This is Ron Paul, today, on the Civil Rights Act and how Paul views the Civil Rights Act as leading to the Patriot Act:
Despite recent accusations of racism and homophobia, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) stuck to his libertarian principles on Sunday, criticizing the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it “undermine[d] the concept of liberty” and “destroyed the principle of private property and private choices.”
“If you try to improve relationships by forcing and telling people what they can’t do, and you ignore and undermine the principles of liberty, then the government can come into our bedrooms,” Paul told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And that’s exactly what has happened. Look at what’s happened with the PATRIOT Act. They can come into our houses, our bedrooms our businesses … And it was started back then.”
And this is Russ Feingold, on his opposition to the Patriot Act:
The first caution was that we must continue to respect our Constitution and protect our civil liberties in the wake of the attacks. As the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, I recognize this is a different world with different technologies, different issues, and different threats. Yet we must examine every item that is proposed in response to these events to be sure we are not rewarding these terrorists and weakening ourselves by giving up the cherished freedoms that they seek to destroy.
The second caution I issued was a warning against the mistreatment of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country. Already, one day after the attacks, we were hearing news reports that misguided anger against people of these backgrounds had led to harassment, violence, and even death….
Now, it so happens that since early 1999, I have been working on another bill that is poignantly relevant to recent events: legislation to prohibit racial profiling, especially the practice of targeting pedestrians or drivers for stops and searches based on the color of their skin. Before September 11th, people spoke of the issue mostly in the context of African-Americans and Latino-Americans who had been profiled. But after September 11, the issue has taken on a new context and a new urgency.
Even as America addresses the demanding security challenges before us, we must strive mightily also to guard our values and basic rights. We must guard against racism and ethnic discrimination against people of Arab and South Asian origin and those who are Muslim.
We who don’t have Arabic names or don’t wear turbans or headscarves may not feel the weight of these times as much as Americans from the Middle East and South Asia do. But as the great jurist Learned Hand said in a speech in New York’s Central Park during World War II: “[T]he spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias…
The Feingold speech is long and complex, so read the whole thing.
One is a libertarian and one is a liberal. Do we really think they’re saying the same thing? Share the same views on this?
mcd410x
Conservatives believe in states rights unless they mess up and can’t get onto the ballot or they’re trying to get their runaway slaves back.
Trentrunner
Shorter Ron Paul:
kay
@Trentrunner:
From the Civil Rights Act to the Patriot Act, just one outrage after another.
Ron Paul’s slippery slope crosses decades.
Baud
Ron Paul is absolutely correct here. The government had never abused its authority before the Civil Rights Act, and it certainly never tried to regulate bedroom behavior before then.
Trentrunner
Goddamnit, I’m really getting tired of people soft-peddling Paul’s appalling racism. Latest from RP Newsletter:
I’ll let y’all guess what color he’s on about.
Citizen_X
Bold talk for a guy who thinks the government should be all up in every woman’s uterus.
PeakVT
I’m pretty sure anyone who can handle complexity doesn’t think Paul and Feingold are saying the same thing. Not everyone can handle complexity, of course, or is comfortable with the lack of clear, bright lines to separate everything neatly.
Baud
@Trentrunner: Paul believes in the free market. If blacks want to sit at lunch counters, they should have chosen to be born white.
It’s called personal responsibility.
Richard
Clearly for Paul, property rights trump civil rights.
Of course, he tells us that he’s not in favor of a return to Jim Crow, but that’s exactly the kind of effect one could expect if his cries for “state’s rights” were satisfied, regardless of his belief that somehow magical free market forces would prevent a return to segregated facilities.
Given the racist rhetoric published in them, the subscribers of his old newsletters would no doubt welcome that kind of turn of events.
Mark S.
Glenn Greenwald can’t believe progressives don’t support Ron Paul.
That’s why he’s the greatest political thinker of our generation.
mcd410x
If you follow Paul’s thinking to its logical conclusion, the South’s secession was legal and the Emancipation Proclamation was highly illegal.
Ronnie, we had a war about that. Y’all lost.
freelancer
Liberty means the freedom to tell that freeloading black woman to get her own overpass to find shelter under and then choke to death on the sparrow that you found dead of lead-poisoning earlier and decided to inadequately roast over a barrel fire fueled by tire shreds, ditchweed, your own dung, and the world’s last can of starter fluid.
Tyranny means the uninsured 24 year old kid who gets hit by a car has his life saved at a hospital and is able to make it to 25.
Paul is INSANE.
Cat Lady
Fixt for accuracy.
Kola Noscopy
Kay re-ups her Obfuscation and Willful Denial campaign.
Thing is, no matter how many posts and comments you write arguing against something no one here has proposed, Barack Obama is STILL using his power to further the GW Bush Security and War State. And you’re cool with that.
Lojasmo
I can understand feingold’s writing, but Paul’s looks like junior high gibbertarian. I suspect paul is trying for something else.
But shut up, because drones!
Yevgraf
Liberty means the freedom to use state and local government facilities to materially support narrow sectarian white trash fundamentalism, and to force schoolchildren to pray and learn in redneck tradition, whether they want it or not.
Liberty means having a bunch of pretty words about freedom and rights in a legally unenforceable constitution.
Liberty means having the local ability to regulate out of existence contraception and abortion services due to religious definitions; granting the US Courts the ability to strike those local restrictions is antithetical to liberty.
slag
Good comparison, kay! It’s funny how Paul can so breezily equate the Civil Rights Act and the PATRIOT Act by once again playing the FREEDOM Card from the bottom of the deck.
So, does that make Paul to the left of Obama on the Civil Rights Act too?
suzanne
He wants to be in my exam room, so all I’m seeing is a distinction without a difference.
The Other Chuck
Ron Paul pontificating on the evils of government is like a temperance speech by Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker. This prune has sucked off the government teat for nearly his entire life, and passed exactly ONE bill for it (one authorizing the sale of a government building).
cat
Oh, What Fucking historical myopia from a crazy ass white racist. Its like he’s never fucking heard of the anti-miscegenation laws*.
“The government was never in our bedrooms!” my mixed race ass.
* I went to go look up how to spell that word and messed up the meaning of my sentence.
Yevgraf
@Richard:
Ron Paul is a quintessential Southern courageous “hero” – siphoning off bucks doing soft peacetime military duty, but the first guy to step up with an axe-handle to clear “them goddam high talkin’ niggers” off the lunch counter. And on his best day, he’d be shaking his head and lamenting that folks are gettin’ stirred up by rabble rousers.
Fuck him, his horse, his brownshirt army AND fake freedom.
Bill Murray
“One is a libertarian and one is a liberal. Do we really think they’re saying the same thing? Share the same views on this?”
Where I live (in a state next to Iowa), the Democrats that I can find that like Paul are all Blue Dog types. The liberal/progressive/soc*alists all despise Paul
Baud
@Kola Noscopy:
As our departure from Iraq clearly shows…
MikeBoyScout
uggg. More Ron Paul?
Born in Pittsburgh, PA Paul attended Dormont High School.
Paul did his undergrad at Gettysburg College.
Paul moved to Texas in 1968.
Now, using your google machine, go check out Dormont High School, Gettysburg College and 1968.
Happy New Year!
eemom
aaaand the nightmare continues….
Anoniminous
This is the “principle of private property and private choices” the Civil Rights Act of 1964 destroyed.
Richard
@Yevgraf:
Exactly. That’s why he’s now become the darling of the fundamentalist crowd.
Paul was recently endorsed by pastor who advocates the death penalty for gays. Here was his rationale:
Got to love those “state’s rights”.
srv
There are just so many more people than you think who would love to be the one directing the water cannons.
Baud
@eemom: Just for a couple of more weeks, until Paul loses South Carolina and Florida and then is no longer in contention for the nom.
Kola Noscopy
The over the top reaction to Glenzilla’s and others’ writing about how RP’s candidacy shines an unflattering light on Obama’s All War All the Time foreign policy is so out of proportion to the perceived threat to Obama’s re election, that one begins to wonder if it is based in…fear.
But fear of what? Fear…SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
kay
@eemom:
I think it’s good! I honestly do.
eemom, this is a thought experiment :)
Morbo
Any liberal who would support voting for Ron Paul is hereby banned from using the term “Overton Window” under penalty of blog comment section banishment.
*penalty does not apply at Salon
Kola Noscopy
@Baud:
So…since that will likely be the case, what’s with all the wasted breath about how anyone questioning BO’s FP as illuminated by RP should STFU right now?
Why not let all of us crazy Ron Paul supporters shoot off our mouths to no end for a bit and then peter out? Why the hysterical blow back?
MacKenna
Freedom, to Ron Paul, is just another word for FUCK WORKERS OVER.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I’m not sure that he’s going to say that. He’d say that if they want to be able to sit at lunch counters with whites, they should open their own integrated lunch counters. By the magic of the free market and their larger potential client base, they’ll win out and force all lunch counters to be integrated. He’s perfectly happy to ignore that this doesn’t actually work if a majority of whites prefer segregation, or even if there’s a loud and pushy minority of white busybodies who push it while the rest are indifferent. As long as he’s on the right sign of that line on the bus, he doesn’t care.
Linda Featheringill
I understand that Ron Paul will head up the Republican Minority Outreach Program.
kay
@MacKenna:
He’s sort of digging a hole with the CRA. Not that it matters to GOP primary voters, but the comparison to the Patriot Act isn’t going to help him.
He’s also sort of an inarticulate libertarian, as far as explaining the philosophy.
Yevgraf
Would Ron Paul have been one of the folks sitting in at the counter, or would he be dumping stuff on protestors, trying to clear them rabble rousers out?
Would he have told the rednecks dumping stuff on the protestors to knock it off, or would he have been egging it on?
http://objectofhistory.org/content/fullsize/jacksonMI_dfe5511ec4_fullsize.jpg
MonkeyBoy
I’ve been intrigued by the notion of “freedom” traced out among the 4 groups of early settlers in the US in the book Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: A Cultural History).
All of them wanted “freedom” from state dictated behavior. 3 of them (Puritans, Cavaliers, and Scot-Irish) interpreted that as the freedom to decide how the freedom of others should be taken away. Only the Quakers had a notion of a freedom that that didn’t interfere with others’ freedom.
Citizen_X
@Kola Noscopy: Ron Paul’s candidacy mainly shines an unflattering light on Ron Paul.
Baud
@Kola Noscopy: On a political blog, we talk about politics, which Ron Paul is a part of right now. We spent a lot of time talking about Cain when he was the front runner, not so much any more.
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I was being snarky. I don’t think even Ron Paul believes people can choose their race.
Strandedvandal
I would like to once again give a giant THANK YOU to cleek for his wonderful pie filter.
burnspbesq
@Kola Noscopy:
Thing is, your single-issue OCD makes you exactly the same as my lunatic co-religionists for whom abortion is the only issue that matters.
If you want to ignore everything that Republicans are doing to destroy this country and not vote for Obama because Republicans have made it impossible for him to resolve the detainee problem in a satisfactory way, you are entirely within your rights to do so, but you should expect to be sledged unmercifully, and we will be right to sledge you. There are only two sides in the current conflict, and you have chosen the wrong side.
gwangung
He’s also perfectly happy to ignore that anyone who DID open an integrated lunch counter would be a) boycotted and b) vandalized and bombed by segregationists angry with them/
No. Wait. He wouldn’t ignore that; he’d just say this was the free market in action.
askew
I am at the point where I consider anyone who defends Paul’s racism or tries to claim that he isn’t that bad a racist. If they want to cheerlead for the racist, that’s fine. But, I’ll be damned if I am going to give them a pass on supporting a racist. That goes for Kelly Clarkson, Glenn Greenwald, etc.
Yevgraf
@Roger Moore:
Unless, of course, local suppliers got pressured to not deal with the integrated lunch counter.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Fear of pushing the country even further to the right by having the left adopt the views of a right-wing isolationist Bircher who thinks that the federal government should be sending paid mercenaries to kill terrorists rather than having the military do it.
Though at least now I know to tell you to STFU if you ever try to claim that Obama is “enabling” the Republicans since you’ve done nothing but try to enable Ron Paul’s noxious views.
Veritas
You know what? The Civil Rights Act probably DID violate a strict reading of the Constitution but I don’t give a shit. It’s probably the second time in history where it was necessary (the other being the 1860s). These are the same people that babble about THE TYRANT LINCOLN!!! and get involved with weird shit like The League of the South. Fucking loons.
RealityCheck
gwangung
@Yevgraf:
Firebombing the integrated lunch counter would just be the free market in action, you know…
sherparick
At the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the following laws were still in effect and prosecuted.
1. It was still a felony for black person to a marry a white person in Virginia and many other states. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
2. It was still a felony (and would remain a felony for many years) for two men or two women to enter into a consensual sexual relationship.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
3. Until the great Warren court decisions of the 1960s (Mapp, Miranda, Escobedo, Bivens) and even beyond, the National Security State of the late 1940s through early 1970s could freely wiretap, search, burgle, etc. with relative impunity those thought “subversive” of the political and economic order.
4. Historically, there is not casual or constitutional relationship between the Patriot Act (which if it has constitutional basis is found in the “war powers” of Congress and the Presidency, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which relies on the Commerce Clause and the 13th and 14th Amendments to ensure equal treatment for all persons in the United States, regardless of the past history of themselves or their ancestors in some form of servitude.
5. Again, Ron Paul and most “libertarians” or not really interested in freedom, but in being liberated to bully others weaker them themsevles as they see fit without being called to account.
Veritas
Speaking of the 1860s, had the South going along with reconstruction and seen it through instead of whining and bitching followed by turning to terrorist groups like the Klan until the feds gave up, we could have avoided the intrusive aspects of the civil rights laws as well, along with spectacles like black men being blasted by firehoses and attacked by dogs just for wanting to eat lunch where they pleased in the fucking 20th Century.
Lojasmo
@Kola Noscopy:
As far as I can tell, nobody’s stopping you from bloviating. Unfortunately, I am absolutely certain you will continue long after Paul drops out.
burnspbesq
@Veritas:
Only if your Constitution is missing Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Roger Moore
@MonkeyBoy:
I’m not sure such a thing really exists. All of our actions have consequences, so my right to act inherently involves the right to impose the consequences of my actions on everyone around me. Even things that you and I may see as having no consequences for anyone around us (like worshiping the way we please, using contraception, marrying the person we love, etc.) may have terrible consequences in other people’s ethical systems, like people who sincerely believe the biblical prophets’ claims that God will punish the whole nation for private sins.
Choosing which rights are worth protecting inherently involves resolving conflicting claims. We may think that the Quakers were closer to correct on how far to go in favor of protecting individual actions vs. community desires, but that’s still a choice.
@Baud:
Sure, but I think the idea about blacks opening their own lunch counters is exactly the kind of thing Paul would counter with if pressed on the issue. It’s classic Libertarian thinking. People are free to run businesses as they see fit, and their business success is proof of whether they were right or not. It’s the market as moral judge. If the market doesn’t deliver equality for blacks, that’s their fault for demanding equality, not the market’s fault for failing to deliver it.
Lojasmo
@Veritas:
When did any republican give a shit about constitutional violations?
Yevgraf
OT – Some Christian pizza joint in Iowa has renamed their chicken salad “Santorum Salad”.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/02/1050869/-Breaking:-Santorum-SaladSeriously
Mark S.
@askew:
Glenn Greenwald isn’t a racist. He just spends 18 hours a day fellating a white supremacist on Twitter. Why can’t people see the difference?
Gust Avrakotos
Libertarianism is a very simply message so it only makes sense if you are a poor uneducated idiot or a rich well educated person who only cares about themselves.
“Gubmit and taxes are bad”. Great message that everyone can relate to and if you are an idiot or selfish rich prick it sounds practical too.
hildebrand
@Kola Noscopy:
No, what is being argued is that outside of the seminar-room, in the real world, you have to deal with the totality of the person. In this case, I would bet that a great many may actually have deep, profound frustrations with Obama regarding his decisions about the way in which to prosecute the current wars, conflicts, etc, but that taken as the total package they would still prefer Obama to Paul. Why? Because he, in every other area, is preferable. He is not a racist. He is not a misogynist. He is not homophobic. He is not seeking to return us to the gold standard. He is not a libertarian – ‘I’ve got mine, you are on your own’ – some Randian nightmare of selfishness.
So, should we have a conversation about drones, detention, and destruction? Yep, but that doesn’t mean that Ron Paul is the one to lead that discussion, or even prompt it. If you want to talk about those failings of Obama, do so, but don’t use Paul as your prop to do so, because we cannot divorce Paul from the rest of his ideas, policy suggestions, past, etc, etc. Do you not see all of this? We have to treat the whole person, because that is the way the world works.
You want to have a conversation about Obama’s failings? Fine, go for it. It is a fine, even necessary, part of the process. But using Paul as the cudgel (or entry) makes no sense because he is such a flawed vehicle – people will always get stuck on his flaws, because they are so egregious, so much so that they will never be able to take seriously anything else that he says. If Greenwald and you want to criticize the President or engage in conversation – right and good – but do so without introducing a variable that really doesn’t enter into your discussion.
Unless, of course, you do like Paul that much, and then you simply have to take your lumps about his negatives.
JGabriel
@Roger Moore:
Sometimes God is kind of a dick, isn’t he/she/it?
.
Yevgraf
@Mark S.:
You win the Internet this year.
Mark S.
@burnspbesq:
The Civil Rights cases really restricted Congress’ power to fight discrimination.
Gust Avrakotos
@Baud: I so wish I was the interviewer when he made that “We don’t want Gubmit in our bedrooms” comment. I would immediately ask him what he thinks about Gubmit controlling womens reproductive choices and watch him squirm like a worm.
BruceFromOhio
No.
No.
This concludes today’s episode of SATSQ.
And to be clear, “One is a libertarian and one is a liberal” miscasts the sources of the quotes: one is running as a fucking soulless two-bit ratfuck Republican presidential candidate, and one is not.
Linda Featheringill
@Strandedvandal:
The pie filter:
It is nice, isn’t it?
askew
@Mark S.:
Sadly, I can’t tell if your comment is snark or fact.
Mark S.
@Yevgraf:
Yay! And it’s only the second day of the year.
BO_Bill
Barack Obama is the best President ever.
Richard
I get the impression with Greenwald that he’d buy a box of “Ron Paul for President” buttons if Paul were only just slightly less of a kook.
As it stands, he’s left to write an “Obama=evil monster!, Paul= progressive!” article that has to leave out the what should have been the obvious punchline.
AA+ Bonds
So I guess this is kind of like how Roe v. Wade destroyed the Constitution or something
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
I don’t know. Obviously, boycotts are part of the way the market works, so a successful boycott is proof that the market just doesn’t want that product. He might even be willing to make some tut tutting noises about how the wicked people who did the firebombing should be punished. I’m sure that he would also do his very best to throw the blame for the whole thing on government interference in the markets through Jim Crow laws, as if the voters who supported Jim Crow weren’t the very same people who would be expected to accept integration by market forces under his scenario.
MikeJ
What are Ron Paul’s views on letting a duck sit at a lunch counter? How about a badger?
slightly_peeved
@Kola Noscopy:
You do realize you’re down to the kind of reasoning used by flat-earthers and people who don’t believe in the moon landings now? Buzz Aldrin punching that guy who claimed the moon landings were fake was because of Buzz’s fear of getting exposed, not because he takes being called a fraud personally.
BruceFromOhio
@hildebrand: This. Thank you. Wanna take a whack at POTUS? Have at it. *Nothing* comes close to the wretched, snivelling evil that is the GOP, its clown car brigade, and the bad, bad juju of its enablers in the 1%, the media, and Congress.
msskwesq
@Yevgraf: Agreed.
msskwesq
@BruceFromOhio: Tell it, Brother! Truth.
Yevgraf
@Roger Moore:
Jeeter Lester with a congressional office, in other words.
msskwesq
@BruceFromOhio: My daughter interned during college in Madison for Feingold. He was a great Senator and has a superior intellect. Certainly superior to Ron Paul. There is no way they are saying the same thing. Feingold is talking about protecting minorities from racial profiling and abuse and Paul is talking about preventing that protection. Polar opposites.
Mnemosyne
@Lojasmo:
You have to admit, it’s pretty funny to be told that we’re trying to suppress Ron Paul’s ideas by talking about Ron Paul’s ideas.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
What is really hilarious is that Ron Paul would read this and say, “yeah, that’s right!”
And not even fucking realize what he was admitting in the process.
slightly_peeved
@hildebrand:
Another thing – how does Obama compare to other U.S. presidents? Truman deployed nukes, FDR interned Japanese-Americans, JFK okayed the Bay of Pigs invasion, Clinton got involved in the Balkan wars more deeply than Obama was in Libya. Ike, LBJ and Nixon were involved in all the shit that happened in Vietnam, and let’s not even get started on Reagan and Bush the Elder.
gwangung
@slightly_peeved:
Not sure if it’s your point, but this list may suggest that it’s not the individual that’s the problem, but that the office of the presidency may inherently generate behavior that’s problematic with respect to civil liberties.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
When you are ‘open to the public’, you have to allow all of the public. It has nothing to do with property rights or any of the other lame excuses racists use. If you want to sell dope to your friends from your mom’s basement, knock yourself out.
Kola Noscopy
@burnspbesq:
I’m a registered Democrat. NOW who’s the purity patrol?
You seem to be saying that all democrats must unquestioningly follow BO or stfu. Even if we’re very likely to vote for him. Oh…that IS what you’re saying.
MonkeyBoy
@Roger Moore:
The point I was trying to make was that the founding settler groups mostly didn’t have the notion of rights in their notion of “freedom” much less the possibility of conflicting rights. They wanted to set up states that implicitly hard-coded what we would consider rights. The only conflict they anticipated were over property rights and slightly the rights of the accused in criminal trials.
Their early notion of “freedom” is often reflected in modern conservatives where the only freedom comes from the free market and only property rights are essential.
Roger Moore
@Yevgraf:
Not so much that as that he places way too much emphasis on process rather than outcome. As I said above, it’s treating the market as a source of morality, rather than just a way of setting prices. If the market dictates that poor people stay poor and black people get fucked over, that’s just the way things go, and it’s a worse injustice to do anything to change the outcome than to watch it happen. I don’t know if he’s actually immoral or just amoral, but I don’t want either one of them near the levers of power.
ChrisNYC
Yay Kay
Josie
@hildebrand:Thanks. That was very nicely stated.
BO_Bill
Barack Obama is such a good President, he would allow a rabid badger with a nasty case of the shits to sit next to Michelle and the girls, and share a large basket of French fries with them.
This is how good of a President Barack is.
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
OT, but do you EVER not comment on a thread? Are you ALWAYS monitoring for any non-Obot comments? Do you have a life in meatspace separate from BJ?
I skip lots of threads. I’m often abused for posting more than once in a thread. You, however, are always here, always multi-commenting. What’s up with that?
freelancer
@BO_Bill:
Somebody reboot BOB
msskwesq
@BO_Bill: what are you talking about? limit the crazy if you can, its getting tiresome.
AA+ Bonds
Ron Paul has a super-dedicated following among a cadre of military and ex-military who go around on Facebook telling other soldiers that they are traitors to their oath if they don’t support Ron Paul, there’s your real spook factor
Google “oath-keeper” and you should find some of the locii of these folks, these heavily-armed folks who believe that any non-Paul politician is illegitimate and a traitor
Mnemosyne
@MonkeyBoy:
If you haven’t read The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, I think you’d like it. It’s all about that exact conflict between religious freedom and community standards in the early colonies.
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
The invisible sky buddy these clowns worship is a reflection of their own warped imaginations.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Yes, God forbid I should have a day off from work every once in a while, especially on a holiday. Plus it’s sometimes easier to knit and comment than it is to knit and watch TV or a movie, especially when I’m doing a cable project.
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
Yes, they should be punished by the integrated lunch counter hiring a private security force. And that never leads to people with more money having more “rights,” of course.
BruceFromOhio
@slightly_peeved: Bit early for such lofty comparisons. 1) term isn’t finished and 2) need some context as a starting for any meaningful conclusion. Example, the tectonic shifts resulting from the end of the Cold War are still underway, so it’s a twisty path to compare modern foreign policy to the worlds and leadership that existed in 1945, 1961, 1975, 1999. Human rights? Use of military force? Expansion of the military-industrial complex? Response to shift of foreign policy after 9/11? Domestic policy? Fiscal policy? There’s a lot of there there, and oodles to compare, more meaningful to pick a specific body of knowledge.
I was born the day after he was shot, so I wasn’t around, but to this day my father holds that JFK was “a crappy president who got lucky with the Soviets, and was stupid enough to pick McNamara” as SecDef. That’s a whole evening of conversation right there.
ETA: … and what the fuck-all that has to do with yet another GOP clown car candidate eludes me.
AA+ Bonds
Here you go,
the freaks themselves
How you know they’re trouble:
Anyone who pushes the “but I’ve got Injun blood” identity is almost guaranteed to be stealth KKK. If you weren’t yet convinced,
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
Seriously, though. Not just today…you are ALWAYS in threads to tell Obama detractors to shut up.
Maybe your job IS telling Obama detractors to shut up. I don’t know…maybe…just saying…
burnspbesq
@Kola Noscopy:
You lie, or you’re illiterate. Doesn’t much matter which it is.
AA+ Bonds
Goddamn you people, how do you not realize that criticism of Obama from the left helps Obama in the general in 2012, Jesus fucking Christ, everyone on the left is terrified of Republican fascism and none of them will vote for any independent candidate
The more people get worked up over the police state under Obama, the more terrified they will be of the police state under any Republican whatsoever
hildebrand
@Kola Noscopy: I am quite curious as to the response you would give to my comments up thread (comment 59).
NobodySpecial
I’m so glad Ron Paul is here to be a convenient excuse not to discuss drone warfare. Before, it was just all ‘OMG U HATE OBAMA AND WANT REPUBLICANS TO KILL YOUR CHILDREN SHUT UP SHUT UP’ on this blog. Now that Ron Paul is here, we can remove the generic ‘Republican’ tag.
I also have to add, this junk about people being paid operatives of this or that politician is nonsense – I can’t imagine any of the howlers on either side in this thing being employable for anything, anyways.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Not all of them. Just you. I can’t help it, your egregious stupidity just sets me off, especially when you try to claim that we’re trying to draw attention away from Ron Paul’s views by discussing Ron Paul’s views.
slightly_peeved
@BruceFromOhio:
This was really the reason for the post; I wasn’t trying to say he was better or worse, just that these people are those he should be compared against rather than against some ideal president who’d do everything that someone would like.
Not much relevance to Paul there, I agree.
hildebrand
@NobodySpecial: Or, we could simply discuss the issue without unnecessarily dragging anyone else into the conversation. You want to have the conversation, have it. Make your argument.
AA+ Bonds
@NobodySpecial:
Wrong-o, online propagandizing through comments and posts is low-paying part-time work that employs thousands of Americans (mostly paid for by the Kochs but it happens across the political spectrum).
All it takes to latch onto a blog like this is a simple WordPress search for certain terms and a quick glance at the relatively high numbers on threads here.
The people who run these operations, on the other hand, are usually paid as consultants, i.e., they make much much more money than the poor college-age slobs they exploit, and all they really need to spend cash on is Facebook ads to deal with high turnover
It’s a total fantasy that it isn’t happening here and elsewhere.
For an example of how murderous Central Asian dictators hire their own online flak catchers, see the Atlantic Monthly’s ugliest hack, Joshua Foust. Foust is a self-described wannabe supervillain, a product of vicious high-school bullying, he parleyed his online presence into big weapons-manufacturer dollars, and there are TONS of little shits like him in this big big bowl
BO_Bill
Nothing adds to the diner lunch experience like the smell of partially digested grubs and insects, combined with canola oil and potatoes.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
So when Glenn Greenwald claims that Ron Paul’s drone policy is “to the left” of Obama, it’s uncouth for us to point out that nothing at all in any of Paul’s policies, including his drone policy, is to the left of anyone on the Democratic side?
BruceFromOhio
@slightly_peeved: OK, gotcha.
Yeah, I have my imaginary Preznit, she’s Skippy The Ferret, she makes all my dreams come true and gives me turkee. And when she runs for Preznit, I will Vote For Her.
In the interim, never another Republican, ever, for any reason, period. The firebaggers will swack me for being a blind Obot. Whatever. Its painfully, ridiculously clear what Republicans have done to us. The Clown Car can cloak itself how it wishes, it matters not.
Mnemosyne
@AA+ Bonds:
I think the total fantasy that
NobodySpecialKola Noscopy is living in is that no liberals actually support Barack Obama, so therefore anyone who argues in favor of his policies must be a paid operative.ETA: Sorry, that’s Kola Noscopy’s fantasy world. NobodySpecial was actually arguing the opposite. Sorry, NS.
Karen
I don’t get how a “progressive” could admire and be a fan of Ron Paul when his reason for being anti foreign war is because it’s none of our business.
He would have let the Holocaust happen.
That’s all I need to know.
He’s not anti war, he’s anti-interventionalist.He wouldn’t be sending help to any country…I’m not talking about wars. I mean AID.
But maybe Kola Noscopy feels the same way, who knows?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Kola Noscopy:
And you are always on threads trolling. See how that works?
AA+ Bonds
See BO_Bill aka MikeJ for a living example of a Koch-hired sleaze
Admiral_Komack
@MikeJ:
He might be partial to beavers…if only to restrict their right to choose.
AA+ Bonds
@Mnemosyne:
It’s also quite possible that NobodySpecial is just such a low-paid, unqualified political operative.
Who knows!
AA+ Bonds
@Karen:
To be fair, the Allies also “let the Holocaust happen” in that sense, interventionism in WWII was not based on genocide and I’m sure you know the bitter history of how they opted against allowing Jewish immigration to their countries and against targeting death-camp routes
kay
I think it’s hysterical that the original complaint was liberals/Democrats were ignoring Ron Paul who was the (supposedly) ONLY one speaking on these issues, and NOW the complaint is we’re discussing Ron Paul to distract from these issues.
The quote at the top of the page is Ron Paul talking about federal power/survellience.
You got your wish.
Ron Paul is talking issues.
That Paul sounds like a goddamned bigoted moron who does’nt even know the legal basis for the Patriot Act when compared with Feingold is no one’s fault but his own.
Admiral_Komack
@hildebrand:
5,000 quatloos it will be frontier gibberish.
gwangung
@AA+ Bonds: There’s a discussion to be had in exploring Paul’s foreign policy.
But I doubt that many supporters have thought more than 10 seconds not hem and their ramifications.
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
Well now I have to state the obvious: You are a liar. Almost every day, in multiple threads in which I do not even post, there you are, vilifying other commenters who dare to question Obama.
During my several periods of BJ banishment, which I wear as badges of honor, and during which I continued to read comment threads, there you were every day, commenting, commenting, commenting, always from the rabid Obama partisan position.
It most certainly is NOT just me, and you, kind madam or sir, are a liar.
But we knew that.
Richard
@NobodySpecial:
Just as an aside, the times that I’ve been personally accused of being a “paid operative” as a means to try and discredit me, it’s been by people who almost certainly know about that kind of job from personal experience. When they accuse me of being a “trolling college fratboy”, I take it as a given that they are really describing themselves.
Boorish college GOPers typically aren’t very convincing at acting like liberals for concern troll purposes.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Dude, you were monitoring the blog even while you were banned from commenting on it and you’re accusing me of being obsessed with it?
That’s got to be the funniest thing you’ve ever written here, and you’ve written some doozies.
BO_Bill
AA+ Bonds; My employer is not the Koch brothers. I am currently working for that religious branch of the Judeo-Semites who segregate the sexes. They own like everything, are getting some bad press, and needed a little help. Please show them your support.
FlipYrWhig
@Admiral_Komack: Like I said the other day, Ron Paul is a Gabby Hayes character. “Consarn it, you dadburn whippersnapper! Freeeeee-dom ain’t nothin’ but bein’ free from the gummit!”
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
Um…why would a person stop reading a blog they visit every day, just because they can’t comment? I actually READ other peoples’ comments. Did you know you can do that?
Oh…but I guess from your perspective as a compulsive, diarrheal commenter, if you couldn’t write your hundreds of comments per day life would not be worth living.
I suppose if you WERE banned from BJ, you would be unable to read the blog without sobbing uncontrollably and emailing John for relief every fifteen minutes.
I dare you: Try to get thru a day without posting a comment on BJ.
FlipYrWhig
@Kola Noscopy: I don’t think Mnem posts any more frequently than other regulars, including me or you.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
So, just checking:
You reading the blog and the comments every day even when you can’t comment: totally normal
Me reading the blog and the comments every day: weird and a sign of obsession
Yeah, that makes total sense.
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig: Who are you and Mnem talking to?
RSA
Feingold is talking about profiling by government agents, such as police officers, but he reminds me of something else. A lot of the discussion of Ron Paul’s retrograde views on civil rights focus on the personal experience, such as not being able to sit down at a segregated lunch counter. There are broader forms of profiling that are just as pernicious. Redlining, for example, by banks, which went on for decades and still continues under the radar today. Given that buying a house is the most expensive thing almost anyone does, it would be nice if libertarian politicians concerned about opportunity would pay attention. But no–I’m guessing it would be viewed as a transaction between two private parties. And if the “free” market dictates that minorities or poor people pay more, they’re out of luck.
BO_Bill
This is why it sucks when I get banned. These cheap fucks pay by the word, and there are children who are depending on me. I am also considering starting up a scholarship fund for children with IQs below 85 and violent criminal records, you know, the ones which so often fall through the cracks. There is so much that Martin will be able to teach them.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mnemosyne: Well, we’ve all learned over the last three years that using our first amendment rights to criticize someone is violating their first amendment rights.
Benjamin Franklin
You know…If you respond to a commentator you see as a troll; that makes you a trollop, no matter your age, gender, political persuasion or IQ.
N’cest Pas ?
NobodySpecial
@hildebrand: We did that already. I’m not interested in the Thousand and One ways the typical BJ resident has to tell hippies to shut up so much that I need a repeat.
I’m just, as always, bemused by how many things most of us railed about during the Bush years have now quietly sunk beneath the waves and been codified as ‘just the way we do business’ under Obama. I remember Obama being the guy in Illinois who pushed for video interrogations of criminals so that the police had less chance of doing something hinky to boost conviction rates. I dislike seeing him be the guy who can order drone attacks on unconvicted criminals in other countries telling us it’s for our own good and we don’t need to know about that stuff anyways.
FlipYrWhig
@gwangung: For what it’s worth, “Kola” is saying Mnemosyne posts too much. He’s a longtimer himself. I forget what his handle used to be.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Oh, sweetie, if you’re that tired of hearing from me, you should just pie me and have done with it. I’m afraid John isn’t going to fulfill your dream of banning me anytime soon, so I wouldn’t pin your hopes on that.
But I’m taking a trip to the grocery store now, so you can set your timer and figure out what the exact amount of time is between this comment and my next one, you cute little stalker, you.
ETA:
@Benjamin Franklin:
Meh, fair enough. I never claimed to not be a troll-feeder. They’re just so cute when they come swarming up to the bait.
Karen
@AA+ Bonds:
My father told me all about how FDR made that decision to turn the refugees away and calls him an anti-semite.
To me, it’s worse to actually state that we should never have gotten involved with the Holocaust. Ron Paul has said that.
I also get real tired of hearing progressives saying that Obama kills brown people overseas and that worse than RP’s Jim Crow views. Under Ron Paul, who wants to get rid of the Fed (he’s said this), lynching would be fine. The Fed should not get involved in state’s issues. Starving the poor is fine since it just means they’re not working hard enough.
It implies that RPProgressives (an oxymoron) care more about the rights and deaths of people overseas than they do about the people in the US.
RPP hates the drones overseas, fine I accept that. But by only talking about what you love about Ron Paul and pretending the other non progressive views don’t exist then you’re doing the same exact thing you accuse the “Obots” of doing.
I guess it’s just a matter of where your line is. I’ll never say Obama is perfect, he’s not. I don’t agree with everything he does. But Ron Paul’s fuck you I have mine attitude just overrides whatever “good” things there are because I know it’s not a matter of civil rights. Civil liberties are not the same thing and it’s code. Kind of like the anti-gay people learned to use the phrase “Gay’s shouldn’t have special rights.” Or how White Supremacists now say that they’re “Pro White.”
Sarah Proud and Tall
Ah, Kay, I do love you. I’d ask you to marry me if it weren’t illegal in both our home states.
gwangung
Addition for clarification purposes.
I don’t know of more than one progressive of color that is sympathetic to Paul and his positions (and that guy doesn’t strike me as being very tightly wrapped).
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
No, you reading the blog and comments every day and commenting in almost every single thread multiple times. THAT seems abnormal.
But your purposeful misrepresentation of what I wrote: TOTES normal for you.
Ian
@msskwesq:
I thought he was talking about pie
freelancer
You’re all spoofs, the bunches of ya!
Kola Noscopy
@gwangung:
It’s so cute when people who pretend to use the pie filter pretend to not be able to read the comments of people they’re pretending to use their pretend filter on, all so that we can all SEE that they are pretending to use the pretend pie filter even though they are obviously pretend curious about what it is they are pretending not to be able to read, which apparently they believe makes them seem…something…
eemom
@gwangung:
To quote again one of TNC’s delightful tweets: “I just don’t see a black weedheadwhite racist fusion party actually moving the country forward.”
dmbeaster
Did the Greek God of proctology curse Kola to endure endlessly his namesake procedure, resulting in his endless acid ‘tude?
OzoneR
@Kola Noscopy:
yeah it started with Bush, sure
OzoneR
@Kola Noscopy:
Well I’ll be damned- confirmation.
Benjamin Franklin
@OzoneR:
Sarcasm off !
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Strange, that.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Just because you’re so terribly concerned about my posting habits, I thought I ought to let you know that I’m back from the grocery store and eating a Pink Lady apple. When G gets home from work and we’re ready to go to dinner, I’ll make sure to let you know when I’ve left.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: What’s wrong with this blog. It’s my favorite. If I could quit my job, I’d be on BJ 24 hours a day.
Benjamin Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
I think the concern is your statement about being a Paul supporter.
ChrisNYC
Andrew Sullivan posted a tweet from Katrina Vanden Heuvel to support his RP fawning. THAT’S how bad it is — Sullivan has been forced to post an idea from a WOMAN with APPROVAL. Things are bad over there. The earth is shifting on its axis.
magurakurin
@Kola Noscopy: Jesus, you are a fuckwit. We’re all just digital bits of data in this reality, but it is pretty clear that Mnemosyne has digital friends here. Now, that whole concept that people share some sort of human contact through the computer is a bit weird on the face of it, but so what. I suppose I would barely register as an acquaintance of Mnemosyne since I don’t even know if my digital existence is actually known to them; however, I still like the virtual entity known as Mnemosyne and apparently so do many others.
You, on the other hand are like a person at a party that nobody likes and everybody wishes would leave. Perhaps the people at the party are wasting their life sharing virtual cocktails but if that is so, what the fuck are you doing? I mean talk about needing a life. You hang out at place where most people ignore you(literally by means of software code,) a good many despise you and a not insignificant number fucking hate you.
You’re the one who needs a new fucking hobby.
Try LSD.
Lojasmo
@msskwesq:
Feingold has an intellect on par with my governor (m. Dayton) and jr. Senator (a. Franken)
Good times in Minnesota.
stratplayer
I am profoundly inspired by Ron Paul’s firm stand in support of freedom of oppression.
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall: We do have the everything-but-the law. Oh wait…
Odie Hugh Manatee
@magurakurin: “Try LSD.”
No, PCP. If it works on animals it should work on him. Should.
I would never tell John how to run his place but if this asshole was hitting my forums I would taunt and ban his ass every time he returned. I would delete every one of his posts except one in which he would talk about how his family tree is a trunk, his discovery of industrial adhesives at a young age and his fascination with the reproductive systems of farm animals.
I enjoy doing it every time I have to; it’s great entertainment for the sane members and the trolls eventually give up in frustration because their bullshit isn’t getting through and people are laughing at them. Turn their disruptive behavior on them and they absolutely hate it. I rarely ever have to do this but when I do it works. Every single time.
We’re a better gaming community for it, no doubt about it. A few disgusting, malicious trolls can bring a place down real fast.
IMO, this asshole is one of them.
Karen
@magurakurin:
I’m sorry but the thought of “digital friends” just makes me laugh. Are friends electric?
benjoya
probably too subtle for this crowd, but greenwald tried:
“Paul’s handling of the very legitimate questions surrounding those rancid newsletters has been disappointing in the extreme, and that has only served to obscure these vital debates and severely dilute the discourse-enhancing benefits of his candidacy.”
benjoya
also, paul may be a racist (he at the least has no problem with making hay off of other people’s racism), but he is opposed to the war on drugs, which IMO is a racist policy. he doesn’t want a war with iran, IMO a racist war. it’s not as simple as most would like.
FlipYrWhig
@Karen: Do antisocial androids dream of electric friends?
FlipYrWhig
@benjoya: Yeah, if not for the crackpot stances on thousands of things, pretty much every issue except the three Glenn Greenwald likes, Ron Paul would be a hell of a candidate with much to teach us.
benjoya
@FlipYrWhig: yes, and those three issues are inconsequential. certainly not a matter of life and death unless you’re iranian.
benjoya
but what am i worrying about? — neocons have been completely discredited and thus have exactly zero juice these days, right? and the drug war doesn’t effect people who matter, so you’re right. let’s watch a football game.
Anonymous Poster
@benjoya: Maybe so, but the point is that he’s not against those things by virtue of their racism. He’s against them for other reasons, which make for disastrous policy elsewhere. That they make for good policy on the points you mention is mere coincidence.
FlipYrWhig
@benjoya: Silly me, I forgot how vital drug enforcement and Bradley Manning’s underpants were to the American electorate.
benjoya
@FlipYrWhig: oh, i thought we were talking about the substance of the issues. never mind. good night.
wilfred
“We must guard against racism and ethnic discrimination against people of Arab and South Asian origin and those who are Muslim. We who don’t have Arabic names or don’t wear turbans or headscarves may not feel the weight of these times as much as Americans from the Middle East and South Asia do.”
Yeah, well we didn’t and we don’t. We continue to murder Arabs/Muslims while threatening yet another war against them. And when racial profiling is extended to Arabs/Muslims where’s the outrage?:
http://www.emptywheel.net/
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/12/29/nydn-census-now-mapping-your-back-hallways/
Talk is cheap.
kay
Bennjoya, let’s talk about the drug war
Let’s stipulate that it is not true that Ron Paul opposes “the drug war” but instead true that Ron Paul believes there is no constitutional basis for federal statutes on illegal drugs.
Go to your state code and look at state law and sanctions and sentencing on illegal drugs and see what you find.
I don’t know ( or care) if Ron Paul is a bigot.
I do know that relying on Ron Paul’s opposition to federal law on drugs as a defense on bigotry is baloney.
Use something else. That’s weak.
hildebrand
@benjoya: Allow me to quote myself from up-thread (a comment utterly ignored by the previous pro-Paul commenter):
I would be most interested in your response.
edit: paragraphs 2 and 3 are likewise a part of my earlier post – clearly my block-quote fu is a bag of fail
additional edit: you can add the drug war to the list of important topics that need a real discussion – but again, let us divorce that from the very problematic messenger that is Ron Paul
Kola Noscopy
@magurakurin:
I’ll consider you one of the many here whose loathing is a healthy sign of my good sense.
IOW, I welcome your hatred, you poor thing.
Try to develop friendships in meat world; it will do you good.
benjoya
@hildebrand: thanks for your response.
So, should we have a conversation about drones, detention, and destruction? Yep, but that doesn’t mean that Ron Paul is the one to lead that discussion, or even prompt it.
well, if not paul, who will prompt that discussion? romney? santorum? leon panetta? come on. ditto the drug war.
look, i’m not a paul supporter (deaniac/obama ’08 volunteer, actually), but if many here can agree paul has 2 or 3 good ideas, i would say that’s 2 or three more than the rest of the GOP.
and i agree that paul is a problematic messenger (so does greenwald, he’s still talking up gary johnson!)
benjoya
@kay: Go to your state code and look at state law and sanctions and sentencing on illegal drugs and see what you find.
in many states, the law is at odds with the feds. as i understand it, the frank/paul bill would get the feds to back off. am i mistaken about that?
and i don’t claim (in fact i highly doubt) that the racist effects of the drug war or the racist motivations for contemplating war on iran are paul’s reason for opposing them. i don’t care; he’s still on the right side of those issues.
Karen
@FlipYrWhig:
Philip Dick was so ahead of his time. I wonder what he’d think of how the world is now if he was still alive…
Both he and Margaret Atwood but for some reason I find Philip Dick’s dystopias less chilling than Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.”
kay
What law is at odds with the feds?
Marijuana?
County courts and state prisons are full to bursting with drug defendants.
If your issue is the drug war I would think you would care about that.
If Ron Paul’s issue was the drug war instead of the federal government, he would care about it, but he doesn’t.
I don’t even think he’s a good advocate. For anything.
This is his critique of the Patriot Act?
That it started w/ the CRA?
WTF?
How does that get you where you want to go?
You’re going to form some mighty alliance w/people who oppose civil rights?
benjoya
@kay: If Greenwald and you want to criticize the President or engage in conversation – right and good – but do so without introducing a variable that really doesn’t enter into your discussion.
but paul does enter the discussion because of his positions on these particular issues, eg, his response to the killing of awlaki: “that’s sad.” as in sad for the constitution. i agree. i know many here don’t, but i’m not so tied to personalities that i would dismiss their other opinions just cause they have no problem with extra-judicial execution.
benjoya
@kay: AFAIK, paul has been critiquing the USA PATRIOT act since it was enacted. this is the first time he’s mentioned the CRA, and yeah, it’s nuts to connect the two.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@slightly_peeved:
@gwangung:
Or it says something about America in general following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@benjoya:
No, this ISN’T the first time Paul has mentioned the Civil Rights Act. It’s been part of his schtick for a loooong time. I was having conversations with people about his CRA stance in 2007, and it was an established plank in his platform even then.
Nerull
I’m not really sure that crashing the world economy (Which Ron Paul’s ideas, implemented, would do) and likely putting the world into WWIII is “left of Obama” on wars.
Of course, Paul is waiting for Jebus to return when Israel gets destroyed, so that makes sense of him.
kay
@benjoya:
What did I or anyone else in this thread write that was about “personalities”?
I’ve posted Ron Paul’s statements and bills he introduced. The response to that from his supporters is going to be that I’m “tied to personalities”?
That’s nonsense and psychobabble.
Defend his statement at the top of the page. Do you agree that the Civil Rights Act led to the Patriot Act?
Because there’s meaning in that statement. There’s a reason he said it. He’s a doctrinaire far Right libertarian. He opposes the Civil Rights Act and the Patriot Act for the same reason.
kay
@benjoya:
It’s not “nuts”. It’s perfectly rational to equate federal interference with private property in the service of protecting civil rights with the Patriot Act, if you’re a far Right doctrinaire libertarian.
kay
@wilfred:
I don’t rely on internet lawyers. I am a lawyer.
Take it apart yourself. Use your own words. Tell me what you think. I’m not interested in what an internet lawyer thinks. Do your own thinking, and your own work.
kay
@wilfred:
If you want to debate me on the two statements on the top of the page, debate me. YOU do it. No editorials written by others. I’m not interested in the punditry’s take. If I wanted to debate the author, I would go there and do that.
wilfred
Debate what – whose rhetoric is superior? I just saw Feingold trashed on this site because he was a traitor to the party. But since you asked – yes it’s better rhetoric.
In practice, however, it makes little difference. I linked to the sites in case anyone was interested in anti-Arab/Muslim bigotry in practice.
I still stand by the Perot Pledge. Every candidate of any political party should be obliged to publicly state the following:
“If you’re a racist or a bigot, I don’t want your vote”
It can then be run at the end of every radio and tv ad. Then we don’t need rhetoric.
At Talaq
@Trentrunner:
Where’s the rest of the paragraph? The context is completely removed. Either you are trying to pull a deliberate fast-one, or somebody has hoodwinked you. Do a google search. Read the entire context of that comment. Educate yourself, and maybe that hysterical dog-whistle knee of yours will jerk itself back into place.