OhhhhhBAMA

[Wolter]

That made me laugh in an inordinately loud manner.

[BR16ADE_R055E]

Every time I see this thread, I read it as:


"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhklhoma!"

Because I hang out with the drama kids.

fag... got.

I prefer the term "Faaaaaabulous Person."

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

[eumaas]

Every time I see this thread, I read it as:


"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhklhoma!"

Because I hang out with the drama kids.

fag... got.

I prefer the term "Faaaaaabulous Person."

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

[BR16ADE_R055E]

fag... got.

I prefer the term "Faaaaaabulous Person."

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

nudge nudge

[eumaas]

I prefer the term "Faaaaaabulous Person."

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

nudge nudge

[Wolter]

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

nudge nudge

Oh, so now a wide stance is a crime?

[BR16ADE_R055E]

Before the Snewsers get pissed, I should note that the hesitation I expressed through ellipses is because I too am a man of the theatre.

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

nudge nudge

*tap* *tap*

[BostonBeaneater]

(Exits stage right.)

More like stage left if you know what I'm saying.

nudge nudge

Oh, so now a wide stance is a crime?

Don't wipe!

[Dr. Medulla]

Holy Hannah, the Right really is diving headlong into Bircher conspiracy fantasies.


This is the apparently sinister new African-inspired "Obama flag" that the very uppity senator plans to replace the current American flag with.


Oh, crap. Turns out it's the state flag of Ohio.

I eagerly await evidence that the Clintons hired a young street punk named Barack to kill Vince Foster …

[Marky Dread]

Bring on the dancing bears now please we're bored with the clowns.

[Silent Majority]

"and my greatest weakness is I'm possibly too awesome"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7675927.stm

[eumaas]

http://kengartrell.com/blog/2008/08/17/ ... our-midst/

The main point about Barack Obama and the Corsi book is that, based on his comprehensive stated social and economic positions, Obama is objectively the first fully committed Marxist and Communist to run for the Presidency of the United States.

Man, eumaas '06 would've been excited as shit.

[Dr. Medulla]

http://kengartrell.com/blog/2008/08/17/ ... our-midst/

The main point about Barack Obama and the Corsi book is that, based on his comprehensive stated social and economic positions, Obama is objectively the first fully committed Marxist and Communist to run for the Presidency of the United States.

Man, eumaas '06 would've been excited as shit.

In a somewhat recent discussion at the Volokh Conspiracy, ostensibly comparing Obama to Huey Long, one guy—amusingly named Steve—replied thusly:

When I was a kid during the Cold War, I believed that we were in the middle of an epic struggle between good and evil, between freedom and its mortal enemies.

Turns out the difference between capitalism and socialism was nothing more than a matter of a couple percentage points in the marginal tax rate. How foolish I was.

I love that response for its succinctness and how it demonstrates the absurdity of painting anything other than 100% privatization as socialism.

[eumaas]

I love that response for its succinctness and how it demonstrates the absurdity of painting anything other than 100% privatization as socialism.

Couple points:
1. Remember this?
[youtube][/youtube]
O'Reilly calls progressive taxation class warfare. Aren't these the same guys who talk about the Founding Fathers?

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."
--Thomas Jefferson (letter to Madison, 1785)

And this 90s liberal classic from Rosenfelder:
http://www.zompist.com/richtax.htm

I'm no fan of taxes philosophically, just because I oppose the state, but if you're going to support the state, you gotta fund it somehow.

2. And as Kevin Carson notes, conservatives and vulgar libertarians are fine with state intervention so long as it occurs on behalf of that oppressed minority, the rich.

This school of libertarianism has inscribed on its banner the reactionary watchword: "Them pore ole bosses need all the help they can get." For every imaginable policy issue, the good guys and bad guys can be predicted with ease, by simply inverting the slogan of Animal Farm: "Two legs good, four legs baaaad." In every case, the good guys, the sacrificial victims of the Progressive State, are the rich and powerful. The bad guys are the consumer and the worker, acting to enrich themselves from the public treasury. As one of the most egregious examples of this tendency, consider Ayn Rand's characterization of big business as an "oppressed minority," and of the Military-Industrial Complex as a "myth or worse."


The ideal "free market" society of such people, it seems, is simply actually existing capitalism, minus the regulatory and welfare state: a hyper-thyroidal version of nineteenth century robber baron capitalism, perhaps; or better yet, a society "reformed" by the likes of Pinochet, the Dionysius to whom Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys played Aristotle.


Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term "free market" in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get the standard boilerplate article arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because "that’s not how the free market works"--implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of "free market principles."

http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/v ... art-1.html

[Dr. Medulla]

O'Reilly calls progressive taxation class warfare. Aren't these the same guys who talk about the Founding Fathers?

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."
--Thomas Jefferson (letter to Madison, 1785)

And they'll respond with something else from TJ, like:

a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

One of my pet peeves, because it rolls around every fucking year, reported uncritically by the media, is the notion of "Tax Freedom Day," the day when you "stop working for the government" and "start working for yourself." And to show how oppressed we all are by taxation, the date is always in June or so. But these anti-taxation propagandists make it seem as if the money just disappears, that we get zilch for our tax dollars. An honest assessment would be determine what we get with our tax dollars that we'd otherwise have to spend in private services, such as health care, education, policing, environmental protection, etc etc et-fucking-c. And, indeed, when that is done, "Tax Freedom Day" is actually more in the first week or so of January, where that week of working for the government accounts for waste and redundancies.

2. And as Kevin Carson notes, conservatives and vulgar libertarians are fine with state intervention so long as it occurs on behalf of that oppressed minority, the rich.

This school of libertarianism has inscribed on its banner the reactionary watchword: "Them pore ole bosses need all the help they can get." For every imaginable policy issue, the good guys and bad guys can be predicted with ease, by simply inverting the slogan of Animal Farm: "Two legs good, four legs baaaad." In every case, the good guys, the sacrificial victims of the Progressive State, are the rich and powerful. The bad guys are the consumer and the worker, acting to enrich themselves from the public treasury. As one of the most egregious examples of this tendency, consider Ayn Rand's characterization of big business as an "oppressed minority," and of the Military-Industrial Complex as a "myth or worse."

That seems out of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?, tho the bad guys are atheists, abortion providers, Muslims, homosexuals, and anyone else opposed to "freedom." But it's the perverse inversion to make the wealthy and powerful the real victims in need of protection and saving.

Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term "free market" in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get the standard boilerplate article arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because "that’s not how the free market works"--implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of "free market principles."

One unfortunate (and I use that word understatedly) consequences of the recent Canadian election is that it appears to have killed the Liberals more-than-sensible Green Shift plan, which was a carbon tax offset by income tax reduction. Reduce your GHGs, save money. Ta-da! Basic economics seemingly endorsed by free market principles—incentives and disincentives to maximize profit. It wasn't the shell game of swapping emissions credits, but an actual economic incentive to stop polluting the damn biosphere. The opponents, of course, were the right wing "capitalists" who suddenly needed government protection to keep industry alive. Because apparently capitalism, despite the hype, can't adjust to changing circumstances and generate profit unless government is there to prop it up. Such horseshit.