I'm not sure how this statement came about, but if Petreus issued it without being questioned, he needs to shut the hell up. I think this guy is a jackass, but he has a right to burn books. I'm tired of the, "If you do X the terrorists win" line of argument.

I'd prefer acknowledging that in the US even jackasses have a right to free speech.

This is the kind of thing where I agree with Warhammer. I don't think deducting costs for equipment purchased from overseas manufacturers is really going to help much. Plus, will this kind of tax break do anything to spur demand? The problem isn't a lack of supply.

Do you think he's wrong? I don't see him saying that anyone should punish the guy for doing it, just that it will make the war harder -- he's looking at it from his perspective. I agree that even jackasses have a right to free speech, but that nuance is going to be hard to sell in that part of the world -- after all, it's not that easy for people to understand HERE.

I'd go further than that and say that if Petraeus thinks this will cost lives on the ground (and that's not a hard connect to make, and I'll take his word for it - look at the demonstrations that have already taken place), he has a duty to speak out about it. Free speech is a right but I don't see anything wrong of informing people of the potential consequences. All three of us seem to agree this guy is an idiot but can do whatever the hell he wants. Not sure what Petraeus did wrong here. Don't see his message as "the terrorists win", at all.

Actually, free speech is a right that you give up when you join the military (at least insofar as it relates to a lot of things, this included).

I sure hope those book-burners know what they might be getting themselves (more importantly, the soldiers in the field and other American citizens in Muslim countries) into if they continue their plans.

We're talking about people with limited access to Western media. I'm pretty sure their own religious leaders would use videos/images of the book burning to fuel the fire even more. For many of these folks, an American burning a Q'uran just might be the image that they will associate with America in the very near future.

You think these book-burners are rational enough to think that through? :lol:

see below

I just think our best long term strategy is to be proud of our freedoms instead of always urging people to think about what extremists might think or do. Plus, I don't think his statement is going to be at all effective. A backchannel private message might have been a better idea.

This is one of those I hate the message but I'll fight for his right to say it moments. I'd like to see the freedom to be a jackass celebrated as one of the things that makes us strong.

dola

And I wish they'd stop putting this asshat on television. If he gets no free publicity this isn't a big deal.

I'd be more concerned on what the impact of a book-burning would be to the more moderate, mainstream Muslims all over the world.

Here's another reason why a business tax credit for new equipment isn't likely to do much good.



We already have a metric fuckton of spare capacity. What we need is demand.

I agree - I wish the media/society would get over their obsession with trying to make extremists seem 'common' ... but its unlikely because it causes discussion and interest.

I especially loathe talking heads that want to lecture this guy on how irresponsible he is being. No more irresponsible than you dumbasses that keep broadcasting his message to the world for free.

Obama having a resounding speech on Labor Day to a large group of workers where he declares a new 50 billion spending package is probably not the best way to win the hearts and minds of moderates in an election year. Now if he is moving into "fuck the haters mode" I can get behind that. I'm actually pretty inclined to vote for him in 2012. But, shit, can he possibly learn at some point that carrying yourself as Hugo Chavez is not going to accomplish the types of things that he wants to.

Very good points. I would say even more than just a housing decline this is a credit decline.

In fact, i would say the lack of real time debt is one reason college grads are doing ok.

what the stimulus package is doing is what Americans were doing for the last 20 years: spending money you don't have now because you assume your job, house, and 401k will keep rising.

as irresponsible as the gov't is with its spending it is nothing compared to the out of control consumer credit spending of the last 20 years. and like the gov't it is the sound (rich) people that can weather their debt (and maybe turn it into a good) while the non-rich foreclose and go bankrupt. and i think that's where this delicate balancing act tipped.

this leaves obama is the hard place of doing everything but what is needed (but shouldn't): "forgive" debt to lower and middle class in the same way he "forgave" the banks. in a way, these people are too small to fail. of course this cannot or should not happen, but that guarantees this will be a slow contraction as these people get out of their personal hell. which really just makes all this stimulus and tax cut talk even more tiresome.

this is really the era of the great rehab. people are learning for the first time in many generations that they can only spend as much as they earn and the price of something does not mean how much its worth.

I think Obama may go somewhat the way of Clinton, in having a strong opposition helps him out in the polls. In Clinton's example, the Republicans got the majority in both houses, made Clinton go more for the middle, and showed him as a far preferable option to some of the far right in Congress and led to an easy re-election.

I'm pretty sure the researchers were specifically looking at U.S. elections.

Your example from Australia, to me, shows that there are considerable ideological differences between the electorates of different countries.


Another "good" one is Bush Senior either between 1988 and 1992 or, even more devastating, between 1980 and 1992.

Actually, the only times I begin to doubt the importance of freedom of speech is when people (on either side of the spectrum) use it specifically and willfully to be jackasses. At some point the negative effect of an utter lack of civility outweighs the positive of freedom of speech.

However, I'd still oppose any effort to legislate this.

That's not how I remember it. A strengthening economy and Clinton's defeat of Gingrich in the 1995 budget battle convinced most of the GOP bench to sit the primaries out. By the time Dole got around to running a lackluster campaign, a further strengthening economy combined with Clinton's superior campaigning skills made the race a foregone conclusion.

Even so, Clinton got 49.2% of the vote, with Dole at 40.7 and Perot at 8.4.

So, I'd argue that Dole didn't lose because he was too far right for moderate voters, but because people generally had an optimistic outlook in 1996 and that usually translates to an incumbent victory. The same may yet happen for Obama if the economy can demonstratively turn around in 2011 and 2012, but this seems increasingly unlikely.

Another potential Obama victory could come from the GOP nominating someone who truly is too far right for moderates. The analog in 1996 would have been the GOP nominating Pat Buchanan, in my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for that bit of historical nit-picking. Back to the thread's usual petty arguing. :D

Dole was tarred with the brush of Gingrich, however. He represented Congress, even though he was a moderate budget hawk (though decided to pander with a 15% tax cut).

I'm afraid the GOP could shut down the government, kill SS and healthcare, force prayer in public schools and make homosexuals wear "Fear Me I'm Gay! t-shirts, and still win the White House if unemployment hasn't significantly improved.

This.

As much as we like to think that the politics matters at something more than the margins, history demonstrates that, thus far, unemployment and real income growth are the things that decide whether incumbents get re-elected.

Now, could things be different this time? Sure. But I'll go with assuming that the model will remain as it has been until something shows me differently.

That's why I don't just laugh off the crazies in the GOP. If the economy stays stagnant they could be running the country. Is it really impossible to see Palin winning if the economy is still in the crapper?

This fucking terrifies me. It's why I'm hoping I can get an escape-plan ready before that time.

As a white male, do I need an escape plan? I'm not a Christian so maybe that answer is yes.

Palin won't get you, but the farm is a dangerous place.

But as one article I read earlier today (something from AP about repeal-and-replace) had a quote on that (paraphrasing here), if the GOP does take control of Congress and doesn't repeal Obamacare but instead eventually funds it, then they're finished as a national party.

Point being, by whatever means necessary, including a government shutdown if need be, they have to kill Obamacare one way or another. Failure to do so means they'll never again be trusted with enough votes to matter.

Related to your quoted snippet above in the sense that I believe at least a partial shutdown is a very real possibility if BO decides to dig in his heels and veto spending plans that defund his healthcare package.

People still have lower opinions of the GOP than the Dems but they're poised to have a big year. Even if they don't defund they aren't going to be finished as a national party. There are only two options and a whole lot of people are dead set against one of the two.

Howard Dean on Olberman (talking about the planned Koran burning):

"It started really with Nixon's Southern strategy but the Republican Party has become the party that appeals to hatred. And I don't think the majority of Republicans are haters, but there is a significant hate-wing of the Republican Party that includes the talk show hosts like glen beck, rush limbaugh, etc. and they don't dare cross them. For a long time we thought that FOX worked for the Republican Party, now we know that FOX really runs the Republican Party."

I'm a white male too. But (horrors) I'm an atheist. And I don't think I could bring myself to live under the fundamentalist-theocratic-right-wing, bigoted, hate-state that would seemingly result.

That's okay though, we really wouldn't want you to stick around anyway :D

There's plenty of unused "escape plans" out there designed by democrats who never have the balls to actually use them. I'm sure one of those will work fine

Or I could use one of the old Republican ones douchebag. :p

You know - I'm often comforted by the fact that you and your kind are rapidly aging, and your ranks are not being replaced nearly as fast as you're dying off.

It can't happen soon enough IMO.

You're not going anywhere, no matter who's elected. It's a little dramatic to claim otherwise - that you'll skip town if your guy (who you once claimed you wouldn't vote for in the primaries if he backed off the public option) doesn't win.

We're also raising a new generation, one that's going to learn from the mistakes we made by compromising our principles to try to tolerate the intolerable. They'll learn from our errors. edit to add: Plus, the large number of us who remain are rapidly reaching the point where we're going to take "by any means necessary" much more literally.

LOL. Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, and MSNBC talking about hatred is something akin to the Yankees talking about the Red Sox massive payroll.

The FOX News argument is getting old.

Looking at attitudes among youth, apparently you aren't raising enough of them.

It doesn't take many to control the sheep & the rank idiots. There's more to it than the numbers game.

At least if you're raising them they'll die early from second hand smoke.

Who's to say I'll vote for him in the primaries?

And I might not use that escape plan now, but it might be nice to have for the future was my point (see my points in the thread talking about retirement). In case things go far down an unpalatable path. And it wouldn't be bad to have a nice island retirement-setup that I could use whenever I wanted. You're right though...it is a bit overly-dramatic. I don't think I'd leave RIGHT AWAY, but certainly at some point I'd begin to consider it more seriously.

LOL - well played.

We really can't blame Jon for thinking there are a rising tide of them. He lives in a tiny little piece of the country that is (for the most part - excepting a small percentage of folks), ass-backwards and ignorant.

I'm having a hard time deciding if you are angry, passionate or just bored.

And Democrats have done the same thing with the rich and other groups. Partisian politics is based on hate. Both sides take their base and just spew hate to draw in support.

:confused:

I had no idea hay bales were so heavy! 600 kilograms! :eek:


I'd love to see a Gingrich-style overreach by the likely incoming GOP majority class. Of course, unlike 1996, maybe this time the right will successfully draft a "white knight" (i.e. Palin) of their own for 2012, and we'll finally know if there are still enough people in the center and on the left to defeat that kind of lunacy, which leads us to....


It would be interesting to find out how many people have done this, especially since both 2004 and 2008 represented real nadirs for the losing sides, but I'm going to assume the numbers are still small.

The juxtaposition of 2004 and 2008 probably explains why it doesn't really happen. There's always a real hope that "your" side will get back into power. Heck, in two years we've gone from utter hopelessness on the right to triumphalism.

I don't think people start to leave until there's an extended and consistent series of victories by one side over another, including related legislative success.

Not for political but for job reasons, I looked into it. It's kindof a pain to emigrate into a first world country. And by "kindof a pain", I mean- you need a company to sponsor you for a work visa but when I looked internally at the giant multi-national company I worked for and a couple of others I could work for in my field, they only would allow you to apply for work in those countries if you could already work there.

SI

+1 and I really can't stand the liberal hand wringing on this- I was watching Olbermann last night for a couple of minutes and he was almost taking the "if you don't do X, the terrorists win" that was so 5 years ago and GOP. Yes, it was more nuanced than that, which is to say, it was this intellectual combo platter of "burning koran is legal", "it's probably not a good idea", and "IT ENDANGERS TROOPS" but the emphasis on the last point was fairly strong and over the top.

SI