If I Wanted America to Fail

[CrackRabbit]

Maybe but Cybersage disappeared. Maybe the rules are quietly enforced.

Cybrsage's ban is only temporary, I'm afraid.
How long temporary is I don't know.

 

[woolfe9999]

Yes, Van Jones moved on - to the environmental movement. That was kind of my point. Since Obama booted Van Jones, obviously he too is a fool with a Morton's deficiency.

Marxists DO believe in jobs; they just believe that jobs should come from government. Even North Korea has a private sector; it does what government tells it to do and it does what government cannot yet be bothered to tell it it can't do. That's where the Van Jones of the world would have us go.

Once a Marxist, always a Marxist? Does that mean we should consider you a democrat?

 

[First]

You made a single contributory post in this thread and the rest of the time you've been whining about trolls. Maybe if you contributed more and cried less people would give a rats ass about what you post.

People care about what I post. You, not so much. You don't contribute, therefore troll. This is you:

 

[Ketchup]

I think it's fun to watch two people start debating back and forth, but I don't understand why people use threads to go back and forth just badmouthing each other. Can't you use PMs for that?

 

[xBiffx]

I think it's fun to watch two people start debating back and forth, but I don't understand why people use threads to go back and forth just badmouthing each other. Can't you use PMs for that?

Then how would we see how big their ePenis is?

 

[Bowfinger]

[ ... ]

Marxists DO believe in jobs; they just believe that jobs should come from government. Even North Korea has a private sector; it does what government tells it to do and it does what government cannot yet be bothered to tell it it can't do. That's where the Van Jones of the world would have us go.

That's great cognitive dissonance there. You swallow whatever the Becks of the nuttersphere feed you, but totally disregard what Jones himself said. Your eyes glaze over when presented with the positions he actually advocates because it contradicts your emotional beliefs. Seriously, did you make any attempt whatsoever to read the quotes I posted? (Hint, they're the ones where Jones says things like, "And the challenge is, how do we get the government to be a smart, and limited, catalyst in getting the private sector to take on this challenge?"and "Only the business community has the requisite skills, experience, and capital to meet that need. On that score, neither the government nor the nonprofit and voluntary sectors can compete, not even remotely.")

But hey, you keep parroting the wing-nut propaganda.

 

[Bowfinger]

Cybrsage's ban is only temporary, I'm afraid.
How long temporary is I don't know.

Given that it appears he's still posting under an alt account, I'd say it's not even a temporary ban, it's an imaginary one. (See the How to turn a liberal into a conservative thread for some pretty obvious examples.)

 

[werepossum]

Once a Marxist, always a Marxist? Does that mean we should consider you a democrat?

Touche. However, when a duck claims to have changed into a hawk but he's still digging up mussels, I tend to doubt his word. Van Jones' work in government was all about government choosing winners and losers, pretty Marxist in my opinion.

That's great cognitive dissonance there. You swallow whatever the Becks of the nuttersphere feed you, but totally disregard what Jones himself said. Your eyes glaze over when presented with the positions he actually advocates because it contradicts your emotional beliefs. Seriously, did you make any attempt whatsoever to read the quotes I posted? (Hint, they're the ones where Jones says things like, "And the challenge is, how do we get the government to be a smart, and limited, catalyst in getting the private sector to take on this challenge?"and "Only the business community has the requisite skills, experience, and capital to meet that need. On that score, neither the government nor the nonprofit and voluntary sectors can compete, not even remotely.")

But hey, you keep parroting the wing-nut propaganda.

People say a LOT of things when it's in their own best interests. Admitting to being a Marxist is not conducive to raising money or gaining power; that turned out to not be the revolution Mr. Jones and others were hoping to ride to power. Ergo smart Marxists claim to be something else, and "environmentalist" is the favored choice. Even Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has admitted that the environmental movement has been co-opted by the Marxists. Still, not even Senator Sanders will openly admit to being a Marxist, although he has now found himself secure enough to embrace "socialist". Americans just aren't ready to openly embrace Marxism, although you guys have admittedly made great strides. When high school students attribute "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" to JFK, you're probably more than half way to raising the god of Government above all others. For the nonce, Jones, like any good Marxist, will use government to subsidize businesses and industries he feels are worthy of success while also using government to crush businesses and industries he feels are not worthy of success - but while making comforting noises about how much we need the private sector even as he attempts to suborn it under Government. Thus we have government giving billions to companies it favors whilst in the words of the EPA employees attempting to "crucify" those people and businesses who oppose their war on energy.

Feel free to impotently sputter "Beck Beck Beck . . ." I find it amusing.

 

[Bowfinger]

Touche. However, when a duck claims to have changed into a hawk but he's still digging up mussels, I tend to doubt his word. Van Jones' work in government was all about government choosing winners and losers, pretty Marxist in my opinion.

Ah, so there's part of the problem. You don't know what Marxism is.

People say a LOT of things when it's in their own best interests. Admitting to being a Marxist is not conducive to raising money or gaining power; that turned out to not be the revolution Mr. Jones and others were hoping to ride to power. Ergo smart Marxists claim to be something else, and "environmentalist" is the favored choice.

Well then thank God we have people like you who aren't deterred by mere fact because you know in your gut what's really going on. It certainly makes it easier to cling to your faith when you can dismiss reality whenever it becomes inconvenient. Quite handy.

Even Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has admitted that the environmental movement has been co-opted by the Marxists. Still, not even Senator Sanders will openly admit to being a Marxist, although he has now found himself secure enough to embrace "socialist". Americans just aren't ready to openly embrace Marxism, although you guys have admittedly made great strides. When high school students attribute "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" to JFK, you're probably more than half way to raising the god of Government above all others. For the nonce, Jones, like any good Marxist, will use government to subsidize businesses and industries he feels are worthy of success while also using government to crush businesses and industries he feels are not worthy of success - but while making comforting noises about how much we need the private sector even as he attempts to suborn it under Government. Thus we have government giving billions to companies it favors whilst in the words of the EPA employees attempting to "crucify" those people and businesses who oppose their war on energy.

That's nice. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with anything. It's just a long-winded attempt to divert attention from your original allegation, that Jones is "an avowed communist". (Of course in fairness, your comments about Jones were themselves a diversion from the original issue, your breathless claim that regulations "are killing America". It's empty partisan noise, just like most RNC dogma.)

Feel free to impotently sputter "Beck Beck Beck . . ." I find it amusing.

Hit a nerve, did I? Beck is reportedly the one who started this "avowed communist" smear campaign against Jones. I don't know whether you swallowed it directly from Beck, or from one of the countless nutter parrot sites that ran with it, but it's really irrelevant. Beck started it, Beck is liar, and you believe it because it's the kind of tripe you want to hear. That doesn't make it true.

 

[werepossum]

Ah, so there's part of the problem. You don't know what Marxism is.


Well then thank God we have people like you who aren't deterred by mere fact because you know in your gut what's really going on. It certainly makes it easier to cling to your faith when you can dismiss reality whenever it becomes inconvenient. Quite handy.


That's nice. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with anything. It's just a long-winded attempt to divert attention from your original allegation, that Jones is "an avowed communist". (Of course in fairness, your comments about Jones were themselves a diversion from the original issue, your breathless claim that regulations "are killing America". It's empty partisan noise, just like most RNC dogma.)


Hit a nerve, did I? Beck is reportedly the one who started this "avowed communist" smear campaign against Jones. I don't know whether you swallowed it directly from Beck, or from one of the countless nutter parrot sites that ran with it, but it's really irrelevant. Beck started it, Beck is liar, and you believe it because it's the kind of tripe you want to hear. That doesn't make it true.

It's truly amazing that you can see only one side of EVERY issue and still apparently consider yourself a thinking being. You don't even pretend to consider an issue, merely assert that the liberals/Democrats are 100% correct on 100% of any possible issues. It goes far beyond a knee jerk reaction; at least then you'd have a choice of knees and you'd have to engage at least your lizard brain if not necessarily the rest of your cranial padding.

Most people consider reporting a person's own words as reporting reality, not as a smear. Since Obama booted Jones, he obviously agrees. Interestingly, you seem to accept Van Jones' words when they fit your quite linear world view and reject them when they threaten it. Consider a simple test. Given that being an avowed Communist is destructive to raising money and acquiring power, is Jones more likely to be lying when he says he is a Communist (thereby disadvantaging himself) or when he says he's no longer a Communist (thereby removing the disadvantage to himself)?

And yeah, you hit a nerve - my funny bone.

 

[Bowfinger]

It's truly amazing that you can see only one side of EVERY issue and still apparently consider yourself a thinking being. You don't even pretend to consider an issue, merely assert that the liberals/Democrats are 100% correct on 100% of any possible issues. It goes far beyond a knee jerk reaction; at least then you'd have a choice of knees and you'd have to engage at least your lizard brain if not necessarily the rest of your cranial padding.

Most people consider reporting a person's own words as reporting reality, not as a smear. Since Obama booted Jones, he obviously agrees. Interestingly, you seem to accept Van Jones' words when they fit your quite linear world view and reject them when they threaten it. Consider a simple test. Given that being an avowed Communist is destructive to raising money and acquiring power, is Jones more likely to be lying when he says he is a Communist (thereby disadvantaging himself) or when he says he's no longer a Communist (thereby removing the disadvantage to himself)?

And yeah, you hit a nerve - my funny bone.

It's a nice rant, but I'm not letting you reframe the issue. This isn't about me. You asserted as fact that Jones IS an avowed communist. That assertion is based not on factual evidence, but on your emotional need to destroy someone on the other end of the political spectrum. Was he a communist, past tense? Yes, many years ago. Is there evidence he still is, that he is an "avowed communist" -- present tense -- as you and Beck proclaim? No, certainly none that you've presented or that I could find. On the contrary, the evidence currently available shows that he now recognizes the strength of capitalism, no matter what he believed in his younger days. You dismiss this based solely on your emotions, not on facts and evidence.

In any case, as I pointed out and you dodged, you flogging the Jones diversion is a transparent ploy to change the subject from an even bigger whopper: your cry that regulations are "killing" America. While both claims are good examples of you placing emotions and ideology over evidence, the Jones duhversion is irrelevant. It's the RNC propaganda point about how regulations make America fail that threatens our future.

 

[alzan]

Things like this are why I think the Dems are on balance better for the environment than are the Pubbies. 100 feet isn't nearly enough of a buffer zone for most streams. A buttload of streams in the Appalachians are essentially dead because of acidity due to runoff through mine tailings - not that acidity doesn't happen naturally, greatly limiting production, but not generally to the degree that it kills everything. Siltation too can effectively kill a stream; combine the two and you have a stream with greatly altered fauna and flora, a stream where cladocerans and insect nymphs are replaced with tubificid worms and rat-tailed grubs or worse, just a barren desert of orange water.

The only time I've ever written letters to my Senators and Representative was over Bush I's plan to clear cut 40% of our National Forests over five years - five years of good jobs, hundreds of years to recover into old growth forests.

Things like this are why Republicans want to abolish the EPA. This behavior needs to be ruthlessly stamped out, but the EPA itself is necessary and desirable.

Neither side hates America. Conservatives love America as they see it, which is sometimes through rose-colored glasses. Liberals love America as they feel they can remake it, as they sometimes see it through urine-colored glasses.

Obviously I am on balance a conservative; I try to see the country for what it is, but I wholeheartedly love my country and think it's the greatest country in the world as it is. I'm not denying that it can get better, I just think it's great the way it is. You can't deny though that liberals find a LOT more wrong with America than do conservatives.

Great post, although the "urine-colored glasses" line was somewhat juvenile of you, as well as ineffective.

I won't deny that "liberals find a lot more wrong with America" as that's mostly opinion. I also love my country and think it is great. The bad things about it can and should be changed; it's up to all our citizens to embrace the possibility of change. Wanting to maintain the status quo is a problem in many aspects; and not just limited to our country. If we truly want to be the "beacon to the world" without involving ourselves, militarily or otherwise, in other countries affairs, the most effective but time-consuming way to be that beacon is to embrace and implement changes for the better.

alzan

 

[werepossum]

It's a nice rant, but I'm not letting you reframe the issue. This isn't about me. You asserted as fact that Jones IS an avowed communist. That assertion is based not on factual evidence, but on your emotional need to destroy someone on the other end of the political spectrum. Was he a communist, past tense? Yes, many years ago. Is there evidence he still is, that he is an "avowed communist" -- present tense -- as you and Beck proclaim? No, certainly none that you've presented or that I could find. On the contrary, the evidence currently available shows that he now recognizes the strength of capitalism, no matter what he believed in his younger days. You dismiss this based solely on your emotions, not on facts and evidence.

In any case, as I pointed out and you dodged, you flogging the Jones diversion is a transparent ploy to change the subject from an even bigger whopper: your cry that regulations are "killing" America. While both claims are good examples of you placing emotions and ideology over evidence, the Jones duhversion is irrelevant. It's the RNC propaganda point about how regulations make America fail that threatens our future.

Large US-based corporations added three-fourths of their new jobs in 2009-2011 outside of the USA. If you choose to believe that this is because those corporations are run by evil spandex-clad caped Republicans dry-washing their hands in secret mountain hide-outs rather than because we (as the video points out) make it easier to kill jobs than to create them, part of which is our Byzantine regulatory structure implemented by bureaucrats who think the Roman conquest model of crucifying a few people/companies on general principles just to keep the others cowed is a pretty swell model to emulate, well, it's a free country.

Great post, although the "urine-colored glasses" line was somewhat juvenile of you, as well as ineffective.

I won't deny that "liberals find a lot more wrong with America" as that's mostly opinion. I also love my country and think it is great. The bad things about it can and should be changed; it's up to all our citizens to embrace the possibility of change. Wanting to maintain the status quo is a problem in many aspects; and not just limited to our country. If we truly want to be the "beacon to the world" without involving ourselves, militarily or otherwise, in other countries affairs, the most effective but time-consuming way to be that beacon is to embrace and implement changes for the better.

alzan

True. Progressives need conservatives to keep them from dragging the country down into the depths of collectivism and conservatives need progressives for comic relief.

Sorry, force of habit. I meant to say conservatives need progressives to push us out of our nice safe ruts so that we don't get left behind the times.

And that "urine-colored glasses" line rocked.

 

[Bowfinger]

Large US-based corporations added three-fourths of their new jobs in 2009-2011 outside of the USA. If you choose to believe that this is because those corporations are run by evil spandex-clad caped Republicans dry-washing their hands in secret mountain hide-outs rather than because we (as the video points out) make it easier to kill jobs than to create them, part of which is our Byzantine regulatory structure implemented by bureaucrats who think the Roman conquest model of crucifying a few people/companies on general principles just to keep the others cowed is a pretty swell model to emulate, well, it's a free country.

"Are you guys even capable of making an honest argument?"

 

[Craig234]

Employer 1: Well-paying, union jobs with safety and worker protections

Employer 2: Low-paid workers working six or seven 12 hour days, living in bunks on-site, without protections or safety, discarded if injured

Democrats' solution: Make Employer 2 more like Employer 1; protect Employer 1 from competition that forces them to treat workers worse

Republicans' solution: Make Employer 1 more like Employer 2, call it 'freedom' and 'the free market'

Of course, Employer 1 more resembles the US, and Employer 2 poorer nations like China.

But the same principles apply just in the US where Republicans fight against workers.

 

[First]

Jesus werepossum, it's as if you were never taught what cognitive dissonance was.

 

[werepossum]

"Are you guys even capable of making an honest argument?"

Craig?

Jesus werepossum, it's as if you were never taught what cognitive dissonance was.

What I was taught about cognitive dissonance pales to what I see demonstrated here daily. The left is largely incapable of even conceiving of government being a problem, or even being other than the solution to all problems. It's like you guys see some bureaucrat demonstrating one of the many problems with government and immediately go into a frenzy of defense. It IS possible to believe that some regulation is necessary and desirable whilst admitting that sometimes regulation goes overboard, that sometimes bureaucrats don't act in sensible, moral or ethical manners. Yet every time evidence to that effect comes out, you guys go ape shit, insisting that government is never the problem and that if anything we have too little government, too few regulations. Forget cognitive dissonance, it's like any hint that government might be less than perfect, even if only sometimes, causes proggies physical pain.

Everything doesn't have to be black or white. Some regulations can be relaxed, streamlined, even eliminated to encourage a healthy business environment without immediately springing into full-blown Somalia.

 

[alzan]

Craig?


What I was taught about cognitive dissonance pales to what I see demonstrated here daily. The left is largely incapable of even conceiving of government being a problem, or even being other than the solution to all problems. It's like you guys see some bureaucrat demonstrating one of the many problems with government and immediately go into a frenzy of defense. It IS possible to believe that some regulation is necessary and desirable whilst admitting that sometimes regulation goes overboard, that sometimes bureaucrats don't act in sensible, moral or ethical manners. Yet every time evidence to that effect comes out, you guys go ape shit, insisting that government is never the problem and that if anything we have too little government, too few regulations. Forget cognitive dissonance, it's like any hint that government might be less than perfect, even if only sometimes, causes proggies physical pain.

Everything doesn't have to be black or white. Some regulations can be relaxed, streamlined, even eliminated to encourage a healthy business environment without immediately springing into full-blown Somalia.

You guys? I know I've never said government wasn't part of the problem. The problems we face; past present & future, have a multitude of causes. Yes, regulations can and do sometimes go overboard and could be streamlined for the greater good.

My comment earlier in the thread that "it's not the government's fault that companies can't act legally or ethically" wasn't saying government=good or companies=evil; just stating that the same type of people that run and/or control companies are also in government. I should have been clearer. It's not a company or government problem; it's a peoples' attitude problem.

As far as the video goes, I think even you would admit that it's over the top; that is, if you can stop being flippant or wanting/needing to make jabs at other posters. I would go so far as to say the way it was put together/edited was to elicit an "ape-shit" response.

alzan

 

[monovillage]

What I was taught about cognitive dissonance pales to what I see demonstrated here daily. The left is largely incapable of even conceiving of government being a problem, or even being other than the solution to all problems. It's like you guys see some bureaucrat demonstrating one of the many problems with government and immediately go into a frenzy of defense. It IS possible to believe that some regulation is necessary and desirable whilst admitting that sometimes regulation goes overboard, that sometimes bureaucrats don't act in sensible, moral or ethical manners. Yet every time evidence to that effect comes out, you guys go ape shit, insisting that government is never the problem and that if anything we have too little government, too few regulations. Forget cognitive dissonance, it's like any hint that government might be less than perfect, even if only sometimes, causes proggies physical pain.

Everything doesn't have to be black or white. Some regulations can be relaxed, streamlined, even eliminated to encourage a healthy business environment without immediately springing into full-blown Somalia.

This. This. This.