The Good Post Gallery

[Antonio the Sixth]

The lack of outspoken support I've witnessed from Democrats in recent years for transitioning from a liberal to social democratic welfare regime, or at least overhauling the current arrangement, has contributed significantly to my slow drift away from the party. The basic needs of people to pursue healthy, fulfilling lives ought to be the birthright of all - not an entitlement reserved only for people fortunate enough to already possess an abundance of capital, or who can eek by on meager state benefits secured by abiding to a variety of time limits and prerequisites attached. It's a real shame.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is one of the good posts in the "simple truth" category.

ass-backwards society needs a study to figure this out?  it's pure truism

[Antonio the Sixth]

This thread is not used as much as it should. Here's another excellent one.

Too bad Norway doesn't have the death penalty.

No, good that Norway, even when confronted by pure evil, is able to act rationally and not allow emotions to be abused in order to satisfy shortsighted, reactionary desires.

[Antonio the Sixth]

We laugh and amuse ourselves at this little "heartland conservative" minstrel show, but it's pretty terrifying that Naso is just one of tens of millions of Americans who, through the education system, the media and cultural institutions, have been systemically brainwashed to think like this.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, THE FASCIST PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES!:

1. George Washington: Sent a bunch of troops to enforce his will against a bunch of Appalachian Scots-Irish (whatever the hell that term means) farmers who protested the Whiskey Tax=FASCIST!
2. John Adams: Uuuuuummmmmm, Aliens and Sedition Act!  Heeeeeello!  Did you sleep in history class or something?!=FASCIST!
3. Thomas Jefferson: Tripled the size of the United States, had grand designs for "civilizing" the Injuns, and my god the trade embargo yuck!=FASCIST!
4. James Madison: Got the US into an unnecessary war and was crazy enough to have an army with Andrew Jackson and William Harrison in it=FASCIST!
5. James Monroe: Was President during the so-called "Era of Goodfeelings" that was effectively an era of one party rule=FASCIST!!!!!
6. John Quincy Adams: Exists because of John Adams=FASCIST!
7. Andrew Jackson: REALLY loved to kill people=FASCIST!
8. Martin Van Buren: Was short and was balding, obvious signs of a FASICST!
9. William H. Harrison: Forced a bunch of people to unwilling stand out in the rain during a cold March day for three hours just to hear him give an Inaugural Address=FASCIST!
10. John Tyler: Was an asshole who disagreed with everybody=FASCIST!
11. James Polk: Got us in a war to make sure we kept Texas=FASCIST!
12. Zachary Taylor: Declared war on healthy diets=FASCIST!
13. Millard Fillmore: Is easily confused with that f***ing smart ass duck on the Sunday Morning Cartoon strips in the local newspaper, therefore a FASCIST!
14. Franklin Pierce: Tried to get the US into Cuba almost fifty years before McKinley did=FASCIST!
15. James Buchanan: Tried to kill some Morons Mormons to prove to Justin Morrill that he was indeed a real man=FASCIST!
16. Abraham Lincoln: Drafted a bunch of immigrants off the boats to fight in the Civil War so he could drink all of their whiskey=FASCIST!
17. Andrew Johnson: Tried so hard, desperately hard even, to be John Tyler=FASCIST!
18. Ulysses S. Grant: Was alright with Military Reconstruction on some (admittedly very backwards and racist) states.  See also "corruption"=FASCIST!
19. Rutherford B. Hayes: Hated alcohol so much that he forbid it at the White House and his wife openly bragged and held parties devoted to lemonade lovers=FASCIST!
20. James Garfield: Was from Ohio=FACIST!
21. Chester A. Arthur: Was really born in Canada and his father was an Arishman=FACIST!
22. S. Grover Cleveland: Started a love affair with Great Britain=FASCIST!
23. Benjamin Harrison: Brought forth yet another era of dickwaving high tariffs=FASCIST!
24. S. Grover Cleveland: Really liked to shoot Union members on strike=FASCIST!
25. William McKinley: Really liked protective tariffs AND imperialism=FASCIST!
26. Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt: Had a hardon for a huge navy and machoism=FASCIST!
27. William H. Taft: Killed OVER 9000 "Trusts" while President=FASCIST!
28. Woodrow Wilson: Woodrow Wilson=FASCIST!
29. Warren G. Harding: Was so trusting of his friends and never ever being suspicious of corrupt people to the point of either extreme naivete or FASCISM!
30. Calvin Coolidge: Despite being commonly known as the "wet" candidate in 1924, didn't do anything about Prohibition and was actually *shocker* okay with federal government agents poisoning the alcohol used in illegal brewery operations=FASCIST!
31. Herbert Hoover: Was dedicated more to trade warfare than he was fixing the economy and often claimed, with a smugf** look on his face, how proud he was of the low immigration rates into the US while President=FASCIST!
32. Franklin Roosevelt: OMG he BLEW UP THE GOVERNMENT!  Also, Japanese Internment and attempts at court stacking and OVER 9000% INCOME TAXATION ON TEH RICH!!!  OMG SUPER FASCIST!
33. Harry Truman: Took on the name "Hiroshima" Harry with pride after blowing up tons of Japanese peeps after a translation error.  Also, loved the idea of war with Communists=FASCIST!
34. Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower: Was a god-fearing man and expanded upon the now popular idea that the US should bomb everything and everybody to make the world a more US favorable world=FASCIST!
35. John F. Kennedy: Was Ike's Illegitimate Son=FASCIST!
36. Lyndon Johnson: Looked uglier than a bag of dog sh*t, liked to having public pissing contests, oh and HOW MANY BOYS DID HE KILL YESTERDAY!?=FASCIST!
37. Richard M. Nixon: Took LBJ's plan of killing lots of people by using less people and more airplanes with explosive devices in a carpet formation.  Also, had to cheat to beat GEORGE FREAKING MCGOVERN!  MY GOD WHAT A FASCIST!
38. Gerald Ford: Forgave Richard Nixon!  What a wuss!  AND A FASCIST!
39. James "Jimmy Boy" Carter: Was a fan of federal judges who have a hard on for gun control=FASCIST!
40. Ronald W. Reagan: Loved Apartheid South Africa, loved to bomb nations that were pissed off at us for being interventionist dickheads, loved to bailout failing car corporations, endorsed the idea of infinite deficits and limited revenues, believed that the military budget should be massive despite campaigning on "smaller limited government", actually his entire presidency was one huge experiment in hypocrisy=FASCIST!
41. George HW Bush: The Politically Correct Ronald Reagan=POLITICALLY CORRECT FASCIST!
42. William J. "Slick Willie" Clinton: Ronald Reagan's illegitimate transsexual son.  Liked to conduct "explosive polling", whereby whenever he gets into a controversy he just sends in some fighter jets to bomb a randomass Sudanese sugar producing factory to raise his approval ratings.  Also, was such a huge ass moderate hero fascist that he was both in favor of Gun Control and Defending Marriage=FASCIST!
43. George Dumbya Bush: Liked the smell of napalm in the morning and American nationalism and threatening nations with WAR!=FASCIST!
44. Barack H. Obama=the White Bill Clinton=FASCIST!

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, THE FORTY FOUR FASCIST PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

[Antonio the Sixth]

that's what she said

This belongs in the oh snap mine.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Republicans don't even seem to dress up their policies at this point, they just openly state them in the harshest, most cynical way possible. It's like American politics is a grand social experiment to see how far you can take beating up on normal people without reprecussions. So far, the public seems entirely apathetic. (And that is, perhaps, the goal.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

No, Bill Clinton is a leader and a man of integrity.  There should be no comparison.

"A man of integrity"? The guy had an affair while in office and then lied about it under oath and Mitt Romney can't compare to him because of his integrity?  

Integrity is a wide term, not limited for private affairs.

Yeah, it means adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. And this is used to describe... Bill Clinton of all people. Really? Really?

What goes on in a politician's personal life bears no relevance to me.  And besides, Ken Starr's investigation of the scandal was far more unethical and deceptive than anything Clinton's ever said.

It may not matter to you, but it does to most Americans.  This isn't France.  What most foreigners (and quite a few American liberals, apparently) don't understand, is that in America, when you become a public official (especially as a Congressman or as the President of the United States) your life instantly comes under greater scrutiny.  You bear a greater responsibility to uphold your office in every aspect including your private life because we as citizens have higher expectations of you since you are representing us.  How you conduct your private affairs reflect on your public role.  There no line of separation between the two.  When you fall short, the consequences are that much greater.  

No it doesn't.  It only matters to right-wing media pundits who are still trying to turn it into the next Watergate.  It didn't work then, it isn't working now, and public opinion polls indicate that the public has apparently forgiven the incident.  When you're elected to public office, your responsibilities are merely to represent and govern efficiently.  Being a faithful husband is completely independent and irrelevant to those.

This x10000

[Antonio the Sixth]

One would think that ND (and PASOK) would be the arsonists in the image. Seeing as the building is clearly burning already.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm pretty sure this has already been posted here (and very deservedly so, I must add).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Otherwise he was a retarded but otherwise unremarkable conservatroll quite similar to all other similar morons of the type we've had.

I wonder if I'm one of the 'conservatrolls' you speak of?

I'm not Hash - although that kind of post is one of the reasons I love Hash! - but I wouldn't classify you as a troll, but I do see your avatar, think muon's posted, and get disappointed. That's not really a judgement of you so much as an acknowledgement that muon's a terrific contributor.

This thread's a good a place as any to give my unsolicited opinion - I think you're pretty clearly sincere in your beliefs, but your youth - you're 13/14, right? - becomes fairly apparent sometimes, especially when you try and argue with someone like Al about the NHS. The beliefs you're sincere about are also utterly ridiculous and reprehensible, but, again, you're 14 (?). I hope this doesn't sound condescending, although it clearly is, but you'll grow out of them. Grown adults - at least those who have the self-awareness and intelligence to post on a forum discussing their beliefs - don't go around thinking that corporations being able to spend billions upon billions to control the political process is the definition of freedom () or that a society where poor people can't afford to get healthcare and thus have shorter and worse lives is perfectly okay.

Those aren't reasonable positions to hold, and you can't argue for them - especially the latter, which is frankly disgusting, since you're literally saying that you'd prefer rich people to live more than the poor  - without starting from such bizarre moral assumptions that debating anyone at all would be futile.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, very pleasant surprise coming from Rhodie.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Despite the complaints from some people, before this thread and during the brief period when it was locked, any time someone made a particularly absurd, ignorant or bad post, it would either get posted in the Comedy Goldmine instead (resulting in other complaints) or someone would make a poll about that post saying something like "Is this one of the stupidest things you've ever read on the forum?" and a lot more bickering and flooding would result. The most notable example I can remember is when Harry made a poll just to point out that South Park Conservative claimed that oil is not a fossil fuel.

So it serves a purpose. Something even Inks seemed to have learned due to his unlocking of it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Let's all be honest with ourselves here -- the only reason BRTD made this poll is to get a favourable result for a "Christian" party.
The same way he polls opebo vs. any number of horrible people, or Jesus vs. NYJew.

Presumably, he wants the illusion that people agree with him on everything.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This might be long and rambling and aimless and not really my usual style but I'm just going to write what comes to mind and leave it at that.

Yelnoc, you're thinking of this the wrong way. Ultimately I don't think you're that far from what Antonio said. You seem to think that "they" would need to actively engage in something quantifiable to keep people down. You don't need to do that. I'm reminded of Tony Benn's interview in Sicko where he talks about how democracy is inherently dangerous to elite interests, but only if people are educated and confident, only when they believe they can make a difference if they really try. Otherwise it can just as easily be used against the general interest as anything else.

What Benn was specifically talking about there was that "the system" is benefited by the fear of (or presence of) shackling debt because it makes people grow pessimistic and hopeless, and pessimistic and hopeless people don't vote, but his general point was simply that you don't have to literally put your boot on someone's neck to keep them down, simply demoralize them, pit the lower classes against each other, make them think they have no choice but to continue following orders and following a ruthlessly capitalist system and the focus isn't on how the system is screwing them, it's how the immigrant is why they're losing, how the gay man is why they're losing, how the black man is how they're losing.

We have a 24/7/365 media system pounding accepted, safe, mainstream, patty-cake mentalities into peoples' heads. People need leadership or people that separate from the path to open their minds and make them seek out new ideas. People need leadership to demand more from their politicians, or to stand up and make their voice heard, or to demand better lives, but if that leadership and that recursive, self-reinforcing media system spends all day and night talking about those evil protesters, blocking the streets as they fight for lower tuition, people become easily fooled into hating those protesters for disrupting their day rather than the government or the institution that is screwing a generation with greater debt.

We have a society based on convenience and the establishment exists to maintain that convenience. 9/11 happens and it's not a call to arms, or a call to sacrifice for the greater good of society, we're told to put a smile on and go shopping. We have an ostensibly left-of-center President who has only sought policies that go a half step to accomplishing one goal or another with a minimal disruption to the existing social, economic, and political systems, and a right of center party that only seems to further demolish trust in existing institutions only to further demoralize the voting population.

There's a reason America will never have anything close to the alleged Business Plot ever again; you don't need to be aggressive to control society, it's happened over the course of decades and we all let it happen because most people became selfish, apathetic, convenience-addicted consumerists and that's what was intended. People are happily useful idiots of the elite; there's plenty of them on this very forum. You don't need to assassinate popular politicians, you just buy off three politicians behind closed doors and block that politicians agenda. You don't need to censor information these days, buy your own newspaper, your very own Fox News, hell, just get your own blog, spread the lie you need to spread, and you automatically win. Combating lies is a hundred times as hard as combating truth, because you have to grab people's attention for more than just a single line.

Beet is right with his last line, about how this question is damn near an infinite regression of problem stemming from problem stemming from another problem, but the simplest place to start is to stop lathering in misery and start caring again. The Montreal student protests were eye opening to me in one respect, it showed there's a place where people still care about these things. If they had simply accepted unwarranted tuition fee hikes, they would still be stuck with them. No one would've stopped to think about it, and Quebec would probably still be in the waning days of a horribly corrupt Liberal government.

But people protested to cause disruption, with the ultimate goal of sparking a new election. They weren't causing havoc just for the fun of it (okay, perhaps a small percentage were, as they always do in these things) but rather they were protesting because they wanted to go vote for something different. They still believed in the institutions of Quebec government and wanted to use their vote as a vehicle of change, and 75% of people went and voted, and those students got the tuition fee freeze. They didn't wallow in misery, they didn't make ironic comments about it and then go booze the night away, they got on the street, bitched, and then voted.

So as much as I agree with people like you on these things up to a point, as much as I agree with people like Beet, Fezzy, even Tweed, about how much things suck, and how deeply screwed we are for the foreseeable future, and how broken American society is right now, you ain't solving any of it by thinking you're insignificant, that your vote doesn't matter, that it's hopeless and you should just go and (in Beet's words) "watch TV while eating junk food instead." Where I part with people on this is that you're not impressing anyone by talking about how doomed we all are. I don't have all the answers, and I don't think there's any one thing that's causing "the problem" or helping "the system." But a good place to start would be for us all to recognize who is actually screwing things up (it's not the illegals or big gubmit), and what can actually help us (it isn't a tax cut), and then to care enough to do something when we have the chance. (And realizing that you have to occasionally vote for a guy that kinda sucks against someone who really sucks in the meantime.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I'm really amazed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Conservative movement has basically spent a generation now building and existing solely within their own bubble, where they only listen to each other, only talk to each other, only listens to religion against science, only watch Fox News, only read the books the Conservative business empire puts out, and now, only apparently want to listen to their polls. It's become a movement that openly denies reality simply because they don't like what they see; it used to be funny, but it's gotten kind of sad and dangerous.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Barack Obama's "claim to fame" is that he rescued the United States economy, reinvigorated the American auto industry, and ordered the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Stop it with this nonsense. People are not voting for Obama because he's a cool black JFK. They're voting for him because the Republican party and its standard bearer are repugnant and hold most of the country in disdain, and at the end of the day Obama is a hard-working guy who's generally done the best anyone could do and they trust him to keep working to make their lives better.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, Phil is absolutely right here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I know that I'm in the minority on this, but I disagree with the widely-held premise that has developed post-debate that President Obama "lost" the debate. I know that this narrative has so taken hold that 40 years from now, it will probably be written about in history books as "Obama's horrible debate performance", but I have to interject here and say that I, for one, did not perceive the debate this way at all. I'm someone who is not "plugged in" to social media or the 24-7 cable news nonsense. I don't use social media. I don't even watch television. So that's where I'm coming from on this.

I watched the debate online, without any pre-debate or post-debate analysis from the talking heads who shape our opinions on these things. I watched the debate and thought that neither candidate won. I didn't think that it was a good or bad debate for either candidate, for the most part. To me, both candidates were fairly respectful of one another and the debate was largely uneventful. President Obama said the same things that he has been saying for the past four years. He didn't change his message. Mitt Romney promised a bunch of things that he will not deliver on, and is good at delivering canned, rehearsed lines in a way that appears to not be rehearsed (I don't consider that to be a good thing, by the way, I'm essentially saying that he's good at manipulating people).

I watched the debate without any influence from the talking heads, without seeing the candidates on high-definition TV, and came away thinking that neither candidate won. I honestly thought that, just based on appearances, that Mitt Romney looked kind of sickly and tired. While watching the debate, I thought that the media angle in the post-debate analysis would be about how sickly and tired Mitt Romney looked. Then I go online the next morning to check some news sites, and the whole thing is about how horrible President Obama did in the debate. It's just bizarre to me. I think it has to do with the media feedback loop and how the candidates looked on high-definition TV screens.

People are really very stupid when you get down to it. We are very influenced by appearances and superficialities, plus we follow the herd mentality. I saw a photo of the debate scene and noticed that Romney appeared to be slightly taller than Obama (this wasn't really apparent while watching online, but it might have been more apparent on TV). Romney projected "confidence" to the viewing audience by being slightly taller than Obama and by "looking at Obama more often than Obama looked at him" (I got that from a news "analysis" where it was remarked about how much Obama "looked down" during the debate, as if this is a valid reason to choose a candidate).

By superficially appearing to be more "confident" (kind of like a "confidence man" or "con man"?), Romney activated that part in the viewing audience's primitive brains that desires to be led by the "alpha male". Up until this point, Romney, in spite of his massive wealth and (somewhat) handsome appearance, had not been able to establish his "alpha status". I suspect that this came across much stronger on high-definition TVs than it did on grainy internet feeds like the one that I used to watch the debate.

But the bottom line is that based on what the candidates said, and not how they APPEARED, President Obama reaffirmed what he has been saying all along and did not change his message, and for that, I respect his position and his consistency. Romney, on the other hand, promised a bunch of things that he will not follow through on, and said things that are not logical or believable, like saying that he will cut the deficit without raising taxes and without cutting Medicare, but how? By cutting PBS. Yeah, right.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nothing makes me prouder, this election cycle, than the fact that when it comes to making voting decisions a decent chunk of whites here in Ohio are thinking more about their class than their "culture" or race. If only that would happen more often. Thinking with their heads.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nothing makes me prouder, this election cycle, than the fact that when it comes to making voting decisions a decent chunk of whites here in Ohio are thinking more about their class than their "culture" or race. If only that would happen more often. Thinking with their heads.

See, I think this is total junk. Why would we want people to vote based on "class" or "culture?" Wouldn't it be nice if people voted based on, you know, policies?

The main point is, I guess, that they stop voting for policies that completely screw them.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Republican Party in its current form should really be a far-right fringe party that gets single digit percentages.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Of course. America is a very simple beast that will readily and enthusiastically allow its handlers to return to the same poisonous trough time and again. Our collective economic thinking has been so restricted to think that what happens in our economy is natural and capitalism at its best. Booms and busts are created and we keep feeding into them without questioning them. And as long as people are led to believe that they are also benefiting and that the boom will never end, they'll keep jumping for joy every time they make a little imaginary money. Meanwhile the people fueling this make billions and continue to hoard it while demonizing those who want a healthy economy as anti-job commies. But we never learn...

Please don't ever put a Fezzy post in here again. Thanks.

Why? This post by Fezzy was pretty excellent.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I never really got how people elevate "constitutional" to the level of a moral imperative.  In what system of ethics does a very murky question of law affect whether or not something was right or wrong?  I get so weary of seeing people flog the Constitution in political debates as some kind of moral stance, when they're using it to conceal their support for truly vile institutions like segregation.

Alternately, "Stop quoting laws to us, we carry swords."  -Pompey the Great

This is so true.