(Jeff Danziger’s website)
Most of the libertarians I’ve known say that the only two “honest” governmental duties are protecting the borders and delivering the mail. Darrell Issa and his cronies won’t even concede the second one:
Door-to-door mail delivery is about as American as apple pie. With the Postal Service facing billions of dollars in annual losses, that tradition could be virtually phased out by 2022 under a proposal in Congress.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday approved a plan to move to cluster box and curbside delivery, which includes mailboxes at the end of driveways.
The proposal is part of broader legislation by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the oversight and government reform panel, designed to cut costs at the cash-strapped agency by up to $4.5 billion a year. The Postal Service had a $16 billion loss last year.
The bill was approved on a party-line vote, with 22 Republicans supporting it and 17 Democrats opposing it…
About 1 in 3 mail customers has door-to-door delivery, Issa said. The shift would include safe and secure cluster box delivery areas, he said, especially for elderly customers who receive Social Security checks and prescriptions through the mail…
Issa’s plan allows for people with physical hardships to get waivers allowing them to keep door delivery. There’s also a provision giving people the option to keep door delivery by paying a special fee to cover the additional cost.
Issa’s bill also allows the Postal Service to take into account factors such as poverty rates and population density in deciding which areas would be allowed to keep door delivery.
The financially beleaguered Postal Service, an independent agency, gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations, but is subject to congressional control…
Hey, it would be no hardship for Issa’s clients to pay extra for personal delivery, or to switch to having their medications delivered by Fedex. And they have direct deposit, so no worries about their Social Security checks, either.
A Ghost To Most
Hotwiring? More like partially sawing through the steering rods
Scotius
Go ahead GOP. Fuck with your elderly voters who depend on mail and can’t afford the extra fee for door to door deliveries.
WereBear
The Republicans don’t think we deserve home delivery.
I do love reminding them it’s in the Constitution.
Been there, doing that Bob
Man, I really hate to agree with a jerk like Grand Theft Auto (R-Ca), but cluster boxes rock.
I first saw them in France, forty some years ago. They made sense. They cut way down delivery time and that saves delivery cost. On good weather days I saw neighbors standing around their cluster box having a conversation.
I’ve been living with a cluster box for the last ~15 years. It’s worked great for me. It’s our neighbor bulletin board. We post missing pet, Tim’s having a birthday pot luck type stuff on the side.
Previously I had a mailbox out at the street. No door delivery in rural areas. That meant that I generally went out to get the mail in the middle of the before some Darrell collected it for me. And for the last ten years I’ve had a 3.5 mile drive on an unpaved (and unplowed) road to get to nearest spot the PO would service a box. Now I can leave my mail uncollected for a week or weeks and not worry about it.
I think we should not make mail delivery into a Republican/Democrat war but take a look at our needs in the days of web communication.
Is there anything that we need our PO to bring to our door Today!? Our checks are direct deposit. We get our billing statements on line. We don’t use the mail to communicate urgent messages. Most of us get far less mail than we did 10, 20 years ago.
Why not study the idea of less frequent and more efficient delivery? Cut mail delivery to fewer days per week and deliver it to locked cluster boxes. We can pick up our mail on our way home. If something needs to be delivered ASAP then use a special delivery service. Make it free/low cost for people with limited means.
Sure, that would put some Post Office employees out of a job. Transition them into another federal job over as many years as it takes. It would take a little longer to cut the PO budget but we’d avoid hurting people and have less resistance to making changes.
Botsplainer
@Scotius:
They’ll happily deprive themselves if the case can be made that at least one young buck won’t receeive a food stamp benefit, thereby cutting tbone steaks from his diet.
White elderly folks tend to roll that way.
Jockey Full of Malbec
Any old people who matter live on a HOA-managed property, with a communal mail center on the premises.
As for the rest? Parasites. Let them perish, as they should.
Scott
This is one area I agree with Issa. I have cluster boxes and, quite frankly, they are just as convenient and more secure. Plus there are larget package boxes for package delivery. More secure than USP just dumping packages on your door step. And more convenient than going to the PO to get your package. If they reduced residential delivery to 3/week (like MWR or TThS), that would be just fine with me.
fka AWS
There’s your problem. The bastards have been trying to kill the USPS for years. God I hate these fuckers with the heat of a thousand suns.
PsiFighter37
Who the fuck do the Republicans think this is going to impact the most? Hint: it’s not those of us living in the cities. This is going to come back and bite them in the ass big time…talk about doing something that is bound to get noticed by your constituencies who live in the middle of nowhere and depend on daily USPS service. Democrats should find candidates to run against Republicans everywhere, simply on the basis of the GOP wanting to make them pay for mail service. Never mind that the only reason the USPS is in this position because the last GOP Congress made an asinine requirement of having USPS pre-fund 75 years worth of pension liabilities.
Damn, these people are dumb. This is like telling Barry Bonds circa 2003 that you’re throwing him a 50mph fastball right down the plate – he’s going to ask whether you want the fans in the stands or in the boats in McCovey Cove to catch it.
Knowing the Democrats, they’ll probably fail to capitalize on this, even though it’s a really, really simple thing that even most of the deadweights living in red districts should be able to comprehend.
dmsilev
Maybe, just maybe, if Issa and his compatriots hadn’t forced the Post Office to prefund umpteen decades worth of pension benefits (i.e. pay for benefits for workers who haven’t even been born yet), the Post Office wouldn’t be quite so bad off.
In other words, maybe the Republicans could, and I know this is a novel suggestion, stop trying to make things actively worse.
LanceThruster
If it ain’t in need of fix, just break it.
[sigh]
sempronia
open thread? good, i can vent.
just got proselytized to, AGAIN, in a bookstore this time, by a pair of clean-cut young christian girls, looking for people to join their new church. very persistent, very annoying. (“we just care about your soul! would you rather stay on earth or go to heaven?”… grrr….)
why can’t they JUST STOP BOTHERING ME????
i don’t know why this always irritates me so much.
Scott
@PsiFighter37: I bet the pensioners in Detroit wish their pension liabilities were prefunded.
RSA
I don’t know the history of the Postal Service (I’m no Cliff Clavin), but I imagine reading this: “With the U.S. military facing billions of dollars in annual losses, all branches could be phased out…”
What makes the Postal Service different in being required to break even?
Schlemizel
Since the bad old days when the GOP controlled all three branches the USPS has been mandated to fund their retirement fund at a ridiculous level, today they could pay for the retirement of employees who will not retire for 75 years yet.
That is several billion dollars every year, the post office would still have been profitable up until a year or two ago and would have only a tiny loss if they had been allowed to fund at a normal level.
First you create a disaster then you use the disaster as an excuse to fuck the country over and screw workers once again
MattF
This strains the limits of OT-ness, even for an open thread, but…
If you’re a fan of cryptic crosswords, you should take a look at this Kickstarter project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1747436254/cryptic-all-stars?ref=live
You’ll note that the project has reached its dollar goal and that the funding period is about to end. It’s likely that the puzzles will be excellent and they will not be available in any other format for some time to come.
PsiFighter37
@Scott: There’s a bit of a difference between pre-funding your liabilities for 75 years and the alternatives. Your comment suggests you’re a bit too simple to understand the difference.
Also, too, that’s on whoever is running the city to stop raiding the pension system. I don’t know the particulars of Detroit, but do know that there was probably a lot of shitty management done by the politicians there over the years.
Hill Dweller
Isn’t this ultimately the result of legislation congress passed forcing the USPS to pay 75 years of pensions in 10 years?
PeakVT
I have no objection to curbside delivery, but cluster boxes tend to suck. They’re usually too small for more than a day or two of mail, especially if you get a lot of magazines, like I did.
What I really object to is the article burying the key graph almost at the end:
Also not mentioned was the Congressional restriction on the USPS setting rates. How can something be “run like a business” when it can’t set prices?
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Scott:
Are you willing to concede that not everyone is exactly like you?
Amir Khalid
@Schlemizel:
I read about this from time to time. 75 years is above the retirement age in the US. Is the USPS actually required to set aside pension money for people who haven’t even been born, let alone been hired by it?
PsiFighter37
As this is an open thread, figured I’d drop some interesting tidbits in here and see what people’s thoughts are:
1) interesting article in this weekend’s NYT magazine about the dire issues that the orange growers in Florida are facing. I know there’s a very reflexive anti-GMO strain on the liberal side, but this seems like one area where it may have to be done in order to save the orange crop altogether.
2) Corey Booker skipped out on Democratic primary debate for Lautenberg’s seat last night, saying he would only do 2 debates. I feel like this stupid of him – he’s so far ahead, he’s risking what seems like a cakewalk for him either because a) he’s not prepared to debate the issues, which I think is quite possible, or b) he’s playing it safe. I don’t think he’s the best choice in the race (either Pallone or Holt would be better), but he’s likely to be the next senator, and he has some responsibility – especially to primary voters, who are going to be the most engaged – to voice his views on the relevant topics. My guess is he’s scared of being outclassed by the two veteran Congressmen who are in the race.
3) Any general thoughts on the situation in Egypt? I feel like this could devolve into the same kind of sectarian shitshow as Syria – fundamentalist Sunnis on one side, everyone else on the other side.
4) At least right now, leaning towards de Blasio for the NYC mayoral primary, but damn does it feel like choosing the least bad out of all choices. Quinn would’ve won this in a cakewalk if she hadn’t been Bloomberg’s lapdog for 8 years.
Weiner’s newbie campaign manager just ditched, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he sinks to John Liu-like numbers in the next polls. I just hope Thompson isn’t the beneficiary, because he seems like a slimeball sellout…how the hell can anyone trust him when Alfonse D’Amato basically owns his campaign?
FlipYrWhig
@PsiFighter37: Typically what happens in cases like this is that rural and older people, who lean Republican, get shafted by Republican decision-making… but then they blame Democrats for it, because it’s only because of the over-generous Those People-loving Democrats that the money ran out and forced those decisions in the first place.
Scott
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Nor like you.
Auguste
@Scott: I would agree with you on this if I believed for a minute that the Republicans aren’t planning to gut the USPS pension fund first chance they get.
Yatsuno
@RSA: Believe it or else, it’s because the USPS is in the Constitution. That means that Congress can set the rules under which it operates. The fact that they want the semi-private institution to fail so they can shovel that cash to UPS and FedEx directly is feature, not bug.
Burnspbesq
The entire idea that the postal service should have to run at break-even is utterly ridiculous. Mail service is a public good. Every civilized country, and a lot of uncivilized ones, recognize this. We’re the outlier.
And it’s really hard to get to break-even when Congress imposes a pre-funding requirement for retirement benefits that no private company faces.
ruviana
@Botsplainer: I know this is whining, but as someone edging into her 60s and as I know the ages of a lot of the commenters here can we at least modify the comments about white olds? A lot of people commenting here are white olds and they certainly seem to disprove your assertion. Yeah, I know it’s not what you meant but it’s been bothering me for awhile.
raven
@sempronia: I give them one shot. I say, “thank you, I am not interested”. If they keep it up they end up wishing they hadn’t.
one of the jasons
Great. The Republican grudge-logic of abortion, now applied to mail delivery. Wait for the “when the disabled really need to send mail, their bodies have a mechanism for doing that” arguments.
raven
@ruviana: Aw, fuck em with that shit. Buncha little punk-ass bitches.
Been there, doing that Bob
What if we looked at first class mail and magazine delivery numbers and found them much lower than they were 20 years ago? Wouldn’t that suggest that we are maintaining a system based on past and not current use?
I don’t recall the last time I got a letter, bill or bank statement in the mail. I used to limit myself to 12 magazine subscriptions at a time. I now subscribe to zero magazines.
90% of my mail is junk or very low priority stuff. Much of the other 10% is stuff I’ve ordered off the web and I can track it to see whether it has left my local PO and is now in my cluster box.
I suspect there are many people like me. For us that’s spending the money to do daily delivery of pizza coupons and weekly advertising newspapers. How many of us are actually dependent on a mattress sale flyer getting shoved through the mail slot on Tuesday rather than Wednesday?
raven
Someone is dickin with the site!
me
Maybe the USPS should buy Viper for their mail trucks
Schlemizel
@Amir Khalid:
Yes. And my personal belief is that Congress will raid that money when their own spendthrift ways finally push social security over the edge
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter37:
You have to understand that this isn’t about helping their people at the expense of everyone else, since, as you pointed out, their people are hurt worse than anyone. It isn’t even about removing government competition for their favorite private sector companies, since FedEx and UPS are among the most vocal about the importance of preserving USPS. This is about their ideological desire to destroy any part of government that people see as functioning so they can prove that government is inherently useless. If they care about hurting people, it’s about hurting as many people as possible so the message is as clear as possible.
MattF
@PsiFighter37: FWIW, I think the situation in Egypt is different from, e.g., Iraq or Syria, because Egypt is an actual historic nation-state, rather than a patchwork of contending minority statelets mushed together by a colonial power. Also, Egypt, as a unified nationality, is an order of magnitude larger than other Middle Eastern Arab nations. What’s happening in Egypt is a big deal, and Allah only knows what’s going to happen next.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I’m sure that the end-game is for the Post Office to be sold off to private equity, who will sell everything that isn’t fastened down and then declare bankruptcy. They have a well known love for looting pension funds, and the pre-funding scheme is all about setting up the biggest ever pension fund to raid.
Schlemizel
To get some idea of USPS importance consider that both UPS and FedEx pay USPS to deliver packages for them. They pay them to deliver in small communities where it is not profitable enough for them to deliver.
FDR worked hard to see that rural America got electricity so that they would not fall behind. The modern GOG is actively trying to kill rural America with a thousand paper cuts.
Back in the ’90’s the Republican Gov of MN took advantage of a simple shortfall to offer all the bus routes in the Twin Cities for sale. Smart businessmen bought the long-distance, suburban, routes which gave a very small short-term boost but left the government with the money losing routes so much worse off in the long run. I could see this same bullshit pulled on a larger scale with mail delivery.
JCT
@Schlemizel: Feature, not a bug. Somehow, if they ever control all 3 branches again (heaven forfend) they will spend like drunken sailors all over again. And part of that will be to bankrupt the Postal Service.
And if anyone needs a laugh today — head on over to TBogg who has been on a roll with the adventures of his mayor the groper. Damn funny.
MattR
@RSA: In the middle of the WaPo article they finally explain
IIRC, not only is the post office the only federal agency to have to pre pay future retiree’s health care costs but the 2006 legislation forces them to do it in a short, 10 year period rather than spreading it over a longer time based on actuarial calculations. Basically, it is typical Republican politics – pass legislation that puts the post office in an untenable financial situation and then use that situation as an excuse to cut services.
(EDIT: Somehow missed that dmsilev said this already in comment #8, and Schlemizel at #13, and PeakVT at #17. Guess I should have read the whole thread a bit more carefully)
@Scott: One of the reasons the post office is required to prefund their health care is that they discovered that they were overfunding their pensions, but it would increase the federal deficit if the post office stopped investing that money in US Treasuries and congress couldn’t have that.
PsiFighter37
@Roger Moore: My old history teacher from high school – basically the guy who opened my eyes on a hell of a lot of stuff when it came to thinking about the world in a less U.S.-centric way/viewing the world through the eyes of the MSM – took a view that (maybe) is a little too radical, but isn’t a happy coincidence. He noted that USPS was a way for African-American families to make their way into the middle class, and that as they became a sizable portion of employees, then you started getting a lot of talk about reforming the system (in other words, making it shittier).
I hadn’t thought of it that way before, and frankly, I don’t know enough about the demographic of USPS employees to make that kind of assertion on my own. But more food for thought, if you are looking at it less from a political angle and more from a social/cultural angle.
PeakVT
@Amir Khalid: The 75 year thing is the actuarial window used (I think, since I can’t find a good explanation.) I think the argument was that mail volumes will eventually decline to zero, so the PO had to over-fund now so that there wouldn’t be a death spiral at some point in the distant future. But obviously that was just cover to induce a death spiral in the near future.
Ruckus
@sempronia:
I’m like raven.
I ask, nicely(but very firmly) for them to stop, go away, leave me alone.
They get one chance. Only one.
The next words out of their mouths better be Thank You, goodbye.
The next words out of mine are along the line of fuck your god, fuck your church, fuck your pious bullshit. And it goes downhill from there. YMMV
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
That would be a more plausible argument if FedEx and UPS showed any interest in the business. In practice, the Post Office has been pushed out of the most profitable parts of the delivery business, so the stuff that’s left to them is exactly what FedEx and UPS don’t want to be doing. Instead, FedEx and UPS contract with the Post Office to do final delivery on a lot of packages that they don’t want to deal with, and they’ve actually begged Congress to do something to keep the Post Office in business so they don’t have to take over delivering ordinary mail.
Just Some Fuckhead
I remember when Libertarians were only interested in legalizing weed then the internet came along and they started finding each other and decided the eight of them had a political movement and so they formulated political positions based on what they believed our founding fathers would have done had they been rugged 80’s-type individualists banging away on big government’s national network of computers instead of collectivist slave-owning muckity-mucks looking to overthrow the aristocrats in England and replace them with their own aristocracy.
Good times.
Yatsuno
@Roger Moore: At the current postal rates sure. But if they were allowed to set market rates per letter they could certainly be enticed to do so. Not to mention I’m certain such enticement would include a nice fat government subsidy cuz, y’know, jerb creators.
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs more kitteh
MattR
@sempronia:
Depending on my mood, I might answer that question with “stay on eartth”. I sometimes take that same approach with telemarketers. When they tell me about the money I can save changing to X, I comment that I like spending more money because it makes me feel important. Completely throws them off script and they usually can’t recover. (In college I used to tell them my parents paid the bills and they had been pissing me off so I wasn’t interested in saving them any money)
IowaOldLady
I was Starbucks the other day and two old white guys were talking about the Post Office. One said, “We should abolish if. Why do we need it anyway?” And the other said, “It’s because we’ve got all these people around they want to give jobs to.”
So spite and racism all rolled up in a nasty package, ready to be delivered via UPS.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s hard to believe the advertisers and the credit card industry would let them get away with this. It isn’t just little people who take advantage of the evil soculist mail system, created by that commie Ben Franklin.
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter37:
I don’t know exactly why the Republicans hate USPS so much, and it’s likely to be a mix of reasons, where some of them hate it for one reason and others hate it for another. The big thing is that this is about destroying the Post Office plain and simple, and they either don’t care about or actually relish the collateral damage it’s going to cause.
MattF
@IowaOldLady: You’re assuming the OWGs were expressing an original thought. I’d guess it’s more likely that the lazy, feckless, undeserving, overpaid, etc. postal workers were a topic on Limbaugh that day.
sempronia
@Ruckus:
Yeah, they tried a couple of times before I told them the conversation was over and walked away. Better than the last time though – I ended up yelling at the lady because she prefaced her proselytizing with a (really poorly pronounced) “how are you?” in Mandarin Chinese. Just because I’m Asian means that I don’t speak English? and we’re all automatically Chinese? (yeah, yeah, a billion of us, the odds are in her favor…) I told her, “Welcome to America, does my apartment manager know you’re soliciting here?”
But that’s a rant for another day.
Roger Moore
@MattR:
“I don’t want to be in any afterlife I have to share with you!”
Gene@
@PsiFighter37:
You under estimate (a) tribalism and (b) the knee jerk hatred of “big government” in influencing Republican voters decision making process.
Republican voters, in red states, would rather cut off their nose to spite their face than send a Democrat to D.C. to help enact the socialist agenda of Barak Obama (or Bill Clinton in the 1990’s).
Other than the military there is a pervasive view among right-wingers that any government employee is just another “taker”, like welfare queens and Obama voters Jonesing for their free Obama phones, because the only reason government employees exist is by taking the hard earned money from folks in the private sector. Therefore government employees should be scaled back, so people can keep their money.
It is damn hard to break these twin pillars of right-wing thought in deep red states.
TAPX486
@dmsilev: That’s a feature not a bug. Create a fake crisis or cripple a government service and then use it as a excuse that government doesn’t work so lets cut it some more. (except the FAA would not want Issa to have to wait on a runway.)
Mnemosyne
@sempronia:
Being the mean-spirited person I am, I would say, “If heaven is filled with people as rude as you are, I’d rather stay here on earth, thank you.”
And, yes, I have told persistent proselytizers that if it’s a choice between spending eternity with them and people like them and going to Hell, I will very happily go to Hell instead.
Ruckus
@Scott:
What I like are people who talk like life should be hard, that people don’t need any convenience in life, that we should all look for the minimum rather than anything better. That we should end the dollar bill to save on average just over $3 per year, per person, even though we could get the money from programs we far overspend on. Or that we should cut back mail delivery because it would save us approx $12-14 per year on average but of course it would cost many people their jobs, which would cost us almost the same as the savings. And no where does anyone discuss that we spend fucking huge amounts on the DOD, and NSA and that all the convenience parts of our government if added together are a pittance and with a little bit of sensible government we could fund them easily.
Gene108
FYWP
shell
@sempronia:
Quote Roger Williams, a Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
“Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils’
Kyle
I am gay, and have no love for religion, especially catholicism, but I’m sort of hopeful about the new pope. Am I missing something, because I have good reasons to not like him (or at least what he represents), but he’s seems very decent.
MattR
@Roger Moore: @Mnemosyne: Yeah. Depends on what exactly they have said to me and how combative/insulting I want to be. Generally speaking they are ready for insults, so I find that it messes with them more to be polite and nice but reject their premise that going to heaven (or saving money) is a worthwhile goal.
JWL
Just a few months ago, the post office in Santa Rosa, Ca (San Francisco North Bay) attempted to impose just such new regulations. A single neighborhood was targeted, and its homeowners told that henceforth there would no longer be mailed delivered to their houses– it would be strictly curbside delivery from then on out. Some people complied, and had new mailboxes built. Most did not. They instead complained, and loudly, to the local paper and their congressional reps. The post office quickly backed down, claiming it was all a big misunderstanding, and resumed delivering the mail as it has always been-and-should-be delivered.
And while I’m here, let me just say to the people of San Diego who elect Issa every two years, go piss up a rope.
Davis X. Machina
@PsiFighter37: .
Damn straight, cf, e.g. Hollywood Shuffle.
The median GOP primary voter thinks “Post Office”, sees “That Fat Mail Carrier Bitch Dancing” in Blues Brothers
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
I usually try to be somewhat polite and say something along the lines of, “Thank you, but I am satisfied with my current religion.” I did once manage to argue down a Protestant proselytizer by pointing out that the Bible says very clearly that faith without works is dead, so how could he claim that charity wasn’t important? That was a fun day.
ETA: Basically, I treat them like salespeople who are trying to hawk a product to me that I’m not interested in buying. Because that’s what they are.
scav
@Mnemosyne: There’s a handy variant on that, along the lines of “Having met you, I will do my best to remember not to judge Jesus by the company he keeps.” Sometimes I just tell them I am very happy with my current celestial calling plan and ask to be removed from their spamlist. Wish them luck with their lifestyle recuitment program (if they look even possibly clued in enough to handle multple levels of meaning).
ellennelle
@Amir Khalid:
short answer: yes. sadly. which is why this whole thing is so damn draconian.
what’s worse, is the fact that the PO’s “financial woes” are reported without any reference to said draconian (ahem, republican) law, as if to give the impression the near bankruptcy is due to incompetence or, worse, waste! truth is, it was clearly designed to happen, and here it is, right on schedule.
sure wish more dems than bernie sanders would take up rep. defazio’s efforts to repeal that 2006 law; what an intentionally nasty, mean, lame duck perversion.
MattR
So I just flipped onto Fox and caught an ad for the Dr. Oz show. The voiceover said something like, “Overhaul your sleep starting tonight. To find out how, catch the next Dr. Oz show Monday at 4 pm.”
@Mnemosyne:
If they are gonna give you a lay up like that, you have to take it :)
dr. luba
@ruviana: As a woman of non-color who is approaching old age, too, I disagree. Old white people, in the aggregate, are the problem. Not all, but most.
A friend of mine who is in her early 80s, a lovely liberal lady who was my mentor in high school, told me many years ago that our country won’t make any progress until her generation dies off. Old white people, in her opinion, actively impede progress.
PsiFighter37
@ruviana: I would imagine that most people here speak in overly broad tones (I know I do), but I feel like most people are going to understand that when we say things like “old white people are the problem”, it’s a generalist statement that abstracts from the actual number (which may be, say, 2/3 – I don’t remember what the exit polls from the 2012 election were). But there’s no doubt that the demographic that actively votes against Democrats the most often – and unfortunately also happens to be the demographic most religious about voting – are old white people. Them’s the facts.
PsiFighter37
@efgoldman: Would it work if you come on to them if they’re the opposite sex? Or is that just a bad, evil thought by the devil on my shoulder?
Geeno
@Scott: Tell them in exchange for doing what they want with some of your time, they have to do what you want with some of theirs first. Don’t explain what you mean by that. Stand firm and if they act disgusted just shrug, and tell them they have dirty minds.
noodler
Hey there Juicers. I want to tell you that I’ve been in Sana’a, Yemen for over a month now, and I am pretty well settled into life at the embassy. Security is tight, housing is decent, food is flavorful, and the work is fantastic. I have a wide portfolio and have been out and about developing contacts and creating innovative programming. The Diplomatic Corps here is top notch, and we’ve got a pretty large footprint. I recall telling my career advisers at State to “Give me the toughest assignment you have” and they obliged. Just the thing for a retired Naval Officer turned Diplomat. Two years will go by in a snap.
Yemen is really third world, it would be fourth or fifth world if the scale went that low. The capital of Sana’a is dusty, dirty and falling apart, and at 7500 feet, one can start feeling lightheaded easily. The power goes out often, and large sectors of the capital will just be pitch black. I am working with civil society, youth, and women (one of the first projects I am developing is putting a library into the only womens sports club in Sanaa). Yemen gets a fair amount of attention from us. The people I’ve met have been very nice and welcoming and interested in learning about America and how we can help in their democratic transition. If you don’t know, they are in the midst ot a “National Dialogue” which is kindof like a constititional convention, a la 1787, but with twitter.
I’ll put some pictures up on my blog, and my twitter. I’ll be back in the NY area for some R&R, to see my sons, and hopefully, visit some friends in November, prob around the 13th. We get a few R&R periods annually, so there’s that.
From the leading edge of advancing US Foreign Policy Objectives, Ramadan Kareem, The Noodler
Mike G
@JWL:
San Diego County has to be one of the most taxpayer-dependent major metro areas in the country between the military, defense contractors and border patrol, yet they consistently vote for noxious right-wing assholes that whine about government spending.
IowaOldLady
@sempronia: In a store? I’d tell them to go away or I’ll complain to management. Then I’d complain anyway. Most stores don’t want their customers bothered. And it’s good to know if the store doesn’t mind.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: Yup. I was just scrolling down to see if anyone mentioned Hollywood Shuffle. That movie makes the USPS the sole remaining haven for honest work open to all without demeaning anyone or making them have to choose to demean themselves.
Ruckus
@ruviana:
I’d like to agree with you, as I am an old white male, the worst of the lot. And I know that many of my fellow olddies are liberal, good people.
But. You knew there would be a but didn’t you?
I also know or know of far too many old white assholes, who are not going to change. They have been assholes all their lives, they just discuss it with other old people now, trying to justify their shitty views. At this point I assume all old whites are assholes until proven otherwise. It is simpler that way, and far more often correct. YMMV
PsiFighter37
@Mike G: Well, they did vote in a Democrat for mayor for the first time in 20 years last election. Too bad it was a guy with a creepy smile who also apparently liked to get up close & personal with women who had no interest.
@noodler: That sounds very cool – keep up the good work! I haven’t heard about Yemen in the news for a while, which has to be a good sign, at least relative to the shitshows going on in Syria and Egypt.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig: And that’s why it must die. A walking, talking breathing reminder that there is such as work at good wages, reasonably free from exploitation by bosses, for the good of a real thing called ‘society’, a reminder that that there is a public, with a right to demand public services and public goods, and that ‘we’ is as real as “me and Them”….and it comes right up to your door. Six times a week.
No wonder it must be killed.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike G: They’re opposed to government spending necessitated by bad liberal choices, like being suckered into helping Those Bad People. If not for that, there would be more than enough money for the government to spend on Us Good People. QED.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: When talking about “old white people”, I tend to look at by generation. The “Greatest Gen” were influenced by Hoover=BAD, FDR=Good, the “Silents(Happy Days) Gen” were influence by Truman=BAD, Ike=Good, “Baby Boomers” JFK=Good, Nixon=Bad, X-er’s Carter=BAD, Saint Ronald.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Scott:
sure, but I’m not the one who used my personal experience to justify a policy change that will affect millions of not-zombies.
PsiFighter37
@BillinGlendaleCA: Perhaps, but not all the way. My mom was a conservative for a long time (born at the tail end of the Baby Boom era, came of age under Carter/Reagan), but has taken a big 180 over the past 15 years – partially because she got out of the middle of nowhere in California (Mojave Desert), but mainly because she could tell the GOP was becoming way too extreme in the late 1990s. Of course that accelerated when Dubya ran us into the ground over 8 years.
If anything, it’s a good way to highlight that there’s hope for those who haven’t seen the light yet. Hopefully my generation (those who got to see Dubya fuck things up and Obama start putting it back together) won’t need as much convincing.
PsiFighter37
@efgoldman: My implication was that it was a freebie to take shots at scoring with them.
Yes, I’m a horrible person for thinking that, but why not practice your game on unwitting targets?
I’ll stop there before I dig myself a hole I can’t get out of.
PeakVT
Interesting article on climate change, ticks, and moose.
burnspbesq
Thread needs mas futbol. Ten minutes to kickoff. US v. Panama in the Gold Cup final.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
How icky would it be if your invitation/suggestion/innuendo was accepted?
Citizen_X
@Scotius:
Ahem. The GOP, from every available orifice, the day after passing this law: “LOOK WHAT OBAMA/PELOSI DID TO YOUR MAIL SERVICE!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: It’s a general guideline, but if you look at voting patterns it works pretty well. Your mom sounds about my age, and you do get some blurring between generations +/-4 years around the generation divisions. Hell, even the generation definitions aren’t exact. But if true it does allow for some hope as the “Happy Days Generation” ages from their 70’s and 80’s.
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
The hardest thing Democrats have in cracking right-wing voters in red-states is (a) tribalism and (b) a knee-jerk hatred of “big government”.
People may like a local Democrat, but they hate the idea of sending someone to D.C. to help implement Barack Obama-Nancy Pelosi’s “socialist agenda” (in the 1990’s it was Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy’s socialist agenda). Until the national Democratic Party’s values – marriage equality, pro-choice, etc. – does not alienate these voters, it’ll be tough to get past the tribalism of a large segment of right-wing voters.
A very pervasive view amongst right-wingers is that government employees (outside of the military, naturally) are another class of “takers, like welfare queens and 2012 voters lining up for their free Obama phones, because the only reason government employees get a paycheck is by taking money from hardworking folks in the private sector. Fewer government employees means I can keep more of my money and not give it to “them”, i.e. teachers, air traffic controllers, city planners, etc.
The Democrats have struggled to crack these twin pillars of what drives right-wingers to the polls and I don’t think disruption in postal service is going to do the trick on an appreciable scale.
sempronia
@IowaOldLady:
It was a Barnes and Noble – like they care, their business model is dying anyway.
@efgoldman:
[snicker] ruthless and expedient – very nice. I’m usually too much in shock to self-extricate so quickly. Also trying to repress (or choose among) the many rude answers that come to mind.
Cute young proselytizers with that earnest look especially annoy me – being rude to them is like clubbing baby seals.
seaboogie
Oh, yay – open thread on a beautiful Sunday…could rail about politics and religion (and have ample arrows in my quiver for that), but I just want to share this:
Last Friday was my birthday, and also payday on what was my meager salary before I was fired this week on Tuesday, my first day back after vacation. My landlady asked what I was going to do to celebrate my birthday and I told her that I was going to take my cat to the vet (because I could afford to, for an exam and a shot for her neurodermatitis that was making her miserable and biting off any hairs that she could reach.) I also bought some birdseed for the birds in my wee garden shaded by old oaks and bay trees.
So now, on this loveliest of days, I see my almost 18-yr-old kitty (assassin emeritus, as my vet calls her) happily asleep in a comma shape just inside the screen of the sliding glass door while only 12 feet away outside the smaller birds now have their time at the feeding dish. All morning it’s been like O’Hare if it only had one landing strip. And I am laying the groundwork for starting my own business, finally.
I love this blog for the unique forum it provides to vent justifiable outrage at all the crapola, and then also to celebrate and enjoy the really good stuff in life. Like critters, tomatoes (that the squirrels didn’t get) and music.
Happy Sunday, Fun-Day…: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU
Hungry Joe
I was in the P.O. a few weeks ago and two guys behind me were bitching about having to stand in line, government inefficiency and waste, etc. The line was long, but there were three postal clerks, and they were working steadily and being friendly to everybody. But these two guys were just PISSED OFF that they had to stand there for seven or ten minutes, all because of the crappy, good-for-nothing government … that was willing to ship their packages 3,000 miles and deliver them to a house down a dirt road for $4.75.
raven
No soccer weenies?
Mr Stagger Lee
@FlipYrWhig: Black Acting School and Hoecakes!
@PsiFighter37: I am about her age, sadly lot of people in my age group(50 years old plus/minus 10)seemed never to give up there inner Alex Keaton or the worship of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Nevermind that this age group is totally getting screwed in hiring and the first to go in layoffs, these guys are going to be the deadenders, so you got maybe 20 to 30 years of this shit.
noodler
@PsiFighter37: Thanks, lots of “fun” going on over here and being a part of the nascent development of a country is pretty interesting. US mission here is working hard to make an impact, that’s for sure. BJ is a great check on the happenings stateside tho.
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
Being an old white male, I am, by dint of being in the club, allowed/party to many conversations of old white people that totally disgust and piss me off. Almost every day when I’m out in public makes me want to slit my wrists or better yet, theirs.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@raven:
Heehee…I was just checking for that myself.
raven
@Ruckus: I thought you was a brother?
Mr Stagger Lee
@raven: Watching the Gold Cup on Univision, watching many Latinos cheering the USA and waving flags, if Steve King is watching this his head just exploded.
namekarB
Social Security nstopped issueing paper checks in March 2013.
gene108
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I wouldn’t lump Gen X’ers into the Carter-bad, Reagan-good camp.
I think Reagan’s strongest segment of support came from late Baby Boomers, who got scarred about government being a force for good because of Watergate and Vietnam, when they were kids, had what seemed like more troubled job prospects than their parents coming out of high school in the 1970’s – though they could still make a decent living, by today’s standards – so they were secure enough to think they could get by without “big government” and were jaded enough to want to kick government in the nuts.
If you look at the youth vote that went for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, these were people born between 1962 and 1966 at the latest.
That’s a little too early to be Gen. X’ers.
For most Gen. X’ers the first Presidential election the could’ve voted in was Bush, Sr.-Dukakis or Clinton-Bush,Sr.-Perot (like myself), in 1992.
Watergate was something that interrupted Sesame Street for older Gen X’ers or happened just before you were born. You still had the emotional baggage the adults rammed down your throat regarding how horrible government was because of Watergate and Vietnam, but it wasn’t something you connected with on as much a personal level as people, who were saw 10 or 11 and old enough to start forming their own opinions, as they watched Watergate unfold.
I’m not saying Gen. X’ers are super liberal, there’s a strong portion that are conservative, but they aren’t the sweet spot for people, who were absorbed into right-wing thought via Reagan.
Ruckus
@raven:
Just sisters.
Oh that’s not the way you meant that.
No, always been a pasty white dude, I’ve just lasted a lot longer than I ever expected to.
And thanks for the thought. That may be one of the nicest things a white person has ever said about me.
raven
@Ruckus: I was in a week long training session a few years back. After the week and African American woman asked me “Are you married to a sister? You sure have soul”. I said the same thing to her that you said to me!
eta, maybe it was the note about the LA Jazz gig in South Central?
Chris
@sempronia:
Something like that happened to me over the summer… made a Mormon friend, was invited to go to his church one time, and then got a bunch of strong, strong, STRONG hints that I should totally convert, yo, culminating in a guy trying to set up an appointment for me that week to get baptized – IOW, without even having a time to read that Book of theirs (if, hypothetically, I’d been interested).
I’ve been proselytized before, but that takes the cake. Usually when people tell me “hey, wanna come to my church on Sunday,” it means exactly what it sounds like – it’s a cross-cultural exchange, I guess, there are no hurt feelings when I don’t turn it into a habit. Even the fundiegelicals who wanted to convert me back before I knew what a fundiegelical was had enough sense not to try and baptize me on the very first day – it was just “hey, if you’re interested, man, come back.”
Them Mormons… God damn. If the snake oil had smelled any stronger, the entire church mighta caught on fire.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PsiFighter37: Perhaps, but not all the way. My mom was a conservative for a long time (born at the tail end of the Baby Boom era, came of age under Carter/Reagan), but has taken a big 180 over the past 15 years – partially because she got out of the middle of nowhere in California (Mojave Desert), but mainly because she could tell the GOP was becoming way too extreme in the late 1990s. Of course that accelerated when Dubya ran us into the ground over 8 years.
The Cal GOP pretty much sums it up for the right. The Cal GOP is politically irrelevant in the state and yet rather than taking a platform that might win them some elections they just always double down on the crazy.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
It’s a government institution with a purpose other than shooting people, beating people or jailing people.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@gene108:
It was Match Game and Bugs Bunny that were the interrupted shows on my schedule…But I’m from that first year (’65) of the generation- Sesame Street was a bit behind me at that point.
As for the Boomer support for for Reagan…It probably goes back to those born from ’55 to ’57 who were immune from the draft during the Vietnam era (tyvm, Mel Laird), but the ’60-’64 segment of those might have been more anti-Carter after he reinstated registration for those born on or after 1/1/1960.
Ruckus
@raven:
I have some stories that parallel yours but the one that started it all is about a man my dad employed when I was 12-13. He was about 30-35, stocky with arms about the size of my thighs(now not then) and black. For some reason he took me under his wing and I was able to learn some of the most important life lessens from him. I can not remember his name but his face, that I can picture perfectly. A calm, honest, modest, satisfied, happy human. I learned that money doesn’t make one any of those things, a lessen that has been re-enforced many times over the years. It is an attitude, how one looks at life. Notice that I didn’t say he was accepting of the shit thrown at him, for he wasn’t. He was just, well understanding and in life for the long haul. But the greatest thing I learned? Respect. Give that until proven that it isn’t due.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Hungry Joe: I was in the P.O. a few weeks ago and two guys behind me were bitching about having to stand in line, government inefficiency and waste, etc.
Hey,. those farm subsidy checks won’t pick themselves up you know.
Ruckus
@raven:
My dad’s and then my business was just a few blocks from there. I spent 29 years in that part of the world almost every day. Also a black friend suggested that I might like it.
raven
@Ruckus: The gentleman in this picture was my drill sergeant at FT Campbell in 1966. He trained us to the best of his ability (which was tremendous) for the war “the politicians” were sending us to. He was smart, tough as nails and really gave a fuck about us no matter what color we were.
Chris
@BillinGlendaleCA:
… much the same way I, as a millennial, will have “Bush = BAD” shaping my politics probably forever.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Good answer.
But I’m still going to take your word for it rather than try it.
Those LDS lads do ride their bikes in pairs for a reason don’t they?
Old joke. How do you keep a Mormon from drinking your beer on a fishing trip? Invite two of them.
Ruckus
@raven:
I was in two different companies in boot camp. One commander was a short, old angry, probably drunkard chief. The other was a young 1st class, trained in the modern way to be a boot camp co commander. I never heard either one of them say anything racist about anyone in the company, nor pick on anyone in any racist manor. That didn’t stop them from being on everyone’s ass, they just never seemed to be openly racist. Which I expected. Most of the guys got along fine in both companies, it was mostly personalities, not race that caused problems. I understand that being in the army overseas may have been different during that era.
gelfling545
@Been there, doing that Bob: You would be well advised to get at least one bill or bank statement by mail, as I discovered to my great inconvenience when I needed to prove my address not very long ago at the DMV. Only bills or bank statements sent by US mail were acceptable. Fortunately my bank had just sent me a close out statement for an account I was closing or I would have been up the old fashioned creek until I could get somebody to mail me something.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108:
Generally the latest Boomers were probably born in 64, so 65 and on are GenX.
I think that, and I’m a late Boomer, Watergate had the opposite effect on the late Boomers. Remember Nixon was a rethug.
I’d be very careful using any data from 84, everybody voted for Saint Ronald. Well, I didn’t; but he won 49 states.
I do think that the GenX’s are less conservative than the Silents, but that might just be a function of age.
raven
@Ruckus: I think it depended. In Korea, 67-68, the brothers had their own club in the ville. A chuck could go if accompanied but if you were asked to leave you did it most rickey tic. There were militant brothers that would have zero to do with anyone white except in the line of duty. In the Nam I was not in a situation to know much about the “ville” but the same self-segregation was there. The brothers had their own hooch (tent) and sometimes I’d go there. The big divider was in my world between the “heads” and the straight dudes. Those of us who got high didn’t give a flying fuck about race, kinda like the bunker scene in Platoon.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
We are on the same page. 100%
I do only have a cell phone and I don’t answer anyone who I don’t know or who disables caller ID. You can’t even be that honest, I say fuck you.
As I have gotten older I feel I have less time to waste with people who want something from me. And I’m not afraid to let them know that.
raven
@Ruckus: Whatchoo got that’s good fo da head?
James Gary
@raven: I was in a week long training session a few years back. After the week and African American woman asked me “Are you married to a sister? You sure have soul”. I said the same thing to her that you said to me!
Aging Hippie Boast, #371: “Man, Even The Spades Dug Me.”
Go on, Raven–tell us about the time you dropped acid with Jim Morrison.
JPL
@seaboogie: That is one of my favorite songs. Good luck to you and your new endeavor. If you know how, link a picture of the kitty.
raven
@James Gary: Ha! He was scheduled to play at a festival I went to in West Palm but he got busted in Miami and didn’t make it!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Pretty much what I do, though Thursday was an exception, I got a call from an unfamiliar number. Then again, I’d just taken my car in for a clutch job so I figured that it was them. Yup, wanted to tell me all the other problems with my car, it’s 28 so it’s got many.
catclub
@Hill Dweller: yes, and the legislation passed in 2006. – What happened in November 2006? Democrats took majorities in both houses of government. So passed by republican controlled legislatures.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
We Gen Xers- at least those of us who grew up in more populated areas- were fed a steady stream of CTW, “Free To Be You and Me” and ABC Afterschool Specials in the same way Boomers got “The Mickey Mouse Club”. There’s a big divide in Gen X between the urban and rural. And inside the urban segment…I’ll put it this way: I just had my 30th HS reunion last weekend, and I noticed that the breakdown between liberals and conservatives broke down along the lines of who didn’t and who did wear p.o.w. bracelets in the early ’70s.
Ruckus
@raven:
In the navy you don’t get a choice where you sleep. They assign you a rack in the compartment with your workmates. You want to be a racist shit chances are you are going to be someplace on the ship by yourself where others are going to take exception to you disrupting their lives. And the dudes taking exception may be of any and all races. Life is crowded and you learn to be at least accepting or your life got a lot shittier. That’s not to say that race relations were perfect but segregation, even just socially, just didn’t happen on the ships I was on.
ruemara
@Scott: You say that like the City Manager couldn’t figure out a way to raid a pre-funded pension.
raven
@Ruckus: Did you guys hot swap racks? My old man was on a converted WWI four piper turned in to a high speed attack transport. There living conditions were pretty primitive.
Ruckus
@James Gary:
Some of those aging hippie boasts are actually true.
But don’t let a good mime get in the way of reality.
raven
@Ruckus: I can’t sleep at night because I worry about what people on Balloon Juice think.
burnspbesq
Stewie’s knee injury sounds not-too-serious.
US needs to find a way to open up a superbly organized Panamanian defense.
The GEICO ad with the camel annoys me.
raven
@burnspbesq: Where’s Rhadilanadodingdong?
Violet
I’m drinking an excellent cold-brew iced coffee from a local coffee shop. Yum!
Ruckus
@raven:
Things weren’t that crowded on the ships I was on. Some of the older subs at the time maybe. I knew guys that had been stationed on mine sweeps and they said things were pretty tight on those but even there I don’t think they hot swapped. On the most crowded ship I shared a 40x40x8 room with 80 guys. Part of the room was a missile magazine, part was an operating theater with a steam sterilizer and 80 lockers. The rest was for us. Canvas racks, three high. You had at most 18 inches between you and anything above you. If you were taller than 6ft your feet had to hang in the air. In the summer in Gitmo it would be a bit pungent as we didn’t have enough fresh water to shower. Or wash clothes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@burnspbesq:
(1)Too early to know, (2)like the goddamned bus in front of the goal and (3)agreed.
Ruckus
@raven:
I’ll bet.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: My dad used to tell a story about running out of food on his ship, he learned why navy beans are called navy beans.
raven
@Ruckus: Dad loved flying down there before the revolution!
I guess you just adjust to what you have as far as accommodations. I still can’t imagine how they slept on those tin cans with the engine shaft running right through their berths. I guess I also can’t imagine pushing off from San Diego on Dec 8th, 1941 and not coming home until 1945.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m reading yet another book about WWII in Europe and, as bad as it was aboard ship, I understand how much better it was that being a dog face or a jar head.
Violet
@raven: I think we really do have it good these days. Life in general used to be so much harder. Obviously much worse for those in the military, but just everyday life was more physically difficult with fewer comforts. Air conditioning? Running water? Electricity? A television? A phone you can carry around with you on which you can connect to the world instantly from almost anywhere? It’s hard to comprehend how far we’ve come.
raven
@Violet: Oh yea.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: My dad was lucky, he joined in 37, so he only spent a year or so in the Pacific during the war. He got shipped to the navy yard in DC to be an instructor.
Ruckus
@raven:
Humans can survive in some pretty shitty places if they want to.
I was on for 2 yrs what was considered a modern tin can in the 60s-70s. We all sailed in the same direction but some had it better than others. The guys that ran the boilers got it the worst. In the summer it would be 115-120 deg under the fans and 140 anywhere else in the fireroom. You couldn’t even hang on the ladder to get out without burning your hands. And they were so under staffed that they worked 6 hrs on and 6 off when the boilers were lit. Nasty, oily, dirty. hot work. With no showers or clean clothes.
raven
@Ruckus: The Black Gang!
Have you read the Arnheitner Affair?
Cassidy
@raven: Not to interrupt, but are you guys gonna need extra fish sticks and prune juice for this conversation? ;)
raven
@Cassidy: What the fuck, no one else is here. And this soccer game is boring as shit.
Cassidy
@raven: Hehehehe..just messin, man. You guys get to talkin’ and it’s all about years before I was born.
ETA: It’s soccer.
Ruckus
@raven:
That was the main reason I joined the navy. Being drafted into the marines or army? During a war? No thanks!
BTW just after I joined the first draft lottery was held. And I was 1A. And my number?
Fifteen.
raven
@Cassidy: I know!
Violet
@Cassidy: Are you including me in that question?
Ruckus
@raven:
Have not.
I used to be a big fan of military books/films. For some reason I just don’t have that strong a desire anymore.
raven
@Ruckus: They started drafting in the corps when I went in and, btw, my birthday (went in on my 17th) is Nov 10th! The walked down the line in Chicago, Army,Marines, Army, Marines. . . Xin Loi mofo.
Cassidy
@Violet: No. I just like messing with raven.
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
So you were in the navy and remember the food.
Mike G
They’ve obviously never been to Disneyland.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
THERE IT IS!
Cheap goal for Shea, but a well-earned goal for the team.
raven
@Ruckus: This one is a doozie
The Arnheiter affair
Cassidy
@Ruckus: Lol, no, but I have eaten at a certain DFAC at Camp Casey Korea that managed to cook the taste out of chicken. It was baked supposedly, but it didn’t taste at all, just texture. It didn’t even taste bad, just nothing.
raven
@Ruckus: Dog Face,
raven
@Cassidy: Did they still have the recombined milk? You know Casey was the 7th ID HQ for many many years.
Older
I’m really flabbergasted by the hate-on for the Post Office on the part of old people, considering how glad, and even grateful they were to see me when I was driving that mail route in the deep boonies. I live in town, so I see people all the time, but some of those old folks out in the tules wouldn’t have a conversation a week if not for the mail carrier.
And that, folks, is just one of our valuable services! It is actually encouraged by the management, or was when I was a carrier, as was checking up on people if we didn’t see them for a while, in case they were sick or injured.
Ruckus
@raven:
Yeah, when I took my draft “physical” they had us stand in the hall in our underwear and across the hall a Marine DI called out every third guy and told them they were being drafted into the Marines. My only thought was “Oh shitwhatthefuckdoIdonow”
raven
@Older: I’m flabbergasted at how many mailmen I know are racist teabag motherfuckers. Getting fired from the PO was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
joel hanes
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Truman=BAD
Desegregating the military by executive order was GOOD.
So was firing MacArthur.
raven
@joel hanes: Dugout Doug. He never spent one night in Korea during the war. Flew his candy ass back to the palace.
Ruckus
@raven:
Later on I was stationed on a second ship(different type) and the CO was almost as big an asshole as the Vance’s.
IowaOldLady
@Ruckus: A friend of mine was subbing at a high school last spring, doing pretty anything she felt would keep them from rioting, and she was explaining the draft to them. Their reaction? “No way!” They couldn’t believe the govt could draw your number and send you Viet Nam.
Stillwater
I’m not sure I see the argument here even tho I get the complaint. If the USPS operates at a loss, then either additional revenues need to supplement that loss (justified as a social benefit or something) or the protocols under which the USPS operates need to be changed (cutting some of the current provisions). You seem to think subsidies are the answer. I’m just not sure why that answer is so obviously correct that someone advocating the alternative is justifiably ridiculed.
raven
@IowaOldLady: They couldn’t draw mine because I came home before the lottery! Have her look up Project 100,000 and explain to the kiddies that you could get drafted if you could barely read but you could stay home if you were in college.
smintheus
NC Gov. McCrory admits he hasn’t read the voter “protection” bill that he plans to sign. He also justified eliminating same-day voter registration by claiming, falsely, that NC voters can register on line.
Chris
@joel hanes:
Oh, hell, yes. Truman might just be my favorite president. Certainly it’s under him that the Democratic Party that I recognize and identify with finally took shape (being the party of economic justice was good, throwing in civil rights made it better).
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
I remembered you being in the army but I hate do fuck back a little.
I used to love chicken. Fried, baked, tacos, soup, whatever. The navy broke me of that. My favorite was when the cooks would take the chicken out of the freezer and put the entire ice cube into the oven to thaw. Once they could break apart the pieces they threw them into the deep fryer. Five minutes or so and the outside is crispy golden brown. The inside is still cold and possibly frozen but is for sure undercooked. Tasty and… excuse me I have to go throw up again.
BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes: The Truman presidency was not view favorably when he left office. He has looked much better in the long term.
So when people, the Silents, were in their teens and early 20’s Truman was view unfavorably and Ike was view favorably.
ETA: The good and bad are not my feelings about these Presidents but how they were viewed at the time. My feelings about HST are quite favorable and I have no love whatsoever towards “Saint Ronnie”.
Cassidy
@raven: Lots of retired military.
Cassidy
@Ruckus: The more things change…had the same thing happen many years ago: golden fried pork chops, crispy and tasty on the outside, raw and cold in the middle. We were so hungry we didn’t care, but at least we had company later when visiting the bathroom.
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
Then you are an idiot. Because that is not what they are trying to do. Conservatives fucked the PO so they could later kill it. For no good reason.
There is noting wrong with the PO that a little sensible governing couldn’t fix. Sensible governing is not being suggested here, death is. And it is totally unnecessary to think that way.
raven
@Cassidy: Yep.
Cassidy
@Ruckus: They had a reason: it was one more gov’t service to destroy and undermine the validity of the gov’t.
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
OK I’ll give you that except I said no good reason.
jayackroyd
“Protect the borders” If this means provide national defense, yes. But if this means control immigration, that is not, at all, a libertarian idea. Libertarians believe in open borders.
This whole “libertarian” label is really starting to rankle. The NYT has been using it recently to describe the populist republican movement. I know that some of them, the Pauls for instance, label themselves that way. But the populist republicans really are better characterized as small government republicans, who take to heart the Big Lies of the post Reagan era, vs big government republicans, like Bush and the rest of their ruling elite.
The small government republicans are raising a ruckus because they are voting against programs that don’t reduce the reach of the government.
raven
You guys had CHICKEN AND PORK CHOPS?????? :)
Stillwater
Then you are an idiot.
Well, actually, I’m not. But I’m exactly the kind of person who’d say that, no?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Eleven in a row, and never boring today, no matter what raven said.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): True.
raven
HU ES HAY
smintheus
@Cassidy: They just want to privatize the PO. Partly they’re still trying to catch up with Thatcher’s agenda, partly they’re chasing donations from FedEx and UPS, which are among the biggest corporate political donors.
Ruckus
This is a problem with the entire way our lives now run. So many see the only solution is the conservative way even if not to the degree.
Cut back, cheapen, destroy.
We are supposed to be the richest fucking country in the world, surly we can have health care, a post office, national parks, a weather service, funded research for advancement, reasonable defense, free education, possibly fucking decent jobs, fair elections. I’m sure that I’ve left out any number of things but if all we look for is ways to end all of these we soon, if we are not already way past, cease to be a great nation. We will only be the bullies that the rest of the world thinks we are.
karen
@PsiFighter37:
I’d think that if you come on to someone who’s the same sex (since these type of people are always anti-gay or lesbian) that’ll really work.
Ruckus
@raven:
It was more like they had us but yes.
As you said better to live on a crappy ship than in the shit.
evodevo
@sempronia:
The FFRF (FFRF.org) has a set of “non-tract” atheist brochures you can carry in your pocket just for these occasions. I always keep a few next to the front door, too. Just say to them, “If you’ll read through this while you are here, I’ll be glad to discuss it with you !!” The looks on their faces will be its own reward.
karen
@jayackroyd:
Libertarians. Freedom for me. Not for you.
Libertarians. Liberty for me. Not for you.
Libertarians. My rights override your rights. Your rights are non-existent.
Libertarians. Get rid of the government and I don’t want to pay taxes but I plan to use the roads, take help from FEMA if a hurricane damages my property and demand social security and medicare.
That label?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet:
Yes I would agree but so have expectations which I think becomes a little worriesome. I have said this before but my Mother is a child of World War II and the depression. She is a sock darner of the first order, and would no more think about throwing away a sock with a hole in it than she would throw away half a portion of carrots or a couple of slices of roast beef. She still, even though these days she does not have to worry about it, will not waste anything. We have become such a throw away society which is sad. I think that if we learned to live with LESS and not MORE, we would all be happier for it.
burnspbesq
FT: USA 1-0 Panama. Panama was absolutely the second-best team in this tournament, but the USA found a way.
Good thing Donovan missed the pass; if he had touched it he would have played Shea offside.
Shea looks like absolute shite about 50 percent of the time, but all he did was score the only goals in the two toughest games of the tournament.
Stillwater
@Ruckus: We will only be the bullies that the rest of the world thinks we are.
We actually are the bullies the rest of the world thinks we are. But that’s irrelevant to the topic we’re talking about.
Domestic policy is different than foreign policy. At least, the arguments justifying it should be different. I’m not sure how the premise of the US being “the richest country in the world” justifies the USPS operating at a loss. Something else needs to be included, it seems to me, a premise arguing that a tax subsidizing a government mail system is justified, especially given that mail services aren’t a basic right. Or maybe that’s the argument! That receiving mail is a basic civil right!
I haven’t seen that argument, and I’m not sure that even if it were presented it’d be decisive. People disagree about this stuff, it seems to me. And the underlying disagreement doesn’t reduce to a simplistic analysis where conservatives embrace a desire to destroy government as a matter of principle. I don’t even know what the means, myself. They have arguments justifying their views, and it’s those arguments that need to be countered. Not a strawman of their views.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@burnspbesq:
Shea could have let the ball go in on its own. It was headed for the net with no Panamanian around to stop it.
Shea was absolutely horrible against Cuba. He looked better after that. Not great, but better. He’s got potential.
karen
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I was born in 1965, which I think makes me a Gen Xer. And you’re right. Sesame Street, “Free to Be You And Me” “The Electric Company” and “Schoolhouse Rock!”
I don’t think a TV Show like “Free to be You and Me” would make it on the air today because there would be too much protest about how liberal it was.
Chris
@jayackroyd:
“Libertarians are what Republicans call themselves when they’re trying to get laid” is still the best definition I’ve heard for what it means in our political context.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt I’m seeing a move to living with less, not more, among the Kids These Days. Some of it I think is necessity–shopping at the thrift store because they can’t afford to spend much–and some of it is a desire to live more simply. But yeah, we are accustomed to a much higher standard of living than our parents and grandparents were.
As for darning socks, I used to do that, but generally don’t even think about it these days. I bought a pack of six socks from Target and after about six months they started to wear out. And when they wore out, they just kind of disintegrated on the bottom. There was not much I could have darned without sewing the toe to the heel or patching the entire bottom of the sock.
I think things are made more cheaply and planned obsolescence is standard. So younger people grow up with the expectations that things will break and you just go get a new one instead of fixing the one you have. It’s often cheaper to replace it than fix it, and you get a new and updated version.
debbie
When I lived in an apartment community, there were cluster mailboxes. They weren’t a problem, largely because they had been planned for. Where are these new clusters supposed to go in a suburban community that has no empty lots? Is Issa getting a percentage on eminent domain?
BillinGlendaleCA
@karen: I’ve never heard of “Free to be You and Me”, does sound kinda hippie dippie. Then again, I was born in 1960 and if it was on PBS I’d never be able to run across it. We got channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13; PBS was 28(UHF), couldn’t get that.
? Martin
This won’t play well in Issa’s district. Lots of planned communities that cluster mailboxes won’t work well – particularly among the middle class white voters that he relies on.
Mike in NC
@smintheus: I’m shocked to learn that Pat McCrory is a lying sack of shit. The only thing he finds time to read are the checks from Art Pope.
IowaOldLady
@Violet: When my socks get like that, I put them in my “travel clothes” drawer. Then when we travel, I take that stuff and throw it away as we go along.
My son would be so humiliated if he knew I confessed that.
Violet
@IowaOldLady: I’ve heard of people doing that. Seems smart to me. I end up using them for dusting or other uses–you can put an old sock over your hand–the top is still usually okay–and dust figurines or that kind of thing. Polishing silver. Etc. Tearing them into strips and using them to tie my plants to stakes in the garden is also a good use.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@karen:
So that makes two of us Boomersitters here.
The Baby Boom began in ’46, when the birthrate rose back to (and then above) pre-war levels. When the birthrate slipped back to wartime levels in late ’64, the Boom was over.
If there was a “FtB…YaM” made today, it would be lost amongst the zillions of cable channels. It wouldn’t be any kind of cultural touchstone.
Oh, and about “Schoolhouse Rock”: The first that aired was “A Noun Is a Person, Place Or Thing”. I was so jazzed for those things that I stayed tuned into ABC that entire Saturday morning they premiered.
RSA
@Yatsuno: @MattR: Thanks the the explanations. I wasn’t making the connections.
Suzanne
@debbie: I live in the suburbs, and we have clusters. They’re just at the end of the street on the side of the corner house. No big deal.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It didn’t air until ’74, and it was an ABC Aftershcool Special. You were probably old enough that it didn’t register on your radar.
Cassidy
How It’s Made is the greatest show ever.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I just looked it up on the Wikipedia. Both that and Schoolhouse Rock was when I was in Jr. High, wouldn’t register at that age.
Litlebritdifrnt
@IowaOldLady:
LOL I call them my “gardening underwear” and stuff. Like Violet I tend to use really worn underwear as dusting and cleaning cloths until there really is nothing holding them together anymore. @Violet:
I use my old stockings as plant ties, they work perfectly and eventually disintegrate so you don’t have to worry about retrieving them.
I buy all of my clothes from Thrift Stores, I HATE paying department store prices, their mark ups are worse than the car companies and the depreciation is just as bad. When I am done wearing them (I work on the premise that if I haven’t worn something for a year then it is likely I won’t wear it for the next year) then it goes back to the Thrift Store from whence it came and someone else gets to use it. There is a beauty and an economy to it.
Mnemosyne
@karen:
A doll, a doll, William wants a doll …
Oh, yeah, I would probably have serious summer camp flashbacks if someone played a few notes from that album for me.
I was born in 1969 and was the exact right age group for that. My brother was born in 1963 (technically very late Baby Boomer) and worships Ronald Reagan. Coincidence? I think not.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mnemosyne:
I still belt out “…a doll to be a father to…,” every now and then. And I find myself singing “It’s Alright to Cry” every now and then, too. I mean, if Rosey Grier- of the Fearsome Foursome d-line of the Rams!- can sing it…
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: I almost never wear pantyhose or stockings or whatever these days, so all my old ones are also used to tie up plants. Had to go dig out a pair just a few days ago to make a sling for a cantaloupe that is on a fence and is getting so big I was concerned it would fall off. They are the very best for plants. If you don’t have any old pairs, you can get cheap ones from the dollar store.
The Sailor
@jayackroyd:
Ah, No True Libertarian?
rikyrah
the entire trouble with the USPS is a GOP manufactured one.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
I’ve been on a space kick the past few months. I’ve always had a thing for spaceflight, but recently I’ve been poring over NASA archive images and reading mission highlight pages. Last night, I scoured the DVD collection in the shed for space-themed movies. All I could find was Space Cowboys. I’ve already watched the horror flick Apollo 18 several times just to get a feel of what an Apollo moon mission would have been like.
I’m going to have to hunt for The RIght Stuff and Apollo 13 next weekend.
Joel
@Been there, doing that Bob: Packages. The USPS is still the backbone of parcel delivery. And in the Amazon era, that’s a lot.
Narcissus
When are we going to start looking at all of these disparate efforts to dismantle the State and the Public sphere, and roll back as much power to Feudal sources (Father, Priest, Businessman) as part of a coherent whole? I’m tired of people on the left or the center agreeing with “reforms” like this because they’re more efficient or faster. This makes the mistake of assuming the conservatives actually want a functioning government. They don’t even want a functioning public sphere.
The Sailor
@Stillwater:
It’s in the Constitution, that’s as basic as you get. Why shouldn’t it be subsidized? W/o a special tax,we can’t afford not to have the post office.
I mean, sure, YOU could, but your selfishness is not us.
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
Have you read the constitution? Give it a try some day.
And arguing that government services should make a profit is insane. For examples I give you the military, police, education, drinkable water, breathable air. The profit government entities give is the thing they do, which we all profit from. EPA, DOD, FBI. Do you think these supposed to be profitable? Because none of them are in the business sense. Government is about providing services to the population. It is supposed to be about providing them equally and not harmfully but that is another subject. Conservatives are about not having government that provides any service to anyone they don’t approve of. It has been since day one of this country. That doesn’t mean I’m for inefficient government, but you are not fixing it by killing it or trying to separate it’s services by race, gender, age or monetary worth. If you think you should then yes you are a fucking idiot.
Stillwater
@Ruckus: Thanks for that Ruckus. What you wrote certainly changed my mind about all this.
Redshirt
I regret not getting a PO box, based on the roughly 75 hours I spent last winter shoveling the damn mailbox out so I could my bills and junk delivered. Yay!
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
So then everything you’ve posted here before this was trolling?
Patrick
If that’s the criteria for government services, then we should not have any government services. Surely you don’t think the Pentagon is making money. Just as an example…
Stillwater
@Ruckus: So then everything you’ve posted here before this was trolling?
If it makes you feel better thinking that way, who am I to object?
Vince
Video
Just found this on my facebook feed. It’s an interview on Fox News with Reza Aslan author of a recently published book on the historical Jesus. Oh wait, let me edit that. He’s a MUSLIM author of a recently published book on the historical Jesus and who the Hell does he think he is?! Just completely and totally embarrassing.
Stillwater
@Patrick: The argument goes the other way, actually. The complain is that just because we can afford it doesn’t justify implementing (or sustaining) it. That requires additional argument. I mean, I’m not a conservative, but that part of the argument seems crystal clear to me.
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
I have already given my view concerning your questions and answers, I was asking you a different question and it wasn’t rhetorical. Did you not understand that?
Cassidy
I just use their talking points.
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
Snort!
Stillwater
@Cassidy: I just use their talking points.
No, it’s that refuting a strawman of the conservative view doesn’t actually refute the view. Liberalism isn’t advanced by responding to arguments that no one ever made.
Stillwater
@Ruckus: No, I don’t, I guess. And I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by this exchange except to reduce the conservative view on these an related issues to something to absolutely ridiculous that it doesn’t even require refutation. The argument is apparently to just point and laugh. How does that further liberal ideals or programs? You won’t win over any conservatives with that strategy and you look like an ass to those on the fence.
Violet
@Stillwater:
Views differ. Some people say both sides do it. It’s out there.
The Republicans want people to counter their arguments. The very countering of them is what validates their arguments. Republicans would like to destroy the domestic side of government (“so small you can drown it in a bathtub”) and the middle class so that people are grasping for whatever crumb they can get. Feudal society is their model. Things like “making the Post Office pay for itself” is an argument that on its face sounds reasonable. Shouldn’t every government agency be solvent? Sure! But it’s a false problem created by Republicans when they messed with the Post Office pension system a few years ago. Discussing the substance of their argument at all validates it.
The Republicans want to destroy the structure of American society. If you say you are not a Republican and you haven’t figured that out by now, you are not paying attention.
srv
Question for the history buffs: Has there, at any time, been a secured border between the United States (or its territories) and Mexico?
Stillwater
@Violet: The Republicans want to destroy the structure of American society.
This is what I mean by strawman arguments. It presupposes that the liberal view of American society is the definition of “American society” and the conservatives – because the don’t accept that definition of “American society” – are evil. Could it be that they have a different conception of “American society”?, one you disagree with but which nonetheless they actually hold and are working towards (even if they’re mistaken)?
And how is the fact – presuming it is a fact – that they’re mistaken supposed to be established? By ridicule, or by argument?
Fluke bucket
I think ultimately what the Republicans want to do is reduce the wages to slave labor levels, increase the cost of the service by 20 times or more and allow the free market send the profit offshore. Isn’t that ultimately their grand plan for everything?
Mnemosyne
@RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual:
You may also want to track down the Tom Hanks HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” from a few years ago. It’s really good at giving a human dimension to the astronauts.
They’re all good, but “Galileo Was Right” is probably our favorite around here.
Cassidy
@Stillwater: There is no view. The purpose of the USPS isn’t supposed to be profitable. It’s purpose is to be an agent of the gov’t and deliver mail as the Constitution instructs the gov’t to do. The whole notion that the USPS must be profitable and is therefore inefficient for not being so is a made up, conservative talking point to discredit the USPS as failing some sort of metric (profitability), but that’s not the metric it is supposed to meet. The only metric the USPS needs to meet is: is it delivering mail?
Redshift
@noodler: Where’s your blog? Sounds very interesting, but I didn’t see a link to it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@srv: No.
BillinGlendaleCA
@srv: No.
The Other Chuck
@Vince:
Was that Fox News’ take or yours? Because it’s not like Muslims deny the guy’s existence (though I personally doubt he existed: clearly there was some guy who started that particular sect, but everything else about him is a pastiche)
tybee
@WereBear:
really? cite necessary.
tybee
@Schlemizel:
this.
Violet
@Stillwater: You are arguing philosophy at this point. Anything can be discussed. Let’s say someone’s personal view of society is that anyone who uses the posting nym Stillwater to comment on blogs should be burned at the stake. It’s their view! Why can’t we discuss it? It’s a reasonable viewpoint! Both sides differ! Some people say anyone using the nym Stillwater on blog comments is a bad person. I’ve heard it. It’s out there. There are pros and cons to that idea or so some people say.
That kind of thing is crazy talk. Discussing it or considering it validates the crazy. When one side is crazy, it’s not reasonable or rational to treat their views as such. Doing so validates them.
It makes a lot more sense to point out their craziness than it does to treat their insane ramblings as the products of a sane mind. If a lot more people pointed and laughed at them, they’d be taken a lot less seriously. Personally, I think pointing and laughing works well.
Stillwater
@tybee: Exactly. The Constitution says the federal gummint has the authority to establish post offices and post roads but not that it has the obligation to do so.
tybee
this is crap.
the usps is NOT mandated by the constitution to daily deliver to your door.
rural routes cost WAY more than it is worth.
FDR started RFD when those in rural areas had no way to get to the city regularly. those days are gone.
funding retirement to the degree that congress requires is a fuckin’ joke.
fund my Social Security to that level, bitches.
mail to your door?
fuck you if you can’t walk to the street.
sigh.
Cassidy
@Stillwater: Ahhh, I get it now. You’re going to try and split hairs to come to a conclusion you’ve already decided on. And, we’re done. Boring argument, boring and unoriginal debating tactic.
Redshift
@Stillwater:
Bullshit. If there is a government agency that is in existence and providing a service that people like, it is incumbent upon those who want to privatize or eliminate it to demonstrate that a private alternative could function and sustain itself (without being priced out of reach of most current customers.) The current conservative argument against numerous government services (the post office, passenger rail, etc.) essentially consists of “It looks like a business, and it’s not profitable. Since the private sector is always better and more efficient than government, it should be turned over to a company that could make it profitable.” This is an ideological argument, not a business/economic one, because someone interested in actual evidence would pay attention to the fact that, for example, there are private delivery services, and they use the USPS for a lot of local delivery, so they obviously don’t think they could do it cheaper.
It’s not a straw man to accurately summarize a position in unflattering terms. If there is an actual substantive argument that boils down to anything more than “why should I pay for this through taxes when I don’t think *I* need it,” surely you can easily find an example. If do nothing but complain and demand that everyone else provide better arguments for you to respond to, then you’re trolling.
Redshirt
@Stillwater:
I get your drift. I worry about this myself – I am an unapologetic, 100% OBOT. There’s literally nothing this Administration could do that would bother me. But then, there I go criticizing the Right Wing for being brainless automatons, following Their Leader’s commands. Am I hypocritical? I ponder it, often.
And maybe I am, a bit. But so what – we don’t live by philosophic standards. We live in The World. It’s real, messy, gritty, and oh so grey, rather than black and white. What is black and white, however, to me, is that the Republican Party is an actual force for evil in this world – anti-humanist, anti-science, anti-progress, anti-everything. They are literal nihilists, and in that context I cannot abide a “both sides do it” argument.
Thus, there is no hypocrisy. Republicans must be stopped.
Stillwater
@Violet: It makes a lot more sense to point out their craziness than it does to treat their insane ramblings as the products of a sane mind.
So, something like 47% of the American populace is insane and that insanity – unsurprisingly! – maps perfectly onto partisan lines?
Why haven’t scientists been publishing this astounding fact?
Cassidy
@tybee: Yup, fuck you if you’re disabled. Did that feel good?
Redshift
@The Other Chuck: It was Fox’s take, of course. The idea that a Muslim writing about Jesus was shocking to the network that is wall-to-wall Christians and Jews talking about Islam.
(They also apparently accused him of “hiding” the fact that he’s a Muslim, despite the fact that it’s on page 2 of the book, iirc.)
tybee
@Ruckus:
perzackly.
SiubhanDuinne
Can I possibly be the only one here wondering why we haven’t had a new thread in seven hours?
/I know, bitch bitch bitch. Sorry.
tybee
@Yatsuno:
and another hit on target.
personally, i’m connected to someone who spent 20 long years with the usps and most of the points concerning why they’re unprofitable have been addressed.
ya’ll are good. well, most of you are….
Violet
@Stillwater: I did not say that 47% of the population is insane. You did. If you are going to quote me, please do it correctly.
I don’t think the Republican population is necessarily insane. Many of them are not paying attention or they are using emotions to guide them in how they vote. Or they’re racists. A good example is how if you ask self-identified Republican voters about the various sections of Obamacare, they like pretty much all of them. And then if you ask them what they think of Obamacare, they are very much against it. Where’s the knowledge in that? They’re not insane, but they’re not paying attention, or are stupid, lazy, fearful or something else. They certainly are not educated and knowledgeable.
Republican policies are insane. That’s what needs to be pointed out and pointed and laughed at. As well as fought against with every available means.
PeakVT
Our analysis of the data finds that high-skill guest worker programs supply the preponderance of all new hires for the IT industry. The inflow of guest workers is equal to half of all IT hires each year and fully two-thirds of annual hires of workers younger than 30.
Tyro
@Stillwater: The argument is apparently to just point and laugh. How does that further liberal ideals or programs?
This isn’t the Algonquin Roundtable, here…if we want to mock conservatives and conservatism,we will.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: You are not the only one. I bet Cole is having another one of his Great Days and we’ll get some kind of mushy cat post later, with added Lily and Rosie love.
Stillwater
@Cassidy: At the risk of repeating myself over and over again repeatedly … your view that the USPS ought to operate at a loss, or that citizens have a basic right to the mails, requires an argument, which I haven’t yet heard on this thread.
More to the point, tho, is that the conservative view that the USPS ought to be reduced in scope or even, given private mail carriers in existence now, dismantled entirely isn’t a crazy idea. It’s an issue that requires argument to decide. You think I’m disagreeing with your conclusion, but I’m not. I’m disagreeing with the argumentative strategy. Which is to adopt what seems to me question-begging ridicule of the opposition’s view to prove a point. I don’t see the merits of that myself.
(At least on this issue. Some other things? Ehhh…)
jeffreyw
Kitteh is bored.
Violet
@Redshirt:
Yep. They are must be stopped.
Comrade Mary
@SiubhanDuinne: I was wondering, too. I just switched to Chrome just in case it was a caching issue.
Stillwater
@Tyro: Sure. Have at it, if it makes you feel better.
Violet
@Stillwater: Go ahead and argue it, then. Feel free to start arguing one side or the other, instead of complaining that you aren’t seeing arguments for it. Which side do you come down on? Are you for or against a government-run mail service?
Stillwater
@Stillwater: I did not say that 47% of the population is insane. You did. If you are going to quote me, please do it correctly.
Here’s what you wrote upthread: It makes a lot more sense to point out their craziness than it does to treat their insane ramblings as the products of a sane mind.
I understood you to mean conservatives generally. Forgive me if I read that wrong.
Stillwater
@Violet: Are you for or against a government-run mail service?
I’m either with you or agin you, eh? I think that makes the point I’m getting at quite nicely, actually.
fuckwit
This isn’t pegging my outrage meter, for the reasons noted above: this may actually be a good idea proposed by a bad man. It happens.
Making government services more cost-effective and efficient is NOT a way to destroy them, it’s a way to strengthen them and make them better. I’m pretty sure Obama has said this, probably many times. Functioning, cost-effective government services are a great thing, and they certainly help expose the stupidity of the current Rethug ideology.
Maybe Issa is doing this out of reflexive anti-government emotion, but I can’t see opposing it based on reflexive pro-government emotion either, especially if this is actually a good idea, which it may be. Better, it’d make me really happy if it was easy to manipulate an asshole like Issa via his hatred into actually improving the service he’s trying to kill. That seems sweetly satisfying to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet: That would suit me just fine! Loves me some Mushy Cole.
tybee
@raven:
damn.
chucks and splibs. i thought you were a doggie?
tybee
@Ruckus:
macnamara’s 10,000 ?
Violet
@Stillwater: Nope, I’m asking a question. Are you for one or the other or something else entirely? Why? Support your argument. Rather than complain that people on this blog don’t have an argument that meets your personal requirements, put your own argument out there. Perhaps you prefer a hybrid system. Maybe you want FedEx to take over the whole thing. Maybe you think we should go back to the Pony Express. What’s your argument? What are you for? Or what are you not for (or against), if you prefer. There is not “with us or against us” argument in my question. Again, that’s your interpretation. Where do you come down on the subject being discussed. I’ve seen that you don’t like people’s arguments, but I haven’t seen your opinion on the actual subject.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: I was right! Next post it up and it’s full of cat and dogs.
PeakVT
@Stillwater: the conservative view that the USPS ought to be reduced in scope or even, given private mail carriers in existence now, dismantled entirely isn’t a crazy idea.
It’s not crazy, merely stupid. Private carriers don’t want to do daily mail delivery to all addresses given that they won’t make a profit absent heavy implicit or explicit subsidies. Why should we guarantee private profits when we already have a system that works very well? I can send a letter anywhere in this country for $0.45 and it will get there in less than a week. That’s much cheaper than most other countries, in a country that is much larger.
Cassidy
@Stillwater: You are repeating yourself over and over again and it is tiresome.
So here’s the deal and we’ll make this plain. For one, no one has suggested that the USPS operate at a loss, that’s a made up argument in your head. What has been said is that the USPS is not required to make a profit as it is providing a service mandated by the US Constitution. Secondly, it is a crazy idea as these private mail carriers use the USPS to do the work it finds to be too costly, but this has been mentioned and you conveniently ignore it. Third, I gives no fucks whether you agree with my “strategy” or not. You are arguing against fantasies you have created in your head/ absorbed from RW talking points and are in no position to offer advice.
And lastly, trying to split a mandate to deliver mail from a “right” to receive mail service is just fucking silly. Seriously, outside of someone trying to do the pedantic, coffee house “well actually” type argument, no one with any reasonable amount of honesty tries to split those topics. That’s just dumb. It’s splitting hairs to try and craft a contrarian argument of no purpose and it’s really not worth any amount of respect or more of my time.
tybee
@Cassidy:
you need the usps to come wipe your ass, too?
use a republican instead, they enjoy the shit.
Stillwater
@Violet: What’s your argument?
My argument is that ridiculing the conservatives based on a strawman isn’t an effective way to promote liberal policies. Full stop. Fully generally.
As for the specifics of the USPS, I’m waiting for arguments to be presented that the proposal on the table is wrong-headed to make up my mind. Unlike a lot of liberals, I guess, I happen to think constraining government spending when and where possible is a liberal value. The burden is on us to justify those expenditures.
smintheus
@Stillwater: Do we also have to debate whether the DoD needs to be privatized? It operates at a loss too, and the Constitution does not require the government to maintain any armed forces.
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
IT’S IN THE MOTHERFUCKING CONSTITUTION YOU FUCKING IGNORAMUS.
If you want to get rid of the Postal Service, then you will need to amend the Constitution. Jesus fuck you’re a fucking idiot.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: $0.46 now. I stocked up on stamps last December.
tybee
@Stillwater:
anybody can make a profit delivering across town at 46 cents a letter.
no one can make a profit at delivering across the continent for the same price.
Redshirt
@Stillwater: Your argument is a strawman. Your move.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: I disagree with that interpretation. The Constitution authorizes Congress with the power to establsh a post office/postal system but it does not mandate its existence.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
If that’s the case, it also does not mandate the existence of bankruptcy laws, taxation, a common defense, and coining money, it just authorizes Congress to do those things. So I guess Congress can just abolish the IRS whenever it wants because it’s not required for the US to collect taxes, merely permitted.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet: I love it when I can cause a new thread to happen and you can accurately predict the subject matter :-)
Violet
@Stillwater: Like Redshirt said, your argument is a strawman. Try again.
@MattR: Yes, and it doesn’t define what a Post Office is either. Maybe a Post Office is an office that categorizes fence posts. Or maybe the Constitution just wants there to be an office–as in one only. Just an office with someone behind a desk to keep it open. The door sign can say “Post” so everyone knows it’s the Post Office. It’s not supposed to DO anything. It’s just supposed to be there.
Of course the people who wrote the Constitution would make the effort to put something in there that creates just a room with a sign over it and one person manning a desk that has zero functionality. Makes total sense! Who needs a Post Office that actually does something?
MattR
@Mnemosyne: Constitutionally, that is correct IMO. No amendment is necessary to abolish the IRS and stop collecting taxes. But that does not mean that Congress would ever come close to doing that.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: I know! Don’t we feel smart! Heh.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
But he never argued that he wanted to get rid of the post office. His argument is that our argument is not to his liking, not that our argument is bad. And he doesn’t know the other side because we haven’t presented it like the Harvard debating society therefore we have no right to make any argument in the first place. He is just arguing with us, and seeing if he can piss us off by continuing to effectively stand there and hold his breath till he turns blue. I say we let him. Turn blue not piss us off. Personally I’m just going to point and laugh from now on.
That in fact would make a good troll filter. A point and laugh store filled with merriment.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
And your degree in constitutional law is from …. ?
My impression is that the Constitution is not a Subway sandwich where you can pick and choose the items you want, but maybe some of the lawyers here can chime in. If that’s the case, then can’t Congress just decide to ignore, say, the 5th Amendment if they decide it’s inconvenient?
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: It’s an authority accorded to the federal government, Mnemo, not an obligation imposed. You’re smart. How do you not see that?
MattR
@Mnemosyne: IANAL, but the plain language of “Congress shall have the power to do X” is different than “Congress shall do X”.
Stillwater
@Ruckus: His argument is that our argument is not to his liking, not that our argument is bad.
Pretty much. Ridicule isn’t an argument. But it makes sense on a trivial political level.
Stillwater
Man, this is a tough crowd…
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: But the 5th amendment addresses a right, not a power, so that’s not a good comparison. The power to establish post offices is like the power to tax or to establish a Navy. Those are powers that were pretty much expected to be used, but there’s nothing in the wording that indicates that they had to be used. Otherwise, they authors of the Constitution would have used the word “shall” instead of the phrase “shall have the power to”. The 5th amendment, for comparison, only has “shall”.
Stillwater
@Redshirt: I don’t understand how the argument that ridiculing a strawman is itself a strawman. You’ll have to help me out there.
I’m also unclear how ridiculing a strawman promotes liberal values.
You’ll have to help me out here. Your move.
Violet
@Ruckus:
I know. It’s kind of pathetic. Our argument isn’t good enough, but he can’t decide what he thinks until someone presents an argument he approves of. Must be kind of sad to go through life unable to decide what you think without help.
Stillwater
@tybee: Sure, I agree with that. I think a conservatives also agree with that (I mean, they’re not insane!!!) But they’re also not talking about completely eliminating the USPS nor are they proposing eliminating door-delivery.
Redshirt
@Stillwater: More straw. You have no positions – you are the strawman. I am an OBOT, by the way, so feel free to understand my viewpoint.
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
I wasn’t talking to you, I was pointing and laughing at the immaturity of your “argument”. Now go away and let the adults talk.
Ruckus
@Violet:
See #306
tybee
@Stillwater:
“I think a conservatives also agree with that (I mean, they’re not insane!!!)”
assumes facts not in evidence. :)
Stillwater
@Redshirt: Well, I can sleep well tonight knowing that I tried, Redshirt. That’s all anyone can really do, ya know? You gotta feel good about what you’re trying to do.
Violet
@Ruckus: Yep. Saw it. Pointing and laughing is the appropriate response.
Joel
@troll
You could read Schmeziel’s post or you could just keep trolling.
Stillwater
@Ruckus: Dude, you should at least have the balls to talk to me directly. That’s just a minimal level of personal courtesy, ya know? Of course, maybe it’s easier to talk about me in the third person. It creates some distance. I get that.
Chris
@Stillwater:
… which part of this, exactly, is supposed to be so inconceivable?
The same observation is routinely made about historic examples like the Nazis (oh, shut up, Godwin), or the Cultural Revolution era “smelting iron over homemade fires in our backyards IS TOO a sustainable basis for an economy!” Maoists, or the ideologically blind and deluded Soviet Communists of the latter days of their empire (this isn’t even about the morality of these groups, just the complete lack of rationality with which they went about their business), and that craziness aligned oddly well with these political parties.
Why, exactly, are Republicans supposed to be off limits to this kind of observation?
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
Well, then, why doesn’t Congress simply announce that the US no longer collects taxes? After all, they have the authority but not the obligation to do it, so they could completely dismantle the IRS tomorrow just by passing a law saying that taxes will no longer be collected.
Or, heck, they can just announce that the US will no longer have a currency. After all, they only have the authority to coin money, not an obligation, so they can decide tomorrow that we’re all on our own.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Don’t forget the good old US Civil War, where the Southern states thought slavery was A-OK and the Northern states disagreed. Apparently we’re not allowed to say that the North was right — we have to agree that the South had a point when they argued that black people were inferior and needed to be enslaved for their own good.
Huh, I seem to remember a wise man having something to say about the notion that you always had to give full credence to the opposition’s beliefs …
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: They could. I’m not sure I understand the analogy.
Ruckus
@Stillwater:
—-> and HaHaHaHa
I’ve just given you all the attention you have earned. For ever.
Stillwater
@Chris: Why, exactly, are Republicans supposed to be off limits to this kind of observation?
That they’re insane? (Wtf?) If they are, then what’s the purpose of ridiculing them? To make yourself feel better?
Stillwater
@Ruckus: Well, thanks for your time, Ruckus. And your effort.
Citizen_X
@Stillwater:
Piss off ya pompous fuckbag.
Stillwater
@Citizen_X: Pompous? I’m the one trying to talk people down from their inflexible absolute certainties, bro! It’s the opposite of pompous.
A better criticism would be “piss off ya argument-based belief justifier”!
That would sting!
Ruckus
@Citizen_X:
That wasn’t highbrow enough for his nibs. Way above his pay level but not highbrow enough.
Tehanu
@Roger Moore:
This reminds me of something I read about the Nazis (and yes, I know I’m pushing the Godwin limit here). People are so horrified by the mass-murdering cruelty of the Third Reich that we tend not to realize that the Holocaust was also the largest theft and robbery scheme of all time. The Nazis stole the possessions of all their victims, even the ones who survived, down to the gold in their teeth and the hair on their heads (used to stuff pillows). You think those champagne-swilling assholes in the famous photo from last fall, looking down at the Occupy protesters, would balk for a second at looting everything they could get their hands on? I don’t.
pseudonymous in nc
@Been there, doing that Bob:
Who is this ‘we’, kemo sabe?
Cluster boxes are fine enough — saw them out in the sticks of British Columbia where you’d see one car pass by every hour. But a lot of rural routes in the US are relatively busy in terms of traffic, but don’t have any sidewalks. If you can’t walk safely to the cluster box (and that includes, in urban/suburban areas, crossing major roads) then you shouldn’t have them.
As for Pisswater’s repeated whining, I’m fine for USPS to operate at an economic loss: post offices are the domestic equivalent of diplomatic missions for the federal government. Their function is not simply to get letters from A to Z.
Snarki, child of Loki
well, the cartoon does indicate that Issa is both corrupt AND stupid.
Because USPS delivery trucks are have the steering wheel on the right-hand side
AnotherBruce
@Snarki, child of Loki: Nice observation, one could easily miss (as I did) the point of Danziger’s cartoon.
Chris
@Stillwater:
I’m not ridiculing them, chowderhead. I’m asking, again, what the fuck it is that makes you so butthurt about the fact that some of us might be so uppity as to dare question whether they’ve got every one of their marbels. And pointing out that it’s not exactly unheard of, or unjustifiable, to use party identification as a measure of someone’s sanity.
Stillwater
@Chris: And pointing out that it’s not exactly unheard of, or unjustifiable, to use party identification as a measure of someone’s sanity.
That’s a self-refuting argument unless you’re using a non-partisan definition of “sanity”. Which has been my point all along. How do you not see this stuff?
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
So only a partisan would think that someone who says that Obama is a Muslim fascist who wants to force sharia law on the US is insane? That kind of statement sounds completely rational to a non-conservative, and only a partisan liberal would think it was out of touch with reality?
Maeve
This is an Example of fauxtrage if I ever saw one. If you actUally live in a rural area, you have clustered mailboxes. In the old days its was a cluster of rural mailboxes on the road, because the post office didn’t drive up to every farm to deliver mail. Now it’s a cluster of locked mailboxes, which is more secure, and if you get a package, there are larger package boxes adjacent and they put the key in your box. No problemo.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for fielding that one for the concern troll.
Yes, Stil; butthurt though it may make you, there is such a thing as reality. No, both sides of an argument do not always have an equal grasp on reality – the opposite is frequently true. No, your “don’t call them crazy that’s partisan and God forbid we admit that one side of the partisan divide might be less crazy than the other” shit isn’t cutting it.
Creationists and Darwinists are not equally legitimate sides of an argument. People who argue that sexuality is a “choice” and people who are aware that it’s not are not equally legitimate sides of an argument. People who believe in the economics that brought us the Great Depression and Great Recession only for starters and people whose economics brought us the longest sustained economic boom in our history are not equally legitimate sides of an argument. People who believe that Obama was born in Kenya or is a Muslim or was a Weatherman and people who acknowledge that none of these things is true are not equally legitimate sides of an argument.
You can quibble about whether “sanity” is exactly the right term to be measuring this, but you can’t claim that both sides of our political divide have an equally accurate grasp of reality, however you want to term that. If that offends your precious sense of fairness and balance, that’s unfortunate, and mostly not for us. Now fuck off.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Nice.
Original Lee
@sempronia: This used to happen to me a lot, and I also got very honked off. But then, I discovered that I just needed to head them off at the pass with a fake religious identity. Usually I told them I was a nun, as in, “Thank you, daughter/son, but I’m a nun.” They would not only back away as if I had a loaded crucifix, but also tell their friends to stay away from me. Sometimes telling them I was Mormon, Jewish, or Buddhist also worked. If I was feeling snarky, I would tell them I was an acolyte, which often confused them.
KXB
While I can forgo Saturday delivery, having alternate day delivery would hamstring our small business. We mail out packages on a daily basis, and having our mailman come by to pick them allows us easier scheduling. If we move to alternate day delivery, I then have to spend time scheduling – packages to the West Coast will take priority instead of packages to the Midwest and South. It would be a substantial cost increase.
As for curbside boxes – why do I suspect that wealthier neighborhoods will continue to enjoy delivery to their door, while the rest of us would have to head out to the curbside box?