergo, "Screw everything that might keep us out of the White House!"
Ergo BDS, ergo the new isolationism (which also gains Dem impetus from the trade-unionist desire for Smoot-Hawley redux, which would be the page-one issue did it not create for the party the problem of screwing the little-guy-as-WalMarter, and were it not for the astoishingly strong recovery from The Bubble and 911).
markg8
"..or maybe have to work two jobs to make ends meet."
Judging by the amount of time you spend on this site, and others, you don't even work one job. Mind telling us what it is you do for a living?
Flenser, I see your point, re constitution of the party. The Dems I see herebouts are mostly conservative "legacy" Dems. The mouthfoaming subversives are in volume, tho, just down the road, nested-up in the faculty of University of Texas/Austin/Travis County. Thank God I don't have to see 'em at the grocery store in Dripping Springs. I see little good in their being. I guess I'm an extremist. Okay, no, they have families, we can't hang 'em. I guess I'm a semi-extremist.
\;-)
flenser and knuck:
So Zell Miller is a leftist? What about Joe Lieberman?
I am talking about absolutists who have no capacity for moderation and who assume that anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy.
This annoys me because I believe in that people should have some right to privacy, I don't want to see big cuts in medicare and medicaid, I don't want to see Marbury vs Madison overturned, I don't think Martin Luther King was a bad man and I don't want to see any and all moderates demonized on threat of banishment by the right.
By the same token I think that Michael Moore is a traitor. I think that Bill Clinton was an incompetent oppurtunist and I don't like be treated like a fascist because I voted for George Bush.
And I think both exremes are bad for politcal discourse.
"...mak(ing) ends meet (doesn't) "unwant" the children...."
Tou-fricken-che, Knucklehead.
The very opposite & inverted, i'd say--'wanted children cause ends to be met'.
BTW, flenser, my point in my post was not that Republicans did not do their job in arming the military before the second WW, it was in the fact that some partisan Democrats had convinced themselves of that.
Much like the partisan Republicans who were so sure that FDR allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor and "lied us into a war".
Point, Terrye--tho they kept their mouths shut until the war was over (the Pearl Harbor Commission wasn't empaneled until long after VJ Day--unlike the 911 "Commission").
knuck:
I don't think I am making my point here.
We keep talking about leftists being out of control, well yeah, in many ways they are right now...when I was a kid it was the right that was out of control and they could be either Democrat or Republican..and then it went left again with the Viet Nam war.
In both cases, left and right, Democrat and Republican people tend to get out of control when they demonize their opponents and take away their humanity.
Look at mark here. He obviously does not think of Repbulicans as regular human beings.
I know some very strong prolifers who come very close to the same kind of single minded condemnation. But as a general rule, they almost always respect life.
But I think there is a tendency in both sides of of the political spectrum for certain kinds of people to just keep pushing more and more until they come full circle.
I think people should be able to disagree and still be on the same side sometimes.
I know when we did the post on Civil Rights I was actually offended by some of the remarks, but that does not mean the people I disagreed with are bad people. We just disagree, people do that sometimes.
The Fat cats that don't give a rat's ass about the little guy, for sure, Terrye, are power centers in both parties.
The Right, tho, has a dozen power centers, and the Left seems to have but two--the FCs and the Reds.
The numbers of moderate Dems are great but diffused--outside of Zell Miller, Joe Lieberman, and a very few other muted voices, where is their power center?
And Zell & Joe are being cast out--by the DU & MoveOn types (who will hopefully get a comeuppance from Hillary--provided George Soros and Bill Clinton don't decide to rapproach).
knuck:
Lieberman is a decent man. He deserves respect. He actually condemned Clinton when most of his party would not.
If a guy like this can not get some respect then I would say that people like me should remain independent and not be Republicans.
At least you two haven't accused each other of eating babies for profit.
knuck:
Maybe, but I have to be honest I don't like being told what to do and I disagree with a lot of social issues when it comes to the Republicans.
I am afraid that Republicans are underestimating the Democrats.
I think the Democrat party is dead now..but it going to come back to life, just like it has before, and when it rises again I think the issues it will win on will be domestic.
Someone like Bayh could give the Republicans trouble down the road and thinking the Democrats are just a bunch of lefties could prove a mistake.
If a leader comes along with a credible foreign policy who does not talk about militarizing the borders or throwing people off of medicaid or outlawing abortion or whatever...I think the Republicans could be in trouble.
knuck:
Do you think AlQaida cares if you are a Republican or a Democrat?
Do you think that the servicemen and women in this country who are Democrats are the enemy?
There is a difference between an enemy and political opponent.
Jefferson and Adams were opponents, but they were not enemies.
And let it be remmebered that in that Civil War you spoke of, 600,000 men lost their lives.
When it was over Lincoln had the band play Dixie.
...but then got shot by somebody from Dixie.
...meaning, of course, that you can be a diamond, but that a diamond can be worn in a goat's ass.
That's the point of departure--not who is good or bad, but whether a person has a duty or not to assess whether or not his/her allegiances are to a party whose net effect is good or bad.
buddy:
No, he was shot by an actor who was never in the war at all.
I guess this is my point.
George Bush is the first Repbulican I ever voted for.
I have been a Democrat most of my life.
So when Republicans say that Democrats are and always have been racist
That is me they are talking about.
When you say that Democrats are and always have been socialists.
That is me and most of my family you are talking about.
The list goes on.
terrye
"And I think both exremes are bad for politcal discourse."
As I have said before, I don't recognize the existence of "both extremes", or of the "moderates".
That is, the things themselves exist, but the labels being attached to them are not accurate. It's a subject worth a post sometime. For now, I'll just note that the "moderates" seem to make up no more than twenty percent of the country, and the "extremists" the other eighty percent. And that eighty percent mostly regard themselves as moderates.
I realize that people who have spent a liftime regardng Republicans as the bad guys will find it difficult to break completely with their past. Roger Simon and thibaud have the same difficulty. Their solution is to say that both parties are equally bad. I guess it's a step in the right direction.
I once read a speech given by Taft after Pearl Harbour. He did not blame the whole thing on FDR. He urged everyone to get together behind their country and their president. I wish I could find the link. The contrast between the 1930's isolationists and the lose-at-all-costs Democrats could not be more clear.
I regard your comments about the GOP as a kind of back-handed compliment. They remind me very much of the way the left talks about America - if it's not completely without blemish, then it's no better than the USSR. The most minor infraction by America was seen as directly comparable to the most serious crimes by the communists.
It's a free country, so you can suggest that certain "extremist Republicans" like David are racists if you like. You can expect to get smacked around for it though.
The fire hydrant at the dog show here:
You two have boiled it down to the man/woman thing--women 'turn' opponents by meeting on common ground, men just kill the enemy.
Takes both kinds to...to...ah, crap, lost my train of thought.
Who's in YOUR Big tent, Mark? List your constituency by the usual earmark: "Who is most vulnerable to class warfare demamgoguery?"
"demamgoguery': (adverb) pissing off your mammy with poltroonish blather.
terrye
"I have been a Democrat most of my life.
So when Republicans say that Democrats are and always have been racist
That is me they are talking about."
I realize it's a problem. I once asked Roger Simon how the blind Jewish loyality to the Democratic party could be explsined, given that FDR refused entry to the US to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler.
I did not get an answer.
The Democratic party is now what it has been since the late sixties, early seventies. It has not changed, you have. As just about eveyone has noted, it's Iraq position is copied from it's playbook on Vietnam. Bush is to be the new Nixon, resgning in disgrace and ushering in a new era of Democrat dominance.
As for it's racial policies, they have not changed in a couple of hundred years. The minority they seek to pick on does change from time to time. They have always been protecting "their" people from certain "others". Whats the point of winning power if you can't reward your people and punish the others?
flenser:
I am not attacking the GOP for heaven's sake. I would say they do a good enough job of attacking each other. Harriet Miers is a case in point.
Most Americans do not want to see abortion illegal across the board.
Most Americans do not want to see big cuts in social programs.
Most Americans are not nearly as far right as you are on a lot of things and most Americans don't want to live in an America where people are always at odds.
People are more varied and flexible than that.
They might agree with one party on somethings but not everything.
Not everyone even agrees on the definition of judicial activism.
This country is not black and white, it never has been.
I would say the moderates make up about 35% to 40% with 30% or so at either extreme.
Bill Clinton was a two term president too. That means a lot of people are not that partisan.
They just suffer with the ones who are.
flenser:
If you want to know the truth I think you and mark have a lot in common.
I did not call David a racist. I never did that.
Well, the net is for hyperbole--words have to add what proximity removes. So people overstate as a matter of course. Social programs, for instance--being 'for or 'against' seems to be whether or not yone gives a damn about others.
But wait--what if it's not the question of relief, but the question of duration, incentive--and what is in the long-term interest of the short=term beneficiaries?
Suddenly the 'for' and 'against' switch places. It's all in the terms. For or against what? The programs, or the people? And in what duration-frame?
For me, the "Wisconsin Program" has answered the big questions, on that.
terrye
"If you want to know the truth I think you and mark have a lot in common."
That's funny, mark seems to think that you and he have a lot in common. Maybe the extremss do meet.
"Bill Clinton was a two term president too. That means a lot of people are not that partisan."
The second does not logically follow from the first.
"Most Americans are not nearly as far right as you are on a lot of things and most Americans don't want to live in an America where people are always at odds."
You have no idea what my positions are on most things. The ones you do have an idea on, I'm in agreement with the majority of Americans, as indicated by elections and polls.
As for people being at odds, the only solution for that is for everyone to agree. I can't see you going for that yourself.
Essentially the "Democratic hawks" like yourself want the country to be run by people who are Democrats, but who are willing to fight the war. It should not come as a surprise to you to discover that most Republicans are not eager to see their party become any more of a clone of the Democrats than it already is.
If keeping the borders open and abortion on demand legal are pressing issues to you, then I agree that you ought not be supporting the Republicans.
Well--I'm not the "Christian Right' that I know of. I do wonder why it so terrorizes so much of the left. Abortion?
Abortion is a horrid issue but you need to at least acknowledge that it comes from a place as deep down as the oppo's point about women's rights.
To the CR, it's not about taking of that right, but rather about taking of a life. Some things have no common ground. Policy-wise, Roe/Wade is vulnerable not on the issue of women's rights, but on the issue of the federal role. You know that. But will that stop you from demagoguing it?
There are two *broad* answers to "the poor" from where we stand now.
1) keep upping the income distribution and taxes and accept that affect on GDP growth, and that effect on keeping the poor static, or
2) free the economy from as much drag as possible and offer as much upward-mobility as we can (NCLB is part of that, of course).
Tough choice--Jungle or Plantation?
But the anti-plantation pro-dynamism people may--just may--be interested in the poors' welfare in a quieter and more effective way than are the pro-plantation, anti-dynamism people.
You know all this. But will it stop you from demagoguing it?
"...off in Africa somewhere...."
...a change of heart on foreign aid, mark?
buddy:
I work with poor old people everyday who worry about things like buying food and medicine.
I am not talking about demagoguing anything.
This is not some debate to them.
I didn't mean you, Terrye--I was answering Mark. Personally, I welcome all the Democrats into the war effort, and, I hope that when it's over the DUs will be gone, and the Dems will have a new gen up (Bayhe, as you mentiomned), and the country can get back to the better days of merely hard, but not apocalyptic, politics.
The 50s, in a lot of ways, tho not all, were a high point in civic life. Dole is a high point in American character. The guy who can't talk is in ever other thread condemned for outsmarting you. Like Knuck said--or Flenser was it--a big ball of spaghetti is complex and interconnected but in the end is just a big ball od spaghetti.
mark:
Don't help.
Look out, Terrye, I'm gonna dream about you again tonight--
\;-D
Damm it Buddy, you made a complete meal out of my spaghetti analogy!
Right now I feel more comfortable with the Republican party, but success can be dangerous and people should not assume that just because the other guys is losing right now, the same can't happen to you too. The Democrats made that mistake themselves and look where it got them.
Nobody is ever right all the time.
narkg8
You are a character. Bush wins election by over three million votes, and its "paper thin". But Clinton is elected, twice, with less than fifty percent of the vote and you see that as vindication for the Democratic party.
"...I work with poor old people everyday who worry about things like buying food and medicine...."
Exactly why it's a tragedy to have DC turn every collected dollar into fifty cents worth of services and fifty cents worth of administration costs. should follow the inverse power law, and be 80-20. The "K Factor" eats the misapplied 30% because it's about politics and not efficiency.
See Wretchard on the same matter of the universally-destructive effects of egregious political distortion--as applied to Tookie Williams.
Goddamnit, mark, you shit--what do you think you and your bunch will do to GWB the instant he sends the strike on the Janjaweed? Yes, politics are distorting right & wrong--because you people are the party of the oppo, and you will cause a loss of the WOT--starting in Iraq--if USA strikes in Darfur/Khartoum.
knucklehead:
I have known some conservatives I was not crazy about either, but that does not mean I despise the Repubalicans, I never did.
Even when I was voting for Democrats I did not hate Republicans.
And when I thought of liberal growing up, I thought of the kind of people that did not fight letting women get the vote, did not fight letting working people get things like unemployment insurance and in general were willing to help people out when they needed it.
I think that overtime liberals have become reactionary because they were in control for too long and did not know where and when to draw the line.
In some ways I think the Democrats were victims of their own success.
I don't think anyone wants to return to 1925 either. Laissez faire is dead and gone along with communism.
I will be absent from the blog for awhile. goodbye.
terrye - i feel your pain.
I have been a Democrat most of my life.
So when Republicans say that Democrats are and always have been racist
That is me they are talking about.
When you say that Democrats are and always have been socialists.
That is me and most of my family you are talking about.
Look, I was a Democrat (and Labour Party supporter) most of my life too. But when i hear Republicans say something to the effect that the Democratic party is and always has been racist I do not take that to mean "That is me they are talking about." At least, not in the sense you seem to be taking it. No decent Republican of my acquaintance thinks that i personally used to be racist.
What I take them to mean is that the impact of the parties I once voted for was in fact racist. And they are right. And even more right for the "socialist" tag.
I am culpable to the extent that I formerly misperceived that fact. But then I'm culpable of many foolish things associated with my younger years - as I imagine we all are.
The givers of Sophie's Choice, the forcers of Solomonic Decisions--these are the grand distortions of the "permanent campagn" that you all adore as Clinton realpolitik.
But call the "permanent campaign" what it is, Mark: 100% opposition 100% of the time on 100% of the oppo's attempts to govern per the job description.
Call it for what it does, Mark: places the party ahead of the country--nay, substitutes the party FOR the country.
Terrye
I admire your courage. It's times like these that I so hopelessly wish I were more articulate.
But as for the Democrats being political opponents vs enemies, I blame the MSM and the strong influence of the left via blogs and Soros money. All have contributed to the extremist rhetoric that has taken over the Democratic party.
Bush does share a part of the responsibility, though I don't think he had a choice. I'm speaking of the fact he has disdain for the MSM and doesn't allow them into the inner circles like the Democrats do.
Thus the MSM considers the Bush administration the enemy, rather than merely the government over which they are watchdogs. Add this resentment to their normal disdain for Republicans and you end up with hit piece after hit piece against the administration and all of its policies.
And this feeds the Left who feeds it back to the Dems. And since the Dems have no center of gravity in the leadership (their being almost blackmailed into allowing Dean to be DNC chair is both a symptom and a cause of their hysterical rhetoric) they have drifted farther and farther to the Left.
Which feeds into the MSM which feeds it back out and fires up the Lefty blogs and the circle jerk continues.
The Dems do not have the Whitehouse, they do not have the Senate, they do not have the House, they are losing the SC, and they have no access to the administration. But they do have the MSM because the MSM hates the administration as much, if not more, than they do. So they're under the illusion that all they have to do is yell louder to get their power back.
If the Dems did not have the MSM, they would be forced to look at themselves and find a center of gravity and real policies. But their dependence on the media has made them lazy and reactionary.
I don't think the Dems are an enemy. I think the Left is. And the Left is eating the Dems.
Terrye, don't be gone long. I needs my doses.
Syl--wonderful....
but back to mark--"paper=thin" 2004 victory? three percent is a historically BIG (presidential) electoral margin, and what about the rest? Did the American people not landslide your ass in the senate, house, and governorships? Did spokesmouth Tom Daschle--protege of the guy who invented the modern smear--George Mitchell--not get the American people's boot up the yinyang?
You think you can just WISH it was all a squeaker and have it have BEEN so?
Allright guys,
I go away to get some work done and come back to this:
I will be absent from the blog for awhile. goodbye.
So what the hell is going on? Anyone want to fess up? And no, I'm not going to go back and read all 87 comments. It looks like dull stuff: name calling, hooting, and overgeneralization, Harriet Miers redux. Do I need to whack someone upside the head? Just because markg8 is here doesn't mean you'll can go wild and start hooting and stomping.
All of this could have been easily avoided were it not for Lord North's obstinate stupidity. And Fox's perfidy, of course.
The Rockingham Whigs have been the only party of true sensibility these past 270 years and I fear that until a majority of those bearing the responsibility of suffrage recognize that fact little good will be accomplished.
BTW - FDR had a majority in the Senate and House from his election in '32 straight through the '40 campaign where one of his biggest promises was not "to send any American boys to foreign wars". The size of the American garrison anywhere in the world would seem to be the responsiblity of the party which had held both executive and legislative power for the nine years and eight months preceding Japan's attack.
Terrye
I think that overtime liberals have become reactionary because they were in control for too long and did not know where and when to draw the line.
This is the bottom line.
We NEED both the Jungle AND the Plantation. We need to raise all boats but also to help the lone swimmers reach shore.
There's a tension here and it should never be removed.
That's one of the reasons the slow death of the Dems by the Lefty viral infection is so dangerous to us. (The Reps need an honorable opposition.)
That's why the activist groups, such as the ACLU, are also so dangerous. America's creative tension is lost when they force courts to decide issues once and for all.
Well, invading Darfur was illegal according to international law. (Iraq, on the other hand, had lost its sovereignty due to violations of the ceasefire agreement).
The Left, as usual, considers itself above the law. Further, they would never say invade Darfur and Iraq, it's only invade Darfur instead of Iraq.
exactly, Syl--I urge you read Wretchard's (short, pointed) meditation on why Tookie-whores get Tookies executed. Why PC has finally--inevitably--sent white Australians storming the streets. Distorted politics are going to be the end of us, if we don't watch out. Won't be the first time in human history, either. Tower of Babel actually exists--near Baghdad.
mark
Even Mara Liason (sp?) of NPR disagrees with you. It would make no difference if Bush listened to every tom, dick, and harry in America and called them all in for Friday chats, he would still be doing the same thing. He believes in it, as do all of us here.
The 'bubble' thing is just a hit piece that shows the resentment of the press that Bush has so much disdain for them.
The press called Reagan out of touch for 8 years. Same deal.
Chuck--LOL--
Knucklehead--yep--look at SarBox in the private sector--average compliance cost 600K/yr/company. Yet, some say the 'wasted' SarBox $$$ is bringing in foreign investors--no longer as scared of us as under the Big Bubba Bubble Rules. Total cost/benefit is one thing--however it plays out--but for certain the one-size-fits-all theory of regulation stifles individual ready-to-go-public enterprise below the 600K mad-money level.
Syl,
"The Reps need an honorable opposition."
Yep. The Republic - not just the Republican Party needs a "water's edge" opposition and it sure as hell doesn't need a couple of "me too" Dems trying to climb in the front car of the parade after a major battle is over. Your previous post lays out the reasons for the current state of affairs quite well. I just don't see how the differences that you elucidate are going to be reconciled within the party as it exists.
There is a growing space for a new party but the Dems retention of the Blue Castles - and all the patronage that goes with their control - make it extraordinarily difficult for centrists (if there are enough of them) to gain control and change direction. It's an interesting political conundrum to examine from the outside but it's sure no fun to live through.
The fact that some American troops are not living through it is going to make it very hard for those who understand the price being paid to forgive and forget. Dean &c. are generating an animus among many Americans that will never fade.
I'm sorry--misleading--smaller enterprises have to expense in the lower range of the average, natch.
Mark, your 3:48PM--yes, in the great cauldron of DC all sorts of things are bubbling--the heat goes up, so does the bubbling. I could sit here and type up a laundry list of good things being said a few feet away from your laundry list (see what Jack welch just said on Fox--how what Bush has done to power the economy is nothing short of miraculous--this is THE Jack welch--of GE--America's top businessman, as he is called--and not a GOPer at all). Newsweek has gone so far down the Koolaide sink that it carries no weight outside Newsweek, and TIME Magazine?
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Time Inc. today slashed 105 employees from its rolls, including longtime company heavyweights such as Jack Haire, exec VP in charge ofcorporate ad sales; Richard Atkinson, exec VP in charge of the news and information group; Eileen Naughton, president, Time magazine; David Kieselstein, president, the parenting group; Fred Poust, who ran corporate ad sales under Mr. Haire; and Steve Buerger, who also worked in corporate sales.
see any link there? Poor out-of-work people, right here at Christmas--shame on you, Mark.
Peter, many a greasy pony-tailed tenure-hogging commie will soon be getting a classroom comeuppance, for sure.
Aww, Peter, that's a map. No fair.
chuck
If you want the Cliff Notes version, its;
"I'm a moderate centerist, you are an extremist!"
"No, I'M the moderate centerist, YOU are the extemist!"
But there were some worthwhile comments along the way. :)
"Laissez faire is dead. Probably even deader than communism."
Oh, I'm not so sure of that--the Golden Goose will seem just fine until some fine early November quatennial when someone quickly strangles it.
scroll on down, and read about "imputed income" and the Fairness Doctrine vs talk radio.
The thing is a continuum, and somebody will be at the bottom no matter what--in the land of trillionaires, a billionaire is 'poor'. In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is King.
So, here's the left argument "Let's ALL be poor, it's only fair."
And this ain't bad philosophy, really (no hurt feelings anymore), so long as two things don't exist: time and motion.
But if those two things DO exist, then the poor can rise and the rich can fall, and so why not have a chance, anyway, at some hope for a better tomorrow? If not for you, then your kids--or theirs, or theirs?
As opposed to a gray sameness forever, by government guarantee.
sorry, buddy, i think he's got you there re bush being in a bubble:
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2099
"When ya look up and see a big shimmering bubble wall," said Mr. Bush, "...ya gotta ask yourself, 'which side am I on?'"
LOLOL!
Peter, I've just spoken with Howard "Ted" Kerry of the DNC (Do Nothing Committee), and it seems that some sort of "race-memory" of the building of the Pyramids is still about in nearby Egypt, and that some of these people have consented to hoist a Carrier Battle Group or two out of the Red Sea, and roll the vessels across the desert on giant date-palm tree trunks until it--the CBG, not the Red Sea, is within combat radius of the Janjaweed hideouts.
So, anyway, there, confusion eliminated, problem solved.
As for the first part how many times has the WH, the RNC or this blog for that matter mentioned Bin Laden (besides me) in the last month? How many mentions of John Murtha and Howard Dean? Yes, remember who the real enemy is.
Mark, I assume then that you think that if bin Laden were eliminated, all these problems --- Israel vs Palestine, Iranian nukes, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon --- would have gone away?
If so, how so?
If not, who's losing track of the real problem here?
terrye don't expect them to act like a big tent tolerant party anytime soon. It ain't part of the plan. They think the Help America Vote Act means we should bring back the poll tax. I pity you siding with them on your one overarching issue cuz it must be pretty damn uncomfortable on everything else.
Hmmm. There's the voting thing again. how'd that get into this thread?
No, but do you know the "riddle of the Sphinx"?
why no nose?
Napoleon shot it off?
The riddle is"What has four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening?"
the answer to the question is 'man' (crawls as a baby, walks as adult, needs a cane as an elder)...so the riddle of the Sphinx is 'man"--what is 'man'?
the idea is, there's always some question, there is no anwer that doesn't ask another question.
So the true answer to "What is the Riddle of the Sphinx?" is "The Riddle of the Sphinx".
right, they think they nose everything.
Always trying to sinus up against the english.
It was all predicted by Nostrildamus.
"Snot my fault!" they cried when caught,
boogering up Iraq,
for naught.
Absolutely great thread.
Incoherence, and the 'merlot' of the evening, conspire in my not saying more. (could there be a connection therein?)
I thank you all.
I had thought the thread was disastered,
until this by Luther
who has read the thing plastered.
Plastered I was
But not enough
to not look through oz
and see life in the rough
Life in the rough
is a sure-enough story.
that's where the pain is
and sometimes the glory.
glory without pain
is like rain without clouds
rare but no less real
like freedom without zeal
well no body's gonna top that--freedom without zeal as rare as rain without clouds.
You're a poet
who don't know it
but your feet show it
they're Longfellows!
And on that, Buenos Nachos, Muchachos!
Manana, compadre!
dangit, 3rd try--those lines won't let me sleep. this is gonna embarrass me tomorrow, but what the hell it's only the internet:
"On Iraq Voting Day"
Freedom and zeal,
like the rain and the cloud,
are soft and sweet,
until thundering loud.
Who hears that storming
ain't long in the crowd,
he rode off on the lightning
to keep us unbow'd.
He'll come home a hero,
but perhaps in a shroud,
and gone to Valhalla,
beyond the word proud.
Gone from the things
God has somehow allowed
(the bullets and bombs
and graves freshly plowed),
gone from the going
and promises vowed,
gone making the future
like rain from a cloud.
.
I'd like to give that little simpleton verse to Terrye, who has a heart as big as the Oklahoma sky under which she was borned.
Like the reindeer races, what counts is the Finnish.
It's a good thing puns ain't illegal--as they ought to be.
\;-)
we're punnishing anyone tom-fool enough to be reading this stuff.
God save the Queen, The Star-Spangled Banner, Waltzing Matilda, or my fave, Dixie ?
that, or we could sing shortened versions of all of 'em, in sequence.
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