Tuesday Night Open Mic for March 30, 2010

Alas, I already find myself at the Tuesday Night Open Mic. It has been a quick start to the week. The conversations thus far have been interesting. The individual liberty discussions were especially good, but we didn’t get to the core of the issues quite yet. We danced around some of them. I will be bringing that article forward in a couple days instead of posting another article so that the discussions can go further. Open mic brings a host of different topics, from global warming taking a larger international hit to the President attempting to mischaracterize the tea party movement. Sprinkled in there we have Arriana Huffington completely missing on her reasoning for the decline of innovation in America and the courts issuing a stupid verdict in the case of the hatemongers from Westbor Baptist (it is not a) Church. We also have a little bit of government claiming that fearing the government is a good thing and a good old politician playing a politician’s game, and sucking at it. As an added bonus I brought over a Black Flag offering from late Tuesday that many may have missed.

Challenging Our Own Premises – Individual Liberty

Another series of articles that I have been planning for some time. What I wanted to do was analyze the different things that we take for granted given our beliefs about what government should or should not be doing. Individual Liberty will be the test challenge to see if this series has potential or whether readers find it to be a waste of time. There is a good reason to challenge our premises. We have several. Most believe that “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” are rights guaranteed to us by natural law, and thus written into the Constitution. Others believe that other things should or shouldn’t be included. Property, for example, seems to be one that gets a challenge. Some believe that health care is a right, equal opportunity is a right, or initiation of violence is a morally corrupt practice under any circumstance. The purpose of the series will be to challenge each of those things people think are given. I will skip health care for now, as we have discussed that one recently. But the others, should you readers want the series to continue, will be covered one at a time. For today, though, we focus on Individual Liberty.

Recess Appointments… or Circumvention?

I am not going to write a really long article about this particular topic (of course it won’t really be a short article either). But it really irks me so I am going to put it out there and watch to see how people either defend or repudiate this act. As you may or may not have noticed on Friday, the President decided that now that Congress is in recess he would use his authority within the Constitution to appoint members to top posts within the administration without waiting for approval from the Senate. In general, I don’t have an issue with this being done. However, I do have issue with one of the appointments specifically. And I refuse to allow the President, of all people to put a false spin on things or to fail to recognize some of the reasons that he is in the situation that he now finds himself. I had a different article planned for tonight, but I will run it tomorrow instead, as I am making a few adjustments to it and awaiting some feedback on it.

Guest Commentary – Is the Government Killing Us? Part 2

Tonight we return to the article that some liked and others thought was interesting reading but not relevant to today’s political discussions. G-Man has been working for quite some time reading and researching these different parts of this article. And this evening we finally get to take a peek into the information that he has found. I know that for some of you, your initial reaction is that this qualifies as conspiracy theory and therefore is a waste of your time. But I submit to you that it isn’t a waste of your time. I will explain why below. That being said, this is G-Man’s article and not mine. While I see the value, I am not the one who did the research, so I am not at a point yet where I can say that it is all true or all false or anywhere in between. Much like any other “conspiracy theory type” information, I think there is inherent value in giving it daylight and exposure so that the issues can be discussed and either confirmed or debunked.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for March 23, 2010

Tuesday night comes and it couldn’t come a moment too soon. I have never hid the fact that I like the open mic nights. Not only can I talk about topics in a short form without a lot of research, but I get to see all the stuff that everyone else wants to talk about. And as an added bonus, we come off a day where there was lots of discussions around the health care situation. During the day Wednesday I may weigh in more on health care (if I do decide to do this I will move it to this thread). But I also wanted to address some other topics, such as the one that JAC began towards the end of Monday that I promised I would post tonight. Meanwhile, Canine Weapon decided tonight that our couch was a pillow, and a pillow was a toy, so he literally tore open the couch and deposited stuffing throughout the living room. There is a move that will cost us a couple grand to rectify. Fortunately, it was the old couch, not the new one. Took him all of 15 minutes to completely destroy it. The joys of puppyhood.

OK, A Little Health Care

But not the real article I know that you are expecting. I am still reading through all the “changes” and “fixes” that have been done. Trying to re-evaluate and see if there is anything that I can find that I like about what has been passed. So my true evaluation of the bill is forthcoming, but could take a bit. 3000 pages is a lot of reading. What I am finding extremely frustrating is the consensus from those on the left that the passage of this monstrosity is a good thing. It is almost as though they have no concept of what is in the bill. I am failing to comprehend how on earth anyone could think that this is a good bill that we should be celebrating the passage of.  Strike that.  I absolutely understand why the politicians think it is a good thing. But I am talking about everyone else. It simply baffles the mind.

Is Voting a Right? Should It be “Regulated”?

I have been reading a lot of philosophical stuff on politics lately. More of the big picture stuff as opposed to the current issues of the day. The health care reform stuff has me so frustrated I don’t even know where to begin. So I instead try to focus on the bigger picture and how to make things work. I know that most of you expected me to write about the health care madness that passed this evening. But I don’t even know where to begin. I will offer my thoughts soon. So instead, a different topic. I have seen some discussions about this topic before but I have never weighed in significantly with what I think. The primary reason is that I am quite torn on this subject. I understand the “right” to vote on a purely philosophical level. A government that serves the people must have all the people’s voices. And I absolutely understand how proposed rules on who can vote harken back to the despicable days of when blacks were kept from voting through tests and requirements. But I think this is a topic worth discussing. I tend to see the group that participates here at SUFA as a fairly intelligent group. So I don’t apply it to anyone here. But the question is: Is it wise to allow everyone to have an equal say in the election process?

Why the Democrats are Doomed with Health Care

I know, I know, that starts out a little tough. Democrats are doomed. But I really do believe this to be true. Forget about the actual bill for just a moment. We all have differing opinions on whether the bill is a good one or not. But ignore that fact for a moment. What I want to look at is the process we are seeing unfold. I know that those on the left have attempted to justify each of the shady moves that have been either proposed or actually used in order to attempt to get this legislation passed. But the fact is that I simply cannot recall a time when a legislature has acted in such a subversive way in order to do what they would like to do. I am aware I am but a young buck, and I have only followed politics for about 20-25 years. But I simply have never seen something like what we have witnessed over the last year in the health care push. Obviously you can all correct me if I am wrong. But even if I am wrong, and there was a time where stuff like this happened before, I simply fin it sickening to watch it happen in this environment and under these circumstances.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for March 16, 2010

As I begin to write for Tuesday night’s open mic topics, I look back over the last couple of weeks and realize that there was little to challenge the brain offered by me. We did the unemployment fix stuff and then kind of sat on simmer for a bit. Tonight I offer quite a few different topics and one that follows a recent trend. For the trend, we have Israel and the treatment from the Obama administration they get. With so much different Israel stuff in the news lately, there is little doubt why we are talking about them again. I think that I see a shift in our policy with Israel going forward though. Elsewhere we have a suppression of religious rights in Arizona along with the official numbers showing that the promise of more transparency in Washington DC was nothing more than campaign rhetoric.

The Left’s Racism Fixation Lacks Critical Thought

As most of you probably caught in the conversations last week, I have spent a fair amount of time over the last two weeks attempting to hold coherent conversations with some of the folks over at the Huffington Post. I was once again drawn into that world when resident hack Bob Cesca wrote an article two weeks ago claiming that the Tea Party Movement was all about race. He followed that article up with a second article claiming the same thing, but with a itsy bitsy caveat last week. His caveat was that perhaps there were some who disagreed with Obama’s policies that are not racists. What that amounted to, in my opinion, was Cesca saying they are all racists 100 times and somewhere in the middle saying one time maybe some aren’t. Then he gets to claim he didn’t say they were all racists…. see there was this time that I clearly said that I don’t think they all are. You’ll have to do better than that Bob. So I am going to address this racism claim, from my own perspective of course. As for the pictures to accompany this article, I am going to stick to nothing but pictures of people of color at tea party rallies, since Bob’s supporters claim they don’t exist.

Part 2 of The Left’s Racism Fixation Lacks Critical Thought

Ok, now that we have dealt with Cesca’s unfounded and illogical claims of racism against the tea party movement and those that participate in it, we can talk about the inherent lack of critical thought that runs rampant in the comments section of his articles. As I stated, I was not happy with Cesca’s mischaracterizations and outright misleading conclusions around claims of racism. So I decided to participate in the discussions that followed. JAC also waded into the same conversations. What I found was discouraging. Not because people disagreed with me. You all know I have no problem with people saying I am wrong. What was troubling was a two-fold problem. The first was a complete lack of respect, an outright hostility towards anyone that dared to challenge what they believed. They literally lacked the ability to have a civil conversation. The second was a lack of critical thinking on levels that I have not seen in quite some time. The absolute inability to coherently follow logical steps in deduction was appalling. Instead of attempting to cherry pick a comment that fits my claim, as Cesca did, I will offer a multitude of examples, and all of them from the comments in just the two Cesca articles in play here.

Racism Claim Goes International, Israel Trumps Biden for Jerk Status

I have a guest commentary submitted but I haven’t taken the time to take a look at it as of tonight. So I figured I would touch on this topic and see what people have to say. If you weren’t aware, Vice President Joe “foot in mouth” Biden has been in the middle east this week on a trip meant to jumpstart peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Unfortunately for anyone who thought that such a trip could be a positive, they chose Biden to be the American dignitary of record. That never ends well. But the administration made an even more baffling choice when deciding what “news” personality they were going to take with them to the middle east. They chose to take along MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Now, I don’t want to be critical, but what exactly spurred that decision? Matthews hasn’t participated in anything that resembles news in quite some time. He is little more than a partisan hack from a highly partisan network. Or maybe they just wanted to find out if Matthews got a tingle up his leg over Benjamin Netanyahu. But I gotta tell ya…. Matthews didn’t disappoint.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for March 9, 2010

Well, to say that I have found the discussions around unemployment to be interesting would be an understatement. I began with a simply premise, what can be done to fix unemployment insurance? I had hoped to get some input from folks on all sides of the issue. And I was not disappointed. Whta I have to now figure out how to refine is the way that it is all wrapped up and some conclusions are formed. There were several ideas out there and a lot of discussion around other parts. There were even some discussions around whether the system is broken in the first place. I look forward to any thoughts on how we might possibly be able to wrap any of it up or whether there is even a need to do so. But for now, we have open mic. Which means four random topics from me and others from you. First we touch on the madness that is Lindsay Lohan and frivolous lawsuits. Then some opinion on liberal mindsets, a democratic double standard on corporate money in politics, and finally bank regulation causing bank behavior which leads to more regulation….

Let’s Find a Fix 1 – Unemployment (Continued)

I have to admit that I am pleased with the progress that was made in discussing this subject over the first couple of days. The thread was getting pretty long so I figured I would do a bit of a recap here and start with a somewhat clean thread. That way people aren’t scrolling forever to find the stuff they want to further discuss. So I figure I am going to do a somewhat short recap here in what will pass for the “article”. I will then go through the comments and pull out comments that we should continue to flesh out a bit. Obviously, I am going to be picking out the stuff that I think should be brought forward. Please don’t hesitate to bring something else over if you want to discuss it further and I didn’t bring it over. Additionally, I am going to post a few specific thoughts of mine with questions in the beginning comments. My hope is that we can come to some sort of agreement on the answers to them, but I realize that may not be the case.

Let’s Find a Fix 1 – Unemployment

OK, to this is the beginning of the series I was promising that would focus on the realities that we are facing in today’s America. Instead of the usual premise that government is bad, and thus should keep its hands out of everything, for the sake of this series, I would like to start from a different premise. That premise is that the world is what it is. Government is involved in everything. So the focus now has to shift away from the purely philosophical (although that doesn’t negate it, just changes the focus). What I mean is that it is OK to start from a point where we say, “government should not be involved” as where you would like to find a solution. But if we say that, we need to find a way to get there from here. I would like this to be a really open discussion with as many different ideas as possible. And no condescending to those who offer their thoughts. We have very different views all represented here. The idea behind my site was that we would have a place to discuss solutions despite the two party’s attempts to keep us separated by rhetoric. Time to get to doing that. So here are my rules for how we play this out:

Tuesday Night Open Mic for March 2, 2010

We reach open mic in what has been an interesting week of discussion thus far. This week we will be discussing, at least in my offerings, the ultra racists Farrakhan and his epiphany that those on the right want to make Obama a one term President. We will also discuss Pelosi and her call to ignore the voice of the people and do what the party says. We will throw in a little gun control discussion and I will re-hash the article that Mathius noted yesterday discussing the supposed link between political affiliation and an individual’s IQ score. I must say that I was a bit disappointed yesterday that no one attempted to find a solution to the problem. The tactic instead seemed to be to attempt to rule my analysis of the offending article as theatrics, as though I was the one calling for Congressional action. As we look forward to the upcoming series, the intent is to attempt to find solutions to the problems that are presented. Solutions that will work. I so often get accused of not often enough having discussions about how to fix the problems. Yet when I do, I find that I am treated like Republicans at a health care summit. My discussion about solutions is ignored and we instead focus on the messenger.

My Boss Says Vote GOP!

I was reading through articles during my dinner break this evening, just seeing what was out there. After discussing the different views on the parties yesterday, and apparently finding that I have made quite a few folks angry with me for my characterization of Conservatives, I had planned on beginning my promised series this evening. I have postponed it simply because I don’t want it to get bogged down by the back to back article nights. Once the series starts I will not have an article posted the night after a series installment. I want the discussions to continue towards conclusion, which often takes more than a day. So that series will probably be starting Thursday night in leiu of a guest commentary so that it can carry on throughout the weekend. Part 1 is finished so it is merely a matter of strategic posting. But I degress. Tonight I read this article that focused on a further consequnce of the recent Supreme Court Decision that ruled corporations are entitled to free speech protections.

Elitism Occurs on ALL Sides of the Aisle

About two weeks ago, Mathius posted an article from the Washington Post that was titled “Gerard Alexander: Why are liberals so condescending?” I found the article quite interesting, as it really did a good job of summing up the frustration that folks feel with liberal elitism. I promised him a response to this. He wondered what an article would look like that came from the other side. While this is not really that article, because I cannot think like a true conservative, I will offer my thoughts on the conservative movement as well. So what I am going to do is offer my thoughts on both liberals and conservatives. I will use those two terms loosely, because I do understand the difference between a progressive and a liberal. But I want to be more general, lest I end up spending all my time attempting to define who I am talking about. I also add the caveat that I do not necessarily apply these thoughts to ALL who fall into those categories. For example, I may say liberals kick puppies, but I am aware that not all liberals kick puppies. Only Mathius does that, and it is because when he wakes sweaty from that nightmare, he really does believe it is a Raptor.

New Poll On the Left

Just a quick note that there is a new poll over on the left. G-Man put a lot research and writing into presenting a case against the government around Gulf War Illness. Late yesterday, he asked those who had read and participated to offer their own verdicts. I realize that some might be reluctant to offer the verdict publicly. Therefore I have created a poll over there to allow you to vote on the verdict anonymously. Please take a moment to let G-Man know what you decided after reading his evidence. Thanks G-Man and thanks to all those who participated in the conversation.