Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Republicans Aren’t American

58 Comments

So says Howard Dean:

He was addressing a Democratic crowd in Colorado, and went off on a tirade against Republicans. Yes, he really did say that Republicans aren’t American. And that they should stay away from the United States, and go to Russia where they belong. One gets the feeling that if the Democrats ever have the opportunity, they will have us all arrested. Or deported.

The totalitarian impulse never lies very far below the surface of the Left.

58 thoughts on “Republicans Aren’t American”

  1. The typical Marxist reverse play:

    We have non-americans accusing real americans of being non-americans

  2. You can’t expect a logical argument from State-cultists (as many of their comments on this blog demonstrate); but let me see if I get this: here’s a country that began as part of a revolt against an oppressive State, and founded on generally anti-statist, libertarian principles. (Emphasis on “generally.”) And REPUBLICANS aren’t real Americans? Maybe the “Vichy Republicans” and the servile, no-threat-to the-plantation “Uncle Dave” (after Brooks and Frum”) type conservatives. They should join Dean and go to Venezuela or some European socialist country where they belong, and they won’t be threatened by the specter of a free society.

  3. Ye gods. Talk about projection.

    I’m not a fan of the Republicans at all, but the Democrats are sounding increasingly authoritarian and extreme.

  4. It is funny because of how sympathetic and ideologically aligned Democrats, especially Obama, have been toward the Russians but as soon as Obama gets man handled by Putin in Syria, the Russian become evil Republicans.

  5. For fascists, all those “anti-McCarthyism” films were instruction manuals, not warnings.

  6. In order to get information from the gummint on purchasing a household dehumidifier, I had to “drill through” 5 layers of “Save the Planet” propaganda to find the list of qualified energy-efficient models.

    I am asked to “Take the Pledge” — to save the planet or somethin’ by purchasing one of these sanctioned dehumidifiers.

    What is this “Take the Pledge” — could you make the product ratings a little bit more accessible and cut out this nonsense?

    And what is “Take the Pledge” apart from an anti-Communist Loyalty Oath? I am putting up with “Richard Windsor”s obnoxious Web site in order to purchase an appliance, so you know that I want to save energy (and money). Why do I have to take a pledge? So I turn into an obnoxious weenie like the folks who put the Web site together?

    Sheesh!

    1. Paul, why are you asking the government about humidifiers instead of just going down to Home Depot or something and buying one?

  7. Dean is right to attack measures that make it harder for legitimate, registered voters to vote. He’s wrong to call the Republican supporters of such measures not American. It isn’t factual (those Republicans are in fact Americans), and the cynic would argue that voter suppression is actually very American, with a long history. But most of all, attacks of the form “those people who don’t agree with me aren’t really part of our country” are a low and ugly sort of rhetoric. Dean should be ashamed.

      1. I would say that making voting easier and more accessible is an expression of American ideals, and that making it harder in hopes of discouraging voters who are likely to vote against you is an unfortunate American political tradition.

        1. Allowing voter fraud denies voting rights just as much as preventing people from voting. I’m always amused at how desperate Democrats are willing to lie about this in order to maintain their fraud advantage. After all, we wouldn’t have a Senator Franken, or ObamaCare without it.

          1. Allowing voter fraud denies voting rights just as much as preventing people from voting.

            Who is allowing voter fraud? Voter fraud is a felony, it isn’t allowed anywhere. Allowing a legitimate, registered voter without photo id to vote does not deny anyone’s voting rights. Blocking that person from voting does deny that person’s voting rights.

            maintain their fraud advantage

            This is fantastical. There is no evidence of any federal election being stolen by means of voter impersonation, none. You couldn’t even attempt such a thing without quickly being found out. Recent attempts to demonstrate how easy it is to vote as someone else have landed GOP activists behind bars.

            we wouldn’t have a Senator Franken

            Another vote fraud myth that will no doubt live forever in the closed mind of the right, but it isn’t true. What is true is that an all-out effort to find voter fraud in that race turned up dozens of cases where felons registered to vote despite not having gone through the correct procedure to regain their voting rights (i.e. these were people who could legally vote if only they’d done the right paperwork). Most of them didn’t know that they had to do so. It wasn’t a coordinated effort to benefit any campaign — if a campaign really wanted them to vote, all they had to do was have them file the right paperwork. And even if they all had voted, and every single one voted for Franken, it still wouldn’t have made the difference in the race, which was decided by 312 ballots. And, it’s worth pointing out, this sort of fraud is not affected by voter id laws. Nobody was pretending to be someone else at the polls.

            The real lesson of the Franken-Coleman race is that even in the tightest races, when big efforts are mounted to identify improper voting, there is virtually nothing to find, particularly if you’re looking for the sort of voter impersonation fraud that might be stopped by requiring photo id. Voter id is a solution in search of a problem.

        2. I agree. Therefore it is a shame to know that Holder did nothing about the Black Panthers intimidating voters in 2008.

          1. Actually, if he’d done nothing, it would have been fine. What he did instead was to interfere with a case that had been won by the government, and let them go free.

      2. Voting is a fundamental right. It’s a key Privilege of citizenship, residency and
        self-governance. As such it’s something that must only be interfered with
        only under “Strict Scrutiny”.

        Would you consider Voting to be as fundamental a right as the right to keep and
        bear arms?

          1. Rand

            1) I never mentioned the Bill of Rights, I merely said Voting is a fundamental right.
            It might help if you actually read what I wrote.

            2) I’d suggest you read the US Constitution, where it mentions voting some 42 times and Electors and elections some 78 times. You may want to pay attention to
            Article XV, XVII, XIX,XXIV and XXVI and Art. 1 sec 2,4 as a nice start.

            I know you like name calling Rand, but really calling someone a moron for suggesting voting is a fundamental right, well, perhaps I’d suggest you retake
            7th grade civics.

          1. Rand,

            I have actually taken 3 classes in constitutional law, and as such I have read the entire constitution.

            As for taking away the right to vote, it happens all the time. Get convicted of a felony, you lose the right to vote. Dinesh D’Souza is losing his right to vote.
            Gordon Liddy, lost his right to vote.

            also establishing barriers to voting is the same as denial of the right to vote.

            All these Voter ID laws are about establishing barriers to a fundamental right.

            The fact that you name call on it, just shows you have no argument

          3. I’m not particularly interested in lectures about name calling from morons who call people who favor limited government “tea baggers.”

          4. “It mentions voting, but the only place that rights are discussed are in the Bill of Rights.”

            Spoken by a man who has never read Article XIV, XV, XIX, XXIV or XXVI

            Rand, I would strongly suggest you take the long weekend and read the constitution.

          6. http://constitutionus.com/

            The online text of the Constitution refers to them as both articles of amendment
            and only after the 22th article of amendment as amendments rather then Articles

            For instance “The eighteenth article of amendment to ”

            And given your propensity to call names rather then respond, it does indicate
            you completely have no argument on wether Rights are granted to the people outside of the Bill of Rights.

            So where did you go to school again?

          7. “I’m not particularly interested in lectures about name calling from morons who call people who favor limited government “tea baggers.””

            That’s the name they applied to themselves. I can’t help if you find that
            offensive, or comical.

    2. How do we know they are legitimate, registered voters? Should we just take their word for it?

      And that’s just people who show up in person to vote. That doesn’t count cases where voters are “registered” at addresses that turn out to be abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Or the boxes of absentee ballots that Democrats always “discover” during recounts every time there’s a close election.

      1. How do we know they are legitimate, registered voters? Should we just take their word for it?

        Yes, we should just take their word for it, and check to make sure that the person they are claiming to be hasn’t voted already. And yes, it would be possible for someone to claim to be someone they are not, and vote in that person’s place, if they beat that person to the polls, and no one spots the deception. It is also possible to take a candy bar when no one is looking in the supermarket. The difference between the two situations is that committing voter fraud is worth less to the perpetrator than a candy bar, and carries much higher penalties. The extremely poor risk/reward proposition explains why proven cases of in-person voter impersonation fraud are so vanishingly rare.

        That doesn’t count cases where voters are “registered” at addresses that turn out to be abandoned buildings and vacant lots.

        Voter ID laws do nothing to help with such cases. Also note: the homeless and transient are as eligible to vote as anyone else.

        Or the boxes of absentee ballots that Democrats always “discover” during recounts every time there’s a close election.

        Again, voter ID laws and other popular vote suppression tactics (e.g. cutbacks to early voting hours) do nothing to address absentee ballot fraud.

        1. “And yes, it would be possible for someone to claim to be someone they are not, and vote in that person’s place, if they beat that person to the polls, and no one spots the deception. It is also possible to take a candy bar when no one is looking in the supermarket. ”

          That isn’t a very good defense. Shoplifting happens all the time.

          You make the assumption that there is 100% turn out. A more likely scenario is that voter turn out is analyzed and the votes are stolen from people who chose not to vote. With a turn out of 60%, there is still 40% of the population that you can steal votes from.

          1. the votes are stolen from people who chose not to vote

            Let’s say you try to do that, so you start by identifying voters you think are unlikely to vote. To swing even a close Congressional election you’re going to need to steal at least 10,000 votes, so you identify 10,000 people who you think won’t vote, and dispatch your army of fake voters to pose as those 10,000.

            Now how good are you at predicting who will vote? 50% correct? 90%? 95% Even if you’re 99% correct (and you won’t be), that means there are going to be 100 instances where two people try to vote as the same person. In some of those instances your fake voter is going to be the second one to try, and they are going to be held for questioning. It is going to be obvious very quickly that there is an organized effort to steal the election. How long do you think your fake voters are going to hold up before agreeing to testify against you?

            No sane person would try such a thing. If you have the money and voter information you need to attempt such a scheme, you can get just as many votes using conventional, legal get-out-the-vote efforts.

        2. Voter ID laws do nothing to help with such cases. Also note: the homeless and transient are as eligible to vote as anyone else.

          Then why bother giving a drivers license in a liquor store? Or at the airport? If they did nothing, then nobody would ever ask for my ID.

          Nobody is stopping a homeless person from getting a free ID.

          1. Then why bother giving a drivers license in a liquor store?

            If they didn’t ask for id at the liquor store many more minors would buy liquor, because a lot of minors want to buy liquor but aren’t sufficiently motivated to get a fake id.

            When they don’t ask for id at the polls you don’t see more people pretending to be someone they’re not, because there just aren’t that many people who want to risk a felony conviction by voting as someone else, but aren’t sufficiently motivated to get a fake id.

  8. “they will have us all arrested.”

    As Rand is not a republican, this should not be a problem to him.

    1. As Rand is an American, people being arrested for political beliefs is probably of concern to him.

      But I’m sure that bit of nuance is lost on fascists.

    2. Well, actually, it is a problem for me, because morons (like you) love to fantasize that I am. So I’m sure that anyone who (like me) who is not part of the collective fascist hive that you so desire, will be swept up.

        1. ::eyeroll::
          So we shouldn’t need to show govt’ approved identification card to vote, which is a privilege rather than a right, but to claim our Constitutionally explicit right protecting us from unreasonable seizure (and freedom of association…) we need to carry some political affiliation ID card. Swell.

          1. As rand is proposing as a threat something that hasn’t yet occurred, it seems a bit premature to actually worry about this.

            Given the massive growth of the National Security state, individual liberty has been on the decline for 40 years.

          1. I see dn-guy is back to being a moron again. I guess pretending he was half-way rational was too much of a strain on him.

    3. Hey, DN:

      Who put the Japanese in camps? A democrat (FDR by executive order.)

      Who put Germans into camps? A democrat. (Woodrow Wilson).

      Stop trying to rewrite history, you idiot.

      This was quite easy to find. So easy, even you could find it:

      Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527 to authorize the United States to detain allegedly potentially dangerous enemy aliens. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies arrested thousands of suspected enemy aliens, mostly individuals of German, Italian, or Japanese ancestry, living throughout the United States.

      http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/enemy-aliens-overview.html

  9. Why oh why didn’t he mention this on April 14th? Then any Republicans would have been exempt from paying income taxes.

        1. Except the bottom 40 percent. They actually got money back.

          No, they don’t. Take a look at Figure 1 of your own link — even the bottom 20% has an average federal tax rate greater than zero.

          1. “even the bottom 20% has an average federal tax rate greater than zero.”

            That doesn’t mean they didn’t get money back…

            He didn’t say they didn’t pay any taxes. He said they got money back greater than what they paid in.

          3. That doesn’t mean they didn’t get money back…

            Yes, that’s exactly what a greater-than-zero tax rate means. As the legend notes, “Average federal tax rates are calculated by dividing federal tax liabilities by before-tax income.” If they were getting money back, their liabilities, and the resulting ratio, would be negative. For an example of what that would look like, see Figure 6, which shows the lowest two quintiles having a negative average individual income tax rate — where only that one tax is concerned, the bottom 40% get back more than they put in. When all federal taxes are considered, no quintile gets money back.

      2. Wrong. The government doesn’t even want me to file according to the forms they send me every year. This answers Jim as well.

        1. With very few exceptions (e.g. ministers?), if you have income, you pay federal payroll taxes.

          2. And if you have self-employment income, you owe self-employment tax. Basically, if you earn income, you pay federal taxes from the first dollar.

            The federal income tax is not the only federal tax on income.

      3. Taxation without representation is a good way to start a civil war. See: British North American Colonies, 1776.

        And the Right has the guns.

        1. Much more important than the actual hardware, Martial Knowledge and Tactical Skills are overwhelmingly concentrated on the right. That’s why these leftie fantasies merely elicit a yawn and a guffaw to me. It’s like being able to hear a bunch of dogs plotting to catch all the cars, they just don’t understand what the end result of their heart’s desire would entail.

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