The Good Post Gallery

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No. If there's any bias at all, it's a pro-corporate elitist bisas, as seen with the lack of coverage of issues such as socio-economic inequality and the education crisis in this country, and the "liberal" New York Times's fascination of the issue of whether or not a few wealthy, elite women could play in a golf tournament.

If they weren't liberal, they wouldn't care about this sort of symbolic gender equality.

Which could be material pitched for a targeted audience already reading the New York Times. I am under the impression that (a.) folks with high incomes are generally more liberal on normative than economic issues, and (b.) journalists themselves tend to lean more to the left and are oftentimes cut a lot of slack provided they do not run any stories that seriously undercut the company's goals. Most major media outlets in the States are businesses first and foremost.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Every day of my life. You give your meaning to these words that cut such a wide swath that resonate for you, and I will give mine, which do the same for me.

I thought you were a rational type?  Or did I misunderstand you?

I find the words sufficiently vague and ambiguous, that I chose to give them a metaphorically meaning. Every morning that I wake up for yet one more to savor another day is like being "bathed in prayer." The fewer days you have left, the more precious each one becomes.  Is this parlance common currency among evangelicals or something?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here's a really seriously good post from wormyguy:

No, given that it was just a veiled effort to destroy Catholics schools.

And...that's a bad thing how?

Well, besides the fact that Catholic schools consistently produce better-achieving students, at a lower cost per pupil, than public schools, Catholic immigrant students faced extreme discrimination from both teachers and fellow students in public schools in the early 20th century.  They were put in the lowest reading/math groups, given low marks, pressured to drop out as soon as legally possible, made to sit in the back of the classroom, bullied, ostracized etc. (not to mention that there would probably be a few lessons on the evils of Popery).  Also do note that public schools were not any more (and generally less) secular than Catholic schools back then.

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Well considering how you are pretty anti-Catholic (see comments about sex abuse scandals and contraception), I don't see how that'd be a problem, unless you're basically just saying anything the KKK supports should be opposed.

Sometimes, you are obliged to oppose something based on its reasoning rather than its content.  Perhaps on the other side of the spectrum, but Murray Rothbard had a good example; suppose some congressman in 1850 proposed a constitutional amendment declaring the total inviolability of private property and forbidding government interference with it.  Any good libertarian would be obliged to vote against it, since their definition of private property would certainly differ from that hypothetical congressman (who is seeking to protect slavery).
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[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I live just south of the Md/VA border. Md. has better roads, better police, better schools. The schools part is probably the largest benefit, people in Va. complain about how terrible the schools are.

You get what you pay for which is why in my county in Va. there are only two deputies on duty on weekends to patrol the whole county.

But on the plus side we have lower taxes. And cheaper cigarettes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wow, what a heard of sheep.  Obama out for gay marriage and suddenly blacks support gay marriage in droves.  That's just not a healthy way to come to a decision on an issue

A leader and popular figure of any given community having influence over that community's opinions on certain issues is hardly a surprise.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I agree Simfan on the music. I wish they'd throw out pretty much all of the music written since 1900. Sorry Marty Haugen your music isn't that good. It's just boring and doesn't really show the sort of hunger, for lack of a better word, the situation calls for. I do prefer the English translations of the old Latin hymns to the original Latin for the most part but both can coexist.

My church in Cleveland likes to pull out the occasional Gregorian chant, particularly during Lent, and they tend to be very good songs. There's a reason we kept them around for 800 years. Unfortunately they also mix in some awful contemporary songs. I remember one Sunday they had Attende Domine (one of my favorite religious songs) at Communion and their recessional hymn was Somebody's Knockin' At Your Door. Really? I mean, that one has hand motions. I have to fight back the urge to laugh at the fact that we're actually singing it.

That being said, I've been to Latin Mass before and I'm rather convinced restoring that everywhere's not the answer either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The notion that citizens living far abroad and not intending to return home in the short run nonetheless have an interest in the composition of the national assembly, while those actually affected by it on a daily basis and paying taxes for its upkeep but who are not citizens should not be, is the notion that a country is basically a company and citizenship is basically a share. Next thing you'll be demanding dividends out of the treasury.
And sure enough, Western countries have no problems with the international upper middle class aquiring shares in multiple countries, but are very against third world immigrants doing so.
The notion just screams "I like Representative Government but have an exterminatory hatred of Democracy" (it's not the same thing, you know.) Using single-member constituencies is just rubbing it in.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is the attitude at my university as well. Almost everyone taking a science/math/commerce/engineering degree treats anyone in the liberal arts as a second-class student. I would just, for once, like people to admit that the different fields are different, not that any one area of study is better than another. (Although in terms of creating a well-rounded individual, I almost think the liberal arts is better--you're encouraged to focus on developing ideas and finding connections, whereas some of these other programs are exceptionally theoretical and numbers-based.)

I honestly think the problem has some big roots in frosh week programming. Your introduction to the university is basically comprised of "we are segregated" or "engineers have a crazy frosh week because they work harder." Beyond frosh week, I understand that the very nature of the programs makes it difficult for the faculties to interact... but I think more could be done to foster a united sense of school spirit. As it stands right now, my school might as well be in a perpetual civil war.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Simfan, I hope that you understand that most American adults have more in common with <Republican candidate><state name> than with you, and that this has significant public policy implications.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hearing people talk today in the south, you'd think we're all a rainbow coalition of peace, brotherhood and fuzziness! Everybody in the south claims to be colorblind nowadays. Jim Crow? Segregation?? That was years ago!! We're so past that, I'm not racist at all- why just yesterday me and my black friend at work went out to lunch! Would I do that if I was racist??

I think a lot of people are stuck in the mindset that racism only comes in the form of white hoods and lynchings. So if you live and work with people of other races and subscribe to general platitudes about racial equality, like "we're all god's children", then apparently you're in the clear.

I think that's setting the bar way too low. Because, from my experience, these same people will also say terrible things about other races and make really unfair generalizations. A common topic that comes up among whites down here is welfare. Apparently, every person on welfare is black and they're refusing to work or keep their legs closed in order to keep those checks coming in. Every problem in America seems to come back to this. And it's never, "some people" or "some black people on welfare" it's always, "the blacks on welfare." But then they'll compliment their black friend at work who (miraculously) broke the cycle in order to save face.

So, in the end, they seem to use their apparent colorblindness as a crutch to defend their racist attitudes. Things are better now, segregation is over, and any problem in the black community is not a residual effect of the racial hierarchies that have been in effect for centuries, but is instead a moral failing or weakness that black people are solely responsible for.

And for the record, I'm not entirely blameless either. It would be wrong to make this indictment yet exclude myself from blame, since this is exactly what many of the people I'm talking about do to escape criticism or self evaluation. Also, it's weirdly comforting to know that other areas of the country are dealing with this same attitude. The south always has to carry this burden of racism when it really exists everywhere.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sorry, realisticidealist, you know I love you, but this is a very good post and I agree with it in full:

There are a lot of things that have gone wrong with how we treat marriage in this country, but letting gays marry I think is the least of them. I would be more comfortable with it if gay marriage supporters were half as concerned about the institution of marriage itself as they were about using the issue as a tool to route out "bigots" and feel superior about themselves. Not all are that way of course, but if often seems like it. It just seems like so many liberals care so much about gay marriage on one hand, but simultaneous talk out of the other side of their mouth about how marriage is an archaic institution that should be done away with and about how progressive they are for opposing this anachronistic holdover. You can't have it both ways.

I just don't understand what is really mutually exclusive about thinking marriage is a decayed institution while also supporting legalizing gay marriage. Of course, I don't personally think marriage is an archaic institution that should be tossed away and listening to that argument gets me all testy, but you can absolutely think it's a decaying institution while also thinking there's no reason not to legalize gay marriage.

I'm just not sure where this hostility you have for this issue comes from. You act like you support it, but you hate that you have absolutely no choice but to support it; like you're angry that other people force you to admit you're wrong about something. It's weird from someone usually so reasonable and wonky about everything.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

realistic's response after that was good as well.

Yes, it was.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Niall Ferguson wrote an article that graces the cover of Newsweek this week.

Niall Ferguson wrote an article

Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson

That man.  That name.  It haunts me.  Will Niall Ferguson ever leave me alone?  Why must that name chase me?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Paul Ryan is the first national ticket candidate to have been born in the 1970s. That means he was among the first generation to spend their young adulthood in an era when suits were no longer regular, everyday attire for men, and, increasingly, weren't even worn to work.

Every man used to know how to wear a suit properly. Even a blue-collar worker would wear one to church on Sundays. Today, I'd venture to guess a large swathe of American men could go a year or more without ever being in a situation where they would be expected to wear a suit. They aren't required in the office anymore. They aren't required in church anymore. People don't dress up to go to the movies or get on airplanes anymore; the glamor of both of those activities has long since faded away. We've become a nation of elastic waistbands and Crocs and flat-brimmed baseball hats.

I have visions of a horrific future in which people campaign for president in badly fitting short-sleeved golf shirts and rubber-soled shoes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nathan, you wear suits?

Sometimes. Not as much as I'd like to. I think people in leadership positions should, since more formal and ceremonial styles apparently aren't an option any more.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think that for Scott Brown, Romney's remarks may have been a personal hit.

Remember that this is a guy who grew up in a poor family that was on food stamps at various points. The problem is that Scott Brown, like most Americans, views those types of assistance as a facilitator to moving out of poverty (as he obviously did). Mitt Romney basically said Scott Brown's family, who would have been 47-percents when he was growing up, were lazy self-victimizers with no sense of personal responsibility. Susana Martinez comes from a similar background and had a similar reaction.

There is nothing aspirational about the GOP platform anymore. Forty years ago, it was "The Democrats are the party of handouts. We're the party of giving a helping hand." They don't want to do that anymore. Their only message to the poor is that they don't pay enough in taxes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The fact that he's more liberal on an issue than Obama (marijuana) scares me.

Jesus warned about people like him... false prophets.  His attitude is judgmental, and this isn't because of the stances he takes (one could see homosexuality as a sin, for example, but not have this essence of judgmentalism - I've met Christians that fit what I'm describing).  He uses his position for wealth.  I say this not to judge - this is observational.  We're all imperfect, but being in the position he's in, it comes across to me that he's really betraying the essence of the Gospels.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

SNL has waves of funny and not-funny. They'll have a great cast with great writers, but then after a few years everyone with talent uses the show as a springboard and moves on to bigger and better things, leaving only the mediocre behind. Then SNL stagnates for a while, until the next "generation" of actors/comedians/whatev finds their way to the show along with writers who can figure out how to write skits that work well for the new cast.

Anyways, anyone have a link to the skit?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Okay, rant time (you've all been warned):

Seroiusly GOPher candidates, what in the blue hell is up with you guys lately?  I mean yeah I know, you got to play up the culture war bullshit for the proles and all but I mean really?  This?  Talking about women getting raped so lightheartedly and acting all natural about it?  I mean really?

Really?

I'm kind of wondering what is up with all these crazies lately, man.  I mean, I thought the Tea Party was about bringing sanity back to government and all, not bringing insanity UNTO government.  I mean, is there some really sick disturbing joke going on in the Grand Old Party that I'm not aware of?  Like this is some huge experiment being conducted by party heads to see how much insanity the base can handle?  Is this some disgusting display to show that by running candidates who say extremely stupid shit about women who get raped while supporting fiscal conservatism (very funny guys) how the fiscal cons will just keep swallowing the yucky shit these morons are shoveling down their throats?

I mean wow, I truly am entertained.  I must say that the performances pulled out by the dozens (just a guess here, I lost count after the second yahoo, whoever that was, said some stupid shit) of Republican lawmakers, or people who want to be lawmakers, this election cycle is truly Academy Award worthy.  No screw that, this is fucking Oscar bait baby!  And me, I'm just proud, so damn proud that we finally have politicians out there who so willingly give the American people the politics they deserve.  That is, of course, useless, idiotic, monotonous pure grade A fucking bullshit.

[/apple sauce for these freedom fighters, please]

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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?

What policies are in people's interest, or what policies they think are in their interest, are usually based on class, culture, or some combination thereof.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Just going by personal anecdote.. I've always felt the more liberal parts of Iowa were similar to the adjacent areas of SW WI and SE MN (as well as the MN River Valley)... they have a distinctly upper-midwestern culture dominated by northern German and Scandinavian heritage that brought with them very moralistic politics, as Angus pointed out above.

Things like good public schools, healthcare, and welfare aren't done because it is practical or serves some purpose to keep the masses sated while a small minority run everything... but because it's the 'right thing to do'.

An uncanny sense of shared culture coupled with a complete lack of cultural awareness (trust me, it's possible) means that "the right thing to do" governs political leanings rather than tradition or pragmatism.  It's why Minnesota has put forth politicians like Paul Wellstone or the Happy Warrior that championed civil rights for blacks as part of the Democratic Party platform (and began the long, bloody slide of the south over to their mortal enemy party, the GOP).

Ask an Iowan or Minnesotan to define their culture... and they'll shrug their shoulders and say "I dunno... ask the next guy"... because he will have no idea what his culture actually is.. but he knows the next guy is part of that same, undefined culture.  That or they'll start on a rant of self-deprecating anecdotes involving a guy named Ole, his friend Sven, and a boat load of hotdish.

At the same time, when I've been to Nebraska.. I get a much more "individualistic"/western feel.  The big businesses in Omaha were meat packing from cattle that came in from ranches in the western part of the state.  And oddly, an influx of Italians there means you often get a side of spaghetti with your steak at the steakhouse.  Nebraska seems to have a competent state government and excellent schools... and I can never get over how good their freeways are in Omaha compared to the Twin Cities (which are all functionally obsolete, narrow, grid-locked, and riddled with old fashioned clover leafs that require heroic acts of weaving through speeding traffic just to change freeways)... but yeah... Iowa seems to be more the land of family farms where they're likely to have fields of corn and soybeans and a barn full of pigs.. where individualism and self sufficiency is encouraged... but accepting aid from a neighbor, or more importantly, offering aid to a neighbor in need, is most important.  Meanwhile Nebraska has more of the cattle ranchers that rely on themselves or their immediate family. 

Chucking it all off onto farm subsidies and unionization is over simplifying it and completely ignoring the cultural fabric of the state.  Like Angus said above, and if I might take it a step further... those things are effects... not causes... of their political culture.

I'm really glad Snowguy is back.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wait, you went to the same high school as your mother? That seems awfully... provincial. Unless you both went to the same private school or something. But I suppose you're old enough that if your mother had gone to a private school, it would have been an all girls school.

But that's not it, right? You've stayed in the same place for decades. That's actually kind of depressing. Perhaps I shouldn't be so critical of "cosmopolitanism"...

Dude, what would it matter if he did. It seems just an rather obnoxious point of pretense.  How many generations were your ancestors/relatives in Ethiopia for?  Sometimes people like where they grew up, consider it their home and are not keen to social climb to supposedly greener pastures.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

HockeyDude, the support for racial profiling alone (which, along with a degree of military-worship despite his putative left-libertarianism, he shares with compatriot bro-atheists like the odious Sam Harris) is enough to make Bill Maher somewhat questionable as a political tastemaker, to say nothing of his absolutely horrible--beyond just the level of 'asshole', really--personality, the rest of the somewhat questionable positions and beliefs that others have cited, and that weird incident where he scaremongered about the name 'Mohammed' becoming popular in the United Kingdom and other incidents of such kind. He's not 'absolutely right on every count about religion' if for no other reason because he doesn't care about treating religious people's actual ways of life with any compassion even of the unwanted and paternalistic variety, just with a kind of mockery that is often part, as with so much of the above, of a general complex of racist and, especially, classist subtext endemic to much of the bro-atheist movement.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In short, he doesn't give religion a get out of scrunity free pass? Absolutely scandelous!

No. In short, he doesn't treat people with, as I said, even the most unasked-for Victorian-scientist type of compassion. If you view giving folks' beliefs intellectual due diligence and engaging them with something at least resembling bona fide aesthetic and anthropological curiosity as the same as giving them a 'get out of scrutiny free pass', I'm sincerely sorry, because that's, to be frank, a staggeringly stupid equivalency to draw.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Congratulations, Mayor Simfan.