Okay, as is often the case I have done some serious thinking after getting some very good push-back in the comments and from some of the other authors here and elsewhere over my Gary Johnson posts. First of all, I think it’s important to note that I did not say I would support a Johnson candidacy, only that I’m tempted to support the most viable anti-war candidate that comes around. Probably the best argument against supporting Johnson is this: supporting a candidate based on a single-issue alliance is not as effective as supporting a cause.
It’s also more dangerous because if that cause becomes too embodied by that candidate, then the rest of his ideas – like abolishing the Fed, for instance – can then become conflated with the good cause as well. And so you weaken and undermine those ideas by associating them too closely with the bad ideas of the candidate you supported. You see this with Ron Paul, who has very good and decent positions on foreign intervention and the security state, but who is way off in crazy Austrian land when it comes to economics and goldbuggery.
It’s important to build up support for these ideas from the bottom up rather than from the top down. If you want a more anti-war, civil-liberties-based liberalism than you have to argue for it, work with activists to build up grass-roots support for those policies, and vote for local and state candidates who support those ideas. Making a deal with the devil may be a dramatic and appealing way to register one’s dissent, but it’s more than likely counter-productive. A show of support for Johnson’s anti-drug-war policies is just as easily taken as support for slashing public support for healthcare and education, or for busting public sector unions. As someone who really thinks it’s high-time for some form of single-payer health insurance in this country (and the ACA for now) and who supports public education against this constant barrage of corporate reforms, a vote for Johnson would be a vote against things I care deeply about.
The trick, then, is making a vote for Obama go as far as possible. Because I am fundamentally opposed to his foreign policies also, and to his escalation of immigrant deportations and medical marijuana busts and the ratcheting up of the TSA. I think you can support a candidate and still be a vocal and persistent critic. So that is what I will aim to do.
PS – you can email me here or follow me on Twitter here. I have posted a full-excerpt of this post at Forbes.
AAA Bonds
Well, the trick is to not support candidates who agree with you on policy issues because of deep-seated convictions wholly alien to your own.
These people will commit acts that you consider amoral and evil.
For Democrats, Gary Johnson and Ron Paul both qualify, as do all “libertarians” in the sense of the Libertarian Party.
E.D. Kain
@AAA Bonds: I think being against this failed war on drugs should be something all sides can agree on based on shared values. After all, it’s a huge intrusion by the state and enormously expensive, and it’s a terrible, devastating war against poor people and minorities.
TooManyJens
A thousand times this. We’re not going to get peace-loving candidates until we become less of a war-loving nation. We’re not going to get politicians who will value civil liberties over the national security state until we stop being so pants-pissingly afraid of scary [brown|Commie|drug-using|Muslim] people.
It takes too damn long to do the work at the grassroots level, but it’s the only thing that will actually work.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
But that is not what you did. You fluffed GaJo and pretended to know nothing about this.
Yay! Racism is over in America!
and nothing about this
so you could snipe at Obama at Forbes and on twitter and concerntroll him at BJ.
Did you read this?
@E.D. Kain:
you are so fucking dishonest.
Obama didn’t “start a third war in the ME”. He “reluctantly” joined a coalition of euros and the AL sanctioned by a UN resolution.
I just knew you were a secret Bush fellator.
E.D. Kain
@TooManyJens: I totally agree. This was the fundamental flaw in my argument. But it’s the truth.
Shadow's Mom
I don’t agree with several positions that Obama has taken, particularly with respect to immigration and the ‘drug wars.’ Despite this, I will support him for 2012 because he has followed through on most of what he committed to insofar as possible when confronted by Republicans united in opposing any of his policies, and Democrats unable to unite wholly behind the policies he wanted.
And, may I say, I respect your willingness to reconsider a position and adjust it based on new data.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: oh bullshit. Obama didn’t ‘reluctantly’ do anything. Look, I’m a dove. I’m a goddamned non-interventionist anti-war writer. I’m not giving Obama a pass on Libya and it has nothing to do with concern trolling. It could be my grandma starting the damn war and I’d be pissed off about it.
E.D. Kain
@Shadow’s Mom: thanks. I think it’s entirely rational to support a candidate who you disagree with on some issues. It’s also rational to criticize those areas where you disagree and support those positions that you do agree with.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
And now we have FOUR FUCKING FRONT PAGE POSTS ABOUT GAJO.
A noncandidate that is a racist, union-bashing, anti-Roe, tenther, market-based libertarian fucktard (just like “Our” Very Own EDK is a market-based libertarian fucktard).
And again EDK.
Why do you have a JAFI like Kowal as a frontpager at the LoOG?
AAA Bonds
@E.D. Kain:
No.
Libertarians would also oppose the regulation of drugs as a commodity.
Regulation of drugs as a commodity is absolutely necessary to ending the war on drugs and is nonnegotiable.
ABL
he’s also fucking racist. FULL STOP.
ABL
I’m really tired of these Serious Discussions about these racist-ass libertarians.
E.D. Kain
@AAA Bonds: I think it depends on the libertarian. I think someone like Radley Balko truly cares about the plight of the people he is writing about. Civil libertarianism is very deeply rooted in social justice issues.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I have Kowal posting at the League so that I can write posts disagreeing with him.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: He DIDNT START A WAR.
He joined one that a UN sponsored coalition was starting.
Did you say this?
Go suck Bush’s cock somemore.
I just knew you were a fellator.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Like this one.
E.D. Kain
@ABL: the War on Drugs is probably the most racist government policy since the end of the Civil Rights movement.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: you’ll note that in that particular quote I say that Iraq was NOT right.
E.D. Kain
Anyways, I’m not sure what the point of arguing over nothing is. This is my concession to sound arguments especially from folks like Stillwater and Omnes and mistermix, as well as non-juicers elsewhere. Support a cause, not a candidate, and avoid personality politics that can backfire in all sorts of bad ways. Seems like strong advice.
AAA Bonds
@E.D. Kain:
That’s an extremely vague statement and I can’t make heads nor tails of it.
If you support the administrative state and the powers necessary to regulate a commodity market that is by all estimates somewhere in the tens of billions of dollars for marijuana alone, you are a strange sort of libertarian.
Once again, I do not consider this a negotiable part of ending the War on Drugs, unless we intend to retain a great deal of the problems it causes for no good reason.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: oh yeah. Remember what you said about fetus=slave?
I do. You said it was UNDERSTANDABLE that people believed that.
This is what conservatives/libertarians do. They mainstream this shit, legitimize it in the name of “discussion”.
Like socon values. Like birtherism. Like anti-SSM and Dr. Tillers death and creationism and AGW denialism.
You wrote one post “pushing” back. He has written a lot more. Notes from Babel is a JAFI site.
You are mainstreaming him just like the fetus slavers.
You are legitimizing him.
AAA Bonds
@E.D. Kain:
Racists often oppose policies that are incidentally racist, and sometimes even use the racist aspects of those policies to defend themselves against charges of racism. It doesn’t make them not racist.
suzanne
@TooManyJens: O concur about 10,000%. And I believe the left wing would have greater long-term success if they did a better job drawing long-term narratives rather than getting bogged down in the minutae of the moment. When they do this, like when we talk about ending DADT in the same breath as the Civil Rights movement, we tend to win. When we talk about taxing the rich to save X dollars in X years, we lose.
AAA Bonds
@ABL:
++’d
Mandramas
@E.D. Kain: I seconded that. And in fact, also you can support ideologies, that is a coherent corpus of causes. It is a symptom of poor democracy to do not have new political parties surging each decade.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain:
NO YOU FUCKING SPINNER
You said Libya was just like Iraq and Obama was just like Bush.
just like every other fucking conservative/libertarian Obama concern troll in the blogverse.
AAA Bonds
@suzanne:
I agree. We should talk about taxing the rich as a necessary part of creating and maintaining the society in which wealth is earned.
Martin
Not pertaining to foreign policy which is a bit of a different animal, but the executive has limited latitude in these other areas. Immigration and drug issues are primarily the purview of Congress. The executive can soften these areas on enforcement but cannot reverse that policy.
I don’t argue with Obama’s stance on immigration. The argument that part of the immigration problem was a lack of enforcement wasn’t a wrong argument. The problem is that it credited the GOP with being strong on enforcement when they weren’t, so they were shaping stronger and stronger policy by doing a shittier and shittier job of enforcement. I have trouble when competence is viewed as a failure because policy is doomed in that case.
If we want better immigration and drug policy, then we need better legislators of policy, not less competent executives of policy.
TooManyJens
@suzanne: That’s a good point. We need to tie our causes into a larger story about what this nation can and should be. That’s what I liked so much about Obama’s speech on the budget — he explicitly said that going back on the promise of the social safety net would diminish us as a nation.
AAA Bonds
I wake up every day and am consciously glad that I do not live in the country that Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, and members of the Libertarian Party envision as “America”.
Mandramas
@Martin: Well, political parties were invented to have some kind of ideological connection between executive and legislative branches of a political system. Typically, a president have the control of the party, so de facto it can controls the legislative branch too.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: why even fluff GaJo to begin with? Did you honestly not know he was a racist Scott Walker fan? I thought you were all about the unions.
No, we have had FOUR FUCKING GAJO POSTS because you wanted to concern troll Obama.
I see no other reason for you fluffing GaJo.
Allan even caught you doing it on twitter.
Phoebe
@AAA Bonds: I guess I’d rather have a racist candidate who supported/furthered anti-racist stuff than a anti-racist candidate who supported/furthered racist stuff. Not that we have that choice before us, and not that support = further.
I was all happy back when Obama said The Wire was his favorite show, thinking maybe he was anti-drug-war, but so what if he doesn’t act on it.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You know what? I kind of like the character Hermione Granger. She’s got sand.
I like the Weasleys too. They’re a family who’s got each other’s backs, instead of spending their time tearing down everyone they come in contact with.
And I’m really tired of the foul language and the crap you spew under that name.
Get another name or knock it off.
ETA: Weasleys. ETD. Rude name.
BSoSR +2
Richard Bottoms
Could someone explain to me the ability for white folks to block out completely racist words and behavior of Libertarian dickheads like Ron Paul and teabagger racist birthers like Donald Trump?
So they never say the N-Word. Big fucking deal.
There must something that happens as the thoughts cross the synapses that block out racist newsletters, associations with racist groups, speaking engagements before racist gatherings, just so long as somewhere along the way the right words on taxes come out of their mouths.
Ron Paul’s racist publications were obviously mistake, he just let his name be used, he would never believe the vile things published under it.
This is not some intellectual exercise through I can disregard Trump saying Obama’s mother participated in a birth certificate forgery to get on welfare.
It is a round-about, damn obvious way of saying nigger, nigger, nigger linking welfare, criminal blacks, and the obvious trickery that this uppity black man must have used to get through Harvard and win the presidency.
None of it ever surprises me. So sick and very unsurprising.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@ABL: yes, and this is the fourth fucking front page post about GaJo and po’ widdle EDK’s tortured wistful yearning for a anti-drug war, anti-interventionist candidate.
He longs for that so much he is willing to accept a union bashing libertarian tenther that wants to strike down Roe and child labor laws and believes that racism ended in America when a black president got elected.
enough already.
AAA Bonds
Here is a good sound warning for people with an unfettered belief in free markets from Stetson Kennedy, a man whose infiltration and investigation of the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist organization was ignored repeatedly by the Klan-friendly HUAC until he marched into the Capitol in the middle of the day wearing full Klan regalia.
The full interview is available here and is very worth reading.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Fuck you very much. I’m aiming for the grrlstyle version of Matt Taibbi, but I think I need more scatological references.
I wonder what Matt Taibbi would make of “Our” EDK…..
Dennis SGMM
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
I finally broke down and pied her just because I became tired of scrolling past her perseverating claptrap. I’ve been hanging around here for a few years and she’s the first person whose stench I ever had to replace with the wholesome scent of pie.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@AAA Bonds: wow, that is great.
thank you for the link.
I totally agree with that.
AAA Bonds
@Phoebe:
I don’t want a racist in power who is anti-drug-war. That’s vile and disgusting.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You missed.
AAA Bonds
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Spread it far and wide, people need to remember how to actually respond to conservatives
kdaug
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: The great thing about m_c is that she just can’t help herself – sooner or later, no matter what the handle, she descends into a profanity-laced tirade that reveals her. EDK is just the bait.
Hey, m_c, try this name on for size: “Mr. Spock”.
ABL
@E.D. Kain: i’m fully aware of that. what’s your point?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: Since you are link whoring again….
You forgot to pimp your Sully link.
AAA Bonds
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
There was this brief period around 2008 when Matt Taibbi was vocally fond of Ron Paul and it was very disturbing and I feel like he’s done his penance since.
Lolis
Yep, at least when Obama disappoints on a few major issues like civil liberties, global terror, Libya, there are still things like Supreme Court justices, EPA & FDA regulations, health care, gay rights and other issues to be able to support the president on. That is why supporting a candidate’s overall platform/values/worldview is so important.
Ending the Drug War would take massive Congressional action that would be very difficult to achieve IMHO. I doubt Johnson would be more successful than Obama in the efforts to close Gitmo or cut pork military programs.
I also agree with ABL that most of these dudes are totally racist and/or sexist and are not worthy of our attention.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I’ll try harder. I aim to please.
;)
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@kdaug: Yeah, well I could deal with m-c. That was mostly just tedious. Hijacking Hermione now, that’s serious.
I may have to figure out the pie filter soon.
AAA Bonds
This is apparently now the m_c appreciation station
Warren Terra
I am also opposed to the one-and-a-half-or-so of these that are actually happening. You know, in the real world, outside of your mind. Because if you really think that Obama is escalating medical marijuana busts, you’re out of your gourd. The data on immigration deportation are far from clear (there has been more enforcement, but it’s also been aimed more at employers, and some of the deportation is voluntary and caused by the bad employment market). And it’s far indeed from clear that the TSA has gotten stronger or more intrusive in recent years (yes, I know, backscatter machines – but those weren’t commissioned recently, they’ve only just arrived recently. I sure as heck got patted down under Bush).
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@AAA Bonds: i adore Taibbi. I would forgive him anything for his epic Bobo takedowns.
People complain about liberals being wusses.
Not Matt Taibbi. And not me. I loathe all freemarketeers and libertarians with the fire of a thousand suns.
Taibbi is my hero. I have all his books, and I read him obsessively.
Martin
@Mandramas: Well, that requires that the legislators have the courage to actually carry through the 11 layers of procedural hell to do that. As we’ve so clearly seen, just having a D next to your name hardly guarantees that.
ABL
@AAA Bonds: THANK YOU.
jesus f. christ.
@E.D. Kain: what does this even mean? this statement is word salad. ron paul is racist. that in and of itself disqualifies him for the presidency in my view and in the view of a lot of colored folk.
i’ve yet to see you or greenwald or lil fred or any libertarian address this issue head on. lots of libertarians seem to want to experiment irrespective of the fact that the shit end of the experiment stick will fall on minorities and the poor.
but hey. let’s have MORE academic discussions about the wonder that is libertarianism and how we should maybe think about possibly voting for fucking gary johnson.
ugh. give me a break.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: im prolly going to move on to a Dune character…probably Ghanima or Murbella..or Darwi Odrade.
I was just using Hermione for the whole conservatives as Deatheaters metaphor.
Its about played out, and now mistermix is copying me.
its getting tired.
>:(
Mandramas
@AAA Bonds: As most of the threads involving EDK or muslims issues. To my particular taste, they are the most interesting. But those when a wingnut troll descends here to entertain us.
E.D. Kain
@suzanne:
Very good point.
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: I’m not sure what the point of arguing over nothing is. This is my concession to sound arguments
And no shame in that. Good on ya. In fact, if a person refuses to change their mind in the face of good arguments, there’s no reason to argue with them or read their views. (Ahhh, I remember like it was only yesterday when I was mercilessly pounded by reasonable people and their fucking rational arguments about the ACA … Good times.)
And you’re right about arguing over nothing here. Sometimes people forget what the goal of all this discussion is.
Martin
@Warren Terra: Actually, from the data I’ve seen on immigration enforcement, deportations are up primarily because the percentage of deportations of people who have committed crimes is way the fuck up. Deportation of people who have not committed crimes is down a bit, but nothing too dramatic.
Like I indicated above, I have a hard time getting worked up over significantly increased deportations of criminals.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Lolis: and their economics suck donkey balls. No wonder EDK and GG can believe GaJo is a viable candidate– they believe in the free market fairies.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: we have had four fucking posts of that retard fluffing a racist anti-Roe AGW denying union-bashing libertarian tenther.
Doesnt EDK owe the juicers an apology?
Are we supposed to believe he didnt know?
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
Yeah, give Kowal your front page and then let him close comments? Weak. I wouldn’t offer my megaphone to a bigot. YMMV.
gwangung
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Meh. For someone who says she fights against racism, she acts bigotedly most of the time, dismissing the concerns of people of color.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Are we supposed to believe he didnt know?
We’re all learning, M_C, isn’t that right? Even you?
ABL
@AAA Bonds: no shit. how is it that these fuckwits became serious topics of discussion?
and why is it that libertarians have their panties in a wad about the fucking drug war? seems to me there are a lot of social justice steps that need to be taken before we throw our lot in with the “anti-drug war” candidate, as if any president could assume the presidency and dismantle the drug war without the full support of congress.
same goes for anti-war candidates. let’s assume a president gary world — how the hell is he going to be the great anti-war savior? it’s practically a sin to even MENTION reducing the defense budget. didn’t the pentagon explicitly state that it didn’t want funding for some plane and congress allotted funding ANYWAY? do you really think that a libertarian is going to sweep in and get us out of these wars?
and finally, what is it with you anti drug war/anti war libertarians? it’s not like “liberals” or “progs” don’t want these same things. i’m anti-war. i like drugs. we all agree on that shit. so why can’t you get off that high horse and think about the OTHER issues that matter to liberals? social justice issues?
you folks are single issue voters… no better than the teabillies. you should just admit it so the rest of us can ignore you.
i mean, come the fuck on.
+ idon’tknow… a lot.
(when i say you, i don’t mean YOU specifically. i don’t know what i mean. who cares. vodka, ftw.)
mclaren
There are no anti-war candidates in America and there never will be.
In America, the Forever War goes on forever, and war is now the health of the state.
War in America in 2011 is like Spice in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune. “The spice must flow.”
Nothing can be permitted to interrupt that. Anything that stands in its way must be wiped out. The spice must flow.
Any candidate who says the spice will not flow will get trashed, shredded, blown away, savaged by the press, ripped apart in the polls, subjected to astroturf assaults so vicious that hardened combat vets will fall to their knees and puke their guts out at the sight of it.
The spice must flow. In America, today, the Forever War is forever, and always will be.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: oh, pardon, we have had three fucking posts of that retard EDK fluffing a racist anti-Roe union-bashing AGW denying freemarket fucktard tenther libertarian, and now we have to endure a FOURTH post of EDK finally admitting he was WRONG?
jaysus mary and joseph.
AAA Bonds
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Agreed.
Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames are the two giants of American political writing in the previous decade and so far the giants of this one, and will be recognized as such by history.
The eXile book describes how they played good-cop, bad-cop in Moscow to great effect. What I find fascinating is how it’s described, in a chapter credited to Taibbi: Mark played the good cop, camouflaged as a smiling, self-deprecating, establishment-friendly media figure, and Matt played the bad cop, the garbage-diving hit-piece nuke-dropper with nothing to lose.
I don’t even know if they talk regularly anymore. But maybe coordination wasn’t necessary to switch roles and keep up the game.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Crusty Dem: EDK is mainstreaming him, legitimizing him. You see, rampant islamophobia is wrong, but it is understandable, and we should discuss it!
Just like birtherism.
;)
ABL
i must be hella drunk — i agree with hermione_chan!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@mclaren: Fremen saying.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@ABL: im hella drunk too. that is obviously why our brain waves are syncing.
O tequila, how infinite thy majesty.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: @mclaren: Do we have a Dune fan’s Landsraad today? Cry ‘Muad’Dib!’, and let slip the Sardaukars of Kralizec.
AAA Bonds
Another great guy is Ian Murphy. Man, Ian Murphy is great
FlipYrWhig
@ABL: Libertarians are disproportionately present online. In my experience, a libertarian is a white dude who (1) likes weed, (2) expects to have money one day. It’s not interesting. Talking to libertarians is like talking to English professors. Every conversation gravitates back to like two possible topics and includes a lot of jargon and shibboleths. Incidentally, I’m an English professor.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Nice! Pisco is my drink of choice, tonight.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: oh come Stil. That is a reach even for you.
EDK has been a GaJo fanboi since last August. sure, he knew no-thing.
bulshytt.
Stillwater
@ABL: But… We can insult them and write them off, reinforce their beliefs that Liberals are Fascists, and send on their slow road to Single Issue Nirvana which only succeeds in permitting them to overlook the myriad important issues worth considering.
Or we can try to talk to them. (Whoever they are…)
ETA: I think there’s some uncorrectable problem with that first sentence.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: salaamu aleykum brother
ABL
i’m throwing my lot in with hermione.
HA!
AAA Bonds
Matt Taibbi’s response to the War on Drugs:
This is exactly the right attitude to take.
I know everyone’s read this but if you aren’t endlessly thrilled with that image then you have never seen the infamous picture of Matt as “Dennis Rodman of Mongolia”.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: aleyki salaam, sister:
amk
Too much of gg kool aid. A blowhard (probably on a big bong hit trip) going gaga over a nondescript, below average govnor. Meh.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@AAA Bonds: Well….that is a thing I simply do not understand about libertarians. Mostly they support socon values…like they say, well this is wrong…like being against SSM… but i understand why you socons believe that.
Except the drug war.
Are they all stoners?
Maybe they need to be righteously fucked up to postulate market-based solutions.
;)
Crusty Dem
@ABL:
I haven’t even had a drink. Yet. If I keep agreeing with HGW, I’m getting out the scotch..
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: haha, mullahqat to rubiyat.
very nice.
;)
AAA Bonds
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Many of them are drug users or former drug users in my experience, yes. Others are prone to entertain bizarre beliefs simply to be noticed by surrogate abusive mommies and daddies.
Allan
Oh hai there, Mme. Weasel! Good work taking up EDK’s blathering responses to me and running with them. Sorry I couldn’t join you all earlier, but I was at the monthly meeting of my local Democratic Club.
Our membership has tripled since last year, and they are wide awake, angry, and ready to take our country forward in 2012.
Just thought I would bring you all some encouraging news from meatspace.
Now carry on with your wharrgarbl.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Crusty Dem: that was a brave and perceptive comment about Kowal. Bless your clear sight.
Ben
Gary Johnson has been trying to make economics the focus of his campaign, but he continues to be portrayed in the media as “that odd liberal Republican fellow.” Should be interesting to see where his campaign goes from here.
tkogrumpy
Gary Johnson has extremely high negatives among the republican base, especially since the average voter has never heard of him.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: he didn’t close comments – it links back to his sub-blog. We don’t have a budget to make fancier tech than that.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: i have never seen you do that before.
it is effectively removing the bigot discussion from the front page, while still mainstreaming Kowal as a front pager.
Why don’t you add a Reform Birther to your front pagers so you can “argue” with him too?
MikeJ
Running a Republican that Democratic idiots would like is an interesting idea for a primary, just to divide the opposition. Obviously there are a shit ton of fucking morons on our side who will forgive anything if they can just get high.
What would be the reciprocal candidate? We’ll give people health insurance as long as we can go all kistalnacht on Muslims?
E.D. Kain
@Allan: you really can’t stand the fact that I criticize Obama over Libya. You take it so personally.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@MikeJ:
i nominate this guy
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: And I can’t stand your lying. Do you really think the juicers are going to believe that you just now found out GaJo is a racist anti-union anti-Roe AGW denialist tenther?
Please. You have been a fan since last August.
You said of Obama, “started a third war in the ME” at Forbes.
That is not true either is it?
amk
@E.D. Kain: The same thing could be said about you.
You were shilling for a despicable rethug (drinking that blowhard gg’s kool aid) based one of your pet peeves, got called out for it and are now fingering your own posters. Good going.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: and you dont “criticize” Obama. You say hes no different than Bush and concern troll him. You sound exactly like every other conservative/libertarian concern troll in Known Blogspace.
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
And no comments on his sub-blog? I mean, I did click the [Continue to full post and comments…] tab, it’s closed to comments.
Seriously ED, I’ve read Kowal’s posts, he just reeks of standard Limbaughesque anti-muslim bigotry. Does having that on your blog seem worthwhile to you?
ETA: Is this it? That is the most amazingly disorganized system I’ve ever seen, praise the almighty great gizoogle for delivering us from madness.
Allan
@E.D. Kain: What I take personally is that you do it so ineptly. Carry on.
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
Pretty weak, ED, we’ve had plenty of discussion over Libya, pretty mixed reaction here, varying largely between “WTF?” and “this is probably ok as long as it doesn’t go past bombing and cruise missiles”. Calling out Obama over this is totally acceptable with anyone here, but making comparisons to GWB and Iraq is absurd. In fact, this is a clear evocation of Crusty’s law, which states that any discussion of any military or police action of questionable origin or judgment will eventually be compared to George W Bush and Iraq. You are now cited by the court of Reductio ad Bushum. Further violations will be noted in your permanent record and civil penalties may apply.
Yutsano
@ABL:
Let us never speak of this again.
bloodstar
What annoys me more than anything else about the preconceptions of ‘libertarians’ is the willingness to stereotype the hell out of anyone who claims to be libertarian.
You sit here and piss and moan about how libertarians support racist writers or are single issue people… just like the teatards *gasp*
Just because some racists assholes happen to have a few issues that are similar to libertarians doesn’t mean that libertarians support racist assholes.
and before you all jump and scream that Gary Johnson should be dismissed because he’s racist and/or a bigot and libertarians just loveeeee him. You’re missing the entire fucking point. Gary Johnson has some interesting ideas. But his views on race make him a non candidate to me. Full Stop.
But the point being made is there are interesting ideas that aren’t related to race.
If a cancer researcher hates Hispanics, but somehow discovers a cure to cancer, I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘but he’s racist, therefore his ideas are total crap.’
And I sure as hell won’t turn down the cure for me or my friends, even knowing that the person who made it is a racist asshole. In fact, I’d take it as a delicious irony that this guy who hates me just because of my heritage has just improved or potentially saved my life.
Putting this comment back on topic. EDK has already said that Johnson is not a candidate he can support. Full stop. That some of you… and I’m looking right at you M_C, can’t help but try your level best to take the comments in this blog and try to turn it into your own personal sewer. Your antics diminish the blog.
People like EDK and myself are on your side in this crap. I don’t agree with the Democrats on a lot of issues, but I sure as hell despise the Current incarnation of the Republican party. But by Grabthar’s Hammer, some of you people want to turn this into your own small tent echo chamber. And your venom and despite towards people who mostly agree with you makes me wonder if you’re no different than the Republicans who value purity over common ground.
Tony
@bloodstar: I hate you.
amk
@bloodstar: If he is not such a pet candidate of yours, then why all the navel gazing ?
And EDK is a big boy, who seems to be handling this the way the big boys do – poorly. So I’m sure he appreciates your covering for him with that stentorian voice.
Anne Laurie
@ABL: See next post, upstairs. Some people say Dr. Ron is about to move on to the next stage in the presidential-candidate fan dance, which will draw valuable attention to his IDEAls, i.e., the cuddly-old-coot-on-a-mission talk stops and the curtains get pulled back. Sunlight is the best disinfectant!
You know as well as I do: They’re white men with money (or laboring under the mis-impression their white-men-with-money frat brothers will protect them when the door-kicking starts). They don’t expect to ever need the social safety net… even if they lose their job, get run over by a truck, draw the black marble in some genetic shuffle, that’s what Mummy & Pup & the trust fund are for. On the other hand, the War on Some Drugs makes it personally inconvenient for them to obtain and/or enjoy their favorite recreational assistants, and according to their understanding of the Constition, anything that personally inconveniencees white men with money is a crime against the natural order.
To a true cynic, like me, at least 90% of us are only gonna get aggrieved about “social justice” issues that we have reason to believe might one day impact us. The difference between a political liberal/progressive/Democrat and a libertarian (besides, quite often, a few years of unmediated contact with the cruel world outside one’s natal gated community) is that progressives have the imagination to understand that what hapens to the teenage crack-addicted Person of Color on welfare today could happen to us next week, or next decade. The open question, as far as I’m concerned, is whether Libertarianism requires a conscious decision to surgically extract one’s imagination, or if anyone over the age of 25 who still calls themselves a libertarian was simply born without one.
OzoneR
@AAA Bonds:
This is key. There’s no point in supporting libertarians if they only support your issues to a point.
It’s like saying libertarians are pro-gay because he supports LGBT rights, but they don’t support protections like ENDA.
kay
Looking at a libertarian as a governor and then assuming that he’ll govern the same as a federal candidate completely ignores the central tenet of libertarianism, which is that states have all the powers not specifically enumerated to the federal government. Johnson reads the Tenth Amendment literally.
Liberals somehow manage to completely breeze by the central legal theory on which both far Right conservatism and libertarianism is based, and that’s breathtakingly naive.
It sort of matters why a candidate opposes something. Johnson opposes “big federal government” not just because he’s a zero tax deregulationist. He opposes it because he thinks these federal statutes and programs are UNLAWFUL under the US Constitution.
That’s a big deal. It’s bed rock. It’s what every liegal battle between liberals and conservatives has been about for the last 90 years. It’s why FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court, for God’s sake.
You can’t just wave it away.
kay
@OzoneR:
Libertarians can do that. In fact, they have to. They don’t “support” child labor. They think federal labor laws are unlawful under a proper reading of the US Constitution. They think that question is for the states.
It is perfectly consistent for a libertarian to say he supports equal rights for gay people and oppose every single piece of federal legislation that guarantees those right at the federal level.
This isn’t a contradiction. It’s the bed rock legal theory on which the whole philosophy is based.
Mandramas
@kay: I’m not sure if the libertarian credo is to decentralize, as you says, as much as more anarchist viewpoint that think that every government is a nuisance that only feeds with the money from the rich people.
Except, of course, when they need to use the government as repressive wall or as a overpriced customer, of course.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@bloodstar: EDK and I are not on the same side.
This is not my personal sewer, but this blog is apparently EDK’s own personal sewer.
Four front page posts about GaJo. Why? Why say anything about him? Surely EDK knew GaJo was an anti-union AGW denialist tenther racist. He wrote a post about him last August. EDK chose a noncandidate with a horrible anti-liberal record and zero chance of being elected…..why? So he could use fake-candidate GaJo as a stalking horse to take cheap shots at Obama on the drug war and Libya.
And that is the only reason I can come up with. Can you think of a reason, bloodstar?
No. He doesn’t. He has exactly two positions that are congruent with liberals–stopping the drug war and anti-interventionism. Coincidentally those are the same two positions that EDK wants to
criticizeattack Obama on.Like Allan and I pointed out, EDK is much more critical of Obama on his Forbes blog and in Twitter. He says different things for things for different audiences. He has done that eversince I have known him.
I asked for a definition of libertarian here and no one cowboyed up.
Wanna step up and give it a try?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: salaams brother. The only discernible common denominator I see in libertarians is a near religious fervor for market-based economics.
Market-based economics are an empirical proven fail in America. Yet libertarians are universally so intellectually impoverished they simply cannot conceive of an alternative.
All libertarians in America claim to be “socially liberal”. That can apparently mean allowing some Americans to impose their belief set on others.
This is the Jim Manzi post that inspired my descriptive term Distributed Jesusland….well that and Morgan’s Thirteen.
The Paradox of Libertarianism
Dr. Manzi proposes a division of libertarians.
But as I pointed out to him, “liberty as means” just results in localized mob rule, or small pockets of Distributed Jesusland.
Omnes Omnibus
It seems to me that EDK is looking for his unicorn candidate. Unfortunately for him, unicorns don’t exist.
eemom
I will say this at the bottom of the thread in hopes that nobody notices.
I’m beginning to think this obsessive, incoherent, insanely persistent child-troll of ours may have a point after all.
Think naked emperors. Mouths of babes.
Aaaaargggh.
Ghanima Atreides
@eemom: meet the new me.
perhaps you like Ghani better.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Often, but deep down and buried so far under all the crap as to be almost invisible, she has a nugget of a point. The problem are that it is too hard to unpack all her baggage to get to it, that her understanding of many issues is superficial (although she doesn’t realize it), and that she is utterly lacking in empathy.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah, but the increasingly irritating mixture of naivete and arrogance displayed by the Boy Wonder at the top of the page increasingly seems to justify her particular brand of relentless needling.
It evokes, to my mind, the image of a scrubbed and shiny up-and-comer whose ascent up the ladder of big-time bloggerdom is handicapped by that 800 pound albatross he’s got clinging to his foot. Or neck, whatever. I’m not exactly sure what an albatross is or what it clings to.
hardy
Kain,
I’m supporting Johnson. The biggest issues are the wars and the out of control budget due to the wars and military industrial complex. Johnson would cut military spending by 43%. If congress didn’t give him that budget, he’d veto it just as he did in NM as governor.
I’m from Vermont — a very progressive state with a large portion of the population that would like a single payer system. I prefer to see some different solutions to health care at the state levels before having the government that created the TSA give us a one size fits all solution. Johnson’s proposal to give the medicare/medicaid money back to the states with no strings attached would mean VT could create a comprehensive single payer system in the state from cradle to grave and not have to deal with 3 different programs.
Drug war – I’d support Johnson just on this issue allow. We must end drug prohibition. It causes all kinds of problems and waste in this country and around the world. Polls have this issue close to the tipping point. Having some one speaking rationally about this issue is urgently needed at the presidential level.
Education – He increased education spending when he was governor. Yes, he wants to abolish the Dept of Ed, but I don’t see this as being against education. It frees up that money to leave it in the states. It gets rid of the federal strings that goes along with that money like Bush’s “Every Child Left Behind Act”.
Unions – Johnson’s only issue with unions is he can’t reward the best union employee and he can’t fire the worst one. He was in the construction business for 30 years and dealt with unions a lot. He’s never been about union bashing from what I’ve seen.
As you point out, he’s not a crazy on the gold stuff and things as Ron Paul. I think Johnson should have our support — at the very least in the primaries which if he becomes the GOP nominee, then you have a candidate that will force Obama to deal with all of these issues.
– Hardy
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: It is a bird and it hangs around necks. EDK is spreading his intellectual and emotional political “journey” over a pretty large expanse of blogosphere real estate. I really don’t understand how he can miss things like Tentherism in his search for the pure candidate. I don’t know enough about Johnson to know if he is a racist like I believe the Pauls are, but Tentherism, Jesus. It should kill a candidate’s appeal to sentient beings on the spot. OTOH, an R after the name does ruins a candidate for me.
Tom Hilton
All there is to say about Gary Johnson is what I already said about Ron Paul 4 years ago.
Seriously, folks: this guy is really not wasting any brain activity over.
Mandramas
@Omnes Omnibus: I admire the spirit of their trolling devil-may-care kind of metacultural mixture writing style. Most of the commenters on the political blogsphere are using a pretty standard middle class bourgoise mindset. Boooooooring. Nobody talks about evolutive economics, or Islam’s memetic defenses.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: I still engage with her occasionally because she can be interesting. Of course, she doesn’t have any actual understanding of economics. Nor does she know anything any religion outside of Islam. Common sense and ordinary courtesy would suggest that one would not expound upon religious topics about which one knows nothing. Adherents of religions tend to take them seriously and, especially among this group, know something about the topic.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: I think it’s valid to compare American wars carried out by current Commanders-in-Chief to past American wars. I didn’t say he was Hitler for goodness sakes.
E.D. Kain
@hardy: actually I think supporting Johnson in the primaries makes tons of sense, if only to bring the good issues up to the surface for longer. Then vote D in the general, but at least there will be an honest and frank debate about the drug war and so forth.
@Omnes Omnibus: If I were actually fully supporting Johnson I would research each of his positions thoroughly before doing so. As it stands, I was writing specifically about his positions on drugs and the foreign wars. No, I did not know that he was a Tenther, nor had I heard the comments on race.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: we do it plenty with all the sub-blogs. Alex does it fairly often with his posts.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: there were comments on it yesterday. I have no idea what happened or why he turned them off.
E.D. Kain
@Omnes Omnibus: you did read the post where I say that placing too much hope in a candidate is the wrong approach, that supporting causes is more important and effective, etc. etc. etc.? Cause that’s sort of the part where I say unicorn candidates are not the way to go…just seems weird to respond to that with what amounts to stating the obvious.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I am not more critical on Forbes. I’ve had plenty of posts here critiquing the war and Obama’s role in it, and I often link back to Forbes from here or to my Twitter account so that people here will go read me there. I have a hard time understanding 1) how I am somehow saying one thing here and another there or 2) how being critical of the president is a problem. If you really think that people should just shut up and say nothing critical of Obama just because he has a D next to his name, well okay. Not much can be done about that. I think politicians need critics, even politicians that you like and support.
E.D. Kain
@eemom: I’m honestly curious what you have a problem with specifically. Which posts have I written lately that make you think I’m arrogant or naive? It seems as though no matter what I write, you come at me with some sort of personal attack. I would be more interested in your substantive disagreements.
Paul in KY
@ABL: I think John gives them space to post their ideas in the hope that the commetariat here will convert them. That’s a sympathetic (to John) reading of it.
I just read the comments on an EDK post to see HGW & others slag him.
DPirate
I will never understand how someone can vote for a guy when they are fundamentally opposed to his policies. Why not vote third-party and express your opposition, instead of supporting the lesser of what you despise? Is it just because you need to align yourself with the winner?
@E.D. Kain: Commenters here were initially told that you were a conservative (or close enough). Therefore, you are the enemy, as often as not, regardless of what you write.
Hell, you are basically parroting here what every other democratic blog says: That “the other guys are worse so vote Obama!”
Omnes Omnibus
@E.D. Kain: It appears to me that you are willing to write about your thought process while it is still happening. As a result, one can perhaps see your process and see how you come to a decision, but the price that you pay is that you are open to criticism for not thinking things through before you publish. In addition, since you are posting on at least three blogs, people who, like myself, tend to only read you here, will not be in a position to balance a stance you took here against one taken at Forbes or the League. Protip: If someone is libertarianish, check them for Tentherism before offering them up as for consideration.
Paul in KY
@AAA Bonds: I think he liked him because of how his anti-intervention policies were driving the ‘normal’ Republican nominees & their supporters around the bend.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
No you SAID he was Bush.
@E.D. Kain: At Forbes you SAID Obama “started a third war in the ME” That is a falsehood, a lie.
@E.D. Kain:
I think its the part where you actually thought the juicers were going to believe that you didnt know GaJo was a tenther racist union-bashing AGW denialist marketbased libertarian fuckwad that cut taxes for the rich while voting in anti-abortion laws and destroying collective bargaining rights.
And about Kowal. You are still giving front page privs to a JAFI, a pulpit to a bigot. You are mainstreaming islamophobia as “understandable” and worthy of discussion.
You are legitimizing islamophobia.
Paul in KY
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I think ‘Sister Alia of the Knife’ would be a good Dune character for you.
You don’t want to get too obscure with your name. Lots of people haven’t read ‘Heretics of Dune’ or ‘God Emporer of Dune’ or those prequel books his kid wrote.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: c’mon Omnes. Do you really believe EDK was blindsided by GaJos flaming anti-liberal record?
EDK has been a GaJo fanboi since last August.
Paul in KY
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I thought Sufis were abstinent when it came to liquor ;-)
eemom
@E.D. Kain:
as I noted on one of your earlier threads about this Johnson guy, support for a Republican in this day and age is a deal-killer for me in terms of respecting someone or taking them seriously.
Also, by your own account, you wrote the three previous posts praising the guy without knowing anything about his rather glaring, um, flaws. But now you’re saying you would research all of his positions before giving him your full support? Um, okay. It would be nice if you did some research before you post about something three times here and spare us all the spectacle of your “mental masturbation.” (Your words.)
Arrogance is a matter of tone, not one of substance, and I’ve observed it in several of your posts and comments. Calling somebody “partisan” on that earlier thread, for example. What a weak shit of a response.
beergoggles
@Richard Bottoms:
It’s pretty simple – they don’t live it, so it goes ‘woosh’ right over their heads. I’m married to a white guy and unless the racism is blatant, he just doesn’t see it – and that’s after I’ve been working on his head for 10+ years making him more aware of it.
And that’s the other thing – unless these people are currently spouting racist rhetoric; a lot of people think it’s something these people had dalliances with in their youth – like libertarianism; and that they are over it now. Much like how their parents are because they don’t appreciate viewing their parents as still being racist. I’ve got an in-law that knocked on doors for Obama and still slips up every now and then and the word ‘coloreds’ comes out of her mouth.
This is what I’ve started calling reasonable racism (and if u look at Santorum recently – he’s begun to develop a reasonable homophobia) that basically appeals to racists while seeming reasonable to those who don’t pay much attention to it.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: Ghanima is Leto II’s twin sister, the sister of the Tyrant Worm.
In the Fremen tongue ghanima means “spoils of war.”
Poor tragic Alia was an abomination that became a monster, possessed by the Baron.
Ghani has a much better life.
secher nbiw!
I aspire to follow the Golden Path.
My favorite book is Heretics of Dune. I may grow up to be murbella or to be darwi odrade.
Who can say?
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: I try to give people every benefit of the doubt. I still talk to you despite your craziness, don’t I?
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah. As is often the case, you express my own thoughts with much greater diplomacy.
Ghanima Atreides
@beergoggles:
this is really good insight. It how libertarians and other crypto-conservatives mainstream socon “values” like homophobia, birtherism, and islamophobia or opposition to SSM which are actually anti-individual freedom. What libertarians (like EDK and Kuznicki) say…..is that those things are wrong, but UNDERSTANDABLE.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I always play the reasonable one in negotiations. I need the other side to give me something I can take to the unreasonable people on my side or else we just won’t be able to do anything.
E.D. Kain
@eemom: I said I would research the full spectrum of his positions before seriously supporting him in 2012. I wrote posts *specifically* about his position on the war on drugs and the foreign wars. That was the focus of those posts. I don’t think it’s necessary to write about or even research every single one of a candidate’s positions before writing favorably about some of them. I think Johnson will be good for the broader debate if nothing else because he’ll bring those issues up. I don’t think he stands a chance at winning so I haven’t done much beyond look at his big campaign issue, legalization of marijuana.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: I’ve told you many times now that Kowal is posting exactly so that other people can post the opposing view. Light is the best disinfectant. If the Islam stuff keeps up, though, we’ll see. As I and the others all said, that post from the other day would not have been published if we reviewed posts prior to publishing them. We don’t.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Yeah, after I dashed that post off, I began to think about what happened to poor Alia & you are right: not a good name.
Ghanima is a much better character to use as an online name. I tried to read ‘Heretics of Dune’ and couldn’t get all the way thru it. Will give it another try.
May your stillsuit never leak!
E.D. Kain
@Omnes Omnibus: this is true. I change my mind and my positions as facts and evidence come in and as good arguments are presented to me. I work through ideas “out loud” as it were. This is how I’ve always blogged. I do blog at several spaces, but I have maintained a consistent critique of the military-industrial complex and of Obama’s role in our current foreign policy situation, while at the same time trying to balance that against Obama’s really extraordinary domestic achievements.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: not mevlevi Sufis.
We are followers of Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi.
dancing and drinking wine and ecstatic love poems are part of who we are.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: you cannot seriously think that you are going to scam these people into believing you knew nothing of GaJos positions except anti-drug war and non-interventionist.
You FUCKING LIAR.
Omnes please go wet nurse this libertarian assclown somewhere else.
Its fucking gross to watch.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Sounds like my kind of Islam :-)
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: that is bulshytt. You are legitimizing his views by giving him a megaphone for discussion. It is the exact same thing as giving a Reform Birther a front page spot.
You mainstream his views by talking about them as if they were “reasonable” “understandable” views to hold.
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: I don’t think it’s necessary to write about or even research every single one of a candidate’s positions before writing favorably about some of them.
Maybe. But it shows up as the difference between saying you support Johnson’s anti-drug-war policies and that you support Johnson because of his anti-drug-war policies. That might seem like a subtle detail, but it isn’t.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: I am honest. EDK is not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: Actually, you demented little freak, I have been critiquing him. You probably missed it because I haven’t used words like bullshytt or headfake. I have chosen to do it by having a conversation with him. I also have no illusions that EDK will ever subscribe to my views which are both far more social democratic and more interventionist than his will ever be.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: the actress in that clip is being taught the traditional dance of the darvish.
it is a form of meditation.
I don’t think westerners know much about Islam. And giving JAFIs like Kowal front page spots on mainstream libertarian blogs isnt helping.
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
Sooo, on your website, you gave the keys to a bigot and allowed him to turn off comments when it pleased him. Excellent.
And yes, comparing some UN approved bombing with a 2nd land war in Asia started under false pretenses and no strategy is Reductio ad Bushum, the court will accept no appeals. You are on notice.
socratic_me
So apparently we have purity police here at Balloon Juice and the criterion by which one shall be judged is the extent to which one has fully thought out the nuances of ones positions (or in this case, support) before hitting post.
On Balloon Juice. The sight run by one John Cole.
Excuse me, that popping sound you heard in the background is my irony meter exploding. I will be back after seeing if it can ever be salvaged.
And for the record, if I ever find myself agreeing with m_c in any of her iterations, my first question is whether my righteousness has precluded consideration of more benign mistakes or misunderstandings. I think that applies here as well. Then again, it wouldn’t really be BJ without righteous and ill-considered commentary either, would it?
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: he is LYING when he pretends he didn’t know anything about GaJo. He blogged about him right here last august.
That is what im objecting to. You are so fucking invested in his fake conversion narrative that you cant admit that.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Pretty cool. Don’t see how they do it for so long without stumbling around.
I assume the ladies can dance like this too?
Ghanima Atreides
@socratic_me: apply the socratic method then. I simply object to obvious liars as front pagers.
bi la kayfah.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: I don’t care if the guy becomes a a fascist, an anarchist, or anything in between. One of the things I like about this fucking blog is that there are a variety of voices here. Reading them and interacting with them helps me to refine my views. I don’t need to agree with someone to learn from him/her. Arguing with that person may allow me to improve my thought process, it may inspire someone else to offer a critique that makes sense to me, or it may simply bring some new facts to the table. I happen to think that was what Cole was aiming for when he brought a number of new front pagers on board.
socratic_me
@Ghanima Atreides: apply the socratic method then.
It really is just word salad with you, isn’t it?
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: oh yes. Sufi shayykahs have always been pretty common.
The Muhyyddin’s first shayyk was a woman, and he fell in love with her daughter.
Feisal Abdul Rauf is a Sufi, and follows the school of a shayykah.
Rabi’a al-Adiwyya was the first shayykah, and one of the most influential of the Sufi Saints.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: dude. EDK is LYING.
Don’t you care?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: Dudette, how do you know that he is lying? Lying requires knowledge of the truth and intent to not tell it. Opinions cannot be lies. One can only lie about facts.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: actually it appears to be some sort of caching issue or technical glitch, but if he did want to turn off comments that’s up to him. It would reflect poorly on him I think, but we let posters do what they want until things get out of hand.
E.D. Kain
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I appreciate the conversation, I really do. It helps me refine my positions as well, which is one point of this post. You and Stillwater both had really excellent arguments in the last thread that helped influence my thinking in ways that simply calling me a shithead would never achieve.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: EDK has been a GaJo fan since last August when he blogged about him here and at the LoOG. He is also a blogger with three spots to blog. He has seen NOTHING about GaJo except anti-drug war and anti-interventionism? He didnt fucking visit his website? He doesnt read Salon or TPM? And EDK lied when he said Obama started a third war in the ME. Obama joined a pre-existing coalition. He started nothing.
And I’m not the only one pointing this shit out.
There are none so blind as those that will not see.
Omnes Omnibus
@E.D. Kain: I still reserve the right to call you a shithead if circumstances warrant. This is, after all, Balloon Juice.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: i have never called you a shithead. I am calling you a liar, a spinner, a concern troll, and worst of all….a libertarian.
You are also a sullivan-wannabe (like eemom said) and a freemarket fucktard and you are pimping/front paging/mainstreaming an islamphobic bigot at the LoOG.
eemom
@socratic_me:
damn. Ya got me there.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: and it reflects poorly on you that you frontpaged a JAFI.
Allan
@E.D. Kain:
That’s a strawman big enough to serve as the centerpiece at a certain annual gathering in the desert.
What matoko-weasel-altoid and I have been saying is that you criticize Obama selectively, glibly and in an unintelligent matter.
Those of us who have read and/or watched his Iraq war speech, the positions he took on America’s military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan throughout his campaign, and his Nobel Peace Prize address have never labored under the misperception that Obama is “anti-war”. Some people support him because they’re not “anti-war” either, and others support him even if they’re “anti-war” because they find “anti-dumb-war” to be an acceptable compromise position for the leader of this incredibly militaristic nation.
And yet I have pointed out that you have tweeted about him in a condescending more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone about how he has disappointed you for not being the anti-war president you had expected based on his candidacy.
And when I point this out to you, you attempt to derail the conversation, as you did here with me and with several other critics, by going to the You’re Being Hostile, You’re Being Overemotional, You’re Taking Things Too Personally well long after that source has dried up.
Last, it’s unfortunate that you and I seem to be on very different schedules, thus we are constantly showing up just as the other is leaving cyberspace, or have our attentions focused on other venues when we are both online, and rarely get a chance to have a coherent conversation that is not spread out over days.
Perhaps someday we should make a date to appear online at the same time and place to talk these matters through.
Best regards.
socratic_me
@eemom: Ouch. Thanks for catching my bad word use and being polite enough not to point and laugh…at least not publicly. That is just embarrassing.
eemom
@socratic_me:
happens to all of us.
Hell, I’m the one who should be embarrassed, for the very reason you pointed out. Well thought out posts? John Cole’s blog? bwaahaaahaaahaaa
sneezy
“Probably the best argument against supporting Johnson is…”
That it’s effectively the same as supporting Elmer Fudd.
Seriously, E.D., here is the only question I have for you: what on earth makes you think that anyone should or would give a shit what you think? In your writing, you come across as callow, shallow, unusually self-absorbed, and wholly without experience or accomplishments that would cause anyone to give your views any consideration.
In this regard, you remind me of no one so much as McArdle. So I’m genuinely curious (as I am in her case) as to what makes you tick. What have you ever done that makes you think your views are of interest to anyone but you?
E.D. Kain
@Allan: I think we are also talking past one another. I am a critic of war in general. I am a fervent dove. My criticism of Obama is not meant to be taken as anything more or less than my blanket critique of interventionist policies, not Obama specifically so much as the system. I think we can disagree on this amicably enough. I would certainly rather bury the hatchet than bickering and argue over who killed who…
Crusty Dem
@socratic_me: @eemom:
All good points, but it really does reek of fanboydom (or wannabee fanboydom) to just find out that a dude has two opinions you like and start pimping him for president. I’m all for getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, ending the drug war, etc, but I’m not supporting someone for president because I like one or two positions. That’s the thought process of Teabaggers (“He said Obama isn’t an American, I like how he thinks”), we should be better than that, and save the Tiger Beat posters for Justin Bieber.
E.D. Kain
@<a @sneezy: feel free not to read or comment. I write what I write because I enjoy writing, and do so without holding a gun to anyone’s head. Some people like what I write, others don’t. You can go th ad hominem route or offer up substantive critiques or just read other people.
Allan
@E.D. Kain: Well, actually we can’t disagree amicably as long as you engage in glib, facile and dishonest argumentation to make your poorly thought-out points. And I don’t make peace with people who are attempting to bypass the process by which they own responsibility for their own points of view, and attempt to sweep their own fundamental lack of seriousness and honesty under a rug of kumbayah.
If, as sneezy points out, if your goal in life is to be Megan McArdle, I have an obligation to the world to strangle you in your crib before you land at the Atlantic.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: if you read my posts you’ll see o never once said I would vote for Johnson, only that it was a possibility given those issues. Until recently I didn’t think he would actually run so I hadn’t bothered digging into his other policies much.
b-psycho
@ABL:
Because its existence facilitates the most blatant actions contradicting the fallacy that individual freedom is being protected by gov’t & the Constitution. An ever-increasing police state just because some people want to smoke something others don’t like?
I don’t think of Ron Paul as a libertarian, precisely because of the racial baggage & his views on the federal courts. Gary Johnson may be closer, but he’s still a vulgar* one if anything. Yet, how you can act like it’s some kind of strategic dodge that people with libertarian leanings are so openly against the War on Drugs…I dunno.
(* – most libertarians that actually get any attention are the type that define government intervention in a way that makes it look like it favors labor & the poor. In reality, the overwhelming majority of what government does favors concentrated wealth against labor & the poor, only occasionally tossing off scraps as little more than Revolt Insurance. Realizing this would drag libertarianism from its current right-wing mutant form back to where it originally started: anti-state Leftism.)
Ghanima Atreides
@sneezy: EDK only really comes here to link whore for Forbes and the LoOG and pimp his Sullivan-blessed posts.
very perceptive. you are not alone.
;)
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
No, you wrote a whole bunch of “the first and only Republican I could vote for in the upcoming presidential elections”, which reads as “Gosh I want a nice (R) candidate to vote for, maybe this is him“.
Or, in the most condescending way possible: I do hope that one day your prince will come, but you’ll find him sooner by knowing yourself and what you want out of him, rather than just blowing every dude with nice hair that walks into the bar.
hardy
@Tom Hilton: Johnson was elected then re-elected in a 2-to-1 democratic state. I’ve seen quite a few Dems from NM say they will be supporting Johnson for President. The article you linked suggests any democrat voting for Johnson is too stupid to live. I guess there are a lot of dems dying in NM.
hardy
@Crusty Dem: just as long as you aren’t supporting Obama because I’m not sure how you can support a pro-war, pro-big business, medicine stealing (med-mj), military increasing guy we have now. If you are supporting Obama, then why?
Ghanima Atreides
@Crusty Dem:
See? Hes full of lies.
Ghanima Atreides
@hardy: quite a few democrats voted for Scott Walker in WI too. betcha they are sorry now.
;)
sneezy
@E.D. Kain:
“feel free not to read or comment. I write what I write because I enjoy writing…”
So then, the answer to the question is “nothing.” That is, you know of no reason that anyone would or should give your views more consideration than those of a random guy off the street. You just like the sound of your own voice. Got it.
“and do so without holding a gun to anyone’s head.”
Cop-out. You couldn’t possibly force anyone to read you even if you wanted to, but here you sound as if you think not doing so is a virtue for which you deserve credit. It’s not.
“You can… offer up substantive critiques”
I did. Given that Johnson hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of being the Republican nominee, let alone winning a national election, you might as well “support” Elmer Fudd for all the effect it will have.
“or just read other people.”
Thanks very much for telling me what I’m allowed to do.
Paul in KY
@Allan: That is a solemn obligation.
Crusty Dem
@hardy:
Supporting a candidate is always foolhardy, choose your policies and support/defend them. Anything else leads to endless “Fanboy” vs “Butthurt” arguments, and FDL already exists, we don’t need to clone it..
E.D. Kain
@Allan: Explain to me what about my anti-Libya argument is ‘glib’. You constantly dodge my questions, and provide me nothing substantial to come back to you with. Do you think Obama played no role in authorizing airstrikes in Libya? Is it off-limits to critique the president on his foreign policy? In what ways do you find my critique of our Libya policy ‘glib’ or unserious? Be specific.
Crusty Dem
@Ghanima Atreides:
Wow. So ED has been praising this guy for 8 months and hasn’t bothered to learn about all the things that make him completely unacceptable until now? Let me make this easy for you, ED, there’s only one conservative/republican you could ever find defensible and it’s you. That’s not an insult, it’s just a sad commentary on today’s GOP. Consider that the Venn Diagram between yourself and the man you’ve been touting for 8 months consists of “defense spending”, “ending the drug war”, and “not going full gold standard” and nothing else.
It’s way to early for scotch in the PDT zone, but I’m having some later, because m_c/Hermione/GA is making nothing but sense. Good catch.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: Gary Johnson came up on my radar quite a while ago. And like I said, I didn’t think he was much of a serious candidate, but I liked him on the drug war and on foreign wars.
Since the time of the post in question – if you haven’t noticed – I’ve moved to the left on a number of issues. I have done so very publicly, and burned many bridges in the process. My position on the drug war and on foreign intervention have remained constant, while my other views have shifted. I have broken my ties with libertarianism and defended public schools, stimulus, unions, the teachers in Wisconsin and a whole host of issues. But in all of this, my views on the drug war and foreign wars have not changed, and so I remain committed to bringing those issues up in whatever way possible. So when Johnson declared his candidacy, I wrote about him (having not really thought about him in months) and why I thought he might be a good candidate based on those two issues.
Then I received a bunch of push back and some people made some very good arguments. I took those into account, did more digging based on information people provided that went beyond the narrow scope of the drug and other wars, and I wrote this post which is me saying “You guys are right, he’s not a good choice and I shouldn’t place a magical candidate above all other issues.”
Please explain how admitting my mistake while being very open as to the specific issues that drew me to Johnson is so dishonest or wrong?
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
Admitting your mistake is fine, being dishonest about it is not (“I’d vote for Johnson over any other candidate out there”). I understand that your positions have changed, I applaud it, but you didn’t stop calling out Gary Johnson for praise until just now. You changed, he didn’t, but you were singling him out for his awesomeness LAST WEEK. Like I said above, maybe you should figure out what the hell you want before you support a candidate, and maybe a little research before a bunch of posts would be a good thing (“I’ve been reading about this Lyndon LaRouche guy, and he makes some good points”). Or even better, support (or oppose) policies and leave the candidates out of it, you can oppose the drug war and be a peacenik even without a candidate who’s going to agree with you..
ABL
@Yutsano: it was a shocking turn of events, i know.
Omnes Omnibus
@ABL: Stopped clock, literally.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: That makes sense. I agree, it was sloppy on my part. Sometimes I write first, ask questions later. I get worked up by all this warfare. Thanks.
Mandramas
@Crusty Dem: Go House of Atreides!
In other news, I’m afraid that you should judge more people for their antecedents and friends, that in the words they said.
Crusty Dem
@Mandramas:
I’m so old that I used to argue with JC back when he was a rabid right-wing republican. People can surprise you if they have some open-mindedness, which is why I like to argue with ED. That it allows me to be an anonymous asshole for a bit is enjoyable, too.
E.D. Kain
@Crusty Dem: I’ve enjoyed this exchange as well.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: because you are still lying. You didnt CARE that GaJo was a union-bashing racist AGW denialist anti-Roe glibertarian, because you just wanted to use his positions on the drug war and interventionism to take cheap shots at Obama.
Allan and I both pointed this out.
Maybe this just means that you have no selfexamination, or maybe it means you are a fucking liar.
idc which.
But this Obama==Bush shit is pretty revelatory i think.
@E.D. Kain:
Oh bulshytt. You got called out for lying and spinning.
Own it.
Repent and go forth and lie no more.
Allan
@E.D. Kain: Since you’re only contesting my observation that your Libya comments are glib, I take it you’re conceding my point that they are facile and dishonest. So we’re making progress!
What’s glib is falsely conflating Obama’s role in the international coalition defending Libyans against mass slaughter by their leader with Bush’s leadership of an unwilling and reluctant sham international coalition into a fraudulent war in Iraq under false pretenses. The two are extremely unalike, and suggesting equivalency between them is glib.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: you are just burying yourself deeper. You should stop now.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@ABL: Shorter white guy: What’s so terrible about racism?
Allan
@E.D. Kain:
Are you saying that you were being overemotional?
Ghanima Atreides
@ABL: we can be
bloodbrothersbloodsisters baptized in Holy Tequila and shrived in battle against the foul libertarian hordes.i agree with you on many things actually.
E.D. Kain
@Allan: Actually, I think they’re part of a larger structural problem with the United States, in which our presidents constantly seem to find themselves entangled. Is Libya as bad as Iraq? No, not at all. Could it escalate into something much worse than merely a no-fly zone? Yes! Definitely. I think we already are witnessing the mission creep. Did I say they were the same? No. I said that having more of a robust coalition does not make it right. Neither war is right, that does not make them the same.
les
@E.D. Kain:
This is back to your roots, at least around here. You’re touted as thoughtful, serious, worth reading; yet you consistently right well, only to be surprised when numbers of people point out that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
I’m assuming that all the writing you put out is more than pure mental masturbation, for an audience of yourself only. If that’s so, blissful ignorance is not the starting point. You don’t have to do anything; but if you care to persuade, or be respected, a little diligence is required.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: you SAID “started a third war in the ME”. Do you need the link?
You weasel word and squirm around…… just FUCKING STOP DIGGING.
You got caught asshole.
now move on.
Allan
@E.D. Kain:
Oh, I see. You weren’t saying that Libya and Iraq were the same. You were only saying that Obama’s role wrt Libya was the same as Bush’s wrt Iraq, and that the coalitions were the same. And that both interventions were wrong.
You’re still completely, irredeemably wrong, of course, but that is a subtly different way in which you’re completely, irredeemably wrong than what I was suggesting.
Yes, the international coalition’s role in Libya is expanding as we speak, in smart ways that should provide added cover to the people who are attempting to overthrow their own dictatorial leadership.
If only your position on involvement in Libya had prevailed, and all those pesky rebels were already dead, and Gaddafi’s forces were busily murdering all their family members as punishment for their involvement the rebellion. That would be ever so much better, and you could feel really terrific that no “war” ever happened in Libya, because no outside force got involved in any way in Libya’s silly internal affairs.
E.D. Kain
@Ghanima Atreides: He did start a war. Along with the UN. By all accounts the US pushed hard for intervention in Libya, and the UK and France happily went along. Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy are all responsible.
@les: Okay, well like I said to someone earlier, you certainly don’t have to read my stuff, let alone comment.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: bulshytt. he joined a UN sanctioned coalition. And it is not a “war”. Where has there been a declaration of war?
Keep digging asshole.
Every shovelful reduces your credibility here. Sully won’t link your posts anymore if every comment section consists of people ganking your lying libertarian ass.
Omnes Omnibus
@E.D. Kain: No, he didn’t start a war. The French and British didn’t start a war either. The war was happening. It was a civil war, an internal war of rebellion, but it was a war. Our non-participation does not mean that shooting, fighting, maiming and killing were not taking place.
Ghanima Atreides
@les:
actually its all that there is. And we are all supposed to joy in EDK’s shared meandering libertarian ideological wanderings.
That is why we have had FOUR FUCKING FRONTPAGE POSTS ABOUT A USELESS UNELECTABLE CONSERVATIVE SCUMBAG.
Allan
@Omnes Omnibus: I pressed EDK on this exact point, his repeated insistence on the usage of the unsupportably simplistic and willfully dishonest construction “Obama started the war in Libya”.
Good luck to you in teasing him out on that, and unfortunately, as is always the case with EDK, I really need to move on to doing some paying work that awaits my undivided attention, and can’t stick around to help.
E.D. Kain
@Omnes Omnibus: yes, it was a civil war which had nothing whatsoever to do with us. We started our own war with Qaddafi in order to assist the other side of that civil war. In terms of American involvement, he very much did start a war. Had Obama/Cameron/Sarkozy not done anything, there would still be a war – but it wouldn’t be our war. There was a war in Vietnam also and in Korea before we sent troops there.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: stop digging assclown.
Its over.
im sending your homie Sully the linked comments from this post.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain: i titled my mail
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@E.D. Kain: Joined a war. Got the US involved in a war. Took sides in a civil war. All of those are potentially accurate. Started a war simply is not.
les
@E.D. Kain:
Well, for this exact reason, I often don’t. Is that really what you’re after? If you want to argue issues, giving your opinion based on, you know, facts, that’s great and I like to read it. But the ratio of “I like/could vote for this guy” or “my opinion is x, based on y” posts, only to have it turn out the guy’s, on cursory inspection, a douche, or y turns out to be bullshit, is pretty high. Again, is that what you want?
E.D. Kain
@Omnes Omnibus: that feels like playing semantics. As far as America is concerned we just launched/started/joined a third war. We didn’t have to but we did. Is this any different than joining Korea or Vietnam?
E.D. Kain
@les: I don’t think that’s true. Go through my posts. Most of what I’ve written here lately has been about various news items like stuff happening in Michigan.
Omnes Omnibus
@E.D. Kain:Sometimes the semantics matter. Bush started war against Iraq. Without Bush’s actions, there would have been no war. Without Obama’s actions, there still would have been a war. Without Obama’s actions France and/or the UK might have still intervened as well. Under barroom rules, Obama didn’t throw the first punch.
Allan
@E.D. Kain:
Hi, just stopped back in to say:
Semantics is precisely the issue we’re arguing, EDK. The choices of words you intentionally make, the unspoken assumptions behind them, and how if challenged, your precious prose melts like a cake left out in the rain.
Meanwhile, though you keep insisting that the US should not have participated in the international coalition which is intervening in the Libyan conflict, you’ve persisted in your insistence that we (by which, in your parochial worldview, you apparently mean the United States) had no interests in that conflict.
This puts you firmly not only in an “anti-war” camp, but also in an “isolationist” one. Do you accept the label of isolationist? Has the US ever been correct in intervening, whether unilaterally or as part of a coalition, in another nation’s civil war?
sneezy
@E.D. Kain:
“you certainly don’t have to read my stuff, let alone comment.”
That’s snotty and spineless. Obviously, you’re right: no one is forced to read your stuff or comment on it.
But you choose, apparently of your own free will (no one’s “got a gun to your head,” either, after all), to put it out there in a forum that encourages comments, so wtf do you expect? That people will only choose to comment in order to pat you on the head and tell you what a good boy you are?
Look, everyone knows that they don’t have to read your stuff. What on earth makes you think anyone needs you to point that out?
ABL
I would be interested to hear how EDK or any stoic libertarian thinks that Johnson or any anti-interventionist could go about NOT intervening when the US has been arming countries to the teeth.
How is it possible? Do we just say “sorry, fellas! We’re outie!” and just pack up with no regard for the consequences of our past militarism?
Omnes Omnibus
@ABL: It is even larger than that. With the interconnectedness of life today, old fashioned isolationism is impossible. I am sure some part for the iPhone is made in Tunisia and, if things go bad there, no iPhones get made. That part probably goes in an MRI as well. Military intervention may not be the best option in many cases, but retreating to Fortress America isn’t an option at all.
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s not really accurate. There were three permanent UNSC countries that voted for the war, not two. It’s not like the US only has a second hand connection to the war effort through NATO.
socratic_me
@Omnes Omnibus: This seems way too strong. Aren’t there plenty of countries out there that do perfectly fine being significantly less entangled in global hegemony games than the US?
It seems that the position you are arguing for is that the US should spend untold treasure subsidizing the interest of corporations to do business in inherently unstable markets because the labor is cheaper. It actually causes me to wonder why it is we don’t let them feel that burden and decide that maybe it is worth the cost to do more business in stable countries like, say, the US.
socratic_me
@ABL: Um, yes please.
Look, I don’t like that we arm countries to the teeth and I think it is morally sickening. That doesn’t make me see the vast majority of our interventions as being morally justified. We sure armed the hell out of Saddam. However, our intervention there still made things much much worse than if we had done nothing. Time will tell whether Libya is a similar case, but my bet, given past history, is that we are inexorably drawn into a long term commitment that sucks up our treasure and does nobody any good. At best I am betting we trade in one despotic asshole for a new despotic asshole. And in doing so, we will drop any number of bombs that cost the annual salary of a half dozen teachers each.
So, best case scenario, we stop both problematic behaviors. But saving that, the least we could do is stop blowing people up ourselves.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
wallah.
NO sentient being wants to read through your crappy high verbal masturbatory ramblings.
You are a crap writer, you are dishonest, and you dont’ even lie convincingly.
If you wanted to discuss Humanitarian Imperialism and Right to Protect Doctrine, that would be cool.
But you are so incredibly intellectually impoverished that all you can think to do is use a horrible unelectable RACIST candidate like GaJo as a stalking horse so you can take cheap shots at Obama on Libya and the drug war and do Obama=Bush equivalence….you unmitigated subsapient libertarian STOOGE!
Omnes, Allan and I have ALL told you Obama did not START a war in Libya.
And you still keep digging and every shovelful pushes you lower in the collective Balloon Juice esteem.
Ghanima Atreides
@socratic_me: and you are a dumbass too. The tomahawks are a sunk cost, we are expensing use-by inventory, and so are the drones, and the carriers, jets, and pilots are being paid ANYWAYS.
And actually I prefer the drones being used in Libya because they are much more effective at winning hearts and minds of muslims when used on Qaddafis Chad mercenaries instead of Afghani and Pakistani women and children.
What you and EDK don’t seem to get is that is WE ARE ON THE SIDE OF THE MUSLIMS in Libya and fighting AGAINST MUSLIMS in A-stan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: I may be a bit foggy right now, but I am not sure of your point. A war was going in Libya whether were got involved or not.
@socratic_me: I may have phrased it a bit strongly, but my basic point was that old fashioned isolationism is impossible today.
Ghanima Atreides
@sneezy: trust meh, no one reads his stuff except to shred it.
The guy is about as bright as a sack full of hammers.
socratic_me
@Ghanima Atreides: Oh Noes! m_c thinks I am a dumbass for thinking that perhaps we will replace any Tomahawks that we fire into Arab convoys and wedding parties. Apparently in m_c’s America no one restocks their inventory.
Even better, I am a dumbass because I don’t realize how black and white the wars we fight are. Apparently in Libya it is all “Us and the Muslims versus teh bad guys (who are totally not Muslim, yo)versus the bad guys.” Whereas in Afghanistan it is all “us and the bad guys versus the Muslims.”
At least I won’t have to drink myself into a stupor for the fact that I somehow ended up on the same side as m_c. On the down side, I have these odd bite marks on my ankle. They look like they have been inflicted by the rotting corpse of a woolen biped.
Ghanima Atreides
@socratic_me:
Drones don’t launch tomahawks. They fire hellfires usually. Toms are smart subsonic cruise missles lauched from subs or carrier decks.
And maybe we won’t replace them. Maybe we will reduce the military budget for inventory and not have umpteen armed carrierers anymore.
Maybe the toms will be replaced with 21st century armament.
My point is, the ones we are using are a sunk cost, bought and paid for with 20th century dollars.
No, its more like this:
In Libya it is the UN sanctioned Arab League/Euro/US coalition and 65-70% of the Libyan muslims vs Qaddafi, Chad and Angolan mercs, and his 25-30 or so percent muslim tribal loyalists. The majority of MENA muslims hate Qaddafi. Al-Qaradawi has put a death fatwah on him.
In A-stan it is the US and mixed NATO/UN/Karzai defense forces and 10% of the muslim population vs the Taliban and 90% of the muslim population. That is why we are LOSING in A-stan. Muslims in Af-Pak hate AMERICA more every day.
In Libya the coalition is getting cheered by muslims most days.
See the difference?
THE
Hey GA.
Here’s something someone noticed about the real Hermione.
Ghanima Atreides
@socratic_me: and F-16’s dont fire Toms either. They fire a variety of heatseekers, have an onboard vulcan cannon and can fire JDAMs. But F-16s commonly carry sidewinders, HARMs and AAMRAMs and never to my knowledge, tomahawks.
Ghanima Atreides
@THE: lawl.
so are you going to be Thufir Hawat naow?
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
Is it my bushy eyebrows?
THE
Maybe that’s what the TH in THE stands for?
Ghanima Atreides
@THE: lol!