The Good Post Gallery

[Antonio the Sixth]

Paul may be exaggerating (he probably is), but he's still raising a very important issue, that need to be discussed. Is the U.S. considered a "battlefield" in the war on terror and, if so, what is acceptable and what is not.

I said before I have no problem with the drone strikes on legitimate military targets. A terrorist leader is a walking command center and it doesn't matter what nationality he is. Sure it would be better to capture him and put on trial, but it's not always possible. In some situations, drone strike is less riskily not only for military personnel, but also innocent bystanders. I prefer the process being put under more restrictive rules, but I do not contest the idea. Neither does Paul, who said a dozens of times that individual attacking the U.S. should be dealt with accordingly, whether domestic or foreign. He has his doubts about drones, but admitted he can't make a definitive opinion yet. 

What I have problem is the thing getting out of control. I've never been a Paultard and everybody who knows me here can attest, but I agree with Rand and it's great this filibuster happened

[Antonio the Sixth]

Such cute revisionist fantasies.

The most "moderate" thing HW did was raise a gasoline tax.  Yeah, much further left wing than the oh I don't know, multiple tax raises undertaken by Mr. Conservative Hero Ronald Reagan.

HW's presidential re-election bid, where he addressed most everything with "targeted tax cuts", was hardly the definition of "moderate".  Neither was his bending over and having Pat Buchanan deliver his infamous "culture wars" speech at the RNC.

[Antonio the Sixth]

True!

[Antonio the Sixth]

A couple from our discussion of the 2013 papal conclave:

[snip]

These were very interesting reads indeed.

I'll add this one:

It's backed by a pretty authoritative Argentine journalist though.

I hope you are not talking about Horacio Verbitsky, because calling him an authoritative journalist is pretty hilarious.
He's a Kirchnerist hack who regularly ignores corruption of the people he agrees with and completely destroys the people he disagrees with. And while a lot of his investigations during the Menem government were good, during the next decade he started to resort to baseless accusations as a regular modus operandi.

Plus he was a terrorist, so excuse me if I take the things he writes about with skepticism. And Antonio knows that I'm not exactly a right winger, so my opposition to him has nothing to do with his ideology, but more to the fact that he is a scumbag.


Also, several people involved in human rights causes (people who investigated and tried the last military junta, for example) have defended him. His only criticism might be that "he didn't do enough" which is something easy to say decades after the fact.


By the way, the election of Francis had quite some hilarious consequences around here. Since Bergoglio has been a longtime opponent of the Kirchners a lot of their allies went to the media the minute he was elected to destroy him and propagate the Verbitsky story (Kirchnerist "piquetero" Luis D'Elia for instance, wrote a tweet that basically says that Pope Francis was appointed by the imperialist United States to fight against the great South American revolutionaries, similar to what they did when they chose John Paul II to fight against the Soviet Union. I don't know if it's more hilarious the fact that he thinks Obama appoints the pope or something like that or the apparent feeling in the tweet that influencing people against the Soviet Union in a peaceful manner was bad )

But a large number of die-hard kirchnerist went the opposite way and pondered him like he was Jesus Christ himself calling the story bullcrap.
So, not only they are bipolar on this issue but considering that Cristina met with the Pope today and they were acting like buddies, it appears a lot of Kirchnerists were left hanging in the wind, and frankly, anything that puts the Kirchnerists into disarray (no matter how small or dumb the issue might be) is a good thing in my book.

Also beware of some of the pictures circulating around the web that apparently show Bergoglio with Videla. At least a few of them were "Fakes" (in the sense that it wasn't Bergoglio in the picture but some other guy).


I'm an atheist and I was very much opposed to the role Bergoglio had in the whole Gay marriage affair, but everyone I talked to in the past few days that has even a remote connection with the church or with him have told me he is a great person. So, I'm optimistic he will do good things for the people on issues like poverty, though unfortunately I don't expect much to really change with the church itself, but I hope I'm wrong.


Of course I'm not saying all these accusations are necessarily untrue. it's just that I question  the source and until we are presented with actual evidence of this, he should be considered an innocent man in this regard. Also, considering that the kirchnerists are all too happy to prosecute anyone, even though they might have had only an indirect relationship with the junta, I'm guessing that if there were factual evidence of crimes committed by bergoglio, the government would have tried to prosecute Bergoglio years ago.

Don't know why I bother since most of what I posted apparently is in Wikipedia too but in any case, I should say as a fellow fan of the San Lorenzo de Almagro Football club that even though we don't have any international cups, we have a Pope (and Viggo Mortensen )

[Antonio the Sixth]

It is also factually inaccurate depiction of the history. It is ironic that Inks bemoans us applying modern biases onto the Dred Scott decision, when in reality that is exactly what the Supreme Court was doing in 1857, applying the biases of Southern polticians from that 1850's onto the 1780's.

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This is factually innaccurate as they were in fact treated as such in Massachusetts stemming from the 1780 Constitution and subsequent interprations by the State Supreme Judicial Court in the years following its adoption. These were prior to 1787. There were other examples as well, that Justice Curtis points to in his dissent, but MA is the best case study in my opinion.

One has to remember that the extent of the racism at play grew over time. In Jefferson's time, slavery was considered as an evil that was dying of its own accord. In the 1820's, it was a consideed a "necessary evil", thanks to the growth of cotton after invention of the Cotton Gin. Around this time period, you had a shift in Southern Churches, who had been critical of slavery, but now switched and began to promote it, mostly to keep their flocks coming, who didn't appreciate being told they were going to hell because they owned slaves. The changed in the church as well as the reaction to Nat Turner's rebellion created a new generation of Southern politicians who thought that not only was slavery not immoral, but was in fact a moral, civilizing institution. That was the view of Jefferson Davis. John C. Calhoun and likely Justice Roger B. Taney as well, shifted from the "necessary evil" opinion that defined their generation of poltiicians and came into line with the view of the 1850's. There is a quote from Calhoun from 1838 indicating this shift.

The people of this "de-generation" of Southern Politicans were desperate. It is hard to describe them as anything else. As you move closer to the Civil War, their demands and their views became more extreme, more demanding and less alligned with any kind of principles. They willingly embraced things like states rights to protect the slave states, and then abandoned them (some went as far as to insist that only through the embrace of slavery by the north, could the South's rights be preserved), when it served their purpose.

Thus I get to nine:

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This was the height of hypocrisy and in my view, the classic case of covering yourself by accusing someone else of doing the exact same thing that you are doing.

In my view, the Supreme Court was projecting its own biases onto a Constitutional Convention for the purposes of convenience. There were states that granted as much as the right to vote to blacks in the 1787, and nothing in the Constitution stips these persons of that right. The insinuation otherwise is that Elbridge Gerry and his collegues from MA, were either voting in ignorance of the consequences for some of their state's citizens or willfully voting to strip person's within those states, or that well known Abolitionists such as Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were purposely affixing themselves to a document that would have forceably implanted on a group of states, someone else's views regarding who was and was not a citizen in those states.

If anything, the delegates of the convention were envisioning an America one day free of slavery, but that for the moment the best path towards that end was to structure a union that could stand the tests of time, even if that meant accepting the three-fifths compromise as a way to get started on that road without a breakup. That would certainly be more reflective of the true views of Washington, Franklin and many of the other delegates there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Stop trolling, BRTD.

[Antonio the Sixth]

@Ben: Couldn't you just put a link?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Again, if I were to introduce a female speaker at a professional conference in my field, and in the course of listing her accomplishments, said she was the hottest woman in the field, people would think it was pretty inappropriate.  Doesn't actually matter whether I'm her boss or not.  It's just inappropriate and unprofessional, because it reinforces the idea that women should be judged on their looks in the professional world, and that her looks are part of the reason why we should value her.

And of course whether Harris says she was offended or not has no bearing on whether Obama should have said it in the first place.  At the time Obama said it, he had no way of knowing what Harris's reaction was going to be!  (And in the very public context in which this occurred, it's possible that Harris didn't like it, but didn't say so because she didn't want to feed the political storm over a relatively minor transgression on Obama's part.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Old, but it deserves to be there:

Dangerous, corrupt, reactionary, hypocritical, pathological liar

Let's have a look in detail.
Accountability. If you remember, Harper came in on a platform of 'good governance' and his government passed the FAA. Now, Harper is the first PM to be brought down for contempt of Parliament related to corruption and lies. He has refused to disclose to Parliament the cost for his programs. His minister(s) have lied to Parliamentary committees. Furthermore, Harper shut down Parliament rather than face scrutiny over the Afghan detainees scandal. In 2005, Harper and his acolytes - then in opposition - offered dying MP Chuck Cadman a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for his vote to bring down the Liberal government. Bribery. The Conservatives broke Elections Canada rules in the 2006 campaign. Nice job on accountability, Harpo.

Fiscal prudence. My friend always tells me how Harper is good for the economy. Let's take a trip down memory lane, Tory friends. We have a $55+ billion deficit, when we had a $16 billion surplus in 2006 and a $38 billion deficit in 1993. Good job on that one. Let's also take a look at the G20. It cost us more than a billion, part of which went to build an artificial lake - next to a real lake, cottages and a bunch of very useful things in middle-of-nowhere Ontario. The G20 also saw, btw, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history and serious allegations of police brutality, lack of serious care for injuries, denial of access to counsel and arrest without warrant.

Again on fiscal stuff, Harper bought a whole slew of F-35s without a competitive bid. Saying that they'll cost $75 million each. A report from the US Government Accountability Office said the price doubled from $81-million (U.S.) to $156 million per plane.

Low taxes. The old creed of the right. 2007-2009 the share of federal revenue from personal income tax went from 55.5% to 60.6%. The richest 1% are taxed less than the poorest 10%. Corporate taxes went from 20% to 15.4% (+ another $5.6 billion in corporate tax cuts in the 2011/2012 budget). Corporate taxes are lower in Canada than in practically every other country: the UK is 21-28%, NZ is 28%, Germany is 29.8%, Australia is 30%, France is 33%.¹ The argument for low corporate taxes is that it encourages business growth. Sidelining the fact that this isn't a proven fact, I don't think that Germany or Australia with their high corporate taxes are third-world countries with no business. My Tory MP tells me his priority is to "keep taxes low". For who? Harpo's friends in the tar sands business or Canadians?

Fiscal stimulus! Good for the economy! More like 'pork and barrel spending'. I could attack this from Harper's 1997 or so point of view of neoliberalism and low spending, but I'll look from another angle. 60% of cash went to Tory constituencies, which make up 46% of Canada. Funding didn't go to green jobs, because Ecoenergy, Canada's successful green initiative, was terminated.

The environment. Dear Lord. Harper's government looks like the board of directors of some Calgary oil sands corporation. $1.4 billion in federal subsidies go to the very profitable as they are tar sands oil/gas corporations. Environment Canada's budget is less than that (1% of revenue). Environment ministers, all 5 in 5 years, have been failures. Rona Ambrose, John Baird, Jim Prentice, John Baird again and now some TV journalist. Harper broke the Kyoto Agreement, which we signed, pledging to go 6% below 1990 emissions. We went 35% above. Harper's -17% from 2005 would be +2.5% over 1990 levels - the weakest target in the west. Harper appointed Chris Essex, a climate change denier, to a prominent science/innovation position. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences had no funding in 2011. Our icebreaker Amundsen, outfitted for climate research... was leased to BP for oil exploration in the Arctic. At environmental conferences, Canada obstructed progress more than anybody else. Our role in the world as a leader for environmental progress and green policies has been squandered entirely. We won the Fossil of the Day in 2010 for the fourth day in a row. Harper's governments works with oil companies to lobby against climate legislation and promote dirty energy.

The West always throws hissy fits over the Senate. Harper supported triple-E senate reform and called it illegitimate and crony. Harper appointed a whole slew of Senators - including the likes of fat useless TV hack Mike Duffy or illiterate hockey coach Jacques Demers. Harper said an unelected Senate shouldn't block legislation. When the NDP's C-311 on climate change passed... the Senate killed it without debate.

Foreign policy. Canada has drawn sharp rebuke for its human rights policy. It cost us a seat on the UNSC. We voted against the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights (with the US, Australia and NZ).

In other stuff...
-child mortality have risen from 6th lowest to 24th lowest.
-one in seven Canadians live in poverty, and that number is increasing.
-Harper wants to change the name "Government of Canada" to the "Harper Government"
-Harper's government breaks all record for ultra-centralization of power and decision making.
-Canadian forces transferred Afghan prisoners to Afghan authorities, who systematically tortured them. Transferring prisoners to someone who you know will torture them is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. When a diplomat blew the whistle, Harpo derided him. Prorogued Parliament. Refused and still refuses to release uncensored documents. Accountability!
-Harper's government wants to eliminate the long form census - against the advice of every respected analyst, statistician and politician. The long form census provides municipalities, provinces with useful information for transit planning, urban development, housing policies, health policies and so forth.
-Harper practically fired the nuclear watchdog when she highlighted serious issues at a nuclear reactor
-Crime is down, but Harper wants to build super prisons rather than support rehabilitation - research shows such policies make criminals more likely to reoffend. Rehabilitation programs, victim aid initiatives have had budgets cut.
-Harper attempted to repeal gay marriage in 2006
-Harper broke his own legislation on fixed election dates
-Harper wants to eliminate tax subsidies to political parties, so that big corporations could fund his party as much as they wish while cutting revenue for smaller parties.
-Harper's government spent taxpayers money on useless TV ads boasting the stimulus just weeks before an "unwanted election" (quote from every Tory)

He's also a liar.
In 1997, he publicly supported coalitions of opposition parties including the Bloc. In 2004, he attempted to bring down the Liberal government and form a coalition including the NDP with Bloc support. Now he say's their illegitimate. Losers can't form coalitions. I'm sure that Baden-Wurttemberg will be pleased to hear that their government is illegitimate.

In this campaign, his security team expelled people from rallies for having Facebook links to the opposition. He refuses to take over 5 questions. He dodges serious questions, and derides the motion of contempt as a mere parliamentary shenanigan. Harpo, this is a parliamentary democracy. You rule as long as Parliament has confidence in you. This isn't a Consultative Assembly. The CPC attempted to prevent students from voting at Guelph.

Conservative MPs are basically forbidden from speaking. They rarely show up at all-candidates debates (ex: Julian Fantino avoided the media in the Vaughan by-election). The PMO must basically screen what they say. My own Tory MP hasn't proposed one private members bill since 2006. My Tory MP hasn't brought any jobs to his constituency - in fact, a defense facility moved out of this constituency.

So, yeah. Vote Conservative.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sequel time!

Can we just close the thread? Hash said everything that needed to be said.

Not really, that was pre-majority. Since he got a majority, it's been even worse. To complete that post I made:

-Turned Parliament into an echo chamber. This is more or less common to all majorities, Tory or not, so I won't be a hack and blame just him for that, but he's taken it to such an extent with the omnibus bills which allows him to pack just about everything he wants into bills and rams them through Parliament, sh**tting all over the opposition. Conservative backbenchers are totally useless stooges who just vote party-line (of course, the excessively strong partisanship is an issue for all parties, but Tory backbenchers are a whole new level imo). I haven't heard from my MP (a Tory backbencher) since the election nearly 2 years ago, except the propaganda pamphlet he sends out every few months to prove he's still alive. Again, I won't be a hack and blame just Steve for this, but he's taken it to a whole new level and it is extremely concerning - even if you're more pro-Harpo than I am - to see how this government has stifled parliamentary democracy, debate and accountability. And nobody cares, for a change.

-Our environmental policy has turned into even more of an embarrassing joke at this point. The Tories no longer even try to pretend to give a sh**t about the environment, they just walk out on the international stage and embarrass us. He pulled us out of Kyoto, sure Kyoto was a joke, but it's the symbolism of the act. It's basically as if Harper's cabinet is nothing more than the board of some oil company and Harper is nothing more than an oil lobbyist. He has totally destroyed environmental assessment for economic development projects, massively defunded Environment Canada and scientific research and silenced opposition to his various pipeline schemes (which, once again, involves shipping our natural resources to Asia or the US instead of feeding Ontario or Quebec...). All this in the name of "economic development" and "job creation", with no respect whatsoever for the environment. Harper is a disaster now, but his policies will be disastrous far after he leaves office.

To top it all of, we have a Natural Resources minister (Joe Oliver or something, a forgettable run-of-the-mill Purgatory retard) who goes out there to say that those who oppose Keystone or Pacific Gateway (two pipeline projects, the latter of which is contested by Aboriginal groups, environmentalists etc) are traitors, anti-Canadians and radicals/socialists funded by 'foreign' radicals and socialists (like George Soros...). No, this isn't a joke. This government, again, has only contempt for those who didn't vote for them. It responds to any kind of criticism or opposition with slander, lies, dishonesty and heavy-handed shut downs. "Government of Canada" my ass, more like "Government of the 40% Who Voted Purgatory"

-A slow and steady destruction of the public sector, all in the name of "fiscal responsibility" (perhaps laudable, but this government doesn't give a sh**t about fiscal responsibility in practice). We're being force fed an austerity agenda on the basis of an ideological "small government" agenda which aims to weaken government - particularly the more inconvenient parts of government, like those pesky scientists and their ideas about how the tar sands aren't the coolest thing ever or those environmental assessment boards or those commissions on human rights or women's rights. How dare they criticize Dear Leader?! Justified by lies of the genre that "Canada could end up like Greece", which is, of course, absurd. It has all created a terribly poisonous atmosphere in the public sector, making it very tough for students to find internships or placements and destroying the morale of many employees. It is backed by the detestable climate of public servant-bashing: lazy, inefficient, wasteful, useless, bloated, fat cats etc. (most of which are lies of course). Why can't we run this government like Wal-Mart or McDonalds, goddamn it!

-I might be a bit less critical of this government's austerity agenda if it gave proof that it was actually committed to "fiscal responsibility". But it isn't. It has paid lip service to the accountability agenda it was originally elected on in 2006. Countless ministers have been caught up in ethics scandal, and Harper stood by their side until their position became untenable. Peter McKay going on fishing trips on DND helicopters and taxpayers' money. Bev Oda (who had already lied to Parliament and illegally altered an official document) wanted to stay at a pricier hotel in London ($665 per night for three nights) and $16 orange juice, originally at the expense of the taxpayer. And now Peter Penashue... and the list goes on.

Or, how about the F-35 scandal, which the government is still committed to despite everybody in the world saying how much of a f-up that whole thing was. And how it seems to be costing more and more every week that goes by.

Or maybe how the government is spending tons of tax money on propaganda that tells us how great they are. Or even on propaganda to rewrite the history of the War of 1812 to promote their agenda of jingoistic Canadian nationalism. Thank god 2012 is over, I would have killed myself with more of those "WE DEFENDED OUR COUNTRY@!!!11 AND CANADA WAS BORN" ads.

Also, let's not forget the robocalls scandal. The Tories used robocalls to suppress voting in close ridings in the 2011 election. This is a serious case, but the government never gave a sh**t and killed the original outrage quickly.

However, it's all fine and dandy to extend corporate tax cuts to big businesses like those in the oil sand! We keep subsidizing the fantastic tar sands which are destroying the environment and sure as hell are rich enough to go without federal subsidies, or spending tons on propaganda and jails and fighter jets and guns. But the public servants are all lazy fat cats, and there's no money for the arts, sciences, research, culture, child care, healthcare, human rights, women rights or education. Nope. Who needs that kind of lousy socialist sh**t anyways? Let's run this country like a Wal-Mart.

-A repressive crime policy, rammed through in an omnibus bill, which builds more unneeded super-jails and even stiffer sentences. Abolished the gun registry, sure it was a sh**tfest and wasted money, but it also destroyed the records and registers which were very useful for law enforcement. We almost got a massive internet surveillance bill which would have allowed authorities to monitor the internet, thankfully it was abandoned when everybody realized how stupid it was and how Vic Toews was a massive douchebag. Still, we had more of the same ol' charming rhetoric, those who didn't support internet surveillance were branded by Toews as endorsing child predators. This from the government which said it abolished the long form census because it invaded our privacy and civil liberties. Really?

-A new immigration policy which allows the minister to arbitrarily designated "safe countries" and deny rejected refugee claimants the possibility to appeal. And the wonderfully named "Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act" goes too far, allowing the government to deport longtime non-citizens who committed only minor offenses (see editorial here)

-Allowed his backbenchers to re-open the abortion debate, although to his credit he himself has managed to steer clear from social conservative bullsh**t although he condones it (to be fair, he doesn't have much of a choice given how big the socon caucus is and how they might get pissed at him).

Probably forgot a few things, given how massively and catastrophically horrible these past 2 years have been for this country.

In conclusion, Stephen Harper is the worst PM in this country's history and a massive, horrible reactionary scumbag and pile of sh**t. I hope he dies in a fire. I'm kind of ashamed that he's "my" Prime Minister, but I have never felt that he is "my" Prime Minister given how he hates people like me and has nothing but contempt for us. God he sucks balls.
HP

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bushie isn't seeking for help, and he won't take any help from this forum (or anywhere else for that matter). All he's seeking for is attention.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It is either a vast left-wing conspiracy that, whenever "State representative/senator did ____, said ___" appears in the news for something offensive or stupid, they are almost invariably Republican, or that party is just rotten to the core. I tend to think the latter.

[Antonio the Sixth]

We should seriously ban teenagers from posting here.

Good things I'm officially not a teenager anymore since last month.

[Antonio the Sixth]

All right, here's a serious one.

When I was in grade 11 (which I believe was 2009), a girl in our circle of friends died as a result of an epilepsy event. I guess it would have been different at school if a bad student had passed away or if know one knew who the person was, but this girl was honestly the nicest person in the world. She treated everyone with warmth, she had the greatest smile, and everyone knew her. She wasn't some bimbo whore popular chick—she was honestly just the nicest person.

So it was extremely tough. I remember the day it happened: I got called out of class thirty minutes before school was set to finish, and I was told to bring all my stuff with me. Walking to the office, I knew something was up. I thought maybe my grandpa had died or something. So, I confess I was very relieved when I saw that all my friends were sitting around a table waiting in the guidance office too. We were just going to get in trouble about something, I thought. Not so. We were told that our friend died. It was devastating.

So in honour of her and out of respect for other people with epilepsy, everyone wore purple to school in the days following her death. I went out and bought a purple shirt because I, being one of the first people who was told, didn't want to seem like I didn't care. I cared.

Unfortunately, these days became pretty political, because what you saw was people trying to one-up each other with "how much they cared." Her real friends decided to start an epilepsy drive, but then other people jumped on it and eventually took over. These people who were hardly even friends with her organized school buses to her funeral. These people charmed her parents with their messages of respect and their fundraising. So what happened was that one emo douche guy who had always been so into his image managed to weasel his way into the "honour guard" at this girl's funeral... at the expense of some of her real friends. Basically, all this stuff really made me feel uneasy. This girl was my friend, and I was very sad... but suddenly I was made to feel "not sad enough."

I realize I've gone on a bit, but I think it's important to explain the context. What you should also know is that a facebook group was set up for people to post their words of comfort.

Here's the personal confession: I despise this facebook group. Every year on the anniversary of her death and on her birthday, dozens of people still post superficial messages to this girl (who never even had facebook in the first place). "Aimee, keep dancing in the sky." Garbage like that. And, of course, when one person posts to the group, everyone gets a notification, so they all rush to do it too. And too me, I just think it's disgusting, because you can tell that everyone is doing it because they think they have to and because they want to look good. I hate it. And it's probably unfair of me, because it's quite possible I'm reading into it too much. But everytime these people post in that group, I judge them. It's been four years. What happened to "moving on?"

[Antonio the Sixth]

None of my posts are good.

This is one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said.

[Antonio the Sixth]

None of my posts are good.

This is one of the most ridiculous things you have ever said.

It's how I feel right now. (See 'Opinion of Memphis' thread; I spend my Friday evenings presiding over discussions of philosophy; I should remember these things, especially if I'm going to use them as insults.)

Messing up one philosophical reference does not stain your entire posting history...

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, I made a really stupid blunder about a major philosopher while commenting on what I consider is another poster's comparably stupid habitual epistemological category error, and I suppose you could argue that that makes it better, but you could also argue that that makes it worse. Maybe one of these days somebody will make an offhanded reference to a position that they mistakenly attribute to Simone Weil or something.

You are the sole judge with regard to how serious you think the incident in question was. However, I again do not see how this affects the value of all your posts, which I am sure most of the forum would agree are generally excellent.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Gustaf's post was excellent indeed. I wish he'd stick to these kinds of posts.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It certainly seems that way, and it's bizarre.  How can it work unless you think voters are really dumb?

How would the GOP continue to exist without making that assumption?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The universal welfare state.

And basically everything else follows. Society is based on the concept of equality. This is accepted by an overwhelming majority of the population, precisely because state programs aren't seen as "hand-outs", but rather something that everyone benefits from.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why is it that, unlike most of society, parts of the Atlas forum have apparently failed to grasp that there is such thing as oversharing?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wouldn't just say pernicious, but in many cases, utterly pretentious. Labels for all things exist for a reason, they're not out to restrict growth and intellectual thought, they exist, like Xahar said, as clear and consistent shorthand for what you, with an exception or two, are.

I know it's very popular and almost edgy sounding to sit here and talk about how we "don't conform to what people want us to be, man, we're just free and independent" (which reminds me of people who do that "no labels" thing for sexuality, making me want to strangle them in their sleep) but opposing having an ideology just for the sake of it, while not Moderate Hero-esque, is just kind of stupid in it's own right.

If you don't perfectly fit into an ideology as a natural progression of how your beliefs fit together, that is fine. If you take from the outset a stubborn refusal to "fit in, man" then I kind of just think you need to get over yourself, because implicit in that belief is the idea that anyone who does fit in neatly within the confines of an ideology is somehow not legitimate or smart. It's a holier than thou sentiment that, like Xahar mentioned, just leads to the Max Baucuses or Francois Bayrous (who's entire persona consists of "centristcentristcentristcentristcentrist") of the world. Because I concisely and simply just refer to myself as a Socialist doesn't mean I'm not completely willing and capable to defend any aspect of my beliefs to anyone who challenges them, it is just the simplest way to describe my positions to an outsider and the best approximation of what my positions add up to.

I don't mean for it to sound like I feel like people have to pick an ideology to be taken seriously, because I don't, all I care about is people take clear and consistent positions (which Hash pretty much does), but we all need to get over our fascination with trying to come up with special sounding just-for-us alternative labels because it comes off as childish at best and aggressively snobbish at worst.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't think it is possible to dispute that Bacon King is best moderator.

This is... beautiful.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Because they believe other policies should have been pursued during his presidency; and that his influence on present-day policy is largely negative. It's important to learn that people can hold different opinions than you just as staunchly and stridently as you hold yours.

You know you are bad when Vosem, of all people, is the one who utterly burns you.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why people still actually engage with Naso is beyond me. What's the point?