Catching up in the always-entertaining BMG archives — down with seatbelt laws and the diktat of the Nanny State, up with personal freedom, by the way! — I observed that this gem of explanatory reportage, “As Goodling as it Gets,” by the journalistic aces at The Daily Show was not posted last week. A devastating explanation of the Alberto Gonzales fiasco that is interesting in its own right, and underlines once more the incredible failure of the cable and network TV news reporters — so busy entertaining, they probably don’t know enough about current affairs to produce a concise explanation like this — even if their producers would run it, which they wouldn’t, because most of them are too scared to tell the truth.
Does anyone even watch the network evening news any more? Did you even know it still existed? It seems to: the current headline for CBS is, “President Bush is getting serious about those pesky gas emissions.” “Pesky,” emissions?! Like pollution and global warming are some kind of a trivial joke. CBS has sunk so far its “news” department sounds like a Facebook update. Not to mention that Bush’s proposal had nothing of substance, was forced out of him by pressure from the Democrats, and in fact, insofar as hot air is the problem, may actually accelerate global warming.
We’ve stepped through the looking glass: the comedy channel now provides the news while the “news” channels are mostly jokes staffed by entertainers — if not platforms for racists.
The internet was invented just in time — it’s already revolutionizing written communications, just wait until it is fully video-enabled.
George Bush took leave of his senses. He’s currently residing on a different planet. I’m not exactly sure who’s making the decisions in the White House. I think anyone with any sense has abandonned ship or is about to.
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George Bush is concerned about just one thing: How to get 20 million illegal aliens a green card.
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Everything else is trivia.
What planet do you think he is living on? Remember, since 2006 there are only eight candidates. Personally, I think it is most likely that he is living on Dysnomia, a moon of the dwarf planet Eris, which is the most distant large body in our solar system, so far as we know. Eris is the goddess of “strife or discord,” and Dysnomia, her daughter, is “lawlessness.” The sad fact though is that he’s still in our universe.
Messing with my morning news is like withholding coffee. Let’s just say it’s ill-advised. They’ve canned the two O’Briens (Soledad and Miles), who were wonderful, and replaced them with right-wing sympathizer Kirin Chetry and the other guy who’s name escapes me, but is pretty good. I almost tossed my breakfast this morning to see Laura Ingrahm as a morning guest complaining that she was referred to as “outspoken”. Oh the horrors. And she’s such a lady with her own language.
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Aren’t the moving in the wrong direction? Haven’t they noticed people are finally coming around? I’m switchin’ the channel and switchin’ to decaf.
Knowing that wearing your seatbelt is a good thing and not wearing one is well plain stupid, does not mean the Government should dictate that I wear one. It is not the government’s role to tell me how to live my life. The two statements above are not mutually exclusive.
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That is where we really diverge isn’t it, conservative-liberatrians and liberal-progressives. I think we all agree on a lot of issues, the differences come in the execution. Liberal-progressives believe that government is the only way we will solve the problems of our day, that people left up to their own devices aren’t necessarily going to do the “right thing”. Liberal-progressives believe that government must cajole us all into doing the right thing by taking our money and spending it for the “common good”.
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Conservative-libertarians on the other hand believe that individuals are the best people to do with their earnings as they wish and to solve the problems of the day. They believe in the intrinsic good of all people and that when faced with a problem, individuals will band together outside the constraints of government to voluntarily fix the problems of society.
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In a nut-shell I think that sums up our differences. And I think Bob’s pointing to the corzine tragedy vis-a-vis the discussion of seat belts pretty much sums it up.
so you can Drive Free & Die in the only remaining state to not mandate seat belts: NH.
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Don’t forget to disable your airbags!
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Sarcasm aside, I have a pretty strong libertarian bent myself. I find it easy and convenient to be a libertarian in a non-libertarian society. How so, you ask? Because I know that the liberals will be there to catch me (with medical care, social security) when my reckless decisions land me in a wheel chair. thank heavens we’re not all libertarians, or there’d be lots of dead bodies littering the roadside, winners of the Darwin Awards all.
Don’t forget to disable your airbags!
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…but I’ll point out that airbags won’t protect people riding in the back seat, where Corzine was sitting, nor will they protect people in the case of side-collisions. They are only installed for the purpose of reducing the likelihood of a person’s head from having an unfortunate meeting with a windshield.
if you’re not wearing a seat belt. that is, they will deploy, but they may kill or injure you if you are not positioned correctly. a seat belt helps insure you are positioned correctly.
Conservative-libertarians on the other hand believe that individuals are the best people to do with their earnings as they wish and to solve the problems of the day. They believe in the intrinsic good of all people and that when faced with a problem, individuals will band together outside the constraints of government to voluntarily fix the problems of society.
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…there is nothing preventing those individuals from doing that now. Query why they do not.
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I’ve seen that argument raised time and time again by putative conservatives and putative libertarians, and have never received a response that made any sense. Query why they do not.
It’s called Volunteerism and charity. If the government wasn’t taking so much of my money, I’d have more to give to charities.
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I volunteer at a soup kitchen once to twice a month. A private organization.
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I’m not sure if you saw the PBS special on the Mormons they have effectively done this.
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Bill Gates is doing this with his “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”.
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People do this all the time.
Most services are provided through government (all of us pooling some of our resources together, and collectively deciding how to allocate those resources). Some additional services are provided by people volunteering, donating to charity, and so on. The latter is dwarfed by the former, however. If we ceased to rely heavily on the former (collective public action), there is no way private action would fill in the gap. It might grow a little bit above what it is now, but nowhere close to what we’d lose. We’d become much more like a society of everyone for themselves.
Government is by far an inefficient means by which to achieve social change. Private action is much more efficient.
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You have proven my point by the way, thank you.
All I see here from you are unsupported assertions which I think are plainly false or don’t apply in a sensible way. By saying “you have proven my point”, what exactly do you mean?
believe that only government can effect social change. Your first sentence confirms my suspicions.