Making Baby Jesus Cry

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Meanwhile, the private sector is doing a wonderful job responding to the disaster in the red Gulf states, don't you think?

Don't get me started. It's not appropriate now, but I have some things to say about Bush's treatment of FEMA and the New Orleans levee projects that will await a more respectful date.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Don't get me started. It's not appropriate now, but I have some things to say about Bush's treatment of FEMA and the New Orleans levee projects that will await a more respectful date.

Anyone else see what the FEMA director's background was when Bush appointed him to the job?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Don't get me started. It's not appropriate now, but I have some things to say about Bush's treatment of FEMA and the New Orleans levee projects that will await a more respectful date.

Like when? When Bush is elected President again 2016 and NO is flooded once more?

I'd say this is the window you've been waiting for... best to grab it.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Goodness, you get a little bitchy when people criticize you.

I am not getting bitchy, I just find the intellectual dishonesty annoying. When people pretend to be logical but are not I find the hypocricy gaulling.

I said I have giving speeches around the country and found that people in rural areas have much stronger instincts against big government. This was going to lead to another point but people actually tried to say that this statement is not true. I say A=B and people say no A does not equal B.

In my mind A=B is painfully obvious. But then these people throw out statements that show that people are sometimes hypocritical, that sometimes that don't practice what they preach, but that in no ways contradicts that A=B.

Later one of them says I was not saying A does not equal B I was just pointing some stuff out. Which is Bull Shit. I show a quote that shows that they were actually saying A does not equal B and then they throw in another quote where they were not saying A does not equal B. As if that somehow shows that they never said it. Again, intellectual dishonesty.

And we have another person that says: This is just a communication problem. You are saying A=B, but the other person is just saying Q=Y. There is no miscommunication, I said A=B and these people said I was wrong. This person either is not paying attention, or is also being intellectual dishonest so the other person does not have to admit they were wrong.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Thank God you finally realized this, you stupid commie terrorist America-hating fuck.

Do you think Ty has thought through what happens when you blow Spanky off? I mean Spank's likely to show up at his work to force the issue.

[Nut Case, Sensitive]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Don't get me started. It's not appropriate now, but I have some things to say about Bush's treatment of FEMA and the New Orleans levee projects that will await a more respectful date.

Oh, go NUTS!

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Like when? When Bush is elected President again 2016 and NO is flooded once more?

I'd say this is the window you've been waiting for... best to grab it.

No, this is the time to pray your ass off, donate your ass off, and thank whatever diety you worship that you are as fortunate as you are.

And then donate some more.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Spanky
I am not getting bitchy, I just find the intellectual dishonesty annoying. When people pretend to be logical but are not I find the hypocricy gaulling.

I said I have giving speeches around the country and found that people in rural areas have much stronger instincts against big government. This was going to lead to another point but people actually tried to say that this statement is not true. I say A=B and people say no A does not equal B.

In my mind A=B is painfully obvious. But then these people throw out statements that show that people are sometimes hypocritical, that sometimes that don't practice what they preach, but that in no ways contradicts that A=B.

Later one of them says I was not saying A does not equal B I was just pointing some stuff out. Which is Bull Shit. I show a quote that shows that they were actually saying A does not equal B and then they throw in another quote where they were not saying A does not equal B. As if that somehow shows that they never said it. Again, intellectual dishonesty.

And we have another person that says: This is just a communication problem. You are saying A=B, but the other person is just saying Q=Y. There is no miscommunication, I said A=B and these people said I was wrong. This person either is not paying attention, or is also being intellectual dishonest so the other person does not have to admit they were wrong.

Perhaps a Venn Diagram would help you out here. Maybe Coltrane will whip one up for you.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do you think Ty has thought through what happens when you blow Spanky off? I mean Spank's likely to show up at his work to force the issue.

Spanky proved that persistence pays off. Soon he'll have Ty in Napa Valley to drink the Kool-Ade.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
The red states talk a great game about hating government. They even play a good game of cutting government when doing so saves them money. But they want and love big government when big government means sucking off the tits of the federal government. They do not act like either social or economic libertarians that you are painting them to be.

Everybody loves a free lunch, and the small pop'n red states have the relative political pull to get a disproportionate share of it. When they're paying for the lunch, they have different instincts. I don't think that having the instinct in the first instance implies much about the second instinct.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Spanky
1. I am not getting bitchy, I just find the intellectual dishonesty annoying. When people pretend to be logical but are not I find the hypocricy gaulling.

2. I said I have giving speeches around the country and found that people in rural areas have much stronger instincts against big government. This was going to lead to another point but people actually tried to say that this statement is not true. I say A=B and people say no A does not equal B.

3. In my mind A=B is painfully obvious. But then these people throw out statements that show that people are sometimes hypocritical, that sometimes that don't practice what they preach, but that in no ways contradicts that A=B.

4. Later one of them says I was not saying A does not equal B I was just pointing some stuff out. Which is Bull Shit. I show a quote that shows that they were actually saying A does not equal B and then they throw in another quote where they were not saying A does not equal B. As if that somehow shows that they never said it. Again, intellectual dishonesty.

5. And we have another person that says: This is just a communication problem. You are saying A=B, but the other person is just saying Q=Y. There is no miscommunication, I said A=B and these people said I was wrong. This person either is not paying attention, or is also being intellectual dishonest so the other person does not have to admit they were wrong.

Oh, God... I can't take it...

1. Intellectual Dishonesty. You lecturing anyone on intellectual dishonesty is like Chappelle's crackhead charcter lecturing people on the evils of getting hepped up on Red Bull or triple lattes.

2. I must commend you on this. I particularly enjoy that crazy version of "Moby Dick" you play on paint cans during the interlude. Why don't you take my advice and do "We need tax relief" bit when the 8:15 train arrives? I'm telling you - its the best audience.

3. Everyone's a hypocrite. But its takes a huge oozing, gaping degenerate hypoccrite to put people in harm's way he'd never face (or has previously ducked). That's why, as long as it embraces incestuous preachers and Chickenhawks, the GOP will never, ever, get true respect from anyone. And it shouldn't.

4. This A and B shit is giving me a headache. Next...

5. Jesus, you're still doing it. Who do you give speeches for? I've listened for five paragraphs and feel like I'm in some bad hybrid work of Stanley cavell and Burroughs. I need a fucking drink to unwind my goddamn neurons...

Or was that the point? Did you intend to blow my fucking mind?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Everybody loves a free lunch, and the small pop'n red states have the relative political pull to get a disproportionate share of it. When they're paying for the lunch, they have different instincts. I don't think that having the instinct in the first instance implies much about the second instinct.

The facts that these folks are also voting to increase the size of the federal government, however, is hard to square with the alleged libertarian principles.

This Daniel Gross article from 2003 is more grist for our mill, though I hasten to warn everyone that nothing in it should be taken to raise doubts about anything Spanky has ever posted.

• Northeast of Eden
  A preposterous Republican argument that the Northeast doesn't matter anymore.
  By Daniel Gross
  Posted Friday, Oct. 17, 2003, at 12:22 PM PT
  
  Parachuting into Yankee stadium for a playoff game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, newly minted New York Times columnist David Brooks discovered some important truths about the region from which the two teams hail. In his column Tuesday, he ascribed the anger he sensed in the crowd to a pervasive feeling of decline. "The Northeast is no longer a particularly important region of the country," Brooks wrote. Surveying demographic trends, which show comparative population gains in the Sunbelt and comparative population loss (and hence lost political clout) in the Northeast, he continued: "We know that our region is not the future."
  
  One might expect an intelligent Republican to draw such a conclusion about a region in which Republican presidential candidates are largely uncompetitive. And it is true that the percentage of Americans living in the Northeast is declining—a trend that's been going on for, say, the last century.
  
  Indeed, the Republicans who control the White House and both houses of Congress—and their Northeastern-bred neo-con cheerleaders—might be able to do without the Northeast politically. But economically, they'd be lost without it. For when it comes to that most American of statistics—wealth production, and its corollary, federal tax production—the Northeast dominates the rest of the country the way the Yankees dominate the American League.
  
  Essentially, the Northeast—for my definition here, I use New England plus New Jersey and New York—subsidizes the federal government to a massive degree. Incomes are far higher in the Northeast—and the equally Democratic West Coast—than they are in other regions. Meanwhile, many other regions—say, the South and the Great Plains—subsist on federal largesse. On a per capita basis, those in the Northeast pay far more taxes and receive far fewer benefits than people in other regions.
  
  Let's look at the scoreboard. The late Sen. Daniel Moynihan used to document this state of affairs in an annual report issued by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government's inauspiciously named A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Its most recent report measures data from Fiscal Year 1999.
  
  This summer, the Tax Foundation released a detailed study that compares the federal tax burden in each state to the flow of federal funds back into the state via spending and benefits in fiscal 2002. "The result is a startling pattern of income redistribution among the states."
  
  As the study's Table 5 shows, the Northeast is home to the top five federal-revenue-producing states on a per capita basis: Connecticut produces $10,426 per resident; Massachusetts $9,282. New Jersey $8,821; New Hampshire $7, 778; and New York $7,568. The national per capita figure is $6,326. (The lowest is Mississippi with $3,873, which means a typical Mississippian contributes about half to the U.S. Treasury what your typical New Yorker contributes.)
  
  Next, look at federal expenditures received per capita—Table 7. Of the eight Northeast states, none ranks higher than 14th (Maine). And several of the Northeasterners are way down—New Hampshire ranks 49th, New Jersey is 41st. The top recipients are Alaska, North Dakota, and Virginia.
  
  On a percentage basis, those with the largest disconnect between the amount they ship to Washington and they amount they receive back are in the Northeast. New Jersey receives only 62 cents back on every dollar shipped to Washington, while Connecticut and New Hampshire receive 65 cents and 66 cents, respectively.
  
  The data flies in the face of received notions about wealth, partisan affiliation, and dependence on the federal government. The five largest recipients of federal largesse in 2002 were all non-Northeast states: New Mexico, North Dakota, Alaska, Mississippi, and West Virginia (four of which went Republican in 2000). The states shortchanged the most were New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Massachusetts—four of five of which are in the Northeast, and three of which voted Democratic in 2000.* In fact, when you look at the voting behavior of states—based on 2000 per capita income—11 of the 13 wealthiest states voted for Gore while 15 of the poorest 17 states voted for Bush.
  
  There's a danger to using baseball as a metaphor for other, more complicated trends. But here it actually works, only not in the way Brooks thinks. In the same way the high-earning Yankees support economically feeble franchises like the Kansas City Royals by paying the luxury tax, New Yorkers and other high-earning Northeasterners support their more impecunious fellow citizens by paying more taxes.
  
  And it's something to which Brooks and Co. should pay more attention. The system of federal military and crop subsidies that keeps many regions afloat, the massive military upon which our quest for national greatness rests, social benefits like Social Security and Medicare—none of these would be possible if the Northeast didn't contribute far more to the national fisc than it receives in return.
  
  Republicans like to say that taxing income is taxing success—the more successful you are, the more taxes you pay. By that standard, the Northeast is rocking while other parts of the country are failing.
  
  Maybe the crowds at Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees games are surly because they're working so hard and paying so much to support their less-enterprising and less-productive fellow citizens who inhabit the more balmy and baseball-starved parts of the country.

Original version has links. I believe that I posted or linked this article back in the day, and that I've previously posted updated information of the sort that he cites. (Primary source info, too.)

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The facts that these folks are also voting to increase the size of the federal government, however, is hard to square with the alleged libertarian principles.

Ty--we're going around and around in circles here. You say it's hard to square. I say, sure, if you're trying to square the circle. Looking for a bigger piece of a pie doesn't mean you think the pie should be made bigger. And of course they're going to vote for stuff when it means they get some money, even more so when it's their own money. Unless you eat at the same places on expense account and when it's your treat, you're just as consistent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Spanky proved that persistence pays off. Soon he'll have Ty in Napa Valley to drink the Kool-Ade.

There's too much Kool Aid going around. I get about five emails a day talking about how somebody's drinking kool aid. Every website about politics has piles of kool aid references. We're disparaging the reputation of a harmless tasty drink. Can't you select an alternative?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Oh, God... I can't take it...

1. Intellectual Dishonesty. You lecturing anyone on intellectual dishonesty is like Chappelle's crackhead charcter lecturing people on the evils of getting hepped up on Red Bull or triple lattes.

Cite?

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
2. I must commend you on this. I particularly enjoy that crazy version of "Moby Dick" you play on paint cans during the interlude. Why don't you take my advice and do "We need tax relief" bit when the 8:15 train arrives? I'm telling you - its the best audience.

You lost me on this one.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
3. Everyone's a hypocrite. But its takes a huge oozing, gaping degenerate hypoccrite to put people in harm's way he'd never face (or has previously ducked). That's why, as long as it embraces incestuous preachers and Chickenhawks, the GOP will never, ever, get true respect from anyone. And it shouldn't.

It has garnered enough respect among the people to be placed in charge of two branches of the Federal Government.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield 4. This A and B shit is giving me a headache. Next...

I can imagine. For an emotional, irrational, self-delusional, cretin like you, logic has got to be very disconcerting.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
5. Jesus, you're still doing it. Who do you give speeches for? I've listened for five paragraphs and feel like I'm in some bad hybrid work of Stanley cavell and Burroughs. I need a fucking drink to unwind my goddamn neurons...

Or was that the point? Did you intend to blow my fucking mind?

That is just a fringe benefit.