“Read my lips: no new taxes”

And I knew Republican stalwarts that would go into long involved explanations of why all the tax increases and new taxes Bush 41 signed weren’t breaking that promise…

How do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

Tiocfaidh ar la!

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” (Clive Staples Lewis)

The basic flaw is that you can’t work for what you think is right without power. Without power, all you can do is be fair yourself. But that is never enough for some people, they have to try and make others follow their own concept of fairness.

#13
What about people who reject power, wealth, etc. in favor of working for justice, what they think is right, etc.?

It’s funny, did you ever notice that it’s always the people who have no concept of their own interests other than “money, power, pleasure” who ascribe that same limited conception to everyone?…

Newsflash: not everyone is as terrible, venal, and corrupt as the worst of us are.

Well first, please don’t talk as though “people act in their own best interest” means every person on the planet, every minute of every day. It’s almost all people, almost all the time.

Second, you seem to think it’s some terrible sin to act in your own best interest. I judge it to be in my best interest to go to work, to buy groceries, to be polite (most of the time), and to tell people about the evil of government. There are a few things I do that are probably mostly altruism. Letting people into traffic is probably one, because if it slows down traffic later, I’m already past there. Then again, I’d prefer a town where people let each other into traffic often rather than never, so perhaps I’m doing my part to make my town that town.

But that’s not important. The problems occur at the intersection of people acting in their own interest and people or groups of people with virtually limitless power over other human beings. I know which side of the equation I find issue with.

At least he can read a damn teleprompter and that is exponentially better than what came before him.

I will definitely vote for Obama again. I owe that to the Republicans.

Happy, really. Not sure what you mean by failure though, can you expand on that for me please?

What do you view as an alternative? Refreshing the tree of liberty with some blood? Be rational and vote for whom you believe will do the best job.

I’ll just assume the last line is snark masquerading as bad humor.

When I’m king, I want all my subjects to be as easy as you (no offense).

I voted for Obama and will probably do so again.

What do you think would have happened if McCain were in charge?

In my mind, all of the bad and none of the good and more bad not even mentioned above.

-30?

Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil– only evil– and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.”

Roger Q. Mills, 1887

Absolutely! Its scary. Its like the office of the president has become something like the queen of England, just a figurehead controlled by a professional bureaucrat class. He flipped as soon as he got in the office and the almighty CIA briefed him on what they want him to do.

I’m not sure anyone really finds this surprising. I guess the idiots on the left might, but then again they are idiots for a reason.

To be fair, the idiots on the right probably think we found WMDs in Iraq and Hussein was behind 9-11.

It’s the very structure of the thing that attracts those who are motivated by their basest ‘self-interests’. Stop being surprised by the connivance of these charlatans.

Get disillusioned early and beat the rush.

What about people who reject power, wealth, etc. in favor of working for justice, what they think is right, etc.?

It’s funny, did you ever notice that it’s always the people who have no concept of their own interests other than “money, power, pleasure” who ascribe that same limited conception to everyone?

To quote Immortal Technique re: mainstream, candy-ass, pop “rappers”:
“What, you think cuz you fake, everyone else is a gimmick?”

Newsflash: not everyone is as terrible, venal, and corrupt as the worst of us are.

Answer: Never.

What has happened in the last 30 years to give you hope that American voters would ever critically examine any elected official?

But seriously, does anyone have any faith left that the US government can change the way it does business? I’m thinking 10 engine locomotive going 80 mph and all the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist protests are like bugs on the windsheild.

Until that train crashes, it don’t stop.

#8 | Cynical in CA | June 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 pm

Dog bites man.

Well sure, to us it is. Hopefully somebody else is reading this and can piece together the puzzle that maybe most of our politicians aren’t looking out for our best interest. Otherwise we’re no better than the freepers, who dailykosers, who talk about their beliefs in a vacuum and shun anybody who offers a differing opinion.