19 thoughts on “Alliterative Comment”

1. I’m waiting for Jim to take credit for being my muse, but he’s probably off trying to rhyme Romney and racist.

   Somehow I missed buyout, Barack, bad, bum, broke, busted, budget, bubble, business, braindead, bomb, and banjo – but if “golf” is now a racist dog-whistle, the left would go bananas over “banjo.”

   1. I think banjo is at least culturally insensitive, as in “Deliverance”. Of course since the group it’s a code word for (southern white illiterates) isn’t among the protected classes, you should be OK.

   2. I was thinking they’d somehow connect “banjo” to minstrel shows.

      Of course at this point mentioning any activity a black has ever participated in is racist (golf?!), exceeded only by mentioning any activity that a black has never famously participated in (semi-professional beach wheelchair lawn darts maybe?). If Webster’s would give us access, we could just do a global search and replace for “: (noun)” to “: (noun) (possibly racist)” and then do the same for verbs.

   3. Hi George,

      I’ve been wanting to post a comment that says, basically, “You are right about Marx, you win the debate, I concede, and thank you for teaching me something new.”

      But wait! Look at comment number 4 here:
      http://communism-explained.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-marx-call-for-extermination-of.html

      Now, that’s not research. I haven’t had time (or taken the time, anyway) to do any real research. I really would like to know the truth though, and I’m sure you would like to know too. I’d be perfectly happy if you “win”, and I’d be perfectly happy to admit it, but so far, I’m not sure who really wrote what.
      I’ll let you know if I see confirmation one way or the other.

      Anyway, to thank you, and to thank Rand, here’s an on-topic link which surely could be source material for anti-Obama humor:
      http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/10/obama-visits-hoover-dam-137280.html

      1. Oh, and it isn’t just a question of “who wrote what”, but “what was meant” — if by “annihilation” of a people, Marx meant redraw the national boundaries — well, eh, that’s bad, but genocide, and not very different from the USA was party to at the Potsdam Conference, etc.

      2. Communism was soooo last week. ^_^

         I don’t see how the fourth comment you linked, even when spun as the author did, makes Marx much less bloodthirsty than Hitler, who also wanted to stamp out all those postage-stamp countries (a desire which probably came directly or indirectly from Marx’s writings, unless they both got it from an earlier source), eliminate the control of Jewish bankers, and push the primitive slavs into the hinterlands or exterminate them entirely.

         Also, keep in mind that you linked a communist website, which is about like checking with the Aryan Nations for accurate information on the Nazis. For example, one of the sidebar questions is “Is it true that people in communist countries don’t like communism?” The answer admits that some don’t but adds “Also, during the last general elections in Cuba, Raul Castro got the support of practically the whole country; with 98% of all votes.”

         What’s incredibly amusing about the above is that every “Marxist” thinker, usually college kids selling surf board wax at a mall kiosk, assumes that they know the path to true Marxism, when about 70 billion man-years of actual Marxists working doggedly to implment Marxism, living the dream every day, utterly failed at the task. If only they’d had acess to the brilliant Marxist insights of the kid selling surf board wax – then it might’ve worked.

         One of the root problems with Marx is that he based his work on his wacko conspiracy theory; that owners, merchants, factory owners, land owners, bankers, and pretty much anyone who wasn’t flat broke (and wasn’t a communist yet); were part of an elaborate plot, sharing secrets that were forbidden to the lower classes, scheming against them, etc. Given that worldview, massive bloodshed is required because how else can you break the pervasive, almost omnipotent control of the ___ insert a group name for non-broke people ___? It’s like a bad episode of “V”.

         “Fairness” or “justice” are the hooks to get people in. As people learn a bit more about it, they either run away screaming (the wise ones) or they get sucked in deeper because the constant message they hear is that they are learning deep secrets, and that great, dark powers have been conspiring against them (it’s pretty much like Scientology stripped of hot actresses).

         Then comes the “us against them” tribal warfare message, that you’re from the “working” tribe, which was long ago defeated and enslaved by the “owner” tribe, and its your duty to overthrow them, recover all your tribe’s stolen property, territory, and status.

         All he did was reimagine tribal warfare (and how hard is that?) by picturing society as made up of different, largely non-interbreeding classes, then imagining that the classes acted like seperate tribes, then, like staring at a map of Africa and noticing that the nation states didn’t match tribal boundaries, concluding that societies and nations were structured completely wrong, which of course has to be evidence of an even deeper conspiracy – “perhaps to keep the worker tribe from uniting and realizing their true power! Aha!” When a conspiracy theory fails to accurately describe the world, you just add another conspiracy to explain it. That generates exploding complexity, which is why he churned out so much dreck.

         As for what Engels wrote versus what Marx wrote, if it makes sense it was probably written by Engels. If it almost makes sense it was written by Marx and heavily edited by Engels. If it makes no sense at all then Marx didn’t run it past Engels for editing. Even Soviet scholars finally admitted that much, which makes the question of whether quotes come from Engels or Marx rather problematic, because if Engels was both editor and partial ghostwriter, we also don’t know whether some of Marx’s less heinously stupid writings actually came from Engels, either.

         What I’d argue for a leftist Democrat is that Marx isn’t actually part of the American left’s tradition at all, or at least not the tradition that actually accomplished anything to be proud of. The post-1968 student radicals clung to Marx (and Hitler via the concept of “social justice”, though they didn’t realize it), but American workers didn’t want to overthrow business and industry, they wanted to move into management, then to ownership, then buy a dock on a nice lake.

         Why engage in pointless attrition warfare when the “tribes” are no more real than Thetans and Xenu? What it does is distract from real problems and real solutions because they’re too busy keeping score in an imaginary game with imaginary rules where they’ve divided society up into imaginary teams.

         1. “Even Soviet scholars finally admitted that much, which makes the question of whether quotes come from Engels or Marx rather problematic, because if Engels was both editor and partial ghostwriter,”

            Ha! If true, that’s quite funny. This distinction – whether Marx or Engels wrote it – probably isn’t important to the rest of you, but it is interesting to me. If it is unknowable, (or if it can be shown that the two agreed on a given topic), then I’ll be content to stop worrying about who wrote what. Thanks again.

            As to your extensive comments about reimagining tribal warfare — this is great stuff! What a terrific comment! Well done! Your last sentence, in particular, was a gem. I look forward to quoting it, as I believe it aptly describes quite a lot of the political commentary to be found here.

2. Romney is interested in bailing out banks and taxing more the people who already are paying the highest rates on their income i.e. lower and middle income families. For the rich like himself he wants to lower taxes. Then he wants to cut social security and medicare but keep funding defense expenditures and trillion dollar wars on the other side of the planet. Figure out the results for yourself.

   1. I’m pretty sure it’s physically (and fiscally) impossible for Romney to bail out banks more than Obama has. I’m also sure he wants to keep the tax cuts that are in place, whereas as Obama has us set for the largest middle-class tax increases in history, starting in January, conveniently enough. Romney also can’t possibly cut Medicare more than Obama already did (which was a $716 Billion dollar cut according to the CBO’s July 2012 estimate), and in fact wants to restore those funds back to Medicare.

      And, of course, Bush’s average annual military spending was $553.00 billion, Obama’s is $856.39 billion (over 50% higher in nominal dollars).

      1. I’m pretty sure it’s physically (and fiscally) impossible for Romney to bail out banks more than Obama has.

         It’s easy — repeal Dodd-Frank.

         I’m also sure he wants to keep the tax cuts that are in place

         Romney’s tax promises are mathematically mutually impossible, so figuring out what he’d actually do is a question of which promise(s) he’d break. My own guess is that he’d sacrifice revenue neutrality, and let the deficit grow, since that’s the path of least political resistance. But as long as he keeps claiming that he’ll reduce the deficit, the Dems will keep pointing out the arithmetic implication that he’ll hike middle class taxes.

         Romney also can’t possibly cut Medicare more than Obama already did

         Again, I don’t think that word “possibly” means what you think it means. Romney has praised and endorsed the original Ryan budget; it would cut Medicare much more than Obamacare (or than Romney’s current promises).

         Bush’s average annual military spending

         Who said anything about Bush? Romney has promised to spend more than Obama on the military. Do you doubt that he would?

         1. It’s easy — repeal Dodd-Frank.

            Banks needed (ostensibly) to be bailed out because they were forced to make loans to people who couldn’t pay the money back. Forced through the mechanisms of government regulation. But… if we repeal Dodd-Frank, a set of government regulations on banks, we’re really just bailing them out.

            Jim, how’s the weather there on planet pretzel?

            1. What a fantasy. Banks made those loans (and sold derivatives based on them) because it there were profits to be made, and they didn’t understand or appreciate the risks. The idea that the Bush administration decided to force banks to create trillions of dollars of sub-prime mortgages in the early 2000s is just bizarre.

            2. Those loans, and the derivatives, were mostly bought by Fannie and Freddie. And they were insured by AIG. But government had nothing to do with it. Bizaro-world stuff Jim.

   2. Well, I guess that’s an amusing cartoon of what Romney wants to do. Unfortunately, it bears no resemblance to reality.

3. Me, I’d like to see the folk that pay no net tax at all (the linchpin Big 0 demographic) have some skin in the game or not be able to vote. There is no constitutional right to vote for a President so I’mna not seeing a problem with limiting that particular franchise to *citizens* who actually pay taxes.

   To be called a democrat in the times of the founding fathers was seen as an insult. You were considered to be an advocate of mob rule.

   Under the Fair Tax I’d limit the franchise to those whose income exceeds the poverty level, in other words, your prebate does not equal or exceed your monthly sales tax liability.

4. Me, I’d like to see the folk that pay no net tax at all

   Just out of curiosity, what fraction of the electorate do you think fits into that category?

   To be called a democrat in the times of the founding fathers was seen as an insult. You were considered to be an advocate of mob rule.

   True. They also had retrograde views on the advisability of letting women and non-whites exercise political power. Fortunately, we’ve made some progress since then.

   There is no constitutional right to vote

   Sad, but true. We should pass an amendment to establish an explicit right to vote.

   1. Just out of curiosity, what fraction of the electorate do you think fits into that category?

      Just out of curiosity, what fraction of the electorate do you think SHOULD pay no net tax at all? Should it be more or less than today?

      1. I’d like more people to pay net taxes by virtue of the economy being better. People who have jobs are more likely to be net taxpayers than the unemployed. Full employment should be our top economic goal.

         Do I think we should change tax and benefit policies so that, for a given state of the economy, more people are net taxpayers than are today? I’d say no. I don’t see a benefit.

         1. Full employment should be our top economic goal.

            No, our top economic goal is reducing greens fees and streamlining golf cart rentals. Reducing unemployment is far, far down the list.

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