Sticker Shock
Since I’m up on my political soapbox tonight…
I was reading The Red State describe his recent visit to New York and how strange it was to be in a city where there are more Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers than Bush stickers. He says, It is so unusual that someone told me that when they see Bush stickers on a car, they would knock on the driver’s windows and tell them “Hey, some asshole put a Bush sticker on your car. Do you want me to help you pull it off.”
I like that. Next time I’m out riding I’m going to knock on some car windows out here in California.
That ought to just about scare the shit out your standard stick-up-his-ass California Conservative, to have some big mean-looking bald biker with a thick hoop earring pull up next to him in bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic, rev the throttle a few times ’til the noise rattles his fillings, eyeball him, and then start banging on his window yelling, “Hey! Hey!”
It’ll be major pucker-factor for the right wing that day; he’ll be picking his underwear out of his throat… Ha. Me likey.
I hope no one pulls a gun on you dear.
Even funnier if you ask for some Grey Poupon in a really snooty French accent! :-)
The one that makes me want to knock on the car door is “War is not the answer”. Makes me want to go up and ask “so what the fuck is the answer?” I’m sick of Mike Farrell and his crowd’s “can’t we all just get along?” In case you missed it those were real concrete and steel buildings that fell 110 stories in NYC. Farrell seems to believe if we would just sit down and talk to these guys they would leave us alone. Bullshit! They want us all dead. They will stop at nothing. They wouldn’t even break a sweat killing you, your wife, and your kid. They believe that’s how they get a better place in heaven. You can’t talk to them you can only kill them before they kill you. That’s the reallity since 9/11.
Um, Don… I think you’re reading from a Wingnut Talking Points Memo from a few years ago. Mike Farrell is out; you’re supposed to be mad at Arianna Huffington and her new blog now. Better turn on O’Reilly to find out what the issue du jour is.
Chuck,
I agreed with most of this entry. The Democratic party is a limp noodle, a clammy handshake, a soft boner. Howard Dean is crazier than a shit-house rat.
Your comment about “supposed bias”, in fact the 7th paragraph was about the only thing I really disagreed with. I agree with you on most of the rest. Oh yeah, except for the last line. What you call truth I call opinion. I’m not quite egotistical enough to think I’m always right.
Don, you also think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, so your judgement is fundamentally flawed.
I agree kill them before they kill us. But if we don’t also do it in such a way that when we kill one, ten more join up, then we are fighting a losing battle. Our heat source will outstrip our heat sink if we don’t address the heat source.
Things I learned in both kindergarten and AA: if all of your friends are telling you that you’re fucking up, then you need to stop and think that maybe you’re fucking up. This applies as much to nations as it does to drunks.
I’m trying to find where I said Iraq was behind 9/11. Please show me.
I’ll tell you what, Don. Instead of being coy and playing “show me,” why don’t you just come right out and say you DON’T think Iraq was behind it. I don’t think you will, because I think we both know you think it was.
Typical Liberal ploy. He knows he can’t find where I said it because I didn’t. Never actually address the fact and you too can use liberal speak.
No, I don’t think Iraq was behind 9/11. I think Osama Bin Laden was the main conspirator. I think Al Zarqawi was also in on the planning. I don’t think Sadam was involved at all. He may have known about it. I don’t really care if he did or didn’t. That’s not why we went to war in Iraq. That was never given by Bush and Co. as the reason we went to war in Iraq. We went to war in Iraq because all our intelligence, England’s intelligence, Russia’s intelligence, most of the leaders in the middle east, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, and most of the Republicans and Democrats in Congress all said he had WMD. And yes, we didn’t find them. I’m inclined to think they were moved to Syria because George didn’t want to “rush to war” and gave Sadam months to do so. We will never know but one thing we do know is the mass killings and mass rapes are no longer being caried out by Sadam’s goons. There is still a lot of violence and death but at least now Iraq has a chance. There are a LOT more people in that country that want freedom than want what they used to have. It will come. Japan and Germany didn’t change overnight but ask anyone living in those two countries if they are glad they have freedom now.
I’m kind of looking forward to how you skew this one.
You posting from over there, Don? There’s a recruiting crisis going on, so I hope you’re doing your part if you believe giving Iraq a chance is worth dying for.
Don — My “typical liberal ploy” was a reaction to what I expected from you: the standard conservative slither/weasel/obfuscate away from points you can’t rebut. And you’re right, I couldn’t point to an instance of you having said Iraq was behind 9/11 … but I can almost swear you have said and/or strongly implied it to me in the past. But I can’t document it so I’ll take you at your word today — because I can’t swear (almost, but not quite) you’ve said otherwise in the past.
Having said that… 9/11 certainly was one of the myriad reasons BushCo held up as a reason to invade Iraq. Then they tried to sell us WMD, and when that didn’t pan out they sold us “missile tubes” and “yellow cake” and finally settled on “spreading freedom.” Meanwhile, the evidence keeps building and building that they cooked the books on the intelligence to support the invasion they gave an ever-changing laundry list of reasons for launching. And people like you drank the KoolAid and conveniently forgot each discarded justification and accepted each new one as though it were the first and only.
But I’ll tell you what I find really curious is how you, as a “Libertarian,” can so strongly support A) invading another country that you admit has taken no action against us, B) spending your tax dollars to prop up another country when you squeal like a pig at spending them on your own countrymen, and C) a President and congressional majority that is firmly committed to budget deficits so far into the future that your children’s children’s children will still be paying off the debt. Maybe I’m confused; I thought all these ran counter to core Libertarian beliefs.
And I’ll tell you what I think really drives your bias, based on conversations we had back during the 2000 campaign. Remember that “tax relief” Bush promised during his first campaign? I do, and I remember how excited you were about it, how you couldn’t wait to put him in office so you could get a check. Well, I think Bush bought you for a measly $300 or $400 (which was really an advance on your next tax refund and you ended up repaying it if you didn’t get one) and you’ve stayed bought despite the fact that he’s driven the economy into the ground, spawned a generation of America-hating terrorists, sunk us into a military quagmire on par with Viet Nam that we’ll be in for the next 20 years, tarnished our international prestige, stripped us of rights we may never get back, created the largest deficit in American history and seems committed to making it grow even faster… blah, blah, blah. But you got your $400 “rebate” check, so you’re happy.
“Screw you, Jack, I got mine” — I think that’s your over-riding political philosophy. And I think you came cheap.
Hey Chuck. Whatcha doin’?
Since when did you get into the ‘teachin’ pigs to sing’ business? Don’t you know it does nothin’ but waste your time… not to mention annoying the sh*t out of the pigs?
Arguing with Red Staters (even those who live in Blue States) is going to take years off your life if you keep it up!
There are always going to be a bunch of people who miss the irony in ‘Mending Walls’ and think Robert Frost was really advocating the concept of ‘Good Fences make good neighbors’ as the way people should ideally live. The ending of the poem sums up this kind of attitude perfectly:
“…Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Some people can’t absorb new information no matter how logically it may be presented.
David, you are one of the only people who can bring Robert Frost into an argument about Iraq and do it so skillfully. Well done!
But I can’t help but throw in my 2-cents on the argument that we gave Saddam time to hide his WMDs in Syria. Namely, that would imply that Saddam was cogent enough to try and save himself and his regime. If he had been that cogent, he easily could have saved himself by accepting one of our many last-chances to comply with weapons inspectors. It would have been so easy. But he wasn’t cogent enough. He was plum bonkers, and had no WMDs to hide.
Chuck: Nope, I never said or thought Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. You must be thinking of another libertarian Don.
I noticed how you conveniently stepped around the fact Kerry, Clinton, Russia, Jordan, and the rest of the folks I listed all thought he had WMD. It doesn’t fit into your current reality so you just ignore it. As for your “evidance” the books were cooked maybe you could site sources. And maybe those sources could be non-partisan so we both agree they don’t have a bias. Yeah, didn’t think so. Liberals are pretty good at pulling “facts” out of thin air and rejecting anything that doesn’t fit their desired reality.
A) I didn’t say Iraq has taken no action against us, only that they weren’t involved in 9/11. In case you missed it they were shooting at our planes almost ever day. We also had a war with them in the early 90s. Remember that?
B) “Squeal like a pig”? I don’t have a problem when my tax dollars are spent on things specifically called out in the Constitution. I don’t think welfare is one of those. A fundamental concept for libertarians is the Federal government is granted it’s ability and power by the Constitution. I know it’s naive to think our founding fathers knew what they were doing but hey, that’s what I think. As for spending them on another government that’s not what we are doing. We are spending them on national security. We are trying to help Iraq form a democracy. Hopefully I don’t have to explain how that’s good for us.
C) I disagree with the bigger government Bush and Co. have created. I happen to think the Dems would have created a bigger one but either way I agree with you that the present one is way too big. There, one thing we agree on.
About the 2000 election. You paint me like a giddy schoolgirl getting excited about a tax cut when in fact that had very little to do with my support of Bush. You saying it doesn’t make it so. I keep hearing Liberals saying the economy is in the toilet. I’ll make this simple so your readers can understand it. The economy was heading down when Bush took office in 2001. It continued down and really took a hit from 9/11. Over the last 4 years it has actually turned around and we are now in recovery. Do you really think Greenspan and friends would raise interest rates if not? We are gaining jobs every month.
“I know what’s best for everybody else” is your over-riding political philosophy and that’s typical of Liberals. And that my friend is why the Republicans hold the Presidency, the Senate, and Congress. Mainstream America is tired of being told they don’t know how to manage their own lives.
Don,
Just one comment. I’m tired of people citing Kerry, Clinton, etc. believed that Iraq had WMDs. Be basis of their belief was a basic trust in the intelligence reports that had been presented to the American people. They didn’t believe that those intelligence reports could POSSIBLY have been either an outright lie or a horribly screwed up dunce-cap-style mistake.
So to point to credible people who believed that lie is fallacious reasoning. They were lied to just like I was.
(I never believed it, though.)
Butcher,
For you to make apologies and claim they were “lied to” is typical of liberals. Talk about Conservatives drinking the company kool-aid. You sound just like Gore and Kennedy. “Week after week after week after week we were told lie after lie after lie after lie”. Where’s the facts to back up this claim? Oh yeah, in the absence of facts just make something up. That’s what I see on 99.9% of the liberal blogs I read. Once again, you saying something doesn’t automatically make it true even though that’s the liberal mind set. At least Chicken Little had a shred of evidence. You don’t even have that.
Well golly, Don, it sure helps your full-of-holes argument to reject any evidence that comes from “partisan” sources. And it really helps to define “partisan” as “people who aren’t committed to supporting the lie” — a group made up of pretty much the whole wide world except for Fox News chowderheads and BushCo. Why, it’s a rhetorical gambit so brilliant it is topped only by the old “stick your fingers in your ears and go lalalalalalalalalalalalalala!” technique. It simply Will. Not. Fail!
You’re so full of shit, you’re the poster boy for ExLax.
“The one that makes me want to knock on the car door is “War is not the answerâ€. Makes me want to go up and ask “so what the fuck is the answer?†I’m sick of Mike Farrell and his crowd’s “can’t we all just get along?†In case you missed it those were real concrete and steel buildings that fell 110 stories in NYC.”
Is it just me, or is this not where Don makes the connection between the war and 9/11? Unless he’s now going to claim that he was really talking about our half-assed action in Afghanistan. In which case, I call bullshit.
Also, don’t buy into the whole “typical Liberal blah blah blah” strawman. My opinion of the “typical” Conservative doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I think Don appears to be a fucking moron. He acheives that all on his own, politics notwithstanding.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA … We launch a war which–it turns out–was not based on ANY factual evidence. And when I say it’s bullshit, you say, “You have no facts to back up your story!”
Well Don, you mock yourself. The burden of proof lies with you–the people who support murder without any factual grounds.
Once more for those of you are slow on the uptake. Lying to Congress is an impeachable offense. Remember your boy Bill got impeached for lying to the grand jury. If Bush is lying then where’s the impeachment? Oh yeah, nobody has any proof of this claim because there isn’t any. I love this liberal reasoning where anything you say becomes fact.
No one has proof that Bush has lied, you say? You leave me no choice, Don. In case you weren’t aware, there are countless websites dedicated to the cataloging, indexing, and compression of Bush’s lies into zipped files small enough to be downloaded to the average Pentium 4 computer.
I bet you thought I wasn’t actually going to do any work to refute your claim, didn’t you? I have plenty of proof, and I will spoon feed it to you.
I hope you have some time! There are a lot of lies you’re going to have to defend! I’m going to continue here until you stop responding. And you will stop, because you will eventually figure out that you’re going to lose this argument. You’ll make up some excuse as to why you won’t continue, or just disappear without a trace.
I’ll start with an easy one.
Lie number 1: Vice President Cheney and President Bush have repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein which justified the invasion of Iraq. The key piece of evidence Cheney and President Bush have used to support this claim was that Hussein harbored Abu Musab al Zarqawi – a suspected associated of al-Qaeda. President Bush said on 6/15/04 “Zarqawi’s the best evidence of a [Hussein] connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda.”
However, Knight Ridder later reported “a new CIA assessment undercuts the White House claim that Saddam Hussein maintained ties to al Qaeda, saying there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi.”
President Bush made a claim when there was no evidence to make such a claim. That’s a lie.
Oh but the President said it, so it became a fact. I guess it’s not purely liberal reasoning, no?
What say ye?
You’re wasting your time, Jim. Don’s rejecting anything that comes from “partisan sources,” and he defines partisan as “everyone who questions BushCo.” Fair and balanced, he ain’t. Unfair and unbalanced, is he.
Just to help you out Jim here’s an example of a lie.
“No, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” as spoken by William Jefferson Clinton.
Go back and read what you posted and this time pay attention to the difference between facts and opinions.
Let me know when you have facts.
Quoting Larry Elder – “A fact to a toe tag liberal is like kryptonite to Superman”
Slither. Weasel. Obfuscate.
Don, we liberals have a rather piquant saying: When Clinton lied, no one died.
Can’t say the same for Bush, can we? US, coalition and Iraqi soldiers have died to the tune of 1,800+. Iraqi civilian deaths number 20,000+, though some estimates put that number as high as 100,000+. Illicit sex in the Oval Office rather pales in comparison.
Don, do yourself and everyone else a favor. If you want to be taken seriously by logically thinking adults (which doesn’t seem to be the case – my cats think more logically than you), provide non-partisan (i.e. non-conservative) sources to support the neo-con contention that the war in Iraq was *not* based on a card-house of faulty intelligence, half-baked theories and outright lies. If you cannot provide credible sources, then go the hell away. Because the burden of proof is on those who support the invasion, not those who question it.
What’s that? You ask about my sources? At this moment I do not have the time to fully research non-partisan (i.e. non-liberal) sites, though perhaps I will do so this weekend, sick home computer willing. Until then I refer you to the Wikipedia article on the Iraq War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq – it provides the currently known facts and the article’s sources.
Alternatively, you could just watch/listen to/read news that is not generated by Fox. Though if you pull the “liberal media bias” card, I will personally smack you so hard your eyeballs will roll backwards and you will be able to observe what little brain you possess from the inside of your hollow head. Because if the corporate-owned-and-operated media were truly biased on the liberal side, then it would be calling for the heads of Bush and his cohorts on big pointy sticks to be paraded about the Mall in Washington.
BTW, liberal is not an epithet. I wear the moniker proudly. Though, truth be told, my friends and I are actually progressive. Because we believe in the progress of America. Perhaps the Republican Party, in its current incarnation, should rename itself the Regressive Hawk Party. It would certainly be more fitting.
I don’t know whether to laugh or scratch my head. There was a much easier response (which I was expecting), but you didn’t even take it. Instead, you replied with, “Those aren’t facts!” Wow!
But in a way, you’re admitting Bush lied, because you implies a “Hey, Clinton lied too!” That’s Argumentum ad hominem, but I won’t bother you with such trifles. You obviously have an imaginary field of daisies to prance through.
Anyway, this is still fun in a degrading sort of way. It’s like I’m an average guy who gets to compete in the special olympics.
Here’s another fact which has been discussed a lot lately. It also has an easy response. Let’s see if you can find it. But at this point you need to know something. You are being tested.
Fact #2:
The London Times recently printed the text of a memo dated July 23, 2002 that was distributed among England’s high-ranking military officials which outlined the situation. When discussing the Bush Administration’s approach to the war, it says, ” … But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
Here’s a link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
What say ye?
Just to help you out, Don, here’s an analogy that might show you how pathetic and fallacious your “here’s an example of a lie” argument was:
To suggest that a President isn’t lying because he hasn’t been impeached is like saying Russian Roulette isn’t dangerous because you pulled the trigger and the gun didn’t go off.
Both statements can be wrong. Just ask President Nixon or Christopher Walken’s character from The Deer Hunter.
So why don’t you try this: A) stick to the subject at hand, and B) try using arguments that will hold up to any kind of logic.
The hornet’s nest is sufficiently poked. My work here is done.
Fucking pussy.
Let me amend that, Don, since you’ve probably never fucked pussy (or anything else) in your life.
How’s the neo-con Kool-Aid? I’ve heard it’s remarkably like bitter stale piss. I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to wave good-bye to your balls and your teeny brain in the corner as you leave. It’s not as if you actually use them.
Sad, just sad. In one swell foop you have surrendered, admitted you can’t refute our claims, confirmed that you are indeed full of shit, outed yourself as a troll, lost all credibility, and revealed yourself to be a petty, small-minded liar.
You should be embarrassed. I am, for you.
I must say, that troll bait must have been pretty tasty for me to have swallowed it twice. Not to mention I reduced myself to swearing and slinging insults, as that is certainly not my way. Not that I’m taking any of it back. I firmly stand behind all of my statements. Still, I’m not happy that I flung off the handle like that. Chalk it up to a stressful week.
Ah, blissful three-day weekend…
Wow … even Carol lost her composure. LOL
I’m not surprised at Don’s disgraceful exit.
Don, I tried sending you an email about this but it’s bouncing for some reason. I dunno if the problem is on your end or mine — probably mine, since B. told me she’s been having problems with emails to me bouncing. Whatever the case, I’m posting it here because I want to be sure you get it.
Everyone else, I’d appreciate you not making any comments about it.
* * * * *
From: Chuck
To: Don
Re: Hornet’s nest
That was pathetic, Don. I expected better from you. That’ll teach me to give the benefit of the doubt…
You’re welcome in my blog as long as you’re contributing in a meaningful way to a discussion, but if all you’re going to do is throw grenades and run, then shut the fuck up and stay the fuck out.
I really can’t express just how disappointed I am in you. I may think your politics are batshit crazy and completely wrong, but I always thought you were a pretty smart and decent guy anyway. Looks like I was wrong.
Chuck
Yeah, it was way below me. I typically don’t say crap like that and I apologize to you Chuck.
I wasn’t trolling but that saying is in a list on my wall at work and I guess I lost my head for just long enough to hit the submit button.
As for Carol and Jim, you don’t know me and yet it’s pretty obvious you hate me because of my beliefs. And I’m sure you’re not losing any sleep over what I think of you so maybe we can agree to disagree over this one.
Troll bait? Tasty, yes, for here I go again.
No, Don, I don’t know you. Know what? I don’t hate you. I can’t hate someone I don’t know. You pissed me off, it’s true, but that is because not once have you supported any of your positions with logic and facts. And, as I said, a rather stressful week exacerbated my already dark mood.
As for your political beliefs, yes, I think they’re wrong. Know what else? I think the same of my sister’s political beliefs. I don’t hate her. I love her very much. I have a regular reader who is a neo-con. Our political beliefs are very different. I don’t hate him. Indeed, he has proven to be a gentleman in every interaction I’ve had with him. And he at least tries to provide actual support for his positions. Nor does he seem to suffer from neo-con logorrhoea.
BTW, jumping to conclusions? Not the good exercise one might think it is.