I love that Jonathan Hari article that John linked to earlier. Sometimes I wonder. Consider:
Sarah Palin told cheering rallies that her message to the world was: “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way!”
[….]On Libya, he (Donald Trump) says: “I would go in and take the oil… I would take the oil and stop this baby stuff.” On Iraq, he says: “We stay there, and we take the oil… In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation’s yours.” It is a view that the world is essentially America’s property, inconveniently inhabited by foreigners squatting over oil-fields. Trump says America needs to “stop what’s going on in the world. The world is just destroying our country. These other countries are sapping our strength.”
I mean this almost half-seriously: is there a way to justify this kind of unreconstructed mercantilism with the Haykekian principles that guide today’s most principled conservatives? Is there?
This is too much to ask of a mere Reason video, it may well require a new David Brooks book. Rest assured, though, if the Republican nominee talks this way — and he or she might, at least during the primaries — some brave Burkean soul will attempt to square this circle.
Corner Stone
Are you seriously going NWA on us after all the racial discord today on BJ?
beergoggles
Even worse, if the American government actually acts this way, who’s to say no?
Omnes Omnibus
Do not conjure up the image of another Bobo book. That’s just mean.
JPL
Throughout history we have read about dictators who have said the same thing and it hasn’t ended well.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Y’all are flogging the ever-loving piss out of that column, aren’t you? I mean, it’s a great analysis, sure enough, but, fuck. This is the third time it’s been posted – Cole had posted it up earlier today not realizing that Anne Laurie had posted it yesterday.
JGabriel
dONALD tRUMP IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU MARRY gREAT aMERECANS LIKE fRIEDRICK hAYIK AND bETSY rOSS!
yOUre JUST NOT aMERECAN ENOGH TO APPRESHIATE(spelling?) IT!
eDITID tO aDD: dID i SPELL APPRESHIATE RIGHT? iT LOOKS RONG TO ME.
.
hilts
This is too much to ask of a mere Reason video
Reminder: Reason magazine co-founder Tibor Machan is the guest on C-SPAN 2’s live call-in program In Depth tomorrow from 12pm – 3pm
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: STUCKZILLA ? Whuh?
handy
@JGabriel:
I thought Donald Trump is what you get when you marry a baboon’s ass to a rugrat.
Jeff Spender
So my University of Michigan commencement ceremony was today, and Rick Synder, the right honorable governor, was the speechifier. The dude bombed, big time.
He literally said, “don’t be defensive of our size, be proud of it!” and the entire student section erupted in laughter.
This is the evil face of the Republican party in Michigan. Turns out it’s actually pretty inept.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone: It’s a Trumpbagger imitation.
Are we calling them Trumpbaggers or Trumpbillies?
.
General Stuck
@JGabriel:
aBolsulutely gODDAM RIght. WhO iS FreedRiCk hAySTAcK?
As my special half twin brother would say.
Bob Loblaw
@JGabriel:
Dipshit, learn from Nick’s mistakes. Stop using the field auto-fill feature in your browser if you want to maintain your precious sockpuppets.
Also, STUCKZILLA was a shit gimmick anyway.
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: You see? Do you see?
Spaghetti Lee
He literally said, “don’t be defensive of our size, be proud of it!”
Uh, in reference to what?
Phil Perspective
@Jeff Spender:
What on God’s green and blue earth was he babbling about?
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
I kind of liked it.
handy
@Spaghetti Lee:
To, you know, that! That’s what it all boils down to for these idiots anyway, right?
Bill White
@JGabriel
Billy Trumpbaggers?
Comrade DougJ
@Corner Stone:
That may be the single greatest song of the last 25 years, you know.
TooManyJens
Also, too, our precious bodily fluids.
arguingwithsignposts
I wish American exceptionalism would DIAF.
Spaghetti Lee
@JGabriel:
Trolls like this always perplex me. Do they really expect everyone to think the person they’re posing as has suffered a sudden mental breakdown and thus ruin his reputation? I mean, what’s the point?
JGabriel
@Bob Loblaw:
Dude, I’m not Stuckzilla, and don’t maintain any sockpuppets here or anywhere. I do go by MuParadigm at some sites, but that’s just an old alternate id, not a sockpuppet.
@Corner Stone: Oh. I thought you were referring to the gimmick, not the userid.
Anyway, I don’t maintain any sockpuppets because I thought you had to wait for a moderator to approve it everytime you switch IDs. If that’s NOT the case, someone let me know, and I’ll be happy to add some new characters to the sock puppet brigade.
.
Hawes
This has nothing to do with Hayek, whose main obsession was economic liberty. He wasn’t trying to save Western civilization from the “Road to Serfdom” just so he could out the Middle East on it.
Hayek was wrong about stuff, but he wasn’t an amoral monster. That’s just the guys who read his stuff wrong.
handy
@JGabriel:
It’s true. I rode in one time during a +several as one of the well-known trolls over at Sadly No and my comment immediately got thrown into the mod bin. I had a sad. It was a really terrible troll, perfect for a place like this.
JGabriel
@Spaghetti Lee:
In reference to navigability in smaller cavities.
.
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: I was talkin bout the gimmick. Some other dbag was talkin bout the userid.
Corner Stone
@Comrade DougJ: It’s just fucking disrespectful after what this blog stands for now. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.
MikeJ
@Corner Stone: You, good sir, are a crazy motherfucker from around the way.
Snayke
Republicans are a weak bunch. If you’re a person who loves exceptionalism and you subscribe to the worldview that Doug described (“the world is America’s property”) then you have lousy self-esteem and do nothing with your life. Honestly, what other kind of person needs a president who swings his dick around and talks like a cowboy? They don’t want a leader; they want a goddamned movie character.
Joel
Did anybody catch that the President dropped “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” in his routine tonight? Who would have thought, in 1995, that the POTUS would drop that song 16 years later?
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: An American Exceptionalism that actually caused us to try to be and do better wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ: I should never been let out the penitentiary.
Bob Loblaw
I had a sockpuppet for a day once. Of course, it was actually called “Sockpuppet,” so I can’t say I put a lot of work into it.
I used it to make Stuck cry and challenge me to come to Silver City, NM to fight him to the death after I put forth my plan to revitalize our country economically and politically through forced euthanization of everybody over the age of 55.
Why that would make a grown man break down and start challenging people he knows online to come fight him in person, I can’t say. Apparently he never saw Logan’s Run. Or that Star Trek TNG episode that ripped off Logan’s Run.
Fun day.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I am not sure you would get much argument on that one.
eemom
as I and others pointed out yesterday, fuck that smug little Hari-kari British smartass with 3 interlocking asiangrrl pitchforks, for saying that Obama is JUST A FEW DEGREES MORE SANE than the republican freak parade.
That really kind of stuck in my craw.
Also too, don’t any of y’all front pagers ever read the WHOLE fucking article before linking to it?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Wait til I tell you bout the time I was robbing that bank.
MikeJ
@eemom: Oh no, now you’re a drama queen, or so the keeper of the Tunch claimed in his earlier post on this article. But that’s nothing new for you.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Put down the crack pipe dude.
JGabriel
Snayke:
As someone with lousy self-esteem who’s doing nothing with his life, I feel kind of singled out here.
I mean, just because you’re useless doesn’t mean you’re evil. I don’t get why we, the useless, have to accept the ebil xenophobic exceptionalists amongst our ranks. Can’t we just put’em with the Republicans, like we’ve been doing all along?
.
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sadly, that isn’t what it ends up being most of the time. It’s the British empire model, instead.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
How do I know about Silver City, NM then?
Suffern ACE
@beergoggles:
I’m wondering how quickly our oil producing neighbors to the north and south would ask Russia if they could stand under its nuclear umbrella.
eemom
@MikeJ:
GFY cowboy.
MikeJ
@eemom: Hey, I’m the one his Coleness responded to complaining that you dum libruls can’t take a joke.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
The same reason you need to screw your head on somewhat straight.
eemom
@MikeJ:
ok, I see now. I hadn’t read that earlier thread cuz I actually spent some time in the real world this evening. Something I need to do more often. Big time.
GFY withdrawn without prejudice.
The Dangerman
@Joel:
Missed it; I don’t know ODB, so what was it?
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/23/the-final-betrayal/#comment-2445503
Ah, Google.
Danceswithwords
In a country where we’re on our third Transformers sequel, I think we’re out of nuance in foreign policy in some quarters.
The sad thing is that American Exceptionalism used to mean something other than “we’re going to kick the asses of a bunch of really poor brown people!”
It used to mean that we had a first-rate infrastructure, excellent public schools, a reasonably functional representative democracy, and a lot of social mobility. We also had a big army, which was paid for by the former. Now, we just have the big army. The fact that mainstream Republican candidates are now giving voice to the whole “let’s just nuke ’em” school of problem-solving is another brick in the wall.
JGabriel
handy:
Heh. That too. Nice* image.
*possessing, marked by, or demanding great or excessive precision and delicacy
.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Oh, I agree and I want a pony.
handy
@Bob Loblaw:
Point goes to Loblaw.
reflectionephemeral
I don’t give a fuck cause I keep bailin.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Whoever the sockpuppet was, I was responding to his previous comment addressed to me.
I was just saying if you want to wish me dead, then get off your chickenshit ass and come do the deed yourself. I have no problem saying what I said, and will say it to whomever whistledick blog commenter who wishes me to die.
Just like loblaw, half ass reading comp and general blog commenting fail.
Villago Delenda Est
@Danceswithwords:
Yup, this.
The current “American Exceptionalism” sounds a hell of a lot like the motivating ideology of a certain Central European country in the first half of the 20th century.
THAT did not end well, at all.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Only you would attempt to save your dignity and defend comments like this:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/23/the-final-betrayal/#comment-2445532
The Senior Bashing Police. You appointed yourself head of the Senior Bashing Police. With complete seriousness. Too good.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: General, it’s a long drive and I’m kinda tired. Maybe next weekend. Okay?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: You’re just jealous.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
It seems loblaw is challenging me to a duel, so what can I say.
Corner Stone
I ain’t sayin’ she a Gold Digger, but she ain’t messin’ with no broke broke.
Omnes Omnibus
Can’t we all just get along?
ETA: I know the answer to that. It was rhetorical.
Corner Stone
Cam Newton just looks like a real man. Dude is spooky.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
jeebus loblaw. Do you think I would be the least bit ashamed you posting a comment like that, that i was proud of when I made it. I yam The Senior Bashing police, and if you want to find out what that means, just make another ageist bigoted remark about old people needing to die off. I will just remind you of the crass soul less motherfucker everyone knows you are.
There has only been a hanfful of comments I have made here that I am not proud of. And on just about every one, I made my apology to the target of my stupid comment, and moved on. This comment you post of mine, is not one of those.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: No. Although I feel like heading to Silver City myself. Mainly for a few days off. Could use some frito pie and a beer.
Snayke
@JGabriel:
Good point, but I think there’s another component. There has to be something in a person that finds the machismo bullshit from Trump inspiring. No fully confident person sees the world as America’s playground, or thinks that we are entitled to everyone’s resources.
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, well I hereby appoint myself to the Jealousy Brigade to make it official then.
@General Stuck:
You really don’t understand how the internet works, do you? Trolling is a proud tradition going all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Or possibly some guy on Usenet. Either way, I am but an amateur, a hack really. You should be ashamed to be had so easily.
It should be immediately clear that nobody seriously wants a quarter of this country’s citizens to die. Not without making sure they’ve all put their financial affairs in order first. Can you imagine the legal mess that would create otherwise?
Corner Stone
Damn. IMG rented out a 65,000sqft place just to let Cam Newton practice before the NFL combine.
JGabriel
The Pennsylvania GOP has somehow targeted me, an NY Dem, to get their ads here on the front page of BJ.
Click click click. Whee! Oh, if only I could click enough to drain their coffers dry.
.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Well this is fun. Stuck and Loblaw going after each other on a thread again. Wake me up when the adults come back please.
cmorenc
@Snayke:
Even the Republicans wouldn’t be crazy/stupid enough to really want a movie character or a professional actor who plays them as their leader, would th….um, never mind.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
There is something very wrong with you loblaw. This little episode you have orchestrated on this thread should be mentioned to your shrink, if you have one, and if not, you really should get one.
Don K
@Phil Perspective:
That was my question, too, when I read that. Everything that comes out of Lansing these days is like they’re speaking in tongues, and I haven’t been issued the secret decoder ring.
K-12 education falls to shit? The universities ditto? The highways return to gravel? No problem! Just make taxes low enough and businesses will flock here to hire people.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
I don’t really consider people pleasers all that adult. Especially ones who specialize in petting trolls and giving them sustenance to keep trolling. And then smarts off about this little spat being of equal causation.
aisce
@Bob Loblaw:
i don’t really like what this says about me, but damn if bob loblaw doesn’t crack me up sometimes.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano: Man Yutsy. You’ve now been called out in different posts by both Lil Bobby Loblaw and President Stuck.
I guess according to teh Village you must be doing something right.
Mark S.
Christ, why’s everyone so damned cranky tonight?
Can we all at least agree Michele Bachmann is a crazy bitch?
General Stuck
Won’t argue with that. But you aren’t or weren’t the sockpuppet making those comments. You are a troll however, a boorish to tears troll, that saw fit to derail this thread for no other reason than you can. While “hack” or “amateur” might describe you, I would add on mendacious liar. And one without a single comedy bone in it’s body. At least so far.
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Fuckity, here’s the link that was supposed to go with the last comment.
MikeJ
@Mark S.:
She was scared, and it was showin
We all said “Fuck you bitch!” and kept goin’
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: You. Me. Fields of Honor. Dawn.
Corner Stone
“Straight outta Compton! Is a Corner that will smother your Motha! And tell your sista that I love her!”
Josh
Why do DougJ and others keep saying “Jonathan Hari”? “Johann” is not Foreign for “Jonathan”; it’s Foreign for “John.”
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Well this is just the craziest fucking shit I’ve heard yet. You think that I’m taking credit for somebody else’s work at making you look like a jackass? Who? DougJ? Fuckhead? Am I Corner Stone with his creepy archive of every comment ever made that he uses to investigate suspicious Nick sightings?
Oh Stuck, put the keyboard down. You’re going to do yourself serious harm if you go further.
@Mark S.:
Apropos of nothing, Bachmann is like 55 years old. I almost shit a brick when I read that.
LosGatosCA
When Teabagging Republicans watched Archie Bunker back in the day, they didn’t see a caricature, they saw themselves. If they read the Ugly American, they’d have the same response. They have no empathy, or more likely not even a capability to consider that there are other views or needs than there own. In the same way a toddler just takes any toy they want from a playmate.
It’s just infantile narcissism dressed up as imperialism. It’s the perfect companion piece to infantile Objectivism which mandates ‘I’m the smartest, I work the hardest, I’m entitled, even required, to be selfish’, and religious bigotry that informs that they will reap the rewards of Heaven while everyone who disagrees is going to Hell.
It all operates around the emotional maturity level of a 5 year old.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Speaking of being had, you had yourself with this comment, then proceeded to attack me and derail this thread, instead of just saying you was had. LOL
Corner Stone
@Bob Loblaw: Are you me?
I feel like Johnny Depp in the Pirates franchise.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Absolutely. No question about it. You thought the STUCKZILLA! program was JGabriel, you big moron. What could have led you to think such a thing. Maybe it was the “STUCK” part that threw ya. How dumb is that?
Corner Stone
Fuckin A. Watching Michael Vick go through drills on ESPN is just awesome. I’m completely aroused.
Corner Stone
Don’t act like you’re not impressed!
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: Heh. I’ll wear that badge with honor TYVM.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Well, I wouldn’t say crazy per se…just lacks the ability to see things in their actual proportions. Give up Medicare folks or your kids are going to be in the ovens…Woman could use some corrective eyewear.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
I was really hoping it was somebody else.
For you to want to take credit for it, when it really was the shittiest gimmick that nobody else ever cared about or responded to in any way, is genuinely pathetic. ALL CAPS is such a mediocre art form.
Sad Stuck now. Don’t be Sad Stuck.
James E. Powell
@Corner Stone:
Well, a football field with end zones is 57,600 square feet, so that isn’t as extravagant as it sounds.
Suffern ACE
@Bob Loblaw:
Why? Because she looks younger, or because she might be able to continue yo poison our political culture for 30 more years…
Yutsano
Is it just me or has the blog more or less lost its collective shit today?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Evolved Deep Southerner: I think this is proof of my original point that the Hari column, superb as it is, has been talked to fucking death here in the last 48 hours. See how quickly this thread degenerated into weird inside jokes that maybe four people (not counting sockpuppets) are fully getting? The rest of us are fascinated/baffled at best, and most folks not personally involved fled this thread a while ago.
Corner Stone
@James E. Powell: You didn’t see the show, obviously.
It was extravagant.
General Stuck
The only sad I have is that BIRDZILLA has left and flown away. Before your time here, loblaw so you wouldn’t know that the ZILLA and ALL CAPS and poor spelling was that crazy ole bird’s calling cards. STUCKZILLA!! cannot fill those giant claw shooz,
Now please give us another meaningless butt covering comment to answer this one, loblaw.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano: There’s a reason for it.
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
@Spaghetti Lee:
Um, I’ll take “Things Overheard at a Porn Star Casting Call” for $500, Alex
moops
we are better, don’t be afraid of your greatness, the other nations and races are keeping you down, let’s go in there and take their resources…… this all sounds WAY too familiar.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: Full moon? The wrath of Tunch? Am I missing something here?
MikeJ
@Corner Stone:
You be me for a while and I’ll be you
Corner Stone
I’m just fucking tired of this whole blog within a blog bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: FWIW I came down firmly on the side of the ‘Mats in the great Upper Midwest ‘Mats vs. Husker Du arguments of the mid-80s.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: I was in the middle? lower? midwest at the time and Saw Hüsker Dü at the Blue Note in Columbia and The ‘Mats at the Antenna in Memphis. If you considered the ability to stand upright important in a band, Hüsker Dü won hands down, but I was still narrowly on the ‘Mats side.
But really, any Hüsker Dü people who think that’s important should just have some unity and join me in my pet cause because you’re second class people anyway.
Mako
I’m trying to remember why I started reading this blog. Didn’t you used to talk about Goldman-Sachsy stuff?
MikeJ
@Mako: No, it was a golden retriever named soxy.
Steeplejack
@Mark S.:
Hoekstroika! My favorite trope from the Balloon Juice lexicon.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
Fred set the tone for today. I blame him.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
As a latecomer, I can say yes. Yes, it has.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Well now that the night shift is checking in maybe we can dial things back a couple of notches. I haven’t been jumped on here in a long time (Loblaw’s pathetic attempts don’t count) and it just got bizarre.
Mako
@MikeJ: Okay then, go back to picking on the old dumb guy.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
freddie the freeloader fades up
Ah. More chill after 2am.
handy
I didn’t know Vick did those types of films.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Someone needs to tell me why a bowl of cereal tastes better after midnight. And now that I’m not in a shit ton of pain I’m actually getting housework done. Life ain’t too shabby right about now. Plus larb gai for dinner.
Mako
So a bunch of you guys hang out here every night and talk shit? That’s kinda fabulous.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
I’ve been going back and forth trying to read the last couple of threads in parallel, switching from one to the other when one gets too weird, and the whole thing is just too weird. You nailed it–this entire blog seems to have lost its collective shit tonight. Can’t even think of an appropriate music video for a futile attempt to defuse the tension, which might be a first for me.
Think I’m going to bail for bed and see if things look better in the morning. Steep out!
ETA: Oh, jeez. Cole just posted upstairs at 3:00 a.m., apparently fueled by tequila. This won’t end well.
Joel
@The Dangerman: mm.. you’re best with a link.
Frank W.
I read the post and jumped straight to this posting. I apologize profusely if I am repeating a point already made. Were these actual quotes by Trump? Good heavens, he’s frightening. He’s the rich bully who’s used to getting (or taking) what he wants and getting away with it. I thought some conservatives (okay, not a lot of them, but some) thought we should stop playing the world’s policeman. Trump apparently wants us to continue on with our geopolitical cop beat and to go back to raping and pillaging. We won the war? Great, we’re taking your women and enslaving your children. What. A. Pig.