Muzman on 17/8/2009 at 15:55
What the Fuck Is Wrong with You People?!
This is a serious question. We've got some odd points of view here abouts. Many of which are held quietly, tacitly, among the populace. Hell, we've got quite a climate change denialism thing going on of late. But it's still pretty small and fairly civil.
But Birthers, Death panels, Town Hall Crashers, Tea Baggers, Socialism Boogyman. Jesus christ. One entire side of US politics seems to be some theme park devoted to different kinds of bullshit.
The world cringes a little when South African politicians try and tell people AIDS isn't real or can be cured with vitamins or something. Is this just that competetive spirit at work or something? "We're Americans god dammit. We will not be out crazied. You'll prise my qualudes and whiteboard markers from my cold dead hands!"
This isn't just because I watch too much John Stewart. I'm accustomed to a certain selection of population there thinking the rest of the world lives in grinding squallor, with only the light of the US for comfort and the hem of its collective garment to kiss in order to be granted continued (grinding squallor) life. But the insane punditry seems to have gone mainstream, or is at least being spoken enough to make the press elsewhere. You can't loudly slag off every other country in the world without them noticing. (any knee-jerk 'librul media' knockers ought to be thankful for the likes of Stewart and Maddow etc for they are a great reminder that there is some sanity still around).
I'm sure we've still got some people around who call themselves 'conservative' (and in American culture the word doesn't have that "I want to spit when I say it" quality it mostly has here, so there's probably quite a few).
Reassure us that this is some insane media/politico echo chamber; that you get terrific eye excercise from all the rolling done whenever Beck or O'Rielly or Limbaugh, or Palin or Bachman et al open their stupid mouths; That you will happily call out stupidity that comes from "your side" if stupidity it be.
There are some left aren't there?
And there are some, do they want to try and tell us what the hell happened?
Adam Nuhfer on 17/8/2009 at 16:54
Quote Posted by Muzman
What the Fuck Is Wrong with You People?!This is a serious question.
For the most point, I come up with some off the wall not serious reply to most threads. I'll stray for a moment.
The problem with people is people.
Most of the problems in the world are caused by the actions of people.
War... People make it.
Poverty... People create it
Famine... People tolerate it
Politics... People trying to control us.
Religion... People trying to define us.
Media...People trying to sway/influence us.
We are for the most part the same savages we were thousands of years ago. Technology just helps us define whom we truly are so much better.
Queue on 17/8/2009 at 17:09
Simple answer: We suck.
But you know what really frightens me is the fact that only a lunatic would get one's news from the likes of O'Rielly, Limbaugh, Beck, Olbermann, Maddow, AND Stewart. It's meant to be entertainment, people--talking heads and comedians are not the "news". Anyone that draws their opinions and beliefs from such sources should be lined-up and shot.
BTW, how dare the government try to give us healthcare. Fascist bastards.
Tonamel on 17/8/2009 at 17:23
You keep your government out of my Medicare! :mad:
Queue on 17/8/2009 at 17:34
That's what I love about this country, the ability to completely overlook those pesky details.
Morte on 17/8/2009 at 17:59
(
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495_pf.html) In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition
Quote:
So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.
In the early 1950s, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as "20 years of treason" and accused the men who led the fight against fascism of deliberately surrendering the free world to communism. Mainline Protestants published a new translation of the Bible in the 1950s that properly rendered the Greek as connoting a more ambiguous theological status for the Virgin Mary; right-wingers attributed that to, yes, the hand of Soviet agents. And Vice President Richard Nixon claimed that the new Republicans arriving in the White House "found in the files a blueprint for socializing America."
When John F. Kennedy entered the White House, his proposals to anchor America's nuclear defense in intercontinental ballistic missiles -- instead of long-range bombers -- and form closer ties with Eastern Bloc outliers such as Yugoslavia were taken as evidence that the young president was secretly disarming the United States. Thousands of delegates from 90 cities packed a National Indignation Convention in Dallas, a 1961 version of today's tea parties; a keynote speaker turned to the master of ceremonies after his introduction and remarked as the audience roared: "Tom Anderson here has turned moderate! All he wants to do is impeach [Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl] Warren. I'm for hanging him!"
...
The instigation is always the familiar litany: expansion of the commonweal to empower new communities, accommodation to internationalism, the heightened influence of cosmopolitans and the persecution complex of conservatives who can't stand losing an argument. My personal favorite? The federal government expanded mental health services in the Kennedy era, and one bill provided for a new facility in Alaska. One of the most widely listened-to right-wing radio programs in the country, hosted by a former FBI agent, had millions of Americans believing it was being built to intern political dissidents, just like in the Soviet Union.
But yeah, even if it isn't acually unprecedented, the sheer amount of lunacy on display right now is disconcerting to say the least. Please snap out of it soon.
Starrfall on 17/8/2009 at 18:03
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
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Look we don't want these fuckers either but are YOU volunteering to take them?
(If you think I've been posting a lot lately you don't even know how many political rage threads I've not started just because I don't want to think about it any more than I have to.)
Queue on 17/8/2009 at 18:09
Quote Posted by Starrfall
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
Do you have an example of someone actually saying something to that effect?
Queue on 17/8/2009 at 18:21
So Hawking didn't say this: " 'I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking told The Guardian. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.' "?
