elfs | A vast, deep collection of bile...

John McCain, last night, in a show of human decency, told his followers that Barack Obama is "a decent man, a family man," and that they have "no reason to fear him as president." I thought that was an excellent tack to take, although many on the left are speculating that there are reasons other than decency for it: maybe the anger and hatred he'd unleashed was a losing tack, maybe he's considering his legacy. For whatever reason, McCain has been doing the right thing.

He did, however, get booed for it when he said it. And I was curious to see how this turn of events has gone down with the fringe right. The results are telling. First, the freepers:

"McCain SHUT UP! You are Pissing in your Cheerios!"
"Obama is NOT HONORABLE We SHOULD be scared with him!"
"His campaign and refusal to TELL THE TRUTH is PROOF that he is unwilling to do what is necessary to win."
"It is a shame he has to ruin [Sarah Palin's] career too."
"What a dolt."
"Three weeks before the election McCain dismisses the most basic beliefs of patriotic conservatives and endorses Barak Hussein Obama."
"He's a jack ass. This guy couldn't be a bigger idiot. "
"Mccain makes me sick. Everytime I am fired up he throw some cold water."
"I'm starting to hate him."
"My respect can never be earned by criminal Muslim terrorists."
"Can you respect your voters Mr. McCain?"
"WE'RE NOT TURNING THE WHITE HOUSE KEYS OVER TO BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!"
"Thanks John, for being a spineless, limp-wristed, RINO imbecile. And please keep that bitch you hired off the air too."

The Clownhall commenters:

"Yes we are SCARED and NO this is NOT someone we want to have in the White House!"
"Bully for the crowd!!!! John needs to figure this one out!!!!"
"Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is NOT a decent man. He can never be president."
"McCain we're ready to fight, where the hell are you?"
"Nothing wrong with McCain/Palin being inline with KKK mentality because they are white like most of us."
"We just want McCain to embrace and magnify our anger."
"The United States is the most important country in the world, and cannot afford an Obama presidency."

The Little Green Footballs:

"I feel it is a sad day for all veterans. I thought we finally had found a fighter."
"there's nothing about obama that doesn't scare me, wtf?"
"I think I am going to go cling to my FN-FAL."
"I'm voting for Palin."
"Let's hope Sarah pulls him to the back of the plane over the weekend and smacks some sense into him."
"This is what happens when we let the country club "compassionate" conservatives control the republican party."
"Palin/SomeOldGuy '08"
"he should not have said that."
"BHO SCARES THE SHIT OUTTA' ME. He's a freakin' commie who plans on fucking up this nation"
"I don't care what McCain says. . . Maybe I don't "have to" be scared of Obama as President, but I am anyway."
"The tree of liberty..."

Current Mood: shrill

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ideaphile.livejournal.com

Well, I addressed this point in a comment to Elf some time ago.

The situation here is simple:

You don't consider the "whackjobs" to be liberals in the same sense that you think of yourself as a liberal. They don't believe in the things you believe in, so you say they don't count. I agree, they don't. They don't speak for you, and you're not responsible for what they say.

But you don't realize that responsible conservatives feel the same way about the right-wing commentators you mention. They're "whackjobs" as much as Michael Moore or PETA or Earth First.

You can't see the difference because you're too far away. You don't understand, you don't identify, you don't care. You see that Bill O'Reilly supports McCain over Obama, so you suppose that John McCain and O'Reilly have basically the same opinions. Well, they don't.

And on top of that, of course, you're willing to dismiss as mere rhetoric the more extreme statements from liberals, but you take a much sterner position regarding anything you hear from conservatives.

It all adds up to a serious disconnect from reality.

I'm not picking on you personally. Most people are seriously disconnected from reality. Anyone who believes that either McCain or Obama is a solution to any known problem is having THIS problem.

Civilization only has one enemy. Unfortunately, as Walt Kelly pointed out, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

. png

From: (Anonymous)

The thing is, the responsible conservatives haven't been in control for quite some time. People like you are merely passengers at this point. When I look at today's Republican party, I don't see the party of Lincoln, I see a bizarre combination of religious zealots and cynical corporatists who exploit them to further the redistribution of wealth from the many to the few. I certainly don't see any semblance of a responsible foreign or domestic policy from them.

The Faustian bargain the fiscal conservatives made with the social conservatives has destroyed the soul of the Republican party, and it's my sincere hope that their crushing defeat in both branches of government this year will cause that unholy alliance to crumble and maybe allow some new party, whether a new incarnation of responsible Republicans, or something else entirely, to fill the vacuum.

Anonymous Blog Reader #127

From:

ionotter.livejournal.com

But you don't realize that responsible conservatives feel the same way about the right-wing commentators you mention. They're "whackjobs" as much as Michael Moore or PETA or Earth First...It all adds up to a serious disconnect from reality.

My reality is that the conservatives that you, as a conservative, called "whackjobs", are vipers in your own bed. Not just in your own home, but in your bed!

And what's MORE, is that you allow them to stand on the highest mountains in the nation and spout their hate as if it were Canon. Maybe you, personally, don't "allow" it, and speak out at every opportunity, for which I'd applaud you if you did. But I don't know your writing or your past? All I know is that I did my best to remove stumbling blocks to your assigned task. I tried to remove the easy ones that are easily dismissed, because just like the others here fell into the trap of calling the KKK "conservatives", YOU fell into the tarbaby of complaining about my narrowing the field.

No, excuse me, you plunged headlong into the tarbaby's chest and wrapped your arms around it, wearing it like a second skin.

I asked you to find someone MAINSTREAM.

MAINSTREAM. ON THE TELEVISION. ON THE RADIO. IN THE NEWSPAPERS. IN NATIONALLY SYNDICATED MAGAZINES.

In the public eye.

And you failed.

Just like all the other so-called "conservatives" I've laid this challenge upon.

I'm not picking on you personally.

No, you're standing on the mountain, looking down upon me and everyone else who is "disconnected from reality". Of the two, I'd rather be picked on. At least then I'd be under the delusion that you cared about your fellow humanity?

Instead, you come across as Wobbly Headed Bob. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobbly-Headed_Bob)

Edited Date: 2008-10-12 02:16 pm (UTC)

From:

ideaphile.livejournal.com

We both allow those people to speak. We all do. I'm sure you aren't saying we shouldn't.

As for my failure to meet your challenge-- oh noes! I has fail.

But really, your challenge, shorter, was: "Nobody who advocates violence is a mainstream liberal. Now, please name a mainstream liberal who advocates violence."

That's the fail right there.

If William Ayers isn't a mainstream liberal, who is? A distinguished professor with widely supported plans for social reform, a citizen of the year in Chicago. I think it's pretty clear he and Obama have no "relationship" and even if they did, it wouldn't be exceptionally relevant to the election. There are hundreds of 60s radicals around.

But Ayers is relevant to this discussion because he continues to maintain that setting bombs in public buildings was an appropriate response to the war in Vietnam. Given that liberals regard the war in Iraq in much the same terms today, this is a threat of future violence, just like the statements of conservative commentators that attempts to deprive the American people of their freedom may legitimately be met with violence.

But in reading that, I suspect you will suffer from a semantic disconnect. You don't understand the difference between threatening violence to influence policy and threatening violence to resist oppression. That's the difference between being a terrorist and being a freedom fighter.

You want liberals to be given a free pass for threatening the oppression itself-- which Obama himself does, make no mistake-- but I won't fall for that.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Republican, or a Republican-style conservative, or a Christian. I don't like the Bush administration or support the war in Iraq. But I know the difference between freedom and oppression, and I see that difference in the platforms of the two major parties. It's a darn slim difference these days, but as long as it exists, I think it's worth pointing out.

. png

From:

ionotter.livejournal.com

But really, your challenge, shorter, was: "Nobody who advocates violence is a mainstream liberal. Now, please name a mainstream liberal who advocates violence."

Wow, you're good. Wrapping a logical fallacy with a strawman! Nice. Not going to work, though.

As for Bill Ayers? Please. Nobody in this generation ever HEARD of Bill Ayers before Karl Rove resurrected him from the Tomb Of Irrelevance. I GREW UP in the 70's, and I never heard of him. Who cares what he continues to maintain, he would have stayed in the tomb if someone hadn't been playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Ultimately, there are no mainstream liberals advocating violence. None. Yet we have them in spades on the conservative side, calling for blood, violence and bloody violence at every turn. Their fanbase is stoked for a lynching at the slightest provocation, and they're going to find some way to justify it.

And on the off-chance that someone like Keith Olbermann finally has enough and says one eeeety-beeeety leetle thing about maybe giving conservatives an ugly look for once, he'll be set on fire and strung up from a bridge somewhere. Metaphorically speaking.

I mean, dude! LOOK at these people! JUST LOOK!!

From:

ideaphile.livejournal.com

The important thing to understand is that modern liberalism is based on violence: violence under the color of law and moral authority, used to seize property from some people for the benefit of others.

Yes, John McCain has expressed his willingness to do that too. I disapprove; I'm certainly not going to vote for him.

It distresses me no end that both major parties find this to be an effective political strategy.

It's a terrible economic strategy, of course. It's bad enough when the government is used to create a separate system for redistributing wealth based on political power, and we're just now being reminded how much worse it can get when political pressure distorts the economy itself.

But it keeps coming back at us, no matter how clear the historical lessons. The 20th century proved, yet again, that the correlation between freedom and prosperity is oh-point-nine-something, yet politicians continue to assert that just the right kind and amount of oppression will lead to even better results, and voters continue to fall for it.

. png

From:

ionotter.livejournal.com

Round and round, round and round, listen to the non-answers fly.

Let me cut the baloney and get straight to the question: CAN YOU PRODUCE A MAINSTREAM LIBERAL THAT HAS THE PUBLIC EYE/EAR, WHO HAS AT ANY TIME WITHIN THEIR PROFESSIONAL CAREER WITHIN THIS DECADE, CALLED UPON THEIR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS TO VISIT HARM UPON OTHER HUMAN BEINGS ON THE BASIS OF RELIGION, POLITICS, SEX, RACE, NATIONALITY OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION?

Yes? Then who.

No? Endgame.

Edited Date: 2008-10-13 02:49 am (UTC)

From:

mikstera.livejournal.com

"The important thing to understand is that modern liberalism is based on violence: violence under the color of law and moral authority, used to seize property from some people for the benefit of others."

So, taxes are violence, and the basis of "modern liberalism" (whatever ideological edifice you particularly have in mind by that phrase).

In my view, it isn't that "taxation is theft", or that "taxation is violence", but, rather, "taxation is the honoring of the social contract." What social contract, you ask? Why the one implicit in being (a) a citizen, and (b) a member of society. You get all sorts of benefits from (a) and (b), and it is only equitable that you contribute to help fund those benefits. "But, I don't want to!" you say? Well, you are certainly free to lobby for change in our system, or go to a system more to your liking.

From an intellectual perspective, I'd dearly love it if a sizable population of Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarians found a good-sized island somewhere, and started up a community created along Libertarian ideals. It would be very interesting to see what came of that.

Personally, I don't think Libertarianism is workable without (a) a low population density coupled with an environment where "living off the land" is practical, or (b) a high enough technological level such that each person is fully, completely self-sufficient... that is, a Post-Scarcity economy.

From:

ideaphile.livejournal.com

I appreciate your position here.

I would say, however, that I distinguish between the "social contract" argument for taxation and all the rest of the taxation that gets built on top of that in order to buy votes and pursue other political goals.

I support taxation for the purpose of providing the things that any society ought to have-- a representative government, courts, police forces, military services, foreign relations, and even some things not generally included in libertarian versions of this list, such as education and safety-net levels of social services including medical care, disability coverage, and retirement funding. (Though wherever possible, the "taxes" would actually be implemented in mandatory participation in private programs based on a percentage of income, where the government picks up the difference between an individual's ability to pay and the actual cost of the service.)

In fact, I'm okay with any government service as long as it can be clearly demonstrated that providing the service is cheaper than not providing the service. (Though again, if a service can be provided privately under a government mandate, that's how I'd rather see it implemented.) But let's just say I'd be very, very skeptical of such claims.

The practical difference between my somewhat optimized minarchism (optarchism?) and what modern liberals are pursuing is huge. The cost of government in the US is huge, something north of $5 trillion per year, but I can't imagine how more than about a trillion of that could be attributed to any kind of social contract.

Most of the difference is just theft for political purposes-- buying votes with undeserved privileges, authority, goods, and services.

What's left is waste-- private jobs required merely to ensure compliance with government regulations, government jobs that serve no useful purpose, goods and services bought but never properly used, like bridges to nowhere. (But much of the waste serves a political purpose too... favoritism, empire building, featherbedding, etc.)

We seem to agree about the impracticality of anarcho-capitalism. But we don't have to choose between that and socialism or fascism, either.

. png

From:

mikstera.livejournal.com

My preferred political system is actually Libertarian Socialism, aka Anarchism. But, such a system is, I believe, unworkable without the aforementioned low population density and/or post-Scarcity economy.

It seems we're all arguing over where to set the thresholds for level of regulation or the ratio of State vs. private control of "the means of production." That said, I don't think it is at all productive to call our current thresholds "theft" or "violence." We all want "optarchism"... we just disagree as to what constitutes "optimal", and the criteria to be used for determining that optimal point. By any reasonable (IMO) use of those terms, what we have in the United States is neither "socialism" nor "fascism".

From:

ideaphile.livejournal.com

I would have to say that it's both.

Certainly any socialist from the 1930s would be well pleased to hear that over 40% of the US economy is routed through the government, and simultaneously angered by the degree to which business interests influence the decisions of the government.

If I may ask-- why do you prefer a system that can't be realized in any existing human society?

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From:

mikstera.livejournal.com

"I would have to say that it's both.

Yeah, I get that. IMO, you're misusing those terms... but the last thing I'm interested in doing is engaging in a protracted argument over semantics. Let's just agree to disagree on this.

"If I may ask-- why do you prefer a system that can't be realized in any existing human society?"

I'm a fan of political / economic systems based on post-Scarcity economies. It doesn't bother me that such systems are currently unrealizable; I see this as a direction we should move towards, rather than a goal we can easily reach today.

Frankly, what I see today in terms of economic / political systems is a thin veneer of civilization over the basest of primate instincts. I think we can do better. I think we should work towards the sort of world seen in Iain M. Banks' "Culture", or Elf's "Pendor"... a world where no sentient being need fear starvation, or homelessness, or a lack of medical care or education, or even death.