Argumentation for Liberal Opponents of Abortion. AOL News had a story today, "From New York to Midwest to South, Abortion Battle Heats Up". I left the following 78 comments (about 4,100 words) and recommend that Liberals who are appalled at the mindless support for abortion that Liberals are supposed to endorse, read my argumentation to sharpen their own.

---

There is no right of murder.
***
Abortion on demand is NOT a Liberal value. Liberals believe in using the power of Government to protect the little guy. Who is littler than an unborn child? Liberals have been duped by evil people into favoring the murder of the weak by the powerful.
***
Why would abortions and miscarriages be statistically counted together? That makes no sense, so I can't believe it.
***
A child is not part of a woman's body but an altogether different person, distinct in DNA. But you don't need to cite DNA. No BOY could be part of a WOMAN'S body. And I defy you to find the word "abortion" in the Constitution. It's not there, and restrictions on abortion were in place very early in the history of this Republic. A "right" of abortion was the creation of the Supreme Court, not the Framers of the Constitution.
***
A mother does not have the right to kill "her" child. The child does not belong to the mother but is his or her own person, with his or her right to life (liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).
***
Jesus commanded "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Do you REALLY believe a child would CHOOSE to be killed? Cut the crap. The Golden Rule is NOT religious but ethical, and it holds for the unborn as much as for anyone already born. There is no right to abortion in the Bill of Rights or anyplace else in the Constitution.
***
The billboard was not the slightest racist. What WOULD be racist -- and would clarify the issue for a lot of people -- is if a billboard demanded that abortion be made illegal except for black children, who could continue to be aborted on demand, with society's blessing. THEN how will the abortion-on-demand crowd react? Will they say that blacks are being given a right that everyone should have, to kill their own child? Or will they say that society is trying to exterminate blacks by murdering their children?
***
Perhaps you do not understand even the rudiments of reproduction. A child is NOT part of a woman's "own body". Not at any point whatsoever. From the instant of conception, a child is separate from the mother -- indeed, a great many babies have been conceived in a little glass dish, proving beyond contention that a child is NOT part of a woman's own body. Indeed, a child conceived in a glass dish can be implanted in a woman who is in no way related to him or her. Cut the crap. If women do not want to have children, they should have their tubes tied. If they REFUSE to have their tubes tied, they cannot be heard to complain if they become pregnant. You gamble and lose? Tuf.
***
[Responsive to a disparaging reference to "do gooders"] So no one should do good, eh? Interesting perspective -- for psychotics.
***
The only crime for which the death penalty can be imposed without a care is the crime of total innocence.
***
Mass death is not a "minor distraction".
***
So if you can't afford the child you already have, it's fine to kill him or her? Same with elderly parents, etc. Bearing a child does NOT mean having to raise it, and everybody knows it.
***
There is NO constitutional right of abortion. The Supreme Court just made it up. The time for a woman to choose whether to have a child is BEFORE she gets pregnant, not after, just as the time for a person to decide to play roulette or not is BEFORE the ball drops, not after. You gamble, you lose, that's your problem, not the child's. One of the best lines ever written for Ronald Reagan was the observation that everyone in favor of abortion has already been born.
***
Any government with criminal jurisdiction has an obligation to defend innocent life. Of what value is government if there are no people, because they've all been killed. We maintain police forces and military forces for the same purpose: to defend innocent life.
***
How DARE you compare a baby to a cancer? "A human fetus" is in fact one definition of "child": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/child.
***
Inexcusable anti-child and anti-male propaganda. If you mean "abortion", don't say "reproductive rights". Abortion ENDS reproduction, it does not accord it rights. The abortion-on-demand crowd just will not deal with the truth. Abortion is an ugly word because it is an ugly deed, and should be punished by DEATH in every case in which the life of the mother -- not her bank account, nor her 'mental state' nor anything else -- is truly at risk.
***
There are at least a dozen ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies. What is missing is not contraceptive methods but the will to employ them because you can always kill the kid.
***
Government has a responsibility to protect innocent life. That is why we have police. We don't stand idly by and let druglords mow down kids on the streets; we mustn't stand idly by while the abortion INDUSTRY -- Murder, Inc. -- mows down kids in the womb.
***
This is so utterly and off-the-wall-nuts wrong that it cannot be a sincere assertion by a sane person. Please explain what money there is in PREVENTING abortion? The money is made by COMMITTING abortion, for a fee.
***
The "morning after" pill is an ABORTIfacient. It does not prevent conception; it just kills the child sooner rather than later.
***
Conception is the combination of a spermatazoon and an ovum. PREGNANCY is attachment of the embryo to the uterine wall and the growth of the new life via the nutrition provided thru that wall. You are CONFUSING pregnancy and contraception. The two things are ENTIRELY different. That the manufacturer of an abortifacient might want people to think it is a contraceptive is understandable, but a contraceptive prevents CONCEPTION, not just pregnancy.
***
We outlaw murder of all kinds. That does not stop all would-be murderers from killing, but it stops some. And so what if women who try to kill their babies die in the attempt? Good!
***
What makes you think that a teenager whose hormones are raging is going to listen more to his/her parents than to his or her hormones?
***
So you're saying, if you don't want to murder someone, don't murder someone. But if you do, that's alrite too, eh?
***
Christianity's God of Love and Judaism's God of Wrath are obviously NOT the same God, but Christianity was put forward first among Jews -- who didn't accept it -- and so it had to try to pose as Judaism. Since that didn't work, Christians of the second generation should have repudiated Judaism entirely and severed the Old Testament, with all its killings, from the New Testament entirely. Then no one could condemn Christianity for the violence of the Old Testament, because the Christian Bible would not HAVE an Old Testament.
***
"Choice" means the "right" to "choose" to murder a child. There is no such "choice" in morality, and thus "choice" is a LIE. Pro-Life is correct, but pro-abortion should be termed Anti-Life.
***
The Constitution does not empower the Supreme Court to make law. That is for Congress and the President, acting together, or for Congress acting alone by supermajority to override a Presidential veto. If the Framers had intended the Supreme Court to have any role in legislation, it would have SPECIFIED what that role is, and if it was a veto, then the Framers would have specified a way by which Congress and the President, acting together, or Congress acting alone by a supermajority, could override the Supreme Court. The fact that no such override was provided proves that the Supreme Court is NOT authorized by the Constitution to play ANY role in legislation -- not any role at all. The function of the courts is to apply the generalities of the law to the specifics of a given case, NOT to write laws themselves.
***
Abortion-on-demand is not "progressive", not Liberal.
***
A baby is not part of a woman's body, so you are falsifying the issue. Nor [in response to the asserton that conservatives want government to do nothing] do I think even conservatives want toxins in food or the paint on babies toys.
***
Oh, that's cute: opposing abortion is "murderous". COMMITTING abortion, however, is not remotely murderous.
***
Rational people do not mix-and-match issues that have no relation to each other. As for morality, that really is usually black-or-white. Murdering the innocent is always wrong; protecting the innocent is always right.
***
So I suppose we should now impose a statute of limitations for murder. If you haven't been detected or prosecuted within -- what? an hour -- you are entitled to get away with it, right?
***
A baby is NOT part of a woman's body, so you are falsifying the issue. So people who kill should be left alone, and their guilt is sufficient punishment, is it? So if someone murders YOU, we should just stand aside and let the killer punish himself thru guilt s/he may never feel. There is NO right to abortion in the Constitution, and abortion was illegal for almost 200 years. The Constitution was never amended in those 200 years to create a right of abortion, so there IS NO right of abortion. A child's right to life is its OWN, not its mother's.
***
Since there is no hell, it is for society to establish and defend morality.
***
Men do not control abortion. Women do.
***
Men have absolutely no say over abortion. No rights? No responsibilities. That's the way it works. Women can LIE and claim they are taking The Pill. It is the woman who gambles with pregnancy. The responsibility for bad choices is wholly hers.
***
The "law" you speak of is no such thing. To the extent Congress or any state recognized a "right" of abortion, it is under the misunderstanding that the Supreme Court creates law. It does not. Congress does, and courts have NO Constitutional role in legislating.
***
There is no God, and morality does not depend on belief in God.
***
Absurd. To outlaw murder is not to outlaw everything. A woman's body does NOT include the child that is only temporarily inside it. This endless falsification of the issue shows the people who lie about it as having absolutely no integrity. The typical woman's life is 75 years [3/4 of a century]; the typical pregnancy lasts nine months, 3/4 of a year; ergo, a pregnancy constitutes 1% of a woman's life. Having to bring to term a baby her own actions produced -- including first and foremost the action of refusing to be sterilized -- is not a major imposition, but trivial. Killing the child, however, ends 100% of its life, and is utterly without justification. The balance of hardships comes down solidly on the side of the child.
***
Stop lying about "her body". A baby is NOT a mother's body but the baby's own body. As for overpopulation, tubal ligation on millions of women who don't want babies would handle that very nicely without killing a single child.
***
Sexual orientation is no more a choice than gender, race -- or species, for that matter.
***
You're not making any sense. If we can never take a life, no matter what horrible things the person at issue has done, how can we deter or punish murder? Any right can be forfeited by wrongful deeds, but an unborn child commits no wrongful deeds, so does not forfeit his or her right to life.
***
Incest is not punishable by death, nor should it be. Rape is generally not punishable by death, nor should it be. But in any case, the baby didn't rape and the baby did not commit incest. As for the "health" of the "LIVING" mothers, pregnancy is not a disease, and babies live too. These "exceptions" are just the thin edge of the wedge of abortion-on-demand, because women and abortionists can conspire together to claim something that just isn't true in order to get an abortion.
***
Very few people want severely handicapped children to be born as a burden to their families and society. The child's own life would be hell, and almost nobody would be opposed to abortion of a truly SEVERELY deformed child. The issue becomes a sliding scale of "deformity" up to "imperfection". One must be very careful which things get on the list of justifications for abortion.
***
No, capital punishment is NOT murder. Murder is WRONGFUL killing. Punishing someone for a horrendous crime is RIGHTFUL killing. People who are incapable of understanding that key distinction are incapable of any moral judgment whatsoever.
***
A newborn baby, or a three-month old, or a person in a coma or seriously injured in an accident are all incapable of life on their own. Kill them all, shall we?
***
Homosexuality is no more criminal a trait than is heterosexuality. And as for AIDS, it is a DRUG INJURY in the West and the result of poverty, starvation, and endemic diseases that have ALWAYS killed people young in Africa. It has NOTHING to do with sex, but even if it did (which it doesn't) it would be passed as easily by heterosexual sex as homosexual (as is claimed for AIDS in Africa, which is found primarily among heterosexuals). Your intolerance and mindless bigotry are as bad as your science.
***
You have completely either misrepresented or misunderstood the statistics. When Kaiser says that 53% of abortions are among white women, that is a grand total, for a population that is 6X as large as the black population. 35% of abortions for blacks, who constitute 13% of the female population shows them to have nearly 3X as many as white women, PER CAPITA.
***
[In reply to the assertion that if men got pregnant, abortion would be legal and readily available] And if MEN had to do the fiting, there would be no wars! A baby is NOT part of a woman's body, so stop with the antiscientific lies. Men care deeply about moral issues, and are willing to fite to defend the helpless from all comers, even their own mother -- or father.
***
So there's no such thing as a slut, eh? Yes there is. How about those women who went on Maury Povich's show multiple times, each time with a new set of possible "baby daddies", asking for DNA tests to find the real father?
***
Bristol Palin accepted responsibility for her acts and brought the baby into this world. So what are you saying? That if a woman (that is, a female person capable of having a baby) acts irresponsibly, the child should die?
***
Should you ever have an accident and be lying helpless and unconscious down a hillside, you too will be incapable of life on your own, so I guess we should just kill you. No need for an ambulance to take you to a hospital. EMS workers could just crush your skull and dump you where the flies and crows can dispose of the body.
***
No, life begins at conception. That's how we can have in vitro fertilization.
***
Who, on either side of the political divide, is in favor of letting a child starve to death? That is monstrous falsification of the issue. Abortion is "legal" only because the Supreme Court CLAIMED it suddenly, after almost 200 years of being ILLEGAL, was legal. The Supreme Court is not authorized to write laws, and any new Supreme Court can make abortion illegal again. There is not one word in the Constitution granting a right of abortion.
***
We see Radical Lesbian rage at men parading as political reason in some of these comments. Men cannot demand a woman get an abortion, and are not allowed to save the life of their own child, in at least some jurisdictions. Leave men out of it. Abortion is a women's crime committed by hired killers who may be men but instituted by women.
***
You have an amazing ability to fly in the sky, untethered to earthly truths. Some gay people are made to hate themselves by people like you, and then it is THEY who are to blame for hating themselves. Amazing. Perhaps you know nothing about nature. All kinds of animals are attracted to their own sex. You don't have to go far. Male dogs will mount other male dogs; male cats will mount other male cats. You just discount it as confusion, not attraction. Sex has uses other than procreation. It builds bonds, creates affectionate relationships, makes people happy. Homosexuality also has the added benefit to the planet of doing all this without adding unwanted children to this overpopulated orb. There is not a single abortion that was ever 'needed' because of homosexual sex -- ever, in the history of the world..
***
The baby is NOT part of the mother's body, so "Your body, your decision" applies only to the BABY, who is NOT given any decision over what is done to his or her body.
***
An abortionist is not a doctor, only a butcher. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, and are taught medical ethics' most fundamental principle: "first, do no harm".
***
So men have no right to judge women who steal, or assault people, or commit any other crime, eh? What an interesting "morality" you have.
***
Abortion is hidden murder, but a concealed crime is still a crime. Bring it out in the open. If abortion were committed right in front of them, how many of these abortion-is-great people would be delited to watch?
***
Drivel, most it is irrelevant. "Endanger"? She did this to herself, and must learn to live with the consequences, which will occupy about 1% of her life. Nobody is stopping anybody from getting information about contraception. It is widely available in schools and ON THE INTERNET!
***
You say that abortion is murder, but it should be legal. What a great idea! Let's just legalize murder and save the police for really important matters, like ... uh ...
***
Yes, and if the "sandwich" generation trying to take care of kids and aging parents get tired of those burdens, they should be allowed to kill the kids, the parents, or both, right?
***
The bulk of scientific and technological advances are being made by the children of Baby Boomers. Entire industries and branches of science and technology were created by and are being worked on by the children of Baby Boomers. As for overpopulation, that is best addressed by (a) mass sterilization, starting with people who want never to have children, and (b) encouraging homosexuality, so people aren't frustrated but the sex they have does not produce children.
***
You are positing an absurdly atypical case. Few 12-year-old girls are able to have children. Extremely few fathers rape their own daughter. Bearing a child in countries, like ours, with modern medicine rarely kills. One after another of your silly premises would have to fall in place to endanger the mother; and caesarean section of a child a few weeks before term would in almost all circumstances be the most that would be required. Nature doesn't make girls fertile until they are able to bear children. That's what fertility is, the natural point at which a girl child is large enuf to bear a child of her own. The ONLY issue of any validity at all in your fanciful, and preposterously unrepresentative scenario is the LIFE of the mother, and with modern medicine, almost NO mother dies at childbirth anymore. Even so, let's play your little game and concede that if the girl's LIFE were truly at issue, then an abortion, tho tragic, might be excused as a sad necessity. That is NOT what we are talking about with the great preponderance -- 99.99999% -- are about.
***
That is a poisonous misrepresentation: "The law ... says Viagra can be prescribed only when medically necessary, and in limited quantities." It is for sexual dysfunction, not recreation. Isn't it odd that the very same people who say that abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor do not concede that Viagra is NOT properly a decision between a man and his doctor, even tho it doesn't kill anybody? I don't know what contraceptives are or are not covered by the prescription-drug benefit, and for women on MEDICARE (which doesn't kick in until age 65) it is a non-issue. I certainly am not taking YOUR word for it. As for estrogren replacement therapy, there is a HUGE and ongoing controversy over whether it does more harm than good. Many experts say that it increases the chances of various CANCERS. So the issue is not as simplistic and "prejudiced" as you pretend.
***
Oops. I left out the citation for the quote: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/01/health/main670833.shtml. And of course I meant that the women contemptuous of men's being permitted to get Viagra do not concede that this IS a decision between the doctor and patient.
***
The electric chair has not been used in this country for decades, and black kids have plenty of opportunities. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the President of the United States identifies himself as black.
***
Some Liberals have been misled from the fundamental stance that government and society must defend the helpless against the powerful. I don't know how it happened, but it must be reversed, and Liberals must become adamant about defending the defenseless, always.
***
So if the world is overpopulated, we should just decide by how much the planet's population should be cut, and if it's by 10%, we should just count off every person on Earth and kill every 10th person, right? Murdering people for population control is morally impermissible, but if it were to be done, I could supply quite a list of names of bad people to be murdered to make room for good people. You don't commit murder to limit what can perfectly well be limited by contraceptive measures, including tubal ligation.
***
Men don't get pregnant. If women don't want to get pregnant, then it is WOMEN who have to take the precautions. If you don't want to get hit by a car, don't cross a busy street against the lite. It's not up to drivers who have every right to be where they are, doing what they're doing, to protect you from your own stupidity.
***
It is NOT any given person's responsibility to adopt. There are plenty of people who DO adopt, and a child's right to live is not dependent upon whether there is an adoptive parent for him. Stop pushing one person's responsibilities off onto another. If a woman doesn't want to get pregnant, there are probably 30 different things she can do to prevent it. The child can do NOTHING. By the way, I DID try to adopt, but antihomosexual bigotry kept me from doing so. Society makes adoption difficult, and then complains that kids are unadopted.
***
The great preponderance of child abuse is by NATURAL parents, not adoptive. Cut the crap. All this anti-adoption propaganda -- it is better to be dead than adopted! -- is MALICIOUS lies by the abortion-on-demand crowd.
***
So men should have no say as to what happens to children, eh? Then why are so many women adamant about hunting down "deadbeat dads", and even putting them into PRISON? If men have no say about abortion, then they have no obligations toward the children not aborted either. Laws are written to protect people, and to say that men shouldn't interfere in abortion because it's a women's issue is exactly like saying that men shouldn't bother to write or enforce laws against rape, because that too is a women's issue.
***
Please cite the specific passage of the Constitution in which the word "abortion" occurs.
***
Murder is everybody's business. Laws try to stop people from doing terrible things. Are you really the anarchist you pretend to be? Or do you understand that things like stealing and killing should be prevented or punished if not prevented?
***
What a bunch of nonsense. There are all kinds of programs, public and private, to help the poor in this country. And a baby is NOT part of a woman's body. She has only two arms and two legs, not four of each. If she wants to cut off her arm, that's her business. But her baby's arm, leg, heart are not hers to destroy.
***
No, morality is NOT just personal. Many of the exact same things are forbidden all around the world, and murder is one of them.
***
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Some Thoughts on Libya. I left some comments at an article on AOL News, "US Closes Libya Embassy, Freezes Gadhafi Assets", today. I think there were more than the 29 I show below. The word-processing program into which I copied my comments, WordPerfect 11, has been crashing several times a day recently. I don't know why. So I may have lost some comments I hadn't stored.

---

Libya is 97% Sunni, and its Shiite population is too small even to mention. The Middle East comprises many countries, not one.
***
No, Obama is Christian.
***
You don't need "weapons of mass destruction" to kill a great many people.
***
Human rights IS our business, no matter where.
***
The Libyan situation is only about a week old, and Obama has been actively consulting with allies, UN officials, etc. "Paralysis of analysis" may sound nifty, but it means nothing in the real world. Should we act WITHOUT analysis? That would be supremely stupid.
***
Kindly point out an impeachment of a Republican President by Democrats. Republicans impeached Clinton but lost in the Senate. Republicans are so rabidly anti-Democratic -- and antidemocratic -- that they will do extremely irrational and universally destructive things in opposition.
***
Kindly stop making up quotes for the President. Cite a reputable news source for "quotes". Since Obama never told Republicans to "sit in the back seat", you CANNOT find a reputable source.
***
NO, Bush attacked Iraq on the pretense that it was a danger to US, because it had Weapons of Mass Destruction and was working on nuclear weapons and means to deliver them to U.S. territory. Pls do not revise, after the fact, the claims made to justify the Iraq invasion.
***
Kindly stop the rabid anti-Arab propaganda. Arabs want to abolish the STATE of Israel, and merge "Israel" back into a secular, unified Palestine. The assertion that Arabs (only about 230M not 500M) want to kill all the Jews is SLANDEROUS nonsense. The Soviet Union was "wiped off the map" but that did not kill ANYONE.
***
So you think the U.S. should steal from the people of Libya, do you? What a contemptible thing for you to say.
***
Absolutely false. The UN is probably far more honest than just about any government on Earth. It has so many critics that it is watched like a hawk.
***
Iran does NOT have nuclear weapons, but it DOES have an absolute RIGHT to send ships thru the Suez Canal.
***
Reagan made ONE attack against Qaddafi, that killed a little adopted dauter, not Muammar himself. Then Reagan left Qaddafi in place, which is why we have this problem today. Reagan also ran out of Lebanon with his tail between his legs.
***
Obama was born to a Christian mother and atheist father. He did not convert. As for converting Qaddafi, Obama is a political officeholder. He is not a preacher.
***
The world would be a lot safer a place if every time the U.S. was tempted to invade this place, that place, or another, we warned people in advance that if we take over, we are NEVER lea[v]ing, but will indeed make each such country a territory of our Union and prep it for statehood.
***
Don't think that the electon of Obama DIDN'T have an impact on people's perceptions of the possible in that part of the world.
***
How much do you think can and should be done in little more than a week, when you have hundreds of Americans who could be seized as human shields? If a YEAR from now, the Obama Administration has done nothing and Qaddafi is still in power, then you will be entitled to complain.
***
Sanctions brought down apartheid in South Africa and moderated the behavior of other regimes. The embargo on Cuba was by ONE country, the United States. Europe and Canada, not just the Soviet Bloc, subsidized Castro's Cuba. And you really must not speak of "a free society" and China in the same comment.
***
U.S. influence in training and working with the Egyptian military played a MAJOR role in the defection of that military from the Mubarak regime. Unfortunately, as you point out, we had no such decades-long influence on Libya's military.
***
Most U.S. imported oil is from the Western Hemisphere. If Canada and Mexico were part of the United States, we would be "energy independent" even before we develop nonrenewable energy extensively. [Oops! That plainly should have been "renewable", not "nonrenewable". I just washed my hands, and can't do a thing with them.]
***
The UN "police action" rolled back the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Why has everyone forgotten that?
***
Obama is NOT a Moslem, and saying, a million times, that he is won't make it true. All it does is discredit everyone who says it.
***
Nonsense. The Administration has been in active discussions with all kinds of people seeking advice and ascertaining what the international community should, can, and is will[ing] as a practical matter, to do. How long do you think it takes to rally international organizations and assemble a coalition? 4.2 minutes?
***
If he [Obama] were hunched over, you'd crit[ic]ize. If he made eye contact with everyone, you'd say he's working the crowd. You fool no one. You hate him for no reason, so we know what's behind your slanders. He became President because almost 10 million more Americans voted for him than for John McCain.
***
Not so long ago, the bulk of Latin America was controlled by dictators, and one revolution led to another dictator, which led to another dictator, which led to another revolution. The people of that region were incapable of sustaining a democracy. Now the bulk of this hemisphere, with almost no exceptions except Cuba, is democratic. People can learn, esp. when helped by the world's oldest and strongest democracy.
***
It's been very little more than a week since this revolt in the streets erupted. It is very, very premature to predict inaction, esp. in lite of the President's consultations with allies and the UN, and his statements that are tantamount to saying Qaddafi must step down.
***
Do you have ANY hard information about the educational level or anything else about the people of Libya?
***
Tell that [that the UN is useless] to the people of South Korea, who were saved from Communis[m] by a UN "police action" led by but not fought only by, the United States.
***
Countries have embassies as listening posts and ways to communicate with people, to avoid unwise decisions based on ignorance. We had a very large embassy in Moscow during the Soviet era.
***
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
More Ammunition for Liberals. An AOL News story about President Obama's statements on Libya, February 23rd,brought out the usual rabid anti-Obama, Radical Right loons, posting comments at the end of that story. I counterattacked on a range of topics related not just to Libya but also to foreign policy more generally and even domestic policy dragged into the discussion by the RadRiters. I present, below, most of the substantive comments I left. Mind you, I did this in the middle of the nite, ESTime (AOL is headquartered in NYC, about 18 miles from me), and "Comments Moderation" was on, so none of my comments appeared right away. I trust they will all appear Thursday after the moderators review them. In any case, here are 63 of my comments (at about 3,400 words), in fiting the good fite against the Radical Right. Other Liberals might like to use some of that argumentation, or thoughts it stirs, in their own combat against the Nation's enemy within.

---

What are you talking about? [Claim was made that Obama said nothing about Somali pirates who killed Americans on yacht.] The U.S. NAVY was in negotiations with those very pirates when the hostages were killed, were on board that yacht within minutes after the shooting, and KILLED some of the pirates and took the others into custody. Even when Obama DOES act, the Radical Right claims he didn't! Amazing.
***
Instability in the Middle East DOES matter to us, in a number of ways, not least in the speculation-exaggerated increase in the cost of oil, which could give us $5/gallon gasoline by the summer.
***
There are 1.2 million uniformed U.S. military. We are NOT stretched thin. And we could simply move a fleet out of Bahrain to the coast of Libya, and if we need ground forces to escort refugees, we can move some of those 50,000 troops out of Iraq, which Obama said when running for office he would do in the first place.
***
If Obama launched a decisive military strike, you'd condemn him for precipitate and rash behavior. No matter WHAT he does, you will condemn him.
***
He's not just talking. He is consulting with the military and with other governments as to what, as a practical matter, the international community can do.
***
You plainly know NOTHING about world petroleum reserves. What we do have is RENEWABLE energy aplenty, and that is the way to go. Then our motives in the world will not be sullied by consideration of oil supplies.
***
How is a U.S. military of 1.2 million "stretched thin" by an Afghan commitment of 90,000?
***
Actually, some Middle Eastern societies are very much up-to-date. The United Arab Emirates are very modern. As regards economic conditions and jobs, we have a lot of work to do in those regards ourselves.
***
I'm surprised that the Radical Right is so desperate to attack the Obama Administration that it is voting thumbs-up on the claim that China is the richest country in the world. Obama is in fact consulting with other countries as to how to proceed, and multilateralism seems presently to have the lead in considerations as to how to proceed.
***
The U.S. has not given billions of dollars to Libya. Total U.S. foreign aid is 1% of our budget, or less. The U.S. did NOT stand idly by while millions died. NOBODY outside, at very best, a tiny number of intelligence officers and policymakers knew about the so-called "Holocaust" -- the German PEOPLE didn't even know -- and the U.S. was in the Great Depression. We started to rev up production of war materiel for the British Empire and Soviet Union, but were in no position to go to war until very late in the game. I am so tired of people who complain about the U.S. doing 'nothing' about this or that, from slavery (we fought a war that killed 600,000 Americans to end slavery, the most that ANY country in the history of the world has done to end slavery) but get no credit for it. We arm the enemies of Nazism and Japanese militarism to the teeth and send U.S. forces to Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania -- the U.S. being the ONLY major power to fite the War in the Pacific against the Japanese -- but are condemned for doing 'nothing'. Outrageous. Further, if the problem in Libya is one man and his family, why on EARTH would we want to turn the entire country into "rubble", hurting the very people we should free? We should remove/kill Qaddafi and his forces, not the people of Libya. You are not making any sense.
***
So the world doesn't need a police force. Very interesting thinking. Perhaps we should abolish all our own domestic police forces and just let what happens, happen.
***
Oh, you're right. Nobody in the Arab world cares what the U.S. thinks. They have completely forgotten that little Iraq unpleasantness.
***
If the U.S. helps establish democratic government in these Arab countries, and those governments all prevail upon the United States, as friends, to end its one-sided policy in support of Radical Zionism, we U.S. might finally be freed from control by the Zionist lobby and be able to act as honest broker for freedom and justice in the Middle East, including in Palestine.
***
The Obama Administration spent TRILLIONS trying to prevent a Great Depression, but you say it did NOTHING? You people have to make up your mind: did Obama do too much and spend too much, or did he do nothing and spend nothing? You can't have it both ways.
***
How is it that everybody forgets that the UN defended South Korea?
***
"c" -- no sitting President has oil stocks, as far as either he or we know. All sitting Presidents' stocks, if any, are in BLIND trusts, which means that no matter what might once have been in their portfolio, it might have been changed around by the trustees. In any case, if Obama has stocks in a blind trust, he would have absolutely no idea whether those stocks included oil stocks.
***
Jimmy Carter is a decent man who wanted the U.S. always to be on the side of human rights. But Carter has been out of office a LONG time, and there seems to most people to be absolutely no similarity between his foreign policy -- and can you remember ANYTHING of his foreign policy except the Iran hostage-taking? and I'm sure you FORGET that he sent a military rescue mission that failed, thru no fault of his but only of the Pentagon's -- and Obama's.
***
Liberals used to say "Freedom is indivisible", and wherever freedom is under threat, free people must act to defend it. That's the way most Americans feel.
***
It seems very unlikely that terrorists will ever control much of the world's oil supply, but if they did, that would prove powerful incentive to us to develop renewable energy, so it might not be the disaster you might think, but an actual boon, to us and the planet.
***
Yes, [Qaddafi] is [shaking in his boots]. I suppose you don't remember another dictator, Saddam Hussein. Google that name and see what happened to him. Even if you don't remember, Qaddafi does.
***
Exactly how much of our Federal budget do you think goes to the rest of the world as foreign aid? Try less than 1%. For 7 BILLION people, in countries that can adversely affect us in astonishing ways, such as little, landlocked Afghanistan 9,000 miles from us being able to train terrorists to blow up the World Trade Center and devastate Downtown Manhattan. Isolationism is a non-starter.
***
Tax the rich at 1978 rates and we'll have more money than we know what to do with.
***
jmbrassfie, it seems you are making that up. Obama has actually avoided being seen with Qaddafi, even when protocol would seem to make it necessary: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6841917.ece
***
Apparently you have complete[ly] forgotten the Iraq War. That scared the HECK out of Middle Eastern tyrants.
***
U.S. oil supplies are nowhere near adequate to keep our economy going. Most of the oil we import, however, comes from the Western Hemisphere. U.S. efforts to force out dictators in Libya and Egypt have NOTHING to do with oil.
***
Diplomacy is not as simple as you would have people think. In Sri Lanka, INDIA was the major power that needed to be considered, and India did indeed intervene to end that civil war. Sometimes U.S. action is not needed, nor wanted. Had we intruded into that civil war -- on whose side? -- we risked alienating India, which is by no means a trivial matter.
***
Actually, France has intervened militarily a LOT in its former African colonies, invited or not. Indeed, France limited Qaddafi's aspirations to take over or at least dominate Chad.
***
The crisis in Libya is what? a week old?! The U.S. has made statements of support for the people there as in Egypt. The people of Egypt took 18 days to take out Mubarak. And we didn't have to send one combat soldier in. The U.S. can provide air cover to demonstrators with a no-fly zone for military aircraft, but anything we do must be nuanced, not bull-in-the-china-shop clumsiness.
***
The Obama Administration was put into office by a democratic election, and won office by almost 10 million votes. It is legitimate, no matter how many Radical Rightwingers insist that it is not. And as to that sneering "we know what you are", why don't you just say what you mean [that Obama is a Moslem] and be held accountable for it? The President's approval ratings disprove your assertion about the respect given to his Administration within the Nation, and the bulk of the world community ADORES President Obama. Get used to it.
***
Yes, we should not just speak but also act strongly for freedom everywhere. But there are limits to U.S. power, and there is sometimes a fine line between defending human rights (which people praise) and "American imperialism" (which people condemn). Is Obama doing the right thing? Let's wait and see. If the Libyan people and military oust Qaddafi without U.S. intervention, that would be better for everyone. It will give Libyans a sense of power over their own destiny, and it might cost many fewer lives than would an outside intervention, be it by the U.S., NATO, UN, Arab League, African Union, European Union, or anyone else.
***
The Federal Government's budget proposed by Obama is to spend $3.7 TRILLION, almost all of it within the United States and in defense of the United States. Why would you begrudge the pittance (less than 1%) that we give to the other 6.7 billion people on this planet? Yes, we have problems in this country, but we ARE working on them. Don't blame Obama for what the Republicans won't let him do to change things for the better for the poor and middle class.
***
Reagan was never President except in name. He was a puppet of an invisible Collective Presidency, and he decided NOTHING. All he did was read the nice words written by the smart people who were the Real President.
***
Yes, we do so love those explosions and oil spills that kill billions of animals, destroy the tourist industry, and make us ashamed of ourselves. Will you restrict oil drilling to safe area[s] on land? If not, will you consent to be thrown into the next oil spill and die like the pelicans and dolphins?
***
Let's not forget that Reagan did not remove Qaddafi, but left that mess to us.
***
You have a very short memory. The U.S. invasion of Iraq and hanging of Saddam Hussein certainly DOES scare Qaddafi, and every other dictator in that part of the world.
***
President Obama is commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. If he gets approval from Congress, he can do all kinds of things, militarily, to remove Qaddafi -- and Qaddafi knows it. He remembers the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Don't you?
***
There is no comparison between the situation in Libya and the situation in the United States. The issue in Libya is dictatorship, not economics, and NO ONE knows how to make the free market work. It goes up. It goes down. And the most that Government can do is be a sort of economic lithium: cut the top off the highs and [the bottom off] the lows. But that middle range is enormous, and great suffering can occur before a Great Recession becomes prosperity again.
***
The U.S. has problems. It is NOT "in shambles". Libya is a concern for the entire civilized world.
***
Politics. diplomacy, and warfare, an extension of diplomacy, are all about the POSSIBLE. During the state visit of Communist China's "President", our President spoke out about China's dismal record on human rights. China has a population of 1.3 billion, a military TWICE the size of ours, and over 600 MILLION people fit for military service, about twice the entire U.S. po[p]ulation(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army). It also has nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. Are you really itching for war against Communist China [for human rights]?
***
Americans need to confront that hypocrisy, and force a change in U.S. Middle East policy. Once more of the region is democratized, maybe U.S. friendship with those new democracies will produce a desire to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of Arabs in Palestine as well as Egypt and Libya.
***
If you are talking about abortion, a child is NOT part of 'a woman's own body' -- and besides, the U.S. has, for the moment, unrestricted "rights" to abortion in at least the first trimester. There is absolutely no comparison to the problems of Libyans.
***
What are you talking about? The Obama Administration has not just talked but actually GOTTEN serious sanctions against Iran? As for Iran sending ships thru the Suez Canal, that is its absolute RIGHT. And we hope that it is NOT Libya that falls but only its dictator.
***
It's an all-volunteer military, Mac. Stop talking oil nonsense. Whether Qaddafi is in charge or a democratic government in charge, Libyan oil will flow.
***
He spoke out the first day fatalities were mentioned by media, and again on Wednesday. But truth means nothing to the Radical Right, who will NEVER credit Obama with ANYTHING he does.
***
You refuse to pay attention to anything you don't want to hear. You don't see the mention of air combat patrols and a U.S. aircraft carrier. Did you even read the article?
***
Master Perry, you had me until you claimed that nonintervention against dictators is a Liberal value, which is exactly the opposite of the truth. It is Liberals who say things like "Freedom is indivisible". It is Conservatives who say we should mind our own business.
***
Please explain how Libyan oil will stop flowing if Qaddafi is ousted, or if he remains. Oil has NOTHING to do with it.
***
Let me explain something for the benefit of the simpleminded: whether a dictator or a democracy is in charge, the oil will flow.
***
So if a rapist seizes a woman on the street, we should mind our own business and let her work it out for herself.
***
The Secretary of State does NOT set U.S. foreign policy, but only speaks for the policy decided by the President and his advisers, INCLUDING the Secretary of State.
***
Unfortunately, some techniques to extract natural gas, such as "cracking" shale, are NOT environmentally safe, so should be banned. There are cheaper ways to get a multifunction, nonpolluting gas: electrolyzing water with renewable energy to extract hydrogen.
***
To those whose replies to your comment advocate we "let George do it" and abdicate leadership on the world stage to others, think about that. Do we really want other countries to rally the international community, and be rendered irrelevant? I don't. And which country would you like to see replace the United States as the world's leader? France, the EU, Communist China, Russia? Maybe someday they will rally the world against US.
***
That's a poisonous question ["who will come to the aid of america?"] that doesn't really want an answer, but let me give one anyway. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, a great many countries came to our aid. When the U.S. asked for a "coalition of the willing" in the Gulf War (ostensibly over Kuwait), Iraq, and Afghanistan, we got a whole bunch of countries coming to our aid. We are NOT alone, and we DO get help of many types from many sources, even as regards financing our budget deficit -- from China, Brazil, etc. Cut the crap.
***
The President said his Administration will STOP doing something, that is, stop trying to defend a law [the Defense of Marriage Act] that has been ruled unconstitutional. I thought you people wanted him to do LESS, and here he goes and DOES less, and you complain. Nothing he can do or not-do will ever be enuf for the Radical Right.
***
The U.S. spends $3.7 TRILLION dollars on and in defending the U.S., and about $14 MILLION on foreign aid, and you think that $14 MILLION is too large a part of $3.7 TRILLION. Perhaps you do not understand math.
***
I guess you didn't read the article, which early on says "Obama said the 'suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and is unacceptable'." So he DID condemn the killings. What is wrong with you people? You are so eager to beat up on the black man in the White House that you don't even credit what he actually says in the article you are SUPPOSED to be commenting on but which you apparently did not bother to read.
***
As for Raymond's comment, "He should have been speaking last week", the article plainly says "In his first public response to the Libyan crisis since Friday" -- so he DID speak out last week. But the Radical Right won't read or listen to anything that does not accord with their PREJUDICES, and we all know what prejudices are topmost in their minds.
***
The Obama Administration just won a 33-year sentence for one Somali pirate; the U.S. Navy was in active negotiations with the pirates when they shot those fools; and a Navy force took over the yacht within minutes. Obama also freed a U.S. captain and killed his captors in 2009. But of course none of that means anything to the mindless anti-Obama crowd. I called the American yachters "fools" because THE WHOLE WORLD KNEW about Somali pirates, but they sailed into pirate-infested waters, on a yacht! Plainly, they had more dollars than sense, and now they're dead. I'm not sad.
***
Your hero, Ronald Reagan, made one brief attempt to kill Qaddafi, then let it slide, for us to deal with now. That's the same Reagan who ran with his tail between his legs after some Marines were killed in Lebanon. Big tuf Republicans! What a bunch of crap.
***
The U.S. received a lot of criticism from abroad over the Rodney King beating, segregation, civil unrest, etc., and all of it was justified.
***
The United States is NOT the world's laughingstock under Obama, but more respected by far than it had been for the prior eight years. The world LOVES Obama, which is one reason the Egyptian and other rioters weren't burning U.S. flags in the streets. Or didn't you notice that conspicuous absence? As for claims that Obama has done nothing, tell that to the families who now have health insurance because insurers can no longer deny coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions, or whose college kids are covered under their parents' insurance until they graduate and can get a job (if there are any, what with the destruction the Republicans caused the economy); or the reforms to banking oversight that have stopped BILLIONS of dollars of unjust fees; tell gay Americans that the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was meaningless, and no change at all. No, maybe you shouldn't tell anybody anything at all.
***
So you're blaming Obama for the lax policies of George W. Bush, are you? How very convenient. Until U.S. nationals -- and those of friendly European countries -- are OUT of Libya, there's not much the U.S. can do, lest they be seized and used as "human shields" by the Qaddafi regime. But you never thought of that, did you? The President of the United States DOES have to think about that. The U.S. in any case has NEVER "propped up" Qaddafi. He has been treated as an ENEMY for decades!
***
No, of course not. Nobody pays attention to the world's superpower, which hanged the dictator Saddam Hussein. What are you smoking?
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is \\ — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Time to Remove Qaddafi. Muammar Qaddafi is slautering unknown, but large, numbers of his own people in an attempt to hold onto power for more than the 40 years of tyranny he has already inflicted on his people — a reign of terror that has reached out to kill thousands of miles from Libya, including Berlin, Germany and Lockerbie, Scotland. It's time for the United States to remove him and liberate the people of Libya.
+
I don't know where the U.S. Navy has its ships at present, but we could remove ourselves from one bad situation, and place ourselves in a good situation, by moving the U.S. Fleet OUT of Bahrain, thus dramatically showing our disapproval of the monarchy there, and sending that fleet to the coast of Libya to show Qaddafi that if he does not step down, NOW, we will launch a campaign of "shock and awe" — airstrike after airstrike after airstrike against every single location we think he might be in, and if that kills everyone in his family and inner circle, all of whom are part of his collective despotism, so be it. U.S. warships stationed off the coast of Libya could as well shell his palaces and any military emplacements within artillery range, and make plain to the people of Libya, with every airstrike and artillery shell, that we are on their side — the side of human rights and democracy for all the people of the Arab Nation.
+
Congress Wants Mercury Everywhere in Our Environment. The Bush Administration, with the active connivance of both parties in Congress, passed a law in 2007 to force people to stop using incandescent litebulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent lites — which contain MERCURY, a dangerous, poisonous heavy metal! How the HELL did that happen — especially when 72% of Americans oppose that measure? This is the kind of arrogant disregard for the people that gave rise to the Tea Party movement, and it was inflicted upon us, against our will, by a REPUBLICAN President.
+
Now there is a call in Congress to reverse that stupid decision and permit the sale of incandescent bulbs as long as people want to buy them, thus undoing the arrogant and unwanted interference in our lives by Government know-it-alls who absolutely ignore the risks to the environment of an unsafe liting technology. I use CFLs because I'm poor, and cannot afford incandescents in most places in my house, even tho in the winter (and into the subnormally cold spring now expected), the thermal warmth of incandescents would be a very welcome addition to my household. But I am worried about the insane technology that uses a poisonous heavy metal just to make lite. Why can't science deliver low-cost, long-lasting litebulbs that do NOT put mercury, or any other poison, into the environment? I'm just AMAZED that environmentalists aren't LIVID and PANICKED about the prospect of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of CFLs with MERCURY being dumped into the environment. There are NO curbside recycling programs to remove and recycle the mercury in these bulbs, and essentially ALL the mercury in these hundreds of billions of CFLs that the Federal Government wants dumped into the environment will escape into the environment when the bulbs are crushed. And they will be crushed. They will not remain intact for all of future time. What IDIOT came up with that idea? If CFLs cannot be made environmentally safe, it is THEY that should be outlawed.
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,439 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:19 PM

 
Censorship by AOL. AOL's "comments moderation" has gotten out of hand. After I attempted to post a few comments to a story about Michele Bachmann blasting Michelle Obama for promoting breast feeding, I was apparently barred from even rating other people's comments. But AOL is so cowardly that instead of putting up an error message, "Your screen name is barred from commenting or voting here because of a comment that violated our terms of service. For more information or to appeal this decision, write to _@aol.com.", AOL puts up this cowardly and DISHONEST message: "We're sorry your rating could not be added due to technical problems." And if you try to add a comment, you get the DISHONEST message "We're sorry your comment could not be added due to technical problems."
+
Here are the comments I tried to post. At least two were actually posted. Then I was banned. Was the single word "insane" of Michele Bachmann over the line in the view of some anonymous, dictatorial moderator? "Insane" is not an obscenity or anything else that should be censored. There are insane people, and people who say insane things. AOL needs to be told to respect people's rights of free expression. I didn't call anyone on the comments board an "idiot" or a racial or other epithet. AOL needs to back off its censorship, or it will find that no one even reads its news stories or participates in a conversation that is abusively censored.

Mrs. Obama is NOT part of the Government, and what she expresses as a PRIVATE CITIZEN is her right to express. If a Conservative woman were criticized for expressing her opinions, the Radical Right would be up in arms about the violation of her First Amendment rights!
***
Perhaps Liberals should be very glad that Bachmann is so loud, shrill, and insane. It is Conservatives who should want her to shut up. The more she talks, the more Liberals are made.
***
And changes of the sort you speak to just happen, do they? Nobody has to talk about them or advocate them, right? People just make these choices on their own, without the problems being pointed out. No, no, no. We got into this pickle because of inattention and working parents who either aren't around or don't have time and energy to chase their kids outdoors or away from the computer or cellfone, and we aren't getting out of this mess until we bring attention to the problem and get parents to get off their butts and both teach good health habits and lead by example. That's all Mrs. Obama is trying to do.
***
Actually, fast food, tho convenient, is generally more expensive than food cooked from scratch. We trade money for time, and for a single person, fast food might actually make sense, rather than buying small portions (higher per pound than large packages) and spending a lot of time shredding, cutting, dicing, cooking, and cleaning up. But for a family, fast food generally makes very little economic sense except on special occasions.

Since AOL will not admit to censorship, it also doesn't tell you whether you are blocked for one day, two weeks, or forever. What a bunch of worthless bastards AOL's comments moderators are. The way around a block is to change to a different screenname, or Instant Messenger ID. But I see no reason anyone should have to do that. If AOL thinks something is over the line, they should have the good manners to point out the specific words they object to, and set a reasonable time limit on a block. Inexcusable stupidity is part of what has put AOL into serious financial difficulty. But instead of improving its service, and its manners, it somehow finds $315 million to buy The Huffington Post! Tend to your core business and you won't need to buy up anything but some more servers to provide faster connections to existing content. Again, we have a major corporation wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on an extraneous extravagance, in the mergers-and-acquisitions nonsense that achieves nothing for the public.
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,436 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:34 PM

 
Fiting Rightwing Crazies Again — A Liberal's Recreation. A story on AOL News about "Five Programs Obama Wants to Terminate" in his new budget brought out a lot of the Radical Right crazies who haunt AOL's comments areas. I was feeling combative, so struck back over the course of several hours, mostly while watching television in the background. Many diverse topics were addressed, so my comments address many points. I present below 103 of my comments, totaling about 6,000 words, which excludes some that merely reproached people for repeating posts, slandering people, etc. Liberals who want some ammunition for answering Rightwing loons on their own may find some of my argumentation useful. You should be able to discern the points I was responding to. I don't care to give those objectionable points more exposure. (I have left some minor typos.)
*
The Obamas are multimillionaires. Michelle Obama's personal credit card is paid for from their well-deserved fortune.
***
You're talking trivia. So the President of the United States should stay a prisoner in the White House, should he? Or perhaps he should bump dozens and dozens of commercial air passengers for himself and all the Secret Service agents and Presidential advisers he must take everywhere he goes, and still not have room enuf, even in first class, to operate in the event a major national or international emergency arises. Air Force One is configured for conferences and communications with all parts of the U.S. Government's operations around the world.
***
So when you can't get your tax refund because IRS workers are on furlough, and corporate criminals in banks steal from you with fee after fee they are not entitled to levy, because Government regulators are on unpaid leave, or interstate drug pushers commit murders because the DEA is sidelined by unwanted days off, or thousands of illegal aliens sneak into the country when Border Patrol agents are forced to stay home, or unsafe foods get out into YOUR supermarket and YOUR cupboard because inspectors are told they aren't essential workers, that would be alrite with you, would it? No, we don't need a Federal Government -- until suddenly it's not there, and you realize it is NOT dispensable, and all that talk about Big Government being a worthless boondoggle is just b.s.
***
That assertion about all people in government being wasteful crooks and liars sounds like a lie to me. And illegal aliens do NOT get Government benefits. They HIDE from the Government; they do not line up at Government offices for benefits. As for ending the export of jobs, yes, we almost all agree on that -- except the rich and the corporations they own, which are the only people the Republican Party cares about, so the Republicans REFUSE to repeal the loophole in the tax code that encourages the export of jobs.
***
Yes, by all means, let's cut grants for education. Who needs an education, just because India and China are turning out millions more college graduates in technology and science than we are? As for the USPS, which is NOT a Government agency, it gives us the service you want in everything -- bad, with long lines and long waits. How do you think the work of Government gets done except by people? Or should Government workers provide all the services we demand, out of the goodness of their heart, and refuse payment?
***
Yes, by all means, let us separate families on their vacations, and keep all those people from flying with the President just because he needs to be able to deal with a crisis at any time? So Iran launches a nuclear missile at the U.S. when the President is away from Washington. Surely that can wait until tomorrow or the next day. As for cutting foreign aid, let's start with Israel. If you are all in favor of cutting off Israel without a dime, then we can talk about the entire rest of the world, which gets only what's left after we send $3B a year, year after year after decade, to Israel. $3B for Israel, $11B for the entire remainder of the planet. And "loans" to Israel are NEVER repaid. So let's collect that, oh, $100B or so from Israel, OK?
***
So you think the President writes the budget, do you? He has not help. Those hundreds and hundreds of advisers and professional accountants who staff the Treasury Department's budget-writing division play no role, eh?
***
China INVESTS its money here because it is safer than it would be in China or anywhere else. It's called "diversification of risk".
***
The President's vacations do not cost billions. Stop talking nonsense.
***
Right. Who needs art? Who cares if poor people can never set foot in a museum or library, or hear noncommercial points of view? Corporations should control everything we see and hear, right?
***
That 67% tax increase brought Illinois' income-tax rate up from 3% to 5%, to cut a $13B deficit. So we're really talking about a 2% increase, aren't we? That is not relevant to the Federal budget, which is the topic here, but does speak to the harm people are suffering from the economic collapse caused by the rich and super-rich in the banking industry and the vast export of jobs by the super-rich who control corporations.
***
There already is a Presidential term limit written into the Constitution: two full terms, max; or one elected term after serving out more than two years of someone else's term. A Constitutional amendment, not simple legislation, would be required to impose term limits upon Congress.
***
There are NO open Marxists in Congress or the White House. "Marxist" actually means something. It is not an empty insult, like "poopyhead".
***
Yes, we want all people who can't work to die of starvation, right? That's the "Amurikan way", is it? You may want to seek professional help.
***
To whom, pray, does Obama have to pay any "political favors"? He's been in office for over two years, and any political favors he may have felt have long since been repaid, or voided by events. That remark is just anti-Obama b.s., without any basis in any conceivable fact.
***
And I shouldn't have to pay for your police or fire protection, or anything else, right? No, everybody should stand on his or her own feet, and if a criminal invades your home, or a wiring problem starts a fire in your house, that's your problem, right? Nobody owes anybody anything. "Society" is a fiction, and loving your neighbor as yourself is Communist drivel, right?
***
That is complete madness, based on fantasy about how much Congress costs. Each member of the House of Representatives has over 700,000 constituents, and the number increases every year. How many staffers does it take to tend to constituent services for 700,000 people? If you cut staff, you cut constituent services. And what person of quality is going to work cheap in such a difficult job, for which they receive no appreciation -- except millionaires, and we already have too many of them writing laws for the rest of us. What "protection detail" are you talking about, the kind of security that was NOT around Congresswoman Giffords when she was shot? The Nation was so happy when a Congresswoman was shot, wasn't it, so we should look forward to more such shootings, should we? Or were we appalled? Now, 700,000 people in Arizona have no voice in Congress. I suppose you think that's a good thing. How do such ugly, foolish, antisocial and anti-American sentiments spread?
***
Nancy Pelosi's money comes mainly from NON-governmental sources, such as book royalties, real estate investments, and a winery. Do you resent ALL rich people's wealth? I thought admiration for wealth was a fundamental value of the Radical Right. Harry Reid is relatively poor, with a fortune of only about $3M, mostly from real estate investments, presumably in what was for a long time a very hot market, Las Vegas. As for members of Congress not reading every word of legislation, be assured that SOMEBODY read every word, including not only Congressional staff attorneys but also Executive Branch staff attorneys and hired consultant attorneys who helped draft the legislation and ran it past each other to check for inadvertent loopholes, which they then worked together to close. Do YOU read every word of all the contracts you sign, such as credit-card agreements, software licensing agreements, etc.? Do you read every update you get in the mail or via email about alterations to corporate privacy policies and changes in your credit-card agreement? I very, very seriously doubt you do. Did you read (and understand) every word of your lease and lease renewal, if you rent an apartment, or every single word of all the paperwork that was involved in the purchase of your house, if you own a house? I doubt it. We almost ALL skim the various long agreements we sign, physically or electronically, and TRUST that what we THINK we're signing is what we were told we were agreeing to. SHOULD we all read every word of those software licenses, etc., that we agree to? Maybe. Maybe not. But when you hire a lawyer to read things for you, and s/he says it's alrite, that it does say what you want it to say, you sign it on his or her say-so. No biggy.
***
Indeed, why do Republicans get a free pass? They have no budget of their own, and no suggestions ready now, but feel they have the right to criticize when they have nothing to bring to the table themselves.
***
Stop the "birther" crap. As for the national debt, it can be paid OFF simply by taxing the rich at the rates they used to pay before 1986.
***
The bulk of our trade deficit is with COMMUNIT CHINA, and there is no free-trade agreeement with China.
***
Whatever saving we might get from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan would be more than made up in horrendous losses if Afghanistan again lets Al-Qaeda set up training camps and launch attacks on our soil once well trained and funded. Iraq is another story. We certainly can and should withdraw from there -- as Obama RAN ON.
***
Absolutely. And corporations should not be allowed to make a profit, and banks should not be allowed to charge interest, not even at 1/10 of 1%, and nobody should make money from anything. Why should ex-Presidents have the rights of citizens?
***
If you would like us to "support" you in prison -- you seem to regard that as a great way to live -- just commit some crime and we'll give you that 'benefit'. You are making up the "billions" we spend on illegals. That is a fantasy of the Radical Right. The Labor Department enforces labor laws. You wouldn't hear about its activities unless they WEREN'T doing their job. The United Nations saves us a fortune in treasure and lives by stabilizing regions that we would have to invade or otherwise defend against. Most Federal employees have NOT "accumulated huge wealth". If they are "overpaid", that is mainly because everyone else has been progressively impoverished by thieving corporations that ship jobs overseas and force those of us left behind to take lower wages and benefits or lose our jobs entirely.
***
The amounts involved in busing for racial balance -- which appears to be the object of criticism -- is trivial. No way in the world does it amount to "billions".
***
I'm sure we would all be indebted to you if you could point out exactly which jobs can be eliminated without reducing essential services. Absent some specifics, reasonable people have to doubt everything you say.
***
It is SINFUL to cut what little that people of modest means get from Government when we really need it. What has possessed Obama to think of cutting heating assistance?
***
Stop making up ridiculous figures. Wikipedia says these are the actual amounts: >>The pension amount is determined by a formula that takes into account the years served and the average pay for the top three years in terms of payment. In 2002, the average pension payment ranged from $41,000 to $55,000. For example, a member of Congress who worked for 22 years and had a top three-year average salary of $153,900 would be eligible for a pension payment of $84,645 per year.<< What made you think you could get away with such a ridiculous fabrication
***
Yes, the President should live in a shack, and make do with one secretary. Let's sell the White House to Marriott, so they can make it into a luxury hotel for the rich. And the President of the United States doesn't have to travel anywhere. He can stay isolated in his shack. He doesn't need to conduct foreign policy or know anything at all about the world, right?
***
What ridiculous nonsense. Illegals more commonly PAY INTO the system, they do not take from it. But most illegals hide from the Government; they do not stand in line at Government offices waiting to be arrested and deported.
***
Yes, it's a really good idea to let the planet get worse and worse, more and more desperate, more and more violent. That couldn't possibly come around to bite us in the butt.
***
Define "pork". Is a bridge to replace one that is about to collapse and kill people "pork"? How about a dam to replace one that is starting to weaken? I think much of what we call "pork" is something that benefits others.
***
What a bunch of nonsense. NOBODY is talking about half the population not working but stealing from the other half. Taxation is NOT theft. The rich do NOT earn their excess funds, and NOTHING most wealthy people do is remotely worthy of the kind of income it provides. The bulk of the rich are in fact socially USELESS parasites, who live off OTHER people's labor. Ronald Reagan TRIPLED the national debt. You do not create wealth by creating debt.
***
The State of Hawaii has seen BARACK OBAMA's birth certificate and ruled that it is absolutely valid, so will not any longer take any time away from public employees' tax-funded work to answer idiot challenges. One Hawaii legislator has indeed proposed a law that would charge anyone $100 to see the President's birth certificate. I hope that passes. Then you and every other "birther" can help fund Hawaii's state government.
***
How much do you think we spend in foreign aid, for a planet of almost 7 billion people? It's on the order of 1% of the budget (tho exact figures have become very hard to come by since 2007). Much, or most, of that aid is used to buy products and services from the United States. That is not "kickbacks", and it benefits American businesses, not politicans.
***
It is not Obama but the major corporations, aided and abetted by Republicans, who have exported MILLIONS of jobs that SHOULD have stayed here and gone to Americans.
***
Good idea. We have 535 people to legislate for and tend to constituent services for 308 million Americans. Surely that can't take much time, intelligence, or dedication. $1.48 (one dollar and 48 cents) a year should be adequate payment for anyone in Congress. Never mind that corporate executives with lots less responsibility make MILLIONS of dollars a year. They "earn" it, and do so much GOOD for the Nation.
***
The State of Hawaii has OFFICIALLY PROCLAIMED that Obama's birth certificate is genuine, but YOU know BETTER. No, you really don't. And don't insult my intelligence. In all likelihood I am HUGELY more intelligent than you are.
***
We already had welfare reform under Clinton. Illegals get NOTHING in Government benefits, but pay taxes on jobs in the aboveground economy, in sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. Have you any idea whatsoever of what members of Congress get paid? I doubt it. Each Representatives provides constituent services for 700,000 people. How much is that worth? "Most" working citizens do NOT eat only one meal a day, and mistreating prisoners is a violation of the Bill of Rights. Lawsuits cost taxpayers almost nothing, because court costs are paid by litigants. In short, just about everything you say is utterly invalid.
***
Kindly SPECIFY exactly what Govenrment programs illegal aliens benefit from. There AREN'T any.
***
Oh, please. What do you call all the tax-deductible expenses of exploring, drilling, pumping, transporting to the refinery, transporting FROM the refinery, and every other operation of fossil fuel production and distribution? Those are 'legitimate business expenses'? They are in truth PRECISELY as much subsidies as anything done with alternative fuels.
***
You are an expert on Federal personnel levels, are you? YOU know what the professional managers do NOT, that "a lot of jobs are repetitive/duplicate" that could be eliminated? You know no such thing. If you did, YOU would be hired to trim the excess personnel.
***
So helping young people to get a college education is evil, eh? Yes, we will have a much briter future if our kids are ignorant and uneducated.
***
Asian carp can be eaten. Why hasn't the free market solved this problem by harvesting this cheap -- indeed, plentiful and free! -- food source? Nobody is "letting" Asian carp enter the Great Lakes. A lot of money is being spent to prevent it. Sometimes we just can't control everything, but you want to blame Obama for an Asian carp problem that was with us for several years before he got into office. As for wealthy farmers, the bulk of American agriculture nowadays is in the hands of huge agribusiness corporations that nonetheless receive subsidies intended for family farms. But why aren't Rightwingers in favor of ending all farm subsidies? Aren't farm subsidies a form of hated "welfare"?
***
Pls produce a credible source for the intrinsically dubious assertion that Michelle Obama has 50 times as many staffers as had Laura Bush -- and that they are paid by the public, not from the Obamas' own wealth.
***
Foreign aid is 1% of the budget, to help a starving planet of 7 billion people before they conspire to kill -- and eat? -- us.
***
Actually,the PENTAGON wants to cut spending on various items it says it does not need and does not want. How much is a Congressman or Senator worth? Each Representative serves over 700,000 people. Senators from large states serve millions of constituents. But you want to cut their salaries. I guess you don't value yourself or your fellow citizens if you think we should get the services only of people willing to work cheap. And the bulk of jobs outsourced to foreign countries go to countries that receive NO foreign aid.
***
We have elections every two years. Egypt had none in 30 years. Big difference.
***
If we raised taxes on the rich, we can pay for anything we need, as a civilization, to do. The Radical Right keeps bragging about how we are the richest country in the history of the world, but somehow this rich country is too poor to do the right thing.
***
Yeah! Who needs a Federal Government? Let's just defund the military and Border Patrol, and DEA and FDA, and just let whatever's going to happen, happen. How could that turn out badly?
***
The Tea Party hasn't come up with ONE proposal to trim the budget in any way. Are they the Mouse That Roared? Or are they just conferring among themselves until they can come up with something brilliant? I'm WAITING.
***
Social Security is NOT bankrupt, despite the best efforts of Radical Right Republicans to destroy it. All we need to do to make Social Security work really well is end the cap on income subject to Social Security tax and means-test the program so that the rich get NOTHING from Social Security, and then the people who really need it can get enuf to live on.
***
Absolutely false. You're talking trivia. If illegals dare to take advantage of any such program, they risk deportation.
***
Teachers get an annual salary based on the time that the schools are open. It's just paid out in regular installments. If it is paid out only during school months, some small proportion of teachers would spend it unwisely and have serious trouble getting thru the summer. Further, moneys in municipal bank accounts would be depleted, and the interest paid on it would drop.
***
The $700B over ten years relates only to the Bush tax cuts on the rich. If we go back to the tax rates of, say, 1978, when the top bracket paid (coincidentally) 78%, and HANGED tax evaders and the "smart" accountants who co-conspire in tax evasion, we could pay OFF the national debt while still doing everything we need, as a civilized society, to do.
***
You offer lots of red meat for the Radical Right, followed by an incongruous appeal to the Leftist sentiments of the Sixties, all packaged to incite the mob, while producing no lite, only heat. You want to eliminate housing assistance, so MILLIONS of people will be living on the streets and BEGGING to pay for their next meal? That is not the "kind" of society any sane person wants. Even most Rightwingers pretend to want a "kind"er, gentler society.
***
How is it that everything that happens now is Obama's fault, despite Republican obstructionism thru his entire term so far, but nothing was President Bush's fault, but only a Democratic Congress's? -- even tho the Democratic Congress did NOT obstruct any of Bush's program?
***
So you want 50 distinct State governments deciding what the Federal Government will do, do you? 50 separate foreign policies; 50 separate military policies, immigration policies, economic policies, with no coordination and no national standards in anything? BRILLIANT!
***
So YOU want, personally, to read thru over 1,000 pages of the Federal Budget, do you? And you expect every other citizen to read thru over 1,000 pages of the Federal Budget, on top of all their other responsibilities, do you? And then, of course, they'll all have to make their recommendations -- in a referendum with thousands of suggested cuts, eh? Get real, and stop wasting our time with nonsense.
***
Stop making up RIDICULOUS "statistics" -- "billion dollar percs of coffee and bottled water". Whom do you expect to believe such preposterous assertions?
***
All drivel and trivia, including a nonexistent ACORN, "czars" that are just managers, infinitesimal expenses for the 537 members of the top echelon of the elected national government, whom we are to treat shabbily but still expect to care about treating us well!
***
Kindly stop making up statistics on alleged U.S. aid to Mexico to stop illegals from invading from Central America -- altho the bulk of such immigrants use Mexico as a transit country for illegal migration into the U.S. U.S. foreign aid amounts to 1% of the Federal budget, to help people who are STARVING. But you want them to starve. No skin off our nose, right? The UN provides policing to lots of places that WE would otherwise have to send OUR kids into, so THEY can be in harm's way. Good idea, defunding the UN so the world becomes ever more violent, and more Americans have to die in foreign wars! The "wisdom" of isolationism was revealed on September 11, 2001, when people who trained in far-off Afghanistan and other 'inconsequential' countries destroyed a large part of Downtown Manhattan, costing us what? $100 billion dollars and more of damage to the national economy. Fortunately, YOU are not one of either Obama's or Congress's advisers.
***
Bllions of dollars on food at the White House? I suppose that's the Radical Right's idea of comedy.
***
What a great idea. Let's remove Secret Service protection from former Presidents. We always feel so good about ourselves as a Nation when a President is assassinated.
***
You're right. Offshore oil drilling is certainly not worth investigating, off OTHER people's shores. After all, what could possibly go wrong here? Are there wasteful Federal spending programs? Surely. But biodiversity is important, and a country that loves to brag about how rich it is should certainly be able to do more than just pay the rent.
***
Radical Rightwingers just LOVE to make up statistics, don't they? -- complete, ridiculous fabrications plucked from the clear blue sky. I could retaliate by making up my owns statistics, such as that 92.7% of all charitable donations are made by Liberals, and that studies have shown that 97.4% of conservatives have never given any time or money to any charity, because they are completely selfish. But Liberals don't make up statistics.
***
It is indeed incomprehensible why Obama would propose infrastructure cuts, and other cuts that adversely impact the poor and middle class. The people voted for a Liberal Democrat, but got a reactionary Republican. Tragic.
***
The great majority of American retirees rely upon Social Security, and even the rich get it -- which they shouldn't. So what is your problem with Social Security, and Medicare? -- which, again, the rich get and use.
***
Whatever the rich pay is a lot less than they could easily afford to pay. And they would have NOTHING if it weren't for the rest of us, who do all the WORK of society. They wouldn't have a pot to pee in if poor people didn't make that pot, nor a roof over their heads without construction workers to build it. Nothing they do that makes them ridiculous amounts of money would be possible without "the little people" who actually make, build, and service EVERYTHING the rich need. So of course the rich begrudge everything the poor and middle class want, from decent wages and fringe benefits, to low taxes and equitable distribution of wealth.
***
More fictitious "statistics" from the Radical Right. Whatever increase in reliance upon Governmental benefits that may have occurred -- which is in any event NOTHING like the made-up "statistics" you offer -- are due to a catastrophic economic crash that nearly took down the entire planet's economy, produced by the rich of the U.S. banking and corporate segments. Why can't the Radical Right EVER tell the truth?
***
Are you only now realizing that Obama should be called "Barack the Faithless"? He has sold out the people who put him in office, again and again and again.
***
The Radical Right is not only dishonest and selfish, but also absolutely humorless. They wouldn't know comedy if it pushed a shaving-cream "pie" in their face. Not that that would be funny, ordinarily.
***
The Republicans actually voted AGAINST closing the tax loophole that subsidizes the export of jobs.
***
What is a "Democrat" entitlement program? Government programs of long duration were enacted and have been funded by both parties.
***
Yes, that's why President Obama won office by almost 10 million votes. Alas, we didn't know he would sell us out to the Republican opposition. So we'll see. Maybe Liberals will push him out, without any Republican help.
***
You're talking trivia and nonsense. There are 308 MILLION people in this country, and only 535 members of Congress to serve them. You want even FEWER members of Congress? No, we should have MORE members of Congress, so there are a lot more smart people to divvy up the research and other work needed to give us wise legislation and policies that can succeed. As regards limos, how many Congressmen use how many limos just to get around? And do they need to conduct business at the same time as they are moving around? Do you really want Congressmen so distracted by the people's business that they can't pay attention to the road, and run over pedestrians, plow into other cars, and get themselves and others seriously injured, even killed? YOU try serving 700,000 constituents (per Representative) or MILLIONS of constituents (per Senator from a big state) and see how well YOU can tend to all the details of personal life at the same time as conducting legislative discussions, and how well you can drive when you are distracted by weighty matters of public policy. I DEEPLY resent the pettiness of so many commenters here about giving enormously important people, respect and the comfort and staffing they need to do a good job for the people.
***
There are NO Communists in the Obama Administration, Bill Ayers never killed ANYBODY, and Glenn Beck is seriously disturbed if he really believes the insane things he says.
***
So you want more oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and more catastrophic explosions and massive devastation to wildlife, tourism, the fishing industry, etc., eh? Very smart.
***
Nobody knows how many people died at the hands of Saddam Hussein, so you're just making that up. Statistics about Iraqi deaths during or after Saddam's regime are very hard to come by, but http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ gives a figure for deaths produced by the U.S. invasion as between 99,704 and 108,856, and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War) gives various figures, up to "1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict", so don't even TRY to justify the invasion of a country that never attacked us by pretending it was to rescue the Iraqi people from Saddam. Saddam kept the peace in a place where that is very difficult -- as we have discovered. A figure of 800,000 people killed by Saddam in his 24 years in power is a FABRICATION, but is in any event LESS than the death toll in the 8 years since the U.S. invasion. Millions of people have died in the Sudan, but the U.S. has not lifted a finger there. In any case, it is long since time for the U.S. to get out of Iraq, which will eliminate a source of conflict AND save us billions of dollars we can use at home.
***
So, the Bush Administration, which desperately wanted to find WMD's but couldn't, somehow missed them? Or suppressed the information that their only justification for the invasion, was valid? Just STOP, just stop the crap.
***
The Iraq and Afghan wars are entirely different. Do not confuse them. Afghanistan's Taliban government launched attacks upon us. Iraq never did.
***
"Teabagger" is sexually derogatory only if you insist on transforming a neutral term into an obscenity. One of the most famous images of the Tea Party movement is a foto of a woman wearing a hat with tea bags hanging from its brim. "Teabagger" is plainly an appropriate term for that, and tho I looked it up once in the Urban Dictionary, I do not remember what the vulgar sexual meaning is. So you are bringing a lot of our own "bag"gage into this discussion. MYRIAD terms can be transformed into obscenities if a person is imaginative enuf.
***
Welfare reform under Clinton and a Republican Congress was supposed to have abolished long-term welfare. In that I do not know anyone on welfare, I can't say if it truly did, or if not, why it did not.
***
Kindly cite to a reputable source for that preposterous $25K "statistic". NYC and a few other major districts have a very large number of students from (legal) immigrant families, who require extra attention and expense to educate. But $25K from the Federal Government alone sounds absolutely false.
***
U.S. Foreign Aid is about $14B a year. The only way that can be counted as "billions and billions and billions" is if you take each "billions" to mean 4B. The Obama budget is $3.7 TRILLION. Do the math, and you will see you are talking TRIVIA in complaining about foreign aid to countries that are STARVING. NPR gets $26 MILLION dollars from the Federal Government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding). Not BILLION; MILLION. Governmental expenditures for medical care for illegal aliens is not known, since illegals hide from the Government, they do not apply for Government benefits, lest they be deported. Welfare was reformed during the Clinton Administration. Try again.
***
I am endlessly amazed at how deluded so many people are about how LITTLE money we devote to foreign aid. A poll revealed that many people think that 25% of our budget goes to foreign aid, whereas it is actually less than 1%. Eliminating all foreign aid would have NO impact on our deficit, but would hurt U.S. interests abroad, and that could prove very costly indeed.
***
Ending foreign aid would save $14B. Ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq would save over $10B. Withdrawing from Afghanistan would save $118B in the short term, but if the Taliban resumes control and relaunches its attacks upon the U.S., it will cost us massively in life and treasure.
***
You did a randomized survey of public opinion in all those countries, did you? And what exactly are the tiny number of like-minded people you spoke with -- who would give you the time of day -- "laugh" about? Our President or the Tea Party, the Republican "Party of No", or something else entirely? Since when has the Radical Right cared two shakes of a rat's tail what foreigners say?
***
NO Democrat thinks we have one-party rule. That has to be the champion ridiculous comment from the Radical Right in this entire discussion.
***
Drill, baby drill? Fine, if you are content to be thrown into the next oil spill.
***
There is NOTHING Socialist about the Obama Administration, and how can you have small government but HUGE corporations?
***
"Dem thugs"? Oh, that's reasoned discourse, isn't it? So Democrats are the ones who launched a war against a country that never attacked us? That's thuggery.
***
Stop talking trivia, and stop attacking people who work harder than almost anyone else in this country, trying to get people past problems with the Veterans Administration or immigration or Pell Grants, on and on thru hosts of constituent services for 700,000 people per Congressional district and MILLIONS that the Senator from a large state has to deal with. Would you really want people to die on the streets because a vet couldn't get his VA benefits, or some hardworking legal immigrant deported or a brilliant kid be unable to go to college because his Congressman didn't have the staff to deal with their problems? Cut the crap! Each member of Congress has 700,000 people to serve. How many people, exactly, do YOU have to serve in YOUR job?
***
Conservatives wanted the United States never to happen. They were Tories, and we forced some 200,000 of them OUT of the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War, when we had only 2.8 million people, the equivalent of 22 million today. Let the vicious Radical Rightwingers of the United States find some place more congenial than a country that would elect a Barack Obama. Oh, that's right: they CANNOT find a more conservative country anywhere on Earth, and NOBODY would want them.
***
Obama had NOTHING to do with the causes of this recession, nor the mass export of jobs by greedy corporations controlled by the super-greedy super-rich.
***
So all the top executives of corporations, who demand MILLIONS to do what anyone of moderate intelligence could do, are Liberals? Golly.
***
What matters with ANY budget is not just outlays but income. Donald Trump spends a lot more money than you or I. That does not make him poor. There are thus TWO ways to balance a budget: to reduce outlays OR to increase income. And the way a Government raises income is by raising taxes on the people who have the money but do not use it for public benefit.
***
I don't hear any Republicans in the new Congress demanding a new formula for Social Security's Cost of Living Adjustment. Two years without any increase, when EVERYTHING else has gone up.
***
Liberals do not defend disgusting cuts to aid for the poor and middle class. It is Conservatives who rally to the defense of their own, even when they disagree. Liberals aren't tribal. We don't defend the indefensible just because someone who is SUPPOSED to be Liberal proposes it.
***
The United States has 308 million people. We can't manage all our responsibilities on a dollar forty-nine.
***
Please cut the crap about people who receive public assistance flying high. YOU try to live on what they get, and you'll be talking out of the other side of your mouth. It's very odd that Republicans praised "investment" when business does it but decry it when Government does it. Corporations put out bond issues for billions of dollars, but we are not to see that this is DEBT. Corporations believe they can get rich by going into debt, but that's just fine with the Radical Right -- debt in the service of private corporations. But debt in the service of the public, that's wrong.
***
Insane. Welfare is NOT remotely a major part of the Federal budget.
***
I imagine you don't realize that what you are talking about is profoundly antidemocratic and antisocial, verging on pathological. What you call "politians" (s/b politicians) are the people who are willing to take the time and energy to tend to public needs, not pursue private profit. By far most are honest and very hardworking, and without them, we would have NO SERVICES.
***
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,436 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:13 AM

 
Exchange on Egypt. A colleague in northern England sent me this email comment about the problems in Egypt.

It's not just incompetent government which hobbled the Egyptian economy, it was also a defective culture.

Egypt is saddled with a huge corrupt government bureaucracy, because many Egyptians view becoming a civil servant (rather than becoming a successful capitalist, for example) as the focus of their aspirations. This is rooted in past Egyptian envy of their British colonial overlords, which after independence made them view government positions as being the most prestigious.

I replied:

Much of the Third World is like that, and I suspect it much predates the European colonial era. In the case of Egypt, the ancient culture had two power centers, the monarch and the priesthood. Business didn't count for diddly. Also, alas, in much of the Third World, a position in government is seen as a license to steal, and one's first duty is not to the people or the state but to one's own family, extended family, clan, friends, whatever. Everywhere we see the same mindset, even in places like France and NJ, which are regularly beset by corruption stings and scandals. The Third World also tends to like uniforms, and the prestige they bring, be they military, police, or even sanitation-worker uniforms.
+
The first-loyalty-to-family thing is probably innate, intrinsic to the animal that underlies the human creature. Ethical leaders who wanted to break thru that have had, for the most part, to posit a Heavenly Father who mandates that we treat all people as our "brothers" and "sisters", a "human family". That doesn't always work. Then there is the attempt to forge a sense of kinship to a wider group, starting with the village or tribe and then extending outward to a nationstate, in which the basis of the state is the "people" (Volk, etc.) who are to be regarded as a kinship circle. That doesn't seem to work very well in the Third World, tho. There used to be empires in what is now the Third World, but they were personal rather than nationalist. And forget about aspirations to a transnational identity around anything but superstition/religion.
+
Ethical leaders who do not resort to superstition have to appeal to reason, a very weak force in human affairs, or to fear, which can be a powerful restraint but not as powerful a positive incentive. People can shirk their responsibilities more readily than outrite defy a powerful government. And when the people lose their fear, what is left? Crowds in the street, daring the authority to clamp down.
+
Democracy is supposed to unite these various strands of social unity and give everyone the feeling that they are part of something larger, in which they have a stake and a say, and thus to which they owe a duty of care. But we see how low participation rates can be in democracies, without compulsory voting. People who don't feel they had any say in the laws feel very little reason but fear to obey them, and that fear has to be justified by the expectation that they will be caught and punished if they disobey. The less credible that threat, the lower the level of voluntary compliance. The self-motivated person who does the right thing because his or her internal lites command it is a relative rarity, in every society. But perhaps a democracy has the best chance of bringing out that kind of behavior.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,436 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:50 PM