tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post7659734489405137489..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Catch of the DayJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-35573589423020040642012-02-28T12:13:29.553-06:002012-02-28T12:13:29.553-06:00You're making it worse! Just say the word &qu...You're making it worse! Just say the word "lies"! Why doesn't anyone actually accuse them of lying?!?!?!?Run a Gamehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12555528519708213579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-69578810675224792172012-02-27T23:51:38.236-06:002012-02-27T23:51:38.236-06:00People used to understand the separation between e...People used to understand the separation between environmental public policy and just living an environmentally conscious lifestyle. Now we can't teach our kids to be proactive in recycling and planting trees? The Lorax has nothing to do with government regulation, but now it's apparently liberal brainwashing. It's trying to tell people to take the initiative for themselves. The more they do, the less the government has to regulate. You'd figure conservatives would be behind that.Thomasnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-55170758066909989832012-02-27T13:26:56.890-06:002012-02-27T13:26:56.890-06:00I'm trying to stay away from commenting for a ...I'm trying to stay away from commenting for a while, but you're making it hard for me. <br /><br />Here you understand that we "have a partisan press which makes most of its money off of chumps who are eager to believe the wildest things out there," here you understand that the two leading candidates of a major party are peddling complete falsehoods. <br /><br />Is there anything we can say or do, to get you towards the next step of saying that this represents a "pollution" of our common culture, of our public political forums, and that we can look to items such as Supreme Court rulings that deceitful advertising is not protected speech, as a remedy? <br /><br />You say you have no problem with quantities and qualities of political advertising, as it is "providing information" to the public (and this does seem to be a majority position among established commentators in the media). How low does the quality of this "information" have to go, before we can talk of remedies? If 50.5% of the public representing 271 electoral votes falls for the nonsense, we just have to grin and bear it and hope that our good information will prevail in a future election (despite a totally hypocritical & power-seeking political party & constituency which will be using its power to prevent any future challenges to their power)? <br /><br />I'm purposely being provocative here and have too many other obligations to get into any polemics on this, I've laid out some innovative proposals for legal/political action against deceitful advertising in another forum and it does seem like the time to beat that drum again.philosophical-ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04329015177186261224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-46117505529769519222012-02-27T13:03:35.520-06:002012-02-27T13:03:35.520-06:00The most grating new right-wing projection is that...The most grating new right-wing projection is that Obama practices "crony capitalism", a phrase that was coined to describe the Bush/Cheney administration.purushanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-66758623857558869972012-02-27T12:03:57.542-06:002012-02-27T12:03:57.542-06:00If you really believe that Obama is a radical soci...If you really believe that Obama is a radical socialist (etc.) and that W was not a conservative and that GHW betrayed Repubs and his base by agreeing to a tax hike, then there's not a lot of ground for rationality left. The only flawless president in the 20th century is the fantasy Reagan, who of course had as many apostasies as anyone (or more), but whose apostasies are deleted from the record the same way Jesus's teachings on the poor and dispossessed (not to mention loving your neighbor) are deleted from the fantasy Gospels. (And, it's probably just me, but I don't see much overlap between the views of the first Repub president and those of modern-day Repubs - sure, they love the 19th century, but land grant colleges are for snobs and railroads are socialist.)<br /><br />Partially restating what you've said before, Repubs are barely interested in policy in the best of times, and these times, with a cantankerous House, a seemingly interminable primary season pushing presidential contenders ever farther to the right, and a perceived need to unceasingly stoke the base's fear and loathing of Obama are as close to the worst of times for policy formation as one could imagine. If Obama really were governing as a radical, there would be a lot of room for center-right policy proposals, just as Repubs were able to oppose Hillarycare with proto-Romneycare. But he's not. <br /><br />If Repubs were running to replace a radical, building-hating, conflagration-loving Fire Chief, who insists on apologizing to fires rather than trying to put them out because he secretly likes to see families thrown on out the street, with one of their own, they'd be promising to never, ever use water to put out a structure fire. ("But the chief's Repub predecessor used water too, and you loved him." "No we didn't. He was a fire chief in name only, and we hated water then, too.")Geoff Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17117921607237662932noreply@blogger.com